"I'm not sure," Tansen admitted.
Zarien's face froze in an expression of comical outrage. After a moment in which he seemed too offended to summon coherent words, he threw down the heavy stick he was using as a staff and announced, "Then I will decide."
"Oh?" Tansen lifted a brow.
"Yes," Zarien snapped. He staggered over to a rock and sank down upon it, breathing hard as he dragged a forearm across his tattooed forehead. "This is a good place. This is our destination." He added with a portentous glare, "And there had better be a very good reason that I had to come here."
Tansen suppressed a grin. "There is." He looked around. The boy had chosen the place, and it was his right to do so. A break in the rocks, from some long ago avalanche perhaps, gave them a breathtaking view of Shaljir, in all her weary glory, and of the sea beyond. In the other direction, they could see the mountains from which they had come together, and to which they would soon return. The dry heat of the season eliminated any mist or clouds that might normally soften those jagged, merciless peaks in the distance.
"Yes," Tansen said. "This is the right place."
"For what?" Zarien asked breathlessly, shaking his empty waterskin. "I'm thirsty. Aren't you thirsty?"
Tansen walked over to him and handed him his own waterskin.
Zarien felt its weight and seemed reassured. "Oh, good. There's no water around here, is there?"
"I don't know." Tansen wasn't familiar with Mount Shaljir.
Zarien sniffed the air, then shook his head. "No," he said absently, then drank gratefully.
Zarien's sensitive nose was presumably a sea-bound trait, acquired among generations who spent their lives hoarding drinking water amidst the undrinkable expanse of the sea. Zarien could easily distinguish between the smell of seawater and what he called "sweetwater," and he was usually the first to find a place to replenish their water supply when they were traveling.
When Zarien was done drinking, he asked, "So why are we here?"
Tansen prepared himself. Zarien wasn't a shallah. He might not understand. He might even dislike the idea.
"A mountain is the only fitting place for this," he explained to the boy, "and this is the only one close enough to Shaljir for us to do this now."
Zarien shrugged. "Do what?"
Tansen held out his scarred palms and waited for the boy to look at them. "You know about bloodvows and bloodpact relations among the shallaheen, don't you?"
Zarien shifted uncomfortably. "If this is about my not swearing the bloodvow against Kiloran at Zilar—"
"No," Tansen said. "This is... the only way I can give you something of value in place of what the sea has taken from you."
Zarien's wide-eyed gaze flew up to meet his, and Tansen saw that he knew and understood.
"No one can take your father's place, Zarien. But a boy needs a father. Even a very brave, strong boy who is nearly a m—"
"He wasn't—He—" Zarien made an anguished sound and jumped to his feet, pushing past Tansen to stare out at the sea beyond Mount Shaljir.
"I will honor his memory in your heart," Tansen began.
"I didn't want to tell you. I didn't want to tell anyone," Zarien babbled. "I didn't want anyone to know. Not when I can't even... can't even..."
Frowning in puzzlement, Tansen came closer and put a hand on the boy's shoulder. "What? What is it?"
"He wasn't... Oh, damn Sharifar."
The grief in the boy's voice hurt him. Tansen said nothing, waiting.
Zarien was shaking now. Trembling with emotions Tansen couldn't interpret. Keeping his back to Tansen, the boy finally choked out, "He wasn't my father."
"What?" Tansen didn't understand.
"Sharifar..." Zarien took a deep breath. Then another. He hugged himself with his arms. "The night I died. The night she told me I had a choice between staying dead or coming ashore..."
Damn Sharifar.
"She told me... Sorin and Palomar weren't my real parents."
"Ah." Tansen thought he understood. "I see."
"No," Zarien insisted. "You don't."
"It's no disg—"
"No, there's more."
"Tell me." Seeing Zarien's reluctance, Tansen promised, "You can tell me anything. Always."
"My father wasn't sea-bound. Not even sea-born. My father was a drylander." The words were choppy and harsh.
"Who was he?" Tansen asked.
"I don't know."
"I see. And your mother?"
Zarien shook his head. "I don't know."
Now he understood. "That's your secret, then? That's what you didn't want me—or anyone—to know?"
"Yes."
Tansen proceeded cautiously. It meant less than nothing to him who Zarien's true parents were. The dead sea-bound couple who had raised and loved the boy had obviously done it well. However, Tansen was shallah enough to understand what pride was involved in clan identity and bloodlines, and what disoriented shame came from not knowing one's true origins. He didn't remember his own real father, but at least he had always known who he was.
"And now," Tansen said, "you can never ask Sorin who your real father was."
"No." Zarien was trying not to cry.
"Or thank Sorin for becoming your father."
Zarien nodded and swallowed a sob.
Tansen looked out to sea. "Would any of the survivors in your clan know the truth?"
Zarien shrugged.
"Now that Sorin and Palomar, who were your parents in the ways that matter most, are dead... Do you care who the real ones were?"
Zarien turned to stare at him in surprise.
Tansen shrugged. "We can try to find out—look for the remaining Lascari and see what they know. If it matters to you." When Zarien didn't reply, he added, "But it doesn't matter to me."
Zarien lowered his head again. "I am sea-bound, but shunned. Sea-born, but fathered by some drylander whose name I don't even know. Dead, but still walking around. Enemies with a goddess." His tone broke Tansen's heart when he said, "I am nothing and no one now. I have no place. No beginning, and no destiny left."
Tansen had forgotten just how utterly hopeless things could seem when you were that young and inexperienced. When you didn't yet know that the terrible thing you couldn't live through was, in fact, not as bad as the next ten terrible things you'd have to live through. He had forgotten how hard life seemed before you learned to accept how few of your desperate questions would ever be answered and how little justice you would ever see in the world.
"You are the best young man in Sileria," Tansen told him. "And I would like you to be my son."
A tear dropped from one dark eye and rolled down a tattooed cheek as Zarien met his gaze. "I would be... a shallah?"
"I, uh... I don't know," Tansen admitted. "I've never heard of anyone but a shallah becoming a bloodpact relation, so I don't know—"
"No," Zarien said decisively. Tansen's heart stopped until the boy added, "I will still be sea-born. Gillien was right. Unless someone can tell me for certain that I was not born in the sea to a sea-born woman, no one can take that away from me, even if I am not Lascari and can never be sea-bound again."
"That seems fair," Tansen said, using a word he knew the young liked. "Then, Zarien, will you honor me and—"
"Sharifar said—" Zarien blurted... then stopped and stared at Tansen, as if seeing him for the first time.
"Sharifar said?" Tansen prodded.
"She said it was time for me to seek my true father on land. I thought she meant..." Zarien's tormented face smoothed out into an expression that, at last, almost looked happy. "Maybe she meant you." He frowned a moment later and asked, "Um, fifteen years ago, did you perh—"
"I was younger than you are now," Tansen assured him, "and had never yet, uh, done what one must do to father a child."
"Oh."
"But a shallah bloodpact relationship is as binding as a birth relationship," he said. "If you become my son today, it makes me your true father f
rom now on."
"Then perhaps," Zarien said slowly, "Sharifar did mean you."
Tansen spoke the truth when he said, "I don't care what Sharifar meant. This is a vow between people, a kind of new birth in the eyes of Dar, and a sea goddess has nothing to do with it."
"Unless she sent me to you," Zarien said. "But I will not take you to her, even so."
"You may never need to."
Zarien looked around. "What do I have to do?"
Tansen smiled, feeling relieved, pleased—even excited. He was about to become a father. It gave his life—so eventful, even so legendary—a meaning, a fulfillment which it had lacked until now. It gave him a stature which, as a shallah, was even more important than his achievements as a warrior. It gave him, who had spent so many years alone, someone to love and protect; and he suddenly knew that was what he had been born to do.
For the first time ever, he wondered how Armian had felt at this moment. Had Armian felt this mingled humility and exultation? This quiet joy and glowing pride? Had Armian, too, been eager to meet the challenge yet afraid of not being worthy of it? Had Armian, upon gaining a son, been happy?
Tansen shook off his memories of that long ago night. He didn't want to think about the bloodfather he had slain. Not now. He only wanted to promise Dar, in his heart, that he would be a much better father than he was a son. He only wanted to promise Zarien that he, as a son, would never face the decisions or have the regrets which Tansen had.
"We have to build a fire," Tansen told him, "and pray to Dar..." And hearing from me, of all people, ought to shock Her right into an eruption. "Then cut our palms—"
"I knew that was coming," Zarien said with resignation.
"And mix our blood to become... family."
Zarien glanced down at his callused sea-born palm. "It's not the pain," he insisted. "I don't mind that. It's just the drylander strangeness of the whole thing."
Tansen smiled again. "I know," he assured him. "I know."
Interregnum
I dance in Dar's sacred fire,
Her ashes are my rags of glory.
—Song of the Faithful
The faithful of Sileria heard Dar Call them, and so they came to offer Her their prayers, their devotion, and their dying cries of ecstatic agony as She engulfed them in Her fiery tantrums.
The tormented slopes of Mount Darshon were streaked with rivers of fire. Pilgrims to the sacred mountain sought proof of Dar's love by dancing on the lava flows; some of them were so beloved as to survive, while others died screaming.
From all over Sileria, they came to worship, praise, and pacify the volcano goddess; but She would not be pacified.
Explosions of burning rock opened new wounds in the mountainside every night, and Dar's worshippers inhaled the deadly fumes pouring forth. Some of the faithful died in agony, while others won Dar's favor and survived.
They came from the war-torn mountains, from the thirsty lowlands, from the sea-scented coasts, from the teeming cities. They brought Her generous offerings of flowers, fruit, grain, wine, livestock, gold, jewels, and bones of the dead. When that was not enough, they willingly offered their lives to Dar. She took all that was offered; and still She would not be appeased.
Deep in the heart of Darshon's fiery caldera, the destroyer goddess prepared to make Sileria bleed.
Author's Note
One of the many reasons I find writing so interesting and challenging, even after many years and books, is that my stories constantly surprise me while I'm working on them.
When writing a novel, I almost always begin by creating an outline. It's a synopsis of a story's major events, conflicts, characters, climaxes, and resolutions. I should point out, by the way, that this isn't The Way To Write A Book; it's just what works for me. It's how I make sure I know where I'm going, what the book is about, and how the key plot elements fit together. But every writer is different, and I know plenty of writers who hate outlining a book, as well as those who say that outlining would kill their creative process and turn the result into a plodding yawner. I also know writers who don't need to write an outline, because they're capable of keeping everything in their heads (whereas I have trouble keeping even my own phone number in my head). Conversely, I also know a few authors who write much longer and more detailed outlines than I do (which would make me too tired to write the book). How someone writes a novel depends entirely on how her own mind works and what habits suit her individual writing process.
Anyhow, once I have my outline, saying that I therefore "know" what's going to happen would be like saying that, on an overland journey from one end of Africa to the other (a journey I made years ago, in fact), I "know" what's going to happen just because I have a map and a planned route.
Actually, all along the way, you meet people you never expected to meet, and you see things that you never imagined. Your route keeps deviating as you come upon washed out roads, collapsed bridges, warnings about dangers that you need to avoid, and friendly invitations to events that you want to attend. You always keep your ultimate destination in mind—the end of the novel, or the Cape of Good Hope—but a lot happens between now and then which you never dreamed or foresaw.
You also make the most interesting discoveries where you least expect to find them. For example, while I was on the epic journey of writing In Legend Born, the first book in this trilogy, two minor characters for whom I had no particular plans beyond their immediate story functions in that novel... kept tugging on my sleeve, demanding attention, until they became major characters in The White Dragon. And upon coming into their own right in this book, they gradually developed into two of my all-time favorite characters, out of the many which I have written over the years.
I created Ronall, Elelar's liquor-soaked husband, strictly for plot purposes in In Legend Born. When planning the book, I realized that if Elelar—an aristocratic young woman with land and money—was unmarried in her late twenties, it would be such an anomaly in Sileria's traditional culture that it would require complicated digression to explain away. Moreover, being a practical woman, Elelar would want a husband. Partly because she'd soon grow weary of fending off suitors for her well-to-do hand in marriage, and partly because a married woman could have more social freedom in her society than an unmarried maiden. Given her nature, I assumed that Elelar would chose a husband she could manipulate and manage, rather than marrying for love—and she'd never risk marrying someone who'd try to dominate or control her. I also thought her choice of spouse would additionally be based, like every other decision in her life, on what would benefit the Alliance and its goals.
Thus Elelar's drunken, wenching, half-Valdan husband came into being: a man who paid to no attention as Elelar gradually took control of his wealth; a husband who endured the humiliation of his wife's adulterous liaisons; and a befuddled sot who never even noticed the mysterious and illegal activities going in his own home. As Ronall later notes, he was, in his own way, the perfect spouse for Elelar.
Of course, Elelar's life changes dramatically over the course of In Legend Born, until she's living as a fugitive in the mountains by the end of the book. And I had no plans for what would happen to Ronall once I got to that point in the story, where he has outlived the uses for which Elelar married him. Given how violent and dangerous life is in Sileria, I vaguely supposed he would just get himself killed then.
Instead, Ronall surprised me. Rather than disappearing when his wife's disgrace is exposed in In Legend Born, he tries to save her life, and he also comes to her prison cell and reveals a more complex character and much more complicated feelings for Elelar than I had envisioned. After that, despite several opportunities to get himself conveniently killed by the end of that novel, he keeps clinging to life and surviving. And thus he is alive and still inhabiting Elelar's house in Shaljir when The White Dragon begins; and I decided to find out what else was in store for him.
The fun of writing Ronall, of course, is that he's so completely different from everyone
else in The White Dragon. It was an interesting change of pace for me to write about this lost, confused, aimless character who doesn't even know what he wants, in a story where I was otherwise always writing about incredibly focused and determined people.
I also enjoyed writing about the only true outsider in this whole tale. Everyone else in this book, no matter what their background or allegiance, knows their own role (even if it's a constantly-shifting one) and is an active part of the struggle to resolve the central story problem: the fate of Sileria. I found that, as a result of his relative indifference to the outcome of this power struggle, Ronall (when not too drunk) often views the conflict and the various legendary people involved in it more clearly than anyone else does.
It was also frankly fun, while writing about so many characters on all sides of Sileria's volatile conflict who are brave, capable, and resourceful... to write about a self-loathing coward who doesn't even know how to cope with the occasional fumbling acts of compassion or bravery that he feels circumstances force on him against his will.
The other character who had a minor role in In Legend Born which grew into a major one in The White Dragon was, of course, Baran the waterlord. He snuck into In Legend Born because I thought it would be interesting if something more than just greed and power-lust had made Kiloran so very formidable—such as a brilliant rival who forces him to stay on his toes, for example.
This rival just wanted to get rid of the Valdani because they were such a distraction in his longtime feud against Kiloran. So when I started work on The White Dragon, I thought in more detail about what sort of person would have fought a war of rebellion against a powerful empire on that basis; it would probably be someone who was less than perfectly sane, I concluded. I also wondered what had led to a hatred so overpowering that Baran chose to persist in a mortal feud against Kiloran—an elderly man in the same line of work (so to speak) who, as everyone knows, doesn't have an heir. Logically, Baran should position himself to inherit Kiloran's legacy. Instead, he's spent years trying to destroy it. Why?
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