The Destroyer Goddess (14 page)

It was certainly possible, of course; but any
toren
ought to realize just how expensive the friendship of the Society would soon become. In a nation which had never provided easy answers, Elelar felt only contempt for those of her class who were still trying to find them.

And Cavasar... she sighed, feeling unwelcome regret stir within her again. Cavasar was still in Kiloran's grasp and, by all reports, willingly paying heavy tribute for the water which he kept flowing in the city's fountains and canals. Cavasar obeyed the dictates of the Society and ignored the ominous warnings from distant Mount Darshon, where colored clouds which seemed almost alive danced amidst flickering lights and rumbling thunder. The smoky tantrums of the volcano were growing more frequent, casting ashen clouds over the land by day and making the moons glow increasingly red at night. 

Blood moons, people called them. Another portent, Silerians claimed. Another warning that Dar was angry and screaming for vengeance.

I am surrendering, Dar. I will not resist. I am penitent and filled with humility
.

Elelar's mare suddenly started dancing nervously. In the distance, she heard a dog bark. Then another, then another. Something in the mountains let out a fierce howl. Foreboding filled Elelar even as Faradar's gelding started snorting and trembling, shaking its head and refusing to take another step.

One of the
shallaheen
started panting.

Another called out in warning, "
Torena
...
Torena!
"

"Oh, nooo..." She was sliding off her mount, already aware of the danger, already hearing the distant rumble which turned to a scream, echoing Faradar's startled scream as her horse reared and threw her.

"Faradar!" Elelar dodged the gelding's kicking hooves and tried to reach the maid, but the shaking ground made her stagger and fall. 

"Ow!" Elelar cried out in mingled fear and pain when one of the horses—she didn't know which one—kicked her in the stomach. The animals were crazed with fear, squealing with alarm.

"Stay down!" Elelar shouted at the protective
shallaheen
trying to reach her, falling and careening on the unstable ground. "
Faradar!"
 

The maid held up a hand to indicate she was conscious, but her arm shook as violently as everything all around them. 

Elelar put her head down. With her face buried in the dust and her hands covering her skull, she prayed for mercy, prayed for an end to the earthquake. She prayed that she wouldn't be trampled by her own horses, crushed by falling rocks, or swallowed by a sudden rent in the earth's skin.

She heard her gasping breath and feverishly muttered prayers before she heard the eerie silence. Then she heard her servants.

"
Torena!
Torena!
"

"Faradar!"

"Get the horses!"

"
You
get them!"

"I'll help the
torena
. You get the horses!"

"No, I'll help the women,
you
get the—"

"Quiet!" Elelar snapped.
Shallaheen
. Any one of these men would face down six assassins; but they were all afraid of horses. 

She lifted her head out of the dust, saw them all looking at her, and sighed. "I," she said, "will get the horses."

"
Torena!
"

"No! You will wait in the shade,
torena!
"

Now their honor was offended.

"I will get the horses," she repeated impatiently. "You will find water and replenish our waterskins."

Since any water they found was likely to be ensorcelled, this was a dangerous enough task to appeal to them.

Men.

Still shaking, Faradar climbed awkwardly to her feet. "Would it be all right if
I
wait in the shade,
torena?
"

"An excellent idea," Elelar said, pleased to see that Faradar was uninjured. "I'll join you as soon as I've got the horses."

The animals were not far away, and their nerves were so agitated that Elelar was glad she hadn't sent jumpy men after them. She soothed them, made sure they weren't injured, and then led them back to where Faradar was waiting in the shade of a large fig tree.

"They'll need water, too," Faradar murmured.

Elelar nodded, realizing she was very thirsty. It was a long time before the
shallaheen
returned, water having proven difficult to find. Tired as she was in the aftermath of her terror, she nonetheless insisted on leading the horses to the water source herself, letting two of the men guide her while two more stayed with Faradar.

The whole incident, which was becoming increasingly typical in Sileria these days, wound up eating their time and prevented them from reaching Elelar's estate until late the following day. By the time she finally got there, she was so sweaty, dirty, and unkempt, she was almost surprised that her servants there recognized her.

She was even more surprised by the plump and vacuously pretty woman she found inhabiting her house. Her steward was under the cheerful delusion that this
torena
, whom Ronall had brought here, was a cousin of hers. Choosing to keep her problems as private as possible, Elelar didn't correct this impression, though she was annoyed at being greeted as "my dear cousin" by a total stranger.

Elelar dismissed Faradar, who looked ready to collapse, dealt with a few pressing matters, and then asked the woman—
Torena
Chasimar—to speak with her privately in the coolest salon in the house.

Torena
Chasimar, who seemed slightly less intelligent than the horse which had kicked Elelar in the stomach yesterday—Darfire, it hurt now!—immediately burst into tears and commenced a long, incoherent, and bizarre explanation of how she had come to inhabit Elelar's private home. Along with her maid, Yenibar, whom—it did not take much insight to figure out—had bedded Ronall. Probably more than once.

Probably in this very house
, Elelar thought irritably. 

Tansen's plans be damned. Elelar sincerely hoped her revolting husband was already dead and his carcass rotting somewhere in Sileria's driest hinterlands.

So this was
Toren
Porsall's half-Valdani wife. Elelar had heard of her. Indeed, Faradar had pretended to
be
her, with Zimran's help, when entering Shaljir last year to help Tansen free Elelar from the old Kintish fortress where she was being held prisoner. Elelar knew that Chasimar had once pretended to be an abduction victim so that her husband would pay Josarian a small fortune in much-needed gold to get her back. Elelar also remembered Tansen telling her that Chasimar was so enamored of Zimran that the rebels had trouble convincing her to return to her husband once the ransom was paid.

Now, as Elelar found another handkerchief for the sobbing and tiresome half-Valdani
torena
, Elelar reflected that Zimran had really had no discrimination and would, it was clear, sleep with just about anyone. If Elelar had ever been flattered by his devotion to her, she might be disappointed now. However, she had never cherished any illusions about her lusty and self-centered
shallah
lover.

Torena
Chasimar continued pouring out her tale, increasingly agitated as she explained how Ronall had found her and Porsall at the mercy of vengeful
shallaheen
in the middle of the night.

"Wait," Elelar said. "Stop. Go back."

Chasimar sobbed and just kept babbling.

"No," Elelar said. "I don't think I heard you right. You're saying that Ronall—
Toren
Ronall... my husband...
Ronall
rescued you from a bloodthirsty mob of
shallaheen?
"

"Yes!" Chasimar wailed. Then she kept babbling, the facts of her near death and her husband's murder pouring from her lips in a mind-numbing torrent of unconnected details which were, to say the least, a trifle hard to follow.

"No," Elelar said again. "That doesn't make sense. Ronall, all by himself—"

"On a horse!" Chasimar sobbed.

"Yes, yes, on a horse... Stormed into a murderous mob of
shallaheen
and... rescued you?"

"Yes!"

"There must be some mistake," Elelar said with certainty. She described Ronall in detail. "Surely that wasn't the man who—"

"Yes!"

"Alone? By himself?
Voluntarily?
"

"Yes
!" Chasimar howled.

"Just how drunk was he?" Elelar demanded.

"
He wasn't drunk!"

"You needn't shout," Elelar assured her wearily.

"Well, I don't think he was drunk. Well, maybe a little drunk." Chasimar wailed even louder now. "I don't know! Does it matter?
I don't know!"

"Calm down," Elelar snapped. "If anyone has a right to hysterics here, surely it's me."

"I'm sorry,
torena!
" Chasimar cried loudly enough to disturb the Otherworld. "I'm just so emotional these days! It's no doubt due to my condition!"

"Your condition?" Elelar's gaze dropped to the woman's round belly. "Fires of Dar. You're not plump. You're..."

"Expecting!" Chasimar bleated.

"Whose is it?"

"Porsall's!" Chasimar shrieked, looking offended.

"Just asking," Elelar said coolly, knowing full well that this woman had been no pillar of faithful devotion to her late husband. 

Her late Valdani husband. Father of this mostly-Valdani child.

"
Oh, damn Ronall
," Elelar said, realizing what he'd done.

"Please don't throw us out of your home!" Chasimar wept.

"He did this to me on purpose!"

Elelar would
kill
her husband for this. She would find him herself and gut him like a Valdani tribute goat. She would haul his worthless carcass up to the rim of the volcano and throw him into the Fires, laughing while he burned. She would—

"Please, Elelar," Chasimar sobbed. "Where can I go? Where can my child go?" 
      
A child, a child...

"Oh, no." Elelar felt sick with rage. Horrified at the implications. Even if she could eject this noisy, vapid woman from her house with a clear conscience—and, no, she probably couldn't—she knew she couldn't abandon Chasimar's unborn child to whatever fate awaited it without her protection.

Ronall had counted on that, knowing her better than she'd ever realized.

"I am a Silerian!" Chasimar's watery voice carried conviction. "I know no other land. No other people. I have no one and nothing on the mainland!"

Elelar sighed. Yes, Ronall finally had his revenge.

Oh, that filthy swine.

Who would have thought Ronall, of all people, capable of devising such a perfect punishment for her? Then again, who would have ever believed
Ronall
capable of the heroism that Chasimar described?

People just never stopped surprising you, and Elelar really hated that.

Chasimar sniffed noisily. "There is nothing for me in Valdania. I would be a stranger there, without family or property... I barely even speak Valdan!"

Knowing she had no choice, and bitterly hating Ronall for this, Elelar said, "Of course you can stay here, Chasimar. I invite you to stay until..."

Chasimar's stupid face looked forlorn and hopeful at the same time. "Yes?"

"Until I can think of something better," Elelar promised. "Until we can find a permanent place for you."

"If Tansen could free the western districts from the Society and I could return to my mother's people..."

Elelar nodded absently, her head pounding by now. "Uh, yes, something like that." As Chasimar started babbling again, Elelar realized that she had never wanted Tansen's victory as dearly as she did at this very moment.

Damn Ronall.
 

She hoped he burned like the Fires for all eternity, wherever he was right now.

Chapter Six

The best way to kill time is to work it to death.

—Armian

Western Sileria,

The Year of Late Rains

"Why are we here, father?" Tansen asked Armian as they entered an impoverished mountain village suffering under the harsh yoke of Valdani rule. The dry season beat down with merciless heat on this bleak community.

"These people haven't paid their tribute to the Society," Armian replied. "To Kiloran."

Tansen knew what that meant. "But why are
we
here, father?"

They were accompanying three of Kiloran's assassins: bold young men who surely didn't need Armian's help to make thirsty
shallaheen
relinquish whatever they had that the Society wanted.

"Because I'm bored," Armian said with a shrug. "Sitting around Kiloran's camp just waiting for the rains to come. I'll get as fat as he is if I don't find something to amuse me." He added with a grin, "Even
you
might stop being so skinny if we don't get some exercise."