The Destroyer Goddess (18 page)

Emelen thrust his own waterskin under Zarien's nose and said, "You were, of course, about to offer to fill mine, too."

Zarien blinked innocently. "Of course."

Tansen turned and called out to the men and the Guardians that they were stopping for a water break. He traveled with nearly fifty people today, which was more than Tansen usually chose to bring on raids against the Society. Too many people were too noticeable—hard to hide or to travel with stealthily. The Society were not the Valdani; someone in Sileria would always tell the Society about what they saw, what they knew, or what they heard. Today, however, it was worth the risk of being seen in such numbers. They planned to attack Ferolen's stronghold, north of Adalian, and he was too powerful a waterlord for them to defeat with smaller numbers. Fifty more people would meet them at a prearranged location tomorrow, and then they would all attack at nightfall.

Now, as Tansen watched Zarien disappear over the ridge, followed by others, Emelen said, "He's a good boy, Tansen."

"Yes, he is."

"But there's something about him..." When Tansen glanced at him, Emelen shrugged. "I don't know. He's different."

"There's no denying that," Tansen agreed reasonably.

After a moment, Emelen said, "He's too young for battle, Tan.  In fact, he seems far from ready for any kind of fight."

"I know." 

Zarien wasn't a natural. He didn't catch on quickly when they trained. Despite the boy's desire to please him, Tansen had also begun to realize that Zarien had no heart for combat. His mind often wandered when they trained. He certainly wasn't lazy, but he was always ready to quit training well before they really should. 

"What'll you do with him when it's time to fight?" Emelen asked.

"What I usually do. Put him in a safe place during the battle." He added, "Ealian has agreed to protect him this time." The elderly Guardian, whom Tansen had first met in Zilar and who was here with them now, lacked the stamina needed for battle against waterlords; but he was still a skilled fire sorcerer, and Tansen trusted him to safeguard Zarien.

Emelen prodded, "Why drag Zarien all over Sileria with you in such dangerous times? Wouldn't it be better to leave him somewhere?"

"Where would I leave him? With whom?" When Emelen didn't answer, Tansen said, "He likes to be with me."

"And you like him to be with you."

"He belongs with me."

"You seem very sure of that."

Tansen glanced at his friend in surprise. "You think otherwise?"

Emelen looked up at the ridge where Zarien had disappeared. "I don't know. Our way of life doesn't really seem to suit him well."

"He can't return to his clan. He doesn't—"

"I know. I don't mean to... Never mind." Emelen shrugged. "I'm probably just worrying about your family so I don't have to worry about mine."

"You'll see Jalilar soon," Tansen promised.

"And you may have to replace me then, since she's bound to kill me for tricking her and leaving her behind in Sanctuary the way I did."

"Yes, well, that's why I thought I'd come along," Tansen said dryly. "Say hello. Tell her about Josarian's final hours. Introduce her to my son. Prevent her from castrating you."

"Good idea," Emelen agreed faintly.

"Ah, here they come." Tansen saw a few men appearing on the rise, their now-bulging waterskins in hand. Zarien—walking more slowly than anyone else, of course—brought up the rear.

Watching the boy approach, Emelen asked, "Do you really mean to let this question of the sea king go unresolved?"

Tansen squinted in the harsh sunlight as he gazed at his remarkable son. "Oh, I don't think it will go unresolved."

Emelen glanced sharply at him. "You think you're the one?"

"No." Tansen turned his back on the approaching men and boy, and looked eastward, toward the tumultuous whirl of colored clouds at the peak of Mount Darshon. The magically healed
shir
wound which had nearly killed him seemed to throb  momentarily with a cool fire as he thought of what the Olvar had said about Zarien. "No, not me."

Tansen would rather his son always walk the dryland with him, but if Zarien's fate was to be the sea king... Yes, if that was indeed his future, then Tansen would do his best to prepare the boy for such an important destiny.

 "Where have you been?" Mirabar demanded of her husband, upon finding him conferring with an assassin in the main hall of Belitar's gloomy castle. "I've been looking everywhere for you."

He glanced at her, dismissed the assassin with a nod, and turned away without acknowledging her, his attention captured by a letter he started reading.

"Baran," she persisted, following him into the shadowy study where he kept books, papers, and a magically whirling fountain of stunning beauty.

"Hmmm?" He took a seat without ever lifting his gaze from the letter.

Mirabar didn't bother looking over his shoulder, since she couldn't read. "Who is it from?"

He didn't seem to hear her, or maybe he was just ignoring her. Either way, he was clearly very absorbed in the letter, and his expression was increasingly intense as he continued reading it. She decided to wait until he was done before explaining why she had been looking for him today. 

Watching his face now, Mirabar couldn't tell whether he was upset or amused. Both, perhaps. She still found Baran's conflicting and volatile emotions bewildering and difficult to discern. His sharp intelligence sometimes made her forget that his madness was not just legend or pretense; and his wild mood swings and bizarre behavior sometimes made her forget that he was dangerously shrewd and seldom missed anything.

As a husband, he was exhausting. As an ally, he was unnerving. As a lover, he was... 

"Not a father yet," she muttered.

Baran finished reading the letter and stared blankly at her. "Hmmm?"

"I'm not with child," Mirabar said, glad to have his attention at last for this news.

He glanced down at her lap, as if expecting to see proof of her claim staining the fine clothes he had insisted she acquire. She pressed her legs together, suddenly embarrassed.

"Oh." He turned away and stared out the window, his thoughts apparently still captured by the contents of the letter.

"You're taking my news well," she noted. There was no response, no acknowledgement that she had spoken. "Baran!"

He didn't look at her. "So we'll keep trying," he said without much interest.

She supposed it was a reasonable response, but she still felt annoyed. She was as ignorant of Belitar's secrets as she had been the day she first arrived here, and now the child Baran said he had been promised—
by whom?
—was not even on its way to soothe Mirabar's irritated nerves. Why was it that women who didn't want a baby became pregnant the moment they strayed from chastity, whereas Mirabar, who was completely committed to conceiving a child, had lain with her husband more than a dozen times with no results?

Looking to inflict her ill humor on someone, she said, "Let's hope we have
time
to keep trying."

"I'm not dead yet," he replied mildly.

No, but he had awoken her two nights ago when he doubled-up in bed with a sudden attack of excruciating pain which led to him bringing up blood. The sight had terrified Mirabar, who now truly understood  how imminent Baran's death was. She could not afford to be patient with him, lest he die with his secrets intact and her womb still empty.

She watched him as he now fingered the costly parchment of the missive which occupied his mind. "Who is it from?" 

"Kiloran." Baran looked at her. "He knows."

Ah.
"Well, we knew he'd find out soon," she said, wondering at Baran's strange expression.

"Hmm."

Realizing there was more, she prodded, "And?"

His sudden smile was both bitter and amused. "Kiloran is impatient. He's trying to force my hand now, rather than waiting to see what I intend."

"What does he say?" she asked.

"He says we will commence holding back the Idalar River from Shaljir the day after tomorrow, at sundown, and he counts on my strength to help him swiftly bring the city under the Society's influence."

"What does he say about our marriage?" 

"He congratulates me on such a shrewd plan for destroying you." Baran studied her with dark, brooding eyes. "He also says that others in the Society doubt my loyalty, now that Tansen has proclaimed my alliance with him."

"And?" she prodded.

"And if I will send your body to Kandahar, it would assuage any fears among the other waterlords that I have betrayed them all." His expression was unreadable as he added, "He concludes with a sort of peace offering."

Belitar seemed suddenly chillier to Mirabar. "What?"

"In exchange for requesting the corpse of my second wife as a trophy," Baran said, "Kiloran has offered me the truth about what happened to my first wife."

Mirabar held his gaze, hoping that today was one of his saner days. "You already know the truth, don't you? He killed her."

Baran's eyes started to take on a wild glitter. "He says he didn't."

She kept her voice steady and reasonable. "So she killed herself, then."

"No."

Mirabar frowned. "Now, after all these years, he's claiming she's still alive?"

"Not exactly."

"What then?"

He looked down at the letter. "Kiloran says Alcinar escaped him, escaped Kandahar one day, all those years ago."

"He's lying. Surely she would have come to you?"

"He told her I was dead. She believed him."

Yes, Mirabar realized, Alcinar probably would have believed him. It must have shocked even Kiloran that he couldn't, in fact, manage to kill Baran. Besides, with their home abandoned, where could Alcinar even have looked for Baran after she escaped Kiloran?

"Do you believe he's telling the truth?" Mirabar asked.

Baran's face took on the tormented expression it bore whenever he thought of his wife's fate. "I don't know."

Mirabar saw the struggle going on inside him. Oh, Kiloran was very shrewd. He knew that if Baran had decided to betray the Society, then the enmity of the waterlords wouldn't frighten him or change his mind. But the faint possibility of finding Alcinar after all these years? Oh, yes, that was a promise that might sway Baran, bring him under control... and even convince him to sacrifice his unloved new wife.

Mirabar would not show fear. "Does Kiloran offer any proof?"

"Only if I give him your dead body."

She would
not
show fear. "He's lying," she repeated.

Their gazes locked. She saw the relentless obsession which had made Baran what he was. Saw the ruthlessness that had led him to become one of the most powerful and feared waterlords who had ever lived.

"After all these years," Mirabar said, keeping her voice steady, "will you let him make a fool of you now?"

Baran laughed, a disturbingly cold sound. "After all these years, I finally have something else he wants so much it has driven him to desperation once again."

"Me." She felt Belitar's damp chill all the way through her vitals.

"I wonder if it's true," he murmured.

"He's not desperate, he's clever," Mirabar snapped.

"Alcinar had seen enough of my sorcery to have at least some knowledge of how water magic worked. If an ordinary person could spot a weakness at Kandahar and escape that place... yes, it would have been her."

"Or perhaps Kiloran killed her the very first time he raped her," Mirabar said harshly, "and is smart enough to know how to get you to do exactly as he wants, despite having murdered your wife."

"At moments like this," Baran said, "I absolutely cannot fathom what Tansen sees in you."

"At moments like this," she replied, "I am certain your wife didn't love you for your mind."

"You're
afraid
," he guessed, clearly enjoying the realization.

"Oh, for the love of Dar, will you pull yourself together and
think
? What proof could Kiloran possibly offer? Alcinar's footprints leading away from Kandahar, miraculously preserved in the mud for fifteen years? A witness to her fate, someone whom Kiloran can convince you he didn't threaten or bribe? A letter from Alcinar saying, 'Please tell Baran I escaped and am—'"

"She couldn't write."

"What proof?" Mirabar persisted. "If she's been alive all these years, she would have heard of you and let you know
she
was alive. Everyone in Sileria has heard of you!"

Baran rose to his feet and went to stand by the window, looking out across his enchanted moat. "Who knows what she would have done?" His voice was bleak. "Kiloran captured her, told her I was dead, and did Dar-only-knows-what to her. Maybe she died after she left Kandahar—"

"
If
she left. If he's not lying."

"Or maybe she's still alive," he continued, "but her mind was so disordered by what happened to her that she wasn't even capable of hearing my name, let alone recognizing it, as my reputation grew over the years."

"You can't trust Kiloran," Mirabar said.