The Destroyer Goddess (25 page)

"It seems strange that
Torena
Elelar married him," Zarien mused.

"Strange beyond words," Tansen agreed, his tone dry.

Somewhere between the Sanctuary and camp, the three of them had stumbled upon a battle. Ronall seemed scared and confused. Tansen had left Zarien with him and joined in the fighting.
Shallaheen
loyal to the waterlord Kariman were attacking a village loyal to the Firebringer. Zarien, hiding on a ledge overlooking the village, had watched his father. Tansen was like a different man when he fought, almost like some sort of sorcerer: faster, stronger, sharper than all other men; deadlier, more ruthless; less susceptible to pain.

He didn't understand how Tansen could view all that killing, all that violence, as his "work." 

Zarien was learning that there were things about being a great warrior which he had never considered before coming ashore to find the father chosen for him by destiny and the gods. 

"There," he said to Tansen, "the bleeding has slowed." Living with Tansen, he was becoming adept at binding battle wounds, and this one now presented no challenge to him.

"How's your nose?" Tansen asked.

It still hurt, but he knew Tansen disapproved of the way he had interfered between Emelen and Ronall, so he said, "Fine."

Suddenly Tansen stiffened. "There She goes again." 
      Zarien looked up at the dramatically streaked sky, painted in the colors and shadows of Dar's frequent fury. In the distance, where the strange, never-ending display of violent lightning and whirling, colored clouds continued to dance around the peak of Mount Darshon, a shower of fiery sparks flew out of the caldera. He knew they must be enormous boulders of fire, up close. "All those pilgrims at Darshon..."

"No one seems to understand why they go there. All the stories of people dying in showers of burning rock, explosions of deadly gases, avalanches during the earthquakes... And still people keeping going." Tansen's voice was pensive. "What does She want from us? Why does She call them to Her?"

"And why them and not us?"

"Oh, she knows I wouldn't listen." Tansen paused, then added more seriously, "And She knows I wouldn't let you go."

Zarien nodded, knowing that was true. At his repeated urging, Tansen had finally related to him the tale of how he had ascended Mount Darshon to try to stop Josarian from leaping into the volcano to become the Firebringer—or rather, as Tansen believed at the time, to certain death.

Yes, father, you would fight Dar Herself again for what you wanted.

Zarien took extra care with the bandage he was tying off, as if his attentions could protect his reckless bloodfather from the goddess's wrath. Then, when his task was done, he asked the question that had been on his mind for some time now: "This baby of Jalilar's... You think it's the one, don't you?"

Tansen didn't seem surprised. "The Firebringer's sister bearing a child, Mirabar in search of a child foretold in her visions..."

"But a Valdan's child?" Zarien asked doubtfully.

In the volcano-tinted light of the setting sun, Zarien could see his father's repugnance, but Tansen shrugged and said, "What if it was meant to be this way? If the new Yahrdan is part-Valdani, then maybe the Valdani won't attack us when their wars on the mainland are over."

"
Their
wars will never be over," Zarien said with certainty. "That's just how they are."

"We can't count on that, son. And fighting them again... It would be so costly, even if we won again." He looked across the encampment at Ronall and said, "If we could satisfy them by recognizing a Yahrdan with some of their blood in his veins, maybe we could have peace with them for the rest of our lives."

"He seems a very peculiar choice for..."

Tansen's mouth quirked. "I know," he admitted wryly.

"So how can you determine if Jalilar's child is the one?"

"Luckily, that's not my problem. I've sent word to Mirabar."

"Ah. It's
her
problem."

"She gets the visions," said his father. "I just do the fighting."

"Tansen!"

They both turned as Pyron, who had been with them ever since seeing Mirabar safely to Belitar after her marriage, approached them. "Sentries have spotted a runner."

"Ah! Good." 
      Tansen had been expecting a runner from Shaljir for several days now and had been worrying that the man might have been ambushed. It was happening more and more frequently.

As the runner approached, Zarien smiled, recognizing him. "Teyaban!" It was Elelar's servant, whom he had met in Shaljir.

The young man grinned. "Zarien! Still tattooed, I see."

Zarien rolled his eyes. "They don't wash off, you know."

Teyaban's gaze swept the camp. His eyes widened when he spotted Ronall. "
Toren!
" He crossed his fists and bowed his head, showing more respect to Ronall than anyone else here had thought of doing. "I'm relieved to see you. We have long wondered what happened to you."

Ronall gazed up at him blearily. "Do I know you?"

Tansen rubbed his forehead and said to Teyaban, "We have managed to find the
toren
, but we're having some difficulty convincing him to return to the
torena
. Perhaps if you could advise her—"

"But I can't,
siran
," Teyaban said.

Tansen went still. "Why not?"

"I don't know where the
torena
is."

"What?" Tansen snapped.

"No one does."

"
What?
"

Teyaban explained why Elelar had left Shaljir. "Anyhow, your friend Radyan was able to find out which Sanctuary the
torena
was sent to... To be honest, he's got more than a passing interest in her maid. You remember Faradar, don't you? After Radyan first arrived in Shaljir on your orders, he saw her, and the two of them just—"

"Get to the point," Tansen ordered.

"Oh. Yes. Well, Radyan found out that the
torena
left Sanctuary. Without telling anyone where she went."

"Let me make sure I understand you. Elelar has disappeared?"

"Yes."

"There's been no word from her?"

"None," said Teyaban.

"And no word of a Society abduction?"

"No,
siran
. She left Sanctuary with her servants—including Faradar, which really disappointed Radyan—of her own free will, traveling at a sedate pace. The Sisters there had no idea she wasn't supposed to leave, so they didn't think anything of it."

Tansen's face darkened, but his expression revealed little. "Did she say anything or leave any message?"

"Only that no one was to worry about her, she knew what she was doing."

Tansen folded his arms across his chest and looked over at
Toren
Ronall. "I don't suppose
you
have any idea where she might have gone?"

Ronall shrugged indifferently and took another drink.

"No," Tansen said, "of course not."

Zarien realized what this meant. "We, uh, we can't send him back to her if we don't know where she is, can we?"

"We'll find out," Tansen said grimly.

"And until we do?"

"I suppose we'll have to keep him with us." And even Tansen couldn't hide his distress over this situation.

"Where might she have gone, father?"

"Almost anywhere," Tansen acknowledged. "But I'm very much afraid..."

"Yes?"

"That she's gone to court destiny."

Mirabar heard chanting. Trilling. Ululating. A bewildering mixture of voices filled with passion and fervor, the ghostly praise-singing of exultant worshippers...

Lava moved through the veins of the earth, flowing somewhere beneath Mirabar's feet, making the ground tremble with Dar's blood, Dar's breath, Dar's life... 

She was burning up in the heat. Calling on all her power to protect herself from immolation as Dar's will forged the future of Her people...

Mirabar inhaled deadly fumes as sudden flames erupted out of the glowing ooze of the lava spilling forth from the world's womb to flow over her...

A woman was screaming. Screaming for help. For mercy. Screaming in pain, in terror. Mirabar waded through the lava. Oh, how it burned! The agony was unbearable, but the screams pulled her on, beckoning her to help whoever was crying out to her.

Mirabar heard the wailing before she saw the baby...

My baby?

No... Mirabar's baby was an enchanted chill in her womb, trying to help shield her from this all-consuming heat. 

Who was the woman screaming in such agony and terror? It must be
her
baby, her birthing screams, her destiny come to pass...

Then Mirabar saw him, cloaked in his mother's blood. The infant's orange eyes and red hair glowed like all the Fires of Dar. He seemed at home in the liquid flame which engulfed him in the hot flow of Dar's birth throes... 

He is coming... Welcome him, welcome him...

The passionate trilling and chanting filled Mirabar's head, as the rumbling roar echoed all around her...

Now she heard heavy groaning. Felt something cold and hard against her cheek. Against her shoulder. Her palm...

"
Sirana?
"

"How long as she been like this?"

The damp stone floors of Belitar. Her own groans of pain.

"Stay away from her!"

"She
is
my wife, you know."

Najdan's and Baran's voices. Najdan's sharp with worry. Baran's detached and reasonable.

"Really," Baran said, "it's amazing that no superstitious
shallaheen
ever killed her during one of these fits." After a brief pause, he added, "Or bloodthirsty assassins."

"I told you not to touch her."

"Put your
shir
away," Baran said wearily. "And help me get her off the floor and into her bed."

"Don't—"

"Can't you see she's coming around?"

Mirabar tried to speak, but only wordless grunts came out of her mouth. She heard Velikar's voice, and possibly Haydar's. Then Baran ordered someone to bring her some wine.

She tried again. "When..."
When did you get back?

He evidently understood what she wanted to ask. "Just now. Yes, came home to find you writhing and screaming on the floor. Does this mean you've missed me?"

She didn't bother trying to answer.

There was a lot of fussing for a while, during which time she pulled her senses together and became capable of sensible speech. It took some urging, but once she was alert and self-possessed, the others agreed to leave her alone in her bedchamber with her newly-arrived husband. While she drank her wine and composed herself, Baran told her a little about his recent travels. She already knew about Wyldon's death, as she told him, but the rest of Dulien's comments were very interesting.

"You can get a message right away to Tansen about Dulien," Mirabar said, when he had concluded his account of his meeting with the other waterlord. "A runner has recently arrived from Tansen, so we can send him straight back."

"What news did he bring?" When she hesitated, he prodded, "Mirabar?"

"The Firebringer's sister is pregnant."

His brows rose. "Oh?"

"And the father..." 

"Yes?"

"A Valdan."

"Rape?" 

She shook her head. "Um.
Torena
Elelar's husband."

Baran burst out laughing. 

Mirabar sighed, having expected that.

"Please," he said, "oh,
please,
tell me that a Valdan's bastard is the prophesied Yahrdan. Don't disappoint me by saying it's only—"

"I don't know. It's... it's certainly possible." The Firebringer's sister—yes, very possible.

"So are the Valdani the thing you most long to destroy?"

The question made her feel ill. "I don't..." She started wringing her hands... then looked down at them and immediately stopped, wondering when she had developed that habit. "I scarcely even think about them since they surrendered."

"Oh. Well, how do you get along with the Firebringer's sister?"

"Jalilar? Fine," she said. "I hardly know her."

Baran glanced at the moldy gift from the Olvara, which was sitting on a small table near the bed upon which Mirabar lay. "Don't you feel tempted to cheat and look at it now?"

"Not really." Seeing his skeptical expression, she explained, "If I'm not ready, and I misuse it or misunderstand it, whatever it is..." 

He shrugged. "As you wish."

Since his own men would tell him anyhow, she admitted, "We had a visitor while you were away."

"Cheylan."

"Oh." So they already
had
told him. 

"I assume he didn't come here just to congratulate you on marrying well?"

"He brought news from Dalishar." The visions in the night sky continued to help the Guardians convince people to oppose the Society. "And from the east." Verlon had found Semeon, the fire-eyed Guardian child, before Cheylan had—and Verlon had slaughtered him, along with his entire Guardian circle.

So Semeon wasn't the one. He couldn't have been the one. Mirabar prayed hard that he wasn't the one... And reminded herself often that her visions wouldn't be full of fire and promise, of warning and portent, if the young Yahrdan was already dead at the behest of a waterlord.