The Destroyer Goddess (38 page)

"Kiloran did." Tansen's voice was low and deadly. "Once before. He used Outlookers to ambush Josarian in Sanctuary after inviting him to a truce meeting there." His chest was heaving. "I should have... I should have remembered and known... Known that if Kiloran found out about Jalilar..."

"Those were Outlookers, Tansen," another
shallah
said, his voice soft with lingering shock. "Kiloran was slippery, but he didn't actually violate... Not like this. And Searlon was too fastidious to be there himself the day they attacked Josarian in Sanctuary."

"How could they do this?" the Sister wondered, anger starting to give strength to her voice. "How could anyone do this? The murder of a woman is disgusting enough—but to violate Sanctuary? How could a Silerian do that, even a waterlord?" She started crying.

"And Jalilar's baby was... Is this the end, then?" someone asked Tansen. "Is it over?"

"Over?" Tansen repeated, his face darkening. "It won't be over until I gut Kiloran like a fish and roast him in the Fires for all eternity. And Searlon..." He made a terrible sound. "I should have killed him before this, should have cut off Kiloran's right arm a long time ago."

Another
shallah
unsheathed his sword—the sword he had undoubtedly taken from an Outlooker's body. "What do we do now? Give us our orders,
siran!
"

"No." Tansen shook his head. "I need to think. We can't afford to act rashly now. And..." He glanced at some of the Guardians. "You should go to the Sanctuary and burn their bodies." 

"Dar have mercy on Jalilar's soul!" someone shouted. "Dar have mercy on her child!"

"
Jalilar
." It suddenly hit Ronall. His legs buckled and he found himself sitting awkwardly in the dust.

The Firebringer's sister. Jalilar. The woman Ronall had made love to with such abandoned frenzy, the two of them bound together by their terrible loneliness. Jalilar, who was the mother of...

"My child," Ronall murmured. "My child is dead."

Tansen flinched. "Someone get my son," he ordered. "
Now
."

"I was... going to be a father," Ronall said, his voice sounding far away. "I was... There was a... would have been a child." It was as if he only really understood that now, when it was too late.

Amidst the shouting for Zarien, the sudden rage-inspired bustle of the camp, and the vows of vengeance all around him, Ronall couldn't seem to rise to his feet or to think about anything but the part of him which Kiloran's assassins had murdered. Inside of the woman who had given him such pleasure. Along with the husband who had loved her enough to forgive her for that in the end.

He didn't know when he had started crying, he only knew that he was doing so now. And, for the first time in his life, his tears were entirely for someone else. Jalilar and their baby. Even Emelen. 

Why ask Dar for mercy? She would never give it. Not here. Not in Sileria. Not the destroyer goddess.

An expensive pair of dusty, worn boots ran straight past Ronall. Then he heard Zarien's voice, high with shock and panic.

"Father! Is it true?"

Ronall looked up and saw Tansen embrace the boy fiercely, a terrible fear written all over that brave man's face.

"I won't let him have you, too," Tansen muttered. "I won't."

"Jalilar..." The boy's voice was now dark and breathy with sorrow.

Still holding his son, Tansen closed his eyes. "He won't get you. I promise you he won't."

And Ronall knew that Tansen was making the promise to himself rather than to the boy.

"What'll we do?" Zarien asked. "What does this mean?"

Tansen released the boy and, still keeping him close, answered, "It means that even I didn't realize how dangerous Kiloran is. How desperate. Even I didn't understand how far he would go. It means..." He sighed and straightened Zarien's tunic. "It means we have to be stronger than he is, no matter what it costs us."

Zarien looked away, his young face as troubled as everyone else's. When he saw Ronall, he said, "I'm very sorry about your child,
toren
."

Still sitting in the dust, Ronall looked up at the two of them and wondered, "Do you think... her child... our child... was really the one? Or do you think Kiloran just... murdered some poor peasant girl bearing a drunken
toren
's bastard?" He felt tears slide down his cheeks.

"How did Kiloran know?" Zarien asked.

Tansen gave him a sharp look. Then he drew in a swift, sharp breath. "How
did
he know?"

Even Ronall immediately understood the implications of the boy's question. Very few people had known about Jalilar's condition, and even fewer knew where she was hiding. "Someone betrayed her."

Zarien gasped. "Baran?"

Tansen frowned, but he shook his head after a moment. "He would die before he would give Kiloran that kind of advantage."  His shoulders sagged. "I've got to get word to Mirabar about this. Right away."

Ronall watched Tansen turn away to find someone to take this terrible news to Belitar. Zarien followed him.

And Ronall sat in the dust, desperately trying to remember what Jalilar's face had looked like.

Chapter Fourteen

The more intimate the friendship,

the deadlier the enemy.

                                    —Silerian Proverb

Najdan had proposed a place for the truce meeting which was in the chaotic, war-torn district where Meriten and the loyalists still fought hard for ultimate victory. It was a reasonable place for him to suggest, since neither side of the conflict was in control of the area, and since neither Kiloran nor Baran currently had any real advantage over an enemy like Najdan there.

There was also only one convenient way to get there from Kandahar, where Najdan's message had reached Dyshon. So Najdan set his trap on the ancient road well east of his proposed meeting place, and waited. As he expected, Dyshon came early to the meeting, and came in force, planning to trap and kill the assassin who had betrayed Kiloran for Mirabar. 

Dyshon had no advantage here, either, so the ambush which Najdan led against him was successful. It was a messy battle, due to the heavily-armed skill of both sides, but the element of surprise was as effective as Najdan had hoped.

"You proposed a truce!" Dyshon screamed when Najdan overcame and disarmed him.

"And you agreed to one," Najdan pointed out, then gutted him with his
shir
.

"No!" Dyshon gasped, falling to his knees.

"It had to be this way," Najdan said, watching him die. "Kiloran knew it when he sent you to murder me at a truce meeting."

Dyshon gazed at him with astonished, pain-glazed, green eyes. 

Najdan added, "He just didn't realize that I knew it, too."

Najdan looked around after Dyshon's body hit the ground and shuddered in its death throes. All nine of Kiloran's men lay dead now. The
sirana
wasn't here to order it, so no one even considered burning the bodies. The men who had come here with Najdan were all assassins, and their ways were different from hers.

Now Vinn wiped his
shir
on the tunic of one of Kiloran's  dead assassins, then joined Najdan as he gazed down at Dyshon's corpse.

"Did you know him well?" Vinn asked.

"Not really," Najdan said, slipping his own
shir
into his boot.

"Disgraceful," Vinn said. "Planning to violate a truce meeting with an assassination."

Najdan gave him a skeptical look. 

Vinn returned his gaze innocently, then gestured to the slain. "You think
this
work was disgraceful, too?" He smiled and pointed out, "You are no longer of the Honored Society, and
I
didn't invite him to a truce meeting." He thought it over for a moment and added, "Actually, since Baran betrayed the waterlords, I suppose I'm no longer of the Society, either." 

Najdan said nothing, since there was no going back on the choices he had made once and would willingly make again. Besides, dishonorable or not, this work now done, and nothing could be gained by dwelling on it.

Vinn, however, cheerfully continued, "Besides, I am a longtime enemy who just happened to be here when Dyshon carelessly entered a district which everyone knows is wild with violence and treachery." When Najdan still didn't respond, Vinn concluded, "Your plan worked. Baran will be pleased."

Najdan nodded. "He will also be pleased that it didn't get you killed. He warned me he would be very cross with me if that happened."

"I'm glad he let me help you. It's been a while since I've had a good battle," Vinn said. "I enjoyed it."

"I'm sure Tansen could use fresh fighters," Najdan suggested dryly.

As he expected, Vinn shook his head. "Tempting, I admit. But then who would protect the
siran?
"

"From Kiloran?"

"Ah, Najdan. Have you learned nothing in all your time at Belitar?" Vinn tilted his head to one side. "More than anything, Baran has always needed protection from himself."

Since it struck Najdan as true, he asked, "Why do you do it?"

Vinn smiled. "Because he grows on you." After a moment, the assassin slanted a shrewd glance at Najdan and added, "Haven't you noticed?"

Najdan only replied, "Let's go home."

Kiloran knew the moment Dyshon died. He felt the sudden shift of power in the Idalar River as it sank more deeply into Baran's embrace.

Rage flooded him as powerfully and coldly as he himself had once flooded the mines of Alizar—the mines which also now resisted his control, trying to elude his mastery, trying to ebb and flow away from his will.

Trap
, he realized.

Najdan had lured him with the sweetest bait of all: the promise of vengeance. The assassin had known it would cloud his judgment and make him vulnerable. Najdan was not the most imaginative of men, but he hadn't served Kiloran well for twenty years without coming to understand his master thoroughly. Yes, the best assassins always grew to know their masters almost as well as a wife would, with a mutual trust that ran that deep in a partnership which was that secure. When Najdan violated all of that with betrayal, he didn't forget anything he had learned about Kiloran over the years. And so he knew exactly how to convince his former master to send Dyshon, someone whom Kiloran needed and valued, right into his trap.

Waves of cold self-recrimination washed over Kiloran. He had treated Najdan's offer of a truce meeting as if it had come from just anyone, rather than from someone who knew him so well for so long. With Kiloran's judgment swayed by the temptation Najdan had provided, perhaps Searlon might have seen the danger and suggested caution. But Dyshon? No. He'd never been that shrewd.

Losing the assassin at this particular time was a terrible blow. There was no denying that.

But at least Searlon's letter this morning confirmed that the Firebringer's sister and the child she bore were dead. At least there was that.

And Mirabar's fiery prophesies were now all ashes.