The Destroyer Goddess (5 page)

"Why?" He couldn't understand. "What in all the world could Baran—"

"A child of water. A child of fire."

Tansen stared at her, stunned beyond words.

A child of water, a child of fire, a child of sorrow...

She saw by his expression that he remembered what she had told him about the Beckoner. "I don't know exactly what the Beckoner wants, but I've had more visions since the last time I saw you. I know that I have to go to Belitar. And that I have to bear Baran's child there."

"And this child," he said slowly, sure that he was about to be sick. "Is this the one..."

"I don't know," she admitted, increasingly distressed. "I don't know! I don't think so, but—"

He pounced, "Unless you're
sure
, why—"

"Because this child has to be born, whether or not it's the one I've been looking for. This is the child the gods want me to have, that Dar wants me to have. A child born of fire and water, of a Guardian and a waterlord, of—"

"Of the woman I love and some insane murderer who—"

"Please," she begged, crying harder now. "Please don't make this even harder. Fires of Dar, do you think I
want
to marry him?"

Tansen hated Dar. By all the gods above and below, he hated Her. She had let the Valdani slaughter his family, let Kiloran kill Josarian, let the sea make a shunned orphan of Zarien, and now She was doing this to Mirabar. As he watched the woman he loved weep, Tansen felt like all his blood was draining out of him.

Now he remembered what else Mirabar had previously told him. "A child of sorrow," he muttered. That much would be true.

"We need Baran." Mirabar started wiping tears away. "Sileria needs him. If he won't help us..."

Tansen looked for some place to sit down, suddenly bereft of all strength. He damned himself for having urged Mirabar to do whatever she had to. He should have known that Baran, of all people, would demand what they had never foreseen.

"We'll find another way," he told her, already hearing how weak and hollow the promise sounded. 

"We don't have time. And even if we did..."

"You and your visions," he said bitterly, unable to stop himself from lashing out at her.

Mirabar didn't fight back, which made him feel even worse. 

After a long silence, during which Mirabar tried to compose herself, Tansen finally said, "You're really going to do this, aren't you?"

"Yes."

It felt like being stabbed, but only after already having received a mortal wound. The pain was almost a relief from the earlier pain. The loss of hope somehow eased his urgent desperation, the agonizing need to find a solution, to change her mind, to stop her.

He remained silent, all out of ideas, all out of things to say. After what seemed like a long time, she said, "They're waiting for me."

He nodded, but didn't move otherwise.

"Are you... coming?"

"I can't." Tansen shook his head. "I can't watch this."

"I wish..." Mirabar didn't say any more.

He listened to her footsteps as she left the garden.

After a while, it occurred to him that he didn't want to see anyone, least of all the bride and groom, so he should leave before the ceremony was over and people started rambling around the Sanctuary's grounds. 

Moving slowly, his mind blank while his heart bled, he set his foot on the path leading back the way he had come. So full of hope then, so empty of it now. So full of worry then... and, no, not free of it now.

If she's wrong, if I'm wrong... If Baran hurts her... If he kills her...

He tried to stop thinking, since it was futile right now. This wound wouldn't kill him, but precious few had ever hurt so much, and he couldn't think while this pain raged hot and fresh inside of him. Couldn't even consider the hundred other urgent things that would demand his attention the moment he reached the camp at the sacred caves of Dalishar.

"Tansen!"

He looked up, surprised to see Zarien approaching him. He'd been so absorbed in his sorrow that he hadn't even heard the boy's boots grinding into the rocky soil just ahead of him.

Zarien said, "You didn't need to come look for me. I—"

"We're leaving," Tansen said.

"Already?"

"Yes."

Zarien frowned, studying him. His eyes widened slowly. "Is she dead?"

"No."

"Then what's wrong?" Zarien asked, falling into step beside him.

At least he had a son now. At least there was that. 

"Tansen?" Zarien prodded, concerned, watching him closely.

Tansen stopped, looked at him, and said, "You know, you could..."

"What?" 

"You could call me father." Tansen shrugged and added as casually as possible, "If you wanted to."

Zarien's frown cleared. He nodded. "Or... papa?" He almost laughed, then shook his head. "Um, no. Father is probably better."

Tansen slapped him on the back and said, "Come on." He continued making his way along the path.

"Wait! Tan—Father." Zarien put a hand on his arm. "What's wrong? What did she say to you?"

"I'll explain as we walk." He would also omit all but the essential facts of the matter.

"What happened to your sleeve?" Zarien touched the singed spot. "Did you get too close to a fire?"

"Yes," he admitted on a sigh. "We should probably get up to the caves now."

Zarien groaned and looked up the steep, merciless slopes of Mount Dalishar. "I just knew you were going to say that."

Chapter Two

Neither love nor madness knows a cure.

                                          —Silerian Proverb

The fresh cut on Baran's right palm was stinging fiercely. He suspected that Mirabar had cut particularly deep on purpose with the marriage knife. If he had known how vindictive his bride could be, he wouldn't have agreed to marry her in
shallah
tradition.

Now, as they faced each other, alone in Sister Velikar's Sanctuary, Mirabar stared warily at him with those glowing eyes. Looking at her, he could almost believe some of the superstitions about her fire-colored kind...

Baran wondered if immolation in the marriage bed was grounds for divorce. Silerians were so strict about marriage that it actually might not be. He smiled, enjoying his thoughts as he shrugged out of his tunic—now grown loose on him—and tossed it aside. 

The only place Baran and Mirabar could be safe from the Honored Society, whose waterlords and assassins he would completely alienate with this marriage, was Sanctuary or Belitar. Belitar was days away, and even the nearest Sanctuary was almost a full day's journey from here. So he and Mirabar had agreed to spend their wedding night in Sister Velikar's humble stone dwelling. Tomorrow they would commence the journey to Baran's home. 

Although he looked forward to returning to Belitar, Baran dreaded the trip, knowing how it would tax his diminishing strength. Making the journey to Emeldar and curing the water there had been too much for him. He had remained five days in Josarian's abandoned village, which was how long Mirabar and Najdan deemed their witnesses—Lann and Yorin—needed in order to be sure the slow poison which Josarian had ordered put in the water, during the early days of the rebellion, was now expelled from it. When the goats drinking the water were still hale and hardy five days after Baran cleansed it, the two men were satisfied and returned to Dalishar with him.

He had not enjoyed their company. 

What a dull and ignorant lot the
shallaheen
were. How incurious about the world, how smug about the narrow boundaries of their own culture.

Baran sighed and looked again at his
shallah
wife. Oh, well. At least she wasn't as dreary as other
shallaheen
—or other Guardians. Her feral childhood had expanded the wisdom of her heart beyond that of most other Silerians. Her extraordinary powers had made her intimate with things beyond the imagination even of worldly and educated people. And her prophetic visions had forged in her a strength and determination that few people alive could match.

Now, as they shared a wary silence, Baran glanced at the simple bed where Velikar had recently spread fresh, sun-dried bedclothes for them, and he thought more practically about his new wife. A virtuous young
shallah
woman, a sorceress gifted with enough power to scare away any man less brave than that poor sod Tansen, an endangered Guardian protected day and night by an assassin as strict and old-fashioned as Najdan...

"Do you know what's supposed to happen now?" Baran asked Mirabar abruptly, wondering if tonight would be even more awkward than he anticipated. 

She blinked. "In general."

He lifted one brow. "
How
general?"

"Well, I, uh..." She licked her lips. "I understand the main, um, requirements." She folded her hands. Being a
shallah
, she didn't even seem to notice the cut he had made on the left one today. "No one who has lived long in the closeness of a Guardian camp could be unaware of... of..." She unfolded her hands. "And Haydar explained a few things to me." She nodded. "Things which were more specific than I had previously..." Mirabar met his gaze. "Some of them seemed reasonable."

Now he was amused. "And others?"

"Others... Well, I'm not sure I believe her. And even if I did..."

"Yes?"

"I don't think I
ever
want to know you that well, Baran," she admitted frankly.

"Ah. Well." He grinned. "Then I count on you to tell me when our acquaintance is crossing the boundaries of what you deem acceptable."

"Don't worry. I will." Mirabar's gaze dropped to his thin torso. "Have you been ill?" She caught herself a moment later. "I'm sorry. Perhaps that was rude."

"According to rumor, I've
always
been unwell." He tapped his forehead, distracting her from the subject of his physical health.

Her eyes narrowed, and she reminded him of a cat. "Are you as crazy as they say? Or saner than you want people to know?"

"It varies," he admitted. 

Baran took a step toward her and, seeing her nearly jump out of her skin, decided that tonight might be a good time to work at ordinary sanity, if only for a few hours. He wanted this woman to ensure his immortality with a child, one strong enough to stand against Kiloran if need be; and that couldn't happen if she was too wary of him to let him touch her.

"I won't hurt you," he promised.

"You're damned right you won't," she growled.

He smiled, appreciating her spirit. He supposed that kind of fire and fury had kept her alive after her mother abandoned her as a small child and before the Guardians found her and raised her.

"I know it'll seem strange," he said, nodding toward the bed. "But shall we try acting like husband and wife for a little while?"

"It's what I agreed to," she said. But she didn't come closer.

Baran had once known love—passionate, hungry, joyful, uninhibited love. And, since those days, he had occasionally known the confident attentions of experienced women. But he had never before found himself in precisely this situation, and he was at something of a loss.

Mirabar evidently recognized this. Wearing an expression of such determination that he briefly wondered if she meant to attack him, she started undressing, her gaze fixed on his.

"Ordinary people do this every day," she said. "So you and I should certainly be able to."

She dropped wild gossamer garments at her feet until she was naked, and then she came closer, until the heat of her skin warmed his. She was young, smooth, lithe, softly curved, sun-kissed golden and lava-red. Warm and small and more womanly than he would have guessed before now.

"
Sirana
," he said softly, lowering his face to hers. "We may even find it easy, after all."

"Perhaps you should just use my name," she murmured against his mouth.

"You wouldn't find it disrespectful?" he whispered.

She gave a faint gasp of surprise. "Considering where your hands are right now... no."