The Destroyer Goddess (51 page)

Which meant it was a holy place. And perhaps the Beyah-Olvari had known this—in the dim orange glow of the lava streams and puddles, Elelar saw their strange, ancient paintings decorating the cave walls all around her. However, being sacred didn't make the cavern
safe
. The volcano had been agitated and active ever since Josarian's death, and there was no reason to suppose that the frequent earthquakes which had plagued Sileria since then, too, were now over. All of which made this cavern very dangerous—particularly if Dar was, as Elelar believed, enraged at her for betraying the Firebringer.

Is this my punishment?
she asked the goddess.

If so, it was a confusing one. Abducted and raped—well, all right,
seduced
—by a Guardian claiming Elelar was destined to bear a new ruler foretold in prophetic visions... Though it was an intriguing idea, Elelar didn't want to sink into Cheylan's delusions of grandeur. She'd been exaggerating when she compared him to Baran; he didn't have the waterlord's mercurial madness. No, he was just conniving, bitter, and wholly unprincipled.

Moreover, Cheylan wasn't as clever as he thought he was. Elelar's verbal sparring had irritated him enough to make comments which gave her hope. He admitted he hadn't laid a false trail for Mirabar, and so Mirabar surely knew by now that he had betrayed her and abducted Elelar.

Please Dar, let it be so.

Elelar wanted to believe that Mirabar would realize what had happened and, as was her nature, would take action. If Cheylan's extraordinary revelations were true, then Mirabar believed Elelar was destined to bear the ruler of Sileria and would be desperate to find her.

It takes nine months to bear a child, Cheylan, so time is on my side.

If
, that was, Mirabar had not already suspected Cheylan's perfidy and therefore lied to him when she told him Elelar would bear the child she saw in her visions.

Oh, wouldn't that be just perfect?

Perhaps Mirabar had seen a way to get rid of Elelar
and
to protect the true ruler from Cheylan at the same time.

Elelar felt a little depressed as she considered this.

Maybe this was her punishment, after all. Perhaps she was meant to suffer long and die horribly here, buried beneath rock and lava after months of despair, loneliness, and discomfort.

If this is my punishment, Dar, then I will endure it... Only do I have to endure Cheylan, too? That seems too much to inflict on anyone.

In any event, whatever Mirabar believed,
Cheylan
obviously believed he had just sired the next Yahrdan of Sileria, so he wouldn't kill Elelar until the child was born. And anything could happen before then. Surely someone would start to look for her; if not Mirabar, then Faradar, Tansen, or
Toren
Varian and the Alliance. Even some of her relatives—Elelar was the wealthiest of the Hasnari, thanks to her marriage to a Valdan, and sooner or later one of the family would want money from her, especially in these hard times.

Of course, she'd have a better chance of being rescued, or of escaping on her own, if she could get Cheylan to move her to a more accessible place. Which was precisely why he wouldn't want to do it. She'd have to think of a way to sway him. The obvious one would be to convince him she was in danger of miscarrying—or of dying in a massive eruption or earthquake—if she stayed here.

Elelar looked around and knew that she wouldn't even have to pretend when she broached the subject with him.

Then she put a hand over her stomach, still amazed at how strongly she could feel new life glowing there. Did all women feel this way after conceiving? If so, none had ever mentioned it. This was, she suspected, an extraordinary child.

She smiled wryly, supposing that many expectant mothers thought the very same thing.

Expectant mother... Me!

It seemed so strange. She had believed herself barren and, given the life she had led—as well as her recent expectations of dying soon—she had never regretted it as another woman might. After all, she had never lain with a man whose child she
wanted
to conceive, least of all her husband's.

Ronall...

She wondered briefly if he was still alive. Now, for the first time, she genuinely hoped so. If she escaped Cheylan and survived, then bearing this child would be less complicated if she could claim it was her husband's. Ronall would acknowledge it as his own; Elelar would insist.

A child...

She let herself wonder if it was true; if she really was chosen to be the mother of a child foretold in prophecy and destined to become the first Yahrdan in a thousand years. The first ruler of the newly-freed nation of Sileria.

Why would You choose
me
for that, Dar?

If it was true, then for the sake of Sileria, Elelar had to survive. Cheylan must not become the most powerful person in Sileria when his son took his rightful place.

Elelar smoothed her dirty silk tunic over her stomach as a new thought occurred to her. Even if she was destined to bear the Yahrdan, could Dar really intend Cheylan, of all men, to be his father?

Ahhh...

What if Cheylan was only
half
right?

Elelar looked down at her abdomen. Maybe this glow she felt was just an indication that the child would be a Guardian, like its father. The more she thought about it, the more possible that seemed. People as different from the norm as Mirabar and Cheylan were must also have been very different in the womb.

In which case, if Cheylan was right about the prophecy, maybe Elelar's true destiny was to survive this incident, defeat him, and go on to bear another child. 

I have to get out of here
.

She forced some more food into her mouth, trying to cultivate  whatever strength she could, and set her mind to planning.

Maybe none of it was true, but if it was... if Dar needed her to complete Sileria's destiny as a free and powerful nation, then Elelar knew she must defeat Cheylan and survive. 

Chapter Nineteen

Let your love be like misty rain,

gentle in coming but flooding the river.

                                    —Kintish Proverb

Clean, groomed, and looking more rested, Mirabar joined Tansen that night around a small fire he had made in the shadows at the edge of the ruined village. The heavy reddish glow of the moons blazed through the smoke and ash that filled the sky, but it had been a while since anyone in Sileria had seen the stars. Meanwhile, those colored lights and dancing clouds continued to illuminate the snow-capped summit of Mount Darshon, reminding everyone who could see it that their fate was always, ultimately, up to Dar. Here in Gamalan, so close to Darshon, the nights weren't really dark anymore, so bright was the light from Dar's eerie display.

"Hungry?" Tansen asked Mirabar as she came to his side.

"I've just eaten. Faradar brought me something." She paused and added, "Elelar's maid is very efficient."

He smiled. "You sound annoyed."

"I'm not accustomed to being waited on. It makes me feel..." Mirabar shrugged. "Watched. Spied on. How does she know exactly when I wake up? When I'm hungry? When I want to rest? When I want to, er, dismount and find a bush?"

"Don't servants behave that way at Belitar?"

She snorted. "No, servants at Belitar talk back, quarrel, and usually disappear when there's work to be done."

"Ah. Well, if that's what you're used to, I suppose Faradar would be a little unnerving." Tansen brushed off a smooth rock and offered her a seat on it, then knelt on the ground next to her. 

"The
torena
," Mirabar said, "must be far more helpless than I ever realized if she needs someone like that to be with her all of the time."

"
Toreni
are raised to expect such service."

"I doubt she's getting it now," Mirabar said gloomily.

"No," he agreed. "But it seems likely she's at least still alive, if not happy or comfortable."

"Yes. Cheylan can't kill her. Not for quite some time."

"We'll find her before then." Tansen fed some more wood to the fire, though there was no real reason to do so now that Mirabar was here; with a single breath, she could make it twice the size it was now. Still, tending the flames gave him something to do with the hands that wanted so much to reach for her. "While you were resting, I sent some men off to gather whatever information they could about Cheylan. If he's anywhere in the district, chances are he hasn't traveled completely unnoticed. Not him."

"That's a better plan than anything I've been able to come up with so far," she said.

"I think you're right. The place you're describing must be here in the east. Close to Darshon."

"Lava flowing," she murmured.

"We'll find them." He hoped it was true. 

They were both silent for a while, lost in their thoughts.

Mirabar finally said. "Najdan can protect Zarien. He has protected me from terrible dangers, you know."

They both knew that Mirabar was not as helpless as Zarien was. Still, the sea was Zarien's native ground, so to speak, so perhaps he would be less helpless there than he always seemed on land, if danger found him.

"I know," Tansen said slowly, "that you would rather have had Najdan with you when you face Cheylan."

She shrugged. "Perhaps this is the way it's meant to be."

Their gazes locked. "The two of us?"

"Sword and shield." Mirabar's expression crumpled a moment later, and he knew that she was thinking of how they had failed Josarian.

Though it was a subject that wouldn't cheer her up, he nonetheless said, "I'm sorry, I've never been able to learn what happened to your teacher, Tashinar."

"Neither have I," she said quietly. "It's almost as if she's neither alive nor dead."

"Like Josarian," he muttered. Caught in the agony of the White Dragon as long as Kiloran lived.

"Perhaps very much like Josarian." She shook her head, her expression sad and frustrated. "I don't know. I can't tell."

They were silent again. And, as if sensing the tension which surrounded and grew between them, no one else camping in these sad ruins attempted to approach them.

After a while, she said, "So this is Gamalan."

"A long time ago it was," Tansen replied. "Now it's just... the past that clings to us all in Sileria."

In the shifting glow created by the dancing lights around Darshon's summit, Tansen's gaze traveled to the spot where, so long ago, he had seen Armian fight and kill the Outlookers who had ambushed them here. 

He knew from the gossip among the Moynari and Marendari here that some people feared Gamalan was haunted. Tansen
knew
it was, but he said nothing.

And over there
, he thought, looking elsewhere,
is where Armian urged me to kill for the first time, and I couldn't do it
.

"Nothing good has ever happened here," he said quietly. "Nothing."

Gamalan was a bitter place. It always had been. It was the worst of Sileria.

"You're wrong," said Mirabar. "
You
were born here."

He heard the warmth and affection in her voice, heard the things he longed to hear from her. He couldn't look at her, because he knew that if he did, he wouldn't be able to bear not touching her. And she was another man's wife.

So he just stared into the fire and said, "It's neutral territory. No one left alive can call it their home. Not even me. Not anymore." There was nothing left for him here, not since the day he had found his family dead and then followed Armian away from here and toward his fate. "So it's the only place I could think of where everyone would agree to come for a truce meeting."

"Yes, that makes sense." Then she asked, "Whose house am I sleeping in?"

"I don't remember," he admitted. 

"Where was your house?"

He nodded to a hillside full of rocky ruins. "Up there. But they've all fallen down and tumbled together. I can't tell which one was ours anymore." 

After a long moment, she sighed and said, "There's a lot of sadness here."

Recovered from his moment of uncontrollable craving for her, Tansen glanced her way. She turned her head, and he was briefly chilled to see how unerringly her gaze went to the spot where the victims of the Valdani massacre had lain ten years ago. Mirabar's posture was rigid, and she was as still as an animal scenting danger. He wondered what she sensed there, but didn't want to ask, didn't want to call up more of the memories that haunted his nightmares. Not now. Not tonight.

Then her attention shifted to another spot which was scorched from a recent funeral pyre. "That must be where Semeon's body was burned, along with his entire Guardian circle." She made a soft, grieving sound and covered her face with a hand. "I sent Cheylan to protect him."

"The Guardian boy with red hair?" When she nodded without looking up, he said, "You think Cheylan killed him?"