The Destroyer Goddess (54 page)

Ronall leaned over the railing of the boat and stared down at the water. He held his breath... watching... watching... staring hard at the shifting surface of the sea, peering into its mysterious depths...

There!

Or no, maybe not.

He'd never seen a dragonfish, and he was pretty sure he didn't want to. He wondered if he really
was
seeing something preying on this boat far beneath the water's undulating surface, or if that was just his imagination.

Imagination, probably
.

He'd imagined seeing things before. Plenty of times. When he was drunk, of course; but especially when he couldn't get
enough
to drink. He shuddered. Yes, that was the worst. When the Valdani had imprisoned him in Shaljir after Elelar's violent escape, they had deprived him of all soothing drink, and he'd seen horrible, terrifying things even worse than these shadowy glimpses of what he now feared was a dragonfish. So he knew his own eyes were not always reliable. 

Especially now. His seasickness ensured he was appallingly sober, and his body didn't like it. He was also bored, lonesome, melancholy, and ever more hungry for...
something
... anything. A life that meant something; a death which would free him from one that didn't; a reason to live; the courage to die. Above all, he longed to escape his own company, which had never been more oppressive than it was here, now, confined aboard this boat with a sulky boy and a sea-born family who were about as interesting as rocks.

So, no, it wouldn't be surprising at all if he were seeing things that weren't there. Especially considering the horrors he'd been imagining ever since seeing those incredible dragonfish scars on Zarien's torso.

But if a dragonfish
was
now circling these closely-clustered boats... 

Ronall might mention it to the sea-born, but he was afraid they'd believe it and scare him with their speculations. He'd already discovered how much they hated and feared the dragonfish even while they also—with an irrational streak which the
shallaheen
would doubtless appreciate—longed obsessively to confront them in combat.

In the damn water, no less
.

Now Ronall begged Dar and the Three not to let a dragonfish get him. He wanted to cry with fear every time he thought of those terrible scars on Zarien's body.

He believed Zarien's story about Sharifar saving him. After all, who but a goddess could have saved the boy from such terrible wounds?

No one and nothing
.

Ronall had never seen anything like it. Clearly no one else around here had, either. Everyone else's reaction, when Zarien bared his torso, had been just as shocked and dazed as a mere drylander's. Ronall shuddered now, trying not to think about what a dragonfish could do to a boy—or a man. 

Or a
toren.

As for the coming of the sea king... Well, why not? Dar had found the Firebringer, so why couldn't some sea goddess get what she wanted, too?  

As long as a dragonfish doesn't get
me,
Sharifar. That's all I ask
.

He leaned over the railing and peered hard at the water, watching for the shadowy shape of a voracious monster in its depths.

"Are you going to be sick again?" Zarien asked him.

Ronall flinched. "Don't sneak up on me like that!"

"I didn't."

"I... I suppose I'm a little jumpy," Ronall conceded, peering over the railing again. What in the Fires was down there? "Anyhow, no, I'm not going to be sick. I was already sick, just a little while ago. I don't suppose you noticed, though."

Zarien had been so introspective, Ronall wasn't even sure the boy had noticed the increasing activity at Mount Darshon. Ronall had noticed it, though, and he alternated between wanting to go ashore and then pessimistically deciding he wouldn't be any safer there. 

At least if I die at sea, no one will try to burn my corpse
. 

There was enough Valdan in him to be repulsed by the way Silerians disposed of their dead. A watery grave seemed better than a funeral pyre. Besides, he'd always had a morbid fear that someone would mistake him for dead when he was really just dead drunk, and burn him alive.

Three help me, where is my life going?

Far from "saving" the Silerian-born Valdani here in the east, he was stuck on this boat with a brooding boy who'd scarcely said a word to him in days. And unless Tansen stopped the
shallaheen
from feuding with each other, Ronall would be afraid to go ashore here, anyhow, because the Society would certainly prevail. If they found out he was a
toren
, they'd hold him for ransom; if they found out he was a Valdan, they'd kill him.

Suddenly Zarien lifted his head and stared landward with more interest than he'd shown in anything but his own thoughts all day. Ronall followed his gaze and saw a boat approaching them.

"More of your relatives?" Ronall asked.

Zarien shook his head.

"Who, then?"

Zarien shrugged.

Ronall was relieved that it wasn't more of those Lascari people. After the astonishing story Zarien had told about dying and being reborn, his grandfather had taken him aboard his own boat to talk. Ronall was not invited. He was "landfolk," which evidently put him on the social level of dragonfish excrement, and the Lascari had private and important things to discuss with Zarien which Ronall had no right to hear. Indeed, just the fact that Zarien was on friendly terms with a "drylander" like Ronall seemed to appall his grandfather.

"Old-fashioned," the sea-born folk aboard this boat had said.

"Rigid and narrow-minded," Ronall had opined.

Zarien had stayed with his family until very late, and he'd returned to this boat wide-eyed, shaken, uncommunicative, and profoundly affected by whatever his relatives had said. 

His visit with them the next day had been equally private and much briefer. After that, the boy brooded on this boat, refusing to tell Ronall anything and rejecting most of the food offered to him. Sometimes he helped with the chores on the boat, clearly trying to lose himself in hard labor. Other times he sat alone and gazed into the distance, lost in thought and rebuffing any attempts to find out what was bothering him.

Ronall was starting to feel very, very sorry for Tansen. Marriage to Elelar was beginning to look easy compared to being a father to the sea-bound boy.

When Ronall asked Zarien why he didn't visit with his family again, the reply was, "I don't belong with them. I never did."

Whatever they had said to him, it must have been pretty harsh. Surely dying and being forced to look for this sea king should have excused the boy from the usual strictures of sea-bound life, but apparently he was being shunned. At least, that was the best guess of the sea-born family on this boat.

So it didn't surprise Ronall that this wasn't another Lascari boat sailing towards them now.

The next thing he knew, chaos broke out. 

The little girl on lookout aboard this boat screamed, "It's an assassin! An assassin! I see his
shir!
"

Someone on the approaching boat shouted, "Zarien? We're looking for Zarien!"

The father on this boat started shouting. The eldest son seized an oar. The mother started screeching in dialect, and Ronall felt terrified.

A moment later, the other boat was close enough that Ronall could see someone who, though not dressed like an assassin, must surely
be
one. No normal person looked that mean. 

"Darfire, what's going on?" Ronall choked out. He grabbed Zarien. "How did an assassin find you here? What's he
doing
here?"

He had never thought he would really have to protect Zarien —and he'd certainly never ever thought he'd have to protect him from an
assassin.

"What's
he
doing here?" Zarien said, clearly stunned.

"That's what
I
just said."

This is it. My time has come. I'm going to die.
 

He would die defending Zarien from the assassin, because that would at least be better than facing Tansen and admitting he'd let Zarien be killed. 

"No," Zarien said, "I mean—"

"Get behind me. Go below. Um..." Ronall glanced at the boy. "Maybe get in the water?"

"The water?" Zarien repeated.

"No, don't!" Ronall said, remembering. "The dragonfish!"

"What dragonfish?"

"He's coming aboard!" someone shouted.

Zarien muttered, "He should ask for permission."

"Killers don't need to be polite!" Ronall tried to push Zarien down onto the deck.

"What are you doing?" the boy demanded, evading his grasp.

"You're right," Ronall realized. Not the deck. "Up the mast?"

"What?"

"Go!"

"
Toren
, stop pushing me—"

"
Now!"
Ronall insisted.

The assassin jumped from that boat to this one and raised one arm, holding something in his hand. 

Ronall flinched, then knocked Zarien down, leapt in front of him, and saw... "A
jashar
?" he said blankly, staring at the object in the man's hand.

"Tansen's
jashar
." The man eyed Zarien sprawled on the deck. "Have I come at a bad time?"

Zarien sighed. "Hello, Najdan."

"You
know
him?" Ronall demanded.

"Hello, Zarien."

"You
know
each other?"

There was a lot of shouting, and it was all very confusing for a few moments. Then Zarien, speaking in sea-born dialect, calmed everyone else. Finally, Najdan, so stern and terse it was hard to believe he'd really come here to protect rather than slay Zarien, explained his purpose. He spoke common Silerian, rather than
shallah
dialect, so that everyone could understand him. 

"Searlon?" Zarien said in response to Najdan's horrifying explanation. Now the boy looked scared. "I saw what he did to my grandfather."

"Searlon has been here already?" Najdan asked sharply.

"Not recently," Zarien replied. "He found my family a while ago and questioned them about me."

"Ah." Najdan shrugged. "Well, he has always been very thorough."

"Thorough?" Ronall repeated, appalled.

Najdan looked around, as if surveying the chosen battleground. "By now, Searlon knows that Tansen is here in the east."

"How can you be sure?" Ronall asked.

"Because he's Searlon," Najdan replied.

"Oh. Yes. And he's thorough."

"Exactly. He'll also have determined that no one has seen the boy with Tansen and realize that Tansen has left him somewhere safe. Although there will be a number of possibilities to eliminate, he'll know that Tansen will no longer trust the safety of Sanctuary. It will soon occur to him that the best place to hide a sea-born boy is among thousands of sea-born people." Najdan paused before adding, "He will find, as I did, that the sea-born folk gossip more readily than
shallaheen
do. Particularly when the subject is as interesting as a boy bearing sea-bound tattoos who came here in the company of drylanders."

"You have a gift for making things very clear," Ronall said sourly.

"Thank you."

"Why couldn't Tansen come himself?" Zarien demanded. "Why did he send
you?
"

Najdan started to explain about the problems among the
shallaheen
which Tansen must solve, but the boy interrupted him rudely, then turned away and started sulking. Najdan looked at Ronall, as if expecting him to do something about it. Ronall shrugged.

I think I'm glad that Elelar and I never had children
.

"Our orders," Najdan began, "are—"

"Orders?" Zarien repeated in a surly tone.

Najdan gave him a hard look. "When I reached Gamalan, your father was about to abandon everything to come here and protect you." He paused before adding, "I really cannot understand why."

Zarien's tattooed face flushed with strong emotion and his mouth worked silently for a moment. Then, as if remembering he'd been raised better than his recent behavior suggested, he lowered his eyes and stiffly murmured, "I'm sorry. What are our orders?"

"We're to go further out to sea and..." Najdan's voice trailed off, his eyes widened, and he went very still.

"What?" Ronall asked.

Zarien looked around, as if hearing something. "What is that?"

There was a distant rumbling.

Najdan said, "It sounds like..."

It got louder.

"
No
," Zarien said.

There was a terrible crash, as if rock and sky and air all collided in sudden fury. 

Oh, no
.

People started screaming as they realized what was happening.

"I'm going to be sick," Ronall said.

"What happens at sea during an earthquake?" Najdan shouted above the growing roar from the coast.

Zarien shook his head, his young face contorted with emotion. "This is my first time!" he shouted back.

The sea-born family was frantically trying to do something. Zarien apparently understood, because he moved to try to help them. Ronall looked at Najdan, who shrugged, as ignorant as he.

"Didn't Zarien's family die this way?" Ronall asked.

No one heard him above the screaming and shouting of the sea-born and the terrible roar coming from land. 

Suddenly the sea exploded and the world fell away. It was as if the water upon which the boat floated instantly disappeared, and they dropped fast, falling through thin air.

Ronall screamed and fell down. Najdan grabbed his hand and caught him. His whole body jerked to a painful halt—which was when he realized he'd been sliding across the deck, which was suddenly vertical instead of horizontal.

We're capsizing!

Water everywhere. Covering them all. Filling Ronall's mouth and nose. And falling, they were still falling.

Then a horrible heave threw them skyward. Dangling from Najdan's grasp, Ronall had no breath left to scream in mindless terror. There was a hard thud, then a terrible crash. He heard a  spine-chilling splintering sound, as if the boat were coming apart.