The Destroyer Goddess (58 page)

"So," Baran said, returning his attention to the assassin who was bleeding all over the carpet. "Meriten was your master?"

"No. Kiloran."

"Really?" Baran lifted his brows. "Whatever are you doing here?"

"I want to live."

Baran laughed. "I repeat, what are you doing here?"

"You are allied with the loyalists."

"'Allied' might be a slight exaggeration," Baran confessed.

"They think of you as their ally. So if there's one waterlord in all of Sileria who might survive the war now, it's you."

His insides on fire with mortal illness, Baran laughed again. "You're not very well-informed, are you?"

The assassin's pain-glazed eyes focused more sharply. "Are you saying they'll kill you, too?"

"No." Baran sighed. "Well, admittedly, I think Tansen would seriously consider it if the circumstances were a little different. But, no, they won't kill me."

"So they probably won't kill your men, either."

"No," he agreed, "they probably won't kill my men." His assassins would transfer their loyalty to his wife and daughter after his death. Mirabar had already shown a tremendous fondness for her own loyal assassin, so Baran counted on her to protect all of his, too. "And so, having guessed they'll survive,
you
want to become one of my men?"

"I want to live," the assassin repeated. "I believe my best chance is if I offer you my service."

"And why in the Fires would I—"

"I can tell you many things about Kiloran."

"I already know many things about Kiloran."

"I know more."

"Probably true," said Baran. "But what makes you think I'd ever trust a
sriliah
who—"

"You are one," the assassin pointed out. "Argh!"

"Now, now, Vinn," Baran admonished. "No need to kick him like that."

"He
dares
—"

"Well, it
is
true," Baran admitted. "I swore a truce with Kiloran, then betrayed him."

"And you have befriended Najdan, who betrayed Kiloran for Mirabar," the captive assassin added, his face contorted with fresh pain.

"
Befriended?
No, I don't think you can reasonably accuse me of that," Baran protested. "I really don't."

"You are like no other waterlord. I served Kiloran because he was the greatest. But now he is doomed—"

"That seems a little rash. He's still got—"

"He is weakening."

"Is he really?" Baran asked with interest. He thought he'd felt it—in the Idalar River, in the mines of Alizar—but he himself was weakening so much that he couldn't be sure. "Do tell."

"He will lose Cavasar. He may even have lost it already."

Baran sat down and sipped some of Velikar's pain-numbing tisane. "What makes you say Kiloran is about to lose Cavasar?"

"Guardians have been sneaking into the city—"

Vinn said, "We knew that,
sriliah
."

"And did you
also
know they've managed to take control of some of the secondary water supplies?" When they didn't respond, the assassin continued, "It's only a matter of time before they control it all. And the Cavasari, though once loyal to Kiloran, have turned on him because he murdered Josarian's sister in Sanctuary. It's just a matter of days—if that long—before Kiloran's rule is finished in Cavasar."

"You have my undivided attention," Baran assured him.

"Kariman is dead, too."

"Vinn, have all our informants fled to the mainland?" Baran asked irritably. "Why are we the last to hear about—"

"Not the last," the battered assassin assured him. "I fled Kandahar right after we learned this. And the moment Tansen finds out, Gulstan is finished, too. Gulstan lost so many men and so much territory during his bloodfeud with Kariman, the loyalists can finish him if they strike right away."

"Which they will," Baran surmised. "They've been waiting for this. For one feuding waterlord to eliminate the other and leave the survivor weakened and depleted."

"You see," said the assassin, still kneeling on the floor— and still, Baran noted, getting blood on the carpet. "The Society is surely doomed."

"Things certainly look very bad," Baran agreed.

"And Kiloran is finished."

"Oh, I am desolated to be rude to a guest, but I find your conclusion specious. You must know him far less well than you claim."

The assassin straightened his sagging shoulders. "You're wrong. He is finish—Oof!"

Vinn ordered, "Don't contradict the
siran
."

"Kiloran is in a very bad position, to be sure. But do you honestly suppose he's never been in one before? That he has no contingency plan? No new alternative? No nasty shock to offer his enemies?" Baran smiled bitterly and shook his head. "He is
Kiloran
, you slack-jawed idiot. Not just the most powerful. Not just the most skilled and experienced. Not just the most ruthless. He is also the smartest. The one who always has another plan ready. Do you honestly think he survived the chaos following Harlon's death, Valdani persecution, the Firebringer's enmity, Tansen's opposition, and my hatred all these years without always having another plan ready?"

The assassin shook his head. "Not this time. He cannot—"

"You gave up on him too easily. You abandoned your master before he was dead, or even beaten." Baran regarded the bloody assassin with contempt. "Do you really imagine I'd want someone like you in my service? Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but my standards are much higher than that."

The assassin's hard gaze met his. "If that is your view, then I request an honorable death, Baran. Since I have brought you valuable information, it is the least—"

"Can I kill him now,
siran?
" Vinn asked.

"I'm tempted to say 'yes' just because of the mess he's making of the carpet," Baran said. "But the
sirana
has been a bad influence on me. So let's just throw him out into the fray to fend for himself."

"Mercy?" Vinn muttered with distaste. "If you insist,
siran
."

"I'm afraid I do, Vinn. And I find your tolerance of my little eccentricities to be your most endearing quality."

Only after Vinn had called for men to escort Kiloran's former assassin away from Belitar did he return to the study. "A very interesting visitor, was he not,
siran?
"

"Indeed."

"You let him go because you're hoping he'll talk," Vinn surmised, considerably smarter than their guest had been.

Baran smiled. "It's heartwarming, isn't it, to think of him fleeing as far from Kandahar as he can get, all the while telling everyone he meets that Kiloran is doomed? Gossip is a very effective weapon."

"Yes,
siran
." Vinn added, "So you don't think Kiloran sent him to disarm you?"

"No," Baran said, "I really don't. I'm not disarmed by any of this news, and Kiloran wouldn't have expected me to be."

"What do we do now?"

"Now I think we should ask Haydar to see if that blood can be removed from the carpet." Baran sighed. "Perhaps having a challenge will keep her from moping so much about Najdan's absence. I find her long face very depressing."

"I meant," Vinn said patiently, "what do we do now about—"

"Oh, that." Baran felt his vision go dark as a fresh wave of mortal pain assaulted him. "That may well depend on what Kiloran's contingency plan turns out to be."

Najdan drew his
shir
and ordered everyone on board to prepare for attack as another boat approached this one.

"Wait," said
Toren
Ronall, coming to his side. "Put that thing away. Those are Zarien's relatives."

"The Lascari?" Najdan kept his
shir
ready but said, "Their boat seems undamaged."

The
toren
caught his eye and evidently realized his plan. "Zarien won't like this. There's something... not right between him and his family."

"He would like being dead even less than he will like being aboard their boat," Najdan replied. 

As the other vessel pulled alongside them, an old man bearing a fresh facial scar stared at him, then noticed his
shir
and fell back a step, his expression contorted with horror. The old man said something in a harsh voice, though Najdan only caught one word amidst the dialect:
Kiloran
.

Ah. Searlon had come to them, so they had seen a
shir
like this before. Najdan bent slightly to slip his
shir
into his boot, then said to the old man in common Silerian, "Zarien needs your help."

"Who are you?" the old man demanded.

"Najdan. I have been sent by Tansen to protect Zarien from Kiloran. Who are you?"

"My name is Linyan. I am—was Zarien's grandfather. But you carry Kiloran's
shir
. Why—"

"This boat is crippled," Najdan interrupted. "Zarien will be in danger if he stays aboard, whether from another earthquake or from the people looking for him. One mast is gone, the other—"

"Yes, we heard," Linyan said. "We also heard that Zarien fell overboard. Is he hurt?"

"Not badly. He's resting now," said Najdan. "He's a little stunned, but he'll be fine."

"Let me see him."

"Have you come to help him?" Najdan would force them to do so if he had to, but it would be easier if they helped the boy of their own free will.

"He is no longer one of us—" 

"Do you want him to die?" Najdan prodded.

"He is no longer one of us," Linyan repeated, "but we still care about him. We will help him."

"I'll wake him." Najdan turned to Ronall. "Get your things. We're changing boats."

The old man looked appalled. "I didn't say—"

"The
toren
and I have sworn to protect the boy with our lives. We will try not to disturb your family, but we will not be separated from Zarien until his father comes for him."

Linyan looked wary. "His father?"

"His bloodfather,"
Toren
Ronall clarified, evidently aware that Zarien's sea-bound father was dead.

"Oh. Tansen," the old man muttered. "That...
shallah
blood ritual." Linyan sighed. "Still, if Zarien must walk among the landfolk now, it's good that he has someone to care for him. And if Tansen is devoted to the boy—"

"He is," the
toren
said.

"Such a great man, by all accounts. He cannot possibly be the sea king, of course, but—"

"I don't care who the sea king is," Najdan said. "I just care about keeping the boy alive."

"Zarien won't like this," Ronall repeated.

"I don't care about that, either," replied Najdan.

"You haven't told him?" Mirabar asked.

Lying together atop a messy pile of their clothes, they held each other, unable to stop touching, and talked in quiet voices.

"I can't," Tansen said. "I've tried, but I... No, I'm lying. I don't think I've even been able to try."

She knew how Tansen hated the memory, and she could imagine how it tormented him to look at Zarien and remember himself as Armian's son. To keep the most important secret of his life from someone who had a right to know it, to be so ashamed of it that he couldn't bring himself to share it.

"Don't you think he could forgive you?" she murmured, brushing her hand across the hard muscles of his shoulder. She closed her eyes as he caressed her back and considered her question.

"Sometimes I do, but... Not always. Sometimes..."

"Yes?" she prodded, brushing his ear with her lips, reaching up to touch his hair, his face, the line of his jaw.

He looked at her, his gaze troubled in the shifting volcanic light pouring through the roofless ruin in which they lay. "Sometimes... he almost seems like a stranger."

"He is a stranger," she said reasonably. "He came from another life than ours, and he hasn't been with you very long."

"I can't tell him," Tansen insisted. "I can't tell my son I killed my father. Not Zarien. He wouldn't understand. I can't."

"You can't let it go unsaid forever," she said gently.

"His family is gone. He looks to me for guidance."