The White Dragon (39 page)

"Not even though one ignorant boy was utterly convinced he was."

"More than one boy."

"Well, yes," he agreed. "Half the
shallaheen
in Sileria probably believed it. But Armian never did."

"What about your healed wound?" she asked.

"I think it's more about Zarien than about me. There's too much about that boy that's... unusual."

"Those scars," Mirabar mused. "No one should have lived through that."

 
"And his
stahra
." Tansen told her about what he'd seen in the cave where he'd been healed.

"You think the weapon responds if Zarien is threatened?" she guessed.

"He says the sea goddess gave it to him." Tansen shrugged. "It looks like any other
stahra
to me, but... I didn't imagine what I saw. I wasn't still feverish. He doesn't seem to know about its magic, but I'm sure it's not an ordinary weapon."

"He is not an ordinary boy." Mirabar thought it over. "If Zarien remains convinced you're the man he seeks, the one this goddess wants, then you may have to return to the sea with him. Sooner or later."

"I saw what being loved by a goddess did for Josarian." Tansen could admit this to her. She would understand. "It's not what I want."

Her expression was sympathetic for the first time since coming here. The memories glowed in her fire-rich eyes. "There were many ways in which he would have preferred to remain an ordinary man." She was quiet for a moment before adding, "But then, he had been a happy man."

Tansen looked away. "A wife he loved. A quiet life in his native village. A clan and a family... And no memories that haunted him."

"You may even find peace as the consort of a goddess," Mirabar suggested quietly.

"Do you want me to go to her?" he whispered.

"This isn't about what I want." Her voice was equally soft.

"Isn't it?" He met her gaze again, drowning in its exotic heat. "If I go to another's embrace..."

Tansen put his hand on hers. He felt her startled reflex, but she neither withdrew nor protested. Her skin was warm, her bones as fine as an aristocrat's. He explored further and found the remembered feel of her work-hardened palm.
 

He asked, "It will mean nothing to you?"

To be alone with her now, to see her look at him without anger, to smell her skin and feel its warmth...

Mirabar's fire-tipped lashes fluttered over lava-rich eyes. "You've already gone..."

"No." He leaned closer, his gaze drifting down to her mouth, to those soft lips.

"Gone to..." Her breath was shallow, her voice vague... until it settled on a word full of hurt: "
Her
."

"No." He shook his head. "Never."

"Only because she—"

"Don't bring her in here with us." Tansen heard the pleading in his voice and didn't care. "Not now."

She jerked away from him, startling him. "She is
always
here with us."
 

"Mira..."

"And it's not my fault. You're the one who carries her image with you." Mirabar rose to her feet with the swift agility of a mountain girl. "You're the one who will have to banish it."

Tansen watched her go, knowing no way to stop her, no way to reap what he wanted from what he had sown with this woman.

Chapter Fifteen

Why should we hate Silerians when
 

they're so good at hating each other?

      
      
      
      
—Imperial Advisor Kaynall

If you ever touch me again, I will tell Najdan to kill you.

So much for those fine, proud words, Mirabar thought as she left the cave and emerged into Sileria's brassy sunshine.

She couldn't ask Najdan to avenge a touch which she couldn't claim to have found insulting, let alone unpleasant. On the other hand, if Tansen's touch was the one she wanted, it was also the one that hurt her.

He had looked at her that way once before, had touched her with longing one other time... and had promptly forgotten her the moment Elelar appeared. Mirabar would not tolerate such dismissal again.

When he kills Elelar, when he does as he promised...

Then she would welcome him. Not before.

But he would never kill Elelar. Mirabar had seen that in his eyes as they argued. She had heard it in his words. Had felt it in his shame.

"She betrayed Josarian, and I..."

Oh, the
torena
was clever. How many more ways would she find to punish and torment Tansen for that night, so long ago, when a lone boy had stopped the Society from taking over Sileria?
 

Mirabar's feelings caused a storm in her which evidently showed on her face, since Cheylan crossed the clearing and said quietly, "He's upset you."

The last thing she wanted was to go straight from facing one man to dealing with the other. How had her personal life become so complicated? She could almost feel a twinge of sympathy for Elelar, whose every waking moment seemed to involve juggling the men who claimed—or wanted to claim—a right to her company. Mirabar, by nature and experience, was far less prepared than Elelar to cope with such pressures. The greatest difference, of course, was that Mirabar cared about both of the men who troubled her peace, whereas she doubted Elelar had ever cared about anyone.

"If you're not needed right now," Cheylan said, "then perhaps we c—"

"I am," she blurted, wanting to avoid a tryst with Cheylan on the heels of her confrontation with Tansen. Seeing his questioning expression, she added, "It's something to do with Zarien."

"
Did
he heal the
shir
wound?" Cheylan asked, his gaze going to where the tattooed boy sat glumly at the edge of the clearing, ignoring the activity all around him as rebels prepared to depart Dalishar in pursuit of their newly-assigned duties.

Mirabar had confided her interest in the boy to Cheylan while he and Najdan helped her investigate the cave where Tansen had lain dying.

"He says he didn't," she replied. "I'm inclined to believe him, but I want to know more." She called to Zarien. He rose to his feet and, bringing his
stahra
, came to join her and Cheylan. His expression was a little sulky.

"Come with us," Mirabar said.
 

She turned and led the way to the sixth sacred cave of Dalishar, which she entered. She passed through the successive chambers of the cave until they reached the fourth chamber. A huge Guardian fire, as old as the sect itself, burned in here, its flames rising up from the stone floor. A gateway to the Otherworld, perpetually open, its pull was so strong that Mirabar could hear souls streaming into its flames even now, their silent song reverberating through her head, disrupting her thoughts and making ordinary conversation difficult. She knew by the increased tension in Cheylan's face that it was the same for him.

Zarien's
stahra
remained immobile in his hand, with no sign of the life Tansen had described. If it was enchanted, at least it didn't hate fire magic the way all
shir
did, and that made Mirabar feel easier about it. There was no inherent enmity between her kind and whatever sorcery protected this boy.

Mirabar met Zarien's gaze and asked, "What have you brought to Dalishar from the sea, from your old life?" Seeing his puzzled expression, she clarified, "Personal possessions."

"Only my
stahra
."

"It's probably all that matters, anyhow," Mirabar said.

"What do you m—Hey!" Zarien protested when Cheylan took the
stahra
from him.

"We're going to try to do a Calling with it," Mirabar explained.

The boy looked suspicious. "What exactly does that involve?"

She replied, "We communicate with the Otherworld, to try to understand this world better."

Zarien looked even more suspicious. "Do I have to do anything? Or let you do anything
to
me?"

"No. We use a physical object, something which belonged to someone who's dead."

"I don't have anything—"

"In most cases, we can only Call shades from the Otherworld near the anniversary of their deaths."

"Why?" Interest was slowly replacing suspicion.

"The Otherworld revolves in relation to this one, time rolling over into time."

Zarien glanced at the
stahra
, now in Cheylan's hands, and reminded Mirabar, "That didn't belong to a dead person."

She pointed to the huge fire before them. "This is believed to be the oldest Guardian fire in Sileria. Ancient, sacred, very powerful." Mirabar gestured to the
stahra
. "Your weapon's origin is unusual, to say the least." She looked at Cheylan, whose eyes glowed hotly as he studied the oar. "Perhaps we can use it to learn more."

"I've told you everything I know," Zarien said.

Cheylan asked, "And don't you want to know more?"
 

Zarien looked at them both for a moment longer before saying, "All right, let's do this... this Calling."

He seemed changed his mind abruptly when Cheylan tossed the oar into the fire. "Wait! What are you doing?"

Cheylan held him back. "It won't burn."

"Won't burn?" the boy repeated in outrage, struggling out of Cheylan's grasp. "That's a fire, you—
Ow!"
He snatched his hand away from the flames.

"See?" Mirabar pointed out the way the
stahra
danced unharmed in the fire. "It doesn't burn."

Zarien stared open-mouthed. "How is that possible?"

The two Guardians ignored the question and started chanting, their voices blending together as if they'd done this often. In fact, Mirabar realized, this was the first time she and Cheylan had ever worked together. They did it well, as if they had been Calling the Otherworld in tandem for years.

It wasn't long before she felt a new presence among them, a powerful energy emanating from the fire. She could tell by the alertness in Cheylan's body that he felt it, too. Although they both remained immobile, the spirit was strong enough to pull their souls closer to the ensorcelled flames, dragging them towards the fragile boundary between this world and the Other one, toward that void where Guardians were sometimes lost forever.

"She is coming," Cheylan murmured.

He was right, it was a female presence. Mirabar added, "And her name is..."

Cheylan concluded, "Sharifar."

"Sharifar!" Zarien's excited voice barely penetrated Mirabar's senses, so absorbed was she in the fire, in the struggle not to go too far into the flames, and in the powerful voice which she felt echoing through her blood now.

Shimmering veils rose through the fire, finer than gossamer leaves, translucent and glowing. They undulated as if underwater, swaying in a gentle, unseen current. The golden glow of the fire faded and was replaced by dancing flames of pale blue, like the azure waters of the Middle Sea, tipped with frothy white foam.

Even Mirabar, who had seen many strange things in Guardian fires, gasped when Sharifar's body took shape, an incandescent sea creature merged with a woman of inhumanly opalescent beauty.

"Sharifar!" Zarien came as close to the fire as its heat would permit. "Am I right? Have I found the sea king?"

Stay in the current you have found. Let it carry you.
 

Mirabar heard the reply in her head and was about to repeat it aloud; but when Zarien responded, she realized he'd heard it, too. A shade of the Otherworld normally needed to answer the living with a Guardian's tongue; but in this, too, a goddess was different. Or perhaps it was Zarien who was different?