The White Dragon (73 page)

Now
, Baran thought.
I could do it now. Who cares if it's forbidden? Who cares if they all descend on me and kill me right here, as long as he dies first?

He called to the water in the fountain, that tainted, sad water which Josarian had used so ruthlessly to defeat his enemies. Baran touched it now with his senses and coaxed it to his will... Only to find it was already in someone else's grasp.

"Damn you," he whispered, feeling the sting of Kiloran's sorcery in conflict with his own. He knew the sensation of Kiloran's magic well, having felt it daily throughout their years-long war for control of the Idalar River.

Kiloran was still stronger, still the best. Baran could challenge him and survive. Baran could seize hold of Kiloran's water and cling to it with ferocious tenacity, violating Kiloran's command of it, mitigating his power. But Baran couldn't take the Idalar away from him, no matter how hard he tried. Now Kiloran had grasped Emeldar's central fountain before Baran reached for it, and Baran couldn't take this away either.

He might have fought for it, might have let this be the day he killed Kiloran or died trying... but fiery pain suddenly seized his innards. The world disappeared as he squeezed his eyes shut, clenched his jaw, and tried not to cry out in pain.

"Thank you." The voice was Kiloran's, satisfied and snide. He had felt Baran lose his grasp of the fountain's waters. Perhaps he even thought Baran had let go willingly.

He must master the pain. Mustn't let them see he was ill. He should have chewed some of those disgusting leaves of Velikar's before entering the village. Oh, well, too late to worry about it now. All he could do now was invoke the iron will that had made him who and what he was.

"You're welcome," he murmured, hoping his voice sounded dry rather than pain-fogged. He opened his eyes but kept his gaze lowered. "I wouldn't want to be rude."

A moment later, he heard Ferolen gasp. The gush of water filled Baran's ears as the sudden flare of sorcery filled his senses. If he didn't hate Kiloran so much, he would admire him; there was a time, actually, when he had. Now he heard Meriten rise to his feet, heard assassins shouting. As the pain faded, slowly receding into a dull ache, Baran looked up, though he could already guess was what happening.

A tower of water rose straight up from the fountain to loom over the square. At its peak, it divided into hundreds of strands that shot through the air, curving gracefully as they descended to touch the ground all around the square. An impressive spectacle, Baran acknowledged in silence, and one which effectively turned Emeldar into a watery cage. Although most of the riders reined in their mounts, one frightened horse lost its wits and careened straight into the silvery glowing bars that stood between it and the rest of Sileria. Baran winced when he heard the solid
thud
of horse and rider hitting crystallized water.

"Ouch." He said to Kiloran, "I don't like to criticize, but you could cause ill feeling with tricks like that."

"Oh, do shut up," Ferolen snapped.

"Are you always this edgy," Baran asked him, "or do I bring it out in you?"

"You bring it out in everyone," Meriten muttered.

Gulstan bellowed in outrage. His voice carried across the square as he shouted, "Stop this at once or we will respond in kind!"

"Oh, this should be good," Baran said. "I can't tell you how glad I am that I came here tod—"

"It'll be a bloodbath," Meriten snapped.
 

"Exactly," said Baran. "You're keeping up better than I expected."

Meriten's eyes iced over with fury. "If you—"

"That's enough," Kiloran said. "From all of you." The old waterlord caught Searlon's eye and nodded.

"
Sirani
," Searlon said, raising his voice to be heard above the threats of the trapped waterlords and their assassins. "My master means you no harm. Let us all remember that this is a truce meeting." He glanced over his shoulder at Baran, his handsome, scarred face disdainful. "And let us also remember that only one waterlord present is my master's enemy."

"I wish I had one like him," Baran remarked pleasantly. "But then, of course, so does everyone in Sileria." It was common knowledge that even some of the lesser waterlords feared Searlon—as did all of the Society's assassins.

"Unfortunately for you," Meriten advised him, "a waterlord must be wise and, oh,
sane
to command an assassin of Searlon's abilities."

"Why, Meriten, that was almost amusing," said Baran. "If you keep working at it, you may soon stop being the dreariest cuckold I've ever met. And speaking of your wife, tell her I—"

Meriten made an inarticulate sound of rage and leaped for Baran. Baran tried to block the first blow, but he was too slow. Meriten drove him to the ground. Baran fought back, but he could tell how his illness was weakening him. His defense was ineffectual, and Meriten's hands around his neck were making his vision go dark. Then someone plucked Meriten off him.

Choking and trying to conceal how shaken he was, Baran gasped for air. When his vision started to clear, he saw one of his own assassins, Vinn, holding a
shir
to Meriten's throat. As his gaze focused, he realized he was surrounded by seven or eight assassins now, all loyal to different masters, all with their
shir
drawn as they tried to decide what to do.

"Well." Baran suddenly felt weary. "That was interesting."

"Get up," Ferolen snapped.

When Baran spoke this time, still lying on the ground, it was to conceal that he needed time to gather strength before he could rise to his feet. "Do you know, Ferolen, from this angle, you don't look nearly so bald."

Ferolen's face contorted in a splendid surge of sputtering vexation. Baran eyed him, but the waterlord stepped back rather than giving into the impulse to kick him while he was down.
 

"Shall I kill him,
siran?
" Vinn asked Baran, still holding his
shir
to Meriten's throat. The jade and silver inlays, which always made Baran's
shir
among the most easily-identified in Sileria, gleamed on the hilt of Vinn's wavy-edged dagger.

Meriten stood very still, as vulnerable as anyone was to a
shir
. But, red-faced with rage, he ordered his men, "If I die here, kill them all! Kill them all!"

"You're going to upset people with talk like that." Feeling a little stronger, Baran rose to his feet. "This
is
a truce meeting," he admonished.

"And you have no idea," Kiloran murmured, gazing at Baran with interest, "how much I regret that at this moment."

Baran wondered if Kiloran knew, if he had guessed. Concealing his worry, like his weakness, he grinned. "When did you decide to start practicing honesty?"

The old man ignored the question and turned away to walk into the center of the square, stout, white-haired, dignified, and imbued with immense power. Yes, even Baran had to admit that Kiloran looked impressive as he stood at the center of his own high-domed, water-born prison and addressed the other waterlords.

"I sent no one against Wyldon," he said. "And I vow to punish any of my men who took any action against him."

"Rogue assassins?" Baran guessed loudly. "Growing wild and reckless as their master grows old and feeble?"

Kiloran ignored him. "However, without Wyldon here, instead of Baran, to speak for himself... Without the
shir
which Baran claims is proof that my men were involved... Without a Sister present to tell us that Wyldon and Baran did indeed meet at her Sanctuary, as Baran claims..." He shrugged. "Who can say what really happened?"

The others were great water wizards, powerful sorcerers who ruled whole territories, commanded hundreds of assassins, and made thousands submit to their will and their whims. But Kiloran was still the greatest, blessed with a fierce, deep, and finely honed power which awed even them. Individually, none of them could escape this prison while Kiloran lived, not unless he willed it. Even working together, they might not be able to break his power and melt the watery bars of this vast cage without Baran's help.
 

With Baran's help, they could probably kill Kiloran if they all united against him. But that kind of unity among them was no more likely than a Sister massacring a whole village. Besides, although none of them personally remembered the chaos which followed Harlon's death forty years ago, all of them knew about it. If Kiloran died violently today at his own truce meeting, the Society would erupt with such ruinous internal violence that Tansen wouldn't have to bother destroying them; they'd do it themselves.

These men knew all of this. Baran could see them consider their options and, one by one, decide that accepting Kiloran's word, rather than Baran's, might be the best choice. For the time being, anyhow.
 

Kariman, the most sensible of the three departing waterlords, was the first to dismount. He crossed the square, stood directly before Kiloran, and announced, "Perhaps we were too hasty."

"Perhaps something distressed you enough to affect your judgment," Kiloran suggested dryly.

Gulstan spoke loudly from his horse. "Forgive me for pointing out the obvious," he said to Kiloran, "but it's your fault that we can't kill him today."

Baran laughed. "Well, you
could
... But only think how happy that would make Tansen. All the chaos. All the mistrust and fighting amongst yourselves after my disgraceful murder at a truce meeting. All the condemnation and retribution from the rest of the Society." He nodded. "Yes, if I were going to accept Tansen's offer of friendship and devote myself to his cause, I think I'd try to get you all to kill me today. He'd be very happy with the results."

Dulien remarked, "Still, it might be worth the risk."

Searlon, seeing sudden movement among the men, said, "There will be no killing here today." His was a voice which commanded more attention than half the waterlords Baran had met.

Gulstan dismounted and said, "Perhaps Baran's tale about Wyldon's accusations is indeed best ignored for now."

Everyone present seemed to agree, and, as they all dismounted, the tension gradually dissipated. When Kiloran saw that the meeting would go forward according to his desires, he closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, and released the water. The crystal-hard bars melted, curled upward, and soared toward the sky, glaring blindingly under the brilliant sun. One by one, with a speed and grace that made Baran recall his earliest attraction to water magic, they coiled inward and dissolved into the towering pillar of water which rose from the fountain; then it sank slowly in upon itself, giving off a faint glittering mist as it came to rest.

 
Baran shrugged, uninterested in pressing Wyldon's argument on his behalf. If Kiloran meant to kill Wyldon, that was Wyldon's problem, not Baran's. Besides, Baran realized with sudden amusement, there was always the faint possibility that Kiloran was actually telling the truth and knew nothing about the assault on Wyldon's stronghold.
 

Baran hoped so. It would make today's quarrel all the richer and more delightful in his memory.

Now Kiloran turned to him, impatience revealed in those dark, flat, snake-like eyes. "Will you accept my offer of a truce? Will you become my ally until our enemies are destroyed?"

Baran shook his head. "Oh, that's not what you came here to ask me, old man."

Kiloran's lips thinned. "Will you release the Idalar River to my control so that I may ensure that the city belongs to the Society and not to Josarian's people?"

"You really should have thought of these problems before you killed him," Baran chided.

Kiloran's eyes narrowed. "What's done is done. What is your answer? Are you with us or against us? Will you come home to your own kind?"

"The Guardians are with Tansen," Meriten reminded him, as if anyone in Sileria might have forgotten. "And there can only be one victor."

"Fire sorcery and water magic cannot exist together in Sileria," Kariman said. "Not any more."

"Certainly not since the leader of the Society murdered the Firebringer," Baran agreed reasonably.

"You have no future with them," Kiloran said, ignoring the jibe. "They are not your friends. They cannot be, and they know it. They will use you, abandon you, and then destroy you."

"All right, I'm confused," Baran said to Kiloran. "
How
would that be different from your friendship?"

"This isn't about you and me. It can't be. And I know you understand that, no matter what kind of games you play," Kiloran said. "Everything is at stake now, Baran. The destiny of Sileria. The future of the Society. The continued existence of the waterlords." Baran felt some of the old man's undeniable charisma as he came closer and insisted, "Water magic itself will now perish or survive in Sileria, based on whether we let Tansen and his followers destroy us or we destroy them."

Baran almost flinched when Kiloran reached for him, took him by the shoulders, and held him at arms length like a father imploring a recalcitrant son to listen and understand. It had been a long time since they had stood this close together; even longer since Kiloran had laid a hand upon him in friendship.