In Legend Born

by Laura Resnick

  Arlen looked a little pale. "She says her son swore a bloodfeud against the Valdani with Josarian."

  "So we've got the right man," Myrell said impatiently. "So what? Can she tell us—"

  "She says that she herself will kill the first person who dishonors Corenten's bloodpact by betraying Josarian."

  Myrell swayed slightly, then looked around to see if anyone in the village intended to challenge this ridiculous threat. To his disgust, heads nodded, chins came up, shoulders squared, and all gazes fixed on Corenten.

  What had Koroll told him they called it—their code of silence? Lirtahar... Myrell sighed inwardly.

  Knowing it would be a long, ugly day, he signaled the executioner to begin the torture. Corenten's screams of agony filled the air. His mother's proud features tightened with horrified grief as tears coursed down her cheeks, but she would not look away. The whole village watched, silent, stone-faced, and unflinching, as one of their own endured three hours of the most gruesome death Myrell himself had ever seen.

  Three Into One, how he hated these people!

  "In the name of Dar and all that is holy..." Basimar said, her voice heavy with horror. "What is that?"

  Less than a day from Dalishar now, they stumbled across the most gruesome sight Mirabar had ever seen. She lowered her concealing hood, heedless of who might come upon them unexpectedly, and stared in shock.

  The fresh corpse of a man was spread-eagled between two slender trees which grew alongside the road, his hands and feet securely tied to keep him in place. Carrion feeders had been feasting on the entrails hanging from his open belly; Basimar's scream had frightened them away, but the swarm of insects remained, as did the stench.

  "This looks like..." Basimar swallowed and gagged.

  Mirabar took the Sister's shoulders and turned her away from the sight. "Like who?" she choked out.

  "Like Valdani torture."

  Mirabar's gaze flashed to Basimar's face as the Sister fought back her nausea. "You've seen this before?"

  "Once," Basimar said, her voice thick. "Years ago. A local boy who'd been sleeping with a Valdani girl. When they were caught, she claimed... she said... "

  "She saved her reputation by claiming he had raped her."

  "Yes."

  "And the Valdani did this to him?"

  "It's their... most severe punishment. Death by slow torture." Basimar was breathing in shallow gasps. "For the crimes which most offend them."

  "Touching their women," Mirabar said.

  "Or killing a Valdan."

  "Killing a..." Mirabar gasped. "We're so close to Dalishar!"

  "Mira, no!" Basimar tried to grab her as she lunged forward to investigate the body.

  "It might be one of... one of... Oh, Dar, it might even be him! It might..." Quivering with disgust, she picked up a stick and pushed away mangled, dangling entrails to get a good look at the dead man's jashar.

  Trying to look at anything except at what Mirabar was doing, Basimar said, "No, it couldn't be. See how his hair is shorn, how his clothes are so immodest? Tight, almost like a Valdan's? He's a city-dweller, not a..."

  "His palms are scarred," Mirabar argued. "He wears a jashar."

  "There's another one!" Basimar said.

  Mirabar jumped and looked around. "Where?"

  "No, not a body. Another jashar."

  Mirabar looked up and saw that a small jashar hung around the dead man's neck. She looked down again at the man's waist, then averted her gaze from the mess there. "He is Arlen mar—"

  "So die all who betray their own kind," Basimar interrupted, interpreting the jashar around the man's neck. "So die all who betray Josarian."

  Mirabar backed away from the corpse, gaping in horror, unable to form a coherent thought. Basimar started weeping. Appalled by the dawning realization of what her alliance with this warrior would cost them all, Mirabar fell to her knees and begged Dar for guidance.

  Torena Elelar mar Odilan yesh Ronall shah Hasnari emerged from her scented bath and began polishing her skin with the subtly fragrant oils that kept it sweet, soft, and reasonably fair beneath Sileria's passionate sun. No amount of cosmetics, of course, could make her as fair-skinned as the pale, bloodless women so prized by the Valdani, but at least their men did not seem to find her wanting in grace, delicacy, or beauty.

  Faradar, her personal servant, began dressing her hair, twisting and weaving it into the elaborately coiled and braided style of a Silerian aristocrat. Then Faradar helped her don the clothes she had selected for the evening. She did not wear Valdani clothes, and she knew how the Valdani laughed at Silerians who aped their customs and fashions. Instead, her own clothes were so exquisite that she had instigated the new trend of Valdani women in Shaljir occasionally wearing Silerian clothes.

  Now she laughed at them—but secretly. Yes, as she did everything in life—secretly.

  Heavy footsteps outside her dressing room heralded the unexpected arrival of her husband a moment before he flung open the door without ceremony or apology. He stalked into the room, threw himself into a cushioned chair, glared at Faradar, and growled, "Get out."

  Faradar glanced at her mistress.

  Elelar nodded. "That will be all. You may go."

  The girl bowed and made a dignified exit. Having entered Elelar's service seven years ago, two years before her mistress's marriage, Faradar was too accustomed to Ronall's tantrums to scurry away from him or cower beneath his angry scowl.

  "I want to talk to you," Ronall said. His words were clear, but his eyes were glazed and unfocused. So it was Kintish dreamweed tonight, Elelar surmised, rather than Valdani liquor or Moorlander opiates.

  "You're not dressed yet," she interrupted. "We'll be late."

  "Then we can damn well be late!" He blinked, lost his train of thought, and asked, "Where are we going?"

  "Your father's birthday celebration. Don't tell me you've forgotten?" She gazed innocently at him.

  He flung himself gracelessly out of his chair and snarled, "It slipped my mind after I learned what you've been up to."

  She waited, unwilling to encourage him, suppressing the flickering fear that he might have learned the truth at last. She kept her face impassive while her mind raced, wondering what Ronall could have discovered after all this time.

  "You had her sent away," Ronall growled. "I warned you not to interfere."

  "What?" Elelar blinked, trying to follow her husband's obscure train of thought.

  "The girl... the one with the yellow hair..."

  She frowned, wondering what in the world he was babbling about. "What girl? What are you—Oh!" Relief flooded her mind, the sensation so strong that she briefly wondered how she managed to live with the tension of her daily existence. "That Moorlander acrobat that you so admired at the Palace?"

  "The one I wanted for myself!"

  "I believe you had her for yourself, my dear. The Imperial Stables right in Santorell Square is hardly a discreet place for such activ—"

  "Where is she?"

  "On the mainland by now, I assume," Elelar said. "The troop was scheduled to play in—"

  "She said she would stay with me."

  "And she's gone?" Elelar was getting bored. "Why do you suppose that I had something to do with it? You warned me early in our marriage not to interfere in your—"

  "Damn right, I did," he snapped.

  "And I have never disobeyed you since then," she reminded him.

  About one year after their marriage, Elelar had helped a frightened new kitchen girl escape Ronall's persistent attentions by finding her a position in another household. Ronall had learned about it and was furious enough to cause a hideous scene in front of all the servants. Since that bitter quarrel, Elelar had simply avoided similar problems by trying to ensure that none of their servants were women likely to appeal to Ronall's tastes. And, fortunately, he'd always hated Faradar too much to touch her.

  "I went looking for the girl," Ronall said, apparently still convinced it was Ele
lar's fault that he'd lost the Moorlander acrobat. "They said a torena paid her to leave Sileria with the rest of the troop."

  "Really?" Elelar paused in the act of rouging her lips. "A torena? I don't suppose you got a description of her?"

  "No." He frowned in confusion. "Why should I?"

  "Far be it from me to suggest that the girl was anything less than a pearl of faithful devotion to you..."

  "But?" he prodded, glaring at her.

  "Don't you think it possible that someone else became interested in her, too, and that perhaps that man's wife was less willing to share than I am?"

  Not surprisingly, his attention was diverted away from his loss, which Elelar expected him to forget entirely by this time tomorrow, and shifted to a new grievance. "Share? As if you even notice my absence. When was the last time we shared a bed, my dear?"

  Despite her revulsion for him, she never once backed down or shied away when he asserted his conjugal rights. She looked him right in the eye and said, "I am available, sir, whenever you feel capable of getting an heir."

  He paled. Her arrow had struck home. "You can't blame that on me, you faithless bitch!" he raged. "How many others have been between your legs and not gotten a brat on you?"

  "No one but Borell," she lied.

  "And he can't fill your barren womb, either!"

  "He takes precautions against bastards," said Elelar.

  "You think it's my fault!"

  "Did I say that?"

  "You don't have to. It's written all over your smirking, superior, whoring face!"

  She shrugged and turned away. "We've had this conversation before. I see no point in—"

  "I do!" He struck the rouge pot out of her hand and seized her by the shoulders. "You want an heir?" Ronall snarled, his hot breath fanning her face as he pushed her up against the wall. "Then I'll give you an heir, damn you!"

  She felt his body grinding against hers and realized with a brief flash of panic that he meant to do it. Unfortunately, no matter how Ronall abused his body and senses, he seldom lost the ability to service a woman—with about as much skill and sensitivity as the verb implied.

  Elelar turned her face away from her husband and endured his assault with as much dignity as she could. She had learned the hard way that fighting him when he was in this mood only produced injuries that took days to heal.

  This happened seldom enough, after all, she told herself. It wasn't as if he demanded her body often anymore. And it would be over soon. He never took long.

  It was her wedding night all over again. Now, as then, she gritted her teeth against the pain of his biting kisses, squeezing hands, and rough, plunging invasion. Now, as then, she begged Dar to make her womb barren, because she did not want to bear a child by the half-Valdan drunkard she had married. Now, as then, she washed thoroughly the moment he left the room, scrubbing away all trace of him until her flesh felt raw.

  Now, as then, she did not permit herself to weep, for she knew her duty, and the Alliance needed her courage.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Eons ago, in an age lost beyond memory, beyond reckoning, the Beyah-Olvari had peopled Sileria in a life of peace and simplicity. Then fired-eyed, dark-skinned warriors crossed the Middle Sea to invade this vast, mountainous island. No one knew whence they came, though many believed they had come from the little known lands far to the south, from the dense jungles where great, unknown sources of water fed the vast Sirinakara River. It was said that they had braved the deadly rapids and terrifying waterfalls of the north-flowing river to come in search of a land floating in the middle of the sea, a nation promised to them in prophecy.

  These warriors were a new race of beings: taller, broader, heavier, stronger, faster, and far more violent than the fragile little blue-skinned people they drove inland from Sileria's southern coasts. They brought fire into a land where water had been the source and center of all power and prosperity. They saw the island's great snow-capped volcano erupt in flaming fury, and they worshipped her, developing extraordinary abilities during their centuries of communion with her. They brought war to a land where there had never even been weapons. They brought violence, fear, and turmoil to a world which had known only peace.

  "And these," Josarian said heavily, "were my ancestors."

  The old Olvar nodded, his movements delicate, slow, graceful, almost as if he floated in water. Josarian looked around at the underground cavern to which Tansen and the little blue people had led him via a very well concealed trap door in the floor of the bedchamber at the inn. The tunnels and chambers down here were small and low-ceilinged, as befitted their diminutive inhabitants. The feeble light in these caverns came from strange plants and little quivering creatures which glowed with phosphorescent brilliance—cool, flameless, soft sources of light covering the damp walls and ceilings.

  Josarian was only sure he was awake because he knew he could never dream anything so fantastic.

  So far, he had been treated with more courtesy than he would have expected, considering that he had begun his acquaintance with the Beyah-Olvari—the Followers of the Olvar—by trying to strangle one of them. However, after some initial confusion and alarm, they seemed satisfied when Tansen assured them that Josarian had merely been very surprised to see them—thus demonstrating a heretofore unsuspected gift for understatement. Then, after some ceremonial greetings which had seemed to Josarian to take rather a long time under the circumstances, the Beyah-Olvari had led him and Tansen into the bowels of the earth.

  "Where are we going?" Josarian had asked, ready to slug Tansen if he was as unresponsive as usual.

  "They're taking us to see the Olvar."

  Their four tiny companions uttered something that sounded like a blessing.

  "The what?" Josarian asked.

  "The Olvar," Tansen repeated. He paused while the Beyah-Olvari uttered the blessing again, then continued, "He's their chief, their hereditary leader. He's sort of a sage, prophet, king, and wizard all rolled into one."

  "A wizard?" Josarian repeated uneasily.

  "Water magic."

  "A waterlord?"

  The Beyah-Olvari muttered something that sounded a little frantic.

  "They do that whenever you say something evil. It's a banishing prayer," Tansen explained.

  "Oh." Josarian peered at their companions in the dark. "I'm sorry."

  Now they said something that sounded like a prayer with his name in it.

  "A blessing," Tansen said blandly. "They like you."

  "So the Olvar..." Josarian paused for the blessing. "...isn't a... you-know-what?"

  "No. But the Beyah-Olvari invented water magic. Discovered it. Whatever. And the first waterlord, Marjan..." Tansen paused while the tunnels around them echoed with another banishing prayer "...discovered their secrets long after they had disappeared. He found ancient holy sites, cave paintings, magic sources. He learned to interpret the secret symbols and sacred signs they had started adding to their cave paintings toward the end. They did it to leave a record, a memory of who they were and what they had known, when..."

  "When..." Josarian prodded, hearing Tansen's voice trail off.

  "When they realized they were dying off. That soon there would be nothing left to show that they had ever been here."

  "Tan..." Josarian paused as the Beyah-Olvari began a strange, wailing chant.

  "It's a mourning prayer," Tansen said, so quietly that Josarian almost didn't hear him.

  "But what happened? Why—"

  "The Olvar will explain it to you," Tansen said, his voice rising slightly above the echoing noise of the blessing being uttered at the mention of the Olvar. "He'll tell you who they are and how they wound up here."

  And so the Olvar did, recounting the tragic history of his race in a lilting voice as his wrinkled blue hands dipped and stirred in the glimmering pool of water which he sat hunched over. His aged features were darkly shadowed and weary whenever he looked up at Josarian; but when he peered down into the Sacre
d Pool, the phosphorescent light emanating from it seemed to make his face glow with youthful enthusiasm and energy.

  "Yes," the Olvar said in response to Josarian's comment, his dialect strange and his accent thick as he spoke archaic High Silerian which, fortunately, was similar to the mountain dialect. "They were your ancestors. The New Race, that is your race."

  "Then..." Josarian felt shame for things which had happened thousands of years before his birth. "Surely you must hate us."

  "Hate... requires hotter blood then ours," the Olvar said. "And some of us survived."

  "How?"

  The Beyah-Olvari had retreated over the span of time, withdrawing first into the highest, most inhospitable mountains, then later into the dankest coastal caves. Never a prolific race, they began dying faster than they gave birth.

  "Sometimes slaughtered by the New Race," the Olvar said. "But most often the Beyah-Olvari, blessings be upon the people of this name, died of disease and hunger. Diseases that your forefathers brought here with them, or new ones which they alone were strong enough to survive. Or hunger, as we were driven further and further from the gathering-gardens which had fed us since the dawn of time."

  The small, scattered tribes sought different ways of enduring these cataclysmic events. Some moved to increasingly remote mountaintops, and no one knew what had happened to them. Some tried to ignore the changes in their world; in the end, their bones were scattered across the lowlands like feathers carried on the wind. Some tried to cross the Middle Sea, believing that if Sileria had been promised to the New Race, then surely a land for the Beyah-Olvari lay just beyond the horizon.

  The mourning chant of the Beyah-Olvari who were gathered around them now echoed sorrowfully through the cavern, sending chills down Josarian's spine. He looked around at them, then quickly looked back at the Olvar. The Beyah-Olvari wore nothing that could be called clothing, just brief leafy coverings over their loins. The shallaheen were a modest people, and Josarian's blood raced with embarrassed interest whenever he looked directly at any of the females here: tiny, graceful, strange beyond description, virtually naked... and unmistakably women.