In Legend Born

by Laura Resnick

  "Tan..."

  "I'll never know." He leaned forward. "And neither will you."

  "I..." Josarian looked away. "Jalan was right about one thing. I wouldn't be here if Calidar were still alive. I wouldn't have started smuggling with Zim. I would never..." He shifted restlessly. "And if I hadn't... would any of this be happening?"

  Tansen shrugged, frowning in thought. "The demon girl's visions were of me, not you."

  "Mirabar?" When Tansen nodded, he asked, "Then would you have led the shallah rebellion?"

  "I don't know what I would be doing if you were safely tucked in bed in Emeldar right now," Tansen admitted. "I wanted vengeance when I came home. I wanted Valdani blood. But... I had no plan, no purpose, no goal. And I didn't have your vision." He put his hand on Josarian's shoulder, doing the comforting for a change. "You looked into the future and saw rebellion. War. Maybe even freedom. You saw something that would outlive both of us, something much bigger than personal vengeance or private hatred. I never saw any of that until you showed it to me. I can't be sure that I ever would have seen it, without you."

  Josarian stared into the flames. "Then if I must be here for all of this to happen..." He sighed, wishing the ache would ease. "I would have rather died a hundred times than be the cause of Calidar's death, but..."

  "But?"

  "She would have rather died for something than for nothing. For a reason, rather than sheer chance."

  Tansen inhaled deeply and leaned back, staring into the sacred flames. "To see shallaheen drive Valdani tribute collectors out of their villages," he said slowly, "rather than cower and let them take whatever they want. To see Silerians put aside their bloodfeuds to pick up swords, standing side by side against the Outlookers. To see the dust of mounted riders fleeing from us in fear, and to dream of them someday fleeing Sileria and leaving it forever. To claim our land, our cities, our pride after a thousand years of serving foreign rulers..." He nodded, his voice warming well beyond its usual measure of laconism. "Josarian, I want to live more than you do, and I think it's worth dying for. Maybe she would have, too."

  "Maybe she would have, too," he echoed softly. "I just wish I could have asked her."

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Najdan had feared only two things in life: hunger and Kiloran. Then she had appeared, overwhelming those fears with the fury of her fire. Young and small, fine-boned and tireless, blessed by Dar and cursed with visions, unprotected by rank, family, clan, or companions, Mirabar had gone alone into Kiloran's lair, faced the most powerful waterlord in the world, and somehow conquered him. Alone beneath the surface of Kandahar with a merciless wizard, his deadly assassins, those dangerous mountain rebels, and an arrogant torena, she had bent them all to her will, and now they served the shades she Called forth and the visions which haunted her.

  Now, as ordered by Kiloran, Najdan served Mirabar, too. For his master's sake, he tried to learn all he could about her. For her sake, he protected her from danger. Now that they were no longer enemies, he honored her courage and her power; and he respected her as he had previously respected no one but Kiloran.

  Najdan no longer feared Mirabar as he had in the beginning. He knew now that, whatever else she was, she was no demon; she wasn't even a killer. She had captured and caged him, could have killed him at any time, and probably should have; but she hadn't, not even when he had tried to kill her.

  He had finally recognized her true greatness at Kandahar. The others there all did as she told them. Even Kiloran, though he clearly did not like it, bowed to her judgment, and the assassins at Kandahar were afraid of her. Searlon had not been there, but Najdan suspected that even Searlon himself would have to acknowledge that forces beyond his reckoning guided Mirabar, just as powers beyond Najdan's dreams acted through her.

  And so Najdan served her, with the courage and loyalty he had offered Kiloran for twenty years. Najdan was not a great man, but he was ideally suited to serve great men—or a great woman. He had pulled himself out of the most hopeless poverty a man could be born to and made a success of his life by knowing what he could do better than other men—and who could best reward him for it. For twenty years, Kiloran had made him one of the wealthiest assassins in Sileria. Whatever this girl could offer him in exchange for his service, Najdan knew it wouldn't be wealth; she was poor even for a Guardian. He only knew that when a man saw a prophet, a visionary, a sorceress feared even by Kiloran, then he'd be a fool to count pieces of silver and gold to weigh her worth.

  Najdan escorted Mirabar north from Britar now, her mission there successfully completed, a recalcitrant waterlord brought into the rebellion in accordance with the will of the Society and the Otherworld. Now their small party of four argued about which way to go. As usual, the two rebels, Lann and Zimran, were not showing Mirabar the respect which Najdan increasingly felt was her due. And as usual, Mirabar used her tongue the way an assassin used a shir.

  "Dalishar," Zimran insisted. "We're supposed to return to Dalishar, and I don't care what kind of cryptic messages come to you in your visions, I'm—"

  "And I don't care who is waiting back at Dalishar to bed you," Mirabar snapped. It took only the briefest acquaintance to understand what most motivated Zimran. "We can't go there."

  "Sirana," Lann said, "perhaps if you explained why we can't go..."

  Najdan decided he did not need explanations. If Mirabar said they must not return to Dalishar now, that was good enough for him. She was a powerful sorceress, while the other two were mere shallaheen. He said so, glaring coldly at Lann and Zimran.

  "Some of us have been used to doing our own bidding all these years," Zimran said contemptuously, "rather than following the dictates of a waterlord and—"

  "Shallaheen follow the will of the Society, too," Najdan snapped. "Not to mention the dictates of the Valdani, the toreni, the merchants, and the Guardians. The lowest of creatures always do the bidding of all the others in the forest."

  Lann's face darkened as he reached for his sword. Seeing his movement, Mirabar slapped a small hand against his chest—hard—and physically jumped into the center of the argument, her eyes blazing as she whirled to glare at them all.

  "Enough," she said fiercely. "Will we kill each other so that the Outlookers don't have to bother doing it?"

  "No woman waits for me at Dalishar." Zimran sounded sulky. "My cousin is there. May I respectfully remind the sirana who leads the shallah rebellion?"

  "And who leads Josarian?" Najdan countered. "He listens to the sirana better than you do, you woman-faced—"

  "All right, let's leave insults out of the discussion, shall we?" Mirabar eyed the way Zimran's hand twitched towards his yahr. "I'm telling you we will not live to reach Dalishar if we attempt to go there right now."

  Zimran looked sharply at her. "So the Otherworld does warn some of you?"

  She said only, "The Sign of the Three blocks the path to Dalishar in my visions. We must go to Zilar."

  "Zilar?" Lann's hairy jaw dropped. "Sweet Dar, sirana, why so far away?"

  Mirabar sighed. "I don't know. The Beckoner wants us to go there." She shrugged. "We are needed in Zilar."

  "That's a long way," Najdan said. They had nearly run out of money. "We'll need to rob a Valdan again."

  To his surprise, Lann laughed. "I never thought that robbing Valdani would become such a humdrum matter."

  Zimran thought it over for a moment, then smiled. "I believe that the Imperial Advisor owns an estate between here and Zilar."

  The argument settled, Najdan smiled, too. "Ah."

  "This is a filthy business." Josarian's voice was subdued, his expression tight as he walked through the streets of Zilar, followed by a silent, grim-faced crowd.

  "Something an assassin would do," Tansen agreed, walking at his side.

  Srijan, who accompanied them, glared at them both. "Would you rather we had not discovered him?"

  The sriliah they had been seeking for over a twin-moon had given enough information to the O
utlookers to cost the shallah rebels money, lives, safety, and time. The names of nearly thirty of Josarian's men were now known, with substantial rewards offered for all of them. Josarian, of course, headed the list; the Valdani were by now willing to pay enough for his head to turn a shallah into a minor toren. The next-highest reward was offered for Tansen shah Gamalani, an "escaped felon" who had stolen the valuable swords of a shatai who had briefly been a guest of the Commander of Cavasar earlier in the year.

  So, Tansen reflected, Koroll had not only finally learned what had happened, he had even come up with a creative story to conceal his own part in Tansen's release from captivity, all those months ago, fully-armed and secretly eager to help Josarian kill more Outlookers. Well, such ingenuity had undoubtedly helped Koroll wind up where he was today: High Commander of all Sileria.

  Far worse than the minor—and inevitable—inconvenience of many of the shallah rebel leaders now being known to the Valdani were the additional problems caused by the sriliah's violation of lirtahar. The countryside around Dalishar was now so heavily infested with Outlookers that coming and going had become virtually impossible without entering into battle, usually with the distinct disadvantage of being the attacked rather than the attackers. Leaving behind enough men to defend the caves (and his sister), Josarian had recently spread word through the mountains that no one was to go near Dalishar until the territory could be fully secured by the rebels. So many Outlookers were now based at Chandar, the nearest village to the Dalishar caves, that it was tempting to poison the water there, as they had done at Emeldar. However, in fear of such a plan, the Outlookers now routinely forced a shallah prisoner to drink before they did every single time they drew water from a Silerian fountain, well, stream, or lake.

  In addition, a rebel camp had recently been attacked, and nine people were killed, including two Guardians. An attack on a huge tax shipment had failed a few days ago because the Outlookers had been expecting it; someone had obviously told them about the rebels massing in the area the previous day.

  The Society had finally discovered the sriliah in Zilar, though they had revealed the information only to Josarian. The man, still unaware that he'd been identified, had been clever and careful—but not quite careful enough, in the end.

  Two days ago, Josarian had instructed his men to spread a false rumor in Zilar, indicating that he was about to abduct Toren Ronall—Elelar's husband. Yesterday, a tailor named Harjan, who enjoyed a more comfortable life than most shallaheen, had discreetly disappeared from town for the day while his wife claimed he was in bed with fever. Josarian and Tansen had followed him to a meeting with an Outlooker whom Tan had recognized: Myrell. It had been tempting to kill that putrid, baby-murdering Valdan on the spot, but there were only two of them against twenty Outlookers, and they had more urgent business at hand. They'd followed Myrell's runner last night, making sure that there was no mistake, that he was definitely heading for Ronall's nearby estate to warn him. At dawn, they'd watched Outlookers riding to the estate to prepare for an attack.

  So now, positive that they'd found the man who had betrayed them to the Valdani, Tansen and Josarian made their way through Zilar to Harjan's comfortable house.

  "What are you going to do?" Srijan asked eagerly, keeping his voice low to avoid being overheard by the villagers who followed them.

  The people here knew that something deadly was about to happen, almost as if this were a Society assassination. Josarian and Tansen would not enter a town and walk boldly through it, grim-faced and subdued, because they had nothing better to do today. Everyone knew that they been searching for the traitor in their midst. Tansen had witnessed many scenes similar to this in his boyhood. Oh, yes, people knew why he and Josarian were here today, and why Srijan was there to display the Society's support for them. People here had already guessed why they had come to Zilar. Now hundreds of dark eyes watched them, round with apprehension, shadowed with suffering. For no one yet knew whom they had come to punish, and everyone feared it might be a loved one, a friend, or a relative.

  "What will you do?" Srijan repeated.

  Tansen glanced at Josarian's tense face, then gave Srijan a quelling look. The assassin had retrieved his shir from the inn where Tansen had left it lying at summer's beginning, but Tan could easily take it from him again if need be. However, Elelar had lectured him firmly on the foolishness of angering Kiloran—as if he might have already forgotten what it could lead to—and he had promised to try to tolerate Srijan for the sake of the rebellion.

  "We'll do what's necessary," Tansen said briefly.

  Josarian's breath was uneven, his face slightly pale. "I've killed many men," he said. "Far too many already, though I know there will be many more. But... I've never killed a Silerian. Another shallah. One of us."

  "Oh, they die as easily as Valdani, you'll find." Srijan smirked.

  Josarian ignored him. "I wish..." He sighed. "Oh, well. It cannot be helped. I will make enemies here today. Everyone honors lirtahar. Everyone understands assassination and knows why I will kill the sriliah... But surely someone here cares about him, and so I will make enemies."

  It was true, Tansen realized. Now that they were here, now that they had found the traitor, they were caught in the paradox of Silerian culture. If Josarian did not kill Harjan today, he would lose respect and influence overnight. Women would doubt him, and men would despise him. There would be more betrayals, too, because the risk of betrayal would start to seem negligible, and betraying such a weak man wouldn't be considered nearly as great a sin as betraying a respected one. And the Valdani were offering so much gold for any break in the silence... However, if Josarian killed Harjan, then, yes, he would make enemies. Everyone disapproved of a sriliah; but even among those who reviled Harjan's betrayal and understood Josarian's actions today, there would nonetheless be those who, probably because of a blood-tie to Harjan, must become Josarian's enemies after this. From there, discontent would spread. Not seriously, perhaps, but the rebel alliance was too young to shrug off any threat to the unity of the shallaheen. Just as they couldn't afford any appearance of weakness in Josarian, they also couldn't afford a single shallah resenting his sword or claiming personal vengeance against him.

  Tansen knew what he must do.

  I did not come home to kill shallaheen...

  Was this Dar's vengeance, that he must do this hideous thing today, that he must become like the assassin—the bloodfather—he had murdered in silence on that dark, windy cliff nine years ago?

  Please, there must be another way, another answer. I do not want to slaughter my own kind.

  Even as he silently cried out for escape from his duty, the shatai in him focused on the task at hand.

  "You will make no enemies here today," he said to his bloodbrother. "You must... stand as the injured party. I will do the rest."

  Srijan jerked with surprise.

  Josarian shook his head. "No, Tan. It is my office."

  Tansen kept his voice low. "You can't perform it," he said tersely. "You can't afford enemies, and you know that we cannot walk away from this."

  "I am the one—"

  "Who must lead the rest," said Tansen.

  "A man faces his own—"

  "I told you once before," said Tansen. "Never let pride lead you into a fight."

  "And what about honor?" asked Josarian.

  "Yours must be served in a different way." Keeping his voice low, he stopped and looked hard into Josarian's troubled eyes. "Think like a leader instead of a shallah, and you'll see that I'm right. If this were Arlen and the aftermath of Malthenar, you could do no wrong, for no one knew or cared about him, and everyone craved vengeance then. But this..." He shook his head. "This is a native son of a comfortable village on a quiet day. No one here has seen the bloodshed Harjan has caused. No one here has suffered because of him."

  Josarian looked down, looked away, looked everywhere but at Tansen. "This is not how it should be."

  "I agree. But this is th
e way it is."

  Srijan sneered at them both. "Tansen is a hired killer, anyhow, Josarian. What's the problem?"

  They ignored him.

  Face crumpling with emotion, Josarian finally nodded. "Yes, Tan," he said at last, his voice borne on a note of sorrow. "You're right."

  Tansen turned and continued walking to Harjan's house, saying to his brother, "Stay silent. You stand only as the injured party."

  It was a position usually reserved for one who had petitioned an assassin to seek justice on his or her behalf. By custom, the injured party could seek the death of an offender without, in most cases, instigating a bloodfeud.

  "You are not an assassin," Srijan muttered contemptuously.

  "No," Tansen agreed. "I'm a shatai, a son of the greatest warrior caste in the world, honed in stone and steel, honored by the gods of Kinto and the sorcerers of the Stone Forest, respected by all men, and feared by most. You," he concluded with bitter satisfaction, "are merely a murderer with an enchanted blade." He strode up to Harjan's house and left Srijan sputtering behind him in outrage.

  Josarian took his place, in plain view behind Tansen, and stood by silently while Tansen called Harjan out of his house. Straightening his gossamer tunic, Harjan came outside and gave Tansen a smile that was nervous and quizzical. His wife stood in the doorway of their home, a plump woman with a wrinkled forehead and thick fingers. Tansen didn't allow himself to wonder if she loved her husband, if there were children inside the house, or if the man's brother was somewhere in the watching crowd. He focused on what he must do.

  "Harjan. Here stands Josarian mar Gershon," Tansen began, "whom you have injured with betrayal to the Valdani."

  Though they were undoubtedly expecting the accusation, the crowd gasped collectively and began arguing in agitation. Harjan's wife brought her hands up to her mouth, her face contorting with fear. Harjan shook his head and starting babbling denials.