"I swear..." Kiloran began.
"I swear..." Baran echoed, caught in the web of the old man's power, drawn into the seductive beauty of the sorcery they both commanded with a skill unknown to anyone else alive.
"By the power born in me, by the cold purity of the...
"...of the element with which I rule men, women, children, even the land itself..."
"By the ancient secrets of water magic entrusted to me and by the inviolable laws of the Honored Society..."
"I swear that I will honor this truce now declared between us, until we vanquish our enemies. I will not harm you..."
"Or your friends, or the friends of your friends..."
"Until the blood of our enemies flows...
"...even as this water flows now."
Baran felt the water that twined around their joined arms grow even colder with Kiloran's sorcery, so cold that an ordinary man's arm would be damaged by it.
"If you betray me," Kiloran warned, "nothing—"
"As you once betrayed me?" Baran said, flooded anew with hatred.
The frigid watery coil tightened, squeezing hard. A man would be in agony. Even a waterlord should be uncomfortable now. But Baran was not just anyone, and the hot flood of hatred brought a return of his strength. Smiling coldly into Kiloran's dark eyes, Baran started melting the water which bound them.
"I taught you well," Kiloran observed, struggling for supremacy, holding onto the water with his will, freezing it even as Baran melted it. The water glowed and writhed in torment as they wrestled for control of it.
"You were his teacher?" Meriten blurted, reminding them of the others' presence.
"Now we know who to blame," Dulien grumbled.
Ferolen sputtered, "You—You—You made him a waterlord? You're the one who—"
"Made him what he is," Kiloran said with a flash of bitterness.
Baran laughed, enjoying the moment, feeling revived. "You don't really believe you taught me everything I know, old man?"
The comment startled Kiloran enough to distract him from the liquid shackles binding them together. Baran felt the old wizard's will fall away from the icy coil around their arms. Pleased, Baran melted the water. It dissolved into a silvery mist, freeing him from Kiloran's grasp.
"So you had another teacher," Kiloran murmured thoughtfully. "Of course. That explains a great deal that used to puzzle me."
"How I became so powerful based only on what I learned from you?" Baran suggested.
"Yes."
"At least," Ferolen said to Kiloran, "you evidently had the sense to stop teaching him when you realized what a madma—"
"No, that's not what happened," Baran said, the steel in his voice making Ferolen look at him with surprise.
"Who else taught you?" Kiloran asked, curious enough to betray his interest.
"Good question," Ferolen said. "Who in all of Sileria would be fool enough—"
"Perhaps it was someone tired of teaching mediocre half-wits, Ferolen." Baran smiled sweetly and added, "For example."
"Keep in mind," Ferolen warned, "that I have not sworn a truce with you."
"If you had the guts to attack me, you'd have done it years ago," Baran said dismissively.
"I've never known who taught you, Baran," Gulstan remarked, raising his voice a little to be heard above Ferolen's sputtering. "And I've always wondered."
"Come to think of it," Kariman added, "I've never known either."
"I always assumed he killed whoever taught him," Dulien muttered.
"And now we know he's tried," Meriten said with a pointed glance at Kiloran. "So maybe he did kill his next teacher."
"I do so enjoy being a man of mystery," Baran said, delighting in Kiloran's scrutiny.
The old wizard shrugged with feigned indifference. "Well, it doesn't matter."
"And there are so many things in a man's past," Baran murmured. "Are there not, siran?"
"So many things best left in the past where they always belonged," Kiloran said with deceptive gentleness.
Baran felt it again, as Kiloran meant him to—the hot sorrow of his loss, the futile rage of his helplessness, the murderous frustration inspired by Kiloran's casual indifference to all that he had destroyed.
"And there are so many things yet to avenge," Baran whispered, his voice choked with wild fury.
The threat hovered in the air between them. Kiloran did not deign to reply. His flat eyes merely gazed back at Baran, cold and hard. Snake eyes. Dragonfish eyes. The eyes of a man born without a heart, without a soul. A man who could hurt without regret, betray without shame, destroy without compassion.
The man I've become, too.
The man Baran had made of himself, because it was the only way he could become strong enough to destroy the man he now faced.
The other waterlords stared at the two of them in fascinated silence. A breeze swept through the village of Emeldar, stirring Baran's hair, carrying the scents of the mountains to him. The scents of his youth—of everyone's youth.
He lowered his gaze, wracked with sorrow.
"Dare I point out," Meriten said, his voice unusually nasty, "that you've just declared a truce and made your vows before witnesses?"
The tension in the air exhausted Baran. The illness riddling his body consumed his strength. The taste of his life was like ashes in his dry mouth.
"Then our business here is concluded, isn't it?" Baran said. "Much as I regret it, I find I must tear myself away from the pleasures of your company and return to Belitar." He smiled whimsically and added, "Tansen's delightful messenger is still waiting around for my answer to his offer of friendship."
"Ah," Kiloran said, showing some interest. "Then you have sent no answer yet?"
"Didn't I just say so, old man? Do try to keep up."
Ferolen snapped, "Must you be such a—"
"Leave it," Kiloran advised Ferolen. He glanced at Baran and added, "He knows what to do now."
Baran arched one brow. "I know what you would do."
"Exactly."
"Ah." Baran considered this. "I am to be the poisoned goat?"
"The what?" Kariman said.
"The poisoned goat?" Meriten repeated.
Baran glanced their way. "In the jungles south of Kinto, when villages are troubled by a man-eating tiger, they leave a poisoned goat tethered to a tree at sunset."
"And what the tiger takes for an easy meal," Kariman guessed, "is really his death in disguise?"
"Yes."
"You've been to the Kintish Kingdoms?" Gulstan asked.
"One of or two of them," he replied with a shrug.
"Then you did come from a merchant family, as some say?" Gulstan persisted. "Traveled and traded?"
Baran ignored the waterlord's interest in his past and said to Kiloran, "So I am to make Tansen lower his guard. And then what? Kill him?"
"When the time comes, I'll deal with Tansen myself."
"Ah. Then it's true." Baran smiled and pretended a malicious pleasure he was too weary to feel now. "It's personal. What did he do to you, I wonder?"
Kiloran ignored this, of course. "You will deal with Mirabar."
"A great sorceress like that? You flatter me, siran."
"No, I don't think I do," Kiloran said dryly.
"And regardless of who survives, Mirabar or me, you'll have solved at least one problem when it's done."
Kiloran shrugged. "Of course, if you really feel you're not up to it..."
"Oh, that's good," Baran said. "Very good."
"Well?"
Baran caught Vinn's eye and nodded. "The sooner I return home, the sooner we can kill Mirabar, starve Shaljir of water, and bring down Tansen." As his assassin came to his side, he said to the six waterlords before him, "I can't tell you all what a pleasure this has been."
"I know that I shan't soon forget it," Kariman replied.
"Nor do I hope to repeat it," Gulstan added.
"Until we meet again," Baran said to Kiloran. "Which, I si
ncerely hope, will be when I kill you, old man."
"May the wind be at your back," Kiloran murmured.
A blessing of the sea-born.
Baran's breath stopped. He thought his heart must have stopped. Rage misted his vision. His stomach churned and his throat knotted.
He stared at the grizzled old waterlord in speechless fury for a long, hot moment. Then a traditional shallah blessing he hadn't heard—let alone used—in many years came to his lips. "May your son bring you honor and... Oops!" he said cheerfully. "Too late for that, isn't it?"
Baran heard someone—he didn't see who—gasp in shock over this callous reference to Srijan's death. He smiled in bitter triumph as Kiloran's dead eyes revealed more emotion than he had ever before seen in them.
"Oh, dear, how thoughtless of me," Baran murmured. "Do forgive me, siran."
"Get out." Kiloran's voice was flat.
"I fear I've touched a sore spot," Baran confessed to Vinn.
"Then perhaps we should leave now, siran," the assassin replied, keeping a watchful eye on Kiloran.
"You don't think I should stay and try to cheer him up?"
"With respect, siran," Vinn said, "I don't advise it."
Baran shrugged. "Of course, he should have anticipated what happened. If you betray someone like Josarian, you've got to expect retaliation. Don't you agree, Vinn?"
"Get out," Kiloran repeated.
"Oh, very well. If you're going to take that attitude." Baran sighed and turned away, pleased with the taut silence among the waterlords as he walked away from them. All the way across the main square of Emeldar, he could feel Kiloran's gaze burning into his back. He suspected that never had the old man wanted to kill him quite as much as he did at this very moment.
Baran and his two assassins mounted their horses, then headed east out of Josarian's abandoned village, still aware of the tension in their wake.
"Now that was a very entertaining day," Baran said. "Wouldn't you agree, Vinn?"
"It's always an entertaining day when I am with you, siran," the assassin replied. "But today... Yes, today was especially good."
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I am prepared to die today. Are you?
—Tansen
The night fell hard on Mirabar, frustrating her plans at the end of another long day of travel.
Ejara, the second moon, had finally abandoned the night sky. She was not even a sliver-thin crescent overhead anymore. Her absence heralded the end of yet another cycle in the wheel of time which spun as smoothly and relentlessly in this world as it did in the Other one. It was dark of the moons now, nights of syrupy blackness when no ordinary person ventured far from his hearth. In these extraordinary times, though, being ordinary was a luxury that hardly anyone in Sileria could afford.
Tonight Mirabar, Najdan, Pyron, and their companions were camped high up on the steep and treacherous slopes of Mount Niran. They had hoped to reach the Guardian encampment today, but the consuming black of a dark-moon sky made Pyron insist that they stop for the night before someone broke an ankle or fell off a cliff. Although longing to speak with Tashinar as soon as possible, Mirabar agreed to stop and make camp for the night.
Far from Sanctuary, exposed and vulnerable, they lit no fire tonight, lest unseen enemies be lurking somewhere in the dark. Najdan lay down to rest immediately after eating a cold meal of bread, cheese, smoked meat, olives, and figs. He would rise in a few hours to assume sentry duty during the empty hours when other men were most apt to be sleepy and dull-witted.
Too restless to sleep yet, Mirabar joined Pyron where he perched on a rocky outcrop and kept watch with ears rather than eyes in the impenetrable dark. She heard him shift slightly as she approached him, alerted by her soft footstep. He drew a sharp breath through his nostrils, then sighed in evident relief. "It's you."
"It's me," she agreed.
"Darfire."
"What?" she asked in a whisper.
After a slight hesitation, Pyron admitted, "Your eyes. I used to think they were reflecting firelight or moonlight at night. But I was wrong. They glow on their own."
Since she heard him dusting off a spot on the boulder for her even as he spoke in low tones, she didn't take offense. "Don't bother, I'm dusty already," she whispered, sinking to a sitting position without waiting for him to finish clearing a spot.
"Is something wrong?" he asked, his voice barely audible. It wasn't like her to seek his company.
"No, I'm just..."
"Eager to get to the Guardian encampment," he guessed.
She nodded. Then, realizing he probably couldn't see the gesture, she whispered, "Yes."
"Is it far?" Pyron asked.
"The encampment? No. If there were any light tonight, it would have been worth it to press on until we reached it."
Mirabar could have lit the way for them, of course, but Najdan was against so boldly exposing her presence here before reaching the safety of the Guardian encampment. On a night like this, there was no telling who crept stealthily through the darkness on the other side of the fire, and Najdan saw no point in courting trouble.
"Your..." Pyron paused. "Your teacher is there?"
"Yes. Tashinar."
"What is she like?"
Mirabar smiled as she considered the question. "Very unlike me," she replied at last. "Calm. Wise. Gentle."
"Old?"
"Yes. A respected elder of our sect. And very brave. She resisted Valdani torture once, long ago. Didn't talk even when they—" Pyron shushed her, and she stopped abruptly.
Together they listened in tense silence for a few long moments. Then he sighed and murmured, "Nothing." She continued listening to the thick darkness until he prodded, "Didn't talk even when they...?"
"They took three of her fingers," Mirabar whispered, her attention still focused on the many subtle sounds of night in the mountains. "They left her for dead, lying in the dust somewhere between Cavasar and the Orban Pass. But she survived."
"Dar curse them and all th—"
"Shh!"
She felt Pyron's tension in the silence that followed, but when they still heard nothing, he whispered, "What?"
"I don't know," she said slowly.
She shivered, sure something was wrong. But what?
Then there was murmuring nearby, from their own companions. It frustrated her attempts to hear and distinguish every faint sound, and it exposed them to whatever she suddenly feared was out there in the dark.
"Sirana?" Najdan's voice.
"Quiet," she snapped, knowing that he'd already revealed their location to anyone within earshot.
There was silence for a moment, and then she heard Najdan's approach. His voice, though soft, carried through the darkness to her. "What are you doing?"
"Nothing. Be quiet." Then the realization chilled her. "What woke you?"
"Someone is doing something," he said grimly.
"Your shir." Mirabar rose.
"Yes."
Pyron scrambled to his feet. "What about his shir?"
Najdan said, "It's agitated."
"It's not responding to me. I'm not doing anything." Mirabar turned and began picking her way through the dark, adding to Pyron, "You'd better come. We can't stay here."
"But—"
"We're still at some distance from them," she said.
"The Guardians?" Pyron asked, following her.
"Yes." She spoke at a normal volume now. The time for stealth had passed. "So if his shir is responding to their magic, then..."
Najdan found Mirabar's arm in the dark, and he helped her down from her stony perch. "Then they're invoking a great deal of it."
"That must be this... this... " Mirabar shook her head. "Whatever I'm feeling. It must be coming from them."
"They're under attack?" Pyron guessed.
"Yes." Najdan's reply was terse, his attention already fixed on the problem. "They must be. My shir is shaking so hard it will barely stay in my jashar."
"We've got to he
lp them," Mirabar said, aware of the other men gathering around her as they realized what was happening.
"By fighting waterlords? How?" Pyron prodded. "By attacking assassins? How many? And where?"
"We've got to help them," Mirabar repeated.
"We cannot risk your safety, sirana," said one of the other men. "If there are assassins or waterlords attacking—"
"Then I will fight them, too," she insisted.
"Tansen said—"
"I'm in charge here," she snapped.
"No, you're not. Right now," Pyron pointed out, "Najdan's in charge."
He was right, she realized. Najdan knew more than any of them about what they were facing. They must accept his judgment and follow his orders.
"Najdan?" Mirabar prodded. When the assassin didn't respond, she gripped his thickly-muscled arm and said in desperation, "Najdan, please. Tashinar is there!"
He hesitated, then briefly covered her hand with his. Coming to a decision, he said, "We must act quickly, then."
Ronall awoke in the dark, alerted by a soft sound. He lay there listening for a moment, wondering what had disturbed him, but he heard nothing else.
Whatever it was, though, he was wide awake now. Moderately alert, but still pleasantly drunk. He had rested just enough to feel no desire to go right back to sleep.
With consciousness, though, came the return of his heartsick longing. Longing for something. Longing for everything. Longing for more.
More Kintish fire brandy. More of the good dreamweed he'd been lucky enough to acquire yesterday... Two days ago? Last night? He wasn't sure. But it was good.
And more of the woman who'd ministered so skillfully to his needs after sundown.
He turned his head and smelled the clean linen of the bedclothes, now perfumed with the heavy scents of sex and sweat. He vaguely remembered bespeaking the sole spare bedchamber in this small, simple inn in... Actually, no, he didn't remember what village he was in. It didn't matter. Just another Darforsaken town of stone and dust somewhere in the Threeforsaken mountains of this godsforsaken country.
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