The White Dragon

by Laura Resnick

  Tansen smiled wryly, then asked, "What about the fighting in the east?"

  "Jagodan shah Lironi won't back down," Emelen said. "And his entire clan, as well as several others, are with him. Jagodan lost a brother and a son in the rebellion. He says they didn't give their lives just so the Lironi could spend the next thousand years being ruled by the Society instead of by the roshaheen."

  "That's good," Tansen said, feeling encouraged. He remembered his meeting here with Kiman shah Moynari. "Other clans are joining them, or soon will. I sent Cheylan east again, to pledge our support to Jagodan and encourage the Lironi."

  "What would encourage everyone," Emelen pointed out, "is presenting this new ruler that you and Mirabar have promised Sileria."

  "I know." He spread his hands helplessly. "I don't think anyone but Mirabar can find him, and she's... frustrated by the vagueness of her visions."

  "Where is she now?"

  "Mount Niran."

  "Niran?" Emelen exclaimed. "Have you lost your mind? Kiloran could get to her—"

  "She needed to go."

  "What could be so important—"

  "She's hoping her teacher can help her understand these visions, unravel their meaning. She's seen... things that disturb her."

  "Like what?"

  "I don't know," Tansen lied. No need to spread the worry around, he thought.

  "Why not have her teacher brought here?" Emelen asked. "Or somewhere safe?"

  "Tashinar is very old. I doubt she can travel this far anymore. And Mirabar was... restless. She needed to go." More worried than he wanted to admit, he added, "I've learned it's usually best to let her follow her instincts."

  "What about you? Radyan says you're leaving for Shaljir."

  Tansen nodded. "There are things I need to do there."

  "And who," Emelen asked with emphasis, "is that sea-born boy?"

  "A runaway."

  "With an enchanted oar." Emelen's tone was pointed.

  "Ah, so you've heard about that?"

  "What's going on, Tansen?"

  "It's a long story." He was getting tired of saying that.

  "You used to trust me," Emelen snapped.

  Tansen met his friend's dark gaze. "I still do." He rubbed a hand across his face, coming to a sudden decision. "All right. I'll tell you about the boy. Someone besides Mirabar and Cheylan ought to know—"

  "If Cheylan knows, then I certainly deserve to—"

  "—in case I don't come back."

  "Don't come back?" Emelen pounced. "From where?"

  "Or in case Zarien's right and it comes to pass." He still didn't believe it though. Not at all.

  "Right about what?"

  Tansen frowned and wondered where to begin. "How much do you know about the sea-born?"

  "Nothing, of course. I'm a shallah."

  "Then this will sound very strange."

  "Oh, I don't know," Emelen said. "After all that's happened this past year, I've become pretty hard to surprise."

  Baran rested and tried to regain some strength here in the damp and cavernous ruins of Belitar, the eerie home he had claimed more than a dozen years ago. Sweating profusely in the aftermath of a painful episode in his increasingly dire illness, he eyed the disgusting tisane that Sister Velikar offered him. He sniffed it cautiously and said to her, "Perhaps not."

  "Fine," the ugly old woman replied. "Don't drink it. What's it to me if your guts fester and rot a day sooner?"

  "I think it's your charm that draws people to you," Baran opined.

  "As a Sister," she retorted, "I am obliged to tend the sick and ease their suffering as best I can. But I am not obliged to force them to accept my help. Or to like them."

  "If I drink it, will you kiss me?"

  Velikar's lips curled. A strange grating sound emerged from her barrel-like chest. When she recovered from her amusement, she countered, "I'll kiss you if you don't."

  "A wise man knows when he's defeated." Baran took a sip, grimaced, and then downed the entire thing as fast as he could. "Be honest," he said, gasping and trying not to vomit. "Tansen really sent you here to poison me."

  "Who told you?"

  He shot a sharp glance at her. Then he rolled his eyes when she started laughing again. "We're going to have to take turns at being crazy," said Baran. "It's too confusing when we're both doing it at once."

  "Someone's coming," she said suddenly, turning toward the door.

  He only heard the footsteps after she did, after being warned. It worried him. His senses were starting to diminish, he realized, overwhelmed by the struggle against this disease. He wasn't concerned about his safety yet. Belitar was virtually impregnable. No one could cross its encircling moat without his blessing, and his men would alert him to any attempts which he himself failed to perceive. But the clouding of his ordinary senses was another sign that his time was running out.

  The moment an assassin entered the room, however, Baran threw off his weakness by force of will and rose to greet him. "Vinn."

  The assassin crossed his fists over his chest and bowed his head respectfully. "Siran." Then he glanced with resignation at Velikar. "Sister."

  "We've missed you," said Baran. "Haven't we, Velikar?"

  "No," she said.

  "I'm glad to be back," Vinn replied, ignoring Velikar. "And the news was as you expected, siran."

  "Someone has started asking about me," Baran surmised. He'd instructed Vinn to have inquiries made at the three Sanctuaries that were within a day's journey of Belitar.

  "Yes," Vinn replied. "Someone wants to know if you have been ill. Have you required medicine or treatment? What is your condition?"

  "Who has been asking?" Baran prodded.

  Vinn shook his head. "Not Searlon. He'd be too easy to recognize when described to us—that scar of his."

  "An assassin, though?"

  "The man asking wasn't dressed as an assassin, but the Sisters at one Sanctuary suspected he was one, and the Sisters at another weren't sure."

  "And at the third?"

  "No inquiries there yet."

  "Ah."

  "So we did as you ordered, siran."

  He smiled. "Good. The Sisters cooperated?"

  "Yes. For a generous donation, they agreed to tell Kiloran's spy, should he appear, that you were ill during the rains but are now almost completely recovered, getting stronger every day and regaining the weight you lost."

  Vinn, as well as a few other trusted assassins, knew by now that he wasn't well. There was no way to hide it from them any longer. Only Velikar, however, knew just how sick he was. And he intended to make sure that Kiloran didn't find out the truth.

  "Well done, Vinn."

  "What now, siran?"

  "I haven't made up my mind yet, but it's possible we may take a little trip."

  "Absolutely not," Velikar said. "You mustn't."

  Vinn frowned at her. "No one tells the siran what to do."

  Velikar frowned back. "Well, if he wants to be a fool—"

  "And no one," Vinn added with menace, "calls my master a fool, woman."

  Velikar stepped forward. "And no assassin speaks to m—"

  "Now, now," Baran admonished. "That's enough. Both of you."

  Vinn turned to him. "Why is this pestilent woman still here, siran? Surely it's past time to send her back to Tansen?"

  "If my presence offends you," Velikar said, "I will be happy to remove myself." She met Baran's eyes and added, "I need to gather more herbs today."

  He nodded and watched her leave the room.

  "If you need a Sister to tend you until you're better, siran," Vinn said as soon as she was gone, "at least let me find one who isn't so—"

  "Try to be a little patient with her, Vinn," Baran said. "She may be with us for a while. I'm becoming quite fond of her."

  After a stunned pause, the assassin laughed and relaxed. "Only you, siran. Only you."

  "I strive," Baran assured him, "to keep you amused."

  "And you succ
eed, siran. You always succeed."

  "How heartening."

  Returning to business, Vinn said, "Kiloran's spy asked about Wyldon at the Sanctuaries, too."

  "And?"

  "They confirmed everything at the Sanctuary where you met with him."

  "Then Kiloran will know it's true," Baran murmured, feeling the effects of Velikar's disgusting tisane start to soothe him. "Wyldon sought my support against him."

  "Will we give it?"

  "Oh, probably not," said Baran.

  "Because of the truce?" Vinn guessed.

  "Because Wyldon is a weak and hot-headed fool who can't be useful to us, and who could easily become a burden." Baran smiled and added, "Besides, I can't stand his sculptures."

  "Yes, you are right, siran."

  "I love those words."

  "Do you think Kiloran really did attack him?"

  "Hmm. I rather hope not."

  "But if not Kiloran, then who?"

  Baran smiled, thinking of Tansen. "Perhaps someone who wants to see Wyldon sowing dissent among the waterlords."

  "Then Kiloran might be innocent?"

  "My dear Vinn, Kiloran was not even innocent at birth. But, after seeing his reaction to the news while we were in Emeldar, I do think it possible he's not responsible for the attack on Wyldon." Baran sighed with pleasure. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if Kiloran will now pay for something he didn't do?"

  "Will he pay, siran?"

  "Of course. It has never occurred to Wyldon that Kiloran didn't order the attack. So he's beside himself with vengeful rage. I doubt I'm the only waterlord he has tried to get to side with him against Kiloran, and there will surely be others."

  "Until Kiloran eliminates him," Vinn surmised.

  "Yes, as Kiloran will have to do in the end."

  "Can we benefit from their struggle?"

  Baran replied, "That is what I'm pondering even as we speak, Vinn."

  "Somehow, siran, I thought so."

  "But these are very complicated times."

  "We will prevail, siran. You are a complicated man. So surely these are your times."

  And my time is running out.

  "Hmmm." Baran turned his back on the assassin and said, "That will be all for now, Vinn."

  "Shall I go home, siran?"

  Baran thought it over for a moment. "No. Stay close."

  "The trip you mentioned?"

  "I'm thinking it over," Baran said.

  "Then I shall be prepared to leave at a moment's notice."

  "I know you will." Baran's assassins were used to their master's habits after all these years.

  "Siran." Vinn bowed and took his leave.

  Alone now, Baran took a long, deep breath, then let it out slowly, searching for pain. He found none. That was good. He was feeling stronger now. That was good, too. But he had already learned through bitter experience that it was temporary. He would only grow weaker. He was spiraling toward death. No one could change that. The time would come when he couldn't hide it.

  Yes, according to Velikar, the time would come soon.

  He didn't pray. Dar had not listened when it mattered most, and he had never spoken to Her since. Dar could burn in that volcano, bereft of the Firebringer, through all eternity for all Baran cared. Indeed, he hoped She did. Baran hoped She knew the heartache and loneliness he did.

  He doubted it, though. She was the destroyer goddess, after all, and a female who used Her lovers ill. Once, long ago, in a time lost to most memory, Mount Shaljir had raged with the fires of Dar's consort. He had burned out eventually, consumed by Dar's needs, leaving only the hollow, looming mountain behind. It dominated the capital city to this day, a harmless shell of what it had once been, honeycombed with caves and tunnels where once lava had flowed. And before that, in an age distant beyond imagining, Dar's previous consort—perhaps Her very first—had blown up and crumbled into the sea, leaving behind only the rainbow chalk cliffs of Liron to show that he had ever ruled with the goddess who dwelled in Darshon.

  Long ago, in another life, as another man, Baran had sailed past those cliffs more than once on trading expeditions to the Kintish Kingdoms. They were extraordinary, the cliffs of Liron—so extraordinary that people still called them sacred, thousands of years after the death of the god who had once dwelled there, the consort whom Dar had consumed in Her destructive hunger.

  Poor Josarian. He never had a chance.

  And what will I do now?

  Baran didn't want to die without killing Kiloran. It was all he had lived for. All that mattered to him.

  Every thought, every word, every deed must be consecrated to that goal now, lest he die with it unfulfilled.

  But if he did die before Kiloran, if Dar could really be that cruel... Yes, of course She could. Baran knew that better than anyone. If he did die before destroying Kiloran, then he could think of only one possible way to exact revenge after his death, one sole chance to reach past mortality and vanquish his enemy. It wasn't a perfect plan, but he scented the acrid odor of destiny whenever he thought of it. He suspected it might even be his just fate. His and Kiloran's. And, frankly, he rather enjoyed the irony.

  It was a huge step, though, as well as an audacious one. He wanted to be sure. As sure as he could be, anyhow.

  So, now that he was alone, he descended into the moldy depths of Belitar's ruins, to the ancient foundations, to the stones placed here a thousand years ago during Sileria's last great era in the sun, before the clouds of betrayal, terror, and humiliation had swept across the land. He passed through deep cellars built before the Conquest, and then he sought the ancient, hidden passageways—crumbling, damp, ruined beyond repair—which led even further down. Down to the mysterious origins of Belitar's oft-rebuilt ruins, thousands of years old at this depth.

  Down, down, down to the murky netherworld of another time, another race, another domain entirely. Down to the secrets that had died with Harlon. The secrets which, indeed, had died many times over the centuries, only to be rediscovered again and again. Always by someone desperate, as Baran had been. Always by someone who made the discovery through senses belonging only to those with water in their veins and ice in their souls, to those who possessed a great talent, a terrible thirst, and a heart of stone.

  Down here, in the belly of the world, hidden from the fiery sunshine where the New Race thrived, lived Baran's teacher. And Baran hoped she would have the wisdom to help him prevail even now, when time was against him and Kiloran had never been more powerful.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  A powerful friend becomes a powerful enemy.

  —Silerian Proverb

  The old female Guardian was tough. Kiloran respected a strong opponent and could acknowledge his admiration for this one. He always gave his enemies their due. After all, the weak, the foolish, and the embittered might be briefly annoying from time to time, but they had no real chance of becoming genuine enemies of a strong man, let alone of a powerful waterlord. If a man's greatness could indeed be judged by his foes, then he lost nothing by acknowledging, even admiring, their strength.

  As Kiloran expected, the old woman had tried to immolate herself as soon as she realized she was his prisoner. Dyshon couldn't have stopped her, but Kiloran could. However, the interrogation had not proved fruitful thereafter, since the struggle left the Guardian so exhausted. After learning too little from her to hold his attention yesterday, Kiloran had instructed Dyshon to sedate her again.

  Now she was awake again, and the interrogation would begin anew. It was a tedious business, but it must never be forgotten that persistence was an inherit quality of victory.

  The woman was small, white-haired, and frail. A severe cough indicated to Kiloran that death might have come soon for her, anyhow, even if he had not intervened and altered her destiny. This wasn't the first time she had endured interrogation, either. Three fingers were missing from one of her hands.

  Valdani torture. Long ago, he guessed, studying the old scars of the small hand
he now took in his.

  The prisoner was shackled, held immobile by coils of water that should be making her very uncomfortable. She was soaking wet and shivering, her skin so bloodless now she looked almost as pale as a Valdan.

  "They left me for dead," the old woman said, her voice weary and cracked. She met Kiloran's gaze, then looked down at the mutilated hand he held so gently. He heard liquid in her breath when she paused before speaking again. Yes, she was very sick. "I told them nothing, as I will tell you nothing. Kill me or release me. You're wasting your time."

  "At the risk of repeating myself," Kiloran replied, dropping her hand, "I can end your suffering quickly if you cooperate. And if you don't, you'll be here for a long time."

  She shrugged and closed her sunken eyes again. "Perhaps I'll learn to like it here."

  Yes, she was tough. And her power was undeniable—every shir in Kandahar was shaking now that she was awake again. But she was nonetheless terrified. Kiloran had seen the horror in her eyes yesterday when she'd first realized whose prisoner she was. As a Guardian, she'd have lived her whole life in fear of the Society, of the waterlords—of him. And with good reason.

  If she knew anything worth knowing, soon Kiloran would know it, too. If she could explain the unprecedented activity at Mount Darshon or reveal whatever the Guardians might know about Mirabar's visions, then Kiloran would make sure she did so before she died.

  He watched her shiver and listened to her cough. He willed the watery shackles to tighten around her limbs, to grow even colder; and he heard her gasp in response.

  "I am not a Valdan," Kiloran whispered softly.

  Her dark eyes watered with mingled pain and fear. "I know. You are something much worse."

  "And you know that what they did to you is nothing compared to what I will do."

  Her mouth trembled, but she said only, "Let's get on with it."

  Kiloran paused for a moment in appreciation. No Valdan would ever show such courage, least of all a Valdani woman. It was so fitting that the Valdani had surrendered Sileria at last, finally leaving Silerians to settle their differences without interference. No outsider could understand the feelings which bound Kiloran and this woman together. No roshah could share the intimate history that united the waterlord and the Guardian in their mutually satisfying enmity. No Valdan could truly appreciate the depth of hatred between them as the woman screamed in pain and Kiloran focused on the demanding task of breaking her.