The White Dragon

by Laura Resnick

  "Don't you see," Elelar whispered. "Surely you, of all people, can understand?"

  "No," he repeated, knowing what she would say next.

  "It's my redemption."

  He didn't want to lose her. That was the ugly truth.

  Forgive me, Josarian. I can't let go. Not even now. Forgive me.

  He was ashamed and humiliated. And afraid.

  "My death, for Sileria," Elelar said. "I'm ready."

  "I'm not."

  "My guilt expunged. My shame healed. My soul purified for the Otherworld." She leaned closer, so close their breath mingled. "Let her do it. Let her kill me. Promise me."

  "No."

  "Let me be redeemed," she urged, seducing him with her desire to be sacrificed.

  Tansen took her face between his hands. Her lovely, treacherous, yearning face. "Not like this." He tried to make her understand. "Not Mirabar."

  She placed her hands over his, stroking his fingers, his wrists. "Don't you see? It must be her destiny, as it is mine."

  "I don't care," he said firmly. "I won't let it happen."

  "Sileria's destiny—"

  "No."

  "Let her cleanse me with her vengeance," she whispered, kissing his neck, pressing her lush breasts against his chest.

  He shivered, then pushed her roughly away.

  "And who will cleanse Mirabar for murdering you in vengeance?" he demanded.

  "She's a shallah. She won't need—"

  "Oh, yes, she will," he interrupted. "And I will not let your death become her burden. I'm a shallah, too, and I can tell you that the weight never grows lighter. Not ever."

  Angry now that she was failing to win him over, she said, "She will not be killing her own father."

  He'd been expecting that, but it made him hotly angry even so. "Darfire, maybe I should just kill you and get it over with!"

  "After you just promised the boy you wouldn't?" she taunted.

  "Zarien." It was like a bucket of cold water. He realized that he had let her distract him. Well, nothing new in that. "Zarien," he repeated. "By all the gods above and below." He ran a hand through his long, tangled hair and said wearily, "Actually, I may not be around to keep you from flinging yourself into the fires of redemption at Mira's expense."

  Elelar frowned at him. "Something to do with that boy?" When he nodded, she added, "What is a sea-bound boy doing ashore? And with you?"

  "You and I have a lot to talk about," he said. "And there's not much time. The boy is impatient, and with good reason."

  "A lot to talk about," she agreed. "The fighting in the mountains. The Society. These visions that people are talking about. The new government. The massacres of Valdani. And there are people at Santorell Palace whom you should—"

  "Yes," he agreed. "I'll see them, speak to them before I go."

  "Where are you going?"

  He sighed. "To sea."

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  A fire in the soul is like a tiger in the cage;

  both are reckless in their ferocity.

  —Kintish Proverb

  Zarien made a conscious effort to shake off the heavy tension between Tansen and the torena when he left Elelar's house with her servant. Sometimes Tansen could be too quick to reach for those swords of his, and there was a tumultuous anger in him as he faced the torena, a darkness which Zarien had never before sensed in him. For a moment, Zarien worried about leaving the two of them alone. No, he didn't believe Tansen would choose to kill a woman, not even a woman who upset him as much as this one evidently did. Besides, Zarien wasn't blind. He could see that there was also a man-woman current flowing between them which Tansen couldn't entirely resist.

  However, although Tansen might be against killing the torena, Zarien had seen many times by now just how fast those swords could come out of their sheathes. No wonder people thought they leapt out by themselves! And Tansen didn't always think before drawing his weapons, intent on violence. Tansen was so fast that, when startled or surprised—or awakening from one of his nightmares—he sometimes didn't even seem to know he had already unsheathed his swords and was holding them poised for combat. So whatever made Mirabar hate Elelar, and whatever made Tansen seem like a wounded dragonfish in the torena's presence, Zarien had decided it might be prudent to make sure, before leaving them alone together, that nothing deadly would happen.

  Of course, Tansen's irritable response made it clear that nothing would, despite all the air-snapping tension.

  Landfolk.

  No matter. Soon—very soon now—he and Tansen would be at sea. Sharifar would welcome them, and they could leave behind the volatile ways of the drylanders. Of course, Tansen would still care about what happened on land; and, after all this time ashore, Zarien could understand and accept that—at least a little. Waterlords and assassins shouldn't be allowed to rule and ruin Sileria in the wake of the Valdani surrender. There were some good people in the mountains. There were also some whom Zarien didn't like; but that could be said about life at sea, too.

  Nonetheless, he was glad to be going home at last. Glad to be taking the sea king to Sharifar, as he'd vowed. If he was right, if Tansen was the one the goddess sought and Zarien was the one who brought the sea-born their king... Well, who knew? Perhaps the Lascari would even break centuries of tradition and overlook his little sojourn on land.

  It could happen.

  His parents would be so glad to see him alive. They would—

  My parents...

  His newly-full stomach churned a little. Glad to see him alive? Yes. They had loved him, he believed that. But to welcome him back into the clan, after his sojourn on land, when he knew now that he wasn't even a Lascari?

  Perhaps not, he admitted privately.

  Everything about the night he had died came back to him now, including Sharifar's humiliating claim that his father was a drylander and his mother... Well, not Palomar, in any event.

  One thing at a time, he decided.

  He had to get to port and find someone to take him and Tansen to sea. Tomorrow, he hoped. The day after, at the latest. Get to sea. Find out Tansen's true destiny.

  Then find out who my parents really were.

  With his course of action clarified in his mind, he lifted his face to the breeze wafting through Shaljir's narrow streets and took a deep breath.

  He immediately choked on the city's overripe smells: sewage, many unwashed bodies, the odor of a funeral pyre, some livestock and their associated mess, the perfume of a passing Kintish courtesan, and a few barrels of volcano ale that had fallen from a cart and splattered the street in front of him.

  Somewhere in the midst of all that, though, he smelled water. Not just the sweetwater these city-dwellers had been hoarding in barrels in preparation for Kiloran's assault on the Idalar River. Not just the water gushing from their fountains, singing to him almost as sweetly as Palomar used to. Not just the water he felt swelling in their wells and their basins. No. In addition to all that, he smelled the sea.

  He inhaled and sighed like a lover. "Ohhhh, can you smell that?" he said to Teyaban, the servant whom Torena Elelar had sent with him.

  "Hmmm." Teyaban sniffed the air and sighed, too. "That perfume. They say it induces visions."

  "Huh?"

  "Not the war-and-glory kind that Mirabar the Guardian gets, mind you," Teyaban continued cheerfully. "I mean the kind that make a man's body stand up and say hello."

  Zarien blinked at him. "What are you talking about?"

  Teyaban nodded to where the courtesan was entering a house as palatial as Torena Elelar's. "The perfume of Kintish courtesans. They've got all sorts of womanly arts, you know."

  Zarien watched her disappear into the house. Her servant—a huge, hairy, scarred Moorlander—waited outside. "Oh. Uh-huh."

  "Ever been with a Kint?"

  "Yes, of course." Zarien answered absently, thinking of Kintish ports and seafarers and passengers. Then he realized what Teyaban meant by "been with." His truthful answer t
o that would be quite different, but he decided to let it go.

  Teyaban, however, had a few tales he wanted to share. Zarien mostly ignored his conversation and followed his nose to the port of Shaljir, leading the servant assigned to lead him. Soon he could hear the sea birds, taste the salt on his tongue, see the salt-air stains on tattered jashareen hanging in doorways and grimy shutters bordering windows left open to benefit from whatever stray breeze might be bold enough to waft through the narrow streets. Soon he could recognize sea-brought goods from the mainland being carted up from port and see the tallest ships' masts rising proudly above the city's Kintish red-tiled roofs.

  "Ugh!" Teyaban grimaced as they turned into a narrow street with slippery cobblestones. "Fish market."

  The thick, briny scent pervading the air here smelled wonderful to Zarien, despite being different from the sweetly plump smell of freshly-caught fish which he was used to in sea-bound life. He smelled seaweed now, too, and could hardly wait for the longed-for feel of a boat deck rocking beneath his feet.

  The fishmongers of Sileria were tattooed, like their sea-born kindred. Zarien laughed with relief, with a sense of homecoming. Now, for the first time since he had died in the jaws of the dragonfish, he was among his own kind and no one would stare at his tattoos with avid curiosity.

  A moment later, he realized he was wrong about that. Already, tattooed fishmongers were indeed staring at him. Staring hard.

  "What are you looking at?" Teyaban challenged one. Typical of the landfolk, he had deliberately provoked the biggest, meanest-looking person in sight.

  "It doesn't matter," Zarien said quietly, dragging Teyaban with him as they passed the big man and left him behind. He knew what everyone was staring at. Unlike the drylanders, these people recognized his tattoos, identified the primary pattern and knew what it meant: sea-bound. A sea-bound lad walking the dryland. An unheard of anomaly. Something they were unlikely to see twice in their lifetime. Of course they stared.

  "What's going on?" Teyaban asked.

  They reached the end of the street and came upon the port. Zarien ignored the question as he stared in astonishment.

  What had Torena Elelar said? "The port is..."

  "A mess. I know," Teyaban replied.

  "Earthquakes did this?" Zarien stared in shock at the wreckage of smashed boats, collapsed docks, and damaged warehouses.

  "Yes." Seeing Zarien's bewildered expression, Teyaban elaborated, "You know. Surely a sea-born fellow knows."

  "I've never... There haven't been any earthquakes in my lifetime. None that I remember, anyhow."

  Teyaban made a clucking sound. "Oh, I hadn't thought of that. Before all the recent ones, I guess it had been a quite a few years since the last one. And now they're coming close together, and they're pretty bad—"

  "But that's land," Zarien protested. "How did this happen?"

  Teyaban looked surprised. "Well, after all, there's land under the water, Zarien." He pointed out to sea. "When Dar moves the mountains, She moves a lot of that, too." Teyaban nodded. "The water responds."

  "By the eight winds," Zarien murmured. "Waves big enough to do this..." He had been caught in some terrible storms. Waves so big they blotted out the sky, and you soon forgot which way was up. His clan had lost a boat and four family members in such a storm two years ago. When Zarien was younger, he had seen two boats of the Kurvari clan smashed against the sacred chalk cliffs of Liron. No one survived. He had thought he knew what waves could do. "But I've never seen anything like this..."

  "That's the destroyer goddess for you," Teyaban said philosophically. "If the Valdani had any sense, they'd never have tried to conquer Her in the first place, eh?" He pointed west. "Just the other side of Mount Shaljir, as you leave the bay, a Valdani ship was hurled against the rocks during the most recent earthquake. A bunch of the passengers lived, but the salvageable cargo was all plundered." Teyaban grinned. "So I guess the survivors from that wreck will be empty-handed when they reach Valda." He shrugged and added, "If they ever do. They might have been slaughtered by the mob when they came ashore."

  Zarien now deeply regretted eating the torena's food, since it was threatening to come right back up. He didn't want to think about the killings, nor about the heads displayed on the city gates. However, even that wasn't as bad as the fear rushing through him. He had never realized—had never had reason to know—that the earthquakes which so terrified him on land were equally devastating at sea.

  "I need to find out about my family," he said.

  Teyaban slapped his forehead. "Darfire, I'm sorry Zarien. I didn't realize..."

  Zarien ignored the apology and started forward, barely aware of Teyaban close at his heels, still babbling.

  Now they were mostly surrounded by sea-born folk. The short hair, the tattoos, the clothing—tighter and more colorful than that of the shallaheen—were comfortingly familiar. Many of the grown males carried stahra, so no one stared at Zarien's. They stared at him, though. Oh, yes, they stared at him.

  He ventured far out onto the docks, hoping to find someone he knew, someone he could trust. Adalian was his clan's home port, not Shaljir, but they were related to other clans and were friendly with a few more.

  He heard the lap of waves against wood, felt the salt on his tongue, and rejoiced at being home again, even as he worried about his family's well-being. Even as he wondered how to explain everything now that he was here.

  "Are you a Kurvari?" someone called in sea-born dialect.

  Zarien turned into the wind to find who had asked the question. He saw an old sea-born woman and a boy, together in an oarboat.

  "No," he replied. "Lascari."

  "Oh. Saw the tattoos. Sea-bound." Zarien nodded, seeing from her tattoos that she was not sea-bound. She shrugged and added, "Thought you might be Kurvari."

  "Why?" he asked.

  "There are three Kurvari boats at the floating market today."

  His heart started pounding. "We're related. Could you take me to them? I can pay you." It felt wonderful to speak his own dialect again and to listen to someone without having to concentrate.

  She looked at him and the drylander standing beside him. "Both of you?"

  "No," Zarien said, "just me." He turned to Teyaban and added in common Silerian, "Wait here."

  "No, we're supposed to stay togeth—"

  "I'll be back," Zarien said, nimbly scrambling into the old woman's oarboat and pushing off before Teyaban had time to cause trouble. "Just wait for me here."

  "Zarien!"

  Zarien waved, then turned his back on land. Darfire, it felt good to be in a boat again! He courteously reached for the old woman's oar. "Shall I row?"

  She smiled. "What nice manners you have."

  He dipped the oar into the water, felt the sea ease to his stroke, and began paddling. He grinned, despite his worries, so happy to be here at last.

  "Is your boat anchored at the floating market, too?" he asked the old woman.

  She shook her head. "Our boat was destroyed in the second earthquake. My grandson and I happened to be ashore for trading, or we'd have died with everyone else."

  "I'm sorry. What happened?"

  "We don't know." She looked at the distant horizon, where the azure waters of the Middle Sea met the brilliant blue of Sileria's sky, now drenched in the gold of the sun. "They never came back from sea. No one ever saw them again." She brushed a weathered hand across her face. "Maybe a big wave capsized them and sent them under straight away. Otherwise... Well, my son was a fine sailor. He could have survived anything that was... survivable."

  "I'm sorry," Zarien repeated.

  After a long pause, she said, "May I ask what you were doing ashore?"

  "It's a really long story."

  "I believe that."

  "And I don't know yet how it ends."

  She considered this. "Do the Lascari still accept you?"

  "I don't know that, either."

  "The sea-bound shun anyone who—"
/>   "Yes," he agreed.

  Still curious, she prodded, "It must have been something very big, to make you abandon the sea and go ashore."

  He thought of the scars, now concealed beneath his tunic, which the dragonfish had left on him. "Oh, it was big, all right."

  "This is unbelievable," Cheylan murmured to himself, looking around at the hundreds of people on the road to Mount Darshon.

  One might have thought that the advent of the Firebringer, followed by his death, would have forever destroyed the cult of the zanareen, those fanatics who worshipped at the snow-capped peak of Darshon and occasionally flung themselves into the volcano in doomed attempts to become the Firebringer.

  "But this is Sileria," he muttered wryly, pushing against the flow of traffic on the decaying Kintish road that ran all the way through the war-torn lands of the Lironi, the most powerful clan in the east. Whereas the zanareen would probably never have even existed in a more sensible country, they continued to thrive here even after the ignominious death of their Awaited One.

  Poor Josarian—he was surrounded by those dreary fanatics day and night after surviving the leap into Darshon's volcano to embrace the destroyer goddess. Being the Firebringer had so many disadvantages—an early death being the most obvious one—that Cheylan would always be thankful that it had been that mountain peasant and not him.

  Now the zanareen were preaching about Dar's fury over the Firebringer's death. The dancing clouds and flashing lights around Darshon's summit frightened the masses, as did the earthquakes. And every foaming-at-the-mouth zanar in Sileria seemed to have a different explanation for it all. Cheylan wondered if Kiloran, the chief villain in many of these theories, believed a single one of them.

  The offerings and the prayers were old news around Darshon, nothing Cheylan hadn't seen before. However, all the fevered chanting, mournful singing, and euphoric warbling was a new habit, and it was getting on his nerves: pilgrims everywhere were trilling, ululating, wailing... It was a non-stop cacophony which Cheylan had a feeling would still be ringing in his ears when he was halfway back to the western districts and far from Darshon—which he hoped would be soon.