The Destroyer Goddess (43 page)

Najdan looked at Faradar, too. "Well?"

The maid shook her head. "He and the
torena
spoke alone and then left without telling me."

"They weren't alone," Chasimar protested. "I was with them."

Mirabar guessed from Faradar's expression that she considered that roughly the same thing as being alone, only much noisier.

Najdan turned back to
Torena
Chasimar. "What did Cheylan say?"

"Um..."

"Speak up," he snapped.

Chasimar flinched and backed up again. Tears welled up in her cow-like eyes. Mirabar sighed in exasperation.

Faradar stepped forward and said, "The
torena
left me instructions which indicate that... she did not expect to return."

"What?" Chasimar said, clearly surprised.

Mirabar, who wouldn't have confided in Chasimar either, asked Faradar, "What else?"

"I did not initiate pursuit, because her letter to me indicated that her death—"

"Her
death
?" Chasimar cried.

"—was necessary for the good of Sileria."

Mirabar frowned. "She thought she was going to die?"

Faradar nodded. "She wrote that someday you or Tansen might explain it to me, and she..." The maid glanced at
Torena
Chasimar, then continued, "She hoped I, who knew her so well, would understand."

"Understand what?" Chasimar whined. "
I
don't understand!"

"Unfortunately," Mirabar said, "neither do I."

Faradar asked faintly, "You didn't send Cheylan?"

"Actually," Mirabar admitted, "I did."

"Then—"

"I told him to bring her to Belitar," Mirabar continued. "He has not done so. We must assume that Cheylan is now... acting in his own interest, not ours. Not hers."

Faradar's expression reflected suppressed panic. "So you don't know where he has taken her?"

"No."

"Or why?"

"Oh, I know why," Mirabar said. "And we've got to get her back."

Chasimar ventured, "But Elelar seemed to know..."

They all turned to look at her. 

The silly woman stopped speaking and simply stared back at them.

"Know
what?
" Najdan prodded.

"Know why Cheylan had come," the
torena
said shrilly.

"Go on," Najdan ordered.

"She had been expecting him—"

"She had?" Mirabar blurted.

"And was not surprised when he said you had sent him."

"'Tell Mirabar I have made my peace with Dar and am ready...'" Mirabar turned to Najdan. "That's why she went with him. She thought..."

"That it was Dar's will that you kill her?" Faradar asked in bewilderment. "Why?"

"It doesn't matter," Mirabar said, surprised that Elelar, of all people, evidently felt guilty about betraying Josarian—guilty enough that she was, it seemed, willing to be executed for her sins. 

She knew Tansen wouldn't do it, but she thought I would
.

Was it only because she knew how Mirabar hated her and wanted her dead? Or was it because she had misinterpreted something the Olvar, who had the gift of prophecy, had said to her? No one knew better than Mirabar how hard prophecy was to understand.

"
Sirana
," Faradar began, "what did the
torena
believe—"

"It is Dar's will that I protect her, not kill her," Mirabar said tersely. "We've got to find her."

"What else did Cheylan say?" Najdan asked Chasimar. When she just looked blank-faced, he added, "Did he say where he was taking her?"

Chasimar's face cleared. "Oh, yes!"

"
Where?
" Najdan's voice was getting brusque with impatience.

"To her destiny," Chasimar said.

"That's all?" Mirabar asked.

"Um..." 

"Is he going to kill her?" Faradar asked.

"He seemed so nice!" Chasimar protested.

"He won't kill her right away," Mirabar said. "Not... for at least nine months, I suppose." 

"
Sirana
, are you saying..." Faradar looked stunned. 

"Nine months?" Chasimar looked bewildered.  

Mirabar sank into a chair, finally convinced beyond all doubt that Cheylan had betrayed her. It was a deep wound, but she had no time to nurse it.

"We'll keep heading east," she said to Najdan. "That's all I can think of. That's where this place in my visions must be."

Najdan noted her wilting condition and told Faradar, "The
sirana
requires refreshment and a place to rest."

Mirabar protested, "No, we should—"

"Yes," Najdan interrupted. "You must think of the child."

Mirabar absently spread one hand over the cool glow in her belly, feeling confused and tired.

"Oh, are you expecting, too?" Chasimar asked with girlish interest.

"Yes, but we don't have time—"

"In that case,
sirana
," Faradar said, "Najdan is right. You will only weaken yourself if you do not attend to your needs now, and the
torena
needs you too much for you to do that."

Mirabar rubbed her throbbing temples.

Protect what you most long to destroy
.

She nodded. "Yes," she decided. "You're right. I need to rest a bit."

"We'll leave after you've eaten and rested," Faradar said.

"We?" Mirabar blinked at her.

"The
torena
will need me, too, if she's..." Faradar smoothed the dusty headdress in her hands and concluded, "If she's alive."

Mirabar met Najdan's gaze for a moment. Then she said to Faradar, "Yes. It would be best if we had someone with us who can tend the
torena
when we find her." Dar only knew what condition Elelar would be in if Cheylan... was this determined to father the child she was destined to bear.

Mirabar shuddered, very grateful that fate had put her in Baran's bed rather than Cheylan's.

"I'll show you to a bedchamber,
sirana
," Faradar said, "and then prepare for our departure."

"And while you eat and rest,
sirana
...." Najdan eyed
Torena
Chasimar with cold determination, "I will make this woman repeat to me every single word Cheylan said while he was here."

Chasimar looked as if she might swoon.

Chapter Sixteen

Dar is my goddess and the queen

of sacred darkness and light.

                              —
Zanar
Prayer

"What in the Fires is happening here?" Ronall asked as their two-masted vessel approached a vast cluster of bobbing boats moored just off Sileria's eastern coast.

Due east of Gamalan
, Tansen thought, looking up at the looming cliffs beyond which lay the mountains where he had been born and the humble village where he had been a child.

He wanted to tell Zarien. He wanted to point out to his son the summits that he recognized and take him to explore the coves where he had once smuggled Kintish contraband with his grandfather. He'd like to show him the abandoned ruins of Gamalan and tell him stories of the clan which had lived and died there.

However, there was no time for such indulgences now. And even if there were... relations were currently, oh, a little strained between Tansen and his son. 

Zarien had been apprehensive ever since boarding this boat. The boy had watched Tansen with relentless suspicion, day and night, as if expecting him to transform into the sea king and sneak off with Sharifar the moment Zarien looked away. Tansen tried very hard to be patient and reassuring, but after almost two straight days and nights of the boy's dark, unwavering, vaguely hostile stare... Tansen lost his temper in a flare of exasperation that made the boat they were on seem even smaller than it really was.

Oh, yes. Much, much smaller
.

After that, Tansen suspected Zarien's obsessive fear that Sharifar would claim him was replaced by a heartfelt desire to push him overboard.

Meanwhile, the sea-born family who were giving them transport stared as hard at Zarien as Zarien had been staring at Tansen. Or, rather, they stared at the tattoos that identified Zarien as sea-bound. Zarien was distressed by it, which in turn distressed Tansen—who suggested to the family that they stop it. And since he was already feeling irritable from the quarrel with his son, the advice came out sharply enough to ensure that the family now
also
probably wanted to throw him overboard. In addition, far from being grateful, Zarien was embarrassed by Tansen's interference, and so they fought about that, too.

The boy had been sulking ever since, which got on Tansen's nerves; and his irritability, in turn, only made Zarien sulk more. All the tension inspired Ronall to drink even more than usual; then the
toren
spent a lot of time with his head hanging over the side of the boat while his stomach rejected almost every drop of liquor he put into it.

If this journey didn't end very soon, Tansen wouldn't really
mind
being pushed overboard.

 He was also in no mood to humor Zarien's moods now that the fate of eastern Sileria—and probably the outcome of the entire war—depended on whatever Tansen did next. He knew that being snappish with his son wasn't helping either of them, but he couldn't seem to help himself.

Darfire, I wish Josarian were here
.

Now Ronall, who was very nearly sober despite his persistent efforts to get drunk, looked at the vast cluster of bobbing boats they were sailing toward. "This must be what everyone has been talking about. All those east-bound sea-born folk. Just... sitting here, waiting around for something." The
toren
shuddered and added, "Such as an eruption, perhaps?"

"Always the optimist," Tansen said sourly.

Ronall took a long swig of fire brandy, closed his eyes, and immediately looked queasy. "I can't decide if I'm more afraid to go ashore or to stay on this damn boat."

"You're not coming ashore," Tansen informed him.

Ronall eyed him with suspicion.

"Not yet," Tansen added. 

"You're worried about what's happening..." Ronall waved vaguely at the looming Lironi cliffs. "There."

Tansen nodded. "It's possible the eastern clans will blame me for what's happened."

"Why?"

"I'm the one who ordered Kiman shah Moynari to unite with the Lironi. With Jagodan."

"So, with the smooth logic for which
shallaheen
are famous," Ronall surmised, sober enough for irony, "the Lironi may decide it's your fault that Kiman seduced Jagodan's wife."

"Maybe," Tansen admitted gloomily.

"And even if they don't, Kiman's own clan may decide that it's your fault he got involved with Jagodan, his murderer, in the first place?"

"Yes, that's possible, too. Or the Marendari—the clan of Jagodan's wife—may decide it's my fault that Kiman ever met and then seduced Viramar." He thought back to the day he and Kiman had spoken in the Kintish temple at Zilar, and now he supposed he knew what it was about Kiman that had vaguely reminded of Zimran: the inability to keep his hands off another man's woman. And, like Zimran, Kiman had evidently appealed to women—enough to make them override good judgment and marital vows. 

"Yes, I see," Ronall mused. "The possibilities for blaming you for this mess seem quite fruitful, don't they?"

"Quite."  No one knew better than Tansen, born to a clan which had destroyed itself with bloodfeuds, just how unreasonable
shallaheen
could be when their bloodlust was aroused.

Ronall shrugged. "Still, why shouldn't
I
go ashore? All of that has nothing to do with me. I'm..." His expression sharpened, and then he glanced over his shoulder. Zarien was sitting on the deck, busy tying knots in something. "Ah. If any of these clans want to wage a bloodfeud against you..."

"My son may be too old for them to spare." At fourteen, Zarien was at a difficult age in more ways than one. 

"What about you?" Ronall prodded. "Surely you're not just going to let them kill you over this?"

"No, of course not. But my work will be easier if I don't also have to worry about protecting Zarien from them."

"Yes, of course. You couldn't leave him behind when you came east, because Kiloran is still looking for him." Ronall's face clouded as he concluded, "And Zarien wouldn't be safe from Kiloran even in Sanctuary. Not anymore. Not since... Jalilar."

Tansen nodded. "Until I've made sure Zarien's in no danger from the clans here, the sea seems the safest place for him. So I'm leaving him here for now."

"He won't like that," Ronall warned.

"I don't like it either," Tansen admitted. "But this is the way it has to be."

"And I..." Ronall squinted uncertainly at him. "I get the honor of guarding your son?"

"For the time being."

Ronall absorbed this, then asked, "What are you planning to do when you go ashore?"

"Whatever it takes to stop the bloodfeuds and resurrect the Lironi alliance." No matter how strong their bloodlust, his determination had to be even stronger.