The Destroyer Goddess (49 page)

Chapter Eighteen

A powerful friend is worth 

all the diamonds of Alizar.

                                    —Silerian Proverb

"Najdan!" Tansen thought he had never been so glad to see anyone in his life, not even Mirabar, who looked like a real
torena
in the elaborate headdress and wig she wore, mounted on a fine mare that trailed behind Najdan's gelding. Tansen wondered briefly about her expensive clothing and the elaborate quality of the horse's bridle and saddle... and then remembered that Mirabar was now a waterlord's wife, supported by more wealth than most
toreni
possessed.

He fed his heart with the sight of her as she road into Gamalan behind Najdan, but only for a moment. His mind was too filled with panic, caused by what he'd recently learned, to let him feel all the things he had expected to feel upon seeing her again. For now, he just thanked all the gods above and below that Najdan was here. Then he saw another woman behind Mirabar—whom he quickly recognized as Faradar, Elelar's pretty maid.

Tansen frowned suspiciously at Mirabar. "What's going on?"

"We're looking for Elelar," she said as Najdan dismounted and moved to help Mirabar dismount, too.

"Now?" Tansen added in confusion, "
Here?
In Gamalan?" He glanced at Faradar. "With
her?
"

Faradar crossed her wrists and bowed her head. "It's a pleasure to see you, too,
siran
."

"What's going on?" Tansen repeated. He couldn't believe that anything would have convinced Faradar to turn against Elelar and help Mirabar kill her.

Apparently realizing her disguise was no longer necessary, Mirabar pulled off the wig and headdress, which she tossed carelessly on the ground. Her brilliant red hair was flat and dark at the temples with sweat. Her glowing eyes were anxious and exhausted as they met his. And her brief, blunt explanation stunned him.

Elelar... favored by prophecy and destiny, then abducted by Cheylan and now in terrible danger.

Elelar...
No, he supposed he would never stop caring what happened to her, even if that made him a fool.

"You have no idea where to look for them?" he asked, leading Mirabar toward one of the few buildings still standing in his abandoned village.

Faradar, who had also dismounted, bent to retrieve the fallen headdress and wig, then followed them. Najdan told one of the many men milling around to take care of the horses, then followed them, too.

Mirabar rambled vague descriptions of a cavern of fire and water as Tansen led her inside and found a stool for her. She slumped into a sitting position and kept talking, pausing only long enough to let Faradar make her drink some water. Both the maid and the assassin studied her with obvious concern. Her face looked drawn and her cheekbones more prominent.

"Have you been unwell?" Tansen interrupted.

There was a stunning silence as the three people with him exchanged uncertain glances. The awkward moment dragged on, as if there was something they needed to tell him but which none of them was willing to be the one to say.

Then it hit him like a blow from behind. "Fires of Dar, it's happened, hasn't it? You're pregnant."

"Yes."

"With
Baran's
child?"

Mirabar frowned. "Yes,
Baran's
child. Whose child
would
I be carrying?"

"I didn't mean... Um..." Tansen lost track of his words and decided to stop speaking before he said something even stupider.

He should have expected it—it was why she had married Baran, after all—but Tansen nonetheless felt as if someone had kicked him in the chest. Then fury flooded him as he thought of her, in her condition, traveling across war-torn Sileria, where every living waterlord and assassin would leap upon the chance to murder her while she pursued the ruthless Guardian who had already betrayed her and abducted another woman. 

"How could Baran let you make a dangerous journey like this?" Tansen demanded. "What in the Fires was that madman thinking?" He turned on Najdan, pleased to have a convenient target for his anger. "How could
you
do this?"

Najdan scowled back at him. "This isn't my doing."

"You're supposed to protect her!"

Najdan unleashed some temper of his own. "Don't try to blame me. You should know by now—"

"Stop it!" Mirabar snapped at both of them.

"You shouldn't be here," Tansen said to her, nonetheless wondering how he had lasted so long without seeing her. Even now, weary, bad-tempered, and carrying another man's child, her presence filled him to brimming again, after such a long, empty season without her.

 "There's no one else who can do this, Tansen," she said quietly. "There is only me. Baran understands that." Their eyes met. "I need you to understand it, too."

Now
he felt it, that horrible mixture of emotions—desire, jealousy, impotent anger, love, loyalty, loss, sorrow. Oh, yes, Tansen felt it
all
now. He wanted to curse Dar, but he supposed that would only upset Mirabar. So he took a steadying breath, forced himself to focus on the task at hand, and said, "You heard I was in Gamalan and came for my help."

"Yes," said Mirabar.

"I'm glad." Their eyes met again, and he knew he would lay the world at her feet if it was what she asked of him. As it was, now that he had agreed to help her, he had no idea what to do. "How will we find Cheylan and Elelar?"

Her golden eyes clouded with tears of frustration. "I don't know. I've tried so hard, and I just don't..."

"Shhh,
sirana
." Faradar put a hand on Mirabar's shoulder and said to Tansen, "She needs to rest."

"No," Mirabar protested. "I need to—"

"Rest," Najdan said firmly. "Even if Cheylan came to
us
right now, how could you defeat him?"

"You're going to fight him?" Tansen asked worriedly.

"I don't know what I'm going to do," Mirabar admitted. "I just know that I have been chosen to protect Elelar and the child she'll bear, and that's what I have to do."

She was still the same in every way that mattered. And therefore no easier than she had ever been; but he hadn't been made for an easier woman. "Then I'll do whatever I have to do, too," he promised. "But for now, they're right, you need to rest. You look terrible."

Mirabar gave a trembling puff of laughter. "Thank you."

Najdan shook his head. "You have never known the things to say to a woman, have you?"

"Both of you," Faradar said, "please go outside while I make a comfortable place in here for the
sirana
."

"Don't
wait
on me," Mirabar snapped. "I don't like it."

"I'll get her bedroll," Najdan said to Faradar, who nodded.       The assassin left the humble dwelling. Tansen started to follow, then paused at the door. "Faradar."

"
Siran?
"

"I believe Radyan will be very pleased to learn you're alive and well."

She lowered her eyes. "You will tell him?"

"Next time I send a message to Shaljir." It was too dark in here to be sure, but he thought she was blushing. 

"And will you tell him that I..."

"Yes?"

"Um... Nothing,
siran
," she mumbled, turning away.

He smiled. "Yes, I'll tell him that, too."

"Thank you," she said faintly over her shoulder.

He glanced at Mirabar again. "Do you want something to eat?"

She made a face, which he assumed meant
no
. Najdan returned with her bedroll, which he handed to Faradar. Then the two men left the two women alone together. 

Out in the arid sunshine, under a sky streaked with smoke and ash, Tansen remarked, "The
sirana
seems a little temperamental."

"You'd be surprised at how much she's improved, actually," Najdan muttered. The assassin gazed around the ruins of Gamalan, his eyes taking in the dozens of men gathered here, tending their weapons, mending their shoes, chatting quietly in the shade. Most of them politely ignored Najdan now that they knew he was a friend of Tansen's. "So this is your truce meeting."

"Not yet," Tansen said. "The Marendari and the Moynari, as well as some other clans, are here. But the Lironi haven't arrived yet and I'm not sure when they will. And I have to be here when Jagodan comes."

"Naturally."

"Yet I was about to leave," Tansen added. "So I'm very glad you're here, Najdan. More than you can imagine."

The assassin studied his face. "What's wrong?"

"Gossip among these men. I've just learned that Searlon was responsible for the destruction of the Lironi alliance." 
      Najdan looked surprised. "How?"

"Kiman received a request to protect Marendar, Jagodan's village, while Jagodan was supposed to be off raiding in Verlon's territory. Meanwhile, Jagodan received an offer from an assassin willing to betray Verlon, and offering to prove his good faith by meeting Jagodan in—"

"—in Marendar." 

"Yes. But, of course, the assassin never showed up."

"And Jagodan caught Kiman and Viramar together." Najdan nodded. "So that's how it happened."

"That's how it happened."

"What makes you think it was Searlon?"

"Because people around here have also gossiped about a tall, well-spoken, short-haired assassin whose good looks are marred only by—"

"—a scar on his cheek," Najdan said slowly.

"Yes. I didn't fully understand it until you arrived." Tansen glanced over his shoulder to the humble dwelling where Mirabar was now housed. "But after what she's told me, I do now. If Cheylan told Kiloran about Jalilar..." 

Jalilar, Emelen, and now Elelar...
 

Darfire, Tansen wanted to kill Cheylan himself, regardless of the sorcery which only Mirabar could confront with equal power. 

"Cheylan was in the east throughout the spring," Najdan said suddenly.

"So he might have known about Viramar and Kiman," Tansen said. "He seems to have a way of finding out things he shouldn't."

"He told Searlon about them, and Searlon saw it as a way to destroy the Lironi alliance."

"And perhaps more than that." Tansen added, his stomach clenching as he tried to keep his terror under control, "Searlon has been looking for my son."

Najdan lifted a brow. "Where is Zarien?"

"He's at sea. It seemed the safest place. It never occurred to me that Searlon was here. I would have brought Zarien ashore with me if I'd known. I thought I had left Searlon a cold trail when I came east. How was I to know he'd be here?" Tansen realized he was babbling and clenched his teeth together for a moment. "By now, he must know that
I'm
here. In fact, he probably expected the crumbling of the Lironi alliance to bring me here. If so, he also knew that I wouldn't leave Zarien behind. Not with Searlon looking for him."

"And not with Searlon willing to violate Sanctuary to kill," Najdan added gloomily.

"For Zarien's protection, I've told no one how I came here or where he is. But I thought I only needed to protect him from the eastern clans."

Najdan nodded, understanding. "So whatever measures you took will not protect him from Searlon."

 "I left him at sea, in the care of a sea-born family and of... of
Toren
Ronall."

"A Valdan?"

"Elelar's husband."

Najdan frowned. "Isn't he said to be a drunkard and a fool?"

"Yes."

"Have you lost all your wits?"

Tansen ignored that. "I need you to go protect Zarien for me. You're the only person I would trust to keep him safe from Searlon." Najdan was not only a skilled and shrewd fighter, but he also knew Searlon and his methods very well.

"Why can't you—" Najdan stopped as he realized, "You're waiting for Jagodan."

"If he arrives and I'm not here to keep them under control," Tansen said, indicating the hardened
shallaheen
who were gathered here, "it'll be a bloodbath and the end of any hope of saving the Lironi alliance or winning the war in the east."

Najdan said, "I don't want to leave the
sirana
alone to face Cheylan."

"She won't be alone," Tansen assured him.

"If anything happens to her—" 

"I have trusted you with her life for a long time," Tansen said. "You know you can trust me with it."

 Their eyes locked for a long moment, then Najdan nodded. "I accept the honor of protecting your son, and I promise you that I will let no harm come to him."

"You need to leave immediately."

"I will go tell the
sirana
."

When Najdan returned from his brief farewell to Mirabar, Tansen already had a fresh horse waiting for him. He removed his
jashar
and handed it to Najdan. "Zarien knows you, but this will identify you to
Toren
Ronall and the sea-born family as my messenger. My orders are that you're to keep your distance from other boats and refuse all approaches until I myself come to you."