The Destroyer Goddess (62 page)

A child of sorrow...

"This is the place," she murmured in wonder. "The place I've seen so many times..."

The place where Cheylan must have brought Elelar.

Sileria's future depended upon what happened here. On what Mirabar did next.

"What do I do?" she whispered.

Fire and water, water and fire...

Mirabar was distracted by little glowing shapes moving around in this strange sunless place of lava and crystal, this domain of mingled fire and water. Some slithered leglessly, others seemed to have a thousand legs.

"Ugh!" Mirabar backed up a step.

Her gaze sought the Beckoner again, and she noticed with fear that he seemed to be fading, spreading himself thinly on the hot, damp air and gradually disappearing now that he had brought her here.

Are you ready?

"I don't know," she admitted. "What do I do? What am I looking for?"

The Beckoner floated above the underground stream flowing through this cavern. As he sank into the water, he made the river shimmer briefly before he disappeared altogether.

You are looking for me
.

"For you? I'm
always
looking for you," Mirabar protested.

There was no answer.

She sighed and looked around. There were several passages leading out of this cavern, so it would be very easy to make the wrong choice and get lost. She was tempted to turn around and follow her trail of torches back out into the sunless day; but she knew she couldn't. Great forces had conspired to lure her here to protect Elelar, and her life was consecrated to this purpose.

Her womb quivered disconcertingly as she approached the stream, desperate in her thirst. 

"It's enchanted, isn't it?" she murmured. Warded. She could sense it now that she tried to, now that she was this close. It was the awareness of hostile water magic which had alarmed her daughter, so richly imbued with Baran's talent.

 What had Baran said? 

"This child is very powerful already. I can feel her when I'm this close to you. Trust her."

Mirabar placed a hand over her stomach, where the glow now felt both agitated and eager. "And I said, 'We will take care of each other, as Dar intended.'" Knowing she had reached the end of her endurance and couldn't go on without water, Mirabar took a deep breath and made her decision.
Trust her
.

"Protect me," she whispered, crouching beside the flowing stream and reaching into it to obtain some water in her cupped hands.

"Agh!" 

She fell back in fear, instinctively calling forth fire in a shielding circle as the water responded to her presence, her touch. It hissed angrily and rose off the stream bed into a towering wall that surged forward to kill her.

Mirabar met it with a wall of fire as she scrambled backward, her skin engulfed in her own protective flames; but whoever had set this trap was very powerful, his magic terribly strong. The water came straight through the fire, scarcely affected by it.

Mirabar screamed in mingled terror and pain as her belly exploded in a shower of cold fury, flooding her with watery belligerence, with an icy rage so startling and powerful she lost control of her own fire and saw it doused by the attacking water. 

"
No!"

The towering river suddenly froze, turning to solid crystal before her eyes. 

Shivering with terrible cold, Mirabar stared dumbly at it, blank-minded with shock.

Her belly throbbed with chilly exuberance, the unborn sorceress in her womb evidently sensing the triumphant test of her power.

"B... Bar..." Mirabar placed a shaking hand over her stomach and murmured. "Baran's daughter..."

She'd be dead right now if she hadn't made this child with him.

Shaking in reaction to the attack and the unfamiliar power which had saved her from it, Mirabar started picking herself off the damp floor of the cave... which wasn't cool, as caves usually were, but warm—even hot. She looked around at the bright drizzles of lava here and there and realized they were leaks from bigger lava flows—whole rivers of lava that were close enough to these caverns and tunnels to make the rocks uncomfortably warm and the air hot and steamy.

Sweating now, Mirabar rapped her knuckles against the crystal wall which had been her watery attacker and decided it was no longer a threat.

"Can I drink now?" she wondered aloud, cautiously approaching the stream again. 

The water now flowed around the hardened, distorted portion of it which had tried to kill her. Indeed, the stream didn't even touch that section now, as if revolted by its failure or repelled by the rival magic that had conquered its power.

Steeling herself to try again, Mirabar reached into the flowing water. Nothing happened. The power guarding it—or at least this portion of it—was broken. Now it was just water.

"Thank you," Mirabar muttered, indulging herself with abandon now. She had never been so thirsty in her life! She brought her cupped hands to her mouth again and again, then rested, then drank still more. She probably consumed enough to fill two waterskins by the time she felt satisfied and ready to proceed.

But proceed where? Which direction? Even the water offered no useful ideas, since the river seemed to split into three separate streams as it left this cavern and...

The river. The stream. The water.

Mirabar stared at it, thunderstruck. She'd been too frightened and too thirsty to recognize the ramifications until this moment.

Water magic
.

"Fires of Dar..."

Yes, perhaps Verlon could have enchanted the stream. If Cheylan, who betrayed everyone and trusted no one, actually trusted the old man enough to reveal this well-hidden lair to him. If Cheylan...

No, of course he wouldn't trust him that much
.

Verlon had sworn a bloodvow against Cheylan years ago. He had rescinded it in support of the rebellion, true; but even Kiloran had rescinded his own bloodvow against Tansen, whom he hated with an obsessive passion that no truce could ever mitigate. Kiloran had never given up his intention of someday killing Tansen in vengeance for murdering Armian, so it seemed unlikely that Verlon—notoriously hot-headed and malicious—had ever abandoned his hope of someday killing Cheylan. Even if Cheylan was cooperating with Verlon for the time being, to strengthen his position, would he trust him enough to invite Verlon's magic into this secret, remote place?

Never. Mirabar was certain.

So the sorcerer who had taught this river to kill an intruder was...

"
Cheylan
." Mirabar shivered as the full force of this realization struck her.

Dar wanted fire and water united in Sileria—by uniting them in the person of Sileria's new ruler.

A child of fire, a child of water...

"Of course," she murmured.

The sire was a man from both Marjan's and Daurion's bloodlines—but also, Daurion had told her, a man of
unique
power. Cheylan's fire magic wasn't unique; it was the power which he had
in addition to
his fire magic that made him unique. 

She was exasperated with herself for not having thought of  it before. 

Then again, how could she have guessed before now? No one had ever heard of such a thing. Even now, it was difficult to accept. No one in Sileria had ever commanded both fire and water. They were mutually exclusive, incompatible, forever apart. According to legend, Marjan had to
give up
fire magic to attain mastery over water, because it was impossible to master both elements. This was the world as they had known always know it. This was what they had always all believed.

Now Mirabar wondered if the legend was fanciful. Or just plain wrong. Perhaps when Marjan became so enthralled by water magic he didn't have to
sacrifice
fire magic, he just lost interest in it. And why wouldn't he, after all? A thousand years ago he forced the Beyah-Olvari to teach him a power unknown to anyone else in Sileria, a sorcery against which no one had ever developed any defense. He conquered and murdered Daurion, devastated Shaljir, and was the most powerful man in war-ravaged Sileria until his death, whereupon he became a legend every bit as enduring as the ruler whom he had betrayed. 

Yes, what interest would fire magic have held for him once he learned to command water? None, probably. Even if he still used fire magic in minor ways thereafter, it wasn't surprising that it was not part of his legend. Silerians loved a well-told tale too much to spoil it with facts. And given how unusual it was for someone even to be
capable
of power over both elements, Mirabar supposed it was natural that Silerians had believed for centuries that it was, in fact, impossible.

She studied the glowing, crystallized wall of water, curled in the menacing shape it had assumed as it tried to murder her.

"Accept the unbelievable," she murmured.

Oh, yes, if anyone could have—would have—kept such astonishing sorcery a secret, it was Cheylan, who had murdered the innocent, lied to his allies, and betrayed everyone in his quest for power. He'd killed the boy Semeon, even if he'd used Verlon's people as his instrument. He had lied repeatedly to Mirabar, since the night they first met, back when Josarian had yet to be revealed as the Firebringer and the Valdani thought they would always hold Sileria. He had convinced Kiloran to murder Jalilar and her unborn child...

Jalilar...

Guilt still consumed her as she thought of her part in that. If she had not trusted Cheylan, had not told him...

Stop it. There's no time for this now
.

He had done it all hoping for... What? Had he himself hoped to be the prophesied and undisputed new ruler of Sileria? Yes, it seemed likely his ambitions had flown that high. But then he had looked into the fire with her at Belitar and heard his destiny written on the flames along with Elelar's...

"He really is destined to be the father," she whispered to herself. She gazed uneasily at the cavern's ceiling as it groaned. A new trickle of lava fell through to start forming a glowing puddle nearby which gradually burned a deep hole in the rock as Mirabar watched it, her thoughts churning. "Cheylan is not deluded or crazy. It's not a mistake."

And the unthinkable thing which Mirabar had to do was murder the sire of the future ruler of Sileria. 

Baran was right. Only death would keep Cheylan from this child. And Daurion had made Mirabar's duty plain:
You will have to be stronger than he
.

Now Mirabar understood why only she could protect Elelar. Who in all of Sileria but a fire sorceress carrying a waterlord's immensely powerful child in her womb could confront Cheylan now, here, with any hope of surviving to take Elelar away from him?

Fire and water, water and fire...

Mirabar placed a hand over her stomach, again wondering how to find Elelar. Cheylan wasn't the only threat. Who knew how long these caverns would withstand the volcano's tantrums? The trickles of lava and the intense heat suggested the tunnels could collapse at any moment.

Why here?
she wondered. Of all the places Cheylan could have chosen to conceive his child and imprison its mother, why such an uncomfortable and obviously hazardous one? Had he chosen it because Mirabar had foreseen it, or had she envisioned it because he was bound to choose it? Was he so convinced of his destiny that he believed nothing could harm his pregnant captive, not even earthquakes and eruptions?

Why here?

A terrible, piercing, pain-wracked scream echoed through the cavern, filling Mirabar with panic and driving all thoughts but one from her head.

"
Elelar!"

Chapter Twenty-Three

Dar favors the brave, the honorable, 

and the generous; but She favors 

the faithful most of all.

                        —Guardian Prayer

Tansen's blood ran hot with fury at himself, his heart  thundering in rejection of what he knew he must admit to Faradar.

"I've lost her trail."

The maid looked exhausted and filthy, but she took his bitter announcement with impressive calm. They had already doubled back twice to the last sign of Mirabar's which he'd been able to find, and Faradar evidently knew there was no point in suggesting they try once more. Instead, she said sensibly, "We must go about this in another way, then."

He shook his empty waterskin, his throat raw with thirst, and tried not to think about the condition Mirabar must be in by now. "There's a Sanctuary farther ahead. On the lower slopes of Darshon. We'll get water there."

She nodded and tried to conceal how thirsty she must surely be. They'd already passed two dry streambeds.

Will the rains never come?

Faradar prodded, "And after we find water at the Sanctuary?"

He frowned. "Mirabar thought Cheylan must be hiding Elelar somewhere around Darshon. Underground or in a cave." Considering the way Mirabar had come last night, this seemed very likely. Her trail, where he'd lost it, seemed to be leading straight to Darshon. He gazed up at the tumultuous mountain that filled the sky in the dark gray air of this sunless day. "So we'll ask for help from the people who know Darshon and its surroundings better than anyone else."