The Destroyer Goddess (66 page)

Mirabar struggled to survive as the searing river of lava gathered speed, shot her forward like an arrow loosed from a bow, let her fall like a dead bird, and then dumped her on some unyielding surface, the lava's fluid texture being her only protection against the force of her landing.

She couldn't breathe. She
had
to breathe. She would die if she couldn't get air in another instant.

She lifted her head, praying the insane journey was over, and started trying to break through the fiery lava covering her. She felt weak, exhausted, at the end of her strength. She had to get out of this flow or she'd be dead in moments. She couldn't protect herself from this liquid fire any longer. 

Mirabar brushed lava from her face as if it were sticky syrup, then inhaled the hot, fume-thick air as soon as her nostrils were clear. She choked, wiped her mouth, then shook her head and rubbed at her eyes. 

Screams assaulted her ears as the lava started melting away from them. She looked around in scared confusion and saw areas of blackness. Darkness. Something which wasn't lava, whatever else it might be. She started crawling towards it, relieved the current was no longer so strong. It was as if the lava were now willing to release her.

I'm not dead. I'm not dead. Dar be praised, I'm not dead
.

She reached the rough ground, free of the flow, and started commanding the remaining lava to melt away from her body. Only then did any other thought enter her mind.

Where am I? And
what
is all that noise?

She looked around.

Darfire!

There were people everywhere, many of them holding torches—spots of golden light amidst the mingled black of the land and the glowing orange rivers of lava flows. Lava everywhere. Some of these people gaped at her in wide-eyed shock, which she supposed was understandable. Others were screaming, though they seemed more exultant than scared.

Lava flows everywhere...

Mirabar looked up and saw Darshon's tumultuous summit above her. She was just below the snow line.

"I'm on the slopes of Darshon," she murmured.

Mirabar studied the lava flow she had just escaped. It was  coming from the summit. It had evidently carried her straight up from the underground caverns and through the caldera itself. Tears misted her eyes. She had been in Dar's presence, in Dar's abode, in the very womb of Dar's divine power! She had been where no one else had ever survived going except for Josarian himself. The Firebringer...

She gasped as she realized who else Dar might have wanted to survive such an ordeal.

"Have you seen another woman?" Mirabar demanded of the people surrounding her. 

"What?"

"Someone like me. Someone else who, uh..." She gestured to the lava flow. 

"Someone brought here by Dar?"

"Yes!"

"Only you,
sirana
."

"She may still be alive! I've got to find her!"

"Are you... are you Dar in the flesh?"

"No!" she replied, startled. "I'm Mirabar."

"Mirabar?"

"Mirabar! Mirabar!"

"Not now!" she shouted. "I've got to find
Torena
Elelar! You've got to help me!"

But they were already chanting louder, lost in a delirium of blind worship and joyful rapture.

"
Mirabar! Mirabar! Mirabar!"

"
Zarien!"
Ronall screamed—then choked as water filled his nose and mouth.

No!

Gone. Zarien was gone.

Ronall couldn't see, breathe, or speak. The boat plunged and keeled madly as the enormous wave assaulted it, nearly drowning them all. For a long, horrifying moment, he was absolutely sure the vessel would go under. There seemed no hope, no escape. Then, by some miracle, it righted itself—heaving so hard that he hit the deck head-first and almost lost his grip on his rope. Then he felt someone move past him and realized it was Najdan, going after the boy.

Ronall tried to grab him, sensing that pursuit was futile. Certain death. Hopeless and pointless.

Then Najdan was gone, too. 

Of course, Ronall realized. The assassin had pledged his life to protect Zarien. So he'd rather die than stay with the boat while letting the boy drown.

Zarien...

"No!" Ronall howled.

He could hear the frantic screams of the Lascari. There was a hideous shudder and terrible crashing noise as the sea tossed this boat into another one. Then they sprang backwards, rebounding from the blow, only to be slapped around by another wave.

"Dar!" Ronall screamed, choking on the sea water battering him as he flailed around, clinging to the rope and being repeatedly flung against hard surfaces. "Stop, damn you!
Stop!"

Zarien...

That boy, so lost, so young, so confused. And Najdan, such a complete contrast to the boy.

They had been Ronall's friends, in a way. At least, he wanted to think so as he wept for their deaths.

Their deaths...

It came to him then, what he must do, why he had come here. He couldn't save the Valdani in Sileria—how could he even have imagined himself meeting such a formidable challenge? Perhaps he couldn't even save the drowning sea-born boy, nor the grim assassin... But he would die trying. 

He had left Shaljir so long ago, it seemed, fleeing Elelar's hatred and seeking death. Seeking an end to his pointless existence, an escape from his soul-deep hunger for something he could never even define. 

"Zarien!" Ronall screamed again.

May the Three have mercy on my soul. May Dar welcome me as I travel to the Otherworld...

Weeping with terror and a terrible elation, Ronall let go of the rope as another wave assaulted the boat. He staggered as the boat heaved, then he flew overboard with sickening speed as the sea attacked, engulfed, and carried him away.

He had avoided death the many times it had come courting him on land after he'd fled Shaljir. He had run, hid, broken his private vow over and over, and so he was still alive.

Now his body plunged below the churning surface. He'd already lost all sense of direction, had no idea which way Zarien had fallen or where the boy might be now. He fought to reach the surface again.

"
Zarien!
" he shouted as his head emerged.

Waves covered him, forcing him back under. His body started panicking, fighting for air, burning for breath; but his mind was calm.

He would finally end the long, coy seduction and let death embrace him. The only way Dar and the Three could convince him they didn't want him dead was to let him find and save the boy. If he couldn't even do that, then he was ready for it all to be over.

Something enormous briefly bumped him. He lost control and inhaled involuntarily. Suffocating and choking, he again rose toward the surface, wondering what had hit him. Coughing and heaving as he bobbed up out of the water, he found the swelling waves moving rhythmically enough, for the moment, that he could catch his breath and look around. 

"Zarien!"

He thought he heard a voice.

Scarcely daring to believe it, he started swimming toward it, cursing himself for never have learned to swim well.

"
Zarien!"

This time he heard it, above the roar of the dark sea and the distant thunder of the volcano: "
Toren!
"

"Zarien!"

"Where are you?"

"Over here! Where are you?"

"Keep talking!" the boy shouted. "I can find you by your voice!"

"Najdan's in the water, too!"

"We'll find him!" Zarien shouted back. "Keep talking! I'm coming!"

Ronall wasn't sure that treading water and shouting to the boy counted as rescuing him, but it did seem rather like an answer to the ultimatum he had given the gods. Perhaps they didn't want him dead, after all. Perhaps he was indeed meant to live. Maybe even
he
counted for something in this chaotic world.

There had been very few moments of real happiness in his life, so he wasn't quite sure if that was what he felt now. It was not an emotion he had much experience recognizing.

Then Zarien's voice came, from much closer than he'd expected, full of panic: "
Ronall! No!"

He felt the sudden, shocking blow, the immense power and weight and size rushing into him with malicious violence. 

Then there was nothing. Only darkness. Only the sea.

"
Mirabar! Mirabar! Mirabar!"

"Have you come to show us Dar's chosen one?"

"We have waited for a sign!"

"
Quiet!
" Mirabar snapped, pushing her way past endless throngs of pilgrims.

The mountain roared again, filling Mirabar's head with its angry tantrum. The terrible noise seemed to penetrate her bones, flooding the night, filling her blood. 

Oh, and the
heat
of all these lava flows. Its intensity melted snow from the summit, then turned the water into steam, creating a bewildering veil of fog broken by occasional explosions and sudden bursts of flame. Her skin was hot, like any normal person's skin would be in such oppressive air, and she was sweating as the cool glow in her belly quivered in weary pleading.

She placed her hands over her stomach, trying to comfort her daughter in this strange place, surrounded by people who made her sorry she'd ever once called Baran crazy. Mirabar started pulling her clothing away from her sweat-drenched body, shaking in reaction to her ordeal. She gasped and nearly jumped out of her skin as steam suddenly spewed out of the ground nearby.

"Wait..." She looked around. "I've felt this before. Been here before." Yes. In a vision. She closed her eyes and listened. 

The chanting... Yes, it was familiar, she'd heard it before, but only in her tormented mind. Beyond the shrieking of her name she heard other voices, other songs. Chanting. Trilling. Ululating. A bewildering mixture of voices filled with passion and fervor, ecstatic praise-singing flooding the hot, roaring night with fearsome urgency. Her head was reeling with it!

The ground was shaking again, but it wasn't an earthquake this time. It was power... tremendous power. Lava moving through the veins of the mountain, flowing somewhere beneath her feet, making the ground tremble with Dar's blood, Dar's breath, Dar's life... Mirabar gasped and leaped back as more lava erupted at her feet, its intense heat making her dizzy, weakened as she already was. The fumes, the sudden flames erupting out of the flowing ooze of the lava spilling forth from the world's womb...

A woman was screaming. Her panic and pain were distant, nearly drowned out by the fervent wail of the praise singers.

"Quiet!" Mirabar shouted at them all, but they ignored her and continued singing, their bodies writhing in frenzied dances.

Mirabar watched in astonishment as some of them danced upon the lava, apparently impervious to it... Or no. Not
all
of them. Lava sucked in one wailing worshipper, whirled around him, and flowed over his body. Flames ignited in his long hair. He died screaming right in front of her, sinking into the lava as she would have expected all of them to do. The others continued dancing atop the lava as if oblivious to the horrible death.

Who were the ones who lived, Mirabar wondered in a daze? Were they Guardians?
Zanareen
? The favored faithful? Their clothes were in such tatters, it was impossible to tell who they had been before they came to Darshon to be... whatever they were now.

She grasped one of the lava dancers, taking her by the shoulders and gazing hard into her wild-eyed face. "Are you a Guardian?"

"No,
sirana!
I am only a humble worshipper of Dar's divine—"

"Why are you here?"

"To praise Dar!" she cried gleefully.

"Dar demands praise!" someone else screeched.

"Praise Dar and welcome Her judgment!"

They started ululating wildly, drowning out whatever other questions Mirabar wanted to ask.

Through their shrill ecstasy, Mirabar heard more screaming. She looked around desperately, unable to tell where it was coming from. "Where is she?"