The Destroyer Goddess (79 page)

"Because," Najdan said quietly from across the room, "he is a
very
willful boy."

"Yes," Tansen admitted. "He is."

Baran said to him, "This physical violence is unnecessary, ill-mannered, and—dare I mention?—very unwise." The fountain started bubbling menacingly behind Tansen
.

"Stop this right now or I'll set you
both
on fire," Mirabar warned them.

Realizing he was wasting time and losing focus, Tansen released Baran, who sank weakly into a nearby chair.

"You're lucky Vinn didn't see that," Baran said. "He'd kill you for such disrespect. Well, he'd
try
, anyhow—and then just think of what a mess we'd have on the carpet."

The assassin was busy preparing Baran's men for an assault on Kandahar. Tansen had already sent messages to Lann in Zilar and to Pyron at Dalishar with detailed instructions to organize as many people as possible for an invasion of Kiloran's territory, an assault which must work in coordination with the attack on Kandahar itself. The rest of the Society was dead, fleeing, or in shambles. Most of Sileria was coming under the loyalists' control. Now, Tansen knew, the time was right to make a direct, all-out attack on Kiloran. Their losses might be terrible, but if they defeated him, then the war would effectively be over at last.

The complication was that there was one person inside of Kandahar who mustn't be harmed under any circumstances. One person who must be taken away alive from Kiloran, by any means available, and the sooner the better.

"I will go into Kiloran's palace," Tansen told Baran. "Alone. I will not have one of your men panic and gut my son."

Baran replied, "I feel compelled to point out that Kiloran will certainly kill anyone who enters his—"

"And you," Tansen ordered, "will distract Kiloran so I can get the boy out safely."

"I'm not as strong as I was," Baran said. "I may not be able to fight Kiloran long enough to—"

"Would you really sacrifice Alcinar's son?" Tansen snapped, loathing this mercurial wizard. "Is that what you want for her bloodline?"

Baran slumped in his chair and looked suddenly older. "I should have been his father."

"If you were," Tansen said coldly, "Searlon probably would have killed him and sent you his corpse."

Baran glared at him. "I have always found your company unpleasant."

"Give me time to get Zarien out of Kandahar." The waterlords had taught Tansen to be ruthless, so he added, "Since you didn't save Alcinar from Kiloran, saving her son's life does seem to me to be the very least you might do for her now."

"Damn you," Baran growled.

"If we're leaving tomorrow," Mirabar said to Baran, obviously trying to end their argument, "you will need to rest now."

"First," the waterlord said, "I would like to take my leave of the Olvara. I daresay she will miss me when I'm gone."

Mirabar looked stricken as she stared at him.

She cares
, Tansen thought.
She actually cares about him.

It hurt. He once again understood how much his feelings for Elelar must have hurt
her
. 

Mirabar was visibly upset as she escorted her husband out of the study.

Baran thinks he won't be coming back to Belitar
.

Tansen wouldn't miss him, but he did find this pessimism disturbing. If a waterlord of Baran's experience and still- formidable power didn't expect to survive a direct assault on Kiloran...

What chance does a
shatai
have?

And how likely was it that he could last long enough to get Zarien away from Kiloran?

Focus on the task at hand
.

"Najdan," he said to the assassin, "I still have more questions about Kandahar."

"Of course." Najdan came over to the table upon which lay the map he'd drawn and began discussing details of the attack with him. They were surprised by Mirabar's return.

"Velikar is accompanying Baran down to the caverns," she said. "I wanted to talk with you while there's time."

Tansen nodded and gave her his attention.

"Have you thought..." She folded her hands. Cleared her throat. Unfolded her hands.

"What?" he prodded.

"What will you do if Zarien doesn't want to come with you?"

"I'll bring him out anyhow."

"I mean... if he resists." Mirabar took a breath and said, "Tansen, what will you do if he tries to kill you?"

"He won't."

"What makes you so sure? He has already run away and gone to Kiloran. Who knows—"

"
I
know," he said. "I know Zarien. I know his heart. He is not a killer."

"Since the moment he arrived at Kandahar," she persisted, "Kiloran has been turning him against you."

"Kiloran has been trying to make him afraid of me. But he can't convince him to kill me."

"Zarien is powerful, and probably already learning how to use his p—"

"He won't use it to kill." Tansen shook his head. "He doesn't have that in him."

"Is that what Armian thought, before you killed him?"

The silence was tense and cold.

"I always had it in me," Tansen said at last. "Zarien doesn't—"

"Isn't that what Armian thought? I
know
, Tansen. I've Called him. I've felt the surprise he felt. Not just that you could kill
him
, but that you could kill at all!"

"Zarien's a better person than I was, Mirabar. He's never dreamed of becoming an assassin. He's never admired killing or wanted to be in the Society. He hates violence."

"Tansen," she pleaded, "what if he's changing? You changed. What if you don't know him as well as you think you do? What if you've seen only what you want to see?"

"I'm not that—"

"Aren't you?" she challenged. "You've been with him all this time and never suspected he had water magic, even though you now realize there were many signs, right from the start."

He said dismissively, "Oh, even you didn't suspect—"

"I hardly know him! You lived with him as his father. You didn't see it because you didn't want to see it!"

"That doesn't—"

"And now you don't want to see
this.
"

"There's nothing to see!" he shouted.

They stared at each other in consternation, their fast, angry breathing competing with the sound of the tinkling fountain.

"This bickering," Najdan said, "is pointless."

"This bickering," Mirabar snapped, "may mean the difference between life and death for Tansen."

"You're wrong," Tansen told her.

"I hope so. But what if I'm not?"

"The
sirana
may or may not be wrong," Najdan said to Tansen. "We cannot learn the truth in advance. Therefore, I would suggest that you be very careful when you approach Zarien. It's undeniable that you have not yet learned everything about him which there is to know."

"I know
this
," Tansen said firmly. "He won't hurt me."

Najdan and Mirabar looked at each other. Both of them looked worried.

"Father!"

Armian didn't respond. They were on the dark cliffs east of Adalian. The long rains had finally come.

Tansen knew he should do it now. 

"Father," he said again.

Fast, please Dar, let it be fast. Let him not suffer. I can't bear to make him suffer...

It was Tansen's weakness, Armian said, this distaste for suffering.

Father!

"Do you know what you're doing?" Josarian asked.

Tansen insisted. "It's not in him to hurt me. It's not!"

"You wouldn't believe
this
was in him either, would you?" Josarian lifted his tunic and revealed the silvery scar of a
shir
wound healed by water magic. "You refused to see it. What else are you refusing to see?"

"No! You're wrong!"

He saw Armian's silhouette faintly outlined against the tormented coastal sky... then realized it was himself.

"Be careful!" he warned the man as the boy prepared to betray him.

"It's too late," Josarian said sadly. "He won't listen. You know he won't."

"Father!"

Tansen looked over his shoulder in response to Zarien's cry.

The boy struck out. The blow connected, reverberating through Tansen's soul. He fell to his knees.

Tansen froze, like a statue, when he saw his son standing above him on that windswept cliff.

"Zarien?"
he said incredulously
.

No! No! No!

"Tansen?"
Armian said
.

"Forgive me, father," Tansen whispered.

"How could you do it?" Zarien asked him angrily. "Am I next?"

"I can't hurt you," Tansen told him. "I could never hurt you."

"Does he know?" Josarian asked.

"I don't know," Tansen admitted. "I thought so, but... I've made mistakes."

"You always do."

"I want him to know."

"Then you have no choice, do you?"

"I have no choice," Tansen agreed, as the rain fell all around them.

"Tansen?" Armian repeated in that shocked, disbelieving voice, that voice so rich with betrayal, so wounded by treachery...

"
Father..."

"Father!"

Tansen awoke with a pounding heart and quivering limbs. Breathing fast, he sat up and held his pounding head in his hands. Rain drummed hard on the crumbling roof of Belitar and pattered noisily on the moat outside his window.

"Zarien..."

The damp bedchamber seemed to close in on him as he took harsh gulps of air. 

Did Zarien have nightmares about
him
now, he wondered?

Oh, Dar, how did we come to this?

Step by step, he realized wearily, as all journeys were made. 

Had he been a bad father? He had tried so hard... and he had been one so briefly...

No
. He would not accept the ache of unbearable loss that threatened to eat his heart. He was
still
a father. He would show Zarien he loved him and would never hurt him. And he would get his son back, or die trying.

In the end, it was the only choice he could make.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

May there be one thing in your life for 

which it is worth giving up everything else.

                              —Kintish Proverb

Mirabar waited in the dark with other Guardians. Two full moons glowed orange-red in the starless night sky. Blood moons hovering over a nation which had torn itself apart in pursuit of this moment.

Tonight the past and the future came together in the present. The tragedy of wasted lives, the waste of squandered talents, the enmity that ran stronger in their blood than love, the love which they had twisted into something too destructive to survive.

Fire and water, water and fire...

The bloodlust of a people which they must learn to stop quenching. The vengeance that could no longer be their whole way of life. The passion for betrayal which they must stop indulging.

Tansen had promised the loyalists they would end the war here. Now. With this battle. He had brought them to the edge of Kiloran's territory from all over western Sileria. Quietly, so as not to alert Kiloran. Swiftly, because every day that Zarien remained at Kandahar tormented him. And he had brought them in great numbers, because now Kiloran was cornered and desperate, and therefore more deadly than ever.

Next to Mirabar, Baran was spitting up blood in the dark while Velikar held his shoulders.

"Can you do this?" Mirabar asked Baran, frowning with grim  concern. The journey from Belitar had nearly finished him. She didn't see how he could confront Kiloran now.