In Legend Born (82 page)

Josarian ignored the crowd of
shallaheen
following him as he trekked up the slopes of Mount Darshon. He and Mirabar had met Jalan at a Sanctuary at the base of Darshon, where the
zanar
had immediately started preaching to the local
shallaheen
. No one ever paid much attention when yet another
zanar
flung himself into the volcano, but hundreds of mountain peasants who heard Jalan's ravings evidently felt they couldn't miss seeing Sileria's most famous rebel do such an insane thing.

Josarian also ignored Mirabar, who had been pleading with him, ever since leaving Idalar, to wait until she could consult the Beckoner about this madness. But her elusive Beckoner remained silent on the subject, frustrating Mirabar and confirming Josarian's conviction that only one thing could resolve his dilemma: He must jump.

They were close to the snowy summit of Darshon when Mirabar interrupted his silent musings once again. "We must stop. I need... I need to rest."

He would not be stalled or delayed. "You stop, then." He didn't even glance at her to soften his brusque tone. "I can't."

"Josarian, please."

He ignored her. Her voice was thin and weak, a puny human sound he could barely hear amidst the passionate roaring that filled his mind as they approached the mouth of the volcano: Dar was welcoming him. She knew he was here. She awaited him as eagerly as Calidar had awaited him on their wedding night.

Pain rippled through his head, and he knew it was Dar reaching out to punish him for betraying Her now with even the briefest memory of his wife.

He was resolved. There could be no turning back.

Calidar, Calidar...

One hot tear trickled down his wind-chilled face as he banished the last memory of her from his heart. Until they met again in the Otherworld, until then... he would belong to Dar and no other.

I am coming, Dar.

"Josarian comes! He comes!" Jalan cried as they approached Darshon's summit. "Welcome him!"

Welcome me. Welcome me, for I have given up my heart for You.

"Josarian!" Mirabar called as he quickened his pace to meet the crowd of
zanareen
coming down the slope to greet him. "Wait!"

"Stay here," he ordered.

"No!" She sounded breathless and scared. "I'm coming... with you... damn you."

He would have smiled under other circumstances, accustomed by now to her sharp tongue. Now he thought only of what was to come.

More
zanareen
appeared up ahead. He could hear them shouting his name, cheering, ecstatic with religious fervor. There were, however, also dissenters.

"Go back!" one
zanar
screamed, startling him. "You are not one of us!"

"He is the Firebringer!" Jalan cried. "Stand back!"

"No, he is just some lawless peasant!"

"I stand with Jalan!" someone else proclaimed.

"I will jump and prove that Josarian is nothing but a pretender!"

"No one may jump before Josarian does!"

"He has no right!"

"He has more right than—"

"Oh, for the... love of Dar," Mirabar said. "Is there someone... in authority here?" She was breathing hard. The air was so thin this high up.

"Who is this woman?" a dirty grey-haired
zanar
demanded.

"She is a demon!"

"She is beloved of Dar," another
zanar
insisted, studying Mirabar. "Just look at her and you can see that!"

"She is my trusted advisor," Josarian said sharply. They all stopped bickering and stared, as if astonished he could speak. Taking advantage of their momentary silence, he continued, "I come here with all due respect. I bring reverence and devotion to Dar. I offer Her my life in exchange for Her favor."

This statement inspired a new round of bickering among the
zanareen.

"You are not one of us!"

"But nowhere does it say that the Firebringer
must
be one of us."

"He is Josarian! If he is not the Chosen One, then who is?"

"Yes, let him jump! Then we will know!"

"It is sacrilege!"

"
Must
you all shout?" Mirabar said testily. "My head is pounding."

"He will not profane this sacred site!" A furious young man leapt forward and swung his
yahr
at Josarian's head with deadly accuracy.

"No!" Mirabar cried.

Josarian ducked, rolled to the ground, kicked the man's legs out from under him, and disarmed him. He tossed the weapon aside as he rose to his feet, leaving the humiliated attacker lying in the snow.

"
That
was sacrilege," said the grey-haired
zanar
, glaring down at the young man on the ground.

"No fire," Mirabar gasped, her hands stretched out in front of her. She looked strangely pale. "I have... no fire."

"This is Darshon," said Jalan, "where we all stand helpless and humbled before the goddess."

Mirabar hugged herself, shivering in the cold wind that swept across the mountaintop.

"Enough of this," Josarian said. "It is Dar, and not the
zanareen
, who will determine whether or not I am the Firebringer."

"Yes! That is true!"

"Let him jump!"

"No!
I
will jump! I will jump
now,
and you will know him for the liar and pretender that he is!"

"Stop," Josarian said as a
zanar
turned to go to his death. "If I die in the volcano, then you'll know. Then you can jump. Don't throw your life away now."

The
zanar
cursed him, then turned and started ascending the slope as fast as he could.

"I guess you said... the wrong thing," Mirabar surmised.

"Stop! You are not purified!" the grey-haired
zanar
called after the young man. "I will not condone..." He gave up shouting after the retreating figure and returned his attention to Josarian. "You are correct. Only Dar can decide."

"Then take me to Her," he said.

"Josarian..." Mirabar's voice was pleading.

"Let him go." Jalan stepped between her and Josarian, separating them. "You must. Surely you know that by now?"

She stopped and stared at Jalan, her hot eyes glowing in a face gone sallow with cold and fatigue.

Jalan turned to address the growing crowd of
zanareen
. "All of Sileria awaits the answer now. The war, the future of our people, our freedom... All of it now depends upon what happens here."

"That's true," said Josarian, raising his voice to be heard above the wind. "That's why I have come. Sileria will have the answer, even if it means my death. I ask for your blessing, but I will enter the Fires without it if I must."

"No," said the grey-haired one. "You must be purified first. It would not be fitting to offer yourself to the goddess without proper preparation."

"I am ready," Josarian replied. He had expected this, and he would cooperate. Dar and the
zanareen
had waited for centuries, and he would not dishonor them by rejecting the rites and rituals of Darshon.

"Let us waste no more time," Jalan said, taking his arm and leading him away. "Come."

"Josarian?"

He heard a catch of panic in Mirabar's voice and looked back at her. Four men were blocking her path as she tried to follow him. "She goes where I go," he told them.

"No woman goes where you are going now." Seeing his hesitation, Jalan added, "No one will harm her. But she may not come with us."

Josarian met Mirabar's worried gaze. She had run out of words and pleaded only with her eyes now, those eyes which glowed like the heart of Darshon.

"Go back to the Sanctuary down below," he told her. "Wait there."

"Wait for what? News of your death?" she protested. "Josarian! Come back!
Josarian!
"

He turned his back on her, steeling himself against her pleas as he went in pursuit of his destiny.

Koroll was admiring his newly-acquired
shir
when one of his men admitted Shaljir's new prison chief to his command chamber. The former prison chief was on his way back to Valda, under armed escort, to face formal charges. He was accompanied by a courier carrying a carefully-worded dispatch from Koroll explaining that this incompetent fool had permitted rebels to break into the prison and steal
Torena
Elelar. Unable to mitigate the disaster, Koroll did the next best thing and cast blame elsewhere.

The new prison chief, mindful of how precarious his position would be if anything went wrong, had come to make a full report to Koroll. It was possible, he advised the commander, that the rebels had entered the prison through the sewage system, though how they got into the system in the first place, or how they knew which outlet led into the prison, was anybody's guess. The chief discussed several other possibilities, but Koroll rather favored the image of the
torena
wading through waist-deep sewage as she made her escape.

Koroll ordered all water and sewage conduits to be secured with heavy new equipment and double locks. There was no point in trying to track the
torena
's escape route, though. There were too many possible directions for her to have gone, and it wasn't as if she would have left a trail in the subterranean sewage canals. The Outlookers were still conducting a house-to-house search of Shaljir for her, but Koroll had no doubt that she was far from the city by now.

Meanwhile, her worthless husband was in a small cell on the top floor of the prison. He was guarded day and night by no less than four men at all times. He was forbidden visitors and never allowed outside of his cell.

Ronall's family was powerless to help him. They had championed Elelar, a prisoner charged with treason, and she had fled custody after being granted the honor of a trial. So now Ronall's family was disgraced. They were also in danger of having their property and assets seized by the Emperor in retaliation for Elelar's violent escape from prison. Consequently, their faint protests on Ronall's behalf soon faded into silence. Elelar's husband was all alone, completely at Koroll's mercy. It seemed clear that the
torena
wasn't fond of Ronall, but the drunkard was nonetheless the only leverage Koroll had, so he intended to find a way to use him.

Consequently, Koroll had instructed the new prison chief to watch Ronall and report anything of interest.

"What do you mean he's sick?" Koroll demanded, upon receiving the prison chief's full report. "I told you to take care that nothing happens to him! He's our hostage for his rebel wife."

"Sir, we
have
taken care," the chief said. "But he's vomiting, sweating, feverish, and shaking. He seems to be having visions and delusions and..." The man made a helpless gesture. "It's not our fault. It's the liquor and the Kintish dreamweed and the Moorlander cloud syrup."

"You've been giving a
prisoner
liquor and dreamweed and—"

"No, sir." The chief explained, "I mean, it's the lack of those things that's making him ill."

Koroll stared at him. "That's ridiculous. A man gets sick from too much of those things. A man like Ronall no doubt misses them when he's deprived of them, but—"

"According to the priest who I had examine him, deprivation is the problem, sir.
Toren
Ronall's body is so accustomed to regular and large quantities of these things that the lack of them is making him ill."

Koroll shook his head. "And Elelar is married to
that
," he mused.

"Sir, he's been asking for...
begging
for something—anything."

Koroll frowned. "Does the priest say he'll die without it?"

"He's still young and relatively strong, so the priest doubts it, but—"

"Then the answer is no."

The chief warned, "But there's no guarantee, sir. He
could
die."

"If we give him something to soothe him now, what about tomorrow?" Koroll demanded. "I've barely got enough money in my treasury right now to feed my men, and we're trying to fight a war. Do you really think I can spare you the money to acquire imported dreamweed and cloud syrup for one useless half-Silerian prisoner?"

"Then perhaps some liquor, sir, or at least some—"

"No!" Koroll snapped. "Just tell that sot to be a man and pull himself together."

"Commander, you warned me not to let him die. If he—"

"The warning still stands," Koroll said coldly. "So I suggest you tell that priest to get to work keeping Ronall alive." As an afterthought, he added, "And get a Sister to treat him, too. He's half-Silerian, after all, and they put great faith in the Sisters' healing powers."

Looking resigned, the prison chief said, "Yes, sir."