The Destroyer Goddess (36 page)

The Guardian's lava rich eyes sparkled with strange intensity as he greeted Elelar with all the polished courtesy of their class.
Torena
Chasimar was fluttering and chattering even more than usual, and Elelar realized the half-Valdani woman was unnerved by Cheylan's looks. Not enough to be rude; just enough to be irritating.

Impatient with everything but the burning question inside of her, Elelar interrupted Chasimar's nervous chatter and said to Cheylan, "You've come for me, haven't you?"

Even his well-governed features betrayed a reaction to her bluntness. "Yes."

When the one with eyes of fire comes for you,
the Olvar had told her,
you must not resist
.

"Are you the one, then?" Elelar asked, gazing intently into those eyes of fire. "The one I've awaited?"

Now his face went blank with surprise. He nodded slowly and said, "Yes. I'm the one."

Torena
Chasimar giggled a little and said, "What are you two talking about?"

"What about Mirabar?" Had Elelar been wrong all along about her?

"She sent me."

"She knows, then?"

His gaze was sharp. "Knows what?"

"What my destiny is?"

Cheylan suddenly smiled, looking pleased. "I know what your destiny is, and only I can lead you to it."

Her head started spinning as if she had drunk too much wine. After all the waiting, all the fear, all the patience and secrecy and strangely dark hope, the moment had arrived. The Olvar had been right. Elelar had been right. Only now, as Cheylan confirmed it, did she realize what a relief that was. 

If this is the way it must be...

"Then I am ready," she said.

Cheylan nodded. "We should leave immediately."

"Leave?" Chasimar blurted.

"Will I... need anything?" Elelar asked.

"All your courage," he said. "All your resolve."

Elelar nodded and allowed Cheylan to lead her to the door. 

"Wait!" Chasimar bleated. "Where are you going?"

Cheylan said over his shoulder to her, "It was a pleasure to meet you,
torena
."

"Elelar!" Chasimar protested.

Elelar paused. Without looking back at Chasimar, she said, "Tell Faradar I have written down my instructions. She'll know where to look. And, uh... Tell Tansen..." She felt Cheylan stiffen slightly when she mentioned that name, but he didn't interrupt. "Tell him if everything had been different..." She gave a little puff of laughter and admitted wryly, "No, it probably would have always been this way between us."

"But Elelar..."

"Stay here, Chasimar," Elelar ordered.

The
torena
continued protesting as Elelar and Cheylan left the house together. 

"What is she doing here?" Cheylan asked.

Elelar shook her head. "It's a long story. But she's like all Valdani. Once they make themselves at home, it takes an act of Dar to get rid of them."

As they emerged into the dying sunlight, she murmured, a little surprised, "It's getting late."

"We should travel by night," he explained, leading her to where he had two horses tethered. "We're too easy to recognize."

She supposed he meant
he
was, since, without the elaborate headdress she usually wore when traveling, which identified her, nothing about her appearance was distinguished enough to reveal her name. And with no servants or entourage, the only thing about the two of them likely to attract attention was the color of Cheylan's eyes.

"What about bandits?" Perhaps a pointless question, since she was riding to her death, but she didn't want to be raped by bandits on the way.

Also a
silly
question, she realized, when Cheylan replied, "I'll take care of them."

Yes, the Guardian who, as everyone knew, had been keeping waterlords out of Wyldon's territory could certainly get rid of a few bandits.

"
Torena
Elelar!"

"
Torena!
Torena!
Torena!
"

They were spotted by the crowd which peopled her grounds today. Elelar waved briefly, hoping they'd leave her alone. Instead, they came rushing forward in an aggressive wave of adulation, shouting her name, praising her for her courage and generosity—and frightening the horse she was trying to mount. Someone clumsily but kindly pushed her up into the saddle—and was then a little too familiar about helping her foot find the stirrup.

"Cheylan!" someone cried.

The crowd had evidently figured out who he was. Only one man in Sileria fit his description, after all.

"Thank Tansen for us!" a lowlander urged Cheylan.

"Tell Tansen we love him!" an old
shallah
  woman cried.

"Tell the
sirana
we believe in her!"

"Yes, tell Mirabar we love her!"

"
Siran
," a
zanar
exhorted Cheylan, "do you not hear Dar Calling to you?"

"I do indeed," Cheylan replied. 

The crowd cheered, even though Elelar suspected they'd all rather go without water again than go to Darshon themselves. The tales about the mystical ecstasy of the pilgrims and the many deaths at Mount Darshon these days were as terrifying as they were inexplicable.

"Dar is also Calling the
torena
," Cheylan announced. "So you'll have to let us pass, now."

This made quite an impression, and Elelar could hear them screaming and chanting her name in a fever of holy praise even after she followed Cheylan off her grounds and into the arms of whatever fate Dar had chosen for her.

Chapter Thirteen

Refuse to do evil; that is 

the beginning of doing good.

                              —Creed of the Sisterhood

When Tansen came back to camp one day, Ronall finally summoned all his liquor-soaked courage and spoke to him.

"I think," he said to the
shatai
, "I should go... Darfire! Doesn't that hurt?"

"Hmm?" Tansen followed Ronall's gaze to where a singed hole in his leggings revealed a patch of burned skin. "Oh. Yes," Tansen replied absently. "It does."

"What happened?"

"I stumbled into some Guardian fire."

Since he was returning from a skirmish, Ronall assumed that he had "stumbled" while fighting several men simultaneously. Tansen didn't talk about his feats, but everyone else did. Often.

Now Tansen's tattooed bloodson peered at the burn and said critically, "You would never survive at sea. You're much too clumsy."

"Then it's just as well we're not going to sea, isn't it?"

The boy's gaze flew up to his young father's face. There was a strange tension between them for a moment, then Zarien said, "I'm
not
." It sounded like a warning, or maybe a vow.

"Did I say you were?" Tansen replied innocently.

Zarien rolled his eyes, then he gestured to the burn. "That needs to be cleaned."

Tansen nodded and sat down so the boy could start tending the burn. Then Tansen looked up at Ronall. "You were saying,
toren?
" 

Ronall noticed, as he often did, that Tansen addressed him coolly. Tansen was never—well, rarely—rude to him, but the
shatai
didn't like him and couldn't hide the fact. Ronall, who would certainly never have expected such a man to like him, mostly avoided him. 

"I've heard," Ronall said, "that—"

Tansen drew in a sudden, sharp breath.

"Does it hurt?" Zarien asked.

"Of course it hurts," Tansen replied. "Don't interrupt the
toren
."

Ronall tried again. "That there've been—"

"Ouch!" Tansen scowled at his son. "Now
that
hurt."

"Sorry," Zarien said.

"Why don't you get the Sister for me?" Tansen suggested to Zarien. "You're not used to treating burns."

"I won't get better without practice," Zarien pointed out. "Now hold still."

"I don't want to hold still. I want the Sister," Tansen insisted.

"This won't hurt less if
she
does it."

Ronall felt sadly envious as he listened to them bicker, Tansen obviously tired and in discomfort, Zarien asserting his abilities and—as always—testing the boundaries of his father's authority. They were such an unlikely pair, the sea-born orphan and the
shallah
rebel who was much too young to be his real father. Ronall knew by now that they hadn't even known each other all that long, and yet they were already so much closer than he had ever been to his own father. Nothing like their easy bickering—as affectionate as it was irritable—had ever existed between Ronall and his parents. Or Ronall and his wife. 

Get out, get out, get out!

"I want to go east," Ronall suddenly blurted, trying to smother the memory of Elelar's open loathing the last time he'd seen her.

They both looked at him in surprise.

"Are you being Called by Dar, too?" Zarien asked. "Does She even speak to Valdani?"

"Uh, no," Ronall replied. "I mean, I don't know. I mean, not to me. But I—"

"Even the sea-born are going east," Zarien murmured, his gaze pensive as he stared at Ronall. "Even, it's said, the sea-bound..." The boy's voice trailed off and he looked down. "I didn't mean to interrupt,
toren
." 

Tansen, without even glancing at Zarien, put a hand on the boy's neck. An absent gesture of comfort. Ronall couldn't remember when anyone had last tried to comfort
him
, let alone done it as a mere reflex, a bone-deep habit.

"Why do you want to go east?" Tansen asked.

"I heard some of your men talking, after the last runner came."

"The last runner never came," Tansen said wearily. "His body was found—"

"Yes, I mean the one before that." He wished Tansen wouldn't mention things like ambushes and corpses. It weakened Ronall's resolve, which it had taken a lot of really bad wine to make strong in the first place. "They were talking about the massacres in the east. The Lironi and their allies hate the Valdani just as much as Verlon and his friends do, and no one there is... is speaking for the Valdani. Um, the ones like me. The one who... are Silerians," he finished lamely.

Tansen looked like he was having trouble understanding. "You're saying you want to go east to try to save the Valdani there?"

"It worked in Adalian," Ronall reminded him. "When the city-dwellers wanted to celebrate freedom there by killing Valdani
toreni
, and you... introduced me to the city as Elelar's... um, brave husband who had..."

"Supported the rebellion," Tansen finished crisply. 

Tansen had made a sudden surprise appearance in the city, accompanied by Ronall, a few days ago, after Kariman lost his grip on it. Adalian had suffered terribly, but the city had kept faith with the Firebringer and had believed in Tansen. It had endured and survived, and now it had water. If Kariman even cared about this tremendous loss, he was too busy trying to kill Gulstan to do anything about it—especially now that Guardians were protecting the city's water sources.

"Yes," Ronall said. "Supported the rebellion..." He was thirsty again. Thirsty—and hungry, as always, for
more
, for something he couldn't name, something he couldn't even really imagine. But when he saw the silent glance of understanding which passed easily between Tansen and his son, he had a feeling that what he wanted was nearby, even if it wasn't his and he couldn't have it.

"I'm not going east," Tansen said, "and so I can't protect—"

"I'll go alone," Ronall replied, having anticipated this.

"And probably get yourself killed," Tansen pointed out, clearly trying not to sound unkind.

"I'm not going back to my wife," Ronall insisted. "And you don't nee—"

"I've found out where she is," Tansen said, surprising him.

Ronall nodded in resignation. "Her estate."

"You knew?" Zarien blurted.

"No, but it was the likeliest place," Ronall said, "if she wasn't in Shaljir."

"That's what I decided after thinking about it," Tansen said. "Property and people require attention, and Elelar is very conscientious about such things."

"Yes," Ronall agreed faintly, feeling queasy as someone who knew Elelar now spoke of her, bringing her to life among them.

"So I sent a messenger to her estate."

"You did?" Ronall bleated.

"Her reply was..." Tansen frowned down at the burn Zarien was again tending. "Well, it wasn't very useful." 

Ronall watched him warily, waiting for him to continue.

"She tells me," Tansen said, "that she wants to thank you for
Torena
Chasimar's delightful company." When Ronall snorted, Tansen asked, "That means something to you?"

"It's a... husband and wife joke."

"I see."

Ronall doubted it. "Does she also tell you that I am not welcome there?"

Tansen rubbed his forehead. "Something like that. So I suppose there's not much chance of you talking her into leaving her estate now?"