The Destroyer Goddess (64 page)

Cheylan braced himself. She would be hard to kill. He had always known that. But there were things about him which she didn't know, aspects of his own power which she couldn't fight.

He entered the cavern, prepared for what he must now do. 

"
Cheylan
," Elelar hissed, her voice full of hatred.

He ignored her, momentarily shocked by what he saw. A lava flow had broken through one wall. 

Cheylan stared at it, feeling betrayed. Dar should protect the offspring which Her power had blessed at the moment of conception. Instead, She had come close to killing it. Even with one sweeping glance he could see it was very lucky that Elelar had survived.

The
torena
was a filthy blood-streaked heap on the ground behind Mirabar. She had obviously been injured during an earthquake. That sense of Dar's betrayal, Her recklessness, washed through him again with a cold shock.

Standing protectively in front of Elelar, Mirabar gazed at Cheylan with those bright golden eyes so like his own. Her filthy wet clothing clung to her body, revealing more of her than he'd ever seen before... Revealing her belly swelling with Baran's child. 

The sense of betrayal was hot this time. "It didn't have to be this way," he told her, knowing there was really very little for them to say to each other.

"Didn't it?" she said coldly.

"You chose Baran. You chose Tansen. If only you had—"

"Oh, no," she said. "This isn't about me, Cheylan. If it had been, you wouldn't have told me so many lies."

"If you could have trusted me, then—"

"I trusted you, and you had Verlon kill Semeon. I trusted you again, and you had Kiloran kill Jalilar."

His brows lifted as he realized how much she had guessed.

"I trusted you," she continued, "and you've done this to the
torena
."

"You made it clear you would oppose me if you knew the truth," he said. "I had no choice."

"If I had trusted you even more, who else would have died?" Mirabar shook her head. "You've betrayed everyone. There is no one who hasn't been hurt by trusting you. No, this was never about
me
, Cheylan. This is just your nature." Her glowing eyes narrowed. "I'm ashamed I let you fool me, even though I know now that you've fooled everyone for a long time and are very good at lies and deceit, at gaining trust from those whom you mean to use and betray."

He reached out with his senses to caress the flowing water while she spoke, lecturing him as if expecting him to apologize and hand over the
torena
to her. Mirabar stood recklessly close to the stream, ignorant of the power he wielded over it. Unaware that he would use it to kill her. She expected fire and was braced for the attack of another Guardian. She was no doubt planning her own fiery assault, thinking he would fight back with a power that she understood and commanded as well as he did.

He would fool her once again. For the last time. 

"I know how hard your life was," Mirabar continued. "The superstition, the rejection, the loneliness. But it's
because
I know that I can never excuse what you became. I lived with the same burdens, and I didn't become like you."

The water bubbled gently in the grasp of his power, flexing boldly as it came to life in the embrace of his sorcery.

Mirabar said, "Semeon lived with those burdens, too, and you helped murder him." She nodded slowly. "You are exactly as Daurion described you, and I know what I have to do."

"So do I,
sirana
," he murmured, launching his attack.

Elelar screamed, "
Mirabar!"

Mirabar burst into flames as the stream rose and engulfed her from behind. Great writhing tentacles of water came around her, cold enough now to kill her flesh upon contact. Her controlled self-immolation would protect her from the deadly chill. Cheylan was disappointed she'd reflexively chosen such a defense when Elelar screamed. Still, it wouldn't save her. It just meant he had to try a little harder. 

Moving forward, he commanded the watery arms fighting their way through Mirabar's fire to embrace her tightly enough to capture her, then drag her into the stream, under its surface, and drown her. 

"
Mirabar!"
Elelar scrambled to her feet and moved toward the frantically writhing mass of fire and water.

"No!" Cheylan leapt forward and grabbed the
torena
, hauling her away from the struggling Guardian whose leaping flames fought wildly with the shifting water that sought her weaknesses. 

"Stop it!" Elelar screamed, fighting him as he held her back.

"Do you want to die with her?" he snapped.

She twisted in his arms, and when she aimed a blow at his eye, he lost patience and hit her—the first time in his life he'd ever struck a woman. Elelar fell to the ground, but then immediately began crawling toward Mirabar. Exasperated, Cheylan seized her long hair and yanked on it.

"No!" Elelar screamed.

Cheylan watched with satisfaction—and, if truth be known, some relief—as the whirl of lava and fire protecting Mirabar was slowly, inexorably dragged under the water's surface. It wouldn't take long now. Shooting flames pulsated frantically in the river, but it would soon exhaust her to keep generating that much fire underwater. Few Guardians could do it at all, and he doubted even Mirabar could do it for long. Especially when she couldn't breathe. Yes, one way or the other, she had only moments left. Drowning her might not be very original, but it was effective, and that's all that—

He gasped as some new intruder suddenly flooded his river with icy fury, fighting back. Wild, undisciplined, immensely talented, it was a power that careened against his senses as it sought a relationship with the water in which it had just sprung to life.

What
is
that?

The water started pulling away from his will, ignoring his coaxing, resisting his seduction.

"
No
."

It wasn't possible! 

Cheylan clenched his teeth and fought it, focusing all his strength on keeping the underground river within his control. It didn't matter. Drop by drop, something was challenging him, fighting with such reckless desperation that he could only conclude that it was Mirabar herself.

Or...

Fires of Dar...

Something
inside
of Mirabar. Something which would die if she died. A power so bound to Mirabar's life that it would commit everything to saving it.

"Baran's child?" he breathed.

Water geysered up around Mirabar, and Cheylan felt his fluid  death-grip pushed away from her with tremendous force. The release was so sudden that her combative fire shot into the air, hissing as it mingled with the water and filling the hot cavern with more steam.

"What's happening?" Elelar cried. 

"No!" Cheylan shouted, fighting back.

As was so often the case when two water wizards reached a stalemate, the river went strangely calm, looking as if no one controlled it.

"Mirabar?" Elelar choked out, crawling past Cheylan.

He lifted Elelar to her feet and shoved her out of harm's way, realizing what would happen next. Elelar staggered backward into a rough stone wall and stayed there, her face stupid with astonishment as she watched Mirabar rise out of the river, soaked, coughing, and already blazing with offensive fury.

Cheylan called spears of fire out of the nearby lava flow and sent a shower of them flying straight at her. Water rose up in a sudden wave to shield her, and the lava spears sizzled as they met it, then fell like dead birds into the stream. Mirabar flung balls of fire at him which he deflected with his palms.

"You knew!" he snarled, stunned by her trick. She'd
let
him drag her into the river, disarming him and giving her child a chance to use the physical immersion to wrest it away from him.

"You think I stood there talking your ears off because it gave me satisfaction?" she snarled back. "I had no idea it would take you so long to gather your power. You're not as strong as I feared."

Cheylan recognized her tactics and ignored the insult. "You
did
stumble into my water traps," he guessed, stopping the bolts of fire that she hurled at him. "That's how you found out the truth." 

She came closer. "You can't kill me with water, and I think you already knew you couldn't kill me with fire."

"You can't kill me, either," he warned.

Drenched from the river, her skin still shimmering with defensive flame, she stared at him for a long moment, panting breathlessly. Then she nodded. "What do we do now?"

"I take the
torena
and leave."

"Cheylan." She staggered forward, her steps weary, her expression wary. "Even if you think you can leave me here to die..."

"I didn't say that."

"Do you have to keep lying?" she said irritably. "You'd douse my torches and leave me to wander here lost until I starved or died in an earthquake or eruption."

"Is there any reason I shouldn't?"

She came closer. "It's over, Cheylan. Surely you can see that?"

"No, Mirabar," he said, "I don't see that at all.
I
see that I've got the two most important women in Sileria captive here, as well as their offspring."

Mirabar shook her head. "The Emeldari and all their allies want you dead because of Jalilar. Kiloran will come after you because you've betrayed him. Tansen will hunt you down. Even if Verlon trusts you now, he won't for long." 

A few steps closer, and he might be able to kill her with his bare hands. He'd never done anything like that before, and she'd defend herself—so they might wind up in precisely the same stalemate they'd just experienced. But it was worth a try, since he was running out of options. 

"Give this up, Cheylan," she urged. "Let me take the
torena
out of here. It's your child. It will always be your child. He'll rule Sileria."

"And me?" he prodded.

"Leave Sileria. Promise me you'll never come back."

"The stud who has fulfilled his purpose?" he said scathingly.

"You'd get to live. It's more than you'll get if you stay in Sileria." Mirabar came so close he could have touched her.

"Leave Sileria and live?" he murmured as if starting to consider the suggestion seriously.

"Yes," she urged, taking another step forward.

He seized her throat. Her leg came up, her knee jabbing into him. He thought for a moment that she was trying to land a blow to his groin—and then the
pain
in his belly! Bitter cold, sharp, brutal, deadly. Unlike anything he'd ever known.

He lost his grip on her throat as agony sent him reeling and drove him to his knees. Instead of escaping, she clung to him, sinking to the hot stone floor with him. She roughly yanked sideways with her arm, gutting him, splitting him open, and the horrific pain made him scream. The sound echoed around the cavern, and the mountain rumbled in response.

"
No!"
he shouted, furious, betrayed, incredulous.

Mirabar pulled the icy blade out of his gut and then scrambled awkwardly away from him. She was soaked in his blood. Her right arm was especially bright with it, from the elbow all the way down to the small hand which clutched...

"A...
shir?
" he rasped.

Cheylan collapsed, falling face down on the floor. 

He dimly heard her rise to her feet. His blood thundered with frantic pain. He felt a hot pool spreading around him... The huge wound she had opened in his body was gushing his life out onto the cavern floor.

No...

Where was Dar now? Where was Her favor?

He was so talented. So full of promise gone unacknowledged, ability gone unrecognized, merit gone unrewarded....

Dying?

No!

He saw the lava flow glowing in the encroaching darkness. The betrayal was horrible. Cold, so
cold.
Dar, the only one with whom he had ever kept faith—always, without fail—had forsaken him.

Why?

Dar, as I have been faithful and true...

"Mirabar," he mumbled.

The mountain was rumbling violently now. So loud, so fierce. Or did it just seem that way because his ear was pressed to the cave floor, so rough against his cheek?

The pain wasn't so bad now. But he was terribly cold. And the lava flow... It was gone. Everything was gone. All black now.

"Mira..." he called.

Maybe she heard him and understood. Because now she who had killed him began chanting, praying for Dar and the Otherworld to welcome him. It was his right, to die with the proper prayers.

Dying? No! No, please!
 

It was his right... He was a Guardian, and he had always been faithful to Dar.

Yes, the mountain was roaring now. Angry. Hah! Mirabar would regret this work. Dar was enraged. She had not wanted him to die with all his promise unfulfilled.

Yes. Dar would punish Mirabar for this.

It was a pleasing thought to embrace as death reached out for him.