The Destroyer Goddess (69 page)

"Gaborian."

"What?"

"That's his name," said Elelar. "Gaborian. After my grandfather."

"Oh." Now Mirabar stared at the baby, her expression unreadable. 

"What did you mean, before?" Elelar asked. "When you said he's... the Beckoner?"

"He's the one who brought so many of my visions, from the beginning," Mirabar said slowly, still staring at Gaborian.

"
My baby?
"

"He wasn't your baby then. He looked..." She shrugged. "More or less how I suppose he'll look when he's a man."

"Is he..." Elelar frowned. "Is he Daurion come back to life? Or..." She couldn't even bear to say it:
Josarian
.

"No," Mirabar replied. "He is... I think he is only who he is. This child. Gaborian. Someone whose will is so fierce and whose destiny is so strong... someone so necessary to all of us that he had the strength to reach out from the Otherworld, after centuries of waiting, when the time was right."

"You mean when men like Tansen and Josarian were living and ready to sacrifice... what they've sacrificed, if someone could convince them the time had come."

Mirabar nodded slowly, considering this. "And a time when someone of Cheylan's unique power came before Dar. Cheylan could never be the one to lead Sileria. He was too... twisted. But he had tremendous gifts to contribute to the future. As does Baran, though he..." Mirabar's pensive expression turned sad.

"Above all, the Beckoner chose you," Elelar said with certainty, wanting to acknowledge the tremendous bravery that accompanied Mirabar's extraordinary gifts. "Someone who could achieve the things you've achieved. Someone with your strength of will and your courage. If he had to wait for someone who could become the Firebringer, and for Tansen, and for Cheylan... He also had to wait for you."

"And perhaps because of me," Mirabar acknowledged, "a time when people would be prepared to accept him."

"Yes," Elelar realized, looking down at her baby's eyes of fire and hair of flame. For centuries, the Society had convinced Silerians that children like this were demons—when the truth was merely that someone like this was powerful enough, as Mirabar was, to be a threat to the waterlords.

"I wonder..."

"What?" Elelar leaned forward.

"I wonder how many times the Beckoner tried before, and failed."

Elelar caught her breath. "Do you really think..."

Mirabar shrugged. "It seems likely. There were many times
we
could have failed, after all. So many ways we could have gone wrong. Surely Dar has tried before to find the right time, the right people, to bring about... what we have all brought about."

Elelar didn't really know why, but she started crying. When Mirabar looked startled, she tried to apologize, but it only came out as incoherent sobs. The praise-singers became alarmed and started crowding them.

"The
torena
is very tired," Mirabar said to them, patting Elelar's shoulder. "Stay back!"

"Am I supposed to... to guide this child now?" Elelar wept. "Is that what Dar wants me to do? Or am I to give him up? Will that be my punishment for... for what I did?" She couldn't give up this baby. She
couldn't
. They'd have to kill her to separate her from him.

Mirabar continued patting her back. "Tansen believes you're supposed to raise your son and teach him the things you know. I think he's right."

"I thought..." She cried harder. "Mirabar, I swear to you... What I did... I thought it was the right thing for Sileria."

The patting stopped. Mirabar withdrew her hand. "Don't ever ask me to forgive you, Elelar."

Her voice was so cold that Elelar felt as if she'd been slapped.

"Don't ever even speak his name to me again," Mirabar added, her expression hard. "I will not destroy my life—let alone Sileria—to take vengeance for what you did, but don't ever expect me to forget it or forgive you. It will always be there between us. I will always know the terrible things you do when you're so blindly certain you're right." She paused. "And unlike Tansen, I have never been fond of you, so I promise you I will kill you if I ever think it necessary."

In a way, Elelar was grateful. The words were a kind of punishment, and she wanted that. The promise was a kind of pact between them. They would need each other in future, because of this child; so they needed to understand each other, and—strangely—they finally seemed to do so, now, as Mirabar threatened to kill her and she accepted it.

"If you ever find it necessary," Elelar said, her sobbing now finished, "then I know you will."

"
Mirabar!"

They both recognized his voice at the same instant.

Mirabar scrambled to her feet with renewed energy. "
Tansen!"
Her dirty face looked suddenly radiant.

He appeared then, a tall, familiar silhouette coming through the murky air, lit from behind by a lava flow farther down the mountain. Mirabar ran to him, and Tansen, normally so stoic and reserved, wrapped his arms around her in a fierce embrace.

Elelar watched them for a moment, then gazed down at her beautiful child. If Cheylan was right and Baran was dying... 

Well
.

After all, Mirabar's child would need a father, and Tansen had already started practicing on that sea-born boy.

If Elelar felt any regret, she nonetheless knew that, she and Tansen being the people they were, things probably couldn't ever have been any different between them.

Mirabar untangled herself from Tansen's embrace and led him over to Elelar. He stared for a moment, looking exhausted and surprised, then—all
shallah
  now—crossed his fists and lowered his head. "
Torena
, I am pleased to find you safe, and I congratulate you on the birth of..." He raised his head and suddenly grinned. "The new Yahrdan."

She smiled back. "Mirabar says... I am to take my place as the Yahrdan's mother."

Tansen nodded, his gaze flickering between them with evident curiosity. "And Cheylan will disappear from his official bloodline."

She frowned. "It's not that I object to forgetting Cheylan, but won't I need to name a fath—"

"Ronall."

"
Ronall?"

"He's waiting in the bay due east of Gamalan, with my son." Tansen looked troubled. "At least... If they're safe. But... I think they must be safe, because Zarien—"

"Ronall?" she repeated.

"He
is
your husband," Tansen pointed out.

"He's also a Valdan," Elelar said. 

"Half-Valdan," he reminded her. "Which will be politically advantageous in dealing with—"

"
And
he's a drunkard and a fool," Elelar added, feeling renewed loathing flood her. "No! I absolutely refuse—"

"Elelar—"

"Don't even
try
to convince me to put up with that—"

"I told you to kill her," Mirabar said to Tansen. "I want you always to remember that I was the one who told you to kill her when you had the chance."

"Oh, you were
also
the one who trusted Cheylan!" Elelar snapped, thoroughly annoyed with Mirabar now. "Just how naive could you—"

"Don't you
dare
—"

"
Enough!"
Tansen shouted at them both, provoked into a rare display of temper.

They both fell silent and glared at him.

"We're going to focus on the task at hand," he informed them both, "and quarrel some other time."

"What
is
the task at hand?" Elelar asked with chilly dignity, comforting Gaborian as he fussed.

"Getting you safely back to Shaljir where your son can be acknowledged. Normally, the best way would be to go overland, but it's a hard journey for a woman who's just given birth. Besides, it's not a journey you should make without me, under the circumstances, and I'm going back to sea to find my son before I do anything else. Now, since your husband is also waiting there—"

"If he's still alive," Elelar grumbled.

"Don't talk like that," Mirabar snapped at her. "Zarien is with him. So is Najdan."

"I'm sorry." She took a calming breath. "I shouldn't... I'm sorry."

"We'll go down to the bay," Tansen said. "I know an easy path. I used to smuggle along that coast."

"Of course," Elelar said dryly.

"We'll find my son, your husband, and Mirabar's... assassin. If the sea seems safe, you and Ronall will take a boat to Shaljir. If, that is, we can find someone willing to leave the bay. The sea-born are all gathered..." He looked around and frowned. "Like these pilgrims. I wonder..."

"You think they were waiting for the birth, too? These people didn't know what they were awaiting until it happened," Mirabar said.

"All right, the sea," Elelar agreed. "I will..." Her temples started throbbing at the very thought. "I will acknowledge Ronall as the father and... return to Shaljir with him."
If he's still alive
. Which wasn't a prospect she could pray for with genuine sincerity.

"Can you walk?" Tansen asked.

She was about to reply when a sudden crash, like mountains colliding, made her flinch. She looked up towards Darshon's summit, as did everyone else, tense with fear. Another eruption? Another earthquake?

No, please...

Something hit her upturned face. She flinched and brushed it away. Dust? Ash? A falling pebble? More of it hit her face, little drops in quick succession. 

Tansen inhaled sharply. "Is that..."

"Oh, please, Dar," Mirabar said, "let it be..."

Elelar realized what it was. "
Rain?"

"Rain!"

"It's
RAIN!"

There was another deafening crash of thunder, and then the skies opened up, pouring down life-giving rain upon them.

Jalan screamed in ecstasy, "
Rain!
"

"The rains!" Tansen shouted, impulsively embracing Mirabar again. "The rains have come!"

The skies had been so thick with smoke and ash in recent days, they'd never even seen the rain clouds gathering.

Elelar laughed and hugged Gaborian, who wailed as water drenched them all.

The long rains had finally begun. The dry season was over.

"Is that really rain?" Baran asked Velikar. "Or am I hallucinating again?"

She squealed and embraced him. "The rains! The rains have come!"

"Please, I'm a married man," he reminded her.

He heard a woman's delighted shriek from somewhere else in the household. A moment later, Haydar ran into his study, still shrieking. "
Siran!
Do you hear it?
Rain!
Look out the window!"

"I've already looked, thank you, Haydar. If you hug me, too, I'm going to throw up. I really cannot tolerate all this happiness."

Velikar snorted and stuck her head out the window, laughing maniacally. Haydar pouted and left the room. A moment later, he again heard her shrieking, "Rain!"

Predictably, Vinn appeared a few moments later. "It's raining,
siran!
"

"I'm starting to miss the good old days," Baran said crankily, "when we used to mourn the arrival of the rains."

"Those were different days for us,
siran
." Vinn went to another window and gazed out at the ensorcelled moat. "But I'm sure Kiloran is mourning right now, if that comforts you."

"You always know the right thing to say to me," Baran assured him.

"He's mourning more than the rain,
siran
."

Baran eyed him. "Let me guess. We've had news from Cavasar?"

"He hasn't precisely lost the city yet," Vinn said, "but Cavasar is consumed in all-out battle between the Society and the loyalists at last report, which arrived while you were resting."

"He's still got the mines of Alizar and the Idalar River, though," Baran muttered. "The Olvara and I tried to surprise him last night—which is why I was then obliged to spend most of the day resting."

Velikar snorted. "You're lucky you didn't spend most of the day
dead
. You can no longer afford to expend that kind of—"

"Velikar, look!" Baran cried. "Rain!"

She scowled at him and turned back to the window.

Vinn asked Baran, "And did your surprise produce results?"

Baran shook his head. "I think he was expecting it. Or at least shrewd enough to be prepared for such an attempt."

"Now what?"

Baran sighed. "In all honesty, I'm running out of ideas, Vinn."

"But now that the rains are here..."

"It's heartening, I'll go that far. But it's not an answer to the consuming problem of our happy days together: How do we destroy Kiloran?"

"He is losing too much influence and terri—"

"That's how it looks," Baran agreed.

"You still think he has another plan, a new surprise for us?"

"I know that old man too well to think otherwise."

"But given his situation,
siran
, wouldn't he have employed it by now?"

"Maybe he has," Baran said gloomily. "And we just don't know it yet."