In Legend Born (58 page)

Tansen inhaled deeply and leaned back, staring into the sacred flames. "To see
shallaheen
drive Valdani tribute collectors out of their villages," he said slowly, "rather than cower and let them take whatever they want. To see Silerians put aside their bloodfeuds to pick up swords, standing side by side against the Outlookers. To see the dust of mounted riders fleeing from us in fear, and to dream of them someday fleeing Sileria and leaving it forever. To claim our land, our cities, our
pride
after a thousand years of serving foreign rulers..." He nodded, his voice warming well beyond its usual measure of laconism. "Josarian, I want to live more than you do, and
I
think it's worth dying for. Maybe she would have, too."

"Maybe she would have, too," he echoed softly. "I just wish I could have asked her."

Chapter Twenty-Four

Najdan had feared only two things in life: hunger and Kiloran. Then
she
had appeared, overwhelming those fears with the fury of her fire. Young and small, fine-boned and tireless, blessed by Dar and cursed with visions, unprotected by rank, family, clan, or companions, Mirabar had gone alone into Kiloran's lair, faced the most powerful waterlord in the world, and somehow conquered him. Alone beneath the surface of Kandahar with a merciless wizard, his deadly assassins, those dangerous mountain rebels, and an arrogant
torena
, she had bent them all to her will, and now they served the shades she Called forth and the visions which haunted her.

Now, as ordered by Kiloran, Najdan served Mirabar, too. For his master's sake, he tried to learn all he could about her. For her sake, he protected her from danger. Now that they were no longer enemies, he honored her courage and her power; and he respected her as he had previously respected no one but Kiloran.

Najdan no longer feared Mirabar as he had in the beginning. He knew now that, whatever else she was, she was no demon; she wasn't even a killer. She had captured and caged him, could have killed him at any time, and probably should have; but she hadn't, not even when he had tried to kill her.

He had finally recognized her true greatness at Kandahar. The others there all did as she told them. Even Kiloran, though he clearly did not like it, bowed to her judgment, and the assassins at Kandahar were afraid of her. Searlon had not been there, but Najdan suspected that even Searlon himself would have to acknowledge that forces beyond his reckoning guided Mirabar, just as powers beyond Najdan's dreams acted through her.

And so Najdan served her, with the courage and loyalty he had offered Kiloran for twenty years. Najdan was not a great man, but he was ideally suited to serve great men—or a great woman. He had pulled himself out of the most hopeless poverty a man could be born to and made a success of his life by knowing what he could do better than other men—and who could best reward him for it. For twenty years, Kiloran had made him one of the wealthiest assassins in Sileria. Whatever this girl could offer him in exchange for his service, Najdan knew it wouldn't be wealth; she was poor even for a Guardian. He only knew that when a man saw a prophet, a visionary, a sorceress feared even by Kiloran, then he'd be a fool to count pieces of silver and gold to weigh her worth.

Najdan escorted Mirabar north from Britar now, her mission there successfully completed, a recalcitrant waterlord brought into the rebellion in accordance with the will of the Society and the Otherworld. Now their small party of four argued about which way to go. As usual, the two rebels, Lann and Zimran, were not showing Mirabar the respect which Najdan increasingly felt was her due. And as usual, Mirabar used her tongue the way an assassin used a
shir
.

"Dalishar," Zimran insisted. "We're supposed to return to Dalishar, and I don't care
what
kind of cryptic messages come to you in your visions, I'm—"

"And I don't care who is waiting back at Dalishar to bed you," Mirabar snapped. It took only the briefest acquaintance to understand what most motivated Zimran. "We can't go there."

"
Sirana
," Lann said, "perhaps if you explained why we can't go..."

Najdan decided he did not need explanations. If Mirabar said they must not return to Dalishar now, that was good enough for him. She was a powerful sorceress, while the other two were mere
shallaheen
. He said so, glaring coldly at Lann and Zimran.

"Some of us have been used to doing our
own
bidding all these years," Zimran said contemptuously, "rather than following the dictates of a waterlord and—"

"
Shallaheen
follow the will of the Society, too," Najdan snapped. "Not to mention the dictates of the Valdani, the
toreni
, the merchants, and the Guardians. The lowest of creatures always do the bidding of all the others in the forest."

Lann's face darkened as he reached for his sword. Seeing his movement, Mirabar slapped a small hand against his chest—hard—and physically jumped into the center of the argument, her eyes blazing as she whirled to glare at them all.

"Enough," she said fiercely. "Will we kill each other so that the Outlookers don't have to bother doing it?"

"No woman waits for me at Dalishar." Zimran sounded sulky. "My cousin is there. May I respectfully remind the
sirana
who leads the
shallah
rebellion?"

"And who leads Josarian?" Najdan countered. "He listens to the
sirana
better than you do, you woman-faced—"

"All right, let's leave insults out of the discussion, shall we?" Mirabar eyed the way Zimran's hand twitched towards his
yahr
. "I'm telling you we will not live to reach Dalishar if we attempt to go there right now."

Zimran looked sharply at her. "So the Otherworld
does
warn some of you?"

She said only, "The Sign of the Three blocks the path to Dalishar in my visions. We must go to Zilar."

"Zilar?" Lann's hairy jaw dropped. "Sweet Dar,
sirana
, why so far away?"

Mirabar sighed. "I don't know. The Beckoner wants us to go there." She shrugged. "We are needed in Zilar."

"That's a long way," Najdan said. They had nearly run out of money. "We'll need to rob a Valdan again."

To his surprise, Lann laughed. "I never thought that robbing Valdani would become such a humdrum matter."

Zimran thought it over for a moment, then smiled. "I believe that the Imperial Advisor owns an estate between here and Zilar."

The argument settled, Najdan smiled, too. "Ah."

"This is a filthy business." Josarian's voice was subdued, his expression tight as he walked through the streets of Zilar, followed by a silent, grim-faced crowd.

"Something an assassin would do," Tansen agreed, walking at his side.

Srijan, who accompanied them, glared at them both. "Would you rather we had not discovered him?"

The
sriliah
they had been seeking for over a twin-moon had given enough information to the Outlookers to cost the
shallah
rebels money, lives, safety, and time. The names of nearly thirty of Josarian's men were now known, with substantial rewards offered for all of them. Josarian, of course, headed the list; the Valdani were by now willing to pay enough for his head to turn a
shallah
into a minor
toren
. The next-highest reward was offered for Tansen shah Gamalani, an "escaped felon" who had stolen the valuable swords of a
shatai
who had briefly been a guest of the Commander of Cavasar earlier in the year.

So, Tansen reflected, Koroll had not only finally learned what had happened, he had even come up with a creative story to conceal his own part in Tansen's release from captivity, all those months ago, fully-armed and secretly eager to help Josarian kill more Outlookers. Well, such ingenuity had undoubtedly helped Koroll wind up where he was today: High Commander of all Sileria.

Far worse than the minor—and inevitable—inconvenience of many of the
shallah
rebel leaders now being known to the Valdani were the additional problems caused by the
sriliah
's violation of
lirtahar
. The countryside around Dalishar was now so heavily infested with Outlookers that coming and going had become virtually impossible without entering into battle, usually with the distinct disadvantage of being the attacked rather than the attackers. Leaving behind enough men to defend the caves (and his sister), Josarian had recently spread word through the mountains that no one was to go near Dalishar until the territory could be fully secured by the rebels. So many Outlookers were now based at Chandar, the nearest village to the Dalishar caves, that it was tempting to poison the water there, as they had done at Emeldar. However, in fear of such a plan, the Outlookers now routinely forced a
shallah
prisoner to drink before they did every single time they drew water from a Silerian fountain, well, stream, or lake.

In addition, a rebel camp had recently been attacked, and nine people were killed, including two Guardians. An attack on a huge tax shipment had failed a few days ago because the Outlookers had been expecting it; someone had obviously told them about the rebels massing in the area the previous day.

The Society had finally discovered the
sriliah
in Zilar, though they had revealed the information only to Josarian. The man, still unaware that he'd been identified, had been clever and careful—but not quite careful enough, in the end.

Two days ago, Josarian had instructed his men to spread a false rumor in Zilar, indicating that he was about to abduct
Toren
Ronall—Elelar's husband. Yesterday, a tailor named Harjan, who enjoyed a more comfortable life than most
shallaheen
, had discreetly disappeared from town for the day while his wife claimed he was in bed with fever. Josarian and Tansen had followed him to a meeting with an Outlooker whom Tan had recognized: Myrell. It had been tempting to kill that putrid, baby-murdering Valdan on the spot, but there were only two of them against twenty Outlookers, and they had more urgent business at hand. They'd followed Myrell's runner last night, making sure that there was no mistake, that he was definitely heading for Ronall's nearby estate to warn him. At dawn, they'd watched Outlookers riding to the estate to prepare for an attack.

So now, positive that they'd found the man who had betrayed them to the Valdani, Tansen and Josarian made their way through Zilar to Harjan's comfortable house.

"What are you going to do?" Srijan asked eagerly, keeping his voice low to avoid being overheard by the villagers who followed them.

The people here knew that something deadly was about to happen, almost as if this were a Society assassination. Josarian and Tansen would not enter a town and walk boldly through it, grim-faced and subdued, because they had nothing better to do today. Everyone knew that they been searching for the traitor in their midst. Tansen had witnessed many scenes similar to this in his boyhood. Oh, yes, people knew why he and Josarian were here today, and why Srijan was there to display the Society's support for them. People here had already guessed why they had come to Zilar. Now hundreds of dark eyes watched them, round with apprehension, shadowed with suffering. For no one yet knew whom they had come to punish, and everyone feared it might be a loved one, a friend, or a relative.

"What will you do?" Srijan repeated.

Tansen glanced at Josarian's tense face, then gave Srijan a quelling look. The assassin had retrieved his
shir
from the inn where Tansen had left it lying at summer's beginning, but Tan could easily take it from him again if need be. However, Elelar had lectured him firmly on the foolishness of angering Kiloran—as if he might have already forgotten what it could lead to—and he had promised to try to tolerate Srijan for the sake of the rebellion.

"We'll do what's necessary," Tansen said briefly.

Josarian's breath was uneven, his face slightly pale. "I've killed many men," he said. "Far too many already, though I know there will be many more. But... I've never killed a Silerian. Another
shallah
. One of us."