In Legend Born (73 page)

Destroying Alizar and seizing territory from the Valdani isn't enough for them. No, they won't be happy until Josarian jumps into Darshon!

The men up here were obviously surprised to see her. Many greeted her with respect now, though she suspected some would scream like frightened children if they happened upon her in the dark without warning. It wasn't her appearance that surprised them now, though, for they all knew about her and most of them had seen her before. She just wasn't expected here. This was an unplanned visit. Mirabar hadn't needed a message from the Beckoner to realize that she must tell Tansen what she had just learned. But she feared his reaction the news she brought today. And she knew she must somehow talk him out of what he would want to do next.

This was not the moment to share the news, though. She found him gripping Amitan's hand as the man lay dying on the floor of a cave. Men hovered around the cave entrance, silently watching, waiting for a verdict on Amitan's life. Pushing her way through the crowd, Mirabar joined Tansen. She returned his brief nod of greeting, then glanced questioningly at the Sister. Pale with fatigue, the Sister shook her head. Nonetheless, she sprinkled the wound with some soothing balm and started chanting. She had been at it a long time, Mirabar realized, hearing how hoarse her voice sounded.

The wound in Amitan's belly was narrow and fairly clean, but the fever and pain, the trembling and grimacing, and the
smell
... His innards had been pierced and were poisoning him. It was a gruesome way to go. He deserved a better death—and a longer life. Amitan, who always had a thoughtful argument ready, was a brave man loved by the wife, mother, and sisters who depended on him. Mirabar remembered his courtesy upon meeting her, despite his fear; his assistance with her plan to capture an assassin, despite his horror over such a wild notion; and  willingness to accompany her to Kandahar, despite his terror of Kiloran.

She remembered how he had hoped to find his brother, taken long ago, among the prisoners freed from Alizar, and how subdued he had been afterwards. Najdan had never expected to find his father there; but Amitan had hoped, and the disappointment had grieved him.

Now young Kynan, who, like Amitan, had been among Mirabar's first rebel companions, was dead at Alizar. And Amitan, she could see, would be dead within a day or two. Her throat filled with sorrow and guilt, for she had brought him to this moment, as surely as Tansen and Josarian had. She was as much a cause of men's violent deaths as she was part of their pursuit of freedom.

"Tan..." Amitan's voice was thin, his breath harsh with pain. His teeth chattered while he sweated.

"I'm here," said the
shatai
.

"My womenfolk..."

"We'll take care of them. You know that," Tansen said, his voice subdued.

"P... Prom..."

"I promise."

"L... Lann..."

"Here!" The big man stumbled forward from the mouth of the cave and sank to his knees at Amitan's side.

Amitan said nothing. Just smiled weakly at him. Lann, a mountain of a man with a hairy face and a smuggled Moorlander sword that Mirabar doubted she could even lift, started weeping. Amitan looked away—and his gaze fell on her.

"
Sirana.
"

"Amitan..." She blinked back the tears she felt gathering. "I will miss you."

"You will see me again... I hope. Take my... knife. Give it to my... wife when you... see her."

"I will. And when the time comes, I will Call you myself."

"Prettier... than I used to... think,
sirana
."

She smiled, almost embarrassed. "As handsome as I always thought, Amitan."

He tried to smile but was wracked by another wave of pain. His eyes sought Tansen's. "I... ready."

Lann, whom Mirabar had seen fight Outlookers with vengeful fury and laugh with exultation when most men were weak-kneed with fear, now convulsed with sobs. She felt a tear slide down her face and wiped it away.

"Ready for what?" she asked.

Tansen met her eyes. His gaze was dark and blank. "Take the Sister outside now," he told her. "Lann?"

"I'll stay," Lann insisted between watery gasps.

The Sister looked uncertainly from Amitan to Tansen. "You're not really going to do it?"

Mirabar frowned. "Do what?"

"Take the Sister outside," Tansen repeated quietly, his grip tight on Amitan's hand.

"But w—"

She stopped in mid-sentence, realizing. Understanding. Amitan didn't want to linger in terrible agony for another day or two. Her gaze flashed briefly to the now-familiar leather harness lying on the cave floor nearby, to the two sheathed swords the warrior tended as attentively as mothers tended their children. Killing enemies was his talent, whether he liked it or not. But killing a friend... He would do it because he knew someone should, and no one else would be willing. He would show no emotion afterwards, and some men here might even say they'd expected no better of a mercenary. And Tansen... he would carry this moment in his heart, another private scar.

Mirabar nodded in acknowledgement of his order, laid a hand briefly upon Amitan's shoulder in farewell, than dragged the reluctant Sister out of the cave. She used the sharp edge of her tongue to make the men stand back, giving the three rebels inside the cave a little privacy as one of them began his journey to the Otherworld.

Hovering at the mouth of the cave after ordering the others away, she heard the faint hiss of a steel sword leaving its sheath. Voices murmured low. There was a rustling sound and some groaning. She imagined Lann shifting Amitan's body to expose his neck for the quickest, cleanest kill. Then the silence stretched out, straining her nerves. Just as she was wondering if it had already happened, if it could have ended so silently, she heard the muffled sound of Tansen's blow, followed by the mourning note of Lann's wail.

While Lann sobbed inside the cave, Tansen stalked past Mirabar. He held a bloodied sword in one hand. His harness was clutched in the other, its sheathed sword dragging through the dust as he walked past the staring men and disappeared into the gossamer forest.

He didn't return to camp until long after dark. Until after Amitan's body had been burned and the ashes scattered on the wind. He had no intention of tolerating compassionate comments or wounded gazes. He didn't want to endure another moment of Lann weeping for his boyhood friend. He didn't want to think about the same thing he knew Josarian would dwell on when the news reached him: Amitan had wanted to live in peace. He'd joined Josarian's bloodfeud because he'd had no choice, and he had initially resisted joining it. True, he had ultimately embraced the dream and committed himself without reserve to the rebellion. But if not for Tansen and Josarian, Amitan would be home in bed with his wife tonight, back in Emeldar. It was the image which would not be banished as Tansen had killed him.

He came back to camp long after everyone but the sentries had gone to sleep.
She
was waiting for him, though; and he supposed he should have counted on that. She hadn't been expected at Niran and wouldn't have come unless it was important. And Mirabar was not one to be distracted from something important.

Knowing she was capable of setting fire to his bedroll if he tried to get into it without talking to her, he joined her around the small, woodless fire she had made in the center of camp, far out of earshot of the sentries. She glanced briefly at him, then returned her pensive gaze to the flames. He studied her warily. At such moments, it was difficult to tell if she was communing with the Otherworld, a practice he had stopped doubting after Kandahar, or merely thinking.

The dark night and the glow of the fire made her look particularly demonic tonight, especially since fatigue had sharpened her features. Those golden eyes almost seemed to absorb the flames, dancing as they did, hot and magical. With her expression intent and mysterious, he was startled to realize there was sometimes almost... erotic about her: her passion, power, earthiness, and courage. He'd been without a woman for a long time and fixated on one particular woman since returning to Sileria—a woman he couldn't have. He was surprised now to realize that, if not for the boyhood superstitions burned into his heart, there were things about
this
woman that would draw him to her like a moth attracted to her flames.

Embarrassed by his thoughts, he shifted uncomfortably.

She noticed. Her smile was brief and slight. "Don't worry. He's not coming."

"I didn't think he would," Tansen replied. "You've said it takes time for the dead to reach the Oth—"

"No, I didn't mean Amitan." She held his gaze. "I meant Armian."

His belly tightened. He didn't know what to say for a moment. Then he heard himself blurt, "You've never asked why I killed him. My own bloodfather."

"I know why you killed him," she said simply.

"How could you know that?"

"Because
he
knows, and I know what he knows."

"He
knows?
"

"I didn't say he understands," she said. "Only that he knows. You didn't want Kiloran, Armian, and the Society to rule Sileria. He knows, but he doesn't understand."

"And you?"

She looked surprised. "I understand. Of course I understand."

"You haven't..." He fished awkwardly for the right phrase. "You haven't explained it to him?" It sounded foolish when he said it aloud. Armian was dead, after all.

Mirabar shook her head. "The dead are... well... very different from us."

"Dead, for one thing," he said dryly.

She gave him a look, one that made him grin despite the topic of their conversation. "They're shades of the living," she said. "A shade is a kind of... essence. They're not really who they once were, though when this world revolves in harmony with the Other one, sometimes we can Call them forth in the form of a shadow of what they once were." She sighed and added, "People Call forth a loved one and tell him... how the children are growing, what's happening in their lives, whether or not the harvest was good... We—the Guardians—don't stop them. It makes them feel better, and there's no harm in it. But these things are meaningless in the Otherworld, just as the Otherworld is a mystery to us."

"Then the only point in Calling these shades is to make the living feel a little better?"

"No." She tried to make him understand, her face animated as she spoke. "Shades can guide us, if we listen well. They have a wisdom free of earthly fears and desires."

He returned to the subject of his bloodfather. "But Armian wouldn't be able to understand if I tried to explain... I mean... If, uh, you—"

"No." She seemed to feel sorry for him, which embarrassed him again. "He's not really Armian anymore, you see. No longer someone you can argue with and convince of something. Not someone who can change and adapt. He's..." She shook her head and shrugged. "He's the shade of Armian."

"Who knows everything that Armian knows."

"Everything that Armian knew when he died."

"More than that," Tansen reminded her. "He knows the Moorlanders would have failed us nine years ago. He knows we can win now. He has urged—"

"He is guided by powerful forces, the same forces which sent me to Kiloran's palace in search of you. He's their tool, their instrument, nothing more. The Beckoner is no mere shade, and Daurion and the others I have seen..." She slid a fine-boned hand into her hair and tugged on it. He could see how much her own ignorance about these forces still frustrated her. "I think they are gods, but I'm not sure."

"So Armian knows why I killed him," Tansen said slowly, "but he doesn't understand. I assume that means he also doesn't forgive me?"

"I don't... We are taught that vengeance is an earthly matter, not a concern in the Otherworld."

"I didn't ask if he wants vengeance, I asked—"

"He loved you," she said. "That remains within his shade."

Tansen was silent, frustrated by her answer but unwilling to plead for a better one.

She seemed to know this. "I'm sorry, Tansen. Forgiveness was evidently not in his nature, and it's not in his shade. So I just don't know."

"Can you ask him?" He was ashamed, couldn't imagine why he was doing this, but he had to know. "Next time you—"

"I don't think there'll be a next time."

That stopped him. "What do you mean?"

"I mean he's not needed anymore, and so the link between us seems to have been dissolved. He has accomplished what he was sent to achieve. The Society, the Guardians, you, me, the
shallaheen
, the Alliance... We are together now. We've started a war. More people will join us, or not, for their own reasons, but not because of Armian."

"So that's it?"

"I think so."

I'll never see him again.

Darfire, he hadn't even wanted to see him in the first place! 

But he had loved Armian, despite everything, and some foolish, weak part of him had lately seized on the notion that he might see him again—and perhaps be forgiven.

"I'll never see him again." Tansen was appalled to hear himself say it aloud. And to a woman. But this woman, he acknowledged, had already known what he was thinking. This woman knew what Armian knew.