The White Dragon (108 page)

Tansen shook off his memories of that long ago night. He didn't want to think about the bloodfather he had slain. Not now. He only wanted to promise Dar, in his heart, that he would be a much better father than he was a son. He only wanted to promise Zarien that he, as a son, would never face the decisions or have the regrets which Tansen had.

"We have to build a fire," Tansen told him, "and pray to Dar..."
And hearing from me, of all people, ought to shock Her right into an eruption.
"Then cut our palms—"

"I knew that was coming," Zarien said with resignation.

"And mix our blood to become... family."

Zarien glanced down at his callused sea-born palm. "It's not the pain," he insisted. "I don't mind that. It's just the drylander strangeness of the whole thing."

Tansen smiled again. "I know," he assured him. "I know."

Interregnum

I dance in Dar's sacred fire,

Her ashes are my rags of glory.

—Song of the Faithful

The faithful of Sileria heard Dar Call them, and so they came to offer Her their prayers, their devotion, and their dying cries of ecstatic agony as She engulfed them in Her fiery tantrums.
 

The tormented slopes of Mount Darshon were streaked with rivers of fire. Pilgrims to the sacred mountain sought proof of Dar's love by dancing on the lava flows; some of them were so beloved as to survive, while others died screaming.
 

From all over Sileria, they came to worship, praise, and pacify the volcano goddess; but She would not be pacified.

Explosions of burning rock opened new wounds in the mountainside every night, and Dar's worshippers inhaled the deadly fumes pouring forth. Some of the faithful died in agony, while others won Dar's favor and survived.
 

They came from the war-torn mountains, from the thirsty lowlands, from the sea-scented coasts, from the teeming cities. They brought Her generous offerings of flowers, fruit, grain, wine, livestock, gold, jewels, and bones of the dead. When that was not enough, they willingly offered their lives to Dar. She took all that was offered; and still She would not be appeased.

Deep in the heart of Darshon's fiery caldera, the destroyer goddess prepared to make Sileria bleed.

Author's Note

One of the many reasons I find writing so interesting and challenging, even after many years and books, is that my stories constantly surprise me while I'm working on them.

When writing a novel, I almost always begin by creating an outline. It's a synopsis of a story's major events, conflicts, characters, climaxes, and resolutions. I should point out, by the way, that this isn't The Way To Write A Book; it's just what works for
me.
It's how I make sure I know where I'm going, what the book is about, and how the key plot elements fit together. But every writer is different, and I know plenty of writers who hate outlining a book, as well as those who say that outlining would kill their creative process and turn the result into a plodding yawner. I also know writers who don't need to
write
an outline, because they're capable of keeping everything in their heads (whereas I have trouble keeping even my own phone number in my head). Conversely, I also know a few authors who write much longer and more detailed outlines than I do (which would make me too tired to write the book). How someone writes a novel depends entirely on how her own mind works and what habits suit her individual writing process.
 

Anyhow, once I have my outline, saying that I therefore "know" what's going to happen would be like saying that, on an overland journey from one end of Africa to the other (a journey I made years ago, in fact), I "know" what's going to happen just because I have a map and a planned route.

Actually, all along the way, you meet people you never expected to meet, and you see things that you never imagined. Your route keeps deviating as you come upon washed out roads, collapsed bridges, warnings about dangers that you need to avoid, and friendly invitations to events that you want to attend. You always keep your ultimate destination in mind—the end of the novel, or the Cape of Good Hope—but a lot happens between now and then which you never dreamed or foresaw.
 

You also make the most interesting discoveries where you least expect to find them. For example, while I was on the epic journey of writing
In Legend Born,
the first book in this trilogy, two minor characters for whom I had no particular plans beyond their immediate story functions in that novel... kept tugging on my sleeve, demanding attention, until they became major characters in
The White Dragon
. And upon coming into their own right in this book, they gradually developed into two of my all-time favorite characters, out of the many which I have written over the years.

I created Ronall, Elelar's liquor-soaked husband, strictly for plot purposes in
In Legend Born
. When planning the book, I realized that if Elelar—an aristocratic young woman with land and money—was unmarried in her late twenties, it would be such an anomaly in Sileria's traditional culture that it would require complicated digression to explain away. Moreover, being a practical woman, Elelar would
want
a husband. Partly because she'd soon grow weary of fending off suitors for her well-to-do hand in marriage, and partly because a married woman could have more social freedom in her society than an unmarried maiden. Given her nature, I assumed that Elelar would chose a husband she could manipulate and manage, rather than marrying for love—and she'd never risk marrying someone who'd try to dominate or control her. I also thought her choice of spouse would additionally be based, like every other decision in her life, on what would benefit the Alliance and its goals.

Thus Elelar's drunken, wenching, half-Valdan husband came into being: a man who paid to no attention as Elelar gradually took control of his wealth; a husband who endured the humiliation of his wife's adulterous liaisons; and a befuddled sot who never even noticed the mysterious and illegal activities going in his own home. As Ronall later notes, he was, in his own way, the perfect spouse for Elelar.

Of course, Elelar's life changes dramatically over the course of
In Legend Born
, until she's living as a fugitive in the mountains by the end of the book. And I had no plans for what would happen to Ronall once I got to that point in the story, where he has outlived the uses for which Elelar married him. Given how violent and dangerous life is in Sileria, I vaguely supposed he would just get himself killed then.

Instead, Ronall surprised me. Rather than disappearing when his wife's disgrace is exposed in
In Legend Born
, he tries to save her life, and he also comes to her prison cell and reveals a more complex character and much more complicated feelings for Elelar than I had envisioned. After that, despite several opportunities to get himself conveniently killed by the end of that novel, he keeps clinging to life and surviving. And thus he is alive and still inhabiting Elelar's house in Shaljir when
The White Dragon
begins; and I decided to find out what else was in store for him.

The fun of writing Ronall, of course, is that he's so completely different from everyone else in
The White Dragon
. It was an interesting change of pace for me to write about this lost, confused, aimless character who doesn't even know what he wants, in a story where I was otherwise always writing about incredibly focused and determined people.
 

I also enjoyed writing about the only true outsider in this whole tale. Everyone else in this book, no matter what their background or allegiance, knows their own role (even if it's a constantly-shifting one) and is an active part of the struggle to resolve the central story problem: the fate of Sileria. I found that, as a result of his relative indifference to the outcome of this power struggle, Ronall (when not too drunk) often views the conflict and the various legendary people involved in it more clearly than anyone else does.

It was also frankly fun, while writing about so many characters on all sides of Sileria's volatile conflict who are brave, capable, and resourceful... to write about a self-loathing coward who doesn't even know how to cope with the occasional fumbling acts of compassion or bravery that he feels circumstances force on him against his will.

The other character who had a minor role in
In Legend Born
which grew into a major one in
The White Dragon
was, of course, Baran the waterlord. He snuck into
In Legend Born
because I thought it would be interesting if something more than just greed and power-lust had made Kiloran so very formidable—such as a brilliant rival who forces him to stay on his toes, for example.

This rival just wanted to get rid of the Valdani because they were such a distraction in his longtime feud against Kiloran. So when I started work on
The White Dragon
, I thought in more detail about what sort of person would have fought a war of rebellion against a powerful empire on that basis; it would probably be someone who was less than perfectly sane, I concluded. I also wondered what had led to a hatred so overpowering that Baran chose to persist in a mortal feud against Kiloran—an elderly man in the same line of work (so to speak) who, as everyone knows, doesn't have an heir. Logically, Baran should position himself to inherit Kiloran's legacy. Instead, he's spent years trying to destroy it. Why?

I realized that there was more to Kiloran's rival than met the eye. He wasn't just a power-hungry waterlord who couldn't think ahead. There was a complicated agenda behind his seemingly simple goal of destroying Kiloran—and a complex, secretive past behind a mutual enmity so towering that it has repeatedly undermined the judgment of these two otherwise shrewd and calculating men.

Discovering and exploring stuff like this, particularly when I didn't realize that something was going to happen (or that someone was going to emerge as a key player), is part of what keeps my job so endlessly interesting.
The White Dragon
was full of satisfying surprises for me—and I hope it was for you, too. I also hope you'll find the final book of this trilogy,
The Destroyer Goddess
, equally satisfying, as Baran, Kiloran, Ronall, Elelar, Tansen, Zarien, Mirabar, and all the rest of Sileria's people meet their destiny.