The White Dragon (36 page)

However, they didn't know how to contact Kiloran; nor did Armian, who had spent his whole life on the mainland. So their solution was to find the waterlord through Sileria's secretive network of strange bedfellows, the Alliance.

"So you will..." Tansen shrugged, trying to work it out. "Abandon the Alliance once you find Kiloran?"

"No." Armian clapped him on the head, a playful blow of admonishment. "What did I tell you before?"

"Um..."

"Never destroy a useful tool."

"Oh! Yes, I remember." He frowned. "How is the Alliance useful?"

"I'm not sure yet, but they're bound to be. Money, contacts, networks, influence." Armian shrugged. "Kiloran will know. And he will keep them in their place."

An important matter continued to trouble Tansen. "After we find Kiloran...."

"Yes?"

"Will we go to Darshon?"

Armian sighed. "You're not still thinking about that, are you?"

"Father, surely your destiny—"

"Is too bright to throw away by jumping into the damned volcano."

"Then what will you do?"

"I'll fight a war," said Armian.

"To get rid of the Valdani."

"Yes."

"But—"

"And then I'll become Kiloran's heir."

I'm his son
, Tansen thought,
it's my duty to say this
. "That doesn't seem fitting, father. You're the Fire—"

"Kiloran will teach me everything he knows," Armian said, looking a little exasperated by now. "Including water magic."

"You'll become a waterlord?"

"I'm Harlon's son."
 

"Waterlords' sons don't always... The gift doesn't always go from father to son."

"Let's just hope it has in my case."

"Are there any signs that you h—"

"No." Armian shrugged. "But I've never been in Sileria before, and I've never met a waterlord who might teach me. So there's never been any way of knowing."

"If you don't—"

"If I don't master water magic, then it will be very hard to rule Sileria."

A waterlord ruling Sileria.

It was not the same thing as the Firebringer.

It was not the same.

Tansen had never seen a woman like Elelar, had never known the painful, tongue-tied yearning that overwhelmed him in her presence. He didn't know how to control the lust which swept through him when she brushed past him or stood so close that he could feel the heat of her skin.
 

He had also never before experienced the acute embarrassment he felt over her amusement at his rustic habits or his clumsy infatuation. For the first time in his life, he was embarrassed that he was poor, illiterate, and ignorant. Her pity humiliated him and her impatience shamed him.
 

He was a
shallah
and she was a
torena
. Even worse, he was still just a boy, and she was already a woman.
 

"She's a lovely girl," Armian said one day, following Tansen's gaze as it followed the
torena
, who was departing from a private meeting with them.
 

"I suppose so," Tansen said with a show of indifference.

"I believe that even in Sileria," Armian said dryly, "women are moved by compliments, gifts, and acts of gallantry."

Tansen glanced suspiciously at him. "Oh?"

"So if you want to win the girl's affection—"

"I didn't say that."

Armian sighed. "Never mind."

After a few moments, Tansen ventured, "Acts of gallantry?"

"Show her the courtesies a woman likes."

"The courtesies a woman likes," he repeated blankly.

"For example, perhaps if you let her precede you through a doorway, rather than always going ahead of her—"

"But a man must always go first through a door! To protect a woman from the danger that may lie on the other side."

Armian frowned. "Yes, there are differences between the
shallaheen
and the
toreni
which..." He shook his head. "Perhaps compliments would be a better thing to focus on."

"Compliments," Tansen said without enthusiasm, morosely considering how tongue-tied Elelar's presence made him.

"A young woman like the
torena
..." Armian thought it over. "She will be indifferent to comments about her beauty, but compliments about her mind will flatter her."

Tansen took his father's advice to heart and tried to compliment the
torena's
intelligence when next they met. But he was a clumsy peasant, lacking the polished manners of Elelar's kind, and his awkward passion made his words sound foolish. She seemed more amused than flattered, and he quickly retreated into mortified silence. After that, he brusquely rejected Armian's encouragement in this matter.

"Well," Armian said philosophically, "she's a
torena
, after all, so I suppose things are best left as they are. And you're both still young enough that the age difference matters a great deal."

"Won't it always?" Tansen muttered.

Armian smiled kindly. "No. In the ways that matter, she won't always be older. However, she will always be a
torena
."

"And I will always be a
shallah
."

"No. You will be more than that someday. Much more."

Smarting under the pain of hopeless love, what happened "someday" hardly seemed to matter, but Tansen obediently replied, "Yes, father."

Chapter Fourteen

Who will be brave and stand with me?

      
      
      
      
—Daurion, the Last Yahrdan

Sleep eluded Tansen, so by the time dawn's amber glow finally kissed the sky above Mount Dalishar, he had been practicing forms and drills, with and without his swords, for some time. Sister Rahilar's dressing on his wounded palm ensured that it didn't disable him, though it was starting to throb again, and her disgusting blood broth seemed to have set him on the road to recovery. He was slower than usual and tired more easily, but with the life-threatening wound at his side completely healed, he was at least strong enough today for action and would, he knew, soon be fully recovered.

The mysteriously healed wound was just one of many concerns he must deal with today, and not the most pressing one. This morning, while a coil of dark smoke rose menacingly out of distant Darshon's caldera, he must take the first real steps in the necessary feat he had dreaded since Josarian's death: taking his bloodbrother's place.

After the rebels were all awake and the morning chores were done, Tansen called for everyone's attention. Only he, Najdan, and Mirabar knew the truth about Elelar. But eight of these men had been with Tansen when he saved Josarian from the ambush that Zimran had led him into, so Tansen had no doubt that the news of Zimran's betrayal had already been discussed at Dalishar and would soon spread across Sileria.
 

Looking at nearly fifty attentive faces now, he began with a judicious half-truth. "As most of you know, I discovered that Zimran planned to betray Josarian to the Outlookers."

Galian, a
shallah
from Garabar who always fought with two
yahr
, asked, "Why did he do it?"

The disgusted reply came from Radyan, a young man from Illan whose intelligence Tansen had learned to appreciate: "Probably for the money the Valdani must have promised him."

"That," Lann said morosely, "seems likely." He had known Zimran well, having grown up with him and Josarian. "He always wanted more money, lots of money. I suppose his... his friendship with
Torena
Elelar beguiled him into believing she'd leave her Valdani husband permanently for him if he had wealth worthy of her position." Lann shook his head sadly. "As if a
torena
would favor a
shallah
for long."

"And presumably the Outlookers offered him a pardon," Tansen added. His blood simmered with guilt while his mind coolly noted that his lies would satisfy these men. "However, as you know, Zimran failed."

"Because of you," Lann proclaimed.

"But Kiloran succeeded," Tansen continued.

Sister Rahilar started crying. Lann's eyes misted in his dark, bearded face. Even Yorin, a notoriously tough one-eyed
shallah
, looked as if he was fighting back tears.

Tansen had thought about his next move a great deal and had decided that the harshest words must come from him. If not, then he would wind up defending his plans against criticism. And Armian had taught Tansen that a defensive fight was almost always a doomed one.

Always attack, and never hesitate.

"Now," he told the rebels at Dalishar, "we are caught between Josarian's enemies, between the Valdani and the Society, between Advisor Kaynall in Shaljir and Kiloran in our own mountains." The rebels' gazes were sharp and unblinking. "Now we face the worst odds, the hardest tasks, the heaviest fighting." The air was thick with tension. "Here, between the sword and the wall, between fire and water, between the past and the future," he said, praying for some of Josarian's charisma, "we must make our choice and, having made it, never waver from it."

He saw Zarien's young face, festive with sea-born tattoos, and suddenly felt the weight of the boy's expectations. "Now, here, today," Tansen said, "we must decide: Do we stand and fight, or do we surrender and submit?"

Lann's voice was hoarse with emotion: "Stand and fight!"

"At least
pretend
to think it over," Radyan suggested dryly.

"Josarian must be avenged!" Yorin cried.

"Do you know what that means?" Tansen challenged him.

"
I
know what it means," Radyan said. "I'm from Illan. I grew up on the banks of the Idalar River."

"If you want to surrender," Yorin snapped, "then there's no room for you at Dalishar."

Radyan sighed. "I didn't say I wanted to surrender. I'm saying you'd better be damned sure you know what you're getting into before you charge off in a blaze of vengeful glory."

"He's right," Tansen agreed.
 
"To avenge Josarian is to challenge Kiloran. To challenge Kiloran is to oppose the Society. And that," he said, remembering so well how he had learned it, "they will not allow."

"War against the Society?" asked Pyron, who had lost both of his brothers in the mines of Alizar under Valdani rule.

"War against the Society," Tansen confirmed.

This stopped their debate, and fear showed on their faces. This, they knew, was an even madder dream than Josarian's rebellion against Valdania.