The White Dragon (64 page)

He'd had some vague notion that if no one in the city would kill him, then surely the mountain rebels would. He had no idea how he'd gotten through the city gates. Either the Outlookers were no longer guarding them, or else they couldn't be bothered to stop a drunken
toren
from riding out to his well-deserved death.

He had no idea how far he had come, nor where he was now. The morning sun was blazing down with offensive cheeriness on a place he'd never seen before. Dar, he needed a drink! He was just starting to wonder what had happened to the damn horse, because he really didn't want to set out on foot, when he heard its nervous whinny somewhere in the grove. It was just close enough to make his head reel painfully from the high-pitched sound, and just far enough away to make his search for it a sweat-producing ordeal.
 

His heart filled briefly with hope when he saw a stone structure. But as he approached it, he realized it was just an empty hut, the sort of place where lowlanders slept during harvest time, when they were in the fields and groves from sunrise to sundown. This hut looked particularly dilapidated. The roof had caved in and there were big cracks in the walls, as if an earthquake...

A chill swept over him. Yes, an earthquake. There had been another one, hadn't there? Was that when he had fallen off the gelding? He thought so, but he wasn't sure. He just remembered the animalistic terror he had shared with the horse while the world shook and roared around them. Dar was angry and meant to make Sileria know the cost of offending Her.

Ronall was trembling and panting with fatigue as he came up to Elelar's grazing gelding and took its reins in hand. Patient and well-trained—no showy stallion for his practical wife—it evidently recognized his unwashed and liquor-soaked scent and decided to tolerate him until someone better came along. With tremendous effort, Ronall hauled himself into the saddle. He held the gelding still for a moment, concentrating on not retching again. Then, when he thought he could stand it, he slackened his hold on the horse's mouth and let it move forward.
 

Presumably there was some sort of road or trail around here. They'd stumble across it sooner or later. And they'd follow it deep into the mountains. Ronall had no intention of returning to Shaljir. There was nothing for him there now. Nothing for him anywhere.
 

Somewhere in those mountains were thousands of angry rebels slavering for more Valdani blood. Somewhere, sooner or later, someone would oblige Elelar by killing him.

Meanwhile, he wanted a drink.

He had, of course, neglected to bring any money with him. It didn't matter. He wore a ring he could sell. It was worth a veritable fortune by the miserable standards of the
shallaheen
. That would keep him in liquor for a while. If need be, he could sell the horse, too. And his boots.

He didn't care. He didn't intend to live long, after all. There was nothing left for him. Not anywhere.

It was a dark place full of light, a bright place shadowed by darkness. A vast cavern, heavy yet airy, immense yet encroaching.

Fire and water were all around Cheylan. The churning lava of the restless volcano extended its reach to this forgotten place, dripping into the water which flowed through strange tunnels lit by eerie glowing shapes. Each time lava touched water, angry hissing filled the air and steam rose to obscure his vision.

Some of the phosphorescent lumps on the walls and ceilings were plants, but not all. Some of them had long spindly legs, some had no legs at all, and some had a thousand tiny legs.

When Cheylan moved past them, they all scurried away, as frightened as any helpless creature was in the presence of a stronger one. Born to this secret, long-forgotten, underground world of fire and water, they were strangers to the sun. These crawling little glowing creatures had never seen daylight or breathed any air other than the hot, dank, ancient miasma that filled these steamy tunnels beneath the coastal mountain range north of Liron.

Fire and water...

He heard lava rumbling somewhere deep in the belly of the world. The walls of this strange sanctuary trembled, but they held. They always would. Cheylan was sure of it. Since the first time he had stumbled across this secret stronghold years ago, while fleeing from his grandfather's deadly wrath, he had known it was a sacred place, eternally protected by Dar. Blessed by the twin powers of fire and water which ruled Sileria. Sanctified for him and him alone.

Water and fire...

This was his place, his domain, the cradle of his destiny. He had always believed that Dar had created it for him; and now that Mirabar had seen it in her visions, he was sure of it. He had kept silent, not yet sure he should trust her with this secret. But he had recognized his private kingdom in her confused words, in her breathless description that night at Dalishar.

Something great would happen here. His destiny was indeed unfolding. Josarian had freed Sileria and then died, leaving the way open for his successor. Cheylan had been the Firebringer's willing servant, always believing that his own fate would be revealed to him if he was patient and shrewd. He had realized, of course, that no one else could rule Sileria while Josarian lived. The Firebringer was so beloved, there was no question of whom the people would choose to lead them if they won the war against the Valdani.

Cheylan had minded this far less than he imagined Kiloran did. The waterlord lived for absolute power and demanded total obedience. Cheylan had spent some time with Kiloran during the rebellion, and he had quickly recognized that the old wizard didn't know how to compromise, let alone cooperate. In Kiloran's world, there was his way and no other. He was intelligent, cunning, and immensely powerful, but he was inflexible. That was his weakness. He couldn't share power with the Firebringer, couldn't share Sileria with anyone. Consequently, he could never be anyone's ally; only an enemy. He could never be an asset; only a threat. And threats, like enemies, had to be eliminated.

It was inevitable that Kiloran turned on Josarian, and inescapable that Josarian—and now Tansen—felt it essential to destroy Kiloran. Cheylan, whose life had taught him the value of compromise, not to mention subterfuge, might have found his true destiny under the Firebringer's rule of Sileria; but he had, of course, privately hoped for more. Josarian, although beloved of Dar and survivor of the volcano's sacred embrace, was nonetheless a mere
shallah
. Neither a
toren
nor a sorcerer. Whereas Cheylan was both, though he had been born to a world where his unique qualities had, so far, cost him more than they had earned him.

 
Cheylan had known that if anyone could kill the Firebringer, it would be Kiloran. Since murdering Josarian would have terrible repercussions, Cheylan had never intended to try. Cooperating with the Firebringer was far better than killing him. However, living to see Josarian dead and Kiloran blamed for his murder was best of all.

Whether this was Dar's way of opening the door to Cheylan's destiny, or merely luck, he was grateful. Now the future was at hand.

A child of sorrow...

Cheylan had spent so much of his life alone, shunned, and unwanted, that he always found the darkly glowing solitude of these rumbling water-and-fire filled tunnels soothing rather than frightening.
 

Some of the walls here bore the mysterious paintings of the Beyah-Olvari, that long-extinct race of water wizards who had inhabited Sileria, according to Verlon, eons ago. The paintings were eerily beautiful, graceful in a disturbingly inhuman way; but Cheylan found it hard to believe they revealed the secrets of water magic. They seemed too abstract, too symbolic. He certainly couldn't interpret them, and he found it improbable that Marjan, the very first waterlord, had managed it. Silerians loved their legends, but Cheylan suspected that a more practical explanation, or even dumb luck, accounted for Marjan's resurrection of the ancient magic which he had used to destroy Daurion, scatter the Guardians, and change Sileria forever.
 

A child of fire...

Lava oozed through the walls, coming in slow trickles now rather than in the hesitant droplets that usually festooned these tunnels. It was another sign of Dar's restive passion, Her increasing activity. Eastern Sileria was in turmoil, her people panicking, her air thick with tension. While fighting raged between the Lironi and the Society, with heavy losses punishing the great clan of the east for their disobedience to Verlon, the volcano was never silent or still now. The ground trembled almost daily all around Darshon, quivering in response to Her fiery will, Her hot blood, even when it didn't shake in a genuine earthquake.
 

Some people were evacuating their homes and villages, already fleeing in fear from the colored columns of shifting smoke and dancing lightning surrounding the caldera day and night now. Meanwhile, others were attracted to Darshon by this same spectacle. Some of the
zanareen
claimed Dar was summoning them again for a mysterious purpose. Other sects and factions were coming to Her, too, risking death to approach the tempestuous volcano. Some brought offerings to soothe the goddess, including bones of the dead which had survived the sacred fires of their funeral pyres.
 

Cheylan didn't flee when Dar rumbled, and he didn't bring Her puny offerings. He knew She wanted what only he could offer, what he alone had been born for. And he was ready. Honed by hardship and shaped by bitter experience, he knew his time had finally come.
 
Lava trickled over him now, coming from the domed ceiling of the tunnels. It blessed him, consecrating his life to Dar's divine plan.
 

Born to this magic, shaped for this power, Cheylan seized a trickle of lava and pulled it through the air like a ribbon of glowing silk. He raised it overhead like a banner and swore, in his heart, to fulfill his destiny. Dar and Verlon had made him what he was, who he was. The goddess had given him gifts, and his bloodthirsty grandfather had taught him others. There was no one in Sileria like Cheylan. No one in the three corners of the world who was his equal.

A child of water...

He walked across the surface of the water flowing through these tunnels. His feet sank slightly into its resilient coolness with each step, the water supporting his weight as he commanded it to, responding to his power, his will, his sorcery. Just as Verlon had taught him, long ago, before they had become enemies.
 

Fire and water, water and fire...

Who else in Sileria could command the two? Who, in all the world, besides Cheylan had mastered both elements? Cheylan floated past more of the faded, ancient paintings of the Beyah-Olvari, letting the current carry him as he stood still on the flowing water's surface. Even Marjan, a Guardian who unlocked the mysteries of the dead Beyah-Olvari and learned their magic, hadn't been this great a sorcerer. He had given up fire for water, turning his back on one sorcery in favor of another. Since that time, everyone in Sileria believed that only one power or the other was possible, never both together.

Fire and water, competing for ascendancy in Sileria for a thousand years. Forever apart, forever at odds. Now all of Sileria, even Mirabar, believed that one must finally vanquish the other.

There would always be water magic in Sileria, just as there would always be fire magic. Nothing could change that. Not even the passion of Silerians' hatred for each other.

He is coming.

Only Cheylan could unite fire and water. Only he understood them both. Only he could challenge them both and defend against them both.

Only he could be the one Mirabar awaited, the one she saw in her visions.

Protect what you most long to destroy.

There were still things he didn't understand. Factors he couldn't yet control. Was the Society meant to be destroyed by Tansen, or to come under Cheylan's influence? Should he kill Verlon now, or try to win back his grandfather's trust and use him as an ally until he no longer needed him? Could Tansen really eliminate Kiloran for him? And if not, how should he deal with Kiloran?

Or, he wondered, was that particular message even about the Society? The Beckoner spoke to Mirabar, after all. And Cheylan thought he knew whom Mirabar herself most longed to destroy; he just couldn't guess why it mattered one way or the other.