The White Dragon (66 page)

"After that, some of you will stay here to help protect Zilar. The rest of you," he said, "will go back to your own circles, or to other Guardian circles, and teach them what you've learned here. There are perhaps as many as one hundred waterlords whom we've got to defeat, and we can't waste any time."

He dismissed them all. As he watched them leave the temple, excited and scared, he knew with burning regret that he was leading some of them straight to their deaths.

Chapter Twenty-Six

It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool
 

than to speak and remove all doubt.

      
      
      
      
      
      
—Silerian Proverb

There was no way to reach Mount Niran from Zilar without traveling through lands controlled by waterlords, including Kiloran's traditional territory. Indeed, the journey took Mirabar too close to Lake Kandahar for comfort. Kiloran wasn't there, but that only made the trip marginally safer. His assassins still patrolled the district, and his power over the major water sources here had not slackened.

In addition, Mount Niran was much closer to Cavasar than Mirabar had gone ever since Kiloran seized the city. With so many deaths during the war and so much shifting of power in the wake of Valdani withdrawal from Cavasar, who knew what additional lands Kiloran now controlled, what greater power he wielded?

The journey made Mirabar jumpy, and Najdan's ever-increasing tension practically made her skin tingle. He had served Kiloran for twenty years, often carrying out his duties in this very region. He knew better than anyone just how dangerous this trip was for Mirabar, especially since she was so easily identified. She kept the hood of her cloak pulled over her flaming hair at all times and shielded her burning eyes from view whenever they encountered people. But just one slip—a stray lock of red hair escaping her hood, a shifting ray of sunlight seeking out her fire-bright eyes—would alert people to her presence here. Anyone loyal to Josarian's memory would stay silent; anyone loyal to Kiloran would betray her.

The cloak, she reflected, was an increasingly impractical disguise. The days were growing warmer, the sun hotter. At least Najdan's disguise didn't make him sweat like an overworked horse, she thought enviously. Although he wasn't enthusiastic about it, he had agreed to eschew his own black clothes and red
jashar
in favor of ordinary clothing left in Shannibar's Sanctuary by someone who had never returned for it.

The tale of Josarian's death was spreading like wildfire through the mountains, as was news of the Valdani surrender in Shaljir. Sileria was delirious with volatile emotions. Whole communities were wracked by mourning even in the midst of their victory celebrations. Whole villages were already disintegrating into violence as everyone in Sileria learned of Kiloran's triumph over Josarian and of Tansen's vow to destroy the Society. Fighting the Valdani had united the people. Now the ancient blood hatred that ran so deep in Sileria was tearing them apart again.
 

Staying at the back of her group and keeping her face and hair hidden with what must look like absurd modesty, Mirabar listened to the vows, fears, opinions, and wild predictions of the people they encountered on the high mountain paths, narrow goat trails, and crumbling roads of rural Sileria. When she and her six-man escort needed food or additional supplies, Pyron or one of the others would enter a village to make the necessary purchases, then come back full of news and gossip.

The normally reticent
shallaheen
, the traditionally timid lowlanders, the cautious
toreni
, and the calculating merchants all knew that destiny was at hand and everyone must choose his fate before it was chosen for him.
 

The mountains were erupting with precisely the sort of brother-against-brother rage that Mirabar knew Tansen had feared from the moment Kiloran first betrayed the Firebringer and Josarian responded by killing the waterlord's son. In the wake of victory against the Empire, Mirabar believed the question her people faced simple: Did Sileria drive out the Valdani to live under the yoke of the Society, or to pursue a future of peace and prosperity under the leadership of Dar's chosen ruler?

 
She also knew that many people would never view things her way. Some were too frightened of the Society to oppose it. Others were too used to its rule to challenge it. Even worse, many genuinely loved the Society, loved Kiloran. Filled with a rapt devotion to the waterlords which Mirabar had never understood, they believed Kiloran and his kind had stood between them and the
roshaheen
for centuries, had protected them when there was no one else to do it, and had given them justice when there was no law to avenge their injuries.

Would the people choose Kiloran or Tansen? Which power would finally triumph in Sileria, fire or water? Did Silerians fear the waterlords too much to trust in the Guardians?

Mirabar shivered beneath the hot sun by day, chilled by uncertainty and fears. She wanted to reveal herself to the people whom she and her escort met, wanted to proclaim prophecy in the main square of every village in western Sileria. But she was too vulnerable to attack. Once her whereabouts were known to the waterlords, she'd never live to reach Mount Niran, let alone Sister Velikar's Sanctuary back on the slopes of Dalishar.

Others carried her words, though: people who had been in Zilar on the day freedom was announced and Tansen's bloodfeud against the Society was proclaimed; people who knew, as Mirabar did, that their sacrifices would all be in vain if they surrendered now to the Society; people who believed, as Mirabar desperately wanted to, that Dar Herself would help them triumph.

Mirabar trembled under the waning reddish moons by night, mourning her loss of innocence, the death of her absolute faith in the goddess.

Why did You let him die, Dar?

Had the goddess betrayed Her Chosen One? Sacrificed him? Neglected him? Or had She been too weak to shield him from Kiloran?

If Dar was too weak to shield Josarian, then how could Mirabar possibly shield the coming ruler?

A child of fire, a child of water, a child of sorrow...

How will I know him? Where will I find him? Give me a sign. Please give me a sign.

Lying in the dark now, in a particularly poor Sanctuary, Mirabar heard a strange rumbling sound outside.
 

Another earthquake?

She rose from her bedroll, grabbed the chubby Sister who was their hostess tonight, and dragged her toward the door, eager to escape the unstable stone dwelling before any ground-shaking began in earnest.
 

"What are you doing?" the Sister cried.

"Get outside!" Mirabar said, raising her voice to be heard above the rumbling filling the air. "The roof's not sturdy!"

The Sister blinked at her in bewilderment. Mirabar couldn't believe that she could be so stupid. Even a child knew what to do during an earthquake, and they'd endured enough of them recently that the Sister's reflexes ought to be a little more honed.

"Come
on.
" Mirabar dragged her away from the dwelling and the overhanging rockface sheltering it—and tripped over Pyron, who was sleeping like the dead. She kicked him. "Get up! Get up!"

"Ow! What are you doing?"

The other men were all sleeping, too. How could anyone sleep through this racket? The roaring filled her head now, flooding the night. And the
heat
... It was terrible, suddenly. It covered her skin, burning through her clothes, shimmering through the night until her vision was blurry.

"
Sirana!
What's wrong?"

Mirabar whirled and saw Najdan approaching her through a heat-haze. Steam was rising in thick columns all around him.
 

The heat was burning through her now, scorching her flesh. She started pulling her clothing away from her sweat-drenched body, shaking in reaction to the noise and the steam spewing skyward.

Now she heard chanting. Trilling. Ululating. A bewildering mixture of voices filled with passion and fervor, ghostly praise-singing flooding the hot, roaring night with urgency.

She looked around anxiously, confused. The men were all awake now. All staring at her. She felt a hand on her arm.

"
Sirana?"
Najdan said uncertainly.

She met his perplexed, concerned gaze. "Don't you feel it?" she demanded, hearing the panic in her voice.

"Why are you shouting?" he asked.

To be heard above the...
"Can't you hear it?" Her head was reeling with it!

"Hear what?" Pyron asked, plainly bewildered.

Najdan tightened his grip on her arm, staring at her with growing worry.

Mirabar realized she'd been wrong. The ground
was
shaking, but this wasn't an earthquake. This was power, tremendous power... Lava moving through the veins of the earth, flowing somewhere beneath their feet, making the ground tremble with Dar's blood, Dar's breath, Dar's life... Mirabar gasped and leaped back, dragging Najdan with her, as lava erupted at her feet.
 

"What's wrong with her?" Pyron jumped to his feet.

"Quiet!" Najdan ordered. "
Sirana,
what do you see?"

How could they not see it, not feel its heat? She was burning up! The fumes, the sudden flames erupting out of the glowing ooze of the lava spilling forth from the world's womb...

A woman was screaming. Mirabar clapped a hand over her mouth, but the screams continued, so it wasn't her. She peered through the steam and the fire and the smoke... but, no, the Sister wasn't screaming, either.
 

"Where is she?" Mirabar cried.

"Who?" 
      
Screaming!
Screaming for help. For mercy. Screaming in pain and terror.

"We've got to help her!" Mirabar shouted, wading through the lava. Oh, how it burned! The agony was unbearable, but the screams pulled her on.

"Who's she looking for?"

"Don't let her go beyond Sanctuary grounds!"

Strong arms grabbed Mirabar from behind and lifted her off her feet. Najdan, wading waist-deep through the lava, carried her back to safety.

"No!" Mirabar cried. "We've got to help her!"

"Who?" he asked.

She didn't know. She only knew that something was driving her to help whoever was crying out to her. The screams beckoned to her even over the lava's roar and the intense, almost hysterical trilling of the unseen singers.
 

"
Sirana
..."

"Shh. Quiet!" she ordered, hearing a new sound, a helpless cry of innocence.

For a moment, she thought a goat was wailing, perhaps being swallowed by the lava. Then she recognized the sound and realized what it was.

She met Najdan's gaze. "A baby."

"Where?"

"Crying."

He cocked his head. "I don't hear anything."

Lava circled the assassin, whirled around him, flowed over his body. Flames ignited in his long hair. He stood staring at Mirabar, his dark face creased with concentration and concern.

"You don't see... anything?" Mirabar said at last, pulling her wits together. "Nothing unusual?"

He slowly shook his head. "No."

She glanced at Pyron. "And you?"

"I see a Guardian losing her mind right in front of—"

"Shut up," Najdan snapped.

Mirabar looked through the misty, glowing night and saw the baby now. He flowed past her on a river of lava. The infant's orange eyes glowed like all the Fires of Dar. His skin was smeared with blood, and he wailed like any baby. He seemed at home in the liquid fire that carried him away into the clouds of steam as the passionate trilling and chanting filled Mirabar's head, as the rumbling roar echoed all around her...