The White Dragon (72 page)

"Not exactly to Belitar, I must admit." Baran smiled. "As hard as this may be for you to believe, he doesn't trust me."

"Imagine that," Gulstan murmured.

"We met nearby, in Sanctuary." Baran sighed. "He was so distressed. So angry. I tried to appeal to him on your behalf, truly I did, but nothing could calm him down."

"Go on," Kiloran prodded impatiently.

"He's not going to forgive you for the night you sent six assassins to his stronghold to kill him."

"What?" Meriten blurted.

"Well, he
thinks
it was six," Baran added. "But he admits that things were very confusing. So it might have been four. Or maybe eight."

"
What
?" Dulien said.

"I didn't—" Kiloran stopped abruptly, realizing the truth. Six of his men missing ever since they'd gone after Tansen...
 

Oh, the
shatai
was clever. Tansen knew that the other waterlords would suspect Kiloran of the attack no matter what he said. He also knew that Kiloran wouldn't explain he'd lost six assassins,
shir
and all, trying to ambush Tansen. After all, that was not an admission designed to increase the others' respect for him.

"It seems that one of your assassins left a
shir
behind," Baran said. "Very careless. But I can see how the poor fellow might have forgotten it, given that he'd just used it to gut one of those hideous sculptures that Wyldon's so proud of. Frankly, they even give
me
nightmares." He shook his head sadly. "Someone really needs to be honest with Wyldon about his art, but I fear my heart's just too tender for the task."

The five other waterlords flew into a fury.

Dulien jumped to his feet again. "You sent assassins after Wyldon?"

"Who are you planning to attack next?"

Gulstan said, "So you finally got tired of waiting for him to die?"

"Are your assassins invading my territory even now? Is that why you wanted me to come all this way to watch you declare a truce with this madman?"

"I resent that," Baran protested.

"You tried to kill Wyldon, Kiloran?"

Meriten argued, "If he did, it's not our concern."

"Watch out, you spineless sycophant," Gulstan warned. "You'll be next."

Kiloran heard Searlon's voice raised again, warning the assassins against using their
shir
. The agitated shouts of their masters were urging their blood to violence again. They circled and stalked each other as the waterlords continued arguing.

"This meeting is just a pretense, isn't it?"

"We mustn't turn on each other now. This is exactly what our enemies want."

"Wyldon is a fool who deserves whatever happ—"

"And will we say that about
you
next?"

Through the chaos, Baran smiled at Kiloran. His thin and surprisingly lined face was rich with laughter and satisfaction
 
as he said, "We really don't get together often enough, do we?"

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Allies need not be friends.

      
      
      
      
      
—Kiloran

Baran's insides burned with the dull, ever-present physical pain which was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore, but he was nonetheless thoroughly enjoying the spectacle of half a dozen waterlords and more than thirty assassins all at each other's throats. The rage that lived inside Baran was the only thing stronger than his endless sorrow, and now it fed off the other waterlords' hatred and suspicion, their mistrust and enmity, their short-tempered intolerance and cold-blooded greed.
 

While Gulstan demanded an explanation of Kiloran's attack on Wyldon, his fat red face growing red with fury, Baran blessed the impulse that had led Wyldon to seek his support. Baran was the only waterlord alive who had ever challenged Kiloran. Oh, there had been others, to be sure; but Baran was the only one still
alive
. So Kiloran's enemies always sought Baran's support. Josarian, Wyldon, Tansen... they were just the most recent petitioners for his friendship. Every enemy of Kiloran's—and there had been more than a few during the dozen years that Baran had openly opposed the old waterlord—came to him sooner or later.

Baran ignored most of them. He neither needed nor wanted their friendship. He didn't care whose territories Kiloran threatened or stole, whose relatives Kiloran killed or abducted, or whose honor Kiloran impugned and offended. He didn't want Kiloran's territory for his own, he had no interest in winning the loyalty of Kiloran's men, and he was indifferent to Kiloran's wealth.

Baran cared for one thing and one thing alone: vengeance. Personal, private, and profound vengeance. Apart from that, nothing and no one mattered. He needed no friend, no ally who could not actively assist his quest for revenge.

While the waterlords shouted all around him, Baran idly fingered the necklace—Kintish silver with jade inlays—which he had worn ever since Kiloran destroyed his world years ago.

Ah, well. At least a little amusement, now and then, made this bitter thing called life more bearable. Wyldon's seething, self-righteous anger, when he met with Baran in Sanctuary, had been wonderful. And the pleasure of delivering Wyldon's scathing denouncement to Kiloran, in front of five other waterlords at a truce meeting—well! Baran hadn't enjoyed anything this much in years.
 

Above all, it delighted him to make Kiloran angry, to drive him to an indiscreet display of rage, to unsettle his icy demeanor with a verbal ambush. Baran was pleased to see proof today that he had improved at this over the years. There was a time, long ago, when Baran would rage with helpless frustration
 
and blind fury while Kiloran remained cool and indifferent. Even now, the memory of those days was like a merciless fist around Baran's heart. How satisfying it was now to make Kiloran angry, appalled, and alarmed, all in one day. Why, this was such a delicious feeling, it almost inspired Baran to let Kiloran live a few more years, just to enjoy the sheer pleasure of tormenting him now and then.

The sudden grip of fire on Baran's vitals, though, reminded him that he didn't have a few years. When Tansen's emissary, Sister Velikar, discovered him vomiting blood in the damp ruins of Belitar, she had examined him. He hadn't permitted it, but she had done it anyhow. It would take more than a waterlord to menace Velikar, Baran discovered; and since she was a Sister, he couldn't harm or kill her when she ignored his commands and threats. There were certain rules governing life in Sileria which even Baran obeyed, and the inviolability of the Sisters and their Sanctuaries was among them.

Velikar's pronouncements about his illness, like her prescriptions for its treatment, would have terrified a man who had something to live for. If there was anything human left in Baran's soul, though, it had been yearning for death for years and would embrace it when it finally came—as, indeed, Velikar believed it soon would.
 

The rest of him, though... the rest of him craved fulfillment of a monumental goal and raged against the possibility of dying before it was achieved.
 

Baran had denied his own affable nature, forsaken his clan and his family, consecrated his life to vengeance, and helped reshape the destiny of Sileria, all so that he could destroy Kiloran. The risks he had taken in pursuit of this dream defied all reason. The dedication Baran had brought to the art and craft of Kiloran's own sorcery eventually made him one of the most powerful waterlords who had ever lived. The ruthlessness he had employed in carving out his place in the Society would make the man he used to be sick with horror, wild with shame, demented with guilt. But that genial man had died years ago; Kiloran had ensured that. All that remained now was the merciless and half-mad waterlord who lived only to destroy Kiloran and who would do anything, hurt anyone, and risk everything to accomplish this.

If Velikar was right, though—and he supposed she was, because surely no one would feel this way who wasn't mortally ill—then he had little time left to achieve the goal to which he had dedicated his life, the ultimate ambition that had already led him to do so many extraordinary things.
 

He must discover the best way to have his vengeance before he died. No matter what it took. No matter who he had to betray or how many of Sileria's laws and customs he violated, he meant to see Kiloran die before he did.

The immediate question, of course, was whether he should he side with Tansen's seemingly hopeless war against the Society or accept Kiloran's offer of a truce? Baran looked at the quarreling waterlords surrounding him and searched for some inspiration about what path he should take.

Not surprisingly, Dulien decided to go home and sulk. He turned his back on the other waterlords and ordered his assassins to prepare to ride out. Gulstan—who was probably just bluffing—announced he was leaving, too. Then Kariman, who never bluffed and who had a lot to lose if Kiloran moved against him, rose to leave, too. Meriten, who knew where his cup was filled, stayed by Kiloran. Ferolen, possibly the most tedious man in Sileria, just kept shouting that Kiloran owed him an explanation. Kiloran looked as if his head ached.

This is going so well. I must remember to send Wyldon a gift
.

"Aren't you going to stop them,
siran?
" Meriten demanded as three waterlords and nearly twenty assassins began mounting their horses.

"Is anyone hungry?" Baran asked. "I find all this excitement has stimulated my appetite. I don't suppose there's anything to eat in this Darforsaken place?"

This use of the goddess's name made Ferolen stumble over his words, but he quickly recovered. "What is between you and Wyldon is your own affair, Kiloran, but I—"

"Yes," Kiloran interrupted, speaking at last. "It is."

"Not quite," Baran pointed out. "After all, he does want me to help him kill you."

That finally shut Ferolen up. He stared at Baran with mingled curiosity and exasperation. Meriten's eyes narrowed.
 

"When you do that," Baran informed Meriten, "it makes you look a little like a wild boar. Strange that I hadn't noticed the resemblance until—"

"This is a truce meeting," Meriten snapped. "If you came here to kill—"

"You wound me!" Baran spread his hands in supplication. "Would I do anything so crude as disgrace a truce meeting with violence?"

"No, of course not," Ferolen said. "Just bad manners, veiled threats, boorish behavior, de—"

"And unfounded accusations," Kiloran said coolly. When Meriten and Ferolen glanced at him in surprise, he added, "Do you really believe Wyldon would confide in him?"

"Oh, that's good," Baran said. "Very good."

"You want us to believe he's lying?" Ferolen asked.

Kiloran didn't bother to answer. Instead, he told Baran, "You weary me."

"That happens easily," Baran replied, "when you get to be old, fat, and forgetful."

"I forget nothing," Kiloran said, his voice chilling the very air. "No promise. No dream. No friend or enemy. No favor or insult." He leaned slightly toward Baran as he added, "No mistake."

Mistake
.

The word cut through Baran like a
shir
. As it was intended to. To hear Kiloran speak so casually of what he had done, to use such a barren word as
mistake
... A red haze of rage clouded Baran's mind. For an instant, he was young and blind with white-hot anger, agonizing loss, violent sorrow...

"
No
." He willed the feeling away, rejected the loss of control. He strangled the surge of devouring emotion that would have driven him mad long ago, had he given in to it.

But Kiloran knew. Kiloran had seen that brief moment of wild animal pain. He smiled, enjoying victory once again.