The White Dragon (92 page)

She was truly a worthy foe.

He felt the heat she conjured, even in her exhausted, pain-ridden, fear-weakened condition. He felt the fire she drew from the mysterious spiritual source understood only by Guardians, the hot wave of opposition she brought against him even now. She Called fire into her body, into the dark hidden crevices and cavities, into her organs and veins. She Called silently, trying to warm herself, perhaps even to defeat the frozen agony Kiloran created and to free herself with a very bloody death—because enough warmth now might well make her lacerated, coldly tormented insides bleed until she was dead.
 

Yes, she tried—but he was stronger. So much stronger. Whatever heat she Called, Kiloran met with the cold waves of his will and the bitter ice of his power. The struggle exhilarated him and further drained her.

There were no external flames, though. Not any more. She had given up such attempts more than a day ago. But Kiloran didn't underestimate her. She would seize the first opportunity he gave her, so he gave her none. He kept her drenched. Drenched, cold, exhausted, and in pain.

"Tell me about the one Mirabar awaits," he said.

She didn't answer, but he saw the flicker in her eyes, just as he had upon broaching this subject several other times, and now he was sure of his earlier suspicion: She was relieved.

Whenever Kiloran asked about the size, strength, and location of various Guardian circles, her tension was palpable; she was afraid she'd break and tell him. When he asked about the colored lights and shifting clouds around Darshon, she was worried, though perhaps less so. But she seemed, yes,
relieved
—he was sure of it now—whenever he broached the subject of Mirabar's visions.

Which meant she knew nothing about the visions. Nothing significant, anyhow.
 

He dropped the subject again—permanently, this time. He also released his grip on her vitals and withdrew the snake of torment from her belly. The twisting, seeking water was stained with her blood as it emerged from her body. The old woman's eyes remained squeezed shut. Then, just as she took a steadying breath, Kiloran molded a mask of water over her face. He heard the coughing and choking, saw it wrack her whole body, watched impassively as she struggled. She was growing physically weaker again, he noticed. He'd have to stop soon, since he couldn't risk killing her. Not yet.

Yes, several more questions, and then he'd let her rest for a few hours, he decided. Let her regain just enough strength to stay alive for more questioning. He was close to breaking her. He could tell. He had been doing this for nearly forty years, and he knew the signs. Tonight perhaps, or maybe tomorrow morning. Yes, very soon now, he would know what she knew, and then she could die.

She wheezed and sputtered violently when he willed the liquid mask to peel away from her face and free her to breathe again. Kiloran watched her, pleased he had timed it well; another moment or two, and she'd have passed out. Now, however, she was merely terrified and filled with the natural panic of imminent suffocation.

"What is Dar doing?" he asked her.

He saw the glow of flame begin to ripple across her skin. Yes, as he suspected—another attempt to immolate herself. With less effort than it took him to smile, Kiloran opened the ceiling over her head and brought a bitterly cold shower of water crashing down on her. She was too weak by now to scream, so her agony came out as a choked whimper.

"Is She preparing for something?" he asked.

The old woman rolled her head sideways against the crystal- smooth wall to which he kept her shackled with coils of water. She seemed to be listening to something.

He prodded, "If you answer me—"

"Shhh," she replied.

It amused him. After a moment of silence, during which her glassy gaze became a bit more focused, she murmured, "He's here."

Surprised, Kiloran listened to the waters of Kandahar, felt the lake's mysteries flow through him, and smelled its peaceful translucence.

No new arrivals. No disturbances. Nothing unusual.

Yet the old woman said with convincing certainty, "Yes... He is here."

A delusion? A Guardian vision? Or just a trick?

He was curious enough to ask, "Who?"

Tears rolled down her cheeks. "The Firebringer."

"Oh." Nothing very interesting, after all.
 

"He's here," she repeated.

"In a way." Guardians talked to the dead, after all, so perhaps it wasn't surprising that the old woman could hear the Firebringer's silent screams.

"Ohhhh..." More tears. A sob. "His agony is terrible."

"And never ending," Kiloran said, bored. "Whereas yours can end as soon as you—"

"No," the old woman said, showing an unexpected return of energy. "My pain is like Hers."

"Whose?"

"Dar's," she whispered. "We weep fire for Sileria."

"How sad."

"And it can never end. Not while lava runs through the veins of the land."

"Tell me about Mount Darshon," he prodded.

"You'll find out soon enough," she promised.

Kiloran sighed. "I only do this because you force me."

Calling on his will, he drew dagger-sharp needles from the lake and used them to pierce the old woman's already-maimed limbs again. She didn't scream, but her face contorted so horribly that, for a moment, she almost didn't look human.

Kiloran ordered, "Tell me about the lights flickering around Darshon. The colored, dancing clouds."

The old woman's gaze focused in the distance. "She awaits him. She wants him."

"Who? The one Mirabar awaits?"

"She's not done with him."

"She—Dar or Mirabar?"
 

The old woman laughed suddenly, and Kiloran, though interested in her statements, began to suspect that she was either delirious or pretending to be.

"He is here," she whispered, her eyes closing, her face taking on a strange expression—almost like ecstasy.

"Yes, we've established that."

"And he is waiting."

His interest sharpened. "Josarian?"

"The Firebringer is waiting..."

"The Firebringer is dead," he said.

"No, I can hear him." Her voice was getting stronger.

"So can I, but the White Dragon has destroyed—"

"The flesh. I know. The flesh is forever dead."

For the first time in many years, Kiloran felt a sudden chill. "Will Josarian's spirit take a new form?"

She smiled. "You're afraid."

Which was probably the old woman's intention. "What form?"

"If he succeeds, it will be because you fail."

He plunged an icy spear of writhing water back into her tormented body and wrapped it around her damaged organs. "
What form
?" he repeated, feeling the unwelcome heat of emotion creep into his soul as he squeezed her ruined innards. The pain made her gasp and writhe, yet it didn't weaken her as it had before.

Her face almost seemed to glow. He suddenly thought she must have been a lovely young woman, long ago. An incongruous thought, under the circumstances. But as soon as he banished it, he already knew it was too late. His momentary distraction, her desperate heat, perhaps even the intrusive spirit of the Firebringer—he couldn't know for sure how it happened... But something was burgeoning inside her now.

"What form?" he demanded, knowing it was too already too late.

"
Fire,
" she whispered, her voice hot and husky like a woman in the throes of passion.
 

"
Siran!
" The stunned voices of the forgotten assassins behind him. "What's happening?"

"She's burning,
siran!
"
 

Heat
. Burning heat. The fierce power of a Guardian.
Fire
. The intense flame of the Otherworld. Kiloran had fought it all his life. The anarchic force of his enemies, the wild danger and destructive glory of their sorcery. They weren't immune to their own fire magic, and neither was he.

Kiloran grunted in pain as the old woman's power, reinforced by something Kiloran could barely even sense beyond his pain, overcame him. His grip on her vitals melted like wax. Flames licked the part of his senses trapped inside of her. Fire singed the icy will which kept shackles around her hands and feet.
 

"
No
." But he had lost. He knew he had lost.

A glow like lava covered her skin. Heat like a volcanic vent emanated from her.
 

Kiloran backed away, deliberately collapsing the walls and the ceiling as he stumbled across the floor. As water hit her, steam rose from the old woman's fiery flesh, filling the room with thick mist.
 

"
Siran!
"

He heard a
shir
clatter to the floor, then keep clattering as it shook frantically against the hard surface. One of his men leaped forward to attack the Guardian, then felt back as more heat assaulted him.

"Stay back," Kiloran said. "It's too late." He doubted his men heard his voice above the hissing of the steam and the chaos of their own shouts.

She didn't go up in flames, as Kiloran had feared from the start. No, she glowed hotter and hotter, her fire coming from her core and radiating outward, until she crumbled into ashes.

Her death left behind a deafening silence. The
shir
stopped shaking. The men stopped shouting. Kiloran absent-mindedly made the water drift back into walls and ceilings while he stared at the pile of ashes—now soggy and spreading slowly across the water-drenched and blood-smeared floor.
 

"What was
that?
" one of the assassins demanded at last, his voice stunned.

"That," Kiloran said, "was an example of why we need to kill them all."

"How did she—"

Kiloran turned to face Dyshon, who had witnessed the interrogation in hopes of learning more effective sorcery. The assassin was diligent, if only modestly talented. Kiloran met his green-eyed gaze. "Have someone clean up this mess."

"Yes,
siran
."

"Scatter the ashes. Far from Kandahar."

"Right away,
siran
."

"But first..." Kiloran looked back at the ashes again. 
      
"Yes?"

"Leave me alone for a moment."

"Of course."

He heard someone retrieve the
shir
which had fallen to the floor. He heard footsteps behind him, men obeying his every command, because he was the their master. Because he was the greatest waterlord in Sileria.
 

What form will he take?

Fire
.

Now that he found himself without much hope of getting answers to the additional questions this puzzling statement raised, he almost regretted capturing and questioning the old woman in the first place.

However, the old Kintish proverb was wrong. Knowledge was
not
, in fact, hollow. It was just sometimes difficult to apply to a given situation.

Kiloran let the silence of the empty room fill him, and then he closed his eyes and listened. The screams of the Firebringer now filled his senses. So wracked with pain, so steeped in agony that it almost hurt just to listen. Yes, Josarian was as humbled as ever. As thoroughly defeated as Kiloran had believed ever since consuming him with the White Dragon. There was nothing new in those cries of torment. Neither the grief nor the pain had diminished; not even a little.

The Firebringer was still Kiloran's victim. His conquered enemy. His dead and humiliated challenger.

That had not changed.

The old woman had been in terrible pain. She had been crazed with it. She was also strong and shrewd. Her final words could have been a deliberate ploy to disquiet Kiloran before she disintegrated into a useless pile of ashes.
 

Nonetheless, her dying whisper hung in the air as he turned to leave the room and attend to other business. Was it a promise? A plea? A threat? Or a prayer?

Fire.