The White Dragon (97 page)

Gillien sighed and said, "Look, I don't pretend to understand. And I'm sorry, because you could have stayed with us, but..." He shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe it's just as well."

Zarien frowned. "Why would it be just as well?"

Gillien's face changed again. Sadness and pity washed across his dark features. "You've been... with them, haven't you? With the drylanders, I mean. So you don't know, do you? No, I suppose you couldn't."

"Know what?" he asked suspiciously.
 

But he knew. He already knew. He could see it written all over Gillien's sad face.

"Your clan was sailing to Shaljir, after the
bharata
. After mourning you. They were along the eastern coast—"

"No," Zarien said, shaking his head.

"—when the first earthquake, the really big one, hit."

"No." Zarien took a step backward, still shaking his head.

"Maybe if they hadn't made such good time, if they'd been further south... We were further south, you see, and we lost no boats."

"
No.
" Zarien felt tears stinging his eyes.

"Your grandparents survived. And four other boats, too. But most didn't." He paused. "Your parents didn't, Zarien."

He mouthed word
no
, but no sound came out of his constricted throat.

"You can't imagine what it was like on the water that night," Gillien said. "Like the sea was trying to swallow the whole world, or maybe fling it against the sky. And it was worse farther north, they say, where the Lascari were. Much worse."

Zarien's legs gave way. He hit the deck hard, then sat there rocking slowly, still listening.

His parents. His brothers. All dead. Most of the rest of the clan dead, too.

"They say your father's boat was thrown out of the water like a toy, then fell onto the shoals, where it broke apart. It was swept out to open sea then. No remains, no survivors."

Sorin, Palomar, Orman, Morven...

Zarien's shoulders were shaking. Tears streamed down his face. He couldn't speak, couldn't think.
 

"They're gone," Gillien said. "I'm sorry."

"The sea took them," Zarien murmured, as one was meant to upon receiving such news... but he couldn't finish the blessing.

"As she will take us all in the end," Gillien continued for him. "And then we will be together again, sailing to that shore which has no other shore."

Zarien hauled himself to his feet, needing to move, to do something to relieve the terrible pain in his heart. He saw the knife sheathed in Gillien's belt and seized it. Gillien didn't move. Zarien drew the blade down his forearm, cutting himself in mourning. It hurt, but not enough; not enough to ease the howling sorrow of his heart. He cut his shoulder, too, pressing the blade through the fabric of his tunic. He felt the sharp bite of the blade. Saw the cloth turn red with his blood and felt it cling wetly to his flesh. He made another cut, his body numb and unresponsive compared to his raging grief.

Gillien put a hand over the one that held the blade and said quietly, "That's enough."

"No." He felt the terrible scars on his torso burning as if they had just been branded there. "No, it's not enough." He drew the knife across his belly, making a long slash of scarlet vengeance against his fate.

"Zarien!" Gillien took the knife from his stiff hand, then lifted his tunic to examine the wound. He gasped loudly at what he saw there. "May the winds have mercy..." His gaze flew up to meet Zarien's. "How did you live through
that?
"

"I didn't," Zarien said stonily.

He looked down at his scarred belly. Blood dribbled down in a strange pattern. The scars didn't bleed; only the unmarred flesh showed any sign of his slash with the knife.

"What's happened to you?" Gillien whispered.

"It doesn't matter." Zarien felt more tears pour out of his eyes, but now fury and betrayal mingled with his sorrow. Now he hated as ferociously as he grieved. "It doesn't matter anymore."

"Zarien..."

"I don't belong here," he said suddenly. He saw the dazed confusion in Gillien's eyes. Saw the expressions on the faces of the rest of the family—fear, shock, even suspicion. "I can never belong here again."

"You're still sea-born," Gillien said kindly. "Just not—"

"No, I'm not." The steel in Zarien's voice matched the hardness in his heart. "I don't want to be here. I don't want to be here ever again."

"Don't say that. The sea will always—"

"Sharifar had no right," Zarien said bitterly.

"All the nine goddesses—"

"
Sharifar had no right!
" he shouted, his hatred consuming him, the bitter gall of her cruelty turning his heart to fire inside his chest.
 

Gillien's wife murmured something that Zarien scarcely heard. Gillien took Zarien by the shoulders. "Calm yourself. Your voice is carrying."

Zarien looked around him in a daze and realized that people from other boats were staring avidly at him, listening to him curse one of the goddesses.
 

He trembled with emotions too wild to be contained within his body. He wanted to mourn. He wanted to die with his family. He wanted to spit in Sharifar's face and let the dragonfish kill him. He wanted to... He wanted to leave. To end the most bitter homecoming he could have imagined.
 

"Goodbye, Gillien," he said. Gillien didn't try to stop him as he climbed over the rail, moving as slowly as an old man. "May the wind be at your back."

"May the wind be forever at yours, too, Zarien," Gillien murmured, his voice full of regret.

But Zarien was already caught in the whirlwind, and he would never sail calm waters again.

He lowered himself into the oarboat and said, "Let's go."

The old woman eyed him curiously. He didn't know how much she had heard, nor did he care. "Back to port?" she asked.

"Yes." He didn't offer to row this time. He sat staring at nothing, scarcely aware of their movement through the water.

He had realized, upon seeing the port so badly damaged, that his family might be hurt, even dead. He had known that—but he hadn't believed it. Not really.
 

Sharifar had no right.

She had asked everything of him. And now she had taken all that was left. She and Dar, together.
 

Zarien would hate them forever. He would never serve them. Not now. Not ever.

His gaze finally focused on something: the
stahra
lying at his feet. Sharifar's gift, which had led him around the dryland like a dog following its master, like a dragonfish following the scent of blood. He picked it up. He had never touched the
stahra
which his father had gotten for him and never had a chance to give him. That
stahra
, like the boat in which it was hidden, was now somewhere at the bottom of the Middle Sea, as lost to him as his family.
 

And he would never again touch the
stahra
that Sharifar had given him. He rose to his feet and, holding the
stahra
like a harpoon, threw it into the sea. The old woman gasped and bleated questions. The boy tried to retrieve it.

"No," Zarien said. "Take me back to port."

He watched the
stahra
float away on the current, then he sat down again.

Take it back
, he told Sharifar in the grieving silence of his heart.
Our bargain is broken. If you want the sea king, go find him yourself.

He waited, wondering if she would bring fury to the sea to sink the boat and kill him before he reached shore. He hoped so, because he was more than willing to die if it meant he could try to gut the goddess like a fish before he drowned.

Take me before we reach the shore, Sharifar,
he urged.
Because you will never have another chance.

He would turn his back on the sea forever after this. He would never return.

And you will never have Tansen
, he swore to Sharifar.
Never.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Never follow a beast to its lair.

      
      
      
      
      
—Moorlander Proverb

Cheylan hit the ground with a thud, his face scraping the rocky soil while icy tentacles, which had grabbed his ankles with lightning speed, dragged him on his belly toward a boiling torrent of hissing water that, only moments ago, had been a peaceful stream.

He didn't waste time or energy in physical struggle. Instead, he reached for the stream with the force of his will and tried to seize it from Verlon's control. The frigid tentacles twining around his legs quivered, then jerked him fiercely and continued pulling him toward the churning water. He didn't panic, didn't lose focus, just struggled for mastery of the stream...
 

Rocks scraped across his skin and thorns snatched at his clothing as he was dragged closer to the water, which was boiling so violently that dead fish, killed instantly, were bobbing belly-up on its surface.

Feel the water. Smell it. Hear it. Know it better than you know your own blood, your own heartbeat, your own skin... Taste it in your mind, see it with your heart. Let it be you, so that it will let you be it.

All Verlon had ever taught him, all he had ever taught himself, everything he knew about the liquid mystery of water magic swelled into one tidal wave of effort as he fought to keep Verlon from killing him.

Let the water be in you, that you may be in the water. Answer when it whispers, so it will answer when you whisper.

Cheylan whispered with all his might, praying that he had listened long and hard enough, through all the years of study and practice, to survive this confrontation with the great waterlord who had trained him—and who hated him enough to kill him.

Let it seduce you, that it will be seduced by you, too
.

Guardians were the servants of fire, but a waterlord was the master of his element. If a waterlord's talent was great enough and his concentration good enough, all the listening eventually led to being heard. All the seduction led to love.
 

Love the water, so that it can love you in return.

This was where a waterlord gave his heart of stone. To
this.
To the crystal clear element that sought his love even more jealously than the destroyer goddess did. To the pure chill of power which rewarded his talent beyond anything Dar could ever offer. This great gift drank a man's heart like wine, and he never missed what lesser men thought of as love.

Now, fighting for his life—for the life which held such promise of greatness yet to come—Cheylan reached for the water; coaxed it, whispered to it, seduced it. And felt it yield to his love.
 

And when the water loves you, then you will own it and do with it as you will.

He felt Verlon now, too, felt him the way a suitor felt his rival in his midst. They struggled against each other, their fierce wills clashing in watery silence, in chilly rage, in a desperate struggle which was, as it had always been, about so much more than the water itself.

Then all at once, Cheylan felt the stream yield to his will. The tentacles around his feet collapsed into a puddle. The stream stopped bubbling and hissing, subsiding into a weary stalemate as steam rose from its now calm surface.

Cheylan didn't let go, and neither did Verlon.