The Destroyer Goddess (15 page)

Tansen tried to control the unpleasant thing coiling inside him. "If you're bored, we could train more."

Armian looked pleased and clapped him on the back. "You never get tired of training, do you? Well, you're a natural. You'll be a great fighter, son."

"Then—"

"But training's pointless if you don't ever put it to good use in a real fight."

Tansen hedged, "I don't think I'm ready for a real f—"

"Not with another assassin," Armian agreed. "Not yet. But you can certainly take on a few scared
shallaheen
."

Tansen felt uneasy as he looked at the frightened faces peering at them as they walked through the humble village and approached its main square. The villagers knew why they had come. They knew what would happen now. There was only one way of doing things in Sileria. Tansen knew that. He had always known that.

Perhaps if someone talked to these people, explained...

No. That would be wasted breath, Tansen realized. They didn't need warnings. They had understood, from the moment they failed to pay tribute to the Society, what would it would lead to. Whether their failure was due to defiance or terrible poverty didn't matter; they had disobeyed, and they were being  punished. Kiloran had already made their wells as hard as crystal and their fountains as dry as dust. Now his assassins would ignore their pleas and excuses, and make them bleed. This was how it had always been here, and it would never change.

Now everyone in this village just waited to learn who in particular would suffer the most, and just how much it would hurt. A death, or merely a beating? One man, or more? The village headman, or his grown sons? 

Tansen's stomach hurt. Shame crept through him. He trained long hours in Kiloran's camp, alone as well as with Armian, but not so he could abuse unarmed men pleading for mercy. 

He had once dreamed of becoming an assassin and thereby escaping the helplessness and poverty which was a
shallah
's birthright and destiny in Valdani-ruled Sileria. But he had been a naive child; he knew that now. He had not really understood what it meant to become one of them. Now that he was living among them and did understand, he found that he was sickened by them—yet also ashamed of being sickened by them. After all, the waterlords were the only great men among Silerians, and their assassins were the only warriors. Everyone admired them.

No... Everyone
feared
them. The way everyone feared Outlookers. The real difference was that everyone also despised Outlookers, whereas everyone respected the Society. It was... not Silerian to despise the waterlords and their assassins. It was not the way Tansen was supposed to feel. Not the way he had always felt until now.

Worst of all, his confused feelings were disloyal. Armian was an assassin, after all, and he intended to become Kiloran's heir. And Armian was not only a great man, a legendary figure, and the Firebringer, but also Tansen's own father.

Help me, Dar. What is wrong with me?

Tansen prayed often to Dar lately, seeking Her wisdom,  begging for Her guidance. She didn't answer, though, and he had no one else in whom to confide; so he was too alone with his own thoughts. Somewhere deep inside, he felt that the way they all lived in Sileria, the only way any of them knew, was wrong. Within his soul, a voice he couldn't seem to share coherently with his bloodfather told him that a real hero would stop what was about to happen here today, rather than participate in it.

This village—so poor, so bereft of hope—reminded him of Gamalan, and of all he had lost there. What would his grandfather think of him now, he wondered? Was there a woman in this village whose life was as hard and grief-burdened as his mother's? Had any of these women's sons run off to join the mad
zanareen
at the fiery peak of Mount Darshon, only to die in agony there as Tan's brother had? Was there a girl here who would one day die the way his sister had? The memory of that still made him shudder with horror and hatred. 

Had the Gamalani, on that terrible day, watched the Outlookers enter the village the way these people here now watched him?

"Tansen?"

Startled, he glanced up at Armian, realizing he'd made a strange sound as these ugly thoughts flowed through him.

Armian frowned at him. "Are you all right?"

"I... I was thinking about Gamalan," he admitted.

Armian stopped walking and looked around, aware of the scrutiny they were under from hundreds of eyes. "This is not the moment to remember that." 

Tansen stopped, too. "I can't help it."

Armian took him by the shoulders. "Concentrate," he said quietly. "This is work, and there is no time for grief or sorrow when you're working."

Something inside Tansen rebelled. "This is not work, father. This is Kiloran's bidding."

Armian's gaze went hard and cold. "I don't do anyone's bid—"

"Hurting and frightening some helpless peasants because Kiloran wants it done and you're bored," Tansen said through tight lips. His heart pounded so loudly he could scarcely hear his own voice. To speak to Armian this way! He couldn't even imagine where he found the audacity—and the sudden flare of fury in his father's expression made him
regret
finding it.

"That's enough." Armian's voice could have frozen water.

"Let's leave," Tansen urged. "You're the Firebringer, you should not be part of—" 
      "Shut up," his father snapped.

The other assassins, who were ahead of them, stopped and turned back to look at them. One of them prodded, "
Siran?
" They didn't know Armian's real identity, but they knew he held a position of great favor with their master.

Armian replied tersely, "Get on with it. We'll be with you in a moment."

"No," Tansen said, willing himself not to give in, despite his father's furious expression. "This isn't right."

"Come with me," Armian commanded in a hard tone that forbade further dissent. "
Now.
"

Tansen glanced uneasily at the other assassins, who were watching the two of them with undisguised interest. "Father, why must you—"

"Keep your mouth shut," Armian ordered. "And do as I tell—"

"
No
," Tansen repeated. "Let them do it without you, father. Don't be part of this."

Armian's face was dark with frustrated anger. "This is the last time I'm telling you," he warned.

So scared that he was surprised he wasn't shaking, Tansen stood his ground and held his father's gaze.

"Are you coming?" Armian ground out the words.

Tansen's throat was so tight he couldn't speak, so he just shook his head.

For a moment, he thought Armian would strike him. He knew he deserved it. He had never even defied his grandfather to this extent, and his grandfather was neither an assassin nor the Firebringer.

Instead, Armian turned and stormed away in silence, shoving past the other assassins, his violence barely controlled. As Tansen watched them hurry to follow his father, his breath started coming in hard little pants, and he felt a humiliating impulse to weep. He stood there alone, ignoring the curious stares of many villagers, and tried to compose himself. 

He didn't want to be a bad son. He felt an urge to run after his father and tell him so. He wanted Armian to understand that he would never defy him like this if it weren't so important to him; if there were any other way.

Confused and heartsick, he wished Armian would turn back, but he knew he wouldn't. What was about to happen in the village square wasn't just work to Armian; he enjoyed it. Tansen knew that by now. Armian relished threatening, beating, and even killing strangers, acquaintances, and enemies. Armian's blood sang most ecstatically when he inspired fear and exacted revenge. He was so gifted and generous in some ways, yet so terrifying in others. Not that Tansen feared for himself. No, Armian was a tolerant father, even an indulgent one. And Tansen wanted to make him proud; but not by doing things that felt shameful.

Father, father...
 

In the end, Tansen couldn't stay away from the main square, even though he had refused to accompany Armian there. He had to know what was happening. So he crept toward the main square and, keeping to the shadows, watched Armian and the three assassins brutalize the village headman, his two grown sons, and an old man who got in the way. One of the assassins killed one of the sons. When the mother screamed and wailed in mourning, Tansen blinked away the appalled tears that came to his eyes.

Still unsatisfied, Armian began beating someone else in the crowd. Even after the villagers started bringing forth everything of value that they owned, including the only food they had, Armian would not be appeased. As he condemned a stranger to the deadly violence he had chosen not to inflict on his defiant son, he seemed to exult in the blood and the screams and the fear.

Tansen felt sick with guilt, aware that the villagers were paying for his disobedience as well as their own. He wished Armian would have just beaten
him
. This was so much worse. It was not even intended as a lesson, he realized; his father didn't know he was watching. Armian thought so little of
shallah
  lives that he probably wouldn't even tell Tansen that today, even after the villagers offered him everything they had, he beat a man to death because of the violent rage his own son's defiance had provoked in him.

There
was
a lesson here today, however, though it was not one of Armian's choosing. Now Tansen knew that he must treat his father very carefully indeed, lest others again suffer and die for his mistakes.

Help me, Dar,
he begged.
He is Your Chosen One, the Firebringer. Help me, and I promise I will bring him to You
.

But the destroyer goddess did not answer his prayers. Not then, not later. Not at all.

"Well, well," the young
torena
said to Tansen that evening in Kiloran's tented camp. "I heard about what happened."

Tansen, who was brooding in solitary silence well away from the rest of Kiloran's entourage, spoke words he had never imagined uttering to the beautiful young woman who held his heart captive: "Go away."

"You have the manners of a peasant,"
Torena
Elelar informed him. "But I suppose that's to be expected."

He turned his back on her and muttered, "Leave me alone."

"I brought you something to eat," she said enticingly. When he ignored her, she added, "Tansen, are you completely unaware of how extraordinary it is for a
torena
to serve a
shallah?
This is a unique moment."

He finally looked at her. Now his shame was complete, he acknowledged. "Did you come to ridicule me?"

She blinked. "For standing up to Armian? For refusing to help him beat to death a few unarmed
shallaheen?
"

His face felt hot. "He told you?"

"No." She put down the food tray she carried, and sat down on an fallen log. Under her elegantly-booted feet, the withered things of the land crinkled noisily in the moisture-stealing air of the dry season. "But people talk. Even assassins talk. And I'm very good at listening. Well," she amended, "at eavesdropping, in this case."

Tansen couldn't meet her gaze. "They're talking about me?"

"Of course they're talking about you!" She sounded amused. "What did you expect? They don't know who he is—your bloodfather, I mean—but I doubt one of
them
would defy him and stand their ground. He's not the sort of man that other men are willing to annoy."

"He must be so ashamed of me," Tansen said heavily.

"So what?"

His gaze flashed up to her lovely face. "He's my father! He's a great warrior! He's..." He lowered his voice and continued, "He's the Firebringer. How can you say 'so wh—'"

"You really believe that?"

"What?"

"That he's..." She looked around first, then whispered, "The Firebringer."

"Of course." He blinked in surprise. "Don't you?"

"No. But I suppose many of the
shallaheen
believe it?" 

"Yes!" 

"I see."

He said incredulously, "You don't believe—"

"In any event," she interrupted, shrugging off his conviction with careless ease, "I certainly didn't come over here to ridicule you for not participating in yet another Society bloodbath in some starving mountain village."

Tansen stared at her in wary silence.

The
torena
saw his expression and said, "You surely didn't suppose I approved of that kind of thing?"

"You are Kiloran's ally," he said bluntly. "You and your grandfather,
Toren
Gaborian."

"Of course," she replied. "After all, they're the strongest faction in Sileria. We can't defeat the Valdani without them. And defeating the Valdani is the most important thing. They are the only enemies that matter."

He repeated her words in his mind, then said, "Are you saying the Society are enemies that
don't
matter?" It made no sense to him.