The White Dragon (7 page)

"Dalishar," he suddenly realized.
 

Mount Dalishar, a sacred site of the mysterious Guardians of the Otherworld, had been Josarian's base since the beginning of the rebellion. For months now, the country around it had been rebel-held territory, a vast section of Sileria finally free of Valdani laws and Outlooker patrols. And Dalishar was said to be so heavily imbued with Guardian magic that even the Honored Society and its powerful waterlords couldn't attack Josarian there.
 

If there was one place to find Josarian—or at least to find someone Josarian trusted, someone who could somehow be convinced to take Zarien to him—Dalishar would be the place.
 

All Zarien really knew about Dalishar's location was that it was high up, somewhere in Sileria's merciless mountains, deep in the heart of the clannish, violent world of Josarian's own kind, the
shallaheen
.
 

For a moment, Zarien almost wished he were back in the water with the dragonfish.
 

Sileria's mountain peasants might be good fighters, but everyone knew they were ignorant, superstitious, dishonest, violent, and unforgiving of the slightest misunderstanding or offense. Few sea-born folk had ever ventured into the mountains; even fewer had come back out.

Many
shallaheen
didn't even speak common Silerian, the language by which Sileria's diverse ethnic groups communicated with each other. Zarien had heard the guttural mountain dialect of
shallah
smugglers a few times and could only understand about one word in three. So even if they didn't kill him or steal what little he possessed, they might just not understand what he was saying to them.
 

Josarian speaks common Silerian. He even speaks Valdan. Everyone says so
, he reminded himself, trying to summon up hope.
Some of the others will, too
.
 

Contemplating the difficulties of undertaking his enormous task without friends, family, money, or food, Zarien summoned all his will and rose to his feet. Tonight he would go the rest of the way ashore and get some sleep. Tomorrow, he would set out for Dalishar. Somehow, he would survive and do what he had to do. He had died and been reborn tonight, so he could certainly do this.
 

Sharply aware of how motionless the surface beneath his feet was, he began picking his way through the rocks. They were wet and slippery, but they were no challenge to a boy used to the heaving decks of storm-tossed boats.
 

Beyond the rocks was a narrow beach. Zarien had touched sand before, of course, diving in coastal seabeds. This was particularly coarse stuff, though, strewn with seaweed that tangled in his toes and rocks that poked the arches of his bare feet. He ambled along for a while, hoping to find a more comfortable surface for sleep. He wasn't ready to go farther inland in search of a good spot, though. Tomorrow would be soon enough to leave behind the familiar scent and sound of the sea, the familiar tickle of salty air in his nostrils and on his tongue. Tonight he needed to sleep near the soothing murmur and roar of her waves.
 

Finally abandoning hope of encountering a stretch of smoother sand, Zarien chose a spot, cleared away the seaweed and rocks as best he could in the dark, and lay down on the sand. The cloudy night sky overhead was soothing and familiar, since he usually slept on deck. But there was no gentle rolling, no comforting bob and sway beneath him.
 

The clouds drifted apart and the glimmering light of the moonlit sky spread across land and sea. Restless and edgy, Zarien sat up and glanced around. The rocky beach looked no better now that he could see more of it. Depressed, he lowered his gaze.

His breath caught when he saw, for the first time, the great scars left on his torso by the teeth of the dragonfish. Its terrible fang marks made a half-circle which went from his right shoulder, across his chest and belly, to his right hip. He reached awkwardly behind him as horrifying memories of the attack returned to him. Yes, he could feel corresponding scar tissue on the parts of his back which he could reach.

Contemplating the mystery of his survival, Zarien lay back in the coarse sand again, folding his arms beneath his head. He gazed up at the endless night sky... and that was when he noticed that Ejara, the second moon, was now a glowing crescent beside Abayara, which was waxing.

That meant
Bharata Ma-al
was already over.

He had been underwater for more than three days.

Chapter Three

Only one thing is better than
 

learning that an enemy is dead:
 

learning that he is in Sileria.

      
      
      
      
      
—Valdani Proverb

Josarian is dead.

The words burned in Tansen's mind the way the seeping wound in his side burned his flesh. His heart hadn't known pain like this since that night, so long ago, when he had returned to his native village of Gamalan to find his entire family slain by the Valdani. Only a boy of fifteen then, he had turned to Armian, who eventually became his bloodfather, for courage. Now, more than ten years later, he was a man—a rebel leader, a warrior already embraced and embellished in Silerian legend—and, in the wake of this catastrophe, others would look to
him
for courage.

But he had none left to give, and he found that the coming of day didn't change that. Sorrow consumed him. Despair stole the last of his will. Pain and exhaustion clouded his mind.

 
The trek from the village of Chandar to the sacred caves of Dalishar wasn't far as
shallaheen
reckoned things, and Tansen had been born to Sileria's mountains. But he had used the last of his strength during the night and had nothing left now.
 

His wound had re-opened—was it only two nights ago?—when he had abandoned Sanctuary to try to save Josarian's life. The deep wound burned with cold fire now, sucking his life away. It wasn't fresh, it had been made many days ago, but it was a
shir
wound, and the wavy-edged dagger of a Society assassin wounded as no other blade did.
 
Created by the dark sorcery of a waterlord, a
shir
was fashioned out of water and imbued with a power so deadly that it ensured the assassins of the Honored Society were feared throughout Sileria.

Ironically, Tansen's wound hadn't been delivered by an assassin, but by a Valdan, the late and unlamented Commander Koroll. The commander had managed to slay an assassin at some point, during the long months of fighting between the Silerian rebels and the Valdani, and thereby acquired a
shir
.

Since a
shir
could be used even against a waterlord, the waterlords ensorcelled them so that only the trusted assassin for whom a
shir
was made could actually touch it. Only by killing an assassin could you make his
shir
your own. By now, Tansen had made more than a few
shir
his own, including the one which had belonged to Armian; but he didn't use or keep them. The two slender swords of a
shatai
were his weapons—earned with discipline and pain, wielded with honor and skill—and he had proved often that they were all he needed for killing Valdani Outlookers, Society assassins, or anyone else.
 

I'll have to kill more assassins now...

After all the broken vows, betrayals, and deadly plots, Kiloran had finally succeeded in his goal. Two nights ago, when his latest plan to destroy Josarian—by having Josarian's trusted cousin Zimran betray him to the Valdani—had failed, he had fallen back on an even darker scheme. He had summoned the White Dragon from the waters of the Zilar River. Tansen hadn't even believed the wild tales whispered about such creatures until he saw it with his own eyes, grotesquely forming out of the shallow river, gathering itself into a huge and hideous monster under the two full moons which illuminated the night sky. A billion glittering drops of water crystallized into slashing claws, dripping fangs, and voracious jaws. Born of a mystical union between water and wizard, Kiloran's terrible offspring had seized and killed Josarian.

And I couldn't stop it.

Tansen had tried, but his swords swept ineffectually through that monstrous creature made only of water. Mirabar had tried, too, but even her fire magic couldn't stop that thing. Now Josarian's dying screams of agony still rang in Tansen's head, and probably would for the rest of his life.

After completing the task for which it had been born, the White Dragon simply sank back into the Zilar River. Quiescent. Gone. As if it had never been. There wasn't anything left for Tansen to fight, to kill.
 

Except Kiloran.

Josarian was dead, but as a victim of the White Dragon, he would endure its vicious torment until its creator finally died.

All the more reason to kill Kiloran.

The old waterlord meant to rule Sileria. He meant to make the
shallaheen
and all the other peoples of this troubled land toil under the yoke of the Honored Society. Kiloran now intended to dominate the whole nation, rather than just his traditional territory, with violence and terror, with thirst and drought, with bloodshed and extortion. He would subject Sileria to worse misery than it had known during a thousand years of brutal foreign domination. And to ensure his success, he would use the Society to slaughter every last Guardian in Sileria. After centuries of enmity, the masters of water would eagerly employ their power to destroy the servants of fire once and for all.

Mirabar...

Mirabar, gifted with powers strong enough to frighten most waterlords, burdened with prophetic visions which even Kiloran respected. Young and hot-headed, sharp-tongued and quick-thinking, foolishly brave as a sorceress, unsure and inexperienced as a woman... Her death was now surely Kiloran's first priority.

Or my death, perhaps? For old times' sake.
 

Tansen's lungs burned from working so hard to make up for the loss of blood from his wound and the lack of food and sleep during the past two days and nights. His whole body ached from the blows of the White Dragon. His flesh burned in a thousand places from the drops of ensorcelled water which had dripped onto him from that grotesque beast. The cuts that its claws had left upon him burned coldly, like cuts made by a
shir.
He was covered in dried blood: his own, Josarian's, his enemies'...

You've wanted me dead for so long, old man, perhaps you will want me first, before her.

Tansen paused to rest, something he almost never did in the long-distance trekking over brutal terrain that was a normal part of daily life in Sileria's harsh mountains. Unlike most
shallaheen
, he knew how to ride a horse, but horses were rare in Sileria, impractical deep in the mountains, and out of the question on the treacherous paths ascending to Dalishar.
 

He had been back in Sileria—back from exile in foreign lands, back in these loved and hated mountains—for more than a year now. He was normally conditioned to this life. But not today. Not wounded, exhausted, and weak from blood loss. Head pounding, he bent over, breathing hard, and braced his hands on his thighs, aware that he hadn't covered nearly the distance he had expected to since leaving Chandar before dawn.
 

Well past midday
, he guessed, squinting up at the brassy Silerian sunshine. And he was still very far from the caves.

After Josarian's death in the Zilar River, Tansen had sent Mirabar to Dalishar, safe from Kiloran's reach, and told her to wait for him. He had gone to Chandar for one simple task. And he had failed at Chandar, as he had failed at the Zilar River. Now he must tell Mirabar he had failed. He must somehow make her understand why he couldn't do it.