The White Dragon (90 page)

"Kiloran," the youngest one said, practically spitting the name.

"He thinks he can do anything now," muttered the man sitting next to Tansen.

"He's wrong," said the young one. "He'll pay for what he did to us."

So...

Evidently Wyldon did blame Kiloran for the attack on his stronghold. Tansen wondered if any of these four assassins had been among those whom his own men fought that night. In retrospect, perhaps it was fortunate that the ambush had been such a messy affair, he reflected wryly. If any of these men had indeed been there that night, they'd never recognize their mud-covered enemy in the tidy person now sitting with them.
 

"So you..." Tansen hesitated for a moment, then rushed on, "You are not Kiloran's men?"

"Kiloran's men? Hah!" This from the young one again, who was wonderfully talkative. "We've just left Kiloran's men lying dead in—"

"Quiet!" The one sitting next to Tansen was more sensible.

"Why should I be quiet? Even if the rest of them tracked us this far, th—"

"You talk too much," the sensible one snapped.

The young one glowered and shrugged.
 

"Kiloran and Tansen are feuding now, they say," Tansen ventured, hoping to get the youngest assassin to blurt out more indiscreet and interesting information.

"Kiloran can't get along with
anyone
, can he?" said the assassin sitting directly across from Tansen. "Baran's feuded with him for years, the Firebringer quarreled with him, now Tansen's sworn a bloodfeud against him..." The man scratched his belly, then scratched his ear. "And now he's feuding with our master."

"That truce meeting was probably just a trick," the young one said. Tansen noticed he was starting to slur his words. "Wyldon was right not to go. He would be dead now if he had gone."
 

Tansen wanted to ask about the truce meeting, but he was afraid that another question from him might make the sensible one silence the others again.

"Tansen and Kiloran will tear each other apart," said the scratching one—now he was scratching his groin. Tansen worried briefly about lice as the man continued, "It's a lot more than a feud. It's another damn war, only worse than Josarian's war, because—"

"So what? Wyldon will rule Sileria when they're both dead!" vowed the young one.

"You think Wyldon can trust Baran?" Now the itchy assassin was trying to scratch his own back.

The fourth assassin, who'd been silent so far, murmured, "No one can trust Baran."

"True enough," agreed the scratcher.

The young one opined, "But Baran and Wyldon want the same thing now."

The quiet one spoke again. "No one really knows what Baran wants."

"He wants Kiloran dead," asserted the sensible one, momentarily forgetting that they shouldn't discuss their business in front of the
shallah
sitting with them.

The scratching one, who was twisting and contorting while he spoke, said, "Baran wants Kiloran to suffer more than he wants him dead."

The young one said with fuzzy conviction, "He wants both things."

"Do you think Baran went to the truce meeting?"

"No."

"Baran? Hah!"

"If he did, he's probably dead now. Surely it was a trap?"

"No, I'll bet even Kiloran wouldn't violate a truce meeting that way. He's smart, he must know the whole Society would turn on him if he did that."

The scratching one grunted, and then they all fell silent. Unable to resist, Tansen finally asked, "Truce meeting?"

"Kiloran called a truce meeting," the young one began. "To put aside his—"

But the sensible one interrupted him by saying to Tansen, "You ask a lot of questions."

"I'm sorry." Tansen let admiration warm his voice as he added, "I have never talked to assassins before."

"Oh?" The man leaned closer. "Or maybe you have and you've just forgotten."

Tansen caught the hint. "Perhaps. It's true that I have a terrible memory."

"Is that so?" The man suggestively fingered his
shir
.

Tansen kept his eyes on it as he assured him, "Definitely."

After a tense moment, the man grinned and leaned back in his chair. "I thought so."

"If you'll excuse me,
sirani
..." Tansen rose to his feet. "My wife needs me."

They nodded and returned to drinking and talking, forgetting the timid peasant before he was even out of the room.

The bedchamber was dark, but Zarien was wide awake.

"Well?" the boy prodded in a whisper.

"Their conversation is limited, but very interesting," Tansen replied quietly.

"Are we leaving now?"

"No."

"But—"

"We'll leave after they fall asleep—which should be soon, at the rate they're guzzling wine."

"You're sure they don't suspect who you are?"

"They saw what they wanted to see," Tansen assured him. "Someone who was admiring and afraid. Someone they could talk in front of with impunity."

"No," Zarien said after a moment. "I think they saw what
you
wanted them to see."

Cheylan finally located Semeon, the fire-haired flame-eyed boy whom he sought—and located him, of all places, in Tansen's long-deserted native village of Gamalan. Now that Outlookers no longer menaced the Guardians, the child's circle of companions had grown bold, despite the danger from waterlords and assassins. They were permanently inhabiting the abandoned ruins of this forgotten village rather than living on the run in one temporary encampment after another.

Cheylan considered the possibilities and, after some thought, decided that this could work to his advantage.

Semeon was still very young. His exact age was unknown, since he'd been abandoned by his parents. That was a typical fate for such a child, and better than the usual alternative—to be murdered by one's parents. As far as Cheylan knew, he himself was the only "demon" child in centuries whose parents hadn't killed or abandoned him in fear and despair. Not that his own childhood had been enviable. Cheylan hadn't starved or lived like an animal, as had Mirabar and Semeon in their early years, but he had seen his mother shrink from him every time he'd ever sought her affection. He had seen distaste and suspicion in his father's eyes. He'd known, as far back as he could remember, that his parents considered him a burden rather than a blessing, and that they dreaded him rather than loved him.
 

Cheylan sometimes thought that abandonment might have been preferable.

 
However, had he been abandoned, he never would have known Verlon, his grandfather; and thus the gift of water magic which lay hidden in Cheylan's fiery sorcery might have been forever unknown to him. Had his own grandfather not been a waterlord who soon spotted his talent, Cheylan might never have recognized the subtle signs of the cold power born in his veins. Unlike fire magic, the gift of water magic felt like a normal part of your senses until someone else showed you what it truly was and taught you how to harness it.

Of all Cheylan's family, only Verlon had sought his company as a boy. Only Verlon had wanted him, cared for him, seemed to cherish him. Verlon was the only person in the world to whom Cheylan had ever been close. The cold old wizard had been the sole warmth of Cheylan's childhood, as well as his mentor in the fluid mysteries of water magic.

However, Verlon was a waterlord, and they were all the same in the end. By the time Cheylan was a young man, he'd realized that Verlon only wanted to use him. The old waterlord saw his grandson as a means of expanding his own power and influence. Through Cheylan, Verlon thought he could have access to fire magic, to communion with the Otherworld, and to the Guardians themselves.
 

Resentful and ambitious, Cheylan resisted the old man's attempts to use him to achieve his own ends. And when Cheylan thought he was powerful enough, when he felt ready to become a waterlord in his own right, he turned on the grandfather who had abused his trust.

Unfortunately, Cheylan had underestimated the old man. Or perhaps, he acknowledged now with the wisdom of additional years, he had overestimated himself at the time. In any event, his bold and bitter attempt to take Verlon's place had failed disastrously, earning him a bloodvow from his grandfather. So Cheylan had prudently joined a Guardian circle and disappeared into the mountains.

Even so, Verlon's persistent wrath had made Cheylan's life dangerous while he remained in eastern Sileria. Since Guardians stuck together, especially when menaced by the Society, Cheylan's circle of companions eventually elected to migrate west as a group, rather than let him go alone. Soon after entering the western region, Cheylan met Josarian and was drawn into the rebellion.
 

Cheylan hadn't seen his former circle of companions in many months now, nor could he honestly say he missed them. He didn't even know where they were anymore, nor did he care. His destiny was far greater, after all, than that of the impoverished fire mystics whom he had joined in desperation years ago.

However, as Mirabar herself had said more than once, destiny didn't just happen by itself; it required effort, courage, commitment, and sacrifice. Destiny also required, Cheylan knew, bold acts and shrewd intervention. So he had traced young Semeon to the forgotten ruins of Gamalan, the sad little place which he knew—due to their reluctantly close association for a while during the rebellion—still came vividly to life in Tansen's nightmares.

Maybe Semeon was no threat to Cheylan's destiny. But if life in the shadow of Darshon had taught Cheylan anything, it was that only the ruthless prevailed. This was the land of the destroyer goddess and Her fire-raining volcano; of the Firebringer, who'd slaughtered thousands of Valdani in his bloody quest for freedom; of the White Dragon, which had slain the Firebringer in vengeance and agony; of the Honored Society, with its waterlords and assassins; of bloodfeuds and bloodvows and clan warfare that lasted for generations. This was a nation which betrayed its own leaders and sacrificed its own heroes.

There was no place for mercy in Sileria, Cheylan knew; and there was no room in his heart, nursed on the bitter milk of his demonic birth, for compassion. In a land which granted no second chances, Cheylan would willingly go further than this to eliminate any potential risk to the powerful future he envisioned for himself. And so he felt no guilt or regret as he plotted the murder of Semeon, a boy barely old enough to leave his own mentor's side.

Mirabar sat on the horse Najdan had acquired for her as they traveled toward Mount Dalishar. She was disguised as a
torena
now, albeit a relatively humble one. At Sister Basimar's suggestion, Haydar had purchased a wig in Islanar for Mirabar, effectively hiding her flame-bright hair. The elaborate woven headdress Mirabar now also wore, the
jashar
of a
torena
, modestly shielded her face, hiding her golden eyes from strangers as long as she kept her gaze lowered behind the beaded and knotted strands that hung down past her neck.

Mirabar had never even seen a wig before. She would have laughed if her mood had not been so dire with grief. Did elderly aristocratic women with thinning hair really wear such absurd things? Mirabar thought it felt as if a small animal were sleeping on her head.