The Destroyer Goddess Read online

  "Have you had news," Dyshon now asked, "about how Meriten is faring?"

  "Not well," Kiloran admitted, thinking of the loyal but modestly powerful waterlord trying to reclaim territory which the Society had recently lost. "The Guardians are holding fast to the Shaljir River." He silently cursed Abidan and Liadon, who had been twin brothers and waterlords. They had jointly ruled the Shaljir River, which they had lost when they both died fighting Tansen's attack on their territory. Their homes were now burned-out ruins, and sheep were reputedly being stabled in what little was left of them.

  "And Verlon?" Dyshon asked.

  "I've sent a letter assuring him I have no designs on his territory." But he knew Verlon, the most powerful—and the most hot-tempered—waterlord in eastern Sileria. "I doubt he'll believe me." Not with Wyldon's behavior stirring up suspicion and ill-feeling.

  "What about Tansen?"

  "Tansen..." This made Kiloran think of Baran again. What had one of them promised the other—if anything—in order for that bizarre marriage to take place? Could Tansen possibly trust Baran?

  "Why are you laughing, siran?"

  "I've had a laughable thought."

  No, not Tansen. He would never make that mistake. And Baran? Kiloran wondered if Baran could be foolish enough to trust Tansen. It was a pleasing thought, but probably a futile one. Yes, Tansen would presumably show Baran what he wanted to see; that was Tansen's way. But Baran knew—surely he must know—that Tansen wanted all the waterlords dead.

  All of us, Baran. No mercy for an ally.

  By all the gods above and below, Tansen had killed his own bloodfather! He would spare no one if he was the victor now.

  Then again, would Baran care? He was probably dying. Besides, he had killed his own allies before, and he might believe he could kill these, too, when the time came.

  Or...

  A new possibility occurred to Kiloran, one which chilled him. Did Baran know something he didn't? Something which had convinced him to side openly with Tansen and the Guardians? Could that be what this marriage was about?

  Yes, Kiloran needed to know what Baran was up to. He would write that letter to Baran today and make sure it left Cavasar for Belitar by tomorrow.

  "Tansen's influence is growing every day," Dyshon warned him. "Whole villages are defying us now, refusing to pay tribute. Refusing to obey. He is..." The assassin hesitated. "He is not the Firebringer, siran, but he is a very dangerous man."

  "I know," Kiloran said. "I know better than anyone how dangerous Tansen is."

  "How will we stop him?"

  "We won't," Kiloran replied. "In the end, we won't need to."

  "Siran?"

  "Tansen wants all-out war with us. Nothing less will satisfy him." Kiloran suspected it was what that murderous sriliah had always wanted.

  "Will we oblige, siran?"

  "Oh, yes," Kiloran said. "We will. And when Sileria bleeds hard enough, she will finally turn on him."

  Kiloran looked forward to it with relish.

  Elelar was relieved to abandon Shaljir as the city sank deep into the deprivations of the dry season. The city-dwellers were hoarding water and rationing their supplies, nervously watching the Idalar River fall lower and lower between its broad banks as the season progressed. If Kiloran meant to act, meant to cripple the city and bring it under the Society's influence, there would never be a better time.

  It would happen soon. Everyone believed it.

  Then we will find out just how strong or weak we really are.

  Elelar, however, would not be in Shaljir for the coming struggle against life-stealing thirst and the fierce power of the Society. The Alliance believed that—due to Elelar's public betrayal of Kiloran the night that Advisor Kaynall declared Valdani surrender in Santorell Square, when she had announced the waterlord's murder of Josarian to the crowd—Shaljir would be too unsafe for her if the city fell to Kiloran.

  Torena Elelar shah Hasnari was "only a woman," but she was the most important, most popular woman in Sileria after Mirabar—an irony which Elelar knew the fire-eyed Guardian would not appreciate. Elelar was deemed a great heroine of the rebellion who had risked and sacrificed so much for Sileria's freedom. She was also the legal and moral heir of her grandfather Gaborian's great legacy, since he had founded the Alliance and left his secrets and duties in her care when he died.

  Chaos, bickering, war, and religious fervor threatened the newly-freed, war-torn nation, but it was predicted that Elelar, though "only a woman," would play an important (or at least highly visible) role in her country's future, though that role was currently undecided.

  Elelar didn't care.

  Unlike Toren Varian and the other leaders of the Alliance eagerly hoping—expecting—that their years of service and sacrifice would now reap them power and influence, Elelar expected to die soon. And she was ready.

  The Olvar's prophecy had frightened her at first, but she had grown used to the idea. Even welcomed it now. Yes, welcomed it.

  To surrender to Mirabar's vengeance for the sake of Sileria; to yield to fate and relinquish her transgressions in the hot flow of Dar's retribution; to be purified by this final sacrifice.

  Yes.

  If that was her destiny, then she was ready for it. If that was the way it must be, then she didn't want to wait any longer. Indeed, she now longed for it the way other women longed for love.

  So she hadn't resisted the Alliance's exhortations that she flee to the safety of a comfortable lowland Sanctuary until Shaljir's ultimate fate was determined. The city was in chaos, the city-dwellers needed their leaders to set a strong example for them, and the problem of the Silerian-born Valdani was far from resolved. Normally, Elelar would have insisted on staying and doing her duty; and she knew that her closest associates were surprised when she didn't.

  Her servants were even more surprised when she abandoned Sanctuary only a few days after being left there by her escort from the Alliance. Her personal maid, Faradar, was the only one to whom she explained her actions.

  "You know the reports I received yesterday?" she said to Faradar as they rode their well-rested mounts deeper inland, heading toward the country estate which Elelar had inherited from Gaborian. They traveled slowly, since the four shallaheen whom Elelar employed as bodyguards were all on foot.

  "Yes, torena?"

  "They advised me that Baran has married Mirabar—"

  "What?" the maid exclaimed.

  "—and joined Josarian's loyalists."

  Elelar wondered how Tansen had reacted to the match. With violent opposition, she suspected. Yet Mirabar had done it anyhow. Elelar also wondered—sometimes speculated with wild curiosity—about what Baran had said when he proposed to Mirabar. As for the marriage itself... Even Elelar, who had used sex as a weapon for years, shuddered with cold fear when she considered embracing that half-mad and wholly dangerous waterlord.

  So Mirabar is braver than ever. And Tansen will be more enthralled than ever, no matter how this marriage wounds him.

  "Baran on our side," Faradar murmured. She was intelligent and quickly guessed the most obvious ramifications for Elelar. "So you will rely on Baran's protection against Kiloran?"

  "Something like that," she replied.

  She felt a little guilty about not telling her loyal companion her real plan, but she knew Faradar would never understand. Faradar knew nothing of Elelar's betrayal of Josarian. So she would object to Elelar's destiny even more strongly than Tansen had, though for simpler reasons.

  Elelar would let Mirabar know where she was. Baran could keep Kiloran from interfering. And Elelar would wait for Mirabar to come kill her.

  It was a simple enough plan. It was also the reason she had left Derlen the Guardian behind in Shaljir. She knew he wasn't strong enough to stop Mirabar, and she saw no point in letting him sacrifice his life trying, as he probably would if he were with her when the time came.

  Anticipating her own death, Elelar had resolved her affairs as best she could in
Shaljir, and she would do so now at her estate, too. Ronall's two estates—which he had inherited from his parents upon their violent deaths in Shaljir—were undoubtedly in utter disarray, but that was no longer her concern. Even if Elelar cared, she couldn't visit those lands now; they were in territory under Kiloran's control. She idly wondered if that's where her husband was now. Perhaps his fear of the mob conquered his fear of the Society and drove him to seek shelter there?

  She briefly considered Tansen's orders to her about Ronall...

  "Find him and make him a hero, Elelar," Tansen ordered. "Make the people love him the way they love you."

  She was aghast. "I can't—"

  "You have to," he said. "If you don't, every man, woman, and child in Sileria with any Valdani blood will be slaughtered within the year. That's not what Josarian wanted, despite how many Valdani he killed."

  Now Elelar was abandoning her duty in that respect. She didn't really care about that, either. She felt the call of destiny, the way she imagined Josarian had once felt Dar summoning him to the Fires; the way the pilgrims streaming east under the blazing sun claimed they felt Dar Calling to them now.

  Someone else would have to determine how to prevent more massacres, how to save Valdani women and children from murderous Silerian mobs. If Tansen wanted to exalt Ronall—assuming he was still alive—more power to him. Her husband wasn't her problem anymore. She was shedding her burdens with every step she took toward her fate.

  Elelar's mind rested briefly on her final conversation with the Olvar before her departure from Shaljir. He had lost interest in what would happen to her. Now he and the Beyah-Olvari were deeply absorbed in their sudden conviction that they were not, after all, the last of their kind. The Olvar was convinced that there were other survivors somewhere in Sileria.

  It was, to be sure, extraordinary news. She felt more than a little curiosity about it, but the Olvar knew nothing more specific, and Elelar doubted she would live to know the answer to the riddle that now stimulated his followers with hope. So she wished him well when she spoke with him for the last time, and then she put his concerns, like so many other things, behind her.

  Growing thirsty now, Elelar reached for her waterskin. It was nearly empty, so she drank sparingly. They'd need to find more water soon.

  The country was now locked in the cruel grip of the dry season. The brassy sunshine was brutally hot, the air tormentingly still. The fertile soil of the lowlands baked into hard clay, greedily hiding the water it had absorbed during the long rains. Elelar knew from the reports she received that the shallaheen were bitterly divided throughout Sileria, some siding with the waterlords and the promise of survival—and others ruthlessly slaughtering them for betraying the Firebringer's legacy.

  Tansen had begun an intense campaign of resistance to the Society throughout the mountains of central Sileria, trying to bring all the land between the Shaljir and Idalar Rivers under his influence. It was a bold strike at the heart of Kiloran's power, attacking the Society in territory that included the mines of Alizar, the Zilar River where Josarian had died, and additional territories controlled by waterlords loyal to Kiloran. It was a huge risk, but a necessary one. And if anyone could make it succeed, it was Tansen. Unfortunately, if anyone could stop him, it was Kiloran.

  Adalian remained free of the Society's influence, but not without sacrifice, as Elelar knew from the reports she received. The city was suffering the privations of the dry season and growing desperate for the relief which only the waterlords could grant at this time of year. Meanwhile, fighting in the east was so furious that there was less and less reliable news to be had. Elelar did know, however, that an entire Guardian circle had been brutally slaughtered by Verlon; the news particularly caught her attention because it had happened, of all places, in Tansen's long-abandoned native village of Gamalan. Now, as then, there were no survivors. Only the ashes of their mass funeral pyre were left behind.

  From the city of Liron itself, there had been little news for quite some time, cut off as it was by the intense fighting in the surrounding mountains. Meanwhile, in a boldly ruthless move, Jagodan—leader of the Lironi, the biggest, most powerful shallah clan in the east—had executed the heads of three rural toreni families who wouldn't declare their loyalty to his cause. Now other aristocrats in the east were practically elbowing each other aside to declare their allegiance to the Lironi and, by extension, to Tansen and the Guardians—except for a handful of toreni who believed Verlon and the other eastern waterlords would protect them from annihilation.

  It was certainly possible, of course; but any toren ought to realize just how expensive the friendship of the Society would soon become. In a nation which had never provided easy answers, Elelar felt only contempt for those of her class who were still trying to find them.

  And Cavasar... she sighed, feeling unwelcome regret stir within her again. Cavasar was still in Kiloran's grasp and, by all reports, willingly paying heavy tribute for the water which he kept flowing in the city's fountains and canals. Cavasar obeyed the dictates of the Society and ignored the ominous warnings from distant Mount Darshon, where colored clouds which seemed almost alive danced amidst flickering lights and rumbling thunder. The smoky tantrums of the volcano were growing more frequent, casting ashen clouds over the land by day and making the moons glow increasingly red at night.

  Blood moons, people called them. Another portent, Silerians claimed. Another warning that Dar was angry and screaming for vengeance.

  I am surrendering, Dar. I will not resist. I am penitent and filled with humility.

  Elelar's mare suddenly started dancing nervously. In the distance, she heard a dog bark. Then another, then another. Something in the mountains let out a fierce howl. Foreboding filled Elelar even as Faradar's gelding started snorting and trembling, shaking its head and refusing to take another step.

  One of the shallaheen started panting.

  Another called out in warning, "Torena... Torena!"

  "Oh, nooo..." She was sliding off her mount, already aware of the danger, already hearing the distant rumble which turned to a scream, echoing Faradar's startled scream as her horse reared and threw her.

  "Faradar!" Elelar dodged the gelding's kicking hooves and tried to reach the maid, but the shaking ground made her stagger and fall.

  "Ow!" Elelar cried out in mingled fear and pain when one of the horses—she didn't know which one—kicked her in the stomach. The animals were crazed with fear, squealing with alarm.

  "Stay down!" Elelar shouted at the protective shallaheen trying to reach her, falling and careening on the unstable ground. "Faradar!"

  The maid held up a hand to indicate she was conscious, but her arm shook as violently as everything all around them.

  Elelar put her head down. With her face buried in the dust and her hands covering her skull, she prayed for mercy, prayed for an end to the earthquake. She prayed that she wouldn't be trampled by her own horses, crushed by falling rocks, or swallowed by a sudden rent in the earth's skin.

  She heard her gasping breath and feverishly muttered prayers before she heard the eerie silence. Then she heard her servants.

  "Torena! Torena!"

  "Faradar!"

  "Get the horses!"

  "You get them!"

  "I'll help the torena. You get the horses!"

  "No, I'll help the women, you get the—"

  "Quiet!" Elelar snapped. Shallaheen. Any one of these men would face down six assassins; but they were all afraid of horses.

  She lifted her head out of the dust, saw them all looking at her, and sighed. "I," she said, "will get the horses."

  "Torena!"

  "No! You will wait in the shade, torena!"

  Now their honor was offended.

  "I will get the horses," she repeated impatiently. "You will find water and replenish our waterskins."

  Since any water they found was likely to be ensorcelled, this was a dangerous enough task to appeal to them.

  Men.<
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  Still shaking, Faradar climbed awkwardly to her feet. "Would it be all right if I wait in the shade, torena?"

  "An excellent idea," Elelar said, pleased to see that Faradar was uninjured. "I'll join you as soon as I've got the horses."

  The animals were not far away, and their nerves were so agitated that Elelar was glad she hadn't sent jumpy men after them. She soothed them, made sure they weren't injured, and then led them back to where Faradar was waiting in the shade of a large fig tree.

  "They'll need water, too," Faradar murmured.

  Elelar nodded, realizing she was very thirsty. It was a long time before the shallaheen returned, water having proven difficult to find. Tired as she was in the aftermath of her terror, she nonetheless insisted on leading the horses to the water source herself, letting two of the men guide her while two more stayed with Faradar.

  The whole incident, which was becoming increasingly typical in Sileria these days, wound up eating their time and prevented them from reaching Elelar's estate until late the following day. By the time she finally got there, she was so sweaty, dirty, and unkempt, she was almost surprised that her servants there recognized her.

  She was even more surprised by the plump and vacuously pretty woman she found inhabiting her house. Her steward was under the cheerful delusion that this torena, whom Ronall had brought here, was a cousin of hers. Choosing to keep her problems as private as possible, Elelar didn't correct this impression, though she was annoyed at being greeted as "my dear cousin" by a total stranger.

  Elelar dismissed Faradar, who looked ready to collapse, dealt with a few pressing matters, and then asked the woman—Torena Chasimar—to speak with her privately in the coolest salon in the house.