Chapter Nineteen

 

 

Some men were controlled by admittance to a woman's bed; others were best controlled by their desire to get there.

Kiloran's son Srijan was a difficult man: ruthless, arrogant, violent, and selfish. Fortunately, he wasn't as intelligent as his father, and he was still young enough to be ruled by his passions—particularly his sexual ones. That was why the Alliance had chosen Elelar as his chief contact with their organization in Shaljir. She knew that several of her associates within the Alliance assumed that she slept with Srijan. However, she was a better judge of men than they were.

As a child, Elelar had loved almond milk. Then one year, at the start of the season, she had gorged herself on it until she got sick. After that, even the smell of it revolted her—and still did to this very day.

Srijan had only been a boy of twelve when Elelar first met him nine years ago. Even then, she had observed his tendency to indulge in a surfeit of whatever pleased him, then quickly grow to hate it for not satisfying the deep well of his endless, nameless hunger. Elelar secretly suspected it was, in fact, a soul that he lacked; and no amount of sensual indulgence or personal power could satisfy the craving caused by such a void.

Kiloran had officially made Srijan an assassin several years ago and now granted him the power and duties of a high-ranking Society member. When Elelar became Srijan's contact with the Alliance in Shaljir, he was blunt about his intention of using her as he pleased. She refused his sexual advances just as bluntly, punctuating her refusal with a well-aimed knee to his groin. She thereafter ensured that he never again found an opportunity to be alone with her; even Srijan wouldn't assault her in front of her own servants.

Quite apart from the extreme distaste she felt for his language and behavior, she knew that he was a man who, after sating himself with a woman for a while, developed an irrational revulsion for that same woman. He had ruined many a shallah girl this way. Elelar had hired two of Srijan's hapless ex-mistresses to work as servants at one of her country estates, far from their homes and the rumors of their ruination. She had no doubt that if she made the mistake of sleeping with Srijan, he'd soon grow tired of her, too. And that would make him useless to her thereafter.

However, wanting Elelar seemed to give Srijan enormous satisfaction, as if he fed on his own hungers. The unspoken (and thoroughly insincere) promise she dangled before him season after season, that she would give him her body if he worked hard enough for it, had inspired his cooperation with most of her plans, proposals, and requests. It was a delicate balance, but worth the risk.

Srijan remembered Tansen, bloodson of Armian, and he wasn't receptive to Elelar's insistence that Tansen must be taken to Kiloran. Not even when she explained that if he fulfilled this request, then Josarian shah Emeldari and all of his followers would join the Alliance.

They held their meeting in a private room of the inn at Zilar. The finest wine, freshest almond milk, sweetest fruit, richest cheeses, best vegetables, freshest bread, and most delicately seasoned oils had been laid out for Srijan's pleasure. He sat on the best cushions in the room, neglecting to offer one to the torena. Nor did he so much as acknowledge the servant who did everything but hang upside down to ensure his comfort. Since Srijan's presence always destroyed Elelar's appetite, she simply watched him gorge himself on food and drink while he considered her request.

By Dar, there were times when she wished she were a man! Though she was generally contemptuous of the entire sex and was baffled by what long-ago mistake had put them in charge of her world, there were nonetheless times when she wished for the size and strength to resort to mindless physical force as they so often did. Oh, for the pleasure of beating Srijan until he begged for the privilege of cooperating with her plans!

Suppressing her impatience and anger, she smiled warmly and leaned forward, feeling her skin crawl as Srijan's gaze went straight to her cleavage. She inhaled slowly, glad for the presence of her two manservants and Faradar, though they stood at a discreet distance from the low-voiced conversation. It was time, she realized, to stop talking about the Alliance and to convince Srijan that he would benefit personally from granting her request.

"Kiloran's assassins have sought Tansen for nine years," she pointed out. "Now the shallah has returned and killed two of them."

"I know," said Srijan.

He gulped down some wine, then stuffed more cheese into his mouth. He should be fat. Any woman who ate like that would be bigger than Darshon. But, being a man, he was only a bit stocky as a result of his gluttony.

She murmured, "Kiloran wants him very badly."

"And he wants Kiloran," Srijan replied. "He's already killed Armian and two assassins. Do you really think I'm going to lead him straight to my father?"

Men are beaten by their own pride, she reminded herself, and ruled by their conceit. "Why not?" She blinked and gasped. "Surely you don't think..."

He stared at her. "What?"

She smiled as if to cover a foolish mistake and shook her head. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize."

"What?" he snapped.

"That Kiloran was afraid of him."

He was offended enough to stop eating for a moment. "Kiloran afraid of that filthy little sriliah? You've lost your wits, woman!"

"Oh? Perhaps I misunderstood, then. You are afraid for him. I see."

He flung aside a piece of bread and pointed at her with his knife. "My father is the greatest waterlord in Sileria! The greatest waterlord who has ever lived! He fears no one."

"Then he's not afraid Tansen can kill him?"

"No!" He scowled and added, "And neither am I."

"Are you afraid Kiloran can't kill Tansen, then?"

"Kiloran can kill anyone."

What a thing to boast about, she thought. "Then why not lead Tansen to his own slaughter?" she suggested sweetly. "Surely Kiloran will revere the son who brings him the prize no other has been able to secure."

Srijan's eyes glittered. His face smoothed out. He shrugged and said something dismissive, then resumed eating. It would take a little more coaxing and flattery, she saw, but she had him.

The victory tasted sour, though. Although she, the Alliance, and Sileria had paid bitterly for what Tansen had done nine years ago, she realized that he had, too. After all these years, she didn't relish being the one to lead him straight to his death now.

She would never agree with what he had done. The chance of freedom from the Valdani had been too precious to throw away. But she also knew that the plan had been flawed and might well have failed. Sileria might have fought a war merely to trade one conqueror for another.

For one thousand years, this land had toiled under the yoke of foreign conquerors: Moorlanders, Kints, Valdani—all strangers who did not belong in Elelar's native land. She had dedicated her life to a dream that the rest of the world mocked and that even most Silerians considered impossibly foolish. She was no fool, though; someday, somehow, Sileria would be free again. She believed it with the fierce, passionate intensity of a visionary. She longed to see it happen in her lifetime, to pledge her loyalty to a Silerian ruler, to watch her people lift their heads from the dust and walk proudly away from the centuries of humiliation they had endured.

She dreamed of destroying Valdani rule in Sileria, of defeating that race of land-eating, luxury-loving barbarians who thought that stealing culture from the Kints and wealth from the Moorlanders made them a great people. How she longed to see the gaudy Imperial Sign of the Three smashed and turned to rubble in the middle of Santorell Square. How she longed to see the gray-clad Outlookers and goat-slaughtering priests of the Empire board mainland-bound ships by the thousands and leave Sileria forever. She yearned to see her husband's family dispossessed of the houses, land, and wealth they had stolen from her own kind!

Killing Tansen would accomplish none of that, and no one could say for sure that, despite what he had done, it was truly his fault that Sileria was not free today. Perhaps she was simply practical enough to let go of her thirst for vengeance after all this time. Perhaps she even felt an uncharacteristic tug of sentiment. After all, she and Tansen had spent the last days of their youth together and had lost it at the very same moment. For whatever reason, she was not happy to send Faradar out into the gardens to bid Tansen and Josarian come join them once Srijan agreed to take them all to Kiloran.

When the two shallaheen entered the room, Elelar looked at Tansen and, for the first time really, saw him only as he was now, with no remembered shadow of the boy he once had been. She could tell that Srijan was stunned by his appearance, having lacked the wit to realize that he would have changed over the course of nine years. Still, even a man with enough imagination to picture the skinny, hollow-eyed, boy as a grown man would nonetheless be surprised by the reality of seeing Tansen now.

Elelar recognized things now which had escaped her notice in the turmoil of their first meeting, the bustling activity of their preparations in Shaljir, and their tiring journey to Zilar. Tansen held himself apart from others, even in the midst of conversation, watching, waiting, judging, assessing... and concealing. Quite unlike the passionate, ingenuous man who now called him brother and stood at his side. Tansen had been quick and sure-footed as a boy, like anyone who had survived a hard youth in the mountains; now he moved with a fluid, economic precision which spoke of absolute control and relentless discipline. A shatai. It seemed incredible. She had only seen three in her whole life, all full-blooded Kints. The shatai  were the greatest, deadliest warriors in the three corners of the world.

She couldn't even imagine the pain he had endured in receiving that brand on his chest. She knew that a shatai was expected to stand still and unflinching while his master carved it into his torso with a red-hot poker, pausing often to pray and chant, and taking an interminable amount of time over the ritual.

Shallaheen were contemptuous of physical pain, of course. The scars that marked every important occasion or binding promise of their lives were also a symbol of their ability to endure suffering. For many days, sometimes even months, after cutting a palm, a shallah wasn't supposed to favor the throbbing hand during the long, hard labor of his or her daily life, no matter how much it hurt or how many times the wound re-opened.

Still, not even the hard life of a shallah or the proud indifference to pain they learned from early childhood could prepare a man to stand still while someone leisurely carved up his chest with a red hot poker. Worldly as she was, Elelar couldn't imagine what could have prepared Tansen for that or how he had endured it. She only knew that the brand made a man respected throughout the known world, for a shatai earned it in ways that destroyed lesser men.

However, Elelar didn't think that even a shatai could survive an encounter with Kiloran unless the waterlord wanted him to. A man of great skill and quick wits might survive combat with a lesser waterlord, perhaps, but not with Kiloran. The old wizard did not manage to rule the Honored Society, and therefore much of Sileria, through the love of his people or the force of his personality; he controlled men, rivers, lakes, wealth, cities, estates, toreni, shallaheen, and even—sometimes—the Valdani through water, the greatest power in Sileria. Even the Emperor feared it—and that was why the Alliance needed Kiloran and the Society.

It suddenly occurred to her that if Tansen was lying about his intentions, or if he was somehow miraculously equal to Kiloran... Well, she wouldn't be very happy about that, either. The last thing she wanted was Kiloran's death. He controlled and united the Society, making it a somewhat rational and relatively reliable conspirator of great power. With no clear successor—for Srijan still showed no aptitude for water magic or intelligent thought—the Society would descend into chaos and internal warfare if Kiloran should suddenly die. Though his predecessor, Harlon, had died years before she was born, Elelar knew the history of those days from Gaborian's teachings. Harlon had left no successor, only a young son who was quickly removed from Sileria for his own safety. Vying for predominance, the waterlords had unleashed a torrent of violence so destructive that it ultimately weakened the Society even more than the Emperor's war against them. And the Valdani had gained power in Sileria precisely commensurate with the Society's loss of it.

Elelar had no love for the Society, but the Valdani were the only enemies that mattered. They were not Silerian; the waterlords and their assassins were.

"The Society's power is our power, too," Gaborian had taught her. "They are of our blood and born of this land. But Valdani power, even when we marry them, is always theirs."

So while she would try to convince Kiloran not to kill Tansen, she was willing to give her life to prevent Tansen from killing Kiloran. What a mess Tansen was making. She wished that he had given into her urging to leave Sileria again.

Tansen studied Srijan for a moment, refused Elelar's suggestion that he sit down and dine with them, and asked her, "He'll do it, then?"

"The woman does not speak for me, sriliah," Srijan growled.

Tansen's brow rose. His swords were not concealed now. They were sheathed in the leather harness he wore over his shabby shallah clothing. Elelar wished Srijan would refrain from insulting him, since it struck her as extremely stupid and rather risky.

"When do we leave?" Tansen asked.

Srijan smirked. "When I say so."

Josarian sighed and folded his arms across his chest.

"Today? Tonight? Tomorrow? Make up your mind," Tansen advised.

"In the morning."

"We'll be ready." Tansen turned to leave.

Srijan suddenly leapt from his chair, shir in hand, and launched himself at Tansen's back. Before Elelar had time to draw breath for a scream, Tansen whirled around, his swords flashing through the air as they wove around his attacker. Srijan cried out and fell to the floor, clutching his forearm. Elelar rose to her feet, her scream dying in her throat. It had happened so fast, she didn't had time to form a thought or follow the flurry of action.

She took three faltering steps forward, halting when the toe of her slipper touched something deadly cold. Shivering, she looked down and saw Srijan's shir lying on the floor. She jerked her foot away and looked at the assassin again. His arm was bleeding profusely, staining his fine clothes and spilling onto the floor around him. A slender Kintish blade, gleaming beautifully and engraved with the elegant writing of the Kints, was poised at his throat.

"Don't kill him," she choked out. This was Kiloran's son. Kiloran would never forgive this death.

"If I killed him," Tansen said regretfully, "then I suppose we'd just have to find some other sheep-molesting, dung-smelling, half-witted assassin who knows where Kiloran is." He shook his head. "What a pity."

Srijan's reply was couched in mountain dialect so vulgar and obscure that Elelar understood little more than the general implication, which was disgusting enough.

"Act like a man," Tansen chided. "I could have cut off your arm, sliced your nose in half, or..." He drew a line down Srijan's body with the tip of one sword, pausing significantly at his crotch. “...ensured that you never molested another woman or fathered another bastard. So count yourself lucky."

Srijan's servant, wide-eyed with fear, stumbled forward to help his master, suggesting that the bedchamber Srijan had claimed for the night would be the best place to clean and bandage the wound. Before leaving the room, Srijan tried to reclaim his shir, earning another cut of Tansen's sword as he reached for it.

"It's useless to you unless you kill me, sriliah," Srijan snarled. "So give it back!"

"You're making it very tempting to kill you," Tansen said in a bored voice.

"You have no right—"

Elelar interrupted, "You said you would take him to Kiloran, not attack him while his back was turned. How could you do something so dishonorable?"

"You weren't expecting this?" Tansen eyed her as if re-assessing her intelligence.

Then it struck her. "You were, weren't you?"

His mouth quirked. "Even more than I expect the sun to rise tomorrow, torena."

 

 

Tansen finally resigned himself to Josarian's accompanying him on this journey, aware that nothing short of physical force (and being securely tied to a tree) would keep his bloodbrother from his side when he faced Kiloran. He was annoyed, however, that Elelar wouldn't leave him, either. He hadn't counted on having to protect her, too, while trying to deal with the old waterlord.

"I haven't observed a noticeable improvement in your tact and diplomacy since your youth," she had snapped when he tried to convince her to stay behind in Zilar, or even return to Shaljir. "Who do you think is going to talk Kiloran out of killing you?"

"I don't need you to do it." She seemed to be forgetting who had convinced Kiloran to kill him in the first place, he thought irritably.

"And after he kills you, who do you think will convince him that Josarian is more valuable to all of us alive than dead?"

That was the argument that had made him give in and let her accompany him as he set off for Kiloran's lair, wherever it was. Josarian must be left alive to fight for Sileria and the shallaheen. Besides... apart from his shatai-kaj, whom he hadn't seen in some time, Josarian was the only living person he loved, and he didn't intend to be the instrument of his death.

As for Elelar... This wasn't love, this sickness that ate away at his soul, that weakened his manhood and clouded his judgment. This mingled anger and desire, this bitter yearning, this shameful passion... If this was love, no one would ever sing sweet songs about it.

As a boy, burgeoning with instincts beyond his control and naively imagining how he could win her love, he had always been two steps behind, leaving Elelar in control of every moment between them. As a man, he knew better. He had seen wild Widow Beasts in the strange lands far to the east of Kinto, and he had seen deadly shapeshifters in the misty hills of the Moorlands... and he recognized Elelar in them all. However, as a man, he also knew things he had only vaguely imagined as a boy, and the certain, experienced knowledge of what he wanted from this woman tormented him when he was in her presence.

He kept himself in check by recalling the dripping jaws of the Widow Beast, which devoured a mate once satisfied with his virility.

He was at least wise enough to recognize what he hadn't been able to understand or accept as a boy: If Elelar opened her arms to him, she would invariably have an ulterior motive. When Elelar came to a man, he might not know why she had come, but he'd be a fool to believe passion alone had driven her into his arms.

Last night, as they camped in the hills, Elelar had sought a moment alone with Tansen to make one last attempt to convince him to give up, turn back, and go into hiding or leave Sileria. Almond blossoms had sweetened the night, and the pale glow of the waning-moons had highlighted the embroidered silks she wore. She had been all soft woman last night, wooing him with her flattery, seducing him with her concern, weaving a spell of unspoken erotic promises around him as she tried to win him over.

The word no, which he repeated a few times, had finally sent her stalking off in frustrated silence. Never had the self-control of his arduous training been so essential as it was when she took her warm hand from his arm and turned away from him. Never in his life had he felt such a hunger. Standing still for his branding ceremony hadn't been as difficult as standing still and watching her walk away last night.

Darfire, sometimes he wished he'd thrown her off the cliff right after Armian.

They had left Elelar's servants back at Zilar for their own safety, so Tansen, Josarian, and Elelar now traveled only with Srijan and his submissive servant. Srijan favored his wounded arm and sulked about the loss of his shir. Tansen figured he was afraid of what his father would say about it. Elelar plotted, schemed, and stared into the distance most of the time. Only Josarian was good company, and most of Tansen's amusement was derived from watching him irritate the torena. After two days of traveling west on horseback at a reasonable pace, they made a late camp near the shores of Lake Kandahar. Srijan estimated they would reach their destination tomorrow.

"The attack may come tonight," Tansen warned Josarian when the two of them went down to Lake Kandahar to collect water for everyone.

Josarian's glance flickered to the glowing twilight sky. "You're that sure Kiloran knows we're here?"

"Not much happens within a day's ride of Kiloran that he doesn't know about." He stooped to fill a goatskin with water. "I don't think he'd hide out this close to a good road, since the Outlookers would have access to such a place, but I think we must not be very far from his—"

"Tan!"

He saw shock on Josarian's face and instinctively reached for his swords as his friend lunged at something behind him. He had barely touched the hilt of his left sword when something thick, wet, and viciously cold wrapped around his throat and cut off all his air. He struggled to withdraw at least one blade, but another icy tentacle wrapped around his body with lightning speed, trapping him. Strangling, freezing, and astonished beyond thought, he heard Josarian's screams—and Elelar's in the distance—as the tentacles dragged him away from the shore, into the center of the lake, and beneath the surface into its chilly depths.

 

 

Swinging his sword and screaming, Josarian ran through the water, ignoring its deadly chill, following Tansen as he struggled in the arms of some obscene thing, then disappeared into the murky depths of the lake. Sword raised over his head, blood roaring in his ears, Josarian started swimming, paddling frantically when his feet could no longer touch the ground. Stunned and horrified, he treaded water in the middle of the lake, unable to find any trace of his brother or the thing that had seized him.

Torena Elelar stood at the shore now, knee deep in water, with Srijan laughing behind her. "Get out!" she screamed. "Get out!"

He ignored her, took a deep breath, and dived down, giving into the weight of his sword and his boots, resisting the numbness creeping into his limbs.

A geyser of water suddenly forced him back up, throwing him high into the air. When he landed, expecting to sink back beneath the water's surface, he found that its consistency had changed in the blink of an eye. It was as hard as rock now, and landing on it hurt like all the Fires. Bewildered, he hit it several times with the hilt of his sword.

Water magic, he realized through the chaos of his confusion and fear. "Kiloran," he said aloud.

"Josarian!"

He looked up to see Elelar now running towards him, her dainty feet skittering across the crystal-hard surface of Lake Kandahar. Srijan approached at a more leisurely pace. Josarian flipped his sword over and started chopping fruitlessly at the diamond-hardness of the water, screaming his brother's name over and over.

Elelar fell to her knees when she reached his side, gasping for air, trembling and babbling questions. He had never handled a woman roughly in his life, but now he grabbed her by the hair and demanded, "Is Tansen dead? You know Kiloran's tricks! What's happened to Tan?"

"I don't know!" she cried, gritting her teeth against the pain and trying to pull away.

He pushed her aside and jumped to his feet, lunging for Srijan. The assassin flinched with surprise, apparently not having expected an attack from Josarian. Faster, smarter, stronger, and unhampered by a wound, Josarian drove him down to the cold, hard surface beneath their feet and held his sword to Srijan's throat.

"Kiloran!" he shouted. "If you truly know everything that happens here, then know this: I will kill your only son now if you don't release Tansen alive!"

Elelar scrambled forward on her hands and knees. "No! He'll kill you, too! No!"

She flung herself at Josarian and tried to wrestle his sword away. His kicked her away and stilled Srijan's struggles by slicing open his cheek. Srijan screamed in pain. Elelar cursed and begged and flung herself at Josarian again.

"Kiloran!" Josarian dug the blade into Srijan's throat, ready to cut.

The surface beneath him moved, knocking him off balance. The sound of rushing water filled his ears, even louder than Srijan's moans of pain. He stared in bewilderment as a small whirlpool of water churned in a frantic circle nearby. His heart thudded as the whirlpool widened and deepened into a tunnel. He pressed his blade even harder against Srijan's throat to keep him still, watching as the swirl of water and magic glittered in the dying light. Josarian prayed to Dar to bring Tansen through that tunnel.

When the water stopped moving, he found himself staring at a familiar, coiling structure, but his mind could form no coherent thought. 

It was Elelar who crept forward, studied it, and then said: "It's a staircase."

"A staircase?" Josarian repeated, gazing in confusion at the gleaming, crystalline steps leading into the depths of the lake. "I don't understand."

"It means," Srijan croaked, "that my father is inviting you into his home."