Chapter Thirty-One

 

 

"Great merciful bloodstained gods!"

Having reviewed the mess at the ancient prison, Commander Koroll was running out of words to express his fury over this latest disaster.

In the middle of the night, his men had roused him from a heavy slumber induced by the ministrations of his third-level Kintish courtesan whose loyalties, in this time of warfare, were based on purely professional considerations. The men's hysterical, garbled explanations had been so vague and incredible, he hadn't really believed there'd been a prison break until he himself saw the wreckage of what had once been the main hall of the prison. There were seventeen dead men in the hall. Four more were reported dead in the cellar. None of the survivors had seen the rebels enter or leave. A fire in the stairwell and another incinerating the main door had prevented entry soon after the fighting had begun. Two men who'd been stuck outside said they'd seen no one except a Silerian torena. One of them resolutely believed she had somehow escaped alone—until he saw the carnage inside. Another man who'd been knocked unconscious in the stairwell also remembered seeing no one besides the torena. One man claimed there'd been two shallaheen; only two, and he had no idea where they came from. Someone else said he was sure the attackers must have been disguised as Outlookers. Several other men claimed there'd been numerous attackers, but no one agreed on how many, and Koroll had no doubt they were exaggerating to save their own necks. The survivors were all confused and uncertain, and all trying to decide whether they'd look worse if they admitted that the prison had fallen to only a couple of attackers or if they confessed that many attackers had somehow gotten inside unnoticed.

Surveying the disaster, Koroll could scarcely believe his own eyes. Seventeen men—including Myrell—lay dead. Right inside the Outlookers' own prison in the heart of Shaljir! By the mercy of the Three, how could this have happened? How had rebels gotten past the city gates? How had they gotten weapons into the city? How, by all the gods above and below, had they gotten into the prison to free the torena?

Had they been disguised as Outlookers? Three Into One, had they had the audacity to enter Shaljir posing as Outlookers? Or had Koroll's men been so incompetent and negligent that a rebel rescue party had entered the city and stormed the prison without being seen or caught?

An even worse notion occurred to Koroll as he returned to his command chamber at the Outlooker headquarters across from the prison: What if the rebels and their weapons had already been in Shaljir when the torena was arrested? What if they had been here for many months? What if there were far more armed rebels within the walls of Shaljir than he had ever guessed or suspected?

Koroll felt ill as he thought of it. He felt even worse when he acknowledged the ramifications of his having lost Torena Elelar.

Three pity me, that woman has caused nothing but misery!

This was going to be very hard to explain to the Imperial Council. It would have to be done, though; they were expecting Elelar to be brought to Valda for her trial. Koroll sat at his desk and buried his head in his hands, wishing it would stop pounding.

The last imperial courier had brought a dispatch to Advisor Borell informing him that the request of Ronall's family had been granted: Elelar would be tried before three Imperial Councilors as the wife of a Valdani aristocrat. Showing all the courage of a spring lamb, Borell had promptly climbed into a hot bath and slit his wrists. Fortunately, the servant who found him summoned an Outlooker immediately. The Outlooker, in turn, summoned Koroll to Santorell Palace.

Koroll was admitted to Borell's chamber alone. Thus it was that Koroll was the first man to examine the scene of Borell's death, read his sealed suicide letter, and see the imperial dispatch granting Elelar's trial.

Knowing that the trial would utterly ruin him, Borell had tried to avoid public humiliation in the traditional way of the Valdani upper classes: death. He left behind a rather maudlin, self-pitying note requesting that his body be buried back in his homeland.

Koroll's initial irritation had slowly warmed into exultation as he began to recognize the opportunities inherent in this new turn of events. He burned the imperial dispatch and Borell's letter. He then wrote a new suicide letter, using a shaky hand and liberally smearing the ink. If the letter was ever examined by anyone who knew Borell's own hand, then Koroll hoped the unrecognizable writing would be attributed to Borell's devastated emotional state.

The new letter, Koroll's own creation, explained that the Imperial Council had just denied Torena Elelar a trial. She was now condemned to death by slow torture, sentence to be carried out immediately by the Outlookers. Because he had loved her, Borell could not live with the shame of her betrayal and the pain of her terrible death, and so he would take his own life immediately.

After sealing the letter with Borell's ring (a thoroughly distasteful process), Koroll summoned Outlookers and servants into the chamber, ostensibly to begin cleaning up the mess and preparing Borell's body for its funereal rites and transport back to Valda. He really wanted them there, of course, to witness his "finding" the suicide note. He broke the seal and read it aloud in front of witnesses, none of whom appeared to have the slightest doubt of its veracity. Everyone had seen how besotted Borell was with the torena and how devastated he was by her betrayal.

However, Koroll privately mused, few things fed hatred like a love betrayed. Borell had furiously denied the charges against Elelar at first. Then the quantity and quality of the evidence seized from her house had mounted until the woman's overwhelming guilt was indisputable, and Borell had grown stupid with shame, grief, and boiling rage. Koroll was the only person who knew how eager Borell had become to see Elelar quietly murdered before she could reveal his disgrace to anyone.

It was a perfect plan. Koroll would get what he had wanted all along. Myrell would take Elelar to the cellar, torture her until she told them everything she knew, then kill her; it was the sort of work for which Myrell had an undeniable flair. Not only would they get the information they needed, but the torena would never have a chance to tell the Imperial Councilors that, though he'd never been the fool that Borell was, Koroll had nonetheless grown careless around her, too. Besides, if she knew Josarian and the rebels, she undoubtedly knew who had originally turned Tansen loose on the countryside, and Koroll had no wish for the Council to find out about that, either.

And, of course, when Ronall's family protested and the Council demanded an explanation, Koroll could simply show them Borell's letter. The torena's unlawful murder would be blamed on the vengeful and emotionally distressed Advisor, who had unwittingly given the rebels hundreds of state secrets before slitting his own wrists. There was no longer an imperial dispatch in existence in Sileria to contradict the orders which everyone here would insist had come straight from Borell in his final moments of life.

Yes, it was a perfect plan... Until those murdering scoundrels attacked the prison, freed Elelar, and killed my men!

Now all he had was a sacked prison, a pile of corpses, and the ominous loss of the most valuable prisoner he'd ever arrested. He thought he would be sick. Myrell was a great loss, since he had excelled at tasks that repelled many men. Koroll had never liked the oaf, but there was no denying the value of a man so feared and hated by the enemy.

As dawn rose over Shaljir, Koroll knew that last night's events were not only a serious blow to his career, but they would also give a tremendous boost to the rebels' morale.

There were two obvious tasks to concentrate on now. He must find out how the prison rescue was launched and ensure that it could never happen again. And he must get the torena back. The daring rescue proved to Koroll that she was every bit as valuable to the rebels as he had suspected. He wanted her back because they wanted her so much. He needed her back, too, because the Imperial Council would eat his parts for breakfast if he couldn't turn this disaster around.

Koroll assigned one of his senior officers to supervise the examination of the prison wreckage in an attempt to discover exactly what had happened there last night. He ordered another officer to tighten security everywhere in Shaljir.

"I don't want any more rebels getting in. And if Torena Elelar and her rescuers are still in Shaljir, then I definitely don't want them getting out," he said. "Understood?"

However, he had a feeling that the torena hadn't lingered here. Wondering how to get her back, he could devise only two plans. The first was to have her husband arrested and imprisoned. They would charge him as an accomplice and hold him in custody in her place. It was a perfectly legal maneuver under the circumstances, one that even Ronall's powerful family couldn't counter. Koroll doubted that Elelar would be sentimental enough to return for her husband's sake, but there was no predicting what a woman would do, after all. Perhaps he could exchange Ronall for her.

The other plan was the old-fashioned kind: pursuit. It seemed likely that the rescue party would take Elelar back to the rebel-held territory around Dalishar, the only place they could keep her safe now. It would be their best move, since Koroll couldn't reach her there, not until he got enough men to reclaim the territory from the rebels. If he could catch her before she reached rebel territory though...

"I want two hundred combat-ready riders on fast mounts," he ordered one of his men. "We're leaving right away."

 

 

"Where are you, damn you?" Mirabar cried.

She had left the safety of Kiloran's camp and entered the woods, begging the Beckoner to come to her. The expression on Josarian's face ever since the departure of the lowlanders and the sea-born folk terrified her. 

He's thinking of doing it!

He had sought her alone several times since then. Questioning her, probing her understanding of the Otherworld, seeking guidance. And she couldn't give it to him! She had no answers, no hints, no visions about this. She knew only the panic of any ordinary person when confronted with the extraordinary. Josarian was thinking of throwing himself into Darshon to prove, once and for all, whether or not he was the Firebringer.

"What can I tell him?" she begged the silent void. "Answer me! I know you hear me!"

But the Beckoner always Called her, she had never Called him. He came only when it suited him, never when it suited her. He came for his purposes, not hers.

"I must know what to tell Josarian..."

Tears stung her eyes. She felt helpless, frightened, frustrated. Josarian had confided his dreams to her, cataclysmic and mysterious dreams about painful yet ecstatic union with fire and lava. It could mean anything, though. He said that Tansen—the only other person who knew about the dreams—thought his mind was just reflecting the fears and feelings inspired by the constant rumors and Jalan's mad ravings. Mirabar thought the dreams might mean that Josarian was destined to become a Guardian. Such dreams and visions sometimes afflicted someone being called to serve Dar and the Otherworld.

She supposed it could even be some nasty form of Valdani sorcery. Mirabar knew very little about their wizards and their magic, since the cult of the Three had risen to eclipse more ancient Valdani religions in recent centuries, and the Valdani now placed their trust in the might of their arms and the wealth of their treasury, rather than in mysterious and unpredictable arts. But who could say for sure that these dreams were not being fed to Josarian by some powerful enemy? Mirabar had heard of such things, and she had seen enough strange sorcery in her own short life to know better than to ignore the possibilities of things she hadn't yet seen.

She had never believed in the Firebringer, mostly because the zanareen who awaited him were so patently mad. What if she had been wrong, though? If the Firebringer was real, then surely there had never been a more likely candidate than Josarian.

So many choices. So many possibilities... If only she knew what to do! Josarian sought guidance from her, and she sought guidance from the Beckoner—and, so far, they were both disappointed by the lack of answers.

Burning with helpless fear, she shouted into the empty woods, "I have done everything you have asked of me! Everything. Now I want an answer!"

She rent the night with fire and fury, flinging her will against the locked doors of the Otherworld, trying to force her way through the barriers between this world and the Other one. Her failure was as sharp as physical pain. Exhausted and despairing, she slumped onto the rain-softened ground and lay there weeping, lost in her misery, oblivious to the world.

There was a chill in the air, due to the season as much as to Kiloran's nearby presence. The harvest would soon begin in full measure, and then the long rains would come. The earth would sleep and renew itself, preparing for another long year under Sileria's merciless sun. The shallaheen would know no rest, though. They would keep on fighting until every Valdan was gone or every rebel was dead. Would the lowlanders and sea-born folk join them? Mirabar sighed wearily, having no answers...

She felt his presence well before she heard his footsteps or the unfamiliar sound of his voice. There was a faint touch, almost like a caress, along senses sharply attuned to visions no one else saw, voices no one else heard. There was a melding, a warmth, a subtle vibration. It was so unfamiliar that it should have frightened her, especially out here alone and unprotected. There was nothing threatening about it, though; on the contrary, she was drawn to it the way she had always been drawn to fire, even before she had understood what she was. Like fire, she sensed that this was something powerful that could be terribly dangerous, but she felt a communion with it which overruled any sense of caution. She sensed, too, that it had found her by following her violent Call to the Beckoner.

He approached quietly and was very close before she heard him. She had no doubt those were a man's footsteps, no matter how soft and subtle. She had grown up wild in these mountains and knew the sound of every creature that roamed them. She stood up and looked through the trees, waiting for his shape to separate itself from the thick shadows. It was nearly dark out. She had stayed away from camp a long time.

When she saw him approaching, she knew who he was even before he spoke. She had heard him described so many times; had demanded his description so often from Josarian, Zimran, and Tansen. He was taller than Tansen. Not so broad as Josarian. Better dressed than any of them, with a silver broach as his Guardian insignia. A series of elaborate braids kept his dark hair off his face; seven long, gleaming curls fell from the knot at the nape of his neck. He was... rather handsome, really.

And his eyes glowed like the Fires of Dar.

"Cheylan," she breathed.

He stared back, taking in the glowing red of her hair and her flame-hot eyes. No one in her life had ever looked at her this way, before. Hungry, eager... pleased. Warmth fluttered in her stomach, spread through her limbs, and heated her cheeks.

"I thought..." He smiled slowly, almost self-deprecatingly. "Ah, but they did say you were young." He was perhaps Josarian's age. "I just didn't..." He shrugged.

He spoke common Silerian. Hers was not particularly good. She had never cared until now. Now she did not want this man to think her some ignorant peasant girl—even though she was.

"I... I don't know how old I am," she said haltingly.

He smiled again and, to her surprise, gently pushed her hair off her face. "I'm sorry, I don't speak shallah very well."

She flushed. "My Silerian is not so bad." 

"No, it's not," he agreed. "And it will improve as we talk, Mirabar."

"What are you doing here?" she asked. "You're supposed to be in—"

"I came to tell Josarian that there's been an uprising in Liron."

"Really? Have you seen him? He's down—"

"Yes, he and I have already talked."

"Has Liron fallen?" she asked eagerly.

"Not yet." He took her hand and suggested they find some place to sit down. They settled down on a couple of boulders, and Cheylan blew a small fire into life to light the night. Then, at her insistence, he recounted events in the east to her.

"The Outlookers have killed many people and regained control of the city. For now. But they're short of men and money, and their overland supply routes have been destroyed, leaving them only those supplies which arrive by sea. And Kintish pirates are now taking about one out of every three Valdani supply ships bound for Liron—with the blessing of the Palace of Heaven, now that Kinto and Valdania are at war." He stopped, at her request, to repeat something she had not understood. Recognizing her embarrassment, he spoke more slowly as he continued, "The Outlooker commander in Liron has written to Koroll twice to request more men, but we've intercepted his couriers. He doesn't yet know that his reinforcements will never arrive."

"Liron will fall," she murmured.

"Does the Beckoner tell you that?" he probed.

"Common sense tells me that." When his brows rose, she said, "The torena is right about one thing. The arrogance of the Valdani will be their undoing."

"Torena Elelar?"

"Yes."

"I hear she's been captured."

Mirabar nodded and, in response to his questions, told him what she knew about Elelar's capture and Tansen's intention to rescue her.

"A brave man," Cheylan surmised, his voice smooth, rich, and cultured.

"He's very fond of the torena," Mirabar replied with all the tact she could muster.

"You are not," he gathered.

"Fortunately, I don't need to be."

He grinned at that. Then he asked her about herself. Following the path set by his questions, Mirabar told Cheylan how little she knew about her birth and recounted some of her childhood. Embarrassed about her youthful savagery, her responses were halting at first. She would have found pity as appalling as contempt. Cheylan, however, understood; and the simple, unfamiliar beauty of that loosened her tongue until she was speaking freely, with scarcely any prompting from him. She told him about her loneliness and ignorant fear, cast out from society and hunted as a demon, haunted by visions, dreams, and powers which convinced her that she was as evil as people claimed. She told him about being found by Tashinar, who captured her, tamed her, and taught her what she truly was. Told him about her initiation and her training as a Guardian.

Born into an ancient family of toreni, Cheylan's life, as he described it to her, had been very different from hers. His family was wealthy, ensuring that he was well-fed, educated, and protected. Yet his loneliness had been identical to hers, his sense of isolation remarkably similar. Like Mirabar, he had been an object of scorn and superstition.

"I was kept inside during most of my childhood," he said, speaking more fluidly as her ears grew more accustomed to his speech. "Either in our house in Liron, or else at my family's country estate. I'd stay with my tutor at one house for a while, usually without my parents, who didn't like to look at me. Sooner or later, there would always be trouble: a frightened servant, a superstitious merchant, a bad harvest in the country, a terrible accident in the city... Then there would be talk and threats. And so, keeping me concealed, my family would move me to the other house."

Mirabar understood, too. She didn't suppose the luxuries of his life had made up for being an outcast. Even as a rag-clad starving child, she had longed for affection and acceptance far more than she had ever longed for wealth or comfort. She had cherished private fantasies wherein people loved her and begged her forgiveness, not fantasies wherein she became richer than the rest of them.

"In the end, though," he said, "I found my path in life with the Guardians."

"Have you ever... seen another like us?" she asked.

"Two," he answered promptly. "The Guardian who initiated me was very much like you. I never got to know him well. The Society assassinated him."

"I'm sorry."

He nodded in acknowledgement. "And there is a boy somewhere near Liron. Guardians keep him hidden, of course."

They talked easily about the mystery of who and what they were, about the dangers and difficulties, and about whether or not there were more and how they came to be.

"There were once many," she told him. "I've seen it, in my visions."

He took her hand again, making her blood move a little faster. "Tell me about the visions. The Beckoner."

"I, uh..."

His gaze held hers in the firelight. His hand was very warm. Hard, like a shallah's hand, despite his birth and the lack of scars. Guardians led hard lives, after all, as did rebels. Something unfamiliar danced in her belly, a mingling of danger and excitement. Cheylan was one of the few men who had ever looked at her with no hint of fear or revulsion, without even surprise. He was sophisticated like Elelar, worldly like Tansen, and kind like Josarian. He was the first person she had ever met who could truly understand her life. And he was appealing enough to incite feelings she recognized but didn't know how to act on.

So she wasn't quite sure why something warned her not to discuss the Beckoner with him now. She didn't understand the reluctance she felt, but she had stayed alive this long by obeying her instincts.

"Kiloran is here," she said at last, feeling the chill in the air. That must be why. "I do not want to tell you about the Beckoner near him."

He accepted her response. "Of course." He'd had plenty of trouble with the Society, too, after all. "Another time?"

"You have seen, Kiloran?" she asked.

"Not yet. But he makes his presence known, doesn't he?"

She smiled at his dry tone. "Oh, yes. Very much so."

"You're shivering," he said , standing up and drawing her to her feet. "And you have no cloak. Here, take mine."

She nestled into the cloak's body-warmed folds as Cheylan wrapped it around her shoulders. It was finer than anything she had ever worn, though not so fine as Elelar's things.

Cheylan's arms stayed around her, his body close and strangely tense. His gaze was hooded, the bright glitter of his eyes shielded by dark lashes. He smelled of the wind and the woods. He was so close, she could even smell the wine he had recently drunk; Josarian must have offered him some. She could feel his breath on her face, slower than her own—which was suddenly very fast.

He was staring at her mouth, she realized. She had seen men look at Elelar like this, but never at her. Mirabar's heart banged hard against her chest, beating out a rhythm that thundered through her head. She suddenly felt small and weak. Even in Kiloran's watery palace at Kandahar, she had not felt as vulnerable as she felt now. She'd been more sure of herself when facing the waterlord and his assassins that she was now, facing one man who looked at her... the way a man sometimes looked at a woman.

She suddenly remembered how Tansen had looked at her at Kandahar, the sudden flash of revulsion after all she had gone through to find him. She remembered how wounded she had felt. Now, remembering that moment, rebelling against all the moments like it, something inside her unfurled and unfolded, responding to the expression on Cheylan's face, quivering in answer to the tension in his body. She wanted to be wanted; she suddenly wanted that more than anything.

More experienced than she, he sensed the change in her, the sensation of surprise and uncertainty yielding to need and desire. He leaned down to her, his head slowly descending towards hers, giving her one more moment to think it over. She started shaking in earnest, and she hoped he had already guessed how little she knew, how inexperienced she was. Mirabar had never been kissed before, and she didn't want the first time to be a humiliation of disappointment and embarrassed apologies.

He was very sure, though, despite her hesitancy and awkwardness. His arms tightened around her as his mouth touched hers, pulling her against his chest, making her feel weightless. Darkness swallowed her as their lips melded, rubbing, caressing, exploring. Her mind reeled, astounded that so simple a contact could make the world whirl around her. Mirabar sighed when he lifted his head slightly, then she opened her eyes and gazed at him in a daze.

His eyes were as hot as flames. It excited her. She wondered if hers were the same. If so, she knew it would repulse any other man, and so she burrowed into this one, determined to enjoy what other women enjoyed, what she had resolutely pretended not to need or want until this moment.

She kissed him again, more sure of herself this time, giving as well as taking now. His hands moved over her back, shaping her, molding her, pulling her even closer so that every curve and crevice of their bodies flowed together in harmony and hunger. His kisses were hot on her face, his breath now almost as fast as her own. She sighed again, enraptured, lost in him...

"Sirana!"

The sound of Najdan's shocked voice was like a bucket of cold water. They both froze. Too disoriented to respond to the intrusion with dignity, Mirabar stumbled out of Cheylan's embrace and faced Najdan. She was breathing as if she'd just run all the way to Dalishar and back. She could only guess what she looked like. Najdan's gaze was fixed on Cheylan, rather than on her. He looked suspicious and disapproving.

It infuriated her. He had a mistress near Kandahar, one he visited whenever they passed that way. Was she entitled to less just because of an accident of birth? Just because other men couldn't stand the sight of her?

"What do you want?" she snapped.

Najdan blinked in surprise at her tone. He had followed her to Idalar and was angry that she had run off like that, leaving Niran in the middle of the night without warning. She'd been very nice to him ever since his arrival here, trying to make up for it.

"Well?" she prodded, furious with him.

"Josarian is asking for you. You've been gone for some time." Najdan's voice was cold, smarting with insult that she should speak to him this way in front of a virtual stranger. They had come a long way since their first meeting at Dalishar, and he had grown to expect a certain consideration from her. "I was worried and thought I'd better find you. I saw the fire, and..." He shrugged.

Mirabar tried to control her temper, something she seldom bothered doing. Najdan's surprise was natural, since no man had ever before touched her. And this one was a stranger, after all. Najdan had perfectly good reasons for seeking her out. She had duties to perform. She had been gone too long from camp and had caused concern. 

Mirabar took the biggest breath of her life and let it out slowly. Then she met Najdan's gaze in the firelight. "I'm... sorry." Dar knew how she hated saying those words.

Najdan knew it, too. Having won an apology from her, he replied magnanimously, "I startled you, sirana."

"Yes," she agreed. "You startled me."

Cheylan said nothing. Too embarrassed to look at him now, Mirabar asked, "What does Josarian want?"

Najdan shifted uneasily. "I believe he wants you to Call his wife, sirana."