Authors: Laura Resnick
Tansen climbed slowly out of the dark well of his dreams. Groping for escape from his memories, he wandered in the land between sleep and waking.
A strange snuffling sound finally roused him. Something cold and wet prodded him, startling him. Swimming blindly away from the past, he opened one eye.
A pair of soulful eyes, glinting faintly as they reflected a stray beam of moonlight, met his gaze in the dark room where he had been sleeping. He blinked, opened both eyes now, and focused on a hairy face wearing an eager expression.
"Oh. Hello," he said without enthusiasm.
Pleased that Tansen wasn't wasting the night in sleep like everyone else, the dog licked his face.
"Go away," he ordered.
The dog wagged its tail, then started poking him and snuffling around him again, evidently convinced he didn't mind.
Tansen sighed. Sister Shannibar, whose Sanctuary he was sleeping in on the outskirts of Zilar, loved animals and kept several here. Sister Norimar, who shared the Sanctuary with Shannibar, detested them. Although the two women had renounced violence upon joining the Sisterhood, Tansen—who'd only been here a few hours—had already seen them come close to exchanging blows over this difference of opinion. However, he doubted Norimar would be around long. The way she flirted with his men suggested she'd soon find herself a second husband and abandon the Sisterhood. He supposed she had taken her vows when grief over her first husband's death was still fresh and she hadn't considered how unsuited to the life of a Sister she was.
Fortunately, Norimar was none of his concern. Unfortunately, Shannibar's dog wasn't going to let him go back to sleep. It was running around the room almost frantically now, sniffing and snuffling, occasionally whining... and regularly returning to his side to poke him with its cold nose.
Tiring of this, Tansen rolled to his feet. Just as well, he supposed. His dreams were far from restful.
The Sanctuary was a large one, built to accommodate guests seeking shelter or safety, so he and his men were able to sleep inside tonight. Not wanting the dog to wake Zarien, who was still young enough to need a lot of sleep—not to mention a lot of food—Tansen urged the dog to follow him out of the room and into the common area of the Sanctuary.
Only a few moments later, though, the animal's whining and scratching became so insistent that Tansen began to worry it soon wake everyone in the Sanctuary. When it pestered an equally restless cat, the cat responded with a show of bad temper that made the dog bark. Tansen decided to take the dog outside before everyone else's night was ruined, too.
Outside, the waning moons still glowed with a faint orange-red color, but the stars were visible for the first time in recent nights.
"Who let the dog out?" a woman demanded, startling him for a moment before he recognized Mirabar's voice coming from near the enormous old fig tree that dominated the Sanctuary's garden.
"I did," he replied, his heart tugging him in her direction. "Is he bothering you?"
"She," Mirabar corrected dryly.
He saw the fiery glow of her eyes now, blazing out of the dark shadows. As she stepped forward, the faint moonlight shimmered along the thick red curls that fell past her shoulders. She had washed and changed into clean clothes, pale homespun which emphasized the golden color of her skin even at night.
"She?" he repeated. "Oh. Well, she's... restless."
Tansen heard the distraction in his voice as he stared at Mirabar and wondered if she noticed it. He was glad that he had washed and changed, too, after coming here from the temple. He hadn't liked her seeing him covered in blood yet again.
Always more blood, it seemed. The blood of his family, his friends, his enemies. Would there ever be an end to it?
"She woke me," Mirabar said, and he welcomed the intrusion on his thoughts. "She's so noisy and pushy."
"That nose." Tansen smiled.
Mirabar smiled back, pleasing him. "It's startling in the middle of the night, isn't it?"
He grinned. "I think Sister Shannibar spoils her."
"Clearly. Anyhow, she kept pestering me even after I gave her some food. So I came outside. I don't know what she wants, and Shannibar..." Mirabar's gesture suggested exasperation. "Shannibar sleeps like a log."
"And you wouldn't want to wake Norimar to tend the dog."
A puff of laughter escaped her. "Definitely not."
Together, they watched the dog running around the yard with the same agitation she had shown inside. Finally, Tansen noted, "Animals are often restless before an earthquake."
Mirabar shivered and rubbed her arms, taking a seat on a stone bench near the well. "That's all we need now."
He joined her on the bench, close enough to smell her warm, clean scent; far enough away to be courteous. Almost as if she were an ordinary woman and he an ordinary man come to court her.
But they weren't. They were what Dar and destiny had made them, and nothing between them would ever be so simple or normal, he knew. Especially not in these strange times.
"Today I heard some stories," he prompted. "About clouds of colored smoke dancing above Mount Darshon, visible even at night."
"You haven't seen it?" She answered her own question by adding, "No, of course you wouldn't, not if you haven't been high up since you left Dalishar."
Tansen asked her to tell him about it, happy to sit in the dark and listen to her soft, earthy voice speaking the mountain dialect of his innocent youth—in her case, with the inflection that reflected her upbringing in western rather than eastern Sileria. When she finished her description of the lightning and colored clouds swirling around Darshon's peak, he knew she was awaiting his reaction; but he could only think to ask her opinion about it.
"I don't know." Mirabar sighed. "I've asked many of the other Guardians in Zilar."
"Have they seen it?"
She nodded. "Some came from high in the mountains, from summits where they saw it as recently as two nights ago."
"So it's continuing," he mused.
"Yes. But no one has any more useful ideas than I do."
"What are your ideas?"
"Only that something is beginning. Something..." She shrugged. "Something we have never seen before."
"Pyron says that, for the second time, everyone at Dalishar saw a vision: golden eyes in the night sky," said Tansen. "And they felt as if they heard a phrase—"
"'He is coming.'"
"Yes."
"I asked the other Guardians," Mirabar said. "But the vision has appeared only at Dalishar. No one elsewhere has seen it."
The dog came up to them, whining for comfort. Tansen absently stroked its head while he considered Mirabar's words. "There were quite a lot of Guardians today," he said after a while. "More than I had expected."
"Some of the ones I spoke with told me they saw portents in the circle of fire. Shades of the dead guiding them here."
"Do they know why?" he asked.
"They think it was to join your bloodvow, and to hear us promise them a new ruler. They want to support him, to help him." Mirabar lowered her head. "So I... I haven't told them everything."
"What do you mean?"
"Fire and water, water and fire... A child of fire, a child of water, a child of sorrow..." She made an abrupt sound of frustration. "Until I know more, unless I can reassure the Guardians... I don't think it would be wise to tell all I know."
"They might be afraid you're seeing a waterlord in our future," he guessed.
"And if I can't guarantee that I'm not—"
"Are you?"
"I don't know."
"The, uh, the Beckoner," he began hesitantly.
"Yes?"
"Have you asked him if it's a waterlord? I mean... can you ask the Beckoner questions?"
"I ask him questions all the time," she said wearily. "I am seldom answered."
"And he hasn't answered you about this?"
She shook her head. "No."
"Is he..." Tansen wasn't sure he wanted to open this subject, but he went ahead anyhow. "Is he like Armian?"
"Like Armian?" she repeated blankly.
"You've said that Armian wasn't like other shades. Because he spoke directly to us, rather than through you. Because after I gave Armian's
shir
back to Kiloran as a peace-offering, you were still able to Call Armian even without it."
"Only for a little while," she reminded him. "Only during the days when we needed Armian to convince some of the waterlords to join the rebellion. It was special and strange, yes, but it was nothing like this."
"How is this different?" he asked, wanting to understand, to know her secret world better.
"Well, for one thing, I don't Call the Beckoner, he Calls me. Which is something shades don't do. Ever."
"Oh."
"He doesn't just speak to me. He can create..." Mirabar paused as she searched for the right words. "Not just visions, images which I see. He can create sensations. He can cause me physical pain."
"He causes you pain?" Tansen didn't like that.
"Yes." As if relieved to speak about it to someone, she rushed on, "He can also make me feel powerful emotions that aren't my own: shame, sorrow, bitterness, love, courage..."
"Why does he do it?"
"To make me understand." Tansen was captivated by Mirabar's vibrancy as she tried to explain her mystical experiences to him. "So that I can recognize who I'm sent to seek or what I'm meant to achieve. So that I can accept the urgency and the importance of things which seem... well, incomprehensible at first, even outrageous." She added reflectively, "Perhaps the Beckoner knows I must be driven to the edge of madness sometimes so that I'll have the will to do what I must." Mirabar's posture slumped and her voice, when she spoke again, was weary. "But it's so hard, sometimes, because no one but me has ever seen him. For a long time, many of the Guardians in my circle were even convinced that these visitations were a sign that I was going mad—or possessed by evil."
"So no one knows who... what..." He trailed off, feeling inadequate. These were matters far outside of a
shatai's
realm.
"What the Beckoner's nature is?" she supplied.
"Yes."
"No." Her voice sounded hollow. "No one knows. No one can tell me or help me."
Tansen thought about how lonely living with these visions must be for her. "Could the Beckoner be a manifestation of Dar?"
She shrugged. "Why would Dar manifest Herself as a man?"
"Could he be some sort of god, though?"
"He could be," she said. "I don't think he's a sorcerer, and I'm positive he's not a shade, but..." Mirabar sighed, weary and confused. "I've thought about it and thought about it until my heads reels, and I don't know. I just don't know."
Her voice broke in doubt and frustration. Tansen wanted to comfort her, to reach out and stroke her hair, take her in his arms. But after the things they had said to each other at Dalishar, he wasn't sure she would find that as comforting as he would. And a good man, his grandfather had taught him, didn't use a woman for what would please him unless she'd made it clear that it would please her, too.
Tansen had always tried to be a good man. He had failed many times, but he didn't want to keep failing with Mirabar. Not anymore.
Wanting to distract her, and unable to resist at least some contact, he reached out and lightly touched her left hand, the one he had cut with his engraved Kintish blade today. "Does it hurt?"
"Hmm?" As he had hoped, the question coaxed her attention away from the thoughts that tormented her. She looked down now at the fresh bandage on her fine-boned hand. "Oh, that." She shrugged with a
shallah
woman's contempt for pain. "Not really."
"You did very well today."
"So did you," she replied. "You were good with the people."
"Josarian was good with people. I'm good with weapons." He had left his swords inside, though. Now that the Valdani had surrendered, he and Mirabar were safe here. Kiloran had circumvented custom once in the past by arranging for Outlookers to ambush Josarian in Sanctuary. But no Silerian would violate centuries of custom by attacking an enemy on Sanctuary grounds, so Tansen could relax his vigilance tonight.
"No, you've improved," Mirabar said. "You were very good with the crowd today. You gave them what they wanted and knew how to get what we wanted."
It pleased him, because he hoped it was true—and because she had bothered to notice and troubled to say so.
After a moment of companionable silence, Mirabar said, "I suppose you have new duties for me t—"
"I do."
"But there's something I need to do first."
"Oh?"