The White Dragon (63 page)

"No, no," Sister Shannibar assured her. "She just hears someone coming."

"At this time of night?" Norimar said.

"Maybe it's Najdan," Pyron suggested.

"He shouldn't be coming here alone in the dark," Mirabar said, rising to her feet.

It was indeed Najdan. As he pointed out, in response to Mirabar's scolding, a soft-footed man in black clothing wasn't all that easy a target when traveling alone in the empty hours before dawn. He accepted Shannibar's offer to draw some water from the well for him so he could wash off "all that disgusting blood and soot" before entering her Sanctuary.
 

Moving away from the group, Tansen asked him, "Did the assassin tell you anything?"

Najdan looked very tired. "Only that Kiloran is calling for unity and cooperation among the waterlords."

"Which we expected."

"Other than that..." Najdan gazed absently at the assassin's
shir
, which he now held in his hand. "He was not a talker."

"We had to try." Realizing that Najdan had probably done things tonight which even he didn't want to think about, Tansen amended, "You had to try."

Najdan nodded, then set the
shir
aside as he prepared to wash. "I will find a use for this. Your idea is a good one—planting stray
shir
among the waterlords. Even after they realize what we're doing, they'll continue to suspect each other."

"That's what's good about having enemies who don't trust each other."

"Indeed," Najdan agreed dryly.

Sister Norimar called, "Najdan, would you like some food?"

"No, thank you," he replied.

"Food?" Sitting slumped on the ground, Zarien suddenly perked up. "Did you mention food? Because if you're getting some, anyhow..."

Tansen smiled as he heard the Sister assure Zarien it would be no trouble.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Good judgment usually comes from experience;
 

and experience usually comes from bad judgment.

      
      
      
      
      
      
—Silerian Proverb

The blinding sunlight was the first sensation to pierce the black void of Ronall's senses. When it caused him enough discomfort to inspire a voluntary response, he squeezed his eyes more shut.
 

This action produced an agonizing pounding of blood at his temples, each
thud-thud
more piercing than the last. He clenched his jaw against the pain.

Mistake.
 

The act of jaw-clenching awoke his throat, which worked convulsively to alert his chest that another glorious day in Sileria had begun. Without thinking, he drew in a deep breath... And immediately felt nauseated beyond belief.

Three have mercy.

Ronall rolled over and vomited.

"Ohhh. D... Dar help..."
 

It was too much trouble to finish the thought. He scrubbed feebly at his sticky mouth and rolled back away from the mess he had just made.

One of the servants would clean it up. They were used to it by now. He pitied them sometimes... but that's what the poor clods got for being born hungry peasants rather than wealthy
toreni
.

Someone has to do the puking, and someone has to do the cleaning up. That's the way of the world.

He pressed his face into the mattress... and spat out dirt. Three Into One, what in the Fires had happened to his bed? It was filled with soil and was as hard as...

Rocks?

Yes, he realized, pulling his reluctant senses together. Dirt and rocks. He wasn't in bed. He wasn't at home. He was lying on the ground. Outside. Under the open sky.

With the Dar-cursed sun in my eyes.

Very cautiously... he turned his head to the side and opened one eye. The world reeled and the sunlight made his eye water.

Where am I?

Panic filled him. It made his heart pound. This, in turn, made his temples pound. With a groan of pain, he closed his eye again and willed the world to stop whirling. Willed himself to remember where he was.

It was no good. Nothing was coming to him. His mind was blank.

After all the mornings—all the countless times—he had awoken with no recognition of where he was and no memories of the night before, you'd think he'd be used to it by now. But no. It still sent his mind reeling in horrified panic every time, throwing him into a desperate confusion which, to his shame, had produced tears on more than one occasion.

By all the gods above and below, he was a puny, pathetic, disgusting excuse of a man. No wonder his wife hated him so...

His wife.

A memory started to stir. He could tell by the way his heart seemed to curl inward that it was a bad one.

Get out! Get out! Get out!

Ronall was pretty sure he didn't want to remember any more right now. In fact, he was pretty sure that slipping back into an unconscious stupor was far and away his best alternative. But he wouldn't be able to do that now. He was too uncomfortable, lying on the hard ground with the sun in his face.

Damn.

His skin was crawling... Were there insects scurrying across him? He brushed at them, but the crawling continued. Nausea rolled over him again. The rhythmic pounding in his skull threatened to break it wide open.
 

With a great deal of effort, he opened his aching eyes again. They watered in response to the sun. He groaned and pushed himself away from the dirt on shaking arms, clumsily working himself into a sitting position. The effort left him sweating and breathing in short, hard pants.

Ronall looked around. He appeared to be in a lemon grove.
 

No, this wasn't right... Surely he had been in Shaljir?

The very thought seemed to trigger more nausea. He leaned over, bracing himself on his hands, and retched. Again and again. When he finally stopped and sat back gasping, drool filled his mouth and dribbled down his chin.

"Dar..." he croaked, wiping his face with the back of his sleeve, disgusted with himself.

Where in the Fires am I
?

This setting was beyond his comprehension. With monumental effort, he rose to his feet. The accomplishment left him shaking and swaying, but he didn't fall down. With slow, painstaking steps, he turned in a complete circle, looking for something familiar, something to stir his memory.

Nothing.

He didn't even know which way to walk. Here he was, shaking, weak, sweating, dizzy, nauseated, and badly in need of a drink... And he was lost in the middle of nowhere. Why, in the name of the Three, had he left the city? And when?

How much had he had last night?
What
had he had?

I can't keep doing this
, he thought,
I'm going to get myself killed if this keeps up.

"Killed?" he said aloud.

Memory came flooding back. Ronall sank to his knees under its weight. The violent scene which had erupted out of his argument with Elelar blurred in his mind with so many other similar events in their marriage... Except this one was worse.

I pray to Dar every night that you'll die.

When Elelar publicly flaunted her affair with Advisor Borell, when she turned Ronall away from her bed, when she regarded him with open contempt...

If the mob kills you...

When Ronall learned of Elelar's duplicity on behalf of the rebellion, when she openly admitted to marrying him for the benefit of the Alliance, when she escaped from prison and made no effort to contact him, when he rotted in prison in her stead, begging his guards for liquor, dreamweed,
anything...

...I'll throw open the doors of the house and offer a reward!

Somehow, none of those injuries and wounds, bad as they were, hurt as much as Elelar's shrieking prayer that the mob which had killed his parents should now kill Ronall. Nothing had ever hurt like hearing her long for his death.
 

Yes, they had been fighting, tempers high; but he knew she wouldn't later regret her words. She meant it. If he wouldn't leave Sileria and thereby free her from their marriage, then she wanted him dead.
 

Why
wouldn't
she, after all, considering the kind of husband he was?

Not that she had been an ideal wife.

He had been so wounded, so hurt, so appalled...

Or maybe it was fear, he acknowledged. After what had happened to his parents, he knew his own death could come at any moment. He couldn't leave Sileria. But how could he stay, either?
 

Ronall and the many other Silerian-born Valdani were living with their backs to the wall now. After what had happened in Shaljir, it was only a matter of time before people began gleefully slaughtering every Valdan left in Sileria.
 

No, Elelar's wish for his violent death was not an idle one. Darfire, she could even arrange it, if she wanted to. Who would even care now if a drunken half-caste Valdan were slaughtered by the mob? In the absence of Outlooker protection, who would shield Ronall or seek justice for his murder? He had cronies and companions, but no real friends, no one who would mourn his death or risk their own safety for him. Only his parents had cared, and perhaps only because it had been their duty. And now that they were gone, dead, murdered by a Silerian mob...

Three have mercy, they had killed his mother! His silly, contented, vapid Silerian mother who had never harmed anyone, even if she had habitually neglected everyone. They'd slaughtered her with raging violence in her own home, brutally punishing her for the sin of marrying a Valdan.

And his father... Implacable, demanding, and usually absent. Ronall's father had always been a stranger to him, a familiar face, a cool gaze, and time-worn gestures concealing a largely unknown character. Perhaps the bravest thing Ronall had ever done in his life was go to his eternally disappointed father and ask him to save Elelar's life after Borell had her imprisoned on charges of treason.

The heavy weight in Ronall's chest now was proof of all the things he had secretly, foolishly hoped for; all the things which had been bludgeoned to death by a bloodthirsty mob in Shaljir. His father would never look upon him with approval, let alone warmth, now. They would never get to know each other, never cease to be strangers. His mother would never look
at
him instead of past him. Never praise him instead of make excuses for him. His parents would never see a grandchild from him, one with Elelar's intelligence and beauty, one with...

Grandchild. The heir he and Elelar had never gotten.
 

It was just as well, really.

If his parents' violent deaths left a heavy weight of grief pressing on him, then the death of his marriage...
 

No. He was a fool—his marriage had died the day it had begun, a stillborn thing which he had been too unfit to bring forth. It was a bitter harvest that left him starving.

The
end
of his marriage last night, which he supposed was a more accurate description than its "death"... Yes, the end of his marriage was a mortal wound. He was bleeding to death. The pain was excruciating. It left him... Yes, it left him ready to die.

Get out! Get out! Get out!

Ah, yes, now he remembered. Well, a little, anyhow.
 

Ronall had ridden through the streets of Shaljir, but he couldn't find anyone to kill him. Then he had decided to flee the city, to get as far away from Elelar as he could. He couldn't bear to look into her eyes, not ever again, not after what he had see in them that night. He wanted to die. He was ready... but he needed someone else to do it for him. Even in this, the final act of his life—and his only worthwhile achievement—he would be a helpless coward.