Free The White Dragon by Laura Resnick

himself was Dar's chosen one, he had flung himself into the fiery volcano—and died, as they all did.
    As Tansen approached manhood, times got even harder. And so the Gamalani had entered the smuggling trade and offered the pirate Aljuna a bloodpact to ensure trust and loyalty in their mutual business. Aljuna had agreed to it without having any idea what a shallah bloodpact entailed. Tansen thought the pirate would faint when they made the diagonal cut across his palm to mingle their blood with his.
    Foreigners, Tansen's grandfather said, were thin-skinned, weak-stomached, and pale-blooded.
    His grandfather was not here tonight, though, as Tansen awaited the weak-stomached pirate with whom they did business. The rainy season had long since passed and the hot dry season was approaching, but his grandfather's knees now pained him terribly even so. So Tansen had insisted he could come alone. Was he not a man—or nearly so? His mother had added her exhortations to his own, and the old man had finally agreed to remain behind.  
    Now, as he approached the shore, Tansen heard someone else moving through the dark night. He didn't doubt for a moment that it must be Outlookers. Who else would be so clumsy, so loud? He watched two of them, clad their in anonymous gray tunics, pass by without ever looking into the shadows where he crouched. He could have stolen the purse of the nearest one, they were so close, but he was no thief. Besides, he knew the penalty for stealing from a Valdan, and he had no wish to wind up in the mines of Alizar.
    Not that he would be caught. His grandfather said that only a deaf one-eyed half-wit would let himself be caught by Outlookers. (Tansen always hoped this wasn't a description of his father, who had been caught and killed by Outlookers.)
    Tansen paused behind a rock as more Outlookers passed him in the night. He could hear still more of them overhead, high up on the cliffs, calling to someone else farther down the coast. The beach was practically swarming with them tonight!
    This could make things difficult, Tansen realized. Not that he had any intention of giving up and going home. The stubborn streak which had kept his clan locked in a bloodfeud with the Sirdari long after anyone left alive even knew why it had started now spurred him on to outwit the Outlookers patrolling the coast. His family needed the income too much for him to scurry away like a coward just because the Valdani evidently had decided to start cracking down on smugglers.  
    He looked over his shoulder, up past the dark cliffs, up to where Mount Darshon rose to loom over Sileria. It was the home of Dar, the fiery goddess whose sighs had the power to sweep Gamalan clear off its own mountain perch. Even on a moonless night like this, Tansen could see the snow atop Darshon reflecting the starlight. On a twin-moon night, it always gleamed so brightly that it almost hurt the eye to look upon it.
    Enter not prayerless into the domain of Dar , his grandfather always said. And so Tansen prayed now, because, as his grandfather also said, If Dar is on our side, then who in the Fires could possibly be on theirs ? With Dar at his back, Tansen crept through the shadows and braved the wrath of the Outlookers, and the all-powerful empire which stood behind them, to collect his shipment of contraband from the pirate Aljuna.
    Unfortunately, all his daring proved to be pointless. He waited for hours at the usual place, twice slipping into the shadows as more Outlookers passed by, but Aljuna never came. Tansen strained his eyes, fruitlessly peering out at the black infinity of the sea, but there was never any sign of the pirate's oarboat. At one point, he saw a light out there, glowing erratically in the distance for a while, but then it disappeared without ever coming any closer. Just some ship, he supposed, sliding over the curve of the dark horizon as it made its way to some port in the Kintish Kingdoms.  
    Although he was annoyed, Tansen liked