The Last Stormlord

by Glenda Larke

  And then she became aware that someone was staring at her, even as she stared at the painting on the water. She turned her head. There was a man standing in the middle of the street. People pushed their way around him, and a passing packpede loaded with palm pith even brushed his elbow; he didn’t notice.

  She knew instantly that he was from the White Quarter. There was, after all, no mistaking a ’Baster. They were as white as the great saltpans of their own quadrant. Startlingly white, with skin that never burned or blemished in the sun, and white hair that never changed colour, from birth to old age. Their eyes were always the palest of blue, almost colourless, their lips and cheeks bloodless. There were some who said ’Basters did not have blood in their veins, but water.

  He was middle-aged, this ’Baster, dressed in their usual garb: a white robe with tiny round pieces of mirror sewn on in red embroidery. The mirrors sparkled when they caught the sunlight.

  His gaze was so intent, so intrusive, that Terelle scrambled to her feet, staring back.

  Time continued to hang, snagged on the moment—the magic of the painting, the power of the stare, the ache within Terelle responding to something potent in the air around her.

  It was the ’Baster who sent time spinning on. He made a gesture of blessing with his hand and walked away. Sunlight caught in the mirrors, a myriad of flashing sparks winked, and he was gone, lost into the crowd.

  And the old man spoke for the first time, using a thickly accented and clumsily worded version of the Quartern tongue she found hard to follow. “He smelled your tears. As did me. Which be why I came. Those, ye cannot be hiding from likes of us, Terelle.”

  She turned back to him, terror flooding her senses. “How do you know my name?”

  He shrugged. “Who else ye be? Ye your mother’s daughter.”

  It was a comment that made no sense. She opened her mouth to protest, but he gestured at his painting and said, “Watch.” He lifted one side of the tray an inch from the ground, and then dropped it back down again. The water shivered, sending ripples through the colours. Terelle expected the paint to run and mix, the picture to disappear, but that did not happen. The ripples died away, and the painting remained, exactly as it had been when he had finished it.

  Her eyes widened. “How…”

  “Waterpainting be art,” he said. “Secret of art be in paint-powder. That can learn. Magic of the art, ah—that must be born in blood of artist.

  “Watch again.”

  She lowered her gaze from his face back to the tray.

  He picked up one of the spoons and splashed some colour on the dusty road in the painting. Then another colour and another. This time, his work was slap-dash. Colours blended without real outline, edges blurred. He was painting a woman, but it was mere suggestion: a dress of indeterminate style and shadowed drabness, a face that was turned away so no features were clear, hair that was half-covered with a carelessly flung scarf. Even the shoes she wore were obscured by the length of her skirt.

  Afterwards, Terelle was not sure how it happened—or, indeed, what happened. She was looking at the painted figure, admiring how a few touches of colour could suggest so much and wondering why he had used such a different technique to paint the woman, when the surface of the water blurred and shifted. Although she had not seen the old man touch the tray, the colours moved, and then re-formed. The blur focused; edges sharpened.

  And the formless woman was formless no longer. Her dress was grubby and drab, and she had evidently just stepped out into the street from the house. Her shoes were woven palm slippers; her scarf was hardly more than a tattered rag, hastily donned. She had a puzzled expression on her face, as though she had forgotten why she had stepped outside.

  Terelle’s jaw dropped. How had the painted figure changed so? Had the details been hidden beneath the paint, to be released by the artist’s movement of the water? Impossible, surely.

  She looked across at the house opposite, the real one—and nearly screamed.

  There was a woman there, dressed just as the woman in the painting was, with the same look of puzzlement on her face. Behind her the door was still swinging. She shrugged, turned and went back into the house.

  Terelle looked down at the painting. The figure was still there, poised to move but caught in the stasis of paint.

  “How—” But she did not know what to ask. “I saw that woman,” she said finally, pointing at the painting. She gestured with her hand across the street. “She was there. The real woman. And the painting changed. To fit—to fit her.”

  The old man smiled. It was an expression not of friendliness but of sly pleasure. “Things change. Sometimes one thing be preceding another; sometimes not. And sometimes ye determine the order, if ye wish.

  “Watch again.”

  Once more she looked at the picture, afraid this time of what she would see. He drew out a knife and used it to separate paint from the edge of the tray, as if he was loosening a bab-fruit pie from its dish. Then quite casually he picked up two corners of the painting and lifted it. It came up whole, like a sheet of cloth, dripping water. He rolled it up and handed it to her.

  “Keep it,” he said, “to remind ye of day ye met Russet Kermes the waterpainter. Sever painting from water, though, ye kill its soul.”

  She took hold of it, amazed that it showed no signs of falling apart or even cracking. It was supple and strong. “It is…” She had been going to say beautiful, then realised that would be a lie.

  The painting was not beautiful. It was intense, even savage. It reeked of anger against the poverty of the life it portrayed. “Remarkable,” she finished lamely.

  This time his smile was sardonic. He said, “It be payment.”

  She was suffocating as if choking on the dust of a desert spindevil; she felt unstable, as if the power of the wind had swept her feet from under her. Desperately she wanted to touch ground, to feel that there was something solid beneath her feet.

  “Payment? For what?”

  “For soul of artist, Terelle. Payment for ye, of course. What else?”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Scarpen Quarter

  Scarcleft City and Breccia City

  The unsuccessful search for a stormlord was over.

  Now that Taquar had returned to Scarcleft Hall, evening was the time when he pushed aside any thought of his duties or his worries over water and indulged himself. Sometimes he would venture out to a high-level snuggery or a public house where there were dancers and musicians. Sometimes his pleasure was more cerebral and he would read in his library, or more active and he would spend time sparring with his master-of-swords.

  No one dropped by without an invitation, so when the steward came to him one evening with the news that there was someone to see him, he was surprised. When it proved to be Ryka Feldspar, he was utterly astonished.

  He rose to his feet, put what he hoped was an urbane smile on his face and said, “Rainlord Ryka! This is an unexpected, um, pleasure. What brings you to Scarcleft? Or perhaps even more to the point, what brings you to my abode at this time of the night?” He turned to look at the steward, still hovering in the doorway, and said, “Refreshments. Some of our best amber, perhaps.”

  The steward bowed and departed. Taquar waved a hand towards a chair and schooled both his expression and tone to perfect neutrality. “Take a seat.” Her broad shoulders trembled slightly, which interested him. Ryka? Scared? That wasn’t in character. He’d always thought her about as nervy as a bab palm on a windless day.

  She sat, but still didn’t appear to be at ease. “This is difficult to talk about,” she murmured.

  “You intrigue me.” He couldn’t imagine what had brought this usually self-assured, arrogant woman to him, at night what’s more, which was definitely broaching the etiquette for an unwed woman. He didn’t like her and never had, but he had never cared enough to make that clear to her. He wondered if he was about to regret his lack of bluntness. She wanted a favour of him, that much was clear, on
e that she dare not commit to the written word.

  “I shall speak plainly,” she said after an uncomfortable pause. “Granthon is pressing Kaneth and me to marry because we must have more stormlords. He is right about that, of course, but why he imagines that someone with limited rainlord skills such as myself would ever give birth to potential stormlords is beyond me.”

  “It is puzzling,” he agreed.

  She gave him a sharp look but continued. “I do not want to marry Kaneth. You are the only other unattached rainlord.”

  He just caught himself in time to curtail an undignified desire to gape. “Waterless heavens, Ryka. You are not—surely—suggesting that you and I should wed?”

  “Hardly. We would be scratching each other’s eyes out before the ceremony was over. But I did wonder if—”

  He raised an eyebrow when she paused, genuinely puzzled. And she blushed.

  “—ifachildofoursmightnothaveabetterchance,” she said in a rush.

  He wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly. “What?”

  She took a deep breath. “If a child of ours—yours and mine—might not have a better chance. Of being a stormlord, I mean. We wouldn’t have to marry, or anything. Or even live together.”

  For the first time in years, someone had truly astonished Taquar Sardonyx. This staid, no-nonsense woman, who was normally so sensible that he found her profoundly boring, was sounding like an overly romantic girl of seventeen with a sandcrazy idea in her head. He could barely contain his distaste. “You’re out of your mind,” he told her.

  “Why?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Why is it so unthinkable? You know we need stormlords. You are hardly shy about your numerous liaisons, so what difference will one more make to you?”

  “My liaisons aim to be pleasurable. I can’t imagine anything less to my taste than to bed Ryka Feldspar because she wants to placate the Cloudmaster! I have not the faintest desire to bed you, Ryka. I have always found your snappish character and lack of femininity as unattractive as your face and as dull as the way you dress.”

  When she flushed, he took no notice and continued, “Anyway, what do you propose? Taking a room downlevel somewhere and popping up here every night until such time as you are pregnant? You might have to wait a long time, my dear. To the best of my knowledge, I have never fathered a child, and I haven’t taken precautions to prevent it for the past fifteen years. Nor, I imagine, have many of the women involved. Why do you think the Cloudmaster hasn’t pressured me into a wedded state?”

  He allowed a tinge of amusement to suffuse his tone. “As much as it saddens me to point this out to you, I fear I am destined never to have offspring. I had thought this fact was a matter of vulgar gossip throughout the Scarpen Quarter. It seems I was wrong, which pleases me, I will admit. Foolish pride, I know, but a man does not like his sterility to be a matter of common knowledge.”

  While he’d been speaking, she had slowly risen to her feet, her face reddening and then draining of colour until she was as white as a ’Baster.

  She stood staring at him, unable in her embarrassment and humiliation to speak. Finally she managed a strangled, “Then I have been wasting time for both of us. My apologies.”

  He inclined his head. “Accepted. Ah,” he added with deliberate heartiness, “here are the refreshments—”

  “I beg to be excused.”

  Her departure was too abrupt to be polite.

  Outside in the street, Ryka leaned against the villa wall to collect herself. She could still hear Taquar’s low chuckle as she’d left his room. Damn it, the humiliation of his derision was going to haunt her.

  You stupid, stupid woman! she thought. How can you have been such a sand-brained idiot? Did it never occur to you why he had no children? And why, oh why, did you imagine he might find you attractive enough to bed?

  Her cheeks burned hot as she recalled his words. Damn him. There’d been no need to tear her down like that. He had been so—so—downright nasty.

  Watergiver take you, Taquar, I may have asked for that, but you are such a bastard.

  She squared her shoulders. If Taquar had been within range she would have ripped into him. Instead, all she could do was grit her teeth and dream of what she should have said. Damn, damn, damn, how could she have been so stupid?

  “Ryka?”

  She whirled in surprise. A man came out of the darkness at the right of the gate, and she cursed herself for not paying attention to her surroundings. No one ought to have been able to creep up on her like that. Then, belatedly, she recognised him, and her eyes widened. “Kaneth?” she asked. “What are you doing here?”

  “Here, meaning in Scarcleft, or here, meaning in front of Taquar’s gate?” He glanced up to where a guard on the wall was staring at them in an interested way, his zigger hissing in the cage that was clipped to the shoulder of his uniform.

  She allowed him to take her elbow and guide her away, but her tone was frosty. “Both,” she replied.

  “The answer’s the same to both questions, anyway. Following you.”

  “Then you had better have a good excuse,” she snapped. “Because it feels very much like being spied upon.”

  “Feels rather like spying to me, too,” he said cheerfully as they headed down to the next level. “But my excuse is a good one. Granthon sent for the two of us. I went to your house to tell you, and your father said you’d come to visit your cousins here in Scarcleft. I told Granthon that, and he told me to go and get you. Not, mind, ‘send her a message.’ Oh, no. I had to come and get you. Which meant I had to drop everything and ride two days to get here. Then, when I arrive, what do I find? You aren’t staying with your cousins at all. They hadn’t even seen you. It was just as well I recognised your mount down in the pede livery when I was stabling mine or I would have been wondering if you were even in Scarcleft!”

  “So how did you find me?”

  “I walked the streets until I sensed your water.”

  She was dumbfounded. “You can recognise me by my water?”

  He didn’t reply.

  “That’s a stormlord skill.”

  “Ah—well. You know my powers have always been damned unpredictable. I can’t do it from very far away, and not for anyone else. Just you. And don’t ask me why, because I have no idea. I’ve been able to do that since we were children. Remember how I used to always know what you were up to?”

  “Oh! That explains a lot. It used to drive me crazy.”

  “Which is why I never told you how I knew. I was glad of the skill tonight, because quite frankly, Scarcleft Hall was the last place I thought of looking. I was on Level Three, and I thought I must be imagining things when I sensed you up there. Although I suppose I should have guessed, the way you were fluttering your eyelashes at Taquar when we were in the Gibber Quarter. What the pickled pede do you think you are doing, going to Scarcleft Hall at night? Don’t you know what sort of reputation he has with women?”

  “Fluttering my eyelashes? I do not flutter my eyelashes! How dare you insinuate—” She halted, flustered by her recollection of how—eyelashes notwithstanding—she had at least tried to arouse Taquar’s interest in her. Then her fury exploded at the last of what he had said. “And as for reputations, what about yours? I hear far more about Kaneth Carnelian’s acquaintance with every snuggery girl from Breccia to Breakaway than I do about Taquar’s! You are utterly insufferable!”

  “Maybe, but that still doesn’t explain what you were doing there. You can’t think of marrying Taquar, surely. Even you can’t be that foolish. You do know he has never sired a child, don’t you, although it hasn’t been for want of trying, believe me.”

  “Even I? Sunlord save me, but you are insulting, Kaneth.” Inside she thought miserably, Damn it, am I the only person who didn’t know Taquar was sterile?

  “Only when you deserve it.”

  She winced, and he changed his tone, suddenly gentle. “By all that’s water-holy, what is it with us? Ry
ka, we used to be such good friends. What happened?”

  She looked at him, straining to see his face in the dim light. “You really don’t understand, do you?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  He sounded so genuinely mystified, she took him at his word. “Bedding a string of hussies and snuggery girls may be forgivable when you are eighteen and as randy as a street cat surrounded by a crowd of fluffy felines on heat. It even has a certain youthful charm. But in a man of thirty-five or so, it’s just… vulgar. Immature. Tawdry. It makes me sick. And the idea that I am to be just one in that string makes me feel dirty. As though I am a body to be enjoyed, but never a mind to be respected. Or a face to be admired, or a friend to be appreciated, or a wife to be esteemed.”

  She stopped as Taquar’s words resounded in her head, sour and hateful. And worrying. What if they were true? Your snappish character and lack of femininity as unattractive as your face and as dull as the way you dress. What if Kaneth felt the same way about her? Oh Sunlord, Ry, she thought, you never used to care that you weren’t pretty. What’s happened to you? Why should it suddenly matter?

  Kaneth raised his eyebrows. “Oh? Then why did you go sneaking around to Taquar’s? You can’t think he’s more chaste than I am, surely.”

  “Oh bother you, Kaneth. Go away.”

  “I’ll escort you to wherever you’re staying.”

  “I don’t need company.”

  “No, I don’t suppose you do. You are a rainlord, after all. But it’s late and I’ll do it nonetheless. And I’ll escort you back to Breccia, too. Granthon still wants to see us. And quite frankly, I don’t know what we are going to say.”

  “ ‘No.’ At least that’s what I am going to say. And if that is enough to stop our rainlord’s allowance, then we shall just have to learn to do without it. It may curtail your popularity with the snuggery girls, but I’m sure you can learn to live with that.”

  “Easy to see you haven’t faced Granthon when he’s made up his mind about something,” he said, and she heard genuine warning in his tone. “Do you really think that’s all the persuasion he has in mind?”