Stormlord rising s-2

by Glenda Larke

  The expression on his face might not have appeared pleasant to most people, but to those who knew the recently widowed Lord Iani best, it was clear he was smiling for the first time in a long while.

  Far above them in the sky, thin white clouds had formed into recognizable shapes. Letters. Cities of the Scarpen unite, they read. Prepare for battle. Stormlord Jasper Bloodstone commands you.

  "What do you make of that?" someone asked Iani.

  "I think at last we have a stormlord who is man enough to lead us."

  The Highlord of Pediment added, with a wry smile, "And one clever enough to find out how to tell us. Who would have thought it of a Gibber-born wash-brat? Lord Iani, I think we are prepared to give you-and all the other free Scarpen cities-the cooperation you have been asking for."

  Iani smiled. His thoughts were grimmer. Jasper, Taquar has his spies everywhere. He will soon know what you've done. Be careful! Jasper decided he would not return to the Silvermesh Snuggery again, although part of him longed to do so. I have to marry Senya, he thought, but I don't have to betray what I feel for Terelle by going to see Silver again.

  Yet three days after making that decision and pushing away all thoughts of Silver, he had a dream involving her. They were in Opal's Snuggery, and Laisa was there as well, telling him not to think, just to enjoy, it was better that way. So he smiled, enjoying the sensations rippling through him. There was something wrong about that enjoyment, though, he knew. It would annoy Nealrith and Terelle, that was it. In his dream he ordered Laisa to leave, then told Silver she had to go too, because he couldn't use the money Nealrith had given him from the Breccian treasury to pay her. She vanished, her place taken by Terelle. That was better.

  Then the dream faded, and the substance was suddenly tangible. He woke fully, to find the pleasure racing through his body. Real, not imagined. His eyes flew open, but he didn't need to see who was touching him. He recognized the perfume.

  He sat bolt upright, struggling to heave her away. "Senya-what the waterless hells are you doing?"

  "I would have thought that was obvious," she said, and did something to him he would never have guessed she even knew about.

  Appalled, he pushed her away. "Sandblast it! Stop that!"

  She took no notice, and to his embarrassment his body continued to respond. Salted damn, but that felt good. "Senya-"

  Her head came up. "Jasper, you were right, and I was wrong. We need to marry. We have to have children."

  "All right," he agreed in desperation. "But later-"

  She wriggled upward, her naked body squirming delightfully across him, and covered his mouth with her lips. Her hand went to where her mouth had been a moment before. He clutched at her, wanting to throw her off him, but his protest muted and then ceased as he felt himself awash with her smell and his own arousal. Thoughts tumbled, confused.

  She's not new to this. Blighted eyes, her breasts are so-

  Stop her.

  Why? Enjoy it while it lasts. You know you have to marry her anyway.

  Her nipples-

  This is so stupid, I know it…

  Oh, salted damn!

  He let his scruples go and allowed himself just to enjoy, to be borne away on the crest of pleasure. And then he was the one taking charge, sucking her delightful breasts, twisting her over onto her back and pushing himself into her. Part of him knew he would regret it, but the rest of him? That part didn't care and refused to listen.

  Afterward, she rolled out of bed, and in the dawn light entering through open shutters he caught the look on her face. She pulled on her robe and went to the door. The guard there turned to see as she emerged from the room. Only then did she pause and turn back to look at him. Only then did she smile provocatively. And then she was gone. The guards closed the door.

  Jasper collapsed back onto the bed. He lay still, staring at the ceiling. Feeling sick. All memory of pleasure evaporated, replaced by self-loathing as his thoughts coalesced. He rose, lit a lamp and by its light examined the under-sheet. There was no blood. He was not sure whether that made him feel worse or better. When he considered what it meant, especially coupled with her obvious experience and lack of shyness, he didn't much like the answer.

  Who would dare? Who would even have had the opportunity?

  Only one name came to mind.

  Taquar Sardonyx.

  But why? What possible cause could Taquar have had for a relationship with Senya? To annoy Laisa? To annoy him, Jasper? No, whatever the reason was, it had to make sense. Taquar did not act on the spur of the moment, and he was not such a rampant hedonist he would seize a moment's pleasure without some design in mind. Nor would he seek such a petty revenge on Jasper.

  No, what had just happened was something Taquar had plotted for a reason. He'd planned it and had tutored Senya in what to do. He and Laisa and Senya had been in Scarcleft only-what-thirty or so days now, but still, time enough for Taquar to have that silly girl, already infatuated with him, purring at his feet like a petted cat. The withering bastard. And he, Jasper, had not had the strength of character to throw her out of the door.

  I wonder if this is what a whore feels like… used. You are going to regret this, Jasper. He felt it deep in his bones.

  She had wanted the guard to see, of course, knowing the news of it would spread. She had bedded him at Taquar's instigation, and he had been stupid enough to let her do it.

  As she'd left, she had looked so damned smug. Jasper dreaded Taquar making some comment about Senya, but at the next morning's cloudmaking session the rainlord neither said nor did anything to indicate he knew what had happened. Jasper was not naive enough to believe the man did not know. Of course he did. Senya would never have behaved like that without being told what to do. And as much as Laisa was a poor mother, Jasper didn't think she would have been instrumental in using her daughter that way. No, this was Taquar's devious fingers manipulating a girl to do his bidding and teaching her how in his own bed. All Jasper had to do was to find out why.

  After the session with Taquar, he hesitated on the stairs for a moment, then made a decision. He went to visit Laisa. She had been entertaining some of her Level Three friends, but they were already on their way out when he arrived at the door to her apartment. Senya, fortunately, was nowhere to be seen. Laisa admitted him and-as gracious as she could be when she put her mind to it-she served him some wine from across the Giving Sea and asked a servant to prepare a meal for him. "You have been cloudshifting all day," she said, "and you must remember to eat. I don't think you take enough care of yourself, Jasper. You will do no one any good if you fall sick."

  He nodded, knowing she was right. "I am hungry," he admitted. He took a sip of the wine and added, "But that's not why I came to see you. I wanted to talk to you about Senya."

  She placed a bowl of nuts next to him. "What about her? She is rather annoyed with you, Jasper."

  "Oh? Why?"

  "Your behavior of late has been less than discreet."

  "She found out I've been visiting snuggeries?"

  "Yes. And you should not mention such things in polite company."

  "Oh, I don't."

  She glared. "Don't poke me, Jasper. I can bite."

  "You can try, certainly. But you brought the subject up, not me. And speaking of Senya, she did not seem particularly put out by my behavior last night when she came to my room and climbed naked between my sheets while I slept."

  Laisa was so startled it was a moment before she could speak. "May I assume you were not dreaming?"

  "No dream, Laisa. What happened was not at my instigation and I wish it had not happened. However, it did, and it led me to another surprise: I was not the first."

  This time Laisa was more shocked than startled, and the ensuing silence was long. Finally she said, "Are you trying to drive a wedge between man and wife, Jasper? Because, if so, you are wasting your time."

  "Ah. Interesting we should come to the same conclusion. Laisa, I have no illusions about your marr
iage to Taquar. And I don't care anyway. What I do want to know is this: what is Taquar up to? I did-I think-make it clear I'll marry Senya, if she is willing, as it's in the interest of the Quartern and its people. I don't love her. The state of her virginity is of no interest to me. I find it hard to imagine he'd think I'd be annoyed by her behavior, at least not until such time as we were married. Once wed, I'll try to be the best husband possible under the circumstances, and I'll expect her to do the same."

  He paused, painfully aware that he sounded like a pompous sand-brain. Hurriedly he continued, "Nor can Taquar have done this to father children on her; I understand he has always been deficient in that area and he can hardly expect things to change now. So what is all this about?"

  "You can hardly think I encouraged my husband to sleep with my daughter, or that I knew of it beforehand," she said icily.

  "No, but I am wondering why this occurred at all."

  "Perhaps Taquar wants your wife to be loyal to him, not you, and engaging her affections before the marriage included bedding her."

  It was barely possible, but her uneasiness told him she didn't believe her own words.

  "You should court her," she added finally. "Teach her what you've learned from your snuggery women. Tell her the kind of thing young girls like to hear. Wean her away from Taquar. You don't want a disloyal wife in your household, do you?"

  He suspected her advice was good, but something told him she was deliberately trying to lead him away from Taquar's real motives. He nodded noncommittally. "Perhaps you might have a word with her as well? I don't want a repeat of last night."

  "Oh, I shall. And I suggest you marry her soon."

  The meal arrived at that moment and he stayed long enough to eat. They spoke of neutral matters. The latest news-that Portennabar and Portfillik were importing vast quantities of wine and water from across the Giving Sea, mixing them together and selling the result to supplement their water supplies-was much easier to talk about than Senya.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The Scarpen to the Red Quarter Qanatend to Dune Pebblered They stayed five nights in Qanatend.

  Ryka, impatient and crotchety, was locked in her rooms at Ravard's orders. Nauseated with worry, she wanted to see Kaneth so badly her body ached, yet she didn't want to risk her fragile peace with Ravard. If he trusted her, he might eventually give her enough freedom to bring him down, even to bring his whole tribe to its knees. That idea was as fragile as a sand-dancers' mirage, so she obeyed his directives and kept her expression neutral when he gave her orders. She used his title when she spoke to him. In his bed, she was compliant and meek. It went against everything she was, and if she inwardly boiled with rage, she also shut that part of herself deep within, like a coiled snake in the darkness waiting for the moment to strike.

  She strove to remember all she had read about the legend of a hero called Uthardim. It wasn't much. She had never thought it important. The actual history and the tribal myths of the Reduners were inextricably mixed, until no one knew which were an approximation of the truth and which just tales.

  In her twenties Ryka had made her interest in Reduner stories known to merchants in Breccia, and as a result, a steady trickle of shaman scrolls had come her way. In the Uthardim story she'd read, Uthardim had been miraculously born already an adult, sired by a dune god, birthed by the divine immortal, Fire. At his birth, however, a jealous mortal lover of Fire had appeared and distracted her at the crucial moment of Uthardim's delivery. Instead of being caught in his mother's arms, he had slipped into the flames of her conflagration. His face had been badly burned as a result, and thereafter he had been known as Uthardim Half-face.

  But ponder as she might, Ryka could not remember the rest of the story, except that he had become a warrior hero. Damn it, she thought crossly, I can't even ask the guards, because that would mean speaking to them in Reduner. That ability was still better kept a secret. She toyed with the notion of asking Ravard, but shied away from that, too. She didn't want him to think she was interested in Kaneth.

  And so, when they rode out of the gateway of Qanatend, she was none the wiser as to why the guards treated Uthardim with such respect.

  The caravan was larger now, and the pedes stolen from Breccia were loaded with more slaves from Qanatend. Her heart grieved as she scanned them-they were so young. Girls and boys of perhaps eight to twelve or thirteen, no more. Reduners preferred children; it gave them a chance to raise them to be wives and warriors who could forget their origins. Unlike older adults enslaved for their skills, a child was always given a choice after a year or two: slavery, or become a tribal member with all its privileges and responsibilities and loyalties. Most chose the easier route, and who could blame them? By then the sands would have stained their hair and their skin until they resembled their captors.

  Ryka glanced at the line of pedes making up the caravan. Every seat on a pede was taken up with people or water or baggage. Several packpedes were piled high with roped bundles of dried bab fruit stolen from the warehouses. This time she rode behind Ravard himself, and behind her were Reduner warriors. Ravard was almost light-hearted. She scowled at his back. Didn't he care what his people had done to the city? Didn't he realize what their plundering would do to the people left behind?

  As they rode through the groves and once again she saw the dying trees, the parched soil and the evidence of wanton vandalism, she allowed her bitterness to spill over. "You have stolen their food and destroyed their means of replacing it. Was it necessary to kill their trees and wreck the irrigation?"

  He shrugged and turned his head to reply. "You should never have built a city on this side of the range in the first place; this is ours. The Scarpen should start with the Warthago."

  "Why?"

  "Once we lived all the way t'the coast! Once the whole Quartern was ours. You pushed us out! So now we take back all the land north of the Warthago." He waved a hand back at the city walls. "Once we have taken all the water the city has, Qanatend will be leveled t'the ground. Obliterated. Let all you Scarpen folk go back t'where you belong-the southern side of the range."

  "These people will die getting there!"

  "Perhaps. We don't care, just so long as they never come back."

  "Is this what you will do to Breccia?"

  "Breccia you can have. We have no interest in your cities. We certainly don't want t'live in them. We went there t'kill your rainlords and stormlords, that's all. 'Specially Cloudmaster Granthon. And we thought t'capture his replacement."

  "You mean Jasper?"

  "Yes, him with the fancy name. Jasper Bloodstone. Is it true he's a Gibber grubber?"

  "So I heard."

  He snorted in amusement, but made no comment. "It's time to return to a Time of Random Rain. With him in our hands it would have been easy."

  "You have no heart!"

  "You Scarpen folk taught us well." The bitterness belonged to him now. She heard the acid in his voice and the grief in his tone, saw rage in the way his hands tightened on the reins. "You came t'our land and killed and plundered and destroyed. You made most of the Quartern yours. The 'Basters came and made the White Quarter theirs-well, now it's our turn again. You'll be the nomads, lookin' for water. We will be the hunters and drovers who know how t'live in this land, as you never did. All you ever had was magic"

  "Are we-the people living now-guilty for what our ancestors did a thousand or more years ago?"

  He twisted in the saddle to look at her. "No. You're guilty for what you did yesterday. I grew up in poverty so bleeding grim I counted meself lucky if I had water t'drink and a rough piece of bab sacking as a blanket against the cold. You-the people of the Scarpen and your rulers-you allowed people t'live like that, while you had enough water for your bleeding fancy bath houses! You could have granted us more water. Then we could have grown more bab, raised more animals."

  "We didn't have sufficient stormlords. Cloudmaster Granthon did his best."

  "You looked after yourselv
es just fine." He glanced ahead to make sure the pede was on track. "Anyhow, now we'll return to a time when we are dependent on no one-no one but ourselves-for water."

  "A Time of Random Rain."

  "We call it Saren Jan Kai. You people translated it as 'Time of Random Rain,' but that's not really correct." He frowned, searching for the right words. " 'Time of God-granted Rain' is closer t'the true meaning. We believe if we give the dune gods due respect, if we respect our dune, then they will see to it we get rain."

  She waved a hand at one of the water-loaded pedes. "God-given random rain? You steal!"

  "A temporary measure in place of having Jasper Bloodstone. 'Sides, maybe we don't have random rain 'cause Bloodstone takes whatever clouds start to form natural-like."

  He was probably right at that. She fell silent and they rode on, into country she had never seen before: the dry flatlands known as the Spindlings. By midday, they had reached the border of the Red Quarter. Beyond a rough gully marking the boundary, the land was red and sandy. In the distance the first of the dunes was a long red barrier across the plains, extending east and west as far as Ryka could make out with her inadequate eyesight.

  She felt the dryness of the air like a physical assault, sucking moisture from all it touched. The Scarpen was an arid, thirsty land, but the Gibber was worse, and so was this. There were no trees; just low plants, grotesque in shape and vivid in color, clinging to the red sand, creeping hither and thither in a desperate anxiety to find water. Many had leaves designed to collect dew or suck the juices out of desert insects and small creatures. A savage, killing land, baking under a devouring heat.

  By evening they were camped at the foot of the first dune.

  "Dune Pebblered," Ravard said, and helped Ryka down. He left her standing there and started to give orders to his men.

  "Here, help me down, dear," Junial begged from her perch on another pede. "I don't have a handsome warrior waiting on me. My joints are on fire with all this sitting still and I hate being this high up. I cling onto that handle as if my life depended on it. Which it probably does, think on it."