by Glenda Larke
"Why, Kher? Forgiveness for what?" Kaneth asked.
Ryka winced. Sandblast you, Kaneth, can't you just keep your withering mouth shut for once?
"If you don't, I'll kill you," Ravard snarled.
He believes it, Ryka thought. He can't articulate it without sounding crazy, but he believes that Kaneth somehow manipulates the sands of the dune.
Her next thought she directed at Kaneth, as if he could hear her. Be careful, you irritating sand-tick of a man-one foot wrong and Ravard will slaughter you where you stand, his father's wishes be damned.
Kaneth did not glance her way. He bowed and departed toward the slave lines. Ravard pulled Ryka into the tent.
"Are you well?" he asked again. "Do you still bleed? Does the baby still live? Blighted eyes, I have missed you!" He blurted this last out, then looked embarrassed.
"I am recovered. And the baby moves still."
He covered the curve of her abdomen with his hand. "I claim this child," he said. "He's a son of the dunes. He'll be raised t'take his place in this tribe. As he grows he'll deny the man who seeded him."
She felt a muscle twitch in her cheek. I wonder if you will ever know how close you are to death at this moment.
Then she saw the intent way he was looking at her, the concern in his eyes, and heard the fervor in his voice. She was reminded how young he was, and her anger drained away.
You're a researcher, Ryka. Remember your training. He had been raised in a tribal society where women couldn't even drive or own a pede. He was offering her all that he knew how to offer-clumsily, born as much of jealousy and ideas of ownership as they were of friendship or love-but still far more than most Reduner men knew how to give.
She smiled at him, and touched his arm. "Thank you," she said.
He jerked his head at the open flap of the tent. "This Uthardim, was he the one you were looking for in the heap of the dead in Breccia?"
She nodded. "More fool me." She heaved a sigh. "I knew my husband was already dead."
"You have no need of such a lover now. Or a husband. I am enough for any woman."
"Mmm," she agreed vaguely.
"Stay here until I return. Out of sight. I have to speak to the sandmaster when he arrives and I do not want him reminded of you."
"It's the sandmaster's caravan that's arrived? Is this his encampment?"
"No," he said with pride. "This is mine. I have led this tribe since I defeated the tribemaster in combat when I was seventeen. I am the youngest tribemaster in living memory. Sandmaster Davim's tribe is further along the dune toward the sunset. He's just stopping here tonight t'pick up his tribe's slaves." He kissed her gently, tentatively, as if he was afraid she'd slap him, then the kiss deepened. When he released her, he tapped her gently on the nose with a forefinger. "Tonight," he said and left the tent.
Sands, she thought, he must drive some of the grey-heads in the tribe insane. Were we like that, Kaneth, when we were twenty? Balanced between maturity and inexperience? Brave, stupid, thoughtless, generous, cruel, kind, all rolled up together? She thought back. I think we were different. Although perhaps no wiser, in spite of being trained and educated…
Ravard had been forced to do his own growing up. Pity stirred deep inside her. She knew it was dangerous. She knew there might come a time when she had to kill him-when she dared not hesitate.
With a sigh she grabbed up her bundle and looked around. The tent had three, no, four rooms: the large reception space with its huge family jar of water, and three small separate sleeping rooms, each with its own wash stand and stuffed quilts for a bed. It was easy to see which was Ravard's room. It had lavish carpets, richly colored woven wall hangings and four heavy carved wooden boxes, of the kind that were imported from across the Giving Sea and sold in the marketplaces of the Scarpen. Ryka opened them one by one and looked inside: folded clothes, extra quilts and cloaks, weaponry, saddlery, onyx vials of perfume, decorative pede prods and bridles. Jewels, probably looted. Daggers, swords, scimitars. All for the taking.
You are far too trusting, Ravard…
She unstoppered one of the perfume vials, smelled the fragrance and replaced it where she'd found it. Closing the chests without touching anything else, she explored some more.
In the second of the bedrooms, she found her own clothes-or Laisa's, to be exact-neatly folded into a plain wooden chest. The idea of a wash and a change of clothes was appealing, but first she visited the privy built behind the tent. As she emerged, she caught a glimpse of Davim's battle-hardened warriors riding into the camp.
Her thoughts suddenly filled with the sharp memory of her father holding a blood-drenched sword in a bloodied hand, coming into the Breccia waterhall during a lull in the fighting to ask if she was all right. She'd kissed him, the salty taste of his cheek and the unshaven bristles on his chin biting into her cracked lips. That was the last time she had ever seen him.
Although she wanted to weep at the memory, she held back her grief. No time for it, she thought. Perhaps when this is all over. When we are free again.
There was no place for weakness, not now.
She washed in the Reduner way, using a wet cloth and a minimal amount of water, changed her clothes and went to kneel at the edge of the closed flap of the tent to peer out through the gap. Davim's men were making camp further down the small sand valley of the dune. To feed the pedes, slaves were bringing bales of vegetation harvested on the plains. Others were starting cooking fires.
Kaneth was nowhere to be seen. Directly in her line of vision on the crest of the dune to the side of Davim's temporary camp was a tall, narrow rock driven into the sand. The exposed part was as tall as a man. She'd seen the same thing on Sandsinger: a shrine stone to the dune god.
From her studies, she knew Reduners considered religious observance to be the duty of the tribe's shaman, and if the tribe was plagued by bad luck the shaman was likely to be sacrificed to the god. To find a new shaman, the men in the tribe ran one by one down the steepest slope of the dune until the dune god sang under the feet of a runner-who then was proclaimed shaman and expected to interpret the words of the god.
You know all that, don't you, Kaneth? Are you using their religion against them? You don't really believe in their dune god, do you? Oh, sand hells-what are we doing here? How long does this have to go on?
Ryka sat back on her heels and raised her hands to her face. For once, not even the thought of the child who stirred under her breastbone could make her regard the future with anything but dread. A small voice interrupted her thoughts, calling to her from outside. She thought it must have been a girl, but when she drew back the flap slightly she saw the lad who had so obligingly carried her bundle. He was panting as if he had been running.
"Kher Ravard-" he said, and then stopped as if he suddenly realized she wouldn't understand whatever message he had.
"Yes?" she prompted in Reduner.
Taking heart from her knowledge of that word at least, he burst out, "Kher Ravard said Kher Davim is coming."
She made a gesture with her hand, pointed inside the tent and raised her eyebrow in question. "Coming here?"
He nodded, looking over his shoulder nervously as if they were hard on his heels.
Blighted eyes. She went to step out on the veranda, thinking to go somewhere else, but he pushed her back inside and vanished. She took the hint and retreated to her sleeping room. Once there, she untied the canvas door and unrolled it to the floor to close off the doorway. A moment later she felt the water of two people enter the main room, and blessed the nameless boy for his warning. She sat down quietly on the clothes chest. One of the two men lifted her door to peer in. It was Ravard. He did not speak, but raised a finger to his lips, bidding her be silent. She nodded, and the heavy cloth fell back into place.
"We're alone?" Davim asked. "I've private matters to discuss."
He can't sense me, she thought suddenly in surprise. And Ravard hadn't worried that he would. Why not? She was confounded. Wa
sn't Davim a water sensitive after all?
"The slaves are busy elsewhere, Sandmaster," Ravard said. "I have given orders that they are to attend to the needs of your men and pedes."
She smiled and settled back to listen. Fortunately, it apparently hadn't occurred to Ravard that she might by now have picked up enough of his language to understand a conversation. They spoke first of the situation in the Scarpen. Davim's army had abandoned Breccia after stripping the groves of all the bab fruit and stealing all the water they could carry. There was still a token force in Qanatend, however, headed by the Warrior Son, Medrim.
"No point in abandoning that place," Davim remarked casually. "Not while there's still water coming in from the mother cistern. A nice supply for us to pillage without crossing the Warthago. The stormlord even made it rain up in the mother well valleys the other day." He chuckled. "That young fellow is as soft as pede milk curds."
Ryka sensed the shrug of Ravard's shoulders. "He doesn't want his water-plump city dwellers to thirst."
Davim laughed and the sound made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. "Oh," he said, the smiling tone in his voice carelessly cruel, "we killed most of the dregs on our way through. Just left the useful ones to serve the men we left behind. So in truth, the stormlord is supplying us with water in plenty. With so few folk in the city, we'll do well, I think."
"I thought the idea was for us to return to a Time of Random Rain." There was a faint edge to Ravard's voice and Ryka stirred uneasily. The last thing she wanted was the Master Son upsetting the sandmaster.
"And so we shall. So we shall," Davim said. "But it's shriveling tough while this stormlord picks up any stray water vapor along the coast to make his blasted storm clouds."
"But they draw water from the sea!"
"Jasper's weak. Seems he gathers as much natural water vapor as he can to help him out. We have little chance of sufficient random rain to meet our needs if he does that. Taquar is using it as a threat, of course. If I upset his plans too much, we get no rain at all."
"Is he bluffing? Sandmaster, we need a long-term plan."
"I don't need you to tell me that, you insolent pup." The words conveyed annoyance, but Ryka was relieved to hear his tone remained mild. Even so, she thought she felt the tension spiral tighter.
There was a moment's silence Ryka could not interpret, then Davim continued, "We have to kill Taquar and young Bloodstone. There'll be a battle to end all battles, and soon. Which is something I wanted to talk to you about: the preparation of your men. Of all our men. I've sent messages to every dune, asking all tribemasters to gather at my encampment to discuss this."
"And Vara Redmane?"
"A sand-tick biting our arse. A nuisance, an itch, but no more than that."
"Every tribe has lost slaves to her cause. Not to mention disaffected warriors-many of the experienced older men who supported her husband's leadership. And her army is behind us-somewhere in the dunes."
"Army? They're rabble! They're also thirsty. What possible danger can they be to us?"
"How can we attack Taquar and the stormlord if we leave our bare backsides hanging out so someone can shove a spear up them? And if we're thirsty because random rain is far more random than-" But whatever he was going to say was broken off short in the sounds of a scuffle from the other room. Ryka drew in a sharp breath. Her water-sense told her both men had jumped to their feet, and one-Davim, she guessed-had grabbed the other and shaken him, none too softly, either.
"They have no waterholes!" Davim shouted. "Get that into your sand-addled wits. That woman and her fellow traitors are dying now. Out there somewhere on one of the empty dunes. You're no bleeding blood son of mine, Ravard-don't make me regret choosing you as my heir. And don't ever forget that while I'm still alive, I can change my mind. I do have blood sons."
"What kind of a Master Son would I be if I didn't tell you what I think? Sandmaster, I'm not going to lie to you to make you happy! If that's the kind of Master Son you want, you chose the wrong man. And don't take me for a suncrazed fool: I know once your sons are grown one of them will replace me as Master Son. I've always known that. I even know that besides the two born in your tent and acknowledged, there is another almost grown, over on Dune Hungry One, a man who knows who his father is, even though he was born to an unpledged woman."
When Ravard spoke again his tone was quieter, yet more impassioned. "I owe you everything I am, everything I have, so I'll serve you, and I'll serve your sons when the time comes, if they don't shove a knife in my guts first. And none of you'll get anything but the unpolished truth from me."
There was a silence, then a rustle. One of them had moved to touch the other.
"You're right; I'd not want a honey-tongued Master Son. I know we've got a foe jabbing at our arses-but I also know that those forces are as weak as an old man's piddle. Sands, they're led by a woman with a shriveled womb, what do you expect! I will deal with the Redmane bitch later. Right now, we have to stop a rainlord and a stormlord from stealing our random rain. And that's my final word on the matter."
"Let's speak of other things. This Uthardim fellow."
Ryka sat up straighter, her heart thumping.
"He's no reborn hero from the past," Ravard said.
"You sure of that? One of the first things I heard when I rode into camp is that the dune gods listen to him. Protect him. Back on Pebblered, I heard their dune god rose up at Uthardim's command to save their tribemaster from an assassin."
"The dune god saved someone, certainly-but Half-face didn't ask him to do it. Not that I saw. It's just a rumor, as false as a sand-dancer's tits."
"And what happened here earlier today? Men are saying our dune god saved Uthardim from punishment."
"No. The dune god saved me from doing something foolish. I was annoyed by Half-face and his arrogance and nearly defied your orders to treat him with respect. The dune god serves our tribesmen, not that Scarperman city-groveler."
Briefly Ravard outlined what had happened, without any reference to Ryka's part. "Sandmaster, this man's appearance and his burning is no more than a coincidence. If the true Uthardim returned to us, he'd be born to one of our tribe, or at the very least a dunesman. But this fellow was birthed in the Scarpen-a street-groveler, walking on stones and sleeping without the cleansing light of stars. He champions our Scarpen slaves. Stirs up trouble among them. One of the women is bearing a child he fathered. Is this the mark of the true Lord Uthardim? He was known for adherence to our people's ways and for his love of his wife, the Mother of his tribe."
"You sure of all this?"
"I'm not the only one to notice the way the slaves turn to him. Older heads than mine have already spoken their warnings and voiced their doubts about his ancestry. Jordestid the pedeman, for example. And old Brudedim. You know him; nothing much escapes his eye, or his ear."
"No, that's true. In fact he's already said he wants to speak to me on the matter. All right-the man is not Uthardim. Kill him, but quietly. And soon. No corpse. No rumors. Understand?"
"Tonight he prays at the shrine on my orders. I can make him disappear. And my shaman'll say the dune god came for him."
"Do it. No witnesses, Ravard. I made a mistake with the man, I'll admit. I don't want anyone to have to pay for that error."
"I'll do it myself. When the camp settles into sleep at the darkest hour of night. It'll be a pleasure."
In the other room, Ryka listened and sweated.
The two men continued to chat, a hundred different topics. They boasted of their battles, laughed at the ease of their victories in the Scarpen. Spoke of the continued raids into the White Quarter, of the death of a mine because Davim had wanted it so. Ryka, her mind racing, hardly heard. It wasn't until she realized that the two men had stood again that she concentrated on them once more.
It was well she did, because Davim was saying, "I want to nap before the evening meal." And someone's water approached her door. Davim's, she assumed, although she could
not differentiate one man's water from another's.
Without waiting to find out which one of them it was, she dived off the box and into the second sleeping room. Fortunately the canvas curtain was not tied open-but it swayed as she pushed past it. She bent to steady it and prayed he wouldn't notice.
It's the breeze, she thought insanely, as if she could influence him with the power of her mind. Just think it's the breeze you made when you stepped in there…
To her horror, she felt his water cross the room she had just vacated, heading for her. She spun around and leaped for the wooden chest in the room. Hauling it open with one sweeping movement, she threw the quilts it contained onto the pallet in an untidy heap. Panicked, she dived into the chest, curled up and closed the lid. She heard the rustle of the raised curtain door. She heard Ravard, further away, say something but could not make out the words.
"No, nothing," Davim said.
The body moved away from the door and then his water was supine. She let out the breath she had been holding. She was crushed into an impossibly small space. The chest was not made to hold a body, let alone a pregnant one. It was dark and airless. Every muscle screamed at her to get out of there, shrieking pain. But she dared not move. Not yet.
She waited.
Much later she edged the wooden lid upward. A crack at first, until she heard the even, heavy breathing of a man asleep in the next room. She levered the lid open and unfolded herself. Standing by the chest once more, stiff and aching, she stared at it in disbelief. She had fitted inside that? In a saner moment she would never have even tried.
For a moment she hesitated, wondering if there was some way she could kill the sandmaster, but she had no weapons, and always, always, she remembered the danger to her child. In the end, she tiptoed across the room to the back wall of the tent. Once there, she peeled back the carpeting to reveal the sand beneath. Carefully, silently, she scooped sand to one side until she'd made a hole under the wall. She bent down and peered out. There was no one around; the back of the tent faced the privy and beyond that, the back of several other tents. She slithered out, filled in the hole, and pulled the carpet flat before letting the wall fall back into place.