Stormlord rising s-2

by Glenda Larke

  "I'm not sure it is a problem, exactly. You haven't seen that young son of mine about, have you? Khedrim?"

  "No. Why? He shouldn't be here at all, surely? The lad's hardly old enough."

  "I agree. That's just it, he shouldn't be here, but I just saw that his pede-one of those youngsters we brought in, remember?-is down on the pede lines. In fact, two of those young ones are. Which strikes me as strange. Would be unlike the lad to be disobedient, and I can't find anyone who's seen him, but who else would bring in an undersized runt from the dune? Right mystified, I am, Kher."

  Ravard's heart started to pound under his breastbone. "Who owned the second one?"

  "Don't rightly know anyone had claimed it. That slave of yours was looking after it."

  "My slave?"

  "The woman. Garnet."

  The withering bitch. He could hardly believe it. She had followed him, he knew it. She was here somewhere. But why? Not because she missed him, that was for sure. God below, she must be ready to drop her babe any time and she had ridden across the dunes and The Spindlings just to escape? Was she weeping sandcrazed?

  "You haven't seen her here, I suppose?" he asked dryly.

  "No, Kher."

  "I want the whole area searched for her."

  The man blinked, puzzled. "For who, Kher?"

  "The slave!"

  The man looked at him as if he truly was sand-witted.

  "You heard me. Organize a search. Use our tribesmen, and look for anyone who shouldn't be here. Especially Garnet. I don't think you need worry about your son."

  The man bowed his head slightly and moved off to organize the search.

  Ravard stood still beside the pede, the pede brush he had been using dangling from his hand, his task forgotten.

  ***

  Terelle rose early that morning, at sunrise. Even so, Jasper had already disappeared from the tent. She dressed, then stepped out through the flap yawning and stretching, smiling in joy at her new memories-only to come face to face with Lord Gold. He must have been coming to see Jasper; instead he caught her in what could only be a compromising situation. She was snuggery trained, and it meant nothing to her, but the expression on Basalt's face told her he had a different opinion.

  His cheeks purpled in anger and his eyes blazed. She was taken aback at the ferocity of his stare and retreated a step. Sandblast him, the man had never even spoken to her and he was acting as if she was a Reduner about to impale him on the end of a spear.

  But no, I won't let you spoil anything, you stupid scrawny-spirited priest…

  "Whore!" he said. "Have you no shame?"

  There had been a time when she would have slunk away, apologetic, but that was long past. "Actually, no," she replied. Ashamed? Of what happened last night? With effort, she stopped herself from laughing in his face. "Not with regard to this, none."

  "You belong in a snuggery! You should have stayed there. How dare you corrupt the stormlord?" He stepped forward, thrusting his face into hers, spittle spraying. "It was bad enough when I thought you were a Gibber grubber, but I've heard you are actually an outlander, one of the blasphemers who call themselves Watergivers. Your very presence here corrupts. How dare you defile one of our lords?"

  She stared at him, more in astonishment than outrage. The sun had risen on a day of battle. By the time it set, many of those in this camp would lie dead-and this pompous fool of a priest wanted to single her out for his ignorant diatribe?

  She placed her hands on her hips in deliberate provocation. "You don't even know me and you condemn me? What kind of a religious example do you set for the rest of your followers, Lord Gold? And you don't even know what you are talking about. May the spindevil winds preserve me from the stupidity of waterpriests in general, and you in particular!"

  He gaped at her. "You ill-mannered slut," he hissed. Before she could think of an appropriate reply, he turned away and stalked off.

  "Not the wisest of moves, my dear-making an enemy of the Quartern Sunpriest."

  Terelle turned. Laisa, of course, who else. Blighted eyes, the woman was always listening, spying, poking her nose into Terelle's business. "Maybe not, but it felt good." That was true; it had felt marvelous. She gave the rainlord a broad smile.

  To her surprise, Laisa favored her with a conspiratorial grin. "Nasty, pompous old bore, I agree," she said. "But take my advice anyway, and watch your back. Shall we go find some breakfast?" "My lord!"

  She had been dozing, Khedrim lying sated and content in the crook of her arm, but the urgency in Anina's voice jerked her wide awake. She sat up, still holding her son, to see the slave woman's head peeking over the top of the jars.

  "They are looking for you! They'll be coming any minute!"

  "Who? Who's looking?"

  "Ravard and the men from his dune. They are doing a thorough search, and they mentioned you by name." She didn't need to say the hiding place would not survive a proper search; Ryka knew it.

  She handed Khedrim to Anina, stuffed the pot and the extra cloths into a gap between the jars, and grabbed up the padded coverlet she had been using in place of a pallet. When she scrambled out from her hiding place, she took that with her; dark and dingy in color, it was ideal for what she had in mind. Once she was standing beside Anina, she took Khedrim and then wrapped herself in the coverlet, covering the both of them.

  "I'm going to hide under the water in one of the cisterns," she said in answer to the woman's questioning look.

  Anina's worried look intensified.

  Ryka peered around the corner so she could see into the main hall of the cave. It was dim, lit only by sunlight from the entrance. There was the usual bustle: slaves bringing in the pedes to be watered or filling dayjars and water skins, others taking food from the stores to the camp fires out in the open. Outside, though, there was a group of Reduner warriors standing in the sunlight. One of them-or so she deduced from his gestures-was dividing the group up to send them in different directions. She swore under her breath.

  "Anina, you will have to tell me when it is safe to come out. Look for me in the far corner of the last cistern at the back of the cave."

  Anina stared, bewildered.

  "I'm a rainlord, Anina. I'll be fine. We shall be fine. What I want you to do now is walk to the entrance of the cave and then pretend you see a zigger coming. Scream, yell 'zigger' and point-but just make sure you point away from the back of the cave. I want everyone looking the opposite way. Now go, and don't look back. Go!" Ryka gave her a push.

  Anina hesitated only briefly, then nodded. Ryka watched her go and waited.

  Her scream when it came was blood-curdling. Ryka didn't wait to see every head swing the way of that sound; instead she walked rapidly to the back of the cave to the echo of the frantic shrieks of "Zigger! Zigger!"

  The cisterns-there were two-were gouged out of the rock of the cave floor. The rim was flush with the floor and the water started about a hand-span below. As far as Ryka could judge, it was deeper than she was tall, but not by much. The back one was fed by the inlet pipe, a system engineered so long ago in the past that no one knew who had been responsible. There was a constant flow from one cistern to the other, and the mountain water was always cold.

  Ryka knelt by the back cistern, in the darkest corner where little sunlight reached, still clutching the dark mottled coverlet around her. Ignoring the commotion at the entrance to the cave, she pushed the water aside and dried the floor. Then she let herself down to stand on the solid stone. The air was damp and cold and dark. Khedrim stirred against her making sucking noises, and she wrapped him deep in the coverlet.

  She lowered herself to sit, then gingerly allowed a layer of water to close over her head except for an open funnel of air about the width and length of her arm. She kept the coverlet over her head, and hoped if anyone happened to glance into the cistern they would not notice anything.

  As she settled down to wait, praying Khedrim would not start crying, she remembered that other time when
she had found safety in a cistern-the day her world had disintegrated into pieces she knew she'd never find again, let alone rebuild into something worth living. She remembered the last words she had spoken to Kaneth as she watched the spreading stain of blood in the water around them: Live, live for the three of us.

  She bent her head over Khedrim's. "Live, little one," she murmured. "Live, and we will build a new life, and it will be good, I promise."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Scarpen Quarter Warthago Range Terelle lay just below the crest of the hill and waited.

  Everything was in place. They had spent the better part of the day preparing for this moment, for the precise time when Jasper decided the sun was high enough in the sky for the angle to be right. When everything matched her painting.

  It hadn't been a good day. The Reduners had intensified their zigger assault, and the rainlords were hard-pressed to stop them all. Men and women had died. Terelle had never been so frightened. Several times she'd heard the buzzing whine and looked up to see men fall, screaming, clutching at their eyes, or ears, or throat.

  In spite of the fear of zigger attack, the men had worked hard most of the night at Jasper's request. They were following the plan based on Terelle's ideas, first cutting as many pede segments as they could from the pedes that had drowned in the rush, then scraping out the flesh. Thoroughly mystified, they filled them with all the sharp-edged stones they could find.

  In the meantime, Jasper used the drinking supply to make a block of water several paces each way and a pace deep, to check if Terelle's main idea was workable. Halfway through the night they had the first loaded segment floating easily on top of the water. Jasper, elated, asked them to fill as many pede segments as they could find.

  By noon the next day, all was ready. The men were fully armed, waiting quietly for the word. Some even dozed.

  Jasper had not answered the sandmaster's message, and as far as he and Terelle knew, Mica was still alive. But they had no way of knowing. When you called a man's bluff it paid to know him, and they didn't. Not really. The thought made her ill, that Mica could die just to make a point. Not so much because she cared for a man she had never met, but because she hated seeing the drawn, haunted look on Jasper's face.

  Around her, tension was building. Men woke until everyone was alert-and edgy as they waited. They had been told that the attack would take place when the sun was high in the sky.

  She looked around, her waterpainter's eye absorbing the scene, etching it permanently into her memory whether she wanted it that way or not. Ranged just below the south rim of the slope, out of sight of the Reduners, the undisciplined Gibbermen were scattered in small groups, hefting their unlikely selection of weapons. They were noisy still, laughing, teasing their friends, covering their nervousness with banter and jokes and crudity.

  Twelve of them waited closer to Jasper, strapping young fellows he had personally selected as capable of handling heavy weights. The pede segments were now lined up in front of them, each laden with stones the size of small oranges. Iani said they looked like a line of miniature barges along a portside quay.

  The waiting Scarpermen were more serious than their Gibber allies. They sat quietly for the most part, alone with their thoughts-of family and the homes they were defending, perhaps. Waterpriests, including Lord Gold, moved among them, dispensing blessings in the form of tiny waxed sachets of blessed water that could be tied to the upper arm. Even Jasper was wearing one, although Terelle doubted it meant much to him. When Basalt had reached the place where Terelle sat painting, he had passed her by without offering her one, his contempt mirrored in his expression.

  A little later, another waterpriest, apparently knowing nothing of his superior's prejudice, had noticed she had no sachet and offered her one. She took a petty pleasure in refusing it and felt defiantly unrepentant afterward. And strangely bereft, too. Hollow inside. Her belief in the Sunlord was now so shaken that it offered no comfort. Once she'd been able to sacrifice a little water and feel warmed inside, less troubled. She'd been able to believe in something larger than herself and be comforted. Now, there was just emptiness.

  Scattered, too, were the rainlords: Iani, Ouina, Laisa and the others who had joined Jasper from Breakaway, Pediment, Denmasad, Scarcleft and the two port cities. Some twenty altogether. Many lay peering over the rim's edge, even Senya, staring down on the scene below, alert for any zigger attack.

  The Alabasters had stayed together, a solid line of white, their pedes with them. Most were praying. Their mirrors sparkled in the sunlight. To their god who isn't the Sunlord…

  Earlier on, Jasper had passed through the waiting throng, halting briefly to offer a few words of encouragement here and there. Only Terelle and Iani knew he saw victory also as a potential personal tragedy.

  How does he stand it? she wondered. He doesn't want to kill people any more than I do, not really. He was a man who wanted to rule using his head, not his sword arm-or his killing water-power.

  As he looked down on the cistern, his calm was comforting. Davim could choose to launch a zigger attack at the lone figure outlined against the sky, yet Jasper appeared unconcerned. Every now and then he glanced down at the waterpainting at his feet, to check how close the scene she had painted was to what he could see below. "I spoke to Feroze this morning," he said to her suddenly. "About what he knows with regard to Watergiver powers."

  She looked up at him in quick interest, even as she wondered how he could talk about it right then. "What did he say?"

  Without taking his eyes from the scene below, he said, "He confirmed what you said-Watergivers have two kinds of powers: waterpainting and water moving. I also got the feeling there was something he wasn't saying. They know more than they tell us, I think."

  She nodded. "That's what I thought, too."

  "Apparently they don't have to stormbring in the mountains; did they tell you that? In fact, he had some tale I found hard to believe, all about how there was too much water and they directed their talents more to preventing clouds from breaking, but-" He broke off, then shouted, "Zigger! Duck!" She buried her head deep under her cloak, which she had brought with her for just this purpose.

  A moment later he added, "It's been dealt with. You can come out now."

  As she emerged, he reverted to the previous conversation without even sounding ruffled. "Sounded odd to me, and of course Feroze hasn't been there. In fact, from what he said, I don't think anyone from the Quartern ever has except Ash Gridelin."

  "And they say he was a Watergiver explorer from Khromatis."

  "Yes." He squatted, still watching the sky and the Reduners below. "Lord Ryka once told me the Reduners have a slightly different version, about a paradise beyond the White Mountains where gods deliberately hide their land from greedy mortals to prevent anyone visiting. Their minions manifest themselves as sand-dancers to confuse those who try. According to the Reduners, these gods are responsible for random rain. Some say the gods' green land is where you go when you die, if you have given proper worship to your dune god."

  "So that's different again."

  "Feroze said the Watergivers are not gods, but he agrees they hide their land and refuse to let anyone from the Quartern approach it. However, he admitted they do mingle with Alabasters on the edges of the White Quarter."

  Terelle snorted. "Yes-mingle. I heard. And leave babies behind."

  "I don't think they do that anymore, or the Alabasters would be awash in water sensitives, which they are not. Terelle, all these years of hunting for another stormlord and none has been found except me, and I'm flawed. You and I can bring enough water for the Quartern for the moment-but what happens if one of us dies? What happens if I die before the sun sets today?"

  He finally looked away from the scene below and met her eyes in a steady stare. "You have to go with Russet, we both know that. Initially, I thought when you reached the place he painted, you could turn around and come back. I thought of sending people with you, to make
your return easy."

  "And now you've changed your mind?"

  "There's a hidden land there somewhere beyond the White Quarter, apparently full of people who can help us. Some of whom can shift water. But they deliberately keep knowledge of it from us. You, however, have a great-grandfather who wants to take you there."

  She looked at him, her jaw dropping. "I'll be withered. You want me to go there and bring some of them back."

  He nodded. "To be stormlords. Until there are more Scarpen stormlords. Or to be the fathers or mothers of more stormlords, if that's what it takes. It's the only way I can think to free you from painting storms. It's the only way the Quartern's future can be certain. It's the only way I can ever have any life of my own. But it also means sending you into the heart of a land we know nothing about with the very man who imprisoned you with his painting. And it's just a chance anyway. They might think it's a rotten idea to come here. It's certainly a rotten idea to ask you-but it's the only idea I have for a long-term solution."

  She sat quietly, pondering. In pain, yet unable to determine the origin of her sorrow.

  "I think," he said slowly, without looking at her, "that this is the hardest thing I have ever had to ask of anyone. I want you here, with me. I want you to be happy, content, safe-and by my side. Instead, I am asking you to leave. To be hurt. To surrender yourself to someone who does not have your best interests at heart. To go into danger." He looked at her then, his eyes a mirror to his misery. "I love you. I always will. And I am asking you to do this, not just for the Quartern, but also because I think it may be the only way we will ever find something for us-a life for us and our children. You are right, Terelle. Using waterpainting, even the way we are doing now, is no solution. It could go horribly wrong at any time. It could have effects we know nothing about. And it would tie you down to a lifetime of repetitive work, or even continuous traveling to the most arduous places in the Quartern. I don't want that for you. I really don't want-" But he couldn't go on.