by Glenda Larke
I am never going to be able to change salt water to pure water vapor.
Which meant he was forever tethered to a man he despised. For the rest of my life…
CHAPTER TEN
Scarpen Quarter
Scarcleft City
Scarcleft Hall, Level 2, and Sun Temple, Level 3
Jasper had more time on his hands than he’d expected. He could have worked much harder and longer hours, but Taquar could not. Or would not.
He filled his spare time in a number of ways. His priority was to study all the documents and information Cloudmaster Granthon had given him on stormbringing until he knew them all by heart. To improve his fighting skills and keep fit, he asked Taquar’s permission for some of the Scarcleft Hall guards to become his sparring partners.
“Practice your blade skills?” the highlord asked, amused. “Think you’ll be good enough to take me on one day?”
Jasper shrugged. “I doubt it. Anyway, we both know I will never be able to give you the death you deserve. You are too valuable to the people of the Scarpen. My sword practice keeps me fit and prepared for the day the Reduner hordes ride down on Scarcleft, that’s all.”
“Fine. Keep fit, by all means, but allow me to worry about Davim. He will not approach this city, never fear.”
Even with the sword practice, the cloudshifting and his self-imposed studies, there was not enough to fill all his time, and it was therefore almost a relief when—after he had been in Scarcleft ten days—Jasper received a request from the new Lord Gold to present himself at the temple on Level Three. Almost. His memories of the man’s ill-concealed dislike, his uncompromising religious pedantry and his hypocrisy were too fresh in his mind for there to be any real pleasure in the idea that the Quartern Sunpriest wished to see him. He thought of insisting, just to make a point, that Lord Gold come to Scarcleft Hall to meet him rather than the other way around, but decided it would be more interesting to visit the Sun Temple.
In the end, it was Lord Gold who made the point by keeping him waiting for half the run of a sandglass. Jasper didn’t have the slightest doubt the withering petty bastard intended it as an insult.
When an acolyte finally ushered him into the office on the top floor of the temple’s tower, Gold was standing talking to a waterpriest, a man whose spine was hunched with the gnarling of old age. They stood beside a large desk and matching chair, all made of hardwood, itself an extravagance considering the scarcity of trees. The other chairs in the room were made of bab palm. The ceiling above had skylights, unglassed holes positioned to allow direct sunlight to beam in at different times of the day. The man Jasper had known from Breccia as Lord Basalt was now standing in a pool of light. The other man stood where he was untouched by the sun’s rays.
He timed it, Jasper thought, incredulous. Just so that when I entered he’d be illuminated by the Sunlord’s radiance. He almost laughed. “Lord Gold,” he said, inclining his head.
“Stormlord.” Basalt nodded in turn. “I do not think you have yet met the High Waterpriest of Scarcleft City, have you? This is Lord Taminy.”
Jasper murmured a greeting; the other man bowed. “It is a pleasure to know we have a stormlord once more,” Taminy said. “Forgive me for not presenting myself at the hall to welcome you, but Lord Taquar informed me you have been too tired.”
Did he indeed? “Being the Quartern’s only stormlord is an exhausting task,” Jasper said blandly. “However, I am sure I will benefit from the walk down here today.”
“I understand Lord Taquar is doing much to help you,” Basalt said.
“He tries,” Jasper said. “However, he is not a stormlord and cannot stormshift.” There, Taquar, you will learn it is unwise not to give me my due… “Tell me, don’t you feel a little unsafe using the tower in its present state? I understand the top was damaged in the earthquake. I notice there is still scaffolding around it.”
“The Sunlord protects his own,” Basalt said, his tone admonishing.
“He certainly protected you,” Jasper agreed amiably. “I’m amazed you managed to escape from Breccia. There was so little time between the warning and the Reduner attack. You must have moved quickly.”
“The previous Lord Gold and I had my escape planned. Just in case.”
“Ah. A farsighted man. It is a pity he did not arrange his own escape. I must admit, I am surprised you have taken on the mantle of his post without waiting for confirmation from other senior waterpriests of the Quartern.”
He knew he’d hit a raw nerve when he saw Taminy look away uncomfortably.
“And just how can one obtain such confirmation?” Basalt asked, sour-faced. “There is hardly an open line of communication to the priests of Breccia or Qanatend at the present time, if any are still alive. There is, however, a need for continuity of prayer and worship and leadership. The other cities have been informed.”
“Informed?”
“They were informed that I have taken on that mantle. It is, after all, normal for the High Waterpriest of Breccia to become the next Sunpriest. And the Cloudmaster assented. But there is no need to concern yourself with temple matters.”
“The Cloudmaster? We have a Cloudmaster?”
Basalt blinked in surprise. “Lord Taquar is Cloudmaster!”
“It is my understanding that after the death of the last Cloudmaster, a new one needs to be confirmed by his peers. There has been no such confirmation. Lord Taquar is not yet the Cloudmaster. Nor was he the heir, either. Cloudmaster Granthon withdrew that post from him on evidence that he was a traitor to the Quartern.”
“Without Lord Taquar there is no Quartern! He tells me we would thirst to death without his aid to you.”
“You’d thirst to death without me, Lord Gold.”
Taminy looked sick with worry. Basalt, however, was purple, with anger Jasper guessed, although he was managing to keep it under control.
“These matters are not your concern,” Basalt snapped. “I asked you to come because your spiritual health concerns me.”
“Just as your health—and the health of all the Quartern’s people—concerns me. No one will be particularly healthy if there’s no water.”
“You cannot have a truly healthy body without a healthy spiritual life. And your spirituality has always been suspect. You are our only stormlord. You must be seen to be pious and devout. You should be devout.”
“Oh, I am.” Devout about doing my job, anyway. “I just feel it is more important I stormshift than that I be seen at the Temple, spending my time in prayer.”
“You have the power to stormshift only through the Sunlord and the gift of knowledge made to the Watergiver. You must be seen to give thanks for their gifts at the Temple. And you should continue to receive spiritual teaching from me or one of my colleagues until you have a full understanding of the nature of our faith. I am sure Lord Taminy can arrange for a suitable teacher.”
“I already have a deep understanding of your faith, Lord Gold. And I shall, of course, present myself at the Temple for festival days such as the Gratitudes. You have my solemn undertaking.”
“The understanding of faith is a lifetime undertaking—”
“For a priest, such a lifetime undertaking is indeed a necessity. I hope you, for example, are indeed growing in your faith and piety. I trust you will pray for my spiritual wellbeing as I am sure I am not as steadfast as I should be. I shall have to rely on your prayers to guide me, in fact, Lord Gold, seeing as the Sunlord has seen fit to put me in a situation requiring constant use of power and its debilitating consequences, leaving me no time to attend to religious study. I feel sure you will be a great source of comfort and spiritual sustenance to me with your prayers. And now, if you will excuse me, I need to return to my more… temporal duties.”
Basalt’s face was dark with suppressed rage, but he inclined his head and said, “Lord Taminy will see you out.”
As the High Priest escorted Jasper down the stairs, the rainlord waterpriest said neutrally, �
�Lord Gold feels you mock him and the one true faith.”
“And you, Lord Taminy? Do you agree with him?”
“I do not know you well enough to say, Lord Jasper. Although Lord Basalt informs me that you came under the influence of a person from Khromatis while living on Level Thirty-six.”
Jasper’s interest quickened. “Do you know anything about Khromatis, Lord Taminy? And what has my acquaintance with someone from there got to do with anything at all?”
“They are blasphemers, my lord, denying our faith, usurping the story of the Holy Watergiver and making it their own. Contact with them is the reason the Alabasters are heretics! The people of Khromatis taught the ’Basters to deny that the sun is the outward manifestation of the Sunlord, pouring his beneficence down upon us. It is of concern to Lord Gold that you have come under the influence of such a blasphemer. They are anathema to our faith.”
“I assure you, Lord Taminy, the man from Khromatis whom I met did not alter my faith by as much as a grain of sand.”
“I think Lord Gold was referring to a woman, my lord.”
“A woman? I know no women from Khromatis.”
Taminy frowned. “I am sure he said a young woman.”
“Perhaps he was thinking of a friend of mine, Terelle Grey. If so, he is mistaken as to her origins. She is Gibber born and has never set foot in Khromatis, let alone been taught anything of their faith. She sacrifices to the Sunlord.”
“I am relieved to hear it.”
To Jasper’s amusement, he did indeed appear relieved. They stepped out into the sun at the foot of the tower just then and the heat blasted down on them. I could wish for a little less of the Sunlord’s beneficence, he thought wryly.
“My lord,” Taminy said, clearing his throat in an embarrassed fashion. “I do know it is unwise to tease Lord Gold. He has a low threshold for insult, imagined or otherwise. I also know it is unwise not to give due respect to the Sunlord and his Watergiver. They are the bringers of life—without them there would be no sun and no water. They are to be adored, and are mocked at your peril in this life and the life beyond. Have a care, my lord.”
“Indeed I shall. This land depends on my continued good health.”
“You will have my prayers.”
Jasper smiled. “I have an idea that yours will be more sincerely meant than the new Lord Gold’s. My thanks, Lord Taminy.”
As he walked back to Scarcleft Hall, flanked by both guards and enforcers, he dismissed Lord Gold from his mind. The man was a small-minded bigot, and there was no way he could bring trouble to the only stormlord the Quartern had.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
White Quarter
The Whiteout
As Terelle and Russet continued to descend from the highlands around Fourcross Tell, they made slow progress. They had left the caravan route to Samphire City, and there was no track the way they were heading. The pede picked its way, plodding along with a stoic refusal to be hurried.
The scenery around them was strange, alien. The creeping vegetation was something Terelle had never seen before: a plant of plump stems but no leaves, or nothing she thought of as leaves. It was purple and green, a sea of it drowning all other growth.
“Samphire,” Russet said. “Grows at lake edge.”
“Lake?” She looked up, but all she could see beyond the samphire was a plain of white. A breeze gusting in swirls on the dazzling flats also teased against her face, leaving its residue. She touched her cheek and looked down at her fingers. “That’s salt.”
“A lake sometimes, every ten years or so, in Time of Random Rain. Be so again, if that obstinate Gibber boy not bring back planned storms. Use your head. How ye think it like that, if not water once?” He waved a hand. “Great inland sea… saltier than Giving Sea. Birds be coming from everywhere to nest and eat pink shrimps.”
“Shrimps? Aren’t they like fish?” People raised fish in the grove cisterns, but never shrimp. She had heard, though, that the very rich imported salted shrimp from the coast. She stared in disbelief at the salt. “Out there?”
“So they say.”
Terelle found it hard to believe, but conceded the Whiteout’s beauty. “It is almost splendid,” she said, considering the hard sparkle of it, the bobbled edge of purple and green a contrast to the purity of the glittering white. She’d expected it to be dirty-colored, like the salt blocks arriving in Scarcleft always were, but this stretched as far as she could see, so bright it hurt the eyes, white without end. Only the edges were grubby, dragging in the dust of the bordering earth.
“It’s so hot out there. The pede will need a lot of water. What if—”
“Worry, worry, worry! Why ye worry so much? We get safely other side! Otherwise, how my painting ever come true?”
She felt sick. His faith in his painting agitated her with its implications.
“Anyway, Whiteout salt mines have tunnels bringing water, just like Scarpen cities. The pede can be finding it for us.”
Her stomach lurched in doubt. “Can you be sure of that?”
His injury had made no difference to his arrogance. He didn’t bother to reply. “Harness pede. Eat bab fruit as we go.”
A few minutes later, as he struggled back onto the pede, she saw the calf of his leg. Red and inflamed, the skin stretched tight over the swelling was shiny. She wanted to protest, to say something, but the look he gave her stopped the words.
“We go on, girl,” he said.
The salt penetrated everything. It coated everything. Sometimes the air was so still even the intake of breath was an effort. At other times the winds came: hot, salt-laden winds playing across the surface of the dried-up lake, stirring the salt crystals into white eddies, bombarding them both with tiny splinters of salt. No matter how well Terelle wrapped herself against the onslaught, the salt grains infiltrated every crevice. Her eyes were soon red and sore, her toes inflamed, her lips cracked. If she used pede fat on her skin to protect against the worst of the sun and the drying wind, then the salt stuck to her like a dusting of the powder Opal’s handmaidens used.
She brushed the pede even more carefully than usual each time they stopped, but the beast was in misery. In between the segment plates, the salt irritated its skin until it bled. Pain made it trumpet its distress, turning its head this way and that, as if it sought to find its attacker. Terelle rubbed the worst places with fat, and wondered what they would do when the tub of ointment was empty.
Lit by the blue light of stars at night and sheened with a luminous glow, the saltscape had a raw beauty. It begged to be painted. Yet Terelle could think only that Russet’s stubbornness was going to kill them both. True, they had not seen any Reduners, probably because no Reduner was sun-fried crazy enough to cross this vast salt pan.
At times, her thoughts drifted to Shale. To his promise of protection. She would smile softly at the memory, choosing to recall not the irony of his inability to uphold the pledge, but the nobility of his intention. When she thought of the Reduners riding south into the Scarpen, a tear trickled down her cheek, washing a track through the dusting of white.
Loneliness set her dreaming of what might have been—futile, silly visions of a world that never could be, at least not to a Gibber girl sold to traders for water tokens. She knew her thoughts were foolish, but let them wander anyway. What she wanted, she would never have: Shale’s hand in hers; Shale seated behind her right now, his hands holding her by the waist, whispering promises in her ear.
She turned her face to the sky and silently sent her thoughts questing, not even sure what power it was she queried. Was it too much to want? she asked. Just to have one friend?
When Terelle woke early the next morning, she lay for a moment staring at the sky. In the east, the stars were fading, then vanishing as the dawn light crept higher.
Another day. There was no way it would be a good one.
And you, my girl, have to stop whining and whingeing and feeling sorry for yourself. It’s no use looking back. That l
ife is behind you. Now you have to make the best of what’s ahead.
And the first thing was to stay alive in order to have a life. When they set off once more, she gave the pede its head.
Russet roused himself enough to complain after they had been traveling an hour or two. “We’ve swung too far south,” he protested.
“I’m letting the pede choose the route.”
“Why? Don’t need water yet!”
“The pede needs more than we can give it. Besides, you need help. Getting me to Khromatis will gain you nothing if you are dead.”
“I be not dying!”
“You will be if you don’t get help. I want to find the tunnel. We’ll follow it to the nearest mining settlement.”
“Don’t be stupid, girl. You know we get through this. I painted you there, in mountains!”
“You didn’t paint yourself, old man.” His painting had portrayed her next to running water on a green hillside. His clothing had been in the painting—but not him. A painter could not paint himself to ensure his own future. He tried to argue with her, but she didn’t listen and he was too weak to offer any physical resistance. The pede plodded on.
They stopped during the heat of the day, but when Terelle went to groom the animal she was shocked at how hot the black carapace was under her touch. Even the underlying skin connecting the segments felt much too warm. Alarmed, she looked across at Russet where he sat lifting a water skin to his lips. “The pede is feverish,” she said.
“Pedes don’t get fever. Desert creatures,” he said in scorn, but she wondered if he would really know something like that.
She said slowly, “The people of the White Quarter own white pedes. White reflects heat. Number Twelve is far too hot. It’s burning up, and there doesn’t seem to be nearly as much water in its tissues as there should be.”
“Don’t bother me,” he muttered. “Stop worrying. I be painting you there…” He lay down in the shade she had erected and closed his eyes.