by Glenda Larke
She came closer to sit beside him and laid her head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. We—we’ll decide what to do later, when we know everything. Go on.”
“She’s a sunblighted monster. Listen: Your combined stormbringing with Taquar was never enough before, because you foolishly insisted on watering the other quarters. This time Taquar has the means to force you to do exactly what he says.”
He halted, in his dread not wanting to read the next sentence. The words danced; the meaning made his breath catch. “Senya gave Amberlyn into his care.”
He stared, hearing the echo of his own voice before the crushing reality hit. Ah, Watergiver save her. Perhaps it wasn’t true? But he knew it was, and it was Taquar’s scheming mind behind it. Abrading pain followed on the heels of the realisation that had slammed so belatedly into his mind. Only now did past events make sense. Only now did he understand how foolish he’d been. Always thinking he had the upper hand, when it was Taquar who had laid the foundations of what would count in the end.
This was why Senya had come to his bed. This was why Amberlyn had been born. To make a slave of Jasper Bloodstone, who was really only Shale Flint, Gibber grubber. They had dangled his child in front of his eyes, encouraged him to love her, to feel responsible for her, to pity her because she had a mother who didn’t care. Because there had once been Citrine, and a boy laden with guilt.
And they were right. He would do anything for Amberlyn. Anything.
I’ll be pissing waterless… what can I do? His helplessness was agony.
Beside him, Terelle bit her lip and was silent. He read on. “He will kill Amberlyn unless you do exactly what he wants. I know him, Jasper. Do not take this lightly. He burns with anger over his humiliation. He is back in Scarcleft now, running the city once more. He has gathered his old water enforcers around him again. Even Harkel Tallyman, whom Iani was silly enough to imprison rather than execute.
“He is content to stay there and do nothing if you and Terelle can keep Scarcleft supplied with plentiful water and free of taxes. He will not interfere with the running of the Quarter or with you. Amberlyn will be kept within the confines of the city, not accessible to either you or, he assures me, Senya. The same two nurses, Crystal and Zirca, are with her still. Where you live with Terelle, or what you do, he doesn’t care, as long as Scarcleft has all the water it needs.
“If, on the other hand, Terelle does not return and you need him to help you stormshift, then you will have to live permanently with him within the confines of the city and accept his overlordship in all things. Amberlyn will be moved elsewhere, and should you approach to attempt a rescue, she will die.
“If neither of these alternatives is acceptable, he will kill Amberlyn and leave the Quartern to cross the Giving Sea. If you deceive him in any way, then her death will not only be inevitable, it will be prolonged. The choice is yours.”
He fell silent. The rage in his heart would not let him speak.
Terelle wiped a tear away and asked quietly, “Where does Laisa stand in all this? She is his wife, after all.”
He scanned the rest of the letter hurriedly, then Senya’s. “Laisa wants to remain as highlord in Breccia.” He swallowed, forcing himself to think rationally. “That’s… interesting. She’s abandoning her marriage with Taquar.” He read some more and shook his head over Senya’s childish demands. “Senya wants to stay there in Breccia, too, with the allowance and status of the Cloudmaster’s wife. Neither of them care what I do, as long as their lives are comfortable and the city gets its water.” Bitterness coursed through him. Amberlyn was daughter and granddaughter to them, and they didn’t care. He swallowed back the wave of hatred that threatened to drown him.
He forced himself to pick up Taquar’s letter.
It was much shorter; just a paragraph. He read it to himself. I am not a cruel man, as you have cause to know. I can, however, be cruel, if cruelty attains results. I do not care for children, least of all babies. Amberlyn will be safe in the hands of her nurses for as long as you do as I ask; every time you defy me, I will take it out on her. Do you think it ever worried me when Iani’s six-year-old daughter begged to see her mother and father? Do you think it worried me that she cried herself to sleep night after night? Not only Amberlyn’s safety is in your hands, but her happiness.
Jasper felt all the blood drain from his face as he read. He couldn’t speak. He handed the note to Terelle in silence.
She read it and then it slipped from her grip, floating lightly to the floor as if there was nothing whatever of import written on its surface.
“Oh, waterless soul,” she whispered.
“He’s telling the truth about himself.”
They exchanged a look. He hoped she would contradict him, but she glanced away without speaking.
He capitulated to the inevitable. “Which means I have to give him what he wants. At least for now.” Shut away the love I feel for my child in my heart. I must will myself to do nothing, for fear that what I do will harm her. Sun-blighted sands, can there be anything worse? He wanted to ride straight to Scarcleft. He wanted to blast the gates open, to pull Taquar to pieces with his bare hands…
And he mustn’t.
His thoughts felt as if they were mired in mud, as if he was walking through the Borderlands bog and each new step was a dragging effort. He stared at Terelle but couldn’t think.
Amberlyn.
Terelle didn’t even know her. How could she possibly know what he felt?
But then she said, “We will win this one. We’ll win because the idea that such a man would so manipulate a child—any child, least of all one of ours—is unthinkable.”
Her gaze was clear-eyed and implacable. Ours. She’d said “ours.” He heard her conviction. And his mind cleared. Ideas formed and jostled, were considered and accepted or rejected. He would get Amberlyn back. He would. But first he’d lull Taquar into thinking he’d won.
Still groping among the ideas, he said, “I’ll send Lord Umber to Breccia with Lord Jade. I’ll ask him to stay there for at least a cycle. I think he’s strong enough to bring sufficient water for the Scarpen. If the Scarpen has what it needs, Laisa and Taquar and Lord Gold will keep off my back long enough for me to—to fix other things.”
I’ll send them both a cloud message tomorrow, he thought. One to Laisa in Breccia and the other to Taquar in Scarcleft. And I don’t care who reads them.
He looked down at the other letters on the bed beside him. “Let’s see what Ryka and Kaneth have to say.”
They dined together that night: the Bastion, Messenjer and Errica, Terelle and Jasper, Umber, Jade and Rubric. Terelle had little to say and Jasper was preoccupied.
He didn’t have any choice, she told herself. He had to marry Senya. Accept it and don’t think about it. Simple. Only it wasn’t simple. It was hard. It hurt even when she understood the manipulation. She shoved the unpleasantness away and concentrated on translating for Jasper because the dinner conversation soon lapsed into Khromatian, to accommodate Lord Jade. The waterpainter was determined to extract as much information as she could from the Bastion about his intentions towards her land.
“Yes,” he was saying, “it’s true. Almost every Alabaster worker has returned safe to us. Some did choose to stay in Khromatis. Nursemaids, perhaps, grown attached to their charges. Others have just been there too long and can no longer contemplate the hard life here. I do not judge them.”
“And now?” Jade persisted.
“Now the Khromatians will pay a price for rarely making friends with those who worked for them. And for murdering some who went there in good faith.”
There was a telling silence. Lord Jade flushed but she persevered. “You’ll suffer more even than us—you rely on us for trade goods.”
“Yes, but you rely on us, too. We are prepared for suffering. I doubt you Khromatians are.”
It was Jasper who broke the silence that followed. “Perhaps the Quartern can help Alabaster out. I
have a dream for the Gibber. I’d like to see it as prosperous as the other quarters. But it will need help, especially with the things Alabasters know how to do well: mining, working with minerals to make things, building water tunnels. We’d be willing to pay for it.”
Terelle blinked, startled. We? What did he mean, we?
The Bastion gave him an interested look. “Sharing profits?”
“I’m sure we could work out something to our mutual benefit.”
“Indeed. But first we must settle matters with the Khromatians. They have to send us water on a regular basis if they want our labour and our trade.”
Jade said, “My husband’s father will never accede to that. There will be war.”
He shrugged. “Your alpiners cannot cross the Borderlands and the Whiteout. Besides, who will make your weapons, and shoe your mounts?”
“Do you think we cannot cross the bogs?” she asked, scornful. “We are Watergivers! We made the bogs; in a couple of days we can make dry paths for the alpiners to pass, surely. Our waterlords can kill with their powers. Who will you throw against them?”
“It won’t come to that. Do you think your mounts will be in battle condition when they come to the gates of Samphire? After crossing the Whiteout? They won’t eat the kind of samphire we have here; we know that already. It’s too salty for them. Alabasters in Khromatis have checked for us.”
She appeared worried, as if she had just understood that this was not a spontaneous decision, doomed to failure. “We can make it rain if we want water. We can shade the army.”
The Bastion shrugged. “Then we’ll scatter, leave you the salt and even the city. We know how to live here. What will you do, occupy Samphire? Then what? Do you really want this land? You have no skills to use it. We’ll return here once the land has defeated you. Anyway, the Pinnacle and his advisors make the decisions, not such as Lord Bice Verdigris. Decisions will come from the Peak, not from the Southern Marches, and I doubt the Pinnacle will view things the same way as Lord Bice does.”
Umber nodded. “Lord Jade,” he said, “if the Pinnacle has a brain in his head, he’ll be more interested in having willing workers return than in ensuring their hatred with a costly war.”
The Bastion turned his attention to Jasper and reverted to the Quartern tongue. “Go. Return to the Scarpen. Solve your problems there, and don’t worry about us. Thanks to ye, we have water to last for the remainder of this cycle. Thanks to Lord Kaneth, we’re free from attack and we’ll run our caravans once more. We’ll fight our own battles, and we’ll triumph, God willing. And yes, if the Gibber wants our skills and our workers, pay them well and they will come.”
Terelle felt a lightening of her heart. Changes indeed. This can only be for the better, surely.
They left Samphire a day later.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Red Quarter
God’s Pellets
Dune Watergatherer
Vara Redmane was seated on the carpet in Kaneth and Ryka’s tent, minding Kedri. At almost a cycle old he could not only stand now, but take a few wobbly steps as well. After plopping down on his well-padded bottom, he clambered laboriously back up, stubbornly refusing assistance. “Bleeding pede-headed ornery sandworm in the making, you are!” she told him. “Going to be poking your dad in the balls one day just for the fun of it, I can see.”
He looked up at her and smiled.
She snorted. The little bastard had charm aplenty. “You can’t fool me, you squirmy little sandworm.”
“Play water,” he said firmly.
“No one plays with water. What are you, a bleeding fish?”
“Water!”
“You can have a drink.”
She levered herself to her feet, sighing because her joints pained her, and went to the family jar to bring back a mug of water. He accepted it gleefully.
A shadow fell across the light streaming in through the open flap; someone had walked into the shade of the veranda. She looked up to see Guyden, the Scarmaker youth who wore the white beads. She didn’t like him, didn’t like his self-contained arrogance or the way his gaze was always hooded by half-closed eyelids, as if he kept secrets within.
Smug, she thought. Always so smug. What does he have to be smug about, ever?
“I’ve been looking for you, Kher Vara,” he said politely. Always polite; she had to give him that. “Riders approaching. Small group.”
“Kaneth and Lord Ryka are due back today.”
“The numbers don’t match. Only two pedes, three people. And they’re wearing white, not red.”
White? Thank the dune god, not that shrivelled son of a sand-tick, Ravard. “What colour pedes?”
“Black. My guess is Scarpermen.”
“Everyone alerted? Extra men up on top?” They had an established sequence of procedures for when strangers approached, and everyone knew what to do and where they were to be.
He nodded, but he was looking past her to where Kedri played. His eyes widened, then narrowed. “That’s Lord Kaneth’s son? I’ll be spitless! He’s grown since I saw him last.”
Doesn’t ever call the sandmaster Kher Uthardim, either. I really wonder about you, young Guyden. You’re from my dune and I should feel close to you, but I trust you about as much as a fly trusts a spiny devil lizard. “Babies have that habit. Like youths rubbing their sticks to see who’s got the longest.”
He shrugged and turned to go.
“You’re one of Dorwith’s sons, you said. I don’t remember you.”
“He had eight,” he said dryly. “Hardly to be wondered at that you can’t remember us all. I was the youngest.”
“Eight, that’s right. Humph. My dugs might be withered, but my mind’s not. I remember there was one called Guyden, too. You don’t have the look of that child. Scrawny bunch they were, Dorwith’s litter.”
“Boys grow. Like him.” He nodded at Kedri. “I’m expected back at my post.” He turned and walked away.
She looked back at Kedri. He waved the empty mug at her. Water dripped from his chin and his clothes were wet.
“Finished that, did you?” she asked.
“Play water!” he said. He grabbed at the air in front of him, then opened his hand to show her what he had caught. The centre of his palm was wet. He frowned. As she watched, a small pool of water reformed in his cupped hand—and his clothes were dry.
“I’ll be pissing waterless,” she said, and her jaw dropped.
They stared at one another, the old woman speechless, the boy happily impressed with his own cleverness.
Finally Vara found her tongue again. “No, no play water. I’m going to take you to Merish next door. I have to see who these people are heading our way.” She shook her head mournfully just thinking about it. Strangers had a habit of bringing more bleeding trouble. “And some time soon, I think I need to talk to your ma about you.”
That evening, the encampment inside God’s Pellets celebrated the arrival of the Cloudmaster and his party, as well as the return of their own Kher Uthardim and Lord Ryka, arriving a couple of sandruns after the Cloudmaster. They’d been out with a band of warriors delivering a caravan of water to Dune Agatenob. As usual there’d been a skirmish with some of Ravard’s men along the way, and initially the tales around the campfire were about that.
Now, though, the fire had died down and people had dispersed to their tents. Ryka sat with Kedri on her lap under their canvas veranda in the cool, leaning back on the cushions heaped on the carpet, listening to the three men sitting there: Kaneth, Rubric the Khromatian and Jasper. The desert night was domed by a starry splendour, the air scented with the perfume of flowers mingled with the lingering smell of roasted goat and the herbal sweetness of burning pede droppings. An oil lamp hanging from the tent rope gave a dim glow to the area.
Replete, with the tang of quandongs soaked in pipberry juice on her tongue, Ryka was drowsily content. Her son had survived his first long separation from her with a minimum of fuss, yet had been su
itably glad to see her return. Against all odds, Jasper and his driver Dibble Hornblend had returned safely from Khromatis, and with him there was this other young stormlord, brightly interested in everything around him. A smart young man, she guessed; he had that sardonic gleam in his eye that usually warned of someone not easily fooled by pretensions.
Everything felt peaceful and right—if only she could block her ears and not hear what was being said. Lord Rubric didn’t contribute much, but Jasper and Kaneth had plenty to say, much of it not good: Taquar living in Scarcleft threatening Jasper’s daughter; Ravard, as usual, building up his armsmen and his ziggers while stealing water from his enemies; the White Quarter seeking to obtain future water from Khromatis at the risk of war. Still, the knowledge that another two stormlords and another waterpainter were now in the land eased her worries about the future.
Jasper had given them a full explanation of how waterpainting worked, and Ryka was quick to see the implications. “So that means you both have to be back in Breccia soon?” she asked Jasper. “Otherwise you’ll start being sick, like Terelle was, because you both have unfulfilled paintings of you in the Breccian stormquest room.”
Jasper nodded. “There’s some leeway for us. Perhaps even as long as a year, especially as we have every intention of going there. We both feel fine at the moment.”
“And Terelle is protected until such time she does the painting of you stormshifting, the one that she pictured in a tray, inside the waterpainting she did in Khromatis.”
Jasper nodded.
“I’m not so sure,” she said slowly. “A waterpainting within a waterpainting. What if that constitutes some kind of paradox? Or the larger painting cancels out the power of the second within it, or the other way around? I don’t like it, Jasper. I don’t think Terelle should rely on it making her safe.”