The Last Stormlord (19 page)

By the time his thirst was sated a little later, he could sense more about the form of the approaching water: some myriapedes with mounted riders, and two larger packpedes. A strange combination. Usually in a trade caravan there were far more packpedes, burdened with supplies and goods, than there were myriapede hacks. They were approaching fast; and once they hit the watercourse, if they wanted to reach Wash Drybone Settle they would have to pass by him, perhaps even descending into the wash to follow the path.

He was filling in the hole he had made when one of the stones he had uncovered caught his eye: a pebble polished smooth by aeons of tumbling along in the sand-filled waters of the rush; green coloured but flecked with blood-red streaks. He spat on it and rubbed the spit over the surface. The wetness made the green sparkle and the veins within gleam with ruby fire.

Jasper!
he thought. His heart slipped, unbelieving. He’d seen such gems before; not raw like this but polished, in the rings and brooches the Reduner caravanners wore. His disbelief leaped into delight and hope. A fine jasper piece would buy him—no, buy the whole family—enough water for days. Caravanners paid well for good gems.

And they might steal ’em, too.

His head jerked up and he scanned the air once more. The moving water was closing the gap.

His stomach clenched as he enclosed the stone in his fist and ran back to where he had left his sack. A rough heap of boulders made it a suitable place to hide and he hunkered down, confident he was difficult to see. His smock, given to him by the palmier and much mended by his mother, blended in with the pale ochre of the rocks.

It never occurred to him that there were men who could sense him the same way he sensed them. That to such a man, a dirty desert urchin among the sand-eroded rocks was a body of water in a desert, and worth investigating.

Their water approached.

He peered through a narrow crack between the boulders, to see that they had already descended into the wash and would pass not more than a few paces from where he crouched. They had slowed down to a walk, probably resting their mounts now that they had found the path up the drywash. He stayed where he was, unmoving and silent, secure in the knowledge that they would be unlikely to catch a glimpse of a dust-covered boy blending into a background of dust-covered boulders.

As they passed, his jaw dropped. He had never seen such people. These were no Reduner or ’Baster traders. Nor were they marauders.

The first to ride past were armed men on several myriapede hacks. On the first mount, one man stood on the back of the beast, perfectly balanced, holding the reins in one hand and an upright spear in the other. The base of the spear was slotted into a niche on the pede; a flag marked with colours fluttered from the haft. The point of the spear was wickedly sharp. At his back stood another man, similarly armed, facing the opposite way.

Shale had never seen such a thing. Two men standing upright to ride the same pede? They were dressed oddly, too. ’Basters wore white to match their salt-white hair, salt-white skin and salt-white pedes; Reduner caravanners were red men dressed in red. Some said the Red Quarter stained everything red that came its way, whether men or clothes or water.

These men were different. They had pale but not white skin, and golden or light brown hair, and they wore plain white loose trousers that gathered in at the ankle, with loose white tunics over the top. Their only ornamentation was an embroidered mark on the breast of the tunic. Their mounts were unadorned: no embroidery, no lace, no carved history, nothing apart from the same mark etched on the back segment with a number below. They all wore hats of woven palm fronds, but shaped differently to the red headgear of the people from the Red Quarter—these were broader brimmed, hardly the sort of headgear worn by people used to fast riding or accustomed to battle.

Shale stared and wondered.

His wonderment grew as he saw the next group of riders. In front were five adults, seated cross-legged on myriapedes. These animals were embroidered and ornately fringed; the saddle cushions were stuffed and equally ornate in their lace and straps. The riders themselves were plainly dressed, resembling the two guards in front except that they had no coloured marks on their robes. Two of them were women mounted on the same pede, both wearing hats draped with veils to exclude the sun and dust. Shale’s eyes widened at the fineness of the clothes they wore, the fairness of their skins and the lightness of their accents. He was more thrilled than frightened, his excitement tickling his imagination, as stimulating as water trickling across his skin. Behind them on another myriapede were six boys and two girls mounted behind a man. They looked like Gibber folk, and he guessed they were all a little younger than himself.

As the two women passed, they chatted. He could barely understand them.

“Not much further,” one said.

“What do we know about this place?” the other asked.

“Nothing,” the first replied, her tone sour. “Another dirty hole in another dusty drywash.”

Beside them, one of the men said, “May I remind you that it was just such a hole in a wash that produced no less than four water sensitives just six days ago? One of whom is a potential rainlord.”

“Not one of them has stormlord potential,” the second woman pointed out. “Not one. Sunblast it, a year on the saddle, Nealrith, and no new stormlord to show for it, not even at Wash Dribarra.”

“We haven’t finished yet, Laisa.”

“No, damn it.”

Shale heard, but hardly understood. The accents were too strange, the voices far from the guttural tones he was used to hearing.

They passed out of his view and it was a moment or two before several more riders appeared, all dressed similarly but riding mounts with less decoration and no fancy saddles or bridles. Servants, Shale guessed. Or guards. Some of them were armed. He knew about servants and guards from the Reduner caravans.

The next animals that came into his line of sight were two packpedes. Much larger than myriapedes, they were laden with baggage and a single rider on the first segment. The dozens of pointed feet undulated like a fringe lifting in the breeze, leaving the characteristic holed tracks in their wake.

There was one final rider yet to come. He had dropped behind. Shale remained hidden, waiting for him to pass, and he came into view a short while later. Not a servant, this one, Shale decided. He would have thought the same even if he had not noticed the decorated saddle and the inlaid bridle. There was something about the man himself. A regal assurance, the aura of a man who was certain of himself and of his power. Unlike the others who had passed by, he was swarthy, dark enough to be a Gibberman, with deep brown hair tied back at the nape. His face was sharp-planed, handsome, shrewd. There were no crinkle lines at the edges of his eyes; he was not a man who laughed much.

He reined in opposite Shale and sat motionless on his mount. Shale found himself holding his breath in growing terror. He saw boxes strapped to the back of the mount: zigger carriers. Shale knew about ziggers, too. All Reduner caravans were armed with ziggers, and most of the caravanners had a reputation for being willing to use them if they felt threatened. Still clutching his jasper, he dug the fingers of his free hand into the soil, as if holding tight to the earth would save him.

Slowly the man on the pede turned his head and stared right at the rocks where he was hidden.

It should have been impossible for the man to detect him. Shale had moved nothing but his hidden fingers, had not made a sound, and the slit he used as a spy hole was no more than a sliver of space between two boulders. And yet he knew, beyond doubt, that he had been seen.

“Come on out,” the man said. His voice was deep, pleasant to listen to, like the regular booming of night-parrots. It contained no hint of threat, yet the command countenanced no refusal.

Slowly, Shale stood and stepped out from behind the boulders.

The man looked him up and down without expression. “You are from Wash Drybone Settle?” he asked.

Shale nodded.

“Answer properly, boy. You may address me as ‘my lord.’ ” No anger; it was a neutral statement.

Shale stumbled over the word, not sure he understood. “L-lord?”

“What is your name?”

“Shale. My. Lord.”

“Shale?” A hint of amusement this time, although the man did his best to hide it. “A true descendant of mining folk, eh? Would you like a ride back to your settle?” The man gestured at the rear of his mount.

Shale thought of his resin sack. “Nah. Um, my lord. I’ll walk.”

The man was apparently not offended by his refusal. “As you wish,” he said. “But do return, lad. You are wanted there this evening.”

“Huh?”
Me?

“What is it you hide in your hand, Shale?”

Shale’s fist closed even tighter over his jasper, cursing himself for not having dropped it before he’d stepped out. “Bit o’ pebble.”

The man smiled. “Then you won’t mind showing me, will you?”

Shale’s whole body cried out his denial, yet under the unflinching gaze of those deep grey eyes he found himself holding out his hand, palm upwards, so that the jasper shone in the sunlight.

“Ah. That
is
a pretty gem. Give it here.”

Shale was sure the man was going to steal it. And yet there was nothing he could do. A man on foot could not run from a pedeman; and no one could run from a zigger. If he refused, he would not only lose the gem; he could die. He approached the pede. “ ’S mine,” he said, defiant.

“Did I say it wasn’t? Give it here.”

Shale eyed the ziggers one more time and then handed the jasper up.

The man turned it over and over in his fingers, then held it up to the light. “Jasper,” he said. “Of the type they call bloodstone. You found it today?”

Shale nodded.

“What will you do with it?”

“Sell it to a red-man gem hunter.”

“Hmm. He will cheat you, I think. It is a fine specimen, and fossickers don’t find too many these days. They sometimes call it the martyr’s stone. Legend says the red inside is the blood spilled by the Watergiver when he was attacked by Gibbermen. The blood splashed on desert jasper, and each stone so stained is now a piece of bloodstone. A gem like this is worth about five hundred day tokens to a gem polisher on the streets of my city, and he would sell it polished and set for three times that, probably to the waterpriests. They are not only rich enough, but they believe such a stone to be holy. A gem hunter from a caravan should pay you at least three hundred. Don’t take a token less. And if they quibble, tell them Taquar, Highlord of Scarcleft, told you that.”

Shale gaped, wits scrambled.
Highlord?
Did that make him a rainlord? Was he then a
god
? Three
hundred
tokens? He tried to think how much that could buy.

The man bent in the saddle to hand the gemstone back. “Take care of it, Shale of Wash Drybone. You’re unlikely to find another as good in your lifetime.” He noted Shale’s awe, and the amusement was open this time.

Shale took back the jasper, still reeling under the impact of all he had been told.

Rainlord Taquar turned from him, manipulating his reins.

The myriapede responded to the complex signal and started off, picking up speed and tucking its long antennae under the lower edge of its segments. Another twitch on a rein and it had straightened its legs, bringing them in line with the edge of its segments. This mode raised its under-belly higher from the ground so it could now run faster, untroubled by bumps and unevenness in the terrain. Shale stood looking after it, admiring the quick parallel ripples of the wall of legs as they flowed through the sand.

One day
, he thought,
I’m goin’ t’get me a pede like that.

As he turned back to collect his resin bag, he considered what the man had said. Highlord? Maybe he was, but he wasn’t a god. He was just a man like any other. An honest man, kind even. He could so easily have stolen the jasper and who would ever have believed Shale if he said so? And he need not have given the advice about its value.

Kindly, perhaps—but never soft. A man like that reeked of power that expected instant obedience.

Shale was not sure he wanted their paths to cross again. A Gibber boy like himself could be no more than a grain of sand before the wind when he came face-to-face with such a lord, be he god or man.

“It’s growing cold in here.” Laisa looked around the tent with distaste. There were no chairs, just a heap of saddle cushions, a floor rug and the flat wooden circle of the low table they used when testing settlefolk. Iani placed covered water bowls on the table, his palsied hand shaking, while Taquar, Ryka and Kaneth watched and wondered if he would drop any.

No one said anything. They had become used to Laisa’s complaints in the time since they had left the Scarpen, and had learned that it was unwise to agree with her. It only led to a litany of other complaints. It was even more unwise to contradict her because that either made her indignant or led to long sulks interspersed with sarcastic remarks aimed at the person who had uttered the contradiction.

“We should have a fire,” Laisa added. “These desert nights are unbearable.”