The Last Stormlord (47 page)

“He won’t sell me to them, will he?”

That got her attention. “Russet? No. He hates all Scarpermen, particularly anyone connected with the rainlords and water sensitives. Do you want some amber?”

He shook his head. “I have my own water.” He sat down at the table, and she sat opposite.

She pushed a plate of yam biscuits towards him. “Help yourself.”

He took one and picked up the spoon in his bowl. “I’m sorry about your painting. I didn’t see it when I came around the corner. Will you be able to do it again?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

He struggled on, knowing he sounded inept. Spoken words did not come easily to him. “I—I want to say thank you, for doing what you did. That was brave.”

She waved a dismissive hand. “Who are we, we waterless, if we can’t help one another?” She still seemed preoccupied, and he was perversely offended.

“Is that old man your grandfather?”

“What makes you say that?”

“You look like him.”

“You think
I
look like
him
?”

Her eyes blazed at him, and he knew he had just said something stupid. The man was old and wizened; of course it would hardly be flattering to be compared to him. “Um, no, of course not. Not really. I mean, he’s old. And you’re—but—”

“But
what
?”

“It’s your eyes; you have the same eye colour.” Now that he had her attention, he rather wished he didn’t.

“Not everyone with the same colour eyes is related.”

“No, of c-course not,” he stuttered. He bent over the food and ate, wishing she would stop looking at him as if he was a sand-leech.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

He opened his mouth to say Jasper, and then closed it again. Pointless to continue the lie; the reeves weren’t stupid. They were looking for Shale. He thought he knew what had happened. The waterhall reeves had told the highlord what had occurred in the waterhall. Taquar had gone to check if he was still in the Scarcleft mother cistern. When he’d found him missing, he had instituted a thorough search of Scarcleft. And he wasn’t going to give up until Shale was found.

“My name’s Shale,” he said.

“What do they want you for?”

“It’s a long story.”

She shrugged, accepting the rebuff as if she didn’t care. “I am the apprentice of Russet the waterpainter.”

“He sells waterpaintings?” he asked, intrigued.

“Uplevellers commission them for their hallways; some have even built special recesses into their floors for them.”

“Why?”

“Why, what?”

“Why would someone want such a painting?” The thought of water being wasted like that was repugnant to him.

She stared at him blankly. Finally she said, “Because they are beautiful. Because they stir the senses. Because a good painting can speak to you, can say many things about life, about the world, about your place in the world. Like… poetry. Or dance.”

He thought about that with a sense of wonder. People
paid
to have their water wasted? Just to make something beautiful or interesting that had no purpose?

“You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?”

He shook his head.

“Watergiver’s heart! Is the Gibber really such a wretched place that its people have no—no
soul
?”

“We have beautiful things in the Gibber,” he said defensively. “My mother used to embroider. And the potter in our settle made designs on his pots. But they made useful things first. Making them beautiful afterwards never used any extra water.”

She stared at him some more, one eyebrow raised as if in disbelief, and then looked away to continue eating her meal. He took his cue from her and bent over his bowl. He didn’t think he liked her much. She made him feel clumsy, as if his body was too large for grace and his tongue too stupid to make sense of his thoughts.

They ate the rest of the meal in silence.

When Russet came back, he was rubbing his hands in a self-satisfied way, a gesture that disturbed Shale even more than Terelle’s flat stare. “Have something to show ye,” he said to Shale. “Look!” He reached into a fold of his wraps and withdrew a piece of rough parchment. He unrolled it on the table and showed them both.

Shale stared at it. It was a picture of a youth, a Gibberman. Underneath, there was writing he had no trouble deciphering.

REWARD for the capture ALIVE AND UNHURT of the above Gibberman, aged 17 or 18. Anyone delivering this youth UNDAMAGED and in GOOD HEALTH to any reeve or water enforcer will, if waterless, receive honorary water allotment for life, otherwise a reward of 5,000 tokens.

Only then did he realise the picture was of himself. He stared at it, shocked, fascinated.
That
was him? That serious young man, with the calm expression that told no one anything?

Then the information sank in.
Water allotment for life.
How many waterless men or women would be able to resist that? He looked at Terelle, dismayed.

“I’ll be desert-fried,” she said, apparently impressed, “whatever did you do?”

“W-w-where did you get this?” Shale asked Russet.

“Pasted up on a wall. People say they are on every level.” He considered Shale thoughtfully. “Imagine trouble to copy so many pictures of ye, boy. And the reward. Ye be valuable to highlord, yes?”

But Shale was speechless. He felt as if all the water inside him was being replaced by sand. Why had he ever thought he could escape Taquar? He should have foreseen this. He should have risked escaping with Feroze. What a dryhead he’d been.

“Better say who ye be,” Russet said. He reached out and ran a dry hand down Shale’s face. His fingers had the roughness of saltbush leaves. “Water-sense spills out of ye like water from storm cloud.”

Shale shuddered and pulled away. “Are you going to claim your reward?” he asked bitterly.

Russet cackled. “I be having enough tokens for my needs.” He leaned forward and his breath was stale against Shale’s cheek. “But here be another truth: step out that door, ye soon be prisoner hauled uplevel, liking it or not. Be no choice except trust Russet. So, who be ye, eh?”

Shale slumped down on his stool, capitulating. “Shale Flint,” he said at last. “From the Gibber Quarter. I’d better tell you the whole story, I suppose.”

Russet and Terelle exchanged glances. “Let me sit down,” Russet said gleefully. “Be lengthy tale coming, no?”

Scarpen Quarter

Scarcleft City

Arta Amethyst’s house, Level 10

Arta Amethyst always strolled around the rooftop at dusk. She loved the day at its close, when the slant of liquid sunlight, hugging the last of the day’s warmth within itself, poured across the buildings. A time when shadows purpled and people gathered on rooftops to eat their evening meals before the business of the night began. If she looked across at the temple opposite, she could see the priests in the last of their daily rituals, pouring the final libation to the Sunlord, splashing the water carelessly onto the daub of the rooftop.

Fine for them
, she thought.
They’ve never been waterless
. She leaned on the parapet and looked down into the street as the crowd diminished and the lull, the hiatus between day and night, began.

To her surprise, the last of the pedestrians stopped before her gate and pulled at the bell rope. Two people. She leaned over a little more and recognised Terelle’s hair, so deeply rich brown it was close to black. It had been a while since the girl had come to see her, and she felt a rush of pleasure, quickly smothered. Not wise to expect too much of anyone.

Strange, though, that the girl—no, not girl; woman—had someone with her.

Amethyst watched as the gate was opened and the usual argument started between Jomat and Terelle. No matter how many times she instructed her steward to let Terelle in without question, he always tried to hinder her entry with his nastiness. Amethyst wondered whether she would ever have the courage to dismiss him. But how could she? What was the old saying?
He who pays for the water determines the patterns on the dayjar.
Something had told her long ago that she wasn’t the only one paying for Jomat’s water and she had never dared to protest.
Cowardice
, she thought.
That has always been your problem, Amethyst. Terror of being waterless again.

Patiently she waited.

A few moments later, Jomat ushered Terelle and her companion to the rooftop. The steward was breathing with difficulty, his face blotched maroon on paste-white. The hair that drooped over his forehead dripped sweat; his skin oozed the stink of stale perspiration. Amethyst suppressed her distaste.

“The waterpainter is here to see you, madam. Again.” The last word was soaked with vitriol. His puffy eyes turned from her to Terelle to the young man, his gaze devouring them all hungrily in his search for information he could use for his own ends.

It was difficult to be polite. “Thank you, Jomat.”

He wasn’t finished. “With
another
outlander waterwaster.”

“That will be all,” she said firmly and waved him away. He went with reluctance, wheezing all the while. No one spoke until he had lumbered down the stairs.

Terelle indicated the red-skinned youth with her. “Arta, I have brought someone to meet you.”

He was dressed in loose red clothes and his red hair was braided with beads. He wore a scimitar at his side. Although she had never met a Reduner face-to-face, she assumed he must be one, until Terelle added, “His name is Shale. He’s not really a Reduner. That’s just a disguise. Russet painted his skin and we dyed a tunic and breeches for him, and his hair, too. I braided it.”

Amethyst stared at him, frowning. “You did a good job. I would never have known. But why was it necessary?”

“Enforcers are searching for him, and this was the only way we could think of to hide him. I used Russet’s pass to bring him uplevel, but no one even asked to see it. Russet says enforcers have been told to treat all Reduners with respect.”

“And why are they searching for him?” Amethyst wasn’t happy with what she was hearing, and she didn’t bother to hide her unease.

“He has a story I—we—want you to hear. We need your advice.”

Amethyst stared at the youth but could not come to any conclusions. He was as closed to her as a shuttered pede. His eyes were intelligent but lacked expression; he held his whole body as if he was quietly waiting for something to happen—but whether he was happy or sad, frightened or tense, she could not say.

“Take a seat,” she said. She indicated the cushions on the mud-brick benches around the edges of the roof. “There is still mint infusion in the pot, I believe, and plenty of savouries left over from my dinner. Will you both not join me?” She walked to the top of the stairs and called down for more hot water. While waiting, she chatted with Terelle, probing as tactfully as she could to find out if she was happy and safe. She remained unconvinced by Terelle’s cheerful but evasive answers.

Oh Sunlord
, she thought,
why did I ever become embroiled in the doings of this child? I see trouble round the corner for me in this.

Jomat brought the water, still wheezing, his mouth pinched in disapproval at the water-waste involved in serving a drink to visitors. His eyes roved over them with ill-concealed curiosity as he placed the pot on the bench next to his mistress. Shale was polite, and took the infusion and savouries Amethyst offered, but held himself in abeyance.

She waited until Jomat left before asking, “So what is this story?”

“Can I trust you?” he countered. The look he gave her was steady.

She treated the question seriously, aware that he expected nothing less. “Not entirely, perhaps. For a start, everybody has their price. Everybody, no matter how good their intentions are.”

He nodded, as if in agreement, but did not ask for further guarantees. “I am here because I don’t know where else to turn and I have to trust Terelle’s judgement. I am fleeing a man who had my sister and parents killed and my brother enslaved. Taquar, Highlord of Scarcleft. I need to escape from him, from this city, and I need a place to go.”

She was stilled, her breath catching in her throat, her heart pounding. Taquar?
Oh Watergiver save me, you have come to the wrong person!

“I had heard that the reeves were looking for a youth,” she said cautiously. “It was the talk of the bazaars a few days ago. They put up posters. Was that you?”
He’s so self-contained
, she thought.
So young to be so in command of himself. Does he ever break, I wonder?

He said, “Yes, that was me. I have been hiding with Russet. We thought it better to let the search die down a bit before I ventured out.”

“Why does Taquar seek you?”

“He wishes to use my water-powers for his own ends. He is no stormlord, but he wants to control a stormlord’s power.”

Her breath caught. “You are a
stormlord
?” she asked, incredulous.
A Gibberman a stormlord?

By way of answer, the contents of the hot-water pot shot into the air through the spout and moulded themselves into the shape of a face. Taquar’s face. Terelle squeaked and clapped a hand over her mouth.