The Last Stormlord (57 page)

Shale wasn’t comforted. In fact, he felt sick. He had thought all his problems would be over if he came to the Cloudmaster. He’d thought Taquar would be stripped of his ruling power. Instead, the man was still the heir. Which meant that if Granthon died… No, he didn’t even want to think about what would happen then.

As he left with Nealrith, he asked, “
Can
you teach me to be a stormlord?”

Nealrith drew in a ragged breath, an action that stripped him of all rainlord mystique. “I know the exercises, yes. My father taught both me and Ryka all a stormlord needs to know, long ago, in case he died. I know the theory of it. I know the teaching techniques. I can pass it on. When you are ready, Granthon will teach you how to put it into practice.”

Sandblast it
, Shale thought,
he is just a man, battling with problems too large for him. And he’s ashamed of his father. I’m the fool, for expecting so much more.

“I’m sorry, Shale, if he has disappointed you.”

Shale shrank from the bitterness he heard. Salted damn, dealing with other people was like trying to walk the crumbling surface where the Gibber Plains were hollow below. Put a foot wrong and it went through the crust into some old mine workings. Say the wrong thing and your words went places you had never meant them to penetrate.

Scarpen Quarter

Breccia City

Level 2 and Level 3

Shale thrashed on the bed, fighting the rigid arms that hugged him. Death had come, clad in rags, limbs blackened, sinews as tough as hemp, clasping him in an embrace that could end only when his last breath was choked from him.

He woke, entangled in the sheet. A sheet that was finer than any cloth he had ever touched before, as smooth and as soft as water. Breathless, he dragged it from his throat and sat on the edge of his bed. A bed that was much higher than the one at the Scarcleft mother cistern, and he wasn’t sure he liked it. He hadn’t slept well on his first night, thinking he would roll over and fall to the floor.

Breccia Hall. It took his breath away, all of it. The polish of the patterned stones of the floors, the gleam of the fine bab-wood furniture, the beauty of the painted ceramic water jars in every room, the smooth taste of the food on the table at mealtimes, the extravagance of library shelves lined with books and scrolls. Water everywhere for the taking. No one to say you’d had your allotment for the day. No one to chide you for drinking too much. He’d read about these things, or Taquar had told him, but experiencing the reality was different.

He lay there a moment, trying to comprehend it all, to absorb the change in his life. His dream resurfaced, impinging on his reality. The dead man embracing him. The man Kaneth had killed to save him. Real, but also a nightmare.

He padded across the room to the shutters. He flung them open, and the starlight streamed in. That at least was the same: the brilliance of a night sky that contained little or no water vapour, pure light from swirls of stars that gave night its blue sheen. He walked out onto the balcony and looked down on the sleeping city, on the spill of buildings spreading outwards and downwards to the foot of the escarpment, like a giant’s staircase that widened as it went. The natural pale sienna colour of the mud-brick had turned purple in the starlight, and the canyons of the streets, inlaid with stone paving, were the deepest of blue-blacks.

There was a smell of citrus flowers in the air, from the blossoming of the potted trees at the edge of the balcony. The fruit of the pomegranate bushes were already bursting, their fecundity cracking them open. He touched the nearest fruit, running a finger over its plump redness, but could not bring himself to pick it.

It all seemed profligate. Would he ever feel at home with this abundance? With this luxury? He remembered too many things. The days when he and Mica went hungry. The nights when he fell asleep sucking on a pebble to quell his thirst. The whores of Scarcleft’s thirty-sixth level selling their bodies for a drink of water. The children husking bab fruit in the groves for a pittance in tinny tokens. The boys shovelling pede pellets off the streets to take home and burn in their cooking fires because they couldn’t afford the imported seaweed briquettes. Terelle, who’d had to fight so hard to find some kind of life.

Terelle.
He couldn’t get her out of his mind. The way she laughed, full-throated, as he had never learned to do. The way she teased him. The way the slimness of her body and the gentle roundness of her curves brought him a sensual pleasure when she moved. Even the regal way she had of looking him up and down and raising an eyebrow, as if he’d just said something so stupid she couldn’t believe her ears.

And he’d left her in Scarcleft. Just ridden away and left her there, at the mercy of Taquar’s enforcers, or—if she escaped them—at the mercy of Russet’s plans for her. Just as he’d been forced to leave Mica to the mercy of Davim’s Reduners.

He slammed his palm down on the balustrade, hurting his hand, welcoming the pain that shot up to his elbow.

On the first day of the journey to Breccia, when they’d ridden the pedes hard in their hurry to escape the risk of pursuit, he’d thought of making her safety a condition of his cooperation. But he’d scrapped that idea as soon as it had been born. It hadn’t felt right. Instead, he’d made a request: if Kaneth didn’t bring her back with him, could they please at least find out what happened to her and try to help her? Nealrith and Ryka had agreed, but Nealrith had added regretfully, “You must understand that none of us have any official powers in Scarcleft. My father has certain powers as Cloudmaster, it’s true, and there are a great many laws concerning trade and water rights and travelling which Taquar and ScarcIeft must adhere to, but there is nothing that gives us the right to interfere with the way in which Scarcleft treats its citizens.”

The words sank into Shale’s mind with the dead weight of a boulder, and his anger rippled outwards in response. “Then there ought to be,” he said. “It’s not right that Taquar can get away with what he has done.”

Nealrith hadn’t replied, leaving Shale raging with impotent fury.

And now he watched and waited for the dawn, waited for news of Kaneth and Terelle. Servants came in the morning to take him to Nealrith for his first lessons. Another thing to get used to: having people around him whose sole job was to fetch and carry for him or to conduct him around the hall until he could find his own way. Their service embarrassed him.

That morning, however, as he trailed behind a man named Morion, who was to be his personal servant, he was grateful for the guidance. He didn’t know how he would ever find his way through the network of passages and connecting stairs of Breccia Hall; they all looked the same. He had trouble orienting himself, because he could not see the sky.

When he entered Nealrith’s quarters, it was to find Kaneth there as well. The two men were standing just inside the door, as if Kaneth was already on his way out. He was still dust-covered from his journey and obviously tired. He shook his head when he saw Shale. “No sign of her, I’m sorry. And Amethyst’s definitely dead. Killed in her house, together with her servants.”

“Taquar?” Shale gritted his teeth. “Will he get away with it?”

“He already has. I went back to the old man’s room as well,” Kaneth added, “but neither Russet nor Terelle were there. No one had seen them.” He touched Shale’s arm in sympathy. “I’m sorry. I have asked some friends of mine to make some discreet inquiries. If there is any news, they’ll let me know. And I’ve let it be known among the people who lived in Russet’s building that anyone who turns up here in Breccia with Terelle will be well rewarded. The news will spread.”

“Sandblast him to a waterless death,” Nealrith said quietly. “There was no need for him to kill Amethyst.”

“It must have been just moments after you left,” Kaneth said, making Nealrith wince. “I am hellishly weary. I must go. I haven’t been home yet.”

“Thank you for trying,” Shale said.

“We won’t give up on her,” Kaneth replied, heading for the door. “I promise.”

After he’d gone, Shale sank down into one of the chairs, in gloomy silence.

Nealrith sighed. “I followed the law I am bound to follow as highlord, as my father’s son. And Amethyst died.” He went to stand at the open shutters, to look down on the city. He was silent for a long while, then said, “There are so many ironies in my life of late. My father taught me never to forget my humanity. I have tried incentive and reasoning to persuade people to conserve water, rather than force and punishment. I was only behaving as he taught me to, with compassion. As a consequence, I have been called weak, and my father turned to another to rule the Quartern.”

“Can someone who is not a stormlord rule the Quartern?”

“Not in normal times. But what other choice is there now? There is you, but you are young. You were not brought up to rule. And more than that, you will be the Quartern’s
only
stormlord. Just to supply water to the nation will take most of your waking moments.”

Shale froze, unable to believe what he was hearing. “Even if I was a stormlord, Taquar would still rule the land?”

“I think that is what my father would like, yes. He expects to die soon. You are too inexperienced to take on the responsibility, and I am too weak, or so he believes. He thinks that only Taquar will be able to force people to save water, only Taquar will be able to rein in the Reduners.” He snorted.

Shale shook his head, his denial vehement. “But it was Taquar who urged the Reduners to rebellion!”

“Irony upon irony.”

“When Taquar could tell the Reduners he had a future stormlord, he had a way of controlling Davim. Now he has nothing.”

“I doubt he is going to tell Davim that. Davim has seen you with his own eyes. Seen how easily you shift water. Taquar will have told him he has taken you to Scarcleft for your final training.”

Shale struggled with his shock. With his betrayal. Again. With his burgeoning horror.
Waterless damnation, one day I am going to be returned to Taquar’s power!

Nealrith continued, “My hope is that if you can learn to bring us storms, there won’t be any need for a man such as Taquar to rule, and my father will change his mind.”

“He
must
change his mind. Highlord Nealrith, he doesn’t understand Taquar.”

“No, he doesn’t. He thinks you exaggerate. That is another irony. You want to know my father, Shale? As he used to be? Then look at me. Granthon Almandine is me, too weak to rule this land in time of trouble. He will not believe the worst of Taquar because he himself would never be capable of such crimes. Believe me, I have tried to convince him. He accuses me of petty spite.”

“Perhaps if I was to talk to him.” Even as he said the words, Shale wondered at his temerity. Who was he to speak to rulers about who had the right to rule? He was still just Shale Flint, one of the washfolk of Drybone Settle.

“No. He has heard your story once. My father needs to have faith in you, and you will not earn that faith by appearing to be greedy for power—or by showing lack of judgement by supporting any tenuous claim of mine.”

Shale was silent, thinking things through. Finally he said, “You’re not going to tell anyone you have me, are you? Because Granthon wouldn’t want that news to get to Davim. Taquar won’t tell him and you don’t want the sandmaster to know, either.”

Nealrith smiled, appreciative. “You’re no fool, are you? If Davim thinks Taquar has you, he will wait and Taquar can control him. Better that than a horde of Reduners rampaging across the land.”

Shale shook his head.
Taquar does not have control over Davim, and he never did, for all that he
thought
he did.

“I want you to use another name for a while,” Nealrith continued. “And to pretend you’re just another water sensitive we found in the Gibber.”

Shale found it hard to give voice to his thoughts. He had lived so long keeping all he believed within his heart, not blurting it out like water from a spigot. Still, he knew he had to try to speak his thoughts; if he didn’t, then how could he expect people to know what he knew? How could he share his understanding? He took a deep breath. “If Taquar becomes the ruler of the Quartern, I may be safe—but one of the first things he will do is have you killed. Anyone who believes differently is a fool. Or they don’t know Taquar.”

Nealrith nodded. “I know that now. But my father is not dead yet. Things can change.”

They looked at each other and Shale knew they were thinking the same thing: they had much in common. They had both been betrayed by people they’d respected. Shale said quietly, “We’re just shells in a game, aren’t we? To be moved about on the board, to be collected as part of the spoils and discarded at will when not needed. I thought things were going to be better here—but they’re no different.” He tilted his head in a gesture of defiance. “Lord Nealrith, I will not stay, you know. If Scarpen rule is handed over to Lord Taquar, I will leave. I will not serve that man.
Ever.
”

Nealrith gave a rare smile. “We’ll leave together, then,” he said. “I’ll do my best for you, Shale, no matter what, because you are the only hope we have. Whatever happens, I promise you that much.”

Shale nodded, almost believing him. Nealrith reached out and laid a hand on his shoulder. “I swear it, Shale. And I am not Taquar. Nor am I my father.” Shale nodded again, this time with more certainty. “And you shouldn’t address me by my title, not in private. We rainlords are all equals. I am Nealrith or Rith; you are Shale. Or whatever your new name is. Have you decided?”