The Last Stormlord (59 page)

They’ve finally sensed my water
, he thought. He knocked at the door and entered. Nealrith waved him into an empty chair.

“I’m sorry if you heard what I said, Jasper,” Kaneth said. “I was preoccupied and wasn’t aware anyone was out there. I wasn’t blaming you.”

He shrugged, trying not to care. “It was no more than the truth.” No one said anything to that, so he asked, “Have any of you heard anything from Scarcleft about Terelle?”

“I haven’t,” Nealrith said.

“Neither have we,” Ryka said, and from the compassion in her glance, he guessed that she thought there was little chance anyone ever would.

“There is something about her that I haven’t told you,” he said. “She—she could be of value to you. To us.” Three pairs of eyes fixed him with looks of polite disbelief.

“She is a Watergiver,” he said. “Not an intermediary from the Sunlord, of course, but one of a people from the mountains on the far side of the White Quarter. That’s what they call themselves apparently, Watergivers. Russet Kermes is one.”

The three rainlords continued to stare at him, faces blank.

He struggled on. “She is also a waterpainter. Waterpainters have certain, um, powers. They can influence the future with their art. They can paint something to ensure it happens. Russet did that to make Nealrith go to Scarcleft. Perhaps Terelle could paint rain clouds or something. I think she would be willing to try.”

Nealrith interrupted. “What are you talking about? Russet told you I came as a result of
sorcery
?”

“Well, magic. Waterpainting.”

“What the pickled pede do you mean? I went to Scarcleft because of Amethyst’s letter, to find another stormlord, not because of any sorcery.”

“I saw that magic at work,” he said stubbornly. “He painted you going to Amethyst’s house. I should have told you earlier, but I was afraid you wouldn’t believe me. Besides, I don’t like it. The power, it’s horrible. Russet trapped Terelle by his paintings, for a start. He drew her future and took away her choices. If she tried to leave him, she was ill.” He drew another deep breath. “Although perhaps his plans have gone awry now. He’s old; maybe his magic doesn’t work well any more. In fact, I’m sure it doesn’t; that’s why he needs Terelle.”

When he faltered, Nealrith said snappishly, “Make sense, Jasper. We used to have a waterpainting. Laisa ordered several of them, in fact. Might even have been Russet who did them. I ordered the last one removed not so long ago because it had to be kept topped up with water, and I thought it a waste. There was nothing special about it that I could see.”

“What the painter can do with the power—if he wants—is horrible. Unthinkable. But to save Terelle or Mica, I’d do anything, even try to get you interested in using such power. Russet made waterpaintings to determine the future, and Terelle can, too. They can
make
things happen. Imagine: perhaps she could paint a future that ensured the defeat of Davim, or maybe the birth of more stormlords or something. If you brought her here, and told her what was needed—”

Nealrith’s face flushed dark. “I have never heard of anything more ridiculous. You have been deceived by some kind of trickery, Jasper. There are shams and fraudsters everywhere, and all you’ve told me about this Russet indicates he is one of them.”

“Terelle is no fraudster,” he said, not trying to hide his rage. “I
saw
her make a man climb onto a rooftop. Why won’t you believe in that, when you will believe in the magic that enables a stormlord to move water from the sea into clouds, that enables him to bring those clouds to the hills, to force them upwards so that they break and the rain falls?”

Ryka quickly smothered an involuntary laugh. Kaneth’s face went studiously blank. Nealrith, however, was so shocked he was almost speechless. He had to swallow hard before he could say, “Cloudmaking and stormshifting are not
sorcery
! Jasper, how could you ever
think
such a thing! Stormshifting is the goodness of the Sunlord’s powers manifested in a stormlord, the Holy One’s blessing to us, the people of the Quartern. He sent an intermediary to us from his realm a thousand years ago, in the form of a man called Ash Gridelin, now known to us as the Watergiver, to tell us how to use that God-given power. How can you equate such a holy gift, and the knowledge to use it, with
magic
? That is blasphemy. And the Watergiver was the Sunlord’s true emissary, not some—some fake from a market stall!”

Jasper stared at him helplessly. He wanted to ask,
If the Sunlord is so powerful, why did he need a human as an intermediary?
But he suspected he would not receive an answer that satisfied him. He couldn’t see much difference between magic and the Sunlord’s gift, but he had a suspicion that arguing the point with Nealrith would get him nowhere.

Ryka laid a hand on Nealrith’s arm. “Rith, you can hardly blame Jasper for the gaps in his religious knowledge. You remember what the remoter areas of the Gibber were like, including his. They were so ignorant of Scarpen faith that some thought we were gods.”

The highlord drew in a calming breath. “I remember. I can certainly see that his religious education has been inadequate.”

“I can teach him,” she offered.

“You? Would I use a cistern of water to bring life to embers? I will arrange with Lord Gold for him to have private lessons at the temple with a waterpriest teacher.” He glanced at Jasper. “Lord Gold is the highest-ranking priest. The Quartern’s Sunpriest.”

“And Terelle?” Jasper asked. “Won’t you send someone to look for her?”

“Our informants can’t find her, and if they can’t, I’m sure we couldn’t. I don’t think we should try. I’m sorry.”

Buffeted by guilt and worry, he subsided into a miserable silence as Nealrith continued. “Let’s deal with the reason—reasons—I asked Ryka and Kaneth in this morning. Firstly, the gaps in your education, Jasper. Besides the religious ones, I mean. I think you do not have sufficient time to attend the Water Sensitives Academy on Level Three, as we all did—not with the water exercises you have to practise. So I’d like you to work with Ryka.”

Jasper swallowed his irritation and hid a scowl. He liked Ryka, but it would have been nicer to have been asked rather than told.

Nealrith continued, unheeding. “Another gap is in your ability to protect yourself. If you can’t kill the rainlord way, then you need to learn swordplay. That’s where you come in, Kaneth. I want you to teach him.”

“Sword or scimitar?”

“Both.”

“There’s a difference in the way you use them?” Jasper asked.

Kaneth nodded. “Scimitars work better for slashing, and slashing works better when you are riding a pede. But Rith, why don’t you ask a professional sword master? I may be both skilled and experienced, but like any rainlord, I rely on my water skills in a real fix.”

“Because I don’t want too many people to know that Jasper is special. Nothing must get back to Davim that would make him wonder if Jasper and Shale are the same person. Give your lessons inside Breccia Hall—the reception room is big enough.”

Kaneth shrugged. “All right.” He grinned at Jasper. “Don’t worry, I do know the basics. It’ll be fun. Granthon doesn’t want me out looking for Reduner marauders any more anyway, and teaching you beats spending my time checking for leaks along the tunnel.”

“Good,” Nealrith said. “I will take the mornings for water skills. You two share the afternoons. Work out a schedule and get back to me. And you’ll have religious classes and driving lessons on alternate days.”

Jasper brightened. “Oh! I can learn to drive a pede?”

“Well, I wasn’t talking about a donkey.” When Jasper looked blank, he added, “It’s a rare animal they use a lot for carrying loads in the land across the Giving Sea. They have some in Pediment.” He smiled suddenly, banishing his habitual look of worry. “Let’s go down to the hall stable. I want to show you something.”

*   *   *

They all left the room together, but Kaneth and Ryka headed home while Nealrith led Jasper through a network of courtyards, archways and passageways to the stables. When they arrived there, Jasper looked around with widening eyes. There were six myriapedes, each with its own immaculate stall. Several stable boys were busy grooming one of the animals while it tore and masticated a mixture of saltbush and desert root, its numerous pairs of mouthparts audibly grinding and ripping the vegetation into smaller and smaller pieces.

Waterless damn,
Jasper thought,
these pedes live better than even Palmier Rishan did back in Wash Drybone!

“Some of our animals are out being used, of course,” Nealrith said. “And our packpedes are always stabled outside the city walls. Anyway, this is the beast I want you to have a look at.” He pointed to the end stall, where a half-grown male myriapede looked out over the door of its stall. “He’s for you.”

“For me to ride?”

“More than that—he’s yours.”

Jasper blinked in amazement. “To
own
? You’re
giving
me a pede?”

“Not me, personally. Every rainlord has his own, bought with Quartern taxes. This one will be fully mature in about two years, but he is ready to be ridden and trained now.”

“You bought it for me?”

Nealrith’s gaze flicked away as if he was embarrassed. “Er, no. Not originally. I bought it for Senya. But she has shown no interest in it and does not want to learn to drive. Tomorrow morning, be here at dawn and you can have your first lesson.”

Jasper turned back to the pede. He extended his right hand, slowly, towards the animal’s mouthparts, giving it time to accustom itself to his smell. The feelers whipped forward, the sensitive tips seeking him out, running over his face, his hands, his clothing.

“Thank you,” he said to Nealrith, his delight shining through the restraint of his reply. “I have never really owned anything before. Unless you count my clothes, of course.”
And once I had a piece of bloodstone.

He was stroking the pede and saw neither the pity, nor the ache that immediately followed it, on the highlord’s face.

“Why do you think the Gibber folk are darker skinned and poorer than Scarpen city folk?”

Ryka’s question stymied him, as her questions often did. She stimulated and challenged him, goaded him to think, really
think
about things, especially about why the Quartern was the way it was.

“I don’t know,” he said, feeling foolish because he had never thought about it before.

“History, Jasper. History. Listen: once, when the Giving Sea was no more than a gully, our ancestors, yours and mine, were outlanders who came here from the places on the Other Side. When they came, they pushed out the folk who were here first, forcing them north.”

He was astonished. “You mean Reduners once
owned
the Scarpen?”

“The Scarpen
and
the Gibber. Most Scarpen folk won’t believe that, but I think it is true. The people who came, they wanted the wealth of the land—the minerals and the gemstones—and they were willing to fight to get it. There were many more of them than there were Reduners, and in those days the Reduners had neither pedes nor ziggers. Back then, there was always water to be found, because it rained at certain times of the star cycle, and the gullies and washes ran with water every year for tens of days at a time without fail. Even in between the rains, there were pools to be found. There was no need of stormlords, or so the myths and legends say.

“Then something went wrong. We don’t know what. The rains began to disappear, year by year, yet the Giving Sea rose up and flooded the land between us and the places we had come from. The waterpriests tell us it was punishment for our sins. On the Other Side, cities were washed away by the ocean. People there died in the thousands, their cities ruined and drowned. For a long time, we aren’t sure how long exactly, we were cut off. Here the land was so dry that many—perhaps most—people died. Those who were left became nomads, copying the Reduners. They adapted. This became known as the Time of Random Rain.

“But most of our history was lost. Life was hard. The only memory people held on to, because it was important to them, was that once they had been miners and traders in minerals. They called themselves by the names of the rocks and the stones and the gems, so that they would never forget. Gibber folk were, I think, more miners than traders; Scarpen Quarter folk more traders. It was from Portennabar and Portfillik that the ancient routes ran across what is now the Giving Sea to the Other Side.

“It was during the Time of Random Rain that the Reduners—then living in the dunes—tamed the pedes and ziggers they’d found there. Because of those, they dominated the Quartern and built a culture based on slavery of the conquered. The Time of Random Rain lasted until the Watergiver came and taught some water sensitives how to be stormlords and rainlords.”

“How do we know the Watergiver was real?”

“The waterpriests have religious texts that tell the story. They say the texts were inspired by the Sunlord and therefore must be true.” She smiled slightly. “That’s an argument based on its own circular logic, of course, but don’t tell them I said that. How are you enjoying your religious classes, by the way?”

He pulled a face. “Not much. I—I find it hard to believe all the things Lord Basalt tells me. He says I should have faith, but he doesn’t really
explain
things. Then he gets angry if I ask
why
.” He considered the matter. “Terelle always used to make libations to the Sunlord. I thought it was a waste of water. She said it was easier to believe than to question and that it made her happier to believe than to doubt, but for me it’s the other way around.”