The Last Stormlord (72 page)

Laisa nodded. Kaneth demurred. “Only if the Council of Rainlords agrees,” he said.

Jasper went taut, every part of him strained with anger and betrayal, as if there was something inside him that was too big to be contained.

The look Laisa gave him was one of pity. “Jasper, Granthon had a point. You are very young to rule. And to be the Quartern’s one and only stormlord at the same time?” She shrugged. “You know how tiring it is.” He heard her unspoken taunt.
How inadequate you are.

He was silent.

She continued, “You will have Taquar’s power to back you. You may be able to call up storms with his help. You will be the most revered of the Quartern’s citizens, its stormshifter. There won’t be any question this time of Taquar keeping you imprisoned in some mother cistern somewhere.”

He was silent long enough to control his rage, to be able to say quietly, “I doubt that Davim has included Taquar in his present plans. For myself, I don’t care too much about whether I rule as Cloudmaster, but I will not take orders from Taquar or Davim. Not
ever
. And until such time as Davim takes power in Breccia City,
I
will make the decisions here, at least the ones that concern me and the ones that concern water.” He looked back at Senya. “And my name is Jasper Bloodstone.”

For a moment, he thought she was going to defy him. Then all her bravado drained away, and he was reminded that she was, after all, just a spoiled girl whose world was breaking up around her, who had just been told that her father was a hostage to a desert warrior not known for his compassion. She nodded, subdued and sulky.

Wonderful
, he thought.
The first thing you do with your authority is lord it over a silly half-grown girl.

He looked at Laisa. “Rainlord?”

She shrugged indifferently. “As you wish.”

“Kaneth?”

The rainlord gave an ironical bow. The curve of his lips, the knowing smile, told Jasper that he wasn’t fooling the man. Kaneth knew exactly how he quaked inside, how inadequate he felt. How inadequate he
was
.

Jasper said, “I need to know everything from now on, no matter what.”

His mouth full, Kaneth waved a half-eaten flat cake indicating his acquiescence. He swallowed and said, “You can’t surrender yourself to Davim, anyway. He could kill you, and then we’d be as good as gutted.”

“I am aware of that,” Jasper said. He was ashamed of his relief. Struggling to hide it, he added, “My death would be the best way to ensure another era of random rain and a new age of the nomad.”

Laisa made an exasperated noise. “Watergiver’s heart! None of that matters much now. What we have to do is decide when to leave.”

“Best wait until tomorrow,” Kaneth said. “At sunset. Davim will be at the gates of the Hall, and so will most of his men. They will have fewer guards on the periphery then, and you’ll have a better chance of escape. We’ll prolong the discussion, try to bargain with him. Then we’ll tell him you’ve already gone—a fact you will have to make obvious to the guards in the groves as you leave.”

Jasper turned and went to stand by the fireplace. He kicked at a still-glowing coal that had rolled onto the hearth. Six thousand people. Plus who knows how many children. People like Ryka. City folk, ten at a time, to feed the ziggers. And who had the chance to walk away from all this? Jasper Bloodstone. Not to mention Laisa and Senya.

When he turned back to face the three of them, he felt old, as ancient and as harshly sculptured as Wash Drybone. He said, “Yes, I agree. Come back here tomorrow to tell us if there’s any change.”

Kaneth nodded. There was pity in the rainlord’s eyes as he turned towards the door.

“I’ll open it,” Jasper said. “You conserve your strength.” He walked Kaneth to the bottom of the ladder. “About Rith,” he said softly. “Where did they take him? Is there any chance he’ll live?”

“He was in—in poor shape. Tortured. Someone must have told them that a weakened man can’t renew his power. Even if they gave him back to us, I don’t think he’d live. I heard from one of the reeves who came through the tunnel later that they put him in some kind of cage and strung it up over the South Gate.”

They exchanged a glance, sharing their grief.
He’s known Rith since they were children,
Jasper thought.
His closest friend.
The pain of his loss, the agony of knowing there was no way of going back—it was written there on his face.

“Cloudmaster,” Kaneth said and inclined his head; and because he was Kaneth, there was raillery mixed with the respect. Jasper smiled slightly and watched as the rainlord climbed to the manhole above.

When he returned to the room, Laisa said, “You’ve come a long way, Jasper Bloodstone, late of Wash Drybone Settle. It was kind of Kaneth not to mention your lack of cloudmaking abilities.” The eyes were beautiful, but the look she gave him was hard. “And apart from that, you’re only, what, eighteen maybe? Nineteen at the outside. What do you know of ruling? Of war? Of the affairs of men?” She was patronising him still, but she was wary of him now, in a way she had never been before.

“More than some learn in a lifetime, Laisa. Believe me, I have learned fast of late.”

“If you die, my lord, so does a land. That is quite a responsibility.”

“I know.”

Dear Watergiver, I know.

Scarpen Quarter

Breccia City

“Where do you think you are going?”

Jasper swallowed a sigh. He might have known his manipulating of the water lock would wake Laisa, even if lighting the lantern hadn’t.

“Out,” he said.

“After what I said about responsibility?” she asked. “You can’t take water from a man or a zigger! How will you survive out there? Are you sandcrazy?”

“I found out yesterday that I don’t have to take water out of a zigger to kill it. And you know what? I think rainlords have got so used to doing things the one way, the same way, year after year, that they have forgotten just how powerful water is. I will take no risks that I cannot handle. None, I promise.”

She looked over her shoulder to make sure Senya was asleep and dropped her voice to a furious whisper. “Jasper, if you are going after Nealrith, remember this: you are much more important than he is. Let it be, for all our sakes.”

“He’s your husband! The father of your daughter. How can you be so uncaring?”

“Don’t be a fool. I care. I am the wife of a city’s ruler. I do not give that up easily, believe me. But I am first and foremost a rainlord and a pragmatic woman. What happens to Nealrith is of no importance when compared to what happens to you. He would be the first to say so. And if you were to die rescuing him, he would never forgive you the stupidity.”

“You have made your point,” he said. “And I know it, anyway.”

Behind her, Senya stirred and raised herself on one elbow. “Is it morning?” she asked sleepily.

Laisa ignored her. “I don’t suppose I can stop you. You can’t go back to the same tunnel we used before, you know. It doesn’t have an opening into the city.”

“I know.” He would have to use the tunnel that supplied the cistern with its water. The entrance to that, a lidded hole, was in the middle of the cistern roof, out of reach. And there was no ladder, either.

He opened both the doors with care, his mind focusing on the water beyond. It was odd to stand there and look into the water, knowing that if his concentration slipped it would come crashing into the room. His forehead furrowed, he pushed the wall of water away with his power until the level in the centre of the room rose. When it was close to touching the roof, he stopped. Laisa stood beside him in the doorway, studying his handiwork.

“Ingenious,” she said, her respect reluctant.

He dived sideways into the water, using part of his concentration to keep the lantern dry, even though he himself had to get wet because he needed to swim upwards to reach the manhole in the ceiling. Once there, he found it wasn’t easy to open up the cover from underneath. His sword hindered him; his saturated clothes became heavier by the moment; the lighted lantern in one hand was an encumbrance. He began to sink.

Idiot
, he thought.
Use your power.

He made a pillar of water and pushed it against the lid until it flew open. He surfaced once more, reached up and placed the lantern on the floor of the supply tunnel, and hoisted himself out. He looked back down into the cistern to make sure that Laisa had shut the door to the room, before allowing the water to find its own level once more. Sitting on the edge of the hole, he removed the water from his clothing. When he was dry once more, he stood up and raised the lamp to look around. The door to the Cistern Chambers of the thirtieth level was directly opposite him. Leaving the cistern lid lying where it had been tossed by the pillar of water, he went to try the handle.

The door was unlocked.

Back in the room, Laisa remarked, “That man is a great deal stronger in power than we have been giving him credit for.”

Senya pouted. “He’s a sunfried Gibber grubber. And I don’t want to marry him!”

“You fool!” Laisa exclaimed. “Have you no common sense?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Jasper is your future, you stupid child. Alienate him and you’re lost, because your power is barely scraping through to rainlord level. It won’t get you anywhere, and neither will your looks if all you ever do is whine and complain and pout.” Restlessly she paced the floor. “Can’t you see? It doesn’t
matter
if he was once a Gibber brat. It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t know how to use a fingerbowl or doesn’t want to wear perfume. What matters is that he is the only person approaching stormlord status in the Quartern. Power, Senya,
power
. That’s what it’s all about. With power you can have wealth and comfort and riches and control. Without it, you might lose all those things. Marry him and
you
will have power.”

“Comfort? Riches? We have already lost those things,” Senya wailed. “We’re stuck in this room hiding and scared, and by now there’s probably Reduners in my bedroom pawing all my things. Jasper’s a nobody—worse than a nobody! He’s going to die, just like Daddy and Grandpa! And then where will we be?” She dissolved into a storm of weeping.

Her mother made no effort to comfort her.

The man who lay in front of the Cistern Chamber’s main door to the street wore a tunic with a reeve’s insignia. He had been speared in the back. Jasper was overwhelmed with the stench; the man must have been dead some time, lying out in the heat until nightfall.

Out in the darkened city, there was an odd smell in the air, all-pervading: a strong mix of rot, cooking meat, smoke and acridity. Jasper coughed as he stepped into the street, but there was no one to hear him. He stood still for a moment, pushing his water senses ahead. It was difficult; at a distance, all water tended to merge. Was that a man in a nearby house or someone walking in the street parallel? He couldn’t tell.

He sent his powers back to the cistern to change water to vapour—easy enough when he was not dealing with salt water—then wisped it out through the doors and into the open air. A cloud formed, white and damp and thick. He wrapped it around himself as he descended towards the lowest level, so that he trailed mist like an ethereal spirit from another world or a shimmering sand-dancer, perhaps, walking the deserted streets.

When he reached the thirty-seventh level, he took an outside staircase going up to a rooftop. Even though there was no light, he sensed there were people there, including children. That, he decided, ruled out the possibility of Reduners. Nonetheless, he was cautious and paused before setting foot on the walled flat rooftop. His lamp revealed a couple and two children aged about six and eight. They were huddled together sleeping, well wrapped in rough bab-fibre blankets against the bitter cold of a desert night. All Scarpen people, by their colouring. No one to fear. He released some of his hold on the vapour, allowing it to disperse and become less obvious in the night air.

They feared him, though, when he woke them. They stared, their eyes round and terrified, their arms clutching at one another. “There’s no need to be frightened of me,” he said softly. He held the lantern up so that they could see his face. “Do you know who I am?”

The man shook his head.

“I’m a rainlord,” Jasper said. “I’ve come because I want to know what is happening in the lower levels of the city.”

“Rainlord!” The man looked shocked. He knelt, scrambling out of his blankets. “Please, m’lord, don’t stand there like a practice butt for the spearing. They may see you!” He spread the blanket out on the rooftop. “If the lord’ll sit hisself—” He turned to his wife. “A drink, a drink!”

She rose to obey, too shocked to speak. Jasper knew enough to be aware that he must accept the water they gave him, no matter if they could ill afford to spare it. He sat and inclined his head in acceptance. “Your name?”

“Chellis, rainlord, shoveller at the smelters, outside the walls.”

Jasper gave a swift look around. There was no furniture, none. Just the blackened mud-bricks at one end of the roof that served as a fireplace, the four dayjars, the woven sleeping mats that doubled as shelter from the sun when strung from balustrade to balustrade. A man so poor he could only afford a rooftop for his family, but at least he had water entitlement. He worked, and he had the right to live on the thirty-seventh level.