The Last Stormlord

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Scarpen Quarter Scarcleft City and Breccia City The unsuccessful search for a stormlord was over.

Now that Taquar had returned to Scarcleft Hall, evening was the time when he pushed aside any thought of his duties or his worries over water and indulged himself. Sometimes he would venture out to a high-level snuggery or a public house where there were dancers and musicians. Sometimes his pleasure was more cerebral and he would read in his library, or more active and he would spend time sparring with his master-of-swords.

No one dropped by without an invitation, so when the steward came to him one evening with the news that there was someone to see him, he was surprised. When it proved to be Ryka Feldspar, he was utterly astonished.

He rose to his feet, put what he hoped was an urbane smile on his face and said, "Rainlord Ryka! This is an unexpected, um, pleasure. What brings you to Scarcleft? Or perhaps even more to the point, what brings you to my abode at this time of the night?" He turned to look at the steward, still hovering in the doorway, and said, "Refreshments. Some of our best amber, perhaps."

The steward bowed and departed. Taquar waved a hand towards a chair and schooled both his expression and tone to perfect neutrality. "Take a seat." Her broad shoulders trembled slightly, which interested him. Ryka? Scared? That wasn't in character. He'd always thought her about as nervy as a bab palm on a windless day.

She sat, but still didn't appear to be at ease. "This is difficult to talk about," she murmured.

"You intrigue me." He couldn't imagine what had brought this usually self-assured, arrogant woman to him, at night what's more, which was definitely broaching the etiquette for an unwed woman. He didn't like her and never had, but he had never cared enough to make that clear to her. He wondered if he was about to regret his lack of bluntness. She wanted a favour of him, that much was clear, one that she dare not commit to the written word.

"I shall speak plainly," she said after an uncomfortable pause. "Granthon is pressing Kaneth and me to marry because we must have more stormlords. He is right about that, of course, but why he imagines that someone with limited rainlord skills such as myself would ever give birth to potential stormlords is beyond me."

"It is puzzling," he agreed.

She gave him a sharp look but continued. "I do not want to marry Kaneth. You are the only other unattached rainlord."

He just caught himself in time to curtail an undignified desire to gape. "Waterless heavens, Ryka. You are not-surely-suggesting that you and I should wed?"

"Hardly. We would be scratching each other's eyes out before the ceremony was over. But I did wonder if-"

He raised an eyebrow when she paused, genuinely puzzled. And she blushed.

"-ifachildofoursmightnothaveabetterchance," she said in a rush.

He wasn't sure he'd heard correctly. "What?"

She took a deep breath. "If a child of ours-yours and mine-might not have a better chance. Of being a stormlord, I mean. We wouldn't have to marry, or anything. Or even live together."

For the first time in years, someone had truly astonished Taquar Sardonyx. This staid, no-nonsense woman, who was normally so sensible that he found her profoundly boring, was sounding like an overly romantic girl of seventeen with a sandcrazy idea in her head. He could barely contain his distaste. "You're out of your mind," he told her.

"Why?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Why is it so unthinkable? You know we need stormlords. You are hardly shy about your numerous liaisons, so what difference will one more make to you?"

"My liaisons aim to be pleasurable. I can't imagine anything less to my taste than to bed Ryka Feldspar because she wants to placate the Cloudmaster! I have not the faintest desire to bed you, Ryka. I have always found your snappish character and lack of femininity as unattractive as your face and as dull as the way you dress."

When she flushed, he took no notice and continued, "Anyway, what do you propose? Taking a room downlevel somewhere and popping up here every night until such time as you are pregnant? You might have to wait a long time, my dear. To the best of my knowledge, I have never fathered a child, and I haven't taken precautions to prevent it for the past fifteen years. Nor, I imagine, have many of the women involved. Why do you think the Cloudmaster hasn't pressured me into a wedded state?"

He allowed a tinge of amusement to suffuse his tone. "As much as it saddens me to point this out to you, I fear I am destined never to have offspring. I had thought this fact was a matter of vulgar gossip throughout the Scarpen Quarter. It seems I was wrong, which pleases me, I will admit. Foolish pride, I know, but a man does not like his sterility to be a matter of common knowledge."

While he'd been speaking, she had slowly risen to her feet, her face reddening and then draining of colour until she was as white as a 'Baster.

She stood staring at him, unable in her embarrassment and humiliation to speak. Finally she managed a strangled, "Then I have been wasting time for both of us. My apologies."

He inclined his head. "Accepted. Ah," he added with deliberate heartiness, "here are the refreshments-"

"I beg to be excused."

Her departure was too abrupt to be polite. Outside in the street, Ryka leaned against the villa wall to collect herself. She could still hear Taquar's low chuckle as she'd left his room. Damn it, the humiliation of his derision was going to haunt her.

You stupid, stupid woman! she thought. How can you have been such a sand-brained idiot? Did it never occur to you why he had no children? And why, oh why, did you imagine he might find you attractive enough to bed?

Her cheeks burned hot as she recalled his words. Damn him. There'd been no need to tear her down like that. He had been so-so-downright nasty.

Watergiver take you, Taquar, I may have asked for that, but you are such a bastard.

She squared her shoulders. If Taquar had been within range she would have ripped into him. Instead, all she could do was grit her teeth and dream of what she should have said. Damn, damn, damn, how could she have been so stupid?

"Ryka?"

She whirled in surprise. A man came out of the darkness at the right of the gate, and she cursed herself for not paying attention to her surroundings. No one ought to have been able to creep up on her like that. Then, belatedly, she recognised him, and her eyes widened. "Kaneth?" she asked. "What are you doing here?"

"Here, meaning in Scarcleft, or here, meaning in front of Taquar's gate?" He glanced up to where a guard on the wall was staring at them in an interested way, his zigger hissing in the cage that was clipped to the shoulder of his uniform.

She allowed him to take her elbow and guide her away, but her tone was frosty. "Both," she replied.

"The answer's the same to both questions, anyway. Following you."

"Then you had better have a good excuse," she snapped. "Because it feels very much like being spied upon."

"Feels rather like spying to me, too," he said cheerfully as they headed down to the next level. "But my excuse is a good one. Granthon sent for the two of us. I went to your house to tell you, and your father said you'd come to visit your cousins here in Scarcleft. I told Granthon that, and he told me to go and get you. Not, mind, 'send her a message.' Oh, no. I had to come and get you. Which meant I had to drop everything and ride two days to get here. Then, when I arrive, what do I find? You aren't staying with your cousins at all. They hadn't even seen you. It was just as well I recognised your mount down in the pede livery when I was stabling mine or I would have been wondering if you were even in Scarcleft!"

"So how did you find me?"

"I walked the streets until I sensed your water."

She was dumbfounded. "You can recognise me by my water?"

He didn't reply.

"That's a stormlord skill."

"Ah-well. You know my powers have always been damned unpredictable. I can't do it from very far away, and not for anyone else. Just you. And don't ask me why, because I have no idea. I've been able to do that since we were children. Remember how I used to always know what you were up to?"

"Oh! That explains a lot. It used to drive me crazy."

"Which is why I never told you how I knew. I was glad of the skill tonight, because quite frankly, Scarcleft Hall was the last place I thought of looking. I was on Level Three, and I thought I must be imagining things when I sensed you up there. Although I suppose I should have guessed, the way you were fluttering your eyelashes at Taquar when we were in the Gibber Quarter. What the pickled pede do you think you are doing, going to Scarcleft Hall at night? Don't you know what sort of reputation he has with women?"

"Fluttering my eyelashes? I do not flutter my eyelashes! How dare you insinuate-" She halted, flustered by her recollection of how-eyelashes notwithstanding-she had at least tried to arouse Taquar's interest in her. Then her fury exploded at the last of what he had said. "And as for reputations, what about yours? I hear far more about Kaneth Carnelian's acquaintance with every snuggery girl from Breccia to Breakaway than I do about Taquar's! You are utterly insufferable!"

"Maybe, but that still doesn't explain what you were doing there. You can't think of marrying Taquar, surely. Even you can't be that foolish. You do know he has never sired a child, don't you, although it hasn't been for want of trying, believe me."

"Even I? Sunlord save me, but you are insulting, Kaneth." Inside she thought miserably, Damn it, am I the only person who didn't know Taquar was sterile?

"Only when you deserve it."

She winced, and he changed his tone, suddenly gentle. "By all that's water-holy, what is it with us? Ryka, we used to be such good friends. What happened?"

She looked at him, straining to see his face in the dim light. "You really don't understand, do you?"

"No, I don't."

He sounded so genuinely mystified, she took him at his word. "Bedding a string of hussies and snuggery girls may be forgivable when you are eighteen and as randy as a street cat surrounded by a crowd of fluffy felines on heat. It even has a certain youthful charm. But in a man of thirty-five or so, it's just… vulgar. Immature. Tawdry. It makes me sick. And the idea that I am to be just one in that string makes me feel dirty. As though I am a body to be enjoyed, but never a mind to be respected. Or a face to be admired, or a friend to be appreciated, or a wife to be esteemed."

She stopped as Taquar's words resounded in her head, sour and hateful. And worrying. What if they were true? Your snappish character and lack of femininity as unattractive as your face and as dull as the way you dress. What if Kaneth felt the same way about her? Oh Sunlord, Ry, she thought, you never used to care that you weren't pretty. What's happened to you? Why should it suddenly matter?

Kaneth raised his eyebrows. "Oh? Then why did you go sneaking around to Taquar's? You can't think he's more chaste than I am, surely."

"Oh bother you, Kaneth. Go away."

"I'll escort you to wherever you're staying."

"I don't need company."

"No, I don't suppose you do. You are a rainlord, after all. But it's late and I'll do it nonetheless. And I'll escort you back to Breccia, too. Granthon still wants to see us. And quite frankly, I don't know what we are going to say."

" 'No.' At least that's what I am going to say. And if that is enough to stop our rainlord's allowance, then we shall just have to learn to do without it. It may curtail your popularity with the snuggery girls, but I'm sure you can learn to live with that."

"Easy to see you haven't faced Granthon when he's made up his mind about something," he said, and she heard genuine warning in his tone. "Do you really think that's all the persuasion he has in mind?"

She thought about it and went cold.

Ryka remembered Kaneth's words when they faced the Cloudmaster in the Breccia Hall dining room several days later. Granthon was apparently well enough to sit up and have dinner with the rest of his family, but she was shocked by the decline in his health since she had seen him last. His cheeks were sunken, his eyes deep-set and suffering. Moreover, he looked… unkempt. And this in a man who had always been faultlessly attired, a regal, proud man, not one who would informally interview a couple of rainlords in front of his family, let alone be seen with his vest stained and his tunic sleeves dirty.

Ryka shot a look at Ethelva and saw the tightness around the woman's eyes. They exchanged a wordless glance, and Ryka saw the pleading there, and the wisdom. Her expression said, as clearly as spoken words, "Don't thwart him. He's all we have."

Ryka looked away to give her attention to the others. Nealrith, who had risen when she and Kaneth were ushered in, was shifting his weight uncomfortably. He'd greeted them both, but now refused to meet Kaneth's gaze. Laisa watched with interest, smiling faintly, as if secretly amused, while Senya, the little brat, sparkled with an unpleasantly gleeful interest.

The kind of women men admire, Ryka thought. Beautiful, and who cares what the inside is like? Or whether they have anything but sand in their skulls. She sighed to herself, wryly aware that she did not much like the cynicism of her thoughts. She used to be a much nicer person before she'd fallen in love. How ironic is that? she mused. And do we really have to stand here like a couple of naughty children while Granthon chastises us in front of these two bitches, mother and daughter? Sands, this is as humiliating as my interview with Taquar.

"Laisa, Senya, let's go outside, shall we?" Nealrith said. "This is not a matter that concerns us."

"On the contrary!" Granthon barked, his white bushy brows drawn so tight they met over his nose. His voice was surprisingly strong. And angry, with a twist of deep emotion. "This is exactly something you should all hear, because you should all know the sacrifices you might be called upon to make in the future. Senya, particularly."

He then directed his attention to Kaneth and Ryka, saying, "You both know the situation. The land could die with me. Probably will. And neither of you are doing your duty to prevent it. I have been patient far longer than I should have. I have threatened you with monetary loss. I have appealed to your sense of honour. I know nothing is certain-that any children you have may be water-blind-but we need to try everything, no matter the cost. If I can ruin my health and the quality of my life for you and this land, the very least you can do is marry for the good of it."

Ryka looked steadily at the floor, but heat spread from the back of her neck into her cheeks. Shame. Anger. Helplessness. She wasn't sure what was uppermost. Humiliation, perhaps, and not just because the Cloudmaster's family was listening, but because she couldn't imagine a worse humiliation, than marrying a man she loved who didn't care for her and would be rubbing her nose in his faithlessness every evening. What would he do: bed her then go off to his snuggeries? Or the other way around? She felt sick.

Granthon continued, "Now go into the next room and talk to one another, and don't come back until you have a solution that involves an attempt to bring another stormlord into the world. Is that clear?"

She and Kaneth glanced at each other, silently communicating their reluctance to even discuss the subject. Then Kaneth turned his gaze to look at the Cloudmaster. "The fault is mine. And I will not compound my errors by forcing myself on a woman who does not want me."

Granthon's eyes narrowed, but he did not comment.

"Would you really countenance such a thing, Lord Granthon?" Kaneth asked. "Since when did the Cloudmaster advocate rape?"

Nealrith winced. Senya smirked. And Granthon levered himself out of his chair in rage. "You think to play with me on this matter? It is the future of the Quartern we speak of here! Go discuss this, the two of you, and before you come back, think on this. If you will not marry-or set up a viable relationship in a home together-then one of you will be cast out of the gates as far as a pede can ride in three days, without water and away from a road. And the choice of which one of you that will be will rest on the selection of the shortest straw of two in my hand. Is that clear?"

Ryka felt the colour drain from her face. He would kill a rainlord-and never mind which one-just to make a point? And in such a cruel way: death by thirst. Neither she nor Kaneth had the kind of power that could retrieve water from the city over such a distance.

When he stared at her now, she could see none of his weakness, just the harsh look of a ruler who was determined to help his land the best way he knew how, no matter the cost to others.

There were no choices left, and she knew it. She tensed to control the shiver that threatened to skitter down her spine.

She exchanged another glance with Kaneth, saw his compassion, and said, "Yes, it is clear. And we don't need time to think about it. I will do as you ask."

"Kaneth?" the Cloudmaster asked.

He nodded abruptly.

"Good. Then I will expect to see you living under one roof within ten days. Nealrith, show them the door." He slumped back against the chair, suddenly once again an old, tired man. Outside the door, a servant came to show them out but Kaneth waved him away irritably. Ryka was already at the top of the stairs, where she had frozen, her attention caught by what she saw as she glanced over the banisters to the hall below. There was a new waterpainting set into the floor.

It measured perhaps ten paces long and seven wide, and it showed a young woman riding a black pede crossing a white landscape. The pede's many feet kicked up a white cloud as it went. The woman was dressed plainly, in travelling clothes, a palmubra hat on her head, her cloak billowing out behind her. Heat shimmers rose into a cloudless sky. All the immediate landscape was flat, featureless and white; in the distance, a range of blue and grey peaks rose, capped with white. They seemed to float in the sky, impossibly distant, yet appearing solid and real at the same time.

"That's new," Kaneth said at her elbow. He sounded upset, and she knew he was glad to find a neutral topic of conversation. "There used to be a picture of the clouds over Warthago Range, which was more appropriate for a cloudmaster's villa, I would have thought. This looks too, um, too personal. Although I'm damned if I know where it is. I've never seen a range like that one."

"I don't like it," she said, shuddering, not sure if it was the painting or the Cloudmaster's anger or the commitment she had been obliged to make that was making her so fearful. "In fact, I don't like waterpaintings."

"Why not?"

"They are too powerful. They… dominate the room they occupy. And you are right. This one is too personal. That has to be a real portrait of someone. And she looks…" She searched for the right word. "She looks haunted."

He glanced down at the painting again. "No, not haunted. Hunted. She looks hunted." He turned back to Ryka. "And I don't know why we are talking about a damned painting when we should be talking about what we are going to do."

She didn't look at him, but started on her way down the stairs. "There's nothing to talk about. We have to go through with it." She strove to sound cool, insouciant. "All we have to do is decide what we opt for: marriage or just a liaison."

"Marriage," he said.

She waved a careless hand, trying not to read anything into the choice. "As you wish."

Inside she wanted to weep.