The Last Stormlord

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Scarpen Quarter Scarcleft City Level 32 and Level 10 "You can't do this to me," Vivie said flatly. "I won't let you."

"You can't stop me."

"Don't be stupid, of course I can. All I have to do is call for Garri." She waved a hand in the direction of her door, as if the steward was waiting outside. "Or Madam Opal. Terelle, you are honour-bound to serve the snuggery. You owe Opal."

"I didn't ask to be here."

"You've been glad enough to drink the water."

"I wish I hadn't told you now! I just didn't want you worrying about me."

"Waterless heavens! Terelle, are you out of your mind? You met a man down on the thirty-sixth-what were you doing down there anyway?-and on the strength of that one meeting, you want to live with him so he can teach you to paint water?"

"It's not like that."

"Have you any idea what Opal will say to me if you vanish? She will think I knew and didn't tell her!" Even as she spoke, she paled. "What if she makes me pay off your debt as well as my own? Oh, mercy, of course that's what she'll do! Terelle, you can't walk out!"

Terelle stayed stubbornly silent. Inside, her hopes leaked away. Why had she told Vivie this much? She should have just disappeared. Now she'd never be allowed out of the snuggery. They would watch her like chameleons hunting prey.

Use your head, Terelle. Get out of this.

"I never thought of that," she said at last. "Of course, that's exactly what Opal would do. Make you pay. Oh, Vivie, that would be awful." She tried to look woebegone. Vivie was probably right, at that.

"You can't do that to me," Vivie reiterated.

And what about me? Terelle asked silently, trying to push away the guilt. Aloud she said, eyes downcast, "I'm-I'm sorry. You're right. That would be awful. I never thought of that." She flushed, and hoped that Vivie wouldn't realise it was because she was lying.

Vivie looked relieved. "You won't go?"

Terelle slumped on the bed. "No. I guess not."

"That's all right, then. By all that's holy, you had me worried, Terelle. I thought you'd taken leave of your senses! And over nothing, too. You'll like working here once you start upstairs."

Terelle looked at her curiously. "Do you, Vivie? Do you really like it?"

She shrugged. "Some of the men are nice. Some aren't, but Opal never lets them hurt us. If Huckman gets your first-night, it may not be pleasant, but Opal will give you part of what she makes him pay. She's very fair. Why do you let it bother you so, Terelle? If we were back in the Gibber, Father would have married us off by now, and we could both be stuck with men we hated for the rest of our lives! That would be far, far worse."

"I'm sorry, Vivie. I guess I just didn't think."

Vivie smiled at her. "It's not so bad, don't worry. Here, look, I bought you a present in the bazaar." Smiling, she handed over a small parcel wrapped in a melon leaf.

When Terelle unfolded the wrapping, she found a mirror with a carved pede-shell back. "It's a 'Baster looking glass!" she said, astonished. They were much more expensive than the polished stone mirrors most people used. "It's lovely," she added, and meant it. "Thanks. I-I will treasure it."

"Hey, it's nothing. Run along now and help the servants with the preparations for tonight. I've got to dress. Hanri the trader said he was coming and I want him to choose me, so I've got to look especially nice."

Terelle left, but she didn't go downstairs. She went back to her own room, which she shared with several of the servants. As she expected, there was no one there. She took the waterpainting from under her bed, then gathered her spare set of working clothes and bundled them up with the painting and the mirror inside. She made sure that she had all her tokens safely in her coin pocket and took one last glance around the room. She had no regrets at leaving. The servants were all middle-aged; she had no close friends in the snuggery except for Vivie, and in the end they'd had nothing in common except a shared childhood, a vague sisterly affection and a father who had sold them.

She closed the door behind her and started down the stairs. She knew the trick to dodging any added workload: you looked busy. So she hurried, clutching her bundle as if it was a pile of dirty bed linen. Once downstairs, she walked briskly past the kitchen and let herself out of the back door.

She was surprised at just how busy the streets were at night, surprised to find that the people of Scarcleft flung open their doors and brought chairs out to sit in front of their gateways. A young lad was trying to impress his friends with his dubious mastery of the intricacies of the lute as he sat on his doorstep. Residents ambled by, visiting their neighbours. A peddler, tray hanging from a strap around his neck, sold hot cakes rolled in honey for a tinny token.

She had feared people would think it odd for someone of her age to be out in the streets at this hour after sunset but she found she was just one of many. She used her bundle to make it look as if she was a servant on an errand and found it easy enough to slip by the occasional patrolling enforcer. With a pang, she realised how much she had missed, growing up in the snuggery. At this hour of the night, she had always been too busy working ever to wonder what ordinary people did with their lives.

I'm sorry, Vivie, she thought, but I've got to do this.

She did not go directly to Level Thirty-six. Instead, she climbed up to the tenth, to Amethyst's. As always, Jomat answered her pull of the bell with sour suspicion.

"What are you doing here?" he asked. "What makes you think that the arta will want to see you in the middle of the night?" Even in the cool of the evening, he was sweating. He reached out and pinched her cheek with damp fingers, but Terelle stood her ground. Fortunately, just at that moment Amethyst entered the courtyard and waved Jomat away.

"I've run away," Terelle explained once they were seated inside, away from Jomat's eavesdropping. "I'm going down to live on Level Thirty-six. But I'm scared to go there at night, so I wondered if I could stay here. Just for tonight."

However, by the time Terelle had told the whole story, Amethyst looked no more pleased than Viviandra had. "Have you seen where this old man lives?" she asked.

"He did show me. It's just a single room, but it's clean and large."

"Hmm. I have seen some waterpaintings. Perhaps they were his work. I've seen the one Kerkil the singer has in her front hall. She said the artist was a strange old man, an outlander. Did he tell you his name?"

"Russet Kermes."

"Russet, yes, that was him. Artisman Russet. It's the same person." Amethyst stirred uncomfortably. "Terelle, are you sure? What's that old saying… 'Don't hug the ghost out of fear of the corpse.'? You are not stepping out of one brothel door and into another, are you?"

"I-I don't think so. I spoke to some of the people who live in his building. They said he's been there about a year. Before that, he lived in other cities, or so he told them. They say he spends a lot of his time uplevel, where the rich pay him to do waterpaintings. And that he sometimes goes to the other cities, too."

"But?"

"They-they don't like him much. I think it's just because he is different. I don't think he's from the Quartern. He has a really funny way of speaking, his arms and legs are painted with patterns and his clothes are weird. And he's not terribly friendly."

"Wherever he comes from, he will be waterless here, dependent on what he can earn." She continued to look at Terelle in concern.

"He's old, Arta. Very old. He couldn't do anything to me that I didn't agree to; he wouldn't be strong enough."

"Few people make offers to complete strangers without wanting something. He told you he wanted an apprentice-why?"

"He's old. He needs help," Terelle replied defensively.

"I hope that's all."

Terelle shivered, but said nothing. Hug a ghost… One part of her knew that she was foolish, tucking her fears away in a corner of her mind instead of bringing them out and confronting them. What did the old man do to the painting to make it change? How is it possible to make a portrait of a real person out of a few suggestive splashes of paint? Scarier still: Why had the woman he portrayed then stepped into the street? Coincidence? Or had the painting made her do that? Her mouth went dry at the thought. And then, perhaps the scariest of all: How did he know my name?

"I have the painting he did," she said. She spread it out on the floor at her feet so that Amethyst could look at it. The dancer studied it, sipping her tea. "It is very powerful," she said at last. "I would not like to cross the man who did that."

Terelle regarded the artwork anew. The painted sunlight bathed the beaten earth of the roadway in heat, the door to the house hung loose in breathless air. She reached out a finger to touch the paint and it was a relief to find that it was not warmed by the sun. The feel beneath her fingertip was just paint, not dust. Powerful, true-but already the power was fading, just as he had said it would once it was cut away from the magic of water. That night, bedded down on the divan in the reception room, Terelle did not sleep well. Her dreams were disturbing, her fears surfacing in vivid inanities, all horribly real while she was asleep and stupid when she was awake, but which left a residue of worry behind like dregs in a dirty glass.

Dream and reality merged halfway through the night when she awoke to the feeling that there was someone in the room. She opened her eyes a crack. A figure was moving around holding a glimmer nightlamp. It barely cast a glow, but it was enough for her to recognise Jomat; his bulbous stomach and suppressed wheezing were unmistakable. He placed the lamp on a table, shielding most of its light with his body. He stealthily rifled through the bundle she had brought with her. She opened her mouth to scream out a protest, but thought better of it. She didn't want to embarrass Amethyst. There was nothing for Jomat to steal; her tokens were all under her pillow. And his stealth told her he wasn't intending to molest her.

She held her breath and watched through slitted eyes while he pulled out her waterpainting and unrolled it. He picked up the lamp to look at it properly, then carefully rolled it up again. Even more carefully, he replaced everything the way it had been and crept out of the room.

Terelle expelled her breath.

He was spying, she thought. But he can't be interested in me, not really. He knows why I come, and the reason is harmless enough. No, maybe he's just a snoop. She knew handmaidens at the snuggery who were like that: girls who just wanted to stick their noses into everything, looking for secrets because secrets gave you power over those with something to hide. And then another thought came: Maybe it's really Amethyst he spies on.

She hadn't thought it was possible to dislike that man more than she already did. Uneasily, and for no reason she could define, she regretted that he'd seen the painting.