The Last Stormlord

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Scarpen Quarter Warthago Range Scarcleft mother cistern "This is not good enough."

The tone of Taquar's words was as sharp as a well-honed knife and cut Shale just as deep. Slowly he rose to his feet to face the highlord.

After more than three years in the mother cistern waterhall, he was as tall as Taquar and almost as broad in the shoulder. His daily swimming and frequent forays outside to climb the surrounding hills and explore the gullies had built muscles to match those of the man he faced. Shale wondered sometimes what Taquar thought about that; did he ever ask himself how Shale had come by his strength?

"I can do no better," he said in answer, his voice deep and even. He indicated the first three of a series of bowls on the table. A grain or two of salt stuck to the bottom of each. "See? I have no trouble creating vapour when there is not much else dissolved in the water. But those-" Frowning, he pointed to the remaining four bowls, all still full. "There's too much dissolved salt, and it anchors the water in place. Or that's the way it feels."

The appalling truth had been growing inside him like a gall for some time now: if he couldn't lift vapour from a salty solution in a bowl under his nose, how ever was he going to lift a cloud from the sea?

In frustration, he tried to lift the water with the salt still in it, and earned the rainlord's cynical amusement. "We have power over water, you imbecile, not salt. Nor anything else that happens to be in the water. When you move water, that's all you move."

His fury was controlled, but Shale heard it in the viciousness of his next words. "You have to be able to extract vapour from the salt water of the sea! Yet you can't even extract liquid water from a solution right in front of you. Even rainlords can do that much."

"Then perhaps I am not even a rainlord." Blood, ink, piss, fruit juice or even dead bodies-it made no difference to rainlords, he knew that. They could extract the water. And he could not.

"The trouble is that you came to training too late and we are running out of time." Taquar began to pace up and down. "Things have deteriorated throughout the Quartern. Gibber settles are raiding one another now. Davim has most of the Reduner tribes behind him as their water holes shrink. He rides out mounted on that great pede of his-Burnish-his men following like a huge red dust storm, and puts the fear of the dune drovers into every settle in the northern Gibber, not to mention 'Baster caravans."

Shale sat down again. When Taquar was in a mood like this, it was pointless to say much, because he rarely listened.

"Water theft is increasing across the Scarpen. The measures I take in Scarcleft do not make me popular-some fool had the audacity to throw a stone at me from a rooftop last week! At least Granthon has finally ceased sending regular storms to the Gibber and White Quarters."

Shale stared, unbelieving. "Storms aren't regular in the Gibber any more?" He went cold all over, unable to comprehend the enormity of the tragedy in the making. "You think people of the White Quarter and the Gibber Plains should die?" he asked finally, his rage building.

"No, of course not. I think they should learn to live without our storms. They did once." He did not sound particularly concerned. "With Granthon not able to make full use of all the natural clouds, they will have to go somewhere and some will drop rain. Those two quarters will revert to a Time of Random Rain. In fact, I have heard rumours that there has been unexpected rainfall in both quarters already.

"If Granthon and Nealrith had any sense whatsoever," he continued, "they would have stopped trying to please everybody long ago and spent more time learning how to save the Scarpen. And the Reduners, of course. We have no choice there-if we don't supply them with water, they'll be on our doorsteps with their ziggers. Even now, they are restless. If I ruled in Breccia, I would give them the White Quarter to do what they liked with, to placate them for the reduction in water. Leave the north to the Reduners and the south to us."

"You mean split control of the Quartern?"

"Exactly."

Taquar's callousness was beyond Shale's understanding. Was this, he wondered, some kind of test? Was he supposed to protest?

His burning thirst for change-for any change-flared. He could not bear his imprisonment any more. He couldn't.

Taquar stopped pacing and came to sit opposite him. "You have to try harder, Shale. I know you have the capability of a stormlord. No rainlord can manipulate water the way you do, in such large quantities, with such control. No rainlord can move water such long distances. You can, therefore you are more than a rainlord. You can make vapour from fresh water. You just have to practise more and you'll be able to do it from salt water."

"No."

"I beg your pardon?"

"No. Practice is not going to make any difference. I have not been improving for a while now. It is time you took me to the Cloudmaster. It is time he taught me. Besides, I am tired of living here, of never meeting anyone but you."

And I don't trust you. And why do you never mention Mica?

It was more than three years since Wash Drybone Settle had died. More than three years since he had seen his brother. He met Taquar's hard gaze and refused to flinch. "My time here is over."

If it had not been for his studies, he thought he might have gone mad. At first, his three teachers from the Scarcleft Academy had all assumed he was much younger than he was, possibly because his writing was so poor. He hadn't minded that because he needed to be taught at the most childish of levels.

Now their mistake amused him, because they still thought him younger than he was and were unable to contain their delight at the rapid advances he made. One taught him arithmetic, geometry and water dynamics; another history, literature and-lately, at Shale's request and without Taquar's knowledge-basic Reduner vocabulary; and the third, natural history and geography. He knew his teachers' names but nothing more about them, and he had no idea what Taquar had told them about him. He knew he must puzzle them with his strange ignorance at times.

"What's a temple?" he'd asked his history teacher once, prompting the horror-struck man to pen a reply lamenting the gap in his religious education. He also had to have explained to him things as diverse as staircases and ships and silk and bath houses and trade across the Giving Sea. He'd soaked up the knowledge like desert sand thirsty for the evening dew, and asked for more.

As his horizons expanded, though, his discontent had grown. And now he knew the time had come to change things.

"You cage me," he accused. "I want to go to Breccia City."

The highlord frowned. When he spoke, it was without overt anger, but Shale shivered at the frost in the soft tones of his voice. "Shale, accept that I know what is best for you. I have many years of experience and a knowledge of both my fellow man and water-power. You have to trust me. I know the loneliness you must experience here, but our land demands it. The rewards will be huge, you know. And you will still be alive, because of me."

"If you do not take me, then I shall go alone. There is no way you can keep me here against my will. None."

Taquar stared at him, and for a long, uncomfortable moment, Shale wondered if he was in danger. There was something in Taquar's eyes that spoke of a rage so deep he was capable of doing anything. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed.

"Why, I believe you would indeed walk all the way to Scarcleft! I knew you worked out how to raise the grille, of course. And perhaps you are right-it is time. Very well, but allow me to go and make arrangements first, if you will. Next time I come, I will take you away from here. That is a promise, the word of a highlord. Perhaps I should take you to the sea. If you confront the ocean, you may do better at water extraction."

Shale let out the breath he had been holding. "I would like that."

"We will need to be cautious. We still do not know who the rogue rainlord is. I have come to the conclusion that Kaneth is more likely than Nealrith. He certainly has more opportunity to speak to Reduners, as he travels a lot. He leads a group of young warriors who hunt down the Reduner marauders, yet the raids continue. Who knows if that is all he does?"

They stared at one another, youth and man. Shale remembered the collared lizards around the settle, flexing their neck ruffs, circling one another before a fight. We're like that, he thought. We don't like each other. Not really. He looked away, wondering if they would ever come to a full-scale argument. He hoped not, because he was not sure he would win. As far as Taquar was concerned, they left the matter of his future there, but Shale's thoughts raged on. Discontent needled him. The rewards Taquar had mentioned meant little. He already had all he could eat and drink, and once that had been a dream of untold riches. What he wanted most was to look for Mica, to free Mica-if he was still alive. Controlling water for a whole land meant nothing unless he could make amends for the suffering his possession of water-powers had provoked.

The thought of rewards had never crossed his mind. And Taquar had apparently forgotten Mica ever existed.

Sometimes, he thought, we don't speak the same language.

He went to clean Taquar's pede, wanting the rhythm of grooming the animal to calm him. Besides, he needed to think. Now that he had the promise of freedom before him, he felt as much trepidation as elation. In spite of all his lessons, he knew so little and it was all theoretical.

Perhaps Nealrith would make life miserable for him. Perhaps he would hate city life. Perhaps the Cloudmaster would despise him.

He knew now that Granthon was more than just a storm-bringer. He actually ruled. True, the cities and settles and tribes of the Quartern managed their own daily affairs, but some things were controlled from Breccia City. Water was guaranteed, but only in exchange for services. There were taxes to be paid; laws to be observed and enforced; in some areas there were trade roads or docks or roadside cisterns to be maintained.

The tribes of Reduner were obliged to supply a certain number of pedes to Scarpen markets each year. The quarries of the White Quarter were expected to send a fixed quota of salt and soda and gypsum. The mines of Scarpen were required to tender a certain weight in metals. The fossickers of the Gibber supplied gemstones and resin to pay their taxes. It was a whole network of obligations and trade and tax agreements supervised from the offices of the Cloudmaster, and Shale had gleaned enough from his teachers and his reading to know that he didn't know half of it.

Even an idle question had ramifications beyond anything he expected. He once asked Taquar who made the tokens and why they didn't make more of them so that no one needed to be waterless. This careless query laid Shale open to Taquar's scorn and a lecture on the whole concept of the debasing of coinage. He found out that the minting of tokens was done under strict supervision in Breccia, and the number of tokens was rigidly controlled according to the amount of water available for sale each year.

"But isn't that amount of water actually the same from year to year?" he asked. "At least in the past, if not now. You shouldn't have needed any new tokens made, in that case."

Taquar looked exasperated. "Tokens get lost, or people hide them under the bed and forget about them, or they get traded on the other side of the Giving Sea. Somehow or another, you have to keep the right amount of tokens in circulation, and that means minting new coins every year. Otherwise people won't be able to buy water."

"How do they know how many to make?"

"Oh, there are ways," he answered vaguely. "The Breccia Hall treasurer does that. Something to do with whether people are buying water at prices higher than-or lower than-one token per dayjar. And something to do with the ratio of old coins to newer ones in the marketplace. Each year's minting has a number, and the accountants can calculate how many of the old tokens have been lost-I don't know the details. I do know it works differently here from other countries. Over on the Other Side-"

"The Other Side?"

"The outlander countries on the other side of the Giving Sea. They keep growing, getting bigger and bigger. More people born each year. But we can't do that. Our population has to stay the same because there is no water to spare." He gave a disgusted grunt. "And still there are people who can't see that truth. Idiots who will have more children than they should, even though they know the extra ones will be born waterless and that most of them will end up on the lowest level, one step away from death by thirst. I have no patience with those people. Not with the poor who breed like pouched mice because they can't be bothered to stop, nor with the rich who try to buy a place for their extra children. They have no right to take away my water-the water of a hard-working citizen. The waterless, rich or poor, are the curse of this land. They live by thieving; they are either poor and diseased and useless and filthy, or rich and useless parasites."

Shale felt he was standing on shifting sand. He looked straight at Taquar. "I was born waterless," he said.

There was a long silence. Then, "Yes. So you were. And I thank the Watergiver you were born, but it does not change my opinion. A succession of stormlords have been too weak to make the birth of waterless progeny a crime, as it should be. Instead they just deny the children water allotment. Where is the good in that? It takes the crime away from the parent and punishes those born through no fault of their own."

"I didn't know it was possible to-well, to stop the children coming. My mother never knew how. Most of them died, anyway."

"Of course there are ways! But why are we talking of such matters? Monetary policies and the lack of birth laws are no concern of yours."

No concern of yours.

As he remembered that conversation, Shale knew that Taquar did not ever think of him as being a cloudmaster one day, ruling as Granthon did. The rainlord was not teaching him the duties of a ruler. What Shale knew about those things he gained from his reading or the academy teachers.

He wasn't sure exactly what Taquar did intend, but he suspected the highlord thought he, Shale, was going to be doing little more than move storms all his life.

Maybe I don't understand all I read, or what I am taught, he thought. But I am not as stupid as Taquar thinks, either. I am sure I'm not. As they were about to eat their midday meal, Shale felt the arrival of people outside. Not a few, but a large group. "Men and pedes," he said urgently. "Coming up the slope."

Swiftly Taquar was on his feet, his hand going to the loaded zigtube he had put down on the table. "Wait here," he rasped and went out.

Shale, however, followed, pushing his water senses outwards. He felt most of the pedes and men stop at the bottom of the slope. Two men riding myriapedes continued up towards the grille.

He saw them arrive. Two dune tribesmen. Reduners.

Shale began to unravel. Breathing became an effort. His hands felt clammy. His stomach churned.

They dismounted and the first man gave his reins to the second. "It is time," he said to Taquar without greeting. "I want to meet him."

The way Taquar held himself told Shale that the rainlord was angry, but nothing of the emotion came through in his voice. "As you wish," he said smoothly. "Perhaps you will join me for a meal?"

As the highlord manipulated the grille, Shale saw the Reduner more clearly. Red-skinned, lean, hawk-nosed, his red-stained braids poking out under the cloth extensions of his woven cap, he was a striking man. His red-dyed tunic was lavishly embroidered in matching thread in a panel down the front. Even though he wasn't large, he held himself tall; everything about him spoke of power and prestige.

Taquar turned to Shale. "Help the servant clean the pedes," he said abruptly, indicating the animals. "Get them food and water."

But Shale couldn't move. He was pinned to the wall by a welter of emotion and memory.

"And who is this?" the first man asked, eyeing him with an intense gaze as he entered the cavern. Something told Shale the question was redundant; the man knew exactly who he was.

Taquar ushered the Reduner towards the living quarters. "Shale Flint," he replied. "He does the chores around the place for me. We live simply here," he added, "but I can offer you the finest of Scarpen pickles and preserves, and some bread I brought from Scarcleft." He looked back over his shoulder as they entered the inner room, frowning his disapproval at Shale's lack of response to his order. "Get to it, lad."

Shale moved then. The Reduner servant wordlessly handed Shale the reins of his pede, making it clear that he did not intend to indulge in idle conversation now they were alone. Shale made himself busy, while the man tended to his master's pede. It was a magnificent creature, larger than most, the deep red-black colour of the darkest of rubies. Shale stared at it with covetous eyes before turning to the servant's pede. He worked without thinking, calming the turbulence of his thoughts in the steady cleaning and polishing. Antennae first, for without the sensitivity of clean feelers it was purblind. Then the head and mouthparts, next the thorax, brushing out the irritating grains of sand caught in between or under the segments. Next he fetched the herbal polish and began to work on the segments themselves, shining them till they gleamed. Alongside him, the man worked on similar tasks but said nothing, often deliberately turning his back. It didn't take Shale long to realise he was being snubbed.

He was still wondering about that when he came to the fifth segment on the pede he was cleaning. Like all the others, it was carved with pictures. And as Shale ran the polishing cloth over the carvings, the pictures seemed familiar. A pede being pulled out of some kind of sinkhole.

He stared. Everything stopped: his heart, his breath, his throat.

He had last seen those pictures close up, with his cheek pressed down into the carvings as the pede-the very same pede-had flowed across the desert in the heat of the day with its burden, a boy still bathed in his sister's blood.