The Last Stormlord

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Scarpen Quarter Scarcleft City Artisman Russet's room, Level 36 Terelle returned to Russet's room an hour or so later.

There was nowhere else to go. And as always, when her mind schemed rebellion, her body suffered. She sweated; her stomach cramped.

In one part of her mind and heart she had always known that Russet was not a gentle, kindly old man with an altruistic interest in her wellbeing. She just hadn't wanted to see the extent of his nastiness and greed, even in the privacy of her thoughts.

She scowled, thinking, That was so childish.

At least she knew her true name now: Terelle Grey. And if Russet was telling the truth, Viviandra's father, who had sold her to a Reduner caravan, had only been her stepfather. She was glad of that, too.

She shivered slightly. The thought of journeying to a land so far away that no one had even heard of it scared her. Watergivers. Even the name was outlandish, as if they were all gods. Or blasphemous, as if they all thought of themselves as gods. Yet she didn't know if she was prepared to confront Russet and demand answers, or to give ultimatums. What if he painted a worse future for her? Perhaps he could restrict her still further, tighten his grip on her small freedoms. How would she bear it? It was bad enough as it was. In her heart, she ached to go with Shale. She trusted him. She liked him. When she was with him, she felt content. No, more than that: safe. Happy. When she thought of him walking out of her life, she went cold all over. But how to tear free of Russet when even thinking about it made her feel so ill?

Sunlord help me, how long do I have to spend with that old man? I hate him! For the next few days, she kept practising her waterpainting skills, including the ability to influence the future.

"We call it shuffling," Russet said. "Ye shuffle up new picture from base paint, or ye shuffle the future-make it happen."

She experimented by manipulating things that she hoped were trivial, but the more she trained her hand and her mind, the more she was frightened by the scope of what she was able to do. "If ye be having details, then only two limits to power of waterpainting, Terelle," Russet said. "Ye can't shuffle up yourself into a painting. Meaning ye can't make your own future. Second thing, ye can't ask impossible-can't be bringing dead back to life or making someone fly like bird."

"It wouldn't be possible for me to ensure that Shale and Mica meet again, would it?" she asked, wanting to be sure she had been right about that.

"Your heart and mind must have picture of Mica, so how? Ye can't."

Shale, practising his water skills alongside her, looked away without commenting. His innate disapproval of waterpainting was like a smothering blanket.

Her fear grew. Her sense of rebellion was being slowly snuffed out, spark by spark. It had nothing to do with Shale, everything to do with Russet. And there was nothing she could do to stop it. As a snuggery madam, Opal considered the girls' reading of poetry or writing of loving missives to favoured clients to be part of their entertainment value. Consequently, both Terelle and Vivie had been taught to read. However, Terelle had never read the kind of books that Shale had in his possession. A book about Scarcleft and the people who had once ruled the Scarpen. A book on the geography of the Quartern. A book describing plants and animals and gemstones. A book detailing the dynamics of water.

"I never knew reading could be so-so interesting!" she said. "Where did you get them all?"

"I took them from the mother cistern. There were lots of books there when I arrived, children's books mostly, and Taquar brought me more later."

"Books in a mother cistern? Why?" she asked.

"What?"

"Why? Why on earth did Taquar keep books at a cistern? And why children's books? Did he take them there for you?"

He paused, thinking. "No, I don't think so. Most of them were stacked away and dusty. There were all sorts of odd things there. Toys. Children's clothes of different sizes, for girls. Women's clothing, too. As if…"

"As if?"

"As if other people had been living there before me."

"Children?" She was disbelieving.

He was silent so long she thought he was not going to answer.

Then he said softly, "I'm stupid. I never really thought about it, but of course it wasn't like that. It was one child, growing up. Getting bigger, older."

"That doesn't make sense."

"Yes, it does. If she was like me."

She stared at him, not comprehending, and then with growing horror as she did. "A water sensitive," she said at last. "A potential stormlord. Kidnapped. Living there alone for years? Growing up there? Until she was a woman?"

"A prisoner." He could barely get the words out. "Taquar's prisoner. Like me. Maybe she was looked after by a woman. There were no clothes to fit a child older than about ten. Maybe he took her away before she got any older than that."

"Or maybe she died then."

He went to rummage through his bag. Russet, who had been brewing more of his paints at the fireplace, looked over at him curiously, but he ignored the old man and held up what he had been looking for: the gold bracelet he had found in the mother cistern. "I found this there. There's a word on it, but I wasn't sure what it meant." He handed it to her.

Before she had time to examine it, Russet had reached over her shoulder and taken it from her. "Vymeth? No, Lyneth."

"It's a girl's name," Terelle said.

Russet considered. "Familiar. Lyneth. Yes, I remember. Two rainlords lost daughter in desert. Lyneth. Stormlord, folk said. Father be still looking for her, even now. Sandcrazy man with limp. His name? Ianin? Iani, that be it. Husband to Moiqa, Highlord of Qanatend. Their daughter."

"Not a lost child," Shale said. "A kidnapped child. She must have died, of illness perhaps. Otherwise he would not have needed me."

"Taquar maybe killed her if she not stormlord he wanted," Russet said.

"Maybe she just went crazy," Terelle whispered. "All those years shut away…"

"Here." Russet gave the bracelet back to Shale. "Give to Cloudmaster when ye meet." He sounded more gleeful than touched by the tragedy it represented.

Shale's expression was one of revulsion. "You would like to see Breccia and Scarcleft fighting one another," he said. "Why?"

Russet's face twitched. "I be owing them nothing," he said. "Asked them for help, all those years ago. Nealrith, Granthon, Taquar, Moiqa, others, too-not one help get me what rightfully mine. Not one."

"What was it that was rightfully yours?" Shale asked.

But the old man left the room for the hallway without replying.

"My mother," Terelle said quietly. "He means my mother. He asked them to help him find her."

He thought about that and whispered back, "At least we can guess now why he's helping me. He wants to stir up trouble between the cities. Between Nealrith and Taquar."

Terelle wanted to argue, wanted to deny it, but she couldn't bring herself to utter the words. It could have been true. She settled for changing the subject. "If Taquar finds you, but thinks you won't cooperate, he could have you killed. We heard today that they were conducting a house-to-house search on the other side of our level. And that some of the streets were blocked off."

"Were they looking for me?"

"I don't know. Nobody was allowed over there to find out what was going on."

"Terelle, you need to be careful. Anyone who helps me could be in danger."

"Let him try to hurt me," she said, half-amused, half-rattled by the concern in his voice. "He'd have to override waterpainting magic first. You see, Russet has painted me older than I am now." Her amusement vanished with her next thought. When she had left the snuggery, she had sworn she would be free to do as she wanted. And yet Russet now as good as owned her. She wasn't even able to think of leaving him.

She, who had so valued her freedom, had lost all the freedom she'd ever had. Every day after that, enforcers searched a different sector of the level and then carefully screened everyone who entered the searched areas afterwards.

"Only a matter of time before they get here," Shale said. "And still too soon to be expecting Highlord Nealrith." It was hard to curb his impatience to be gone.

Russet's advice was to let them come. "They never be looking for a Reduner," he said.

"What reason would a Reduner be here, in our room?" Terelle asked. "It would seem so odd to an enforcer, surely. I mean, Reduners don't mix with Scarcleft folk."

"Reduner caravanners be selling goods to anyone, just like 'Baster caravanners. Can sell waterpainters red pigment, no?"

They prepared themselves by getting rid of anything that tied Shale to his past: the books, his clothes, the cloth bag. Then they made paint-powder in different shades of red and wrapped each in red cloth.

"I'm in trouble if an enforcer speaks to me in the Reduner tongue," Shale said. "I know all the more common words, and I understand quite a bit, but that's all."

Russet grunted. "Scarpen folk be too arrogant to learn other tongues," he said, dismissing Shale's concerns with an airy wave of his hand.

He has to be the most irritating man I've ever met, Shale thought.

As far as he knew, no one was aware that Russet's room had an extra person. Terelle had no need to buy him water, and whenever his water-senses told him there was anyone around, he spoke only in a whisper and avoided using the communal outhouse at the end of the hallway. The secrecy was tiresome but bearable. When Vato warned Terelle the search had started in their area, Russet announced that if the enforcers took Shale, he-Russet-must be free to paint him out of trouble. With that, he disappeared with his paints and trays.

"Oooh!" Terelle cried after he'd gone. "Sometimes I want to push his face right into the middle of one of his paintings while the paint is still wet! He's leaving us to face the enforcers alone, the-the sand-blighted misbegotten son of a-"

Shale grinned sympathetically as words failed her. "It doesn't matter. We can do this alone. At least we know he would do his best to help you afterwards if anything went wrong."

They heard the commotion in the street first. People wailing, shouts. It was past midday, though, before Shale sensed strangers coming up their stairs. "A party of six. All men," he said.

Terelle tensed. "Is it them?"

"Probably."

"I'm scared," she whispered.

"Don't be. We've rehearsed all this. And we have got rid of everything that ties me to Taquar." That wasn't quite true. Hidden in the hem of his tunic was Lyneth's bracelet, but he wasn't going to remind her of that. "How do I look?"

She surveyed him critically. "Like a Reduner. But belt on your scimitar."

He grabbed the weapon up, cursing himself for forgetting it, and did up the sword belt. She reached up to arrange his red braids so that some fell in front of his ears and were clearly visible.

They left the door open and were therefore forced to listen to the sounds of their neighbours being bullied. Terelle paled. Shale smiled encouragement, but she didn't look any happier.

When the enforcers and a reeve arrived, she was calmly counting tokens into Shale's outstretched hand. The paint-powder was on the table, with several of the cloths untied to show the heaps of colour.

She looked up as the men appeared. "Yes?" she asked.

They ignored her question and all of them entered the room. Four of them began searching, throwing belongings around without care. The reeve and the enforcer in charge stood either side of the doorway.

"Your name and work?" the reeve asked.

"Terelle Grey, apprentice waterpainter. I live here with my, um, grandfather, Russet, who does the waterpaintings for the upper levels." She dug into her pocket and pulled out the uplevel pass Russet had left with her.

The reeve looked at it, then passed it back and turned his attention to Shale.

Shale stared back, with arrogant calm, or so he hoped.

"And who are you?" the reeve asked.

"Evrim, caravanner of Dune Pebblered," Shale said, imitating a heavy Reduner accent.

One of the searchers slashed the pallets so that he could feel through the teased fibres inside. Terelle winced when she saw what he was doing.

"Why are you here?" the reeve asked Shale.

"Trading," he answered.

"We buy red paint from his dune," Terelle added and indicated the powder on the table in front of her. "And is it really necessary to make such a mess?" An enforcer had started to rake through the ashes in the hearth, sending up billows of dust.

"I didn't know there was a Reduner caravan in," the enforcer by the door said. He had been watching his men, but now his gaze held Shale's.

Shale glared. "You spy?" he asked suspiciously. "Spy on me?" His hand dropped to the handle of his scimitar.

Terelle looked horrified. She made an involuntary gesture of negation.

"No, no," the enforcer said hurriedly. His right hand hovered around the hilt of his weapon, but he did not look happy at the prospect of a fight against a Reduner.

"We have no quarrel with you," the reeve said to Shale. "Finish your business, pedeman, and be on your way."

Grateful for the reputation Reduners had for being quick and deadly in battle, Shale took his hand away from the scimitar. He drew himself up and folded his arms instead. "Reduner warrior never leave woman alone with rakui men!" he said. "I wait!"

The reeve and the enforcer exchanged glances. The reeve shrugged. "We've finished anyway," he said.

Terelle and Shale waited in silence while the men filed out. When they heard them descend the stairs, Terelle let out the breath she had been holding.

"Oh, you-you-dryhead! I thought I was going to die of fright! What if he'd pulled his sword?"

Shale grinned at her. "At least it never occurred to him that I was the Gibber youth they were looking for."

"And what does rakui mean?"

"Not sure. It's an insult of some sort."

She rolled her eyes at him. "You're impossible. I'd better check on Lilva and anyone else who's around. If I don't, they'll only come here to find out how I am. Behave yourself."

She left, closing the door behind her. He sat down at the table and stared at his hands, which seemed to have suddenly developed a tremor, wondering if he'd been out of his mind. Russet was out again on the day the Breccian rainlords arrived in Scarcleft.

Terelle was painting, while Shale watched. She was seated on the old man's mat near the open door where the light was best, while he sat at the table and wished he still had his books.

As she gently tapped powdered colour from an application spoon onto the surface of the water, he asked, "Have you ever met an Alabaster?"

She finished what she was doing before she replied. "An Alabaster? I once saw one up close. The day I first met Russet." She frowned. "Russet said something odd about that. He said that he, the Alabaster, was drawn to me because of my tears. I weep tears when I feel sad, you see. Russet said the Alabaster felt them. And the Alabaster, he raised his hand in blessing towards me. I don't know why."

Shale thought about that. "You shed tears when you don't have something in your eye? I've never met anyone else who did that."

"I think it is how Russet found me. From a distance, no one would know I was not Gibber. You have to be close up to realise my eyes are green. It was my tears that betrayed me." She sounded matter-of-fact. "Maybe it is something that these people from Khromatis do. Waste water on grief."

He was silent for a moment, pondering. It was the first time she had actually acknowledged that she was indeed one of Russet's people. "If the Alabaster realised that-" He paused, thinking things through. "Maybe if you were to ask one, they might be able to tell you more about who you are. Or at least about who the mountain people are."

"You could be right. Only there aren't any Alabasters around any more. I guess they got to hear what happened to that man you told us about. What was his name?"

"Feroze Khorash."

"You believe he's dead, don't you?"

He nodded abruptly, not wanting to think about it. "Terelle, if Highlord Nealrith comes, please say you'll come with me to Breccia."

She was silent so long, he knew something was wrong. "What is it?" he asked.

"Russet won't let me go. Whatever it is he plans, he needs me for it."

"He can't stop you."

"Shale, he can shuffle up a future in which I don't go with you to Breccia. He can paint you out of my life. He might have already done so. He has certainly already influenced my future."

He stared at her, trying to think through the implications, not certain if he believed what she was trying to tell him.

She started fiddling with her paint jars, turning from him so he could not see her face. "You don't understand, do you? He controls me through his waterpainting. He has concocted his version of the future and placed me there, doing the things he has planned for me. I don't think I even had a chance to refuse his offer of apprenticeship. I didn't realise it then, of course. And now I want to choose another way, I can't. He's taken away my choices, Shale. I don't have any. I think I never did."

Something inside him lurched painfully. "You're trapped inside his paintings?" he asked, incredulous.

She continued. "In a way. They pull me. I know that I want to go with you. That I ought to go. That I will be safer with you, better off in Breccia. I know all those things in my head, but I don't feel that I want to go. Just the opposite. I am being drawn to a different future. The one he has painted." She looked away from him and back at her painting. "I can't go with you, and I'm sorrier than I can say."

He was shocked by her certainty. By the fact that she accepted it. "That's coercion. It's not right. It's worse than slavery."

She was silent.

"What future has been painted for you?"

"I've seen pictures of me in what is probably the White Quarter, and also in a green place, where water flows on the land. Maybe it won't be so bad. If I am his kin, if he takes me back to where I belong, at least I'll find out about my real mother and father. Perhaps I have other family-"

"It's not right to be forced."

"No. But I can't help myself."

The words were whispered, despairing, so unlike her that he was shocked. "Yes, you can! Remember what Russet said? He said that he thought he couldn't find your mother because she resisted the pull of his waterpainting! It must be possible to resist, to pull away, to stand against it. Otherwise he would not have believed she could do it."

"He was talking about my mother, not me. She was powerful in these water arts, or so he has implied. I'm just an apprentice."

"I can't believe that you are just going to give up! You?" He stood up and came over to where she was still seated on the mat. "You struggled so long to find a way to escape the snuggery and now you are just going to allow yourself to be enslaved again? By someone you don't even like? Terelle, you've got to fight it!"

His passion broke through into his voice and she looked up at him, startled. He dropped to his knees beside her. "Terelle, I'll speak to Highlord Nealrith. Maybe he can help. What if you do your own painting? There's got to be a way!"

"I can't paint myself, remember? And Russet's so much more powerful than I am."

"Is he? If that was so, then he wouldn't need you so much! Terelle, don't give up. Please-" He stopped, astonished by his own reaction to being parted from her. It mattered. He couldn't bear to lose another person. Especially not Terelle. He opened his mouth to protest further but didn't have the words to express what he wanted, what he thought. All that would come out was a pathetic, "Please don't give up. Not like this."

His passion had shaken her, he could see that. She looked at him uncertainly, then her eyes filled with tears. And suddenly she was in his arms, crying, and he was patting her awkwardly on the back.

He took a deep breath and forced himself to say the things he had been holding inside. "Terelle, other than Mica, you're the only friend I've ever had. I thought after Taquar that I'd never trust anyone again." He was grateful she had her face buried in his shoulder and was not watching him as he stumbled on, wading through a welter of raw emotion. "For nearly four years I never spoke to anyone but Taquar, and that not often. So if I'm not making sense, I'm sorry. I'm not good at saying things. But I want to tell you I don't want to lose you. And that I'll look after you, if I can. You'll never want for water, I swear. And I'll keep you safe."

She pulled back then, to look at him, wiping her face with the back of her hand. She managed to appear amazed and bemused and delighted, all at the one time.

"But you've got to fight Russet's power first. I can't do that for you," he added.

And something died in her expression, even as she said, "I'll try. I promise I'll try."