The Last Stormlord

CHAPTER SEVEN

Red Quarter Dune Watergatherer Sandmaster Davim sat on his pede at the top of the dune they called the Watergatherer. To the east and west, the red line of the dune humped away as far as he could see. To the north, it fell sharply to the plains. This, the front edge of the Watergatherer, was a wall of fine red dust unsullied by any plants or growth, a slope steep enough to make walking difficult. Its top edge, towering five hundred paces up, was as sharp as a sword cut. An occasional playful gust of wind tore grains away from the cut in flurries.

The back side of the dune was different. There were gullies and dips and hollows and valleys carved into the long, more gentle descent of several miles to the distant plain. The red sand of this sculpted slope was dotted with vegetation: a prickly bush here, a sand-creeper there; a clump of smoke-bush behind that. Bare surface showed through, but the plants maintained a precarious existence, oblivious to the slow inching of the dune that carried them forward.

The red dunes of the quarter were waves swallowing up the land in front only to discard it behind two or three decades later as lifeless as the skeletal remains of a masticated meal. The Red Quarter had sixteen such dunes, spaced equidistant from one another, all on their inexorable slither northwards to extinction, a long slow demise as they eased themselves into the expanse of the Burning Sand-Sea, a desert so hot and vast that not even a pede ventured there.

The dunes were birthed in the south, perhaps by the eroded red rock of the Warthago Range or the red earth of The Spindlings. The plain they traversed was also red, although the earth was coarser and its vegetation sealed it tight against the depredations of the wind. It was covered with low bushes, rocks, the odd waterhole that was sometimes no more than a bowl of dust-until the next parallel dune ten or fifteen miles away.

Davim scanned the country carefully from his vantage point, watching for the man he expected. His fellow conspirator, he supposed, but he preferred to think of the man as the Traitor, for such he was to his own kind. Once Davim had respected him, though not now. Conspirators they might be, but Davim despised the treachery, useful as it was, that was bringing the Scarperman to him again.

As yet, there was no sign of him. The only people he saw were his own followers, camped in one of the dune hollows on the gentler slope, together with the meddle of pedes that were the pride of his clan. He looked for a distant telltale plume of smoke or the glint of sunshine on metal-anything that would tell him there were other people out there somewhere-but he saw nothing. No man alone, no band on the move. Nothing.

Some things he did not expect. There were no buildings in the Red Quarter. No cities. It was pointless to build any, because sooner or later the next dune would come to devour them. Reduners were proudly nomadic, living in tribal camps on the dunes, near waterholes but never right next to them, for fear the pedes would pollute the water. Each dune had several tribes and when the situation demanded it, a tribe moved their camp from one water hole to another. They hunted game across their dune and the adjoining plains, and gathered roots, leaves, berries and seed pods for food. They sold pedes for tokens to buy other necessities. They ran caravans for trade. Together, the tribes of each dune made a clan and each clan paid homage to a single sandmaster. And, of course, to the god of the dune, who lived beneath the sands and moved the dune towards its eventual death.

Idly the Sandmaster of Dune Watergatherer wondered if the Scarpen fool had mistaken the dune. One dune was much like another to an outsider. Perhaps the fellow had gone to the Hungry One, the next dune to the north, or to the Sloweater, to the south. Or perhaps he had simply become lost along the Watergatherer itself. It extended from one side of the Red Quarter to the other, after all.

Davim waited patiently while the sun sank to the horizon and the sky reddened. His pede did not move and neither did he. He sat cross-legged on the saddle, at ease, and used the time to scheme. He knew he would appear at his best like this: a silhouette against a red sky, a man of destiny mounted on Burnish, a pede that some called the most magnificent beast ever captured from the wild herds of the Red Quarter. Its segment plates had since been intricately carved and inlaid with mica so that the sagas they told shone with a pearly glow. Each segment edge had been embroidered by Davim's wife and daughters and trimmed with blood-red lace along the outside rim. There was no other pede as beautiful as this one.

Davim knew he was deemed a handsome man. Like all Reduners, his hair and skin were permanently stained red by the dust of the quadrant. He was not particularly tall or even broad, but he was muscular; he took pride in participating in the games that occupied the leisure time of his dune tribes. And he was fastidious in his personal appearance. The neat plaits, twenty of them, the ends of which poked out from under the Reduner version of the palmubra, were rewoven with a new set of gemstone beads twice every star cycle. In the light of the setting sun, the red robes he wore were black in the folds, and the chrysoprase beads that decorated the collar glittered. Behind him in their cage, his ziggers rattled their wing cases and hummed. He knew he must appear to be what he was: a man of power. A leader who would one day take the Quartern by storm.

There will come a day when even the rainlords will sink to their knees before me.

In the slanting rays of the sun, he saw a speck on the plain. As it approached, it became two dots, then a rider on a myriapede, packpede trailing behind; and they were on the steep side of the Watergatherer. Davim gave a smile. To arrive from that direction the Traitor must have indeed been lost and now, coming at the dune head on, he was denying himself a dignified entry.

He underestimated the man. The Traitor dropped the reins of the packpede at the base of the dune, but his own mount did not slow; in fact, he jabbed the animal with his riding prod to hasten it. The beast leaped at the slope and bounded upwards. Dust billowed and shifted beneath its feet, but before the fine-grained sand could slip, the animal had been prodded into yet another leap, and then another. It plunged up the slope, and the Scarperman rode out each bound with one arm held high in balance.

Davim had to admire the rider's skill. As a rider of renown himself, given to similarly flamboyant gestures, he knew exactly what was involved. The reins had to be separately controlled to tell the animal how to move, doubly hard if you did it all with one hand. One tug at the wrong rein and the pede would react wrongly; one wrong reaction and you'd be tumbling to the bottom of the slope. Behind him, the packpede started to plod slowly upwards with stoic indifference.

And so Davim watched and secretly admired, but never by as much as the twitch of a muscle indicated that he cared one way or the other. And then, deep inside the sands somewhere below his mount, the dune god started to sing a low soughing melody that slid from note to note as if in acknowledgement of the newcomer's arrival. Davim scowled. He did not know the language of the god; only the Watergatherer's shaman could interpret the message. He resented that ignorance, but there was nothing he could do about it. He would have to wait until he spoke to the holy man. For the moment, he dismissed the question from his mind, even as the song of the dune continued with melancholy sweetness.

When the rider topped the rise in a swirl of dust backlit by sunset-a dark figure pasted on a blood-red sky like a mythical god-Davim asked simply, in his own tongue, "What happened to the promised rain?"

He expected excuses, a tale of blameless woe. Instead the Traitor shrugged and said, "I failed."

He used the language of the Scarpen. Davim spoke it well enough, but he was in his own land now, and he refused to defile it with the outlander's tongue. "Failed, my lord?" he asked, still using Reduner, knowing the man understood. He raised an eyebrow, but balanced the subtle mockery with the polite use of the title. It didn't pay to be stupid. This man had powers that no sandmaster could match, and he could use them faster than any Reduner warrior could release a zigger. And the man carried ziggers as well; there was a cage strapped behind him on the pede.

The Traitor inclined his head and switched languages. He spoke Reduner well, although his outlander accent was strong. "Yes. I stole a storm as I said I would-with that I had no problem-but, alas, I lacked the power to bring it safely to the Red Quarter. I believe a wash and a settle or two in the Gibber must have received an unexpected water bore as a consequence." He shook some dust from his robe and edged his mount closer to Davim's. "Failure happens. There will doubtless be others. I need a rainlord to join his power to mine, Sandmaster Davim. At the very least. Better still, someone of stormlord level. If I had such, there would be no more failures."

Davim opened his hands in a gesture of lack. "I have found none. Heard of none. My men scoured the dunes, testing in the ways you suggested. No one. Not unexpected. After all, we did it not too long ago, for the Cloudmaster." His voice hardened. "Will you deliver on your promises, my lord?"

"In time. I never let a setback overturn the mount, Sandmaster. If I cannot discover an unknown stormlord, if I cannot locate a rainlord child to train, then I can kidnap the remaining one there is."

"The Cloudmaster's granddaughter?"

"Yes. Senya. Or I can kidnap a grown rainlord and force him to do my bidding by threatening his wife or child or loved one. There are always ways."

"A rainlord is not a stormlord. You claim to be a potent rainlord yourself, yet you cannot make a storm."

"Because of my potency, if I have a rainlord at my call, to bind his or her power to mine, it may be sufficient." He shrugged. "Sooner or later there will be another child with the talent. It is just a matter of finding them before others do. Keep looking, Davim."

"I'm a patient man. I can afford to be. I am young yet." Davim smiled slyly, confident in his comparative youthfulness. He was not quite thirty years old, and the man he faced must surely have been closer to forty than thirty. "However, my patience is not limitless."

"Nor is mine. And yet I will not jeopardise our plans by precipitate action-I am not in my dotage yet. Listen, Sandmaster, Granthon grows weaker by the day. Weaker in physique and weaker in power. He is already failing to bring enough water for all life in the Quartern. You have seen this yourself in your reduced rainfall."

"That's true. I even heard random rain has fallen along The Spindlings. Granthon is not even capturing all the natural-born clouds."

"I hadn't heard that. I'm not surprised, though. Cloudmaster Granthon has even let the cisterns of his own city drop dangerously in level." He gave a snort of contempt. "He would let his own people suffer along with the rest of the Quartern. Did I walk his path, the Gibber or the White Quarter would have suffered first; but no, he tried to be fair. Fair! As if you can rule a land such as the Quartern fairly. He knows nothing about rule."

For the first time in their conversation he was showing emotion and Davim hid a smile. The Traitor had a weakness after all. It was worth remembering. "The Cloudmaster is a fool. Fortunately for us, you say he also birthed a foolish son," he added softly, soothing.

"Yes. When Granthon finally dies, you and I will be there to take his place, not Highlord Nealrith, never fear."

"I will have the Red and the White Quarters. You may do what you will with the rest." He could not help the joy of anticipation that edged his words. "Don't make it too long, lord."

"Granthon's death comes. Possibly even before the next star cycle completes itself. Already he is desperate. He now wants to send rainlords to the Gibber to look for potential stormlords." Once again his contempt broke through. "The Gibber, of all places! Next he will be sending us across the Giving Sea, searching lands where men have no water sensitivity!"

"He hopes to suck water from stone. I almost pity him."

The Traitor smiled. Behind him, his packpede arrived at the top of the slope and clattered its segment plates with a shake, in an attempt to rid itself of sand. "Not I, Sandmaster. Not I," he said.

"Will he further cut water to the Red Quarter?"

"No, I think not. He knows that would only rouse the dunes to frenzy. A number of people have, however, sown the idea that perhaps the Gibber and the White Quarters are not exactly as important. It will make our taking control of those two Quarters easier if they are thirsty."

"How long?"

"Hard to say. Granthon is weak, but there is a sinew of toughness in that old man that will hang on to life and power. And a senseless streak of softness that will keep him sending water to the Gibbermen and the 'Basters as long as he can." He paused as the sound from the heart of the dune thrummed in quickening rhythm. "What says your dune god?"

Davim gave an unpleasant smile. "He warns of treachery. Beware, brother. Do not cross us or you will learn to fear the power of the dune drovers."

The Traitor shrugged. "I have no reason to contemplate treachery. How goes the training of your men?"

"Well. They will be ready whenever the wind is right. They are loyal, utterly, to my leadership of the Watergatherer. And I build numbers by taking in the unwanted. We never refuse water to anyone. My men slit their throats if they do not prove their worth within ten days or so, but that is rarely necessary. We are warriors as great as the dunes have ever seen. True men see and admire and long to follow."

"The other dunes? Can you deliver them as promised, when the, er, wind is right?"

"Show them you control the rain and that you supply us with water at my bidding, and I could have them at my feet tomorrow. Already the weaker dunes offer their tribute to me wordlessly with fear in their eyes. If I could tell them I had a stormlord at my side to fill the waterholes to the brim as in the past, then they would come willingly, not dragging their feet through fear, and the larger dunes would follow. You understand the difference, I think?"

The Traitor shrugged. "Between threats and rewards? Oh yes. But one man's way is not another's. I demand nothing but loyalty. What prompts it is irrelevant."

Davim gestured with an upturned palm, indicating his indifference to the other's preference. "Just remember this: I prefer to bring the other dunes in with a bribe-a stormshifter, cloudbreaker, stormlord, whatever name you like-but I have other plans if you fail me. You may not like them as much as the present plan."

"Threats are unnecessary," the Traitor said coldly.

Davim smiled. "Do you stay the night in our camp? I offer the hospitality of my tribe."

"Another time perhaps."

"When do we meet again?"

"Not for a while, I think. If you have a message, you know how to contact me." Without farewell, he swung his pede around, picked up the reins of the packpede in passing, and set them both at the gentler slope. The animals gathered momentum, and the red dust rose in a cloud behind them, obliterating any view of their departure.

Davim remained where he was for a moment longer. The smile he directed after the travelling pede was brittle. "You are a worthy ally, my traitorous friend," he murmured, "and one day you will make an even worthier enemy. One day all the Quartern will be mine, and we will depend on rainlords and their filthy water magic no more."

Beneath his feet, the dune god growled.