The Last Stormlord

by Glenda Larke

  His voice murmured on, saying words that no longer had individual meaning but built an entire idea. Her mind was not her own; she felt drugged; and yet she saw the bird. She saw it, beneath the paint. Under the painted roof tiles. And she moved it upwards.

  The second bird sat on the roof ridge in the painting, next to the first.

  She shuddered, cried out in denial. “You did that! It wasn’t me!”

  “Was ye,” he said, and she hated him. She hated his manipulation. She hated what he had done, and why. Her heart told her that this was something he had done not for her, but for himself.

  “Who are you?” she asked. “What are you?”

  “One day I be telling ye. But not yet.”

  “And why?” she asked. Remembering the woman who had appeared in both the street and his painting at the same time, her gaze flew upwards to the rooftop, but there were no hawks sitting there.

  He followed her gaze and smiled. “Be long way to go, child, journey we be making, ye and me. At journey’s end, ye know exactly who ye be and what ye be. And when I die, your future be yours to choose. That’s what ye be wanting, no? Ability to choose your own fate. Then ye no longer be saying life not fair.”

  He’s mocking me, she thought. Laughing at my childish desire for fate to be both impartial and just.

  He stood up, hitching his wrapped robes about him as if he was chilled, and walked back into their room. She stretched, needing to unwind, to feel the tension dissipate from her muscles and tendons. Finally, when she reached a semblance of normality again, she looked down at the painting once more. The hawks were still sitting there, side by side, Russet’s better-made than hers. His bird regarded her with a living intensity in its yellow eye, all predator, with a predator’s hunger—and impartiality. She could almost hear it telling her: Life isn’t fair. It is harsh and unkind and cruel.

  Why couldn’t she accept that?

  Because even if it’s true, it’s not acceptable, she thought.

  Against her will, she found herself drawn into the painting again, entangled in its strands of light and dark, aware of the colours beneath the superficiality. She heard a whisper in her mind: You could do anything. You could make life fair. Her inner desire manifesting itself. Tempting her.

  Anything? Could I?

  Half in anger, half in defiance, she splashed more colours onto the roof ridge over the top of the hawks, obliterating them, and then manipulated the new colours with the paint skewer. A few lines: the suggestion of a face, an arm, a leg flung across the peak of the tiles. A man sitting up there where the birds had been.

  Then she sat back and regarded the painting through half-closed eyes. She summoned up the colours beneath without even thinking about what she was doing. Not a bird this time but Vato the waterseller. She pulled him out with loving detail: his sardonic, bitter smile, the sadness of his eyes, the lines of his face. His worn clothes. His mended bab sandals. The rough way someone had cut his hair. His chipped nails. She melded the colour beneath with the colour she had painted on top and formed the picture of the man.

  As she did it, she realised something that scared her: the details were not coming from her conscious mind but from somewhere else. Yes, she had noticed the nails before and the hair and his expression and the mended sandals—but she had never looked at his feet closely enough to know that one of his sandals was mended with hempen twine and the other with catgut, or that the mark on his cheek was not a scar but a birthmark. Yet those details had been filed away inside her memory.

  She drew in a shuddering breath, immeasurably frightened. She might have done this, but the power that fuelled it, that filled in the details, went far beyond what was normal. As she drew in the breath, the smell of water was suffocating. What was it Russet had said? Water to water, life to life.

  The power of water. Her affinity to water. She knew Vato’s water. In some strange way, she remembered water—or its lack. And that was why she could dredge up such detailed memories of her past whenever she wanted. She could have painted the kitchen of her childhood, or the face of the caravanners who had brought her to the Scarpen when she was seven, or the patterns on the highlord’s pede. A glance was all it took to etch a memory.

  Once more she looked across at the real building opposite: no birds, no waterseller, either, of course. Yet as she gazed, a shadow crossed the tiles, wings spread, tail fanned. She was riveted, horrified. The shadow banked, bird and shadow fusing as a scavenger kite came in to land on the ridge of the roof. “Watergiver help me,” she whispered. “It’s true. He can make things come true.”

  Her own voice spoke in her head: Of course he can. He trapped you in his painting.

  Down in the street below, people were shouting, but she couldn’t hear the words. It sounded like another raid was in progress, but she took no notice. She looked back at her painting, her horror growing. Vato. Dear sweet halls of water, Vato wasn’t suddenly going to appear on the roof, was he? In revulsion, she slid the tray away from her, pushing it across the hallway, slopping the water.

  She stood up and stared at the bird, the real one. As she looked, a second bird dropped down to stand beside it. Please, Watergiver, no. Don’t make Vato climb onto the roof. She hesitated, part of her wanting to run to Russet to ask him to stop it happening, part of her rooted to where she was, refusing to believe it could happen.

  Sunlord save me, he could die if he suddenly found himself high above the street.

  But that wouldn’t happen, would it? Ridiculous to think it.

  Oh Sunlord, I will sacrifice a whole dayjar of water if you stop this! I’ve learned my lesson, I truly have.

  Even as she hesitated, even as she choked on her indecision, she was overtaken by events.

  The sound of running on the stairs: a single person’s racing footsteps. She turned, only half-focused. A youth. Well dressed, better than most lowlevellers, although one of his trouser legs was torn and his tunic was dirty. Dark Gibber colouring, untidy hair, sweating. Panicked. Fear in his face. Still running, he swept around the corner at the top of the stairs and kept on coming, oblivious to what was in front of him. One sandaled foot planted itself squarely in the painting tray, destroying the picture.

  She felt the destruction as a shock of possibilities, all illogical: what if he had killed Vato? Knocked him off the roof? Squashed him? She glanced back at the buildings opposite. The two kites had raised their wings and launched themselves into the sky. Vato wasn’t there. Stupid, of course he isn’t there. Why by all that is sun-holy would he be on the roof?

  The youth skidded to a halt, suddenly aware that there was no way out of the hallway except back the way he had come. He whirled around, saw the row of closed apartment doors and turned back to her. His chest heaved; his breath came in ragged gasps. His left sandal was covered in paint and dripped water in a pool at his feet.

  “Can you hide me?” he asked. “Please?”

  She stood still, staring, unable to think.

  “I’m desperate. Please.”

  She opened her mouth to speak—although she didn’t know what to say—then saw movement behind the young man. It was Vato, crawling across the roof pantiles of the building opposite, his face a picture of fear and bewilderment as he clambered up towards the ridge.

  From below came the sound of running feet; the youth’s pursuers at the base of the stairs, or so she guessed. She was caught in a nightmare from which she could not wake.

  “Please,” he whispered. “Otherwise I could be a prisoner for the rest of my life.”

  What a strange thing to say, she thought. The whole world’s gone mad. She looked back at him and focused. If he was a waterless Gibberman, they might kill him. His troubled eyes begged her, without a hint of expectation or threat.

  “Take off your shoes,” she said and held out her hand.

  Shale looked down at his feet. The sandals were wet and streaked with colour. He had only seconds to make up his mind. He took them off and handed them to her.r />
  “Go into that room there,” she said calmly, gesturing to one of the closed doors. “Tell Artisman Russet that I said you were to wait there for me. My name’s Terelle.”

  For once he didn’t hesitate, didn’t consider whether he should trust or not. He had no choice. He could already hear someone coming up the stairs. He ran and opened the door. As he stepped inside, he did spare one backward glance at the girl. She’d put on his sandals and run diagonally across to the balustrade under the archways, leaving a wet and paint-smeared trail. There she stripped the shoes off and threw them over the balustrade. She stood there, back to him, shaking her fist and yelling. Hurriedly, he closed the door and turned around. An old man with a wrinkled brown face and penetrating green eyes was regarding him with a look that was sharp enough to see through to his soul.

  Shale took a deep breath and wondered if he had just made the biggest mistake of his life. He leaned back against the door and listened to what was happening outside. The old man, who had been stirring something over the fire, stood perfectly still, glaring at him. Shale’s immediate impression was one of great age: the man was ancient, not just old. He was not frightened or even alarmed. On the contrary, the annoyed look he gave Shale was also one of calculation and assessment.

  Outside, someone shouted, “Which way did he go?”

  “That way.” The girl’s voice. She sounded angry. “He stepped in my waterpainting! He spoiled it and wasted the water!”

  Shale closed his eyes and waited. He had no way of knowing whether she was pointing towards the door or down into the street. He tried to believe that she would help him, but couldn’t think of any reason why she should—and there was one very good reason she shouldn’t. If they found out she lied, she could be in real trouble.

  He opened his eyes, swallowed the panic and blanked his face. He said quietly, “Terelle said I was to wait here for her.”

  “Did she, now?” The old man’s eyes, although shrunken by age, continued their shrewd assessment. “Presumptuous of her, no?” He put the ladle down and pulled the pot off the fire. Smoke wisped up into a makeshift metal chimney that poked out through the lattice along the top of the outer wall. The pot was heavy but the age-spotted hands were still strong and manoeuvred it effortlessly onto the stone hearth. In its place he hung a kettle, then turned back to Shale. “I pay for this room.” His back may have already been bent with age, but his voice was strong and even.

  “My—my apologies.” Shale looked around. There were no windows, no other exit. Light and air entered through the latticework. A few strategically hung pieces of woven bab-leaf matting divided the room into living space and sleeping quarters, but the only solid furniture was a table and two chairs made of poor quality bab wood. His glance roved back to the kettle. Hot water could be a weapon. And there were two dayjars—not that flinging cold water at someone would do much harm.

  He said, keeping his voice low, “I shall be gone as soon as the men out there have stopped looking.”

  “And if I, Russet Kermes, choose to say ye be here?”

  Shale said nothing. He did not think the man was threatening him but rather mocking him, and he didn’t know how to answer.

  Outside the door there was more conversation and then the sound of footsteps hurrying away. A moment later, the girl Terelle opened the door and stepped inside. She looked flustered. “He’s gone. I told him you jumped down onto the awning and then into the street. One of your sandals is on the awning. The other was in the street, but someone picked it up. I think you can say goodbye to them.”

  “The man on the roof?” Shale asked. “What happened to him?”

  “Nothing. He climbed down again.” At his words she had gone as white as salt.

  Russet looked up sharply. “What man?”

  What she said next did not make sense to Shale. “I pulled Vato out of the motley and put him on the roof.”

  “Sand-witted!” he exclaimed. “Ye foolish frip—didn’t ye understand what be happening if ye shuffled?”

  “No. No, I didn’t!” She was almost shouting at him. “I didn’t. I don’t. I don’t even know what it is to—to shuffle. Perhaps you had better explain something for a change. How is it possible?”

  “I told ye once, sometimes be possible for us to fix the future.”

  “Us? Just who is… us?”

  Shale was acutely uncomfortable. He hadn’t the faintest idea what he had walked into and wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He stood next to the door, still holding his bag, barefoot and feeling out of place.

  “People like us.”

  Shale thought about that. Who were they, these people? He had never seen anyone dressed like the old man. His clothes were wrapped around him rather than made to fit; the colours of the cloth were startlingly vivid, the weave rough and knotted. His arms and hands were covered in red-brown tattoos, patterns of swirls and waves that were possibly only the beginning of designs hidden under his wrap. And Shale had never seen anyone with eyes that colour—except the girl.

  She was striking. Dusky-complexioned enough to be from the Gibber, but different, too. Already taller than most Gibber women. And more… he searched for a word. Regal. Something about the structure of her face, the inner strength in the gaze. He shuffled his feet in embarrassment. “Er, I, um, I’m sorry to have disturbed you,” he said. “And thank you, um, Arta, for hiding me. I’ll go now.”

  That switched their attention to him immediately. Terelle said nothing, but Russet came forward, smiling. It was not a smile that gave Shale confidence in his benevolence.

  “No, no, Gibberman, ye will not. Going out there when reeve’s men be looking for ye? Enforcers, no?”

  Shale nodded dumbly.

  “Seneschal Harkel of Scarcleft Hall—his men. They keep looking all day. You leave tonight.”

  “But I have to find work,” he said.

  “No one take ye today, not when Harkel’s men be asking about ye.” The mockery was back; the old man was laughing at him.

  “They don’t know my name.”

  The man’s shrewd eyes pierced him with contempt. “Gibber youth wearing noble livery? They find ye.”

  He looked down at the clothes he was wearing, a tunic and breeches Taquar had given him. “Livery?” he asked stupidly.

  “That’s right. Worn by servants in Scarcleft Hall.”

  “No one else has remarked on my clothes.”

  “Not too many lowlevellers know uplevel livery. I be one of them. Reeves and enforcers too. They have the name ye use by now.” He chuckled, a high-pitched sound that grated on Shale. “Safer staying here.” He was still grinning, his small, ageing eyes disappearing into the filigree of wrinkles on his cheeks and eyelids.

  He turned to Terelle. “Give him meal, while I be finding out what I can.” He picked up a length of coloured cloth and wrapped it around his head, took up a staff of wood and went to the door. “Take advice, Gibberman: be here when Russet comes back, eh?” The sharpness of the warning was reinforced by the hint of malice in his tone. The man was not sympathetic; he was gleefully amused at Shale’s predicament and left chuckling.

  Terelle went to the pot that had been keeping warm at the back of the fireplace and ladled out some of its contents into two bowls. She gestured towards the table and chairs. “Sit down, why don’t you?” She sounded distracted, not really interested in whether he stayed or not.

  “He won’t sell me to them, will he?”

  That got her attention. “Russet? No. He hates all Scarpermen, particularly anyone connected with the rainlords and water sensitives. Do you want some amber?”

  He shook his head. “I have my own water.” He sat down at the table, and she sat opposite.

  She pushed a plate of yam biscuits towards him. “Help yourself.”

  He took one and picked up the spoon in his bowl. “I’m sorry about your painting. I didn’t see it when I came around the corner. Will you be able to do it again?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”


  He struggled on, knowing he sounded inept. Spoken words did not come easily to him. “I—I want to say thank you, for doing what you did. That was brave.”

  She waved a dismissive hand. “Who are we, we waterless, if we can’t help one another?” She still seemed preoccupied, and he was perversely offended.

  “Is that old man your grandfather?”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “You look like him.”

  “You think I look like him?”

  Her eyes blazed at him, and he knew he had just said something stupid. The man was old and wizened; of course it would hardly be flattering to be compared to him. “Um, no, of course not. Not really. I mean, he’s old. And you’re—but—”

  “But what?”

  “It’s your eyes; you have the same eye colour.” Now that he had her attention, he rather wished he didn’t.

  “Not everyone with the same colour eyes is related.”

  “No, of c-course not,” he stuttered. He bent over the food and ate, wishing she would stop looking at him as if he was a sand-leech.

  “What’s your name?” she asked.

  He opened his mouth to say Jasper, and then closed it again. Pointless to continue the lie; the reeves weren’t stupid. They were looking for Shale. He thought he knew what had happened. The waterhall reeves had told the highlord what had occurred in the waterhall. Taquar had gone to check if he was still in the Scarcleft mother cistern. When he’d found him missing, he had instituted a thorough search of Scarcleft. And he wasn’t going to give up until Shale was found.

  “My name’s Shale,” he said.

  “What do they want you for?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  She shrugged, accepting the rebuff as if she didn’t care. “I am the apprentice of Russet the waterpainter.”