The Last Stormlord

by Glenda Larke

  One thing was for sure: he would get to the bottom of this eventually.

  Just before he dozed off in the chair, he noticed smudging across the stone flooring. There was red dust tramped in from the front door and up the stairs. “Dirty barbarian lout,” he muttered.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Scarpen Quarter

  Scarcleft City

  Artisman Russet’s room, Level 36

  Once again Shale put away all thought of the desert, of the sky, of feeling the wind on his cheek or Gibber pebbles beneath his feet. As it was useless to taunt himself with what he could not have, he sealed his need for freedom inside him. He still had days of confinement ahead. And anyway, there was part of himself—the part that liked looking at Terelle—that did not mind so much. Better still, she was becoming a friend. The concept was new. The closest he’d ever had to friendship was his relationship with Mica, but a brother was different. When Terelle told him her story, he realised they were both people displaced by events beyond their control trying to find a place to call their own. She knew how he felt; he understood her predicament. There was something comforting in that.

  To his amazement, he found Russet was both able and willing to help him further his water skills. “You’re a rainlord!” he exclaimed after the waterpainter explained an easier way to control water vapour by a trick of concentration.

  “Not so,” the old man said, stabbing at Shale with a gnarled finger. “I be waterpainter. Different skill. Manipulate water through time, changing future being. Superior art to movement of water from one place to another! Waterpainters be artists.” His glare softened as he shrugged and added, “Watergivers understand moving water. If not, how we be Watergivers?”

  For a moment, Shale thought the old man had accidentally mixed up the terms “waterpainter” and “Watergiver”. But then Terelle looked up from her spot on the floor near the fireplace, where she was putting the finishing touches to a painting, and asked, “Why do you always keep on referring to yourself as a Watergiver? There’s only one Watergiver. That’s what the priests say. His name was Ash-something and he came as an emissary from the Sunlord to show water sensitives how to manipulate the clouds.”

  He laughed, giving an unpleasant cackle of mockery and derision that Shale was learning to hate. “Terelle, ye know nothing of world. More Watergivers be walking this earth than red drovers on dunes, Alabasters in Whiteout and priests in Breccia combined.”

  “You’re saying you’re a Watergiver?” Shale asked. Did the man think he was an immortal being? Shale wouldn’t have been surprised if he did; there was something mad about him, mad and malevolent. “An emissary of the Sunlord?”

  Russet merely shot a sly smile in Terelle’s direction. It was Terelle who answered. “Of course he’s not saying that.”

  “And what ye be thinking I mean?” Russet asked her.

  “I think it’s the name your people give yourselves because you worship the Watergiver.”

  Shale didn’t say anything, but he didn’t think that was what Russet had meant at all. He sighed inwardly. Russet’s secrets and air of mystery drove Terelle crazy, but she usually restrained her irritation. He thought he knew why she never pressed Russet to give answers that made sense. When you were totally dependent on someone else for water, there were times when you bit your tongue.

  The morning after the visit to Amethyst’s, Russet and Terelle spent a long time talking in the hallway. Russet was explaining a new painting technique to her. Shale stayed inside, but he heard snatches of conversation.

  “Be very particular about the measurements.”

  “All the agates?”

  “No, not that grey—this one. Flax-grey that be called, or gridelin. Has violet tinge—without it, motley not right.”

  “Oh. Like this?”

  Eventually Russet came in, muttering under his breath. Terelle stayed outside painting until middmorning, when she stuck her head around the door and said, “I’ve finished, Artisman. Do you want to see?”

  Shale watched from the doorway, first using his water senses to make sure there was no one else around. Terelle had painted a street scene featuring a gateway set into a brown daub wall. The wooden gate, studded with slices of red and white agate in a swirling pattern, was brightly coloured as if it had caught the rays of the morning sun, while the remainder of the street was still in shadow.

  Russet asked, “Ye sure it be true?”

  “I remember it exactly—the patterns, the colours, the shadows.” She looked at Shale. “It’s right, isn’t it?”

  “That’s Amethyst’s house? I don’t remember the details. Do you? Really? All those swirls?”

  She nodded.

  Intrigued by her certainty, he waved a hand at the painting. “Even how many pieces of agate there were?”

  She waved a hand at the painting. “That many.”

  “You counted them?”

  “No, I just remember.”

  “Nobody’s that good.”

  “I am.” She indicated the floating picture. “That’s how the arta’s street gate looks, right down to the patterns in the individual agates.”

  “Blood runs true,” Russet said complacently. “Now watch. Amethyst’s message sent to Breccia, but how we know they send rainlord to protect Shale? We make sure! Remember I be doing this for ye, Gibberman.”

  “Really? Why? If Taquar finds out, you’ll never sell another painting in Scarcleft. You’ll be thrown out of the gates tomorrow. Or worse.” More likely worse.

  But whatever Russet’s motives were, the old man was not going to explain them. He ignored Shale’s question and sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the tray. Terelle knelt next to him. Neither of them said anything, but Shale had an idea Terelle was apprehensive about what was going to happen. He wanted to warn her, but didn’t know what the warning should be. For one wild moment he wanted to grab her by the hand and pull her away, take her downstairs and out into the safety of the street.

  Except the street wasn’t safe.

  The old man took up a paint spoon and started to apply colour to the area near the doorway. He worked quickly, almost carelessly, not worrying too much about detail or clear-cut edges. He was painting two figures, both men, and the arm and shoulder of a third, who was standing off to the left. The two full figures stood in the shadow. One could only be seen in profile. He was a lean man wearing nondescript riding clothes; his face was clearly defined, and his features were vaguely familiar to Shale. The other man, taller and more muscular, was reaching out to pull the bell. His face was also sharply depicted. The third man, whose arm and shoulder only were pictured, was wearing what appeared to be a uniform. Livery.

  Terelle frowned, and the frown deepened as ripples advanced across the surface of the painting and it began to change. For a moment, Shale thought that Russet had knocked the tray, but the painter was motionless.

  The painted figures were changing, clarifying. The edges sharpened. Shale gasped. How had the waterpainter done that?

  “Highlord Nealrith Almandine of Breccia,” Russet said, pointing to the man painted in profile.

  “How do you know what he looks like?” Terelle asked, troubled.

  “Met him. I did paintings for Breccia Hall.” Pointing at the painting, he turned to address Shale. “Now Nealrith comes in answer to Amethyst’s message. Other man pulling the bell: Kaneth Carnelian, warrior rainlord. Two rainlords—ye be safe, no?”

  “Taquar mentioned Kaneth to me. I don’t think Taquar likes him much. But how is putting them into a painting going to ensure they come?” Shale asked, not bothering to hide his scorn. He had to believe that the man could alter a painting without touching it, because he had just seen it happen; he’d manipulated the water, obviously. It was quite another thing to think that a painting could influence the future.

  Russet turned fierce eyes on him. “Ye lords be not only ones with water-powers. Watergivers of my people—once Russet Kermes be finest of them—bring more than w
ater through space and time, by painting.”

  “Are you trying to tell us the rainlords Nealrith and Kaneth stand right now at Amethyst’s gate?” he asked.

  “If they be in Breccia, yes. But they must be riding here first, no?” He waved a hand at the picture. “I put future into paint, they obey. No choice.”

  Shale was still scornful. “Then why get Amethyst to write a letter?”

  “Quicker, better, if they have reason to be coming. Letter give them good reason—to find new stormlord.” He turned back to Terelle. “Ye must practise this art, over and over. But remember, ye get what ye be asking, so no more watersellers on roof. Understand?”

  She appeared troubled, but she nodded.

  He continued with his instructions. “Art not accurate, nothing happens. Must be having much detail right. Ye be blessed with waterpainter’s memory—yet detail not always desirable.” He indicated the painting in front of them. “Nealrith and Kaneth’s face in detail. Door perfect detail. But only suggestion of lords’ tunics. Back view of Breccia guard’s uniform.”

  “Why?” Terelle asked.

  “If paint tunic in detail for Nealrith, but he be not owning tunic like that? What then? Maybe he be delaying trip till he get one. Suggest what ye not know; detail what ye do. Understand?”

  “I think so.”

  “And then?” Shale asked. “What then? There is detail there now. The tunics and trousers, the guard—”

  “Water to water—my water, to water in the tray, to water in Nealrith and Kaneth—plus power of a Watergiver. That be all I need. I picture them both at Amethyst’s gate. Picture them, move water and the paint to make it so. Who servant be, what clothes Nealrith and Kaneth wear, that decided by what possible, what probable.”

  He gestured at the painting once more. “I paint dark blue tunic, brown trousers. Common colours. Power of water decides which blue tunic in Nealrith’s wardrobe. Same with trousers. He be wearing them day he knocks at Amethyst’s door. I not make it so—it just be so, and therefore be so in painting.” He raised his eyes to look at Terelle. “Power of water, artistry, waterpainter, all working together, that be real power. Can do many things. Can kill. Can enslave.”

  The wilted bastard, Shale thought, he’s like Taquar. He wants power, but finding it, he’d misuse it. If he was so powerful that he could bring Nealrith to him across the fissured land of the Scarpen Quarter, then why was he just a waterpainter on the thirty-sixth level of Scarcleft, living hand to mouth in a miserable rented room?

  “If that were so, you could be a stormlord and supply us with storms,” he said aloud. “All you’d have to do is paint rain.”

  Russet looked disconcerted and did not answer.

  Looking at him now, Shale thought the old man didn’t look powerful; he looked sick. When he rose to his feet, he staggered and almost fell.

  He leaned against the wall for a moment, flexing stiff joints, and then said, “One such painting a day from ye, Terelle. Harmless portraits. House gecko falling off shelf, that sort of thing. I be going to lie down for a while. We need more white paint. Mix some.” He gathered up his colourful wrap, tucked in the ends firmly about him and disappeared back inside the room.

  Shale said in a whisper, “He’s sun-fried.”

  “No, he’s not,” she said quietly from where she sat. “I can do it, too.”

  He stared at her. She was not looking at him; her eyes were downcast, as if she was ashamed. She continued, “I can do what he did. Make the details of a figure come up through the painted picture by manipulating the tiny spots of paint below, fashioning them using the power of the water. I don’t know how. But I can.” She lifted her eyes to meet his, and they were pooled with misery. “You remember that man on the roof?”

  “Of course.”

  “I did that. I didn’t believe anything would happen, you see, so I painted a suggestion of him up there. Vato the waterseller. Then I pulled the details up through the paint and made him—no, not him: his future—I made his future real. I made his future to be sitting on the roof. And a few moments later, he was there, perched on…” Her words trailed away. “It’s something that happens when the water and paint passes through the picture. It is as Russet said: a combination of water, art and the mind.”

  Shale sat still, saying nothing. Was it possible? He had seen the man on the roof. And Terelle believed it.

  She went on, “I spoke to him about it yesterday. The waterseller. I asked him how he came to be on the roof. He said he just had this urge to climb up there, and so he did. He didn’t know why, and he was helpless to resist. If he’d fallen, it would have been my fault. And people stole his water while he was away.” A tear ran down her face. “I didn’t know it was going to be like this when I became Artisman Russet’s apprentice. Is it evil to do this sort of thing, Shale? To ensure a particular future?”

  He thought about that before replying, and after a long silence said, “If what you say is true, then yes, I think it is.”

  She looked so woebegone, he felt compelled to add an explanation. “If putting a person into a painting has forced him to do something that he would not have done willingly, it is evil. Imagine how such power could be used. Or misused. You could make a painting of someone giving you a costly gift, which he would then proceed to do, whether he really wanted to or not. Would that be any different from stealing his water tokens?” He had to turn away from her grief. “I wouldn’t trust Russet’s motives, not for a moment. Leave him, Terelle.”

  “How?” she whispered. “I am waterless. I don’t have the skills to steal water like you do. Without him I have nothing.”

  He flushed. He had been unaware that she noticed his surreptitious thefts, drop by drop, of water from water jars or the steam from cooking pots in the neighbourhood. His own misuse of power. He said hastily, “You have a skill now. You can paint on water. And you know how to make the paints. You could make a living.” He hesitated. “Terelle, you couldn’t make it rain with your painting, could you?”

  “I did think about that. But what if I just made a stormlord’s cloud drop its water in the wrong place? We’d be worse off, not better. Russet told me it’s hard to influence something inanimate, anyway, unless a person or an animal is involved in the process. To make it rain in a particular place would be tough; to influence a stormlord to drop his rain would be easier.”

  He thought about that and then said, “Terelle, come with me to Breccia.”

  Her whole face lit up, but her smile vanished as quickly as it had come, to be replaced by a haunted look that tore through his heart.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  “I can’t. Besides, you don’t even like me.”

  His flush deepened. “I never said that,” he protested. The look she gave him then told him he had failed her. She had wanted him to say something else, but what? He had no idea. He rushed on. “You should leave. I don’t trust Russet. He’s… not a nice man. He is using you. I don’t know why, but I do know that much.” He added, “I know about being used.”

  She considered that. “You think he and Highlord Taquar are the same?”

  “Yes. No. Taquar is cold. Calculating. Clever. Russet is none of those things. But he is sly.” He struggled to express what he sensed. “He is… greedy. Can’t you see the way he looks at you? As though you are—are something to eat. He wants something from you. You just don’t know what yet. I suspect, though, that what he wants is the same thing that Taquar wanted from me: power.”

  “Russet has his own power.”

  “Does he? Or is he growing weaker as the years go by? Is he perhaps watching his power diminish and wondering just how to survive? He hasn’t been truthful with you. It’s obvious you both come from the same place, wherever that is. You have the same eyes, and you say you have the same ability with waterpainting the future. He has spoken of your mother as if he knew her. Why won’t he tell you where he comes from?”

  “I’m from the Gibber.”

/>   “No, you’re not. I’ve never seen Gibber folk with green eyes like yours. I’ve never seen anyone with eyes like yours. Except Russet.”

  She had started to clean up the paints, turning her back to him as she worked, flinging things noisily into the sand basin, wiping up splashes of paint on the floor with dried leaves. “You don’t know everything, Shale sand-grubber. In fact, I don’t think you know anything.”

  As she began to scour the paint spoons with sand, he retreated, aware that he had just made her angry. He had only been trying to help and did not fully understand just where he had gone wrong.

  Only much later, after they had been wrenched apart, did it occur to him that she had wanted him to say he cared for more than her welfare. She had wanted to hear him say that he cared for her. By then, it was too late.

  Shale knew little about girls. There had been none around his own age in the shanties of Wash Drybone, and the girls who lived in proper houses in the settle certainly had nothing at all to do with the family of Galen the sot. Terelle didn’t simper or giggle as the settle girls often had, and he was grateful for that, but she did have the knack of making him thick-tongued and clumsy. He even found himself flushing simply because of the way she sometimes looked at him: with eyebrows raised and an expression that said, “You can’t really be as stupid as that, can you?”

  He was never able to predict just what would prompt that reaction in her. She did it when he told her one of her paintings was pretty. She did it when he said that just because they didn’t like Jomat, it didn’t necessarily mean he was evil. She did it when he remarked that Nealrith was lucky because he was married to someone who must surely be the loveliest woman in all the Quarter. She did it when he said that he couldn’t see anything wrong with owning ziggers. Sometimes, the more logical the statement was to him, the higher her eyebrows went. Even when he tried to pay her a compliment, it could go awry. When he said one of her tunics suited her, she said scathingly, “This? You think I look good in this?”