The Last Stormlord

by Glenda Larke

  When he reached the thirty-seventh level, he took an outside staircase going up to a rooftop. Even though there was no light, he sensed there were people there, including children. That, he decided, ruled out the possibility of Reduners. Nonetheless, he was cautious and paused before setting foot on the walled flat rooftop. His lamp revealed a couple and two children aged about six and eight. They were huddled together sleeping, well wrapped in rough bab-fibre blankets against the bitter cold of a desert night. All Scarpen people, by their colouring. No one to fear. He released some of his hold on the vapour, allowing it to disperse and become less obvious in the night air.

  They feared him, though, when he woke them. They stared, their eyes round and terrified, their arms clutching at one another. “There’s no need to be frightened of me,” he said softly. He held the lantern up so that they could see his face. “Do you know who I am?”

  The man shook his head.

  “I’m a rainlord,” Jasper said. “I’ve come because I want to know what is happening in the lower levels of the city.”

  “Rainlord!” The man looked shocked. He knelt, scrambling out of his blankets. “Please, m’lord, don’t stand there like a practice butt for the spearing. They may see you!” He spread the blanket out on the rooftop. “If the lord’ll sit hisself—” He turned to his wife. “A drink, a drink!”

  She rose to obey, too shocked to speak. Jasper knew enough to be aware that he must accept the water they gave him, no matter if they could ill afford to spare it. He sat and inclined his head in acceptance. “Your name?”

  “Chellis, rainlord, shoveller at the smelters, outside the walls.”

  Jasper gave a swift look around. There was no furniture, none. Just the blackened mud-bricks at one end of the roof that served as a fireplace, the four dayjars, the woven sleeping mats that doubled as shelter from the sun when strung from balustrade to balustrade. A man so poor he could only afford a rooftop for his family, but at least he had water entitlement. He worked, and he had the right to live on the thirty-seventh level.

  “I want something other than water,” Jasper said softly. “Information. I want to know everything that happened today.”

  In the end, Jasper was surprised to find out just how much the man did know. The townsfolk had found numerous ways to exchange information, the linked houses and common rooftops having become news routes. Streets were left to the Reduners, but the townsfolk commanded the rooftops, and those who could read and write would throw a note across the road to the house opposite, passing on information.

  The first part of the attack had been bad, even though they’d had warning. When the ziggers came, Chellis and his family had pulled the bab matting over themselves. Successive waves of ziggers buzzed them for the next few hours, defeated by the tough matting. Eventually they left the petrified family alone to find easier prey.

  By mid-morning of the next day, Chellis had heard Reduners in the streets, shouting in their strange accents. One of them came up the stairs and dragged Chellis out to help clear the streets of bodies, and that was what he’d done for the rest of the day. It had been a horrible job. Not everyone had heard the warning. Not everyone had heeded it. Many of the dead were his neighbours, people he had known all his life. Many were children, killed when ziggers entered windows through open shutters.

  The corpses had to be piled up on the back of packpedes and carted outside the city, where they were burned on a pyre.

  Jasper felt sick. “Oh—oh, sweet water, that’s what I can smell!” Human flesh cooking.

  Chellis nodded, then continued with his tale. He told of how he had seen fighting, of how he had seen the last of the city’s guard overwhelmed by frightening numbers of Reduner warriors and their ferocious mounts in the streets of the city itself, right to the walls of Breccia Hall. “Must of been rainlords there,” he said. “I saw Reduners fall with the water sucked out of ’em. Saw ’em with dried-up eyes—hundreds of ’em, as blind as sand-leeches in their holes. The Reduners kill ’em, y’know, the blind ones. Slaughter ’em, their own tribesmen.”

  “Have you seen the rainlord prisoner?”

  “The highlord? They strung ’im up in a cage over the South Gate. Every time we went out with the bodies and came back in, we had to go under ’im. Could hear him moanin’. And I saw blood drippin’. Then by nightfall, didn’t hear no more. Reckon he died.”

  Jasper shook his head. No. Not Nealrith. He refused to believe it. “Where are all the Reduners now?” he asked.

  “Big camp outside the walls. Hear tell they don’t like roofs over their heads, Reduners. Then there’s a ring of guards along the city walls and a second ring around Breccia Hall and the waterhall. They haven’t broken into Level Two yet. And none of us can leave the city ’cept under guard to work for them red bastards.”

  Jasper thanked the man for his information and hid some tokens from his purse under the mat he was seated on. As he stood up to go, Chellis pointed to his lantern. Jasper had turned the wick down low, but it still burned. “Careful with that, my lord. Don’t know why ’tis, but the ziggers like the light.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I saw a lot of bodies today, my lord. More than one should see in a whole lifetime, I reckon. Most of them had zigger holes. But time and again, I saw more ziggers burned up against a lamp glass than holes in the man that had held the lantern. So many of the little buggers! I reckon they got attracted by the light. Be careful.”

  “I’ll bear that in mind. Thank you, both of you. You have served the Scarpen and Breccia well today.” Formal language, suitable for a ruler. All he had to offer, but perhaps it helped.

  Back on the street again, he headed for the fortieth level and the South Gate.

  It was exactly as Chellis had described: a cage swinging in the gateway, just high enough for a man to walk under without ducking his head. At this time of night, of course, the gate was closed. Several Reduner guards lounged by the postern, clearly visible in the light of the torches in the wall brackets. Harder to see, but present nonetheless, were the guards at their posts along the top of the wall, two men every thirty paces or so, silhouetted against the starlit sky. So many of them. And not, surely, because they expected attack from outside; these were to keep Scarpermen from leaving the city, to stop rainlords and reeves escaping.

  To stop Jasper Bloodstone.

  His lamp extinguished, his mist dissipated so he could watch, he flattened himself against the wall of a house at the corner of the street, until he was sure he had seen or sensed all there was to know nearby. The guards were inattentive, talking about the day’s events in the language of the Quartern, describing how this one had died or how they themselves had killed. Laughing about the man swinging in his cage. One of them jabbed his chala spear through the bars. “Is dead, you think?”

  “Dune gods prevent, hope not,” another replied in a thick Reduner accent. “Sandmaster wanted bastard alive long time. Likes to see enemies in pain, not dead and dried, he does.”

  A third man stirred uneasily as he looked up at the cage. “I don’t know ’bout that meself. What’s t’stop this shrivelled water-waster from suckin’ the water out of our eyes like he did with all th’others?” The accent was pure Gibber, not Reduner, which might have explained why the two Reduners were not speaking their own tongue. Jasper thought instantly of Mica, and the physical pain almost brought him to his knees.

  But Mica would never have joined the Reduners. Never.

  He stared hard at the man nonetheless, and was relieved to see he was much older than Mica would have been.

  “Too weak,” the second man replied. “Bleed them, make hungry, and lords too weak to use powers.”

  “Sandmaster Davim’s not cruel just to hurt,” the first man added. “This”—he waved a hand at the cage—“teach Scarpermen lesson they never forget: men of the dunes are powerful! Can put rainlord in cage like animal. Can rip out rainlord’s tongue or throw away highlord’s balls, no trouble.”r />
  Jasper’s rage ploughed through him, to shred his fear into oblivion. He gathered the vapour, teasing mist around him like softened bab fibres onto a spindle. It swirled in damp eddies, laid its tendrils against his skin, coated his hair with moisture. The sensual pleasure of being in a cloud, of the feel of water in the air about him, of the unaccustomed dampness—it stirred his anger to a cutting fury. And he stepped out onto the open street.

  “What the—! Look!” one of the men said, in Reduner this time. He added a string of Reduner vulgarities Jasper remembered from his childhood.

  Jasper smiled. He thickened the mist in front of him to obscure his form as he walked forward, leaving only a small hole unobstructed so he could see. “Smoke?” the Gibberman suggested, more puzzled than worried.

  “Don’t smell like no smoke.”

  The two Reduners exchanged agitated glances. The first of the mist trailed across their faces.

  “It’s wet!” one cried, and added something in Reduner.

  Jasper’s power poured through his anger to seize more water from the air, from the dew on the trees beyond the wall, from wherever he could find it. He had to stop them calling for help. His idea was as coldly merciless as it was clear. He couldn’t take someone’s water, but he could drown them.

  They didn’t understand at first, of course. Each had a ball of water clamped across his mouth and nose, and nothing, nothing would dislodge it. They tried to bat it away, scoop it off, scrape it from them, but their hands just ran through the water without effect. They didn’t breathe it in either, because Jasper moulded it to hold its shape. They couldn’t breathe at all.

  As they sank to their knees, choking, eyes bulging, terror blinding them to anything except survival, Jasper cleared the vapour away so they could see him. “I will let you breathe,” he said quietly, “but don’t try to run or shout for help—or you will die. I am a rainlord, and you know my power.” His voice grated in his ears, allowing no promise of pity. He peeled back the water from their faces and bundled it into individual globes that hovered by the cheek of each man. “I want you to lower the cage to the ground.”

  One of the men, gasping for air, reached for the loaded zigtube hooked into his belt. In one fluid movement, he had it pointed at Jasper. He tapped the side.

  Nothing happened. “It’s already dead,” Jasper said. “I drowned it.”

  The man stared at the tube. It dripped water.

  “Do you want to die that way yourself? Or would you rather end up a dried-out husk?” Jasper brushed the globe against the man’s cheek, rolling it across his nose to the other side of his face. It left a trail of wetness behind.

  The man trembled and shook his head.

  “Then lower the cage.”

  They untied the rope from the wall and eased it through the pulley, a simple job for several men to do together. Their stricken gaze flicked from water globe to the task and back again. Even in the cool of the night, they sweated. One tried to speak, so Jasper jammed the water ball in his mouth. It squashed, but he couldn’t spit it out. Only when he choked did Jasper take pity on him.

  “I told you not to speak,” he said.

  The cage reached the ground. Jasper stepped forward—and saw the horror in detail then. A man once. Tortured beyond comprehension until his humanity was blurred. Alive, yes, but not living. Existing only in a welter of hopeless pain.

  The cage had no door; it had been soldered together. The space was too small for a grown man to sit or lie or stand. The thing inside could only hunch with his head bowed down. He still wore a tunic, but no trousers.

  It was Nealrith… but not the Nealrith that Jasper knew. His eye sockets gaped, half-filled with congealed blood; there were no eyeballs. His lower face was swollen and torn. His mouth sagged open; there was no tongue. There was blood on the floor of the cage. A lot of it. And body wastes and a water skin.

  Jasper knelt beside the bars.

  “Rith?” he asked. His tone was assured, calm. He did not know how he could sound like that.

  Hearing his voice, Nealrith started, but only barely.

  “It’s me, Jasper. I’ve come to get you out.” Soothing. Reasonable. Lies.

  Nealrith made a movement of his hand, a gesture of rejection.

  “I’m all right, don’t worry.” Jasper knelt beside the cage. “You,” he said to a Reduner, “bring one of the torches here.” The tight fury in his voice had the man scuttling to do as he was bidden, especially as the water globe remained tethered to his cheek.

  The added light revealed more injuries to Nealrith’s body. The blood had dried, and his tunic had stuck to his skin, so it was impossible to see what had happened, but Jasper thought he knew anyway: the rainlord had been castrated. Or worse.

  He raised his gaze to the three men cowering from him near the wall. “And you could laugh about this,” he said. “What kind of men are you?” His voice was soft, yet his rage thundered from him, carrying the fullness of his fury. They knew better than to reply. He reached in and took Nealrith’s hand. “I can get you out of here,” he said. He had no idea how.

  Nealrith moved his head, a slight shake. Painfully, he raised a hand and drew it across his throat. Then he pointed to himself. There could be no doubt what he meant.

  “No!” Please don’t ask that of me. He said, desperate, begging, “We can fight on, Rith. You will always have your water-sense. You can use it to see.”

  The hand he held gripped him tightly, squeezing, hurting him. Once more the rainlord gestured for his own death. And then his hand dropped away, groping across the bottom of the cage. When he touched the stickiness of the blood there, he used a finger to trace out: “Senya?”

  “She’s safe. So is Laisa.”

  More letters drawn in blood. “Marry. Children, hope.”

  Jasper swallowed, unable to say quite what Nealrith wanted to hear. “I will take care of her, I promise you.”

  “My city?” the highlord scrawled.

  He couldn’t tell the whole truth. “The waterhall and Breccia Hall hold yet. I will leave with Senya and Laisa soon, just in case. And you can come with us.”

  The finger moved in the blood again, tracing letters over those he had already written. “Dying. Pain. Please.” Then he tapped the bars. The implication was clear: how would Jasper free him, anyway?

  Jasper sat back on his heels, trying to rid himself of the choking lump in his throat. He could choose not to do it. Once again, a choice that was no choice at all.

  Nealrith, I can’t—

  As if he had heard the unspoken words, Nealrith traced more letters in his own spilled blood: “You can.” His other hand tightened on Jasper’s.

  Jasper struggled to give voice to what he needed to say, the heartfelt truth. “I wish—I wish we had known each other in better times, my lord. I understand what you tried to do, the way you tried to rule your city, and why. I wish you could have been my father. Although I would have been a poor son.”

  A smile ghosted on the tortured mouth, and Nealrith’s hand patted his. He mouthed and gestured to make the words clear: “You will father my grandchildren.”

  Jasper bit his lip and struggled to find the right words of ritual. “You are a true rainlord,” he said finally. “Your water is precious to us.” He licked his dry lips. “I will be safe, I promise, and Taquar will never rule this land. Never. And neither will Davim.”

  The wounded man nodded.

  “Are you ready, Highlord Nealrith of Breccia?” But as he spoke the words, he hesitated. I can’t.

  And then, with his last strength, Nealrith gathered vapour from the air to form letters, as if this was his last defiance, his last action as a mover of water, his last benediction. Lighted by the flickering torches, the letters danced red in the air in front of the cage: Farewell, Cloudmaster. And his ravaged mouth smiled. It was a travesty, a rictus of blood, but he did it for Jasper.

  Jasper braced himself against his own revulsion. “Goodbye, Rith,” he said. The
huskiness of his voice made him sound old. He sought the comforting words of the funeral ritual the waterpriests had taught him: “Go back to the living water. Be at one with life.”

  Nealrith indicated his readiness.

  And Jasper thrust his sword into the cage and slit the rainlord’s throat. Nealrith fell forward against the bars. Blood pulsed, then slowed. A hand went into spasm, then was still.

  The first man he had ever killed, and it had to be the man he had come to most honour, to most admire. A man he would have liked to call father. And he couldn’t even take his water in a final gesture of respect. He’d had to use his sword.

  There was a sharp intake of breath from one of the Reduners, and the Gibberman doubled over, retching. All that was left of Nealrith hardly looked human any more. Jasper struggled to rise.

  “I could kill you all now,” he told the guards from between gritted teeth. It was true; his revulsion at Nealrith’s death had banished all compassion. And they believed him. The Gibberman tried to speak, but Jasper slapped the water over his mouth, gagging him. He struggled to speak anyway. None of the sounds made any sense. The Reduner beside him glared. The Gibberman sagged to his knees, gesturing, grunting.

  Jasper knew what he was trying to say: I am a Gibberman like you. Not one of them. The Reduner lashed out and sent the grovelling man sprawling in the dust. The tribesman glared at Jasper and folded his arms in defiance. The second Reduner moaned and huddled against the wall, trying to make himself look small. Jasper gagged both of them as well, but refrained from covering their noses this time. Then he stumbled away, sickened.

  Just before reaching the street that led upwards, he turned back. The Gibberman scrambled up on his knees. They stared at each other across the space, and for a moment Jasper knew they were thinking the same thing: there had been a time when they were not much different. Grubby Gibber brats from a drywash town somewhere, eking out an existence as best they could.