by Glenda Larke
“Did you ever meet a man called Mica?” Jasper asked him. “About the same age as me? From—”
He stopped. The man’s expression told Jasper he was torn, trying to decide whether a yes or a no would bring him most benefit.
There was no way to know if the answer was going to be honest. Jasper turned to walk away. A desperate grunting made him glance back over his shoulder. The man uttered a few more guttural sounds without opening his mouth, and then repeated them. Jasper stood, rooted, wanting to hear, wanting to believe. He decided to give the man a chance to speak. He allowed the water to peel away from the Gibberman’s mouth. But instead of speaking, he shrieked and dropped. Behind him, the defiant Reduner stood swaying: he’d jammed a knife into the hapless Gibberman’s ribs. Without thinking, Jasper expanded the water to cover the tribesman’s nose as well as his mouth.
Someone shouted from the top of the wall. Voices responded. A Reduner on the wall pointed in Jasper’s direction. Hurriedly, Jasper clutched the mist around himself once more, grabbed up his lantern and left at a shambling run. It was all he could manage.
By the time additional tribesmen arrived at the gate, he was no more than a white patch rolling upwards, misty gossamer in the dimness of starlight. The newcomers looked from the bloodied cage, to the dead Gibberman, to the guard dying as he gasped for air he could not find, to the other Reduner with water held, impossibly, over his mouth—and then to that unearthly shape.
Not one of them chose to follow in pursuit.
Jasper blundered on, hearing over and over the name he was sure the Gibberman had tried to utter: Wash Drybone. Wash Drybone.
The man had known a man named Mica from Wash Drybone Settle.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Scarpen Quarter
Breccia City
“What happened?” Kaneth asked. His normal insouciance was gone; what had replaced it was hard-edged and angry.
“He insisted on going out alone. When he came back he was like this.” Laisa looked down at the sleeping form on the pallet. “Absolutely exhausted.”
“He almost drowned us all,” Senya said. It had happened hours before, but her words still crackled with indignation.
“He came stumbling through the door,” Laisa explained, “and collapsed where he is now. He let go of his hold on the water in the cistern, and if I hadn’t been quick, it would have come pouring in the door with the force of a rush down a Gibber wash.”
“And all he could say was that Nealrith was dead?”
“He said that much, and then he just wasn’t here any more. At first, I wasn’t sure if he was asleep or unconscious, but I think it’s just sleep.”
Kaneth knelt at the edge of the pallet and shook Jasper’s shoulder, hard.
Jasper stirred restlessly, muttering. “I killed him.” His head tossed from side to side. “I killed him.”
“Come on, Jasper, wake up.”
Jasper’s eyes flew open. For a long moment, he didn’t know where he was. For a moment, the horror of the dream seemed unreal; then he remembered. It wasn’t a dream. He had killed Nealrith.
“Kaneth…” he said, but couldn’t go on.
“Are you all right?” Kaneth asked.
Jasper sat up slowly and replied even more slowly. “Yes,” he said at last. “Tired. Very, very tired.”
“You should eat,” Kaneth reached out a hand and helped him heave himself to his feet. “You should eat a lot. You’ve been over-using your water-powers.”
“Oh, Kaneth,” he groaned, “I thought I could save Nealrith. But they had him in a cage that had no door. And they had—” He stopped, suddenly aware that he was also talking within the hearing of Nealrith’s wife and daughter. “I am sorry, Laisa, Senya. He died. I was holding his hand.”
Laisa raised an eyebrow. “You killed him?”
Senya’s eyes grew round. “You killed him? You killed my father?”
Jasper was silent.
“He asked you to?” Laisa suggested.
“He knew he did not have long to live, and no man would want to live another moment like that…” He trailed off. “It was his wish.”
Senya glared at him with righteous hatred, her chin quivering. Her mother stepped in, gripped her arm tightly, and said without expression, “I am sure you did what was best, Jasper.”
“Best?” Senya’s fury was about to explode, but Laisa tightened her hold in warning, and Senya took refuge in a storm of hysterical tearless weeping instead.
Jasper and Kaneth sat in awkward silence at the table. Jasper hunted for something to say, but it was Kaneth who spoke first. “That took courage. Would that we all could have such friends at the last. You will make a fine Cloudmaster, Jasper.”
Jasper winced. “Is that what makes a good ruler? The ability to kill when you need to? Anyway, I’m not even a stormlord. We all know that.” His stomach heaved. “What time of day is it?” he asked. Anything not to remember. Not to feel the grief swelling unasked in his throat.
“Midday.”
“What’s the situation?”
“Not much different. We are holding them off from Breccia Hall and the water hall still. The rest of the city is theirs. We have been in contact with the lower city, and many reeves have been killed, at least the ones they could find. The guards were wiped out, except for the one hundred or so men we have with us. Reduners have tried a few times to break in through the tunnels, without success so far. We haven’t lost any more rainlords, and we’ve managed to blind about another hundred of them. It’s not pretty.”
“How much longer can you hold out?”
“It depends on what they do. They could maintain a siege to spare their warriors an assault on the walls. We could last for half a cycle if they did that, but patience is not their strong point. I think they will try to persuade us to surrender by killing the townsfolk in front of our eyes instead. We could try to save as many ordinary citizens as possible by surrendering the city on agreed terms.”
“Could we trust a Reduner to hold to such an agreement?” Laisa asked.
“Probably not. If we don’t agree to their terms, then my feeling is they’ll gather everything they have and storm the walls and tunnels at the same time. As long as they don’t mind losing a lot of men, they will win in a day or two.” He went to one of the cupboards and took out a jar, broke the seal and poured some stewed grain and palm sugar into a bowl, which he set in front of Jasper. “You must eat.”
To his surprise, Jasper was suddenly ravenous. He ate, hardly bothering to note what it was. “How much do we know about what happened in Qanatend after they entered it?” he asked.
“Nothing. No one got through to us. Ryka says they have a past history of offering children from about eight to sixteen a choice between being made slaves, or becoming Reduner wives or whores or warriors. Adults are either killed or ignored.”
“Slavery is banned,” Senya pointed out. She had stopped crying; now her eyes just glowered at Jasper, smouldering in outrage.
Kaneth raised an eyebrow. “Do you seriously think a Quartern law is a barrier to Davim’s endorsement of slavery?”
When she didn’t reply, it was Jasper who explained, curbing his irritation. “The Reduners were always the ones who liked the end of slavery least. Tribal wars always ended with people of one tribe being slaves of another. Easy enough to return to old ways, if they shake off the rule of the Cloudmaster.”
“How can you possibly know all that?” Senya asked.
He ignored her scorn and said to Kaneth, “I had hoped I would be strong enough to—to do more.”
Kaneth shook his head. “You shouldn’t have gone, Jasper. You are too valuable to risk.” He gave a bitter laugh. “It is hardly your fault that you don’t have the strength to take on an armed force of thousands. Any change in your plan?”
Laisa raised an eyebrow. “Are we to let this untried youth suggest the strategy now, Kaneth?”
The two men ignored the comment. Jasper answered Ka
neth, saying, “No. Sunset tonight, I will make it clear to the Reduners that Jasper Bloodstone is leaving the city.” He gave an agitated gesture with one hand. “Before they start killing the hostages, you must start to negotiate surrender terms. You and any other rainlords and reeves who are still alive must try to leave through the tunnels at the moment of surrender. And Lady Ethelva. She is still alive, I hope.”
“I heard she was in Breccia Hall. I haven’t seen her, though.” Kaneth took a deep breath. “We’ve talked about it, Jasper. All of us. And we’ve decided that no matter what, we rainlords must stay.”
Jasper stared at him in dismay. “But why? I need you. The Scarpen needs you. We need every rainlord we have—we need your children, even.”
“This is my city. I wasn’t born here, but I’ve been a rainlord here since I was much younger than you are now. How can I turn my back and walk away from the people of Breccia? It would be like saying they don’t mean anything to me. That my life is more important than theirs.”
“Kaneth, it is. Sandblast you, isn’t that what you have all been saying to me since I got here? Rainlords are valuable! Anyway, the ordinary citizens have a chance of getting through this alive. You don’t, unless you leave. That’s a fundamental difference.”
Kaneth shrugged. “Too bad. We are the rainlords of Breccia, and we must be seen to fight for the people of our city, or surrender with them. It is as simple as that.”
“They’ll kill you. They can’t afford to let a rainlord live!”
“Probably. Jasper, our guess is that they will offer no terms of surrender, certainly not one that includes a rainlord. Davim is a warrior, and he wants to take us by storm. Even if we handed you over, he would still storm our walls. That, to him, is glory.”
“And Ryka?”
Pain flitted across his face, and then was gone. “I cannot make decisions for her. We have argued about this, I will admit, but she won’t leave, either. She’s as stubborn as granite is hard, that woman.”
“If I order you, as your Cloudmaster?”
Kaneth gave a lopsided smile. “Ah, Jasper, I’d hate to think that the first time you gave me a direct order, I would disobey it.”
“You ask me to do what you will not do yourself: live for the Quartern rather than die for it.” Frustrated, he glared at the rainlord.
“Yes, I know. I was always fond of irony.”
“If we go back to a Time of Random Rain, the watersense of every rainlord will be needed. And what about Ethelva? She is not a rainlord.”
“Do you really imagine she would leave?” Kaneth asked gently. “None of us are desperate to die, you know. We will do our best to escape in the end, I promise you. And some of us doubtless will—we know the tunnels and water locks of this city as they do not. But in the meantime, we will fight until we have nothing more to give. The fall of Breccia will cost the Red Quarter more than they can spare. They will mourn more warriors than they ever dreamed of losing, and perhaps, just perhaps, those losses will stop them from attacking another city.”
“It would be different if I was already a cloudmaster with power enough to bring the storms,” Jasper said bitterly. If the rainlords believed there was a stormlord who could supply water to the Quartern, then they would believe in a future. And they might therefore decide that it was their duty to live to serve their people. As it was, they had no faith in Jasper’s ability, and no hope. And so they would die fighting.
Jasper sighed and thought of Terelle and how she had always wanted life to be fair. “I’ll make you all a promise, Kaneth. Rainlords will rule here again one day. I will rule here one day. Not Taquar. Not Davim. Me. And everyone who fought here will be remembered.”
Kaneth gave a laugh, but there was no amusement there. “Just make sure it’s for my death, Jasper, not the way I lived. That was nothing spectacular, as I am sure you have realised. The only wise thing I ever did was marry Ryka, and I almost ruined my chances with her by behaving like a withering waste of water.” He glanced at Laisa, who was watching them both with folded arms and a bemused expression. “Beware of Laisa. She is indubitably a beautiful woman and a highly intelligent one. She is also quite amoral.”
“Thank you, Kaneth, for that,” she said, inclining her head in mock deference. “I don’t believe you will be any great loss to the world, either.”
Kaneth ignored her. “Cloudmaster Jasper Bloodstone, may the waters always be sweet to your taste.”
He picked up his lamp, and Jasper went to open the door and clear the water for him.
Afterwards, Laisa remarked, “Who would have thought? Kaneth, of all people. A hero.”
“Don’t mock him,” Jasper snapped. “None of them. Not ever.”
Jasper crawled out of the grove cistern onto its flat covered roof and tried to sense what lay beyond without raising his head to see.
People. Far too many people. And animals. Pedes. Carefully he tried to build a picture from the water he could feel out there. Reduner pedemen everywhere. Mostly sitting in groups. And the pedes were in lines, which probably meant they were tied up. He rolled over onto his side as Laisa and Senya arrived beside him. Senya’s skirt was wet again. Impatient with the way it hampered her movements, he sent the water back to where it belonged. When Laisa went to close the cistern lid, he stopped her.
“I will need the water,” he said.
She nodded, understanding.
“There are people everywhere,” he continued. “There’s a camp, a huge Reduner camp all the way along the grove. We’ve got to be quiet.”
Laisa raised her head to look. “A diversion?” she suggested a moment later.
“Yes. Which direction do we have to go in?”
She pointed. “That way. Up the scarp, but at an angle, cutting across, towards the west. Not too close to the city wall. Our pedes are in a hidden gully near the top of the escarpment, about two hours’ walk. Maybe more in the dark.”
“There’s no danger that they will have been found? No chance we will walk into a trap?”
She didn’t bother to answer. It had been a stupid question, of course. She couldn’t possibly know the answer to the first part, but they could sense a trap before it was sprung. They were water sensitives, after all.
He crawled to the edge of the roof and peered over. “We can jump down, no problem.” He eyed Senya’s skirt in distaste. “You should have worn travelling clothes; however can you run in a skirt?”
“I don’t like trousers,” she said. “I’m not a man.”
“Get ready to jump and run,” he said, smothering a sigh. “Don’t wait for me. Laisa, can you take my pack and water?”
“They have to see you leave,” Laisa said, pointing out the obvious as she took his things.
“They will. The sun’s setting, but it won’t be fully dark for a while.”
And let’s hope they don’t kill the hostages anyway. They might, Jasper knew that. But he had no choice. He had to stay alive, in the hope that he would eventually find a way to bring water to the Quartern.
He reached out with his water-power and sucked some water out of the cistern. Carefully raising his head to peep, he sent the water in a thin line through the gloaming to one of the palms near a camp fire at the far end of the camp. Once it was there, he dumped it on the old palm fronds sagging from the bab palm’s underskirt. One by one, under the sudden weight of water, the fronds snapped at the base and fell to the ground. Several Reduners sitting beneath the tree were hit, and the fronds were heavy. Someone yelled, and men shouted warnings as more sodden branches came crashing down. All heads swung in that direction. “Now,” he said to Laisa and Senya. “Jump!”
They both obeyed. Jasper repeated his trick with another tree. This time, the fronds dropped into a camp fire, and there was a billow of smoke. Then he himself jumped and ran. Behind him, there was pandemonium as more wet branches fell and put a camp fire out. The line of tethered myriapedes baulked and twisted and reared, screaming their panic in ululating wails
. The sound made the hairs stand up on Jasper’s neck, but he didn’t look back.
Even as he ran, he· pulled water out of the cistern, twisting it through the trees after him like a tail, just as he had done when he’d freed the Alabaster Feroze. There were more yells and answering replies; he’d been seen. He ran on, pursued by water, pursued by men. A spear whistled through the air, but it fell short. He dodged behind a tree and paused there while he assessed the pursuit. Just men on foot, he decided. No one was mounted. He turned the line of water and pounded a stream hard into the faces of the closest pursuers, the force of it knocking them off their feet. He drove the water into their noses and mouths and eyes and ears. Then he sent a twist of water, the length of several pedes, slapping into the faces of the rest of the men following him. They tried to duck and weave, but the water pursued them, whipping around and reforming after every stinging blow. The pursuit faltered as those behind ran into the men on the ground, their faces bruised, most of them barely alive.
Jasper called out to them from the gathering dusk, “Tell Davim that Cloudmaster Jasper Bloodstone is leaving Breccia now. Tell him that I still command the water of the Quartern.” And he spun the water into a funnel, sending it gyrating into the midst of the Reduners, a wet spindevil that tore at their clothes and their weapons, that knocked them off their feet and flung them down like dust in a wind.
After that, there was no effective pursuit.
Jasper had lost sight of Laisa and Senya. He left the groves, put his back to the camp fires, kept the city walls far to his right and headed up the escarpment after the two women, following traces of their water. He hurried, but made no attempt to catch up with them. He was glad to be alone in the drylands again. No one demanding his time. No one asking him to do something. For a while, he could pretend to be just Shale the Gibber-born, out collecting resin, not the Quartern’s last stormlord whose failure would mean the death of a land. Not a young man commanded to marry a girl-woman for whom he had little but contempt. Not a man who had killed one of the few people who had ever cared about him or a cloudmaster who had failed to be the saviour of the land.
