Stormlord rising s-2

by Glenda Larke

  Unsettled, she wondered if he really knew. In the snuggery, she had heard tales of the White Quarter, of travelers dying on the salt, their bodies found years later, mummified and dried solid. Pickled. What kind of people were they, these Alabasters, who apparently did not have red blood in their veins? Who could live in a land where the very ground beneath one's feet was made of salt?

  In the first few miles after Fourcross Tell, the land was not all that different from the areas they had already crossed: stunted trees dug into the soil with grotesquely twisted roots, gullies scarred the land in memory of long-ago streams. Even the dust felt the same. Later in the day, though, as they descended to the plains, the vegetation changed and she felt as if she was leaving everything sure and familiar behind. The trees disappeared, replaced by low bushes and creepers snaking over the ochre-colored earth. When they stopped to rest, Terelle fingered the leaves of one plant and found it dusted with salt.

  It was hot by then, stifling. The air hung so still it felt heavy on her shoulders, and thick to breathe. When she licked her lips, she tasted salt. When she touched her hair, it was stickily coated.

  "We stay here while sun high," Russet said. They dismounted and he sat in the shadow cast by the pede. Wearily, he pulled his embroidered head-wrap loose and drank from his water skin. His earlier vigor seemed to have been vanquished by the heat. "We go on later; be cooler."

  Terelle nodded and strung up bab matting for shade by tying it to the pede on one side and a single saltbush on the other. She sat down next to Russet, using the pede as a backrest. Even under the cover, the heat was intense enough to shrivel the skin. Carefully she smoothed some of the pede ointment onto her face; Vivie would have approved. The pede flicked one of its feelers backward and touched her cheek in a tentative gesture.

  "What is it, girl?" she asked. "You can't be thirsty already." Gently, she prodded the belly between the segments; the moisture-saturated tissues were soft. She gazed into its myopic compound eyes, and wondered whether it had a name or not. The liveryman had called it Number Twelve-indeed, it had the number etched into its rear segment. It wasn't a handsome creature, all carved and polished and sewn with embroidery, like a lord's animal. It was just a plain, working hack. Still, she tried to do what was best for it. Russet had said pedemen kept the crevices between carapace and skin cleaned of grains of sand and such, so every evening she groomed the pede carefully and checked every segment groove for sand-ticks, every one of its eighteen pairs of feet for injury. When she found abraded spots on its skin, she smeared on the lanolin supplied by the livery.

  Encouraged by Terelle's words, the beast curved its front end around, poked its head into the shade cast by the cloth, then rested the base of its head on the ground at her feet. If a pede could look soulful, then that was what it did. Terelle chuckled. "Oh, I see-you're just hot too, eh? Fine, Number Twelve, you stay right where you are. We can share the shade." The creature settled its first segment mantle down over its eyes-the only way it had of closing them-and dozed. Next to her, Russet was already sleeping.

  Terelle glanced around. Nothing moved in the midday heat, so she, too, closed her eyes. She was awoken by a scream.

  She leaped up, whirling around to find the danger. The pede raised its head and flicked its feelers. Russet was clutching his leg and moaning.

  "What is it?" Terelle asked, trying to slow the thumping of her heart.

  "Something be stinging me." Hurriedly, he pulled the cloth of his wrap back from his calf. A single spot of blood oozed just above the ankle.

  "Snake?" She cast around where he had been lying, but nothing moved.

  "Only one hole."

  "Sand-leech?"

  "More painful. Scorpion."

  "That-that's not-not so very serious, is it?"

  "Not if ye be treating it," he replied between gritted teeth. "Reduners use herbal concoction."

  "We can go back to the caravansary-"

  "Don't be stupid. We be going on. Get the water skin. Must be washing leg." He took the water and waved her away, indicating with further gesturing that she should dismantle the shade cloth and reload the pede. She did as he asked; she knew better than to argue.

  They set off once more, in silence, and she concentrated on persuading the pede to whatever speed it was capable of-which never seemed to be as much as she had seen other pedes do. Whenever she looked behind at Russet, he was staring straight ahead, expressionless.

  When she slowed their mount some hours later, thinking to stop for the night because the sun had almost set, he spoke again. "No," he said, "go on."

  "I won't know what direction. I can't even see the ground properly." And I'm tired. And you are sick.

  "See well enough once star river shines. Go on."

  She did as he asked. A little later he brusquely pointed out a particularly bright star in the sky and said, "Be keeping that on your left."

  He was silent for a long time as they continued. Every now and then she turned her head to check if he was still there, to find him hunched up and motionless behind her. In the silver-blue light she could not tell if the bite was bothering him. She felt a pang of guilt at her lack of compassion, but he was forcing her on this journey, sunblast it! He had no right to expect anything of her except rage.

  It was pleasant traveling in the cool of the night; at least at first. Later the slight breeze they generated with their passing chilled her skin like slivers of ice. She drifted off, dozing on the saddle, but roused with a start when he spoke.

  "We camp now."

  His voice sounded small and thin in the silence of the night, as friable as ancient sun-bleached rock. She reined in, dismounted and went back to help him. Even so, he fell out of the saddle rather than climbed down, and then collapsed, unable to stand.

  "Give me my pack and be fixing a meal," he said, and there was still enough authority in his tone to have her obey without protest. If he did not ask for help, she knew it would only anger him to offer it. She stifled a sigh.

  By the time he was wrapped in his blanket, she had a fire alight, using dry twigs and leaves for fuel. The salt coating the soil and plants spat in the flames with green and blue sparks, the sound animating the quiet of a salt-encrusted world. She made some soup out of the shredded dried meat and bab root she had obtained at the caravansary. She had to wake him when it was ready, but he ate gladly enough, then slept again. After she'd had some of the soup herself, she went to groom the pede. It was eating the low plants with enthusiasm and took no notice as she followed it around brushing out its segment joints. When she'd finished, she hobbled the animal by linking its antennae together. No pede moved far or fast when it didn't have the free use of its feelers.

  Just before she turned in herself, she felt the pull of her journey as sharp as a knife beneath her ribs. The pull of the future Russet had painted for her.

  My mother could resist, she thought. Why can't I? And she remembered once again the offhand words Vivie had uttered about Sienna: she was always ill.

  Resistance came with a price.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Scarpen Quarter Breccia City Breccia Hall, Level 2 Beryll.

  She was dead. One moment Ryka had been so relieved to find her little sister alive and unhurt-and then she was gone. Those blue eyes had lost their light like a candle suddenly snuffed.

  Ryka's stomach heaved in rebellion. No. She clamped a hand across her mouth. Not Beryll. She was so young.

  She swallowed the bile in her throat. Sweet Sunlord, why? Beryll, you could have recovered from rape, but there's no coming back from death… Why, oh why couldn't you see that?

  She mustn't think about it. Mustn't dwell on it, or she'd lose her edge. Beryll was dead; accept it. But Kaneth? She had to believe he was still alive. His son moved within her body, and him she must keep safe, no matter what it took. She inhaled, a deep calming breath to push away the paralyzing grief. Think, woman. Start planning. You are Ryka, rainlord.

  She glanced about Ravard's
quarters. Watergiver damn, I recognize this. It's Nealrith's private reception room. Her next astonished thought was tinged with fear. Who the sunblast is this Ravard fellow that he warrants the Breccian highlord's quarters?

  Davim, obviously, would be quartered in the Cloudmaster's rooms, if he wanted them. She'd already known Ravard must be important from the way he dressed and the way he had bantered with Davim, even defying his orders to kill her. But to be assigned the highlord's apartment?

  Davim's son? No, not possible, surely. Ravard must have been twenty or so, and Davim didn't look much older than Ryka herself. His sons, if he had any, would still be children.

  She shivered and wrapped her arms around her upper body. Night had fallen and the rooms were cold. The shutters had been left open, and no one had brought fuel for the night braziers. Limping because the wound in her leg pained her, she stepped out onto the balcony and looked over the balustrade for a way to escape. Her distance vision was blurred, but the burning torches helped her recognize where she was. Below was the open forecourt in front of the main doors of the hall. Now there were guards camped there and fires burned on the paving. The smell of cooked meat wafted upward. She wasn't surprised. She knew many Reduners hated the idea of sleeping within solid buildings.

  Oh, the smell of that food… Sunlord, but she was hungry!

  Quelling all thought of eating to concentrate on her escape, she raised her eyes to the defensive wall surrounding the first and second levels. It was patrolled by Davim's men; she could see their shapes against the sky. If she tried to escape via the balcony, she would just be climbing down into an ants' nest of Reduner warriors-and still be on the wrong side of the wall. There was no freedom for her that way. For a moment despair overwhelmed her.

  Her father, her mother, Beryll. All gone. Her friends, her city, her whole way of life; too much, too soon. It numbed her, and she couldn't afford to be numb. Watergiver's heart, she had to fight. For Kaneth. For their son. For their land.

  Closing the shutters behind her to keep out the cold of night, she stepped back inside and examined the apartment with more care by the light of the single tiny oil lamp they had left for her. If the mess was any indication, the place had been searched and looted. No, more than that: it had been the scene of a fight. The head of a Scarpen-made spear was buried in a cupboard door, the shaft missing. The tip of a sword blade lay on the floor. The rest of the weapon was nowhere to be seen. A chair was smashed, the pieces lying where they had fallen.

  She tried the door she had entered by, only to find it firmly barred from the outside. When she crossed to one of the other two doors, she found it led to Nealrith's private study. The floor and desk there were strewn with parchment and scrolls. A dark splash of blood had sprayed across the wall and then dribbled downward in parallel lines.

  The second door opened into Nealrith's bedroom. The bed was unmade, and a Reduner cloak had been flung carelessly over the end. The wardrobe and a trunk made of bab wood had been emptied, although some of the contents seemed to have been discarded on the floor. The entrance to a small water-room was hidden behind a carved screen. There was another door as well, bolted top and bottom. She opened the bolts, only to find it was somehow locked or barred on the other side as well. She guessed Laisa's bedroom lay beyond.

  Ryka wanted to sit down and give in to despair. Instead, she began to search methodically, looking for anything that could be helpful. In the study she salvaged some paper and a graphite stick for writing, a piece of twine, a tinderbox, flint and steel. In the water-room she drank deeply from the dayjar; in the reception room she examined the broken sword point. It was, she decided, too short to be of any use to her as a weapon. She considered digging out the spearhead, decided Ravard might notice it had gone and reluctantly left it where it was, a symbol of a battle lost. Her gaze alighted on the wood of the broken chair with more hope. The shards were long and sharp; the wood hard. She found a number of pieces that might have potential as makeshift daggers, and secreted them in various places around the rooms, tucking one under the pallet of the bed.

  In the bedroom she picked through what was left of the clothes to find something clean and small enough for her to wear, finally selecting a tunic and a pair of trousers probably dating back to Nealrith's adolescent years. In the water-room she used the water closet, then eyed with interest the porphyry bathtub big enough to sit in, the full copper, the seaweed briquettes in the fireplace underneath, and the soap. She hadn't had a proper bath in over a star cycle. She and Kaneth had done their best to cut water consumption, wiping themselves clean with wet cloths-but right now she couldn't think of any material thing she wanted more than a soaking hot bath. And why conserve water, anyway? Whatever there was would only go to the city's conquerors.

  She started a fire under the copper, and when the water was warm she ladled it into the porphyry tub. After a quick listen at the door to the outside passage just to make sure there was no sign of Ravard's approach, she returned to the water-room, stripped off and stepped into the glorious decadence of a hot, soapy bath. Ryka woke before dawn, ravenous and in a state of unfocused terror. Fatigue and tattered emotions had plummeted her into the oblivion of an exhausted sleep in one of the large woven chairs in the reception room, covered by a blanket taken from Nealrith's bed.

  Even before she was properly awake, she was on her feet. She had slept. How could she have fallen asleep? She'd been devastated by Beryll's death. So scared of the Reduner returning and demanding the use of her body. Worried sick by Kaneth's disappearance, by the unthinkable idea the Reduners had thrown his unconscious body on a funeral pyre and burned him alive.

  And she had slept like a child. What sort of woman was she? Furious with her weakness, she stood in the dimness of the room lit by a single guttering oil lamp, shivering. And then realized-this was not the lamp she had been using.

  Her nebulous fear coagulated into something more immediate. She drew in a sharp breath. She wasn't alone.

  Someone stood beside the open door to the bedroom. She stared. A Reduner. Not Ravard. Someone else-a man standing with folded arms, a favorite stance of a dune warrior on guard. Guarding the door from her? She stared past him to the room beyond. A man lay sprawled on the bed, on top of the covers and still dressed. Another lamp at the bedside showed a face smoothed by sleep into youthful innocence.

  She knew better than to trust her eyesight. "Ravard?" she asked softly, raising an eyebrow in query at the guard. His face was impassive, but his eyes glinted, promising action if she moved toward the door.

  "Kher Ravard," he agreed, his tone chiding because she had not used the honorific.

  She allowed herself the hint of a smile. So she worried Ravard enough he didn't feel quite safe and had to have a guard at his door? Good. She wanted to keep him off balance. Then her smile faded. He had come, found her asleep in the chair and then left her alone. Strange, unsettling man.

  Who could this Ravard be?

  Kher, she knew, meant the equivalent of lord. It was a title carried by only a handful of any dune's elite, including the tribemasters, the men who commanded one of the encampments of that dune. No more than ten men, fifteen at the outside, even on a large dune like the Watergatherer.

  Three of these tribal leaders were particularly important; they were the sandmaster's blood sons or adopted sons and they would all be water sensitives. The least of them was the Drover Son, who was charged with the care of the dune's pedes, their capture, training and sale. The second in importance was the Warrior Son, who trained and commanded all the dune's armed tribesmen. The most important was the Master Son, who would one day be sandmaster unless there was a closer blood relative with water sensitivity to take his place.

  When a sandmaster didn't have three blood sons, or if his sons were still children, or if they were water-blind, then it was common practice to adopt sons. This arrangement was sometimes lasting, sometimes temporary.

  Ryka wrinkled her forehead, trying to recall anything else th
at might be useful to know. There were at least two others who would be addressed as kher as well, the Shaman Kher and the Trader Kher, but neither of them, she decided, would be given Nealrith's rooms for their use, even if they were in Breccia. No, Ravard must be a tribemaster at least, sandblast his eyes.

  Cold and frightened, she turned away from the guard and limped to open the shutters and walk through to the balcony. He made no move to stop her. Dawn light was already in the sky, and the wall and its sentries were outlined against a pale background streaked with rose pink, promising a lovely sunrise over a devastated, suffering city. She dropped her gaze to the huddled sleeping warriors below; their fires extinguished, they were barely visible in the darkness of the courtyard.

  "Kaneth," she whispered, "where are you? Please be alive. I need you to help me protect our son. He is all that matters. He must have a future, even if we do not…"

  She waited for the sun to rise and the day to begin, dreading the new griefs it would harbor. Hunger gnawed at her insides, not just for food but for the renewal of her power. In her weakened state, she could feel neither the water within living things nor the bodies of water within the city; she had no more perception than an ordinary citizen. She'd never been the best of rainlords, but she hated being so water-blind, so cut off from her surroundings. To add to her physical misery, her muscles ached from the fighting of the previous two days and the healing wound on her leg was stiff and sore.

  When there was movement in the rooms behind her, she did not move. She heard Ravard murmur something to the guard, but could not sense his water, so when he stepped up behind her and draped his cloak over her shoulders she jumped.

  "Cold at this time of the morning," he said. "You shouldn't be standing out here so ill-clad."

  She did not turn to face him. "Thank you," she said, her voice flat.

  "Glad t'see you slept," he added.

  "Better than remembering the horror of yesterday."