Stormlord rising s-2

by Glenda Larke

  She picked up the lamp and headed down to the next floor, but didn't linger there. A further set of steps beckoned her on to the ground floor. At the bottom, she emerged into the kitchens where a coal fallen free from the banked fire gave a gleam of light. A candle lantern, designed for outdoor use with a handle and shutters to protect the flame against the wind, was hanging on the back of the door. Just what she needed. She lit it from the other lamp and looked around.

  The sense of water was overpowering: the kitchen cistern, water in pots on the hobs of the two huge fireplaces, water held in fruit, bab-palm mash and other food in the pantry. A line of moving water marked the underground channel of a water tunnel. The only living water she could detect nearby was small and stationary-a cat asleep somewhere, she guessed. She edged the leaf-woven cover of the kitchen cistern back to expose the surface of the water.

  Then she turned to the door in the outside wall. It was heavily barred on the inside. Quietly, she lifted the bars and eased the plank door open. She was looking out onto a walled kitchen courtyard. Oil jars were stacked two deep and three rows high along one side. A rat scampered over the top of them, but apart from that, she could detect nothing alive nearby. She left the door open so she could return the same way.

  The courtyard was accessible through an archway, and when she moved quietly to the edge of the arch and looked out, she sensed people beyond. She cursed her inability to sense far, but thought she was safe enough from immediate detection. Better still, because she was aware of a number of prone bodies at the edge of her water-sense-the sleeping warriors in the entrance courtyard-she could place herself in relation to her knowledge of the layout of Breccia Hall. She needed to turn right to reach the stables. Shuttering the lantern so as to allow no light to escape, she waited for her eyes to adjust to the starlit world outside.

  To her right was a narrow lane running between the main hall building and some outbuildings, roofed by another storey of the hall. She edged her way along this covered way to the end, her footfall silent on the paving stones.

  When she peered from the archway at the other end, she could see the open rectangular courtyard in front of the main facade of the stables. The huge double stable doors, directly in front of her and large enough to allow the passage of a fully loaded packpede, were closed and barred from the outside. They were also guarded by two men, both squatting on their heels as they talked quietly. The sandmaster was wisely not taking any risks with his new slaves, sandblast him.

  The right-hand side of the courtyard was formed by the wall of the main hall. The left-hand side gave onto a large rutted road she guessed led between more outbuildings to Breccia Hall's main entrance and its main gateway, the only gateway large enough for the use of packpedes.

  Ryka bit her lip, perplexed. How could she pass those guards unnoticed and enter the stables? Recalling the few times she'd been inside those doors, she remembered entering from the main building. If she went back inside the hall she may be able to locate that entrance. Or she could spend half the night searching, only to find that door guarded as well.

  She tried to conjure up memories of being inside the stables. Talking to a pede groom. A stablehand doing something. Shoveling manure. Now, why was that important? Of course-he was throwing it into a muck chute. A muck chute to the right of the main door… but how was that possible? That side of the stable shared its wall with the main hall building.

  She frowned into the darkness. To the right of the facade, a patch that wasn't part of the brickwork showed up black as obsidian. An impasse, that's right. She remembered now. A short piece of laneway going nowhere, a delivery bay, where they brought the pedes to unload feed directly into the bins through openings in the stable wall. And a muck chute, where the dirty straw and pede manure were shoveled from the stables directly into a handcart. Those openings would probably be boarded over, but they weren't guarded.

  Her problem would be to reach them without alerting the guards at the main doors. With a sinking heart she stared at the surface of the courtyard. It was covered a hand-span deep in loose gravel, so as not to blunt the pointed feet of the pedes the way a smooth, hard stone surface would. And it was the noisiest surface in the world to walk across. Even if they didn't see her in the dark, they could hardly fail to hear her.

  Diversion… she had to make a diversion. A noisy diversion to cover any sound she made. Something that would leave no trace behind. Come on, Ry, think!

  She retreated down the passageway to the other end, until she was close enough to the kitchens to pull a brick-sized chunk of water out of the uncovered cistern. She was not Jasper, and it took her time to maneuver it and then to keep it moving through the air in front of her without spilling or having it fly off in all directions in countless little drops. The effort of maintaining it as a single entity made her sweat. She gave an irritated grunt, recalling all those hours of frustration in Breccia Academy as she had tried to learn the art of watershifting. She had never been much good then, either.

  Facing the stables once more, she shifted the brick of water over to the left. Pressed up against the wall of the passageway so she would be hard to spot, she lowered the water into the gravel and then barreled it through the pebbles straight down the center of the road. The small round stones rattled and danced noisily as they were ploughed aside by the water brick. Both guards jumped to their feet and stood rooted, staring. The noise was uncanny, the cause invisible.

  "A cat?" one ventured, his question tentative.

  Ryka doubled the amount of power she was using and the gravel shot away, flung aside by the speeding brick. She eased herself out from the shelter of the passageway and skirted the wall to her right, keeping to the perimeter of the courtyard. If either of the guards turned his head, he would see her. Feeling exposed and vulnerable, she wanted to run but curbed the desperation that prompted such risky behavior. She flattened herself against the stones of the wall and slowly edged toward the murky darkness of the delivery bay. The gravel scrunched under her feet, but much more quietly than the noise made by her water brick as she reversed it and then spun it around and around in the gravel.

  "That's no cat," the other guard muttered in Reduner. "We'd better look." He unhooked a lantern that had been hanging on the outer stable wall and directed a beam of light toward the noise.

  She swore silently, wondering if the water would glint in the light. Squeezing her eyes shut in concentration, she flattened and broadened the water into a plank instead of a brick, buried it just under the gravel and then moved it along broadside. The pebbles danced and clinked and jostled in a wave.

  Ryka crept on, sweating with the exertion. Blighted eyes, it was easier to kill a man than do finicky things like this. The water brick wanted to weep its contents onto everything it touched. Never mind, she told herself, if she did leave some behind, it would be invisible in the dark and would soon evaporate.

  The two guards followed it still, but were cautious about catching up. She slowed the water down, but when they approached it, she sent it furrowing through the gravel once more. She whisked it suddenly around the corner in the direction of the main gate. As soon as it was out of sight, she raised it high into the air and tossed it over the roof, deliberately splitting it into as many drops as she could and casting it wide enough not to be noticeable. At the same time she dashed into the dark bay along the side wall of the stables. Once there, she briefly cracked open the lantern shutter to cast a sliver of light on the wall.

  She could just make out a wooden cover of some sort projecting out of the wall at waist height, about a quarter of the size of a normal door: the muck chute. Next to it was the delivery door. Designed to be opened by someone standing on a pede, it was too high for her to reach. She cursed richly under her breath. Such a simple way to enter the stable: easy to unbar, out of sight of the guards even if they returned to their post in front of the door-and she couldn't open it.

  Ryka screwed up her nose at the muck chute. It smelled, even
with the entrance closed. The cover was easily unbolted from the outside and lifted away from the opening, to reveal a short chute sloping upward. She poked her head inside. Pede pellets were dry, so it was not slippery or slimy-but the smell was intense, reminiscent of dried antiseptic herbs mixed with ammonia. There did not appear to be a cover at the other end, but the stable beyond was in total blackness. Snorting sounds punctuated the darkness in an unattractive din. Not pedes, she decided. Men. Snoring, bless them.

  Withdrawing her head, she propped the chute cover against the wall, then hooked the lantern onto the back of her tunic belt, took a deep breath and ducked down inside the chute again. It wasn't difficult to scramble upward, and a moment later she poked her head into the stable. She couldn't see a thing. She waited for her eyesight to adjust, but even then the darkness seemed total. Unhooking the lantern, she looked to see if the candle was still alight. It was, but guttering badly. She unshuttered one side and shone it around.

  The stable floor was untidily scattered with straw and sleeping bodies. Stealthily, she hauled herself out of the chute and stood up. No one stirred, and the snuffling and honking and snorting helped to cover any noise she made. As far as she could determine, there were no guards inside the building.

  She began to walk between the rows of sleeping men. It was hard to make out faces and, short of waking everyone up, it seemed an impossible task to find either Elmar or Kaneth. As she hesitated, though, she saw one of the stall doors open. A tall man stood in the doorway, looking her way. She didn't need to see him properly to know it was Kaneth.

  He always did recognize my water, she thought, emotion bringing a lump to her throat. She began to thread her way through the sleeping bodies to his side. When she arrived, he didn't move, but just stood there, looking down at her. She raised the lantern to view his injuries, and the sight was enough to wrench her insides.

  "Oh," she whispered, and her hand touched his cheek with gentle tenderness. "Your poor face…"

  He gave a half-embarrassed smile, and when he spoke, he sounded at a loss. "I'm sorry," he said softly. "I don't seem to know you. Who are you?"

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Scarpen Quarter Breccia City, Breccia Hall, Level 2 Warthago Range, foothills Ravard had called him witless. Ryka had hoped he'd hidden his sharp mind along with his identity, so his words had the impact of a physical blow. She was unprepared for the sense of rejection, unprepared for the pain his inadvertent betrayal of their love would cause her.

  She stepped away from him, and perhaps he glimpsed the horror in her expression because, whispering, he apologized again. "I'm sorry, I just don't remember. I don't even remember my own name." He pointed to the scar on his head. "I was hit here, I think. In a fight, I suppose. I don't recall."

  "I do," she snapped, and was instantly contrite. It wasn't his fault. "I was there," she added more gently, lowering her voice. "It was a spear-you fell into the cistern." And saved my life. "You truly don't remember?"

  He shook his head. "We knew each other?"

  His polite disinterest was shocking. It was a moment before she could bring herself to reply. "You could say that." Watergiver, how do you tell a man who can't remember his own name that he has a wife-and a baby on the way? "I'm-"

  She didn't finish. Elmar Waggoner stepped out of the shadows in the pede stall and grabbed them both by the elbows to pull them inside, away from the men sleeping in the common area. Already one or two were stirring and someone had roused himself to look around to see who was talking.

  "Shh," Elmar said, his urgency intense. "You can't trust everyone." The look he gave her was meaningful, but she could not interpret it. She stared, uncomprehending, as he closed the door to the stall. They were alone, just the three of them, but her mind was appallingly blank. Elmar took the lantern from her and hung it from a hook on the wall.

  "He really can't remember?" she asked Elmar, finding her voice at last, but it was belief which made her wretched, not doubt. She didn't need an answer.

  "Not even me. I'm a metalworker from Level Twenty-five, by the way. Never been in the army and the only bleeding thing I know about a sword is how to craft one. Taken it upon meself to look after this great hulking lump here, even though he's missing half his wits. He needs someone to keep an eye on things for him. Doesn't remember a thing. Not even which side of the battle he fought on. Mind's as blank as a baby pede carapace."

  She looked back at Kaneth, her breath coming in quick gasps. Not remember which side-? He smiled at her with a shining innocence that recalled to mind the words Ravard had used. Half-wit.

  "What name do you go by here, lady?" Elmar asked politely, his gaze locked on her face. Lady, not lord.

  When the silence threatened to become embarrassing, she said quietly, "Garnet Prase. Housewife from Level Ten, who can't find her husband. I am slave to the Master Son, Kher Ravard. We are all being taken to the Watergatherer Dune, setting off tomorrow morning, you two and me included. Did you know?"

  Kaneth shook his head. "I didn't." He frowned. "Kher Ravard is a good man."

  "He's a slaver," she spat back at him, aghast, not quite believing she had heard him correctly.

  He wrinkled his nose. "You smell really odd. Did you know that?"

  Nonplussed, she was speechless.

  Once again Elmar intervened. He picked up two water skins from the floor and thrust them at Kaneth. "Go fill these. We will need them if we are travelling in the morning."

  Kaneth frowned, baffled, but he took the skins. "It's too dark."

  "Then take the lantern." Elmar thrust that at him as well and he took it without comment, turned and went back into the main area of the stable. Elmar closed the stall door again, and they were plunged into almost complete darkness.

  "Blighted eyes, Elmar-what the withering shit is going on here?"

  She felt rather than heard his intake of breath. She was still whispering, but her tone and her swearing had startled him.

  "Watergiver forgive me, Lord Ryka, but he doesn't remember as much as a newborn babe about himself. He doesn't know he's a rainlord. He doesn't remember you, or me, or the fighting, or who he was. And the worst of it is, he doesn't seem to care."

  She wanted to call him a liar, to pound her fists against his chest in fury, but part of her knew her indignation was irrational. This wasn't Elmar's fault, and he wasn't lying. She took a deep breath. "How did you find him?"

  "I managed to flee the waterhall. I didn't see what happened to the two of you. By the time I got down to Level Two, the Reduners had the main gate to the hall open and the battle was over. I got rid of my sword, changed my clothes and tried to blend in with the servants. I was hauled off to carry bodies to the pedes. Ended up down in the groves, building pyres for the dead. I worked all day at it-fetching dry fronds, heaving the corpses into the flames. Sunlord save me, the stench! It was a horrible day. So many people I knew…"

  Impatient to know what had happened, she choked down her dread and asked, "You saw him flung on the pyre?"

  "No, no. I was collecting fuel. I didn't know he was among the dead until I saw him lying there, burned, coughing up his lungs, with people standing around, Reduners among them. I reckon he was out cold when they flung him into the flames, but-thanks be-being burned roused him enough to shout. Somebody pulled him out. He wasn't much burned anywhere except the face and his hair." His voice stumbled and grew hoarse. "It's not too bad, but he'll-he'll never be the handsome man he used to be."

  "The Reduners-why didn't they kill him? Don't they know he's a rainlord?"

  "No. No one knows who he is."

  "But he's Kaneth! You recognized him! Others must have, too."

  "Lord Ryka, most of the soldiers and the uplevelers-people who would know him well-they're dead." His voice was low and urgent. "If they survived the fighting, they were slaughtered afterward. Don't you know that? Men, women, children! Sunlord save me, I probably tossed bodies of people from every house on Level Three and Four onto the pyres. And I
doubt there's a single priest or reeve left in the whole city. If you are looking for friends or family, forget it. They're dead and roasted. Their water not taken, no ceremonies, nothing."

  She was glad the lantern was gone. She didn't want him to see her face. She didn't want to see his, either; the bitter horror in his voice was enough.

  Elmar lowered his voice still further. "As far as I can find out, just about everyone here is a downleveler, an artisan of some sort. If there are some who've seen him before, they don't know him well enough to recognize him when he's bald and half-burned. You just saw his face. Besides, he doesn't act like Kaneth, or a rainlord. He even holds himself different. Humble, like. And if they do recognize him-or you, come to that-who are they going to tell?"

  He continued, calmer now, "The only reason I'm alive is 'cause the Reduners think me a metalworker, not a soldier, and it seems they need metalworkers. My brother owns a metal workshop and I do know a thing or two, fortunately."

  "We can escape. With his power and mine, we can kill guards, seize the pedes, maybe even free the rest of the slaves. I thought perhaps our first night out from Breccia might be a good time-"

  "Lord Ryka, Kaneth doesn't even know he's a rainlord."

  "Then tell him! I'll tell him who I am! Remind him he is to have a child-anything! How can we bring back his memory, if we don't stimulate it?" Frustrated, she glanced toward the stall door herself, wanting Kaneth to return. Why had he left so meekly at Elmar's bidding?

  "You're expecting a baby?" He sounded taken aback.

  "Yes! We have to make him remember."

  "No, we mustn't. Not yet. My lord, he is ill. His vision is blurred, his thoughts confused. His head aches, and he is in constant pain from the burns. He doesn't understand anything yet."