Stormlord rising s-2

by Glenda Larke

  He snorted. "You can hardly blame him. Why didn't you tell me he found out Lyneth had been a prisoner in the mother cistern and then told the Breccian rainlords?"

  Her eyes narrowed. "That was true, then? It doesn't matter, Taquar. Everyone he told is dead! Nealrith, Kaneth, Ryka, Granthon, Iani, Ethelva. Your secret is safe." She came across the room toward him. "Did you kill the other students as well?"

  "Why do you want to know?"

  "The thought is-intriguing. A multiple murderer. That lad who supposedly threw himself off the balcony after a love affair gone wrong? Did he get some assistance from you that night?"

  His impassive expression did not shift.

  "How did you ever get admitted to his room?"

  "A man has ways. He thought I cared about him."

  She came up to him, her eyes sparkling with excitement. "You started killing very young."

  "Irrelevant, surely. What you should be worried about is whether I have finished." He placed a hand over her throat and ran his thumb up to her chin.

  Her lips parted and she bit her bottom lip. "Hmm," she said. "I always did like the scent of danger. And I think I know you-murder for a purpose only. Not pleasure." She ran a hand up the side of his face, to tangle it in his black hair and loosen the leather tie at the back of his neck.

  "Oh? Believe me, my dear, revenge can be very sweet."

  He took her on the desk, his hand clasped across her mouth to stifle her squeals when his roughness hurt her.

  Afterward, as she lay next to him on the desk top and tried to draw the tattered remains of her gown over her nakedness, he asked, "Laisa, if you wanted to gain ascendancy over an enemy too strong to be defeated in battle, how would you do it?"

  She turned her head to look at him. So cat-like, he thought. Bruised but sated.

  "That's easy," she said. "Take hostage what he loves most in the world: his lover, his child, his land, his wealth, his power, whatever. The trick is to find out what he values most. Then you will have your enemy in the palm of your hand."

  A slow smile lifted his lips as her words seeded the beginnings of an idea. "Of course. Why didn't I think of that?"

  "The problem will be to find what he values."

  "No, that's no problem. I already know him well enough to know exactly the sort of thing he values." He sat up, reaching for his trousers. That Gibber grubber is going to understand that trying to thwart me is distinctly unwise… "Laisa, ask Senya to join us for dinner tonight, would you? I gather she is not happy with the idea of our marriage and I think it's time I got to know her better."

  Laisa blinked in surprise, obviously wondering what the connection was. "As you wish. As for our wedding on Sun Day, I thought after the normal service?"

  "Perfect," he said, and hid his enjoyment of her astonishment at his abnormal amiability. The snuggery welcomed the stormlord, of course. It was an honor-unexpected, but an honor. Madam Opal, the owner, blossomed as she considered the opportunities that might arise if the lord was pleased with what he found. She soon had the establishment's most expensive imported wine, tastiest food and prettiest girls on display.

  It was a pity the main recipient of all the fuss seemed unmoved. Jasper refused the wine, declined the food and looked at the women as if they were pedes going to the auction block. He asked each one her name and where she was from, but when several approached him to take his outer robe, to make him feel more comfortable, he waved them away. Seemingly at random, he pointed to one of the girls and said, "I'll take that one."

  Opal gestured, the other girls, pouting, turned their attentions to his guards, and the girl he had selected led Jasper upstairs to the best room. As she shut the door behind him, she pushed the latch across to secure it. Then she stood leaning up against the door as if reluctant to move. She was dark, beautiful and frightened. Viviandra of the Gibber. Terelle had always called her Vivie.

  "There's nothing to be afraid of," he said. "I'm not going to hurt you."

  "Who are you?" she whispered. "Opal said you were a rich merchant from Level Three. But no mere merchant has enforcers among his guards…"

  "I'm Jasper Bloodstone. The stormlord."

  She shrank back against the door.

  "Why are you so frightened?" he asked, puzzled. "Did Terelle ever tell you about me? I know she wrote to you sometimes."

  She appeared confused; fear pooled in her eyes like an animal in a slaughter yard. "Did the highlord send you?" she asked, still whispering.

  "No, of course not. Why would you think so? Oh-I'm sorry! You would know me as Shale Flint, of course."

  Her eyes widened. "You're Shale? Shale Flint is the stormlord? Jasper Bloodstone?"

  He nodded.

  "Oh! You don't really want to bed me, then."

  He smiled. "Is it that obvious?" he asked. "I'm sorry. That must sound rude, I suppose. I'm not looking for-" He waved vaguely at the bed on the other side of the room. "I wanted to talk about your sister."

  She didn't reply and kept her eyes downcast.

  "Viviandra, why are you so frightened?"

  "We-we don't get rainlords and such in here. They go to the uplevel snuggeries. Except when Taquar came-and-and he chose me, too."

  "Oh! I didn't know that." In shock, he assessed the implications. Perhaps he had endangered Viviandra. Like Amethyst. Nausea rose in his gullet. "What did he want? When was that?"

  "He wanted to talk about Terelle. Twice. The first time was before the earthquake, maybe, oh, thirty days before. The second time was just after it. That time he had me taken up to Scarcleft Hall and-and the seneschal questioned me there. Is Terelle all right? Do you know if she's safe?"

  "I don't know." He searched her face, trying to find something of Terelle there; but there was nothing. Viviandra was wholly Gibber: short and slight, brown eyes, brown skin, dark hair. A beauty, although there were tell-tale smudges around her eyes that spoke of a lifestyle taking its toll. It was easy to believe she and Terelle were not related; that Russet had been speaking the truth when he said Terelle was entirely something else. Watergiver, whatever that meant.

  He said, "Tell me what Taquar wanted."

  She shook her head. "He would kill me. I-I heard what he did to that dancer, up on the tenth level. And I know those are Taquar's guards and the seneschal's enforcers downstairs."

  Inwardly Shale winced. Amethyst had died because he'd sought her help, just as he was seeking Viviandra's.

  He undid his money belt, grateful Taquar had never bothered to take it away, perhaps because he had not realized how many tokens Highlord Nealrith had given to him before his escape from Breccia City. Sometimes, he reflected wryly, Taquar's inability to think of the mundane was an advantage. He counted out five gold water tokens, each worth a year's supply of dayjars. Viviandra's eyes widened as he gave them to her. "Take these, and leave this house. Buy your way free. Don't tell anyone where you are going. Leave the city. There are caravans going to Pediment or Portfillik."

  "Stay hidden for the rest of my life? They say Lord Taquar has a long memory."

  "That won't be necessary, I promise you. Trust me."

  She stared at him and then at the tokens. "I've never seen so much money," she whispered.

  "Let's sit down, and you can tell me what you know."

  With trembling hands, she tucked the tokens into her purse and sat on the edge of the divan. He sat beside her and smiled encouragingly.

  "The first time he came he just wanted to find out everything he could about Terelle. Who she was, where she was, what she was like. The second time was different. She'd just run away, and he was angry. Very, very angry. With her." With an abrupt movement, she turned her back to him and pulled her robe down. Her back was scarred in parallel lines.

  Shale drew in a sharp breath; he knew those marks. He had scars of his own from beatings his father had given him. The central spike of a bab frond made a fine stick for beating once you removed all the leaves. It had serrated edges and they cut the skin if the
beating was hard enough. "Taquar did that?" he asked.

  "He ordered it done. Not because he was mad at me, so much. It was because he wanted information. But I couldn't tell him anything. Not really. I haven't seen Terelle since she left the snuggery. She did send me a few notes, which I kept. He took those." She kept looking at her hands, twisting her fingers.

  "Go on."

  "He-he's obsessed with her. I don't think it's because he thinks her beautiful or anything. It's because she escaped him, and he didn't like it. If he ever finds her…" She shook her head, distressed. "She'll be a whore after all. His whore. She always wanted something else. Something better." She looked up at him, meeting his eyes for the first time. "She wouldn't like him." She did not add a plea, but he heard it, nonetheless.

  He took her hand in his. "I don't think you need to worry about Taquar getting hold of her again. I don't believe she's even in Scarcleft now. But I do think she might be in trouble. It's that old man she was staying with. The waterpainter, Russet Kermes. He has some sort of hold over her."

  She looked puzzled, obviously not knowing what he meant.

  "He controls her. She doesn't have enough faith in her own strength to resist. She thinks she's weak, so she doesn't try, not really. But you and I both know how strong she is."

  He had Vivie's full attention now. "That doesn't sound like her. She was always as stubborn as a rock blocking a cistern pipe. She got out of Opal's when she was fourteen!"

  "I know. She told me. Vivie, I believe I can get a message to her. In that message I want to say something that will make her resist. So she can be free of Russet. But I don't know what to say. I don't know what the right words are to give her faith in herself. You do. You're her sister."

  She sat in silence for a long time. When she spoke it was with conviction. "That's easy. But if she comes back here, Taquar…" She trailed off, suddenly aware she might have said too much. Taquar was the highlord of the city, after all.

  "I'll look after her, I promise." He clamped off the memory of his last failure to do just that. Next time he would keep her safe. He must.

  She looked at him again, assessing, then made up her mind. "She wrote me a note, about you, while you were staying with Russet. It was one of the ones taken by Taquar. She said she had a friend for the first time in her life, his name was Shale, and he was quiet and prickly like a sand urchin, but she really liked him. She said she thought she'd met the only man she could ever marry." She met his eyes. "She'd come back for you."

  The choking lump in Jasper's throat stopped further conversation.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Scarpen Quarter Pebblebag Pass to Qanatend As dusk deepened along the floor of Pebblebag Pass, Ryka stood on the southern edge and grieved.

  Behind her, deeper inside the pass, was a Reduner tent settlement that had existed since the drovers of the dunes had besieged Qanatend. Ravard had declared they would join the camp there for the night, and the slave caravan was already settled in. From where Ryka stood, pedes and men were black silhouettes in front of the cooking fires and shadows danced on tent canvas, but she did not turn to look.

  She remained at the top of the slope they had climbed that afternoon, gazing back toward the south, torn with grief. Although she stood in the fast-deepening shade of one of the highest peaks of the Warthago Range and the sun had already slid out of her sight, the plains below and the sky above were still bright with sunshine.

  I must remember that, she thought. I am in darkness, but somewhere down there they can still see the sun. There was still light in the world. And life, too, like the one she had once known. Somewhere below, past the foothills and the more gentle incline of The Sweeping rising up from The Escarpment, were the four escarpment cities still free of the drover warriors-Scarcleft, Pediment, Denmasad and Breakaway-and, further away, the coastal cities of Portfillik and Portennabar.

  There was freedom, but she had lost something precious the night before: the ability to say no. The grieving time she had been allotted had passed, and Ravard had come to her pallet and taken what he thought he had a right to take. She had not fought him, nor had she killed him afterward as he lay beside her sleeping. She could have taken his scimitar, carelessly discarded in its scabbard, and slit his throat. She could have used her water-powers to escape, to steal a pede and thwart pursuit. She could have been halfway to another city by now. She would have been long gone except for the deep-rooted fear-no, the knowledge-that Kaneth would refuse to escape with her.

  Instead, she had lain in Ravard's arms and wept as she lost the last of her innocence.

  And she would do it all again.

  I will not leave without you, Kaneth. Because that's what loving is.

  There was a sound behind her and she turned.

  He was there, watching her, her husband who no longer knew her.

  "Kaneth?" she breathed, hoping, always hoping.

  "Why do I sense you in a strange way?" he asked, ignoring her use of his name as if he had never heard it before.

  She wanted to rush into his arms. She wanted to say, Because you love me. Because you are a very special rainlord and you know my water. But she dared not. He no longer knew her, no longer knew his loyalties, no longer recognized his abilities. His expression was confused, his gaze lacked desire, his words betrayed his fuddled wits.

  "Your memory will return," she said gently. "And you will know who you are, and what you are. Be patient."

  "Sometimes there are flashes of myself as a child. Children playing, but I cannot name them. Adults teaching, but I can't remember what they said. A building, a place of learning where I was happy, yet I do not remember why."

  "It will come," she whispered. "It will all come back."

  She stopped, aware of water moving through the shadows, reminding her of the danger of being overheard. Someone was coming through the gloom toward them, approaching from behind Kaneth to the right, treading the loose stones without sound. His stealth made the hair on her arms stand up. She stared short-sightedly, seeking him out, but he stalked them from within the darkest shadows clinging to the boulders and bushes lining the sides of the pass. There, even the twilight did not reach.

  "Have you eaten?" she asked more loudly. "I am sure the slaves will have cooked by now. You should go back."

  Stones rattled down a slope behind him, this time to the left and above. Another stalker. Kaneth didn't turn. He was still looking at her. It was she who shifted her senses from the still invisible watcher to the danger on the bluff above. She tilted her face upward, straining to see. At first, nothing. Then the danger had a shape, leaping feline-shaped water. She saw its silhouette against the dying light in the sky, and screamed a warning. The yowl of the horned cat came in answer as it plunged, front paws aimed to break the neck of its chosen prey: Kaneth.

  Her power flashed outward to take its water. She thought to kill it in mid-leap. And in her panic, she misjudged. The blast of power flew past the animal, too high. Kaneth started to turn. And in the final splinter of time, just before the cat's huge paws-backed by the force of its leap and its powerful shoulders-could hit him and snap his neck, the animal suddenly curled in on itself. Already falling, its force fading, it slammed Kaneth with its body, not its outstretched paws. Kaneth sprawled on the ground at Ryka's feet, the cat motionless beside him.

  Her heart had stopped, then beat again as Kaneth winced and sat up. She stared at the cat, at the horns on its forehead, sharp and straight, at the thick fur richly marbled with color: brown, ochre, umber-and the scarlet splash of freshly spilled blood. It was dead, and the cause was easy enough to see. Buried deep in the side of its neck was the hilt of a knife. On its flank, a suppurating sore, remnant of an old injury.

  Her rational mind made sense of that. Wounded and starving, its usual animal victims chased away or killed by guards from the camp, it had hungered more than it had feared, and its hunger had been fuel for its fury.

  She raised her eyes to see who had thrown the kn
ife, and out of the darkness stepped Ravard.

  "A horned mountain cat. Beautiful animal," he said. "I have always coveted a pelt of one of these."

  Ryka, still breathless and trying to still the wild beating of her heart, gathered her wits. When she spoke again, she concealed the remnants of her terror with sarcasm. "And I thought you did it to save a life."

  He had no patience with her. "I gave you no permission t'come out here, let alone meet another man. Get back to the camp."

  "There was no meeting," Kaneth said, rising to his feet. "Or only an accidental one. That was a fine throw and I am grateful." He casually dusted off his knees, and smiled up at Ravard.

  The innocence of his smile was breathtaking and Ryka's fear returned in full measure. This man who had replaced Kaneth had no sense of self-preservation. He spoke as if the truth was all he needed.

  Ravard stared at him, momentarily thrown by his simplistic sincerity. "You're a slave," he said, his tone scathing. "D'you think I need your thanks? Now carry the cat carcass back t'the fires, you witless waste of water. I want t'have it skinned." He snatched the knife out of the animal's neck, grabbed Ryka by the arm and pulled her with him toward the camp, leaving Kaneth to lift and carry the animal alone. She wanted to protest, to say he still wasn't well, but she quelled the desire. It would make no difference.

  "What makes you so sure he won't escape?" she asked, both curious and trying to divert the anger she felt in him.

  He laughed, his mockery clear. "Why should he? He was probably sand-witted before he was captured-a hulking laborer from one of your low-life city levels, at a guess. Such men always lead miserable lives without hope. Before this he worked for money and probably never had enough t'eat. Or drink. Now he works f'r us and he'll eat well. He's better off here and men like him know it. Folk like you, you despise slavery, think it unjust and cruel. Ask yourself if the poverty of your cities in the Scarpen or the settles of the Gibber is not far worse than any slavery. Sometimes seems t'me like freedom t'starve."