Stormlord rising s-2

by Glenda Larke

  "Perhaps because she knows how to drive one and you don't," Terelle told her sourly. "Frankly, I don't relish the idea of riding seated in front of a spoiled, whining brat. So just mount up and stop whingeing."

  "How dare you!" Senya snapped.

  "Easily. Believe me, after all I've been through, I'd dare almost anything."

  "Just mount up, Senya, dear," Laisa told her daughter wearily.

  "But I don't understand why she has to come, anyway," Senya continued. "She's not a rainlord. What use is she going to be when we go to battle? Who is she? She's just a nobody."

  "A nobody who is getting very sick of being discussed as if she wasn't here," Terelle snapped. "Just plonk your rear end into that saddle before I really lose my temper!"

  This time it was Laisa who took umbrage. "You would do well to remember who you are addressing," she told Terelle.

  "Oh, I remember. The traitorous daughter of a traitorous mother. Believe me, I am wondering why you are here, Senya. I can understand why Lord Laisa may be of use, as she has sworn fealty to Lord Jasper and he has need of all the rainlords he can get-but you? What possible use are you?"

  "Not another word!" Laisa snapped. "There is an odor about you that I don't like, Terelle Grey. Rumor has it you started life as a snuggery handmaiden, so maybe that explains it. And I have an idea I have seen you before somewhere. I suspect you must be lying about some aspect of your past."

  Terelle shrugged, unworried. She thought it unlikely their paths had ever crossed, but she didn't trust Laisa and had chided Shale for being overly trusting. She'd also asked him why he wanted to bring Senya along. Pressed for a reason, he'd said, "I promised her father I'd take care of her." And he'd flushed as he said it.

  Senya tossed her head. "Oh, you're just jealous because Jasper has been in my bed and he's going to marry me, not you. I've seen you looking at him with your tongue hanging out like an ant sipper."

  Terelle, speechless with shock, stared at her. When her brain started working again, she thought bitterly, She's not as dumb as I thought. Or as harmless.

  Senya, looking past her, halted her spiteful tirade, but only because Shale had ridden up. He was dressed in the finest of clothes, looking like an upleveler of wealth and power. Around his neck he wore his piece of bloodstone jasper, now polished and mounted on a gold chain; Feroze Khorash had returned it to him and he'd taken it to a jeweler. He looked like the lord he now was-but he'd obviously overheard Senya because he was flushing a deep red.

  He glanced at Terelle and said woodenly, "Climb up behind me. Senya, you share your mother's hack. We'll leave this one to some of the Gibbermen; they could do with another mount." He signaled one of the guards to come and take the reins.

  Terelle couldn't speak, and her thoughts were in turmoil. Is it true? Did you-? Senya? No, surely not! Not that piece of useless frill.

  Wordlessly, she climbed down and mounted behind him. He swung his mount around toward the hall gate and-still in silence-they began their journey north to meet up with the joint Quartern army being assembled in the Warthago.

  She wondered if he could feel her glare boring into his back as they rode. He must have heard what that stupid girl had said; wasn't he going to say anything about it? Sandblast him! She'd be weeping waterless before she'd start the conversation. She wasn't the one who had some explaining to do… Oh, how could you, Shale!

  They'd left The Escarpment and the walls of Scarcleft behind them and were climbing up through the drylands of The Sweeping, the peaks of the Warthago ahead of them, before he spoke. He turned his head sideways so she could hear and said, without looking at her, "I'm sorry-"

  So it's true, she thought. He did bed her. She interrupted abruptly. "Whatever for? You don't owe me an explanation."

  "I owe you more than that. And I am sorry."

  "Perhaps it is Senya you should be apologizing to, not me."

  "Perhaps. But I didn't want you hurt." His face flushed even redder as he said the words. He still wasn't looking at her, and all she could see was his profile.

  "Hurt? Who says I'm hurt? I'm snuggery-raised, remember? I am used to what men do. It doesn't matter. You never promised me anything beyond friendship, anyway." So why do I feel as if I have been gutted?

  He looked over his shoulder then, his expression wretched. "Please try not to argue with her, Terelle. She's very young and silly yet. And she has been through so much. First she lost her father and her grandparents. Then she lost her home and her city. Then her mother married Taquar. And now-now, she has lost Taquar and all the security he offered. She is much to be pitied."

  She pressed her lips into a thin line to stop the tears collecting behind her eyelids. She was damned if she would cry.

  What the sand hells does he see in her?

  The answer was obvious, of course. Senya was as pretty as her mother was beautiful. They deserved each other, Shale and Senya.

  That thought was followed quickly by another: No, Shale deserved better, for all that he carried his brains between his legs. No one deserved that little bitch. I'm just jealous. How stupid is that? She was wise enough in the ways of the Scarpen, surely. When would she ever learn? She was a lowleveler, born in the Gibber, brought up in a snuggery, and his beginnings might have been humble, but he was Cloudmaster now. They stuck together, these rainlords. All uplevelers at heart, and they didn't like it that a nobody from a downlevel snuggery was close to the new Cloudmaster.

  And of course, none of them knew why she was so important. She had insisted on that and he had agreed. They both knew Shale had to have stature to rule. He was young and inexperienced, yet he was putting himself forward as the Quartern's Cloudmaster. The Council of Rainlords had yet to ratify him in the position. It wouldn't have been wise for anyone to know he still couldn't shift clouds without another's help. So she had only herself to blame that all the rainlords around Shale, including that awful Lord Gold peering down his priestly nose, looked askance at her. They all knew she had been raised in a snuggery-Laisa had made sure of that-and their scorn and contempt were on their faces every time they looked at her.

  He bumbled on. "I made a mistake," he said. "I was stupid. I botched things up, and it has been horrible. Please, Terelle, don't turn away. I don't think I could bear it."

  "A few words of apology doesn't mend broken things, Shale. Are you telling me you are free to marry whomever you please?"

  He was silent.

  "Let's not talk about it," she said when it was clear he had nothing to say. "Because I'll be sandblasted if I have anything at all to say to you."

  It's not fair. I could love him so well… Sweet water save me, this is going to be an interminable journey. "You can't do this to me!"

  Jasper tilted his head. "Pardon?" he asked politely.

  Horrified, Taquar was staring at the scattered stones of a ruined building and the grille set into the cliff slope behind the ruins. For three and a half days he had been drugged with festin root to make sure he didn't use his water-power on his captors. Strapped to a transport pallet, he had been manhandled like a sack of bab fruit on and off a pede. The effects of the drug were wearing off, and the rainlord was now sitting upright on the pallet where Jasper and Iani had unloaded it.

  Jasper knew what the drug was like. Not only had Laisa used it on him, but so had his Reduner kidnappers when he was a boy taken from his village at Taquar's instigation. It had been an unpleasant, terrifying experience for a lad who had just seen his family murdered, and he had little sympathy for Taquar now.

  Dispassionately, he contemplated the scene. The ruins had once been a caravansary on the main route between Breccia and Pebblebag Pass in the foothills of the Warthago; the grille barred the entrance to what had been the caravansary's cistern cave. The whole complex had been abandoned when a landslide further along had swept the track into a ravine, making the route permanently impassable. Few people even knew of its existence anymore.

  Iani had selected the place and shown Jasper, a
nd only the two of them were there now with Taquar. Together with Terelle and the guardsman Dibble, they had parted company with the army over a day earlier, leaving their destination a mystery. Terelle, deeply reluctant to have anything to do with Taquar when he wasn't drugged out of his mind, had gone with the guardsman to explore the ruins while the two men dealt with the rainlord.

  Jasper handed Taquar a crutch; then he and Iani helped him stand upright. Taquar's left leg was healing well, but doubtless it still hurt too much to put it to the ground. He staggered, and had to lean against the pede for support.

  "We thought it appropriate," Jasper said. "I spent nearly four years locked behind a grille like that one there. So did Lyneth. Eight years, between us, and Lyneth was only a child. You're an adult. Eight cycles should pass quickly enough, don't you think?"

  "Eight years?" Taquar stared at him, aghast. "Why? I didn't hurt you!"

  "Didn't you? Oddly, that escaped my notice. Still, we have no intention of hurting you, either. Physically, that is. You will have adequate food, just as I did. All the water you can drink. We have refilled the cistern. We've supplied furniture, clothes, blankets, books. A rainlord will personally deliver your supplies every thirty days, just as you did to me. If it happens to be Iani, I wouldn't rile him, if I were you. He hasn't exactly forgiven you for Lyneth's death, or Moiqa's for that matter. Take my advice and be extra polite. He is the new Highlord of Scarcleft, did he tell you that?"

  He took Taquar by the arm and guided him firmly into the cavern. Most of the wide cavern opening had been blocked with solid metal bars, still sound after several centuries. The entry grille door was narrow. The single long cavern beyond was about a hundred paces deep, the back of it lost in darkness.

  Iani, limping on Taquar's other side ready to catch him if he fell, said, "It goes without saying we have devised several locks for the grille that don't depend on moving water. And, by the way, this whole prison thing wasn't my idea. I wanted you dead. Still do. At the very least, I wanted to put you in an underground room without light and feed you on bab mash for the rest of your life. Jasper has said I can only do that if you don't behave here. He also said I had to tell you that. And so now I have, but believe me, there won't be a second warning."

  He didn't have to say why it was impossible to imprison Taquar in Scarcleft. How could you keep a rainlord behind bars when he could threaten to kill any water-blind person within range of his powers? When he could move water in other parts of the building to do whatever mischief he wanted? He had to be isolated.

  Taquar looked from one to the other. He was pale-faced, but he managed defiance. "Davim will bring you down, Shale."

  Shale, not Jasper. The blighted bastard. "He will try, certainly. When I have his head on a trencher, I will send it to you." He looked across at Iani. "Let's get on with it." As he took Taquar's other arm, he added, "Davim is already on his way back into the Scarpen, by the way. He's still north of the Warthago Range, but he's heading south from Qanatend."

  "How the hell could you know that?" Taquar growled.

  "I can sense his water. Or rather the water of an army as large as his, and it is huge. But other than that, I sent for him, in a manner of speaking. After you did, I will admit, but I have a quicker way of communicating than sending a messenger on pedeback. Either way, Davim might think he is riding to your aid, but I intend his defeat on a ground of my choosing."

  Taquar looked at him blankly.

  "I don't like our chances if we ride deep into the Red Quarter," Jasper explained. "Yet I dislike the idea of letting Davim loose once again in the Scarpen. So I am enticing him into a trap. By the time I finish, there will be no Sandmaster Davim. I intend to wipe the scourge that is his dune and his marauders off the face of the Quartern." He steadied Taquar as the man stumbled.

  "You sent him sky messages."

  "That's right. Signed by you, of course. Handy skill, I find."

  "He's not going to believe they came from me."

  "He might-because you so obligingly asked him for help anyway. In my messages, I just increased the size of the bait. Myself. Delivered up, supposedly by you, to do what he wants with."

  Taquar snorted. "We shall see, shan't we?"

  "Jasper is soft-hearted," Iani added. "He says we might consider letting you out after eight years. I say you deserve to die several times over. We haven't resolved that question yet." He walked to the back of the cave to pump some water from the cistern into the pede trough outside the cavern entrance. The pede ambled up to the trough to drink, and Iani went out to unload it.

  "We have already supplied you with some of the basics," Jasper said, waving a hand at jars and barrels and boxes arranged along one side of the cavern. "Seaweed briquettes for fuel, oil, candles, preserved food. And these are your first fresh supplies," he said, as Iani brought in the first of the sacks. Jasper knew better than to ask him if he needed help. Iani's pride made him resent any suggestion that his weakened arm and leg curtailed his ability to do normal tasks.

  Taquar lowered himself onto a chair with an involuntary groan. Jasper, remembering the painful effects of being tied to a pallet for hours, guessed he was aching all over. Iani went to get another sack.

  Taquar lowered his voice. "I want to speak to you alone."

  "No chance," Jasper said. "If you have anything to say, you can say it in front of Iani."

  "I have something of value you want." He spoke so softly it was unlikely Iani would hear, anyway.

  "I doubt it."

  "A bargain is best discussed in private."

  "There cannot be anything you could offer me that would change a single grain of sand beneath my feet."

  "Not even Mica?"

  Jasper felt himself go utterly still. There was nothing he wanted to do more than seize Taquar by his neck and throttle him until there was no more life in him. Instead, he asked, "What about him?"

  "He's alive. I know where he is."

  "And now you tell me?" He smiled faintly. "You know, I can't think of a single reason why I should believe you. Not one. You'll have to do better than that."

  "Give me my freedom. Freedom to leave the Quartern. Undertake to put me on a ship for the other side of the Giving Sea. And in exchange I'll tell you everything I know about him and where he is to be found."

  "Convince me you know where he is."

  "You don't think I would have allowed Davim to kill him, do you? Rainlord talent runs in families. Even if he had no talent himself, he might have sired a stormlord. Anyway, he was to be our lever, should you refuse to cooperate."

  "Then why did you allow Davim to kill Citrine?"

  When Taquar looked blank, Jasper's rage boiled to the surface. His hands curled into fists, but he kept his arms by his sides. "My sister," he said. "Why did you let Davim slaughter her-in a game?"

  "Oh! I had forgotten her name. He wasn't supposed to kill her. He was supposed to take them both. But you lied to him and he didn't like it. He thought he had to make you fear him."

  Once again, that ache. The agony of the knowing. Of never being able to undo the past. His action-a childish attempt to hide who he was-had resulted in Citrine's death. He'd been too young, too ignorant, too innocent. He said, "At the time you denied knowing what had happened to Mica. You didn't in fact use him as a lever for my good behavior."

  "It wasn't necessary. Had you proved recalcitrant, we would have produced him quickly enough."

  "You still didn't use him later. You threatened Terelle instead."

  "If that failed, I was going to tell you about Mica."

  "I think you didn't use him because you didn't have him. In fact, you told me after the fall of Breccia you knew Mica had died. That Davim had told you so. Did he?"

  "No. I know Mica is not dead. I know where he is."

  "Then why did you tell me he died in a pede accident?"

  "Because I didn't want you going to look for him."

  "Gabbling pebbles and nonsense, Taquar! If you'd had him, you c
ould have had him brought to me. You can't think I will believe this. I don't think you have him at all. I think, if he is still alive, he's in Davim's hands and that's why you used Terelle."

  There was a long silence, then Taquar capitulated. "All right, it's true. He was in the Red Quarter. Still is. I was worried you'd want to rescue him and end up caught by Davim. I can tell you where to find him. I can tell you which tribe guards him, and on which dune."

  Jasper shook his head. "You are pathetic. We are on our way to war against Davim and his men. Soon I will indeed be able to look for Mica myself. I don't need your information. And I don't believe you've actually seen him, even if he is alive. All you have is what Davim tells you, and you have no way of knowing if that is the truth."

  Mica, oh, Mica. I don't know what's the right thing to do…

  Iani brought in the last sack and nodded to indicate he had finished. Together they left the cavern and closed the grille door. Taquar sat where he was, watching Jasper lock it from the outside using a conventional system of iron padlocks, six of them fixing the door on all sides. Six metal plates meant none were accessible through the bars from the inside.

  "With a little luck, I shan't see you again," Jasper said. "Ever."

  As he and Iani walked away, leading the pedes back to where Terelle waited with Dibble at the ruins, Jasper said, "When you come to bring his supplies, be very careful, my lord. He's a clever man, and his water skills surpass yours. Never open the grille. Pass the food in through the bars. Never have the keys on you."

  Iani looked back at the grille. "I wish I could be certain he can't break out of there."

  "I'm sure he'll try. I want him to try. I want him to try, again and again. The padlocks will hold him unless someone comes with a sledgehammer or something similar to deal with them. You need to maintain a general watch in the area, men who will keep their mouths shut about what they are doing. Well-paid, loyal men who have a grudge against him, like the men you got to mend the grille and bring in the furniture and supplies. Men who have suffered at his hands and will never tell anyone he is here, but don't let them anywhere near him. He could threaten to seize their water to force you to release him."