Stormlord Rising Page 14

  Troubled, she patted the pede’s head, but it didn’t seem to have enough energy to raise its eye mantle to look at her. Its feelers lay flat to the ground, unmoving. She wondered if she should give it more water, and was torn. If the pede died, they were doomed. To continue on foot would be ridiculous; she had glimpsed the peaks of the mountains as an unevenness along the horizon, but they were still far away. She had no idea in what direction Samphire City lay, and no idea of where the salt pan’s water tunnels were. They couldn’t even retrace their route because the wind had teased away the footprints. Besides, Russet was hardly able to stand, let alone walk. They had to have the pede, not just to ride, but to find the water of the tunnel.

  Wryly resolute, she took up one of the water skins and offered the spout to the animal, letting it sense the water through its mouth. It did not stir. She even poured a little of the precious liquid into its gullet, but it gave no sign of caring. It wasn’t dead yet, though; she knew that. It still made odd snuffling noises, and occasionally clattered its segments in a shrug.

  Not knowing what else she could do, she lay down to rest. Whatever happened, they couldn’t move until the heat was gone from the sun.

  When she woke, late in the afternoon, it seemed no cooler—and the pede was dead. For a moment she couldn’t absorb the enormity of that. It was impossible, surely. For that huge a beast to die so quickly, without her even being aware of it, without a struggle, without a sound. She reached out and forced up the mantle that covered its eyes, wondering if she could be mistaken. Begging that she was.

  The eyes were sunken, unseeing, speaking of nothing but an absence of life. In shock, she struggled to maintain her resolution. The disaster was too huge, too fraught with dire outcomes, all of them now probably unavoidable.

  After several deep breaths, she went to wake Russet, only to find him delirious. He called her Sienna, her mother’s name, and shouted at her angrily, asking why she had hankered after an eel-catcher, why she had run away. “Ye could have been Pinnacle!” he cried out in anger. “Don’t ye be knowing how much I wanted to be Pinnacle? But no—I be not good enough for them. I not be having Pinnacle blood in my veins…” And then the words disintegrated into meaningless syllables.

  Terelle sat back on her heels, thinking. Russet could not possibly walk; yet if he didn’t, they had no chance.

  Unless his waterpainting had been powerful enough. If so, then it ensured she at least would reach the land of the Watergivers one day. All she had to do was wait where she was and she’d be rescued, possibly Russet along with her. But could she rely on that? She didn’t know enough about waterpainting magic to be sure. Maybe if he died, and the magic of the paintings with him, then she could die as well, without ever reaching the water of Khromatis. Even if he didn’t die, perhaps as he grew weaker, so would the effects of his waterpainting. She tried to assess whether her drive to go toward the mountains had lessened, but couldn’t be sure.

  “Blighted eyes,” she growled. “I hate magic.”

  Nonetheless, she rummaged in her pack and took out her waterpaints to have a look at them. She had everything she needed: paints, tray, the last of their water. Russet had once said you couldn’t paint the impossible and expect it to happen. But she could paint something sensible showing Russet being saved. A party of Alabasters riding up to their camp? But if she did, could she be sure she did not hurt someone else? What if one of the people who came to save them died because they came? She knew in her heart there was no way she could ever be certain. When you messed with the future, you had to be prepared to change other people’s lives as well, not necessarily for the better. It was wrong.

  She looked down at the old man and shook her head in exasperation. Here she was, wondering how to save Russet, when she should have been taking the opportunity to rid herself of him. Here she was, in danger of dying a slow and torturous death of thirst because of him, and yet she couldn’t just walk away.

  Life definitely wasn’t fair, but at least she no longer expected it to be. She gave a snort of sardonic amusement and said, “I think I’m going to die because of you, old man, and I don’t even like you.”

  One thing she did know for certain: she was never going to give up.

  For the rest of that day and for the entirety of the next, she worked. She used Russet’s knife to strip off some of the carapace from the dead pede. It was a horrible job, difficult and messy and smelly. Fortunately, the worst of the smell dissipated after a few hours as the flesh dried out, but it was hard not to feel guilty. They had asked too much of the animal, and it had suffered a cruel death.

  Trying not to think of that, she separated two segment pieces from the carcass and cleaned out all the flesh, which she cut up and laid out to dry in the sun. The legs and the thick skin of the underbelly she discarded. She set fire to the remains of the pede, using the oil from its own glands to fuel the blaze. It made a pillar of black, greasy smoke rising straight up into the air, a signal to anyone within several days’ journey. She had no confidence anyone would actually respond. Why should they? If they were Alabasters, they would probably think it a Reduner trap. If they were Reduners, they wouldn’t be interested in someone else’s troubles.

  While it burned, contaminating the air with an unpleasant acridity, she placed the two cleaned segments inner side upward, lengthways one behind the other on the salt. They were vaguely boat-shaped, flattish in the middle but then curved upward into a broad prow at either end. They dried out quickly in the heat. Using the point of the knife, she punched holes in the ends of each and linked them with twine. The result looked vaguely like a two-part insect, overturned and legless. She lined one of the segments with the two blankets they had, then made a harness out of some of their clothes so she could pull the segments along behind her, like a sled.

  When she’d finished, she straightened up to look around. In the far distance white figures cavorted, coalescing and parting, shivering and stretching.

  Look, Terelle, sand-dancers… No. Salt-dancers, that’s what they are…

  She laughed, finding her own thought hugely funny.

  Then she sobered. During the day and a half of preparations, she had restricted her water intake as much as she could bear. Now that she had finished the sled, she was light-headed and finding it hard to think straight.

  Russet was in a worse state. He lay unheeding, drifting in and out of delirium. His leg was still red and swollen, although it didn’t seem to be worsening. He drank when she gave him water, he muttered and moaned when she touched him—but no more than that. When everything was ready, she laid him inside the padded segment. The curvature meant it could not have been comfortable, but he wasn’t conscious enough to complain. Surprised to find how light he was, she had the fanciful feeling he was just a husk, that the real man had long since gone.

  Blown away on the wind, maybe. No, not the wind, the salt-dancers. Maybe they took him…

  She shook her head and frowned. Sunlord, her brains were frizzled. Russet wasn’t dead. Concentrating, she packed into the second segment the items they needed: the remaining water, food, the shade cloth and its support poles, cloaks. She picked up her waterpaints, then put them down again. Wrong. It’s wrong. That little boy who died in the earthquake… Reality faded into dream. Her resolution remained true, but the reason for it was blurring. Thirst. Sunlord help me, I am so thirsty.

  She would not risk any innocent lives for either Russet or herself. That was the truth. Hold onto it. You can do this without magic.

  When she set off pulling the makeshift sled, it glided along on the salt as easily as a snake slithering across the plains.

  Behind her, the pile of unnecessary items was a dwindling dark patch on a white background. Behind her, the wind blew and silted salt into the paint trays, while the pede still burned.

  She walked all night into the dawn of the next day, taking only the occasional short break. At night, there were the stars to help, but after the first day, the mountain peaks
dropped out of sight beneath the horizon and she couldn’t tell which way she was heading when the sun was high in the sky. Once that happened, she rested, dozing fitfully, only to wake and start again toward sunset.

  Every step was a struggle against the drag of the sled. Every step was a struggle against the urge she still had to head toward Khromatis.

  Another day. Thirst, and more thirst. And heat. The temperature—even under the shade of a makeshift cover she constructed with the bab matting and the pede segments—quickly became unbearable. Her throat scorched, her skin shriveled. Her exposed skin was red and sore, although she had done her best to protect herself. The water they carried became more than a temptation; it was a torture. She knew she had to make it last, but she also knew she needed it now. Worse as the day wore on. Burning. Skin on fire, loose over her bones like borrowed clothes that didn’t fit. And Russet, so hot. Delirious.

  As she lay there under the meager shade, her mind drifted, focused and drifted yet again. She shook her water skin and assessed what was left. Enough for the next day if she was careful; after that… well, neither of them would last more than a day without water. Not in this heat.

  Look, the salt-dancers are back. Undulating. Like Arta Amethyst. Once I was a dancer, too.

  Terelle dozed in uncomfortable snatches, sleep born of exhaustion, not normal need. In the evening, when it was cool enough to go on, she set off again, the segments dragging behind her.

  Another night of walking. Salt coated her, rubbed her skin raw, gummed up her eyelashes. Her shoulders ached. The shiny surface of the pede segments wore away, and the sled no longer slid across the salt with such slickness. Her slow plod became the dragging steps of an old woman; her hopes faltered further as she began to stumble.

  Thirst, waterless soul, the thirst…

  She thought of Shale. He wouldn’t really give himself up to Taquar because of her silly letter, would he? And Taquar. The way he had touched her hair. She must never meet him again. Not ever, because he would never let her go. She knew that look he had given her. She’d seen it before, on the faces of some of the men who came to the snuggery: looks that coveted, on men who were consumed with greed. Like Huckman, the pedeman who’d wanted to buy her first-night.

  The earthquake—had she killed Vivie in the earthquake? And Amethyst, who had helped her escape the snuggery—what of her? No, she was dead. How could she have forgotten that? The knife in her chest. Taquar had knifed her… Was that my fault, too? She couldn’t remember. Oh, sand hells, my mind is wandering.

  The next time she stumbled, she fell. The effort it took to rise was nightmarish.

  The following morning as she set up camp for the day, she staggered and fell several times, everything taking three times longer to do than it had the morning before. She looked at Russet through gummed lashes, and cursed him. “I don’t care if you are my great-grandfather, old man,” she shouted. “What you did was not right and I despise you for it!” But her mouth was so dry her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth and the words didn’t sound right.

  He gave no sign he had heard her.

  She knelt at his side to lift his head so he could drink. He took the water eagerly, and seemed to revive. As she went to move away, he grabbed her by the wrist. “Paint!” he admonished. “Paint for us.”

  “All right,” she said, and hunted for her paints.

  They weren’t there. She sat back on her heels and remembered: she’d left them behind.

  She had cut Russet off from the one hope of survival he had. Even in refusing to use her skills, she could kill. Her stomach cramped and she threw up a dribble of precious fluid.

  There was no more water left. None.

  When Terelle could go no further, she set up the camp and lay down in the heat. Russet was quiet now. He no longer moaned or moved. He wasn’t dead; she could still see the slight rise and fall of his chest, if she bothered to look. But she didn’t bother too much now; her own pain consumed her. At times she seemed to float, drifting over the salt, borne on a wave of heat so intense it had physical dimension. At times she could hear voices: Madam Opal, her smile avaricious, telling her she would make a good whore; Vivie, annoyed, telling her she had to come back; Shale, upset, telling her she had to go to Breccia City; Taquar, smiling, his hand stroking her hair, telling her she had to come to his bed; Amethyst, her bodice all bloody, telling her not to dance; Jomat, fat and greasy, telling her to go back to the brothel where she belonged; Russet, gloating, telling her she had to go to the mountains. Everyone ordering her to do this or that, shouting at her, angry with her. She cried, weeping without water for tears, begging to be left alone. To have some choices. To have any choice.

  Pain, so much pain. Abraded, salted fingers. Eyelids glued, having to be wrenched apart. Grit on the eyeballs, burning blistered skin, cramping stomach, urine so hot it burned—then none at all. Thoughts of Shale, trapped in another kind of cage, Taquar lusting after her. Or was that Huckman? Guilt as sharp as jabbing spears, blaming her. Russet asking why she had not used her waterpainting to save him. Deaths to be laid at her door.

  Sand-dancers—salt-dancers?—gyrated at distant pools of water, to mock her. They bred along the horizon, doubling, trebling, shivering, but never allowed approach; the pools dried up when she stared at them, and re-formed the moment she looked away, to torment the edge of her vision.

  White salt, glaring at her, hurting her eyes, white everything, everything white: sky, land, skin, sun, salt, eyes.

  Whiteout.

  And then little pinpoints of light, flashing and dancing like the glow worms of a waterhall, colors so pretty she wanted to reach up and touch them. There were red lines snaking from one glow worm to the next, runnels of blood, surely, and disembodied voices telling her to drink, drink this, sip that. And it felt so good. Water in her throat. Sweetness. Moisture on her lips, dampness on her eyelids, coolness on her forehead. Sparkles of light, dazzling in their brightness, making her blink and close her salt-sore eyes.

  Salt-dancers are real, she thought. And they sparkle. So beautiful.

  Water, all the water she desired. Whiteness. Voices in her head. White hands, bloodless faces. Rubbing her skin with something soft and moist. Bathing her eyes. Those red lines and sparkles: threads and mirrors. Alabasters. The white people of this white land of the White Quarter.

  Something made her speak. “Scorpion. He was stung by a scorpion.”

  Voices replied, assuring, kindly.

  A tear ran down her cheek, and she let herself slip away.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Scarpen Quarter

  Scarcleft City

  Scarcleft Hall, Level 2, and Opal’s Snuggery, Level 32

  “Lord Gold tells me the clouds we raised this morning went to Breakaway, not to the catchment area for Scarcleft as I ordered.”

  Taquar sat at his desk in his study, his long fingers playing with his knife, his thumbs rubbing up and down the carved hilt. His voice was heavy with suppressed rage; his gray eyes sharp as the blade. Laisa was sitting on the embrasure of one of the windows, neatly peeling an orange plucked from one of the potted trees on the balcony. She smiled pleasantly in Jasper’s direction, as if to compensate for Taquar’s abrupt words. Basalt was standing by the open shutters of the next window, his expression rigid with dislike.

  Inwardly Jasper sighed. Perhaps it had been a mistake to rile the Sunpriest. But words are all I have left. “So?” he asked Taquar. “This city has enough to last for a while, if we are careful. My calculations tell me Breakaway must be dangerously low in supply, even if they have been frugal in their usage.”

  “I don’t care about Breakaway!” Taquar’s rage blazed at him.

  Jasper quirked an eyebrow. “I thought that’s where you were born?”

  “What of it? It is an irrelevance! I want Scarcleft to have full cisterns before we start thinking about others. That’s an order, Jasper.”

  “He is not going to obey you,” Basalt said.

 
; Jasper could glean nothing from his tone, but he nodded in agreement. “I’m the stormlord. I make the decisions with regard to the placement of our storms.”

  “I am not against Breakaway receiving water,” Basalt said. “Indeed, it is your duty to supply all those who worship the Sunlord. But yesterday’s rain went somewhere to the east. It certainly did not fall within the boundaries of the Scarpen.”

  “So we only water those who follow the same faith?”

  “The faith which gave us the knowledge of watershifting! The Sunlord himself gives us water sensitives our power. He gave you your power, Lord Jasper. Obviously, the Sunlord wanted us to survive. Those who scorn our faith must surely be a secondary consideration. If they were of concern to the Sunlord, then he would have ensured there were many more stormlords, which would enable us to consider the needs of the heathens in the Gibber and the White Quarter.”

  Jasper narrowed his gaze and regarded the Sunpriest with dislike he did not try to conceal. “May I remind you, my lord, that I—your only stormlord—was Gibber born and raised? Yet you dismiss my place of birth with such easy scorn.”

  There was a moment of silence, so still it seemed to Jasper that everyone had stopped breathing.

  Basalt took a deep breath. “I apologize, my lord. It was not my intention to insult you, of course. The Sunlord has indeed blessed you, but you have assured me that you do not scorn our faith.”

  “Ah. You do feel, though, that it is the Sunlord’s fault the Gibber and White Quarters thirst?”

  “Obviously. What other explanation is there? It lay within his power to make it otherwise, and he did not. Still does not.”

  Laisa interrupted. “Enough of theology, both of you. Keep it for your sermons, Lord Gold.” She smiled in the Sunpriest’s direction to take the sting from her words, and popped an orange quarter into her mouth.

  Taquar ignored her. “Jasper, is Lord Gold correct in what he said? You sent yesterday’s clouds to the Gibber?”