Stormlord Rising Read online

  A diseased city, she thought. Damn these Reduners to a waterless death!

  Ravard led them to the Level Three Sun Temple and the slaves were herded into what had once been the forecourt for public religious services. There was not much room, and the women and men were bunched together, the men still roped. Most of the guards retreated to the curved viewing balcony overlooking the court, with the exception of the two men doling out water to the slaves. Ravard disappeared altogether.

  Ryka looked around for Kaneth. With a soft smile and gentle words, he was bandaging the arm of a man who had suffered a wound earlier. She let him be and sought out Elmar Waggoner. He was at the end of his row of roped captives and had managed to ease out a bit of slack to sit back comfortably, his back to the outer wall. She came and sat as close to him as she dared, but didn’t look his way. When she spoke she turned her face away and barely moved her lips.

  “Is he any better, do you think?” she asked.

  “A little. At least he speaks more. And he has started helping, instead of being off in a fog of his own all the time.”

  “Sometimes—sometimes I can’t believe it’s him. He has no passion anymore. Sandblast it, Elmar, where is Kaneth Carnelian?”

  He shot an anxious look sideways to make sure no one had heard. “Listen, Garnet, his passivity is what keeps him alive. Look on it as a blessing. The real him would be dead several times over by now, and he’d have taken half the bloody Reduner bastards with him onto the pyre.”

  One of the guards up on the balcony had spotted her and was staring her way. She rested her head back against the wall as if tired and half-closed her eyes. Stealing a few drops of water from the water jar the guards were using, she brought them over to where they sat, and wrote what she wanted to say by using her power to form wet letters on the stone paving. She placed them in between their bodies, where no one but themselves would see. The air was still and dry and hot, the stones warm, so the letters vanished almost as soon as each word was written.

  Who they think he is? she wrote. Why respect?

  Elmar leaned forward over his bent knees to disguise the movement of his lips. “I don’t really understand it. They call him lord, and they use another name when they speak of him. Uthardim. At least I think that’s what it is. But I don’t understand much of their cursed tongue. They do seem to mention their dune god a lot when he is around.”

  Ryka stilled, shocked. Uthardim? She knew the name from her studies. He was mentioned in the old myths and legends of the dune dwellers. Uthardim, one of their ancient heroes. She remembered a description of him: blue-eyed, with flowing locks of red-gold, he smote those who came upon him, his thews and sinews as strong as the trees of the rock plains… Uthar. It meant iron in the language of the dunes. And “dim” was a common suffix, meaning son of the sand or sands. Uthardim: Iron Son of the Sands. She thought, but did not write the words, Oh, Kaneth. What is it they would make of you?

  She cracked open her eyes to make sure no one was taking an undue interest in her or in Elmar, before continuing to write. Why Uthardim? she asked.

  “It started right after he was pulled off the pyre. There was a couple of Reduner guards there, and one of them kept saying ‘Uthardim, Uthardim,’ and a whole lot of other stuff I couldn’t understand. And then one of the head drovers pushed his way through with his underlings to take a look. The Warrior Son, I think. ‘Uthardim!’ one of the guards told him, and pointed.

  “And right then, the pyre went out. One moment it had been blazing away, and then—whoosh—it was gone. And at exactly that same moment Ka—he sat up, sudden like, his face all red and peeling, and said, ‘Uthardim.’ Startled me, I can tell you, but what it did to those Reduners was just plain freakish. The drover leader went as white as a ’Baster. Couple of the guards fell to their knees like they was praying or something.

  “Me—well, I reckon he was out of his head right then. He couldn’t have found the sky if you’d told him which way was up. He was just repeating a word everyone was saying, probably wanting in his befuddlement to ask what it meant. And as for the fire, well, those Breccians had been throwing buckets of water around, and I reckon they’d wet the wood. When the dry stuff burned out, the fire went out. But that’s not the way they saw it.”

  Then?

  “The Warrior Son gave orders for him to be put on a pede and brought up to Breccia Hall, for the sandmaster to take a look at. He was in a sorry state, though, so I volunteered to look after him. Didn’t let on I knew him, of course. Not long after we’d been settled into the stable, Kher Ravard shows up, to see what all the fuss was about. The Warrior Son and the Master Son, the bastards. What I wouldn’t have done to have had my sword right then! They had a long conversation. I stood there, as confused as a spindevil, and he was drifting in and out of dreamland, moaning. As far as I could make out, Kher Ravard didn’t like what he was told one little bit, but the Warrior Son stood his ground and kept referring to Ka—him as ‘Uthardim.’ Ravard questioned me, too, but I said I’d never seen this Uthardim fellow before in my life and no one knew who he was. In the end, they left.

  “Ravard came again when our friend there was awake, and spoke to him at length. The Kher did most of the talking, and our friend answered, smiling politely, mostly just ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I don’t remember.’ He was so blasted guileless, there wasn’t much Ravard could do. Then on the day before we left Breccia, Davim asked to speak to him on the steps in front of the main door of the hall. I don’t know what they said, but Ravard wasn’t happy with it.

  “After that, though, ‘Uthardim’ got better treatment. They even gave me a sort of lotion every night to wash his burn and his wound with. Dunno what’s in it, but I reckon it works. He’s healing real nice now.”

  Elmar stirred restlessly, and Ryka risked a glance in his direction.

  He looked around to make sure no one was taking an interest in them. “Does this name Uthardim mean anything to you?” he asked.

  Mythical red hero. Old story. She stopped writing, aware someone was pushing their way through the crowd of slaves. She evaporated the last of the water and raised her head to watch the guard coming toward her.

  “Kher Ravard,” the man said, jerking his head in a gesture that was clear enough: Ravard wanted her.

  Without looking at Elmar, she stood and followed the guard. They were halfway across the courtyard when a commotion along the side wall brought the guard to a halt. Another guard had one of the female slaves pinned up against the wall, her skirts rucked high. When she screamed and struggled, he hit her with his fist in the center of her face. Blood spurted and the woman’s head lolled. Half-senseless, she sagged, all the fight drained out of her.

  And then, suddenly, Kaneth was there. He wrenched the guard away and held him by the neck, feet off the ground, like a sandgrouse about to be plucked. The woman crumpled to the ground, unheeded.

  Ryka tensed, every muscle in her body screaming at her to go to Kaneth’s aid even as her mind cautioned her against moving. She squinted around the courtyard, relying on her knowledge of water as much as on her eyesight: four Reduner warriors, including the guard who had come to fetch her. And above, on the viewing balcony, five or six others, several now grabbing up their lances. She touched her power, ready to kill the first who looked like trying to spear Kaneth.

  He dropped the Reduner, who—half-choked—fell in a heap at his feet. He looked down at the man and spoke to him. In the now hushed silence of the courtyard, his voice carried to everyone. His words contained no anger, but they were implacable. “A man does not take from a woman what is not his to plunder. He shares. And gives. And asks. A man who does otherwise is no man.”

  A ripple of open horror crossed the faces of the slaves. They expected Kaneth to die then. So did Ryka. Yet none of the Reduners moved. They stayed poised, as if awaiting orders, but no one gave them.

  I wonder if they understood? Ryka asked herself.

  And then Kaneth did something she had no
t known was within his capability. He repeated the words in Reduner. His grammar was poor, his accent atrocious, but the meaning was clear enough.

  Oh blast, she thought. Damn it all, Kaneth, you picked a wonderful time to remember what you know of the Reduner tongue.

  And yet still nothing drastic happened and it was Kaneth who broke the tension. He held out a hand to the Reduner at his feet. The man, fear flaring in his eyes, refused it and scrambled up unaided. Ryka’s guard stirred then and went to him. He murmured something to the man, who turned and left the courtyard without saying a word.

  “What the shit’s going on?” one of the chained slave lads asked Ryka, as if she could supply an answer. “They seem frightened of this Uthardim.”

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “But they are not exactly frightened, they are more… respectful.”

  The lad gave a half-laugh of released tension. “So am I, lady, so am I.”

  The older man roped next to him scowled. “We should all have his guts! Watergiver be my witness, if I get me a knife, I’ll kill one of them bastards, prefer’bly that spitless bastard Ravard.”

  “Keep your tongue behind your teeth, Whetstone!” the lad told him in alarm. He looked up at Ryka, anguished. “He’s mad. Wants to attack everyone!”

  The guard came back and gestured her to follow. As she left the courtyard, she glanced back over her shoulder at Kaneth. He smiled.

  There was so much fear in her chest, it hurt.

  Ravard had found a decent room in one of the Level Three houses next to the Temple. The bed was made up with clean linen and the bath water was warm in the adjoining water-room. A hot meal was set upon the table, a bottle of bab amber open on the table next to two glasses.

  “I thought you’d like a bath after the traveling,” Ravard said, having dismissed the servers, all Scarpen women. “And a little luxury. Which would you like first—t’eat or bathe?”

  “Bathe, please.”

  He grinned at her, that flashing white smile of his turning him from a warrior to a young man of boyish charm.

  I wish he wouldn’t do that, she thought sourly. It makes me forget to fear him. She couldn’t afford to do that. She’d end up dead.

  “Shall I scrub your back?”

  Under her breastbone the baby stirred, his little foot—or was it his head?—pushing up into a noticeable bump. She had been about to snap at Ravard, to refuse any concession, to continue her policy of cold disdain. To let him know that every time he would have to take, for she would never, ever, give. But the safety of her son? She placed a hand on her abdomen to feel him move beneath her palm.

  He’s all that matters. Not my pride. Not Kaneth’s, either. And certainly not Ravard’s stolen pleasures. Remember, Ryka, since the beginning of time, women have done for their children what you are about to do for yours.

  “No,” she said with a soft smile, and stifled the sigh rising within, in spite of her resolution. “No, thank you, I prefer to bathe alone, but I will scrub your back if you wish.”

  His face lit up.

  Oh, blighted eyes, she thought. He’s such a child!

  And yet she wondered, for when she washed his back she saw what she had felt but not seen in the dark of the tent on the previous nights: the crisscrossing of the long scars of whippings too numerous to count. There was not one piece of skin free of scars or puckers. She stared in horror, unable to consider how much pain he must have endured.

  A child? No one who had ever endured such pain could ever be anything but a man.

  He pulled her into the bath to kiss her, swamping water everywhere, and laughed when she squealed in shock. And then, just before he covered her lips with his own, he whispered, “Love me, Garnet. Even if you do it just for your child, just this once, love me.”

  The youth was back, there, in his pleading. She thought of Kaneth. Of his son. She turned away from her memory of love and kissed the man who held her now.

  “Teach me how to please you,” he said a moment later. “Show me how.”

  Forgive me, she thought, and it was to Kaneth she spoke, the grief savage inside her as she made her choice. She pushed it away, yet still heard the echo in her pain: Forgive myself.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Scarpen Quarter

  Scarcleft City and Pediment

  On the night Jasper met Viviandra, he also had a long conversation with Madam Opal. That conversation led him to visit several other snuggeries on other levels in the days that followed. Taquar would have been surprised—and worried—about just how chaste his visits were, but Jasper took care he never found out. He tried to emerge from the inner rooms looking thoroughly satisfied and always indulged in a little crude banter with his guards on the way back to Level Two.

  The information he elicited from the contacts that started with Opal eventually took him to the Silvermesh Snuggery on the tenth level. He was, as usual, accompanied by heavily armed guards and enforcers, none of whom objected to the duty. The stormlord was a pleasant young man, they all agreed. Easy to talk to, never demanding, yet not standing any nonsense, either. You knew where you were with him. Treat him with respect, and he respected you. True, the Scarcleft seneschal, Tallyman, had made it quite clear they were not to lie with any of the girls while they were on duty, but lounging around downstairs in the common rooms while the stormlord enjoyed himself in one of the upstairs rooms was not onerous and it did have certain advantages. As one of the guards remarked to another, the scenery was well worth ogling, and getting to know it more intimately was not such a remote possibility once you knew the terrain.

  When they entered the Silvermesh, the madam, Tourmaline, came waddling up like a pregnant pede, proud that her establishment had been chosen by the stormlord. None of the guards were at all surprised when she whisked him away from the common rooms and into her private parlor, though they would have been astonished if they had heard what happened behind that closed door.

  “The Madam of the Marcasite on Level Twenty-eight sent me,” Jasper said, once he had bestowed the obligatory greetings. “She said you might be able to help me because many of the caravanners visit your establishment.”

  “Madam Verissal. Yes, she sent me a message. Said the stormlord was interested in sending messages through caravans to the Gibber. And that he was willing to pay for discretion as well as the service.”

  “That’s right. Actually I want messages to go to the White Quarter as well, which is why I visited her. I was told the caravanners for the White Quarter went to the Marcasite Snuggery for their relaxation.”

  “Well, they used to. But there’s been no caravan to the White Quarter from anywhere in the Scarpen for the past cycle or so. Far too dangerous. And ’Baster caravans don’t come here no more; nor do the Reduner ones.” She sighed, her large breasts heaving. “We snuggeries suffer from the lack of custom, dear. Did no one tell you that?”

  “Yes. Madam Verissal. She also said, though, that Scarpen caravans continue to run to the Gibber, and Gibber towns maintain contact with Samphire in the White Quarter.”

  “Yes. However, most of our custom came from ’Basters and Reduners. Men away from home have more use of our services than men who live here. Business is withering bad, I can tell you, dear. Folk don’t have water tokens for us no more.” She tossed her head in irritation and the hanging folds of fat at her neck rearranged themselves like door curtains in a breeze. “But tell me, why did you come here to me instead of going direct to the caravanners themselves? This way, m’lord has to pay me a cut, too.”

  “A wise woman once told me snuggery madams know more about men and women than anyone on earth, and if ever I wanted discretion, a snuggery was the place to buy it. So I thought if I went direct to a caravanner, it might be the very one who would report me to Seneschal Tallyman. A snuggery madam, on the other hand, would be able to tell me who to approach, or better still would take my message and pass it onto a reliable caravanner.”

  She laughed. “I know who told m’lor
d that—Opal down on Level Thirty-two. But a snuggery operates only because Seneschal Tallyman allows it to operate. No snuggery madam in Scarcleft wants to butt heads with Harkel Tallyman. He reports direct to the highlord. Upset those two, that’s maybe treason. And they have a real nasty solution for that.”

  “Ah, but think: I am the stormlord of all the Quartern. The only one. What could be the future reward of having me in your debt?”

  “Nice, if I was still alive, dear.”

  Jasper smiled. The words might not have been encouraging, but he saw the glint in her eye that betrayed her interest.

  A soft knock at the door presaged the entry of a handmaiden carrying a tray of drinks and titbits. She knelt at the low table in front of Jasper with her offerings. He took a goblet, not even bothering to see what it contained. It was much easier to gaze at the handmaiden. The deep tan of her skin proclaimed a touch of Gibber ancestry, but the long hair tumbling down her back was blond and her eyes violet. The exotic combination was alluring, as was the plunging V of her neckline.

  “Silver,” Tourmaline said, seeing his interest. “One of our more experienced handmaidens. Excellent teaching skills. Or, of course, there are other younger handmaidens more your age.”

  “I’m sure Silver would suit beautifully if I wanted—”

  “Ah, of course. Business first. Wait upstairs,” Tourmaline said with a nod to the handmaiden. Throughout this exchange Silver had kept her head ducked, a picture of demure obedience, but in the doorway she glanced back over her shoulder to give Jasper a broad wink and a mischievous smile.

  He waited until the door had closed behind her before he pulled a handful of tokens from his pocket, gold glinting among them. “There is also the matter of immediate reward for your aid in this matter, of course,” he said, indicating the tokens. “However, if you are not interested, I am sure I could find someone to oblige.”