Stormlord Rising Read online

  Why do I know things like that? he wondered. I even know the Reduners grow jute around their waterholes and the Gibber folk grow it in their drywashes, while the Alabasters grow flax somewhere or other—and yet I don’t know my own name.

  He turned his thoughts to Garnet. Ryka. She puzzled him because she didn’t seem to fit. He had vague memories of nebulous women—a lot of them—in his past. Women offering themselves for money, or perhaps for fun. Women taken and enjoyed and forgotten. He couldn’t put faces or names to the memories, but he sensed they had not been like Garnet, nor had she been one of them. When she regarded him, the look in her eyes was unsettling in its intensity. In her presence he had a feeling of familiarity.

  He thought of her, of the woman she was now, Ravard’s woman. Now that he knew how recently she had been widowed and enslaved, he was staggered by both her bravery and her dignity. She had gone from wife to concubine, from free citizen to slave, all in the space of a few days, yet she stood up to Ravard and held her head high. Her courage astounded him. I am in awe of her.

  And then he gave a grim smile. Perhaps she admired his courage too; if so, the admiration was misplaced. Oh, he was brave, he knew that, but his bravery came from a lack of caring. Without a past, he had no fear, because he knew of nothing he wanted to live for. Paradoxically, without a past, he knew of nothing he cared to die for either.

  “What thoughts go round in that head empty of memories?”

  He turned to face the speaker, who stood fifteen paces or so distant. If he really had been a rainlord, he would have sensed the man’s approach, or so he supposed; instead he was taken by surprise.

  “Kher Ravard,” he said, inclining his head to the man, but not enough to indicate his slave status.

  Ravard glowered at him.

  “To answer your question—I was debating the nature of bravery. And also what makes a slave.”

  “Defeat makes a slave,” the younger man sneered, and came several paces nearer. “A brave man fights t’the death rather than be taken by th’enemy.”

  “No. Defeat makes a captive, not a coward. Bravery is sometimes the decision to go on living. Tell me, who was Uthardim?”

  “A hero of the past who had a burned face.”

  “You appear to scorn the legends of your people.”

  “Scorn them? No. I scorn you.” Ravard approached, and his right hand fell to his scimitar hilt. He had a zigtube clipped to his shoulder, and the nameless man could hear the frenzied buzzing of the zigger within. “You’re not Uthardim Half-face reborn. You’re a Breccian nobody, and you were thrown onto a funeral pyre before your time, that’s all.”

  “Perhaps, perhaps not. I asked one of your drovers who speaks a bit of the Scarpen tongue about Uthardim Half-face. Apparently the story is he was the man who gathered together the remnants of the original people of the Quartern and led them to a new life on the dunes, after the ancestors of the Scarpen folk came from across the Giving Sea and displaced them. They looked on him as a savior, the founder of their culture, because in the dunes they found the pedes and the ziggers and they became Reduner drovers and caravanners and hunters as a result, instead of the impoverished herders of goats they had once been. When Uthardim was dying, so the story goes, he said he would be reborn out of the fire, to lead your people to victory against the invaders.”

  Ravard, now only a pace away, dropped his voice to a low tone laden with threat and anger. “That’s not you, for sure,” he spat out. “Why would a reborn Uthardim come back as one of the enemy rather than a drover of the dunes? You’re no hero returned! If I had my way, you’d be thrown back on that pyre, and that’d be the end of it. You keep away from my woman or that will be what happens t’you, no matter what the sandmaster wants.”

  The nameless man smiled. “That woman belongs to no one, and in your heart you know it.”

  Ravard reached out and grabbed him by the neck of his tunic, jerking him forward until his face was only a hand-span away. “Garnet made her choice. I don’t force her. Ask her the truth of that, if you like.”

  “I can hardly ask her anything. You just told me to keep away from her.”

  “You’re like all wilting Scarpen uplevelers! You mock us by playing with words, thinking they give you power. Well, they don’t. Power comes from this—” He gripped the hilt of his scimitar. “—And this.” He tapped the zigtube, then flung the other man from him.

  The nameless man staggered, but kept his footing. He said, and the words were lies, “This morning, I spoke to the slave woman who is tending Garnet. She says it is unlikely she will live the day out. Not if you strap her to a pede for another day’s trek. Leave her here, if you want her to live. Let the tribal women of Dune Sandsinger care for her until she has recovered.”

  “One day you’ll make a mistake,” Ravard said, “and I’ll be free t’kill you.”

  The nameless man shook his head, upset. Had the fellow even bothered to listen?

  They exchanged a stare, each taking the other’s measure. The nameless man, bent on irritating the other, allowed a slight smile to play at the corner of his lips. They were both large men. He was broader in the shoulder, but the Reduner was all muscle and sinew. He was experienced, he instinctively knew that much about himself, but the Reduner had the quickness of youth on his side.

  “You can try to kill me,” he said. “I feel sorry for you. There’s nothing you would like better than to slit my throat with that scimitar of yours. But your men look up to me and Davim has forbidden you to harm me. In fact, I suspect he has forbidden you to treat me as a slave. After all, that wouldn’t be wise if I really was some sort of reincarnation of a mythical hero, would it?”

  “You’re no hero, let alone one from the past. You’re just sand-witted dross, the leavings of a man who doesn’t even remember his name. Half-face is a good name for you. Because that’s all you are; half a face, half a mind and half-witted.”

  “Ah, but can you be sure?” He was amused, and felt an echo of the man he had once been. “Did you not see the sands obey my words? I owed you a life, Ravard. And yesterday I paid you; you are right about that. We are even now, you and I.”

  “The dune doesn’t obey you, a non-believer! You blaspheme. It was the dune god of Pebblered who saved one of his tribemasters, and in so doing saved me!”

  “Are you sure?” he asked again. Then he turned and walked back down the slope toward the camp. And you’d better see to Garnet’s wellbeing, you bit of waterless shit, or I’ll—

  The thought, however, stopped there, because he couldn’t imagine just what he would do. He was unarmed in a camp full of Reduner warriors led by a man who was fast coming to hate him. He heaved a sigh, aware that, even though he had little memory of his history, at times he wasn’t the wisest of men.

  Garnet. If it looked as if Ravard wouldn’t leave her behind, he would do something, anything, to make sure he did. He just didn’t know what yet. And he wasn’t quite sure why. What was it in his past that tied him to a woman he couldn’t even remember?

  PART TWO

  The Price of Escape

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  White Quarter

  The Whiteout and Mine Silverwall

  Terelle awoke knowing everything was wrong. It was night, that much was certain. Overhead the Star River shone in a brilliant band across the depths of the black sky. And she couldn’t move.

  Panic, urgent and futile, drove out thought. She lay on her back, head higher than her feet, her body firmly bound. Turning her head was possible, but nothing else. Yet she was… shifting. At speed. She could feel the wind on her face, whipping at her hair. The swishing sound of movement filled the air around her.

  In fear, her heart hammered against her ribs. She struggled, wanting to sit up, but her bonds wouldn’t allow it. Tiny pricks spattered softly at her face; when she licked her lips, they were covered in fine salt.

  On her left, a shape loomed, gliding, keeping pace, a ghostly silver outline against the star
lit salt. She lifted her head and strained to see better. A white pede, legs moving in waves like a curtain in the wind. The driver stood on its back, holding the reins in one hand, long prod in the other, perfectly balanced. An Alabaster: white-skinned, flowing white hair, silvered now to blend in with his world. But she was not high on a pede’s back. She was gliding as smoothly as a hawk on the wind, yet she was only a couple of hand-spans away from the salt of the Whiteout.

  She turned her head to the other side. Another similar pede and driver, only this pede trailed a rectangular shape. A litter, that’s what it looked like. Front shafts tied to the rear of the pede, the back set with small wheels.

  Her fear dampened and she began to think again. Alabasters, Watergiver be thanked, not Reduners. Russet. That had to be Russet, tied just as she was. They were being drawn over the surface of salt. She remembered now. Alabasters had given her water, smeared her skin with some kind of ointment. They must have tied her to the litter so she wouldn’t fall off. She lay back, tired, wondering drowsily if they had drugged her. Never mind, she’d worry about it all later. She closed her hurting eyes and drifted pleasantly away.

  A long time afterward Terelle awoke again, in a tent.

  The sides were rolled up, and it was bright daylight outside. And hot. Stifling. Beneath her was the softness of a quilt placed on colorful carpeting. For a moment she stared, wondering why the woven patterns of that carpet seemed familiar. As soon as she stirred to take a better look, someone came to her side to offer her a water skin. A tall Alabaster woman, dressed in the white clothing of her people, she was one of the largest women Terelle had ever seen. The cloth of her robe, adorned with tiny mirrors and red embroidery on the front panels, strained to contain the abundance of her buttocks, the unusual breadth of her hips and the solid bulge of her breasts. Even her long white hair, braided in a single plait that reached her waist, was copious. Not a young woman, Terelle decided; her face was meshed with the lines of age.

  “I’m Errica,” she said, “the physician of our mine.”

  Terelle made no sense of that, but nodded anyway. “Terelle,” she said. “From Scarcleft.” Her lips hurt when she spoke. They had been rubbed with pede fat, but were still cracked and sore. She drank, long and deep draughts. Vaguely she remembered waking earlier to drink, several times. “Russet?”

  “Pardon?”

  “The old man.”

  “Ah. He’s very ill. Scorpion sting. We’re treating that, but it has poisoned his system. He may not live.”

  “Oh.” She tried to think about that, but her thoughts kept slipping away.

  Errica smiled in understanding, and did not press her to talk. Instead she helped her to drink some more, to eat some food, and showed her where she could relieve herself. Then she left her alone again. Terelle dozed.

  The next time she awoke, perhaps a couple of runs of the sandglass later, she felt almost normal. Errica, sitting cross-legged on the carpet at her side, was mending a tear in an Alabaster robe. She laid that aside as soon as she saw Terelle was awake.

  “Feel like getting up now?” she asked. “I have a clean robe for ye to be wearing—one of our own, if ye don’t mind that. At least it isn’t stiff with salt like your own clothes.”

  “Thank you. That’d be wonderful.” Terelle struggled to her feet, wincing. All her muscles ached.

  “When we get to the mine, there might be enough water to be washing clothes,” Errica added. “We’ll see.”

  “Where are we now?”

  “We were traveling east from Mine Emery on our way to Mine Silverwall, when we saw your fire. We detoured a bit to be picking ye up and then camped here this morning to be giving the pedes a rest. We will start traveling again soon, once evening brings the cool air. We should be reaching Mine Silverwall by tomorrow morning.”

  “Mine? Oh, salt mines! You—you went out of your way to find us? Thank you. You saved my life. Maybe Russet’s as well.”

  “Ye should never take a black pede onto the salt, you know. The black color absorbs the reflected heat from the salt as well as the direct heat of the sun. Their blood boils.”

  Terelle shuddered, chastened. “I didn’t know that.” But I did guess Russet didn’t know what he was doing.

  The woman indicated some clothing laid on the carpeting. “Get dressed now, while I get my husband; he wants to speak to ye.”

  She rolled down the sides of the tent, then left and did not return until Terelle had dressed in the heavy robe with its intricate pattern of inlaid mirror discs, each a bevel-edged circle about the size of a man’s fingernail. Perhaps in the interests of comfort, the mirrors were confined to the front and sleeves of the garment. The weight of it pulled at her neck.

  When Errica returned, she was not alone. She indicated the tall, serious-faced man who ducked his head to follow her into the tent. “Messenjer,” she said. “Manager of Emery. My husband.”

  “Happy to be seeing ye awake and refreshed, child. We’re gratified to be of assistance, especially to Watergiver lords.” He indicated the carpet with a wave of his hand. “Shall we sit?”

  Annoyed at being called a child, Terelle sat, imitating his cross-legged posture. Errica lowered herself with surprising suppleness, given her large size.

  “Lords? Russet, you mean?” She considered that. “I suppose he is a lord in Khromatis.”

  He laughed. “Yes, indeed. Who else would dress in that fashion, all wrapped up in cloth like a colorful parcel? Who else would carry waterpaints but Watergivers? We have the things ye left near your dead pede, by the way, including the paints.”

  “Oh.” Her heart sank. She had not left her choices behind her after all. “Thank you. That was kind.” How does he know about waterpaints? And how does he know what lords wear in Khromatis? She struggled to make her sluggish mind move. And why did he sound vaguely like Russet? The way he spoke. Saying ye instead of you, the heavy accent, the slightly odd way of using words. Russet, of course, didn’t speak the language of the Quartern very well, and these people did, yet there was something… similar.

  “And ye. Are ye not also a lord of Khromatis? A Watergiver from across the borderland marshes?”

  “No. To me a Watergiver is the emissary of the Sunlord.” Then she added doubtfully, “You do worship the Sunlord as Scarpen folk do, don’t you?”

  “No, indeed we don’t! A Scarperman fallacy, that. We believe in God, certainly; God the Only, but He is just that: God. No more, no less. We don’t worship Watergivers, either. Watergivers are mortal people, for all they’re much blessed by God. We’re the Guardians. Don’t ye know this?” He looked at her, puzzled. “But why do ye ask questions of our faith? Surely it’s known to ye! And what were ye doing out on the salt with a black pede?”

  She let her confusion about his beliefs slide and said, “We lived in the Scarpen, but the old man wanted to go home to the place he calls Khromatis. He’s my great-grandfather and says he’s one of the Watergivers.”

  Messenjer blinked, his face blank. “And ye are not?”

  “I was born in the Gibber.”

  “Ah.”

  The silence that followed dragged on until Terelle began to feel embarrassed.

  “Well,” Messenjer remarked at last, “it’ll be many weeks before your Russet is able to be journeying again, if he survives. Ye’re welcome to be staying with us in the meantime, of course.”

  “That—that’s very generous.”

  Errica smiled at her. “Your people are our responsibility. How can we not treat ye with honor?” Messenjer made an abrupt movement of his hand, as if to tell her not to say anything else.

  But what she’d said made no sense to Terelle. Alabasters certainly weren’t related to Watergivers; they looked nothing alike, for all the echo of similarity in their speech. And how could Alabasters be responsible for another people who lived elsewhere?

  She said, selecting her words carefully, “I’d like to know more about Watergivers, if you can tell me.”

&nb
sp; They exchanged worried looks.

  “I don’t know my own history,” she explained. “I am Gibber born and Scarpen bred. I don’t even know what—who—Watergivers are. The only Watergiver I ever knew about, until I met Russet, was raised into the glory of eternal sunfire and sits at the side of the Sunlord. He once dwelt with men, and taught the rainlords and stormlords all they know about stormshifting and cloudbreaking.” She was reciting words she had heard from street preachers. Once she had been confident of their truth; now the words sounded oddly hollow and pretentious.

  Messenjer frowned, but all he said was, “Ah.” He and Errica swapped another look, this one laden with warning, then he added, “I’ll give it some thought. We don’t tell our history to outsiders lightly. And it seems ye may be that.”

  “Perhaps if ye were to be telling us about yourself?” Errica suggested. “It may help us to be making a decision.”

  A decision on how much I should know. They still sounded friendly, but she’d felt a slight decrease in warmth nonetheless, replaced by a more studied formality. She repressed a sigh. If she was to cope with the danger of her future, she needed to know as much as possible. If these people could tell her something, anything, then it was worth an honest recital of her past. “Of course,” she said.

  It took her half the run of a sandglass, but at the end of that time, they knew her history: how she had been born to Sienna, Russet’s granddaughter, how she had grown up in the Gibber and then at Opal’s Snuggery in Scarcleft, how she had met Russet and been trained as a waterpainter. Fearful of being disbelieved, she said nothing of the power present in the waterpainter’s art, nor how Russet had used it against her. She described her meeting with Shale, her imprisonment by Highlord Taquar Sardonyx and how she had fled. Once again she omitted to tell the whole truth, remarking merely that she had used the damage created by the earthquake to escape. Other than that, she painted Russet with words exactly as she saw him—the manipulative murderer of her father. She’d have to be sun-fried crazy before she’d make him sound like a man of integrity.