The Last Stormlord s-1 Read online

  "Terelle! What are you doing out there in the sun without a hat?"

  Startled, she jumped, bumping her head on the railing. Garri the steward had come into the courtyard below and was now frowning up at her, his face pinched into a picture of long-suffering.

  "Weeding the pot plants," she lied. "I've finished now."

  "We've bought a tenth of water and Reeve Bevran said they would channel it an hour before dusk. That's now, and everyone's too busy to attend to it. Go up to the Cistern Chambers and meet him."

  "Me?" Garri had never before shirked the supervision of the channelling of water. However, he was limping heavily as he crossed the courtyard, and then she remembered the way Rosscar had kicked him the night before.

  He stopped to stare at her, his heavy eyebrows drawn into one of his many expressions of disapproval, which were generally accompanied by a mutter under his breath such as: "Why is it I have to tell everyone everything twice?" This time it was: "Yes, you! Get up to the chambers and meet the reeve before he gets tired of waiting. And take a hat!"

  Terelle nodded and ran down the stairs into the house, pausing only to grab a palmubra from the stand by the door to the courtyard. Garri was waiting by the gate to let her out. "Remember," he said, "one tenth, already paid for. Make withering sure the Karsts next door don't siphon any off. Here's the snuggery seal. Bevran will show you how to press this into the wax to seal the cistern cover afterwards."

  Terelle hid a smile and slipped through the gate into the street. Garri had maintained an acrimonious feud with the Karst family's steward for so long, no one remembered how it had started. She hurried up South Way to the chambers that housed the supply cistern serving their level. The gateman let her into the courtyard where Reeve Bevran was already waiting. He smiled a greeting as he raised a questioning eyebrow. "Terelle? You are coming with me? Where's Garri?"

  "Limping," she said.

  Bevran grinned. "For him to admit it, it must be bad."

  She grinned back. "He didn't say a word."

  "Ah. And he trusts you to do this, little one?"

  "Would you cheat us, Reeve Bevran?" she asked pertly.

  He tapped her on the nose. "Mind your manners, or you'll come to a dry end." He gestured her inside and led the way downstairs to the water tunnel. At the entrance, he picked up a lighted lantern and said, "Take your shoes off and put on a pair of these." He indicated a pile of rough-woven sandals. "We don't dirty the tunnel with street sandals. And keep to the walkway. We don't tread where the water runs."

  Her daydreams had never included the possibility that she, a Gibber-born snuggery girl, would ever tread the sanctum of a water tunnel. She gazed around in awe at the ancient brickwork, as neat now as the day it was fashioned by unknown workmen. The reeve's oil lamp flickered and their shadows danced on the curve of walls interrupted only by a brick path built along one side of the tunnel. Only the bricks at the bottom were damp; she had expected it to be wetter.

  "I don't see you as often as I used to," the reeve said. "You don't come to play with Felissa as often."

  "I've got more chores now," she said. Her regret stirred; she liked his daughter and would gladly have knocked on the Bevran gateway more often if she'd had the time.

  "Ah." He cleared his throat in an embarrassed fashion. "Hmm. Er, Madam Opal hasn't got you working in one of the upper chambers, has she?"

  "No. I'm not old enough." Huckman the pedeman loomed in her thoughts. How much is your first-night price, child? How much will Opal sell you for?

  "Good." He sounded relieved. "It is not legal for children. Remember that."

  She was surprised at his tone and then realised with astonishment that he didn't like the idea of her working as a handmaiden any more than she herself did. Sensing an ally, she blurted, "I don't want to work in the upper rooms at all."

  He stopped and turned to look at her, holding the lamp up high so that he could see her face. Once again he cleared his throat. "Oh, Terelle…"

  The regret in those words, coupled with his silence, told her more than anything Vivie had ever said. There was nothing anyone could do. Opal had watered her for five years; she was entitled to collect her dues.

  "Couldn't the waterpriests-" she began in desperation, feeling the flutter of panic once more.

  "Bargains over water and water debts are not the affairs of priests, Terelle. Their concern is with worship of the Sunlord and his Watergiver. If they bothered themselves with petty concerns and neglected their prayers, who knows what could happen?"

  "What about rainlords, then? Don't they have some say in water debts?"

  "Their job is to make sure that no one gets any water he is not entitled to. They would support Madam Opal. If she put you to work in the upper rooms before you reached your, um, womanhood, or if she forced you to pleasure men, you could protest, but she is entitled to have you pay off your water debt. You could work in the kitchens instead." He paused and then added softly, "Come and play with Felissa whenever you want."

  His unspoken words lingered: while you can.

  "Thank you." The reply sounded small and weak in the echo of the tunnel. She blinked back treacherous tears. It wasn't fair.

  He walked on and she followed, her thoughts rebellious. She pictured the snuggery kitchen, with its huge ovens and fireplaces, and Dauvrid the cook with his foul temper. The kitchen maid started work each day before anyone else was up; the scullery maid went to bed only when the last dish had been washed. Neither of them ever had a day off. And they worked for little more than water and their keep. No, she thought fiercely. I won't do that, either. I won't, I won't. Not ever.

  "This is the first of the inlets to houses between the level-supply cistern and the snuggery," Reeve Bevran said a moment later, and held the lantern up to show her the large metal sheet recessed into the floor of the tunnel. "Can you read the lettering on it?"

  "Bevran," she said. "This is the cover for the inlet of your house."

  "It is stamped with a wax seal, which tells me it has not been tampered with. When I buy water for my own family I have to get another reeve to open and re-seal the plate. When it comes to water distribution, we reeves must be above suspicion. Come, let's go on. There are four more outlets you have to inspect before the snuggery's: the Malachites', the Masons', the Karsts', and the myriapede livery's."

  They stopped at each for Terelle to check the seal. When they finally arrived at the snuggery inlet, Bevran broke the seal and pulled the plate out, manoeuvring it to slip into a groove at the back of the hole.

  "There's your snuggery cistern down there," he said. "Take a look."

  She peered into the hole. The glint of lamplight on water seemed a long way down.

  "Now we go back to release the water," he said.

  "How can I be sure it won't spill over the plate and be lost to us?"

  He smiled. "You are welcome to stay here and make sure. But believe me, the amount of water released at any one time is carefully calculated. Anything that overshoots the hole splashes against the plate and then drains back into your cistern."

  She nodded. Simple, yet clever. "Who built them? The tunnels, I mean. We didn't have any in the Gibber. Not that I remember, anyway."

  "Well," he began as they walked back, "the story goes that once upon a time, water fell from the sky just anywhere, at any time. Random rain, they called it. Sometimes there was too much water, sometimes not enough. Folk never knew where or when to plant because they never knew when the rain would come. People would die of thirst or be drowned in water."

  "Drowned?"

  "Not able to breathe. Just as travellers sometimes choke on sand during spindevil storms. Anyway, then the Watergiver came, sent by the Sunlord himself. Some say he was a heavenly spirit, sent in the guise of a man. Others say he was just a nomad blessed with holy knowledge. One story says he got lost in the desert and walked into the sky, where the Sunlord taught him to control water and sent him back to teach us."

  "At the temple,
the priests say he was the first cloudmaster."

  "Yes. He taught those who followed how to suck up fresh water from the salt sea to make clouds. He showed them how to bring the clouds to the Warthago Range. Forced high by the hills, they break open."

  "And when they break, the water falls out?"

  "Yes. They call that rain. Never seen it myself. It soaks into the ground. The Watergiver showed other sensitives-who became our first stormlords and rainlords-how to build wells in the Warthago Range and bring the water from them to Breccia City by tunnel. And that was how the Time of Random Rain ended."

  "Why not just live in the Warthago Range if that's where the water has to fall?"

  "The best place to grow bab palms is in the good soils at the base of the escarpment, that's why. Warthago Range is just rock and stone and rough gullies."

  "And the other cities?"

  "They came later, one by one. Scarcleft, Qanatend, Portfillik, Portennabar…"

  "Breakaway, Denmasad and Pediment," she finished. "The eight cities of the Scarpen Quarter."

  "Yes. And there it stopped, because there is a limit to how much rain can fall from the sky. The cloudmaster had to water the other quarters as well, you see." He added sadly, "In all those hundreds of years, the tunnels have supplied every city with exactly the right amount of water. Until now."

  Terelle drew in a sharp breath. His voice was grief-filled, as if he spoke of something past and done with, gone forever. In horror she realised that he was afraid. He was a reeve, by all that was holy! One of the men and women who controlled water, and therefore life. If he was scared…

  Apprehension rippled up her spine as they came to a halt where the tunnel ended in a stone wall. Bevran said, "Behind this wall is the cistern. Water enters it from the level above." He pointed to a metal wheel in the wall above a spout. "When I turn this, you'll get your water."

  "But how do you know how long to let it run?" she asked.

  He reached into an alcove near the spout and removed one of the objects stowed there. "We use one of these." He showed her a glass timer filled with sand. Etched into the glass were numbers: 1/10. "One extra tenth," he explained. "I leave the valve open for the exact time that the sand runs. These timers are all made by the Cloudmaster's glass-smith, guaranteed accurate." Swiftly he turned the wheel and upended the timer. Water gushed out into the tunnel. "Of course," he continued, "it's more complicated when it is time for the quarterly free allotments to be dispensed. Then we have to make calculations based on how many persons in each household, how old they are and whether they have water allowances anyway. All that is a decision made by a committee of reeves."

  She thought about that, then asked, "Who decided how much a day's free allotment was to be in the first place? The Watergiver?"

  "Maybe. Certainly that was decided a long, long time ago and as far as I know the size of a personal day jar has never altered. Just as the amount of land under irrigation can never be altered, either. 'Each man shall have his sip and no more, lest the sky run dry,' " he quoted. "Any extra has to be bought, and the buyer has to explain why he needs extra."

  She wanted to protest at the injustice done to those who had no free allowance, who were born without an entitlement because of what their parents didn't own or didn't do. She wanted to ask about those who lost their entitlement because of a change in their status.

  But she didn't. She knew better. Who was she to question a representative of a highlord? She was a snuggery girl, born waterless, the lowest of the low, and lucky to be alive.

  Instead she watched the water swirl out from the supply cistern and into the darkness of the tunnel.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Scarpen Quarter Breccia City Waterhall, Level 1, and Breccia Hall, Level 2 In the half-darkness of the vaulted waterhall, the water was black-surfaced and motionless, a mirror to the lamps lighted by the servants. Of the sixteen oblong cisterns, separated one from the other by stone walkways, twelve were full to the brim and reflected the teardrops of lamp flame.

  To Nealrith Almandine-son of Granthon, Cloudmaster of the Quartern-the smell of water was overpowering. It doused any whiff of lamp oil, or any odour of sweat or dust or perfume that might have clung to his body or clothes. He shut his eyes and let its redolence seep into him: pure, cleansing, rejuvenating. For a moment in time he allowed himself to feel the connection: his body, the content of the cisterns around him. Water to water. Life-his life-calling to the source of all life.

  If only-

  "My lord?"

  If only he could control it.

  "Highlord?"

  If only he had been born a stormlord.

  He opened his eyes. With effort, he swallowed the bitterness, the sense that he had been the victim of an unjust fate. That was childish, and he was far from being a child.

  Beside him the reeve waited, face impassive, even as the questioning intonation of the echo whispered through the vaults: "Highlord?… ighlord?… lord?… ord?"-until it was lost in the background tinkle of trickling water. "Should we take samples, my lord?"

  Nealrith hauled his thoughts back to his responsibilities. "Yes, of course. All the cisterns, as usual."

  The man moved to obey. The only other occupant of the hall stayed at Nealrith's side, regarding him with a cynical half-twist to his mouth. "Mist-gathering, Rith?"

  Nealrith nodded, acknowledging his abstraction. "Sorry, Kaneth, I have much on my mind." And that was an understatement. Even as he spoke, he was watching the reeve kneeling at the cistern to fill the vials they had brought. The black glass of the water's surface shattered into half-moons of reflected lamplight and Nealrith felt the movement as a shiver across his skin.

  "I've noticed," his friend said dryly. "You should talk more about what bothers you, you know. As my old granny used to say, 'A trouble shared is a trouble pared.' "

  "From what I know of your old granny, I doubt she was ever given to uttering words of wisdom."

  Unrepentant, Kaneth shrugged and grinned. "All right, so it was someone else's granny. But the sentiment remains. What's the matter, Rith?"

  "You know what's the matter. And talking about it is not going to solve anything. Let's see how much is in the overflow cisterns."

  "You don't need to see," the other man said flatly.

  Nealrith looked at him. The lamplight accentuated the deep grooves of a desert-etched face; even Kaneth's good looks were not immune. We appear lined and older than our years, Nealrith thought. And yet they weren't old, either of them, not really. Other men of thirty-five considered themselves in their prime. But Nealrith and Kaneth were both rainlords, and in these times, that made the difference. Kaneth had the advantage, though; he had a fighter's physique, broad shoulders and muscles that spoke of a more youthful strength and vitality. Nealrith was thinner and less toned. Too much sitting at a desk dealing with city administration, he thought, and envied his friend. Kaneth's fair hair still glinted straw-gold in the light, while his own was already salted with grey.

  "No. I don't need to see," he agreed. The admission was surprisingly hard to make, and he heard his voice sag with the same grief that had aged him. "The two top cisterns are empty. The middle ones are half-full. The lower ones are fine."

  "And at this time of the star cycle they should all be brimming."

  "Yes." He began to walk up the slight slope between the oblongs of water. "I want to look at the intake."

  Kaneth fell in step beside him. "I saw the inspection team return this morning," he remarked.

  "Ryka Feldspar and Iani Potch?"

  "Who else would I mean?"

  "Yes, they are back."

  "Will you stop making me drag information out of you? Did they find anything wrong that would account for the drop in the amount of water arriving here?"

  Nealrith knew his hesitation betrayed him. Worry seethed beneath his outward calm. Worry that was close to panic.

  "Nothing. Ryka said they rode the whole course, checked the mother cistern, the in
takes from the mother wells and every inspection shaft. There was nothing wrong. No signs of theft. Nothing except that the water flow is reduced from what is normal."

  "Could she give a reason?"

  "The highest well shafts in the Warthago Range do not reach the underground water any more. Which means less water for the mother cistern."

  "She has enough water-sense to know that?"

  "Granted, she's not much of a rainlord. But Iani? He's one of the best we have. Nothing wrong with his water-sense."

  "He's also sandcrazy. Last time I saw him, he told me he thought Lyneth was with a nomadic tribe of pedemen who wandered the land, invisible to the rest of us."

  Nealrith shook his head sadly. Iani's daughter Lyneth had disappeared in the desert and the rainlord had never been the same since.

  "If the groundwater level has fallen…" Kaneth hesitated. "The information has implications."

  "Do you think I don't know that?" Immediately he'd spat out the words, he wished he had not said them. There was no point in alienating a friend, and Kaneth was that. It was just so hard to bridle his worry.

  Friend or not, Kaneth had never been one to accept rebuke mildly. He drawled, deliberately provocative, "On the contrary, I am quite sure you do. Your problem is not one of lack of understanding, but of will. The will to do something about it."

  "And just what do you think I should do?" Nealrith's tone was still dangerously taut. "Slaughter half the city so there are fewer people who need to drink?"

  They had reached the intake from the mother cistern tunnel. The splash of water through the heavy iron grille should have been comforting; instead it unsettled. Nealrith glanced through the bars. The rounded brick walls funnelled away into the darkness until they disappeared in a tiny pinpoint of light. That slim ray would have been sunlight entering at the first of the maintenance chimneys. There must be a crack in the cover. The tunnel did not end there, of course; it went all the way to the foothills of the Warthago Range, three days' ride distant, to the mother cistern, which was fed in turn by pipes from the mother wells.