Glenda Larke: The Last Stormlord

As she watered the last fruit tree, she kept back a finger-breadth of water in the bottom of the bucket, which she then poured into the sun pattern pressed into the clay of the flat rooftop. Her sacrifice to the Sunlord, the giver and taker of life. For a moment she knelt there in the heat of full sunlight, watching the rivulets spread outwards to fill the indentations. Greedily, the Sunlord sucked up the water.

"Lord of the sun, help me," she whispered, but she couldn't frame the words to specify her wants, even as the water began to vanish. Why would the Sunlord listen to a snuggery child? He, who was so great you couldn't even gaze at his true face as he moved across the sky? She addressed his emissary instead. After all, Gridelin the Watergiver was supposed to have once been human, until he was raised into the glory of eternal sunfire. Watergiver, intercede for me, she prayed, her eyes screwed up tight. I need to escape snuggery service.

When she opened her eyes again, only a damp patch remained. She watched its edges contract. Like magic, she thought. People said that was proof a prayer had been heard.

But, the coldly sensible part of her head said in return, that doesn't mean the prayer will be answered.

Scarpen Quarter Scarcleft City Opal's Snuggery and the Cistern Chambers, Level 32 Terelle shifted to the shade and just in case the Sunlord withheld his aid, she schemed. Or tried to. Trouble was, nothing came to her. No sudden revelation, no miraculous idea. Her eyes watered with threatening tears. She rubbed at an eyelid, and then regarded the wetness there resentfully. No one else she knew ever shed tears when they wept. Tears only came to others when they had grit in the eye, or smoke. It was just a silly habit she had, absurdly pointless. Water wasn't supposed to be wasted.

A soft rhythmic drumming and tinkle of harness turned her attention to the street once more. A lone rider travelled downlevel past the snuggery, mounted on a myriapede hack, his face hidden by the brim of his hat. People in the street scattered out of his way. Nobody wanted to argue with a pede. Even the smaller hacks were taller than any man and had mouthparts as long and as sharp as scimitars.

When Terelle stuck her head through the balustrade to see the rider better, she realised his mount was a particularly fine one: the segment scales were a burnished winered, edged with gold tassels. Two feelers, inlaid with gold wire in intricate patterns and each as long as three men lying end to end, touched the walls on either side of the street as the pede passed by. The embroidered saddle and gem-studded reins were richly ornate. The rhythmic undulations of its eighteen pairs of pointed legs-three pairs to a segment-did not miss a beat as the animal flowed down the steps. On its second segment, within reach of the rider at the front, were tied several zigger cages and a zigtube. Terelle's heart skipped a beat.

Ziggers…

No, don't remember. Don't remember any of it. Think about something else.

So she wondered who this Scarperman was who rode with his zigger cages so openly displayed. Ziggers were expensive to own and even more expensive to train. Yet despite his display of wealth, the rider himself was plainly dressed. The white desert tunic over loose pants gathered in at the ankle and the broad-brimmed palmubra hat woven of bab leaf were standard garb for desert riders. He wore no jewellery, nothing that drew attention to him, but the self-confident certainty with which he rode gave him an aura of power.

Perhaps, she thought, he wasn't a Scarperman. Perhaps he was a Reduner caravanner, travelling far from the quadrant he acknowledged as his own.

As he passed, he looked up, enabling her to see his swarthy face. She knew then that he was no Reduner. She'd seen him once before in the street, in fact, and the warden mistress had told her who he was: Taquar Sardonyx, one of the rainlords of the Scarpen Quarter and Highlord of Scarcleft City.

Why does he need ziggers? she wondered. As highlord, he answered to no one but the Cloudmaster, in Breccia City. As highlord, he had the power of life and death over every citizen in Scarcleft and controlled every drop of the city's water, of her water. As a rainlord, which all highlords were, he could kill or torture with his power, without ever having to resort to ziggers. He was known to be relentless in his pursuit and punishment of water thieves. As a rainlord, he took the water from the dead.

Like Donnick. Oh, Donnick.

Cold grey eyes did not flicker as his gaze met hers and then moved on. There could be nothing to interest him in a child poking her head through a snuggery balustrade, but she shivered nonetheless.

"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."