Glenda Larke: The Last Stormlord

"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?"