"Old ways?"
" 'Free of the Scarpen harness' are the words they use. Free to raid and plunder when they feel like it."
"Free to steal water."
"Yes."
"They would be worse off."
"I believe you. But the young, as ever, prefer action to waiting. I am not sure how long the wisdom of older heads will prevail. Take this as a warning, Cloudmaster, meant in friendship, not as a threat uttered by an enemy. Do not cut our water any further. Ever."
Granthon's heart sank as he bowed his head in acknowledgement. He knew the links between the dunes were even looser than those between Scarpen cities. There was an overall leader-traditionally the sandmaster of Dune Scarmaker-but he had little way of enforcing his rule unless there was consensus to begin with. "I will take an oath," he said carefully, "that I will never cut the Reduners' water one drop more than I cut that of Scarpermen. We will live or die together, Kher."
Once again there was a long silence. Then one of the older tribesmen spoke, a shrivelled ancient called Firman, if Granthon remembered correctly. "There be old story among drovers," he said, his desert accent thick, his words clipped short, "telling of nomad, name Ash Gridelin. Learned water-powers from Watergivers, became first stormlord."
"We have the same story," Granthon said, "although we believe there was but one Watergiver, Ash Gridelin himself, who now sits at the right hand of the Sunlord. Our waterpriests pray-"
"Pah!" Firman said dismissively. "What they know, men living inside dried mud, never feeling sand beneath feet? Watergivers not gods."
Granthon gave Bejanim a questioning look.
Bejanim looked embarrassed. "It's a legend of our people. In it, the Watergivers are many, not just a single god. It says they live in a place where there's all the water you could ever want-"
"I understand there are many such places," Granthon said, "across the Giving Sea. Unfortunately for us, people live there already."
Bejanim ignored the interruption. "The story says that the Watergivers have power over water, but that they hide their land from the greed of the thirsty. That there are guardians who prevent us from ever finding them or their land. Some think the shimmering sand-dancers of the plains are in fact the guardians, dancing to lead a man away when he strays too close to the paths that lead to the Watergivers' land. The tale says that the Watergivers took pity on Gridelin when he was lost and admired his courage so they gave him the power to be a stormbringer and cloudbreaker. They sent him on his way and hid their land again. Legend has it that someone will find the Watergivers once more, when the need is at its greatest. In the past, some of our young hotheads have searched. None ever returned. It's said that one must find the key to the guardians first."
Granthon hid his irritation. "The story might be of more value if it told us where to look."
"Be wisdom to listen old stories," Firman said. The words were bland, but the tone was layered with contempt.
"I do," Granthon replied. "But I can't see how this one helps us."
Firman grunted, barely concealing his disdain for the Cloudmaster.
"More water?" Bejanim asked, proffering the jug. When he emerged from the tent some time later and straightened his tired body in the full heat of the afternoon sun, Granthon felt the grip of panic around his heart. How long could he hold on? He could feel power slipping away from him like water disappearing into desert sand.
Sunlord, he thought, is that how you will end our era, having us slain by ziggers wielded by renegade nomads? The thought was more a prayer for mercy than an accusation.
Oh, Ethelva, I have loved you so. And now I cannot even protect you from what is to come.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Gibber Quarter Wash Drybone The distance shimmered in dance. From afar, the figure plodding across the Gibber Plain stretched and split and rejoined, now an elongated giant, now several thin-limbed sand-dancers. But there was no one to see it, no one to note that the illusion was larger than the reality: a boy of thirteen or fourteen, on foot, lugging a sack of resin on his back. Far beyond him, the sand-dancers swayed and cavorted…
Shale had spent three days collecting out on the plains; now he had run out of water and was desperately thirsty. He shifted the weighty sack from left shoulder to right. The harvest had been good and the resiner would pay him well. It riled Shale that he couldn't sell direct to the caravanners; he would get more tokens that way. But then, maybe not. Caravanners would try to cheat him. Besides, the resiner would make life unbearable, maybe even go to his father. No, it was better this way, at least for the time being. The last thing he wanted to do was rile Galen.
After the unexpected rush down the drywash, a full year ago, his father had hated him with renewed vigour, even though he rarely raised a hand to him any more. Shale was as grateful as he was puzzled. Surely his father could not fear him as some sort of shaman simply because he had sensed the coming of the rush.
He stopped for a moment, long enough to taste the air with his senses. He had been feeling water from an unexpected direction for some time now. Wash Drybone Settle was ahead of him, in the south-east. The Giving Sea was to the south, a long way off, but large enough for him to feel its water as a vague mistiness. What he felt now, though, was to the north and it was coming closer. It wasn't a cloud this time, he was sure of that.
Uneasy, he turned to study the horizon behind. It was never wise to travel alone on the plains; some who travelled the desert regarded a lone fossicker as prey. And Shale had a sack of resin, laboriously collected from gummy plants, drop by precious drop. He strode on, quickening the pace a little in spite of his fatigue and thirst. He would be glad to reach the safety of the wash. In a wash, one could hide.
By the time he dropped down into the dry riverbed about two sandglass runs later, he was staggering with the light-headedness of water deprivation. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, and it took physical effort to detach it. In spite of his disorientation, he took care to hide the sack in amongst the rocks. The water on the move was much closer now. From this distance, he could not differentiate water in jars, water in people or water in animals, so the presence he felt could have been a wild herd of pedes-rare outside of the Red Quarter but not unheard of-a caravan on the move or even people on foot. The latter he doubted. Whatever it was, it was moving fast and there was a lot of water present.
He ignored its approach and attended to his more immediate needs. He crouched for a moment and cast about for water close by. Concentrated.
A feeling, an awareness. Not something he could explain. It was just there: knowledge that there was water to be found a short walk up the wash. When he arrived at the place, the knowledge was even more pressing and he could narrow down the position. About five hand spans deep, there was a pocket of water caught in a basin of rock. He would have to dig down for it, but he had expected that. He set to work.
By the time his thirst was sated a little later, he could sense more about the form of the approaching water: some myriapedes with mounted riders, and two larger packpedes. A strange combination. Usually in a trade caravan there were far more packpedes, burdened with supplies and goods, than there were myriapede hacks. They were approaching fast; and once they hit the watercourse, if they wanted to reach Wash Drybone Settle they would have to pass by him, perhaps even descending into the wash to follow the path.
He was filling in the hole he had made when one of the stones he had uncovered caught his eye: a pebble polished smooth by aeons of tumbling along in the sand-filled waters of the rush; green coloured but flecked with blood-red streaks. He spat on it and rubbed the spit over the surface. The wetness made the green sparkle and the veins within gleam with ruby fire.