He spent hours moving water drop by drop from one bowl to the other. He slopped it, dribbled it, splashed, wasted it-but gradually he moved it. The day he moved the entire contents from the first bowl to the second in a steady stream he celebrated by going for a swim.
Within a day of Taquar's departure, he had found being cooped up in the rooms a physical irritation. He wanted more space, and so he gravitated towards the waterhall every evening. The rock walls of the cavern rose sheer from the water's surface in several places, which meant he couldn't walk around the lake. He could sense its depths-cold, bleak and dark-and one part of him was wary. He remembered the power of the rush down Wash Drybone, the way he had lost himself. Mostly, though, this still water held no fears for him. It fascinated. Its power, its weight, its immensity-his bodily need of it. He understood it, recognised it so easily, felt kinship with it. He knew, without consciously dwelling on it, that he himself was mostly water.
For the first few days he just looked. The lake, so large and still, seemed a sacred thing, not to be taken lightly. Now, though, he was a mover of water, a rainlord, and he saw it differently. He remembered how good it had been to submerge himself in water that day with Mica, and now it felt right to do it again. And so, to celebrate his success, he walked into Scarcleft's drinking supply.
The cold water moved over his naked body like a living thing, connecting with him and yet not blending with him. Toughened by a lifetime of desert nights covered only by burlap sacking, he was not bothered by the temperature. He waded in waist-deep, crouched down and let the water lift him, hold him, cradle him in the gentle, arousing embrace of a lover. This time, though, he controlled his urge. This time, it seemed right to accord respect to something that allowed him to have power over its very movement, to respect something that could have killed him with its own power. He remembered every moment of being hurled this way and that in the surge of the rush.
This time he didn't sink in the water like a token dropped into a dayjar, either. He splashed around on the surface, discovering that if he thrashed his arms and kicked his legs, he could move as he willed. He ducked his head under and tried to move water away from his nose and mouth, the way he had in the wash pool, but found he couldn't duplicate the effect now that there was no urgency.
Never mind, he thought. I can practise.
When the cold finally did drive him out, he felt cleansed. Uplifted. Jubilant. He was surely a water-mover. A rainlord.
I was born for this, he thought.
Then: Mica, one day I will use my power to save you. That same evening, he thoroughly explored the storeroom. As he uncovered one treasure after another, he found himself the possessor of an abundance of riches-more, surely, than any one person could ever want. There were extra blankets to keep out the cold of desert nights. There were supplies of oil and salt and amber. There was dried bab mash for pedes. There was the food that Taquar had left behind for him: strips of dried pede meat-which Shale refused to touch-nuts and nut paste, bab fruit, pickled kumquats, dried figs and apricots, salted eggs, raisins, honey and yam biscuits. There were odd items of clothing, both for adults and for children of different ages, and there was even a child's gold bracelet.
Reduner caravan women occasionally wore gold bangles, but Shale had never seen one with metalwork as finely executed as this. The centrepiece was a flat gold disc intricately carved with a word-which he could not read-surrounded by fruit-tree blossoms. It was obviously valuable, and Shale could not imagine why it was so carelessly tossed in amongst a pile of clothing. He laid it aside and turned his attention to other items. Extra pede harnesses, water skins, saddle cloths and cushions, pede packs, zigger-feeders… and books.
He opened every one of the books that night, looking at them by lamplight. He took exaggerated care not to knock over the lamp and spill the oil, or worse, set fire to the parchment sheets. Most of the writing was just strings of words he couldn't read. Fortunately there were eight or nine books with pictures, including one that had page after page of drawings, each carefully labelled, of living things-beetles, moths, sand crawlers, pebble speeders and pebblemice, ant sippers, night-parrots and the like-most of which Shale recognised. He grinned, delighted.
Before he had left, Taquar had taught him a total of twenty letters, twenty out of forty-eight, and Shale was desperate to learn the remainder. Once he knew each letter and the sound it made, he believed, he would be able to read, and that excited him. He had seen the city of Scarcleft, simply because there was a picture in the book; how much more could he learn if he knew what people wrote about the city? And now here was a chance to learn all the letters without waiting for Taquar to come back.
He knew what an ant sipper looked like, and the drawing he had in front of him definitely portrayed that little desert-living creature: long tail, furry nose, strong feet for digging, long tongue for eating ants. He traced out the letters underneath, two words, as should be expected. Ant sipper. And the letters he already knew were exactly where they should have been. His grin broadened: he could teach himself to read.
That night he fell asleep smiling. After a while he developed a routine. He kept the rooms, and himself, as clean as possible, just as Taquar had insisted he do. He couldn't see the point of sweeping up the dust (it was going to blow right back in again) or folding his blankets every morning (he would just have to unfold them again at night) or cleaning his teeth (he was going to eat with them again, after all)-but Taquar had wanted him to do these things, so he did. He came to like the feel of all this cleanliness. No grit beneath his bare feet, no greasiness on his skin, no coating on his teeth. It was pleasant, and there had never been much that was pleasant in his life before.
The water exercises tended to become boring after a while, and he didn't proceed nearly as fast as he would have liked. The gains he made were small ones: a little more control, a little more precision, one tiny step at a time. Fortunately, life in Galen's erratic household had taught him patience, and the son of a drunkard learned never to expect miracles, never, in fact, to expect.
Still, the loneliness continued. He started to feed a pouched mouse that came each evening at dusk, looking for insects in the hallway, but it remained shy. Sometimes he talked to Mica, telling him everything that happened, as if he could hear. He found himself longing for Taquar to return.
When the rainlord did return, it was a disappointment. After a few hours, Shale was remembering the man's remote coolness. He brought food and more books and more clothing, although Shale thought that last an unnecessary extravagance. He appeared content with Shale's progress with regard to water sensitivity. He complained that the floor hadn't been kept clean enough and scolded him for not washing his clothes.
"I've learned a lot of readin'," Shale told him. "I can read whole pages-"
"Yes, yes, I'm sure," Taquar said. "Now go and brush my pede." Shale subsided, hurt by the rainlord's indifference, and went to perform the task.
That evening, after the sun had set, Shale noticed a light out in the desert. He stared, so startled by the idea of someone being out there that it was a moment before he could even think straight. A fire, he thought. It was the flickering of flames from a distant camp fire. He blocked out the idea of the water behind him in the waterhall-which he had once found impossible to do-so that he could concentrate on whatever was beyond the grille. Finally he isolated one person, only one, and a pede.
He went back into the main room. "There's someone out there," he said. He was shaking, but flattened his tone so Taquar would not hear the fear he felt.
The rainlord's head swung up and he paused, focusing. "Ah. I have been expecting a visitor. Doubtless this is he." He laid down the book he had been reading by lamplight and stood. "That was well-sensed, Shale. I am pleased with your progress. I will ride out to meet him alone. There is no point in him knowing you are here."