"You mean split control of the Quartern?"
"Exactly."
Taquar's callousness was beyond Shale's understanding. Was this, he wondered, some kind of test? Was he supposed to protest?
His burning thirst for change-for any change-flared. He could not bear his imprisonment any more. He couldn't.
Taquar stopped pacing and came to sit opposite him. "You have to try harder, Shale. I know you have the capability of a stormlord. No rainlord can manipulate water the way you do, in such large quantities, with such control. No rainlord can move water such long distances. You can, therefore you are more than a rainlord. You can make vapour from fresh water. You just have to practise more and you'll be able to do it from salt water."
"No."
"I beg your pardon?"
"No. Practice is not going to make any difference. I have not been improving for a while now. It is time you took me to the Cloudmaster. It is time he taught me. Besides, I am tired of living here, of never meeting anyone but you."
And I don't trust you. And why do you never mention Mica?
It was more than three years since Wash Drybone Settle had died. More than three years since he had seen his brother. He met Taquar's hard gaze and refused to flinch. "My time here is over."
If it had not been for his studies, he thought he might have gone mad. At first, his three teachers from the Scarcleft Academy had all assumed he was much younger than he was, possibly because his writing was so poor. He hadn't minded that because he needed to be taught at the most childish of levels.
Now their mistake amused him, because they still thought him younger than he was and were unable to contain their delight at the rapid advances he made. One taught him arithmetic, geometry and water dynamics; another history, literature and-lately, at Shale's request and without Taquar's knowledge-basic Reduner vocabulary; and the third, natural history and geography. He knew his teachers' names but nothing more about them, and he had no idea what Taquar had told them about him. He knew he must puzzle them with his strange ignorance at times.
"What's a temple?" he'd asked his history teacher once, prompting the horror-struck man to pen a reply lamenting the gap in his religious education. He also had to have explained to him things as diverse as staircases and ships and silk and bath houses and trade across the Giving Sea. He'd soaked up the knowledge like desert sand thirsty for the evening dew, and asked for more.
As his horizons expanded, though, his discontent had grown. And now he knew the time had come to change things.
"You cage me," he accused. "I want to go to Breccia City."
The highlord frowned. When he spoke, it was without overt anger, but Shale shivered at the frost in the soft tones of his voice. "Shale, accept that I know what is best for you. I have many years of experience and a knowledge of both my fellow man and water-power. You have to trust me. I know the loneliness you must experience here, but our land demands it. The rewards will be huge, you know. And you will still be alive, because of me."
"If you do not take me, then I shall go alone. There is no way you can keep me here against my will. None."
Taquar stared at him, and for a long, uncomfortable moment, Shale wondered if he was in danger. There was something in Taquar's eyes that spoke of a rage so deep he was capable of doing anything. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed.
"Why, I believe you would indeed walk all the way to Scarcleft! I knew you worked out how to raise the grille, of course. And perhaps you are right-it is time. Very well, but allow me to go and make arrangements first, if you will. Next time I come, I will take you away from here. That is a promise, the word of a highlord. Perhaps I should take you to the sea. If you confront the ocean, you may do better at water extraction."
Shale let out the breath he had been holding. "I would like that."
"We will need to be cautious. We still do not know who the rogue rainlord is. I have come to the conclusion that Kaneth is more likely than Nealrith. He certainly has more opportunity to speak to Reduners, as he travels a lot. He leads a group of young warriors who hunt down the Reduner marauders, yet the raids continue. Who knows if that is all he does?"
They stared at one another, youth and man. Shale remembered the collared lizards around the settle, flexing their neck ruffs, circling one another before a fight. We're like that, he thought. We don't like each other. Not really. He looked away, wondering if they would ever come to a full-scale argument. He hoped not, because he was not sure he would win. As far as Taquar was concerned, they left the matter of his future there, but Shale's thoughts raged on. Discontent needled him. The rewards Taquar had mentioned meant little. He already had all he could eat and drink, and once that had been a dream of untold riches. What he wanted most was to look for Mica, to free Mica-if he was still alive. Controlling water for a whole land meant nothing unless he could make amends for the suffering his possession of water-powers had provoked.
The thought of rewards had never crossed his mind. And Taquar had apparently forgotten Mica ever existed.
Sometimes, he thought, we don't speak the same language.
He went to clean Taquar's pede, wanting the rhythm of grooming the animal to calm him. Besides, he needed to think. Now that he had the promise of freedom before him, he felt as much trepidation as elation. In spite of all his lessons, he knew so little and it was all theoretical.
Perhaps Nealrith would make life miserable for him. Perhaps he would hate city life. Perhaps the Cloudmaster would despise him.
He knew now that Granthon was more than just a storm-bringer. He actually ruled. True, the cities and settles and tribes of the Quartern managed their own daily affairs, but some things were controlled from Breccia City. Water was guaranteed, but only in exchange for services. There were taxes to be paid; laws to be observed and enforced; in some areas there were trade roads or docks or roadside cisterns to be maintained.
The tribes of Reduner were obliged to supply a certain number of pedes to Scarpen markets each year. The quarries of the White Quarter were expected to send a fixed quota of salt and soda and gypsum. The mines of Scarpen were required to tender a certain weight in metals. The fossickers of the Gibber supplied gemstones and resin to pay their taxes. It was a whole network of obligations and trade and tax agreements supervised from the offices of the Cloudmaster, and Shale had gleaned enough from his teachers and his reading to know that he didn't know half of it.
Even an idle question had ramifications beyond anything he expected. He once asked Taquar who made the tokens and why they didn't make more of them so that no one needed to be waterless. This careless query laid Shale open to Taquar's scorn and a lecture on the whole concept of the debasing of coinage. He found out that the minting of tokens was done under strict supervision in Breccia, and the number of tokens was rigidly controlled according to the amount of water available for sale each year.
"But isn't that amount of water actually the same from year to year?" he asked. "At least in the past, if not now. You shouldn't have needed any new tokens made, in that case."
Taquar looked exasperated. "Tokens get lost, or people hide them under the bed and forget about them, or they get traded on the other side of the Giving Sea. Somehow or another, you have to keep the right amount of tokens in circulation, and that means minting new coins every year. Otherwise people won't be able to buy water."
"How do they know how many to make?"
"Oh, there are ways," he answered vaguely. "The Breccia Hall treasurer does that. Something to do with whether people are buying water at prices higher than-or lower than-one token per dayjar. And something to do with the ratio of old coins to newer ones in the marketplace. Each year's minting has a number, and the accountants can calculate how many of the old tokens have been lost-I don't know the details. I do know it works differently here from other countries. Over on the Other Side-"