Taquar the betrayer, who had killed Citrine as surely as if he had been the one who had held the chala spear. Who had tricked Shale into gratitude by "rescuing" him from his captors. No wonder something about the rescue had bothered Shale: Taquar had not killed the two kidnappers. He could have done so easily. Should have done so, to ensure they weren't followed. It was hardly the kind of thing that would have bothered his conscience.
Automatically, Shale's shaking hands went on polishing the plates of the pede. He didn't notice that he was working on the same spot, over and over. His mind darted after facts, skimming all that had been said and not said. And in between it all, he heard Citrine's last scream of terror.
Power. All for power. Split the Quartern. A man who couldn't be stormlord, but who wanted the power of the Scarpen ruler.
Pede piss, but you are a fool, Shale. All Taquar ever wanted was the skills he thinks you have. He wants a stormlord. A man could do anything if he owned the only stormlord in the Quartern.
The thought choked him, lumped somewhere in the throat. The teaching, the patience, even the small kindnesses-all a sham. And he, Shale, had tried to please him. He, Shale, had ached to be liked, ached to see respect in Taquar's eyes. To make the rainlord proud of the lad he had rescued. Rescued!
His stomach heaved, and he had to choke back the vomit. He grabbed up the file and began to work on the feet of the pede, savagely filing away the rough edges and sharpening the points. How could he have been so dumb? So credulous? Had he learned nothing from all that had happened at Wash Drybone Settle? Sun-fried, sandcrazy dryhead!
He looked up briefly when Davim's servant switched over to the near side of the pede, and was glad to note that the man kept his face averted.
Making sure I don't recognise him, Shale thought savagely. But I wouldn't have. It's been too long, and I was too crazed to think then anyway. He's probably not a servant, of course. He's a warrior. A chalaman.
As he worked, his eyes lit on the zigger cage against the wall. Ziggers. If he could load a zigtube, one of Taquar's, he could kill Davim and this man. But not Taquar. For that he'd need Davim's zigger. Too difficult. Besides, Shale wasn't wearing the correct perfume, so he could be the victim. No, he couldn't use ziggers.
But these men deserved death. Deserved it over and over again.
Citrine, Mica, all of Wash Drybone Settle-either dead or enslaved.
What kind of men are they?
The pede stirred restlessly, unused to quite so much passion applied to its foot maintenance.
The door of the inner room opened. "Shale, haven't you finished out there yet?" Taquar called out to him.
He straightened, laying down the file.
Don't let your thoughts show. "Coming, Highlord." He washed his hands in the pede trough and went through into the other room.
"Bring us some amber, there's a good lad," Taquar said. He and Davim were just about to seat themselves at the table. "And something to eat."
"Yes, Highlord." He didn't know how he could keep his voice calm, expressionless-and yet he could, and did. He walked into the storeroom, collected the amber and mugs, came back, poured the drinks. His hands shook slightly, but his nerves showed no more than that. This red man in his embroidered red tunic and breeches, his braided and beaded hair swinging around his face, had been the one who had played a deadly game with Citrine. Deliberately. To punish Shale for lying. To show him who had the power.
For no good reason at all.
As he handed the Reduner a food platter a little later, he deliberately looked him straight in the eye.
Davim smiled. "What you name?" he asked, demonstrating a clumsy, heavily accented command of the Quartern tongue.
As if you don't know, you murderous bastard. "Shale Flint of Wash Drybone Settle." His voice was steady enough-a little hoarse, perhaps, but that was all. The next words he addressed to the sandmaster were silent ones: Remember that name, Davim. It is the name of the man who will kill you.
"How old?"
He shrugged in reply. "Seventeen, eighteen perhaps. Thereabouts."
"Shale serve master good?"
"I do not have a master," he said quietly. "If you mean Highlord Taquar, he is my teacher."
Taquar gave the faintest of smiles and spoke in Reduner. Shale struggled to comprehend. "The boy is sharp, Sandmaster. I would not play mind games with him, if I were you." He looked at Shale and switched to the Quartern tongue. "The Sandmaster would like a demonstration of your water-power. Bring some water in from the mother cistern."
Shale continued to put food on the table as he worked his water skills. He bundled up a ball the size of a man's head, pulled it up out of the lake and brought it to hover low over Davim's head. "What would you like me to do with it, my lord?"
Taquar sent a questioning look to the Reduner.
"Send it back," the man snapped in Reduner. He must have known Shale could empty the water all over him any time he wanted. He stared hard at Shale as he spoke, and Shale was taken aback by the hatred he thought flashed there only to vanish a moment later under the fakery of a bland smile.
"The lad is too clever," Davim growled.
"Shale has not had the best of experiences with Reduners, my friend," Taquar said and switched languages once more. "Send the water back, Shale. And remember that not all men from the Red Quarter are coloured with the same dust. Please do not insult my guest by asking after those of your settle who were taken to the Red Quarter."
"No, my lord." Shale removed the water and cut some bread. His fury swelled in his throat.
Davim spoke again, and this time Taquar translated. "He asks if you can bring up a storm yet."
Scrupulously polite to cover his rage, Shale said, "I do not know, Sandmaster. I have never tried."
"I expect Shale to come into his full powers soon," Taquar added.
"And how much longer will Granthon last?" Davim asked.
"It is nothing short of a miracle that he is still alive now."
They were speaking in Reduner once more, ignoring Shale. He strove to grasp the gist of the conversation while appearing oblivious.
Davim sat back in the chair and regarded Shale through narrowed eyelids. "It will all depend then, won't it, on which comes first? A stormshifter's power or a stormlord's death. We are prepared either way. We Reduners have no fear of a Time of Random Rain."
Shale did not understand all that speech, but he did hear the threat lurking behind every word.
Taquar addressed him directly again. "That will be all, Shale. The grille is still open; why don't you go for a walk outside? My friend here and I have much to speak about." With that, he turned his attention to the food.
Shale moved to obey. It was only when he was outside that he started to shake. Davim and his companion left about the run of a sandglass later.
Taquar called Shale in to tell him that he too was leaving, going back to Scarcleft.
"Who was that man?"
"A sandmaster. He was concerned about the growing extremism among some of the Reduners, so I told him about you. He came for reassurance that there will indeed soon be another stormlord." The untruth was easily said, without inflection.
Shale stilled the tremor in his fingers. Blind rage turned his vision red, and he strove to subdue it. The salted bastard! Was there no end to his gall? The withering lies flowed from him like water from a calabash.
Taquar had been allied with the Reduners of Dune Watergatherer all along. Not Nealrith or Kaneth or one of the other rainlords. Taquar, rogue rainlord, and the sandmaster who had burned Wash Drybone Settle.
Part of Shale wanted to fall on the highlord and rend him to pieces with his bare hands. Rip his heart out and hold it in his hands. The image, detailed in his mind, shocked him, and the corrosiveness of the hate that had inspired it made him jerk back from the edge of the precipice that had opened up, black and forbidding, before him.