He remembered the woodcuts he had seen of the city, and with a sick feeling knew he must have crossed the roof of Scarcleft Hall, where Taquar lived. No wonder there had suddenly been so many people after him; they were guards. Taquar's guards. He looked back to where he had jumped from: there was no one there. Yet. But he could hear shouts from above; they weren't giving up the chase.
His head was throbbing with his sense of water. For an instant he floundered, struggling with the assault. Water was everywhere, in every direction he cared to turn. In jars, in people, in cisterns, running everywhere in lines beneath him, around him, all of it jostling for his attention. So much water, so many people, so much noise, so many new smells. He was under attack. He took a deep breath, pushed away the invasion of his senses and tried to concentrate on his immediate surroundings.
The girl did not move or speak, so he ignored her and began to run again. This time he looked before he jumped. The villa below had a stack of empty oil jars conveniently placed against the wall and he clambered down using those as a ladder. This house was two-storeyed, so it was easy. He took steps leading down to the next level two at a time, ignoring the throbbing of his wound. Blood stained his trousers, but the amount was not enough to alarm him.
The shouting behind intensified and spread out. He could hear the excited gabble of the girl adding to the din. This time, instead of running directly to the roof edge in front of him, he peered over the edge to his right. He looked down into a narrow street. There were houses opposite, their outer doors studded and coloured. And people. People walking, talking. And several people running, beating on doorways. He could hear the words they yelled: " 'Ware, water thief! Up on your roof! Stop him in the name of the high reeve!"
Think, Shale.
His best chance lay not in a continued downwards descent. He had to lose his pursuers in the maze of housing by doing the unexpected-and they wouldn't expect him to be on the other side of the street. He measured the distance with his eyes. Too far to make it across in a standing leap; he needed a run-up. He considered the mud-brick parapet that bordered the roof he was standing on. It was broad and flat on top: a pathway pointing directly to the house opposite.
He hurled his bag across the gap first, so that it landed on the flat rooftop across the lane, then hoisted himself up onto the parapet. He gave himself a long run-up, ignoring the narrowness of his chosen path and the steep drop on one side, then dashed along the top of the wall, arms pumping, legs sprinting. At the corner, he took off, flailing, his terror transforming time into a strangely lengthened interlude of silence and grace as he arced across space. The impression of slow motion ceased in a rush as his left foot landed on the parapet of the flat roof he was aiming for. He strove for balance-and lost. He grabbed for the parapet as he fell, and managed to hook his fingers over the top. His body slammed hard against the outside of the house, knocking the breath from him.
He hung there, above the street, partially winded, terror welding his fingers to the parapet. Dragging in air, he scrabbled with his feet for purchase, and found it: the top of a window frame. Inch by torturous inch, he moved his hands until he had a better hold. Then, pushing off with his feet, he managed to swing first one leg, then the other, up to straddle the parapet. From there he tumbled down onto the roof.
He was panting, bruised and bleeding. He lay flat on his back for a moment to recover, then stood and risked a peep down into the street. To his relief, no one was looking up. No one had seen his jump, or its near-disastrous consequences.
Hurriedly, he picked up his bag and limped across the roof to the opposite side, where potted fruit trees grew thickly. He glanced around, but there was no one to be seen. He took the opportunity to relieve himself into a potted fruit tree and catch his breath.
The roof of the house next door adjoined, so he crossed this as well, until he was looking down into a different street. This was more of a thoroughfare, thronged with people. He waited awhile, hoping for a period when there was no one around, but it never happened. As he waited, he managed to push his overwhelming awareness of water into the background, but he had trouble grappling with the size of everything. The houses, the city stepping down in stages below him, the crowd in the street, the volume of noise: packpedes clattering by, creaking handcarts, people chatting and laughing, the chanting of children reciting lessons somewhere.
He peeked down into the roadway again. If he waited too long, he might be found by another servant, so he decided to seek the anonymity of the crowd below, even if there was a risk he would be seen descending. He lowered himself over the side of the house to the top of an architrave above the entrance. From there it wasn't too hard to clamber down using the decorative studs of milky quartz embedded in the double doors. He ignored the stares he was given from passers-by. As soon as he reached the street, he straightened his clothing and walked away. No one moved to stop him.
He soon discovered that his troubles were not over. People looked at him oddly as he passed. His leg had stopped bleeding, but the torn trousers and the blood attracted attention. Even his colouring was out of place: the people around him were more fair-skinned than he was, with hair that glinted gold in the sun.
He managed to descend several more levels before he was stopped. A uniformed man approached him to ask who he was and what he was doing there on Level Six. The man evidently knew nothing of the commotion Shale had caused on the roof, but still Shale panicked and ran, dodging through the crowd. He pelted on down through another two levels before he slowed to a walk once more, panting.
All he knew of the hierarchy of Scarcleft levels was that the highest were the most prosperous, but he didn't need that kind of knowledge to know he was out of place. The house gates were too lavish with their decorative stone inlays, the people in the streets were too well dressed, and he received too many odd glances for him to feel that he blended in. There were servants and delivery boys going about their business, but he didn't look like them, either, not with a bloodied leg. The best he managed to do was find a quiet corner near a brass market where he was able to put a makeshift bandage on his leg using a spare undershirt from his bag. After that he did not attract quite as much attention.
He continued to wend his way downwards, hoping to get to an area that felt more familiar to someone brought up in the poverty of the Gibber. Out in the palm groves, perhaps. He'd read something once about cities having fringe dwellers and the waterless.
It was nightfall by the time he reached the thirty-sixth level. It didn't take long for him to recognise it for exactly what it was: home for people similar to those who lived in the hovels outside Wash Drybone Settle. On a large scale of course, but the same for all that. He saw replicas of the house he had lived in, doubles of Marisal the stitcher, of Galen the sot. He glimpsed people who could have been family to Demel the widow and Ore the stone-breaker. Grubby thin children with hungry eyes not unlike the child he had once been.
He didn't know whether to be relieved that Taquar's harsh rule had not rid the world of the obviously waterless, or distressed that right here in a rainlord's city were people as poor as his own family had been. He recognised the smell of poverty and hopelessness, of the dirt and the decay that wallowed in its wake. It had been there in Wash Drybone Settle. Here it was just bigger, dirtier, more violent.
I am not the only one Taquar has failed, he thought, depressed.
He looked around for somewhere to rest.
He slept that night behind a heap of discarded bab husks, his bag serving as a pillow.
In the morning, he sold one of the books for five tokens. He had no idea of its real value, but he had learned enough from the bargaining of Reduner caravanners to be aware that the Scarperman who bought it was probably robbing him blind.