Shale nodded. "Good luck." He slid down from the pede and ran back towards the knacker's yard. He needed to return the flensing knife before it was missed, and then he wanted to manipulate the water further away through the grove, to give Feroze more time to escape.
He didn't look back. The rest was up to the Alabaster now. He returned to the city without trouble some time later, wryly reflecting that he was back where he had started. He had just given Feroze all his water tokens. He would have to sell another book to pay for food and lodging for the night and to buy a new water skin. Fortunately, he was now more experienced and he knew someone who would offer him a better price for a book.
Later that night, with tokens rattling in a second-hand purse, he made inquiries about how to get to Breccia and found out that it was going to cost forty tokens to join a passenger caravan of pedes. He could save a little every day because he stole his water, but forty tokens was impossibly remote.
The next day, after putting in a full day at the knacker's, he investigated the possibility of working as a pedehand on one of the caravans leaving Scarcleft, only to find too many others had the same idea. Day by day, the city was becoming more and more dangerous for a waterless outlander, and they were all trying to leave. There was no place for Shale.
He thought of selling the gold bracelet or the jasper to raise enough tokens to buy a passenger seat, but when he went to Illara for advice, she told him to lie low. "The enforcers are cleaning out this cesspit," she warned. "People who deal in stolen property are vanishing, Jasper. Wait a while."
"They're not stolen," he protested, bending the truth a little.
She snorted. "It doesn't matter how you got them. What matters is what folk will believe."
She was probably right at that. And then he realised-although the bracelet was still safely tucked away among the things he had paid to store-the bloodstone jasper had been at the bottom of his purse. The same purse he had given to Feroze.
He cursed himself.
It had been his last link to Citrine, and now it was gone. He tried not to be unrealistic in his hopes. Feroze might die. The man had not even had a robe or a hat as protection against the sun. If he did manage to reach Breccia and talk to the Cloudmaster, he might not be believed. Taquar was one of them, a ruler, a high rainlord, a friend perhaps.
As the days passed and there was no sign of anyone coming to look for him, his hopes faded.
Then, fifteen days later, he was in trouble again. He was looking for work one morning when he came face-to-face with a group of uniformed enforcers accompanied by someone he guessed to be a reeve. He looked away and went to walk on by, but the reeve stopped him with a curt, "Wait, you." He unrolled a parchment he carried, looked at it, looked up at Shale and said, "This is the one. Arrest him."
Shale didn't wait to hear anything more; he took to his heels. He was young and his quick reactions gave him a head start. He made straight for the twisted alleyways around the market area. He pelted up the street, skidded around the first corner to his right and hurdled a pile of refuse in the middle of the lane.
The reeve's men followed, and one of them-a young man of about his own age-could run like wind whistling up the wash. A quick glance behind told Shale that he was in trouble: the man was gaining. It was only a matter of time. He raced on, shoving people out of the way.
At the next corner, instead of dashing on down the street, he swung hard to the left, vaulted a wall and crashed across the tops of some sandgrouse cages stored in the yard beyond. By the time his pursuer had realised where he'd gone, Shale was already climbing the wall on the other side. He jumped down, knowing he had only a few seconds to disappear unseen. A frantic glance around told him he was in another street, and luck was with him. There was a waterseller's cart laden with supply jars and a number of people milled around helping themselves to the water. It looked as if they were stealing it. Which didn't make sense, but he had no time to think about it. He raced up a set of stairs on his right, hoping that they would lead to some kind of hiding place.
At the top, he swung into a hallway and tripped over something on the floor before he noticed it was there. He took another few steps and then stopped, realising that there was only a blank wall ahead of him. On his right there were archways that overlooked the street, on his left a number of closed doors. There was only one person in the hallway, a girl-young woman?-of about his own age. She was standing looking at him with an odd expression on her face that he couldn't read.
"Can you hide me?" he asked. "Please?"
She stared at him, wordless.
"I'm desperate. Please." In his urgency, he couldn't think of the right words to say to persuade her.
She opened her mouth to speak but was then distracted by something behind him. He whirled to see what it was and glimpsed a man crawling across the tiles of the sloping roof of the building opposite. The fellow looked as scared as Shale felt.
He looked back at the girl. Already he could hear sounds of running feet below, people shouting. He could feel the water of his pursuers. Someone would soon think to come up the stairs. He glanced at the closed doors to the side. Useless to try hiding behind one of those if the girl was only going to give him away.
"Please," he whispered. "Otherwise I could be a prisoner for the rest of my life."
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Scarpen Quarter Scarcleft City Level 36 Earlier that morning, Russet had told Terelle he wanted her to do a painting for him. "Out in the hallway," he said, "where the light be better."
"A picture of what?" she asked.
"Oh, anything ye can see. Cover the water with layer of motley first, then picture on top." He shoved a pot into her hand. The paint powder it contained was a bruised purple colour.
"Motley?"
"Special mix. All colours in one."
He nodded and flapped his hands at her in a gesture of dismissal. She knew better than to ask questions; they were never answered.
She set up the materials in the hallway and got to work. As she covered the water with the powder, she tried to remember why this reminded her of something. She sighed, reflecting on how little concerning Russet made sense to her. And she hated the way his eyes followed her about as she painted or ate or cleaned the house. The gaze was not prurient or even speculative; he just watched her as if he wanted to know everything about her. He studied her, as a pede auctioneer might study the animals he was about to sell or a palmier would study the trees in his grove to make sure they thrived.
"He's not as bad as Huckman," she told herself, not for the first time. The trouble was, she was no longer sure that was true.
She painted the view from where she sat: a puzzle of interlocking rooftops, patterns in light and shadow, thatched fronds and clay pantiles, uneven daub walls with holes for windows. She worked steadily for the rest of the morning, striving for a combination of reality and suggestion, trying to convey the heat, and the aura of poverty and dilapidation and of timelessness.
Neighbours came and looked, spoke a few words, and moved on. When she was painting she tended to be vague in her replies, and most of them had become accustomed to that. Only when she was cleaning the paint spoons in sand did she realise that Russet now sat on his coloured mat peering over her shoulder watching her work.
She jumped and laughed nervously. "I didn't know you were there," she said.
His sharp green eyes, small now with age, examined her picture. "Interesting perspective," he said. "I be doubting anyone will ever want to buy a picture of rooftops."
She shrugged. "I did it for myself. You did say to paint anything."
He gave an odd smile that didn't make any sense to her. "Ah, I did, yes? Serves me right." He glanced around, as if to make sure they were not overheard. "I be taking your lessons one step further. Show ye how to move the paint."