Seneschal Harkel stood motionless.
Lord Kaneth said softly, "Shame your men did not recognise me as a rainlord. There was no need for them to suffer this. Step into the room, Harkel. And tell your men to throw their weapons out of the door."
Harkel did not move. Then, ashen, he looked down at his sandaled feet. From his ankles downwards, sweat was seeping out through his skin, to dribble onto the floor. "No," he said in a strangled whisper. "Don't do this."
"Your choice."
The seneschal's face was ashen. "You'll make an enemy for life in Taquar," he warned, but his voice wavered.
"Is this the way you want to die?" Kaneth asked.
No one moved. All eyes were turned to watch the slow seepage of water from the seneschal's feet. Even Shale felt a nauseated fascination: this was a slow version of how the other man had died. Repelled, he turned away, his stomach queasy.
The seneschal gave a harsh laugh. "Taquar will kill me anyway if I lose here."
Kaneth shrugged. "It doesn't make much difference to me," he said casually. "I am happy enough to kill you all." He smiled pleasantly at Harkel. "But then perhaps this is an easier death than the one Taquar will give you. Goodbye, Seneschal."
"No!" Harkel took a deep breath. "No." He gestured to the enforcers. "Do as he asks."
Sullenly, those men still standing disposed of their weapons outside in the hallway.
Lord Kaneth jumped down from the table and said, "Outside, Shale."
Shale tripped over his feet in his anxiety to leave the room. He looked along the hallway to the stairs, but Terelle had vanished-and so had the enforcer who had followed her out with orders to kill her.
Soltar followed him, bringing along Shale's bundle. He stopped, briefly, to mutter a farewell and touch Gadri's body in passing. Lord Kaneth left next, with Elmar guarding his back. He pushed the door closed, with all the enforcers and Harkel inside the room. There was no bar and no lock on the outside, but that didn't faze Kaneth. He stared at the door for a moment, and the bab panels dampened and swelled until the door was jammed in place.
I'll be pissing waterless, Shale thought. He used their water, the water of the dead. He wanted to vomit.
"That should keep them in for a while," Kaneth said, still coldly calm. "Soltar, Shale, Elmar, throw their weapons onto the roof of that building over there." He was already walking away.
They did as he asked and then hurried to catch up. "You get your wish, Shale," Kaneth said when they reached the bottom of the stairs. "We won't be going uplevel. We'll go straight out of the gates to the livery where we left our mounts. Fortunately, I already asked to have them loaded with enough water to get us back to Breccia."
"I can't go with you! Terelle-" Shale began, stricken at the thought of leaving her behind. "I have to find her first."
Kaneth ignored his protest and, staggering slightly, turned to Soltar, saying, "It will be up to you to get to the tenth level, back to the dancer's house. Think you can do it?"
"Yes, my lord," the guard said, but he looked grim.
"As fast as you can. You have to tell Nealrith what happened here. Tell him I am going straight back to the rendezvous camp, and we'll wait out the night there. If he doesn't arrive by dawn, we'll ride for Breccia."
Elmar interrupted, "But, Lord Kaneth, we can't leave the highlord-"
"Yes, we can. And must." He looked down at Shale. "If Taquar wants this lad from the Gibber so much that he sends his seneschal to get him, at the risk of starting a battle with the Cloudmaster's guards, he must be important. Nealrith would agree with my decision. Soltar-go."
Soltar threw Shale's bundle to Elmar and left at a run.
"But what about Terelle?" Shale said, hanging back. Desperately he cast about for any sign of her water, but she must have been too far away, because he couldn't sense her. "My friend. I can't just leave her. I promised-"
Kaneth grabbed his arm and pulled him along. "Oh yes, you can. It will only be a matter of moments before they break down that door. Your friend is not important; you are. And she's probably fine, anyway." He was breathing heavily and stumbling, as if he had been running, but his hold on Shale only tightened.
"There was a guard after her," Shale protested. "I can't-"
"You can, and you will," Kaneth rasped at him, all pretence of drawling good humour gone. "Move-and that is an order, Shale. Uttered in my capacity as a representative of the Highlord of Breccia City, and through him, the Cloudmaster of the Quartern. Do you understand me?" He pulled Shale after him, dragging him down the street.
Shale shook off Kaneth's hand. "She's important to me! Would you abandon a friend?"
Kaneth stopped. "Ah," he said, "I see." He drew in a ragged breath before adding, "Probably not. But I am not the Quartern's best hope for any kind of future. Look, I'll hunt for her. I promise. But later. Now your safety is all that matters, to her, to us, to this land. Harkel just convinced me of that. If Terelle has any sense, she will have headed straight for Amethyst's house on the tenth. She will meet up with Nealrith and Soltar, and they will bring her with them when they come to meet us." Then he repeated his previous question, even more sharp-edged this time. "Do you understand me?"
They stared at one another, and Kaneth's stare was uncompromising.
Shale nodded miserably.
"If she doesn't turn up there, then you have my promise I will look for her," Kaneth added as they turned to push their way into the level's crowded main thoroughfare.
Once they were slowed down by the throng, Elmar said, "We were damned lucky you were with us, my lord, or we'd have all been slaughtered like Gadri back there."
"Thank Nealrith, not me. He was the one who insisted on having another rainlord along on this trip."
Around them, the crowd swirled and a whisper started, brushing its way from person to person like the soft touch of a breeze. "Look, a Reduner!"… "Hey, isn't that blood?"… "Who are they?"
Elmar made a menacing movement with his pike. "Make way for Breccia City's highlord!" he cried, blithely promoting Kaneth. "Make way!" He poked an insistent beggar hard in the ribs with the shaft of the pike, and the crowd nervously edged back.
Kaneth gave a twisted smile. "Are you really a rainlord, young man?" he asked Shale.
"I-I guess so."
"A stormlord?"
"I don't know yet."
Kaneth exchanged a glance with Elmar. "Strange how things turn out, eh, Elmar? One day both you and I might be on our knees before Shale here, pledging our allegiance to a new cloudmaster. Just as well it's a whole lot easier to leave a city than enter it."
"Not for me," Shale argued. "They have been watching for me for weeks, and when they entered Russet's room they were looking for a Reduner."
"Ah. Yes. You're right. They weren't surprised, were they? Let's find a quiet spot." He turned into a dead-end lane stacked with seaweed briquettes. Several traders guarding the wares eyed them with open suspicion. Spattered with blood and armed, they didn't look like customers.
Elmar bared his teeth at them. One by one they looked away as if they had far more interesting matters of concern.
Kaneth said, "Elmar, give Shale the pike to carry and exchange tunics with him. Shale, I'm sorry about this."
"Sorry about wha-" He had the question answered for him before he finished it. Casually, Kaneth drew his sword and began to hack off all of Shale's beaded braids.
"Ow!" Shale yelled.
"Sorry. It's the quickest way. Then you can wear my palmubra to hide the rest of your red hair." When the last of the braids was dropped into the dust at their feet, he dug his crumpled headgear out of his belt pouch and held it up. "Quick, get changed. Pull the hat well down to hide that red face of yours. Nothing much you can do about your hands. I'll try to concentrate the guards' attention elsewhere." He leaned against a wall as he waited.