Senya continued to protest, but Jasper didn't wait to hear. He climbed down, pushing the water gently away from his body to form an encircling bubble of air. He arrived still dry at the bottom. He followed Laisa's directions, creating his own tunnel of air as he went. When he reached the entrance she had mentioned, he cleared it of water and studied the configuration of the water lock of the heavy metal door. It was a simpler version of the Scarcleft mother cistern grille, easy enough to manipulate. He soon had it open, only to find another door, unlocked, immediately behind it. Just in case the first leaked, he guessed. He opened it and stepped through, careful to hold back the water behind him.
It was a large room, much larger than he had anticipated. There were no windows and no other doors. Fresh air entered through several ventilation shafts set high in the walls. Pallets were piled in one corner; chairs and table sat in the centre; a fireplace-with kettle and pots on the hob-had been built into one wall, under a hooded chimney. The other walls were lined with cupboards and shelves and dayjars. He entered, still maintaining the wall of water so that it didn't spill into the room. He put his pack and the lantern on the table and opened one of the cupboards. It was filled with sacks and jars of preserved food, bowls and plates. Another contained a pile of compressed seaweed briquettes, an earthenware jar of lamp oil and several lanterns.
When he turned to face the door, Senya was just entering. She was half-soaked, and her skirt flapped wetly around her calves. Laisa came in behind her. "Oh, for goodness' sake, Senya, if you would only practise your water skills more, that wouldn't happen. Now get rid of all that water before I close the doors."
Sulkily, Senya did as she was told and sent the water back into the cistern. It was clumsily done and left Jasper thinking that she really didn't have much talent. He kept his expression bland. Laisa closed the doors behind her and reset the water lock. Jasper released his hold on the contents of the cistern and heard the water slap up against the outer door.
"Who knows about this place?" he asked.
"All the rainlords, including the waterpriests and Lord Gold. The seneschal. That's all."
Jasper thought: And all it would take for Davim to find us would be one man tortured into telling.
Senya looked around in horror. "There's no windows! I can't stay here."
"You don't have much choice," Laisa said unsympathetically. "Either this or ziggers. Take your pick."
"At least I could try to kill ziggers," she muttered.
"From the exhibition you just gave of water control, I'm not too sure you could."
"I could if someone would just teach me how to kill the rainlord way!"
"When you display the kind of maturity necessary to make good judgements, perhaps they might," said Laisa, hanging the lantern from a hook in the ceiling. She looked around the room with a sigh. "What do you know about ziggers, Jasper?"
"Quite a lot. I used to care for Taquar's. The Reduners would want to be quite sure all their ziggers are satiated and back in their cages before they themselves venture inside the city walls. They want no accidents caused to their own men by an improperly trained zigger."
Senya plonked herself down at the table, looking forlorn. Laisa, fidgeting, paced back and forth as she spoke. "They lost the element of surprise, thanks to Kaneth. And their mad rush from the Warthago Range means they and their beasts must be exhausted. It gives our rainlords a chance."
Jasper thought, She's as furious about this as a scorpion taken out of its hole. Aloud he said, "There's too few of them to protect a whole city."
"Yes. Fifteen without counting us but including the waterpriest rainlords. Most of them with no fighting experience, like the priests, or incompetent, like Merqual and Ryka, or just plain old."
"The other cities should have sent their rainlords," Senya said, "like Grandfather asked them to."
Jasper ignored that and said, "Fifteen rainlords to fight-what, two thousand Reduners? Ten thousand?"
"I've no idea. Iani said the force that struck at Qanatend was about seven or eight thousand mounted pedemen. Kaneth couldn't give an estimate of those he saw." She laughed. "He said he didn't stop to count them."
"What is this room?"
"It has existed since the city was built, I expect. Our forebears were always quarrelling between cities, quite viciously, I understand, until the idea of Scarpen unity was imposed on them. I suppose they once thought they needed secret tunnels and hiding places."
"What's our plan?" He was sure there was one.
"Several myriapedes are secreted away in a hidden gully along the escarpment to the west. They are kept loaded and saddled under the care of a pedeman, waiting for us if the city falls. All we have to do is get to them unseen and then flee to Portennabar, on the coast."
"If the Reduners besiege us, we could be here a long time. Even Qanatend held out for ten days."
"We are to leave the moment the walls are breached. In the heat of battle, in effect. The reeve on this level will let us know the right moment."
"How will he tell us?" Senya asked. "No reeve can open water locks to get in here."
Her mother indicated the two ventilation shafts. "The one on the left goes to the outside. The right-hand one opens into the level's Cistern Chambers. All the reeve has to do is speak down it, and we will hear. Anyway, let's light the fire and have a hot drink."
She took up the kettle to fill it from the water jar. Jasper fetched some briquettes for a fire.
"How long do we have to stay here?" Senya whined. "When's Daddy coming?"
Laisa ignored the question.
Jasper stared at Senya, nonplussed. She sounded like a girl half her age. "There's no way we can know the answer to that," he said finally.
"I don't like it in here."
"Neither do I much." He was about to say something else placating when he heard a whine, a sharp buzzing hum like the sound of a stone-cutter's saw. He knew what it was, and he knew it was in the room with them. He and Laisa both shouted at the same moment: "Zigger!"
Jasper acted without thinking. He grabbed up the nearest thing to hand, intending to swat the beast once he'd worked out where it was. At the same time, he pulled water out of the open water jar as a backup. He spun around, searching. The zigger was perching on the edge of the left-hand ventilator shaft, the one that led to the outside.
Senya screamed and jumped to her feet. Attracted by the movement, the zigger streaked towards her, its wings a blur. She dodged, her shrieks escalating in pitch and volume. At the last moment, she flicked her head sideways in a desperate attempt to escape. Her long hair swept around her face, netting the creature. Shrieking hysterically, flinging herself around, she gave Jasper no chance to hit the zigger and Laisa no chance to use her power without endangering her daughter.
Jasper flung the shaft of water like a spear. Half of it smacked Senya in the face; the rest tore the zigger out of her hair. Stunned and soggy, it fell to the floor. He stomped on it. When he lifted his sandaled foot, there was a splatter of red blood underneath.
Senya fell to her knees, still screaming. With a controlled calm, Laisa stepped up to her and slapped her face. She picked the dead zigger up by a wing and waved it under her daughter's nose. "Dead, see?"
The screams faded into heaving sobs interspersed with indistinct complaints. "In my hair… could have died… horrid… Jasper wet me."
"Yes, and you should thank him for it. He saved your life. Sunlord above, Senya, it's time you learned to behave like the rainlord you are. It is time you learned to be one."
Jasper turned away, embarrassed and shaken. He didn't like Senya, but he didn't like the way Laisa treated her daughter, either.