"Dune gods prevent, hope not," another replied in a thick Reduner accent. "Sandmaster wanted bastard alive long time. Likes to see enemies in pain, not dead and dried, he does."
A third man stirred uneasily as he looked up at the cage. "I don't know 'bout that meself. What's t'stop this shrivelled water-waster from suckin' the water out of our eyes like he did with all th'others?" The accent was pure Gibber, not Reduner, which might have explained why the two Reduners were not speaking their own tongue. Jasper thought instantly of Mica, and the physical pain almost brought him to his knees.
But Mica would never have joined the Reduners. Never.
He stared hard at the man nonetheless, and was relieved to see he was much older than Mica would have been.
"Too weak," the second man replied. "Bleed them, make hungry, and lords too weak to use powers."
"Sandmaster Davim's not cruel just to hurt," the first man added. "This"-he waved a hand at the cage-"teach Scarpermen lesson they never forget: men of the dunes are powerful! Can put rainlord in cage like animal. Can rip out rainlord's tongue or throw away highlord's balls, no trouble."
Jasper's rage ploughed through him, to shred his fear into oblivion. He gathered the vapour, teasing mist around him like softened bab fibres onto a spindle. It swirled in damp eddies, laid its tendrils against his skin, coated his hair with moisture. The sensual pleasure of being in a cloud, of the feel of water in the air about him, of the unaccustomed dampness-it stirred his anger to a cutting fury. And he stepped out onto the open street.
"What the-! Look!" one of the men said, in Reduner this time. He added a string of Reduner vulgarities Jasper remembered from his childhood.
Jasper smiled. He thickened the mist in front of him to obscure his form as he walked forward, leaving only a small hole unobstructed so he could see. "Smoke?" the Gibberman suggested, more puzzled than worried.
"Don't smell like no smoke."
The two Reduners exchanged agitated glances. The first of the mist trailed across their faces.
"It's wet!" one cried, and added something in Reduner.
Jasper's power poured through his anger to seize more water from the air, from the dew on the trees beyond the wall, from wherever he could find it. He had to stop them calling for help. His idea was as coldly merciless as it was clear. He couldn't take someone's water, but he could drown them.
They didn't understand at first, of course. Each had a ball of water clamped across his mouth and nose, and nothing, nothing would dislodge it. They tried to bat it away, scoop it off, scrape it from them, but their hands just ran through the water without effect. They didn't breathe it in either, because Jasper moulded it to hold its shape. They couldn't breathe at all.
As they sank to their knees, choking, eyes bulging, terror blinding them to anything except survival, Jasper cleared the vapour away so they could see him. "I will let you breathe," he said quietly, "but don't try to run or shout for help-or you will die. I am a rainlord, and you know my power." His voice grated in his ears, allowing no promise of pity. He peeled back the water from their faces and bundled it into individual globes that hovered by the cheek of each man. "I want you to lower the cage to the ground."
One of the men, gasping for air, reached for the loaded zigtube hooked into his belt. In one fluid movement, he had it pointed at Jasper. He tapped the side.
Nothing happened. "It's already dead," Jasper said. "I drowned it."
The man stared at the tube. It dripped water.
"Do you want to die that way yourself? Or would you rather end up a dried-out husk?" Jasper brushed the globe against the man's cheek, rolling it across his nose to the other side of his face. It left a trail of wetness behind.
The man trembled and shook his head.
"Then lower the cage."
They untied the rope from the wall and eased it through the pulley, a simple job for several men to do together. Their stricken gaze flicked from water globe to the task and back again. Even in the cool of the night, they sweated. One tried to speak, so Jasper jammed the water ball in his mouth. It squashed, but he couldn't spit it out. Only when he choked did Jasper take pity on him.
"I told you not to speak," he said.
The cage reached the ground. Jasper stepped forward-and saw the horror in detail then. A man once. Tortured beyond comprehension until his humanity was blurred. Alive, yes, but not living. Existing only in a welter of hopeless pain.
The cage had no door; it had been soldered together. The space was too small for a grown man to sit or lie or stand. The thing inside could only hunch with his head bowed down. He still wore a tunic, but no trousers.
It was Nealrith… but not the Nealrith that Jasper knew. His eye sockets gaped, half-filled with congealed blood; there were no eyeballs. His lower face was swollen and torn. His mouth sagged open; there was no tongue. There was blood on the floor of the cage. A lot of it. And body wastes and a water skin.
Jasper knelt beside the bars.
"Rith?" he asked. His tone was assured, calm. He did not know how he could sound like that.
Hearing his voice, Nealrith started, but only barely.
"It's me, Jasper. I've come to get you out." Soothing. Reasonable. Lies.
Nealrith made a movement of his hand, a gesture of rejection.
"I'm all right, don't worry." Jasper knelt beside the cage. "You," he said to a Reduner, "bring one of the torches here." The tight fury in his voice had the man scuttling to do as he was bidden, especially as the water globe remained tethered to his cheek.
The added light revealed more injuries to Nealrith's body. The blood had dried, and his tunic had stuck to his skin, so it was impossible to see what had happened, but Jasper thought he knew anyway: the rainlord had been castrated. Or worse.
He raised his gaze to the three men cowering from him near the wall. "And you could laugh about this," he said. "What kind of men are you?" His voice was soft, yet his rage thundered from him, carrying the fullness of his fury. They knew better than to reply. He reached in and took Nealrith's hand. "I can get you out of here," he said. He had no idea how.
Nealrith moved his head, a slight shake. Painfully, he raised a hand and drew it across his throat. Then he pointed to himself. There could be no doubt what he meant.
"No!" Please don't ask that of me. He said, desperate, begging, "We can fight on, Rith. You will always have your water-sense. You can use it to see."
The hand he held gripped him tightly, squeezing, hurting him. Once more the rainlord gestured for his own death. And then his hand dropped away, groping across the bottom of the cage. When he touched the stickiness of the blood there, he used a finger to trace out: "Senya?"
"She's safe. So is Laisa."
More letters drawn in blood. "Marry. Children, hope."
Jasper swallowed, unable to say quite what Nealrith wanted to hear. "I will take care of her, I promise you."
"My city?" the highlord scrawled.
He couldn't tell the whole truth. "The waterhall and Breccia Hall hold yet. I will leave with Senya and Laisa soon, just in case. And you can come with us."
The finger moved in the blood again, tracing letters over those he had already written. "Dying. Pain. Please." Then he tapped the bars. The implication was clear: how would Jasper free him, anyway?
Jasper sat back on his heels, trying to rid himself of the choking lump in his throat. He could choose not to do it. Once again, a choice that was no choice at all.
Nealrith, I can't-
As if he had heard the unspoken words, Nealrith traced more letters in his own spilled blood: "You can." His other hand tightened on Jasper's.