"Not would you, but could you."
"No."
"Neither could I. A stormlord could, but a real stormlord could call up his own storm anyway; he wouldn't need to steal one."
"It must be someone with talent who needed my father to create the storm because he couldn't do that part himself."
"Hmm. A rogue indeed. There are fifty-two rainlords in Scarpen to choose from, but it must be someone who is stronger in water-power than either of us. That narrows it down a bit. I can think of only four or five. Highlord Taquar, Lord Iani and that awful wife of his, Highlord Moiqa. Your cousin Highlord Tolven, over in Denmasad, although he's always struck me as the most unambitious man I've ever met. And then just possibly Lord Kaneth, whose power has always fluctuated from pathetically incompetent to flashes of remarkable skill, things even a stormlord might find difficult. Sunlord only knows why."
"None of us would have a reason! It has to be someone who has the talent but who has never been trained."
"Another kind of rogue, in fact." She sounded more intrigued than frightened and he experienced a momentary irritation. Didn't she realise how much his struggle to retain the storm had cost Granthon? Couldn't she see how much it had cost the cities of the Scarpen? It had been days before his father had summoned the strength to create another.
Laisa was apparently following a different train of thought. "Why on earth would a rogue rainlord want to cast water on the Gibber?"
"Why would he want to steal it in the first place? Nothing about this makes sense."
"All that water dumped on those plains-grubbers instead of where we could use it. What a waste!"
Something in the way she said that alerted him. "Kaneth's been talking to you," he said flatly.
"About abandoning the Gibber? Yes. So has Taquar on his last visit. But it wasn't anything I haven't thought myself." She sounded matter-of-fact. "Your father is only delaying the inevitable. He's far too soft."
"Damn it, doesn't anyone see how wrong that would be? We have a responsibility to the whole of the Quartern!"
She looked at him in surprise. "Oh yes, in good times, perhaps. But Nealrith, would you see Senya and me die of thirst? Of course we should cut off water to the useless desert-grubbers first! And to the 'Basters as well. That's only logical. The Reduners are too dangerous to treat that way, unfortunately."
He felt suddenly nauseated, and turned away.
She didn't notice his repugnance. "How do we find this rogue?" she asked.
Another question he couldn't answer. Laisa, he thought tiredly, you have a genius for making me feel inadequate. "I've no idea. The only thing we can do is to put every rainlord on their guard."
She gave an unpleasant smile. "When all the time it could be one of us. Wonderful." Her smile thinned into calculation. "An intriguing problem, Nealrith."
"It's all I can suggest. There is no way we can trace just who did this. He or she could have been many days away in any direction. Or in a house right here in Breccia."
"I'll give it some thought. I do so like to pit my wits against a worthy opponent."
"This is not a game, Laisa."
"I did not say it was. In fact, I look at it more as a-a battle of minds." She slanted an inquiring look in his direction. "And what of Senya?"
"Senya stays. I am not going to drag our daughter halfway across the Quartern."
"Who will look after her if we are both away?"
"Mother will, of course."
"Nealrith, stop that. You always get an idiotic smile on your face when you think of Senya. You spoil her with your-"
She was interrupted by a knock at the door, and the entry of a servant to tell Nealrith that Iani was waiting below to see him.
"I have to make arrangements," he said as the servant left. "Laisa-"
"Yes?" She came close and raised an innocent face to smile at him.
"Don't be difficult about this."
"No, of course not." She touched him, running her fingers over his crotch, arousing and tormenting as she moved her own body in a provocative gesture against his thigh. "When am I ever difficult?" Once she had elicited a response, she stepped back and waved him away in a swirl of silken sleeve. "Go, Nealrith, dear. You have more important things to do."
He thought, You are always difficult, Laisa. His throat tightened and he mourned, although for what he wasn't sure.
As usual, she had left him baffled, not knowing what she wanted or why a deep anger inside her burned at him through her eyes. After fourteen years of marriage, he had no idea what she thought of him. No idea if her playful sensuality was part of her loving or part of a deeper need to humiliate and tease. Her bedroom behaviour alternated between a passion so intense it frightened him, and a scornful coolness that left him both frustrated and at a loss.
He sighed, loving her, hating her, despising himself as he left the room. Iani was waiting in the entrance hall, admiring the waterpainting that floated in the shallow tiled pool set into the floor. It showed a picture of a storm crossing the Warthago Range, of rain descending from a broken cloud-a picture of turbulence and plenty falling onto a barren landscape. It had been painted at Laisa's request by an outlander, a strange old man whose art had become fashionable in several of the Scarpen cities.
Its potency made Nealrith uneasy; the idea of wasting water on a piece of art reinforced his disquiet, especially as every now and then the water under the paint had to be topped up, otherwise the colours lost their vibrancy and the painting lost its impact.
He descended the stairs and clapped Iani on the back. "I'm glad you're here," he said simply. "I need to talk to you. Let's go sit in my study."
"You have another job for me?" One corner of his lips quirked upwards. "I know you think keeping an eye on the tunnels and mother wells is what keeps me sane."
This was so close to the truth that Nealrith reddened. Left too much to his own devices, Iani became increasingly odd, muttering to himself, refusing to leave his room, forgetting to eat, shaking his fist at the sun and the sky, shouting blasphemies about the Watergiver or the Sunlord. Nealrith preferred to keep him busy.
"Father has set four of us a task," he said as he ushered the rainlord into his study.
Yet another man who has aged faster than anyone should, he thought as he told Iani all he needed to know. At fifty, the man looked twenty years older. His face was crisscrossed with a network of lines as fine as a crocheted jug cover, creases put there, perhaps, by the many years he'd spent riding the Scarpen Quarter looking for any trace of his beloved Lyneth. Worse still, a later apoplexy had left him with a sagging lip and a dribble, a left hand that had trouble grasping things, and a dragging left leg.
"Four rainlords?" he asked after Nealrith had finished explaining. "We can divide up the Gibber and have it all done in less than a hundred days."
"I'm afraid not. Father wants us to stay together. To protect and train the sensitives we find, for a start."
"Then it will take us the better part of a year."
Nealrith turned his face away. A whole star cycle: Senya would be a year older before he saw her again.
"That's a long time for you and Taquar to be away from your cities," Iani added.
"Merqual Feldspar will keep an eye on Breccia for me. Taquar has his rainlords and that shrivelled bastard of a seneschal of his, Harkel Tallyman. They are so well trained that Scarcleft just about runs itself."
"That's true."
"We might be back sooner than we think. If we find water sensitives in Wash Dribarra-"
"We won't be coming home early," Iani warned. "Even if we find a potential stormlord on the first day. If Granthon thinks this is worth doing, we have to scour the Gibber, every mud-cracked drywash and every dust-blown settle of it, from one side to the other. We need as many young stormlords and rainlords as we can find. None of us is going to live forever." His voice trailed away into a mumble. "Lyneth didn't."
Nealrith gave a heavy sigh. "I know. I just hate the idea of being away so long. Let's hope it produces results."