The Towers Of the Sunset (38 page)

The storms in the western sky dwarf the towers of the sunset. Holding those towers in their place, the storms form a black arch toward which the two walk, soul in soul, hand in hand.

CRESLIN TRUDGES UP the sandy slope under the makeshift yoke balanced by a bucket of saltwater at each end. This is his second trip, though the sun has barely cleared the
Eastern
Ocean
.

He eases the yoke down until the buckets rest on the black stone pavement and stands by one bucket, concentrating. The water swirls, and a pile of dirty white grains appears on the stones beside the wooden bucket. After repeating the process with the second bucket, Creslin pours the now-fresh water into the stone tank and replaces the cover.

“Creslin?” Creslin… you idiot…

He sets the yoke and buckets inside the storage alcove and walks to the terrace, where Megaera waits, wearing a faded thin shift.

“You know, that’s not exactly effective.”

“Oh?” He wipes his forehead, looking over her shoulder. Heat waves, like half-visible black snakes, already undulate over the browned hills to the west of the Black Holding.

Megaera smiles. “Can’t you let someone else carry the water?”

“Habit…”

“But you’re the only one who can separate the salt out.”

“You can, and so can Klerris and Lydya.”

“Fine.” Exasperation edges her voice. “It’s work desalting the water. That’s something only a few of us can do. Can’t you understand? Let somebody else do the manual work. You have to do the things that only you can do.”

“Like rule?”

“That was unfair, best-beloved.”

“You’re right. But in some ways, I’m not cut out to be a ruler, to watch Other people work. It’s hard to sit here and watch the sun burn everything up. It’s hard to wait for ships to arrive-”

“That’s not what I said.” Idiot!

A white flamelet sparks from the unseen blackness that now enfolds her, a stubborn remnant of chaos triggered by anger. “You equate manual effort with work. They’re not the same. You know that. Being a ruler means working with your mind, not with your body. You can do it. But whenever you get frustrated, you start going back to the physical.”

“But I’m not frustrated,” he mock-pleads.

“You are frustrated. You just said so.”

“All right. I am frustrated. The inn is almost finished, but we have no visitors to use it. The crops are in the fields, but we don’t have enough water and they’re dying. The pearapples are dropping fruit because they’re too dry. I’m tired of eating fish, and so is everyone else. Lydya tells me that we won’t have any spices until fall, if then. If I carry water, at least there is some result. What am I supposed to do? Wait until the sun bakes us into cinders?”

“You’re the one who brought us here.”

Creslin glances from the browning hills to the almost unnoticeable swells of the
Eastern
Ocean
. In every direction he looks, he can see heat waves forming, dancing across hilltops and dusty, sandy ground, across the dry, green brush that is all that seems to thrive in the heat, and even across the beaches that contain the
Eastern
Ocean
. Overhead, the sun blisters its way through a cloudless sky.

“You’re right. I’ll just bring enough water for us from now on.”

“I can carry some water.”

He returns her smile.

“And you should eat before you wash up.”

He turns his hands upward in mock helplessness but walks up onto the stones of the terrace and sits on the wall. A loaf of brown bread and two pearapples rest on a plate on the wall between them. So do two mugs of redberry.

“You planned this,” he comments.

“You need something before you go to work on the ship.”

“Ship?”

“You said you were going to meet that Hamorian…”

“Oh…”

“Don’t tell me you forgot?”

Creslin nods, sheepishly.

Megaera grins. “I don’t believe it. You actually forgot.”

He breaks off a corner of the tough, hard bread, scattering dark crumbs across the black stone. Bread in hand, he sips the redberry. “What are you doing today?”

“We’re going to try for glass for goblets. That’s harder than what we did for windows, but Lydya says there’s a market for goblets in Nordla.”

He crunches the dry bread, sipping from the mug to help moisten both crust and mouth.

“As you have pointed out, best-beloved, we need as many markets as we can develop.”

“We also need ships in which to carry the goods,” he mumbles through another mouthful of hard bread.

Megaera nods.

When he has finished eating, he stands, bends over, and reaches for the platter.

“I’ll take it. You need to get to the wreck.”

“Ship… I hope.”

“Whatever.” She stands, gives him a quick hug and breaks away before he can prolong the gesture, scooping up the platter and mugs as she leaves. She stops by the doorway. “Will you be at the keep later?”

“If you will be.” He tries to leer at her.

Megaera shakes her head. Beast…

Not quite certain of the tone of that thought, Creslin shrugs, but she has gone“inside. He heads for the wash-house.

Before long he is on the beach where the Hamorian ship rests; he is accompanied by a stocky man in shorts and a sleeveless tunic.

“She’s wedged pretty tight, ser.”

Creslin walks up from the water’s edge, his eyes traveling the schooner’s hull planks, until he reaches the bow, half-buried in the soft white sand. “How deep is the keel, or whatever it’s called?”

Byrem frowns. “Maybe four, five cubits.”

Creslin shakes his head.

“That’s the easy part, ser. Stem’s narrow, and she’s not weighted fore. Most of the weight’s midships.” The Hamorian wipes his forehead. “Couldn’t you call a storm, get her off the same way… same way she got here?”

“If I call a storm, the waves will just push the ship farther onto the beach, no matter which way the winds blow, unless…” Creslin walks back down toward the water’s edge, using the back of his forearm to blot away the sweat that threatens to run into his eyes.

The stem remains in the water, although the depth around the rudder is less than two cubits. He looks at the rudder, then pulls off his boots and wades into the warm, gently lapping water. After a time of tracing the hull lines, he splashes from the water toward the small bronzed man.

“Byrem… are there any usable sails?”

“There’s an old mainsail in the locker, and some topsails. The mainsail probably won’t last long in a blow. The others probably wouldn’t-you can’t sail her off sand, can you?”

Creslin shakes his head. “No. But I have an idea. When is the tide going to be at high?”

“That’s only a half a cubit difference.”

Creslin waits.

“Around midday. That’s if the storms don’t change things. Tides don’t matter as much as the high storms.”

“Do we want storms or not?” Byrem frowns, then looks at Creslin. “I don’t think so. You’d get too much chop coming onshore. Quiet noon would be the best time to pull her off. There’s no place to anchor a pulley or a pivot. That’d make it easier to pull her.”

“We’ll work out something.” Creslin steps into the narrow shadow cast by the ship and begins to brush the sand off his bare feet. “Something…”

THE HEAVYSET WHITE Wizard fingers the chain and amulet around his neck, then releases them and studies the mirror on the table, which shows browning meadows, dusty, drooping trees, and an empty road leading to a black keep.

“Jenred was too pessimistic. He forgot about the summer.”

“Perhaps, Hartor. Perhaps. But Creslin is a Storm Wizard. What if he brings rain to Reduce?” The white-haired but young-faced man sitting in the second chair watches as the mirror blanks.

“He probably could,” admits the High Wizard. “But one rainstorm will buy only a few eight-days and will just make things worse. The one that destroyed the Hamorian raiders encouraged Recluce’s fields and orchards to leaf out too much for the hot weather that followed. Now look at them.”

“What if he decides to do more than that?”

“Gyretis, do you think he could actually change the world’s weather? That’s a bit much even for Creslin.”

“With Klerris and Lydya advising him, and by drawing on… his mate…”

“I see that her conversion doesn’t set well with you, either.”

“I didn’t think it was possible,” Gyretis responds, “but that’s not the question. He’s continually done more than we thought possible. What happens if he does it again?”

Hartor frowns. “If he sends rain to Reduce, it’s going to be hotter and drier elsewhere in Candar.”

Gyretis stands. “You’ve inherited this mess, but you’d better not make the same mistakes Jenred did. The council won’t be nearly so understanding.”

“I know, I know. I just have to figure out how to isolate them on Reduce, even if he does get his rain.”

Gyretis pauses by the tower door. “You don’t want to try a direct attack?”

“Would you?”

“Hardly, unless things change. But that’s your job… to figure out how to change things. Good day.”

The latest of the High Wizards walks toward the window, noting absently that the walls again show the stress of the forces swirling within the tower. Time for the Blacks, one of those left, to reorder the stones once again.

That will be simple enough compared to his problem: How can he remove Creslin’s ties to Westwind and Sarronnyn, and to Montgren as well? Without the support of those lands, Creslin will have a hard time just to survive. Hartor frowns again, his fingers stroking the amulet all the while.

“THE MAIN TIMBERS are as strong as I can make them. So is the sail, but there’s only so much I can do there.”

“That’s all I can ask.” Creslin walks down the powdery sand in the mid-morning glare. Not for the first time, he wishes for the chill of the Westhorns, or even for the temperate clime of Montgren.

Klerris matches him stride for stride.

The beached schooner now rests in a small lake surrounded by piles of sand. Nearly two-score men, most of them Hamorian prisoners, stand on the sand. Two hawsers are connected midships, one on each side of the ship, and stretch across the water in which the schooner rests.

Byrem, still wearing ragged shorts and tunic, steps forward. “She’s wobbly on the sand but still hard aground. It’d be dangerous to dig more.”

“We’ll just have to try.” Creslin lets his senses enfold the schooner. Can he and the winds even nudge that solidity?

“Let us know.” Byrem glances from the two wizards to the men standing by the hawsers.

“How tough is that sail?” Creslin asks.

“She’ll take a strong, steady blow. Shifting winds, gusts-things like that will rip her pretty quick.”

Creslin reaches for the skies, trying to bring down the trade winds, not the ice winds of winter, which lurk even higher in blue-green depths overhead.

“Get your men ready. He’s starting to call the winds.” Klerris gestures toward Creslin.

“Take up the lines. The lines!” Byrem’s tenor voice rises over the soft sounds of the low surf.

Before long, the gray canvas is billowing seaward, but the schooner does not move.

“Heave now… heave now…”

The ship remains mired in the sand-circled water.

Creslin takes a deep breath and draws in more of the higher winds, twisting them into a directed force that is becoming a small storm. He tries to focus them on the single square of canvas.

“Heave… heave…” Byrem leads the chant.

Backs bend, muscles tighten, and the wind rises.

“… heave… heave…”

The ship wobbles in the sand, leaning to the left as the patched mainsail’s taut curve strains seaward.

Whhupppp… creaakkkk…

“… heave… heave…” Another shiver grips the hull, and the water around the schooner rises into a chop.

Standing beside Creslin, Klerris concentrates, and a darkness wells from him.

“… heave…” Byrem’s voice is a lash across the men on the ropes.

Whuuppp… cracckkk. Even as the large sail splits with a thunderclap, the schooner gives a last shudder and slides seaward, seemingly gaining speed as she enters the
Eastern
Ocean
.

A cheer rises from the Hamorians and the keep troopers.

Klerris staggers. Creslin puts out an arm. “What did you do?”

“Just added a little slipperiness to the sand.”

“I should have thought of that.”

“You can’t think of everything, young Creslin,” snaps the Black mage. “Leave me some pride.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.” Creslin wipes his forehead, although the wind has dried most of the sweat there and the dry clouds block the worst of the heat. The thundercaps are already beginning to break, and there is no rain.

Both wizards turn and watch as Byrem continues to bark orders from the helm of the schooner wallowing seaward on her two remaining small sails.

CRESLIN LOOKS OUT from the terrace across the flatness of the
Eastern
Ocean
, dull in the gray light before dawn. In the motionless air, he can smell his own sweat from the restless, hot night.

Megaera sleeps, for now; the gray sky turns pink, and Creslin thinks about the dried-up and drying springs, and about what Klerris once tried to teach him about the weather.

Megaera finds him still on the terrace wall long after the sun has cleared the sullen dark green of the ocean. Her hands touch his bare shoulders, and her lips the back of his neck.

“Thank you.”

“No thanks, best-beloved. You just sat here so you wouldn’t wake me, didn’t you?”

Creslin nods as she sits beside him in the familiar faded and thin blue shift. “I hoped that one of us could sleep.”

“The hot weather’s hard on you.”

“I miss the Roof of the World a lot more when it gets this hot.”

“Lydya thinks it will get hotter.”

“I can hardly wait.” He rums, easing an arm around her waist and squeezing, then releasing. The soft scent of Megaera fills him for an instant, and his eyes water.

“… flattering me… it’s morning, and I’m just as sweaty as you are…”

But her hand takes his, and they watch the ocean for a time.

Finally, he speaks again. “We can’t survive if this keeps up.”

“The heat?”

“It’s the dryness. There’s another score or more of refugees camped by the keep. This bunch is from Lydya. One of us is going to have to desalt more water. The pearapples are turning brown.”

“Lydya says that’s because the water for the fields used to flow under the orchards.”

“No matter what we try, we get stopped by the lack of water. We need food. If we irrigate the fields, the orchards die. And with all the new people, we can’t buy enough food.” Half of the heavy links on his gold chain are already gone, and it is but early summer.

“You have something in mind?”

“Changing the weather.”

“That’s not a good idea.”… terrible idea!

He rubs his forehead at the violence of her thoughts, and she blushes as she feels his discomfort. “I’m sorry. This still takes getting used to,” she explains.

“Not all of it,” he says, thinking of one aspect of the night before, flushing as he does.

Her embarrassment matches his. Then they laugh- together.

“Sometimes…”

“… you…”

A few moments later, Megaera speaks. “Will you at least talk to Klerris before you try anything with the weather?”

“I will.” He can feel her start to stand.

“Let’s get dressed.”

“Do you want to talk to him this morning?” she asks.

“Why not? If I’m right, we should get started. If I’m not, somehow, I need-we need-to look for another answer.”

In time, somewhat cleaner from the water that Creslin has lugged up once again from the beach, they make their way to a small cot in
Land’s End. Both are sweat-streaked and dusty by the time they arrive.

“So much for cleanliness. We ought to think about adding a stable,” Megaera suggests.

“It’s hard to stay clean when it’s either too hot or too cold.” Creslin glances at the cot door. “Klerris is expecting us.”

The Black mage stands in the doorway of the one-time fisher’s cot that has been expanded into a comfortable bungalow, with even a covered porch to catch the cooler breezes off the harbor. “You’re here early. Shierra and Hyel weren’t expecting you until later.”

“We’re here for a different reason. I want to talk to you about changing the weather. Megaera feels that no matter how bad things are, trying to make Reduce wetter on a permanent basis would just make things worse.”

Klerris motions them toward the porch. “That’s really almost a theoretical question, and I thought you weren’t fond of theory.”

“Theoretical?”

“Well,” Klerris smiles, “until you appeared, no one was ever strong enough to think about it. So why didn’t you just go ahead and do it?”

“Megaera convinced me otherwise.” Creslin steps out onto the porch and stands facing the light sea breeze.

Megaera glances from him to Klerris and back. “There’s something he’s not telling us.” Her right eyebrow lifts for an instant.

“I’m sure there is.” Klerris wanders to the corner of the porch, then turns. “Since you are here, you obviously have a reason-”

… doesn’t he always?

“You’re both right,” Creslin tells them. “We need cool weather, and we need rain. I can call the ice winds, but I feel that to get them here-now-would bring so much destruction that the orchards and crops would be ribbons before the kind of rain we need would fall.”

… at least he asked…

“Would you please-?”

This time Megaera is the one to blush. “Sorry. I still forget.”

“That’s because you use force in the wrong places.” Klerris takes one of the rough wooden chairs. “Sit down. This is going to take a while.”

Megaera eases into one of the chairs, while Creslin sits on the stone wall at the back of the porch, where he can see Klerris, Megaera, and the harbor-vacant once more except for the waterlogged fishing boat.

“Think of a lever,” Klerris says. “If your lever is short and you have a boulder to move, it takes a lot of force on the lever, and the movement, if it happens at all, happens right then. A longer lever takes much less force, but you have to move the lever farther. Working with weather is similar if you think of the lever’s length and movement as distance and time. When you built the storm that destroyed the Hamorian raiders, you used brute force immediately-”

“I didn’t have much choice.”

“Don’t be quite so sensitive.” Klerris shakes his head. “That isn’t the point. Had you been able to predict when the Hamorians were about to arrive, you could have reached farther away, days earlier, and shifted a few winds slightly in order to create a storm front that would have been much easier to tap-” ‘t

“But how do you know which winds to change and how?”

“If,” Klerris takes a deep breath, “you wish to listen, I would be happy to explain. You may recall, I wanted to tell you this some time ago, but you didn’t seem interested.”

“I was seasick at the time,” Creslin answers dryly.

Megaera looks at him.

“Sorry… you’re right. I could have asked later.”

“Before we get started, and this will take some time, would you like something to drink?”

Creslin nods and stands. “Where-”

“I’ll get it,” Megaera interrupts. “You can tell Creslin the background information you’ve already told me.”

Creslin does not sigh. Once again Megaera has shown that he needs to think ahead more clearly. He takes the other chair, sits down, and turns toward Klerris.