Ison of the Isles (28 page)

She stood then to gather her energy. She was already tired, and the hard part lay ahead. She looked down at his pale body lying there, completely vulnerable, and a thrill of anticipation passed through her. She could not yet see where his wounds were lodged, as she had in Harg; in the dim lamplight his body was perfect, untouched.

Softly, with enormous care, she sat down beside him on the bed. His heart was speeding up, as if some part of him sensed his danger. She rested a hand on his chest, over the heart, to calm it. The feel of his skin increased her yearning to such a pitch that she could wait no longer.

She merged into his sleeping mind as if she were a dream. It was a strange landscape she found there: cold and unyielding to her exploring touch. His conscious mind was an abstract construction, scarcely even connected to his body. There was no entry there for her. She turned away from it, searching for a way further in.

Everything around her was paved over with discipline. She ran her hand lightly up his thigh, hoping it would soften his mind to her; but he only tensed like a steel trap, denying himself pleasure, controlling his instinct.

She rested inside him then, searching for any flaw, any crack in his sterile perfection. She noticed Goth’s presence, surrounded by a hard unfeeling shell. And yet there were fresh scars around it. As she began to blend with that portion of him, an aspect of Corbin Talley was suddenly with her, as if to bar her way. She put her arms around him and they sank together into his past.

It rushed into her so suddenly, and so painfully, that every muscle in her went rigid and her mouth opened in a soundless cry. Talley was struggling in her arms, trying to escape; she held him there, forcing him to stay and feel it all.

They were in a new landscape now, one he had barred off and buried. Here he was not the brittle, flawless man he had constructed. He was a child, thirteen years old, proud and intensely private, consigned into a world whose coarseness and brutality was unimaginable to his parents. Nor had they ever suspected, since shame had kept him silent. He had endured months of terror and despair until he had realized he was only going to survive if he made himself harder and more malicious, colder and more cunning than anyone around him.

His body was stiff in her arms. She pressed him close against her, and stroked his sweaty back to calm him. His body no longer seemed perfect. Everywhere there were wounds, hidden in deep recesses, pooling like blood inside him. He was mutilated, shattered—yet somehow miraculously knit back together in the shape of a man.

She led him back into his past. The memories were excruciatingly vivid. She stood in his young body, in a bare room. He despised the man standing over him—an officer, but a corrupt creature with an appetite for sadism. Corbin had vowed not to let the man see him bend in any way. He was silent as two older boys fastened him face down on the wooden block, and silent as the cane came down with a crack against his buttocks. Spaeth jerked as it bit into her skin, stunning the breath out of her. Still he was silent as the cane came down harder and harder. The tears were running down Spaeth’s face, but not his. Ten times the cane fell. The pain was intense. Fifteen times. His torturer was not pausing. He realized then that it would just go on and on till he wept and begged. And not a soul in the world would care. Something in him broke then, and he sobbed and debased himself, until the man was satisfied that his pride was broken. Afterwards, the pain of the beating went away, but his loathing for his own abject surrender stayed.

Then the scene changed to the next winter, when he arrived home for the holidays, and his mother came out to meet him, a baby in her arms. He ignored her coldly, and in the following day met every little mark of affection with grim contempt. That night he made himself sit naked in his room, with the windows open on the snowy rooftops, in order to teach himself to feel nothing.

He had learned to live, even to excel, in a world where he had been ostracized as an interloper, suspected and disdained. Never had he been one of the tight club of officers. Only the horrors of the Rothur campaign had made him indispensable, and by then he had learned to use other people, not to expect their liking or loyalty.

Now that he was started, his unconscious mind was eager to break its isolation, to feed her with himself. He pulled her close, and his yearning merged with hers, intensifying. They loved each other like addicts now. He loved her for suffering with him, with years of thwarted passion. She could feel the desperate rush of air in his lungs, the labouring of his heart, and feared she could kill him by going too far. But he was too aroused now to stop.

One last time she sank into him, reaching as deep as she could. She touched something then, so buried the scar tissue around it was almost as old as he. But it was not a wound. With wonder, she saw it was an image of himself that he had exiled from his mind: the person he had once wanted to become. When she touched it, he sat bolt upright in the bed with a strangled cry. She tried to lull him back to sleep, but he was fighting her now, struggling upward to consciousness. He looked at her, and saw who she was, and gave a sound like an animal in torment.

Someone was rapping on the door. “Sir? Are you all right?” the guard called.

Talley tried to struggle out of bed, and upset the basin, splashing blood across the floor. The sound brought the guard into the room. “Holy Alta!” he said, then seized Spaeth’s arm and dragged her away. She cried out in agony, for she was bound to Corbin now in a dozen places.

He was doubled over, gagging. Footsteps pounded down the hall. “Fetch the doctor, quick!” the guard shouted, his voice high and panicky. Another soldier arrived at the door and exclaimed in horror, then disappeared, shouting to someone else, “Assassin! She tried to kill the Admiral!”

“Let me go to him!” Spaeth pleaded, struggling. It hurt worse than she had remembered. “Can’t you see he’s in pain?”

An Inning officer in a nightshirt appeared, and went to Talley’s side. “Sir! Are you hurt?”

Talley raised his head. His face looked ashen. He turned to Spaeth as if she had stepped out of a nightmare into his room. “What did you do to me?” he whispered.

“You can be free of it all,” she said. “All those things that have hurt you. Let me take the pain away. Please, do it quickly.”

“Good God!” the other Inning said. He was staring at the basin of blood.

“It’s my blood, not his!” Spaeth said.

The officer said, “Some sort of witchcraft. Get her out of here.”

“No!” Spaeth screamed.

“No!” Talley said, almost involuntarily. He struggled to his feet, shaking violently. The other officer snatched up a blanket and wrapped it around him.

“Let me touch him!” Spaeth cried. “Please, I swear I’ll do him no harm. He’ll go mad if you don’t let me cure him.”

The others looked to Talley. He was staring at Spaeth as if he were remembering it all now, and recoiling in horror at the violation of his most intimate being. Spaeth felt an icy hand close around her heart.

“There was no other way,” she said. “I had to do it, or you would have gone on uncured. But the dhota isn’t finished. I can’t truly cure you unless you let me.”

In a steely voice Talley said, “There is nothing wrong with me.”

Spaeth stood motionless, stunned.

“What did she do?” the other Inning said.

“Dreams,” Talley answered. “Just dreams.”

The doctor arrived at the door, a valise under his arm.

“Get out of here!” Talley shouted furiously. “She didn’t do a thing to me.” He wheeled around on the guard. “You, get this mess cleaned up. I’ll be in my office.” He paused, his eyes on Spaeth. “And take her away. Lock her up where she can’t get loose. Throw away the goddamned key.”

He pushed past them all out the door. Spaeth felt the bonds between them stretching tight, then stretching again, agonizingly. Her legs gave way as the room swam in bright pinwheels. Somewhere out in the hall, she knew, Talley was doubled over in pain himself.

Then rough hands were wrenching her to her feet and forcing her away from him.

From the walls of Tornabay palace, Harg could see the blackened patches where the city had burned, like scabs on the hillside. The riots, and the fires that followed them, had raged worst in the Adaina sections, the steep ramshackle slums where the buildings were only wood. Even now some plumes of smoke rose, though it was probably only people burning off the trash.

It had taken them five days to get control of the city. When the commanders of the three prongs of the attack—Drome, Jearl, and Harg—had finally met in the Gallowmarket, the populace had welcomed them gratefully as an antidote to chaos. On an impulse, Harg had taken an axe and chopped down the grisly stake the Innings had left standing there. It hadn’t been a promise, just a venting of black anger. But he had learned since then that every act was symbolic if an Ison did it.

He had had to be half a dozen people in the following weeks. Harg the Adaina hero riding through the streets to assure the poor it wasn’t just Tiarch back again; Harg the conciliator meeting with the merchants to assure them it was; Harg the Ison, Harg the fellow soldier—all of them battling to conceal that other Harg, the one the Mundua and Ashwin wanted for their own. So far, that Harg was hidden, except to himself.

By military measures, the expedition had been a success; but it had so far failed in its main objective, drawing the Innings away from the South Chain. Talley had not risen to the bait. That didn’t make control of Tornabay useless, but Harg saw now that it would be a bigger drain on resources than he had anticipated, and the benefits would take time to have an effect.

There were voices behind him; he glanced back to see Gill and Jearl talking. With the intuition of inner tension, he knew it was bad news.

“What is it?” he said expressionlessly when they came up.

They exchanged glances, and Gill cleared his throat. “Holby Dorn attacked the Inning fleet just south of Yora.”

At first it made no sense. “Attacked them outright?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He didn’t want to hear any more. “Go on,” he said.

“Word is, it was a bloodbath. The
Vagabond
was shot to bits in the battle.”

“Did they capture Dorn?” Harg said.

“No. He was riddled with grape shot, they say. Now he’s a hero to the whole South Chain.”

What a grand, hopeless spectacle of pirate bravado: Dorn leading his fleet to sure death, doubtless with flags flying, rigging singing, guns flaring over the sea. Harg had once thought it would be a beautiful way to die. Now it seemed pointless.

“He only did it because I wouldn’t,” he said grimly.

No one answered.

Harg said, “Where is Talley now?”

“Harbourdown. He stopped on Yora to execute his prisoners. There’s no one left living there any more, they say. The whole island’s just a huge mass grave.”

Yes, that would fit the pattern.

“And, Harg—” Gill paused reluctantly. “We think Spaeth was with Dorn’s fleet.”

A coldness stabbed him. “Dead?” he said.

“We don’t know. It could be.”

If she was dead, his only hope of release was gone, and he would have to live with firesnakes in his brain forever. It was just, in a way.

In a stiff voice Harg said, “Jearl, you’re in charge here. I’m going back.”

He turned toward the stair leading down from the battlement. He saw every grain in the stone, and the way the brass door handle of his chamber was rubbed shiny in the spot where his thumb pressed. Then he was sitting on his bed, his arms crossed on his knees, studying the threads of the carpet under his feet. First, Talley had shot away his eye. Now, piece by piece, he was shooting away every other part of him. His home, his friends, every memory, every thing he cared for. Soon he would be nothing but missing parts.

*

The fort on the headland off Tornabay’s harbour fired a salute as the
Windemon
passed it. Harg watched the young men on the foredeck as they touched the linstock to the brass cannon they had just filled dangerously full of powder, and it gave a colossal bang. They swore in satisfaction.

He leaned over the gunwale, watching the white water froth past the bow. It was almost a year since he and Jory had returned home, and it was the same kind of clear, windy day as the one when they had closed in on Yora. He remembered thinking how it was all going to be different this time. It was almost enough to make him laugh.

Now Yora had gone the way of Vill and Crent and Bute. It was the bargain he had made by turning north instead of south. He thought of the iron stove in Strobe’s home, and the dock where the old men sat and smoked, and the mantelpiece where Goth had kept his soulstone—all rubble and Inning bootmarks by now. And all those close-knit, close-minded people of Yorabay—where were they? Scattered to a dozen islands? Had they been able to take their dogs?

He tried to force himself to stop thinking about it. It was gone; there was nothing to do. The home he had spent years trying to get back to, and another year fighting for, no longer existed. His thoughts strayed back to other places he had been, yet he couldn’t think of a single one where he belonged. His entire past was like a landscape of smoking ruins, as if he had passed through life using up and discarding everything. All of it consumed, nothing to turn back to.

For a moment he thought of sailing randomly west, of losing himself somewhere in the Widewater and never coming back. Just running toward the sun till he ran out of sea. It would be so simple.

And yet there was that heavy feeling in his gut, that feeling of responsibility. He had no choice, really. It felt as if all of this had been decided long before he was born, by forces greater than himself.

On the day they drew near to Lashnish, the sun was low in the west, and bright salmon streamers of cloud arched overhead. “We’ll be at anchor in a quarter of an hour,” Katri said to him.

“Good,” he said automatically. Ahead, there was a string of buoys across the bay entrance, marking a log-and-chain boom; one of the frigates they had left with Tiarch was anchored on guard. On one of the heights above the harbour the forest had been cleared, and a wooden lookout tower stood, facing south.

Lashnish looked very different. Its clear air was hazed from the smoke of hundreds of campfires burning along the waterfront. All down the coast the refugee camps had multiplied. There had to be thousands of people in them by now.

The harbourmaster’s boat had already set out from the dock by the time they were casting anchor in the harbour. “If she sends Joffrey to talk to me, I’ll tip him in the bay,” Harg said to Katri.

It wasn’t Joffrey in the boat; it was Tiarch herself, as if to make up for lukewarm welcomes of the past. Along with her in the boat—Harg looked again in surprise—was Tway. He thought briefly of lining the gunners up to give the Governor a salute; but it was just the sort of thing the Innings would do. As she heaved herself on board, muttering irritably at the sailors who tried to help her, Harg was struck by how much she had aged. Her iron-grey hair was shot through with white, and her face looked worn and weary.

But the impression disappeared as soon as she saw him. She came forward, looking him over with a curious mix of pride and apprehension. “Congratulations,” she said. “One of these days you ought to consider failing at something, just for the variety. But not right away, please.”

Her eyes were travelling over his face, measuring him. She was trying to appraise how they stood. He only realized then how completely their roles had reversed. “We saved your palace in Tornabay for you,” he said. “You can go back whenever you want.”

She smiled, though the questions weren’t gone from her face. “It’s still there, is it?”

So she knew it hadn’t been a clean victory. He felt relieved not to have to tell her.

“We did what we could,” he said, then gestured toward the great cabin. “We can talk inside.”

As Tiarch turned to go below, Harg’s eyes met Tway’s. Remembering how they had parted last, he grasped her hand and said, “I’m glad you’re still here.” Old friends seemed too rare and precious to lose these days.

She squeezed his hand and said, “You’re the best show in town, Harg.”

“Come with us,” he said, turning to the gangway.

“Did you see Joffrey?” Tiarch asked as she settled into a chair in the aft cabin.

“No, should I have?”

“He was going to Tornabay with the payroll.”

“Well, they’ll be glad to see him, then.”

He told Tiarch the neutral facts of what had happened at Tornabay. Stated that way, the outcome sounded completely inevitable. His luck had been so steady.

“It’s a pity we haven’t got time to let the Innings blunder themselves into extinction,” Tiarch said.

“I wasn’t dealing with Talley,” Harg said.

“True.” The name made Tiarch’s face go grim.

“What’s happened?” he said.

“He’s in Harbourdown now, you know. He’s issued a proclamation that the land and property of all Adaina who have resisted is forfeit, and will be parcelled out to Torna claimants. It’s caused quite a sensation. You can imagine, the Adaina are calling the Torna collaborators, and things worse than that.”

It was fiendishly clever. Talley was driving a wedge into the racial rift in the alliance against him. Harg said, “The Tornas would have to be dogs to accept such rewards.”

“No,” Tiarch said wearily, “they would just have to be human.”

There would be a rush of Tornas into the South Chain now, trying to stake claim to the best property. The ruined towns, the empty farmland—it would all become Torna soon, unless something were done.

“That bastard hasn’t won a single battle, and he’s still beating us,” Harg said bitterly.

“He’s got greed and ruthlessness on his side.”

It made Harg feel like he had bet on the wrong dog in the race. He had put his stakes behind balance and honour. He looked back at Tiarch. “What do you think he’ll do next?”

She shrugged. “The next logical target is Lashnish.”

She was right; Harg knew it. It was what he would do.

“We can’t let him have it,” he said. It was that simple. Their backs were against the wall. It almost gave him a feeling of relief, to know exactly what he had to do. He would have to draw Talley into a confrontation and settle the matter, once and for all.

“We won’t lose this one,” he said. “The forces of mora won’t let it happen.”

When they came back on deck evening had fallen, and a thousand campfires glimmered redly all along the shore. After seeing Tiarch off, Harg went to the foredeck and sat on one of bow chasers, staring out at the fires. They were watching him, like the eyes of children, trusting him to protect them. In the evening quiet he could feel the isles themselves, watching him.

Tway sat down beside him quietly. He waited for her to speak. For once, it seemed to be coming hard for her.

“You seem better,” she said. “Are you?”

He felt changed. He wasn’t sure he would call it better. “Have you heard anything about Spaeth?” he asked.

She shook her head. He looked away, realizing why he had asked. If Spaeth had been here, he would have been ready to surrender, and become Ison in truth as well as seeming.

“There is something you have to know, Harg,” Tway said at last. “Tiarch doesn’t need to know it, but you do.”

She paused. Surprised into silence, he waited.

“Harg, she isn’t really the Heir of Gilgen,” she said, barely loud enough for him to hear. “Goth didn’t give her the Emerald Tablet.”

Harg sat immobile, thunderstruck.

“She said she was,” he said.

“I know. It wasn’t true.”

“Then it was all a charade,” he said. “The dhota-nur. I’m not Ison, and can’t ever be.”

It suddenly struck him as impossibly funny. Everything he had taken on—the ceremony, the reverence, the responsibility—it was all a fraud. He wasn’t the one chosen to set the balances right; he was just a plain human being.

He started to laugh, and couldn’t stop. Tway grasped his hand, distressed. “Harg,” she said, “you can’t stop being Ison now. Why do you think she did it in the first place? Yes, it’s a lie, but it’s a lie we need.”

The laughter wouldn’t let him go. Distraught, she said, “You can’t let this change anything, Harg! The Emerald Tablet doesn’t matter. The Isles do.”

His laughter died down. His stomach ached. “Why did she tell you, and not me?”

“She didn’t. I found out from the Grey Folk. They’ve known all along.”

So they had duped him into walking into this trap. Oddly enough, he didn’t blame Spaeth. It was too likely that she had only been manipulated, as well—manipulated into doing what Goth would never have done. Something,
someone
had needed Harg to put his foot so firmly into the snare that he could never wriggle out again.

He looked out at the campfires again. So he had been wrong; the Isles weren’t watching him. There was no mora here, no fate, no balance.

“We’ll still do it,” he said softly. “We don’t need the Grey Folks’ power. We’ll do it, even if we’re just ordinary people, muddling along.”

“That’s the Harg I know,” Tway said.

They sat side by side, their arms entwined, looking out at the city. It seemed to Harg as if all he saw was doomed.

*

The island of Roah was shaped like a hairpin or a tuning fork; it had two long arms outstretched to the west. At their base, Lashnish lay, ringed behind with mountains. From the top of the ridge that formed the island’s southern arm, Harg could see the city on one side, nestled down in its watery cleft, the mist still hanging over it. On the other side he saw all the south coast of Roah. Everywhere along that coast were little bays with sandy beaches—perfect landing spots for an invading army.

It hadn’t come to Harg all at once, in a flash—just in small increments, tiny details that added up to one damning conclusion: Lashnish would have been superbly defensible with an army large enough to man all the heights, but he had no such army. As it was, his forces would be spread dangerously thin. There were just too many potential routes of attack.

Around him was a scene of manic activity. They had spent the last four days clearing trees along the ridgetop, and now were building ramparts and timber parapets to mount the big guns to be taken from the ships, when they arrived from Tornabay. Half the population of Lashnish had turned out to help, it seemed: stocky Torna shopkeepers, pimpled apprentices, maids, dockhands. The city must be deserted. A wagon was bumping up a makeshift road, piled with bread fresh from the ovens, and some elderly women were cooking up a huge pot of stew nearby. The dark forest soil had turned into a slippery mud with last night’s rain, and everyone was covered with it.