The Wandering Isles

by C. L. Schneider

  “There are bumps in every road, Shinree.” Color darkened, painting her cloudy suggestion of lips into a smile. “I admit, your reaction to our state of being is unexpected. Many are terrified of what they do not understand. The improbable. The inexplicable. I sense little of that in you.”

  “I’ve faced a lot of both in my life. You get used to it after a while. But don’t mistake my reaction as approval. From what I can tell, you’re exploiting the pain of others to ease your own. It’s a concept I’m personally familiar with. But I don’t forgive such behavior in myself. I certainly won’t in you. At the same time…” I stopped, and Isuara did, too. Taalman flanked her, but I focused on the one who mattered. “I know evil, Isuara. And I don’t sense it in you.”

  She dipped her head in gratitude.

  “That doesn’t make you benevolent. You’re forcing us to experience events and emotions you can’t, because it somehow fills the void your life has become. You know it does harm, but you don’t care. Because your condition, your need, is more important than ours. All of which makes it hard to see you as any better than me. You’re not some advanced, ancient, enlightened race. And you wouldn’t know a fair bargain if it bit you in the ass,” I threw in. “So don’t act like we’re getting anything out of this—or you’re letting us go.”

  “I have not deceived you, Troy. You may leave when the trade is complete.”

  “And when is that?” She said nothing, and I wagged a finger at her. “See, it’s that ‘when’ part you’re sketchy on. For all I know, you don’t measure time the same way we do—if at all. And I’m not about to be your pawn, moved from one shitty situation to the next, while you gobble up my fears, for the next thirty years.”

  I waited for her to refute my accusation, but Isuara remained quiet.

  “Perhaps you should fulfill Troy’s request?” Taalman pushed, unhappy with her hesitation. “Abandon the process and return his companion. Honor his primitive warrior instincts above our customs and allow the brute to fight his way out. It is all he knows.”

  “Mockery is beneath you,” Isuara scolded him.

  “He disputes our ways, our intentions,” Taalman argued. “Surely you see how he challenges you?”

  “We cannot fault a thing for its nature.”

  “As he does us? This is why we do not interact.” Taalman inched up in my face. “You have done nothing but test our resolve. It is only fair we test yours.”

  “My resolve? You sure you have time for that?”

  “As you suspected, Shinree, time does not concern us,” he said. “The more you resist, the longer it will take. If it is with the last breath of your aged body, you will complete the—”

  I cut him off with the abrupt draw of my sword and a fast swing. Magic pulsed along the blade, emitting a high-pitched, vibrating hum as the obsidian edge connected with Taalman’s side. Impact reverberated like a thunderbolt up my arm, as the shoots wrapping his body turned black and brittle. They shattered—all of them, all at once, spewing red, sticky fluid and rendering the pieces to dust—as the blade slid clean through.

  Without containment, Taalman’s shape collapsed and floated apart. I watched, ready to strike again if a new framework sprouted from the fog. Yet, the blow hadn’t merely destroyed the vines on him. All around where he stood, the shoots on the ground were black and ruptured.

  There was no way to know if the blow was fatal, or if I simply destroyed Taalman’s immediate means of taking form. But as his mist drifted into aimless, thinning strands, I eased my grip. ‘Out of the way’ worked for now, and my arm was killing me.

  Whatever magic the sword retained, it had one hell of a kick.

  Isuara, who sped swiftly out of reach the moment I drew, was on the move again. This time, her direction was more interesting—and intimidating—as a web of bright, healthy vines thickened and pushed her straight off the ground. Propelled upward, to tower twenty feet above me, Isuara’s voice thundered down, full of venom and disappointment. “I was patient with you.”

  “You were bored,” I growled back, “looking for a shiny new object to play with. Even better, I was the first magic user to come in range in a long time. But wielding a similar weapon, doesn’t make us even close to the same.”

  “You still have no concept of what the trade means to us.”

  “You forced me to watch my daughter die! You have no concept of what that means to me.”

  “Your act of aggression changes nothing, Shinree. At least, not in your favor.”

  A heavy bank of fog grew from thin air. Racing in and around the old structures, rising above the rooftops, the cloud darkened as it spread, eating up the sun. Heat evaporated from the air. Day turned to night. Whole sections of the city disappeared within the swelling billows. As the encroaching cloud swept steadily closer, I swung at the thick vine supporting Isuara. A moment before contact, her form withdrew, as if yanked backward by some unseen hand.

  Misty claws sprang from the cloud to wrap around my throat. Expanding, they stretched to incase me: devouring my legs, the tip of my blade, my thighs, and stomach. I closed my eyes as the fog rose higher. If it was going to consume me, I didn’t need to watch.

  Chapter Ten

  Taalman didn’t lie. There was no time in the mist. Sensation consisted of occasional patches of cold and damp on my skin. The only sound was my own; my breathing, my footsteps as I moved through the vapor, walking to nowhere. My sight was all but useless. The white was thick and constant, without a single variation or shadow. Whatever colors decorated the islanders’ features weren’t here. The fog was absent of shape or anything to indicate direction or deviation. My movements had no impact on the cloud. It was an unchanging, perpetual prison. Unbroken. Endless. Maddening.

  Nothing disturbed the particles. Nothing broke the monotony.

  At times, it felt like only moments had passed. At others, years.

  My circumstance left little hope of escape and even less distraction from my fear as it narrowed to a single focus: is this all there is now? Was this my price for slaying one of their kind? Was I condemned to exist here in isolation until I died, deprived of sensation, with nothing for company but regrets and memories I didn’t want?

  I came to a fast stop. She’s showing me what it’s like.

  “Isuara!” I shouted, taken aback by the unexpected lack of echo. “If you’re trying to prove a point, I get it. You can let me out now!”

  The quiet continued for so long after, I didn’t think my cries were heard. Then, tiny, golden dots came into being high in the distance. I stared, watching them twinkle. Stars. Gradually, more emerged to mark the sky, as the mist evaporated. That’s all she wanted, I thought. Recognition. Understanding. Isuara put me in the void to give me a taste of her reality, to make me appreciate her side and grasp how important the “trade” was to her people. Even if it worked, even if I empathized like she wanted, it didn’t erase the feel of Lirih’s limp body or Jarryd’s blood on my hands.

  The sky cleared faster as the moon emerged, shining enough light to see that I was back to wearing my leather armor with the hooded surcoat overtop. I was disappointed the obsidian sword was not in either sheath. But it made sense. Neither the blade, nor my “real” clothes belonged in this new, contrived reality forming around me.

  I was grateful for the extra layer of warmth the coat provided, though. Whatever trial awaited me here, wherever I was, the night was cold. Uneven waves of sand stretched out far into the distance, identifying the terrain as more of a true desert than the dead wasteland of the island. I turned, anticipating another expanse of sand behind me. Discovering, instead, a sleek black wall, continuing for miles in both directions, a muffled curse slipped out.

  I guess it was only a matter of time.

  I walked up and pressed a palm against the smooth surface. Even before my skin touched the dark stone, I knew it would emit no vibration. I also knew where I was, what the wall was made of, and what it could do. There was no other structure like
it in all of Mirra’kelan. The massive barrier, erected to protect the new Shinree city of Ru Jaar’leth, was composed entirely of the only stone incapable of being channeled or cast. Hornblende had one use: to arbitrarily corrupt and twist any spell within range.

  Ru Jaar’leth was built to be the cornerstone of my father’s budding empire. When I left, it was in much better hands. I doubted that was the case now. But “when” was this? Was I here to endure another warped version of the future, the present, or the past? Which version of Jem will I find here? The one who threatened the life of my newborn child, or the one who turned my daughter into an eldring?

  I wanted neither.

  With a frustrated roar, I drew back and kicked the wall. It was a useless gesture. Though, I’d made few moves so far that were anything but useless. Only the gods knew how long I’d been on the island, and I knew more about what didn’t work against my captors, than what did.

  And I was no closer to breaking free.

  Pacifism was rarely my first choice, but I had the urge to decline Isuara’s invitation and walk off into the desert. Refusing to participate might get me sent back inside the fog. Merely the thought sparked a chill on my skin. Yet, apparently, my only strategy was trial and error. If I kept it up long enough, something had to break.

  I felt a bit like a sulking child as I stripped off Isuara’s gift, threw the surcoat on the ground, spun on my heels, and marched away.

  I studied the sand, looking for signs of fog.

  The response came ten paces later, and not in the form I expected, as torches flickered to life atop the wall. Lower, stone scraped stone, and a troop of Shinree soldiers rushed through a tall gate that wasn’t there before. Heavily armed men fanned out into a circle and pointed blades at various parts of my body. I checked for a noticeable glazing of the eyes to indicate they were spelled. It was my father’s favorite way of gaining followers. But their pure white Shinree eyes were clear and bright, brimming with malice and recognition.

  They knew me. And they didn’t like me very much.

  More men appeared above, taking up positions between the flames. Raising spears in unison, they stood, poised and ready to throw.

  Even if I wrestled free of the ones on the ground, the ones above would impale me in seconds. Dying would end the moment, I thought Yet there was nothing to stop Isuara from restarting it—or sending me somewhere worse.

  Play along. Complete the trade.

  Figure out a way to kill them.

  One way or another, I was leaving this goddamn island.

  I dropped my weapons and raised my hands. The guards accepted my surrender in silence and escorted me to the gate. It was a wide, dark monstrosity with woven twists of iron and pronged spikes. The configuration was meant to dissuade tampering, but the branching design reminded me far too much of thorny vines.

  As we stepped through, a notion hit me to cast on the guards and infiltrate the city covertly. Is that what they want? Did the islanders’ push the thought into my head? I hated being here, but it wasn’t worth the risk. The abundance of hornblende would wreak havoc with my spells. People would die. And I’d spent too much time with Death lately; real and imagined. I didn’t want to cause anyone else I cared about to suffer. Because they were here, somewhere.

  Isuara wouldn’t have it any other way.

  In the back of my mind, I was counting on it.

  Being with Lirih again woke something in me I wasn’t proud of and couldn’t keep denying: an intense longing for those I left behind. A part of me was eager for the chance to see them again, even if it meant enduring what the islanders dished out. It was an embarrassing weakness, but a comfortable one. Being willing to suffer for fleeting scraps of good was something I’d done all my life.

  So I stayed the course. I complied with their gruff commands, as we walked the streets. I gritted my teeth against their repeated shoves and scanned the city for familiar faces. Seeing few faces at all, I busied myself with noting the changes. There were quite a few since I was last here.

  The line of flowering trees planted alongside the thoroughfares were new. There were permanent market stalls now, decorative street signs, ornamental fountains. We passed through a square with a circle of statues in its center. Brass plates were affixed to the bottom of the sculptures, indicating they were the artist’s impressions of the gods. I’d never seen them represented in stone before.

  Fate was a twisted amalgam of shifting male and female parts; accurate, and no doubt taken from my mind. Death was an imposing man in robes without a face. Interesting. Fortune was… That’s odd. There was no god of fortune. Shinree didn’t believe in luck.

  There were more I couldn’t see, on the other side of the circle, but the subjects had to be different. My people put faith in only a handful of gods, and even then, we had no organized religion. Slavery wiped it away with the rest of our society.

  There were various other cosmetic trimmings. The painted murals, garden plots, and carved benches were a nice touch. They put me in mind of how the ancient empire looked before its fall. But this was Ru Jaar’leth, built at the height of my father’s insanity. It’s haphazard architectural style (streaked with hornblende) and impractical, snaky layout were a direct reflection of his rapid deterioration. It would take more than trees to hide his influence—or the clear sense of unease on the nearly empty streets. Palpable tension oozed through the cobblestones. Candlelight leaked from a few open windows, but most were shuttered. Against the late hour? Or something else?

  There was little noise in our immediate area. A restless horse in the stable. Muffled voices echoed in from a few streets over. Farther away, was the indistinguishable din of a large crowd. Most troubling: an uncomfortable tightening of the air. Someone was using magic. A lot of it, judging by the constant overlapping vibrations.

  It didn’t take long to realize the source of both the magic and the crowd, and our destination, were one in the same. All the big events took place in the massive arena at the far end of the city. It was where I first discovered Lirih’s transformation. Where I fought a skin bear, reunited with Sienn, and challenged my father. There, on the sand, in the center of the arena, I ruptured the Crown of Stones and ended my people’s addiction—cementing my own.

  The steady hum of cheers penetrated the closed arena doors as we approached. On the other side, something significant was about to occur. The large group of spectators couldn’t have been organized so quickly on my account, though. Some other poor bastard was the focus of their excitement. And no doubt, directing the affair from his throne, was the one person in all the realms I didn’t want to see.

  My untimely melancholy didn’t extend to Jem Reth.

  One encounter with my manipulative, unhinged father was more than enough. The thought of suffering through another went from disturbing to consuming in a single breath. Imagining being in his presence again, quickened my pulse and slowed my steps.

  Rapidly, the odds and the hornblende lost importance.

  I wanted to steal a weapon and take out the guards.

  I wanted to run—which was exactly why Isuara put him here.

  He’s not real, I thought. He can’t be. He’s dead.

  Nothing he says matters.

  Play the game. Stay the course. I took a slow, deep breath. See it through.

  And wake up in the next nightmare.

  Until I had the means to break the chain, it was all I could do.

  The arena doors parted. Light and sound fled the opening, wafting out with a puff of acrid smoke from the smoldering torch poles. The stands were bursting with attendees. All were Shinree, to one degree or another. Most were standing, drinking heartily from tankards, and waving brightly colored pennants in the air. The torches, jutting from the sand on both sides, flickered at eye-level, all the way to the raised dais at the opposite end of the sand.

  The platform was unlit. A handful of silhouettes moved across it, but with the smoke and shadows, I couldn’t discern any features. />
  A guard conveyed his desire to move with a swift fist in my back. Stumbling, I spun to retaliate, and the entire regiment slid their blades out halfway in warning.

  One man directed me with a gruff, “Walk. Now.”

  Another shoved me ahead, wanting me to take the lead. “Out in front.”

  I moved. The guards didn’t.

  I glanced back, keeping an eye on them. When I was several paces away, they started forward, taking up the rear with unhurried strides. Confused, I kept going.

  Something wet struck my arm and exploded. As another hit my neck, I understood why the guards were hanging back. Far from welcoming, the crowd was throwing jeers, along with assorted fruits and vegetables, in my direction. I dodged what I could, and the sand grew colorful with the chunks of overripe flesh and pulp. More than I liked, they hit their mark. I flung off the clumps and licked the running juice off my lips without a word, refusing to give the hecklers the response they were after.

  Despite their adverse reaction to my arrival, as I suspected, I wasn’t the reason for the gathering. Three figures knelt on the ground in front of the dais. Bowed heads hidden inside hooded cloaks, their arms were stretched out. Wrists were shackled and chained to metal stakes—positioned just far enough apart to be uncomfortable. Depending on the emperor’s mood, the prisoners were awaiting execution, or at least a good beating.

  The likelihood of being prisoner number four became a certainty as the bulk of the guards split off, and the remaining three steered me to an empty spot between two stakes on the end. Two of them bent, each retrieving a shackle. The third directed me to kneel.

  The entire scene was fabricated. My actions had no tangible effect on the outcome. The moment would continue until the islanders fully exploited my fear. Resisting the guards, fighting their attempt to restrain me, was pointless.

  I did it on principle.

  Thrusting back, smacking my head into the man behind me, I threw a jab left and an elbow right. Spinning, ramming a knee into an unprotected groin, I stripped a sword from its sheath and kicked its owner back. As he rushed to reclaim the weapon, I lunged and rammed the blade through his groin. Throwing him off, I whirled to engage the other two.