Isles of the Forsaken

by Ives Gilman, Carolyn

  “Joffrey, how are you?” Minicleer drawled pleasantly, looking down from his six-and-a-half-foot height at the compact Commodore. He had wavy, honey-coloured hair and a long face with prominent teeth and fleshy, sensual lips. Joffrey could not imagine what women saw in him; perhaps it was that he radiated an air of privilege.

  “It is a pleasure to see you again, sir,” Joffrey said, managing to sound both gracious and respectful.

  Tossing his hat on the table and sinking into the chair that Goran had recently vacated, Minicleer regarded Joffrey with the kind of fondness another man might have reserved for his dog. “You outlanders live in a state of primitive bliss, did you know that?”

  “Indeed?”

  “Your conflicts are at such an elementary level. Race hatred is refreshingly primal to a person accustomed to the complexities of the Court.”

  “You must have received news from Fluminos,” Joffrey said.

  “Yes,” Minicleer said, but then proceeded not to share it. “I have come to invite you to a celebration. There will be ladies present. It’s really unseemly for you not to couple with them, Joffrey. You know the rumours that get started about men in ships.”

  “Give me a chance,” Joffrey said with a tense smile. “I’ve not been here long. What are we celebrating?”

  “A great victory. My team won the tournament.”

  “Congratulations, sir!” Joffrey said warmly. “Against some stiff opposition, too. And everyone said sacking the coach was the wrong move.”

  Joffrey had learned to follow Innings sports once he had realized that the teams were all sponsored by various factions of the old aristocracy, who avidly followed them in place of the real power they had once wielded, and still craved.

  Minicleer, protesting modestly, allowed himself to be praised and congratulated for five minutes, until he grew bored.

  “Who was the man with the peculiar complexion being escorted up to the palace when I came in?” Minicleer spoke with stylish indolence, but his eyes were sharp.

  For a moment Joffrey hesitated. “He was a man we feared might cause trouble in the outlands during the occupation. The Governor ordered him brought in, and I concurred.”

  But Minicleer had caught the instant of hesitation, and it was enough to arouse his curiosity. “His name?”

  “Goran,” Joffrey said, gambling that the Inning would not recognize it.

  “He did not look like a rebel commander. What is his significance?”

  Technically, Joffrey would not have had to answer; but he was not about to resist a direct question from an Inning. “He is the son of Onan Listor, who was involved in the last rebellion.”

  This was something Minicleer could understand. “You think he would have made a bid for the crown of the Forsakens?”

  The question was so impossibly wide of the mark that Joffrey could not think at first how to answer it. “There is no crown of the Forsakens,” he said at last. “Goran’s power lies . . . elsewhere.”

  Misreading Joffrey’s hesitation, Minicleer said coldly, “I advise you not to withhold information from me.”

  A chill of tension passed down Joffrey’s back at that tone, and he said, “The Heirs of Gilgen have a religious significance, sir. Ordinarily, there is no formal king or government. But in times of crisis, a leader will often arise. If the Heir of Gilgen endorses that leader’s righteousness, then he or she becomes the Ison of the Isles. Any cause that Goran backed would become a holy crusade.” It was a feeble way of describing it, but at least the Inning would understand.

  “Well then,” Minicleer smiled, “get him to endorse our cause.”

  “I am afraid he would not do that willingly.”

  “There are ways of getting men to do things, even against their wills.” Minicleer’s smile had turned into a cruel smirk.

  “I am afraid torture would be counterproductive with a Lashnura.”

  “Perhaps you islanders are not as skilled at such things as we are. Or perhaps you fear supernatural vengeance. Is there a trace of superstition hiding even in you, Joffrey?”

  Joffrey answered calmly, “No, sir. The man will do as we wish.”

  “Good.” Minicleer strolled toward the east wall, where a mosaic map of the Inner Chain was inlaid in many-coloured woods. He looked as aimless as if he had never uttered a threat. “I never understood why the South Chain and Outer Chain were left off this wall. You will have to get them added.” Taking a sharp knife from the table, he gouged a rough line in the wood where the missing islands should be placed.

  “I will hazard a prediction, my friend,” he continued. “Eyes in Fluminos will be turning north in the next few years. I think the Forsakens will be the place to achieve power and fortune in the years to come. And I intend to be here when the rewards are harvested.”

  Not if Corbin Talley can help it, Joffrey thought to himself. Aloud, he said, “I am glad to hear it.”

  “How is the occupation proceeding, by the way?” the Inning asked suddenly.

  “We are moving a bit cautiously at first,” Joffrey said. “I have sent out three ships to re-establish the old fort at Harbourdown, which appears to be a hotbed of piracy. Beyond that, we will have to wait for reinforcements from the Southern Squadron.” Well-trained, experienced reinforcements, he thought. Men who knew what discipline was.

  “I see no reason to wait,” Minicleer said.

  “We don’t want to stir up resistance.”

  “Resistance?” the Inning asked sharply. “From Rothur?”

  “Oh no, sir; from the islanders. The Adaina are a rebellious and intransigent race, you know. It does not take much to make them start talking of war. Nothing will ever civilize them, I sometimes think.”

  “Don’t tell me about Adaina. I had to deal with the smelly little brownskins when I had your job. It was like commanding wild animals—barely even housebroken.”

  “Yes,” Joffrey agreed ruefully. “Well, I have been ordered to promote some of them.”

  Minicleer gave a venomous sneer. “Just the sort of order a Talley would give. The navy as social engineering project. Damn it, I did the right thing by getting out.” He fell silent, but the subject was still rankling. Joffrey knew that if he just waited, he would learn more. This was exactly the sort of thing he had been doing for the last four years.

  “It’s this doctrine of individualism,” Minicleer went on. “It puts our most cherished institutions at risk, claiming the law applies to individuals without regard to race or class or family. The law shouldn’t be poking into the personal realms of family and household, setting child against parent, hirelings against their employers, men against their officers, giving them ‘rights’ to quarrel with one another. There ought to be a sacred barrier protecting traditional institutions against the usurpations of the law.”

  “I know,” Joffrey murmured. It was the great debate in Inning.

  “But the individualists want to spread their doctrine across the world,” Minicleer said. “These Talleys, you know, they aren’t an old family. They’re not even wealthy. All they’ve got is their wits.”

  Joffrey reflected on the mindset of a world in which this could be construed as an insult.

  Minicleer went on, “The grandfather was a tradesman, the father has seized the highest post in the land, the sons are poised to become our emperors and tyrants. If we don’t check them now, we’ll all be living in a world they created.”

  “Mmm,” Joffrey said. “Especially us islanders.”

  This had the desired effect. “You are a faithful friend, Joffrey,” Minicleer said. “I wish that more of your race were like you.”

  It was not long before Minicleer left, and Joffrey could settle down again to his letter. The Provost’s visits always left him in a foul mood. When his secretary brought in a pile of papers he shuffle
d morosely through them, complaining bitterly about the hours he had to keep. Among the papers was a handwritten note saying only, “No. 2 reports all is well and full information to come soon.” Joffrey smiled grimly. Number 2 was the spy he had set on Minicleer. He hoped soon to know enough about the Inning to ruin him.

  “Get a woodworker to see if that wall can be repaired,” Joffrey snapped at the waiting secretary, and immediately felt better.

  *

  Harg was no stranger to ships’ brigs. This one had the advantage of being empty of other occupants; it had the disadvantage of being overrun with cockroaches. Shortly after the marines dumped him into the dank and fetid hole, he discovered that if he stayed still the roaches would be on him in a ravenous swarm—crawling up his pants legs, down his collar, dropping into his hair. Once he managed to doze off, and woke up bitten all over, to find them feasting on his eyelashes.

  Driven beyond endurance, he resorted to drastic measures. Focusing his disgust into an intense beacon, he sent out a prayer to any dark power listening. Praying had never worked in Inning, but here the circles ruled by the Mundua and Ashwin lay closer to the surface, and the boundaries could be crossed. For hours he concentrated, and that night he had a dream that a pinprick hole opened into one of the other circles and sucked the whole godforsaken swarm down into what he sincerely hoped was perdition. The next morning he woke unbitten. Some day, he knew, he would pay for having incurred a debt to supernatural forces; but at the moment no price seemed too high.

  Over the next two days he waited. His mind was racing and jumpy, endlessly playing over old memories. When he slept, his dreams were haunted by horrific images. Over and over he started awake, thinking his clothes were stiff with caked blood. But it was only his own sweat. It was no better when he woke, because then the memories came attached to shame and second-guessing. Why had he decided to leave the navy? At least they knew how to deal with people like him, damaged men with ugly things hiding in their skulls. The Innings were the ones who had created him; let them deal with the problem. He never should have inflicted himself on Yora.

  And yet, in moments when his exhausted mind fell still enough to let him hear the quiet lapping of water against the hull, he felt that if ever he were to be cured, it would be on Yora. There was a healing power here to filter everything Inning out of him. Here, he could hope to finally feel clean, inside and out. He could be alone and at peace with himself.

  The marines came to get him on the third day. They led him without explanation up onto the deck, where he blinked like a cave bat in the sunlight. Some sort of ceremony seemed to be in preparation; they had stretched an awning over the poop deck, and a large delegation of Yorans was gathered, sitting cross-legged in the waist of the ship. On the break of the quarterdeck a table was set out with three chairs behind it, two of them occupied by the captain and lieutenant of the ship, the third by a lanky young Inning civilian dressed soberly in black. Harg instantly decided he did not care for the symbolism—the Tornas and Inning in chairs on the dais, the Adainas on the floor below.

  “What’s this?” Harg asked the marine at his side.

  “Shut up,” the soldier explained.

  The villagers had just noticed him, and turned to stare curiously at his filthy, bruised condition. It was so bitterly far from the homecoming Harg had dreamed

  of that it triggered a familiar mental switch. It wasn’t himself the Innings were degrading; it was Captain Harg, and through him all Adainas who dared to rise above their stations. The thought gave him a burn of indignation that made it possible to seem defiant while his insides were withering with humiliation.

  When the marine guard led Harg to a stool in the front of the assemblage, it dawned on him that perhaps he was going to be court-martialled—an unlikely thought, since he wasn’t even in the navy any more. When Harg was seated, the Inning rose to address the crowd of Yorans. “We have brought you here today to witness a demonstration of Inning justice,” he said. “We hope you will find it instructive. The purpose of this trial is to determine the guilt or innocence of this man—” he glanced down at a paper in his hand “—Harg Ismol, and to decide upon the penalties he should face. I am Justice Nathaway Talley, and my role here is—”

  He embarked on a little speech about the role of a Justice of the Peace in trials where no attorneys had been retained. Harg heard it only vaguely. He was too busy wondering about the name, and whether there could be a connection. He knew for a fact that not all Innings were named Talley—very few of them, in fact. It was possible, he decided as he studied the young man. That blond hair and skinny build . . . if you took Corbin and ran the clock back fifteen or twenty years, then replaced his look of arctic control with one of bewildered self-consciousness, they could be brothers.

  Harg’s attention returned when Justice Talley asked the captain to read the charges. The Torna stood, resplendent in his uniform, and read from a paper.

  “The charges are as follows, to wit: that you did disobey the lawful order of an officer in the pursuance of his duty; that you did commit assault upon an officer of the law, causing grievous bodily harm; that you did use a deadly weapon in the commission of said assault; that you did resist arrest; that you did commit theft upon the person of an Inning officer. The penalties for which, if all found true, shall be sale into slavery for a period of fifteen years, or loss of a limb.” He looked up. “How do you plead?”

  Harg was still trying to absorb the depth of the trouble he was in. And all from a brawl on the beach.

  “You have to say whether you’re guilty or not,” Nathaway prompted.

  “Not of those charges!” Harg declared. “I didn’t disobey an order because he didn’t give one; I didn’t cause him grievous bodily harm; I tried to use the weapon to stop the assault, not to commit it; and as for theft—where the rotting hell did you get that idea?”

  The guard behind him struck him on the ear. “Respect your betters, brown boy,” he said.

  The Inning rose to his feet in dismay. “You can’t hit the defendant,” he said. “Nobody hits anyone else in court, all right? And no one uses curses or racial slurs. You’ve all got to respect the venue, or this won’t work. Just try to pretend you don’t all hate each other till we’re out of here.” He turned to Harg. “You’ll have a chance to answer the charges. We’ve got to get through some preliminaries first.”

  The first preliminary was selection of a jury. Justice Talley gave a speech extolling the practice of trial by jury, the crowning glory of Inning jurisprudence. “The jury system gives you the power to decide for yourselves about what constitutes justice,” he told them. “We don’t want to impose our ideas on you. We want to give you the tools to enact your own ideas.”

  Harg wondered what the man thought he was doing at the moment, if not imposing Inning ideas. But Nathaway seemed unaware of the contradiction.

  When the Inning called for someone to step forward to be empanelled, the Yorans all turned expectantly to the spot where the elders were gathered. Stiffly, Father Argen rose to his feet and came forward to face the Justice. It was astonishing how little he had changed in seven years: hair white as seafoam, face like weathered driftwood. And he looked as cantankerous as ever. The older the ginger the sharper the bite, Harg thought. He and Argen had never gotten along.

  The Inning asked, “Do you know the defendant?”

  “Oh, I know him all right, and I can tell you truly, he’s been a problem since the day he was born. He was a kmora child, you know.”

  Harg winced, thinking that now the whole story was going to get paraded out.

  “I beg your pardon?” the Inning said.

  “A kmora child. In our custom, when a couple can’t conceive, they follow our ancient way and go to a dhotamar. If the Grey Man consents to become bandhota to them both, then it is like a three-way bond, and the dhotamar is a vessel or conduit in the creation of
the child. Then it is like the child has three parents. The only risk is that the babe might be born Lashnura. But this one wasn’t.”

  He turned to survey Harg, who was trying stoically to pretend he wasn’t there. “Five years later his natural parents both died in the same boating accident, and there was no one to take him in. It was then the trouble started. We tried to do our best, the powers know, but it was like trying to tame a raccoon; he just ran wild, and no one could do anything with him.”

  “This is fascinating, but not really relevant,” the Justice said.

  Irritated at the interruption, Argen said, “I’m getting to that part. It nearly broke Goth’s heart, you see, since he felt responsible, having given of himself to create the child. But the only cure in his power was dhota, and that the boy would never consent to. So when Harg’s heart turned so black and he lured Jory away to the war and all, why it nearly killed Goth. He brooded and wasted away for months. If he hadn’t made that girl to solace him, he wouldn’t be alive today.”

  “Thank you, I think you can step down now,” Nathaway said to stop this recital.

  “I’m just trying to tell you, the boy is bad, and whatever they say he did, he probably did it all right, and more to boot. And if Goth doesn’t come back, that’s probably his fault as well.”

  “Thank you, that will be all. Please return to your seat.”

  “I was to sit on the jury,” Argen reminded him.

  “I’m sorry, but we are looking for people who are impartial.”