Isles of the Forsaken

by Ives Gilman, Carolyn

  Ripplewill scudded forward across the waves, propelled by the tension between wind and sea, drawing power from the clashes born of the boundary. This whole world was the same, a boundary line, precariously poised on the edge of annihilation. Only humans had the power to tip it over the edge. She looked at the others on deck, suddenly suspecting them all. Her eyes rested longest on Harg where he stood at the bow, looking forward. But no, that would be too simple. Ridwit would not have risked telling her if he were the one.

  She hated the panther’s malicious humour then, for giving the warning to her, the least likely of any Lashnura to know what to do about it.

  7

  Herbs and Poisons

  They were trying to kill him with contrasts, Goth thought as he stepped from the palace into the garden. A breeze fresh from the invisible sea stirred his clothing, still musty with sweat. Above him the birds were warbling promises they could never keep, and the trees rustled as if they were not, like everything else here, prisoners.

  They had sent him straight from their Hospital of Justice to regain his peace of mind in a garden. He had been in the clean, sunlit hospital for ten minutes before he had realized that the gleaming instruments set out on white linen were not made for mending bodies, but for rending them. The cultivated Inning doctor who toured him around never used the word “torture.” He called it “correctional science.”

  “It is a far more efficient and rational method of criminal justice than incarceration,” the doctor said. “It is more effective as a deterrent, it operates faster, and it is far less costly. Lock a man up for ten years and he comes out as incorrigible as before. But a month here will break even the most defiant and courageous criminal, and make him abject and compliant. Pain has a remarkable transformative power. We have refined our methods to work efficiently on the mind, for that’s the point, isn’t it? Anyone can break a body. We want to modify the man.”

  Goth was not timid when it came to pain; he had known too much of it. Other people’s pain, mostly. It had had a sanctity in his life, coming to him as it had in the intimate embrace of dhota. But here in Tornabay, it had lost its purity. It was not an act of love, but of control.

  “Why are you showing me this?” Goth had asked.

  “You will have to consult Commodore Joffrey,” the doctor had said politely. “He asked me to give you the tour; that’s all I know.”

  As the shady gravel path unfolded before him, Goth reflected that there were only two things they could want from him: to anoint a new Ison of the Isles, or not to. If the object were to prevent him, then threats served no purpose.

  The problem was, they also served no purpose if the object were to gain his support.

  What his captors evidently didn’t know was that he was already in pain—the unending heart-pain of separation from his bandhotai. The Innings had already sliced away great parts of him, as sure as if they had used a razor. There was an aching pit inside him, where severed bonds hung dangling. In that cavity the universe was empty, a grey waste fit only for kindling.

  He forced himself to walk on. The garden was placed in an angle where the palace walls met the sheer side of Mount Embo, so that on one side the gnarled black rock of an old lava flow formed the only wall, rising nearly vertical for forty feet. Down the cliff’s knotted side a small mountain spring tumbled into a moss-edged pool. Goth sat on the bank and splashed some water on his hot face. A few yellow poplar leaves were drifting on the pool.

  It was very beautiful, he thought, trying to keep his mind balanced away from thoughts he could not control. And yet the beauty was deliberate—as if the garden had been placed in the fortress just to create a mocking illusion of freedom. When he saw that the ivy climbed hopefully up the wall to the iron spikes set at the top, he shook his head at its useless optimism. It would never escape.

  At first he did not notice the bottle bobbing in the water by his hand. When he saw it, he took it up with suspicion, for there was a message in it. He unfolded the scrap of paper, holding it well away from him. It was printed in a large, childlike hand. It said:

  Heir of Gilgen, be of good heart. Your people know that Tiarch holds you. Believe in us, and we will make you free.

  He frowned, angry and frustrated. Evidently, some mad patriots had once more rallied against the rule of Inning, and now in their foolish zeal they had managed to compromise him with an incriminating letter. His first instinct was to shred it and scatter it on the water; but as he was about to act, a sound made him stop, certain he was watched. Not a movement stirred the holly bushes around him; a squirrel browsed nearby, oblivious of human presence.

  It occurred to Goth then that the letter might be just one more contrivance of his captors—a test. How, after all, could rebels penetrate Tiarch’s citadel to leave a message in a garden where Goth had never been before this moment, and where only the governor’s staff could have known he was likely to be?

  Putting the note in one of the tiny ornamental pockets of his Inning waistcoat, he rose to pace. Soon he heard again the sound that had startled him; it came from another part of the garden. He passed through an arbour and came to a place where the air was perfumed with herbs that grew in little terraces against the frowning mountain. In one of the plots a middle-aged woman was working with a trowel, planting seedlings in the black soil. She looked up for a moment on hearing his step, then turned back to her task. Goth stood and watched her, ridiculously pleased to see an ordinary person performing an ordinary task.

  At length the gardener finished the row she was working on and sat back on her heels to survey her visitor. Her grey hair was tied back in a red scarf. Her high cheekbones and broad mouth revealed her Torna origins.

  “Have some tea,” she said in a voice that was both rough and pleasant.

  Going to where she pointed, Goth took a hot teapot swathed in cloth from the lunch pail she had set under a bush. He poured the steaming liquid into a small pottery cup, tasted it, and nodded. The heat soothed the ache inside him.

  “You like it?” the gardener asked, reaching out a knotted, mud-caked hand to take a taste. “It’s a blend of four mints I mixed myself. They all came from this garden. The star mint here, rose mint here, the ruffled mint in the plot behind you, and white mint over by the wall.” She sounded as if she were introducing him to friends.

  “It looks like a mess, but all the plants are grouped so they will help one another grow,” she explained. “One plant will attract the butterflies, while another keeps off the aphids. This plant enriches the soil with foods that plant takes away. I have been working for twenty years to balance them perfectly. The secret is variety. Always I need a greater variety to create a plot that will sustain itself.”

  “What are they used for?”

  The gardener rose, brushing dirt off her skirt. “Some are used in the kitchens. Others are for medicines. Some are never used. Those, for instance.” She gestured to a nearby terrace. “They are mostly poisons, some of the deadliest native to the isles.”

  “If they are never used, why do you raise them?” Goth asked.

  She shrugged noncommittally. “Many poisons have medicinal properties. It’s all in the dosage, whether they cure or kill. This one is the only import.” She paused by a waxen-leaved plant that had been covered against the cold of night. “In Rothur, where it grows wild, they call it achra, or delight. There they eat the root whole for the feeling of pleasure it gives. But the Innings have found a way of distilling the elements of the root, and creating a substance so strong that people who have tasted it can never again rest with ordinary pleasures. They say achra gives each person his heart’s desire, for a time.”

  Goth said nothing.

  “Everything else here is native,” the gardener said. “Seeds and bulbs and grafts have been brought from every corner of every Chain. Here representatives from all the isles live and bloom in peace. How u
nlike the real world, eh?” She gave him a wry and knowing smile.

  “Perhaps someday the people will learn from the plants,” Goth replied.

  “Not in your lifetime or mine.”

  It was the voice of an actress, Goth decided. It had a harsh, throaty quality that made it arresting even when she spoke the softest. For some reason—he could not tell why—Goth liked this chance companion. She did not have the cold officiousness of the Innings, or the wiliness of the servants of Tiarch. On an impulse he took the piece of paper from his pocket and showed it to her.

  “What do you think of this?” he asked.

  Her face grew very grave as she read it. At last she handed it back to him. “Where did you get it?”

  “In a bottle in the pool over there,” he said. “Is it genuine, do you think?”

  “Oh yes, it’s genuine enough.” She had an air of resignation. “How they smuggled it in here, I can’t say. There may be a spy on the staff.”

  “Who sent it?”

  Instead of answering, she strolled on down the path to where a big, gnarled boulder jutted out of the grass. She settled down on its sun-baked back and regarded him sharply, her black eyes glittering with a thousand thoughts.

  “I can’t tell you,” she said. “A band of zealots hiding somewhere in the city, I suppose. You had better tell Commodore Joffrey.”

  Goth was silent. Somehow, he had expected a more compassionate, less official answer from her. She read his emotions with the skill of a fortune-teller.

  “Disappointed?” she said roughly.

  Her tone provoked him to honesty despite his better judgment. “You answer like a minion of Tiarch’s.”

  “That’s not surprising,” she said, “considering that I am Tiarch.”

  For a moment he thought she was joking; but the set of her jaw convinced him otherwise. He struggled with confusion then, unwilling to believe he was at last facing the Innings’ viceroy in the isles, the politician who had ridden Inning power to dominion.

  “Surprised?” she demanded. “What did you expect me to be like?”

  Goth’s long years among the Adaina had left him unskilled at navigating with words. He did not have the agility to come about into this wind. So he drew his dignity about him and was silent.

  “You,” said Tiarch, “are exactly as I expected: a man concealing his heritage under rustic ways, using age as a veil to hide his strength. It’s so, isn’t it?”

  “I have nothing to hide from you,” he murmured.

  “I am glad to hear that. If it’s true, you are the only person in Tornabay who can say as much. They all have something to hide from me. Even my ‘minions.’ Especially my minions. But that is the way with rulers, isn’t it?” She looked to him for confirmation.

  “I don’t know,” Goth said. “I have never been a ruler.”

  “Would you like to try?” she gave a wry, sandpaper chuckle. “I’ll give you my kingdom for a day.”

  “You could not bribe me to take it.”

  “Wise man. So you think I’ve been unjust in bringing you here?”

  He groped for the right answer. Justice was an Inning word, an Inning idea. Impatient at his slowness, she said, “Come along. You told Joffrey as much.”

  “Yes,” he forced the word out. “It was unjust. I have done nothing to merit being taken from my bandhotai.”

  His voice faltered on the word. For an instant he thought he was going to break down right in front of her. With an effort of will, he kept control. Slowly he went on, “It was also unwise.”

  “How so?”

  “Where I was, not a soul knew me. Here, they not only know me; they rally around me against my will.” He touched the paper in his pocket. “There, I would have lived out my life in peace, surrounded by my bandhotai. Here, you are making me a desperate man.”

  She was thoughtful at this, regarding him keenly. “Tell me,” she said, “what could I do to make you content?”

  “Free me,” he answered. “Let me go back.”

  “I think you do not appreciate what a dangerous man you are,” she mused.

  He protested, “I have never opposed you or the Innings. Who rules in the isles is of no concern to me. All I have ever cared for is to rule myself.”

  “Who rules in the isles is supposed to be your concern,” she said. “The Heir of Gilgen is supposed to keep himself free of dhota, so he can care about who rules.” She paused to let him answer; when he didn’t, she said, “Why did you do it? Why give dhota when you didn’t have to?”

  How could he answer? He had done it because union with the human soul had filled his need to lose himself in something higher. He had thought that by giving himself away to all, he might come close to touching the divine. But it hadn’t been that easy. Love had a way of becoming personal, fixed on the individual rather than the universal.

  “I was a terrible fool,” he said.

  Frowning, she said, “But it doesn’t disqualify you, true? If someone were to come to you now, claiming to be the next Ison, you could still confirm or deny him?”

  As she said it, Goth felt a deep rumbling in his bones, and the earth quivered under him. The Mundua were restless under the mountain—far more restless than they had been in his youth. Then, Embo had slumbered; now it only dozed.

  “It is not that simple,” he said.

  “Then enlighten me.”

  If he had been facing her in one of the long, echoing marble conference chambers, as he had expected, he would have found it easy not to answer with the truth. But here the very aspen and willow disarmed him. He settled down on the boulder next to her. “We Lashnura were created to guard the balance between the forces of chaos. The Adaina call them the Mundua and Ashwin. It doesn’t matter what you call them. In this world, the horrors of disorder are waiting everywhere, every moment, to break through. When people are in pain, they are vulnerable to that. Dhotamars take on the pain of others so humans will not be weakened by it and ally themselves with chaos, allowing those powers to gain a foothold in our world.

  “But when there is some need in the isles for a person with more than ordinary influence, someone who can unite and lead, it is essential to know that that person is not acting in alliance with powers that will bring suffering to our world. We must be vigilant, and suspicious of anyone who seeks power, unless we know his motives are disinterested and pure. That is why dhota-nur exists. It is a deep cure. It cleanses a person of all scars that might give imbalance a foothold in his soul. Before anyone can be Ison of the Isles, I must enter every corner of his being, explore every wound, examine him to make sure no taint exists. And whatever I find, I must take upon myself, a lifetime of pain. Dhota-nur has been known to kill. If it does not, it is the most profound bond two people can share.”

  Tiarch had been listening carefully. Her face was stern. “So, in your view, you actually create a new person. A better one.”

  The words the Inning doctor had used to describe his job sprang unexpectedly into Goth’s mind: to modify the man. Horrified, he tried to banish the notion from his mind. It was not the same, surely, even though both processes involved a passage through pain.

  “A wiser person, I hope,” he said. “Better able to resist the corruption of power.”

  “And do you find that saints make good leaders?” Tiarch asked.

  “Not always,” Goth murmured, looking at the grass. “So many of those who rise to leadership are propelled by past pain. It is the fuel on which they draw to act. Usually, great men are hiding great scars.”

  “You keep saying ‘men.’ Must it be a man?”

  Goth looked at her directly, thinking that at last she might have revealed her purpose. “No, of course not. A woman is just as capable of being Ison.”

  “And must it be an Adaina?” she said.

>   “No. A Torna could be Ison. Even an Inning.”

  She glanced at him sharply. “I would advise you not to mention that,” she said.

  He pondered that response. It had been so quick and instinctive.

  “Has Joffrey threatened to torture you?” she asked abruptly. Goth answered with his eyes. Tiarch smiled at him disarmingly. “Don’t worry; he won’t. He was bred up licking the boots of the Innings, and he is still terrified at the thought of making you suffer unjustly. But the Innings aren’t like Joffrey. Especially Provost Minicleer. You need to be careful of him.”

  “What do you all want from me?” Goth asked. “Just tell me, and I’ll give it if I can.”

  She was gazing off into the arbour. Pointing down the leafy aisle, she asked, “Do you think that apple tree needs trimming?”

  “No,” he answered sullenly.

  “You’re wrong,” she said decisively; “it does.”

  There was a silence as Goth tried to control his frustration. At last Tiarch turned to look at him, assessing. “You ask what we all want, as if we all wanted the same thing.”

  “Then I will ask what you want, Tiarch.”

  Her smile was sad and ironic. “What do I want?” She mused over the words, as if she had never asked herself the question before.

  The temptation to touch her was strong, since it would sharpen his vision. Like everyone, she was a pattern of old scars—a complex pattern, since she had had a long and eventful life. But she was a controlled and closed-off person. He could not see deeply enough to know what drove her without some physical contact.

  “I’ll tell you what I want,” she said at last. “Before I die, I would like to see the isles united.”

  Goth laughed. “Surely you have already united the isles—under Inning.”

  “If you call it unity to all pay taxes to the same despised invader,” Tiarch answered.

  “You rule more isles now than any Ison for five centuries past.”