Isles of the Forsaken

by Ives Gilman, Carolyn

  Tantalized by the sight of so many arms, Harg did not notice until he was halfway down the aisle that there was a lot of dust in the air for such a deserted place. He looked at Jobin. “Where’s your friend?”

  “Now, isn’t this an impatient young man!” a querulous voice said. Harg turned around to see the meddling old gossip from the square sitting on a crate. “He walks off when I’ve scarcely even said good morrow to him!” Her voice dropped an octave and took on a steely edge. “Welcome to Tornabay, Harg Ismol. Please don’t move.”

  There was a footstep behind him, and he whirled around to see two uniformed guards step from behind the thick wood beams. Harg snatched the pistol from his belt, but a hard kick in the small of his back sent him stumbling forward onto one knee. A shape came at him from one side; as he turned to meet it, a rifle butt cracked down on his wrist, sending the pistol flying.

  “Cuff him,” a man’s voice ordered. Hands seized him from either side, and his arms were jerked around behind him. He kicked backward viciously, then felt the cold pressure of a gun barrel at the base of his skull. “Stop fighting, Harg,” Jobin said calmly.

  “You piece of filth,” Harg’s voice grated.

  “Keep hold of him,” Jobin instructed the guard as he stepped around to look at Harg’s face, the gun still trained on him. “I haven’t betrayed you, Harg,” he said seriously. “I couldn’t tell you the truth. If you had known who really wanted to talk to you, you never would have come.”

  They jerked him around to face the old woman. She had shed her dowdy disguise and was dressed all in black. There was an expression of sardonic amusement on her face as she looked Harg up and down. “So,” she said, “this is the reckless young man who has unsettled us all. You’re sure you have the right one, Joffrey?”

  Joffrey. Harg was sure he had heard the name, but couldn’t place it. As he saw them standing together, he realized who the woman had to be. The knowledge sent a surge to his head, half fear and half exhilaration. He was facing the most powerful native in the isles.

  “My apologies for the precautions,” Tiarch said to him, her eyes hard and black. “I did warn you not to move. Perhaps next time you will listen when I say something. Now, if you will give your word of honour not to do anything violent, I will have them release you.”

  “Yes,” Harg said. “You have my word.”

  The guards let go of Harg’s arms, and the key rattled against the manacles. Freed, Harg stood warily, rubbing his wrists. He felt thrown off balance by Tiarch’s sudden mercy. He thought of making a run for his life, but the guard was too close.

  “The truth is, I did not bring you here to arrest you,” Tiarch said. “I brought you here to talk.” She paused, looking to the guard. “Wait outside the door.” Jobin—Joffrey—stirred restlessly, as if he disagreed, but the guards turned to obey.

  Once the three of them were alone, the governor walked over into a beam of sunlight and jerked her head for Harg to follow. “Come where I can see you,” she said. Harg came, watching her warily. She was utterly unlike the tyrant he had imagined. There was no haughty grandeur here. She didn’t need it; she was too perfectly in control, too certain of where she stood. He had seen that certainty before, in good commanders.

  “Joffrey’s still got a gun on you in case you try anything foolish,” she said.

  And with any luck, Calpe might have a gun on Joffrey, Harg thought. He hoped she wouldn’t try anything. “I won’t,” he said.

  “Good. Because if I give you your life, I will need your cooperation.” Tiarch looked down to collect her thoughts, then faced him forthrightly. “Joffrey brought you here because he thought you were the one most able to affect events in the South Chain. I needed to show you, for your own sake, what hopeless odds you face.”

  Her face was grave. “You don’t know what you have started. The Innings were only waiting for a pretext to harden their grip on us, and you have played into their hands. If you continue as you have started, the best outcome I can see is the Adainas’ brightest leaders handed over to the executioners. The worst I see is families torn apart, towns burnt, beaches red with blood. I cannot sit back when this land is poised on the edge of a savage war. The isles are dear to me, and while there is breath in my body I will not let them be destroyed.”

  She seemed sincere, but he knew she had been deceiving people since before he was born. He felt miles out of his depth. “What do you want?” he asked.

  “There is another way,” she said. “A political way. You would have to set aside courage and daring for the moment and learn instead patience and discretion. It takes courage to leap into the abyss, but only the madman does it. The wise man builds a bridge across the gulf and saves his courage for tomorrow. I do not want to see you die bravely for a desperate cause, when you might live bravely for a victorious one.”

  There was a kind of earthy charm about her. Fearing to seem either slow or taken in, Harg said, “Are you offering negotiations? A hearing with the Innings?”

  “I am offering,” she said, “under certain conditions, to act as a broker, a go-between.”

  His face must have betrayed his suspicion, because she held up a hand. “I know, I know, you don’t trust me. Well, I don’t really trust you, either, Captain Harg. The fact is, opponents in war never trust each other, for good reason. And yet peace happens. It’s done by working out a set of penalties and rewards that would guarantee our bargains. We don’t need trust if we can punish each other for betrayal, and reward each other for good faith.” She regarded him appraisingly. “I’ll set the stage by pledging not to turn you over to the Innings.”

  “It wouldn’t do you any good if you did,” he answered. “The war would go on just the same without me.”

  “I think not,” she said. “It would not be the same, it would be much worse. The Adaina would fragment into a thousand warring factions—pirates here, clan chiefs there, traditionalists over yon—and the extremists would come to the fore. With you, we’re fighting one war; without you, we’d be fighting a hundred different wars, and we’d be fighting them for decades.”

  She had an exaggerated notion of his importance, but that fact gave him power. “Then it’s in your interest to bargain with me,” he said.

  “Precisely. Now, I know that and you know that, but the Innings are a little slower. To get them to the table, I need to bring them something, some inducement that would get their attention.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “Offer me something,” she said.

  He had dealt with Tornas enough to know never to fall for that tactic. “No,” he said. “Tell me what you want.”

  She smiled, as if he had passed some kind of test. “All right. You have some things we want. Hostages. Ships. Forts. We have some things you want. Amnesty. Negotiations. Peace. We need to figure out how to exchange the one for the other.”

  He felt like they were back in the square outside, where charlatans were busy cheating their customers. “I can’t do this,” he said, shaking his head. “I can’t dicker about my country’s future as if it were so many pots and pans. Do you know what I see when I look ahead, Tiarch? I see the isles bled dry to feed Inning appetites. I see children withered young by Inning contempt. I see our souls bought and sold with our land, our mora faded, our world dull with despair. The isles are dear to me, too.”

  Tiarch was looking at him with an expression of alarm. “May the gods deliver us from patriots!” she swore. “Don’t you know how desperate your situation is? The Innings are preparing to sail against you. They have the means to crush the South Chain, and the cruelty to do it. Just look around if you doubt me.” She gestured at the rows upon rows of guns, all Inning. “You must give me a chance to save you. It may be your last chance.”

  Harg crossed his arms and faced her stonily. “I know what the Innings are capable of. I served un
der them. Why do you think I am willing to risk everything to fight them off?”

  “But you cannot win. You must know that.”

  He knew it very well, but was not about to concede it to her. He felt as if she had backed him into a cul-de-sac, and his instinct was to counterattack. He said, “What do you get from serving the Innings?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “They are not good masters. They have no gratitude. The longer you rule, the more power you have, and the greater threat you are to them. They probably fear and hate you, Tiarch. They want nothing more than to see you overthrown.”

  “Why, Captain Harg,” she said with a steely sweetness. “Are you trying to get me to betray the Innings?”

  “They would betray you,” he said.

  She turned abruptly and walked away from him down the aisle of dusty arms. With a sense of wonder, he realized that his random shot had hit its mark. At last she turned back; her face was hidden by the shadows.

  “You are clever, Captain Harg. A clever fanatic. I am sorry we must be enemies.”

  He was about to answer, but she held up a hand. “Joffrey,” she said, “please leave us.”

  “No, Governor!” Joffrey protested. “It is too dangerous.”

  “Give me the pistol, then. Wait outside. If I need help, I’ll call.”

  “But Governor—”

  “Do it!” she ordered.

  With a black look at Harg, Joffrey obeyed. Tiarch watched him go, waiting till she was sure he was out of earshot. Then she turned to Harg. “I want to speak frankly. I want to speak about the future.”

  She paced away from him toward the window, her hands clasped behind her back. Once or twice she seemed about to speak, but stopped, as if what she was about to say came hard. At last she turned halfway and said, “For twenty years I have been working to keep the Innings out of our affairs. It’s been a slow process, convincing them the Forsakens would run smoothly without them. I’ve cultivated allies among them, shared the rewards of leaving us alone. All of it was for one purpose: to get them to grant us status as a self-governing province. It would mean political independence, legal independence, commercial independence. I was so close I could taste it. And then you came along with your ruinous luck at beating them, and the freedom I have worked twenty years to achieve is swaying in the balance.”

  Her low voice was scratchy as she went on: “But I have not survived all these years without knowing how to see the opportunity in a setback. The Innings are not united, you know. There are parties in Fluminos who don’t want to see this war go forward because of what it could mean for them at home. I might still find support for negotiations leading to independence, if it were in my power to offer them peace.”

  Harg felt like she had cracked open a window through which he could glimpse a complex and shadowy sea of power reaching beyond what he had ever known or speculated. She had been there. She knew its currents and winds. And if she were telling the truth, they were on the same side.

  But he still didn’t trust her. Slowly, he said, “You need us to lay down our arms so you can persuade the Innings to let you rule us?”

  “Do I look that stupid?” she said sharply. “I know the outer chains would never accept me as their ruler. Particularly not when they still have hope of an Ison. It’s not me that wants to fight against the currents of custom, it’s the Innings. I say, go with the wind.”

  She came very close to him then, her eyes disconcertingly fixed on his face. “Since you object to bargaining, I’ll give you my real offer, the last one you’ll hear. Go along with my plan for a political solution. Pledge to work with me toward a goal of peace and freedom for the isles. Convince me you will support a unified nation independent of the Empire, and I’ll release the Heir of Gilgen to you as a pledge of my good faith.”

  Hope surged painfully through him. The goal that had seemed so remote and impossible this morning was actually in his grasp.

  “Why would you do that?” he asked, studying her.

  “To give you the power to speak for the Adaina,” she said. “To prevent what I spoke about, a devolution into insurgency. The Adaina need a voice—not a voice of aimless fury, but one of plan and purpose. It has to be someone they revere and trust, someone who can make commitments for their benefit that they might not accept from a lesser leader. When you can speak for them, you can put it in my power to speak to the Innings.”

  Alarms were ringing in his mind. “Wait,” he said. “You think I would claim dhota-nur? You think I would be Ison of the Isles?”

  “Why, yes,” she said, surprised at the question. “Of course. In fact, it would be a condition of Goran’s release.”

  He thought he understood then: she wanted to be kingmaker. She wanted to choose the Ison, and for the Ison to owe her his position. But she was very much mistaken about him. “You know nothing about me,” he said.

  “On the contrary,” she said, “I know a great deal about you. I see you have underestimated Joffrey. People often do, and that’s what makes him so good at clandestine work. I have your entire military record, with all your commanders’ evaluations of you. I know what job you were offered before you resigned from the navy. I know what you eat for breakfast, your weakness for drink, and the name of the young lady you were sleeping with on the boat coming here. I also know whose son you are. As a result of knowing all this, I am perfectly aware that I couldn’t control you, and if I attempted to I would regret it. But I flatter myself that I am a reasonable judge of character, and I think we could work together.”

  “You’re serious,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief.

  “It’s not my custom to joke about such matters.”

  He understood the bargain he had been offered then, and it wasn’t with Tiarch. He could win Goth’s freedom, prevent a bloody war, become the leader of his people, and achieve independence for his nation. And all he had to do was cease to be himself.

  For that was it, the price of dhota-nur. The real bargain was with Goth, or the shadowy powers Goth represented. To buy freedom, Harg would have to surrender every experience, every memory, that had ever caused him pain—all those jagged shards in his personality that made him who he was. He would have to allow his own self to blend with Goth’s until they became indistinguishable—twin saints, kindred souls, dependents, lovers.

  Every instinct in him rebelled at the thought.

  “Find someone else,” he said raggedly. “I’m not Ison material.”

  “You can’t be serious. Your record is practically shouting it. You’re the one the Adaina want. Even the Innings would accept you. More to the point, I want you. Sacred fires, you’re practically an Heir of Gilgen yourself, though why you haven’t let that fact out is beyond me.”

  Harg thought: Is she trying to corrupt me? Yes. Is it in the best interest of the isles? Yes. And he still couldn’t imagine doing it.

  Tiarch was watching him carefully. “By the Rock, you’re not just being coy. You really don’t want it.”

  He shook his head.

  “Well,” she said, sitting down abruptly on the cannon opposite him. “I didn’t expect this to be the sticking point. I’d drop it, if it weren’t for the danger of someone worse arising. Let me put it to you this way. You owe this to your homeland.”

  He couldn’t sort it out. “I can’t make this decision alone,” he said. “I have to talk to some others.”

  For the first time, Tiarch looked a little nervous, as if she were juggling too many balls. “I would give you time if it were in my power,” she said, “but other events are pressing hard. I need your answer soon.”

  He frowned at her. She said, “Think it over today, talk to your friends. Then come to the Gallowgate at sundown, and we will work out some terms and conditions, safeguards and guarantees.”

  “Will you release
the Heir of Gilgen then?” he asked.

  “No. But I will let you see him, for as long as you like.”

  The offer sent a painful wave of emotion through him; he had to look away so she wouldn’t see it. He had enough presence of mind left to say, “Let me see him first, before we meet.”

  She regarded him with a look that was almost akin to compassion. “I suppose I can’t deny you that,” she said at last.

  “And I’ll need some sort of guarantee that your commitments are truly yours to make, and won’t be countermanded by the Innings.”

  “Don’t you worry about the Innings,” she said. “I know how to handle them.”

  “Nevertheless,” he said stubbornly.

  “What sort of guarantee do you want? You know it would be against their orders to talk to you.”

  “I need to know they will honour your promises.”

  “Very well, I’ll have something for you,” Tiarch said.

  She rose. The bargain had been struck, their business was over. Still, there was something he couldn’t help but ask her. “How is he?”

  She paused before answering. “Honestly, not good. You ought to be prepared to see a change in him. Captivity has been hard on his health.”

  This news made him so anxious that she put a reassuring hand on his arm. “Don’t worry, he’ll still be there tonight. Physically, at least.” She turned to leave, then turned back. “It is to your credit that you are so concerned for him,” she said brusquely. “I wish I could be sure my own sons were so loyal.”

  She left then. For a long time he sat with his thoughts swirling. Then he got up and went to search for his gun. He found it on the floor where the guards had left it. Returning it to his belt, he went to the door. Outside, there was no sign that Tiarch or Joffrey had ever been there. He stood alone on the steps, hearing the caretaker re-bolt and bar the door behind him.

  There was a footstep at the end of the alley, and he saw Calpe rounding the corner of the building.

  “Where were you?” he demanded.