Isles of the Forsaken

by Ives Gilman, Carolyn

  “Well, it’s not true,” Harg said. “I’m not a spy.”

  “He said you’d say that, too. Here, hold the reins.” To Harg’s astonishment, she squirmed out of her skirt, revealing boys’ breeches underneath. She reached into the back of the cart, found a cap, and stuffed her hair up into it. Once the transformation was complete, she took the reins again and said, “I’m running away. I’m going to join the Navy.”

  Harg groaned. “You crazy girl! It’s not some sort of game, you know.”

  “I know.” She eyed him shyly. “I want to be a spy, like you. I’d be good; no one would suspect me. Will you take me to Commodore Joffrey?”

  “No. You’re not going anywhere but home.”

  “You can’t make me.”

  “Listen, how old are you? Fifteen?”

  “Sixteen,” she said, offended.

  “Well, you have to be eighteen to be a spy.”

  “Oh.” She turned back to the driving, disappointed.

  Croom lay on the south side of the island, and Hegerly knew a thousand back-road cutoffs. When they finally emerged onto a thoroughfare, it was crowded with traffic, mostly farm carts like their own. Though Harg kept a close watch, he saw no sign of Inning patrols. It seemed Birek’s claim that the Innings were penned into the city was true.

  They came to the south shore a little past noon. Here, the coast of Embo was ringed by a tall sea cliff like a sheer guardian wall. The line of traffic slowed almost to a stop where the road came to the edge. They could see far out across the Inner Chain, the misty blue shapes of islands dotting the water. The port nestled below, at the foot of the cliff. As they waited in line, Harg stood on the seat to look, swearing softly in astonishment.

  Seventeen ships lay at anchor in the harbour below—three of the huge warships, seven armed frigates, the rest sloops and supply boats. It was at least three quarters of the Northern Squadron. The wharf was a mass of people, and lighters swarmed between the ships and shore.

  Hegerly nosed the cart forward onto the steep switchback road that led down the cliff. It was packed with carts and caravans making their patient way down, like beads of water on a string. Caught in the long, single-file procession, Harg thought about what to do. The security around Tiarch would probably be tight, and the chances that he could get in to see her just by asking were nil. He was going to need a go-between, and some money.

  “Hegerly,” he said reluctantly, “I don’t have any money on me. You’ll be selling your chickens. . . .”

  She eyed him. “Will you take me to Commodore Joffrey?”

  “I’ll pay you back as soon as I get in contact with my friends here.”

  “You mean Commodore Joffrey?”

  Harg gritted his teeth. “Yes. All right, I’ll take you to him.”

  They soon plunged into the seething activity of the port. As their cart clattered over the paving bricks along the waterfront, they were surrounded by the shouts of the longshoremen, the rumble of rolling barrels, and the staccato echo of hammers. A soldier directing traffic waved them toward a crowded market where Hegerly soon bargained away her chickens and milk. Harg had to restrain her from selling the cart and donkey as well. The money was a paltry bribe, but it would have to do.

  The first soldier he asked about Joffrey’s whereabouts simply laughed at him; the second brushed him off; the third ordered him away. After days of trying to avoid notice, Harg suddenly felt completely invisible. Standing in the crowded street, he felt like shouting out, “Here I am, Harg Ismol, rebel from the South Chain! Come and arrest me!” He suspected no one would bother. Other foes were on their minds now.

  From her cart, Hegerly was watching him a little sceptically. “Don’t you have code words and signals?” she asked.

  “Yes, they’re just so secret no one knows them.”

  “Oh,” Hegerly said.

  There was a crowd ahead where a mound of sacks and kegs was overflowing from a dock and obstructing the street. Watching, Harg realized the jam was caused by security officers inspecting every item being loaded. “That’s the dock for Tiarch’s flagship, I’ll wager,” Harg said. Then he was sprinting down the street toward it.

  The security officer in charge was inspecting a crate of fruit when Harg sidled up and said in a low voice, “I’ve got a warning.”

  He suddenly turned visible. The officer looked him up and down, then said in a low voice, “What?”

  “It’s for Commodore Joffrey’s ears alone. There’s someone here he wants to know about. Someone from Thimish. Can you take me to Joffrey?”

  “I can pass your information along to the appropriate authority,” the officer said.

  Harg pressed Hegerly’s money into the man’s hand. “Get the message to Joffrey, and you’ll be rewarded. Call him ‘Jobin’ and he’ll know it’s real. I’ll wait in that cart over there.”

  The officer turned back to his task without an answer, and Harg walked back to where Hegerly waited. “Well?” she said impatiently.

  “Now we wait and see.”

  They waited over two hours. By the end, Harg was pacing tensely. At last Hegerly tapped his shoulder and said, “Someone’s coming.”

  A six-oared skiff had pulled away from the flagship. As it threaded through the water traffic, Harg heard the tread of a guard troop approaching. They lined up on the dock and presented their muskets as the skiff drew up, oars aloft.

  “By the root, I think we snagged our fish,” Harg said. “That’s Commodore Joffrey, Hegerly.”

  He had never seen Joffrey in uniform before. The man looked like every Torna officer who had every condescended to him in the navy, in his immaculate dress blues, his fastidious little moustache. The Commodore saluted the guard crisply, then turned to scan the waterfront. Harg stood leaning casually against the cart. Joffrey walked down the dock; the soldiers followed.

  When they were face to face, Joffrey said, “I thought it would be you. None of your friends would be so insane.” His expression was as stiff as his boots.

  “Glad to see you, too, Jobin,” Harg said.

  “They reported you were drowned.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you.”

  “Oh, I’m quite happy you got in touch. Tiarch already issued standing orders in case you turned up. You realize, if we hand you over to the Innings it would put the lie to the claim that she turned traitor.”

  With a wary glance at the guard troop, Harg said, “Is that what Tiarch wants? To go back to serving a faithless master who cast her away once and would do it again?”

  “With you as evidence, she could take her case over his head, to the High Court.”

  “Let me see,” Harg mused, “What was the name of the Chief Justice? Oh, I remember now. Tennessen Talley.”

  “Very clever,” Joffrey said. He turned to the sergeant in charge. “Arrest him.”

  Of all the things Harg had expected, outright treachery wasn’t one. “Take me to Tiarch, you vile little insect!” he said. Then there was a bayonet under his chin.

  “Stand back!” a voice said from behind him. The soldiers froze. “Go on, get back or I’ll blow your officer to pieces,” Hegerly said.

  “Put the gun down, girl,” Joffrey said, his face the colour of a raw clam.

  “Oh, I forgot,” Harg said. “Joffrey, this is Hegerly. She wants to be a spy.”

  “Tell her to put the musket away!”

  The bayonet was still uncomfortably close. “If you’ll behave like an officer, and take me to Tiarch.”

  Joffrey gave him a look of black hatred, but signalled his troops to stand back.

  Harg turned around. “I’m sorry, Hegerly. I don’t work for Joffrey. He doesn’t even like me very much.”

  She lowered the gun, eyes wide. “I guess not.”

  “Go back and te
ll your father I’ll send the money. Gods willing, I’ll send it ten times over.” He reached out and squeezed her hand. “Thanks for saving me.”

  The troop fell in and escorted him to the waiting skiff, this time without touching him. Joffrey said not a word the whole way over to the flagship.

  When Harg stepped onto the broad oaken acreage of the warship deck, a troop of marine soldiers was waiting. “Keep him here,” Joffrey ordered.

  “Joffrey, you gave your word,” Harg said.

  “Oh, you’ll get to see Tiarch,” Joffrey said, drawing himself up as if his uniform prickled.

  This time, Harg had not even a farm girl with an old musket to back him up. As he waited, he became acutely aware that he had not slept for at least thirty hours. He tried to marshal his thoughts for an interview with Tiarch. He had to be resourceful. He had to inspire confidence. He must not appear as exhausted as he felt. His thinking had gotten thus far when a marine officer appeared from below to lead him aft to the main cabin.

  It was the most luxurious space Harg had ever seen aboard a ship. It was lined on three sides by casement windows. A thick, patterned carpet covered the parquet floor, and brass fixtures gleamed against the dark walnut paneling.

  Tiarch and Joffrey were sitting together at the chart table. When Harg was ushered in Tiarch looked up, took a pair of spectacles off her nose, and said, “Oh, well done, Joffrey!” The Commodore smiled thinly.

  She rose and came slowly over to face Harg. When she spoke again, her voice was hard as a file on metal. “So. The man who cost me my governorship.”

  It was not the greeting Harg had expected. “Corbin Talley is the one you should be blaming,” he said.

  “You gave him his excuse. If I’d turned you over when I first saw you, I would be sleeping in Tornabay palace tonight.”

  And I would be on a spit in the marketplace, Harg thought. “If it hadn’t been me, it would have been something else,” he said. “You were the issue, Tiarch, not me. They don’t want islanders in charge of the islands. The only question now is what you’re going to do about it.”

  She was regarding him with an expression of sceptical wonderment. At last she said, “Gods, I wish I were young again.”

  It was a non sequitur, and he didn’t follow her thinking, so he stayed quiet.

  She wheeled back to the table. “While you’re on your way out, Joffrey, get the cook to send up some coffee for us.”

  Joffrey tensed at this dismissal, glancing from Tiarch to Harg and back. But he said nothing. A minute later, Harg was alone with Tiarch. He tried not to let the sudden change disorient him. She did it deliberately, he guessed, to keep everyone off balance. A moment ago, it was him she’d been trying to torment; now it was Joffrey.

  “I wish you two young men were not at odds,” Tiarch said.

  Harg refrained from pointing out how she was setting them up against one another. “I’ve given him no cause to hate me,” he said.

  “Yes, you have,” she answered. “You cost him his old appointment, and now he sees his new one slipping away. He wants to command the Northern Squadron. That’s why he came with me, because I could give him that.”

  Trying to make his voice neutral, Harg said, “You think he’s the right man for the job?”

  “He’s a talented administrator.”

  It wasn’t an answer, and from her tone, he knew they saw eye to eye. He also saw how dangerous it would be for her to alienate Joffrey. “Well, I didn’t come here looking for a position from you,” he said.

  “No, you’ve already got one, if I’m not mistaken,” she said.

  And yet, looking out the stern window at the humming harbour, Harg wanted this fleet more than anything in the world. The thought of what a lethal force he could fashion it into, and the purposes he could put it to, gave him a sharp desire, like hunger. If only she could see it.

  He looked back at her; she was staring out the window, too. Outside, the sinking sun was painting the cliffs carmine.

  At last she said huskily, “The tide turns within the hour, and I have to make up my mind. All day long the wind’s been changing. This ship has been swinging like a pendulum. I’ll look up one moment and see solid land; the next, nothing but sea.”

  Harg wondered if he was seeing the real Tiarch. Was there such a thing? “You haven’t decided what to do, then?” he said.

  “No. All that—” she gestured out at the hubbub on the wharf, where lanterns now glowed bright “—that is just to keep my options open.”

  “What are your options?”

  “I could take this fleet around and attack Tornabay. But that route’s no good; it would foreclose all compromise forever. Or I could send Joffrey to negotiate. He has a way with the Innings; he might be able to strike a bargain. Or I could surrender and trust the law to vindicate me. I could argue that Admiral Talley overstepped his authority by removing me.”

  “If you’ve got a decade to spare,” Harg said.

  She gave him an ironic glance. “Yes, I know. But it’s not as hopeless as it sounds. There are Innings who don’t want a Talley dynasty in Fluminos.”

  “You’d be a fool to trust them. But you haven’t yet named your best option.”

  “I could, I suppose, sail off and join a pack of brigands in their hopeless, naïve rebellion against the empire. Is that what you mean?”

  “You could look at who is really loyal to you. Your own people, Tiarch. We were just a pack of brigands yesterday. But with you we would be a power. You have the finances, the organization we need.”

  “And what do you have that I need?” she said.

  “We have the justification, the cause. No one’s going to fight to put one faction or another into power. They’re going to fight for something bigger, for independence. For the isles.”

  As he spoke he felt a heady surge of certainty, erasing all his doubts, filling his exhausted body with fire. It was as if the words were flowing through him from somewhere else. “You can’t survive without us, Tiarch. We are at your back, as the Innings are at your front. You are surrounded by enemies unless we are your friends. But if you come with us, everything will be different. Yesterday you were a tyrant in the isles, the puppet of a foreign power. Tomorrow you could be a patriot, a saviour, the one who put independence in our grasp. They will love you, Tiarch, all the people. They will flock to join us, Torna and Adaina both. I tell you, there will come a time when you will think nothing in your life succeeded as well as last night’s failure.”

  Tiarch’s eyes on him were narrow, but he saw in them a glint, a reflection of his own certainty. “By the Rock,” she said softly. She turned around and looked out the window again, her back to Harg. The ship had swung round again, and the view was now of nightfall rising over the open sea. “Joffrey!” Tiarch barked suddenly.

  The door opened so promptly that Harg cast a suspicious look in Joffrey’s direction.

  “Is the lading done?” Tiarch asked.

  “Within the hour,” Joffrey said.

  “Then I want you to give the orders to set sail with the tide.”

  “Yes, Governor. Where are we bound?”

  Tiarch turned to survey the two of them, both watching her tensely. If she said Harbourdown, Harg had won.

  “Lashnish,” she said.

  There was a moment of silence.

  “Well, go on!” Tiarch said.

  “Yes, Governor,” Joffrey said, and went.

  Harg felt like an exploded gun. “Lashnish?”

  “Yes,” Tiarch said thoughtfully. “The ancient capital of the isles. The place where the Isons arose when the land was in danger, and summoned the Heirs of Gilgen to give dhota-nur. I have a strong and loyal garrison there. A much better base than Harbourdown.”

  There were machinations behind this, Harg realized
, strategies within strategies. She was joining them, but on her own terms.

  “I am joining the people of the Forsakens,” she said, her eyes sharp on him. “I may be Torna, but I am still an islander. And we may never have a better chance to win our freedom.”

  Harg held out his hand to her. “Corbin Talley may be a clever man, but he never did anything more foolish than driving us together.”

  She started to reach out to touch palms, then hesitated. “What bargain are we touching on?” she asked.

  Harg grinned. She didn’t need to remind him she was Torna. “Friendship, that’s all,” he said. “If you’ll promise me one thing: keep saying ‘we’ when you mean the people of the isles.”

  “All right,” she said, “if you’ll promise another.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Never say ‘the people of the isles’ when you mean Harg Ismol.”

  He stared at her a moment, then laughed. “Fair enough.” They touched palms to seal the bargain.

  It was too big. Harg could hardly grasp his success in his own mind. What would Barko say? Harg had set out as a fugitive rebel, and was returning home with an army of liberation.

  to be continued in

  Ison of the Isles

  About the Author

  Growing up, Carolyn Ives Gilman spent her summers on an island in Lake Superior that was once the heart of the Ojibway Nation. Her interest in places where cultures overlap led to a career as a historian of the U.S.-Canada borderland and a writer of fiction about even more exotic borders.

  Carolyn Ives Gilman has been publishing fantasy and science fiction for twenty years. Her first novel, Halfway Human (Avon/EOS 1998), was called “one of the most compelling explorations of gender and power in recent SF” by Locus magazine. Her short fiction has appeared in Fantasy and Science Fiction, The Year’s Best Science Fiction, Bending the Landscape, Interzone, Universe, Full Spectrum, Realms of Fantasy, and others, and she has a collection of short fiction, Aliens of the Heart, from Aqueduct Press. Her work has been translated and reprinted in Russia, Romania, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Poland, and Germany. She has twice been a finalist for the Nebula Award.