Isles of the Forsaken Page 3

  Harg looked down again at the epaulette, and this time dared to touch it.

  “Of course,” said Talley, “if you decide to take your discharge now, this rank will be merely ceremonial, with the thanks of your grateful nation. However, if you decide to stay . . . Would you like hear more?”

  All of Harg’s plans were whirling around his head, scattered by this revelation. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  “Have a seat, Commodore,” the Admiral said urbanely. “Would you like some coffee?” Without waiting for an answer, he knocked on the door of his secretary’s office, apparently a well-known signal. The door opened and the long-faced secretary appeared with a samovar which he placed on a low table flanked by wing chairs. Talley sat in one and poured two cups. “I daresay I am going to need this,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “I have several obligations tonight.”

  The coffee was a smooth, pungent ambrosia unlike any Harg had tasted before. He was disarmed by the whole setting, and the unexpected civility of the man before him. Most Innings affected a rough simplicity when dealing with islanders, but the Admiral made no such concessions. Harg wondered why people were so terrified of Corbin Talley.

  He had figured out that the rank he had been offered was the same as that which Buckrush was vacating, but he still didn’t know if he were being offered Buckrush’s job, and couldn’t think how to ask. So he said, “How will it be organized?”

  “That’s necessarily a little fluid now,” Talley said. “It will be designed as best suits the accomplishment of its new mission. You see, the Court has honoured the navy with a new assignment.”

  “Already?” Harg said, surprised. They had barely gotten home from the last war.

  Admiral Talley seemed to get some hidden amusement from Harg’s reaction. Drily, he said, “I’m glad to see I am not the only one . . .shall we say, impressed by the Court’s alacrity. But yes, they have handed us our next orders, and the Native Navy, or whatever it is to be called, will have to play a crucial role. You see, we have been instructed to turn our attention to the Forsaken Islands.”

  Even over his wince at the condescending Inning name for his homeland, Harg felt a dull throb of alarm at this news. “What does Inning want with the isles?” he said.

  “It seems the Forsakens are rich in resources that our merchants are eager to develop.”

  “What resources?” Harg had never noticed any but peat and sand.

  “Timber. Lead. Iron. Hemp. Cheap labour.”

  Timber for building ships, Harg thought. Lead for bullets, iron for cannons. Hemp for ropes. It sounded like Inning’s imperial ambitions had not been stilled by the victory over Rothur.

  “And of course, the fisheries are phenomenal,” Talley added.

  “Of course.”

  “As you know, Inning has claimed the Forsakens for years, but we have never tried to administer them. We have left control entirely in the hands of the native civilian governors, but even they have never been able to extend the law to the outer archipelagos. While our attention was diverted in Rothur, the unadministered territories have become a nest of pirates and brigands who are preying on the coastal shipping almost as far south as Fluminos. The present administration in Tornabay seems unable to cope with the situation, and has come under criticism for corruption and autocracy. Altogether, some sort of police action is warranted. The regular navy is the wrong tool for the job; the Native Navy has a far better chance of success.”

  The explanation, so reasonable-sounding, left Harg with terrible misgivings. “We’d be fighting against our own people,” he said.

  “No, you’d be fighting for your own people. To free them of tyranny, corruption, and lawlessness. To create a new nation that cuts across all the old divisions of race and religion. To unite your people behind the ideas of rational self-government and justice for all.”

  For a moment Harg imagined himself returning home with a liberating army to topple Governor Tiarch and her despised Torna cabal from power, to restore the ancient greatness of his land. It was an intoxicating thought for a young man who had been no more than a sullen troublemaker when he left. But he couldn’t quite believe it. “What do you want me for?” he said.

  Talley answered, “I want you to do Buckrush’s job, only do it right. With some understanding of the people under you, and some initiative. You’ve proven you can handle islanders, command them when others can’t. The Native Navy has tremendous potential; by the time we have to go to war again, it could be the most valuable weapon in our arsenal.”

  So the Innings saw it as a sort of training exercise. Merely a prelude to the real geopolitical mission, whatever that would be. Harg thought of all the things that were wrong with the Native Navy, and of having the power to set them right. But there was one huge obstacle.

  “I’m Adaina,” he said. “The officer corps is almost all Torna. They wouldn’t accept me.”

  “They would if I told them to,” Talley said, coolly setting down his coffee cup.

  How could he explain this to an Inning? “No, you see, there are racial divides in the isles, old prejudices that run deep. . . .”

  “Do tell. I never would have known,” Talley said with ice-smooth sarcasm.

  Harg realized he had just patronized the head of the Inning Navy. “Sorry, sir,” he said. “Not many Innings pay much attention to us.”

  “Please assume that I have been paying attention,” Talley said in a voice that could have cut glass.

  Looking into those cold blue eyes, Harg felt a revelation strike him with physical force. It was not Buckrush who had engineered the transformation of the Native Navy, as everyone had assumed. It was this man—this ruthless, razor-like mind. Buckrush had been merely a puppet, a cloak for the machinations of his commander. Talley had needed a weapon more versatile and nasty than the gentleman’s club of a navy he had inherited, so he had created one.

  “It’s me that hasn’t been paying attention,” Harg said, as much to himself as to Talley. But how could he have known? He had been a tool as well, manipulated without knowing it. He remembered how cool Buckrush had always seemed about his promotion to captain. Now he guessed why: Buckrush had had no choice about it. Talley had been micromanaging the Native Navy all the time.

  Clearly, all Harg’s assumptions had to change. With this man, absolutely everything was intentional. He had to assume no gaps in knowledge, no mistakes.

  “You want an Adaina in charge,” he said, eyes narrowed. “Why?”

  Talley smiled at the change in tone, but he was still assessing Harg, testing. “I fancy you can see my reasoning.”

  “If it were me,” Harg said slowly, “I’d want an Adaina because the great majority of the population is Adaina, especially in the Outer Chains—the parts beyond Inning control. If a Torna navy showed up in those islands to impose the law, they would explode into rebellion. But having Adaina officers might just give the navy some credibility. It couldn’t be just one officer. You would have to promote a whole cadre of Adainas.”

  “That would be your first priority,” Talley said. “But tell me, how much of a threat could the Adaina truly be?”

  “Look at your pirates. Are they a threat? They wouldn’t fight you like a navy would, head-on. They would strike invisibly, pick off targets of opportunity, and then melt back into the population. If they had local support, you could be fighting them for decades. I don’t think you want that.”

  “No indeed. So what do you recommend?”

  “First of all, avoid sending in the Northern Squadron, Tiarch’s navy. You can’t imagine how they’re hated in the outlands. The Southern Squadron has no history there; it wouldn’t be seen as a provocation. Then, long-term, you have to think like the Adaina. There are ancient traditions of leadership in the outlands, things people would respond to and respect, if you got it right.”

&nb
sp; “Yes. What traditions?”

  There was a tap on the door, and it opened a crack so that the secretary’s nose was visible. “Excuse me sir,” he said, “the Chief Justice has sent a carriage to fetch you to the reception.”

  “Let them wait!” Talley shot the words like bullets at the secretary’s head, and the door quickly closed. As if nothing had happened, the Admiral said, “Please go on.”

  But Harg had realized that he was giving an Inning a blueprint for conquering his homeland. Once again he had been manipulated, lured to the edge of betrayal. He said, “I think perhaps the Chief Justice might be more important than me right now, sir.”

  There was a short silence. Harg was thinking that if he took this man’s bait he would still be an Inning tool. Still obeying them, doing their dirty work. He would become what the Innings had made him forever.

  “Well, thank you for your insights,” Admiral Talley said lightly. “It is seldom enough that an islander will speak to an Inning as an equal.”

  Harg stared, disarmed again. But that wasn’t what had been happening. He had been talking to Talley as if they were both Inning.

  “You don’t need to give me your answer today,” Talley said pleasantly. “Think of the offer, sleep on it. I’ll be here tomorrow.”

  “No,” Harg said, standing. “I can give you my answer now, sir. I appreciate your offer, but I’ll take the discharge.”

  For the first time since Harg had walked in the door, Talley looked like something had not gone precisely as he had expected. A slight, ominous line appeared between his brows. “You understand, if you refuse, the offer must go to someone else.”

  “I understand that. I don’t want it. Sir.”

  Talley saw that he was in earnest, and his pleasant mood vanished. “Very well,” he said. He took the gilded commission off the top of the pile of papers, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it with furious force into the fireplace. He handed Harg the discharge and pay slip, then went back to his desk and began writing as if he were alone in the room. Harg stood for a second, then assumed he had been dismissed, and went to the door.

  “Ismol,” Talley said as Harg’s hand touched the knob. “You forgot your epaulette.”

  He had left the wooden box sitting on the coffee table. “I thought—”

  “It’s yours, you earned it,” Talley said.

  Harg went back and took the box.

  “Perhaps we’ll see each other in the Forsakens,” Talley said neutrally, signing a document and placing it deliberately on a pile.

  “You’re going there?” Harg said, astonished. “I thought—”

  Talley looked at him across the desk, his face unreadable. “Oh, yes, I’m going there. I go where my nation sends me. And right now it seems my nation wishes me to be very, very far away from Fluminos.”

  This statement made no sense. From what Harg had seen, the Inning nation adored this man, and Fluminos desperately wanted him close. As if to prove it, the first explosion of the fireworks rang out across the harbour.

  Then Harg realized that when Talley said “my nation,” he didn’t mean what everyone else did. He didn’t mean all those people eager to write him poems and lift up their children to see him. He meant some group invisible to everyone else, who had the power to work even him like a puppet. Harg could hardly imagine who they might be.

  “Thank you, sir,” Harg said, glancing at the box.

  “You’re entirely welcome,” Talley said, and turned back to his writing.

  Out on the street, Harg had to step around the carriage waiting to whisk the Admiral away to wherever his nation waited. Looking back at the window of the office he had just left, Harg saw the light still burning. He felt cautious respect, perhaps even admiration, but no warmth. In fact, deep down where it mattered, Corbin Talley terrified him.

  2

  The Sands of Yora

  Spaeth Dobrin woke, as she always did, to the sheer, sensual joy of being alive. The relaxation of her naked limbs, the texture of the bed linens—every sensation pleased her, since that was how she had been created, for enjoyment and delight. It was a cool morning, but the bed was warm, and still smelled a little of Goth. She rolled over to his side and buried her face in the pillow, trying to capture his scent, as if it could conjure up the man. Just the thought of his touch made little thrills scamper across the surface of her skin.

  But his scent did not summon him, and the bed now seemed empty and abandoned, as it had for over two weeks. Feeling the restless hunger his absence left in her, she got up. Almost at once the cool air distracted her by nipping at her nakedness. She raced to the back door of the cottage and out into the morning, bare feet slapping on the stone doorstep. The sun fell lightly on her skin, making it shine the pearly grey of an oyster shell; the warm wind ruffled the tarnished silver of her hair. The Yorans called her Grey Girl. Outwardly, she looked like a mature woman just out of her teens, but she had been created only seven years before.

  Spaeth was a creature of impulse, and now the impulse struck her to climb the hill above Yorabay and lie in the sun on the boulders there. She was halfway to the main path when she remembered that she needed to wear some clothes. The village women had been harping at her about it, especially since the Tornas had arrived and begun building their dock, busy as burrowing rodents. “They don’t respect you like we do,” Tway had said. “They have baser impulses.”

  Spaeth had been curious to know what a base impulse was, but Tway had seemed so convinced no good could come of it, that she had promised to be careful. Now she backtracked to the weather-beaten, moss-grown timber cottage and rummaged in a drawer till she found a sleeveless undershirt and a cloth to wrap around her hips. Thus clad in a bare minimum of decency, she returned barefoot to the path, turning uphill toward the early sun.

  The dome of Yorabay Hill rose like a man’s bald head above the fringe of woodland along the shore. As Spaeth climbed, the dewy grass clutched playfully at her legs, and alongside her, carefree little gusts of wind played porpoise. When she reached the top and climbed onto one of the great grizzled boulders that ringed the crest of the hill, she could see the entire world spread out like a rumpled cloth fringed in white where it met the sea. Off to the north, a single sail dotted the azure expanse of the Pont Sea. This was the extent of Spaeth’s universe, all she had known since her creation.

  A distant boom sounded, as a charge of explosives went off at the work site near The Jetties, and Spaeth turned that way, frowning. The Tornas had been at it for a week, digging and building. She could feel the island’s hurt in an aching spot under her breastbone, a new and unwelcome sensation. What had Yora ever done to the Tornas, that they wanted to gouge out holes and pound stakes into its sands? She wished her arms were big enough to circle the whole island, to shelter it forever from change.

  It occurred to her that the stones might know what to do. She stretched out on the licheny surface of the boulder under her, making her mind a floating net for passing stone-thoughts. She thought the Whispering Stones were her friends. She had been feeding them and watering their roots for three years now, and they were thriving. Some had even grown, and they scarcely ever left off passing their secrets to and fro on a windy night. But the warm appreciation she usually felt from them was gone now; instead, there was only a strange, cold silence.

  Another distant explosion rattled the sky. “Stop it!” Spaeth shouted in helpless rage. If Goth were here, he would know what to do. Why had the Grey Man chosen this moment to be gone?

  He had disappeared into the other circles before. It was his only escape from the ties that otherwise kept him a prisoner on Yora. But he had never been gone so long. Every day of his absence, Spaeth’s gnawing sense of loss had grown—and her worry about what would happen to her if he did not come back.

  Rolling over, she put her arms around the boulder, pressing h
er cheek against its rough surface. “You miss him too, don’t you?” she whispered.

  Behind her there was the pad of a stealthy paw. “Silly girl,” a voice drawled. “The stones don’t care.”

  “Ridwit!” Spaeth sat up, but was almost knocked over again when the panther leaped onto the stone and rubbed up against her. She put an arm around Ridwit’s sharp black shoulders.

  “The stones don’t care about much of anything,” Ridwit said. “Not even this island—what do you call it?”

  “Yora.”

  “Yora.” Ridwit punctuated the word with a purr halfway through. “They are older than the sea, older than the bones of Hannako. This is just one stop on their long march down from the north. If the island sank today, they would just go on their way.”

  “Where are they going?” Spaeth asked.

  “Don’t ask me. I am only a god.” Ridwit laid a heavy head on Spaeth’s shoulder and purred deafeningly in her ear till she began to scratch the velvet fur between the panther’s horns.

  Spaeth liked Ridwit, but knew better than to trust such a lawless being. In past centuries they would have been adversaries. But the enmity of the Mundua for the Grey People had grown so ancient it was almost a kind of friendship now—and friendship, Goth always said, was a good way to understand your enemies.

  “Ridwit,” Spaeth said, “Do you know where Goth is?”

  “He is gone.”

  “I know he is gone. Where?”

  “To a place where the sea is wet and the night is dark.”

  Generations ago, they had called the horned panther The Riddler. Now Spaeth began to scratch in that particular place by the ear that the cat could never resist. Ridwit’s back leg began to jerk and her eyes to film over in delight. “Is he dead?” Spaeth whispered.

  “Scratch again.”

  “Answer me first.”

  “Did you keep a stone for him?”