Ison of the Isles (24 page)

Talley had gone below, leaving Bellack in charge. The master’s face was sweaty and flushed as he looked out at the transformed landscape. The sailors around him had fallen silent.

“It’s blood,” someone said, voicing what they all were thinking. They had seen so much of it in the South Chain. It had drenched them, and now the universe had sent it back to drown them.

“Set the topsails,” Bellack ordered his men, then muttered, “Get us out of here.”

They mounted the rigging gingerly, though it no longer glowed. Unbidden, two men disentangled the corpse from the rigging and lowered it by rope to the deck.

Her sails filled, but the
Pragmatic
seemed to make little headway through the thick red liquid. “It’s clotting around the hull,” a sailor called.

“Holy Alta!” Bellack said, his voice thick. The rudder was already handling poorly, as if clogged. The hull seemed to be dragging. “Are we riding any lower?” he asked.

Goth tried to swallow down his revulsion. He knew he could put a stop to this, but he still held back. It was horrible that murderers should drown in the blood of their own victims, but it was the working of a moral universe.

“What is going on?” Corbin Talley’s sharp voice broke on the heavy air as he came up on deck. The strange light stained his white waistcoat crimson.

“Blood, sir,” Bellack said. “It’s coagulating around the hull.” Goth could smell it now; it was not just blood, but rotting blood, days old.

Talley glanced around at the faces of the sailors, and seemed to make a quick calculation to change strategy. He began to laugh. “Blood!” he said. “I’ve heard everything now. Well, let’s check and see. You there, fetch me a pail. And you, run and get the porcelain basin and the shaving mirror from my cabin. You, fetch a good clean lamp.”

He tied the pail to a rope, then went to the rail where all could see and lowered it overside. The Torna watched, horror-struck, as the full pail rose up the side, dripping red. Unflinching, Talley grasped the bail and poured a shallow layer of the gory liquid into the white porcelain basin. He then had one of the men hold the lamp close, the concave mirror behind it to focus the beam of light.

“There,” he said. “That’s your blood.”

The seawater was swimming with thousands of tiny creatures, smaller than gnats; the light cast their shadows on the porcelain.

“From time to time they bloom by the millions,” Talley said. “If I had a microscope, I could show you that their bodies are as bright red as cochineal beetles. But they only float near the surface; a few feet down the water’s as clear as ever.”

One of the sailors began to laugh at the man beside him. “You said it was blood,” he said.

“Well, you believed me,” the second man answered.

“But the rudder,” Bellack said stubbornly. “The water was thick.”

“All in your mind,” Talley said. “As are these Adaina gods you fear. Their only power consists of your fright. Now get back to your posts and set course for Yora.”

There was a gust of wind then, like a sigh. The
Pragmatic
heeled, creaking. Bellack began to give orders, and the crowd broke apart, teasing each other and joking. Talley glanced at Goth as he passed him.

“You have won,” Goth said.

“Won what?” Talley asked.

He didn’t even know there had been a battle.

Goth turned away, filled with a tumult of thoughts. The Admiral and his devices had utterly neutralized the Mundua and Ashwin. They simply could not touch him. He was safe, and where he ruled, the world was safe as well.

“I am no longer needed,” Goth said aloud to no one. He was an anachronism, a guardian against a peril that no longer had power. With a flight of exhilaration, he thought:
The Lashnura have served their purpose. We can now pass from this world. Our long vigil is over
.

And in the next moment he knew, no. Imbalance had not ceased to exist. It lived within the Innings, within Corbin Talley himself. He turned to look at him, standing so unruffled, so untouched, beside the wheel, and thought:
That is what we must balance. Somehow
.

*

From the Whispering Stones, Spaeth could see the Inning fleet on the horizon. They were assembled in line, their course due north towards Yora.

The wind whistled lonely in the swordgrass. There were cat-tracks in the sand all around her, but no sign of Ridwit. The gods had slunk off to hide.

Spaeth stared at the distant white dots that were the Inning sails. She willed them away, but knew there was not a power in all the Isles that could stop them now.

It was past noon. She looked to the east. Around Yora’s shoulder came a ragtag fleet of brightly painted boats, looking brazen as a flock of barnyard cocks. Spaeth glanced back at the line of floating fortresses to the south. Without the help Holby Dorn was expecting from other circles, he didn’t stand a chance.

She had to warn him that she had failed. The
Ripplewill
was waiting in Yorabay, on the west shore. She might still catch the pirates in time.

She raced like wind across the sand hills, then plunged into the ravine that led down to the bay. Deserted houses and gardens flashed past on either side. A dog still guarding an empty yard barked at her. She burst into the clearing where the town dock lay.

And stopped dead. The
Ripplewill
was still moored at the dock, but square in the middle of the harbour entrance an Inning frigate lay anchored, its gunports up and aimed shoreward.

Spaeth wheeled round to disappear back into the woods. Before she could move, three uniformed marines emerged from the door of Strobe’s house.

“By the rock!” one of the Tornas said when he laid eyes on her. “One of their grey-skinned tarts!”

She lunged to one side, but one of the soldiers caught her. She dug at his face with her fingernails. He swore and threw her bruisingly hard to the ground. She tried to scramble off, but the other soldier pressed a bayonet against her spine.

“They say you can’t be killed, but by the Rock we can hurt you,” one of them growled. She froze then, and they jerked her hands behind her. She heard the clink of metal, and its cold bite around her wrists. One on either arm, the soldiers dragged her down the dock toward the
Ripplewill
.

“Cast this bucket off and we’ll tow her in,” the marine commander ordered. As one of the soldiers pulled Spaeth aboard, he looked her up and down. “Do we have to save her for the Innings?”

“Pity, isn’t it?” the commander said.

“Ridwit!” Spaeth whispered, but knew there would be no help there. They were taking her into that Inning circle where the Mundua and Ashwin were impotent.

All afternoon, from the cramped hole they put her in, she heard the sound of distant guns.

The residents of the refugee camp at Lashnish had slowly reached the conclusion that Nathaway, and by extrapolation all Innings, had an unseemly preoccupation with human waste. The disposition of excrement had begun to occupy a good proportion of his waking thoughts. The primitive conditions in the camp had broken down the Adainas’ normal inhibitions. Horrid stinking midden heaps grew uncontrollably, and the children squatted anywhere they found themselves, like dogs. The situation was deplorable for anyone but a cholera germ.

One day, fed up with it, he had gone around with a shovel and a pail, picking up feces. It provoked great hilarity. “What are you going to do with it all?” people called out. “Want more?” Even Tway, when she saw him, broke out laughing and said, “Why, if he’s not giving orders he’s giving off odours.”

“I’m glad I’m able to cheer everyone up,” he said, a little irritated.

After that day, he earned a nickname: Shitman. It was meant more kindly than it sounded.

In fact, he had begun to understand that the jokes at his expense were not all a mark of hostility. Among themselves, the Adaina were not the sullen, taciturn people they seemed from outside. They communicated through mock-serious banter and baiting. Since Nathaway was not used to being teased, and never knew how to react, it made him an irresistible target.

From time to time it flashed on him how his law-school classmates in Fluminos would react if they could see him. All that expensive education, all those political connections, for a career shovelling shit and handing out soap. But then he would try to imagine any of his friends forced from their homes, trying to survive and save their families, with half the dignity of the Adaina, and his imagination would fail.

In the evenings, when he would escape the squalor to return to his comfortable room in the Pavilion, he would wonder if the law could ever take root in the Forsakens. The law assumed a world that obeyed fundamental rules of order—a controllable, just world. The Adaina had good reason for their belief that the universe was capriciously hostile. In a strange way, it sustained them as belief in justice never could have done. At least outrage at the unfairness of their plight wasn’t added to their other burdens. Nathaway was the only one who felt that.

On the day when he brought Spaeth down to the camp, he returned after taking her back to the Pavilion, and found that her presence had caused a controversy. He came in on an argument in the section of the camp where the refugees from Thole had settled. A bearded man with a sore on his lip was saying loudly, “Where are they all, with their famous compassion, now that we need them? Hiding up in their Pavilion, that’s where. What good are they doing up there?”

Tway was facing him, arguing back hotly. “What good do you think they could do here? With all the ills down here, an army of Grey Folk could die and we’d be no better off.”

“What makes their lives worth so much more than ours?” the man retorted.

“Didn’t you see her?” Tway said. “She can barely walk. That was just from curing one person. One person!”

“That’s what they were made for.”

Later, when he had a chance to talk to Tway alone, Nathaway said, “I shouldn’t have brought her. It raised their expectations.”

“No, it just made them selfish,” she said, still angry. “They don’t have any
right
to Lashnura help. They ought to know that.”

How much greater their discontent would be, Nathaway thought, if they felt they had a right to justice.

That evening he gave Tway a ride in the donkey cart back to the city, where she was sharing her rented room with Strobe and two cousins. On the way they stopped to buy some hot meat pies from a stand on Promenade Street, and found the harbour swirling with rumours.

The woman selling the pies was suspicious of Nathaway and wouldn’t talk while he was in earshot, so he went back to the cart and stood biding his time while Tway spoke to her. When she came back they set off again, and only then did she say, “Boats have been leaving all day long, bound for the South Chain. Word is that Holby Dorn is massing a force at Harbourdown to take on the Innings.”

Looking out at the harbour, Nathaway saw that the two massive Navy warships stationed there to defend Lashnish were still riding at anchor, but the crowd of smaller boats did seem to have thinned out. He noticed that the familiar shape of the
Ripplewill
was missing. “Torr has gone,” he said.

Tway shook her head, looking troubled. “I thought he had more sense than that. Dorn doesn’t have a chance against the Innings. They should have waited for Harg.”

When Nathaway got back to the Pavilion it was nearly dark, but he didn’t go at once to Spaeth’s room. Instead, he sat by the fire in the common room, writing another letter while his shoes dried on the hearth. It was later than usual before he picked up a lamp and went upstairs to look in on Spaeth. When he entered, he found the bed empty and her grey cloak gone. The room looked unoccupied.

Fifteen minutes of knocking on doors and rousing people out of bed produced only one person who had seen her leaving the building that afternoon, and no one who had seen her return. Nathaway was having difficulty suppressing his panic. Not a single night had they been separated since leaving Tornabay. “We’ve got to search the building,” he said to Agave, who stood in the hallway in a robe, her loose silver hair falling down to her waist.

She nodded, but his senses were very acute, and he could tell she thought it would be fruitless. “Do you know something?” he demanded.

Agave put a sympathetic hand on his arm. “If she is gone, she will have gone to Tornabay, to be with her bandhota.”

I am her bandhota
, Nathaway wanted to shout. “Why now, after all this time? And why not tell anyone?” Every Lashnura in the Pavilion would have gladly assisted her in preparing for such a journey. He had a different intuition.

“I’m going to the harbour,” he said.

She looked about to say something to restrain him, but then saw his desperate mood, and gave up. “Be careful, Nat,” was all she said. “She is not in danger from anyone in these isles. You may be.”

If what he suspected were true, Agave was very wrong.

Ordinarily, he would not have ventured into the harbour district alone after dark. The streets were deserted, the taverns the only populated spots. He walked into the first drinking establishment he came to, asking for a ship’s captain, any ship’s captain.

The burly Torna seaman to whom the bartender pointed him appraised him from head to toe and said, “Are you the Grey Folks’ Inning?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Nathaway said. “I need to hire a boat. Will you take me?”

“Take you where?”

Nathaway hesitated a moment, then spoke his fear aloud. “Thimish.”

The man turned back to his drink. “No one’s going to Thimish now.”

“Do you know another boat that might take me?”

“I’m telling you, they’re not letting anyone out of the harbour any more. Tiarch’s orders.”

When Nathaway emerged from the door of the tavern, he saw by the light of a hazy half-moon that it was true: the two warships had moved to block the exit from the bay. Word of the outlaw activity had finally reached Tiarch, and she had moved to put a stop to it.

Feeling thwarted, he walked back toward the Stonepath. When he reached the corner, he saw a light burning in a second-floor office of the Navy building, so he climbed the steps. The door was locked, but he pounded on it till a young man in uniform peered out a darkened window at him. He signalled urgently, and soon the bolt shot back.

“I need to speak to Vice-Admiral Joffrey,” Nathaway said. “At once.”

“What shall I say it is about?”

“Tell him . . . tell him it’s a warning.”

“Wait here,” the young man said, letting him into the vestibule. “I’ll see if he is free.”

He was, of course. When the assistant showed Nathaway into the office, Joffrey rose from his desk with a cautious courtesy. “Justice Talley,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

They had seen little of each other since Joffrey had arranged Nathaway’s escape in Tornabay, back when they had both been on the Inning side. Then, Joffrey had reminded him of a small animal with sharp teeth; now, though he blended seamlessly in with the surroundings of power, he still looked carnivorous.

“It seems I need your permission to leave Lashnish,” Nathaway said.

“And why would you be leaving Lashnish?” Joffrey inquired.

He looked very grave as Nathaway told him of Spaeth’s absence, and of his suspicions as to where she had gone. When Joffrey had grasped the situation, he said, “Wait here. I need to do some checking. Please don’t speak to anyone while I am gone. We must not let this become public.”

Joffrey left the office, and Nathaway sat down to wait. Presently, he heard a door close below, and from the window he saw a figure in a dark coat and hat hurrying down the street. The young assistant came in to offer him some refreshment, then stirred up the fire and adjourned to a post in the hallway just outside the door.

It was a long time before Nathaway was roused from a doze by the sound of a low-toned conversation in the downstairs hall. He shook off his drowsiness and rose just before the door opened quietly and Joffrey’s assistant slipped in and drew him over to the window.

“There is a boat moored at the quay just opposite us. You can see the lanterns on her masts from here.”

Nathaway nodded. “What’s her name?”

“
Grey Lady
. Go straight there, and you’ll be met by someone who will get you through the blockade.”

“All right. Thank you.”

A weaselish dockhand in a knit cap was slouched against a light pole where the
Grey Lady
was moored, and Nathaway almost walked past him before realizing it was Joffrey himself. He came to a halt, astonished at the transformation.

“Go on, get aboard,” Joffrey said in a low voice. He untied the mooring lines and followed Nathaway on deck.

“You’re coming?” Nathaway said.

Joffrey nodded, but didn’t explain himself.

They rode the ebbing tide out of the harbour, passing right between the two warships. Nathaway didn’t see the signal, but the guard on the nearer of the two ships saluted as they slipped silently by.

All the next day they beat south against a warm wind blowing out of Rothur. Thimish was not yet visible on the horizon when the sun set. Nathaway joined Joffrey on the foredeck, where he was nervously scanning the horizon with a spyglass.

“They’ll be patrolling Rockmeet Straits like hawks,” he said.

“Who will?” Nathaway asked grimly.

Joffrey cast him an appraising glance. “Yes, that’s the question. Regardless, you ought to stay out of sight.”

The remark brought home to Nathaway his predicament: he was equally unwelcome in either camp.

It was the pirates who still controlled the straits by the time the
Grey Lady
reached them late the next morning. Nathaway listened from below as the captain hailed the patrol boat, posing as a late recruit come to join Holby Dorn’s fleet. There was a long, inaudible exchange of news, after which the usual thumps and shouts sounded as the
Grey Lady
’s crew raised the sails again and the boat heeled over.

When Joffrey finally came below, his news was grim. The battle was over. Holby Dorn’s little fleet had flung itself against the Inning Navy just south of Yora. It had been a foolish gesture, desperate and brave, and they had been smashed to pieces. Only half a dozen boats had made it back to Thimish, and the islanders were now arming in panic to defend Harbourdown.

“Spaeth. Is there news of Spaeth?” Nathaway said.

Joffrey nodded. “You were right, she was with them. It gave them great hopes, perhaps unwise ones.”

“And?”

“The
Ripplewill
wasn’t one of the boats that returned.”

Nathaway closed his eyes, concentrating as if he could touch her with his mind. Surely, he thought, he would know it if she were dead. He would feel something.

“We can go to Harbourdown,” Joffrey said. “There might be more news there.”

“No.” Nathaway’s voice was reckless with fatalism. “What’s the use of that? We might as well go straight to where she is. The faster the better.”

“You have some plan?” Joffrey was watching him a little sceptically.

“Yes,” Nathaway said, but it was a lie. He had no plan, other than to throw himself on Corbin’s mercy and enlist the Navy’s help in finding Spaeth. He would worry about talking himself out of trouble later. For now, all his reliance was on the essence of reason at the core of the Inning temperament—his faith that, all the facts being known, justice would naturally prevail.

And so they set a course direct for Yora. As Thimish fell behind them, Nathaway was reminded of the first time he had come this way, less than a year before. How naively optimistic he had been then, how confident in his mission. How many broken promises paved the path back to that time.

They saw the smoke before they could see Yora, for it rose into the sky like a black shroud hanging over the corpse of the island. When at last the rounded hill of the Whispering Stones rose ahead, Nathaway saw that it bristled with a new crown—a thicket of tall stakes, each one with a body impaled upon it, standing out against the sky. They covered the crest of the island in uncountable numbers. A cloud of scavenger birds circled overhead. The sight drew his gaze and fixed it, burning into his memory like a branding iron. Yora had been turned into a mass grave, a charnel island. Its soil would forever be tainted by human bone and suffering.

The Inning fleet was moored on the west side, opposite Yorabay, but as the
Grey Lady
rounded the point, Nathaway saw that there was nothing left of the village. The houses were smoking rubble; the grove of trees had been burned or felled for execution stakes. Only a scar of bare soil and ash was left.

Joffrey had given an order to raise some signal flags to the masthead, and a cutter that had been on course to intercept them steered away and let them pass instead. Nathaway dragged his eyes away from the island to see that they were headed for the flagship
Pragmatic
.