Isles of the Forsaken (10 page)

When they were alone on the water, out of earshot from the rest, Harg said, “Thanks for what you said there, Strobe. It took a lot of courage to speak like you did.”

“Well, I felt like I owed it to you,” Strobe said.

“You don’t owe me anything.” Strobe was one who had always been fair and kind.

“We all do. A lot of people felt bad once you’d gone, and wished things had happened differently. But there’s something you can do to repay me, if you want.”

“What’s that?”

Strobe brought the boat upwind so that the sail luffed and they stood still. “Go to Goth. Make it up with him, Harg. Not just for your own sake, for his sake and ours. Will you do that?”

“Sure. I can do that,” Harg said.

I can start over, he thought as Strobe turned the tiller and the sail caught wind again. I can wipe the slate clean, no grudges or old business.

Strobe’s house was smaller than Harg remembered, more weather-beaten and rude. When they entered the murky interior, a vigorous voice called out Harg’s name and Tway came out of the kitchen, throwing her arms around him in an energetic bear hug. “Welcome back, Harg,” she said. “Things sure do get more interesting when you’re around. Why, we haven’t had a trial in—well, forever. I guess they must have let you go.”

“Yeah, the whole thing was supposed to be a demonstration of godlike Inning law,” Harg said, “and in the end we still just settled it the old way.”

The room was just as he remembered it. There squatted the ancient cast-iron stove imported from the Inner Chain. It had been the wonder and terror of his childhood, a demonic presence that belched fire and yet never burned. Now it seemed small and rusty. A wooden crate in the corner was heaped with old net; the glass floats peeped from the folds like wondering, bulbous eyes. Through the door into Strobe’s lean-to workshop he could see a litter of lumber and translucent curls of shaved wood on the floor. The living room was cluttered with every manner of thing turned into something else: a barrel had become a stool, a spoon had become a stove lid lifter, a file had become a chisel. Everything was cramped, as if the dimensions of life at sea had been translated onto land. It smelled of wood smoke and cedar.

“Sit down,” Tway said. “It’s not a picture; you’re really home.”

He laughed a little; she could almost read his mind. “I thought you would be married by now,” he said to her.

She paused so long he wondered if he’d said the wrong thing. But her tone was still light when she said, “Oh, I’m just waiting for him to settle down and ask me.”

“Why wait? Nail the bastard to the wall.”

“If he’d stand still long enough, I would. Here, what would you like? Some nog?”

“Sure, that’s fine.” He stood indecisively. It had been so long since he’d had nothing to do that he didn’t know how to behave.

“Strobe,” he said suddenly, “have you heard how Jory is?”

Strobe was quietly filling his pipe with some shag. He paused to light it, then shook his head. “Not good,” he said.

“Damn, I’ll have to go see him.”

“Better leave it alone for a bit,” Strobe advised. “Agath’s taking it pretty hard. It’s a bad time for Goth to be gone.”

“She wouldn’t—” Harg stopped himself, knowing suddenly that she would. “Listen, she can’t claim dhota for him. What’s wrong with Jory is more than dhota can heal.”

Tway set the cup of nog on the table before him. She and Strobe exchanged a look, and Harg sensed they had already been talking about this.

“That’s something you don’t hear much around here any more,” Tway said, “the idea that there’s something dhota can’t heal.”

“What do you mean?”

“People have gotten used to running to the Grey Man about everything.”

“Well, he’s just got to say no.”

Tway looked at Strobe ironically. “When was the last time Goth said no? Do
you
remember?”

Harg was just beginning to realize that this was something important when they were interrupted by a knock on the door. They all three turned to stare; no one ever knocked in Yorabay.

It was the Inning, Nathaway Talley. He stood awkwardly on the doorstep, holding his hat. “Harg? They told me you were here. Might I have a word?”

Tway went into a paroxysm of housewifely panic. “Come in, sir, come in. We were just having some nog. Can I offer you some? Please, sit down.”

Nathaway entered, ducking under the low lintel, and peering around in the gloom. He took the chair Tway offered, automatically brushing off the seat before sitting. Harg forced himself to sit down as well, since it would have looked deferential not to; but he felt on edge. Tway set another cup of nog down in front of the Inning, and then disappeared; Strobe had vanished as well.

“I didn’t get a chance to talk to you after the trial,” Nathaway said. “I just wanted to ask whether you really knew my brother.”

“I don’t lie in court,” Harg answered defensively.

“I didn’t mean that. It’s just . . .” He started speaking in a rush. “I remember that night you mentioned. Everyone thought Corbin was deliberately snubbing my father. Maybe he was. They got into a frightful row about it the next morning. Then I got my row just after.” He shook his head as if to free it of the unpleasant memory.

Harg was startled by this candid glimpse into Talley family dynamics. He wondered if it had been offered up to him as a kind of exchange for having pried into his own private affairs.

Nathaway picked up the mug of nog, but absently set it down again without tasting it. “Listen, if you were in the navy, you could be really helpful to me. You know about Innings, and what we want. I could use some inside knowledge.”

The wise move would have been to stay monosyllabic and sullen, but Harg was at the end of his rope. He rose out of his seat, glowering. “You have really got some nerve, Inning.”

“What do you mean?” Nathaway looked lost.

“You’ve just let me rot in that hellish brig for two days, then tried me for half a dozen crimes, and now you want my
help
?”

“Oh, that,” Nathaway said.

“Yes, that!”

“Captain Quintock would have kept you in prison forever, without so much as a charge, if I hadn’t insisted on a trial. That was your way out. I had to
fight
for that trial.” He paused. “Besides, it was perfectly obvious the Tornas were as much to blame as you.”

“Now you tell me,” Harg said, sinking back into his chair.

“So you really owe me some advice, you see. I’m having a hard time figuring this place out.”

“What a surprise,” Harg said.

“Don’t be like that. I don’t have any information. The Tornas are no use; they’re such bigots about the Adaina, and so damned deferential to me they won’t say a word if I’ve got something wrong. To my face, that is. They’re probably laughing themselves sick behind my back.”

He had that right at least, Harg reflected. He took a long drink of nog, feeling sick to death of Innings and longing to be done with them forever. But as he looked across the table, it occurred to him that Nathaway was about the same age he had been when he had first left home to find what the world was all about. More educated, but just as ignorant. He remembered what it was like to be in a strange land. If no one had helped him out . . .

“All you need to know about Yorabay is that we’re like a big family, and families don’t always get along,” he said.

“I figured that out at the trial today,” Nathaway said. “It didn’t take a genius.”

“Everyone pries, everyone thinks other people’s business is their own.”

“If it’s any consolation, Fluminos is just the same,” Nathaway said. “You can’t sneeze there without it getting in the papers.”

Harg reflected that he could have sneezed a thousand times in a row without it getting in the Fluminos papers. But his name wasn’t Talley.

“The problem with your law is, it’s all about arguing and confrontation,” Harg continued. “The Tornas are fine with that, but we Adainas don’t like to disagree in public. It’s against our customs. I’m surprised you got them to speak up.”

“I didn’t do a thing,” Nathaway said. “They just wanted to talk about you. Too much, in fact.”

Way too much, Harg thought. As if he were some sort of public issue.

He was no longer comfortable with this conversation, so he fell silent. The Inning didn’t notice.

“What I can’t understand is the power structure here,” Nathaway said. “Who’s in charge?”

Against his better judgment, Harg answered. “You Innings say that as if it were one word: powerstructure. It’s not. We’ve got power, but no structure. Innings love hierarchies and organization charts, everything defined and settled. That’s not how we do things. We have alliances and factions, and every morning when we get up it has to get renegotiated.” He was only exaggerating a little. “No one’s in charge. We don’t have permanent leaders like you do. Whatever person’s best for the job, that’s who’s in authority. When the job changes, so does the person in charge. That goes for a fishing trip, and it’s the same clear on up to the Ison of the Isles. They’re all just the best available for the job.”

“But there isn’t an Ison any more,” Nathaway pointed out.

“No, you Innings saw to that. Since you executed him, well, we just haven’t needed one. We don’t keep leaders around when we don’t need them. They just make trouble.”

“What about Goth?” Nathaway asked. “He seems to be some sort of respected leader.”

Harg laughed drily. “Respected, yes, Leader, no. He’s more like . . .” he cast about for some Inning equivalent, but could think only of a lame one. “. . . like a minister or a doctor, maybe. It’s not like anything you have.”

“But if he could endorse what I’m doing, maybe . . .”

His innocent, ignorant words sent a shock through Harg’s system. “No!” he said, too forcefully. The Inning had no idea what he was talking about; best he should not know. “He wouldn’t do that,” he explained, trying to cover his first reaction. “The Grey Folk stay out of our business.” Except on the rare occasions when they didn’t, and then everything changed. The Lashnura were key to power in the isles; but that was a private, Adaina thing, like family business, and it was best no Inning know it.

His nog was gone, and Harg realized how sore and tired he was. “I don’t want to be rude, but I haven’t slept much, and the last bath I had was—” he tried to think. “Mundua know.”

“Of course,” Nathaway rose to leave. “Can I come back later?”

“I don’t know who’s going to stop you.”

It was scarcely an open invitation, but Nathaway took as such. “Good. I’ve got a lot of questions.”

When the Inning was gone, Tway crept back in, looking apprehensive. “Harg, what were you yelling at him about? We could all hear.”

So half the village had probably been listening. He couldn’t even imagine what that would do for his reputation. “What do you think? I was yelling because he locked me up and accused me of all those crimes.”

“Are you crazy? You can’t yell at an Inning. Next time, they’ll cut your tongue out.”

“Don’t worry, we patched it up,” Harg said. He was deadly tired, and wanted to shed his reeking clothes. “I’m just no good at this being conquered, Tway,” he admitted.

“Well, you’d better get used to it,” she said, “because that’s what we are.”

Dear Rachel
, Nathaway wrote. It was his fourth letter to her. He knew it would get passed around the family, but he still addressed it to her alone, since she was the only one who had been the slightest bit encouraging about his choice to come here. His family’s tepid support still rankled.

I have now met members of all three of the races inhabiting the Forsakens. They are very distinct.

The Tornas and Adainas are physically indistinguishable to my eyes—both small and compact, brown-skinned, with dark curly hair—but they claim to see a difference between themselves, and the Tornas never tire of pointing it out. The real difference lies in character and customs. The Tornas are avid, active, acquisitive, and above all opportunists. To my face, they are obsequious and ingratiating; behind my back, manipulative and untrustworthy—though when I confront them, they are masters of the plausible explanation.

The Adainas are far more primitive. They live in perfect hovels, and are poor as dirt, you would really be shocked at the squalor. They are far harder to draw out. To me, they are sullen and uncommunicative, though in private their lives appear to have some simple gaieties. They are acutely aware of their status as a conquered people, and resentful because of it, but they will not confront me or speak honestly about their grievances. I have hopes that I am making some headway with them at last. I had the opportunity to befriend one of them recently, and it may give me an entry into their closed community.

The last race, rarest and most mysterious, is the Lashnura or Grey Folk. There is only one on this island. She is a fascinating creature. . . .

He paused, deliberating what to say. He had to mention her striking appearance, but somehow without suggesting her sexual allure, the way her creamy grey skin had made him itch to run his hand along her all-too-visible thigh, her little breasts dimpling the scanty cloth covering them, her indecent proposal that had shocked him because it had so perfectly mirrored what he had been thinking. . . .

These were not things his sister needed to know. After all, he had come here to uplift and protect these children of nature, not to take advantage of their innocence. Because there
had
been something childlike about her, something he felt a strong impulse to guard from harm, not to violate.

He skipped a space to insert a description of Spaeth at some time when he could think about it without getting heated.

She is the daughter of their local shaman, the mysterious Goth, whom I almost suspect of not really existing. However, the Adaina seem to be reluctant to admit their relationship, which they cover with a preposterous story about his having made her.

Puzzled, he looked up, thinking that there was a similar reluctance to admit plainly that Harg was Goth’s son, which from the story Argen told seemed perfectly obvious. He shrugged. Perhaps a dhotamar was supposed to be celibate, and they were all studiously looking the other way. He would add it to the list of things to ask Harg—very delicately, in this case.