Isles of the Forsaken (14 page)

“You!” she spat out, when she saw it was the Inning.

“Spaeth,” he said, and reached out to touch her bandaged arm. “I came to—”

She pulled away. “Don’t touch me.”

“I can tell you’re in pain,” he said gently. “If you like, I can give you something for it.”

Her pain had nothing to do with her arm. “You fool,” she said. “You can’t take pain away from a Lashnura. It’s why we exist.”

“That’s exactly how these people manipulate you!” he said earnestly. “They play on this belief of yours. You don’t need to suffer for them.”

An hour ago, she might have listened. But her emotions were rubbed raw now, and it was his fault. “Listen, Inning,” she said intensely, “pain is what balances the scales of nature. It has been woven into the fabric of this world since it was first created. You should be glad we are willing to take it on, or you would have more of it yourself.”

“You’re wrong!” he answered. “Pain is something we create ourselves, out of ignorance and malice. It’s not natural or right. We should be working to drive it from this world.”

She gave a bitter laugh. “If you did that, you would destroy all the joy as well.” She tried to push past him into the house, but he stood in her way, confronting her.

“Maybe what you really mean is that there would be no glory left for you. You like it, don’t you—their reverence, their awe. That’s why you’re willing to do this thing. It makes you better than they are.”

Anger sang in her ears. A gust of wind blew past them, casting strands of silver hair in her face. She wanted to make him weep—and she knew how to do it. “Do you know what mora is, Inning?” she asked.

He frowned. “It’s your word for magic, isn’t it?”

It was far more than that; mora was the binding force that held the atoms and the stars together, and set them all in motion. But let him think he knew it all. “Our powers are not limited to dhota,” Spaeth said. “Mora runs in our veins. If Goth Batra Namora were here, he could show you things that would cure you forever of denying what you cannot understand.”

“Goth the shaman?” Nathaway said. “Never mind; I’ve seen charlatans before.”

Now she knew he would not just weep. He would bleed, he would scream in terror. She would stake him to the hillside and call the Mundua to feast on his viscera. Ridwit would love her for giving them an Inning to devour. “You’re a big brave man, here in the safety of the village,” she taunted. “You wouldn’t dare go to the Whispering Stones on the night of the full moon.”

“Stop trying to scare me,” he said. “I’m not like your Adaina.”

“Then come with me, if you have the courage. I’ll show you the way. To get back, you’ll have to find your own way.”

He hesitated a moment, then saw the challenge in her eyes. “All right, I will. We’ll see who’s convinced.”

As if in reaction, the sky to the east boomed in laughter. Spaeth knelt and pressed her hands to the earth, trying to draw the island into alliance against the race that had harmed it. The sand flowed reassuringly through her fingers. Yora would stand by her.

She stood up. “Wait a moment, I have to fetch something,” she said. Inside the house, she knew where Goth kept carefully hidden the leather bag of tools he used to pierce the barriers between the circles. In a few moments she had them in hand, and swept out the door past the Inning.

“Follow me,” she said.

*

This was not the outcome Nathaway had expected.

It was pure luck that he had been ashore when the rumour came around that a dhota ceremony was about to commence in the village. The Tornas would have done nothing, and Captain Quintock had actually refused to send soldiers to break it up, claiming it was a private affair and none of their business. So Nathaway had been obliged to come alone.

He had expected opposition from the Adaina. But from Spaeth, he had expected, if not gratitude, at least acquiescence. Her furious reaction had taken him by surprise, and he had come to her house to patch things up. Now, it seemed, he had gotten himself in even deeper.

“Spaeth!” he called out, hurrying to catch up with her long strides.

She stopped. “Have you changed your mind already?” she said contemptuously.

“No,” he said, “but what I really want is to talk to you. If I go with you, will you listen?”

“I have nothing to say,” she answered. “I only have things to do. If you don’t want to go with me, then good-bye.” She turned and continued up the path. The shifting shadows quickly engulfed her.

He followed. She spoke not another word as they headed across the swelling hills toward the centre of the island. The thick-matted grass was spongy underfoot from the rain, and the blustery wind buffeted their backs. Above them the swollen moon dodged the wind-driven clouds. Behind them, the lights of the town were hidden by the hills.

Soon they were surrounded on all sides by rolling, silvery grassland. Nathaway found it hard to keep up with Spaeth, who darted silently across the treacherous ground while he blundered through tuffets of grass, straining to see the pools and potholes. For a long time their path approached a curious, rounded hillock that rose above all the others, so regular and hemispherical that Nathaway guessed it must be man-made. He had thought he knew the island well, but this earthen monument was strange to him. As they stopped at its foot, the wind ceased. Not a sound could be heard but Nathaway’s laboured breathing.

“Is it a burial mound?” he whispered.

Spaeth gave him a strange look, and he thought for a moment she would not answer. But she spoke in a low voice that blended almost imperceptibly with the silence of the hills. “It is the skull of the Great Bear, whom Hannako slew.”

From his books on Adaina myth, Nathaway knew that the Great Bear was part of their creation story. “The people on Rusk say the Great Bear’s skull is on their island. There’s another one on Vill. Is this the
real
one?” He had intended the remark jokingly, but something was caught in his throat, and the words came out in a hoarse whisper. He coughed.

“They are all the real one,” Spaeth said. “They are all the same place.”

She was gazing intently ahead of her, as if searching for something. At last she seemed to find what she wanted. “Follow me closely,” she said. “If you can, put your feet where I put mine.”

She started up the hill by a winding route, sometimes doubling back on her own path, sometimes circling up in spirals. When they finally got to the top, Nathaway found himself facing the circle of stones where he had first met Spaeth four days before.

“So this is where we are!” he exclaimed, puzzled at his own disorientation. “I should have recognized the spot.”

“You saw it only by day,” Spaeth answered, as if that should make any difference.

They were at the highest point of the island, and an unimpeded view opened up on all sides. Far past the grass hills he could see the glimmer of the moonlit sea, dwarfing the tiny spot of land they stood on. Not a light showed as far as vision reached, except from above.

After turning completely around once, Spaeth sat on the grass outside the ring of stones, facing south. She opened her leather bag and drew out a long wooden box. Inlaid on its cover were two intertwined ovals in opalescent mother-of pearl. Spaeth opened the lid and took out a long-stemmed pipe with a curiously carved stone bowl. She filled it from a cloth sack, then spread a piece of leather on the grass and laid out flint, steel, punk, and splints to light it. As she knelt to begin the process by striking a spark, Nathaway took a box of sulphur matches from his pocket and offered them to her. She hesitated a moment, then shrugged and took them.

She lit the pipe, took a few puffs, then gestured Nathaway to sit on the ground next to her. She handed him the pipe.

“You must smoke it too.”

“Why?” he demanded suspiciously.

“It is an herb,” she answered. “It brings out the mood.”

Grudgingly following her instructions, Nathaway drew in the fragrant smoke. It had a calming but clarifying effect, and it was quite some time before either of them spoke again. Nathaway sat trying to think of a strategy to engage her in debate, but as he smoked the urgency faded. At last he said, “What sort of magic can you work? Make trees sprout from a box, or eggs appear in your hand?” He knew such tricks from the magicians who performed in Fluminos salons.

“I am going to try to catch the attention of the world.”

“What?”

For a moment she seemed to consider whether to ignore him or go on. At last she said, “Back in the days of Alta, there was consciousness in everything. Even the stones were aware. Nowadays it’s not so true. But there are still ways to wake the world. It is a matter of mood. You have to have a strong mood. We call it mora.”

All he could think was that she intended a kind of séance. “Will you summon spirits?” he asked.

She stared at him a moment, then said, “Yes. That’s what I’m going to do.”

When he handed back the pipe she sat smoking it in short puffs. Slowly he realized she was angry. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

Her tone was dark with enmity. “You come blundering in here as if the balances were not resting on a pinhead. You have no idea how fragile this world of ours is. There is a war going on! For centuries, we Lashnura have been saving the Isles from destruction through cleverness and sacrifice. We have given our lives and freedom to make sure neither side has the upper hand. Now, if you keep acting as you have, you will upset everything.”

“Who is at war?” Nathaway asked.

“The Adaina call them the Mundua and the Ashwin.”

He had read of them. “The spirits of the sea and the spirits of the air,” he said.

“Some people call them the powers of imbalance. The powers of balance are what we Lashnura serve.”

An inspiration struck him. “So do we! We call it justice. It’s what all our law is based on. That is why we have come to the Forsakens—to right the balance. You see, we have a lot in common.”

“I don’t think we are talking of the same thing,” she said.

Her tone silenced him a while. At last he said, “Do you have to shed blood to work your magic?”

“No,” she said curtly. “This has nothing to do with dhota.”

“But I thought—”

She cut him short. “It is almost time.” She tapped the ashes out of the pipe and refilled it. “Finish this bowl of weed, and we will start.”

They waited as Nathaway continued to smoke. Spaeth seemed totally unconscious of him now, staring away to the south. He took the opportunity to study her. She looked older than his first impression, less innocent and more commanding. She sat slim and straight, like a woman of silver condensed from the moonlight. Her skin shone soft. He wanted to touch it. He tried to marshal his thoughts, but only found himself remembering the invitation she had made four days ago, in this very place. Had she felt attracted to him? It gave him a heady feeling. She could not have wanted him for the sake of his status, like women in Fluminos. Out here, closed off from the world, there was no possibility of scandal or blackmail. No one would ever know. He wondered if she had entirely given up.

Presently she began a soft, low humming. As he listened idly, the tuneless chant crept into the cracks between his thoughts, becoming a background to them all, like the same frame repeated endlessly in a gallery of pictures. Without ever having listened, he knew her chant by heart. Two notes, pause, three notes, pause, two notes, repeat. He did not even notice when his own thoughts disappeared from his mind, leaving him open and unencumbered.

Suddenly the music stopped. Nathaway straightened and opened his eyes. He felt strangely rested, and wondered how much time had passed. He turned to ask Spaeth if he had been asleep; but she was looking at him with a strangely appraising smile. Somehow, he realized, she had gotten behind his guard, removed the defences of his mind, and for a short time controlled him. He felt indignant. Yet what could he accuse her of? Hypnotism? He did not even believe in what he felt she had done.

He looked away. She ought not to taunt a man when she was totally at his mercy, he thought. It would be so easy for him to reach out and pin her back on the grass, to press his tongue between her lips, to lower his body down on
hers. . . .

Shocked at finding thoughts so unlike himself erupting from his brain, he stood up. He could no longer bear the thought of being so close to Spaeth.

“Stop!” she cried out. “Where are you going?”

“Away,” he said unclearly, his mouth stiff and awkward. But before he could move, Spaeth had grasped his arm and pulled him down with a surprising strength. “Listen!” she whispered.

The scene before him had changed. Not a detail of the hillside was different, but the space seemed to have grown larger, as if viewed through a lens. His senses had become painfully acute: he could pick out every individual blade of grass down the hillside. He was keenly conscious of the unnatural stillness that had persisted ever since they had come to the hill. He felt suspended in a limbo world where there was neither movement, breath, nor death.

At his side, Spaeth began to sing again, but now there was an urgency to the four-note pattern, a summons. A chill trickled down his spine. He strained to hear over the persistent crooning of the song and the discordant pounding of his blood. At last, on the edge of hearing, he sensed the sympathetic notes of the sea far below them in the night. A soft, answering whisper from behind his back made his skin prickle.

“Don’t look!” Spaeth warned. “Just listen.”

The stones at his back were ringing, singing to the sea. Second by second the sound grew and blended with the wind, until he could recognize the very notes of Spaeth’s song. A sense of terrible desolation shook him. The song was hollow, inhuman. He had no business hearing it.

“Speak, Inning!” Spaeth’s voice lashed him with derision. He looked up as in a dream, to see that she was standing above him with a night-wild triumph. There were no longer any stars behind her head. “Go on,” she taunted, “argue to me now about justice.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but all he could do was sing the notes of the wind’s song. His head was a bell of glass, a crystal ringing with the organ tones of the air around him.