Isles of the Forsaken (4 page)

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 her 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?”

“No.”

“Then answer the question yourself.”

It was true. If Goth had gone forever, he would have left a stone for her to keep his soul.

“Why should you care about him?” Ridwit asked a little peevishly. “You have me.” She rubbed her sinuous body against Spaeth’s, then jumped down and rolled playfully onto her back in the grass.

“Because,” Spaeth said softly, “he is my lover and my creator. He is my bandhota.”

Ridwit twisted around into a crouch, glowering at her. “Oh, you Grey People and your dhota. It makes me sick.” She rose, bits of grass clinging to her fur, and stalked between the stones, into the centre of the ring.

Spaeth had always known what the Grey Man did. She had often come with him, carrying the tools of dhota, the bowl and the knife. She had sat silent in the shadows, watching as he used them. He had told her about dhota, how it came about and what it meant.

Oh yes, she had known. She had seen his face chalky and drained after losing too much blood, and held him as he tossed in his bed in the grip of someone else’s pain. She had fed him when his hands were too palsied to lift a spoon. She had seen the feverish longing in his eyes when his bandhotai were too long gone, and the foolish, unjudging love that made him a victim of their ills again and again. He had taken on all the hurts of Yora, little and great, for forty years. It was not healthy or right, but he was as addicted to giving dhota as the Adaina were to receiving it.

The panther was sitting in the stone circle with the tip of her tail twitching. Spaeth climbed down from the rock to sit beside her.

“You Grey People have gotten degenerate,” the god said. “Once, you had the power to protect the isles. But you will never use your power again. You don’t care about the world any more. All you think about is giving dhota.”

“Don’t talk as if I am one of them,” Spaeth said.

“Goth is Lashnura. He made you from his own flesh. So you are Lashnura. But you’ve never given dhota, so you don’t know. Once you do it, you’ll turn like all the others, soft and sentimental. There won’t be any outside world for you; all you’ll care about is your bandhotai. You’ll just be a slave.” She looked at Spaeth mournfully. “I like you now. I wish you didn’t have to change.”

“I
won’t
change!” Spaeth said fiercely. “I’ll never give dhota.” The idea made her horribly uneasy. Goth, wonderful man that he was, was helplessly bound to the tiny community of Yora. Spaeth felt panic at the thought of becoming like him, enslaved by a thousand invisible bonds. She didn’t want to be just an ignorant village dhotamar. She wanted freedom.

“You all say that,” Ridwit growled. “You all think you’ll stay free. But it only takes one claim, and you change your minds.”

“If anyone asks, I’ll refuse to do it,” Spaeth said. “I’ll deny their claims.”

“You won’t be able to,” Ridwit said. “Your ancestors saw to that.”

Spaeth put her hands over her ears. “I’m not listening to you. I’m not one of them.”

The cat suddenly stiffened as if a shot had gone through her. In a single contortion of muscle and fur she was crouching between two of the stones with her tail lashing to and fro, her amber gaze directed down the hill. “One of
them
is coming,” she snarled.

Startled, Spaeth followed her gaze. A tall, lean figure dressed in a frock coat and broad-brimmed hat was making his way toward the hilltop with a stiff, purposeful stride. Spaeth gazed, transfixed. She had never seen anything like this novelty before. It could only be one thing. “They say the Tornas brought an Inning with them.”

“Is that what you call them?” Ridwit’s eyes narrowed. “He’s wearing a very ugly body.”

“I think all Innings look like that.”

“Didn’t he get enough sun? He grew spindly.”

Spaeth stroked down the cat’s bristling back fur. “Be still, or you will start a hurricane.” All the world knew it was the lashing of Ridwit’s tail that stirred up the wind.

“I
want
a hurricane,” Ridwit said maliciously. “It’s been a long time.”

“Go north, then, and don’t trouble us. We have enough worries.”

Ridwit’s keen eyes turned from the approaching figure to Spaeth. “They are our enemies, you know,” she growled low in her throat. “They want to keep me from my kingdom, to tie me in bonds. I hate them. If you bring this one to me, I’ll help you.”

Spaeth frowned. “What do you want with him?”

“To feed on his terror.”

“I can’t do that. You know that.”

The Inning was at the base of the steep dirt path that led to the Whispering Stones. Ridwit turned to hiss at him with primeval malevolence, then with a single movement stepped out of reality into myth. Where she had been, a dried bush of wild pea rattled in the wind.

The young man climbing the grassy slope was tall, rawboned, and blond, with an awkward gait and spectacles that gave him a slightly baffled look. He had not yet spied Spaeth, so she crouched to slip away. But curiosity stopped her. She had never seen someone from beyond the isles. And so when he reached the crest of the hill she was perched on one of the granite boulders with her arms around her legs.

He stopped to catch his breath, leaning on the oak walking-stick he carried. By now Spaeth had remembered what the islanders called him: Nathaway Talley, the Justice of the Peace who had come to teach Yorans about Inning law.

“Hello,” he said breathlessly.

“Hello,” Spaeth answered.

After a tortured pause he said, “I came up here to see the ancient curiosity.” He waved his stick at the stones. “What are they, a fortification?”

“I don’t think so,” Spaeth said.

He waited a moment for her to say more, but when she didn’t, he went on, “Are they a holy site, a shrine?”

“No,” said Spaeth.

“Is it all right if I look at them?”

“You have to ask them,” Spaeth said.

He gave her an odd look, and didn’t follow her advice. Instead, he began to walk around the circle, taking out a small notebook to record the positions of the boulders. He paced out the diameter and circumference of the ring, writing down numbers. Spaeth crouched like a cormorant, watching him. Ridwit was right: he looked uncomfortable in his body, as if it fitted him too loosely. It was a ramshackle assemblage of limbs and defensiveness.

At last he climbed atop the largest boulder to survey the view. “Granite isn’t native to the South Chain,” he said. “Do you know where the stones came from?”

“From the north,” Spaeth said, repeating what Ridwit had told her.

Shading his eyes with one hand, the Inning looked down the steep slopes and ravines between the beaches and the hill. “How did they get up here?”

“Up the path from Lone Tree Point. The stones came of their own accord.”

He turned to her with such a sceptical expression that she felt obliged to explain. “The Altans caught the stones in nets and sang them to the surface of the sea. When they reached the land, the stone-fishers danced ahead along the path, and sang so sweetly that the stones came after to hear.”