Ison of the Isles (15 page)

By now I suppose you can see my dilemma. There is nothing on earth I want more than to prevent her from having to do this thing; and yet, if she does not, in the eyes of the mob here it will expose Harg as a tool of chaos, and he will have to be done away with. I know what you are thinking, that this would surely be the best outcome for Inning. Why should I not rejoice at a solution that would eliminate our most formidable adversary? Well, first, because Harg is my friend. And second, I have become convinced that, in the larger scheme, our nation might actually benefit from him becoming Ison. He is a person of stature; he would give the Isles a voice, and a mind. This may not make sense. I have to admit, it is more of an instinct than a reasoned conclusion.

After days of hinting, Agave finally asked me point-blank whether I would give the Tablet to Spaeth. Knowing what I do now, I refused. Since the ceremony cannot go forward legitimately without it, this would seem to save her from the obligation, and seal Harg’s fate. The Lashnura are not happy with me, since they know my decision was made for selfish reasons. But, Rachel, I cannot help myself. When I look at her, and think how lucky we are to have found each other, it makes me want to share my happiness with the whole human race, because surely there is enough to spare. Why should our happiness have to be bought with the suffering of someone else, especially someone who doesn’t deserve it? Why should being true to one person have to involve betraying another? I know how I have to choose, but what I fear is that it will taint our lives with guilt, and poison our happiness.

It felt good to have finally gotten it down. His thoughts felt clarified, but no easier. He put away the letter to finish later on, for it had taken him a long time and he was now late for his visit to Harg.

Immemorial custom was now governing all the Pavilion’s actions. Harg was being lodged in a comfortable room overlooking the Isonsquare, waiting for the day prescribed—and, given Harg’s temperament, quickly going crazy from inaction. The Grey Folk found it very difficult to be in his presence, because he fairly radiated pain—physical pain, mental pain, moral pain, all mixed so toxically that even Nathaway could feel it. But because it didn’t have the almost sexual attraction for him that it did for the Lashnura, he had become their intermediary and Harg’s only visitor. It was an odd reversal of their roles in Harbourdown.

When Nathaway entered the room, Harg was standing at the window that overlooked the Isonsquare, peering out. “What are they doing out there?” he asked. “I can’t see.”

Nathaway didn’t want to answer, but didn’t want to lie, either. “They’re constructing bleachers,” he said.

Harg turned away from the window, looking ill with apprehension. His reaction made Nathaway regret his own involvement, even as witness.

“Here’s your liquor,” Nathaway said, putting it on the table. “Don’t drink it all at once.” From the looks of the man, it was a real possibility.

The horrible injury had left Harg looking much thinner and more drawn than before. But what was truly wearing him down was the constant knowledge of the reckoning he had brought on himself. It was preying on his mind at all hours, keeping him from the rest he so obviously needed.

By way of distraction, Nathaway said, “Do you want to see what the Fluminos papers are saying about you?”

“I’m in the Fluminos papers?” Harg said as if he disbelieved it.

“Don’t celebrate yet.” Nathaway took out one of the clippings. “It says here that during the battle of Pont you took your pistol and killed a twelve-year-old child on your own ship, because she wasn’t fetching powder fast enough.”

Harg was staring at him. “But that’s not true,” he said.

“Of course it’s not. We’re talking about the Fluminos press. Really, Harg, you can be so naive.”

He tossed the rest of the clippings on the table. Harg fingered through them, and picked up one illustrated by a woodcut of a fierce, swarthy giant wearing a sash bristling with dirks and pistols, his foot on the neck of a captured woman. “That’s you,” Nathaway said.

Harg studied the drawing, then looked up. “Do people believe this?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Innings are so naive.”

Nathaway was actually glad to hear Harg fight back. He said, “Listen, Harg, it makes me as angry as you to think that this garbage is all the public at home gets. It’s not to anyone’s advantage. How can people make rational decisions about public affairs when misinformation is all they get? I’ve been wondering, would you help me write up a more accurate account? I’m sure they’d publish it.”

The fact that Harg was anything but naive was confirmed by the next thing he said. “Would you let Auster sit in?”

Auster could read, and would be able to check what Nathaway wrote down. “Of course,” Nathaway said.

Apparently, the assent was all Harg had been looking for, since he began to tell the story almost at once. Nathaway had to tell him to wait while he assembled his paper and pens.

Talking seemed to calm Harg’s nerves. He told the story well, with the precision of memory that Nathaway had begun to attribute to his never having learned to rely on writing. From time to time Nathaway interrupted to ask about something that would be opaque to an Inning audience, but most of the time he simply took it down as it fell from Harg’s mouth.

By the time they finished it was dark outside the window, but the workmen in the square had lit a bonfire and were still hammering and sawing by its light. The sounds filtered in through the windows. Nathaway, watching Harg’s face, saw the moment when he became aware of it again.

“I wish I could tell you the rest of it,” Harg said. “I wish I could get my whole life down before I forget what it meant to me.”

He was assuming the dhota-nur was actually going to take place. And perhaps it would, Nathaway told himself. Perhaps Goth would arrive, and all would be well. Feeling awkward, he said, “Harg, do you want me to be there? Would it help?”

Harg shook his head. “No,” he said. “I don’t want you there. I don’t want anyone there.”

“You’re not going to get that wish,” Nathaway said.

The strain on Harg’s face was hard to watch. Nathaway suddenly doubted the decision he thought he had made.

“Listen, Harg, I know a little about what it’s going to be like,” he said haltingly. “When I first got here, Agave did something similar to me.”

“What have you ever done to be cured of?” Harg said, looking at him.

“It seemed like a lot.”

Harg said quietly, “Have you ever killed a man?”

“No.”

“Have you ever made a decision that killed your best friend?”

“No, but—”

“I’m such damaged goods,” Harg said. “I’m not the right one for this. It should have been someone better than me.”

Nathaway hadn’t put his glasses back on, but it seemed like he was seeing very clearly—not just the surfaces, but below them, to the blurred reasons that made things happen. “Harg, that’s exactly why you
are
the right person,” he said. “The world is so out of balance that a better person’s sacrifice wouldn’t be enough. It’s not really about you at all, it’s about the sickness of the Isles, and of my country too. This war is like a fever that needs to be cured, and someone must do that for his land, regardless of his own will or desires.”

Harg was watching him, transfixed. “What makes you think I can do it?” he said.

“You’ve got a better chance than anyone else. And it’s not because you’re a good man, it’s because you’re flawed, like the rest of us—because it will be harder for you than for someone blameless.”

The moment of certainty faded, and Nathaway wondered how he had known to say those things. But they seemed to have settled Harg’s mind somewhat. He still sat staring into the future, but now he looked different—not at peace, but reconciled to his duty.

Nathaway rose. “I’ve got to go,” he said. “I’ll leave this transcript here, shall I? You can get Auster to read it over to you.”

“No, take it,” Harg said. “It’s fine. I hope it does some good.”

Nathaway hesitated a moment, then gathered it up. “It will, I’m sure.” Awkwardly, he added, “Thanks for trusting me.”

Harg was watching him as if he were a perfect enigma. About to leave, Nathaway turned back and blurted out, “Harg, I’m glad I met you. You have more courage than anyone I know.”

His conscience was hurting unbearably as he left the room.

*

In the room directly above Harg’s, the windows had a better view of the bonfire in the Isonsquare, but Spaeth was not looking out at it. She was crouched on the bed gazing at her fingernails in the light of the bedside lamp. Dark half-circles were growing at the bases. Nathaway had commented on it that morning, unaware what it meant. The Black Mask was returning, too soon.

She had been determined to handle it better this time. But it seemed like the Ashwin and Mundua were already ahead of her, prowling and voracious at the edges of events. How could they not be? Goth had given them a chance they had been waiting for centuries to seize.

Spaeth had known it since the day she and Nathaway had arrived in Lashnish like a rock through the window, shattering the immemorial order of the Pavilion’s world. On that first night, Agave had turned to her with anguish in her eyes and said, “Was he sane? Did he know what he was doing?” Meaning Goth.

The Grey Folk of the Pavilion had denied it at first, then fought it, then struggled to understand it. But Goth’s wordless message to them was unmistakable: it was time for the Lashnura to lay aside their ancient role, and cease to be what they were. They had served their purpose, and now other hands needed to take up the joy and duty of healing the Isles.

If all Goth had done was send the message, it would have been upheaval enough. But he had backed it up with an action that would break the world wide open. Harg could not be Ison, and neither could anyone else. The Lashnura had forsaken their ancient pact. The Emerald Tablet of Gilgen, and all it symbolized, no longer belonged to them. There would be chaos when it was revealed, and the Isles would collapse like something boneless—but into whose hands: the Innings’ or the gods’?

“You can solve this,” Agave had told her. “The stone is your right, your heritage. Take it back, and correct this mistake.” Since then, Auster and Agave had argued, persuaded, pressured, and pleaded with her. But it was not a mistake, and they knew it—it was Goth’s choice. To do as they wished, she would have to go against her creator, her bandhota, and her love. The choice had seemed clear, if not easy.

And then Harg had struck the stone. Watching, Spaeth had known with solid certainty that Goth never would have given away the Emerald Tablet if he had known it would cost Harg his life. The balances, the line of Gilgen, the ancient authority of the Lashnura—all of them were abstractions. Harg was real.

She closed her hands into fists, hiding the nails. “Goth, please come back,” she whispered. But even as she said it, she knew it would come down to her.

*

The day of the investiture dawned sunny but chill. In the morning there was frost on the stones that quickly melted as the sun touched it. People started gathering in the Isonsquare at daybreak, to get good seats. By now, the tiered bleachers were set up all around the square. From his window, Harg could see the section roped off for Tiarch and her retinue. They said she was bringing an envoy from the Monarch of Rothur to witness.

His nerves felt jumpy and restless. His breakfast still stood untouched on the table; his stomach was too unsettled to eat it.

“What’s the delay?” he said to Namenda Agave. She was standing by the door, as far away from him as she could get and still be in the same room. She had come to bring him some clothes to wear and a few last-minute instructions. When he looked at her, he glimpsed the now-familiar expression of barely-suppressed longing that all the Grey Folk in the Pavilion seemed to have.

She hesitated over his question. For days he had had a feeling that there was something the Lashnurai weren’t telling him. They seemed incapable of straightforward answers or explanations. “We must give Goran as much time as possible to arrive,” she said.

“I keep telling you, he won’t come.” The certainty had been growing like a cold lump in his gut. At first he had dared to hope, and dread, that this time it would be different. But as the days had passed without any sign of him, Harg had had to accept that Goth had not changed. He had never inconvenienced himself for Harg’s sake before, and he would not do it now.

Misunderstanding, Agave said, “If he is still Heir of Gilgen, no Inning can stop him. The forces of mora themselves will free him.”

It was the first time she had put it that way, and he pounced on her words. “
If
he is Heir of Gilgen? What does that mean?”

“We will know by the end of today.”

Harg could not fathom these people. The suspicion that something complex and shadowy was going on behind the scenes returned with redoubled force. “Namenda, I have a right to know what is going on,” he said.

Her voice was harsh with tension. “We will all know by the end of the day.”

She laid the clothes she was carrying on a chair. “You must wear these when we come to fetch you out into the square. When the ceremony starts, you will have to remove all but the breechclout.”

“Why?” he said rebelliously.

She answered, “An Ison is not like other leaders, who may hide their characters and purposes from their people. An Ison must be transparent as glass, so the people may know his soul, and all that lies in it. That is the purpose of dhota-nur. The candidate’s body and mind are revealed before the people he would lead, so that they can see into him, and judge him fit.”

Harg felt sick with dread.

“Dhota-nur is a cleansing,” she went on. “Afterwards, you will be changed. I cannot guarantee that you will even wish to be Ison any more.”

“I don’t now,” he said.

For a few moments she was silent; then, in a low tone, said: “I know. That is one reason we all believe this needs to go forward.”

He hadn’t known that there was any doubt of it going forward, any possibility of stopping it. But before he could ask, she turned to leave. He thought of calling after her, demanding an explanation, but knew it would be fruitless.