Isles of the Forsaken (35 page)

The Inning looked up over the heads of the crowd, his face feverish. His eyes found Spaeth, and he said, “Now for you.”

He took her by the wrist and headed for the door. A leering mass of faces blocked her way. Hands reached out to touch her, but the Inning swore at them and they fell back.

Outside, a restless wind gusted down the street, scattering refuse before it. The fog was breaking up. She could see down into the Fountainmarket, where the cressets and lamps still lit the nightly commerce. She loathed everything she saw. Nothing here was balanced or pure. Even Lashnura compassion partook of its pollution. The thought of dhota repulsed her now. Far better, here, to be a thing of night. Whoever was not predator would be prey.

“Where are you taking me?” she demanded as the Inning set a fast pace toward the steps.

“To the palace,” he said. “I’m not about to have you in that piss-hole.”

She saw then that she had been led to him, or he to her, for precisely this reason, so that she could enter the palace. “Good,” she said, laughing.

Under her feet the mountain rumbled; she felt its ravenous force, coiled but unable to burst free. Its fire was inside her, yearning to burn this fetid growth from its slopes, held back by the merest thread.

“Good,” she said again, as they hurried down the night-wrapped street.

When Jobin arrived early the next morning, Gill and Tway were already gone. Harg and Calpe were sitting on the carpet eating the remains of their dinner for breakfast. During the night a wind had blown away the fumes and now a wan sun shone in the dusty windows. Harg did not trust it to last; the morning had a dishonest smell.

Jobin spoke in a brisk, businesslike tone. “I’ve arranged a meeting for you this morning. We have to set out soon.”

“Where is it?” Harg asked.

“A neutral place that won’t implicate us. You have to understand the risk we’re taking.”

“My sympathies.”

Jobin heard the sarcasm, but acknowledged it only with a nervous frown.

“Well, we’d better go then,” Harg said, rising and brushing off his fingers. Calpe rose, too.

“Not you,” Jobin said sharply. “My contact will only meet with one of you, for safety’s sake. Harg must come alone.”

“Will Sorrell be alone?” Harg asked.

“I can’t dictate that.”

Harg exchanged a glance with Calpe. She sank back down.

“Lead the way,” Harg said.

Outside the gate, Jobin turned right down the narrow street, walking quickly away from the palace. Harg glanced over his shoulder several times, but could detect no sign of anyone following them. That was good. It meant Calpe was being careful.

Jobin took a tangled route uphill toward the Adaina section, a sprawling eyesore that slumped against the mountainside above the city. They finally emerged into one of Tornabay’s ubiquitous markets. Tents and booths cluttered the square, selling a hundred commodities with only two things in common: they were shabby and overpriced. In the centre of the plaza was a grand structure of marble that had once been a fountain, and was now a dumping-ground for refuse. After circling the raucous maze of the market, Jobin came to sit on the stone base of the fountain. “We have to wait,” he said.

Harg sat. It looked like an unpromising place for a war profiteer to carry on business. There was an air of hopeless poverty about the filthy square. The flies droned everywhere, as if they had scented the carrion odour of soul-death.

A middle-aged matron with a shopping basket settled down heavily on the fountain base a little way from Harg. She took off her shoe to massage her foot, complaining about steep streets and tight shoes. As Harg said nothing, she edged closer and began talking in a whining voice about a bloodroot poultice her mother had once used for blisters; the ingredients were impossible to get any more.

“So where is this friend of yours?” Harg said in an undertone to Jobin. The Torna shook his head, scanning the crowd.

“Ah, waiting for a lady friend, are you?” the woman at his side said. “You young fellows from the Outlands need to be careful, running around with Tornabay girls. Here, I’ve got a potion the young men use—”

Harg wanted to throttle her. How had she spotted him for an outlander? He rose abruptly. “I am sorry, Mother, but we have errands to attend to.” He motioned for Jobin to follow him. But Jobin was staring across the square as if at a signal. He got up and said, “Over here.”

They crossed quickly toward an unmarked stone warehouse with barred windows. Jobin dodged into a narrow passage leading around to the back of the building. In the alley, they climbed a set of steps to a sturdy door where Jobin knocked four times.

Presently they heard the rumble of a board being raised inside, then latches and bolts being shot, and finally the door opened a crack. An ancient watchman peered out, recognized Jobin, and let them in. Jobin gave him a small coin.

Their boots echoed on the thick board floor. Dusty sunlight filtered through cracks in the heavy shutters, revealing the dim shapes of field artillery crouched like black insects on either side. Slowly Harg walked forward, Jobin just behind him. The guns stretched abreast in lines down the warehouse bays till they seemed countless. Against the outer walls were stacked crates of muskets. There were barrels of flints, stacks of iron balls, mortars, grenades, and chain shot. The building was a war waiting to happen.

Tantalized by the sight of so many arms, Harg did not notice until he was halfway down the aisle that there was a lot of dust in the air for such a deserted place. He looked at Jobin. “Where’s your friend?”

“Now, isn’t this an impatient young man!” a querulous voice said. Harg turned around to see the meddling old gossip from the square sitting on a crate. “He walks off when I’ve scarcely even said good morrow to him!” Her voice dropped an octave and took on a steely edge. “Welcome to Tornabay, Harg Ismol. Please don’t move.”

There was a footstep behind him, and he whirled around to see two uniformed guards step from behind the thick wood beams. Harg snatched the pistol from his belt, but a hard kick in the small of his back sent him stumbling forward onto one knee. A shape came at him from one side; as he turned to meet it, a rifle butt cracked down on his wrist, sending the pistol flying.

“Cuff him,” a man’s voice ordered. Hands seized him from either side, and his arms were jerked around behind him. He kicked backward viciously, then felt the cold pressure of a gun barrel at the base of his skull. “Stop fighting, Harg,” Jobin said calmly.

“You piece of filth,” Harg’s voice grated.

“Keep hold of him,” Jobin instructed the guard as he stepped around to look at Harg’s face, the gun still trained on him. “I haven’t betrayed you, Harg,” he said seriously. “I couldn’t tell you the truth. If you had known who really wanted to talk to you, you never would have come.”

They jerked him around to face the old woman. She had shed her dowdy disguise and was dressed all in black. There was an expression of sardonic amusement on her face as she looked Harg up and down. “So,” she said, “this is the reckless young man who has unsettled us all. You’re sure you have the right one, Joffrey?”

Joffrey. Harg was sure he had heard the name, but couldn’t place it. As he saw them standing together, he realized who the woman had to be. The knowledge sent a surge to his head, half fear and half exhilaration. He was facing the most powerful native in the isles.

“My apologies for the precautions,” Tiarch said to him, her eyes hard and black. “I did warn you not to move. Perhaps next time you will listen when I say something. Now, if you will give your word of honour not to do anything violent, I will have them release you.”

“Yes,” Harg said. “You have my word.”

The guards let go of Harg’s arms, and the key rattled against the manacles. Freed, Harg stood warily, rubbing his wrists. He felt thrown off balance by Tiarch’s sudden mercy. He thought of making a run for his life, but the guard was too close.

“The truth is, I did not bring you here to arrest you,” Tiarch said. “I brought you here to talk.” She paused, looking to the guard. “Wait outside the door.” Jobin—Joffrey—stirred restlessly, as if he disagreed, but the guards turned to obey.

Once the three of them were alone, the governor walked over into a beam of sunlight and jerked her head for Harg to follow. “Come where I can see you,” she said. Harg came, watching her warily. She was utterly unlike the tyrant he had imagined. There was no haughty grandeur here. She didn’t need it; she was too perfectly in control, too certain of where she stood. He had seen that certainty before, in good commanders.

“Joffrey’s still got a gun on you in case you try anything foolish,” she said.

And with any luck, Calpe might have a gun on Joffrey, Harg thought. He hoped she wouldn’t try anything. “I won’t,” he said.

“Good. Because if I give you your life, I will need your cooperation.” Tiarch looked down to collect her thoughts, then faced him forthrightly. “Joffrey brought you here because he thought you were the one most able to affect events in the South Chain. I needed to show you, for your own sake, what hopeless odds you face.”

Her face was grave. “You don’t know what you have started. The Innings were only waiting for a pretext to harden their grip on us, and you have played into their hands. If you continue as you have started, the best outcome I can see is the Adainas’ brightest leaders handed over to the executioners. The worst I see is families torn apart, towns burnt, beaches red with blood. I cannot sit back when this land is poised on the edge of a savage war. The isles are dear to me, and while there is breath in my body I will not let them be destroyed.”

She seemed sincere, but he knew she had been deceiving people since before he was born. He felt miles out of his depth. “What do you want?” he asked.

“There is another way,” she said. “A political way. You would have to set aside courage and daring for the moment and learn instead patience and discretion. It takes courage to leap into the abyss, but only the madman does it. The wise man builds a bridge across the gulf and saves his courage for tomorrow. I do not want to see you die bravely for a desperate cause, when you might live bravely for a victorious one.”

There was a kind of earthy charm about her. Fearing to seem either slow or taken in, Harg said, “Are you offering negotiations? A hearing with the Innings?”

“I am offering,” she said, “under certain conditions, to act as a broker, a go-between.”

His face must have betrayed his suspicion, because she held up a hand. “I know, I know, you don’t trust me. Well, I don’t really trust you, either, Captain Harg. The fact is, opponents in war never trust each other, for good reason. And yet peace happens. It’s done by working out a set of penalties and rewards that would guarantee our bargains. We don’t need trust if we can punish each other for betrayal, and reward each other for good faith.” She regarded him appraisingly. “I’ll set the stage by pledging not to turn you over to the Innings.”

“It wouldn’t do you any good if you did,” he answered. “The war would go on just the same without me.”

“I think not,” she said. “It would not be the same, it would be much worse. The Adaina would fragment into a thousand warring factions—pirates here, clan chiefs there, traditionalists over yon—and the extremists would come to the fore. With you, we’re fighting one war; without you, we’d be fighting a hundred different wars, and we’d be fighting them for decades.”

She had an exaggerated notion of his importance, but that fact gave him power. “Then it’s in your interest to bargain with me,” he said.

“Precisely. Now,
I
know that and
you
know that, but the Innings are a little slower. To get them to the table, I need to bring them something, some inducement that would get their attention.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Offer me something,” she said.

He had dealt with Tornas enough to know never to fall for that tactic. “No,” he said. “Tell me what you want.”

She smiled, as if he had passed some kind of test. “All right. You have some things we want. Hostages. Ships. Forts. We have some things you want. Amnesty. Negotiations. Peace. We need to figure out how to exchange the one for the other.”

He felt like they were back in the square outside, where charlatans were busy cheating their customers. “I can’t do this,” he said, shaking his head. “I can’t dicker about my country’s future as if it were so many pots and pans. Do you know what
I
see when I look ahead, Tiarch? I see the isles bled dry to feed Inning appetites. I see children withered young by Inning contempt. I see our souls bought and sold with our land, our mora faded, our world dull with despair. The isles are dear to me, too.”

Tiarch was looking at him with an expression of alarm. “May the gods deliver us from patriots!” she swore. “Don’t you know how desperate your situation is? The Innings are preparing to sail against you. They have the means to crush the South Chain, and the cruelty to do it. Just look around if you doubt me.” She gestured at the rows upon rows of guns, all Inning. “You must give me a chance to save you. It may be your last chance.”

Harg crossed his arms and faced her stonily. “I know what the Innings are capable of. I served under them. Why do you think I am willing to risk everything to fight them off?”

“But you cannot win. You must know that.”

He knew it very well, but was not about to concede it to her. He felt as if she had backed him into a cul-de-sac, and his instinct was to counterattack. He said, “What do
you
get from serving the Innings?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“They are not good masters. They have no gratitude. The longer you rule, the more power you have, and the greater threat you are to them. They probably fear and hate you, Tiarch. They want nothing more than to see you overthrown.”

“Why, Captain Harg,” she said with a steely sweetness. “Are you trying to get me to betray the Innings?”

“They would betray you,” he said.

She turned abruptly and walked away from him down the aisle of dusty arms. With a sense of wonder, he realized that his random shot had hit its mark. At last she turned back; her face was hidden by the shadows.