Ison of the Isles (36 page)

At other times it seemed to her that Ridwit crouched at the foot of her bed, black fur sleek, the tip of her tail wrapped around her feet, twitching.

There were fires outside her window that night; their light made sinister patterns against the ceiling. Now, as waves of nausea passed through her, she realized what had happened: she had taken on too much. If she had been perfectly healthy, she could have survived such a dhota. But she had been weak to begin with, and Harg had poured a whole lifetime of hurts into her. It was more than even a Lashnura body could bear.

Someone was standing over her—a real person this time, looking down on her with a lantern. She tried to turn away to shield her eye from the light, whimpering a little; lifting her hand was too much effort.

“What did he do, beat you?” a sharp voice said.

She realized who it was then, on a primitive, instinctual level: her other bandhota. The thought that she might drink from him as well sent a shiver of desire through her. Though she knew it would poison her beyond cure, she still wanted him. It gave her enough energy to struggle awake.

Corbin was holding the light to inspect her bruised face, a strange mix of emotions radiating from him, tugging at her. She reached out to touch his hand. There were little blond hairs on the back of it. He wore a uniform with starched cuffs that made him look cased in authority. She loved him deliriously.

“Don’t worry,” he said, his hand closing over hers possessively; “he’ll pay for this.”

“He didn’t touch me, except in love,” she said.

His hand stiffened as if the words had stung him.

Still clutching his hand, she said, “These are his hurts on my body. I took them so he could be free. He is cured now. There is no pain left in him. In two weeks he will have a new eye, just as good as the old one.”

Corbin sat on the edge of the bed then, setting the lamp down. His eyes were searching her face, her body, as if it had occurred to him, against every instinct, to believe her. He reached out to touch her swollen eye, very gently. “Why did you do this?” he said.

“Because dhota is the only solution I have,” she said. “I thought otherwise for a long time, but now I know it’s true.”

“Dhota,” he said flatly. “You and your father.” He was looking past her now, with a haunted expression.

She realized he was speaking of Goth. She pressed his hand against her cheek. “Is he all right?”

“It depends on your definition,” he said.

He looked like a man who had destroyed a thing he loved. His pain was so sharp, Spaeth said, “Let me heal you.”

He looked down at her and said harshly, “You’re dying.”

“I know,” she said.

“To cure me would kill you. I’m not going to kill another of you.”

“It would be a beautiful death,” she said, smiling crazily. Rainbows of desire were dancing before her eyes; she realized she couldn’t hold on much longer. “Please,” she said.

“No!” he said, and meant it.

She closed her eyes then, and despair seeped into her. It was Harg’s despair, she realized indistinctly; but now it was hers as well. Its blackness pervaded everything.

Corbin was gathering her in his arms, picking her up. She clutched his neck, her head against his shoulder, the sharp epaulette digging into her cheek. His closeness fed her, sustained her. She savoured his texture, his smell.

Then they were in another room. He laid her gently on a bed, and kissed her forehead, stroking back the hair. There was a whole wall of windows beside her, looking out on a garden. There was no moon.

Orbs of light drifted before her eyes. The pain was still there, but far away. Corbin was no longer holding her hand, but someone else was. She watched the light drift before her like glowing smoke, till it formed an insubstantial face.

“Goth,” she said. She wondered if they had entered another circle together.

“Spaeth,” he said. He looked like a man dead for centuries, just a skeleton with a little grey skin stretched over it. His voice was breathy and faint. “What has happened? Whose hurts are these you are carrying?”

A year ago, he would have known. A year ago, he had been the Goth she had known all her life. “I was afraid you would die without me,” she said.

“I would have,” he said, “but for unfinished business.”

She tried to smile, but it hurt. “You can go now. I have finished it for you.”

Wondering, Goth reached out to touch her face. Suddenly, his eyes fired. “Harg! You have cured him,” he said; then, with alarm, “Spaeth, you will die.”

“I know,” she said, smiling.

“Was all my teaching worthless? Couldn’t you hold back?”

“No,” she said. “There will be no other chance. He will die before he heals.”

Goth realized what she meant. With a terrible grief, he said, “Talley?”

Spaeth nodded. “I couldn’t cure him. He is too devoted to his pain.”

“I know,” Goth said. “If only . . .” He was stroking her forehead with a papery hand. “Spaeth, would you do the only thing in the world that could make me happy now?”

“Of course,” she said.

“Give me the pain you took from Harg.”

She drew back, horrified. “No! It’s mine.”

“Please,” he said, his voice shaking. “You don’t know how much of that pain is mine.”

“Yes, I do,” she said.

“Please let me set it right.”

“But I want it!” she said weakly.

“Please. He would never even let me touch him. Not even a touch.” His eyes were glistening with tears. Wondering that such a dry and brittle body still could weep, she reached out and touched the corner of his eye, to feel the tear on her finger.

“I love you, Goth,” she said.

She never had to say she had changed her mind. They both just knew it.

It didn’t even take blood; just that one teardrop, touched to her forehead, made their minds blend seamlessly. With all the gentleness she remembered, he began to draw from her the wounds that had poisoned her body. His spine arched and his head fell back as the pain entered him; but still he stopped to savour each one, to feel it fully. He had been waiting two decades and more for some of them.

As the night stretched on, he grew so weak he could no longer sit up, so he lay down on the bed and Spaeth cradled him in her arms, her vitality returning as his ebbed. Still he came back for more, till his breath was dry and ragged and his eyes stared sightless into the dark. She could feel the tremors passing through his body, and kissed him, stroking his drug-pocked arm.

He lasted till there was only one hurt left in her; then quietly, without a word, his limbs grew stiff in her arms. She lay there holding him till dawn grew light in the windows.

Harg’s second trial was much different from his first. It was a military court this time, and private. Evidently, Talley had concluded that the risks of convicting him in public outweighed the advantages. The change of venue was a tacit admission of defeat.

There were exactly five people in the courtroom, other than Harg: three officers sitting as judges and two advocates, one for each side. Neither said a word through the whole proceeding. There were no witnesses this time, the testimony having been given in advance, in writing. They made Harg stand before the judges to hear the charges, then to hear the verdicts: guilty, guilty. Talley gave the sentence in a dry, mechanical tone: “Three days hence you will be taken to the public square and there impaled upon a stake and left in public view until you die, as a warning and a lesson to all.”

Harg had always known what the penalty would be; he had known he was courting it. Still, its proximity and inevitability completely unnerved him. Three days hence. As long as there had been no date set, it had been unreal, somewhere in the future, possible to dodge, like a bullet not yet fired. He stood staring stupidly at the judges till they told him to leave. He managed to make his legs take him from the courtroom; but once out, he stumbled like a drunkard.

The next day they took him again to the room where he had originally met Bartelso. At first he thought his jailors, at last showing a spark of humanity, meant to improve what was left of his life, but he was mistaken. Soon the sound of footsteps and voices in the hall told him it was only that he had been granted another visit.

There were two of them this time: Bartelso and another Inning, the weathered man with scanty, unkempt hair that Harg had seen drawing sketches in the courtroom. He came in with an armload of equipment, which he leaned up against a wall, then turned to survey Harg with an unnervingly concentrated gaze. In the meantime, Bartelso shook Harg’s hand and said, “A thousand apologies for imposing on you, but would you mind if Mr. Mattingly here took your likeness? There is the most acute curiosity about you in Fluminos, and a picture would help immensely.”

The idea made him uncomfortable, but he tried not to show it. Mattingly, the artist, came forward and said, “We have the masterful portrait of Admiral Talley by Roland that was exhibited at the Academy last summer, but his opponent is a blank to most of the nation. A companion portrait would capture the contrast as no mere words could do.”

Harg glanced at Bartelso. “Do it. Think of your legacy,” the attorney said, squeezing his shoulder.

And so Harg allowed himself to be seated self-consciously in a chair opposite the window while the artist set up an easel and canvas and began mixing paints. It was a little unreal. These men were so busily caught up in the concerns of the world that they seemed oblivious to the fact that he was about to quit it.

“Keep talking,” the artist instructed. “Your face is more animated when you talk.”

Bartelso drew up a chair and handed him a sheaf of newspapers. “I brought the accounts of your trial,” he said. “Your performance was immensely popular with the press. You gave them a lot to shoot at each other about.” He paged through one newssheet and read out, “‘Nothing could have been more poignant than the sight of this man vainly defying the implacable force of law arrayed against him. On the bench was all that was disciplined, refined, and cerebral. In the dock, all that was instinctive, natural, and vanquished. With all his power he had fought an unequal war against the spread of empire; but now the knowledge of his doom was clearly written in his face.’ That’s the most favourable one. The negative ones are less edifying.”

“I’m glad they were entertained,” Harg said, rankled at being reduced to a man of nature. He imagined all the Innings in their comfortable parlours who would thrill to the fiction of a noble warrior unable to defy their empire. It would simultaneously assure them of the worthiness of the opposition, and their own unassailable right of conquest.

Briskly, Bartelso said, “Now, as to business. I have taken the liberty of appealing your case to the High Court.”

Harg looked up at him. “Is there any hope . . .?”

“No, not really. The Court might well review the case, but the Admiral is in such an unseemly hurry to carry out the sentence that by the time we receive word, it will all be moot. In view of that, I also petitioned the Admiral to stay the sentence till the High Court could respond, but he denied it. So I petitioned him for clemency. It’s really the last hope.”

Clemency. From Corbin Talley. Harg said, “Why are you still bothering?”

“Apart from the fact that you deserve a defender, you mean?” Bartelso’s eyes had an expression Harg had never seen on an Inning face: a mix of regret, admiration, and paternal concern. “To be honest, this case has been a scandalous travesty. I expected there to be a pretense of impartiality; our system is supposed to guarantee that, at least. We haven’t just failed you. We have failed ourselves.”

But none of them was going to die.

His expression must have said it, because Bartelso cleared his throat and said, “Pardon me for asking, Harg, but have you made out a will?”

At last, they had come down to reality. Harg shook his head. “I don’t have anything to leave, and no one to leave it to.”

“Nothing at all?” The Inning looked a little unwilling to believe it. Harg tried to think.

“Nothing,” he said. “Only my story.” He looked down at the newspapers and realized, not even that. His story was not his own now. There was another Harg springing to life in the Inning mind, one that served their purposes and not his. He looked up at Bartelso. “Would you take it down, if I told it to you? Do we have time?”

Bartelso said, “They didn’t give me a limit this time. There is no more mischief we can get into.”

“Did you bring paper and pen?”

“Of course.”

“Then take this down.”

And so he spent the afternoon dictating his story to the lawyer, while the artist worked silently. He wanted to leave something behind that was really his, and this was all he had. The story told his way, not the way the Innings would reshape it and make it their own.

The light was fading from the window by the time Mattingly laid down his brushes and Harg fell silent. He hadn’t said all he wanted to, but he might never figure out everything he ought to say. Bartelso put down his pen, flexing his wrist, then got up to view the canvas. Harg did the same.

At first, Harg barely recognized himself. The features were his, but the tragic expression, the mortality-haunted gaze seemed to belong to someone greater. In the painting, his shirt was unbuttoned to show a glimpse of muscled chest, vulnerably exposed.

“I needed to signal the radiant life-force and vitality,” the artist explained. “This portrait shows your heart. It’s an answer to Roland’s, which shows only intellect.”

So this was the Harg the Innings saw. This was what they wanted—no,
needed
—him to be. And this was the person they had to kill. He shook his head slowly. “I’ll never understand you,” he said.

After the two Innings left, the guards took Harg back to his cell and left him, as usual, without a light. As night fell he sat on his cot, thinking about the person in the painting. It was almost as if the Innings longed for an Ison Harg as much as the islanders did—not to lead them, but to die at their hands.

He heard the guard change an hour before midnight, but he felt no desire to sleep. A feeling of purpose had taken hold of his mind, and with it a mood of peace. What lay ahead for him was a kind of dhota, without which the war would never end. The Innings needed to pour all their rage and revenge into a final, vicious act that would purge them of their pain. If they could not kill him, they would never be cured, and would continue to damage the world. An Ison, he realized, was like the dhotamar to a nation; but it was not his own nation he needed to cure. It was Inning.

He fell asleep at last, resting in resignation, and did not dream.

*

The next day, they took him to see the stake that was being prepared for him, and to get a briefing from the Inning technician who would supervise his execution. In a cool, dispassionate tone, the man explained the anatomical discoveries that had made it possible for them to thrust a stake up a man’s spine without killing him, and all the technical improvements they employed to prolong the process of dying. He learned each step that would happen to him the following day, and viewed the preparations in the Gallowmarket. He managed to stay in control till they brought him back to his cell, and then he vomited convulsively.

It had been their purpose to fill his mind with grisly visions, and rob him of any courage or dignity. He knew it, and yet it worked. For the rest of the day, as he listened to the hammering as they constructed grandstands outside his window, his senses seemed unnaturally acute. He was vividly aware of his own body. It was a sacred symbol of the Isles, Agave had said. It was also the thing that gave the Innings power to drag him down and bestialize him. There would be nothing heroic or noble about his death. No one would see Harg in the naked, soiled form writhing on the stake tomorrow. By the time he died, he would barely be human.

The remaining hours of the day flew by. He paced, struggling to regain his mood from the night before, but his mind was too full of horrific details. His own imagination had reduced him to quivering, hyperactive reflexes.

As night fell, he begged the guards again to give him a light, but they refused even such a petty request. As the darkness in his cell grew impenetrable, his fear expanded to fill all the spaces he couldn’t see. It was a debilitating terror that made him sweaty and weak-bowelled, that left him crouching on the floor, his back against the wall, knees drawn up, waves of useless panic coursing through him.

Just after midnight, there was a noise at the cellblock door. As he heard the key in the lock he thought he ought to move, or they would find him like this, cowering against the wall almost senseless with fear; but somehow his body was unable to move. As he waited, slow footsteps and a light approached down the corridor, till at last they came to a halt outside his cell.

It was Corbin Talley, alone.

He stood there a while, just watching, and neither of them said a word. He raised the lamp a little to study Harg’s face, taking in his terror without any sign of pleasure. At last Harg managed to make his voice say, “What do you want?”

“Just to see you,” Talley said. He set down the lamp then, and took out a key. He unlocked the cell door and let himself in, drawing the gate closed again behind him. There was not a guard in sight. Harg wondered if it were some sort of test of courage, like entering the cage of an animal. He stood up, his back still against the wall.

Talley walked forward till he stood directly in front of Harg. Slowly, as if not to startle him, the Admiral raised a hand to the patch on his eye, then carefully removed it. He studied the wound with fascination. Harg realized he could sense light a little on that side.

“So she told the truth,” Talley said. “She did cure you.”

“Yes,” Harg said.

“What a waste,” Talley said.

There was a sharp regret in his tone. It made Harg say, “Why? Is she all right?”

“She will recover,” Talley said. “But Goran, son of Listor, is dead.”

Goth dead. Somehow, with so little left of his own life, it didn’t seem as final as it would have otherwise. “I wish I could have seen him,” Harg said.

“I regret what happened to him,” Talley said. “We became rather like friends at the end.”

With a little wonder, Harg realized it was grief in Talley’s voice.

“I’ve been trying to see something of him in you, but I can’t,” Talley said. “There’s not a speck of resemblance.”

“No,” Harg said. “There never was, on the surface.”

Talley turned away then, as if he didn’t want Harg to see his face. With his back turned, he said, “I have been thinking. Every now and then, a man should be entitled to act for himself, and not for his country.”

He turned back then. He had unbuttoned his coat, and Harg saw that he was wearing a pearl-handled pistol in a holster on his belt. He took it out, and for an instant Harg stiffened, thinking the Admiral had decided to take his revenge personally rather than allowing the law to take its course. His next thought was that it would be an act of uncommon mercy.

There was a slight smile on Talley’s face, as if he had followed each succeeding thought in Harg’s mind. Then he confounded them all by turning the gun around and offering the handle to Harg.

At first Harg didn’t move. “Go ahead, take it,” Talley said.

Harg took the gun and checked to see that it was loaded. Then he looked up at Talley’s face, wondering if he should thank him. There was a look of cool speculation in the Inning’s eyes. Not until then did it occur to Harg that Talley was standing there unarmed now, close to touch—the butcher who had turned the South Chain into a lifeless waste.

Slowly, he cocked the gun and turned it around till it pointed at the Inning. Talley stiffened with tension, but didn’t move, and his eyes never left Harg’s face. Harg pressed the muzzle to Talley’s chest, just over his heart. He could feel the man’s pulse in his hand, through the butt of the pistol, through his finger on the trigger. It was a curiously intimate moment, only the two of them in the cell, Harg standing with his enemy’s heart in his hand.

“Only one ball, I suppose?” Harg said.

Talley nodded. Suddenly, he was the one unable to speak.

Harg lowered the gun and uncocked it. “Then I think I’ll save it.”

The blood rushed back into Talley’s face. He stepped back, drew a breath, then said, “You would have been a hero, you know. We could both have been heroes—you for your people, I for mine.”

So he really hadn’t expected to walk out alive. Harg thrust the pistol into his belt and crossed his arms, glad not to have obliged him.

For a moment Talley stood there trying to gather his thoughts. He looked a little unnerved now. At last he seemed to reach a resolution, and went to the cell door. But instead of leaving, he said, “Come with me.”