The Silent Isle (14 page)

They all just
stood there for a moment.  A kind of solemn silence had settled over the room,
as though to ask, "Did it work?" would be a stroke against
hope. 

"Well,
goodnight, ma’am and miss," Bailus said, heading for the door. 
"Gentlemen.
  You know where to find me if you need
me." 

The Johnson
twins followed him out.  Molly left next.  Elias and Leech put away
their respective tools and began a conversation as they walked to the
door.  Leech pulled the door to and the latch clicked into place. 
Leech’s closing the door was probably just a reflex, something he did without
even thinking about it to keep the cold night air from his patient, but there
was a sense of purpose in the sound, a sense of finality, of destiny.  And
then it was just Mara and Dane and the sleeper on the bed. 

Dane felt he
should go but Mara stood there like a statue, watching Owen's chest rise and
fall. 

Why does she
linger?  Is Bax waiting up?
 

He studied
Owen.  The color has returned to his cheeks.  He looked like a man at
sleep; nothing more, nothing less.  Dane cleared his throat and Mara
turned towards him.  She looked him in the eyes and did not look
away. 
How had he never noticed how large her eyes were?  How much
depth and color they held. 
Miniature galaxies spinning
there.
 

"Would it
be safe for you to stay here tonight?"  Dane asked.

"Are you asking
me to stay?" 

"Only if you'd like to."
  He nodded towards
Owen.  "He was pretty loopy right before he slipped under.  He
might be dazed and disoriented when he comes back.  It might be good if
there was someone here to calm him.  But I can stay if..." 

"No,"
she said.  "I'll do it." 

Why was he
not afraid for her?
  Part of him knew Owen would wake up with nothing
worse than the vague memory of bad dreams and a sore foot.  But all of him
knew, though he couldn’t say how or why, however Owen woke up, this little
woman would know how to handle herself. 
And him.
 
And if being here gave her one night of peace and rest, then he'd risk anything
to give her that. 

She turned away
again.  She was staring at the fire with her arms crossed. 

"Are you
cold?" 

She nodded
slightly. 

"Come over
by the fire."  Dane pulled several blankets off the empty beds along
the wall and set them on the bed closest to the hearth and then
drug
the bed so its posts were lined up with the frame of
the hearth. 

She came to the
other side of the bed and stepped out of her shoes.  "Thank
you," she said. 

Except when she
was singing over Owen, he’d never heard her voice so soft. 

Owen stirred and
Dane watched him for a moment.  "No," he said.  "Thank
you." 

Dane stepped
around her bed to Owen's and touched the back of his hand to Owen’s brow. 
He took another blanket off a nearby bed and tucked it around Owen.  He
stepped back to the hearth and built up the fire.  He took longer than he
needed to about it, staring into the embers. 

He wanted so
badly to stay.  Not to touch her but only to be near.  Not to speak
to her but only to listen to the sound of her breathing.  But he knew the
greatest gift he could give her was solitude. 

He rose and
turned to the door and found she was already beneath the covers.  Her back
was to him but he stood close enough to see her eyes were closed.  He drew
the edge of her blanket up over her shoulder.  Her hand curled around the
hem of the fabric. 

Dane stood
there, still holding the blanket but with one finger extended over her
cheek.  Every ounce of him wanted to run his finger over the smooth skin
and brush back the strands of dark hair that had fallen there.

Who was this
woman that she would defy Bax to save a man she didn’t even know?  A man
who should be her enemy?  And what was it he wanted from her? 
So much more than he had ever wanted from a girl.
 

But he drew his
hand back and made for the door.  There was a sense of finality to the
sound of his footsteps.  He reached for the door. 

"Mirela."
 

Dane paused with
his hand on the latch.  He turned back to her.  Her eyes were still
closed. 

Had she
spoken in her sleep?
 

He turned back
to the door and lifted the latch. 

"Mirela,
Dane." 

This time when
he turned he was looking into her eyes and he understood.  He stood there,
not wanting to speak because there were no words to suffice.  The moment,
the room, had been transfigured.  Something holy had passed between
them. 

"Mirela."
  And she almost smiled as she
closed her eyes once more.

"But Bax
calls you..." 

"Bax only
knows what I told him." 

Dane pulled the
door to until he heard the latch click and he stood there with his hand still
on the handle.  And for a moment he forgot his dread about this island and
about the impossibility of their situation and all he could think about was
her. 

And her name.

Before the sun rose the next
morning, Dane visited the infirmary to check on Mirela and Owen.  Both
were sleeping peacefully.  He rebuilt the fire and shut the door
softly.  He crossed to Bax's house and knocked on the door. 

Bax's eyes were
bleary and he was still wearing his clothes from the day before. 
"Come on," Dane said.  "We're going to look for
Rem." 

"You
couldn't do anything for him last night.  What makes you think six hours
will have improved his situation?" 

"Meet us at
the gate in five," Dane said. 

Dane had more
reason than looking for Rem for starting out at first light.  He wanted to
find the bodies of whomever or whatever he had shot just before the sprint for
the gate. 

He joined
Bailus, Tipper, and Joseph and the two dogs at the gate and Bax joined them a
few minutes later.  They backtracked first the path of their mad dash for
the gate.  It was an easy trail to follow; broken branches, trampled
brush.  The sight of the skirmish was unmistakable.  The crossbows
were sitting right were Dane had dropped them.  But there were no
bodies. 

Starting at the
tree from which Dane had shot, the men moved about in ever-expanding rings, but
they found nothing.  It bothered Dane there were no bodies. 
"I'm sure I killed at least the first one," he said. 

"But think
about it, sir," said Joseph.  "You wouldn't leave the bodies of
your own men just lying on the battlefield." 

"So you
think their friends found them and carried them off?"  Dane
asked. 

"Whoever
they were, there were certainly more than two of them in the woods last
night," Joseph said. 

Dane shuddered,
remembering the dark figures coursing them through the trees on the way to the
wall. 

He went back to
the crossbows and leaned against the tree as he had the night before, trying to
visualize his shots once more.  He looked down at the bows.  The
absence of the bodies and the presence of the weapons troubled him, but he
wasn't exactly sure why. 

Finally, Joseph
shouted, "Sir, over here." 

Joseph was
kneeling at the base of a tree, inspecting the ground.  Dane crouched
beside him.  The sun was up now and the light had grown about them so they
could see more than when they had started their search.  There was a dark
stain on the forest litter at their feet.  It was unmistakable. 

"Well, at
least we know they can bleed," said Dane.  He rose.  "We
better start looking for signs of Rem." 

***

Rawl stood
looking from the open gate as Dane’s party vanished into the woods. 

He had begged
Dane to take him with them.  But Dane had made it very clear he only
wanted members of yesterday’s two search parties to accompany him.  Rawl
had to be content with manning the gate for them as they started their
journey. 

He had not known
what to expect from this trip.  He’d tried not to let his imagination run
away with him on the voyage but he had never doubted he would be thrust into
combat.  He’d tried to mentally prepare himself for anything.  What
he hadn’t been prepared for was what he had been experiencing since his arrival
on the island. 
Moments of terrible tension, rising
almost to the level of terror, broken up by long stretches of extreme boredom.
 

He sighed. 
He was just about to close the gate when a voice spoke behind him.  It
held such a note of gentleness he recognized it even though it had been unknown
to him before the voyage.  “Master Johnson,” it said, “Are you on
duty?” 

Rawl turned
around and smiled a greeting to Elias.  “Oh, it’s just Rawl,” he
said.  “And no, I’m not on watch till tonight.” 

“Then could I
enlist your help in something?”

“Certainly,
sir,” Rawl said.

Elias looked at
him seriously.  “It would mean going outside the walls.”

Oh, glory,
Rawl
thought.  The mere mention of being able to get out made his heart beat
faster.  He would have agreed to
cleaning
out
latrines so long as they were outside of these walls.  “That’s alright
with me, sir,” he said. 

In truth it
wasn’t.  Rawl, like all the other soldiers, was not allowed to leave the
compound without Dane’s or Bailus’s permission.  But both of them were
away and Elias was his own entity.  Rawl imagined the priest answered to
no one.  If Elias asked him to accompany him on a mission outside the
walls, that was all the authorization he needed. 

“Can your
brother come as well?”

“Sure.” 
Rawl doubted Paul would mind being volunteered.  “What are we doing?”

Elias glanced
away before addressing him.  “I need to get rid of something.”

Rawl noticed for
the first time Elias was wearing the bag he’d used last night when treating
Owen.  From his stance and the way he pulled at the strap, it seemed the
bag contained something heavy.  Rawl saw Elias did not want to discuss
their business any further.  He spun on his heels and started off in
search of Paul. 

Elias called
after him, “And
bring
a pick and shovel.”

***

In a little
clearing beside the stream, not far from where they'd started their hike up
into the hills the day before, Dane and the others found Rem.  What was
left of him
anyway.
 

At first they
were not even sure what they were looking at; the body was so covered with
flies, sluggish in the morning chill.  Even when the flies lifted, it took
a moment of staring to comprehend what they were seeing.  When he did,
Dane glanced at Joseph and found the young man would not meet his gaze. 

“Well,” said
Bax, “Looks like at least someone was having fun last night.”

“I was ready to
kill him for running out on us,” Joseph said.  “But this…”  He shook
his head.   

Rem's weapons,
his crossbow and his knife, standard equipment for Hallander soldiers, lay at
his feet.  Dane noted their presence and realized why finding his own
crossbows had bothered him.  Whoever had done this had intentionally left
their weapons.  They wanted to send a message.  They neither had need
of nor feared the weapons of Dane's soldiers.  But that was not the worst
of it. 

Rem had been
impaled on a long wooden spike which stood out of the ground at an angle,
rather like a paling in an earthworks defense.  The shaft passed through
his lower back and out through his chest to one side of the sternum.  It
held him in more or less a sitting position.  His arms hung at his sides
but his hands had been severed at the wrists and were nowhere to be seen. 
His jaw had been broken so that it hung open to one side; his mouth forming a
squished "o". 

Worst of all,
his eyes were open.  The mark had been cut in his forehead.  Seeing
the mark, Dane was reminded of what he'd wanted to tell Bailus the night
before, but this wasn't the time or place.  "Let's get him off of
there," he said. 

It was a
terrible job.  With Bailus supporting the corpse's legs, Dane and Tipper
put their hands against Rem's back and heaved upwards and forwards to push him
off the spike.  They couldn't do it all at one go.  They had to heave
together and then rest, kneeling in the dirt and letting Rem's body rest on
their shoulders.  Then they pushed and lifted again.  By the sound,
Dane thought they broke at least one of Rem's ribs in the process. 

Bax dropped to
his hands and knees on the bank and vomited into the stream.  He splashed
his face and sat down on a rock, watching the water. 

It was hard work
and when they had freed Rem's body and laid it out on the ground, Dane's legs
were shaking but not from the effort.  "Bax," he said,
"Take Joseph with you and get picks and shovels.  We'll have to find
a place to bury him." 

Bax and Joseph
started off.

“Wait,” Dane
said.  “Bring back a sheet.  And don't tell the others what you saw
here." 

***

Rawl and Paul
followed Elias through the woods.  Rawl doubted Elias knew where they were
or where they were going any more than he did, but the young priest seemed to
be looking for something. 

Finally, they
entered a little clearing and Elias stopped in the center of it.  He
looked around at the wall of trees which encircled them.  He turned to the
twins.  “It’s peaceful here, don’t you think?” 

It was peaceful,
but in a solemn, silent way.  It was too quiet for Rawl’s liking. 
There were no birds singing or cicadas buzzing.  Rawl thought about it; he
could not remember hearing the sound of a single creature since entering the
woods. 

“This will do,”
Elias said.  He set down his bag, took the pick, and began tearing up the
earth in the center of the clearing. 

Rawl, who had
carried the shovel, began to dig out the loose earth when Elias stepped
aside.  They took turns.  Resting, picking,
scooping
. 
Eventually they had a narrow, round hole that came to Rawl’s shoulders. 
The work went slower as the hole got deeper as it was too narrow to swing the
pick and they had to rely only on the shovel.  They scooped the earth out
with a small pail Elias had brought. 

“That’s good,”
Elias said, stepping to the edge of the hole and looking down. 

He gave Rawl a
hand and helped pull him up.  Paul handed him the canteen and as he stood
drinking he watched Elias step to the edge of the clearing and pick up his
bag.  He set the bag on the edge of the hole and reached in with both
hands and pulled something out.  It was a small object, fitting easily in
Elias’s cupped hands, wrapped in dark cloth.  Rawl stepped closer. 
He realized the cloth was damp and shining. 

“What is it?” he
asked. 

“It is the stone
I used last night on Owen,” Elias said. 

“And the cloth?”
Paul asked. 

“Soaked in
sacred oil from the temple of Kran, to help contain the dark energies the stone
absorbed.” 

“You’re going to
bury it?” Rawl said. 

“It’s the only
thing to do with it,” Elias said. 

“What’ll happen
to it,” Paul asked. 

“If we’re lucky,
nothing,” Elias said.  “It will lie here hidden with its darkness until
the end of time.” 

The stone did
not hum or glow or pulse as Rawl might have imagined it doing if someone had
been telling him this story.  All the same, he was glad Elias never asked
him to touch it.  Elias let the stone fall into the hole in its cloth
shroud.  He stepped back from the pit.  His face was pale and
drawn.  He sat down on the edge of the clearing.  “Fill it in,
please,” he said.

Rawl and Paul
and Elias returned to the compound in silence.  Elias had thanked them for
their help and they felt good about what they had done but they did not feel it
was the type of thing to tell others about.  All three sat in somber
silence as they ate their noon meal as though the grave peace of the clearing
had settled over them.

They were still
at the table when Dane found them.

Until now, the
colony on Haven had not known death.  The population had been composed
largely of workers, all relatively young and healthy, so there was no
graveyard.  Dane selected a space on the far side of the meadow in which
the garden sat.  It was visible from the wall but not ostentatious. 

Dane dug the
grave and wrapped Rem's body in the sheet before bringing it to the new
graveyard.  Then he went and found Elias.  Of all the members of the
expedition, Dane told Elias alone about the state of Rem’s body.  The
priest seemed especially troubled by the severed hands.

They buried Rem
with all members of the company present.  Elias said a few prayers. 
No one else spoke.  It seemed there was nothing to be said. 

Dane's little group returned to the compound to eat, then spent the
rest of the afternoon searching for Edric, Markis, and Franklin.
 

They retraced
the first leg of Bailus's squad’s journey into the swamp.  They swept in
large semicircles across the area north of the settlement.  They found
nothing. 

"Your
leadership is in rare form here, your highness," said Bax as they
completed their last sweep and turned back towards the walls.  "You
spend your first day getting your men lost in the woods.  Then you waste
all the next day searching for them and burying them.  I wonder what
you'll have for us tomorrow." 

Dane said
nothing.  He had hoped Bax would recognize Dane's sending him for the shovels
(and away from the body) as a mercy, a peace-offering.  If Bax had noted
this, he made no sign of it. 

"Don't lose
heart, sir," Bailus said.  "Edric may be a fool, but he's also a
very good woodsman.  He may yet find his way back." 

There were two
encouraging sights waiting for Dane and his party upon their return to the
settlement. 

One was
Owen.  He was walking around, hardly limping, even smiling. 

“How are you
feeling?” Dane asked. 

“Fine, sir, but
I had the strangest dreams last night.” 

“Oh, yeah?”
Dane said.  “Do you want to talk about
them?” 

“Even if I
wanted to I don’t think I could.  They’re all a blur now.  But it’s
like a taste, or many tastes, that linger in my mouth.  Some of it was
bad, but some of it was beautiful.” 

The other
welcome sight was Forsythe and his crew. 

“Find anything?”
Dane asked.

“Hardly anything worth reporting.”
  Forsythe pulled out
a map.  “Like it shows here, there’s a small cove and beach on the
northwest side of the island.  It’s really about the only suitable place
to land other than our harbor.” 

“Did you put
in?” 

“We drove up on
the beach and kicked around. 
Nothing much to see.
 
A few footprints of big birds, cranes or something, in the
sand.
  Some of the men wanted to try to find one and try their luck
bringing it down but I said anything that big would be terribly gamy.”