The Silent Isle (18 page)

Dane walked
across the center of the space.  The sound of his footfalls made him
pause.  He drove his heel down several times in the center of the
floor.  Then he tapped his toes there.  It made a dull booming and
knocking.  Elias looked at him.  “I noticed it, too.  The floor
is hollow, I think.” 

Dane traced the
floor with his torch for a better look.  The center of the floor was one
large, slate-like stone, set into the floor like an enormous tile.  Dane
stood and walked back to the wall.  He shuddered to think what kind of
things would be kept below a place like this. 

He went back to
the chest from which he had wiped the dust.  The lid came off
easily.  It was full of cloth.  He pulled out the first piece. 
It was a threadbare banner of intricate design in gray, pink, and yellow. 
He wondered if the colors had not originally been of different hues and had
faded to what he now saw.  He pulled out a second and unfurled it in his
hands.  Even with his hands held up and out it fell nearly to the
floor. 
An orange banner with dull stars in one corner.
 
He folded it and placed it on the shelf beside the first. 

As he pulled out
the third cloth, Elias called to him.  “We need to leave, now.” 

Dane turned
towards him.  The priest was staring at the skeletons set against the rear
wall. 

“What’s the
rush?  I thought you said no one has been here in a long time,” Dane
said. 

“I don’t know
that for sure, but I know now what this place is.” 

As he spoke,
Dane let the third banner unfurl from his hands and shook it out.  His
face was still turned over his shoulder towards Elias but the priest now
stepped up beside him, looking at the fabric in his hands. 

“This isn’t a
temple at all,” Elias said.  “It’s a trophy hall.” 

Dane turned back
to the banner and sucked in his breath at what he saw. 

He was holding
Haven’s missing flag.

***

As the men and
women in the courtyard turned in the direction of the shout, they saw Rundal
exit the kitchen holding his right hand in his left.  Blood was squeezing
between the fingers of his left hand. 

Rawl realized he
had been so taken up in the competition he had not noticed who had not been in
attendance.  He was suddenly worried.  He glanced around for Josie
and did not see her.  A split-second later she came out the same door as
Rundal, holding her knife.

“Bitch,” Rundal
shouted, shaking his wounded hand.

“What’d you do?”
Rawl said, starting towards him.

“He tried to
corner me in the kitchen,” Josie said.

“Well, I guess
it’s a good thing your poker was longer than his,” Paul said.

“Shut up,” Rawl
said. 

Rundal was standing
between Josie and the men.  Rawl was pushing his way through the crowd
towards him.

“We were just
having a bit of fun,” Rundal said. 

“I don’t think I
like your idea of fun,” Rawl said.

Rundal shot him
a look.  “Lighten up.  The little camp-follower was asking for
it. 
Stealing away on our ship.”

Rawl had made it
through the crowd now and made his way straight for Rundal.  Bailus
stepped between them and pushed Rawl back with one hand.  With the other
he caught Rundal by the collar and drove him back against the rough beams of
the wall. 

“Asking for
it?”  Bailus said.  “Let me tell you what you’re asking for, you
smarmy little bastard.  You come near her again, you so much as look at her
the wrong way, and I’ll stake you down outside the wall at night and in the
morning your friends will have to borrow a pail and a pair of Leech’s forceps
to pick up what’s left of you.  Do you understand me?”  He shoved
Rundal against the wall but dropped his voice to a whisper.  “I said, ‘Do
you understand me?’”

Rundal nodded
without looking at him.  Bailus half shoved, half flung him aside.
 Rundal stumbled, picked himself up, and slunk away.  Bailus turned
around to face the men but tottered and fell back heavily against the
wall.  Leech stepped forward.  “It’s time I checked that wound,” he
said.

“Forget it,”
Bailus said.  “It hurts enough without you needling it.”

Leech insisted
several more times that afternoon until Bailus turned on him and snapped, “Mind
your own damn business, Doc.”

Leech backed
off.

***

The other men
had joined Dane and Elias now and they stood in a semicircle looking at the
banner.  Dane folded it carefully. 

“We need to go,”
Elias said. 

Dane slipped his
pack off and began to tuck the flag away in it. 

Elias grabbed
his hand.  “With all the spells in this place, they will know if you take
something.” 

Dane
hesitated. 

“If they want it
back, let them come and claim it,” Joseph said. 

Elias withdrew
his hand and Dane shoved the flag into his pack. 

They filed out
into the daylight, extinguished their torches in the grass, and started
downhill.  Dane felt a little better on the way down.  Downhills are
always easier than uphills and he was already thinking of a way to make up with
Mirela.

Indeed, he was
beginning to form a plan for the next two days.  It was no safer and no
less foolhardy than what they were doing now, but it seemed his only
choice.  The trip to the temple-now-trophy-hall had confirmed what he’d
feared, that the colony had fallen to a presence that long predated them on the
island, but it had given him no more answers.  He had to know more. 
And there
was
only one people in the world who might
be able to tell him what he needed to know.  If only they didn’t kill him
first.

They descended
the same way they went up: down the stony switchbacks of the waterfall, between
the sentinel stone towers, across the ford.  Just before the second ford,
Joseph, who was walking beside him, grabbed Dane’s shoulder.  Dane jerked
to a halt and turned towards Joseph thinking it strange the soldier hadn’t
simply asked him to stop.  When he turned to Joseph he realized Joseph
wasn’t looking at him but at something slightly behind him and to his
left.  The younger man still held his shoulder firmly.  Dane followed
Joseph’s gaze to the trunk of a large tree.  The bird skull totem hung
there, just above eye level.  It was not facing uphill - which is why Dane
had nearly missed it - but downhill towards the ford.  Whether it had been
there on their way up and they had missed it or whether it had been placed
there while they were between the site and the stone hall Dane could only
guess. 

“What’s that
mean?” Joseph said, hardly above a whisper. 

For answer, Dane
started moving downhill at a quicker pace than before.

Dane and his party entered the
compound shortly after Bailus’s final rebuff of Leech.  The sun had
already sunk behind the hills.  The shadows of the forest were spreading
and melting into dark pools with the coming of night.

There were two
people Dane needed to talk to, one of them he wanted to talk to more than
anyone in the world.  She was easy enough to find.  But she was busy,
serving soup to the men in the kitchen.  He watched her for awhile. 
Surely no one had commanded her to do this.  Bax had been out all day with
him.  So why would she serve these people willingly? 
The gods are
a mystery a man could spend his life unraveling only to find at the end of it
he had not solved it, but only been about to ask the first real question. 
And such a life would not have been wasted.
  Elias had told him
that.  But he had quoted it like a pithy maxim, not a passionate
manifesto. Dane thought he could say the same of the woman before him, but with
every fiber of his being resonating with sincerity. 

But he could not
talk to her like this.  Not here.  Not now.  He wanted to be
alone with her.  He turned and went looking for Bailus. 

Bailus was
seated at the end of the table, laughing with some of the men there about
something the twins had done.  So the Johnsons had accomplished the
purpose Dane had had for them today – to take the men’s minds off their
problems.  Dane watched Bailus tell the story for a moment.  But
Bailus was not Mirela.  Dane could pull him aside without arousing any
suspicion.  He asked Bailus to meet him in his room when he was
done.  Bailus drained his bowl, excused himself, and caught up with Dane
as he headed out the door.  They started talking as they crossed the
courtyard. 

“Find anything?”
Bailus asked. 

“That,” Dane
said, pointing to the flag which hung above the north gate.  He had had
Joseph run it up as soon as they’d returned.  Bailus nodded.  Nothing
fazed this man. 

“The temple
wasn’t a temple,” Dane said.  “It was some kind of trophy hall. 
A place to store plunder – but not gold or jewels; things of a more
symbolic value.
  They have things there from other battles they’ve
won.  Banners I don’t know from kingdoms I’ve never heard of. 
Old things.
  Things that might be centuries old. 
Or older.
  One thing I now know: this is definitely
their island.”

“Been that way
for some time it looks like,” Bailus said as they entered Dane’s room.

“I agree, but
what I don’t understand then is how the colony existed in peace for as long as
it did.”

Bailus was
silent for a moment.  “Maybe this island isn’t their home.  Maybe it
has some kind of spiritual significance to them.  What if they only come
here to offer sacrifices to their gods?  On their last trip, they discover
the colony, a pagan incursion on this sacred soil. 
Wouldn’t
be the first time something like that has happened.”

“But where is
their home then?  Where did they come from?”

Bailus
shrugged.  “The rebel lands out west?”

“Dim? 
Alistar?
 That’s a long ways.”

Bailus
paused.  He looked straight at Dane as he continued, “You don’t think they
could have come from Tira?”

Dane
sighed.  “That’s what I’m afraid of.  That’s what I have to know.”

Bailus studied
his face. 
“How?”

“My father
always believed the Tirans knew about this island.  It stands to reason
they do.  They’re simple people but clever watermen in their way. 
The islands are but a day’s voyage from one another.  They could have
discovered it by accident years, generations ago.  They never spoke of it
to us, but my father always suspected they were trying to keep it secret.”

“So what will
you do?”

“The only thing
I can.  I have to find out what they know.”

“They’ll kill
you.  Even if they’re not responsible for what happened here, they’ll kill
you.”

“Then I have to
take that chance.”

“Chance?
  It’s not a chance.  It’s a
certainty.  They were free men until your father subjugated their
island.  Think of what they’ll do to the heir of that power if he lands on
their soil with only thirty men.”

“I won’t be taking
thirty men,” Dane said.  “I’ll be taking only the bare number needed to
man the ship.”

“This is
madness,” Bailus said.

“This whole
business is madness,” Dane said.  “There’s a chance, a hopeless chance,
that some of the colonists are still out there.  That they escaped into
the woods.  They could be making their way here as we speak.  We have
to leave men to man the fort if that’s the case.”

Bailus laughed
mirthlessly.  “I suppose throwing away a dozen men is better than thirty.”

Dane shook his
head.  “I don’t believe they’ll kill us, at least not for the reason you
gave.  They are fierce, but they are honorable, and my father, for all his
indulgences, has won their respect in more ways than one.  They were
overawed by our ships and weaponry, I think they thought we bore the favor of
the gods in our sails and bowstrings, and they surrendered before the real
bloodshed began.  My father, in his affection or avarice for fighting men,
chose not to annihilate them but to assimilate them into his army.  I
think they will honor the graciousness he showed in victory.”

“And if they
don’t.”

“The only reason
they won’t is if they are responsible for what happened here.  I will not
tarry on Tira.  One day out, one day for the return journey.  If I’m
not back by the third day, well, then you’ll have your answer and you’ll know
what you have to do.”

“My lord, I
cannot condone this,” Bailus began.

“I’m not asking
you to.  But I needed to let you know.  You’ll be in charge of things
here while I’m away.”

“But, sir.”

“No more
discussion,” Dane said.  “Even if all I can find there is an answer, an
explanation to what happened here, then I owe that to Josie, to the families on
the mainland who will never be whole again.  And I’d stake my life to get
it for them.”

Dane left Bailus
seated by his hearth, still shaking his head.  As he closed the door
behind him, he saw her crossing the courtyard at a diagonal from him.  He
hurried to intercept her.  She looked up at him as he came up beside her
and smiled slightly.  “Walk with me,” he said, taking her hand.  He
led her into the shadows between two of the unoccupied houses near the
wall.  “I was a fool,” he said, “I should have taken you with us.”

“Did you have
trouble?” she asked.

He was slightly
disappointed by her response.  He was slightly surprised to find he did
not chide himself for denying himself the help she would have been had they run
into trouble, but for denying himself her company.  “No, but I should have
let you come.”

His response
seemed to soften her.  “What did you find?”

He told her
everything, in greater detail than he had told it to Bailus, not because he
thought there was an answer there but for the simple pleasure of speaking with
her.  He knew these were stolen moments, but he wanted to take them for
all they were worth.  She made him repeat the part about the
hollow-sounding floor. 

“It just makes
you wonder what they’d keep under there,” she said.

“I got chills
thinking about that,” Dane said.

“What’ll you do
now?” she asked.

“Take you to
sea.”  He couldn’t help smiling as he said it.

She looked up at
him, studying his face.

“I’m sailing for
Tira tomorrow.  Would you like to go with me?  I mean, with all of
us.  All of us who are going.”

It was her turn
to smile.  “It has been hard,” she said, “being so close to the sea and
not being able even to walk down to the beach.”

He warmed
inside.  He had been right.  This was the greatest gift he could give
her.  Well, there was one greater but he was getting to that.  “I
can’t promise you it’ll be safe,” he said.

“I didn’t ask
you to,” she said.  She winced suddenly and drew her breath in
sharply. 

“Are you
alright?” he asked, stepping closer to her.

She nodded, but
was more serious after that.  “But we can’t keep doing this,” she
said.  “Keep pretending we’re both something we’re not.  Bax is…”

“Bax is coming
with me,” Dane said.  “Whatever you want to do, I’m sure I could make him
alright with it.”

“But it won’t
always be that way,” she said.  “Even if we survive this, one day we’ll be
back on the mainland.  I’ll be shut up in his house again and you’ll…”

“Bax won’t sell
you,” Dane said. 

She started at
the interruption but fell silent.

“I’ve offered to
buy you, to buy your freedom, but he won’t even listen to me.”

She put her hand
on her stomach and looked away.

“It’s because of
Lam, his little brother,” Dane said.  “Because of what happened to
him.  When Bax got it into his head to raid Alistar, he thought it would
be easy.  He took Lam with him even though he was only seventeen and had
never been in anything more than a fistfight.  They’d hardly come in sight
of your island, but they spotted a few huts sitting on a palm beach.  They
left the ship in the shallows and stormed ashore.  But the villagers were
ready for them.  They’d hid in the trees on one side of the village. 
When the raiders were split up pillaging the houses they sprang the
ambush.  It wasn’t even a battle; it was a bloodbath.  Bax’s cousin,
Crig, was killed.  Five others were killed before they made it back to the
ship.  And then, shoving off with the oars, from up on the deck Bax heard
his little brother screaming.  He ran to the prow and saw Lam held down on
the beach by two of the islanders, alive, but screaming. 
Crying.
  There was nothing he could do. 

“I don’t think
Bax’s ever forgiven himself for that.  I don’t think he ever will. 
But he thinks having you is some kind of retribution.”

“Bax is a fool,”
Mirela said.  “We do not send children to war.  Neither do we kill
them when our enemies do, if we can in any way help it.  If he did not see
his brother die, then he is still alive.”

“But we’d never
be able to convince him of that,” Dane said.

She was
silent.  She winced again and let her breath out in a slow sigh.  “So
where does that leave us?” she said.  “Bax loves me too much to get rid of
me and you can’t get over me.”

“There is
another way,” Dane said. 
“An older way.”

She looked up at
him quickly.  “What are you talking about?”

“I could
challenge him to single combat.”

“Fighting over me like two animals in rut.
  I’d be flattered.”

“It wouldn’t be
like that,” he said.  “I’d be fighting for your freedom.”

“My freedom?”
  She sniffed.  “I’d have the run of
the whole island, huh?”

He ached for
her.  He was hardly
more free
than she was. 
But he did not like her reminding him how powerless he was to help her. 
To truly help her.

“No,” she
said.  “That is not the way.”

He leaned closer
to her.  “I know I could kill Bax.”

She did
something then that surprised him so much he had trouble forming words for the
next minute.  She put her hand to his cheek and looked him steadily in the
eyes. 
“Kill Bax?
  How much time have you
spent thinking about this?”  She took her hand away.  “Don’t you
think I’ve had plenty of chances to kill him?”

“But if you did
it, you’d be killed.  If I did it, you’d be free.”

“Killed? 
Do you think that threatens me?  Don’t you realize there are many times I
prefer death to the way I live?”

“You’d be free,”
he said.

“Free?  And
what would happen to you?  Even if you were unscathed in body, what would
it do to you? 
To kill the best friend of your
childhood?”

“We were never
that close.”

She almost
smiled.  “Lies can’t cover up something so clear.  I think in his own
way he still admires you, adores you.  I think that’s why he hates you so
much.”

“I don’t need your
permission to do this,” he said.  “I can do it of my own will, for myself,
something between me and Bax.”

“Would you do it
regardless of what I felt?” she asked.  “Would you do it knowing I would
not buy my freedom at the cost of another’s life?  Not even one such as
Bax.”

“Why do you have
to make this so impossible?”

She brought her
hand to his face again.  “The situation is impossible, Dane.  But
it’s not beyond hope.”  Her face changed suddenly, grimacing as though in
pain, and she doubled over, bringing both hands to her stomach.

He caught hold
of her and held her but did not force her to stand.  Instead he dropped
nearly to his knees so that he was looking into her face.  “You need to
see Leech.”

“I need to be
going,” she said, straightening.  “Bax will be waiting.”

***

Rawl was up on
the wall.  He thought it must be about midnight but he wasn’t sure. 
He was on the eastern side of the
wall,
Joseph was on
the north, Rundal on the west, and Ira on the south.  Forsythe had
supposed to have been watch captain this shift but Ira had taken his place
since Forsythe would be steersman for Dane’s trip to Tira tomorrow.  News
of the trip had already leaked out.  But Dane was only taking a handpicked
crew, and, like always, Rawl wasn’t one of them.  Rawl tried to focus on
the task at hand.  Maybe if he excelled at the little things he could one
day hope to be picked for missions like sailing to
Tira.