The Floating Islands

by Rachel Neumeier

Trei let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding and tried to smile.

  “This way,” the decouan said casually, gesturing down the hill. “Not too stiff? It’s a good walk down.”

  Trei looked to be sure Master Anerii was coming and then obediently went the way the decouan indicated. “To the … palace?”

  “That’s right,” the decouan said. He seemed pleased about it. “You and your master. That’s right, is it? The ambassador’s your own master, is he?”

  Trei hesitated and then nodded.

  “Yes, that’s what he said. When he came right to the palace asking after you.” The decouan obviously approved. “Watch your step here, boy.”

  There were steps down the steepest parts of the climb, worn and awkward. Trei took them carefully, pausing in the middle to look out and down over Teraica. The city … was not at all as he remembered it. He did not remember the exact outline of the harbor, but he could see even from this height that there was a lot more harbor and a lot less city than there had been. And a lot of the remaining city had obviously burned. Down near the water, there were no buildings at all, only gray ash. Smoke still rose in thin streams from a deep crevice that stretched right across land that had once held crowded streets; he guessed how big that crevice must be, to be so clearly visible from this distance.

  Trei swallowed.

  “Hard to look on it,” the decouan said, at his shoulder. “Or so it should be. Did you know it would do that? Whatever that thing was you threw in the engine?”

  “No,” Trei whispered. But he should have. He should have remembered his nightmares, and guessed what a dragon would do to Teraica.…

  “Trei,” said Master Anerii, coming up beside him and gripping his shoulder. He gave him a little shake. “Trei!”

  Trei swallowed, opened his eyes. Whispered, “Yes, sir.”

  “Look up, not down!”

  Trei lifted his gaze to the empty sky. There was still some haze … but the wind moved in countless layers of diamond and pearl, shifting with the currents of warm rising air and quiet cooler air … and high overhead, a great-winged figure that was not a bird turned in slow, graceful circles. Another. A third … Trei swallowed a stab of longing so piercing he thought he might die of it right here on this hillside.

  “You’ll fly again,” Master Anerii said harshly. “Never doubt it, Trei.”

  “Yes,” Trei answered, in a slightly stronger voice. He took the next step, and the next. The stair turned around an outcropping and hid the worst part of the view below. Trei knew it was still there. But the sky was still above, too, and the soaring kajuraihi.

  “Amazing,” allowed the decouan, following Trei’s glance aloft. “But keep your eyes on the path, boy, or you’ll break your neck—and not even Master Patan would be able to do much about that! Step carefully.”

  “If it is not improper to inquire,” Master Anerii said to the decouan as they resumed their descent, “may I ask whether you know why the provincar asked to see us?”

  The decouan said, with an odd kind of grim good cheer, “Generous Gods, sir, it isn’t Provincar Atta called for you! Not likely. The provincar has retired from public life, as they say. No, sir, it’s the Little Emperor himself bade us bring you out of the oubliette. Decided you didn’t really ought to be forgotten just yet, ha? Arrived in Teraica six days ago, he did. I’m sure he’ll find something to say to you about the state of his city.”

  Master Anerii didn’t even blink. “That seems fair enough. I certainly have something to say to him about the state of mine.”

  For an instant Trei thought the soldiers might be offended. But then the decouan laughed, and he saw he’d been mistaken: all the soldiers were satisfied with the provincar’s downfall. They were ready to be tolerant of, even amused by, a foreigner’s effrontery.

  “Just along here, sir,” was all the decouan said. “We’ll take you to the blue tower. You can wash and dress properly before you come before the Emperor.”

  “Well, then, I thank you,” Master Anerii said after the barest pause.

  “No need, sir: those are my orders.” But the decouan seemed pleased with himself and with his orders, and Trei thought that was a good sign.

  The blue tower proved to be a prison, but nothing like the oubliette. Each floor held a complete apartment, and though the windows were barred and the doors heavy and guarded, the apartments were appointed as for noble guests. Master Anerii and Trei were led to the lowest tower apartment, where two large basins of hot water already waited, complete with warm towels and bowls of foamy soap. Clothing in proper Island style was laid out on a bench next to the basins: kajurai black and novice black and gray.

  “The Little Emperor wants you at fifth bell,” the decouan told them. “So you have plenty of time.” He nodded toward a doorway on the opposite side of the room. “If you need anything else, ask the men outside your door, yes?”

  “Thank you, ah …”

  “Decouan Patnaon, sir, and I’m pleased to be of service. I’ll call you a bit before fifth bell, sir.” The decouan gave a nod both deferential and ironic and left them alone.

  Master Anerii and Trei looked at one another. “The Little Emperor, is it?” Master Anerii said. “Tell me how to address an Emperor, Trei. I didn’t expect to meet an Emperor, and it’s been a long time since I studied high-level Tolounnese protocol. Does one stand or kneel?”

  “Oh—one stands.” Trei paused, considering this. “At least, citizens of Tolounn stand. You kneel only if you need to, well …”

  “Impress the Emperor with your earnestness?” Master Anerii began to undo the laces of his shirt. “Ah! I thank the Gods for soap! One wouldn’t want to appear before an Emperor looking like a country sheepherder, I’m sure. Worse than a sheepherder. So a Tolounnese citizen stands on his feet before the Emperor? We will, too, then.”

  “We’re not Tolounnese citizens,” Trei pointed out.

  “All the more, then.” Master Anerii stepped into the first basin, sat cautiously down, and reached for the soap. “Put a towel in reach, will you? I won’t kneel to that man unless I have to; he’s the one who’s offended against us, not the other way around.”

  Trei laid towels over the edge of each basin and stripped quickly, dropping his filthy clothing in a pile by the door. The hot water was wonderful.

  And the clean clothing was even better. Trei wrapped the red sash around his waist and pinned it, lingering over the task. It seemed somehow odd to him to wear Island clothing here, to be familiar with the proper way to pin a sash. It seemed somehow a kind of repudiation of Tolounn. And that was strange, because if there had been any clear moment of repudiation, it was surely not this one.

  Master Anerii said abruptly, “I suppose we’ve half a bell, at least. So tell me about this Little Emperor, then.”

  Trei gathered his thoughts. “Well—he’s an enna Gaourr. You know that, of course, sir. Dharoann enna Gaourr. I don’t know anything except what everybody knows. His father was a nephew of the last Little Emperor, only he couldn’t ever keep his tongue behind his teeth; he argued all the time with the previous Little Emperor and sometimes with the Great Emperor. So he was exiled twice to Patainn and once, for years, all the way to Toipakom. Only each time the Great Emperor recalled him eventually. But nobody expected the Great Emperor to appoint his son as Little Emperor after his great-uncle died! You knew all that?”

  “Go on. Don’t worry about what I might know.”

  “I don’t know much else,” Trei said. “Only, he’s been Little Emperor for twelve years, and he’s the one who finally conquered Toipakom for the Great Emperor and brought it into Tolounn’s Empire. My father—” He stopped.

  Master Anerii leaned his hip on the table and waited.

  Collecting himself, Trei went on, “My father liked him. He said, ‘He knows how an Emperor ought to handle trade: let it alone.’ Every time the provincar of Rounn tried to raise taxes or put tariffs on trade goods or something, the merchants would appeal to the L
ittle Emperor and he’d almost always rule in their favor. My father said, ‘He may be overfond of conquest, but at least he’s got more sense than to tax honest men just to raise gilded statues to his own glory.’ ” Trei opened his hands at Master Anerii’s snort. “That is what he said. He said the enna Gaourr appointment was the best decision the Great Emperor made in sixty years.”

  “Huh. What else?”

  Trei tried to think. “I don’t know, sir. I guess … the soldiers like him, you see? So he must be a commander they respect, and they must think he’s honorable. He’ll like an honorable enemy; he’ll respect courage and, I don’t know, the virtues of soldiers. I think.”

  “Makes sense,” the master conceded. “All right”—as a clap sounded outside their door—“we’ll do well enough, Trei.” A blank sternness came over his face as he turned.

  Decouan Patnaon came in, took in their newly respectable appearance with a nod, and bowed them toward the door.

  The blue tower gave straight into the great halls of the provincar’s palace. There were a lot more cracks in the fine plaster and stonework than Trei remembered. But neither the decouan nor any of his men gave even the worst of the damage a second glance. They only led the way through one echoing antechamber, up a broad stairway, down a much shorter hallway, and into a large, plain room with an expensive floor of inlaid wood, wide windows curtained against the sun with translucent silk, and a single chair. There, the decouan and all his men took up stations with other soldiers already standing at attention all along the walls.

  Tolounn’s Little Emperor was already in the room. He was not sitting in the chair, however. He was standing before one of the windows, gazing out through the silken curtains. There were several other men in the room, but Trei had no difficulty picking out the Emperor. Even with his back turned, Dharoann enna Gaourr dominated the room completely. When the Emperor swung around to meet his prisoners, Trei actually swayed with the force of his gaze. If Master Anerii hadn’t explicitly said, We will stand, he would certainly have gone to his knees.

  Master Anerii put a hand on Trei’s shoulder, looked for a moment, narrow-eyed, at the Little Emperor’s face, and then inclined his head.

  The Emperor strode forward, stopped in front of his chair—his throne, Trei supposed—put his fists on his hips, and looked his prisoners up and down. He was not an old man—not as old as Trei had imagined him, anyway. Trei would have guessed him to be younger than, say, Master Anerii—probably over forty, but probably not yet fifty. He had a broad, strong-featured face, familiar to Trei from the profile stamped on Tolounnese coins, but the coins did not show the aggressive power contained in his dark eyes. He looked like he’d been a soldier, Trei thought. A general, anyway. And he certainly looked like an Emperor. A circlet of gold oak leaves crowned him; a wide gold ring circled one wrist. He wore no other ornament.

  “Kajurai Master Anerii,” he said.

  Master Anerii bowed. “Emperor of Tolounn.”

  The Little Emperor smiled, barely. He said, “You are indeed a true ambassador, enabled by Terinai Naterensei, called the king of the Floating Islands, to negotiate in his name?”

  Master Anerii bowed a second time. “Yes, O Emperor.”

  “Good,” the Little Emperor said briskly. He sat down in the chair, braced his elbows on its wide arms, and gazed over his tented hands at Master Anerii, ignoring Trei completely.

  Trei was very willing to be ignored. He felt extremely young and ignorant—and he had blown up the engine and set things in motion for the destruction of half of the city. Being ignored seemed much the best possibility.

  “Well,” said the Emperor. “What would the Floating Islands have of me?”

  Master Anerii didn’t even blink. He said briefly, “We would hope for your personal undertaking, and the Great Emperor’s behind yours, that Tolounn will leave the Islands alone, renouncing all claim to our lands and demesnes.”

  The Emperor leaned back in his chair, smiling. “But the Islands are properly a Tolounnese province, Master Anerii. And the key to any serious ambition we may have toward Cen Periven.”

  “Two hundred years seems long enough to us to legitimize our independence. And the Islands take no interest in your ambitions toward Cen Periven.”

  The Emperor said in a very bland tone, “That you have been flouting imperial authority for two hundred years does not legitimize you in our eyes.”

  “If you wish to bring us under your authority,” Master Anerii said—smoothly, but not quite as smoothly as the Emperor—“you will have to conquer us. My king promises that we shall make any such effort as difficult as possible. He suggests that an amicable relationship between the Islands and Tolounn would be a good deal less difficult.”

  “Well,” said the Emperor softly, “but I don’t mind the occasional difficult project.”

  Master Anerii paused. Then he asked, “Am I to understand, O Emperor, that you decisively reject our request for amity?”

  The Emperor half smiled. “What does Terinai Naterensei offer me, Master Anerii, for such an undertaking?”

  “We have,” the master said precisely, “one thousand six hundred thirty-six Tolounnese soldiers that were stranded on Milendri when your engines failed. They are in our hands. What will you offer us, O Emperor, for all their lives?”

  The smile disappeared. Dharoann enna Gaourr sat forward, his hands dropping to grip the arms of his chair. “I will redeem them all,” he said flatly. “What will you ask for them? Not an assurance of amity. But name a price in gold and I will pay it.”

  Master Anerii hesitated, clearly trying to gauge this offer.

  Trei caught the master’s arm and stretched up to whisper quickly, “Give them all back without ransom!”

  Master Anerii blinked down at Trei. He shook his head a little. “Tolounnese honor! You’re sure, boy?”

  Trei nodded vigorously.

  Master Anerii looked up, cleared his throat, and declared, “Justly are Tolounnese soldiers famed for their discipline and honor as well as their courage! In recognition of the courage and honor of Tolounnese soldiers and of your honor, O Emperor, my king has accorded your soldiers generous treatment and will return them all to you without ransom.”

  All along the walls, and without otherwise moving, the soldiers stamped one foot down on the floor in unison; the wooden floor boomed hollowly. Master Anerii started at the unexpected sound.

  The Little Emperor was not startled. But his eyebrows rose. He gave Trei a very thoughtful look. Then he stood up, advanced one precise step, and said formally, “Master Anerii, though I do not acknowledge Terinai Naterensei is a legitimate king, I am glad to acknowledge he is an honorable and generous lord. I accept his generosity on behalf of all my soldiers and freely give you this undertaking: I will not send these men again against the Floating Islands.”

  Master Anerii bowed.

  “I will send ships to recover my Tolounnese soldiers,” the Emperor added. “In recognition of the generosity of the Floating Islands, I will ask you to permit me to send also an indemnity to cover the cost of rebuilding the damaged portions of your city.”

  Master Anerii blinked. Then he bowed again.

  “Now.” Dharoann enna Gaourr resumed his seat. “As to your Islands. I wish you to say this to the so-called king of the Floating Islands: Tolounn is no longer inclined to recognize the autonomy of the Floating Islands. It is far past time the Islands resumed their proper place as a province of Tolounn. Terinai Naterensei would be well advised to consider the terms on which he will yield his autonomy, which will be far more generous if he puts us to less trouble.”

  The heavy features of Master Anerii did not show the alarm that Trei was sure his did. He merely tilted his head to one side and answered, “One might wonder how many Tolounnese cities you wish to sacrifice to this strange ambition, O Emperor. Or do you believe that the dragons that aided the Floating Islands in these past days will decline to do so in the future? Why would you believe that?”
/>   The Little Emperor smiled, if a little grimly. “If this campaign had succeeded, I would have been pleased. But it showed me many things. I see now that it was a mistake to put the steam engines in a city. It was a mistake to guard them against only men—and less well than should have been done; I should have taken better thought for the Island kajuraihi. Next time, I shall build four engines, not three. Three shall press the sky magic away from the path of my ships so that your allies do not threaten them, just as this time. But the fourth—and the fifth, if necessary!—shall guard the first three, so that no dragon or kajurai approaches the place where they stand. And what will you do then?”

  Master Anerii said, his tone level, “You are courteous to inform us of your intentions in such detail. I assure you that we will contrive.”

  “Or you may ask me for terms. I tell you plainly, I am inclined to be generous.”

  “And this will change, if we put you to such trouble as displeases you. Indeed. I will inform my king. He will give you this answer: we refuse your demand. If you would own the Islands”—here Master Anerii’s voice dropped to a harsh growl—“come and take them.”

  “Proudly declared,” acknowledged the Emperor. He sat back, leaning his chin in his hand for some time, thinking. Then, straightening at last, he turned to Trei. “Trei enna Shiberren, son of Teguinn enna Shiberren, lately of Rounn. Is that so?”

  Surprised, Trei bowed. “Yes, O Emperor. How did you—” He flushed, realizing his own temerity, and fell silent.

  But the Emperor did not seem offended. He said merely, “You told Decouan Patnaon your provenance, and inquiries yielded the rest. How fortunate for the Islands that they have a half-bred Tolounnese to advise them!”

  Trei bowed his head, understanding the condemnation in those words. He had no idea how to answer it, and so said nothing.

  “You are from Rounn,” the Emperor said. “I regret your loss, then. But you now claim your mother’s kin in the Islands, rejecting your father’s Tolounnese kin?”

  It never got easier to answer that question. Trei said awkwardly, “I did go to my uncle in Sicuon, O Emperor. He wouldn’t … He didn’t … It’s complicated.”