The Floating Islands

by Rachel Neumeier

  The Little Emperor frowned. He leaned forward, dropping his arms to lie along the arms of the chair. “Perhaps it is not so complicated? Your father meant to pay the half-blood tax to register you on your majority, of course. And your uncle did not care to pay the tax. Is that how it was?”

  Trei knew he’d flushed darker still. Lowering his eyes, he admitted, “Yes. I think so.”

  The Emperor shrugged. “So. That seems simple to me.” He glanced at one of the quiet men by the wall. “Make a note, Tibarron. I am displeased by the brother of Teguinn enna Shiberren, who even in the face of disaster makes so little of the bonds of kinship.”

  The man inclined his head.

  “But—” exclaimed Trei, coming forward an involuntary step.

  “I don’t intend to put your uncle to death,” the Little Emperor said mildly. “I will merely send him a personal rebuke.”

  “Oh …” Trei thought about an imperial messenger arriving at his uncle’s house with that message and actually smiled. “All right. Good. I mean, thank you, O Emperor.”

  The Emperor lifted a hand. “I accept your gratitude in this small matter, Trei enna Shiberren. But,” he wondered aloud, “what shall I do with you yourself? You are not precisely a foreign agent, are you? You are certainly not a foreign soldier, and thus no ordinary prisoner of war. You seem to me a boy who was so angry at his uncle that he struck at Tolounn entire. A boy of Tolounn who went to a great deal of personal trouble to strike deliberately at war engines of mine. In wartime. In aid of Tolounn’s opponent. Shall I take this lightly?”

  For a moment, Trei did not understand what the Little Emperor meant. Or no. He understood it at once, but did not want to admit he did. A cold dizziness afflicted him. He thought he might faint—then he thought he might throw up. He said, “I wasn’t … I didn’t …” He hadn’t decided he was Islander just because he was angry with his uncle. That hadn’t been why. Had it? Trei shut his eyes for a moment, trying only to breathe steadily and stay on his feet. Master Anerii put a hand under his elbow to support him.

  “Provincar Atta was absolutely wrong to send a foreign ambassador to the oubliettes,” mused the Little Emperor. “He was never intended to hold tactical responsibility for this military stroke, and I think perhaps when ill fortune descended upon him, he became frightened. But … imprisoning a Tolounnese traitor in the oubliettes was not unreasonable.” He looked thoughtfully at Trei, who met his eyes helplessly but could think of nothing at all to say.

  Master Anerii leaned aggressively forward. “Tolounnese honor!” he snapped. “The envy of the world!”

  “Islander pride,” murmured the Emperor, lifting his eyebrows. “That evidently takes no reasonable account of circumstances. Shall I find this pride presumptuous?”

  “Oh,” growled Master Anerii. “Is it pride that offends you?” He took one step toward the Emperor and dropped heavily to his knees, lifting his hands in forthright entreaty. His manner made the gesture almost an insult … but not quite. “Let be the boy, O Emperor. That is an Island boy now and none of yours. According to your own law, he was never a Tolounnese citizen. It’s the fault of Tolounn he found no place to go in your Empire after Rounn was destroyed. I beg you will thus be gracious and let him go to the place he did find.”

  The Emperor leaned his chin once more on his palm. “So we find the limits of Islander pride,” he observed. “I am pleased to find it is not unbounded.”

  “I’m more interested in the limits of Tolounnese honor,” Master Anerii answered harshly.

  The Emperor returned, “The honor of Tolounn is without limit. But what you ask for is generosity. That is not unlimited. However”—a dismissive gesture—“I think it may extend so far. As I am in a mood, today, to be generous. Do you understand me, Master Anerii?”

  “Yes,” growled the master.

  “The boy is yours.”

  Trei shuddered, trying not to fold up where he stood.

  Master Anerii inclined his head stiffly. “Thank you, O Emperor. I’m … The Floating Islands acknowledge Tolounn’s generosity.”

  “I wish to be generous. Today. You may stand, Master Anerii.”

  Master Anerii climbed back to his feet without a word.

  Trei took a breath—another—he came forward a step to bow on his own account. Both Master Anerii and the Little Emperor looked at him in surprise.

  “I’m sorry,” Trei said. He spoke straight to the Emperor. “I don’t mean … I would do it again if I had to. But I’m sorry. Truly. Maybe I was angry at my uncle. But that’s not … I don’t think that’s why …” He stopped. Took a breath. Tried to steady himself. “I never meant to betray Tolounn, or you, exactly. Though I see that’s exactly what I did.” He stopped again. Tried again, more plainly. “There was no way to be loyal to everybody. Not that I could see. But I wish there had been. The Islands are my home now, but I don’t hate Tolounn. Or you. At all. My father always … Is it insolence to say my father always spoke highly of you, O Emperor? I don’t mean to be insolent.”

  The Emperor gazed at him, a curious expression in his dark, powerful eyes. “I don’t find you insolent,” he said after a moment. “Or if I do, then I forgive it. Indeed, I’m pleased to know your father spoke well of me. I’m not displeased to see his son has found a place in the world, Trei enna Shiberren.” He opened one hand. “I release you to that place, and wish you joy of it. If we meet again, Gods grant it will be with amicability between us!”

  Trei bowed deeply.

  “Can we keep the wings?” asked a quick, light voice. For the first time, Trei saw that Master Patan was one of the men in the room. The artificer met Trei’s surprised look with an ironic glint and came a step away from the wall. He said to the Little Emperor, “If you must release the kajuraihi, may we at least keep their wings? Both sets, preferably?”

  “No!” snapped Master Anerii.

  Dharoann enna Gaourr made a small palm-down gesture, amused. “Quietly. Quietly, if you please. Patan, I am devastated to disappoint you, but we cannot blatantly steal the personal property of a foreign ambassador. It is not done. Master Anerii, your wings are, of course, yours. However, the set used in commission of an act of war against Tolounn … those belong to Tolounn.”

  Master Anerii hesitated … then nodded. Grudgingly, but he nodded. “I’ll have to send for another set for my novice.”

  “Your kajuraihi will not be molested,” the Little Emperor assured him. “Your novice and others under your authority are free to come and go. You are not a prisoner here, but a recognized ambassador … though I will ask you to permit my soldiers to attend you and yours while you are in Tolounn.” He rose, signaling the end of the interview. “I will anticipate a useful exchange with the Floating Islands. Through your agency, Master Anerii. I will expect to see you again.”

  Master Anerii did not comment on any of this. He merely bowed low. To Trei’s surprise—the master clearly remembered this piece of high Tolounnese protocol—he held that bow while Tolounn’s Little Emperor exchanged a low-voiced comment with one of the waiting men, murmured an order to another, clapped Master Patan on the shoulder in friendly consolation, and finally went out, drawing most of the men and nearly all the personal energy in the room out with him.

  Decouan Patnaon came forward as the room emptied and grinned at Trei. “Good for you, boy. Too bad, though. You’ve got nerve and heart—you might have made a soldier.”

  Trei laughed, though shakily. “I don’t think so! Though I thank you.”

  The decouan thumped Trei on the shoulder, but he gave Master Anerii a sober, deferential nod. “Thank you, sir. You Islanders may be overconfident, but you’re civilized people. That was a generous gesture, returning our soldiers without ransom. We will remember it, I promise you.”

  He meant the soldiers of Tolounn, of course. Master Anerii returned the decouan a reserved nod, for all he was undoubtedly praying the Floating Islands would never have to depend on the goodwill of Tolounnese soldiers. Trei pray
ed for that, too … but if the favor of the Gods failed, then he thought it would be just as well to have the goodwill of the soldiers.

  “I’m sure you’d be just as pleased to return to your Islands. We’ll get you on your way, sir, no trouble at all. Only tell me what you need. Wings! Gods, give me a solid ship under my feet, if I can’t have a decent horse and a good road!”

  “There’s a spare set of wings waiting at a pebble well over on this side of the second waystation,” Master Anerii said to Trei quietly. “It may take a bell or so to have them brought. But I think we can have you at the waystation by full dark, and back home two days after that.”

  Home. And Master Anerii said it as though it was a foregone conclusion. Trei couldn’t answer. But he nodded.

  16

  The hidden school was strange in the days after the Tolounnese surrender. Not only the school: there was an odd feel to Canpra itself. The city had sustained some damage, of course, but that was not, Araenè thought, the source of the strangeness. The huge Tolounnese siege ladders had shattered buildings and balconies, and the white marble of the First City was streaked with soot from fires. The damage was troubling, a reminder of danger and fear, but Second City was less damaged, and Third City … Third City should by that measure have seemed untouched. The Tolounnese soldiers had not come so far. But the invasion had affected the people of the Third City as it had those of First and Second, even if it had not ruined a single Third City shop or home.

  Araenè was not quite able to explain to herself where the difference lay, or whether the change was ill or well, but she knew it was there. She called visions of the city into Master Tnegun’s Dannè sphere, and she went out into the Third City twice, dressed once as a boy and once as a Third City girl.

  The change in Canpra had to do, she thought, with the raw red earth of the new cemeteries, where men who had been killed in the invasion lay in long rows beside people who had died from the Yngulin illness. She stood for a long time, once everything was over, gazing down from a Second City balcony across the cemetery where her parents lay. There were so many new graves.… The cemetery had doubled in size after the coughing illness, but it had doubled again since. Araenè was not the only mourner who had gone to stand silently at the edge of the stripped red earth. But the company of other mourners brought her no comfort, and the grief followed her back to the hidden school; it clung to her no matter how she dressed or what name she called herself.

  Too much death too quickly, too much fear, and somehow no part of the city seemed really safe any longer. The mood of the city went beyond that, though: there was a bitterness against Tolounn that had not been there before, but it was mixed with an oddly grim good cheer because, after all, the Islands had defeated Tolounn—and everyone knew that Tolounnese soldiers were the best in the world.

  “It’s important we be generous and honorable—honorable exactly as Tolounn understands honor,” Ceirfei had explained to Araenè before going away to be a prince. “The Tolounnese put such passion into their honor. If we are to be opponents, we must ensure they regard us as honorable enemies and not barbarians.” In case they come again, and we lose, he did not say. He did not have to say it. Araenè knew that the triumph running through the streets of Canpra was wrong, though maybe … maybe not as dangerous as the bitterness, unchecked, would have been. But she knew Milendri would have been taken— the Islands would have been conquered—except for Trei. And no one knew that, except her. And Ceirfei, and Master Tnegun. And the kajuraihi, she supposed.

  Everyone should know it. She wanted to go out in the streets and proclaim it: My cousin saved you all! It seemed utterly wrong that so few knew this, even worse that Canpra did not appreciate her cousin’s continuing danger. Even she did not know what that danger was, precisely. When she tried to find a vision of Trei in a sphere or in water or fire, she saw nothing but darkness. He was not dead; she knew this and Master Tnegun confirmed it. Araenè clung to that certainty. But the darkness and cold she saw in the spheres horrified her. She knew a kajurai official had gone after Trei; they would get him back. Master Tnegun would not promise her this, but she believed it, fiercely. Even though she could not imagine how the living wind of the kajuraihi could reach into that cold darkness. She tried not to think about it.

  But that left her too much time to think of other things.

  She could not go out into Canpra and tell everyone about Trei. Of course she could not. But after that first visit to the cemetery, she found herself even more reluctant to go out into the streets of Canpra for any other reason, either. She did not know how she should dress if she did; she did not know who she should be. In a way, the question was like choosing a role in a play … girl, boy, apprentice mage—she did not know what she should be. It was all roles, and she vacillated between them. She felt, obscurely but strongly, that when she actually chose a role, this time it might be the one she would play for the rest of her life. But she did not know which to choose.

  Kajurai or prince … those were roles, too, and more intractably separate than even the roles that waited for Araenè’s choice. Ceirfei, she knew, did not exactly get to choose what role he would play, and who would have thought it might be harder to be a prince than a girl?

  For the first time in her life, Araenè cared about politics. Everyone in Canpra had a violent opinion about what the Islands should do about Tolounn. Araenè did not, but she wondered what Ceirfei thought. She was sure he would be right. But would his uncle listen to him? She worried about that. She felt intense sympathy for Ceirfei. She also thought Ceirfei would have an easier time managing his various roles if he didn’t feel obliged to play every one of them with such intensity.

  But the hidden school had changed in a different way than the city, and Araenè could not decide whether the change was in the school or in herself, or in some complicated way had emerged from the relationship between herself and the school.

  All the mages had recovered from their overextension—or their simple overexhaustion, in Master Tnegun’s case—except for Master Yamatei, of course, who had died and left poor Kepai and Kebei with no master of their own. Kanii thought Master Kopapei would take them, or maybe Master Akhai. But Araenè had a faint suspicion that Master Tnegun might do it—to encourage amity between the twins and herself. Because these days, the twins were not really talking to her.

  Few of the apprentices were. Tichorei, to be sure, wasn’t talking to anybody—he was ill after his exhaustion and overextension during the invasion, and he did not come into the common areas of the school. Araenè was anxious to see him recovered, to tell him how much she admired his committed effort during the invasion. But she was afraid he would be embarrassed and angry, that he would refuse to forgive her deception. And she knew that, Kanii aside, all the younger apprentices would probably follow Tichorei’s lead—once he was around to provide one. She hoped Tichorei would recover; of course she did. But she dreaded the lead he might give the other boys.

  Of all the apprentices, only Kanii and little Cesei seemed utterly untroubled by the revelation of Araenè’s secret. Kanii’s manner toward her scarcely changed—though he would not come into her apartment, and did not like for her to visit his. But he did not mind meeting her in the common areas of the school.

  “Why should it make any difference? Everyone knows we’re terribly short of mages—and worse now.” He meant not only Since Master Yamatei died but also Since we know now that Sayai won’t ever be a mage. They did know that now. The masters had known for some time that Sayai was going to be an adjuvant and not a mage, and the invasion had forced them to make it clear to Sayai also. What no one knew, yet, was whether Sayai would refuse to become an adjuvant and instead leave the school entirely. The apprentices didn’t discuss it. Araenè thought that in his place, she would let herself become an adjuvant—but Sayai had choices she did not, and she knew he was bitterly disappointed.

  In a way, Kanii’s acceptance was not a surprise. This was because, as Araenè disco
vered, Master Kopapei had known she was a girl from the first time he’d seen her—and she’d thought herself so perfectly disguised! But he had known, or so Kanii told her.

  “He didn’t tell me,” Kanii assured her. They were in the common library; Kanii was helping Araenè find appropriate introductory books about mathematics and stone lore. “I guess he didn’t tell anyone, since you say not even Master Tnegun knew! But I knew there was something. I thought—I don’t know what I thought! But my master is the best, and if he didn’t care, why should I?”

  This attitude seemed common to Master Kopapei’s apprentices, because Cesei also didn’t care. “It’s obvious—now,” he said, disgusted with himself that he hadn’t spotted her secret all by himself. “And it’s obvious now why you don’t know anything about mathematics or anything. Here.” He put a fat little book down on the table in front of Araenè. “This is the best one on geometry. I’ll help you with the hard parts, if you like. I don’t care you’re a girl!”

  “You’re a little young to notice such things,” Kanii told him, amused. “You’re the last one to have an opinion, brat!” He went on to Araenè, confidently, “Everyone will get used to the idea.”

  Araenè wished she had his confidence. She said, “I’m sure you’re right.” But she was not sure, and when she went up to the hall of spheres and mirrors, she went slowly and sadly. Nor could she concentrate on the spheres once she got there. She kept looking into one sphere and then another, hoping for a glimpse of Trei. But she could not find a reflection of her cousin in any sphere, whether of stone or crystal or glass or polished wood.

  Master Tnegun found her there, and leaned for a while on the iron railing of the stair, watching her. Araenè was trying to coax the secret of contained magery out of a heavy black-lead sphere the size of her fist. She did not want to speak to her master—she didn’t even want to look at him. She never knew how to speak to anyone now, and as soon as she saw Master Tnegun had come up the spiral stair to find her, she was afraid that the masters had after all decided to send her away from the school and that he had come to tell her this. She pretended not to notice him.