Liar's Island: A Novel (6 page)

They only stopped at a port once, to drop off cargo at Sothis, a bustling city in Osirion. They didn't stay there long, only half a day, but Rodrick appreciated the chance to stretch his legs on solid land, and let himself goggle about like a tourist, marveling at the distant peaks of pyramids and the strange black dome of some immense building—it looked like a giant beetle's carapace; foreign architecture was so strange—at the center of the city. The air was noticeably warmer than it had been in Absalom, and they were still far north of Jalmeray, so the island itself must be sweltering. He ate candied dates and almost got pickpocketed in a crowd before returning to the ship. Perhaps he'd go back to Sothis for a longer trip someday. It seemed like a rich place.

*   *   *

There were no more attacks by Arclords or more prosaic pirates on the journey, though they did witness a battle about halfway through the voyage. They passed by Stonespine Island, a sort of miniature mountain range rising from the sea, which Tapasi told him was nominally controlled by the nation of Katapesh, but was mostly infested by hyenafolk, aside from the busy slaver port of Okeno. As they sailed east to move around the island, he saw ships near the island joined in battle, heard the booms of offensive magic, and saw one ship burning. “What's going on over there?” he asked Tapasi. “Is it something we need to worry about?”

“You don't recognize your own countrymen?” She sounded amused. “They don't fly flags of your nation, but it's an open secret that the ships of the Eagle Knights harry the shores of any nation they can reach that keeps slaves, and try to set the poor wretches free.”

“The Gray Corsairs.” Rodrick watched the battle until the ships receded into invisible distance, feeling a little spark of national pride. He didn't have much use for Eagle Knights—they had far too narrow a view of the law, and the advisability of following it—but he didn't much like the idea of slavery either. Apart from being a terrible thing to do a person, there was the fact that slaves didn't have anything worth stealing, and thus reduced Rodrick's pool of potential targets.

When he wasn't lounging on the deck or dallying with Saraswati or gambling with the crew, Rodrick was overcoming his natural inclinations and reading books borrowed from the captain's library. He'd had high hopes upon first noticing the captain's small stock of volumes, because the Vudrani were said to have elevated lovemaking to an art form, with the sum of their knowledge contained in a sacred instructional volume—certainly Saraswati had suggested a few approaches that were entirely novel to him, one or two of which had given him muscle strain—but most of the texts on her shelf were nautical or historical in nature, without a diverting erotic woodcut to be found.

The most interesting thing he'd found was a book of the Vudrani equivalent of fairy tales, and he was learning all sorts of interesting things about garudas and rakshasas and other creatures of legend. Legend, at least, where he was from; Tapasi said they were all too real in her homeland.

He also hoped to gain some insight, through the stories, into the Vudrani cultural mindset, which seemed to favor placidity, languor, and equanimity punctuated by sudden violence in the face of betrayal, dishonor, or violation of social mores. There was one element of their culture he'd heard about vaguely, that he confronted again and again in the texts, and that offended him deeply as an Andoren: the notion of “castes,” or social classes you were born into. Some were born to be merchants, some to be warriors, some to be princes, and some to shovel dung, and if that was your station, there was no changing it: you'd earned that position, it seemed, in some past life, and if your present life was unpleasant, you just had to suffer through it as best you could in hopes of being reborn a bit higher up the ladder next time.

Rodrick had been born into a family that was far from rich, though they didn't go hungry; his parents were hardworking and honorable people, oddly enough. From those fairly humble beginnings he had, through guile and wit and luck, convinced the world he was a warrior of moderate renown. To think he might have been stuck tending pigs or tanning leather or laying roof tiles for his entire life, just because that was his
caste
, was a terrible thought, and he'd complained about it to the captain.

She'd just shrugged. “Do you not have princes where you're from?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“Can a tanner become a prince? Do the sons of hostlers generally become ship captains, or the sons of turnip farmers goldsmiths? Or do they instead tend to follow the paths of their fathers? Do the rich not stay rich, and the poor poor?”

“All right, admittedly, in
practice
there's not all that much ebb and flow of social status, but it's
possible
. You can break with tradition.”

“Our people can do that, too, at least on Jalmeray. They can abandon their family and their name and take a ship to Absalom or Andoran or Taldor and become whatever they wish. But most of us take comfort in knowing our position. I never doubted what I would be: a trader on the sea, just as my mother was, and her mother before her. I never had to doubt, or wonder, or suffer silly dreams that would breed only disappointment when they failed to come true.”

“Fine,” he said, “But you've got a
ship
, don't you? What if your caste had required you to scrape barnacles off the ship instead? Or to dig latrines?”

“Then I would have even more incentive to lead a just and noble existence, in hopes that in my next life, I would be reborn in more pleasant circumstances.”

“You really believe in all that?”

She chuckled. “Reincarnation? Of course. Life is a wheel. We go around and around.”

Rodrick was unsure how he felt about the whole subject of reincarnation—would being reborn as, say, a worm be better or worse than being judged for his actions in life by Pharasma, the goddess of death? At least he could try to charm Pharasma, or repent sincerely on his deathbed, when he probably
would
feel pretty contrite, as he always did right before he had to face a judge at any level. Reincarnation! How odd.

He decided he just had to accept a certain fundamental disconnect in their worldviews. He couldn't help but push a
little
farther, though. “But suppose someone is born into the dung-hauling caste who has a brilliant mind for, say, planning elaborate parties? Or someone is born into the scholarly class but has vast natural talents for soldiering or organized violence?”

“The former will doubtless throw the best dinner parties ever experienced by his shit-shoveling brethren, and as for the latter—anyone can attempt to enter the Houses of Perfection. Mostly the warrior caste try for those positions, it's true, but the monks are … flexible about such matters. There are some who oppose the whole caste system, who say we should be ordered by the gods alone, to rise and fall as our abilities dictate, and not by the opinions of other men and women. But they are a small group of malcontents, and a few radical philosophers. Most of us believe the gods
do
order us, by making sure we are born into the appropriate roles.”

“Mmm,” he said. “I won't argue with you, but I do know I would have made a
terrible
swineherd.”

“It is fortunate for you that the gods chose to let you be born in Andoran, then, instead of in a more civilized kingdom.”

“Am I such an unlettered brute? You don't seem to mind my company.”

She rolled him onto his back. “Oh, well. Sometimes a woman likes a bit of a savage in her life.”

*   *   *

Rodrick sat up in bed—he'd slept in his own, for once, because Saraswati had needed to make some final preparations for their arrival in Niswan. He yawned, stretched, and scratched himself. They were supposed to make landfall today, and to his surprise, he was almost sorry the voyage was ending. It had been a pleasant respite, and soon he'd have to find out what the thakur wanted him for. Something glorious but not too strenuous, he hoped. “Care to take the air, Hrym?”

“I keep telling you, I don't
breathe
,” Hrym said. “I'll just stay here on my gold, thanks.” Rodrick never bothered to take the coins with him when he left the room anymore. The crew held him in sufficient reverence after the assault on the Arclord ship that he wasn't afraid of theft, and if anyone did try, Hrym was right—he could freeze them where they stood, and Saraswati wouldn't even blame him.

“If you're sure. Last chance to stroll about on deck, probably.”

“Of course I'm sure. Uncertainty is for you fleshy types.” The sword sounded cranky, but not demonically so. He'd had only one fit during the entire journey, not long after they left Sothis, and it had just been a flash of red, a titter, and a surge of disorder making everything on Pia's shrine fall off the table, which was easily remedied. He'd spurted out a small cloud of freezing fog afterward, but it quickly dissipated. Maybe the sea air was good for Hrym's condition.

Rodrick had almost discussed Hrym's problem with Tapasi half a dozen times—he'd never talked so much to any cleric in his life, and she might have useful advice—but he was reluctant to let anyone know they were on a ship with a magical sword that had unpredictable destructive tendencies. Guest of the thakur or not, sharing the captain's bed or not, they could find themselves stranded on a rock somewhere if news like that got around.

Rodrick shut the door behind him and went up the stairs to the main deck. The members of the crew he'd become friendly with greeted him warmly, and he smiled and waved. The Vudrani weren't a bad sort, though they liked their fish spiced so heavily he could barely taste it for the burning on his tongue. The crew members were at least all fairly terrible at dice, always a welcome quality in new friends. Or else they let him win most of the time because he'd saved them from the Arclord ship—either way, his purse was fattened, though the copper and flecks of silver didn't look like much next to the gold the djinni had given him. At least he could spend those lesser coins without Hrym moaning about how Rodrick was stealing cushions from his bed.

The captain was up on the foredeck, giving orders, and though she glanced at him and smiled, she seemed too busy for him to wander up and bother her just now. She took her work as seriously as she took her play, an approach to life that Rodrick found at least half baffling. The first half, mainly.

He stood on deck, gazing back toward Absalom and the whole of the world he'd known before. You'd never know there was anything in that direction but more water.

“You're looking the wrong way,” Tapasi said, tapping him on the shoulder. “Turn around, and take in your first view of Jalmeray.

6

Impossible Islands

Rodrick turned and stared, because where before there had been only open water, there was now a smudge of land, like a mountain range rising from the water but vastly larger than Stonespine, some peaks capped with snow and others crowned with clouds. He leaned on the rail and stared. Were those islands full of gold for him, or danger, or both?

“Jalmeray.” Tapasi stepped up to the railing beside him. “The kingdom of the impossible. The jewel of the Obari Ocean.” She pointed toward smaller bits of land jutting out of the sea between them and the peaks of Jalmeray proper. “We will navigate around the small islands—Grand Sarret, and Veedesha, and Kaina Katakka—and then dock at Niswan, near the mouth of the River Sald.”

“Does anyone live on those smaller islands?” Rodrick said.

“Grand Sarret is still occupied. It's home to the Conservatory.”

That sounded familiar to Rodrick, perhaps from one of the same books (with the exotic woodcuts) where he'd read about harems. “Isn't that where, ah, courtesans are trained?”

Tapasi snorted. “You couldn't be more transparent if you were made of ice, like your friend the sword. Do you hunger for company softer than that of our good captain? The Conservatory does train men and women in the arts of seduction, yes, but those fortunate enough to study there also learn music, cooking, and courtly arts. The graduates are welcomed in all the palaces of the Inner Sea for their wisdom and wit, and they often serve foreign courts as advisors. Some are even royal consorts.”

“Ah,” Rodrick said. “So it's a school for spies, then.”

Tapasi frowned at him. “I have never heard it described as such.”

“Naturally. Wouldn't be much of a spy school if everyone
knew
it was. But it stands to reason, don't you think? Why spend all that time teaching people how to seduce and recite poetry and hobnob with nobles, and send them out to posts in the various kingdoms, unless you expect them to report their secrets back to your thakur—or, I suppose, his spymasters?”

“Some believe in studying beauty and art and other such matters for their own sakes, Rodrick. Not everyone is so cynical as you.”

“I haven't met many kings or queens, or rajahs or thakurs for that matter, but I have a hard time believing any of them are
less
cynical than I am—at least, not if they expect to live very long. I don't suppose we can stop off at the Conservatory for a bite to eat?” And perhaps he could help the courtesans-in-training practice their budding skills. Surely they had to train, not just on each other, and maybe they wouldn't charge much. You could get your wounds treated more cheaply by apprentice chirurgeons, after all, than by those who'd proven themselves in the profession. He was aware that a courtesan wasn't
exactly
the same as a prostitute, but the distinction had always seemed exceedingly fine to him.

“Unless that sword grants you the power of flight, no. Grand Sarret was once home to the Maharajah Khiben-Sald's harem, and he chose the location because it's so inaccessible. The entire coastline is composed of sheer cliffs, and it's difficult to reach the school by means other than magic.”