Ison of the Isles by Carolyn Ives Gilman

Author:Carolyn Ives Gilman [Gilman, Carolyn Ives]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fantasy
ISBN: 9781926851563
Publisher: ChiZine
Published: 2012-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

10

Fire in the Mountain

Dear Rachel,

A fortnight ago, news began to arrive here in Lashnish about the actions of our Navy in the South Chain. I was reluctant to believe it at first. The reports seemed exaggerated, like the rumour and distortion of war. But in the past week, refugees have been arriving here, bringing such disturbing eyewitness accounts that I have been forced to believe them.

Rachel, what is going on? We are a decent, fair-minded people. Who has authorized this effusion of blood? It is beyond my comprehension what policy is being served by the wholesale depopulation of the South Chain. When did butchery, rape, and slavery become tools of statecraft? I would understand severe justice against the rebels, but islanders are being executed in droves, without even a mock trial, without evidence or defence, while the most barbarous behaviour in our own forces is allowed to rage on unchecked. If the intention is to create deep hatred of Inning and contempt for law, then the Navy is serving its purposes admirably. If the intention is to strengthen Harg Ismol’s appeal, and make everyone look to him as a saviour, it is also succeeding. But if we ever wish to govern this place, or spread civilization among these abused and dispossessed people, then I am at a loss to understand how the Navy’s ferocity can be justified.

As you can imagine, the actions of our fleet have made my position here far more precarious. The news has raised the most frightening emotions in the city. It is no longer safe for me to go out without a Lashnura escort. Nor is it possible any longer for me to leave. Quite apart from my unwillingness to abandon Spaeth, I am aware of certain things that they cannot afford to have revealed, and which I cannot even hint to you, or this letter would never reach you. Tiarch is convinced that I am a spy, and while I believe Harg would not harm me, things have been unpleasantly tense between him and me.

And so I watch, and wait. The events around me have taken on an unreal quality, as people make plans, absorbed in all their rivalries and revelries, while the end of all they know approaches slowly from the south.

If you had gotten to know Lashnish, as I did, before the investiture of the Ison, you would barely recognize it as the same place today. We have become a frontier town, besieged by every opportunist, well-wisher, fundamentalist, charlatan, and refugee in the Isles. The political avalanche set off by the rise of an Ison is beyond anyone’s power to control. Everyone here is improvising. There is no recipe to follow.

The Palace and the Pavilion, which adjoin each other, both facing the Isonsquare, have become rival centres of power, vying for control of what the Ison and the Onan represent. Tiarch, who still controls much of the Navy and the apparatus of state, understands the role of opulence, public appearance, and graft. Her palace is continually crowded with people seeking favours, contracts, and posts.

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