Islana's Story
Cleran had been spirited off somewhere; Islana hadn't asked about it. Jereh would deal with him, for the time being. Islana was left alone in her room, in the hotel the Knights used while in Kal'Ishka. It was owned and operated by retired Knights, as were a series of inns through the main Island of Kalatsu. Knights who had no families, like Islana, would always be guaranteed somewhere to stay when they were outside of the Knight's Complex on Cresula. It wasn't the same as having a home or a family, but it was somewhere to go.
She didn't want to count the number of holidays she'd spent in rooms identical to this one. Her bags had been sent ahead of time and were sitting on the bed. There was a bedside table, a desk and chair, a small window and a fireplace. The room was tiny, small enough that the rather tiny fire.
Islana sat on the chair and carefully opened the envelope. It was difficult to do with one hand, and Islana was easily frustrated, but the cast Jereh had placed on her right had made it impossible to use at all. I think the bitch did that just to annoy me, she thought bitterly.
It took awhile, but she got it open and read the short letter it contained.
Islana Ylanna,
You are hereby commanded to appear before King Erra Kelanister within a day of your arrival in Kal'Ishka to consult on the matter of your prisoner. Failure to do so will result in arrest.
By the hand of Silan Alis
Steward to His Majesty Erra Kelanister
She stood, crumpled the letter in her left hand, crossed the room and dropped it into the fire. She watched it burn, not letting a trace of emotion cross her face.
"You want to see me, Your Majesty?" she asked the fire. "Fine." She wrapped her good hand around Ilyan's necklace charm for a minute, standing in front of the fire with her eyes closed. "Fine," she repeated.
There was no point in delaying the inevitable. She gathered her cloak and a crutch to help make up for her lame leg, and left the room. Unpacking would wait.
[OPENING CREDITS]
Episode 8: Old Wounds
On her way through the snow streets, Islana contemplated a few things. She wondered if appearing so soon would make her seem weak to Erra. She wondered what he really wanted, as she doubted he'd care about her prisoner.
Or rather, he probably would care, but would never stoop to asking her anything. He would definitely act above that, unless there was something even more important for him to know. If there was, she'd want to know what it was before she walked in to the room. If there wasn't, why would he be contacting her?
She kicked a mound of snow. It was going to look like she was jumping to obey him. She should have waited two days, come strolling in at the last minute. Or let them arrest her. She'd done that before.
She thought back about that, and decided it was just as well she was going now. Of course the guards hadn't been able to hurt her, but Erra had been out to humiliate her and had succeeded. There was no need to relive that.
Though he would doubtlessly open with something along the lines of, "I see you've chosen to avoid arrest this time."
Ah, well. It couldn't be helped now. She was at the gate.
"Name?" the guardsman asked. She pushed back her hood and he saw the white hair.
"Erra sent for me."
"Islana?" he guessed.
She nodded.
"We're all glad you're all right."
"Thanks."
"Wait inside, I'll have word sent to His Majesty." The guard yelled to someone behind him inside the tower gate, and another guardsman appeared.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Islana," he said.
"Just Islana is fine," she said, as they walked towards the castle.
"We were all praying for you. The whole Island," he informed her.
"Thank you," she said. She knew she was being short with him, and she really did appreciate the way people were greeting her, but she was feeling a bit too anxious to carry on a conversation. And of course she was certain that Erra Kelanister had not been praying for her. "How long have you been here?" she asked, in an attempt to seem less rude.
"Only a few months," he replied. "I even got to serve as guard to the King himself, once."
"Your family must be proud of you."
"They are, Miss, uh, Islana. They told me to take you to his study..."
"All right." They walked in silence for a few minutes, through the winding castle, until reaching a hall with another guardsman stationed at either end, and another outside a door near the middle.
"She was summoned," the man leading her told one of the guards politely. He nodded and pointed down the hall; she continued alone to meet the guard in the center.
"He wants to see me," she said flatly.
The guardsman looked up Islana over, smirking ever so slightly. "He is busy," he said.
"He summoned me," she repeated.
"And you'll just have to wait for him, won't you?"
She leant back against the wall, watching the guard. "You know what he's doing?"
"What he's doing is not a common guardsman's business."
"He's not doing anything. I'd assumed you'd have figured that out."
"It's not any of my business."
She smiled. "He's making me wait to prove he's in charge. He wouldn't want me to go in without that in the back of my mind. After all, I might not bow to his every whim if I forget it momentarily."
"It really isn't any of my business." "Of course not. It's a fairly good tactic, though I've seen better—Dysis Serathi made me kneel. Though I suppose you've never heard of him."
"Who?"
"Dysis Serathi. He's the High Priest of Ocando. I think he'll see me now, if you'll excuse me." She strode through the door, and let herself in without knocking before he had a chance to stop her.
Erra was sitting at his desk, reading something. He looked up when the door opened, saw her, and went back to what he was doing. "You summoned me?"
"I did, but I'm a bit busy if you'd wait a minute."
"I know you're the King. You don't intimidate me. If you want to talk to me, talk; if you don't, I have work to do."
"Actually, you don't. You're still off duty, being Healed." He looked up and looked at her. "You'll wait as long as I want you to, or I'll have the guardsman outside arrest you."
"You think he could keep me from leaving if I want to?"
"I think your arm is in a cast so you can't use your sword; I think your leg is splinted and you can't run. I don't think the guardsman outside could stop you, I'm certain of it." "Did you have a reason for calling me here, old man?" she demanded, not acknowledging the fact that he was right.
"I want access to the High Priest."
"The Voice will see anyone with reason to speak to him, and that probably includes you."
"The other High Priest. I want to talk to Dysis Serathi, and your oh-so-holy Voice doesn't want me to."
"Then I suppose you'll have to deal with the disappointment."
"I don't think I will. The Voice will listen to you, if you ask. And you will ask him for me."
"Why would I do that?"
"Because Jereh expects you to go back to that Inn with permission to use my dungeon, since the Knights don't have one. Permission I will deny if you don't agree to do this for me."
She gave him a dark look. "You're offering me that? That's all? No."
"Islana Ylanna, you do not want to cross me. I make a very powerful enemy."
"I've been aware of that for nine years, but it has yet to bother me."
"You don't know nearly as much as you think you do."
"In that case, it's my problem. If that was all, I'll be leaving."
"It wasn't. You're wearing a necklace that doesn't belong to you. Give it to me."
She rolled the chain between her thumb and forefinger. "No."
"You don't have a choice about that. It's stolen property, and further more, you know it was stolen. If you don't return it, I can have you arrested."
"You could have me arrested anyway, old man. You're the King." She smiled. "Though I'm not sure your citizens would be happy when you arrest one of your greatest heroes, who only narrowly escaped death."
"Who would never have been in danger of dying if she'd listened to me nine years ago."
"I might have listened if you hadn't been ranting like a lunatic."
"You didn't listen to a damn word I said, Islana," he spat. "I was trying to remind you of your history—why you were orphaned. What can happen to Knights. I was doing exactly what your father would have wanted. You just didn't want to hear it. You didn't want to know how disappointed he'd have been."
"My father loved me." She closed her hand over Ilyan's necklace and couldn't quite look Erra in the eye. She could fight with him with no guilt, but this was the part of the conversation she never wanted to have.
"Yes, he did. That was why he didn't want you to grow up to be a Knight. He knew what could happen. He never wanted his precious daughter in danger."
"I was in danger just from being born. He couldn't have stopped any of this. The Goddess called me!"
"She called me, too," Erra said coldly. "Do you see any white in my hair?"
"Only because you aren't brave enough to keep your vows when they get too hard, old man."
"Too hard?" he snarled. "The vows were only words. She was supposed to love me in return—Knights serve Her and She gives them Her love. So where was Her love when my parents and brothers were murdered? Where was Her end of the bargain. I did nothing wrong." "You think She didn't love you?" Islana half-screamed. "I know what your vision was, I know it, all the Knights know it. You saved the Voice. You brought him to us. You knew him, Goddess damn it! You knew him, and She loved you enough to trust you and you broke that trust! Don't you dare tell me about the Goddess' love, don't you fucking dare!"
"Where was Her love when the Warriors broke you hand, Islana?" he asked coldly.
"It was there. I know it was there because I'm alive. My family is dead, too, old man. But I'm alive. That's all the proof I need."
"Give me my son's necklace or get out," Erra demanded.
Islana turned and walked out.
Erra watched Islana leave, eyes narrowed after her. Damn it, damn her! He thought after her. So few people could leave him so angry, but she had that talent. It seemed to be her life goal.
He forced himself to unclench his muscles, to relax his fists, and he began to drum his fingers on his desk top. So she'd defied him again; fine. He realized belatedly he should have known she wouldn't surrender the necklace, or given him access to Dysis Serathi, for no reason other than pettiness.
If she wants to be petty, so can I. I will get my son's necklace back.
"Silan!" he barked out loud.
Moments later, his dark haired steward appeared. "Majesty?"
"I want a letter sent to Jereh Nirral," he said. She—and the man she works for—want me to be more cooperative, to let them know of my plans. Fine. If Jereh gives me what I want, my plans are hers to see.
Jereh glanced through the letter from the King. She paused, then read it again, and smiled and stood. Cleran was being kept in a room not far from her, tied hand and foot to a chair, guard outside. "I'll need him for awhile," she said to the Knight.
"Yes ma'am," he answered automatically. No one questioned Jereh. And Islana clearly didn't care about her prisoner; she hadn't seen him since their arrival on Kal'Ishka.
"Oh. It's you," Cleran muttered as she stepped inside.
"Shut up," Jereh responded automatically. "The King wants to see you."
Wonderful, Cleran thought to himself, but decided not to argue with Jereh, since she was untying him. He didn't think she'd give him a chance to escape, or even close to it, but he desperately needed to stretch, and didn't want to give her a reason to leave him in that chair any longer.
"Uh... Why me?" Cleran eventually asked aloud, as she marched him—hands carefully retied behind his back—out in to some halls.
Jereh didn't answer, leaving Cleran to wonder for himself. The most obvious answer was that Erra wanted to know something about Dysis. It was possible that Islana had reported to... Whoever it was she reported to... and mentioned Dysis' plan to assassinate the King, and he was angry about it.
He wondered how long it would take before he'd miss his chair.
[EYECATCH]
"So you're the oh-so-dangerous High Priest of Ocando," Jall scoffed.
Dysis had been treated fairly well so far, to his great surprise; not too long after he and Cleran were separated, he was moved to what appeared to be a guest room. True, the windows were locked shut and the room was bare of all but desk (no desk supplies), chair and bed, but it was definitely better than the cell.
Though he still wore shackles on his ankles and wrists. They had to do something to keep him uncomfortable.
At the moment, they were in a fairly cold room with stone walls. Dysis was seated at a table with his arms chained loosely below the wooden chair's back. He was wearing clothes they'd provided, thick lined pants and shirts, and a heavy cloak over it.
"I am." He refused to be intimidated, or at least, he refused to appear intimidated. The man leaning over the table at him was old, not wearing a sword, and although he seemed to speak with authority he didn't seem all that threatening.
"Your name?"
"Dysis Serathi."
"Age?"
"Twenty-seven."
"Parentage?"
"Lord and Lady Serathi." Dysis gave him a dirty look.
"Unlike your bastard brother," Jall answered, then, "Speaking of, siblings?"
"A younger brother."
"Named?"
"Cleran."
"Half-brother, then," Jall noted.
"Cleran is my brother, and that is all that is important."
"All right."
"I'm just curious," Dysis said. "Why are you asking me?"
"I have to. But you probably figured it out yourself—I don't actually give a damn about your age, or your family, or..." He shrugged. "Or you, particularly."
"I don't know if I should be worried or relieved by that."
"Well...." Jall smiled. "Your life doesn't matter at all to me. Annoy me enough, and I'll have you killed. But I have no interest in having you killed."
"And I suppose my life is in your hands?" Dysis reasoned.
"For the time, yes," Jall agreed.
"And if you don't mind my asking," Dysis pushed, since the man hadn't seemed hostile so far, "who are you?"
"Not someone you want to cross, Dysis Serathi."
"Do you have a name, or is asking that crossing you?"
"My name is Jall."
Dysis nodded, then paused. "That sounds... It sounds familiar," he said vaguely.
"I'm fairly well known," Jall agreed.
"Why?"
"You don't want to know," Jall promised grimly.
"Oh, I do, though," Dysis said.
"I don't really care," Jall answered. "You are the High Priest of Ocando, as such the movements of the Warriors is ultimately all up to you."
"I have a lot of advisors," Dysis said.
"I don't care about your advisors. You make the final decision."
"Yes." Now they were playing a new game, where Jall was going to ask questions and Dysis would give as little information as possible.
"It was your decision to have the Warriors track down and kidnap a Knight by the name of Islana Ylanna."
"Yes."
"It was your idea to begin with?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"She was responsible for many deaths, including the late High Priest Rallan, may Ocando hold his soul."
"You are aware of the functions Knights serve for Kaleal's Church?"
"I'm aware that they engage on frequent acts of terrorism on citizens of my Island."
"The Knights are a sect of Kaleal's Church that believes in military action to liberate Kaleal's followers from slavery on your Island."
He and Dysis caught each other's eyes and stared for a long, tense silence. "You've got no idea, do you?" Dysis finally said, deciding he didn't care if this man was responsible for his life. "You don't have to see the survivors, the women whose husbands have been killed. You don't have to tour manors and keeps that have been nearly burnt to the ground. You don't have to try and console families who've lost brothers, sons and fathers who served Ocando as Warriors. I do. Your military group does nothing more than terrorize innocent people."
He fell silent and wondered how the elderly Knight was going to react to this declaration. It was a dangerous thing for him to have said; he probably shouldn't have, he realized, the Knight probably wouldn't want to be told exactly what people thought of hisˆâ of his... Colleages.
Finally, the Knight spoke. "You're wrong, Dysis Serathi. I know exactly what the Knights do, and how much devastation they leave in their wake. I have survivors of my own to console. But I know a lot more than that."
Jall was wearing a long sleeved shirt which had buttoned cuffs at the wrists; wearing it was a deliberate choice. He had figured the discussion would come to this. He unbuttoned the cuff of his left sleeve and very slowly, very carefully rolled it up. Dysis watched with interest, and his eyes grew wide at what was revealed. By the time Jall had pulled the sleeve all the way up to his shoulder, Dysis could see a brand burnt into his skin, probably a decades old mark that would never leave the Knight's body. It was a simple sign; a circle with a large X through it.
Very few men bore that mark, and fewer still lived: it was the brand placed on slaves marked for death for a high crime, and could only be given by a High Lord. But it was a death sentence, no one who held it should have been alive for more than a week afterwards...
Jall let his sleeve slip back down his arm and fastened the button before he looked up at Dysis and spoke again. "I was born and raised on your Island. I was—" he almost couldn't say the words. The whole concept felt ridiculous to him now. "I was raised a slave, a loyal slave, and I remained that way for quite some time."
"What was the crime?" was Dysis' only reaction.
"Murder," Jall said flatly. "But then, the men who owned me were none too kind to their slaves, but even so I had no idea what to be other than loyal. They were a Noble family, I've long since forgotten the family's name, I guess they must have been one of the High Lords. But of course, compared to me and my family they could have been Gods. But I was lucky, I had family; my mother raised me, my younger sister and my twin brother to be Loyal.
"It's hard to believe... I can't... I grew up knowing how evil the Knights were, I knew it then at least as well as you do now, because the Knights killed. Even if their cause had been just, and to my Loyal mind when I grew up, it wasn't, but even if it had been, well, they killed people, and there couldn't have been an excuse for that. I had no concept that the Knights were fighting on my behalf...
"When my brother and I were fifteen, and my sister was fourteen, one of the overseers... He was one of them, not a slave, and my sister really wasn't very good at working in the fields. She was small, she was delicate, she was so young... Well, the overseer wasn't too thrilled with the way she was working, but he was... That is, he noticed...
"The overseer gave her a choice; either be punished for her ineptness working, or bed him. He did it when my brother and I weren't there, we were Loyal, but we knew our family was the most important thing.
"My sister didn't have much of a choice, did she? She was in bad enough shape as it was, and punishment would have made it worse, and... Well, she did what she felt she had to, and the two of them... He was rough on her, really rough, and she was only fourteen. And when she came home that night, crying, in pain, I—I couldn't watch her be hurt like that.
"I told my brother what I was going to do. He thought I was crazy, I guess I was. I had never had a disloyal thought in my life until I saw her like that, and then all of a sudden I couldn't stand it. I couldn't stand that she had been abused like that and was helpless and that no one was going to do anything about it, not even my brother. So I decided to act alone.
"I found the overseer. I was strong, I'd been working for as long as I could remember. Yeah, I was half-starved, but I was still strong. I found the overseer in a barn with another girl—not a slave, just some girl—and I took a pitchfork and... I'll spare you the detail. She ran off screaming. He was dead.
"The girl was able to identify me, of course. I had been very stupid about that. But suddenly, I was no better than those evil Knights, I'd taken someone's life. And I didn't deny it, either, that bastard had hurt my sister... Well, I was put on trial, if it could even be called that. I was found guilty, sentenced to death, they put the brand on my arm. But obviously I'm still alive—my brother saved me. He... I don't even know how he got his hands on the key, but he got me out, he got me away, and I ran like Hell.
"Somehow, I ran straight into a group of Knights. They sweep your island periodically, looking for runaways and escapees, and they found me... And when they told me what it was they were fighting for, that they had been trying to free slaves... Well, I'm here now, aren't I?
"There's more, though," Jall continued. Dysis was dumbfounded, he hadn't known what to expect, but it wasn't this. This sounded almost like someone pouring out his heart in a plea for forgiveness. But he was asking forgiveness from the wrong person... "I told the Knights where I'd come from, what had happened, what I'd done. Of course they wanted me, but they said they'd help me rescue my family, too.
"So I showed them where we lived—where we had lived. By the time I got there with them, my mother and my sister had been sold off, and my brother..." He swallowed hard, his voice shaky for the first time. "When they couldn't find me, they executed my brother."
Jall shook his head, as if to clear his thoughts. "Well, I know what it is that the Knights do. I know."
Dysis was left with nothing to say. He could only stare at the elderly man, who even after all of these years was still hurting for his sister, still racked with guilt because his brother had died in his place. "They shouldn't have killed your brother," Dysis said finally. "That wasn't fair."
"No one really gives a damn about fair when it comes to slaves. Now—you said we commit acts of terror."
"Yes," Dysis said, though he was a little less certain now.
"I'm going to tell you another story now, Dysis Serathi. It's about me, again, you'll forgive me for that, I'm sure. It's about me at another time, practically another life, with another family... I had a family again, finally. I'd trained to be a Knight, and one of my brother Knights had introduced me to a good friend of his, a female friend, and we'd fallen in love.
"We were happily married, we wanted nothing more than to be together, to grow old together." He sighed. "Well, I'm still here, and I'm quite old. But my wife..." He paused. "We had a son," he added.
Dysis hesitated a moment, and was shocked to find himself asking, "What... What happened to him?"
"He grew up and got married, too, to a beautiful young girl. They were happy together, as happy as myself and my wife. My son was a mason, and he had a daughter, and... Well, they lived in Kal'Hara. My son was practically the head of his Guild, they had to live there. My wife lived with them, since no one wants to stay on this chunk of ice. I stayed there, too, when I wasn't on duty.
"I was on duty when Kal'Hara was destroyed. I..."
"You're Islana's grandfather," Dysis interrupted. He remembered why the name felt familiar, it was the name Islana had given him. Her father was a mason, she'd said. That was why they lived in Kal'Hara.
Jall smiled. "Yes," he said. It wasn't the truth, not strictly speaking, but it was close enough. Islana was the same age as his granddaughter who'd died, and since she no longer had a family of her own, and she had been raised by her grandfather... Well, she was missing a grandfather and he was missing a granddaughter. They weren't related by blood, but it was close enough.
"I'm amazed you haven't had me skinned alive, or... Worse," Dysis said slowly.
"The thought crossed my mind," Jall admitted. "But what would the use be? Consider: someone hurt my sister, so I killed him, so they killed my brother, so I became a Knight and took lots of other people's lives, so they attacked my city and killed my family, so Islana burnt your fleet and killed your Priest, so you had her kidnapped, and now I have you prisoner here. I've seen blood, Dysis Serathi. I've seen blood and I've got blood on my hands.
"I'm old. But I've learned a little from everything that's happened to me. I've learned that blood leads to more blood, that death leads to more death. I hate you. I hate everything you stand for. But unless you give me reason to kill you, you don't need to fear for your life. Not from me."
Dysis stared up at him, amazed. The grief and the guilt were obvious in his voice. He nodded. "Thank you," was all he could say.
[CLOSING CREDITS]