“You probably have no idea what this is,” the old man said. He had a tired, sad voice and it went with the rest of him. His hair was white and sparse and even his beard was mostly gone, although he still had a lopsided moustache. He was halfway up a ladder propped against a huge, silent machine.
“It’s a pump,” I told him, which made his day.
“You understand the machinery?” he asked, and I wondered what answer would serve me best.
“Ye-es,” I tried. “A little. I’m not fond of machines, actually.” An understatement. “Does this keep the Island afloat?”
Some of his joy left him, and Father Sulplice was not a vessel that could hold much joy at any time. “You might notice,” he said, “that you can hear my voice. If this was working then you wouldn’t be able to do that. If one of the big pumps stopped working you’d know about it because the floor would be tilting and your feet would be getting wet.”
“But it is a pump,” I pressed, holding on to my one victory. “What does it pump?”
“Come up here and have a look,” said Father Sulplice.
We were in the machine room, and there was plenty of noise to go around even if one pump had stopped. There were about a dozen huge engines standing about, and slightly over half of them were thumping away at different speeds. No two were alike and all of them showed signs of frequent makeshift repair. The floor was swarming with convicts serving out their time. They lugged great tanks across the floor and connected them to machines. They hauled the empty tanks away again when the machines were done with them. A few took the broken machines apart and tried to work out why they would not go. Men unshipped the infamous sieves and took them away to the cooking vats in another room. Others took smaller sieves from the smaller pumps and took them to drying racks, and others still took the dried contents and decanted them into sacks. Everyone toiled on with a driven intensity you would never find with volunteers. There were at least seven Wardens in attendance, and they had clubs and whips which they used with a free hand, singling out slackers and anyone they personally disliked. It had been an eventful morning. I had already seen one man beaten to unconsciousness, and another lose three fingers to a machine that suddenly started off when he was trying to unclog it. A third man had been stung by something poisonous that had come in with the lakewater. I have no idea whether any of the three survived.
I had been assigned first to a team that was hauling the filled sacks to a storeroom. It was heavy work, and the sacks reeked sharply of various chemicals. The function of everything I saw bewildered me. Nothing like this existed in Shadrapar. After a morning’s worth of mindlessly dragging the sacks twenty yards down a corridor, one of the Wardens had grabbed me by the shoulder and asked me my name. On learning it he had dragged me off far more easily than I had dragged the sacks. I was sure for a moment that I was going to be executed.
Instead I was shown to the little old man, Father Sulplice, and told to do what I could to help him. It was a monstrous relief, but I had no idea what was going on until I met Peter again and was given a few more pieces of the puzzle.
Father Sulplice was the oldest inhabitant of the Island by some years, a bent, grandfatherly man whose head came to the level of my shoulders. One instinctively pictured him as a cheery toymaker in some unlikely romance. I assumed that he was a poisoner or a molester of small children. In conversation even these outside chances fell away, and I was left wondering what on earth he had done to land him here.
Father Sulplice also occupied an ambiguous position in the Island’s hierarchy. On the one hand he was a prisoner, and therefore had no rights and was scum like the rest of us. On the other he was a very skilled artificer, certainly the most skilled I ever met. He was a magician with any kind of mechanism and the Island literally rested on machines. Father Sulplice was the most valued of a small coterie of prisoners whom even the Wardens respected.
I joined him up the ladder and handed him tools from a wicker basket when he asked for them. I got two out of three right first time, which kept him happy. In between tinkering and swearing (in an old-fashioned and genteel way) at the pump, he explained a little more of the Island economy.
“You see, I know machines, and that means that when something important breaks, they call for Father Sulplice. It doesn’t matter whether it’s something like this, that nobody needs right now, or whether it’s one of the great pumps, or even the Governor’s mirror. They come to me first. I get results. That means I get taken care of. Even the Marshal doesn’t want to see me worked to death. Who would fix his little boat then? Now I’m guessing you’re a man of some education.”
I replied that I was.
“Well then maybe someone will find some use for you. To survive here, son, you have to find somebody who cares whether you live or die. That’s the touchstone, you see. Just one Warden will do. That way, the others know that they’ll at least have a question to answer if they club you to death. I’m not saying it’s foolproof. Nothing works every time as every artificer’ll tell you. It’s all you’ve got, though. Feel free to make friends amongst the other inmates, but they won’t be able to help you if one of the Wardens puts the boot in, is all I’m saying.”
I thought about Peter Drachmar and prayed that he remembered me, little knowing that my very presence at Father Sulplice’s side was proof of his continued goodwill.
“You take a look at this, son,” the old man said, and handed down a crooked little piece of metal. “Now you run down to the store and get me something that looks like that, but straight. If you can’t get a match, bring me something near and I’ll just work on it. You think you can do that?”
I said that it was probably within my capabilities and shimmied down the ladder. I had to go back up to ask him where the storeroom was, which further lessened his opinion of me, but then I was off across the machine room floor. The storeroom turned out to be a wooden crate filled with assorted pieces of metal, none of which looked much like Father Sulplice’s example. The crate was at the back of a heap of sacks, and prisoners were constantly in and out of the room, depositing more. So it was that whilst I tried to find a match, someone tapped me on the shoulder. I spun around, terrified that a guard would proceed to beat me into oblivion, but instead it was a face I knew: Shon Roseblade, whom I had met the day before as we disembarked.
“Stefan.” He sounded genuinely surprised I had survived that long.
“Haven’t killed me yet,” I confirmed. I saw a new bruise on his face, and he saw Onager’s work on mine. Shon had got the better of his engagement and was now top man in his cell, at least for the moment.
“I’ll find you again,” he said. “There’s a break to eat soon.” I grabbed a piece of metal at random and ran it over to Father Sulplice.
The old man seemed satisfied with it. Still balanced on the ladder he took out a knife and, with a few easy movements, whittled the part into shape. When I expressed surprise, he beckoned me up the ladder again.
“Take a look, son,” he invited. The knife had a dull metal handle but its blade was almost transparent.
“It’s a diamond,” Father Sulplice explained. “Darned thing cuts anything to size. This is the only one on the whole of the Island, and they trust me enough to give it to me. Says a lot, doesn’t it.”
“I wonder that the other prisoners let you keep it,” I ventured.
I thought the old man would elbow me off the ladder. “Now you’re new here so I’ll let that go by, but let me learn you a few rules that’ll help you stay healthy. One is that nobody touches me, because if the big pumps seize up without me to fix’em then everyone goes down with the ship. Secondly, this isn’t some place where the prisoners go against the Wardens. The Wardens are too strong and they kill far too easily. In this place, if someone’s got a Warden as a friend you stick right close to’em. Last off, take a look at the knife.”
He showed me the handle of the knife. There was a circle of some lighter metal there, sunk into the butt.
“All the Wardens’ stuff that could get into the wrong hands has one of these sunk into it. Knives, clubs, anything. They’ve got two machines that detect these, and if something goes missing then they may well kill everyone in the cell where they detect it. I know. I keep those detectors working. It’s in my interests to preserve the status quo, son. I’m an old man and I don’t want any riots or revolutions to trouble me and mine. Be warned, the Marshal’d be happy to kill every last man on the Island, and by ‘happy’ I don’t just mean he’d do it. He’d enjoy it.”
Eventually I asked him the question that had been nagging at me all day: what was the work that went on here, and what was it in aid of. The answer surprised me.
“This here swamp in which we’re sat is a mine,” Father Sulplice said. “It may just look like muck and water to you, son, but it’s packed with minerals, different ones at different points all over the place. They send boats out that fill their tanks with water, then trek the tanks back here, where we distil the minerals from’em. Works a treat most of the time. This pump here is part of that process. The minerals we ship back home and they get used for all sorts. Weapons, medicines, science, cosmetics, even as flavourings for food. Who back home’d think they relied on their prison for so many things, eh?”
I would have made some socially relevant comment, but right then a quartet of prisoners heaved a huge tank across the machine room floor, and one bellowed up at the old man, “The tank’s broke. Needs fixing. Marshal says to do it first.”
I could see Father Sulplice’s wrinkled face developing new lines as he frowned. “How can a tank be broken?” he demanded. “What’s wrong with it?”
“Blocked,” the other replied, and I could see Father Sulplice working up to some scathing comment when the source of the blockage made itself apparent.
It was a snake, and it forced its way from the broad opening of the tank all in a rush, faster than I would have believed. The four prisoners holding the tank dropped it really fast and made a run for it, but the snake struck one of them, sinking its fangs into his leg, and he went down screaming. The others were trying to get out of its way as it reared up. It was thirty foot long and must have filled the tank almost completely, green and black in irregular mottlings. Very little that lived out in the swamp looked pleasant.
Its head was level with mine as it swung around, and I was up the ladder. I saw that the Wardens were standing idly back, waiting to see what it would do. If it killed a few of us and then made its getaway they would probably have been happy. Unfortunately the machine room had a solid floor, unlike most of the Island. There was nowhere the snake could go save past us.
It made a determined push in one direction, and the prisoners scattered. I saw Lucian, a small man of no athletic prowess, pelt across the room with a speed that should have won medals. I chose that point to get off the ladder to prepare for my own getaway.
It was a mistake. The serpent turned its head sharply even as my feet hit the ground, and I saw that, like the river monster, it had no eyes, though it knew I was there. I heard Father Sulplice whisper, “Bugger off, son. I don’t want that thing coming anywhere near me.”
Its jaws were directed straight at me, and when I took the smallest step to one side it followed me and swayed closer. I tried to muster my inner energies, but was too scared to hold them together, and besides, I had no idea whether they would work against a snake. The jaws opened slightly and I saw two fangs as long as my fingers, coloured a dirty yellow. I resolved to make a break for it.
That very instant, before I could make a fatal mistake, the snake’s head whipped away from me as Shon charged into the room. Charged is the wrong word, really. He was swinging in wide circles, one of the sacks held in both outstretched arms. His feet moved in a complex pattern which turned him about on the spot faster and faster until he gave out a great cry and let the heavy sack fly away from him. It struck the serpent on the nose and exploded in a cloud of red powder and a sharply acrid smell.
The snake recoiled, literally, twisting and writhing in knots on the floor as it tried to scrape the foul chemicals away. Shon was beckoning frantically, and I bolted for him. I felt it through the floor as the snake suddenly stopped twisting and snapped up again, and I knew it was focused on me. I recall quite clearly expecting those fangs to sink deep into my back and jerk me high in the air. Terrified by the thought I cannoned into Shon and we both went down. The snake loomed high over us.
There were three light steps on the wood of the floor, and a shape launched through the air to cling to the serpent’s neck. I saw a blade flash once and the head of the creature was cut cleanly off, the body flinging itself in great agonised loops across the room. My unexpected saviour landed awkwardly, but was quickly on his feet, dusting red powder from his knees. It was Peter Drachmar, of course.
“Bloody hell,” Shon muttered, and pushed me off him. He and I struggled to our feet even as the other Wardens moved in.
One of them said, “You want to watch yourself. The Marshal doesn’t like heroics. He’d rather twenty of them died than one of us.”
Peter shrugged.
“You want to deal with him?” the Warden enquired, pointing at Shon with his club.
Peter looked at him blankly.
“You want to beat him?” the Warden pressed. “He needs beating. That’s a whole sack of produce he’s wasted with that stunt. He’s yours if you want him.”
Peter stared at the man with the same blank expression, as though dazed. Finally he said, “Don’t be stupid.”
The other Warden gaped at him. “What?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Peter told him again.
“Well if you won’t do it, I will,” the Warden promised.
“No you won’t,” Peter said quietly, so that I could hardly hear him. The Warden looked murderous, but something in Peter’s face obviously warned him off, because he walked away, trying to make it look as though nothing had happened. Peter and Shon regarded each other coolly, but Shon nodded eventually, conceding the point. At the last, Peter shot me the smallest grin and went on his way.
I knew then that either Peter or Shon had recognised the other, but they were too busy sizing each other up for me to work out who knew who.
The man who had been bitten was quite dead. The eyeless serpents were not uncommon in the swamps and their bite was invariably fatal.
The rest of the working day passed uneventfully. When I returned to the cell, I discovered that Valentin Miljus, former Lord Financier, was awake.
He stared at us and at his surroundings in a raw, frightened way, a damaged man. I could see that he was burning up with the fever, and the wheeze in his voice could be heard across the corridor. Gaki was hunched like a vulture at the latticed wall of his cell, and I think it was his presence that had sent Miljus into such a fear-ridden state. Lucian and Onager both kept away from him; a dying madman was capable of anything. I had the impression that this kind of thing had happened before, and that the results had been bloody. The final stages of Island Fever could be spectacular, enough that my cell mates were content to sit right up against Gaki’s adjoining wall just to stay away from the feverish man.
Being unversed in the ways of the Island, I went to him; a risk I would not take today. Valentin Miljus had no thoughts of violence, though. He needed to talk. He had a lot to get off his chest. He had no idea who I was and would not have recognised his own mother, but there was a story coiled inside him like the snake had been within the tank, and I came close enough to trigger the strike.
“Harweg came to me,” he said, without any introduction, “And he told me they were coming for me and that I had to prepare.” It was some time before I intuited that this Harweg must be our Lord President. “He told me just what was going to happen to me. I didn’t know why. I didn’t understand.”
A pause, with his eyes fixed on some point in the cell where his memories were invisibly inscribed.
“The Authority met a week before and everything had been slightly out of line,” he continued. “When I made my reports, nobody would meet my gaze. Everyone said how well I’d done but their voices were hollow. Only the Prelate and the Lord Justiciar were silent. When I look back I can see someone with them, who was not there when we met. I think it must be their guilt. I think they must be responsible. I didn’t realise at the time. How can everything be so much clearer when I think back. Why was I blind then when I can see so clearly now?”
There was another pause and I was tempted to answer, but I had no answers and he surely would not have heard.
“They’ll have forgotten about me now. That’s the reason for this place. People who come here are forgotten instantly. They pass from the mind of the city. This is the oubliette, the cage of souls. The whole city knew my name once.”
Another blank pause. Aside from the movement of his lips, no part of his face had any life or motion in it. He may not even have blinked. He had become cadaverous through his sickness. Even in repose he looked as though he was screaming inside.
“I talked with Alarisse, in that week,” he continued. “We were repairing all the wounds that had been made between us. I met with Misa. She is going to the Academy. She had not spoken to me for half a year before. My family was coming together just as everything else was fraying apart. My family was speaking to me and everyone in the Authority was suddenly strange. They all had to think about their answers when I questioned them. The Prelate and the Lord Justiciar. I had never done anything to them. I had never curbed their spending or torn open their accounts. I can think of no reason that they should have sent me here. All I did was support Harweg.”
He stopped again, and something more lucid passed behind his eyes. One bony hand gripped my wrist hard enough to leave white marks. His next words were heavy with destiny.
“It’s all falling apart,” he said through gritted teeth. “The Prelate and the Lord Master and the Justiciar and Harweg, and I was caught in the middle. I was too caught up in my figures. I didn’t notice what was going on. I was only doing my job, and suddenly that was the wrong thing to do.
“Harweg came to me,” he told me again. “He said that soldiers were coming to take me to the Island and I didn’t believe him. I thought he had come to warn me, so that we could get together and turn things around, but he was there to accuse me. They had met, the Authority had met without me and decided I was guilty of something. I only did my job. I only did what they told me to do. I thought Harweg would help me. I was always a friend of his. Instead he talked to me whilst the soldiers came. I could have run then, but I never thought of it. I was just thinking about how we could make a victory out of a defeat, just like we had always done. Then the door opened and two Angels were standing there, and they took me away from my home, and then it was on the boat and away without ever being able to defend myself. People must have missed me, but only until I arrived here. Now they’ve forgotten. I am nothing but a lost dream of Shadrapar.”
The last long pause came here. It stretched for some time, but it was obvious that he had something more to say. Onager and Lucian were staring at me, and I wondered how much they had heard. In the end, Lucian came over, having decided that Miljus was no danger to him. He said quietly that he had never known that Miljus was a minister of state, and who’d have thought it. He also said that some fever victims grew worse than this and still recovered, but even Lucian’s rambling and eternally optimistic delivery lacked conviction on that point. Lucian, who routinely expected to be shipped off home on each boat that came in, had given Valentin Miljus up for lost.
“I spoke to my daughter,” the failing man said at last. “But I couldn’t think of anything important to say to her. I didn’t have any advice. We just made idle conversation. We never spoke of our disagreements, or of her mother, or any of the important things that I wanted to talk to her about. Now it’s too late, and she doesn’t remember her daddy, and she’ll go through life with a gap in her life and always wonder who it used to be.”
That was the last will and testament of Valentin Miljus, such as it was. He lapsed back into silence, and there was no more from him that night, or ever. The idea that the inmates of the Island are forgotten by their former friends and foes in the city is a common one amongst prisoners and Wardens alike. After all, nobody returns from the Island. Sending an enemy to the Island was as good as killing him. Better, because the Island could deal out years of suffering. Miljus, however, spoke of such blanket forgetfulness as though it was a literal, physical thing, and although he was deranged and dying, his words cut far too close to my heart. Sitting in that cell with him as he wheezed his last hours away, I could feel my presence eroding, the desert wind smoothing over all the footprints I had ever made.