Hell's Gate

Chapter Sixteen

Jathmar remembered his own wistful thoughts about the joy of flight on the morning of the nightmare attack?was it really only two days ago??and how he'd envied even a common sparrow's ability to wheel and dart and soar.

Now, as the peered down at the distant ground through the glass face shield and cold wind whipped over him in an icy hurricane, he discovered that anything he'd ever imagined fell far short of the truth. The sheer exhilaration of actually streaking through the sky was so great, so overwhelming, that it actually pushed his dread of the future awaiting him and Shaylar out of the front of his thoughts. That wasn't something he would have believed was possible, and a corner of his brain wondered if he was concentrating on his delight so hard in part to avoid thinking about that self same future.

Maybe he was, but that didn't change anything. The creature beneath the platform upon which he and Shaylar were seated, carefully strapped in for safety, was unquestionably the most powerful animal he had ever seen. The sheer strength in every downstroke of those seemingly fragile wings beggared every other notion of animal power he'd ever held, and now that he'd gotten over his initial shock, he could appreciate the creature's?the dragon's?metallic, glittering beauty. The flashes of bronze and copper-colored sunlight, reflected from its scales, were almost blinding, and the ornate pattern on its wings and hide gleamed. Shaylar had to be right, he told himself. That marvelous geometric design had to be artificial, although he couldn't imagine how such intricate patterns had been applied to a living animal's skin.

In fact, there was a lot about these people that he couldn't imagine, and whatever else befell them, he couldn't suppress his delighted grin as they raced the wind itself. He'd come out here in search of adventure, hadn't he? Well, when it came to unusual, unlikely experiences, riding the back of a dragon which dwarfed any elephant and soared as effortlessly as any eagle had to rank high on the list.

The sheer speed of the flight was enough to leave him gasping in amazement. Not even a train barreling down a miles-long straight track could have matched it. He couldn't begin to fathom how a creature so massive could fly so fast. It simply wasn't natural.

He snorted at the thought. He and Shaylar had already seen a dozen other impossible things, and no doubt they'd see still more. Things nobody on Sharona would even have believed possible. Beneath the anger, the hatred, the fear, the portion of Jathmar Nargra-Kolmayr which had drawn him into the survey crews in the first place struggled to reassert itself. His genuine love of new sights, odd adventures, and places no Sharonian had ever set foot pressed tentatively against the deep traumas of the last ninety-six hours.

He felt it stirring and wondered what was wrong with him. How could he possibly feel anything except fear, anxiety, hatred for the people who'd murdered his friends, crippled his wife's Talent, almost killed him? How could there be room for anything else?

He didn't know. The fact that he couldn't banish his silly grin made him feel guilty, as if he were betraying his dead friends' memories, yet there it was, and he couldn't convince himself Ghartoun, or Barris, or Falsan would have begrudged him the feeling. It wasn't enough to set those darker, harsher emotions aside. Even if it had been, he wasn't prepared to do that yet, for many complex reasons. It would be a long time before he was prepared to even consider truly relinquishing that darkness. Yet there was a deep, almost soothing comfort in discovering that an important part of him, one he valued deeply, hadn't died with his friends among the toppled trees.

He recalled Shaylar's attempt to comfort Gadrial's distress and wondered if she struggled with some of the same feelings. Maybe she was simply braver than he was. Maybe it was just that she'd already recognized the truth in that ancient, banal clich? about life going on. Certainly there was an undeniable edge of bad melodrama in refusing to recognize that they had to make the best of whatever came their way. If they wanted to do more than merely survive, wanted to continue to be the people they'd always been before, then they had to discover things which could still bring them joy, people they could still care about. Perhaps Shaylar simply understood that better than he did. Or perhaps she simply had the courage to go ahead and admit it and reach out, risking fresh hurt because she refused to surrender to despair.

He reached down to cover Shaylar's hands with his own, where she'd wrapped them around his waist, and gave her fingers a gentle squeeze. He couldn't tell her why, not with the wind snatching sound away, but she tightened her arms around him in a brief return gesture, then leaned more of her weight against his back and the sturdy, borrowed shirt he wore.

It felt strange, that shirt. It was a uniform shirt, made of heavy cotton twill, comfortable, and certainly rugged enough for the purpose of exploring virgin universes, but with a cut unlike anything Jathmar had ever seen. Sharonian shirts were simply two panels of cloth which met in front and buttoned down the center, but this shirt had a complicated bib-like construction, with two rows of buttons where the left panel and right panel overlapped a third, which lay beneath the other two.

Jasak Olderhan had shown him how to fasten it up. It wasn't one of Olderhan's own shirts, since Jathmar would have been lost in the taller, broader man's garments. He suspected it had belonged to one of the men killed in the fighting, which gave him a distinctly odd feeling. Still, he'd needed a shirt, and clothing wasn't among the things Olderhan's men had taken away from the survey crew's abandoned camp.

Not that they hadn't taken plenty of other things. Several heavy cases?obviously purpose-designed canisters specifically intended to be transported by dragons?were strapped to the platform behind the wounded. Those cases contained all the guns and every piece of equipment they'd been carrying on the battle. From the looks of it, they also contained a fair percentage of the equipment they'd abandoned in camp, as well. Olderhan's men had even carried out the spare ammunition boxes.

At some point, Jathmar knew, Olderhan was going to "ask" them to demonstrate all of that equipment's use. Including the guns. He wasn't looking forward to that, but for the moment, streaking through the sky on a creature out of mythology, suspended between what had happened and what was yet to happen, he was able to set those worries aside and simply enjoy the breathtaking experience of riding the wind.

Below them, as far as he could see, lay miles and miles of trackless swamp. He'd discovered that his Mapping Talent worked just fine from up here?or would have, if not for the fact that he'd never in his life moved this quickly. Trying to sort out everything his Talent let him See was all but impossible simply because of the speed with which it came at him. He was sure he could have learned to compensate with practice, but for now he couldn't make a great deal of sense out of what he was Seeing. Which was particularly frustrating, since he rather doubted that his captors realized they'd given him the opportunity to chart a perfect escape route … if only he'd been up to the challenge.

But if he couldn't See all he would have liked to, there was more than enough he could see. Brilliant sunlight scattered diamonds across the open patches of water among the reeds, swampy hillocks, and patches of trees. Vast clouds of birds rose in alarm as the dragon flashed overhead: graceful waterbirds with snowy white wings and dove grey wings and wings of darker hues that were doubtless herons and cranes.

They were too high to see any of the other animals which inhabited that vast swamp, but Jathmar had little doubt that there'd be plenty of crocodiles or alligators of some sort down there, along with fish, water-loving mammals, and millions upon millions of crustaceans. He wished he could figure out where they were, though, and he couldn't. The shape of land masses never varied from one universe to the next, but one stretch of swamp was very like any other, and he had absolutely no reference points to try and figure out where this one lay. If he could look at the stars tonight, he would at least be able to tell whether they were in the northern hemisphere, or the southern, but he was unhappily certain that the information wouldn't do him a great deal of good.

Although I suppose I'll at least draw a certain amount of mental satisfaction out of putting my astronomy lessons to good use.

They'd flown several hundred miles, at least, when the dragon finally began to descend just as Jathmar spotted a clearing near the beach. A fort had been built along the edge of a sheltered bay, where a stream emptied from the swamp into the sea in a startling plume of dark water that stained the turquoise seawater for a surprising distance. Despite a lifetime spent Mapping, Jathmar had never consciously thought about dark, nutrient-rich water creating such a visible stain in much clearer seawater, let alone how it would look from the air. It was almost like a painting?swirls of color like the strokes of a brush across canvas, unexpected and beautiful.

Then they were circling over the fort itself, and he turned his attention to their destination. It was a fairly large structure, but scarcely huge, and he nodded inside. Everything he'd seen so far suggested that their captors were operating at the end of an extensive line of relatively unimproved universes, much as the Chalgyn Consortium crew had been doing when they blundered into one another. He'd seen scores of Sharonian forts very much like the one below him. Form followed function, so it was probably a multiversal pattern: an outer stockade, made of thick logs hewn from the clumps of forest dotting the vast swamp, wrapped around a fairly large open courtyard which held several buildings.

A sturdy, if roughly built, pier ran out into the bay from the seward face of the fort. That, too, was something he'd seen many times before. What he hadn't ever seen was a ship like the one lying alongside that pier, and his eyes narrowed behind the protective glass shield as he studied it.

It wasn't especially huge?not more than three hundred feet, he estimated, though it could have been a bit more than that?and its sleek lines were unlike those of any ship he'd ever seen before. It was slim, obviously designed for high speed, with sharply flared clipper bows and a graceful sheer. The superstructure seemed enormously top-heavy to Jathmar, far bigger and blockier than any Sharonian ship he'd ever seen, but that might have been partly because there was so little other top hamper. It had only a single mast, whose sole function was clearly to support the lookout pod at its top, and there was no trace of the tall funnels a Sharonian steamer would have boasted. In fact, that was the strangest thing of all, he realized. The ship below him had neither sails nor funnels, so what in the names of all the Uromathian devils made it go?

He had little time to ponder the question before the dragon backwinged abruptly and touched down with almost terrifying suddenness. His mind shrieked that they were coming in much too quickly for safety, but the wide wings braked their forward movement at the last possible instant. Indeed, they slowed far more quickly than should have been possible with several tons of dragon in motion, then settled in a swirl of beach sand, flying debris from the tide line, and a solid whump. There was no doubt about the moment they touched the ground, but the actual landing was far less jarring than he'd feared from their approach speed. The beast's rear legs touched first, then it settled onto its forelegs, trotted briskly forward for a few dozen yards, and simply stopped.

Jathmar glanced back into his wife's wide, alarmed eyes, and made himself smile.

"We made it!" He chuckled, although his breath was a little unsteady. "And we got down in one piece, too! I had my doubts, right there at the end."

"That was … amazing." Shaylar sounded a bit breathless herself as she uncurled her fingers from their death grip on his waist. "Really … wow!" she added.

Gadrial appeared from behind them, smiling at their obvious reaction to the flight and landing. She showed them how to unbuckle the complex straps, then signaled for them to wait while the seriously wounded were offloaded first. The men who'd come out to meet the dragon?there were substantially fewer of them than a fort this size should have boasted, Jathmar thought?had sorted themselves out into two?no, three?types.

The first group guided stretchers that floated by themselves. Stretchers, Jathmar realized abruptly, like the "cot" upon which he'd awakened in the swamp base camp. So that's how they transported so many wounded men out, he thought as the stretchers floated straight up the dragon's side, where the wounded were carefully shifted onto them.

The second sort were either an honor guard or, more likely, a security detail charged with making sure he and his wife didn't attempt something rash. The third, Jathmar pegged as command-and-control types, given the deference the others accorded them. The crossbowmen of the security detail stood rigidly at attention and snapped out crisp salutes as the apparent officers strode past them towards the dragon.

Then it was the unwounded passengers' turn to descend. The ground abruptly looked much further away, and Jathmar exchanged a single apprehensive glance with Shaylar, who still seemed distinctly unsteady on her feet.

"Why don't I climb down first, so I can brace you if you lose your grip?" he suggested.

She nodded, and he drew a quick breath, gave her a bright smile, and climbed over the edge, hooking his feet into the crosswise strands of the web-like ladder.

The beast's hide was surprisingly warm. He'd expected something so reptilian to be more, well … reptilian. But it was warmer than he was, even through the tough, spiky armored scales. One of the spikes caught at the leg of Jathmar's trousers, and he decided?a little queasily?that he really didn't want to know what was big enough and nasty enough for a beast this size to grow spiked armor to avoid being eaten by it.

He made it safely to the ground, then reached up to assist Shaylar down the last several inches to the sand. She swayed as her feet touched the ground, forehead creased with a furrow of pain Jathmar didn't like a bit. The distracting excitement of flying was wearing off quickly, he thought, and slipped his arm around her to help support her drooping weight, then turned uncertainly to look for Jasak Olderhan, who'd climbed down ahead of them.

Olderhan was waiting with grave patience, and when Jathmar turned, he gestured both of them forward with a reassuring smile. They approached him obediently, and he hesitated a moment, then offered Shaylar an arm. It was a gallant gesture, as well as a pragmatic one, given her unsteadiness. And it might just be Jasak's way of sending an important message to the people waiting across the beach, Jathmar thought. He looked down at Shaylar, nodded reluctantly, and watched her lean against the officer's forearm. She looked up at her towering captor and actually produced a smile, despite the bruises and swelling that turned it into a pathetic, lopsided expression that clearly caused her pain.

Jathmar saw a few widened eyes, and more than one look of sudden uncertainty that bordered on … guilt as Shaylar's tiny size and brutally battered appearance registered. He blinked in surprise when he identified that particular emotion. Then his eyes narrowed as he realized Jasak Olderhan clearly knew what he was doing … and that he appeared to be swaying at least a few opinions. Moving slowly, every step attentive to the bruised and battered woman he escorted, Jasak supported Shaylar across the wide beach while Jathmar walked at her other elbow, ready to catch her if she lost her footing in the loose sand.

They came to a halt before a cluster of three officers. All of them were older than Jasak?two of them by quite a number of years?and Jasak stopped before the eldest of them all. The older officer was a solid, rectangular plug of a man, six inches shorter than Jasak, but still the most imposing man on the beach. Jathmar recognized power when he saw it, and this man, with his iron-gray hair, bull-like neck, and arms that could have snapped Jathmar's spine almost absentmindedly, literally exuded power. His eyes, as gray as his hair, weren't cold so much as wary and observant. He swept his gaze across Jathmar from top to toe, but his granite expression gave away nothing of his thoughts. His gaze lingered considerably longer on Shaylar, and a vertical line drove between his brows as he studied her injured face?and everything else about her?in minute detail.

Last of all, that cool, appraising gaze centered itself squarely on Sir Jasak Olderhan. Jasak greeted his superior with that curious clenched-fist salute, and the older officer returned it?crisply enough, but with a good deal less formality. Jasak spoke briefly, and his superior asked a question. Jasak answered, and the older man nodded. Then, catching Jathmar by surprise, the man who obviously commanded this military outpost stepped back and gestured them past him and his official entourage.

Jasak saluted again, then solicitously escorted Shaylar?and, by extension, Jathmar?into the enemy fortress.

Jathmar's first impression from the air, that this fort wasn't so very different from Sharonian ones?just as the lives of the men stationed in it couldn't be so very different from Sharonian soldiers' lives?had been accurate enough. He readily identified barracks, officers quarters, and a central block which undoubtedly held the fort's command center. There was what looked like a mess hall to one side, and a particularly stoutly constructed building, which was probably the armory or the brig, or might well be both.

All of that was expected enough, but other things he saw had no Sharonian equivalents.

For one thing, there were cages along the far side of the open courtyard. There weren't many of them, but they were big enough to hold a really massive wolf or a small pony, and they obviously contained something which was violently alive. The cages were too far away to determine what kind of creature was penned inside, but he could see?and hear?enough to know they were unlike anything which had ever walked Sharonian soil or flapped through Sharonian skies.

They gave off metallic glints, for starters, rather like the dragons did. They also produced a noise like a steam whistle in a crowded railway station, and the breeze carried the smell of them across the courtyard to Jathmar. He wriggled his nose, trying to come up with something?anything?familiar he could compare it to. Nothing came to mind, though.

Other cages and pens were reassuringly normal looking. He could see chickens in coops and a pigpen with a number of live swine lolling in the mud, and he could hear the distinctive bleating of goats. What he didn't see was any trace of horses, or any similar draft animals.

Given the dragons' size, they certainly had to be housed outside the fort, but he hadn't seen any sign of external corrals for more mundane transport animals as they overflew the fort, which struck him as a little odd. All Sharonian portal forts stocked horses and mules. They were necessary for rapid deployment in the field against border bandits, portal pirates, or other serious threats to civilian lives in a frontier settlement. They were equally essential for the pursuit of armed desperadoes, the transport of supplies and equipment, rescue work in the face of natural disaster, or hauling supply wagons or the field artillery held at most of the larger portal forts.

Jathmar supposed it was possible that Jasak Olderhan's army hadn't brought horses to this particular fort because of the unsuitable terrain. Swamps and horses didn't get on well with one another, for multiple good reasons, and the thought of trying to drag wagons through that muck would have been enough to send any Sharonian quartermaster into gibbering fits. Then, too, with dragons to haul supplies, they probably didn't really need horses as pack animals, although Jathmar could envision all sorts of terrain where dragons would be useless. The dense forest in which he and his friends had first encountered these people came forcibly to mind.

Whatever they used for pack animals, though, one thing was clear: this fort was as well stocked and well organized as any Portal Authority fort Jathmar had ever seen at the end of a long transit chain, and he frowned as an earlier thought recurred to him. He couldn't tell how many men were housed here, but he had the distinct impression that the fort had been designed to hold a much larger garrison.

That was interesting … and worrisome. From what he could see, Grafin Halifu probably had almost as many men as these people did, despite the fact that his company was understrength. But even if that were true, it was clear this fort was intended as the base for a force much larger than Halifu's. So, was that larger garrison simply out in the field on exercises? That was certainly possible, and if true, it meant the enemy had sufficient reinforcements in close proximity to easily handle anything Halifu might throw at them.

On the other hand, if Jathmar was right that this was an end-of-the-line installation, built primarily to service the swamp portal, then it might very well still be awaiting the rest of its garrison. Gods knew that was common enough for the Portal Authority's forts! And if that were the case here, then that gray-eyed man on the beach might just find himself very hard pressed to hold off a prompt Sharonian strike.

Unless, of course, Jathmar reminded himself, the reinforcements he's waiting for are almost here already. This fort's obviously been here for at least several months; that probably means the rest of its assigned personnel are somewhere in the pipeline on their way here. Grafin's first reinforcement column certainly wasn't all that far out when we headed through the portal.

They reached their evident destination, and Jathmar found himself helping Shaylar into a roughhewn building whose wooden walls and floorboards had been roughcut from large logs. The first room was obviously an office of some kind, where a uniformed young man saluted Jasak and personally escorted their entire party into another, much larger room. Jathmar had halfway expected to find jail cells; instead, they entered an airy, breeze-filled room that was obviously an infirmary, where rows of cots had been laid out in readiness for the incoming wounded.

Several of the floating stretchers were maneuvered past them, with the more seriously hurt taking precedence over the walking wounded, including Shaylar. Men who were obviously physicians and orderlies handled the incoming casualties with brisk efficiency, although most of the medical personnel seemed to lose a bit of their professional detachment at their first sight of gunshot trauma.

A man with graying hair, slightly stooped shoulders, and gentle eyes the color of the North Vandor Ocean in winter gave Shaylar a kindly smile and gestured her over to a real bed, not one of the emergency cots.

She held onto Jathmar's hand as she sat down on the edge of the bed. The gray-haired man spoke at length with Jasak Olderhan and Gadrial. Jathmar didn't need to speak the language to recognize a physician at work, and he watched the?doctor? healer??nodding slowly and jotting what were obviously notes into a small crystal the size of his palm. Like Halathyn's, this man's crystal held squiggles of text that glowed faintly. But he tucked that crystal away in a capacious pocket and pulled out a much slimmer one, long and thin, with a bluntly tapering point at one terminus. The new crystal's other end was rounded, shaped to fit into his palm, and he held it out and murmured something.

A beam of light streamed from the end. Shaylar twitched away in astonishment, but he only smiled reassuringly and allowed the light to play across the back of his other hand, demonstrating its harmlessness. She looked at him just a bit timidly, then smiled back and sat straight and still as he peeled back her eyelids, peered carefully into her pupils, and shined the beam of light right into her eyes to see how the pupils reacted.

He frowned and asked Gadrial a brief question.

Gadrial' answer was also brief, and the man shined the light into Shaylar's ears, paying particular attention to the one on the bruised, swollen side of her face. Then he murmured something else in an absent tone, extinguishing the crystal's light, and put the peculiar little device away. He stood for a moment, then laid very gentle hands on Shaylar's battered face. He closed his eyes, and his fingers moved slowly across her injuries, lighter than butterfly wings as he traced the extent of the damage. They moved around to the side of her head, then to the back, all while his eyes remained closed.

When they opened again, he stepped back and gave Shaylar a very reassuring smile. But Jathmar saw the worry in his eyes, and he spoke with Gadrial again. The questions were longer and more detailed, this time, and he listened very carefully to her answers. Jasak asked a question of his own, and the gray-haired man answered gravely, evidently trying to explain his findings. Jathmar had seen plenty of Sharonian Healers conducting examinations by touch and Talent, but that didn't seem to be what was happening here, although he couldn't have said precisely why it felt different.

At length, the man urged Shaylar to lie down. Gadrial touched Jathmar's arm, then pointed from the healer to Shaylar, folded her hands, and laid her head against them, pantomiming sleep. Jathmar nodded slowly. He didn't much like the idea of some strange healer putting his wife to sleep in order to do unimaginable things to the inside of her head, but she needed medical care badly, and this man seemed to be the best that was available.

Dozens of questions he couldn't possibly get across through pantomime streamed through his head, but even if he'd been able to ask them, he probably wouldn't have understood the answers. So he simply nodded and pointed to a chair, trying to ask if he could sit beside his wife. The healer hesitated. His expression was easy enough to decipher, Jathmar thought mordantly. Jathmar was an enemy who'd killed an unknown number of their people. The healer was afraid that he would react?badly?if anything went wrong during his wife's treatment.

Jathmar wished the other man was wrong, but he wasn't positive he was. The thought of letting this man go poking around through Shaylar's brain with whatever strange methods he used terrified Jathmar, and he could feel his self-control wavering under the pressure of that terror. But as with so much else, he had no real choice. Something was badly wrong with Shaylar's Voice. That suggested deep damage from the concussion, and whatever this man had sensed from his examination, it had him worried. It had Jathmar worried, too. Head injuries were the darkest fear of most of the Talented, whether they were willing to admit it or not. So little was known about the human brain, even now, and without the services of a Healer specifically trained in treating those with major Talents, the odds of Shaylar's ever recovering her Voice were probably much less than even.

But there was almost certainly no one in this entire universe with that sort of training. This man Jathmar couldn't even communicate with was the best available.

"We have to risk it," Shaylar said softly, correctly interpreting his stricken expression.

"I know," he said, his voice low. He started to say something else, trying to reassure her. Then he stopped himself and simply shook his head. "I'll be right here beside you the entire time."

"I know," she replied, and smiled. "Whatever happens, Jathmar, I love you."

He started to speak, but his throat tightened savagely. He had to clear it, hard, before he could get the husky words out.

"You're my life, Shaylar." He stroked her hair gently, smiling at her, willing his lips not to tremble. "I'll be right here when you wake up."

He pulled the chair over, his eyes silently daring anyone to countermand him.

After a brief moment of locked gazes, the healer simply sighed and nodded.

Jathmar sat down and held Shaylar's hand in his. The healer glanced at him once, then placed his own hands carefully on her temples and began whispering. Something was happening between his hands?an indefinable something that shivered around Shaylar's head. It wasn't quite a glow, so much as an odd thickening of the light, and as it strengthened, her eyes closed.

There wasn't anything to see, really. Jathmar was peripherally aware of activity behind him as more wounded men were brought in, groaning and trying not to cry out as they were transferred to beds, where other healers got to work. The man bending over Shaylar worked with his eyes closed and kept up a constant subvocal whispering the whole time he did whatever it was he was doing. Shaylar lay pale and still beneath his hands, looking broken, lost, and childlike in a bed whose frame was designed to accommodate one of the strapping soldiers assigned to this fortress.

Then the bruises began to fade.

Jathmar's eyes widened. Dark, ugly bruises?purple and black and crimson?paled to the yellows and browns of old trauma … then faded completely away. The swelling receded, as well, as some fantastic process he could only gape at sent the pooled liquids under her skin?blood serum and excess water?seeping back into the tissues and blood vessels from which they had come. The man spoke quietly, and Gadrial dampened a cloth and used it to gently cleanse the crusted cuts and abrasions. As she rinsed away the dried blood, Jathmar saw that the skin beneath it had completely healed. All that remained of the ugly cuts and deep abrasions were the faintest traces of fine white scar along her temple cheekbone and eyebrow. Her face, so fragile against the white hospital sheet pillowcase, bore no further traces of the desperate injuries she had sustained.

At last the healer sat back. His quiet whisper faded away, and the odd, thickened light around her face faded with it. The healer spoke to Gadrial again, very carefully, and she nodded.

He's giving her instructions of some kind, Jathmar realized. Then the implications of that sank in. He's telling her what to do because they don't expect us to stay here very long.

The man finished speaking to Gadrial and rested a hand on Jathmar's shoulder. That surprised him. The gesture was firm, reassuring, even friendly. None of the hatred Jathmar had seen in the eyes of Jasak's men shadowed this man's eyes, and he felt his own tension recede a notch.

"Thank you," he said slowly, carefully.

The healer gave him a brief smile, patted his shoulder once, and turned briskly to the wounded men still awaiting badly needed treatment. Shaylar was still asleep, and Jathmar wondered how long she would remain unconscious. Then, as if she'd heard his mental question, her eyelids twitched. They fluttered slowly open, and even before she was awake, the marriage bond roared wide open. He felt her confusion and wondering surprise that the pain in her head was gone. Then her eyes focused on Jathmar, and the rush of love and relief and gratitude that overflowed his heart poured into her senses.

She reached up and touched his face with gentle fingers that trembled ever so slightly.

"It's back," she whispered. "The bond … I can hear you again… . "

"And I can hear you," he whispered back, cupping the side of her face which was no longer bruised and swollen, fingertips tracing the faint white lines that remained. "The bruises are gone, the swelling?everything. If that wasn't magic, I don't know what else it could have been."

Her tremulous smile was radiant. She was so beautiful his throat ached, but when she tried to sit up, Gadrial reached down swiftly and stopped her, saying a single word which obviously meant "No."

Shaylar looked surprised. Then she touched her own brow, which had furrowed.

"My head feels really strange," she murmured, terrifying Jathmar for a moment. "Not in a bad way," she reassured him hastily. "Just … odd. When I tried to sit up, it started buzzing like a swarm of bees. And there's an odd sort of tingling, down deep. I hadn't noticed that before I tried to sit up, either."

"Well, whatever he did, I think Gadrial's right. Lying still for a while is a very good idea," Jathmar told her.

"I don't feel like arguing the point." Her smile was more of a grin. "Besides, it's heaven to be lying in a real bed again."

He laughed softly and smoothed her hair again. It still needed the attention of a pair of shears and a good stylist to repair the damage, and he found himself wondering if these people's beauticians used magic, as well.

Behind him, Jasak Olderhan spoke briefly to Gadrial. She didn't look especially happy about whatever he'd said, but she nodded. Then Jasak touched Jathmar's shoulder and gestured to him. His meaning was plain enough; he wanted Jathmar to go somewhere with him.

Jathmar's stomach muscles clenched. So did his teeth, but he made himself give Shaylar's hand a gentle squeeze.

"Get some rest, love," he told her. "You need your beauty sleep."

His light tone didn't fool her. Their marriage bond was working at peak efficiency once more, and she knew exactly how scared he was. But she gave him a brave smile and touched her hair herself.

"If I can explain to Gadrial, maybe she can even find a comb and mirror somewhere so I can primp a bit before you get back."

He wanted to hold her close forever, so that nothing could ever harm her again. Instead, he gave her fingers one last squeeze, then stood up, squared his shoulders, and faced Jasak Olderhan.

"Lead the way," he said.

Jasak discovered a deep respect for Jathmar's courage as the other man faced him. Jathmar had already been hit with a variety of experiences which must have been utterly bewildering. Clearly, they'd shaken him to the core. Over the course of the day, his face had clearly revealed that he'd never seen anything like dragons, personal crystals, or Gifted healers. Yet he stood quietly, facing Jasak?and whatever Jasak had in store for him next?and if his eyes were understandably apprehensive, and if tension sang through his muscles, he met his captor's gaze unflinchingly.

Jasak wished there were some way he could tell Jathmar how much he respected him. But there wasn't, and so he simply bowed slightly and gestured for the other man to accompany him.

Jathmar followed him quietly, and their boots clattered hollowly across the rough boards of the hospital floor. Then they were out in the hot sunshine, with the breeze wandering in through Fort Rycharn's open gates. The tang of saltwater stung the nose, and the murky, thick scent of the swamp clogged the back of the throat, as they crossed the busy compound. Jasak headed for the commandant's office and wished he felt as brave as Jathmar looked. He wasn't looking forward to the coming interview. He'd sat through many a debriefing after firing shots in some brush with frontier bandits, but he'd never given a genuine combat debrief.

He discovered that the prospect became steadily more daunting as the moment approached. What had seemed the most reasonable course at the time seemed more and more questionable as he went over each step of the disastrous mission, trying to organize his thoughts. Doubts plagued him. Things he should've done, things he shouldn't, things he ought to have seen … but hadn't.

Then there was no further time to worry about it, because they were at the headquarters building.

"The Five Hundred is waiting for you, Hundred Olderhan," the adjutant at the outer desk said with a crisp salute, although he eyed Jathmar with open curiosity. Commander of Five Hundred Klian looked a bit taken aback, as well, when Jasak entered his office with Jathmar in tow.

"It's hardly standard procedure to bring a captured prisoner to an official debriefing, Hundred Olderhan. I trust you have a good reason?" he said after returning Jasak's salute.

"As a matter of fact, Sir, I have several reasons. Jathmar doesn't understand our language, so there's no risk of a security breach. And there's nothing in this office, Sir that could be even remotely considered classified. But my primary concern is for Jathmar's safety."

"His safety?" Klian echoed.

"My men are badly shaken, Five Hundred. Fifty Garlath's platoon outnumbered Jathmar's survey crew three-to-one, but we took massive casualties. Their weapons are devastatingly effective, and their rate of fire is considerably higher than even a dragoon arbalest's. Quite frankly, some of my survivors fear and hate him. They wouldn't try anything against his wife?they were properly horrified when they found out we'd nearly killed a woman?but I wouldn't care to leave Jathmar in the same room with any of them. Not without an armed guard to see that no one tried anything."

"I see. And you don't trust my men to do their jobs, either?" Klian's tone was biting.

"That's not at all an issue, Sir. My concern where your men are concerned rests entirely on Jathmar's state of mind, not theirs. He's been hammered by multiple shocks in a very short time. The slightest manifestation of sorcery shakes him to the core, and his wife is also our prisoner. That terrifies him, and I can't say I blame him for it. If our roles were reversed, I'd be damned worried about the interrogation methods my captors might intend to use."

Five Hundred Klian frowned, but it was a thoughtful frown, not an angry one.

"Go on," he said.

"I won't go so far as to say he trusts me, but I'm at least a somewhat known quantity, and I stood between them and Hundred Thalmayr when the Hundred expressed … dissatisfaction over my decision not to chain them."

Klian's frown deepened, but he said nothing, and Jasak wondered whether Fort Rycharn's CO's displeasure was directed at Thalmayr or at Jasak's decision.

"In a fort filled with soldiers," Jasak continued, "I'm the only known quantity from his viewpoint. In my considered opinion, leaving him alone under the guard of men he has excellent reason to fear, would constitute a serious risk. He's desperately shaken and afraid. I don't want to take even the slightest chance of someone inadvertently pushing him across an edge we don't want him to cross. There's been more than enough violence already, and we need him?what he knows, what we can learn from him that we couldn't learn from his wife. I don't want to see us lose all of that because someone he doesn't know accidentally pushes too hard."

Klian's expression relaxed a couple of degrees, and he tipped back slightly in his desk chair.

"Very well, Hundred. Your solution may be a bit unorthodox, but your reasons seem sound enough, both militarily and politically. I would have expected no less of an Olderhan. Now, though, would you be so good as to explain exactly how this cluster-fuck occurred?"

Jasak drew a deep breath, looked Sarr Klian straight in the eye, and explained it. All of it. When he described Fifty Garlath's last action, the five hundred swore so sharply Jasak paused. Klian clamped his jaws, cutting himself off in mid-oath, and motioned for him to continue, and he did, right through the thunderous disagreement between himself and Hundred Thalmayr over the evacuation of the forward camp at the portal.

When he'd finally finished, Five Hundred Klian sat back, steepled his fingers, interlaced his fingers across his hard-muscled abdomen, and exhaled a long, slow breath.

"I appreciate your candor, Hundred. And your thorough analysis. I'll be frank with you?in my opinion, you were handed one hell of a mess when we handed you Shevan Garlath. It wasn't my idea to transfer him into your company. From what I saw of him, you showed remarkable restraint in dealing with his … inadequacies. I wish I could say I'm surprised he shot an unarmed man who was clearly calling for a parley of some sort, but I can't. I'm appalled, not surprised." He shook his head. "In my crystal, Garlath's clearly at fault. But . . . "

Yes. Jasak gave a mental sigh. But …

"You realize, Olderhan, that your career may end over this?" Klian said almost gently, and Jasak met his eyes steadily.

"I do, Sir."

"Yes, I'm sure you do. Not all officers would."

Frustration colored Klian's last words. He hated to see a good officer caught in the jaws of a dragon this nasty, and he had a sinking feeling that Arcana was going to need good officers badly in the not-too-distant future. If he'd been sitting at a fort commandant's desk on the other side, and news like this had hit his desk, there'd have been hell to pay, with interest due.

"It isn't fair to you, son," he said quietly, "but it looks to me like we're staring a potentially ugly war right in the face, and politicians like to blame somebody for their wars. Military tribunals are supposed to be above that, but the men who sit on them are fully aware of political repercussions. Half the officers sitting on them have their own political ambitions, too. And Garlath's dead; you're not. They're going to want somebody they can point at, somebody they can look in the eye and see 'It's your fault, Mister!' Once they've got him, they can tell the politicians 'See? We found the guilty party, and we punished the guilty party.' It's ugly, it's brutal …"

He paused and looked into Jasak's eyes.

"And you knew all of that before you ever walked into this office, didn't you?"

"Yes, Sir." Jasak's lips twisted in what some people might have called a smile. "I did indeed."

"I'm sorry, son." Klian leaned forward. "I'll send my own sealed report back with you, along with some other official dispatches. It might do some good."

"Thank you, Sir."

"A lot will depend on the officers available for the tribunal when it's called. If you get a good board, it could still come right."

"Yes, Sir," Jasak agreed, but his voice was dry and not particularly hopeful. Then he sat forward. "If I might ask, Sir, what are your intentions regarding the portal camp?"

Klian sighed and sat back again, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Could they have gotten a message out?" he said finally, glancing at Jathmar.

The prisoner said very quietly, hazel eyes intent as he listened to the conversation he couldn't understand and tried to glean anything he could from their faces, their voices, their eyes. Olderhan was right, Klian thought. This was a deeply frightened man, and a dangerous one. One Sarr Klian wouldn't have cared to push too far without a truly urgent reason.

The five hundred met Jathmar's eyes, then turned back to Jasak, very carefully keeping his own expression impassive. The younger officer was pulling absently at his lip, frowning ever so slightly.

"I don't know if they got a message out, Sir," he said finally. "I don't think they could have, but we know as little about them and about their capabilities as they know about ours."

"So you're not sure?"

"No, Sir. We searched for any sign that someone might have headed back independently of the rest of their party, or the possibility that someone might have made a break for their portal during the fighting. My people know their jobs, and I had Chief Sword Threbuch available to help make sure they did them. I'm fairly confident no one carried a message physically back, and we didn't find anything remotely like hummers in their gear, either. Logically, every indication says they didn't, but there's no possible way to guarantee that."

Klian drummed lightly on his desktop, which was basically a rough plank supported by two on-end wooden chests that served as storage bins for data crystals, maps, and all the miscellany of command at a fort this size.

"One would assume they took the most direct route from their fortified camp to their portal," the five hundred said, thinking aloud. "But we can't assume they were traveling at their top speed. Which means a messenger could have gone on ahead of them, possibly even bypassed the fallen timber completely. For that matter, they could have sent someone by a completely different indirect route. I'm sure your people did search diligently, but suppose they thought about that possibility ahead of time? I'm not sure I'd have been smart enough to think of it in the middle of something like this, but the smart thing for them to do would have been to send someone further up the streambed, where he wouldn't have left any trail. Let him get another four or five miles from camp, then head cross-country by a completely different route, and you'd have needed a special miracle to cut his trail."

"It's certainly a possibility, Sir," Jasak conceded. "From the look of their camp, I'm inclined to think it didn't occur to them. I think they were thinking almost exclusively in terms of clearing out and avoiding additional contact with us completely. Which," he added a bit bitterly, "I certainly managed to prevent them from doing."

"Yes, you did. Which was exactly what you were supposed to do," Klian said. He frowned some more. "You say their ages varied?"

"Yes, Sir. Considerably. The youngest was probably in his early twenties; the oldest was in his fifties, at least."

"Where they soldiers?"

Klian looked at Jasak intently, and the younger officer paused before he answered.

"I'm almost certain they weren't, Sir," he said. "A survey crew, obviously, but a civilian one. They weren't in uniform, didn't even all have the same sorts of boots or trousers. They had the kind of gear you'd expect portal surveyors to have, but none of it was stamped or painted or embroidered with unit insignia, or any sort of military identification marks. And they had an awfully broad assortment of weapons, too. Most of them carried the same sort of hand weapon, but their shoulder arms differed a lot. I don't think any military unit would have accepted something as unstandardized as that. Spare parts and ammunition differences would play hell with the Quartermaster Corps, if nothing else." He shrugged most unhappily. "When you mix all of that together, I can only come up with one answer, Sir. Yes, they were civilians."

And we blew them to hell, Klian thought darkly. May your worthless soul burn in hell forever, Garlath.

"I see," he said aloud. "And I'm tempted to agree with you. Especially given the presence of that girl. Granted, you had Magister Kelbryan with you, but their young lady's situation would appear to be very different from the magister's, if she's married to one of the crewmen." He gave Jasak another keen glance. "You're sure they're married?"

"Yes, Sir. Magister Kelbryan concurs. In fact, she suggested it first, and everything I've seen only strengthens that assessment."

Klian nodded again, sitting back with pursed lips as he went over everything Jasak had said.

"It's possible they got a message out," the five hundred said finally, slowly. "On the whole, though, I think I agree with you that it's not likely. Magister Kelbryan's equipment put the portal you went out to find at no more than, what?thirty miles?"

"About that, Sir. I sent Chief Sword Threbuch ahead to confirm that," Jasak reminded him.

"Yes. The thing is, I'm trying to weigh risks. We don't know their protocol for handling portals. A civilian team in an uncharted universe suggests a radically different approach from ours, though, which leads me to wonder whether there's likely to be any military presence of theirs out this way."

"Is that a risk we can afford to assume, Sir?" Jasak asked quietly.

Klian met the younger officer's eyes. There was no challenge, no criticism, in his expression or tone. Just quiet worry. Deep worry. Gods and thunders, what had it taken to put that look in Jasak Olderhan's eyes? Jasak's expression brought home to the five hundred the fact that even having heard the description of the battle, even adding up the admittedly shocking number of casualties, he couldn't imagine what it had been like standing under those trees while some totally unknown form of weaponry cut down men all around him.

"You tell me, Hundred," he said abruptly. "You were the one who faced them out there."

Jasak sucked in air, then straightened in his chair.

"Sir, I've already said that remaining at that portal is a grave risk, in my opinion. Not only are my men badly shaken, but there's no military reason to remain, and a great many political reasons to pull out. Eventually, someone from their side's going to come looking for that crew. If they find an empty portal, with seven hundred miles of swamp between them and Fort Rycharn, they can't possibly reciprocate with a return assault. And unless something's changed in the last four days, I'm afraid we're too short of available manpower to reinforce Thalmayr."

He looked a question at Klian, who shook his head with a grimace.

"I'm supposed to have a full battalion out here already," the five hundred said sourly. "Did you happen to notice a thousand men or so out there on the parade ground, Hundred? No? Well, I haven't seen them either."

"So, basically, all Hundred Thalmayr will have is Charlie Company's second and third platoons, and what's left of First Platoon." Jasak shook his head. "With all due respect, Sir, that's not very many men to hold a portal three and a half miles across."

"No, it isn't. But at least the terrain would favor him. It's mostly flat as my mother-in-law's bread out there. He'd have the best sightlines we're going to get for his infantry-dragons, and I've got half a dozen field-dragons I could send forward to him by air. That's a lot of firepower, Hundred."

"Yes, Sir, it is." Jasak's tone was deeply respectful. Which, Klian noted, wasn't exactly the same thing as agreement.

"There's another point to consider," the five hundred said, even as a part of him wondered why he was explaining himself this fully to so junior an officer. "As you say, your company is really all that's been sent forward to my command area right now. Oh, I've got the supports for an entire battalion, but under normal circumstances I'd be surprised if I saw more than another company or so any time in the next couple of months. Under these circumstances, I'm sure my dispatches are going to have sort of the same effect a well-placed kick has on an ant hill, of course. Give Two Thousand mul Gurthak a few days to react, and he's going to the reaching for every warm body he can find and shoving them in here. But that's going to take time, and until it happens, that swamp portal is the only place I can hope to hold with the combat power I've already got. I hate to say it, but Thalmayr's right about that."

"I know he is, Sir," Jasak agreed. "I guess I'm mostly concerned by two points. First, if their personal weapons could slaughter eighty percent of First Platoon, then gods only know what their artillery and heavy weapons are capable of."

Klian's mouth tightened in acknowledgment of the point, and Jasak continued.

"Second, and maybe even more important, I'm afraid that if any additional shots are fired, they'll cinch the certainty of open warfare. I'm talking politics, not military protocol, Sir. We need a team of trained ambassadors, and it's going to take time to bring them down the chain. Our next meeting with these people has to be peaceful, Sir, or we will be looking at war. A long, potentially disastrous, nasty war."

Five Hundred Klian winced at the image that conjured. Still …

"Everything you've said is true, Hundred," he said, fingertips drumming once more on the rough wood planking of his desk. "The question is one of timing. You say you saw nothing among their effects that might have paralleled our hummer communications system, which ought to mean the only way they could get a message back to their nearest support would be by runner. There's at least a chance they did exactly that, but even so, it's got to take them at least a few days to react.

"If we could be sure they had a military presence at the portal you were looking for, I'd evacuate our swamp portal in a flash. Or, at least as much of it as I could with only two dragons to pull everyone out. But even if they do have the equivalent of Fort Rycharn sitting out there somewhere, it's probably not all that close to their entry portal. We're only seven hundred miles from our entry portal to that universe, and you know as well as I do how short a hop that is compared to most distances involved. They'd have to have either a very heavy garrison deployed very far forward, or else a ridiculously short distance between portals, in order to put a powerful strike force into the field quickly."

Jasak nodded almost unwillingly, and Klian shrugged.

"Artillery can't fire through a portal, Hundred. If Hundred Thalmayr digs in properly, he can dominate everything on our side of the portal by fire. They'll need a substantial troop strength to break through that sort of defense, and presumably they'll know it, which should discourage adventurism on their side."

"Assuming they see things the same way we do, Sir."

"Always assuming that," Klian agreed. "Still, I'm inclined to leave Thalmayr where he is." He saw the alarm in Jasak's eyes, despite the younger man's best efforts to conceal it, and shrugged.

"I'll give him direct orders to dig in on our side of the swamp portal and stay there," he said. "The only way there could be another serious shooting incident would be for the other side to try to force a crossing. I don't really like it, but I think it's the best compromise I can come up with, at least until mul Gurthak gets more troops in here."

"I hope you're right, Sir," Jasak said. His voice was harsh, but that didn't bother Five Hundred Klian. The youngster was grim as hell, unhappy about the decision, but he recognized that the decision had been made. He might not like it?Klian didn't like it one damned bit, himself?but this was an officer who recognized that an order was an order.

"I hope I am, too," he sighed, then shook himself.

"I know you'll feel better, son, if you wait to hear Chief Sword Threbuch's report before you head for home with Magister Kelbryan and the prisoners. I'll arrange quarters for all four of you, apart from the rest of the men."

"Thank you, Sir. I appreciate that." Jasak met Klian's eyes levelly once more. "In fact, for the record, Sir, I'd like to officially inform you that Shaylar and Jathmar are my shardonai."

Klian stiffened?not in anger or outrage, but in dismay.

"Are you sure about that, Hundred?" he asked very quietly.

"Yes, Sir. I am," Jasak replied firmly, and Klian closed his mouth on what he'd been about to say.

The last thing this boy needed, duke's son or no, was to throw himself into the sort of catfight this was going to be. Klian didn't like to think about what was going to happen to Shaylar and Jathmar once higher authority got its hands on them. The military was going to be bad enough; the politicians and the internal security forces were going to be a nightmare. Given what was already hanging over Jasak's head, not to mention the inevitable tribunal, throwing himself between his prisoners and the entire Arcanan military and political establishment would be suicidal for his career. The five hundred couldn't conceive of any other possible consequence for his actions.

But when he looked into Jasak Olderhan's eyes, he knew the hundred didn't need him to explain that.

"Very well, Hundred Olderhan," he said instead, his tone formal. "I accept your declaration of shardon, and I will so attest, both in my dispatches and in your travel orders."

"Thank you, Sir," Jasak said, very sincerely. Klian wasn't obligated to do that, and by choosing to do so, anyway, the five hundred was putting himself in a position to be thoroughly splashed when the shit inevitably hit the fan. But his attestation, especially as part of Jasak's travel orders, which would go wherever Jasak went, would constitute a formal tripwire against … overzealous superiors.

"It's the least I can do for a young fellow who seems intent on pissing everybody off," the five hundred replied with a crooked smile. "And in the meantime, I'll post an armed guard outside your quarters, just to be sure no one gets any ideas about retaliating against Jathmar or his wife."

The prisoner's eyes glinted with sharp interest at hearing his name yet again. Klian looked at the man, recognizing his intelligence as well as the discipline which kept his inevitable anxiety in check. Knowing there was a sharp, active brain behind those eyes made his inability to communicate with the other man even more frustrating.

"Jathmar?" the five hundred said, and the prisoner gave him a jerky nod.

"Sarr," Klian said, touching his uniform blouse. "Sarr Klian." He waved his hand, indicating the room, the compound beyond the window. "I command this fort."

He pointed to the palisade walls visible through the window, then pointed at himself again. Jathmar studied him through narrowed eyes for a moment, then gave a slow nod. Clearly he'd already guessed as much.

"You," Klian said, pointing to Jathmar, "will go with Jasak Olderhan."

He pointed to Jasak again and pantomimed walking. Jasak regarded him suspiciously for a moment, then nodded again. A fraction of the tension gripping him relaxed, but his eyes remained deeply wary. Klian would've given a great deal for the information behind those eyes. As he'd told Jasak, he wasn't at all happy about the decision he'd made; he just didn't see any other decision he liked better. But if more fighting did break out, Sarr Klian was going to be the one in the hot seat, and he was desperately short of information.

"Very well, Hundred." He switched his attention back to Jasak. "I'll make arrangements for those quarters immediately. Take him back to the infirmary for now. Let him sit with his wife until your accommodations are ready."

"Yes, Sir."

"And, Hundred Olderhan," Klian continued, standing and offering the younger officer his hand, "good luck. You deserve it … and you're going to need it."

"Yes, Sir. Thank you."

Jasak shook the proffered hand firmly, and Klian watched him leave with his prisoner. Then the five hundred sat back down behind his roughhewn desk and discovered he'd developed a raging headache.

Now there's a surprise, he thought with harsh humor, and then he got grimly to work.