Hell Hath No Fury

Chapter Thirty-Four

Darcel Kinlafia followed Andrin and chan Zindico back into the ballroom. It was one of the hardest things he'd ever done, and his right arm tightened protectively around Alazon as the sledgehammers of shock, disbelief, grief, and fury hammered at their Voice's sensitivity.

Yet if it was terrible for them, it was still worse for Andrin, for she knew what her father was about to tell her.

He saw it in the way all color had drained out of her face, felt it in the emotional aura trailing behind her like a fog of smoke and poison. Yet she crossed that ballroom floor tall, straight, and graceful.

"Yes, Papa?"

Her voice cut through the stillness, the silence, with an impossible clearness as she stopped before her parents. Her mother's face was as white as her own, but Empress Varena's eyes were filled with the dark terror of the unknown, not the even darker ghosts of foreknowledge inflicted. Emperor Zindel's right arm was about his wife's shoulders, and his face was strained.

"Andrin." His deep, powerful voice sounded frayed about the edges, and his arm tightened about his wife. "We've just received word from Traisum. From Division-Captain chan Geraith. It's-"

His voice broke, and his left hand rose. It settled on the back of the Empress' head, cradling it protectively, as he turned her and folded her against his massive chest. His own head bent as he bowed over her slenderness, and the tears of a strong man gleamed in his eyes.

"It's Janaki," Andrin said. Her father looked up, and she met his eyes levelly, steadily. "He's been killed."

The Empress stiffened convulsively in her husband's arms. There was no word to describe the sound she made. It was far too soft to call a wail, yet too filled with pain to be called anything else. She shuddered, and the sound she'd made turned into something else-shattering sobs that filled the hollow silence.

"Yes," Andrin's father confirmed in a voice which had been pulverized and glued unskillfully back together once more.

Andrin swayed. Her regal head never drooped, yet Kinlafia could literally See the wave of agony that flowed through her. He stepped away from Alazon quickly, offering the princess his arm, and she took it blindly, without even looking at him.

Gods, he thought. Dear sweet gods. If Janaki's dead, then Andrin is-

"We have to go," her father told her across her sobbing mother's head.

"Of course, Papa." Andrin straightened her spine with a courage which made Kinlafia want to weep, and despite the tears which streaked her face and fogged her tone, her voice never wavered. "Razial and Anbessa will need us."

"How is she? How are they?"

Alazon looked up at the harsh, angry question, and shook her head.

"I don't know, love," she replied quietly. "The Empress and Razial are sedated. His Majesty is holding himself together-I don't know how. And I don't believe Anbessa really understands what's happened.

Not yet."

"And Andrin?"

"She's just … sitting there," Alazon said sadly. "Sitting there in the nursery, beside Anbessa's bed.

Razial's asleep in her arms-she cried herself out, poor little love, after the herbalist sedated her. Andrin

– " Alazon's voice broke, and she raised gray eyes, soaked with tears, to Kinlafia's. "Andrin … sang them both to sleep," she managed to get out.

She began to weep once more, weep with deep, tearing shudders, and Kinlafia put his arms around her, hugging her tightly while his own eyes burned.

Again, he thought. The bastards have done it again.

His jaw clenched so tightly he thought his teeth would shatter as memories ripped through him, and white-hot rage boiled in their wake. The same Arcanan butchers who'd murdered Shaylar and all of his friends-his family-at Fallen Timbers. They'd done it again.

Despite his earlier conversation with the Emperor, or perhaps because of it, the pain of Janaki's death was like some huge, jagged splinter buried in his chest. And with that pain came the anger, the fury, that the Arcanans could wreak such carnage on the hearts and souls of those for whom he cared even here, even in the very heart of Sharona.

His eyes burned even hotter as he thought about all the men he'd known, fought with. The men who'd avenged Shaylar's murder-Balkar chan Tesh, Grafin Halifu, Rokam Traygan, Delokahn Yar, Hulmok Arthag … If the Arcanans had penetrated as deeply as Fort Salby, managed to kill Janaki, then all of those others-still more of Darcel Kinlafia's friends-must have been killed or captured first.

And now the treacherous murderers had killed the heir to the throne himself … and devastated his family.

"Is there anything I can do?" he whispered almost pleadingly into Alazon's hair. "Anything at all?"

"I-" she began.

"There will be something you can do, Voice Kinlafia," another, deeper voice interrupted Alazon's, and she and Kinlafia looked up quickly as Zindel chan Calirath strode into the room.

He looked in that moment, Kinlafia thought, like an Imperial Navy dreadnought with its main battery swinging out to bare its teeth as it forged into the teeth of a winter's gale. His face might have been hammered out of old iron, and his gray eyes were colder than chilled steel.

"Your Majesty?" Kinlafia said.

"There will be something," the Emperor repeated in a hard, flat voice. "I don't know what-not yet. But I know that much."

"Your Majesty, I-"

"You'll know what it is when the time comes, Darcel," Zindel said. "For now-" He drew a deep breath and raised both hands, scrubbing his face in his palms. "For now, all I know is that all the Arpathian hells together couldn't hold everything that's about to break loose right here in Tajvana."

His voice came out muffled by his hands, and Kinlafia looked at Alazon. Then both of them looked back at Zindel as the Emperor lowered his hands with a smile as bleak as northern sea-ice.

"Chava Busar is going to see his opportunity in this," the Emperor said. "Shamir Taje is out talking to the heads of the various delegations to the Conclave right now, and you can be damned certain Chava will soon have his … representatives doing exactly the same thing. They're going to use my son's death any way they can. As if what's happened to Janaki wasn't going to do damage enough all by itself."

"How bad is it, Your Majesty?" Alazon asked quietly.

"They've taken at least five universes," Zindel said flatly. "As far as we know, every soldier-and civilian-we had in those universes is either dead or prisoner. And somehow-" he met the two Voices'

eyes "-they managed to keep a single Voice from getting the warning out, as well."

Kinlafia's belly muscles clenched, and he felt Alazon's sick awareness of what the Emperor was telling them.

"They've advanced over four thousand miles in less than two weeks," Zindel continued. "The sort of transport and logistics capability that suggests is going to be terrifying as soon as its implications sink in, and the existence of these … dragons, and these lion-eagle things of theirs, is going to be even worse.

But, frankly, what's going to hit home the hardest, going to have the most catastrophic effect on public opinion, is that they launched this entire attack while they were negotiating with us."

Kinlafia's teeth grated together with fresh fury, and Zindel snorted with cold, bitter anger of his own.

"They've truly done it this time," he said harshly. "First, Shaylar's murder. Now this … this treachery and the murder of my son. The heir to the throne. The whole of Sharona is going to explode in fury. Any possible hope we ever had for stopping this insanity is gone forever. Whether we're ready for it or not, whether we want it or not, we're in a fight for our very survival, and my son-"

His voice broke savagely. It took him three tries to get it under control again.

"My son's death will not be in vain." He grated at last. "We're going to take every one of those portals back. We're going to drive those bastards back into the universe they came from. And I don't mean the universe on the other side of the portal you helped capture, Darcel-I mean their home universe. We're going to shove them back and bottle them up and blow them apart so hard it'll knock them back into the godsdamned Stone Age." He stared hard into Kinlafia's eyes. "And you, Parliamentary Representative Kinlafia, are going to help me do it."

"Yes, Sir." Kinlafia met that hard, bitter stare of steel across Alazon's head and nodded once, sharply.

"Yes, Your Majesty," he agreed in the voice of a man swearing an oath. "No matter what it takes."

"Good."

Zindel's voice was different, too. It was the voice of an emperor accepting an oath of fealty. Then the grief, the anguish, in his eyes shifted. It turned into something else, equally hard, and yet somehow almost … desperate.

"And the other thing you're going to help me do, Darcel-" he added in a chilling tone "-you and Alazon both-is to find a way to keep that bastard Busar from forcing Andrin to marry one of his monstrous sons."

Kinlafia's heart lurched.

"Oh, dear gods …" he half-whispered.

How could he have missed it? He'd already realized that Andrin had just become the Crown Princess of Sharona, or shortly would, and that meant-

"I will personally put a bullet through every last one of Chava Busar's sons before I let any of them marry your daughter, Your Majesty," he said, and felt Alazon shudder in his arms. Shudder with the thought of Andrin wed to any member of Chava's family … and with her Voice's knowledge that he meant every single word he'd just said.

"Good." Zindel chan Calirath's eyes could have frozen the heart of hell itself, but then he made himself inhale deeply.

"Good," he repeated. "But now let's try to figure out a way to stop it without throwing our world into a civil war at the same time we have to deal with these Arcanan butchers."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Kinlafia nodded and the Emperor turned to Alazon.

"Shamir is canvassing our allies' delegations," he told her. It was a sign of his own grief and shock that, despite his outward self-control, he'd clearly forgotten that he'd already told them that. "I expect him back within the hour. Please contact the members of the Privy Council. This crisis won't wait; tell them we'll meet two hours from now, and I want Orem Limana present, as well. We'll need him to help us coordinate portal traffic."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Thank you. Thank you both," Zindel said.

Then he drew a deep breath, turned and walked back out the door through which he'd entered the room.

Kinlafia heard the sound of weeping from beyond that door, and the Emperor moved like an exhausted swimmer in deep water as he returned to his grieving family.

The door closed behind him, and Alazon buried her face in Kinlafia's shoulder and spent one long, desperate moment weeping while he held her close. Then she tilted her face up and gave him a trembling smile full of courage, and he kissed her very gently.

"Let me know when you have a free moment," he said. "I'll feed you some dinner and rub your feet."

"That's an offer more precious than diamonds," she said, making herself smile once again even while her eyes swam with fresh tears. "Consider it a date."

She rose on her toes to kiss him once more, and then they both gathered themselves to face what must come next.

Chava Busar stood in his strategically chosen spot beside the buffet tables, watching the hysterics which were now fully underway in the Grand Ballroom, and worked hard to keep from smiling in delight.

The truth was still sinking in, he thought. Out on the dance floor, women sobbed into silk handkerchiefs and men wore murderous expressions. He heard curses and vows of dire vengeance in a score of languages, and the sound was sweet, sweet to his ears.

Janaki chan Calirath had gotten himself killed. Gotten his head nipped clean off like a chicken by some sort of huge bird or monster, if the rumors were to be believed.

It was absolutely delicious. In one fell swoop (his own choice of verb made him chuckle mentally behind his impassive expression, considering the nature of Janaki's executioner), the utter disaster which his political ambitions had suffered was reversed. All he had to do was grasp the opportunity swiftly and intelligently. By this time next week, that horse-shaped, gangling, hideous giant of a schoolgirl was going to find herself profoundly married. And not long after that … .

He looked up as the Seneschal of Othmaliz waddled over to his corner of the ballroom. The Seneschal contemplated the weepers and cursers, then looked Chava in the eye.

"What a pity," he said.

"Yes, isn't it?" Chava agreed, allowing one corner of his mouth to quirk upwards ever so slightly.

"I imagine tomorrow will be quite a busy day for us all," the Seneschal continued. "There'll have to be another session of the Conclave to deal with this latest crisis. And, of course this is going to force a postponement of the Coronation. So sad." He sighed. "So very sad."

"True." Chava nodded, then cocked his head to one side. "One's heart goes out to the Emperor's family at such time, of course. Still, there are responsibilities which must be met, aren't there? And plans which must be adjusted. Or in some cases-" he looked deep into the Seneschal's eyes "-accelerated. I do trust that the Comforters will be keeping the Emperor and his entire family in their thoughts."

"Oh, I think you need have no fear on those grounds, Your Majesty," the Seneschal assured him.

Someone knocked on Darcel Kinlafia's door at three o'clock in the morning.

He jolted awake and jerked upright in bed, momentarily confused by the soft white moonlight falling through open windows where warm breeze stirred white draperies. He'd been dreaming of combat-a ghastly, nightmarish mishmash of his own memories, fighting at the swamp portal, the massacre of his survey crew, and the combat he'd seen through the Glimpse he'd shared with Zindel-and he wasn't certain, at first, what had awakened him.

Then the knock sounded again.

"Darcel," a familiar Voice Called softly in the back of his brain, and he was out of bed in heartbeat. He snatched up a night robe as he crossed the apartment, somehow managing, with the moonlight's aid, to avoid stubbing his toes as he dodged around the furniture of a living room to which he wasn't yet accustomed. Then he snatched the door open and found her standing in the hallway, trembling.

He didn't speak. He simply opened his arms, and she fell into them, weeping. He held her close, rocked her gently, then guided her into the living room. He drew her down beside him on the divan in a pool of moonlight, and she huddled against him while she sobbed.

He surrounded her with his arms, with his love, with the caress of his Voice and the bond between them.

There were no words, for there was no need for words. There were only the two of them, clinging to one another in the midst of their grief, and that was enough.

"Reports are still coming in from Traisum," she whispered finally. "Chan Geraith's first report of the battle was relayed while he was still eleven hours out from Salbyton. He's sent three more since then.

It's … horrible."

She relayed the images Kaliya chan Darma and Lisar chan Korthal had transmitted up the Voicenet.

Images of Fort Salby, still smoking, with a huge, monstrous winged creature draped over one tower.

Images of men burned into twisted charcoal, or lying like tattered scarecrows where lightning had left them. Bits and pieces of the bodies of Sharonian soldiers, and strewn among their mangled bodies the tumbled carcasses of the unnatural fusion of lion and eagle which had killed them. More bodies, breaches in a wall of adobe and stone, things which looked like horses, but obviously weren't, shattered platforms filled with the broken bodies of Arcanan soldiers, gun pits, row after row of bodies laid out in canvas shrouds … .

They went on and on, a catalog of destruction and desecration, and Darcel Kinlafia fought the surge of acid trying to come up out of his belly. His arms tightened around Alazon, and he held her while she shared the horror with him.

The images ended at last, and he kissed her hair, murmuring wordlessly to her. He never knew how long they sat there, just being there for each other, clinging to their love like some last, unshakable rock of sanity in the midst of a multiverse gone mad.

"How are they holding up?" he asked finally.

"Andrin is sedated now, too," Alazon said. "She didn't want to take it, but His Majesty insisted. She wanted to stay with Razial and Anbessa, but she has to rest-really rest."

Kinlafia nodded, his jaw tightening once more.

"The Empress is in deep emotional shock," Alazon continued. "She knew the danger was there, but somehow it seemed so remote, especially when Janaki was ordered home with the Arcanan prisoners.

But I think … I think she'd guessed what's been worrying His Majesty and Andrin. She just didn't want to admit it to herself. He's her only son, Darcel, and-"

Her voice caught raggedly, and she shook herself.

"I already told you Razial had been sedated, but she's awake again. And Anbessa is finally realizing what's happened, I think. Both of them were clinging to their mother when I left the imperial apartments.

And Zindel-"

Her voice broke off again.

"What about him?" Kinlafia pressed gently, and she inhaled deeply.

"I've never seen His Majesty like this. He can barely speak above a rasping whisper. It's more than just losing his only son. He feels responsible for the massacres, for failing to move quickly enough and get reinforcements forward soon enough."

"That's ridiculous!" Kinlafia snapped in hot defense. "I've worked that transit chain, Alazon. Nobody could have moved in troops or material any faster-nobody! He isn't a god, to wave one hand and magically transport a division!"

"I know all that, Darcel. And he knows that, too. But he's a Calirath. He feels responsible for the deaths, for the undermanned forts. And he's not the only one." Alazon shivered. "Orem Limana is nearly suicidal with remorse. He feels like he's betrayed them, all of them-soldiers and civilians-by trying to build new forts before he had troops in place to adequately man them. Before he had artillery in place to defend their walls."

"He's not a soldier," Kinlafia protested. "It's not his job to think like one. Besides, no one ever intended those portal forts to stand up to anything more dangerous than a few bands of brigands! There's never been anything more dangerous than a few bands of brigands-until now!"

"I know that, too." She nodded. "And the Emperor knows that. When Yaf Umani Spoke to me from Exploration Hall, he Said His Majesty's ordered two of the PA's Distance Viewers to watch the First Director twenty-four hours a day until this emotional shock passes. The Emperor has ordered Orem not to suicide."

That shocked Kinlafia. Orem Limana was one of the strongest men he'd ever known. If he was that shaken, then … .

"What about the First Councilor's contacts with the other delegations?" he asked.

"It's going to be ugly," Alazon told him. "The Emperor was right about that, too. Isseth's requested an emergency meeting of the Conclave later this morning."

"Isseth?" Kinlafia repeated incredulously.

"Everyone knows perfectly well that Chava is really behind it," she said. "No one's going to admit it, though."

"And the Coronation?"

"That's been postponed," she said bitterly. "This 'spontaneous' request for a Conclave session supersedes it, under the circumstances."

"That's just wonderful."

"Actually," she said unwillingly, "it was inevitabe. If Isseth hadn't requested it, we probably would have had to do it ourselves, under the circumstances. Not that Isseth-or Chava-did it to do us any favors!"

Fresh anger swirled about deep inside Darcel Kinlafia, but he made himself step back from it. He remembered what Janaki had told him about the deadliness of hatred, yet that wasn't what let him step away from the demons of his inner fury. No, it was the woman in his arms. The lifeline he clung to. And as he did, he felt her clinging to him, in turn. Their strength flowed together, melding, merging into something greater than the sum of its parts, and he turned her tear-soaked face up to his and kissed it gently.

"All right," he said softly. "His Majesty was right about Andrin needing to rest. Well, so do we. Come with me."

He stood, then scooped her up in his arms and carried her through the moonlight towards his bedroom door. She looked up at him, and he smiled crookedly.

"I said 'rest,' love," he Told her, "and I meant rest. There'll be time for other things later."

"I didn't realize you were so chivalrous," her Voice murmured in the back of his mind. "Refusing to take advantage of a maiden's grief."

He laughed softly, despite their grief, despite their loss, and kissed her once again.

"Chivalrous isn't exactly a word I'd apply to myself, love. Let's try … patient, instead."

"I prefer chivalrous," she Told him. "And in this case, I think I may just know you better than you know yourself."

"Maybe. But either way, woman," he turned back the light spread at one side of the enormous bed and tucked her under it, "you need rest. And so do I. So-" he bent over to kiss her once again, very gently "

– go to sleep."