Hell's Gate

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Balkar chan Tesh looked up as someone tapped lightly on the small gong hanging from the peak of his tent. He recognized the towering, youthful Marine officer instantly, although they'd never met. The youngster looked exhausted, as well he might after what had to have been an even longer forced march than chan Tesh's own, but he was also the spitting image of his father. Even if he hadn't been, the blue-gray peregrine falcon on the far-from-regulation leather pad covering the left shoulder of his uniform tunic would have been a powerful clue. The bird was huge even for a peregrine?easily over twenty inches long, with a wingspan which must have been well over four feet?and it was neither hooded nor jessed, which was … unusual, to say the very least. Its powerful talons gripped the shoulder pad securely, but it was obvious they were also delicately aware of?and restraining?their own strength. Its dark eyes were bright and alert, and they focused on the company-captain with unnerving intensity.

It was, chan Tesh thought, quite possibly the most magnificent predator he'd ever seen, and well it should be, given the millennia-long breeding program which had produced it.

"Yes, Platoon-Captain?" he said, giving absolutely no indication that he'd recognized the newcomer.

"Platoon-Captain chan Calirath," the Marine introduced himself. "Company-Captain Halifu told me to report to you as soon as I arrived."

"I see." chan Tesh laid down his pen and leaned back in his folding canvas chair. "In that case, I suppose you'd better come in … assuming you'll fit," he added with a small, wry smile.

"Thank you, Sir," the Marine said politely, and chan Tesh gave a small mental nod of approval.

Platoon-Captain His Highness Crown Prince Janaki chan Calirath, heir to the Winged Crown, stood at least eight inches over six feet, with his dynasty's powerful shoulders, but imposing size wasn't enough to explain the sense of presence he projected. chan Tesh had been curious about how the Crown Prince would introduce himself, and he was pleased by the way Janaki had actually done it. Of course, in an odd sort of way, that simple "Platoon-Captain chan Calirath" had only emphasized that the young man introducing himself was actually the future ruler of the oldest, most powerful empire in human history.

Well, in our branch of humanity's history, anyway, chan Tesh reminded himself.

"Wait for me, dear heart," Janaki murmured to the falcon, and shooed her gently off his shoulder. She launched with a soft cry, and chan Tesh watched her disappear into the overhead foliage. The Crown Prince watched her go with a smile, then maneuvered himself into the tent cautiously but smoothly. It was apparent that he'd had plenty of experience moving his substantial bulk in and out of the tents the PAAF provided for field use. He seated himself rather gingerly in the folding chair chan Tesh indicated, and the chair creaked alarmingly under his weight. Fortunately, it held.

"I hope you won't take this wrongly, Platoon-Captain," chan Tesh said, "but I could wish you hadn't turned up for duty here at this precise moment."

"Sir?" Janaki began, but chan Tesh's raised hand stopped him.

"Platoon-Captain," he said, "I'm Ternathian. I know the tradition of your family, and I honor it. But there's no point in our pretending you're just one more platoon-captain. I don't wish to belabor the point, but you must be aware that who you are?and, even more importantly, who you someday will be?is going to play a part in the thinking of any of your commanding officers."

"Yes, Sir, I know." Janaki didn't quite sigh, but he came so close that chan Tesh was hard put not to smile.

"And you wish it didn't," the company-captain said, instead, as sympathetically as possible. "As it happens, however, in this particular instance I think I'm in a position to kill two birds with one stone. To be devastatingly blunt, Your Highness," he used the imperial title deliberately, "any sane CO would order you to the rear the instant he saw your face. Especially when the situation is as riddled with uncertainties and complete unknowns as this one is. In this case, though, the duty I have in mind for you could have been tailormade for someone with your experience."

"Sir?"

"We've got prisoners, Platoon-Captain," chan Tesh said much more grimly. "Several of them were pretty badly wounded in the fighting. Our Healers have done what they can for them, of course, and they're all at least stabilized now, but we need to get them transferred to the rear and better medical facilities. Even if that weren't the case, we'd need to get all of them?wounded and unwounded like?moved to the rear for proper interrogation as quickly as possible. The only officer we took alive appears to have been their commander?he's one of the wounded I mentioned, and it doesn't look like he'll ever walk again?but we've captured several men who seem to have been senior noncoms. They're our best, and only, source of information, and we need to get them into the hands of someone who can at least start figuring out how to talk to them. Not to mention the fact that we need to move them further back as a security measure against escapes or rescue attempts."

He paused, and Janaki nodded very slightly.

"I can't spare very many men as prisoner escort," chan Tesh continued. "I'm thinking that using your platoon for the job would make the smallest hole by avoiding pulling somebody out of my established units for the job. In addition, you're not exactly a typical platoon-captain. You've grown up in the Palace. I'm quite sure you have a better ear than most junior officers for possibly significant political and military details.

"What I'd like to do is to send at least some of them all the way back to Sharona, and I'd prefer to keep the same officer in command of the escort detail the entire way. Some of these people appear badly shocked and demoralized by what's happened to them; most of them, though, are obviously prepared to resist divulging any important information. I suspect that spending two or three months with them could help engender a sense of familiarity which might get inside that defensive mindset of theirs. It certainly couldn't hurt. And if that does happen, I want the best attuned ears available to pick up anything they might drop.

"And, to be frank, I'd like the officer in command of the escort detail to have a certain stature?official or unofficial?to help discourage any of the intervening COs from poaching prisoners on the grounds that they ought to be interrogated closer to the front. In short, I think you'd make an excellent first filter for the analysts … and that you may have enough clout, despite your relatively junior rank, to actually get them all the way back to those analysts."

"With all due respect, Sir, mightn't there be some point to keeping them closer to the front, where whatever we learn can be gotten to the sharp end quickly?"

"Of course there is," chan Tesh agreed. "And I expect the bulk of the prisoners will be. At the moment, I'm assuming Regiment-Captain Velvelig will hold the majority of them?and probably all the more seriously wounded?at Fort Raylthar. That's far enough towards the rear to satisfy most security concerns, and big enough to have a capable Healer Corps detachment. But it's going to be equally important to get at least some of these people clear back to Sharona where the government and the staff's intelligence experts can gain a firsthand impression of them. Your job is going to be to expedite their delivery to Tajvana."

"Yes, Sir."

"In addition," chan Tesh said quietly, "there's the political situation back home to consider, as well. I have no idea how that's going to sort itself out, but I do know that some sort of unified military and political policy is going to be necessary. I don't think the Authority can handle that job as it's presently constituted, which means the politicians are going to have to come up with some new mechanism. I can't imagine that your family isn't going to be deeply involved in that process, and having you there couldn't hurt. Especially if you've just returned from the front, escorting the first prisoners we've taken."

The Marine looked back at chan Tesh without any expression at all for several seconds. The company-captain simply sat there, waiting. He very much doubted that anything he'd just said hadn't already occurred to the Crown Prince. As far as chan Tesh knew, there weren't any stupid Caliraths, and only an idiot could fail to recognize the sort of political catfight this situation was going to make inevitable back home. Nor could Janaki possibly be unaware of the role his family?and he himself?was going to have to play in that fight.

"Very well, Sir. I understand," the Crown Prince said, after a moment. He did not say that he approved, chan Tesh observed, but the company-captain was prepared to settle for that.

"In addition to all the rest of those considerations," he said, "there's one other job I'd like you to undertake for me."

"Sir?"

"Darcel Kinlafia?Voice Kinlafia?is the only survivor of the Chalgyn Consortium team." chan Tesh's expression was grim. "Frankly, I'm … worried about him."

"May I ask why, Sir?"

"He was there, Platoon-Captain. He was linked with Shaylar throughout the entire battle. He Saw his friends being butchered all around him, and he couldn't do a single godsdamned thing about it. He blames himself for that. I think he may actually hate himself for it. It's … poisoning him, and he's a Voice. I'm sure it's inadvertent, but anyone with a hint of telepathy is picking up his leakage, and it's affecting our people. I don't need anything which might push our men towards atrocities in the name of vengeance if it comes to more fighting. Almost equally important, I think we need to get him away from here for his own good, as well. He needs a little space, a little time, if he's going to heal, and he's too close to where it all happened here."

"I see, Sir." Janaki nodded again. His sea-colored eyes held a small but unmistakable flicker of approval, but he also cocked his head to one side. "At the same time, Sir, can you afford to send him back? I understand that he's a Portal Hound, as well as a Voice."

"Yes, he is," chan Tesh agreed, impressed by how quickly the crown prince had picked up that particular bit of information. "But he's already been able to give us the bearing of the nearest portal?apparently the only other portal?in this universe. We know it's somewhere to the northeast, probably in Esferia or New Ternath. Of course, we don't know how far away it is, or whether or not they've got bases closer than that. And we sure as hell don't have any idea how they managed to get their people in and out of this godsforsaken swamp! But we know where to start looking for their portal if it comes to that, and that's about the best we could hope for from any Portal Hound. Frankly, we don't need any of the services he could still offer us, and we do need to get him out of here."

"And away from all of the memories," Janaki said slowly. "Somewhere he can start healing inside."

"Exactlly," chan tesh replied. "I'm not thinking just about Darcel, though. He was linked with Shaylar. I'm pretty certain there are more details still locked up in his memory than he's aware of, but he's … not very supportive of efforts to dig them out. I don't blame him for that. It must be pure hell to go back in there and relive it over and over again, especially for someone with a Voice's perfect recall. But I need someone who can convince him to do just that?someone who can wring every detail out of his experience.

"The information itself might be of enormous military value, but, to be perfectly honest, it may not be particularly significant, either. Not from the perspective of future operations, that is. But I've discussed it with Petty Captain Yar, my senior Healer. He thinks it's important for Darcel to get it out, deal with it. Frankly, I suspect that he's a lot more likely to open up if someone like you presses him on it than he is if I do. And if you can convince him of the importance of his reporting his impressions firsthand back in Tajvana, we may actually manage to get him away from the front before I have to place him under arrest to protect any additional prisoners from him."

"It's that bad, Sir?" Janaki asked, eyes widened slightly, and chan Tesh shrugged.

"I may be worrying too much. He's a good, decent man. In fact, I think that's part of the problem. He's not used to carrying this kind of hate around with him, and he doesn't know what to do with it. But I'd like to keep him a good, decent man, if we can, Your Highness."

"Point taken, Sir," Janaki said respectfully, and chan Tesh nodded.

"In that case, Your Highness, why don't I take you around to the POW cage?" The company-captain smiled without any humor at all. "We'll probably find Darcel somewhere in the vicinity."

"I think this is going to be the most ticklish case, Sir," Petty Captain Delokahn Yar said. He stood at Janaki's elbow at the foot of one of the cots under the canvas tarp arranged to shade a clean, breezy open-air hospital ward. The tall, powerfully built man on the cot lay still?not simply motionless, but rigidly, harshly still?staring up at the sun-patterned canvas above him.

"This was their commanding officer?" Janaki's voice was cold.

"We believe so, Sir."

"I see."

Janaki gazed at the man in question with cold, contemptuous eyes. Company-Captain chan Tesh had briefed him fully on the portal battle … and how it had begun. Platoon-Captain Arthag seemed rather more philosophical about it than chan Tesh, and Janaki supposed the septman was probably right. It was very unlikely that these people used the same sort of banner to indicate the desire to parley, after all. Still, the idiot had to have recognized that Arthag wanted to talk, not fight, and no officer worth his salt could overlook the way the sheer incompetence of his tactics?and his own peerless stupidity?had gotten the vast majority of his command slaughtered.

"What appears to be the problem?" the Crown Prince of Ternathia asked after a moment.

"The physical damage is bad enough, Sir. He took a hit?from one of the Model 10s, I suspect?right through the body just above and behind the hips. It was a clean in-and-out that somehow missed the major internal organs, but it clipped the spine on the way through. He's paralyzed from the waist down, and there's nothing we can do about it. On top of that, though, he's clearly suicidal."

Janaki nodded, although he couldn't avoid the thought that perhaps, in this case, not intervening to prevent a suicide might be the better course. Even aside from the man's stupidity, and all the deaths it had already caused, there was something else about him. Something Janaki couldn't quite put a finger on … but which resonated uncomfortably with the Glimpse he'd experienced in the mountains east of Fort Brithik.

"As nearly as I can tell, Sir," Yar went on, "none of these men even understand what Talent is. That's fair enough, I suppose, since we don't have a clue how in all the Arpathian hells they do some of the things we already know they do. But because of that, none of them understands what my corpsmen and I are trying to accomplish. They don't know how to help us, and at least some of them are so busy being frightened of us that they're actively blocking us, making it a lot harder for us to do them any good. And this man here is the worst of a lot. I think part of the problem may be that he actually has at least a trace of Talent. He's more aware of what I'm doing than most of the others, but he doesn't understand it any better than they do, and his own Talent, even untrained, is producing a lot of … interference that makes even pain management really difficult."

"I see," Janaki said again. "Which means, of course, that he's going to suffer a lot more discomfort when we transport him."

"Which is going to tie into the entire depression/suicidal cycle," Yar agreed. "In fact, to be brutally honest, Sir, I doubt he'll survive trip unless we take some fairly drastic action."

"Such as?"

"I'm afraid the only thing I can think of to do at this point is to shut him down completely, Sir," the Healer said. He clearly didn't like the suggestion very much, but he made it unflinchingly, and Jasak forced himself to step back and consider it before he reacted.

"You really think that's necessary?" he asked after a moment.

"Sir, my Talent's strength lies more in repairing physical damage than emotional or psychological damage," Yar said frankly. "That's one reason I'm forward deployed, where physical trauma is more likely, and usually more immediately life-threatening when it turns up. But it's going to take someone with a lot more strength on the nonphysical side to get through to this man and keep him from simply withdrawing deeper and deeper into himself until he finally just goes out like a light. I don't think you're going to get him to that kind of care in time if we don't shut him down for the trip."

Janaki nodded yet again, his expression somber. The techniques for disengaging a patient's consciousness from his body and surroundings were fairly straightforward, but it was a major breach of medical ethics to apply them without the patient's informed consent. Unfortunately, there was no way this man could even have understood the question, far less made an informed decision. Yar's Healer's oath required him to seek the patient's agreement, and forbade him to apply the techniques without that agreement from a conscious patient. Yet the same oath required him to keep his patient alive.

And there's another factor, here, Janaki thought grimly. Of all the prisoners chan Tesh took, this one undoubtedly has the most useful information of all. We need to keep him alive … whether he makes my skin crawl or not.

"If you 'shut him down,' will we be able to feed him and care for him properly all the way back to Fort Raylthar?" he asked.

"That shouldn't be a problem, Sir. Or, at least, not any more of a problem than dealing with any other patient with his spinal injury would present."

"In that case, write up your recommendation. I'll endorse it and ask Company-Captain chan Tesh to approve it."

"Thank you, Sir." Yar shook his head. "I hate to do it, but I just don't see a way to avoid it. Gods, I wish at least one of their Healers had made it!"

"None of them did?" Janaki frowned. "How did that happen?"

"It was just one of those godsdamned things, Sir," Yar said heavily. "It looks like they'd set up an emergency aid station in that pathetic redoubt of theirs, and one of the four-point-fives landed right on top of them." The Healer shook his head, his eyes dark. "One or two of them survived for a while, but they were too badly wounded for us to pull them through. I hate to lose any Healer, but I have to wonder what would have happened if they made it. Or if even just one of them had made it!"

"Why?" Janaki was surprised by the Healer's obviously genuine frustration. It showed, and Yar gave him a very crooked smile.

"Let's just say their Healers obviously know at least a few tricks we don't, Sir."

"Such as?" Janaki quirked an eyebrow, and Yar chuckled harshly.

"Once we'd taken their encampment, we discovered that most of their wounded from the previous fighting seemed to have been evacuated before this round. Or that's what we thought at first, at least. We captured less than half a dozen people who were still undergoing treatment, and all of them seemed to have only minor wounds. But then Junior-Armsman Hilovar and Petty Armsman Parcanthi went to work. They'd managed to Trace quite a few of the enemy's most badly wounded from Fallen Timbers, and it turned out a lot of them were still here. The very worst hurt obviously really were evacuated?somehow; we still haven't figured that part out. But the next most badly hurt were still right here, and they'd already been returned to duty. The ones still undergoing treatment were the ones who were least badly hurt in the earlier fighting."

"Excuse me?" Both of Janaki's eyebrows went up this time, and Yar chuckled again.

"Believe me, Sir, you aren't any more surprised?or confused?by that than I was when they told me! But as nearly as we can tell, these people's Healers can literally force healing. Some of our strongest Healers can work what seem like miraculous cures, don't get me wrong about that. But as nearly as I can determine from what Hilovar and Parcanthi have been able to pick up, these people must have some technique which promotes extraordinarily rapid healing of physical traumas. I'm guessing that it's either very expensive or somehow debilitating to the Healer, because it looks to me as if they applied it first to the most badly injured?the ones who might not have made it at all without intervention?and then worked their way down the list through the men with the next worst wounds. The ones who weren't in danger, or who were injured lightly enough to recover fairly rapidly with less drastic treatment, were the ones still in their sick tents when we took the camp."

"You think one of these … magical Healers of theirs might have been able to repair this man's injuries?" Janaki couldn't quite keep a hint of incredulity out of his voice, and Yar snorted.

"I doubt that, Sir. Neither Hilovar nor Parcanthi is a Healer, of course, so they can't give me the kind of information another Healer could, however good their Traces or Whiffs are. From what they've told me, though, it sounds as if what they these people were doing was forcing the accelerated healing of wounds which would have healed anyway, in time. I'm not saying they weren't serious, life-threatening injuries. Don't get me wrong about that, either. But we're talking about tissues healing and bones knitting?things that would have happened with the passage of time, assuming the patient survived at all. Actually … regenerating something like destroyed nerve tissue, or treating a serious brain injury?" for a moment, Yar's voice darkened and his eyes met Janaki's grimly, dark with the memory of who had apparently suffered a serious head injury at Fallen Timbers "?would require an entirely different order of ability. I'm not prepared to say it's flatly impossible, but I'd say it's very unlikely. Unfortunately."

He was silent for a few seconds, brooding on what might have been if the other side's Healers had been capable of that sort of true miracle, then shook himself and continued.

"At the same time, though, if we had one of their Healers, we could probably get this man as recovered from his physical injuries as he's ever going to get before we started trying to transport him. In that case?if all we had to worry about was his mental and emotional state?I wouldn't be anywhere near as concerned as I am about his prognosis."

"I understand. And, like you, I hate to lose any Healer, whoever's uniform he's wearing." Janaki shook his head. "For that matter, to be honest, if they really do have that sort of a healing technique, we need to figure out what it is and learn to duplicate it as quickly as we can?for a lot of reasons."

"Agreed, Sir," Yar sighed. "Agreed."

The Healer stood a moment longer, gazing down at the stone-faced, totally nonresponsive man in the cot, then shook himself.

"Most of the rest of their wounded are in far better shape for transport," he said more briskly. "If you'll follow me, I'll show you what I mean, and then we can discuss?"

He led the Crown Prince towards the other side of the hospital tent, and Janaki followed after one more glance at the rigid, dead-eyed man responsible for so much suffering and death.

"Darcel Kinlafia?"

Kinlafia jerked as the unfamiliar voice spoke from directly behind him. He whipped around, and found himself staring at a man who was decidedly on the tall side, even for a Ternathian, in the uniform of an Imperial Marine platoon-captain.

Jumpy as a flea on a hot griddle, Janaki thought, reaching up one hand to reassure Taleena as the falcon bridled on his shoulder. Then he realized why the other man was that way. Post combat stress burned in the haunted eyes of the sun-browned man with shaggy hair that needed a barber's shears. Kinlafia was probably no more than ten years or so older than Janaki himself, but he looked far older than that at the moment.

"Yes." Kinlafia cleared his throat, easing his elbow back from its desperate clamp on the butt of his holstered pistol. "I'm Kinlafia. And you're … ?"

"Platoon-Captain chan Calirath," Janaki said, and the Voice's eyes widened.

"Good gods." He swallowed. "How can I help you, Sir? Your Highness? Your Grand Highness?"

His face had gone red as he stumbled over the correct form of address for a Ternathian imperial crown prince, and Janaki grinned.

"Platoon-Captain chan Calirath is fine. In fact, in light of how closely the two of us will be working together on this project, you might even opt for Janaki." Kinlafia gaped at him, and Janaki shrugged. "I don't stand on a lot of formality out here. In fact, I hate it. And, let's face it?I'm a pretty damned junior officer when all's said and done, after all."

Kinlafia's jaw was still scraping the ground, and Janaki sighed. It was always the same, although at least the military seemed to have figured out how to take it more or less in stride. No doubt because the military had its own chain of command and rules of seniority, which gave it a convenient pigeonhole marked "officer, junior, one" rather than "ruler after the gods, future, one." Still, he'd had more than enough experience even with fellow Marines, much less civilians, to understand how it worked. Occasionally, though, he wished his conversations with people he hadn't met before could be as ordinary as everyone else's conversations seemed to be.

"Look, just think of me as the officer assigned to escort our prisoners to the rear while simultaneously cleverly extracting politically and militarily critical information from them. Try to forget about the rest of it, would you? It's a damned nuisance, frankly, having people trip over their feet and stumble over their tongues every time I show up somewhere or run into someone new. And bad as it is here, it's even worse back home. I've just about made up my mind to stay in the Corps as long as they'll let me hide out here."

Kinlafia blinked at him. Then, all at once, he relaxed and actually managed a grin. It wasn't much of a smile, not on that grief and anger-grooved face, but it was genuine. And, as he saw it, Janaki also had a Glimpse of the warmhearted, humorous man who'd once lived behind that face . . and how important that man might prove to be. And not just to Sharona, the prince realized as his sister's features wavered through the same Glimpse. What in the names of all the gods, he wondered, did this man have to do with Andrin? But the Glimpse had vanished almost as quickly as it had come. Its echoes hummed and quivered down inside him, with a deep, burning sense of true urgency and buzzing about in his bones with a familiar sense of frustration. He couldn't pin it down, couldn't take it by the throat and make it make sense, yet he knew it had been a true Glimpse. Something that would come to pass, not merely something which might.

"Really?" Kinlafia said, obviously oblivious to Janaki's Glimpse. "I guess I hadn't thought of it that way. All right, I'll do my best to forget who you are?and who you're related to."

"Thanks," Janaki said dryly, suppressing any outward sign of his Glimpse with the thoroughness of long practice. "Actually, if the Corps would let me, I'd probably go ahead and trade on a bit of that familial fame after all, if it would let me spend an extra day or so right here instead of heading straight back. Trust me, even a Calirath's imperal arse gets damned tired of a saddle after a week or two! Unfortunately, they want these people?and you?back up the chain as quickly as we can get you there."

"Me?" Something almost like suspicion flared at the backs of Kinlafia's eyes.

"Of course you." Janaki snorted. "I'm almost positive that a direct order for you to report to First Director Limana ASAP is headed back down the Voice chain to you right this minute. You're the closest thing we've got to an actual eyewitness of the original attack, and you accompanied Platoon-Captain Arthag's column all the way back here. And you were part of the fight here at the portal; you were one of the first men into their encampment; and you're the only Voice?and the only observer of any sort who also happens to have perfect recall?who was here for all of that. You think, perhaps, the Powers That Be might be just a little interested in your offhand impressions of those events?"

Kinlafia blinked again, and his expression changed from one of suspicion to one of comprehension … and fear.

"I don't?"

"Stop," Janaki interrupted. "Don't say it."

"Don't say it?" Kinlafia repeated, and Janaki shook his head.

"You were about to say that you didn't see how your impressions could be all that important," he said almost gently. "You were about to point out that you're not a trained military man, that Company-Captain chan Tesh and Platoon-Captain Arthag are much better information sources on the actual fighting here, and on the enemy's tactics. And you're about to say that Petty Captain Yar's had much more contact with the prisoners, especially the wounded ones, than you have. Right?"

"Something along those lines," Kinlafia said slowly, and Janaki shrugged.

"All of which is beside the point," he said. "As, I'm afraid, is how much I know it's going to hurt to answer all the questions people have for you."

This time there was no mistaking the gentleness in his voice. Yet it was a stern, inflexible gentleness. One that admitted that the owner of that voice understood how much pain even the most gentle interrogation would inflict, yet never backed away from the necessity of that interrogation. And one which somehow managed both to acknowledge the pain and Kinlafia's fear without in any way diminishing them. To sympathize with them in a way that offered the strength to overcome them rather than simple commiseration.

Kinlafia stared at the young officer who'd asked him to call him by his first name and realized that whether Janaki chan Calirath recognized it or not, that endless line of imperial ancestors stood behind him. There was, Kinlafia realized, not an ounce of arrogance in the young man who would one day wear the Winged Crown in the imperial throne room in Estafel. But the blood of Erthain the Great still flowed in his veins, and the mysterious magnetism which had led men and women to follow the Caliraths straight into the fire?and into the pages of legend?for over five thousand years glowed inside him.

Balkar chan Tesh and Delokahn Yar had been trying to get Kinlafia to face the inevitable for almost a week now, ever since the portal attack, and they'd failed. Now, in two short sentences, Crown Prince Janaki had succeeded.

And he's not even my Crown Prince, the Voice thought with a strange mix of despair, amusement, and surrender.

"All right, Your Highness," he said finally. "You're right. I know you are. But it's not going to be easy. Not at all."

"I realize that," Janaki acknowledged, then glanced up at the afternoon sun. "Look," he said, "it must be about time for supper. Why don't we let this rest until after we've eaten? If you're agreeable, we'll drop by my tent after we eat, drag out a bottle of Bernithian whiskey, and get down to it."

"Of course," Kinlafia said. And to his credit, Janaki thought, he actually managed to sound as if he thought it was a good idea.