The Road to Hell

Chapter Seventeen

January 9

Garth Showma.

Jasak had forgotten how much he loved it…until an unwary glance out the slider window snatched him up out of the briefing he’d been conducting for his shardonai. The sight of the first cluster of snow-draped forest pulled the heart-hunger up into his throat, with a fierce power made even stronger by how many terrible things had happened since his last visit home, and he stared out that window, unaware of emotion which had transfigured his expression in that moment. The winter struck trees of the ducal estate, which ran in forests thirty miles on a side, had been lovingly maintained in their pristine, virgin condition over most of its vast extent, and he drank in their icy beauty like strong wine. Despite two full centuries of settlement, Garth Showma was a jewel of natural beauty, punctuated by the massive Showma Falls.

He’d been showing Jathmar and Shaylar the maps as they traveled by slider for the last portion of their three-month long inter-universal journey, comfortably ensconced in their own private car.

And comfortable in more than one way. That thought sent a wave of mingled darkness and satisfaction through him, pulling him back almost brutally from his thoughts of home, and his glance moved from the trees to the end windows where another slider car was now coupled to the rear of their own. It bore the colors of the Dukes of Garth Showma, that other car, nor was it alone; there was an identical car coupled to the front of theirs, as well.

Jasak’s messages to his father had reached home just over a month ago, and his father’s reply had been waiting at the incoming slider station in the city of Theskair in New Ransar-three universes, eight thousand miles, and fourteen days’ travel from Garth Showma. He’d expected a hummer message; what he’d gotten was a security team-a very professional, highly trained, very dedicated, and heavily armed security team from the Garth Showma Guard commanded by Commander of One Hundred Hathysk Forhaylin.

Forhaylin’s presence had been all the message Jasak really needed about how seriously his father took events down-universe. Hundred Forhaylin had served in the 2nd Andaran Scouts with Thankhar Olderhan and Otwal Threbuch. When the duke retired, Threbuch had stayed in the Scouts, but Forhaylin had followed his duke out of the Union Army and become second in command of the Garth Showma Guard, the personal guard whose men-whose Andaran men-were all sworn to the service of the Duke of Garth Showma as their liege lord, not as the Governor of New Arcana. They answered to Thankhar Olderhan directly…and Hathysk Forhaylin was the man he sent out when he expected blood in the streets.

Jasak was just as happy Shaylar and Jathmar had been unaware of that minor point. And he was also happy Forhaylin had briefed him very privately on the occasional anti-Sharona riots which had already occurred.

“His Grace,” the dark-haired, bearded hundred had said, sunlight bright on the silver beginning to color his temples, “is…perturbed by the dearth of additional formal reports from Hells Gate.” He’d met Jasak’s eyes levelly. “The absence of official dispatches has left people-and the news services, of course-free to make up whatever rumors they want, and some of them are pretty damned ugly. It didn’t help when word that hostilities have been resumed arrived without any real explanation of why, either. The natural assumption in New Arcana is that the Sharonians must have broken them off, but we don’t actually know anything about the circumstances. I believe His Grace shares your own suspicion that the absence of any official explanation-or several other critical aspects of events out there-may not be accidental.”

That was certainly one way to describe his “suspicions,” Jasak had thought grimly, and he’d hated having to share the news that the fighting had flared up again with his shardonai. They’d taken it just as badly as he’d expected them to, and it had taken almost a week for them to regain their comfortable relationship-or as comfortable as it had ever been-with one another.

That reflection finished the process of drawing him back to his present duty. They didn’t have that much longer until they arrived now, and he smiled a brief apology at the others for his distraction and bent back over the map on the table.

“The Duchy of Garth Showma stretches from the Ocean of Storms in the east to the western-most of the Great Andaran Lakes,” he said, and pointed to an immense span of territory that corresponded, roughly, to the Republic of Faltharia where Jathmar had been born.

“Technically, we own all of it,” he continued, smiling at the Sharonian’s expression, “but the vast bulk of it’s been permanently deeded to freeholders of one sort and another.” He shrugged. “Unless someone dies intestate or the land is seized for nonpayment of taxes or something like that, we don’t really have much to say about its disposition. The family’s personal demesne, Garth Showma, itself, is much smaller, of course. It lies here, where the Showma River drops over a horseshoe-shaped cliff that forms the Showma Falls. They’re one of the two largest waterfalls on New Arcana-and every other universe, of course.”

Jathmar nodded. “In Sharona, we call it the Grand Emlin Falls. I was born here,” he pointed to a spot on Jas Olderhan’s map, “in the city of Serakai in the Republic of Faltharia.”

“How did you like growing up with all those winter blizzards?” Jasak asked. “I got so tired of them as a kid.”

Jathmar chuckled. “Serakai means ‘city of snow.’ I can remember winters when blizzards piled up drifts thirty feet high.”

“So can I,” Jasak told him with a grin, and the two of them turned in perfect unison, as though they’d rehearsed it, to check the cold clear skies out the window.

Shaylar, who’d grown up in the hot deserts of Shurkhal, looked from one to the other, then grimaced at Gadrial.

“I’d never even seen snow, until I married Jathmar. We held the wedding at his parents’ home, as Faltharian custom calls for, during the mid-winter solstice festival,” she said. “Winter solstice is considered a fortunate time for weddings in Faltharia. Personally, I think that’s just because there’s nothing else to do in Faltharia during the winter.” She shivered. “It took weeks to get warm, again.”

“We just missed Snowfall Night,” Jasak said wistfully. “It lasts a fortnight, but all the best parades are on the shortest day of the year.”

“So you two think you’ve seen snow, do you?” Gadrial asked, looking back and forth between the two men, and laughed softly. “Babes in arms, the pair of you! If you want to see real weather, you should try spending a winter in Ransar. It’s not uncommon for the temperature to drop thirty or forty degrees below zero, for weeks at a time. My first winter away from home was a delightful shock. I didn’t have to bundle up in furs or tie a safety line to my waist even once, just to keep from losing my way between my parents’ house and the barn to feed the livestock.”

Shaylar shuddered. “Thank you, but I’ll pass on that offer.”

“That sounds remarkably like how people in Sharona deal with blizzards. There’s not some magic to find your way through the snow?” Jathmar said.

“There’s a whole field of applied magic for that,” Gadrial explained, “but when it gets cold enough, sarkolis gets brittle. When that happens, the crystals tend to crack-which does horrible damage to the stored spells. It’s best to have a safety line.”

Jasak tapped the map to bring their attention back to his lecture. “Ahem. Now, then. The demesne lies along the river. You can see the falls from the ducal palace, which is my parents’ main house. They maintain another in Portalis, the city that sprawls along both sides of Arcana’s first portal.” He tapped the map, where a symbol in red ink marked the location of the portal.

“My father lives on the estate and governs all of Garth Showma directly in his own right-it’s complicated,” he added as Shaylar and Jathmar frowned at him. “Like I said, in theory the Olderhan family owns the entire duchy; actually, it’s more a matter of everyone who lives in it owing fealty to the Duke of Garth Showma as their liege lord. But that’s a personal relationship between him and them. He governs the rest of New Arcana in the name of the Union of Arcana, and none of the other citizens of New Arcana owe him any sort of personal fealty.”

“But the governorship is also hereditary, right?” Jathmar asked in the tone of someone wanting to be very sure he has something straight.

“Yes,” Jasak agreed, nodding encouragingly.

“Then how can the people he governs not owe him personal fealty?”

“Like Jasak said, it’s complicated,” Gadrial put in with a wry grin. “In fact, it’s complicated even for an Andaran. Just take his word for it that Duke Thankhar has two different personas: one is Duke of Garth Showma and the other one is Governor of New Arcana. They just happen to both live in the same body.”

“Right. ‘Complicated,’” Jathmar muttered, and Jasak chuckled.

“Don’t worry too much about the details, Jath. The important point for us is that my parents can get away with living on the estate because of how close it is to the capital, Portalis. Or, rather, to the side of the city on New Arcana, not the side on Arcana Prime. Of course, when his duties call him to the capital, he and mother stay in their town house in Portalis, which is considerably smaller than the ducal palace.”

“Hah!” Gadrial interjected once more. “Small is relative. I’ve never been to the ducal palace, mind, but I’ve passed that so-called town house hundreds of times. It fills an entire city block. Not one side of the block; the whole block.”

Jasak looked exasperated. “Well, it has to be large, since it houses the government administration staff for the whole of New Arcana, Gadrial! The family lives in a very small portion of the house.”

“How many rooms?” she asked in a sweet tone, and he scowled.

“I don’t remember, exactly,” he muttered.

“Oh, just a close estimate will do.” She actually batted her eyelashes. Jasak turned red, and Shaylar suppressed a splutter of laughter as she recognized the ploy.

“Uh…maybe thirty?” he said finally, and Gadrial sat back in queen-like satisfaction.

“I rest my case.”

Shaylar couldn’t help it. The laugh she’d struggled right womanfully to restrain broke loose in a bubble of delight, and Gadrial nodded to her in the shared satisfaction of their gender while Jasak rubbed the back of his neck, which was as hot as his face. Then he stopped rubbing and grinned sheepishly, and that let Jathmar’s chuckle surface, as well. He glanced at Jasak with a look that said, very clearly, Women. Can’t live with ’em, can’t drown ’em, might as well love ’em.

Jasak’s return glance agreed with that assessment.

Shaylar, dying of curiosity by inches, asked in the same sweet tones Gadrial had used, “Are those your parents’ only houses?”

“Well,” he said cautiously, “ah, no. Actually, there are two more. There’s a manor house at the demesne in the Earldom of Yar Khom and another smaller demesne property in the Barony of Sarkhala. Neither of those is in New Arcana, though. Those are the oldest family titles, the oldest family estates. The dukedom wasn’t created until the portal formed, two centuries ago. They’re located here,” he pointed to his map, “but in Arcana Prime, of course.”

He swept his hand down the map, indicating two tracts of land some eleven hundred miles south of Garth Showma, but on the same continent.

Yar Khom encompassed a long, narrow peninsula of sub-tropical land at the southern extremity of that continent, which jutted into the warm waters that formed-on Sharona-the meeting point of the North Vandor Ocean and the South Vandor Ocean.

“Andara,” Jasak explained, “is first and foremost a military power. Before the creation of the Union, we had the largest army on Arcana. We also had the second largest navy, for that matter. We’re an aristocracy, with a military tradition that stretches back centuries. My father’s other Arcana Prime estate, the Barony of Sarkhala, lies here.” He pointed to the large island off the southern tip of that long peninsula.

Gadrial chuckled. “The democratic republics of Ransar like to say that Andara is an army that somehow acquired a state. We’re not entirely sure how they managed that, since it makes no sense to us, either, but that’s essentially what they did.”

Jathmar blinked in surprise. “Your country’s a democracy, Gadrial? Governed by the people?”

“Oh, yes. Ransar”-she pointed to the vast sweep of land that to Sharonan eyes corresponded to the various kingdoms and empires of the Uromathian peoples, plus the entirety of the Arpathian Septentrion-“is comprised of several independent republics, with elected presidents and legislatures. We’re all part of the Union of Arcana, of course, just as Andara is, but democratic principles are very important to Ransarans.”

“Mmm,” Jasak commented.

Gadrial’s eyes sparkled. “Go ahead, Jasak. Don’t let your chivalry or stiff-necked Andaran pride stop you from commenting.” She grinned to take any implied criticism out of her comment and rolled her eyes at Jathmar and Shaylar. “‘Those unstable, chaotic Ransarans,’” she murmured in pedantic tones, “‘with their lunatic notions of personal freedom and the worth of individual initiative. They’ll be the ruin of the Union.’ You know it’s been said,” she added when Jasak gave her The Look.

“More often in Mythal than Andara,” he replied, and the sparkle of humor in her eyes flashed into a sudden anger that surprised Shaylar.

“Yes, it has,” the magister half-snapped. “Which undoubtedly explains why Ransar has the highest standard of living on Arcana, why Ransaran manufacturing capacity is twice the size of every other nation’s-or culture’s-in the world, including those self-worshipping shakira narcissists in Mythal!”

Her anger was growing almost exponentially as she very nearly spat out her words.

“And that ‘unstable chaos’ is obviously why Ransarans consistently produce more applied magic innovations than the rest of Arcana combined!” she continued, still building steam. “Not to mention the most advanced high-tech magical industry in the history of Arcana, despite the over-hyped, over-confident, self-satisfied, power-worshipping, godsdamned Mythlan control of theoretical magic research.”

The anger in her eyes had gone volcanic and she turned her furious gaze away from Jasak to meet Shaylar’s gaze.

“The shakira spend their time sitting on their backsides for long, arduous hours, toying with the interlocking magical building blocks of the multiple universes and wondering which is more profound, the religious underpinnings of the multiple universes or their own elevated place in the multiple cosmos. And while they’re staring at their navels and pondering the imponderable, Ransarans develop the tools and the technology that make their lives comfortable and easy enough to spend those lives sitting there, doing damned near nothing else. Of course, their slave labor policies are a big help. It gives the shakira lords a lot more spare time to devote to doing nothing! If I could, I’d rip their whole ugly society to shreds and send them into the fields and factories to get a dose of reality!”

“Peace, Gadrial.” Jasak leaned across and touched her wrist very gently. “I hate the shakira caste system almost as much as you do, and not because of what they’ve done to me. My family’s always sided with the garthans, and you know it, so don’t think I don’t have your back on this one. After the way they mauled you at Mythal Falls Academy, you’ve got every right to feel that way, and I’m ready to stand in line to help you! But don’t let your hate for what they are turn you into something you don’t want to be.”

Rage transmuted into sudden tears and she bit her lip. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, squeezing shut her eyes. “It’s just…I have to see Halathyn’s widow…tell her what happened, out there…and that’s raked up all the old agony, again.”

Jasak abandoned his seat and joined Gadrial in hers, and she turned toward him, resting her head against his shoulder. Shaylar recognized the tenderness in his expression and wondered if he, himself, had realized, yet, how deeply he loved Gadrial Kelbryan. While he held Gadrial close, Jasak spoke very softly, telling them what had happened to her as a student, the prejudice, the accusation of cheating, Halathyn’s defense of her, the whole sordid story.

“Did I come reasonably close?” he asked finally, looking down at her as he finished at last, and she nodded.

“Very,” she whispered. Her eyelashes were wet. “Oh, Jasak, it still hurts so desperately…”

He actually kissed her hair. She sniffled and sighed, then scrubbed her face with the back of one hand and sat up, again. She met Shaylar’s distressed gaze.

“I don’t blame you for his loss, Shaylar. Truly, I don’t. It wasn’t your fault that Halathyn…”

Her lips trembled as memory burned in her eyes, and she bit the lower one again, making herself pause and draw a deep breath.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she continued once more after a moment, her voice more ragged than she would have liked. “But Halathyn was the finest man I’ve ever known, the most gifted theoretical magister I’ve ever met, and the only Mythlan shakira who deserved courtesy and respect. As for the rest of them…”

Her eyes went hard as granite. “I detest Mythal and all the magic-using Mythlans in it! And thanks to what Halathyn built in New Arcana, we don’t need the Mythlan shakira to understand the multiple universes or theoretical magic.”

“What Halathyn started and what you built,” Jasak said mildly. When she looked uncomfortable, he chucked her chin, very gently. “Those are Halathyn’s words as much as mine. He was deeply proud of you, Gadrial. With good reason.”

Her eyes went wet again.

Jasak fished out a handkerchief and handed it over, then looked back at the two Sharonans.

“Now, then, getting back to our original conversation,” he said more briskly, “Gadrial’s made several very valid points. Not the least of which is that compared with Ransar, we Andarans are little more than barbarians with clubs in our hands.”

Gadrial chuckled, wetly-but it was a chuckle, nonetheless. “Well, yes, but you’re such adorable barbarians, it’s easy to overlook your shortcomings.” She leaned up to give him a swift kiss, an endearment that reflected the increasingly intimate relationship Jathmar and Shaylar had watched blossom over the course of their long journey.

Jasak’s face scalded. Even his ears turned red.

Shaylar had to admit that he did look awfully adorable, sitting there in his uniform, flushed with embarrassment and looking like a man who couldn’t make up his mind whether to bolt for the nearest exit or grab Gadrial by the shoulders and show her just how well barbarians could kiss their women.

He settled for clearing his throat and bending over his map again.

“Where were we?” he muttered. “Oh, yes. Explaining Garth Showma to you. Arcana’s first portal opened here, in the Grand Duchy of Tharkan, an imperial territory of the Kingdom of Elath.”

Shaylar peered at the map and frowned. The Grand Duchy was located smack in the center of what would have been the Ternathian Empire, on Sharona, and that puzzled her, since the kingdom that controlled the Grand Duchy was located on Arcana’s analog to New Farnal. Elath was all the way across the North Vandor Ocean, sandwiched between the southern region where Jasak’s father owned an earldom and a barony and the northern sweep of land that corresponded to Jathmar’s birthplace. It seemed an…odd arrangement. On Sharona, Ternathia and Farnalia had colonized and controlled, at least at first, the two connected continents of New Ternathia and New Farnal. On Arcana, the political control had run in the other direction, eastward across the North Vandor instead of westward.

“Elath was desperate to hold onto the portal, so they asked their Andaran neighbors for help. Which was immediately forthcoming, of course, since even an army that’s managed to acquire a state,” Jasak continued, eyes glinting as they met Gadrial’s, “could see the value of controlling that portal.”

Gadrial refused the bait. She merely gave him a charming smile and waited for him to go one and he grinned.

“At any rate, everybody could see the value of that portal, which meant no one wanted anyone else to control it. Particularly not Ransar and Mythal, not to mention Lokan and Yanko,” he added, touching in succession landmasses that corresponded to Arpathia/Uromathia, Ricathia, New Ternathia, and New Farnal.

“The upshot was a very nasty, intense war that lasted about five years. It fueled a truly appalling arms race as both sides developed more and more powerful battle spells. Some were literally powerful enough to wipe out whole cities. Those spells were banned, after the war came to a negotiated end.

“That war brought us right to the brink of Sharskha,” he said very quietly. Jathmar and Shaylar looked perplexed, and he grimaced. “Sorry. It’s from one of Andara’s oldest myths-a final battle between the forces of light and the forces of darkness which ends only in the entire world’s death.”

Perplexity was replaced by something else, something with an edge of disbelief, perhaps. Or the look of someone who recognized hyperbole when he heard it. Jasak saw it and laughed harshly.

“I’m not exaggerating,” he told them. “Some of the spells they came up with were so destructive they could have wiped out entire cities. One of them was used by the losing side in a major battle and effectively annihilated every man in both armies-over a hundred and ten thousand men gone, like that!” he snapped his fingers, eyes bleak. “And the researchers weren’t stopping there. They were still coming up with worse ones when the war finally ended! Thank all the gods they were banned under the terms of the final peace treaty.”

Shaylar and Jathmar exchanged horrified glances, appalled by that simple, dreadful recitation. Spells that could destroy entire cities? Would the army that had acquired a state pull those banned spells out of mothballs and use them against Sharonian cities?

“At any rate,” Jasak continued, unaware of their sudden fear, “the same treaty created a new world government-the Union of Arcana-which took control of Tharkan, where the portal was located. And that’s how the city of Portalis was born. The Arcanan side of the city is the capital of the Union of Arcana. The New Arcanan side of the city is the capital of both New Arcana and houses the Union’s Commandery, where the Union’s Army, Navy and Air Force are headquartered. It’s also where the Union’s officers are trained and where enlisted men are given basic training.

“The land for a radius of seventy miles from the New Arcanan side of the portal was originally given to old Sherstan Olderhan, the first Duke of Garth Showma, as his personal desmesne during the war, as one inducement to back up Elath’s bid to keep control of the portal. The rest of the Duchy was added later, under the peace treaties, once the Union took over the portal. The new government had to reach a negotiated settlement with Sherstan, as well as Elath, and the truth is, they came out much better with Elath.”

Gadrial made a rude sound and Jasak’s lips twitched.

“Sherstan was tenacious and he wielded enough military power to come out of that negotiation very well placed.” He conceded. “He kept most of the original land grant ceded him by Elath, the Duchy of Garth Showma was created and placed under his direct, hereditary rule, and he ended up named Governor of New Arcana, as well. At the time the entire planet amounted to a howling wilderness, so it probably seemed like a reasonable bargain to the Union’s negotiators. Of course, things have changed a bit over the last couple of centuries.

“Anyway, in return for its concessions to Sherstan, the Union received everything within a twenty-mile radius of the portal, on the New Arcanan side. The seated duke owns the next fifty miles in every direction, which forms the demesne of Garth Showma. A fairly large chunk of that land’s rented-technically sub-enfeoffed-to the city and the Union’s Commandery, though. The city of Portalis expanded across the entire twenty-mile swath of land controlled by the Union pretty quickly, and the Dukes of Garth Showma wanted to see the Union prosper, so they were inclined to be reasonable. For certain values of ‘reasonable,’ at least.

“Early on there was a lot of bluster about convincing the King of Elath to change the terms of enfeoffment to give the entire original demesne to the Union, instead of just the inner twenty-miles. But old Sherstan was a stubborn fellow, and since the territory of the duchy and its demesne were a part of the Union’s founding treaty, the King of Elath-who happened to be his first cousin, did I mention that? — had no interest in bowing to outside pressures. Besides, Sherstan had no desire to be too greedy. Not only did he want to see the Union prosper, he also recognized that being too unreasonable might just convince his cousin the king to go along with the folks doing all of the blustering. So he made a counter offer.

“That’s how the Union ended up renting part of the ducal estate, instead. My ancestors have kept the rents very low, but the Union needed a large parcel and the rents were assessed per acre, on a sliding scale to reflect changing land values over time. Over the two centuries since that agreement was signed, those rents have provided my family with a very comfortable income.”

“Comfortable?” Gadrial echoed. “Sweet Rahil, Jasak, your father’s the richest man on New Arcana! Maybe the richest back on Arcana Prime too.”

“No, not on Arcana,” Jasak corrected her promptly. “There are at least half a dozen Mythlan shakira caste lords that outstrip his total portfolio, some by a considerable margin. But on the whole,” he agreed, “we’ve done well for ourselves. And I’ll admit we periodically bless Great-Great-Great-Something-or-Other-Grandfather Sherstan’s stiff-necked Andaran stubbornness. Otherwise, we’d have blue blood, a lot of beach sand in Andara, and not much else.”

Gadrial leaned back in her seat, chuckling. “It’s impossible to remain exasperated with you, Jasak. If I were in your shoes, I’d bless him, too.”

“I’m glad you approve,” he replied mildly. “Now, then, back to our discussion…” He met Jathmar’s gaze. “You and Shaylar will be staying with my family, permanently. You’ll move with us whenever we shift residences, whether it’s moving into the townhouse in Portalis for the social season or traveling through the portal and crossing the original Ocean of Storms on Arcana Prime, to spend part of the winter at the Earldom of Yar Khom or the Barony of Sarkhala.”

“I thought we were required to live with you, Jasak. You don’t have your own house?” Jathmar asked, surprised, and Jasak shrugged.

“I keep an apartment in Portalis, but I don’t use it all that often. Both the ducal palace and the town house are large enough, my parents and I can live in the same house and still maintain our privacy. The palace has four wings, all connected to the central tower, and each wing has about eighty rooms.”

Shaylar’s mouth fell open. “Mother Marthea!” One wing of that house was larger than the King of Shurkhal’s entire palace!

“That’s where we’ll stay, at any rate, and I think you’ll like it better than the town house. The portion of the estate not rented to the Commandery’s been left largely pristine, still covered in heavy mature growth forest. That’s where I learned my basic woodcraft as a boy.”

“That’s something else we share, then,” Jathmar murmured. “I learned mine in the Kylie Forest, which corresponds almost exactly to your demesne. It’s a major national park, set aside for public use. I very nearly lived in that forest, as a boy.”

The two men looked at one another with a shared smile, and Shaylar’s heart warmed as she saw it. She and Gadrial had become close friends, during their journey, but Jasak and Jathmar had remained at a distance from one another, for reasons she understood only too well. Her husband had lost his closest friends in the savagery of Toppled Timber-friends he would never be able to replace, given their status as permanent prisoners in their captors’ society-and he bitterly missed the easy camaraderie of the explorer’s lifestyle.

As a Voice, Shaylar had always been connected back to life in Sharona through the Voice network. Some of the team had craved that connection and routinely wanted updates on the settled universes they’d left behind, but Jathmar had never been like that. As intimately connected as their marriage bond made them, Jathmar could have relived news updates as vividly as if he were a Voice himself. Instead he’d reveled in the experience of the new universes and the time tracking through pristine worlds with their team. The Union of Arcana and Jasak Olderhan had taken that away from him. Their lives and the lifestyle they’d loved were gone for good.

But here in New Arcana, Jasak’s family had preserved a piece of Jathmar’s home forest, kept it nearly as pristine as in a brand new universe, and Shaylar watched the two men lean in to discuss childhood woodsmanship and identical landmarks in very different universes with a glint of hope.

If Jasak and Jathmar could somehow learn to trust one another enough to become friends-genuine friends-Shaylar would be grateful for the rest of her life.

She sighed and sat back in her seat. After the intense stress of capture and the unending strain of imprisonment, it would be wonderful to stop traveling, to settle down in one place, a private home, no matter how large that home might be. She ached to crawl into a bed, knowing she’d actually sleep in it more than once or twice. And it would be a major blessing to never again sprawl wearily in a succession of military forts, slidercars, ships, or dragon saddles.

It had been so long since she’d lived in a real house, rather than a tent or the temporary accommodations they’d used on this long journey, that she’d nearly forgotten what it was like. And if that house was to be their prison, there would at least be a beautiful forest to walk through. If, she bit her lip, they were allowed to walk through it.

Or, for that matter, if it was safe for them to walk through it. She’d noticed how carefully Jasak didn’t speak about the reasons Hundred Forhaylin and his men had joined them in New Ransar. She didn’t think he’d have been so reticent if he hadn’t wanted to shield her and Jathmar from still more bad news, and they’d seen more than enough hostility out of all too many of the Arcanans with whom they’d come in contact on their journey from Hell’s Gate.

Jathmar caught a glimmer of her feeling and slid an arm around her. She leaned against him, much as Gadrial had leaned against Jasak, and drew great comfort from the warmth and the aura of protectiveness that wrapped around her. But even that was a source of sorrow. It continued to be more and more difficult for them to “read” one another, despite the marriage bond. They still hadn’t spoken to Gadrial or Jasak about it, and nothing had changed their reasons for that. If something was weakening their Talents-and it was getting even worse; even the range of Jathmar’s Mapping Talent had been drastically reduced and continued to dwindle almost daily-that was potentially deadly military intelligence. They couldn’t let anyone know, not even Jasak and Gadrial, but the steady erosion distressed them both, and the fact that they couldn’t explain it-to themselves, much less to anyone else-only added uncertainty to the distress. And there was already more than enough of both those things in their lives, without adding more to the load.

At least Jasak had done what he could to reduce their worry about the end of this journey. And much as she suspected she wouldn’t have liked all the reasons Duke Garth Showma had sent Hundred Forhaylin to escort them, she was also profoundly grateful for his presence for at least one reason. Like Jasak, the duke appeared determined to minimize the temptation of the Arcanan high command-the “Commandery,” Jasak called it-to break its own custody rules and seize Jathmar and Shaylar. That could have happened at any of the weary progression of military dragonfields and forts through which they’d passed, out of sight of any civilian agency or witnesses, and the temptation to do just that must have grown steadily greater as the ominous official silence from the war front stretched longer. That was the real reason, she knew, Jasak had used commercial sliders rather than using military transport ever since they passed through the universe of Pegasus, two universes before even New Ransar.

Shaylar had begun to truly believe how wealthy and powerful the Olderhan family was as she watched Jasak chartering private slidercars-not just tickets, entire sliders-in his father’s name…and seen the alacrity with which everyone from station masters to concierges to maitre d’s scurried to do his bidding. That belief had been an indescribable relief as it seeped into her bones, and Hundred Forhaylin was further proof of the power of the family whose sense of honor had become her and her husband’s only protection.

There’d been another sign of that family’s-or at least their baranal’s-sense of honor, too. Jasak had picked up a new dress uniform from the post store at Shaisal Air Base, just outside Chemparas, the largish city at the portal between Basilisk and Manticore. But the base didn’t have anything suitable for Jathmar and Shaylar or Gadrial. He’d apologized to them all for that, but it wasn’t until Forhaylin and his men turned up in New Ransar that she’d realized why apologizing was all he’d done. Once the security team was on-site with them, he’d taken all three of them on a shopping spree in Theskair…with a wary-eyed squad of the Garth Showma Guard prominently displayed everywhere they went.

The shopping trip had surprised them, since Shaylar and Jathmar had picked up practical Arcanan-style clothing along the way; but Jasak hadn’t wanted them to arrive in Portalis wearing workmen’s sturdy clothes. They might be prisoners, but they were political prisoners more than anything else, and their status was high enough to warrant the finest clothing available. Particularly since Arcana had done them sufficient injury to make any reparations he could offer them a high personal priority.

First impressions were also important, he’d explained with a very sober expression. His parents would do their best to see Jathmar and Shaylar as foreigners, not bound by the same social conventions as Arcanans-any Arcanans, let alone Andarans-but having them show up in the kind of clothing the family’s gardener wore would make it difficult for other people to treat them with respect.

Gadrial had been impressed that he’d recognized the problem, when he broached the subject with her earlier. And when he’d asked for her advice, she’d plunged into the spirit of things with childlike glee.

The results were well worth it. Shaylar had been transformed from a sturdy, tough-as-hickory pioneer into a stunningly graceful young woman. She wore the silks Gadrial had chosen like a queen, and the current Arcanan ladies’ fashions, with their nipped-in waists and clean, elegant lines suited her petite stature. She would’ve been swallowed whole by the ruffles and flutters that had been popular when Jasak had left New Arcana for the frontier, but now-! If she’d been single, instead of married, Jasak would’ve been hard-pressed to turn away smitten suitors, her status as political prisoner notwithstanding, Gadrial thought, watching Shaylar run her fingers down a long, silken sleeve with absent sensuality.

Not that Shaylar had been the only one to profit from the expedition.

Now Jasak had to swallow a laugh as he, too, watched from the corner of one eye as Shaylar stroked her shirtwaist’s sleeve and remembered the other side of the excursion…and his own reaction to it. Gadrial was close enough to Shaylar’s shape and size for the styles and silks to be stunning on her, as well, and he’d gotten his first taste of jealousy when they left the first boutique, with Gadrial and Shaylar each wearing one of the ensembles they’d just purchased. The long, appreciative male glances at Gadrial, in particular, had left Jasak with rising blood pressure and a need to stomp hard on an equal rise in irritability. He’d gotten used to being the only unattached male in Gadrial’s company.

He hadn’t liked the change.

The intoxicating scent she’d picked up hadn’t helped. The perfume was some earthy and exotic Ransaran concoction that punched him in the gut with the first whiff. Whatever it was, it smelled totally different on the two women despite the fact that he’d seen them both dabbing various pulse points from the same little bottle. On Shaylar, it was evocative of the wilderness and endless forests drenched with patches of sunlight and droplets of water from the last rain.

On Gadrial…

It should’ve been illegal on Gadrial.

To distract himself, he’d studied Jathmar critically, comparing him with the well-dressed men on the streets and in the lines at the slider station, and he’d come to the conclusion that Gadrial and the salesman had done equally well by Jathmar.

Jathmar was a rather non-descript fellow in a lot of ways, the kind of man most people wouldn’t glance at twice, neither handsome nor homely. But he was in very good physical condition, if not the hardened, top-notch condition of military veterans on active duty. He not only wore the current styles well and contrived to look surprisingly distinguished, he moved well in them, with the kind of cat-like grace trained athletes possessed. Once the uneasiness at finding himself in unfamiliar, expensive clothes wore off, he’d been transformed from a man who faded into the background into one who commanded intent glances from unattached women. He would certainly pass muster with Jasak’s family and servants.

On the whole, the shopping trip had been well worth the time and money spent on it. As their slider whipped silently across the miles, following the shining dotted path of crystal control nodes, Jasak felt better about their reception in his parents’ household. As to their reception into Arcanan society…That, he knew, would depend largely on how the press chose to portray the events at the frontier, and that wasn’t looking good. By now, everyone knew the fighting had resumed, but still there was no official explanation of how and why, and in its absence, the rumors only grew more extreme every day.

Now, watching Jathmar and Shaylar, particularly the lovely woman his men had come so close to killing, Jasak felt an ominous foreboding about the future-his own and theirs and both of their people’s. Jasak’s culture and theirs should have been able to meet one another peacefully, for they shared enough common ground to form genuine friendships. Watching Shaylar and Gadrial together was proof of that. If only that incompetent bastard Garlath-

He cut short that thought. Yes, Garlath had effectively started the war, but Jasak had been Garlath’s commanding officer. The blame might be Garlath’s, but the responsibility had been his, and he fully expected a court-martial. But the question of how the Commandery’s officers would vote on that court was as up in the air as everything else, and until that court-martial was out of the way and resolved, one way or the other, he could make no plans for his own future.

His stomach seemed to congeal inside him as that familiar thought went thought him once more, and his glance lingered on Gadrial, who was busy poring over her PC, studying the Sharonian primer she and Shaylar had put together. She was now very nearly as proficient in their language as the Sharonians were in Andaran, and her expression was rapt with a scholar’s joy as she worked on becoming even more proficient. Jasak’s heart twisted as he watched that expression, watched the light play across Gadrial’s face while the slider whipped across the last hundred miles toward home.

He wanted Gadrial to share that home with him.

Desperately.

He hadn’t spoken to her about that. Not yet. And as the final miles flashed past, all the reasons he hadn’t-the reasons he couldn’t-crashed in upon him. It was like a vast weight, slamming down on him, blotting away the amusement he’d felt only a moment before. The moment was coming when he’d have to say something to her…one way or the other. And he couldn’t. He simply couldn’t.

He wasn’t free, couldn’t be free, to say a single thing to her about his hopes and dreams. He didn’t want to think about what it would mean to him, personally, if a court-martial found him guilty, and not because of whatever sentence it might hand down. A woman like Gadrial deserved the very best in life, not a future tied to a man drummed out of the military in disgrace. He wouldn’t-could never-even ask her to endure that.

Yet even if he was acquitted, would a Ransaran whose deeply held convictions about personal worth had been tested and turned to granite in the volcanic fires of Mythlan prejudice, even be willing to accept a proposal that would tie her to an Andaran officer and aristocrat? Submerge her in the suffocating web of obligations and honor-debts that comprised the only world Jasak truly understood? She’d had years of experience with Andaran customs during her time at the Garth Showma Institute, but that was a very different thing from joining that culture. She and Magister Halathyn had been enormously respected scholars and teachers, and that’s what she still was. In their cases, Andaran custom had accommodated itself to them, not the other way around, and rightly so. But if he asked her to share his life, he wasn’t simply asking her to live in Garth Showma with him, or even to accept the outer forms of culture and custom. He was asking her to marry the heir to Garth Showma, to accept the knowledge that one day he would become Duke…and she would become Duchess. One of the things he’d learned about her-one of the things he most loved about her-was that she would never, ever shirk an obligation she’d assumed, and she wouldn’t shirk that one…if she accepted him.

He didn’t see how she could.

True, one day he would be Duke of Garth Showma, a man of immense political power and wealth, whatever happened to his military career. Assuming, of course, that none of the charges which might be levied against him carried the death sentence. But the mere inheritance of a title would carry less weight with Ransarans than with almost anyone else in the Union of Arcana. Many of them actively despised hereditary titles and the-in their opinion-unearned power that went with a mere accident of birth. Gadrial wasn’t one to be prejudiced against someone by the mere fact that he possessed a title, but she was no friend of aristocratic privilege, either. If she ever had been, her time in Mythal would undoubtedly have cured her of the infatuation!

Why should one of the most gifted theoretical magisters-Ransaran theoretical magisters-in the entire Union chain herself to a man who might soon find himself stripped of his commission and utterly disgraced? A lesser woman might accept him based on the Olderhan wealth and title, but no amount of money could make a man worthy of Gadrial Kelbryan. She was too exceptional, too accomplished, too brilliant in her own right-too strong-to ever live as a man’s shadow. She deserved everything. He could only complicate her life and add extra responsibilities to interfere with her passion for magical research.

And even if she might be willing to entertain the thought of accepting his proposal, what about her family? How did they feel about aristocrats? What if, unlike her, they did despise the very concept of aristocracy? And how would they feel about his dishonor if the court-martial did strip him of his rank and expel him from the military in disgrace? About the part he’d played, whatever a court decided, in launching the first inter-universal war in human history?

He was afraid to even suggest his parents travel to Ransar and speak with hers, for what could Sathmin Olderhan say in his defense? “He didn’t mean to” was such a paltry apology for the man who’d begun a war that had already claimed the life of Gadrial’s mentor. Not the kind of troth gift that convinced a family to permit an engagement. But the thought of her going out of his life-the thought of one of those men on the streets of New Ransar standing beside her, instead-left him feeling like the ashes of last week’s campfire: cold and gray and utterly desolate.

Perhaps it was the intensity of his inner turmoil or perhaps it was just the helpless stare that he couldn’t help, unable to pull his eyes away from her face, but she lifted her head, abandoning the display on her personal crystal to meet his eyes. The instant their gazes touched, a jolt like lightning blasted through him. Blessed Torkash, how he wanted this woman to stay in his life!

Gadrial, too, jolted when their gazes met and she saw the look-the longing, the hunger…and the fear-in his eyes. She knew in that moment, as clearly as if she’d had Shaylar’s Talent as a Voice-exactly what he was thinking, exactly what he feared…and why. She knew it, yet for a long, wrenching moment, she didn’t know what to do about it. Anything she said or did-or didn’t say or do-was likely to push him in a direction she didn’t want him to go. Then she thought about what a future without Jasak Olderhan in it would do to her.

She put away her personal crystal with brusque movements, quite suddenly angry clear through. Angry over the massive injustice of the whole situation, angry that he would back away without ever giving her the chance to say yes or no to whatever it was he wanted to say or ask her. So she stuffed her PC into its carrying case, jerked to her feet, and strode over to his seat. She felt Shaylar’s startled gaze follow her, with Jathmar’s joining it an instant later.

“Jasak,” she said in a low voice, “would you walk with me for a moment?”

Surprise flared in his eyes and a frown of uncertainty drove between his brows, but he stood up without a word. Once she was sure he’d follow, Gadrial turned and marched toward the door that led into the enclosed space between their private car and the one behind it. The instant Jasak had joined her there, closing the door behind him, she turned to glare up at him.

“Gadrial?” he asked warily, reacting to the anger surging through her.

Anger at the enormous, insufferable, idiotic weight of Andaran pride and Andaran stupidity stacked against her, against Jasak. Against them.

“You look like a man about to make a decision, Jasak Olderhan,” she said in a low, hard voice. “An irrevocable decision.”

His eyes widened. She read alarm and the beginning of genuine panic in his expression. She didn’t give those reactions time to solidify.

“I just want to make one thing perfectly clear, before you start making decisions your insufferable pride won’t let you back away from or reconsider.”

She grabbed his uniform lapels and jerked hard. He might be well over a foot taller than she was, but Gadrial was in superb physical condition and he wasn’t expecting her to jerk him forward, off balance. The instant his head was in range, she let go of his uniform, plunged her fingers through his hair, and kissed him with every ounce of creativity and passion she could summon from her admittedly limited repertoire.

Apparently his repertoire was even more limited than hers, because he simply stood there in utter shock for long seconds while she did everything she could think of, short of ripping his clothes off and seducing him right where he stood. She did things with her lips and tongue she hadn’t realized the human mouth was physically capable of doing.

A long, deep shudder ran through his whole body…

Then a groan tore loose, like a tree in the dead of winter, splitting down the center with a thunderous snap. Quite suddenly her feet were no longer touching the floor and Gadrial discovered that his repertoire was considerably more inventive than hers, after all. Her senses swam as he crushed her close, nearly breaking bones as he pulled her against a chest that was hard as granite.

She didn’t care.

Every inventive touch of his lips, his tongue, and his hands on her body wreathed Gadrial in wildfire and smoke. When they finally came up for air, she was shaking violently. And so, she realized with a sense of marvelous satisfaction, was he. They stared into one another’s eyes. His were wide and shocked.

“Does that clarify things a little, Jas Olderhan?” Her voice was soft and husky, and he swallowed once. Then-

“Yes,” he whispered. “Yes, I do believe that does, Magister Gadrial.”

“Good. Now if you’d be so kind as to put me down, we can both get on with what we were doing when you started to make a decision without all the facts.”

“What?” He blinked, then realized he still held her nestled tight against him with both feet off the floor. A sheepish look stole across his face. “Ah…” Then he muttered, “Oh, what the hell…”

By the time he broke the second devastating kiss, Gadrial’s knees were such jelly that if he had put her down, she would very probably have collapsed. One corner of his mouth crooked into a satisfied little smile as he set her down at last. To her amazement, she didn’t collapse…probably because he still had one arm firm around her.

“Does that clarify things a little more?” he asked, and brushed one fingertip across her cheek as the sense of his words finally sank in. Her breath stuttered under that exquisitely gentle touch. Then she breathed out.

“Oh, yes…that clarifies things very nicely,” she allowed.

“Good.”

He held her a long, long moment longer, then took his arm back with manifest reluctance, led her back into their slidercar, and guided her back to her seat. She couldn’t have made it there unaided. And when he settled her solicitously into her seat and handed her the carrying case with her PC, she simply held it in limp hands, still reeling from the aftershock of that second fusion of lips and thundering heartbeats.

Jasak opened the case for her and put her PC back into her hands, then resumed his own seat.

Jathmar was staring in bafflement, but when Shaylar caught Gadrial’s stunned gaze, she grinned and winked. Gadrial found herself answering that grin with a sheepish smile.

She also spent the next quarter of an hour staring at the same line of Ternathian script, without once taking in the shape of the letters, let alone what the words meant.

She was too busy being deliriously delighted with the outcome of that little experiment in cross-cultural communications. Whatever happened when they reached Portalis and Garth Showma, Gadrial had made sure Sir Jasak Olderhan understood exactly how she felt. She wasn’t going to let anybody-neither the Commandery of Arcana nor Jasak Olderhan, himself-wreck what they could build, together.

Not without a down-and-dirty fight!