The Road to Hell

Chapter Twenty-Six

January 16

The air in Portalis was oppressive. The walls of the duke’s townhouse, where he stood, alone, staring out at the city from his bedroom window, were worse than oppressive. They seemed to close in around him like the jaws of a vise until he felt himself gasping like a winded runner.

There were doubtless some Sharonians whose hearts were large enough and gentle enough to forgive Arcana-or at least those Arcanans not directly responsible-for what Harshu the Butcher had done. Jathmar wasn’t one of them. He wasn’t sure he could ever forgive these people for that series of atrocities. It was all he could do to forgive Jasak and Gadrial and Jasak’s parents, all of whom had gone to great extremes trying to make what amends they could.

It wasn’t enough. The score Jathmar needed to settle just kept getting larger by the day, and he cherished his anger, rubbing the hands of his soul above its heat. Yet even as he did, he knew a very real component of that anger was directed-irrationally, to be sure, but still directed-against himself. Against his inability to do anything to protect himself, his world…or Shaylar.

Standing now in front of the carefully spelled window that would neither allow him to leave nor allow anything from the outside to enter, staring in silence at the capital city of his captors, Jathmar was forced to admit that not all Arcanans were outright monsters. Indeed, the fact that Shaylar wasn’t with him today only confirmed that. The duke had flatly-and curtly-denied every request that she return to the court-martial for further testimony. For that matter, the duchess had actually picked up a daggerstone and promised to kill any soldier who tried to drag Shaylar back into a courtroom-any courtroom.

The Commandery, thrown into total disarray, had backed down, which was why Shaylar remained safely at the Ducal Palace outside Portalis, where the duchess had vowed to remain at her side during every moment of Jathmar’s absence. She’d canceled every other appointment and made it perfectly clear that during her husband’s absence, she commanded Garth Showma’s personal armsmen and that the Garth Showma Guard would meet any attempt to intrude upon Shaylar with unyielding force. The depth of the duchess’ devotion to Shaylar had caught him by surprise.

Even more telling, in some ways, was the duke’s reaction. Jasak’s father had presented Jathmar with documents bestowing a lifetime income-a very comfortable income, so far as Jathmar could tell-upon him and his wife. Half of it came from a trust funded entirely by the duke and his wife, which hadn’t really surprised him, given how seriously they took Jasak’s position as their baranal. What had surprised, him, however, was the fact that the other half had come from the Union of Arcana’s Parliament as the result of a piece of legislation Thankhar Olderhan had rammed through Parliament in less than twenty-four hours.

Jathmar doubted any of the legislators who’d voted for it had the least idea what had driven the duke’s unyielding determination. They didn’t know-yet-what their army had been doing in Sharona’s universes. He found it very hard to remind himself of that, and part of him burned with the need to hurl his own knowledge into their teeth. But he couldn’t. There were so many reasons he couldn’t…including the fact that they had no official proof of what was happening.

Jathmar hated admitting that. And that burning part of him didn’t really care about all the reasons to keep his mouth shut. The shame and the rage the duke and Jasak felt was genuine. He knew that. But Arcana wasn’t his country, and the fact that someone might be trying to manipulate the situation to undercut Andara and the Union Army meant exactly nothing to him. Let them come down in ruin! They were the ones who’d killed his friends, almost killed him and Shaylar, invaded the universes claimed by Sharona treacherously, under cover of negotiations, and slaughtered every Voice in their path!

That part of him wanted only to hurl the money back into Thankhar Olderhan’s face, but he couldn’t. First, because he was a penniless beggar with a wife and one day, if the gods were kind, a family to support, and beggars couldn’t afford pride. The money would at least give Shaylar and him a measure of independence. They could pay for their own clothing, their own personal items, without the indignity and shame of having to ask for such basic necessities. And, second, because another part of him did know Olderhan was just as determined as his son to find the men behind the Union of Anccara’s murderous crimes and bring them to justice.

So he’d accepted the money, if not the conciliatory gesture Parliament’s contribution to it represented. That, he would never accept, and he’d told the duke so while signing the requisite records with a stylus that recorded his signature in the personal crystal designated to hold Jathmar’s financial affairs. Still, it was a beginning, at least. A first painful step on the road toward true autonomy. At times like this, alone in a spell-locked room, waiting for Jasak’s trial to resume tomorrow, the dream of freedom to come and go as they chose seemed so remote, so unattainable, he might as well have reached for the moon by climbing a ladder too short to touch the sky.

Shaylar, love, I need you beside me tonight. Separated like this, Jathmar felt only half alive, as though his soul had been ripped down the center. Shaylar was too far away for him to sense her through their damaged marriage bond, and he regretted, again, his decision to support her crusade to join a survey crew.

It was undoubtedly as irrational as blaming himself because he couldn’t protect her now, but that made the regret no less bitter, no less intense. Reasonable or not, he simply could not shake off the belief that he was the one who’d brought her to this, to such terrible suffering. Had he known…had he even suspected…But this was one risk they’d never considered.

Tomorrow he must face his captors’ relentless questions alone. He knew, already, that he’d spit in their faces before he would reveal anything of military value. He didn’t care, any longer, if their lie-detection spells caught him in an outright fabrication. The rules had changed, permanently, when the duke shared his suspicions with them.

In his memory, he saw again the crossbow quarrel slam into Ghartoun’s throat, choking him to death on blood and steel. Saw again the lightning bolt slam into Barris Kassell. Felt, again, the searing agony of the fireball igniting his hair, his clothing, his very skin. Saw the dragons attacking Shaylar outside a fort. Saw the whole sorry parade of soldiers, politicians, and even servants who looked at them with hatred, with the desire to injure, to strip their very minds bare.

The hatred in his heart ran to the bottom of his soul.

But how could one prisoner exact retribution?

He stood in front of his darkened window, gazing out at the blazing sea of lights that sparkled and glittered and danced across Portalis’ rooftops, domes, spires, and crystalline towers. Another fireworks display detonated in the darkness above the city, spreading a sparkling pattern of light across the stars.

They weren’t true fireworks, of course, since there was no gunpowder involved. They were silent light displays, sent racing skyward by Gifted wizards who performed “sky light” shows for momentous occasions such as state anniversaries, religious holidays, or the celebration of invading and slaughtering people who’d never done Arcanan citizens harm.

From his room high above the rooftops, Jathmar could see the crowds in the streets, tonight. There was a festival underway in Portalis-a rally in support of the Union of Arcana’s “heroic defenders.” He’d seen news crystal reports of other rallies just like it, watched the recorded images as people danced and laughed, consumed sweetmeats and sparkling wine and made toasts to the downfall of Sharona’s portal forts and towns.

Now, as he watched those distant fireworks, the pain in his heart was too deep to express in mere words. Somehow, he vowed, someday, Sharona would avenge those murdered Voices. Someday, somewhere in the widely scattered universes, a Sharonian soldier would avenge the slaughtered civilians in those towns, in Jathmar’s crew. Somehow, Sharona would force Arcana to pay for its sins. All Jathmar could do was pray for that moment to arrive before too many more innocents lost their lives.

He turned away from the “sky light,” soul-sick. He dimmed the window, using a spell-powered controller to turn the “glass” opaque, so the celebration wouldn’t shine into his eyes all night. That done, he climbed into bed and turned out the lights. Tomorrow would be here all too soon.

He needed to be ready for it.