She began to deal, and Shaylar nodded in understanding. The Hesmiryan Sea was what the Arcanans called the Mbisi Sea, and Gadrial was certainly right about the Narhathan beaches. Tourism was one of Teramandor Province's most lucrative industries back home in Sharona, and Teramandor beach resorts were famous throughout the multiverse.
"Anyway," Gadrial continued, "I think every universe looks emptier when you see it in the dark. It always makes me feel like there's nothing really quite real out there."
"I've felt that way a lot, lately," Shaylar said in a low voice, and Gadrial's hands paused. She looked across the table at the other woman, and her almond-shaped eyes were dark with sympathy.
"I know you have. And I wish none of this had happened to you and Jathmar."
"We know that, Gadrial." Shaylar managed a smile. "Go ahead and deal, silly!"
Gadrial smiled back and resumed dealing cards. Shaylar watched them fall, listening to the quiet, snapping sounds the cardboard rectangles made as they landed on the table top. She would never have been able to hear that sound aboard a Sharonian train moving at this speed. Indeed, the quiet, vibrationless slider cars continued to amaze her, although she and Jathmar had noticed several weaknesses, compared to old-fashioned, noisy, vibrating railroads.
It had taken them a while to realize just how big a disadvantage the absence of engines was. There was no doubt that the fact that each slider was self-propelled made the slider cars far more flexible, but the price for that flexibility was high. Each slider required its own spell accumulator, and for all their luxury, they were much more lightly built than Sharonian rolling stock . . . for reasons which had become obvious as they'd watched the Gifted technicians recharge the accumulators at the stations where they'd stopped. The spells which propelled the sliders were obviously complicated, and it took quite a while to recharge each slider's accumulator. And as Gadrial had explained, when they'd finally asked her about it, there was a reason the cars were so light. The sliders relied upon a variant of the levitation spells used by the cargo pods dragon transports often towed, and those really weren't very efficient on a tonnage basis. From what she'd said, Jathmar (who knew far more about railroads and steam engines than Shaylar did) had calculated that the Arcanans would be lucky if one of their slider cars could transport a quarter of the tonnage one of the TTE's freight cars routinely carted across the multiverse.
It's nice to think we have at least some advantages, she thought moodily as she gathered up her cards and began sorting her hand.
She glanced across the compartment to where Chief Sword Threbuch and Jathmar were engaged in a game the Arcanans called battle squares. It was a complicated, highly stylized wargame using eighteen carved pieces on each side, played across a gameboard that was nine squares wide and nine squares deep. Jathmar had turned out to be surprisingly good at it, and he was pushing Threbuch hard while Jugthar Sendahli kibitzed. She could feel his concentration—and enjoyment—through their marriage bond, and it was obvious that Sendahli was amused by Threbuch's predicament.
Shaylar was glad Jathmar was enjoying himself, but even that was flawed for her tonight. She could feel his concentration and enjoyment, yes, but not as clearly as she should have been able to. Their wedding bond was definitely weaker, and when they'd stopped for the last accumulator charge, Jathmar had tested his Mapping Talent.
It was weaker, too.
In a way, Shaylar was almost relieved. Even in Sharona, marriages and relationships sometimes proved less enduring than the people involved in them might have wished, especially in the face of unexpected stress or anxiety. Very few people could ever have been under more stress than the two of them, and she'd seen more than one marriage bond simply wither and die as the partners drifted apart. The thought of that happening to her and Jathmar was more than she could have borne, and she was almost desperately glad that there was some other reason for what was happening. But even so, the implications of their weakening bond and Jathmar's weakening Talent were nearly as frightening as the thought of losing Jathmar might have been.
They had no idea what was causing it, and Shaylar looked up from her cards. Gadrial's head was bent as she sorted her own hand, and she failed to notice the intense, almost plaintive quality of the look Shaylar gave her. The Voice wished with all her heart that she and Jathmar could discuss what was happening to them with someone, and the most reasonable someone would have been Gadrial. But Jathmar was right. They couldn't mention this to anyone—not when it was possible that the effect could be deliberately induced, even used against other Talents, by a sorceress who figured out what was happening.
Gadrial looked up, and Shaylar quickly banished her worries from her expression, if not from her emotions.
"Ready to bid?" Gadrial asked.
"Sure," Shaylar said, with a cheerfulness she was far from feeling. "Fifteen."
* * *
Afternoon sunlight slanted in through the narrow, barred windows as the outside door slammed open. Two Arcanan guards came through it, dragging a limp, semi-conscious body between them, and a third guard followed behind them, with one of their repeating crossbows cocked and loaded in his hands. The armed guard stood back, weapon ready, while one of the other two unlocked the cell door so that his companion could toss their burden through it.
Namir Velvelig moved quickly, catching Company-Captain Silkash before the all but unconscious Healer could hit the cell floor. Silkash cried out in pain as the regiment-captain caught him, and Velvelig's eyes could have frozen the heart of any Arpathian hell as he glared up at the guards.
One of them sneered at him, obviously amused by his glare, and made a taunting gesture with one hand. His mocking expression and obvious satisfaction at Silkash's broken, bloodied condition was almost enough. Almost. Yet Velvelig's iron expression never even twitched. Only those frozen eyes spoke of the fury blazing within him. The time would come. He already knew that much. The time would come when he would finally make his try and die.
But not today. Not until the moment was right and he could count on taking at least one of them with him before the bastard with the crossbow shot him down.
The guard who'd mocked him snorted with contempt, spat on the floor, then slammed the cell shut and locked it. He said something to his companion, and all three of the guards sauntered out.
Velvelig eased Silkash down on the pallet he and the other officers in their cell had put together, and the Healer twitched, hissing in anguish as Velvelig's gently testing fingers found fresh breaks in his ribs.
The regiment-captain had cuts and bruises in plenty of his own. The last two times they'd come for Silkash, Velvelig had stood in front of the Healer. He hadn't launched a single blow, hadn't threatened the guards in any way, but they'd had to club him out of the way before they could get at the Healer.
Not that it had done any good in the end.
"Sir?"
He looked down at the faint, thready voice. Silkash's left eye was open; his right was swollen shut. He'd lost several teeth along the way, as well, and his speech wasn't very clear.
"I'm here, Silky," Velvelig said quietly. "You don't look too good."
"Well, I don't feel so good, either," Silkash got out, and Velvelig's eyes burned at the Healer's feeble attempt at humor.
"Tobis?" Velvelig asked after a moment, and Silkash shook his head.
"Don't know, Sir." The bruised, bloodied face twisted. "That son-of-a-bitch was still working on him when they dragged me out."
"Whoreson!" somebody snarled behind Velvelig, but the regiment-captain only patted Silkash gently on the shoulder.
"All right, Silky. Take it easy. We'll take care of you."
"I know, Sir," Silkash whispered, and his eye slid shut.
Velvelig held up one hand, and one of the other prisoners handed him the scrap of blanket they'd soaked in their water bucket. The regiment-captain began cleaning his Healer's face, and his touch was as gentle as any woman's, while black murder seethed in his heart.
br /> Hadrign Thalmayr's sadism had a certain brutal cunning. There was no doubt in Velvelig's mind that he was going to kill Silkash and Makree in the end, but he was in no hurry to end his entertainment. Perhaps it had begun as some sort of punishment, vengeance for the "torment" he believed the Healers had deliberately inflicted upon him. If that was how it had started, though, it had gone far beyond that by now. Vengeance might have offered him the pretext, but the truth was that he enjoyed what he was doing.
He was pacing himself, rationing himself . . . giving his victims time to recover between sessions. Yet Silkash and—especially—Makree were growing steadily weaker, and no one seemed to care. Certainly no one was offering them the magical healing which had saved Velvelig's own life. However spectacular their healing powers might be, the Arcanan healers were obviously content to watch their Sharonian counterparts being slowly and brutally beaten to death without raising a finger to repair the damage.
"I don't think Tobis can take much more, Sir." Silkash's voice was a little stronger, which only made the despair in it that much clearer. "It's worse for him. It blasts his Talent open. Makes him Feel how much the son-of-a-bitch enjoys what he's doing to him."
"I know, Silky. I—"
Velvelig broke off, and his belly muscles tightened in anticipation as the outside door opened once more. But it wasn't the guards dragging Tobis Makree back into the brig, after all.
Velvelig straightened, and the fury in his heart redoubled as he recognized the wiry redhead. Thalmayr was bad enough, yet at least he appeared to genuinely believe his captors had deliberately tortured him when he was in their power. The Arcanan standing outside their cell now, looking in at them, had no such excuse, and Velvelig knew that if he would only come within arm's reach of the bars . . .
He wasn't that stupid, unfortunately. He only stood there, glaring at the prisoners, his face tight with hatred as he drank up the extent of Silkash's injuries. Then he turned around, as wordlessly as he'd come, and stalked back out.
Namir Velvelig watched him go, then knelt slowly back down beside his Healer and started wiping blood off his face once more.
* * *
Therman Ulthar closed the door very carefully behind him, then stood on the walkway outside the brig. His left hand dropped to the hilt of the short sword sheathed at his hip, and his knuckles whitened with the force of his grip.
He refused to let himself look at the administration block. He couldn't, because he knew what was happening in there right this moment. He didn't have to hear the blows, listen to the gasping screams, to know what Hadrign Thalmayr was doing, and if he let himself think about it, let himself feel, then—
He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.
You're an officer in the Union Army, godsdamn it, he told himself despairingly. You can't just stand here, whatever Iftar said! If you don't take a stand for something, then what the fuck use are you?
There was a sickness spreading through the garrison of the captured Sharonian fort, radiating from the man who'd been placed in command, and Ulthar was afraid. Afraid of where it would end, who might find himself added to the list of Hadrign Thalmayr's "enemies." Someone had to do something, yet Ulthar was only one man, and a man Thalmayr obviously distrusted as much as he loathed him.
You don't even have a platoon anymore, Therman, he thought, and it was true. He had exactly five men, the other Andaran Scout wounded POWs who'd been left behind here with him and Thalmayr, under his "command." Thalmayr had been careful not to assign him to anything which might have required more men, and Ulthar knew exactly why that was.
He also knew all five of them would have followed him into any open confrontation with Thalmayr . . . for all the good it would have done.
I can't take them with me, he told himself yet again. I don't have that right. But, gods, I've got to do something!
At least the Healers Five Hundred Vaynair had left behind were refusing to go along with Thalmayr. No doubt the other prisoners didn't understand, but if Thalmayr had had his way, the Healers would have repaired the damages he inflicted on a daily basis . . . so that he could inflict fresh damages on a daily basis. But they'd refused. They couldn't stop him from torturing his prisoners, but they could refuse to become his accomplices by helping him do it.
Ulthar snarled in frustration. How pathetic was it when the best he could find to say was that the Healers wouldn't heal someone?
Something snapped down inside him at that thought. The iron self-control he'd forced himself to exert slipped, and he spun on his heel and started stalking across the parade ground towards the office block, unsnapping the retaining strap across his short sword as he went.
"Fifty Ulthar?"
The voice reached him even through the red haze of his fury, and he paused, looking over his shoulder. He didn't really know the man who'd called out to him. He'd seen him around the fort, but he wasn't an Andaran Scout, and Ulthar had been too focused on what Thalmayr was up to to pay him much attention.
"Yes?" Ulthar's one-word response came out sounding strangled and strange, even to his own ears, and the other man grimaced.
"I think we need to talk, Fifty Ulthar," Commander of Fifty Jaralt Sarma said.
* * *
Commander of Two Thousand Mayrkos Harshu sat in his tent at the foot of the precipitous cliffs and pushed the last few bites of his supper around the bowl with a spoon. A glass of wine sat largely untasted at his elbow, and his expression was unusually grim.
The sentry outside the tent called out a challenge to someone, and Harshu raised his head, looking towards the entrance. A moment later, the sentry lifted the flap and looked in at him.
"Thousand Toralk is here, Sir. He says you're expecting him."
"I am, Sword. Send him in, please."
"Sir!"
The noncom snapped a salute and disappeared. A moment later, the flap rose again, and Klayrman Toralk came through it.
"You wanted to see me, Sir?"
"Yes, please. Have a seat."
Harshu gestured at the camp chair floating on the far side of the table, and Toralk settled himself onto it. The thousand never looked away from Harshu as he sat, and Harshu smiled sourly.
"I've just received some . . . interesting dispatches, Klayrman."
"Sir?" Toralk's eyebrows rose as Harshu paused.
"One set is from Carthos," the two thousand said. "That's the good news, such as it is. He's detached Hundred Helika's strike. We should see Helika in about three more days. The only bad news from him is that I'd asked him how much transport he needed to move his prisoners to the rear. If I were the Sharonians and I had the capability, I'd try pushing down the secondary chain before I tried to fight my way down these cliffs. I don't think they do have the capability, but if it turns out they do, there's no way we can reinforce Carthos enough to hold against a serious attack. The best we can do is to keep the approaches picketed and make sure they don't manage to get past him and sneak up on us undetected from the rear. So I thought to myself we should send his POWs back to Five Hundred Klian so he could move quickly, without any encumbrances. Fortunately, we don't have to worry about that."
"What do you mean, Sir?" Toralk asked, his expression unhappy, when Harshu paused once more.
"I mean he doesn't have any prisoners. Not one. Apparently—" Harshu met Toralk's eyes levelly across the table "—every single Sharonian died fighting rather than surrender."
Klayrman Toralk's belly muscles tightened. It wasn't really a surprise, of course. And a part of him couldn't help feeling a sudden surge of fury directed not at the distant Thousand Carthos but at Two Thousand Harshu. It was just a bit late for Harshu to be feeling upset with anyone over violations of the Kerellian Accords after he'd sown the seeds for everything Carthos had done by what he'd allowed Neshok to do!
Something of the thousand's emotions must have shown in his face, because Harshu's jaw tightened. But then the two thousand inhaled deeply and made himself nod.
"You're ri
ght, Klayrman. It is my fault. And if I'd listened to you in the beginning, it wouldn't have happened. But it has, and it's going to be a hell of a lot harder to stop it than it would have been simply to never let it start."
He shook his head, then leaned back in his chair with a smile that was even more sour than before.
"Of course, there's always that second set of dispatches to help distract me from the Carthos situation."
"Second set, Sir?" Toralk asked cautiously.
"Oh, yes. The set from Two Thousand mul Gurthak."
"From Two Thousand mul Gurthak?"
Surprise startled the repetition out of Toralk. Mul Gurthak had been oddly silent ever since the Arcanan Expeditionary Force began its advance. In fact, as far as Toralk was aware, he hadn't sent Harshu a single message in all that time.
"Indeed," Harshu told him. "It would appear that Two Thousand mul Gurthak is most distressed over the way in which I have misinterpreted his desires and grossly exceeded his intentions."
Toralk's eyes went wide. He couldn't help it. He'd read most of the official instructions and memoranda mul Gurthak had sent forward to Mahritha before Harshu launched his attack.
"But, Sir, that's rid—" he began.
"Don't say it," Harshu interrupted. Toralk closed his mouth with a click, and Harshu grimaced. "Given a couple of things he said in his dispatches, Klayrman," he said very quietly, "I think he probably has his own eyes and ears out here, keeping him informed. It might not be very wise to . . . express your opinion overly freely in front of anyone besides myself, if you take my meaning."
It was Toralk's turn to sit back, and his jaw muscles tensed as the implications began to percolate through his brain.
"That's better," Harshu told him. The two thousand picked up his almost forgotten wineglass and sipped from it, then set it back down again.
"According to Two Thousand mul Gurthak, it was never his intention for us to advance beyond Hell's Gate. And, in fact, he always regarded the use of force to retake even Hell's Gate as an action of last resort."