Hell's Gate-ARC

by David Weber

  "But that's—" She broke off. Clearly, it wasn't impossible, since they'd obviously done it. "They must have something like hummers," she said instead, aware her intellect was grasping at straws, seeking any excuse, any distraction, to avoid hearing the rest of the doom they were about to pronounce.

  "Something," Klian agreed. "And we're hoping you can find out what. Shaylar, at least, seems to trust you, to a certain degree. If you can find out how they warned their people, you'll give us information that will save lives. Possibly a lot of lives. We need every advantage we can possibly get to deal with their people, Magister, because they've just demonstrated a frankly devastating military superiority.

  "Granted," he added in a harsh voice, "we made mistakes which made it even worse. I did, for example, when I failed to listen to Hundred Olderhan's warning, and Hundred Thalmayr made several serious mistakes of his own that proved costly. At least one of those was probably my fault, too, because I'm the one who ordered him to position himself on our side of portal. I intended that to apply only to his fortifications and main position, not to his sentries. It's standard procedure to picket both sides of any contested portal in a threat situation, and I expected him to follow SOP in applying my orders. Apparently, however, he interpreted my instructions to mean he was to do otherwise."

  Fort Rycharn's commander paused again, his face tight and grim.

  "I'm afraid, though, that however much Thalmayr's mistakes—and mine—may have contributed to the disaster, there was an even more terrifying factor involved." He looked directly into her eyes, his own appealing, almost desperate. "Somehow, these people can fire artillery through a portal, Magister."

  He stopped, and Gadrial stared at him. No wonder he was staring at her that way, pleading with her to explain how it might have happened. But she couldn't. No spell could be projected through a portal interface! That had been established two centuries ago. It was an absolute fundamental of portal exploration, and—

  Her yammering thoughts stopped abruptly, as a truly terrifying possibility occurred to her. No, a spell couldn't be projected through a portal . . . but from Shaylar's reaction to Magister Halathyn, these people didn't even know what sorcery was! Their weapons obviously relied on totally non-arcane principles; she and Jasak had already figured that much out. But if that was true for their shoulder weapons, why shouldn't it be equally true for their artillery weapons? And if their artillery fired physical projectiles, like the ones their shoulder weapons fired, then—

  "I don't have any idea what makes their weapons work, Five Hundred," she said frankly. "Not yet, at least. But one thing I do know is that they don't rely on any magical principles with which I'm familiar. Which means the limitations we're familiar with probably don't apply, either."

  She saw fresh, even worse fear in his eyes, and shook her head quickly.

  "Whatever they are, however they work, I'm certain they have limitations of their own," she said. "Any form of technology does. We simply have to figure out what limitations apply to theirs. For the moment, though, I think we're going to have to assume that instead of projecting a spell the way our weapons do, they launch a physical projectile which actually carries the spellware, or whatever it is they use. If that's the case, then they can fire them anywhere any physical object could pass. Like through a portal interface."

  Klian and Jasak looked at one another, their faces tight, and then the five hundred looked back at her.

  "However they did it, Magister, it was devastating. I'm sure Hundred Thalmayr never expected it, any more than I would have, and it turns our entire portal defense doctrine on its head. We're going to have to come up with some answer, whether it's a way to stop them from doing it, or a way of figuring out how to do the same thing ourselves."

  Gadrial nodded, and a part of her brain truly was even then reaching out, looking for some sort of solution. But it was only a tiny part, for most of her mind refused to let her hide any longer from what she most dreaded.

  "How badly—" She had to stop and clear her throat. "How badly did they hit us?"

  For a moment, no one spoke, and she cringed away from their silence. Then Fort Rycharn's commander inhaled deeply.

  "The only men left from the swamp portal detachment are in this fort, Magister." His voice was harsh with emotion that not even years of Andaran military discipline could disguise. "Of the men actually stationed at the portal at the time of their attack, including the wounded we hadn't yet evacuated, only Chief Sword Threbuch and Javelin Shulthan made it back. All the rest are either dead or prisoners."

  Gadrial felt her hands clench into white-knuckled fists on the arms of her chair. Despite all they'd already said, all her own efforts to prepare herself because of what she'd seen in their eyes, the sheer scope of the disaster hit her like a hammer. And behind that was the regret, the pity, burning in Sarr Klian's eyes as he faced her squarely.

  She couldn't speak, literally couldn't force the words past her lips to ask the question that would confirm what her heart and mind already knew. She tried, but nothing happened, and then it was no longer necessary.

  Chief Sword Otwal Threbuch went to one knee in front of her chair. The man who was so strong, so professional, in such command of his own emotions that she'd privately concluded that he'd been chiseled from granite. That man knelt in front of her chair and took her icy fingers in his, and even through her pain she felt a distant sense of surprise as his own fingers actually trembled.

  "My lady," he said in a choked voice, "I'm sorry. There wasn't anything I could do. Nothing at all. I was trapped on the wrong side of the portal, couldn't even get to our camp, let alone get to Magister Halathyn."

  She started to cry, silently, because she was unable to draw a deep enough breath to sob aloud.

  "How?" she whispered, the sound thin as skeletal fingers scratching on glass, and his eyes flinched.

  "I wish to every god in heaven I could tell you the enemy killed him, Magister. One of their soldiers had pulled him out of his tent, was questioning him. About Shaylar, I think, because Magister Halathyn was pointing toward the coast, toward this fort. Then one of our field-dragon crews—"

  "No!" The word was ripped from her. Jathmar's ghastly burns swam before her eyes, and the picture her mind's eye painted of Halathyn, caught in a dragon's fireball, was too horrifying to face.

  "No, Magister!" Threbuch said urgently. The chief sword reached out, caught her chin in one hand, forced her to look into his eyes and see the truth in their depths. "I know what you're thinking, but it wasn't a fireball! The gods were at least that merciful. He didn't suffer, I swear that, My Lady! The lightning caught them both, killed them instantly—"

  The sobs which had been frozen inside her broke loose. She sensed people moving, heard their voices, but couldn't make sense of the words. Threbuch's hands let go of hers, then someone else crouched in front of her, tried to hold and comfort her. But she jerked back in her chair, wanting to hate these men for not forcing Halathyn to leave the swamp portal with her.

  "Gadrial, please." Jasak's voice reached her at last, hoarse and filled with pain. "Let me at least help you."

  She opened her eyes, staring at him through the blur of her tears, and even from the depths of her own dreadful pain she saw the anguish in his ravaged face. And as she saw it, she realized that Sir Jasak Olderhan had just lost nearly every man of his command. Men he'd cared about, felt responsible for, had grown to know—even love—in that mysterious male way of soldiers: formal and distant, at times, yet as close as brothers. But he was also Jasak Olderhan, with all that name implied, captive to all those Andaran honor concepts she couldn't understand. Unlike her, he couldn't weep for his loss, for his dead. Shame stung her cheeks, punching through the wild rush of grief, and she shook her head.

  "I'm sorry," she whispered. "You cared about him, too. About all of them. . . . "

  He merely nodded. The movement was jerky and stiff, but that was because there were witnesses, both men he had commanded a
nd the man who commanded him.

  "I'm sorry," she said again, louder, looking this time at Otwal Threbuch. "You must think I'll hate you," she continued, trying desperately to steady her voice. "I'm trying not to."

  His eyes flinched once more, and she bit her lip.

  "I'm trying not to blame any of you. Trying not to blame myself. He was so stubborn—"

  She broke off, gulping hard to maintain control, and looked Threbuch squarely in the eye.

  "You were on their side of the portal, Chief Sword. I know that, and I've seen what their weapons can do. You couldn't possibly have reached him." Her voice was hoarse, cracking, but she forced it onward. "Nobody could have, I know that. Not through that kind of fighting. It's just such a terrible—"

  She did break down again, then, but this time she let Jasak put an arm around her shoulders. There was great comfort in leaning against the strength of his broad shoulder, in the warmth soaking into her, helping her rigid muscles relax. She was mortified, at one level, to have broken down so completely and deeply, having wept in front of these men like any other helpless female. But losing Magister Halathyn for any reason, let alone this way . . .

  "Would you like to go back to your quarters?" Jasak asked gently.

  She nodded, and he helped her stand up, steadied her, let her lean on his forearm. She tried to say something to Five Hundred Klian, but her throat was locked. She turned a helpless look on Otwal Threbuch, but her throat remained frozen, so she reached out one hand, instead, and gripped his fingers in silence. Then Jasak was guiding her across the room. He opened the door for her, slipped an arm around her shoulders when they stepped outside, and steadied her carefully as her knees went rubbery on the low wooden steps down to the parade ground.

  They were almost to her quarters when she remembered and went stiff and stumbled to a halt.

  "What is it?" Jasak asked urgently.

  "Shaylar. And Jathmar. They're in my room."

  She didn't think she could face them yet. They hadn't done anything themselves to kill Halathyn—or the others—but her mentor, the man who'd been her second father, was dead because soldiers from their universe had come looking for them. Gadrial couldn't—just couldn't—face them yet. Not while the shock was so raw.

  Jasak swore under his breath, then changed direction and led her to his own quarters, in the building reserved for officers, not civilian technicians. His room was neat, tidy, and very nearly empty. The gear he'd brought back from the field was stored in orderly fashion, and his personal crystal sat on his desk, glowing lines of text visible where he'd obviously been interrupted in the middle of something when Chief Sword Threbuch had arrived with the news.

  He guided her to the bed, rather than the chair.

  "Lie down and rest for a while," he murmured, easing her down.

  The bed, like all military bunks in frontier forts, was a simple cotton bag stuffed with whatever the regional commissary had been stocked with: feathers, cotton wadding, even hay. This one, like her own, had feathers inside, soft and comforting as she curled up on her side atop the neatly tucked-in blanket. He opened the window, letting in a cooling breeze, then looked back down at her.

  "Just stay here for a while, Gadrial. I'll come back for you later, all right?"

  His kindness in not mentioning the names of the people he was about to remove from her room left her blinking on salty water once more. She heard his feet cross the bare plank floor, then the door clicked softly shut behind him and Gadrial lay still, listening to the wind rustle through the room, the distant sound of men's voices, the occasional cry of seabirds high above the fort, and remembered.

  She remembered a thousand little details. Her first day at the Mythal Falls Academy, an awestruck young girl from the windy empty plains of North Ransar, still short of her fourteenth birthday. How she'd gaped at the ancient stone buildings, stared in amazement at the thunderous roar of Mythal Falls, one of the two largest waterfalls in any universe, plunging into its deep chasm. The very air, and the ground under her feet, had been so pregnant with latent magic that her skin had tingled and her bones had buzzed, and yet even that had been almost secondary beside an even greater sense of wonder.

  She—Gadrial Kelbryan—had scored so highly on the standard placement tests that Magister Halathyn vos Dulainah himself had offered her a place at the Academy.

  It wasn't possible. She hadn't even known her Ransaran teachers had sent her exam results to the Academy, hadn't guessed how truly outstanding those scores had been. Not until the message crystal had arrived with Halathyn's personal invitation recorded in it. And then, impossibility piled on top of impossibility, he'd personally met her that first day, taken the unknown, timid teenaged girl from Ransar—the only non-Mythalan student in the renowned academy's entire student body, and one of the three youngest students ever admitted to it—under his wing. And he'd taken her out to the Falls themselves, shown them to her, and spoken quietly about the reason her body had buzzed so strangely there.

  "Magic," he'd said in that almost childlike way of his, filled with wonder at the unending delights the universes—all of them—had to offer. "Magic gathers in places like these." He'd waved a dark-skinned, elegant hand at the roaring cataract below their feet. "Or, rather, magic bursts free at such places. There are other locations where the forces we call 'magic' well up in great concentrations: all great waterfalls, certain mountains, some deep caverns, places where lines of force cross. But this place, where the Mythal River plunges into this great chasm, where the entire continent is slowly pulling apart along the Rift—this is the most potent place in all Arcana."

  Gadrial had stared at the tall, lean, imposing man she was actually going to be permitted to study with, if only she could overcome her own awe of him, and blinked.

  "Mythal is pulling apart?" she'd asked. She'd felt incredibly stupid the instant the words were out of her mouth, but he'd only chuckled gently.

  "Oh, yes. That's not common knowledge, mind you. Most people would be terrified to learn that the ground under their feet is actually moving. It's incredibly slow, of course—something on the order of a fraction of an inch a year. But it's definitely moving. Have you never wondered why the great continents, particularly Mythal and Hilmar, look like pieces in a child's puzzle? Pieces which obviously ought to fit together?"

  "Yes, sir." She'd nodded. "I had noticed it."

  "Of course you had. You're bright, not just Gifted, or you wouldn't be here." He'd waved at the ancient stone buildings. "But it never occurred to you that those continents might look like that because they'd once been one solid piece of land?"

  This time she'd simply shaken her head, and he'd smiled.

  "Well, that's hardly surprising, either. Generally speaking, logic doesn't suggest that the ground under you is actually moving across the face of the planet, does it? But it is. We've confirmed it here." He'd cleared his throat. "Ahem. That is to say, my research unit confirmed it."

  Gadrial had found herself grinning at his tone and his expression. Then she'd clamped both hands over her mouth, horrified at her slip in manners, but he'd just chuckled.

  "Before your course of study is complete," he'd promised, "I'll teach you to sense it yourself."

  And he had. He'd opened up her world to such wonders that she'd felt giddy most of the time, hungry in her very soul for new knowledge, new understanding of the world around her and the forces that only she and others with Gifts could sense and touch and use to accomplish the things that made Arcana's civilization possible.

  Over the next three years, he'd given her the wondrous gift of teaching her how to really use her Gift. And then he'd stood like a fortress at her side when the other magisters—aided and abetted by her fellow students—had torn that precious gift of education from her shocked hands. Had expelled her on grounds so flimsy a sharp glance would have torn them to shreds. On the day when she'd stood wounded and broken, like a child whose entire universe had just been willfully, cruelly shattered.


  On the day when Halathyn vos Dulainah had laid into his most senior, most renowned colleagues with barracks-room language in a white-hot furnace of fury which had shocked them as deeply as it had shocked her.

  "—and shove your precious godsdamned, all-holy Academy—and your fucking, jewel-encrusted pedigrees—up your sanctimonious, lying, racist, hemorrhoid-ridden asses sideways!" he'd finished his savage tirade at length, and his personal shields had crackled and hissed about him like thinly-leashed lightning. Sparks had quite literally danced above his head, and the Academy's chancellor and senior department heads—indeed, the entire Faculty Senate—had sat in stunned disbelief, staring at him in shock.

  "We're leaving, Journeywoman Kelbryan," he'd said to her then, turning to face her squarely in the ringing, crackling silence singing tautly in his incandescent attack's wake.

  "We?" she'd asked dully, her throat clogged with unshed tears. "I don't understand, Magister."

  For just an instant, he'd glared at her, as if furious with her for her incomprehension. But then the anger seething in his brown eyes had gentled, and he'd taken both her hands in his.