Hell's Gate-ARC

by David Weber

  Her eyes were as gray as the wind-chopped water of the Ibral Sea. No guile lived in those forthright eyes, but there was a depth of reserve, a sense that they looked steadily at a thing, measured it carefully against a host of complex factors, and sought to understand it within its many shifting contexts. They were eyes too old for a girl of seventeen, yet strangely vulnerable and young.

  "Yes, Papa," she said equally softly, and the smile that touched her lips was sad. "I understand. I have to be too many other things to think about indulging a passing fancy."

  Or even a serious one, he added silently.

  "I wish it weren't so," he said aloud. "But we can change neither the world, nor our place in it. And that's enough said on the subject. Look," he pointed to the left-hand bank, "isn't that the most beautiful Temple of Shalana you've ever seen?"

  Andrin looked, then let out a long "Ohhhh!" of appreciation. A tall needle-shaped tower rose from the top of a soaring dome. The needle was gold—genuine gold filigree—and the dome was a patchwork of gold and blue in a swirling, striped pattern that boiled intricately down its curved surface. The gold portion, like the needle tower, really was genuine gold, applied as a thin foil in layer upon successive layer by thousands upon thousands of pilgrims, and the blue swirls were brilliant lapis, a mosaic of thousands upon thousands of tiles cut from the semi-precious blue stone that was sacred to Shalana. The strips of lapis were, in turn, inlaid with other stones—blue stones that caught the sunlight with a fiery dazzle of light. Faceted sapphires by the thousands encrusted the dome in a breathtaking display of the wealth controlled by Shalana's ruling order of priestesses, and the Grand Temple's walls were white marble, inlaid with still more lapis in an intricate geometric pattern of sunbursts and stylized waves. The Order of Shalana was reputed to be the most powerful religious order in the world, with temples—and banks—in nearly every country in Sharona, and Andrin could believe it as she gazed at that gloriously beautiful structure.

  "I've never seen anything so lovely in my life!" Andrin breathed softly. "It's more beautiful than any of the temples in Ternathia. Anywhere in Ternathia."

  Then she gasped and pointed to the right hand bank.

  "What's that?" she demanded, but understanding dawned almost instantly as she recognized the vast structure dominating the right hand bank, rising high on a hill overlooking the Ylani Strait.

  "It's the Palace!" she squealed, and for just that moment, she sounded exactly like the young girl she really was beneath the layers of poise, caution, and politically necessary reserve.

  It was, indeed, the Great Palace of the ancient Ternathian Empire. And it was also still a residence, occupied by the Seneschal of Othmaliz and his vast staff, but not his family.

  The Kingdom of Othmaliz was not ruled by a dynastic kingship, but it was far from a democratic republic. The title of Seneschal had originally been held by the official who had governed the day-to-day affairs of Tajvana in the name of the emperors of Ternathia. After the Empire had withdrawn, the title had become a theocratic one, for Othmaliz was ruled by a priest—an unmarried priest, as the holy laws of Othmaliz decreed. He wasn't celibate, far from it, but he didn't marry, and his many offspring could not inherit his title or the wealth which went with it. Nor did they live in the Palace with him. When a Seneschal died, the new Seneschal was chosen from the highest ranking priests in the Order of Bergahl. More than one Seneschal had been succeeded by a son or a grandson, but only when the successful candidate had attained sufficient seniority within the order to stand for election in his own right.

  It had always struck Zindel as a ridiculous waste of space to use the entire vast Great Palace to house one man and his staff. The Palace covered fifty acres of ground, and that was only the roofed portion; the grounds were even larger. Now he stood beside his daughter, savoring her delight as she beheld the ancient home of her ancestors at last.

  The Great Palace's walls were a glittering sight, inlaid with sheets of mineral mica that sent sparkles of light cascading and shimmering across its surface. The roof was an astonishing fairyland of glittering domes and steep-sided slopes that were covered not with the ubiquitous tiles prevalent throughout the region, but with imported slabs of slate. The slate glittered golden in the brilliant sunshine, like the scales of some fantastic fish sent as a gift by the god of the sea, for every slab had been edged in gold leaf, so that the entire vast structure shone with an unearthly brilliance.

  The effect was stunning against the backdrop of bone dry stone walls and sundrenched rooftops whose homely red clay tiles had faded into a dusty, washed out shade of pink. The light shimmering around the sparkling, mica-flecked walls and the incandescent rooftop made the entire, fifty-acre edifice appear to be floating above the city. The optical illusion was so strong that Andrin kept blinking, trying to clear her dazzled vision to see what was really there, the solid stone that anchored the building to the hot and thirsty soil of Tajvana. It didn't seem possible mere human hands could have built it.

  She felt numb as she tried to take in the fact that her own family, her direct ancestors, had walked its rooms, run through its corridors, lived in it, laughed and played and hated and loved within its walls and beneath its glittering roof. They'd ruled half the world from that floating palace. But the world they'd ruled was gone. It had vanished quietly down the corridors of time, a world not so much lost as relinquished with passing regret, and gazing at what her family had given up, Andrin was devastated.

  Yet even as those thoughts tumbled through her mind, another thought blew through her like a chill wind. The world Andrin lived in had changed just as completely as the world of her ancient ancestors, and far more abruptly. Hers was a new and frightening place, and everything—and everyone—in it was threatened with destruction by a faceless enemy. For one ghastly moment, she saw the Great Palace spouting flames against a night sky, with smoke pouring from it, and people rushing towards the inferno—or perhaps running headlong away, trying to reach safety. She gasped and clutched the ship's rail, unsure whether the vision had been a true Glimpse or merely the product of an over-active imagination giving shape and form to her fear for the only world she knew.

  She drew down a gulp of air, trying to steady her badly shaken nerves, and glanced up at her father. She was surprised by the thoughtful frown which had driven a vertical slash between his brows. Whatever his thoughts were, they were as brooding and disturbed as her own, so she turned uneasily away and studied the harbor, instead. Or, rather, Tajvana's harbors. There were several, split between both banks, but the massive docks on the left-hand bank were clearly for utilitarian commercial purposes, whereas the docks on the right bank appeared to be equipped for the passenger trade, handling small personal yachts and the larger passenger liners and ferries plying the routes to some of the world's most popular resorts and business destinations.

  Captain Ula steered Windtreader clear of the cargo wharves, thick with gantries where cranes unloaded huge crates and pallets from the holds of scores of ships. As they entered the Ylani Strait proper, Andrin saw that the commercial docks swept around the perimeter of the vast bay that led inland, curved like a golden horn that ran through the heart of Tajvana's business district. Further up the slopes were the villas and palaces of the wealthy, both rich merchants and the nobility of Othmaliz, some of whose lineages were almost as long as Andrin's own. She could see carriages and wagons in the streets, and hundreds of sweating stevedores hauling cargo to waiting wagons which would carry it out to dockside warehouses.

  But Windtreader was bound for the right bank as Captain Ula reduced speed and conned his ship through clearly marked channels towards the passenger docks under the attentive watchfulness of hovering tugboats. Andrin could see beyond the Ylani Strait now, to the vast Ylani Sea, whose chilly, dark waters met the placid waters of the Ibral Sea in a turbulent, silt-laden chop. There was always a powerful current flowing out of the Strait, and flurries of foam rose as Windtreader's graceful stem cut through it.<
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  Finena, riding the jeweled, white leather gauntlet on Andrin's arm, shifted her wings a bit uneasily, as if the sudden proximity of Tajvana after so many days alone on the empty sea made her nervous. Andrin soothed the falcon, stroking those glossy silver wings, and found herself reflecting that Finena's splendid coloring was far better suited to the Great Palace than hers was. She knew only too well that her own appearance was rescued from hopeless, oversized coltishness only by Lady Merissa's skill with cosmetics, hairdressing, and wardrobe. Indeed, at the moment, she wore a close-fitting bonnet designed to keep the wind from totally destroying the gemmed coiffure Lady Merissa had spent more than an hour coiling around her head after lunch, preparing her for their landing at Tajvana.

  Andrin would have been lost without such guidance, and she knew it, which helped her to overlook Lady Merissa's sometimes tedious mannerisms and cloying attention to social etiquette. Especially now. The one thing Andrin wanted desperately to accomplish on this trip was to bring credit to her father and her Empire. She would die of shame if she brought embarrassment to her father's name, instead.

  Fortunately, Lady Merissa had taken great pains with her appearance this morning, with a great deal of giggling help from Relatha, who had become Merissa's indispensable right hand and Andrin's indispensable companion. Windtreader's galley had, perforce, lost one of its assistants, but Andrin didn't feel at all guilty for the appropriation of Relatha's talents. Among other considerations, it was a genuine comfort just to have another girl her age aboard.

  "Oh, Your Grand Highness," Relatha had sighed when Lady Merissa had finished buttoning her into a gown of ivory and silver brocade, trimmed with ermine and pearls. "You look a picture, so you do, just like your beautiful falcon. You ought to have a portrait done, just like that!"

  Lady Merissa had paused and tipped her head to one side, considering.

  "You know, Your Highness, she's right. You should have a portrait done with that gown and Finena on your arm. Ternathia's imperial grand princess and her imperial peregrine, symbol of the Empire for five millennia. Yes, I do believe we'll have to arrange that, when we return to Hawkwing Palace."

  "If you insist," Andrin had muttered, thinking privately that her bird would outshine her.

  A light cloak covered the brocade gown at the moment, protecting it from the brisk wind, although it was scarcely needed for warmth. It might be autumn, but it was warmer here than back home in Estafel, and the temperature had to be in the sixties. Palm trees grew along the hillsides, and the wind was merely brisk and cool, not chill. The cloak was enough to shield her elaborate gown from the capricious breeze, and it hid her nervous movement as her free hand smoothed the brocade unnecessarily under its cover.

  She knew there was to be a formal reception and dinner once all the Conclave's delegates had arrived, and she had every intention of making one of Lady Merissa's carefully crafted political statements for the occasion. She simply didn't know yet what that statement would be. That would be determined largely by the mood and tenor of the preliminary—yet scarcely less formal—social occasions which must be endured before all of the official delegations arrived. She shivered under her cloak, not from cold, and leaned against her father, who wrapped an arm around her and gave her a gentle smile.

  "We're nearly there, poppet," he said softly.

  "Yes," she said simply. He hadn't called her that since her fifth birthday, and she smiled up at him, then lapsed back into silence and watched their final approach to Tajvana's passenger docks.

  The captain rang down "Finished with Engines," an the chuffing paddlewheel tugboats moved in, pushing with bluff bows to ease Windtreader alongside an ornate, marble-faced quay aflutter with official flags of every nation on Sharona. A mob of carriages and people dressed in elaborate finery cluttered the long pier, well back from the longshoremen waiting for the ship's lines.

  Paddlewheels churned white froth, Windtreader quivered as her thirty thousand-ton bulk nuzzled against the massive fenders, and steam-driven windlasses clattered as mooring cables went over the waiting bollards and drew snug. Crisp orders and acknowledgments went back and forth, and more steam hissed as it vented through the funnels.

  And then, for the first time in almost a week, the deck under Andrin's feet was motionless once more.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Music drifted across the pier from a surprisingly large band, as the Ternathian imperial anthem floated to their ears in an appropriate salute to the arriving delegation. The imperial sunburst crackled from every mast as the longshoremen ran out the boarding gangway which would allow them to disembark, and Andrin's father lifted his arm from her shoulder, then offered her the crook of his elbow, instead.

  "My dear, shall we greet Tajvana?"

  She gave him a brave smile and nodded, placing her gloved hand on his coat sleeve with careful precision. Lady Merissa removed Andrin's bonnet, so that her dark hair, with its strands of gold, shone in the elaborate hairstyle she'd worked so hard to perfect. Jewel-headed pins and clasps flashed in the afternoon sunlight, like a crown of living fire, and Andrin thanked her softly. Then the grand princess lifted her other arm, crooking her arm and raising her glittering white gauntlet so that Finena rode at the level of her breast as she walked at the Emperor's side.

  When they reached the gangway, Andrin released her father's arm to manage her skirts, concentrating carefully on the placement of her feet. The last thing she wanted to do was to trip and fall flat on her face in front of Tajvana's waiting dignitaries. She made it safely to the quay, shook out her heavy skirts, and placed her hand back on her father's waiting arm with a serene smile that belied the tremors in her knees.

  The band was swirling and skirling its way through the fourth verse of the imperial anthem as she and her father stepped onto a long, purple carpet that ran from the side of their ship to the center of the quay, where an immense crowd waited. A veritable sea of faces peered toward them, leaving Andrin's fingers damp inside her formal gloves. When they'd crossed the carpet, they came to a halt before a semicircle of elegantly attired dignitaries. One of them, a short broad man in the elaborate robes of the Order of Bergahl, was obviously the Seneschal of Othmaliz himself.

  Andrin gazed at him thoughtfully as Finena shifted on her gauntleted wrist. The falcon opened her beak but didn't—quite—hiss, which surprised Andrin, given what she could could sense of her companion's emotions. It was obvious Finena didn't much like him, but Andrin hoped the bird's agitation would be put down to the crowd about them, and not to her reaction to the Seneschal. It would never do to begin their visit here by insulting Othmaliz's ruler, yet, Finena's reaction left Andrin wondering just what it was about the man the falcon disliked.

  She knew the history of the Order of Bergahl, although not in the sort of detail she suddenly wished she could command. Bergahl had been the patron deity of Tajvana before Ternathia had arrived. He was a war god, and a god of judgment, whose followers had been pledged to the militant pursuit of justice. The Empire, with its long history of religious toleration, had accepted the religious beliefs of its new capital's people, although the emperors had insisted that civil law was now the business of the imperial justicars, and not Bergahl's priesthood. The Empire had made no objection to the Order retaining its position as the administrator of religious law, however, and with Ternathia's withdrawal from Tajvana, it had gradually reemerged as the dominant force in secular matters, as well. That was really all she could recall, although she also seemed to remember reading somewhere that the Order had been none too scrupulous about how it went about regaining its previous power in the wake of the Empire's withdrawal.

  A functionary standing in front of the Seneschal bowed low and greeted them in fluent Ternathian.

  "His Crowned Eminence, the Seneschal of Othmaliz, bids greeting to the Emperor of Ternathia and the Grand Princess Andrin. Be graciously welcome in this city. It has been many fine centuries since Ternathia last stood upon its shores."

  Her
father's arm turned to stone under Andrin's hand, and she heard someone gasp behind them. She didn't know why that phrase had drawn such a violent reaction, but it was quite obvious her father had just been profoundly insulted, and it had to have something to do with that last sentence. After all, this wasn't the first time the Emperor had visited Tajvana, and everyone knew it. For that matter, Ternathia had withdrawn from Othmaliz less than three hundred years ago, which scarcely qualified as "many fine centuries." So why include the phrase in a formal greeting? What sort of point or message could the man be trying to deliver?

  She didn't have any idea, but she didn't have to understand the insult to realize one had just been offered. Rather than go hot, her cheeks drained white, and her eyes went cold as gray ice as she stared through the Seneschal as though he didn't exist. Neither she nor her father spoke, and an uneasy stir ran through the crowd behind the Seneschal. Even the functionary, who was doubtless repeating verbatim a speech he'd been carefully instructed to deliver, seemed to realize his Seneschal had blundered gravely, and his face did darken . . . with embarrassment, not anger.

  Shamir Taje stepped in front of Andrin and her father and cast a scathing glance at the stammering official. The functionary's face blazed red as he tried to hold the First Councilor's gaze. He wasn't very successful.