Hell's Gate m-1

by David Weber

  "Yes," Skirvon said dryly. "I gathered that."

  The older diplomat started to say something more, then changed his mind. There wasn't much point, at this stage, and Dastiri had to learn someday. In the meantime, he had other things to think about.

  They'd been careful in their approach to deny the Sharonians any additional militarily useful information. Including, especially, any hint of the existence or capabilities of their own dragons. It was always possible, perhaps even probable, that the Arcanan prisoners these people had taken had already revealed the existence of the beasts, but there was no point in giving the other side any better feel for what they could do. So Five Hundred Klian had ordered the transport dragon to fly them and their boat to within forty miles of the swamp portal. They'd made the rest of the trip the hard way, and Skirvon devoutly hoped that the Sharonians would be thinking solely in terms of other boats for the future.

  There wasn't anything else he could do about that at this point, so he'd concentrated on the Sharonians' reaction to his and Dastiri's PCs. Their curiosity had been obvious to someone with Skirvon's training, although he wasn't prepared yet to venture a guess as to exactly what had spawned their curiosity. It was always possible, he supposed, that Olderhan and Kelbryan's preposterous theories about a civilization which didn't use magic at all were accurate, but that still seemed so?

  His thought broke off in mid-sentence as the man who was clearly these people's commanding officer said something to the man?probably a chief sword or something of the sort, Skirvon had decided?who'd conducted the search. The hulking noncom said something back, then the officer nodded, turned, and walked across to Skirvon.

  "I am Company-Captain Balkar chan Tesh," he said. "Who are you, and what do you want?"

  Well, Skirvon thought. That's certainly blunt and to the point.

  "Rithmar Skirvon," he said, speaking slowly and carefully. Then he introduced Dastiri, as well.

  chan Tesh?whose name indicated he was Ternathian, according to the information Magister Kelbryan had assembled for them?didn't look particularly happy to see them. His expression was controlled, but Skirvon had been a diplomat for a long time. He didn't need any "Talent" to recognize the anger crackling around in the back of chan Tesh's outwardly calm eyes.

  "How did you learn Ternathian?" the company-captain demanded, as soon as the introductions were over, and Skirvon nodded mentally. He'd been reasonably certain that was going to be the first question, and he'd prepared his answer carefully.

  "One person live. Short time," he said. "Bad hurt. Spoke words, recorded. Try to save, but Arcanan healer die in fight. Long days to new healer. Many, many days. Bad hurt. Talk words, but not live. Die before see healer," he ended sorrowfully. "Arcanan grief. We talk?"

  chan Tesh's expression never wavered, but his eyes were cold, suspicious.

  "Who was it?" he asked. "Who survived?"

  Skirvon and Dastiri had argued repeatedly over how to address that particular point. Thanks to the girl, Shaylar, they had a complete list of names for the dead crew, not that he intended to admit that, even if this chan Tesh held him over hot coals. But they did know everyone's names, and they even knew which men she'd personally seen die. The Sharonians would have that same list, as well, since the little bitch had sent out her report?her visual report, no less!?right in the middle of the fighting.

  Dastiri had wanted to select a name from the list of Sharonian men Shaylar hadn't seen die, rather than admit that she herself had survived. Skirvon had waffled back and forth over that choice, but he'd finally decided that they couldn't afford to take chances, given the number of Arcanan soldiers these people had taken prisoner. They'd had the survivors of Olderhan's company in custody for a month now, and if they'd had another of those damned "Voices" available to help interrogate them, gods alone knew how much they'd managed to learn. Shaylar had insisted she couldn't "read minds," and she might even have been telling the truth. However …

  Skirvon found it disturbing that both survivors from a crew as small as the one Olderhan had encountered had "Talents" of the mind. They weren't even the same Talents, for that matter, which meant there was no way to know what else these people could do with their minds. Skirvon wasn't quite willing to risk everything by getting himself caught in an easily detectable lie this early in the negotiations, so he'd decided to play the hand cautiously.

  "Arcana much, much grief," he said sadly. "Girl bad hurt. Try hard to go healer. Far, far walk. She die," he added, and actually managed to summon a few tears.

  "Shaylar?" Shock exploded in chan Tesh's face. The man's hand dropped to the butt of the weapon?the "pistol"?holstered at his side, and his fingers curled around the polished wooden grip. "Shaylar survived? And you let her die?"

  The sudden violence seething in chan Tesh's eyes was a terrifying shock, especially given the obvious strength of the man's self-control. Nor was he alone in his reaction. Every Sharonian soldier in sight mirrored the same sudden, explosive rage.

  "Try hard save life," Skirvon insisted, dredging up more tears. "But bad, bad hurt. Hard talk. Long, long walk go healer. Arcana big, big grief. Arcana, Sharona, no shoot. Ne-go-ti-ate," he said with exaggerated care. "No shoot."

  "If she was so badly hurt," chan Tesh demanded coldly, "how did you manage to get enough of our language out of her to learn to talk to us?"

  Skirvon saw the man's knuckles whiten around the pistol grip and realized abruptly?emotionally, not just intellectually?that his own life hung by the proverbial thread. Obviously, Olderhan's estimate of Shaylar's importance in these people's eyes had been on the mark. In fact, Skirvon was beginning to think Olderhan had underestimated it.

  He managed (he hoped) to keep his thoughts from racing across his expression, but it suddenly occurred to him that his strategy of insisting Shaylar was dead might have been a mistake. Returning her and her husband before they'd been thoroughly interrogated back in Arcana or New Arcana was clearly out of the question, of course. He'd figured that insisting they were both dead?and he knew from Olderhan's report that Shaylar had believed Jathmar was dead even while she was busy sending her accursed report back home?would be the simplest and neatest way of keeping their return off the table. Now he was suddenly confronted by the fact that because he'd claimed she was dead he couldn't put her return onto the table even if he wanted to. Which, given the hatred looking at him out of all those Sharonian eyes suddenly seemed as if it might have been a very good idea, indeed.

  Unfortunately, there was no going back now.

  "She hurt bad," he said instead. "Head hurt?inside." He tapped his own temple, where?again, thanks to Olderhan's invaluable report?he knew the little bitch actually had been injured. "Not … work right," he continued, deliberately searching for words. "She talk. Not to us?to her. We recorded it."

  He intentionally used the Andaran verb for "recorded," and chan Tesh glared at him right on cue.

  "That's the second time you've used that word?'record,'" he said. "What does it mean?"

  "It mean?" Skirvon paused and rolled his eyes in obvious frustration. "Not know words. Can show. Please?"

  He managed not to heave an overt sigh of relief as chan Tesh's eyes narrowed. The company-captain's anger didn't disappear, but he was obviously forcing it back under control.

  He even managed to take his hand away from his pistol.

  "Show how?" he asked skeptically.

  "Please, bag," Skirvon said, pointing to his own briefcase. chan Tesh cocked his head for a moment, then nodded and said something to the big chief sword. Although Skirvon's Ternathian language skills were far better than he was prepared to admit, they weren't good enough to follow the rapidly spoken sentence. On the other hand, they didn't need to be, as the noncom handed him the briefcase.

  Skirvon opened it cautiously, then withdrew his PC. To his surprise, chan Tesh tensed obviously, and the diplomat found it less than easy to ignore the half-dozen rifles which were suddenly pointed in his direction once again.


  "What is that?" chan Tesh asked sharply.

  "Is only personal crystal," Skirvon said soothingly, once again using the Andaran words and holding the crystal up. chan Tesh looked blank.

  "What does it do?" he demanded.

  "Rock hold talk. It records talk."

  "What?" chan Tesh blinked.

  "Hold talk," Skirvon said again, and murmured the activating incantation. The PC's glow as he initiated the spellware was lost in the brilliant sunshine, of course, but it was angled so that he could see its display. He tapped the menu with the tip of his stylus, calling up the special, limited word list they'd manufactured from Magister Kelbryan's primer specifically for this exchange. Then he touched the playback command.

  "Shaylar," a woman's voice said.

  Putting together that word list had required days of careful work. He and Dastiri had deliberately limited the audio recordings Magister Kelbryan had downloaded to them, choosing individual words on the basis of how clear Shaylar's voice had sounded when they were recorded. All of them were recognizably her voice, but distorted by fatigue … or pain. In some cases, he knew, the pain had been purely emotional, but that didn't matter for his purposes. What mattered was that the chosen words sounded like someone who'd been severely injured. Like someone who was muttering to herself, wandering through her own injury-confused thoughts.

  He'd expected a powerful emotional reaction, but not the one he got.

  chan Tesh's jaw fell. Literally.

  Skirvon stared at him and experienced a sudden epiphany. Despite everything Olderhan had told him, despite his study of the notes Kelbryan had meticulously recorded, despite even chan Tesh's obvious reaction when his chief sword had found the PCs in the first place, he hadn't really believed until that moment that Sharonians had no experience with magic. He couldn't believe it, because no one could possibly build a real civilization without it. He'd been absolutely convinced that Shaylar and Jathmar had been shamming in a successful effort to confuse and mislead their captors.

  But chan Tesh wasn't shamming. The company-captain was clearly a disciplined, confident officer, and what his forces had done to Hadrign Thalmayr's command was brutal evidence of his competence. Yet his astonishment at hearing a simple recorded word played back from a completely standard personal crystal was total. Indeed, it appeared to border on superstitious terror, and deep inside, Rithmar Skirvon grinned like a kid with his daddy's jar of accumulators.

  Olderhan had been right. They had no magic!

  Why, they weren't nearly as formidable as he'd first believed. If they couldn't do something this simple, they were babes in an adult world?a mean and nasty one. mul Gurthak had been right, too. All they had going for them was their machines, the "guns" they'd used?used by surprise?in both violent encounters. And, as mul Gurthak had pointed out, it was only that surprise, that totally unanticipated ability of theirs to throw not a spell, but a physical projectile, through a portal which had defeated Thalmayr.

  Skirvon had been convinced these people must actually have their machines and their "Talents" in addition to the magic which was the necessary foundation for any advanced civilization. But they genuinely didn't have it, and that reordered everything he'd thought about them.

  But first things first, he told himself firmly. First things first.

  He waited until chan Tesh shook himself.

  "How did you do that?" The Sharonian's voice was ever so slightly hoarse, Skirvon noted with carefully hidden satisfaction.

  "Rock is personal crystal," he repeated the Andaran phrase carefully. "Shaylar talk, it record?" again he used the Andaran "?her word. Then spellware?" yet another Andaran word "?work words. Make … list our words, your words."

  He tapped the menu again, bringing up the Andaran and Ternathian word for "word" side by side in the display, then angled it so that chan Tesh could see it. The company-captain's eyes narrowed once again. Clearly, the phonetic spelling of the Ternathian word meant no more to him than the totally unknown characters of the Arcanan alphabet floating decided. Equally clearly, he was intelligent enough to realize what he was seeing. He stared into the crystal for several seconds, then shook himself and looked back at Skirvon.

  "So you say this … 'personal crystal' of yours let you capture Shaylar's words and then analyze our language?"

  "Please," Skirvon said, summoning up a pained expression, "too many words. Not have big number."

  chan Tesh scowled in evident frustration.

  "If you could do that," he gestured at the PC," why couldn't you save Shaylar?"

  "Tried. Tried hard," Skirvon insisted soulfully. He remembered Olderhan's account of the prisoners' reaction to magic healing. Given these people's total ignorance about magic, it would undoubtedly be even simpler than he'd expected to convince them that Shaylar had died of her injuries. Especially since she undoubtedly would have without the Healers' intervention.

  "Head hurt bad," he said once more. "Our healer killed in fight. Tried walk to second healer, but many, many days. She die before we reach. She very brave," he added sadly. "Arcana much grief."

  "Yes," chan Tesh said harshly, glowering at him. "She was very brave. And my people will demand punishment for whoever killed her."

  "Please," Skirvon said again, earnestly. "Too many words. Must learn more. But now, come talk Sharona. No shoot, talk."

  "A truce?" chan Tesh sounded massively skeptical, but that was a distinct improvement over the white-hot fury of a few moments before. "You want to negotiate a truce?"

  "Truce is no shoot?" Skirvon said, and chan Tesh nodded.

  "A truce is a time to talk, yes. A time to talk, not shoot. That's what you want? To talk about not shooting us again?"

  "Sharona no shoot, Arcana no shoot. Yes."

  "I can't authorize a truce. You understand? I must talk to someone higher than me. With more power, more authority. Understand?"

  "Yes. Send talk?"

  "I'll send a message."

  "Ah … message." Skirvon tapped the crystal's menu again, dutifully recording the "new" word into it. The word "message" was already in its real vocabulary list, of course, but these yokels would never know that.

  chan Tesh watched as the word appeared in both Andaran and phonetic spelling. Then Skirvon looked back up at him expectantly, and the company-captain frowned.

  "You understand you can't talk to me about a truce?" chan Tesh pressed. Skirvon only looked at him and said nothing, and the Sharonian tried yet again.

  "I'm not a diplomat. I'm a soldier?a 'diplomat' is someone who speaks for a government. You understand?"

  Skirvon nodded sharply, busily coding the "new" words into his crystal.

  "I'll have to send for a diplomat," chan Tesh continued. "I'll send a message, and the diplomat will come here."

  "Ah!" Skirvon nodded again, more enthusiastically. But then he stopped nodding and shook his head instead. "No," he said. "Not here."

  "What?" chan Tesh's eyes narrowed once more, and Skirvon knelt in the mud with a silent apology to his tailor as he contemplated what it was going to do to the knees of his trousers.

  "Sharona portal," he said, using a dead twig to draw a circle in the mud. Then he drew another circle, about two feet from the first. "Arcana portal," he said, and indicated the portal soaring high above them.

  chan Tesh scowled and opened his mouth, but Skirvon held up one hand, gesturing for patience. chan Tesh looked at him, then shrugged and nodded.

  "Go on. Say the rest, I mean."

  "Arcana, Sharona di-plo-mats meet here."

  Skirvon drew an "X" in the mud between the two circles he'd already drawn and tapped it to indicate the approximate spot of the slaughter. He let his face fall into a deeply sorrowful expression which Dastiri mimicked beautifully. Even the Navy petty officer who'd managed the boat for them contrived to look sad.

  "Great grief," Skirvon said. "Much hurt." He touched his chest to indicate his heart, then patted the "X" again. "Diplomats talk here." Then he pointed to th
e portal overhead and said, "Sharona stay here. Arcana want Sharona stay here." He pointed at chan Tesh's soldiers and their sandbagged positions. "But diplomats go, talk here."

  He pointed to the "X" again, and chan Tesh cocked an eyebrow at him.

  "You mean you're willing to accept that we keep this portal? You just want your diplomats to meet our diplomats here?" It was chan Tesh's turn to point at the "X" in the mud.

  "You stay?soldiers stay," Skirvon said, very carefully not answering chan Tesh's first question directly, then indicated the "X" once more. "Diplomats talk here. Me. Dastiri. Sharonian diplomats."

  "Under a flag of truce?"

  "No shoot, yes. Talk. Negotiate."

  chan Tesh gazed thoughtfully at the muddy diagram, then studied Skirvon and Dastiri carefully before he finally spoke once more.

  "I'll send a message to bring a diplomat here." He pointed at the "X." "To Fallen Timbers."

  "Fall En Tim Burr?" Skirvon asked, this time genuinely puzzled, and chan Tesh pointed at the massive trees behind him on the Sharonian side of the contested portal.

  "Trees," he said. "Also 'timber.'" He pantomimed a tree with his arm, positioning his forearm vertically with his fingers outstretched as branches. "Timber." Then he blew hard at his hand and lowered it as if his arm were a falling tree. "Fall. So we call the site where you murdered our civilians 'Fallen Timbers.'"

  "Ah … grief place." Skirvon nodded. "We walk, negotiate Fallen Timbers."

  "Why?" chan Tesh's eyes were cold again, the soul-deep anger back again, burning coldly in their depths. "Why at Fallen Timbers?"

  "Sharona fight hard. Arcana grief. Arcana want see, want re-mem-ber?" Skirvon spoke the Ternathian word carefully "?brave Sharona."

  chan Tesh's eyebrows soared. Then he frowned thoughtfully.

  "You want to meet where they were murdered? To do them honor?"

  "'Honor'?" Skirvon repeated.

  "If someone does a brave thing and dies doing it, we feel respect. We feel honor. We say they were good and brave and should be remembered with a good feeling here." chan Tesh touched his own heart, and Skirvon nodded emphatically.