The Road to Hell - eARC

by David Weber

  The intensity of Shalassar’s eyes, boring into her own, worried Alazon. How much of the ambassador’s telepathic Talent for cetacean speech transferred to humans?

  “That seven-times damned reporter was right then.” Shalassar’s fierceness faded and those fiercely erect shoulders sagged ever so slightly. “They’re going to say she could have still been alive, and you won’t have a thing to say back. Not one. Still no body at all, and where she died is five universes beyond the front now.”

  Alazon cursed herself silently as she abruptly recognized the core of Shalassar’s anger. This woman needed her help, not her suspicion.

  “Ma’am, I’m so sorry for your loss. Darcel and I would be delighted to host you and your husband—”

  “No.” Shalassar forced her face back to blankness and straightened her spine before continuing softly. “I’m sorry, dear. I don’t believe that would be a good idea. This is just scum-eater politics. A VBS reporter came to me for confirmation, probably knowing the whole thing was a farce. He’s lucky I didn’t toss him in the ocean and make him swim back to port.”

  Alazon nodded uncertainly, not sure how to calm the alternately infuriated and grief-stricken woman before her.

  “Then after I heard the idea,” Shalassar confessed, “I just had to ask. It’s an entirely foolish hope, I know. Thaminar tried to talk me out of even coming, but I had to ask.”

  “Of course.” Alazon Yanamar looked Shalassar Brintal-Kolmayr dead in the eyes and said, “We are absolutely certain Arcanan military forces killed Shaylar and every one of her companions.”

  “And there’s no doubt at all?”

  “None. I’m sorry. The Arcanans burn their dead.” And in a momentary lie designed to ease Shalassar’s pain, she added a small embroidery on what Sharona knew absolutely, “They burned each one of ours too. It’s how they do respectful funeral rites. A kind of purification from their perspective, I understand.”

  “Please, no one tell the cetaceans that.” Shalassar shuddered. “Only demons would use fire to consign their dead. It’d be like praying for the departed to be accepted into hell.”

  “But the smoke rises to the heavens?” Alazon suggested.

  “Heaven is in the deep. It’s a warm place with a gentle current full of kelp and fish, where lungs never empty, and dorsal muscles stay strong forever. I’ve explained to them that humans hope for a different kind of place, so they’ve allowed that heaven might have an island or two. If, that is, the better humans aren’t reborn with fins.”

  A few guests drifted near their corner alcove, heard the mention of death and just as quickly found reasons to melt back into the crowd. Shalassar laughed a bit bitterly.

  “I’m not the light-hearted dolphin lady they used to love to have at parties anymore,” she said. “I suppose I have too many other things I care about now.”

  They sat gazing at the crowd for a few more moments. Then Shalassar stirred and turned to look at Alazon once more.

  “Oh one more thing,” she said. “Watch the Order. The Seneschal in particular. He seems to think I’m here to humiliate your fiancé and destroy his political chances.”

  “And why would he think that, Madam Ambassador?”

  Shalassar’s smile once again reminded Alazon of oceanic predators. It was comforting to see the flashes of old confidence showing through her grief.

  “I might have mentioned that I wanted the invitation in order to tell candidate Kinlafia I expected him to do his very best to turn the bastards that attacked my daughter into shark chum. I trust you’ll convey the message for me.” She clutched Alazon one more time. “I can’t have my Shaylar back, Madame Voice. But I will have the Arcanans who murdered her and desecrated her corpse pay for their crimes. Tell your fiancé that and tell that to the Emperor.”

  “I’m not Privy Voice anymore, Madam Ambassador.”

  Shalassar dropped her voice. “If Our Emperor doesn’t have you back in service of one kind of another the very instant it’s politically feasible, he’s a fool. And I hope to Vothan he’s the furthest thing from a fool.”

  She stood, nodded once, and flowed away into the crowd once again, more like a dolphin than ever. Alazon Yanamar watched her go, then rose from her own chair and worked her way through the gala towards Darcel, glad Shalassar Brintal-Kolmayr was on their side.

  * * *

  The unexpected guests of the evening didn’t end with the Cetacean Ambassador. A Simian Ambassador arrived as well, but unlike Dr. Shalassar Brintal-Kolmayr, he wasn’t on the guest list. Darcel suspected the man had snuck in through the staff entrance while the overworked caterers were distracted.

  He introduced himself to both of them as Soolan chan Rahool, followed by a series of clicks and a puffing out of his cheeks. Then he reddened and switched to a more normal conversation mode.

  “I’m sorry about that, but my clan is very particular about certain things. They’ll ask if I introduced myself properly, and by that they’ll mean by the name they’ve given me and all that.” He shrugged. “I’ve gotten used to it, but talking to weak-arms, I mean humans, well it does sometimes put people off.”

  Chan Rahool seemed to feel badly out of place in his present surroundings, so Alazon offered him one of the appetizer trays as a distraction while he composed himself. His eyes lit immediately.

  “Oh! You understand.” He selected a bacon wrapped plum confit and crunched it with relish. “I do so love working with people who understand simian relations.” He licked his lips. “Quite delicious, too. I will have to have the name of your caterer later. If I bring them back a sample of the food you greeted me with, they’ll be oh so pleased with you and encouraged by the warm reception.” The man fairly beamed at them both.

  Darcel immediately denied any knowledge at all of simians other than what any school boy gathered from elementary school about the great apes—the mountain gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans, baboons, some of the higher monkey species, and so on—though Darcel did admit to dedicating one summer to an attempt to reproduce a triple canopy jungle tree house.

  “Good thing you didn’t manage it.” chan Rahool shook his head mournfully though it was clear from his eyes he regretted it not at all. “A little two-story treehouse combined with a minor Voice Talent, and my whole life went straight to the monkeys.” He winked. “Now, would you like your hair checked for lice?”

  Alazon began to suspect the man had an incurable sense of humor.

  “Why help yourself,” Darcel replied, “Just promise us we can wrap anything you catch in bacon before you eat it. I wouldn’t want to damage relations with the New Farnal simians by offering substandard bugs.”

  Chan Rahool chuckled. The chuckle was genuine, but Alazon suspected he had something rather more serious than badinage on his mind, and so did Darcel. Her fiancé might be new to politics, but no one could accuse him of lacking wits.

  “I thought the great apes didn’t much care what we did,” he said. “And you came from Ricathia, not New Farnal. Why would they have any interest in me?”

  “I was actually hoping to speak with your wife.” Chan Rahool lifted his arms in an overlarge shrug that made him look something like a chimp himself. “And who can say why the other sentients do anything? Sometimes their motives are as clear as a human toddler’s interest in a new toy. But when the grandnanas get involved I often end up wondering if we aren’t the less intelligent species.”

  Alazon blinked.

  “Oh, on average we’re definitely smarter, but not everyone is average…on either side.” The ambassador flapped a wrist at her. “Not an official reporting for the Emperor or anything. Just that the Minarti are matriarchal. There’s a grandmother that runs everything season by season, but there’s also a group of older women who don’t seem to be necessarily related to the grandmother at all.

  “When the first reports of the Arcanans came in—by which I mean your report, of course—” He nodded to Darcel. “I was very concerned and tried to tell the grandmothe
r about it. Some of the Minarti have split and established new clans in the nearer universes, and I thought if a war went poorly there might be great apes cut off out there thinking an Arcanan was one of us.” The man grew serious as the lines on his face showed just how deeply he feared for the simians he worked with. “The lady chimp just patted me on the head, like she usually does, and told me to go have more babies.”

  “I thought that was the end of it, but last week a delegation of silverback gorillas and their matriarch came to me with a message. They tried to explain things to me, and I’m…Well, this sounds insane, but as near as I can figure the simians do have some kinds of Talents themselves just as we humans do. And the lady gorilla gave me a near Voice-style sending for our human clan leaders.

  “Oh and they want you to tell Empress Varena—they’ve never quite accepted that Emperor Zindel’s in charge; they seem to think it’s a polite fiction—that they’re concerned about the war. In fact, they’re much more concerned than I’d realized, and some of them want to go colonize the border universes. I think they meant to fight.”

  “Also…” He winced. “The gorillas have offered nursemaid services and open foraging to human females with young to help support wartime population expansion. That’s an extremely generous offer, you understand.”

  Chan Rahool finished his recitation with palms held up.

  “I know none of it makes any sense from a human perspective, but I’m their ambassador too. They wanted the message delivered, so I needed to take it to Empress Varena.”

  He looked pleadingly at Alazon. “I heard you’d stepped down as Privy Voice, but perhaps you still have contacts? If you could just take the transmission, I could say I’d given it to a woman in the Empress’s service. I think the gorillas would accept that.”

  Darcel handed the now obviously distraught ambassador the rest of the appetizer tray and sent his wife a speaking glance. This was clearly a question for the former Privy Voice, and Alazon sighed.

  “I can relay your gorilla’s message and this conversation exactly as we’ve had it to the Emperor…and,” she added at his cough, “to Empress Varena as well. But you’ll have to explain to them that humans don’t order other humans to procreate the way it sounds like the simians can.”

  “Yes. Yes. Already done three times over.” The ambassador said. “But at least I can tell them I passed on the message. They don’t normally cling to things this long. I thought sure migrating for the dry season would put it out of their minds, but almost a full month since the last rain and they’re sending me off with messages like I’m one of their teen boy chimps. That’s what the clicking and cheek blowing means you know: human grandmother’s little boy chimp.” He winced. “If you must tell the Emperor about that bit, please do include that I had no idea at all what it meant when I first agreed to the name.”

  Alazon nodded gravely, trying very hard to keep her lips from twitching in amusement.

  “They’re willing to change the name for me,” chan Rahool continued, “but they insist that I should kill a tiger with a spear I carved myself first. And then I’ll be an adult and the male chimps have said they’ll need to fight me from time to time just to help me keep in shape.

  “I’d really rather not complicate the ambassadorship with all that, if you didn’t mind terribly.”

  Chan Rahool’s head turned following a tray of food in a passing waiter’s hand. “Say, do you have any more of the crunchies?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  January 9

  Garth Showma.

  Jasak had forgotten how much he loved it…until an unwary glance out the slider window snatched him up out of the briefing he’d been conducting for his shardonai. The sight of the first cluster of snow-draped forest pulled the heart-hunger up into his throat, with a fierce power made even stronger by how many terrible things had happened since his last visit home, and he stared out that window, unaware of emotion which had transfigured his expression in that moment. The winter struck trees of the ducal estate, which ran in forests thirty miles on a side, had been lovingly maintained in their pristine, virgin condition over most of its vast extent, and he drank in their icy beauty like strong wine. Despite two full centuries of settlement, Garth Showma was a jewel of natural beauty, punctuated by the massive Showma Falls.

  He’d been showing Jathmar and Shaylar the maps as they traveled by slider for the last portion of their three-month long inter-universal journey, comfortably ensconced in their own private car.

  And comfortable in more than one way. That thought sent a wave of mingled darkness and satisfaction through him, pulling him back almost brutally from his thoughts of home, and his glance moved from the trees to the end windows where another slider car was now coupled to the rear of their own. It bore the colors of the Dukes of Garth Showma, that other car, nor was it alone; there was an identical car coupled to the front of theirs, as well.

  Jasak’s messages to his father had reached home just over a month ago, and his father’s reply had been waiting at the incoming slider station in the city of Theskair in New Ransar—three universes, eight thousand miles, and fourteen days’ travel from Garth Showma. He’d expected a hummer message; what he’d gotten was a security team—a very professional, highly trained, very dedicated, and heavily armed security team from the Garth Showma Guard commanded by Commander of One Hundred Hathysk Forhaylin.

  Forhaylin’s presence had been all the message Jasak really needed about how seriously his father took events down-universe. Hundred Forhaylin had served in the 2nd Andaran Scouts with Thankhar Olderhan and Otwal Threbuch. When the duke retired, Threbuch had stayed in the Scouts, but Forhaylin had followed his duke out of the Union Army and become second in command of the Garth Showma Guard, the personal guard whose men—whose Andaran men—were all sworn to the service of the Duke of Garth Showma as their liege lord, not as the Governor of New Arcana. They answered to Thankhar Olderhan directly…and Hathysk Forhaylin was the man he sent out when he expected blood in the streets.

  Jasak was just as happy Shaylar and Jathmar had been unaware of that minor point. And he was also happy Forhaylin had briefed him very privately on the occasional anti-Sharona riots which had already occurred.

  “His Grace,” the dark-haired, bearded hundred had said, sunlight bright on the silver beginning to color his temples, “is…perturbed by the dearth of additional formal reports from Hells Gate.” He’d met Jasak’s eyes levelly. “The absence of official dispatches has left people—and the news services, of course—free to make up whatever rumors they want, and some of them are pretty damned ugly. It didn’t help when word that hostilities have been resumed arrived without any real explanation of why, either. The natural assumption in New Arcana is that the Sharonians must have broken them off, but we don’t actually know anything about the circumstances. I believe His Grace shares your own suspicion that the absence of any official explanation—or several other critical aspects of events out there—may not be accidental.”

  That was certainly one way to describe his “suspicions,” Jasak had thought grimly, and he’d hated having to share the news that the fighting had flared up again with his shardonai. They’d taken it just as badly as he’d expected them to, and it had taken almost a week for them to regain their comfortable relationship—or as comfortable as it had ever been—with one another.

  That reflection finished the process of drawing him back to his present duty. They didn’t have that much longer until they arrived now, and he smiled a brief apology at the others for his distraction and bent back over the map on the table.

  “The Duchy of Garth Showma stretches from the Ocean of Storms in the east to the western-most of the Great Andaran Lakes,” he said, and pointed to an immense span of territory that corresponded, roughly, to the Republic of Faltharia where Jathmar had been born.

  “Technically, we own all of it,” he continued, smiling at the Sharonian’s expression, “but the vast bulk of it’s been permanently deeded to freeh
olders of one sort and another.” He shrugged. “Unless someone dies intestate or the land is seized for nonpayment of taxes or something like that, we don’t really have much to say about its disposition. The family’s personal demesne, Garth Showma, itself, is much smaller, of course. It lies here, where the Showma River drops over a horseshoe-shaped cliff that forms the Showma Falls. They’re one of the two largest waterfalls on New Arcana—and every other universe, of course.”

  Jathmar nodded. “In Sharona, we call it the Grand Emlin Falls. I was born here,” he pointed to a spot on Jas Olderhan’s map, “in the city of Serakai in the Republic of Faltharia.”

  “How did you like growing up with all those winter blizzards?” Jasak asked. “I got so tired of them as a kid.”

  Jathmar chuckled. “Serakai means ‘city of snow.’ I can remember winters when blizzards piled up drifts thirty feet high.”

  “So can I,” Jasak told him with a grin, and the two of them turned in perfect unison, as though they’d rehearsed it, to check the cold clear skies out the window.

  Shaylar, who’d grown up in the hot deserts of Shurkhal, looked from one to the other, then grimaced at Gadrial.

  “I’d never even seen snow, until I married Jathmar. We held the wedding at his parents’ home, as Faltharian custom calls for, during the mid-winter solstice festival,” she said. “Winter solstice is considered a fortunate time for weddings in Faltharia. Personally, I think that’s just because there’s nothing else to do in Faltharia during the winter.” She shivered. “It took weeks to get warm, again.”

  “We just missed Snowfall Night,” Jasak said wistfully. “It lasts a fortnight, but all the best parades are on the shortest day of the year.”

  “So you two think you’ve seen snow, do you?” Gadrial asked, looking back and forth between the two men, and laughed softly. “Babes in arms, the pair of you! If you want to see real weather, you should try spending a winter in Ransar. It’s not uncommon for the temperature to drop thirty or forty degrees below zero, for weeks at a time. My first winter away from home was a delightful shock. I didn’t have to bundle up in furs or tie a safety line to my waist even once, just to keep from losing my way between my parents’ house and the barn to feed the livestock.”