by David Weber
Stop that, Zindel! he scolded himself. Just this once stand here and be glad for someone without thinking about how what's happened to them can help you do your damned job! Besides, you've never seen Alazon look happier in her life.
"Voice Kinlafia," he said, walking towards the Voice with his hand once more extended. The footman who had ushered Kinlafia into the chamber looked moderately shocked, but it was important to Zindel that this evening be placed firmly on a non-state-occasion basis as quickly as possible.
"Your Majesty," Kinlafia responded, and gripped the extended hand with rather more aplomb than he'd shown the first time Zindel had held it out to him. "I'm honored by the invitation," the Voice continued. "And I'd be even more honored if you could see your way to using my first name."
"Oh, I think I can see my way clear to doing that," Zindel assured him, then turned and extended his free hand to the tallish, early-middle-aged woman standing beside him. She was an extraordinarily handsome woman, with the very first frosting of silver just beginning to touch her hair, and despite her height, she looked petite and delicate as she stood beside the Emperor in a simple little gown which even Kinlafia recognized had probably cost thousands of marks.
"Darcel Kinlafia," the Emperor said, "my wife, Varena. Varena, my love, this is Voice Kinlafia."
The footman who'd looked moderately shocked at Zindel's informal greeting to Kinlafia looked as if he'd dislocated his plunging jaw this time, the Emperor noted with a fair degree of pleasure. The Hawkwing Palace staff were accustomed to his often deplorably casual private manners. Many of them even recognized that his deliberate informality on private occasions was one of the ways he maintained his sanity during the endless nonprivate occasions to which he and his family were subjected. The expanded staff here in Calirath Palace were still figuring that out, and some of them were clearly scandalized by it all.
Well, it's just as well if they start getting used to it early, he thought. I'm too old and set in my ways to change now. Besides, maintaining my sanity probably just got a lot harder.
* * *
"Voice Kinlafia."
Janaki had obviously gotten his physique from his father's side of the family, Kinlafia decided, yet as he looked into the prince's mother's eyes, he saw an echo of Janaki's enduring patience. He could readily envision Janaki matching Zindel's famous Conclave outburst about the "godsdamned fish," but the patience which had taken the Crown Prince through Kinlafia's debriefing again and again . . . that had come from his mother. Darcel Kinlafia never doubted for a moment that Zindel chan Calirath would have been just as thorough, have taken just as much time, just as many pains, had that task fallen to him instead of his son. But Janaki's gently supportive sympathy, even as he forced Kinlafia to relive every horrible moment of Shaylar's last Voice message, had owed as much to his mother's compassion as to his father's iron sense of duty.
"Your Majesty," he replied now, and bent over the hand she extended. New Farnalians didn't spend as much time kissing ladies' hands as some, but Kinlafia's training—both as a Voice, and from the Portal Authority—had included the rudiments of courtesy from virtually all of Sharona's major civilizations. His instructors might never have anticipated that he would someday find himself kissing a hand quite as exalted as this one, and they might not have included the proper modalities for being privately introduced to the Emperor of Sharona, but they had covered this, at least, he reflected with profound gratitude.
"I'm very pleased to meet you . . . Darcel," Varena said. "I wish that the events which have turned all of our lives on end over the last few months had never happened, of course. But everything I've read and heard tells me how very fortunate we were to have you out there at Hell's Gate. I only regret," her voice and eyes alike softened, "that you were forced to endure so much sorrow and pain for the rest of us."
"Your Majesty," he told her, "what happened to my friends—and to me, I suppose—had nothing to do with anyone except the people who killed them."
"Perhaps not," she acknowledged. "Yet the fact remains that you were the one who got Voice Nargra-Kolmayr's message to all of us. And so, however it was that that duty fell to you, the fact remains that all of us are deeply, deeply in your debt."
"And about to become more deeply so," Zindel put in briskly. Kinlafia and the empress both turned their heads to look at him, and he chuckled. "Darcel is a Voice, my dear. I think you're about to find that he's brought you more than just letters from Janaki."
"But I—" Varena began, only to pause as Kinlafia gently squeezed the hand he was still holding.
"Your Majesty, I realize you aren't a telepath yourself. That's one reason I asked if Privy Voice Yanamar might join us this evening, as well, when I discovered that she was a Projective, as well as a Voice."
<"One reason?"> a musical Voice rippled through his thoughts.
"I hadn't realized you were aware of that," Zindel told him dryly. "It isn't exactly something we've announced to the world in general."
"Oh, I've become aware of quite a few things about the Privy Voice, Your Majesty," Kinlafia assured him.
"Good. And, if I may be permitted to touch upon just a bit of official business after all, have you and Alazon gotten your schedule squared away for that never-to-be-sufficiently-damned parade we're all going to have to endure tomorrow afternoon?"
"We have, Your Majesty," Alazon replied for Kinlafia. "Mind you, I think the tailors left Darcel in a state of shock."
"Really?" Zindel's eyes twinkled, and Kinlafia shrugged.
"Your Majesty, I hope you won't mind my saying that I've never seen such a ridiculous looking outfit in my entire life. I couldn't believe they were serious when they showed me the pattern sketches!"
"After five thousand years, court fashion has tried out pretty much all the variations," Zindel said. "There's not much new they can do to us, so they have these periodic spasms of 'historical inspiration' when they go back and reinterpret famous periods of the past. If I remember correctly, the inspiration for our current . . . costumes was the period of Wailyana the Great. Which, if you're familiar with your Ternathian history, was just over nine hundred years ago. Of course, according to my own research, Wailyana's tailors were inspired by the Time of Conquest, which technically ended about six hundred years before her time."
Kinlafia looked into the Emperor's eyes. For a moment, he was certain Zindel had to be putting him on, but—
"I hadn't realized their . . . lineage was quite so distinguished, Your Majesty," he told Zindel. "And I hope I'm not going to poke anyone's eye out with that ridiculous rapier Privy Voice Yanamar insists that I really do have to wear. But, to be totally honest, what truly astounded me was their promise to have the entire outfit ready for final fitting before lunch tomorrow."
"Our staff, unfortunately, has had entirely too much experience meeting impossible deadlines, I'm afraid," Empress Varena said with a slight smile. "Mind you, we take shameless advantage of that experience!"
"Yes, we do," her husband agreed. "In fact, I—"
Zindel broke off as a side door opened to admit the imperial daughters. Kinlafia turned towards the new arrivals, one eyebrow rising, then, for the second time in a single day, froze as if he'd just been punched squarely between the eyes.
He recognized all of them. He would have been able to put names with faces just on the basis of all of the recent newspaper coverage. Gods knew their photographs and sketches had been everywhere in the papers he'd been d
evouring ever since he'd reached civilized universes once more! But this wasn't simply a matter of identifying them from their pictures. He recognized them.
Anbessa, the youngest. The willful, eleven-year-old, golden-haired whirlwind of energy. A little terror, with all of her family's determination but without the rough edges-smoothing experience of maturity. Who, if she'd only realized, held her father's heart in her often grubby little hands.
Razial, the middle daughter. Dark-haired, like her father, but without the golden highlights. Taller than Anbessa, at fifteen, with the awkward coltishness of adolescence and all the tempestuous passion of her raging hormones, all undergirt with an astounding sensitivity and gifted ear for the beauty of language. The painter whose landscapes decorated her father's study wall, and the daughter whose desk drawer was stuffed with poetry which could have made a statue laugh or a boulder weep.
And Andrin. Tall, quiet Andrin, of the unquiet, knowledge-shadowed sea-gray eyes of her father and her brother. Of the gold-shot black hair of the Caliraths and the haunted soul of the Calirath Talent. Of the sword-straight spine. Andrin, who never recognized the grace of her own carriage, the strength and character already so plain for those with eyes or Talent to see, despite her youth.
Andrin . . . whose presence reached out and took Darcel Kinlafia by the throat.
He stood there, unable to move, while the images roared through him. Andrin, standing tall and straight, face white and strained with grief but with eyes that flashed defiance, as she faced tier upon tier of seated men and women in a magnificent chamber somewhere which Kinlafia had never seen. Andrin, weeping like a broken child. Andrin alight with laughter, launching a falcon from her wrist like an ivory thunderbolt. Andrin, in a torn gown, with a smoking revolver in her hand and murder in her eyes. Andrin, standing before the high priests of the Triad as she laid her hand upon the Book of the Double-Three to swear some high and solemn oath.
They ripped through his mind, those images, those visions. None of them had happened yet, and yet he knew—he knew—that every single one would come inevitably to pass. And as he Saw them, he Saw himself. Saw himself with his arms about her, holding her as she sobbed upon his shoulder. Saw himself standing at her shoulder. She was older now, and she turned to look at him, her eyes grim, as he passed her a document of some sort. He Saw himself recognizing in her a daughter. Not simply the daughter of Zindel and Varena Calirath, but his daughter. The daughter of his heart, as surely as if she had been born of his own flesh and bone.
This is why Janaki wanted him here!
The thought flared like an explosion, and in that instant, Darcel Kinlafia realized what was happening. This knowledge, those visions, those recognitions, weren't his. Or, rather, they weren't solely his. In that chaotic, stunned instant, he knew precisely what it was to have the Calirath Talent, for in that moment, he shared it with the Emperor of Ternathia. It was Zindel's vision, his recognition of his daughters, roaring through Kinlafia's Voice Talent, like a flash of lightning bridging the gap between two pylons of the Ylani Strait suspension bridge.
And in that recognition, Kinlafia discovered the true curse of the Calirath Talent. For all their clarity, all the iron certitude that they would someday come to pass, those visions were isolated from one another. There was no continuity, no thread to tie them together, to tell him why Andrin wept, or who she stood to face in such splendid defiance. No calendar to tell him when he handed her that document, or where, or why.
Kinlafia stood there for an eternity, frozen, realizing that he'd been right to suspect that Janaki had more reasons than he'd shared for sending him to Tajvana. And he also realized why Janaki hadn't shared those other reasons. Not out of dishonesty, not out of any intent to deceive or mislead, but because without this moment of fusion, Kinlafia could not possibly have understood any explanation Janaki might have offered.
And then, as abruptly as it had struck, the moment of almost unendurable vision ended. Ended in the tick between one second and the next. That was all the time it had truly taken—no longer than the time between two heartbeats—to change Darcel Kinlafia's life and future forever.
He blinked, and the world about him flashed back into focus. He sensed Alazon's concern and realized that even though she hadn't shared the vision of Zindel's Glimpse, she'd Felt its impact upon him. He wanted to tell her not to worry, that everything was all right. But he couldn't, because he didn't know if things were "all right" . . . or if they ever would be again. All he knew was the way things had to be.
And it was knowledge that only he and Zindel shared. Knowledge which could not be—must not be—shared with anyone else. Especially not with Andrin. Not yet. Perhaps never.
"And these are our daughters," he heard Zindel chan Calirath's deep, calm voice say. "Girls, come meet Voice Kinlafia. I suspect—" Kinlafia turned his head and looked into those steady gray, Calirath eyes with their burden of ghosts yet to come "—that we'll be seeing quite a bit of him in the future."
'Chapter Twelve
Erthek Vardan tipped his chair back. He balanced it on its rear legs, with the top of its back braced against the wall, while he held the book tilted so that the ceiling-hung kerosene lamp's light spilled over the pages.
The wall behind him was made of logs notched and laid into place, then chinked with clay. It was rough and ready looking, but it was also solid and, like the steeply-pitched rain-shedding roof, it was definitely weatherproof. The weather was still warm enough that the fire crackling on the hearth wasn't really needed for heat, yet it was a welcome relief against the omnipresent, damp chill. Coupled with the sound of rain pattering against the roof overhead, it produced an oasis of welcoming comfort which was almost enough to make a man forget that he'd been stationed at the ragged edge of the known multiverse.
Personally, Erthek wasn't likely to be that forgetful.
Grateful as he was for the stout roof and the fire, he missed things like the theater, hot baths that didn't have to be laboriously heated, bucket-by-bucket, and restaurants. No one would have called him a hedonist, but he hadn't quite counted on conditions this primitive when he volunteered for three years' Portal Authority service as a way to earn money for college.
Still, he knew he'd been lucky, in a horrid sort of way, to have drawn this particular posting at this particular time.
What had happened to the Chalgyn Consortium's survey crew was horrible, but the PAAF had shown these "Arcanan" barbarians that they didn't want to confront Sharonian soldiers, whatever they might have done to a surprised, vastly outnumbered party of civilians.
Erthek himself was no soldier, of course. In fact, he was a civilian employee of the Portal Authority on his very first assignment. He was also less than twenty-one years old, and he suspected that he'd been originally earmarked for this particular relay post because his superiors figured that he, unlike some old fogy in his thirties, had the youthful resilience to survive it. Or it might be simpler than that. In fact, it almost certainly was. After all, he was probably the most junior Voice in the Authority's employ, and when he'd first been assigned to Thermyn, no one had had any reason to suspect the existence of Hell's Gate, far less what was going to happen on its other side. At that point, this had simply been what had to have been the least desirable Voice posting of them all, so it had made sense to hand it to the most junior Voice of them all.
But the choice to assign him here had virtually guaranteed Erthek's later career. No one was going to forget his part in passing the critical message traffic from Hell's Gate back and forth along the Voicenet. Erthek Vardan was going into the history books, and wasn't that an amazing thing? The notion amused him, and yet there was something else under the amusement. A hard, vengeful something that found grim satisfaction in serving as one of Sharona's messengers in the confrontation with the murderers of Shaylar Nargra-Kolmayr and her companions.
He'd never expected to find himself doing something that important this early in his Authority service. And, truth to tell,
he was grateful that Petty-Captain Waird chan Lyrosk had finally reached Fort Brithik. Chan Lyrosk was a Ternathian, on loan to the PAAF, which made him not simply senior to Erthek in the Authority's service, but an army officer, as well. Erthek knew he'd miss the independence he'd enjoyed as the only Voice available to Company-Captain chan Robarik, Fort Brithik's CO . . . but any disappointment on that side was more than outweighed by the relief he'd feel when someone else became officially responsible for this critical Voice relay tomorrow morning.
He grimaced at the thought, then looked up from his book at the clock ticking away on the mantelpiece. A fresh gust of raindrops pattered noisily across the roof and made him even more grateful for the fire of split logs. But under his gratitude, there was a growing flicker of concern. It certainly wasn't anything strong enough to call fear, but it was more than simple uneasiness. There hadn't been anything scheduled, but it was unusual for a full day to pass without any Voice transmission from Shansair Baulwan. If nothing else, Shansair usually made a conscientious effort to tell Erthek when he was shutting down for the evening so that Erthek could shut down himself, instead of maintaining his Listening schedule.
Well, he told himself, if I haven't Heard anything from him in the next hour and a half, then I'm just going to have to send him a message and ask if it's okay for me to go ahead and turn in. He ought to be able to Hear me, even if I can't Hear him without trancing. In the meantime . . . .
One of the chickens in the hencoop built onto the side of the relay station stirred, clucking loudly as something disturbed it. Erthek listened for a moment—they'd had problems with a persistent bobcat, and he started to reach for the shotgun racked on the wall above him. But the hen in question sounded more querulous than frightened. An approaching bobcat would have led to something more strenuous, and Erthek chuckled. Probably that last gust of rain had blown in through the coop's wire side and the chicken was merely letting the world know how irritating it had found the experience.