by David Weber
"But, Sir, I don't know anything about falcons," chan Skrithik protested in a half-desperate voice. "If not for the Sunlord here, I wouldn't have had a clue what to do for her!"
"Then it would appear to me, Regiment-Captain," chan Geraith said, turning to extend his hand to the cavalry officer standing at chan Skrithik's shoulder with a matching mourning band on the right arm of his Uromathian uniform, "that we have two things to thank Sunlord Markan for. Believe me," he continued, speaking directly to the Uromathian, "I am as deeply and sincerely grateful to you and all of your men as Emperor Zindel himself will be, Sunlord."
"It was a cooperative effort, Division-Captain," Markan replied, gripping the offered hand firmly. "No one here at Fort Salby had a monopoly on courage . . . or sacrifice."
His dark, almond-shaped eyes dropped to the dark band around his own sleeve, matching the one on chan Geraith's, and the division-captain nodded soberly.
"Well said, Sunlord." He gave Markan's hand a final squeeze, then drew a deep breath.
"Gentlemen," he said, looking at both of them, "I suspect that my staff car is actually better equipped, at least until we can get your fort put back together again, for the briefings and discussions awaiting all of us. But before we start all of that, I would like to see my Prince."
* * *
Crown Prince Janaki chan Calirath, dressed in a clean uniform, lay on the bier in the Fort Salby chapel with his hands folded on the hilt of the dress sword on his chest. The presence lights of the Triad glowed above the altar where the three faces of Vothan the Protector, Mother Shalana, and Marinlay the Maiden gazed down upon him, and an honor guard composed of the seven surviving men of Janaki's platoon, under the command of Chief-Armsman chan Braikal, stood stiffly at attention around the bier. It was thankfully cool in the chapel, yet chan Geraith was surprised that there were no visible signs of corruption. He looked at chan Skrithik, and the regiment-captain shrugged.
"Maybe I shouldn't have done it, Sir, but the senior Arcanan Healer offered to put what he called a 'preservation spell' on the Prince's body."
"They've been informed he was killed?" chan Geraith asked sharply, with more than a hint of disapproval.
"He already knew when he approached me, Sir," chan Skrithik said levelly. "Apparently one of the wounded mentioned it where he and his . . . translating crystal could overhear. Since he already knew, I saw no reason not to accept his offer."
Chan Geraith grimaced, but chan Skrithik faced him squarely.
"Sir, every single one of your men is going to want to pay his respects to the Prince, just like every one of my men—and of the Sunlord's—did. They're going to need to see him, and there are going to be Voices among them. For that matter, I know you've got Voice correspondents with you. I didn't want his lady mother—anyone—to see him looking like—"
The regiment-captain stopped with another shrug, his eyes glittering under the presence lights, and chan Geraith felt his grimace smooth into something else.
"I hadn't thought about it that way," he admitted. "I'd rather they didn't know a thing about it, but if they already knew, then I think you probably made the right decision."
"Thank you, Sir," chan Skrithik said quietly. He shook his head slightly. "Actually, it seems to me—and Petty-Captain chan Darma, my Voice, agrees with me—that this Five Hundred Vaynair is a genuinely decent human being. I don't know what someone like him is doing in the Arcanan Army, but my Sifter agreed that he was sincere when he said he wanted to do this as a mark of his personal respect."
"Indeed?" Chan Geraith frowned thoughtfully.
He'd been surprised by the Arcanan commander's offer when chan Skrithik's Voice relayed its terms to him. In fact, he'd seriously contemplated ordering chan Skrithik to refuse. Like the regiment-captain, he was grimly suspicious of the real reasons this Harshu was mysteriously "not authorized" to release any other prisoners he might hold. And, as Harshu himself had pointed out through his mouthpieces, the Arcanan POWs constituted a potential intelligence treasure trove whose value was impossible to estimate.
But weighed against the release of fewer than three hundred military prisoners was the return of over two thousand civilians and most of their heavy equipment. Two Thousand Harshu had agreed to allow them to remove any and all equipment they could load in a twelve-hour window, starting when the exchange was agreed to. Since Olvyr Banchu had been loading cars with an eye to a retreat to Traisum for almost thirty-six hours at that point, the grace period actually amounted to almost two full days.
That, unfortunately, had still been a short enough time to preclude taking any of the really big excavators, since it would have been necessary to break them down into their component loads, and the lack of flatcars meant that almost a third of the other heavy equipment had been left behind, as well. Nonetheless, Banchu had returned to Fort Salby with millions of marks worth of construction machinery that was going to be worth considerably more than its weight in gold when it came time to resume the advance towards Hell's Gate. Indeed, chan Geraith had to wonder if Harshu had realized for a moment just how valuable that machinery was going to prove. If Sharona had lost all of it, it would have taken literally months to ship in replacements and the trained personnel to use it.
Chan Geraith had seen the endless lines of work cars, portable machine shops, flatcars loaded with bulldozers and scrapers, passenger cars, portable sawmills, auxiliary steam engines, loads of unused rails and ties, bolts, spikes, hammers, pickaxes. . . . The list seemed endless, and the cars and work locomotives filled the extensive sidings left behind when TTE finished construction of the Traisum Cut almost to capacity. He couldn't possibly have justified holding on to chan Skrithik's prisoners if they were the price of getting so many Sharonian civilians and so much priceless capability back.
He'd accepted the offer because he'd seen no choice, but he'd been more than a little surprised by how scrupulously the Arcanans had honored the terms of their agreement. According to chan Skrithik's post surgeon, for example, the regiment-captain would never have regained full use of his arm without the intervention of the Gifted Arcanan healers. At least fifteen of chan Skrithik's wounded—including Prince Janaki's chief-armsman—would almost certainly have died without that same intervention, and many more, like chan Skrithik, would have been crippled for life. Indeed, the Arcanans had ended up healing twice as many Uromathian and PAAF casualties as they had of their own men.
And then there was this, he thought, gazing down at the dead young man lying before him as if he were only sleeping.
"I suppose there have to be at least some decent men anywhere—even in Arcana," he said finally. "And I'm grateful. But I don't think this is going to soften public opinion back home an ounce when word gets back to Tajvana."
Chan Skrithik winced at the reminder that Janaki's parents still didn't know about his death.
"I wish, Sir—you don't know how badly I wish—that he hadn't been here," the regiment-captain said softly. "We'd never have held this post without him, but—gods!" He shook his head, eyes gleaming with remembered tears as he looked back down at the body. "To lose him like that, so young. So full of promise. I know we always think crown princes are 'full of promise,' but Triad above, he was. He really was!"
"I know." Chan Geraith reached out and squeezed chan Skrithik's left shoulder, careful to make no sudden movements near Taleena. "I know."
"He told me he had to be here," chan Skrithik continued. "I wanted to argue with him, but somehow I just couldn't. And gods know, I needed him. With all the civilians, the portal's strategic importance . . . I just couldn't tell him no. And to the very last moment of his life, he was totally focused on saving the rest of us. On doing his duty. On being certain I knew what he'd Glimpsed. Without that knowledge, that warning, we never would have held. Hells, without his warning we'd all have died in our beds! He saved us all, and at least I can honestly tell his parents that he died almost instantly. He never could have known what hit him."
"
Oh, he knew, Regiment-Captain," chan Geraith said quietly. "He knew exactly. He Saw it coming—he experienced it—before the first Arcanan ever came into sight of your fort here."
"Sir?" The word came out half-strangled as chan Skrithik's head whipped back around. He stared into chan Geraith's eyes, and the division-captain nodded slowly.
"He was in fugue state," he said simply, "and his Talent was never as strong as his father's, or his sister's. For him to enter fugue state, it had to be a Death Glimpse. He knew he was going to die if he stayed here, Regiment-Captain chan Skrithik. He Saw it. He even sent me a message that told me he knew . . . and prevented me from ordering you to have him removed from Fort Salby, by force if necessary."
Chan Skrithik's face was twisted with a deeper, fresher anguish, and even though chan Geraith had no trace of Talent, he felt the other man's pain like his own. Part of him felt guilty for inflicting that fresh pain upon him, but it was important that chan Skrithik know, that everyone know, that Janaki chan Calirath had gone knowingly to his death, offering up his life to save thousands of others.
"It's the motto of his House, Regiment-Captain," Arlos chan Geraith said softly, quietly, into the silence, feeling Sunlord Markan at his elbow. " 'I Stand Between.' I stand between evil and its victims, between darkness and light. I stand between right and wrong. I stand between my people and their enemies . . . and between the people I am sworn to protect and death. There's a reason men and women have followed Caliraths straight into the fire for thousands of years, Regiment-Captain, and we—you and I—have been honored to see precisely what that reason is."
'Chapter Thirty-Three
"What is it, Alazon?" Darcel Kinlafia's brown eyes looked into eyes of gray, and Alazon Yanamar didn't need the bond between them to recognize his deep concern. "What's worrying her so badly?"
He turned his head away once again, gazing down the palace corridor where Grand Princess Andrin had just disappeared. The young woman's spine was as straight, her carriage as graceful, as ever, but her eyes had been unquiet for days, cosmetics could not disguise the dark shadows under them, and she had walked past Alazon and Kinlafia without even noticing their presence.
"I can't tell you that, love."
Alazon reached up and touched his cheek gently, and his eyes narrowed. There were times when the closeness of a bond like theirs had its downside. He could tell that whatever was haunting Andrin was causing Alazon deep distress, as well. At the same time, he was a Voice himself. He understood the responsibilities, the privacy oaths of any Voice, far less the Emperor of Ternathia's Privy Voice.
"I'm sorry," he said contritely. "I shouldn't have asked you. It's just that . . . I hate seeing her this way."
"I know you do." Alazon stroked his cheek one more time, then tucked her arm through his and began walking him down the same corridor. "I think everyone does," she continued. "Triad knows I do, but then," she glanced up at him, "most of us have known her since she was a little girl."
"Point taken, My Lady," he said with a slightly lopsided smile.
she Said, and in the side traces of her Voice, he Heard her memory of the echoes she'd felt when his shared Glimpse with Zindel had hammered through him. She couldn't help feeling that memory, putting it together with a dozen other little clues, and realizing—in general terms, at least—what must have happened. Yet she made absolutely no effort to use the knowledge he knew she already possessed as some sort of opening wedge, and he sent a warm flood of love and gratitude over their bond.
Kinlafia rolled his eyes.
He squeezed her elbow against his side as the warmth and confidence flowed out of her into him, and yet her mention of the Emperor had brought him back his concern over Andrin. Zindel was older than Andrin, more experienced at dealing with—and concealing—the telltale symptoms of a Glimpse . . . despite which, it was obvious to Kinlafia that whatever was riding Andrin like some sort of unrelenting nightmare was also pursuing Zindel. And the ripples spreading from his and his daughter's anxiety were afflicting the empress and her younger daughters, as well, even if they had no idea what that anxiety's root cause might be.
"Voice Kinlafia?"
Alazon had been about to reply when the voice from behind cut them off. They stopped, looking over their shoulders, and saw an armsman in the green and gold of the Caliraths, who bowed to them both with grave courtesy.
"Your pardon, Voice Kinlafia, but His Majesty would be very grateful for a few moments of your time."
Kinlafia's mouth felt suddenly dry, and his pulse rate picked up.
"Of course," he said quickly. "Would now be a convenient time for him?"
"He hoped you could come promptly," the armsman agreed, and Kinlafia turned to peck a quick kiss on Alazon's cheek.
"I'll see you again as soon as I can, my dear," he told her. "After all, we have that delightful appointment with the tailor this afternoon, don't we?"
Alazon smiled at him, then nodded and released his arm. He gave her an answering smile before he turned to the armsman and beckoned for the other man to lead the way. He followed the armsman down the passageway, and as he went, he felt Alazon's warm, loving touch on his mind and heart.
* * *
"Thank you for coming, Darcel."
Kinlafia's left eyebrow rose very slightly as Zindel chan Calirath turned from the view through his study windows to greet his guest. So far, the Emperor had always been careful to begin any interview or conversation with Kinlafia by greeting him formally, as "Voice Kinlafia." For a moment
, Kinlafia wondered if today's change was some sort of deliberate tactic on Zindel's part, but then he felt that same mysterious something he'd felt at their very first meeting radiating from the Emperor. Using his given name hadn't been any sort of ploy; it was simply a measure of Zindel's concern that he'd forgotten the formal courtesy. And it was also, Kinlafia realized, a reflection of Zindel's awareness that whatever else might happen in this universe or any other, Darcel Kinlafia would face it at his daughter's side.
"Yes," Zindel said, almost as if he'd been the Voice, reading Kinlafia's surface thoughts, "it's about Andrin."
"Your Majesty, I'm sure there are other—" Kinlafia began, but then he stopped himself. There was no point in pretending, not when Zindel was as aware as he himself was of the bizarre fashion in which he had shared in the Emperor's Glimpse.
"I'm sorry, Your Majesty," he said instead. "It would be pretty foolish, I suppose, to pretend I don't know what you're talking about. Of course," he managed a smile of sorts, "understanding it is something else again!"
"I'm sorry, too, Darcel," Zindel said with simple sincerity.
He walked over to the chair behind his desk and sank into it, then waved for Kinlafia to be seated in another chair at the end of the desk, close enough for comfortable conversation. Kinlafia was well aware that one was not supposed to sit in the Emperor's presence, yet it seemed the most natural thing in the world for him to accept the invitation. He sat, cocking his head to one side, and waited for Zindel to explain why he'd been summoned.
It took the Emperor several seconds of uncharacteristic hesitation, then he cleared his throat.
"I'm sure you've figured out by now that Janaki had more than one reason for suggesting you run for office," he said.
"Your Majesty, I realized that the first time he made the suggestion," Kinlafia replied. "I didn't ask him what those other reasons were, although perhaps I should have. But I knew they were there."
"And you accepted his suggestion anyway." The fleetingness of Zindel's smile seemed to shout his anxiety to the Voice. "It must have been that damned Calirath 'magnetism,' " the Emperor continued. "Janaki always has had more than his fair share of it."