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Chapter Twenty-Five
Janaki chan Calirath sat in the tiny sitting room attached to his quarters and gazed out at the salmoncolored sky as dawn came to Fort Salby.
The lack of handy trees had enforced a different building plan on Fort Salby, and the time—and the presence of the TTE construction crews—which had been required for the Traisum Cut had provided the labor force and materials to execute that plan. Instead of the wooden palisades which surrounded most portal forts, at least until permanent long-term settlements went in, Salby had been built from the outset out of a combination of stone and adobe. It had also been built on a considerably larger scale, since it was intended from the outset to be the permanent administrative center for this portal. Its walls—and those of its internal structures—were not only tougher, they were also considerably thicker than those of most portal forts, as well, which helped their interiors stay cooler during the worst of the day's heat.
And it also makes them a hell of a lot tougher, the crown prince thought almost calmly. Almost.
The morning was still cool, chill, as the dry semi-desert air waited for the sun's heat. It was very quiet, and the calm tranquility swept over him, made even stiller and calmer somehow by the chaos swirling within him.
Taleena slept on the perch stand just inside the window, and his eyes lingered on her. There were ghosts in those gray eyes. Ghosts which hadn't been there the day before. The same ghosts which had haunted many a Calirath's eyes over the mille
I guess there's no such thing as a weak Calirath Talent, after all, under the right circumstances ... or the wrong ones, he thought. Too bad. There are some things I'd really rather not know about.
The Glimpse wasn't entirely clear yet, but it was becoming that way, and as it clarified, dropped into focus, he understood exactly why it had been so strong in the first place.
I need to tell Regiment-Captain chan Skrithik. But if I do ... .
Janaki grimaced. The problem was that he couldn't just tell the regiment-captain. Certainly, he couldn't tell chan Skrithik everything. There was still more he had to find out, more he had to squeeze out of the Glimpse, and there was only one way he could do that.
He stood and walked to the window, leaning on the thick sill, and his face was grim.
What have they done to you, Sir?
He sent the question out into the shadows of his mind. There was no answer, of course, and he closed his eyes against a brief, sharp stab of pain. If what he'd already Glimpsed was true, there was no point trying to send a warning to Regiment-Captain Velvelig. Not now. If he'd only had it a few days—maybe even one day—sooner, then maybe he could have alerted Fort Ghartoun. Done something different.
But he hadn't had it soon enough, and now there was nothing he could do. Not for Velvelig and Fort Ghartoun, at any rate. Or, for that matter, Fort Mosanik. And perhaps it had had to be that way all along.
He gave himself a shake, sucked in a huge lungful of the cool air, and straightened his shoulders.
"Go ahead and sleep, dear heart," he murmured, touching the sleeping falcon's folded wings ever so lightly. "I've got to go talk to someone."
Rof chan Skrithik was not amused.
Technically, he supposed, it might be argued, in light of the extraordinary orders he'd received, that his early-morning caller was no longer a platoon-captain, in which case he had to be considered the Crown Prince of Ternathia. Actually, of all of Sharona, although his father's formal coronation wasn't due for almost two weeks yet. But whatever the young man's official status might be, having someone knock on the front door of his quarters before he'd had time for breakfast—or even the strong cup of coffee it took to start his mental processes every morning—was ... irritating.
"I'm sorry to intrude so early, Sir," Janaki chan Calirath said, almost as if he'd read chan Skrithik's mind.
"I wouldn't have, if it weren't vital that I speak to you as soon as possible."
"About what?" Chan Skrithik managed to keep the bite out of his tone somehow.
"Sir," Janaki inhaled deeply, "I have to tell you that I've experienced a Glimpse. A major Glimpse."
Chan Skrithik's irritation vanished instantly, snuffed by an arctic wind as he looked into Janaki' gray eyes.
"What sort of Glimpse, Your Highness?" he asked in a completely different voice.
"It's not complete yet, Sir," Janaki said with a grimace of frustration. "To be honest, my Talent isn't as strong as Father's—and it's a lot weaker than my sister Andrin's. It's still coming into focus, and it's going to take a while longer before it comes clear. Or as clear as it's going to come, at any rate. I'm afraid Glimpses aren't quite as cut and dried as a normal Precog."
"I understand that, Your Highness. At the same time," chan Skrithik managed a tight smile, "I don't imagine you'd be telling me about it at this point if you didn't at least have a pretty shrewd notion of where it was headed. And," the regiment-captain's eyes sharpened, "unless it concerned Fort Salby or something else along those lines."
"You're right, Sir. It does—concern Fort Salby, I mean." Janaki's nostrils flared. "I know this is going to sound preposterous, at least at first, but, well, Fort Salby is going to be attacked."
"What?" Despite his total faith in the power of the Calirath Talent, Rof chan Skrithik felt a moment of sheer incredulity. Janaki couldn't be serious! But when he looked into that young face, so much like a younger version of the official portrait of Emperor Zindel hanging in his office, any temptation towards disbelief vanished.
"Attacked by whom, Your Highness?" he asked instead. Then he shook his head in irritation. "That's a stupid question, I suppose, isn't it? Who else could it be?"
"I know it sounds crazy, Sir," Janaki said, "but some of the details I've managed to strain out of the Glimpse might explain how they could get this far up-chain this quickly. Mind you, I don't know how they did it without any sort of warning getting out, but the short version is that they've got something I can only describe as ... dragons."
"Dragons?" chan Skrithik repeated very carefully, and Janaki snorted a humorless laugh.
"I did mention that I knew it was going to sound crazy," he reminded Fort Salby's commanding officer.
"Unfortunately, I don't know what else to call them. They're big—in fact, they're godsdamned huge, from what I've Glimpsed sofar—and they fly. Not only that, they breathe fire and ... other things."
Chan Skrithik sat back in his chair, examining his future emperor's face very carefully. Then he drew a deep breath of his own and pointed at the chair on the other side of the table.
"If you'll forgive me, Your Highness, I haven't eaten yet this morning, and my brain doesn't work very well without its morning infusion of caffeine. Why don't you join me for breakfast and tell me just what in Vothan's name is going on?"
"... sometime within the next few days, Company-Captain," Janaki said a couple of hours later. "I wish I could be more specific than that, but that's not the way Glimpses work. Not for me, at any rate. I only know it's coming and that they've somehow kept any advance warning from getting out. And that Petty- Captain chan Darma—" he nodded at the only officer present who was even more junior than he was "—
has been unable to raise Fort Mosanki's Voice this morning."
"I see." Company-Captain Vargan frowned thoughtfully, then shrugged. "No one can have everything, Your Highness. The fact that we know they're coming at all is more than we really had any right to expect."
Regiment-Captain chan Skrithik nodded in agreement. He, Vargan, Petty-Captain Kaliya chan Darma, chan Skrithik's assigned Voice, and Sunlord Markan sat in a row of chairs, facing Janaki as he stood in front of a large-scale, detailed topographical map of Fort Salby and the surrounding territory. Janaki felt remarkably like a junior student, called upon to read his latest research paper aloud to a visiting delegation of department heads.
Not all of whom seemed particularly enthralled by his presentation.
"As Company-Captain Vargan says, we are fortunate to know as much as we do," Sunlord Markan agreed after a moment, but the Uromathian cavalry commander's expression was more shuttered than the Shurkhali's. He gazed at Janaki with cool, thoughtful eyes, then cocked his head. "Forgive me ... Your Highness, but I appear to be somewhat less familiar with the nature of your family's Talent than my colleagues are. Or, perhaps, I should say that I am less familiar with its limitations. May I ask a question or two?"
"Of course, Lord of Horse," Janaki replied.
This entire briefing felt awkward. Partly, that was the inevitable result of the fact that his Glimpse remained less than complete at this point. Partly it was because despite his official separation from PAAF service, he still wore the uniform of the Imperial Ternathian Marines (and would continue to do so until he reached home and formally mustered out), which made him the most junior officer in the room, despite his exalted birth. And partly it was because Markan's ambivalent feelings where he was concerned had been evident from the very begi
"You say that your Glimpse indicates we will be attacked here shortly," Markan said in excellent, although accented and somewhat overly formal, Ternathian. "I understand that you can not tell us exactly when—not yet, at any rate. But the question in my mind is whether the fact that you have warned us at all will not alter the events you have Glimpsed, and so invalidate the entire Glimpse, in part or in whole?"
"I see what you're asking, Sunlord." Janaki gazed at the Uromathian for a second or two while he considered how best to answer the question.
"First, anything that might be altered would happen ... downstream from the initial attack itself," he said then. "The Arcanans' decision to attack us, the approach route they're likely to take, the timing of the attack—all of those are governed by circumstances which almost certainly can't and won't be changed by any actions we might take prior to their arrival here in response to my Glimpse. That's not absolutely guaranteed, of course, but it's very, very likely.