Hell's Gate

Shaylar's parents only stared at him, too shellshocked to respond. Perhaps, Kinshe thought, neither of them had fully understood until that moment how deeply proud of their daughter all of Shurkhal had felt?and how keenly the Kingdom would feel her loss. Even those who hadn't approved of her taking on a "man's job" in the first place … or perhaps, in their way, especially those who hadn't approved.

Her father unfroze first.

"That isn't?that is?Do you really think this is necessary?"

"Yes, sir," Crown Prince Danith said quietly, putting the concern he felt into every word. "I do believe it will be necessary. So does His Majesty."

"I agree," Kinshe added quietly. "Your family will become the focus of all Sharona's shock and outrage. We?the King, Parliament, the entire Kingdom?ca

Shalassar nodded, her head moving like a broken marionette's. Thaminar simply looked lost, a strong man whose grief and anger had been punctured by something he couldn't understand. Something he feared. His gaze?which had gone to a place very far from this small room with its wooden file cases, its thick walls and open window, the scent and sight and sound of the sea?gradually pulled itself back and focused on the King's heir.

"Very well," he said, his voice low and hollow. "If more trouble must fall across our shoulders, it will be restful to have someone help us carry the weight." Kinshe sensed a gathering of strength within him, or perhaps merely a gathering of the shreds of courage. Then he turned to the Voice.

"You have a message from our child?"

"I do." Wilkon's voice was thick with pain. "I beg your forgiveness, both of you, for what I am about to show you."

Shaylar's parents' hands gripped tighter even than before, tight enough for knuckles to whiten and tremble.

"Show us," Thaminar said hoarsely.

They closed their eyes, and for an instant?perhaps two heartbeats, certainly no longer?nothing happened.

Then, as one person, they flinched violently back. Kinshe couldn't even begin to describe the sound that broke from Shaylar's mother. It was like cloth ripping, or a whimper … or something soft dying under the wheels of the train. He couldn't bear to look at them, yet couldn't wrench his gaze away from the sweat, the muscle-knotting agony, the?

A sudden scream ripped into his awareness, and not from Shaylar's parents. It came from outside?from beyond the window. From the sea …

Kinshe whipped around to stare out the window. The sea inside the floating ropes that marked the cetacean's embassy had gone mad. The dolphins surged from the water, fifty or sixty of them rising on their tail flukes, and the sound that broke from them turned his blood to ice. Then a deeper bellow broke across the chittering snarls, and a whale broached. Larger than the Crown prince's train car, it roared out of the water, standing for just an instant on its own tail fluke, a mountain of glistening flesh spearing straight toward the desert sky. Sound exploded into the air, a shockwave of sound that struck Kinshe's bones through the open window like a fist. Water crashed outward from its massive weight as it came down again, and the dock and bell splintered under the impact.

A humpback, he realized through numb shock. One of the singing whales. Only that was no whalesong bursting from it. That was rage. Pure, distilled, and terrible rage.

Gods, Kinshe realized. Shaylar's mother was broadcasting what she saw. She probably didn't even realize it, but the cetaceans did, and he jerked his gaze back to her. She was shuddering, eyes clenched tightly shut, her sounds like those of some small, trapped animal. Then she stiffened, and her eyes flew wide.

"Shaylar!" she screamed, and her husband flinched so violently he nearly went to the floor. Then Shalassar collapsed. She sagged in her chair, her head falling forward in merciful unconsciousness.

Kinshe stared at her, his eyes burning, and took a single step forward.

"Stay away from her!" Thaminar snarled.

His eyes were burnt wounds in his face, and he bent over his wife, stroking hair back from her wet face and murmuring her name over and over. Fragile eyelids fluttered. Opened. For long moments, there was no sense in Shalassar's eyes at all. Then remembrance struck like a crack of thunder, and she began to weep. She sobbed, the sound deep and jagged, while her husband cradled her close looking utterly bereft.

Kinshe could only stand there, feeling a tear trickle down his own cheek, wondering what to do. What anyone could do. And then?

"You men, out," Alimar Kinshe said firmly to her husband, her Crown Prince, and Samari Wilkon, and it was an order, not a request. "Go. Find something to do?I don't care what. Just go."

She didn't even look at them. She simply marched across the tiny office, gathered Shaylar's mother into her arms, and turned to Shaylar's father.

"Go and get some brandy, if you have any," she commanded. "Wine, if you don't. She needs it."

To Kinshe's infinite surprise, Thaminar rose without a sound of protest and left the office, like a ghost walking through terrain it can no longer see or touch. Kinshe watched him go, and then he understood.

He needed to feel useful. Needed to do something for his wife. He just didn't know how.

Halidar Kinshe's respect for his wife, already high, soared to dizzying heights, and he tiptoed very softly from the room, beckoning the others to follow.

Alimar clearly understood what needed to be done far better than he did, so he left her to do it.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chief Sword Otwal Threbuch moved through the darkness like a ghost.

He felt like a ghost must feel?cold, empty inside, and incredibly ancient. He shouldn't have been alive, and after what he'd seen, there was a part of him which wished he wasn't. He told himself that was exactly the kind of thinking he'd spent decades hammering out of raw recruits who'd heard too many stupid heroic ballads, but that did nothing to soften the pain. Or his sense of guilt.

He'd lain on that limb, watching, helpless to intervene as the portal defenders were cut to pieces. He'd been as surprised as anyone when the enemy artillery opened fire through the portal, and he had no doubt that the shock of that totally unanticipated bombardment explained how quickly Charlie Company?his company?had been slaughtered. But it wasn't the full explanation, and deep in his heart of hearts, Otwal Threbuch cursed Hadrign Thalmayr even more bitterly than he had Shevan Garlath.

He'd known what was coming the instant that idiotic, incompetent, stupid excuse for a hundred opened fire on someone obviously seeking a parley. He'd recognized Thalmayr, of course, and the moment he'd seen the other hundred, he'd also recognized the answer to his questions about Hundred Olderhan's apparent lapse into idiocy. Not that his relief over the fact that Sir Jasak's brain hadn't stopped working after all had made what had happened to Threbuch's company any less agonizing.

Every ounce of the chief sword's body and soul had cried out for him to do something as the debacle unfolded. But the steel-hard professionalism of his years of service had held him precisely where he was, because there'd been nothing he could do. Nothing that would have made any difference at all to the men cursing, screaming, and dying in front of him. It might have made him feel a bit better to try, might have spared him from this crushing load of guilt at having survived?so far, at least. But that was all it could have accomplished, whereas the information he already possessed might yet accomplish a great deal, if he could only report it. Besides, as far as he knew, he was the only uncaptured survivor from the entire company, which meant he was also the only chance to report what had happened to Five Hundred Klian.