Hell's Gate

"We're leaving, Journeywoman Kelbryan," he'd said to her then, turning to face her squarely in the ringing, crackling silence singing tautly in his incandescent attack's wake.

"We?" she'd asked dully, her throat clogged with unshed tears. "I don't understand, Magister."

For just an instant, he'd glared at her, as if furious with her for her incomprehension. But then the anger seething in his brown eyes had gentled, and he'd taken both her hands in his.

"My dear child," he'd said, ignoring the Academy's still stupefied leadership, "the day this Academy expels the most brilliant theoretical magic adept it has ever been my privilege to train for 'insufficient academic progress' and 'attempts to violate the honor code by cheating' is the last day I will ever teach here."

Someone else had made a sound, then. The begi

"I resign from his faculty?immediately," he'd said.

"But you can't!" she'd cried, aghast. "You can't throw away your career over me! I'm just one more journeywoman, Magister, and you're … you're?"

He'd laid a gentle fingertip across her lips, ignoring the men and women who had been his colleagues and peers for so many years.

"You are anything but 'just one more journeywoman,'" he'd told her, "and this . . . this farce is only the final straw. I should have done this years ago, for many reasons. You're not to blame, except in as much as what these sanctimonious, closed-minded, willfully ignorant, arrogant, bigoted, power-worshiping, stupid prigs have just done to you has finally gotten me to do what I ought to have done so long ago. If they choose to wallow in the muck of their precious supposed shakira superiority to all around them, then so be it. I have better things to do than squat here clutching handfuls of my own shit and calling it diamonds! Besides," his sudden, delighted grin had shocked her speechless, "I've been offered a new position."

One of the other department heads had straightened in his chair at that, leaning forward with an expression of mingled suspicion, chagrin, shock, and anger. Magister Halathyn had caught the movement from the corner of his eye, and he'd turned to face the other man and his grin's delight had acquired a scalpel's edge.

"As a matter of fact, my dear," he'd continued, speaking to her but watching the other magisters' faces like a duelist administering the coup de grace, "I've been offered the chance of a lifetime. I'm going to set up a new academy of theoretical magic on New Arcana, under the auspices of the military high command. And you, Journeywoman Kelbryan, have just become its first student."

The protest had begun then. The shouts of outrage, the curses?the threats. But Magister Halathyn had ignored them all, and so had Gadrial, as she'd stared up into his eyes. Eyes so kind and so alive to the wonders of life, so passionate to see justice done. She'd met those eyes and burst into fresh tears, but not of despair. Not this time. Not ever again.

Until now, almost twenty years and God along knew how many universes away from that moment.

Halathyn was gone forever. Stupidly. Cruelly. For nothing. A reckless, crazy shot by a dragon gu

Gadrial Kelbryan turned her face into Sir Jasak Olderhan's pillow and cried like a lost child.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

They left the fort at dawn.

Shaylar knew something terrible had happened, but no one would tell them what. No one even tried. Jasak had escorted her and Jathmar from Gadrial's quarters to their own the afternoon before, but he'd barely spoken, and Shaylar hadn't been able to touch him, so she had no idea what had happened. Whatever it had been, it had obviously been bad, because they'd spent the night locked in their quarters, with one armed guard at the door, another at the window, and for all they could tell, another on the roof.

Now they crossed the open parade ground in total silence and found Gadrial waiting for them at the fortress' barred water gate. Her haggard appearance shocked Shaylar. The circles under her eyes were so dark they looked bruised, her eyes themselves were swollen and red from prolonged weeping, and an exhausted, defeated look clung to her. It was one Shaylar recognized from her own recent, bitter experience.

"Who?" she started to ask, then realized she didn't know the word for "died." Not that it really mattered. Gadrial didn't answer her partial question, didn't even look at her. In fact, nobody was looking at them?not directly. People's glances sort of sidled past them, without ever coming to rest on them, and she and Jathmar exchanged baffled, worried looks.

The fort was built so that the wharf extending out into the harbor was a virtual extension of its walls. The only way onto or off of the long, narrow dock was through the fort itself, and other people were waiting at the water gate, as well. One of them was a tall man, with iron-gray hair. He stood ramrod straight, staring at absolutely nothing, and Shaylar vaguely remembered him from that first ghastly day, after the battle at the clearing of toppled timber. She hadn't seen him since, though, and that made her frown.

If he'd been with Jasak Olderhan the day Jasak's men had slaughtered her crew, where had he been in the meantime?

The likeliest answer terrified her, because he had the tough, no-nonsense look of a professional soldier. A good one. The sort of experienced noncom a good officer might detach for some important independent duty … like a reco

Like Company-Captain Halifu's fort. And if Company-Captain Halifu had sent someone to look for them …

She glanced at Jathmar, who'd picked up some of what she was thinking, or more precisely, feeling, through the marriage bond.

"I think they know about our entry portal," she said in a low voice.

"You may be right. Something big's happened, at any rate. If I had to guess, I'd say they've tangled with our military out there. And I don't think they'd enjoyed the experience."

"Then Company-Captain Halifu did send someone to look for us."

"Or to find out if anyone had survived what you transmitted." Jathmar nodded grimly. "You said they left most of their lightly wounded to walk the whole way back to their swamp base camp when they flew us out. That would have left a trail a child could follow, leading straight back to their portal."

Shaylar nodded, but fresh worry tightened her mouth. She had no doubt that Darcel Kinlafia would have accompanied any rescue force Halifu might have sent out. And if the other Voice had managed to make it to this side of the swamp portal, he would undoubtedly have done his best to contact her. But he hadn't succeeded, and neither had she managed to contact him, despite making the attempt again and again, especially at their normally scheduled contact times, since they'd Healed her head injury. Not that she'd ever had much hope that she'd be able to. She still didn't know exactly how fast a dragon could fly, but she was virtually positive that the long dragon flight from the swamp portal to their present location had taken her well outside her own contact range from the portal, and hers was much longer than his.