Hell's Gate

"Of course you." Janaki snorted. "I'm almost positive that a direct order for you to report to First Director Limana ASAP is headed back down the Voice chain to you right this minute. You're the closest thing we've got to an actual eyewitness of the original attack, and you accompanied Platoon-Captain Arthag's column all the way back here. And you were part of the fight here at the portal; you were one of the first men into their encampment; and you're the only Voice?and the only observer of any sort who also happens to have perfect recall?who was here for all of that. You think, perhaps, the Powers That Be might be just a little interested in your offhand impressions of those events?"

Kinlafia blinked again, and his expression changed from one of suspicion to one of comprehension … and fear.

"I don't?"

"Stop," Janaki interrupted. "Don't say it."

"Don't say it?" Kinlafia repeated, and Janaki shook his head.

"You were about to say that you didn't see how your impressions could be all that important," he said almost gently. "You were about to point out that you're not a trained military man, that Company-Captain chan Tesh and Platoon-Captain Arthag are much better information sources on the actual fighting here, and on the enemy's tactics. And you're about to say that Petty Captain Yar's had much more contact with the prisoners, especially the wounded ones, than you have. Right?"

"Something along those lines," Kinlafia said slowly, and Janaki shrugged.

"All of which is beside the point," he said. "As, I'm afraid, is how much I know it's going to hurt to answer all the questions people have for you."

This time there was no mistaking the gentleness in his voice. Yet it was a stern, inflexible gentleness. One that admitted that the owner of that voice understood how much pain even the most gentle interrogation would inflict, yet never backed away from the necessity of that interrogation. And one which somehow managed both to acknowledge the pain and Kinlafia's fear without in any way diminishing them. To sympathize with them in a way that offered the strength to overcome them rather than simple commiseration.

Kinlafia stared at the young officer who'd asked him to call him by his first name and realized that whether Janaki chan Calirath recognized it or not, that endless line of imperial ancestors stood behind him. There was, Kinlafia realized, not an ounce of arrogance in the young man who would one day wear the Winged Crown in the imperial throne room in Estafel. But the blood of Erthain the Great still flowed in his veins, and the mysterious magnetism which had led men and women to follow the Caliraths straight into the fire?and into the pages of legend?for over five thousand years glowed inside him.

Balkar chan Tesh and Delokahn Yar had been trying to get Kinlafia to face the inevitable for almost a week now, ever since the portal attack, and they'd failed. Now, in two short sentences, Crown Prince Janaki had succeeded.

And he's not even my Crown Prince, the Voice thought with a strange mix of despair, amusement, and surrender.

"All right, Your Highness," he said finally. "You're right. I know you are. But it's not going to be easy. Not at all."

"I realize that," Janaki acknowledged, then glanced up at the afternoon sun. "Look," he said, "it must be about time for supper. Why don't we let this rest until after we've eaten? If you're agreeable, we'll drop by my tent after we eat, drag out a bottle of Bernithian whiskey, and get down to it."

"Of course," Kinlafia said. And to his credit, Janaki thought, he actually managed to sound as if he thought it was a good idea.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

"I need to know everything," Janaki chan Calirath said.

He sat crosslegged on his bedroll, having surrendered his single camp stool to his guest, despite the visitor's obvious discomfort at accepting it. But that discomfort over seating arrangements disappeared abruptly, devoured by something far worse, as the civilian's eyes met his, dark with memory.

"Everything?" Kinlafia asked hoarsely, and Janaki nodded.

"Believe me, I'm not asking this lightly. I've read Company-Captain chan Tesh's reports. I've spoken to Company-Captain Halifu, and Voice Traygan. I know what happened out here, but I can't begin to imagine what it must have been like to live through it, and?"

"No," Kinlafia agreed harshly. "You can't."

"I know that. But if we're going to protect others," Janaki said very gently, "we have to understand these people."

"What's to understand?" The demand was bitter, full of gritty rage, the pain feeding the white furnace of his hate. "They blew my crew to hell without a shred of mercy. They shot down Ghartoun chan Hagrahyl while he stood there with his hands empty, in plain sight. They attacked an unarmed man under a parley ba

Janaki sipped air slowly. This man was even more bitter than he'd feared, and the prince wondered if he'd been wise after all to wait until after supper. Perhaps if he'd charged straight ahead earlier, before Kinlafia had had time to anticipate this moment?to finger through his dreadful memories and cut himself on their sharpnesses all over again?it might not have been so painful.

But Janaki had wanted time to chew on the strange little flash of Glimpse he'd had earlier, and so he'd waited. He hadn't been able to refine what he'd Seen, but he was even more convinced that it had been a true Glimpse. That narrowed his own options considerably, and while the Voice had every right to be bitter, he had to be made to see the larger picture, as well. And not just because of the information he might provide.

"Voice Kinlafia," he began again, "I understand?"

"No, you don't!"

"If you would be so good as to let me finish speaking before assuming you know what I'm about to say," Janaki said levelly, "we'd get through this agonizing conversation faster."

The man seated on his camp stool glared at him, breathing hard for a long, dangerous moment. Then Kinlafia's shoulders slumped suddenly. He sat back with a weary sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I'm sorry, Your Highness. That was … out of line."

"Yes, it was," Janaki agreed calmly. "What I was going to say is that I understand that you've been through a very personal hell which no one else?certainly no one who isn't himself a Voice and can't experience it directly himself?will ever be able to fully comprehend. I recognize that, and I regret the necessity of dragging you back through it all over again. But you have to understand that you're going to have to go back over it again and again. Not just for me, but for all of the analysts waiting to debrief you, to try to get some feeling about, some handle on, just what in all the Arpathian hells we're really up against out here.

"And what that means for you, is that somehow you've got to move forward. Not 'put it behind you.' Not 'let go of it.' I'm neither coldhearted nor arrogant enough to tell a grieving man something like that."

Suspicious brilliance touched Kinlafia's eyes. Eyes which blinked rapidly while their owner looked briefly away.

"But you do need to move forward," Janaki continued with that same gentle implacability, drawing Kinlafia's gaze back to him. "You have to decide what you're going to do about it. Not what the Army or the Corps is going to do. What you're going to do."

"What can I do?" Kinlafia lifted his hands in a helpless, frustrated gesture. "Other than join the Army and shoot as many of the bastards as I can line up in my sights, that is?"

Even to himself, that carried an edge of something that was almost … childish. Petulant, perhaps. Somehow, he felt vaguely ashamed to be sitting here in front of the heir to the throne of Sharona's most powerful and ancient nation whining about his own sense of helplessness. As if the entire multiverse revolved around or depended upon his personal exaction of vengeance for his dead.