Hell's Gate

Officially, chan Morthain and his cruisers were out there to guard Windtreader against "pirates," but there hadn't been a single pirate operating in the waters between Ternath Island and Tajvana in centuries. The possibility of some lunatic in a fast boat loaded with explosives probably figured far more prominently in chan Morthain's thinking. Personally, Andrin felt quite certain that the cruisers were intended much more as a precaution?and possibly a somewhat pointed hint?designed to get the attention of some of Ternathia's less scrupulous "allies" than as a defense against any sort of criminals.

Finena, perched delicately on Andrin's forearm, cocked her sleek head. She eyed the cloud of seabirds overhead with hungry interest, and Andrin laughed as the movement pulled her out of her own thoughts.

"Perhaps you should breakfast up here, love," she told the falcon. "Poor Merissa would lose the contents of her tummy?again?if you broke your fast in the cabin."

Finena tipped her head to gaze across at Andrin. Like Janaki's Taleena, Finena was an imperial Ternathian peregrine, but she looked like no other hawk which had ever broken shell in the imperial hatchery. She wasn't quite a true albino, for her eyes were as dark as any other Ternathian falcon's, but she showed none of the bold bluish-grey plumage of male peregrines, nor even the browner tones of the females of the species. Her plumage was a dazzling white, and she showed mere shadows of gray where other peregrines' underparts would have been marked with sharply visible black bars. And while she wasn't a true sentient, like the dolphins and whales or the great apes, she was an extremely smart bird?one Andrin had hand-raised from a chick.

Now Andrin ran a feather-gentle fingertip down Finena's strongly hooked beak. That dangerously sharp weapon pressed back equally gently, and Andrin's lip curled disdainfully at the thought of the Uromathian kings and princes who would?without the slightest doubt?bring their own falcons to the conclave. Finena wore no jesses, no hood, and was never tethered, whether to her perch or to Andrin's gauntleted hand. Finena stayed with?and returned to?Andrin from love of her chosen human companion. Andrin respected the bird's freedom, and Finena was fiercely devoted to her. Uromathian kings and princes carried falcons as status symbols; that much of the traditional Ternathian practice they'd adopted. But unlike the Ternathian imperial house, they left their birds' routine daily care to hawk handlers and were always careful to fasten the birds securely to their wrists when they carried them?and to hood them, whenever they weren't actively hunting. Andrin considered that a barbaric and cruel practice, and her lip-curl of disdain turned into a sinful smile as she anticipated the expressions of the Uromathians when they caught their first glimpse of a Ternathian grand princess with a white Ternathian imperial peregrine.

Finena preened on Andrin's arm as she caught her companion's emotions. They didn't share true telepathy, the way a cetacean or a chimpanzee shared with a translator, but their bond was very real, nonetheless, and Andrin felt it glowing between them as she turned and started for the external stair?which the sailors insisted on calling a "ladder"?from the promenade deck to the boat deck, above.

"You're going to be the envy of every Uromathian male in Tajvana, love," Andrin half-crooned. "For now, though, why don't you go ahead and bring down a bird for your breakfast? Just be a dear and eat it up there somewhere." She pointed to the lookout's fat pod on Windtreader's foremast. "After all, it wouldn't do to irritate Captain Ula or the crew by scattering blood and feathers all over the deck."

The glowing white bird, whose name meant "White Fire," let out a scolding "rehk," and Andrin laughed.

"No, that's not an insult to your table ma

Someone snorted at her shoulder, and she glanced mildly back at her personal guardsman, who followed the regulation two paces behind her.

"Laugh if you will, Lazima chan Zindico," she said severely. "But it's true, and you know it."

"Oh, aye, that it is," chan Zindico agreed solemnly, but a devilish glint lurked in his eyes. "I'm just thinking how surprised they'd be to hear a grand princess of the blood worrying about the condition of their decks."

"You could be right," she acknowledged, then gri

"Why, thank you, Your Highness. It's nice to be appreciated."

chan Zindico's return smile was easy, but even here, on a Ternathian ship with a loyal and thoroughly vetted Ternathian crew, his constantly sweeping eyes remained sharp as flaked obsidian. He was pledged to guard her against all dangers … and at any cost. It was a pledge he'd taken voluntarily on the day of her birth, and that sometimes appalled Andrin. She might have turned out to be a raging, spoiled brat, and still chan Zindico would have honored that oath, thrown himself between her and any weapon that threatened her. She couldn't keep him from doing that, much though the thought secretly terrified her, and so she'd worked hard, almost from the day she could walk, in an effort to be worthy of that kind of commitment.

She was unaware that chan Zindico and her other personal guards, who traded off the twenty-four-hour-a-day job of keeping her alive, took a fierce pride in their young mistress. Or that they looked with pity on the guards who'd pledged their lives to young Anbessa. The Emperor's youngest daughter had developed quite an imperial little temper?one Empress Varena was grimly determined to correct or die trying. Anbessa's guardsmen vehemently hoped their Empress succeeded. Soon.

"Still and all," chan Zindico continued, smiling at Andrin as they stepped off the ladder onto Windtreader's uppermost deck, "if Lady Finena wants to scatter feathers, I'm sure the crew won't begrudge her."

The grand princess laughed and flung her gauntleted arm aloft, launching the glowing white falcon. Finena rocketed upward, slashing high against the crystalline blue skies like a white flame. She circled the ship one, twice … then wheeled and streaked down through the flock of gulls like a gleaming thunderbolt. Feathers flew as the fisted talons struck, then snatched their prey out of the air, and chan Zindico knew his wasn't the only eye on deck drawn to that stu

"It's the Grand Princess' falcon!" one of the pair of lookouts on the starboard bridge wing said, nudging his fellow, as Finena perched on the yard spreading the foremast stays and began devouring her breakfast with typical messiness.

"Isn't she a fine sight, now?" his companion replied.

"The finest I ever did see, and that's no lie. Did you see her fly, man? From a ship's deck, no less! Triad's mercy, that's what an imperial Ternathian falcon can do!"

"Very nicely done, indeed, Your Highness," another voice said, and Andrin turned in surprise as a burly man in a captain's uniform stepped out of the wheelhouse. Captain Ula looked at her just a bit quizzically, and she found herself blushing.

"I beg your pardon for interrupting the routine of your crew, Captain," she apologized. "I hadn't realized Finena would prove to be such a distraction."

"No harm done, Your Highness." He swept her a low bow, then turned a scowl on the suddenly very intent-looking lookouts and raised his voice into a booming roar fit to carry through any gale. "But if I catch another man gawking at Her Highness' bird instead of attending to his duties, I'll feed his liver to the falcon, myself! Do I make myself clear?"

"Aye, Captain!"

The lookouts whipped back around to their assigned sectors, and Ula scowled at their backs for just a moment, but his eyes still twinkled. He waited another few seconds, then turned back to Andrin.