Hell's Gate

He's scared, Shaylar realized abruptly. He's scared to death of something he doesn't understand. She knew exactly what that felt like; she'd just gone through the same experience herself, with Gadrial's explanation. But his fright ran much deeper than hers had, much deeper than simple fear of something he didn't understand.

He's terrified that we'll put thoughts into their minds, control them somehow. What else could he think, if they don't have anything like telepathy? And he feels responsible. He's not just afraid for himself. It's not that simple for him. He's a military officer, responsible for others, for making certain we don't do something to them.

"It doesn't work that way, Jasak," she heard herself say.

"Shaylar!" Jathmar twisted around to stare at her, his eyes dark with protest, but she shook her head.

"No, Jathmar. I need to say this. Trust me, please." She'd deliberately spoken in Andaran, and her husband searched her eyes even as he searched her feelings through their bond. He bit his lower lip, taut with fear for her, and yet in the end he nodded and turned to Jasak once more.

"I'll say it again, Jasak Olderhan. Hurt her, and I will do my best to kill you."

Their gazes locked for a long, dangerous moment. Then Jasak let out an exasperated sigh.

"For people with 'Talents,' you can be amazingly unobservant, Jathmar! I don't kill women. Not if I know they're in the line of fire. And I don't hurt women, either. When I discovered Shaylar in those trees … "

The agony reflected beside the anger in his eyes was plainly visible, and not just to Shaylar, and she felt a little of the tension drain from her husband. Just a little, but it was enough to take them all one step back from the killing edge of danger. Jathmar still wouldn't let her move closer to Jasak, not even to stand at his own side, which was where she desperately wanted to be?held in his arms, not cowering behind his shoulder. But there was no point in making the tension worse.

She did reach forward, needing contact with him, even if that contact was as slight as interlacing her fingers through his, and he reached back to squeeze her hand.

"Please open the door, Jasak," she said then. "I know you're afraid. You're worried Jathmar might try to use Gadrial as a hostage, out of fear. But she needs to hear what I have to say."

Jasak stared into her eyes for long moments, trying to see past them into her mind. She could feel the attempt battering at her, and wondered abruptly if perhaps he did have at least a trace of Talent himself. But even if he did, he didn't have the slightest idea how to use it, and so he ended up with nothing but intense frustration and no real answers. In the end, he finally turned and opened the door.

Gadrial's eyes were wide and worried. She started to step forward, but Jasak lifted a hand.

"Don't come in," he cautioned. "Not yet. But Shaylar wants you to hear this, too. It ought to be … interesting."

He turned that cold-steel gaze back onto her and waited.

"I am Talented," Shaylar said, speaking very quietly, very steadily. "A Talent is a little bit like a Gift. You're born with it. But we don't use Talents to control some energy field outside ourselves. We use our minds to do different kinds of work. We call someone with my Talent a 'Voice." I can use my mind to talk directly to another Talented Voice. I can't do that with anyone else, not even Jathmar."

Jasak stood rigidly in the open doorway, clearly not believing it, but Shaylar kept going, because she didn't have any other choice. She released Jathmar's hand just long enough to reach up and brush fingertips across her husband's temple. Then she moved her hand from his temple to her own.

"Jathmar and I share a special bond. When Talented people marry, there's such closeness, such sharing, that a deep and permanent bond forms. But it isn't the same as a full Voice. He can feel my emotions; I can feel his. And I can feel Jathmar's mind. Not hear it, exactly, but feel it?like I'm touching something solid. And he can feel mine, even across a distance of several miles. We can often guess what the other is thinking, because we know each other so well, but I can't read his mind.

"And I can't read yours or Gadrial's, either. I can't hear your thoughts. I can't put thoughts into your mind. You noticed how often I touch people." Her rueful smile startled him. "I knew one of you would, eventually, but I didn't know who would see it first. Gadrial spends more time with me, but you're more suspicious." She shrugged. "You're a soldier. It's your job."

He glowered at her, but then, to her vast relief, he seemed to unbend the tiniest bit.

"Yes. It is my job," he said gruffly, then drew another deep breath and forced the steel burr out of his voice.

"All right. I'll try to listen with a little less suspicion. I need to understand this, for a lot of important reasons. And while I'm listening," he met her gaze, "I'll remind myself that despite what your soldiers did to my men, despite the threat to my people they represent, neither you nor Jathmar tried to kill my men until we fired on you."

"No," Jathmar said stiffly. "We didn't. We weren't stupid. We were good enough woodsmen to notice panicked wildlife rushing ahead of a wide line of men driving through a forest to surround us. We guessed right then that we were outnumbered. That's why we found a hiding place. And when we finally saw your people, it was obvious we faced soldiers. Less than twenty civilians against enough men to cut off our escape from every direction? We'd have been crazy to shoot first! But that didn't help us in the end, did it?because you had to come in shooting anyway! Maybe Gadrial is right and you didn't order your people to shoot, but you were in command. You were the one who pushed it?chased us?until it was inevitable!"

His accent was more pronounced even than usual, and he had to pause several times to find the words he wanted. But his anger came through with perfect clarity, and Jasak studied him for long silent moments.

"Let me tell you what I see about that day," he said finally. "You had personal weapons more terrifying than anything we'd ever seen?certainly more terrifying than anything we 'soldiers' had. Something that killed with horrifying violence, something we couldn't even identify. And when we tracked the man who'd killed one of my men to your camp, we discovered that you hadn't made the sort of open encampment we 'soldiers' made when we bivouacked. Oh, no, you'd built a palisade, well placed on commanding ground, with good fields of fire. An obviously military palisade. One of my men was already dead, I had no idea who you were, where you'd come from, who'd shot first, what other weapons you might have, how close other military forces might have been, what your intentions were, what sort of people you were. And when we finally did catch up with you, you were holed up in the best military position we'd seen anywhere on that side of our portal! Yes, you turned out to be civilians, but how was I supposed to know that then? I knew nothing about you?except that you'd already killed one of my people?and every member of the Arcanan military forces has standing orders where contact with another human civilization is concerned. We're to make it a peaceful contact if we possibly can. But, if there's already been blood shed, especially by what appears to be an organized military force, then those same standing orders required me to control the contact. Given all of that, Jathmar, how would you have reacted differently up until the instant fire was opened?"

It was his turn to hold Jathmar's gaze challengingly, and he did. Yet even Jathmar could see it was a challenge, not simple anger, and he felt his own anger waver.

He didn't want to feel that. The sudden realization that he wanted?needed?to cling to his anger shook him badly, but it was true. He didn't want to take a single step toward understanding what Jasak had known, what Jasak's options had been, because understanding might undermine his hatred.