Hell's Gate

"All right," he said again. "We accept that we're … shardonai, and that you?and your family?will protect us to the very best of your ability. On that basis, we're willing to give you our 'parole,' but only as long as we to remain with you and under your protection."

"Thank you," Jasak said softly.

He sat without saying anything more for the better part of a minute, then he gave himself a shake and looked at Shaylar intently.

"As a part of your parole, Shaylar," he said, "I need to know how close you have to be to another Voice for him to hear you."

Shaylar froze. Then she darted an agonized glance at Jathmar. Her husband looked just as startled as she felt, and she kicked herself mentally. They'd already known Jasak was keenly intelligent. Obviously, he'd put two and two together and come up with exactly the answer she'd hoped he wouldn't reach, and she should have realized he would.

She started to say something. She didn't know what, and it didn't matter, because Jasak's raised hand cut her off before she began.

"I know you're tempted to lie," he said. "I don't blame you for that. And I won't try to compel you to tell me if you refuse to. But honor obligations cut both ways, at least in Andara. Refusing to answer is one thing; lying to your baranal is another."

"And if she doesn't answer?" Jathmar asked, bristling with fresh suspicion.

"If she doesn't answer, then I'll be forced to assume the worst. In that case, my responsibility as an officer in the Army of the Union of Arcana will be to ensure that she isn't in communication with anyone from Sharona. Or, at least, that she has no access to information useful to Sharona. In accordance with the first possibility, I'll ask Gadrial and her colleagues at the Institute to attempt to devise spellware which will permanently shut down Shaylar's 'Voice.' Frankly, I don't know if that would be even remotely possible, however, or how we could test to be sure it was actually working if they did. In the absence of that sort of guarantee, my responsibility then would become preventing her from learning anything useful about Arcana. I'd do so as gently as I possibly could, but the consequence would be effectively close confinement. You would be almost totally isolated. I would vastly prefer to avoid doing that, but the obligations of my officer's oath would leave me no alternative."

Jathmar began a hot answer, but Shaylar touched his shoulder.

"Wait, Jath," she said softly in Shurkhali. He looked at her, and she grimaced. "I'm the one who let the cat out of the bag," she said. "I didn't mean to, but he's obviously even sharper than we were afraid he was. And, be honest?is what he's saying really all that unreasonable? If you had a prisoner who had the potential ability to communicate?tracelessly, silently?with an enemy, would you give her access to potentially useful information?"

"Well …" he began, and she shook her head.

"These people don't have Voices at all, Jath. That means they can't have anything like our Voice Protocols to cover a situation like this. Even if I wanted to tell them how to temporarily disable my Voice, they wouldn't have anyone who could do it!"

"So you want to tell them the truth? All of it?"

"They've obviously already figured out I was the one who got word back to Darcel. That's going to give them a minimum range figure, no matter what. But should we try to exaggerate my range or to minimize it?"

Jathmar thought furiously, trying to keep his expression from showing the depth of his concentration. He wished passionately that they had longer to think about this?or that he'd been smart enough to insist that they think about it in advance. But they hadn't, nor did they dare to hesitate too long before they came up with some sort of answer now. Given what Jasak had said about the difference between lying and simply refusing to divulge information at all, the security offered by the shardon relationship might well disappear if Jasak decided they were lying.

And, he thought unwillingly, Jasak's right about honor obligations cutting both ways. If we're prepared to accept the protection this relationship offers, then we should damned well accept that we're duty-bound to meet our obligations under it. Besides, if we don't, it might just go away completely, and then what happens?

"Tell them the truth," he said after a long moment, this time in Andaran.

"All right," Shaylar said in soft Shurkhali, and kissed him lightly on the cheek. Then she looked at Jasak.

"We're well outside my maximum Voice range," she said unflinchingly, admitting that she was the one whose warning to Darcel Kinlafia had brought the savage counterattack down on Jasak's men. She saw his recognition of that fact flicker in his eyes, but he only nodded, and his voice remained calm, almost gentle.

"How great is your range?" he asked. "And what sorts of messages can you send?"

"Range varies with the Voice," she replied. "My range is a bit over eight hundred miles, but even if it were greater than that, no Voice can transmit through a portal. As for messages?" She shrugged. "I can send?could send, if another Voice were in range?any message you could give me. Or, I could link deeply enough with another Voice that he or she could literally see through my eyes, hear through my ears. In that sort of link, the two Voices?"

Shaylar Nargra-Kolmayr sat back on the bed in Gadrial Kelbryan's cabin, holding her husband's hand, looking into the eyes of the man whose honor was all that stood between her and a hostile universe's enmity, and willed for him to recognize her honesty as the ship about her carried her towards a lifetime of captivity.

Chapter Thirty-Four

"So, have you considered my suggestion?"

Darcel Kinlafia turned his head and cocked one eyebrow at the towering young man riding beside him. He had to admit that Prince Janaki had become steadily more impressive, not less, in the days they'd spent together. It wasn't just the young man's magnetic personality and obvious intelligence, either. He looked like a crown prince?improbably tall (even for a Calirath), athletic, broad shouldered, and handsome?and the magnificent horse under his saddle and the hawk riding on the frame attached to it only added to that perfection of imagery. With that new sense of awareness, that self-image of himself as a possible political animal, Janaki's suggestions had awakened within him, Kinlafia had come to realize that Janaki chain Calirath was an imperial publicist's dream come true.

Of course, the prince's horse had never come from a standard PAAF string of mounts, the Voice thought. No doubt the crown prince's sheer size would have made him difficult to mount under any circumstances, but the House of Calirath had been dealing with that particular problem for centuries. Janaki's blue roan?one of a matched pair whose full sibling was trotting along with the column's remounts?was a Ternathian Shikowr, a breed that had been carefully, lovingly developed in the lush, green paddocks and meadows of Ternathia in a breeding program whose stud book had been opened well over two thousand years ago.

Named after its founding stallion?who, in turn, had been named for the ancient Shurkhali cavalry saber the Empire had adopted for its own mounted troops following their resounding initial defeats at the hands of Shurkhali horsemen?and with careful infusions of Shurkhali bloodlines, as well, the Shikowr was a large, powerful breed. It had a characteristic stance, with the front end thrust forward and the hindlegs straight out behind, and a remarkably smooth gait for a horse which could reach seventeen hands in height. In fact, the Shikowr was unique in that it had no trotting gait at all. Instead, it had two four-beat gaits which allowed it to cover a huge amount of ground in a short time, and instead of trotting, it simply moved directly from its fast marching gait into a smooth canter. The Shikowr was as tall as most heavy draft horses, though it was less heavy, and it was renowned for its combination of speed, intelligence, and sheer endurance.