Hell's Gate

Jathmar followed her eyes and frowned.

"Wonder who they are?" he muttered under his breath.

"So do I." The edge in Shaylar's voice surprised Jathmar. She'd wrapped both arms around herself as though still warding off the chill of flying across the mountains, and her reaction worried him.

He turned his attention back to the two unknowns. Both were in their forties or fifties, at a glance, and although Jathmar knew nothing of Arcanan fashions, their clothing was clearly made of high-quality material. It looked custom-tailored, too. That kind of garment wasn't what he'd expected to see in a frontier fort, and they looked even more out of place than he felt.

According to Jasak and Gadrial, Arcana's exploration of virgin universes was conducted by the military. So who were these two civilians? And what were they doing out here among the trees, mosquitos, and swamps, wearing tailored garments made of what looked like silk?

Government functionaries of some kind, perhaps. Or could they be independent businessmen intent on opening trade routes? He knew there wasn't much point in speculating in the dark, but something about them compelled his curiosity. There was a hardness in their eyes, or perhaps a hooded look of speculation, that made him intensely uncomfortable. He'd grown used to seeing fear, or at least anxiety, as the rumors of the Sharonians' "demonic weapons" traveled up the transit chain ahead of them. But these men weren't looking at Shaylar and him fearfully. There was something measuring, watchful … calculating about them.

He couldn't put his mental finger on just what it was about them that bothered him any more accurately than that, but it was enough to raise his hackles, and he put his arm around Shaylar as they walked past the silently watching civilians.

Neshok led them up the road toward the new fort, and Jathmar abruptly found the two civilians displaced from the forefront of his concerns. The landing field was literally ringed with dragons. There were dozens?possibly even scores?of the beasts, and their path led them directly past half a dozen of them.

Skyfang, the dragon which had transported them here from Fort Wyvern, had shown no sign of Windclaw's ferociously hostile initial reaction to Shaylar. Jathmar had concluded that she'd been right in her suspicion that it was her attempt to use her Voice which had set the original transport dragon off. Now, as they headed across in front of six of them, he found himself hoping fervently that they'd both been correct after all.

Most of the beasts ignored them completely, but one of them raised its head abruptly. The predominately crimson and gold beast was smaller than any of the dragons Jathmar had previously seen, but that scarcely made it tiny. Its head was still longer than his body, much less Shaylar's, and the spikes protecting its throat and head were sharper looking, and proportionately longer, than Windclaw's had been.

It cocked its head, like some huge falcon, turning to fix its knife-sharp gaze upon Shaylar, and its mouth opened, showing carnivore fangs the size of serving platters and a long, shockingly red forked tongue. Then its forefeet thrust at the rain-slick ground, shoving it half-upright, and it hissed like a Trans-Temporal Express locomotive venting steam.

Shaylar went white. She closed her eyes, trembling, and Jathmar felt her desperate effort to completely close down any hint of Talent. Even the marriage bond was abruptly muted, almost impossible to feel, and his arm tightened around her.

The dragon's reaction hadn't escaped Jasak or Gadrial. As if they'd been the telepaths, the two of them moved as one, in perfect coordination, to interpose their own bodies between the clearly agitated beast and Shaylar. And Gadrial, Jatham realized with sudden shock was abruptly outlined by a literal corona of light. Fire seemed to crackle in midair, three inches from her skin, her hands rose in an odd, intensely graceful posture which reminded him of some sort of martial artist, and he felt a sudden, ominous, ozone-breathing pressure radiating from her. It was like knowing he was standing directly in the path of a lightning bolt, a corner of his mind gibbered, and for the first time since they'd met, he was actually afraid of her.

Neshok, on the other hand, didn't even seem to have noticed. He'd halted, but he was staring with obvious perplexity?and what looked like quickly growing suspicion?back and forth between the dragon and the two Sharonians, not at Jasik or Gadrial.

"What??" he began, but Jasak overrode his questions savagely.

"Get us out of here?now!" he barked. Neshok turned his head to glare at him, and Jasak snarled. "Now, godsdamn it! Unless you want a massacre on your hands!"

Fury tightened the other hundred's expression, but then he glanced at Gadrial, and his eyes widened. He'd opened his mouth as if to say something more, but it snapped shut as more fire began to crackle at the tips of her fingers. That and the look on Jasak's face?and the fact that a second dragon was begi

The agitated dragons began to calm once more as soon as Shaylar was forty or fifty yards away. The one who'd roused up first looked after her with one last almost querulous hiss. Then it, too, settled back into its original position and laid its fearsome head on its forelegs.

"It wasn't me, Jasak! It wasn't! It couldn't have been me! I wasn't doing anything!" Shaylar cried, and Jasak looked down at her as she hastened along between him and Jathmar.

"I believe you," he said, laying his own hand on her shoulder, but he also shook his head. "I just wish I knew why those two reacted that way, when none of the transport dragons have since Windclaw."

"What are you talking about?" Neshok demanded harshly. He was glaring at Shaylar, his eyes flinty, and he didn't seem to be very much happier than that with Jasak. "What does she mean, she 'wasn't doing anything'?"

"The transport dragon that airlifted my wounded out reacted violently to Lady Nargra-Kolmayr's presence." Jasak's voice was level, his expression calm, but Shaylar could sense his emotions through the hand still on her shoulder. He wasn't at all happy about broaching this entire subject, she realized. "We didn't have any problems with the dragon from Fort Wyvern, though. I'd hoped it was just a fluke the first time."

"That still doesn't answer my question," Neshok said flatly, stopping in the road now that they were far enough away from the dragons and glaring at Jasak. "What did she mean about not doing anything?"

"Lady Nargra-Kolmayr," Jasak said, and Shaylar realized he was deliberately stressing the Andaran title he'd suddenly assigned her rather than use her first name, "has what her people call a Talent. It's an ability to communicate with others using her mind, and we think some of the dragons may be reacting to it."

Neshok's eyes flared wide in sudden alarm, and Jasak shook his head quickly.

"It's very much like our Gifts, Hundred," he said. "In fact, you could just think of it as a different sort of Gift. It doesn't turn her into some kind of magic mindreader, nor can she influence your thoughts or communicate with her own people from this far away."

"And just how do you know that?" Neshok demanded, his face dark with anger.

"I know because she told me so," Jasak said flatly. "And because if there'd been any way for her to use her Talent effectively against us, she'd certainly have done so, and she hasn't."

"Because she told you so!" Neshok repeated in a scathing tone, completely ignoring Jasak's second sentence. "The woman's a prisoner of war, and you expect her to tell you the truth? Are you a complete idiot? She's going to lie with every breath she takes! I ought to put a bolt through her right now?or throw her back to the dragons!"