Hell's Gate

"Tried. Tried hard," Skirvon insisted soulfully. He remembered Olderhan's account of the prisoners' reaction to magic healing. Given these people's total ignorance about magic, it would undoubtedly be even simpler than he'd expected to convince them that Shaylar had died of her injuries. Especially since she undoubtedly would have without the Healers' intervention.

"Head hurt bad," he said once more. "Our healer killed in fight. Tried walk to second healer, but many, many days. She die before we reach. She very brave," he added sadly. "Arcana much grief."

"Yes," chan Tesh said harshly, glowering at him. "She was very brave. And my people will demand punishment for whoever killed her."

"Please," Skirvon said again, earnestly. "Too many words. Must learn more. But now, come talk Sharona. No shoot, talk."

"A truce?" chan Tesh sounded massively skeptical, but that was a distinct improvement over the white-hot fury of a few moments before. "You want to negotiate a truce?"

"Truce is no shoot?" Skirvon said, and chan Tesh nodded.

"A truce is a time to talk, yes. A time to talk, not shoot. That's what you want? To talk about not shooting us again?"

"Sharona no shoot, Arcana no shoot. Yes."

"I can't authorize a truce. You understand? I must talk to someone higher than me. With more power, more authority. Understand?"

"Yes. Send talk?"

"I'll send a message."

"Ah … message." Skirvon tapped the crystal's menu again, dutifully recording the "new" word into it. The word "message" was already in its real vocabulary list, of course, but these yokels would never know that.

chan Tesh watched as the word appeared in both Andaran and phonetic spelling. Then Skirvon looked back up at him expectantly, and the company-captain frowned.

"You understand you can't talk to me about a truce?" chan Tesh pressed. Skirvon only looked at him and said nothing, and the Sharonian tried yet again.

"I'm not a diplomat. I'm a soldier?a 'diplomat' is someone who speaks for a government. You understand?"

Skirvon nodded sharply, busily coding the "new" words into his crystal.

"I'll have to send for a diplomat," chan Tesh continued. "I'll send a message, and the diplomat will come here."

"Ah!" Skirvon nodded again, more enthusiastically. But then he stopped nodding and shook his head instead. "No," he said. "Not here."

"What?" chan Tesh's eyes narrowed once more, and Skirvon knelt in the mud with a silent apology to his tailor as he contemplated what it was going to do to the knees of his trousers.

"Sharona portal," he said, using a dead twig to draw a circle in the mud. Then he drew another circle, about two feet from the first. "Arcana portal," he said, and indicated the portal soaring high above them.

chan Tesh scowled and opened his mouth, but Skirvon held up one hand, gesturing for patience. chan Tesh looked at him, then shrugged and nodded.

"Go on. Say the rest, I mean."

"Arcana, Sharona di-plo-mats meet here."

Skirvon drew an "X" in the mud between the two circles he'd already drawn and tapped it to indicate the approximate spot of the slaughter. He let his face fall into a deeply sorrowful expression which Dastiri mimicked beautifully. Even the Navy petty officer who'd managed the boat for them contrived to look sad.

"Great grief," Skirvon said. "Much hurt." He touched his chest to indicate his heart, then patted the "X" again. "Diplomats talk here." Then he pointed to the portal overhead and said, "Sharona stay here. Arcana want Sharona stay here." He pointed at chan Tesh's soldiers and their sandbagged positions. "But diplomats go, talk here."

He pointed to the "X" again, and chan Tesh cocked an eyebrow at him.

"You mean you're willing to accept that we keep this portal? You just want your diplomats to meet our diplomats here?" It was chan Tesh's turn to point at the "X" in the mud.

"You stay?soldiers stay," Skirvon said, very carefully not answering chan Tesh's first question directly, then indicated the "X" once more. "Diplomats talk here. Me. Dastiri. Sharonian diplomats."

"Under a flag of truce?"

"No shoot, yes. Talk. Negotiate."

chan Tesh gazed thoughtfully at the muddy diagram, then studied Skirvon and Dastiri carefully before he finally spoke once more.

"I'll send a message to bring a diplomat here." He pointed at the "X." "To Fallen Timbers."

"Fall En Tim Burr?" Skirvon asked, this time genuinely puzzled, and chan Tesh pointed at the massive trees behind him on the Sharonian side of the contested portal.

"Trees," he said. "Also 'timber.'" He pantomimed a tree with his arm, positioning his forearm vertically with his fingers outstretched as branches. "Timber." Then he blew hard at his hand and lowered it as if his arm were a falling tree. "Fall. So we call the site where you murdered our civilians 'Fallen Timbers.'"

"Ah … grief place." Skirvon nodded. "We walk, negotiate Fallen Timbers."

"Why?" chan Tesh's eyes were cold again, the soul-deep anger back again, burning coldly in their depths. "Why at Fallen Timbers?"

"Sharona fight hard. Arcana grief. Arcana want see, want re-mem-ber?" Skirvon spoke the Ternathian word carefully "?brave Sharona."

chan Tesh's eyebrows soared. Then he frowned thoughtfully.

"You want to meet where they were murdered? To do them honor?"

"'Honor'?" Skirvon repeated.

"If someone does a brave thing and dies doing it, we feel respect. We feel honor. We say they were good and brave and should be remembered with a good feeling here." chan Tesh touched his own heart, and Skirvon nodded emphatically.

"Yes. Meet at Fallen Timbers, honor brave Sharona." Then he gave the soldier a concerned look. "No bad anger, meet at Fallen Timbers?"

"Will we be so angry we won't negotiate?" chan Tesh shrugged. "I can't say. I don't have the authority. Meeting there to honor our murdered civilians will help, but it won't be easy to set aside our anger. We didn't start this."

Skirvon cocked his head and smiled gently.

"Arcana no start," he said. "Who start? Two men dead, no man see. Who start?"

chan Tesh blinked, then grimaced.

"So that's your story? You didn't start it because no one saw who killed Falsan? I find that profoundly interesting."

He gazed at Skirvon thoughtfully, but, to Skirvon's surprise, the uneducated rube didn't continue. He neither badgered Skirvon in an attempt to forcibly change his mind, nor pointed out?as they certainly could have?that it was Arcana who had run a party of civilians to ground and then slaughtered them. Skirvon kept smiling, gently, and revised?just a tad?his opinion of this particular provincial rube in uniform. At least the man was intelligent enough to leave that chore to the diplomats.

"When meet?" Skirvon asked.

"Stay here," chan Tesh replied. "We'll send a message. Wait here until the answer to that question comes back."

Either chan Tesh didn't know where the nearest diplomat was, Skirvon reflected, which was an interesting piece of information. Or he didn't want to admit how far away he was, which would be another interesting piece of information.

"We'll feed you while we wait," chan Tesh added stiffly. "We'll give you water and loan you blankets, if they're needed."

If they were needed? Could these thought messages, which Skirvon still found almost impossible to credit, really travel that fast? Or was a diplomat that near? The lack of information was maddening, but at this stage in the negotiations, their best was all they could do.

"We wait," Skirvon agreed.

chan Tesh nodded sharply and turned on his heel as smartly as any Andaran aristocrat on a parade ground. That was interesting, as well. Out in the middle of the godsforsaken wilderness, this company-captain?the equivalent of a mere commander of one hundred, assuming Kelbryan's primer had gotten it correct?was as spit-and-polish formal as some self-important, blue-blooded Andaran.