Hell's Gate

Petty-Captain Arthag "honor guard" acknowledged the arrival of Viscount Simrath's party, and Company-Captain chan Tesh gravely and respectfully saluted one of his more junior platoon commanders.

"Viscount," the company-captain said formally. "Welcome to Fallen Timbers."

"Thank you, Company-Captain," chan Baskay replied with a pleasant, if somewhat distant, smile. Then he allowed the smile to fade. "I could wish that none of us had to be here," he continued, deliberately pitching his voice loudly enough for the Arcanan diplomats to hear. "I've Seen the reports, of course, including Shaylar's message." He shook his head, allowing his expression to turn a bit bleaker. "The personal messages I've received from home are as furious as anything I've ever heard before, and the official correspondence isn't much better."

"I don't doubt it, My Lord." chan Tesh shook his head. "Still, according to these people, it was all mistake."

"So I've been told." chan Baskay glanced at the Arcanans again. "I would dearly love to find that that's the truth, and that we can end all of this without still more bloodshed."

"Well, My Lord, I suppose that's largely up to you. And to these … gentlemen, of course."

"True enough, Company-Captain," chan Baskay agreed. "True enough. So I suppose we'd best get started. Could you perform the introductions for us, please?"

"Of course, My Lord."

chan Baskay dismounted, handing his reins to one of Arthag's troopers. Then he and chan Rothag accompanied chan Tesh across to the waiting Arcanans.

The Arcanans in question had set up a conference table at which the deliberations were to take place, and that "table" was sufficiently startling to capture chan Baskay's attention for several seconds. It was made from several narrow slats of wood which had been hinged together to form a folded up bundle that could fit onto a pack saddle. When it was unfolded, crosspieces slid into place across the bottom, stiffening it and locking it in the open position.

That much was fairly unremarkable, but it did have one small feature guaranteed to arrest his attention instantly: it had no legs.

The tabletop simply floated there, perfectly level despite the rough terrain, hovering in midair at the ordinary height of a standard table, and chan Baskay's scalp crawled at the sight. It wasn't natural, he thought, and the back of his brain even whispered the word "demonic," before he squelched it back down where it had come from.

Not demonic, he told himself. It's just different. Very different, perhaps, but only different.

He told himself that rather firmly, and he knew?intellectually?that it was true. That this was merely a form of technology his own people had never seen before, assuming that anything which caused a ten-foot-long tabletop to float thirty-six inches off the ground under a canopy of flame-shot autumn leaves could be called "merely" anything.

It was the obvious solution to their need for a portable table, of course, but it was sufficiently alien to distract chan Baskay from the business at hand. It took him a heartbeat or two to realize it had. Then he glanced up, swiftly and without moving his head from its "gosh-look-at-the-table" position, and saw the faintest hint of smug satisfaction in the Arcanans' eyes.

That satisfaction vanished instantly when they realized he was watching them closely without seeming to do so. Their own eyes narrowed, and they stood up straighter, put on notice that they weren't dealing with a total babe-in-swaddling. He noticed that, too, and gave them a polite little smile which, he was pleased to observe, replaced their satisfaction with an edge of speculation, instead.

chan Baskay managed to keep his smile from growing and very carefully concealed his own flicker of satisfaction. He'd also noticed?and ignored?what looked remarkably like a half-dozen chairs whose legs had been amputated. They were tucked underneath the floating conference table, as if the Arcanans had hoped they wouldn't be immediately spotted, and he carefully paid them no attention at all even as he filed away their presence for future consideration.

"Viscount Simrath," chan Tesh said formally, "this is Rithmar Skirvon and Uthik Dastiri, the diplomatic representatives of something called the Union of Arcana. Master Skirvon, Master Dastiri, this is Sir Dorzon Baskay, forty-sixth Viscount Simrath, of the Ternathian Foreign Ministry, acting in behalf of the Portal Authority and the Emperor of Ternathia, and Lord Trekar Rothag, his associate and adviser."

Everyone bowed gravely to everyone else, and chan Baskay raised one aristocratic eyebrow.

"I understand you gentlemen speak our language?"

"Speak some," the older of the two Arcanan civilians?Skirvon?said. "Learn more with PC while talk. Can show?"

He indicated the large lump of quartz sitting in the center of the floating table, and chan Baskay allowed his other eyebrow to rise.

"By all means," he invited.

Skirvon bowed slightly, then murmured something in his own language. The lump of quartz glowed briefly, and then the floating words chan Tesh had already described to chan Baskay appeared within it. Skirvon leaned over it, touching it with a crystal stylus, then said something else, much longer and considerably more involved, in his own language.

"The PC can help learn languages," another voice said suddenly. It sounded a great deal like Skirvon's, but not exactly, and it was coming not from the Arcanan, but from the glowing lump of rock. "When we talk, it listens. Learns. It will turn words in my language into your language, and your language into my language."

The words coming from the "PC" were much clearer, smoother, than anything Skirvon had produced in Ternathian. Even chan Tesh, who'd already seen multiple examples of the Arcanans' astounding technology, was clearly taken aback, and it took all of chan Baskay's self-control not to show his own astonishment. But he managed it somehow, and looked at Skirvon levelly.

"So, if I speak to your rock, it will translate whatever I say into your own language?" he said, and heard a voice which wasn't quite his saying something in a language he'd never spoken.

Skirvon watched the Sharonians' response to his newest ploy and managed not to smile like a fox in a henhouse. Despite their best efforts to conceal it, they were clearly impressed by this fresh manifestation of magic. Of course, they didn't know the PC had an unfair advantage. They thought it was still learning the language as it went, and he had no intention of suggesting otherwise. In fact, he'd loaded the same translation spellware Magister Kelbryan had used with Shaylar into his own crystal. It contained the complete vocabulary the magister had acquired from her prisoner, as well, and Skirvon had to remind himself to phrase his comments in Andaran rather more simply then he would have normally. It would never do to inadvertently reveal the fluency in Ternathian which he already possessed.

On the other hand, he thought, it won't hurt a bit to impress these yokels with how quickly the "learning spellware "improves its grasp of Ternathian in the course of our little chats.

"Is this acceptable?" he asked earnestly in Andaran.

"Is this acceptable?" the crystal on the table said in Ternathian, and chan Baskay nodded.

"Indeed. And quite convenient, too," he said calmly.

Skirvon was impressed. This Viscount Simrath obviously had been just as surprised as chan Tesh and the others, but there was remarkably little evidence of it in his expression or his voice. The man's title?forty-sixth Viscount of Whatever??indicated an incredibly long aristocratic pedigree, which was entirely in keeping with the preposterous age Shaylar had imputed to this Ternathian Empire. That was impressive enough, but his obvious self-control and total self-confidence was even more impressive. Clearly, the man was an experienced diplomat, as well, despite his apparent relative youth, and Skirvon wondered what stroke of luck had put him far enough down the transit chain from Sharona to get him to this place at this time.