Hell's Gate

Shalassar gasped and her hand tightened on Thaminar's forearm.

"They don't do that!" she protested. "They just don't."

Neither man spoke, and Shalassar shivered, abruptly and oddly frightened as the night closed in around them.

"I want to go inside now," she said in a small voice.

Thaminar nodded and slipped his arm around her once again, steadying her on the walk back to their home. She was more shaken, he realized, than she'd been by anything since the day the news from Hell's Gate had shattered their world.

He glanced back once at the dark water, where the vast sweep of black sea met the equally vast bowl of mostly-black sky. A faint glow remained visible on the western horizon, where the sun had set beyond the coast of Ricathia, but stars were already visible in the eastern sky and overhead.

Why were the cetaceans angry over Shaylar's death? Why were they so interested in the outcome of the day's vote? The world which had been so quiet and predictable for the vast majority of his life seemed very cold and frightening tonight. And under other skies, he knew, there were Sharonians even closer to the danger that loomed, out there in the darkness.

Keep them safe, Mother Marthea, he prayed with a sudden fervor he couldn't explain. Keep us all safe… .

Then they reached the house, with its warm gas lamps to dispel the cold and frightened feelings which had overwhelmed them all on the darkened dock. Merely closing the door felt like an act of preservation, somehow. An act that barred the way against the evil that lay waiting, out there in the multi-universal darkness.

He helped Shalassar into a chair, poured whiskey into three glasses, and handed them around. While they sipped their whiskey and felt safe behind the closed door, here inside these walls where the lights were warm and comforting, he wondered again what the cetaceans were pla

Keep them safe, he found himself praying once more. Please, keep them safe.

"All right, Five Hundred," Commander of Two Thousand Mayrkos Harshu said to his senior Air Force commander as the early afternoon sunlight burned down across Fort Rycharn. "Let's get these dragons in the air."