Hell's Gate

Did they have Gifts of their own? Different, perhaps, from any Gadrial had ever heard of, but equally powerful? Did different groups of them have different Gifts? How might their Gifts compare to those of Arcana? And what about their society's internal structure and dynamics? Had they evolved some sort of monolithic cultural template, or were they composed of elements as internally diverse?even hostile?as her own Ransarans and most Mythalans?

Jasak glanced back at Gadrial and noted her thoughtful frown. She was obviously thinking hard, sorting back through all of her impressions, and he nodded mentally in satisfaction. The brain inside that lovely head of hers was frighteningly acute. He had no doubt at all that if there were any clues buried among those impressions, Gadrial Kelbryan would pounce upon them as surely as any falcon taking a hare.

Satisfied that the bloodhound was on the trail, Jasak turned around again in his own saddle. He gazed straight ahead, but his attention wasn't focused on Salmeer's back, nor on Windclaw's shimmering wings as they beat powerfully in the moonlight. Not even on the glorious silver sea of leaves speeding past below them, with the dragon's moon-shadow racing from one bright treetop to the next in a flowing blur.

No. What he saw was Osmuna lying dead in a creek. A stockade filled with abandoned tents, foot-weary donkeys, and strange equipment. And a terrifying montage of battle images that flashed through his memory in bright bursts, like exploding incendiary spells.

And behind them was the frightening thought of what would happen if, by some unimaginable means, these people had successfully gotten a message back through the portal to their nearest base.

He couldn't imagine how they might have done it. A careful sweep around the battle site had found no tracks leading away from all that toppled timber, and there'd been no sign of messenger birds, like the hummers his own platoons carried. But these people had all ma

That thought was more than simply worrisome. It was downright terrifying. So far, he'd found nothing?nothing at all?in their captured gear which resembled arcane technology. An Arcanan crew that size would have been carrying all ma

Was it really possible that one of those machines?possibly one he hadn't even found yet, one they might have destroyed to prevent him from finding it, as they'd destroyed their maps and charts?might have allowed them to send a message without a ru

The more he thought about how little he knew about Shaylar and her people, the more he wanted to avoid contact with any of them until Arcana had managed to fill in at least a few corners of the puzzle, punch at least a few holes through the fog of total ignorance which was all he could offer his superiors at the moment. And as he considered it, it occurred to him that if there was, in fact, something odd about Shaylar Nargra's mind, something which upset dragons, it was equally clear from her reaction that Shaylar had never seen anything remotely like Windclaw.

They don't have dragons, he realized. And if they don't have dragons, is it possible that they don't have anything that flies?

His frown intensified as that possibility hovered before him. He might simply be grasping at straws, but one thing he knew: dragons?unlike donkeys, soldiers, or civilian surveyors?left no footprints. If Shaylar and her companions had gotten a message back to their people, picking up his own route from the swamp base camp to the site of the battle and backtracking it wouldn't be particularly difficult for even semi-competent woodsmen. But simply finding the base camp wouldn't help them very much.

It was over seven hundred miles from the swamp to Fort Rycharn, with no roads, no trails, between the fort and the swamp portal. Everything at the portal base camp had been airlifted in from Fort Rycharn, and even Fort Rycharn was only a forward base. The actual portal into this universe was over three thousand miles away?across equally trackless ocean?on the island which would have been Chalar back on Arcana.

He nodded, mouth firming with decision. He couldn't undo what had already happened, but he could at least buy some time, and he intended to do just that. Pulling everyone back from the swamp portal to Fort Rycharn wouldn't be easy with only a single transport dragon available, but it would be one way to dig a hole and fill it in behind them.

If Shaylar's party had summoned a rescue party, it would find only the abandoned camp. Let it hunt through seven hundred miles of virgin, trackless swamp if it wanted to. By the time it could find Fort Rycharn, even that wouldn't do it any good, if Jasak had his way. Not if he could convince Five Hundred Klian to pull all the way back to the Chalar arrival portal and put twenty-six hundred more miles of water between any search party and the route to Arcana.

Time, he thought. That's what we need?time. Time to get word back up the transit chain. Time for someone who knows what the hell he's doing to get back here and handle the next contact with these people. Time to figure out a way to somehow get a handle on this situation before it spins totally out of control.

And the way to get that time was to make sure that anyone from the other side couldn't find a trace of Arcana.

Not until Arcana was good and ready to be found.

Chapter Thirteen

Jathmar floated in the darkness of the still, warm depths, drifting slowly and steadily toward a sunlit surface far above him. The light grew stronger, reaching down towards him, and something stirred in sleepy protest. He reached out to the darkness, wrapping it about himself, like a child burrowing deep into a goose down comforter. He didn't want to wake up, didn't want to leave the safe, still quiet. He didn't remember why he didn't want to wake, but his drowsy mind knew that something waited for him. Something he didn't want to face.

His eyes opened, and he reached out, as automatically as breathing, for Shaylar's familiar touch.

Panic struck like a spiked hammer.

She wasn't there. Where Shaylar should have been, he found only a roaring, pain-filled blackness. The shockwave of loss jolted him into full consciousness with a sharp gasp of anguished terror, and his eyes snapped open.

Sunlight burned down over him, hot and humid. There was no trace of the glorious autumn woods he remembered; all he could see was a vast stretch of muddy water and rank vegetation, heavy with the smell of rot and mold and fecundity. The trees growing at the water's edge, some growing in the water itself, were tropical varieties, heavy with vines, with no trace of the colors of a northern fall. The voices of birds?some raucous, some musical, some like those he'd never heard before?sounded through the hot, dense stillness, huge butterflies drifted over and among the swamp grasses, like living jewels, and the whine of insects hung heavy on the thick, steamy air.

He lay on something simultaneously firm and yet soft-textured, like a folding canvas camp cot, and his thoughts fluttered and twisted, trapped between confusion and the strobing panic radiating from the absence where Shaylar ought to have been. He hung transfixed between seriously broken thoughts. Then voices registered, and movement, as well, close by. He sat up and?