Hell's Gate

Gadrial's eyes glinted with amusement at his choice of examples, and her lips quirked in a brief smile.

"Let's just agree that we shouldn't make any assumptions about their marriage customs," she nodded toward Jathmar and Shaylar, "when our own are so varied. But if you want my opinion, theirs certainly isn't an arranged marriage. I can't imagine Shaylar doing this kind of work, out in the wilderness, if she were simply following her husband in the pursuit of his career, either. That doesn't make sense, just from a practical standpoint. Everybody's got to pull their weight and perform an important function on the team like theirs, so there's no room for the luxury of someone's spouse tagging along for the ride."

"I agree." Jasak nodded.

"So. What do you suggest I do now? We can't just stand here, staring at each other."

"No," he smiled faintly, "we can't. Do you think you could get through to Shaylar, somehow? She trusts you, at least a little."

"I'll try. But what, exactly, do I try to communicate? I don't know your plans, you know," she said, her tone tart enough to put a slightly sheepish smile into his eyes.

"Sorry about that." His cheeks actually turned a bit pink, she observed. "I've been so focused on getting them here alive that it hadn't occurred to me to share my plans with you. Despite the fact that you're fairly central to them."

Gadrial gri

"So tell me now," she said, womanfully resisting the temptation. He looked decidedly grateful and rubbed the back of his neck, clearly gathering his thoughts.

"I intend to abandon this camp," he said. "Withdraw completely from this portal and evacuate everyone to the coast. There's no way anyone can track us if we evac by air, and that's critical, because the armed confrontation has to stop here. None of us are trained diplomats, and that's what we need. If we get a diplomatic mission out here, there's at least a chance we can keep anyone else from getting killed. At this point, it doesn't matter whether Osmuna shot their man first, or whether he shot Osmuna first. What's going to matter to them is that we slaughtered their entire crew; what's going to matter to us are the casualties we took, and the weapons capability they revealed inflicting them. We didn't mean for any of this to happen, but they're going to have trouble buying that, and there's going to be a lot of pressure on our side for a panic reaction when people higher up the military and political food chains hear about what's happened. Especially if the other side send in some sort of rescue mission that leads to additional shooting."

"Which is why we need a diplomatic mission to help convince them it was all an accident." Gadrial nodded. "And civilian diplomats won't be as … incendiary as a camp full of soldiers. There'd be less chance of another confrontation ending in shots fired."

"Right on all counts," he said, and Gadrial gave him an intent look.

"At the risk of airing my own prejudices, Sir Jasak, I have to admit that that's the last thing I expected to hear from a professional officer. I also happen to think it's the best idea I've heard since Garlath got his stupid self killed."

Jasak's eyes flickered, and she snorted.

"Never mind," she said. "I know you can't agree. Proper military discipline, stiff Andaran upper lip, all of that." She smiled sweetly at his expression. "Since, however, you've elected to proceed with such wisdom, how soon can we leave? And exactly what do you want me to try to convey to them about it?"

She nodded toward Shaylar and her husband once more.

"I intend to put them?and you?on the first flight I send out of here, along with the most seriously wounded Sword Morikan hasn't been able to heal yet."

Gadrial nodded. A Gifted healer, even a fully trained one like Naf Morikan, could stretch his Gift only so far before depleting his own energy. Gifts dealing directly with living things?like healers and the other magistrons and journeymen involved in things like the dragon breeding and improvement programs, the hummer breeding program, and even the agronomists who were constantly seeking to improve food crops and sources of textiles?were quite different from Gadrial's own major arcanas. Those Gifted in such areas required special training, and no one had yet succeeded in figuring out how to store a major healing spell, although Gadrial was confident that the coveted vos Lipkin Prize waited for whoever finally did.

Actually getting the spellware loaded into the sarkolis didn't seem to be the problem. It wasn't one to which Gadrial had devoted a great deal of her own attention?her major Gifts lay in other areas?but she suspected that the difficulty lay in the inherent differences between each illness or injury. The sort of blanket spells involved in most pre-loaded spellware were frequently a brute force kind of approach. That was acceptable for inanimate objects, but even small glitches could have major?even fatal?consequences for living things. So each healer was forced to deal with an unending series of unique problems, each demanding its own unique solution.

She and Magister Halathyn had discussed the theoretical ramifications fairly often over the years, although neither of them had enough of the healing Gift to make it a profitable avenue of research for them. They'd come to the conclusion that the difference between a magister, trained in the "hard sorcery" dealing with inanimate forces and objects, and a magistron, trained in the "life sorcery" someone like Naf Morikan practiced, was the difference between a symphonic composer and a brilliant, sight-reading improvisationist. Neither was really qualified to do the other's job, or even to adequately explain the inherent differences between their specializations to each other.

"I've still got a camp full of wounded men who are going to need Naf's attention," Jasak continued, "but Five Hundred Klian has his entire battalion medical staff at Fort Rycharn. I need to get the more critical cases off of Naf's back, and I'm worried about what you've had to say about Shaylar. She doesn't seem to be in a life-threatening situation, so I can't justify pulling Naf off of the men who really need him, but I want her to get proper attention as soon as possible."

"All right. I understand?and, for what it's worth, I agree. I'll try to get your message across to Shaylar. Wish me luck."

"Oh, I do."

"Thanks."

Gadrial dried damp palms on her trousers, drew a quick breath, and started across the open ground, dredging up the best smile she could muster.

Jathmar had never previously considered what it could mean to be a prisoner, let alone a prisoner of war. But as he and Shaylar sat together under their captors' gazes, trying to eat, he was altogether too well aware of the hostility directed at them. The soldiers who'd so brutally slaughtered the rest of their crew obviously hated them, regardless of what their commander felt.

You killed our friends, those hostile looks said, and you tried to kill us. Give us an excuse to finish what we started. Please.

He tried to tell himself he was reading too much hatred into their stares. That he might be projecting his own emotions onto them, whether they deserved it or not. That it was probably as much fear of the unknown he and Shaylar?and their firearms?represented as it was actual hatred.

Some of that might even have been true. But he couldn't know that. He didn't have Shaylar's ability to read the emotions of other people, which left him unable to trust even Gadrial the way Shaylar seemed able to do. Nor could he relax under the cold, unwavering stares coming their way.

He couldn't get away from them, either. He needed even a short respite, needed to go someplace private, where he and his wife wouldn't be the focus of such intense hatred, or fear, or uncertainty, or whatever the hells it was. And he couldn't. He couldn't even stand up and walk away from camp to relieve himself! If he tried, someone would put a crossbow quarrel through him.