Hell's Gate

Below them, as far as he could see, lay miles and miles of trackless swamp. He'd discovered that his Mapping Talent worked just fine from up here?or would have, if not for the fact that he'd never in his life moved this quickly. Trying to sort out everything his Talent let him See was all but impossible simply because of the speed with which it came at him. He was sure he could have learned to compensate with practice, but for now he couldn't make a great deal of sense out of what he was Seeing. Which was particularly frustrating, since he rather doubted that his captors realized they'd given him the opportunity to chart a perfect escape route … if only he'd been up to the challenge.

But if he couldn't See all he would have liked to, there was more than enough he could see. Brilliant sunlight scattered diamonds across the open patches of water among the reeds, swampy hillocks, and patches of trees. Vast clouds of birds rose in alarm as the dragon flashed overhead: graceful waterbirds with snowy white wings and dove grey wings and wings of darker hues that were doubtless herons and cranes.

They were too high to see any of the other animals which inhabited that vast swamp, but Jathmar had little doubt that there'd be plenty of crocodiles or alligators of some sort down there, along with fish, water-loving mammals, and millions upon millions of crustaceans. He wished he could figure out where they were, though, and he couldn't. The shape of land masses never varied from one universe to the next, but one stretch of swamp was very like any other, and he had absolutely no reference points to try and figure out where this one lay. If he could look at the stars tonight, he would at least be able to tell whether they were in the northern hemisphere, or the southern, but he was unhappily certain that the information wouldn't do him a great deal of good.

Although I suppose I'll at least draw a certain amount of mental satisfaction out of putting my astronomy lessons to good use.

They'd flown several hundred miles, at least, when the dragon finally began to descend just as Jathmar spotted a clearing near the beach. A fort had been built along the edge of a sheltered bay, where a stream emptied from the swamp into the sea in a startling plume of dark water that stained the turquoise seawater for a surprising distance. Despite a lifetime spent Mapping, Jathmar had never consciously thought about dark, nutrient-rich water creating such a visible stain in much clearer seawater, let alone how it would look from the air. It was almost like a painting?swirls of color like the strokes of a brush across canvas, unexpected and beautiful.

Then they were circling over the fort itself, and he turned his attention to their destination. It was a fairly large structure, but scarcely huge, and he nodded inside. Everything he'd seen so far suggested that their captors were operating at the end of an extensive line of relatively unimproved universes, much as the Chalgyn Consortium crew had been doing when they blundered into one another. He'd seen scores of Sharonian forts very much like the one below him. Form followed function, so it was probably a multiversal pattern: an outer stockade, made of thick logs hewn from the clumps of forest dotting the vast swamp, wrapped around a fairly large open courtyard which held several buildings.

A sturdy, if roughly built, pier ran out into the bay from the seward face of the fort. That, too, was something he'd seen many times before. What he hadn't ever seen was a ship like the one lying alongside that pier, and his eyes narrowed behind the protective glass shield as he studied it.

It wasn't especially huge?not more than three hundred feet, he estimated, though it could have been a bit more than that?and its sleek lines were unlike those of any ship he'd ever seen before. It was slim, obviously designed for high speed, with sharply flared clipper bows and a graceful sheer. The superstructure seemed enormously top-heavy to Jathmar, far bigger and blockier than any Sharonian ship he'd ever seen, but that might have been partly because there was so little other top hamper. It had only a single mast, whose sole function was clearly to support the lookout pod at its top, and there was no trace of the tall fu

He had little time to ponder the question before the dragon backwinged abruptly and touched down with almost terrifying sudde

Jathmar glanced back into his wife's wide, alarmed eyes, and made himself smile.

"We made it!" He chuckled, although his breath was a little unsteady. "And we got down in one piece, too! I had my doubts, right there at the end."

"That was … amazing." Shaylar sounded a bit breathless herself as she uncurled her fingers from their death grip on his waist. "Really … wow!" she added.

Gadrial appeared from behind them, smiling at their obvious reaction to the flight and landing. She showed them how to unbuckle the complex straps, then signaled for them to wait while the seriously wounded were offloaded first. The men who'd come out to meet the dragon?there were substantially fewer of them than a fort this size should have boasted, Jathmar thought?had sorted themselves out into two?no, three?types.

The first group guided stretchers that floated by themselves. Stretchers, Jathmar realized abruptly, like the "cot" upon which he'd awakened in the swamp base camp. So that's how they transported so many wounded men out, he thought as the stretchers floated straight up the dragon's side, where the wounded were carefully shifted onto them.

The second sort were either an honor guard or, more likely, a security detail charged with making sure he and his wife didn't attempt something rash. The third, Jathmar pegged as command-and-control types, given the deference the others accorded them. The crossbowmen of the security detail stood rigidly at attention and snapped out crisp salutes as the apparent officers strode past them towards the dragon.

Then it was the unwounded passengers' turn to descend. The ground abruptly looked much further away, and Jathmar exchanged a single apprehensive glance with Shaylar, who still seemed distinctly unsteady on her feet.

"Why don't I climb down first, so I can brace you if you lose your grip?" he suggested.

She nodded, and he drew a quick breath, gave her a bright smile, and climbed over the edge, hooking his feet into the crosswise strands of the web-like ladder.

The beast's hide was surprisingly warm. He'd expected something so reptilian to be more, well … reptilian. But it was warmer than he was, even through the tough, spiky armored scales. One of the spikes caught at the leg of Jathmar's trousers, and he decided?a little queasily?that he really didn't want to know what was big enough and nasty enough for a beast this size to grow spiked armor to avoid being eaten by it.

He made it safely to the ground, then reached up to assist Shaylar down the last several inches to the sand. She swayed as her feet touched the ground, forehead creased with a furrow of pain Jathmar didn't like a bit. The distracting excitement of flying was wearing off quickly, he thought, and slipped his arm around her to help support her drooping weight, then turned uncertainly to look for Jasak Olderhan, who'd climbed down ahead of them.