by David Weber
The tall, powerfully built North Shalomarian was visibly taken aback by her greeting. His normally immaculate uniform was filthy, she realized, and his face was heavily stubbled. It was also gaunter and thinner than she remembered, and much older looking. The obvious signs of weariness and privation sent a pang of sympathy through her, but then his expression truly registered. He wore that same desperately formal mask which had transformed Jasak's features into marble. That was bad enough, but something flickered behind it as he looked back at her. Something that turned Gadrial's joy at seeing him into abruptly renewed fear.
"What's wrong?" Her voice was sharp, urgent. "Something dreadful's happened, hasn't it?"
Pain flared deep in Threbuch's eyes. His jaw tightened, but he didn't speak. He just turned back toward the five hundred and waited for Fort Rycharn's commandant to answer her terrified question.
"Magister Kelbryan," Klian said in a heavy, almost exhausted voice. "Please sit down. Please," he repeated.
He's afraid I'm going to collapse when he finally tells me what's going on, she realized with a pang of icy dread.
"It's Magister Halathyn, isn't it?" she whispered as she sank into the chair opposite the five hundred's desk. "Something's happened to Magister Halathyn."
The officer's eyes actually flinched. Then he drew a deep breath.
"Hundred Olderhan," he began, "urged me to recall our forces from the swamp portal to minimize the risk of another violent confrontation between our forces and Shaylar and Jathmar's people." He cleared his throat. "I should have listened, but I thought the risk was far less than it actually was. I also hoped?assumed?that any powerful military response on their part would take much longer to mount. But the Chief Sword has confirmed Magister Halathyn vos Dulainah's belief?and yours?that the portal our prisoners came through was at least a class at seven. In fact, it's almost certainly a class eight, judging from the Chief Sword's reconnaissance … and there's an enemy fort smack in the middle of it."
Gadrial's breath caught savagely.
"It appears to be understrength, still under construction," Klian continued. "But the Chief Sword watched the arrival of a relief column which had evidently moved ahead by forced march. They had more of those weapons you and the Hundred here, encountered. And other weapons, as well, with tubes that were?"
He glanced at Threbuch.
"How large again, Chief?"
"They were about six feet long, Sir," Threbuch replied. "Looked like they were probably four and a half or five inches across, with fairly thin walls. They had four of the damned things covering my aspect of portal, but according to Javelin Shulthan here, there were at least two or three more covering the other aspect. And they had something else, too. I don't know what to call it. It was another tube, shorter and not as big across, mounted on a tripod, almost like an infantry-dragon. But it wasn't a dragon. It had a … crank on the side, and a long belt of those cylinder things we found at their camp went into it. When they turned the crank?" He swallowed, his lips tight. "It was like those shoulder weapons of theirs, Sir," he said, turning to look directly at Jasak. "But instead of firing just one shot at a time, it fired again and again, so fast together that it sounded like one, long, single shot. It must've fired hundreds of times a minute, Sir."
He stopped speaking abruptly, and a line of sweat trickled down his brow.
He saw it used, Gadrial realized, going even colder.
"They attacked the portal." Her voice was a thread. "Our portal?didn't they?"
"They did." Five Hundred Klian gave her a jerky nod. Harsh, full of pain and anger. "After asking?asking by name, mind?for Shaylar."
Gadrial's breath hissed and she paled as she instantly recognized what he was implying. If they'd asked specifically for Shaylar, did that mean they somehow knew she'd survived the initial battle? It must! But if they did …
She turned to stare at Jasak.
"How? My God, how could they have gotten a message out? Your men searched for any sign of a runner, both at their camp and at the clearing."
"Yes," Jasak said through clenched teeth. "We searched?damned thoroughly. No messenger went out, unless he went up the river before he headed for their portal. But however it happened, they got a message through … somehow. And somehow damned quick, too. According to the Chief, here, the head of their initial scouting column passed him long before anyone could have gotten back to their portal on foot to summon them even if they did manage to get a runner out."
Gadrial touched her own cheek with fingers which had gone icy chill.
"But that's?" She broke off. Clearly, it wasn't impossible, since they'd obviously done it. "They must have something like hummers," she said instead, aware her intellect was grasping at straws, seeking any excuse, any distraction, to avoid hearing the rest of the doom they were about to pronounce.
"Something," Klian agreed. "And we're hoping you can find out what. Shaylar, at least, seems to trust you, to a certain degree. If you can find out how they warned their people, you'll give us information that will save lives. Possibly a lot of lives. We need every advantage we can possibly get to deal with their people, Magister, because they've just demonstrated a frankly devastating military superiority.
"Granted," he added in a harsh voice, "we made mistakes which made it even worse. I did, for example, when I failed to listen to Hundred Olderhan's warning, and Hundred Thalmayr made several serious mistakes of his own that proved costly. At least one of those was probably my fault, too, because I'm the one who ordered him to position himself on our side of portal. I intended that to apply only to his fortifications and main position, not to his sentries. It's standard procedure to picket both sides of any contested portal in a threat situation, and I expected him to follow SOP in applying my orders. Apparently, however, he interpreted my instructions to mean he was to do otherwise."
Fort Rycharn's commander paused again, his face tight and grim.
"I'm afraid, though, that however much Thalmayr's mistakes?and mine?may have contributed to the disaster, there was an even more terrifying factor involved." He looked directly into her eyes, his own appealing, almost desperate. "Somehow, these people can fire artillery through a portal, Magister."
He stopped, and Gadrial stared at him. No wonder he was staring at her that way, pleading with her to explain how it might have happened. But she couldn't. No spell could be projected through a portal interface! That had been established two centuries ago. It was an absolute fundamental of portal exploration, and?
Her yammering thoughts stopped abruptly, as a truly terrifying possibility occurred to her. No, a spell couldn't be projected through a portal … but from Shaylar's reaction to Magister Halathyn, these people didn't even know what sorcery was! Their weapons obviously relied on totally non-arcane principles; she and Jasak had already figured that much out. But if that was true for their shoulder weapons, why shouldn't it be equally true for their artillery weapons? And if their artillery fired physical projectiles, like the ones their shoulder weapons fired, then?
"I don't have any idea what makes their weapons work, Five Hundred," she said frankly. "Not yet, at least. But one thing I do know is that they don't rely on any magical principles with which I'm familiar. Which means the limitations we're familiar with probably don't apply, either."
She saw fresh, even worse fear in his eyes, and shook her head quickly.
"Whatever they are, however they work, I'm certain they have limitations of their own," she said. "Any form of technology does. We simply have to figure out what limitations apply to theirs. For the moment, though, I think we're going to have to assume that instead of projecting a spell the way our weapons do, they launch a physical projectile which actually carries the spellware, or whatever it is they use. If that's the case, then they can fire them anywhere any physical object could pass. Like through a portal interface."
Klian and Jasak looked at one another, their faces tight, and then the five hundred looked back at her.
"Howev
er they did it, Magister, it was devastating. I'm sure Hundred Thalmayr never expected it, any more than I would have, and it turns our entire portal defense doctrine on its head. We're going to have to come up with some answer, whether it's a way to stop them from doing it, or a way of figuring out how to do the same thing ourselves."
Gadrial nodded, and a part of her brain truly was even then reaching out, looking for some sort of solution. But it was only a tiny part, for most of her mind refused to let her hide any longer from what she most dreaded.
"How badly?" She had to stop and clear her throat. "How badly did they hit us?"
For a moment, no one spoke, and she cringed away from their silence. Then Fort Rycharn's commander inhaled deeply.
"The only men left from the swamp portal detachment are in this fort, Magister." His voice was harsh with emotion that not even years of Andaran military discipline could disguise. "Of the men actually stationed at the portal at the time of their attack, including the wounded we hadn't yet evacuated, only Chief Sword Threbuch and Javelin Shulthan made it back. All the rest are either dead or prisoners."
Gadrial felt her hands clench into white-knuckled fists on the arms of her chair. Despite all they'd already said, all her own efforts to prepare herself because of what she'd seen in their eyes, the sheer scope of the disaster hit her like a hammer. And behind that was the regret, the pity, burning in Sarr Klian's eyes as he faced her squarely.
She couldn't speak, literally couldn't force the words past her lips to ask the question that would confirm what her heart and mind already knew. She tried, but nothing happened, and then it was no longer necessary.
Chief Sword Otwal Threbuch went to one knee in front of her chair. The man who was so strong, so professional, in such command of his own emotions that she'd privately concluded that he'd been chiseled from granite. That man knelt in front of her chair and took her icy fingers in his, and even through her pain she felt a distant sense of surprise as his own fingers actually trembled.
"My lady," he said in a choked voice, "I'm sorry. There wasn't anything I could do. Nothing at all. I was trapped on the wrong side of the portal, couldn't even get to our camp, let alone get to Magister Halathyn."
She started to cry, silently, because she was unable to draw a deep enough breath to sob aloud.
"How?" she whispered, the sound thin as skeletal fingers scratching on glass, and his eyes flinched.
"I wish to every god in heaven I could tell you the enemy killed him, Magister. One of their soldiers had pulled him out of his tent, was questioning him. About Shaylar, I think, because Magister Halathyn was pointing toward the coast, toward this fort. Then one of our field-dragon crews?"
"No!" The word was ripped from her. Jathmar's ghastly burns swam before her eyes, and the picture her mind's eye painted of Halathyn, caught in a dragon's fireball, was too horrifying to face.
"No, Magister!" Threbuch said urgently. The chief sword reached out, caught her chin in one hand, forced her to look into his eyes and see the truth in their depths. "I know what you're thinking, but it wasn't a fireball! The gods were at least that merciful. He didn't suffer, I swear that, My Lady! The lightning caught them both, killed them instantly?"
The sobs which had been frozen inside her broke loose. She sensed people moving, heard their voices, but couldn't make sense of the words. Threbuch's hands let go of hers, then someone else crouched in front of her, tried to hold and comfort her. But she jerked back in her chair, wanting to hate these men for not forcing Halathyn to leave the swamp portal with her.
"Gadrial, please." Jasak's voice reached her at last, hoarse and filled with pain. "Let me at least help you."
She opened her eyes, staring at him through the blur of her tears, and even from the depths of her own dreadful pain she saw the anguish in his ravaged face. And as she saw it, she realized that Sir Jasak Olderhan had just lost nearly every man of his command. Men he'd cared about, felt responsible for, had grown to know?even love?in that mysterious male way of soldiers: formal and distant, at times, yet as close as brothers. But he was also Jasak Olderhan, with all that name implied, captive to all those Andaran honor concepts she couldn't understand. Unlike her, he couldn't weep for his loss, for his dead. Shame stung her cheeks, punching through the wild rush of grief, and she shook her head.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "You cared about him, too. About all of them… . "
He merely nodded. The movement was jerky and stiff, but that was because there were witnesses, both men he had commanded and the man who commanded him.
"I'm sorry," she said again, louder, looking this time at Otwal Threbuch. "You must think I'll hate you," she continued, trying desperately to steady her voice. "I'm trying not to."
His eyes flinched once more, and she bit her lip.
"I'm trying not to blame any of you. Trying not to blame myself. He was so stubborn?"
She broke off, gulping hard to maintain control, and looked Threbuch squarely in the eye.
"You were on their side of the portal, Chief Sword. I know that, and I've seen what their weapons can do. You couldn't possibly have reached him." Her voice was hoarse, cracking, but she forced it onward. "Nobody could have, I know that. Not through that kind of fighting. It's just such a terrible?"
She did break down again, then, but this time she let Jasak put an arm around her shoulders. There was great comfort in leaning against the strength of his broad shoulder, in the warmth soaking into her, helping her rigid muscles relax. She was mortified, at one level, to have broken down so completely and deeply, having wept in front of these men like any other helpless female. But losing Magister Halathyn for any reason, let alone this way …
"Would you like to go back to your quarters?" Jasak asked gently.
She nodded, and he helped her stand up, steadied her, let her lean on his forearm. She tried to say something to Five Hundred Klian, but her throat was locked. She turned a helpless look on Otwal Threbuch, but her throat remained frozen, so she reached out one hand, instead, and gripped his fingers in silence. Then Jasak was guiding her across the room. He opened the door for her, slipped an arm around her shoulders when they stepped outside, and steadied her carefully as her knees went rubbery on the low wooden steps down to the parade ground.
They were almost to her quarters when she remembered and went stiff and stumbled to a halt.
"What is it?" Jasak asked urgently.
"Shaylar. And Jathmar. They're in my room."
She didn't think she could face them yet. They hadn't done anything themselves to kill Halathyn?or the others?but her mentor, the man who'd been her second father, was dead because soldiers from their universe had come looking for them. Gadrial couldn't?just couldn't?face them yet. Not while the shock was so raw.
Jasak swore under his breath, then changed direction and led her to his own quarters, in the building reserved for officers, not civilian technicians. His room was neat, tidy, and very nearly empty. The gear he'd brought back from the field was stored in orderly fashion, and his personal crystal sat on his desk, glowing lines of text visible where he'd obviously been interrupted in the middle of something when Chief Sword Threbuch had arrived with the news.
He guided her to the bed, rather than the chair.
"Lie down and rest for a while," he murmured, easing her down.
The bed, like all military bunks in frontier forts, was a simple cotton bag stuffed with whatever the regional commissary had been stocked with: feathers, cotton wadding, even hay. This one, like her own, had feathers inside, soft and comforting as she curled up on her side atop the neatly tucked-in blanket. He opened the window, letting in a cooling breeze, then looked back down at her.
"Just stay here for a while, Gadrial. I'll come back for you later, all right?"
His kindness in not mentioning the names of the people he was about to remove from her room left her blinking on salty water once more. She heard his feet cross the bare plank floor, then the door clicked softly shut behind hi
m and Gadrial lay still, listening to the wind rustle through the room, the distant sound of men's voices, the occasional cry of seabirds high above the fort, and remembered.
She remembered a thousand little details. Her first day at the Mythal Falls Academy, an awestruck young girl from the windy empty plains of North Ransar, still short of her fourteenth birthday. How she'd gaped at the ancient stone buildings, stared in amazement at the thunderous roar of Mythal Falls, one of the two largest waterfalls in any universe, plunging into its deep chasm. The very air, and the ground under her feet, had been so pregnant with latent magic that her skin had tingled and her bones had buzzed, and yet even that had been almost secondary beside an even greater sense of wonder.
She?Gadrial Kelbryan?had scored so highly on the standard placement tests that Magister Halathyn vos Dulainah himself had offered her a place at the Academy.
It wasn't possible. She hadn't even known her Ransaran teachers had sent her exam results to the Academy, hadn't guessed how truly outstanding those scores had been. Not until the message crystal had arrived with Halathyn's personal invitation recorded in it. And then, impossibility piled on top of impossibility, he'd personally met her that first day, taken the unknown, timid teenaged girl from Ransar?the only non-Mythalan student in the renowned academy's entire student body, and one of the three youngest students ever admitted to it?under his wing. And he'd taken her out to the Falls themselves, shown them to her, and spoken quietly about the reason her body had buzzed so strangely there.
"Magic," he'd said in that almost childlike way of his, filled with wonder at the unending delights the universes?all of them?had to offer. "Magic gathers in places like these." He'd waved a dark-skinned, elegant hand at the roaring cataract below their feet. "Or, rather, magic bursts free at such places. There are other locations where the forces we call 'magic' well up in great concentrations: all great waterfalls, certain mountains, some deep caverns, places where lines of force cross. But this place, where the Mythal River plunges into this great chasm, where the entire continent is slowly pulling apart along the Rift?this is the most potent place in all Arcana."
