The Road to Hell

Chapter Sixteen

January 2

The elegant crowd assembled at the Seneschal of Othmaliz’s new private residence swirled around Darcel Kinlafia in a deceptively accepting and supportive murmur. Alazon Yanamar watched them and they watched her with the wariness the polls deserved. The latest numbers from New Farnal were excellent, and the powerbrokers had all accepted that her fiance would be elected to the House of Talents in two weeks time. So had she, and while she wasn’t going to allow herself-or Darcel-any premature victory laps, the pressure of the election itself had definitely eased. That meant it was time to begin looking beyond the election to the pragmatics of wielding power, and that meant finding potential parliamentary allies. With that in mind, the amount of publicity this event was drawing-especially combined with those New Farnalian numbers-had been enough to warrant a return trip to Tajvana.

Just yesterday Darcel’s last remaining serious competitor had formally withdrawn his candidacy and appeared in a Uromathian-station Voicecast personally endorsing Darcel. The SUNN correspondents following the campaign had been unable to reach the man for follow-up interviews.

Alazon didn’t trust it. Her work as Zindel’s Privy Voice had always involved more political interactions than she cared for, yet that did have its benefits. The job alone didn’t make her good at politics, but it gave her the instincts to know no one was ever elected to these levels of political power without some kind of fight.

Certainly the emperor’s support had been a significant aid, especially with setting up a campaign staff and getting the relatively quiet and unassuming man she loved ready for the invasive personal questions SUNN reporters asked in hopes of getting interesting answers to amuse and engage their viewers.

But even the least astute observer could tell the Seneschal considered himself no friend of the Emperor. This gala, for instance, was nominally in memory of the late Crown Prince Janaki, but the guest list quite noticeably omitted the Emperor, the Empress, Crown Princess Andrin, the Prince Consort, either of the younger Grand Princesses, or any other blood relative of Janaki’s. Pretending to honor Janaki the Platoon-Captain who’d died in combat-probably through his own ineptitude…or that of his superiors-instead of Janaki the Crown Prince of Ternathia who’d used his Talent to intentionally place himself in mortal peril to stop the Arcanan invasion was…foul.

Of course, Alazon hadn’t been given an opportunity to peruse the guess list when they accepted Darcel’s own invitation. She supposed that should have raised warning flags, but it hadn’t.

She’d wanted to wring the Seneschal’s neck when she figured it out. Instead, she walked politely around the room on Darcel’s arm greeting recognized supporters and being friendly with the rest of the crowd of faces. Being the candidate’s wife was harder than she’d expected.

Relatives of the soldiers from Fort Salby and other forts farther down the chain dotted the crowd, recognizable by their red eyes and obvious discomfort. They’d been trickling in throughout the evening, with honor bells rung for each new group while the Order of Bergahl’s musicians played variations of the Mother’s lament for her children.

Needing a few minutes away from the pressing throng, she let go of Darcel. The crowd drew him away.

Alazon wondered if the invitations for the guests of honor had been timed for quarter hour arrivals or if the Seneschal had all the bereaved sequestered in a side room to arrive a few at a time as pleased his sense of political blood theater.

The next one to enter was dressed as elegantly as any of the local powerbrokers, but Alazon nearly lost the light supper she’d worked so hard to glean from passing hors d’oeuvres trays when she heard the majordomo’s announcement.

Dr. Shalassar Kolmayr-Brintal kissed the Seneschal of Othmaliz’s cheeks as warmly as if she were merely a dowager socialite. Shaylar Nargra-Kolmayr’s mother, the whispers swept the crowd immediately, but the longtime ambassador slipped into the crowd with much the same ease as the cetaceans she normally Spoke with slid below the waves.

…and with much the same smiling menace as the black and white whales, Shalassar emerged from the crowd not by Darcel Kinlafia but just in front of Alazon. The Voice barely avoided snapping the stem of her wine glass.

* * *

The finger marks on Alazon Yanamar forearm were likely to bruise by morning and despite her frantic looks at the assigned imperial security not one of them had come to rescue her. Looking for physical threats, they dismissed Dr. Kolmayr-Brintal entirely, but at this range Alazon wondered why the Calirath line hadn’t been exterminated already if the guards couldn’t recognize the raw menace in Shalassar’s expression. Only Kelahm, the intern newly assigned as Darcel’s personal aide, had even looked her way.

“Sit.” Shalassar pointed at the chairs in the little alcove she’d led them into. “I’m not going to bite, Ms. Yanamar.”

Alazon sat.

“My daughter is dead,” the woman said, watching her intently. “Your husband received her last transmission. I Saw it myself half a dozen times, until it burned into my nightmares and I couldn’t watch anymore. But would you believe the tales I’ve been receiving about what those Arcanan negotiators said and didn’t say?”

As former Privy Voice, Alazon Yanamar did, actually, and she froze. There were bits and pieces which had led to guesses about Arcanan military capability, but most of that had been rendered thoroughly obsolete by the much less theoretical experience of fighting Arcana to a stop at Fort Salby. The rest were guesses about how Arcana was politically organized, the rare details with which Emperor Zindel might arm future negotiators at another peace table, but only if Sharona could be convinced to attempt another peace.

Ambassador Kolmayr-Brintal didn’t look like a woman willing to countenance any peace with her daughter’s killers, and if this woman wanted to unite Sharona’s will, Alazon was afraid she might very well be able to do it-even if Emperor Zindel threw all his own power into stopping her. But surely she had to understand negotiation had to happen again sometime, or did-?

The intensity of Shalassar’s eyes, boring into her own, worried Alazon. How much of the ambassador’s telepathic Talent for cetacean speech transferred to humans?

“That seven-times damned reporter was right then.” Shalassar’s fierceness faded and those fiercely erect shoulders sagged ever so slightly. “They’re going to say she could have still been alive, and you won’t have a thing to say back. Not one. Still no body at all, and where she died is five universes beyond the front now.”

Alazon cursed herself silently as she abruptly recognized the core of Shalassar’s anger. This woman needed her help, not her suspicion.

“Ma’am, I’m so sorry for your loss. Darcel and I would be delighted to host you and your husband-”

“No.” Shalassar forced her face back to blankness and straightened her spine before continuing softly. “I’m sorry, dear. I don’t believe that would be a good idea. This is just scum-eater politics. A VBS reporter came to me for confirmation, probably knowing the whole thing was a farce. He’s lucky I didn’t toss him in the ocean and make him swim back to port.”

Alazon nodded uncertainly, not sure how to calm the alternately infuriated and grief-stricken woman before her.

“Then after I heard the idea,” Shalassar confessed, “I just had to ask. It’s an entirely foolish hope, I know. Thaminar tried to talk me out of even coming, but I had to ask.”

“Of course.” Alazon Yanamar looked Shalassar Brintal-Kolmayr dead in the eyes and said, “We are absolutely certain Arcanan military forces killed Shaylar and every one of her companions.”

“And there’s no doubt at all?”

“None. I’m sorry. The Arcanans burn their dead.” And in a momentary lie designed to ease Shalassar’s pain, she added a small embroidery on what Sharona knew absolutely, “They burned each one of ours too. It’s how they do respectful funeral rites. A kind of purification from their perspective, I understand.”

“Please, no one tell the cetaceans that.” Shalassar shuddered. “Only demons would use fire to consign their dead. It’d be like praying for the departed to be accepted into hell.”

“But the smoke rises to the heavens?” Alazon suggested.

“Heaven is in the deep. It’s a warm place with a gentle current full of kelp and fish, where lungs never empty, and dorsal muscles stay strong forever. I’ve explained to them that humans hope for a different kind of place, so they’ve allowed that heaven might have an island or two. If, that is, the better humans aren’t reborn with fins.”

A few guests drifted near their corner alcove, heard the mention of death and just as quickly found reasons to melt back into the crowd. Shalassar laughed a bit bitterly.

“I’m not the light-hearted dolphin lady they used to love to have at parties anymore,” she said. “I suppose I have too many other things I care about now.”

They sat gazing at the crowd for a few more moments. Then Shalassar stirred and turned to look at Alazon once more.

“Oh one more thing,” she said. “Watch the Order. The Seneschal in particular. He seems to think I’m here to humiliate your fiance and destroy his political chances.”

“And why would he think that, Madam Ambassador?”

Shalassar’s smile once again reminded Alazon of oceanic predators. It was comforting to see the flashes of old confidence showing through her grief.

“I might have mentioned that I wanted the invitation in order to tell candidate Kinlafia I expected him to do his very best to turn the bastards that attacked my daughter into shark chum. I trust you’ll convey the message for me.” She clutched Alazon one more time. “I can’t have my Shaylar back, Madame Voice. But I will have the Arcanans who murdered her and desecrated her corpse pay for their crimes. Tell your fiance that and tell that to the Emperor.”

“I’m not Privy Voice anymore, Madam Ambassador.”

Shalassar dropped her voice. “If Our Emperor doesn’t have you back in service of one kind of another the very instant it’s politically feasible, he’s a fool. And I hope to Vothan he’s the furthest thing from a fool.”

She stood, nodded once, and flowed away into the crowd once again, more like a dolphin than ever. Alazon Yanamar watched her go, then rose from her own chair and worked her way through the gala towards Darcel, glad Shalassar Brintal-Kolmayr was on their side.

* * *

The unexpected guests of the evening didn’t end with the Cetacean Ambassador. A Simian Ambassador arrived as well, but unlike Dr. Shalassar Brintal-Kolmayr, he wasn’t on the guest list. Darcel suspected the man had snuck in through the staff entrance while the overworked caterers were distracted.

He introduced himself to both of them as Soolan chan Rahool, followed by a series of clicks and a puffing out of his cheeks. Then he reddened and switched to a more normal conversation mode.

“I’m sorry about that, but my clan is very particular about certain things. They’ll ask if I introduced myself properly, and by that they’ll mean by the name they’ve given me and all that.” He shrugged. “I’ve gotten used to it, but talking to weak-arms, I mean humans, well it does sometimes put people off.”

Chan Rahool seemed to feel badly out of place in his present surroundings, so Alazon offered him one of the appetizer trays as a distraction while he composed himself. His eyes lit immediately.

“Oh! You understand.” He selected a bacon wrapped plum confit and crunched it with relish. “I do so love working with people who understand simian relations.” He licked his lips. “Quite delicious, too. I will have to have the name of your caterer later. If I bring them back a sample of the food you greeted me with, they’ll be oh so pleased with you and encouraged by the warm reception.” The man fairly beamed at them both.

Darcel immediately denied any knowledge at all of simians other than what any school boy gathered from elementary school about the great apes-the mountain gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans, baboons, some of the higher monkey species, and so on-though Darcel did admit to dedicating one summer to an attempt to reproduce a triple canopy jungle tree house.

“Good thing you didn’t manage it.” chan Rahool shook his head mournfully though it was clear from his eyes he regretted it not at all. “A little two-story treehouse combined with a minor Voice Talent, and my whole life went straight to the monkeys.” He winked. “Now, would you like your hair checked for lice?”

Alazon began to suspect the man had an incurable sense of humor.

“Why help yourself,” Darcel replied, “Just promise us we can wrap anything you catch in bacon before you eat it. I wouldn’t want to damage relations with the New Farnal simians by offering substandard bugs.”

Chan Rahool chuckled. The chuckle was genuine, but Alazon suspected he had something rather more serious than badinage on his mind, and so did Darcel. Her fiance might be new to politics, but no one could accuse him of lacking wits.

“I thought the great apes didn’t much care what we did,” he said. “And you came from Ricathia, not New Farnal. Why would they have any interest in me?”

“I was actually hoping to speak with your wife.” Chan Rahool lifted his arms in an overlarge shrug that made him look something like a chimp himself. “And who can say why the other sentients do anything? Sometimes their motives are as clear as a human toddler’s interest in a new toy. But when the grandnanas get involved I often end up wondering if we aren’t the less intelligent species.”

Alazon blinked.

“Oh, on average we’re definitely smarter, but not everyone is average…on either side.” The ambassador flapped a wrist at her. “Not an official reporting for the Emperor or anything. Just that the Minarti are matriarchal. There’s a grandmother that runs everything season by season, but there’s also a group of older women who don’t seem to be necessarily related to the grandmother at all.

“When the first reports of the Arcanans came in-by which I mean your report, of course-” He nodded to Darcel. “I was very concerned and tried to tell the grandmother about it. Some of the Minarti have split and established new clans in the nearer universes, and I thought if a war went poorly there might be great apes cut off out there thinking an Arcanan was one of us.” The man grew serious as the lines on his face showed just how deeply he feared for the simians he worked with. “The lady chimp just patted me on the head, like she usually does, and told me to go have more babies.”

“I thought that was the end of it, but last week a delegation of silverback gorillas and their matriarch came to me with a message. They tried to explain things to me, and I’m…Well, this sounds insane, but as near as I can figure the simians do have some kinds of Talents themselves just as we humans do. And the lady gorilla gave me a near Voice-style sending for our human clan leaders.

“Oh and they want you to tell Empress Varena-they’ve never quite accepted that Emperor Zindel’s in charge; they seem to think it’s a polite fiction-that they’re concerned about the war. In fact, they’re much more concerned than I’d realized, and some of them want to go colonize the border universes. I think they meant to fight.”

“Also…” He winced. “The gorillas have offered nursemaid services and open foraging to human females with young to help support wartime population expansion. That’s an extremely generous offer, you understand.”

Chan Rahool finished his recitation with palms held up.

“I know none of it makes any sense from a human perspective, but I’m their ambassador too. They wanted the message delivered, so I needed to take it to Empress Varena.”

He looked pleadingly at Alazon. “I heard you’d stepped down as Privy Voice, but perhaps you still have contacts? If you could just take the transmission, I could say I’d given it to a woman in the Empress’s service. I think the gorillas would accept that.”

Darcel handed the now obviously distraught ambassador the rest of the appetizer tray and sent his wife a speaking glance. This was clearly a question for the former Privy Voice, and Alazon sighed.

“I can relay your gorilla’s message and this conversation exactly as we’ve had it to the Emperor…and,” she added at his cough, “to Empress Varena as well. But you’ll have to explain to them that humans don’t order other humans to procreate the way it sounds like the simians can.”

“Yes. Yes. Already done three times over.” The ambassador said. “But at least I can tell them I passed on the message. They don’t normally cling to things this long. I thought sure migrating for the dry season would put it out of their minds, but almost a full month since the last rain and they’re sending me off with messages like I’m one of their teen boy chimps. That’s what the clicking and cheek blowing means you know: human grandmother’s little boy chimp.” He winced. “If you must tell the Emperor about that bit, please do include that I had no idea at all what it meant when I first agreed to the name.”

Alazon nodded gravely, trying very hard to keep her lips from twitching in amusement.

“They’re willing to change the name for me,” chan Rahool continued, “but they insist that I should kill a tiger with a spear I carved myself first. And then I’ll be an adult and the male chimps have said they’ll need to fight me from time to time just to help me keep in shape.

“I’d really rather not complicate the ambassadorship with all that, if you didn’t mind terribly.”

Chan Rahool’s head turned following a tray of food in a passing waiter’s hand. “Say, do you have any more of the crunchies?”