David Weber - Hell's Gate

"Of course, dearest."

Andrin followed her father into the passage, suddenly wishing her fears could remain nameless, vague, however terrifying. This morning, all she'd wanted was their resolution; now she harbored a terrible suspicion that the truth would be far worse than anything she'd yet imagined.

The walk to the Council Chamber seemed endless, yet it was also far too short, and Andrin drew a deep breath and straightened her spine as the doors finally opened before them. She'd never actually been inside the Privy Council Chamber, which wasn't as surprising as someone else might have thought, since Hawkwing Palace, the imperial Ternathian residence in Estafel, was the largest structure on the entire island of Ternath. The ancient palace in Tajvana had been substantially larger, and more opulent, just as the ancient empire had been larger and, for its day, even richer. But Andrin had difficulty imagining a building more immense than her birthplace, since the palace was a small city in its own right.

Nearly five thousand people lived and worked in Hawkwing Palace, which ambled across twenty acres of land, including the stables, kennels, and formal gardens. If one added the vegetable gardens and greenhouses, the palace and its grounds ate up nearly thirty acres in the heart of Ternathia's capital city, which boasted the most expensive real estate on the island. Or, for that matter, in the entire sprawling Empire as a whole. She'd never seen all of it, and probably never would. Those who governed?or were related to those who did?had no need to visit the vast kitchens, or the hothouses where vegetables were grown in winter and fruit trees were coaxed to produce fruit year round.

She'd been to the Throne Room, of course, but the chambers where her father consulted, planned, worried, and governed were alien territory, and she discovered that the Privy Council Chamber made a distinct contrast to the vast and ornate Throne Room. The Throne Room's function was to remind visitors of the power, magnificence, and ancient lineage of the Empire; this chamber, by comparison, was an almost cozy room, more than large enough to hold the entire Privy Council, yet small enough to feel almost intimate. Walls of the same grey stone used to build the entire palace had been left bare, rather than faced with marble, but ancient, beautifully polished woodwork lent the stone a softening accent, and colorful banners decorated two walls, representing the various nations and peoples who comprised the Empire.

A third wall was devoted almost entirely to a hearth, where a cheerful coal fire drove away the autumn chill when she stood close to. The mantle was simple, compared with other fireplaces in the palace, and served mostly as a place to put clocks. At first, she thought it was an echo of her mother's love for bric-a-brac. But then she tipped her head to examine them more closely, and discovered one clock for each of the time zones within the Empire.

Andrin forgot the tension of the moment as she stared in delight at the simple but effective way to determine at a glance what time it was in any given city of the Empire. Each clock was labeled with the names of the major cities within its zone, and she even found clocks at the far end of the mantle that showed time zones in the rest of Sharona.

That discovery led her eyes to the map hanging across the far end of the room, where she could trace the familiar coastlines and pair them up with the mantle clocks.

The island of Ternath, itself, shown by the mapmakers as a vibrant green jewel, was the westernmost land bordering the rolling expanse of the North Vandor Ocean. Just to the east of Ternath lay Bernith Island, which stretched farther north and south than Ternath and was wider, as well. Beyond Bernith, with its landmark white-chalk cliffs, past the chilly waters of the Bernith Channel, lay the great continent of Chairifon, where most of Ternathia's empire sprawled across Sharona's northern hemisphere, two thousand and more miles from east to west, and fifteen hundred from north to south.

Her gaze traveled from the Bernith Channel south, to the Narhathan Penninsula, the enormous fist of land that bordered the Strait of Bolakin from the north. The strait itself was dominated by the Fist of Bolakin, jutting down from Narhath, and the Hook of Ricathia, reaching up from the south. The Fist took its name from the huge, steep-sided rock which was its most prominent feature, and from the Ricathian city-state of Bolakin, which had controlled the strait?and the Fist?for centuries. Ternathia had struck a deal with the Bolakini for possession of the Fist in a lucrative treaty, sealed with intermarriages and trade agreements, which included levies on all non-Ternathian shipping that pased the Fist.

From Bolakin, she traced the coastline that skirted the tideless Mbisi Sea, known to traders as the Sea of Commerce or Sea of Money, depending on how one translated the original Bolakini. Either translation was apt, considering the money made from the commerce crossing the Mbisi on any given day, especially since the emergence of the Larakesh Gate and the completion of the Grand Ternathian Canal. The long, fairly straight southern shore of the Mbisi was controlled by various wealthy Ricathian city-states, while the Ternathian coastline sprawled along the Mbisi's far longer and more winding northern shore.

The only land north of the Mbisi Sea that Ternathia didn't govern was the far northern strip that bordered the icy Polar Ocean, surrounding the north pole. The fjord-riddled coastline of the huge, vaguely spoon-shaped promontory of Farnalia formed the western boundary of the Farnalian Empire. That empire stretched from the North Vandor Ocean, lapping and slapping its way into those deep fjords, right across the top of the vast Chairifonian supra-continent that stretched clear to the Scurlis Sea, five thousand miles to the east. The Farnalian Empire was very narrow, viewed north to south, but so long it wrapped a quarter of the way around the world. And though it was sparsely inhabited, thanks for the most part to its climate, the people who lived there were as impressive as their land.

Farnalians were even taller than Ternathians, tending towards big, robust men with blond and red hair, and statuesque women who were as comfortable in the saddle or behind the plow as their menfolk?and just as capable of wielding a sword (or, these days, a rifle) in defense of their own homes. Once upon a time, the sea rovers of Farnalia had been noted for their fondness for axes, other people's possessions, and their own boisterous, brawling independence. That, Andrin supposed, might have been one reason her ancestors had established treaties with Farnalia, rather than attempting a more … energetic approach.

At one time, Ternathia had controlled almost all of Chairifon south of Farnalia and west of Uromath, but that had been long ago. Sometimes the sheer depth of history behind something as simple as that map took Andrin's breath away. It was difficult to comprehend the vast gulf of time which had passed since Ternathia had signed its first treaties of alliance with Farnalia, more than four thousand years previously. Trade between the two empires had been brisk and lucrative throughout that immense stretch of time, and the Farnalians themselves joked about how Ternathian influence had finally civilized their ancestors. Of course, that was partly because so many of those ancestors had been Ternathians themselves. Along the borders of the western half of Farnalia, intermarriage with Ternathians was so common that it had long ago become impossible to distinguish a person's nationality on the basis of physical appearance.

There were those?particularly in Uromathia?who muttered occasionally about "mongrels," but absorption had been the true key to Ternathia's successful expansion of its borders. Those borders had been extended primarily because of the Empire's need to protect its trade routes from the brigandage and unrest which always seemed to be simmering away just on the other side. Yet as each troubled region was acquired and pacified, the traders?and their rulers?found themselves facing yet another new area of unrest, where ship-based pirates and land-based brigands harassed Ternathian merchants from the other side of the new border. Which, inevitably, provided fresh impetus to expand still further.