David Weber - Hell's Gate

Kinlafia's jaw was still scraping the ground, and Janaki sighed. It was always the same, although at least the military seemed to have figured out how to take it more or less in stride. No doubt because the military had its own chain of command and rules of seniority, which gave it a convenient pigeonhole marked "officer, junior, one" rather than "ruler after the gods, future, one." Still, he'd had more than enough experience even with fellow Marines, much less civilians, to understand how it worked. Occasionally, though, he wished his conversations with people he hadn't met before could be as ordinary as everyone else's conversations seemed to be.

"Look, just think of me as the officer assigned to escort our prisoners to the rear while simultaneously cleverly extracting politically and militarily critical information from them. Try to forget about the rest of it, would you? It's a damned nuisance, frankly, having people trip over their feet and stumble over their tongues every time I show up somewhere or run into someone new. And bad as it is here, it's even worse back home. I've just about made up my mind to stay in the Corps as long as they'll let me hide out here."

Kinlafia blinked at him. Then, all at once, he relaxed and actually managed a grin. It wasn't much of a smile, not on that grief and anger-grooved face, but it was genuine. And, as he saw it, Janaki also had a Glimpse of the warmhearted, humorous man who'd once lived behind that face . . and how important that man might prove to be. And not just to Sharona, the prince realized as his sister's features wavered through the same Glimpse. What in the names of all the gods, he wondered, did this man have to do with Andrin? But the Glimpse had vanished almost as quickly as it had come. Its echoes hummed and quivered down inside him, with a deep, burning sense of true urgency and buzzing about in his bones with a familiar sense of frustration. He couldn't pin it down, couldn't take it by the throat and make it make sense, yet he knew it had been a true Glimpse. Something that would come to pass, not merely something which might.

"Really?" Kinlafia said, obviously oblivious to Janaki's Glimpse. "I guess I hadn't thought of it that way. All right, I'll do my best to forget who you are?and who you're related to."

"Thanks," Janaki said dryly, suppressing any outward sign of his Glimpse with the thoroughness of long practice. "Actually, if the Corps would let me, I'd probably go ahead and trade on a bit of that familial fame after all, if it would let me spend an extra day or so right here instead of heading straight back. Trust me, even a Calirath's imperal arse gets damned tired of a saddle after a week or two! Unfortunately, they want these people?and you?back up the chain as quickly as we can get you there."

"Me?" Something almost like suspicion flared at the backs of Kinlafia's eyes.

"Of course you." Janaki snorted. "I'm almost positive that a direct order for you to report to First Director Limana ASAP is headed back down the Voice chain to you right this minute. You're the closest thing we've got to an actual eyewitness of the original attack, and you accompanied Platoon-Captain Arthag's column all the way back here. And you were part of the fight here at the portal; you were one of the first men into their encampment; and you're the only Voice?and the only observer of any sort who also happens to have perfect recall?who was here for all of that. You think, perhaps, the Powers That Be might be just a little interested in your offhand impressions of those events?"

Kinlafia blinked again, and his expression changed from one of suspicion to one of comprehension … and fear.

"I don't?"

"Stop," Janaki interrupted. "Don't say it."

"Don't say it?" Kinlafia repeated, and Janaki shook his head.

"You were about to say that you didn't see how your impressions could be all that important," he said almost gently. "You were about to point out that you're not a trained military man, that Company-Captain chan Tesh and Platoon-Captain Arthag are much better information sources on the actual fighting here, and on the enemy's tactics. And you're about to say that Petty Captain Yar's had much more contact with the prisoners, especially the wounded ones, than you have. Right?"

"Something along those lines," Kinlafia said slowly, and Janaki shrugged.

"All of which is beside the point," he said. "As, I'm afraid, is how much I know it's going to hurt to answer all the questions people have for you."

This time there was no mistaking the gentleness in his voice. Yet it was a stern, inflexible gentleness. One that admitted that the owner of that voice understood how much pain even the most gentle interrogation would inflict, yet never backed away from the necessity of that interrogation. And one which somehow managed both to acknowledge the pain and Kinlafia's fear without in any way diminishing them. To sympathize with them in a way that offered the strength to overcome them rather than simple commiseration.

Kinlafia stared at the young officer who'd asked him to call him by his first name and realized that whether Janaki chan Calirath recognized it or not, that endless line of imperial ancestors stood behind him. There was, Kinlafia realized, not an ounce of arrogance in the young man who would one day wear the Winged Crown in the imperial throne room in Estafel. But the blood of Erthain the Great still flowed in his veins, and the mysterious magnetism which had led men and women to follow the Caliraths straight into the fire?and into the pages of legend?for over five thousand years glowed inside him.

Balkar chan Tesh and Delokahn Yar had been trying to get Kinlafia to face the inevitable for almost a week now, ever since the portal attack, and they'd failed. Now, in two short sentences, Crown Prince Janaki had succeeded.

And he's not even my Crown Prince, the Voice thought with a strange mix of despair, amusement, and surrender.

"All right, Your Highness," he said finally. "You're right. I know you are. But it's not going to be easy. Not at all."

"I realize that," Janaki acknowledged, then glanced up at the afternoon sun. "Look," he said, "it must be about time for supper. Why don't we let this rest until after we've eaten? If you're agreeable, we'll drop by my tent after we eat, drag out a bottle of Bernithian whiskey, and get down to it."

"Of course," Kinlafia said. And to his credit, Janaki thought, he actually managed to sound as if he thought it was a good idea.

"I need to know everything," Janaki chan Calirath said.

He sat crosslegged on his bedroll, having surrendered his single camp stool to his guest, despite the visitor's obvious discomfort at accepting it. But that discomfort over seating arrangements disappeared abruptly, devoured by something far worse, as the civilian's eyes met his, dark with memory.

"Everything?" Kinlafia asked hoarsely, and Janaki nodded.

"Believe me, I'm not asking this lightly. I've read Company-Captain chan Tesh's reports. I've spoken to Company-Captain Halifu, and Voice Traygan. I know what happened out here, but I can't begin to imagine what it must have been like to live through it, and?"

"No," Kinlafia agreed harshly. "You can't."

"I know that. But if we're going to protect others," Janaki said very gently, "we have to understand these people."

"What's to understand?" The demand was bitter, full of gritty rage, the pain feeding the white furnace of his hate. "They blew my crew to hell without a shred of mercy. They shot down Ghartoun chan Hagrahyl while he stood there with his hands empty, in plain sight. They attacked an unarmed man under a parley banner! They're butchers. You want to protect our people? Then send in a division or six and wipe 'these people' off the face of the earth. Off every frigging earth we find them on!"