David Weber - Hell's Gate

"All right. I believe it. Because you believe her. Gods, what a stupid, monstrous waste!"

Shaylar just nodded, and he tipped her chin up, smiled into her eyes, and wiped tears from her cheek with his index finger.

"You need a handkerchief, sweetheart, only I haven't got one."

She sniffed, then flashed a grateful look at Gadrial when the other woman pressed a scrap of cloth from her sewing into her hand. Shaylar dried her eyes, blew her nose, and gave Gadrial a watery smile.

"Thank you," she said, then realized Gadrial was watching both of them closely, her brow furrowed in puzzlement.

"Shaylar?" she said slowly, almost uncertainly.

"Yes?"

"How did Jathmar know you were upset?"

Shaylar and Jathmar exchanged mortified glances.

"Oh, hells," Shaylar said, but Jathmar shook his head.

"My fault," he muttered in Shurkhali (which was not the Ternathian they'd been teaching Gadrial), rubbing the bridge of his nose. "You just scared the daylights out of me, honey. I caught your fear, then your emotions went so crazy I just?"

"Hush." It was Shaylar's turn to shake her head, and then she shrugged with a crooked smile. "It had to happen sometime. And it's no more your fault you responded than it's my fault for having felt that way in the first place!"

"But why did you? You were already headed that way before she dropped that little bombshell about what's-his-name, Garlath. That's what set off the explosion, but you were already under a lot of pressure, Shaylar. What in all the Arpathian hells has been going on in here?"

"Gadrial's been explaining something important to me, Jathmar. Something about the way their technology works. We joked about Halathyn using magic, but, Jathmar, I think that's exactly what it was. Magic. I don't know what else to call it."

She drew a deep breath and tried to explain. On the one hand, she was handicapped by the fact that she simply didn't understand it all herself by any stretch of the imagination. On the other hand, she had the advantage that she and Jathmar shared a far more complete command of their language?not to mention the marriage bond?plus a common base of reference. It took a while to get the fundamental concept across, and longer for Jathmar to accept it. But then he nodded abruptly, choppily.

"You're right," he said. "Manipulating energy with special words? Spells and incantations? Magic rings?well, those little cube things?to store the spells inside? It's utterly fantastic, impossible, but how else could they be doing it?" He sighed. "And now I've blown our cover. We've got to tell her something."

"Yes, we do," Shaylar agreed. "Let me think."

Her thoughts raced as she tried to figure out how to word it without giving too much away. Finally, she faced Gadrial, who sat watching them through narrowed, suspicious eyes.

"I'm sorry," Shaylar sighed. "Jathmar was very confused. He wanted to know why I was upset, so I had to explain. Everything. He, too, is very distressed by the mistake that was made."

"But how did he know?" Gadrial, and Shaylar gave her a crooked little smile.

"You said you have a Gift. Something you were born with. On Sharona, our home world, we have … not the same thing. We don't have your … magic." She wasn't sure she was using Gadrial's word properly, but it was as close as she could come at the moment. "Not anything like it. But some people are born with something other people don't have. We call it … "

She hunted for the word, only to discover she didn't have exactly the right one in her still limited vocabulary.

"What do you call it when a great artist, or a great singer, has something other people don't? The thing that lets him do what he does so much better than anyone else can?"

"A talent?" Gadrial suggested, and Shaylar nodded vigorously.

"Yes. A talent. Some people in my world have special Talents. They're?" she wrinkled her brow trying to find the way to say it. "They're in the mind." She tapped her temple. "Jathmar and I are married. We both have a small Talent, nothing very special, really," she said as smoothly as she could, grateful that Gadrial was no telepath to sense her departure from the truth. "But when two people with Talents marry, a bond forms. A bond of the mind. The emotions. Jathmar always knows when I'm afraid or upset. And I always know when he's worried or angry. It's stronger when we're closer together, but we don't have to be in the same room to feel it. Don't your people have anything like this? A mother who just knows when her child's been injured, for example?"

"No." Gadrial shook her head, eyes wide, and Jathmar and Shaylar exchanged startled glances.

"Nothing like it?" Jathmar's astonishment showed even through his slower, more labored Andaran.

"No."

The three of them stared at one another, thunderstruck for entirely different reasons.

"Well," Gadrial finally said, "it's clear we come from very different people. Very different."

"Yes," Shaylar gulped. "Even more different than we'd realized."

"Which brings up another question." Gadrial held Shaylar's gaze. "What are your … Talents?"

Shaylar had known it was coming. It was, after all, the next logical question. She just wished she'd thought to come up with an explanation for it before this. Lying, even by withholding information, did not come naturally to a Voice. For that matter, she wasn't certain exactly which lies she should tell! Should she understate what Talents could do in an effort to lull these people into a false sense of security? Hope they would take Sharona and the Talented too lightly? Or should she exaggerate the Talents? Hope she and Jathmar could make the Arcanans nervous enough that they'd move slowly, cautiously? Possibly create enough nervousness to buy time for their own people to mobilize in response to the threat?

"Jathmar is a Mapper," she said finally. "He … Sees the land around him. Not very far," she added. "For a few miles in any one direction, at most."

Gadrial's mouth had fallen open. She stared at Jathmar for a moment, then back and Shaylar.

"And you?"

"Oh, my Talent isn't very much," Shaylar prevaricated. "Mostly, I sense Jathmar through the marriage bond. It helps me know if he's in trouble, when he's out Mapping. And I help draw the charts, too."

"We didn't find any maps," Gadrial said, studying them with hooded, wary eyes. Shaylar met those eyes forthrightly and shook her head.

"No, of course you didn't. I burned them."

"You burned them?"

"What would you have done?" Shaylar challenged. "Would you have just handed them over? To people you didn't know? People who'd murdered one of your friends, who'd chased you down like animals, who were shooting and killing the rest of your friends all around you? Trying to kill you? Would you have let people like that get hold of maps that showed the way to your home?"

"No," Gadrial said softly, after a moment. "I don't suppose I would."

"Neither would I. Neither did I."

Gadrial nodded slowly, but another deep suspicion showed plainly in her expression. She started to ask a question, paused, then closed her lips. Shaylar waited, meeting her gaze levelly. It was one of the hardest things she'd ever done, but she held that gaze steadily, as though she had nothing further to hide.

"Shaylar," Gadrial said at last, sounding unhappy, "we think?Jasak thinks?your people got a message out. One that warned your people about what had happened. Did someone on your crew get a warning out? Using this Talent of the mind?"

Continuing to meet Gadrial's gaze was agony, but Shaylar did it anyway.

"I don't know, Gadrial."

"Don't know? Or won't tell me?"

"What do you want of me, Gadrial?" Shaylar's eyes filled. "We're your prisoners."

"Not my prisoners." Gadrial shook her head, biting her lip. "You're Sir Jasak Olderhan's prisoners."