David Weber - Hell's Gate

Skirvon opened it cautiously, then withdrew his PC. To his surprise, chan Tesh tensed obviously, and the diplomat found it less than easy to ignore the half-dozen rifles which were suddenly pointed in his direction once again.

"What is that?" chan Tesh asked sharply.

"Is only personal crystal," Skirvon said soothingly, once again using the Andaran words and holding the crystal up. chan Tesh looked blank.

"What does it do?" he demanded.

"Rock hold talk. It records talk."

"What?" chan Tesh blinked.

"Hold talk," Skirvon said again, and murmured the activating incantation. The PC's glow as he initiated the spellware was lost in the brilliant sunshine, of course, but it was angled so that he could see its display. He tapped the menu with the tip of his stylus, calling up the special, limited word list they'd manufactured from Magister Kelbryan's primer specifically for this exchange. Then he touched the playback command.

"Shaylar," a woman's voice said.

Putting together that word list had required days of careful work. He and Dastiri had deliberately limited the audio recordings Magister Kelbryan had downloaded to them, choosing individual words on the basis of how clear Shaylar's voice had sounded when they were recorded. All of them were recognizably her voice, but distorted by fatigue … or pain. In some cases, he knew, the pain had been purely emotional, but that didn't matter for his purposes. What mattered was that the chosen words sounded like someone who'd been severely injured. Like someone who was muttering to herself, wandering through her own injury-confused thoughts.

He'd expected a powerful emotional reaction, but not the one he got.

chan Tesh's jaw fell. Literally.

Skirvon stared at him and experienced a sudden epiphany. Despite everything Olderhan had told him, despite his study of the notes Kelbryan had meticulously recorded, despite even chan Tesh's obvious reaction when his chief sword had found the PCs in the first place, he hadn't really believed until that moment that Sharonians had no experience with magic. He couldn't believe it, because no one could possibly build a real civilization without it. He'd been absolutely convinced that Shaylar and Jathmar had been shamming in a successful effort to confuse and mislead their captors.

But chan Tesh wasn't shamming. The company-captain was clearly a disciplined, confident officer, and what his forces had done to Hadrign Thalmayr's command was brutal evidence of his competence. Yet his astonishment at hearing a simple recorded word played back from a completely standard personal crystal was total. Indeed, it appeared to border on superstitious terror, and deep inside, Rithmar Skirvon grinned like a kid with his daddy's jar of accumulators.

Olderhan had been right. They had no magic!

Why, they weren't nearly as formidable as he'd first believed. If they couldn't do something this simple, they were babes in an adult world?a mean and nasty one. mul Gurthak had been right, too. All they had going for them was their machines, the "guns" they'd used?used by surprise?in both violent encounters. And, as mul Gurthak had pointed out, it was only that surprise, that totally unanticipated ability of theirs to throw not a spell, but a physical projectile, through a portal which had defeated Thalmayr.

Skirvon had been convinced these people must actually have their machines and their "Talents" in addition to the magic which was the necessary foundation for any advanced civilization. But they genuinely didn't have it, and that reordered everything he'd thought about them.

But first things first, he told himself firmly. First things first.

He waited until chan Tesh shook himself.

"How did you do that?" The Sharonian's voice was ever so slightly hoarse, Skirvon noted with carefully hidden satisfaction.

"Rock is personal crystal," he repeated the Andaran phrase carefully. "Shaylar talk, it record?" again he used the Andaran "?her word. Then spellware?" yet another Andaran word "?work words. Make … list our words, your words."

He tapped the menu again, bringing up the Andaran and Ternathian word for "word" side by side in the display, then angled it so that chan Tesh could see it. The company-captain's eyes narrowed once again. Clearly, the phonetic spelling of the Ternathian word meant no more to him than the totally unknown characters of the Arcanan alphabet floating decided. Equally clearly, he was intelligent enough to realize what he was seeing. He stared into the crystal for several seconds, then shook himself and looked back at Skirvon.

"So you say this … 'personal crystal' of yours let you capture Shaylar's words and then analyze our language?"

"Please," Skirvon said, summoning up a pained expression, "too many words. Not have big number."

chan Tesh scowled in evident frustration.

"If you could do that," he gestured at the PC," why couldn't you save Shaylar?"

"Tried. Tried hard," Skirvon insisted soulfully. He remembered Olderhan's account of the prisoners' reaction to magic healing. Given these people's total ignorance about magic, it would undoubtedly be even simpler than he'd expected to convince them that Shaylar had died of her injuries. Especially since she undoubtedly would have without the Healers' intervention.

"Head hurt bad," he said once more. "Our healer killed in fight. Tried walk to second healer, but many, many days. She die before we reach. She very brave," he added sadly. "Arcana much grief."

"Yes," chan Tesh said harshly, glowering at him. "She was very brave. And my people will demand punishment for whoever killed her."

"Please," Skirvon said again, earnestly. "Too many words. Must learn more. But now, come talk Sharona. No shoot, talk."

"A truce?" chan Tesh sounded massively skeptical, but that was a distinct improvement over the white-hot fury of a few moments before. "You want to negotiate a truce?"

"Truce is no shoot?" Skirvon said, and chan Tesh nodded.

"A truce is a time to talk, yes. A time to talk, not shoot. That's what you want? To talk about not shooting us again?"

"Sharona no shoot, Arcana no shoot. Yes."

"I can't authorize a truce. You understand? I must talk to someone higher than me. With more power, more authority. Understand?"

"Yes. Send talk?"

"I'll send a message."

"Ah … message." Skirvon tapped the crystal's menu again, dutifully recording the "new" word into it. The word "message" was already in its real vocabulary list, of course, but these yokels would never know that.

chan Tesh watched as the word appeared in both Andaran and phonetic spelling. Then Skirvon looked back up at him expectantly, and the company-captain frowned.

"You understand you can't talk to me about a truce?" chan Tesh pressed. Skirvon only looked at him and said nothing, and the Sharonian tried yet again.

"I'm not a diplomat. I'm a soldier?a 'diplomat' is someone who speaks for a government. You understand?"

Skirvon nodded sharply, busily coding the "new" words into his crystal.

"I'll have to send for a diplomat," chan Tesh continued. "I'll send a message, and the diplomat will come here."

"Ah!" Skirvon nodded again, more enthusiastically. But then he stopped nodding and shook his head instead. "No," he said. "Not here."

"What?" chan Tesh's eyes narrowed once more, and Skirvon knelt in the mud with a silent apology to his tailor as he contemplated what it was going to do to the knees of his trousers.

"Sharona portal," he said, using a dead twig to draw a circle in the mud. Then he drew another circle, about two feet from the first. "Arcana portal," he said, and indicated the portal soaring high above them.

chan Tesh scowled and opened his mouth, but Skirvon held up one hand, gesturing for patience. chan Tesh looked at him, then shrugged and nodded.