David Weber - Hell's Gate

He didn't even poke at the charred lump with a stick. He left it for the Tracer to examine, instead. Since both Shaylar and one of her killers had handled it, they might get something valuable from it, so Darcel marked its exact location and kept looking.

A moment later, his throat constricted as he discovered why she'd lost consciousness so abruptly. A thick branch behind the spot where she'd burned her maps and notes was marked by dried blood and several strands of long, dark hair. Darcel's fingers went unsteady as he reached towards the strands, but then he made himself stop. Parcanthi and Hilovar needed to examine everything here before he contaminated it.

Darcel looked for the branch where Jathmar had been flung when the fireball caught him and spotted a few shreds of scorched cloth on the ground directly beneath it. The branch itself, thick as Darcel's forearm, had been seared black … except for a spot exactly the width of Jathmar's body.

The Voice moved cautiously around, staying outside the actual spot while his eyes searched carefully. The unburnt bark of the limb into which Jathmar had been thrown was scraped and cut where gear and buttons had dug into it, and he peered at the ground to see if anything of Jathmar's had fallen into the leaf litter.

If anything had, their attackers had found it first and carried it off. Unwilling to risk stirring things up with a closer search, Darcel called the Whiffer and Tracer over to join him and explained what he'd found.

"You'd better go first, Nolis," Hilovar said, glancing at Parcanthi. "You need uncontaminated patterns. I'll touch the evidence once you've gleaned what you can."

Parcanthi nodded and started with Jathmar's spot first. He closed his eyes and went very still, and even though Darcel couldn't sense the energy patterns Parcanthi was carefully examining, he knew enough theory to recognize what he was doing.

Every living creature generated its own energy field, created by that mysterious, poorly understood force that animated a physical body. Inanimate objects had their own strange energies, as well, and all objects vibrated at a specific rhythm. A person sensitive to those rhythms could detect them, focus on them, separate them from one another and wrest information from them. Could discern what forces had worked upon them, could draw visions?the famous "flashes" of the Whiffer?of past events out of the energy flowing about them.

Someone like Soral Hilovar, on the other hand, could touch an object and trace the major events in its history. If a living creature handled or came into contact with an object, some of that creature's life energy remained behind. The residue was like a static charge, except that it never entirely dissipated. Details would fade eventually, yet for the most part, the energy patterns left behind endured for a long time. But where a Whiffer might use those patterns to determine what had happened, a Tracer, like Hilovar, was sensitive to the connection between the object and whoever had touched it. Unlike a Whiffer, a Tracer couldn't see the general vicinity of those events, couldn't pick up flashes of what else had happened in its vicinity. But in many ways, what a Tracer did see was considerably more detailed. He could frequently tell whether or not the person involved in an event was dead or still alive. And, somewhat like Darcel's own sensitivity to portals, a Tracer could determine a directional bearing to the person in question.

The residue Whiffers and Tracers worked with was even stronger when a complex living creature?like a person?took a specific action, and a violent action, or one steeped in powerful emotion?terror, rage, passion?left the strongest residue of all. If someone picked up a rock and bashed somebody else with it, a ghostly imprint remained behind, creating a shadow copy of the action … and its results. The shadow copy didn't even need to be tied to a specific object, if the original action had been sufficiently intense. The stronger the emotions, the stronger the copy. Sometimes, the shadow could last for years, particularly indoors?

Parcanthi hissed aloud and flinched. Sweat beaded up on his brow and a cliff, trickled down his temples.

"Oh, sweet Marnilay," he whispered, his voice shaking. "They burned him alive. . . . "

Darcel's mouth tightened into a thin, harsh line. He knew exactly what the Whiffer was Seeing. He'd already Seen it himself.

"He collapsed there," Parcanthi said in a low voice, eyes still closed, pointing to the ground. "He was still alive when they found him. Their emotions were strong. Excitement. Relief?"

The last words sounded puzzled, but a flare of hope shot through Darcel, sharp and painful. Alive. Jathmar had been alive!

But Parcanthi was still talking, and Darcel's heart clenched at the Whiffer's next words.

"He was burned something ghastly. His back was burnt black, the shirt was just gone?burned away. He was barely breathing. Someone's crouched over him, trying to help. Gods! I can See bone down inside the burns!"

Parcanthi shuddered, his face twisting.

"It's too faint, curse it," he whispered, "and there were too many people crowded into the spot. The energy patterns are all jumbled up, imprinted on top of one another. I can't sort them out."

His intense frustration was obvious, and he opened his eyes and shook himself.

"That's it," he said grimly. "I'm not going to get anything much clearer than that from here." His jaw muscles bunched for a moment, and his nostrils flared as he inhaled. "Let me try Shaylar. Where?"

"There."

Darcel pointed, and the red-haired Whiffer nodded. His lean, craggy face was pale, covered with cold sweat, but he walked across and crouched down, as Shaylar had, surrounding and centering himself in the residue. Bleak eyes closed again, and he gave another shudder …

"She's burning everything. Maps, notes. She's shaking, linked to Darcel. Jathmar's starting to climb down from there?" he pointed to a spot above them, without opening his eyes. Then his entire body flinched.

"Fire! There's fire everywhere!"

He was slapping at his own clothes, clawing at his hair, shaking. Then the fireball Darcel had seen through Shaylar's eyes passed, and the Whiffer sagged in relief. He turned, eyes still closed, toward the branch that had knocked Shaylar unconscious.

"She crashed into that." He pointed to the blood-crusted branch. "She's lying still. Her face is swelling up, turning purple and black. There are cuts and scrapes."

Darcel's breath faltered. This time, his hope was so terrible it actually hurt his lungs, his entire body. If her face was swelling and bruising, she was alive. Corpses didn't bruise?did they? He realized that he wasn't sure, and the uncertainty was intolerable.

"They found her, too," Parcanthi said. "They're shocked, horrified, that they attacked a woman."

Darcel's fists clenched at his sides. He didn't want to think of these bastards as people who could be shocked and horrified by what they'd done to an innocent, lovely girl.

"They can't wake her up," Parcanthi said abruptly. "There's something wrong, desperately wrong. Inside her head. They're trying. They're frantic, but they can't wake her up, and she's badly injured …"

His voice shook, frayed. Then he groaned.

"It's fading out! The whole godsdamned thing's wavering and fading away. They carried her out of here, but I can't See anything beyond that. It just fades into nothing. Or, rather, it blurs into that same mess Jathmar's did, with all the imprints jumbled up together. I can't see anything more than that."

"You have to!" Darcel cried, unable to stop himself. "We have to know what happened to her! Is she still alive?"

"I can't tell!" Parcanthi's eyes opened, filled with anguish. "Too many people died right here." He waved at the toppled trees around them. "And too damned many people came through here?trying to rescue survivors, trying to find every last piece of equipment. It all bleeds and blurs and fades like ink in the water." He furrowed his brow, rubbed his eyes. "Maybe if we can figure out where they took her and Jathmar, I can tell more from there."