David Weber - The Road to Hell

None of that mattered. The Peregrine’s profile was etched into his memory. He’d learned a deep appreciation of the sailing master’s craft aboard that trim, lovely little ship. She was moving under sail, tonight, creeping softly, silently through the crowded harbor, toward the open channel at the center of the Straits. Her escort destroyers steamed fore and aft-under power at slow speed to follow the rules of the road that granted sailing vessels right of way-as if they’d merely happened to be transiting the Ylani Straits at the same time as Peregrine instead of following careful, Voice-coordinated transit orders. A convenient port call at Larakesh had held them at the ready, and now they were immediately at hand to defend the Peregrine if anyone dared threaten her.

Zindel had wandered along the length of the balcony several times already, this evening, careful to spend just as much time gazing out across other vantage points. He didn’t want observers to notice his keen interest in the ship moving so slowly toward the deep channel. The fireworks offered the perfect cover under which the Peregrine could run, taking his daughter to a place where she and her husband could learn one another in greater privacy. It was difficult enough for ordinary newlyweds to learn how to live together. For an imperial heiress, the job was ten times harder.

Still, he couldn’t help worrying. So he strolled the balcony, watching the Peregrine make her way towards the open sea. He wondered again if he’d made the correct decision, sending her on the yacht, rather than the Windtreader . The Windtreader was harder to attack, certainly, but part of his intention had been secrecy. It would have alerted most of Tajvana, had the Windtreader steamed out in the middle of the victory celebration.

So he’d arranged for Andrin and Howan Fai to take the sailing yacht, instead, relying on the brand new engines installed in her hull, the Imperial security team onboard, and her destroyer escort. She might be a romantic little ship, but she carried a genuinely nasty sting for anyone foolish enough to attack her, and the two destroyers could blow anything short of a major warship completely out of the water. And for the possibility of major warships, two armored cruisers were waiting to add themselves to the escort once they were safely out into the Mbisi.

The Peregrine, which had nearly cleared the tangle of small craft clogging the harbor, carried a marine detail, in addition to a full squad of Imperia Guardsmen, but he still couldn’t help worrying. I shouldn’t have let her go, he found himself thinking as he gripped the stone balustrade. This is stupid! he snarled at himself a moment later. You’re being an overprotective father. She’s a woman grown, married, now. She has enough firepower around her to take out half a city. And there hasn’t been so much as a whisper of trouble out of Chava, let alone anyone else.

When he caught himself worrying his lower lip with his teeth, he took several deep, slow, calming breaths. He was being paranoid. Chava Busar had behaved with extreme prudence and every outward appearance of unhappy acceptance. Security had been watching him, his sons, his wives and daughters, his supporters, and his high-ranking security officials, every second of every day and night. They’d even been watching the officers of Chava Busar’s so-called “imperial police,” who constituted a private army under the Uromathian Emperor’s control.

A spate of cheering prompted him to glance down at the broad flagstone terrace just below his balcony. This portion of the palace had been built along the slope of a hill which had been terraced with a series of gardens, staircases, and open flagstone pavements where garden parties were held throughout Tajvana’s long social season. The palace’s gaslights had been dimmed for the firework display, but more than enough light spilled across the terrace from open doorways and windows to reveal the identities of the revelers below.

Various members of his Privy Council chatted with one another and their families, pausing now and again to cheer a particularly spectacular burst of fireworks, and musicians played. The bright sounds of military marches, the patriotic tunes of every nation on Sharona, and celebratory hymns of thanksgiving and joyous praise for the deities which watched over them splashed across the terrace and eddied out into the night, and temple bells tolled solemn jubilation in the distance. All of Tajvana was filled with joy, tonight.

Zindel spotted First Councilor Taje, head bent in conversation with Darcel Kinlafia. Kinlafia wasn’t a member of his Privy Council, but his new bride was. Alazon Kinlafia had been reinstated as Privy Voice and was radiant tonight. Zindel approved of that match, very much, and a faint smile touched his mouth. From the reports he’d been receiving, Kinlafia had weathered the transition from survey crew Voice to Imperial Parliament MP with great success.

He’d been selected to several important committees in the House of Talents, including Foreign Relations and Budget, and he was vice-chair of both the War Caucus and the Talent Mobilization Board. That sort of authority was rare for a novice politician, but he owed it only partially to his fame as the sole surviving member of the Chalgyn Consortium crew and the Voice who’d relayed Shaylar Nargra-Kolmayr’s last Voice transmission. It turned out-to Kinlafia’s own surprise, Zindel suspected-that he had very good political instincts even without his wife’s guidance, and his fellow MPs had quickly realized he was smart, thoughtful, and well-informed on the critical issues not only of the war but of conditions in the border universes, as well.

And he was using that stature to keep the House of Talents focused on creating the structures they’d need to recruit and train Sharona’s Talented citizens to assist with the war. Whether at home or at the battlefront, Talents would be essential to Sharona’s war effort, indeed, to Sharona’s survival. Darcel Kinlafia understood that. It was a great relief to have him in the House of Talents, advocating and browbeating and persuading his fellow Talents to do the hard work necessary to prepare Sharona’s Talented citizens for war.

Servants wended their way through the crowd, carrying trays of beverages and sweets. One of those servants caught his attention. The young woman was familiar to him, but he couldn’t quite place her. A frown touched his mouth as he tried to recall who she was-

And the Glimpse struck.

He staggered, nearly collapsing under the shock. Fire! There was fire everywhere. A blazing inferno blowing the room behind him to hell. His whole body was engulfed in flame and there was no time, it was right on top of them…

“ VARENA! ”

His wife jerked around as he began to run.

“Zindel-?”

“The girls! Get the girls! ”

His wife blanched and whirled. Armsmen were running toward her. Razial was beside her mother. But he couldn’t see Anbessa.

“Telfor!”

Telfor chan Garatz, Chief of Imperial Security, had already scooped Razial out of her chair. He jerked around at Zindel’s shout.

“Get my family off this balcony! Not through the room! ”

“Yes, Sire!”

Chan Garatz was already moving…moving so quickly he didn’t notice that the emperor was headed the opposite direction.

Headed directly into the room he’d ordered his armsmen to avoid.

“’Bessa!” Zindel chan Calirath thundered, his mind full of fire and blast, his body already screaming protest of the agony he knew was to come. He should have been paralyzed, should have been lost in the crushing power of his Death Glimpse, but his Talent had always been powerful. Now, like his son at Fort Salby, he was in fugue state. He Saw the world about him, Saw the future, Saw the agony, Saw his daughter’s death, Saw his own, Saw the slim possibility that Anbessa might live, and he threaded the needle between those futures-all of them potential; each of them in that moment as real as any other-and raced towards her.