David Weber - The Road to Hell

“First, there’s not a lot of reason to worry about ‘security’ as far as the Sharonians are concerned,” Jasak pointed out. “It’s not like they’re going to overhear any idle chatter this side of Hell’s Gate. Second, nobody’s ever managed to put together a security system that actually prevented at least some information leakage along the way. And third, if he didn’t make any effort to keep to the initial news from leaking, why the sudden silence about what’s happened since ?”

“Since the Sharonian counterattack, you mean.” Gadrial’s voice was suddenly harsher, its timbre hammered flat by remembered, shattering grief.

“Exactly,” Jasak replied grimly. “The whole reason Otwal and Jugthar had to ‘reason’ with Zukerayn ’s crew in the first place was how angry they were at the news about the way Thalmayr managed to get his arse reamed and”-he looked at her squarely-“get Magister Halathyn killed. If anyone was interested in keeping a lid on things, trying to throttle back any temptation towards hysteria, they should’ve kept that news under wraps. For that matter, the news that we’ve got negotiators sitting down face-to-face with the Sharonians would go a long way towards calming things down, I think. But nothing. Not a word. And the lack of any additional information’s only causing people to obsess over what they have heard about. Worse, it’s letting the inevitable initial consternation-and anger -set more and more deeply into their minds without anything to counterbalance it.”

“So you do think it’s deliberate?” she asked so quietly it was difficult to hear her over the wind and the steady sluicing sound of water around the ship’s hull.

“Yes.” Jasak’s voice was flat and he turned to look back along the ship’s length toward Shaylar and Jathmar’s deck chairs once more, thinking about the hard, hating looks the crew had directed towards the Sharonians. Thinking about the anger and the fear behind those looks. “I know I just said it’s hard to prevent rumors and partial information from leaking, but I’ll concede that it’s possible mul Gurthak’s sending security-locked hummer messages past us without any leakage. Possible he’s keeping the Commandery and the Union Council fully informed. Graholis, it’s even possible the negotiations’ve broken down and the Sharonians have started attacking again! But the fact that he isn’t doing a single thing to dispel any of the rumors fanning the uncertainty and panic…I just can’t convince myself that could be anything but deliberate, Gadrial.”

“You’re scaring me again, Jasak.”

“Sorry about that.” He smiled crookedly at her. “But what’s that old saying about misery seeking companions?” He inhaled deeply and looked out over the phosphorescent sea. “I don’t see any reason I should be the only one I’m scaring.”

* * *

At that very moment, almost twenty-four thousand miles away from Zukerayn ’s decks, an exhausted hummer struck the perch of a palatial hummer cot on a private estate in Mythal. The winged messenger’s beak struck the button to sound the chime announcing its arrival, exactly as it had been programed to do, then settled back to await the result. Its brain was scarcely up to complex reasoning, and even if it had been, it had no way to know what information had been uploaded to the tiny sarkolis crystal embedded in its body. And because of those two things, it never occurred to it to wonder why a hummer bearing private dispatches from the Governor of Erthos had been sent to a private citizen who had no official connection whatsoever with the Union of Arcana’s military, government, or judiciary.

December 12

Fear was far from the public mind in Whitterhoo, a farm town with a train stop in south New Farnal on Sharona. Winter wheat was ready to be harvested, and one of their very own heroes was running for election. Things were a bit different for the “hero” turned neophyte politician in question, of course, and Darcel Kinlafia was only too well aware of how far outside of what his fiancee called his “comfort zone” he was. If he’d had a moment to think about it he would have said he owed it to his old Chalgyn Consortium crew to do exactly what he was doing now, but politics, he was discovering, could be more terrifying than any mere gun battle.

Fortunately, he was too busy to be scared at the moment.

Darcel shook the sweaty hand of the first constituent on the overflowing train platform and was rewarded with a beaming grin. He matched her enthusiasm, delighted to see the crowd had waited through the morning’s thunderstorm to see him. His home region in southern New Farnal still felt blessedly solid under his feet even days after the long steamship crossing from Tajvana, but the weather hadn’t given him a gentle welcome. The days broke warm and heated his supporters past comfort, and the rains battered his campaign events with squalls.

“Dearest Gods, it’s hot again.” Voice Istin Leddle wiped sweat from his forehead as he joined Darcel on the train platform.

“Good growing weather!” Darcel answered and put a tanned arm around his campaign coordinator. “He’s from Bernith.” He explained to the crowd. “They grow ice there this time of year.”

“That’s why we ship them wheat!” a man at the back of the crowd called out.

“You’ll get used to it.” Darcel patted Istin on the shoulder.

The young man smiled gamely but didn’t exactly agree as he used his gangly height to clear a path towards the rented auditorium. A few interns joined his efforts including one of the newest volunteers, Kelahm something. Darcel couldn’t quite remember his name.

Kelahm was brown-haired and brown-eyed just like Darcel himself, and rather below average height for a Ternathian. A late addition to the campaign, he always seemed to be exactly where he needed to be at any given moment, and he was always ready to help with any task, yet somehow he always faded into the background. It wasn’t that his personality was colorless , exactly. He was simply one of those people who seemed…muted, somehow. Darcel worked hard to avoid the trap of taking volunteers for granted, which seemed to afflict many politicians, and he felt obscurely guilty about the way Kelahm disappeared into the backdrop, even for him. It didn’t seem to offend Kelahm , but Darcel made a mental memo-again-to get to know the other man better.

A warm, much more memorable presence brushed his mind and Darcel felt his fiance before he saw her. Alazon Yanamar, former Privy Voice to Emperor Zindel and the exquisite slender, dark-haired woman of his dreams, hopped out of the train car and stepped to his side. He didn’t know how she’d justified spending this week on the campaign trail with him. Precious few Voices in Sharona had her Talent; fewer still had developed the political sense she’d earned in her years working at the emperor’s side; and none of them had been Emperor Zindel’s Privy Voice.

Darcel’s heart thumped again in astonishment that this amazing woman was here with him. They were soul mates in the magical way two Talents could sometimes find themselves perfectly matched with one another, yet that was only part of what made her so amazing to him. He still found the notion of himself as a politician profoundly absurd in many ways, but that choice wasn’t up to him any longer. One way or the other, however preposterous it seemed, he had a political career to launch. Alazon had decided to help him do it, and to his amazement, Emperor Zindel had agreed to let her. As a Voice himself, Darcel knew how incredibly valuable someone with her strength of Talent-and the brainpower to go with it-was to any leader, far less the man who was about to become Emperor of Sharona, yet Zindel hadn’t even blinked when she informed him she intended to resign to help Darcel’s campaign. Of course, there was the little question of whether or not he intended to allow her to remain resigned after the elections, and Darcel strongly suspected that both Alazon and Ulantha Jastyr-her protegee and long-term assistant who’d “replaced” her as Privy Voice-knew her resignation was actually only a leave of absence. In fact, what he truly suspected was that Zindel himself had engineered the entire thing, although he knew, as only a Voice bonded to another Voice could know-that Alazon hadn’t realized it when she initially offered her resignation. She’d expected the emperor to fight her decision, not support it, and she still seemed a bit bemused that he hadn’t.