"When we attacked your camp without warning?" chan Baskay repeated flatly, shaking his head. "We did not do the attacking. Your officer may have been 'innocent' of the carnage you'd already committed, but he gave a deliberate order to fire on a single officer who had approached him under a flag of truce to ask for the return of our wounded. You attacked us. Again."
He met Skirvon's eye very levelly, his expression cold.
"It's one thing to state your position, Skirvon. It's quite another to twist the truth out of all recognition, and to insult our intelligence in the process."
Skirvon and Dastiri conferred briefly in a language that wasn't Andaran and which the crystal didn't translate into Ternathian. Then Skirvon turned back to him.
"This is very difficult," he said. "We have one view of these things; you have another view. We are trying to apologize for the violence, but you are so suspicious, we cannot even finish a thought. And while we understand how angry you must be, there is?or will be, once the news gets all the way to our home universe?great pain and anger in our world, as well. Not only have we lost many of our soldiers, not only have we killed civilians, but we have lost a civilian, as well.
"The civilian killed in your attack on our camp was one of the most important research magisters our civilization has ever produced. Magister Halathyn vos Dulainah was in our camp. He did not even try to fight, but he was killed without pity. The whole of Arcana is or soon will be in an uproar. Magister Halathyn was beloved by millions, hundreds of millions. The shock of his death, the anger felt over it, is very terrible."
"So now you say one of your civilians has been killed as well?" chan Baskay frowned.
"Indeed, a most important and very beloved one."
"Perhaps," chan Baskay said coolly, "one as beloved as Shaylar Nargra-Kolmayr was among our people?"
Skirvon appeared to wince slightly, and chan Baskay shook his head.
"Lord Rothag is Shurkhali," he said, repeating his earlier … misrepresentation. "A moment, please, while I discuss this with him. I'll be . . . interested in his perspective on our relative losses."
He turned to chan Rothag and cocked his head.
"I think we may actually be looking at something important here, Trekar," he said, once again in Farnalian. "The problem is, I don't know what?or how important it may be?and I've got the feeling he's about to try selling me a used horse. Can you give me any guidance on how many lies he's telling this time?"
"Actually he's telling the truth about this fellow being killed," chan Rothag replied in the same language. "And about how popular he was and the sort of reaction he anticipates. But you're right that something funny's going on, as well. I notice he's not saying anything about why this important researcher was out here in the middle of all this nowhere. And he's being careful not to say that we actually killed him."
"I caught that, as well," chan Baskay replied, managing to keep his frustration out of his tone or his expression. "I wonder what these twisty bastards are up to this time?"
He turned back to Skirvon. The Arcanan's expression remained attentive, leavened with exactly the right degree of sorrow and regret, but chan Baskay saw the curiosity in the backs of the man's eyes. Obviously, Skirvon was simply dying to know what he and chan Rothag had just said to one another. The thought gave chan Baskay a certain amount of amusement, but he produced a dutifully sad frown of his own.
"Sharona grieves to learn that another civilian has died, and especially one who was so beloved that his death can only add to the anger and fear between our peoples," he said, meaning every word of it. "But that only underscores the urgent need for us to negotiate a cease-fire. Sharona does not want any more innocents to die."
"That is exactly Arcana's position, as well," Skirvon said earnestly. "We want an end to the shooting while we talk with you about a permanent settlement." It was his turn to smile sadly. "It may take a long time for us to agree as to where guilt and innocence truly lie. And I am sure it will take even longer for us to reach agreement on the terms of any final settlement, and on how best to manage further contacts between our peoples. For example, there is the question of who holds ultimate possession of this entire universe."
"Hell's Gate is Sharonian territory." chan Baskay's tone was flat.
"Hell's Gate?" Skirvon repeated, and chan Baskay smiled coolly.
"Given what your soldiers did to our civilians here, it seemed an appropriate name to us," he said. Then he allowed his expression to soften very slightly. "And, I suppose, given what happened to your troops, it may seem appropriate to your people, as well."
"Indeed, it may," Skirvon agreed. "Still, whatever we may call it, the question of who controls it must be of vital importance to both your world and mine."
chan Baskay allowed his eyes to narrow once more, and Skirvon shrugged with an open, honest expression.
"Surely, My Lord, your people realize as well as my own that this?" he waved at the trees about them and the steady drift of bright colored leaves sifting downward whenever the breeze blew "?is what we call a 'portal cluster.' There are many portals close together, giving access to many universes. However much we may regret the violence which has already occurred, your Emperor and your Portal Authority must recognize that the control of so many portals is not something either of us will gladly give up, especially to someone we do not fully trust because of the violence which has already occurred.
" At the moment, each side desires complete control of the entire cluster, if only to provide for its own security, and neither side will be willing to concede that to the other. In the end, some sort of agreement?possibly some compromise, under which control is shared, or under which certain portals are ceded to either party?would have to be worked out if we were to have any real hope that our natural desires and fear of one another will not push us into additional conflict. Working out any such agreement would certainly be difficult, and would without doubt take much time and patience. But surely, it is always better to talk rather than to shoot."
Beside chan Baskay, chan Rothag crossed his legs once more, and chan Baskay sighed inside, wishing chan Rothag could tell him exactly which parts of what Skirvon had said this time were "mostly true."
Part of him wanted to stand up and call Skirvon on his lies about Shaylar right then and there. In fact, the cavalry officer in him wanted to choke the truth out of the bland-faced Arcanan. If Shaylar hadn't died the way he said she had, then how had she died? What had they really done to her in their quest for information like the words stored in their crystal? He could think of several reasons why her stored voice might sound slurred, confused, even broken. Reasons which had nothing at all to do with any wounds she might have suffered here at Fallen Timbers. Had they done those things to her? Was that how she'd died?in some grim little cell somewhere? And if so, did this smiling bastard across the table from him know she had?
The questions burned inside him, demanding answers, but he kept his expression under control. He couldn't give in to the anger he felt, couldn't call them cold-blooded murderers, even if he did know that an innocent, courageous young woman had not died the way they'd told him she had. And the fact was that Skirvon also had a perfectly valid point about the question of who would hold eventual sovereignty over the Hell's Gate Cluster. Certainly, no one in Sharona would be at all happy about the thought of abandoning the cluster?which the Chalgyn crew had clearly discovered before the Arcanans ever ventured into it?to a bloodthirsty, murderous lot of savages whose uniformed soldiers had slaughtered its original surveyors. And whatever he thought of Skirvon, or his unknown superiors, the man was right that Arcana would be no happier at the thought of conceding all of those portals to Sharona. Especially not with the spilled blood which already lay between them.