Kinlafia wrapped himself around the liquor and gulped at it, his hands unsteady as he struggled to regain control. Janaki was wise enough to say nothing. He simply refilled the glass when it emptied, then sat down on his bedroll again and waited until Kinlafia finally mastered himself sufficiently to meet his gaze one more.
"Thanks," the Voice said then, hoarsely, gesturing with the empty glass in his hand. Then he wiped wetness from his face with a brusque sleeve and cleared his throat, roughly.
"I still hoped, you know," he said. Janaki raised an eyebrow, and the Voice grimaced. "I still hoped she was alive. Parcanthi and Hilovar Saw her still alive after the fighting. Saw her being taken back to that camp of theirs. I hoped so hard that after we hit those bastards, we'd find her. But we didn't."
"But there were those glimpses of some sort of transport animal," Janaki said gently. "And we didn't find her body, either."
"Do you think I didn't think about that?" Kinlafia demanded harshly, half-glaring at Janaki. "But you've seen that swamp. My maximum range for reaching her was over six hundred miles. Sur, I had to trance to do it, but even if her own Voice had been completely shut down by some head injury, like Hilovar described, I'd have been able to sense her at up to four hundred, maybe even five, after linking that closely during the fight. I'd be able to feel her presence the same way I can feel the direction to the closest portal, and there was nothing. What kind of 'transport animal' could have taken her across four hundred miles of this kind of swamp in less than thirty-six hours?"
"I don't know," Janaki admitted. "I can't think of one."
"Neither can I. But we already know she was critically wounded, probably dying, just from what Hilovar and Parcanthi could tell us. So they put a dying woman on what ever 'transport animal' they had and dragged her off to die somewhere out there in the middle of all that mud and water."
The Voice's jaws clenched again, and his hands tightened around the whiskey glass.
"They were probably trying desperately to keep her alive, you know," Janaki pointed out quietly. Kinlafia glared at him again, and the crown prince shrugged. "I didn't say they were doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, Voice Kinlafia."
"No, they weren't," Kinlafia grated. Then he drew a deep, shaky breath. "And whyever they were doing it, they were the ones responsible for what happened to her and all of the rest of my friends in the first place. They were the ones who chased them down like animals, then slaughtered them around her. The ones who did all of that to her before she died."
He shook his head, his eyes harder than obsidian.
"I will never, ever forgive them for that," he said quietly. "Maybe Shaylar could have done that. I can't. But you're right about what would happen if I enlisted. So what can I do, really?"
"You can start by telling me everything," Janaki replied. "Every detail you can recall, no matter how trivial. I won't lie and tell you this won't be painful, because it will. I intend to take you through every moment of contact you've had with these people, both directly and through Shaylar, over and over again."
"Why?" Dark emotion flared in Kinlafia's shadowed eyes.
"Because you need to get back to Sharona as quickly as possible, where what you know will do the most of good for the people responsible for deciding how we respond. But before you go, the people at this end of the multiverse need the same information. I'm going to get that for them before we pull out, and the more times you go through it, step-by-step, the more you'll remember."
"Voices have perfect recall," Kinlafia objected harshly. "You said that yourself."
"Yes, they do. And at the moment, yours is shrouded with severe emotional shock. That's why it's imperative that we take you through it repeatedly?now, while it's still as fresh as possible. To be honest, this should have been done right after the initial attack, not after this long a delay's had time to cloud details."
Kinlafia winced, and Janaki shook his head.
"I'm sorry, but that's the way it should have been done, and it wasn't. We can't afford to let those experiences get any more distant. It's going to be hell going back through them, but there's no way of knowing what tiny bit or piece may prove to be vitally important before this is all over. Even her emotions could give us important information, and it's all there. Everything you Saw, Heard. Everything she touched or smelled. Everything she did, even everything you thought while you were linked. All the ideas, the impressions, the unconscious judgments?they're all in there, simmering away in the back of your mind. What we have to do is extract them, pull them out past the barriers of emotional reaction. And, for what it's worth, I have perfect recall, too, which is one reason I get to be the coldhearted bastard who drags you back through it all."
"Yes." Kinlafia was biting his lip again, but he nodded slowly, manifestly unhappily. "I see your point?all too clearly. I don't want to relive any of that, but I don't have a choice, do I?"
"No. Not if you really want to help us understand these people. And I don't have a choice, either, I'm afraid. I imagine you hate my guts before we're done."
"Probably." A humorless smile touched Kinlafia's mouth. "At the time, at least. But not permanently. I hated my third-level teacher while she was drilling multiplication tables into my head, when all I wanted to do was spend the day outside with a fishing pole or a hiking trail. But I didn't hate her for long. Not once I figured out how useful math is."
Jasak smiled back at him.
"That's hopeful sounding. I was rather looking forward to the chance to get better acquainted. I don't have much opportunity to talk with civilians, let alone Talented ones. Not just out here, either. Generally, people seem sufficiently in awe of my title to produce conversations that are a bit … stilted. If not downright impossible."
"I can't imagine." Kinlafia gave him a wan smile. "Be fair, Your Highness. It is a little unnerving talking to the Crown Prince of Ternathia."
"Who occasionally puts his socks on inside out in the dark, the same as any other man jolted awake in the middle of the night."
Kinlafia actually grinned. Then he sat back with a sigh.
"All right. I'll go through it all as many times it takes, but what then? It sounded like you had something specific in mind for me to do, beyond helping you learn what I know."
"I have." Janaki nodded. "Tell me, Voice Kinlafia. What are the best ways a man?or woman?can have a really big impact on civilization?"
"Civilization?" Kinlafia echoed, and Janaki nodded.
Rather than answer off the cuff, the Voice took time to think about it. Janaki was glad. That was a good sign, considering what he wanted this man to do. Finally, Kinlafia pursed his lips.
"You can invent something really important," he said slowly. "Like a new form of transportation, or a new weapon or a new medicine."
Janaki nodded again.
"You can write something that influences the way people think," Kinlafia continued. "Or you could report the news in a way that changes how people think and act."
"That's true, all of it," Janaki agreed. "But tell me?who tells an army what to attack?"
"The generals."
"But who tells the generals?" Janaki pressed. "Who sends the generals?"
"The politicians, of cour?"