Jathmar’s mind was certainly boggled, since he hadn’t understood a single word of that crazy mishmash. Judging by their expressions, neither had Shaylar or even Jasak Olderhan and Twenty Thousand Sogbourne. Gadrial, however, was gazing at the rifle with a smile of childlike delight. She moved with sudden authority, taking Jathmar by surprise.
There were five more rounds loaded in the magazine. Gadrial racked the action like a seasoned pro, creating a crisp, metallic shlack-shlack, the characteristic sound of a cycling scissor-action. Before Jathmar could even open his mouth to protest, Gadrial had lifted the gun to her shoulder, more-or-less sighted on the target, and yanked the trigger.
C-R-A-A-A-A-C-K!
Gadrial dropped the rifle.
Then stood there, gulping hard and staring down at the gun as though it had transformed itself into a venomous snake. She finally looked up. Looked around, searching almost frantically for Jathmar.
“It worked,” she whispered. Her lips had gone unaccountably dry.
“I noticed,” he croaked. His voice emerged as a hoarse, frog-like sound-a hoarse, frog-like sound even feebler and far fainter to ears stunned by the thunderous blast of a Thundergun which had just functioned perfectly.
“No,” she shook her head, eyes wide in growing fright, “you don’t understand. It worked. Not the rifle. I mean, that worked, too. It wasn’t the rifle I meant. Wasn’t the rifle I was talking about. Or testing.”
“Gadrial,” Jasak said in a down-to-earth voice, “you’re not making sense.”
She didn’t even seem to hear him, because she was too busy turning parchment white and battling the tremors that had begun to shake through her slender body.
“It shouldn’t have worked!” she said on a note of rising alarm that was heading rapidly toward panic and the onset of hysteria. “I didn’t expect it to work!” she gasped. “It was just a crazy idea, a half-baked notion that flashed into my head, an idea so nutty, I didn’t even stop to think it through. If I had, I would never have tried to shoot that…that thing.” She shuddered, staring down at the rifle on the ground with genuine horror in her eyes. “It was just a crazy idea, but my God, it worked. Rahil’s mercy…” She wrapped both arms around herself. “It’s impossible,” she whispered, lifting her gaze to stare into Jathmar’s totally bewildered eyes. She was shivering so hard, Jasak peeled off his uniform’s coat and wrapped her up in it.
“Jasak,” she gripped one of his hands in both of hers, “Jasak, what I just did-” she gulped. “I just took everything we thought we knew about reality and turned it inside out and upside down and raveled out half the garment we call physics.” She stared down at the rifle again and bit her lip. “Jasak, I’m scared.”
Jathmar glanced from Gadrial to Shaylar, who was as baffled as he was.
“But why?” Jasak asked. He, too, was bewildered. So was Sogbourne, by the look on his face, and more than a little worried, as well, since whatever Gadrial had just done had terrified a woman who was high on a very short list of candidates for the best theoretical magician in the whole of Arcana’s civilization. When Jathmar realized that, he felt an abrupt stab of sudden, unadulterated terror. What the hell had Gadrial just discovered?!
“Gadrial,” Jasak said in a tone that was abruptly stern, “what have you done, just now? What have you discovered? And why has it scared you out of your seriously intelligent wits?”
“What?” she asked as though dazed.
He took her by the shoulders in a grip so firm, it was just shy of shaking her. That grip forced her to meet his gaze. “What have you just discovered?” he asked again. “And why has it scared a year off our lives?”
She gulped. Shivered. Pulled Jasak’s coat more tightly about her shoulders. “The connection I made,” she whispered, “about Jathmar’s ability to shoot the rifle you couldn’t. It isn’t what their weapons can do, Jasak, that’s a danger to Arcana. That’s so minor, it’s hardly worth mentioning-”
“Now see here,” Sogbourne snapped. “What the devil does that mean? Their terror weapons are minor? Weapons that blow apart human flesh? That can destroy an entire platoon in a matter of minutes? Have you lost your Ransaran mind?”
“No. I haven’t.” Gadrial’s hoarse whisper sent chills down Jathmar’s spine. “But what their weapons do is the least of our worries. It’s what they believe that will destroy us. Unless we’re very, very careful.”
* * *
Thankhar Olderhan sat gazing into the heart of the message crystal badged with the logo of Halka amp; Associates while cold, dark despair flowed through him.
He stared at it, longing for some spell to obliterate it, to change history so it had never been sent-would never be sent. But no magister had ever devised that spell, and no power in all the universes could protect him from what he had to do now.
He set the crystal on his blotter and leaned back in his chair, massaging his temples with both hands, trying to grapple with all the implications. Trying to imagine all the things he still didn’t know about this entire Jambakol-spawned monstrosity…and about who was deliberately shaping it into an even greater monstrosity.
He knew Commander of Two Thousand Mayrkos Harshu. Not well, but he’d met the man, spoken with him-even been briefed by him once. What he didn’t know was how the man he’d thought he knew could have lent himself to something like this, whatever the “military necessity” which might have justified it. Gods! How could someone as intelligent as Harshu fail to understand what this would do to the Army-to the entire Union-when it inevitably got out?!
And deservedly so.
Yet even that paled beside what he knew he had to do now. Not in its inter-universal implications, perhaps. But on the personal scale, the scale where the things which made a man of honor who and what he was mattered, it was infinitely worse than any macro political considerations could ever be, and he wished with all his heart that he wasn’t a man of honor, because then he could have avoided it.
He lowered his hands to the blotter, laying them on either side of the crystal, and sat for another thirty silent seconds. Then he drew a deep breath and rose with the expression of a man about to face a firing squad.
* * *
Shaylar looked up from the Andaran history book displayed on the crystal in her lap as the soft, musical chime sounded. She glanced across at Jathmar, who was immersed in quite a different book. His Andaran was still weaker than her own, but he’d been wading through the crystal-A Basic Introduction to Theoretical Magic, by Halathyn vos Dulainah-ever since the firearms demonstration. Gadrial had provided it at his request, and he was determined to somehow reconcile the differences between the Arcanan and the Sharonian concepts of science.
Somehow, she doubted he’d have much luck in that endeavor. Not that there was the remotest possibility of dissuading him from the attempt.
The chime sounded again, and she smiled faintly as Jathmar read on, oblivious to everything outside his crystal. Obviously, it was up to her.
She set her own book aside, climbed out of the comfortable, floating chair, and crossed the sitting room. She opened the door, and her eyebrows rose as the servant in the hallway bobbed a curtsy.
“Yes?” Shaylar asked as pleasantly as she could.