He’d been showing Jathmar and Shaylar the maps as they traveled by slider for the last portion of their three-month long inter-universal journey, comfortably ensconced in their own private car.
And comfortable in more than one way. That thought sent a wave of mingled darkness and satisfaction through him, pulling him back almost brutally from his thoughts of home, and his glance moved from the trees to the end windows where another slider car was now coupled to the rear of their own. It bore the colors of the Dukes of Garth Showma, that other car, nor was it alone; there was an identical car coupled to the front of theirs, as well.
Jasak’s messages to his father had reached home just over a month ago, and his father’s reply had been waiting at the incoming slider station in the city of Theskair in New Ransar-three universes, eight thousand miles, and fourteen days’ travel from Garth Showma. He’d expected a hummer message; what he’d gotten was a security team-a very professional, highly trained, very dedicated, and heavily armed security team from the Garth Showma Guard commanded by Commander of One Hundred Hathysk Forhaylin.
Forhaylin’s presence had been all the message Jasak really needed about how seriously his father took events down-universe. Hundred Forhaylin had served in the 2nd Andaran Scouts with Thankhar Olderhan and Otwal Threbuch. When the duke retired, Threbuch had stayed in the Scouts, but Forhaylin had followed his duke out of the Union Army and become second in command of the Garth Showma Guard, the personal guard whose men-whose Andaran men-were all sworn to the service of the Duke of Garth Showma as their liege lord, not as the Governor of New Arcana. They answered to Thankhar Olderhan directly…and Hathysk Forhaylin was the man he sent out when he expected blood in the streets.
Jasak was just as happy Shaylar and Jathmar had been unaware of that minor point. And he was also happy Forhaylin had briefed him very privately on the occasional anti-Sharona riots which had already occurred.
“His Grace,” the dark-haired, bearded hundred had said, sunlight bright on the silver beginning to color his temples, “is…perturbed by the dearth of additional formal reports from Hells Gate.” He’d met Jasak’s eyes levelly. “The absence of official dispatches has left people-and the news services, of course-free to make up whatever rumors they want, and some of them are pretty damned ugly. It didn’t help when word that hostilities have been resumed arrived without any real explanation of why, either. The natural assumption in New Arcana is that the Sharonians must have broken them off, but we don’t actually know anything about the circumstances. I believe His Grace shares your own suspicion that the absence of any official explanation-or several other critical aspects of events out there-may not be accidental.”
That was certainly one way to describe his “suspicions,” Jasak had thought grimly, and he’d hated having to share the news that the fighting had flared up again with his shardonai. They’d taken it just as badly as he’d expected them to, and it had taken almost a week for them to regain their comfortable relationship-or as comfortable as it had ever been-with one another.
That reflection finished the process of drawing him back to his present duty. They didn’t have that much longer until they arrived now, and he smiled a brief apology at the others for his distraction and bent back over the map on the table.
“The Duchy of Garth Showma stretches from the Ocean of Storms in the east to the western-most of the Great Andaran Lakes,” he said, and pointed to an immense span of territory that corresponded, roughly, to the Republic of Faltharia where Jathmar had been born.
“Technically, we own all of it,” he continued, smiling at the Sharonian’s expression, “but the vast bulk of it’s been permanently deeded to freeholders of one sort and another.” He shrugged. “Unless someone dies intestate or the land is seized for nonpayment of taxes or something like that, we don’t really have much to say about its disposition. The family’s personal demesne, Garth Showma, itself, is much smaller, of course. It lies here, where the Showma River drops over a horseshoe-shaped cliff that forms the Showma Falls. They’re one of the two largest waterfalls on New Arcana-and every other universe, of course.”
Jathmar nodded. “In Sharona, we call it the Grand Emlin Falls. I was born here,” he pointed to a spot on Jas Olderhan’s map, “in the city of Serakai in the Republic of Faltharia.”
“How did you like growing up with all those winter blizzards?” Jasak asked. “I got so tired of them as a kid.”
Jathmar chuckled. “Serakai means ‘city of snow.’ I can remember winters when blizzards piled up drifts thirty feet high.”
“So can I,” Jasak told him with a grin, and the two of them turned in perfect unison, as though they’d rehearsed it, to check the cold clear skies out the window.
Shaylar, who’d grown up in the hot deserts of Shurkhal, looked from one to the other, then grimaced at Gadrial.
“I’d never even seen snow, until I married Jathmar. We held the wedding at his parents’ home, as Faltharian custom calls for, during the mid-winter solstice festival,” she said. “Winter solstice is considered a fortunate time for weddings in Faltharia. Personally, I think that’s just because there’s nothing else to do in Faltharia during the winter.” She shivered. “It took weeks to get warm, again.”
“We just missed Snowfall Night,” Jasak said wistfully. “It lasts a fortnight, but all the best parades are on the shortest day of the year.”
“So you two think you’ve seen snow, do you?” Gadrial asked, looking back and forth between the two men, and laughed softly. “Babes in arms, the pair of you! If you want to see real weather, you should try spending a winter in Ransar. It’s not uncommon for the temperature to drop thirty or forty degrees below zero, for weeks at a time. My first winter away from home was a delightful shock. I didn’t have to bundle up in furs or tie a safety line to my waist even once, just to keep from losing my way between my parents’ house and the barn to feed the livestock.”
Shaylar shuddered. “Thank you, but I’ll pass on that offer.”
“That sounds remarkably like how people in Sharona deal with blizzards. There’s not some magic to find your way through the snow?” Jathmar said.
“There’s a whole field of applied magic for that,” Gadrial explained, “but when it gets cold enough, sarkolis gets brittle. When that happens, the crystals tend to crack-which does horrible damage to the stored spells. It’s best to have a safety line.”
Jasak tapped the map to bring their attention back to his lecture. “Ahem. Now, then. The demesne lies along the river. You can see the falls from the ducal palace, which is my parents’ main house. They maintain another in Portalis, the city that sprawls along both sides of Arcana’s first portal.” He tapped the map, where a symbol in red ink marked the location of the portal.
“My father lives on the estate and governs all of Garth Showma directly in his own right-it’s complicated,” he added as Shaylar and Jathmar frowned at him. “Like I said, in theory the Olderhan family owns the entire duchy; actually, it’s more a matter of everyone who lives in it owing fealty to the Duke of Garth Showma as their liege lord. But that’s a personal relationship between him and them. He governs the rest of New Arcana in the name of the Union of Arcana, and none of the other citizens of New Arcana owe him any sort of personal fealty.”