The Sword (37 page)

Saber clamped his hand over her mouth. “Please forgive my wife; she has a bit of a temper. Thankfully, it is only triggered by blatant displays of stupidity, so she does not unleash it often on our own populace.”

Kelly peeled his hand away. She wasn't done yet, though she did revert her language back to the polite-vocabulary kind. “It is a
fact
, Lord Aragol, of biology, built into the ways of their flesh as created by the very gods themselves, that while men are stronger than women, women are
smarter
than men, on the average. And brains will
always
defeat mere muscles, magic, or machinery in the end. So if you wish to stand on equal footing with a woman, open your fist and use it to pick up a book, not a weapon.

“Your touted ancestors probably beat their wives with their greater strength, until the gods of your lands gave the minds of your women something even stronger to fight back with, that greater magic than your men possess—but therein lies your very problem,” she pointed out, striving hard to keep her tone and expression reasonably polite. “Your mind-set probably
made
them strike back at you. Violence begets violence, my lord. Arrogance breeds arrogance. Pain and humiliation begs only for a future revenge.
You
started the cycle; therefore
you
must be the ones to end it. And until you can end this vicious cycle in your own minds, you cannot end it in your lifetime, and you
will not win
. That is the lesson of history, if you are smart enough to learn it.

“Until then, I suggest you pack up your ship and take your immature, arrogant selves back to your excuse of an ‘Independence.' Because until you do, you are chained to your own blind hatred, as surely as if the manacles were right
there
on your wrists,” Kelly finished, jabbing her finger at his hands. “
That
is not true independence!”

He flinched back from her finger, scowling at her harsh lecture.

Saber tightened his grip slightly on her shoulders, and Kelly straightened and clasped her hands lightly in front of her. He addressed their visitors, taking over and playing the “good cop” to her “bad.” “I think you should return to your homeland, Lord Earl. And think—actually
think
, not just react—about the logic of what has been said here this day. If you come to a point where your people can visit here and leave your attitudes and your quarrels behind, you may come again one day and be welcomed in many ways.

“Until then, Nightfall will have nothing to do with the Disaster that is you. And do not look to Katan, until you can stop being a cultural Disaster and be an intelligent people instead; until the day you can approach them, honestly and most civilized, they will want less than nothing to do with you. I'm afraid that
they
will not be as polite about dealing with you as we have been.”

“You will not see us again, until we no longer see what we currently do, when we look at you. It is too ugly and immature a view,” Kelly added with a touch of disdain in her recomposed, neutral tone. “Lord Chancellor, arrange transportation for these three to be returned to the beach at Whitetide. Be certain they are on their way before nightfall; if
we
have low tolerance for the words these nobles speak, the Lord of Night will have considerably less so. The blood of fools is his favorite drink, after all. It would not be polite to detain them overnight.”

“As you command, Your Majesty.”

“
Bekh!
” Kelly asserted, flipping her hand in an imperious snap. A beat behind her, Saber blanked them from view with a hidden twist of his own wrist. A moment behind that, and all of the illusory courtiers and servants in the distance vanished from view, triggered by his and Dominor's magics.

Dominor stood alone with the three Mandarites in the garden, silent but for the splashing of the fountains around them.

The third-born, blue-clad son of the island's population sighed, glancing toward the palace as if that were where everyone had vanished to. “I keep forgetting to inform the guards to warn uninvited strangers of the foremost law of Nightfall—don't get Her Majesty mad. She may have a bit of a temper, but that is mostly because she is fiercely protective of her subjects. Blunt though she may sometimes be, her insight into problems is as keen as a healer's knife, cutting away all that is bad.

“I do apologize for her vehemence,” Dominor continued diplomatically, “but as you can clearly see, her logic and wisdom are impeccable;
that
is why we choose to follow her and why we tolerate her occasional outbursts of…well, to be diplomatic, I'll call it redheadedness,” he hedged politely. “Still, she is right in her summation of what our people will and will not tolerate from our uninvited visitors. As Queen, she simply has the right to express herself more directly than the rest of us would deem polite—the privilege of being a monarch, you know,” he added to the men still standing with him. “Now, as I choose to obey my queen, this is the way to the eastern courtyard, gentlemen, if you will kindly follow me…”

“We're actually being kicked off this island?” Sir Kennal exclaimed, outraged. “Right now?”

His father held up his gloved hand, silencing him. “Inform Her Majesty that we will sail with the evening tide. But we
will
return, and when we do, our
next
meeting—”

The foppishly clad man whirled, stumbled, and flipped, with no apparent reason for his odd behavior. Dominor blinked. His sons stared down at him. The man's hat was askew, his cheek pressed to the paved pathway they stood on. It was a familiar position for Dominor; thankfully, he wasn't the one being pinned that way. This time.

“By the Rights of Man!” the earl exclaimed, startled out of his threat. If a bit mushily, since his upper cheek was pressing his lower cheek into the ground and his arm was twisted up in the air awkwardly behind him. “What is this that
has
me?”

Dominor bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. His sister-in-law had done it again, and he couldn't even
see
it this time to study the moves his brother's mate had made! He managed to recover his composure and speak in a calm tone, rather than an amused one.

“I believe your speech implied a threat toward the inhabitants of this isle, Lord Earl; that threat was most likely perceived by the Lord of Night in his sleep. He is dangerous even in his dreams…and you have clearly lost Her Majesty's protection from his wrath, in being requested to depart the isle. Be glad he but only dreams about this moment and has not actually awakened. His terror then would be horrible to behold. His thirst for the blood of the unwelcome and the impolite is legendary in this land.”

“Don't just stand there—help me! How do I make it let go?” the frantic man demanded, struggling and gasping when his own movements only increased the pain pressuring him in place. His boots and hose-clad knees scrabbled against the paving stones, the edge of a nearby flower bed, but he couldn't get enough purchase to free himself from the invisible hold pinning him to the ground. His sons hurried forward to help him up, but were thrust back by another invisible force, shoved back repeatedly from trying to even get within a couple feet of their father. Lord Aragol struggled harder, eyes wide as he squirmed around just enough to gaze up at Dominor, but not enough to get himself free. “
Help
me!”

“I suggest, with nothing but absolute honesty and humble sincerity in your speech, that you apologize thoroughly for even thinking of threatening Nightfall…and state with the truth of it lodged firmly in your heart that you will do everything in your power to make certain that you and your fellow Mandarites, should you ever visit this portion of the world again, will behave with the utmost of politeness, respect, and civility,” Dominor offered smoothly as the earl's arm bobbled a little with his struggles, still caught in the invisible grip twisting it up into the air. The third-born of the brothers added blandly, “Sometimes the Lord of Night is known to extend his protection across the sea to the west, to the shores of Katan, our nearest and best-loved neighbor, if the source of his irritation is great enough to engender his personal attention. It is speculated that he may have come from there, originally, and still harbors some small, lingering affection for the mainland, though Nightfall is now clearly his domain. As you can unfortunately see.”

“Apologize?” Lord Aragol managed to gasp through the pressure squeezing his head, and the jerk of his air-pinned arm. His sons gave up and stood a few yards away, unable to get close enough to help their father.

“Apologize. With great sincerity,” Dominor confirmed soberly. “For all of your offenses.”

“I…I apologize for ever thinking less than civilized thoughts about such a powerful island kingdom.” The pressure eased slightly, visible by the way his arm stopped being torqued as much. “I apologize…for being arrogant around this island's…queen.” His head was released, though he was still locked on the ground by absolute nothing pressing on his shoulder. The earl worked his mouth, his mustached and bearded lips, then tried one more time. “I apologize most sincerely for implying Mandare would return in force to this isle…and I will accept the advice given to me by its people. I will even advise my people to conduct themselves most politely and peacefully, should they ever come here again.”

Kelly, invisible even to herself, which was why she'd had an awkward moment in first trying to grab him, released him completely. She backed up, bumped into Saber, who had been holding off the annoying, foppish man's sons, and they both backed up a few more steps to get out of the way. Lord Aragol flexed his arm and worked his neck, then pushed warily to his feet. His youngest son scooped up his broad-brimmed hat, holding it out to him while the earl brushed off his elaborate clothes.

Dominor tipped his head, listening to Evanor's voice projected solely to him. The others not in sight were either watching the ship or watching the three men left among them through scrying mirrors, back inside the donjon. He nodded to the trio of Mandarites.

“I believe there is a cart waiting in the eastern courtyard to take you back down to your ship even as we speak. Please, do not take offense at what has happened, Lord Aragol, young sirs. I
did
say that you should watch what you do and say while you are here,” he added as they reluctantly started moving around the outer wings of the palace to reach the eastern courtyard without reentering the palace itself. “It is another reason why we do not encourage visitors. Most end up accidentally putting their foot in their mouth, by speaking without thinking…and thus most end up eating the dirt that is clinging to said foot.”

Saber held on to Kelly until the quartet of men were well out of sight and out of hearing range. He had felt her start to quiver at his brother's parting words. A murmured word, and they were visible once more.

She was shaking with laughter, not rage. Turning, gasping with the need for silence, she quivered and quaked in his arms, whispering up at him. “Did you see his
face
? When I pinned it under my heel?” she demanded harshly, her freckled features positively red with mirth. “My god—his
face
!”

Tipping his head thoughtfully, Saber had to admit it had been a hilarious sight. But the situation was still a sobering one “Let us just pray that this has dealt with our Disaster. I won't relax until they're gone, either.”

Y
ou will not believe the bargain I struck!” Dominor called out as the cart came back into the castle and the real inhabitants of Nightfall met him at the gate. It was being driven by a disguised Evanor, not Trevan, who was apparently down at the shore, spying on their guests. The third-born of them preened with a pleased, smug smile as he got down from the driving bench. “With the extra water being processed for the fountains and such, we've got a surplus of salt blocks down at the western shore. Salt is something their people cannot process easily, lacking the magic to do it quickly and efficiently—and
they
have a surplus of oil of
comsworg
, which I noticed they use to keep their gun-things oiled and their ship-lanterns lit, and which
we
use in the creation of our lightglobes!

“I am a
consummate
diplomat,” the twenty-seven-year-old mage added somewhat arrogantly, striking a pose with his hand splayed on his chest before gesturing at the barrels and keg in question in the bed of the cart behind him. “I have not only smoothed over any ruffled feelings on the ride back to the eastern cove, but I have
also
arranged to trade thirty blocks of salt for two hogsheads and a keg!”

“By Jinga, Brother! Considering the price the traders get for our salt, which they've been taking for free until now, and the price they charge to ship us the comsworg, that's
incredible
, Dom!” Koranen asserted, hazel eyes wide. “That much oil will create…a thousand globes per hogshead, plus the keg—
far
more than two thousand lightglobes, maybe even as many as twenty-four hundred!” he calculated gleefully out loud, rubbing his hands together. “And since it's the rarest and most costly ingredient in the artificing process, that means we'll be making a real profit for a full year! And we don't even have to
do
anything to make the salt, other than uncork a fountain or two!”

“Help me get the barrels off the cart—we're going to go fetch the blocks immediately,” Dominor added, ordering his brothers with a clap on his twin, Evanor's, shoulder. “
Before
they change their minds and ask for all of this back!”

Kelly frowned; she didn't know why, but something about the bargain sounded a little odd. She didn't stop them when they departed, though. If Dominor had managed to smooth things over enough to arrange a trade of goods, that meant the outlanders weren't going to cause any real trouble, and that was a good thing. Since she didn't know what comsworg-oil was, let alone how or where it was acquired, it was conceivable these Mandarites considered it as common and therefore cheap as the Greeks of her old world had considered olive oil.

For all I know, they might consider salt such a rare commodity, they'd be willing to give up their “lamp oil” for the incredibly pure stuff this island's water system produces daily. Even if their kingdom sits on the edge of the local ocean, salt could still be hard for them to process efficiently. I know it takes a broad, shallow stone beach to successfully sun-dry seawater into salt, without having to burn down all the local forests to boil it off the hard way. Digging into a salt mine might be easier, but first you have to find one.

They don't have magic to speed up the process either way, so they probably
are
getting a bargain, I guess…but I still don't trust them, either way.

 

D
ominor and Evanor came back up from the western side of the isle in half an hour, driving two carts. When Kelly glanced down into the courtyard and saw the size of the salt blocks, each one the size of a perfectly rectangular, grainy white coffin, the seemingly uneven bargain made a little more sense. Even for mere salt versus whatever that type of oil was, that was a
lot
of salt. Perhaps the bargain was worth it.

Turning away from the windows of the great hall, she continued her own assigned chore of picking up all of the illusion-marbles on the ground floor and balcony levels and packing them away in a carefully labeled chest Trevan had found somewhere. The others were going through the castle wings, disabling the illusion-spells set in stones and globes and self-roaming glass marbles, since they no longer needed their castle full of servants and courtiers, nor the great hall to be an audience chamber. Putting away the marbles only required a helping hand, not the magic to dispel the illusions, so that was her job.

It was kind of fun—weird, but fun—to hold up the marbles to the sunlight coming in from the north and see the tiny image of the “person” each one contained reflected in the curved little spheres. A stray thought struck her as she poured yet another handful of illusory people-marbles into the chest, packing them like peas into a box that would be set on a shelf somewhere until they were needed again. The thought made her choke on a laugh the moment it struck, too.

Talk about a canned audience!

 

F
ather…I'm worried about the salt,” Sir Kennal stated, as Dominor and Evanor watched several longboats rowing out to pick up the heavy blocks.

“How so, my son?” Lord Aragol asked, glancing at him.

“We have no magic to keep it from getting wet and being ruined—this is the purest salt I have ever seen, and I would be loath to take it home green from seawater seeping into our hold…or stained with the tar of our hull,” the elder of the two sons added earnestly.

The earl arched a brow under the brim of his hat and turned to eye Dominor. “You are a mage—is it within your powers to secure the salt in such a way from contamination, in our hold?”

“I could do that, yes,” Dominor agreed, pleased at being asked.

“Then we would be very grateful, Lord Chancellor, if you would come out to our ship and make sure our trade stays as worthwhile as it so far seems.”

Nodding, Dominor waited with them on the sand for the men to finish getting there. It was a delicate balance that all of them were striving to create, between the need to warn off these men from attacking with their hard-to-stop weapons—that image of the melons exploding, of being pierced even through his tightest shield, would stay with the mage a good, long time—and yet soothing them enough to
not
attack anyway out of overwhelming fear. Watching the waves of the midmorning, outgoing tide, and the broad expanse of wet tidal sand in the way, he nodded toward the oncoming boats. “I will even secure the salt for the longboats, so that it does not get wet between here and your ship. As you can see, when we behave politely and civilly toward each other, cooperation brings far more rewards than others might think.”

“Perhaps there is indeed much we could learn from your people,” the earl murmured.

“Perhaps there is something we can learn from yours as well.”

It didn't take long to load all of the longboats, though they were awkward loads; Dominor's protective spells on each block kept those waves that sloshed over the gunwales from dousing the salt and the crew, repelling the water back into the bay. And with a touch more of his magic, the salt was lifted up onto the deck without any awkward straining of ropes and nets and the fear of the solid but not impervious blocks shattering against the swaying hull.

Nor did it take long for him to enspell the hold where the salt would be kept, adding extra layers of protection on top of the spells laid on the blocks themselves. As soon as he was finished, Dominor climbed up the ladderway and emerged on the deck, letting the sailors start lowering the blocks to the cargo hold down below. Lord Aragol positively beamed at him.

“Our gratitude cannot be expressed enough! Come—I insist on giving you a drink in thanks for your aid, Lord Chancellor!” He clasped his arm around Dominor's taller, broader shoulders and steered him toward one of the aft upper cabins. “I have been saving in my cabin a bottle of the Western Marches' finest vintage—two hundred and seventy-three-year-old
glassip
, as smooth as a virgin's skin,” he added, waxing eloquent with a slow, lascivious sweep of his hand. “I'll wager you haven't tasted the like in your life! It's in this cabin up here…”

The earl's sons were already in there ahead of them; the elder was finishing the pouring of four goblets of an amber liquid from a dusty, brown-glass bottle. “I opened the bottle to let the
glassip
breathe, Father, just as you said to—Lord Chancellor, we are indeed grateful for the trade of the salt; comsworg is a common oil-berry where we come from, but our climate is too damp to efficiently evaporate seawater in saltpan bays, save in the height of summer. We cannot rely on shipments from the desert lands to the north, with our sea-trade under threat from our enemies. Nor can we purchase the kind dug out of the ground to the east, for that is all Natallian land.”

He held out a goblet to Dominor, then passed one to his father, nudged his brother with one, and took one himself.

“To prosperity and independence,” Sir Kennal stated, raising his cup.

“To the acceptance of our apologies for our ill behavior,” Sir Edour added, at a nudge from his brother.

“To the aid you represent,” Lord Aragol added, lifting his own. “It is our custom, Lord Chancellor, to make a toast when drinking the first sip of
glassip
.”

“Then to the peaceful exchanges our two peoples may have in the future,” Dominor agreed, lifting his own. They all tipped their cups back together.

It
was
a smooth liquor, he discovered. With a dark mint aftertaste that didn't quite bite, but blended in smoothly. It wasn't until he had drunk several swallows more, chatting with the men and finding out that their sea voyage would likely take a full five weeks with good weather and steady winds to complete, that he realized the under-taste was indeed vaguely familiar.

Intrigued, Dominor drank a little more. Corvis lands had produced a liquor from a combination of berries, grain, and a certain herb that was a connoisseur's drink; he had managed to bring along a full case of the bottles in their exile, with the self-imposed vow to drink only one carafe a year. This liqueur was even better than the nostalgia-sweetened Corvis brandy he carefully hoarded. He drained the cup as the brothers teased each other about how seasick they had been at the beginning of their voyage, tasting the dregs where the minty flavor seemed a little stronger, a little more bitter, a little surer in its identity—

Falomel powder.
His blue eyes snapped wide. It rendered mages unconscious, their powers useless for hours. Cursing, he tossed aside the cup and lunged for the door. Or tried to. He got one leg into place before the doctored drink caught up with the rest of him. Arms outstretched, he hit the floor ignominiously. Mouth struggling, throat flexing to call out his twin's name, to alert the others, he succumbed all too quickly to the cold and the dark cloaking him, struggling to berate himself for drinking the traitorous libation of their Disaster-borne foe.

 

O
n the shore, Evanor frowned.
Is that ship…yes, the sails are being unfurled…
He watched a little bit longer, waiting for a longboat to be lowered and his twin to come ashore.
The anchor's going up!
Standing up on the wagon, he shaded his eyes—the ship was moving! The sails, filling with the northerly breeze, were moving the Mandarite ship away from the shore!

“Dominor!
” He focused his will, focused his voice, determined to reach his twin. “
Dominor, can you hear me?
”

Nothing. No reply. He could tell his twin was still alive, at least. There was a resonance between them, tied from the moment they had first shared their mother's womb, and sensitized by Evanor's affinity for all sorts of vibrations…but he could tell nothing more.

“Dominor!
” Whirling when he still got no answer, he called out to the trees.
“Trevan! They're kidnapping Dominor!
”

Moments later, a golden eagle burst from the trees. It shrieked and beat hard after the ship, while Evanor waited impatiently on the sand. He watched the eagle soar closer, watched it dip down toward the ship when it got out there. Five seconds later, a gunshot echoed back to him, just as a shape wobbled over the rail and down, dropping into the water.

Evanor knew the view of what was happening traveled faster than its sounds, and realized what that sound and that sight meant. Heart in his throat, Evanor leaped out of the cart he was sitting on. Hitting the ground at a run, he raced toward the waterline. He splashed into the water, uncaring of the waves, trying to get close enough to do something, anything, to stop what was happening to his two brothers.

Agonizing minutes later, a shape bobbed toward him, a seal with reddish fur. Blood seeped from its back and shoulder. Evanor grabbed Trevan, supporting the gasping creature, even as it shifted with bared teeth and a barely caught-back moan of pain. He looked at the wound, as bloodied fur became bloodied cloth, and peered into Trevan's pain-glazed eyes…then looked up at the ship, as the wind caught its sails in full, carrying it away along with the still-receding tide.