The Sword (30 page)

“I relish the idea of kicking these men off the island,” Wolfer stated. “But if their weaponry is as difficult to stop as Kelly thinks, this will not be an easy task. As you said—though I resent the animal you used—one must sometimes say ‘nice jonja' while reaching for your stoutest spear.”

“What if the Council finds all of this out?” Saber pointed out to his crazy, strawberry-haired wife.

“They gave up all claim to us, and thus to Nightfall,” she pointed out. Then caught his hand where it had fisted on this thigh. “Saber, I can as easily
un
declare myself queen as I can declare it. The only reason
why
a person is made a king or a queen in the first place is because it is declared and acknowledged as so by the populace that king or queen rules over. People rule only by consent of the people around them, whether actively by choice, or apathetically through a disinterest in changing tradition.”

“Saber, if she declares herself our queen and
we
agree to it as her ‘subjects,' she
is
a queen,” Morganen agreed. “She's right in that the declaration and the consent are all you need to be one. This isn't shattered Aiar, after all. And personally, I don't mind.
If
it's temporary.”

“Only on the occasional weekends, holidays, and whenever we have visitors,” Kelly quipped, dismissing their concerns with a flip of her free hand. She rubbed Saber's hand with the other one. “It's a status thing, nothing more.”

“I cannot declare myself King,” he reminded her, beginning to give in at least a little on the idea.

Kelly smiled. Slow, sly, and feminine. “Honey, any man who can do what
you
can do in the bedroom, is
automatically
a king. At least, in my humble opinion.”

The others laughed and slapped Saber on the back, as the eldest of the eight brothers blushed.

“Remind me to give you a royal
spanking
when we get back up there,” Saber growled out of the corner of his tight-grinning mouth, glancing up at the ceiling to indicate their chamber.

She patted his knee. “That's nice, dear—but don't tease and make promises you don't intend to keep.”

He hooked her around the waist, hauled her up against him, and silenced her with his mouth.

Koranen rapped his knuckles twice on the top of Saber's head, interrupting their kiss. “Shut off that blinding lightglobe of passion, Brother! We have business to attend to, remember?”

Saber did remember. He released Kelly—slowly, because his body refused to accept an abrupt withdrawal of her heady, responsive mouth—and organized his thoughts, dragging them from her tease about wanting him to spank her when they were alone back to the problem at hand. “That flag on the beach…if this were a real kingdom, concealed or no, someone would have noticed it by now. We should remove it immediately. To wait would only imply we are slack, unobservant and lazy…and that is not the kind of behavior that impresses.”

“I think we should replace it with a flag of our own,” Kelly offered. “Morganen, do you have any of that paint left from when we redid the walls? Or even better, can you replicate the same thing in cloth quickly?”

“Now that I know what I'm doing, yes—very quickly,” Morganen agreed. “The slow part for me is figuring out how to achieve the effect; once the enspelling methods are known, it goes very quickly with each repetition.” He grinned. “Especially when power isn't a problem, for me.”

“Excellent,” she praised. “Since this is Nightfall, the name of our castle, island, and kingdom, I suggest a lovely, color-shifting flag depicting a black silhouette of the land. Trees, mountains, that sort of thing. With stars and a crescent moon in white—two crescent moons, sorry—in a ‘sky' that changes from sunset shades to midnight blue and back. Compared to their normal cloth flag down there, a plain red fist on a white background, it should be quite stunning and impressive, I think.”

“It can be done easily enough, I think, with the special paint applied on black cloth. Ev, care to help me construct a counter-claiming banner?”

“
I
want to know if I'm going to get a fancy title bestowed on me by our queen, there,” the singer-mage drawled before budging. “Seeing as how I do all of the
real
work around here…”

“I hereby declare you Lord Chamberlain, with duties including the smooth running of this castle palace,” Kelly promptly agreed. “Which you already do so well.”

“I want a title, too!” Koranen asserted quickly.

“Lord Secretary, since you seem to insist on wanting us to keep on topic and on schedule,” Kelly teased him.

“And me?” Wolfer rumbled, folding his arms across his chest.

“Lord Protector, head of palace defense,” Kelly decided, since he was the biggest.

“That's
my
job,” Saber growled.

“Sorry. Okay, Wolfer, you're…Master of the Hunt, and Captain of the Armies, Saber's first officer. Saber, you're General of the Armies and Lord Protector of my person, as well as Consort. Um, Dominor, you're my Lord Chancellor and Master of Ceremonies; Morganen, as the best of all the brothers, you're obviously my Court Mage; Trevan…”

“Stable boy? Scullery maid?” he teased. “Your abject slave?”

“I'd name you Lord Rogue, if I could get away with it,” Kelly muttered dryly as Saber glared at his brother, slipping his arm around his wife possessively. She elbowed the eldest of them. “Help me out, here, Saber. What
does
he do, anyway?”

Trevan winced and clapped his hand dramatically to his chest, mock-wounded.

“When he isn't gainfully employed crafting something with magic, and usually working in wood, he changes his shape, sometimes into a bird, sometimes into a cat and goes roaming through the forest, as Wolfer often does in canine form. They are the hunters of the family…though my twin is often more reliable,” Saber added, digging at his younger brother in retaliation for teasing Kelly in front of him.

“You could be my chief of intelligence, then—for I've never known a cat to not be curious and not want to find out everything, and in a stealthy way at that.” At the brothers' blank looks, she picked out a more medieval-sounding title, something they were more likely to be familiar with. “Um…you will be my official Lord Vizier, Trevan, for your title, and so advise me on all the things going on outside these walls. And Rydan can be Lord of the Night, since, well, he is.

“Now,” Kelly continued briskly. “Morganen, Evanor, go work on the flag; make several of them, since we'll need a few to fly from the towers and such, and to hang here in the hall. I doubt we'll be able to make them go away without a display of wealth and power. The rest of you, we'll need to make sure the palace is looking perfect, since we'll probably have to bring them inside the walls at least once to impress them. And we'll have to change this hall into a grand audience hall.”

“I'll take care of tidying the castle from the east courtyard to here, to begin with,” Dominor offered as the two left to work on the flag. “That's the most direct path they'll be led along. We can also use your marriage-bench for the throne, since it's fancy enough. Once that's done, I'll set to work on making illusions of courtiers for our ‘guests' to interact with, once they get into the castle and into this hall, since it would look odd to have an otherwise empty palace—you can't have a throne room without courtiers attending the throne, after all,” he added dryly.

“I'll strengthen the donjon defenses,” Saber asserted. “And I can manage adequate illusions of guards on the outer walls and castle parapets, even to the point of them actually defending our home, if necessary.”

“I'll help handle the majority of the illusions, since I'm really good at them. Illusions are rarely more than light, and light is a part of fire,” Koranen explained to his sister-in-law. “I can also tie some of the illusions into the lightglobes, since I made most of them, so that those images that can stay in one room won't need as much constant, direct supervision from a mage. Though I'll need Evanor's help when he's done with the flags, to make convincing sounds—the spells from that music box he made might be able to help.”

“I'll make illusions of animals—of more animals than just the official citizen-chickens,” Wolfer amended with a touch of deep-rumbled amusement. “And servants to work in the gardens, and outdoors.”

“And I'll go keep an eye on our Disaster-visitors,” Trevan agreed.

“Don't be seen. And don't get caught,” Saber ordered him.

“I can't believe I have to say this,” Kelly muttered, rising from their double seat, as the others started to scatter around her, “but, I have to find something to wear!”

C
rouched high in a nearby tree, Trevan waited in one of his favorite feline forms, listening with ears that occasionally twitched from the Ultra-Tongue spell. The group of five sailors had finally reached the end of the road, which now stopped at the base of a virtually sheer cliff face, instead of the stone-covered postern gate of the castle. The sight of the large rock wall, curving gradually to either side, puzzled the newcomers.

There was a break in the tree line between the “cliff” and the forest, one too wide to try and jump from tree to parapet, or in this case, cliff top. That much, the eight brothers had diligently kept clear, in order to find and eradicate any monsters sent their way from beyond the castle walls during their former, weekly plagues. Now, only the illusion of moss and the occasional tendril of vine that he had placed there marred the age-weathered, slightly rugged surface he had created, rugged enough to be real, but too devoid of handholds to try to climb.

The sailors were arguing.

“It can't just
end
,” one with a full beard argued with the others, as Trevan listened with Ultra-Tongue ears. “I say it's an illusion of some kind. Why else would anyone put a paved roadway between the beach and a cliff wall, without a reason for having a road? We haven't found that reason, and that's because this wall is surely an illusion!”

“We have only one illusion-dispeller with us, and that's back on board the ship. Lord Aragol isn't about to let it out of his sight,” one of the thinner, tallish men returned.

A broader-shouldered, bare-chested one ran his hand over the cliff face. “It
feels
real—if it's an illusion, it's a very powerful one.”

“Rights of Man forbid we've come on another land of
women mages
,” the fourth one spat.

Interesting way to put it,
Trevan thought.

“Trevan, the first flag is complete; would you like the honor of reasserting Her Majesty's claim to this island?”
Evanor sang into his ears alone, in that almost-annoying way his next-eldest brother had.
“I'll meet you on the eastern parapet.”

Trevan flicked his ears,
mrraowled
under his breath, and transformed. Coppery-striped housecat shifted to a golden-red hawk. Launching himself from the branch, he flapped through the trees, soared over the cliff that was a wall, and angled just slightly to land on the roof of the tower that looked like a pinnacle of rock from outside. Transforming as soon as he had waddled bird-style into the stairwell, he tripped lightly down the steps, just in time to meet Evanor coming up from below with a cloth-wrapped staff.

“We made it banner-style,” Evanor stated. “You have only to plant the pole and hang the crosspiece. And be careful.”

“Or what, get myself killed on my very first day as a lord vizier?” he quipped, taking the bundle from his brother. Shaking his head, Trevan turned serious. “I overheard them speak of something they call an illusion-dispeller. They have only one, which is in the position of their leader, a Lord Aragol. The fop, I think. They also have something against female mages, and possibly against women in general, from the tone of the man who spoke…though I do not yet know why.”

“I'll tell the others. Be careful, Brother.”

Trevan grinned. “As careful as any cat.”

Evanor rolled his eyes as he turned away.

Returning to the roof, Trevan murmured under his breath, rubbed his hands together, and transformed a third time, into his largest eagle form. Waddling over to the bundle set briefly on the stones underfoot, or rather, under claw, he gripped it in his talons gently, spread his wings, and flapped hard. Taking off over the inner parapet battlements, he soared around the palace with his awkward load a few times, until he had gained sufficient height, then soared to the south, to avoid the eyes of the sailors down below as he cleared the illusion-cloaked wall.

Turning east once more, he soared low over the treetops, until he came close to the edge of the forest that was the beach line. Dropping down under the canopy, he found a broad, thick limb and landed, then carefully transformed again, back to his normal self. The bundle of banner and pole almost fell. Biting back a curse, he grabbed at it, then straddled the limb and listened, peering into the forest floor a ways below.

Even as he and the limb he was sitting on stopped swaying, a sailor came into view. Without a concern in the world, without doing more than looking around at the underbrush cursorily, the man lifted up his shirt, unfastened his trousers, and relieved himself, balancing against the tree he was watering. Trevan waited until the other man was done, turning his head away from the less than civilized display. He might have a variety of animal shapes he liked to turn himself into, but he was as fastidious as a cat.

He was also probably the cleanest of the brothers, next to Dominor, whose only actual claim to superiority in that department was that he preferred to dress in richer fabrics more often than Trevan ever bothered with on this isle—to Trevan's way of thinking, without any women to impress, why should he bother?

Slipping quietly down the tree, Trevan crept through the underbrush until he was at the tree line, where the bushes were at their thickest to take advantage of the sunlight. That obnoxious red-on-white flag was still there, in front of the three boats drawn onto the sand. The tide was now well out. Some of the sailors were clamming, digging mollusks from the bared tidal sands. The rest seemed to still be off exploring the immediate land. Their poorly dressed leader was sitting in the center boat, his back to the shoreline, drinking from a glass goblet that glinted in the sunlight and eating from a pristine white napkin spread out over his lap, without a care for the world.

Trevan slipped out noiselessly from between the bushes and strode across the sand. No one noticed him…but then his plain, tan tunic and slightly darker trousers were little different from the clothes most of the others wore. He was far enough away that any of the sailors glancing his way probably thought him just another one of their group.

Stopping at the flag, he pulled it up and leaned the unwelcome ensemble against his chest, shook out the Nightfall banner, pushed its pole into the hole left by the other one, and fitted the hole in the crosspiece bar over the top of the tapered pole so that it sat levelly on the pole. Trevan then twisted the foreign flag and its short banner pole in his hands, bundling it up quickly. As the silhouette-flag of Nightfall shifted from blue to pale green, shades of yellow, peach golds, pinks, and down into deepening, darkening purples with slow, stately grace, around mountain-forest outline and the eight-point star and crescent moons design, he stepped around the marker and strode up to the middle of the trio of boats.

Lord Aragol—it couldn't be any other man, not in that ridiculously fussy outfit—continued to eat his cheese and bread, and sip at his wine. He seemed oblivious to Trevan's presence, even when the strawberry-blond mage came over to the side of the boat, within the man's field of view. Sighing, Trevan shook out the flag, with its red fist, red border, and white background, letting it drape plainly in the man's view. The other man choked on his bread.

“By the Rights of Man! What is
that
doing out of the sands, you oaf?” he demanded in whatever language his men and he spoke, making Trevan's ears twitch as the Ultra-Tongue potion once again translated it for him. The foppish man raised hazel eyes in a glare to Trevan's face, then frowned slightly, apparently trying to recall if he had ever seen Trevan before.

Trevan dropped the flag into the boat. “You left your flag on our beach.”

“Of course I left it there!” the somewhat older man exclaimed roughly, twisting to look at where it had been planted only moments before. “I claimed the whole beach in the king's name with…it. Where did
that
come from?”

“I put it there. In our
queen's
name,” Trevan added, folding his arms across his chest, amused by the man's gaping stare.

The other man whipped his broad-hatted head back around, the soft, fluffy feather tucked in it almost snapping in half with the speed of his turn.

“Her Majesty does not care to have foreigners prancing around on our soil, picking our fruit without her permission. She especially doesn't like foreigners claiming our land. I give you a friendly suggestion, stranger. Do not try her patience with such impolite gestures again.”

The other man stood in the beached boat, making it rock slightly in the sand as he sneered at Trevan through his goatee. “You do your whole gender a disgraceful disservice, obeying Queen Maegan so subserviently—like a whipped dog with your tail chained between your legs!”

“Queen who?” Trevan asked, feeling his fur figuratively fluff at the crude language of this fop-man. “I serve Her Majesty, Queen Kelly, she who rules all of Nightfall. Which is the whole of this land you stand uninvited upon.” He gave the man in his foppish, sweat-inducing attire a contemptuous look. “We will be observing you for a while. If you can prove yourselves civilized enough, you
might
be granted an audience in Her Majesty's court.”

“Insolence! I am Lord Kemblin Aragol, Earl of the Western Marches of the Independence of Mandare, and representative of the king!” He put his hand on his sword-hilt.

“You could claim yourself the king of the whole universe, and I would not care. Leave your arrogance behind you, stranger, when you step foot on Her Majesty's shore.” Turning, Trevan strode past the Nightfall banner, which had begun to lighten from midnight to sky blue again, resuming its sunset shift of colors, and headed back up the beach. Behind him, the lord yelled at his companions to go after him, capture and bring the stranger among them back. Unfortunately for the now red-faced stranger, they were all too far away to hear him clearly; by the time they had started in earnest up the beach after the copper-haired man, Trevan had already slipped into the trees.

A glance around, a quick shift into a small, winged form, and he flew up among the other birds perching and flitting in the canopy. It amused him to watch the men, when they finally reached the spot he had vanished from, beat through the bushes, fruitlessly trying to find him.

 

I
have no idea what words were exchanged with Trevan, but obviously this foppish man has a bit of a temper,” Kelly murmured, staring into the mirrored surface Dominor had activated and demonstrated for her. She touched the cool glass of the mirror, pushing and sliding with her fingertip, and the image focused in even tighter on the yelling leader of the landing party.

The man grimaced, and she caught a glimpse of puffy gums, a sign of scurvy; it was caused by a lack of fresh fruit and thus a lack of vitamin C in the diet. It wasn't uncommon in the old sailing ship days of her old world, long before her own time and the advent of modern nutrition and medicine. A stroke of the frame and the image backed off, panning around to view the sailors giving futile chase of Trevan. She tapped and backed along one side of the oval, focusing in on some of them next. It was kind of fun, using magic like it was some kind of high-tech surveillance system. She just wished she could have overheard Trevan's conversation with the man.

“Your Majesty, the eastern wing of the donjon has been polished and peopled and awaits only the addition of sound and the activation of the illusions,” Dominor announced dryly, Koranen approaching with him. “If you would be so kind as to stand for a few moments, we'll move the table out of view and arrange the donjon hall to look like a proper throne room.”

“I think the solar above the kitchen would make a nice dining room—if you can get the table in there,” she added as she stood. It was a broad table, too large to fit through most of the normalsized doors in the castle.

“It comes apart in four pieces,” Koranen reassured her, moving to disassemble it, tools already in his hands.

“Let's put the ‘throne' over there, first, against the northwest windows,” Dominor ordered his brother, and they picked up Kelly and Saber's marriage-seat and carried it there. Kelly took herself and the mirror over in that direction, sitting down on the double-wide seat as soon as it was in place.

She hadn't changed yet, but the moment it was decided to meet with their uninvited visitors, she would don her aquamarine silk wedding clothes as her most impressive garb. Tucking up her green-covered legs on the broad seat, she played with the mirror a little bit more, observing the visitors by sight if not also by sound, since that was something she could do with the mirror while the others used their magic to speed the various other tasks. If she spotted something that needed someone's attention, Kelly knew all she had to do was sing out Evanor's name.

Evanor came in and hung from the upper levels the long Nightfall banners he and Morganen had made, then disappeared again to start adding his specialty of sound to the illusions Dominor, Koranen, and now Morganen and Evanor were making and fine-tuning somewhere else in the castle-like palace.

Lunch was served in the salon just off the north balcony. It was made by Saber, of all people. That was the moment Kelly discovered her husband liked his food spicy. Of course, she discovered the fact
after
taking a healthy bite of the chili-like stew he had made. Two seconds later, she grabbed swiftly for a hunk of bread to neutralize the peppers and a glass of water to drown the rest of the fire turning her freckled face red. Saber only grinned at her as she wiped at her watering eyes, and leaned in close.