by Jean Johnson
“But Evanor’s search will likely be a gentle one,” Morganen pointed out, abandoning his books for the moment. “The quest for two lonely hearts to join together is not one that calls fierce arguments to mind. And Wolfer has already met the mate Destined for him, though he knows it not, yet. She will come to the island at the appropriate time, in accordance with his own Destiny.” That raised his twin’s reddish brows, but Morganen merely continued, “Just as Dominor and Evanor will find their own women coming to them—it’s not as if we have any that we could go to, exiled here on this otherwise deserted isle.”
“And back we are again, to Trevan and his catlike ways,” Koranen returned. “He of all of us has been the most restless without a woman on the isle. If it were not for his respect for Saber’s warning to stay away from her, and our eldest brother’s possessiveness toward her, Trevan might have seduced this woman already.
“Rydan’s version of courtship—I can picture that in my mind right now, Brother,” Koranen stated bluntly, running his fingers through his hair. “He’ll toss the woman out the nearest opening, whether it’s a window or a door, in the fear that love will sap his powers. He’s very proud of being the second-strongest mage of all of us, even though he’s not very vocal about it, like Dom is. Or worse, the woman might demand he start acting like a civilized man and walk around during daylight hours.”
This time it was Morganen who reacted, though mostly to smother a smile behind his hand as his twin continued.
“He’d call up a storm himself in retaliation, not just wait for one to fuel his powers, just so he could blast the poor woman off the island and return to his solitary, night-loving ways—smile all you like, Morg,” Koranen warned him. “You know he’d do it.”
“Perhaps, and perhaps not. Prophecy is Prophecy, after all. But then there’s you,” Morganen pointed out quietly, thoughtfully. “You need a woman your passion cannot accidentally but quite literally burn, as we have unfortunately seen in the past. You will grow as restless as Trevan in your own way, longing for something you cannot find…but it will find you.”
“You speak like a Seer, Brother,” his twin returned dryly. “No Katani Mage can ever be a Seer, no Seer ever a Mage. Or have you broken the laws of Magic and Destiny set down by Kata and Jinga at the dawn of our Empire? Perhaps you have found some way to have yourself reborn as the scion of another land, with another set of magical rules that only you can obey?”
Morganen smiled, if more to himself than to his brother. “I have merely meditated a long time on this matter. Never fear; I, too, shall fall beneath the true-struck arrow of love. I think it will be an easy wooing, too, or at least I hope it; my verse speaks more about my playing the part of Kata-the-Love-Maker with all of the rest of you. It does say very clearly that I’ll be the last to clasp hands over the eight altars.” His smile quirked a little on one side, turning wry with envy. “I have nothing to do until then, but meditate on how I can first help the rest of you. As quickly as can be, else I will be an old bachelor too long neglected upon the shelf for any woman to want to reach for my time-withered hands and step into the altars with me.”
“Oh, boo-hoo; I weep a whole river for you,” Koranen muttered under his breath. His brother swiped at him, and they mock-tussled as twins and brothers often do, lightening the mood.
SEVEN
Come in!” Kelly called from her seat at the table-like desk, responding to the knock on her door. Saber was back to looming over her, watching her eat every morsel, since she hadn’t managed to finish the previous night’s dinner when he had left it with her. Once again, he was overseeing her as she ate her food.
With her hair and skin bathed clean, with the long, light blue overgown rehemmed and the drawstrings of the underdrawers and corset replaced with ones that were sturdier, with the scent of something faint but flowery lingering from one of the age-thickened bath oils Saber had found and the best-fitting pair of slippers he’d brought settled on her feet, Kelly felt almost human. She even felt ready for company. Any company that wasn’t the man glowering and carefully keeping his distance from her, while somehow managing at the same time to loom practically over her shoulder from his place in a nearby chair.
She wished her friend Hope was with her. Hope could make any situation cheerful and usually could say just the right thing to make someone smile. But that wasn’t very likely, given she was more or less trapped in this alternate reality.
The door opened with a slight creak, and Morganen entered. He was the youngest and, if she remembered right, one of the two shortest of the more or less tall Nightfall Sons. His light brown hair was caught back with the same headband she had seen him wear before, but not confined in a bun. It spilled down over his shoulders to mid-chest in the longish style all eight brothers wore. Glancing at his eldest sibling, he stepped the rest of the way into the room. “Good. I was hoping I’d catch both of you here. I have some good news, and some bad news.”
“About what?” Kelly asked.
“Of what?” Saber questioned at the same time.
Morganen shrugged. “About her being sent back home.”
Saber grimaced slightly at that. He told himself it was because his brother didn’t sound hopeful of being able to do it soon. Morganen’s words as he crossed to the desk and perched his hip on the edge confirmed that hypothesis.
“The good news, Lady Kelly, is that I can send you back to your own dimension. Perhaps even to a place and time of your own choosing, instead of into the burning remnants of your former home. Provided it’s past the point of your leaving, of course; not even I dare meddle with Time,” he added, gentle in his discrete mentioning of her near-death by fire. “The bad news is…I cannot do so for another five of our months.”
“Five months?” Saber all but roared. “But you said—”
“Would you shut up?” Kelly demanded, twisting to glare up at him. His attitude hurt. The idea of her not being able to go back today was not something she wanted shouted in her ear. “I’m sick of you grunting and snarling around me like some damned, idiotic caveman!”
Morganen whistled softly, waving his hand between the two of them as he leaned over her partially eaten breakfast. “May I have your attention again, please?”
“You had best explain yourself, and this so-called ‘five months’ you claim,” his oldest brother growled.
“Pay attention, O Lesser-Powered One,” Morganen chided, his voice chilly for a moment. Saber might have been the eldest brother, but he was not the most powerful mage in the family by any means, and the youngest of them made no bones about reminding his siblings whenever he had to. “Her realm has very little magic. Think of it as trying to wield your sword in a tiny, imprisoning box made of stout wood. You have to plan each swing and thrust carefully, or risk splintering the walls. Ours is a broad, open battlefield by comparison, where you can not only swing your sword, but move about very freely, able to attack and defend from many different angles.”
Saber studied him with a lingering touch of suspicion, but nodded in comprehension at the younger man’s analogy. “What has this to do with why you cannot send her back for five whole months?”
“Because the ‘wood’ has splintered and poses a danger to the sword-wielder. The aether of her world must settle for at least five months by my calculations, before I dare touch it again—Brother, I ripped her from her world with none of the subtleties I am normally famous for,” Morganen added, flicking his fingers before folding his arms across his chest. “I had no time and no choice; it was either save her immediately, or watch through my scrying mirror—and please forgive me for mentioning the undoubtedly unpleasant memories of this, my lady—as she would have been scorched to a screaming, dead crisp.”
Kelly set her fork down. Apology or not, her appetite wasn’t feeling cooperative at the graphically phrased reminder.
Saber growled, flipping his hand at her. “Great! Now you’ve made her lose her appetite!”
“She’ll have plent
y of time to recover it,” Morganen countered mildly. “Plus plenty of food to eat, plenty of time to eat it in, and plenty of time to get plenty of rest. She should consider it a chance to relax and not have to worry about a single care while she’s here.” The youngest of the brothers trailed off and peered at his brother. “That is, I’m presuming you’re not going to toss her out of the castle and make her live in a hollow tree somewhere for the next five months. Or worse, send her down to the western beach.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” Saber returned gruffly, glaring at his brother for even daring to suggest it.
“What do you mean by that?” Kelly asked at the same time. The two men glanced at each other, and Morganen let his eldest brother explain.
“For a woman to be found on this isle—among us, the exiled eight brothers of Corvis—the penalty has been declared as death,” Saber stated grimly. “Since we are too strong, individually and collectively, for the Council to face and kill, by any but the most indirect routes—”
“—Such as those mekhadadaks and other beasties anonymously inflicted on us every few weeks,” Morganen interjected helpfully.
“Yes, well, the Council of Mages has decided that it would be simpler to kill any woman foolish enough to come here instead,” Saber continued. “We receive a shipment of trade supplies once every two weeks, at the new and the full of Brother Moon; the traders are men only, and they bring the foods we cannot grow or catch ourselves, and other things we cannot easily make.
“In exchange, they take away in trade some of the excess food we can be bothered to harvest, hunt, or catch, and the magic items that each of us makes. Corvis-made magical items—our former bloodline, before we were exiled from our rightful lands and stripped of its name for the duration of our generation,” Saber explained, “—have always been of high magical quality, from long-lasting lightglobes like these ones, to those horseless carriages Evanor mentioned, and other things. Now, it is Nightfall-in-exile that is known to produce the best. We are the best.”
“And we make certain the traders pay for it,” Morganen added. “Myself, Rydan, and Dominor are the three most powerful mages in all of Katan. We’re also among the most skilled. We can craft items to order, as described on parchment and brought by the traders, and are able to make things that few others can successfully attempt; we are that strong in our individual and combined ability. So we can, and do, charge extra-high prices, partially to make up for the fact that we must ship in the raw materials and manufacture everything ourselves, and partly in a monetary revenge for being exiled here. And…some are thrilled by the idea of owning even something so relatively commonplace as a lightglobe from the ‘notorious Nightfall Isle,’ made by the exiled ‘Sons of Destiny.’ The novelty is appealing.
“But to get back to the problem, Brother,” he added, looking up at Saber. “I essentially broke her free of her realm with a sledgehammer, not just a sword. Hence the ‘splinters,’ and the five-month wait, so that none of those involved are afflicted by the disturbances in the aethers between our two existences. So. This brings us to an important question. What are you going to do with her while she’s here?”
“Me? You brought her here. She is your responsibility!”
“You are the eldest,” Morganen pointed out deferentially.
“You deal with her,” Saber ordered, as Kelly frowned, wondering exactly what was going on here, why she wasn’t being consulted one way or another.
Morganen smiled. Slyly. “Fine. I will take care of her from this point on, Brother.” He glanced down at the bewildered woman seated between them and gently picked up her hand. Lifted it to his lips, he saluted it with the gentlest touch before smiling at Kelly of Doyle. “I am not afraid of my Destiny, or of any woman come to this isle. My lady, if you permit it…I would be in raptures if you gave me your permission to court you. With the most honorable intent to walk the eight altars of marriage with you, should it turn out that we are compatible and agree.”
“Get out.”
“I beg your pardon?” Morganen asked, raising his head and his brows at his brother, still gently holding on to Kelly’s fingers.
Saber glowered. “Get out, and don’t you ever touch her again! No one will be courting, or wooing, or wedding in this house!”
“Excuse me!” Kelly tugged her hand free and stood. She glared at both men. Enough was enough, and she was going to let them know it! “I think I have a rather big say in the whole of this—and quite frankly, I want none of you thickheaded, chauvinistic brutes. Not you, Morganen, nor Evanor, and not any of the others I’ve seen, but which no one has ever even bothered to introduce me to—and certainly not you!” she added, glaring at Saber. “If anyone is going to get out of this room, it’s both of you. I refuse to put up with your asinine manners any longer—get out, right now!”
“Kelly—”
“Out!” Stamping her foot for emphasis, she jabbed her arm at the partially open door.
“Keep in mind my offer, my lady,” Morganen asserted smoothly as he stood and bowed, backing up to the door in question. “With the most honorable of intentions—”
“Out!”
Saber reluctantly followed, his attention more on making sure his brother left than on her command to leave. “You, Morganen, will leave her alone—”
“I said get out!” Picking up the lid that had covered the platter Saber had carried in for her, she flung it at him. It bounced off of the barely visible energy barrier that reflexively hardened between them with a flick of his hand; the lid clanged to the floor, denting slightly as it landed. Kelly glared at him. She was too outraged to be afraid of his magic, though she knew later she’d be trembling. “You’ll get what you want, Saber—I fully intend to abide my time well out of the way of all of you—or at least the asinine, grumpy ones among you! Of which you are the bloody king!”
“You—”
“Out!”
He left, closing the door, his expression unreadable. She dropped back down into her seat, her anger abruptly deflated. Her limbs trembled, as anticipated. If he’d had the same level of temper as her, Saber of Nightfall could have easily swatted her with a spell, as casually as he would hit an insect.
She didn’t have much appetite for food at all. Getting up again, she crossed to the dented dome, picked it up, tried straightening the small flattened spot on the otherwise perfect curve, then gave up and dropped it over the food with a clatter. Something about the man just…just set her strawberry blond temper on fire, that was all.
Abandoning the re-covered food, she crossed to the window seat, where she had set up the lace-bobbing form that Evanor had found for her. Kelly punched a couple of pillows into shape for back support, dropped onto the cushions, and propped the velvet-covered bobbing board on her lap. It had a hard-stuffed roller that pivoted along the center of the board, providing a firm place for the pins to go in, yet was broad enough that it provided plenty of surface for wide or narrow lace, whether it was for something short and simple or for more long and complex patterns. A parchment pattern-strip was still carefully pinned in place around the roller, yellowed with age. And there were plenty of silk-wound bobbins to play out the unfamiliar pattern with.
It was just the sort of absorbing task she needed to help herself relax. Peering at the weave of the fine-spun threads, she refamiliarized herself with which distinctively notched bobbin-spools were associated with which part of the pattern overall, and she started weaving the threads among the pins, occasionally shifting the glass-tipped pins downward into the next set of pre-pricked holes to further the hearts-within-hearts trim along. Lace-making was soothing, exacting, attention-grabbing work, and that was exactly what Kelly needed, dammit.
She did not need a pigheaded, asinine, know-it-all occupying her thoughts…a lot.
Morganen slammed against the stone wall of the upper level of the north wing, back-first. Saber’s hand had gripped his throat the moment they reached the bottom of the steps up to the lord’s room. �
�You will leave her alone. Is that understood?”
“Let…go—” Morganen choked, grabbing at the fingers threatening to crush his windpipe, “or…turn…you into…toad…”
Saber let go. Then slammed his brother against the wall again, this time grasping two fistfuls of his tunic, rather than his throat. Gray eyes bored into aquamarine. “I mean it, Morg! You will stay away from her!”
Morganen shoved his brother’s grip away, though it jerked roughly at his dark blue tunic. “Stop thinking of yourself, Saber! She’s free to choose or not choose as she damn well pleases! I merely wanted her to know that I was interested, if she ever decides to be interested in me—which I am perfectly free to be!” He straightened his tunic and started for the stairs leading down into the rest of the castle, speaking without turning his head. “Frankly, given how you’ve yelled and bullied and treated her, Saber, I’m not surprised at the way she reacted to you, with your constantly telling her what she can and can’t do.”
“Morganen—” Saber warned him in a growl.
His youngest brother, twenty-three going on fifty-three, turned and pointed his finger. “You listen to me! There is no escaping Destiny. Fate arranged itself that I caught sight of her predicament while I was idly scrying through the other universes out there. And by the touch of that distant, Threefold God, I was forced by my conscience to rescue her, and thus bring her here, since I could not make my magic work well enough in her own universe to send her immediately elsewhere there. If she must be here, then it is plainly Fate’s will that she will complete the verse for one of us. And if it is not to be you, then I have a one-in-seven chance of it being me.
“I like women,” Morganen asserted. “I liked being around them back when we were still in Corvis lands. I liked being with them, conversing with them, seeing the pleasure in their faces as I gave them flowers and little trinkets, back in our old home. I liked the way they usually insist on everything being clean and neat—instead of a mekhadadak’s nest, like this place—and how sweet they smell when they are freshly bathed, and how pretty they look when they are neatly dressed. I like the way they think, and how they talk, and their sense of humor!
