The Sword

by Jean Johnson

  Kelly reached out and caressed one of the blossoms, feeling the smoothness of its blue and yellow petals and smiling at the effort one of the brothers had gone to. “This is so pretty!”

  “Thank you.”

  The voice replying to her murmured delight wasn’t one of the six she had grown used to hearing of late. It was the voice she had perversely longed for, a voice that had usually only shouted and yelled at her, but which now came out soft, even gentle, plucking at her nerves and making her turn toward the source. Sure enough, Saber sat in one of the deep-set window embrasures, one booted foot up on the bench with him, his elbow resting on his knee. His other hand cradled a smallish box against his stomach.

  “Saber,” she acknowledged. And suddenly wished she had a camera and a means to process the film, or any talent at all at painting, more talent than mere crude pattern-sketching could produce. Because, limned along the edges of his silhouette by the midmorning sun pouring in from the northeast, he was a vision of masculinity.

  Black fabric hugged his muscular calves and thighs. White material draped against the breadth of his chest, caressing the occasional ripple of muscle down to the black leather belt girding his hips; the sleeveless tunic he wore showed off the definition of his arms—masculine, tanned, and strong—and a strip of his chest, at the slit-and-laced neckline. His dark blond hair gleamed with honey-golden highlights, rich with the play of many shades in the backlighting of the sunlight, ranging from the much lighter blond of his brother Evanor to hints of the dark shadows of the elusive Rydan’s hair. He was a vision of masculine beauty, really, though there was nothing posed or artificially enhanced about him.

  As she watched, that upraised thigh flexed, lowering his boot to the floor. That twisted his body upright and off of the padded, cushioned bench. Her mouth dried a little as he approached, then salivated as he stopped about a yard away, bringing his warm, freshly bathed, wonderfully masculine scent with him. Her senses were teased with a scent similar to the musk of male exertion and sweat she had been around over the past few weeks, but different in that this was a wonderful, pleasure-inducing thing to inhale, not just a sometimes strong, nose-wrinkling one. There was no reason why he should smell nicer than his brothers, but he did. A lot.

  He held out the star-carved box in his hand. “Here. This is for you.”

  He said nothing more, just held it out until she took it. Unsure what it was, Kelly opened it gingerly, balancing the box in the crook of her left arm.

  It was packed with brightly colored ribbons, made from silk and from cotton, from linen and woven wool, in every shade of the rainbow, and a few were even woven with handspun gold and silver thread—the real kind of gold and silver thread, not the mylar kind she was used to seeing back in the other universe. From her medieval society days and her historical research into clothing, she guessed the box contained a small but serious fortune in expensive trims. “Oh, Saber…”

  “You don’t like any of it?” he asked warily, as her voice wobbled unevenly.

  “I love it,” she breathed, touching the thick bundles of looped trims, examining each one. It was sort of like being dropped in the ribbon-and-trim section of a fabric store and given a four-figure gift certificate—every sewing fanatic’s dream! There were trims narrower than her smallest finger and two that were half the width of her palm; the rest were woven of sizes in between, with what looked like many yards of each, enough to trim a dress here and there, perhaps even down at the hems in some cases. “Wherever did you find all of these?”

  “I bought them. From the traders a few days ago…” As his words trailed off, she looked up at him. He had turned his head to the side, and a muscle worked in his jaw. Without warning, without another word, he turned and strode for the door.

  “Saber!” she called out. He slowed his steps, long enough for her to continue. “Thank you. For the ribbons and for the flowers,” she added. “They’re both beautiful.”

  His head dipped once, and then he was out the door. One of his brothers called out, beyond her view in the hall somewhere.

  “Ooh—look at who’s wearing his best tu…er…ah…right…”

  A moment later, as Kelly was still envisioning the teasing brother being fixed with a steely glare, Koranen and Evanor entered the sewing hall, brows still raised at the undoubted vehemence of their encounter with the eldest of them.

  “And I thought my glares could get hot,” Koranen muttered, as he glanced over at the sole woman on the isle, mock-wiping his brow, though he spoiled the drama with a grin. His older brother touched the flowers in their vases, admiring them, and Koranen whistled. “Well! It seems a certain someone has finally deigned to notice you.”

  Kelly felt a little defensive, a little protective. She closed the box in her arms and set it on the table. “You had a reason for coming in here…?”

  “The basement storerooms, my lady,” Evanor reminded her. “You keep claiming everything has to be cleaned, and those are next on our list. So grab your mending for the day, and be prepared to sit and sew!”

  “If I don’t do some manual labor, and soon, I’ll have to let out all of my new clothes inch after inch, until I run out of fabric,” Kelly retorted. “I’ll be the size of a cow!”

  Koranen shrugged and eyed her plumping curves. “Oh, I don’t know; I think you look even more wonderful with a little more flesh on your bones than what you had when you first arrived.”

  Evanor elbowed him. “Shush. Be circumspect, remember? No ogling her curves.”

  “Ogle all you want,” Kelly retorted lightly, hand on her hip to accent it, enjoying the brief, lighthearted repartee. “We may not be wed, but neither are we dead. Just don’t touch.”

  “My hands are tied at your service,” the auburn-haired brother swore, raising them wrist-to-wrist in front of his chest before extending them toward her. “I’ll just tie them to your sewing chair for the moment, shall I?”

  “And I, my own to your sewing table. Can you get the mending, my lady?” Evanor prompted her.

  Sighing dramatically, as if her work was never done, though she had made a distinct dent in all of their piles of clothing—even Rydan’s and Saber’s—Kelly moved to fetch the latest basketful, shaking her head and smiling. Magic realm or not, it was lacking in many of the amenities she had taken for granted most of her life. Still, Kelly was enjoying her days on Nightfall Isle…more than she had enjoyed the last year or so in the other world, that was certain.

  Today certainly felt brighter, after Saber’s brief, intriguing visit.

  TEN

  Two weeks turned into three, and the cleaning of the palace proper finally came to an end, leaving Kelly plenty of time to sew new clothes, not just repair or remake old ones. Saber gave her the silvered grooming set he had bought, presenting them to her with a handful of words at most, then leaving again just as he was on the verge of saying more than a handful of words. A few days later, he gave her the perfume oils, again with little explanation. But he did hover a little closer now, and a little longer, too.

  The others went back to their neglected projects, the sources of their livelihoods, but they did linger an hour or two each day in the gardens when the weather was nice, weeding, scouring, and uncorking the fountains and ponds under Kelly’s watchful gaze, as she finished the last of the mending and started on sewing new clothes for each of the brothers.

  As she watched and cut and stitched, they worked hard at cutting back the overgrown vines and pruning the wild-grown trees, pulling up weeds and raking the flower beds. The exiled world of the nine of them, kept mostly within the outer curtain wall, finally began to look orderly. With that order, the palace keep looked rather nice. Kelly had a hard time even remembering to think about her old life, this new one was so much more real, so much more interesting to her. Especially since she really didn’t have to do anything more strenuous than what she loved to do, which was all things textile. It was wonderful, a hobbyist’s daydream.

  At one point, a
storm whipped up from the sea, halting all outdoor activity. It was then that Rydan stalked the halls during the day, when the windows rattled their panes as every brother raced to yank in the shutters and secure the stout wood. The brothers, giving thorough attention to the various home repairs that had gone wanting since the last exiles had lived there, had made sure those storm shutters hung straight and sound during their many repairs around the place. They had even made sure that the latches were tight and that the windows gleamed. Now, at the start of the storm, they hurried to close and latch shutters and windows alike against the increasing wind and rain.

  Though he appeared in the heavily overcast daylight, Rydan didn’t aid his brothers in securing the palace against the storm; he was too busy with whatever he was doing to participate with such mundanities. It was the most animated Kelly had seen the apparently night-loving man in daylight hours—the only time she had seen him in daylight hours—but he didn’t speak with her, didn’t address his brothers. They certainly didn’t get too close to him, for he crackled with an energy that literally made his long black hair move unnervingly on its own, flaring with each flash and crash of energy outside. And all he seemed to do was to walk up and down the corridors, as the storm intensified and progressed.

  She watched doors eerily open and shut around him. He didn’t touch them; didn’t lay a finger on a single doorknob. It was then that Kelly realized she hadn’t ever seen him touch one of the lever-like knobs in the donjon palace. In fact, she thought that the doors might be a little intimidated by him. She certainly was, feeling the way he made even her nonmagical senses tingle with the energy radiating from him.

  Rydan the Storm; she truly learned his name then, and wisely stayed out of his way by several wary yards, as his brothers did. Even at that relatively safe distance, though, the hairs on her arms still stood and prickled. He only stayed in the palace wings for the darkest, wildest parts of the storm…though stayed was a misnomer.

  When all of the windows were shuttered, when everything rattled, the rain splattered and the wind howled, he paced through the halls restlessly, his dark eyes alight with something Kelly knew she was not meant to closely examine. Something she was thankfully not meant to know. Somewhere out there, according to the other seven Prophetic verses the brothers languished under, there was a woman who was meant to know. Kelly was just glad it wasn’t her and stayed well out of his way just to be sure.

  After the worst of the storm had passed, after Rydan had retreated and the shutters were swung open once more, it still rained steadily beyond the windowpanes for hours after the hurricane-like storm had passed, and continued to do so through the night and into the next day. It was then that Saber came to her once more, on the day after his brother had stalked through their huge, exiled home. This time, it was with a bundle in his arms of the brightest aquamarine blue she had ever seen, yards and yards of fine, soft-woven silk, folded into a neat, thick bolt.

  “For me?” she asked softly, as she rose from her sewing nook, reaching the middle of the room and the cutting table that sat there, just as he approached it himself. He stopped just beyond touching distance, just like before. They stared at each other, gray eyes meeting aquamarine.

  He finally looked down at the cloth piled in his arms, and Kelly caught the hint of a blush bronzing his cheeks. “It matches your eyes.”

  He held it out for her to take. Kelly got the feeling he was going to disappear again. She took a step back, not reaching for this latest gift.

  Lifting his dark blond head at her action, he searched her with a questioning look. She turned and trailed her finger over the cutting table, trying to think of something to say. With that dratted Curse hanging between them, this was an awkward moment she had no idea how to get past. Not unless she suddenly turned into a mega-powerful mage with the ability to avert a preordained Fate. Of course, if that hadn’t happened by now, she figured it never would. And the Doyle way is to confront and overcome… “It’s very nice of you to bring all these—”

  Evanor’s voice rang urgently in that non-echoing way in both of their ears, cutting her off, though neither of them were anywhere near the other man. Breaking the fragile mood. “Wyvern attack! Three wyverns from the west! Koranen, Dominor, Morganen, to the roofs!”

  “Wyverns?” Kelly asked in confusion, then widened her eyes as a shape swooped past the third-floor windows of the sewing hall. It looked like…“Are you sure they’re not dragons?”

  Saber dumped the expensive-looking silk on the table and snapped his fingers with a magical command, instantly summoning his best-made sword to his hand as he explained. “Dragons aren’t native to Katan. Wyverns are.”

  “Aren’t you going to go help the others?” Kelly asked him, glancing his way as he placed himself between the windows and her, where she stood next to the cutting table in the middle of that half of the room.

  “Evanor would have called for me, if I was needed up above,” he admitted over his shoulder; this was an attack his brothers had faced twice before and had plans laid to face such a danger once again, should it ever occur. As it now had. “My sword is better served guarding you.”

  Seeing his broad shoulders between her and the rain-spattered windows was reassuring, but Kelly wasn’t one to cower behind another. That wasn’t the Doyle way, after all. She cast about her for a weapon.

  The shears on her sewing table might work, but they weren’t much of a weapon. She crossed to the wall by the hearth, unlit because the weather was still warm despite the rain, and hefted one of the longer lengths of lumber Dominor had found for her, a scrap she had intended to turn into an inkle loom for making woven trim. It was a stout piece of oak she selected, a couple inches thick one way, the width of her hand the other way, and as long as one of her legs in the third direction, yet not too heavy for her hands to grip and hold.

  “What are you doing?” Saber demanded, frowning at her.

  “Oh, you know me. Stubborn and determined to do my fair share,” she quipped. And flinched back as one of the wyverns—grayish and shaped like a dragon-headed, snake-tailed, way oversized bat—flapped over to the bank of windows in front of them and hovered there with a bit of effort.

  She held her board up in front of her, prepared to flinch and flail protectively if it burst through the window. Fire flared down from above a moment later, shooing it away, but since its spell-caster, presumably Koranen, had to flare it in the face to get it away, Kelly flinched and turned her back to protect her eyes from the burning ball that exploded beyond the window…and saw movement where there shouldn’t have been any, inside the room with them.

  “Saber, behind you!”

  He whirled, saw the rope-like shapes slithering toward them, and swore. “By Jinga! Watersnakes!”

  Kelly didn’t even wait to ask him what he meant; his agitated tone was enough for her. She flailed her makeshift weapon at the nearest slithering, yellow brown beast. It dodged with cobra speed, and she whacked again, thumping more successfully with the end of the thick board, smashing it mid-back, leaving a bluish smear on the floor and the end of her board. Light flashed to her side, where Saber was shouting and hurling what looked like streaks of fire with one hand and stabbing and slashing with his sword in the other. Ambidextrously, he wielded the blade in his left hand, freeing his right for casting his magic.

  A shape darted at her ankle. Kelly leaped quickly and stomped two-footed on the snake, as she came back down, jouncing several times on the squishing flesh to make sure she got it good and dead, then did her best to whack another one with her board. It crawled up onto the narrow wood and twined around it when she missed, working its way up the thin beam toward her hands. She had to ignore it while she smashed at another one, then quickly dropped the board and leaped back when the serpent on the wood lunged at her fingers.

  That bumped her into a lightstand; Kelly quickly fumbled for one of the globes. Grabbing and hurling with a well-aimed arm, despite being several years out of practice from her
old high school softball team, she smashed one, two, three, making the tough balls glow brightly at the impact, increasing the light in the chamber by several degrees. She raised a fourth ball, but there were no more snakes near her. Certainly there was enough light down on the floor to have seen any of the odd snakes, if there were any more, but she at least was free and clear for the moment.

  With the fourth ball cradled in her hands from among the five that had been cupped in curved twists of wrought iron in that particular stand, she turned around quickly, making certain no snakes were anywhere near her. Kelly heard a sharp cry of pain. Whirling back around, she saw Saber shake off one of the arm-length serpents from his hand, his sword clanging to the floor, and hurled her oversized missile with the furious accuracy of a Junior Varsity All-Star softball pitcher. It hit the snake while the thing was still in midair, and both smacked into the edge of the cutting table, creating a smear of something dark blue and a flare of blinding light. “Saber!”

  He had conjured a steel dagger and was frantically slashing at his hand and arm around the bite marks, forcing a strange, thick purple ichor out of his flesh along with blood from the wounds. All of his focus was on removing the venom, and none on the remaining, yellowish-scaled serpent slithering straight for him across the floor. Kelly darted forward, stomped down hard, and thoroughly fouled her age-worn, thin-soled slippers, smashing the thing to death under her feet before it could reach him.