The Sword

by Jean Johnson

  “We have been so informed,” the oldest overdressed member of the trio stated. “I am Lord Kemblin Aragol. This is my eldest son, Sir Kennal Aragol, and my second-born son, Sir Eduor Aragol. You will escort us to your queen.”

  Dominor didn’t bother to stop the arch of one dark brown brow. What an arrogant ass, to command me in my own home.

  “At your gracious convenience, of course,” the earl added with an ingratiating smile.

  “This way, then, Lord Aragol. But mind what you do and say while upon Nightfall Isle.” As he turned, Dominor swept his hand discreetly. The eastern gates swung silently shut behind them, and the bars slid back into place, obeying the silent signal without any sign of help from Saber’s illusory guards. It was just as well these people didn’t seem to have much in the way of magic; even the three overdressed men looked impressed at that simple bit of magery.

  “Is it necessary to lock us in, Lord Chancellor?” the younger of the two fop-clad men asked, glancing back.

  “You are not locked in; you have only to ask, and you are free to leave. We prefer our privacy, that is all. The gate is closed so that no one can enter our walls uninvited.”

  His father had tipped his head back to gaze up at the curved roof of the great hall, visible above the wings of the building before them. “We did not see any of this from the harbor.”

  “You were not meant to.”

  “How large is this land, Lord Chancellor?”

  “Large enough…though we do feel a little overcrowded of late,” Dominor added. Playing on the same reasoning the other man had no doubt come, the reasons his new sister-in-law had related. The need for more resources and room.

  “Overcrowded?” the elder son scoffed lightly. “Where are your cities? Your harbors?”

  “You landed at one. Well, at the fishing port of Whitetide,” he added, keeping his smile to himself. “I understand you almost tore one of their sampa dragnets with your rudder, sailing between two of our fishing ships, though I heard the owners successfully lowered it in time.”

  “We saw no ships,” one of the sailors asserted firmly as a “guard” opened the door into the east wing.

  “You were not meant to. We prefer our privacy.”

  “Lord Chancellor! A word with you about the silk shipment,” a woman in green asserted from a doorway. An enchantment of Dominor’s, of course, and one enspelled to give the illusion that they were a prosperous people. She eyed the newcomers briefly, then addressed Dominor, who had stopped politely for the illusion, forcing the others to stop as well. “I told Her Majesty a few months ago that there would only be ten tons of raw silk harvested this year for tithe, but the summer has been exceptionally pleasant, perfect weather for the silkworms, and the Weaver’s Guild will be presenting twelve tons at tax time. However, because of the good weather, the antithi mushroom harvest has been conversely poor, and scarlet will be in higher demand; I do apologize for that, on behalf of the Guild.”

  “I will pass the news to Her Majesty’s ear, Lady Risia. Oh—Lady Risia of Caston, this is the Lord Kemblin of Aragol, his sons, and some of the sailors from the ship in Whitetide Bay. They come from a land called Mandare, somewhere to the east of here.”

  The woman eyed the group of nine and belatedly held out her hand. Her smile was polite but just a little distant, the kind reserved for being civil to strangers. “A pleasure to meet you, Lord Kemblin.”

  “It is Lord Aragol,” he returned, taking her hand and bowing formally, coolly over it. “I am amazed that you speak our language so eloquently and so far from our home.”

  “The moment you arrived and spoke on our shore, we learned your tongue; all of us speak it now so that you may feel more comfortable. It matters not what tongue we speak in, but it does matter to you. We may prefer our privacy, but we try to be polite,” Dominor added. Nodding to the illusory lady as the earl released her hand, he continued along the passageway. “Keep together, please. Her Majesty’s court is not accustomed to being kept waiting long.”

  The remade Audience Hall and its illusory audience quietened as Dominor made his way into the center of the quartered chamber, striding confidently along the carpeted, former-curtain runner. He stopped in the center, turned slightly to face the dais, which was placed at an angle from their approach, and addressed the makeshift court.

  “Your Majesty, Your Highness, Courtiers of Nightfall: I present His Lordship, Lord Kemblin Aragol, Earl of the Western Marches, representative of King Gustavo the Third of the Independence of Mandare, from far across the Eastern Ocean; his sons, Sir Kennal Aragol, and Sir Eduor Aragol; and some of the men from their ship. Gentlemen, I present to you Her Sovereign Majesty, Queen Kelly of Nightfall, Scion of the Most Honorable House of Doyle, Protector of the People, Fairest Flower of the Eastern Ocean; and His Highness, Lord Saber of Nightfall, Consort of Her Majesty, Count of Corvis, General of the Armies, Champion of the Isle, and Lord Protector of Nightfall.”

  Kelly nodded regally from where she sat on her makeshift throne. The coronet Saber had given her as a wedding gift, she had set aside, since it was a Katani noble’s crown. Even she didn’t feel comfortable wearing that particular symbol after declaring herself a queen and claiming Nightfall as her own kingdom, independent of the Katan Empire.

  Instead, she was wearing a crown of cubic zirconias, fake diamonds filched from a costume shop—and paid for with a real diamond tucked into an envelope and set in its place, with a brief, block-printed note explaining it was a flawless, uncut diamond of roughly two carats in size, and worth far more than the costume jewelry crown itself. It wasn’t as if Morganen had any American cash lying around to pay for the things they had bought, but he did have gemstones to spare. Magically made, no less.

  She had been working with Morganen yesterday, setting aside the doubts he had instilled in her to work on acquiring everything that could be needed, and paying for it with the diamonds Morganen had on hand—diamonds that were apparently very easy to make, when one was a massively good mage. In their “panning” through her world, looking for various different props, he had spotted the fake crown in a window display and pointed out that the eight-pointed stars in its design was a sign from destiny that she should wear it today. And when he popped it through and placed it on her head, showing her how she looked with it in a normal mirror, Kelly had been forced to agree it looked perfect on her.

  The combs holding it on her head itched, though. A lot.

  Beside her, Saber sat wearing his silver coronet, clad in the same aquamarine of their wedding outfits, holding her hand in his. He nodded coolly as well, and lifted his free hand slightly. “You may approach, Lord Earl, you and your sons.”

  Dominor stood aside and gestured for them to head up the runner, while he waited with the sailors. The six much more plainly dressed men in the center of the hall eyed the color-changing curtains, the colorfully, aesthetically dressed men and women around them, and stayed respectfully where they were, the three chests and rucksacks resting at their feet. Lord Aragol and his sons came forward, stopped six feet from the first step of the wood dais, and swept off their hats in elegant bows.

  “Your Highness, Your Majesty…” the trio murmured in near-perfect unison.

  “Lord Earl, young Sirs,” Kelly returned, dipping her head slightly.

  “Gentlemen,” Saber added, nodding his own politely.

  Lord Aragol straightened and passed his hat to the youngest son, who took his brother’s as well and held them with his own. The earl glanced at the people around them, then eyed the two on the dais. “We are impressed with your court, Your Highness…Your Majesty. And with the extent of your magic, if you can so readily conceal this palace here in the hills and a village at the shore so completely from our eyes…though I do not understand why you would squander your magic in such a manner.”

  “To us, it is not squandering,” Kelly countered smoothly. “I am certain you will allow us our reasons for cloaking ourselves from strangers. We are an ancient cu
lture,” she added, lying smoothly around the fact that “ancient” in this case meant as of the day before. “This donjon alone has stood for more than two thousand years. We respect such a long-standing history and its many traditions. We have moved beyond needlessly making war on other lands, but at the same time we realize some have not matured as far as we have in their own ways and cultures. It is often easier for us to simply ‘not be there’ while strangers are near our isle, rather than become engaged in confrontations that would lead to pointless annihilations. Stains take forever to scrub out of the carpets, as you may or may not realize.”

  Saber kept a straight face at her last comment, delivered in a bored tone…but only just. He spoke up as soon as she finished with her little speech. “Tell us about your own land, Lord Earl—you call it the ‘Independence’ of Mandare. Is there a particular reason why?”

  The other man straightened with a touch of pride. “We have liberated many of our fellow men from the shackles of oppression in the empire of Natallia. No man is slave to a woman in Mandare,” he added, flicking his gaze just for an instant to Kelly and back. “No woman is allowed to practice her magic freely in Mandare. However it may be elsewhere, in our kingdom, men rightfully rule.”

  Saber looked at him, looked at Kelly, looked back at the earl, and arched a brow, not bothering to hide his smirk. “You think my wife has magic?”

  “Your kingdom is rich with it. Obviously it comes from your women, who are the practitioners of witchery,” the pompously dressed earl pointed out.

  This sounds disgustingly familiar, Kelly thought. And here I’d thought I’d escaped this kind of prejudice… “You think I am a witch?”

  “You are a woman who is queen,” Lord Aragol pointed out in return. “Obviously you use your magic to maintain your power.”

  “I’ll have you know I was elected to this throne,” Kelly returned tartly. “By vote of the citizens of Nightfall, who have confidence in my intelligence and ability to lead them more successfully than anyone else on this island. I rule by the free will of the people; that is the greatest power a ruler can wield…and the only power I need to wield.

  “As for magic, I cannot even whistle up a wind, save for whatever my own breath might blow. My lord husband possesses magic, but not I. If you think I rule simply because I am a woman, the previous ruler of this island was a man, and the next one might be a woman or a man, whoever is the best person to sit on the throne that day. We of Nightfall see no difference between the genders, save what each person individually has been graced in mind and talent by the gods…and we value the talents of our minds far more than the extent of our magics.”

  “We respect each other, Lord Earl,” Saber added, lifting his wife’s hand for a brief kiss. She gripped it back, entwining their fingers again as he continued. “That is how one prevents battle. By respecting differences, respecting similarities…respecting boundaries…”

  Lord Aragol smiled diplomatically. “I think, once we have come to know each other’s ways, we will come to…to respect each other greatly. Perhaps we should be shown to our chambers now, so we can refresh ourselves from the long walk up the hill?”

  Saber smiled. It wasn’t as diplomatic as the earl’s. “We regret that we do not make a habit of providing accommodations for unexpected visitors. But we will provide a ride back down to Whitetide Bay for your belongings and your sailors, and for yourselves later in the day. Lord Secretary.”

  “Yes, Your Highness?” Koranen asked, stepping forward.

  “Arrange to send these good sailors back down to the harbor,” Saber instructed his younger brother. “Include a keg of stout to cheer them on their way back down, since they have had such a long walk uphill.”

  “Yes, Your Highness.” He moved off to fulfill the keg part of the task himself, since no one could expect an illusion, however tactile, to be strong enough to lift a keg or smart enough to know where to find it, or to safely drive the horseless wagon afterward.

  “You do not provide chambers for us?” the elder son, Kennal, asked skeptically. “When my father is a representative of our king?”

  “We would not provide accommodations for the King and Queen of Katan, our best and closest neighbors, should they come here without our direct invitation,” Kelly pointed out. “You are still very unfamiliar with our ways; only those who truly understand Nightfall are invited to stay.”

  “The Lord of Night would not take kindly to strangers wandering the halls in the middle of the night, searching for a refreshing room,” Saber added as the young man opened his mouth to argue the point. “There is a reason why this land is called Nightfall. Rest assured, we will be certain you are safely on your ship when night does fall.”

  “The ‘Lord of Night’?” Lord Aragol inquired, arching one brow.

  Kelly suppressed a smile, more than ready to relate the tale which Rydan—with his rare sense of humor—had concocted for them in sparse but precise words over dinner, so they could have a plausible reason for keeping the strangers from having access to the castle at night, when their own defenses would be lowered. Night was a time when ambush and treachery were more likely to succeed, because most of the brothers would be exhausted from working throughout the day. Kelly had offered her own extradimensional twist to his suggested tale, which had tickled the most unusual inhabitant of their isle no end, making him actually smile for the second time in as many days. In fact, she had gone back to Morganen afterward and requested he fetch just a few more items from her world, namely, books describing in stories and legends several variations on what she had related, for Rydan to read and enjoy.

  The borrowed legend would certainly ensure that their unwelcome visitors remained off the island and away from its “people.” None of their illusions could hold up to that length of exposure, and all of the real inhabitants of Nightfall knew it. With a straight face, Kelly filled in the three foreigners on the “legend” in question.

  “The Lord of Night rules the hours between dusk and dawn; not even my place as queen is above his ultimate rule, though as a native, I am of course safe from his powers. He has been here since before the Kingdom of Nightfall was founded. In fact, he was here long before then, though none can say exactly how long. He tolerates our presence because we respect him, and we respect his privacy. As per our agreement with him, Nightfall holds all uninvited strangers at bay from our isle, so that none disrupt his rest by day…and none dare disturb his path at night, lest they find him drinking their blood.”

  Saber continued as the trio of men gave her uncertain looks. “The Lord of Night roams the whole of the island at night; he tolerates nothing to get in his way. Those who belong here are as safe as babes in their parents’ arms, but those who do not belong here…” Saber shrugged lightly. “Stains are indeed hard to clean from the carpets if any dares to resist his hunger, and bloodless corpses are hard to explain if the unwelcome intruder has relatives who might ask too many questions. So we discourage visitors from wanting to stay after nightfall. It is simply easier that way.”

  “You have our royal reassurances, Lord Aragol, you and your men are perfectly safe while sunlight illuminates this land—provided you are polite and obey the laws and ways of Nightfall, of course,” Kelly added as Koranen came back, murmured to the sailors, and led the way out to the eastern courtyard, where Trevan was no doubt waiting to drive them back down to the shore. “We will see that you are escorted safely back to your ship by sunset; it is not our intention to see you harmed in any way, after all. That would be impolite.

  “Now, if you wish to refresh yourselves, the Lord Chancellor is our chosen representative to deal with your needs while we finish with the matters of our court; he has our faith and trust to handle these matters well.”

  “We should be free from the obligations of our court to join you in about half an hour,” Saber added. “Since the weather is good, perhaps you would enjoy the delights of the southwestern gardens while you await our leisure? Lord Chancellor, do show
them the gardens when they have refreshed themselves. Our gardeners have put a lot of effort into making them bloom, and it would be a shame to let their efforts pass unappreciated.”

  Both of them nodded regally, dismissing the trio.

  Lord Aragol bowed, his sons bowed, and they backed up three steps and turned, rejoining the Lord Chancellor. Some of the illusionary courtiers in the hall nodded politely, some murmured pleasant greetings, and then Dominor led them into the south wing, first to a sitting room with an attached refreshing room so they could refresh themselves, then through a door into the set of gardens that had been already designated as the “holding area” for their visitors.

  When they were all out of the donjon hall, the noblemen with Dominor and the sailors with Koranen when he reappeared to escort them away, when only illusions surrounded the pair on the aquamarine-padded “throne,” Kelly slumped back into the silk-padded seat. “Whew! That was one heck of a performance—now I see why finishing school is so expensive.”

  “‘Finishing’ school?” Saber asked.

  “Where young ladies of wealthy or important background are sent to learn manners, etiquette, and how to sit with perfect, regal posture. To ‘finish’ their training in manners and deportment. Naturally, I never went,” she added wryly, stretching her arms and back. A quick lean forward and peek through the milling, murmuring courtiers that were really small glass marbles, and she dug her fingers into her scalp, freeing the crown and scratching with great relief at her head, mussing her hair. “Boy, am I glad I only decided to do this when visitors drop by!”

  “And on weekends, and ‘holidays,’ whatever those are,” Saber added, teasing her.

  “When this is over, we’ll need a holiday. I hope Dominor can handle this part,” she sighed. “That Lord Aragol doesn’t look like he cares for biting his tongue in the presence of a woman with more rank than him.” Kelly frowned thoughtfully. “I wonder what caused this cultural attitude of his, to have such arrogant antipathy toward women.”