The Sword (36 page)

At her sincere praise, Saber felt his chest swell, expanding a little with masculine pride. Considering that she had made
him
“eat dirt” more times than she had tossed Dominor to the floor—twice to just once—he felt pleasure at her confidence in his own abilities. Saber marshaled his attention back to their surroundings; he wasn't really the Lord Protector of the isle, nor was she the Queen, nor his brother the Lord Chancellor…and yet they still had to flawlessly maintain the illusion that they were. “Lord Aragol, I believe you were going to make some sort of point, by having us fetch these fruit?”

“Quite,” the earl stated. He shifted over, placed the pillar and its fiber-hulled melon between him and the slightly curved outer wall, then stepped back several paces, putting half a dozen yards between him and the pillars by the outer wall, flanking this side of the many-streamed fountain they had been standing in front of for their conversation. “You may wish to stand behind me, so that you are safe.”

His sons quickly moved back behind him, so the other three did as well. Kelly flipped her hand discreetly at the courtiers in the garden, and Dominor and Saber muttered under the splashing cover of the fountains, redirecting the “strolling” illusions to make certain none strolled near them.

“Observe the power of a man's intellect, Majesty, and the might that is our machinery.” Drawing the flintlock pistol from the embossed leather holster slung on his hip across from his sword, he aimed the barrel across his forearm and flicked the flintlock lever hard.

BANG!

While Saber and Dominor jumped from the too-loud explosion, Kelly merely winced. The melon jumped and half-exploded in the same instant as the noise, scattering small chunks of itself from the back end. All of them coughed a second or two later as grayish, acrid gunpowder residue wafted around them, dispersing and dissipating slowly in the soft breeze meandering through the garden.

Eyes gleaming at both the sting of the acrid smoke and the triumph of his demonstration, Lord Aragol faced them, the still-smoking barrel pointed toward the sky. “This is a piece of machinery that hurls a ball of iron at speeds far greater than any magical shield can protect against. Lord Chancellor, you are a mage, you said? Please, replace the melon with a fresh one and cast a protective shield around it. Your strongest one if you please…then come back here and stand behind me again, for your safety.”

Dominor paced to the pedestal, examined the roughly pierced fruit, then shifted and dropped it onto the ground and put a fresh one in its place. He murmured, flexing his fingers, until the air around the melon and pedestal began to glow. Then stepped back from the fuzzy-white ball, reminiscent of a blurry moon, and joined the others as it solidified. Resembling a lightglobe, only on a larger scale, it completely enveloped the melon and the top of the pedestal.

“Kennal, if you would be so kind?” the father asked his eldest son, gesturing toward the spot he had used as he stepped back out of the way. The young man stepped into place, drew his own weapon, aimed on his forearm, and struck the flint with the trigger.

BANG!

Nothing appeared to have happened this time, aside from the very loud, abrupt sound and a second, equally acrid cloud.

“I believe, Lord Chancellor,” Kennal asserted as he lowered his weapon, “that when you remove your magic, you will find that the pellet has successfully penetrated your shield. Our flintlock guns fling the pellets so fast and hard, not even magic can stand in their way.
These
are the weapons that give Mandare its independence, so named as our men dared to resume our rightful place in the universe.”

Striding to the pedestal, Dominor snapped his fingers, canceling the shield-globe. He stared at the melon, his blue-clad back blocking the view for everyone else. Finally, he picked it up after a moment and carried it back, displaying the hole that came in one side, but did not go out the other. Digging his fingers into the opening, he cracked the melon in half with a display of the physical strength all of the brothers shared, and showed Kelly and Saber how the bullet had lodged almost to the far side of the orange pink flesh.

Kelly plucked the ball from the fruit and examined it. The iron sphere, no bigger than a fingernail, was still quite hot, though not quite enough to scorch her fingertips.

Saber took it from her, examining the pellet. “Interesting.”

“Isn't it? And we have more of these. Machines that can hurl iron balls the size of a man's fist,” Lord Aragol added.

“Yes. I must admit this has been an interesting demonstration,” Kelly added mildly. “Lord Dominor, would you be a dear and put one more melon on the pedestal, for me this time?”

“As you wish, Your Majesty.” With a little bow, he strode back, dropped the melon halves with the other decimated one, and put one of the remaining fruit on the stone surface.

“You care for another demonstration, Your Majesty?” Lord Aragol asked as Dominor completed his task and came back. “My other son can demonstrate with his pistol as well, if you wish…”

“Your flintlock pistols are very intriguing, Lord Earl,” Kelly stated, reaching behind her, under the back hem of her vest-tunic. “I confess it has been some time since I last saw such a weapon. But I must apologize at not being perhaps as impressed as you clearly hoped I would be,” she added gently, apologetically. Smiling, Kelly pulled out the 9-mm handgun Morganen had fetched across the dimensions for her in preparation for this event.

Flicking the safety, Kelly checked the chamber. Along with kung fu lessons, her parents had insisted on a course in gun safety when she had gone to college. Now she lifted the weapon, aimed, and squeezed off four rapid rounds.

BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!

As the echoes and the thinner cloud of smoke died away, Kelly was grateful to see she had hit the melon enough at this distance to tear it to chunks, rather than ignobly missing after being so long out of practice. As more of the acrid smoke cleared—though there was less with the use of her weapon than had been involved with the Mandarites'—she restored the safety and returned the gun to the back of her outfit, tucking it into the holster hidden there. “As you can see, we have long since progressed beyond that level of mechanical technology.”

“May I see that weapon, Majesty?” Lord Aragol asked, holding out his hand. For the first time since his arrival, his tone conveyed nothing but full respect for her…and it was clearly astonished admiration for the superior gun she had used, not for herself, a mere female.

“No, you may not, milord,” Kelly returned firmly, flatly. “Such things are not meant for the hands of those not yet mature enough to wield them responsibility. We hold enough knowledge of nonmagical technology to gouge this island right out of the sea, to reduce it to black slag, glass, and ash; we simply do not care to be so idiotic as to
use
such weapons.”

“You have weapons that can reduce this entire, large island to rubble?” Kennal repeated. “Why do you not use those weapons to take over the whole of the world?”

“If you pride yourselves on your intelligence, Lord Aragol, Sir Kennal, Sir Eduor, as you seem to want to impress us that you do, then you tell
me
—what do you gain from using weaponry on that scale of power?” Kelly countered, suppressing an impatient roll of her eyes. “Land? Food? Minerals? Subjects to rule over? The land itself is blackened beyond use, the soil burned of all nutrients, the minerals slagged into useless dross, the buildings reduced to rubble, the plants and animals and people seared to vapor—what, exactly, would you gain?”

“You could simply threaten your enemies with the use of the weapon,” Lord Aragol pointed out. “If such machinery exists, it could terrorize a whole continent into your power.”

“Or it could more likely frighten them into making a similar weapon of their own…and then
they
would use it against
you
. And then you would be very, very dead,” Kelly stated flatly. “The only way to gain anything in a war is to
stop
the war, before it starts. Before it goes any farther. The only way to survive violence is to end the violence. The best way to find prosperity is to encourage peace.”

“The only way you can defeat these Natallians you fight,” Dominor added, joining her argument, “is to make peace with them. You say you developed nonmagical ways to fight these magic-wielding women of Natallia. Even now they could be working on a way to counter your machinery with more powerful magic, or even nonmagical machinery of their own…and then
your
land would eventually become a blackened crater. It is only a victory when both sides are still alive to realize it, after all.”

“We know why you are really here,” Kelly stated, seizing on that much information with her quick mind and embellishing. “You came here seeking land to expand into, easy resources to conquer. As yet, your current level of technology prevents you from completely countering the level of these Natallians' magic. You attempted to claim this island so that you could have a land far from their influence in which to raise men to believe that women are inferior to you in all ways. Women are created different, not inferior, nor superior. Just different.

“We feel sorry for you,” she continued, “that you are so afraid of such insignificant things as the differences between men and women, you feel you must try and prove yourself superior in such infantile ways.”

“Infantile ways!” Lord Aragol protested.

“Yes. Your displays of immature arrogance, and your unjustifiable, barely veiled threats of violence and hostility,” Kelly reminded him. “You offered them, thinking we'd be stupid enough to not notice…but we have. I can only hope and pray that your intelligence saves you from the course of folly that you currently sail before it is too late, before you destroy yourselves. As you are now, you are blinded to the lethal shoals that currently await you, ahead and below the surface of the tossing waves that are all you let yourselves see,” she concluded.

“Nightfall, and the land that lies beyond it to the west, Katan, do not care for your petty quarrels,” Saber added, resting his palms on her shoulders as he faced the trio of strangers. “You may come here to trade in peace, or you may go to Katan and trade in peace. But you would do well to not bring your troubles here to our lands.

“It would be best if you left your antiquated weapons behind, when you do come to trade; we will barter peacefully with you, if you come peacefully before us, but if you choose to fight…you will not win. As it is, you would do well to tread carefully while you are here,” he warned the trio of men. “Nightfall is protected by its superior technology, its superior magic, and the Lord of Night, whose wrath is the most powerful of all when roused to the defense of this land. Katan, which lies to the west, has the combined might of the Council of Mages and its own vast array of resources, magical and otherwise, to defend itself with. Neither land will tolerate violence or aggression aimed its way.”

“Do not mistake our words for a threat,” Dominor murmured as the trio of men glared at them in affront. “This is the most well-meant of advice only, garnered through ages of wisdom and experience, and offered to you freely in the hopes that you are citizens of a wise culture. One we wouldn't mind trading with in the future, when you are invited to come back to Nightfall again.”

“If you
truly
want to get the best of your foe, you must prove you
are
superior. Not by machines and technology,” Kelly warned them, “but by being smarter than they are and bringing an end to your conflict through honest, respectful peace. You must prove yourself superior by being willing to compromise at least a little, if others are too stubborn to bend. Otherwise you and your enemy
both
will break, wither, and die, like a tree that snaps under pressure when it refuses to sway in the wind.

“And one more kind word. Do not make the mistake of thinking that the rulers of this other land, Natallia, think the same way that you do. If their rulers are women, then I tell you as a woman that they will not think as you do. Your weapons will not prove your superiority to females, as they might to a fellow male. The use of violence and brute force in the quest for superiority
never
impresses women.”

Lord Aragol said nothing; he eyed her with a shuttered expression, eyed her husband where Saber stood behind her. His sons looked as doubting, wary, and skeptical as he did. Finally he spoke, looking at Saber, not at Kelly. “You would not be so lenient and forgiving if you had a foe as arrogant as the Natallians are. You would be at the whims and mercy of your wife, and you would not be accounted her equal. Men are not meant for such humiliation; we would have things restored to how they were in the ancient days, when
we
ruled the land—”

“You mean the days when women were not allowed to learn how to read or to write,” Kelly interrupted, “or to own property, or to decide who they would marry? An age when they were sold to the highest suitor in exchange for land and goods in a dowry, in a humiliation that is nothing more than a pretty name for
slavery
, regardless of their feelings? When they were degraded by men and counted less important than sheep, because while women could produce children, sheep at least could produce lambs
and
wool?” Kelly bit back tightly. “When a woman's choices were to spend her life on her back under her husband as a wife, an object, a
thing
used to clean the house and breed sons, or to spend her life on her back under strangers with the coin for it, being
fu
—”