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Trelandar. To one of the 20th Century such things often amaze me although I am
often "smiled at" a bit when I forget how long it takes to get anything done
in this era. When news has to travel by horseback or in the sealed packets
aboard some coastal vessel. If I have need of "speed" and it is important
enough
I fuel up Black Lady and travel at a rate of a hundred and fifty knots to my
eventual destination, although Jon always says that he expects some day I'll
go flying off and never return, fearing that I'll go through another "Gateway"
and end up who knows where! Perhaps back in the Fifteenth Century to end up an
"Indian Goddess" or something!
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"The funny thing about it is that the slaver actually turned and rammed one of
the pirate schooners,"
the sheriff mused, his dark eyes admiring the figure of the tall Queen that
stood before him. I am, when well dressed, an attractively figured woman if no
beauty in the face. I don't think anyone understood why the look of horror
suddenly crossed my face. Why I whimpered "No-No" like I did. They did not
understand at first what was so very clear to me. They did not "know" Darlanis
as I knew her. So in-
credibly brave, so courageous. So very much that wonderful War- rioress who
thinks not of the risks that she might face. They did see the dark eyes of
their Queen suddenly fill with tears as I thought of how
"brave" she had been, of the things we had once shared. Now she was dead!
Gone! The friend I had betrayed! I thought of Sharon. Hoped the death had been
quick. Darlanis was the type who would have seen to that. Given orders that
her own warrioresses would have obeyed. The pirates had gotten nothing but
dead bodies. I knew that. I knew Darlanis all too well to believe anything
else! She had died a
"Warrioress' Death". Per- haps it was for the best, I told myself. She would
never know how I had betrayed her. Destroyed all her dreams. I could at least
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"avenge" her. Make the pirates "pay". I had six
NAPALM bombs hidden away on my estate. I thought of Sharon. She had loved
Darlanis so much. It was, I thought to myself, perhaps just as well that she
was dead too. That she didn't know how despicable her "Lorraine" was. That I
was unworthy of her love!
"Lorraine," Jon said, taking me in his arms, holding me. The sheriff, a
deputy, Darlanis' agent, all watching, puzzled as to why the Queen of
Trelandar had suddenly started to cry as she had. I wonder if they thought I
was a "crybaby". I had been do- ing an awful lot of it lately. There had been
too much
"hurt"!
"Darlanis is dead," I wept. "She-she was coming to me! You rammed her ship!
She-she-she didn't have any other way of get- ting here!" I broke down
completely then, a sobbing figure with a crown on her head. The tears rolling
down my cheeks like a dam had burst! I fear I did not act much like the
Queen of Trelandar then. I had brought death to those I loved. "The Priestess
told me I'd have to-to pay for my sin!" I wept, everyone's faces noth- ing but
a blur before me! "SHE has had HER revenge on me!" I know better than that,
but at the time I didn't think too clear!
"The Janis is yours to command," Jon said to me. I saw the agent of Darlanis.
She drew the sword at her hip, offered it to me as everyone gasped in
surprise. I kissed it. Such is mean- ingful. I was a Queen.
She was of the Warrioresses. We have our Codes, our Honor. Darlanis would be
avenged. It was all we could do now. The sheriff told me he would send
"volunteers" to my estates. I had no doubt we would eventually find the
pirates.
Half an hour later, after I had regained a bit of my "compo- sure" and had
remade up my face so that
I once again looked like a Queen should look, we set out for my seacoast
estate, Jon tell- ing me that the
Janis was about twenty miles out to sea, anchored in a cove there inside a
tiny island, a waterless treeless little rock, where the ship might be
concealed from passing Imperial vessels. I knew of the place, having visited
it once with the Squala when I had been trying to train a crew in making
practice attacks on an enemy vessel. It also makes an excellent prison, which [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]