The Sword (38 page)

Cursing, the fourth-born brother splashed back toward the shore, hauling his younger brother through the waist-high water. There was no telling how bad the wound was, or what kind of damage the gun-weapon could do—only their new sister, Kelly, could tell them what needed to be done to heal Trevan's injury.

It hurt with every heavily burdened step he took, abandoning his abducted twin.

 

K
elly! Trevan has been shot by a gun-thing!
”

Kelly gasped and dropped the banner she had been taking down. It fluttered to the floor far below, causing Koranen to shout and cover his head, running under the balcony for protection as the wooden bar across the top of the long, color-shifting cloth sailed straight at him.

“Watch what you're
doing
!” he yelled up at her, even as the wooden rod clattered hard on the stone floor.

“Trevan's been
shot
!” she shouted back, abandoning the balcony railing in a sprint for the eastern courtyard. Of course, Evanor wasn't there yet, and she paced worriedly as the others gathered, summoned by Koranen.

Minutes later, Evanor and one of the carts rattled into the courtyard, sliding as he locked the wheels just long enough to stop. Jumping down, he grabbed Saber. “They took Dominor! They did something to him—they lured him onto their ship,” Evanor restarted with a shake of his head as the others exclaimed. Kelly was already climbing into the bed of the wagon, as he told them what had happened. “They made a fuss about the salt getting contaminated by the algae in seawater, or by the tar in their ship hull and the bilgewater, so he went with them to secure their hold with his magic—and then they set sail with him! When I couldn't rouse him, Trevan gave chase, and they shot him with their gun-thing!”

Kelly, examining the wound in Trevan's chest, had to look away after only a moment. She blanched at the mess of the injury, the rhythmic spurting of the blood from a torn artery. Pressing her hand over the wound to apply pressure made her aware of the warmth of the blood seeping free. She had to lean over the side of the wagon cart, breathing hard, as Koranen took over for her. Injuries greater than scratches and scrapes always made her feel ill, and the feel of the blood trying to escape against her hand was not something she ever wanted to experience again. At least the strawberry-copper haired man was unconscious, so he wasn't suffering much at the moment.

Morganen caught her shoulder, shook her. “Kelly! Focus! You know what this weapon does—
how
do we treat it?”

She compressed her lips, drew in a deep breath, and pulled her wits together. Doyles didn't throw up at the sight of a little—okay, a
lot
—of blood. “I have to check to see if the bullet lodged in his body, or if it passed through.” Bracing herself, she turned and carefully rolled Trevan over, just enough to look under the backside of his right chest and shoulder. He had lost a lot of blood, too, on that side. Sucking in a breath, she whirled away and leaned over the edge of the cart. “I am not going to be sick. I am
not
going to be sick…”

“Easy,” Saber murmured, moving up and cradling her head against his chest. His own memories of battle were probably just as unpleasant. What he could see of the wound suggested it was even nastier than an arrow-made wound.

“I'll…I'll be all right. I'm certain it passed through…but it could have pierced his lung. I think it nicked a major vein; he's losing…a lot of blood.” She pushed away from her husband, braced herself again, and pressed her fingers to that still, pale throat. The pulse wasn't overly strong…but neither was it so weak she couldn't find it right off; he hadn't lost that much blood. Yet. That thought steadied her nerves a little. “The back of his shoulder's a mess, but with the bullet gone, you can use whatever magic you would for a bad stab from a sword or a spear—”

“That's all we need to know, Sister,” Morganen informed her, patting her shoulder. “Saber, get her out of the cart so we have some room to enspell.”

The eldest of them did just that, lifting Kelly out of the bed and out of the way, as Morganen and Wolfer climbed in to take her place. Evanor, too agitated to help, clutched at the side rail of the cart bed; Koranen held his shoulders, giving the missing brother's twin some moral and physical support. Kelly clung to Saber as long, tense minutes passed, as the two brothers muttered and gestured and did things over their brother.

Finally, Wolfer sat back on his heels, and Morganen stood, bracing his arm against the back of the driver's bench. The youngest of them blotted sweat from his forehead. “He'll live, but he's lost a lot of blood.”

As the others relaxed, the second eldest of them lifted something red and green and slimy on his fingertips. “I'd like to know how he got seaweed in the wound, myself…”

Kelly paled again at the unsettling combination of colors.

“He apparently transformed on the deck when he landed, was shot and fell overboard, then managed to transform into a seal to swim back to shore,” Evanor explained. “I had to choose between saving him, and going after Dominor…It's my fault!”

His hands slammed in fists against the side of the wagon. The brother lying on the bed jerked and cracked his eyes open with a groan. “Dom…”

Guilty that she hadn't heeded her instincts when Dominor had been so proud of his trading agreement—the opportunity to lure him onto their ship—Kelly looked at the others. “Can't we go after him?”

“With what?” Koranen asked her bitterly. “We don't have a ship! Not even a
rowboat
. We are
exiled
here on this stinking rock!”

“And Trev is the only one of us with a
useful
flying form,” Wolfer added. Kelly noticed that his cheeks were flushed slightly, his gaze averted. His fingers were also rubbing the braid of hair around his wrist. That hand was clenched in a white-knuckled fist.

Saber shook his head, forcing himself to think rationally. “Lord Aragol said his people have few male magicians among them. If they took Dominor, it is because they want his services as a mage. They will keep him alive for that. We have to believe that.”

“It's my fault. First I come here, bringing the first Disaster of the Mandarites arriving here, and now this new Disaster,” Kelly muttered, looking at the once again unconscious Trevan. “I thought there was something odd about the proposed trade. I should have stopped him! I should have listened to my instincts, that there was something fishy about this suddenly friendly trading deal…”

Saber turned her to face him and lifted her chin. “You are no more at fault than any of us. Destiny is Destiny, in this universe. We can only do our best, even if it is not enough. You are not a Seer, to know the future, or to read the intent in a man's mind. Not even Morganen can do that. And Evanor, you did the right thing. If you had not brought back Trevan, we would have lost
two
brothers…and one much more certainly to death than the other. They will keep Dominor alive for his powers,” he repeated. “
If
he keeps his temper and arrogance in check and bides his time until he has a sure chance to escape…he will escape and return to us.”

“He is smart enough to do that,” Wolfer agreed, climbing down from the back of the wagon, sighing. “Koranen, help me find materials to make a stretcher. Trevan is too weak to be moved without one.”

“It will be a difficult, uncertain recovery, with so much blood lost,” Morganen agreed grimly.

“Well, I'm a type O; you could give him some of mine,” Kelly offered. At the other's blank looks, she reminded herself there were plenty of differences still left between her old world and this new one. Patiently, she explained. “That means I'm a universal donor. If you give someone the wrong type of blood, it could cause an immune reaction. But type O doesn't. I just have to make sure I only
get
type O, because all other types will cause me to have a reaction and die.” They eyed her a little oddly at her remarks, and she shook her head. “It's too complicated to explain in detail, but trust me, you could give him a pint of my blood, about a small mug's worth at most, and it won't hurt me. That should be enough to help him recover.”

“There
is
a spell to do it, to transfer blood from one person to another,” Morganen agreed thoughtfully, “but it doesn't always work; maybe this ‘type' thing is the reason why.”

“Technology's knowledge harmed him. Maybe technology's knowledge can help him,” Kelly agreed, then looked up at Saber as the head of their family, and ultimately responsible for Trevan's well-being, when he wasn't in any shape to respond. “Can we at least try?”

He nodded, troubled with the worry over both brothers, but a little relieved she knew about and could do something to help at least one of them. “Do what you can for him.”

“Then we'll take him to my workroom,” Morganen stated. “Kelly, come ahead with me; we'll need to prepare for his arrival. As soon as the others bring him, I'll do the spell, then he can be carried straight to his chamber to recover. Evanor, fetch some juice. Both of them will need it when the transfer is over, according to what I have read about this spell in my books.”

Nodding numbly, Evanor moved away in compliance. It was a good thing, giving the shock-numbed twin a task to complete; he looked like he needed distracting. Morganen and Kelly headed to his tower just a short distance away, while the others moved to help Wolfer and Koranen enchant a temporary stretcher to carry Trevan.

 

K
elly sat on a stool, drinking greedily at the mug of juice Evanor had brought. She felt a little dizzy and would have liked to lie down for a few minutes, but she had given blood before—if not in a chanted, no-needles kind of way—and at least knew what to expect afterward. Except it felt like she'd had
two
mugs' worth drained from her. The others had carried Trevan off, worried in that silent, supportive way men often had when one of their own was wounded. Only Morganen remained behind with her, putting jars of ingredients back in their places; ingredients for the blood-transfer spell, and ingredients for a scar-removing poultice he had packed onto both sides of his brother's magically sealed wound.

This was the same workroom she had arrived in, and the workroom she had been in the night before. The mirror Morganen had used both times as a Gate between universes still stood in its cheval stand. It wasn't reflecting the room, however, but a scene from her own world, the gun shop where they had “borrowed” the gun that was still tucked at her back. Setting the mug down on the worktable beside her, she removed the gun and its beltline holster. She had never actually owned one, and she didn't ever want to again. Not after seeing the mess a bullet had made of Trevan's chest.

Stupid, testosterone-riddled things…
“Morganen?”

“Yes, Sister?”

“Can we put this back?” she asked, lifting the nylon-holstered gun.

“Certainly.”

“Um—just let me remove the fingerprints, first,” she added, taking the weapon out and removing its clip, and the bullet in the chamber. Morganen passed over a couple scraps of cloth from a shelf, and she rubbed the bullet, the clip, and the gun. Using the cloth, she pushed the spare bullet into the spring-loaded clip with a bit of effort, yanked out the wrinkle caught by the mechanism, and nodded at the two pieces, clip and gun. “Okay. Guns don't hurt people on their own, but I don't want the wrong kind of person getting their hands on this and hurting others with it, in this realm. It's bad enough the Mandarites have their own version, however crude.”

“Give me a moment.” Morganen muttered, finishing his tidying, then fetching out a pot of greenish powder he had mixed in bulk the previous night.

Kelly, warned by his performance of the night before, quickly stuck her fingers in her ears. As he cast the powder at the glass surface of the mirror, he shouted several mystical words that still made no sense to her, but which rolled like thunder. Only when he had cast the fourth handful of powdered whatsits at the glass and it had flashed did she take her fingers away from her ears.

“Put it there, on that back counter, while the clerk is still busy with a customer,” she directed.

He stretched out his hand, snapped a command, and the gun floated easily into the mirror, rippled through it, and, as Morganen strained, hand trembling, the gun eased quietly to the counter. He repeated the procedure, and the clip followed it through. He dropped his hand just a second after the clerk turned around, about a second before the gun shop worker noticed the gun on the back counter. Normally there wasn't sound in a scrying mirror unless it was specifically enspelled for it, but this was a partial doorway between the two worlds. They could hear, if a little muffled and faint, the man's exclamation; first that the gun was out there at all, then in recognition of it as the missing weapon, and then a third time that it had been fired, and that four bullets were missing.