"CHAP-07" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jerome Bigge - Warlady 3 - The Queen Of Swords)THE QUEEN OF SWORDS! A TALE OF ADVENTURE IN THE SECOND DARK AGE OF MAN 2566 A.D.! By Jerome B. Bigge Chapter Seven "That would doom Lynn to an awful death," I answered back. "It would rid you of Princess Tara if she's aboard," the old Warlady replied. "It is your `decision', not mine," she smiled, her dark eyes so much like Lorraine's burning straight into mine. She was a woman who reminded me much of Lorraine, I thought then. The sort of a woman who had faced the worst war had to offer one. She was old, and probably close to a hundred by now, I reflected. A touch of "gray" there in her midnight hair left little doubt. The slave girl who knelt there at one side waiting to be of serv- ice silently yawned to herself, her dark eyes heavy with sleep. "I won't sacrifice Lynn's life for Tara's," I answered her. "You are not the same `Darlanis' I once knew," she said, sipping at a cup of coffee. Her dark midnight eyes holding mine. "Or the same one who once conquered Trelandar," Lara added, glancing about the tastefully furnished living room of the manor. "I am no longer a `barbarian'," I answered them both back, recalling what Aurora had told Lorraine there on Mars about me. "Perhaps there is `hope' for you yet," Tirana smiled back. "She's important to me," I answered her. Why I didn't know. "Do you have agents in La Paz?" Tirana asked me. I nodded. La Paz was the capital of Baja. Tara's palace was just outside the city. On a hill that overlooked the city. A big castle that dated back from long before The War. A place called Triskelion. Lorraine's sister had lived there back in the 20th Century, I re- called with a smile. And Sharon did know about the place too! "I thought you weren't going to return for nearly a month," Queen Maris of Dularn smiled as she greeted me there at the dock. A few flakes of snow drifting down, the sky a cloudy iron-gray. The massive walls of her own palace there towering up behind her. It had been a long flight from Lorraine's estates here to Arsana. I felt "drained", "exhausted" by everything I'd been through now. I had slept only a few hours, my dreams unpleasant, nightmarish. "My Princess and I are going on an adventure," I smiled as Sharon stood there smiling at her side, bundled against the cold of a Dularnian winter. My breath was visible there before me. I saw the ice there on the dock. The snow shoveled off the walks. The memories flooding back of "happier" times when I was little. "You have all the luck," Maris Jord smiled back, the hood of her parka covering her golden hair. I found her much more friendly now that I didn't have Lorraine there beside me. I won- dered how Lorraine was doing there in Talon with Queen Dala Dai. "You can fly this, can't you?" I asked Sharon as she settled herself in beside me and I restarted the engine. She was after- all Lorraine's stepdaughter. A girl of the 20th Century. Also a very capable and competent Imperial Princess. If anything hap- pened to me the Empire would be in good hands. I saw her smile. "I do know something about flying," Sharon smiled back, tak- ing the controls. Waving out the window to Maris who waved back as the plane was untied and we then taxied across the harbor to once again take to the air. "Although Lorraine usually did most the flying," she added with a knowing smile as the floats lifted off the water and we were again on our way back to California. I was tired, having stopped only for fuel after leaving Trelandar. "We're putting a lot of `hours' on this," I smiled as the Pacific once again became a gray rippling pond there beneath us. Sharon at the controls nodding, giving me a smile. I knew enough to check the oil, do whatever simple maintenance that was neces- sary. I had studied the manuals, felt competent to make repairs. I am "good with my hands", a trait I suppose that is not becoming the ruler of California although I do take pride in my own skill. I am not just a "barbarian" even if I do wear a sword at my hip! "I suppose An'na can always rebuild the engine again if nec- essary," Sharon said to me, giving me a smile.* She was the daughter that I had always hoped Anna would have been. I loved her as much as if I had nursed her at my own breast. Given birth to her, carried her there inside me for those nine long months. * The plane uses a special oil used in motor vehicles of the 21st Century that considerably extends engine life, although the "life" of the engine is still not of course quite "everlasting", being in the neighborhood of about ten thousand "hours" or so, giving it a "total range" of about a million miles before a major overhaul. Lorraine says that the oil contains "SLICK 50", what- ever "that" is. In any case the airplane does "work" quite well. "I'm at a loss for what to do about Tara and Lynn," I said, explaining that the only thing I could think to do was to try to rescue Lynn from Tara's castle, the hopes of that not being very high. Especially not considering the fact that Princess Tara had such "tight" security that I'd never had much "success" with my own agents in obtaining any information as to her own activities! "You aren't planning to ask my stepmother?" Sharon breathed, her words "pregnant" with implications left "unspoken" just then! I wondered too if Sharon thought I placed too much importance on Lynn. She was, after-all, only a slave girl, one of half a dozen such wenches that wear my collars. I had "others" that I valued. To "risk" the life of free women to "rescue" a slave girl would not be "politically wise". Especially not "now" with people such as Sanda Talen around ready to "criticize" me any way she could! "If anyone `goes', I'll `go' myself," I replied, looking out the window at the gray metallic sea there far below the black Beechcraft Bonzana. What I really "needed" was Anna and her Lorr spaceship, the Starfire. Its energy bolts would make short work of that infamous Bajan's castle, I mused to myself with pleasure! "If Tara ever gets her hands on you...," Sharon breathed, her lovely azure eyes looking into mine. I nodded, remembering! The last time I'd fallen into Tara's hands I barely survived it!! And the sexual abuse I'd suffered then had cost me my uterus too! "Was `She-Ra' ever 'scared' of anything?" I asked with a smile. Sharon had nicknamed me that just after we met due to my exotic golden attire. "She-Ra" was a 20th Century cartoon hero- ine who went around fighting "evil". She had a magical sword and a flying unicorn. She was "admired" by small girls and those who like Sharon perhaps "needed" a "fantasy" figure such as "She-Ra". "I remember there last year on the Ronda, you standing there in your golden armor, the sun sparkling off the links," Sharon answered. "I remember feeling that whatever `happened', you would never be forgotten. That your name would live on forever over the centuries as a `symbol' of what a woman could achieve." "I am Lorraine's `Queen of Light'?" I smiled in reply. She had been told by Tais that I would be the one to "stand" for Man- kind against Princess Tara, who would "stand" for Evil itself! "Lorraine would not lie to me about something like that," she answered. I suspected, however, the "effects" of Lorr venom. That had been, anyway, what Anna had told me there in "private"!* * As this is well documented in Lorraine's book, there is no need to go further into it here. I might note, however, that Lorraine does "claim" that both Tara and I are "unkillable". That we do both have our "destinies" to fulfill when the time comes. That I will somehow "destroy" Tara in a "great flash of light" according to what the "prediction" claims. I do know that Lorraine tried to kill Tara and failed in the attempt, her 20th Century revolver failing to fire. I "tried" with a cap-lock pistol Lorraine had made, and also failed, although I feel it was due to lack of skill upon my part. Aurora had the "opportunity", but failed to do so, saying afterwards that she felt "something" hold her back! "I'm a woman of `two worlds'," I smiled, well aware of what Lorraine had written of me. Of the fact that I was Aurora's own daughter, that I had been born on a world only a spot of light up there in the night sky. Sharon nodding in reply, a look of "con- cern" now showing on her attractive well molded facial features. "And if Lynn `tells', Tara is going to know it too," Sharon breathed softly, looking down at the airplane's instruments there before her. HAD SHARON ALSO TOLD LYNN ABOUT MY TRUE PARENTAGE!!! "You didn't....," I breathed, well aware of the "political ramifications" involved if word ever got out that I wasn't "who" everyone thought I was. Of course, I doubted that many would be willing to "believe", the story being so utterly "fantastic"! "When I got that letter from your mother, Lynn saw it lying there on the table and read it before I could stop her," Sharon replied, not meeting my eyes, knowing how "such" could harm me! "I didn't know that she could read," Sharon spoke, looking ahead. Aurora had written Sharon, asking her to tell me how "sorry" she was that things had turned out as they had between us. Lynn had seen the letter as it laid there on Sharon's desk. Had read it. "I doubt if it matters much," I smiled back, reaching over, tousling her golden hair as I often do as a sign of "affection". "I think Lynn loves you," Sharon answered. "I don't think she'd try to ever harm you if she could avoid doing so." I nod- ded, well aware of the sort of tortures that Tara was famous for. No one had ever "resisted" her "inquisitions" as she called them. That had been "why" so many members of the "Free Trelandar" move- ment had either "fought to the death" or committed suicide rather than being tortured by my increasingly "infamous" evil Warlady! I have no doubt too that it explains the "hostility" many members of Sanda's "Free Trelandar Movement" still "bear" towards me yet. "She was a well educated woman before she turned to a `life of crime' and ended up a slave girl," I replied, knowing Lynn's own past. She had been quite "skillful" in opening locks and so. In getting "into" places she shouldn't have been like jewelry stores. That had been her eventual "downfall" a dozen years ago! She had taught me her "skills", taking considerable delight in my own skills at doing such things, things no other Queen could do! "She's `Trelandarian', isn't she?" Sharon replied, Lynn hav- ing been a woman "down on her luck" who had taken the "easy way". I had often wondered why she hadn't become a prostitute instead of a thief. She might have "ended up" almost another "Lara". I suppose there is never any "answer" to those sort of questions... "She was a wealthy Lady before the `conquest'," I replied. Many had "lost" everything in the war between Trelandar and Sarn. Lynn had been young, and perhaps not "too wise". The jewels that she'd stolen had been identified, and "traced" back to her. She had stood trial, been found guilty of jewel theft, and condemned to slavery. I had bought her shortly afterwards, naked upon the slave block. She had been a "good slave", one I "valued" highly. Her sensual qualities making her quite popular with my warriors. "Do you believe in slavery?" Sharon suddenly challenged me, the sunlight frequently glinting off the ocean now far below us. "It's a `better answer' than prisons were," I smiled back. Janet Rogers had been the one to introduce "penal slavery" in the 21st Century as a "solution" to the "crime problem" and the over- crowding of prisons. "Imprisonment" of criminals is "senseless" in the "economic" sense whereas "enslavement" is far "superior". "I'm not referring to `criminals', but to those who get cap- tured in warfare and end up as slaves in another country," she replied, staring out the airplane's windows at the clouds passing by. The steady regular low buzz of the engine almost unnoticed. "Maris was a spy," I smiled back. "In your time in warfare she'd have gotten `hung' or whatever why they used then to kill." "There are a lot of slave girls whose only `crime' was to be in the `wrong place' at the `wrong time'," Sharon smiled back. "Your stepmother and I once `discussed' that very topic," I smiled back. "Neither of us could think of any way to `end' it." "You have the `power' to `repeal' any law," Sharon answered. "I can also be `deposed' by a four fifth's vote," I replied. I have no doubt that it would happen to me if I attempted to out- law slavery. "Politics" is often the "art of the possible" as I see it. There is little popular "support" for such in any case. Slavery being seen as being RIGHT by the majority of the people. "If more women could be `elected' to office?" Sharon spoke. "The men of `today' are not the `wimps' of your time," I smiled, using the 20th Century idiom. Janet Rogers had not been a "feminist", although she had "supported" many of their ideals. "You think it could really `come' to that?" Sharon smiled. She had been born in a society where the "government" was nearly all-powerful. Where people could be ruled by faceless and name- less bureaucrats. They had called themselves "democratic", but the "truth" is that they were far less free than us of today are! "Only `civilized people' allow their `rights' to be taken away," I smiled back, "And those I rule are not too `civilized'". The "RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS" is considered the "Prime Right" upon all which all other "rights" are based. I am Dularnian. I was taught as a young girl that only fools allow themselves to be disarmed. That it is the right, the "duty" of any free people to overthrow any government, any ruler, who attempts to disarm them. Such might be, as Lorraine once mused, "The Philosophy of Barbar- ians", but if it is so, then I am happy to be just a "barbarian"! THE QUEEN OF SWORDS! A TALE OF ADVENTURE IN THE SECOND DARK AGE OF MAN 2566 A.D.! By Jerome B. Bigge Chapter Seven "That would doom Lynn to an awful death," I answered back. "It would rid you of Princess Tara if she's aboard," the old Warlady replied. "It is your `decision', not mine," she smiled, her dark eyes so much like Lorraine's burning straight into mine. She was a woman who reminded me much of Lorraine, I thought then. The sort of a woman who had faced the worst war had to offer one. She was old, and probably close to a hundred by now, I reflected. A touch of "gray" there in her midnight hair left little doubt. The slave girl who knelt there at one side waiting to be of serv- ice silently yawned to herself, her dark eyes heavy with sleep. "I won't sacrifice Lynn's life for Tara's," I answered her. "You are not the same `Darlanis' I once knew," she said, sipping at a cup of coffee. Her dark midnight eyes holding mine. "Or the same one who once conquered Trelandar," Lara added, glancing about the tastefully furnished living room of the manor. "I am no longer a `barbarian'," I answered them both back, recalling what Aurora had told Lorraine there on Mars about me. "Perhaps there is `hope' for you yet," Tirana smiled back. "She's important to me," I answered her. Why I didn't know. "Do you have agents in La Paz?" Tirana asked me. I nodded. La Paz was the capital of Baja. Tara's palace was just outside the city. On a hill that overlooked the city. A big castle that dated back from long before The War. A place called Triskelion. Lorraine's sister had lived there back in the 20th Century, I re- called with a smile. And Sharon did know about the place too! "I thought you weren't going to return for nearly a month," Queen Maris of Dularn smiled as she greeted me there at the dock. A few flakes of snow drifting down, the sky a cloudy iron-gray. The massive walls of her own palace there towering up behind her. It had been a long flight from Lorraine's estates here to Arsana. I felt "drained", "exhausted" by everything I'd been through now. I had slept only a few hours, my dreams unpleasant, nightmarish. "My Princess and I are going on an adventure," I smiled as Sharon stood there smiling at her side, bundled against the cold of a Dularnian winter. My breath was visible there before me. I saw the ice there on the dock. The snow shoveled off the walks. The memories flooding back of "happier" times when I was little. "You have all the luck," Maris Jord smiled back, the hood of her parka covering her golden hair. I found her much more friendly now that I didn't have Lorraine there beside me. I won- dered how Lorraine was doing there in Talon with Queen Dala Dai. "You can fly this, can't you?" I asked Sharon as she settled herself in beside me and I restarted the engine. She was after- all Lorraine's stepdaughter. A girl of the 20th Century. Also a very capable and competent Imperial Princess. If anything hap- pened to me the Empire would be in good hands. I saw her smile. "I do know something about flying," Sharon smiled back, tak- ing the controls. Waving out the window to Maris who waved back as the plane was untied and we then taxied across the harbor to once again take to the air. "Although Lorraine usually did most the flying," she added with a knowing smile as the floats lifted off the water and we were again on our way back to California. I was tired, having stopped only for fuel after leaving Trelandar. "We're putting a lot of `hours' on this," I smiled as the Pacific once again became a gray rippling pond there beneath us. Sharon at the controls nodding, giving me a smile. I knew enough to check the oil, do whatever simple maintenance that was neces- sary. I had studied the manuals, felt competent to make repairs. I am "good with my hands", a trait I suppose that is not becoming the ruler of California although I do take pride in my own skill. I am not just a "barbarian" even if I do wear a sword at my hip! "I suppose An'na can always rebuild the engine again if nec- essary," Sharon said to me, giving me a smile.* She was the daughter that I had always hoped Anna would have been. I loved her as much as if I had nursed her at my own breast. Given birth to her, carried her there inside me for those nine long months. * The plane uses a special oil used in motor vehicles of the 21st Century that considerably extends engine life, although the "life" of the engine is still not of course quite "everlasting", being in the neighborhood of about ten thousand "hours" or so, giving it a "total range" of about a million miles before a major overhaul. Lorraine says that the oil contains "SLICK 50", what- ever "that" is. In any case the airplane does "work" quite well. "I'm at a loss for what to do about Tara and Lynn," I said, explaining that the only thing I could think to do was to try to rescue Lynn from Tara's castle, the hopes of that not being very high. Especially not considering the fact that Princess Tara had such "tight" security that I'd never had much "success" with my own agents in obtaining any information as to her own activities! "You aren't planning to ask my stepmother?" Sharon breathed, her words "pregnant" with implications left "unspoken" just then! I wondered too if Sharon thought I placed too much importance on Lynn. She was, after-all, only a slave girl, one of half a dozen such wenches that wear my collars. I had "others" that I valued. To "risk" the life of free women to "rescue" a slave girl would not be "politically wise". Especially not "now" with people such as Sanda Talen around ready to "criticize" me any way she could! "If anyone `goes', I'll `go' myself," I replied, looking out the window at the gray metallic sea there far below the black Beechcraft Bonzana. What I really "needed" was Anna and her Lorr spaceship, the Starfire. Its energy bolts would make short work of that infamous Bajan's castle, I mused to myself with pleasure! "If Tara ever gets her hands on you...," Sharon breathed, her lovely azure eyes looking into mine. I nodded, remembering! The last time I'd fallen into Tara's hands I barely survived it!! And the sexual abuse I'd suffered then had cost me my uterus too! "Was `She-Ra' ever 'scared' of anything?" I asked with a smile. Sharon had nicknamed me that just after we met due to my exotic golden attire. "She-Ra" was a 20th Century cartoon hero- ine who went around fighting "evil". She had a magical sword and a flying unicorn. She was "admired" by small girls and those who like Sharon perhaps "needed" a "fantasy" figure such as "She-Ra". "I remember there last year on the Ronda, you standing there in your golden armor, the sun sparkling off the links," Sharon answered. "I remember feeling that whatever `happened', you would never be forgotten. That your name would live on forever over the centuries as a `symbol' of what a woman could achieve." "I am Lorraine's `Queen of Light'?" I smiled in reply. She had been told by Tais that I would be the one to "stand" for Man- kind against Princess Tara, who would "stand" for Evil itself! "Lorraine would not lie to me about something like that," she answered. I suspected, however, the "effects" of Lorr venom. That had been, anyway, what Anna had told me there in "private"!* * As this is well documented in Lorraine's book, there is no need to go further into it here. I might note, however, that Lorraine does "claim" that both Tara and I are "unkillable". That we do both have our "destinies" to fulfill when the time comes. That I will somehow "destroy" Tara in a "great flash of light" according to what the "prediction" claims. I do know that Lorraine tried to kill Tara and failed in the attempt, her 20th Century revolver failing to fire. I "tried" with a cap-lock pistol Lorraine had made, and also failed, although I feel it was due to lack of skill upon my part. Aurora had the "opportunity", but failed to do so, saying afterwards that she felt "something" hold her back! "I'm a woman of `two worlds'," I smiled, well aware of what Lorraine had written of me. Of the fact that I was Aurora's own daughter, that I had been born on a world only a spot of light up there in the night sky. Sharon nodding in reply, a look of "con- cern" now showing on her attractive well molded facial features. "And if Lynn `tells', Tara is going to know it too," Sharon breathed softly, looking down at the airplane's instruments there before her. HAD SHARON ALSO TOLD LYNN ABOUT MY TRUE PARENTAGE!!! "You didn't....," I breathed, well aware of the "political ramifications" involved if word ever got out that I wasn't "who" everyone thought I was. Of course, I doubted that many would be willing to "believe", the story being so utterly "fantastic"! "When I got that letter from your mother, Lynn saw it lying there on the table and read it before I could stop her," Sharon replied, not meeting my eyes, knowing how "such" could harm me! "I didn't know that she could read," Sharon spoke, looking ahead. Aurora had written Sharon, asking her to tell me how "sorry" she was that things had turned out as they had between us. Lynn had seen the letter as it laid there on Sharon's desk. Had read it. "I doubt if it matters much," I smiled back, reaching over, tousling her golden hair as I often do as a sign of "affection". "I think Lynn loves you," Sharon answered. "I don't think she'd try to ever harm you if she could avoid doing so." I nod- ded, well aware of the sort of tortures that Tara was famous for. No one had ever "resisted" her "inquisitions" as she called them. That had been "why" so many members of the "Free Trelandar" move- ment had either "fought to the death" or committed suicide rather than being tortured by my increasingly "infamous" evil Warlady! I have no doubt too that it explains the "hostility" many members of Sanda's "Free Trelandar Movement" still "bear" towards me yet. "She was a well educated woman before she turned to a `life of crime' and ended up a slave girl," I replied, knowing Lynn's own past. She had been quite "skillful" in opening locks and so. In getting "into" places she shouldn't have been like jewelry stores. That had been her eventual "downfall" a dozen years ago! She had taught me her "skills", taking considerable delight in my own skills at doing such things, things no other Queen could do! "She's `Trelandarian', isn't she?" Sharon replied, Lynn hav- ing been a woman "down on her luck" who had taken the "easy way". I had often wondered why she hadn't become a prostitute instead of a thief. She might have "ended up" almost another "Lara". I suppose there is never any "answer" to those sort of questions... "She was a wealthy Lady before the `conquest'," I replied. Many had "lost" everything in the war between Trelandar and Sarn. Lynn had been young, and perhaps not "too wise". The jewels that she'd stolen had been identified, and "traced" back to her. She had stood trial, been found guilty of jewel theft, and condemned to slavery. I had bought her shortly afterwards, naked upon the slave block. She had been a "good slave", one I "valued" highly. Her sensual qualities making her quite popular with my warriors. "Do you believe in slavery?" Sharon suddenly challenged me, the sunlight frequently glinting off the ocean now far below us. "It's a `better answer' than prisons were," I smiled back. Janet Rogers had been the one to introduce "penal slavery" in the 21st Century as a "solution" to the "crime problem" and the over- crowding of prisons. "Imprisonment" of criminals is "senseless" in the "economic" sense whereas "enslavement" is far "superior". "I'm not referring to `criminals', but to those who get cap- tured in warfare and end up as slaves in another country," she replied, staring out the airplane's windows at the clouds passing by. The steady regular low buzz of the engine almost unnoticed. "Maris was a spy," I smiled back. "In your time in warfare she'd have gotten `hung' or whatever why they used then to kill." "There are a lot of slave girls whose only `crime' was to be in the `wrong place' at the `wrong time'," Sharon smiled back. "Your stepmother and I once `discussed' that very topic," I smiled back. "Neither of us could think of any way to `end' it." "You have the `power' to `repeal' any law," Sharon answered. "I can also be `deposed' by a four fifth's vote," I replied. I have no doubt that it would happen to me if I attempted to out- law slavery. "Politics" is often the "art of the possible" as I see it. There is little popular "support" for such in any case. Slavery being seen as being RIGHT by the majority of the people. "If more women could be `elected' to office?" Sharon spoke. "The men of `today' are not the `wimps' of your time," I smiled, using the 20th Century idiom. Janet Rogers had not been a "feminist", although she had "supported" many of their ideals. "You think it could really `come' to that?" Sharon smiled. She had been born in a society where the "government" was nearly all-powerful. Where people could be ruled by faceless and name- less bureaucrats. They had called themselves "democratic", but the "truth" is that they were far less free than us of today are! "Only `civilized people' allow their `rights' to be taken away," I smiled back, "And those I rule are not too `civilized'". The "RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS" is considered the "Prime Right" upon all which all other "rights" are based. I am Dularnian. I was taught as a young girl that only fools allow themselves to be disarmed. That it is the right, the "duty" of any free people to overthrow any government, any ruler, who attempts to disarm them. Such might be, as Lorraine once mused, "The Philosophy of Barbar- ians", but if it is so, then I am happy to be just a "barbarian"! |
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