2569 A.D.!

THE DULARNIAN QUEEN

AN ADVENTURE IN THE SECOND DARK AGE OF MAN

By Jerome B. Bigge

Chapter Twenty Six

      "We'll take the Diana up to Sana," I said to Lorraine as we got back in the carriage to go back to my palace. While I knew that Tara was dead, still I'd feel better with armor plate around me, the power of the battleship's triple stream engines, its awe- some armament only matched by its own Imperial counterparts. The Orca had not been as "sucessful", perhaps because Bob had left us with his lovely Carol to return back to their own time last year.

      "Black Lady will take us there in less than an hour," the Imperial Warlady "smiled", "Assuming you aren't afraid to fly..."

      "People used to `do' this all the time back in the 20th Cen- tury," I said, turning in the seat beside Lorraine to talk to my husband and Tori, neither of whom looked too delighted at the idea of flying up into the air like this. I wasn't either, but as the Queen of Dularn I could hardly admit it, especially to one like Lorraine! As I am rather "bothered" by climbing up the mast of a ship, I wasn't looking forward too much to flying to Sana...

      "I haven't `lost' anyone yet," Lorraine "assured" me then.

      "A Warrioress may know fear, but she does not submit to it," Tori answered, her opinion of flying in an airplane rather clear as Lorraine started the engine with a roar of power! Only Tori's iron discipline keeping the guardswomen holding the plane to the dock from letting go of it as the prop blast blew at their hair.

      "I am a Warrior of the Wyomings," my Prince then said to me.

      "Then we should have no problems," Lorraine smiled in reply, telling the guardswomen there on the dock to let go of the wing.

      "It's not like sitting in a crows nest," I said to Lorraine as I looked down at the trees passing by there beneath us, seeing the world as only birds saw it. Lorraine was following the coast line, the huts of fishermen and others visible here and there be- neath us through the trees. With something like this one could travel almost anywhere, I thought to myself, wishing I had "one"!

      "You of the past had great `magic'," Prince Paul Blue Sky said as he looked about. Tori sitting there looking straight ahead, obviously "uncomfortable" by this, but not wishing to show it before us. I expected that Diane would have enjoyed it more.

      "We are coming up to where the North Star was attacked,," I said to Lorraine, the Warlady nodding, bringing the plane down to close off the water, glancing about, and then coming about in a great circle only a hundred feet over the trees below us. A tiny hut there hidden among the trees spoke of some poor family or more likely a recluse making a living as best he could out here. *****************************************************************

      Princess Tara felt a wave of terror go through her at the sound of the airplane's engine, the girl jerking up, the look on her face leaving the Princess no doubts that the girl "suspected" the "truth" as to "who" had caused her terrible burns. "Flee," she croaked at the girl, aware of what her fate would be if it became known that she had helped save the life of a woman who was now "hunted" by all the forces of an entire Galactic civiliza- tion. Tara having "known" before that the Priestesses of Lys were "more" than what most people believed of them. The "ease" at which they had vanquished the Lorr back to Mars left no doubt.

      "What is it?" the girl asked. She knew what "Tarls" were, but this was nothing like anything her mother had ever told her about. This "buzzing" black thing that didn't flap its wings, but yet still flew through the air like some great bird. A thing of "legend", from a time now mostly "myth" and "legend" to most.

      "Is it black, with things hanging down beneath it?" Tara croaked, familiar with the appearance of Lorraine's Black Lady.

      "It is," the girl answered, moving away now from the window.

      "She is Lorraine, the Imperial Warlady," Tara answered her. *****************************************************************

      "Hard to tell what way the currents flow around here," the Imperial Warlady said to me as we flew low over the area in ques- tion. "It's possible that Tara's body washed up around here and someone buried it without ever knowing `who' she was," she added.

      "At least she's `gone'," I replied, remembering how she had attacked the North Star almost without warning. I suspected that she had desired my own death, perhaps for killing Darl Jord, who had been a valued "lieutenant" of hers here in the North from the papers that I'd found after his death that left no doubts of it.

      "No doubt to sit at the side of the EVIL ONE as his con- sort," Lorraine smiled back. I didn't think even Princess Tara would find the EVIL ONE a very delightful "companion" after what I'd "seen" of the Master of Hell in the pits beneath my palace... "Too many rocks around to make a landing here either," she added. The trees growing right down to the water here left no shore to land on either, I noted, the Queen of Trelandar then pushing the throttle forward as she headed once again towards Sana, our des- tination. I wondered if Tara's last remains perhaps now laid buried somewhere underneath some tree, in some unmarked grave. I thought it might be "fitting" for one so evil as she had been...

      "I remember seeing what appeared to be a woman, her clothing in flames, leap from the ship just before it exploded," my Prince said as he sat there in the rear seat of the airplane with Tori.

      "Then she would have drowned in the cold water," Tori said.

      "In any case I think we can say she won't be giving any of us any more trouble now, at least not in this life," I commented.

      "Sana," Lorraine smiled, flying over the village. We had seen a couple fishing boats, and a quite small craft sailing along the coastline in this direction. This last shortly after Lorraine had circled the little hut there on that rocky point jutting out into the strait a half mile or a bit less from where Tara's ship had been destroyed by the Priestesses of Lys' craft.

      "You may not be exactly `welcome' here," I pointed out. It had been Lorraine's "squadron" back in 519 that had burned Sana. True, she had not been the one to give the order, but the ships had been hers, and it had been her second in command, Princess Sela Dai, who had been the one actually responsible for the deed!

      "Compared to `what' others would have done, I think Sana got off quite `easy'," Lorraine smiled back, now circling the harbor. "The attacks you led on my estate took far more lives," she said.

      "I welcome you to Sana," my father the mayor said to Lor- raine as the Imperial Warlady stepped out of her airplane after me. I was struck then as I had before how much that Lorraine re- sembled my late step mother in her build, and her own mannerisms. Paul now helping Tori, the captain of my guardswomen now exiting the airplane to stand on the dock behind me. Like Lorraine Marta had been an extremely "competent" woman, one who had been a great military commander, who had seen battle, had seen decks run with blood, seen death there all about her, Now she was gone, her life suddenly snuffed out by the weaponry of an evil genius who hopefully would kill no more now. I was glad that for a few hours we had been "close". That I had given her my "trust" in a situation where I would have been justified in refusing to do so!

      "You have my sympathy in the loss of your wife," she smiled. "I am only sorry that it took so long to rid our world of Tara." It was a nice day, the breeze off the ocean however rather chill.

      "She was of the Warrioresses, and she died as one," he said. I recalled his words when he had held her dead body in his arms. I think Marta would have preferred it that way rather than dying in bed of old age, crippled up with arthritis, unable to take care of herself. She was a proud woman, one who took pride in the fact that she could still "manage" despite the fact that her right leg had been severed many years before just below the knee.

      "We have lived lives that others could only envy," she said.

      "We have removed the bodies," the Scribe said, the derelict having been "searched" from stem to stern for anything of value, these items having been gathered together for shipment to Arsana. At the moment the interior of the stern cabin was being carefully gone over for any clues that might be helpful later on in things.

      "The vessel is similar in some aspects to Chinese junks, al- though there may be differences," Lorraine spoke, standing there. "What we need is maps, some hint as to how they viewed their world. We know that they would be worshipers of LYS, but also it is possible that they would have had other gods too than Her. Also what was the average size of men who crewed this?" Lorraine then asked, her awesome mind now hard at work as she stood there.

      "There is evidence that they were smaller than we are," he said, looking up at the Warlady as he sat there in the stern ca- bin of the derelict. A woman nearby carefully studying a lamp...

      "They could be Korean, Chinese, or Japanese," Lorraine said. "These are all parts of the continent of Asia itself," she mused. "There are also other nations,or at least there were in my time who would fit the racial stereotypes that you found aboard here. The cargo of the vessel indicates that this was a trading ship of some sort, and that they were returning to their homeland when the storm struck and drove them out into the Pacific to their deaths." The man there staring at Lorraine with a bit of awe...

      "Is there any chance that we will be able to read their own writing?" my husband then ventured, looking about the stern cabin that we'd seen only once before, and then inhabited by the dead.

      "The Priestesses of Lys certainly can, but I'm doubtful that they will prove cooperative in a matter like this," she answered. "The easiest way to resolve this would be to send a ship to their own lands, assuming that the Priestesses will allow us to do so."

      "And I assume that you would like to do so?" Tori ventured.

      "I have no doubt that it could be done," Lorraine smiled.

      "What type of ship would you use?" I asked the Warlady.

      "One such as your North Star would be ideal," she smiled.

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