“Then why does she fight him?” Cadarn wanted to know. “She is but a delicate woman.”
Kaliq laughed aloud. “She is a great swordswoman and a great warrior. If you had accepted your own history instead of rewriting it to suit your narrow ideology, my lord Dominus, you would know that. Now watch her, and learn that evil can be defeated.”
The remaining wedding guests had unconsciously moved back to form an open space in which the two combatants now slowly circled each other. Lara’s eyes never left her opponent as she waited for him to make his next move. Unnerved by her calm, Kolgrim flailed out with Jasha, his blow once again blocked by Andraste.
In reply the Twilight Lord began to rain blows with his sword upon his mother’s sword, but she blocked him again and again.
Lara deliberately kept her mind a blank. She was a consummate warrior, and always had been. She would give Kol’s son a lesson he would not soon forget. Andraste was quivering within her grip to do battle. She raised the weapon, and began to fight him seriously, each blow deliberately and carefully planned, for it was she and not Kolgrim who was in charge of this game. Metal clanged on metal as they fought. Kolgrim was soon winded as Lara parried and thrust, parried and thrust, wearing him down.
Then Andraste began to sing in her deep dark voice.
15
THE CROWD OF HETARIANS AND TERAHNS HAD watched and howled excitedly during the match between the two combatants. Now they grew suddenly silent as Kolgrim dropped the damaged sword, and his hand reached out to touch the small wound that Lara had given him on his other arm. Seeing his fingers covered in his own blood, he looked horrified. He looked up at Lara.
“Kinsman, let me have my physician attend to your wound,” Cadarn said.
“Nay, come back with me to Hetar, and my physician will see to it,” Palben insisted while his two wives nodded vigorously in unison.
With a smothered curse Kolgrim bent to pick up the pommel of the now-destroyed Jasha. Then he disappeared from their sight in a clap of black thunder. The remaining guests were suddenly very silent.
“Those of you from Hetar,” Lara said in a commanding voice, “go quickly through the corridor for we are going to close it up. Palben, remain. We will see you home safely. The rest of you go now!” She returned Andraste to her scabbard.
The Hetarians ran for the exit, and when the last of them had dashed through, Kaliq closed the Golden tunnel between Hetar and Terah. It would never open again.
“Send the rest of your guests home, Cadarn,” Lara told him.
The Dominus did not question her. “I thank you all for coming this day,” he said to those remaining, “but it is past time for you to return to your homes.”
“Come with me now to Magnus Hauk’s library,” Lara said to the two rulers, and with Kaliq by her side she made her way back into the castle down familiar hallways to the chamber she sought. Entering it, she saw the room was exactly as it had been when her Terahn husband had been living. It was obvious that no one used the room. A memorial to Magnus but little more, she thought wryly. “Sit down,” she told Cadarn and Palben and they did so without question. She could see the grudging respect in their eyes, and realized she should have never relinquished her control over her mortal family to mortals. They were but the weaker for it.
“Listen to me, and listen well,” Lara began. “It is unlikely that after today you will ever see me again. All the magic that is good has departed your world. The darkness is upon you. You and your peoples are now in the hands of the Twilight Lord. You will find him a cruel master, but you have brought this upon yourselves by refusing to change your ways, by not learning from your history, but rather rewriting it to suit your own purposes and actions.
“You are a society totally involved with yourselves, your acquisitions, your pleasures, all of it to the detriment of others not as fortunate. Once Hetar offered opportunity to those who strived to better themselves. You no longer offer those chances to your citizens. You have made them weak by feeding, housing and entertaining them without asking anything in return. They have no education, no skills. They are no better than mindless slaves! And you have done this, not out of kindness, but to maintain your own positions, retain your ridiculous wealth and seek endless pleasures. May the Celestial Actuary help you now for the magic world will not.
“And you, Terah, once an idyllic land of farmers and artisans. A land with the kindness to offer refuge to a displaced people. There was a reason the ships of the Coastal Kings were not allowed within sight of your shores. It was to keep Terah safe and peaceful. But like the children you are, you were easily tempted, and now your coastal villages boast drunkards and cheap imitations of Hetar’s Pleasure Women.
“I watched as my own son took away the small voice that Magnus Hauk had given to his people in the form of a High Council, and was shouted down when I protested it. I should have exerted my authority over Terah then, but I did not wish to undermine my son. Civil war, I believed, would have been worse. I was wrong. You have returned Terah to an age before Usi. Now you will be at the mercy of Usi’s descendant, and the child he has sired on another of Usi’s descendants will bring even greater misery upon you all.”
Cadarn and Palben could barely comprehend what she was telling them. Why was she so angry, and yet so sad? There was nothing wrong at all with either Hetar or Terah.
“You don’t believe me,” Lara said, shaking her head wearily. “Then so be it, for I can do no more for you. But when the days ahead grow darker and darker, when the time comes when you think you can bear no more, and the darkness weighs upon you, remember this one thing. Even in the darkest night there is a light somewhere. And the knowledge of that light will give you hope.” She walked over to Palben and kissed his cheek. “Farewell, son of Palben, and grandson of my beloved daughter Zagiri. Go home to Hetar now.” And he disappeared from their sight.
Lara turned to Cadarn. “I will tell you this. Tonight Yamka will conceive a son for Terah. But her second child will be a daughter. Vaclar is not that girl’s father. Kolgrim has seeded Yamka with a future seed that will not bloom until after your natural grandson is born. He has done the same thing to Divsha. Her first child will be Palben’s son, but her second will be Kolgrim’s daughter.
“Do not allow either of these grandchildren to be matched with Divsha’s children. If you do, there is no hope for this world. Warn Vaclar of this, and tell him the day will come when he must resist his wife’s demands for these marriages. Both Yamka and Divsha have been enchanted in order to serve Kolgrim’s purposes. If you believe nothing else I have said to you, believe this, Cadarn.” She bent and kissed his cheek. “Remember me, son of Amhar, grandson of Taj, great-grandson of Magnus Hauk and his faerie wife, Lara, daughter of Swiftsword.”
Lara then reached out to take Kaliq’s hand. He drew her to his side, flung his snowy white cloak about her, and they disappeared before the amazed eyes of Dominus Cadarn, who felt a sudden sadness, and worse, an emptiness. Standing up, he walked to the large windows of the chamber and looked out on the dark night sky. He could see the great star called Belmair blazing in the Cosmos. Some said it was another world, but of course that was ridiculous. Suddenly Belmair twinkled very distinctly not once, but twice. He had never seen such a thing but of course it had been a trick of his eyes for it had been a very long day, and he was extremely tired.
KALIQ HAD QUICKLY transported them away from Terah to Belmair. Kolgrim’s anger was increasing his dark powers, and the Shadow Prince knew if they waited longer it would have been difficult for them to escape the pull of the darkness. He did not bring them immediately to the castle of King Dillon, their son. Instead, he had brought them to a meadow of horses. It was early evening. The air was soft with just a hint of rain in it although in the
