The Twilight Lord

by Bertrice Small

  “Lara of Hetar is wife to Magnus Hauk and Domina over Terah,” the Munin lord said. “She is allied with and almost worshiped by the eight Outland clan families. Her mother is the most powerful of all the faerie queens. Kaliq of the Shadow Princes is her mentor. Even Hetar’s emperor fears her. Do you mean to steal her, Twilight Lord? She will not come willingly to you. You had best examine your Book of Rule again.”

  “The book is clear. Lara is to be the mother of the next Twilight Lord. And I know she will not come willingly. That is why I need you to steal her memories and store them in my jar. I will ask you to restore certain of those memories as she comes to trust me. But one memory I would bid you leave her—her memory of how much she enjoys pleasures, for it is not my intent to frighten her when we mate.”

  “Then, when we have taken her memories, you will steal her and bring her here to your castle of Kolbyr,” the Munin lord said slowly. “Her disappearance will cause an uproar throughout both Terah and Hetar, though for different reasons. A search will be mounted and the Shadow Princes will become involved. And Ilona will not sit by quietly with her daughter missing. There must be no chance of them discovering that we have been involved in your treachery, Twilight Lord. Our powers are small compared to yours and those whom you will go up against. Sooner or later it will be discovered that you have stolen the faerie woman. Magnus Hauk will not restrain himself if you mate with his beloved wife to gain a son. If we agree to help you, Twilight Lord, you must first build us our refuge, for when we have done your bidding we will hide ourselves away there until the matter is finally settled between the Dark Land, Terah and Hetar. If.”

  “My powers can build you your castle in seven days’ time,” Kol told them.

  An excited murmur arose again from the cluster of Munin as the Munin lord turned back to them to discuss the matter. Some were eager to accept the Twilight Lord’s offer. Others considered his plan too dangerous and worried about being blamed publicly for their involvement in Kol’s perfidy. But the offer of a castle built for them in a secret valley far from all, with their own vault in which to hoard the memories they stole, was too tempting for them to resist. Even if their participation in Kol’s plan was finally discovered, no one would be able to find them. Those belonging to Hetar and Terah did not venture into the Dark Lands. Not even the magic folk.

  “Then we are agreed,” the Munin lord said to his companions in their own tongue.

  “We are,” they murmured back.

  The Munin lord turned to Kol. “Very well, Twilight Lord. Build us our home. We will give you the specifications as to what will suit us. When it is done you will tell us where to find Lara and then we will do your bidding. But not before.”

  “I shall start tomorrow,” Kol told them. “When it is finished and you have approved it, we will speak again and I will tell you how and when.” He stood up and bowed from his waist.

  “You have but to call us when you are ready,” the Munin lord said, and then the Munin faded away before the Twilight Lord’s dark eyes. “You may come out now,” he said to his chancellor and Alfrigg crept from behind the throne. “You heard it all?”

  “It is a bold plan, my lord,” Alfrigg answered him. “How clever of you to know what it was that the Munin wanted. And the Penumbras is a perfect spot for them.”

  “Aye,” Kol said, a small smile touching his lips. “And as they have said, Alfrigg, my power is greater than theirs. Once they have done my bidding, once they have settled in my kingdom, the Munin are mine forever. No longer will they be able to wander at will. I will cast a spell on the valley of Penumbras, so they will not be able to leave it without my authority.” He chuckled darkly. “How simple they are. Their weakness is their desire for their own home. That is the trick, Alfrigg, when dealing with others. You learn their deepest desire, and then you use it against them.”

  The old dwarf looked up admiringly at his master. “Your wisdom is great, my lord,” he said. “You will surely be the greatest of the Twilight Lords.”

  Kol smiled at his chancellor’s words and walked across the chamber to stand between the black marble pillars so he might look out over his kingdom. The reddish sky was now turning purple and black. Bolts of silver lightning leapt from cloud to cloud; his ears caught the distant growl of thunder. Kolbyr, his castle, was built into the highest mountain of the Dark Lands. From its turrets and colonnaded porches you could see nothing but mountains and sky. But beyond those mountains lay Terah and Hetar. Rich kingdoms ripe for the taking. And he would master them all.

  Hetar would be first, for its emperor, Gaius Prospero, had already been caught by the lure of the dark and the power it could offer him. But he was a fat simpleton who thought himself more clever than anyone else and who sought only more power, more pleasures and more wealth. I will replace him, Kol decided. He cannot be trusted. But the man known as the emperor’s right hand, Jonah, was a different thing altogether. His heart was already dark, but he was very intelligent. Though he, too, sought power, he knew well how to serve a strong master. He could be content as my governor, Kol thought. And he is clever. Clever enough to have made Gaius Prospero’s number one wife, Vilia, his mistress without that pompous little man knowing. Kol chuckled. Aye, Jonah would be his governor in Hetar. The Forest Lords, the Coastal Kings and the Midlands would fall into line. Only the Shadow Princes could not be conquered, but the Shadow Princes were not known to be aggressive. Left to themselves they were unlikely to thwart his plans for conquest, for they did not involve themselves willingly with others.

  Kol watched as the rain began to pour down in thick gray sheets of water. His thoughts turned back to the faerie woman and he drew a deep breath to calm his beating heart. He had already built a luxurious and large apartment to house her and a wardrobe filled with silks and gauzes and furs. She would have views of the mountains from three sides of her rooms. Lara would lack for nothing while in his care. And he would care for her as no man ever had. His chancellor might have little use for women but Kol appreciated their beauty and their charm.

  I am already in love with her, he thought. Ever since the Book of Rule had revealed her to him, no day passed that he did not use the reflecting bowl to observe her. She fascinated him with her beauty and manner. He particularly enjoyed watching her with the children she had already borne. It was obvious that she was a good mother. He felt no guilt or shame at robbing those children of their mother. She did not belong to them. She belonged to him. He turned and walked back to the bowl, then waved a graceful hand over it so he might see her once more.

  LARA SHIVERED suddenly.

  “What is it?” Noss asked her. “Are you all right? You have suddenly gone quite pale, Lara. Are you cold?”

  “Nay, but I just had the oddest feeling—as if someone was secretly looking at me. I have had it now and again over this last year. It only lasts a moment or two.” She shrugged her shoulders as if to shake off the sensation. “My faerie senses grow stronger. It is, I suspect, nothing more than that,” she told Noss with a chuckle.

  “The summer is almost over,” Noss remarked, “and soon it will be time for the Gathering. I usually look forward to it, but this year I am not. You will leave us after the Gathering concludes. And traveling with a new infant won’t be easy for me.”

  “No, it won’t be,” Lara agreed. “I keeping forgetting that your daughter will be born shortly. If my son is right and it is a daughter.”

  “Dillon is correct,” Noss said quietly. “When he makes a pronouncement like that he is never wrong, though he is yet a child himself.”

  “I will be glad to have the opportunity to observe him more,” Lara said. “I had not planned to send him to Kaliq until he was twelve but if his powers are strengthening I may have to change my mind. Don’t tell him I said so,” Lara finished with a small laugh. “He is so anxious to go.”

  “I suspect he wants to be someplace where his talents are not looked upon with suspicion,” Noss remarked. “There are always those who wi
ll be frightened of magic, and often he is thought of as more your son than Vartan’s.”

  Lara sighed. “If Vartan were still alive that would not be so.”

  “I know,” Noss concurred. “It is sad, but there it is and we cannot change it.”

  “I suppose not,” Lara agreed. “Has Bera said anything since we sent Cam away with Sholeh? And how is the woman we chose doing?”

  “I don’t think Bera realizes how many days have passed since the boy left,” Noss said. “Pakwa does well with her. Bera enjoys her company and she is a marvelous cook. I actually think Bera is putting on a bit of weight. She seems less intense with Cam gone.”

  “What a pity we cannot keep Cam from her entirely,” Lara murmured. “I hope Pakwa will remain when he returns. If Cam decides he doesn’t want her in Bera’s house he will make it difficult for her to stay.”

  “Pakwa has been warned. She will concentrate all her efforts upon Bera and ignore the boy. He will have his lessons to concentrate upon in the Icy Season,” Noss remarked. “And he will go to Sholeh again next year. Or perhaps to Rendor or Roan.”

  “Don’t allow him to become close friends with anyone,” Lara advised. “He must make no allies among the clan families.”

  “Lara, he is just a child,” Noss said softly.

  “He will not always be a child and Bera has put it in his head, you may be certain, that he should one day be lord of the Fiacre. Liam will live long, Noss. I know it. But you do not want Cam causing trouble among the Fiacre as your husband grows older.”

  Noss nodded reluctantly. “I cannot help but feel if we had been raising Cam it would have been different,” she said.

  Lara shook her head. “Nay, there is wickedness in him,” she replied. “He will need to be kept under control all his life.”

  NOSS GAVE BIRTH to her daughter in very late summer. Mildri was a pretty baby and gentle of temperament. The time of the Gathering was drawing near. Magnus Hauk would join Lara and the clan families as he had done every year since they had come to the New Outlands. It was at the Gathering that they rendered him their tribute as their overlord. Lara had sent a faerie post to her husband telling him that Dillon and Anoush would be coming home with them. The Dominus wrote back that his sister, Sirvat, had come to help. She was already preparing rooms for the children despite the fact she was great with a second child to be born in late autumn.

  Anoush had grown closer to her mother now that she was not in Cam or Bera’s company. Having learned from Dillon of Anoush’s proclivities for plants, Lara had started a small herb garden with her daughter. They would transplant Anoush’s plants to a new garden in Terah, Lara promised. She also taught the little girl small facts such as lavender being an excellent agent for those troubled by sleeplessness and chamomile tea being good for the nerves. One day she took the child up on Dasras with her. They traveled to the Obscura, where they watched the sea creatures playing in the waves. Anoush was fascinated by it all. The angry look had left her eyes, to Lara’s relief.

  Then, on a perfect late-summer’s night, Lara and her two children lay upon a gentle hillock almost all of the evening and watched the flying stars streaking across the black skies before the moonrise. The earth beneath them smelled green and fresh with the early dew. Then with Dillon by her side Lara walked home carrying Anoush, who had fallen asleep.

  “It was a perfect magical moment,” Dillon told his mother. “Why do the stars fly, Mother? But for this night they seem to be still in the heavens.”

  “I don’t know,” Lara admitted. “That is a question we must ask Kaliq when we see him again, my son.”

  “And when will that be?” Dillon wanted to know.

  Lara laughed. “Oh, how you long to go to the Shadow Princes!” she teased. “But this will be the first time you have lived with me in several years. Let me have a little time with you, Dillon. I am certain Kaliq would agree with that.”

  “You grown folk, magical or mortal, all stick together,” Dillon complained.

  “’Tis the only way we can survive our young long enough to teach them,” Lara told him with a chuckle.

  They entered the lord’s house, then the servant who had waited up for them barred the doors. Reaching the chamber she shared with her children each time she visited, Lara lay Anoush down in her bed with Zagiri, who was already sleeping, and drew the coverlet over them. She kissed her daughters and then she kissed her son who had already climbed into his own bed.

  “Good night, Dillon. Sleep well.”

  “I don’t know if I can,” Dillon replied. “It was such a wonderful evening, Mother.”

  Lara ruffled his hair. “You will sleep,” she told him. Then she lay down in her own bed to rest. It had been a perfect summer. In another two weeks, Magnus would join them and they would all go to the Gathering together. She was anxious to see the other clan lords and learn how they were now faring after several years in the New Outlands. Liam said that everyone was content, but she needed to hear it from their own lips. When she had arrived two months ago, the fields below her had certainly looked fertile and green. And the horses belonging to the Aghy had looked fat. But what of the others? Were Rendor’s sheep thriving? Were the dwarfs in the Emerald Mountains still getting along with the Piaras and the Tormod? Having brought them all here she would always worry about them, Lara thought. But then her eyes began to droop and she fell into a contented sleep.

  In the morning when Dillon awoke, he lay quietly considering the odd dream he had had in the night. It had seemed so very real, yet he was certain he had been sleeping. Yawning and stretching, he saw that his mother was already up. He knew she enjoyed viewing the sunrise and was usually awake before her children. Turning his head, Dillon noted his sisters were still sleeping. He smiled at them. They were both his mother’s daughters, and yet they were so very different. Zagiri was adventurous and absolutely sure of herself, which probably came from having a father in her life. Anoush, on the other hand was cautious and defensive, having lost her father before she ever knew him.

  Dillon remembered Vartan well and he made it a point to tell Anoush often of how the great Outland lord had taken her up on his saddle and ridden about his meadows with her. He told his sister of how their father had adored his little girl, that he loved both his children with all of his heart. But unfortunately Cam and Bera had told Anoush a different tale of Vartan and confused her. Dillon had to admit that he was glad Cam had been sent away this summer. He was glad that they were returning with Lara to her castle on the Terahn coast. Sadly, without her father, the New Outlands were not good for Anoush. She needed to begin anew. She needed both a mother and a father. Dillon knew that Magnus would love them because they were Lara’s children. The Dominus would treat them well.

  Dillon arose from his bed and dressed himself. His sisters would awaken soon. He filled the chamber ewer with water and quickly washed his face and hands. He scrubbed his teeth with a small brush dipped in fine pumice stone that his mother had taught him to use. After rinsing his mouth, he ran his fingers through his dark locks, then emptied the little basin and refilled it for his sisters. The sun was just edging over the horizon. If he was quick he could join his mother.

  But he could not find Lara outside and while he pushed back thoughts of his dream he began to wonder if it had been real after all. He had been awakened by what sounded like whispering, yet he could not make out the words. Turning over, he saw a cluster of filmy, almost transparent beings, gray-white in color, hovering over his mother. They drew gauzy golden strands from her head, which one of them wrapped carefully about a large spool. Then the creatures, whatever they were, disappeared into the air itself. Dillon blinked with surprise and when he looked again, his mother was no longer in her bed. I am dreaming, he thought, and fell back asleep. But had he been dreaming? It was so very, very odd. It would have had to be magic. He was aware there were magical beings in their world other than his mother, but Dillon knew instinctively that none of her associates would have be
en involved with what he had seen in the night. Perhaps Lara left because some emergency had called her. But she would not have done so without telling someone. Dillon made his way back to Liam’s hall from the hillock where he had gone to watch the sunrise with Lara.

  Entering through the kitchen door he bid the servants a good morning, and smiling took the thick slice of freshly baked bread the cook offered him. After a time, Noss came into the kitchens, Mildri in a woven sling about her mother’s body.

  Noss sat down wearily. “Good morning,” she said.

  Dillon smiled at his foster mother. “Has Mildri not yet fathomed the difference between night and day, dear Noss?” He touched the baby’s reddish head with a gentle finger. “She is such a pretty thing. She will be a great beauty one day and will bring a good bride price to you and Liam.”

  Noss smiled weakly. “She is also very stubborn,” she said. “The boys were so easy compared to this longed-for daughter of mine.”

  “I cannot find my mother,” Dillon replied casually. Please, he thought silently, let Noss say she knows where my mother is. Please let it have been only a strange dream.

  “Did she not go out to watch the sunrise as always?” Noss responded.

  “She was gone when I awoke and she was not on the hill when I got there. I have not seen her since we went to bed last night. Well, that wasn’t entirely true, but he couldn’t believe what he had seen was real.

  “Oh, she is about somewhere,” Noss answered him. “Perhaps she took Dasras and went to visit Rendor.”

  “But she never said anything,” Dillon persisted. “She would have told us if she was going off somewhere.”

  “Then she hasn’t gone off,” Noss told him, then turned her attention to Mildri who was now whimpering and demanding to nurse.

  Dillon got up and left the kitchens. He headed out into the meadow where he knew Dasras would be with his mate, Sakira, and their foal, Feroz. Reaching the greensward he immediately saw his mother’s stallion and went to him. Politely, for manners were most important to horses, he bid Dasras and his family a good morning. Then he told the great stallion that his mother was gone and he could not find her.