“From what I saw of this emperor he is a careful man, Lara,” Magnus said. “By emptying the old Outlands of everything, and sealing up the mines, all he thought to gain is gone. There were no easy pickings for Hetar. No new supply of slaves. Gaius Prospero will have to spend some of his own ill-gotten gains to keep the peace and resettle the old Outlands. He will be too busy maintaining his own position to be bothered with us.”
“Perhaps in the short term, but not the long,” Lara answered. “Terah must begin to build an army so that when the time comes we can protect ourselves, and our lands.”
“An army?” he exclaimed. “We have never had an army. We have never needed one. If I tell our people we need one now I will frighten them.”
“Better they be frightened now when we are safe, and can overcome that fear while we raise a force to protect us in the future from any foreign incursion into Terah,” Lara responded. “Magnus, it is not just Hetar. The day I came to the new Outlands Dasras and I went for a ride. He wanted me to see the sea creatures in the Obscura, and I did. But I saw something else as well. The desert of the Shadow Princes lies across the sea, and curves around the water to the south. But to the north is yet another land. It is neither Terah nor Hetar. As Hetar knew nothing of us, there is a land of which neither of us has any knowledge. We are vulnerable from at least two sides.
“Because Terah has never been approached by foreigners does not mean we will not be in the future. The land I saw looked dark, Magnus. The sorcerer Usi represented true evil, my husband. From where did he learn that evil? Indeed, from where did Usi originate? The magic that grows within me can only protect Terah to a small extent. Terah must learn to protect itself in future. Call the headmen from the fjord villages to our castle, and tell them what we know. Then tell them we must raise a military force, and sustain it at their expense for the day when Hetar, or the lords of the dark land, will come upon us for wickedness’ sake,” Lara pleaded.
“I must think on it,” he told her.
Lara bowed her head with acceptance of his words. Once again she was surprised by the nature of men. Her counsel was good, but he would not take it immediately. He would consider it, and then he would argue the point with her once or twice. Then if she were clever, and could manage to keep from shrieking at him for being so stubborn, he would take her advice, and make it his own. What was the matter with men that they could not accept a woman’s word in serious matters such as this? Her hand went to the crystal star between her breasts. Is there time? she asked Ethne.
There is some, Ethne replied.
“It is good to be home,” the Dominus said.
“Aye, it is,” Lara agreed. They had ridden Dasras together over the plain, and then the mountains, leaving when the great torch of the Gathering had been extinguished that last morning. She had bid Dillon farewell, hugging her son to her chest, forcing back the tears that threatened to overwhelm her. Noss had brought Anoush to say goodbye, but Anoush was at that age when she was shy of strangers. She hid her small heart-shaped face in Noss’s sturdy shoulder. “Take care of them,” Lara said quietly, her hand caressing Anoush’s hair.
“I will,” Noss promised. “Lara, if I should need you…” her voice ceased, but her eyes begged.
“Call my name,” Lara told her. “I will hear you, Noss.”
The Dominus had, along with his wife, bid farewell to each of the clan lords. Roan of the Aghy, however, had made him jealous as Kaliq did, by flirting with Lara as he always did, a final time. Magnus Hauk glowered darkly at the horse lord who pretended not even to notice.
“Take care of your stallion,” Roan said as they mounted Dasras.
“Which one?” Lara teased back, and Dasras chortled.
Roan just grinned at her, and then with a wave turned to join his own people.
As Dasras galloped off, and then soared into the skies above the new Outlands Magnus Hauk seethed angrily.
“I am surprised Vartan did not slay him,” the Dominus said. “Or has he only begun flirting with you of late?”
“He has always done so,” Lara said calmly. “When Vartan died I think he hoped to convince me to be his wife. Roan is amusing, Magnus, and nothing more.”
“Doesn’t he have a wife of his own? A man that age should have a wife,” the Dominus said irritably. So Roan had wanted Lara for his own? Bastard!
“He has several wives,” Lara informed her spouse. “Like a stallion no one mare can satisfy him,” she said with a chuckle.
“And he wanted you, as well?” Magnus Hauk was outraged.
“Stallions always long for the prettiest mares, is that not so, Dasras?”
“Indeed, Mistress, it is,” the big horse replied.
The Dominus was struck silent, and remained so for some time. Finally they reached the castle on the fjord known as the Dominus’s Fjord. Dasras’s hooves touched down in his stableyard, and Jason, his personal groom, ran forth.
“Welcome home, my lord Dominus, my lady Domina. Welcome home, Dasras!” Jason greeted them, taking the stallion’s bridle.
Magnus Hauk leaped from the horse’s back, and lifted his wife down. “Thank you, Jason. See Dasras is well taken care of, if you will.”
“He would tell me if I didn’t take care of him properly,” Jason said with a grin.
“Harumpp!” the stallion responded as the boy led him off.
Lara was eager for a bath and said so as they walked to their apartments. “Bathing is not an option at the Gathering,” she observed with a smile. “I have become used to this more civilized way of living.”
“I have been thinking about what you said,” he told her.
“About what?” Lara pretended it hadn’t been on her mind at all.
“A military force for Terah. We cannot wait until Hetar pays us a visit now, can we? Better to be ready. And I am curious about this dark land you saw to the north. Do you think it is inhabited?”
“Probably, but it is best we not investigate it, Magnus. We do not wish to attract attention. If Usi gained his powers from whoever is there we are better off avoiding the dark land for now. In time I will investigate that place.”
“If you wish to remain unknown you are better served not riding that great golden stallion with his flapping white wings into the region,” the Dominus said.
“Ahh, husband, there is still much you have to learn about me,” Lara told him.
“What?” he demanded to know.
“In time, Magnus,” she promised him.
“Why not now?” he asked her. They stood at the entrance to their apartments.
“You are not ready,” she answered simply. She stepped into the entry chamber, and greeted the serving woman who came forth smiling her welcome. “Ahh, Mila, your Domina wishes a bath.” Turning she kissed her husband lightly on his lips. “Do you want a bath, Magnus?” she purred at him, and her hand caressed his face.
All other thoughts fled him as she had anticipated. They had not been together as man and wife in several weeks now, and he was hungry for her. “Will you give me a child, my faerie wife?” he asked her, his arm wrapped about her waist.
“Have I not promised you that I will in time?” she answered him.
“That is not an answer,” he told her quietly.
“It is all the answer I can give you, Magnus. There are for now matters of greater importance to Terah than a child,” Lara said.
“An heir of my body and blood is paramount to Terah. You are a good mother, Lara. I saw you with your children, Dillon in particular, but even the shy little Anoush who knows not who you are. Your love for that wee girly surmounts your own need for your daughter, my faerie love. Your sacrifice is magnificent,” he told her.
“Because of my destiny I have deserted my daughter even as my own mother deserted me, Magnus. My sacrifice is a selfish one for all the nobility of my destiny,” Lara said bitterly. “I was happy with Vartan, with our children. And then with his murder, my destiny called once again. I will always wonde
r if I had not stayed with him, let him make me his wife, if he might not be alive today. He was a great leader of his people, and they needed him. I am happier with you, my love, than I have ever been. But when my destiny calls again and I must leave you behind, I do not want to leave another child as well. There are perilous times coming, Magnus. I sense it.”
“Vartan’s destiny was to be your mate for a time, to father Dillon who is a unique boy, and Anoush, and finally to die as he did,” the Dominus replied. “But I am your soul mate, your life mate, Lara, my faerie wife. If there are perilous times coming we will face them together, surmount them together. This I promise you. Now go and have your bath. I will join you shortly.” Then he turned and left her while he hurried off to find Corrado.
Reaching the apartments where his sister resided with her husband he was greeted most effusively by Sirvat, who was beginning to show her belly.
“You are home!” Sirvat flung her arms about his neck, and kissed her brother.
Magnus Hauk laughed. “Aye, and it was a grand adventure. These clan family folk are good people, little sister. I like them, except perhaps for the lord of the Aghy who enjoys flirting with Lara, and has several wives nonetheless.”
Sirvat laughed. “Is he handsome?” she asked. “You would be jealous of an ugly man, Brother.” Sirvat had been finally told of the clan families, and was fascinated.
The Dominus nodded. “Red hair, muscles and flashing black eyes,” he said.
“Ohh, sounds fascinating,” Sirvat cooed.
“Where is your husband?” he asked her.
“With his father and brother preparing for a voyage. As soon as he heard you were back he hurried to Ing’s chandlery to begin provisioning his vessel. He wants to do one voyage before the Icy season sets in again,” Sirvat said.
“Then I will go and find him,” the Dominus responded. He kissed her forehead. “Keep well, Sirvat. Lara will probably come and see you tomorrow, and tell you all.”
“Why are you so anxious to see Corrado?” Sirvat wanted to know.
“Because then he will not come banging at my apartment doors this evening when I am making love to my wife. We have not been together in weeks, Sirvat, and I do not want my longed for pleasures being interrupted by Corrado,” the Dominus told his sister.
His explanation made sense to Sirvat, and she asked nothing further of him as he departed her apartments. And it was the truth, Magnus Hauk thought. Perhaps not all the truth, but then Sirvat had asked nothing more than why he chose to see Corrado. The Dominus grinned to himself as he stepped onto the platform that would take him to the fjord. “Fjordside!” he snapped to the unseen giant who operated the platform, standing quietly as he was lowered down the platform shaft. When his brief journey came to a halt he stepped off the wooden platform, but he did not go out onto the docks. Instead he turned left into a corridor lit by round glass lamps filled with firebugs. These creatures spent their entire life-span within their home globes. They lived, died and mated within the confines of the glass. There were shops located along the corridor. Magnus Hauk nodded to the other Terahns shopping who bowed as he passed. Reaching the establishment belonging to Ing, the chandler, the Dominus stepped inside.
Corrado and his brother smiled as they saw who their visitor was.
“My lord Dominus, welcome back!” Corrado said.
“My sister tells me you plan a season’s end voyage,” the Dominus replied.
“With your permission, of course, my lord Dominus,” Corrado quickly answered.
“How long will it take you?” Magnus Hauk wanted to know.
“Eight days if the weather holds,” Corrado replied.
“Will it hold?” the Dominus asked.
“At this time of year, aye. Four times yearly, at the changing of the seasons, Sagitta has perfect weather with no storms, my lord Dominus. This period lasts approximately ten days. It has just begun,” Corrado explained.
“Can you go today?” his lord wanted to know.
Corrado looked to his brother, Ing. “Can I?”
Ing, a man of few words nodded to the Dominus.
“Go then,” Magnus Hauk said. “Today. Return quickly. Pick up any gossip you can from the Coastal Kings. Report to me immediately upon your return, no matter the hour of the day or night.”
“My lord,” Corrado said slowly, then turned to his brother, “leave us, Ing.”
Ing said nothing, but disappeared into the back of his shop.
“I am preparing a new venture,” the Dominus said, “and I am going to need your counsel, Corrado. I want my plans in place before the Icy season begins. That is all I choose to say to you for now.”
“I trust you, my lord Dominus,” his captain of captains replied. “My ship and my crew are waiting. Tell Sirvat I will see her in a few days.” He bowed.
“Send Ing to her with that message,” Magnus Hauk said. “I have not been with Lara in weeks now. I am going to join her in her bath, Corrado. Travel in safety.” Then turning the Dominus left his brother-in-law in the middle of the chandlery.
When he had gone Ing stepped from the back room where he has been waiting. “What was that about?” he asked his younger brother.
Corrado shrugged. “If I knew I could not tell you, my brother, but I do not know. Is my ship ready to depart? The crew aboard?”
Ing nodded. “All is in readiness,” he said.
“Go to Sirvat, and tell her I have, at the Dominus’s request, departed. I will see her in a few days. Take Father with you. She enjoys his company. Says it shows her what I will be like when I am an old man,” Corrado chuckled.
Ing barked one of his few laughs. “A romantic girl, your wife,” he said. Then he and Corrado clasped hands. “Travel in safety,” he told his sibling.
“It will be the will of the Great Creator that I do,” Corrado answered, and then was gone from the small shop.
It was almost day’s end Ing saw looking out through the single dusty window his chandlery possessed onto the fjord. Corrado was fortunate in that he would catch the late tide, which would sweep him quickly out to sea. The winds this time of year were perfect. They were neither too soft, nor too hard. He watched his younger brother board his vessel; the gangway drawn up; the sails hoisted; the ship slipped out into the Dominus’s fjord, its square sails catching the breeze as it moved gracefully toward Sagitta. Ing closed up his shop and went to fetch his father, Dima. Together the two men made their way to the apartments of Corrado and Sirvat.
She welcomed them warmly. “Stay and have the evening meal with us. Corrado will undoubtedly be here shortly after he has checked the other woman in his life to be certain she is ready to travel again.”
Dima chuckled appreciatively, for he yet recalled what it was to be the captain of captains for a Dominus of Terah.
“My brother has already embarked,” Ing said apologetically. “There was no time for him to bid you farewell. He asked that I come and tell you.”
“My brother found him,” Sirvat said resigned. Then she went to the window, and looked down on the fjord where she could just make out the lavender sails of her husband’s ship as it rounded the bend in the waterway that opened into the sea. “What did Magnus say to him that sent him scurrying without even a farewell to me?”
Ing shook his head. “I do not know, my lady Sirvat. I was not privy to their conversation. I’m sorry. But he did say to tell you he would be back in just a few days. It is an ordinary voyage, for all I provisioned his ship for was the usual trading journey. That much I can tell you.”
“I will speak to my brother on the morrow,” Sirvat said. “I would still appreciate your company for the meal.” She smiled at her father-in-law. “We are having prawns, Dima, and I know how you love prawns. Especially the large ones that come from the Ocean Fjord. My cook bought them just this morning right off the boat that caught them.”
The old man smiled broadly. “You know how to please a sailor’s palate, Sirvat,” he told her nodding. “You h
ave mustard sauce, too, I am certain.”
Yes, she considered, Corrado would look like this handsome old man one day. And he would not go to sea much longer if she had her way. She would have to speak to Magnus, Sirvat thought, and smiled back at Dima. But her smile came from the knowledge that even now her brother and his wife were taking pleasures with one another, and would create a child to be the playmate of the baby now growing in her own womb. Siruat’s hands went instinctively to her belly.
BUT LARA was still not certain of what she wanted to do. The future was too murky. What if she were called by her damned destiny from Terah? Could she ignore her destiny? What would happen if she did? It was all very well and good for Kaliq, her mother and the others in the magic realm to prattle on about her destiny. What was that destiny, and was it to elude her forever? She had loved Vartan, and if the rest of her life had been spent in the old Outlands with him and their children, she could have been satisfied with that life.
But what, her sensible self asked, would have happened if Vartan had survived his assassination? What would they have done when Hetar invaded the Outlands? Could they have overcome the greater forces of Gaius Prospero’s armies? She did not think so, and so many would have been killed. Vartan’s death had indeed been a part of her destiny, much as she hated to admit it. His death had sent her on her way again. To Terah. Into Magnus Hauk’s arms, but on her own terms. As the wife of the Dominus she had been able to save the clan families from Gaius Prospero’s greedy machinations. Vartan would have approved. The emperor would be busy for some time to come bringing civilization to the old Outlands. But how long would that keep him from Terah?
They should not have gone to the City she thought for probably the hundredth time. She should not have given in to Magnus’s wishes. The emperor’s curiosity had been quickly engaged by the knowledge there was another land beyond Hetar’s borders.
A Distant Tomorrow Page 44