“Oh, please, Magnus!” the boy begged. “Please!”
“No more than three days, Kaliq, for I need him by my side,” the Dominus said.
Kaliq nodded. “I understand,” he said, and he did. Dillon with his budding magic was the closest thing Magnus Hauk had to Lara now.
“Very well then, but three days only, Dillon. Do you understand?” the Dominus told his stepson. “If your mother returned while you were gone I should have a great deal of explaining to do about this.”
“Thank you, Magnus,” the boy said as Kaliq enfolded him in his robes. And then they were gone in a magical and shadowy mist.
Magnus Hauk stood silently for some minutes after they had disappeared. He was very curious about what the Shadow Prince had said. A balance between good and evil that must be maintained. What had that to do with Lara? He wondered if he would ever really know what Kaliq had meant. He found himself impatient sometimes with the magical world that lived alongside of him.
Magnus Hauk left the chamber and sought his lonely bed. He had other matters to consider now, namely Hetar. He had hoped the clever Jonah could keep that fool who called himself emperor under control. But either he could not, or like his master he believed Terah was weak without Lara. The thought irritated the Dominus. Terah had been strong before Lara and would remain so in her unfortunate absence. I hope I have done the right thing allowing Dillon to go with Kaliq, he thought to himself just before he fell asleep.
DILLON HAD CLOSED his eyes when the Shadow Prince had wrapped his cloak about him. Now Kaliq’s voice bade him to open those eyes. It was morning and the air was warm. Nay, hot. Seeing a sculpted balustrade across the chamber, he remembered his mother’s tales of her mentor’s palace of Shunnar. Unable to help himself, Dillon ran to the balustrade and looked down in the green valley below where several herds of magnificent horses were now grazing.
“Oh, my lord, it is just as my mother said!” he exclaimed excitedly. Then he turned about. “Why have you brought me here now?” he asked softly.
“I thought it was time for you to choose one of my horses for your own,” the prince answered smiling. “You need a like companion, for you are a unique boy in your world, Dillon. I will call the giant Og, your mother’s friend who is my horse master, and he will take you down into the valley. You will like him.”
“Mother has told me all about Og,” Dillon responded. “I have always wanted to meet him. She says he is a small giant but most kind.”
The prince smiled and called to one of his servants to request that Og join them.
The giant came and while Lara might say he was small, he seemed very large to Dillon. He might have been afraid were it not for Og’s gentle blue eyes. “Do not tell me! Do not tell me!” Og exclaimed. “I would know you anywhere—Dillon, son of Lara.”
Reaching down he lifted the boy up and settled him in the crook of his arm so they might speak on a more even level. “Welcome to Shunnar, young master. I did not expect that we would meet for another few years.” He smiled cheerfully at Dillon.
“Take the boy to the valley, Og,” the prince said. “Find him a horse that will be his own, and together, begin to train it.”
“I will, my lord prince,” Og said and then looked at Dillon. “Tell me, young master, have you any particular color horse in mind?”
“Well,” Dillon said, “I thought perhaps a dappled gray, Og. Do you think there is one in the valley that would be suitable for me?”
“We will have to go and look,” Og said. He set Dillon down again. “Follow me then, lad, and we will see where your horse is.” He bowed to the prince. “How long would you like me to keep him, my lord? We really should have the day.”
“You have it,” Kaliq said smiling, and he watched as Og moved off with the boy running in his effort to keep up. The prince then turned to his waiting servant. “Bring me the reflecting mirror,” he said and when the servant had complied he withdrew from the chamber. Kaliq placed the oval, set into a golden frame, into a polished wood stand. Then standing before it he said quietly, “Come to me, lord of the Munin.” At once, the wraithlike creature who spoke for his brothers appeared in the glass.
“Help us, Kaliq of the Shadows,” the Munin lord said, his filmy arms outstretched.
“What help do you require of me?” Kaliq murmured. “Are you not content in the Penumbras in the castle the Twilight Lord created for you?”
“He has imprisoned us here!” the Munin lord cried. “We are unable to harvest, to retrieve or to restore memories, which is our function in this world. Help us!”
“If I help you, then you must do what I ask in return,” Kaliq told the Munin lord.
“What do you want of us?” the Munin asked.
“The balance must be restored between the light and the dark,” Kaliq began. “You must return all of Lara’s memories to her. Only then can she act to fulfill her destiny. It must be done.”
“If we do as you ask, Kol will destroy us,” the Munin lord said desperately.
“If you do not do as I ask, I will leave you in the Penumbras and you will be forced to serve at Kol’s command for eternity. Do you really want the Twilight Lord using your gifts to his own advantage? You know what that would do to the balance. But if you do what I ask of you, I will give you another homeland and you will be free to roam at will as you should. You will have the protection of the Shadow Princes and Kol will not be able to harm any of your brothers ever again.”
“Returning all of her memories may destroy her, for in Kol’s charge the light within Lara has dimmed almost entirely. Her aura has grown purple. Even I am afraid of her,” the Munin lord said. “And if the shock of her restored memories should harm Kol’s heir, he may very well kill her.”
“She will survive and so will her offspring,” Kaliq said. “But that is not all I require of the Munin. My second request I will make at another time, however.”
“Where would you raise up our castle?” the Munin lord asked slowly.
“On the most remote shore of the Obscura. A tunnel would run from deep within your castle beneath the sea to your storage facility. No one in Hetar is even aware of the Obscura’s existence. This sea is wide and on its other side live the clan families of the New Outlands. They are not mariners but people of the land. We will render your castle invisible to all but magical eyes so you will be safe. Kol can see nothing in the blazing light of the desert,” Kaliq pointed out. “What say you?”
“You will protect us from his revenge, Shadow Prince?” the Munin lord asked.
“I will protect you. Even as I speak your castle stands awaiting you, the storage chambers beneath the sea cool and dim and ready for the memories you possess,” Kaliq said. “What is your answer, Munin lord?”
“I must speak with my brothers,” came the reply.
“You have five minutes,” Kaliq replied and he watched as the Munin lord disappeared from his sight in the mirror.
When the Munin returned he said, “First you must release us and then we will do your bidding.”
“I will move your brothers but you must remain,” Kaliq said.
The Munin lord nodded his agreement. “Very well,” he said.
“Then it is done,” Kaliq murmured. “I have filled your castle with images of the Munin so Kol will not know that you are gone. Now I will send you to Kol’s throne room. It is the sleeping hour there, so no one is awake. You will take the remainder of Lara’s memories from the alabaster jar by Kol’s throne and give them back to her. I will be by her side upon the dream plain while you do, so she is not frightened.”
“And when I have done your bidding?” the Munin lord asked.
“You will join your brothers,” Kaliq said.
“And the other request you would make of us?”
“In time, not yet,” Kaliq replied. “Now, prepare to enter the castle of the Twilight Lord.” Kaliq waved his hand and the Munin was transferred from his castle in the Penumbras into the great receiving chamber of
the Twilight Lord. Kaliq watched as the mirror reflected exactly what was happening.
The chamber was quiet and dark but for two censers burning on either side of Kol’s throne. Silently, the Munin lord drifted to the tall alabaster jar. Carefully he removed the golden threads of Lara’s remaining memories and slipped them into his robes while drawing out a sheaf of empty memories which he placed into the jar. Kaliq watched and nodded. The Munin was clever. Now the creature drifted from the room and, making his invisible way down a series of corridors, finally entered Lara’s apartments. He moved past her sleeping attendants upon whom Kaliq had placed a deep sleeping spell so that there would be no chance of them awakening.
Entering Lara’s bedchamber the Munin lord floated over the faerie woman and reaching into his robes for her memories, allowed the slender golden strands to slide from his fingers and back into her head. When it had been done the Shadow Prince gestured quickly with his hand and the Munin was gone. Then Kaliq closed his own eyes and prepared to enter the dream plain to speak with Lara.
She stirred, then opening her green eyes, realized she stood upon the dream plain. About her, the warm mauve mist swirled. “Who is it?” Lara called. “Who seeks me?”
“It is I, my love,” Kaliq answered her and then he was at her side.
“What has happened to me?” Lara asked him.
He took her into his arms to comfort her. “Be still for a moment, my love, and it will all return to you. You are shortly to fulfill a portion of your destiny, Lara.”
“How can this be?” Lara suddenly cried, pulling away from him, her eyes dropping to her very distended belly. “Ohh! Ohh! How could you do this to me, Kaliq?” Her eyes were filled with tears. “Do you know what has happened to me? Do you realize who this child I carry is? And this was my great destiny? To be bred to a lord of the darkness? To give him a child?”
The Shadow Prince held up a hand. “Stop!” he said to Lara.
She grew silent and looked despairingly at him.
“Hear me out, my love, and all will be well, I promise you. There must always be balance between the light and the dark, for the mortal races seem unable to choose good over evil. Those of us in the magical world must therefore keep the balance between the two when the darkness threatens to overwhelm the light, which it does with certain regularity. If only it would go the other way—but it never does so we toil to counterbalance discord with harmony.
“We have known for some time what was written within the Twilight Lord’s Book of Rule. That in the twelfth generation after Khalifa, the lord would sire a son on a faerie woman. That this child would be the strongest Twilight Lord ever, possessing great and terrible magic, magic that could allow the darkness to forever eradicate the light in this world. We could not allow this to happen, Lara.”
“But you allowed my memories to be stolen from me so I would be compliant!” Lara cried.
“You are faerie,” he replied. “You cannot give a child to one you do not love and it is necessary for you to bear Kol’s heir. You could not have loved him if you had retained your memories, Lara, and you know that is the truth.” She looked so distraught that he wanted to hold her again but he knew now was not the time.
“I do not love him!” she said angrily.
“Not as yourself, you do not,” he agreed, “but as Lara, the frightened amnesiac, you did. Kol needed you. And he needs your magic, for without it he is not strong enough to do what he must do, nor will his child exist.”
“What of Magnus and the children?” she asked as she forced herself to be calm.
“They know nothing of this, nor will they ever,” Kaliq said.
“And just how will you accomplish that or is that something else I need not know, my lord? And how will I return to my own life, to my husband, and not feel dirtied by this adventure? How can I go on knowing what I have become under this creature’s influence, Kaliq? Tell me how you will make it all right once again?”
“I can and I will make it all right, Lara,” he swore to her.
And in spite of herself, in spite of her anger and her feelings of betrayal, Lara believed him. She didn’t want to, but she did. This was Kaliq, her one-time lover, her mentor, her beloved friend. She drew a deep breath. “Tell me what I must do.”
“Only you, Lara,” he told her, “can overcome the darkness in this matter. Remember what the Book of Rule has decreed from its inception. Each Twilight Lord will only produce one son. By doing so they have managed to keep their line of descent straight and without controversy. There has never been an argument over who any Twilight Lord’s heir would be. And it is against their own law and culture to raise a hand or allow another to raise a hand in violence against any offspring born to a Twilight Lord. You can hold back the darkness with your magic, Lara, and you must do it now before you awaken. When you awake it will take every bit of your skill to continue to play the woman Kol has come to love, for he loves you as that girl loves him.”
Lara nodded. She knew now what she needed to do and she placed both of her hands over her belly. “One divide. One is two. Become selfsame in all but name,” she intoned. And she felt the child within her dividing itself, morphing into two babies as she spoke the spell. “Kol will not be pleased,” she murmured with a touch of her old humor.
“Nay, he will not,” Kaliq agreed. “Since he cannot be there when you give birth—and you will do it so quickly that the women attending you will be totally confused—no one will be able to say which of the boys came first. No one will think to make any kind of provision to identify the firstborn. And Kol’s sons will quarrel with each other from the moment of their birth. While Kol and his minions will follow the law of the Dark Land, his sons will not. They will spend their lives attempting to do away with one another. Kol will be so beset by them that he will not be able to carry out his plans for conquest or enjoy that wicked program you planned for the taking of Hetar.”
“Do not remind me,” Lara replied with a shudder. “How could I have even contemplated such things, Kaliq? What evil I planned to spawn! And the worst thing was that I actually enjoyed thinking about it.”
“The darkness was threatening to overcome you, my love, but all will be well now,” he said soothingly and held out his arms to her again.
Lara went into the comfort of his embrace, her golden head resting against Kaliq’s shoulder. “Tell me when I may leave him?” she asked.
“Remain long enough after you have given birth to help stoke his confusion over this turn of events. When you call my name I will transport you to Shunnar, where you will heal from this time you have given us. And then, Lara, I will wipe away your memory of these months you have spent with Kol in the Dark Land.”
“But what of Magnus, of my children, of Terah and Hetar?” she queried him.
“Trust me, my love. I will take care of it when it is time,” he promised her.
“Where is Ethne?” Lara wondered, her hand going to her neck where the chain she usually wore hung.
“Left behind when Kol stole you away,” Kaliq explained.
She nodded. “Kol has been good to me for all his evil nature,” Lara said softly. “He was never cruel nor did he deny me anything I said I desired. And he has been a passionate lover, I must say.” She smiled mischievously. “I never thought to know another after I wed Magnus.”
“He loves you,” Kaliq responded. “And the girl you have been has loved him. He made her feel safe. I believe you actually brought out a small bit of light in him despite the deep darkness of his soul. As for his amorous skills, he is certainly unique,” he teased her wickedly and then he kissed the top of her golden head. “I must leave you now, Lara.”
He did not tell her that because of her faerie blood she would live far longer than Magnus Hauk and one day know other lovers. This was not the time for it. “You must be strong over these next few weeks,” Kaliq advised her gently, “and you must not allow Kol to learn that all of your memories are intact. You must become the woman he b
elieves he has created—his mate, his equal, and filled with more wickedness as each day passes. But if he asks you to use your magic for evil, refuse him, saying you are weakened with the life you carry and would not harm his son.”
“I am a little frightened by this now,” Lara said.
“Lara, my love, you outwitted the Forest Lords. You will outwit Kol, too,” Kaliq assured her. And then the shadows and the mists began to swirl about him and suddenly Kaliq was gone from her.
Lara stood a long few minutes upon the dream plain. He had left her to gather her own courage before she descended and awoke. She breathed slowly, clearing her mind, banishing her fears, gathering her courage. Within her womb she felt her twin sons beginning to stir and she sensed them quarreling already. She almost laughed when she considered the look on Kol’s face when he learned his mate had given him not one, but two sons. Most men would be delighted by what they considered their prowess but Kol would not think of it in those terms. Then she felt herself slipping into sleep and finally Lara awoke to hear the rumble of thunder outside of her windows. The icy autumn rains had come, not that the summer rains had been much better.
How had she borne the Dark Lands over this last year? The sun never shone directly on them. She had never seen a sunrise or a bright day here. But many days she could see between the tall sharp-peaked mountains a slash of blood red sunset above which a purple-and-black sky glowered. It was the only color she could recall in her time here. It was always gloomy with its landscape in half light. It rained most days in the more temperate seasons and snowed every day of the winter. And there was always thunder. Rain or snow, the thunder pealed out accompanied by silvery forks of lightning.
Kol’s castle of Kolbyr was built into the rock of the mountainside. The rooms were all square or rectangular. There were shades of black and gray marble everywhere. Everyone wore dark colors. The serving people were relegated to deep brown. Her own robes were in Kol’s favorite silver and varying shades of purple, the lightest of which was a deep lavender color. Kol himself was usually clad in black or silver. Now that she was restored to herself Lara found the whole place gloomy because she could recall all the other colors of the rainbow. She vowed silently to herself that when she escaped this dark land she would never again wear a dark shade. Lara opened her eyes and turning her head, looked toward the windows. Aye, it was raining. Her ears had not deceived her.
The Twilight Lord Page 15