LITMIR.BIZ

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for them to be with Magnus and me. They both know their parentage and their history.”

       He nodded in understanding. “The children of Vartan will always be welcome here among their Fiacre kinsmen and women.”

       Reaching down, Lara drew her son to his feet. “Go and stay with your sisters, for I must speak with Liam privately,” she told him and Dillon immediately left them.

       “What is it?” Liam asked her. “Is there trouble coming of some sort?”

       Lara laughed. “Nay, not any of which I am aware. I need a favor from you, lord of the Fiacre. I want to send Cam away while I am here with my children. Both he and Bera have been filling Anoush’s little head with all manner of lies. Had I not come when I did today they might very well have stolen my daughter and dragged her into their dark world. Once the children are in Terah, neither Bera nor Cam can harm them. We will not be able to keep Anoush from running off to find Cam if he is here. We cannot watch her constantly. As for Bera we must find a good woman to live with her and care for her.”

       “Where will you send the lad?” Liam asked. “I can certainly think of a few places,” he added with a chuckle.

       “To Sholeh in New Rivalen. She is kin to you both and as headwoman of her village, she has both authority and strength. Cam could be put to work in the fields until the harvest. That should keep him busy and out of trouble,” Lara said.

       “Aye, he is old enough,” Liam agreed. “We will have to send a faerie post to Sholeh and request her aid in this matter.”

       “Nay, I will go myself, for we are asking a great favor of her and it is in my interests that we need her help,” Lara said. She stood up from the table. “Would you mind if I went now, Liam?”

       “Shall I have Dasras caught and saddled?” the lord of the Fiacre asked her.

       “Nay,” Lara told him, and with a delicate wave of her hand she disappeared in a faint cloud of mauve smoke.

       Liam stared and then he laughed weakly. How long had he known her, and still Lara’s growing magic always surprised him.

       But he was no more surprised than Sholeh, the headwoman of New Rivalen, who jumped back as Lara suddenly appeared before her in her chamber. “Gracious!” She jumped to her feet, dropping the brush in her hand for she had been in the middle of brushing her long auburn hair. “Lara! Is it really you?” She immediately embraced her visitor.

       “Aye, ’tis me, Sholeh,” Lara said.

       “How can I serve you, Domina?” Sholeh was suddenly very formal for she was more than aware Lara’s visit was hardly a casual one.

       “I have come to ask a great favor of you,” Lara began.

       “Anything!” Sholeh responded.

       Lara laughed. “Wait until I have told you what it is I want,” she said. Then she explained what Bera and Cam had been doing to her little daughter. “I came to the New Outlands with the express purpose of visiting and then returning with both of Vartan’s children to Terah. It is time they were with me again.”

       Sholeh nodded her agreement and then listened as Lara continued.

       “It would be too difficult and cause great dissension between my daughter and me if I had to keep her from Cam. I can only keep them apart if Cam is not there. I would have you take the boy until the Gathering. He is young, but he can be put to work in the fields, and herding cattle. Keep him busy. Hopefully that will keep him from getting into trouble. He will be so charming and polite with you that you will wonder to yourself why I sent him away. But believe me when I say that Cam, son of Adon, is filled to overflowing with wickedness,” Lara said.

       “I know he is,” Sholeh responded. “I saw him with his grandmother as he twisted poor Bera’s words and thoughts. I am not fooled by his soft-spoken demeanor, Lara. Aye, I will take him and keep him tightly reined. You will want him gone quickly, I assume. What will you do with Bera?”

       “We will find a good woman to live with her for she really is no longer capable of caring for herself. The woman will remain when Cam returns home after the Gathering,” Lara told Sholeh. “Will you return with me now to New Camdene?”

       “I suppose we will be transported by means of your magic,” Sholeh said nervously. “Well, no matter. Come into the hall with me, and we will tell the servants so they do not worry when I am suddenly gone.”

       The two women left the chamber and went into the hall where, seeing Lara, the servants greeted her with smiles.

       “I am going to take your mistress with me to New Camdene,” she said. “I will return her on the morrow.” Then with a wave of her hand they were gone from before the servants’ startled eyes.

       As they rematerialized beneath the pergola in Liam’s hall, Lara said, “There now, Sholeh, that didn’t hurt at all, did it?” And she laughed.

       Sholeh laughed, too. “It is a convenient mode of transport, I will admit, but it still makes me nervous and you know I fear nothing.”

       “It is getting cool out here and the sun is setting,” Lara remarked. “Let us go into the hall. I smell food and if there is one thing about me that is solely mortal it is my appetite. I am ravenous, Sholeh, and could eat an entire side of one of Liam’s cows.”

       Warned by her husband, Noss showed no surprise when the two women entered her hall. She greeted Sholeh respectfully as an elder of the clan family and as headwoman of New Rivalen. Then she beckoned the two to be seated at her high board. There were only the four adults, Noss’s children and Lara’s having been fed earlier. They had already gone back outside to play in the long summer twilight.

       “Sholeh has agreed to take Cam until the Gathering time,” Lara told Liam and Noss. “I will transport them back to New Rivalen in the morning.”

       “And I know just the woman to care for Bera,” said Noss. “She is newly widowed, and her son would like to wed but what woman will come into a house with another woman in it? This will solve both of their problems and when Bera has departed this life we will give the woman her own cottage.”

       “Make certain she you have chosen is not easily deluded by Bera—and later, Cam. I do not want the history of Vartan’s life destroyed by their lies,” Lara said.

       “You can speak with the woman yourself and make the decision tomorrow,” Liam suggested. “It was bad enough when they poisoned little Anoush’s mind, but we cannot have their prevarications harming our people. There are always those who are quick to believe the worst or who enjoy blackening the reputations of heroes. It is five years since Vartan’s death. His legend remains but his influence has faded from the Fiacre. And there are those, too, who never trusted you, Lara, because of your Hetarian birth, although they have certainly profited by your faerie nature. Any rumor begun among us will eventually spread to the other clan families. We cannot allow divisions to separate us now that we are relatively safe once again.”

       “Thank you, Liam,” Lara said to him. “Your friendship is precious to me. You are as safe as any peoples here, but I am concerned not just with Hetar but with the Dark Lands to our north. Hetar is an ocean away. But the other…” She sighed. “Does anyone know of the people who inhabit that place? It seems to be all mountains.”

       “None of our folk have ventured north,” Liam said. “Those mountains, unlike the Emerald Range that separates us from Terah proper, seem threatening. All the clan families have enough lands where we are. Our territories are at least twice as large as those we held previously. Why do the Dark Lands concern you, Lara?”

       “I am not certain, but I sense a threat from them,” she answered. “The first time I saw them, I was on Dasras’s back and observing the sea creatures frolicking in the sea we call Obscura. Those mountains drew my eye, and I was almost overwhelmed by the aura of darkness that emanated from them.”

       “We have never seen any signs of life from them,”

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