Authors: Bertrice Small
“I will speak with your daughter, Lara,” Lady Gillian said sympathetically. She understood, although she had never borne a child herself. But she had mothered many of the young women in her Pleasure House, nurtured them, taught them, wept with them and been proud of their accomplishments and good fortune when it had occurred.
“Thank you,” Lara replied. She was unhappy with how she felt regarding Zagiri. It was a more mortal feeling than a faerie one. Perhaps because Zagiri had been born of the love she and Magnus Hauk had shared, and Magnus was now dead. Had he lived, would this union between Zagiri and Jonah taken place?
“We are through here,” Kaliq said quietly.
Lara and Lady Gillian embraced.
“Call to me if you need me,” Lara told her. “You know that I will come.”
“I will,” Gillian said, smiling as the two magic folk disappeared before her eyes.
Where are we going now?
Lara asked Kaliq as she pressed against him for warmth. She was suddenly feeling chilled.
Into the streets of The City, but we shall not be visible to any,
he answered.
I think we need to know the mood of the people.
And, flinging back his cloak, they were in the main market square of The City. Lara was appalled by how shabby it had become. There were few goods, and what was there was expensive. Once the main market had had a large table beneath an awning where day-old goods were placed for the poor to come and take. It was, Lara noted, no longer there. Her eye went to a small boy who was creeping up unnoticed upon a baker’s kiosk. She watched as he waited patiently for the baker to be occupied elsewhere, and then, with lightning speed, the boy grabbed a loaf of bread just as the baker turned to see him. The baker’s face grew red with his fury.
“Thief!” he shouted. “Thief! Catch him! Thief! Thief!”
The boy dodged in and out of the few shoppers, evading grasping hands that reached out to stop him. Lara raised a hand, pointed her finger and suddenly a clear path opened up. The boy dashed from the main market and disappeared into the side streets that surrounded it.
Come!
Lara called to Kaliq.
You wanted to gauge the mood of the people? Let us see where our little thief goes.
They moved quickly after the boy, noting that once he was certain the chase had been given up, he moved with sure steps, obviously knowing exactly where he was going. They followed, and Lara suddenly realized where the boy’s steps were leading them.
He is headed for The Quarter, where I was raised,
she told Kaliq.
And sure enough the boy went past the guard-house entrance where, Lara noticed, no guard sat any longer. They moved through several narrow streets until finally the boy came to a small hovel and slipped in. The magic couple followed him silently. Inside, they could see the thatched roof was damaged; there was no fire in the hearth. Two children even smaller than the little thief huddled in a bed where a woman lay nursing an infant. And then Lara’s eye was drawn to a corner by the cold hearth where a man lay supine. Walking over, she bent, sniffed and shook her head.
He is drunk on Razi,
Lara said quietly to Kaliq.
No fire in the hearth to keep his wife and children warm, but he finds the coin for Razi.
They watched now as the young thief placed the bread upon a table, and, fetching up a knife, cut four small slices. He then wrapped the remainder of the loaf in a piece of cloth, and put it in the hearth oven for safekeeping from the rats. Then he handed his mother and siblings their bread while finally sitting down on a stool to slowly eat his.
“You stole it,” the woman said wearily.
The boy nodded. “What else could I do? He’s been drunk for two days, and we need to eat. You cannot feed the infant without food yourself.”
“What if you had been caught?” the woman said despairingly. “There is no mercy for thieves, my son.”
“I wasn’t caught,” he answered her stubbornly.
“But you might have been!” the mother cried. “What would I do without you?”
“Well, we have bread for a few days,” the boy said. “I won’t have to steal again for a little while.”
“You must have faith in the Hierarch,” the woman said.
“What can the Hierarch do for folk like us?” the boy demanded.
“He will make it all right again if we but have faith,” she told him.
“We will starve before that happens,” the boy said dryly.
“Has he not opened the warehouses for us?” she said.
“And each of us was given a small share of grain, which is now gone, but the bakers seem to have enough wheat to make bread to sell at an exorbitant price. Why does the Hierarch not prevent them from profiteering while we starve?”
“He will! He will!” the mother insisted. “Did the prophecy not tell us that in our time of trial the Hierarch would come and save us? He is in The City now, my son. Soon he will bring Hetar back to the way it once was, and all will be well for us.”
“In the meantime we must eat,” the boy said, “so I must steal, and you must pray to the Celestial Actuary that I not be caught.”
We have heard enough,
Lara said. She stood next to the boy at his seat and placed her hand just above his head.
Steal only when you must. Your speed will leave all in the dust.
Lara wove the small protection spell about the boy.
Your heart is so good,
Kaliq told her.
He is not a thief by nature. He will be a fine man one day. He cannot be any older than nine or ten, yet he accepts the responsibility of his mother and siblings. As you can see, the father is lost to Razi because there is no work for him.
Lara sighed.
The mother despite all believes in the Hierarch,
Kaliq noted as they walked back out into the streets of The Quarter again.
Let us look farther, and see what we can hear, and learn, from these poor souls.
They walked about listening, hearing the same thing over and over again. The Hierarch would make it all right again for them. They waited eagerly for the miracle, and blamed the magnates and the government for their troubles. Yet amid all the talk neither Lara nor Kaliq heard any in The Quarter suggest a solution to their problems or say how the Hierarch would bring about change. The Hetar that had once been had always supplied the answers, and the people expected it to be that way again. They had all had a place, and knew that place. Now no one knew where they belonged, or what to do.
I never before realized that few Hetarians think for themselves. They want everything supplied for them. Tell them what to do, where their place in life is, and they thrive. Take away their place, and they collapse,
Lara said.
Hetar was an orderly society, and now that the order has been disturbed it has caused chaos,
Kaliq said to her.
There are those who think, my love.
But not enough!
Kaliq laughed, replying,
In every society there are those who do not consider beyond the end of their nose, but you are correct. Too many in Hetar have come to accept things as they have always been. And now the Hierarch would bring them back to that, and it appears to many to be the answer to their problems.
But it isn’t, Kaliq! Hetar needs to move forward.
It won’t until its problems are solved, but this time they must be solved in a different way while meeting the needs of its citizens. It will not be an easy transition, my love. We will have to struggle mightily to make these mortals see the light, and protect them from the darkness that will encompass them in their desperation.
Then I must befriend Cam. If he has not been totally lost to Ciarda, perhaps I can help him to return into the light. I realize now that the darkness has surrounded him since his childhood. His parents were so filled with envy and wickedness he was probably tainted in his mother’s womb. He claims to love Anoush, Kaliq. If he truly does then perhaps that love will help him to escape the clutches of the Darkling.
Be careful, Lara,
Kaliq warned her.
Ciarda is very determined.
Aye, she is,
Lara agreed with him,
but you and I both know that love is stronger than any other force in any of the worlds.
She stood on her toes and kissed his cheek. Then she was gone from his side.
The Shadow Prince smiled his enigmatic smile. Lara was a force to be reckoned with. As dangerous as Ciarda was, she had no idea of how powerful his beautiful faerie woman was. Kaliq chuckled, and returned himself to his desert palace even as Lara, having observed Cam in his simple quarters and seeing him alone, appeared before the startled young man’s eyes.
“Aunt!” he exclaimed, startled, his blue eyes wary.
“Why?” Lara asked him quietly.
“Why? I do not understand you, Aunt.”
“Why do you allow the Darkling to control you? You are an Outlander, and the Hetarians will never accept an Outlander as their Hierarch. If indeed there really is a Hierarch, Cam. Do you truly wish to have power over Hetar? But of course, you really wouldn’t have any power but that which she allows you to have,” Lara taunted him gently, and then she smiled at him. “Your parents were ambitious, but until your father made the error in judgment of listening to your mother, who, by the way, was in the pay of Hetar, I never thought Adon stupid.”
“Do you not consider it justice that an Outlander is called Hetar’s Hierarch? How long have they scorned us? And we would still be in our ancient homeland had they not invaded it and sought to enslave us,” Cam said bitterly.
“But the clan families were saved by the Shadow Princes, and by me,” Lara reminded him. “We who stand in the light brought you to safety in a beautiful new land, Cam. Forgive me, Nephew! Forgive me for my anger toward an innocent child. You belong in the light, not in the darkness.”
He looked very surprised by her request for his forgiveness.
“Forgive you?”
he said slowly. “You did me no real harm, Aunt. Taking me from my grandmother probably saved me. Sholeh was good to me. Aye, you are forgiven.” Amazing, he thought. The faerie woman had a mortal conscience. Now what could he gain from her? He was no fool, and he knew that Ciarda was using him, but the temptation to play the great man had been too much for him to resist. Now, however, Cam was beginning to realize that it was a dangerous game he played. Disappoint Ciarda, and he could find his life at an end. Still, the power she had put into his hands was too delicious to relinquish. Yet if the faerie woman who was his aunt could offer him something better, would he not take it? Of course he would. Cam smiled. “There is always a battle between the light and the dark, Aunt,” he said.
“But there must always be balance,” Lara responded. “If one overwhelms the other, Cam, then chaos follows.”
“Ciarda enjoys chaos,” Cam murmured, “and I find it exciting, too, Aunt.”
“Ciarda will ultimately fail. How great the cost to mortal Hetar is what we are now discussing,” Lara said softly. “She has taken you as her lover, hasn’t she? And before you she took one of the Twilight Lord’s twin sons as a lover. Her own half brother, Cam. She wants everything her father wanted. The Dark Lands, Hetar and finally Terah. She will be stopped, and all who follow her will fall victim to her greed and her ambition.”
“What can you offer me that she cannot?” he asked bluntly.
“Your life. A life with Anoush among your own Fiacre clan family,” Lara said. “If you truly love my daughter that is the life you will choose, Cam.”
“Does she still sleep?” he asked, and his cold blue eyes had suddenly warmed and become tender with emotion.
“She sleeps,” Lara said, “and only when you return to the light, Cam, will she awaken. Anoush will never be part of
this.
And you are a fool to believe that your lover, Ciarda, will allow you to take a wife that you actually love. Mind you, she does not want your love, for she does not know how to love herself, but she does not want you giving it to anyone else,” Lara told him. “You are her possession, and she does not share her possessions.”
“Can you protect me from her wrath if I heed your pleas, Aunt?” he asked her.
“You can be protected,” Lara told him.
“What would you have me do then?”
“Instead of seeking to overthrow the Lord High Ruler, become his wise counsel, and stand by his side to help him reform the system that has brought Hetar to its knees,” Lara said to Cam. “Like you, Jonah is an ambitious man.”
“And when Hetar stands strong again?” Cam asked her.
“You disappear even as you appeared,” Lara told him. “You will, of course, return to the New Outlands to pick up your old life.”
“Anoush will awaken, and you will give us your blessing and permit us to marry?” he asked.
Lara nodded.
“My wife has a house, and she has land and cattle. I must have a house in Rivalen, land and cattle, too,” Cam said. “I have my pride, Aunt, and will not be just Anoush’s husband. I would be my own man.”
“Of course,” Lara said. “It should be no other way.”
“I must think on it,” Cam said. “I must weigh and balance what is being offered to me by both you and by the Darkling.”
“The Darkling cannot win, nor can she offer you Anoush,” Lara told him. “If you love her what is to think about, Nephew?”
“I must determine if I love her enough,” he said, slowly, “to give up all this glory that the Darkling offers me. I think I do, but I would be certain. I should not like to have any regrets in the years to come, nor should I wish to harm Anoush in any way.”
Lara felt her anger swelling. “If you must consider it, Cam, then you cannot love my daughter enough. That is unfortunate for you, and for Hetar. Farewell, Nephew! You have sealed your own fate, and chosen poorly!” And Lara disappeared in a cloud of dark green mist followed by a clap of thunder.
A minute later Ciarda entered the chamber in a cloud of red smoke. She sniffed, and sniffed again. “Who has been here?” she demanded of him.
Cam laughed. “My aunt,” he said.