The Shadow Queen. Bertrice SmallЧитать онлайн книгу.
affixed the figure of a winged faerie in a lavender gown, the fabric of the garment carved to appear as if it were blowing in the wind.
The bearers solemnly marched up the gangway and set the coffin down on the deck midship. The stone quay had been lined with mourners. There were many others crowding the hillsides on both sides of the fjord. Waiting at the gangway had been Lady Persis and her three daughters, along with Lara’s mother, Ilona, Queen of the Forest Faeries, and her consort, Thanos, Arik, High Priest from the Temple of the Great Creator, and his female counterpart, Kemina. Each reached out to touch the body in a final farewell as it passed them. Once the open casket bearing Magnus Hauk’s body had been delivered to the vessel, those accompanying it left the ship. Lara and Taj came to escort Lady Persis back up into the castle. They would be hosting a feast in the Great Hall for all who had come to bid their Dominus goodbye.
In the Great Hall they celebrated the life of Magnus Hauk. Accius of the Devyn, whose people were bards, had written a saga of the Dominus’s life. Now the New Outlander entertained everyone gathered by singing his creation. He sang of the Terahns who believed their women mute, and had never heard a woman’s voice until Lara arrived. He sang of how she had captured the heart of Magnus Hauk, and lifted the curse of Usi, which had really been on its men, and not the women. He sang of the Dominus’s generosity in saving the clan families from enslavement in Hetar; of how Magnus Hauk’s heart and mind had come to be open to change; of how he had become a strong leader for his people. He had been a good son to his mother; a good brother to his sisters; a sire to all the children who called him Father; and a great lover and husband to his faerie woman wife. Now the era of Magnus Hauk was ended. Accius of the Devyn sang of how Magnus Hauk’s son, the Dominus Taj, was a young man of great promise. A true tribute to his noble father.
“May he rule in peace and prosperity as did his sire before him,” Accius ended his tribute, bowing first to the young Dominus, then his mother and the rest of the guests.
There was much appreciative clapping as the Devyn bard took his seat again.
“There is something I must do before we conclude this,” Lara said softly to her young son. “I will leave my image behind so that no one knows I am gone.” She touched his cheek gently, and then was gone. Materializing first in her own chambers, she took down her sword, Andraste, which hung above the hearth. Then she reached for her staff, Verica. Verica had been away from her for a few years while he accompanied Lara’s eldest son to the desert kingdom of the Shadow Princes. Kaliq had returned him to her when Dillon had gone to Belmair. Her two companions in her firm grasp, Lara magicked them into the stables, where she hurried to the stall of her great white stallion, Dasras. Browsing in his oat bucket, he looked up, recognizing her footsteps.
“Mistress, my condolences,” he said, and bowed to her.
“Thank you,” Lara said. “Now you three must go and pay your farewells to Magnus Hauk. He has sheltered you all these many years.”
“Indeed,” Dasras replied. “It is only right, Mistress.”
“We must hurry, for his vessel will set sail at sunset,” Lara told them. Then, grasping a handful of the stallion’s thick, silvery-white mane, she vaulted onto his back, reaching for her sword and staff, which she had leaned against the stall wall.
There was no one in the stables as all were at the feast, but had there been no one would have been startled by the stable doors which opened before them. Lara rode out onto the stone quay, and up the gangway onto the deck of the ship. It bobbed gently in the flat sea about it. Lara slid off Dasras’s back.
The stallion bent his head, and touched the forehead of the dead man with his velvety muzzle. “May your journey be a safe one, Magnus Hauk. May your destination be all that you could imagine. I thank you for your kindness and your generosity to me.”
The wood staff, Verica, opened his eyes, staring down at the Dominus. “Be at peace, mortal,” he said.
Lara’s sword, Andraste, began to sing softly, her ruby eyes glowing. Usually when Andraste sang it was in a deep voice, and her song was one of threatening terror and imminent doom to all who heard it. Now, however, the voice she sang with was sweeter than honey, her words reassuring. “You have earned your place among those few especial mortals, Magnus Hauk, Dominus of Terah. Your progeny will honor your name forever. Walk in the light you have made yourself by your good deeds and your good heart. I bid you farewell!”
Lara’s eyes misted briefly. Andraste’s tribute to Magnus Hauk had come from the very core of the magic weapon. Andraste did not suffer fools, or give praise lightly. “Thank you all,” she told her closest companions. Then, using her magic, she sent them back to their places. Alone on the ship Lara sank to the deck next to the open coffin. “I have done everything that was expected of me, and more, my lord,” she told him. “I am not Terahn born, but I have kept Terahn customs better than any Terahn. No one will question our son’s blood, my love. And in these few days I have certainly seen how much like you he really is. Did you see how he put Narda and Aselma in their places?” She laughed softly. “He is pure mortal Terahn, Magnus. He will be a good Dominus, but I would have preferred it if he were older.” She sighed. “I have prevented any challenge to Taj’s rights by appointing our brothers-in-law as the Dominus’s Council. They say they will leave me in peace to do what I must, but I wonder, Magnus. I wonder.”
Lara reached out and touched her husband’s lifeless face. “I do not think I can bear it without you, but I have to, don’t I?” A tear slipped down her cheek. “Taj needs me, and so do Anoush, Zagiri and Marzina.” She sighed again. “My mother warned me that giving my faerie heart to a mortal would bring me eventual sorrow. At least now you do not have to grow old while I remain as I am. Oh, Magnus! There wasn’t enough time. There just wasn’t enough time!” And Lara wept.
“You cannot stay here any longer.” The voice of the Shadow Prince, Kaliq, pierced through her grief. “Your image is beginning to waver, and you will cause a panic if it disappears entirely. Your hall is full of mortal beings who are not used to your faerie magic, Lara, my love. Have mercy upon them, I beg you.”
She looked up to see him standing by her side. “Nay, I don’t want them remembering Magnus Hauk’s Farewell as the time his faerie wife disappeared before their eyes.” She stood up. “Return!” she said and found herself back in the hall in her seat. Reaching out, she touched her son’s cheek with her fingertips to let him know she was returned. “The sun is close to setting, my lord Dominus,” she told him.
Taj Hauk stood up, and immediately the Great Hall grew silent. “It is time,” he told them all. Then he stepped from the dais and led his mother from the High Board through the crowds in the large chamber.
“Give us a blessing, faerie woman,” some dared to beg as they passed by, and when they did Lara would smile sweetly and say that they now had it.
“They love her,” Lady Persis said to her daughters.
“I don’t know why they should,” Narda muttered.
“Nor I,” Aselma agreed.
“It is because you do not know her,” Sirvat told them. “If you did you would not be so spiteful, sisters.”
“She bewitched our brother, and held him in her thrall, yet she could not save him from death,” Aselma said bitterly.
“It is not within a faerie’s powers to keep death away for long,” Sirvat responded. “She did what she could so Magnus might make his last wishes known. And she healed my husband of grievous wounds.”
“Well,” Narda said, “at least our husbands will be in charge of directing our nephew’s path. Terah will be as it has always been.”
“Aye!” Aselma echoed.
“How ignorant you both are,” Sirvat answered. “Terah will never be as it was. Not now that Hetar knows us. Magnus knew that, and was wise enough to raise a defense force to keep us strong and safe.”
“And that would have never had to happen if she hadn’t come here,” Narda replied.