“I do not understand magic,” he said candidly.
“Nay, I suppose you do not,” she sighed. “Can you not believe the evidence of your own eyes, grandson?” Lara asked him. “My sword speaks for there is a powerful battle spirit within it. Verica, to me,” she called aloud, and her staff flew to her outstretched hand. She turned it so her grandson might see the ancient bearded face carved within it. “Verica, please greet my grandson, Prince Amren of Terah.”
“I know who he is,” Verica said. “He is the only one among Dominus Taj’s children to speak at any length with you, and then only because he needs your knowledge.” Verica’s sharp eyes glared at Amren. “Is that not so, Terahn prince?”
Amren nodded, a little less startled now than when Andraste had spoken in her deep, forbidding voice. Then he looked to Lara. “The sword speaks, the staff speaks, but this magic was in them. It is not yours.”
“You must see to believe then.” Lara chuckled. “Aral change!” And suddenly a small bright bird was flying about the chamber. “Do you believe now?”
Amren ignored the bird. “Where are you?” he demanded of her. He swatted lightly at the quick avian who dived at his head.
“Aral change!” He heard her voice again, and suddenly a large golden cat sat before him. Amren jumped back, genuinely terrified, his eyes wide as the cat raised a massive paw and placed it on his shoulder. He could not move and considered himself already dead. He struggled to speak but could push no words forth from his tight throat. Then in his fear he saw that the cat had green eyes. Faerie green eyes! He gasped with a mixture of both surprise and shock.
“Lara change,” he heard his grandmother’s voice again, and she was suddenly before him, her hand still resting upon his shoulder. “Now do you believe, Amren?”
“You can shape-shift,” he said, his voice returning. “I had heard of it.”
“Come!” Lara said, taking his hand while with her other she opened a Golden tunnel for them and led him into it.
“Where are we going?” he asked her nervously. “What is this place?”
“It’s a passageway to wherever we magic beings choose to go,” she said as they exited the tunnel onto the oasis. “This is Zeroun. Within a day’s ride are the palaces of the Shadow Princes, Amren. Have you ever been to the desert kingdom.”
“Nay, just to The City, the Midlands and the New Outlands,” he said slowly. “How can I be certain this isn’t all a hoax you have designed?” Amren queried.
“Shall I return you home to The City, grandson? Are you ready to return?”
“You can’t. I have yet to see the Dominus.” Then a sly look came into his eye.
“But if I do not see him he cannot dismiss me, can he?”
“Of course he can,” Lara said. “He will simply send word to you with your replacement, Amren. But if I return you to The City now, you will have time to prepare your wife, Clarinda, for the changes to come. Tell her only what you need tell her. Trust no one but the Shadow Princes who are there to aid you, and me. But do not attempt to betray me, Amren. I can, and I will turn your life into a horrific disorder if you do.”
He nodded. “I understand, Grandmother. I will keep faith with you for you have always been more than fair with me despite my…” He hesitated.
“Your ignorance?” Lara suggested.
Amren chuckled. “Aye, my ignorance.”
“Then you shall go now,” Lara said.
“Wait! How will I contact you?” he asked her.
“Commit these words to memory, Amren. Grandmother, Grandmother, heed my plea. Cease all else and come to me. Say these words, and I will come to you.”
“I will remember them,” he said.
“Very well then. Farewell, my lord Amren,” Lara said. Then she magicked him away with these words. Amren, return to The City from whence you came. I’ll call when you must come again.
Terah’s ambassador suddenly found himself standing in his privy chamber within his own house in The City’s Golden District. He was astounded, and to be certain he was not dreaming he pinched himself hard. “Ouch!” he exclaimed. He was not dreaming! What an amazing thing had just happened to him. He had actually seen magic. He could no longer deny that it existed, but he would never admit such a thing aloud. He would be considered a fool, and his stature diminished if he did. But magic was real. Who knew what rewards it could bring him from his grandmother if he cooperated with her. And she asked little. Report on the gossip within the court and The City itself. And Ambassador Amren of Terah always heard the gossip first.
CHAPTER THREE
LARA RETURNED TO the castle of the Dominus. Cadi was waiting for her.
“What do you want to take, mistress?” she asked.
Lara looked about her. “Just my personal possessions,” she said.
“The portrait of Magnus Hauk?” Cadi inquired.
Lara shook her head. “Nay. I have his face painted within a small oval. I shall give the large portrait in my day room to Dominus Cadarn. Find me some guardsmen to carry it to him.”
The serving woman sought out two strong young men-at-arms, bringing them to her mistress. “You will carry a large portrait of the Dominus Magnus Hauk to Dominus Cadarn,” she told them.
Lara pointed at the big painting upon the wall. She motioned her hand up, and the picture in its ornate, carved gold wood frame rose off the wall. She beckoned the image forward with a single finger until it hung in the air directly in front of her. Then, turning her hand over, she signaled the painting down. “There,” she said to the two openmouthed guards. “You may take it now to the Dominus with my compliments.”
“Well, don’t stand there slack-jawed,” Cadi said. “Do as you are bid.”
Almost bemused, the two men-at-arms picked up the portrait between them and removed it from Lara’s apartments.
“You might have just placed it on the wall you wanted instead of letting those two clods struggle through the castle with it,” Cadi said.
“You saw how those two young men reacted when I removed the picture from the wall. They have grown up believing there is no magic. Imagine if I had simply magicked the portrait onto another wall. It’s unlikely anyone would have noticed it. I wanted those two to see my magic. Now I will seek out my great-grandson and set the painting on a wall of his choice so he may be forced to acknowledge magic,” Lara told her servant.
Cadi laughed. “This generation of mortal Terahns has really rankled you, mistress, haven’t they?”
Lara smiled ruefully. “Their refusal to believe in magic is very irritating,” she admitted. “After Taj came of age and began to rule himself, I seemed to lose interest for a while in everything. I spent time with my mother, with Kaliq, at Zeroun, even back in The City for a brief time when Zagiri needed me. I became complacent, and when I did, Magnus’s family managed to bring Terah back into its past. They did not shun me for they were too afraid of me. They simply included me as little as possible, and my travels made it all the more easy for them.” She sighed. “I let the magic die here, and they are the worse for it. I cannot change what is past, but before I leave I shall give my great-grandson a good dose of magic so that even if he chooses to ignore magic in the future, he knows that it exists whether he acknowledges it or not.” She looked about her apartments. “Nay, there is nothing to take but that which I have instructed you. Magick it all to Shunnar, Cadi. Then follow it. I shall come after I have spoken with the Dominus.”
“Very good, mistress, but one thing before I go,” Cadi said. She gestured with her hand and suddenly Lara was clothed