The Twilight Lord Read Online Free Page B

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