Bertrice Small - A Distant Tomorrow

She kissed him softly on the lips, and smiled into his turquoise-blue eyes. “Thank you, Magnus,” Lara said in a soft voice. Then she whispered to him, “Have you ever swum naked in the sea, and then made love beneath the stars?”

“Aye to the first, and nay to the second,” he told her.

“I have never done either,” she said. “I think it is time we broadened my education, my lord Dominus.”

“Only if I may be your instructor,” he replied.

“Descend, Dasras,” Lara said to the horse, and the animal obeyed, alighting on a low bluff overlooking the Obscura.

“Unbridle me before you hurry off to seek your pleasures,” Dasras said sternly. “I shall need to graze among this lush greenery most of the night to restore my energy while you two play in the waves, and lie upon the beach expending yours.” He stamped a hoof impatiently.

Lara unbridled the beast. “Then we shall both have the night we desire,” she told Dasras.

He looked at her a long moment, a twinkle in his dark eyes. “Indeed,” he said, and then with a snort the big stallion dashed off.

“SOMETHING IS DIFFERENT,” Magnus said as they prepared to depart the following morning for the Temple of the Great Creator.

“What is different?” Lara asked him as she slipped the bridle over Dasras’s head.

“You,” he answered.

“She has ceased debating with herself,” Dasras told the Dominus, and then he took the bit in his mouth. “She will probably accede to your wishes to wed.”

“Is he right?” the Dominus asked.

“Will you not let me speak for myself?” Lara demanded of Dasras. “I have not yet come to any decisions, Magnus.”

“So she says,” Dasras teased his mistress, and then with a snort shook his magnificent head. “Run your fingers through my mane, Mistress. The wind yesterday has tangled it.” Then he addressed the Dominus again. “Do not rush her, Magnus Hauk, and you will obtain your way in the end, for she is a sensible woman.”

“One of these days, “Lara muttered, “I’m going to make a spell to silence you,” she threatened, but they both knew she didn’t mean it. Her slender fingers worked busily through his creamy mane as she combed it.

“You can’t silence me. My voice comes from Prince Kaliq, and his powers are greater than yours, Mistress.” Then he stamped his hooves. “Are we ready now?”

They mounted the big horse, and he galloped several miles across the green plain before taking to the skies once again. They would reach the Temple of the Daughters of the Great Creator by midafternoon. Lara had made the decision to go there first and inform the priestesses that the curse had been lifted. The High Priestess would then accompany them to the Temple of the Great Creator in order to prove to the priests there that their hearing was indeed restored.

“I do not think I shall ever get used to riding upon the back of a horse that flies,” Magnus said. “It is truly amazing, my faerie love.”

“I am as awed as you, Magnus,” Lara admitted. “Until my mother gave him this great power Dasras was simply a fine mount and an excellent warhorse.”

“You have fought a war?” he asked.

“We called it the Winter War. Hetar broke an ancient treaty and came into the Outlands. They invaded one spring in the area of the Tormod and Piaras clan families. These people are miners of gold, silver and gems, but they are also careful keepers of their lands. If you wandered through their mountains and did not know it you would not realize all the industry that goes on there. If they take a tree, they replant a tree.

“Gaius Prospero, who Kaliq tells me has now managed to get himself elected emperor, is a man for whom commerce is everything. He sought the riches that the Tormod and Piaras dug from the earth. He enslaved their people. Hetarians have always been taught that the Outlands is a place of savagery and chaos. In Hetar the laws and rules by which we live are carefully set, and strictly enforced, more with the poor than with the wealthy, however. In the Outlands they had lived simply, each clan family doing what it did best, and keeping to its own boundaries. I believe those who ruled Hetar feared if our people could see how easily the Outlanders got on they would have wanted to make changes. Change is not easy anywhere, but most especially in Hetar.”

“Greed was the sole reason for Hetar’s invasion?”

“I believe there was more behind it. But when the other clan families learned of the invasion they took action, and beat the invaders back. Not a man was spared but for those who drove the carts of their dead into the center of the City. It was a nasty lesson, and they still burn with the defeat. Hetar has become overcrowded in recent years. The Midland farms can no longer grow enough food to feed the people. When they were rebuffed in their incursion into the Outlands, Hetar began to encroach into the province of the Forest Lords. And the scrubland that separated the desert province of the Shadow Princes, from that of the Forest Lords is also being taken. It is only a matter of time before Hetar invades the Outlands again. The Shadow Princes have been keeping the Outlands safe by means of their magic, but they cannot do this for much longer,” Lara said.

“What will happen then?”

“Hetar, in its arrogance, will enslave as many of the Outlanders as they can. They will confiscate their lands, their herds, their flocks. They cannot be convinced that the clan families are not barbarians. They do not understand the Outlands’ simpler way of life. It is complete anathema to them,” Lara explained.

“I do not believe I like what I hear of Hetar,” Magnus said.

“My lord Dominus, you know as well as I do that the people can be led like sheep in whatever direction you want to lead them. The people can be convinced even when their own eyes say it is not so. The people of Hetar are good folk, but their leaders, I fear, have become corrupt, and imbued with a strong sense of their own importance. Many people on both sides will be killed when this conflict breaks out.”

“You say you have a destiny,” Magnus said.

“Yes, I do,” Lara replied.

“What is it?” he asked her quietly.

Around them a soft wind whistled as the horse galloped on through the morning air. The sun was warm on their shoulders. Some of the answer had come even as he asked the question. For weeks she had considered it, but until this moment she had not been certain. Now she was utterly and completely sure. And the scope of it amazed her.

“I cannot speak on this while on the back of a flying horse,” Lara said.

“Then ask Dasras to descend, and we shall walk together for a while, and you will tell me what is in your thoughts,” he said to her.

Having heard him, Dasras was already descending to the green land below. Lara refrained from remonstrating her horse for doing so without her order. Slowly, slowly they dropped down until the stallion’s hooves were touching the ground, his stride slowing, finally coming to a halt. The couple quickly slid from his back and began to walk, while behind them Dasras began chomping upon the lush grass.

“I want you to hear me out, Magnus,” Lara began, and he murmured his assent. “War is insanity,” she said. “I know that sometimes it appears there is no other way, and perhaps sometimes there isn’t. But this time I believe you and I can stop a terrible conflagration before it even starts. Here in Terah you have an overabundance of land. Your population is small. The solution is so simple. What if the Outland clan families were transported here with all their goods and chattels? Then when Hetar invaded, there would be no one to fight. Hetar is desperate to expand – the only place for them to go is into the Outlands. But they will have to kill to gain control of the region. And that kind of blood lust leads to other depravities. The survivors among the clan families will be enslaved, but many will die without their freedom, penned within the confines of the City. And it could all be avoided so simply, my lord Dominus.”

“Take in these people, and all their goods? How many are we speaking of, Lara? And what of the Terahns?”

“The Outland clan families number between ten and twelve thousand,” Lara said. “But your own people need not even know that they are here.”

“How is that possible?” he wanted to know.

“Magnus, look into the distance. Do you see that range of mountains? Only when you get to the other side of those mountains do you find a Terahn or a Terahn village. This vast plain over which we have traveled this morning is much like the Outlands, although far more lush. We could settle the clan families here. Other than owing you their allegiance, which would involve a yearly tribute, they would continue to govern themselves as they always have. And they would live their lives as they always have. It is most unlikely there would be any concourse between the Terahns and the Outlanders.”

“What of those among them who mine?” he wanted to know.

“They will make their own peace, and their own arrangements with your mountain gnomes. The Outlanders are not violent or unreasonable by nature,” Lara said. “I know that the Tormod and the Piaras could come to an equitable agreement with the gnomes. And I would negotiate for them if you would permit it.”

“If I agreed to this,” he said slowly, carefully choosing his words, “how could we prevent Hetar from crossing our Sea of Sagitta, and invading Terah?”

“I will enlist the aid of the Shadow Princes, Magnus. We will transport the Outland clan families and their goods by means of magic. Nothing, not even their village structures, will remain to show they were there. They will simply be gone. Gaius Prospero will not care, as his only interest is in the profits he will reap in the Outlands, and the acclaim he will receive from the people for having kept his promises to make their lives better. But one day Hetar will come, whether you do this great mercy or not.”