"Each of these boys has been raised as the children of their foster parents. They have no idea how to rule. Alfrigg will have to teach them to be royal. It will take time. We will see that they are corrupted by the sudden power, the wealth and the women who will be available to them. The Dark Lands will always accept a male heir over a female one. If the Darkling Ciarda tries to take over it will cause civil strife, which would also be to our advantage, my brothers, but she is more dangerous."

"Then what do you want of us, Kaliq?" Lothair asked.

"There are only a few families where the twin, Kolbein, may be hidden. I need to know which family has fostered him. It is a simple enough task, but time is of the essence, and so I come to you, my brothers, for help."

There was a murmur of discussion among the Shadow Princes in the hall. Finally one of them, Eskil by name, said, "You seem to involve yourself much in the affairs of these mortals. Can they not evolve on their own?"

"Did we?" Kaliq asked in return.

"Blasphemy!" came the brief cry, but he who spoke the word was shouted down by the others.

"It is written that the fates of those of us in the magical worlds are inexorably intertwined with the mortal races," Prince Nasim reminded the others. "It has always been our duty to guide, but some of you have forgotten that. You prefer to live comfortably in your palaces with the women who attract you, raising horses and existing in utter idleness. Many of you will not even take your turn on the Hetarian High Council, leaving that duty to just a few of us."

"The darkness cannot be allowed to prevail over the light," Kaliq reminded his guests. "We need to keep these forces of evil off balance. I will seek among the Wolfyn for Kol's son Kolbein. Who will join me?"

Nasim, Eskil and Lothair called out that they would come. Kaliq's stern gaze swept the banqueting hall until two other of his brothers, Gaszi and Terriss, volunteered to help seek for Kolbein, as well.

"We will go on the morrow," Kaliq announced. "Now, however, my brothers, it is time for us to partake of the pleasures we all enjoy so very much." He clapped his hands thrice and at once all the guests were rendered naked. Good-natured laugher followed and the servants began bringing in sweets and making certain the wine cups were well filled. Within a very few minutes the princes and their women began partaking of passion.

Lara lay back, her golden head in Kaliq's lap. She smiled up at him lovingly. Two of the princes availed themselves of her breasts. They began to suck upon them eagerly. The sweet juice of the Umbra tree that had been painted upon her nipples had upon contact with her flesh become a powerful aphrodesiac. Lara could feel their male rods lengthing and growing hard against her thighs, which were spread wide, allowing another of the princes to suckle upon her love bud. She closed her eyes, and sank into the depth of the passion that was beginning to overwhelm her.

"Is it good, my love?" Kaliq asked her, licking at her ear, and then kissing it.

"Aye, my lord, it is good," Lara murmured.

"They will want you all at once," he told her.

Lara smiled softly. "I know," she said.

Then one of the princes lay flat upon his back, and, lifting Lara up, impaled her upon his love rod while pulling her forward so his brother might avail himself of her rear passage. That prince oiled his rod, and Lara's opening. Then, holding her hips in a firm grip, he pushed into that tight passage. Now the prince who had suckled upon that tender bit of her flesh stood before her, lifting her head up to put himself into her mouth. Then the three Shadow Princes began to move in perfect rhythm together. The quartet swam in deepest pleasures, releasing their juices at the exact same moment, sending Lara into a deep swoon of delight. When she came to her senses once again she was lying in Kaliq's arms while around her the sounds of the taking of pleasures arose. There were moans of contentment, and soft cries of fulfillment as the princes and the women enjoyed each other's bodies. A handsome prince that Lara did not remember seeing before came and stood before her.

May I? he asked in the silent language.

Kaliq? Lara said.

I am content to wait, as you will be mine for the remainder of the night, my love, Kaliq told her. His name is Coilin.

Lara held out her arms to the handsome prince, and he came into them. His lips touched hers, and she was afire with restored lust. A new lover was always exciting. Lying in Kaliq's arms, Lara's hands slipped beneath her breasts, and she offered them up to Coilin. With a smile he lay on his side, and, taking one of her breasts, fondled it, caressing it with light touches, finally closing his lips over the nipple. The sweetness of the Umbras juice quickly roused him, but he continued to suckle her as he pressed two fingers into Lara's sheath, moving them back and forth until she was writhing and eager for him. She whimpered her need.

Roll over, and kneel to me, he ordered her.

Lara complied, and sighed with pleasure as he thrust deep into her female passage. He continued to thrust until she had peaked twice, and her juices were flowing copiously. Only then did he release his own juices. Withdrawing from her, he thanked her for the pleasures she had given him and left.

Now it is our time to be together, my love, Kaliq said. There is no need for you to share yourself any further. He arose from the couch where they had been sprawled together. Come!

Where? Lara wanted to know.

Kaliq smiled, and took his long white cloak from the servant who had suddenly appeared with it. Wrapping it about them, he said aloud, "The Oasis of Zeroun, my love."

Lara felt the faint rush of their transport, and then Kaliq threw back the silk cloak, and they were there. A wave of his hand and her pavillion appeared. "Oh, my lord Kaliq," she said softly. Above them the moons of Hetar in their various phases beamed down upon them. "I would bathe," she told him. "I do not want the scent of other men upon me when we take pleasures tonight."

He led her into the water of the pool, and it was warm against her flesh. They swam together, and then Lara stood beneath the little waterfall for a few minutes before diving back into the water to join him. Kaliq took her into his arms, and kissed her a deep kiss that seemd to go on and on and on. Lara sighed, slipping her arms about his neck as he lifted her up, her body molding itself to his. Breast to chest. Belly to belly as they kissed again in the moonlight.

He carried her from the little pool, across a carpet of warm sand and into his tent. He dried their skin with a thick towel and brushed her long golden hair, which had long since come loose, shedding the filigreed jeweled chains plaited earlier into it. Taking a lock of her hair between two of his fingers, he kissed it. And when his sapphire eyes met Lara's emerald ones a new understanding bloomed suddenly between them.

What is happening, my lord Kaliq? Lara asked him silently.

Even I am not certain, Lara, my love, he replied. The Celestial Actuary plays with us, I believe. Do not be afraid. We will follow our instincts. Putting the hairbrush down, he wrapped himself about her, kissing her shoulder first, the side of her neck and finally her ear, which he tongued teasingly, and then nipped the lobe.

Lara leaned back against him. His arms felt strong and comforting. She did not have to be strong with Kaliq. She could be merely female. Turning her head, her lips met his in another passionate kiss. The tip of his tongue encircled her lips. She followed his lead then surprised him by pushing her tongue into his mouth to find his and play with it. Their mouths were fused as he turned her so they were facing each other.

His hands fondled her breasts, tracing their shape with his fingers, tickling the nipples, which were now free of Umbra juice. Laying her back, his mouth closed over one of those tempting nipples, encircling its pointed nub with his tongue, then biting down gently upon it. Her fingers kneaded his neck as he did, her nails pressing into the flesh as his teeth scored her. "Faerie witch!" he groaned, taking her head between his hands, his fingers deep in her golden hair as he kissed her again.

Lara's hands ran down his body. She petted him with skillful fingers until she felt him shudder with delight at her touch. Her hand stroked his love rod, moving gently up and down its length, slipping beneath it to cup his love sac in her warm palm. She fondled it, fingers playing with the two large seeds within. The sharp intake of his breath was audible. She tweaked the sac a final time, and returned to caressing his length once more. Then Lara lay back upon the pillows of the large bed, and spread herself open for him. "I have waited for you all this long night, Kaliq, for no one gives me pleasures as you have always done."

"And I have waited for you, my love. Tonight for the first time I regretted our code of hospitality that requires me to share you with my brothers."

"It was most pleasurable, but I could be content with only you, my lord Kaliq," Lara told him. "Your brothers are skilled, but it is you I always want."

"Do you?" he surprised her by asking.

"Aye, I should not say it were it not so," Lara swore to him. "That bit of mortal blood that flows in my veins prevents me from being duplicitous with you, Kaliq. Certainly you knew that. I am not Ilona."

His answer was to lean forward so he might run his tongue along her shadowed slit. Feeling her quiver beneath him, he pressed his tongue between her nether lips. Finding her love bud, he teased it unmercifully until she was writhing, and her juices were beginning to flow for him. Seeing it, tasting her, Kaliq mounted Lara and thrust deep. Her immediate cry of pleasure encouraged him to his best efforts. Her legs wrapped about his torso. Her sharp nails dug into his shoulders. As he drove deeper, rode her harder, her nails raked down his long back.

"Please don't stop!" Lara begged him. "It is too delicious!"

"I cannot promise," he groaned. His lust was high, and his genuine desire for this woman was great. "These pleasures may come quickly, but we have the night together, Lara, my love," Kaliq told her as he pistoned her until she was crying out with the pleasures he was giving her, and he cried out with the pleasures she was giving him as the muscles of her sheath tightened about his thick rod. Finally he could restrain himself no more. Her body had quivered for him again and again, and her juices had flowed for him thrice. Now as they began a fourth journey he released his own juices into her with a shout of pleasure fulfilled.

He let her sleep then for she had partaken of pleasures much this evening, but when the morning came he was awakened by her mouth upon his rod encouraging it to new delights. Happily, Kaliq complied, driving her passions to heated heights until Lara laughingly cried her surrender. "No one," he told her afterward as they kissed and cuddled together, "can rouse me as you do, my love. And no one has ever actually tired me out as you do. Had you not given over now I should have had to," Kaliq admitted.

Reaching up, she caressed his handsome face with a gentle hand. "Be careful today, my lord, when you travel the Dark Lands. Bring word to me when you return."

"Will you remain at Shunnar?" he asked as he reclothed them with a snap of his fingers.

"No. I must return to the New Outlands else they worry. Ever since that summer the Twilight Lord kidnapped me they fret if I am gone more than a day or two," Lara explained to him. "Put me back in my chamber in Liam's house in New Camdene."

"With the Horse Lord?" Kaliq said dryly.

Lara laughed. "Stop being jealous, but if it will satisfy you I am through with Roan. He was beginning to become possessive of me. If he is still in Liam's hall I will send him back to his own hall and his eight wives."

"I will admit that that would please me, my love," Kaliq said.

Lara laughed softly. "Oh, Kaliq, you must not let me be your weakness," she told him. "Remember I have a cold faerie heart, my lord."

"Then I appeal to that bit of mortal within you," he teased her. "Now I must send you back, my love, before I give in to my desire to take pleasures with you again."

"You must return to your own hall, and meet up with your brothers," she reminded him. Then she quickly kissed his lips. "Until later, my lord," she said, and disappeared in a puff of green haze.

He laughed. She had taken herself off before he might send her back. Sometimes her beauty caused him to forget that she had powerful magic, too. Not as powerful as his, but her powers were great. With a swirl of his cloak he returned himself to his own privy chamber. The sun was rising over the Desert Kingdom, and it was time to go into the Dark Lands to find Kolbein, son of Kol, before the Darkling Ciarda could cause any serious damage to their worlds.

9.

THE DARKLING KNOWN AS Ciarda had made her home in a stone castle her father had erected long ago in the Valley of the Penumbras. It was small, for those for whom he had brought this castle into existence didn't need a great deal of space. It was cold, but that suited Ciarda's icy nature although her two servants were always whining about it. She had finally given them permission to keep a hot fire in the kitchen where they slept. The fires that burned above the stairs in her hall and elsewhere were cold fire, and gave off no heat and but dim light.

The Darkling sat at her High Board staring out into her hall and considering her next move. She must set her twin half brothers against one another. Whichever of them survived she would take as a mate. She would force him to give her his male heir, for, having been raised with no knowledge of his heritage, he would know no better. Then she would encourage him to a thoroughly debauched life that would soon kill him.

And when he was dead she would take power in the name of her son. As for that son, she would see he was encouraged from the moment of his birth to indulge himself in every way. Nothing would ever be denied him, and, used to having his own way, he would find ruling a tedious bore, and leave it to his dear mother, who would do whatever necessary to keep her boy happy. Ciarda laughed at the picture she was painting. She would complete her father's dream to conquer Hetar and even Terah when the power was all hers. Patience, however, had never been her strong suit.

Irritatable now, she called to her Wolfyn lover, who lay by the fire in his animal form. Springing up, he took on a more human appearance, and walked over to the High Board where she now sat. "Pleasure me," she said in a cold, hard voice.

From the shadows where he stood Kaliq watched, amused for a brief moment, and then he returned to his privy chamber where he found Gaszi and Eskil already awaiting him. "No luck?" he said to them.

"None," Eskil replied. "Their manner of living is disgusting, by the way."

Gaszi nodded in agreement. "To put a child with creatures like that," he said, shaking his head. "The Wolfyn clan you visited?"

"The boy was not there, either. I did check on Ciarda, and listened to her thoughts. She is quite devious and clever. She means to set her brothers against one another for starters, marry the survivor, mother his heir and kill her mate off. Kol would be very proud of her," Kaliq remarked dryly. "She is ruthless, dangerous and completely without mercy. But she is also extraordinarily beautiful and has a vast appetite for pleasures. Her Wolfyn lover was doing his best to sate her when I left. His youth and his endurance are his only advantages. I actually felt sorry for him."

Lothair, Terriss and Nasim suddenly materialized within the privy chamber.

"I believe I have found him, brothers," Terriss said excitedly.

"Did you see him?" Kaliq demanded to know.

"Nay. He was with his foster father and brothers in the forest. But the women of the household spoke of Chancellor Alfrigg's impending visit," Terriss responded. "I could only surmise that meant the boy was a member of the household."

"That would seem a reasonable assumption," Kaliq said. "Did they say when the chancellor was expected?"

"Nay, but it seemed as if it would be very soon as the women in the household were busy cleaning and scouring," Terriss replied.

"Their hundred-year cleaning undoubtedly," Eskil murmured. "There were bones all over the floor of the house I visited." He shuddered.

"We will set a watch on Alfrigg, and on the Darkling Ciarda," Kaliq said. "And Lara must now begin to observe the sons she bore Kol." He looked to Terriss. "Did you leave the crystal where it would not be found as you were instructed?"

"I did," his brother replied. "You will be able to observe Kolbein wherever he is now. Shall we see if the token is working?"

Kaliq nodded, and, going to a cabinet, opened it to take out a beautiful crystal bowl, oblong in shape. Setting it upon a table, Kaliq raised his upturned palm slowly over the bowl, and it filled with a clear liquid. "Show me Kolbein," he said. Immediately the liquid darkened then cleared. The Shadow Princes gathered around the bowl saw the Wolfyn's hall. Uproarious laughter came to their ears and they saw the males of the Wolfyn pack gathered about a table where a female was bent over, her bare buttocks being whipped by a tall boy. They could hear the woman's cries of distress.

Finally the boy threw aside the dog whip he had been plying. From his baggy trousers he pulled forth a manhood larger than any mortal his age would possess. Grasping the woman's hips, his fingers digging into her soft flesh, the boy thrust himself into her, and then began to pump her hard. The woman screamed, which sent the men surrounding her into further bursts of hilarity.

"That's it, Kolbein lad," an older man encouraged the boy. "Stuff her full. Make the wench give you her pleasures. Go deeper, lad, and harder!"

"She isn't a virgin," the boy complained. "You promised me a virgin, Father Thorolf. The wench has a sheath that is wide as the open road and slack, too." He pulled out of the female and pushed her away. "Go back to the kitchens," he ordered her.

"But, my lord," the woman said, clutching at his arm, "I did not give you pleasures." She looked up anxiously at him.

"A creature like you could not give me pleasures," the boy said sulkily. "Be gone!" His gray eyes were darkening with his irritation.

"Go!" Thorolf told the woman, and thrust her away. "Before he loses his temper and throttles you."

"I want a virgin," Kolbein said. "I want a virgin whose sheath is tight, and who will weep and beg me not to take her precious virtue away from her. I want a virgin I can thoroughly despoil, Father Thorolf. You found virgins for Wulfgar and Wulfram. Why will you not find one for me?"

"Your foster brothers found their own virgins, Kolbein. They hunted them down in their wolf forms. A Wolfyn can scent a virgin, but you are not Wolfyn, Kolbein. You were given to us to foster."

"Who gave me to you?" the boy demanded to know.

Thorolf shook his head. "I am forbidden from telling you that until he comes himself to tell you. And that will be soon, I promise you."

"Your promises are worthless." The boy sneered. "You promised me a virgin, and then gave me a kitchen wench that every male in this house has futtered. Bah!" And the boy stormed from the hall angrily.

The liquid in the bowl darkened again before reverting to its original form.

"A lovely boy," Kaliq murmured. "If it were my choice I would kill him where he stood right now."

"It is amazing to realize that Lara birthed him," Lothair said. "Can we have a look at Kolgrim now?"

"Show us Kolgrim," Kaliq said, and the bowl clouded darkly, then cleared to reveal the hall of the Forest Giant. Arild sat at his High Board with his wives to his left, and three boys on his right. The boy on the end, while tall for a man, was small in comparison with the giants, but his hair was golden-blond and he was extremely handsome. "Kolgrim," Kaliq murmured. "He can be no other."

His companions nodded in agreement.

"The giants keep a better hall than the Wolfyn," Eskil noted.

"Let us watch and see if this son of Kol is as vicious as his brother," Terriss said.

But Kolgrim was pleasant and had good manners. He spoke respectfully to his foster parents and their elder son, the scholarly Vili. He joshed with the foster brother closest in age to him, Evert, as any normal mortal boy would do with a sibling.

"Wait," Kaliq said. Then, looking into the bowl, he said, "Show me Kolgrim in his bed," and the bowl clouded and cleared to reveal the boy with two buxom mortal servant girls. An insatiable and skillful lover, Kolgrim used both women until they were exhausted and begging for mercy.

"I am not satisfied yet," he told them. "Neither of you has succeeded in pleasuring me. Until you do you will have no rest." When one girl was foolish enough to protest he slapped her several times, bringing tears to her eyes. "Aah, I am beginning to be aroused by you," he told her, slapping her face and then her breasts. "Yes, you are starting to amuse me." He turned the girl over onto his lap, and smacked her plump bottom again and again until she was begging him to cease.

"Interesting," Nasim observed. "They both seem to have large appetites for pleasures, but both require pain to obtain it."

"Both parents have great appetites," Kaliq said quietly. "Passion doubled is a difficult burden to bear. Bowl clear!"

"Lara will have to observe more than we have in order to make a decision," Lothair said. "Kolbein looks like his father as does Kolgrim but for the golden hair."

"When will she begin her observations?" Gaszi asked. "Is she still here in Shunnar? Was she not magnificent last night? Such beauty! Such passion! Such perfect trust in us not to harm her." He sighed gustily. "When her lips closed about my rod I felt like a boy experiencing that pleasure for the very first time."

"Mind yourself, Geszi," Lothair teased. "You know how Kaliq feels about her."