Before The Mask (23 page)

And the choice would not be theirs to make.

After a while, someone approached, the dim light from his lamp weaving elusively through
the trees. The lamp-bearer stepped into the ring of evergreens. It was the Seneschal
Robert, armed and solemn and bleary-eyed from a sudden wakefulness.

“Who are you?” Judyth asked. “I think you bear the worst of news.”

“Oh, it is scarcely the worst, m'Lady,” Robert replied, his voice grave and sorrowful,
“terrible though this news is. Tonight we leave this terrible castle and make for the
mountains and safety. Toward Berkanth, and the home of L'Indasha the druidess. You have
been called to her service, she says, for there is worse to come from Verminaard and
Cerestes.”

Judyth dropped her eyes from Robert's concerned stare and fought down a surge of anger and
pain. He knew this would happen, she thought. Aglaca knew this would be the outcome, but
still he chose to let Verminaard choose again.

And now I am alone, without him.

When do I get to choose? Since I left Solanthus, I've been adrift on plots and wills and
plans, all of which mapped what's best for the girl. I've followed their roads and
followed their banners, and the way has changed so often that I could never get back to
Solanthus ... at least not the place I remember.

Then there was Aglaca, and though he did not ask to leave, he's gone and irretrievable,
and Robert is planning for me now. But Aglaca was right to do it. There was the

one hope of us all in the way he met his own choice....

“Bravely, quietly,” she said aloud. Then she looked at Robert again. “There's something
left for me to do here.”

“Lady?” whispered Robert, still awaiting her answer.

She looked up again, and tears of triumph coursed down her cheeks. She was smiling.

“I will go with you, Robert,” Judyth replied. “But not yet. There is something I must
attend to here.”

Daeghrefn heard the outcry from his tower balcony. He saw the torches milling below in the
bailey, the fractured glint of firelight on armor.

It is the mutiny, he thought. The uprising has begun.

He stumbled into his chambers and lurched toward the bed. The window open behind him, the
red moonlight skimming across his shoulders, he sat on the bedside and extinguished the
candles. Dressing slowly in the half-dark, his eyes fixed upon the door to the chamber, he
paused when he was fully dressed in tunic and tabard.

He turned to his battle gearfirst the old Solamnic greaves and gauntlets, and then the
newer pieces, the black body armor adopted when he set aside the Solamnic plate and its
embossed roses and kingfishers.

They will not see me until they pass through that door, he declared to himself, fumbling
with his breastplate and helm. And then they will see me as a knight, as the warrior lord
of the castle. I shall be waiting for them. At the very last, when all are marshaled
against me, I shall end as I began, under my own standard, in the face of the damned and
damning Order.

Ceremoniously he donned the long, black cape adorned with the crest of Nidus.

The armor was too large for him.

Robert noticed at once as he quietly entered the chamber, leaving the two unconscious
guards lying in the corridor behind him.

The gaunt, wild-eyed man who faced him was only a shadow of the strong young fellow who
had come to the castle lordship twenty-five years beforethe man Robert the seneschal had
sworn to uphold, to follow. It was as though he was waning, like a sliver of the declining
moon.

When Daeghrefn saw who it was, he sprang to his feet and backed into the corner, his dark
eyes blazing with anger and fear.

“You!” he shouted, his voice husky and harsh. “I knew when I left you on the plains it
would be only a matter of time until you came to this room, weapon in hand! So take your
revenge and go. If you're man enough.”

Daeghrefn drew his sword. The blade weaved and wavered in his hand. He's exhausted, Robert
thought. He's wearied past sense.

“No,” he replied, closing the door behind him. “I come for no vengeance, but for your
rescue. I am here to take you from the castle, Lord Daeghrefn. It has become unsafe here.
There's a mutiny afoot.”

“I know that.” Daeghrefn's eyes were haunted, wretched.

Robert cleared his throat. “-Perhaps, then, you are also aware that your old . ..
acquaintance, Lord Laca of East Borders, is on his way from Estwilde at the head of a
thousand mounted soldiers.”

Daeghrefn gripped his sword more tightly. In his mind's eye, he saw a burning plain, the
South Moraine

smoldering and charred ... saw Robert riding away into the smoke.... “Come with me, sir/'
Robert urged. ”I'll care for you."

“Very clever, Robert,” Daeghrefn said with a sneer. “You could dupe a guardsman or a
falconer with your soothing double-talk, but it's hardly clever enough for the lord of the
castle. I shall stay here, thank you. And you shall depart my presence.”

^.Robert studied his old master from across the shadowy chamber. I believe where you are
going, I cannot help you, he thought. But I shall try, Lord Daeghrefn.

I shall try.

“You must come, sir,” he entreated, his voice hushed and somber. “Verminaard has killed
Aglaca, and who can tell what that will”

Daeghrefn stood bolt upright, his gaze vacuous and distant. “The gebo-naud,” he whispered,
his voice cracking. “ 'Truce for truth ... and son for son.' ”

“We must leave now, sir,” Robert persisted.

Daeghrefn backed toward the balcony, shaking his head, his hands extended as though he
tried to fend something off.

“The gebo-naud,” he said, his voice cracking hysterically. “My son . . . 'And his hand
will strike your name,' the druidess said.”

Wheeling about with a shriek, he rushed onto the balcony, Robert trailing desperately
behind him. “Laca! Abe-laard!” Daeghrefn screamed.

"AbelaardV

And he toppled headfirst from the railing, into a strange and dreadful silence, the dark
cape flapping behind him like a broken wing.

All of Aglaca's cherished belongings, wrapped in his good green cape, were scarcely enough
to burden her as she made the sad descent from his quarters. She had found the naming ring
Laca had given him, a book of .verse, and a locket that had been his mother's. All three
he had brought to Nidus with him nine years ago, keeping them in a little pouch by his
bedside.

She placed the dagger among themthe little blade he had given her on the night of the
Minding. Once she had asked Aglaca where it had come from, for its gaudy handleebony
embossed with golden claws, studded with

pearls and garnets in a replica of the summer night sky seemed out of place with the
tasteful simplicity of his other valuables.

Aglaca had answered her cryptically, repeating that it was a ward against evil, then
changing the subject to insectsor flowers, she no longer rememberedand so the dagger
remained a mystery. Judyth took the weapon anyway, on the off chance that someone would
know of it and of the story that no doubt explained it. Or at least know it had been his.

As she collected Aglaca's belongings, she collected her memories. Perhaps someday she
would go back to East Borders, and there present these things to Aglaca's father. Perhaps
the gift would make amends for her miserable failure as Laca's spy. But as for now,
Aglaca's belongings were hersthe book, the locket, the ring, and even the mysterious
dagger.

Now, as she reached the bottom of the steps, she tucked the package under her arm, feeling
the sharp prickle of the blade's edge through the cloak. She stepped toward the door of
the keep, toward the moonlit bailey and the spot where Robert would be waiting with a fast
horse to take them south.

And a sudden crash stopped her in her tracks. “Lady Judyth!” the voice called. “Do not
leave without a fond good-bye.”

She turned and stared through the open archway into the great hall of the keep, where
Verminaard sat alone at the banquet table, a plate of roast goose steaming in front of
him, a bottle of wine in his

left hand. The glass he had been drinking from lay in splinters beneath the arch where he
had hurled it, and the slivers caught the torchlight and glittered like broken ice.

He motioned to her with^the bottle. “Come in! Oh, do come in, Judyth of Solanthus!”

His right hand remained beneath the table. Judyth

knew it clutched the mace.

Verminaard beckoned again, this time more insistently. Her hands shaking, Judyth stepped
into the hall, the broken glass crackling beneath her riding boots.

“Where are you going?” Verminaard asked sternly. “I've not given you permission to leave,
you know.”

“I had no idea your permission was necessary, Lord Verminaard,” Judyth replied evenly,
pausing halfway to the edge of the table.

“Come closer,” the new Lord of Nidus muttered hoarsely and set down the wine bottle. “Join
me in a toast to my precipitate predecessor, Daeghrefn of Nidus. They're shoveling him
under the bailey as we speak.” He licked his fingers, one by one.

“I truly must be leaving, sir,” Judyth said, backing toward the door. “I shall leave you
to dinner with ... your friends.”

Verminaard gazed at her sullenly, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “Won't you join me,
Judyth? Are you not my friend?”

Slowly he stood, the wine bottle again in hand, the mace in the other, leering at Judyth
as though she were the final course, the dessert to his lonely meal.

“No, sir,” Judyth replied. “Nor am I likely to be your friend. You have killed too many
who are dear to me.”

“I have killed but one,” Verminaard said, with a cruel half-smile. “One is quite enough,”
Judyth replied.

“Even so. Cerestes' knife did that work,” Verminaard explained lightly. He staggered from
behind the table, taking a wobbly step toward Judyth.

She had seen that look on faces beforein the leering eyes of the bandits when first they
brought her to the Pen in Neraka.

“But you blinded him first,” she whispered, the slightest quaver in her voice. “So they
tell me.”

The wine bottle crashed to the floor, and the big man, incredibly quick, lurched toward
her. Judyth turned and ran for the door, but Verminaard grabbed her, his thick fingers
greasy and groping. She pulled away from him, holding the bundle to her breast, the hem of
her gown smudged by his rough hands.

“I shall be leaving now, Lord Verminaard,” she announced loudly and turned toward the
door. "Stay

here, if you will, and crown yourself king in a fallen castle."

“You are not in great favor with this court, Judyth of Solanthus,” Verminaard growled.
“But then you were never what I imagined. Such a disappointment... fit leavings for
Aglaca, I'd wager. But now ... well, now you will do.”

He rushed toward her blearily, his arms extended, Nightbringer glimmering like a dark
torch in his gloved hand. Seizing her, he drew her close, crudely and violently.

The knife! Judyth thought, instinctively raising the bundle. She brought up the packet
suddenly, violently, as the sharp blade of the dagger slit through the green cloak and
scored across the face of her assailant, a thin, shallow line from chin to forehead.

Verminaard reeled from her, howling and clutching his face. He banged Nightbringer on the
stone floor in a flurry of black sparks, and smoke streamed from between his fingers.

Alarmed, but alert enough to seize her chance, Judyth rushed from the hall and out to the
bailey. She dropped the bundle at the threshold, then crouched to quickly gather the
belongings.

And shivered as the long cries from the hall became shrill and terrible. Robert found her,
as he knew he would, waiting in the garden.

There, in the ring of aeterna lovingly planted by his old friend Mort, he discovered the
girl weeping, her lavender-blue eyes reddened and downcast.

“Oh, Robert!” She smiled up at him and rose to her feet. “Come with me,” Robert urged
quietly and took her arm.

Gently Robert steadied the girl as they slipped through the topiaries, bright with autumn
reds and violets, toward the stable, where the seneschal had kept a roan stallion saddled
and ready for the trip to Berkanth.

But as they reached the edge of the garden, the tower bells began to ring.

“They're after us!” Robert hissed, pulling Judyth behind the vine-entangled gate.
Together, breathless, expecting torches, search parties, and alarms, they stared across
the open courtyard at a surprising and ominous sight: the bailey in the eerie red glow of
Lunitari, the soldiers assembled around Aglaca's shrouded body, breathing the Solamnic
prayers they scarcely remembered as they prepared to bury him amid the aeterna in his
beloved garden.

The commotion came from the ramparts, where the garrison of Nidus rushed to man the walls,
the archers hastening to the western gate, where the cry of the sentries rose above the
tumult.

“Solamnia! The forces of Laca! Prepare for attack!”

“We're going nowhere now, m'Lady,” Robert whispered, motioning for silence. “Even if we
could cross that moonlit yard and get to the horse, there's no longer an unguarded gate in
the castle. I taught these boys how to wait a siege, and if they listened at all, Nidus is
shut tight against the enemy.”

“Then just what do we do, Robert?” Judyth asked, drawing Aglaca's dagger, her lavender
eyes flashing with anger.

“Not what you'd like to do, lady,” Robert insisted, gently taking the weapon from her and
slipping it into his belt. “We wait it out. We hope that Lord Laca has schooled his men
even better.”

Verminaard sat in Daeghrefn's old quarters, looking dolefully in the mirror.

He had slept for daysa strange and fitful sleep, filled with shapeless dreams and dark
landscapes. He could tell as much by the moons and the shifting planets, from which he
gained his only knowledge of time. For pride's sake, he dared not venture down into the
keep, where his soldiers might see the wound the girl had given him.

The cut had never blednot even a dropbut now, three days after his wounding, the scar was
even worse. Jagged and purple-black, spreading from chin to forehead, it had branched and
forked like a river in rocky country.

My glory is ruined, he thought bitterly. You would think that a wound such as this would
be mortal, but it does not hurt. I can ho longer even feel it, and yet when I look in the
mirror, the scar has spread even farther, to my ears and lips and my very eyelids. The
skin is destroyed. My face is eaten alive by this wound.

I shall find that girl. As he slipped the black cloth over the mirror, he saw Cerestes in
it, entering the door behind him.

In Verminaard's absence, Cerestes had assumed defense of the castle. The spell that had
bound his magic ended with Aglaca's death, and now the mage used every charm and
enchantment he knew to bind the garrison to his com-

mand. But Cerestes had recovered only slowly from his own binding, and his spellcraft was
still weak and tentative. Though he kept the soldiers in line for the moment, the mage
looked haggard and drawn.

“My beauty is ruined, Cerestes,” Verminaard pronounced desolately. “Now those I conquer
will remember me for my scar, for my ugliness.”

“Not so, Lord Verminaard,” the mage replied. “They will remember you for the power of your
choices, for your victories and conquests.”

Verminaard laughed bitterly. With a sweep of his gloved hand, he pointed to the balcony,
to the high overlook and its view of the southern plains. “Look out beyond the walls,
Cerestes, and think back only as far as midsummer. Now the plains are growing back, and
the forest beyond them is greening with fir and juniper. But how will this mend, Cerestes?
How will this scar look in a season's time?”

Cerestes backed toward the door. “Wait for me here, Lord Verminaard,” he urged. “Your
wounds will mend as mine doslowly but completely. Though I cannot hasten that recovery, I
know a little of shape-changing and disguise.”

“ 'Wait'? How could I leave this cell, marked as I am? And who knows when the mending will
begin?” Verminaard intoned as the mage slipped through the chamber door. Verminaard sat on
the

bed, burying his face in his hands. “Has any suffered as I have suffered?” he shouted to
the empty room.

None, the Voice claimed as the mace by the bedside sparkled with ebony light. None have
suffered as you have suffered, and yet you are handsome in my eyes, a creature of
unforeseen beauty, whose scars have deepened his splendor, for in my eyes, you are a
spirit of dark light....

Verminaard shook his head. He would not be consoled. Not yet.

Go to the balcony, the Voice urged. Look west over the plains whose greening you mourn.
West over the army of Solamnics, toward the Eira Goch.

Reluctantly Verminaard stood and walked to the balcony railing.

“Light,” he said, shielding his eyes against the red glow of the sunset. “I see light, and
the crests of mountains.”

Dream of what lies beyond them, the Voice urged. I am preparing you an army in Estwildea
thousand men strong and ready.

You are handsome enough to lead them. “I will not have them see this scar,” Verminaard
insisted. “It is a wounda sign of weakness.”

No weakness. For Cerestes prepares a mask of mysteries, wrought from Daeghrefn's broken
breastplate. You will wear the mask at the head of your armies. You are handsome and
splendid, but the mask is better. Now none will know you as I know you. None but I shall
look upon your countenance.

When you receive the mask, go to the evergreen copse, to the place of transformations.
There we shall commune, and I shall bring to pass the first of my promises.

Your army will wait. Your destiny will abide.

Laca watched the dim arrangement of lights along the battlements of Nidus. It was the
tenth day of the siege, and there was still no word from Verminaard.

Long encampment sat ill with Solamnics, as did the waiting.

Even now, the thought of defeating Verminaard was enough to fill his dreams with delight
and yearning. Deeply Laca wished revenge on his own son, on the cold young raven of Nidus
who had blinded one brother through petulance and spite, then slain the other on the

battlements where the lights weaved now in the thickening darkness.

But startling news had come from the castle. The emissary, a grizzled Nerakan named
Gundling, brought the story to Laca. Verminaard, who was now, some said, a cleric of
considerable power, had vanished from the castle two nights ago. Rumors had it that he was
somewhere in the mountains, communing with the goddess and readying himself for the great
venture. And while he was gone, the garrison had come to themselves, Gundling said. They
had seized the mage, who was near exhaustion, imprisoned him, then voted to a man to open
the gates to the Solamnics, to hand over the castle.

As a Solamnic lord, Laca had heard stories such as this beforethe hoarded promises of
besieged towns, the lies of bandit captains. Strong magic could await them inside those
walls, and a thousand lesser ambushes.

“We will wait,” Laca said, “until your commander has the courage to come forth and parley.”

The Lord of East Borders was not alone in his patience. His knights stood beside him,
fivescore times ten strong, and not one of the Order questioned his decision. But the
archers grumbled, and the infantry fought among themselves as the legions foraged the
countryside, finding little to nourish them in a landscape so recently burned.

Laca slept little that night, his dreams a confusion of fire and betrayals.

On the next morning, before dawn, a mist rose in the dungeons of the eastern tower. It
rose unnoticed through the castle floors, wafting past Nidus's vigilant sentries, then
onto the plains through the equally vigilant Solamnic infantry.

One of the Solamnicsa lad from the plains, not far from the ruins of the old Castle
diCaela thought he saw a shape in the mist, silhouetted against the glow of the campfire.
But he blinked and it was gone, receded once