Before The Mask (17 page)

And yet 'tis not a foolish ambition when it comes to the gov-

ernance of men. I can use it... can use you, my darling. Under the mask of Verminaard's
servant, you will answer only to me.

Yes. Yes. The idea delights me. Should I bind him more closely to your service?

I speak to him through Nightbringer. He is mine. But, yes, you may bind him further.
Further, irrevocably, beyond all choice, so that he will never return to uncertainty but
will stay fully, completely mine.

Yes. I will do that. Teach me the spells. I will do your bidding.

I shall speak those spells through your voice when the time comes. All you will have to do
is relax, blank your mind, and give yourself over to me.

But there is also the matter of the girl. When the time is right, I shall tell you what to
do. She is the candle that will guide me to L'Indasha Yman. And in return for your
obedience, Verminaard shall follow your veiled commands and do your will. For from this
time on, your will is my will, your desire my own....

The rocks were definitely looser now. Slowly, painfully, the dragon slipped from his rough
entombment, breathing hysterical prayers of gratitude to the goddess, to her six cohorts
in the Dark Pantheon, and to forgotten gods, stone deities that ruled the madness of men
and beasts while the true gods had vanished from the face of the planet. But always to
Takhisis his gibbering words returned, and the cool air rushed into his throat, and he
slept from the pain and exhaustion, forgetting all his plans and rebellions.

He was her creature again.

Cerestes awoke at midday to the sound of thunder. Furtively, shamefully, but grateful for
his life, he gathered his tattered robes together, stitched them together with spells, and
slipped from the cavern, wading down the rock trails in an icy net of autumn rain. At the
gates, the sentries barely recognized him, for his hair had whitened, and the gold of his
eyes had been swallowed by a dull

and featureless graythe color of bedrock and abiding fear. And in the cavern above him,
the goddess laughed.

Servitude and servility. It was a phrase she relished and a strategy she lovedas one
minion kept watch on another.

She had told Ember the truththat though he would deal with Verminaard, he would answer
only to her.

And now it was the young man's turn, the Dragonlord apparent, who would hear the same
story.

In the chill of the early evening, the druidess found the place. The entrance was little
more than a large hole in the side of an old igneous rock formation, but it was large
enough for L'Indasha to crawl through and retrieve a bucket full of ice. She had broken
off a good, clean hunk that almost filled the oaken vessel, and Robert helped her to the
outside and the moonlight and air.

“What will you do with this?” he asked.

“The ice offers a certain reflection of reality. Sometimes it's cloudy, and always it's
skewed, but this kind of augury is helpful for searching, for seeing . . . possibilities,”
the druidess replied. “Watch now, and think of Castle Nidus. My helper must surely be
there, as you have said.”

As Robert bent to the spangled surface of the ice block, he felt L'Indasha take his hand.
Deep in the frozen currents, a slow movement began, and he could see the outline of towers
and walls, of flying standards and parapets.

“Try for the inside.” L'Indasha smiled.

He grinned, too, and the inner garden of Nidus took shape in the swirl of an ice cloud. At
last he saw the girl, and with her, one of the young men.

“That's Aglaca!” crowed Robert, nearly dumping the bucket down the hillside. “Look at him;
he's romancing her.”

In the vision, Aglaca was clearly holding the girl in his arms, preparing to kiss her.
L'Indasha glanced quickly up at Robert, not wishing to invade the couple's privacy. He,
too, broke his gaze from the bucket and found L'Indasha's face not three inches from his
own. His chest pounding and his hand still in hers, he suddenly spoke his heart to her.

“L'IndashaI would that I were by your side, to share your life for all time,” he
whispered. “You are the keeper of the land, but I would keep youlove you, care for you,
and give my life to you, now that I have it to give. What say you to this?”

She looked long and deeply into his blue eyes. There was no guile there, no deception, no
hidden purpose. Robert held her gaze until she began to speak. She fumbled at the phrases,
knowing all the while that every moment she delayed broke his heart a little more. For
three thousand years, she had wanted this kind of companionship, this honesty and love.
And Robert was watching all three thousand of those years, their memories of loneliness
and hope, pass by in the space of a few moments.

But what of her promise to Paladine? She was more than any keeper that Robert knew of. She
was the sole keeper of the missing rune, and immortal until she lay that promise down or
Paladine relieved her of it. Robert did not know what he asked her, and she needed time to
think.

“I say that I may not say,” she finally replied. “But go from me a little way and let me
consider. For I love you, too, Robert.”

He was not disheartened. As he rose to leave her, he lifted her up to her feet and kissed
her hand. "I have

waited a very long time for you, druidesssince that snowy night in the mountains. I will
wait a bit longer."

The clear autumn sky of the day slowly turned purple in the chill gloaming, and the first
of the stars winked back at L'Indasha as she stared up at them. The loneliness she had
complained to Paladine about years ago in the spring garden had utterly vanished at the
sound of Robert's words. How long had she loved him? she wondered. Maybe from that first
day, the day he had spoken of, when he lowered his sword and told her he could not do the
bidding of the Lord of Nidusthat he could not kill her. That his honor recoiled at such
monstrosities.

He had asked her, in a hope and faith beyond reason, to keep his honor secret on that
account. It had made her laugh then.

And he made her laugh now. Even as they had walked in the worst of the damage from the
fire, he had made her remember life in spite of the ashes, renewal despite the charred
forest. He joked about how nothing could kill aeterna, and how the first name of evergreen
was ever.

She smiled at the thought of him, at his foolish jests. She smiled as well at the line of
greenery, miraculously untouched by the fire, that another hand had warded with the
ancient runic signs. Mort had been hereof that she was certain, and Nidus's former
gardener had diverted a greater disaster with his foresight and his skillful spells. The
flames had stopped short at the edge of the magic, and whatever plants lay above it were
subject only to the autumn weather.

Logr and Yr. Water and yew bow. Journey and protection. The runes were wisely used, and
she had seen them before, twice on the plains. Within the shelter of the sign,

every plant seemed eternal.

Eternal. What would it be like without Robert? He was perhaps fifty; she had seen thirty
centuries pass. If they went their own ways, time would treat them differently. When he
was old, she would be unchanged by the years, scarcely a breath older by his reckoning;
when he died, she would be worse off than to have never known him.

Just then a hand touched her shoulder, and she whirled to face not Robert, whom she had
supposed it to be, but an old man in a shabby hat, the silver triangle on it gleaming in
the brightening starlight.

“My Lord Pal” “Hush, girl. Remember who's always listening. Something on your mind?” “Oh,
yes. And you know what it is.”

"You have the same choice as always, my dear. You know I will not demand of my friends
what they do not will to give. And if you believe that for three thousand years you have
not changed, reconsider, for you are still alive. And living things always change and
grow. He will abide until

you choose again.

“Take heed now to your helper's fate. For her protection, she has no idea of my purpose
and her calling. I want Robert to bring her to you, and for you all to meet me here again
when that is done.”

In the weeks that followed the Minding, tbe struggle for Castle Nidus grew treacherous and
tangled. From the moment when Daeghrefn entered the chamber to sullen looks and shaken
allegiances, Nidus had been a vast and intricate web, with Verminaard the spider at its
center.

Cerestes lurked in the background of all the intrigues. Immediately after he had returned
from the grotto, the mage had breathed the first of the incantationsthe one the Queen of
Darkness had designed to draw the loyalty of the garrison from Daeghrefn to Verminaard.

The mage was surprised that he knew the spell. After all, he had never heard it spoken,
never read it. The words felt alien in his mouth as he chanted them, and it was only

after the spell was spoken that Cerestes knew that his voice was no longer his own, that
Takhisis herself spoke his words for him.

That his breath was the breath of the goddess.

He leaned against the battlements, shaking with confusion and anger. Slowly he calmed
himself, staring at the tilted stars of Hiddukel, the bright scales in the southern sky.

It was just as well. His thoughts and words were no longer his own, but the end of the
journey would have its rewards. Takhisis had promised. She had promised him Verminaard to
govern and control.

Staring silently into the darkening night, Cerestes wondered for a moment if the prize was
worth what the Lady took in return.

He would think on that matter deeply when the time was right. When the moon is hollow, she
had told him.

Wait until the moon is hollow.

Having lamely sidestepped the open rebellion he saw brewing in the eyes of his garrison,
Daeghrefn roamed the strangely deserted castle halls, accompanied only by the ever-present
Cerestes, who urged him to calm all misgivings, to return to business as usual. There were
the fire-damaged castle grounds to mend and preparations to be made in case of Nerakan
attack. The enemy would know, Cerestes urged, that defenses here would be meager.

It seemed like good advice, and Daeghrefn plunged into the work of regrouping and repair.
Then he saw that the mead hall insurrection was not over, that his orders were followed
sullenly, halfheartedly, or, on most occasions, ignored altogether.

But the men jumped at even the smallest requests of

Verminaard, sat by him at table, and vied for his attentions. And the young man listened
to them, laughed at their jests, and lent a hand himself in lifting rocks and raising
scaffolding, his broad

shoulders rippling under twice the weight the others lifted. Here is a man that soldiers
follow, Daeghrefn told himself. And not only soldiers.

For perched on the battlements of the east wall was the mage Cerestes, his black robes
billowing like enormous wings. He looked down upon Verminaard and laughed and cheered as
well, joining the chorus of soldiers and workers as this strange young man gathered his
admirers.

Here is a man they all will follow. And what do I command, then? Daeghrefn wondered. Where
are my troops? My retainers? My holdings? He will have them all, and soon. Why have I
suffered him? Why did I let him live when he was but a new trouble in the world?

And the words of the druidessso long ago, on that blindingly cold night on the way home
from the treacherous Laca's castlecame back to Daeghrefn in a memory as cloudy and cracked
as ice.

77ns child will eclipse your own darkness. And his hand will strike your name. At long
last, Daeghrefn believed her. Daeghrefn couldn't remember how he heard about the rebellion.

He knew he should recall it clearly, that the moment should be engraved in all his waking
hours the first news of the first betrayals. But he could not remember. At night, he would
stand in the balcony window, ransacking his thoughts for the names of forgotten
constellations, and

on the fourth evening after the Minding, preoccupied with the aloofness of his men, he had
forgotten entirely the way back to his quarters and wandered the halls in aimless
embarrassment for an hour until he had gathered himself enough to collar a wayward page
and have the boy “help carry this torch to my chambers.”

It had been desperate and no doubt obvious, but the lad had been taught not to question.
Daeghrefn had followed the nodding light down the corridor, and when the child had opened
the door and handed him the torch, Daeghrefn had dismissed the lad abruptly and sat on the
bed, the burning torch in his hands filling the room with a fitful, evasive light.

He had forgotten the way to his own chambers.

That was not important now. All that mattered was the rising rebellion. Why couldn't he
remember its source? Its birth?

Perhaps it had been a slipped word between the guards at the gate that night he crept
along the battlements, cloaked and masked and listening to the conversations of sentries,
the passing words of soldiers and servants. Perhaps it was something in the comings and
goings from Verminaard's new quarters in Robert's old rooms at the edge of the bailey.

Perhaps he had even dreamt it. Before the fires and the Minding, he had never remembered
his dreams. But they came to him regularly nowadays, filling his thoughts in the morning
with images vivid and violent.

By whatever means the knowledge of rebellion had reached him, he was sure the news was
true.

So sure was Daeghrefn that he summoned three of the veteran soldiersSergeant Graaf,
Tangaard, and the archer Gundlingand spent a long afternoon in the vaulted council hall,
interrogating and menacing and bullying as the autumn sun sank over the spine of the Doom
Range. The garrison waited for supper in the hall outside

the bolted doors, the muffled shouts of Lord Daeghrefn reaching them even through the
thick oak.

The three men had listened politely, impassively to a string of bizarre tirades. When
Daeghrefn had threatened them with a dozen deaths and a score of tortures, the Lord of
Nidus ran out of breath and imagination and glowered at them from his seat by the
fireside. The soldiers nodded politely, turned, and filed out the doorway, out of the
keep, and across the bailey, directly to young Verminaard.

“Since he knows of it, your Lordship,” Graaf proposed, leaning against a narrow fireplace,
once Robert's, as a dozen soldiers gathered around their newly chosen commander, “and
since there's no need for secrecy, seein' as not one man sides with him, why not now? Why
don't we move you into the lord's chamber and set the old storm-crow to flight?”

His companions murmured in agreement, each offering more elaborate, more gruesome
suggestions of what to do with the deposed lord. Verminaard raised his hand, enjoining
their silence.

“Though I can appreciate your fervor, Sergeant Graaf, for now, we shall put no man to
flight. The old dayraven knows this castle is mine, and that is enough. Let him keep his
quarters. Post guards outside them to assure he will spend his time in his luxurious
surroundings . . . and nowhere else. I am the Lord of Nidus now, and he is my prisoner.
Let him learn what it is like to dangle upon the barbed whim of the powerful.”

As Cerestes had advised that night on the battlements, there was much to do between the
desire for power and the taking of the power in hand.

Verminaard had to set Castle Nidus in order.

It was not only the east wall that was shaky and vulnerable. The strange series of
alliances as well, the treaties and pacts that Daeghrefn had made to bolster his little
mountain fief, needed reconsideration and change.

Compelled by that need, Verminaard summoned Aglaca to the old seneschal's quarters at the
edge of the bailey. There would be long words, he promised, and offers befitting the scion
of a noble house.

There would be the accord of companions, he claimed. The agreement of brothers.

Inside the seneschal's quarters, Verminaard waited, his fingers drumming against the
scarred wooden table, his eyes fixed on the closed door. What Cerestes had told him was
true: He sensed it thoroughly in his bones and fingertips, in the unsteady tingling of his
scarred hand.

It was his brother, his only kin in Castle Nidus, who approached from the beleaguered
keep. But Aglaca was more than that, more than just complicated blood kin. He was the one
ungovernable soul, the man untouched by Verminaard's force and threats and manipulations.

He is like me, Verminaard thought, staring into the guttering fire. I remember the day on
the Bridge of Dreed, how his face even then resembled my own. The feeling, even then, that
I was bound to

him forever.

And now, as we have grown together and endured that monster in the keep, I am sure that
his face is my face, his eyes my eyes.

Slowly his scarred fingers encircled the handle of the mace, and he lifted the weapon, its
black head glittering in the deceptive firelight.

He is like me in his will and courage as well. When the dark passed over the moon and the
ogres fled and the soldiers froze, he was the only other man who could yet move, who could
yet act.

Nightbringer glowed evilly in his hand. Verminaard turned the weapon adoringly.

And this mace, he thought. Though it offered him praise and the prospect of home,
something contrary in him kept him from taking it.

I cannot mold him nor twist him nor force him to my liking. But there is always the girl.
She is nothing to me now that sweet Nightbringer rides in my hand, but she is important to
Aglaca. Yes, a bauble my brother fancies. A suitable pawn for my proposal.

He clenched his fist and breathed slowly, his eyes narrowing like an archer's gazing down
the long shaft of the arrow.

So I shall offer him a choice. Yes, a prospect that a man of his cunningand he is cunning,
for we both inherited that from our true fathera prospect that will delight him past all
refusals.

Cautiously Aglaca waded through guards outside the former seneschal's quarters. The
garrison whose discipline had been Daeghrefn's pride, drilled according to a kind of
measure even when the Lord of Nidus had left the Order himself, had now set aside all its
regimen and polish in a mere five days since the Minding. These men were on the edge of
banditry themselvesdirty and stubbled, all insignia effaced from their dull armor. Under
their new commander, they had traded their broadswords and bows for less noble, more cruel
weapons: the long scimitars of Neraka and the barbed spears of Estwilde.

When Aglaca opened the door, the smell of woodsmoke and wine rushed from the mottled
darkness, and before his eyes closed from the strong fumes, he saw Verminaard seated in
front of a thick, scarred table.

“Aglaca. Do come in,” Verminaard urged, a strange, sugary politeness in his voice.

The younger man paused reluctantly at the threshold of the building, but Verminaard
beckoned him, and eventually, taking a last deep breath of the fresh outside air, Aglaca
stepped into the shadowy chambers.

“I'm glad you came,” Verminaard said, “for I feel that you, of all people, have been party
to my innermost thoughts over the terrible years. Since things are about to change, good
Aglaca, I thought you should know. So that you might... share in the good fortune.”

Aglaca's face was unreadable, as blank as the mythical rune.

Verminaard cleared his throat and continued. "Within a fortnight, I plan a journey to the
village of Neraka. There I shall meet with Hugin, captain of the bandits, and I shall
demand his obeisance, his

service under the red banner of Nidus."

“What makes you think that this Hugin is going to delight in your offer?” Aglaca asked
uneasily. “After all, he's scarcely been agreeable in the past.”

“Sneer if you will, Aglaca,” Verminaard said, a note of coldness creeping into his voice,
“but you know that when I speak, I do not speak alone.” He held the mace to the light and
made a show of examining it. “You were in the cave with me. You heard the Voice when
Nightbringer passed to my hand.”

“Nightbringer?”

Verminaard nodded. “'Tis the name that comes to me. Therefore, 'tis the name of the mace.
But you heard the Voice. You know that I've been chosen.” He paused, glared at Aglaca.
“I'd like it if you sat down.”

Reluctantly Aglaca seated himself on a bare stool. “It's treason you're talking,
Verminaard. You know that the Nerakans have been our foes for”

“Nine years. It's why you're here, Aglaca, in case you've forgotten. But I shall sue for
peace in Neraka, and Hugin and his lot will march with me.”

“March?” Aglaca shifted uncomfortably. “Where?”

“Why, west, of course,” Verminaard replied, his sound hand stroking the mace head lazily.
“Which brings me to more delicate matters. I have canceled the gebo-naud. The Nerakans are
no longer a threat to Nidus. You are free.”

Aglaca stared at the floor, his thoughts racing. “Free to go home, then?”

“Aglaca, it hurts me that you still do not consider Nidus your home. I think of this
castle as your home as well as mine. I think of you as a brother.”

Aglaca glanced at him curiously. How much did Verminaard know? “But my father is in East
Borders, Verminaard,” he said.

Verminaard snorted and waved his left hand as though brushing away a fly. His right hand
clutched the mace more tightly, his scarred knuckles white against the black stone.

“Why serve at a small holding when you could be my captain?” Aglaca frowned. “I don't
understand.”

Verminaard rose from the table. “When Hugin's troops join my own, there will need to be
one man beneath me to yoke my unlikely forces together and be answerable for the lot of
them. I'll need someone I can trust. You're my only true friendthe only soul in whom I can
confide, because we are so alike in honor and loneliness and ... in other things.”

“But my home is East Borders, Verminaard. That was the idea long ago. That's why I am here
and ... and your brother far away.”