Before The Mask (22 page)

At the moment the moonbeam touched his robes, Verminaard began to shimmer with an eerie
black light. The robes seemed to expand, to double in on one another, folding and boiling
like a distant stormy ocean. For a moment, his face seemed to lengthen, his skin to dapple
and scale.

Then, in a dizzying swirl of color and light, he became the mage Cerestes. He lifted his
hands to the east, to the

foothills above the castle, where the old copse of evergreens had risen before the fire.

Aglaca shook his head. He had been watching the change with fascination, as a small
defenseless animal watches the hypnotic nod and weave of the neidr snake. So the man he
had seen on the battlements was not Verminaard at all but the dark mage in disguise.

Then where was Verminaard?

Low in the eastern sky, a black shadow crossed over the face of Lunitari. “The hollow
moon,” Cerestes said, his voice carrying eerily in the night air. The mage began to chant,
his hands weaving gracefully, gesturing toward the foothills, toward a patch of darkness
gliding there in the moonlight, moving swiftly toward the castle.

Slipping along the shadows of the battlements, Aglaca drew nearer and nearer the
black-clad mage. He stopped in astonishment at the tower walls as a new voice rose out of
the chanting, low and feminine, familiar from the days of his childhood, when he had
fought its soft insinuations.

It was the Voice in the cave, the taunting voice of the goddess. Cerestes mouthed the
words, but it was the Voice who spoke through him.

And out on the foothills, the approaching darkness took solid formthe broad shoulders ...
the fair hair. Verminaard was approaching, and a dark magic was ready to meet him.

Aglaca took a deep breath. Best to bind Cerestes now, while his thoughts were elsewhere
and his energies linked to the dark and distant hill. Best do it quickly as well, for his
own chant was a long one, one verse for each of the moons. He breathed a quick prayer to
Paladine that the saying of

these words would not consume him, for had not the old man spoken of their dangerous and
volatile power?

He was no enchanter. But for this one time, the words were his to speak. “ 'By the lights
of Paladine/ ” he began, "And Solinari's silver glow,

Let the words unite and bind

Light above to light below;

Let candle, torch, and lantern shine.

By the lights of Paladine."

Cerestes stood upright, his long meditation on the Lady on the chants that would bind the
returning Verminaard brought to a sudden halt.

The tips of his fingers burned, as they always did when the Light Gods threatened, and
Cerestes knew the disturbance for what it was.

Swiftly, urgently, he wheeled and sniffed the air, his heightened senses tasting the
mustiness of the tower, the smoky, autumnal bailey, the sharp animal stench of the stables.

Where was the chanter?

His keen ears gathered the whir of a cricket near the seneschal's quarters, the call of an
owl in the garden, something scuttling in the battlements of the western tower. Where?
Where?

Already his senses were fading, binding to human limits, the keen draconic eyesight
dwindling into blurs of distant shadow as the far walls seemed to vanish before his
straining gaze.

Then, from the wall below, at last he heard the voice. He heard the second verse begin.
"In Gilean's red and balanced light, Let light before match light behind,

And Lunitari charge the night With shadows human and confined. Let eyes define the edge of
sight In Gilean's red and balanced light."

Something moved in the shadow of the western wall.

Cerestes shielded his eyes and looked down, but the dark had encroached, and he could not
see the chanter. His fingers burned horribly, and he rushed for the stairwell, cold panic
propelling his steps onto the battlements.

Quickly. Before the third verse. He teetered precariously on the narrow ramparts,
stumbling and clutching the walls as he raced

toward the chanter.

He was too late. The verse had already begun.

"Back into Nuitari's gloom,

Let all rough magic now depart..."

Cerestes breathed an old, evil incantation, and black fire settled in his hand. With a
muted outcry, he hurled the fireball at the sound of the voice and staggered on when the
chant continued ...

Aglaca felt the hot wind brush by his face, heard the wall shatter behind him. Still he
continued, his memory holding the last words of the song, untouched by the heat and
burning as a dark fire encircled him, rose, then suddenly began to fade.

“Let centuries of night entomb The dark maneuverings of the heart...”

The ramparts beneath him rumbled and shook. Aglaca leapt to the tower, clutching the
mortared stone, scrambling up the face of the wall. The mage leaned over the battlement,
and red fire flashed from his hands.

Aglaca clutched the base of a tower window, and with a somersault that the druidess taught
him in the garden, vaulted gracefully onto the sill. The fire rushed by him, and he leapt
into the open room, an unoccupied guest chamber, and raced up the stairs to the roof of
the tower.

Aglaca opened the oaken door to the roof, and the stars swelled, and the cold air rushed
over him. At the battlements, the mage wheeled about, his eyes flaming with rage, his
hands raised for yet another spell.

Remember the last lines, Aglaca told himself, rolling out of the way of a black bolt of
lightning that shattered the door behind him. By all the gods, remember!

And then the Voice came to him, one final time, soft and seductive and brimming with
promises. It is all yours, Aglaca Dragonbane. Cease your chanting and release my servant,
and it is all yours....

The walls seemed to fall away, though Aglaca knew it was a vision. Before him lay a
continent waiting, from Kern in the farthermost east, to Estwilde and Throt, to Solamnia
and Coastlund, then west to Ergoth and San-crist, the island kingdoms....

It is all yours, Lord Aglaca. All this power I shall give you, and the glory of it....

Aglaca laughed. “I have heard it before,” he muttered, “and it did not move me then. You
cannot stop me!” Rebuffed by his laughter, the dark insinuations fled from his thoughts.
His voice strong with faith and assurance now, Aglaca pronounced the song's end in the
shrieking, pummeling darkness of Cerestes' futile spellcraft.

“Let darkest magic flee, consumed By Nuitari's ravenous gloom.” Cerestes panted before him
on the battlements. The mage looked smaller in the moonlight, his

handsome features drawn and wearied, his once-golden eyes as depth-less and dull as
firebrick.

“Do not gloat, Solamnic,” he threatened, his voice strangely high, thin, void of
resonance. “The dragon is confined within me, but I have not been idle in my human form. A
formidable mage stands before you, and a thousand magicks wait at my bidding.”

“Try one of them,” Aglaca urged. “Try your most powerful spell, Cerestes.”

The mage lifted his hajnd, ready to cast a fireball, and breathed the old incantation.

Nothing happened.

“You cannot do it,” Aglaca replied calmly. “”Us as simple as that. Your magic has left
you, sorcerer, and we stand here man to man."

“But the one who approaches has power, Solamnic,” Cerestes said. “You have not accounted
for Verminaard, nor for the mace Nightbringer, which he holds like his own dark heart. You
will lose, Aglaca. My spells may fail, my magic falter, but you will lose.”

“He will decide that,” Aglaca said. “Verminaard will choose.”

“Oh, very good, Solamnic.” The mage leered. “I would have it no other way. And we will not
wait long.”

He pointed to the east, where Verminaard moved quickly from the moonlit foothills,
trailing a swath of blackness behind him as he turned toward Castle Nidus.

“I have no dragonsight,” Cerestes hissed. “You have taken that from me as well. But it can
be restored by Verminaard. Here he comes, riding the crest of the absolute night, and I
can see far enough to know him.”

The man stalked across the eastern plains, and the first of the winter winds swept up from
the south, bearing with it the smell of ash and corruption.

It was Verminaard. That much was certain. Aglaca knew him at once by the broad shoulders,
by the blond hair and the tattered black cloak. By the damned mace he still clutched
tightly.

He moved swiftly, feverishly, as though something pursued him. And behind him the wave of
darkness spread and settled, and the eastern hills vanished into a complete and abject
night.

“Here he comes,” Cerestes announced, pointing a long, bony finger at the approaching man.
"Look behind him,

Aglaca, and tell me this: How can such darkness bode aught but ill for you and for your
kind?" Aglaca smiled. Toward the approaching figure he turned, and he began the second
chant.

“The light in the eastern skies Is still and always morning, It alters the renewing air
Into belief and yearning...”

With a bleating cry, Cerestes leapt toward the young Solamnic, who brushed him aside with
a wave of a sinewy arm. The mage teetered at the edge of the ramparts, shrieked...

And clutched at the crenels, his legs skidding out over the bailey before he tugged
himself back to safety and crouched, rasping and whimpering, on the stone walk. Aglaca
rushed at him, pinning him against the battlements with one muscled arm.

Verminaard, approaching below, felt a great and ponderous weight lift from him. Suddenly,
unexplainably, Nightbringer loosened in his hand. For a moment, thunderstruck, he gazed
down at the weapon, then up to the battlements, where his eyes locked with Aglaca's, and
he clutched the mace more tightly, more passionately.

Suddenly he remembered the visionyears ago on the Bridge of Dreed, when he had stood and
awaited Aglaca's crossing. Again he saw the blond youth on a windy battlement, a lithe,
blue-eyed image of himself. But not me, he thought again. My brother . . . my image. Not
Abelaard, but my brother.

The young man gestured. His lips moved in a soundless incantation, and Verminaard felt
weaker, felt his own power drain from him, then return as he found himself by the walls of
Nidus. A dark force pushed him toward the battlements, and relentlessly, almost
mechanically,

Verminaard began to climb.

Looking down into the transfigured face of his brother, Aglaca fumbled with the spell for
a moment, the words slipping away in his astonishment. For Verminaard's countenance was
sallow and gaunt, and a lost light flickered in the depths of his eyes. It seemed as
though nothing lay beneath his skin except air and bone. And Verminaard's eyes ...

For an instant, Aglaca recalled their first hunt, the turning of the great beast in the
box canyon, the dull look in the monster's eye, and he wondered why he was remembering
this, why his mind played lazily over the past when the present rushed at him, armed and
deadly.

And his own vision, a decade ago on the bridge, returned to him . . . the pale, muscular
young man, and the mace descending ...

So it will be, unless you take this matter in your own hands, Aglaca Dragonbane, coaxed
the Voice, again low and seductive, neither man nor woman.

“ 'Even the night,' ” Aglaca sputtered at last, closing his ears to the disembodied
coaxing, his voice gaining confidence as he spoke the second verse of the chant:

“Even the night must fail, For light sleeps in the eyes And dark becomes dark on dark
Until the darkness dies ...”

Verminaard did not stop for an instant. Scrabbling up the wall like an enormous spider,
buoyed by a dark, whirling cloud, he slung his leg over the merlon and hurdled onto the
battlement, his fingers digging at the solid stone of the crenels as he clambered atop the
walls and crouched, the mace clutched tightly in his hand.

“Stop him, Verminaard!” Cerestes cried, fumbling in his sleeves and producing a long,
narrow dagger. "Stop Aglaca before he enchants you with his

Solamnic wizardry!" Aglaca slammed the mage into the wall. Dazed, Cerestes gasped for air.
Verminaard stared coldly at Aglaca, waving the mace nervously, like the switching tail of
a lion.

Aglaca stood his ground, watching Cerestes out of the corner of his eye as the mage drew
hesitantly nearer, the dagger rising and falling awkwardly in his delicate hand.

“Stop him!” Cerestes spat, “or the chant will kill you!”

Serenely Aglaca chanted the third of the four verses.

“Soon the eye resolves Complexities of night Into stillness, where the heart Falls into
fabled light...”

Color returned to Verminaard's skin, and he took a long breath. Was that lilac in the air?
His arms were heavy, and suddenly he was very hungry.

“What is your answer, my brother?” Verminaard asked. “Will you choose to be my captain, to
serve me in the dignity and honor of our long acquaintance, our deepening friendship, or
will you choose to leave the girl with me?”

“If you let me finish, I'll be your captain.”

Uneasily Verminaard glanced down to the bailey, which seemed to pivot and rock below. For
a moment, it seemed to rush up toward him with a blinding, insensible speed, and he
thought he was falling.

He closed his eyes, gathering his courage and balance.

Do not listen to him, the Voice coaxed, rising from the shimmering head of the mace. He
will hoodwink you with Solamnic lies.

No. Aglaca is trustworthy. That is why I want him as my captain. Ten years I have known
him ... ten years ...

See. Test him and see.

“Have I ever lied to you, Verminaard?” Aglaca asked. “Would I lie to you now? Would I say,
'Yes, I shall serve you,' and then turn away when a safer moment could take me west to
Solamnia, or a moment more dire, more dangerous, might let me betray you?”

But remember the hunt, the Voice insinuated. Remember the dmsil roots, and who returned
with the girl....

With a deep breath, Verminaard leapt onto the battlement and walked slowly toward Aglaca.
“It will be one or the other, Aglaca. Choose now. Either you serve me, here and now, or
the girl is mine.”

“Then there is one more choice,” Aglaca replied. “Not to choose from the choices you
offer.” “Do not listen to him!” Cerestes shrieked. “Help me! He will kill us both and take
your castle!”

“He is the darkness on the moon. He is a dragon,” Aglaca said, his voice low and soothing
and persuasive. He stepped toward Verminaard on the narrow battlement, extending his hand.

A gesture of friendship. Or to seize the mace? Verminaard edged forward, then back again.

“Set down the mace, my brother,” Aglaca urged. “It holds you in the depth of enchantments.
It is loose in your hand already. You felt it as you approached the castle, I know. Let me
finish and you are forever free.”

“Let him finish and we both are dead!” Cerestes cried, and rushed at Aglaca. Swiftly, with
the grace of a dancer, the young Solamnic pivoted and kicked him back, and Cerestes
clattered against the stone crenels. Aglaca steadied himself on the battlements between
his old companion and the stunned mage.

Quietly, turning to Verminaard with a smile on his face, Aglaca began the last verse. “And
larks rise up like angels ...”

The image of Abelaard flashed through Verminaard's mind, the pale eyes milky and uplifted,
the pale hands groping for the hilt of a broken sword.

This is what Solamnia has given you, the Voice urged as Abelaard's eyes fixed upon his
brother's in the twisting depths of Verminaard's imaginings. It has taken your brother
away, and its lies have made you injure the one dear... one dear ... The words echoed
inside Verminaard's head.

“Like angels larks ascend...”

The voice went on, urgently, compellingly. Remember the cave and the strong surge of
power. He would take that from you as well, as his father took your mother and your father
.. .as he took your true brother Abelaard and the girl you had dreamed when she became
Judyth. He took them all, and now he would take me from you . . . I, who am your sole
confidante, your friend and lover and family as well.

Do you remember once, when the two of you spoke of me? He said, “I choose not to believe,”
and you thought, I choose not to believe Aglaca .. .not to believe Aglaca....

You have chosen already, Lord Verminaard. There is no going back. You are mine, always and
forever. You have said.

I have seen Aglaca fight, Verminaard thought. He is swift and powerful. I could not defeat
him even if I

He is yours, the mace assured him. Be ruled by me.

Aglaca touched Verminaard's arm, and as he began to recite the penultimate line, the big
man recoiled, as if something loathsome had attached itself to him. “Midnight!” he roared,
and brought the mace, flashing with dajk and cold energy and malice as old as thought,
toward the innocent face of his companion and brother.

Aglaca had scarcely time to cover his head when the mace struck his arms full force.
Gundling, standing by the portcullis below, heard the shriek of Nightbringer hurtling
through the air

and the

sound of the impact, the snap of the young man's bones. The old guard raced to the
bailey's edge and looked up on the ramparts where Aglaca reeled and fell to his knees,
quietly breathing the last lines of the spell:

“From sunlit grass as bright as gems To where all darkness ends.” Gundling turned and
raced toward the guardhouse.

As the chant ended, Verminaard felt the mace let go in his hand, felt the hand straighten
and heal. He dropped Nightbringer on the stone of the ramparts as Cerestes rose slowly,
still clutching his long dagger.

Time seemed to stop for a long breath, Aglaca's pain-dazed face unblinking, unseeing, as
he stared into Ver-minaard's eyes. Cerestes stood, caught in the moon's dark glow, and
Nightbringer looked for all the world like a cold cave rock, formed only of limestone and
tears, all presence gone, all magic fled. A slow wailing began deep in Verminaard's throat
and rose into the stillness.

He had blinded both brothers.

As Aglaca struggled to rise and failed, dazed and sightless on the battlements, his arms
shattered, Verminaard stared down upon him, and for a moment, something like compassion
crossed over his face like a brief flicker of flame.

And I have done these things, he thought. So there is no hope for me. No hope. I have
chosen.

His howl died away, and he knelt and picked up the mace. Nightbringer awoke with a
crackle, and this time there was no pain in his hand at all. The scar ran too deep. Coldly
he stood above his dazed brother, who groped for the crenel, trying vainly to stand as
Cerestes, with a rustle of black robes, slipped behind Aglaca and plunged the dagger once,
twice, a third time into his back.

For a moment, the two of them stood there. Verminaard stared blankly at the mage, who
looked back at him with a sly, exultant smile.

“His spell is broken as well,” Cerestes whispered, lifting his dripping hands, and the
blood and the red moonlight glittered upon newly formed scales.

Fifty miles away, in the infirmary of Castle East Borders, Abelaard sat upright in the bed
and cried out.

He had dreamt of a songsome verse, some incantationsoothing words about day and light and
larks and angels....

He lifted his hands to the bandages on his eyes, then sank disconsolately back upon the
bed. There was no music in this absolute dark.

He remembered the last of the song in his dream, whispered the words to himself as the
door opened in the far end of the infirmary, and he could tell by the footsteps and the
bobbing light of the candle that the surgeon was making his nightly rounds.

The candle.

Abelaard sat bolt upright and called to the approaching doctor, called out in joy to
guards on the bailey battlements, to the lord in the motte: “The candle! I can see!”

He leapt from the bed and lurched toward the source of the light, tearing the bandages off
as he ran. “Thanks be to Paladine!” he whispered, and lifted the astonished surgeon off
his feet. And to whoever had sung the forgotten song in his dreams, he offered thanks as
well. Judyth waited in the garden, but Aglaca did not come.

Long past the appointed time, she sat in the little clearing ringed with evergreens,
marking the hours by the tilt of the moons in the sky. An owl cried ominously from the
bare branches of the vallenwood, and when Judyth looked up, it was perched there, framed
in the red light of Lunitari like something monstrous, glimpsed on a burning plain.

She felt hollow then, and alone. But not afraid. She had already passed through the
country of fear. Aglaca had seen to that.

They had come to meet nightly in the garden, and each meeting had been an assurance.
Aglaca had been cheery and humorous and confident, his affections strong and kind. Though
the greatest of dangers had loomed before them, Aglaca's faith had bolstered them both. He
had hoped in Verminaard, but he had believed far deeper thingsthat even if Verminaard
failed him, there was a power, eternal and good, that undermined all of the weakness and
treachery of those in Nidus and everywhere. And no matter the failures of mortals, that
power would never fail.

Somewhere out in the bailey, a soldier shouted, then another, and the silence of the
garden broke with the sound of rushing, scattering feet beyond the evergreens guardsmen
calling for Gundling, for Sergeant Graaf, a muffle of voices speaking veiled words, veiled
news. “Battlements,” she heard. And “mage.” “Murder.”

Judyth stood, straightening her skirts, her fingers absently brushing her hair, clutching
the pendant at her neck. Verminaard would be sending for her, no doubt, for in the
confusion of sound and light, she knew one thing instantly.

Aglaca was dead.

She had known it could come to this from that time in

Nightbringer's cavern, when Verminaard had first set his hand to that damnable mace. And
later, when Aglaca had resolved to free Verminaard from the dark bondage of the weapon,
Judyth had known that large and uncontrollable forces were set in motion, that the time
would come when her fate and Aglaca's would depend on a single choice.