Before The Mask (24 page)

more into the mist that passed through the encampment up to the hills, settling on a spot
where the rubble inclined toward a rise, toward a copse of stripped evergreen and a rocky,
shadowy hillside.

There, out of sight of the armies, in the midst of the evergreens, the mist took human
form. Cerestes stepped from the copse and headed toward the high grotto, where Verminaard
awaited him.

At midday, a sudden cloud rose out of the east.

The Solamnics cursed and scrambled for their tents, and the sullen sentries raised their
hoods against the prospect of rain.

“Verminaard has much to answer,” the boy from the plains muttered angrily. “Not even a
cleric can make me wait out a downpour!”

But the threatened rain did not come. Instead, the dark cloud settled on the broken copse,
and the foothills vanished in a thick mist. The infantrycommoners from Coastlund and the
eastern borderlandstook it as an omen. The darkness, they said, was devouring Verminaard
and his mage, and many in their number broke camp for a return to Estwilde. Laca found
half of them cloaked and ready, the others packing everything from bows to bottles.

It took four squadrons of armed knights to invite the infantry to wait out the darkness.

That night three moons filled the skydark Nuitari in the midst of her luminous sisters,
eclipsing both of them in the course of an ominous evening. The horses called to one
another skittishly, and the infantrymen murmured of omens and the Cataclysm come again.

Then, out of the cloudy grove, came the sound of fire

and splintering wood. A flock of starlings lifted raucously into the air, and behind them,
in a glory of darkness, a dragon rose on wide and powerful wings.

When Laca came to his senses, the encampment was silent.

For a moment, he thought that the great beast had descended upon them, had ravaged his
army with fiery breath and ragged claws. All the dragon stories of his childhood returned
to him as he crawled warily from the collapsed tent and cast his eye over the desolate
landscape.

Five hundred soldiers, he guessed, lay in shock or stupor. Othersknights and archers and
infantry alike rushed toward the western foothills, from the high grass north of the
castle and from the blackened plateau of the South Moraine, where they had fled the
encampment when the monstrous beast passed over and the Dragon-fear engulfed them. They
were muddied, haggard, matted with dried grass and leaves.

We've been routed, Laca thought angrily. Routed by that monster ... my son ... and his
damnable mage.

Then he shifted his gaze toward the castle, where the dragon turned in a slow arc and made
for the one standing man left on the plains of Nidus.

Laca's breath caught fire before he could expel it on the curse that was his last thought.

The towers of Castle Nidus seemed to pivot below him, crested with fire and milling,
panic-stricken soldiers as the

dragon banked in the icy, thin air.

It was just as the Lady had promised, there in the cave when he took up Nightbringer. For
she had shown him then: a castle, its battlements ablaze, its towers crumbling. A thousand
castlesthe last lights of the west dwindling, guttering, consumed by the spreading dark.

Above them, he would fly on the back of the dragon, its broad shoulders thick and striated
with powerful muscles, the low, forgotten song of its heart beneath him.

Now, Ember, Verminaard thought. Let the Solamnics scatter. What are they to me, anyway? My
army awaits me in Estwilde, and I will deal with the Solamnics then. But let us attend to
the garrison of Nidus.

The dragon surged under him, responding to his thoughts. Verminaard felt the heat along
the scales of the creature as its red wings stretched powerfully.

For they did not follow us willingly, bravely. . . . They were the Stormcrow's garrison,
not our own, and we shall have no part of them. Let the girl die with them, and let us go
to the east.

But now, dear Ember, let us raze this wretched castle.

The fire struck the tower battlements like a windstorm. Racing over the crenels and
merlons, over the startled and doomed soldiers, the breath of the dragon burned hair and
bone, wood and metal and stone itself.

The western tower exploded in a blaze, in the screams of the burning sentries. The
southern tower as well was burning, flames snaking through the upper windows, the terrible
smell of seared flesh on the air.

In the garden, Robert dragged Judyth, coughing, out of the path of a collapsing, burning
vallenwood as the handiwork of a dozen gardeners withered in the dragonflame.

“Are ... are you able to ride?” he shouted. Judyth coughed, glanced at him bravely, and
nodded.

“Then damn the garrison!” the old seneschal said. “Follow me!” Lurching into the bailey,
he crossed open ground through flame and billowing smoke, Judyth close behind him.

But the stable was burning, its doors kicked open by the panicked horses who had rushed
away, whinnying and shrieking, into the churning smoke. Alone, Judyth and Robert stood in
the middle of the bailey, the wooden booths and outbuildings collapsing around them, and
the granite walls of Nidus crackling with unnatural heat.

The dragon wheeled then, guided by the sure hand of Verminaard, and swooped for one last
pass over the castle. Judyth gasped as Ember's glittering golden eyes fixed her in their
gaze, and there, at the last of moments, she clutched the old man beside her as the dragon
bellowed and the flames surged forth. Robert thought of the druidess and closed his eyes
as the fire rained down and engulfed them like the Cataclysm come again.

It will be as I promised, Lord Verminaard, the Voice soothed as dragon and dark cleric
passed over the castle, bound for the Khalkist Mountains and the fertile lands to the west.

Ember swooped low over the abandoned Solamnic camp. Then the great beast banked in the
dark sky and rose, higher and higher, until the snow-covered peaks lay faint and white
below him, and Verminaard rode alone amid the icy air and the indifferent stars.

Alone, but for the Voice. For the Lady continued to beguile and coax and vow....

I promise you a thousand castlesthe last lights of the west

dwindling, guttering, consumed by the spreading dark. Above them, you will fly on the back
of the dragon, its broad shoulders thick and striated with powerful muscles, the low,
forgotten song of its heart beneath you. And all around you, there will be more . . .
black and blue and green and red, in sweeping brilliant colors, glittering like moonlight
on the blood-black mountains, the sky darkened by the sweep of dark wings....

And the path of their flight will cross over a desolate country, where only the dead walk,
mouthing the names of dragons. And the men in the towers, surrounded and riddled by
dragons, by the cries of the dying, the roar of the ravenous air, will await your
unspeakable silence.

And with the night wind at his back and Nidus a dim flame on the eastern horizon,
Verminaard abandoned himself to the Voice. He knew that the goddess breathed through him
and that now he would engender destruction far greater than that at Nidus.

He would wear the mask foreverlong after his face had healed. It would be his battle mask,
he vowed, and it would protect him from mirrors, where his features would reflect as fair
hair, pale eyes ... the precise countenance of dead Aglaca. That was a face he wanted
never to see again.

But that was behind him, below him. He steered the dragon toward the horizon. Before him,
in his

imaginings, a great chaos of crushed and defenseless fortresses would be the work of his
own hand and heart and will.

And he would delight in the fierce, magnificent ruin. Epilogue

L' Indasha lifted her eyes from the auguries of ice. She had lost the travelers in the
shadows at the foot of the mountain, but she knew they would be here shortly. She did not
need to augur their arrival.

Nor was she eager to see either of them.

For a brief moment on the night before, she had become troubled. In the ice, she had seen
the dragon plummet, Robert and Judyth helpless in the bailey, miles from her spells and
saving hand, but then she had remembered the pendant.

She smiled now to think of the accident that had brought the jewel into Judyth's hands.
“For protection against fire, Paladine said,” she whispered. And my helper, the girl“ ”Was
wearing the pendant!" The voice behind her completed her sentence.

L'Indasha stopped and whirled around. The old man stood there, his threadbare robes
replaced by a new white gown, his white hair shining like Solinari beneath his floppy,
soft hat.

Beside him stood another man, a dark, powerfully built fellow dressed in forest green. He
also wore a green cap, incongruously pinned with a paper butterfly.

“My lord . . .” L'Indasha murmured. “And you, sir. I believe I remember you....”

The old fellow with the soft hat, his silver triangle gleaming very brightly, grinned and
raised a thin, gnarled hand in introduction of the man beside him.

“There's not a druid alive who hasn't heard of my apprentice gardener, Mort. Came to me
about twenty years ago from Nidus. Too many hornets' nests down there to suit him, and
they never gave him enough of an allotment to do a proper job on his roses. Been taking
pretty good care of my place here, don't you think?” The old man circled his arm over the
verdant hillsides, where every sort of alpine plant flourished. “He does a fair job at
wardings, too. Kept the fire away from these. Mort's Magic, I call it.”

L'Indasha smiled sadly. “I've missed you, Mort. And, of course, you are the unknown hand .
. . that camp . . . and this hillside ... all the signs laid out in the stones!”

Mort smiled and nodded, then extended his hand to her. “Thank you for the gift, Lady.”

The druidess looked puzzled but smiled back. “Don't mystify my only druidess, Mort!”
Paladine ordered with mock seriousness. "If you'll hasten down the trail and greet our
guests when they

arrive, I would speak with L'Indasha alone."

The gardener bowed merrily and backed down the mountain trail, seating himself politely
out of earshot.

Paladine was left standing with the druidess. He looked upon her, and his eyes shone with
love. “You must choose again, L'Indasha.”

The druidess knew what he meant and nodded. “It will be hard to lose Robert twice in the
span of a dayonce at Nidus, when I saw the fire engulf him, and now to know he will be
here shortly, and that when he arrives I must bid him farewell forever.”

“Living things grow and change,” Paladine said. “No matter the length of their livesone
day or all of them. Those who let go of one secret do so in faith of knowing others.”

“But I cannot let go,” L'Indasha said. “My chance died with Aglaca on the battlements.
Huma's kin will never unite, and the rune will never be sounded.”

Paladine nodded grimly. “And in the coming storm, keeping the rune safe will be even more
dangerous.”

“And yet I choose to keep it,” the druidess replied bravely.

“You are absolutely certain?” Paladine asked softly. “A choice such as this is often ...
final.”

“I have chosen,” L'Indasha insisted. “Only let me tell Robert. I hear him approaching.”

On the trail below them, Mort stood and bowed to Robert and Judyth, who ascended slowly,
weary after the long day's walk.

“Robert, my old friend!” Mort called out. “Do you remember me? It is very good to see you
are well... and happy.” Mort broke into a bigger smile.

“I am both, you old ground-grubber.” Robert lunged toward him in a rough embrace. “I never
did find another chess partner, you know.” They ascended together a little way, discussing
excitedly the fall of Nidus, the years of Mort's absence, what they reckoned

the future held for them.

Her eyes brimming with tears, L'Indasha looked at Pal-adine. He returned her gaze
serenely, lovingly.

The druidess took a-deep breath. “Robert ...” she began.

The seneschal stopped on the path. His smile faded and his shoulders slumped a little, but
he recovered quickly, gathering himself to a firm, military stance.

“I have heard ill tidings in my time, Lady,” he said to L'Indasha, his voice unwavering,
“and I have lived through them all.”

“It's ill tidings to me as well, Robert,” L'Indasha said. And she told him that she could
not leave her post as guardian of the rune. For three thousand years, she had served Lord
Paladine, the sole

druidess in his vast command. In that time, she had hidden the rune well from the curious,
the greedy, the malign, unto a moment arranged for a thousand years, when Huma's line
would devolve unto two young men violently different, almost opposites. As the rune had
two sides, so should its sounders.

“But the moment has passed,” she said. “Takhisis will grow in power, and there will be
war.” “And we shall win,” Robert proclaimed gallantly. “If the guardian keeps her post,”
Paladine added softly, “and her solitude.” Robert nodded. “I'll rest here tonight,” he
said, “and then, tomorrow”

“Lord Paladine?” Judyth asked, and all eyes turned to her. They had forgotten she was
here, so absorbed they were in the sadness of wars and departures. Judyth gasped when the
god's eyes turned to her. She felt bathed in a love and peace beyond her understanding,
and she knew that what she was about to ask was fitting and right.

“Is there any rule that says this lady must be keeper of the rune?” “What are you asking,
child?” Paladine whispered, and it was Judyth's turn to smile.

“I came over these mountains to gather secrets,” she said. “In doing so, I met Aglaca, so
I know a little of what Robert must be feeling ... of what the druidess must know.”

“And?” Paladine asked softly. “And I shall be glad to keep the rune, if Lady L'Indasha
Yman would entrust to me its keeping.”