Before The Mask (3 page)

A disembodied laugh echoed through the chasm as Laca received the same news. Daeghrefn
clenched his teeth. Abelaard? he thought. This is ludicrous! I didn't agree to this.

Cerestes motioned for Abelaard to dismount and follow him.

“Hold!” Daeghrefn shouted. “There will be no exchange of oldest for oldest! Let Laca
laugh, and let him die beneath Nerakan boots. It wasn't my castle that the hordes
beseiged.”

Cerestes turned. He spoke in hushed tones that melded with the tireless wind. “You cannot
refuse now, Lord Daeghrefn. To end a gebo-naud once begun is an act of war.”

Daeghrefn's face darkened, his eyes sparkling, inscrutable. He could defeat Laca in war,
he was fairly certain of thatperhaps even hold at bay the Nerakan hordes while he did so.

As though listening to his lord's thoughts, the golden-eyed mage offered in conspiratory
whispers, “You would more easily defeat Laca in alliance than in war, my Lord.”

“You won't let Abelaard go!” Verminaard protested suddenly.

“Silence,” the dark man growled, drawing tightly, reflexively, on his mount's reins.
Daeghrefn lifted his head defiantly and whispered something through his bared teeth.

Only Robert heard him.

Flashing an iron-hard glare toward Abelaard, the Lord of Nidus spoke. “Go.” He gestured
broadly toward the awaiting mage, who extended a hand to the boy. With stone-hard
features, the boy stepped from his mount and, sparing not a glance at his father, followed
the mage.

In moments, the first words of the gebo-naud filtered to them in the midst of a shifting
autumn breeze. The mage Cerestes lifted his hands, and a dark cloud pooled in the bottom
of the gorge below. A hundred lights floated on its surface, until the cloud swirled and
eddied and glittered like quicksilver.

“Let the mountains know,” the mage began. "Let all assembled herethe garrisoned captains
of East Borders and those of Castle Nidusswear on their swords that they see what they
see, and let them honor the change and surety of blood between these houses.

"Let the traded sons, Aglaca of East Borders and Abelaard of Nidus, find shelter and
board, honor and comfort in their opposite homes.

"Let alliance rise from the commingling of houses.

"And if ill befall one lad, let the same ill befall the other.

“It is an oath secured by rock and air, by the bridge across the gap of the world.”

Daeghrefn shifted in the saddle. These terms, at least, were the way he reckoned them.

Then the mage began the chant that would seal the bargain, would exchange one lad for the
other in unsteady alliance.

“Son to son and truce to truth, Peace for blood and youth for youth, In high passages of
stone The heart returns to claim its own.”

The Solamnic boy moved forward to exchange places with Abelaard. For a moment, he wavered
in

his balance and looked down, light hair and light robe caught in a sudden gust of wind.
The black cloud Cerestes had summoned rose now beneath the bridge, and tendrils of vapor
wrapped about the boy's ankles, threatening to pull him down into the abyss.

He is frozen up there, Verminaard thought. Perhaps he won't do it.

Then the boy gathered himself and continued, urged on by his father. Cerestes spoke the
second verse as the lads joined hands over the swirling mist.

“Let the words pass overhead, Heard by the memorious dead, Confirming what hearts have
begun, Truce for truth and son for son.”

Verminaard shuddered as the power of the words coursed over him, binding him as they did
his father, his brother, and the pale Solamnics. This Aglaca was his brother now, his
blood by oath until the Nerakans were subdued.

He was sure he would not like the boy.

Suddenly Verminaard felt dizzy. His sight flickered, failed him, and he weaved on his
wobbly legs. In front of him, the bridge seemed to vanish, and with it the ceremonythe
boys and the black- robed celebrant.

All Verminaard could see was darkness and a wavering point of light at the furthermost
edge of the gloom. Slowly the light expanded, and he saw a blond youth on a dark,

windy battlement, a lithe, blue-eyed, older image of himself.

Not me, he thought. A twin ... my mirror image.

Not Abelaard, but still my brother.

The young man in the vision gestured toward him. His lips moved desperately in a soundless
incantation, and Verminaard felt weaker, felt power drain from him....

And then the vision ended in cold sunset and the high, thin air of the mountains. Cerestes
lifted his hands from the lads at the center of the bridge, and black lightning danced
across his arms.

What has happened? Verminaard asked himself, his thoughts a confusing swirl. Desperately
he sought the Voiceits advice, its melodious assurances.

Only silence.

Shaken, Verminaard looked about. All eyes were trained on the arch of the bridge. He
breathed another prayer to any listening god and turned back toward Cerestes.

From that point on, the ceremony was a ritual of its own silence. The boys turned, faced
each other, and removed the ornamental tabards that covered their tunics. Solemnly they
exchanged the thin garments, Aglaca wobbling again for a brief, nightmarish moment. Then
slowly, almost reverently, each lad undertook to put on the other's tabard.

Verminaard smiled a bit then. Abelaard was at least four years older than the Solamnic boy
and hardened by the hunt and the mountain climates. Aglaca's tabard was much too small for
him, so

after a brief, halfhearted attempt, he draped the garment over his shoulder and began to
walk toward the Solamnic column on the western side of the gorge.

Laca's knights opened their ranks in a silent welcome.

It was now Aglaca's turn. Lost in the red folds of Abe-laard's tabard, the boy waded
carefully across the bridge,

the garment trailing on the stones so that he looked like a gnomish enchanter, like an
alchemist whose concoctions had backfired. A sharp wind buffeted him, and he drew his hood
closer.

Steadily now, his steps gaining assurance the closer he came, Aglaca approached Daeghrefn
on the narrow span. Behind him, Cerestes performed the last of the ceremonial rites.
Breathing a prayer to Hiddukel, the old god of deals and transactions, the mage knelt and
drew an obscure sign with his finger.

Verminaard peered from his place, straining to see. This mage had great power, he could
tell. But Cerestes was too far from him, the gestures too veiled and intricate to see
clearly. The clouds in the gorge rose to cover the mage, and for a moment, he seemed
larger, darker in the thickening mist.

You could do such things as well, Lord Verminaard, the Voice soothed and tempted. Raise
clouds and magnify and bring down the bridling dark. You could rival the great
spell-masters, Lord Verminaard, and write your name in the gray, metallic swirl of fog and
dangerous rumor....

Verminaard listened and, bathed in dark suggestions, felt almost comforted, even though
Abelaard was gone.

From out of the mist, Aglaca approached, the mage emerging from the cloud behind him,
slender and stooped, diminished from the monstrous shadow he had cast at the end of the
ceremony. But Cerestes was strangely unwearied, his gold eyes glittering like the metallic
swirl he had conjured from the depths.

It was all Verminaard could do to draw his eyes away from the mage, to rest his gaze on
the Solamnic hostage.

“M'Lord Aglaca,” Cerestes announced. “May I present your ... host, Lord Daeghrefn of
Nidus.”

The boy bowed politely, and Daeghrefn extended his hand.

“May your presence remind us ... of one who is away,”

Lord Nidus announced, his voice thick with emotion, “and of the alliance his bravery
affirms.”

“1 shall endeavor to be worthy of your honor and gra-ciousness,” Aglaca replied and turned
to greet Verminaard.

“And you,” he said, brushing back his hood, “will be my new brother in the war to come,
alliance of my alliance.”

Dumbstruck, Verminaard gazed into the face of the Solamnic boy. It was a revelationthe
pale eyes, the thin nose, the white-blond hair and brow. It was his own face, his mirror
image.

Somewhere deep in the mountainswhether from west or east, they could not tell for the
echoes the oracles of Godshome began to murmur and hum, and the druidess L'Indasha Yman
looked up from her icy augury and nodded.

“I shall... study your friendship as well, Master Verminaard,” Aglaca declared politely,
eyeing the other boy with cautious curiosity. He shifted from foot to foot, awaiting the
courtly reply, the Solamnic greeting that traditionally followed an offer of service and
goodwill.

Verminaard said nothing.

His young face was unreadable, like hard mountain stone obscured by mist and distance.
Despite Robert's nudgings and coaxings, he refused to speak to the guest. He held his
silence even as Daeghrefn's party returned on the high, snaking road east from the Jelek
Pass, to where Castle Nidus awaited them.

Along the way, Aglaca reasoned with himself. Daegh-

refn's family did not do things like his own. There was no Measure, little ceremony.
Perhaps it was what his father had saidthat the garrison of Nidus was half-barbaric,
little better than the Nerakans. Or perhaps Verminaard mourned his brother. He could
understand that. Aglaca wished he, too, were home again, with his friends and his dogs,
wished that this new and forbidding duty had not befallen him.

Then there was the vision that had come to Aglaca on the Bridge of Dreedthe pale, muscular
young man . .. the mace descending.

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

It came to him as always, with murky promises and dire threats. As always, he ignored its
urgings.

But he did speculate until the last hour of the night, after the long dinner that was his
uncomfortable welcome to the East, to the Khalkist Mountains, and to his new family.

Daeghrefn was the first to be seated, as was his custom. Ignoring his standing gueststhe
small party of family, servants, and courtiersthe knight slumped into the huge oaken chair
at the head of the table. He was distracted by the flicker of the fire in the hearth, the
rustle of pigeons in the cobwebbed rafters of the hall.

It was a shabby chamber indeeddusty and disorderly, inclined toward ruin. The Lord of
Nidus had only a small staff of servants, and attended more to his falcons and wine than
he did to the upkeep of house and grounds.

The wine, poured by the steward into a faceted crystal goblet, was a vintage from a dozen
summers past. The

goblet was the last of ten, a wedding gift to Daeghrefn from Lord Gunthar Uth Wistan, its
nine mates broken in neglect over the twelve years since the death of Daegh-refn's wife.
Last of a line it was, and when the knight lifted it and the light glanced off its facets
and sparkled through the amber wine, Daeghrefn remembered a night more than a dozen years
earliera night of fires and wine and

a hundred reflecting facets....

It was bad almost from the start. The smell of a blizzard in the foothills, and cold
daunting all but the hardiest travelers. Laca's wife, a bit further along than
Daeghrefn's, was in her quarters, attended by midwives and physicians as the awaited day
drew nigh. Daeghrefn had been glad of the extended visit, of Laca's warm guest hall, of
reunions with his old friend after seven months' absence, and of the eager anticipation
with which both men awaited the births of their children, most especially Laca's first.

Over dinner, with the wine abundant and the conversation ranging, Daeghrefn had almost
forgotten the unsettling weather and wind and the strange disruptions among the castle
servants.

Four-year-old Abelaard was sprawled over the knee of the man he called “Uncle Laca.”
Daeghrefn's wife was reserved and quiet as usual around the outgoing Solam-nics, and she
was heavy with his own childthe second-born, whom he intended to raise toward Paladine's
clergy. After a few cups, the words had come forth idly Laca's speculation that in some
families hair and eyes “turned sport,” that despite Daeghrefn's dark coloring and the
night-black eyes of his wife, the child she was carrying could be "as fair as ... a thanoi
hunter ... a high elf....

“As fair as Laca himself.”

Daeghrefn had laughed and pointed at Abelaard's dark hair and brown eyes. “I suppose that
is 'turning sport,' ” he joked, and Abelaard looked up at him curiously, his face a clear
reflection of his father's.

But Laca kept with the issue, spoke of blondes and of fair eyes and of sport and sport
until the wine and the turning of thoughts brought Daeghrefn to the one conclusion that
the sly, teasing words could mask no longer.

“What are you saying, Laca?” he had asked finally, quietly, full knowing that the knight
could give him no real answer.

“Tis only a talk of generations,” Laca murmured, his pale gaze and crooked smile
flickering toward Daeghrefn's terrified wife.

Daeghrefn stood, overturning his chair, his wineglass. The golden wine spilled generously
over the table, onto the woman and Laca, and a servant rushed for water and cloth. Laca
stood as well, more slowly, his hands extended, a look of puzzlement on his face.

“What have you made of ... my idle talk, Lord Daeghrefn?” Laca asked, but Daeghrefn
listened to no denial, no reasoning, asking the question again and again as he drew sword.

“What are you saying, Laca?”

Laca's retainers then burst into the roomsummoned, no doubt, by the retreating servant. A
sea of unyielding Solamnic Knights stepped between the friends turned adversaries.
Daeghrefn waved his sword helplessly over a burly fellow in full armor, as the tide of
retainers pushed him farther and farther from the man who had wronged him, who had implied
... no, who had boasted of his deed, now that he thought again of it.

Daeghrefn had looked to his wife then. Her head was bowed, and the pallor of her face told
him that what Laca had admitted, had proclaimed to all presentincluding lit-

tie Abelaardwas the truth.

The snow had been blinding, Daeghrefn remembered, and the guards at the gate of Laca's
keep pleaded with him to stay, to take light and shelter. But he would accept no comfort
from a false friend. After all, the infidelities of seven months past must have taken
place at Nidus, in the heart of Daeghrefn's true hospitality. Under his protecting roof.
Perhaps in his own chamber. He now remembered that Laca had declined the hunt one morning,
saying he must be about his devotions.

Indeed.

In a frenzy of righteous anger, he herded his family from Laca's castle. It was the
outcome of too much trust in friends, too much faith in the Oath.

Daeghrefn scorned the five days' path they had followed around the Khalkists. He chose
instead a shortcut, which, even in clear weather, was a hard day's climb right through the
mountains. But now it was obscured by snow and his own blinding rage. Gradually the steps
of his wife j*rew slower, and she stumbled. Abelaard, only four, still duped by his
mother's lies and wiles, stopped to help her. And the three of them straggled over the
rocky road to Nidus into a new blizzard.

He would have guided them home that very last night. Perhaps the woman would have fallen
in the mountains, even within sight of the castle walls, but she had been doomed
anywaydoomed seven months before by the feverish promptings of her blood. Had the druidess
not come, there would soon have been but two of themAbelaard and himselfand there would
have been no reminder of that betrayal.

None but this faceted glass he turned in his hand. Daeghrefn shook his head, swallowed
more wine, and plunged back into the memories.

Verminaard had always been underfoot, at the edge of sight, where his presence was a
mocking reminder of

that distant spring, the harsh revelations of that distant winter night. Only for
Abelaard's sake had he tolerated the bastard at all. For Abelaard, and for a strange
goading at the borders of his thought some reason he could not put words around. But he
knew that to injure the child or to abandon him would bring down fearful consequences.

Indeed, Verminaard had been such a thorn to Daeghrefn, such a torment and mockery. The
gebo- naud seemed a just reprieve from his twelve years with the boy. With the Nerakans in
the mountains forcing an alliance with his old enemy, he saw the gebo-naud as he wished to
see it. Son for son meant he could give Verminaard to the Solamnics in exchange for
Aglaca, sealing the alliance, ridding himself of Verminaard, and sending the boy back
where he belonged, all in one thrifty gesture. And Abelaard would have understood.
Eventually.

But the chance for that was past, the gebo-naud over and Daeghrefn's only son taken in the
exchange. Daeghrefn's anger had not subsided. He thought of his own son, of Abelaard
encamped somewhere in the western distances, and slammed the table with his fist. It shook
the crystal and crockery; the faceted glass that had sparked his memory teetered
precariously on the table's edge. Robert, rising from his venison long enough to notice,
snatched the delicate object before it tumbled, then set it, almost reverently, beside his
master's open hand.

“The druidess,” Daeghrefn muttered absently, glaring at the flames. “What did she say?
What?”

Robert blanched as he steadied the cup. He recalled the druidess as wellwhen the Lord of
Nidus had returned with Abelaard and the infant, he sent Robert himself away into the
mountains.

He could not do what Daeghrefn had asked. He found the druidess crouched among the
evergreens, shaking the weight of snow from their branches. Her green robe and

auburn hair shone against the faceless white of the drifts. She was lovely, a candle of
warmth in the cold dusk.

He had slipped from behind the rock, sheathing his weapon even as he turned away. But she
had seen him, had known he was there all along. She called him back, and they spoke
briefly, their words falling amid wary silences. His heart had melted within him.

For the first time ever, Robert had disobeyed his lord. And though the druidess had
promised her silence, had assured him that none other in Daeghrefn's service would see her
again, he thought of her uneasily when the subject of druidry arose in the hall, or when
the snow lay heavy on the juniper and blue aeterna.

Wide-eyed, pressing heavily against the back of his chair, Aglaca watched the pale
seneschal steady the glass. It was like the jaws of Hiddukel, this dining hall-each man at
the table doomed and damned, trapped in his own fears and gloomy thoughts. No one else
seemed to notice Daeghrefn's outburst, and eyes and faces bent into the candlelight, to
the bread and cheese and old venison, as fervently as if there were nothing else to eat in
the castle.

His father had told him to be brave, that the war with Neraka would last but a matter of
months. But he was only twelve, and the promised time in Nidus stretched before him like
an eternal desert.

What would come of him here?

He whispered a prayer to Paladine over his untouched food. The childlike words were almost
audible above the clatter of cutlery, the gurgle of pigeons in the eaves.

Cerestes did not hear the boy praying, but his fingers burned sharply at the words, and
the knife shook in his long, pale hand.

Difficult. Aglaca would be difficult, with his Solamnic training and his mooning over
Paladine and Huma and Kiri-Jolith.

The other one was a different matter. Verminaard had been lodged in these deep mountains,
motherless and virtually tutorless, his father lapsed from the Order and no longer a
believer in Oath and Measureor even the gods themselves.

And yet the easy one was not always preferable. The Lady had taught him as much. Better to
wait and watch and bide his time. Speratus's “unfortunate” fall and Aglaca's arrival had
given Cerestes all the time he would need.

He leaned back in the chair, savoring the golden wine. Tilting the glass, he peered
through the crystal toward the boy Verminaard, who stared back at him, his expression lost
in the wavering candles and distortions of the wine.

But Verminaard, as he always did when someone new entered the fortress, was sizing the
company, following the elaborate dance of eye and gesture with the hope that something
would be revealed, some secret emerge from a sidelong glance, a subtle tilt of the hand.

He had learned this caution long ago in Daeghrefn's castle, where the violent, almost
explosive moods of the knight were as unpredictable as the mountain weather. The angered
Daeghrefn was a force to be skirted avoided entirely, if he could manage it. There were
alcoves in the halls where Verminaard could step aside from the dark processions of armor
and torches and glowering stares; there was Robert's lodgings, as well, where a certain
shelter could be found among the old seneschal's neatly arranged battle trophies, where
the room smelled of oiled leather and fruity wine. But mostly the boy had learned the
augury of instinctthat sometimes, in the instant before a voice rose or a hand descended,
something undefinable in his father's face would either emerge or go away. It was his
sense of this that had preserved him from Daeghrefn's enraged

beatings and deprivations.

Verminaard had felt the outburst approach like the gathering of the mountains before an
avalanche, when sound at the timberline rises beyond hearing until it is sensed only at
the edge of the bones. When Daegh-refn had struck the table, Verminaard was already
steeled, watching the others closely, learning the new terrain.

It was the boy, the Solamnic, who bore the most notice. Though the knightly training
masked his fear, fear was there nevertheless. The pale eyes had widened just barely; the
faint smell of salt sharpened the air.

Oh, yes, Aglaca was afraid. And Verminaard made note of that, for in a castle where
uncertainty was the master, fear was the coin of the realm.

Verminaard glanced with great care at his father, and then at Aglaca again. From the
slightest rise of the new boy's shoulder, Verminaard knew he still had not unclenched his
right fist.