Before the Mask

by Michael Williams

  " Abelaard's room, sir. I… I believe that since Aglaca…"

  Daeghrefn loomed even taller in the chair, the dim light of the fire magnifying him, casting his gigantic shadow on the far wall.

  "I know what you're after," the knight said. "And you will sleep and quarter where you have always slept and quartered. Abelaard is gone, and his rooms will await his return."

  He took the steps two at a time, his ankles bloody and swelling, each stride a stinging rebuke to his courage. At his back, the Voice was chiding him, soft and insinuating, speaking from the terrible dark at the bottom of the stairwell.

  So it is and will be in this devouring country, where the raptor dives and the panther stalks. . .. What did you expect from him, beyond this powerless mourning? Learn from me . . .from the panther and the raptor….

  He stopped on the stairs, his thoughts whirling. A great anger rose in him, and he struck the stone wall of the landing fiercely, methodically. His fist stung with the impacts, and he fought down a sudden rush of tears. He thought of Daeghrefn as he battered the wall. Of the cold dark eyes and the shattered cup.

  It would not do. You could not feel that way about your father.

  Slowly, almost staggering with his own uprooted anger, Verminaard mounted the last of the stairs, cursing the stones and the dark and the stars in the clerestory windows. He reached the landing and opened the door to his quarters.

  Aglaca sat on the topmost bunk, leaning out the window. For a moment Verminaard's thoughts were violent, and the voice of his imaginings blurred with the voice on the stairs…..

  If something happened to Aglaca, his father would have no choice but to follow the rules of the gebo-naud. So whatever happened to the boy … would happen to Abelaard….

  And then Daeghrefn would mourn.

  Verminaard caught himself, frightened by the largeness and power of his own speculations. He stared balefully at Aglaca, who looked back at him with curiosity and concern.

  "Don't think that my possessions are yours as well," Verminaard menaced, rising to his full height, trying his best to obscure the doorway behind him. "You're an outsider here. Nobody wants you; you're here for the deal, and for that reason only. My brother is gone."

  He took a long step toward Aglaca, who glanced out the window and then calmly returned a level stare to this new antagonist.

  "If you remember one thing, Solamnic," Verminaard continued, standing in the center of the room now, clutching the back of his single chair as though Aglaca intended to take that from him as well, "remember this. You are a hostage in my presence. You are not my guest."

  "He yelled at you, didn't he?" Aglaca asked, quietly and not without warmth. "I mean, Daeghrefn …"

  "That is no concern of yours, Solamnic," Verminaard replied unsteadily, his stare wavering, his fingers nervously drumming the chair back. "I said you are a hostage…."

  "I know," Aglaca said. "I am an outsider here. So you've told me. I can't take Abelaard's place, Verminaard. But I can be your friend."

  Verminaard stepped back to the door and closed it. Something was quenched in him by the boy's unexpected kindness. His hand smarted, and he turned uncertainly toward the bunk and the boy who sat atop it, regarding him curiously.

  "Then . . . you won't take or touch anything that is mine?"

  "I won't, Verminaard."

  "Swear," Verminaard insisted, extending his hand and searching Aglaca's eyes.

  Aglaca met both his grasp and his gaze. "I swear. We're bound together, Verminaard. The gebo-naud binds us as firmly as it binds our fathers. And we're bound by more, I believe. I know it, and you do, too."

  Verminaard looked away in confusion, in irritation. He remembered the young man in the vision-the gesture, the soundless chant, the draining….

  He looked again at Aglaca in horror.

  It's you! he thought.

  But instead of visions and deceptive magic, the boy held forth a knife, hilt first, offering it to Verminaard. He took the jeweled hilt and examined the blade.

  "It's yours," Aglaca declared. "As a sign of my trust."

  "It's … it's wonderful!" Verminaard exclaimed. His eyes narrowed. "And what do you want?"

  "It's yours," Aglaca declared. "I want nothing for it."

  Verminaard danced gleefully across the floor of the chamber, waving the dagger like a sword, lunging at imagined enemies.

  "It's not just a dagger, Verminaard!" the Solamnic boy protested. "It's a rune rister's knife. My father gave it to me. His mage said it would protect the wielder against all evil."

  Verminaard lunged at the fireplace, whipped the blade through the chilly air. He wasn't listening.

  "I know it isn't Huma's lance," Aglaca objected. "It's a small thing, and its magic is small as well. But it isn't a toy. It's … it's …"

  "It's a fine knife," Verminaard said. He glanced at Aglaca cautiously. "Thank you," he said abruptly.

  Aglaca smiled. "Now come over and look out the window. If you lean just a little and peer as far as you can down toward the west… what's that pass called?"

  "Eira Goch. It means 'red snow' in the old tongue."

  "Really?" Aglaca asked, extending his hand once more. "Well, if you look down to the mouth of that pass, you can see my father's campfires. Let me give you a hand up to the top bunk."

  Verminaard regarded the other boy warily. It was the first time he remembered anyone except Abelaard reaching out to him. But, despite strong misgiving, he took the offered grasp. For a moment, before he hoisted himself onto the bunk, risking a fall and his dignity to the questionable intentions of this hostage, he tested the boy's strength, pulling Aglaca toward the edge of the bed.

  Aglaca gritted his teeth and braced himself, recovering only when he dangled dangerously above the larger lad, who pushed him back onto the bed.

  Good, Verminaard thought. I am stronger.

  Then, with a deep breath, he climbed onto the top bunk, boosted by his new companion. Together they stared out the window into the uninterrupted darkness and saw the faraway gleam of torchlight. Verminaard did most of the talking, explaining to Aglaca the landmarks visible from the heights of Castle Nidus.

  Fifty feet below and across the castle yard, in the shadows of the eastern battlements, the dark mage Cerestes leaned toward the ancient walls and placed his

  ear against the stones. There the words of the boys- innocent words, but words they believed to be unnoticed and unheard-tunneled through mortar, through rock, and by a devious magic, into the dark chambers of Cerestes' mind.

  Chapter 4

  It would be the first hunt of a cold, difficult spring, and the first centi-core hunt for either lad. Ancient custom had ordained, since both Verminaard and Aglaca had turned twenty in the snows of the previous winter, they must both hunt this spring. Yoked together by age, education, and rivalry, the two had passed from boyhood to the edge of manhood- to the time of testing in the wilds.

  Since Aglaca's arrival at Castle Nidus, Verminaard felt he had come to know him well. Their eight years together had bound them, though the bonds were neither warm nor comfortable. Neither lad thought now of friendship: They had realized that possibility had come and gone even before they met. After all, Verminaard was too cautious and suspicious for friendship, especially with

  someone whose presence reminded him constantly of his absent brother Abelaard. And Aglaca was a hostage, all but imprisoned, quartered in Castle Nidus against his wishes. But the lads had become well acquainted, like weathered, familiar rivals in the shaky truce of the gebo-naud, and with that acquaintance, outright hostility had become as difficult as friendship.

  During long hours of instruction, when Verminaard sat on his stool in the northwest tower and nodded at Cer-estes' lectures on spellcraft and alchemy, he had seen out the window where Aglaca wandered through the gardens north of the walls. The gardens were still immaculate despite the ten years' absence of Mort, the gardener who had left this spot when Daeghrefn's temper turned. In this san
ctuary, Aglaca would stoop to examine a sprig of cedar, to smell a flower, then vanish altogether behind a blue stand of evergreens.

  Why, the boy is only a gardener at heart, Verminaard thought scornfully. A floral fool.

  And Verminaard would return to his lessons, delighted when the smoke rose from the palm of his hand, or when a brief, clumsy incantation drew water from the dark wall of the castle.

  He did not realize that, from the gardens, Aglaca had also glimpsed his hulking shadow at the window of the tower. Nor did he suspect that Aglaca knew of his secret envy, the envy any prisoner of scholarship feels toward those who are free. Whenever Verminaard watched, Aglaca ducked behind the big stand of aeterna to practice his other studies. There he would mimic the movements of the mantis, standing with his arms poised above him in a grotesque, almost silly position, then bringing his hands down suddenly, repeatedly, tirelessly, in deadly accurate blows.

  The months passed, and his reflexes quickened.

  Once the mantis had taught him speed, he picked up

  the sword he had hidden amid the blue-needled branches. And in what remained of Verminaard's mother's rose garden, he would wheel and dance, his feet stepping lightly and harmlessly between the roses, his deft hands whirling the sword above his head. Then suddenly, violently, as though taught by nature and blood for a thousand years, he would bring the blade whistling down to the tip of a rose petal. The metal edge would shear in precise halves an iridescent, predatory beetle, but leave the blossom intact, untouched even by the wind from the blade.

  Verminaard never saw Aglaca's private schooling, but the Solamnic lad did not go unobserved. Under orders from Daeghrefn, the seneschal Robert would watch from behind a blue topiary, marveling as the youth grew in wisdom and stature and grace.

  Nor did Aglaca always study alone. Since a month after he took up residence in Castle Nidus, a cloaked woman would meet him in the garden's seclusion. There she taught him herb lore, self-defense, and a muted, rudimentary magic. Robert would crane through the blue branches to overhear the both of them, and the woman's voice, tantalizing at the edge of hearing, charmed him with its music and lilt.

  And its familiarity. The seneschal had heard that music before. On one sunlit day in midspring, the woman had turned toward him, looked right at him through the network of branches . . . Auburn-haired and tall and dark-eyed. He remembered the face at once. L'Indasha Yman smiled and winked at Robert. For a week afterward, the seneschal slept fitfully. The druidess was somehow spiriting herself onto castle grounds, and he wondered if she were treacherous enough to betray him or reckless enough to risk her life and his by these visits in broad daylight. Yet daily he saw her, and there was yet no alarm from the keep, no

  midnight summons from the Lord of Nidus.

  Robert breathed more easily, until the day he saw Daeghrefn himself in the garden.

  Aglaca and L'Indasha were bowed over a rose, and the druidess was lecturing the Solamnic youth about Mort the gardener. He was a sturdy, warmhearted man from Est-wilde who had weathered the surliness of Daeghrefn while planting lilies and roses throughout the keep. But in Verminaard's second year, the patience of the gardener had vanished, and soon afterward Mort himself had disappeared.

  But not before he had planted ten thousand sunflowers, which sprouted and bloomed both in and out of season, rising overnight everywhere from the bailey to the midden, taunting the brooding Daeghrefn with their bright, outrageous colors.

  "He was a prankster, Mort the gardener," L'Indasha whispered with a chuckle. "Had some magic and a wondrous sense of humor. I miss him terribly."

  Aglaca smiled, but at that moment, Daeghrefn walked into the garden. Robert had not seen him coming, and the seneschal held his breath as the Lord of Nidus halted beside the druidess and the lad.

  "What are you laughing at, Aglaca?" Daeghrefn asked, and the boy looked up at him calmly. The druidess stood, brushed the dirt from her robes, and stepped back into the topiary.

  It was then plain to Robert that L'Indasha was invisible to Daeghrefn. The druidess looked straight at the seneschal and winked and smiled in an odd conspiracy.

  Robert's sleep was troubled no longer by fear of disclosure.

  And so both lads received different instruction, different comings of age. Verminaard learned by the book, by mages, by laborious study. His companion-his hostage- learned by invisible druidry and a silent and natural

  grace. Their schoolings taught them of their many differences, but nothing of common ground.

  On the morning of the hunt, at the windswept gate of Castle Nidus, Verminaard served in a place of honor. He assisted Cerestes the mage in the ritual. According to ancient tradition, the likeness of the centicore was drawn upon the thick wooden gate with madder root and woad, the red and blue lines swirling in an intricate pattern that drew and focused the gaze of the hunter into the painted image.

  It was said that in the Age of Light, the artists drew the prey-centicore, wyvern, perhaps even dragons themselves-in a fashion so lifelike that the paintings had shrieked when the spears entered them.

  Verminaard himself held the brushes for Cerestes as the mage painted the first and boldest designs. The young man chanted the old words along with his mentor. When the hunters lined up to cast spears at the effigy, the mage handed Verminaard the cherished third spear, which followed after Daeghrefn and Robert had cast their weapons.

  It had been perfect-the ceremony, the intoned words from the black-robed mage, Verminaard's own spear finding the heart of the whirling red and blue. Verminaard stood back proudly, breathing a prayer to the Queen of Darkness, as Cerestes had taught him. Meanwhile, the rest of the hunters, fifty in all, each offered his spear to the image, each with a shout, a boast, a prayer, as the hunt assembled and the grooms readied the horses.

  … all perfect until Aglaca refused to join.

  The smug Solamnic had declined, claiming Paladine governed his spear, and Mishakal, and Branchala-the old gods of creation and reconciliation and inspiration. He

  would not do this, he said, and then said no more.

  But Verminaard did not let this high-handedness spoil the day-his day. Had not his spear alone found the heart of the painted beast? One last confirmation of his trophy kill was all he needed.

  Daeghrefn stood by his horse, preoccupied with saddle and gear, with securing the arsons that would brace him in the saddle if he used his lance. Lost in his own calculations, he was no more interested in Aglaca's refusal than he had been in the ritual itself. When the last man had hurled his spear, the Lord of Nidus was already mounted. He had ignored the painting, the incantation, the fellowship of the casting. He had fulfilled his own role in the ritual solely because the men expected it.

  Verminaard knelt by the horses and cast the Amarach, the rune stones. The runes today were cloudy in the reading, as they often were. The Giant. The Chariot. Hail. Something about breaking resistance, the path of power, destruction… though he couldn't piece it together.

  But the runes were prophetic surely, despite Cerestes' laughter when his promising student spoke of their power. For the stones were ancient and venerated, were they not? Only his skills were lacking. His father's words, soft at the edge of his revery, confirmed for Verminaard that all he believed of rune and augury was true.

  "Verminaard will ride at the head of the hunt," Daeghrefn announced, rising in the stirrups and shielding his eyes as he gazed north across the plain. He scanned the horizon to the distant lift of the mountains, where the cloud descended and all paths led across Taman Busuk to the mystical, uncharted heart of the Khalkists. "He will ride at the point of Nidus's spear, and he will ride alone."

  That was all. With a sullen silence, his gaze averted, the Lord of Nidus fell in beside Robert.

  A fierce joy gripped Verminaard. Fumbling the runes to a pouch at his belt, he vaulted into the saddle. The boar

  lance shivered and vibrated in its rest beside his right knee, and he clutched it eagerly.

 
Daeghrefn had noticed! He was sure of it. This place at the vanguard was a sign of esteem, of Daeghrefn's respect for his bravery and wits.

  Not a season past his twentieth birthday, and he would ride at the front of a veteran army.

  Aglaca, on the other hand, had often heard his father's tales of the centicore hunt. The creature was deadly, surprisingly cunning. It led hunters an exhausting chase and then turned and charged when the lancers had outpaced the hunting party, when the odds were narrowed to one or two tired hunters against a huge, well-armored monster. At East Borders, whatever man rode in the vanguard on a centicore hunt did so only after bequeathing his belongings to family and friends, saying the Nine Prayers to Pala-dine and Mishakal and Kiri-Jolith of the hunt, and singing over himself the time-honored Solamnic funeral song.