Michael Williams - Before the Mask

In the eight years Verminaard had held it, the magic Aglaca had claimed for the weapon had yet to show itself. Protection against evil indeed! He had never seen the blade do its work, never seen it glow with the fierce and arcane light of real enchanted weaponry. If it hadn't protected him against the lesser evils of Castle Nidus, what good would it be on the dark roads through the mountains?

After all, it was only a small knife, a child's gaudy toy. And he was about a man's business, traveling south to Neraka in the dead of night.

Verminaard stood uncomfortably and strode to the door. The corridor was dark and damp, and he removed his boots to take the stairs silently, attentive to every sound in the castle-the resettling of beams, the murmur of deep voices from downstairs, and the rustle and growl of the dogs in the great hall. Twice he had to wait, holding his breath in the dark recesses of the corridors as sentries passed by. It seemed like hours until he stepped into the night air, into the bailey, and raced across the castle courtyard to the stables against the east wall.

He would bid it all good-bye gladly-castle and garrison and especially Daeghrefn. A new freedom lay before him, frightening him and inspiring him at the same time, and Verminaard longed to embrace it as he moved toward a solitary light waving in the shadows of the east tower.

The stable door was open and the stalls lit dimly by that lonely lantern, just as the bribed boy had promised. Verminaard slipped through the door and closed it behind him, starting for a moment at the hooded form that stood between the stalls, tightening the cinch on a black mare's saddle.

Young Frith, it seemed, was intent on earning his illicit pay. In the adjoining stall, Verminaard's black stallion Orlog stood saddled and set for the coming journey.

Verminaard inspected the boy's work.

"Good," he breathed. "Very good. Frith, you saddle a horse for a knight. When I return, I'll see to it that your lot rises with my father."

"See to your own lot," the hood replied, and turned to face him with a crooked smile and dancing eyes.

"Aglaca!" Verminaard exclaimed much too loudly. Then, angrily clutching the youth by the hood, he threw him roughly to the floor of the stall.

"What are you doing here?" Verminaard hissed, his fist hovering an inch from Aglaca's face.

"I'm going with you," the lad whispered, his pale eyes intent and dauntless. He had not flinched once, not when Verminaard had pulled him down, kicked him, nor even now, when Verminaard's big knuckles promised a broken nose.

Slowly Verminaard drew back his hand. The horses, confounded by the struggle at their feet, whickered nervously and kicked against their stalls, and the dogs began to bark in the keep.

"Go back to bed," Verminaard urged, opening the stable door and looking nervously out toward the keep.

The windows were dark. Good. Daeghrefn must be abed. There was time yet.

But that time had narrowed sharply.

Breathing an old calming spell Cerestes had taught him for the occasions when he had to speak with Daeghrefn, Verminaard led the horses into the bailey. The sky had cleared suddenly, disturbingly, and the grounds were starlit and silver.

"I'm going with you," Aglaca said again, dusting the straw from his hair. "You need me."

"Never! Just hand up my pack."

Aglaca grunted as he hoisted the bundle onto the stallion. The barking from the keep became louder, more insistent, and the first light-from Robert's lodgings, it seemed- flickered to life from the other side of the courtyard.

"Now you help me," Aglaca urged as Verminaard turned away. "Hold this. They'll be here any moment."

Verminaard started to spur the stallion toward the east gate, risking the noise and the commotion, the attentions of a dozen guards. Better to be stopped now, to answer to Daeghrefn for a midnight disturbance, than to ride over the Khalkist mountains with this… this child in tow. It was his adventure, planned and dreamt of and augured for half a year, and Aglaca would be…

"Could you even pick her out, Verminaard?"

"What?" he shouted, spinning in the saddle, losing his balance, clutching frantically at the reins and the saddle horn as he leaned, rocked…and steadied, gasping in fright and anger, glaring coldly at Aglaca, who had somehow managed to hoist both himself and his pack onto the other horse.

"Would you know this girl if they set ten Nerakan women before you?"

"Of course! Now let me-"

"What color are her eyes?" Aglaca was persistent, intent on an embarrassing truth.

"Go back to bed!"

"What color are her eyes, Verminaard?"

"Well, I know they'll be the color of sea or sky-but I suppose you've seen them?" Verminaard spat, his horse prancing, turning in tight circles. He wanted to strike the lad, knock him from the saddle and be on his way, but already the doubts were rising, the great misgiving he had tried to hide from himself…

It had been misty that day. He had seen her from a great distance.

"What color are her eyes, damn it?" Verminaard roared, and the keep erupted in a flurry of lights and shouts and barking.

"Make for the gate!" Aglaca cried.

They were out into the night before the bleary garrison had mustered to find them. Galloping swiftly over the rocky trail, stone and gravel flying from the horses' hooves, they kept a reckless pace. Finally, in a stretch of country where the trail opened into the grassy flatland, Aglaca overtook Verminaard, who gradually, reluctantly, slowed Orlog to a trot, then a walk.

Behind them, the towers of Castle Nidus were lost in the distance and in a strange dark wall of clouds that had descended-or must have descended-from somewhere in the clear night sky. Peering back over his shoulder, Aglaca gave a low whistle.

"We've come far in a short spell, Master Verminaard," he observed wryly, giving the mare's flank a soft, reassuring pat.

Verminaard regarded his companion coldly. "How did you know, Aglaca?" he asked.

"Know?"

"That I was leaving for Neraka tonight? I told no one of the time."

"That you did not." Aglaca guided his mare to a high green patch of harrowgrass, where she bent amiably and began to graze. "But by your deeds I knew. Cleaned boots, for the first time in a month. Two capes draped over the foot of the bed, and your old gloves for travel. If anyone ever prepared for the road, and prepared obviously and visibly, it was you, Verminaard of Nidus."

His face burning, Verminaard followed Aglaca, guiding his stallion slowly over the dry ground. The beast snatched at the nourishing harrowgrass eagerly as Aglaca recounted the events of the day-how Verminaard had sharpened his blades and restrung his bow, how he had passed by the stable twice, looking in on the well-being of the horses.

"And finally," the lad continued, dismounting from the mare and drawing forth a strip of quith-pa, the dried fruit of elven travelers, "you steered even farther away from Robert and Daeghrefn than usual, as if Daeghrefn would actually attend to anything you'd a mind to do."

Verminaard nodded, eyeing the quith-pa wistfully. Already the romance of foraging had passed away, and the real hunger of the trail had set in.

He was soft, he knew-scarcely two hours from Castle Nidus, but he would gladly trade his sword for some dried fruit.

"Where's your dagger?"

Aglaca's question shocked him.

Wordlessly he dismounted, letting the moment pass. He muttered something about "forgotten," about "hurried departures" and "I prefer my sword, for that matter". Aglaca said nothing, but regarded him quietly.

"I hope your 'hurried departure' didn't keep you from bringing that second cloak," he observed, nodding toward the cloud bank to the north, rising out of the coun try they had left behind. "There's a storm following us. North to south, fast, with sheets of water and a day-long dark. Should be here about midmorning, by the way those nightbirds flew over."