Michael Williams - Before the Mask

Only strange light, Verminaard thought. Or weariness from my battle yesterday. Or a simple magic on a cloud-struck night-a spell for sleep, perhaps, or to augur the fitful stars. The young man climbed the ladder to stand by his tutor.

"Out at the edge of sight," Cerestes said, forgoing greeting as though he had known Verminaard was there all along, "there's still a fire. See? If you look long enough toward the South Moraine…"

Verminaard stared across the darkening plain. He could see no fire from where he stood, but then Cerestes' eyesight had always been better than his.

Expressionlessly the mage turned to his pupil.

"The real courage came when you trusted Night-bringer," he explained quietly.

Verminaard frowned. "Nightbringer?"

Cerestes nodded. "The'mace. 'Nightbringer' is the name it went by in Godshome. Powerful it is, but how would you know? How would you believe in it without courage?"

The lad smiled wider.

"I know what you mean, Cerestes," he said. "When Father left the Order… stopped believing in it… they say he changed. I don't remember the time, but Abelaard said that a sort of daring left him when Daeghrefn left the old gods, and that in its place was something

… small. Something not at all, perhaps.

"But 'Nightbringer,' you say? The name of the mace is 'Nightbringer'? "

Cerestes nodded. "We had heard of it for years, knew it would be found by a chosen one, by a special one…"

Verminaard's ears felt hot. He looked to the sky, where the last vestiges of smoke had faded and dispersed, and the clouds parted over the red moon Lunitari. There was something Aglaca had told him long ago, something about the Voice, about why he refused to believe it.

Verminaard could not remember.

"And that's me, I suppose?" he asked. "The chosen one?"

"They spoke of you in Godshome," Cerestes replied, and something had deepened in his voice, choiring and resonating, until Verminaard realized there were two voices speaking: the old familiar voice he had heard in the classroom, at table, and on the battlements until this night, this moment, and another voice below that-a Voice even more familiar, more intimate, low and musical and feminine-and together the voices praised him, reassured him.

"You are the mace-wielder, the chosen one. Unto you will fall this castle, this country, and the mountains from the foothills of Estwilde to the peaks of the Doom Range and the breathless heights of Berkanth."

Cerestes shimmered as he spoke, and his skin seemed to ripple and change. And then he was strangely diminished in the cloud and spell light.

"Your rule," he said, his voice as dry and thin as the scorched grass at the foot of the castle wall, "begins tonight. Your father is no father, but weak and distracted and lost."

And Cerestes told him the story of that night years ago. Of Laca's transgressions with Daeghrefn's wife… and that Verminaard's true father was Laca Dragonbane, Lord of East Borders.

"I knew it all along," Verminaard replied, masking his astonishment, averting his eyes. "Not-not that my father was Laca. I didn't know that. But that he was not, could not be Daeghrefn."

It was Cerestes' turn to smile.

"Then there's prophecy in you as well, Lord Verminaard. Father or no father, Nidus is yours-not by blood, but by virtue and might. Soon there will be worlds elsewhere to conquer. But now, in the wake of your victory, there are smaller and sweeter conquests as well."

Verminaard glanced at him curiously.

Cerestes returned the look as his smile broadened to a leer. "When you took up the mace, you traded one girl for another. But the first one is still there-the first fruits of your power, if you'd have her. Go to her, lad. If you are not too late with your caution and false kindness, there is still a chance that she will be yours, and yours tonight. After all, she saw Nightbringer in your victorious hand."

It was something Verminaard had not considered. He had been too busy with rescues, with caverns and ogres and fires. But now the girl seemed like the first and best prospect. Verminaard's eyes grew bright, and he threw back his head and laughed harshly.

Cerestes had seen the look before on the face of young men-not courting swains bearing sonnets and flowers, but the young raiders at the borders of the enemy, bearing arms into unprotected country.

As the first of Daeghrefn's soldiers nodded with wine and the late hour, Aglaca pushed away from the table.

He had eaten little, drunk less. The events of the last nights and days had been unsettling. Now was a time for moonlight and fresh air. A walk in the bailey would clear his senses and leave behind the smoke and noise.

Silently he crossed the dark courtyard. The silver harp of Branchala, a score of white stars, shone in the cloud-crossed sky, and he passed by the dimly lit stable, where the new groom struggled with the uneasy horses.

In the shadow of the southern wall, something turned slowly, a pale garment catching the edge of the moonlight. Instinctively Aglaca reached for his dagger. Then Judyth stepped from the shadows and stared calmly at him, her remarkable eyes charged with reflected starlight. Gazing into them for a brief, breathless moment, Aglaca saw the blue in the depths of lavender.

"What should we do about Verminaard?" she began. "I–I saw him storm up to the battlements. He'll kill Daeghrefn, if not now, eventually. And then what shall we-"

Aglaca stepped forward and gently placed a finger to her lips. He pulled her back into the shadows, out of the sight of sentries and dangerous rivals.

"Nothing," he whispered. "For we can do nothing. 'Tis a struggle between son and father. It began long before I came. Who knows when and how it will end?"

"But you saw what Verminaard did."

"That and worse," Aglaca conceded. "But we can do nothing yet, except ward against a growing evil."

He handed Judyth the little dagger.

"I think of Verminaard getting the hero's portion," Judyth muttered hotly, slipping the weapon up her sleeve,

"then I think of you, going about acts of kindness instead of butchery. How you helped those helpless men to horse, risking yourself at each moment. An ogre could have wakened, could have risen up and-"

"You did the same, Lady Judyth," Aglaca said, brushing her hair from her eyes. "Entirely the same, in the prospect of the same fire and ogres." "But you were the one in the tunnels." "And you showed me how to master the warding." They laughed, and Aglaca thought it was good that there were shadows here, that Judyth could not see his face grow red.

"I suppose we both have earned the true hero's portion," he murmured. Slowly he wrapped his arms about her waist and drew her closer.

Her eyes closed in the dark, and her lips parted.

Descending from the battlements, Verminaard heard muffled laughter from the shadows below.

He stopped on the ladder, caution giving way to curiosity. After all, sounds such as these promised no ambush, no escaping hostage or prisoner. Quietly, holding his breath, he leaned forward on the ladder …

And saw the couple kissing, embracing, the girl's dark hair caught in a thin shaft of moonlight.

Dark hair, dark skin…

He imagined the lavender eyes, the tattoo, and he knew who it was that stood with her in the dark beneath the walls. For a moment, he reeled on the ladder, and the thoughts of murder that rose through the heart of his anger were murky and monstrous, as deep as the caverns that spawned them.

I shall not forget this, Aglaca, he thought. And he perched there, huddled in blackness like a roosting raven until the couple walked across the bailey back toward the lamplit keep.

In the hands of the druidess, the seneschal recovered miraculously.