Michael Williams - Before the Mask

And in the cavern above him, the goddess laughed.

Servitude and servility. It was a phrase she relished and a strategy she loved-as one minion kept watch on another.

She had told Ember the truth-that though he would deal with Verminaard, he would answer only to her.

And now it was the young man's turn, the Dragonlord apparent, who would hear the same story.

In the chill of the early evening, the druidess found the place. The entrance was little more than a large hole in the side of an old igneous rock formation, but it was large enough for L'Indasha to crawl through and retrieve a bucket full of ice. She had broken off a good, clean hunk that almost filled the oaken vessel, and Robert helped her to the outside and the moonlight and air.

"What will you do with this?" he asked.

"The ice offers a certain reflection of reality. Sometimes it's cloudy, and always it's skewed, but this kind of augury is helpful for searching, for seeing… possibilities," the druidess replied. "Watch now, and think of Castle Nidus. My helper must surely be there, as you have said."

As Robert bent to the spangled surface of the ice block, he felt L'Indasha take his hand. Deep in the frozen currents, a slow movement began, and he could see the outline of towers and walls, of flying standards and parapets.

"Try for the inside." L'Indasha smiled.

He grinned, too, and the inner garden of Nidus took shape in the swirl of an ice cloud. At last he saw the girl, and with her, one of the young men.

"That's Aglaca!" crowed Robert, nearly dumping the bucket down the hillside. "Look at him; he's romancing her."

In the vision, Aglaca was clearly holding the girl in his arms, preparing to kiss her. L'Indasha glanced quickly up at Robert, not wishing to invade the couple's privacy. He, too, broke his gaze from the bucket and found L'Indasha's face not three inches from his own. His chest pounding and his hand still in hers, he suddenly spoke his heart to her.

"L'Indasha-I would that I were by your side, to share your life for all time," he whispered. "You are the keeper of the land, but I would keep you-love you, care for you, and give my life to you, now that I have it to give. What say you to this?"

She looked long and deeply into his blue eyes. There was no guile there, no deception, no hidden purpose. Robert held her gaze until she began to speak. She fumbled at the phrases, knowing all the while that every moment she delayed broke his heart a little more. For three thousand years, she had wanted this kind of companionship, this honesty and love. And Robert was watching all three thousand of those years, their memories of loneliness and hope, pass by in the space of a few moments.

But what of her promise to Paladine? She was more than any keeper that Robert knew of. She was the sole keeper of the missing rune, and immortal until she lay that promise down or Paladine relieved her of it. Robert did not know what he asked her, and she needed time to think.

"I say that I may not say," she finally replied. "But go from me a little way and let me consider. For I love you, too, Robert."

He was not disheartened. As he rose to leave her, he lifted her up to her feet and kissed her hand. "I have waited a very long time for you, druidess-since that snowy night in the mountains. I will wait a bit longer."

The clear autumn sky of the day slowly turned purple in the chill gloaming, and the first of the stars winked back at L'Indasha as she stared up at them. The loneliness she had complained to Paladine about years ago in the spring garden had utterly vanished at the sound of Robert's words. How long had she loved him? she wondered. Maybe from that first day, the day he had spoken of, when he lowered his sword and told her he could not do the bidding of the Lord of Nidus-that he could not kill her. That his honor recoiled at such monstrosities.

He had asked her, in a hope and faith beyond reason, to keep his honor secret on that account. It had made her laugh then.

And he made her laugh now. Even as they had walked in the worst of the damage from the fire, he had made her remember life in spite of the ashes, renewal despite the charred forest. He joked about how nothing could kill aeterna, and how the first name of evergreen was ever.

She smiled at the thought of him, at his foolish jests. She smiled as well at the line of greenery, miraculously untouched by the fire, that another hand had warded with the ancient runic signs. Mort had been here-of that she was certain, and Nidus's former gardener had diverted a greater disaster with his foresight and his skillful spells. The flames had stopped short at the edge of the magic, and whatever plants lay above it were subject only to the autumn weather.

Logr and Yr. Water and yew bow. Journey and protection. The runes were wisely used, and she had seen them before, twice on the plains. Within the shelter of the sign, every plant seemed eternal.

Eternal. What would it be like without Robert? He was perhaps fifty; she had seen thirty centuries pass. If they went their own ways, time would treat them differently. When he was old, she would be unchanged by the years, scarcely a breath older by his reckoning; when he died, she would be worse off than to have never known him.

Just then a hand touched her shoulder, and she whirled to face not Robert, whom she had supposed it to be, but an old man in a shabby hat, the silver triangle on it gleaming in the brightening starlight.

"My Lord Pal-"

"Hush, girl. Remember who's always listening. Something on your mind?"

"Oh, yes. And you know what it is."

"You have the same choice as always, my dear. You know I will not demand of my friends what they do not will to give. And if you believe that for three thousand years you have not changed, reconsider, for you are still alive. And living things always change and grow. He will abide until you choose again.

"Take heed now to your helper's fate. For her protection, she has no idea of my purpose and her calling. I want Robert to bring her to you, and for you all to meet me here again when that is done."

In the weeks that followed the Minding, tbe struggle for Castle Nidus grew treacherous and tangled. From the moment when Daeghrefn entered the chamber to sullen looks and shaken allegiances, Nidus had been a vast and intricate web, with Verminaard the spider at its center.

Cerestes lurked in the background of all the intrigues. Immediately after he had returned from the grotto, the mage had breathed the first of the incantations-the one the Queen of Darkness had designed to draw the loyalty of the garrison from Daeghrefn to Verminaard.

The mage was surprised that he knew the spell. After all, he had never heard it spoken, never read it. The words felt alien in his mouth as he chanted them, and it was only after the spell was spoken that Cerestes knew that his voice was no longer his own, that Takhisis herself spoke his words for him.

That his breath was the breath of the goddess.

He leaned against the battlements, shaking with confusion and anger. Slowly he calmed himself, staring at the tilted stars of Hiddukel, the bright scales in the southern sky.

It was just as well. His thoughts and words were no longer his own, but the end of the journey would have its rewards. Takhisis had promised. She had promised him Verminaard to govern and control.

Staring silently into the darkening night, Cerestes wondered for a moment if the prize was worth what the Lady took in return.

He would think on that matter deeply when the time was right. When the moon is hollow, she had told him.

Wait until the moon is hollow.

Having lamely sidestepped the open rebellion he saw brewing in the eyes of his garrison, Daeghrefn roamed the strangely deserted castle halls, accompanied only by the ever-present Cerestes, who urged him to calm all misgivings, to return to business as usual. There were the fire-damaged castle grounds to mend and preparations to be made in case of Nerakan attack. The enemy would know, Cerestes urged, that defenses here would be meager.