Michael Williams - Before the Mask

"My beauty is ruined, Cerestes," Verminaard pronounced desolately. "Now those I conquer will remember me for my scar, for my ugliness."

"Not so, Lord Verminaard," the mage replied. "They will remember you for the power of your choices, for your victories and conquests."

Verminaard laughed bitterly. With a sweep of his gloved hand, he pointed to the balcony, to the high overlook and its view of the southern plains. "Look out beyond the walls, Cerestes, and think back only as far as midsummer. Now the plains are growing back, and the forest beyond them is greening with fir and juniper. But how will this mend, Cerestes? How will this scar look in a season's time?"

Cerestes backed toward the door. "Wait for me here, Lord Verminaard," he urged. "Your wounds will mend as mine do-slowly but completely. Though I cannot hasten that recovery, I know a little of shape-changing and disguise."

" 'Wait'? How could I leave this cell, marked as I am? And who knows when the mending will begin?" Verminaard intoned as the mage slipped through the chamber door. Verminaard sat on the bed, burying his face in his hands. "Has any suffered as I have suffered?" he shouted to the empty room.

None, the Voice claimed as the mace by the bedside sparkled with ebony light. None have suffered as you have suffered, and yet you are handsome in my eyes, a creature of unforeseen beauty, whose scars have deepened his splendor, for in my eyes, you are a spirit of dark light…

Verminaard shook his head. He would not be consoled. Not yet.

Go to the balcony, the Voice urged. Look west over the plains whose greening you mourn. West over the army of Solamnics, toward the Eira Goch.

Reluctantly Verminaard stood and walked to the balcony railing.

"Light," he said, shielding his eyes against the red glow of the sunset. "I see light, and the crests of mountains."

Dream of what lies beyond them, the Voice urged. I am preparing you an army in Estwilde-a thousand men strong and ready.

You are handsome enough to lead them.

"I will not have them see this scar," Verminaard insisted. "It is a wound-a sign of weakness."

No weakness. For Cerestes prepares a mask of mysteries, wrought from Daeghrefn's broken breastplate. You will wear the mask at the head of your armies. You are handsome and splendid, but the mask is better. Now none will know you as I know you. None but I shall look upon your countenance.

When you receive the mask, go to the evergreen copse, to the place of transformations. There we shall commune, and I shall bring to pass the first of my promises.

Your army will wait. Your destiny will abide.

Laca watched the dim arrangement of lights along the battlements of Nidus. It was the tenth day of the siege, and there was still no word from Verminaard.

Long encampment sat ill with Solamnics, as did the waiting.

Even now, the thought of defeating Verminaard was enough to fill his dreams with delight and yearning. Deeply Laca wished revenge on his own son, on the cold young raven of Nidus who had blinded one brother through petulance and spite, then slain the other on the battlements where the lights weaved now in the thickening darkness.

But startling news had come from the castle. The emissary, a grizzled Nerakan named Gundling, brought the story to Laca. Verminaard, who was now, some said, a cleric of considerable power, had vanished from the castle two nights ago. Rumors had it that he was somewhere in the mountains, communing with the goddess and readying himself for the great venture. And while he was gone, the garrison had come to themselves, Gundling said. They had seized the mage, who was near exhaustion, imprisoned him, then voted to a man to open the gates to the Solamnics, to hand over the castle.

As a Solamnic lord, Laca had heard stories such as this before-the hoarded promises of besieged towns, the lies of bandit captains. Strong magic could await them inside those walls, and a thousand lesser ambushes.

"We will wait," Laca said, "until your commander has the courage to come forth and parley."

The Lord of East Borders was not alone in his patience. His knights stood beside him, fivescore times ten strong, and not one of the Order questioned his decision. But the archers grumbled, and the infantry fought among themselves as the legions foraged the countryside, finding little to nourish them in a landscape so recently burned.

Laca slept little that night, his dreams a confusion of fire and betrayals.

On the next morning, before dawn, a mist rose in the dungeons of the eastern tower. It rose unnoticed through the castle floors, wafting past Nidus's vigilant sentries, then onto the plains through the equally vigilant Solamnic infantry.

One of the Solamnics-a lad from the plains, not far from the ruins of the old Castle diCaela-thought he saw a shape in the mist, silhouetted against the glow of the campfire. But he blinked and it was gone, receded once more into the mist that passed through the encampment up to the hills, settling on a spot where the rubble inclined toward a rise, toward a copse of stripped evergreen and a rocky, shadowy hillside.

There, out of sight of the armies, in the midst of the evergreens, the mist took human form. Cerestes stepped from the copse and headed toward the high grotto, where Verminaard awaited him.

At midday, a sudden cloud rose out of the east.

The Solamnics cursed and scrambled for their tents, and the sullen sentries raised their hoods against the prospect of rain.

"Verminaard has much to answer," the boy from the plains muttered angrily. "Not even a cleric can make me wait out a downpour!"

But the threatened rain did not come. Instead, the dark cloud settled on the broken copse, and the foothills vanished in a thick mist. The infantry-commoners from Coastlund and the eastern borderlands-took it as an omen. The darkness, they said, was devouring Verminaard and his mage, and many in their number broke camp for a return to Estwilde. Laca found half of them cloaked and ready, the others packing everything from bows to bottles.

It took four squadrons of armed knights to invite the infantry to wait out the darkness.

That night three moons filled the sky-dark Nuitari in the midst of her luminous sisters, eclipsing both of them in the course of an ominous evening. The horses called to one another skittishly, and the infantrymen murmured of omens and the Cataclysm come again.

Then, out of the cloudy grove, came the sound of fire and splintering wood. A flock of starlings lifted raucously into the air, and behind them, in a glory of darkness, a dragon rose on wide and powerful wings.

When Laca came to his senses, the encampment was silent.

For a moment, he thought that the great beast had descended upon them, had ravaged his army with fiery breath and ragged claws. All the dragon stories of his childhood returned to him as he crawled warily from the collapsed tent and cast his eye over the desolate landscape.

Five hundred soldiers, he guessed, lay in shock or stupor. Others-knights and archers and infantry alike- rushed toward the western foothills, from the high grass north of the castle and from the blackened plateau of the South Moraine, where they had fled the encampment when the monstrous beast passed over and the Dragon-fear engulfed them. They were muddied, haggard, matted with dried grass and leaves.

We've been routed, Laca thought angrily. Routed by that monster… my son… and his damnable mage.

Then he shifted his gaze toward the castle, where the dragon turned in a slow arc and made for the one standing man left on the plains of Nidus.

Laca's breath caught fire before he could expel it on the curse that was his last thought.

The towers of Castle Nidus seemed to pivot below him, crested with fire and milling, panic-stricken soldiers as the dragon banked in the icy, thin air.