Майкл Уильямс: Before the Mask

He would walk that narrow span of rock and exchange places with Laca’s son. He would live in a foreign land and learn to be a knight, for his father said Laca still kept to the Order. It was a place for solemn oaths indeed, the boy thought. And he closed his eyes amid the company, the armed men around him oblivious to his silent prayer.

He prayed that his knighthood would come in another way, that the two quarrelsome fathers—their rift as old as the night just before his birth, as wide as the spreading chasm before him—would knit their discord in the face of the coming war. That Daeghrefn would go back to the Order. Surely the organized Nerakan army, impelled from somewhere in the dark heart of the mountains, would persuade Laca of East Borders and Daeghrefn of Nidus to relent, to trust each other at last. Couldn’t they join swords in good faith, without the approaching dance of deal and transaction? Couldn’t they postpone the swapping of sons until the Nerakans were subdued?

He prayed he would do his father proud in this exchange. But he knew his prayers tumbled like loose stones into the chasm below him, away from the starry hand of Paladine, from the eyes of Majere and Kiri-Jolith—far from the various gods Daeghrefn once revered and worshiped….

Then renounced, when he left the Order.

Daeghrefn stood behind the boy, masking his smile due to the solemnity that would follow. It was perfect, this gebo-naud, a prime arrangement of fortune and war and politics. As the years had passed, the Lord of Nidus feared more and more that the secret of his cuckoldry would be guessed by the other knights. As Verminaard grew, the boy looked the very picture of Laca.

Who had played nicely into his hands with this treaty and exchange.

He would be rid of Verminaard, Daeghrefn thought with a grim contentment. And Laca would have his own bastard visited on him. It could not have been better arranged.

Verminaard started. You will bid your brother farewell today , the Voice told him. Oh, yes, farewell, for you will not see him again, though good riddance will it be. And you will be the elder, the scion, your father’s eventual heir .

It always took him by surprise, that sinuous suggesting. The Voice had been with him for years—for as long as he could remember. Melodious and haunting, its tone neither masculine nor feminine, it would merge with his own thoughts and rise suddenly into hearing, its suggestions always a mixture of despair and grief and a strange, dark longing. He had never spoken to his father about it. Daeghrefn would not hold with voices.

What does this mean? Verminaard puzzled, wrestling as always with the Voice’s dark prompting. It is an exchange of noble hostages, not a giving away!

And as always, the Voice was silent when he argued, slipping back into some dark recess, some alcove of memory, leaving him alone to bicker and wrestle with its insinuations. I will return! Verminaard assured himself. But the Voice was gone, leaving him to his rising dread and misgiving.

He opened his eyes and turned in the saddle. Abelaard, seated importantly amid the armed escort, winked at him solemnly.

Let it be over soon, the younger boy thought. If the exchange must take place, as the fathers have sworn on their swords and honors, let it take place quickly.

“You have your instructions?” the stern voice prodded behind them. Abelaard turned to Daeghrefn, murmuring something hasty and obedient.

Verminaard looked the other way—toward the chasm and the arching bridge and the impossible distance to the western side.

Daeghrefn moved between them, his dark horse snorting and capering in the brisk evening air.

“No one will attend you, Verminaard,” the knight said. “Laca has not allowed as much.” Verminaard cast a sideward glance at the Lord of Nidus. Daeghrefn cut an imposing figure indeed: the chiseled nose, the dark thick brows above piercing eyes. The boy could understand why the soldiers feared him, why they had followed him out of the Order, become renegades along with their gloomy commander.

He looked closely at his father’s face—a frightening, opaque mask of Solamnic instruction. Daeghrefn would show nothing of himself to Laca this evening. But the boy remembered Daeghrefn’s smile two nights ago, when the last version of the treaty had reached him by the shaking hands of a Solamnic courier. Then Daeghrefn knew at last that the Lord of East Borders would accept Nidus’s terms in the exchange. But now that triumph was contained behind a mask of cold composure.

“What is keeping them?” Daeghrefn muttered, shielding his eyes and looking into the sunset, into the westernmost reaches of sight. “They ought to be here by now.”

“You don’t suppose that the Nerakans—” Verminaard began, a dark thought rising in his mind.

“Rest at ease, Brother,” Abelaard whispered. “Laca will be as well armed as we are. The Nerakans would not dare cross swords or paths with a Solamnic company.”

“’Tis heartening to hear that, Brother,” Verminaard replied brightly, though his spirits sank at the words. Of course Laca’s forces would be armed, and hundreds strong this far into the mountains. The Nerakans were moving in numbers and with tactics even the oldest men could not recall and had not expected. Everywhere along the Khalkist Range, from Sanction to Gargath and still north, to where the mountains tumbled into the foothills of Estwilde, the Nerakans threatened the borders of more civilized country. Worse yet, the men of Estwilde and of Sanction had joined with them. The forces arrayed against the Solamnic Knights and their scattered allies were large enough and organized enough to pass for an army. Goblins and ogres even joined the bandit ranks, or so the scouts reported. So all along the lofty spine of the Khalkists, the border lords were uniting in response, in mutual defense. Whether they were Solamnics or not, whether they were long-time friends or had feuded for years, commanders such as Daeghrefn and Laca formed alliances of blood or honor or urgency. Better to ally with a civilized foe than fall to the relentless, motley onslaught from the east. It was why men always went heavily armed in the mountain passes. It was why, twelve years after the stormy night of Verminaard’s birth, the last alliance would be sealed.

A month ago, after the Nerakans assaulted East Borders and pillaged the homesteads within a mile of Castle Nidus, Daeghrefn and Laca had communicated for the first time since that ill-omened night, exchanging information, then uncertain tokens, then veiled assurances … arguments….

And now sons.

“There they are!” Abelaard exclaimed, pointing to the dark banners weaving through the western pass. The waning sunlight glittered red on their armor, and each crimson standard at the head of the column bore the silver kingfisher of the Order.

Daeghrefn rose in the stirrups, again shielding his eyes against the sunset. “It’s Laca on the gray, I’m certain,” he pronounced. “And the boy with him, on that horse’s twin, must be his son.” He shot a curious glance at Verminaard, who met his gaze eagerly.

Daeghrefn turned away, speaking softly to Abelaard as the Solamnic column approached them in the distance. Verminaard strained to hear the conversation, but the words slid teasingly out of earshot. Something about intelligence, it was. About couriers and signs.

Then his father sat back in the saddle, his veiled eyes red, as though he had looked too long into the westering sun.

“Where is the mage?” he asked the sergeant beside him, his voice troubled and hoarse. “We needn’t linger over ceremony and drama.”

Now Verminaard could see them, the two riders at the head of the column, framed by the kingfisher standards. A tall man, bareheaded amid a helmeted escort, his hair as white-blond as Verminaard’s own. A small, lithe companion, dwarfed by his own horse. The boy was supposed to be twelve years old, born within minutes of Verminaard himself, in the warmth of the distant castle. Abelaard had said they had much in common.