Before the Mask

Chapter 15

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.

It seemed like good advice, and Daeghrefn plunged into the work of regrouping and repair. Then he saw that the mead hall insurrection was not over, that his orders were followed sullenly, halfheartedly, or, on most occasions, ignored altogether.

But the men jumped at even the smallest requests of Verminaard, sat by him at table, and vied for his attentions. And the young man listened to them, laughed at their jests, and lent a hand himself in lifting rocks and raising scaffolding, his broad shoulders rippling under twice the weight the others lifted.

Here is a man that soldiers follow, Daeghrefn told himself.

And not only soldiers.

For perched on the battlements of the east wall was the mage Cerestes, his black robes billowing like enormous wings. He looked down upon Verminaard and laughed and cheered as well, joining the chorus of soldiers and workers as this strange young man gathered his admirers.

Here is a man they all will follow. And what do I command, then? Daeghrefn wondered. Where are my troops? My retainers? My holdings? He will have them all, and soon. Why have I suffered him? Why did I let him live when he was but a new trouble in the world?

And the words of the druidess-so long ago, on that blindingly cold night on the way home from the treacherous Laca's castle-came back to Daeghrefn in a memory as cloudy and cracked as ice.

This child will eclipse your own darkness. And his hand will strike your name.

At long last, Daeghrefn believed her.

Daeghrefn couldn't remember how he heard about the rebellion.

He knew he should recall it clearly, that the moment should be engraved in all his waking hours-the first news of the first betrayals. But he could not remember. At night, he would stand in the balcony window, ransacking his thoughts for the names of forgotten constellations, and on the fourth evening after the Minding, preoccupied with the aloofness of his men, he had forgotten entirely the way back to his quarters and wandered the halls in aimless embarrassment for an hour until he had gathered himself enough to collar a wayward page and have the boy "help carry this torch to my chambers."

It had been desperate and no doubt obvious, but the lad had been taught not to question. Daeghrefn had followed the nodding light down the corridor, and when the child had opened the door and handed him the torch, Daeghrefn had dismissed the lad abruptly and sat on the bed, the burning torch in his hands filling the room with a fitful, evasive light.

He had forgotten the way to his own chambers.

That was not important now. All that mattered was the rising rebellion. Why couldn't he remember its source? Its birth?

Perhaps it had been a slipped word between the guards at the gate that night he crept along the battlements, cloaked and masked and listening to the conversations of sentries, the passing words of soldiers and servants. Perhaps it was something in the comings and goings from Verminaard's new quarters in Robert's old rooms at the edge of the bailey.

Perhaps he had even dreamt it. Before the fires and the Minding, he had never remembered his dreams. But they came to him regularly nowadays, filling his thoughts in the morning with images vivid and violent.

By whatever means the knowledge of rebellion had reached him, he was sure the news was true.

So sure was Daeghrefn that he summoned three of the veteran soldiers-Sergeant Graaf, Tangaard, and the archer Gundling-and spent a long afternoon in the vaulted council hall, interrogating and menacing and bullying as the autumn sun sank over the spine of the Doom Range. The garrison waited for supper in the hall outside the bolted doors, the muffled shouts of Lord Daeghrefn reaching them even through the thick oak.

The three men had listened politely, impassively to a string of bizarre tirades. When Daeghrefn had threatened them with a dozen deaths and a score of tortures, the Lord of Nidus ran out of breath and imagination and glowered at them from his seat by the fireside. The soldiers nodded politely, turned, and filed out the doorway, out of the keep, and across the bailey, directly to young Verminaard.

"Since he knows of it, your Lordship," Graaf proposed, leaning against a narrow fireplace, once Robert's, as a dozen soldiers gathered around their newly chosen commander, "and since there's no need for secrecy, seein' as not one man sides with him, why not now? Why don't we move you into the lord's chamber and set the old storm-crow to flight?"

His companions murmured in agreement, each offering more elaborate, more gruesome suggestions of what to do with the deposed lord. Verminaard raised his hand, enjoining their silence.

"Though I can appreciate your fervor, Sergeant Graaf, for now, we shall put no man to flight. The old dayraven knows this castle is mine, and that is enough. Let him keep his quarters. Post guards outside them to assure he will spend his time in his luxurious surroundings… and nowhere else. I am the Lord of Nidus now, and he is my prisoner. Let him learn what it is like to dangle upon the barbed whim of the powerful."

As Cerestes had advised that night on the battlements, there was much to do between the desire for power and the taking of the power in hand.

Verminaard had to set Castle Nidus in order.

It was not only the east wall that was shaky and vulnerable. The strange series of alliances as well, the treaties and pacts that Daeghrefn had made to bolster his little mountain fief, needed reconsideration and change.

Compelled by that need, Verminaard summoned Aglaca to the old seneschal's quarters at the edge of the bailey. There would be long words, he promised, and offers befitting the scion of a noble house.

There would be the accord of companions, he claimed. The agreement of brothers.

Inside the seneschal's quarters, Verminaard waited, his fingers drumming against the scarred wooden table, his eyes fixed on the closed door. What Cerestes had told him was true: He sensed it thoroughly in his bones and fingertips, in the unsteady tingling of his scarred hand.

It was his brother, his only kin in Castle Nidus, who approached from the beleaguered keep. But Aglaca was more than that, more than just complicated blood kin. He was the one ungovernable soul, the man untouched by Verminaard's force and threats and manipulations.

He is like me, Verminaard thought, staring into the guttering fire. I remember the day on the Bridge of Dreed, how his face even then resembled my own. The feeling, even then, that I was bound to him forever.

And now, as we have grown together and endured that monster in the keep, I am sure that his face is my face, his eyes my eyes.

Slowly his scarred fingers encircled the handle of the mace, and he lifted the weapon, its black head glittering in the deceptive firelight.

He is like me in his will and courage as well. When the dark passed over the moon and the ogres fled and the soldiers froze, he was the only other man who could yet move, who could yet act.

Nightbringer glowed evilly in his hand. Verminaard turned the weapon adoringly.

And this mace, he thought. Though it offered him praise and the prospect of home, something contrary in him kept him from taking it.

I cannot mold him nor twist him nor force him to my liking. But there is always the girl. She is nothing to me now that sweet Nightbringer rides in my hand, but she is important to Aglaca. Yes, a bauble my brother fancies. A suitable pawn for my proposal.

He clenched his fist and breathed slowly, his eyes narrowing like an archer's gazing down the long shaft of the arrow.

So I shall offer him a choice. Yes, a prospect that a man of his cunning-and he is cunning, for we both inherited that from our true father-a prospect that will delight him past all refusals.

Cautiously Aglaca waded through guards outside the former seneschal's quarters. The garrison whose discipline had been Daeghrefn's pride, drilled according to a kind of measure even when the Lord of Nidus had left the Order himself, had now set aside all its regimen and polish in a mere five days since the Minding. These men were on the edge of banditry themselves-dirty and stubbled, all insignia effaced from their dull armor. Under their new commander, they had traded their broadswords and bows for less noble, more cruel weapons: the long scimitars of Neraka and the barbed spears of Estwilde.

When Aglaca opened the door, the smell of woodsmoke and wine rushed from the mottled darkness, and before his eyes closed from the strong fumes, he saw Verminaard seated in front of a thick, scarred table.

"Aglaca. Do come in," Verminaard urged, a strange, sugary politeness in his voice.

The younger man paused reluctantly at the threshold of the building, but Verminaard beckoned him, and eventually, taking a last deep breath of the fresh outside air, Aglaca stepped into the shadowy chambers.

"I'm glad you came," Verminaard said, "for I feel that you, of all people, have been party to my innermost thoughts over the terrible years. Since things are about to change, good Aglaca, I thought you should know. So that you might… share in the good fortune."

Aglaca's face was unreadable, as blank as the mythical rune.

Verminaard cleared his throat and continued. "Within a fortnight, I plan a journey to the village of Neraka. There I shall meet with Hugin, captain of the bandits, and I shall demand his obeisance, his service under the red banner of Nidus."

"What makes you think that this Hugin is going to delight in your offer?" Aglaca asked uneasily. "After all, he's scarcely been agreeable in the past."

"Sneer if you will, Aglaca," Verminaard said, a note of coldness creeping into his voice, "but you know that when I speak, I do not speak alone." He held the mace to the light and made a show of examining it. "You were in the cave with me. You heard the Voice when Nightbringer passed to my hand."

"Nightbringer?"

Verminaard nodded. "'Tis the name that comes to me. Therefore, 'tis the name of the mace. But you heard the Voice. You know that I've been chosen." He paused, glared at Aglaca. "I'd like it if you sat down."

Reluctantly Aglaca seated himself on a bare stool. "It's treason you're talking, Verminaard. You know that the Nerakans have been our foes for-"

"Nine years. It's why you're here, Aglaca, in case you've forgotten. But I shall sue for peace in Neraka, and Hugin and his lot will march with me."

"March?" Aglaca shifted uncomfortably. "Where?"

"Why, west, of course," Verminaard replied, his sound hand stroking the mace head lazily. "Which brings me to more delicate matters. I have canceled the gebo-naud. The Nerakans are no longer a threat to Nidus. You are free."

Aglaca stared at the floor, his thoughts racing. "Free to go home, then?"

"Aglaca, it hurts me that you still do not consider Nidus your home. I think of this castle as your home as well as mine. I think of you as a brother."

Aglaca glanced at him curiously. How much did Verminaard know? "But my father is in East Borders, Verminaard," he said.

Verminaard snorted and waved his left hand as though brushing away a fly. His right hand clutched the mace more tightly, his scarred knuckles white against the black stone.

"Why serve at a small holding when you could be my captain?"

Aglaca frowned. "I don't understand."

Verminaard rose from the table. "When Hugin's troops join my own, there will need to be one man beneath me to yoke my unlikely forces together and be answerable for the lot of them. I'll need someone I can trust. You're my only true friend-the only soul in whom I can confide, because we are so alike in honor and loneliness and… in other things."

"But my home is East Borders, Verminaard. That was the idea long ago. That's why I am here and… and your brother far away."

Verminaard nodded, his eyes fixed on the heart of the mace. "I want you to be my captain."

"I'm not sure I was clear, Verminaard, but-"

"It's quite simple." Verminaard stood over him now, the broad shoulders blocking the firelight so that Aglaca looked up into a thick, impermeable darkness. "If you are my captain, you may keep the girl. To do with as you wish."

"I may keep the girl?" Aglaca asked incredulously. "And what… what do you have in mind if…"

"If you refuse, Judyth is mine-to do with as I wish." He paused to let the enormity of the possibility build in Aglaca. "You cannot hide her in your quarters forever. If I demand the girl, she is mine. And I will demand her when the red moon is full. Until then, neither of you is free to leave the castle. But you, Aglaca, are free to choose. And there's no hard feelings, whatever you decide. After all, what's a slip of a purple-eyed girl between brothers?"

"Your brother is at East Borders, Verminaard," Aglaca insisted, "where I should be now instead."

"My brother is with me now as well, Aglaca," Verminaard hissed. "You know it as well as I do. But perhaps you haven't imagined the particulars. Let me tell you of a night long ago, when a traveling knight named Daeghrefn stopped in East Borders to lodge with… a friend."

Aglaca went to the garden as the shadow of the western walls lengthened over the taxus and the blue aeterna. Politely, the soldier assigned to guard him stayed at the garden gate, allowing the youth to wander in the midst of the rich evergreens where he had sought refuge as a small child. Then he had been uprooted by an alliance he did not understand. It was much the same now, Aglaca thought-the green smell and the dense, wiry foliage soothing but finally comfortless, more a place to hide than a place to recover.

Aglaca traced over that evening in the former seneschal's cottage-the grotesque offers, the badgering, and the threats. He looked in horror at Verminaard now, at the ris ing evil and the fierce obsession with fire and violence. He remembered the horror on the plains, with Nightbringer rising and falling in the smoky moonlight, its obsidian head slick with the blood of ogres.

And now this offer. To be his second in such outrage.

He is my brother, Aglaca thought. He has changed beyond belief or desire, but Verminaard is still my brother.

He stared bleakly at the red sliver of Lunitari as the moon began its slow passage toward the appointed time.

Daeghrefn sat and stared into the fire, an uncorked bottle of wine on the table beside him. He was gaunt, pale, almost cadaverous-a far cry from the robust man who had stood on the Bridge of Dreed nine years ago awaiting the arrival of his Solamnic hostage. His eyes red-rimmed and his hair matted, he stared wretchedly into the fire, turning a stemmed glass slowly in his hand.

The door to the hall opened abruptly, and it was a moment before Daeghrefn heard the footsteps approaching, loud and heedless, over the ancient stone floor.

"You wanted to see me, Father?" Verminaard asked icily, and the Lord of Nidus turned to face him. "Very well. I'll grant you audience. After all, these chambers are mine. You are here through my generosity only."

A wide and witless grin spread over Daeghrefn's face. Vainly he tried to stand, then weaved over the chair and thought better of it. Seated once more, addled by the wine and breathing roughly, raspily, he glared at the monstrous young man who stood above him, blocking the torchlight.

"Audience?" Daeghrefn asked. "Did you say…" His voice dwindled into the vaulted hall. "Well. We can talk of that later, Verminaard. As for now, my mind is on another thing."

He rose, braced himself against the back of the chair, and balanced before the reeling fireplace. Verminaard's face seemed veiled from him in the deceptive firelight. Clearing his throat, Daeghrefn continued.

"I am thinking that I do not know you all that well. That I haven't been… good to you. And now… well, now you intend to take all Nidus away from me." Daeghrefn sighed. "I expect your bitterness and anger are justified and that I have no choice but to make a good end of it."

The Lord of Nidus poured wine into a glittering metal cup and offered it to Verminaard. The young man took it and stared into the ambered bowl of the vessel while Daeghrefn talked on idly.

"This has been a long estrangement, and little has been your doing. If you would agree to a way that we might coexist, I'd…"

Verminaard ignored the prattle, his senses drawn by the strange fragrance of the wine. As he lifted the cup toward his lips, the new scars on his hand began to twitch and tingle.

He had come to know this as a warning.

Warily Verminaard peered over the rim of the cup, then handed the wine to Daeghrefn. "If we are to make accord, Father," he said with a sneer, "we should drink from the same cup."

Slowly, his hand shaking, Daeghrefn lifted the vessel. Verminaard stared at him frostily as the firelight seemed to tilt and shudder. Quietly, with a scarcely detectable movement of his fingers, the Lord of Nidus let the cup drop clattering to the floor, spilling its contents in a steaming, corrosive mist over the stones.

Verminaard seized the older man, hurling him against the stones of the fireplace. Then, lifting him by the front of his tunic, he pinned Daeghrefn against the wall and snarled at him.

"You adder!" he shouted. "Your fangs are devious and veiled, even when the venom is dry! At last I have you where I have wanted you for twenty years-backed against a wall, your power and poison useless!" He raised Nightbringer, its black handle quivering and droning in his hand.

"I let you live," Daeghrefn gasped. "I let you live, when I could have killed you merely by walking away!"

The grip about his neck slackened.

"You're mad!" Verminaard muttered. "You let me live? And what was that in the cup? I owe you nothing, old man-not even the chance to bargain]"

Daeghrefn watched in terror as the mace wheeled over the young man's head, then lowered slowly, quietly to his side.

"But look at you. You're already dead," Verminaard observed, his voice thick with scorn. "A mere husk of a man, the skin of a locust in a blighted year. You haven't even the decency to lie down."

Daeghrefn quivered and whimpered. He closed his eyes, and when he looked again, Verminaard was halfway across the room, headed for the doors to the chamber.

"I could have killed you once," he whispered. "In the snow… in a lost time… before… before all of this-"

The words were lost in the crackle of the fire, the slam of the oaken doors.