Before the Mask

by Michael Williams

  To the north, in the hills above Nidus, Cerestes as well was upward bound.

  Takhisis had summoned him as he lay drowsing in his study. She appeared as a dark presence at the edge of his dream, her voice, low and melodious, twined with his breathing until the mage thought she had called from his heart.

  He awoke in a sweat, sprawled across the sunlit table amid papers and vials.

  Come to the grotto, the Lady had commanded. I have need ofyou.

  And so, in the hours before sunset, he had wakened and slipped into the foothills, to the same small grotto that had marked their place of communion in an earlier time. There, in the bare circular chamber, in a silence broken only by the distant dripping of water and the rustle of the returning bats, the mage knelt on the stone floor, awaiting the Change and the goddess.

  Above all, stay calm, he told himself, casting forth the flurry of spells to mask his thoughts from the prying goddess.

  What have I thought ill of her? She does not know … not yet. I did her bidding. I saved Verminaard andiiis companions from the ogres.

  How could she know?

  My loyalties will give me time with this Judyth. The girl will trust herself to me, and Takhisis will approve it all. Who better to discover what knowledge Judyth hides-a goddess who veils herself in blackness and golden eyes and sinister voices in the night? Or a kindly mage, a scholar, a tutor to the young of the castle?

  Why, eventually, I shall be the only one Judyth can trust.

  And I will use her trust for myself alone.

  Cerestes smiled as his thoughts dipped and vanished behind a dozen intricate veils of magic.

  It began as it always had, with Takhisis's voice low and resonant in the dark reaches of the cave and with the single glowing eye in the midst of the darkness.

  Become yourself, Ember, she commanded again. Show yourself before your queen.

  What followed was the old tugging of air, the first moldings of the spell soft and electric against his legs and shoulders. He felt, as always, the pain, and he cried out as

  always, but it would be over soon, he would be Ember again. And then he began to grow, to push against the walls of the cavern, to fill the chamber with his scales and wings and enormity, blocking the light from the passage to the cavern entrance….

  Suddenly he realized something was wrong. He continued to grow, or the walls were closer, or …

  He felt the crackle of tendon and bone as his spine twisted in the cold grip of the rock. Frightened, smothering, the dragon struggled against tons of stone, against the layers and pressures of the planet itself, which descended on him, tightening, grinding.

  Now! the goddess proclaimed, all softness gone from her voice. The rumble of the earth took on her words, and the words passed suddenly from the congested rock around him to a place inside him, and she spoke from the depths of his thoughts and heart.

  All this time, my Ember, you have fancied to mask your thoughts of rebellion. "No, he thought. That's not it. That's not…

  The rocks shoved in on him, and he gasped for breath.

  Silence1, the goddess commanded. You who followed them to Neraka to spy on my tower. You who have plotted from rune stone togemstone,from druidess to Solamnic hostage to whosoever serves your purpose…

  This is what it was like, the dragon thought hysterically, absently. This is how they felt when she entered their minds, when she …

  Attend to me, Ember! Takhisis commanded, and the dragon's scales glazed and blistered. Ember shrieked aloud, and the sound shook the mountain, but the rocks rested firmly upon him.

  Do you believe you are the only one of your kind?

  Ember could not reply. His forelegs bunched against his heaving chest, the air in the chamber dwindling … dwindling. …

  Could you imagine, even for a moment, that I could not summon a dozen of your kind to replace you?

  He shrieked again, but the sound was lost in the rock and the spiraling echo of the goddess's voice.

  I could crush you now. A thousand years from this day, when my followers excavate these hills, they will find your skeleton and speculate… and marvel….

  And you will float in a windless abyss of your own, eaten daily by the jaws ofHiddukel and burned endlessly by the terrible judgments ofSargonnas and Morgion….

  No! the dragon thought. Please, no! What would you have me-

  Simply obey, the goddess urged, her voice sinking back into a muffled music. "77s all I've ever asked-simple obedience. In exchange for which my boundless favor is yours.

  Oh, yes. Oh, yes, immortal Lady, mistress of my thoughts and my heart and my every immutable action. I shall obey until the last. Your devoted servant I will be now and in times to come, and … and …

  And in return receive my favor, which is more generous than you can imagine.

  Ember held his breath. Had the rock around him suddenly begun to shift, to loosen?

  For if you follow my commands, and if you accompany Lord Verminaard in the perilous path from novice to Dragonlord …

  Yes? Yes? Your wish, Your Infinite Majesty .. .

  Silence. If you follow my commands, I shall let you govern the man.

  Govern?

  He must not know it. As Dragonlord, he will think he commands you. But let it not be said that your cleverness went unnoticed because of your treachery. I am no fool, my Ember, and I see that under the guise of servitude, of servility, you intended to rule me. So you intended once. So you will no longer intend.

  And yet 'tis not a foolish ambition when it comes to the gov-

  ernance of men. I can use it… can use you, my darling. Under the mask of Verminaard's servant, you will answer only to me.

  Yes. Yes. The idea delights me. Should I bind him more closely to your service?

  I speak to him through Nightbringer. He is mine. But, yes, you may bind him further. Further, irrevocably, beyond all choice, so that he will never return to uncertainty but will stay fully, completely mine.

  Yes. I will do that. Teach me the spells. I will do your bidding.

  I shall speak those spells through your voice when the time comes. All you will have to do is relax, blank your mind, and give yourself over to me.

  But there is also the matter of the girl. When the time is right, I shall tell you what to do. She is the candle that will guide me to L'Indasha Yman. And in return for your obedience, Verminaard shall follow your veiled commands and do your will. For from this time on, your will is my will, your desire my own….

  The rocks were definitely looser now. Slowly, painfully, the dragon slipped from his rough entombment, breathing hysterical prayers of gratitude to the goddess, to her six cohorts in the Dark Pantheon, and to forgotten gods, stone deities that ruled the madness of men and beasts while the true gods had vanished from the face of the planet. But always to Takhisis his gibbering words returned, and the cool air rushed into his throat, and he slept from the pain and exhaustion, forgetting all his plans and rebellions.

  He was her creature again.

  Cerestes awoke at midday to the sound of thunder. Furtively, shamefully, but grateful for his life, he gathered his tattered robes together, stitched them together with spells, and slipped from the cavern, wading down the rock trails in an icy net of autumn rain. At the gates, the sentries barely recognized him, for his hair had whitened, and the gold of his eyes had been swallowed by a dull

  and featureless gray-the color of bedrock and abiding fear.

  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 fo
rmation, 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."

  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?