Before The Mask by Michael Williams Page B

remained. Osman, of course, had fallen in the encounter with the centicore. The
     Nerakan ambush had killed fifteen of Daeghrefn's finest troops.
    When two of the retainers, rough farm boys from Kern, returned from the chase bearing two
     Nerakan heads on pikes, Daeghrefn turned away and said nothing, for he
    shared their bitterness and anger. Aside from that pair of especially unfortunate bandits
     and the three slain by Aglaca and Robert, the skirmish had brought no recompense for
     Daeghrefn's forces. The Nerakans had vanished into the rocks, leaving dead men and
     disarray on the paths behind them.
    And the girl, Verminaard thought, standing in the background while Robert told Daeghrefn
     how Aglaca had shown mettle and speed in the struggle with the bandits. Whoever she was .
     . . bound and captive and . . . and in deep distress, I know.
    Daeghrefn nodded brusquely at Robert's speech. Aglaca might be Laca's son, but despite the
     ancient quarrel, the boy had conducted himself with exceptional gallantry. He glanced from
     the disheveled, amiable Solamnic youth to the other, the darker, larger, and decidedly
     unfa-tigued presence, who sat atop his horse now, lost in a labyrinth of thought.
    Verminaard didn't notice that Daeghrefn had looked at him, for his mind was elsewhere,
     high on the far and sunlit side of the stone bridge.
    Had I but the chance to prove it, she ... she would... He couldn't imagine what would
     happen.
    Trapped in his own reflections, communing with the dark Voice that arose from his thoughts
     and from somewhere deeper than his thoughts, he rode back to Castle Nidus, trailing the
     column.
    From the battlements of Castle Nidus, sentries watched the approach of Daeghrefn's beaten
     line of riders. Almost at once, the sharper-eyed among them began to count, and counted
     again, as two dozen men rode in from the waning light of the foothills, torches already
     lifted against
    the oncoming evening.
    Quickly, with rising apprehension, the sentries alerted the castle. Soon, with murmurings
     and rumor, everyone assembled in the bailey yard. There the kitchen sweep shifted from
     foot to foot next to the old astrologer from Estwilde, and the falconer leaned uneasily
     against the wall of the keep, exchanging hushed words with the cook. None had foreseen
     this grim news. Never had a routine hunt been so disastrous, and only twice before had the
     Nerakans attacked anyone this close to Nidus.
    Aglaca turned over the day's unhappy events in his mind and knew that it would be a long
     time before he could go home to East Borders. Eight long years past... how many more to go
     until some sort of peace would release him from Nidus? His youth was being poured out in
     the gebo-naud, and by now he should have attained his knighthood. Or maybe even his most
     secret desireto serve Paladine with all his being.
    Perhaps Daeghrefn had been right about his needing a guard to keep him from answering the
     call of East Borders. Like the dead of the day, Aglaca had not chosen his fate nor his
     company.
    Perched at the mouth of a high cave, almost a mile above the three lofty turrets of the
     castle, there was one who understood more clearly. Cerestes shielded his golden eyes
     against the red slant of sun and counted the approaching troops. Then his gaze narrowed
     and focused, and the birds around the mouth of the cavern hushed in a sort of fearful
     expectancy.
    This time he could count the holes in the tattered foremost banner. Eagerly his sight
     raced down the column.
    Good. Aglaca and Verminaard both were there.
    Satisfied, he stalked into the growing darkness, into an enormous circular chamber, void
     of light and wind and silent except for the perpetual dripping of water somewhere even
     farther back in the cave.
    It was the appointed spot. She had told him in a dream, when he had begged her again to
     reveal his purpose in this place. Though the years in Daeghrefn's service