Before The Mask Read Free Page B

through the hush, through the knight's pronouncements and curses.
    “Ah, no!” The druidess turned sharply, a new trouble in her voice.
    Daeghrefn sat silently, his eyes closed. From the commotion, from the druidess's whispered
     instructions to the lad, the knight imagined the scene unfolding behind him.
    The druidess knelt above the woman, her ministrations frantic and swift. But soon,
     inevitably, she sighed, her hands slowing, her touch more benediction than healing.
     Sorrowfully she pushed the boy and the baby away, gesturing toward a straw mattress in a
     candlelit alcove off the main cavern.
    Abelaard lingered above his dying mother for a moment, his eyes dull and unreadable. A
     well- schooled Solamnic youth, he did as he was told, his emotions veiled behind the stern
     tutelage of his masters. And yet he was only a child, and for a moment, he bent low, his
     stubby fingers cradling the head of his newborn brother, and reached down to touch his
     mother's whitened cheek with the back of his hand. Then, with a soft and nonsensical
     whisper, he carried the baby to the alcove and settled onto the straw, wrapping a thin
     wool blanket about the both of them. Soon the infant nestled against his brother and slept
     deeply and silently.
    “She's dead,” L'Indasha announced scarcely an hour later. “ 'Gone to Huma's breast,' as
     your Order says. What will you do now?”
    Daeghrefn sniffed disgustedly, his eyes fixed on the wintry landscape beyond the cave
     entrance. The storm was swelling, the wind rising. The red moon Lunitari peeked from
     behind the racing clouds, flooding the snow with a staining crimson light.
    The knight turned slowly, the side of his face bathed in the hovering torchlight. For a
     moment, he looked like a skeletal wraith, like the Death Knight of the old legends,
     through whose hands had slipped the power to turn back the Cataclysm.
    “And who are you to question me, idolater?” he mur-
    mured, his voice low and menacing, like the humming of distant bees or the high whirring
     sound of the rocks over Godshome. “You have no claim on me or on my son.” He gestured
     vaguely toward Abelaard, his sword waving grotesquely in the mingling light of the fire
     and the spinning moons.
    “You have no claim on any of us. Not even that dead harlot's get,” he concluded venomously
     and stepped suddenly toward the fire, brushing the snow from his mantle.
    L'Indasha inwardly shrank from the knight. Instinct told her to fly, to scatter elusive
     magic and escape in the confusion, to burrow into the sheltering dark.... But she squarely
     faced the knight and fought back with words calculated to wound.
    “This child will eclipse your own darkness,” she proclaimed, holding the baby above the
     firelight, holding him out to Daeghrefn. Her voice rang in the ancient inflections of
     druidic prophecy and sheer rage. “And his hand will strike your name. But I will not tell
     you the rest.”
    Daeghrefn laughed harshly. It was ridiculous druidic babble. Then her blazing eye caught
     his. Her anger was real.
    Daeghrefn held her gaze. Dire things passed briefly through his mind, and for a moment,
     the sword turned in his hand, the melted snow beading ominously on the sheath's carved
     raven. He would make her retract it. He would bury the blade in ...
    No. He would send Robert back here to ... clean out this cave.
    “So?” he said, shaking his head slowly, distractedly, his eye passing over the new child's
     fair hair and creamy skin. He beckoned for Abelaard. The boy approached him, stopping only
     to take the baby from the druidess and hold him cautiously in his shivering, thin arms.
    “Druidic nonsense,” the knight whispered. Then louder, his voice cold and assured, he
     added, "Put on
    your cloak, Abelaard, and leave the child.“ He stared bale-fully at the druidess. ”We must
     be off for Nidus while there's aught of the night to travel. It's still a good walk