Verminaard had laughed at the boy, had told him the dungeon had far more dangerous eyes, and offered to show him where to look for them. Reluctantly Phillip returned to his post and shivered for three nights through a tense and tedious watch.
On the fifth night since Daeghrefn's confinement, young Phillip came breathlessly to the seneschal's quarters with the news that the whole battlement was ablaze.
Indeed, it was so. The topmost walls of the keep blazed with candle and torch and lantern. It was a beacon visible for miles, and Verminaard's cavalry, patrolling the South Moraine on a watch for Hugin's arrival, steered their horses by its light. -
Then, at midnight, a breeze lifted from the south-a cold wind diving down from the Doom Range, and the array of lights began to waver and sputter. And then young Phillip, the impressionable lad who saw eyes in the clouds and fire on the battlements, looked up…
And saw the black shape dancing on the tower ramparts.
The long black cape spread behind it like tattered wings as it leapt from merlon to merlon like a large demented bird. Twice it teetered dangerously above a fifty-foot drop, and the second time it whooped and called over the rapt bailey-a shrill, mournful cry that chilled Phillip, Tan-gaard, and the others.
For the cry was completely wordless now, a long, cascading howl that startled the horses in the stables and raised the hackles of the dogs.
And the veterans of the garrison-even Gundling, who feared nothing-felt their blood twitch and their hands shake.
For the cry was a raven's, a carrion bird's, but the voice was Daeghrefn's own.
Verminaard leaned over the seneschal's stained table and examined the runes.
Estate. Chariot. Earth.
Idly, with his scarred hand, he stirred the Amarach stones and cast them again.
Estate. Birch. Hail.
He had waited a week in Castle Nidus-seven days since the offer to Aglaca, since Daeghrefn's retreat. And in that time, Aglaca had avoided him, and the old man in the keep was mad and useless. Even Hugin, the captain of the Nerakan bandits, had the audacity to promise and promise and fail to arrive.
The waiting had begun to ravel at Verminaard's patience.
For a third time, he gathered the rune stones. They were becoming but a parlor game-the constant casting and reading, the passion of fools and fortune-tellers. In disgust, Verminaard pushed them carelessly off the table, and they clicked and clattered on the hard stone floor.
It was then that the mace spoke to him.
He had known it was going to speak from the first time he touched it in the cave above the Nerakan plains. When the dark fire raced over him and his hand burned with the transforming pain and his heart with the vision and insight, he had known it was only a matter of time until the Voice itself would return, transformed as well by the dark fire.
For after what had happened deep in the haunted recesses of the cavern, how could the Voice ever be the same?
So when it spoke-when the head of the mace glistened with an ebony fire and the room around him lapsed into absolute darkness and silence, so that he saw nothing but the weapon, heard nothing but the soft insinuations of the Voice-he was frightened and awestruck but not surprised.
Never surprised. It was no longer his way.
Throw not away your auguries, child, it said, the low, feminine Voice rushing down on him like a hot, fragrant rain. Verminaard's fear melted at once to a rich and forbidden delight, and he leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes in relief and release.
He had not known how much he had missed her.
Throw them not away, for though they speak to few in this profane and uneventful time, they speak with clarity to you- with clarity and with wisdom, if you but listen to what they say.
"Estate. Chariot. Earth," he murmured. "Estate. Birch. Hail."
You look too closely-too much at the depth of things, Lord Verminaard, the weapon coaxed.
Verminaard opened his eyes. The room had folded in on itself, the far walls at arm's length, strangely illumined by the pulsating black light. Once propped by the fireplace, the mace now lay within his grasp.
He blinked and murmured the names of the runes once more. "Estate. Twice the rune of Estate."
The Voice did not reply, but the air crackled. The hair on the young man's arm rose and swayed in a warm wind, and he gasped as he took the mace in his scarred hand.
What does it mean? the Voice asked-or he thought it was asking, for he could no longer tell whether the words rose from the room or the weapon or his own racing heart.
"Estate. Ancestral inheritance. Old spirituality," he replied haltingly.
A low laughter filled the borrowed chamber, and the rune stones clacked together on the floor. Foolishness. Double-talk. Where is your estate, Lord Verminaard?
"Castle Nidus," Verminaard replied confidently. "Mine by right and might and the show of weapon."
Nidus is yours indeed, the Voice granted, but not by inheritance. Where is your estate?
An obscure smile spread over the young man's face. "East Borders," he replied. "Castle East Borders. I am the son of Laca Dragonbane, Solamnic Knight of the Sword."
Go alone, the Voice urged. Take no escort, no companion. I shall be with you, and Nightbringer will rest in the dark moorings of your hand.
Verminaard rode alone, as the Voice had told him. He did not look back as he rode, cloaked and hooded, through the secret gate near the back of Daeghrefn's tower, riding quietly into the cover of the mountain night. Is it not foolish? he asked himself. Will I lose Nidus by neglect, when my ambitions draw me to East Borders? What will Daegh-refn do in my absence? And what about Aglaca? Where is Cerestes?
Be still, the Voice urged him. Still your thoughts and steady your ride, Lord Verminaard. Nidus is yours, whether far or near, for I have eyes in Daeghrefn's castle, and naught can be done to harm or hinder you without my knowing.
I believe you, Verminaard thought. We are bound by the strongest of covenants, the vows we made to one another in the cave of Takhisis. But show me a sign. Give me the vision that ends my questioning.
A long silence filled the night air, then the mace whined and sputtered in his hand. /
You still do not trust me. But very well. Look to the battlements.
Verminaard pivoted in the saddle and looked back toward Castle Nidus. He saw a dark form trooping on the moonlit wall, in the blood-red glow of Lunitari.
Who is it? he asked. Who is it, Lady?
Why, 'tis you, my dear, the Voice exulted. 'Tis you, to all mortal eyes. For whoever told you that Cerestes had but one form, one countenance? He rules with your face and voice, and with my magic. It is a pattern of things to come.
Verminaard smiled malevolently.
I am confirmed, Lady. I am assured past disbelief.
Good, the Voice prompted as Castle Nidus vanished into the swiftly falling darkness. This is no time for questions and fears. Depart like a man to arrive like a man.
West from Nidus, a single night's ride on the well-traveled Jelek Road took Verminaard to Jelek itself. He skirted the town to the south, then veered west over the farthest stretch of Taman Busuk, toward Estwilde and the easternmost Solamnic outposts. Armed only with his mace, guided by the stars and the Voice and the scattered auguries of the rune stones, he carried but seven days' worth of waybread, certain that the week's end would find him in East Borders, safe in the house of his father.
And when he arrived there…
Well, the Voice would tell him what to do, what to say. And how to demand his rights from the father he had seen only once, gray and distant beyond an arching bridge.
Verminaard traveled by night, hooded and cloaked against the wind and masked from curious eyes. He traveled swiftly as well. Orlog was tireless and fluid beneath him, erasing the miles as though he were winged. Those who met them on the road-the caravans to Sanction and the pilgrims to Gargath and Godshome, the patrols and the solitary travelers bound for more private destinations-all wondered whether someone had passed their camps indeed, dark and flying toward the western horizon, or whether the night and the wind and the shifting clouds had conspired to form a dream of a rider, cloaked in black, astride an enormous black stallion.