"Like angels larks ascend…"
The voice went on, urgently, compellingly. Remember the cave and the strong surge of power. He would take that from you as well, as his father took your mother and your father… as he took your true brother Abelaard and the girl you had dreamed when she became Judyth. He took them all, and now he would take me from you… I, who am your sole confidante, your friend and lover and family as well.
Do you remember once, when the two of you spoke of me? He said, "I choose not to believe," and you thought, I choose not to believe Aglaca… not to believe Aglaca…
You have chosen already, Lord Verminaard. There is no going back. You are mine, always and forever. You have said.
I have seen Aglaca fight, Verminaard thought. He is swift and powerful. I could not defeat him even if I He is yours, the mace assured him. Be ruled by me.
Aglaca touched Verminaard's arm, and as he began to recite the penultimate line, the big man recoiled, as if something loathsome had attached itself to him. "Midnight!" he roared, and brought the mace, flashing with dajk and cold energy and malice as old as thought, toward the innocent face of his companion and brother.
Aglaca had scarcely time to cover his head when the mace struck his arms full force.
Gundling, standing by the portcullis below, heard the shriek of Nightbringer hurtling through the air and the sound of the impact, the snap of the young man's bones. The old guard raced to the bailey's edge and looked up on the ramparts where Aglaca reeled and fell to his knees, quietly breathing the last lines of the spelclass="underline"
"From sunlit grass as bright as gems To where all darkness ends."
Gundling turned and raced toward the guardhouse.
As the chant ended, Verminaard felt the mace let go in his hand, felt the hand straighten and heal. He dropped Nightbringer on the stone of the ramparts as Cerestes rose slowly, still clutching his long dagger.
Time seemed to stop for a long breath, Aglaca's pain-dazed face unblinking, unseeing, as he stared into Ver-minaard's eyes. Cerestes stood, caught in the moon's dark glow, and Nightbringer looked for all the world like a cold cave rock, formed only of limestone and tears, all presence gone, all magic fled. A slow wailing began deep in Verminaard's throat and rose into the stillness.
He had blinded both brothers.
As Aglaca struggled to rise and failed, dazed and sightless on the battlements, his arms shattered, Verminaard stared down upon him, and for a moment, something like compassion crossed over his face like a brief flicker of flame.
And I have done these things, he thought. So there is no hope for me. No hope. I have chosen.
His howl died away, and he knelt and picked up the mace. Nightbringer awoke with a crackle, and this time there was no pain in his hand at all. The scar ran too deep. Coldly he stood above his dazed brother, who groped for the crenel, trying vainly to stand as Cerestes, with a rustle of black robes, slipped behind Aglaca and plunged the dagger once, twice, a third time into his back.
For a moment, the two of them stood there. Verminaard stared blankly at the mage, who looked back at him with a sly, exultant smile.
"His spell is broken as well," Cerestes whispered, lifting his dripping hands, and the blood and the red moonlight glittered upon newly formed scales.
Fifty miles away, in the infirmary of Castle East Borders, Abelaard sat upright in the bed and cried out.
He had dreamt of a song-some verse, some incantation-soothing words about day and light and larks and angels…
He lifted his hands to the bandages on his eyes, then sank disconsolately back upon the bed. There was no music in this absolute dark.
He remembered the last of the song in his dream, whispered the words to himself as the door opened in the far end of the infirmary, and he could tell by the footsteps and the bobbing light of the candle that the surgeon was making his nightly rounds.
The candle.
Abelaard sat bolt upright and called to the approaching doctor, called out in joy to guards on the bailey battlements, to the lord in the motte: "The candle! I can see!"
He leapt from the bed and lurched toward the source of the light, tearing the bandages off as he ran.
"Thanks be to Paladine!" he whispered, and lifted the astonished surgeon off his feet.
And to whoever had sung the forgotten song in his dreams, he offered thanks as well.
Judyth waited in the garden, but Aglaca did not come.
Long past the appointed time, she sat in the little clearing ringed with evergreens, marking the hours by the tilt of the moons in the sky. An owl cried ominously from the bare branches of the vallenwood, and when Judyth looked up, it was perched there, framed in the red light of Lunitari like something monstrous, glimpsed on a burning plain.
She felt hollow then, and alone. But not afraid. She had already passed through the country of fear. Aglaca had seen to that.
They had come to meet nightly in the garden, and each meeting had been an assurance. Aglaca had been cheery and humorous and confident, his affections strong and kind. Though the greatest of dangers had loomed before them, Aglaca's faith had bolstered them both. He had hoped in Verminaard, but he had believed far deeper things-that even if Verminaard failed him, there was a power, eternal and good, that undermined all of the weakness and treachery of those in Nidus and everywhere. And no matter the failures of mortals, that power would never fail.
Somewhere out in the bailey, a soldier shouted, then another, and the silence of the garden broke with the sound of rushing, scattering feet beyond the evergreens- guardsmen calling for Gundling, for Sergeant Graaf, a muffle of voices speaking veiled words, veiled news. "Battlements," she heard. And "mage." "Murder."
Judyth stood, straightening her skirts, her fingers absently brushing her hair, clutching the pendant at her neck. Verminaard would be sending for her, no doubt, for in the confusion of sound and light, she knew one thing instantly.
Aglaca was dead.
She had known it could come to this from that time in
Nightbringer's cavern, when Verminaard had first set his hand to that damnable mace. And later, when Aglaca had resolved to free Verminaard from the dark bondage of the weapon, Judyth had known that large and uncontrollable forces were set in motion, that the time would come when her fate and Aglaca's would depend on a single choice.
And the choice would not be theirs to make.
After a while, someone approached, the dim light from his lamp weaving elusively through the trees. The lamp-bearer stepped into the ring of evergreens. It was the Seneschal Robert, armed and solemn and bleary-eyed from a sudden wakefulness.
"Who are you?" Judyth asked. "I think you bear the worst of news."
"Oh, it is scarcely the worst, m'Lady," Robert replied, his voice grave and sorrowful, "terrible though this news is. Tonight we leave this terrible castle and make for the mountains and safety. Toward Berkanth, and the home of L'Indasha the druidess. You have been called to her service, she says, for there is worse to come from Verminaard and Cerestes."
Judyth dropped her eyes from Robert's concerned stare and fought down a surge of anger and pain. He knew this would happen, she thought. Aglaca knew this would be the outcome, but still he chose to let Verminaard choose again.
And now I am alone, without him.
When do I get to choose? Since I left Solanthus, I've been adrift on plots and wills and plans, all of which mapped what's best for the girl. I've followed their roads and followed their banners, and the way has changed so often that I could never get back to Solanthus… at least not the place I remember.
Then there was Aglaca, and though he did not ask to leave, he's gone and irretrievable, and Robert is planning for me now. But Aglaca was right to do it. There was the one hope of us all in the way he met his own choice…