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….
"Bravely, quietly," she said aloud. Then she looked at Robert again. "There's something left for me to do here."
"Lady?" whispered Robert, still awaiting her answer.
She looked up again, and tears of triumph coursed down her cheeks. She was smiling.
"I will go with you, Robert," Judyth replied. "But not yet. There is something I must attend to here."
Daeghrefn heard the outcry from his tower balcony. He saw the torches milling below in the bailey, the fractured glint of firelight on armor.
It is the mutiny, he thought. The uprising has begun.
He stumbled into his chambers and lurched toward the bed. The window open behind him, the red moonlight skimming across his shoulders, he sat on the bedside and extinguished the candles. Dressing slowly in the half-dark, his eyes fixed upon the door to the chamber, he paused when he was fully dressed in tunic and tabard.
He turned to his battle gear-first the old Solamnic greaves and gauntlets, and then the newer pieces, the black body armor adopted when he set aside the Solamnic plate and its embossed roses and kingfishers.
They will not see me until they pass through that door, he declared to himself, fumbling with his breastplate and helm. And then they will see me as a knight, as the warrior lord of the castle. I shall be waiting for them. At the very last, when all are marshaled against me, I shall end as I began, under my own standard, in the face of the damned and damning Order.
Ceremoniously he donned the long, black cape adorned with the crest of Nidus.
The armor was too large for him.
Robert noticed at once as he quietly entered the chamber, leaving the two unconscious guards lying in the corridor behind him.
The gaunt, wild-eyed man who faced him was only a shadow of the strong young fellow who had come to the castle lordship twenty-five years before-the man Robert the seneschal had sworn to uphold, to follow. It was as though he was waning, like a sliver of the declining moon.
When Daeghrefn saw who it was, he sprang to his feet and backed into the corner, his dark eyes blazing with anger and fear.
"You!" he shouted, his voice husky and harsh. "I knew when I left you on the plains it would be only a matter of time until you came to this room, weapon in hand! So take your revenge and go. If you're man enough."
Daeghrefn drew his sword. The blade weaved and wavered in his hand.
He's exhausted, Robert thought. He's wearied past sense.
"No," he replied, closing the door behind him. "I come for no vengeance, but for your rescue. I am here to take you from the castle, Lord Daeghrefn. It has become unsafe here. There's a mutiny afoot."