Read Online Before The Mask by Michael Williams - Free Book Online Page B

action.
    An icy rain pummeled the column of horsemen as they rode north across the browned,
     awakening plains toward Taman Busuk. The tips of their long, barbed spears dipped and rose
     with the swell and fall of the trail. When they reached the high plains, the horsemen
     fanned out
    and rode four or five abreast, separating into squadrons carefully assigned by Lord
     Daeghrefn.
    Riding in the foremost and smallest squadron, Verminaard leaned back on the iron arson of
     his saddle and inhaled the moist, chilly air. It was lowland breathing herethicker, more
     nourishing than the air at the timber-line where Castle Nidus kept its formidable watch.
     Aglaca, riding beside him, seemed suddenly more animate, suddenly more at home in the
     saddle and the journey.
    They rested the horses in a narrow notch between two cliff facesa glittering passage where
     the noonday sun flickered on black obsidian, porous volcanic rubble, and a little mountain
     pool still crusted with the winter's ice. Dismounting, Verminaard drank deeply of the drus
     flask at his belt- the visionary's potion that Cerestes said was the door to prophecy for
     servants of the Dragon Queen.
    Then he drew forth again the bag of runes, rankling at the mage's insistence that auguring
     one's own future was impossible. He was sure self-augury could be done, some way, somehow.
     Especially now, vitalized by the drus potion: The carvings on the stones seemed to shimmer
     like veins of light.
    “Osman,” he called, and the huntsman, whetting his knife by a fallen log, looked up with a
     frown. “Not the runes, if you please, young master. I don't take to auguries, nor to that
     mage of yours.”
    “They have nothing to do with him,” Verminaard lied. The mage had given him the stones
     when he saw that the lad was curious. “They're fostered under the red moon under Lunitari.
     All oracles are, because they're all neutral.”
    That much was true. Prophecy was a neutral thing. What you made of it was good or evil.
     And when you read the stones for someone else ... well, sometimes you discovered the
     things that really concern you. The things
    that pertain directly to you.
    Reluctantly Osman approached the young man. He mistrusted Verminaard's superstition, his
     preoccupation with dark ritual and ceremony. Being a bluff, commonsen-sical man, Osman had
     little love for the confusing auguries Verminaard constantly and eagerly placed in front
     of him.
    Better the father, who believed in nothing, than this hex of a lad before him.
    “Ask about the hunt, Osman,” Verminaard urged. “Ask how your company will fare.”
    Osman cleared his throat, looking at Aglaca for rescue. The other lad knelt by his horse,
     smiled, and shook his head as he tightened the flank cinch of the saddle. He was not about
     to enter the fuss over symbol and omen.
    “I expect we'll find out shortly enough, Master Verminaard,” the huntsman replied, turning
     coolly back to the log.
    Angrily Verminaard cast the runes himself. The flat, irregular stones scattered from his
     hands. It was an old Nerakan reading he triedthree stones in a sequence, determining the
     present, the immediate future, and the outcome of the event. The cryptic silver lines
     seemed to scatter, to flicker on the ground like edged fire.
    Aglaca, meanwhile, rose and led one of the horses to the little pool. Leaning to break the
     ice so that the animal might drink, the youth was astonished to see another face, dark and
     serene, staring back at him from the glazed surface of the water.
    “Great Paladine!” he breathed in astonishment.
    It was the dark-eyed woman, regarding him serenely. Leaves hung in her auburn hair, and a
     curious amber light played over her forehead, as though she stared into the setting sun.
    Her eyes widened. She smiled in brief recognition, then vanished into the smoky whirl of
     the ice. Now Aglaca saw an image of himself, sword drawn amid an alcove