Before The Mask Read Online Free PDF

Anything to be rid of the boy. Solemnly the mage
     saluted his new employer and ushered Verminaard onto the spindly bridge.
    “May the gods speed you, Verminaard,” Daeghrefn breathed. He looked past the young wizard
     to the boy, who looked small and lonely as he neared the crown of the lofty arch. “At last
     you return to your father.”
    Abelaard looked up at him with a blank face, as unreadable as the soaring cliff, as the
     scattered rocks on the floor of the canyon.
    The Bridge of Dreed was even more narrow than it appeared from the safety of the bordering
     cliffs. At the height of its arch, where the gebo-naudthe Solamnic rite of exchangewould
     take place, there was scarcely room for the two lads to stand side by side.
    Verminaard moved steadily out toward the middle of the bridge. The Solamnic boy was less
     assured. He pulled on his hood and walked, heel cautiously in front of toe, weaving
     uncertainly, like an amateur ropewalker. As he approached from the west, the autumn winds
     ruffled his sleeves and the gossamer green of his family tabard.
    Cerestes, as surefooted and sinuous as one of the huge panteras that were the bane of
     mountain herdsmen, followed Verminaard. At the last moment, the mage slipped impossibly
     past the lad and glided to the center of the bridge. There, standing between the two boys,
     he raised his hand to begin the incantations of the gebo-naud.
    Suddenly there was an outcry from the platform. Daeghrefn shifted uneasily, his eyes on
     the two boys.
    “What's wrong, Father?” Abelaard asked. He asked again, and again, until Daeghrefn's
     seneschal, an older
    man named Robert, took pity on the lad's persistence.
    “It'll be all right,” Robert offered, leaning across his mare's neck toward the attentive
     boy.
    “Hush, Robert,” Daeghrefn ordered. “The ceremony begins.”
    But it did not begin. Cerestes strode westward from the center of the bridge and waved for
     one of Laca's retainers to meet him.
    When the mage returned to the platform, he instructed the Solamnic boy to wait and brought
     Verminaard, bewildered, back to Daeghrefn's party.
    “Lord Daeghrefn,” he chimed, “the gebo-naud calls for the exchange of oldest for oldest.
     We will have your son Abelaard come forth.”
    A disembodied laugh echoed through the chasm as Laca received the same news. Daeghrefn
     clenched his teeth. Abelaard? he thought. This is ludicrous! I didn't agree to this.
    Cerestes motioned for Abelaard to dismount and follow him.
    “Hold!” Daeghrefn shouted. “There will be no exchange of oldest for oldest! Let Laca
     laugh, and let him die beneath Nerakan boots. It wasn't my castle that the hordes
     beseiged.”
    Cerestes turned. He spoke in hushed tones that melded with the tireless wind. “You cannot
     refuse now, Lord Daeghrefn. To end a gebo-naud once begun is an act of war.”
    Daeghrefn's face darkened, his eyes sparkling, inscrutable. He could defeat Laca in war,
     he was fairly certain of thatperhaps even hold at bay the Nerakan hordes while he did so.
    As though listening to his lord's thoughts, the golden-eyed mage offered in conspiratory
     whispers, “You would more easily defeat Laca in alliance than in war, my Lord.”
    “You won't let Abelaard go!” Verminaard protested suddenly.
    “Silence,” the dark man growled, drawing tightly, reflexively, on his mount's reins.
     Daeghrefn lifted his head defiantly and whispered something through his bared teeth.
    Only Robert heard him.
    Flashing an iron-hard glare toward Abelaard, the Lord of Nidus spoke. “Go.” He gestured
     broadly toward the awaiting mage, who extended a hand to the boy. With stone-hard
     features, the boy stepped from his mount and, sparing not a glance at his father, followed
     the mage.
    In moments, the first words of the gebo-naud filtered to them in the midst of a shifting
     autumn breeze. The mage Cerestes lifted his hands, and a dark cloud pooled in the bottom
     of the