Before the Mask by Michael Williams & Teri Williams

Author:Michael Williams & Teri Williams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Krynn (Imaginary place), Fantastic fiction, General, Fantasy, Fantasy - General, Fiction, American Science Fiction And Fantasy, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fiction - Fantasy, Science Fiction, Clergy
Publisher: TSR
Published: 1993-07-15T04:56:42+00:00

"There are snares in that voice," Aglaca cautioned.

"So be it," Verminaard declared, lunging assuredly for the mace. "My power will free me from all snares."

"No!" Aglaca cried.

"Go home, little boy," Verminaard hissed, and grasped the handle of the mace. Its dark fire coursed up Verminaard's clutching hand, raced through his wrist and forearm in rivulets of purple flame. Judyth's careful stitching burst apart on his arm, and the blood trickled forth, "steaming and boiling on the charged surface of his skin. Verminaard writhed in the pulsing flames, his grimace turning slowly to a dark, unholy leer as he broke the mace free.

Aglaca shouted and sprang toward Verminaard, but Judyth's strong grip held him back.

"There's nothing you can do," she urged. "He's in the hands of a goddess." Slowly, reluctantly, the two backtracked to the mouth of the cave, where they stood shaking in the hushed night air, listening helplessly to the cries and shouts of the young man who tangled in the depths of the earth with stone and fire and absolute shadow.

Alone with the goddess, Verminaard gritted his teeth, exulting in the pain. His whole body bristled with glittering fire, and sparks scattered from his hair and fingers. The Voice returned, soothing and soft, motherly and yet uncomfortably seductive and strange, singing to him the last verse of the song that had drawn him here, the love song and dirge and lullaby wrapped in an intricate bewildering melody: And, love, what heat your frail skin hides, As pure as salt, as sweet as death, And in the dark the red moon rides The foxfire of your breath.

And still Verminaard held on, marshaling the sum of his despair and his anger to cling to the weapon as it jolted and blistered him, as it staggered him until he grasped it mainly to keep his balance, to keep from falling to where he would never, never rise again.

Then at last it was over.

You will do, the Voice breathed, all seduction gone, after a long, abiding silence, answered only by the dying sputters of the stone mace and the sobs of the youth who had wrested it from the living stone. Yes, you will do....

All other covenants are broken, soothed the Voice. Bonds of family, blood, friendship, or oath .. .all of your bonds.

Save for those with me.

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