with them as the old man guided the noble hostage toward bed, for the stairway they chose led to only one suite of rooms, high in the western tower of the castle.
To Verminaard's room. If Father had decided to move Aglaca into Verminaard's quarters, Abelaard's rooms, now empty, would fall to Verminaard by right.
The room is yours! the Voice coaxed, singing in a dark minor melody, rising from nowhere, as though the table itself were talking. Yours now by right as the eldest. Did I not tell you? Ask him; ask him…
It was a small triumph, Verminaard knew. He did not understand why he was so delighted, why his eyes blurred and brightened and his hand shook as he thought of the prospect.
He looked for the mage, but Cerestes was gone from the room-vanished suddenly, as though he had melted silently through a portal in the air. Only Verminaard and his father remained in the dining hall.
Daeghrefn stared into the dwindling fire.
For a moment, Verminaard hesitated, clutching the back of his chair unsteadily as he rose from the table. Slowly, more for delay than for tidiness, he straightened his plate and cutlery, then snuffed the pale candle that guttered beside his cup. The first step toward his father seemed as if he were wading through waist-deep snow, but the second was easier, and soon, almost suddenly, he stood beside the hearth.
'Father?' he asked, and slowly, with an old resentment, Daeghrefn's dark eyes rose from the fire to stare somewhere beyond Verminaard's face. Then, his gaze unwavering, the knight hurled the glittering, faceted goblet into the dying fire.
The rafters erupted with the rustle of wing beats, with the frightened cries of birds. Verminaard winced as slivers of glass knifed through his leggings into his ankles. He shifted in fright, in pain, blood pointing the tattered clothe on his shins.
'What?' Daeghrefn asked with quiet menace, and it seemed as though the fire in front of them gasped and guttered and dimmed further, until the room contracted to a wavering circle of light. For the first time in hours, Daeghrefn had spoken to his second son.
'Th-the room, sir,' Verminaard began, and daunted by his own stuttering, fell into silence.
' 'Room'?' Daeghrefn's voice was flat and repellent.
Verminaard backed against the mantle, steadied himself. His ankles stung and nettled. He broke into a sudden, dizzying sweat, and his voice failed him once, twice, before he could summon the words.
' Abelaard's room, sir. I… I believe that since Aglaca…'
Daeghrefn loomed even taller in the chair, the dim light of the fire magnifying him, casting his gigantic shadow on the far wall.
'I know what you're after,' the knight said. 'And you will sleep and quarter where you have always slept and quartered. Abelaard is gone, and his rooms will await his return.'
He took the steps two at a time, his ankles bloody and swelling, each stride a stinging rebuke to his courage. At his back, the Voice was chiding him, soft and insinuating, speaking from the terrible dark at the bottom of the stairwell.
So it is and will be in this devouring country, where the raptor dives and the panther stalks… What did you expect from him, beyond this powerless mourning? Learn from me… from the panther and the raptor…
He stopped on the stairs, his thoughts whirling. A great anger rose in him, and he struck the stone wall of the landing fiercely, methodically. His fist stung with the impacts, and he fought down a sudden rush of tears. He thought of Daeghrefn as he battered the wall. Of the cold dark eyes and the shattered cup.
It would not do. You could not feel that way about your father.
Slowly, almost staggering with his own uprooted anger, Verminaard mounted the last of the stairs, cursing the stones and the dark and the stars in the clerestory windows. He reached the landing and opened the door to his quarters.
Aglaca sat on the topmost bunk, leaning out the window. For a moment Verminaard's thoughts were violent, and the voice of his imaginings blurred with the voice on the stairs….
If something happened to Aglaca, his father would have no choice but to follow the rules of the gebo-naud. So whatever happened to the boy… would happen to Abelaard…
And then Daeghrefn would mourn.
Verminaard caught himself, frightened by the largeness and power of his own speculations. He stared balefully at Aglaca, who looked back at him with curiosity and concern.
'Don't think that my possessions are yours as well,' Verminaard menaced, rising to his full height, trying his best to obscure the doorway behind him. 'You're an outsider here. Nobody wants you; you're here for the deal, and for that reason only. My brother is gone.'
He took a long step toward Aglaca, who glanced out the window and then calmly returned a level stare to this new antagonist.
'If you remember one thing, Solamnic,' Verminaard continued, standing in the center of the room now, clutching the back of his single chair as though Aglaca intended to take that from him as well, 'remember this. You are a hostage in my presence. You are not my guest.'
'He yelled at you, didn't he?' Aglaca asked, quietly and not without warmth. 'I mean, Daeghrefn…'
'That is no concern of yours, Solamnic,' Verminaard replied unsteadily, his stare wavering, his fingers nervously drumming the chair back. 'I said you are a hostage…'
'I know,' Aglaca said. 'I am an outsider here. So you've told me. I can't take Abelaard's place, Verminaard. But I can be your friend.'
Verminaard stepped back to the door and closed it. Something was quenched in him by the boy's unexpected kindness. His hand smarted, and he turned uncertainly toward the bunk and the boy who sat atop it, regarding him curiously.
'Then… you won't take or touch anything that is mine?'
'I won't, Verminaard.'
'Swear,' Verminaard insisted, extending his hand and searching Aglaca's eyes.
Aglaca met both his grasp and his gaze. 'I swear. We're bound together, Verminaard. The gebo-naud binds us as firmly as it binds our fathers. And we're bound by more, I believe. I know it, and you do, too.'
Verminaard looked away in confusion, in irritation. He remembered the young man in the vision-the gesture, the soundless chant, the draining…
He looked again at Aglaca in horror.
It's you! he thought.
But instead of visions and deceptive magic, the boy held forth a knife, hilt first, offering it to Verminaard. He took the jeweled hilt and examined the blade.
'It's yours,' Aglaca declared. 'As a sign of my trust.'
'It's… it's wonderful!' Verminaard exclaimed. His eyes narrowed. 'And what do you want?'
'It's yours,' Aglaca declared. 'I want nothing for it.'
Verminaard danced gleefully across the floor of the chamber, waving the dagger like a sword, lunging at imagined enemies.
'It's not just a dagger, Verminaard!' the Solamnic boy protested. 'It's a rune rister's knife. My father gave it to me. His mage said it would protect the wielder against all evil.'
Verminaard lunged at the fireplace, whipped the blade through the chilly air. He wasn't listening.
'I know it isn't Huma's lance,' Aglaca objected. 'It's a small thing, and its magic is small as well. But it isn't a toy. It's… it's
…'
'It's a fine knife,' Verminaard said. He glanced at Aglaca cautiously. 'Thank you,' he said abruptly.
Aglaca smiled. 'Now come over and look out the window. If you lean just a little and peer as far as you can down toward the west… what's that pass called?'
'Eira Goch. It means 'red snow' in the old tongue.'
'Really?' Aglaca asked, extending his hand once more. 'Well, if you look down to the mouth of that pass, you can see my father's campfires. Let me give you a hand up to the top bunk.'
Verminaard regarded the other boy warily. It was the first time he remembered anyone except Abelaard reaching out to him. But, despite strong misgiving, he took the offered grasp. For a moment, before he hoisted himself onto the bunk, risking a fall and his dignity to the questionable intentions of this hostage, he tested the
