Thursday Following the Feast of St. John, 1178

At the gate, all was in motion. Armsmen fidgeted and hesitated, uncertain whether to abandon their posts to aid in the firefighting. At the far end of the bailey covenfolk kneeled or lay, already scorched or exhausted. And through the great door of the keep a broken stream of householders rushed in and out, tripping and knocking into each other as they staggered under burdens of books and the castle's other few valuables. Above it all hung the smoky red glare of conflagration. "It's the Council chamber," said Renaut, pointing to the far end of the keep where the glare flickered brightest.

They fought their way into the foyer. Forba stood at the doorway of the Council chamber, a hellish mouth of flame that she struggled to beat back with commands of magic. But control over elements was not her strength. "Get Daria," she yelled, the press of bodies and roar of flames making it almost impossible to be heard. "She's in the library, but others can save the books. I need her here! And find Aline!"

As Renaut struggled his way into the library and Edgard descended toward Aline's underground chambers, Albrecht, joined by Olaf, set to organizing the library's rescuers. Brother Christophe returned to the inner bailey to aid the injured, accompanied by Rutger, concerned that the fire might attract enemies.

Daria was not in the library. "She aids Forba," Ulistarius shouted, but Renaut had already turned to leave. Daria's chambers and lab were directly above the Council chamber.

He rushed up the steep spiral steps into the upper solar. Here the roar of the flames was dulled and the castle was empty. From beneath the door to Daria's lab came an angry orange glow, and the wood was warm to the touch. Renaut pushed open the door. The room was filled with smoke and the glow of flame. Opposite, the doorway to the corner tower--his own chamber--issued a column of fire, and flames were breaching the floor in a number of places, but it was not the conflagration of the chamber below. Casting a protection on himself, Renaut stepped into the room.

Daria lay unconscious under a table. Flames were already engulfing an arm, leaving her hand a blackened claw.

"The wound is serious, but she will certainly live," Brother Christophe declared outside. "I do not know why she will not awaken." "It's not the injuries," Renaut responded. "She has exhausted herself with magics." Just then Daria's eyes opened. They gained no focus, nor turned upon anyone present. Those around leaned in as her lips formed a word: "Vis."

"The vis stores!" Renaut exclaimed, slapping his forehead. The others looked on, uncomprehending. "Vis! Magical power given form. More valuable than gold. We keep it in the strong room--under the Council chamber!"

They rushed down into the cellars. From the last twist in the spiral, light could be seen below. A flash of movement revealed Pietre down among the stores. With a quick casting the apprentice slammed the iron gate to the strong room, locking himself inside. As Edgard and Olaf forced the gate, Pietre, skulking in the shadows at the back of the chamber, produced the black egg. He put it to his mouth and whispered gently, casting his eye on Renaut, then rolled the egg into the center of the room.

Rutger and Edgard closed with Pietre, but another gate barred their way. The apprentice was surrounded by heavy chests, their locks forced but the contents not yet looted. Behind him a set of symbols had been scrawled on the floor in charcoal.

Olaf had not before seen the egg, and he picked it up where it had rolled to his feet. Albrecht was just shouting a warning when the egg burst into a flurry of darkness, driving Olaf back. The black creature took form, hunched beneath the low vaulting, filling the space with its bony, clawed darkness. It regarded Olaf for a moment with its eyeless face, then turned. Its attention fell upon Renaut, and it moved toward him.

Edgard forced the second gate, and he and Rutger stepped through. With a curse, Pietre backed away from an open chest, turned, then stepped into his charcoal markings--and disappeared.

The opidephene moved toward Renaut, but Olaf shattered a flaming lantern upon its back. The others set upon it with their steel. It drew grievous wounds, fighting tenaciously and with its only intent the murder of Renaut. But its moment was lost, and it soon fell to dust.

Above, the fire was nearly extinguished. There had been no deaths. The library was unburned, though it would later come to be known that Pietre had taken several valuable tomes. His escape was complete, but he had looted only a portion of the covenant's vis. His motives would become the subject of speculation for many seasons, until eventually he would be just a mysterious figure of history--gone, it would seem, to never be seen or heard from again.

End of the Prologue

Wednesday and Thursday following the Feast of St. John, 1178

At dawn the magi went into Council. Dorianne and William, steward and bailiff, anticipating a call to defense, set to preparing the castle. Within Daria’s laboratory, Renaut went to work with the Brother Christophe, ever cautiously, hoping to discover the secrets of the black egg. Shortly into the morning Pietre entered the chamber, boldly striding into a magus’s sanctum unbidden.

“I was put in charge of this motley group,” he stated. “I am the senior apprentice, and I have skills in these matters you lack. Where is de Animalus Veneficus? How will you discover anything without basic research texts?” Renaut sent Christophe to the library with a note for the librarian, unwilling to leave Pietre alone with the egg. Satisfied, apparently, that Renaut was making progress, Pietre left.

It was just a short while later that he found Rutger and Edgard in the bailey, attempting to tame the horse taken from the raiding knight Friedhold. “Don’t go into the forest again without me,” he demanded.

Meanwhile, Renaut and Christophe moved to the library to further research demons. Renaut found several brief and alluring mentions of a demon that might lay eggs, but despite his efforts and those of Horst the librarian, no direct text could be located. “But see here!” Christophe pointed out, upon a third search through the Commentarium Malas, “A page has been removed from this volume. Look how carefully it has been cut, so that one doesn’t even notice it is missing.” “Pietre was searching many of these same texts recently,” Horst commented. Renaut and Christophe left the library with few answers but much to think on.

As the hour of sext came and went, Renaut was sent on another task. “The egg will have to wait,” Daria instructed him. “William is busy with the village. Go to the hamlets and tally their losses, if any.” The companions set out once again through the Hog Wood. Still suspicious of Pietre, Renaut brought the egg along, in an earthenware bottle in his purse. No-one had been lost at Bar du Sud, but a toothless old cotter told them that her grandson, the goatherd, had been missing for several days. Edgard tried briefly to track the boy, who was said to be a simpleton, but with no success.

A heavy, wet dusk was falling when the group trudged back toward the castle. Just upon entering the wood a loud crash and flurry of darkness threw Renaut to the ground. An enormous black creature, hunched and clawed with an eyeless face, crouched surrounded by the remains of Renaut’s bottle and purse. For a brief moment it seemed to regard the shocked group of people around it. Then Rutger drew sword and closed, and Edgard moved in with his axe. Despite its ferocity, the creature did not stand, but quickly burst into four of its kind, each of which fled in a separate direction. Edgard struck as one of the creatures passed him, but it vanished, nothing more than a figment. Quick action dispelled two more figments, but by then the real creature was disappearing among the hedges as it headed across the field.

“If it gets to the village, no telling what havoc it will cause,” Albrecht said. “It may be headed to the village, or to Ville de Haillot,” Christophe answered. “Follow where its tracks lead.” The tracks did not, in fact, lead to the village, but almost studiously avoided it before doubling back toward the castle. There, in the woods not 200 paces from the gate, was another body: Marten, the huntsman. And in his mouth another egg.

Thursday morning Daria sent Renaut to Aline’s deep vaults. “If this egg becomes another creature, perhaps he has some chamber in which to contain it.” Aline replied in the positive, but also revealed that he hadn’t seen Pietre in some time. With a little investigation, it became clear he hadn’t been seen in the castle since the previous evening. Even worse, the egg had disappeared from Daria’s lab.

“Remember the tracks at the Pool of the Stone Horse,” Albrecht suggests. “If Pietre was there once, perhaps he has returned.” Sure enough, at the pool it was clear someone had entered the water recently. The spring issued from a small cave below the surface. Edgard prepared to swim. No sooner had he disappeared into the cave, though, than the black horse was seen in the bracken not far off. Renaut conjured a powerful spell and the vines and branches came to life, entrapping the beast.

But a beast it was no longer. A dryad or fearie of sorts took its stead, shy, beautiful, and forlorn. “Why have you come to my home? Leave it, and take the darkness with you.”

Edgard had swum into the cave to find it empty save a few coins, polished stones, and gleaming white skulls. He swam back out—but the world was not the same. He found the pool engulfed in an evening darkness, with clear skies and a powerful sense of tranquil beauty. But there was also a foreboding, a feeling as if a thundercloud hovered just out of sight, and none of his friends were in sight. As he stepped from the water, a movement caught his eye: The form of a boy—a goatherd, perhaps—rising from the bushes a few paces off. It babbled and cried as it limped his way, reaching plaintively for him, its eyes sightless and chest dripping blood and gore from snapped and broken ribs.

Edgard swam back into the cave, but when he reemerged, he was still in this hidden realm. Within minutes, however, the others swam through, joining him. They set upon the creature, and it fell quickly to their steel. In the silence after, they searched carefully for any sign of Pietre. Someone had been here, certainly, hiding things among the trees, but whoever it was had departed and left nothing of value. Eventually, as the companions moved further from the pool, they returned to the daylight and drizzle of their own world.

The glow of fire against the sky was familiar, but this time, on their way back, it did not come from the village. It came from the castle.

Tuesday following the Feast of St. John, 1178

Lydia left the nameless, half-finished castle above Bois de Haillot in the hour after terce. The household was abuzz with talk of the knight in the village the day before. Fearing few opportunities in the future, Cook sent Lydia off with a basket for early mushrooms. The girl cast her eyes about for Georges as she crossed the bailey, but like so many he was probably off preparing for the difficult days that might lie ahead.

Under a densely clouded sky that yeilded its rain in a thin but thorough drizzle, Lydia took the path past Marie's cottage and through the Hog Wood. The pigs' noses were sharper than her eyes, though, and there was little to be found. Leaving the woods, she crossed the field down to the cluster of crofts called Bar du Sud, where she called briefly on a cousin. They chatted over the latter's gate, exchanging rumours between hamlet and castle, the chickens clustering around their feet in hopes the basket might drop a grain or two of corn. After a few moments Lydia continued her trek, crossing the pasture and entering the deeper forest by the path that led past the abandoned cottage.

It was the last anyone would speak to her. An hour later, her screams would echo through the dark, dripping chambers of the forest, unheard.

Vespers, and Renaut had left Daria's laboratory after extracting no vis from the waters of the Pool of the Stone Horse. Aline called him aside as he crossed the foyer, into the shadows of the council chamber door. What did he and his companions find at the Pool? the Magus wanted to know, and What did Daria and Forba say about it? Renaut held little back. Daria had said next to nothing, and he hadn't even spoken to Forba. "Do not return to the Pool," Aline ordered, "and tell no-one else about your visit--or our little talk." Renaut did as instructed, but only after reporting the conversation to his pater.

Shortly thereafter, Albrecht found Renaut as he gathered his companions to fulfill Georges's call for aid. They considered calling for the huntsman's hounds, but Edgard was certain that such a request would be denied, and that further, they would be banned from their search until the marrow. So they set out without permission or hounds, relying solely on Edgard's skills and the recollections Albrecht gathered from the covenfolk, and traced Lydia's path through Bar du Sud and into the forest.

The fading glow of dusk did not penetrate the wet, still woods, and the companions trudged along by the light of Christophe's lantern and a torch that sizzled and hissed as the trees issued heavy drops down upon them. Despite the rain, Edgard had little trouble finding the point at which Lydia's trail left the path, veering in the direction of the abandoned cottage and, beyond, the Three Sisters. Half an hour later, Edgard called Renaut forward.

"Something has joined Lydia's trail," Edgard pointed out, his voice low to save the others from alarm. Unlike the tracks Edgard had followed from the Pool of the Stone Horse earlier that day, these prints were clear to Renaut's untrained eyes, even in the uncertain light of the torch. And it was no man. "Nor a beast, that I am aware of," Edgard said. "It walks on two feet here, but every so often puts a knuckle down. The pace is bigger than a bear's, and these claws longer."

They found the body a little further on, amid a radius of upturned leaves and bloody, torn bracken. There were no tracks leaving the site.

It was on the way home, trudging slowly with the body slung between Renaut and Christophe, that they saw the angry, flickering glare above Bois de Haillot. Leaving Lydia at the fork in the path, they hurried toward the village. There were distant shouts from beyond the hedgerows, in the direction of the barn, and a lurid orange lighting the smoke that hung over the riverward crofts. Just before the brook that runs down from the Hog Wood there was a loud hiss and the clatter of arrows hitting stone, then Renaut was stumbling, 12 inches of shaft sticking from his shoulder. Three raiders emerged from the shadows of the nearest hedge, with a rider on horseback behind them--the knight Friedhold.

Rutger charged first, with Edgard just behind. The fighting was pitched, but Friedhold underestimated his enemies, and was soon lying bleeding on the turf. Two of the footsoldiers were killed, the third fled. Renaut's injuries were dire, but Christophe's quick action had held death at bay. Elsewhere, the raid had been repelled, though homes had burned and lives had been lost. Rutger laid rightful claim to Friedhold's armor and horse, and, after retrieving the corpse, the companions returned to the castle.

They made their entry without fanfare, keeping Lydia covered amid the confusing bustle in the bailey. Renaut called over Daria while Brother Christophe found Georges. Daria's effort to scrye the attacker revealed only the same blurred images Renaut had conjured earlier. "It's not an animal," Renaut explained, "my arts have shown me that. And I do not think it typical of the fey. This is a magical beast, perhaps, or infernal." Daria agreed, noting as Renaut had that infernal creatures do not wander through woods without being summoned. "Search the body with all thoroughness," she ordered.

The apprentice did, stripping her and cleaning the wounds, and finding nothing they did not already know. But then Albrecht parted her lips. Within was a dark object. "Do not touch it!" Renaut shouted. "Fetch tongs!" Edgard returned quickly with the tool and an earthenware bottle, and Renaut parted Lydia's lips again. Gingerly he pulled the object from her mouth. It was little bigger than a child's fist, blacker than pitch, and as hard as marble.

It was an egg.

Prologue: Monday and Tuesday following Feast of Saint John, 1178

It has been a dark and rainy Spring in Brabant, but Spring it is. A knight appeared in Bois de Haillot, fully armed and armoured and on a great destrier, his squire following with an armful of lances. The villagers gathered about, but few strayed close, for this was clearly a man with blood in his past, and even his horse was dangerous and eager. William de Bierve, the bailliff, challenged him at the ford, and the knight seemed satisfied to wait there, at least for a while.

Shortly after several people of the Covenant, including one of the apprentices and the squire of the Captain, came down from the nearby fields. Renaut spoke for the Covenant, or more properly for the princeps Anaxagoras (for that is who the knight, Friedhold, came seeking). Friedhold gave Renaut a letter in the name of Duke Gottfried of Brabant, calling him with arms, retainers, and provisions to an army the Duke was gathering. Renaut, along with Rutger the squire and Brother Christophe, delivered it up to the castle, leaving the other covenfolk, along with the bailiff and the villagers, to watch Friedhold as he idly sized up the manor.

Anaxagoras was infuriated by the letter—is not Bois de Haillot a fief of the Holy Roman Emperor, immune to a call to arms by any local lord? At his command, Renaut and Brother Christophe penned an elegant but unequivocal reply. Before returning to the village, Renaut magicked Rutger's horse Sven, giving the gelding the stature of the heaviest of destriers, and Rutger took up his arms and armour. The knight Friedhold left with Renaut’s written reply, apparently with some relish for the fight that it seemed might be coming.

The Covenant called Council, and the magi debated their options for some time. At last they emerged from their private council chamber, and orders were given. Under the supervision of Aline's apprentice Pietre, Renaut was tasked with gathering vis from the waters of the Pool of the Stone horse in the forest some miles from the manor. Given the danger of an army in the region, he was not to travel alone in the woods, so he gathered about him his companions from the day before: Rutger and Christophe, along with the huntsman Edgard, and Olaf and Albrecht (who may have been more attracted to the silver coins to be thrown into the pool than to the task at hand).

Someone had been to the pool before; Albrecht found footprints at the water's edge. Edgard and Olaf spotted a black horse moving in the bracken nearby, but despite its size and the density of the forest, it disappeared with hardly a sound. It has been speculated that the pool is home to a fey creature (perhaps that's what gives its water magical properties), and Renaut posited that this horse might be the fairie, driven from its home perhaps by the previous visitor. Edgard followed the footprints, which clearly led back to the manor but gave no clue as to their creator. Renaut would later find that the water he gathered had no power to produce vis.

Back at the castle, Olaf was approached by a friend. Georges was concerned for his lover Lydia, who had not been seen since morning. The two were banned from seeing each other (having endangered their virtue without the benefit of betrothal), so Georges was hesitant to bring the issue to Doriane, the steward. Could Olaf and his friends investigate first? Olaf found only that indeed, nobody had seen Lydia since midday, and that she did not reappear at compline.

In the mean time, a cousin of Edgard's appeared at the castle, seeking shelter for herself and her children. She reported an army occupying Arbois, the nearest manor to the north of Bois de Haillot. The Duke was gathering forces, and wherever men of war gather, fighting, looting, and death are not far behind.

Bois de Haillot shrinks before the threat of a nearby army. Covenfolk are missing, and people and creatures unknown ply the dark forests that envelope the covenant.