The Shadow Stone

Seventeen

For the rest of that night and most of the next day, Aeron and Eriale pressed on, stopping only when exhaustion forced them to. Aeron's spirit was empty, and his heart ached as if it had been filled with cold ashes. Kestrel's death still seemed unreal to him, an awful mistake of some kind. Now Fineghal was gone as well, a noble spirit whose death seemed senseless. One by one, every person he'd ever learned from had been taken from him, with the sole exception of Oriseus, and Aeron didn't like to think of what the High Conjuror might intend for him. He could only keep his horse's feet on the road leading north, and lose himself in the dull rhythm of the ride.

Eriale matched Aeron's own silence. Grief set her face in a forlorn stare, and the endless mist and rain beat her hair into a dark, wet hood, so that she looked like a lost child. Aeron knew that he should send her back to Saden before evil befell her too, but he didn't have the strength. Lost in her own sorrow as she was, it still comforted him to know that she rode beside him. If he needed any reason to continue on, any incentive to confront the failures of his past, Eriale provided it. For her sake he had to carry on.

Late in the afternoon after their flight, they came to the road that sliced northwest from the ruins of Luthcheq to Soorenar and the great city of Cimbar beyond. They turned west, riding more carefully-they were traveling into the heartlands of Chessenta, the broad belt of townlands and terraced hills that ran from Akanax to Cimbar, and the relative safety of the desolate hinterlands was gone.

Near sunset, they left the road and camped in a dense copse a few hundred yards to one side, building a small fire and drying out their traveling clothes as best they could. "How much farther is it to Cimbar?" Eriale asked over a cold and cheerless meal of trail rations.

"I'm not sure. I traveled by sea when I was here before," Aeron replied. It raised his spirits a little to break the silence. "I think we'll reach Soorenar by late in the afternoon. After that, it's another two days to Cimbar."

Eriale nodded. "Have you thought about what you'll do when we get there?"

He closed his eyes, shaking his head. "No. I haven't even thought about it, with-"

"I know. I haven't been myself lately, either. I didn't know Fineghal as well as you, but he was one of the noblest souls I've ever met." She smiled softly. "The world's a sadder place without him."

"And Kestrel."

"And Father, too." She set a tin cup on a stone by the fire, dropping a handful of coffee grounds into the water. Aeron was struck by the severe lines of her face, the weariness in her gestures. Eriale was too young to have so many cares. "So? What will we do?" she asked.

"I don't know," Aeron replied. "I'll need to get to the chamber of the Shadow Stone, examine it closely, see how the spell works. Maybe I can determine how to stop it."

"Won't that be dangerous? Could it be guarded?"

Aeron shrugged. "It might be. Then again, the stone seemed capable of protecting itself."

"That's not what I meant. Wouldn't Oriseus be careful to protect the stone, to make sure that no one tampered with what he was doing?" Eriale stirred the coffee with a stick. "If Oriseus's got any sense at all, he'll guard his work to make sure no one interferes."

"He might not need to, Eriale," Aeron said. "Oriseus's spell may be unbreakable. Even if he knew I was coming back to Cimbar to stop him, he might not care."

Eriale's eyes flashed. "Listen, Aeron. If you can't undo Oriseus's work, then there's no hope for any of us, and there's no sense making any plans at all. We might as well go home and wait to see what the world's like when he's finished with it.

"Since we both know that we're not going to turn around and go back to Maerchlin, let's assume that you'll be able to find some way to reverse the spell. And if we assume that's true, we'd better also assume that Oriseus knows it, and that he'll take steps to make sure that no one can upset his work." She held his eyes, cold determination in her face. "I am not going to let you give up on this before we see what we're up against, Aeron."

He flinched, but refused to look away. "All right. I don't think we'll have anything to worry about until we reach the college grounds. The city's far too big, with thousands upon thousands of people and places to hide. But the college sits on the acropolis, surrounded by the university and the Sceptanar's palace, and everyone inside knows who is supposed to be there. That's where we have to worry."

"Why can't you walk right in? There's no law against it. You have every right to be there if you wish," Eriale said.

Aeron shook his head. "That might be true, but why ask for trouble? Oriseus is Sceptanar now; he'll command hundreds of soldiers in the immediate vicinity. If he is inclined to make sure that I can't undo his design, there's no one in Cimbar who can defy his authority."

"Do you know a spell that would let us creep in without detection?" Eriale asked.

He thought for a long moment before shaking his head. "There are wards around the college to defeat magic like that," Aeron said, "and I'm certain Oriseus would have added to them."

He warmed his hands, watching his coffee beginning to boil. There was just too much he didn't know. Did any factions oppose Oriseus's rule? The demagogues of Cimbar's Mob had railed against the reign of the previous Sceptanar, albeit to little effect. Were there any masters within the college who still opposed Oriseus? How many of Oriseus's disciples were at the college, and how many had been sent out into Chessenta, like Crow? Any scrying spell he cast might be noticed and investigated. Suddenly Aeron laughed at himself with a sharp and bitter bark.

"What? What is it?" Eriale asked, sitting up straight.

"The problem with being a mage," Aeron said, "is that you try to figure out how to do everything with magic." He gingerly retrieved his cup from its place by the fire, blowing on the hot coffee. "I know four or five spells that could have warmed this coffee or conjured it up out of nothing. But this campfire and a few old grounds will do just as well."

"You have an idea?"

Aeron smiled at her, a long-hidden lightness in his heart surfacing after months of care. He reached down and scratched Baillegh behind the ears. "I think I do," he said.

They reached Cimbar two days later.

From the busy street end that faced the main gate, the college seemed unchanged from Aeron's days as a student. The weathered brick buildings still stood in the same quadrangle, wreathed by ivy and watching over the city below with blank, dark windows. Aeron and Eriale strolled down the center of the street, two passers-by in the crowd, turning left toward the harbor to skirt the college walls.

Aeron glanced over at Eriale and repressed a smile. "You're staring again."

"I've never seen anything like Cimbar. I'd heard that this was a great city, but I never understood what that meant until I saw it for myself. It's wonderful and terrible at the same time." Eriale's face fell. "What a tragedy that the capital is so full of hate and feuding these days."

Aeron snorted. "I wonder if the Shadow Stone's presence had anything to do with it all. The fall of Unther's empire, the shattering of Chessenta, the rise of the Mob, the ambitions of lords like Oriseus …" His voice trailed away as they came to the place he'd been looking for, a steep escarpment where the street dropped the last fifty feet to the wharves while the rocky mass of the acropolis began its climb up to the point on which the broken pyramid sat. Briars and tough, coarse-barked whitelock trees clung to the slope, masking the college wall behind a band of untended foliage. Aeron glanced up and down the street-no one seemed to be looking their way. He grasped Eriale's arm and pulled her into the undergrowth. They burrowed into the thicket, scrambling up out of sight of the street and pausing just under the crumbling brick wall. Baillegh followed, her silver tail high.

"Did you do this often when you were a student here?" Eriale asked with a note of disapproval.

"No. I didn't get out much, but all the students knew about it." Aeron cocked his ear, listening. "I don't hear anyone nearby. Go ahead and change."

From his satchel, he pulled out a simple black skirt and blouse with black piping and passed it over to Eriale, then studiously turned away and watched the wall while she wriggled out of her tunic and into the servant's garb.

After a moment, she tossed the satchel back. "Your turn." Aeron listened again, then peeled off his own breeches and shirt in order to don a matching outfit. It had taken a couple of hours of shopping in the trade districts of New Cimbar to find clothes close to what they wanted, and another hour to have a few minor modifications made to make them match the college livery exactly, but Aeron thought it worth the wait. When he finished, he stuffed his own clothes back into the satchel and concealed it under a pile of dead leaves.

"You really think this will work?" Eriale asked as she watched him conceal the sack.

"The masters, students, and novices all know each other by sight. We'd be spotted in an instant. But no one pays attention to the servants."

"Except the other servants," Eriale noted.

"We'll just have to avoid them. Where we're going, there shouldn't be many around anyway." Aeron took a moment to whisper a minor glamour over his staff, reducing it to a slender wand that he slid into his sleeve. Eriale concealed her bow in her ankle-length skirts. Aeron watched her arm herself, then reached into a pouch at his side. From it he pulled six slender arrows, their shafts emerging straight and true from the impossibly small pouch. "Wait," he told her. "I have got a gift for you." He handed her the arrows.

"Where'd these come from?" Eriale asked.

"I brought them from Fineghal's collection in the Caerhuan. They're enchanted to strike through magical defenses. I thought we might need them against Master Crow, but they might prove useful here. Ready?"

Eriale took a deep breath and nodded, hiding the arrows in the folds of her skirt. Aeron stood up, caught the wall, and quickly slid over into the dense brush on the opposite side. He glanced around, but no one was in sight, so he reached down and helped Eriale scramble over.

"Which way?" she whispered.

"The Students' Hall. I want to see if my old rooms have been disturbed. I left some valuable notes and materials there," Aeron said.

"Do you really think that no one would have bothered to clean out your chambers in five years?" Eriale asked.

Aeron shrugged. "It's worth a look." He turned and knelt to face Baillegh. "Stay here, and keep out of sight. We'll come back for you after we've scouted things out." The hound whined softly and licked his face, but she sat down and worked her way into the heavy undergrowth.

No one was in sight, so Aeron stepped out of the shrubs and dusted himself off, straightening his servant's tunic. Eriale followed, adjusting her skirt. The path by the wall skirted the quadrangle, circling the perimeter of the college grounds. "This way," he said quietly. Eriale fell in a half-step behind him, trying not to shiver in the eerie chill.

They didn't even see anyone else until they reached the Students' Hall. As they hurried past the open end of the quadrangle, Aeron stole a surreptitious look at the heart of the college-the great library, the halls of learning, and the two long fieldstone halls facing each other. Across the wide space, a small handful of forlorn figures criss-crossed the area. The bright red robes of a Master of Conjuration caught Aeron's eye, but it didn't seem to be anyone he knew, and he didn't want to be caught staring if it was. He also noticed a handful of workmen in common clothes hustling back and forth across the open court. Eriale tapped his arm discreetly, and Aeron picked up his pace and turned his head forward to maintain the charade.

They skirted the main entrance to the Students' Hall and slipped in the smaller servants' door at one end of the building. This led into a large linen room, with laundry tubs and shelves stacked with white sheets and heavy blankets. One stout maid was at work scrubbing out some clothes, but she didn't even look up as Aeron and Eriale entered, so Aeron scooped up an armful of folded sheets from the shelf. With a nervous wink, Eriale helped herself to a bucket and rags at the same time.

Aeron found the servants' stair leading to the second floor, a dark and cramped passage with smooth-worn steps. At the top, he opened a narrow door and stepped out into Crown Hall, his home for almost a year of his life. Despite the urgency of his mission, he stopped, caught by the powerful memories. It looked much the same as it had when he'd left. Yet he was also struck by the differences, too. At first he thought that he'd come to the college during a break of some kind, since the hall was empty, echoing and silent. In his days, there'd always been a handful of novices gossiping by someone's door, a student striding grimly to or from his studies, some indication of life and energy. But the hall felt barren and cold to him.

"You stayed here for a year?" Eriale whispered.

Aeron shook his head. "It was different then. Things have changed for the worse. Come on, my room was over here."

He turned right and followed the corridor, halting at the sixth door on the right. To his relief, the facade still bore the complicated sigil he'd marked as his own. To be certain, he leaned close and put his ear to the door, straining to listen for any sound within.

Voices rang out sharply from the end of the hall. Aeron straightened and looked before he could help himself. A pair of students in their tabards and caps stood outside a door, talking in low voices. They seemed older than the students Aeron had remembered-these weren't teenagers, but a pair of grown men.

"Aeron!" hissed Eriale. "Don't stare!"

He nodded abruptly and set his hand to the door, trying it. Naturally, it was locked. He turned his shoulder to conceal his actions from the two students down the hall, and quietly spoke the spell of opening he'd used to enter his room. To his surprise, it worked flawlessly, and he let himself into his room. Eriale stepped in on his heels, sliding out of the hallway and out of sight.

The room was very close to the way he'd left it; his personal effects were still in the same places, and no one had bothered to remove the furniture or even to strip the bed. A few mundane books remained on his shelves, but Aeron could tell at a glance that most of the important ones had been removed, including his old spellbooks and the scroll tube in which he'd hidden the Chants of Madryoch the Ebon Flame. "Damn," he muttered.

"I wonder why they never cleaned out your room?" Eriale said.

"Well, they did in their way. Most of my spellbooks and some scrolls and texts aren't here anymore." Aeron sat down at his old desk, his chin in his hand. "No one knew where I'd gone when I first fled. It must have been months before they decided I wasn't coming back."

"The books were your only important belongings?"

Aeron nodded. "Yes. I suppose that Oriseus or one of his masters probably searched this room personally. They wouldn't bother to remove anything except materials they thought they might have a use for."

"The servants wouldn't have come in to check on you?"

"They might have been instructed not to, on the chance that I might return."

Eriale strolled over to the window and gazed out at the muddy apron of ground beyond the dormitory. She leaned forward to study something outside. "Aeron, what's this?"

"What?" Aeron stood and moved over to gaze out the window over her shoulder.

Outside, the ruins of the Broken Pyramid were not just ruins anymore. The rubble had been cleared away from the stone foundation of the ancient monument, and an effort was underway to rebuild it just as it had stood hundreds of years ago. Aeron gaped in shock; he'd never imagined that it could be rebuilt. But the smooth dark stone rose forty feet into the air, ending in a jagged course of stone blocks. The whole edifice was ringed by rickety scaffolding, and sheds for stonecutters and carpenters had been raised at the foot of the structure. A handful of masons were at work on the ground, cutting the blocks for the next course.

"What are they building here?" Eriale asked.

"It looks like they're raising the Broken Pyramid again," Aeron said. "The ruins of an old Untheric obelisk used to stand there. It was nothing more than a heap of rubble, with a few old walls still standing. Oriseus must have decided to rebuild it." He frowned, watching one mason patiently chisel away an uneven corner. "Where are all the workmen? This looks like a place where dozens of men could work without getting in each other's way."

"It's the end of the week."

Aeron grimaced. Not everything had to have a sinister purpose behind it, he reminded himself. But he did not like the look of the pyramid. He could feel the magical power imprisoned in the heavy stone blocks, as if each stone that had been laid down completed one small part of a vast and potent whole. The ebon sheen of the smooth rock drew his eye, refusing to allow him to look away. When complete, the spire would be a focus for the Shadow Stone, a magnifier of some kind.

"Aeron?" Eriale glanced at him with concern.

"I'm fine," he admitted after a moment. "The implications of this frighten me, that's all."

"Do you sense the stone?"

Aeron met her eyes and returned his gaze to the rising pyramid. With the trepidation of a man reaching out to touch an angry snake, he allowed his vision to blur and shift, trying to sense the eddy and flow of the Weave around the tower. He could feel the stone nearby, but its chill emanations seemed muted, like sunlight passing through a thin cloth. The monument would change that when complete; it would offer a conduit from the realms of shadow into the waking world, a breach through which the stone's corrupting influence could stream undiminished.

"It's there, but it's in the plane of shadow," Aeron said after a long moment. "Close at hand, but a world away."

Eriale reached out to clasp his hand. She could tell that he was frightened by what he saw, even if she did not perceive the threat that was visible to him. "So what can we do about it?" she asked.

"I won't know for certain until I take a closer look."

The archer grew pale. "You mean, from the shadow-plane?"

Aeron nodded. "We'll try at dusk. But first I want to see Master Telemachon's chambers." He turned away from the window and glided across the room, picking up his bundle of sheets again. With Eriale trailing behind him, he opened the door and peeked out.

They were lucky-the two students were gone. He quickly crossed the hall and ducked into the servant's passage again, trotting back down to the laundry room. The laundress had left as well, so Aeron returned his sheets to the shelf and led Eriale outside into the cold, clinging fog.

"It doesn't seem like many people are here today," Eriale said quietly as they circled the quadrangle. "How many masters and students are there?"

"There used to be about thirty masters, forty students, and eighty to ninety novices in the college when I was here. But as you pointed out, it's the week's end. They might be elsewhere." Aeron chewed on his tongue. "Or maybe there aren't as many here now. A number of masters left after Oriseus became lord of the ruling council. And a lot of students and novices washed out then, too."

They found the servants' entrance to the Masters' Hall and entered carefully. A wing of the building was devoted to servant's quarters and the refectory, so a maid and chamberboy weren't at all out of place here-but their odds of encountering another servant were much higher. Aeron immediately turned to the servants' stair to circumvent the crowded scullery and kitchens, descending to the cluttered cellars and storerooms beneath the Masters' Hall.

Here the warm wood paneling and elegant furnishings of the college were conspicuously absent. The barrel-vaulted ceiling was low and dank, illuminated by guttering oil lamps at irregular intervals. Great tuns of wine and ale were crowded under each stone arch, dusty and worn. Aeron had only been down in the cellars once or twice, but he turned left and led Eriale along the dark passageway.

Someone coughed ahead. From one of the storerooms a lean old manservant appeared, carrying a small cask of brandy. Aeron kept the surprise from his face and managed a friendly nod of greeting, hoping his nervousness wouldn't show.

"Good day," he said cheerily.

"Hmmph. Good day, indeed." The valet passed Aeron with a long look. Aeron breathed a sigh of relief-the fellow hadn't seemed to notice their strange faces. His hopes were dashed a moment later. "Hey, wait a minute. Who are you?"

Aeron glanced at Eriale. Her face was carefully neutral, and she took two steps to flank the servant without being obvious about it. He turned to face the fellow and offered a smile and a shrug. "We're both new. Who are you?"

"I'm Kerrick. Did Olmad bring you on?"

Aeron just nodded. "Care for a hand with that brandy?"

The servant frowned. "No, I'll get it. What are you supposed to be doing?"

"They wanted a half-bushel of potatoes in the kitchens," Eriale replied. "Which way is the root cellar?"

Kerrick shook his head. "You'd think they'd take some time to show the new hands around. The root cellar you want is the second door, over there." He stooped and shouldered the cask, heading off for the stairs. "I'd step it up, if I were you," he called. "Nurchen'll have you scrubbing pots until your hands bleed if he thinks you dawdled down here."

"Thanks, we'll get right to it," Aeron replied. He watched until Kerrick trudged out of sight and blew out his breath in relief. "Come on, let's get out of here before we meet anyone else," he said to Eriale. He trotted down the length of the vaulted undercroft, counting the archways until he found another small door and steps leading up. "This goes up into the masters' quarters."

They emerged in the long, light-paneled hallway that ran on the lower floor of the hall. As soon as Aeron stepped out of the door, he found himself standing right in the path of a Master of Necromancy, a cadaverous old man striding along with long, shanky steps. The sorcerer glared at him with cold, dead eyes. Aeron froze in horror-he confronted none other than High Master Eidos, one of Oriseus's old allies. The vulpine eyes narrowed as Eidos scrutinized Aeron.

"What are you gawking at?" he snapped in a harsh voice.

Hurriedly, Aeron sketched a bow. "Pardon me, my lord."

He turned and slunk away, while Eriale silently closed the servant's door and followed. He could feel the weight of Master Eidos's stare between his shoulder blades, but with an angry snort the necromancer dismissed them and returned to his business. When Aeron risked a glance over his shoulder, he saw purple robes rippling like oily water in the wizard's wake, until he turned a corner and vanished.

Eriale set her hand on Aeron's arm. "By Assuran's grace, that was close," she whispered.

"I don't know how he didn't recognize me."

"When he last saw you, you were a student, five years younger." Eriale shrugged. "You've grown and filled out."

They reached the end of the corridor. The glyph marking Telemachon's chambers still guarded the door; Aeron suppressed a smile. Lord Telemachon's chambers had been among the more impressive any Master possessed, and he'd thought that out of nothing more than a desire for extra space someone might have commandeered them. Carefully, he worked a minor magic to pass Telemachon's sigil, remembering the time he'd done the same thing on the eve of Oriseus's initiation to the Shadow Stone. The mark seemed to hum as if alive, then faded as Aeron finished his spell. He frowned in puzzlement.

"What's wrong?" Eriale asked, watching him.

"Telemachon's sign. It vanished when I disarmed it."

"That's not supposed to happen?"

"No, I was only trying to counter it for a moment," Aeron said.

"It's been five years. Maybe the spell's worn away."

He shook his head. "It shouldn't have. But maybe this close to the Shadow Stone, the workings of magic aren't as predictable as they should be."

He set aside his reservations and pushed the door open, drawing Eriale in behind him. To his surprise, Telemachon's room seemed as if it had been left alone as well. From the thick coat of dust that covered the furniture and shelves, Aeron guessed that he might have been the last person to enter.

"No one straightened up in here, either," Eriale observed.

Aeron examined the leaning stacks of books and the cluttered mess of the old High Diviner's desk. "We've been lucky twice in one day. It's too good to be true."

"Why would the Masters leave this room undisturbed?"

"Who knows? Maybe no one wanted to clean up this mess. Or perhaps Oriseus and his allies feared the defensive spells Telemachon wove."

Eriale straightened up from a casual search of the shelves. "You mean this room might be trapped?"

Aeron grimaced. "I should have warned you to move carefully. Telemachon wouldn't use deadly spells unless he really meant to do someone harm, but there are quite a number of nasty surprises that might remain here."

"Greetings, Aeron."

Aeron spun at the sound of the voice. Eriale turned quickly, too, kneeling and stringing her bow in an impossibly fast motion. Behind them, sitting in the chair behind the desk, was Master Telemachon. The wizard looked old and tired, as he always had, with dark bags under his eyes and heavy jowls that quivered as he spoke.

"Telemachon!" gasped Aeron.

The wizard shook his head, holding up his hand. "No. A mere shadow of Telemachon. A message to you from beyond the grave, if you will."

Eriale stood slowly, keeping her arrow trained on the wizard's heart. "Aeron told me you were dead," she said. "What are you? An imposter? A restless ghost?" The gleaming steel arrowpoint never wavered. "Or is this all a deception of some kind?"

Telemachon dismissed her with a weary gesture. "Shoot me if it will make you feel better. But please take care not to damage this fine chair. You see, I am somewhat insubstantial." To illustrate the point, he reached out and passed one hand through a stack of books resting on the corner of his desk.

"You're an illusion," Aeron realized. "A programmed spell, designed to appear under the right conditions. But how are you able to converse with us? I always thought that such phantasms could only be crafted at the time of the casting."

The spectral mage offered a weak smile. "I developed a certain refinement to that spell, young Aeron. Great mages are fond of doing such things, you know. But you are essentially correct. I was to appear when you entered this room in the company of someone named Eriale."

"Five years ago, you saw that this moment would come to pass?" Aeron asked in disbelief.

"Unless I made a very lucky guess, that would seem to be the case," the phantasm replied. "Remember, I was an archmage and an accomplished diviner."

Now that he'd had a chance to study it, Aeron could see that it was indeed a spectral image, shimmering with a faint light and somewhat translucent. No sounds accompanied its movements or gestures, just the tired voice of Telemachon responding to his statements and questions.

"You knew that Oriseus was going to kill you," Aeron said slowly.

The specter nodded. "That, too, I saw."

In the corner of his eye, he saw Eriale relax her stance and lower her bow. "Then why didn't you flee or decline to face him?" she asked. "How could you walk into your own death with your eyes open?"

"I had to," the image replied. "You see, if I hadn't confronted Oriseus when I did and in just the fashion I chose, Aeron would have been lost."

"Lost? What do you mean?" Aeron asked.

"You would have touched the Shadow Stone only to be consumed by it, as were the others," the specter stated bluntly. "And there would be no one today who might have a chance to undo the evil that Oriseus has wrought."

"So why didn't you warn me yourself, before your death? And then avoid the confrontation with Oriseus?" Aeron glanced at Eriale, but she only returned a blank look.

The illusionary wizard shrugged. "It was necessary to keep you in ignorance in order for you to continue your studies under Oriseus's tutelage. As events developed, you were cautious, suspicious of Oriseus's intentions. But you were not too cautious. It was necessary for you to stand before the Shadow Stone, and that you would never have done if you feared Oriseus too much." The specter seemed to sigh and offered a wry smile, an amazingly lifelike expression. "It was a fine line to walk, indeed."

Aeron sat down heavily on an empty stool, still stunned by the illusion's revelations. "I cannot believe it," he said. "You sacrificed your life merely to ensure that I would escape the Shadow Stone's influence?"

The eyes of the spectral Telemachon hardened. "No. I gave up my life because it was necessary in order to preserve all of Chessenta from a blight, a curse, of unspeakable evil. You, Aeron Morieth, are the only instrument by which that curse may be undone."

"How? What can I do?" Aeron asked.

"Destroy the stone," the image replied. "It's the source of power for Oriseus's spell. You do not have the strength or the skill to interfere with the great magic that Oriseus has worked-no one does-but the weak link in the chain is the stone. For all its mystical might, it is nothing more than a common rock, altered in appearance by the unthinkable power it contains."

"I know a few spells that might suffice," Aeron said. "The lightning-spell might do it. Or a spell of breaking."

"Neither will be of use to you. Any magic that you cast at the Shadow Stone will be absorbed by it, tainted. You can't drown a river, Aeron."

"Then how am I supposed to destroy this thing? With a sledgehammer?"

"Nor can you risk touching it, Aeron. If you come into contact with the Stone, it will absorb and corrupt your very spirit, just as it affected the others who fell to its influence five years ago."

Eriale spoke. "That doesn't leave many options."

"I could contrive some kind of physical blow," Aeron mused. "Drop a heavy rock on the stone from a great height, something like that, perhaps. It seems like a crude answer to the challenge, though."

"My time is running short," the phantasm said. Already it was growing fainter as the magical energy that had been stored for years depleted itself. "Aeron, I suspect that the stone would survive any common attempt to break it through physical force. Put it to the test, but I feel this to be true. Perhaps there is a way to turn its own power against it… "

The phantasm continued to fade. "Wait!" cried Aeron. "How could I do that, if I can't use my magic against it? What do I do next?"

"I saw that you would have a chance," the image whispered, now nothing more than a white blur of light.

"Did you see if Aeron succeeds?" Eriale asked. "Or what steps he takes?"

"No," the voice said. "I could not see the Shadow Stone itself. It defeats divinations. ." With a last glimmer of light, the image faded away completely, leaving nothing but an empty chair. The room felt empty and abandoned now, as if some watchful presence had left forever.

Eriale relaxed her guard, looking to Aeron. "He's gone."

Aeron nodded, his mind racing with possibilities. "What could he mean by turning its own power against it? How could you do that?" Scowling, he sank down into the dusty chair behind the desk.

They waited until well after dusk before leaving Telemachon's old chambers. Again, they slipped through the Masters' Hall without any trouble; Aeron had come to the conclusion that many of the wizards and students were not present in the college halls. Some might have been away on missions similar to the one that had sent Master Crow to Maerchlin, while others might have been on the march with Cimbar's armies. Aeron didn't think it wise to attempt to find out, not for the sake of assuaging his curiosity.

They circled back to the wall they'd scaled to get inside the college, where Baillegh was waiting faithfully. After a hurried change into their traveling clothes, Aeron led Eriale to the edge of the grounds, staying away from the buildings. As night fell, the cloying mists and rain grew heavier, precipitated by the cold waters of the harbor and the nearby sea. It made for a cloak of dense fog that restricted visibility to a dozen yards or less and deadened all sound. Aeron could have marched a company of troops around the college without being spotted under the current conditions.

Ahead of them, the dark shape of the new pyramid loomed up through the mists, disappearing into the blank vapors overhead. Aeron circled the site once, picking his way through worksheds and tumbled piles of stones to be shaped and cut. He kept a close eye on Baillegh; the hound's senses were far keener than his own, and she'd smell danger before he saw anything. The few workmen who'd been here earlier in the day were long gone, and Aeron was surprised by how lonely the place felt even at the same time that it threatened him.

"Something feels wrong here," Eriale said quietly.

"You're right," said Aeron. "The Weave, the magic that exists in all things, is wrong here. Poisoned."

"Let's do what we have to and get out of here."

"I hope it's that easy," Aeron said. He paced the ground where the stone slab he'd first entered the shadow-plane through had stood. It was not there anymore, which he did not find too surprising. With the amount of work Oriseus was doing here, the stone marker was only in the way. "I'm going to have to cast a spell to carry us into the shadow-realm. The door we used before isn't here anymore."

"Will that be difficult?"

He snorted. "The barrier between the worlds is so thin here you could stumble and fall into the plane of shadow. Ready your bow, and keep those special arrows I gave you close at hand. You may need them."

Turning away from the tower, Aeron closed his eyes and paced forward, guessing at the best place to work his spell. The next world was very close here, seeming to strain at the shape and substance of the reality around him, a cancer waiting to be unleashed. If he wanted to, he could blast a rift open that would catapult everything within hundreds of yards into the demiplane of shadow. . but that was not likely to do anything more than annoy Oriseus and his cronies. Clearly, they were quite experienced with the twilight world. With a deep breath, he unlocked the spell-symbol that parted the veil between worlds. It was an enchantment that required the strength of shadow-magic, and there was no shortage of that nearby. In fact, it took all of Aeron's concentration not to allow the spell to slip away from him.

A rippling wave appeared in the mist, much like the heat-shimmer that rose from a hot stone in the summertime, except that it felt cold, wrong. Aeron bared his teeth in revulsion at the chill touch of the shadow-Weave but endured until he'd forced the tear into something the size and shape of a door.

"Follow me," he said, and he stepped through to the other side.

Physically, the ethereal mists of the shadow-plane were much the same as the last time he'd been here. Everything seems the same, he thought. The pyramid still stands whole and intact, as before, the city isn't here, the cold and the darkness are what I expected. Above the great jagged silhouette of the obelisk, the stars flickered weakly, dim and faint, with great wide gaps of utter blackness between them.

Magically, things had changed. As Aeron turned slowly to ascertain his exact location, he was conscious of a buzzing in his ears, a crawling sensation in his flesh, a shimmering or rippling in his vision. He blinked his eyes and shivered, wondering if this was some aftereffect of the transition from the real to the unreal world. Then, slowly, the truth dawned on him. The pyramid is the only thing that is real here, he realized. Viewed from the other side, the structure was filled with menace and purpose, a dark potential locked in stone. Here, that menace was conscious and active. Streamers of bright, sparkling magic danced in the air or flowed over the ground, drawn to the tower and spiraling around its black walls like a maelstrom. Everything-not just the dead grass or the rolling landscape, the physical fabric upon which they existed-was bending toward the Shadow Stone. Yet as Aeron staggered under the draw of the nearby locus, he had the curious sensation that something was close to pulling his very soul out by the roots.

Beside him, the ripples intensified as Eriale and Baillegh bounded through. The hound crouched and whined, hiding her head as she splayed her feet, trying to keep her balance. Eriale reeled awkwardly to one knee, her mouth gaping open in horror as she grappled with her surroundings.

"Aeron!" she cried. "What is happening? What is this?"

He staggered over to her and caught her arm. "It's worse than I thought!" he shouted, barely able to make himself heard. "I shouldn't have brought you here!"

Eriale looked up into his face, her eyes wide with fear. "Where's the stone?"

"In the center of the pyramid's foundation. Come on." He turned and led her to the dark, gaping arch that marked the only entrance to the structure.

"Surely, Aeron, you can't be in that much of a hurry to rush to your doom." Before them, stepping out of the doorway, stood Dalrioc Corynian. Unlike Sarim, he hadn't changed much. There was a feral gleam in his eyes, but his noble features and proud bearing still marked him as a man of power and influence. He wore the red robes of a Master of Conjuration over the exquisitely tailored finery he'd always preferred. "You should have been more careful in making your entrance to Telemachon's chambers. I've had a mark on that door of my own for years now, just in case someone decided to poke around in there."

"Dalrioc," spat Aeron. "I'm surprised you're still here. I would have thought that your city had need of you."

"And I'm surprised you came back. Master Sarim was to see to it that you remained in your forest fastness." Dalrioc stepped out of the doorway, an arrogant smile on his face. "What brings you back to our college, Aeron? Still thirsty for knowledge after all these years?"

"What do we do, Aeron?" Eriale asked quietly. She had an arrow aimed at Dalrioc's heart. By her side, Baillegh bared her teeth, growling.

"We have to get by him," he replied softly. To the prince he said, "Dalrioc, stand aside. I mean to bring this to an end. You have no idea what harm you are wreaking."

"On the contrary, I know exactly what our work entails." The Soorenaran halted two paces from Aeron and extended an arm toward the pyramid, a gesture of invitation. "Come and see. I'll not gainsay the Storm Walker."

Aeron was certain that the prince harbored no good intentions toward him. Everything was wrong-the confidence, the mocking refusal to confront him, the revelation that he'd been watched. Dalrioc Corynian was not this subtle … but Lord Oriseus was. He would have to assume that events were orchestrated to suit the new Sceptanar's desires.

"Walk ahead of me, then," Aeron said, scowling. "I don't trust you at my back. And do not attempt any spell, or we'll see whether your sarcasm is justified or not."

Dalrioc laughed. "Fine. Where am I taking you?"

"Where do you think?" Aeron retorted. "To the Shadow Stone."