The Shadow Stone

Twenty

Aeron, Melisanda, and Baillegh slipped ghostlike from the college library, using one of the barricaded side doors to conceal their departure. Aeron expected another attack at any moment; the struggle against Oriseus's yugoloth had been anything but silent, and the gaping wreckage of the great double doors in the front of the library building was impossible to miss from the college quadrangle. But the open courtyard between the college buildings was empty and quiet, cloaked in a heavy ground mist. The fog clung to the sides of the building with long streamers, drifts of impure snow driven against each hall.

Aeron's breath streamed away, caught in a bitter cold that seared his nose and throat. Dusk had long since failed, and the yellow-burning lamps of the college barely flickered in the gathering gloom. He glanced up at the sky and gasped; the streams of magic overhead were ribbons of elfin light against a black and colorless sky. They circled in a silent maelstrom centering on the rebuilt obelisk, spinning more and more rapidly with each passing moment. The masters and students must be at the tower, he realized. Oriseus's masterpiece is almost complete.

"Did we step through a shadow-portal?" Melisanda asked in a small voice. "This isn't right."

"Oriseus is tearing the veil between the worlds," Aeron answered. "When he finishes his spell, there won't be a plane of shadow anymore. It will be here." He wrenched his gaze away from the horror in the sky and hurried toward the Masters' Hall.

No one remained in the building. Its paneled corridors were empty, echoing with their footfalls. The gloom was even denser indoors, thick shadows clinging to the walls despite the flickering globes of mage-light that illuminated the hall. Aeron padded quietly to the Council Chamber, checked the door for any magical seal or alarm, and let himself in. Melisanda and Baillegh followed, keeping a close watch up and down the corridor outside.

The Council room was empty, as before. The novice's body had been removed, but none of the damage to the furnishings had been repaired. Dark frost still gleamed over the swath of the room where Aeron had employed Dalrioc's ice-scepter. In the center of the floor, the faded circle of magical symbols that marked the doorway into the chamber of the Shadow Stone waited. Aeron did not hesitate; he trotted into the circle, Dalrioc's wand clasped in his hand.

"Stand close," he told Melisanda and Baillegh. "Oriseus may have left a guard to watch over the chamber this time."

Melisanda and the wolfhound crowded close behind him, joining him in the rune-marked circle, but nothing happened. They waited a long moment, taut with anticipation, before he growled in disgust. "Why isn't this working now?"

"You didn't see Oriseus use a spell or command word to trigger this portal, did you?" asked Melisanda.

"No, the student just walked right into it," Aeron replied. He frowned, thinking. Unconsciously, he wrapped his arms closer to his body, trying to stretch his battered cloak over his bony frame. The Council Chamber was freezing. "Wait a moment," he said slowly. "Maybe the portal isn't working because we're already in the plane of shadow."

"It feels like it. Have you noticed how you can hear the stone now?" said Melisanda. She was pale in the darkness. "The worlds are merging. How much power it would take to move the entire college across the barrier?"

"Why assume that Oriseus only dragged the college into the realm of shadow? It might be the entire city. Or all of Chessenta, for that matter," Aeron said bitterly. "Well, we'll have to get into the tower on foot. Come on."

They left the same way they'd come in and crossed the college grounds again, this time heading for the ruined obelisk. As they neared the monument, Aeron felt the pulsating distortions of the Shadow Stone growing stronger, until it seemed the entire world was quivering in time to the stone's menacing rhythm.

"I don't know if I can go on!" Melisanda shouted in his ear. She had her arms folded across her belly, fighting against the nauseating influence of magic poisoned by the stone. "It hurts, Aeron! The spell's too far gone!"

He caught her arm and steadied her. "We have only one chance at this!" He turned back to the angry black radiance spilling from the pyramid's stones and moved closer. It seemed that the very air and ground were caught in a heat shimmer, warping and twisting around him, but this was no mere mirage-icy daggers of unbearable cold and darkness clawed at him with every step. He dragged himself closer and fell into the stone doorway of the tower, a high, narrow chamber framed by great doors of rune-carved oak.

Two students stood in the doorway, fists clenched by their sides as they stared mindlessly into the distance, a rictus of unholy delight and terror twisting their faces. Aeron could have spread his arms to touch each one, but they ignored them, lost in their private moment of transcendent triumph. As he'd thought, the structure seemed to protect them from the stone's distorting effects.

Beyond the doorway stood the pyramid's front gallery, a great echoing chamber of dark stone. In his previous visits Aeron had turned left to follow a winding staircase to the vaults below, while the same staircase continued up to the right to climb to the monument's upper levels. The hall itself was the largest room in structure, the sanctuary of a dark cathedral. Aeron slipped through the door to the back of the room, and froze in terror.

The masters and students of the college stood before him. They were locked in the same blank attitude as the door-wardens, concentrating on a raving pillar of violet energy that crackled down from the ceiling to vanish into the marbled floor. They muttered and moaned in time to the stone's heartbeat. Aeron quickly ducked behind a pillar, seeking cover in the stairwell. Melisanda and Baillegh scrambled after him.

"What's wrong with them?" the sorceress whispered. "They must have seen us."

"They're all playing their part in Oriseus's spell," Aeron replied. "It's taking everything they've got to do it."

Melisanda rose slowly and stretched to look around the chamber before quickly drawing back. "He's here, Aeron. Right in the center of things."

She pointed, and Aeron followed her gesture. The saturnine archmage stood in the center of a half-circle of the college's most powerful wizards, intoning the words of a spell so great and terrible that it hurt Aeron's ears to hear his incantation. With each syllable the Sceptanar expelled, the column of energy that filled the center of the room grew brighter. Rings of distortion, of tortured reality, rippled away from the unchained power.

Aeron watched, transfixed by the majesty of the sight, and then wrenched his gaze away. "Let's put a stop to this."

"You don't have to ask twice," Melisanda replied under her breath. "Do you know where the chamber lies?"

Aeron thought of the first time he'd set foot in the tower, five years ago. His stomach turned at the memory of his fear and pain. "I know the way," he answered.

They came to the old door that marked the entrance to the stone's chamber. Lambent light escaped from the hairline cracks under the oaken door and shone through every seam and imperfection in the wood. Aeron reached out to open it without hesitation, but Melisanda placed her hand over his.

"Careful. Just because Oriseus left this room unguarded before doesn't mean that it's not protected now."

"So far as I know, the stone can protect itself," Aeron replied. "But you're right. Why take chances?" He drew back and cast a spell of mage-sight. To his relief, no barrier blocked their path. "It's safe," he announced.

Melisanda raised an eyebrow. "Safe?"

He repressed a bitter laugh. "Well, taking everything else into consideration … at least there's no trap here." Steeling himself, Aeron pushed the door open and stepped into the Shadow Stone's chamber, hand raised to cover his eyes from the painful light.

The chamber was much the same as they had left it only a few short hours ago, but the Shadow Stone had changed. It burned with a fierce radiance of black light, searing Aeron's eyes and scouring the walls with its intolerable touch. All of his senses reeled with the stone's proximity; his ears were filled with the shrieking rush of tortured air and the cracking of the tower's blasted stones, the air stank with a miasma of ozone and decay, and even through his closed eyes the stone pressed its hateful image into his mind. It pulsed in the center of a rippling blackness of floor, ceiling, and walls wrenched impossibly through a transdimensional storm that destroyed his sense of up and down, distance and form. He recoiled, toppling against the wall as his feet swept out from under him.

Melisanda fell beside him, her long brown hair flying about her face as if she were caught in a gale. "Aeron! Speak your spell!" she shouted, huddling against the ruined stone wall.

Aeron opened his eyes a mere slit to gain his bearings, climbing to his feet with one hand on the ice rimmed stone of the chamber wall. He looked again on the Shadow Stone, gathering his strength and determination for what came next.

"Aeron! Now!" cried Melisanda.

Drawing a deep breath, Aeron barked the first syllables of the striking-spell, freeing the symbol in his mind. But instead of seeking the strength of his own spirit or the natural stone, air, and water around him to power the spell, he threw his consciousness forward into the yawning black maelstrom before him, embracing the shrieking chaos of the Shadow Stone.

From the stone one coursing stream of unfettered power lanced out to transfix Aeron, pinning him on a spear of foulness and hate that threatened to flay the flesh from his bones. He screamed as every inch of his body crawled with the malignant energy and corruption pouring into his heart. Somehow he endured it, maintaining just enough awareness and will to finish the last syllable of the erasure spell, holding on to the dark silhouette of the stone's iron banding as a dying warrior might cling to the sight of the crest of the enemy who had just struck him down. He narrowed his eyes against the agony and turned a fraction of the stone's awful power toward his spell.

The runes upon the stone's casing glowed once and faded, stricken from existence. As they vanished, the bands shifted, slipped, and then clattered to the ground, no longer clasped to the Shadow Stone. Instantly the coursing conduit of power that tore and clawed at Aeron's breast snapped away, grounding itself futilely in the walls of the chamber. It was joined a split second later by first one, then another ravening stream of power, dancing and creeping against the chamber walls and the blank archways of shadow, while the stone began to pulse brighter and brighter.

Aeron shook his head and found himself lying with his head cradled in Melisanda's lap, a cold dull ache in the center of his chest. The unbearable touch of the stone was fading, allowing him to recover his senses and sanity.

"What happened?" he asked against the rage of the storm.

"It worked!" Melisanda whispered. "The stone's out of control. It's not doing whatever it was doing before."

Aeron levered himself to his elbow and gazed at the spectacle for a long moment. The stone's pulse was growing faster, stronger, a dull booming and rocking that shook the substance of two worlds. The fierce radiance with which it had blazed before was now trapped within its uneven facets, a pinprick of light that grew larger and brighter with every passing moment, until the stone strained with the incalculable potential imprisoned within it.

"The bands didn't focus the Stone's power, they let it escape!" he realized.

"I don't think we should stay here too much longer," Melisanda said. She helped Aeron to his feet and slid his arm over her shoulder.

"No," said Aeron. "I've got to stay. Go ahead and get out of here now-take the arch that leads to Akanax, if it is working. And then move far away from the portal's exit."

Melisanda wheeled to face him. "Are you insane? If you stay here, you'll be killed!"

He offered her a weak smile. "And if I leave, Oriseus may be able to undo what I've just done. I have to make sure that the stone is destroyed, Melisanda."

The sorceress fixed her eyes on him, a fragile mix of emotions flickering across her face. "If you stay, I stay. We'll see it through together," she said.

Aeron considered what he could say to change her mind, but then he felt a deliberate ripple in the chaos around him, a noxious parody of the old delight he'd sensed when magic was woven nearby. A whirling streamer of darkness formed by the chamber door, a new shadow portal hovering in the air. He stood back, trembling in fatigue.

"Ready yourself, Melisanda. It's Oriseus."

She glanced at him and nodded. "I don't know if I can cast any spells in here," she said.

Aeron handed Dalrioc's wand to her. "This might work. I think Dalrioc crafted this scepter to draw its power from the stone." The portal was nearly complete; Aeron quickly edged away to leave plenty of space between them. "Don't hesitate when he appears. We can't give him any chance to work his spells against us."

With a thin tearing sound a form materialized in the spiraling shadow and emerged, shedding streamers of tangible darkness like a swimmer rising from the deeps. Slender and agile, the intruder sprang into motion before the curtain began to fail, crouching to aim a long bow at Aeron.

Melisanda raised Dalrioc's wand, ready to unleash its deadly ray, but Aeron shouted, "No! It's Eriale!"

He raced to catch Melisanda's hand before she struck. Melisanda looked at him, startled, while Eriale's hands blurred and the bow sang its shrill song. Aeron twisted catlike in mid-leap, but Eriale's arrow caught him high on the hip, skewering his side. His legs seemed to turn to rubber, spilling him to the cold flagstones before the first claws of pain sank into his awareness. Gasping in shock, he turned to look at his foster-sister.

Eriale met his eyes with a look cold enough to chill his heart. No trace of emotion or recognition crossed her face. With mechanical certainty, she reached for her quiver and drew another arrow, its steel point aimed at his heart. She drew the bowstring back to her ear, death in her unblinking eyes.

"Eriale, it's me!" Aeron cried, while warm blood streamed from his wound. "Don't shoot!"

The archer hesitated for a moment, the merest hint of indecision softening her expression, but then she steeled herself and steadied her aim for the killing shot.

Melisanda barked an arcane word and swept a blinding ray of sparkling frost from the iron scepter across Eriale. Eriale winced but didn't make a sound, dropping the bow to cradle her frost-burned arms to her body. Her blank eyes still held Aeron fixed in a deadly glare. The Vilhonese sorceress dashed up to kick the bow away, and wheeled to face Aeron. "Are you-"

"I think I'll live," he answered, trying to climb to his feet. He leaned awkwardly against the chamber wall, staring at Eriale. Pressing one hand to his side, he glanced down at the arrow. He didn't know much of the healing arts and wasn't willing to take any chances with trying to pull it out or push it through. Pinning the arrow in place with his right hand, he snapped off the shaft and steeled himself to push it to the back of his mind for the moment. "She didn't get a true shot at me, thank Assuran. Let me see if I can work a countermagic to dispel Oriseus's charm over her."

Pushing himself off the wall, Aeron moved over to where Eriale crouched and knelt beside her, seeking some indication of the type of charm or geas she'd been placed under. He winced at the blistered white streaks and glistening frost that showed where Dalrioc's wand had struck her-if Melisanda had missed by only a foot or two, Eriale might have been critically injured. He worked a simple counter-spell to remove the magics that ensorceled the archer.

Eriale flinched, but a hint of color returned to her face, and the blankness fell away from her stare. "Aeron? What happened-" She gasped as the pain of her injuries flooded through her, no longer checked by the ruthless dominion that had turned her against him. She sagged to the floor, suppressing a sob.

"Eriale, I'm sorry," Aeron began. "I didn't know-"

He was interrupted by the sudden cold certainty that shadow-magic was gathering under a conscious will. His heart lurched with the sensation of magic at work. Behind him, Melisanda cried out in alarm. "The portal, Aeron!"

As the twisting shadow door through which Eriale had come faded out altogether, the streamers of darkness began to sink to the floor, coalescing into a single pool or slick of night-black shadow stuff. The pool quivered once, and then something began to rise from its depths, drawing its shape from the darkness, a tall man with cruel, fine features.

"Aeron, you fool! You have no idea what harm your interference has caused," Oriseus said, speaking as he rose from the ebon circle. "You have doomed all of us by unchaining the Shadow Stone." The sorcerer's hands turned and flashed, shaping a spell with frightening celerity.

Aeron barked out the words to a shielding-spell, covering both himself and Eriale with a shimmering green field of energy. From the raging Shadow Stone tendrils of inky darkness shot out to play along the curving sphere of force, corrupting it instantly with black veins of negative energy. Behind him, Melisanda dodged behind one of the pillars that divided the open chamber from the gallery that ringed it, raising Dalrioc's wand to attack Oriseus. But the archmage finished his spell first, directing a serpentine ray of crackling purple energy at Aeron. It sliced through Aeron's shield without the least interference and struck Aeron full in the chest. He fell to the stone floor, stunned.

Eriale recoiled in fright, but then threw herself over him, trying to protect him from Oriseus's spell. "Aeron!"

Oddly enough, he didn't seem to be injured. He shook off Eriale's attentions. "I'm all right," he told her.

Melisanda shouted the command that activated Dalrioc's deadly scepter and sent a blast of arctic air scything toward Oriseus, but the ancient sorcerer whispered another word and turned sideways, disappearing from view. Passing near the Shadow Stone, the frigid ray seemed to attract a coursing conduit of energy from the pulsating crystal, suddenly doubling and redoubling in strength until it shattered one of the stone pillars across the chamber.

"Aeron, Oriseus vanished! Can you see him?"

Aeron struggled to his knees, one hand pressed to the oddly charred patch over his heart. Oriseus's spell had done something to him, he was certain of that; he could sense black, cold energy pricking at his skin, dire potential as yet unrealized. "No, I don't, but that doesn't mean that he left. Be careful, Melisanda-the stone's influence is wreaking havoc with our spells."

"Indeed it is." Oriseus's voice was strong and confident, near Aeron yet somehow impossibly distant. "I must confine the stone's power again, or we shall all be killed. When you struck my spell from the stone's bindings, Aeron, you struck away the only thing that protects all of Chessenta from its power." Oriseus suddenly appeared before the fallen stone, an impossible caricature of a man. He was a flat image, a playing-card figure that winked into nonexistence when he happened to face them edge-on.

Aeron shook his head, astonished. He'd heard of such spells, but he'd never seen one cast before. "I don't believe you, Oriseus. And even if I did, I'm willing to make that sacrifice. Better that the three of us should die here and put a stop to this than allow you to finish what you've started."

"Your life is yours to throw away if you wish," the sorcerer said with venom in his voice, "but what of your sister's and your friend's? And you accuse me of ruthlessness." Oriseus stalked forward and then shifted sideways, vanishing. Aeron caught a glimpse of him spinning across the room, flashing in and out of reality. "We don't have much time for this debate, Aeron. The stone will decide it for us in a matter of minutes!"

In the room's center, the Shadow Stone now burned like a black star, too bright to look at directly. Its dreadful power threw stark shadows against the walls, and it seemed almost distant, as if it were sinking out of sight through the very stuff of reality. The floor and ceiling buckled and twisted toward the stone, drawn to it by a force greater than any maelstrom.

"Then that's it," Aeron replied.

Oriseus cursed in a forgotten language. He reappeared by the stone, stooping for the discarded iron bands that had circled the crystal. Aeron reacted without hesitation, raising his hands and barking out the words for the storm-strike. With no other options, he drew his strength from the Shadow Stone's awful presence, enduring its sinister touch long enough to finish his spell. From his fingertips bright electrical arcs leaped forward to stab at Oriseus- but even as they reached for the sorcerer, they doubled back on Aeron and struck him. He screamed and twisted under the assault of his own spell, caught in the throes of a dozen burning skewers of pain, before collapsing to the floor.

Oriseus looked up from his work with a bare smile. "You should have been more careful, Aeron. The first spell I cast upon you was a mage-shield I devised centuries ago, designed to turn your own spells against you. It may have lapsed … or it may still be intact. Why don't you cast another spell and see?" Deliberately, he inscribed a rune upon the iron strip.

Aeron groveled in agony, his vision red and hazy. His strength was failing fast; he'd pushed himself to the limits already. "Baillegh, stop him!" he gasped.

The silver hound streaked forward to leap at Oriseus. The sorcerer raised his hand and spoke a single word, catching the dog in an amber beam that froze her in mid-leap. Stiff as a statue, she crashed to the ground at his feet, imprisoned in a shimmering field of golden energy.

Eriale helped Aeron rise, her face frozen in a tight grimace of pain. "What are we going to do?" she said quietly. "How can we defeat him, Aeron?"

He shook his head. "I'm running out of ideas," he replied.

Melisanda slipped the scepter into her blouse, and silently began to work a spell. Aeron watched her, fascinated; she didn't have his ability to use the incalculable energy of the Shadow Stone and had to draw the entirety of her spell from the burning flame of her own life-force.

Before his eyes she seemed to wilt, sagging to her knees and paling with the effort, but she managed to finish her casting. A single streaking point of light soared away from her hand, arcing toward Oriseus. The sorcerer looked up just in time for the spell to detonate in a terrific blast of flame that filled the chamber with an awful roar. Aeron raised his cloak over his face and turned away to throw Eriale to the floor as searing heat washed over them.

The fiery sphere dissipated in moments, leaving behind a haze of smoke and the stink of burned clothes. The Shadow Stone still lay where it had been, untouched by Melisanda's spell. Oriseus, however, was not so fortunate. He groaned and stirred, burned black over his face and hands, while small flames smoldered over his ceremonial robe. Despite the horrible wounds he'd sustained, the sorcerer drew himself to his feet, turning a look of awful rage on Melisanda.

"You were warned," he said through cracked lips. He took a step toward her, already gathering magic for the spell that would destroy her.

At the edge of the room, Melisanda's strength gave out and she collapsed to the floor. She'd crafted too strong a spell from her own spirit. Aeron staggered to his feet, determined to help her. Oriseus's mage-shield still clung to him like thick oil. His thoughts raced as Oriseus closed in on Melisanda. He needed a counterspell; quickly he barked out the words to the dispelling enchantment.

Oriseus wheeled at the first sound of his words, and then grinned. "So you have decided to chance my rebounding shield again, Aeron? I thought you smarter than that." He turned back to Melisanda, his hands glowing with power.

Aeron finished the spell, directing it at Baillegh. If Oriseus's shield had fallen for some reason, he might be able to free her from the amber field that imprisoned her. Sparkling motes of magic danced around the trapped hound, but then they shifted and appeared around Aeron, attacking the black abjuration that tainted his magical powers. Under the assault, the curse failed, freeing Aeron.

Instantly he shaped the deadliest attack he knew, the force-missiles he'd used against Oriseus the first time they fought. Without consideration for himself, he wrenched at the raging power of the Shadow Stone and hammered three coruscating spheres of black-streaked energy at Oriseus. The archmage wheeled just in time to catch all three in his torso. Each detonated with bone-shattering force, blasting great gaping wounds in Oriseus's body and crumpling him against the wall. Incredibly, the sorcerer slowly stood, dragging himself to his feet and turning to confront Aeron again.

"By all the gods," Aeron breathed. His knees buckled with exhaustion and he slumped to the floor. He had no more spells of attack left to him, none that could affect a mage as formidable as Oriseus. "What are you?"

"I told you before, Aeron. This body is nothing more than a shell for my consciousness." Oriseus attempted a triumphant grin, a horrible expression in his burned and damaged face. "You've treated my steed poorly, but you haven't hurt me at all. If this frame does not survive the day, I'll just find another. Perhaps your friend Melisanda here … or maybe even you. It's no matter to me." He reached out and summoned the Shadow Stone's metal bands to his hand, finishing the inscription he needed to restore his spell of binding and control. "Let me set this in order and finish what I came here to do, and then we'll speak of this at greater length." He laughed, a horrid rasping sound.

Aeron dropped his eyes to the floor, unable to bear the victory in Oriseus's gaze. Eriale reached out to rest her hand on his shoulder. "How can you beat something like that?" she said.

Beneath his hand he felt cool, smooth wood. He glanced down in surprise; Eriale's bow lay on the floor next to him. Slowly, he picked it up. "Do you still have your quiver?" he asked her.

"Yes, but my arms are half-frozen. I can't shoot."

"I can," Aeron said softly. "Give me one of the enchanted arrows." He held out his hand, watching Oriseus while Eriale fumbled for the rune-marked shaft. Silently she laid the wood, the good oak wood from the heart of the Maerchwood, in his hand.

At the last moment, Oriseus sensed his peril. He looked up, meeting Aeron's steel-hard eyes, the iron bands hovering in the air before him as he mouthed the words to bind the Shadow Stone to his will and control again. His hands started to work at a defensive barrier, moving quickly and certainly to their task as the iron bands clattered to the floor, the spell abandoned.

He wasn't fast enough. With all his old skill, Aeron drew Eriale's bow to his ear and released the arrow straight and true. It buried itself to within a handspan of the fletching in the hollow of Oriseus's breast, biting into the scarred stone wall behind him. The sorcerer drew in a great breath, his jaw falling open as his legs gave out. He slid about a half-foot down the wall before the arrow arrested his movement, leaving him to hang helplessly on the wall.

Aeron rose from his kneeling stance, letting the bow fall to his side with a grim smile of satisfaction. Distantly, he noticed that the eerie light from the stone was etching his shadow against the wall with fierce intensity.

He heard Eriale hiss in dismay behind him. "The stone! Aeron, look at the Shadow Stone!"

He turned his back on Oriseus and instantly threw up an arm to shield his eyes. The raging power inside the stone was no longer confined to the space inside its ebon facets; great glowing cracks had appeared in its substance, like a dam that was beginning to fail. The pounding rhythm of the stone's heartbeat shook the walls and floors, crumpling and warping the very air of the room. Intuitively he realized that it could not endure the tremendous magical energy that was being channeled into it much longer, and that he didn't want to be nearby when its tolerance was surpassed. He blinked his eyes clear and glanced around the chamber.

"Eriale! Take Baillegh and go through that archway there!"

The archer nodded and scooped up the wolfhound, tenderly working around the frost burns on her arms and torso. The amber field that encased Baillegh was fading, running out as Oriseus's life failed. Weaving under Baillegh's weight, Eriale managed to get her body under the hound and staggered toward the door that led to Boeruine.

Aeron slung Eriale's bow over his back and reached down to help Melisanda to her feet. The girl was semiconscious, pale and cold; he didn't like the way she looked, not at all. As he turned to leave, he heard a wet rattle behind him. "Leaving … so soon?"

Oriseus hung transfixed on the arrow, gasping for breath. Blood trickled down his chin and marked a great red stain in the center of his chest. His mouth worked futilely. "Still.. not enough … to kill me," he choked.

Aeron glanced at the Shadow Stone. It seemed to writhe and twist like a mortally wounded animal, bleeding the raw stuff of magic. He returned to Oriseus. "It might be beyond my skill to kill the spirit that animates Oriseus's body, Madryoch. But I'll wager that you won't enjoy being here when the stone breaks."

With Melisanda in his arms, he ran awkwardly across the chamber and plunged headfirst into the dark doorway after Eriale.

Burdened by Melisanda's weight, he stumbled and fell as he emerged from the shadow portal. For a long moment, it was all that he could do to pick himself up, dragging Melisanda away from the cold stone slab they'd appeared upon. Cloud-wracked sky stretched away above him, and the hushed sound of the nearby water filled his ears. It was night here, or a day so dark that he couldn't tell the difference, and a great storm was almost on them, with howling wind and crackling violet lightning arcing from cloud to cloud.

"Aeron! Where are we?" Eriale shouted against the storm.

He took only a moment to find his bearings. The great fortress and city were still below him, a mile or so away, ringed by siege entrenchments. "This is Akanax," he told her. "Soorenar's armies are laying siege to King Gormantor's tower."

Eriale looked at him blankly. "But that's a hundred miles or more from Cimbar!"

"That's why Oriseus built his shadow doors. Here, help me with Melisanda. I want to get away from the hilltop."

"Why?"

"Because I don't know what's going to happen when the Shadow Stone shatters, and if we're standing right by the portal we're only a dozen yards from the cursed thing." Aeron didn't wait for Eriale, but staggered down the path toward the Avanite camp. Eriale carried Baillegh down behind him.

Without warning, the world broke beneath his feet.

The hilltop rocked as if it had been kicked by a titan, spilling Aeron and Eriale to the ground. From the open hilltop above and behind them, a brilliant flash of crimson light erupted, casting its eerie glow against the low, scudding clouds and throwing long shadows out and away from them. A split second later, a rolling thunderclap blasted Aeron to the ground again, a wall of air dense enough to splinter trees and pulverize boulders. Aeron was flung head-over-heels down the hillside, fetching up a long moment later in a small hollow, Melisanda sprawled beside him. The sky reeled drunkenly above him.

Overhead, the clouds began to dissipate, with slanting shafts of sunlight piercing the gloom. Aeron frowned, trying to figure out what was happening. He scrambled to his feet, looking out over the landscape. Golden rays shot through the clouds, illuminating sparkling patches of ocean beneath the stormclouds. Beside him, Melisanda drew a deep breath, the color returning to her face. Her eyes flew open.

"Oh, Aeron. Can you feel it?"

He closed his eyes, stretching out his senses. He could feel… magic. All around him, the Weave poured back into the land, a trickle at first that grew into a torrent, the power of life and nature reasserting itself against the wrong of the Shadow Stone. It surrounded him in a living chorus of enchantment, until he laughed in open, childlike delight. Eriale slid down the slope from the place where she'd fallen, and Baillegh yipped happily, dancing like a puppy chasing sunmotes. Even in the armed camps below them, Aeron could see soldiers staring up into the sky and wandering in incomprehensive circles. Impulsively, he caught Eriale and hugged her, and then turned to embrace Melisanda.

"You did it," she said. "The spell's broken!"

"No," he replied. "We did it."

"What now?" Eriale asked. She nodded at the great armies below. "Do we try to straighten up the mess Oriseus has made of all this?"

Aeron thought for a moment, and shook his head. "That's not our concern. Let them work it out without the machinations of mages and archmages." He turned toward the south, watching the skies clear. "By my guess, Cimbar is that way. Let's start walking."