Three days after their confrontation with Master Crow, Aeron and Eriale burned Kestrel. Aeron used his sorcery to create a clean, pure pyre; he could not stand the idea of burning Kestrel with the sodden, sickly firewood at hand. A somber handful of their old friends and neighbors turned out for the ceremony.
Eriale and Aeron lingered for a long time by the pyre, watching the funereal flames dance and crackle. Eriale was silent and worn, with dark circles under her eyes, and Aeron was exhausted as well.
He was shaken out of his reflection by Eriale's voice. "Aeron? Why did this happen?"
"What?" He turned toward her with a startled look.
"What did we do to earn Master Crow's hate? Why did he come to Maerchlin, and why did he do what he did?"
Aeron tried to think of an answer and failed. Eriale looked up at him, the cold damp air plastering her hair to her cheeks like a dark hood. "He said that he came here because of me," he said at length. "I don't know whether I believe him, though."
"I remember what he said, but what I want to know is why. What did you ever do to him?"
"I knew him back at the college, Eriale. His name then was Sarim, and he was one of my mentors. A terrible wrong was done to him by Lord Oriseus after I left." He repressed a shudder as a cold tendril of water pierced his hood and ran down his back. "I'd thought that I was no longer of interest to Oriseus and his followers. Out of sight, out of mind. After all, they never tried to contact me or hunt me down after I left. I guess I was wrong."
"So you think that Oriseus made Sarim into Crow and sent him after you?"
Aeron thought it over. "Yes. I think he did."
"Do you think that Oriseus told Crow to use his magic to enslave the people of Maerchlin? Or do you think that was Crow's idea?"
"I don't know, Eriale. I just don't know what he's capable of."
Eriale stepped closer and fixed her gaze on his eyes. "Do you think Oriseus might try again?"
Aeron fell silent. He didn't have an answer.
Eriale turned and paced away. The mists and rain shrouded them in a world of gray, bleached of color. The dark line of trees that started beyond Kestrel's homestead might as well have been a wall of wet stone. "Didn't Crow say that he and his friends were responsible for this?" She waved her arm in a gesture that included the earth, the forest, and the gray sky overhead. "That this was all a spell they were working on?"
"What are you getting at?" Aeron asked.
"We can't let this go on," Eriale said, speaking into the shadows under the trees. "This is killing the land. Whoever is behind this must be stopped. Whoever-" her voice broke for a moment- "Whoever sent Master Crow to Maerchlin and forced us to confront him must be stopped."
"They're dangerous, Eriale. Ruthless, arrogant. We're beneath their notice. Do you understand? They have no fear of me." Aeron clenched his fists, his shoulders taut. "You don't know how close I came to sharing Sarim's fate. There are powers in the world that no one was meant to tamper with, and they almost destroyed me.
"I'll set myself against Oriseus. I'll try to make him stop what he's doing. But I don't know if I'm strong enough to resist Oriseus and the Shadow Stone." He faced Eriale, iron fighting despair in his voice. "I might become the next Master Crow."
The archer's face softened as she studied Aeron for a long moment. "Aeron, someday you're going to have to confront what happened at the college in Cimbar."
"Easier said than done," Aeron observed with a wry smile. He dropped his gaze and saw Baillegh scramble to her feet. She barked twice and bounded away, back to the forest. Aeron watched, puzzled, before seizing his staff and spinning to see what had alarmed the hound.
Baillegh barked somewhere in the distance, obscured by the mists and the trees, but after a moment she reappeared, trotting happily by the heel of a tall, gray-cloaked figure. Aeron recognized the stride at once. "Fineghal!"
The elf lord looked up, pushing his hood back over his shoulders and shaking out his pale golden hair. He was dressed for traveling, in a seamless tunic of pearl gray and green that seemed to melt into invisibility in front of the dark trees. He carried a long, thin staff, and there was a short, straight-bladed sword belted at his hip. He grinned, ruffling the top of Baillegh's head, and raised his hand. "Well met, Aeron! I am glad that I found you."
Aeron rushed up to him and caught his forearm in a warm clasp. "I thought you'd be a week or more yet!"
"I found an old gate to take me from the Chondalwood to Calmaercor without resorting to my own magic," the elf replied. "From the Storm Tower, it's not much of a walk." He nodded at Eriale. "Hello, Eriale. It's good to see you again. How is your father?"
Aeron and Eriale exchanged a silent look. Aeron moved aside and pointed at the raised bier, smoking in the damp morning. "He fell, fighting Master Crow, the sorcerer I told you of," he said.
Fineghal bowed his head. "I am sorry, Eriale. He was a good man, one of the best I have had the honor to know. How did it happen?"
Aeron related the events of the past few days while they stood by Kestrel's pyre, and then adjourned to the warm sitting room of the forester's old house. Eriale prepared some hot tea, while Fineghal shook the rainwater from his traveling cloak and settled by the fire. Aeron could not recall a time that he'd ever seen the elf lord glad to be indoors and out of the weather, but the hard pace he'd set for himself had apparently sapped even his elven reserves of strength.
"I heard some strange tales as I traveled here, Aeron," the elf said. "The folk of the countryside whisper that the dead are walking, that the ground has soured, that evil is abroad in the land."
"Any word of other sorcerers at work?" Aeron asked. "Crow seemed to imply that those who served Oriseus might be abroad, working to further his purposes."
Fineghal frowned. "No, I heard no such stories. But I did encounter tales of a different sort, of mages and magicians who had suddenly disappeared. Wizards are uncommon folk to begin with, so I didn't pay it any attention, but now I wonder if it might be important."
"Disappeared? How?"
"In some cases, the mage vanished years ago, but in Villon people were speaking of their lord's magician, who had deserted his master's court only a few days ago."
Aeron scowled in thought, trying to make sense of it. "I suspect that these are all symptoms of one illness," he said. "Do you remember what I told you of my journey through the plane of shadow? It seems to me that all of this is familiar. I've experienced this before. There's no Weave in the Shadow, only the magic of the dark powers."
"That sounds like what we have witnessed in our own world over the past few weeks," Fineghal said slowly. "Do you think that the borders between the worlds are growing weak for some reason? That we are seeing the planes of shadow in the living land around us?"
"I'm certain of it," Aeron replied.
"Assuran preserve us," Eriale breathed.
"Such events have happened from time to time over the years," Fineghal said thoughtfully. "Yet these conjunctions have rarely lasted for more than a few nights. By day, the shadowrealm's power cannot exist in our world. How can this continue week after week? When will it end?"
"I don't think it will," Aeron said. "I think Oriseus has mastered the Shadow Stone. This is his doing."
"That," said Fineghal, "is a dire thought indeed."
"Can you do anything to set things right?" Eriale asked.
Aeron turned to look at her. "You told me that I'd have to confront my failure at the college again. I think you're right. I cannot conceive of any magic that would undo Oriseus's enchantment. But if I go to Cimbar I might be able to find out what he's doing and how I can stop it."
"Do you really think you can defeat Oriseus and his allies?" Eriale asked quietly.
"I'll have to try. I might be able to find help at the college. Master Telemachon is long dead, and Sarim's fallen now too, but a few other masters opposed Oriseus's rise to power. And I had other friends there, too."
"I'll help in any way I can," Fin
eghal said.
"And I as well," Eriale added.
Aeron shook his head. "Eriale, you can't help me if it comes down to a confrontation with Oriseus and his allies."
"Why don't you ask Master Crow if I was any help to you or not?" Eriale replied. She leaned forward, her face intense with emotion. "You've told me Oriseus was responsible for Crow and the evil he worked here. I want to make him pay for what Crow did to my father. Don't try to protect me from this, Aeron. It's my right."
"We may not be able to count on our magic for much longer," Fineghal added. "Your sister may be right, Aeron. Let's not discount the possibility that we'll need an archer of her caliber to defeat your old master."
Aeron grimaced in distaste. He didn't like the idea of deliberately leading Eriale into danger, but she was right. "All right," he surrendered. "But I'll ask that you try to stay out of harm's way."
Eriale only smiled. "When do we leave?" she asked.
Early the following morning, Aeron, Fineghal, and Eriale commandeered horses from Phoros Raedel's stables for their journey. To his surprise, the stableman let them have three sturdy coursers without a word of protest. The soldiers and servants of Castle Raedel knew the part Aeron and Eriale had played in freeing them of Master Crow's lordship and were grateful. Aeron secured some provisions as well, and they rode west out of the castle within an hour of sunrise, Baillegh trotting at Aeron's heel.
By all rights, it should have been mid-fall, a beautiful time of year for a ride. The Maerchwood should have been ablaze with a thousand hues of flame and gold, and the nearby fields of Maerchlin should have been head-high with ripe wheat and corn. But the ground was sodden and damp with thick, black mud. The fields were strewn with pale, sickly crops ruined by a plague of rot-causing worms. Even the trees had sloughed off their black leaves, standing naked to the skies with soft, rotten bark.
After a long day's ride, they reached the wide fields and scattered farmhouses of Saden. The outpost was in no better shape than Maerchlin, with large pools of black standing water fouling its fields and a stink of rotten grain permeating the air. Eriale wrinkled her nose in disgust. "This is even worse than it was a week ago."
"I wonder if the Shadow Stone's influence is still increasing," Fineghal said. "Its effects may grow even more pronounced with time."
They stopped for the night at Kestrel and Eriale's house in Saden. After a supper of black bread and stew, Aeron and Fineghal stayed up late, talking of Aeron's time in the college and his final days there. Fineghal hoped to find some insight into the nature of the Shadow Stone's power, but they had little success.
The next morning, the three travelers restocked their provisions and resumed their journey. The first time Aeron had made this trip, he'd gone north from Saden to Oslin on the Akanamere, taking passage on a keelboat to Soorenar before switching to a coastal dromond for the last leg of his journey to the great city. This time, Eriale's neighbors warned them against that path. Between Akanax and Soorenar the armies dueled like blind, dumb beasts, lurching from village to village as they grappled for advantage. Few ships on the Akanamere were safe, and Akanax itself was virtually under siege. Aeron and Fineghal agreed that it seemed wiser not to ride into a war if they could avoid it, and set out northeast, following the Adder River and riding across the empty lands of eastern Chessenta.
They managed several days without any serious incidents, setting their course westward along old cattle trails and cart tracks. The lands they rode through had once been heavily populated, with prosperous towns and crowded fields nestling close together in the gentle hills, but in the chaos surrounding the fall of Unther's empire four centuries before, Chessenta's eastern provinces had been ravaged by plague and war. "All this land," murmured Eriale. "It's so desolate, so lonely."
"It will be full of people again someday," Fineghal told her. "In a lifetime or two, folk will come to take up the land that has fallen into disuse. They'll make a good life for themselves, and kings will rise to defend them against those who want to take it from them. It's only a matter of time."
"I hope you're right," Aeron said. "For the past two days, I've been wondering if this is how things will go if we can't undo the Shadow Stone's spell. Each year another house falls empty, another field grows wild, a stone wall falls and is not rebuilt. The circle of light and life around every hearth shrinking closer and closer, until all who are left wait shivering for the darkness to fall. It won't be a quick end, or a noble one."
That night, they came to a small crossroads with a battered old inn sitting beside it. A worn sign creaked from above the door, and warm yellow light seeped out from shuttered windows. Horses stamped and shuffled in the large stable yard beside the building. Aeron was tired and sore from riding, and he did not look forward to another night of camping underneath the cold, clammy mists. He reined in his horse and regarded the innhouse with a thoughtful look.
"Should we stop here for the night?" he asked.
Eriale nodded emphatically. "A warm bed would be worth a handful of gold."
Fineghal hesitated. "I've never been comfortable in such places, but we need the rest, and it would be good to stable the horses someplace warm for a night." He sat up straight in the saddle and muttered a few words in Elvish, drawing his hand over his face. When his hand fell again, Fineghal's elven features were gone, replaced by the careworn, blunt features of a human mercenary nearing his fiftieth year. His elven tunic had become a shirt of sweat-stained ring mail, and he'd even added a slight paunch to disguise his rail-thin build. He turned to Aeron. "You'd be wise to conceal your own features, too," he said. "In my experience, the elves are sometimes not welcome in a house such as this."
Aeron shrugged and worked the same spell. He could not help noticing that he was able to master it with much less effort than it had taken Fineghal; his ability to draw on magic from a source beyond the diminished Weave was a significant advantage as the magic of life and light ebbed away from the world. He settled for masking himself as a plain forester, although his own traveling garb was fairly close to that anyway. "I'm ready," he said. "Let's go in."
They led their mounts into the innyard and stabled the horses themselves, since no servants appeared to help them. After watering the animals and rubbing them down with what little dry straw they could find, they gathered up their saddlebags and headed into the inn's common room, leaving Baillegh outside to watch over their mounts.
It was a dirty room of unfinished wood, rendered almost uninhabitable by a badly made fire that put out more smoke than heat or light. A dozen or so men, farmers and teamsters by the look of them, sat around the room's low tables. In one corner, five mailed swordsmen wearing the insignia of the King of Oslin kept to themselves. Aeron selected an unoccupied table at random and dropped onto one rickety stool, his saddlebags by his knee. He tried to ignore the hard stares the other patrons subjected them to. "Friendly crowd," he muttered to his companions.
"Hard times," said Fineghal. "Strangers always come under suspicion when things aren't right."
They waited a long time before an overworked tavern-maid appeared at their table. She might have been a pretty girl once, but her eyes were dull and glazed and her frame was too lean, as if the life had been wrung out of her drop by drop. "What d'ya care for, gentlemen?" she asked in a mechanical voice.
"Ale," Aeron replied. "The best of what you've got. And we'll need rooms for the night, and feed for our horses."
"That'll be ten gold drakes, in advance," she said.
"Ten drakes!" Eriale recoiled in surprise. "That's a prince's ransom. You must be joking!"
The tired barmaid merely looked at her. "Pay or not, it's your choice. But that's what it will cost you."
"Five drakes should buy us lodging for the week," Fineghal said to the barmaid. "But I've no wish to sleep outside tonight, so I'll give you three now and two tomorrow morning for a place to sleep and a meal."
The woman narrowed her eyes, studying Fineghal for a long moment befo
re agreeing. She turned away to fetch their ale. While she was gone, one of the soldiers rose from his table, sauntered over, and kicked a chair into place beside Eriale. He was a pock-faced man with dense black hair on his arms and a gap-toothed, yellow smile. The soldier offered Eriale a leering wink and said to Fineghal, "I see you're a fellow swordsman. Where're you bound?"
"Mordulkin," Fineghal replied.
"A long way," said the soldier. He leaned back in his chair, folding his hairy arms. "Taking service there?"
Fineghal replied with a shrug. "There's always work to be found in the city."
"Especially with war in the air," the soldier observed. He studied Fineghal, his eyes narrowed. Despite his affable manner, he was not nearly so drunk as he wanted them to think he was. "Who do you intend to sell your sword to?"
"Doesn't matter."
"Stay out of Akanax's service," the soldier said, "unless you want to fight against wizardry." He made a sour face, leaning over to spit on the floor.
Aeron and Fineghal exchanged guarded looks. "Wizardry?" asked Aeron.
"No right man would take up such foul habits," the soldier declared. "It's a sign of the times, I suppose. Dead walking, fields rotting, people forgetting who they are and what they do. It's all the work of wizards, I tell you. We'd be better off without 'em."
"What do wizards have to do with Akanax?" Eriale asked.
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