The Shadow Stone ta-1

by Richard Baker

  Across the room, Melisanda looked up. "What did you say?"

  "I said, I think we've got a chance," Aeron said. He crossed his legs and returned the rest of Fineghal's tokens to their pouch, holding the rune-eraser in his right hand. "I need to memorize this spell. Keep your eyes open for trouble; it may take me a while."

  Time passed without measure, as the light slowly failed and dusk fell over Cimbar. Aeron couldn't say if it took an hour or even two to force the shape of the spell into his consciousness; he was tired, his chest still hurt from his fight with Dalrioc and his side ached from the novice's attack, and above all the driving awareness that he had to memorize Fineghal's erasure spell quickly slowed his efforts to master it. Eventually, he stirred and stood, dropping the green, smooth stone back into its pouch.

  "I'm ready," he announced. "We'll have to go back to the plane of shadow. I have to be close to the stone in order to work this magic."

  "That means returning to the Council Chamber." Melisanda scowled, looking out at the college's courtyard from behind the shutters. "Someone checked the door to the library while you were studying your spell, maybe an hour ago. There were a lot of masters and students moving around the college then, but I haven't seen anyone for a long time. I don't like this."

  "Probably looking for us," Aeron said grimly. "Oriseus must have found Dalrioc by-"

  Before he could continue, Baillegh growled and turned toward the great double doors of the library. The white wolfhound bared her teeth, moving to stand between the mages and the entrance to the room. Aeron sensed a presence just beyond the portal, a cold hunger and filthy blood-thirst that almost stained the air he breathed. He recoiled three steps without even realizing he'd given ground.

  Melisanda paled and edged away as well, sliding around the scroll-littered table. In a frightened whisper she asked, "Aeron, do you feel it?"

  He licked his lips and tried to swallow. "Yes. I think Oriseus has found us."

  Malice and purpose gathered beyond the stout oaken door, pressing against the magical wards that barred entry to the library. For a long moment, the doors almost seemed to bulge inward from the psychic pressure-and then they flew open with a resounding crash. Through the smoldering wreckage emerged a humped, beastlike shape, its ichorous hide gleaming in the deepening dusk. An impossibly long, barbed tongue lolled from between its double-jaws. It paused on the threshold, snuffling loudly while its tiny ears twitched and cocked in different directions; Aeron realized that the creature had no eyes. A silver band marked with whorls and runes clasped one of its clawed forelegs.

  "Aeron," hissed Melisanda. The creature's heavy head swiveled unerringly to face her, fixing her position.

  "It's Oriseus's yugoloth," he replied quietly. "The same one we saw kill Master Raemon, all those years ago."

  As he spoke, the creature turned to face him, too. It advanced slowly into the room, blocking the door with its stocky form. The monster coughed once, a throaty sound of satisfaction.

  "What's it doing here?" Melisanda moved to put the table between her and the yugoloth.

  "Oriseus must have summoned it to find us. That's what yugoloth do-they find things. Once it's got your scent, you'll never throw it off your trail." Aeron pulled his eyes away from the creature for a moment, trying to locate the other doors to the library. One was only about fifteen feet past Melisanda, off to his right. There was another about thirty feet directly behind him, but with one look at the yugoloth's powerful frame he knew he'd never reach it. Quietly he asked Melisanda, "Do you know the glamour of phantasmal sound?"

  "Yes, I do. What's your plan?"

  "I've read a lot about these creatures over the years," Aeron told her. The yugoloth was padding closer, moving up to an easy pounce as long as Aeron showed no sign of fleeing. "They're sightless. I'll conjure a cloud of noxious vapors, which should negate its sense of smell. If you can distract it with illusory sounds, we'll effectively blind it. That's our best chance. Ready?"

  The Vilhonese noblewoman nodded. "I'll follow your lead."

  Aeron glanced at her, and back to the approaching monster. Muttering under his breath, he started his enchantment. The magic he sought seemed to slip away from his fingers, almost wrenched from his grasp by the proximity of the Shadow Stone. He redoubled his efforts, shouting the simple words to the spell as he tried to shape the Weave through sheer force of will. Melisanda started her enchantment and struggled as well, her voice high and cracking with strain.

  The yugoloth froze for a moment as the two mages began to weave their spells, and then rocked back on its heels as if to sit up, its mouth gaping wide. From its stinking maw it shot its vile tongue like a bullwhip. Aeron tried to dodge without losing the effort to build his spell, but the yugoloth's sticky tongue caught him lasso-like, whipping around his shoulders and pinning his arms to his side. With one toss of its armored head, the yugoloth jerked him off his feet and started to drag him to its gnashing fangs. The half-formed spell in Aeron's mind vanished in panic and pain as the stinging barbs dug into his flesh.

  "Melisanda!" he cried.

  Melisanda held to her spell with fierce concentration, finishing the enchantment. With one gesture of her hand, she filled the library with the roaring racket of a great revel, complete with music, singing, the clatter of dishes and the loud buzz of dozens of conversations. The yugoloth growled in distaste, but it ignored the cacophonous sounds for the moment-with Aeron caught in the coils of its tongue, it didn't need to hear what was around it. Digging in its great talons, it reeled Aeron closer to its terrifying fangs.

  Then, like a silver blur, Baillegh launched herself against the monster's flank, knocking it over and seizing a mouthful of its chitinous hide. The wolfhound growled and worried at the back of the yugoloth's neck, cracking its armored plates beneath her powerful jaws. The yugoloth shrieked in pain and rage, momentarily drowning out Melisanda's sound glamour, and lunged back at the hound, but it couldn't get at her while it held Aeron with its tongue. Finally, it released him in order to retract its tongue and meet Baillegh's attack. With catlike swiftness it spun and snapped at the hound, but Baillegh dodged away from its attack.

  Aeron scrambled to his feet, ignoring the blood that streamed from the rough abrasions that circled his body. The yugoloth might have been deafened by Melisanda's spell, but it scrambled after Baillegh with uncanny precision, following her scent in its gaping nostrils while it whipped its tongue back and forth, trying to locate the hound by touch. Baillegh yipped and dodged, looking for an opening to dart in and resume her attack.

  In the corner of his eye, he saw Melisanda snatch up a heavy book and hurl it across the room at the monster, striking it in the flank. Instinctively the yugoloth turned and snapped at empty air. In that moment Baillegh attacked from the other side, her jaws closing on the yugoloth's throat. The fiend wheeled in the air, trying to shake her off. Aeron tried to move closer, trying to decide how he could help Baillegh.

  "Aeron! Try Dalrioc's wand!" shouted Melisanda over the din of her own spell. The yugoloth tried to turn toward her, but Baillegh pulled it back into the fight. With one huge paw it turned on the hound and smashed her to the ground. It broke free of Baillegh's grip and turned against the silver elf hound, its massive jaws gaping wide for the kill.

  Aeron vaulted over the great table in the center of the library to give himself a clear line of fire, snatching the iron scepter from his belt. He aimed it at the yugoloth's back and shouted the weapon's command word. The tip of the scepter glowed white as a thin, pale ray sprang out to strike the monster with a blast of unbearable cold. The chitinous plates that covered its back whitened under the ray and then split with brittle cracking sounds, revealing dark meat underneath that froze solid under the wand's deadly beam. The yugoloth screeched with an awful sound, stampeding blindly through the bookshelves and wreaking awful havoc in the ancient library. Aeron pursued it, firing blast after blast into the monster while Baillegh worried at its flanks.

  Enraged be
yond reason, the yugoloth wheeled and sprang at Aeron-but the mage stood his ground and delivered one final blast of transarctic cold into the creature's face, spearing its head with a lance of ice. It stumbled once, wheezed, and collapsed to the ground, dark ichor seeping from its double jaws. Melisanda allowed her illusory revel to die away, leaving the room curiously silent as they watched for any sign of animation in the creature.

  Aeron moved over to check on Baillegh. The hound was battered but intact, scratched and clawed all along her flanks. She looked up at Aeron and licked his face.

  "Someone must have heard that racket," said Melisanda.

  "I know," said Aeron. "Come on. Let's get out of here while we can. We have to get back to the plane of shadow."

  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 spel
l 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.