The Shadow Stone

by Richard Baker

  The elven mage fell silent. His eyes flicked past Aeron to the soldiers rushing into the forest, beating the brush with their sword blades. “This discussion is not over yet. Now, come! We must get away from this place.” He wheeled and sprinted into the dark verdancy of the forest, vanishing almost faster than Aeron could see.

  Fineghal did not speak to Aeron for days after they fled into the forest. They avoided the torch-lit manhunt with a few simple tricks of woodcraft and magic, but the wizard’s features blazed with fury when Aeron tried to break the silence. Cold judgment mantled the ageless elven lord, an impenetrable barrier that Aeron dared not breach. Bitterly Fineghal moved deep into the Maerchwood, seeking the shelter of Caerhuan. Aeron trailed helplessly in his wake.

  The cold white walls of the elven tower brought no relief. Fineghal spent long hours each day in the forest, speaking no word to Aeron when he came or went. Two days passed as Aeron waited for the wizard to berate or punish him. He tried to distract himself with his studies, but he had no desire to grapple with unknown magics or press the foreign shapes of spells into his mind. He was dreadfully worried for Eriale, although he hoped that his flight had won her some measure of safety. But the fearsome image that banned rest from his heart was the memory of roaring flame and the screams of Miroch as he withered and died like a moth caught in a candle.

  After days of staring out over the endless torrent and the chaotic waters of the Winding River, Aeron came to a decision. He rose, returned to the tower, and carried his pouch of glyphwoods to the rocky bluff. He pulled the carving for the fire spell from his collection and weighed it in his hand, looking out over the gorge. With an anguished cry, he hurled the slender rod of wood end over end into the foaming waters.

  He felt Fineghal’s presence behind him as the elven lord watched the spell wood vanish in the foam. “Does that ease your heart?” he asked quietly.

  “No,” said Aeron. “I didn’t want to kill him, Fineghal. But when I think about it, I would do it again, to keep him from hurting Eriale. Or me. What does that make me?”

  “Killing is a hard thing. When you kill, you murder a small part of your own spirit. Fear the day when it does not trouble you to take a life,” Fineghal said. “Taking that which you have not earned is an offense to the spirit, too.”

  “If I hadn’t known how to cast fire hand, Miroch might have raped or killed her,” Aeron rasped.

  “Better that you hadn’t set foot in Maerchlin. Miroch would have had no cause to trouble Eriale, no reason to fire your neighbor’s house. And you would have had no reason to kill him, Aeron.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. You don’t have kinfolk in Phoros Raedel’s dungeons.”

  Fineghal looked away, a flicker of unreadable emotion crossing his face. Emboldened, Aeron pursued him and spoke to his back. “I’m human, Fineghal. I have a heart! You may find it noble to stand watch, never interfering, but I can’t do that. Not when people I care for are in danger. If that means that you’ve failed to teach me patience, then so be it. I wasn’t meant to learn it.”

  “You can’t deny your heritage, Aeron. You are of the Tel’Quessir.” The elven lord wrapped his cloak around his shoulders against the wind and spray, his face white with anger. He measured Aeron for a long moment, and imperceptibly his gaze softened. “And yet you are human, too. Maybe you are right, Aeron. I might have found a better course for you if I had intervened. Your failure is my failure.” Stretching out one arm, he breathed a few soft words and beckoned. From the white, booming rapids, a small length of wood flew, tumbling into his hand. “Take your glyphwood. The spell has been cast, and the fault does not lie here.”

  “I’m never casting that spell again.”

  “You may have need of it someday, Aeron. It is foolish to forget what you have learned.” Fineghal passed one hand over the duarran and dried it with a simple magic. Then he handed it to Aeron.

  Aeron looked at the glyphwood for a long time before returning it to his pouch. “I’m going to go back. I can’t let Phoros Raedel terrorize Eriale and Kestrel any longer.”

  “Aeron, you can’t defeat Raedel.”

  “You could, Fineghal,” Aeron said bitterly.

  “Whether or not that is true, I will not attempt it. It would be reckless and irresponsible of me.”

  “So you’d unseat a bandit lord in Villon, but the one in Maerchlin is beneath your notice?”

  Fineghal’s eyes flashed. “I live to serve Calmaercor, Aeron. Baerskos of Villon pillaged the old places of my people, and so I acted. But I refuse to endanger the land I guard by setting my hand against Phoros Raedel, his master in Oslin, and behind him, the Overking of Akanax.”

  “Then I’m on my own,” Aeron snorted.

  “I beg you: Do not throw away your life in an attempt to end Phoros Raedel’s.”

  The young forester shook his head. “Whatever it takes, I mean to get Kestrel out of Raedel’s dungeons. If Kestrel escapes, Eriale and he can leave Maerchlin. They’ve no other kin there. Would you be willing to find a place for them, maybe in Saden or Rodanar? Or is that interfering?”

  Fineghal’s voice was frigid. “Yes. I would help them, Aeron. But be warned that I will no longer teach you if you wield your magic against Raedel. I did not share my knowledge with you so that you could spite your enemies. You have it within your grasp to do much more than that.” He wheeled and strode away, raising his hand for Baillegh. The hound shot one mournful look at Aeron and then trotted after her master.

  Aeron watched Fineghal leave, shaking with suppressed emotion from the confrontation. To his surprise, the elven lord halted and glanced at him one more time. “I must tend to the eastern meadows for a few days,” he called. “Stay here and study what you will. I am not accustomed to being castigated by half-human striplings, but I will overlook the words you spoke in anger if you, too, put it in the past. Or, if that does not suit you, then go to Maerchlin and do what you think you must. But if I return and find that you are not here, Aeron, you will not be welcome in Caerhuan again.”

  Five

  Aeron remained on the bluff, deep in thought, until the sun sank into the west, staining the cold waters below with a thousand brilliant colors. Fineghal’s parting words troubled him greatly. The elf lord was not given to exaggeration. Never to study magic again … Aeron couldn’t bear the thought. He’d been changed by the year he’d spent under Fineghal’s tutelage. He was not the simple woodcutter’s lad he’d once been. Magic engaged his mind, his heart, on a level so intimate and demanding that it had become part of him. And he’d come to understand that he was only scratching the surface of what he might someday learn.

  But on the other horn of his dilemma, Aeron could not stand by and let Phoros Raedel exact his vengeance by striking at Kestrel and Eriale. As far as he was concerned, Aeron had given Regos and Phoros exactly what they deserved when he wounded them last summer, and even Miroch’s death had been nothing more than self-defense. But as long as Phoros Raedel was the lord of the land, the young tyrant was free to do anything he liked in order to secure his own brand of justice. Six dozen swordsmen in Castle Raedel ensured that Raedel could interpret the law any way he cared to. What choice did Aeron really have?

  He turned and headed back to the tower, thinking of what he could do to even the odds against Raedel. Fineghal had told him to study what he would; as long as he was going to defy the wizard’s will, he might as well stretch the letter of Fineghal’s parting words. As night fell, Aeron let himself into the tower’s library, searching for Rhymes of Magic and Wonder. The spell of shapechanging was still far beyond his abilities, even if it hadn’t been erased by his carelessness, but there were plenty of other spells that might lie within his ability in the old bardic text. I’ll need every edge I can get if I hope to pull this off, he thought. I might be rash by Fineghal’s standards, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t take the time to do this right.

  He found the text where he’d left it. Lighting a lamp with a simple ca
ntrip Fineghal had taught him almost a year ago, Aeron sat down and began to page through the spellbook, looking for the enchantments he’d need.

  Aeron worked at a feverish pace, refusing to allow exhaustion or emotion to distract him. Now that he’d chosen his course, he intended to follow it no matter what the consequences. Although he hated to waste the time, he forced himself to sleep on the second night, readying himself for the day to follow.

  In the gray hours before dawn, ten days after his confrontation with Miroch and the Raedel armsmen, Aeron rose and found himself alone in Caerhuan still, with no sign of Fineghal. He turned to the glyphwoods he’d prepared and settled down to commit the spells to memory. Within an hour, he’d mastered six spells at once, a feat he’d never managed before. The minor victory felt cold and empty.

  With his spells readied, Aeron stuffed his pack with provisions, shouldered his bow, and set off for Maerchlin. The village was a good forty miles or more from Caerhuan, and he used the elven run that Fineghal had taught him to cover half the distance by the time the sun set. Now that he was on his way, he was eager to press forward and get on with it, but again he made himself lie down and rest while the moon sank beneath the horizon and the darkest part of the night went by.

  Before dawn, he woke and gathered his things, setting off for the village to the north. He ran easily for hours, stripped to the waist to stay cool in the sticky warmth of the day. Sweat streamed from his brow and glistened on his back.

  Late in the afternoon, he arrived at the edges of Maerchlin. The fields were tall and ripe, corn and grain higher than his head. Aeron deliberately avoided Kestrel’s homestead, deciding not to risk an encounter with guardsmen or trackers watching over the place. He settled down under the shadows of the wood, a mile around the village from his old home, and rested from his travels.

  Eventually the long, hot afternoon faded into a warm dusk. By twos and threes, the townsfolk sought out their homes as the light failed. Aeron waited until the sun had been down an hour or more before he finally stirred from his hiding place. “Time to get started,” he told himself. Standing in the shadows beneath the trees, he dusted himself with sand and murmured the words to the invisibility spell. As before, the dweomer seemed to immerse him in a smoky, dark glass. For a moment Aeron feared that the spell’s effect might ruin his own vision, too, but slowly his eyes adjusted. Confident in his concealment, he moved into the town.

  First he ventured through back lanes and empty pastures to Kestrel’s house, coming up on it from the town. Lights showed through the windows, but he spotted a pair of dark-clothed guards keeping watch over the house from a short distance. Aeron frowned and slid forward silently, passing Raedel’s soldiers without a sound. He crouched by the open window and peered inside.

  To his surprise, Shiela Goldsheaf and her husband Toric were sharing a small crock of stew in the hearthroom. Aeron glanced around to make sure that the guards were out of earshot, then whispered, “Shiela? It’s Aeron. Stay where you are and keep your voice low. The guards haven’t seen me.”

  The stout matron looked up in amazement and returned her attention to her stew. “You shouldn’t have come here, Aeron,” she said. “You’re to be killed on sight here.”

  In the darkness, he smiled. “I’ll take pains not to be seen. Kestrel’s still in the castle dungeons?”

  “Yes.” Despite herself, Shiela glanced toward the window. “Eriale, too. There was talk of burning her as a witch, but the guards swore they’d seen you kill Miroch with sorcery, so Raedel’s holding her for conspiracy.”

  Aeron nodded. “I thought that would be the case. You’re welcome to the house, Shiela. I don’t suppose that we’ll be needing it anymore.”

  “Aeron, wait! What are you going to do?”

  “Farewell. Don’t ever tell anyone you spoke with me here.” He glided off into the night, slipping past the guards easily, and made his way by open fields and farm lanes toward the castle itself.

  The fortress was an old shell keep ringed by a newer curtain wall. The lower bailey was a small, muddy courtyard surrounded by crowded stables and barracks. A second wall guarded the upper bailey, the reserve of the lords of the castle. An old ditch circled the castle, spanned by a wooden trestle at the main gate. Four soldiers stood watch by the yawning doorway, their mail gleaming in the bright lantern light by the gate. Aeron paused at the far end of the footbridge and crouched by the woodwork, despite the dark mantle that cloaked him.

  They cannot see me, he told himself. I have nothing to fear as long as I move slowly and silently and don’t walk into anyone. Steeling himself, Aeron stole quietly across the bridge and slipped past the guardsmen, edging within an arm’s reach of the two who stood beside the door. For one perverse moment, he was struck by the insane desire to shout in the guard-sergeant’s ear simply to watch him jump, but he clamped his mouth shut and moved on.

  Once inside the wall, Aeron darted across the bailey. The courtyard was exactly as he remembered it from the magical test Fineghal had administered more than a year ago, and his neck itched at the memory of the hangman’s noose. He almost lost his nerve, standing still and silent in the middle of the courtyard while he wrestled with his fears. After a long moment, Aeron forced himself to move on, passing the inner gatehouse that protected the keep from the outer bailey. Only one sentry stood guard here, and the fellow was leaning against a wall, dozing.

  Inside the keep, Aeron turned right and slid along the wall. He knew that the keep’s eastern tower served as a dungeon. He met no one within the echoing stone corridor that led from the entry hall to the tower. Shortly, Aeron came to the heavy, iron-bound door to Raedel’s prisons. Lantern light and low conversation spilled out from the guardroom inside.

  He set his hand to the door but stopped. What would the guards inside think if they saw the door open by itself? And even if he managed to slip past them and into the dungeons, how could he bring Kestrel by them again? Aeron scowled and scratched at his chin. He had a spell to deal with the guardsmen, but he couldn’t risk alarming them by just walking straight in. He thought about it for a long moment and struck upon a plan.

  Facing the door, he balled his fist and hammered on the sturdy wood with all his might, rattling the door on its hinges. “For the love of Assuran, come in already!” cried an exasperated voice from within. Aeron didn’t relent; he pounded the door again, until he heard the scrape of a chair being pushed back. He stopped and stepped to one side.

  An angry guard with a bristling mustache threw open the room’s heavy door, glaring into the hall. “Hey, knock it off!” Seeing no one outside, the guard swore viciously and stomped into the hall, looking left and right. Aeron quickly stepped inside and out of the way.

  The guardroom was small, with just two jailers on watch. The guard who had come to the door returned a moment later, shaking his head and swearing. “Someone’s playing a prank on us,” he muttered.

  “Probably that rascal Darod,” the second guard said. “I guess you didn’t see anything?”

  “No, the weasel must’ve run off. He’ll be back, though. He’s not bright enough to pull a trick just once.”

  While the men talked, Aeron circled the room, taking stock of the situation. The guardroom made up the lower floor of the tower, and a staircase spiraled down into the tower’s dungeons. On one wall, a heavy ring of keys hung by a hook. The first guard eventually returned to the table, where he and the second man were engaged in a game of hop-stone with ivory tokens. No other guards, the prisoners below. Good. Aeron moved into position.

  Setting his jaw, he began to work a spell of slumber he had mastered not three days ago in Fineghal’s library. As he reached for the Weave to shape the enchantment, his cloak of invisibility faded, but both guardsmen were asleep before they could even draw sword against the wispy apparition that faced them. Aeron quickly locked the outer door, bound and gagged the guards securely, and retrieved the ring of keys from the wall. Then he descended into the dungeon.


  At the bottom of the stairs, he found a rusty iron grate. This opened easily to the second key he tried, and he pressed on down a long, dim corridor lined by small doors on either side. “Kestrel?” he called softly. “Are you here?”

  “Who’s that?” A weak voice replied from a cell at the end of the corridor. Aeron hurried to the door and peered in the barred window. It was dark inside, but his elven eyesight aided him. Kestrel pushed himself to his feet, brushing matted straw from his clothes. “Aeron? Is that you?”

  “It’s me, Kestrel.” Aeron grinned. Although he looked as if he hadn’t bathed in a year, Kestrel seemed in good health. “I’ve got the keys. I’ll have you out in a moment.”

  The old forester rubbed his hands together and came up to the door. “Phoros is after your blood, Aeron. You’d have been better off to stay away from Maerchlin altogether.”

  “I tried, Kestrel. But when I heard that Phoros had imprisoned you and Eriale, I decided I had to do something. It’s not right for you to be jailed for something I did.”

  “Nonsense, lad. In the first place, I did do something. I went straight to old Lord Raedel after you left and tried to set things square. Phoros wasn’t at all happy with the idea of someone telling his father your side of the story. He remembered that when his father fell ill and he took over the ruling of the land. Besides, you’re like a son to me. I’d give up my freedom to know that you were safe.” Kestrel’s eyes gleamed in the dim light.

  “Here, I’ve found the right key.” With a scrape and click, the lock opened, and Aeron reached in to help Kestrel out.

  The woodsman stretched and smiled. “Tchazzar’s sword, it’s good to be out of that cell.” Then his eyes narrowed. “Wait a moment. Aeron, how’d you get in here?”