The Shadow Stone

by Richard Baker

  “Doesn’t it strike you as a possibility?”

  “If that’s the case, why bother to show me anything at all?” Aeron replied. “We’ve been working for weeks on some of his conjurations and enchantments. He wouldn’t have gone to all that trouble if he meant to kill me.”

  “Unless he deemed it necessary to gain your trust,” Sarim said blackly. “What better way?”

  “No, I don’t believe it,” Aeron answered. “I’m different, Sarim. I can become something greater than any other student here. And I mean to. Regardless of what you think of Oriseus’s ethics, he can teach me lore that no other master can.”

  “That’s your arrogance speaking, Aeron,” Sarim said.

  “Is it arrogance if I can back it up with ability?” Aeron said. “Sarim, I don’t trust Oriseus. I’ll exercise all due caution. But, if he shows me the power that slew Raemon and Telemachon, I’ll have the answers to their deaths.”

  Sarim’s eyes flashed, and he stood abruptly. “As you wish,” he said. “Your studies are your own; that’s the principle we live by here at the college. But they’re my business, as well, since I am your sponsor and share responsibility for you. I will join you this evening to see how your lessons with Oriseus go.”

  “But—”

  “Enough, Student Aeron!” Sarim held his gaze until Aeron reluctantly acceded. The tall mage paused a moment, then added, “Aeron, I am only interested in your safety. I do not intend to intrude more than I have to in order to be sure of Oriseus’s intentions.” He glanced at the window outside. “It’s getting late. I’ll leave you to your reflections.”

  Aeron watched Sarim leave, deep in thought. I never should have mentioned the tower, he grumbled in his mind. Sarim didn’t need to know about my lessons with Oriseus. Then again, the High Invoker may have been right.

  He stood, pushing himself up from the desk. Halfheartedly he began to rummage through the stacks of paper and flip idly through the tomes. Many were incomprehensible to him; Master Telemachon had had a full lifetime of learning, and Aeron couldn’t even begin to make sense out of most of his research. One book, marked by a twisted serpent sigil, caught his eye. He picked it up, skimmed a few pages, and found a slip of yellowed parchment caught between two leaves, covered in Telemachon’s crabbed handwriting. It was a column of letters beside strange, curving marks and dots.

  He struggled to place it for a moment, chewing his tongue. Wait! The Rauric scroll, the yugoloth’s bracelet! It’s the same lettering! Aeron dropped the book and clutched the scrap of paper in his hands, peering at it. The letters were in ancient Rauric, arrayed in a single row. One mark or whorl stood under each. He realized that he was looking at a letter-for-letter conversion—the key he needed to understand what was in the mysterious scroll he’d taken from the library months ago.

  Should I take this to Sarim? he thought. He hardly even considered the notion before dismissing it out of hand. He’d see what he could make of it first. If Sarim confiscated it or demanded the old Rauric scroll, Aeron would never know what was hidden within. He folded the parchment, slipped it into his sleeve, and hurried back to his own chambers, sealing Telemachon’s room as he left. The shadows were growing long as he crossed the quadrangle; the afternoon was fading to dusk.

  In his chamber, he bolted the door and sat down with the old scroll. The Rauric text was a circuitous, meandering narrative by an old scholar named Derschius. Aeron had assumed that it was a straight translation of the mysterious second column of writing, but now he suspected something else entirely. In fact, now he thought that it might not have anything to do with Derschius’s work. Ancient scribes had often scraped or written over older texts, especially if they didn’t seem useful. Derschius had probably had no better idea than Aeron what the other column of text said.

  Ignoring the scribe’s scratchings, Aeron looked carefully at the first lines of the odd text. On a piece of blank paper, he carefully copied the symbols in the exact sequence, leaving plenty of space between each line. Then, using the key he’d found in Telemachon’s office, he searched for each symbol’s corresponding letter. When he had finished the first line, it read, “The Chants of Arcainasyr, as declaimed by Macchius the Ebon Flame.”

  “It’s an artificial alphabet,” he breathed in amazement. The words themselves were in ancient Rauric, but each letter had been replaced by an arbitrary symbol. Macchius, or whoever had dared transcribe the chants, had invented the cipher to mask its contents. Aeron frowned, wondering what in Faerûn he was looking at. Nothing in the title meant anything to him.

  And it can’t be completely artificial, he realized. The markings on the yugoloth’s bracelet matched these symbols. They have power, significance. It’s not a mundane fabrication to hide this text only. Aeron set his pen to the tip of his tongue, thinking. Deciphering the old scroll might be dangerous. If the symbols could bind a yugoloth, they could certainly carry curses as well. “Well, I won’t know until I start,” he said aloud. He pulled out a sheet of common parchment and set to work by the yellow light of the late afternoon, his pen scratching in the stillness of his chambers.

  At the appointed hour, Aeron set down his pen. Pale and shaken, he rolled up the chants and, after a moment’s thought, stuffed them into an unmarked scroll tube, stashing a simple text on alchemy over it to conceal its presence. It didn’t seem like a good thing to leave lying around. Absently, he dressed and stepped out into the cool night. The late summer heat had finally broken, and the night was cool, windy, and damp, with scudding clouds concealing a crescent moon.

  He hadn’t had a chance to make a complete translation of the scroll, and he doubted he would ever finish the work. The chants deserved to be left in obscurity. Aeron understood exactly where the ancient Imaskari had found their power, and it sickened him. Each chant was a litany of destruction, a hateful incantation of decay and foulness. Many were framed as prayers to nameless deities who had poisoned the ancient world with lies, shadows, and war.

  Oriseus had once asked him how humans wielded magic through the Weave and dared him to imagine a way in which a sorcerer could wield magic without touching the Weave. Now Aeron knew. Creatures such as the yugoloths—and even fouler things—came from beyond the circles of the world. The sorcerer-lords of the Imaskari had won their power by binding dark spirits of the planes beyond in their own bodies, gaining unspeakable power at the cost of their souls. Just as the Weave was tied to the life of the world, shadow magic was intertwined with forces of chaos and decay that fed on the world.

  Aeron hoped that there was a chance that he had misunderstood Oriseus, that in the forgotten lore of the old Imaskari mages he’d found something clean, a redeemable power, but he didn’t think it likely. He had to go through with his appointment to make sure that what he suspected was true. If it was not, then he had no reason to fear Oriseus. But if it was, the scroll of Macchius and Oriseus’s own words would damn him.

  He circled the ruins slowly until he spied a faint light bobbing in the darkness ahead. “Hello? Lord Oriseus?” he called, advancing slowly.

  “Here, Aeron,” the conjuror replied. He emerged from the tumbled heap of cold stones, holding a blue-glowing staff in front of him. The eerie light shadowed his features in a macabre fashion. Oriseus grinned fiercely, stalking forward. “Are you ready?”

  Aeron closed his eyes, hoping that he could conceal his true fears from the High Conjuror. “I am,” he answered. Behind Oriseus, Aeron noticed several other cloaked shapes waiting, students and some of the younger masters. Dalrioc Corynian glared at him with ill-disguised contempt, but held his peace. Aeron took an involuntary pace backward, glancing at Oriseus. “What are the others doing here?”

  Oriseus shrugged. “You are not my only student, Aeron. Here we all are equals. Now, let us be about our night’s work.”

  “And what exactly is that, Lord Oriseus?” From the shadows of the tower’s ruins stepped Master Sarim, dressed in his yellow robes. “You won’t mind if I attend, will you?�
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  “Master Sarim. This is an unexpected surprise.” Oriseus’s face was inscrutable in the darkness, but Aeron could sense the irritation in his voice. The conjuror glanced at the ring of students and sorcerers behind him as if to ferret out the individual who’d informed Sarim of their meeting time.

  “I won’t interfere with your lesson, Oriseus,” Sarim continued. “Go on. Pretend I’m not here.”

  To Aeron’s surprise, Oriseus’s face split into an ingratiating grin. “Of course, Master Sarim. We are honored by your presence. I shall proceed.” He turned away and took a few steps into the cracked rubble that mantled the pyramid. Exchanging silent looks, Aeron and the others followed in a rough semicircle. The lean sorcerer halted suddenly, stooped, and brushed dirt and overgrowth from a red-black slab gleaming among the stones. “Help me clear this,” he instructed, and two of the nearest students knelt to assist. In a few moments, they’d uncovered a man-sized stone that didn’t match any of the rubble or foundation stones nearby.

  “What’s that?” demanded Dalrioc Corynian. He hadn’t bothered to get his hands dirty with the work.

  “Our portal,” Oriseus answered. “Tonight we will walk in the plane of shadow. This is one of those rare places where the walls between the worlds are thin enough to part with nothing more than an act of will.”

  Sarim raised an eyebrow. “A dangerous place to visit, Oriseus. Is this wise?”

  “My lesson lies within,” Oriseus retorted. “Do you object?” The Calishite fell silent, although Aeron could sense his concern and agitation. Oriseus turned to the other mages present. “Any of you who wish to depart now may go. This is the time to leave if you have second thoughts.”

  Satisfied that no one was leaving, Oriseus returned his attention to the slab of cold stone, speaking over his shoulder. “Stay close to me when we enter, and do not stray from the path I choose. Master Sarim is correct in observing that the shadow plane is dangerous, and you must be very careful.”

  No one required any more clarification. Dalrioc cleared his throat and asked, “When does the portal open?”

  “When the light of the waning moon falls on this stone. That is why I left it covered with dirt.” Oriseus stared up into the sky, watching the passing clouds. “Ah, here we go. The moon will emerge in a minute. When it does, I shall go first. The rest of you follow one by one, waiting two or three heartbeats each.”

  Aeron looked up at the sky. Overhead, the dark cloud glowed silver along its trailing edge, and through wisps of dark mist, the luminous crescent appeared. He glanced back at the stone. Silver light rippled and flowed as if the rock had suddenly become a liquid mirror. Oriseus waited a moment to let the shimmering settle, then stepped onto the stone. It was as if he stepped into a puddle of shining water, slowly sinking to his knees, his waist, his chest, and then vanishing silently as the silvery moonstuff closed over his head. Although each man there was a mage, no one was untouched by Oriseus’s feat. After a brief hesitation, Dalrioc Corynian pushed himself forward and plunged into the shadow pool, flailing for his footing but sinking out of sight. One by one, they all followed, leaving Aeron and Sarim to the end.

  They paused at the brink of the portal and exchanged a glance. “Do you still wish to do this, Aeron?” Sarim asked.

  The fear he’d suppressed all night threatened to overwhelm Aeron; all his instincts railed against following Oriseus into the stone. His feet were rooted to the ground, and cold sweat trickled down his back. This is a fine time to come to my senses, he thought. “We’re here,” he answered. “I have to see this through.”

  “Very well,” Sarim said. He stepped onto the stone and glided through it, a luminescent ghost in the moonlight.

  With a determined grimace, Aeron set his foot on the silvery surface of the stone and stepped into it, sinking slowly into the cold light as if the stone were bottomless. As he slid into the portal, a chill, sharp as a razor, climbed his body, so intense that his feet ached with cold by the time he had sunk to his chest. His heart surged with panic, and he desperately gulped for air as his head sank under the moon mirror, leaving nothing but a ripple in his wake.

  When Aeron opened his eyes again, he was standing beneath a starless sky, far hills on the horizon limned by an eldritch glow. Bitter air seared his nose and throat, drying the tears in his eyes. He still stood on the acropolis, but the hill was different. Below him, crowded Cimbar had vanished, leaving only a handful of spare lights glimmering faintly along a sluggish, leaden bay. The topography was not quite correct; there was less water, and the hills seemed steeper and more forbidding. Overhead, the cold skies were empty of all but a few dim and hateful stars.

  “Come, Aeron. This is no place to dawdle.”

  Aeron turned at the sound of Oriseus’s voice. It took him a moment to understand what he saw. The High Conjuror beckoned from within a tall shadow, silhouetted against a looming shape that towered into the night sky. Oriseus was shrouded in a violet aura, a faint flickering light that stemmed from the power of his will and the skill of his magic. Marching toward the great dark shape, each of the other mages was similarly marked, although the color and strength of their auras varied. Aeron glanced down at his bone-white hands and found a delicate blue faerie light dancing over his skin. The sight fascinated him, and he stared in frozen wonder, the unnaturally still and frigid air slicing through his chest with each breath.

  The conjuror frowned with impatience and repeated his summons, holding out his hand. “Aeron, the others have gone ahead to the temple. Come on.”

  “The temple?” Aeron asked, puzzled. He took two steps toward Oriseus, the cold, hard ground crunching beneath his boots. He looked past the red-robed master, and his heart stopped. Behind Oriseus, the Broken Pyramid stood intact, looking as it must have centuries ago. No other building of the college, or even the city, was mirrored within the shadow, but the pyramid stood, a stark and inescapable monolith beneath the eternal dark. His jaw fell open. “It stands again!”

  “It never fell here. That is the way of the shadow. It remembers things lost to the daylight, places long gone, people long dead. In some places, it even holds the memory of what might have been. The city below is ephemeral, a vanity of no importance. But the pyramid is quite real here, Aeron.” Oriseus stepped forward and took Aeron’s arm in a firm hand, steering him into line. “This is the least of the wonders I have to show you today, lad. Now follow me.”

  Nodding mutely, Aeron fell behind the others, trudging to a dark and narrow door in the pyramid’s flank while his mind reeled numbly. Oriseus moved on to shepherd them all within, watching vigilantly. Aeron spared one more look for the sere hilltop, stretching out with his senses, searching for something more than the empty cold that surrounded him. His unease was growing by the moment, a hopeless panic that frightened him all the more because he could not pinpoint its source. Something was terribly wrong here.

  The Weave, he realized. It’s gone. The stony earth was cold and dead, the air still and lifeless. The spark, the flame of the living world was missing here. No magic, no life, existed for him to perceive. Yet as he adjusted to his surroundings, he sensed the barest trickle of magic. The shadow held the merest whisper of the Weave, but it was not entirely desiccated.

  As Aeron turned his attention to the pyramid, he became aware of a dark, hot energy suffusing the structure, a tangible emanation of potency that he could sense as surely as if he turned his face to the sun during the day. It streamed and coiled away from the obelisk like a leaping flame, invisible and silent, yet fraught with unearthly power. The thick, ancient stones could barely contain the raging conflagration within. The sensation terrified Aeron, yet he hungered to feel the black warmth on his face, to stand unharmed in the dark pyre and tame the power.

  Aeron scrabbled forward after the others, eagerly moving to view with his own eyes the wonder hidden within the stone tomb. He didn’t even spare Oriseus a glance as he passed between the blank door and felt himself pulled down the long, sil
ent corridor of worked stone that led within. He trailed Dalrioc Corynian as the circle of sorcerers wound through the lightless labyrinth of the pyramid’s innards, spiraling downward through winding stairs and echoing chambers until they reached a chamber set beneath the center of the structure. Midnight power thrummed in the stones under his feet.

  Oriseus pushed the door open, leading the way into a wide, low vault of dark stone and squat columns. Arched galleries circled the room, and intricate bas-reliefs defaced the walls, but Aeron had no eye for these. The stone in the center of the room seized his attention.

  It was a simple thing, an uneven shard of smooth, glossy black rock about the size and shape of a horse’s skull. A weird lambent light danced in its ebon depths. It was bound in rune-carved iron bands, suspended in a rude circular stand of black metal. The mages surrounded it in an even circle five paces wide. For a long moment they gazed on it in silence, unable or unwilling to speak. Finally Master Sarim wrenched his gaze away. “Oriseus? What is it?”

  The High Conjuror did not reply immediately. He stepped close and laid a hand on the cool rock, his face absent. Finally he answered. “Thousands of years ago, the Imaskari arose, first of all men to walk in this world. Unfettered by the powers and restrictions of gods, they had nothing to defy their understanding, their comprehension. The glories of Netheril and fallen Raumanthar were mere reflections of the first mages, the sorcerer lords who mastered magic in that forgotten age.

  “And so the Imaskari ruled vast lands thousands of years before the rise of Mulhorand, of Unther, of Netheril and the other ancient kingdoms of man. They roamed the planes, building portals to a thousand times and worlds. And so they aroused the ire of the petty gods who rule over this sphere. These powers sought to bring down the Imaskari by withholding the Weave from them. The lords of the Imaskari thus turned to a source of magic from beyond this world, a source of magic that they could wield without answering to the rude demipowers of this sphere. They brought the Shadow Stone into this world, establishing a link or conduit through which they could draw on an energy that exists outside all time and space.”