The Shadow Stone ta-1

by Richard Baker

  Oriseus smirked and rocked back on his seat. "Ah, Aeron, you cannot understand how delighted I am that someone perceived the skill of my final spell! I wondered if everyone had missed it."

  "It was plain as day. You touched no Weave that I could see. Do you mean no one else noticed?"

  "Aeron, your gift is unique. You are the only one with elven blood among us, and I suspect that you are the only wizard within these walls blessed with mage sight." Oriseus nodded eagerly. "Yes, I used the old magic against Telemachon. He was stronger than I expected."

  There was something almost unhealthy in Oriseus's fevered eyes, the anxious intensity that kept him dancing from foot to foot, trembling and shaking like a man on the verge of a seizure. Aeron sensed danger, risk; a cold hand of caution settled over his heart. But despite himself, he was intrigued. He'd thought he understood where all the pieces fit, but now he realized that at least one part of the puzzle had eluded him. "How did you do it?" he asked quietly.

  Oriseus sighed and spread his hands. "Alas, I cannot explain. How could you describe what you see of the Weave to one of your blind fellows? How could you tell a deaf man what the song of a nightingale is like?" He paced away, hands clasped behind his back. "You are brilliant, Aeron, but you lack the sense you need to wield the power."

  Aeron straightened, glaring at Oriseus. "I don't understand. In our lessons, you've shown me several powerful spells that demand this shadow magic, this source of power beyond the Weave that I can reach and shape. But if I can't perceive this source of magic, you've only been wasting our time by demonstrating spells I cannot work." He snorted. "For that matter, how did you master this ancient magic in the first place?"

  "I did not say that no one can perceive it, Aeron. I merely observed that at the moment you cannot. That can be rectified, if you are strong of will and do not lack courage. As far as my own expertise goes, allow me a few professional secrets for the moment. It would be easier to show you than to explain."

  Fuming with impatience, Aeron scowled. "What must I do?"

  Oriseus grinned and leaned close to Aeron, his dark eyes glittering like jet. "Meet me by the ruins of the Untheric pyramid tonight, an hour before midnight. You won't need any of your books, but you should prepare as many spells of protection and defense as you can manage. We may encounter some frightful dangers in our journey. Oh, and you should ready a spell of night seeing if you know of any. Wizard light may fail us."

  "I have little need of seeing spells," Aeron said. He raised his hand to his almond-shaped eyes. "I've always had a knack for seeing where others cannot. Where are we going, Master Oriseus? And when will we return?"

  Oriseus smiled. "Not far, my boy, not far. Only a few steps, really, but they're some of the hardest steps you'll ever take. We'll be back by morning-if we come back."

  Oriseus's cryptic offer occupied Aeron's thoughts as he absently found his way from the High Conjuror's chambers. Aeron hadn't forgotten that Master Raemon had met his death in the ruins of the obelisk. Had Oriseus extended a similar offer to the Master Abjurer months ago? No trace had been found of the spell that summoned the beast to the college. . and Aeron had seen how Oriseus could work spells that no one else perceived. The High Conjuror's melodramatic admonitions did nothing to ease Aeron's mind.

  He found himself standing in the mouth of the redolent paneled hall leading to Telemachon's chambers. On a sudden impulse, he turned aside, with a furtive glance, and strode over to the door. He was not yet ready to return to his quarters to await nightfall, and the disquiet in his mind demanded some action. If Telemachon knew something about Oriseus, he might have left some record among his books and notes, Aeron thought. It didn't seem wise to walk into Oriseus's circle with his eyes closed.

  The door was sealed with a rune to deter casual trespassers; Aeron concentrated, sought the knot of magical energy that formed the barrier, and slipped it aside with a thought. Telemachon's chambers had been rifled but not ransacked. The disorderly mass of paper and uneven stacks of tomes had been straightened, evidence that someone other than the High Diviner had been here since his death. Aeron carefully circled the room, cataloging its contents in his mind. Nothing seemed to be missing since his last conversation with Lord Telemachon. The longer he looked, the more certain he became that something important was in this room.

  He sat in the heavy carved chair behind the desk, thinking. Telemachon had believed Oriseus killed Master Raemon. Not only had he believed it, he was so certain of it that he made his accusation public and challenged the conjuror when the Ruling Council failed to act.

  "What does that mean to me?" Aeron breathed aloud, steepling his fingers. Oriseus seemed to be one of the few friends he had in Cimbar-after all, he was the first mentor who'd seen fit to treat Aeron as an adult, to encourage him to exceed the bounds of tradition and experience. But Aeron didn't believe for a moment that the High Conjuror's patronage was completely altruistic.

  Someone tried the door. Aeron froze, holding his breath. The latch fell still, and he breathed a sigh of relief-until he sensed a simple magic at work. The latch suddenly lifted itself, and the door opened. "Who's in here?" demanded the tall wizard outside. "Aeron? Is that you?"

  "Yes, Sarim." Aeron slumped in the chair as the Calishite master entered and shut the door behind him.

  He expected the master to be incensed by his act of breaking and entering, but Sarim showed no anger. "I detected someone tampering with my sealing mark, but I didn't expect you. What are you doing here, Aeron?"

  Aeron started to answer and realized he didn't have a reason he could easily explain. "I'm not sure. I just wanted to think, I guess," he said.

  "There are more accessible places for that," Sarim remarked. He cleared one of Telemachon's sitting chairs of its debris and joined Aeron, gazing around the room. "What is on your mind?"

  Aeron studied Sarim for a long moment, thinking. He wanted to test himself against the ancient mysteries that Oriseus offered. . but he wasn't certain that he trusted the High Conjuror. Sarim, on the other hand, he did trust. "Oriseus has offered to show me how he worked the magic that destroyed Telemachon. He's asked me to meet him before midnight at the Broken Pyramid."

  Sarim's eyes widened, and he leaned forward alertly. "Do you intend to keep your appointment?"

  "Yes," Aeron said. "Oriseus says I'm one of the few students here who can understand his sorcery. I want to know how he does what he does." He offered a confident smile. "After all, I'm here to learn, aren't I?"

  "Not everyone feels the same, Aeron." Sarim shook his head. "You should be wary of Oriseus's generosity."

  "Why do you say that?"

  The Calishite fixed his dark eyes on the young mage's face. "Aeron, you and I both know that Oriseus is the most likely suspect for Master Raemon's murder. He stood to gain from Raemon's death; Raemon was a staunch defender of the Sceptanar. Thanks to Telemachon's demise, we've all seen that Oriseus has the capability to work lethal magics that we can't understand or unravel. So let's assume that Telemachon was right, and Oriseus murdered Raemon. Why would he wish to help you understand how that might have been accomplished?"

  Aeron frowned and thought for a moment. "You believe he wants to silence me? With Melisanda gone, I'm the only remaining witness to Master Raemon's death."

  "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 Faerun 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?"

  "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 mo
ments, 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.