The Shadow Stone ta-1

by Richard Baker

  "You have an idea?"

  Aeron smiled at her, a long-hidden lightness in his heart surfacing after months of care. He reached down and scratched Baillegh behind the ears. "I think I do," he said.

  They reached Cimbar two days later.

  From the busy street end that faced the main gate, the college seemed unchanged from Aeron's days as a student. The weathered brick buildings still stood in the same quadrangle, wreathed by ivy and watching over the city below with blank, dark windows. Aeron and Eriale strolled down the center of the street, two passers-by in the crowd, turning left toward the harbor to skirt the college walls.

  Aeron glanced over at Eriale and repressed a smile. "You're staring again."

  "I've never seen anything like Cimbar. I'd heard that this was a great city, but I never understood what that meant until I saw it for myself. It's wonderful and terrible at the same time." Eriale's face fell. "What a tragedy that the capital is so full of hate and feuding these days."

  Aeron snorted. "I wonder if the Shadow Stone's presence had anything to do with it all. The fall of Unther's empire, the shattering of Chessenta, the rise of the Mob, the ambitions of lords like Oriseus …" His voice trailed away as they came to the place he'd been looking for, a steep escarpment where the street dropped the last fifty feet to the wharves while the rocky mass of the acropolis began its climb up to the point on which the broken pyramid sat. Briars and tough, coarse-barked whitelock trees clung to the slope, masking the college wall behind a band of untended foliage. Aeron glanced up and down the street-no one seemed to be looking their way. He grasped Eriale's arm and pulled her into the undergrowth. They burrowed into the thicket, scrambling up out of sight of the street and pausing just under the crumbling brick wall. Baillegh followed, her silver tail high.

  "Did you do this often when you were a student here?" Eriale asked with a note of disapproval.

  "No. I didn't get out much, but all the students knew about it." Aeron cocked his ear, listening. "I don't hear anyone nearby. Go ahead and change."

  From his satchel, he pulled out a simple black skirt and blouse with black piping and passed it over to Eriale, then studiously turned away and watched the wall while she wriggled out of her tunic and into the servant's garb.

  After a moment, she tossed the satchel back. "Your turn." Aeron listened again, then peeled off his own breeches and shirt in order to don a matching outfit. It had taken a couple of hours of shopping in the trade districts of New Cimbar to find clothes close to what they wanted, and another hour to have a few minor modifications made to make them match the college livery exactly, but Aeron thought it worth the wait. When he finished, he stuffed his own clothes back into the satchel and concealed it under a pile of dead leaves.

  "You really think this will work?" Eriale asked as she watched him conceal the sack.

  "The masters, students, and novices all know each other by sight. We'd be spotted in an instant. But no one pays attention to the servants."

  "Except the other servants," Eriale noted.

  "We'll just have to avoid them. Where we're going, there shouldn't be many around anyway." Aeron took a moment to whisper a minor glamour over his staff, reducing it to a slender wand that he slid into his sleeve. Eriale concealed her bow in her ankle-length skirts. Aeron watched her arm herself, then reached into a pouch at his side. From it he pulled six slender arrows, their shafts emerging straight and true from the impossibly small pouch. "Wait," he told her. "I have got a gift for you." He handed her the arrows.

  "Where'd these come from?" Eriale asked.

  "I brought them from Fineghal's collection in the Caerhuan. They're enchanted to strike through magical defenses. I thought we might need them against Master Crow, but they might prove useful here. Ready?"

  Eriale took a deep breath and nodded, hiding the arrows in the folds of her skirt. Aeron stood up, caught the wall, and quickly slid over into the dense brush on the opposite side. He glanced around, but no one was in sight, so he reached down and helped Eriale scramble over.

  "Which way?" she whispered.

  "The Students' Hall. I want to see if my old rooms have been disturbed. I left some valuable notes and materials there," Aeron said.

  "Do you really think that no one would have bothered to clean out your chambers in five years?" Eriale asked.

  Aeron shrugged. "It's worth a look." He turned and knelt to face Baillegh. "Stay here, and keep out of sight. We'll come back for you after we've scouted things out." The hound whined softly and licked his face, but she sat down and worked her way into the heavy undergrowth.

  No one was in sight, so Aeron stepped out of the shrubs and dusted himself off, straightening his servant's tunic. Eriale followed, adjusting her skirt. The path by the wall skirted the quadrangle, circling the perimeter of the college grounds. "This way," he said quietly. Eriale fell in a half-step behind him, trying not to shiver in the eerie chill.

  They didn't even see anyone else until they reached the Students' Hall. As they hurried past the open end of the quadrangle, Aeron stole a surreptitious look at the heart of the college-the great library, the halls of learning, and the two long fieldstone halls facing each other. Across the wide space, a small handful of forlorn figures criss-crossed the area. The bright red robes of a Master of Conjuration caught Aeron's eye, but it didn't seem to be anyone he knew, and he didn't want to be caught staring if it was. He also noticed a handful of workmen in common clothes hustling back and forth across the open court. Eriale tapped his arm discreetly, and Aeron picked up his pace and turned his head forward to maintain the charade.

  They skirted the main entrance to the Students' Hall and slipped in the smaller servants' door at one end of the building. This led into a large linen room, with laundry tubs and shelves stacked with white sheets and heavy blankets. One stout maid was at work scrubbing out some clothes, but she didn't even look up as Aeron and Eriale entered, so Aeron scooped up an armful of folded sheets from the shelf. With a nervous wink, Eriale helped herself to a bucket and rags at the same time.

  Aeron found the servants' stair leading to the second floor, a dark and cramped passage with smooth-worn steps. At the top, he opened a narrow door and stepped out into Crown Hall, his home for almost a year of his life. Despite the urgency of his mission, he stopped, caught by the powerful memories. It looked much the same as it had when he'd left. Yet he was also struck by the differences, too. At first he thought that he'd come to the college during a break of some kind, since the hall was empty, echoing and silent. In his days, there'd always been a handful of novices gossiping by someone's door, a student striding grimly to or from his studies, some indication of life and energy. But the hall felt barren and cold to him.

  "You stayed here for a year?" Eriale whispered.

  Aeron shook his head. "It was different then. Things have changed for the worse. Come on, my room was over here."

  He turned right and followed the corridor, halting at the sixth door on the right. To his relief, the facade still bore the complicated sigil he'd marked as his own. To be certain, he leaned close and put his ear to the door, straining to listen for any sound within.

  Voices rang out sharply from the end of the hall. Aeron straightened and looked before he could help himself. A pair of students in their tabards and caps stood outside a door, talking in low voices. They seemed older than the students Aeron had remembered-these weren't teenagers, but a pair of grown men.

  "Aeron!" hissed Eriale. "Don't stare!"

  He nodded abruptly and set his hand to the door, trying it. Naturally, it was locked. He turned his shoulder to conceal his actions from the two students down the hall, and quietly spoke the spell of opening he'd used to enter his room. To his surprise, it worked flawlessly, and he let himself into his room. Eriale stepped in on his heels, sliding out of the hallway and out of sight.

  The room was very close to the way he'd left it; his personal effects were still in the same places, and no one had bothered to remove the fur
niture or even to strip the bed. A few mundane books remained on his shelves, but Aeron could tell at a glance that most of the important ones had been removed, including his old spellbooks and the scroll tube in which he'd hidden the Chants of Madryoch the Ebon Flame. "Damn," he muttered.

  "I wonder why they never cleaned out your room?" Eriale said.

  "Well, they did in their way. Most of my spellbooks and some scrolls and texts aren't here anymore." Aeron sat down at his old desk, his chin in his hand. "No one knew where I'd gone when I first fled. It must have been months before they decided I wasn't coming back."

  "The books were your only important belongings?"

  Aeron nodded. "Yes. I suppose that Oriseus or one of his masters probably searched this room personally. They wouldn't bother to remove anything except materials they thought they might have a use for."

  "The servants wouldn't have come in to check on you?"

  "They might have been instructed not to, on the chance that I might return."

  Eriale strolled over to the window and gazed out at the muddy apron of ground beyond the dormitory. She leaned forward to study something outside. "Aeron, what's this?"

  "What?" Aeron stood and moved over to gaze out the window over her shoulder.

  Outside, the ruins of the Broken Pyramid were not just ruins anymore. The rubble had been cleared away from the stone foundation of the ancient monument, and an effort was underway to rebuild it just as it had stood hundreds of years ago. Aeron gaped in shock; he'd never imagined that it could be rebuilt. But the smooth dark stone rose forty feet into the air, ending in a jagged course of stone blocks. The whole edifice was ringed by rickety scaffolding, and sheds for stonecutters and carpenters had been raised at the foot of the structure. A handful of masons were at work on the ground, cutting the blocks for the next course.

  "What are they building here?" Eriale asked.

  "It looks like they're raising the Broken Pyramid again," Aeron said. "The ruins of an old Untheric obelisk used to stand there. It was nothing more than a heap of rubble, with a few old walls still standing. Oriseus must have decided to rebuild it." He frowned, watching one mason patiently chisel away an uneven corner. "Where are all the workmen? This looks like a place where dozens of men could work without getting in each other's way."

  "It's the end of the week."

  Aeron grimaced. Not everything had to have a sinister purpose behind it, he reminded himself. But he did not like the look of the pyramid. He could feel the magical power imprisoned in the heavy stone blocks, as if each stone that had been laid down completed one small part of a vast and potent whole. The ebon sheen of the smooth rock drew his eye, refusing to allow him to look away. When complete, the spire would be a focus for the Shadow Stone, a magnifier of some kind.

  "Aeron?" Eriale glanced at him with concern.

  "I'm fine," he admitted after a moment. "The implications of this frighten me, that's all."

  "Do you sense the stone?"

  Aeron met her eyes and returned his gaze to the rising pyramid. With the trepidation of a man reaching out to touch an angry snake, he allowed his vision to blur and shift, trying to sense the eddy and flow of the Weave around the tower. He could feel the stone nearby, but its chill emanations seemed muted, like sunlight passing through a thin cloth. The monument would change that when complete; it would offer a conduit from the realms of shadow into the waking world, a breach through which the stone's corrupting influence could stream undiminished.

  "It's there, but it's in the plane of shadow," Aeron said after a long moment. "Close at hand, but a world away."

  Eriale reached out to clasp his hand. She could tell that he was frightened by what he saw, even if she did not perceive the threat that was visible to him. "So what can we do about it?" she asked.

  "I won't know for certain until I take a closer look."

  The archer grew pale. "You mean, from the shadow-plane?"

  Aeron nodded. "We'll try at dusk. But first I want to see Master Telemachon's chambers." He turned away from the window and glided across the room, picking up his bundle of sheets again. With Eriale trailing behind him, he opened the door and peeked out.

  They were lucky-the two students were gone. He quickly crossed the hall and ducked into the servant's passage again, trotting back down to the laundry room. The laundress had left as well, so Aeron returned his sheets to the shelf and led Eriale outside into the cold, clinging fog.

  "It doesn't seem like many people are here today," Eriale said quietly as they circled the quadrangle. "How many masters and students are there?"

  "There used to be about thirty masters, forty students, and eighty to ninety novices in the college when I was here. But as you pointed out, it's the week's end. They might be elsewhere." Aeron chewed on his tongue. "Or maybe there aren't as many here now. A number of masters left after Oriseus became lord of the ruling council. And a lot of students and novices washed out then, too."

  They found the servants' entrance to the Masters' Hall and entered carefully. A wing of the building was devoted to servant's quarters and the refectory, so a maid and chamberboy weren't at all out of place here-but their odds of encountering another servant were much higher. Aeron immediately turned to the servants' stair to circumvent the crowded scullery and kitchens, descending to the cluttered cellars and storerooms beneath the Masters' Hall.

  Here the warm wood paneling and elegant furnishings of the college were conspicuously absent. The barrel-vaulted ceiling was low and dank, illuminated by guttering oil lamps at irregular intervals. Great tuns of wine and ale were crowded under each stone arch, dusty and worn. Aeron had only been down in the cellars once or twice, but he turned left and led Eriale along the dark passageway.

  Someone coughed ahead. From one of the storerooms a lean old manservant appeared, carrying a small cask of brandy. Aeron kept the surprise from his face and managed a friendly nod of greeting, hoping his nervousness wouldn't show.

  "Good day," he said cheerily.

  "Hmmph. Good day, indeed." The valet passed Aeron with a long look. Aeron breathed a sigh of relief-the fellow hadn't seemed to notice their strange faces. His hopes were dashed a moment later. "Hey, wait a minute. Who are you?"

  Aeron glanced at Eriale. Her face was carefully neutral, and she took two steps to flank the servant without being obvious about it. He turned to face the fellow and offered a smile and a shrug. "We're both new. Who are you?"

  "I'm Kerrick. Did Olmad bring you on?"

  Aeron just nodded. "Care for a hand with that brandy?"

  The servant frowned. "No, I'll get it. What are you supposed to be doing?"

  "They wanted a half-bushel of potatoes in the kitchens," Eriale replied. "Which way is the root cellar?"

  Kerrick shook his head. "You'd think they'd take some time to show the new hands around. The root cellar you want is the second door, over there." He stooped and shouldered the cask, heading off for the stairs. "I'd step it up, if I were you," he called. "Nurchen'll have you scrubbing pots until your hands bleed if he thinks you dawdled down here."

  "Thanks, we'll get right to it," Aeron replied. He watched until Kerrick trudged out of sight and blew out his breath in relief. "Come on, let's get out of here before we meet anyone else," he said to Eriale. He trotted down the length of the vaulted undercroft, counting the archways until he found another small door and steps leading up. "This goes up into the masters' quarters."

  They emerged in the long, light-paneled hallway that ran on the lower floor of the hall. As soon as Aeron stepped out of the door, he found himself standing right in the path of a Master of Necromancy, a cadaverous old man striding along with long, shanky steps. The sorcerer glared at him with cold, dead eyes. Aeron froze in horror-he confronted none other than High Master Eidos, one of Oriseus's old allies. The vulpine eyes narrowed as Eidos scrutinized Aeron.

  "What are you gawking at?" he snapped in a harsh voice.

  Hurriedly, Aeron sketched a bow. "Pardon me, my lord.
"

  He turned and slunk away, while Eriale silently closed the servant's door and followed. He could feel the weight of Master Eidos's stare between his shoulder blades, but with an angry snort the necromancer dismissed them and returned to his business. When Aeron risked a glance over his shoulder, he saw purple robes rippling like oily water in the wizard's wake, until he turned a corner and vanished.

  Eriale set her hand on Aeron's arm. "By Assuran's grace, that was close," she whispered.

  "I don't know how he didn't recognize me."

  "When he last saw you, you were a student, five years younger." Eriale shrugged. "You've grown and filled out."

  They reached the end of the corridor. The glyph marking Telemachon's chambers still guarded the door; Aeron suppressed a smile. Lord Telemachon's chambers had been among the more impressive any Master possessed, and he'd thought that out of nothing more than a desire for extra space someone might have commandeered them. Carefully, he worked a minor magic to pass Telemachon's sigil, remembering the time he'd done the same thing on the eve of Oriseus's initiation to the Shadow Stone. The mark seemed to hum as if alive, then faded as Aeron finished his spell. He frowned in puzzlement.

  "What's wrong?" Eriale asked, watching him.

  "Telemachon's sign. It vanished when I disarmed it."

  "That's not supposed to happen?"

  "No, I was only trying to counter it for a moment," Aeron said.

  "It's been five years. Maybe the spell's worn away."

  He shook his head. "It shouldn't have. But maybe this close to the Shadow Stone, the workings of magic aren't as predictable as they should be."

  He set aside his reservations and pushed the door open, drawing Eriale in behind him. To his surprise, Telemachon's room seemed as if it had been left alone as well. From the thick coat of dust that covered the furniture and shelves, Aeron guessed that he might have been the last person to enter.