The wraiths ignored him. In an eerie absence of sound, Raedel stood and spoke, his eyes cold flecks of granite in his stone face. The beautiful woman sagged to her knees, her open mouth wailing in perfect silence. The boy hid his face in her skirts. The guards seized Stiche by his chains and dragged him away.
The scene faded suddenly, the ghostly figures vanishing. Aeron reeled and shifted his weight. The rough scrape of iron on iron startled him. He looked down and saw that he was chained at his wrists and ankles. The silence was gone, broken by a murmur of voices and clattering weapons and armor. His eyes leapt to the wooden seat, where Phoros Raedel, no phantom but a real and living enemy, leaned back, sneering at him. “Are you prepared to follow your father to the gallows, Morieth?” he hissed. “We should’ve let you swing the same day he danced on the rope.”
Aeron tried to retreat, but the shackles held him fast. Rusty iron abraded his wrists. “Damn you, Phoros!”
“Silence!” Phoros gestured at the guards on either side and rose from his seat. “Take him to the gallows.”
Two heavyset guardsmen in black armor caught his arms and dragged him backward, through the hall’s great doors and into the bright sunlight of the castle courtyard. Phoros sauntered after him, one hand cocked on the hilt of his sword. Aeron tried to struggle, but it was no use. The guardsmen merely tightened their grip. Their boots clomped on the wooden steps of the gibbet. The weathered planks barked his shins as he tried to get his feet under him. “Let me go!” he roared in desperate fury.
You can stop this, Aeron, said the wraith of Fineghal. The elven lord watched dispassionately from the side, his arms folded. If you have the will, you can end this or turn it to any course you desire. Defend yourself, escape, do anything you want.
“But how?” Aeron shouted. One of the faceless guards pinned his arms, while the other slipped the coarse noose over his head. “What do I do?”
Magic begins in the heart and is shaped by the will. Decide what you want, then want it with all your being. Use your will to shape it into what you need.
Aeron gagged as the noose was drawn tight around his neck. For a moment he panicked, too stricken with terror to do anything except thrash and struggle, but then he tried to make sense of Fineghal’s cryptic words. Decide what you want.… Right now, he wanted the noose off his neck and the fetters removed from his limbs. The guards stepped back, clearing the gallows for its grisly task. The structure creaked and swayed slightly in the wind. He kept his attention on the manacles, fiercely wishing them to fall open.
A faint vibration or prickling seemed to hum softly in the center of his chest.
He sharpened his desire to a white-hot fury, driven by his old grief for his parents and his simple desire to live. He became aware of a sea of discordant melodies surrounding him, a chaotic maelstrom of light and life and energy. The wind currents danced and sang in his ears. The faded life of the wood that made up the gallows smoldered dimly, a memory of water and sunlight. Multicolored auras burned around each of the men who stood by the scene, the potent fire of their life-forces burning like brands in the night. The rush he felt in his heart was the echo of his own life, the great magical power of being.
Aeron flailed out, trying to seize the strongest auras and bend them to his will. They seemed to slip through his grasp, and he felt panic rising in his throat.
Shape yourself to the Weave, Aeron. No one can bend the Weave to himself.
The executioner threw his lever, dropping the trapdoor from beneath Aeron’s feet. The world wheeled slowly as he felt the aura of his body fluctuate, gaining energy as he started to fall. A fleeting resonance sounded between the wind currents in the courtyard and his own motion, and with a sudden act of will, he altered the energy in his heart, matching the wind again, imitating it, imagining it beneath his feet.
He stood on a column of air, his fall arrested.
Tentatively he reached out, feeling through the stone and earth beneath his feet until he detected a faint resonance that matched the iron chains that bound him. With care, he softened them until they glowed cherry-red and sagged from his legs and arms. He basked in Fineghal’s silent approval. “I can do anything?”
A long silence stretched out for a dozen heartbeats as Aeron marveled at the sensation of magic in his grasp. Anything, Fineghal replied at last.
Aeron turned to confront the frozen statues of Phoros Raedel, the guards, and the ominous towers of the castle. He listened for a deep, powerful force far beneath him, heat and crushing power from miles within the earth. Fineghal’s approval turned to astonishment as Aeron coaxed the incalculable energy upward, linking it to the cold and ordered stones that surrounded him. At the last moment, Fineghal raised a hand in warning, but Aeron was too caught up in his task.
From the center of the courtyard, a gigantic fist of red-hot rock smashed its way into the sky and shattered the castle like a man kicking apart an anthill. The towers almost exploded with the force of their destruction as Aeron deliberately battered Raedel Keep to pieces, allowing the hot fire of his rage to strike again and again. Phoros and the guards disappeared beneath tons of seething lava, crushed and burned past recognition. The white fury burned hotter in Aeron’s breast as the world dissolved in raging chaos and incandescent destruction, until he lost himself completely in the storm of violence.
Aeron awoke on the Forest’s Stonemantle, weak and disoriented. The sun was red and low in the west, and the air had taken on the cool damp of evening. The dark stone bluffs around the heights gleamed with ruddy light. Fineghal gazed silently over the forest, wrapped in a cloak that fluttered softly in the wind. Aeron pushed himself upright, studying the elf’s tall, weathered figure against the sunset.
“Aeron! You’re awake!” Eriale scrambled to her feet beside him, rubbing her arms against the damp breeze. “Fineghal wasn’t sure if you would return.”
“I’m here, Eriale,” Aeron said. He pressed his hand against his head and stood. “I … I think I’m all right now.”
The elven mage turned at his words. His mouth was a thin white line across his face, and he regarded Aeron with a look of such intensity that the forester took a step back. “What do you remember of your test?” he demanded.
“I was in Raedel Keep. I watched my father hang. And then they were going to hang me. But then …”
“Go on.”
“I touched the magic,” Aeron whispered, staring at his hands with unseeing eyes. He remembered the sweet fire singing in his heart, in his blood. “I wielded magic!”
“Aye. And you used it to destroy Raedel Keep.”
“Assuran’s tears,” he breathed. “Is it truly destroyed?”
“Why?” asked Fineghal. “Is that what you wanted? Is that the best use you can think of for the marvelous gift you possess?” The elf lord trembled with suppressed emotion. With a visible effort, he forced himself to relent. “The castle is unharmed. It was only a test, an illusion you wove for no one but yourself.”
“Did … did I pass?”
Fineghal barked acerbic laughter. “In the sense that you demonstrated that you can grasp and wield magic, oh, yes, you passed, Aeron. You have extraordinary potential; you nearly exhausted my power in your enthusiasm to raze the castle. I never expected such strength in a stripling.”
“Is Aeron going to be a mage?” asked Eriale.
The elven lord nodded. “He must be, Eriale. He will consume himself if he does not learn to wield his power.”
“What power?” Aeron asked crossly, rising to face the elf lord. “I’ve never even thought of magic before today. What’s so special about me?”
“You don’t understand yet what you are,” Fineghal said. His expression softened. “Whether you know it or not, most people can’t do what you did; almost anyone can learn to touch the Weave, if only for a moment, but those who can truly perceive it and seize it with will alone are rare indeed. It’s your elven blood, Aeron. It runs strong in your veins.”
Aeron hugged h
is chest, pacing away in amazement. The memory of power tantalized him, and he furrowed his brow as he tried to reach out and gather the living magic again. “But I feel nothing now,” he said.
“You will learn to see with new eyes, to hear with your heart. My spell of testing allowed you to borrow my strength, if you had it within you to touch the Weave.”
“So you’ll let me stay and study with you?”
Fineghal’s expression became stern. “Yes. But you must swear to abide by my judgment of what you will learn, and when, and how you will employ your knowledge. You have great potential, Aeron, but it is potential for harm as well as good. Do you understand me?”
“I think so,” Aeron said slowly. But deep within his heart a dark, triumphant voice added, He fears me. He fears what I can do.
“Good,” said Fineghal. He held Aeron’s gaze for a long moment before turning back to Eriale. “Now, Eriale, let’s see you home. Your father must be worried about you.” He started down from the windswept cliff.
Aeron scrambled down after him, but Eriale caught his arm as he passed her. She gazed into his face, her open features taut with concern. “Do you know what you’re doing, Aeron?”
He attempted a reassuring smile. “Eriale, if you could have touched it, you’d understand. I have to go with him.”
She held his eyes for a long moment more and then smiled weakly. “If you think this is right, Aeron, then I won’t worry about you.” She caught him around the shoulders and hugged him spontaneously. “Just promise me you’ll be careful.”
Three
Aeron expected Fineghal to begin by teaching him how to summon and control the magic, but he was disappointed. In the weeks that followed, the elven mage barely spoke a word about the working of spells. After they returned Eriale to Kestrel’s house and retreated into the depths of the forest, they traveled from sunrise to sunset each day. Fineghal seemed absorbed by his own thoughts, leading the way with an easy, absentminded stride that Aeron found hard to match. Baillegh ranged far ahead, bounding through the green shadows like a silver phantom.
Sometimes they rested in the vine-covered ruins of elven towers, but most of the time Fineghal passed the night in clearings beneath the open sky. By starlight or moonlight, he taught Aeron the names of the creatures and the growing things of the Maerchwood as the elves knew them when the world was young. The ancient elf rarely slept; instead, he gazed at the stars as Aeron drifted off to sleep.
Slowly Aeron learned Tel’Quessir, the elven language, and Fineghal shifted his lessons to his native tongue. “Tel’Quessir is a language made for magic,” he explained one night. “It will be much easier for me to teach you when you can read and write in the runes of Espruar.”
“Do all mages speak their spells in Elvish?”
“All elven mages do, and some humans. But others study ancient human sorceries and use forgotten human tongues.”
Aeron sat up straight, intrigued. “There’s more than one way to wield magic?”
Fineghal smiled, a ghostly expression by the clear starlight. “Oh, yes,” he said quietly. “When an elf creates a spell, he beckons to the magic, calling to the Weave that surrounds us. The old human ways are different. A human wizard’s words force his will upon the Weave around him, demanding compliance.”
“Which way is better? More powerful?”
“I know only the elven spells, Aeron; I can’t teach you human magic. Since you ask, it is my opinion that human magic is easier to employ and a more dangerous weapon than elven magic. But it exacts a greater toll.”
“When will you show me how to cast a spell?”
“Be patient,” Fineghal said. “You have much to learn yet.” He fell silent for a long time.
The long summer of the Maerchwood passed swiftly, and the short, wet fall came over the forest, drenching the land with cool rains. Aeron and Fineghal had circled the forest several times in the months that he’d journeyed with the elven mage. From one end to the other, the Maerchwood was almost one hundred miles in length. Aeron had seen the golden Maerth Hills to the west, the fiery peaks known as the Smoking Mountains, and the wild rushing waters of the untamed Winding River. He was beginning to gain a sense of the immeasurable moods of the woodland, the pace of life in different regions and in different seasons.
Hardened by his endless trek, he could now keep up with Fineghal without trying, and he moved through the trackless maze of the forest’s hidden depths with the skill and silence of a full-blooded elf. On a clear, cold day late in the season, Fineghal led Aeron to a dark, rock-walled valley in the heart of the forest, a place Aeron knew as Banien’s Deep. They halted by a cold, rushing stream that tumbled out of the stony heights and into the forest below. Fineghal shrugged his slim pack from his shoulders and surveyed the clearing. “This will do,” he announced.
“Why are we stopping?” Aeron asked.
“I think it’s time for your first lesson.”
Aeron blinked. “My first lesson? What have I been doing for the past three months?”
“Well, you’ve learned to speak passable Elvish, and you’ve learned a little about the forest. Any elf would have known these things before he began his studies,” Fineghal said over his shoulder. “Now we can move on to the working of magic.”
Aeron remembered the intoxication in his heart when he’d touched the Weave in Fineghal’s test. He’d almost forgotten the sensation of lightness, of strength, that he’d tasted before. I will do it, he thought proudly. I will shape magic with my own hands, like one of the great wizards of old. I will do it! He scrambled to his feet, shrugging his pack to the ground. “I’m ready.”
Fineghal regarded Aeron with his customary detachment. The young woodsman waited, his keen eyes hungry with anticipation. “There are two things you must do in order to work magic … to cast a spell, as humans say,” Fineghal began. “First you must summon the energy for your spell. We live in a magical world, Aeron, surrounded by unseen powers and forces. Every living creature carries a spark of magic, but the very stones, earth, wind, and waters multiply this living magic a thousandfold.”
“So magic comes from the land around us?”
“Yes and no. The life of the world around us is the power that makes magic possible, but it is a force without direction, without volition—unrealized potential. In order to tap this energy, we immerse ourselves in the Weave.”
Aeron frowned, thinking. “Aren’t magic and the Weave the same thing?”
“Almost, but not quite. The Weave is the soul of magic, the manifestation of all the untapped energy around us. It is the surface that we can perceive and shape to our purposes.”
“I don’t understand.”
Fineghal steepled his long, graceful fingers before him. “A fire can be used for hundreds of useful things—warming you in the winter, cooking food, heating iron that it might be worked into useful shapes, and so on. You might say that wood contains the potential for fire, just as the world around us contains the potential for magic.” The elf lord smiled and picked up a small piece of deadwood near his seat by the stream. He tossed it lightly to Aelies. “Cook your dinner with this stick.”
Aeron shrugged and reached into his pouch to retrieve his flint and steel. Fineghal held up his hand and laughed. “Stop. What are you doing?”
“Getting my flint,” Aeron replied, mystified.
“And why do you do that?”
“To start the wood burning, of course!”
“So, in order to release the potential within that branch, you must strike a spark. The fire within that old branch sleeps until you find a way to release it. Similarly, the Weave is the means by which the potential for magic is transformed into the shape a wizard seeks.”
“I think I understand,” Aeron said slowly.
“Now, wielding the Weave is only part of casting a spell. The other part is shaping the spell with your will. You’ve seen me gesture or heard me speak words under my breath when I work magic. I was creating the pattern
for the magical energy to follow.”
“You’ve lost me again,” Aeron said bitterly.
Fineghal grimaced. “Here’s another analogy. Let’s say that you want to make a house. Living trees represent the unshaped potential, the raw magic, of your effort. The Weave shapes the living wood into a form you can work with, finished boards and planks ready for your hand. Finally you’ll need tools and skill to work the finished wood into the form you desire. This is your spell.”
Aeron nodded, imagining the work he’d put into crafting the bow strapped to his back. Magic required raw material and a tool to work it. That made sense. “Is there any difference in what kind of magic you gather or the tools you use to shape it?” he asked.
“Yes and no. The Weave is the same in all spells. But there are all kinds of purposes to which this energy may be bent—the dark magic of necromancy, the fragile veils of illusion, and so on. I have always studied the magic of wind, stone, fire, and water, the elements around us. Most of my learning lies in spells of this sort.”
Fineghal pointed at the dark, cool stream beside them. “Here. Observe what I do.” He fell silent, furrowing his brow in concentration. With one hand, he reached toward the water, his hand turned to one side. Aeron shivered as he felt the touch of magic at work, the cool flutter in the center of his chest. Fineghal murmured a few words in Elvish.
On the surface of the stream, a knuckle of water formed and then rose into the air, taking the shape of a slender arm and silvery hand. It hung, shimmering wetly in the air, defying gravity, as Fineghal continued to guide it with gentle motions of his hand. The watery hand reached out to touch Aeron’s outstretched fingers. It felt cold and damp, but left no moisture on his hand. With a wry smile, Fineghal released his spell. The watery limb lost its cohesiveness, returning to the stream with a splash. Aeron grinned in childlike delight. “Bring it back!” he pleaded.
The Shadow Stone Page 4