“Aeron! Now!” cried Melisanda.
Drawing a deep breath, Aeron barked the first syllables of the striking-spell, freeing the symbol in his mind. But instead of seeking the strength of his own spirit or the natural stone, air, and water around him to power the spell, he threw his consciousness forward into the yawning black maelstrom before him, embracing the shrieking chaos of the Shadow Stone.
From the stone one coursing stream of unfettered power lanced out to transfix Aeron, pinning him on a spear of foulness and hate that threatened to flay the flesh from his bones. He screamed as every inch of his body crawled with the malignant energy and corruption pouring into his heart. Somehow he endured it, maintaining just enough awareness and will to finish the last syllable of the erasure spell, holding on to the dark silhouette of the stone’s iron banding as a dying warrior might cling to the sight of the crest of the enemy who had just struck him down. He narrowed his eyes against the agony and turned a fraction of the stone’s awful power toward his spell.
The runes upon the stone’s casing glowed once and faded, stricken from existence. As they vanished, the bands shifted, slipped, and then clattered to the ground, no longer clasped to the Shadow Stone. Instantly the coursing conduit of power that tore and clawed at Aeron’s breast snapped away, grounding itself futilely in the walls of the chamber. It was joined a split second later by first one, then another ravening stream of power, dancing and creeping against the chamber walls and the blank archways of shadow, while the stone began to pulse brighter and brighter.
Aeron shook his head and found himself lying with his head cradled in Melisanda’s lap, a cold dull ache in the center of his chest. The unbearable touch of the stone was fading, allowing him to recover his senses and sanity.
“What happened?” he asked against the rage of the storm.
“It worked!” Melisanda whispered. “The stone’s out of control. It’s not doing whatever it was doing before.”
Aeron levered himself to his elbow and gazed at the spectacle for a long moment. The stone’s pulse was growing faster, stronger, a dull booming and rocking that shook the substance of two worlds. The fierce radiance with which it had blazed before was now trapped within its uneven facets, a pinprick of light that grew larger and brighter with every passing moment, until the stone strained with the incalculable potential imprisoned within it.
“The bands didn’t focus the Stone’s power, they let it escape!” he realized.
“I don’t think we should stay here too much longer,” Melisanda said. She helped Aeron to his feet and slid his arm over her shoulder.
“No,” said Aeron. “I’ve got to stay. Go ahead and get out of here now—take the arch that leads to Akanax, if it is working. And then move far away from the portal’s exit.”
Melisanda wheeled to face him. “Are you insane? If you stay here, you’ll be killed!”
He offered her a weak smile. “And if I leave, Oriseus may be able to undo what I’ve just done. I have to make sure that the stone is destroyed, Melisanda.”
The sorceress fixed her eyes on him, a fragile mix of emotions flickering across her face. “If you stay, I stay. We’ll see it through together,” she said.
Aeron considered what he could say to change her mind, but then he felt a deliberate ripple in the chaos around him, a noxious parody of the old delight he’d sensed when magic was woven nearby. A whirling streamer of darkness formed by the chamber door, a new shadow portal hovering in the air. He stood back, trembling in fatigue.
“Ready yourself, Melisanda. It’s Oriseus.”
She glanced at him and nodded. “I don’t know if I can cast any spells in here,” she said.
Aeron handed Dalrioc’s wand to her. “This might work. I think Dalrioc crafted this scepter to draw its power from the stone.” The portal was nearly complete; Aeron quickly edged away to leave plenty of space between them. “Don’t hesitate when he appears. We can’t give him any chance to work his spells against us.”
With a thin tearing sound a form materialized in the spiraling shadow and emerged, shedding streamers of tangible darkness like a swimmer rising from the deeps. Slender and agile, the intruder sprang into motion before the curtain began to fail, crouching to aim a long bow at Aeron.
Melisanda raised Dalrioc’s wand, ready to unleash its deadly ray, but Aeron shouted, “No! It’s Eriale!”
He raced to catch Melisanda’s hand before she struck. Melisanda looked at him, startled, while Eriale’s hands blurred and the bow sang its shrill song. Aeron twisted catlike in mid-leap, but Eriale’s arrow caught him high on the hip, skewering his side. His legs seemed to turn to rubber, spilling him to the cold flagstones before the first claws of pain sank into his awareness. Gasping in shock, he turned to look at his foster-sister.
Eriale met his eyes with a look cold enough to chill his heart. No trace of emotion or recognition crossed her face. With mechanical certainty, she reached for her quiver and drew another arrow, its steel point aimed at his heart. She drew the bowstring back to her ear, death in her unblinking eyes.
“Eriale, it’s me!” Aeron cried, while warm blood streamed from his wound. “Don’t shoot!”
The archer hesitated for a moment, the merest hint of indecision softening her expression, but then she steeled herself and steadied her aim for the killing shot.
Melisanda barked an arcane word and swept a blinding ray of sparkling frost from the iron scepter across Eriale. Eriale winced but didn’t make a sound, dropping the bow to cradle her frost-burned arms to her body. Her blank eyes still held Aeron fixed in a deadly glare. The Vilhonese sorceress dashed up to kick the bow away, and wheeled to face Aeron. “Are you—”
“I think I’ll live,” he answered, trying to climb to his feet. He leaned awkwardly against the chamber wall, staring at Eriale. Pressing one hand to his side, he glanced down at the arrow. He didn’t know much of the healing arts and wasn’t willing to take any chances with trying to pull it out or push it through. Pinning the arrow in place with his right hand, he snapped off the shaft and steeled himself to push it to the back of his mind for the moment. “She didn’t get a true shot at me, thank Assuran. Let me see if I can work a countermagic to dispel Oriseus’s charm over her.”
Pushing himself off the wall, Aeron moved over to where Eriale crouched and knelt beside her, seeking some indication of the type of charm or geas she’d been placed under. He winced at the blistered white streaks and glistening frost that showed where Dalrioc’s wand had struck her—if Melisanda had missed by only a foot or two, Eriale might have been critically injured. He worked a simple counterspell to remove the magics that ensorceled the archer.
Eriale flinched, but a hint of color returned to her face, and the blankness fell away from her stare. “Aeron? What happened—” She gasped as the pain of her injuries flooded through her, no longer checked by the ruthless dominion that had turned her against him. She sagged to the floor, suppressing a sob.
“Eriale, I’m sorry,” Aeron began. “I didn’t know—”
He was interrupted by the sudden cold certainty that shadow-magic was gathering under a conscious will. His heart lurched with the sensation of magic at work. Behind him, Melisanda cried out in alarm. “The portal, Aeron!”
As the twisting shadow door through which Eriale had come faded out altogether, the streamers of darkness began to sink to the floor, coalescing into a single pool or slick of night-black shadow stuff. The pool quivered once, and then something began to rise from its depths, drawing its shape from the darkness, a tall man with cruel, fine features.
“Aeron, you fool! You have no idea what harm your interference has caused,” Oriseus said, speaking as he rose from the ebon circle. “You have doomed all of us by unchaining the Shadow Stone.” The sorcerer’s hands turned and flashed, shaping a spell with frightening celerity.
Aeron barked out the words to a shielding-spell, covering both himself and Eriale with a shimmering green field of energy. From the raging Shadow
Stone tendrils of inky darkness shot out to play along the curving sphere of force, corrupting it instantly with black veins of negative energy. Behind him, Melisanda dodged behind one of the pillars that divided the open chamber from the gallery that ringed it, raising Dalrioc’s wand to attack Oriseus. But the archmage finished his spell first, directing a serpentine ray of crackling purple energy at Aeron. It sliced through Aeron’s shield without the least interference and struck Aeron full in the chest. He fell to the stone floor, stunned.
Eriale recoiled in fright, but then threw herself over him, trying to protect him from Oriseus’s spell. “Aeron!”
Oddly enough, he didn’t seem to be injured. He shook off Eriale’s attentions. “I’m all right,” he told her.
Melisanda shouted the command that activated Dalrioc’s deadly scepter and sent a blast of arctic air scything toward Oriseus, but the ancient sorcerer whispered another word and turned sideways, disappearing from view. Passing near the Shadow Stone, the frigid ray seemed to attract a coursing conduit of energy from the pulsating crystal, suddenly doubling and redoubling in strength until it shattered one of the stone pillars across the chamber.
“Aeron, Oriseus vanished! Can you see him?”
Aeron struggled to his knees, one hand pressed to the oddly charred patch over his heart. Oriseus’s spell had done something to him, he was certain of that; he could sense black, cold energy pricking at his skin, dire potential as yet unrealized. “No, I don’t, but that doesn’t mean that he left. Be careful, Melisanda—the stone’s influence is wreaking havoc with our spells.”
“Indeed it is.” Oriseus’s voice was strong and confident, near Aeron yet somehow impossibly distant. “I must confine the stone’s power again, or we shall all be killed. When you struck my spell from the stone’s bindings, Aeron, you struck away the only thing that protects all of Chessenta from its power.” Oriseus suddenly appeared before the fallen stone, an impossible caricature of a man. He was a flat image, a playing-card figure that winked into nonexistence when he happened to face them edge-on.
Aeron shook his head, astonished. He’d heard of such spells, but he’d never seen one cast before. “I don’t believe you, Oriseus. And even if I did, I’m willing to make that sacrifice. Better that the three of us should die here and put a stop to this than allow you to finish what you’ve started.”
“Your life is yours to throw away if you wish,” the sorcerer said with venom in his voice, “but what of your sister’s and your friend’s? And you accuse me of ruthlessness.” Oriseus stalked forward and then shifted sideways, vanishing. Aeron caught a glimpse of him spinning across the room, flashing in and out of reality. “We don’t have much time for this debate, Aeron. The stone will decide it for us in a matter of minutes!”
In the room’s center, the Shadow Stone now burned like a black star, too bright to look at directly. Its dreadful power threw stark shadows against the walls, and it seemed almost distant, as if it were sinking out of sight through the very stuff of reality. The floor and ceiling buckled and twisted toward the stone, drawn to it by a force greater than any maelstrom.
“Then that’s it,” Aeron replied.
Oriseus cursed in a forgotten language. He reappeared by the stone, stooping for the discarded iron bands that had circled the crystal. Aeron reacted without hesitation, raising his hands and barking out the words for the storm-strike. With no other options, he drew his strength from the Shadow Stone’s awful presence, enduring its sinister touch long enough to finish his spell. From his fingertips bright electrical arcs leaped forward to stab at Oriseus—but even as they reached for the sorcerer, they doubled back on Aeron and struck him. He screamed and twisted under the assault of his own spell, caught in the throes of a dozen burning skewers of pain, before collapsing to the floor.
Oriseus looked up from his work with a bare smile. “You should have been more careful, Aeron. The first spell I cast upon you was a mage-shield I devised centuries ago, designed to turn your own spells against you. It may have lapsed … or it may still be intact. Why don’t you cast another spell and see?” Deliberately, he inscribed a rune upon the iron strip.
Aeron groveled in agony, his vision red and hazy. His strength was failing fast; he’d pushed himself to the limits already. “Baillegh, stop him!” he gasped.
The silver hound streaked forward to leap at Oriseus. The sorcerer raised his hand and spoke a single word, catching the dog in an amber beam that froze her in mid-leap. Stiff as a statue, she crashed to the ground at his feet, imprisoned in a shimmering field of golden energy.
Eriale helped Aeron rise, her face frozen in a tight grimace of pain. “What are we going to do?” she said quietly. “How can we defeat him, Aeron?”
He shook his head. “I’m running out of ideas,” he replied.
Melisanda slipped the scepter into her blouse, and silently began to work a spell. Aeron watched her, fascinated; she didn’t have his ability to use the incalculable energy of the Shadow Stone and had to draw the entirety of her spell from the burning flame of her own life-force. Before his eyes she seemed to wilt, sagging to her knees and paling with the effort, but she managed to finish her casting. A single streaking point of light soared away from her hand, arcing toward Oriseus. The sorcerer looked up just in time for the spell to detonate in a terrific blast of flame that filled the chamber with an awful roar. Aeron raised his cloak over his face and turned away to throw Eriale to the floor as searing heat washed over them.
The fiery sphere dissipated in moments, leaving behind a haze of smoke and the stink of burned clothes. The Shadow Stone still lay where it had been, untouched by Melisanda’s spell. Oriseus, however, was not so fortunate. He groaned and stirred, burned black over his face and hands, while small flames smoldered over his ceremonial robe. Despite the horrible wounds he’d sustained, the sorcerer drew himself to his feet, turning a look of awful rage on Melisanda.
“You were warned,” he said through cracked lips. He took a step toward her, already gathering magic for the spell that would destroy her.
At the edge of the room, Melisanda’s strength gave out and she collapsed to the floor. She’d crafted too strong a spell from her own spirit. Aeron staggered to his feet, determined to help her. Oriseus’s mage-shield still clung to him like thick oil. His thoughts raced as Oriseus closed in on Melisanda. He needed a counterspell; quickly he barked out the words to the dispelling enchantment.
Oriseus wheeled at the first sound of his words, and then grinned. “So you have decided to chance my rebounding shield again, Aeron? I thought you smarter than that.” He turned back to Melisanda, his hands glowing with power.
Aeron finished the spell, directing it at Baillegh. If Oriseus’s shield had fallen for some reason, he might be able to free her from the amber field that imprisoned her. Sparkling motes of magic danced around the trapped hound, but then they shifted and appeared around Aeron, attacking the black abjuration that tainted his magical powers. Under the assault, the curse failed, freeing Aeron.
Instantly he shaped the deadliest attack he knew, the force-missiles he’d used against Oriseus the first time they fought. Without consideration for himself, he wrenched at the raging power of the Shadow Stone and hammered three coruscating spheres of black-streaked energy at Oriseus. The archmage wheeled just in time to catch all three in his torso. Each detonated with bone-shattering force, blasting great gaping wounds in Oriseus’s body and crumpling him against the wall. Incredibly, the sorcerer slowly stood, dragging himself to his feet and turning to confront Aeron again.
“By all the gods,” Aeron breathed. His knees buckled with exhaustion and he slumped to the floor. He had no more spells of attack left to him, none that could affect a mage as formidable as Oriseus. “What are you?”
“I told you before, Aeron. This body is nothing more than a shell for my consciousness.” Oriseus attempted a triumphant grin, a horrible expression in his burned and damaged face. “You’ve treated my steed poorly, but you haven’
t hurt me at all. If this frame does not survive the day, I’ll just find another. Perhaps your friend Melisanda here … or maybe even you. It’s no matter to me.” He reached out and summoned the Shadow Stone’s metal bands to his hand, finishing the inscription he needed to restore his spell of binding and control. “Let me set this in order and finish what I came here to do, and then we’ll speak of this at greater length.” He laughed, a horrid rasping sound.
Aeron dropped his eyes to the floor, unable to bear the victory in Oriseus’s gaze. Eriale reached out to rest her hand on his shoulder. “How can you beat something like that?” she said.
Beneath his hand he felt cool, smooth wood. He glanced down in surprise; Eriale’s bow lay on the floor next to him. Slowly, he picked it up. “Do you still have your quiver?” he asked her.
“Yes, but my arms are half-frozen. I can’t shoot.”
“I can,” Aeron said softly. “Give me one of the enchanted arrows.” He held out his hand, watching Oriseus while Eriale fumbled for the rune-marked shaft. Silently she laid the wood, the good oak wood from the heart of the Maerchwood, in his hand.
At the last moment, Oriseus sensed his peril. He looked up, meeting Aeron’s steel-hard eyes, the iron bands hovering in the air before him as he mouthed the words to bind the Shadow Stone to his will and control again. His hands started to work at a defensive barrier, moving quickly and certainly to their task as the iron bands clattered to the floor, the spell abandoned.
He wasn’t fast enough. With all his old skill, Aeron drew Eriale’s bow to his ear and released the arrow straight and true. It buried itself to within a handspan of the fletching in the hollow of Oriseus’s breast, biting into the scarred stone wall behind him. The sorcerer drew in a great breath, his jaw falling open as his legs gave out. He slid about a half-foot down the wall before the arrow arrested his movement, leaving him to hang helplessly on the wall.
The Shadow Stone Page 36