Richard Baker - The Shadow Stone

Aeron's breath streamed away, caught in a bitter cold that seared his nose and throat. Dusk had long since failed, and the yellow-burning lamps of the college barely flickered in the gathering gloom. He glanced up at the sky and gasped; the streams of magic overhead were ribbons of elfin light against a black and colorless sky. They circled in a silent maelstrom centering on the rebuilt obelisk, spinning more and more rapidly with each passing moment. The masters and students must be at the tower, he realized. Oriseus's masterpiece is almost complete.

"Did we step through a shadow-portal?" Melisanda asked in a small voice. "This isn't right."

"Oriseus is tearing the veil between the worlds," Aeron answered. "When he finishes his spell, there won't be a plane of shadow anymore. It will be here." He wrenched his gaze away from the horror in the sky and hurried toward the Masters' Hall.

No one remained in the building. Its paneled corridors were empty, echoing with their footfalls. The gloom was even denser indoors, thick shadows clinging to the walls despite the flickering globes of mage-light that illuminated the hall. Aeron padded quietly to the Council Chamber, checked the door for any magical seal or alarm, and let himself in. Melisanda and Baillegh followed, keeping a close watch up and down the corridor outside.

The Council room was empty, as before. The novice's body had been removed, but none of the damage to the furnishings had been repaired. Dark frost still gleamed over the swath of the room where Aeron had employed Dalrioc's ice-scepter. In the center of the floor, the faded circle of magical symbols that marked the doorway into the chamber of the Shadow Stone waited. Aeron did not hesitate; he trotted into the circle, Dalrioc's wand clasped in his hand.

"Stand close," he told Melisanda and Baillegh. "Oriseus may have left a guard to watch over the chamber this time."

Melisanda and the wolfhound crowded close behind him, joining him in the rune-marked circle, but nothing happened. They waited a long moment, taut with anticipation, before he growled in disgust. "Why isn't this working now?"

"You didn't see Oriseus use a spell or command word to trigger this portal, did you?" asked Melisanda.

"No, the student just walked right into it," Aeron replied. He frowned, thinking. Unconsciously, he wrapped his arms closer to his body, trying to stretch his battered cloak over his bony frame. The Council Chamber was freezing. "Wait a moment," he said slowly. "Maybe the portal isn't working because we're already in the plane of shadow."

"It feels like it. Have you noticed how you can hear the stone now?" said Melisanda. She was pale in the darkness. "The worlds are merging. How much power it would take to move the entire college across the barrier?"

"Why assume that Oriseus only dragged the college into the realm of shadow? It might be the entire city. Or all of Chessenta, for that matter," Aeron said bitterly. "Well, we'll have to get into the tower on foot. Come on."

They left the same way they'd come in and crossed the college grounds again, this time heading for the ruined obelisk. As they neared the monument, Aeron felt the pulsating distortions of the Shadow Stone growing stronger, until it seemed the entire world was quivering in time to the stone's menacing rhythm.

"I don't know if I can go on!" Melisanda shouted in his ear. She had her arms folded across her belly, fighting against the nauseating influence of magic poisoned by the stone. "It hurts, Aeron! The spell's too far gone!"

He caught her arm and steadied her. "We have only one chance at this!" He turned back to the angry black radiance spilling from the pyramid's stones and moved closer. It seemed that the very air and ground were caught in a heat shimmer, warping and twisting around him, but this was no mere mirage-icy daggers of unbearable cold and darkness clawed at him with every step. He dragged himself closer and fell into the stone doorway of the tower, a high, narrow chamber framed by great doors of rune-carved oak.

Two students stood in the doorway, fists clenched by their sides as they stared mindlessly into the distance, a rictus of unholy delight and terror twisting their faces. Aeron could have spread his arms to touch each one, but they ignored them, lost in their private moment of transcendent triumph. As he'd thought, the structure seemed to protect them from the stone's distorting effects.

Beyond the doorway stood the pyramid's front gallery, a great echoing chamber of dark stone. In his previous visits Aeron had turned left to follow a winding staircase to the vaults below, while the same staircase continued up to the right to climb to the monument's upper levels. The hall itself was the largest room in structure, the sanctuary of a dark cathedral. Aeron slipped through the door to the back of the room, and froze in terror.

The masters and students of the college stood before him. They were locked in the same blank attitude as the door-wardens, concentrating on a raving pillar of violet energy that crackled down from the ceiling to vanish into the marbled floor. They muttered and moaned in time to the stone's heartbeat. Aeron quickly ducked behind a pillar, seeking cover in the stairwell. Melisanda and Baillegh scrambled after him.

"What's wrong with them?" the sorceress whispered. "They must have seen us."

"They're all playing their part in Oriseus's spell," Aeron replied. "It's taking everything they've got to do it."

Melisanda rose slowly and stretched to look around the chamber before quickly drawing back. "He's here, Aeron. Right in the center of things."

She pointed, and Aeron followed her gesture. The saturnine archmage stood in the center of a half-circle of the college's most powerful wizards, intoning the words of a spell so great and terrible that it hurt Aeron's ears to hear his incantation. With each syllable the Sceptanar expelled, the column of energy that filled the center of the room grew brighter. Rings of distortion, of tortured reality, rippled away from the unchained power.

Aeron watched, transfixed by the majesty of the sight, and then wrenched his gaze away. "Let's put a stop to this."

"You don't have to ask twice," Melisanda replied under her breath. "Do you know where the chamber lies?"

Aeron thought of the first time he'd set foot in the tower, five years ago. His stomach turned at the memory of his fear and pain. "I know the way," he answered.

They came to the old door that marked the entrance to the stone's chamber. Lambent light escaped from the hairline cracks under the oaken door and shone through every seam and imperfection in the wood. Aeron reached out to open it without hesitation, but Melisanda placed her hand over his.

"Careful. Just because Oriseus left this room unguarded before doesn't mean that it's not protected now."

"So far as I know, the stone can protect itself," Aeron replied. "But you're right. Why take chances?" He drew back and cast a spell of mage-sight. To his relief, no barrier blocked their path. "It's safe," he announced.

Melisanda raised an eyebrow. "Safe?"

He repressed a bitter laugh. "Well, taking everything else into consideration … at least there's no trap here." Steeling himself, Aeron pushed the door open and stepped into the Shadow Stone's chamber, hand raised to cover his eyes from the painful light.

The chamber was much the same as they had left it only a few short hours ago, but the Shadow Stone had changed. It burned with a fierce radiance of black light, searing Aeron's eyes and scouring the walls with its intolerable touch. All of his senses reeled with the stone's proximity; his ears were filled with the shrieking rush of tortured air and the cracking of the tower's blasted stones, the air stank with a miasma of ozone and decay, and even through his closed eyes the stone pressed its hateful image into his mind. It pulsed in the center of a rippling blackness of floor, ceiling, and walls wrenched impossibly through a transdimensional storm that destroyed his sense of up and down, distance and form. He recoiled, toppling against the wall as his feet swept out from under him.