"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.
Melisanda fell beside him, her long brown hair flying about her face as if she were caught in a gale. "Aeron! Speak your spell!" she shouted, huddling against the ruined stone wall.
Aeron opened his eyes a mere slit to gain his bearings, climbing to his feet with one hand on the ice rimmed stone of the chamber wall. He looked again on the Shadow Stone, gathering his strength and determination for what came next.
"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.