The creature snarled into the night and bounded in their direction, leaping from spot to spot as it tried to flush them out. Melisanda started to bolt, but Aeron caught her arm in an iron grip. He pressed his mouth to her ear and whispered, "If we move, we're dead. Don't make a sound."
Sniffing and growling, the horrendous creature tracked back and forth across the rubble, swinging its great dark head from side to side as it cast about for some hint of their location. Aeron could feel Melisanda shaking like a leaf in his arms. For a long moment, the thing seemed to stare right at them, only a dozen paces distant, and then, with an angry snort, it broke away, bounding back to the place where Master Raemon lay. With deliberate care, it rooted through the splintered wreckage of the wizard's body, as if to make absolutely certain that no possible spark of life remained. Then, its work done, it bounded off into the night, vanishing like a shadow.
The supernatural chill, the cold presence, faded away like a memory of pain. Aeron gasped for air and dragged Melisanda into motion. "I think it's gone. Come on."
Staggering against the freezing winds, they headed toward the flickering yellow lights of the hall. Although Aeron couldn't feel the creature nearby, his shoulder blades itched, anticipating the pounce of black claws from the flickering shadows. "What was that thing?" Aeron asked again, muttering to himself.
"Some kind of fiend, I think," Melisanda replied. "If Dalrioc had sent us out a few minutes earlier, it might have come across us instead of Master Raemon."
They darted up the steps to the Masters' Hall and battered their way inside. In a matter of minutes, they gathered a half-dozen masters and a handful of students, including Telemachon and Oriseus. Although several of the wizards viewed the novices with extreme skepticism, their obvious fright carried their story for a moment, and the procession started out into the cold.
"There had better be something truly horrifying out here," one of the masters stated as they returned to the scene. "If I've been dragged out into a night like this for a prank, the two of you will wish you'd never been born."
Telemachon remained silent, but Oriseus spoke up. "I suspect that even the most addlepated novice would have more sense than that. But we shall see."
Several of the masters created powerful spheres of brilliant mage light, driving away the darkness as they approached the ruins with deliberate caution. Aeron's heart sank. There was nothing there, no trace of the monstrous creature he and Melisanda had seen! He could feel the eyes of the masters turning toward him. "The two of you will have a lot of explaining to do," one said ominously.
"Wait," said Telemachon. He directed his light at the rubble. A tatter of red fluttered in the wreckage. The masters fell silent as the mangled corpse of the Master Abjurer appeared. Perversely, his face was untouched, staring sightlessly into the ebon sky.
"What of the creature that attacked him?" Oriseus said. "Melisanda? Where did you see the creature?"
"It was right here, Master Oriseus. It had already killed Master Raemon when we fled."
"You abandoned him?" one of the students asked.
"Easy, now," Oriseus said. "If a High Master could not defend himself against the creature that did this, how could two novices have made any difference? In this case, discretion was clearly the better part of valor."
"There will be questions to answer," the first master said in a low voice. "Many questions."
Telemachon knelt by the body, his face expressionless. "Indeed. First we must see if the creature still lurks nearby. Summon the rest of the masters. And get these two inside."
Eight
No sign of the creature was ever found. Melisanda's novitiate examination was delayed by the death of the Master Abjurer, the extensive interrogations that she and Aeron endured, and the chaotic maneuverings of electing a replacement to the college's Ruling Council. Classes and lectures were suspended for a week as the masters debated, schemed, formed alignments, and broke them, and finally elevated a senator's son to the council. Students and novices alike waited nervously, although Aeron noticed that Dalrioc spent much of his time conferring with the masters. Supposedly no student had any say in how the masters managed their affairs, but the prince of Soorenar could and did make his voice heard.
A few days after the ceremony of advancement, Aeron was surprised to receive a summons from Lord Telemachon. When a High Master sent for a novice, the fish dropped what he was doing and answered the call, so Aeron trotted over to the Masters' Hall with all due haste. The hall felt silent and suspicious, still simmering with the unresolved arguments and the disturbing circumstances of Master Raemon's death. He went straight to Telemachon's chambers. "Lord Telemachon? You sent for me?"
The Master Diviner sat immersed in a sea of musty tomes, crackling yellow scrolls, and old rag-paper books stitched to wooden covers. His own personal library was quite extensive, but he had doubled its size since Aeron had last been in his chambers. Telemachon was visibly fatigued; dark bags pouched under his eyes, and he wheezed with each breath. The diviner frowned and looked up from his book. "Aeron. Have a seat."
The novice carefully cleared a leather chair and sat down. "Thank you, my lord."
"As Fineghal foretold, you have demonstrated great promise as a mage," the old wizard began. "While you still need to work on your mundane lessons, particularly your command of Untheric and Old Rauric, I understand that your spellcasting skills are without equal among the novices. Therefore, you will stand for your novitiate examination at the end of the week."
Aeron glanced up, his eyes alight. "I'm ready."
"Of course you're ready. I know that you can pass the examination easily, or I wouldn't have challenged you to attempt it. We'll observe the forms, but you need to be instructed as a student, not as a novice."
"Yes, my lord."
"I didn't expect this so soon, Aeron," Telemachon said, meeting Aeron's eyes. "But several students are about to graduate, and we expect to place some new fish soon, so there's no sense in holding you back. Most of the High Masters favored accepting you as a student based on your performance so far."
Aeron assented with a nod. He knew he could learn more as a student . . . and it would incense Dalrioc Corynian if Aeron climbed from the ranks of the novices to the exalted status of student. It also meant that he could remain close to Melisanda. "I won't fail, Lord Telemachon."
The old wizard leaned back behind his desk, studying Aeron. "Are you certain you've recovered from your harrowing experience of a week ago?"
"Yes, my lord. I was not injured."
"Through auguries and divinations, we've gleaned some information about the creature that attacked Master Raemon," Telemachon said. "It was a yugoloth, a supernatural horror from black dimensions beyond the circles of the world. A powerful fiend indeed."
Aeron straightened in his seat. "How could such a creature appear in the middle of the college?"
"Obviously it was summoned here," Telemachon said, a trace of irritation in his voice. "There are a number of wizards among us capable of such a feat, which leaves us to ponder the reason of it, not the means."
"I've been told that the ruins of the pyramid are dangerous. Could Master Raemon simply have stumbled across something better left undisturbed?"
"Perhaps," Telemachon said without expression. "Yet I find it curious that a powerful mage, one of the best among us, should simply happen to be abroad in the tower's ruins on such a night, and that he should happen to disturb something, and that the thing he unleashed should happen to be a creature capable of destroying him . . . and that his death should happen to occur in front of two defenseless novices, conveniently located to observe that no one else was near to rend Raemon limb from limb."