"Yes, Sarim." Aeron slumped in the chair as the Calishite master entered and shut the door behind him.
He expected the master to be incensed by his act of breaking and entering, but Sarim showed no anger. "I detected someone tampering with my sealing mark, but I didn't expect you. What are you doing here, Aeron?"
Aeron started to answer and realized he didn't have a reason he could easily explain. "I'm not sure. I just wanted to think, I guess," he said.
"There are more accessible places for that," Sarim remarked. He cleared one of Telemachon's sitting chairs of its debris and joined Aeron, gazing around the room. "What is on your mind?"
Aeron studied Sarim for a long moment, thinking. He wanted to test himself against the ancient mysteries that Oriseus offered . . . but he wasn't certain that he trusted the High Conjuror. Sarim, on the other hand, he did trust. "Oriseus has offered to show me how he worked the magic that destroyed Telemachon. He's asked me to meet him before midnight at the Broken Pyramid."
Sarim's eyes widened, and he leaned forward alertly. "Do you intend to keep your appointment?"
"Yes," Aeron said. "Oriseus says I'm one of the few students here who can understand his sorcery. I want to know how he does what he does." He offered a confident smile. "After all, I'm here to learn, aren't I?"
"Not everyone feels the same, Aeron." Sarim shook his head. "You should be wary of Oriseus's generosity."
"Why do you say that?"
The Calishite fixed his dark eyes on the young mage's face. "Aeron, you and I both know that Oriseus is the most likely suspect for Master Raemon's murder. He stood to gain from Raemon's death; Raemon was a staunch defender of the Sceptanar. Thanks to Telemachon's demise, we've all seen that Oriseus has the capability to work lethal magics that we can't understand or unravel. So let's assume that Telemachon was right, and Oriseus murdered Raemon. Why would he wish to help you understand how that might have been accomplished?"
Aeron frowned and thought for a moment. "You believe he wants to silence me? With Melisanda gone, I'm the only remaining witness to Master Raemon's death."
"Doesn't it strike you as a possibility?"
"If that's the case, why bother to show me anything at all?" Aeron replied. "We've been working for weeks on some of his conjurations and enchantments. He wouldn't have gone to all that trouble if he meant to kill me."
"Unless he deemed it necessary to gain your trust," Sarim said blackly. "What better way?"
"No, I don't believe it," Aeron answered. "I'm different, Sarim. I can become something greater than any other student here. And I mean to. Regardless of what you think of Oriseus's ethics, he can teach me lore that no other master can."
"That's your arrogance speaking, Aeron," Sarim said.
"Is it arrogance if I can back it up with ability?" Aeron said. "Sarim, I don't trust Oriseus. I'll exercise all due caution. But, if he shows me the power that slew Raemon and Telemachon, I'll have the answers to their deaths."
Sarim's eyes flashed, and he stood abruptly. "As you wish," he said. "Your studies are your own; that's the principle we live by here at the college. But they're my business, as well, since I am your sponsor and share responsibility for you. I will join you this evening to see how your lessons with Oriseus go."
"But-"
"Enough, Student Aeron!" Sarim held his gaze until Aeron reluctantly acceded. The tall mage paused a moment, then added, "Aeron, I am only interested in your safety. I do not intend to intrude more than I have to in order to be sure of Oriseus's intentions." He glanced at the window outside. "It's getting late. I'll leave you to your reflections."
Aeron watched Sarim leave, deep in thought. I never should have mentioned the tower, he grumbled in his mind. Sarim didn't need to know about my lessons with Oriseus. Then again, the High Invoker may have been right.
He stood, pushing himself up from the desk. Halfheartedly he began to rummage through the stacks of paper and flip idly through the tomes. Many were incomprehensible to him; Master Telemachon had had a full lifetime of learning, and Aeron couldn't even begin to make sense out of most of his research. One book, marked by a twisted serpent sigil, caught his eye. He picked it up, skimmed a few pages, and found a slip of yellowed parchment caught between two leaves, covered in Telemachon's crabbed handwriting. It was a column of letters beside strange, curving marks and dots.
He struggled to place it for a moment, chewing his tongue. Wait! The Rauric scroll, the yugoloth's bracelet! It's the same lettering! Aeron dropped the book and clutched the scrap of paper in his hands, peering at it. The letters were in ancient Rauric, arrayed in a single row. One mark or whorl stood under each. He realized that he was looking at a letter-for-letter conversion-the key he needed to understand what was in the mysterious scroll he'd taken from the library months ago.
Should I take this to Sarim? he thought. He hardly even considered the notion before dismissing it out of hand. He'd see what he could make of it first. If Sarim confiscated it or demanded the old Rauric scroll, Aeron would never know what was hidden within. He folded the parchment, slipped it into his sleeve, and hurried back to his own chambers, sealing Telemachon's room as he left. The shadows were growing long as he crossed the quadrangle; the afternoon was fading to dusk.
In his chamber, he bolted the door and sat down with the old scroll. The Rauric text was a circuitous, meandering narrative by an old scholar named Derschius. Aeron had assumed that it was a straight translation of the mysterious second column of writing, but now he suspected something else entirely. In fact, now he thought that it might not have anything to do with Derschius's work. Ancient scribes had often scraped or written over older texts, especially if they didn't seem useful. Derschius had probably had no better idea than Aeron what the other column of text said.
Ignoring the scribe's scratchings, Aeron looked carefully at the first lines of the odd text. On a piece of blank paper, he carefully copied the symbols in the exact sequence, leaving plenty of space between each line. Then, using the key he'd found in Telemachon's office, he searched for each symbol's corresponding letter. When he had finished the first line, it read, "The Chants of Arcainasyr, as declaimed by Macchius the Ebon Flame."
"It's an artificial alphabet," he breathed in amazement. The words themselves were in ancient Rauric, but each letter had been replaced by an arbitrary symbol. Macchius, or whoever had dared transcribe the chants, had invented the cipher to mask its contents. Aeron frowned, wondering what in Faerun he was looking at. Nothing in the title meant anything to him.
And it can't be completely artificial, he realized. The markings on the yugoloth's bracelet matched these symbols. They have power, significance. It's not a mundane fabrication to hide this text only. Aeron set his pen to the tip of his tongue, thinking. Deciphering the old scroll might be dangerous. If the symbols could bind a yugoloth, they could certainly carry curses as well. "Well, I won't know until I start," he said aloud. He pulled out a sheet of common parchment and set to work by the yellow light of the late afternoon, his pen scratching in the stillness of his chambers.
At the appointed hour, Aeron set down his pen. Pale and shaken, he rolled up the chants and, after a moment's thought, stuffed them into an unmarked scroll tube, stashing a simple text on alchemy over it to conceal its presence.
It didn't seem like a good thing to leave lying around. Absently, he dressed and stepped out into the cool night. The late summer heat had finally broken, and the night was cool, windy, and damp, with scudding clouds concealing a crescent moon.