Aeron sat down heavily on an empty stool, still stunned by the illusion's revelations. "I cannot believe it," he said. "You sacrificed your life merely to ensure that I would escape the Shadow Stone's influence?"
The eyes of the spectral Telemachon hardened. "No. I gave up my life because it was necessary in order to preserve all of Chessenta from a blight, a curse, of unspeakable evil. You, Aeron Morieth, are the only instrument by which that curse may be undone."
"How? What can I do?" Aeron asked.
"Destroy the stone," the image replied. "It's the source of power for Oriseus's spell. You do not have the strength or the skill to interfere with the great magic that Oriseus has worked-no one does-but the weak link in the chain is the stone. For all its mystical might, it is nothing more than a common rock, altered in appearance by the unthinkable power it contains."
"I know a few spells that might suffice," Aeron said. "The lightning-spell might do it. Or a spell of breaking."
"Neither will be of use to you. Any magic that you cast at the Shadow Stone will be absorbed by it, tainted. You can't drown a river, Aeron."
"Then how am I supposed to destroy this thing? With a sledgehammer?"
"Nor can you risk touching it, Aeron. If you come into contact with the Stone, it will absorb and corrupt your very spirit, just as it affected the others who fell to its influence five years ago."
Eriale spoke. "That doesn't leave many options."
"I could contrive some kind of physical blow," Aeron mused. "Drop a heavy rock on the stone from a great height, something like that, perhaps. It seems like a crude answer to the challenge, though."
"My time is running short," the phantasm said. Already it was growing fainter as the magical energy that had been stored for years depleted itself. "Aeron, I suspect that the stone would survive any common attempt to break it through physical force. Put it to the test, but I feel this to be true. Perhaps there is a way to turn its own power against it... "
The phantasm continued to fade. "Wait!" cried Aeron. "How could I do that, if I can't use my magic against it? What do I do next?"
"I saw that you would have a chance," the image whispered, now nothing more than a white blur of light.
"Did you see if Aeron succeeds?" Eriale asked. "Or what steps he takes?"
"No," the voice said. "I could not see the Shadow Stone itself. It defeats divinations . . ." With a last glimmer of light, the image faded away completely, leaving nothing but an empty chair. The room felt empty and abandoned now, as if some watchful presence had left forever.
Eriale relaxed her guard, looking to Aeron. "He's gone."
Aeron nodded, his mind racing with possibilities. "What could he mean by turning its own power against it? How could you do that?" Scowling, he sank down into the dusty chair behind the desk.
* * * * *
They waited until well after dusk before leaving Telemachon's old chambers. Again, they slipped through the Masters' Hall without any trouble; Aeron had come to the conclusion that many of the wizards and students were not present in the college halls. Some might have been away on missions similar to the one that had sent Master Crow to Maerchlin, while others might have been on the march with Cimbar's armies. Aeron didn't think it wise to attempt to find out, not for the sake of assuaging his curiosity.
They circled back to the wall they'd scaled to get inside the college, where Baillegh was waiting faithfully. After a hurried change into their traveling clothes, Aeron led Eriale to the edge of the grounds, staying away from the buildings. As night fell, the cloying mists and rain grew heavier, precipitated by the cold waters of the harbor and the nearby sea. It made for a cloak of dense fog that restricted visibility to a dozen yards or less and deadened all sound. Aeron could have marched a company of troops around the college without being spotted under the current conditions.
Ahead of them, the dark shape of the new pyramid loomed up through the mists, disappearing into the blank vapors overhead. Aeron circled the site once, picking his way through worksheds and tumbled piles of stones to be shaped and cut. He kept a close eye on Baillegh; the hound's senses were far keener than his own, and she'd smell danger before he saw anything. The few workmen who'd been here earlier in the day were long gone, and Aeron was surprised by how lonely the place felt even at the same time that it threatened him.
"Something feels wrong here," Eriale said quietly.
"You're right," said Aeron. "The Weave, the magic that exists in all things, is wrong here. Poisoned."
"Let's do what we have to and get out of here."
"I hope it's that easy," Aeron said. He paced the ground where the stone slab he'd first entered the shadow-plane through had stood. It was not there anymore, which he did not find too surprising. With the amount of work Oriseus was doing here, the stone marker was only in the way. "I'm going to have to cast a spell to carry us into the shadow-realm. The door we used before isn't here anymore."
"Will that be difficult?"
He snorted. "The barrier between the worlds is so thin here you could stumble and fall into the plane of shadow. Ready your bow, and keep those special arrows I gave you close at hand. You may need them."
Turning away from the tower, Aeron closed his eyes and paced forward, guessing at the best place to work his spell. The next world was very close here, seeming to strain at the shape and substance of the reality around him, a cancer waiting to be unleashed. If he wanted to, he could blast a rift open that would catapult everything within hundreds of yards into the demiplane of shadow . . . but that was not likely to do anything more than annoy Oriseus and his cronies. Clearly, they were quite experienced with the twilight world. With a deep breath, he unlocked the spell-symbol that parted the veil between worlds. It was an enchantment that required the strength of shadow-magic, and there was no shortage of that nearby. In fact, it took all of Aeron's concentration not to allow the spell to slip away from him.
A rippling wave appeared in the mist, much like the heat-shimmer that rose from a hot stone in the summertime, except that it felt cold, wrong. Aeron bared his teeth in revulsion at the chill touch of the shadow-Weave but endured until he'd forced the tear into something the size and shape of a door.
"Follow me," he said, and he stepped through to the other side.
Physically, the ethereal mists of the shadow-plane were much the same as the last time he'd been here. Everything seems the same, he thought. The pyramid still stands whole and intact, as before, the city isn't here, the cold and the darkness are what I expected. Above the great jagged silhouette of the obelisk, the stars flickered weakly, dim and faint, with great wide gaps of utter blackness between them.
Magically, things had changed. As Aeron turned slowly to ascertain his exact location, he was conscious of a buzzing in his ears, a crawling sensation in his flesh, a shimmering or rippling in his vision. He blinked his eyes and shivered, wondering if this was some aftereffect of the transition from the real to the unreal world. Then, slowly, the truth dawned on him. The pyramid is the only thing that is real here, he realized. Viewed from the other side, the structure was filled with menace and purpose, a dark potential locked in stone. Here, that menace was conscious and active. Streamers of bright, sparkling magic danced in the air or flowed over the ground, drawn to the tower and spiraling around its black walls like a maelstrom. Everything-not just the dead grass or the rolling landscape, the physical fabric upon which they existed-was bending toward the Shadow Stone. Yet as Aeron staggered under the draw of the nearby locus, he had the curious sensation that something was close to pulling his very soul out by the roots.