the archer.
Eriale flinched, but a hint of color returned to her face, and the blankness fell away from her stare. 'Aeron? What happened-' She gasped as the pain of her injuries flooded through her, no longer checked by the ruthless dominion that had turned her against him. She sagged to the floor, suppressing a sob.
'Eriale, I'm sorry,' Aeron began. 'I didn't know-'
He was interrupted by the sudden cold certainty that shadow-magic was gathering under a conscious will. His heart lurched with the sensation of magic at work. Behind him, Melisanda cried out in alarm. 'The portal, Aeron!'
As the twisting shadow door through which Eriale had come faded out altogether, the streamers of darkness began to sink to the floor, coalescing into a single pool or slick of night-black shadow stuff. The pool quivered once, and then something began to rise from its depths, drawing its shape from the darkness, a tall man with cruel, fine features.
'Aeron, you fool! You have no idea what harm your interference has caused,' Oriseus said, speaking as he rose from the ebon circle. 'You have doomed all of us by unchaining the Shadow Stone.' The sorcerer's hands turned and flashed, shaping a spell with frightening celerity.
Aeron barked out the words to a shielding-spell, covering both himself and Eriale with a shimmering green field of energy. From the raging Shadow Stone tendrils of inky darkness shot out to play along the curving sphere of force, corrupting it instantly with black veins of negative energy. Behind him, Melisanda dodged behind one of the pillars that divided the open chamber from the gallery that ringed it, raising Dalrioc's wand to attack Oriseus. But the archmage finished his spell first, directing a serpentine ray of crackling purple energy at Aeron. It sliced through Aeron's shield without the least interference and struck Aeron full in the chest. He fell to the stone floor, stunned.
Eriale recoiled in fright, but then threw herself over him, trying to protect him from Oriseus's spell. 'Aeron!'
Oddly enough, he didn't seem to be injured. He shook off Eriale's attentions. 'I'm all right,' he told her.
Melisanda shouted the command that activated Dalrioc's deadly scepter and sent a blast of arctic air scything toward Oriseus, but the ancient sorcerer whispered another word and turned sideways, disappearing from view. Passing near the Shadow Stone, the frigid ray seemed to attract a coursing conduit of energy from the pulsating crystal, suddenly doubling and redoubling in strength until it shattered one of the stone pillars across the chamber.
'Aeron, Oriseus vanished! Can you see him?'
Aeron struggled to his knees, one hand pressed to the oddly charred patch over his heart. Oriseus's spell had done something to him, he was certain of that; he could sense black, cold energy pricking at his skin, dire potential as yet unrealized. 'No, I don't, but that doesn't mean that he left. Be careful, Melisanda-the stone's influence is wreaking havoc with our spells.'
'Indeed it is.' Oriseus's voice was strong and confident, near Aeron yet somehow impossibly distant. 'I must confine the stone's power again, or we shall all be killed. When you struck my spell from the stone's bindings, Aeron, you struck away the only thing that protects all of Chessenta from its power.' Oriseus suddenly appeared before the fallen stone, an impossible caricature of a man. He was a flat image, a playing-card figure that winked into nonexistence when he happened to face them edge-on.
Aeron shook his head, astonished. He'd heard of such spells, but he'd never seen one cast before. 'I don't believe you, Oriseus. And even if I did, I'm willing to make that sacrifice. Better that the three of us should die here and put a stop to this than allow you to finish what you've started.'
'Your life is yours to throw away if you wish,' the sorcerer said with venom in his voice, 'but what of your sister's and your friend's? And you accuse me of ruthlessness.' Oriseus stalked forward and then shifted sideways, vanishing. Aeron caught a glimpse of him spinning across the room, flashing in and out of reality. 'We don't have much time for this debate, Aeron. The stone will decide it for us in a matter of minutes!'
In the room's center, the Shadow Stone now burned like a black star, too bright to look at directly. Its dreadful power threw stark shadows against the walls, and it seemed almost distant, as if it were sinking out of sight through the very stuff of reality. The floor and ceiling buckled and twisted toward the stone, drawn to it by a force greater than any maelstrom.
'Then that's it,' Aeron replied.
Oriseus cursed in a forgotten language. He reappeared by the stone, stooping for the discarded iron bands that had circled the crystal. Aeron reacted without hesitation, raising his hands and barking out the words for the storm-strike. With no other options, he drew his strength from the Shadow Stone's awful presence, enduring its sinister touch long enough to finish his spell. From his fingertips bright electrical arcs leaped forward to stab at Oriseus- but even as they reached for the sorcerer, they doubled back on Aeron and struck him. He screamed and twisted under the assault of his own spell, caught in the throes of a dozen burning skewers of pain, before collapsing to the floor.
Oriseus looked up from his work with a bare smile. 'You should have been more careful, Aeron. The first spell I cast upon you was a mage-shield I devised centuries ago, designed to turn your own spells against you. It may have lapsed … or it may still be intact. Why don't you cast another spell and see?' Deliberately, he inscribed a rune upon the iron strip.
Aeron groveled in agony, his vision red and hazy. His strength was failing fast; he'd pushed himself to the limits already. 'Baillegh, stop him!' he gasped.
The silver hound streaked forward to leap at Oriseus. The sorcerer raised his hand and spoke a single word, catching the dog in an amber beam that froze her in mid-leap. Stiff as a statue, she crashed to the ground at his feet, imprisoned in a shimmering field of golden energy.
Eriale helped Aeron rise, her face frozen in a tight grimace of pain. 'What are we going to do?' she said quietly. 'How can we defeat him, Aeron?'
He shook his head. 'I'm running out of ideas,' he replied.
Melisanda slipped the scepter into her blouse, and silently began to work a spell. Aeron watched her, fascinated; she didn't have his ability to use the incalculable energy of the Shadow Stone and had to draw the entirety of her spell from the burning flame of her own life-force.
Before his eyes she seemed to wilt, sagging to her knees and paling with the effort, but she managed to finish her casting. A single streaking point of light soared away from her hand, arcing toward Oriseus. The sorcerer looked up just in time for the spell to detonate in a terrific blast of flame that filled the chamber with an awful roar. Aeron raised his cloak over his face and turned away to throw Eriale to the floor as searing heat washed over them.
The fiery sphere dissipated in moments, leaving behind a haze of smoke and the stink of burned clothes. The Shadow Stone still lay where it had been, untouched by Melisanda's spell. Oriseus, however, was not so fortunate. He groaned and stirred, burned black over his face and hands, while small flames smoldered over his ceremonial robe. Despite the horrible wounds he'd sustained, the sorcerer drew himself to his feet, turning a look of awful rage on Melisanda.
'You were warned,' he said through cracked lips. He took a step toward her, already gathering magic for the spell that would destroy her.
At the edge of the room, Melisanda's strength gave out and she collapsed to the floor. She'd crafted too strong a spell from her own spirit. Aeron staggered to his feet, determined to help her. Oriseus's mage-shield still clung to him like thick oil. His thoughts raced as Oriseus closed in on Melisanda. He needed a counterspell; quickly he barked out the words to the dispelling enchantment.
Oriseus wheeled at the first sound of his words, and then grinned. 'So you have decided to chance my rebounding shield again, Aeron? I thought you smarter than that.' He turned back to Melisanda, his hands glowing with power.
Aeron finished the spell, directing it at Baillegh. If Oriseus's shield had fallen for some reason, he might be able to free her from the amber field that imprisoned her. Sparkling motes of magic danced around the trapped hound, but then they shifted and appeared around Aeron, attacking the black abjuration that tainted his magical powers. Under the assault, the curse failed, freeing Aeron.
Instantly he shaped the deadliest attack he knew, the force-missiles he'd used against Oriseus the first time they fought. Without consideration for himself, he wrenched at the raging power of the Shadow Stone and
