Spellwright
Blake Charlton

Dedication

To the memory of my grandmother, Jane Bryden Buck (1912-2002), for long stories and lessons in kindness

Epigraph

If one believes that words are acts, as I do, then one must hold writers responsible for what their words do.

—URSULA K. LE GUIN

Dancing at the Edge of the World:

Thoughts on Words, Women, Places

Table of Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

Map

Prologue

CHAPTER One

CHAPTER Two

CHAPTER Three

CHAPTER Four

CHAPTER Five

CHAPTER Six

CHAPTER Seven

CHAPTER Eight

CHAPTER Nine

CHAPTER Ten

CHAPTER Eleven

CHAPTER Twelve

CHAPTER Thirteen

CHAPTER Fourteen

CHAPTER Fifteen

CHAPTER Sixteen

CHAPTER Seventeen

CHAPTER Eighteen

CHAPTER Nineteen

CHAPTER Twenty

CHAPTER Twenty-one

CHAPTER Twenty-two

CHAPTER Twenty-three

CHAPTER Twenty-four

CHAPTER Twenty-five

CHAPTER Twenty-six

CHAPTER Twenty-seven

CHAPTER Twenty-eight

CHAPTER Twenty-nine

CHAPTER Thirty

CHAPTER Thirty-one

CHAPTER Thirty-two

CHAPTER Thirty-three

CHAPTER Thirty-four

CHAPTER Thirty-five

CHAPTER Thirty-six

CHAPTER Thirty-seven

CHAPTER Thirty-eight

CHAPTER Thirty-nine

CHAPTER Forty

CHAPTER Forty-one

CHAPTER Forty-two

CHAPTER Forty-three

CHAPTER Forty-four

CHAPTER Forty-five

CHAPTER Forty-six

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Map

Prologue

The grammarian was choking to death on her own words.

And they were long sharp words, written in a magical language and crushed into a small, spiny ball. Her legs faltered. She fell onto her knees.

Cold autumn wind surged across the tower bridge.

The creature standing beside her covered his face with a voluminous white hood. “Censored already?” he rasped. “Disappointing.”

The grammarian fought for breath. Her head felt as light as silk; her vision burned with gaudy color. The familiar world became foreign.

She was kneeling on a stone bridge, seven hundred feet above Starhaven’s walls. Behind her, the academy’s towers stretched into the cold evening sky like a copse of giant trees. At various heights, ribbon-thin bridges spanned the airy gaps between neighboring spires. Before her loomed the dark Pinnacle Mountains.

Dimly, she realized that her confused flight had brought her to the Spindle Bridge.

Her heart began to kick. From here the Spindle Bridge arched a lofty half-mile away from Starhaven to terminate in a mountain’s sheer rock face. It led not to a path or a cave, but to blank stone. It was a bridge to nowhere, offering no chance of rescue or escape.

She tried to scream, but gagged on the words caught in her throat.

To the west, above the coastal plain, the setting sun was staining the sky a molten shade of incarnadine.

The creature robed in white sniffed with disgust. “Pitiful what passes for imaginative prose in this age.” He lifted a pale arm. Two golden sentences glowed within his wrist.

“You are Magistra Nora Finn, Dean of the Drum Tower,” he said. “Do not deny it again, and do not refuse my offer again.” He flicked the glowing sentences into Nora’s chest.

She could do nothing but choke.

“What’s this?” he asked with cold amusement. “Seems my attack stopped that curse in your mouth.” He paused before laughing, low and breathy. “I could make you eat your words.”

Pain ripped down her throat. She tried to gasp.

The creature cocked his head to one side. “But perhaps you’ve changed your mind?”

With five small cracks, the sentences in her throat deconstructed and spilled into her mouth. She fell onto her hands and spat out the silver words. They shattered on the cobblestones. Cold air flooded into her greedy lungs.

“And do not renew your fight,” the creature warned. “I can censor your every spell with this text.”

She looked up and saw that the figure was now holding the golden sentence that ran into her chest. “Which of your students is the one I seek?”

She shook her head.

The creature laughed. “You took our master’s coin, played the spy for him.”

Again, she shook her head.

“Do you need more than gold?” He stepped closer. “I now possess the emerald and so Language Prime. I could tell you the Creator’s first words. You’d find them…amusing.”

“No payment could buy me for you,” Nora said between breaths. “It was different with master; he was a man.”

The creature cackled. “Is that what you think? That he was human?”

The monster’s arm whipped back, snapping the golden sentence taut. The force of the action yanked Nora forward onto her face. Again pain flared down her throat. “No, you stupid sow,” he snarled. “Your former master was not human!”

Something pulled up on Nora’s hair, forcing her to look at her tormentor. A breeze was making his hood ruffle and snap. “Which cacographer do I seek?” he asked.

She clenched her fists. “What do you want with him?”

There was a pause. Only the wind dared make noise. Then the creature spoke. “Him?”

Involuntarily, Nora sucked in a breath. “No,” she said, fighting to make her voice calm. “No, I said ‘with them.’”

The cloaked figure remained silent.

“I said,” Nora insisted, “‘What do you want with them?’ Not him. With them.”

Another pause. “A grammarian does not fault on her pronouns. Let us speak of ‘him.’”

“You misheard; I—” The creature disengaged the spell that was holding her head up. She collapsed. “It was different in the dreams,” she murmured into the cobblestones.

The creature growled. “Different because I sent you those dreams. Your students will receive the same: visions of a sunset seen from a tower bridge, dreams of a mountain vista. Eventually they will become curious and investigate.”

Nora let out a tremulous breath. The prophecy had come to pass. How could she have been so blind? What grotesque forces had she been serving?

“Perhaps you think Starhaven’s metaspells will protect your students,” the creature said. “They won’t. They might keep me from spellwriting within your walls, but I can lure the whelps into the woods or onto these bridges. It won’t be hard to do now that the convocation has begun. If I must, I’ll snuff out your students one by one. You could prevent all these deaths by speaking one name.”

She did not move.

“Tell me his name,” the white figure hissed, “and I will let you die quickly.”

Nora glanced at the railing. An idea bled across her mind like an ink stain. It might work if she moved quickly enough.

“No answer?” The creature stepped away. “Then yours will be a slow death.”

Nora felt a tug on the magical sentence running through her chest.

“I’ve just infected you with a canker spell. It forces a portion of a spellwright’s body to forge misspelled runes. As we speak, the first canker is forming in your lungs. Soon it will spread into your muscles, compelling you to forge dangerous amounts of text. An hour will see your body convulsing, your arteries bleeding, your stomach ruptured.”

Nora pressed her palms against the cold cobblestones.

“But the strongest of your cacographers will survive such an infection,” the creature sneered. “That’s how I’ll find him. He’ll survive the cankers; the others will die screaming. I’ll spare you this torture if you tell me—”

But Nora did not wait to hear the rest. Soundlessly she pushed herself up and leaped over the railing. For a moment, she feared a swarm of silvery paragraphs would wrap about her ankles and hoist her back up to the bridge.

But the force of her fall snapped the golden sentence running through her chest…and she was free.

She closed her eyes and discovered that her fear of death had become strange and distant, more like a memory than an emotion.

The prophecy had come to pass. The knowledge would perish with her, but that was the price she had to pay: her death would keep a small, flickering hope alive.

Still falling, she opened her eyes. In the east, the crimson sky shone above the mountain’s dark silhouette. The setting sun had shot the peaks full of red-gold light and, by contrast, stained the alpine forests below a deep, hungry black.

CHAPTER One

Nicodemus waited for the library to empty before he suggested committing a crime punishable by expulsion.

“If I edit you, we can both be asleep in an hour,” he said to his text in what he hoped was a casual tone.

At twenty-five, Nicodemus Weal was young for a spellwright, old for an apprentice. He stood an inch over six feet and never slouched. His long hair shone jet black, his complexion dark olive—two colors that made his green eyes seem greener.

The text to whom he was speaking was a common library gargoyle. She was a construct, an animated being composed of magical language. And as Starhaven constructs went, she was a very plain spell.

More advanced gargoyles were animalistic mishmashes: the head of a snake on the body of a pig, limbs profuse with talons and tentacles or fangs and feathers. That sort of thing.

But the gargoyle squatting on the table before Nicodemus took the shape of only one animal: an adult snow monkey. Her slender stone torso and limbs were covered with stylized carvings representing fur. Her bare face presented heavy cheeks and weary eyes.

Her author had given her only one augmentation: a short tail from which protruded three hooked paragraphs of silvery prose. As Nicodemus watched the spell, she picked up three books and, using their clasps, hung them on her tail paragraphs.

“You edit me? Not likely,” she retorted and then slowly climbed onto a bookshelf. “Besides, I was written so that I can’t fall asleep until daylight. ”

“But you have better things to do than reshelve books all night,” Nicodemus countered, smoothing out his black apprentice’s robes.

“I might,” the spell admitted, now climbing laterally along the shelf.

Nicodemus cradled a large codex in his left arm. “And you’ve let apprentices edit you before.”

“Rarely,” she grunted, climbing up two shelves. “And certainly never a cacographer.” She pulled a book from her tail and slipped it onto the shelf. “You are a cacographer, aren’t you? You misspell magical texts simply by touching them?” She looked back at him with narrowed stone eyes.

Nicodemus had anticipated such a question; still, it felt like a kick in the stomach. “I am,” he said flatly.

The gargoyle climbed another shelf. “Then it’s against library rules: constructs aren’t to let cacographers touch them. Besides, the wizards might expel you for editing me.”

Nicodemus took a slow breath.

To either side of them stretched rows of bookshelves and scrollracks. They were on the tenth and top floor of the library known as the Stacks—a square building that housed many of Starhaven’s manuscripts.

Presently the building was empty save for Nicodemus and the gargoyle. Some light came from moonbeams falling on the paper window screens, more from the incandescent flamefly paragraphs flitting about above Nicodemus.

He stepped closer to the gargoyle. “We’ve been reshelving so long that you’ve slowed down. So it’s only your energetic prose that needs rewriting. I don’t have to touch you to do that. All the other apprentices edited their constructs; that’s why they and their gargoyles finished hours ago.”

“All the other apprentices weren’t cacographers,” the spell replied, reshelving another book. “Don’t cacographers always have to stay this late for Stacks duty?”

Trying not to scowl, Nicodemus laid his books back down on the table. “No, usually we don’t need to rejuvenate our gargoyles. It’s this damn convocation; the wizards are pulling every manuscript they can think of to impress their guests.”

The gargoyle grimaced at their pile of unshelved books. “So that’s why we’ve four times as much work tonight.”

Nicodemus gave the construct his most haggard look. “It’s worse than you know. I’ve still got an anatomy text to review and two spelling drills to complete before morning class.”

The gargoyle laughed. “You want empathy from a primary construct? Ha! You might be a cacographer, but you can still think freely.”

Nicodemus closed his eyes and realized that they stung from lack of sleep. Half an hour had already passed since midnight, and he had to wake with the dawn bell.

He looked at the gargoyle. “If you let me rejuvenate your energetic prose tonight, I’ll find you a modification scroll tomorrow. Then you can change yourself however you like—wings, claws, whatever.”

The textual construct began to climb back toward the table. “Wonderful, wings from a cacographer. What good would a scroll written by a retarded—”

“No, you pile of clichéd prose!” Nicodemus snapped. “I didn’t say ‘write.’ I said ‘find,’ which means ‘steal.’”

“Ho ho, the boy has some spirit after all.” The gargoyle chuckled. She stopped climbing to look back at him. “Steal a scroll from whom?”

Nicodemus pulled a lock of black hair away from his face. Bribing constructs was an illegal but common practice in Starhaven. He disliked it, but he disliked the idea of another sleepless night even more. “I am Magister Shannon’s apprentice,” he said.

“Magister Agwu Shannon, the famous linguist?” the gargoyle asked excitedly. “The expert on textual intelligence?”

“The same.”

A slow stone smile spread across the gargoyle’s face. “Then you’re the boy who failed to live up to prophecy? The one they thought was the Halcyon until he turned out to be retarded?”

“Do we have a deal or not?” Nicodemus retorted hotly, his hands clenched.

Still smiling, the gargoyle climbed onto the table. “Are the rumors about Shannon true?”

“I wouldn’t know; I don’t listen to hearsay,” Nicodemus growled. “And if you speak one word against Magister, heaven help me but I’ll knock you into sentence fragments.”

The gargoyle snickered. “Such a loyal apprentice, considering you’re offering to steal one of Shannon’s scrolls.”

Nicodemus clenched his jaw and reminded himself that, at some point, virtually all apprentices bribed constructs with their mentor’s work. “Gargoyle, what do you want?”

She answered instantly: “Two stone more weight, so the medium-weight gargoyles can’t push me off my sleeping perch. And quaternary cognition.”

Nicodemus resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Don’t be ignorant; most humans can’t reach quaternary cognition.”

The gargoyle frowned and attached a book to her tail. “Tertiary, then.”

Nicodemus shook his head. “With your executive text, we can’t do better than secondary cognition.”

She crossed her arms. “Tertiary.”

“You might as well bargain for the white moon. You’re asking for something I can’t give.”

“And you’re asking me to be edited by a cacographer. Aren’t cacographers incapable of concentrating long enough to finish a spell?”

“No,” he said curtly. “Some of us have that problem, but I don’t. The only thing that defines a cacographer is a tendency to misspell a complex text when touching it. And I wouldn’t have to touch you.”

The stone monkey folded her arms. “But you’re asking me to deliberately violate library rules.”

This time Nicodemus did roll his eyes. “You can’t violate library rules, gargoyle; you’ve only got primary cognition. Your rules only forbid my touching you. All I need do tonight is add more energetic language to your body. I can do that without touching you. I’ve done this before and the gargoyle didn’t lose a single rune.”

The spell leaned forward and searched his face with blank stone eyes. “Two stone more weight and secondary cognition.”

“Deal,” Nicodemus grunted. “Now turn around.”

The gargoyle’s tail was still attached to a large spellbook. But rather than unfasten it, she stepped on top of the codex and turned to present her back.

Nicodemus’s black apprentice robes had slits sewn into the top of the sleeves, near the shoulder. He slipped his arms out of these and looked down at his right elbow.

Magical runes were made not with pen and paper, but within muscle. Nicodemus, like all spellwrights, had been born with the ability to transform his physical strength into runes made of pure magical energy.

By tensing his bicep, he forged several runes within his arm. He could see the silvery language shine through skin and sinew. Tensing his bicep again, he joined the letters into a sentence, which he let spill into his forearm.

With a wrist flick, he cast the simple spell into the air, where it twisted like a tendril of glittering smoke. He extended his arm and cast the sentence onto the nape of the monkey’s neck.

The spell contained a disassemble command; therefore, where it touched the construct, she began to shine with a silver glow. Nicodemus wrote a second sentence with his left arm and cast it next to his first. A seam of light ran down to the gargoyle’s tail, and the two sides of her back swung open as if on hinges.

A coiling profusion of incandescent prose shone before him.

Different magical languages had different properties, and this gargoyle was made of two: Magnus, a robust silvery language that affected the physical world, and Numinous, an elegant golden language that altered light and other magical text. The gargoyle thought with her Numinous passages, moved with her Magnus.

Nicodemus’s task was to add more energetic Magnus sentences. Fortunately, the structure of these energetic sentences was so simple that even a cacographer could compose them without error.

Careful not to touch the gargoyle, Nicodemus began to forge runes in his biceps and cast them into the gargoyle. Soon the Magnus sentences appeared as a thick rope of silvery light that coursed from his arms into the construct.

Though Nicodemus was a horrible speller, he could write faster than many grand wizards. Therefore he decided to provide the gargoyle with extra energetic text now; she might not submit to another edit later.

After moving his hands closer, Nicodemus tensed every muscle in his arms, from the tiny lumbricals between his hand bones to the rounded deltoid atop his shoulder. Within moments, he produced a dazzling flood of spells that flowed into the gargoyle’s back.

The blaze grew so bright that he began to worry about bringing un-wanted attention to the library. He was standing yards away from the nearest window, but a wizard working late might walk past the Stacks and see the glow. If caught, he would be expelled, perhaps even censored permanently.

Just then a loud thud sounded to Nicodemus’s left. Terrified, he stopped writing and turned, expecting to find an enraged librarian bearing down on him.

But he saw only darkened bookshelves and scrollracks. Beyond those was a row of narrow, moonlit windows.

A second thud made Nicodemus jump. It sounded as if it were coming from the library’s roof.

He looked up but saw only ceiling. Then the darkness was filled by a repetitive clomping, as if someone were running. The footsteps passed directly over him and then sped away to the opposite side of the library.

Nicodemus turned to follow the sound with his eyes. When the footsteps reached the roof’s edge, they ceased. A moon-shadow flickered across two of the paper screens.

Then came a low muttering beside him: “Ba, ball, balloon, ballistic.” Something snickered. “Symbolic ballistics. Ha! Symbolic, diabolic. Diabolic, symbolic. Sym…bolic is the opposite of dia…bolic. Ha ha.”

Nicodemus looked down and, to his horror, saw his hand enmeshed in the silver and gold coils of the gargoyle’s text. His cacographic touch was causing the once stable sentences to misspell. He must have accidentally laid his hand on the construct when startled by the footsteps.

“Oh, hell!” he whispered, pulling his hand back.

When his fingers left the gargoyle, the two sides of her back snapped shut. Instantly, she was on her feet and staring at him with one eye that blazed golden and another that throbbed with silver light. “Vertex, vortex, university,” she muttered and laughed in a way that showed her sharp primate teeth. “Invert, extravert. Ha ha! Aversion, aveeeeersion.”

“Ohhhhh hell,” a wide-eyed Nicodemus whispered, too shocked and frightened to move.

A sudden nauseating wave of guilt washed through him. He might have irreversibly damaged the gargoyle’s executive text.

Then the construct was off, dashing down the aisle. A spellbook was still hooked to her tail. Now, dragging behind her, the book opened and began to lose paragraphs written in several magical languages. Falling from the tortured pages, the paragraphs squirmed as if alive. Two exploded into small clouds of white runes; others slowly deconstructed into nothing.

“Wait!” Nicodemus yelled, sprinting after the misspelled gargoyle. “Gargoyle, stop!”

The construct either did not hear or did not care. She leaped up at a window and exploded through its paper screen.

Nicodemus reached the sill in time to watch her fall down ten stories into a dark courtyard filled with elm trees, grass, and ivy.

As the gargoyle dropped, stray paragraphs continued to fall from the spellbook attached to her tail. Radiant words of gold, green, silver, and white fluttered downward and in so doing formed a comet’s tail of radiant language.

“Please, heaven, please don’t let Magister Shannon find out about this,” Nicodemus prayed. “Please!”

The gargoyle hit the ground and scampered away, but the still-falling coruscation of paragraphs began to illuminate the stone spires, arches, and arcades of the surrounding buildings. Nicodemus turned to sprint after his mistake.

But as he did so, something caught his eye. What exactly, he couldn’t say. For when he looked back, it had disappeared, leaving only the vague impression that he had seen—standing atop an ornate stone buttress—a hooded figure cloaked entirely in white.

CHAPTER Two

The creature, now crouching beside a stone chimney, watched the gargoyle scamper through the courtyard.

The construct’s speed implied excessive energetic language; its erratic course, a misspelled executive text. Only a powerful cacographer was likely to produce such a construct.

“Meaning my boy is in that library this very instant,” the creature muttered while glaring at the Stacks. He had glimpsed his quarry in the library window, but the rain of paragraphs loosed by the gargoyle had obscured everything but the boy’s silhouette.

Suddenly the night resounded with a sharp crack.

The creature turned and saw a silver spell shoot out from behind a stone spire. The spherical text was written in Magnus and so would have a powerful effect on the physical world. Indeed, its blazing sentences seemed designed to blast a human body into a cloud of bone fragments and vaporized blood.

More important, the spell was flying straight for the creature’s head.

He dove right, rolling down the slate roof. There was a crash and needles of pain flew down his back. No doubt the Magnus spell had shattered the chimney into stone splinters.

At the roof’s edge, the creature came out of its roll and crouched. A flying buttress to another building stood roughly ten feet away. He looked back but there was no sign of the guardian spell that must have cast the Magnus attack.

His body was not in danger; guardian spells were slow on rooftops. But they were lightning quick in courtyards and hallways and so could prevent him from retrieving the boy.

“So the guardians must be removed,” he grunted.

With a powerful leap the creature flew into the air, white robes billowing, and landed neatly on the arc of the flying buttress. With care, he ran up the arc to another roof; this one abutted one of the aqueducts that criss-crossed Starhaven. He scaled the aqueduct, and finding it dry, ran eastward.

All three moons were out, gibbous, and gloriously bright. They illuminated Starhaven’s many towers and bridges from three different angles, transforming the lower levels into a maze of overlapping shadows.

The wizards, in their arrogance, referred to Starhaven as one of their “academies.” In truth, the place was an ancient city, built by the Chthonic people long before any human had laid eyes on this continent. Though the wizards claimed the entirety of Starhaven, they occupied only the westernmost third of the city.

The creature’s course led him away from the inhabited buildings. Here stood dark towers, cracked domes, and cobbled streets pocked by weeds.

He waited until the abandoned building echoed with the heavy footfalls of the guardians. Then he raced up a tower’s spiral staircase and sprinted north on an upper-level walkway.

Once certain the guardians were far behind, the creature turned westward and focused his every bloody thought on hunting down the cacographic boy.

NICODEMUS PUSHED THE door latch with his elbow, the door itself with his backside. When it swung open, he stepped backward into Magister Shannon’s study and fell over sideways.

His arms encircled a tapestry wrapped into a ball and bound by twine. It writhed continuously and in a muffled voice blathered: “Corpulent, encouragement, incorporeal. Ha! Incorporeal encooooouragment!”

Nicodemus rolled away from the tapestry. “Celeste, goddess of the sky, please make her shut up. I’ll light a candle for you every night if you just make her shut up.”

Unimpressed, Celeste declined to intervene.

“Empathy, apathy, sympathy, hoo hoo!” said the bundled tapestry.

“Two candles?” Nicodemus offered the unseen sky.

“Euphony, cacophony, hoo hoo! Calligraphy, cacography, ha ha!” said the bundle.

Groaning, Nicodemus got to his feet. The study was dark, but both the blue and white moons shone through the open arched windows.

It was a rectangular room lined with oak bookshelves. A broad writing desk sat at one end, a huddle of chairs in the middle.

Nicodemus went to the nearest bookshelf and pulled out a large codex on gargoyle repair and maintenance. The needed spell was on the tenth page. He laid the open book on the desk, slipped his arms from his sleeves, and wrote a short Numinous spell in his right hand. Bending the golden sentence into a hook, he dipped it into the page and peeled off a tangle of Numinous paragraphs that folded into a rectangular crystalline lattice. Careful not to touch the text, he walked back to the squirming bundle and, with a sharp word, cut the twine cords.

The gargoyle sprang free with a joyful cry.

Nicodemus struck her over the head with the Numinous lattice. The crystalline spell locked around the gargoyle’s mind, causing her to freeze in an unlikely pose—one knee and one foot on the floor, both hands reaching skyward. She began to fall forward.

Uttering an oath, Nicodemus extemporized a simple Magnus sentence to catch her. With a few more sentences, he lifted her up and then leaned her against the bookshelf.

As far as he knew, no one had seen him chasing the gargoyle around the courtyard with a tapestry. For that, he said a prayer of thanks to the Creator.

Then he looked at the gargoyle and said in a voice that was soft and sincere, “You stupid, suffering construct. What have I done to you?”

“Fused her Numinous cortices,” a rumbling voice replied.

Nicodemus’s blood froze. “Magister!” he whispered as a figure moved out of a dark corner.

Grand Wizard Agwu Shannon stepped into a bar of blue moonlight. The glow illuminated white dreadlocks, a short beard and mustache, tawny skin. His nose was large and hooked, his thin lips pressed flat in disapproval.

However, Shannon’s eyes commanded the most attention. They presented neither iris nor pupil but were everywhere pure white. These were eyes blind to the mundane world but extraordinarily perceptive of magical text.

Nicodemus sputtered. “Magister, I didn’t think you’d be working so late. I was just going—”

The grand wizard stopped him by nodding to the gargoyle. “Who else knows?”

“No one. I was reshelving in the Stacks alone. I was just going to edit her.”

Shannon grunted and then looked in Nicodemus’s direction. “She shouldn’t have let you touch her. What was your bribe?”

Nicodemus felt as if he were breathing through a reed. “Two stone more weight and secondary cognition.”

The grand wizard walked to the gargoyle and squatted beside her. “She already has secondary cognition.”

“But that’s impossible; I never used a modification scroll on her.”

“Look at this frontal cortex.” The grand wizard pointed.

Nicodemus went to Shannon’s side, but lacking his teacher’s vision, he saw only the monkey’s stone forehead.

“There’s some inappropriate fusion, but…” Shannon muttered. Using only the muscles in his right hand, the grand wizard produced a tiny storm of golden sentences. Faster than Nicodemus could follow, the spell split the gargoyle’s head and began to rearrange her executive subspells.

Nicodemus pursed his lips. “She said she was primary, and the librarians assigned her to reshelving; they only use primary gargoyles for that.”

Shannon brought his left hand up to assist his manipulation of the gargoyle’s Numinous passages. “How long did you touch her?”

“No more than a few moments,” Nicodemus insisted. He was about to say more when Shannon clapped the monkey’s head together and pulled the Numinous lattice from her head as if it were a tablecloth.

The gargoyle sank to all fours and looked up at Shannon. Her blank stone eyes searched his face. “I could have a name now,” she said in a quick, childlike voice.

Shannon’s nod sent his white dreadlocks swaying. “But I wouldn’t pick one just yet. Get used to your new thoughts first.”

She smiled and then, dreamily, nodded.

Shannon stood and looked toward Nicodemus. “What was it you wrapped her in?”

“A tapestry,” Nicodemus said weakly. “From the Stacks.”

Shannon sighed and turned back to the gargoyle. “Please re-hang that tapestry and finish reshelving. Use the rest of the night to name yourself.”

The energized gargoyle nodded eagerly then scooped up the tapestry and scampered out the door.

“Magister, I—” Nicodemus stopped as Shannon turned to face him.

The old man was dressed in the billowing black robes of a grand wizard. Even in the dim moonlight, the lining of his large hood shone white, indicating that he was a linguist. Silver and gold buttons ran down his sleeves, signifying his fluency in Numinous and Magnus.

Shannon’s blind gaze was turned slightly away, but when he spoke, Nicodemus felt as if the old man was staring through his body to his soul.

“My boy, you surprise me. As a younger spellwright, I bribed a few constructs, even got into hot water with overly ambitious texts. But your disability places a special burden on us both. I keenly want you to earn a lesser hood, but if another wizard had seen that misspelled gargoyle…well, it would have ended your hopes of escaping apprenticeship and made life harder for the other cacographers.”

“Yes, Magister.”

Shannon sighed. “I will continue fighting for your hood, but only if there won’t be a repetition of such…carelessness.”

Nicodemus looked at his boots. “There won’t be, Magister.”

The old man began to walk back to his desk. “And why in the Creator’s name did you touch the gargoyle?”

“I didn’t mean to. I was editing text into her when there was a crash. Then it sounded like someone was running on the roof. It made me accidentally touch the gargoyle.”

Shannon stopped. “When was this?”

“Maybe half an hour ago.”

The grand wizard turned to face him. “Tell me everything.”

As Nicodemus described the strange sounds, Shannon’s lips again pressed into a thin line. “Magister, is something wrong?”

Shannon went to his desk. “Light two of my candles; leave one here, take one yourself. Then run up to Magister Smallwood’s study. He always works late. Ask him to join me.”

Nicodemus started for the candle drawer.

“Then you’re to go straight back to the Drum Tower—no detours, no dillydally.” Shannon sat down behind his desk. “I will send Azure to your quarters with a message. Am I clear?”

“Yes, Magister.” Nicodemus set up and lit the candles.

Shannon began sorting through the manuscripts on his desk. “You’ll spend tomorrow with me. I’ve received permission to begin casting a primary research spell and will need your assistance. And then there’s my new composition class to teach. I’ll have you excused from apprentice duty.”

“Truly?” Nicodemus smiled in surprise. “Might I teach? I’ve practiced the introductory lecture.”

“Perhaps,” Shannon said without looking up from the manuscript he was reading. “Now run up to Magister Smallwood and then straight to the Drum Tower, nowhere else.”

“Yes, Magister.” Nicodemus eagerly picked up a candle and made his way to the door.

But when he put his hand on the latch, an idea stopped him. “Magister,” he asked slowly, “did that gargoyle have secondary cognition all along?”

Shannon paused and then put down his manuscript. “My boy, I don’t want to raise false expectations again.”

Nicodemus frowned. “Expectations about what?”

“The gargoyle had primary cognition until you misspelled her.”

“But how is that possible?”

“It shouldn’t be,” Shannon said before rubbing his eyes. “Nicodemus, for this convocation we are hosting delegates from the North: Astrophell wizards, some of my former colleagues. Some of them belong to the counter-prophecy faction and so will distrust cacographers even more than other Northerners do. It would be exceedingly dangerous if they learned that your touch both misspelled a gargoyle and elevated her freedom of thought.”

“Dangerous because they would want me censored?”

Shannon shook his head. “Dangerous because they would want you killed.”

CHAPTER Three

On the way to Magister Smallwood’s study, Nicodemus looked at his candle. It was quavering in time to his hand’s fine tremble.

He had never known Shannon to betray even a hint of anxiety. But when the old man had mentioned the Astrophell delegates, his tone had been strained, his words clipped. The danger the Northerners posed must be real indeed.

Worse had been Shannon’s statement about not raising “false expectations.” Nicodemus shivered; the old man could only have been referring to Nicodemus’s lost hope of fulfilling the Erasmine Prophecy.

“Fiery heaven, don’t think on it,” Nicodemus muttered to himself, as he had done countless times before.

A row of arched windows, all filled with ornate tracery, ran along the hallway. Nicodemus stopped to peer between the flowing stone beams to the starry sky beyond. He slowed his breathing and tried to soothe his frayed nerves.

But his hands still trembled, and it wasn’t Northern delegates or unfulfilled prophecies that made them do so.

It was the memory of Shannon’s face when the old man had stepped into the moonlight—his white eyebrows knitting together in disapproval, his lips narrowing in disappointment.

The memory made Nicodemus feel as if something were tightening around his heart. “I’ll make it up to the old man,” he whispered. “I will.”

He turned from the window and hurried down the hall to an open door spilling candlelight into the hallway. “Magister Smallwood?” He knocked on the doorjamb. The grand wizard looked up from his desk.

Smallwood was a thin, pale spellwright with a tousled wreath of gray hair. His eyes, though beginning to cloud over, still held black pupils within brown irises.

Nicodemus cleared his throat. “Magister Shannon sends his compliments and asks that you join him in his study.”

“Ah, good, good, always happy to see Shannon,” Smallwood said with an absent smile. He closed his book. “And who are you?”

“Nicodemus Weal, Magister Shannon’s apprentice.”

Smallwood leaned forward and squinted. “Ah, Shannon’s next cacographic project?”

“I’m sorry?”

“I don’t remember the last boy’s name. And I’ve never seen you before.”

In fact, Nicodemus had been bringing Smallwood written messages for nearly two years. However, this was the first time Nicodemus had spoken directly to him. “I’m sorry, Magister, but I don’t understand about the cacographic project.”

Smallwood stretched his arms and adjusted his hood, which like Shannon’s was lined with white. “Oh, you know, Shannon takes his work with the Drum Tower boys so seriously. And he’s always got a pet cacographer. It’s ridiculous the rumors that go round about him; he’s so proud when one of you earns a lesser hood.”

“Yes, Magister,” Nicodemus said, trying not to frown. He had heard rumors about Shannon’s former career in Astrophell but never a rumor about the old man’s current position as Master of the Drum Tower.

“So, what exactly does Shannon have you doing to earn that hood?” Smallwood asked.

“He’s written a spell that allows him to pull my runes into his body. It helps him spellwrite longer texts. We’re hoping that if enough linguists feel I’m helpful, they’ll give me a lesser hood lined with white.”

“Ah, yes, and I’m to be the first who finds you useful.” Smallwood’s smile seemed genuine. “I believe you’ll be assisting Shannon and me tomorrow. Very exciting, very promising research spell we’ll be attempting.”

“I’m honored to be part of it, Magister.”

“And are you teaching yet?”

Nicodemus tried to sound confident. “Anatomy dissections, but not a spellwriting class yet. I’m very much looking forward to it.”

“Yes, well, keep pestering Shannon about that; the academy will keep a hood away from you until you’re fifty unless you teach composition.” The linguist’s gaze wandered to the books on his desk. “Did Shannon want me right away?”

“I believe so, Magister.”

Smallwood stood. “Very well, very well. Thank you, Nicolas; it is good to meet you. You may go.”

“Nicodemus, Magister.”

“Yes, yes, Nicodemus, of course.” He paused. “Pardon me, but did you say Nicodemus Weal?”

“Yes, Magister.”

Smallwood studied Nicodemus with a focused intensity. “Of course,” the grand wizard said at last, suddenly earnest. “Foolish of me to forget you, Nicodemus. Thank you for the message. You may go.”

Nicodemus bobbed his head and retreated. He hurried to the hallway’s end and then ducked into a narrow spiral staircase. Shannon had instructed him to go straight back to the Drum Tower, so he jogged down to the ground level and out into a torch-lit hallway. Walking eastward, he passed Lornish tapestries and gilded stone arcades.

But he was blind to their beauty.

His thoughts were troubled by what Smallwood had said about Shannon. All the apprentices knew that Shannon had suffered some kind of fall from grace back in Astrophell, but Smallwood had implied there were more recent rumors involving Shannon and cacographers.

Nicodemus bit his lip. Smallwood was famously absentminded; it was possible that he was mistaking old rumors for new.

But if that was the case, what exactly had Smallwood been misremembering when he mentioned Shannon’s “next cacographic project” and his new “pet cacographer”?

Nicodemus turned to mount a narrow staircase.

Shannon had begun teaching cacographers only fifty years ago, when he arrived at Starhaven. So the source of Smallwood’s rumor must have occurred since then.

Reaching the oak doors at the top of the stairs, Nicodemus pushed them open and looked out on the gray slate tiles that paved the yard of the Stone Court.

Centuries ago, the Neosolar Empire had renovated the courtyard after taking Starhaven from the Chthonic people. However, none of the succeeding occupying kingdoms had built over this aspect of the stronghold.

Consequently, the Stone Court demonstrated the classical architecture so common to Starhaven’s Imperial Quarter: walls decorated by molded white plaster, arched doorways, wide windows. Each entryway was flanked by a pair of stone obelisks.

However, because of the Stone Court’s remote location, the wizards had filled it with several objects too unsightly to reside in Starhaven’s more populous quarters.

A forest of Dralish standing stones stood in the courtyard’s center. On its eastern edge loitered two marble statues of Erasmus and one of Uriel Bolide. And everywhere—curled up, sprawled out, or lying on any available stone ledge—were sleeping janitorial gargoyles.

Nicodemus started for the Drum Tower, which abutted the court’s eastern limit. But as he went, he saw something move within the stone forest.

He stopped.

The movement had been too quick to be that of a janitorial gargoyle. And no neophyte should be awake so late. Perhaps it was a feral cat?

It came again: a pale blur between two standing stones. Apprehension gripped Nicodemus. Wizards wore only black. Cloth of any other color signified an outsider…or an intruder.

Starhaven’s many towers hid the blue and black moons, but the gibbous white moon hung directly overhead and flooded the court with milky light. As Nicodemus snuck among the standing stones, a crocodile-like gargoyle sleeping on the ground rolled over to regard him with a half-opened eye.

Someone was whispering behind the megalith to Nicodemus’s left. “Who’s there?” he asked in his boldest voice and stepped around the megalith.

Before him stood a short figure robed in white cloth. It spun around with inhuman speed.

CHAPTER Four

Magister Shannon, sitting behind his desk, looked in the direction of Smallwood’s voice. “Thank you for coming so late, Timothy.”

“Quite all right; I’m always up,” Smallwood said with his usual warmth. Shannon could not see the other wizard, but judging by his voice, he was standing by the bookshelves.

“But I’m surprised you’re awake,” Smallwood added. “I didn’t think you were a night owl.”

Shannon grunted. “I’m not. Two hours ago, I was in bed. A relay text from one of my research projects woke me with a report of unusual guardian activity around the Drum Tower. Seems they’ve been chasing something around on the roofs.”

“Guardian spells,” Smallwood said with a disdainful sniff. “Sloppy prose, if you ask me, written with too much sensitivity. Likely they were chasing a feral cat that wandered in from the uninhabited quarters.”

“That was my first thought. I came here to look up a few things about editing the guardians’ sensitivity. But then my apprentice appeared; seems he heard someone running across the roof of the Stacks.”

When Shannon looked at his bookshelf, his eyes saw through the leather bindings to the radiant paragraphs contained within the books. As he watched, a rectangle of green text separated from the rest and unfolded into two smaller rectangles. Smallwood had pulled a book and was browsing through it. “Timothy, are you listening?”

“What? Yes, yes, of course,” Smallwood replied and clapped the green rectangles together. “So you think one of the delegates might be sneaking about the roofs?”

Shannon shrugged. “Could be a foreign spellwright. Could be a wizard.”

“But spying on the Drum Tower? I know the cacographers are close to your heart, but shouldn’t intrigue focus elsewhere? The Main Library, say, or the provost’s quarters?”

“Precisely what worries me.”

Smallwood coughed. “Agwu, might you be overreacting? I know you were more…involved in Astrophell, but this is Starhaven.”

Shannon rubbed his mustache to hide his frown.

Smallwood continued. “Perhaps the Astrophell delegates have put you on edge? Brought back the old instincts?”

“Perhaps but unlikely,” Shannon insisted. “I’ve two guardian spells in the linguistics library. I’d like them cast to patrol around the Stone Court. But first I need you to rewrite their protocols to communicate with the gargoyles sleeping there.”

It sounded as if Smallwood were shuffling his feet. “Tonight?”

Shannon crossed his arms and looked where he thought his colleague’s face might be. “It would help me focus on our research spell tomorrow.”

“Tonight it is, then. I am grateful you’ve included me in this research.”

Shannon let out a breath he had not known he was holding.

The rectangle of green prose floated back up to its proper place: Smallwood was reshelving the book. “Is Azure about?”

Shannon shook his head. “She’s delivering a message for me.” He did not mention that she was also flying about the rooftops searching for anything unusual.

“Pity,” Smallwood said, his voice heading for the door. “I wanted to see her Numinous dialect again. Agwu, before I go…do I remember correctly that your apprentice was thought to be the Halcyon?”

“You do.”

Smallwood continued hesitantly. “Your fear that…I mean, perhaps you’re jumping to conclusions.” He paused. “Let me ask it this way: Do you think Nicodemus is the one of prophecy?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Good, good, of course.” The door latch clicked. “I’ll have the guardian spells cast within an hour. I’ll see you tomorrow after midday?”

“Indeed,” Shannon said and then waited for the door hinges to creak before adding, “Timothy, truly, thank you.”

“Quite welcome, Agwu. Quite welcome.” The door clicked shut.

Puffing out his cheeks, Shannon retrieved his research journal from his desk. It was a leather-bound codex about two hands tall. Its spine and face were each embossed with three asterisks, allowing him to identify the book by touch. He opened it and began to write a few notes about the day. He worked for a quarter hour before an unexpected light made him look up.

He could not see his door physically, but he knew exactly where it was. It usually formed a dark rectangle amid the glow of his bookshelves. Where the darkness should have been, there now shone a cloud of golden paragraphs.

Experience told Shannon that he was looking through the door to an incandescent flamefly spell being cast in the hallway.

His first thought was that Smallwood had returned. But Timothy knew the hallways; he rarely cast a single flamefly paragraph, much less a swarm. The author of this spell wanted a good deal of light when navigating Starhaven’s hallways.

Most likely a foreigner.

Shannon squinted at the text. It was written with bold words and complex sentences. The author favored compound appositives, an unusual structure.

Shannon grimaced in recognition. It had been a long time since he had seen this spellwright. “Creator save me, what else is going to happen tonight?” he muttered, waiting for the author to knock.

But she did not knock. He closed his research journal. Moments passed. He could see her prose but not her body. Strangely, she let the flamefly paragraphs deconstruct into heatless cinders that snowed down to the floor. What was she waiting for?

Affecting his warmest tone, he called out, “You may come in, Amadi.”

Slowly the door hinges squeaked. A woman’s calm voice said, “I see that old Magister Shannon isn’t as blind as rumor claims.” The door clicked shut.

Shannon smiled as he stood. “Old? I’m not so antique as to forget your sharp tongue. Come and embrace your ancient teacher.”

Memory guided him around the desk. Amadi’s approaching footsteps were light, hesitant. But her embrace was strong and quick. He had forgotten how tall she was. “But the rumors are true,” he said while stepping back: “I’m as blind as a cave fish.”

She paused. “You don’t look old enough to have lost sight.”

He chuckled dryly. “Then it’s your eyes we should worry about. I’m nearly done with my second century.”

“Magister, I’ll be sorely disappointed if it’s only age that stole your vision,” Amadi said in the same teasing tone she had used as a girl. “I’ve heard stories, legends even, about how you blinded yourself by reading forbidden texts in the Spirish Civil War or by combating twenty mercenary authors while your beard was on fire.”

Shannon had been counterfeiting good humor, but now a genuine laugh escaped his lips. “The truth is nothing so scintillating.”

“But you don’t seem that old.”

“You always were a stubborn one.” He laughed again and shook his head.

In Astrophell, Shannon had made several powerful enemies who might have planted an agent in the Northern delegation. For this reason, any Astrophell wizard was a potential threat; and yet, despite the danger, he en-joyed talking to his former student and remembering a past life.

“Amadi, I plan to begin ghostwriting in five years,” he said in a more playful tone. “So don’t bother with flattery about how young I might seem; it only reminds me of your advantage. My familiar is not about to look at you for me. And I’m curious to see you after…how long has it been? Fifty years?”

Amadi’s leather soles whispered against the floor. “Your fingers may look,” she said, suddenly closer.

This was unexpected. “That…” His voice died as she took his hands and placed them on her brow.

An uncomfortable pause.

Then his fingertips flowed onto her brief eyebrow ridge; down over her deep-set eyes; up the sharp nasal promontory; softly over the two pursed lips; along the delicate chin.

His memory provided color: ivory for her skin, sable for her hair, watery blue for her eyes. Imagination mixed touch with recollection to produce the image of a pale wizard with fine dreadlocks and an impassive expression.

Shannon swallowed. He hadn’t thought seeing an old student would be like this. “Your hair must show a little white by now,” he said more quickly than he would have liked.

“More than a little,” she said, stepping away. “Will you tell me how you recognized me through your door?”

“With my natural sight gone, my spellwright’s vision now pierces the mundane world to see magical text. Through the door, I recognized your compound appositives.”

“You still remember my prose style?”

He shrugged. “I also heard your name among the Astrophell delegates; I was expecting to run into you sooner or later. This turns out to be sooner indeed.”

“Magister, I want to talk about—”

“Please, call me Agwu,” he interrupted. “Or Shannon—it’s what my friends use when they have trouble with a Northern first name.”

“I don’t think I can,” she said and then giggled. “Do you remember catching me and the other acolytes out of bed? How can I call you Shannon remembering that?”

He joined his laugh to hers and walked back to his chair. “I had nearly forgotten. What were you little monsters sneaking into the academy? A pair of muddy pigs? Please, take a seat.”

“Pigs? In Astrophell?” she asked. Her chair creaked. “It was only one, very clean, goat.”

“Whatever it was, you certainly can call me Shannon now that you may carry a grand wizard’s staff.” He settled into his chair.

“Well then, Shannon, I bring word of your granddaughter.”

Shannon’s stomach tightened. Her tone was still playful, but her words marked the end of pleasantries, the beginning of politics.

“You do?” he said, forcing his smile to neither broaden nor wilt.

Amadi cleared her throat. “She married a wealthy Ixonian merchant last year.”

“Wonderful,” he heard himself say. “What else can you tell me?”

“Little more, I’m afraid. I’ve the merchant’s name written down somewhere.” She paused. “Forgive me. It must be difficult discussing the life exile took away.”

Shannon waved away her comment. “Bah, it was no exile; I accepted this position. Besides, wizards swear off family for a reason. In the beginning, it was difficult getting only fragmented news of my son. But now I’ve promising research and dedicated students. We are discovering such fascinating things. Just this morning I received permission to begin casting my primary research spell.”

Amadi’s chair creaked. “And you’re content with such a…calm life?”

Shannon raised his eyebrows. So she suspected that he still harbored political ambitions? That might be dangerous, especially if she were reporting back to Astrophell.

“Amadi, sometimes it feels as if another author lived that bustling career in the North. Starhaven is a smaller academy, and we’re so very far from civilization. But here…” He made a show of running his gaze across his books. “Here I enjoy a slower life.”

When she did not reply, he changed the subject. “I just moved into new quarters above the Bolide Garden. Janitorial is renovating the gardens; it’s not much now, heaps of dirt and clay, but it will be beautiful. I could show you.”

Amadi’s chair creaked again. “Some Astrophell wizards have been quoting your ‘Complaint to the Long Council.’”

His grin faded. “It was my best speech.”

“Many still find it inspiring.”

“I am glad to hear it, but that life is over. There’s no use baiting my appetite for it. I stay clear of Starhaven’s intrigue. As a researcher, I can’t be completely apolitical. But because of my past, the provost and his officers are happy to leave me out of most entanglements.”

Amadi said nothing. The parchment on the table began to crinkle, likely from a breeze coming through the window.

“But never mind me,” Shannon said. “How have you spent the past four decades? Studying diplomacy perhaps? Is that where this talk of my past comes from?”

“My hood has a purple lining.”

“A sentinel? Yes, you must be wonderful.”

She cleared her throat importantly. “I command Astrophell’s lead sentinel expeditions. In fact, I led the delegation down here. I even have a personal secretary: a young Ixonian named Kale—only a lesser wizard, but bright and capable.”

“Pardon the observation, but it seems odd that Astrophell should send sentinels to our convocation.”

“The journey from the North was long. And heaven only knows why our order ever occupied this gargantuan stronghold out in the middle of nowhere. Granted, it makes a fine sight from the Westernmost Road—the highest tower spiring up from the mountainside to dwarf the peaks behind.”

Shannon rested his elbows on the table and steepled his fingers. “But Amadi, why should Astrophell send sentinels with its delegation?”

“The diplomats needed protection.”

“I see.”

“Shannon, is this room safe from prying ears?”

He nodded. “Quite safe. Do you bring news from abroad?”

“News from within.”

Shannon leaned forward. “Go on.”

Amadi shifted in her seat and half-whispered: “Murder in Starhaven.”

Shannon’s heart began to strike. “Who?”

“This is a sensitive issue, one that must be hidden until the convocation is over. The delegates must renew the treaties.”

“I’m aware of that. Now will you tell me who has been killed?”

“Bear with me, Magister. Five hours ago a janitorial gargoyle working beneath the Spindle Bridge discovered what he thought to be a dying woman.”

“What he thought was a dying woman?”

“She was already dead, but her body was still filling itself with a virulent Numinous misspell. The gargoyle, having secondary cognition, assumed she was still alive and took her to the deputy provost of libraries. She, in turn, reported to the provost, who related the information to me.”

Shannon paused. “You said this woman fell from the Spindle?”

“So it seems. What can you tell me of the bridge?”

Shannon wondered how much information he should share. Amadi had leaped to the top of the sentinel ranks, and such a feat would be impossible without the support of several factions that despised Shannon. He decided to share only common knowledge until he knew more.

“You seem troubled,” Amadi said. “Is it odd that this woman was on the Spindle?”

“Surpassingly odd,” he said at last. “According to the historians, the Chthonic people built the bridge not long after they finished Starhaven. But it leads nowhere. Spans nearly a mile of air only to run into a cliff. The Chthonics did cut beautiful designs into the rock. Just north of the bridge’s end is a foliate pattern—ivy leaves, I believe—and south is a hexagonal pattern.”

“Any explanation for the carvings? Or the bridge itself?”

Shannon shrugged. “Folktales about the Chthonics building a road to a paradise called Heaven Tree Valley. Supposedly when the Neosolar Empire began to massacre the Chthonics, their goddess led them to the Heaven Tree and dropped a mountain on the road. Some say the Spindle once led to that road.”

“Any evidence to support such a tale?”

“None. But every so often, the historians probe the mountainside with text, trying to open the way to the Heaven Tree. They’ve found only rock.” He paused. “Do you think the murder is connected to any of this?”

The soft swish of moving cloth told Shannon that Amadi was shifting in her seat again. “Not that I can see,” she said and then sighed.

Shannon paused before he spoke again. “Amadi, I am shocked and grieved by this tragedy. And yet…please don’t think me heartless, but I don’t want to become involved. I must think of my research and my students. Helping you might drag me into political situations. As I said, I am a different man than I was in the North. But if you refrain from mentioning my name, I’ll give whatever advice I can. But I’d still need to know the victim’s name.”

A long pause. She spoke: “Nora Finn, the grammarian.”

“Sweet heaven!” Shannon whispered in shock. Nora had been the Drum Tower’s dean and his fiercest academic rival.

Instantly his mind spun with the possible implications of the murder. It might be an indirect attack by old enemies. It might also be connected to the restless guardian spells and Nicodemus’s prowler on top of the Stacks. That would make the Drum Tower the focus of the intrigue.

Shannon fingered the asterisks on the spine of his journal. His enemies might hope to exact revenge by harming his students. His thoughts jumped to Nicodemus. The boy’s cacography had proven he was not the Halcyon, but Shannon’s enemies in Astrophell might have heard his name and so marked him as their target.

Or, far less likely but more frightening, the boy might have some unknown connection to the Erasmine Prophecy. If that were so, then the fate of all human language would be in jeopardy.

“Did you know Magistra Finn?” Amadi asked.

Shannon started. “I’m sorry?”

“Did you know Finn?” Amadi repeated patiently.

Shannon nodded. “Nora and I both took care of the Drum Tower’s students. As the Drum Tower’s master, I see to our students’ residential matters. As the dean, Nora governed their academics. But these students don’t often study. I end up counseling the few who do advance to lesser wizards. Nora had little contact with them. Nora and I were both being considered for the same Chair. Rivals for it, I suppose.”

“Go on.”

Shannon paused. He dared not share more information with Amadi until he was certain of her allegiances.

So he did what academics do best: he threw his hands in the air and began to whine. “This couldn’t come at a worse time, what with the convocation. How can the murderer be caught when everything’s in chaos? And my poor research! I can’t stop it now; I just sent a message to my apprentice.”

Amadi exhaled slowly. “As I said, we hope the investigation will not disrupt the convocation.”

“We? Amadi, shouldn’t the provost’s officers be conducting this investigation?”

She cleared her throat. “Provost Montserrat himself instructed me to lead this investigation.”

Shannon fingered the buttons on his sleeves. “Why should the provost appoint an Astrophell wizard to lead a Starhaven investigation?”

“I carry a letter of recommendation from the arch-chancellor.”

“I don’t doubt your qualification,” he said, though he did doubt her intentions.

Amadi continued, “We must conceal this investigation from the delegates. They won’t be inclined to renew the treaties if they think a murderer is—”

“Yes, Amadi, as you said. But why come to me? No doubt the provost’s officers could have told you about the Spindle Bridge.”

A creaking came from Amadi’s chair once more. “Do you have a familiar?”

“I already told you that I do.”

“I would like to see the creature.”

Shannon nodded. “Certainly. She’ll soon return from delivering a message to my apprentice. But Amadi, you’re investigating a murder; why do you want to see my familiar?”

A long silence stretched out between them. At last the sentinel spoke in a low, controlled tone: “Because you are our primary suspect.”

CHAPTER Five

The figure robed in white jumped back nearly five feet and crouched.

The speed with which it moved shocked Nicodemus. He was about to cry out when it stood and lowered its cowl to reveal a woman’s tan face.

Her wide eyes gleamed green even in the bleaching white moonlight. Her smooth olive skin and narrow chin resembled those of a twenty-year-old girl, yet she held these youthful features in a calm expression of mature confidence. The waves of her raven hair spilled down around her face to disappear under her pale cloak.

To Nicodemus, she seemed oddly familiar.

“What is the meaning of this?” the woman asked sternly. “I am Deirdre, an independent emissary from the druids of Dral. I was told I had license throughout the fastness during the convocation.”

“Your pardon, Magistra Deirdre. I didn’t know you were a druid.” He bowed.

“Do not call me Magistra. Druids hold no titles.” Her voice was calm, but her eyes flicked up and down Nicodemus like flames lapping at a dry log. She walked toward him. “Are you a wizard?”

To her right, the air shimmered. A warm blush spread across Nicodemus’s cheeks. “Hoping to become one soon,” he replied.

“An apprentice, then. Who is your mentor?”

“Magister Shannon, the well-known linguist.”

The druid seemed to consider this. “I have only recently become aware of Shannon.”

Nicodemus nodded and then smiled. If he could impress this woman, it might help Shannon’s status in the convocation. It was a small thing, but perhaps then Magister would sooner forget the misspelled gargoyle.

“May I assist you?” Nicodemus asked the druid and then bowed to the shadow on the druid’s right. “Or your companion?”

Deirdre’s full lips rose into a sly half-smile. She examined Nicodemus, then nodded. “Forgive the subtext,” she said. “Kyran is my protector.”

The shadow beside her welled up out of the ground and coalesced into a human figure whose cloaking subtext fell away, causing the moonlight to shimmer.

Nicodemus nodded to the newcomer. Standing several inches over six feet, the man cut an imposing figure. He had undone the wooden buttons running down his white sleeves to better expose his muscular arms for spellwriting. His complexion was fair, his lips thin, his long hair golden. No wrinkles creased his handsome face; however, among spellwrights, that was not necessarily an indication of youth.

In his right hand, Kyran held a thick oak staff. Nicodemus eyed the object; supposedly the druid’s higher languages gained special abilities when cast into wood.

Deirdre was gazing about the Stone Court. “We wish to make devotions to our goddess. A wizard told us there were standing stones here, but these rocks are arranged neither in circle nor grid.”

A nearby crocodile-like gargoyle crawled away, perhaps to find a quieter sleeping spot.

“And you wizards have covered the stones with these strange stone lizards.”

Nicodemus bowed. “Please excuse the disorder. The standing stones were a gift from a Highland lord. We do not know how they should be arranged. As for the gargoyles, they’re not lizards but advanced spells we call textual constructs. You see, Magnus, one of the wizardly high languages, can transform its textual energy into stone.”

The druid smiled slightly as if he had just said something amusing.

Unsure what to do, Nicodemus offered more information: “These are janitorial gargoyles. We’ve written an affection for stone into their minds. So they climb all over the occupied towers, tending to the roofs, searching for crumbling mortar, and keeping the birds away.”

Deirdre continued to watch him in smiling silence.

“But if you want to make devotions,” Nicodemus added awkwardly, “you might feel more comfortable in one of our gardens. Magister Shannon has just taken quarters above the Bolide Garden, but it’s still being renovated.”

The male druid spoke. “Why is this place so empty? Where are the other wizards?”

Nicodemus smiled; here was a question he could answer authoritatively. “We’re all present. Starhaven only seems empty because it is so large. Once it housed sixty thousand Chthonic people. Now only four thousand wizards and half as many students live here. We are still exploring the uninhabited Chthonic Quarter. There is much to learn. The Neosolar Empire, the Kingdom of Spires, and the Kingdom of Lorn all occupied Starhaven. Each settlement left a distinctive mark on—”

Deirdre interrupted. “What is your name?”

Nicodemus froze. Had he been talking too much? “Nicodemus Weal,” he said, bowing.

“Tell me of your parentage.”

“My parents?” This was unexpected. Had he offended? “I a-am the bastard son of the late Lord Severn, a minor noble of northern Spires.”

The druid nodded. “Your family provides for you still?”

“N-no. Wizards abjure all ties to family and kingdom when they become neophytes. And my younger brother, the new Lord Severn, sees me as something of a threat.”

“What of your mother?”

“I never knew her.”

“A bastard who doesn’t know his mother?” She raised a disbelieving eyebrow.

“One year my father returned from a pilgrimage to Mount Spires with my infant self in his arms. He never spoke of my mother. He died shortly after I came to Starhaven.”

The woman nodded. “You are the one who can forge runes in both of the high wizardly languages but can only touch simple spells?”

Nicodemus’s mouth went dry. “I am.”

“I believe your name was mentioned along with the wizardly prophecy.”

“But I am not the one they predict.”

Deirdre’s mouth went flat as a table edge. “I must ask you an important question. On some people, some wounds do not heal into smooth scars. They form dark, bulging scars called—”

“Keloids,” Nicodemus said flinching. “I know what they are. I have one. On my back.”

“A congenital keloid?”

Nicodemus blinked.

The druid’s expression remained unchanged. “It’s congenital if you were born with it.

“My father passed away before the wizards could inquire about it.”

Deirdre did not move. “So it might be congenital.”

“But the keloid is not in the shape of the Braid,” he added nervously, praying that she would not ask to see it. “Or at least, not perfectly. There’s another keloid near it. My keloid is not the Braid the Halcyon will wear.”

“I see.” Deirdre regarded him for another silent moment. Slowly her half-smile crept back across her full lips. “You may go, Nicodemus Weal.”

Nicodemus exhaled in relief and bowed. Neither druid moved. “Good-night, Deirdre, Kyran,” he said, and turned for the Drum Tower.

“IRONIC.” DEIRDRE LAUGHED as the boy’s robe merged with the shadows. “Wrapped in black literally, not metaphorically.” She lifted her cowl.

“Why didn’t you make him show us the keloid?” Kyran moved to stand beside her. He limped slightly, favoring his left leg and using his walking staff for balance.

She smiled and idly fingered one of the buttons on her sleeve. “Do you have any doubt what we will see?”

“No. No, I don’t.”

“It is as our goddess said it would be.” Deirdre closed her eyes to relish the moment.

“He intrigues you.”

She opened her eyes and looked at him. “You were supposed to write some warning magic.”

This made him scowl. “You mustn’t say ‘warning magic.’ A spellwright would say ‘a warning spell’ or use a spell’s specific name.”

“You’re changing the subject.”

Kyran continued to scowl. “I did set a warning spell. The boy walked right through it. Wherever he touched the text, the rune sequences reversed or twisted. He corrupted the spell without even knowing it.”

“And he gleaned your subtext.”

“He did.” Kyran glared at her with beautiful brown eyes. “You shouldn’t have talked to him for so long. What if you had another seizure?”

She shrugged. “You would have invented an explanation. To him I seem human.” She looked at the tower into which Nicodemus had disappeared. “He’s been cursed, you know.”

“You see it, too?”

“Feel it.”

A rook called from high above the fastness. They looked up.

“The boy looks like you,” Kyran said.

“Yes. Interesting to find so much Imperial blood in an obscure, minor noble.”

“Hiding him from the other druids won’t be easy. Nor will be taking him.”

“Goddess below, Ky!” Deirdre swore. “Stop thinking like a rabid lycanthrope. We can’t ‘take’ the boy. True, he must go to our goddess’s ark without delay, but there are complications. You must think of our escape and how the wizards will react. He must go willingly.”

Her protector was silent for a long moment. “He intrigues you,” Kyran repeated at last.

“He’s a child.”

A new subtext was weaving darkness around Kyran’s waist, returning him to invisibility. He stared at her silently as the subtext continued up to his shoulders.

She scowled. “You’re jealous?”

“Far from it.” The subtext covered his chin. “I remember when I intrigued you, so I don’t envy the boy.” His eyes became soft and then disappeared. “I pity him.”

FROM AN EMPTY gargoyle’s stoop high up on an abandoned tower, the creature looked down into the moonlit Stone Court. A boy dressed in black was making for the Drum Tower. Two figures robed in white stood among standing stones.

“Druids,” the creature muttered. “I hate druids.”

The two white-robes below had spoiled his chance to catch the boy. Had he acted immediately, he could have charged into the courtyard, killed them, and censored the boy. But their unexpected presence had delayed him too long; a moment ago he had spotted a wizard in a nearby courtyard casting two new guardian spells. Now was the time for retreat.

Worse than ruining this particular opportunity, the white-robes could create much larger problems. Long ago, on the ancient continent, the creature had faced the druids when their magical school was at the height of its power. The millennia that had passed since then had reduced modern druids to little more than gardeners and carpenters. Even so, the white-robes knew more of the ancient magics than the wizards. Unless handled carefully, the druids could make it all but impossible to reach the boy.

A cold autumn wind whipped about the creature’s robes, making them flutter. When he crept away from the ledge, his legs ached and a dull pain throbbed across his forearms.

This body would not last much longer.

“No matter,” he muttered, turning away from the Stone Court. Perhaps an important wizard or druid would wander away from the inhabited buildings. In the meantime, he could write a few nightmares.

CHAPTER Six

Where Amadi sat, Shannon saw only darkness. Now, more than ever before, his blindness both frightened and infuriated him.

“You believe,” he said, forcing his voice to be calm, “I pushed Nora Finn from the Spindle Bridge?”

“I seek the truth in all places,” Amadi answered evenly.

Shannon grasped the arms of his chair so hard his fingers ached. Was her accusation a disguised attack or an earnest attempt to discover the murderer? There was no way of knowing.

“What you’re saying is absurd; I have no connection to Nora’s death.” He stood and walked to the window. “Wouldn’t I have blood on me? Nora’s or my own?”

Amadi’s chair squeaked in a way that told him she was standing. “Magister, the body was discovered five hours ago. The villain has had ample time to conceal evidence. And you are connected to the murder—twice connected. Four days ago, Astrophell sent a colaboris spell awarding Magistra Finn the Chair for which you two were competing.”

“So I killed Nora to steal her honors?” He faced the window. “Fiery blood! Do you think—”

“Secondly,” Amadi broke in, “Magistra Finn’s body was riddled with a misspell, and you are the academy’s authority on misspells.”

“I am a linguist researching textual intelligence. Of course I study textual corruption and repair.”

He heard Amadi’s boot heels click against the floor. She was coming toward him. “I wasn’t thinking of your research—although that provides a third connection. I was thinking of your mentally damaged students who misspell texts simply by touching them.”

So there it was, the Northern fear of cacographers. He turned his head to show her his profile. “My students aren’t damaged,” he said in a low tone.

“I believe you’re innocent.”

He turned back to the window.

“Magister, if you help me, I can clear your name. But I must know everything you know about misspells and misspellers.” She paused. “Your reputation makes this a perilous situation. If you’re seen as resisting my investigation, it will go poorly.”

“My reputation?”

“Every spellwright in this academy knows how important you were in Astrophell. More than a few think you are bitter, perhaps paranoid. Everyone saw how fiercely you competed with Finn for academic appointments.”

“I might be competitive, Amadi, but you know I would never murder.”

“To prove that, I need your cooperation.”

Shannon took a deep breath in through his nose. She was right. Resisting might paint him with shades of guilt.

Now, even more so than before, he had to show that he had become an innocent researcher without political ambition. “If I cooperate, may I continue my research during your investigation?”

“Yes.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Let’s begin with the misspellers. Why are they here?” Receding footsteps told Shannon she was walking back to her chair. Likely she wanted to sit down again. He didn’t follow. As the junior wizard, she could not politely sit while he stood. He remained by the window.

“In Starhaven,” he said, “as in other wizardly academies, a spellwright must achieve fluency in one of our higher languages to earn a wizard’s hood, fluency in both higher languages to earn a grand wizard’s staff. Spellwrights who cannot learn either may still earn a lesser wizard’s hood by mastering the common languages. But a few fail even this. Their touch misspells all but simple texts. Here, in the South, we call such unfortunate souls cacographers.”

Amadi grunted. “It’s the same in the North. We simply do not name dangerous spellwrights so.”

“In Starhaven, we do not believe such students are dangerous. We do not permanently censor magical language from cacographers’ minds; we permit them to fulfill what roles they can. At present there are maybe fifteen living in the Drum Tower. All but three are under the age of twelve.”

“Why so many squeakers?”

“Most of the older ones integrate themselves into the academy as lesser wizards.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?”

“Dangerous?” Shannon’s voice rose. “Dangerous to the cacographers? Possibly. Every so often, a text reacts poorly to their touch. Still, I’ve never seen an incident result in more than bruises or a misspelled construct. But are cacographers dangerous to wizards? Dangerous to spellwrights fluent in one or both of the world’s most powerful magical languages?” He snorted.

Shannon heard Amadi’s feet shuffle and guessed that she was shifting her weight and wishing to sit down. “Magister, this goes against what I was taught, against what you taught me.”

He planted a hand on either side of the windowsill. “I taught you long ago.”

She clicked her tongue in frustration. “But I’ve read of these misspellers—cacographers, as you call them. Many witches and rogue wizards come from their stock. In fact, one such misspeller was an infamous killer. He was a Southerner, lived in this academy in fact. Now, why can’t I think of his name?”

“James Berr,” Shannon said softly. “You are thinking of James Berr.”

“Yes!”

Shannon turned toward his former student. “Berr died three hundred years ago. You do know at least that, don’t you?”

Silence filled the room for a moment, then Amadi’s chair creaked a loud complaint as she sat heavily.

Shannon stiffened.

“Please continue, Magister,” she said acerbically. “What have I misunderstood? What was so terribly benign about that misspelling murderer?”

Shannon turned away and spoke in short, clipped words. “It was an accident. One of Berr’s misspells killed a handful of acolytes. He admitted guilt and they allowed him to stay on as a low-ranking librarian. The boy was only trying to learn. No one would teach him, so he experimented. Unfortunately, two years later, a misspell killed several wizards. Berr fled into the deep Spirish savanna and died.”

“So cacographers are dangerous, then?”

“Not once in the three hundred years following James Berr has there been such a dangerous cacographer. It is the Northern fascination with misspelling that makes you suspect that every cacographer is a viper in the bush. A fascination, I might add, that has been championed by the counter-prophecy faction, much to the detriment of our academies.”

“Magister, I know you have tangled with the counter-prophecy leader-ship. But I would be careful what you say. Your own provost has spoken sympathetically of their interpretation of prophecy.”

Shannon pushed a stray dreadlock from his face. “And you, Amadi, where does your allegiance lie?”

“I am a sentinel,” she replied. “We do not play the game of factions.”

“Of course you don’t,” Shannon said coldly.

“I did not come here to be insulted, Magister. I came for information.” She paused. “So, tell me, are there any Starhaven cacographers with particular strengths?”

Shannon exhaled through his nose and tried to calm down. “A few.” “And has any cacographer learned to spellwrite in the higher wizardly languages?”

Shannon turned. “What are you implying?”

“The misspell that killed Magistra Finn was written in Numinous.”

Shannon stood up straighter. “I’ll not have you trying to blame a cacographer simply because you’ve been frightened by a villain who used a misspell.”

“You were never so protective of your students in Astrophell.”

He laughed dryly. “You didn’t need protection, Amadi. These children are different.”

“Different or not, you can’t protect them from a just investigation. I ask again: Do you have a cacographer who can write in the higher languages?”

“There is one. But he would never—”

“And who,” Amadi interrupted, “is this boy?”

“My apprentice.”

CHAPTER Seven

Before Nicodemus had taken five steps away from the druids, he began forging the Drum Tower’s passwords.

Elsewhere in Starhaven stood doors that would not open unless fed hundreds of elaborate sentences. But the Drum Tower’s door required only one sentence written in a common language.

Even so, it took Nicodemus an eternity to forge the necessary dim green runes. They had a texture like coarse, stiff cloth. As he worked, he could almost feel Deirdre’s stare jabbing into his back.

As soon as the passwords were complete, he dropped them on the black door handles. A tongue of white runes flicked from the keyhole to pull them into the lock. Nicodemus waited impatiently for the tumbler spell to disengage the device. As soon as the iron bolt clicked, he slipped into the entryway and heaved the door shut.

“Bloody awful woman!” he swore. It was a relief to escape the druid’s questions about how he had failed to fulfill the Erasmine Prophecy. Hopefully she wouldn’t ask any wizards about him. Given what Shannon had said about the Astrophell delegates, renewed wizardly interest in his keloid might be more than embarrassing; it might be dangerous.

He turned and hurried up the stairs.

The Drum Tower had long been used to store the stronghold’s emergency grain cache, held against a possible siege. But because Starhaven was too far from civilization to tempt a greedy kingdom, it had never needed this surplus. Therefore no complex security spells lined the Drum Tower’s halls, and no complex passwords were needed to open its doors.

For these reasons, the tower’s top floors made an ideal home for the academy’s most severe cacographers, who could not spell the passwords for the main residential towers.

However, unlike the rest of Starhaven, the Drum Tower had limited space. This forced the tower’s master, Magister Shannon, to live elsewhere and required the older misspellers to govern the younger. Nicodemus shared such caretaking duties with his two floormates.

The oldest among them was Simple John, who as far as anyone knew could say only three things: “no,” “Simple John,” and “splattering splud.” This last was John’s favorite, which he often used when casting his many soapy janitorial spells.

Most people were terrified when they first encountered John. He stood over seven feet tall and possessed large, meaty hands. His red nose was too bulbous, his brown eyes too beady, his horsey teeth too big. But anyone who looked past John’s appearance could not help but love his gentle manner and lopsided smile.

Devin Dorshear, Nicodemus’s other cacographic floormate, was less well loved. The acolytes had nicknamed her “Demonscream Devin”.

When she was focusing, little separated Devin from a lesser wizard. However, she would often stop spellwriting halfway through a text to con-template an open window, a creaking board, a handsome wizard. This had gotten her into many unfortunate situations, none helped by her gift for screaming unlikely obscenities—a talent she effectively wielded against leaking inkwells, torn parchments, and the generally rude.

Wizards were less impressed by her effusive obscenities, and so Devin had learned to curb her foul mouth around superiors.

This is how Nicodemus, as he climbed the last few steps, knew no one with authority was present in their common room. “Ooo, you dirty son of a rat-eating butt dog!” Devin screamed. There followed a loud crash.

“Splattering splud!” Simple John called, laughing heartily. Another crash, more obscenities.

Nicodemus looked up to heaven and said, “Not since Los became the first demon has there been so much chaos as now exists on the other side of this door. Celeste, goddess, haven’t I had enough tribulations for one night? Perhaps you could put them to sleep. I promise to clean up whatever they’ve done.”

Crash, laughter, crash. “Drink goat piss, you slimy pigeon penis!”

Nicodemus frowned at the closed door. “Dev, do pigeons even have penises?”

Simple John bellowed a battle cry of “SIIIIMPLE JOHN!”

Sighing, Nicodemus opened the door and stepped inside. Immediately, he jumped back to avoid a Jejunus curse that shot past in a pink blur.

Of the common magical languages, Jejunus was the weakest—so weak, in fact, that it was used only for teaching. It had a simple syntax and its large pink runes were identical to mundane letters; this meant that it was almost impossible to misspell and hence safe for cacographers. Perhaps more important, their soft, muddy texture made them safe to handle.

The curse that had missed Nicodemus’s nose by inches had read, “FIND [John’s left butt cheek] and LABEL with (I’m a gelatinous poop sucker).” Nicodemus groaned.

“Simple John!” trumpeted Simple John. Another crash.

Peering into the room, Nicodemus saw a proud John holding up several sentences that read “ERASE [Devin’s spell].”

The big man had slipped his arms out of the slits sewn into the tops of his sleeves so as to better see the language forming in his giant muscles. All around John lay overturned chairs and scattered pages.

The big man forged another Jejunus sentence in his bicep and slipped it down into his balled fist. Laughing uncontrollably, he cocked his massive arm and with an overhand throw cast “FIND and HIT [Devin’s right butt cheek].”

Almost faster than Nicodemus’s eyes could follow, the gooey pink ball shot across the room.

Devin dove behind an overturned table, but John’s curse flew over the barricade and dropped into a dive attack. Devin screamed something—likely obscene—and popped up from behind the table.

Like John, she had slipped her arms out of her sleeves. From her right hand extended an octopus-like spell, each tentacle of which read, “Edit [Simple John’s incoming spell].”

John’s obscenity was caught among the tentacles and struggled like a minnow. Devin cackled as she began to edit the curse.

As a boy, Nicodemus had loved Jejunus cursing matches. He had hurled handfuls of dirty words with his classmates, had relished flicking obscenities into rivals’ faces, had giggled uncontrollably when filthy language had splattered onto another child’s back.

But that had been long ago, before the wizards had moved him into the Drum Tower.

“HEY!” he boomed. Both combatants looked at him. “WHAT IN THE BURNING HELLS IS GOING ON HERE?”

Even though Nicodemus was the youngest of the three by thirty years, he had long ago assumed the roles of housekeeper and disciplinarian.

Perhaps mistaking Nicodemus’s anger for irritation at being excluded, Simple John cast “FIND [Nicodemus’s ear] and SOUND (a sick donkey farting).”

Nicodemus quickly wrote “FIND and ERASE [any spell]” in the back of his hand and flicked the spell into the air. It careened into John’s curse and knocked both texts out of existence with a wet pop. If needed, Nicodemus could flood the room with similar censoring texts.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Nicodemus barked. “What if one of the younger cacographers had walked in just now? We’d be in a fine state then. There’d be cursing matches up and down the tower until spring. Or what if a wizard had stopped by? With the convocation on, the repercus-sions would be horrible.”

The other cacographers fell silent. Simple John swallowed his smile and hung his head.

“What’s it to you, Nico?” Devin sneered. “Afraid Shannon’ll find out? Afraid the old man won’t let you teach your precious class?”

“Devin,” Nicodemus said, leveling his gaze at the short redhead, “how many penitences do you have left for the flooded privy prank?”

She glared at him.

“Don’t you see that our place in Starhaven is not secure? As Magister Shannon just reminded me, our disability puts an extra burden on us. And we all know that in other academies cacographers aren’t treated so well. Astrophell censors magical language out of their cacographers.”

“As if that would be so bad, to leave this place,” Devin groused.

“Well excuse me, my lady. I was unaware of your noble blood.” Nicodemus dipped into a mock bow. “Because that’s what it’d take to find a life as comfortable and safe as we have here. As an illiterate, you might end up a scullery maid, but think of John. How would he get by?”

“No,” Simple John protested softly.

Devin lowered her eyes and dropped her spell. An uncomfortable moment passed.

In the awkward silence, Nicodemus felt a slow sinking sensation. Could he call his floormates reckless when, only an hour ago, he had misspelled a library gargoyle? If caught, his mistake would have damaged the reputation of cacographers far more than the discovery of a simple cursing match.

“Dev, John, I’m sorry,” he said in a softer tone. “I had a rough night in the library and disappointed Shannon. He’s worried about some of the convocation’s delegates. It might even be dangerous for us to be seen misspelling.”

Neither of the other cacographers spoke. John was looking at his boots, Devin scowling at the ceiling.

“I’ll help clean up,” Nicodemus said wearily.

They worked silently. Simple John righted the tables while the other two shifted chairs and retrieved the pages strewn about the floor. Twice Nicodemus saw Devin and Simple John smirking at each other, but when they noticed him watching they jumped back to work.

When finished, Nicodemus snuffed the tapers and trudged into his bedroom. It was cold for the first time since last spring. Autumn was growing old.

He forged the ignition words and tossed them into the small fireplace. A spark spell caught the text and then set the kindling aflame. Light flickered across the modest chamber and Nicodemus’s few possessions: a sleeping cot, a desk, two chests, a washstand, a chamber pot.

Under the bed sat a stack of mundane books. Among them was a knightly romance he had bought from a Lornish peddler. The fellow had promised that this particular romance, The Silver Shield, was the best one yet.

Nicodemus’s love for knightly romances sometimes followed him into his sleep. Since he had arrived in Starhaven, Nicodemus had spent countless hours imagining night terrors to populate the nearby forest. In both his dreams at night and daydreams, he would venture out to vanquish the imagined monsters.

He smiled now, thinking of the strange antagonists his young mind had imagined. Uro was a giant insect with a spiked carapace and scythelike hands. Tamelkan, the sightless dragon, possessed tentacles that grew from his chin. And of course there was Garkex, the firetroll, who spouted flame from his three horns and fiery curses from his mouth.

Dreaming of monsters and battles was a childish pleasure, Nicodemus knew, but it was one of the few he had known.

Looking at the book again, he sighed. His eyes were too weary to read.

He flopped onto his cot and began to untie his robe at the back of his neck. His hair could use brushing.

He was looking around for his comb when the sound of flapping wings came to his window. He turned to regard a large bird with vivid blue plumage. Bright yellow skin shone around her black eyes and hooked beak. “Corn,” croaked the bird in her scratchy parrot voice.

“Hello, Azure. I don’t keep corn in my room. Did Magister Shannon give you a message for me?”

The bird cocked her head to one side. “Scratch.”

“All right, but the message?”

The bird hopped onto the cot and waddled over to Nicodemus. Using her beak to grab onto his robes, the familiar pulled herself onto his lap and presented the top of her head to be scratched; Nicodemus obliged.

“Azure, the message from Magister is important.”

The bird whistled two notes before casting a barrage of golden sentences from her head to Nicodemus’s.

Languages like Numinous, which could manipulate light and other text, were often used to encode written messages. The spell that Azure had just cast was one such.

The problem was that Numinous had a complex structure, and so a cacographer’s touch misspelled all but the simplest Numinous sentences. That is why Nicodemus had to work quickly to translate Shannon’s message. The longer he held the text in his mind, the faster his disability would distort its spelling.

Numinous runes possessed fluid shapes resembling tendrils of smoke or threads of spun glass. Translating them made a spellwright’s fingers feel as if they were touching smooth glass. As he worked, Nicodemus’s fingers twitched with phantom sensation.

Shannon’s message was complicated, and when Nicodemus finished translating, it was garbled:

Nicodemus—

Do n’t discuss tonight’s conversaton w/ anyone, incldng roomates. V. important to atract littel attn. As planed, come to my study direclty after brecfast. You are excused from aprentice duty four the day.

—Mg. Shannon

Azure presented the back of her head again. “Scratch?”

Nicodemus absently stroked the bird’s feathers. Shannon’s instruction to avoid attention was worrisome. Nicodemus did not know what was prompting the old man’s vigilance, but he had no doubt that it was serious.

“Sweet heaven, the druids,” Nicodemus whispered, remembering how his attempt to impress Deirdre had elicited a barrage of questions about prophecy and his disability. “Magister is going to kill me.”

“Scratch?” Azure repeated.

Nicodemus looked down and realized that in his distraction he had stopped petting the familiar. “I’m sorry, Azure. I’m exhausted.” It was true—his eyes stung, his bones ached, his thoughts seemed slow as pine sap. “I’d better sleep if I’m going to help Magister tomorrow.”

“Scratch?”

“Maybe tomorrow.”

Finally convinced that she was not going to be petted, Azure hopped over to the window. She made her two-note whistle and flapped away into the night.

Blinking his weary eyes, Nicodemus went to the washstand and, rubbing his hands together, forged the small white runes wizards used for soap. Looking into his polished-metal mirror, he was shocked to see two pink sentences written across his forehead.

At first a scowl darkened his face, but then he laughed.

She must have written some witty prose indeed to sneak the Jejunus curse onto him without his noticing.

Careful not to trip in the dim firelight, Nicodemus stepped through the common room to Devin’s door. Muted voices came from the other side. He knocked and walked in.

Simple John and Devin were sitting on her bed playing cat’s cradle, John’s favorite. They looked up.

“This was well done,” Nicodemus said while gesturing to his forehead and the pink words that read:

I Hate Fun.

But I LOVE Donkey Piss!

AFTER DEVIN HAD disspelled the curse from Nicodemus’s forehead, the three floormates gossiped about other cacographers and apprentices: who might be promoted, who was sneaking into whose bed, that sort of thing.

Though still exhausted, Nicodemus was happy to stay up with his friends and forget about druids and Astrophell delegates and the other nebulous dangers the night had presented.

As they talked, John and Nicodemus played cat’s cradle while Devin brushed out Nicodemus’s long raven hair.

“Why in heaven’s name,” she grumbled, “did the Creator waste such soft, glossy stuff on a man.”

Afterward she started to braid her own wiry red hair. “You know,” she said, “I’ve never been sure why all the magical societies have to send delegates to these convocations.”

“There’s never been one in Starhaven before?” Nicodemus asked without looking up from the game of cat’s cradle.

“Not since I’ve been here. They only happen once every thirty years, and they have to rotate through all the other libraries and monasteries or whatever.”

Nicodemus chewed his lip. “Well, I don’t know all the details about why the convocations happen, but—”

“—but you’ve memorized everything Shannon’s ever said about them,” Devin interjected with a leer.

He stuck his tongue out at her and continued. “So, back during the Dialect Wars—when the Neosolar Empire was falling and the new kingdoms were forming—spellwrights would join the fighting. The result was so bloody that the people couldn’t protect themselves from the lycanthropes or kobolds or whatever. For a while, it seemed there might not be any humans left, so all the magical societies signed treaties agreeing never again to take part in the wars that kingdoms fought.”

Devin grunted. “And so now all magical societies have to renew their treaties at these conventions or we’ll all end up in lycanthrope bellies?”

Nicodemus shrugged. “Something like that. It’s complicated. Some societies cheat. I think Magister Shannon was involved in stopping the wizards and hierophants from clashing in the Spirish Civil War. But I’m not sure; he never talks about the war.”

Simple John tried to say “Simple John” but yawned instead. Nicodemus ended the game of cat’s cradle and sent the big man lumbering off to bed.

Nicodemus started for his own room but then stopped at Devin’s door. “Dev, when should I ask Shannon about teaching again? With the convocation happening, things are probably too busy.”

She was tapping her chin with the end of her braid. “Actually, the busier wizards are, the more they want to unload their teaching duties onto apprentices. But it’s not Magister you need to convince. It’s the other wizards who gripe when a cacographer gets in front of a classroom.”

Nicodemus nodded and thought about what it would feel like to finally earn a hood. Then he remembered something. “Dev, have you ever worked with Magister Smallwood?”

“That sweet old linguist who’s got less common sense than a drunken chicken? Yeah, I used to run Shannon’s messages to him back when you were still trying to undress that Amy Hern girl. Do you ever hear from her?”

Nicodemus folded his arms. “I don’t, but never mind that. I had a conversation with Smallwood today. Nothing important. But he said I was Shannon’s ‘new cacographic project’ or his new ‘pet cacographer.’ Do you know if there are current rumors going around about Magister?”

Devin dropped her braid and hopped out of bed. “Ignore it. Smallwood’s just being a ninny.” She went to her washstand and began to scrub her face. “So what class do you want to teach?”

“Anything to do with composition. But you’re avoiding my question. What are the rumors about Shannon and ‘pet cacographers’?”

Devin toweled her face. “Just academics gossiping and being petty.”

“Dev, not once in the past nine years have I known you to refrain from gossiping.”

“So let’s gossip. I’d forgotten about Amy Hern. She left for Starfall, right? Why don’t you write her on the next colaboris spell?”

Nicodemus waited for Devin to finish drying her face. “Dev, the rumors.”

She examined his face. “Not now, Nico; it’s late.”

“I’m not going to forget.”

“No.” She sighed. “You won’t.”

CHAPTER Eight

The Gimhurst Tower stood at the southern edge of Starhaven’s inhabited quarters. Long ago, during the Lornish occupation, it had hosted the Lord Governor’s court. Now, save for the scriptorium at its top, the place was abandoned.

With Azure perched on his shoulder, Shannon stole down the tenth floor’s outer hallway. Through the parrot’s eyes, he regarded the pale moonbeams that slanted through the windows and splashed against the slate floors. The reflected glow lit the hallway’s opposite wall and its many sculpted panels. The low-relief carvings presented typical Lornish sensibility—bold and graceful figures without fine detail.

Slowly Shannon passed carved knights, serpents, and seraphs—these last wreathed with tattered gold leaf halos.

A half hour before, Azure had returned to his study after delivering his message to Nicodemus. She had seen nothing unusual on the rooftops. This had only increased Shannon’s anxiety for information and so prompted his current expedition.

To his left a space between two panels presented a short, wooden door. Shannon placed Azure on a windowsill opposite and instructed her to send a warning if anyone appeared. A rook’s croaking voice came from somewhere out in the night. He turned back to the door. Behind it lay Nora Finn’s “private library.”

Many academics, rightly distrustful of their peers, hid their most important manuscripts in well-defended secret archives. Maintaining such “private libraries” violated scores of academy bylaws, but the practice was so widespread that no dean or provost dared enforce any of those laws.

Fifty years ago, a newly arrived Shannon had suspected Nora of spying on him for his enemies in the North. He had been brash then, still accustomed to Astrophell’s infighting, and so had secretly pried into every aspect of Nora’s life. His search had disproved his suspicions and uncovered the location of this private library.

Slowly Shannon ran his finger down the door before him. Blindness prevented him from seeing the pine boards that felt so hard under his fingers.

This was just as well; the boards weren’t really there. They were subtexts—prose crafted to elude even the trained eye. Most spellwrights struggled to glean subtexts if only because they believed their eyes. When encountering a door’s texture or image, a human mind rarely accepted any conclusion other than that the door existed. Only with knowledge of the author’s purpose could a reader hope to see past a subtext’s semblance to its true meaning.

Shannon, however, was free of vision’s tyranny. He stared into the dark before him and considered how Nora would have written the subtext. First she would have chosen a primary language. Numinous was the obvious choice—it possessed the ability to create illusions by bending light. To the spell’s central passages, Nora must have added a few Magnus paragraphs to provide a physical barrier and give texture to the illusion.

After choosing her languages, Nora would have chosen particular sentence structures and diction to help her hide the spell.

Shannon ruminated on Nora’s prose style. As he did so, he saw faint golden runes float downward in ordered columns. Now he deduced what must be written between the lines. The faint sentences brightened. Slowly the text’s central argument revealed itself, and Shannon gazed upon a door-shaped waterfall of golden prose interlaced with silver sentences.

Out of habit, he undid the silver and gold buttons that ran down his sleeves. His eyes could now see through cloth, but it still felt more natural to spellwrite with arms bare.

Once ready, he wrote a short disspell in his right forearm and slipped it into his hand. This disspell, though composed of powerful Numinous runes, was thin and delicate. Lesser authors would have crafted their most powerful disspell and hacked through the door-subtext like a peasant chopping a tree trunk. Such a crude style would have produced a mangled subtext.

Shannon had spent too many decades sharpening his prose to leave behind such obvious evidence.

With the disspell complete, Shannon drew the text from his palm so it could fold into its proper conformation. This done, he wrote a brief handle onto the blade.

Then, holding the disspell as if it were a paintbrush, he leaned forward and chivvied its cutting edge between two of the door’s sentences. With slow, patient pressure he teased apart the subtext’s outer sentences to reveal its knotted central passage. Two quick strokes split one of its paragraphs.

With a high grinding whine, the door’s golden sentences began to churn as they detected the intrusion and sought to clamp down on Shannon’s hand.

But with calm determination, he edited two new Numinous sentences into the split paragraph. The grinding sound died and the subtext quieted.

With steady pinching motions, he darned the central passage. As his hand slowly withdrew, the glassy sentences flowed back into their original conformation.

A smile curled Shannon’s lips. The arch-chancellor himself wouldn’t know the subtext had been edited. The door clicked softly as it unlocked and swung open. Behind it stood a small space filled with the multichromatic gleam of a magical library.

Shannon cast a quick spell to Azure asking if she had seen anything. The parrot answered negatively and complained of the late hour. Smiling at her snappishness, Shannon left her on the windowsill to keep lookout and then stepped into Nora’s private library. He would not need mundane vision in such a textual environment.

It was a small space: five feet wide, ten deep. Though Shannon could not see the bookshelves that lined the walls, he recognized many of the texts they held. Nora had been studying textual exchanges between Starhaven’s gargoyles—a subject that provided insight into how magical constructs learned and thought. Shannon’s research also focused on textual intelligence; as a result, he possessed many of the same books that Nora had in her private library.

One unfamiliar codex attracted his eye. It lay alone at the back of the room, apparently on a low shelf or chest. Carefully he stepped to the library’s end and retrieved the manuscript. It was Nora’s personal research journal.

He flipped through the first few pages. Here lay a detailed study of how gargoyles selected information to share with each other. If he could take this book to his study for just one hour, his own research would leap forward. He had made any number of offhand remarks to other wizards about how much he should like to peruse Nora’s notes.

Virtue briefly fought ambition in his heart. “I’ll regret this tomorrow,” he grumbled as morality forced him to continue to flip through the book rather than take it away. Toward its end, he found a personal journal with dated entries.

The majority were complaints about librarians, apprentices, colleagues. Twice he scowled at disparaging remarks about “that blustering Shannon.”

It wasn’t until he reached a date eleven years past that an entry lifted his eyebrows: “Missive from Spirish noble. Wanted ‘to see his sleeping boy.’ His father? Boy new to D.Tower. Payment in gold sovereigns.”

The next winter, Nora had written, “Spirish master to see sleeping boy in D.Tower.” Two days later, “Spirish payment.”

“Los’s fiery blood! Nora was in a noble’s purse?” Shannon whispered. The bribing of wizards was rampant in Astrophell and Starfall Keep. But Starhaven, as the only academy removed from the human kingdoms, had known little of such corruption.

Shannon wondered if he’d become soft. Despite competing academically with Nora, he had stopped investigating her private affairs—something he would have found unthinkable in Astrophell.

He reread the journal entries. The “D.Tower” clearly was the Drum Tower. But why would someone pay to see a sleeping boy? It seemed that Nora had supposed the man to be his father.

Shannon frowned at the phrase “Boy new to D.Tower” and thought about which cacographers had moved into the Drum Tower eleven years ago.

A sudden chill ran through his veins. Nicodemus was the only one.

Worse, that was the year the academy had judged Nicodemus’s cacography to be proof that he wasn’t the Halcyon.

“Creator be merciful,” Shannon whispered. Perhaps the academy had misjudged Nicodemus’s connection to the Erasmine Prophecy. If so, then these were the last days before the War of Disjunction—the final battle to save human language from demonic corruption.

Shannon continued to flip through the book. Two more entries, each four years apart, read “Master to see boy” and were followed by “Spirish Payment. ” The final entry, dated two days ago, read “Master’s msg confused? No meeting but Strange Dreams about such.”

Whoever had been bribing Nora had changed how he was to meet her. Had he then pushed her off the Spindle Bridge?

Shannon turned the final page and drew a sudden breath. Written hastily across the page was a sharply worded spell. The dangerous text shone with the brilliant silvery light of Magnus.

On their flat sides, Magnus runes were as hard as steel; on their edges, sharp as razors. Depending on their conformation, a Magnus sentence could become a nearly unbreakable rope or a deadly blade. Even a casual Magnus attack spell could kill, and the one before Shannon was far from casual. He had not seen such linguistic weaponry since the Spirish Civil War.

“Burning heaven, Nora,” he swore while closing the journal. “What viper’s nest did you wander into?”

He reached down to touch the wood that the research journal had lain upon. It was a bed chest. His hands felt around the object and found it unlocked.

The hinges creaked as the lid opened. His fingers felt for the chest’s contents and found coins of an unmistakable weight. There was enough gold to buy a Lornish castle.

After closing the chest, he stood and tried to think systematically. Nora had attached herself to an exceedingly wealthy nonacademic, one who wanted to see a sleeping Drum Tower boy, beginning just when Nicodemus had been declared a cacographer. That implied, but did not prove, that Nicodemus was the one Nora’s master wanted.

Shannon also knew that Nora’s master was either a Spirish noble or had convinced Nora that he was.

Shannon blinked. The only Drum Tower boy descended from Spirish nobility was Nicodemus.

This still did not prove that Nora had been selling access to Nicodemus, but it made it highly probable. And if the academy had been wrong and Nicodemus was indeed connected to the Erasmine Prophecy…

“Heaven defend us all,” Shannon whispered and turned to leave the library, but as he moved some instinct stopped him.

As before, the corridor of spellbooks appeared as a wall of multicolored light to his magically sensitive eyes, while the mundane world was black to him. He had received no warning from Azure, nor had he heard anything unusual. But somehow, he knew.

“Who’s there?” he whispered.

At first only silence answered him. But then came a slow intake of breath and a low, crackling voice: “Write not a sentence,” it rasped before drawing another breath, “or you’ll eat your words.”

SHANNON DID NOT move. Nora’s research journal was still in his hands.

“Lay the book down,” the voice said, “slowly.”

Shannon bent over to obey, but just before dropping the codex he let his hands slip so that he held only the back cover. He set it on the floor. “You are Nora’s murderer?” he asked and straightened.

“The shrew killed herself before I had the chance.” A grunt. “It’s a recurring problem for me. I killed my master before he named the boy. I won’t make the same mistake with you.”

Shannon tried to discern where the voice was coming from. “Your master was the noble who paid to see the sleeping cacographer?”

There came another whistling inhalation and a short, dry laugh. “So the old beast replenished the emerald when the boy was asleep? Yes, it was he who had an agreement with Magistra Finn. One she didn’t renew with me for…squeamish reasons.”

Shannon narrowed his eyes. The room’s echo made it difficult to guess the murderer’s location. “Squeamish because you’re not human?”

“How could you tell?”

“You inhale only before speaking,” Shannon replied as calmly as he could. “The rest of us find that difficult.”

The creature laughed. “Full marks for acumen, Magister. I am not human, nor was master. Though he could fool your kind into thinking so.”

“The subtextualization of your prose is impressive. Which faction wrote you?”

The creature laughed louder. “Perhaps I spoke too soon about your acumen. I am not a construct, nor do I care a whit for the wizardly factions.”

“You’re a demon, then?”

“Not a demon either, but I don’t have time for this. What matters now is your name. My guess is that you are Magister Agwu Shannon, Master of the Drum Tower. If so, I have an offer for you.”

“I am Magister Shannon,” he replied slowly. “And I’m afraid I might share Nora’s squeamishness.”

“I’d rather the boy lived,” the voice croaked. “The stronger he is, the more I gain from the emerald. I’m telling you this so you can understand how…lucrative it would be to align yourself with me. Tell me the boy’s name and you and I might continue as master and Nora Finn did. Let me visit the boy when he’s sleeping—as you put it—and I’ll pay you twice Finn’s wages. Refuse and I will kill you now. What’s more, I’ll cripple the boy or be forced to kill him outright.”

Shannon swallowed hard. He had not considered that Nicodemus’s life, as well as his own, might end tonight.

“You care for the boy,” the voice observed wryly. “More than I can say about the grammarian. She cared for what he is, not who.”

“And what is he? Is he the one of the Erasmine Prophecy?”

The murderer grunted. “Few things are more annoying than ignorance.”

Shannon laughed “And yet you are ignorant of the boy’s name.”

“I might not know his name, but I will kill every male cacographer in this academy to find him. I can wield dreams as you might wield a net. So unless you want every boy in the Drum Tower murdered, you’ll accept my offer.”

Shannon glanced down at Nora’s research journal. Its back cover lay open. The grammarian’s sharply worded spell glowed on the exposed page.

“Do you need more incentive?” the voice asked. “There are rewards brighter than gold. With the emerald, I am master of Language Prime. I could tell you how the Creator made humanity.” There was a pause. “You do know what Language Prime is, don’t you?”

Shannon responded automatically. “Language Prime is blasphemy.”

A dry laugh. “Magister, you lack conviction! You must know that the original language exists. Interesting. What might your connection to the first language be? I could teach you more.”

Shannon shook his head. “Villain, you have no spell written, no attack ready. My synaesthetic reaction is very sensitive. I would have felt you forging.”

There came a shuffling noise. “True; I haven’t a text ready, nor can I spellwrite within Starhaven’s walls. The Chthonics filled this place with too many metaspells. But it’s not words with which I threaten you; it’s a half foot of sharpened iron I’ll drive through your skull before you can extemporize two words.”

The murderer was right. Shannon could not dash off a spell in time.

“Enough banter,” the creature hissed. “You can accept my offer or force me to kill every boy in—”

Shannon dove to the floor. Something whistled above his head and struck the wall behind him with a clang. He grabbed hold of the Magnus spell in Nora’s book and pulled.

The wartext leaped from the page into an effulgence of silver runes. Shannon did not know the spell’s name or how to wield it, so he blindly threw his arm out toward the voice. The text uncoiled into a long, liquid lash and struck with serpentine quickness.

The murderer cried out with surprise as the silvery text struck a bookshelf. The spell cut through several leather-bound codices with a loud ripping sound.

With a blast of air, each severed spellbook exploded into a blazing nimbus of sentence fragments. Shannon flinched, the brilliance dazzling his text-sensitive eyes.

Then the murderer was on top of him. The universe became a seething blackness of elbows and knees as they rolled over one another. A hand was trying to pull the Magnus spell from Shannon’s hand, and then a hard object cut a line of pain across his forehead.

Yawping savagely, Shannon jerked his right hand free and whipped the Magnus spell around. It cut though something with a soft swish.

Instantly the weight lifted from Shannon’s chest. The room filled with a high, keening scream. When Shannon sat up, a page of golden text shot toward him. He recognized the page as belonging to Nora’s research journal the instant before it smashed into his nose. The murderer must have struck him with the book.

Suddenly he was on his back and struggling to get up. His head felt full of cotton and his ears were ringing. Deconstructing sentence fragments coated every inch of the private library’s floor and walls. The fragments were squirming, spinning, and leaping into the air.

Beyond the chaos, Shannon saw Nora’s research journal flying away into a patch of darkness that must be the hallway. The inhuman scream began to fade.

Slowly he realized what he was seeing: the murderer had taken Nora’s journal and fled.

All around Shannon the deconstructing fragments began to burst. Each small explosion flung phrases across the room. The sharp language cut into his mind and body with hot shards of pain.

Desperately, Shannon felt around the floor for any clue as to why the murderer had fled. His fingers found something long and partially surrounded by cloth. He picked up the strange object and ran out of the library.

Behind him the decomposing sentences began to tear open the other spellbooks. Soon they would spill their contents into the growing textual storm. Shannon pulled the subtextualized door shut.

The hallway went black. Shannon could hear the deconstructing literature crackle and hiss behind the subtext.

But he was safe now. The chaotic language, left in the private library, would deconstruct into nothing.

Something wet and hot was running down his face. Blood.

He was still holding the mysterious cloth-covered object. Perhaps Azure could look at it for him.

Azure!

Fear tore into his gut. What had the murderer done to his familiar?

“Azure!” he called hoarsely. “Azure!” He had turned and was running blindly, arm stretched out. His hand struck a wall and he nearly fell. There came a faint whistle from behind.

He spun around and saw with intense relief a coil of Numinous censoring texts lying on what he assumed to be the windowsill. The murderer had bound the bird magically but had not killed her. The villain must have known hurting Azure would have made recruiting him impossible.

Shannon hurried to pick up the censored bird.

In her fear, Azure bit his pinky hard enough to draw blood. But Shannon wouldn’t have cared if she had snapped his finger in two. Cooing softly, he unwound the censoring texts from the bird’s head.

Once her mind was free, Azure cast to him a deluge of terrified text: a white-cloaked figure appearing in the hallway and a blazing Numinous spell that came from outside the tower to envelop her mind.

It seemed odd that the murderer had written the censoring text to strike from outside the tower; then Shannon remembered the thing’s claim that it could not spellwrite within Starhaven’s walls.

“Los damn it, but what could the creature be?” he hissed while scooping Azure up as if she were a loaf of bread.

In his left hand, he still gripped the strange cloth-covered object he had picked up in the private library.

On trembling legs and looking through Azure’s eyes, he hurried down the Gimhurst Tower. His breath became ragged as he ran into Starhaven’s inhabited quarter.

Twice, mangy cats scattered before him. He did not slow until flickering torches appeared along the walkways. Only then did he take the time to look at himself through Azure’s eyes.

The deconstructing sentence fragments had torn holes in his robes and cut small bloody lines into his hands and face. More shocking was the gash that slanted down his left brow. Two of his silvery dreadlocks had been cut by whatever blade had made that wound.

After hurrying through several buildings and across the Grand Courtyard, Shannon reached the Erasmine Spire. Thankfully there were no other wizards about to see him trot up the stairs and into his study.

Still panting, he set Azure on the back of his chair and the strange cloth-covered object on his writing desk. Though she still sent him frightened memories of the attack, Azure was beginning to calm down.

Shannon cast a few flamefly paragraphs above his desk. Once there was enough light, he coaxed Azure into standing on his shoulder. After saying a brief prayer to the Creator, he turned Azure’s eyes to the strange object he had taken from Nora’s library.

At first he could not understand what he was seeing.

It lay on his desk, wrapped in what was left of a white sleeve. He must have cut it off with the Magnus spell.

Slowly, tentatively, he turned the thing over.

It had been detached just above the elbow joint. There was no blood. Its curled fingers were perfect, down to the hairs growing on the back of the thumb.

“Heaven defend us,” Shannon whispered in shock. “The days of prophecy are upon us!”

Patches of the object seemed to be made of pale skin. But even as he watched, these slowly darkened into clay.

Save for this strange fact, the thing was an exact replica of a man’s severed forearm.

CHAPTER Nine

Nicodemus mounted the last few steps to stand panting before a tower door. It was identical to the one he had seen in his dream the previous night.

Contrary to his expectations of danger and intrigue, the day had been long and tiresome, full of busywork for Magister Shannon’s research. Moments earlier he had wolfed down his dinner so that he could find a view of the sunset he had seen in his sleep. It had been a strange dream—one that did not fade after waking but grew more vivid.

He pulled the door open to reveal a narrow stone bridge and, beyond, the Erasmine Spire. The sunset bathed the Spire in vermillion light.

Nicodemus smiled and stepped outside; now he would have time to sit on the bridge and read the knightly romance tucked under his arm. A warm breeze picked up as he turned westward.

Starhaven was built halfway up the Pinnacle Mountains. From a distance the stronghold’s crenellated walls and massive gatehouse made it look something like a great Lornish castle. But unlike a castle, Starhaven possessed a forest of towers, each an impossibility of height. The mightiest among them—the Erasmine Spire—stood so tall that from its top an observer could peer down on the Pinnacle Mountains.

Even from Nicodemus’s present height, halfway up a lesser tower, he could see for miles. Tan patchwork fields of small farms dotted the near landscape. Away from these homesteads, lush oak savanna spread out to the horizon.

To Nicodemus, the long view made the bridge an ideal spot for dreaming and reading.

He smiled again as he opened his knightly romance and heard the familiar creak of a new spine. The pages smelled like childhood.

Nicodemus’s smile grew sad. He would like to sit on the bridge all evening. But soon he would have to return to his chores. He looked eastward across Starhaven to the abandoned Chthonic Quarter. Already the evening air above the flat-topped towers was filling with bats.

What a strange sight the Chthonic people must have been, Nicodemus thought. Some stories described them as childlike creatures with bulbous eyes and teeth like needles. Others spoke of clawed monsters with armored plates covering their skin.

Nicodemus looked beyond the Chthonic Quarter. Only a few slivers of sunlight found their way through Starhaven’s myriad towers. Most such columns of light landed on the mountains, but just then one illuminated the Spindle Bridge, which arched between the stronghold and the nearest cliff face.

All other Starhaven bridges were wafer-thin testaments to Chthonic stonework. But the Spindle was a thick, round affair, like the bough of an enormous tree. Nicodemus leaned forward.

Even from his present distance, he could see the designs the Chthonic people had scored into the mountain’s face. To the left of the Spindle were outlines of ivy leaves; to the right a geometric pattern—three squat hexagons stacked one atop another and flanked by two taller hexagons.

The carvings made him think of the fabled Heaven Tree Valley. Some stories said the Chthonic people had escaped the Neosolar Empire by following the Spindle Bridge to a valley where the flowers bloomed as large as windmills and the mushrooms grew as wide as pavilion tents. With a sigh, Nicodemus looked down at his book.

But he could not find the book.

In his hands sat a lump of bloody clay.

With a cry, Nicodemus dropped the wet mass. It struck the bridge stones with a plop. He tried to step back but his legs wouldn’t move, nor would his arms. The blood and clay blackened until it seemed to be made of the night’s starry sky.

Slowly, the dark mass crept onto Nicodemus’s feet. The oil coated his ankles and made them dissolve. He fell like a toppled statue.

His jaw struck the bridge stones, mashing his molars down on his tongue. Salty blood filled his mouth.

He shrieked as he felt the oil spreading up his legs, his torso, his neck. The sky went black and descended like a sheet. His skin began to rot into large gray scales. The bridge stones trembled and then dissolved into waves that stretched out to the horizon and became the ocean.

Blood seeped from between the patches of Nicodemus’s skin. Bones erupted from his back to form wings. His throat convulsed and then stretched out. His rotting skin hardened into rubicund scales.

And then Nicodemus was aloft, pushing his wings down through thick ocean air. Before him flourished the dawn’s golden effulgence. But he was something brighter still. If others could see him now, then all would bask in the splendor of his broad chest, golden eyes, ivory teeth. His tail shook like a streamer in the air.

On the horizon, a dark strip of land emerged and became an urban silhouette. Nicodemus had never seen the place before but knew it well. The city encrusted a half-moon bay like a scab around a sore. Further inland stood five hills. Even from this distance, Nicodemus could see the citadel’s crumbling marble walls. Behind and above this memory of the ancient world, the Neosolar Palace towered high, its magically polished brass reflecting the red sunrise.

Suddenly the world froze. Nicodemus, wings outstretched, hung perfectly still in the air. Somehow he had become more than one person. He was now an old fisherman looking up from the harbor at the strange flying creature. He was also a beggar girl gazing up from an alley at a cube of solid blackness hovering in the sky. And yet he was also a young wizardly apprentice, far away and asleep in the Drum Tower.

But then a blaze of irrational hatred ignited inside of him. The world unfroze and he was again a glory of claws, wings, teeth.

He dove. The air screamed past as the city rushed up at him. The moment before impact, he flared out his wings and whipped his hind legs around and into the palace. His claws struck the roof, making stone and metal splash into the air like water drops. Working his powerful wings, he exhaled a plume of fire into the palace’s open wound.

It took eight more diving passes to topple the central tower. Now the sun was up, but the smoke from his destruction dimmed its brilliance to a burning haze.

The first attackers were insignificant beings, as helpless as the ants they resembled with their metal armor and swarming regiments. They came screaming up from the city. Against his scales, arrows produced only pinpricks of pain. He climbed high into the air, then stooped into a sharp dive. The soldiers bristled with spears and pikes. But at the last moment, he fanned his wings and veered right. With claws extended, he struck a wall.

The falling debris crushed most and sent the others fleeing. Perched atop the crumbling wall, he ended each remaining life with a thin jet of fire.

When he took wing once more, an arc of silvery Magnus leaped up from the citadel and struck him just above his right foreleg. The blow sent him plummeting toward the ground. It was only with a desperate working of wings that he stayed aloft.

Slowly, he regained altitude and turned toward the citadel. As he approached, a second textual blast erupted from the walls. Now prepared, Nicodemus ducked under the spell and dove toward the huddle of wizards who had been casting the attack spells.

A few of the black-robes fled, but most held their ground and cast up a wall of text. A single tail lash shattered the shield, leaving the wizards sus-ceptible to his breath.

In savage celebration, he toppled another wall and loosed a roar that rattled his teeth.

But then the world exploded into strange fire. All around him, gouts of orange-black flame gushed from the toppled stones. Searing pain awoke his instincts. He leaped into the air, but the fire rose with him. The undying flames flickered and snarled in the wind of his wing-beats. What strange magic was this?

Nicodemus bellowed.

Then he saw them peering from behind light-bending subtexts—a whole caucus of pyromancers in their orange robes.

An ambush! He had flown straight into a spell written in the fire-mages’ pyrokinetic language. Now the malicious text was burning into his scales, turning his glorious body into ash.

Panicked, Nicodemus worked his wings. To the east, the ocean gleamed in the morning light. The sea! Perhaps it could quench the textual fire.

With a few powerful flaps, he was away from the citadel and high above the city’s mercantile heart. But the spellwrights would not let him go so easily. A burning lance of yellow light tore into his right wing. The spell shattered the fourth phalangeal bone and opened a hole in the wing’s membrane. A second spell smashed into his belly and sent him faltering down toward the city.

He screamed out terror and flame. Five excruciating wing-strokes stopped his fall and renewed his sprint for the sea.

Slowly he realized that the ocean could no longer save him. Each painful stroke tore a larger hole in his left wing. Once in the sea, he would not be able to regain flight. He would be an easy target for the human warships. Worse, he might not reach the ocean; one more spell would send him crashing down into the city.

But the moments stretched on; each wing-beat flooded his mind with agony. He was not a mile from the estuary now, and still the fire-mages withheld the killing blast.

A realization took shape: the spellwrights would not finish him while he was above their precious city. They knew that his burning carcass would loose a civic wildfire and destroy their gleaming domes, their precious towers.

His broad, serpentine self shook with fury. Why should he die languishing in the waves? Anger cooled his mind and sustained him long enough to turn back toward the buildings.

If he had to die, then so would they.

But then the world froze again. He hung motionless in the air. Again he became more than one person—a beggar girl hiding in an alley, a soldier’s wife screaming at the sight of the burning palace, an aged fisherman praying for salvation.

But his anguish and pain grew and the world leaped back into motion.

So down he fell with folded wings to set the city burning. The textual flames roared and then guttered while the city lay quietly in the light of morning. Soon the world would see his terrible beauty in all its glory.

So down he fell and struck with violent fury. His impact shook the earth and set every city bell ringing…ringing…ringing…

CHAPTER Ten

Ringing…ringing…ringing…

High above the Drum Tower, in the belfry of the Erasmine Spire, an apprentice had spotted the first ray of daylight and begun tolling the massive dawn bell.

Nicodemus, still half-asleep in his cot, came fully awake with a start.

Cold sweat covered his body and made him shiver. His ragged pillow displayed a dark stain. He wiped his mouth and found it encrusted with dry blood. He must have bitten his tongue during the nightmare.

In the wan light he fumbled around on the floor for his clothes. The dream haunted him still; its every image, from bloody clay to the burning city, flickered before his eyes.

After he pulled off his shirt and wiped off the sweat, the crisp autumn air made him hurry to pull on a clean shirt. From outside came the flapping of pigeon wings. Shaking his head, he tried to dislodge the dream as he pulled aside his long hair and tightened his robe’s laces at the back of his neck.

“Only a nightmare,” he muttered, pulling on his boots. “Only a nightmare,” he repeated as he washed his face.

His eyes stung and his body would not quit shivering; the strange dream had prevented his sleep from being restful. Nothing for it but to keep moving.

By the dawn bell’s last ring, he was jogging down the Drum Tower’s steps toward breakfast.

It was early still and, blessedly, the refectory was nearly empty. Nicodemus never knew where to sit when the hall was crowded. It usually came to a bleak choice: eat with the cacographers and publicize his disability, or eat with the other apprentices and listen to conversations about texts he would never spellwrite. But today he could sit alone and enjoy a breakfast of yo-gurt and toasted brown bread.

Several seats to his right, a huddle of young lesser wizards sat gossiping. The orange lining of their hoods identified them as librarians. A few were debating how to disspell a bookworm curse, but most were whispering to each other with an urgency that suggested fresh intrigue.

Nicodemus leaned closer and caught a few details: a senior grammarian had failed to attend her evening seminar, and none of her students could find her. Some thought she had been sent to Lorn on a secret quest, another that she had jumped from a tower bridge; a few thought she had gone rogue.

Nicodemus wondered which grammarian they were talking about until one of the gossips noticed his eavesdropping and cleared his throat. He looked away.

To his left, two glassy-eyed apprentices were corresponding in a common magical language. Nicodemus watched the dim green text flit between the sweethearts.

Memories of long-ago breakfasts with Amy Hern drew a thin smile across his face. She hadn’t minded his misspelled correspondence. They had often laughed at some of the wilder malapropisms his cacography had produced.

But his smile faded when he thought about finding another woman who would want a lover whose prose was nearly indecipherable.

A moment later, John joined him and began wolfing down the first of his three bowls of oatmeal. “Good morning, John. How do you feel?”

The big man pretended to nod off into his bowl. “You’re sleepy?” Nicodemus guessed. John flashed him a lopsided smile. He put a hand on Nicodemus’s elbow.

“I’m sleepy, too,” the younger man said. “I dreamed I turned into a monster.”

“No,” Simple John said gently.

Nicodemus nodded. “I hope not.” He smiled. “John, does anyone else understand you as well as I do?”

“Simple John!” Simple John piped, brown eyes beaming.

Nicodemus nodded. “Yes, of course they do.” He patted his friend’s shoulder. “You can say more with your three phrases than I could manage with the grand library’s heaviest lexicon.”

Laughingly the big man said, “Nooooo-ooo.”

With a chuckle, Nicodemus stood up. “I have to hurry off to the old man’s study; I’ll see you tonight.” After returning his plates to the kitchen, Nicodemus left the refectory for the Grand Courtyard. It was a broad, grassy place covered with elm trees and slate-tiled walkways. Everywhere black-robed wizards strolled alone or in pairs. To the west, a horseshoe of blue-clad hydromancers stood around a statue. Nicodemus spotted a gaggle of snowy druid robes in the northeast corner. He hoped Deirdre wasn’t among them.

Cutting directly across the courtyard, Nicodemus gazed up at the airy heights of the Erasmine Spire, which at that moment was splitting a hapless cloud in two.

A lance of golden light burst from the tower’s peak and shot over the eastern mountains. Nicodemus stifled a yawn and wondered which grand wizard had cast that colaboris spell. Perhaps it had been a communication to some distant monarch or maybe even to a deity.

Nicodemus had nourished so many adolescent dreams of becoming a grand wizard—almost as many dreams as he had of becoming a knight errant. How wonderful it would have been to spend a life counseling monarchs and casting the resplendent colaboris spells that instantly carried information across vast distances. He rubbed his sleep-deprived eyes and wondered if he would ever earn even a lesser wizard’s hood.

Another dazzling colaboris spell arced over the northeastern mountains and silently struck the Erasmine Spire. An incoming message, he thought, and wondered where it came from. Abruptly a second colaboris spell flew in from the northeast to strike the Spire. Another golden blast followed on its tail.

Shocked, Nicodemus stopped. An outgoing spell erupted from the tower, this one heading north; it was answered instantly.

“Blood of Los!” he swore. Throughout the courtyard, all those fluent in Numinous stood amazed. Casting a colaboris spell required a vast amount of intricate text and therefore was done only with great justification. Usually that justification was gold; the Order maintained its great wealth by charging monarchs and deities exorbitant fees to cast the spells on their behalf. In fact, the Order had established an academy in Starhaven solely because its soaring towers and location made it an ideal relaying station. But not once had Nicodemus seen so many colaboris spells cast in such a short time. Something important must have happened.

Suddenly a flurry of the Numinous-based spells came raining in from several directions. Nearby wizards cried out in dismay.

The horizontal storm of spells went on and on until Nicodemus thought that every scroll must have been emptied and every grand wizard exhausted. But the golden barrage continued. Moments passed like hours. Then, as abruptly as it had begun, the magic tempest stopped, leaving the morning sky strangely dim.

Nicodemus ran for the Erasmine Spire. Something very, very grave had just happened.

“MAGISTER!” NICODEMUS CALLED, and pushed the study door open. “There’s been a colaboris correspondence like you’ve never seen. There must have been thirty that…” His voice died.

Shannon was standing next to two strangers. The first was a tall, fair-skinned woman with blue eyes and dark dreadlocks. Silver and gold buttons ran down the sleeves of her black robe, indicating her rank of grand wizard.

The second stranger was tawny-skinned, green-eyed Deirdre. Her robes were druidic white with wooden buttons on the sleeves.

“Forgive me, Magister. I’ll wait in the hall…” Nicodemus’s words trailed off as he saw the myriad tiny cuts raked across Shannon’s face.

“It’s all right, my boy,” Shannon said calmly. “Come in. We’ve been waiting for you.” He held his research journal and was tracing the asterisks embossed on its face. “Never mind the scrapes; I was working too late and mishandled an ancient spellbook. The blast scuffed me up a bit.” He motioned to his face with the journal.

“Yes, Magister,” Nicodemus said uncertainly. Each year brought a few reports of ancient codices deconstructing, but for such a thing to happen to a grand wizard was extraordinary.

The old man’s blank eyes pointed at Nicodemus’s chest. “And you, lad, are you all right? Was there anything amiss in the Drum Tower last night?”

Nicodemus glanced nervously at the strangers. “There was a Jejunus cursing match. I’m sorry if we disturbed anyone.”

Shannon’s expression softened. “Not to worry about that. Please greet our guests.” He gestured in the direction of the wizard. “Magistra Amadi Okeke, a sentinel from Astrophell.”

Nicodemus bowed and the woman nodded.

“And Deirdre, a member of the Silent Blight delegation.”

“Your pardon, Magister,” the druid interrupted. “But I do not speak for Silent Blight concerns. My protector and I provide independent counsel.”

Nicodemus had to stop himself from staring. By night Deirdre had seemed handsome. But now that she was standing in the window’s sunlight her eyes seemed greener, her skin darker, her loose hair more glossy black. Now she was stunning and looked even more familiar.

Shannon’s blind gaze had wandered up to the ceiling. “Well then, Nicodemus, please greet Deirdre, an independent emissary from Dral.”

Nicodemus began to worry. Shannon had said that they had been waiting for him. Had his conversation with the druid last night stirred up new interest in his cacography?

He bowed to Deirdre.

“Scratch!” Azure said, and launched herself from Shannon’s chair. Nicodemus raised his forearm in time to make a perch for the incoming parrot.

“Tell me again about your bird,” an amused Deirdre said. “I thought she was your familiar and couldn’t communicate with anyone else.”

Shannon turned toward the druid. He was silent a moment before replying. “Sometimes Azure flies a message to Nicodemus, but only I can understand her dialect of Numinous.” A golden sentence flew from Shannon’s brow to his familiar’s. The bird bobbed her head and flapped her way back to Shannon’s shoulder.

“For a few wizards, age or literary trauma steals our ability to see anything but magical text.” Shannon gestured to his all-white eyes. “Time did so to me. But those like me can rapidly exchange information with animal familiars.”

Two Numinous streams rushed between wizard and parrot. Now Shannon pointed his face directly at Deirdre’s. “Through this protocol, I can see through Azure’s eyes. I’m doing so now.”

Deirdre studied man and bird. “Such strange practices you wizards have.”

Again Shannon let a silence grow before he responded. “I hear druids also have strange relationships with animals. But hopefully this convocation will do more than renew treaties; hopefully it will make our different societies less strange to one another.”

Nicodemus had never heard the old man be so hesitant and so cautious with his words.

Azure, apparently having looked around the room enough for Shannon, broke the Numinous stream and turned to preening one of Shannon’s silver dreadlocks.

Magistra Okeke spoke. “We should tell the boy why we are here.”

Shannon’s mouth tensed, and then he motioned toward three chairs. “Then let us sit. This, Nicodemus, is a fortuitous interview. Deirdre passed me in the halls this morning and inquired about you. And Magistra Okeke appeared at my door only moments ago, quite unexpectedly.”

“I would like the boy to talk about the Erasmine Prophecy,” the sentinel said, coolly regarding first Shannon and then Deirdre.

Nicodemus felt his cheeks grow hot.

Shannon turned toward the sentinel. “I see you’ve been busy researching Starhaven rumors.”

With a half-smile, the druid looked from one wizard to the other before adding, “I am also interested in this prophecy.”

The sentinel narrowed her eyes at the other woman.

Three grand authors in one room, each distrustful of the others—Nicodemus would have felt safer if the study were full of starving lycanthropes.

“Regarding prophecy, there is little to tell,” Shannon said. “Nicodemus is not the Halcyon.”

“Why so certain?” Deirdre’s green eyes fixed on the old man. “Perhaps we should start with what the first wizards foresaw.”

Shannon started to reply but then paused. Prophecy, being closely related to religion, was seldom discussed among different magical societies. Doing so was considered impolite at best, blasphemous at worst.

However, Shannon could not refuse a guest’s direct request. “Erasmus foresaw the War of Disjunction: the final struggle between demons and humanity that will come when the fiends escape the ancient continent and invade this one. The prophecies predict that Los will be reborn and will lead the Pandemonium—the great demonic army—across the ocean to destroy all human language. Erasmus founded the Numinous Order of Civil Wizardry to repel the Pandemonium. His prophecy predicts that the Order will prevail only if it heeds the teachings of a master spellwright known as ‘the Halcyon.’”

Deirdre shifted in her chair. “But how could any force destroy human language?”

Magistra Okeke answered impatiently: “The demons will use special spells called metaspells to decouple the meaning of language from its form.”

The druid gave the sentinel a blank look.

“What Magistra Okeke means,” Shannon explained, “is that the demons will divorce the signifier from the signified. Phrases and words will take on unexpected meanings. Civilization will crumble into animal brutishness.”

“I don’t understand your jargon,” Deirdre said. “But this interests me. The druids hold to the Prophecy of the Peregrine, which predicts that the Pandemonium will burn our groves and crush our standing stones. Our mundane and magical texts are stored within our sacred trees and megaliths.”

“I thought druids believed the War of Disjunction was imminent,” Magistra Okeke said. “Something about a fungus killing off Dralish trees.”

Still smiling, Deirdre examined the sentinel as if for the first time. “Amadi Okeke, you refer to the Silent Blight. It is a complicated issue. I would prefer not to speak of it here.”

The sentinel pursed her lips. “But perhaps you could elucidate some of your order’s beliefs, since Magister Shannon was so free with information about wizardly prophecy.”

“There’s no need to—” Shannon started to say.

“It is all right.” Deidre raised an open palm. “The Silent Blight is a…‘change,’ I suppose I must name it to non-druids. Yes, the Blight is a world change we detected a few decades ago. It is not a disease, but a…condition that is affecting all of nature. The evidence comes from the observation that certain kinds of trees are dying in each of the human kingdoms. What is causing the deaths is debated. Some believe the Blight indicates that the War of Disjunction will begin any day now. Others think it is un-related to prophecy. However, all druids agree on one and only one thing: when the War of Disjunction does begin, a foreign spellwright known as the Peregrine will show us how to protect our sacred places and hence our language.”

Shannon nodded. “Some of our scholars report that all magical societies believe the Disjunction will destroy their languages and that only one spellwright might prevent this fate.”

Deirdre nodded to Nicodemus without looking at him. “And the wizards once thought he might be the Halcyon?”

Magistra Okeke leaned forward, her eyes flitting between Shannon and Deirdre.

Though Shannon’s face remained impassive, he cast a brief sentence to Azure. The parrot lowered her head, allowing the old man to stroke the feathers along her skinny neck. Nicodemus recognized this as a habit comforting for both bird and man.

At last Shannon spoke. “Our prophecy describes the Halcyon as being the child of an unknown mother, as having a birth to magic powerful enough to be felt for hundreds of miles, as forging both Numinous and Magnus before reaching twenty. All of these things describe Nicodemus perfectly.”

The pride ringing in the old man’s voice made Nicodemus’s cheeks grow hot again.

“However,” Shannon continued, “Erasmus also described the Halcyon as bearing a congenital keloid scar in the shape of the Braid rune. Nicodemus’s mark is ambiguous. More important, the prophecy predicted that the Halcyon would master many styles and wield language with elegance and justice. He foresaw the Halcyon destroying the feral kingdoms and forging a staff powerful enough to slay the reborn Los.”

“And that is why I can’t be the Halcyon,” Nicodemus insisted. “My cacography prevents me from mastering any style or producing anything close to elegant prose. For a while, the wizards thought I would outgrow my difficulty. But when it became apparent that my touch would always misspell, they knew I wasn’t the Halcyon.”

“Nicodemus,” Deirdre said, “how were you born to magic?”

He shifted in his seat. “In my sleep, when I was thirteen.”

The druid’s mouth curved almost imperceptibly upward. At the same time, the sentinel narrowed her lips.

Deirdre asked, “Do you remember what you were dreaming about the night you were born to magic?”

“No,” he lied.

The sentinel spoke. “As a cacographer you cause misspells by handling text, but have you noticed if your touch makes other things more chaotic? For example, do those near you often become sick? Or do the fires you light tend to escape the fireplace?”

Nicodemus was about to say that he had not noticed anything like that when Shannon interrupted in a low tone. “Amadi, Provost Montserrat has personally observed Nicodemus and determined that that is not the case.”

An icy sensation—half-thrill, half-fear—spread through Nicodemus. The Provost had observed him? But when and how?

Magistra Okeke stared at Shannon for a long moment. “I will see the boy’s keloid now.”

Nicodemus touched a lock of his long black hair. “There’s really no need, Magistra. The scars are misshapen. And we don’t know if I was born with it or not.”

The sentinel only stared. He looked at Shannon, but his teacher’s expression was as blank as a snow field. No help there. He looked at Deirdre. She only smiled her infuriating half-smile.

So with his heart growing cold, Nicodemus turned his chair to present his back to the sentinel, pulled his hair over one shoulder, and began to unlace his robes.

AS HE UNTIED his collar at the back of his neck, Nicodemus’s fingers ran across the keloid.

He had felt the scars countless times before, traced their every inch with his fingertips. Once he had even arranged two bits of polished brass so that he could see their reflection.

Unlike most scars, which were pale and flat, a keloid scar bulged out and darkened. Nicodemus’s complexion was a healthy olive hue, but the weals on his neck shone a glossy blue-black—like a colony of parasitic mollusks growing into his flesh.

He fussed over his hair every night so that it would remain long enough to hide the keloids. He hadn’t had to reveal them for nearly five years.

His face burned as he pushed his collar back to expose his neck and shoulders.

“Goddess!” the druid swore. “Do they hurt?”

“No, Magistra,” he said as evenly as possible.

He heard the sentinel walk over to him. “I can see the shape of the Braid in the scars.”

The “Braid” she was referring to was a rune in a common language named Vulgate; it consisted of two vertical lines connected by a serpentine line that wove between them. By itself the Braid could mean “to organize” or “to combine.”

Nicodemus had no sensation along the keloid, but he could feel the pressure of Magistra Okeke’s finger as she traced the scars down his neck. She spoke. “Druid, is the Peregrine prophesied to bear a keloid in the shape of the Braid?”

“Predicted to be born with such,” the druid answered. “There have been false Peregrines who have created such a keloid through branding. And, as I understand it, we do not know if Nicodemus’s mark is congenital.”

“But, Magistras, there’s an error in the middle of it,” Nicodemus said, his face still hot.

Magistra Okeke grunted. “Child, you don’t know how right you are.”

He tried not to flinch as her finger traced the blotch. This second scar took the imperfect shape of a written letter “k” that had been pushed over onto its legs—the same shape as the Inconjunct rune.

By itself an Inconjunct meant either “as far apart as possible” or “as in-correct as possible.” Therefore, a Braid paired with an Inconjunct could mean “to disorganize to the furthest extent” or “to deconstruct to the basic components.”

Deirdre swore under her breath: “Bridget, damn it!”

Shocked by the druid’s blasphemy against her own goddess, Nicodemus turned around. She had lost her half-smile and was frowning at his neck.

“You are distressed, Deirdre?” Magistra Okeke asked. “You thought perhaps Nicodemus was the Peregrine?”

The druid sighed and returned to her chair. “Yes, Amadi Okeke. The answer to both of your questions is yes.”

“Well, druid, I agree with your assessment,” the sentinel said. “If this scar is fate’s work, then it is a clear sign that Nicodemus is not the Halcyon. But I wonder if it might have another meaning.”

Shannon snorted. “You’re getting carried away, Amadi.” His voice softened. “Thank you, Nicodemus. You may cover your neck now.”

Dizzy with relief, Nicodemus began to tie his collar’s laces.

Deirdre sat back into her chair. “Agwu Shannon, Amadi Okeke, apologies for occupying your time.”

Returning to her seat, Magistra Okeke asked, “What does the provost think of the Inconjunct?”

“He does not believe it is a rune,” Shannon answered curtly. “He believes it is the result of human error.”

Magistra Okeke’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t understand.”

Shannon opened his mouth to speak, but Nicodemus interrupted: “Magister is too kind to say that most likely my parents branded me. It might be shameful, and many may look down on my family because of it. But I’d rather face the shame than have anyone again believe that I’m involved in prophecy.”

Shannon frowned. “Nicodemus, who told you that you were branded?”

Nicodemus looked down at his boots. “No one, Magister. It’s what I figure people must say.”

Deirdre gazed out the window, all sign of interest gone.

Meanwhile the sentinel looked Nicodemus up and down. “You’ve had the scars all your life?”

Nicodemus forced himself to meet her stare. “When I was an infant, my stepmother gave me my last name because of them.”

Magistra Okeke raised her eyebrows.

“The word ‘weal’ is a synonym for ‘welt,’” Nicodemus explained. “Hence Nicodemus-of-the-weals became Nicodemus Weal.”

Shannon cleared his throat. “But ‘weal’ has another meaning. It can mean ‘the common good.’ It’s an antonym of woe.”

Nicodemus put on his bravest smile. “I’ve always said that that makes it a contranym.”

Deirdre looked at Nicodemus so abruptly he started. “Why would you say that?” The half-smile returned to her lips.

“Oh-h,” Nicodemus stuttered. “W-well, a contranym is a word that means the opposite of itself like ‘dust’ or ‘bound.’ If I’m dusting the table, you don’t know if I’m sweeping the dust off it or sprinkling some onto it. And the weal is the opposite of woe, but woe to him with a weal.”

Shannon laughed softly even though he had heard this attempt at wit before. Nicodemus gave him a grateful glance.

Deirdre was nodding. She seemed about to speak but an urgent knock sounded at the door.

“Enter,” Shannon called. The door swung open to reveal Magister Smallwood. “Agwu! It’s that astounding colaboris correspondence. News most terrifying from abroad!”

CHAPTER Eleven

“Nicodemus, please attend our druid guest while I hear this news.” Shannon stood. “Deirdre, forgive us a moment.” Two Numinous arcs sprang between the old wizard and Azure as he made for the door. The sentinel followed.

Nicodemus stood and watched them go. He would have given anything to avoid being left alone with the druid.

He looked back at Deirdre. Her wide eyes and smooth skin made her seemed no older than twenty, but her slight smile betrayed an ancient, matronly amusement. “I think I handled that rather well,” she said. “Let us sit. There’s much to discuss.”

Frowning in confusion, he retook his seat.

“Nicodemus, do you know that we’re distant cousins?” the druid asked, her smile growing. “I consulted Starhaven’s genealogy library. We share a pair of great-great-grandparents.”

Nicodemus’s head bobbed backward. This was unexpected. But then he realized why the druid seemed familiar: save for her eyes, she was a younger and more beautiful copy of his aunt. “Are you Spirish?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Dralish, but of Imperial descent. Do you know what that means? The ancient continent was ruled by an Imperial family who possessed the same black hair, green eyes, and olive skin that you and I have.”

Nicodemus felt an old memory stir. “My father once said he could trace his ancestry to the first Spirish Landfall.”

Deirdre nodded. “Just so. When humanity fled the ancient continent, each member of the imperial family boarded a different ship. The Maelstrom scattered the human fleet; as a result, our relatives are spread across the land in both powerful and humble families.”

She studied him. “I have many Imperial aspects, save for my height, or rather, my lack of height. But you seem to have all the Imperial features.”

Nicodemus fought the urge to fidget with his sleeve. “It’s flattering to hear you say so.”

“It makes one wonder who your mother might be,” she said.

He looked away at the window.

“I am sorry,” she said, touching his knee. “Forgive my speculation.”

“There is nothing to forgive,” he said without looking at her.

“Nicodemus, I must tell you something.” She paused. “Please carefully consider what I say next.” She leaned forward. Paused. “You have been crippled by a horrible curse.”

He blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“You are cursed.”

“In which language?”

“In no magical language of this land.”

“Forgive my skepticism, but if I haven’t been cursed in a known magical language, then how can you see it?”

Deirdre folded her dark hands on her white lap. “There are many things that cannot be seen by writers of the new magics.”

“New magics?” Nicodemus frowned at her odd diction.

The druid nodded. “When our ancestors crossed the ocean, most ancient magics were lost. Only the Dralish and Verdantians preserved their ancestral ways, which evolved into the old magics. All other magic has been invented since then.”

He knew that what she was saying was true. “But what does this have to do with a curse? And shouldn’t we speak of old languages, not old magics?”

Deirdre’s mouth tensed for a moment but then relaxed into its usual half-smile. “Magics, languages, it’s all one. The point is that while the new languages might be more powerful, they restrict their writers’ vision; they prevent their writers from knowing the wisdom of the ancient continent.”

“And they prevent us from seeing curses?” Nicodemus asked skeptically. “Forgive me, but I did spend last night disspelling a curse from my forehead.”

The druid waved his words away. “Wizards call any malevolent text a curse. What infected you is different. It was written in a language from the ancient continent and therefore left an aura dimly visible to those fluent in the old languages but invisible to those fluent only in the new.”

“All right, say I have been cursed. What infected me? Is it some disease I’ve got?”

Deirdre was silent for a moment. Then she leaned forward and said, “Isn’t it obvious, my friend, that someone has stolen your ability to spell?”

Nicodemus blinked. “That’s impossible. No known spell—”

“This curse comes from the ancient world, where knowledge of how language could affect the body was far greater. The histories describe magic that could regrow a severed arm or restore the memories lost to a blow on the head.”

Nicodemus could not deny what she said; the ancients had had an in-comprehensibly sophisticated understanding of the mundane world, including medicine.

The druid continued, “Your curse was one such ancient spell. It must have invaded your mind and stolen its growth or altered its development. Whatever the case, it removed the part of your mind needed to spellwrite correctly.”

“But who would want to curse me?”

“There are men and women in every human kingdom who worship demons,” she replied. “We know little of them other than that they have formed a clandestine order. They call themselves the Disjunction because they wish to initiate the War of Disjunction. Whoever has cursed you must be among their number.

Nicodemus’s throat tightened. “You think I’m the Halcyon.”

Deirdre eyed the door. “Last spring, my goddess commanded me to travel to Starhaven, where I would find a ‘treasure wrapped in black and endangered by the falling night.’” She motioned to Nicodemus’s black robe. “The Dralish prophecy predicts that the Peregrine will be an orphaned foreigner—one born to magic in the dreamworld.”

“But the keloid,” Nicodemus exclaimed. “You saw that it’s not a true Braid. You swore, in fact. You agreed with Magistra Okeke that I can’t—”

She held up a finger. “Amadi Okeke asked if I were distressed and if I had thought you were the Peregrine. Both of those things were true. She assumed that your keloid disqualifies you from being the Peregrine.”

“It doesn’t?”

Deirdre’s half-smile returned. “We Dralish use a different dialect of the common magical languages; the common runes have different meanings for us.”

“And my keloid means something different to you?”

The druid’s smile widened. “To us, the Braid means ‘to combine’ or ‘to grow.’ More important, the second mark on your neck is an exact copy of a rune called the Crooked Branch.”

“And its meaning?”

“It describes something that is wild or unrestricted. So the combination of a Crooked Branch with a Braid would mean ‘wild or unrestrained growth.’” The druid laughed. “I swore when I saw your keloid, not because it excludes you from our prophecy, but because it describes you as difficult to govern or contain.”

Nicodemus shook his head. “But you still don’t know if my keloid is congenital or not.”

The druid cocked her head to one side. “You don’t like the possibility that you might fulfill our prophecy?”

Nicodemus stammered but couldn’t come up with a reply.

She shrugged. “Well, I need no further convincing. Here you are, just as my goddess said you would be—wrapped in black and endangered. Gravely endangered. Someone has maneuvered you into this haven of new magic, where druids almost never come. Our first task is to free you from Starhaven.”

“But I’m not imprisoned.”

“Nicodemus Weal, think of what your keloid and your curse mean. Someone has stopped you from becoming the Peregrine. It is not safe here.”

“But I’m surrounded by wizards. Who could harm me here?”

“Who? The one who cursed you, of course.” She shook her head. “Nicodemus, you were not meant to be crippled.”

Her words filled Nicodemus with giddiness and confusion. What if she was correct? What if his cacography was a mistake? Everything would change. He would change. His life would begin again.

Deirdre’s eyes widened. “Your heart knows I am right. Listen to me. Do you know what an ark is?”

Nicodemus looked away. “Cacographers aren’t instructed in theology.”

“An ark is a vessel that contains a deity’s soul and much of her power. With Kyran and a dozen devotees, I have brought my goddess’s ark to this place. If we could bring you to the ark, my goddess may lift your curse.”

Nicodemus pursed his lips. Was it possible?

Deirdre continued excitedly. “We could not bring the ark up to Starhaven. This place is filled with ancient Chthonic magic that would damage the artifact. So instead we have placed it under guard in that village…the one down on the Westernmost Road. I can’t remember the name.”

“Gray’s Crossing.”

The druid smiled. “The same. My party has taken rooms at the inn there. And all of the devotees, two of them druids, now guard the ark. We simply need to slip you free from Starhaven and bring you down to Gray’s Crossing so that my goddess can protect you. From there we shall ride to the civil forests of Dral to begin your druidic training.”

Something in the way the druid spoke—perhaps the zeal in her eyes, or maybe the urgency in her tone—cooled Nicodemus’s excitement. “But why should your goddess want to heal my cacography?”

“Because you’re the Peregrine!” she exclaimed, leaning forward. “The defender of our civilization!”

The woman’s bright eyes seemed free of deceit; still Nicodemus did not trust her. “I can’t go with you.” He put his now trembling hands in his lap.

Deirdre’s smile faltered. She started as if waking from a dream. “Yes,” she said, the excitement draining from her face. “The Braid and the Crooked Branch. I couldn’t expect less.”

“Even if I trusted you completely, I couldn’t leave Starhaven. Numinous and Magnus spellwrights may not forsake the Order. If I left Starhaven, they’d send sentinels to cast a censorship spell on me to snuff out my literacy.”

The druid tapped a forefinger against her pursed lips. “It seems your jailer has planned well. You are trapped. We must assume that such a clever enemy has planted conspirators among the wizards.”

“Conspirators?” he said with a laugh. “Look, the Creator knows I want what you say to be true, but there’s no evidence for it.” He stood and walked to the window.

“Nicodemus, unless you trust me now, there will be violence,” Deirdre said, her voice suddenly full of fervor. “The one who cursed you will discover my presence and the presence of my goddess. Blood will be shed in Starhaven.”

Despite the sunshine coming through the window, Nicodemus shivered. Deirdre’s every expression suggested that she sincerely believed what she was saying. However, there was a desperation in her tone, a maniacal excitement in her eye.

Nicodemus had seen such passion before—seen it grow and then wither in every young cacographer that came through the Drum Tower. Like a crippled child, Deirdre must have hung her every desire on one hope.

“My apologies, druid,” he said, meeting her eyes, “but I cannot trust you so blindly. I will discuss this with Magister Shannon.”

Again the zealous glow melted from the druid’s expression and left only the wry half-smile. “Here I was worrying that your keloid marked you as too headstrong to be controlled. I couldn’t have been more wrong. It is worse that you are uncontrollable in this way.”

Nicodemus turned to the windowsill. “And what way is that?”

“You are frightened. Insecure, dependent on your master, childish.”

Nicodemus closed his eyes; her words felt like a punch in the gut. But he kept his thoughts calm. He had had plenty of practice surviving brutal honesty.

“Deirdre, I won’t guess your age.” He turned his face up to feel the sunshine. “Despite your looks, you must be decades older than I am. No doubt I’m a child next to you. I haven’t even guessed what game you are playing. But at least I see that you are a game-player and would make me a game-piece.”

Deirdre spoke in a dry, accusing voice. “I have put myself in great danger by warning you of your curse.”

Nicodemus took a long breath. She was still vying for advantage, still trying to convince him. On unsteady legs, he returned to his chair. “Deirdre, I’m a cacographer, a cripple, a mooncalf apprentice. I do not plan; I do not scheme. But twenty-five years of retardation have taught me how to tell the painted from the plain, the guileful from the genuine.”

The druid regarded him. “And how to speak masterfully.”

“Flattery.” He closed his eyes and pressed four trembling fingers to his forehead. “I know that Magister is plain and that you are painted. I will tell him.”

She shook her head. “Then listen to me, game-piece Nicodemus. One day you will not have the luxury of hiding behind your disability. One day soon you will have to paint your face and play my game or die.”

He said nothing.

“Before you tell Shannon,” the druid said coolly, “consider that he might, perhaps unknowingly, serve our enemy.”

Nicodemus started to protest, but she held up her hand. “And perhaps he does not. But men speak with loose tongues. Telling Shannon what I told you may start rumors. At present, your jailer doesn’t know that you are aware of him. Informing Shannon may alert him to your new knowledge. Informing Shannon may ignite a bloody struggle before Kyran and I are ready to defend you.”

Nicodemus frowned. “If Shannon were a demon-worshiper, he never would have left me alone with you.”

Deirdre cocked her head to one side. “You care for him.”

Nicodemus blinked.

Her infuriating half-smiled returned. “Game-piece Nicodemus, beware of Shannon. He is only a man. If he is your jailer, then he might be an imperfect one. Leaving you alone with me might have been simply a mistake.” She paused. “Don’t you wonder what caused those unusual cuts across his face?”

Nicodemus opened his mouth to defend the old man, but before the words came, muffled voices sounded at the door.

“They’re coming back.” Deirdre leaned forward and took his hand. “Nicodemus, if you remember anything, remember that the wizards are more than they seem. Shannon is more than he seems. We must get you to my goddess’s ark in Gray’s Crossing; you will be safe there. Until then, take this.”

From the folds of her robe, she withdrew a small sphere of polished wood and placed it in Nicodemus’s palm. A root wound around the object.

“It is called a Seed of Finding,” she said softly. “If you need me, break the root that encircles the Seed and I will come. I have another artifact that will allow me to find you so long as you are touching the Seed.”

She closed her hands around his and knelt. “By Bridget’s love,” she said, her green eyes fixed upon him, “I hereby pledge myself to the protection of Nicodemus Weal, our beloved Peregrine.”

CHAPTER Twelve

Nicodemus stared down at the wooden orb. It didn’t look like any seed he had ever known. A tingling warmth was spreading down his fingers. “Its power is quick,” he whispered.

Deirdre released his hand. “Keep it safe. Many wizards would pay their weight in gold for this spell.”

Nicodemus met her gaze. “If I gave this to a wizard so that he could study the druidic languages in it, and the other druids learned that you gave it to me—”

“—they would strangle me before our goddess’s altar. Just as the wizards jealously guard Numinous and Magnus, the druids guard the higher druidic languages.” She stood. “You see how I risk my life for you.”

Across the room the door latch chirped. Nicodemus stood and stuffed the druidic artifact into his belt-purse.

Deirdre stepped away from him as the door swung open to reveal an exhausted Shannon. Azure, perched on the wizard’s right hand, bobbed her head.

“My esteemed druid,” the grand wizard rumbled, “I have just heard a report that will harrow your soul. But might I have a moment with my apprentice first?”

“Of course,” Deirdre said with a bow.

“Nicodemus.” Shannon gestured to the door.

The younger man followed the grand wizard into the hallway.

When the door clicked shut behind him, Shannon held a gnarled forefinger to his lips and cast a miniature river of Numinous from his brow to Azure’s. The bird looked over the old man’s shoulder and down the dark hall. A responding sentence flew from bird to wizard.

It was then that Nicodemus noticed the sentinel, Magistra Amadi Okeke, standing partway down the hall. She half faced them while talking to a male sentinel whose long black hair was done up in an Ixonian bun.

Unexpectedly, Azure began to flap and screech. “Help me calm her down,” Shannon said. “She’s absorbed my anxiety about the news.”

Nicodemus stepped forward to stroke Azure’s dorsal feathers. Though she submitted to his reassuring fingers, the familiar continued to squawk. Shannon began cooing over the bird. “Ohhh, Azure, old friend, Azzzure…there now…Azzzure.”

Nicodemus frowned; usually Azure quieted when receiving such attention.

Suddenly he realized that Shannon wasn’t cooing at all; he was talking under his mother-bird impersonations. “Azure, ohhh…Amadi may be listening. No, don’t look at me…Azzzure, there now…that’s her private secretary she’s talking to; an Ixonian man named Kale.”

Azure wasn’t agitated; she was deliberately creating enough noise to drown out their conversation.

“If I tell you something shocking,” Shannon murmured, “can you keep your face blank?”

Nicodemus nodded slightly.

“Oh, there now, Azure. Did you know Magistra Nora Finn?”

“Yes, but I’ve spoken to her only a few times,” Nicodemus whispered.

“She was murdered last night.”

All the air seemed to be pulled out of Nicodemus’s lungs.

“There now, Azure, old friend. Don’t look surprised. Good. Oh Azzzzure. Keep your expression neutral; it gets worse. The sentinels suspect both you and me of killing Nora. Worse, I encountered the true murderer last night. I am almost certain the villain is hunting you. Oh, Azzzzure. Ohhhh…don’t breathe so fast; you’ll faint.”

The ground seemed to be tipping under Nicodemus’s boots. He had to work hard to slow his breath.

Shannon continued: “The murderer threatened to harm other cacographic boys. I’ve doubled the protective language around the Drum Tower and ordered that no cacographer is to leave Starhaven.”

The old man’s eyes narrowed. “Problem is the sentinels are investigating me for murder; they’ll distrust anything I say. If I ask them to protect the Drum Tower boys now, they will think it a ploy and refuse. However, I might be able to find some information that will force Magistra Okeke to…Nicodemus, are you all right?”

Nicodemus was breathing slower, but the world seemed to be slowly spinning. “Who’s the murderer?” he asked in a whisper.

Shannon pursed his lips. “A creature that is neither human nor construct. But we can’t discuss this while being watched. Two hours past midday, before our research, meet me in the compluvium. Do you know where that is?”

“Between the Sataal Landing and the Spindle Bridge.”

“Yes, Azure. Yes. That’s a good bird,” Shannon cooed, then lowered his voice again. “I’ll explain more in the compluvium. From now on, the sentinels will be watching you. Their presence will keep the murderer away, but if they decide you’re guilty of Nora’s murder, they’ll instantly conduct a witch trial.”

Nicodemus clenched his hands. To wizards, a “witch” was any spellwright who used prose for unlawful or malicious purposes. One of the duties entrusted to the sentinels was the formation of witch hunts and trials to bring such villains to justice. However, because the sentinels judged their own trials, those accused were often condemned to death whether or not they were guilty.

Shannon spoke again. “It will be hard, but you must appear innocent and calm. The sentinels will always be watching.”

“Magister, you remind me—when you went away, the druid had strange words for me.” He quickly related what Deirdre had told him.

Shannon chewed his lip for a moment. “I can’t say if Deirdre is correct about the curse or the keloid, but now I too suspect that you are tied to prophecy.”

“B-but the Provost himself thought I was branded.”

“We can’t discuss this now. Listen, there’s another reason you need to appear innocent. Magistra Okeke and other Astrophell delegates may belong to the counter-prophecy faction. All members of that faction believe an anti-Halcyon, a champion of chaos, will arise. If they ever decide that you could be this anti-Halcyon, you and I will be dead within an hour. We must convince them that you are a normal cacographer.”

“But how can—”

“Shhhh.” Shannon pretended to shush his familiar. “You mustn’t tell anyone—not another wizard, not John, and especially not Devin.”

Thinking of Devin’s tendency to gossip, Nicodemus agreed.

“Now, when Azure quiets, we must discuss the news from Trillinon; it’s what Amadi expects.”

On cue, the familiar ceased her screeching. Hooking her bill into a fold of Shannon’s robe, the bird hoisted herself onto the old man’s shoulder and began to preen the down on her back. “That’s a good bird,” Shannon announced. “Nicodemus, I’m afraid I have distressing news.”

The younger man glanced over Shannon’s shoulder at the sentinel; she had quit her conversation and now stood studying them.

“It seems a malevolent construct has beset Trillinon,” Shannon said. “Fire and death now reign in the city. Part of Astrophell has burned and many of our Northern wizards have died because of this monstrous spell.”

“What kind of spell?”

“One we do not comprehend.” Shannon frowned. “The reports, they speak of—” Azure plucked a feather from her back, a sign of extreme anxiety. “Azure!” the grand wizard scolded even as he cast several soothing sentences to the bird.

“What do the reports speak of, Magister?”

“Of a massive construct that tore into the Neosolar Palace and set the city aflame. They say the spell took the shape…” Shannon shook his head as if already disbelieving the words he was about to utter. “The shape of a red dragon.”

“ARE YOU ALL right?” Shannon asked.

Pressing a hand to his mouth, Nicodemus answered faintly. “Magister, last night I dreamed I was a dragon attacking a city. I didn’t know which city…certainly it was a Northern city…”

Shannon coughed. “Nicodemus, your face is very pale. Have you gotten enough sleep?”

“No, but—”

“I see you’re exhausted, and this news has clearly given you a fright.”

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