Spellwright

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.