Spellwright

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Nicodemus jogged through shafts of sunlight that poured in from rectangular windows. Outside the hallway shone a sky so blue it might have been enameled. The crisp autumn air smelled of smoke from the breakfast fires.

His first composition class and he was going to be late.

He tried to focus on the upcoming lecture but his mind wandered. The real world did not seem real. Northern sentinels were investigating him for murder. An inhuman killer was hunting him for reasons unknown. His lost hope of fulfilling the Erasmine Prophecy was returning. And in response…

… in response, he was going to teach introductory spellwriting to squeakers.

It all seemed insane.

Magister knew what he was doing, he told himself while turning a corner and dashing up a broad staircase. After all, he was the cacographic apprentice, Shannon the grand wizard. Clearly he should handle the thirteen-year-olds while the old man dealt with the truly fearful forces of zealous sentinels, academic factions, and inhuman murderers.

Just then he reached his classroom door and stepped inside. The room was orderly, square, filled with rows of desks. The walls were white, the arched windows wide.

However, the two dozen students dressed in neophyte robes were in chaos. The boys huddled around the windows. Some were yelling, apparently to another unsupervised class in the next tower over. Others were spitting out of the windows, undoubtedly trying to hit the sleeping gargoyles several floors below.

The girls had congregated on the opposite side of the room. Most sat at their desks, arguing or laughing. A few were playing a game that involved singing and clapping.

“Oh…” Nicodemus heard himself say, “… hell.”

The room fell silent. As one, two dozen childish faces turned toward him.

It was then that Nicodemus realized he had been wrong: Shannon was not dealing with the truly fearful. The terror that sentinels and murderers might induce-great though it might be-was nothing compared to the dread inspired by two dozen prepubescent students.

“You’re not Magister Shannon,” said a pale boy with a mop of brown hair.

Nicodemus most certainly wasn’t. The old man would have marched into the room, blustering with jokes and commands. He would have had the squeakers racing for their seats in anticipation.

“I’m Nicodemus Weal,” he announced with a confidence he did not feel. “Magister Shannon’s apprentice. I’ll be giving your first lecture on composition, so take your seats.”

Shockingly, the neophytes went to their desks. The boy with the brown hair raised his hand. When Nicodemus nodded, he asked, “Why don’t we have Magister Shannon? Where are all the wizards?”

Nicodemus cleared his throat. “Magister, like the other wizards, has been called to an important council.”

“Did he tell you the news from the North?” asked a tall girl with short black hair.

Nicodemus started to reply but then realized he did not know how much information he was supposed to share. He took in a breath and said, “I’m not sure if I’m allowed to tell you.”

“Or maybe you don’t know,” the brown-haired boy said in a tone so earnest it-just barely-diffused his confrontational words.

“Maybe I don’t,” Nicodemus admitted. “But you bring up an excellent point: I didn’t say if I actually had heard the news; my phrase simply suggested I had.”

The boy frowned.

“That might seem trivial, but it’s a good place to start when talking about spellwriting. Why might that be?”

Silence. More frowns.

“Why would I choose words that make it sound as if I know more than I do? Why might I want to use such self-aggrandizing language?”

“Because you can’t be a teacher without it?” the brown-haired boy asked snidely.

Though flushed with embarrassment, Nicodemus laughed. A few other students were smiling.

“Perhaps,” he admitted. “I was thinking more that such language encourages you to stop thinking about the news and start thinking about me, which would have helped focus you on the lecture material. Regardless, you must start thinking about such things now; if you are to become wizards, you must question how language is trying to manipulate you. What is it pushing you to assume? How is it distracting you?”

The boy raised his hand.

But this time Nicodemus grinned at him. “Put your hand down, lad. I’m not going to tell you if I actually did hear the news from the North. That was going to be your next question, wasn’t it?”

The boy nodded.

“Good lad. Persistence is spellwriting’s most important ingredient. What’s your name?”

“Derrick, Magister.”

Nicodemus widened his eyes. “Derrick Magister? You’re a wizard already?” A few of the students laughed.

The boy frowned. “I-”

Nicodemus put his hand to his mouth in mock surprise. “But you’re so young!” A few more students laughed.

“I meant you, Magister,” Derrick said in a tone heated enough that Nicodemus knew he should stop.

“Well, I’m flattered, Derrick. But as I mentioned, I’m only an apprentice.” He turned to the class. “This may be horrible for you, but today you’ll have to call someone over twenty by his first name!”

A few amused smiles.

“Let’s practice.” He pointed to the girl with short black hair. “Your name?”

“Ingrid.”

He pointed to himself. “My name?”

She opened her mouth but only blushed. Her neighbor leaned over, but Nicodemus rushed in. “No, no, you’re ruining the obnoxious-new-teacher effect.”

This won him a few more nervous laughs.

The smiling girl only grew redder.

“Nnnn…” he started for her. “Nnnnicooo…”

She continued experimentally, “Nicodermis?”

He squawked, “I sound like a skin disease.”

Genuine laugher.

“Sorry to pick on you, Ingrid, but it’s Nicodemus.” He turned to the class. “So, now all of you, my not-a-skin-disease-name is?”

As the class laughingly said his name, Nicodemus noticed the sunlight by the windows began to shimmer. “Well then, let’s start properly,” he said, moving toward the window. “This is a short lecture, and I’ll try to make it lively if…”

He paused. The shimmering air moved away from him. Warmth spread across his cheeks. Only with an effort could he stop his smile from wilting.

“… make it lively if you pay close attention.” He kept his tone casual even though he was now certain a subtextualized spellwright, most likely a sentinel, was in the room.

“So, how does one acquire magic language?” he asked, turning to the class. “Really it’s no different from learning a verbal or mathematical language. First, we learn the symbols. Verbal languages use letters, mathematical languages numbers, magical languages runes. However, anyone with a quill and an inkhorn can forge mundane text. Anyone with eyes can see mundane text. But to see or forge magical text, one must be born with a magically receptive mind.”

The boy with brown hair, Derrick, leaned over and whispered loudly to a friend.

Nicodemus walked toward the boys. “Note that when spellwrights speak of ‘literates,’ they are speaking of those who might achieve magical literacy. All of us in this room are literate; we are fortunate enough to be among the few born with magically sensitive minds.”

He stopped before Derrick, who was now forced to stop his whispering.

“Why are most humans born magically illiterate?” he asked rhetorically. “Some authors-sadly a few wizards among them-believe that the Creator has privileged spellwrights, that we are inherently better than the illiterates. Some authors feel we are meant to rule society. I will remind you-as Magister Shannon reminded me when I was a neophyte-that all of our parents are illiterate. Without illiterates we wouldn’t exist. Indeed, we owe them a great debt. We aren’t meant to rule, but to serve-”

Derrick spoke up. “I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t we exist?”

Nicodemus studied him. “Spellwrights can’t produce children. Moreover, the illiterate life is harder than ours.”

“I’m sorry, Nicodemus, but I still don’t understand.” Derrick’s tone seemed earnest, but the boys around him were snickering.

Nicodemus narrowed his eyes “What don’t you understand?”

“Why we can’t produce children.” This sponsored a wave of nervous tittering.

“Spellwrights are sterile,” Nicodemus answered, keeping the embarrassment from his expression only with supreme effort.

“You mean we’re clean?” Derrick asked, his voice cracking with amusement. His neighbors broke into open laugher.

“No, Derrick,” Nicodemus said, staring straight at the boy. If Derrick was going to force the issue, best to get it over with. “I mean that spellwrights can’t conceive children when they have sex.”

The room now rang with laughter. Nicodemus wondered if he could ever regain the class.

“Sex?” Derrick said with counterfeit shock and raised his hands to his cheeks. “Oh, my virgin ears!”

“Oh, your virgin everything else,” Nicodemus shot back in a deadpan tone.

The laughter rose to a crescendo. Derrick’s pale face flushed scarlet.

Nicodemus hurried to the front of the class. “So back to learning magical language. We’ve established that you all have literate minds. So armed, you can learn to forge runes within your muscles. And, as with any language, you will need to build a vocabulary and understand the grammar governing that vocabulary. After that, you will learn how to move the runes through your bodies, how to string them together in sentences, and finally how to cast them out into the world.”

The laughter had died, and now two dozen smiling faces were fixed on him. Encouraged, Nicodemus pressed on: “That is why you have attended anatomy lectures and why you will perform dissections. Learning the muscles and bones is especially important. You might want to wrap one paragraph around your humerus and another around your ulna, and so forth. Any questions?”

Derrick’s hand shot up.

Nicodemus rolled his eyes. “Let me rephrase: any questions about spellwriting?”

Smiling, the boy dropped his hand, producing another round of laughter.

Nicodemus nodded. “So then, let’s talk about different magical languages. Three are known to all magical societies and hence are known as the common languages. Jejunus is the first such language you will learn. Common languages are relatively weak but still important. Anyone who is fluent in a common language can teach it to another spellwright.”

He held up a finger. “However, being future wizards, you will spend much more time worrying about the uncommon languages, what we call ‘higher languages.’ All higher languages are controlled by specific magical societies. For instance, we wizards control Numinous and Magnus. Unlike common languages, higher languages cannot be taught by just anyone. I can forge both the Numinous and the Magnus alphabets, but I couldn’t teach them to you without the aid of a magical artifact called a tome.”

Nicodemus began to pace, heading first toward the door. “Tomes are beautiful, massive books. Through contact with them, a powerful author may acquire a higher language. Currently there are only three Magnus tomes and three Numinous tomes. We have a pair of them here in Starhaven. Now, these artifacts are important because…”

Heat spread across Nicodemus’s cheeks. He stopped. It was only then that he noticed a slight shimmer in the air a few paces from the door.

Another subtextualized spellwright? He felt his stomach knot. A second sentinel? Or was someone else spying on him?

He forced these questions from his mind and turned back to the classroom. “Sorry. As I was saying, tomes are important because they protect a magical society’s control of a language. Consider that even if you attain fluency in Numinous or Magnus, you can’t sneak off and teach the hierophants or the hydromancers how to write in our high languages. You’d need a tome to do that. However, you might still write wizardly spells for them; that’s why the Order would hunt you down if you ran away.”

He paused to slip his arms out of his sleeves. “Now for a demonstration. I have begun forging the runes for a simple Magnus sentence. I’m forming the runes here, in my forearm flexor muscles. Now the growing sentence spills into my closed fist. Spells must fold into a proper conformation before they become active. I’m helping the sentence fold now. Who can see the runes? Raise your hands.”

A few hands went up; Derrick’s was one.

Nicodemus smiled and shook his head. “Tsk tsk tsk. Everyone who has raised a hand is lying. It is impossible to see the runes of a magical language unless you are fluent in that language.”

The class laughed, Derrick loudest among them.

When they quieted, Nicodemus began again. “In any case, by flicking my hand open… thusly… I cast the spell into the air. If you were fluent in Magnus, you would see a glowing line of silver runes floating in the air like a ribbon caught in an upward breeze.”

He looked hard at his students. “Now, when I cast the spell, some of you might have heard the ringing of a distant bell or felt slightly sick. Others may feel the room is becoming warmer or brighter. This is not a coincidence. You are sensing my spell but not in any systematic way. This is because the magically sensitive mind displaces perception of unknown or hidden magical text to one of the mundane senses. This phenomenon is known as synaesthesia. It’s a difficult word, two terrible trochees. I want everyone to say it with me: SIN-es-THEE-zhaa.”

The class echoed him in monotone.

He nodded. “Most synaesthetic reactions go unnoticed unless the spellwright is watching for them. They are also unique, meaning everyone has a different synaesthetic sensation.”

The girl with the short hair raised her hand. “What’s your reaction?”

Nicodemus glanced at the window. “Around hidden spells, warmth spreads across my cheeks. It’s a bit like a blush. Now, it takes most students years to identify their synaesthesias. So don’t feel bad if you don’t-”

He stopped. Perhaps because he was talking about his synaesthetic reaction, heat spread across his entire face. His heart began to beat faster as his mind filled with thoughts of subtextualized sentinels.

He looked back at the door and jumped when he saw a man dressed in black. The newcomer nodded at Nicodemus. “I’m to take the students back to their towers when your lecture’s done.”

“Oh,” an embarrassed Nicodemus said as he recognized the man as one of the neophyte preceptors. “Of course, we can end now.”

The warmth was slowly fading from his cheeks and his heart was slowing. He turned to the class. “Well, I congratulate you on surviving my first lecture. Now please form a line heading out the door for your preceptor. Derrick, I will speak with you privately.”

As the excitement of teaching began to dissipate, Nicodemus rubbed his eyes and again felt the sting of exhaustion. He wondered who had been watching his lecture and what impression he had made.

“Am I in trouble?” a sullen voice asked.

Nicodemus looked up. The classroom was empty except for Derrick, who stood before him staring at the floor, his arms crossed.

“Not in the least.” Nicodemus sat and withdrew paper and quill from one of the student desks. On one side of the page he wrote “angel,” on the other “angle.”

“Have a seat, Derrick, and read this.” He held out the paper.

Derrick complied without looking him in the face. “Angel,” he said after glancing at the paper.

Nicodemus turned the sheet over. “And this?”

“Angel,” Derrick repeated.

Nicodemus handed Derrick a blank piece of paper and the quill. “Now write the word ‘angle’ on this paper.” The boy scrawled out “angel.”

Nicodemus exhaled slowly. “Derrick, stop me if I am wrong, but you have not been doing well in your studies, even though you understand everything that’s going on.”

The boy’s face darkened, but he did not speak.

Nicodemus continued in a softer tone. “You’re a sharp lad. It was difficult to keep up with you as a teacher, and I’m sorry if I was hard on you.”

“You weren’t-” the boy started to say.

“My guess is you use your wit, your ability to disrupt a lecture, to distract others from seeing that there is something wrong with you. I say this because I was once in a similar situation. Do you understand?”

The boy’s mouth softened. He glanced up. “No.”

Nicodemus held up the paper. “This reads ‘angle.’” He turned it over. “This reads ‘angel.’ I can easily distinguish between them only because when I wrote them down, I put a dot on a corner of the angel side. If someone else had written them and asked me to read them, as I did to you, I would have seen the difference only with great concentration. I have tried my whole life to be different and have failed. I still misread and misspell. Do you understand now?”

“A little.”

“Good. Now listen to me: there is something wrong with you, just as there is something wrong with me. Half the world will tell you that you’re worthless and stupid; the other half will tell you that there’s nothing wrong with you at all. A few might even say your disability is a gift.”

Nicodemus paused as he considered how all the listeners in the room might interpret his words. “The truth is that you are neither broken nor gifted; you are only what you make yourself into. In that regard, you and I are no different than any other student. No amount of classroom antics will protect you from the world until you realize this.”

“I… I don’t understand, Magister.”

“Don’t call me Magister. I’m not a wizard, and maybe they’ll never let me become one. And it’s fine that you don’t understand. I didn’t understand it myself until just now when I had to express it in words. And at your age, I don’t know if I could have understood or cared. But can you remember what I said?”

The boy nodded.

“Repeat it for me.”

He repeated Nicodemus’s words verbatim.

“The fact that you can remember my speech so precisely means that you are not without certain talents, which some of us have. In any case, promise that you will always keep what I said in your mind.”

The boy promised, and suddenly Nicodemus had to stifle a yawn. Silently, he thanked Shannon for ordering him to nap before lunch.

“May I go now?” the boy asked glumly.

Nicodemus nodded. “Yes, yes. Catch up with your classmates. You don’t have to mention this conversation. If the preceptor asks, tell him I scolded you for being disrespectful.” He smiled at the boy.

Without a word, Derrick leaped up from his seat and hurried away.

Nicodemus yawned again and sat for a moment with his elbows on the desk, resting his exhausted head. He was about to stand when a sound made him look up toward the door.

He expected to see more evidence of subtextualized sentinels. Instead he saw that Derrick hadn’t left but was standing in the threshold.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

“No,” the boy said, looking Nicodemus in the eye for the first time. “But… thank you, Magister.”