Spellwright

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Six of Starhaven’s twenty eastern towers held the Sataal Landing more than four hundred feet above ground. Nicodemus tried not to think about the height as he walked eastward along the thin stone concourse. Every fifty feet or so, he climbed a few broad steps to the next plaza.

The surrounding towers and nearby mountains blocked direct sunlight from the landing for all but a few hours during the day. The Chthonics had once cultivated a shade garden here. Antiquarians wrote of tall mountain laurels and soil beds bursting with angel wings, fetterbush, and barronwort.

Now the soil beds nurtured only weeds and ivy. Moss bristled between the wall stones. Feral cats skulked about the place looking for fresh water. Nicodemus couldn’t see anyone following him but guessed a subtextualized sentinel was near.

As he ventured farther east, the towers crowded closer. At each new level, the plaza was smaller, the stairway narrower.

Finally the landing terminated in a small, mossy cloister. Nicodemus found his way blocked by the thirty-foot wall that ran between the abandoned Itan and Karkin Towers. A row of metal rungs climbed halfway up the wall to a narrow walkway. Voices echoed from above.

Nicodemus scaled the ladder and found its rungs spaced too closely for human comfort. The Chthonics must have had small hands, he decided. Or maybe small claws? Or perhaps they had had no claws or hands at all but had gripped the rungs with their teeth.

On top of the walkway stood a smiling Magister Shannon with Azure on his shoulder. The old man was cheerfully lecturing four Northern sentinels: “… obvious reasons the compluvium’s constructs are written aggressively. So we mustn’t-ah, Nicodemus, you’re here at last.”

The sentinels, three men, one woman, all were roughly sixty years in age and wearing gold or silver buttons on their sleeves. They examined Nicodemus with narrowed eyes. Shannon laughingly introduced them as his personal guards.

Nicodemus bowed. He understood their confused looks. They had been sent to investigate Shannon and were taken aback by the old man’s enthusiasm. Nicodemus couldn’t blame them.

Shannon grabbed Nicodemus’s arm and pulled him through the crowd. The old wizard’s grip felt like a vise.

The walkway on which they were standing ran into a crevice where the Karkin Tower met the wall. Here a narrow staircase climbed to the wall’s top. A seven-foot-tall gargoyle stood guard on the bottommost step.

Its muscled body would have been humanoid, save for the two extra arms growing under the expected pair. And the stone wings bulging from its back would have resembled bird wings but for the two additional carpal joints that allowed the limbs to fold into tight, fiddlehead spirals. Its giant hawk’s head glared at the spellwrights with stony eyes.

Shannon was again lecturing the sentinels. “Those of you who’ve dealt with a war-weight gargoyle will remember that they are dangerous, valuable, and fractious. So use great care when presenting these passwords.” The old man produced a scroll from his sleeve and began pulling off Numinous paragraphs.

Nicodemus watched as Shannon handed a set of passwords to each sentinel. The Northerners, however, were studying the massive gargoyle and glancing at one another.

Suddenly Nicodemus realized that Shannon was allowing the golden paragraphs to fold into pleated and stacked sheets: this conformation stabilized much of its language but strained those sentences that folded the text. Such tension could cause rearrangement or fragmentation.

Sure enough, when Shannon handed a copy of the passwords to the female sentinel, two bending sentences snapped.

Nicodemus spoke up, “Magister, her text has-”

“Don’t worry, lad. I’ll take you through myself. Excuse me, spellwrights. My apprentice has not yet mastered Numinous.”

He grabbed Nicodemus again and dragged him to the massive gargoyle. Nicodemus’s stomach knotted until the old man released his arm and held out two password texts.

The gargoyle extended its four arms. Each pair of hands took a paragraph and began to fold them. If written correctly, the spells would fold into a pre-set shape.

When the aquiline gargoyle had creased each paragraph into a small starlike shape, it chirped and moved aside.

Shannon put a hand on Nicodemus’s back and guided him onto the stairway between the Karkin Tower and the wall.

Behind them, two sentinels held out their passwords to the gargoyle’s many arms.

“Be ready for anything,” Shannon muttered.

Confused, Nicodemus turned back just as the war-weight gargoyle began shrieking. Two bulky stone arms struck the wall with percussive force. A wing unfurled to block the passage.

A chorus of shocked sentinel voices came from the other side.

“Magisters,” Shannon scolded, “you let the passwords fragment! How could you be so careless with a pleated sheet? Check the other two paragraphs.”

An apologetic female voice replied that they too had deconstructed.

“Wonderful,” Shannon barked. “I can’t cast Numinous past this war-weight gargoyle without exciting it to violence.”

A dour male voice replied, “Magister, we’ve orders not to lose sight of you.”

Shannon laughed. “A fine job you’ve made of that. Now Nicodemus and I lack the protection we were promised. Burning heaven! I’ve a mind to complain to Amadi of this.”

The sentinels were silent.

Shannon instructed them to hurry down to the ground level and then hike back up the Itan Tower. From there they might reach the Spindle Bridge. He and Nicodemus would wait on the bridge. “Make it back in an hour and Amadi needn’t know,” he said and then turned to hike up the steps toward the top of the wall.

The sentinels set off in the opposite direction. Nicodemus hurried after the old man.

“Now we may speak freely,” Shannon said with satisfaction. “Even the subtextualized sentinel following you can’t get past that brute.”

Nicodemus frowned. “Magister, the passwords were misspelled?”

“Not in the least,” Shannon said, turning back long enough to wink a blind eye. “They couldn’t have been spelled more correctly.”

In the Itan Tower, Deirdre laughed at what she saw through the window bars.

She was standing next to Kyran in an abandoned Chthonic hallway-a dark place with slate floors, cracked walls of deep-blue plaster, a black ceiling shaped like roots or rocks. Everything was coated with centuries of dust.

Bright autumn sunlight slanted in through the barred windows, illuminating clouds of languid dust motes. A hand moving through the chilly air spun a few bright specks; Kyran’s body pulled with it a maelstrom of flying, sunlit dirt.

“Shannon’s used the hawk-headed construct to fool the Northern wizards,” Deirdre said. “The simpletons are hurrying down toward the ground. Ky, go and follow them. I want to know if they report his trick.”

“I shouldn’t leave you.”

She turned to look at her protector. Though stooped and leaning on his thick walking staff, he still had to hold his head at an awkward angle to avoid the low ceiling. It made him seem like a giant.

“Are we having this argument again?” she asked, smiling. “You know I never lose.”

“Because you never argue about what matters.”

“Ky, this is not the time. I need you to watch those wizards.”

“There’s not another soul for a half mile. Even the black-robes don’t come here.”

Her smile wilted.

His dark eyes glared at her. Then, with a barely audible grunt, he nodded. One long stride brought him to the barred window. The sunlight turned his hair to gleaming gold, his robes to solar white. He watched the four sentinels hurrying down the stone platform, then turned and strode away down the hall, his walking staff clicking against the stone floor.

Deirdre looked out the window again. Shannon and Nicodemus were hiking up the steep stairway between the wall and the tower. She would need to climb up a few more floors to keep them in view. She set off in the opposite direction from Kyran.

For once, Deirdre was not irritated by her short stature. She did not need to stoop when stepping through the Chthonic doorways, nor did her small feet slip on the short steps.

A cloud of pigeons shot past a nearby window. Deirdre found herself thinking about Shannon. Was Nicodemus’s trust in the old wizard well placed? Dare she approach him?

Because she was preoccupied with these questions, it wasn’t until she had completed a circuit around the tower, and so climbed to the next level, that she noticed the footsteps.

She stopped near the top of the staircase. The footsteps ceased as well. “Ky,” she called, “you’re to follow the sentinels, not follow me around like a mother hen.”

At first silence greeted her words. But then the footsteps returned at a sprint.

Deirdre’s heart began to pound. The wizards had not allowed her to wear a blade. Instinctively, her eyes searched about for a weapon and fell on the horizontal bars the Chthonics had built into their windows. She rushed over and grabbed two rods that had been drilled into the window frame.

No living man could have pulled them free. But Deirdre needed only to put one foot on the wall and heave. The bars exploded from the frame with small clouds of pulverized stone.

The footsteps were loud and echoing now. She crouched and held the two steel bars up in Spirish fighting fashion.

The figure that came running up the staircase wore a tattered white cloak-more a hastily sewn sheet than a proper garment. A voluminous hood covered his head and face.

As Deirdre raised her crude weapons, the creature ran through a square sunbeam. An object extending from his hand became a blazing rectangle of reflected light.

The glare momentarily dazzled her eyes, so it wasn’t until the creature was a few steps away that she identified the steel object as an ancient Lornish greatsword.

“Listen carefully,” Shannon said, stepping onto the wall at the end of the Sataal Landing. “We don’t have much time.”

Azure was riding on the wizard’s shoulder and using her eyes to see for him.

“Of course, Magis-”

A few inches ahead, the wall plummeted roughly seventy feet to the shaded impluvium: a deep rainwater reservoir that provided water to Starhaven’s inhabited quarters through a series of aqueducts. Beneath the surface lay massive valves and floodgates. Around them moved what Nicodemus first took to be bulbous gray fish, but then he realized they were the water gargoyles that operated the valves.

Beyond the impluvium stretched a mile-wide half-bowl of roofs, gables, and gutters that funneled rain down to the reservoir. This metastructure, composed of the southeast quarter’s many different contiguous buildings, was known as the compluvium; and everywhere on it-squatting, stooping, or crawling-were the gutter gargoyles. The constructs were busy mucking leaves out of the aqueducts, scaring off birds, or mending leaky roofs.

“Amazing,” Nicodemus half-whispered.

“All of these gargoyles are controlled by a faction to which I once belonged,” Shannon explained, hurrying toward a spiral staircase on the wall’s opposite end. “If you or the Drum Tower is ever endangered, you must bring all the male cacographers here. That brute down by the Sataal Landing will obey your commands. You’re to bring the boys here to the compluvium and hide them; it’s a large place and the gargoyles know many secret nooks.”

Nicodemus swallowed. “Endangered by what? The murderer? The sentinels?”

“I’ll answer in a moment,” Shannon huffed. “First let’s be clear about what you are to do. Come.” They reached the spiral staircase and hurried down the narrow steps. Azure had to bob her head to keep a clear view of where they were going.

At the bottom of the stairs stood a gated tunnel leading into a building Nicodemus didn’t recognize.

Using a few Numinous passwords, Shannon opened the gate and pulled it wide. “If danger finds you even in the compluvium, lead the boys through here.” Azure whistled nervously as they stepped into the tunnel. “Watch your head.”

The tunnel proved to be both dark and long. But together master and apprentice trudged through ankle-deep water to another gate. Shannon sprang the lock and led Nicodemus onto a short walkway that faced the sheer rock face of the Pinnacle Mountains.

They had come onto Starhaven’s easternmost wall.

Shannon hurried along the walkway to the Spindle Bridge’s landing. Standing beside the bridge was another of the four-armed, hawk-headed gargoyles.

Shannon stopped before the gargoyle and turned to his apprentice. “You are to bring the boys to this construct. He guards a system of constructs and spells we call the Fool’s Ladder. It’s the only way out of Starhaven beside the front gate. If need be, you can escape into the forest and then lead the boys down to Gray’s Crossing.” He withdrew a pouch from his robes and tossed it to Nicodemus.

When the younger man caught the bag, it clinked. “Magister!” he exclaimed while peering inside. “There’s enough gold here to buy the whole town of Gray’s Crossing.”

“Hopefully there’s enough to buy escape or protection.”

“But shouldn’t I just find you if there’s danger?”

“There might not be time to find me.” He closed his blind eyes and rubbed them. “Besides, if you truly are in danger, it will be because I am dead.”

The blade flashing toward Deirdre’s throat was spotted with rust.

She leaped backward, gracefully finding new footing on the narrow steps. Her opponent’s crude white hood still covered his face. She wondered how the creature saw. She also wondered why he had risked an attack inside Starhaven, where he could not use magic.

The thing advanced with a backhand stroke. She met the blade with a parry of her right bar. The force of the creature’s blow nearly knocked the bar from her hand. The thing possessed strength that rivaled her own. She threw a quick overhand slash with her left bar.

The creature brought up his left arm in time to save his head.

The steel bar smashed into the thing’s forearm with enough force to crack a boulder. But there was no crunch of bone. The rod sank two inches into the arm and stuck.

The creature twisted away. In her shock, Deirdre lost her grip on the bar and it slid from her fingers. The monster lunged at her with another thrust.

Deirdre danced away but caught her heel and toppled backward onto the stairs. The creature raised the sword overhead; her bar was still stuck in his forearm.

Clay! she realized. The damned thing was made out of clay!

The greatsword flew downward. Deirdre rolled right and heard the weapon crash against the step beside her. When she looked up, the blade was again flashing toward her.

With both hands, she threw up her remaining bar. Steel met steel with a deafening clang. She kicked down, slamming her heel into the thing’s knee. Any blood-and-bone joint would have snapped, but she felt the creature’s flesh give.

The thing collapsed with a whistling shriek, but she could tell that the kick had not done lasting damage.

Somehow the creature had known she had no magic or blade. Being made of clay, the monster faced no danger from blunt weapons no matter how powerfully wielded. Only if she could find the author’s true body could she kill the creature.

Wasting no time renewing her attack, Deirdre struggled to her feet and ran up the stairs.

“Dead?” Nicodemus said. “Magister, why would you be dead?”

“Follow me onto the Spindle Bridge,” Shannon said wearily. They walked side by side. The clicking of their boot heels on the bridge echoed loudly.

Far below them stretched the alpine forest; ahead, the sheer mountain face. As they went, Shannon related everything he knew about Nora Finn’s murder, his encounter with the inhuman murderer, Amadi’s suspicions, the counter-prophecy, and Eric’s and Adan’s deaths.

“Sweet heaven!” Nicodemus exclaimed, stopping. “Little Eric Everson with the long brown hair, he’s dead? Adan too?”

He hadn’t known either boy well, but their deaths still came as a shock.

“Magister! During my nap, I dreamt of a monster attacking a neophyte in the glen.” He described the pale monster and then the cavern filled with the strange turtles.

Shannon made no immediate reply. A gust of cold wind set Nicodemus’s robes flapping and his hair fluttering. They were halfway across the bridge.

At last Shannon spoke: “This new nightmare-when you were both yourself and the figure on the table-also sounds to be a form of quaternary thought. What do you know about the levels of cognition?”

“Only that humans have tertiary cognition,” Nicodemus answered. “And that constructs can have secondary or primary cognition, which are like tertiary but with restrictions on what they can think or want or remember.”

“And quaternary?” Shannon asked.

Nicodemus hesitated. “Are thoughts that are unthinkable without certain texts cast about one’s mind.”

“Quite right, but do you know what that means?”

“Haven’t the faintest,” Nicodemus admitted with a laugh. “An unthinkable thought sounds like a silent noise or illuminating darkness.”

Shannon smiled. “But you’ve already thought unthinkable thoughts. In your nightmares, you thought as both yourself and as other creatures. That phenomenon, what we call shared consciousness, is the simplest form of quaternary cognition. At its most basic level, quaternary cognition involves thinking with at least two minds-one inside your head, another made of magical text.”

“So the murderer cast a spell on my sleeping mind that allowed me to think with that spell?”

“Yes, but perhaps it was not the murderer who cast it,” Shannon replied slowly. “Given what the villain told me, it’s likely he manipulated the dreams of Adan and Eric to lure them out of Starhaven’s walls. But your nightmares seem to warn rather than lure. The vision of the glen must have been a vision of poor Eric’s fate. The fiend wouldn’t want you to know how and where he’s attacking cacographers.”

“But then where are the dreams coming from?”

“We’ve no way of knowing,” Shannon said, scratching his beard. “But we might ask how the nightmares are related. You dreamed of the dragon attacking Trillinon and the murderer attacking Eric while both events were happening. Whoever or whatever is sending you these dreams wants you to know about these events. The dream-sender must want us to find a connection between them. Perhaps the murderer is connected to the dragon.”

“And what of the turtles underground?”

“That one is the strangest of all. Perhaps future dreams will reveal more.” Another gust of wind set the old man’s white dreadlocks swaying.

“But why send these dreams to me?” Nicodemus asked, his voice growing strained. “And Eric and Adan, what do their deaths…”

Shannon placed a hand on his shoulder. “It is horrifying, I know, but we’ve no time to panic or grieve. We have to think logically.”

The old man blew out a breath, his cheeks bulging. “We know the murderer seeks you so that you might replenish some artifact, an emerald. I’m unsure what he meant by ‘replenish,’ but I’m positive that he will attack the Drum Tower boys in an attempt to find you. We must protect you and the other cacographers. That’s why we’re here.”

“Magister, the druid spoke of a demon-worshiper being nearby. Perhaps we should consult her.”

“Not until we know more about her and the murderer.” The wizard grimaced. “And we know almost nothing for fact.”

Nicodemus blinked. “We know the murderer stole my ability to spell.”

“That is the druid’s explanation.”

A strange heat stirred in Nicodemus’s chest. “But you said the creature needs me to replenish some artifact. You said the monster claimed his master has been using a gem on me when I was sleeping. That must be why I’m a cacographer.”

Nicodemus’s hands began to tremble. That had to be it! He was being crippled by magic; therefore, he might yet be made whole by magic.

“Magister! If I could escape this creature, or maybe recover this gem, I would lose my cacography! Maybe I truly am the Halcyon.”

“Nicodemus, I do not like to hear you talk like this.”

“You think I’m the one of the counter-prophecy? The Storm Petrel?”

The wizard shook his head. “Given what has happened, you likely are connected to the prophecy in some way, but it is too early to say how you-”

“But in Magistra Finn’s library, the monster said the emerald gave him power in Language Prime. Magister, what is Language Prime?”

A golden Numinous arc leaped between Azure and Shannon. The parrot raised her head to examine Nicodemus.

“My boy, listen carefully. Language Prime is a very dangerous, very blasphemous idea. You must never mention it in public hearing.”

“But why?” Nicodemus asked. He had to make the old man see that he wasn’t supposed to be crippled.

“Only grand wizards may know of it.”

“But Magister, given the situation-”

The old man held up a hand. “You don’t need to convince me. But promise to keep what I am about to tell you in the strictest secrecy.”

Nicodemus swore on every demigod in the Celestial Canon.

With a solemn nod, the wizard began: “Perhaps you’ve learned that when time began, there was only lifeless dust. Into this barren world the Creator spoke the first words. These words were in Language Prime, the first magical language, the language from which all other languages come.”

Another gust of cold wind set Shannon’s silvery locks swaying again. “The first words created this living world and every creature upon it. Modern scholars believe that after that point Language Prime ceased to exist. But long ago, immediately after the Exodus, when the deities awoke on the new continent, they had no memory and little sense. Many claimed to know the Creator’s own language. Some claimed to speak directly to the Creator. In their efforts to master Language Prime and rule all of humanity, the awoken deities began the Blood Crusades. The resulting chaos and war nearly destroyed humanity. That is why the pursuit of Language Prime is deemed blasphemy.”

Shannon paused and took in a long breath. “That is why it is so easy for modern scholars to believe that Language Prime no longer exists. If they thought otherwise, it would spark religious wars that would destroy what peace the landfall kingdoms have known.”

Nicodemus nodded eagerly. “But you think differently, Magister? You believe Language Prime exists?”

“I don’t believe it exists; I know it does.”

“But how?”

Shannon pinched the bridge of his nose. “Because the last sight I ever saw-the image that burned all mundane vision from my eyes-was of two sentences written in Language Prime.”

Deirdre made it halfway around the tower before something hit her from behind.

Pain exploded across her left shoulder and sent her sprawling onto the dusty floor. Next to her clattered the steel bar she had struck into the creature’s forearm. The thing must have thrown it.

She rolled over and regained her feet just in time to meet the creature’s overhead slash with her remaining bar. She countered with a quick thrust.

The creature, still wrapped in white, leaped back. His greatsword flicked out in a two-handed slash. Deirdre batted down the blade with the bar and stepped in to slam her elbow into the thing’s face.

Something that felt like a nose flattened under her blow.

The thing cried out and fell. A dust cloud exploded from under his back as he hit the floor.

Deirdre dove for the thing’s sword.

But the monster was still too quick; he squirmed back and away, holding the weapon above her short reach. With a hiss, the thing slashed with the sword across her side.

As the blade rasped against her rib bones, the world exploded into blackness. Deirdre leaped away onto her back. The creature tried to stand, but she kicked her boot toe into his neck. With a strangled cry, the thing toppled backward. Deirdre regained her feet and slammed the bar down on the creature’s shin.

She fled.

Nicodemus blinked. “You were blinded by Language Prime?”

The grand wizard rubbed his eyes wearily. “The story starts in Astrophell. I was a player in the game of factions then and a little arrogant. I fell in love with the magically illiterate grandniece of Astrophell’s provost. When I got her with child, we married in secret.”

Nicodemus nodded mutely.

The old man continued. “My enemies discovered my pregnant wife and used her to create scandal. It became a rallying point for the malcontent factions-mostly those that wanted the Order to exert more influence over the kingdoms. Hoping to hide the scandal, the provost announced his plan to send my wife and child away to different clandestine locations where neither I nor the malcontents could find them. I was terrified. I had to act before my wife gave birth, before the Provost could separate them. And so… I sought divine intervention.”

“You found our god? You spoke to Hakeem?”

Shannon nodded.

“But no one… you…” Nicodemus stammered. “How?”

A slight smile stole across the wizard’s lips. “It’s something of a legend among those that seek to break into literary strongholds. My research into textual intelligence gave me an advantage. I wrote a quaternary cognition spell that allowed me to think as the stronghold.”

“As the stronghold?”

The old man tapped his forehead. “Impossible, I know, but remember quaternary cognition allows one to think the unthinkable. I couldn’t explain it to you better without casting the spell on you. But regardless, the important part was that armed with this text, I snuck into the stronghold and fought its defensive language. For half a mile, I cut and slashed and edited to reach our god’s temple.”

Shannon’s smile grew. “Hakeem was reading at a desk when I reached him. He manifests himself as a thin, tawny-skinned man with silver hair and a long beard. It was the most mundane scene imaginable, and there I was stumbling into his temple, bristling with attack spells and soaked in my own blood. Without even looking up, Hakeem raises a hand and says, ‘A moment, my son, I’m near the end of a chapter.’”

Nicodemus’s eyes widened. “And then?”

“Then he finished the chapter, of course.” Shannon laughed. “And I threw myself at his feet and begged for mercy. I told him I would do anything for my family-I’d undertake any task, perform any labor; I’d die for them… and Hakeem did indeed have a task for me.”

The wizard’s smile fell into a grim line. “A malicious godspell from one of Hakeem’s enemies had penetrated his defenses and burrowed into his ark, the physical seat of his soul. All attempts to disspell this traplike curse had failed. So, because the trap could not be disarmed, it had to be sprung.”

“Hakeem made you take on the curse?”

“Made me? I embraced it. It was written to destroy a god, not a man. There was a chance it would do nothing at all to me; there was a chance it would kill me outright. I didn’t care. Without my wife or son, I couldn’t live.”

“And the curse was written in Language Prime? Is that how you know it exists?”

The old wizard grimaced. “The divine curse imbued knowledge into its victim’s mind and then tried to use that knowledge to harm the victim. Hakeem told me plainly that if I survived, he would use his godspell to remove all my memories of the text.”

Shannon narrowed his white eyes. “I remember walking into a small, dark room. I remember Hakeem’s ark-a tall crystal obelisk covered with moving runes. Then the world became a blur; I was moving at a tremendous speed but not moving at all. Two sentences appeared. Each one twisted around the other, like two snakes mating. The runes exploded and pain lanced through my eyes. Then, nothing. No image, no vision, only… blindness.”

Nicodemus held his breath.

Shannon sighed. “I woke in a caravan wagon headed for Besh-Lo. Hakeem had caused every Astrophell wizard to become terrified by the idea of harming my wife and son. He even compelled the merchants employed by the Order to give my wife a comfortable position in one of their trading houses. However, perhaps threatened by my infiltration of his temple, he did not extend such protection to me. He had allowed the provost to seize my research texts and exile me to Starhaven.”

Nicodemus paused for what he hoped was a sympathetic moment before pushing on. “But the divine curse, Magister, it taught you Language Prime?”

“It did, and Hakeem erased all my memories of it, except for the image of the two sentences. Until now, I’ve never told a single soul, living or textual, about that memory. I was always too afraid of what Hakeem might have to do to remove it.”

Nicodemus felt his heart begin to kick. “So it’s true then: Language Prime is real. Then there might be some connection between me and it. The monster must be after me because of that. Magister, don’t you see? I’m not supposed to be a cacographer.”

Shannon held up a hand. “Nicodemus, you’re jumping to conclusions. The creature said he needed you to replenish an emerald. He did not connect you to Language Prime. You must understand that no human could comprehend Language Prime.”

“But how do you know that?”

“Because,” Shannon said, “Language Prime has only four runes.”

A gust of wind swept across the bridge. It sent Nicodemus’s long black hair flying and blew Azure from Shannon’s shoulder. The poor bird had to flap hard just to stay over the bridge.

“Four runes!” Nicodemus said while struggling to tame his hair. “The language from which all other languages come has only four runes?”

Shannon held his arm up as a perch for Azure. “Strange but simple geometric runes. Two were hexagons with a few radial strokes; the other two were pentagons attached to similar hexagons.”

“But, Magister, that can’t be right.”

“It’s difficult to believe,” Shannon said as Azure landed on his arm. “The simplest common language possesses twenty-two runes. And the most complex, the shaman’s high language, has over sixty thousand runes.”

As the wind relented, Nicodemus tucked his hair into his robes. “But a language with only four runes could have only four single-rune words, sixteen two-rune words, sixty-four three-rune words, and so on.”

“Exactly,” Shannon said, helping Azure climb back onto his shoulder. “Primal words must be very long. Consider that a common language possesses a hundred thousand words, Numinous three times that. So, assuming Language Prime has a vocabulary of at least three hundred thousand, it would need words up to…” He paused to calculate. “Nine runes long to create all those words. But if it had twenty runes, it would need words only…” Another pause. “Only five runes long.”

Nicodemus closed his eyes and tried to figure out what calculations his teacher had used to discern that.

Shannon let out a long sigh. “And with only four runes, those long words would be nearly indistinguishable. Think of trying to memorize a thousand nine-digit numbers consisting of the numerals one through four. Impossible. And the sentences would be hundreds, maybe thousands of runes long. Utter gibberish.”

Nicodemus stopped calculating and laughed. “Imagine trying to spell in that language. Everyone would be a cacographer.”

Shannon started to say something and then paused. He frowned. His mouth opened, closed, opened again. “Nicodemus… that is a profound idea.”

“It is?”

A contrary breeze, this one blowing from Starhaven, flowed over the bridge. It brought with it the autumnal scents of moldy leaves and wood smoke.

Shannon was nodding. “What if cacography is simply a mismatch between a mind and a language? Our languages express meaning in a way your mind has trouble reproducing consistently. But you do not structure them illogically. When I edit your texts, they work without error.”

Nicodemus nodded, his ears hot with embarrassment.

“But could we compose a language your mind could easily process? If so, then the reverse should be true: we should also be able to create a language so complex that not even the most powerful mind could spell it consistently.”

“Oh,” Nicodemus said, realizing what Shannon meant. “And maybe that’s what the Creator did when making Language Prime. It could be a language so complex that any human attempting to read or write it would be cacographic.”

“More than cacographic, completely incompetent.”

Nicodemus’s hands again began to tremble with excitement. “Magister, there might be a connection between Language Prime and my cacography. Maybe the druid is right. Maybe the monster stole part of me and put it into the emerald. Maybe I’m not supposed to be cacographic!”

Rather than reply, Shannon began to walk toward the Spindle’s end. Before them loomed the mountain’s rock face and the Chthonic engravings-ivy leaves to the left and the geometric design to the right.

The old man spoke. “My boy, we may be witnessing the first days of prophecy. This morning’s dragon attack on Trillinon could mark the beginning of a conflict that will engulf all kingdoms and threaten human language itself. But what frightens me just now is the change I hear in your voice.”

He stopped and turned to Nicodemus. “Do you believe that you are the Halcyon?”

“I-” Nicodemus stammered. “You think I’m being foolish to believe that the druid might be right about prophecy?”

The old wizard shook his head. “Not in the least. Besides the present circumstances linking you to prophecy, I have noted the strange effect you have had on some texts. Just last night when you misspelled a gargoyle, you elevated her freedom of thought. Such a phenomenon is unheard of. Perhaps this happened because you are the Halcyon, perhaps because of another reason tied to prophecy. But you didn’t answer my question: Do you believe you are the Halcyon?”

“I haven’t… I don’t know if I am or not. I suppose you’re right, we can’t jump to conclusions. But my point is about cacography. If the murderer magically stole my ability to spell, perhaps I can magically get it back!”

Shannon folded his arms. “Which matters more, fulfilling your role in prophecy or removing your cacography?”

Nicodemus shook his head. “If a demon-worshiper stole my ability to spell, they must be connected. Magister, don’t you see? Perhaps I am not a true cacographer.”

“A true cacographer?” Shannon asked, eyebrows rising. “Nicodemus, even if we erased your disability completely, it wouldn’t undo what has already happened to you. Regarding who you truly are, regarding what truly matters, ending your cacography wouldn’t change anything.”

Nicodemus could barely believe what he was hearing. “It would change everything!”

Shannon started walking again. “Perhaps this is not the time.”

Nicodemus rushed after the old man. “Magister, would it upset you if I learned to spell?”

Shannon kept walking. “Why would you ask such a question?”

“You squash any hope I might have of completing myself.”

“There is no such thing as completing yourself. You have always been complete, and you won’t-”

For the first time he could remember, Nicodemus deliberately interrupted his teacher. “If I am already complete, if all I will ever be is your pet cripple, then I don’t know why we’re bothering to keep me alive!”

Both men stopped.

Suddenly Nicodemus realized that he had nearly shouted his last two words. He turned away.

The bridge’s railing stood before him. He put both hands on it and tried to catch his breath.

Far below them, a falcon circled above the scattered pines and boulders. Some of the trees had died and withered into wooden skeletons.

“Pet cripple,” Shannon said slowly. “I see.”

“I know how you pick a retarded boy out of every generation,” Nicodemus answered. “Devin knows too. Fiery heaven, the whole academy knows!”

A silence grew until the breeze picked up enough to make their robes luff.

Finally Shannon spoke in a low, rough tone. “Exile from Astrophell nearly crushed me. I lost everything-my wife, my son, my sight, my research. I could have let the loss rot me from the heart to the skin.”

Nicodemus looked back toward his mentor.

Azure had laid her head down near Shannon’s chin so the old man could scratch her neck.

“My research became futile,” the wizard said solemnly. “I had discovered such wonderful things in Astrophell. But in this academic backwater, I couldn’t accomplish a quarter of what I did before. In Astrophell, I had a cadre of brilliant apprentices working to advance my studies. Here I taught cacographic neophytes how to avoid hurting themselves. Politics became a constant reminder of my sins.”

The old wizard sniffed in annoyance. “I wasted years longing for what I had lost. Until, one day, a cacographic boy came to me in tears to thank me for all I had done. In truth, I had done little more than what was required. But I saw how moved the child was, how badly he needed kindness. I saw in him a way to live again. His name was Allen, a Lornish boy. He’s in Astrophell now. The Northerners don’t have the slightest suspicion that he, now a hooded librarian, is a cacographer.”

Shannon paused. “You think I made you my apprentice because I pity you? Because I keep a cacographer around to lord my ability over him? To feel as grand as I did when speaking before the Long Council? Well, if you think so, Nicodemus Weal, you’re a fool.”

The younger man was silent for a long moment. “But why then did you choose me for an apprentice?”

Shannon pointed to his milky-white eyes. “I chose you because in the past I have understood cacographers and they have understood me. I chose you because I thought I could help you the most. Besides, you are a useful apprentice. When you cast wordweave, I can complete spells in a quarter of the usual drafting time.” The old man grunted. “Have we talked about this enough for you?”

When Nicodemus did not answer, the old man started off toward the mountainside. “Come then. The sentinels will catch up with us soon.”

They walked most of the distance to the rock face without talking. Their footfalls echoed loudly, almost unnaturally so. Nicodemus had to take a deep breath before he could break the silence: “I’m sorry, Magister. It’s just… with the possibility of ending my cacography-”

“I quite understand,” Shannon said curtly as they stopped before the mountain’s sheer rock face. “Now let us move on. Do you know why we’re walking the Spindle Bridge?”

“Because Magistra Finn was murdered here?” Nicodemus stared at the carved outlines of giant ivy leaves.

“Exactly. I wondered if there was a reason she died on this bridge. I wanted to look at the mountainside with my blind eyes. I thought maybe I could see through the stone to some hidden spell, some clue.” He sighed. “And my vision pierces the stone but sees nothing beyond.”

He wrote a few Numinous sentences and thrust them into the mountainside. “And it seems that there’s nothing but rock before us.”

Nicodemus stepped back and looked at the hexagonal design on the bridge’s other side. “Magister, you said the Language Prime runes were hexagonal. Do they resemble that Chthonic pattern at all?” He pointed.

Shannon shook his head. “I’ve examined that carving a thousand times since I first arrived at Starhaven. But I can find no resemblance.”

Nicodemus glanced at his teacher. Was the old man still upset? “Magister, do you believe the stories about the Chthonics crossing this bridge to escape the Neosolar armies? Do you think they ran away to the Heaven Tree Valley?”

“No, the historians were correct: our ancestors slaughtered every last Chthonic.” He turned back toward Starhaven. “There’s nothing here. Let’s go.”

Nicodemus waited a moment before following the old wizard. “Then what are we going to do?”

“Research our enemy,” Shannon said. “We know the murderer’s made of flesh until we cut him; then he turns to clay. We need to find a mundane text about such creatures. Normally researching such an obscure topic would take the rest of the autumn. But you and I might modify the research we’re to complete this afternoon with Magister Smallwood.”

Nicodemus found himself looking back at the carvings. “I don’t understand.”

“We’re researching a powerful artifact called the Index. It allows one to quickly search through many texts. Nothing as powerful as what they have in Astrophell, but still impressive. Your task will be to distract Smallwood and the sentinels at the project’s end so that I might secretly peek into the Index.”

“But why don’t we simply tell them what we need to do?”

Shannon shook his head. “Neither Smallwood nor the sentinels would permit it. You will see. After that we must sleep. This day has been like a bad dream.”

“Bad dream,” Nicodemus echoed. He stopped and turned to look again at the Chthonic carvings.

The wizard also stopped. “What’s the matter?”

Nicodemus opened his mouth, trying to articulate the images flashing through his mind.

“In my dream, the one when I napped,” he finally managed to say, “I was in an underground place and there was a white-robed body that held a green gem.” He looked at Shannon. “Magister, a green gem! And the murderer said he needed me to replenish an emerald!”

The old man frowned.

Nicodemus pointed to the mountain’s ivy carvings. “In the dream, the floor was covered with ivy. And out of the darkness came strange turtles. There were hundreds of them, hissing and dying horribly as their shells cracked.”

“I don’t understand. Turtles?”

“Look, that hexagonal pattern,” Nicodemus said, pointing to the other Chthonic carving, “is the pattern of a turtle shell.”

Deirdre sprinted through the dark hallway. On her left were dark Chthonic doorways; to her right, the barred windows.

Already she could hear frantic footfalls. The thing was after her again.

She raced around the tower and up the stairs on the other side. Suddenly the ceiling burst into a thousand flapping creatures.

Bats! They had been nesting on the ceiling. The floor was soft with their droppings.

She ran on. The sword wound on her ribs was shallow and mending fast, but still it sent agony lancing down her side with every breath. Her robe was wet with blood.

Behind her the creature shrieked.

Redoubling her efforts, she flew around the tower and charged up the next flight of stairs-only to come to a sliding halt.

Before her stood an opening to a tower bridge. The bright midday sun beat down on the gray stones. “No.” She couldn’t leave the tower; outside of Starhaven’s walls the creature could wield magic. “No!” Frantically she turned around.

Footsteps were echoing up from the stairwell.

She ran to one of the small black doors that lined the hallway’s inner wall. It was a thick, metal portal. On top sat a squat barred window.

She pulled, but the door would not budge. She heaved… and with a metallic scream the thing swung a quarter way through its arc.

Suddenly Deirdre’s head felt light. “Goddess, no!” she whispered, slipping into the dark chamber. “Not now!” Her hands began to tremble.

The room was rectangular; the black mass of an ancient stone bed crouched beside one wall. A chorus of terrified rats chattered in one corner. Deirdre yanked the door shut with another loud screech.

Her hands were shaking now. Her stomach felt distended. “No, no,” she whimpered, staggering toward the stone bed. Her heart was pounding out a slow, irregular rhythm.

She was having an aura!

Her face and neck began to tingle as if a summer breeze were blowing across her skin. Her breath came in long, involuntary gulps. The world seemed to be filling with beauty. She wanted to cry out with joy. Her legs faltered and she fell onto the floor.

A low, crackling laugh sounded behind her.

With numb hands, she managed to push herself around.

All was blackness save for the door’s small, barred window. Through the opening streamed intense white light. The creature was standing outside.

The door shrieked as the creature pulled upon it. A vertical sliver of light grew along the portal’s side. The creature heaved once more. Again the hinges screamed, and the sliver of light grew brighter. He was laughing again. Soon he would work the door all the way open.

Deirdre tried to scream, tried to stand. But she was too far into her aura. Her hands shook violently as an ecstatic warmth spread down her back.

“No, we can negotiate,” she heard herself groan. “We can negotiate!”

Through the window she saw the creature pause. His pale hands lifted his hood. She squinted, trying to make out his face.

But the world exploded into light and she fell unconscious-lost to the violence of her seizure.