Spellwright

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

The party walked through most of the night. The labyrinthine kobold caverns stretched before them. Some were adorned with luminescent blue lichen. Others housed pools of water that reflected the light of Shannon’s flamefly spells.

They stopped in a round cavern near the surface. A fissure in the ceiling revealed a sliver of starry sky. Thick moss made a bed for the weary spellwrights, but Nicodemus’s sleep brought only nightmares of Deirdre convulsing as Typhon watched.

In the late morning, they pressed on. Nicodemus argued that they should chase after Deirdre as soon as possible.

At first his words met silence. Then Boann explained why they could not. She was weak and would not grow stronger until reunited with Deirdre. Shannon still suffered from their encounter with Fellwroth; there was no telling how his body would react to the cankers still seeded in his gut.

“And you, Nicodemus, are healthy but unprepared,” the goddess explained. “We must heal and build our forces. You must train and study.”

“But for how long?” he asked.

“As long as is needed,” the goddess replied.

Shannon agreed. “Patience is necessary. Think of the emerald. By touching you, the gem regained its full strength. With it, Typhon would be powerful beyond our comprehension. But after four years away from you, the gem will lose its power. If we remain hidden long enough, we deprive Typhon of his most powerful weapon.”

Nicodemus objected. “But he might start another dragon spell.” Shannon replied. “There’s no ‘might’ about it. He will begin another dragon, but he won’t complete the wyrm. As he said when trying to woo you, he needs seven or eight years with the replenished emerald. So long as we hide from him, he will only have four.”

Sighing deeply, Nicodemus let himself be convinced.

Three more days of walking passed. They lived off spring water and mushrooms Boann showed them how to find. Twice the goddess led them up to the surface. Shannon cast Magnus traps to pull trout from the streams. Boann and Nicodemus searched the sparse alpine forests for autumnal nuts and berries.

Each night they sat around a campfire, but they never found much to say. Nicodemus stole into the dark to study the magical languages of the Chthonics.

Using the Index, he taught himself Pithan. A powerful language, it produced luminous indigo runes that, like Magnus, could affect the physical world. Because of its logical grammar and spelling rules, Nicodemus’s cacography did not impair his ability to spellwrite in Pithan. For that reason he began tattooing wartexts all across his body.

Most nights this work kept him up late, which suited him; his sleep was plagued by bad dreams of Deirdre or Devin.

Often he woke with a pain in his chest. It felt as if his beating heart were wrapped in stiff leather. At such times he closed his eyes and thought of the emerald. Determination and discipline, he decided, were the new guiding stars of his life; they would help him rescue the missing part of himself. Then he could free Deirdre, cure Shannon.

At the beginning of the fifth day, Nicodemus realized that his keloid scars had not cast a Language Prime text to the emerald since he encountered Typhon. When he mentioned this to Boann, she nodded. “When imprisoned by Typhon I learned that your scars seek to communicate with the emerald only when they are within fifty miles or so of each other. Fellwroth might have used that capability to track you, had you fled Starhaven. But now that that Typhon has taken the gem far away, you needn’t worry about your scars betraying us while we are in the Pinnacle Mountains.”

Nicodemus scowled. “But that means, when we pursue the demon, he will know I am coming.”

Boann nodded.

“Might we cut out the scars?”

Boann shook her head sadly. “Not without killing you. When it was extracting your ability to spell, the emerald made the scars to extend down into your spine.”

Nicodemus shivered and resisted the urge to touch the back of his neck. The party continued on in silence.

At the end of the seventh day, they camped in a small cavern with a sandy floor. That night, Boann woke them with loud but calm words: “Shannon, Nicodemus, rise quickly. Three kobolds have smelled our fire. They are a mile away and running fast. We don’t have long before they attack.”

Instantly, Shannon was on his feet, forming a textual connection with Azure and extemporizing powerful Magnus spells. The campfire embers filled the place with a shifting red light.

Nicodemus cast a Shadowganger subtext on himself and was about to cast another on Shannon when three humanoids burst into the cavern.

Loping on all fours, the muscled creatures moved with shocking speed. Their skin was such a deep shade of blue it seemed darker than black. Their long blond ponytails matched their wide golden eyes. Their black claws matched their jagged black teeth.

Shannon cast a blaze of Magnus at each attacker. Two of his wartexts found their mark and detonated. The blasts tossed one kobold into the air and knocked the other flat. But the third monster produced an ax-like spell that shone with indigo light. With a quick swing, the creature burst Shannon’s wartext into silver sentence fragments.

Nicodemus’s heart went cold. The monster was a kobold spellwright.

Bellowing, the creature stood on his hind feet and rushed at Shannon. The old man tried to cast another Magnus spell but dropped it. Nicodemus threw himself forward and slammed his shoulder into the monster’s hip. They tumbled to the ground. Then he was on the kobold, jamming his knee into the monster’s throat. The kobold drew his arm back as if to strike with his claws, but Nicodemus pulled a dagger-like Pithan tattoo from his chest. The indigo spell illuminated the kobold’s golden eyes now wide with terror. Nicodemus jammed the spell into the monster’s shoulder and felt it pierce muscle and sinew.

Shrieking, the kobold thrashed violently enough to shove Nicodemus off. The world spun and then Nicodemus was lying on the sandy ground.

The cavern echoed with howls. Nicodemus pushed himself up to see the kobold spellwright clawing at his massive chest. Everywhere the monster had touched Nicodemus, his blue skin bulged with black cankers. Beside the terrified monster were his two companions. Shannon’s Magnus spells had covered them with short lacerations, but not killed them.

Nicodemus stood and pulled a long tattooed wartext from his hip. The indigo sentences folded themselves into a jagged broad sword whose spikes danced like flames.

All three kobolds fell perfectly silent and still. The wrestling had dispelled part of Nicodemus’s subtext, making him visible only from the waist up. He took a step toward the monsters and raised his textual sword.

The kobolds turned and sprinted away.

“Kobolds have prophecies as well,” Boann observed when all was quiet again. “They will come back for you, Nicodemus. And when they do, I will have work for them.”

But the monsters did not return that night or any other during their journey.

Three days later, toward midday, the party emerged from a tunnel to behold the Heaven Tree.

Five miles in diameter and almost perfectly circular, Heaven Tree Valley sat within a tight ring of mountains. Indeed the valley walls were so steep that in many places they became small cliffs. Atop these sudden drops stood grassy plateaus that were home to small herds of white goats.

On the valley’s far side, a narrow stream tumbled down, pausing in places to form pools and short waterfalls. A lush covering of ferns grew on the surrounding rocks.

The stream flowed into a crescent lake that lay along the valley’s northern edge.

Giant roots-each as thick around as a Starhaven tower-grew from the dark waters to stretch toward the valley’s center. All across the valley floor the land heaved and bulged among the roots. Small stone walls wound across the valley, enclosing empty fields and ruined shade gardens.

Near the valley’s perimeter, stone houses were clustered into homesteads. But the closer the buildings stood to the valley’s center, the greater they became in number and size. Around the Heaven Tree’s trunk stood a small abandoned city bristling with diminutive towers.

But it was the Heaven Tree itself that most impressed the eye.

From top leaf to taproot, it was easily as tall as most Starhaven towers. From the great trunk grew six limbs at varying heights, all of which hosted leafy canopies the size of rainclouds. Save for the two at its zenith, each massive bough reached out to rest its end on a plateau of the valley’s steep walls. Around these landings stood the ruins of small villages.

Narrow bridges connected the plateau villages to the boughs. And along each massive limb ran a cobblestone road that tunneled into the trunk.

High above them, the cold autumn wind was blowing. It set the uppermost canopies to swaying and so filled the valley with a dappled wash of shifting shade and sunlight.

“So, Nicodemus Weal,” Boann asked, “do you think this will make a sufficient home?”

“Home?” He laughed. “It’s paradise.”

They hiked onto the nearest bough, where exploration revealed that the tunnels carved into the trunk led down to the valley floor. There they found the overgrown gardens teeming with rabbits and the lake filled with trout. In the small city, they claimed a sturdy building as their new home.

The next day brought a thunderstorm that swelled the stream and filled the lake with muddy mountain runoff. For days afterward, the Heaven Tree’s leaves continued dripping fat raindrops across the valley.

Most mornings Nicodemus spent with Boann. She lectured on history, theology, and politics. Afternoons were for spelling drills in the wizardly languages with Shannon. After dark, he studied the Chthonic languages alone.

Two fortnights passed slowly, and then autumn descended upon them with a bout of freezing rain. The cold painted scarlet onto the Heaven Tree’s topmost leaves.

Shannon had not once needed to vomit logorrhea bywords. It seemed that Nicodemus had subdued the old man’s cankers with the emerald.

As the days grew colder, the leaves farther and farther down the Heaven Tree blushed red. But few ever fell.

It was a time of talking and reflection. After the evening meal, Nicodemus and Shannon often sat before the fire, recounting Simple John’s bravery or grieving for Devin.

With only three occupants, the valley could be a lonely place. Lectures and conversations had a way of exhausting themselves into silence.

So on some autumn afternoons, Nicodemus wandered. He scaled every inch of the Heaven Tree and the valley walls, discovering private grottoes and coves. He learned to hunt rabbits and goats, learned to fish the lake’s dark waters. But he never learned to cook. Those meals he prepared drew Shannon’s increasingly graphic but good-natured ridicule.

Sometimes after evening study, Nicodemus wandered the green valley floor. He would think of Devin or Kyran and grow glum, or of Deirdre and grow impatient. Time passed as before, slowly.

Then, one chill night, Nicodemus woke to hear Boann calling his name. Outside their house, he found the goddess standing in the middle of the cobbled street.

The three moons were full. Their glow filtered through the great boughs to fill the valley in a diffuse light.

“Walk with me down to the lake,” the goddess said in her calm, singsong voice. Nicodemus followed her out of the small Chthonic city and into a field of waist-high grass. “Tonight,” she said, as they walked, “you begin an education that neither Shannon nor I could give you.”

Nicodemus said nothing. They reached a raised, grassy bank that overlooked the lake. In the moonlight, the usually limpid pool was purest black. Boann turned to him and said, “When we leave this place, you will be in the greatest danger that-”

“Goddess,” Nicodemus hissed and sank into a crouch. “Hold very still. Up ahead, on that rock, there’s a subtextualized kobold spellwright. His prose style is shoddy.” He crouched lower in the tall grass. The figure he could make out shone with dim violet sentences. The kobold was crouched atop a boulder that overlooked the water and, judging by his silhouette, was looking the other direction. “I don’t think he’s seen us,” Nicodemus whispered.

Boann did not move. “They call it warplay,” she said calmly. “It teaches young kobolds how to survive their constant tribal wars. I’m telling you this because they believe you are the human prophesied to restore kobolds to the glory they knew before the Neosolar Empire destroyed their kingdoms.”

“Keep your voice down,” Nicodemus whispered and pulled the tattooed attack spell from his hip. Holding it low in the grass to hide its shine, he let the text fold into a flickering broadsword.

“Each night, they will teach you a new lesson. Tonight’s lesson, I believe, is the tactical importance of a decoy.”

Nicodemus froze and then looked up at the goddess. “A deco-”

The charging kobold hit him from behind and wrapped two cloth-covered arms around his chest. The force of the tackle knocked the indigo sword from Nicodemus’s hands and launched both of them into the air. There was a horrible moment of falling as the kobold bellowed out victory. Then they struck lake water with a jarring splash. Twisting violently, Nicodemus slammed his fist into what he assumed was the monster’s face and reached for a blasting spell he had tattooed down his back.

Boann watched Nicodemus and the kobold splash into the lake. Beside her Shannon and an ancient kobold chieftain deconstructed their subtexts. Shannon cleared his throat. “Was it truly necessary to deceive the boy? At least we could have told him that you had spoken with the kobold tribe.”

Boann shook her head. “Now he will never forget this lesson.”

Shannon frowned as his parrot eyed the water under which Nicodemus had disappeared. “You are sure this warplay won’t kill him?”

Just then a blast of what looked like indigo fire erupted from the lake’s surface. Because she was a goddess, Boann could see all magical languages. Presently, she watched the shockwave of Nicodemus’s spell blow water and the kobold attacker high into the air. The yelling humanoid landed on the muddy bank with a thud. An instant later, a sputtering Nicodemus emerged in the shallows. He was stripped to the waist and peeling a wartext from his side.

“Yes, Magister, quite sure it won’t kill him,” Boann said dryly. “I’m more concerned he will kill one of his instructors.”

The chieftain sniffed in disdain. “Any kobold who could be killed by a human new to skinwriting, savior or no, deserves to die.”

Boann smiled tightly. “And how good is Nicodemus in your languages?”

The gnarled kobold scratched his beardless chin. “Considering he has been skinwriting for only a season, he is the best I have seen.”

Shannon spoke up. “And that troubles me. His disability in the wizardly languages is growing worse. He cannot control even simple spells now.”

“Magister! Boann!” Nicodemus yelled from the water. “There are kobolds all around!” Two more subtextualized kobolds were stalking the shore. The monster he had thrown off with the blast spell had regained his feet.

Boann called down to Nicodemus. “Tonight, your task is to avoid capture. If you can make it to sunrise without being tied up or killed you are doing well.”

The boy had covered himself with plates of violet light, textual armor, she guessed. He seemed about to answer her when the kobolds charged.

The chieftain nodded at the blast and counter-blast of textual battle. “This is excellent. Now we shall teach him evasion and stealth. In late autumn we shall put warriors under his charge and teach him to lead. He will compete in this year’s New Moon War. Then other tribes will witness his power and know that we have found our savior at last.”

Shannon was scowling. “That would slow his training in the wizardly languages and delay his attempt to learn more about his new Language Prime fluency.”

Boann waved this comment away. “Those can wait. After so much loss, he will benefit from a taste of success and a chance to become a leader.” She looked at Shannon. “Besides, if he is to survive outside of this valley, he will need time for the lessons of warplay to become instinct.”

Shannon narrowed his white eyes. “So let us teach him to survive, but why turn him into some kind of warlord?”

“Not a warlord,” Boann corrected, “but a commander. His half-sister is presently being tutored by Trillinonish generals and Ixonian admirals. She is the one who will lead humanity’s forces in the War of Disjunction. But before she does that, she must track down and kill the Language Prime spellwright who enabled Typhon to write the dragon that attacked Trillinon. I doubt she knows that she is training to kill her half-brother.”

Just then the kobolds yelped as Nicodemus cast an indigo shockwave that knocked them over. Wasting no time, the boy sprinted away down the lake shore. The kobolds struggled to their feet and hallooed a hunting call as they ran in pursuit.

“Compared to her agents, these kobolds will seem mild as kittens. And don’t forget that Typhon will have a half-completed dragon at his command,” Boann said to Shannon. “We must do this to keep him alive long enough to fight in the War of Disjunction.”

Shannon pulled a silvery dreadlock from his face. “Perhaps this training will keep his body alive, but what will it do to his soul?”

Boann looked back to the lake and thought about this. “Shannon, my new friend,” she said after a moment, “I don’t know.”

A dark mood came over Shannon as life in the Heaven Tree Valley took on a new, more urgent rhythm. Each morning, Nicodemus came stumbling in, often bleeding and always chattering about what he had learned in warplay. One night it was how to scale a city wall with Chthonic spells. Another night it was how to outflank a hostile force or how to attack an enemy camp or some other blood-minded action.

The boy also talked about his discovery that kobolds could briefly touch him. Their blue skins were remarkably resilient to the cankers his touch produced. The monsters could simply rip them off without consequences other than minor bleeding. Though such contact came only during fighting, the boy was relieved to touch another living creature without killing it.

After describing the night’s warplay, Nicodemus would sleep until late afternoon and then study the wizardly languages with Shannon.

But the boy’s cacography was indeed getting worse. The spelling drills had no effect. Worse, when asked to compose an original spell, the boy would write a tattooed draft on his forearm before attempting a wizardly version.

Some days Shannon despaired of teaching and took Nicodemus for long walks around the valley. He told the boy about his childhood, of his diplomatic service during the Spirish Civil War, of his disastrous love and the loss of his wife.

Nicodemus listened carefully. At times, to Shannon’s surprise, he found himself being consoled by his student. It gave him a hollow feeling.

Worse, Shannon’s old body began to suffer from bouts of severe fatigue. Often his stomach hurt after meals and sometimes he had difficulty in the privy. As the days got colder, he spent more and more time sleeping before the fire.

One day, he felt too weak even to walk with Nicodemus. The result was an argument: Nicodemus insisted that he would soon be strong enough to pursue Typhon. Shannon had refused to listen and pointed out that Nicodemus’s precious Chthonic language functioned only in the dark and neither Typhon nor his half-sister’s agents would do him the favor of attacking only at night.

Shannon tried to emphasize the importance of learning to harness his new Language Prime fluency and using the Index to research Typhon. But Nicodemus had only stormed out of the house, yelling that he would not watch Shannon die when there was a chance he could recover the emerald.

That evening, both student and teacher apologized. But nothing was resolved.

Shannon did know moments of happiness when he saw flashes of the boy he had known back in Starhaven. Toward late autumn, during one chill afternoon, snow sifted down through the Heaven Tree’s boughs.

Shannon and Nicodemus set out to wage a snowball fight. Azure acted as Shannon’s eyes, and Boann-not being tangible enough to pick up a snowball-judged the contest. But so few flakes made it to the valley floor that Nicodemus and Shannon soon resorted to the traditional Jejunus cursing match. Shannon, having a linguist’s trove of dirty words, easily won.

But the flashes of boyish Nicodemus grew rarer as his warplay training grew more intense. He was befriending the kobolds, coming to trust them in the way that soldiers came to trust one another. It was a bond that Shannon had never known.

Nicodemus talked incessantly of the New Moon War: a ceremonial gathering of all the kobold tribes. On the night when the three moons were dark, they would emerge from the underground to occupy a plateau deep in the Pinnacle Mountains. The plateau had held the kobold capital city before the Neosolar Empire destroyed it.

Each tribe would send a party of ten warriors into the ruins to hunt for a golden bough that a kobold priest had hidden. The party that returned with the bough won their tribe the right to protect for the year the crown of the last kobold queen.

When the winter solstice approached, and the Heaven Tree’s scarlet leaves began to fall, Nicodemus left with his kobold warriors for the New Moon War. Boann went with them, but Shannon had to stay behind. It would be hard enough, claimed the kobold chieftain, to bring one human to the gathering. Two would be impossible.

Left alone, Shannon found his days passed slowly. His appetite and energy had improved, but he slept poorly and spent most hours nervously walking the valley.

After the longest fortnight of Shannon’s life, the kobold party returned with Nicodemus on their shoulders. He wore a jagged gash on his jaw, a large bandage around his chest, and an ancient band of steel on his head.

He had won the New Moon War and had brought home fifty more kobold followers.

As luck would have it, Nicodemus returned the night before Midwinter’s Day. The kobolds held a feast around the bonfire. Shannon sat next to the boy during dinner. He wanted to hear everything about the New Moon War, but the kobolds kept up such a racket with their singing and dancing and boasting that no communication was possible. Two of the blueskins started to fight before Nicodemus stopped them with a barked command.

Later that night it began to snow. Again few flakes made it to the valley floor, but it was enough to end the feast. The kobolds all bowed to Nicodemus and retreated to their caverns.

Shannon took his student back into their house, checked on his wounds, which were not worrisome, and fell into a deep sleep of relief.

He awoke to a bitterly cold and dark morning with an inch of snow on the valley floor. While they ate, Nicodemus recounted the war among the kobold ruins. One kobold tribe had disbelieved that Nicodemus was the prophesied savior. Their party had ambushed his during the New Moon War. At first Nicodemus bragged of how his warriors had rebuffed the attack, then he grew solemn as he remembered the enemy kobolds he had killed. Shannon made him retell everything twice.

After they ate, Nicodemus went back to sleep. He awoke when it stopped snowing in the afternoon. “It’s Midwinter’s Day,” he said, looking out a window to the clearing sky beyond the Heaven Tree. “They’ll be celebrating back in Starhaven.”

Shannon agreed that they would be. “Doesn’t seem right that there’s so little snow on this holiday.”

Nicodemus was silent for a moment. “Maybe I’ll hike up to the topmost canopy and see the snow. There’s a small Chthonic fortress among the boughs. Its watchtower has a splendid view.”

Shannon had never been up that high, but he did not think he could keep up with the younger man. He told Nicodemus to go alone.

When Nicodemus reached the watchtower at the top of the Heaven Tree, he took in the vast panorama of snowy mountains. Far to the north stood the slim black silhouette of the Eversong Spire.

The Chthonic watchtower had long ago lost its roof and now a foot of snow covered the place. He cleared off what had once been a table and settled in to watch what was left of the year’s shortest day melt into dark.

When the setting sun bathed the world in a burgundy light, Shannon’s loud breaths sounded from the stairs.

Nicodemus ran to help the old man with the last few steps. “Magister,” he scolded, “you should have told me you were coming up. I would have walked with you.”

“Then you would have wasted your time walking with an old man,” the wizard huffed. Nicodemus helped him sit.

“Fiery blood, but I’m tired,” Shannon said, putting Azure in his lap and surrounding her with his cloak. The parrot stuck her head out of her new cloth nest so she could continue seeing for them both. “What a wonderful view!” the old man said with a wrinkled smile.

Far ahead of them, the Erasmine Spire shone with the sunset’s glow. Gradually Shannon’s breathing slowed.

A colaboris spell erupted from the Spire and flew over the eastern horizon and into the coming night.

“A boy is trapped in an academy,” Nicodemus said softly. “He learns he is incomplete. He sees those around him suffer. For a moment he glimpses himself entirely before he escapes. But no matter where he goes, no matter what he becomes, he will cause or witness suffering. Still, he wants nothing more than to try to end the suffering.”

Shannon said nothing for a while. “You know that I have begun to ghostwrite?” he asked.

“An impressing matrix shines about your head when you sleep,” Nicodemus said without looking over. “It shines in Azure’s mind as well. I think it has something to do with dreaming. Have the cankers grown worse?”

To see them with his Language Prime fluency, Nicodemus would have had to touch the old man. He dared not.

Shannon took a long breath. “No. In fact, I’ve been feeling better. I suppose this improvement is temporary. There’s no way of telling. I believe we will recover the emerald in time to cure the thing growing in my gut. But… I don’t want to be caught unawares. I’m ghostwriting… as a precaution.”

Nicodemus nodded. “It is a race, then, between my training and your disease. If I lose, you die.”

Shannon sighed. “There is no race, Nicodemus. To help fight the Disjunction, you must learn to control your Language Prime fluency. You must do that alone; I cannot teach it to you. And now that the Index is misspelled, only you can use it to learn about Typhon. Those tasks will take years if not decades. Leave this valley before then and you won’t be able to oppose the demons. You won’t even be able to survive.”

“Magister, the kobolds say I am the most powerful spellwright they have ever known. And I command a small army of their warriors.”

The old man shook his head. “Kobolds rarely leave their underworld. A kobold army would be helpless on the war field. And, Nicodemus, your spells only function in the dark. You must continue to train in the wizardly languages. If you run after Deirdre and the emerald before then, it won’t take Typhon or your half-sister long before they realize you’re powerless in daylight.”

“I won’t watch you die!” Nicodemus replied hotly. “I know what I must do now.”

Shannon opened his mouth as if to object but then shook his head. They both fell silent.

Gradually the sun sank below the horizon and the stars made their slow debut. A wind picked up and began to sing its whistling song among the bare branches.

“Nicodemus, you haven’t escaped Starhaven,” Shannon said. “You think you’re out here. You think your strength lies in your Chthonic texts or in your skill as a commander. You think you’re incomplete without the emerald. You can’t see that your true strength is already inside of you. And that means you’re still in that academy.” He nodded toward the spire. “You’re still running from golems.”

Nicodemus pursed his lips but said nothing.

“You must realize that you are complete now.”

The young man shook his head. “You are dying. Deirdre is enslaved. The purpose of my life is to regain the emerald and end my disability. Nothing will be right until then.”

Shannon began to protest but then stopped.

They sat together, in silence.

An icy wind curled around Nicodemus and Shannon and flew away north.

It blustered about on the white mountains and then split itself among Starhaven’s many towers. It howled over the bridges and sprayed dry snow into the gargoyles as they pushed drifts from eaves and cleared ice from the gutters.

The wind circled the Drum Tower and rattled its paper window screens. Simple John-now Lesser Wizard John of Starhaven-removed a screen and looked into the night. He took a long tremulous breath and again thought about his dead friends: Devin, Nicodemus, Magister Shannon.

Behind John someone knocked, likely a young cacographer. As the new Master of the Drum Tower, John replaced the screen and turned away from his sadness to see to the little one.

Outside, the wind swirled away from the Drum Tower before dropping into the Spirish stable yard to ruffle Amadi’s thick cloak. She was overseeing her sentinels as they prepared for the long journey back to the North.

Though her expression was calm, her heart teemed with fear and anticipation. Colaboris spells had carried reports of Fellwroth and Typhon to the other academies. Not everyone believed the news, but no one denied its effect. Thoughts of prophesy were now on every wizard’s mind, political speculations on every wizard’s lips. And now she was returning to Astrophell, where the game of factions was being played with murderous intensity.

Inside the stable, she put politics and prophesy aside long enough to inspect every pack, saddle, and horse her party would take on their journey. Then she dismissed the sentinels and walked alone into the snowy stable yard to look up at the stars.

Once back in Astrophell, she would owe loyalty to no faction. Alone, she would have to navigate the infighting and gather information useful to Shannon and Nicodemus once they emerged. Doing so would undoubtedly incur the distrust of every major faction. The slightest mistake could kill her.

Amadi smiled. In her soul she loved nothing so much as great purpose. Now she certainly had that.

The icy wind grew stronger. Pulling her cloak more tightly around her shoulders, Amadi started off to find her bed and dream of Astrophell under the hot Northern sun.

Above her, the wind rushed out of Starhaven and rolled down the foothills. It passed over the ruined Chthonic village and made the ghosts look up with wide, amber eyes. They could not feel cold, but they shivered nonetheless. They knew that the world was about to change.

Onward the wind tumbled, down the foothills to the Westernmost Road. Then to the north it flew, traveling to warmer lands. Slowly the landscape shed snowy white for lush green. Now the wind turned westward, blowing long waves through the tall savannah grass until it crossed a narrow caravan road and crested a ridge. Here stood a tall sandstone watchtower.

Beside this fortification crouched Deirdre, her red-and-black wings fluttering in the wind. Before her, the road ran straight for five miles before meeting the tan walls of a Spirish city. Even in the dim starlight, she could see the city’s many tiled roofs and the wide octahedral dome of its temple.

Slowly, Deirdre stood. Tears streamed down her face, and blood ran down her arms. At her feet lay four dead city guards. Typhon had compelled her to kill them; he wanted the city to receive no warning of his approach.

The wind blew harder, scooping under Deirdre’s wings and lifting her a few inches off the ground. Involuntarily, she tightened her fist around the Emerald of Arahest. She had been through the deep savanna and fought the beasts that lived there. She had seen the unspeakable things Typhon had done to those beasts with Language Prime.

The wind lessened and she sank until her boots touched ground. Then she started walking. A fresh surge of tears coursed down her face. She was already grieving for what Typhon would force her to do in the city.

From her contact with the demon’s mind, she had learned about the newest Language Prime spell he had begun to write. That is why she prayed that neither Boann nor Nicodemus nor Shannon tried to rescue her. If any of them did, they would face a spell that none of them could truly comprehend or even see.

They would face a true dragon.