Tulki formed another paragraph within the membranous skin and then cast it to Nicodemus. “Appreciate that more skin gives a Wrixlan author more writing space. You black-robes carry books to hold more text. But our bodies are our texts. Long ago, our ancestors dwelled under the mountains with the greenskins and blueskins. Then the first Chthonic tribe created our dialects. It was then that the goddess Chimera helped shape our bodies to escape the brutal underworld of the blueskins.”
“Blueskins?”
Tulki took a moment to compose a reply. “Your word for them is ‘kobolds,’, and for greenskins, ‘goblins.’ They too write on their bodies. But their hides are tough, their dialects savage. They brand themselves. Our dialects require elegance. Our goddess used the First Language to adapt our bodies to our words. Our skin became soft and amenable to Pithan and Wrixlan; we wrote more and more on our left arms, and so we needed more and more skin.”
The ghost nodded to his palette before casting the next paragraph. “Through Chimera’s First Language, our left arms grew into palettes. You see why our ancestors thought each other monstrous. A Chthonic born with two arms would be like a human born with three.”
Nicodemus could only nod.
Tulki looked to the sky and then tossed out two quick sentences: “Dawn is not far. We must go underground.” With that, he hurried further into the rubble.
Following as quickly as he could, Nicodemus asked, “But what ofWrixlan being eugraphic? Can it cure my cacography in the wizardly languages?”
Without slowing, Tulki threw a reply over one shoulder. “No, but I don’t see what there is to ‘cure,’ as you say.”
By the time Nicodemus had finished reading this, Tulki had ducked inside an ancient building that still had much of its roof. Nicodemus followed and discovered that inside the hovel a set of narrow stairs led down into darkness.
The ghost’s body began to shed a soft, indigo light. “Mind your big feet,” he warned with a quick spell and then descended the stairs. “We hope you will stay with us and replenish our codex many times over the years. To remain hidden from the construct, you must stay underground during the day.”
“Why?” Nicodemus asked while negotiating the tiny steps.
“Because bright light, especially sunlight, deconstructs Wrixlan. Your ancestors used this to slaughter us. By night, we possessed spells as powerful as any human text. But by day, we were defenseless. How we used to dread the dawn when the blood-hungry legionaries would come.”
They reached the bottom of the stairs and now stood in a rectangular cellar with a low ceiling and blank stone walls. “You must loathe me,” Nicodemus whispered.
Tulki smiled. “On the contrary, Nicodemus Weal, if you replenish our text, you will become one of the few humans I have ever truly liked.”
CHAPTER
Thirty-five
The ghost pointed to a small stone vault and then tossed Nicodemus a sentence. “Our spectral codex is stored in there.”
Nicodemus lifted the vault’s lid and found a book, nearly the Index’s twin, lying at the bottom.
A glowing note from Tulki appeared next to Nicodemus’s hand. It read, “You need only place a hand on an open page. It might have a disorienting effect. Several hours may pass without your noticing. You might see flashes from our past—the codex also contains a history of our people.”
Nicodemus looked up at the ghost. “Will it make me sick?” When the ghost raised his eyebrows, he explained how touching the Index for the first time made him vomit.
The ghost shook his head. “That was because the Index forced Wrixlan into your mind. That will not be the case here. The Index is a tome; this book is a simple codex. However, when the sky lightens I must return to its pages. We Wrixlan ghosts never express ourselves outside of a manuscript during the day. The risk of exposure is too great.”
Nicodemus thought for a moment. “Before I begin, perhaps you could explain one more thing: you mentioned something called the First Language.”
Tulki wrote several sentences but then scratched his chin and began editing.
Nicodemus tried not to fidget as he waited.
When the response was finished, Tulki held it out while looking Nicodemus in the eye. It read, “The other eugrapher from long ago also asked about this. But I can’t satisfy much of your curiosity. I know the First Language changed our ancestors’ bodies. I know First Language prose keeps our living books alive. But that is all I know. Only by engaging a Bestiary could one learn the First Language. And only high priests were allowed to read a Bestiary in life. We ghosts won’t violate the old ways; none of us will engage our Bestiary.”
Nicodemus thought about this and then asked, “And why call it a Bestiary? Does the book describe animals?”
The ghost shook his head and wrote, “I don’t think so. I think it was aproblem of translation. The Bestiary contains knowledge of the First Language. In fact, the center of any Chthonic colony is a Bestiary. It has to be that way, because a Bestiary helped us change to survive in a new realm.”
“And so these ruins were to be a new colony? That’s how you came here?”
Tulki wrote for a moment and then handed Nicodemus two paragraphs. “Not quite. This place was only a town, destroyed during the first siege. We ghosts were stranded here when Starhaven finally fell. When the legionaries breached the walls, several Chthonic warriors took our Bestiary and dashed southward. They hoped to reach the Iron Wood or the Grysome Mountains and establish a new colony. They brought with them two spectral codices. One was filled with artistic and priestly ghosts, the other with political and scholarly ghosts. I was stored in the latter.
“But the humans caught the escape party at dawn. The ensuing battle destroyed the codex holding the priestly ghosts. The living Chthonics who survived the human attack brought the Bestiary and the remaining spectral codex here to these ruins. After helping the Bestiary to write the protecting subtexts and metaspells, the living ran for the mountains and the Heaven Tree…they never made it.”
Nicodemus paused for a respectful moment before speaking. “And is your First Language related to Language Prime?”
The text gave him a quizzical look.
Nicodemus tried to explain. “Language Prime is the Creator’s language, the language of the first words, the source of all magic.”
The ghost frowned and held out a few sentences. “As I said, I am no priest. But I do remember the Neosolar Empire labeled the First Language as blasphemous. They said we were trying to alter the Creator’s text or some nonsense. They used the idea that we were distorting holy language to justify their bloodlust.”
Nicodemus read this and then said, “I must learn whatever I can about Language Prime. Your First Language might be similar to it. Is the Bestiary nearby?”
The ghost licked his lips before nodding.
“Am I capable of reading it?”
Tulki wrote a response and hesitantly held it out. “Yes…one needs only fluency in Wrixlan to engage the tome…but I fear I cannot let you do so.”
“Your religion forbids it? Is it dangerous?”
The Chthonic shook his head. “There is a little danger, but not much. And the old ways do not prohibit humans from reading it. But, you see, we allowed the last eugrapher to read the Bestiary. After engaging the text, he grew fractious. He soon left and never returned.”
Now it was Nicodemus’s turn to be puzzled. “What did he learn from the book?”
The ghost cast a reply and then looked at his feet. “He would not say.”
Nicodemus suddenly understood. “You fear that whatever upset the previous cacographer will upset me and I won’t replenish your spectral codex.”
“Please don’t be angry. If you do not help us, we will deconstruct.”
“I see your dilemma. How about a trade? I will replenish your codex now and promise to return in the future. In exchange, you will let me engage the Bestiary.”
The ghost peered into Nicodemus’s face and then
composed his script. “Yes, that could work. Let us talk more after you refresh our text. But remember, if it is after sunrise when you wake, I will not be here. Wait for night and do not build a fire or cast any harsh illuminating text. I will return.”
“Agreed,” Nicodemus said, and turned to regard the spectral codex that lay within its stone vault. Its brasswork gleamed dully.
“I do this to demonstrate my good faith.” He opened the book and planted his hand on the open page.
EVERYTHING BLAZED WHITE and then faded into black. Suddenly Nicodemus was not himself. Nor was he in his own time.
He was a young Chthonic male pausing from his early evening spell work. His bare feet stood on the newly built tower bridge. Its stones were still warm from the summer sunlight. He looked east. Before him stretched the dusty expanse of felled trees and rock piles.
Soon they would build towers there as well, and the city would grow even larger. Farther away stood the moonlit mountains. In the middle of the sheer rock face gaped a wide tunnel that ran into the mountain.
He remembered that long ago his ancestors had built that tunnel to escape the underworld. But sometimes, blueskin raiders had come screaming out of the tunnel to steal food, tools, and females. His people had led counterstrikes down the tunnel to kill the offending blueskins and take others as slaves.
But now a truce had been made. Wards had been written within the cave mouth to restrict passage. His people had filled the entrance with their metaspells, and the blueskins had matched this with thousands of their digging tortoise constructs. Now only official delegations could pass between the upperworld and the underworld.
In celebration of this truce, his people were decorating the rockface. A carving of ivy leaves was to represent his people’s metaspells because ivy, like his kind, grew from stony soil and could climb to great heights. A carving of a tortoise shell was to represent the blueskin’s war constructs.
The truce required both his people and the blueskins to meet at the cave mouth every year to renew the agreements of the peace. Some of his people were displeased with the truce; they wanted easier access to the Heaven Tree homestead.
But most were content, and the yearly renewal of the truce was a celebrated holiday. Some even spoke of building a bridge out to the tunnel.
However, a growing number of elders—remembering the horrors they had seen before they left the underworld—argued that they should abandon the Heaven Tree and collapse the tunnel. Only this, they said, would end all contact with the blueskins and so permanently stop the raids.
Without warning the world again dissolved into blinding white light. For a moment Nicodemus was himself again…but then everything changed.
He was now a Chthonic elder standing on a sunlit bridge in a completed Starhaven. Many years had passed. Before him stretched the Spindle Bridge. It reached out from Starhaven to land against the solid cliff face. He could see the ivy pattern and the tortoise pattern carved into the rock.
But the tunnel was gone. The bridge ran into solid stone. He tried to remember what had happened to the tunnel but found his mind was filled with terror. He shifted his palette limb underneath his tunic and looked westward. Moving across the oak savanna were two red squares, each a mile in width and length.
Sunlight glinted off helmets and spear points. These were the Fifth and the Ninth Neosolar Legions. They had come to lay siege to Starhaven.
He pulled his palette closer and cursed the sunlight. The hour had come at last. In a matter of days, he and all his people would die.
“Nicodemus!” someone called faintly. “Niiicooodeeemus!”
Abruptly Nicodemus was himself again, standing in the small Chthonic cellar. His hand was hovering above the living codex that held the Wrixlan ghosts. Tulki was gone. Looking back, he saw sunlight shining on the steps that led up to the ruined Chthonic outpost. It was morning.
“Niiicooodeeemus!” His name came again from a distant female voice.
His heart tightened. How had she found him? He was supposed to be hidden.
Then he remembered the Seed of Finding. The last signal text it would have cast would have been from just outside the ruins. She must have reached that spot and started calling out.
“Niiicooodeeeeeemus!” she yelled again.
Deirdre!
CHAPTER
Thirty-six
Nicodemus woke to see Deirdre padding down the cellar stairs. A lone sunbeam had slipped through the tattered ceiling to land on the steps. As the druid walked through the light, the sword strapped to her back glinted solar white. She was holding up the front of her robes to make a basket; on the pale cloth rested small pieces of darkness. Nicodemus picked up the Index and went to her.
“Clear sky, cold and windy,” she whispered as they squatted by the nearby wall. “Reminds me of the bright autumn days in the Highlands.” She had folded her legs so the nest of blackberries sat in her lap.
Nicodemus set down the Index and watched with single-minded anticipation as her dark fingers extracted a mound of berries and overturned them into his cupped hands.
“John will need some too,” he said.
On the other side of the cellar, the big man was curled up on Nicodemus’s cloak. Getting him to sleep that morning had been a struggle.
Shortly after Nicodemus had brought Deirdre and John back to the ruins, the big man’s wits had returned with a squall of terror and tears. At first, he had screamed every time Nicodemus had touched him. But eventually he let the younger man pull him into an embrace. Then John had begun to repeat the name “Devin…Devin…Devin…” over and over.
Nicodemus had wept with him until exhaustion pulled them both into sleep.
“I set several rabbit snares,” Deirdre whispered, feeding herself a berry between words. “With luck, evening will see us with dinner.” She searched Nicodemus’s face. “Now that we know more about the Chthonics, have you discovered anything about that dream you told me of—the one of Fellwroth surrounded by ivy and turtles? Any clue where the monster’s true body is now?”
Nicodemus shook his head. “I thought the body must be in a cave where the Spindle Bridge meets the mountain. There must be some connection to the ivy and hexagon patterns carved into the mountain face. But in the Chthonic visions, I saw that the cave into the mountain had disappearedafter the Spindle Bridge was built. And Shannon probed the rock before the bridge and found nothing. There must be some other connection. It’s frustrating. I can’t consult the ghosts again until tonight.”
He popped a blackberry into his mouth and stared down at the tattoos that covered his hands and forearms. It was strange to think about Garkex and the other night terrors being written across his body.
Deirdre was still studying him. “The dreams might not matter. We’ll be safe when we reach my goddess’s ark. When will you be ready to run to Gray’s Crossing?”
Nicodemus paused, a berry at his lips. “When I met the golem, it was coming up from Gray’s Crossing.”
He had told Deirdre about his strange dreams, his encounter with Fellwroth, and his dealings with the Chthonic ghost. But he had not told her what Fellwroth had said about the struggle between two factions—one demonic, one divine—to breed a Language Prime spellwright.
“Fellwroth must be watching Gray’s Crossing,” he continued. “He might anticipate our trying to reach your goddess’s ark.”
Deirdre shook her head; her raven hair gleamed even in the half-light. “A dozen armed devotees—two of them druids—guard the stone. And it’s well hidden; Fellwroth wouldn’t know where to find it.”
Her wide eyes widened; her dark cheeks flushed darker. “Nicodemus, we
are so close now. My goddess can sense you nearing. She longs to protect you.”
Nicodemus put the blackberry in his mouth and chewed it slowly. “Deirdre, who is your goddess?”
A soft smile curled her lips. “She is Boann of the Highlands, not a powerful deity, but a water goddess of unsurpassed beauty,
a dweller of the secret brooks and streams that flow among the boulders and the heather.”
Nicodemus thought about what Fellwroth had told him. “Does she have many Imperials—those that look like us—in her service?”
“A few,” she said, eating another berry. “My family has done so for time out of mind. In the Lowlands, my cousins serve her. But you must understand that she is a Dralish deity. The Lornish occupy the Highlands still. Those of us holding to the old ways must hide—”
Nicodemus interrupted. “Does she direct your family as to whom they might marry?”
This made Deirdre’s eyebrows sink. “We never marry without her blessing.”
“Is she trying to produce a Language Prime spellwright?”
“Language Prime?”
“Maybe she called it the First Language. Have you heard of that?”
Deirdre only frowned.
“No, you haven’t. But did your goddess know that Typhon had crossed the ocean? Has she been struggling against him for long?”
“Nicodemus, what are you driving at?”
He looked down. “Nothing. Only thinking aloud.”
Fellwroth had said that those opposing the Disjunction—the Alliance of Divine Heretics—would kill Nicodemus on sight. But Nicodemus distrusted the monster. If the Alliance wanted a Language Prime spellwright so badly, they might be willing to help Nicodemus recover the missing part of himself in return for his service.
For this reason, Nicodemus hoped that Deirdre’s goddess was a member of the Alliance. Clearly Deirdre did not want him dead; she could have broken his neck long ago.
The problem was that Deirdre didn’t seem to know about Language Prime or whether her goddess was a member of this Alliance.
But then again, she might know more than she was letting on. Nicodemus needed a way to learn more about her.
Suddenly the blackberry in his mouth became sour. He knew what he had to do. “Deirdre,” he said softly, “Kyran is dead.”
She looked away. “I know.” The room’s faint light glowed on her smooth cheeks and accentuated her youthful appearance.
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