An idea bloomed in Deirdre’s mind. “This magical canker, is it like the mundane cankers that clerics remove from elderly bodies?”
All faces turned toward her. Shannon spoke. “Clerics are spellwrights that study medicine. We wizards wouldn’t know.”
A giddy warmth spread across Deirdre’s face. “Boann found a canker once on my back. She said they happen often to avatars because we live so long. She said deities routinely cut such growths off their avatars.”
Shannon scowled. “But what ails me is not one growth. I can see the runes coming from the cursed muscles around my stomach. The canker is laced all around the organ. Boann could cut my guts into bloody rags and there’d still be more curse to cut out.”
Deirdre was shaking her head. “But she is a goddess! You can’t—”
Nicodemus interrupted. “Are you sure Boann would heal Magister?”
“If you accept her protection, she would do anything.”
Shannon objected. “She can’t help me, Nicodemus. Look at the runes appearing in my gut; you can see how diffuse the canker is. Gray’s Crossing is far too dangerous; we can’t risk the life of a possible Halcyon for that of an old man.”
“We can, Magister, and if it comes to that we will.” Nicodemus stood up. “First, I need to research something here in these ruins. I might yet learn something about Language Prime. But if I can’t find a way to remove your curse, we will go to Gray’s Crossing.”
The old man scowled again. “Don’t be foolish. You have no right to risk yourself for me.”
“Magister, I do,” Nicodemus retorted. “I’m a cacographer, not a child.” He turned toward the ruins.
“Los damn it,” Shannon grumbled, and struggled to his feet. “Nicodemus, where are you going?”
The boy didn’t look back. “Into the Bestiary.”
CHAPTER
Thirty-nine
Nicodemus frowned at Tulki’s spell. It read, “The last eugrapher was furious after engaging the Bestiary. His words became angry and illogical. He claimed the Bestiary’s knowledge was a curse to him.”
When Nicodemus looked up from this note, he found the ghost fidgeting with his long white ponytail.
They were standing outside a dome-shaped ruin overgrown by vines that bristled with leathery brown leaves. Elsewhere the expanse of half-collapsed walls stretched out into the dark.
Behind Nicodemus stood his confused companions. “What’s the ghost writing now?” Shannon asked.
Because they lacked fluency in the Chthonic languages, neither Shannon nor John nor Deirdre could see the Wrixlan text.
“The ghost is trying to change my mind,” Nicodemus replied, still staring at Tulki. “He’s afraid the book will upset me and I won’t return to replenish their spectral texts.”
“Tell him,” John announced haltingly, “you keep your word.”
Nicodemus nodded. “The ghost can hear you.”
Tulki stopped fidgeting to cast a reply: “But there might be danger. It was traumatic when the Index engaged you, true? The Bestiary is a more powerful tome.”
“How did the ghost respond?” Shannon asked.
Tulki studied the old wizard and gave Nicodemus two more sentences: “Tell the older one about the danger. He will help you see.”
Nicodemus sniffed in annoyance. “He’s exaggerating the danger the tome might pose, to discourage me.”
Tulki’s eyes widened. “!” he flicked at Nicodemus before adding, “I am not!”
Nicodemus raised a single, incredulous eyebrow.
Tulki threw his hands up in exasperation. “I forgot how infuriating young male humans can be. Very well, Nicodemus Weal, I have no evidence of great danger. I am only concerned for your well-being.”
The cold wind slipped down into the ruins and stirred Nicodemus’s longhair. “And concerned for your own well-being,” he said, pulling a black lock away from his eyes.
The ghost folded his arms. “The last eugrapher was also this adamant. Are you sure you are not his descendant?”
“Now what’s happening?” Deirdre asked.
“He’s telling me about the last cacographer who came through here about three hundred years ago.”
“Good,” Shannon said. “Learn as much about that as you can.”
Tulki studied Shannon and then cast a sentence: “Something is wrong with the elder’s belly?”
Nicodemus changed the subject. “Tell me more about the previous eugrapher.”
The ghost scratched his chin as he forged an answer. “The boy was curious and insistent. He looked like you and was thrilled to discover he did not misspell in our languages. A whole autumn and winter he stayed, sleeping through day and studying at night. He became pale and beautifully tattooed. He wrote wonderful constructs, like yours.”
Nicodemus nodded. “But then he learned about the Bestiary?”
The ghost’s shoulders rose and fell in a noiseless sigh. “And then there was nothing that would please him but to engage it. The reading didn’t take more than a moment. He touched the pages and then fell to the ground. We asked what had happened and he began to laugh. ‘Gibberish!’ he said. ‘She showed me that I’m the error. She showed me what cacography truly is.’”
“What did he mean by that?” Nicodemus said, his heart beginning to kick.
Tulki shrugged. “We asked him, but the boy only shouted at us. He said that the book had cursed him with the knowledge of what cacography truly was and what the Chthonic people truly were. ‘Gibberish!’ he kept yelling. ‘It’s all gibberish!’ We tried to reason with him but he wouldn’t speak. He left the next evening and never returned.”
Nicodemus swallowed when he finished reading. “What’s this about what cacography truly is? What did he learn?”
“What’s the ghost writing now?” Shannon asked.
“Magister,” Nicodemus snapped. “I’m trying to read.”
The old linguist mumbled an apology.
“Go on,” Nicodemus insisted. “What did the other boy learn about cacography?”
Again the ghost shrugged. “He didn’t say.”
Nicodemus pressed his cold right hand to his mouth and took a steadying breath. “Do you remember his name?”
The ghost seemed to ponder this. “I believe…” he cast before pausing. “I believe his name was James Berr.”
“Los in hell,” Nicodemus swore under his breath. James Berr—the very incarnation of malignant cacography!
Tulki’s amber eyes studied Nicodemus. “He did look much like you—black hair, olive skin, green eyes. Was James Berr indeed one of your ancestors?”
“No!”
The ghost jumped. “Forgive me. Have I offended?”
Nicodemus ignored the ghost’s questions. “Did he tell you why he left Starhaven?”
The ghost shook his head. “I’ve told you everything.”
“Nicodemus, why are you upset?” Deirdre asked.
Ignoring her, Nicodemus kept his eyes on Tulki. “But what did the Bestiary teach him about cacography? What did he mean, ‘It’s all gibberish’?”
Again, the ghost shook its head. “This is upsetting you already. Nothing good will come of engaging the Bestiary.”
Nicodemus shut his eyes and took a long, quavering breath.
“Nicodemus, tell us what’s the matter.” Shannon said.
Nicodemus answered without opening his eyes. “The ghost says reading the Bestiary might be dangerous. How dangerous, he doesn’t know. I was hiding this from you. I tell you now only because Los himself couldn’t stop me from reading the book.”
All three of his friends exploded into questions.
Nicodemus went on. “The last human to read the Bestiary was a cacographer like me. He learned the Chthonic languages like me. He even looked like me. And by reading this tome, he discovered something about the nature of cacography.”
Nicodemus turned to face his friends. The dappled moonlight revealed three worried figures.
“I’m
terrified,” he said bluntly. “I have much in common with this ancient cacographer. I must know who he truly was and what he discovered in the Bestiary.”
“But why?” Deirdre asked.
“Because I might be just like him.”
Shannon spoke. “And who was this other boy?”
“James Berr.”
Both Shannon and John flinched. A confused Deirdre looked from one to the other. No one spoke for a moment. Then Shannon said, “Nicodemus, if there is even a slight danger, you mustn’t—”
“No, Magister,” John interrupted. “He must.”
Tulki led Nicodemus to the vine-covered dome. The thick brown leaves barely swayed in the cold wind. To Nicodemus’s shock, he saw that they were not leaves at all, but thick medallions of leather.
A curtain of the strange foliage parted to reveal a miniature doorway. “I appeal to you again,” Tulki wrote, stepping through. “Reconsider.”
Nicodemus ducked through the doorway into a small, dark space. “I cannot,” he said.
A rectangle of dull amber light glowed in the darkness. As Nicodemus approached, the light grew to reveal that he was standing not in a room, but in a bower of leathery vines. The thick stems and leaves had wound themselves into a tentlike roof around the crumbling building.
The floor was uneven and rough. On closer inspection, Nicodemus realized that it was made of thousands of roots. All of them ran to the room’s center and then grew into something resembling a tree stump—“resembling” because after rising two feet into the air, it grew into a massive codex. Its brown leather cover was textured like ash bark. A braid of branches grew from each face to form a clasp. The diffuse amber light was coming from the many pages.
The sound of shuffling feet filled the bower as Shannon, John, and Deirdre entered behind him.
Tulki handed Nicodemus a note: “Move slowly.”
The Bestiary’s glow brightened as Nicodemus approached. Silently, the fore-edge clasp unwove and the book opened with a creak. Shafts of amber light spilled upward from the yellowing pages. Incandescent specks flew up from the spine like embers from a fire.
“Be careful, Nico,” John said. Shannon said something too, but Nicodemus could not hear what over the rush of blood in his ears. He pressed his palm against one of the Bestiary’s warm, luminous pages.
There was a pause. Nicodemus held his breath and waited for the sensation of flying upward into a night sky that he had known in the Index.
But it did not come. Another pause. “I don’t—” he started to say before the ground below him dissolved.
A cry escaped his throat as he plummeted down into blackness.
CHAPTER
Forty
Nicodemus fell into the Bestiary, his mouth filling with what felt like warm, thin oil. He gagged and then accidentally inhaled the slippery blackness. He was drowning. Panic flooding through his mind, he began to thrash.
But his mind could not disengage from the book.
The liquid around him thickened, slowing his fall. With a heave, he pushed the fluid from his lungs and fought the urge to inhale. But instinct soon forced him to draw the thin oil back into his chest.
Slowly his thrashing stopped. He wasn’t drowning; he was breathing darkness. His limbs felt weightless. His long hair floated around him.
Nearby, some swimming thing made small waves of force. “Another child of error? A second chance?” said a rough, feminine voice.
Nicodemus’s heart beat faster. “Who are you?” He was surprised that he could speak while breathing the liquid dark.
The thing replied with a low, purr-like laugh. It sounded as if it was now circling him.
Nicodemus turned about, trying to see what he was addressing. “I’ve come to learn about Language Prime. And to learn about the one who came before me.”
Again the feline laugh. “I know what you seek, Nicodemus Weal. As long as you are within this tome, I know all you know.”
He reached out in the direction of the voice. “Who are you?”
A slippery something wound around his head and slid away so quickly that he did not have time to flinch.
“I am the beast. I am the Bestiary. I am the test-maker, the word-taker, the one who gives the trial before the rule, the power before the purpose. I am a sliver of Chimera, who was the goddess of all Chimerical peoples.”
“You’re a spell?”
Low laughter replied. “You might call me a spell. You might also call me a fractional soul. When I was myself complete, I made this book one of my avatars and placed myself incomplete into it. You may call me Chimera.”
Nicodemus paused to gather his fortitude. “Can you teach me what I want to know?”
Again something silky wrapped around Nicodemus—this time his left arm—and slipped away. “I can,” Chimera rumbled. “But only if you accept the price. For if you learn Language Prime, you can never unlearn it.”
“And why would that be bad? Will I go blind?”
A current pushed against Nicodemus’s back and sent him floating forward. After a moment, Chimera spoke. “Quite the opposite from going blind, you will see more. You will see the truth about the Creator’s language.”
“Is that what happened to James Berr? You taught him Language Prime, and he learned what cacography really is?”
Chimera’s next word came from directly above. “Yes.”
Some of Nicodemus’s hair floated into his eyes. He pulled it away. “And what of Magister Shannon’s curse? Will learning Language Prime allow me to cure him?”
“It would show you how Shannon’s curse might be removed. Whether you have the skill to remove it, I cannot say.”
Nicodemus could feel Chimera swimming about him more quickly. “My enemies would keep knowledge from you,” she rumbled. “If you do learn Language Prime, you will gain the ability to confound Fellwroth and his demon masters. But as in all things, there must be an exchange. I would give you knowledge; you would give me your happiness.”
Nicodemus laughed. “That’s the trade: my happiness for your knowledge?”
Chimera hissed, “Yes.”
“You wouldn’t be getting much of a bargain. I haven’t much happiness to give.”
“Is that supposed be profound or cynical?”
Nicodemus shook his head. “If I ignore an opportunity to remove Shannon’s curse, I will never know happiness again.”
“You will trade your happiness for the chance, not the certainty, of healing your teacher?”
“I would.”
Chimera made no response.
Nicodemus pursed his lips. Was this a mistake? “How will you or Language Prime remove my happiness?”
“By making you completely into the man you are becoming.”
His head bobbed back. “Who could be harmed by becoming more thoroughly himself?”
“Who wouldn’t be?”
Nicodemus snorted blackness through his nose. “Is that supposed to be profound or cynical?”
Chimera did not answer.
Nicodemus changed the subject. “How will you teach me Language Prime? Will it be like when the Index thrust its purple language down my throat?”
Chimera chuckled. “No, Fellwroth spoke truthfully about your family. The Solar Empire bred an understanding of the Creator’s language into Imperials. Your ancestry has provided you with an uncanny and unconscious knowledge of how to read and write Language Prime. James Berr also possessed Imperial ancestors.”
Nicodemus’s throat tightened. “I am related to him?”
Chimera made a sound like a yawn. “Berr would be your distant cousin. He paid the price and it broke him. Perhaps you are stronger. Will you learn the first language?”
Nicodemus took a long breath of liquid black. “I will.”
THE DARKNESS LIT up with four aquamarine characters.
“These are the four runes of Language Prime,” Chimera said behind him.
Nicodemus glanced over his shoulder to try to glimpse Chime
ra but saw only blackness. So he turned back to the complex cyan characters. All were three-dimensional. Two had hexagonal structures; the other two, pentagonal structures. As the runes rotated slowly, Nicodemus realized that he had instantly memorized their every detail. He could already see how they would fit together into long, spiraling sentences.
“I’ve never learned anything so quickly,” he remarked in amazement.
Chimera spoke. “You are not learning; you are awakening an ancestral knowledge. And now that I have shown you the runes, your education is nearly complete.”
Nicodemus laughed, but when the hidden creature did not reply, he realized that she was serious. “But I have no Language Prime vocabulary, no grammar.” He laughed again. “I don’t even know what kind of spells are written in Language Prime.”
Chimera’s reply came in a whisper. “Look at your hands.”
Nicodemus did as he was told and then jumped. An aquamarine glow now suffused his fingers and palms.
“Fiery blood! I’m casting in Language Prime!” He brought his hands closer to be sure. “But the runes are impossibly small,” he said in amazement. “There must be…I don’t know a number large enough to describe how many runes there must be in my pinky alone.”
He pulled back his sleeves and then peered down the collar of his robes. His entire body was saturated with Language Prime. “It doesn’t makesense,” he said. “The other magical languages we forge in our muscles, but these runes are forming in every bit of my body.”
The darkness around Nicodemus undulated as Chimera’s voice drew closer. “That is because Language Prime runes are not controlled by your body. They are your body.”
“That makes no sense. And what is this place, anyway? Is this my real, physical body? Are you showing me illusion?”
“Only your mind is within my book. But the magical body I have given you here will behave just as your physical body does. When you leave the book, you will see that I am not deceiving you.” Suddenly her voice was whispering an inch from his left ear. “Now look into nature.”
Nicodemus turned to see a square window cut into the darkness. On the other side was an image of the nearby nighttime forest. Much was familiar: pine trees, sword ferns, a young buck picking his way among the vegetation and rocks.
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