The druid spat. “Yes, but it feels as if—”
“As if a block of frozen mucus is fondling your brain?” John asked helpfully.
Rory looked up at John, frowned. “Yes … yes, that’s exactly what it feels like.”
Nicodemus rolled his eyes. “Shut it you two. John, fetch Sir Claude and one of his metal books. Rory, hold still.” Nicodemus began to forge a shadowganger spell on his forearm.
The druid pressed a hand to his stomach. “I promise not to move another muscle unless it involves puking myself inside out.”
Nicodemus pulled the shadowganger spell from his arm and cast it on the druid. The violet paragraphs spun around Rory, bending light away from him until he seemed another moonshadow.
John appeared with Sir Claude thrown over his right arm and a massive book pinned to his side by his left. With little ceremony, John let the book drop. It clanged softly on the ground. Then John laid the knight onto his back.
Sir Claude DeFral—highsmith of Lorn, knight of the Order of the Oriflamme, veteran of the Goldensward War, spy, and assassin—was a thin spellwright in his sixties. His skin was dark brown, his head shaved, his goatee silver. Presently his head lolled back and his mouth fell open. The very picture of coma.
Nicodemus cast a disspell onto the highsmith’s head. John was muttering something about slime, snow, and brains when Sir Claude calmly opened his eyes and looked with puzzlement at Nicodemus, John, and the human shadow that was Rory. “Let me guess, my lord,” Sir Claude said, “last night we drank too much?”
“Everyone’s a joker tonight,” Nicodemus muttered.
Sir Claude propped himself onto his elbows and looked at Rory. “Druid, such a surprise to meet you here. At least I assume it’s you; no one else but you would produce quite such a corpulent shadow.”
“Don’t you two start,” Nicodemus growled. “Listen, we haven’t much time. Somehow the River Thief snuffed our watch. He’s taking our boats out on the river to loot them one by one. I still don’t know what he is—a water god I’ll wager—but for all we know he could be a wind neodemon or a ghost from the Floating Island. Whatever he is, he might flee downriver at any moment. So Rory, Sir Claude, and I are going to play a Wounded Bird infiltration game.”
John frowned. “What about Doria?”
Magistra Doria Kokalas was Nicodemus’s envoy from the hydromancers, a senior clerical physician, and the party’s only native Ixonian. Therefore she was—Nicodemus realized too late—the only one who could have judged this plan’s feasibility. “There’s no time to get Magistra.”
“She’s not going to like that,” Rory said.
“Nor will she like you two bungling our only chance to take down the River Thief,” Nicodemus replied as he cast a shadowganger spell first on Sir Claude and then on himself. “Here’s the game: The three of us stow away on the third boat. Once they take her out and board her, Sir Claude will play the Wounded Bird to get the River Thief’s complete attention. I’ll hop in the water and play a Papa to the Rescue. The neodemon will either try to kill me outright—if so, Rory, set the boat on them—or more likely the neodemon will spellbind Sir Claude and me and set off downriver. You two give me an hour to proselytize. If the River Thief converts, great. If not, I play spellbreaker while Rory kills everyone and keeps the boat afloat until Doria catches up with us. Understood?”
“How will Doria know to catch up with you?” John asked.
“You’re going to tell her,” Nicodemus replied. “As soon as we stow away, disspell the godspell around Doria’s mind. Tell her about our infiltration game and that she’s to come after us.”
Rory coughed. “She’s not going to like that.”
“You already said that,” Nicodemus replied. “Other comments?”
The shadowganger subtext had transformed Sir Claude into a shadow. He picked up the massive book, which John had dropped next to him. This was one of Sir Claude’s copies of the Canticle of Iron, a tome of thin metal sheets upon which the Lornish holy texts and many highsmith spells were written.
“My lord,” Sir Claude said as he rose to a crouch, “are you sure you want to place your honored life, not to mention my own humble existence, in the hands of a tulip gardener?” He nodded toward Rory. “I am, of course, deeply impressed by the druidic art of cultivating pansies, but forgive me if I’m just a bit queasy about playing Wounded Bird to a hostile river god, in the middle of said god’s river, while hoping a spellwright schooled in the deadly art of pruning will protect me.”
Rory snorted. “Perhaps we should rely on your deadly art of whining, given that you can only regurgitate the same four spells over and over.”
“Oh, you’ve caught me out, druid,” Sir Claude replied with lazy sarcasm. “I am quaking in my boots. Would you hold my hand to help me feel safe?”
“The two of you will shut, the burning hells, up,” Nicodemus growled. “You will both do as ordered or I will personally deconstruct the excuse for prose you both call original. Am I understood?”
Sir Claude muttered, “Yes, my lord,” and Rory grunted.
“So, yes, Sir Claude, we are going to put our lives in the hands of a gardener because—as I hope you aren’t too stupid to appreciate—druids can spellwright in wood and our barges are covered so completely with Rory’s subtexts that he alone can keep us safe when there’s blood in the water. So, if you want to survive your Wounded Bird act, then you had better make friends with the white robe.”
The knight bowed to Rory. “Sir, my words were spoken both in haste and with little thought for your many and various excellent qualities. I am profoundly apologetic.” His tone was anything but.
The druid started to reply but Nicodemus cut him off, “We’re going.” He turned toward the boats.
“But Nico,” John interrupted, “if you’re going to play Papa to the Rescue by jumping in the river … what about your first rule of fighting a water god?”
Nicodemus paused. “We don’t know for certain that the River Thief is a water god. It’s only the most likely possibility.”
“Or for that matter, my lord,” Sir Claude added, “what about your second rule of fighting a water god?”
They had a point. “Well…” Nicodemus said, “the exception proves the rule.”
Sir Claude coughed. “Forgive me, my lord … but … I believe some excellent scholarship has shown that the modern use of that saying is incorrect.”
“What?”
“I think the original sense of ‘prove’ could mean either ‘to establish’ or ‘to test.’ It’s something called a contranym: a word that means both one thing and it’s oppo—”
“I know what a—” Nicodemus started to snap.
“So if you’re going to get in the water while trying to take down a water neodemon,” John added helpfully, “you’re going to try to prove your rule is a bad one.”
“Hey, who here is prophetically connected to the inherent ambiguity and error in language?” Nicodemus asked.
“Technically,” John replied, “you.”
“Then, technically, I decide what rules we’re try to prove and how. Right?”
No one spoke.
“Good,” he said curtly. “Follow me.” He turned and ran for the third riverboat.
As his bare feet padded along the dirt, Nicodemus struggled against the urge to glance back. He had no doubt that Rory—young and thirsty for glory—would follow, but Sir Claude had joined Nicodemus’s party only recently.
However Nicodemus did not look back; doing so would show a concern for insubordination, and the past thirty years had taught him that the best way to prevent insubordination was to pretend it was impossible and then land like a lightning bolt on anyone who acted otherwise.
So Nicodemus dashed from tent to tent down the riverbank. Blue and white moonlight wavered on the currents. The stolen boat had turned and the stranger vessels were disengaging. There wasn’t much time now. Though the tropical night was humid, a chill ran through Nicode
mus.
Beside him sounded footfalls on sand as Rory and Sir Claude caught up. Nicodemus paused and then ran for the third boat. He passed one of the incapacitated watchmen and then waded waist deep into the river to the moored barge. Then he was pulling himself onto the bow and scurrying down the hatch into the cramped hold. His every step seemed to make some board creak. In his imagination the wooden complaints rolled out across the water, clear and loud enough to alarm the River Thief.
The hold was as humid as a dog’s mouth. Nicodemus cast a few flamefly spells to shed flickering light over cargo lashed in place. Carefully he climbed over two chests and wedged himself between a barrel and the portside hull.
A moment later he saw Rory’s bulky shadow come down the hatch into the hold. Nicodemus cast another flamefly paragraph to let the druid know where he’d hidden himself. The druid found a hiding place in the aft hold.
A creak from the stairs announced Sir Claude’s arrival. Again Nicodemus threw out a flamefly spell. A moment later Rory cast some druidic text that briefly burned with blue flame. Sir Claude paused and then disappeared into the shadows near the starboard hull. Nicodemus was impressed. By choosing that spot, Sir Claude had evened the boat’s ballast. Now they wouldn’t list to one side and raise any suspicions. That Sir Claude would know to do such a thing raised Nicodemus’s curiosity.
Per reports from his Lornish allies, Sir Claude had been knighted fourteen years ago during the Goldensward War—a border dispute between Lorn and Spires that rapidly escalated in hostility between league and empire and was resolved only with frantic diplomacy. Afterward Sir Claude had become a royal spy who worked his way into the confidence of a seditious seraph before revealing his treachery to Argent, Lorn’s metallic overgod. Nothing in those reports suggested Sir Claude’s exposure to matters maritime. It made Nicodemus wonder if there was something more to Sir Claude than he had appreciated.
Had the Lornish crown sent him one of their spies as an emissary to send a message? Or to keep a closer eye on him? Nicodemus couldn’t rule out those possibilities. However, the Lornish crown could have chosen Sir Claude because they knew he would make a valuable addition to Nicodemus’s entourage: he was deadly in combat, knowledgeable of diplomacy, and had the quick-witted and sarcastic personality that Nicodemus preferred. Nicodemus had often sent back emissaries who were aloof, sycophantic, or humorless. Leandra and Francesca had expressed similar preferences for their emissaries and counselors.
This thought lead Nicodemus to briefly reflect on his family. When Leandra was young, they had been together always and relished one another’s sharp wit, ironic humor, and proclivity for wordplay. But then the demands of league and a disastrous disagreement between Francesca and Leandra had scattered the family. Now each of them had re-created their family’s culture within their own entourage.
The last of the flamefly paragraphs burned out and returned the hold to darkness. Nicodemus’s ruminations about family faded as his leg began to ache where it was jammed against the barrel. Worse, the heat and stale air made him sweat profusely. Time dragged on.
Nicodemus was wondering if he should sneak abovedeck to see what the pirates were doing when he heard an oar’s splash. The sound came again and Nicodemus felt his stomach tighten. Time passed even more slowly. Another splash, a low whisper and then—as much felt as heard—the hush of a keel sliding on sand. Had the river pirates brought in the second boat? Moments later soft footfalls sounded on the deck.
The boat rocked and then glided backward. The splashing oars sounded again. Nicodemus supposed the river pirates were using the canoes to haul the boats out.
Creaking sounded from the stairs. Nicodemus turned to see a dark figure stepping down from the deck. Blue moonlight revealed glimpses of a young woman, bared wet shoulders, hair braided back, a long knife in her right hand, peering into the darkness.
Nicodemus wondered if she were a spellwright and if she would cast a luminescent spell to inspect cargo. If so he’d have to kill her silently. But long moments passed, the River Thief’s devotee looked from side to side, but she cast no light. Not a spellwright then. She turned and hurried back up the stairs.
Nicodemus fought the urge to move as water continued to splash against the hull. Finally the sensation of acceleration lessened. The splashing oars changed tempo. Someone called out soft commands. Something thumped against the hull and the deck rang with more footsteps. One of the stranger vessels had closed with their boat.
Suddenly Nicodemus realized that he had not told Sir Claude when to start his Wounded Bird routine. Now—when the raiders were preoccupied with boarding and before they organized themselves to loot the hold—would be perfect. Worried that Sir Claude would miss the opportunity, Nicodemus cast a single flamefly paragraph. The incandescent light it shed revealed a scene that made Nicodemus breathe easier.
The highsmith had crawled from his hiding place and opened his Canticle of Iron. The spellbook’s metallic sheets had come alive and were folding themselves into an animated suit of armor around the knight. Each sheet was covered with the highsmith magical language, which functioned only within metal. Like all knights of the Oriflamme, Sir Claude had mastered the variations of a half dozen spells that composed such metallolinguistic armor.
Two razor thin swords grew from Sir Claude’s fists. An angular helmet folded around his head, leaving only a thin slit for vision. Thus armored, a Lornish knight was one of the most dangerous combatants in the six human kingdoms.
As Nicodemus’s flamefly paragraph burnt out, Sir Claude crept to the base of the stairs and then, as silent as a trained assassin, charged up to the deck. The knight’s armor accelerated his steps to inhuman speed.
Not a moment after the knight disappeared from Nicodemus’s view, a scream broke the night’s quiet. Two blows sounded on the deck and then a splash, which Nicodemus supposed was that of a body striking water. A chorus of voices rose in alarm.
Nicodemus crawled out of his hiding place and made for the stairs. Up through the hatch, he saw a single dark figure clutching a boarding ax. The man raised the weapon and charged toward the bow.
Nicodemus pulled free the first few sentences of a disspell written across his left chest. Pain seared through his skin as the spell spread across his body, covering him in a protective text that would attack any other magical text that touched him. This combined with his cacography would make him briefly impervious to most any godspell. Soon every patch of Nicodemus’s skin shone with the disspell’s violet light.
Screams and crashes sounded from the bow. There was a sudden crack and the boat lurched. The neodemon had joined the fray. Nicodemus ran up the steps.
After the hold’s blackness, the wide and starry sky above the glossy river dazzled. Nicodemus glanced forward and saw a fountain of white light; the glare outlined the metallic Sir Claude as a pirate swung a boarding ax against the knight’s armored back. The blade clanged against steel. Sir Claude spun with inhuman quickness and ran his left sword through the pirate’s gut.
No one noticed Nicodemus as he sprinted to the stern, planted his foot on the gunnel, and dove out over the water. He had just enough time, suspended above the dark currents, to extend his arms and put his head down. Then the shock of water and deceleration, diving deep. He arched his back and coursed upward, his long hair streaming.
When his head broke surface, Nicodemus turned and began to overhand stroke back toward the stolen boat. The disspells covering his body began to churn faster and their luminosity grew. No doubt the water was laced with the River Thief’s godspells. So long as his disspells lasted, Nicodemus would burn through such texts. The River Thief would now be aware of Nicodemus’s approach but unable to stop him.
Or so Nicodemus had thought. Not two strokes from the boat, Nicodemus felt his disspells deconstruct. Paragraphs snapped with audible cracks and flaked off like old paint. In moments, he was swimming linguistically naked. He took one more stroke and was reaching for the barge when the currents aro
und him erupted into a fury of force and foam.
The water became gelatinous. Somewhere on the boat sounded three detonations. Something hard locked around Nicodemus’s feet and yanked him underwater.
Pulled down through ten feet of limpid river, Nicodemus stretched his arms up toward the vanishing light and wondered if he were, after all, a fool for testing his first rule of fighting with a water god.
Or, for that matter, his second rule.
A geyser of light erupted from somewhere above water. Nicodemus’s ears rang with the sound of his own voice. When an envoy first joined his party, he would sometimes test the newcomer about different types of neodemons. “What,” he would ask, “is first rule of bringing down any water god?”
When the envoy did not know the answer, John and Doria—who had heard his lectures many times—would reply in monotone, “Don’t get in the God-of-god’s damned water.”
Nicodemus would nod and ask, “And what is the second rule of bringing down any water god?”
His followers would flatly reply, “Don’t get into the God-of-god’s damned water.”
As Nicodemus’s world dissolved into blackness, he prayed for an exception to prove his rules.
CHAPTER FIVE
Nicodemus thought he was still drowning in the river when he found himself hanging upside down on his stolen barge. Water dripped into his eyes, blurred his vision, plastered his long hair to his face. A soft green light shone behind him.
Inversion filled Nicodemus’s head with pressure while strange texts blunted his thoughts, preventing him from spellwrighting. It seemed the neodemon had cast several censoring spells around his mind—several because Nicodemus’s cacography was slowly dispelling the texts in direct contact with him. If he focused on misspelling, he could accelerate their deconstruction. But for the moment, it served his purposes to appear harmless.
“You are censored and bound by the feet,” announced a calm female voice. “I wouldn’t attempt to free your body or mind unless you’d like to be formally introduced to excruciating pain.”
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