Spellbreaker

by Blake Charlton

  Nicodemus’s thoughts returned to the present as the lecture hall echoed with the scattered laughs and triumphant cries of students. One by one, their brightly worded paragraphs were winking out of sight. Nicodemus walked around the theater, lending assistance to those who struggled so that the class might stay together. As he finished, the sounds of triumph turned to murmurs of worry or frustration. Having subtextualized their paragraphs, the students could not find them.

  “But why all the consternation, my adolescent acolytes?” Nicodemus asked with great relish. “Worried that you won’t be able to turn in your assignments? If you’ve lost your subtext, all you need do is recall my description of how to glean such texts. Or … were you perhaps not paying the closest attention?”

  This won him a chorus of good-natured boos and accusations that he had set them up … which of course he had.

  So, enjoying himself entirely too much, Nicodemus repeated his lecture on gleaning, now with the class’s dedicated attention. Most of the students retrieved and inscribed their subtext by the time he had finished. With a little personal attention, the remaining students did likewise. Soon the class had lined up and, on their way out, handed their spellbooks to him.

  After locking up the lecture hall, Nicodemus walked outside and looked out on the city of Leanda, named for the woman who had created the new age.

  A cold wind was blowing, but Nicodemus paused at the top of the academy’s stairs to take in his new and last home. It was still a small place, more of a frontier colony than a proper city. There were maybe seven hundred buildings, most made of wood. The only stone structures were the pyromantic cannon turrets by the river, a new infirmary, and a hall of government.

  Leanda was built in a wide and verdant river valley. To the south rose hills covered with cypress forests. Inland, the trees stood tall and straight with great strata of pine boughs. Beneath them grew ferns and laurels in an understory that reminded Nicodemus of the Spirish redwood forests. On the coast, the cypress grew short and thick, contorting themselves into strangely evocative wind-sculptured shapes.

  The coast itself consisted of rocky cliffs that stretched for thousands of miles. Just offshore of the Leana River, down through the cold waters, fishermen caught glimpses of ancient and toppled towers covered with kelp.

  North of Leanda, the land stretched out into a sunny savanna that once had been and would soon again be rich farmland. Beyond the savanna towered massive gray mountains, their peaks snowy even in the dry season.

  And beyond these mountains … who could say what would be found? There was an entire continent to rediscover.

  Nicodemus came out of his reverie when he realized that Dhrun and his grandson had sat down at the bottom of the academy’s stars.

  When deconstructing the draconic aspects of Francesca’s text, Leandra had protected the draconic text within Dhrun. Through a process that Nicodemus did not understand and preferred not to contemplate, the result of hiding the draconic text within Dhrun was a pregnancy that had locked the divinity complex into her Nika manifestation for years.

  Dhrun remembered a brief conversation in which Leandra hinted at the reason for her inability to change manifestations. Leandra had claimed she needed more time to see how Dhrun’s texts would react. But that time had not yet come when Leandra sacrificed herself.

  Years after Leandra’s death, Dhrun had given birth to her son. Though he appeared to be a normal male infant, Francesca declared that he would be the next dragon, and the only dragon left in the world.

  Nicodemus had wanted to name the boy Agwu after his old teacher. Francesca had liked the idea, but Dhrun wanted her son to have a connection to Ixos and so named him Tarakam, which came from the ancient Lotus Culture word for star. Since turning eleven, the boy had decided he could only be called Kam.

  The boy had inherited the bold features of Dhrun’s male incarnation, Leandra’s glossy black hair, and his grandfather’s green eyes. His grandmother’s inheritance, however, had not yet surfaced. As each day went by, Nicodemus had a sinking certainty that the emergence of Kam’s draconic nature would coincide with his adolescence. So it went.

  Presently, Dhrun was sitting in his male incarnation and tearing off pieces of the rosemary flatbread that was becoming the city’s signature dish. It seemed that father and son would eat alternate strips of bread. As Nicodemus approached, he felt the particular kind of silence that follows a family argument.

  “Got any spare flatbread?” Nicodemus asked.

  “Grampa!” Kam said while leaping up to hug his hip.

  Dhrun sighed in a way that made Nicodemus suspect that Kam’s sudden display of affection was directed more at his parent than his grandparent. “Hey there,” Nicodemus said while patting his grandson’s head. “Rough day?” he asked of Dhrun while accepting a strip of flatbread.

  “Bit of a disagreement about how much time our little hero should spend at lessons and chores versus wrestling and playing with his friends.”

  “Ah, the injustices of childhood,” Nicodemus said with a sigh and they set off down the road.

  It was a late-winter day, clear and crisp. The sun was low in the west and a chill was coming on.

  Their family compound was a tiny thing compared to what they had left in Chandralu. Its architecture was that of the new frontier style—no pavilions, many small rooms, everything unpainted wood and bold arches. Nicodemus found John sleeping by the fire.

  The old spellwright had come with them across the ocean. What hair he had left was snowy white. Over the past year, John’s vision had dimmed and his memory loosened. Nicodemus was beginning to fear that he would have to say goodbye to his old friend far sooner than he wished.

  John woke when Nicodemus entered the study and announced that a ship from Chandralu had docked that morning. A messenger had brought a package to the compound. Nicodemus opened it to find a stack of letters from Doria.

  He sat down by the fire and went through them, reading the important passages aloud for John and Dhrun. Age might have slowed Doria down, but it hadn’t blunted her wit, as evidenced by her satirization of Chandralu’s politicians. Next Doria complained that the rebuilt city was too large and sprawling and that the sudden proliferation of spellwrights was creating more snobbery among the old guard of hydromancers than there ever had been before.

  In other news, Doria reported that Lolo and Holokai’s reincarnation had fused into a new divinity complex. This was not surprising. The rise of magical literacy had reduced the amount of prayer and forced many deities to devise creative ways of garnering and conserving divine language.

  More distressingly, Doria reported that throughout all the human lands, the birthrate was falling. This had been an unexpected consequence of Leandra’s world change. Spellwrights had been unable to conceive children together before the change and very few could manage it now. There was talk that with the rising expertise in Language Prime—by far the most difficult magical language for any spellwright—it might be necessary for humanity to start writing, rather than conceiving, their progeny. Nicodemus could not speculate as to if that was even possible, but he had no doubt that whatever the future held, it would be interesting.

  When Francesca returned, Nicodemus stopped reading. Everyone in the compound could tell by her expression that it had not been a good day in the infirmary. Nicodemus put the letters away and drank tea with his wife while waiting for dinner. One of her patients had died unexpectedly and no one was sure why.

  Francesca was filled with doubts as to whether she had done the right thing for her patient, while at the same time being filled with certainty that the other physicians and some of the nurses had done the wrong thing for her patient. Nicodemus had long ago realized that these two feelings were almost universally present in any practicing physician. Fortunately, the tea soothed Francesca and they went in to a dinner of salmon, potatoes, kale.

  Since losing her draconic text, Francesca had begun to age. She had strands of gray among her lon
g brown hair and laugh lines around her eyes. In response to the stressful day in the hospital, she drank one more than her usual glass of wine. At first it made her moodier, but then she began to laugh longer and louder at the family jokes. To Nicodemus, she was as beautiful as she had been when they both had been young and foolish and fighting for their lives in Avel.

  That night, under heavy sheets to keep away the winter chill, Nicodemus and Francesca gently made love. It didn’t happen as much as it used to, but it was still one of the few things in life that never disappointed.

  Later, when their room was filled with three moonlight, Nicodemus woke from a nightmare about their daughter. He had been in the crater lake again, swimming with Leandra’s lifeless body toward the shore. But instead of hauling her onto the rocks, paralysis washed through him and he drowned beside his daughter.

  The bed now felt oppressively hot. He peeled off the topmost blanket and after wrapping it around his shoulders padded out onto the tiny wooden balcony. Their compound stood atop a hill north of the city’s center, and from this vantage point Nicodemus looked out on the few late-burning lamps and a wide river made glassy bright by three moons. Beyond, the hills and their dark forests were slowly being covered by fog. The air was bracingly cold and smelled of the cypress trees and the sea.

  Nicodemus hugged his blanket tighter and thought of distant Starhaven. The dark spires would be under a sheet of snow now. He thought of himself as a boy, of Magister Shannon. That gave him pause, made him blow out a long breath that turned to feathery vapor in the cold moonlight. Magister Shannon, the old man had been the only father Nicodemus had ever truly known. He thought of Shannon’s Numinous ghost, wondered what it was doing in the necropolis below Starfall Keep.

  It was, Nicodemus realized, time for him to think about ghostwriting. Maybe he didn’t need to start creating his textual replacement just yet, but he should research the subject.

  A gust of wind sent Nicodemus’s long hair flying. As he gathered it in, he thought about the city of Avel surrounded by wind-tossed savanna. He thought about his daughter sailing in a catamaran over bright blue waters.

  More than anyone else he had ever known in his life, Leandra had exhibited the limitless potentials—grand and grotesque—of a soul. He thought of those she had murdered and those she had saved. She had been gone from his life for so long and would be gone much longer. He thought then, a foolish and idle fancy, that he could hear the particular silence she made in death. He supposed the world would ring with that silence until she returned, if she ever did.

  This heartache he struggled with was an old one. After twelve years of battling it, he still was not immune to the hollowness the heartache produced; however, he could put it aside more quickly, which is what he did while looking north at the white-capped mountains.

  Looking at the distant peaks, Nicodemus shook off his solemnity. He had come to the comfortable and final stage in life. He would become the hoary-headed professor and watch his family intertwine its fate with the young city around them. And although Nicodemus’s place would evermore be in the academy, he could look out at the rediscovered continent that rolled away before him and know there would be relics to discover, landscapes to explore, love and blood and desire and disgust. All that. Same as there had been. Same as there always would be. The difference was that it was no longer he who would venture out to find it.

  Adventure would be for others now; Tarakam likely, when he was old enough.

  “Nico?” Francesca said sleepily.

  He turned and saw her coming onto the balcony, naked and so pale she seemed to glow in the moonlight. He opened up his blanket and she came to him. He still found it pleasing to see how her fair shape fit into his dark one. He wrapped the blanket around them both.

  She pressed her face against his chest and mumbled, “Feet are cold.”

  “But all the moons are out tonight.”

  “They’ll still be out if we’re in bed.” She mashed her face into his chest again. “Another nightmare about Lea?”

  “Just a brief one.”

  “You okay now?”

  “Okay now.”

  “Back to bed?”

  “All right,” he said and took a last look at the distant mountains. Then he walked into a bedroom that seemed unimaginably black after the moonlight. They slipped under the covers and he listened to the sound of her breath.

  In the moment when he was poised between this world and that of a dream, Nicodemus marveled at the limitless potentials, good and bad, that humanity might discover in itself now that it was composed of so many extraordinary authors.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  There are two stories in every novel—one between the first and final words, another only hinted at in the acknowledgments. This other, obscured story features a cast of unsung and magnificent people who helped the author create and refine. Spellbreaker is no different.

  I plotted this book as a medical student and drafted it in the calm months between graduation and intern year. During this time, my father, Dr. Randolph Charlton, was Spellbreaker’s first reader and supporter. Dad did everything from editing early drafts to housing me when my financial aid ran out. Of course, his influence on my writing started long before then. Ten years ago, when I moved in with Dad to help him cope with chemotherapy, he taught me many hard lessons about the themes of disease, cancer, and healing—which feature throughout this trilogy. I’m fortunate to be able to dedicate this book to him. I’ve also been blessed that my mother and sister, Louise and Genevieve, have been so supportive of my writing.

  This book had many editorial guardian angels. Foremost among them is Miriam Weinberg, at Tor, who helped me polish the prose, condense the plot, and deepen character development. Nina Lourie at Macmillan provided wise advice and support when the trilogy was orphaned. Patrick Nielsen Hayden at Tor adopted the series at a time of great need. Natasha Bardon of Harper Voyager UK greatly improved several early drafts and helped me enrich each of the characters. My literary agent, Matt Bialer, provided advice and support throughout all the twists and turns.

  Beta readers are the best thing that can happen to a writer, and I had some of the best happen to me. Megan Messinger took an early, messy draft and told me exactly how to fix the plot holes. Ross Eaton saved me from embarrassment by finding a wide array of errors and inconsistencies; he also provided incredibly helpful tips about how to improve several scenes. Dr. Nina Nuangchamnong provided expert critiques for those scenes involving obstetrics and advice about how to respectfully world-build those aspects of Ixos inspired by Southeast Asia. Dr. Sanjay Reddy—a master clinician and, to my surprise, a big epic fantasy fan—was one week my attending physician on general medicine wards, the next my line editor and advisor about South Asia–inspired Ixos. Kevin Moffitt critiqued this book with a keen eye and used his expertise as a professor of hydrogeology to help me dream up the hydromancers and the city of Chandralu. John Kwiatkowski, of the amazing bookstore Murder by the Book, found several key inconsistencies and provided expert critiques.

  Finally and most importantly, the Spellwright Trilogy has enjoyed the support of the many enthusiastic and patient readers—many of whom have been gracious enough to befriend me via social media or my blog. Many times I’ve been humbled and inspired by the accounts of how readers or their loved ones have adapted to, struggled with, or triumphed because of unique personal differences or disabilities. To my readers, I am grateful that you have followed me during the journey of these past three books and hope that you will join me again for the next.

  TOR BOOKS BY BLAKE CHARLTON

  Spellwright

  Spellbound

  Spellbreaker

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Blake Charlton is now a proud dyslexic, but as a boy he hated the condition that kept him effectively illiterate. He learned to read fluently by sneaking fantasy novels into seventh grade special-ed study hall. Since then he has been (in no particular order) a JV football coach, a high school Eng
lish teacher, bald, a medical student, a chronically semi-employed writer, a resident physician, and a special-education advocate. He is currently a clinical fellow in cardiology at the University of California, San Francisco.

  Blake’s nonfiction has appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine, The British Medical Journal, and The New York Times, among others.

  Blake’s science fiction short stories have appeared in the Seeds of Change and the Unfettered anthologies. Spellbreaker is his third novel and the final installment of the Spellwright Trilogy.

  You can visit Blake at www.blakecharlton.com. Or sign up for email updates here.

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  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Map

  Epigraphs

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26