The boy promised, and suddenly Nicodemus had to stifle a yawn. Silently, he thanked Shannon for ordering him to nap before lunch.
“May I go now?” the boy asked glumly.
Nicodemus nodded. “Yes, yes. Catch up with your classmates. You don’t have to mention this conversation. If the preceptor asks, tell him I scolded you for being disrespectful.” He smiled at the boy.
Without a word, Derrick leaped up from his seat and hurried away.
Nicodemus yawned again and sat for a moment with his elbows on the desk, resting his exhausted head. He was about to stand when a sound made him look up toward the door.
He expected to see more evidence of subtextualized sentinels. Instead he saw that Derrick hadn’t left but was standing in the threshold.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
“No,” the boy said, looking Nicodemus in the eye for the first time. “But… thank you, Magister.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
When Deirdre regained consciousness, she was lying on the floor, crying.
Kyran knelt beside her, running his hands through her hair and telling her that everything would be all right.
Above him stretched a blank stone ceiling. They were back in their Starhaven quarters.
Slowly her eyes dried. “What happened?” she asked. Her stomach ached and her mouth and throat burned.
“We were subtextualized and spying on the boy’s lesson when another subtexualized spellwright, most likely Amadi Okeke, arrived,” Kyran rumbled. “You fell into a seizure and I carried you here.”
She sat up. “Did the sentinel detect us?”
He shook his head.
“And do the other druids suspect anything?”
Again a head shake.
“Thank Bridget and Boann both,” she mumbled while wiping her mouth. The back of her hand came away covered with soggy bits of bread.
She looked at her protector.
“Vomit. Came up when you were seizing. You inhaled some of it. I had texts on hand to clear your lungs. But I can’t promise your safety if the fits grow worse.”
“Such is the divine illness,” Deirdre said, staring at the filth. “It is the goddess’s will.”
He sniffed. “Is it the goddess’s will that you should die?”
“Fitting punishment for what I did.”
Kyran’s hand appeared under her chin and turned her face to his. “For what we did.”
She looked away. “Ky, let’s not argue again about if I’m a fool or if you’re a fool or…”
He pulled her close. He had undone the wooden buttons of his sleeve to expose his arms for spellwriting, and now she pressed her cheek against his bare skin.
“Ky, I don’t know who I am,” she mumbled into his shoulder. “When I was seizing this time, I had horrible visions. I was standing on the banks of a Highland river when this wolf with a man’s head and red eyes jumped on me. And somehow I was stabbed again and again. I melted like oil and went flowing down the river.”
With gentle hands, Kyran smoothed her hair until she was calm again.
They both stood, he favoring his left leg as always. After a tremulous sigh, Deirdre looked around their austere room: a chest, a washstand, a chamber pot, two beds, Kyran’s oak walking staff leaning against the wall by the door.
She sat down by her pillow.
As Kyran joined her, a rat scurried within a nearby wall. “Tell me of your interview with the boy before he taught,” Kyran said while handing her a clean tunic.
“Frustrating.” She wiped her face. “He’s frightened and resists manipulation. Likely he’ll tell Shannon. But at least he understood what I said. It’s a seed that will grow later.”
Kyran’s eyes narrowed. “Grow when?”
She sighed. “The demon-worshiper who cursed him can’t be far. I don’t like it, but when the fighting starts he’ll see that I was telling the truth.”
Kyran shook his head and began to button up his sleeves. “You’re courting battle with a demon-worshiper merely to manipulate this boy?”
“I court nothing.” She stood. “I’d rather smuggle the boy from the fastness tonight, but he’s too frightened by his disability to leave his life here.” She began to pace. “Don’t look at me like that, Ky. A clash would be good for him. It will strengthen him for the coming struggles.”
“It might do that,” Kyran agreed. “Or it might kill him.”
As Shannon labored up steps of the Alacran Tower, Azure gazed through the stairwell’s geometric window screens. Outside lay Starhaven’s northwest quarter. Its many Spirish towers boasted pyriform brass domes. They stood as bold intermediates to the gray Lornish steeples to the south and the white hemispheres that topped the towers in the northeastern Imperial Quarter.
At times, Azure could glimpse the Bolide Garden far below. At this height, it seemed only a small brown square. Last summer Shannon had taken new quarters overlooking the garden. Ongoing renovations had filled the place with stone heaps and dirt piles.
Inside the stairwell, Azure examined the indigo wall tiles and the ceiling’s geometric mosaics.
Shannon, however, couldn’t appreciate what his familiar saw. He was too busy wondering if he had successfully covered his tracks. Earlier, while pretending to research several gargoyles, he had used a knifelike spell to cut into their executive texts. That done, he had written into the constructs memories of talking to him until an hour past midday. Then had come the task of eluding the sentinels Amadi had sent to guard him. Hopefully the two fools were still waiting for him to come out of a privy in the Marfil Tower.
Abruptly, a narrow hallway branched off to the right. When Shannon stopped to regain his breath, Azure wrote teasingly about his age and weakening legs. Shannon affected fatigue and dropped his shoulder so quickly the parrot was left flapping and dashing off laughing accusations of betrayal.
After Azure glanced up and down the stairwell, Shannon crept down the dark hallway and up a ladder to a small metal door. For centuries, Starhaven’s janitorial records had listed the door as broken: “Corrupted tumbler spell: unfrangible.” Janitorial saw no need to fix the door; it opened onto an insignificant gargoyle perch that overlooked the northern walls.
In truth, the door and the landing beyond were the fiercely guarded secret of Ejindu’s Sons-a political faction to which Shannon had once belonged.
Azure bobbed her head. She didn’t like the dark, claustrophobic space.
“A moment longer, old friend,” Shannon cooed while flicking a glowing mass of Numinous passwords into the door’s lock. It sprang open with an iron shriek.
Shannon carefully stepped out onto a narrow landing and beheld the bright landscape. To his left lay the vast, grassy coastal plain. Before him the western slopes of the Pinnacle Mountains stretched away to the horizon. Green alpine forests, spotted with scarlet or gold aspen thickets, covered the steep slopes.
He could make out the skeletons of several dead trees. It made him think of what Deirdre had said about the Silent Blight and trees dying across the continent.
A chill wind tugged at Shannon’s robes and set Azure flapping to keep her balance.
The landing itself was a narrow slab of gray stone surrounded by a crenellated barricade. To the right of the door, inside a small stone nook, slept an eyeless gargoyle with a bat’s face and a pudgy infant’s body. Shannon shook its shoulder.
The spell woke with a twitch. “My father has no ears,” it croaked. “My father taught me to hear. My father has no eyes; he taught me to see. My father is covered with cowhide.”
“Construct, you were fathered from a spellbook,” Shannon answered the verification riddle. “And my wisdom was fathered from a codex of Ejindu’s teachings. My name is Agwu Shannon.”
The gargoyle reached under its feet, into a stone recess that held its white-marble eyes. Other, heavier gargoyles would steal the eyes if it slept with them in.
The gargoyle inserted each marble sphere into its socket, then st
udied Shannon. “I siphoned a message for you from the last colaboris.” It drew from its belly a glowing, golden rectangle.
Shannon took the paragraph. The Numinous runes felt glassy smooth in his hands. He translated:
Ejindu’s Sons greet our Brother-in-Exile. We feared he had forsaken us. Since the attack on Trillinon and the horrible fire it unleashed, Astrophell has been in chaos.
We gladly accept the information our Brother-in-Exile has offered. We do not know if the events in Starhaven pertain to the Erasmine Prophecies. We think it unlikely that Nicodemus Weal is the Halcyon. However, we gladly provide what answers and assistance we can.
ANSWER: We know of no faction wishing our Brother or his students harm.
ANSWER: We have no knowledge of Mg. Nora Finn’s briber or murderer. No Language Prime revival is known to us.
ANSWER: We know little of Mg. Amadi Okeke other than that she has secretly sworn allegiance to the counter-prophecy faction.
ANSWER: In exchange for our Brother’s public pledge of support, we shall grant him full use of our Starhaven constructs; however, at this time, we are unwilling to endanger any of our few Starhaven spellwrights by assigning them to your cause.
We hope this generous support convinces our Brother to rejoin the Sons in our struggle for a united and peaceful Numinous Order.
Shannon let out a long, relieved breath. This response to his original message, sent earlier that morning, was better than expected. He ripped the sentences apart and began mulling over the answers.
The Sons were always well informed of academic politics. If they did not know of a plot against him, then he was sure none existed. That, taken with their ignorance of Nora Finn’s briber and murderer, provided strong evidence that the creature Shannon had encountered was not connected to the academy.
Amadi’s allegiance to the counter-prophecy factions was more troubling. Sentinels were prohibited from wizardly politics: a fact that did not stop many sentinels from covertly advancing a faction’s interests.
More important, Amadi’s allegiance explained why the provost-a counter-prophecy supporter-had appointed her to lead the investigation. It also explained her interest in Nicodemus’s scar shaped like an Inconjunct and why she had wanted to know what the provost had thought of it. Amadi had also asked the boy if he noticed that chaos increased around him. She must suspect that Nicodemus was not the Halcyon, but the Storm Petrel-a destroyer predicted by the counter-prophecy to oppose the Halcyon.
“Magister, how do you answer?” the bat-faced gargoyle croaked.
Shannon started; he had forgotten about the Sons’ offer of assistance. “Construct, have you read the message?”
The spell wrinkled its bat nose. “I have, as my author intended me to.”
“I do not accuse you, gargoyle, I simply need some answers. How many constructs do the Sons command? Do they still control the compluvium?”
The gargoyle lifted a chubby hand to stroke a long, batlike ear. “We do still hold that portion of the roofworld. As well as two Lornish towers and five Spirish ones. We number fifty-four light- and middle-weight gargoyles; twelve war-weight brutes-only two of quickness. There are also three guardian spells.”
Shannon idly scratched Azure’s neck and thought about this. “I would require both war-quick gargoyles to reside in the compluvium. There must also be enough middle-weight gargoyles to work the Fool’s Ladder.”
The bat-faced construct began stroking his other ear. “Your purpose?”
“I may need the war texts to guard and perhaps evacuate nine cacographic boys.”
The gargoyle blinked. “Their value?”
“They are living, breathing boys,” Shannon snapped.
The bat-faced thing shrugged. “The brutes can be edited immediately, but the Fool’s Ladder will take at least three hours to assemble.”
Shannon took a long breath. It would have been better if the Sons had committed some of their members. Powerful as war-quick gargoyles were, they were no substitute for living authors. Worse was the asking price. Publicly pledging his support to the Sons would end Shannon’s freedom from politics. He would have to commit himself to any cause the faction chose. It would make him, once again, a game piece on a bloody board.
Shannon slowly exhaled as he thought about Nicodemus. Without warning, his memory came alive with the image of his long-dead wife, her dark eyes…
“I pledge myself to Ejindu’s Sons,” Shannon announced as he forged a Numinous proclamation of his allegiance.
The construct struggled up onto its infant feet to formally accept the paragraph with a bow.
“One more thing,” the grand wizard said, removing a long cloth-wrapped object from his robes, “do you know of a creature or construct that forms flesh when vital but once deconstructed becomes this?” He unwrapped the object.
The gargoyle made a long, frowning study of the severed clay arm. “No, Magister.”
Shannon grunted. “Thank you, gargoyle. You have served me well. I wish you quiet dreams.” He bowed.
Clumsily, the construct returned the bow before plucking out its eyes and settling down on the roof to sleep.
Shannon walked back into the tower. He wasn’t any closer to discovering who or what the murderer was, but at least he had taken steps to confound the creature’s next assault.
Thinking murder, the creature stepped through the aspen thicket and grumbled about Shannon’s failure to mount a defense. Already one dire surprise awaited the old goat in Starhaven, and soon the creature would rip another life away from him.
He wondered what could be keeping the fool from responding. True, the murder investigation would prevent Shannon from alerting the sentinels. And true, the old human probably thought he had won time by cutting off the creature’s arm.
The memory of silver text slicing through tendon and bone made the creature flex his new hand. Maybe he’d wrench off Shannon’s arm and see if it came back.
The creature’s task in Starhaven, though of paramount importance, was a dull one. And though he looked forward to killing Shannon, he desired more practice matching wits against a human. His survival might one day depend on understanding the beasts.
All around the creature stood white aspen trees. The chill autumn nights had lacquered their leaves with bright yellow. Above, beyond the brightly colored canopy, stretched a vivid blue sky interrupted only by Starhaven’s many dark, incongruous towers.
The creature stopped, shifted his white cloak, and considered the ancient city. Different civilizations had dressed up the towers, but underneath the human frippery stood stones still Chthonic. The flowing of each thin bridge into its towers, the undulation of the walls-they spoke of stone fluidity. How the humans had slaughtered the Chthonic race was a mystery beyond the creature’s comprehension.
Indeed, the creature found human nature itself mystifying. In groups, the beasts delighted in codifying laws, religions, grammars. And yet, the creature had yet to encounter a human who did not daily commit a crime or a sin or both. Worse, humans spoke and wrote carelessly, erratically-violating their own grammars, yet easily understanding their own illogical language.
At times, the creature was amazed he had learned human communication at all. His former master had allowed him little contact with the beasts.
Perhaps more intense observation would help. He had already edited a gargoyle near the top of the Erasmine Spire so that it would monitor the wizard’s colaboris spells. Further infiltration of Starhaven’s gargoyles might be useful. The creature had thought of writing a small, rat-sized gargoyle with augmented hearing. Such a construct could gather information about how the humans lived.
A scrub jay’s cry brought his gaze downward. Twenty feet ahead lay a clearing where the younger wizards went to drink stolen wine or roll together in the grass.
The creature walked to the trees’ edge. His white cloak matched the aspen trunks. Below stretched a small clearing of knee-high grass.
As he waited, the
creature thought about Shannon. The wizard had disappointed; this next counter-strike might cripple the old man.
The creature did not need to return to Trillinon now that the flawed dragon had flown. The other demon-worshipers had their orders. That left plenty of time to find the boy and replenish the emerald-a task so important, it had to be kept secret from the other demon-worshipers. The creature had wanted something like a challenge, but he couldn’t risk losing the cacographer.
To the north, a twig snapped. Moving among the trees was a short human in black robes. The plan had worked; the young were easily swayed by dreams.
But perhaps this boy was not the one he sought. Perhaps Shannon and he would play another round. Perhaps the old fool would put up a fight before the creature tore out his throat.
The black-robed human moved closer to the clearing’s edge.
The creature frowned and decided that he shouldn’t wish for a prolonged match with Shannon. If the emerald were lost, he would have to start over.
The creature began to forge the long Language Prime sentences necessary to compose a canker curse. The War of Disjunction would come sooner if the text he was writing didn’t rip this child’s guts into bloody ribbons. The creature’s lips stretched into a long, lupine smile.
At the clearing’s edge-peering about with curious eyes for the beautiful meadow seen in a dream-was a young cacographic boy.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Nicodemus stifled a yawn and opened the door to Shannon’s quarters. The front room was a wide, sunlit place with an expanse of Trillinonish carpet, a writing desk, two bookcases, and four scroll racks.
Nicodemus removed his boots and socks in the Northern fashion and padded over to the windows. Outside the midday sun poured dazzling light onto the Bolide Garden.
Once the square had been a lush patch of grass lined with trees. Nicodemus had played among them as a neophyte. But two years ago the elms had died of an unknown disease.
Since then janitorial had undertaken a renovation of the entire square. The recent need to prepare for the convocation had stopped all landscaping and left the garden full of pale dirt.
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