“Only that humans have tertiary cognition,” Nicodemus answered. “And that constructs can have secondary or primary cognition, which are like tertiary but with restrictions on what they can think or want or remember.”
“And quaternary?” Shannon asked.
Nicodemus hesitated. “Are thoughts that are unthinkable without certain texts cast about one’s mind.”
“Quite right, but do you know what that means?”
“Haven’t the faintest,” Nicodemus admitted with a laugh. “An unthinkable thought sounds like a silent noise or illuminating darkness.”
Shannon smiled. “But you’ve already thought unthinkable thoughts. In your nightmares, you thought as both yourself and as other creatures. That phenomenon, what we call shared consciousness, is the simplest form of quaternary cognition. At its most basic level, quaternary cognition involves thinking with at least two minds-one inside your head, another made of magical text.”
“So the murderer cast a spell on my sleeping mind that allowed me to think with that spell?”
“Yes, but perhaps it was not the murderer who cast it,” Shannon replied slowly. “Given what the villain told me, it’s likely he manipulated the dreams of Adan and Eric to lure them out of Starhaven’s walls. But your nightmares seem to warn rather than lure. The vision of the glen must have been a vision of poor Eric’s fate. The fiend wouldn’t want you to know how and where he’s attacking cacographers.”
“But then where are the dreams coming from?”
“We’ve no way of knowing,” Shannon said, scratching his beard. “But we might ask how the nightmares are related. You dreamed of the dragon attacking Trillinon and the murderer attacking Eric while both events were happening. Whoever or whatever is sending you these dreams wants you to know about these events. The dream-sender must want us to find a connection between them. Perhaps the murderer is connected to the dragon.”
“And what of the turtles underground?”
“That one is the strangest of all. Perhaps future dreams will reveal more.” Another gust of wind set the old man’s white dreadlocks swaying.
“But why send these dreams to me?” Nicodemus asked, his voice growing strained. “And Eric and Adan, what do their deaths…”
Shannon placed a hand on his shoulder. “It is horrifying, I know, but we’ve no time to panic or grieve. We have to think logically.”
The old man blew out a breath, his cheeks bulging. “We know the murderer seeks you so that you might replenish some artifact, an emerald. I’m unsure what he meant by ‘replenish,’ but I’m positive that he will attack the Drum Tower boys in an attempt to find you. We must protect you and the other cacographers. That’s why we’re here.”
“Magister, the druid spoke of a demon-worshiper being nearby. Perhaps we should consult her.”
“Not until we know more about her and the murderer.” The wizard grimaced. “And we know almost nothing for fact.”
Nicodemus blinked. “We know the murderer stole my ability to spell.”
“That is the druid’s explanation.”
A strange heat stirred in Nicodemus’s chest. “But you said the creature needs me to replenish some artifact. You said the monster claimed his master has been using a gem on me when I was sleeping. That must be why I’m a cacographer.”
Nicodemus’s hands began to tremble. That had to be it! He was being crippled by magic; therefore, he might yet be made whole by magic.
“Magister! If I could escape this creature, or maybe recover this gem, I would lose my cacography! Maybe I truly am the Halcyon.”
“Nicodemus, I do not like to hear you talk like this.”
“You think I’m the one of the counter-prophecy? The Storm Petrel?”
The wizard shook his head. “Given what has happened, you likely are connected to the prophecy in some way, but it is too early to say how you-”
“But in Magistra Finn’s library, the monster said the emerald gave him power in Language Prime. Magister, what is Language Prime?”
A golden Numinous arc leaped between Azure and Shannon. The parrot raised her head to examine Nicodemus.
“My boy, listen carefully. Language Prime is a very dangerous, very blasphemous idea. You must never mention it in public hearing.”
“But why?” Nicodemus asked. He had to make the old man see that he wasn’t supposed to be crippled.
“Only grand wizards may know of it.”
“But Magister, given the situation-”
The old man held up a hand. “You don’t need to convince me. But promise to keep what I am about to tell you in the strictest secrecy.”
Nicodemus swore on every demigod in the Celestial Canon.
With a solemn nod, the wizard began: “Perhaps you’ve learned that when time began, there was only lifeless dust. Into this barren world the Creator spoke the first words. These words were in Language Prime, the first magical language, the language from which all other languages come.”
Another gust of cold wind set Shannon’s silvery locks swaying again. “The first words created this living world and every creature upon it. Modern scholars believe that after that point Language Prime ceased to exist. But long ago, immediately after the Exodus, when the deities awoke on the new continent, they had no memory and little sense. Many claimed to know the Creator’s own language. Some claimed to speak directly to the Creator. In their efforts to master Language Prime and rule all of humanity, the awoken deities began the Blood Crusades. The resulting chaos and war nearly destroyed humanity. That is why the pursuit of Language Prime is deemed blasphemy.”
Shannon paused and took in a long breath. “That is why it is so easy for modern scholars to believe that Language Prime no longer exists. If they thought otherwise, it would spark religious wars that would destroy what peace the landfall kingdoms have known.”
Nicodemus nodded eagerly. “But you think differently, Magister? You believe Language Prime exists?”
“I don’t believe it exists; I know it does.”
“But how?”
Shannon pinched the bridge of his nose. “Because the last sight I ever saw-the image that burned all mundane vision from my eyes-was of two sentences written in Language Prime.”
Deirdre made it halfway around the tower before something hit her from behind.
Pain exploded across her left shoulder and sent her sprawling onto the dusty floor. Next to her clattered the steel bar she had struck into the creature’s forearm. The thing must have thrown it.
She rolled over and regained her feet just in time to meet the creature’s overhead slash with her remaining bar. She countered with a quick thrust.
The creature, still wrapped in white, leaped back. His greatsword flicked out in a two-handed slash. Deirdre batted down the blade with the bar and stepped in to slam her elbow into the thing’s face.
Something that felt like a nose flattened under her blow.
The thing cried out and fell. A dust cloud exploded from under his back as he hit the floor.
Deirdre dove for the thing’s sword.
But the monster was still too quick; he squirmed back and away, holding the weapon above her short reach. With a hiss, the thing slashed with the sword across her side.
As the blade rasped against her rib bones, the world exploded into blackness. Deirdre leaped away onto her back. The creature tried to stand, but she kicked her boot toe into his neck. With a strangled cry, the thing toppled backward. Deirdre regained her feet and slammed the bar down on the creature’s shin.
She fled.
Nicodemus blinked. “You were blinded by Language Prime?”
The grand wizard rubbed his eyes wearily. “The story starts in Astrophell. I was a player in the game of factions then and a little arrogant. I fell in love with the magically illiterate grandniece of Astrophell’s provost. When I got her with child, we married in secret.”
Nicodemus nodded mutely.
The old man continued. “My enemies discovered my pr
egnant wife and used her to create scandal. It became a rallying point for the malcontent factions-mostly those that wanted the Order to exert more influence over the kingdoms. Hoping to hide the scandal, the provost announced his plan to send my wife and child away to different clandestine locations where neither I nor the malcontents could find them. I was terrified. I had to act before my wife gave birth, before the Provost could separate them. And so… I sought divine intervention.”
“You found our god? You spoke to Hakeem?”
Shannon nodded.
“But no one… you…” Nicodemus stammered. “How?”
A slight smile stole across the wizard’s lips. “It’s something of a legend among those that seek to break into literary strongholds. My research into textual intelligence gave me an advantage. I wrote a quaternary cognition spell that allowed me to think as the stronghold.”
“As the stronghold?”
The old man tapped his forehead. “Impossible, I know, but remember quaternary cognition allows one to think the unthinkable. I couldn’t explain it to you better without casting the spell on you. But regardless, the important part was that armed with this text, I snuck into the stronghold and fought its defensive language. For half a mile, I cut and slashed and edited to reach our god’s temple.”
Shannon’s smile grew. “Hakeem was reading at a desk when I reached him. He manifests himself as a thin, tawny-skinned man with silver hair and a long beard. It was the most mundane scene imaginable, and there I was stumbling into his temple, bristling with attack spells and soaked in my own blood. Without even looking up, Hakeem raises a hand and says, ‘A moment, my son, I’m near the end of a chapter.’”
Nicodemus’s eyes widened. “And then?”
“Then he finished the chapter, of course.” Shannon laughed. “And I threw myself at his feet and begged for mercy. I told him I would do anything for my family-I’d undertake any task, perform any labor; I’d die for them… and Hakeem did indeed have a task for me.”
The wizard’s smile fell into a grim line. “A malicious godspell from one of Hakeem’s enemies had penetrated his defenses and burrowed into his ark, the physical seat of his soul. All attempts to disspell this traplike curse had failed. So, because the trap could not be disarmed, it had to be sprung.”
“Hakeem made you take on the curse?”
“Made me? I embraced it. It was written to destroy a god, not a man. There was a chance it would do nothing at all to me; there was a chance it would kill me outright. I didn’t care. Without my wife or son, I couldn’t live.”
“And the curse was written in Language Prime? Is that how you know it exists?”
The old wizard grimaced. “The divine curse imbued knowledge into its victim’s mind and then tried to use that knowledge to harm the victim. Hakeem told me plainly that if I survived, he would use his godspell to remove all my memories of the text.”
Shannon narrowed his white eyes. “I remember walking into a small, dark room. I remember Hakeem’s ark-a tall crystal obelisk covered with moving runes. Then the world became a blur; I was moving at a tremendous speed but not moving at all. Two sentences appeared. Each one twisted around the other, like two snakes mating. The runes exploded and pain lanced through my eyes. Then, nothing. No image, no vision, only… blindness.”
Nicodemus held his breath.
Shannon sighed. “I woke in a caravan wagon headed for Besh-Lo. Hakeem had caused every Astrophell wizard to become terrified by the idea of harming my wife and son. He even compelled the merchants employed by the Order to give my wife a comfortable position in one of their trading houses. However, perhaps threatened by my infiltration of his temple, he did not extend such protection to me. He had allowed the provost to seize my research texts and exile me to Starhaven.”
Nicodemus paused for what he hoped was a sympathetic moment before pushing on. “But the divine curse, Magister, it taught you Language Prime?”
“It did, and Hakeem erased all my memories of it, except for the image of the two sentences. Until now, I’ve never told a single soul, living or textual, about that memory. I was always too afraid of what Hakeem might have to do to remove it.”
Nicodemus felt his heart begin to kick. “So it’s true then: Language Prime is real. Then there might be some connection between me and it. The monster must be after me because of that. Magister, don’t you see? I’m not supposed to be a cacographer.”
Shannon held up a hand. “Nicodemus, you’re jumping to conclusions. The creature said he needed you to replenish an emerald. He did not connect you to Language Prime. You must understand that no human could comprehend Language Prime.”
“But how do you know that?”
“Because,” Shannon said, “Language Prime has only four runes.”
A gust of wind swept across the bridge. It sent Nicodemus’s long black hair flying and blew Azure from Shannon’s shoulder. The poor bird had to flap hard just to stay over the bridge.
“Four runes!” Nicodemus said while struggling to tame his hair. “The language from which all other languages come has only four runes?”
Shannon held his arm up as a perch for Azure. “Strange but simple geometric runes. Two were hexagons with a few radial strokes; the other two were pentagons attached to similar hexagons.”
“But, Magister, that can’t be right.”
“It’s difficult to believe,” Shannon said as Azure landed on his arm. “The simplest common language possesses twenty-two runes. And the most complex, the shaman’s high language, has over sixty thousand runes.”
As the wind relented, Nicodemus tucked his hair into his robes. “But a language with only four runes could have only four single-rune words, sixteen two-rune words, sixty-four three-rune words, and so on.”
“Exactly,” Shannon said, helping Azure climb back onto his shoulder. “Primal words must be very long. Consider that a common language possesses a hundred thousand words, Numinous three times that. So, assuming Language Prime has a vocabulary of at least three hundred thousand, it would need words up to…” He paused to calculate. “Nine runes long to create all those words. But if it had twenty runes, it would need words only…” Another pause. “Only five runes long.”
Nicodemus closed his eyes and tried to figure out what calculations his teacher had used to discern that.
Shannon let out a long sigh. “And with only four runes, those long words would be nearly indistinguishable. Think of trying to memorize a thousand nine-digit numbers consisting of the numerals one through four. Impossible. And the sentences would be hundreds, maybe thousands of runes long. Utter gibberish.”
Nicodemus stopped calculating and laughed. “Imagine trying to spell in that language. Everyone would be a cacographer.”
Shannon started to say something and then paused. He frowned. His mouth opened, closed, opened again. “Nicodemus… that is a profound idea.”
“It is?”
A contrary breeze, this one blowing from Starhaven, flowed over the bridge. It brought with it the autumnal scents of moldy leaves and wood smoke.
Shannon was nodding. “What if cacography is simply a mismatch between a mind and a language? Our languages express meaning in a way your mind has trouble reproducing consistently. But you do not structure them illogically. When I edit your texts, they work without error.”
Nicodemus nodded, his ears hot with embarrassment.
“But could we compose a language your mind could easily process? If so, then the reverse should be true: we should also be able to create a language so complex that not even the most powerful mind could spell it consistently.”
“Oh,” Nicodemus said, realizing what Shannon meant. “And maybe that’s what the Creator did when making Language Prime. It could be a language so complex that any human attempting to read or write it would be cacographic.”
“More than cacographic, completely incompetent.”
Nicodemus’s hands again began to tremble with excitement. “Magister, there might be
a connection between Language Prime and my cacography. Maybe the druid is right. Maybe the monster stole part of me and put it into the emerald. Maybe I’m not supposed to be cacographic!”
Rather than reply, Shannon began to walk toward the Spindle’s end. Before them loomed the mountain’s rock face and the Chthonic engravings-ivy leaves to the left and the geometric design to the right.
The old man spoke. “My boy, we may be witnessing the first days of prophecy. This morning’s dragon attack on Trillinon could mark the beginning of a conflict that will engulf all kingdoms and threaten human language itself. But what frightens me just now is the change I hear in your voice.”
He stopped and turned to Nicodemus. “Do you believe that you are the Halcyon?”
“I-” Nicodemus stammered. “You think I’m being foolish to believe that the druid might be right about prophecy?”
The old wizard shook his head. “Not in the least. Besides the present circumstances linking you to prophecy, I have noted the strange effect you have had on some texts. Just last night when you misspelled a gargoyle, you elevated her freedom of thought. Such a phenomenon is unheard of. Perhaps this happened because you are the Halcyon, perhaps because of another reason tied to prophecy. But you didn’t answer my question: Do you believe you are the Halcyon?”
“I haven’t… I don’t know if I am or not. I suppose you’re right, we can’t jump to conclusions. But my point is about cacography. If the murderer magically stole my ability to spell, perhaps I can magically get it back!”
Shannon folded his arms. “Which matters more, fulfilling your role in prophecy or removing your cacography?”
Nicodemus shook his head. “If a demon-worshiper stole my ability to spell, they must be connected. Magister, don’t you see? Perhaps I am not a true cacographer.”
“A true cacographer?” Shannon asked, eyebrows rising. “Nicodemus, even if we erased your disability completely, it wouldn’t undo what has already happened to you. Regarding who you truly are, regarding what truly matters, ending your cacography wouldn’t change anything.”
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