“You’re right; we must flee.” Nicodemus pressed his hands to his mouth. “We have to-” He stopped.
Something was wrong.
“Deirdre, why didn’t you unbutton your sleeves for spellwriting?” he asked.
“The magic I use is different! No time to explain. Now, tell me, what do you need to bring?”
“The Index! I left it on the-” Nicodemus’s voice died as he turned toward the door and saw Devin’s body. “Devin,” he whispered.
Deirdre took his arm and turned him away. “Not now, Nicodemus. You can’t mourn now. Listen to me. We must get you down to Gray’s Crossing; there you’ll have my goddess’s protection. Then we can mourn, but now we must fly.”
“No,” he said, “we can’t, not without the other Drum Tower boys. They’re going with us. The golem is killing the male cacographers one by one. He doesn’t know that I’m the one he wants.”
“I didn’t know,” a soft, croaking voice said.
Deirdre and Nicodemus turned. Standing in the door frame was a hunched figure draped in white.
The stranger spoke again. “But I do now.”
Deirdre pulled Nicodemus behind her and drew her massive greatsword with one hand.
“There is no need for dramatics,” the creature sneered.
“I can’t stay long.” In the moonlight, Nicodemus could see little of the creature other than the white cloth covering his body. When he spoke, the air beneath his hood had become blurry.
Suddenly remembering the spell Shannon had written against the fiend, Nicodemus looked for his satchel. He wasn’t confident enough to extemporize Shannon’s new spell. But if he had the Index, he could refresh his knowledge of it. Maybe then he could attempt the spell.
But the book lay sprawled out on the other side of the common room, not seven feet from the golem.
“The promised arrival of Fellwroth,” Deirdre growled, raising her sword. “Villain, are you a lesser demon, or simply Typhon’s human lapdog?”
The creature laughed softly. “You know what I am, and you know I slew Typhoneus in your land more than a year ago. So let’s forgo the blandishments and move on to the exchange. I cannot take the boy now. I was running to that miserable little village. This pathetic golem was all I had available back here. I should have expected Typhon to plant some kind of guard on the boy.” The white robes shifted; the figure seemed to look around. “Who was it? The giant oaf or this broken-faced hussy?”
“I’ll rip your heart out!” Nicodemus snarled and stepped forward.
But Deirdre caught his hand. “Nicodemus, no,” she hissed. “If you have the chance, run.”
The golem wheezed a laugh. “Such courage, Nicodemus. It is good to finally learn your name.” The air below his pale hood again became blurry as if filled with a fine powder. He turned to Deirdre. “Does this mean you are refusing the exchange? It’s hard to imagine that you would be so stupid.”
“You make no sense, Fellwroth. The last time we met, I cleaved your head off. I’d be happy to do the same again.”
Nicodemus noticed the moonlight shifting along the back wall. Kyran! The subtextualized druid was sneaking up on the golem.
The creature laughed. “You have more audacity than brains, girl. Think about what you are doing. I have your rock, and with this dead hussy lying here”-he nodded to Devin’s body-“you can’t stay in Starhaven. The sentinels won’t hesitate to censor and bind you. They’ll leave you in a prison under some tower; reaching you and the boy then would be easier than picking apples.”
The golem drew a wheezing breath. “And if you venture outside of Starhaven’s walls, where I can spellwrite, you’ll face my full strength. You are trapped, so don’t be a fool. Give me the boy, and you will be rewarded.”
Deirdre shook her head. “Fellwroth, you are in no position to buy me. You should be more worried about your neck. You can’t use your magic here.”
“Fool,” the golem snapped. “You think I’m afraid of your blade or your man creeping behind me.” He laughed. “You won’t get-”
“Now!” Deirdre screamed as she sprung forward.
Kyran leaped from the shadows, bellowing a wordless war cry.
Deirdre reached the monster first. She slashed downward with her sword, landed a strike to the golem’s shoulder, and tore his white garment from chest to floor. Kyran stabbed something unseen into the golem’s back.
The white cloth collapsed as if filled with air.
Nicodemus dashed for the Index. But it was over before he picked the book off the ground.
Both druids were waving their hands before their faces and coughing. The air around them was gray.
“He knew he was safe all along,” Kyran managed to say between coughs. “With a body made of this, he could disengage almost instantly.”
Nicodemus stepped closer. The druids were enveloped by a thick cloud of dust.
“We’ve an hour,” Kyran said, “maybe less before the author can form a more substantial body. We must go!”
“What of the other cacographers?” Nicodemus asked, hugging the Index closer to his chest.
“They’re safe,” Deirdre replied. “The monster now knows you’re the one he wants. Quickly now, our lives and the fate of the Disjunction may depend on it. Tell me why the sentinels aren’t guarding the Drum Tower. Tell me everything.”
Nicodemus opened his mouth but did not speak. Fear had compelled him to tell Deirdre of the golem and of John’s behavior. He had been too shocked to be suspicious. But now that his wits were returning, he began to wonder how much he should trust the druids.
Deirdre took his hand. “Nicodemus, you are alive only because I gave you the Seed of Finding and because we came to your aid. You must trust us.”
Nicodemus shook his head. “I don’t know that-”
Kyran spoke. “Nicodemus, the enemy knows who you are and is coming for you. And the monster was right when he said we cannot remain in Starhaven. The sentinels will suspect us of murdering your friend.” He nodded toward Devin’s body. “We’re not safe here. Nor can you flee on your own. Outside Starhaven the creature will be powerful beyond your imagining. Your only hope is to come to our goddess’s ark in Gray’s Crossing. Only she can protect you.”
The druid was right. Nicodemus had no choice but to trust them. “We’re taking John,” he said.
Deirdre shook her head. “He’ll slow us down.”
“No,” he said. “We must take him. The sentinels will think he killed Devin. Leaving him here would be a death sentence.”
“Nicodemus,” Deirdre said carefully, “the man was cursed by a demon. We don’t know if we can trust him.”
“He’s coming.”
Kyran looked at Deirdre. “I could subdue the boy.”
“Try it!” Nicodemus replied hotly. “You could censor me, bind me, maybe even knock me unconscious. But you’ll never sneak my body through the front gates. Especially at this hour of the night. The guards will search everything.”
Deirdre’s mouth flattened. “You know another way out of Starhaven?”
“Only if we bring John with us.”
Deirdre looked him up and down and then laughed dryly. “Ky, rouse the big man. Now, Nicodemus, tell me why the sentinels stopped guarding you. Tell me everything about our enemy.”
As Kyran worked some unknown language over John, Nicodemus told Deirdre about his strange nightmares, about Shannon’s arrest, about the Index, and about the attack spell Shannon had written against the golem.
As Kyran finished, Simple John woke with a low moan. In a few moments Kyran had him on his feet. The stun spell seemed to have fogged the big man’s memory. He was confused and couldn’t seem to recall where he was. However, he did respond to Nicodemus’s voice.
Together, the four of them hurried out of the common room and into the stairwell. Nicodemus held the Index in one hand and John’s hand in the other.
“Where are we going?” Kyran asked as they hurried down the steps.<
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“To the Sataal Landing and the compluvium,” Nicodemus called back. “We should fetch the other druids. They could help protect us.”
“The other druids in Starhaven can’t be trusted,” Kyran protested.
“Just as there are wizardly factions, there are druidic factions,” Deirdre added behind him. “The druids we can trust are down in Gray’s Crossing guarding our goddess’s ark.”
On the ground floor, Kyran pushed open the door and led them into the Stone Court. Above them shone the brilliant but small blue moon.
The party hurried through the standing stones and into a wide arcade that would take them eastward out of Starhaven’s Imperial Quarter and into the Chthonic Quarter. Occasionally John made confused, anxious sounds. He seemed to have trouble focusing his eyes. But Nicodemus kept him calm with a few words and the reassuring pressure of his hand.
A shudder ran through Nicodemus as he thought about what the demon had done to John. He wondered if the big man would remember killing Devin.
“Nicodemus,” Kyran said. “If there is trouble, you must stay behind Deirdre and me. And if you have the chance to escape, do so.”
Thinking back to how quickly the druids had dealt with the bloodspells, Nicodemus nodded. He asked, “Kyran, back in my common room, when you fought the aracknus spell, there was a strange bear.” A cold autumn breeze set Nicodemus’s black hair fluttering.
Kyran chuckled. “Didn’t you recognize me?”
“But that’s impossible. Only a godspell could-”
Kyran laughed. The druid’s long, blond hair was also stirring in the breeze. “It wasn’t truly a bear but a partial construction, made of the druidic languages and oak. It was wrapped around my body like magical armor.”
Nicodemus raised his brows. That explained the bear’s wooden face and coat of splinters. “But where did you find oak in Starhaven?”
“I’m going to miss that walking staff,” the druid said with a sigh and a nod at his limp.
“You had already written a spell on the staff? But how can your languages animate wood? It should be impossible to-”
Kyran cut him off. “The druidic languages come to us from the ancients. Our languages connect to living tissue-especially that of trees-in a way that is difficult to explain.” He smiled. “Besides, Nicodemus, there is more possible with language than can be imagined within your rules of spelling.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Sinking fast but still gloriously bright, the nearly full blue moon sat just above the Pinnacle Mountains. The white moon, in the identical phase as her smaller blue sister, hung high in the western sky.
From their different angles, the moons filled the compluvium with half-shadows of ivory and lapis. Nicodemus-still holding the Index in one hand and Simple John’s hand in the other-led the druids across the wall overlooking the compluvium. “The way to the Fool’s Ladder is just down that stairwell.” He motioned across the wall.
Kyran took the lead.
Far below them glistened the impluvium. The aquatic gargoyles that operated the reservoir’s valves were still at work despite the hour. Their movement slowly churned the water, transforming its surface into a coruscation of reflected moonlight.
Deirdre spoke. “That hawk-headed construct with the four arms, the one we passed to get into this place, if it obeys your commands, why didn’t you have it follow us?”
“So it can guard our backs,” Nicodemus replied, giving John’s hand an encouraging squeeze. “There are only two ways into the compluvium.”
Together the party hurried down the spiral stairs to the tunnel Shannon had opened. The image of Shannon bound and censored in a sentinel prison haunted Nicodemus as they sloshed through the tunnel to the other side.
When they emerged onto a walkway on Starhaven’s easternmost wall, John made a few soft noises. On the landing before the Spindle Bridge stood the second hawk-headed gargoyle. Behind it, the Spindle stretched out through the air to the mountainside. Far below them swayed the dark boughs of the forest.
“I am Nicodemus Weal,” Nicodemus told the four-armed gargoyle. “You are to obey my commands and the commands of my companions in white.” He nodded to the druids. “We must use the Fool’s Ladder.”
The construct tilted its head first to one side and then to the other. Its multi-jointed wings snapped open. They stretched nearly fifteen feet in either direction, presenting a solid flank of stone feathers.
With four heavy steps, the gargoyle plodded away from the bridge. The thing’s crashing footfalls sent rattling echoes running down the Spindle Bridge.
Starhaven’s easternmost wall had two massive iron doors that opened onto the landing. The giant gargoyle took a defensive stance facing the doors. “Could Fellwroth have formed another golem yet?” Nicodemus asked, turning to the druids.
Kyran studied the massive gargoyle. “It depends on what earth the monster is using. He could have formed a clay body long ago.”
Deirdre moved to stand next to Kyran. Beside her, John squatted down and pressed his hands against his face; it seemed his wits had not yet recovered from Kyran’s stun spell. Nicodemus wondered what the big man would be like now that the demonic curse had been dislodged from his mind.
A silvery glow drew Nicodemus’s eyes back to the bridge. Beside the railing now stood a Magnus spell in the shape of a straight-backed chair. Nicodemus walked over to inspect the text. Five feet in height and three in width, the thing could comfortably seat even John’s girth.
Curious as to how the spell would carry them to the ground, Nicodemus peered over the bridge’s railing. “Fiery blood!” he swore.
A foot below him-its stomach growing directly into the bridge’s stones-was half a gargoyle, as if someone had bisected the construct and fused the abdomen to the bridge.
The gargoyle wrinkled its porcine snout and stared at Nicodemus with tiny black eyes. Despite its bestial face, the spell’s muscular torso was the same shape as a man’s. “One at a time,” it creaked.
Just behind the construct grew its exact twin. Another such grew behind it, and so on all the way down to the forest.
Nicodemus blinked. “Do we just sit in the chair?” he asked. “You hand it down among yourselves to the ground?”
The pig-faced thing nodded. “Sit down and hold on.”
When Nicodemus straightened and looked back, he found the two druids looking at him. “Is the ladder over the side?” Deirdre asked.
“No, we sit in this silver chair; there’s a train of gargoyles back there. They’ll hand it down.”
“Silver chair?” Kyran repeated.
Nicodemus had forgotten. “You can’t see it because it’s written in Magnus. I’ll show you where to sit.”
There followed a brief argument about the order in which they should descend.
As the druids talked, Nicodemus glanced at the iron doors that led onto the Spindle Bridge’s landing. It was good to see the hawk-headed gargoyle was also watching the doors.
In the end, Deirdre insisted that she go down first. Nicodemus showed her where to sit and where to hold on. The cold autumn breeze smelled of pine resin.
“Are you sure I’m secure?” she asked nervously. “I don’t like holding on to something I can’t see. How do you know I won’t fall when-” She yelped as the chair tipped backward and slowly sank over the bridge.
Nicodemus ran to the railing and anxiously watched as the muscular gargoyle handed the silver chair down to its neighbor. Deirdre had shut her eyes and was squeezing the chair arms with white-knuckled determination. The next gargoyle took the chair and handed it down again.
Kyran appeared at Nicodemus’s side and produced a single slow laugh. “She hates high places. But she’s got steel in her soul. Anyone else that scared of heights would be shrieking.” He paused. “How old are you, boy?”
Nicodemus looked over, but the man was staring down at Deirdre’s descent. “Twenty-six on Midwinter’s Day.”
“Just a weanling.
Ever been in love?”
Nicodemus thought of Amy Hern and the things they had said to each other and what little it had come to. “I hope there’s more to it than what I’ve known.”
Kyran produced another humorless laugh. “A good answer.”
Nicodemus stood in awkward silence as Deirdre finished the descent. The gargoyles brought the chair up faster than they had handed it down.
John was next. Surprisingly, when Nicodemus directed him to sit in the chair, the big man calmly obeyed. “Why isn’t he more distressed?” Nicodemus asked.
Kyran sighed. “It was the stun spell. He can’t remember anything now. It should wear off in a few hours.”
“I’m worried he might get confused halfway down. Is there any spell you can-”
His voice died when Kyran tore a button from his sleeve and pressed it to John’s chest. A globe of verdant light bloomed from the druid’s hand and then condensed into a many-tendriled vine.
“Wondrous spell!” Nicodemus whispered as synaesthetic warmth flushed across his face.
The leafy vine spread across Simple John, binding his arms to the chair’s arms, his legs to the chair’s legs. With dazed calmness, the big man watched the magical plant grow until he was completely entwined. At that point, the vine produced several pendulous bunches of blue wisteria blossoms.
“Flowers,” the big man said with difficulty.
Nicodemus squinted at Kyran’s sleeve.
“Those aren’t buttons, are they?” The druid shook his head. “Seeds augmented with druidic texts.”
Just then the chair tipped over the railing. John yelled and began to squirm, but Nicodemus called out reassurance and the big man stopped struggling.
As before, the gargoyles handed the Magnus chair down at a controlled pace. “Deirdre will cut him free when he reaches the bottom,” Kyran explained.
The uncomfortable silence returned as the two men watched the chair carry John down to the forest. When the gargoyles returned the chair, relief washed over Nicodemus. He told Kyran how to sit in it.
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