“Then I accept,” Nicodemus said firmly. Together they kneeled and swore on the Creator’s name-he to rescue Deirdre, she to protect and serve him.
Slowly they stood. She nodded and sent her waterfall-hair cascading over her shoulders. “The human deities resisting Typhon call themselves The Alliance of Divine Heretics. My mother, the rain goddess Sian, is a Heretic. Long ago I sought to join the Alliance, but they declined. They felt my political involvement in the Highlands made me too visible to the demon-worshipers.”
The goddess sighed. “And it seems they were right. My scheming somehow alerted Typhon of my connection to the Alliance. He sought to infect me in hopes of gaining a spy among his enemies. But Fellwroth attacked him during the infection, and so the demon won control of my ark but never of me. In time, he learned to manipulate Deirdre, though she fought him with all her will.”
Boann shook her head. “Because of Deirdre’s strength, and yours, Fellwroth failed to replace Typhon as the leader of the Disjunction. But now the demon is free again. If you accept my guidance, Nicodemus, I will help you convince the Alliance that we can help fight the Disjunction. Will you accept my counsel?”
Nicodemus looked around the dark cavern. Nothing moved. In the other direction there was open air and distant Starhaven. Sparks of gold and silver glinted in the Spindle. Some of Magistra Okeke’s sentinels had survived.
“Goddess, I will,” he said. “I find myself without allies or direction.”
A half-smile spread across Boann’s lips.
Nicodemus’s heart ached. For a moment, she seemed the very image of Deirdre.
The goddess nodded. “It won’t be easy. The Alliance deities, even my own mother, will distrust me now that Typhon has invaded my ark. Worse, the Alliance has already bred a Language Prime spellwright, your half-sister. Now that Fellwroth has loosed a dragon on Trillinon, they know the Disjunction also has a Language Prime spellwright. Even now they are sending out hunting parties to assassinate you, Nicodemus. Our task is to convince them that you can aid the fight against the Disjunction despite your… cacography.”
Nausea filled Nicodemus. He was again a Storm Petrel-a champion of error in language, unable to touch another living being without misspelling the living language inside it.
He closed his eyes and imagined the emerald. He pictured his determination to end his disability as light falling into the gem.
“Come, Nicodemus,” Boann said, turning back toward the cavern. “We must see to your teacher.”
“Shannon!” Nicodemus exclaimed. “Is he-”
“He lives.” She pointed to the old man lying on his back. “I disspelled the text the demon put around his mind. And I hid his bird during the fight.”
Azure was next to Shannon, nervously preening the old man’s silvery dreadlocks. Boann reached down and pressed a transparent forefinger to the grand wizard’s head. His white eyes opened. “Nicodemus?” he said.
“Here, Magister,” Nicodemus said, kneeling beside him.
The wizard sat up and moved as if to take his pupil’s hand.
Nicodemus flinched. “You can’t touch me, Magister. I would misspell your Language Prime texts.”
The old linguist pressed a hand to his temple. “What happened? My…” Azure climbed up the wizard’s sleeve to perch on his shoulder.
Boann stood and spoke loudly, as if addressing an unseen audience. “Nicodemus Weal has defeated the creature Fellwroth. He has discovered his identity as a true heir of the ancient Imperial family. He has learned the truth about the prophecies. He may possess the powers of the Storm Petrel, but he is not predestined to serve the Disjunction. I, the river goddess Boann, have pledged myself to aid his struggle against the demon Typhon.”
Though troubled by the goddess’s sudden formality, Nicodemus was relieved to see that Shannon’s nose and shoulder wounds had stopped bleeding. The old man was making cooing sounds to Azure as he struggled to his feet.
“Nicodemus,” Boann whispered. “Behind you lies the Index.”
Nicodemus retrieved the book.
The goddess faced the dark cavern. “How much of that did you overhear, sentinel?”
Out from the shadows stepped Magistra Amadi Okeke. A bruise was swelling up on her pale forehead. “All of it, goddess.”
Boann glared at the woman with crystalline eyes. “Then you realize, Magistra, that Nicodemus is not a destroyer?”
Amadi’s eyes widened. “Forgive me, goddess. My understanding of prophecy is imperfect. When I take Nicodemus back to Starhaven, I will explain all that I have seen.”
Boann laughed. “Nicodemus cannot return; you kindled the fire of counter-prophecy. The wizards now fear him too much.” The goddess’s eyes shone brighter.
Amadi stepped backward. “But goddess, I-”
“You must undo the damage you have done. You will return to Starhaven and report all that has happened here. But you will not seek to correct the Erasmine Prophecy or the counter-prophecy. Rather, you will become our agent within the Numinous Order.”
Amadi took a deep breath. “Goddess, no one will believe me. I must have Nicodemus and you to confirm what I have seen.”
Boann tossed her long river-hair and sent a waterfall splashing down her back. “Fellwroth’s body will be your evidence. You will say nothing of Deirdre. But you will report that Nicodemus and Shannon died when fighting Typhon. Say the demon threw them out of the Spindle; that will explain why their bodies won’t be found. Hopefully that will stop the sentinels from pursuing us, at least for a while.”
Amadi looked back at Fellwroth’s body and then nodded. “As you say, goddess.”
“Magistra Okeke,” Nicodemus said slowly, “what can you tell me of the cacographer Simple John? Does he live?”
The sentinel frowned. “He does. He was the one who brought me here. We left him on the Spindle Bridge’s landing.”
Nicodemus let out a relieved breath. “The wizards must not know what Typhon did to him.”
Amadi narrowed her eyes. “And what was that?”
After describing how Typhon’s godspell had crippled John’s mind, Nicodemus looked into Amadi’s eyes and said, “If the wizards found out, they would suspect him of still being under the demon’s sway.”
“I understand, Nicodemus,” said Amadi, pushing a dreadlock from her pale face. “I honor what the man did to bring me here. I will keep his secret.”
Nicodemus considered her impassive expression, then nodded. “Thank you, Magistra.” He bowed his head. “Will you tell John I am sorry-”
“Nicodemus,” Boann interrupted gently. “John, like everyone else, must believe that you and Shannon have died.”
Nicodemus started to object, but then he saw Shannon. The old man stood just behind the goddess, holding Azure. The grand wizard was shaking his head.
“Very well,” said Nicodemus, and bowed again to Amadi. “Thank you, Magistra.”
The sentinel’s dour gaze softened. She pointed out into the night. “I can see more spellwriting. The other wizards will be here soon.”
Nicodemus saw golden light in the Spindle’s remains. The sentinel was right.
“It is time to be gone,” the goddess announced. “Nicodemus, you must carry what is left of my ark.” She gestured farther into the mountain.
Nicodemus saw that the formerly massive standing stone had crumbled. Most of it had become dust, but a single chunk of rock, not bigger than a cat, remained. He went to the now miniature ark and lifted it into his arms. Three undulating lines were carved down its length.
When Boann spoke again her voice became soft, almost sing-song. “Come, Nicodemus, Shannon, we travel into the mountains, into the kobold caves. I know the way to a private haven. There we shall heal and make ready to rescue Deirdre and recover the emerald.”
“But where can we go?” asked Nicodemus. “The wizards will search the caves regardless of what Magistra tells them.”
The river goddess smiled. “Where else can we go,”
she asked, raising one eyebrow, “but to Heaven Tree Valley?”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
The party walked through most of the night. The labyrinthine kobold caverns stretched before them. Some were adorned with luminescent blue lichen. Others housed pools of water that reflected the light of Shannon’s flamefly spells.
They stopped in a round cavern near the surface. A fissure in the ceiling revealed a sliver of starry sky. Thick moss made a bed for the weary spellwrights, but Nicodemus’s sleep brought only nightmares of Deirdre convulsing as Typhon watched.
In the late morning, they pressed on. Nicodemus argued that they should chase after Deirdre as soon as possible.
At first his words met silence. Then Boann explained why they could not. She was weak and would not grow stronger until reunited with Deirdre. Shannon still suffered from their encounter with Fellwroth; there was no telling how his body would react to the cankers still seeded in his gut.
“And you, Nicodemus, are healthy but unprepared,” the goddess explained. “We must heal and build our forces. You must train and study.”
“But for how long?” he asked.
“As long as is needed,” the goddess replied.
Shannon agreed. “Patience is necessary. Think of the emerald. By touching you, the gem regained its full strength. With it, Typhon would be powerful beyond our comprehension. But after four years away from you, the gem will lose its power. If we remain hidden long enough, we deprive Typhon of his most powerful weapon.”
Nicodemus objected. “But he might start another dragon spell.” Shannon replied. “There’s no ‘might’ about it. He will begin another dragon, but he won’t complete the wyrm. As he said when trying to woo you, he needs seven or eight years with the replenished emerald. So long as we hide from him, he will only have four.”
Sighing deeply, Nicodemus let himself be convinced.
Three more days of walking passed. They lived off spring water and mushrooms Boann showed them how to find. Twice the goddess led them up to the surface. Shannon cast Magnus traps to pull trout from the streams. Boann and Nicodemus searched the sparse alpine forests for autumnal nuts and berries.
Each night they sat around a campfire, but they never found much to say. Nicodemus stole into the dark to study the magical languages of the Chthonics.
Using the Index, he taught himself Pithan. A powerful language, it produced luminous indigo runes that, like Magnus, could affect the physical world. Because of its logical grammar and spelling rules, Nicodemus’s cacography did not impair his ability to spellwrite in Pithan. For that reason he began tattooing wartexts all across his body.
Most nights this work kept him up late, which suited him; his sleep was plagued by bad dreams of Deirdre or Devin.
Often he woke with a pain in his chest. It felt as if his beating heart were wrapped in stiff leather. At such times he closed his eyes and thought of the emerald. Determination and discipline, he decided, were the new guiding stars of his life; they would help him rescue the missing part of himself. Then he could free Deirdre, cure Shannon.
At the beginning of the fifth day, Nicodemus realized that his keloid scars had not cast a Language Prime text to the emerald since he encountered Typhon. When he mentioned this to Boann, she nodded. “When imprisoned by Typhon I learned that your scars seek to communicate with the emerald only when they are within fifty miles or so of each other. Fellwroth might have used that capability to track you, had you fled Starhaven. But now that that Typhon has taken the gem far away, you needn’t worry about your scars betraying us while we are in the Pinnacle Mountains.”
Nicodemus scowled. “But that means, when we pursue the demon, he will know I am coming.”
Boann nodded.
“Might we cut out the scars?”
Boann shook her head sadly. “Not without killing you. When it was extracting your ability to spell, the emerald made the scars to extend down into your spine.”
Nicodemus shivered and resisted the urge to touch the back of his neck. The party continued on in silence.
At the end of the seventh day, they camped in a small cavern with a sandy floor. That night, Boann woke them with loud but calm words: “Shannon, Nicodemus, rise quickly. Three kobolds have smelled our fire. They are a mile away and running fast. We don’t have long before they attack.”
Instantly, Shannon was on his feet, forming a textual connection with Azure and extemporizing powerful Magnus spells. The campfire embers filled the place with a shifting red light.
Nicodemus cast a Shadowganger subtext on himself and was about to cast another on Shannon when three humanoids burst into the cavern.
Loping on all fours, the muscled creatures moved with shocking speed. Their skin was such a deep shade of blue it seemed darker than black. Their long blond ponytails matched their wide golden eyes. Their black claws matched their jagged black teeth.
Shannon cast a blaze of Magnus at each attacker. Two of his wartexts found their mark and detonated. The blasts tossed one kobold into the air and knocked the other flat. But the third monster produced an ax-like spell that shone with indigo light. With a quick swing, the creature burst Shannon’s wartext into silver sentence fragments.
Nicodemus’s heart went cold. The monster was a kobold spellwright.
Bellowing, the creature stood on his hind feet and rushed at Shannon. The old man tried to cast another Magnus spell but dropped it. Nicodemus threw himself forward and slammed his shoulder into the monster’s hip. They tumbled to the ground. Then he was on the kobold, jamming his knee into the monster’s throat. The kobold drew his arm back as if to strike with his claws, but Nicodemus pulled a dagger-like Pithan tattoo from his chest. The indigo spell illuminated the kobold’s golden eyes now wide with terror. Nicodemus jammed the spell into the monster’s shoulder and felt it pierce muscle and sinew.
Shrieking, the kobold thrashed violently enough to shove Nicodemus off. The world spun and then Nicodemus was lying on the sandy ground.
The cavern echoed with howls. Nicodemus pushed himself up to see the kobold spellwright clawing at his massive chest. Everywhere the monster had touched Nicodemus, his blue skin bulged with black cankers. Beside the terrified monster were his two companions. Shannon’s Magnus spells had covered them with short lacerations, but not killed them.
Nicodemus stood and pulled a long tattooed wartext from his hip. The indigo sentences folded themselves into a jagged broad sword whose spikes danced like flames.
All three kobolds fell perfectly silent and still. The wrestling had dispelled part of Nicodemus’s subtext, making him visible only from the waist up. He took a step toward the monsters and raised his textual sword.
The kobolds turned and sprinted away.
“Kobolds have prophecies as well,” Boann observed when all was quiet again. “They will come back for you, Nicodemus. And when they do, I will have work for them.”
But the monsters did not return that night or any other during their journey.
Three days later, toward midday, the party emerged from a tunnel to behold the Heaven Tree.
Five miles in diameter and almost perfectly circular, Heaven Tree Valley sat within a tight ring of mountains. Indeed the valley walls were so steep that in many places they became small cliffs. Atop these sudden drops stood grassy plateaus that were home to small herds of white goats.
On the valley’s far side, a narrow stream tumbled down, pausing in places to form pools and short waterfalls. A lush covering of ferns grew on the surrounding rocks.
The stream flowed into a crescent lake that lay along the valley’s northern edge.
Giant roots-each as thick around as a Starhaven tower-grew from the dark waters to stretch toward the valley’s center. All across the valley floor the land heaved and bulged among the roots. Small stone walls wound across the valley, enclosing empty fields and ruined shade gardens.
Near the valley’s perimeter, stone houses were clustered into homesteads. But the closer the buildings
stood to the valley’s center, the greater they became in number and size. Around the Heaven Tree’s trunk stood a small abandoned city bristling with diminutive towers.
But it was the Heaven Tree itself that most impressed the eye.
From top leaf to taproot, it was easily as tall as most Starhaven towers. From the great trunk grew six limbs at varying heights, all of which hosted leafy canopies the size of rainclouds. Save for the two at its zenith, each massive bough reached out to rest its end on a plateau of the valley’s steep walls. Around these landings stood the ruins of small villages.
Narrow bridges connected the plateau villages to the boughs. And along each massive limb ran a cobblestone road that tunneled into the trunk.
High above them, the cold autumn wind was blowing. It set the uppermost canopies to swaying and so filled the valley with a dappled wash of shifting shade and sunlight.
“So, Nicodemus Weal,” Boann asked, “do you think this will make a sufficient home?”
“Home?” He laughed. “It’s paradise.”
They hiked onto the nearest bough, where exploration revealed that the tunnels carved into the trunk led down to the valley floor. There they found the overgrown gardens teeming with rabbits and the lake filled with trout. In the small city, they claimed a sturdy building as their new home.
The next day brought a thunderstorm that swelled the stream and filled the lake with muddy mountain runoff. For days afterward, the Heaven Tree’s leaves continued dripping fat raindrops across the valley.
Most mornings Nicodemus spent with Boann. She lectured on history, theology, and politics. Afternoons were for spelling drills in the wizardly languages with Shannon. After dark, he studied the Chthonic languages alone.
Two fortnights passed slowly, and then autumn descended upon them with a bout of freezing rain. The cold painted scarlet onto the Heaven Tree’s topmost leaves.
Shannon had not once needed to vomit logorrhea bywords. It seemed that Nicodemus had subdued the old man’s cankers with the emerald.
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