As the days grew colder, the leaves farther and farther down the Heaven Tree blushed red. But few ever fell.
It was a time of talking and reflection. After the evening meal, Nicodemus and Shannon often sat before the fire, recounting Simple John’s bravery or grieving for Devin.
With only three occupants, the valley could be a lonely place. Lectures and conversations had a way of exhausting themselves into silence.
So on some autumn afternoons, Nicodemus wandered. He scaled every inch of the Heaven Tree and the valley walls, discovering private grottoes and coves. He learned to hunt rabbits and goats, learned to fish the lake’s dark waters. But he never learned to cook. Those meals he prepared drew Shannon’s increasingly graphic but good-natured ridicule.
Sometimes after evening study, Nicodemus wandered the green valley floor. He would think of Devin or Kyran and grow glum, or of Deirdre and grow impatient. Time passed as before, slowly.
Then, one chill night, Nicodemus woke to hear Boann calling his name. Outside their house, he found the goddess standing in the middle of the cobbled street.
The three moons were full. Their glow filtered through the great boughs to fill the valley in a diffuse light.
“Walk with me down to the lake,” the goddess said in her calm, singsong voice. Nicodemus followed her out of the small Chthonic city and into a field of waist-high grass. “Tonight,” she said, as they walked, “you begin an education that neither Shannon nor I could give you.”
Nicodemus said nothing. They reached a raised, grassy bank that overlooked the lake. In the moonlight, the usually limpid pool was purest black. Boann turned to him and said, “When we leave this place, you will be in the greatest danger that-”
“Goddess,” Nicodemus hissed and sank into a crouch. “Hold very still. Up ahead, on that rock, there’s a subtextualized kobold spellwright. His prose style is shoddy.” He crouched lower in the tall grass. The figure he could make out shone with dim violet sentences. The kobold was crouched atop a boulder that overlooked the water and, judging by his silhouette, was looking the other direction. “I don’t think he’s seen us,” Nicodemus whispered.
Boann did not move. “They call it warplay,” she said calmly. “It teaches young kobolds how to survive their constant tribal wars. I’m telling you this because they believe you are the human prophesied to restore kobolds to the glory they knew before the Neosolar Empire destroyed their kingdoms.”
“Keep your voice down,” Nicodemus whispered and pulled the tattooed attack spell from his hip. Holding it low in the grass to hide its shine, he let the text fold into a flickering broadsword.
“Each night, they will teach you a new lesson. Tonight’s lesson, I believe, is the tactical importance of a decoy.”
Nicodemus froze and then looked up at the goddess. “A deco-”
The charging kobold hit him from behind and wrapped two cloth-covered arms around his chest. The force of the tackle knocked the indigo sword from Nicodemus’s hands and launched both of them into the air. There was a horrible moment of falling as the kobold bellowed out victory. Then they struck lake water with a jarring splash. Twisting violently, Nicodemus slammed his fist into what he assumed was the monster’s face and reached for a blasting spell he had tattooed down his back.
Boann watched Nicodemus and the kobold splash into the lake. Beside her Shannon and an ancient kobold chieftain deconstructed their subtexts. Shannon cleared his throat. “Was it truly necessary to deceive the boy? At least we could have told him that you had spoken with the kobold tribe.”
Boann shook her head. “Now he will never forget this lesson.”
Shannon frowned as his parrot eyed the water under which Nicodemus had disappeared. “You are sure this warplay won’t kill him?”
Just then a blast of what looked like indigo fire erupted from the lake’s surface. Because she was a goddess, Boann could see all magical languages. Presently, she watched the shockwave of Nicodemus’s spell blow water and the kobold attacker high into the air. The yelling humanoid landed on the muddy bank with a thud. An instant later, a sputtering Nicodemus emerged in the shallows. He was stripped to the waist and peeling a wartext from his side.
“Yes, Magister, quite sure it won’t kill him,” Boann said dryly. “I’m more concerned he will kill one of his instructors.”
The chieftain sniffed in disdain. “Any kobold who could be killed by a human new to skinwriting, savior or no, deserves to die.”
Boann smiled tightly. “And how good is Nicodemus in your languages?”
The gnarled kobold scratched his beardless chin. “Considering he has been skinwriting for only a season, he is the best I have seen.”
Shannon spoke up. “And that troubles me. His disability in the wizardly languages is growing worse. He cannot control even simple spells now.”
“Magister! Boann!” Nicodemus yelled from the water. “There are kobolds all around!” Two more subtextualized kobolds were stalking the shore. The monster he had thrown off with the blast spell had regained his feet.
Boann called down to Nicodemus. “Tonight, your task is to avoid capture. If you can make it to sunrise without being tied up or killed you are doing well.”
The boy had covered himself with plates of violet light, textual armor, she guessed. He seemed about to answer her when the kobolds charged.
The chieftain nodded at the blast and counter-blast of textual battle. “This is excellent. Now we shall teach him evasion and stealth. In late autumn we shall put warriors under his charge and teach him to lead. He will compete in this year’s New Moon War. Then other tribes will witness his power and know that we have found our savior at last.”
Shannon was scowling. “That would slow his training in the wizardly languages and delay his attempt to learn more about his new Language Prime fluency.”
Boann waved this comment away. “Those can wait. After so much loss, he will benefit from a taste of success and a chance to become a leader.” She looked at Shannon. “Besides, if he is to survive outside of this valley, he will need time for the lessons of warplay to become instinct.”
Shannon narrowed his white eyes. “So let us teach him to survive, but why turn him into some kind of warlord?”
“Not a warlord,” Boann corrected, “but a commander. His half-sister is presently being tutored by Trillinonish generals and Ixonian admirals. She is the one who will lead humanity’s forces in the War of Disjunction. But before she does that, she must track down and kill the Language Prime spellwright who enabled Typhon to write the dragon that attacked Trillinon. I doubt she knows that she is training to kill her half-brother.”
Just then the kobolds yelped as Nicodemus cast an indigo shockwave that knocked them over. Wasting no time, the boy sprinted away down the lake shore. The kobolds struggled to their feet and hallooed a hunting call as they ran in pursuit.
“Compared to her agents, these kobolds will seem mild as kittens. And don’t forget that Typhon will have a half-completed dragon at his command,” Boann said to Shannon. “We must do this to keep him alive long enough to fight in the War of Disjunction.”
Shannon pulled a silvery dreadlock from his face. “Perhaps this training will keep his body alive, but what will it do to his soul?”
Boann looked back to the lake and thought about this. “Shannon, my new friend,” she said after a moment, “I don’t know.”
A dark mood came over Shannon as life in the Heaven Tree Valley took on a new, more urgent rhythm. Each morning, Nicodemus came stumbling in, often bleeding and always chattering about what he had learned in warplay. One night it was how to scale a city wall with Chthonic spells. Another night it was how to outflank a hostile force or how to attack an enemy camp or some other blood-minded action.
The boy also talked about his discovery that kobolds could briefly touch him. Their blue skins were remarkably resilient to the cankers his touch produced. The monsters could simply rip them off without consequences other than minor bleed
ing. Though such contact came only during fighting, the boy was relieved to touch another living creature without killing it.
After describing the night’s warplay, Nicodemus would sleep until late afternoon and then study the wizardly languages with Shannon.
But the boy’s cacography was indeed getting worse. The spelling drills had no effect. Worse, when asked to compose an original spell, the boy would write a tattooed draft on his forearm before attempting a wizardly version.
Some days Shannon despaired of teaching and took Nicodemus for long walks around the valley. He told the boy about his childhood, of his diplomatic service during the Spirish Civil War, of his disastrous love and the loss of his wife.
Nicodemus listened carefully. At times, to Shannon’s surprise, he found himself being consoled by his student. It gave him a hollow feeling.
Worse, Shannon’s old body began to suffer from bouts of severe fatigue. Often his stomach hurt after meals and sometimes he had difficulty in the privy. As the days got colder, he spent more and more time sleeping before the fire.
One day, he felt too weak even to walk with Nicodemus. The result was an argument: Nicodemus insisted that he would soon be strong enough to pursue Typhon. Shannon had refused to listen and pointed out that Nicodemus’s precious Chthonic language functioned only in the dark and neither Typhon nor his half-sister’s agents would do him the favor of attacking only at night.
Shannon tried to emphasize the importance of learning to harness his new Language Prime fluency and using the Index to research Typhon. But Nicodemus had only stormed out of the house, yelling that he would not watch Shannon die when there was a chance he could recover the emerald.
That evening, both student and teacher apologized. But nothing was resolved.
Shannon did know moments of happiness when he saw flashes of the boy he had known back in Starhaven. Toward late autumn, during one chill afternoon, snow sifted down through the Heaven Tree’s boughs.
Shannon and Nicodemus set out to wage a snowball fight. Azure acted as Shannon’s eyes, and Boann-not being tangible enough to pick up a snowball-judged the contest. But so few flakes made it to the valley floor that Nicodemus and Shannon soon resorted to the traditional Jejunus cursing match. Shannon, having a linguist’s trove of dirty words, easily won.
But the flashes of boyish Nicodemus grew rarer as his warplay training grew more intense. He was befriending the kobolds, coming to trust them in the way that soldiers came to trust one another. It was a bond that Shannon had never known.
Nicodemus talked incessantly of the New Moon War: a ceremonial gathering of all the kobold tribes. On the night when the three moons were dark, they would emerge from the underground to occupy a plateau deep in the Pinnacle Mountains. The plateau had held the kobold capital city before the Neosolar Empire destroyed it.
Each tribe would send a party of ten warriors into the ruins to hunt for a golden bough that a kobold priest had hidden. The party that returned with the bough won their tribe the right to protect for the year the crown of the last kobold queen.
When the winter solstice approached, and the Heaven Tree’s scarlet leaves began to fall, Nicodemus left with his kobold warriors for the New Moon War. Boann went with them, but Shannon had to stay behind. It would be hard enough, claimed the kobold chieftain, to bring one human to the gathering. Two would be impossible.
Left alone, Shannon found his days passed slowly. His appetite and energy had improved, but he slept poorly and spent most hours nervously walking the valley.
After the longest fortnight of Shannon’s life, the kobold party returned with Nicodemus on their shoulders. He wore a jagged gash on his jaw, a large bandage around his chest, and an ancient band of steel on his head.
He had won the New Moon War and had brought home fifty more kobold followers.
As luck would have it, Nicodemus returned the night before Midwinter’s Day. The kobolds held a feast around the bonfire. Shannon sat next to the boy during dinner. He wanted to hear everything about the New Moon War, but the kobolds kept up such a racket with their singing and dancing and boasting that no communication was possible. Two of the blueskins started to fight before Nicodemus stopped them with a barked command.
Later that night it began to snow. Again few flakes made it to the valley floor, but it was enough to end the feast. The kobolds all bowed to Nicodemus and retreated to their caverns.
Shannon took his student back into their house, checked on his wounds, which were not worrisome, and fell into a deep sleep of relief.
He awoke to a bitterly cold and dark morning with an inch of snow on the valley floor. While they ate, Nicodemus recounted the war among the kobold ruins. One kobold tribe had disbelieved that Nicodemus was the prophesied savior. Their party had ambushed his during the New Moon War. At first Nicodemus bragged of how his warriors had rebuffed the attack, then he grew solemn as he remembered the enemy kobolds he had killed. Shannon made him retell everything twice.
After they ate, Nicodemus went back to sleep. He awoke when it stopped snowing in the afternoon. “It’s Midwinter’s Day,” he said, looking out a window to the clearing sky beyond the Heaven Tree. “They’ll be celebrating back in Starhaven.”
Shannon agreed that they would be. “Doesn’t seem right that there’s so little snow on this holiday.”
Nicodemus was silent for a moment. “Maybe I’ll hike up to the topmost canopy and see the snow. There’s a small Chthonic fortress among the boughs. Its watchtower has a splendid view.”
Shannon had never been up that high, but he did not think he could keep up with the younger man. He told Nicodemus to go alone.
When Nicodemus reached the watchtower at the top of the Heaven Tree, he took in the vast panorama of snowy mountains. Far to the north stood the slim black silhouette of the Eversong Spire.
The Chthonic watchtower had long ago lost its roof and now a foot of snow covered the place. He cleared off what had once been a table and settled in to watch what was left of the year’s shortest day melt into dark.
When the setting sun bathed the world in a burgundy light, Shannon’s loud breaths sounded from the stairs.
Nicodemus ran to help the old man with the last few steps. “Magister,” he scolded, “you should have told me you were coming up. I would have walked with you.”
“Then you would have wasted your time walking with an old man,” the wizard huffed. Nicodemus helped him sit.
“Fiery blood, but I’m tired,” Shannon said, putting Azure in his lap and surrounding her with his cloak. The parrot stuck her head out of her new cloth nest so she could continue seeing for them both. “What a wonderful view!” the old man said with a wrinkled smile.
Far ahead of them, the Erasmine Spire shone with the sunset’s glow. Gradually Shannon’s breathing slowed.
A colaboris spell erupted from the Spire and flew over the eastern horizon and into the coming night.
“A boy is trapped in an academy,” Nicodemus said softly. “He learns he is incomplete. He sees those around him suffer. For a moment he glimpses himself entirely before he escapes. But no matter where he goes, no matter what he becomes, he will cause or witness suffering. Still, he wants nothing more than to try to end the suffering.”
Shannon said nothing for a while. “You know that I have begun to ghostwrite?” he asked.
“An impressing matrix shines about your head when you sleep,” Nicodemus said without looking over. “It shines in Azure’s mind as well. I think it has something to do with dreaming. Have the cankers grown worse?”
To see them with his Language Prime fluency, Nicodemus would have had to touch the old man. He dared not.
Shannon took a long breath. “No. In fact, I’ve been feeling better. I suppose this improvement is temporary. There’s no way of telling. I believe we will recover the emerald in time to cure the thing growing in my gut. But… I don’t want to be caught unawares. I’m ghostwriting… as a precaution.”
Nicodemus nodded
. “It is a race, then, between my training and your disease. If I lose, you die.”
Shannon sighed. “There is no race, Nicodemus. To help fight the Disjunction, you must learn to control your Language Prime fluency. You must do that alone; I cannot teach it to you. And now that the Index is misspelled, only you can use it to learn about Typhon. Those tasks will take years if not decades. Leave this valley before then and you won’t be able to oppose the demons. You won’t even be able to survive.”
“Magister, the kobolds say I am the most powerful spellwright they have ever known. And I command a small army of their warriors.”
The old man shook his head. “Kobolds rarely leave their underworld. A kobold army would be helpless on the war field. And, Nicodemus, your spells only function in the dark. You must continue to train in the wizardly languages. If you run after Deirdre and the emerald before then, it won’t take Typhon or your half-sister long before they realize you’re powerless in daylight.”
“I won’t watch you die!” Nicodemus replied hotly. “I know what I must do now.”
Shannon opened his mouth as if to object but then shook his head. They both fell silent.
Gradually the sun sank below the horizon and the stars made their slow debut. A wind picked up and began to sing its whistling song among the bare branches.
“Nicodemus, you haven’t escaped Starhaven,” Shannon said. “You think you’re out here. You think your strength lies in your Chthonic texts or in your skill as a commander. You think you’re incomplete without the emerald. You can’t see that your true strength is already inside of you. And that means you’re still in that academy.” He nodded toward the spire. “You’re still running from golems.”
Nicodemus pursed his lips but said nothing.
“You must realize that you are complete now.”
The young man shook his head. “You are dying. Deirdre is enslaved. The purpose of my life is to regain the emerald and end my disability. Nothing will be right until then.”
Shannon began to protest but then stopped.
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