Spellbound (16 page)
Authors: Blake Charlton
“Not that I saw.”
“Then we must assume one of the thinkers is the canonist.”
“Certainly. One pattern was similar to that I've seen in other minor deities.”
“And the other two thinkers?”
Lotannu paused. “Both had thought patterns like nothing I've seen before. The stronger one was troublesome. Very fast thoughts winding in on themselves. They gave me an impression of power and ⦠defensiveness.”
“Typhon.”
“In the sanctuary?”
Vivian nodded. “It would confirm our suspicions about Cala. What of the third quaternary thinker?”
There was a silence.
“Usually that kind of silence means you're scowling.”
“I'm scowling.”
“If I scowl for you, will you tell me about the third mind?”
“Now that I think on it, I'm not sure if it was one mind or many minds sharing the same idea. They were scattered thoughts. It was like looking at a jellyfish in the ocean. Sometimes you see the jelly; sometimes you see the water beyond.”
Vivian nodded. “The incomplete half dragon our spies suspected.”
“You suppose?” he asked.
“What else could it be?”
“Something we hadn't anticipated,” he suggested. “Should we send word to the Long Council?”
“No,” she replied firmly. “If the separatists knew there was a chance that Nicodemus is down here, they'd come running. Then our meat would be properly cooked. Can you imagine, the hierophants rebelling while there are separatist wizards in Avel? Even if we initiated the contingency plan, the separatists and the polytheists might find each other. Then we'd have
wizard fighting wizard and wind mage fighting wind mage, the lesser deities would get into the fray, and the whole city would be blasted into rubble and grass.”
wizard fighting wizard and wind mage fighting wind mage, the lesser deities would get into the fray, and the whole city would be blasted into rubble and grass.”
“But if the half dragon is capable ofâ”
“Then we had better deal with it without giving separatist factions a chance to become violent.”
Lotannu cleared his throat in the way he always did before telling her she was being stupid. “What if separatists are already in Avel? What if the rumors of the League of Starfall are true?”
She took in a deep breath. “It's a chance we have to take. We've been through this.”
“I still don't like it.” He paused. “Do you suppose we'll find Nicodemus in the sanctuary as well?”
“It's his fluency in Language Prime that's half-made the dragon. He won't be far away.”
“Such a pleasant little package you've found: half dragon, demon, and Storm Petrel all wrapped up in sandstone and terracotta tile.”
“You're being snide because we missed lunch. You're always snide when hungry.”
“I'm going to ignore that.”
“You think I can't walk into that sanctuary and come out alive?”
“I have no doubt you would come out alive. I'm more worried about my coming out alive.”
She sighed. “You're never going to be in any more danger than I will be. You're just being contrary. This can all be resolved by feeding you lunch.”
He only grunted.
She rubbed her eyes. “This is the first time I've been truly blind, and it's much more difficult than Iâ”
“How long do you think we have now until the Council finds out we're already in Avel?” he interrupted.
She shrugged. “Unless there are separatists here, twenty days. But maybe only ten. Doesn't matter. We'll bring matters to a head here long before then. Or perhaps Typhon will do it for us.”
“How do you figure?”
Vivian stretched in her chair. Her legs still felt cramped from all that time on that blasted airship. “If we're lucky, the demon will do something rash. Or perhaps his half dragon will get out of hand. You heard about the aphasia. And then there's that cleric. She should have been caught in the aphasia. There's something wrong about her constitution.”
“You're right there,” Lotannu said. “She's a blister with words. Pretty also.”
“Her wordplay might signify, but how do you figure her face fits in?”
“Don't suppose it does. But a man notices things,” he said. Then came the sound of a plate sliding across a table.
“What were they eating?” Vivian asked, leaning forward. “I knew you were hungry.”
He laughed. “Flatbread and cheese. Plate's in front of you now. Any idea how the cleric escaped the aphasia?”
Using her right hand, Vivian tore free a chunk of bread. “As I said, there's something not right about the cleric's constitution; she shines too brightly. I'm not sure what her role is in all this. She could be our lead to Nicodemus.” Vivian bit into the bread and found it tough.
“And lover boy?”
“The hierophant? Can't tell. I think he was simply in a bad place at a bad time.”
“So, now that we know the action's likely to be in the sanctuary, what's our next step, establish defenses in the central district?”
She nodded. “Wouldn't be a bad idea. Afterward we have to go to the canonist and use all our flowery language and do all the bowing and groveling we can.”
He scowled. “Bloody protocol. She's going to be suspicious of you from the beginning. What's the point?”
Vivian chewed thoughtfully and then swallowed. “If we're lucky, the demon will try, right then and there, to kill us.”
Anxiously, the ghost reexamined the contents of Francesca DeVega's bedroom: two windows filled with ornate redwood screens; a chest with few clothes; a cot, its sheets crumpled into a mound; a small writing desk covered by medical books, open scrolls, loose pages. Apparently Magistra DeVega paid more attention to studying and sleeping than cleaning.
On the cleric's desk, the most recent note was dated to the previous night. The washbasin and the chamber pot were both empty and dry; she hadn't returned to her quarters since the apprentices had emptied the basins that morning.
It was a grave problem.
Ghostly Shannon had wandered the chaotic infirmary until he overheard an irate physician asking for Cleric DeVega. No one had seen her since the mysterious aphasia had dissipated. The ghost followed the physician to these quarters. But while the living man had only knocked on her door, the ghost walked through the wooden planks to inspect the room. Unfortunately, he hadn't found anything useful.
Now, as the ghost inspected the room yet again, the hollow sensation returned to his chest. He imaged his author's gaunt face, the mouth turned downward in agony. His author must be longing for him too. How could he not?
The ghost closed his eyes and rubbed them with his remaining hand. But his fingers produced no distracting sensation of pressure, no orange blotches in the darkness. There was only the prose of his hands.
Perhaps his author was not longing for him. Perhaps the ghost was behaving like a heartbroken lover, indulging in fantasies that the one who left still longed for the abandoned.
Absently the ghost touched the stump of his right arm. A sharp sensation made him jump. It was like pain ⦠and yet not like pain at all. What he had previously thought of as pain was a packet of textual information about damage. His perception of pain, of sensation in general, was changing.
Outside of his author, the ghost's mind was doing what all minds do: it
was adapting to its new environment. It was troubling. There were now two versions of Shannon, one physical and one textual. What if the ghost's magical mind evolved so far away from his author's that they couldn't reunite? And that was assuming the ghost could convince his author to take him back.
was adapting to its new environment. It was troubling. There were now two versions of Shannon, one physical and one textual. What if the ghost's magical mind evolved so far away from his author's that they couldn't reunite? And that was assuming the ghost could convince his author to take him back.
The hollowness in the ghost's chest began to expand. He had to take long, slow breaths to restore his concentration. He returned to Francesca's desk and again studied her notes. All were medical jargon and details about different patients.
Then the ghost noticed an open book at the desk's far corner. Judging by the pages, it was a clinical journal. The ghost leaned closer. By concentrating, he used a Magnus sentence in his fingers to drag a slip of paper away from the journal. This revealed an open scroll. A complex golden paragraph shone on the exposed paper. At its top were runes that translated into “Toward: Clc. Mg. Francesca DeVega.”
The ghost recognized it as a locator paragraph. Wizards who worked with colaboris stations used such paragraphs to send information across great distances. Any manuscript given to a colaboris station with this instruction would be delivered to Magistra DeVega.
Perhaps the ghost could send a message to DeVega? Arrange a meeting place? But how to get it to the colaboris station? And how to get it to her before he deconstructed?
He looked back at the desk. Perhaps he could findâ
He stood up straight and turned to the closed door. Someone was talking behind it. The ghost stepped far enough into the nearby wall so that only his head remained in the room. He kept his Magnus prose in his face so that it wouldn't be pulled into the sandstone and frayed.
A moment later the door opened, and two men dressed in plain Spirish longvests stepped into the room. One had a satchel strapped around his shoulder. They moved quickly, searching the apartment and muttering to each other. The ghost caught only a few of their words, but even so it was apparent they were also searching for DeVega.
They wore no robes identifying them as spellwrights, but one man withdrew a stack of folded cloth from his satchel. He unfolded it on the bed and began to move his hands over the cloth and the bedsheets in the unmistakable pattern of a spellwright editing a text. The other man crouched next to the washbasin and was making similar movements on a towel that had been left beside it.
The ghost could not see hierophantic sentences, but he would have bet anything these men were disguised hierophants. Judging by the precision of their gestures and the amount of time they spent, the hierophantic
snoops were creating powerful and complex textsâmost likely designed to alert them should the cleric touch her towel or trap her in bed should she get into it.
snoops were creating powerful and complex textsâmost likely designed to alert them should the cleric touch her towel or trap her in bed should she get into it.
When the men started to leave, they stopped in the doorway and began talking to a third party. The ghost crept out of the wall.
The men were asking a girl about Magistra DeVega's whereabouts. The girl knew nothing.
The ghost crept closer but then, panicking, jumped back into the wall. The girl was wearing black robes.
Only when everything but his face was hidden within sandstone did the ghost realize that the girl was too young to be anything other than a neophyte; she couldn't see him.
The ghost stuck his head out of the wall. The neophyte had stepped into the room and was peering over DeVega's desk. A moment later she left the room.
Long moments stretched out. Outside, rain began to fall.
The ghost walked over to the desk. Why was there a neophyte in Avel? There was no literary academy here.
Then it struck him. The colaboris station. Sometimes wizardly academies sent their youngest students to assist nearby colaboris stations. The girl must have come to Francesca's room to see if she had any texts to be taken to the station.
That also explained why the disguised hierophants had cast their spells into DeVega's bed, rather than set up a trap on the doorway: they didn't want to catch just anyone who walked through the door, especially not a neophyte. They wanted only the room's occupant, only the woman who slept in the bed.
The ghost looked down at the desk, an idea blooming in his mind. For the first time the hollowness in his chest lessened. It would be a gamble, but it would give him hope. Besides, what other options did he have?
Carefully, the ghost concentrated his remaining Magnus prose into his right hand and reached for the locator paragraph.
In a dream, Francesca had diagnosed an inflamed appendix in a young woman and decided to remove it. But after making an incision into the right abdomen, Francesca couldn't find the appendix. In fact, through the incision, Francesca found the descending segment of large intestine rather than the expected ascending segment.
When Francesca told an assistant to listen to the woman's heart, the assistant reported the beating sounded loudest on the right side of the chest.
Terrified, Francesca realized that her patient's internal organs were reversed on the right-left axis. She'd never seen the phenomenon before but had read about it in medical texts.
Francesca fumbled with her cutting sentences, unsure what to do. “You're killing the patient,” the assistant had said. “It's something to do with getting it backwards.”
Francesca looked at him. “What?”
The assistant, a tall man in a black turban and veil, had replied, “Cacography is getting it backwards. The patient's got it backwards. You're killing her.”
When Francesca asked the assistant for his name, he said “Nicodemus Weal.”
That's when she woke up.
Disoriented, she sat up in a strange bed.
“Fran?” Cyrus said, and she jumped. He was standing next to her cot. From somewhere farther away came the creaking of ropes and the hush of rain striking a roof.
She was in the garden tower.
“It's maybe three hours to sunset,” Cyrus said. “The windcatchers are coming in. We must get on deck so the returning hierophants don't jump without us.”
After rubbing her face, she stood and they walked through a dark hallway to the tower's scaffolding-lined interior. Along the western edge, the beams were alive with hierophants shouting and gesturing. Giant folds of
white cloth unfurled and then folded themselves into neat stacks. Francesca felt her braided hair being pushed around by contrary blasts of winds.
white cloth unfurled and then folded themselves into neat stacks. Francesca felt her braided hair being pushed around by contrary blasts of winds.
“What are they doing?” she yelled as they moved along a catwalk toward the tower's eastern edge.
“Docking the windcatchers. They can't fly at night. The lycanthropes might pull them down.”
“Truly?”
He laughed. “Come night, the lycanthropes would tear every human in this pass to bloody rags if we weren't safely holed up in this massive tower.”
“Is that why Avel was built so far away from this pass even though the city's purpose is to support this wind garden?”
He shook his head as they ducked under a low-hanging beam. “No; Cala's walls would hold the lycanthropes back, mostly. The problem's water. Avel had to be built by the dam. To protect it you see. An early settlement was out here in the pass. But the lycanthropes kept knocking down the dam and letting the water flow out. During the dry season, there's no other water in the savanna.”
Just then they reached a set of stairs so steep they could have passed for a ladder. Cyrus jogged up them. Francesca again became uncomfortably aware of her six feet as she clumsily followed.
At last she emerged onto the middeck, which seemed to hang just below the jumpdeck. A group of hierophants had gathered. All were young, mid to late thirties. All had folds of bright cloth in their hands and talked excitedly.
“Normally, they work until sunset,” Cyrus explained by her side. “But they've been piloting or writing all day for fifty days now. It's grueling work. And now they're about to be paid and sent back to Avel.” His veil moved as if he was smiling. “That's the source of Avel's culture, you know. All that coin to be spent on fine wine, soft beds, working girls, tavern singers.”
Francesca looked down at her old lover. “When you were young, is that how you spent your pay, on working girls?”
He shrugged.
More hierophants emerged onto the deck and joined their peers. Cyrus leaned in as if to ask a question, but just as he did so, the deck fell silent. Francesca turned to see Lotannu leading Vivian out of the stairwell. Francesca was impressed the blind old woman could manage such steep steps.
Once on deck, Lotannu led Vivian over to Francesca and Cyrus. Conversation resumed among the pilots. Vivian nodded and then spoke. “Cyrus, do you know where Avel's wizardly colaboris station is?”
He nodded. “In the Merchant District, near South Gate.”
“We must make contact with the wizards in the station and outfit our little mission. Can you see that we land near there?”
“I can,” Cyrus said.
“Magistra,” Francesca said, “that might be inconvenient for your disguise.”
“How's that?”
“The walls that separate Avel's different districts are invested with Canonist Cala's godspell. No spellwright may pass through their gates without being killed.”
Vivian narrowed her white eyes. “Why would the canonist restrict movement of her spellwrights?”
Cyrus answered. “Her spellwrights can fly over the walls. The godspell keeps out lycanthrope spellwrights who are textually altered to look like humans. Or, if the outer walls are breached, the inner walls contain a lycanthrope incursion to one district.”
Lotannu scowled. “How often do the lycanthropes breach the walls?”
“Far too often,” Cyrus said with a sigh. “A score of the beasts ran wild in the North Gate District in the late dry season last year. They killed heaven knows how many and started a fire before the hierophants and city watch hunted them down.”
“But how do they knock the walls down?” Vivian asked. “I was under the impression that they had no war engines.”
Cyrus nodded. “They don't. No tools whatsoever as far as we can tell. They use blasting texts. Some think the lycanthropes can not only appear to be human but even transform their bodies into human ones, especially at night. The city is full of superstitions about whom to let into your house after dark.”
“It's gotten worse this past year,” Francesca added. “The lycanthropes have attacked even during the day, partially detonating texts in shadows. This morning there was a daylight ambush at the North Gate.”
Lotannu's scowl darkened. “So, if we are posing as Verdantine merchants, how can we move about the city without revealing our disguise?”
Francesca answered. “There are places on each inner wall where ladders let the citizens climb over the wall from district to district so they don't have to make the long trip between gatehouses. Guards pull the ladders up after sunset. You might get caught in a certain district for a night, but I can show you on a map where they all are.”
Vivian sighed. “I suppose it can't be helped. Thank you, Magistra.”
Francesca nodded. Then a silence followed. Francesca considered trying to make small talk, but worried that she'd either give something away or look a fool in front of Vivian.
Apparently Cyrus also felt awkward; he suddenly became interested in adjusting his turban and securing his veil. For her part, Vivian seemed unperturbed. Lotannu occasionally leaned in to whisper to her, but mostly he examined the surroundings with keen but quiet interest.
At last the wind marshal came on deck, accompanied by two other hierophants bearing a large wooden chest. The young pilots fell silent and formed a line. The marshal made a short speech, praising their hard work and reminding them that even when on leave they represented the Celestial Order of Hierophants. After that, she ordered the distribution of small burlap purses filled with clinking coins.
The sound of rain striking the jumpdeck above them grew to a roar. Cyrus frowned at the storm before excusing himself and hurrying belowdecks. He soon returned with several folds of black cloth draped over his left arm. From the folds, he pulled out a strip of cloth that cut and wove itself into an elaborate shape. He handed one such garment to each of the wizards.
“Put it over your heads,” he instructed and showed Vivian how. It turned out to be a headdress. “There are hierophantic sentences in each of them that close up all the space between the threads. It makes them waterproof. The spells will spread to your robes and make flying through this deluge bearable.”
From beneath her headdress, Vivian thanked Cyrus. Francesca would have done the same if a shout hadn't gone up from the other hierophants. All payments, it seemed, had been dispensed and their leave had just begun. “Brace yourself,” Cyrus said over the racket. “When flying back, the young pilots can be boisterous.”
All the hierophants hurried to the deck's edge and climbed up short rope ladders. Cyrus herded the black-robes toward one. “Don't look down,” he cried into Francesca's ear as she grabbed hold of the rungs and pulled herself up. Out in the open, the wind buffeted her, but the rain rolled off her robes without soaking into the cloth.
Once on the jumpdeck, Francesca found herself in front of a short wind mage standing next to a multicolored stack of cloth. He thrust a parcel of bright red cloth into her hands. “I'm not a hierophantâ” she tried to protest, but the crowd of wind mages pushed her forward onto the wet jumpdeck. She took the cloth.
Behind her, Cyrus was arguing with two younger pilots. He was, it seemed, commandeering them to fly Vivian and Lotannu. They were not pleased about having to land in the Merchant District when their peers had plans to meet in drinking halls and tobacco salons elsewhere. But as the air warden of Avel, Cyrus had authority over all hierophants in the city. He reminded
them that he could order them both to fly watch duty for the duration of their leave. This ended their objections.
them that he could order them both to fly watch duty for the duration of their leave. This ended their objections.
Francesca looked back at Vivian and Lotannu. Both wizards held a thick square of folded cloth and stood beside their newly assigned pilots. Francesca was no longer surprised by how easily the ancient wizard moved about. The woman must be a surpassingly powerful spellwright to be so spry at such an age. Francesca felt a pang of envy; she would never be as powerful as Vivian, never rise so high in wizardly esteem.
The envy Francesca felt had a strange quality, as if it weren't truly her emotion but something being imposed on her by someone else. Ever since Francesca had come to Avel, ever since she had failed to win an appointment to a more prestigious infirmary, she had felt similar pangs when around other accomplished female spellwrights.
As usually happened after such bouts of envy, Francesca chastised herself for being petty and foolishly insecure in her own accomplishments. She was, after all, a physician.
“Black-robes,” Cyrus boomed, “run with your pilot and cast your cloth up when you jump.” He was standing behind Francesca. “Pilots, edit a two-person downwind rig. Keep the wing in tight formation. No showboating.”
Ahead of them, younger pilots sprinted off the jumpdeck and cast their lofting kites high into the air. With whoops of elation, they caught the wind and sailed high up and away from the tower.
Francesca became queasy, and she thought about jumping off the sturdy deck. “But what if we slip orâ” But before she could finish, the way before her cleared and Cyrus called out, “Go!” After grabbing her arm, he pulled her into a sprint.
Francesca felt hot panic surge through her as the deck's edge appeared not five steps ahead. Then, impossibly, she was jumping off the deck and throwing her arms up to cast the sailcloth upward.
She opened her mouth to scream, dead certain that she was about to plummet to her death. But before she could make a sound, the world disappeared into a violence of cloth and air. Her robes became stiff and then bands of force wrapped around her chest and legs and pulled her up into the air.
She sucked in a deep breath. Above them stretched a wide, billowing canopy of red and blue sailcloth. They were soaring away from the garden tower. The few raindrops that struck her eyes or the bridge of her nose felt like needles. She was now even more grateful for her waterproof headdress.
A surge of wind drew them up with such force it felt as if her stomach had fallen down to her feet. “Hold tight!” Cyrus called. “It will be a bumpy flight.”
All around them were other lofting kites, their vivid crescent-shaped canopies rising and falling relative to one another. A few pilots with one-man rigs were spinning themselves into barrel rolls or swooping dangerously close to the other kites, all the while calling to each other like raucous birds.
Gradually Francesca's breathing slowed. Behind her, Vivian cried out with delight. She looked back and saw that they were flanked by a pair of two-person rigs, one carrying Vivian and the other Lotannu.
Below them was the mountain pass, covered with grass and strewn with gray boulders. Without the windcatchers aloft, it seemed an ordinary place. Soon they were above the dark redwood forests.
At last Francesca's fear left her and she let herself marvel at their unbelievable speed, their dreamlike freedom of movement.
The rain falling around them turned a shining white. At first Francesca thought it was the effect of some hierophantic spell. But then she looked back. Far out in the western sky hung a break in the storm. Sunlight poured down through a billowing cloudscapeâmountains of dark air, citysized caverns, a field of blue.
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