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Authors: Blake Charlton

BOOK: Spellbound
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“Well then, cleric, why don't you take your pride up to Cyrus? He seems more than a little concerned about how friendly you're getting with the man who's crazy enough to worry about becoming the anti-Halcyon.”
“Oh, Nicodemus, you shouldn't say such harsh things!” she said in a voice laden with sympathy. “You and I are not at all friendly.”
“Then why don't you take your flameflies away from me so you don't disspell any text I'd like to cast.”
“All right,” she said with a sniff. But then she added, “I'm sorry for telling that story without thinking about Magister Shannon.”
Nicodemus was silent for a moment. “No,” he said and then paused. “I'm glad you told it. I'm anxious to see him now.”
She looked back. “I'll go talk with Cyrus then.”
He smiled. “Go.”
She cast a few more flameflies and increased her pace. But as she approached Cyrus, insects swarmed around her knees. Some of them—the betel-like ones with iridescent blue carapaces—struck her legs with palpable force. “Stop that,” she said in her sweetest voice. “Stop that, you disgusting little abominations of the natural world.”
“Making new friends?” Cyrus asked.
“Imagine having a brain so primitive that the image of something attractive could drive you to hurl yourself at that image. Oh, but I forget, you are male. You can sympathize.”
He sighed. “So, will Nicodemus take me to the wind garden?”
“He wants to discuss it with Magister Shannon, but I think I made a convincing case.”
“You two were laughing a great deal.”
“Weren't you the one who sent me back there to charm him?”
“I did. And you do deserve to enjoy the admiration of others.”
“Stop playing the courteous man. It gives me unpleasant feelings of respect for you.”
“Yes, Magistra, I will straightaway become an egotistical bastard who displays just enough vulnerability to excite your displaced motherly desire to heal.”
“Are you accusing me of wanting to take my work home with me?”
“Home, Fran? You have lived in the infirmary for the last ten years. You never wanted to take the wounded home. You wanted a home with the wounded.”
“Give me a moment, and I'll come up with a scintillating retort for that.”
“Maybe if I had figured how to be admitted to the infirmary, I could have held on to you.”
“You …” Francesca's voice died. It was an awkward situation, but she felt no great embarrassment. “Cyrus, it's late. We've just escaped lycanthrope captivity. I just had to manipulate a cacographic fruitcake. And now we're marching through a deadly wilderness in the dark. Maybe we could rehash our affair—”
“You're right. I shouldn't have brought it up.”
She looked up into the tangle of stars. The thin crescents of the blue- and blackmoons were high overhead. From somewhere in the nearby grass came a chorus of chirping and clicks, perhaps from some sort of cricket.
“At least it's a lovely night for a long walk,” Francesca said to try to change the mood. “Except maybe for the demon-controlled city somewhere out there and the potentially violent lycanthropes everywhere else.”
“Long walk indeed,” grumbled Cyrus. “When are we to reach Nicodemus's camp?”
“Nicodemus,” Francesca called out, “when will we reach your camp?”
From the dark behind them, he called back. “At the rate you two are stumbling along, about an hour more.”
Cyrus was frowning at her.
“What?” she asked.
He turned back to the path. “It's a long walk,” he said and quickened his pace.
Francesca tried to match his speed and tripped. Though he was more than twenty paces behind her, she could hear Nicodemus clomp to a halt
as if he were afraid of running into her. Again she thought about what his touch would do to her flesh. She shuddered. Out in the grass sea, something that sounded like a hawk screeched.
Francesca struggled to her feet and hurried on, acutely aware of the man stalking behind and the man hurrying ahead.
A long walk indeed.
 
VIVIAN WOKE TO someone shaking her shoulder. “Who is it?”
“Me,” Lotannu rumbled in his low voice.
“What time?”
“Near midnight.”
Vivian sat up and felt hard tiles under her backside. It took a moment to remember that they were camped on a rooftop so Lotannu could watch the sanctuary. She felt around until she located Francesca's clinical journal, in which she'd stored Shannon's ghost.
“Did you see something?”
“The Savanna Walker has left the city.”
“In which direction?” She pulled her cloak tight. The wind, though gentle, was cold.
“Out the North Gate. He's disappeared into the savanna.”
Vivian struggled to her feet. “Well then, let's see how hard it is to break into a demon-controlled sanctuary.”
Francesca supposed that it was an hour or two after midnight when the party reached Nicodemus's camp. The towering redwoods blocked out moon and stars, leaving the understory as dark as a cave, which she guessed was why the kobolds favored the place.
The blond humanoids began laughing and calling out to one another. When the scent of cooking reached Francesca, she understood why. Her belly complained and her feet ached.
The party hurried the last hundred yards to discover Shannon stoking the fire and tending to a pot of boiling lentils. Beside him lay a stack of fried fish. Hooting and laughing, the four kobolds fell upon the fish and started to gulp it down.
Nicodemus barked sharp words and looked as if he might fling a wartext at the kobolds. They cringed and hissed but did not stop wolfing down the fish. But when Nicodemus took a threatening step forward, they jumped into a line before Magister Shannon. One by one, they took his hand and bowed over it, muttering something. When finished, the kobolds ladled out bowls of lentils, giving the first two helpings to Francesca and Cyrus. The lentils were bland but hot and filling.
Nicodemus sat near Shannon but left two feet of space between them. Francesca watched them speak in low tones. The old man looked exhausted, frail, irritable. She would have thought Nicodemus's flat mouth and unexpressive eyes were signs of coldness if she had not, only two hours ago, told him the story of the grandfather with the brain tumor. Now she could see the fear within Nicodemus's guarded expression.
Cyrus offered her half his lentils, but she was already full and ended up giving him the rest of her bowl. She was always amazed by how much hierophants ate and how slim they remained, no doubt a consequence of forging text with every heartbeat.
“Are we safe here tonight?” Cyrus asked between mouthfuls.
“Nicodemus, are we safe here tonight?” she asked loudly.
The cacographer undid his ponytail and let his hair fall into a black
curtain across his olive shoulders. It made Francesca wonder about her own hair and if there was a comb in the camp.
“Typhon hasn't ever found us here,” Nicodemus answered. “Given how dark it is and how many skinmages we have, I wouldn't worry about anything short of the demon flooding the forest full of lucerin.”
“Well there you are,” she said to Nicodemus and looked at Cyrus. “Well there you are.”
After they finished eating, she asked where Vein was. Shannon explained the recuperating kobold was asleep in his cabin. Francesca woke her patient to examine him. Once satisfied he was recovering, she left his cabin and went in search of Magister Shannon. The old wizard was in the smallest cabin talking to Nicodemus. Shannon's parrot-familiar was perched on a bedpost, her feathers puffed out and her eyes closed.
Francesca ordered the younger man out and then turned to Shannon. The wizard tried to refuse examination, but she patiently ignored his protests and plied him with questions until she understood the history of his disease. She then examined him, listening to his heart, lungs, gurgling stomach. She percussed along his back, chest, and stomach.
In the process, Francesca felt his resistance dissolve, his embarrassment fade. Her gift for seeing a body move through time took effect. She could peer forward into his potential physiological futures—none of them long—and backward, past the gaunt cheeks and wrinkled features, to the dark and handsome youth he had been.
When the exam was nearly over, he suddenly said, “They've never seen how frail I've become. Nicodemus and the other boys haven't.” He paused. “Not that I want them to see, but … they haven't.”
She motioned for him to sit on his bed while she sat on a stool. “I am glad I did. Your canker curse does not seem to be impinging any organ presently, but you display many of the signs of advanced disease.”
“Prognosis?”
“You are in no immediate danger. But I worry for you longer term. I'd like a physician to see you once every sixty days.”
The old wizard laughed. “Creator send that I have access to any physician sometime between now and my death.”
Francesca fought the urge to volunteer to be his physician.
“Might I try to ghostwrite again?” the old man asked.
“No,” she said gently and then winced internally as she saw his pained expression. “It would place too great a burden on your body.”
Shannon sighed. “Nicodemus believes he will recover the emerald. But with Deirdre gone … It is horrible to lose her.”
“You and Nicodemus were arguing about this?”
The blind old man shook his head. “Not truly. There wasn't anything to argue about. I've become a sour old man in my illness. I snap at him for dragging me to this forsaken wilderness. I have to slowly die in a cabin while he lurks around in the city without a word of the wizardly languages I spent so long teaching him.”
She nodded. “It bothers you he has abandoned the wizardly languages?”
“Maybe it shouldn't. But it was the only legacy I had to give him.”
“He might disagree.”
“He would … But if we had just stayed in the Heaven Tree a little longer, I'm sure we could have made progress.”
Francesca remained silent.
“You're not nocturnal like we are in this camp,” Shannon said while rubbing his beard. “Sleep is more important than listening to an old soul grumble.”
“I'm not accustomed to sleeping regular hours.”
“Then maybe I just want to be alone now. Or maybe I'll wake up Azure.” He gestured toward the puffed-out parrot.
“Goodnight, Magister,” Francesca said and made for the door.
“Magistra,” Shannon said when her hand was on the door, “I don't know if it is appropriate for an old man to say so, but …”
She waited patiently.
“But it was good to be examined, to be seen, and be …”
She knew he was struggling to say “be touched.” But because she was a younger woman, it was not something he could say. So she spoke for him, “I'm glad I could examine you. I feel much more comfortable about your health now.”
He nodded.
She stepped outside. The wet smell of the redwood understory swept around her. Though her eyes stung with exhaustion and her feet throbbed, she felt more complete than she had since leaving the hospital.
She found Cyrus and Nicodemus sitting by the fire. None of the kobolds seemed to be about. When Nicodemus heard her footsteps, he stood and looked at Shannon's cabin. Francesca cleared her throat. “He's asked to be alone for a while. My exam revealed signs of advanced disease without acute threat.”
Nicodemus looked at her and then back at the cabin.
“But perhaps you should talk to him about wizardly languages again.”
Nicodemus exhaled. “That fight again.”
She waited a moment before saying, “Discussing it might lead to other difficult matters.”
He looked at her and she again saw his fear of losing Shannon. Or perhaps
it was anger at the old man. It didn't really matter. She rubbed her stinging eyes. “Lovely as the company is tonight, I should leave this social affair and sleep.”
Nicodemus started. “Oh yes. You and Cyrus should use my cabin.” He pointed. “The blankets are clean, and I'll be out until morning hunting with my students. Ask Magister if there's anything else you need.”
They said their goodnights, and Francesca and Cyrus went to his cabin and cast a few flamefly paragraphs. It was a narrow place but clean and furnished with two sturdy beds. Something like a writing desk was propped up along the far wall. One of the legs had broken. A large book was wedged under the broken leg to keep the desk level. Curious, Francesca took a closer look at the book and then swore.
“What is it?” Cyrus asked.
“The Index!”
“The what?”
“A priceless artifact that can access any text within Starhaven's walls. I heard Nicodemus destroyed it years ago. But he didn't destroy it; he's using it to hold up a God-of-gods damn broken desk!”
Cyrus laughed. “If he can't use wizardly text, it's useless to him.”
Francesca shook her head. “And here I was thinking he's half-sane. The blasted bloody Index.”
“He'd be glad you're impressed. He'd be sure to keep making eyes at you.”
“Don't start with that again. He put both of us into the same cabin.”
Suddenly Cyrus's hands were on her shoulders. He began to massage her neck. She let him for a while. Neither of them spoke. She thought about how Shannon had thanked her for examining him, for truly seeing him. She wanted to be seen in that way, to be touched in that way. Not amorously, not even romantically, but carefully and almost objectively.
She patted Cyrus's hands and then stepped out of his reach. She looked at him, wanting and not wanting him to reach out to her.
He sat on the cot and motioned for her to sit beside him. “You've just made yourself a physician to a band of outlaw humanoids. So who's going to be physician to you?”
She sat next to him, but not too close. “I'm exhausted.”
He looked at her, his light brown eyes searching her face. Slowly, he leaned in to kiss her cheek.
She didn't move or say anything and it was difficult to know how she felt other than suddenly warm. Cyrus brought his hand up and touched her cheek. She turned her head into his fingers. “Cyrus, we're only going to sleep.”
He gently pulled her into an embrace. She sat unmoving for a long moment then let her mind go blank with exhaustion. He gave her a squeeze, and she felt safe. This was how she wanted to be touched. They lay back onto their sides, fitting together like two left shoes placed side by side.
Francesca felt herself falling fast into sleep. Cyrus kissed the back of her neck, just below the hairline. She woke a little more, but when she didn't move, his breathing became slow and regular. She felt herself fall asleep.
 
SHANNON'S GHOST FOUND
himself, once again, pouring out of a book. Now he was standing in the same library he had woken in not two days ago. The circular room was dark save for a sparse cloud of flameflies wandering around the ceiling.
Behind him, Magister Akoma stood holding the opened book from which he had come. Beside him was ancient Magistra Niyol, her all-white eyes bright in the flameflies' incandescence.
At their feet lay two bodies wrapped in green cloaks. One had the golden stunning spell coiled around his mind. The other's neck was bent at an impossible angle. The ghost drew in an unnecessary breath and looked at Magistra Niyol. She looked back with a grim expression. “We tripped some kind of alarm coming in here,” she said in a cool voice. “The result is regrettable.”
The ghost glanced at the wind mage with a broken neck and then cast,
“And the demon?”
“No sign of him or the canonist. I fear he's fled.”
The ghost resisted the urge again to ask who or what she was. Instead he wrote,
“The book with my memories?”
She pointed behind him. He turned around and saw the same book he had discovered two days ago. Someone had removed the note, but there were dark stains spangled across the cover. Shannon held his remaining hand toward the book but then paused, unsure if he could open it.
“Let me, Magister,” Magister Akoma said and turned the cover.
The ghost looked at the young wizard, his handsome face and intelligent eyes. Shannon had taught Lotannu before he could grow a beard. He had never been close to Lotannu as he had to other students, but he had always liked him. Now the ghost nodded and wrote,
“Thank you, Magister.”
The other man bowed his head.
The ghost looked down at the opened book. Its pages glowed with Numinous prose. He had no idea how one separated a memory from a ghost, or how that ghost might put that memory back into his head. So, experimentally, he put his hand on the page.
Nothing happened.
He pinched the first paragraph and pulled. The sentences spun around his hand and formed a golden, swirling nimbus. The page flipped over, and more language joined the cloud around his hand. The pages flipped faster and faster, and the cloud around his hand shone so brightly that he had to look away. There was a sudden flash, but when he looked down he saw nothing but his own transparent hand and a blank book.
“Did it work?” Magistra Niyol asked.
“I don't think so,”
he cast to her but then wrote,
“Wait.”
When he tried to recall leaving the Heaven Tree Valley, the image of Nicodemus's scowling face came to mind. He remembered the feast the kobolds organized the night before they left, the drinking, the singing. He remembered the long journey across the savanna, their first skirmishes with the lycanthropes, a whole year building contacts in the city of Avel.

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