Spellwright (11 page)

Nicodemus ran for the Erasmine Spire. Something very, very grave had just happened.

“M
AGISTER
!” N
ICODEMUS CALLED
, and pushed the study door open. “There’s been a colaboris correspondence like you’ve never seen. There must have been thirty that…” His voice died.

Shannon was standing next to two strangers. The first was a tall, fair-skinned woman with blue eyes and dark dreadlocks. Silver and gold buttons ran down the sleeves of her black robe, indicating her rank of grand wizard.

The second stranger was tawny-skinned, green-eyed Deirdre. Her robes were druidic white with wooden buttons on the sleeves.

“Forgive me, Magister. I’ll wait in the hall…” Nicodemus’s words trailed off as he saw the myriad tiny cuts raked across Shannon’s face.

“It’s all right, my boy,” Shannon said calmly. “Come in. We’ve been waiting for you.” He held his research journal and was tracing the asterisks embossed on its face. “Never mind the scrapes; I was working too late and mishandled an ancient spellbook. The blast scuffed me up a bit.” He motioned to his face with the journal.

“Yes, Magister,” Nicodemus said uncertainly. Each year brought a few reports of ancient codices deconstructing, but for such a thing to happen to a grand wizard was extraordinary.

The old man’s blank eyes pointed at Nicodemus’s chest. “And you, lad, are you all right? Was there anything amiss in the Drum Tower last night?”

Nicodemus glanced nervously at the strangers. “There was a Jejunus cursing match. I’m sorry if we disturbed anyone.”

Shannon’s expression softened. “Not to worry about that. Please greet our guests.” He gestured in the direction of the wizard. “Magistra Amadi Okeke, a sentinel from Astrophell.”

Nicodemus bowed and the woman nodded.

“And Deirdre, a member of the Silent Blight delegation.”

“Your pardon, Magister,” the druid interrupted. “But I do not speak for Silent Blight concerns. My protector and I provide independent counsel.”

Nicodemus had to stop himself from staring. By night Deirdre had seemed handsome. But now that she was standing in the window’s sunlight her eyes seemed greener, her skin darker, her loose hair more glossy black. Now she was stunning and looked even more familiar.

Shannon’s blind gaze had wandered up to the ceiling. “Well then, Nicodemus, please greet Deirdre, an independent emissary from Dral.”

Nicodemus began to worry. Shannon had said that they had been waiting for him. Had his conversation with the druid last night stirred up new interest in his cacography?

He bowed to Deirdre.

“Scratch!” Azure said, and launched herself from Shannon’s chair. Nicodemus raised his forearm in time to make a perch for the incoming parrot.

“Tell me again about your bird,” an amused Deirdre said. “I thought she was your familiar and couldn’t communicate with anyone else.”

Shannon turned toward the druid. He was silent a moment before replying. “Sometimes Azure flies a message to Nicodemus, but only I can understand her dialect of Numinous.” A golden sentence flew from Shannon’s brow to his familiar’s. The bird bobbed her head and flapped her way back to Shannon’s shoulder.

“For a few wizards, age or literary trauma steals our ability to see anything but magical text.” Shannon gestured to his all-white eyes. “Time did so to me. But those like me can rapidly exchange information with animal familiars.”

Two Numinous streams rushed between wizard and parrot. Now Shannon pointed his face directly at Deirdre’s. “Through this protocol, I can see through Azure’s eyes. I’m doing so now.”

Deirdre studied man and bird. “Such strange practices you wizards have.”

Again Shannon let a silence grow before he responded. “I hear druids also have strange relationships with animals. But hopefully this convocation will do more than renew treaties; hopefully it will make our different societies less strange to one another.”

Nicodemus had never heard the old man be so hesitant and so cautious with his words.

Azure, apparently having looked around the room enough for Shannon, broke the Numinous stream and turned to preening one of Shannon’s silver dreadlocks.

Magistra Okeke spoke. “We should tell the boy why we are here.”

Shannon’s mouth tensed, and then he motioned toward three chairs. “Then let us sit. This, Nicodemus, is a fortuitous interview. Deirdre passed me in the halls this morning and inquired about you. And Magistra Okeke appeared at my door only moments ago, quite unexpectedly.”

“I would like the boy to talk about the Erasmine Prophecy,” the sentinel said, coolly regarding first Shannon and then Deirdre.

Nicodemus felt his cheeks grow hot.

Shannon turned toward the sentinel. “I see you’ve been busy researching Starhaven rumors.”

With a half-smile, the druid looked from one wizard to the other before adding, “I am also interested in this prophecy.”

The sentinel narrowed her eyes at the other woman.

Three grand authors in one room, each distrustful of the others—Nicodemus would have felt safer if the study were full of starving lycanthropes.

“Regarding prophecy, there is little to tell,” Shannon said. “Nicodemus is not the Halcyon.”

“Why so certain?” Deirdre’s green eyes fixed on the old man. “Perhaps we should start with what the first wizards foresaw.”

Shannon started to reply but then paused. Prophecy, being closely related to religion, was seldom discussed among different magical societies. Doing so was considered impolite at best, blasphemous at worst.

However, Shannon could not refuse a guest’s direct request. “Erasmus foresaw the War of Disjunction: the final struggle between demons and humanity that will come when the fiends escape the ancient continent and invade this one. The prophecies predict that Los will be reborn and will lead the Pandemonium—the great demonic army—across the ocean to destroy all human language. Erasmus founded the Numinous Order of Civil Wizardry to repel the Pandemonium. His prophecy predicts that the Order will prevail only if it heeds the teachings of a master spellwright known as ‘the Halcyon.’”

Deirdre shifted in her chair. “But how could any force destroy human language?”

Magistra Okeke answered impatiently: “The demons will use special spells called metaspells to decouple the meaning of language from its form.”

The druid gave the sentinel a blank look.

“What Magistra Okeke means,” Shannon explained, “is that the demons will divorce the signifier from the signified. Phrases and words will take on unexpected meanings. Civilization will crumble into animal brutishness.”

“I don’t understand your jargon,” Deirdre said. “But this interests me. The druids hold to the Prophecy of the Peregrine, which predicts that the Pandemonium will burn our groves and crush our standing stones. Our mundane and magical texts are stored within our sacred trees and megaliths.”

“I thought druids believed the War of Disjunction was imminent,” Magistra Okeke said. “Something about a fungus killing off Dralish trees.”

Still smiling, Deirdre examined the sentinel as if for the first time. “Amadi Okeke, you refer to the Silent Blight. It is a complicated issue. I would prefer not to speak of it here.”

The sentinel pursed her lips. “But perhaps you could elucidate some of your order’s beliefs, since Magister Shannon was so free with information about wizardly prophecy.”

“There’s no need to—” Shannon started to say.

“It is all right.” Deidre raised an open palm. “The Silent Blight is a…‘change,’ I suppose I must name it to non-druids. Yes, the Blight is a world change we detected a few decades ago. It is not a disease, but a…condition that is affecting all of nature. The evidence comes from the observation that certain kinds of trees are dying in each of the human kingdoms. What is causing the deaths is debated. Some believe the Blight indicates that the War of Disjunction will begin any day now. Others think it is un-related to prophecy. However, all druids agree on one and only one thing: when the War of Disjunction does begin, a foreign spellwright known as the Peregrine will show us how to protect our sacred places and hence our language.”

Shannon nodded. “Some of our scholars report that all magical societies believe the Disjunction will destroy their languages and that only one spellwright might prevent this fate.”

Deirdre nodded to Nicodemus without looking at him. “And the wizards once thought he might be the Halcyon?”

Magistra Okeke leaned forward, her eyes flitting between Shannon and Deirdre.

Though Shannon’s face remained impassive, he cast a brief sentence to Azure. The parrot lowered her head, allowing the old man to stroke the feathers along her skinny neck. Nicodemus recognized this as a habit comforting for both bird and man.

At last Shannon spoke. “Our prophecy describes the Halcyon as being the child of an unknown mother, as having a birth to magic powerful enough to be felt for hundreds of miles, as forging both Numinous and Magnus before reaching twenty. All of these things describe Nicodemus perfectly.”

The pride ringing in the old man’s voice made Nicodemus’s cheeks grow hot again.

“However,” Shannon continued, “Erasmus also described the Halcyon as bearing a congenital keloid scar in the shape of the Braid rune. Nicodemus’s mark is ambiguous. More important, the prophecy predicted that the Halcyon would master many styles and wield language with elegance and justice. He foresaw the Halcyon destroying the feral kingdoms and forging a staff powerful enough to slay the reborn Los.”

“And that is why I can’t be the Halcyon,” Nicodemus insisted. “My cacography prevents me from mastering any style or producing anything close to elegant prose. For a while, the wizards thought I would outgrow my difficulty. But when it became apparent that my touch would always misspell, they knew I wasn’t the Halcyon.”

“Nicodemus,” Deirdre said, “how were you born to magic?”

He shifted in his seat. “In my sleep, when I was thirteen.”

The druid’s mouth curved almost imperceptibly upward. At the same time, the sentinel narrowed her lips.

Deirdre asked, “Do you remember what you were dreaming about the night you were born to magic?”

“No,” he lied.

The sentinel spoke. “As a cacographer you cause misspells by handling text, but have you noticed if your touch makes other things more chaotic? For example, do those near you often become sick? Or do the fires you light tend to escape the fireplace?”

Nicodemus was about to say that he had not noticed anything like that when Shannon interrupted in a low tone. “Amadi, Provost Montserrat has personally observed Nicodemus and determined that that is not the case.”

An icy sensation—half-thrill, half-fear—spread through Nicodemus. The Provost had observed him? But when and how?

Magistra Okeke stared at Shannon for a long moment. “I will see the boy’s keloid now.”

Nicodemus touched a lock of his long black hair. “There’s really no need, Magistra. The scars are misshapen. And we don’t know if I was born with it or not.”

The sentinel only stared. He looked at Shannon, but his teacher’s expression was as blank as a snow field. No help there. He looked at Deirdre. She only smiled her infuriating half-smile.

So with his heart growing cold, Nicodemus turned his chair to present his back to the sentinel, pulled his hair over one shoulder, and began to unlace his robes.

A
S HE UNTIED
his collar at the back of his neck, Nicodemus’s fingers ran across the keloid.

He had felt the scars countless times before, traced their every inch with his fingertips. Once he had even arranged two bits of polished brass so that he could see their reflection.

Unlike most scars, which were pale and flat, a keloid scar bulged out and darkened. Nicodemus’s complexion was a healthy olive hue, but the weals on his neck shone a glossy blue-black—like a colony of parasitic mollusks growing into his flesh.

He fussed over his hair every night so that it would remain long enough to hide the keloids. He hadn’t had to reveal them for nearly five years.

His face burned as he pushed his collar back to expose his neck and shoulders.

“Goddess!” the druid swore. “Do they hurt?”

“No, Magistra,” he said as evenly as possible.

He heard the sentinel walk over to him. “I can see the shape of the Braid in the scars.”

The “Braid” she was referring to was a rune in a common language named Vulgate; it consisted of two vertical lines connected by a serpentine line that wove between them. By itself the Braid could mean “to organize” or “to combine.”

Nicodemus had no sensation along the keloid, but he could feel the pressure of Magistra Okeke’s finger as she traced the scars down his neck. She spoke. “Druid, is the Peregrine prophesied to bear a keloid in the shape of the Braid?”

“Predicted to be born with such,” the druid answered. “There have been false Peregrines who have created such a keloid through branding. And, as I understand it, we do not know if Nicodemus’s mark is congenital.”

“But, Magistras, there’s an error in the middle of it,” Nicodemus said, his face still hot.

Magistra Okeke grunted. “Child, you don’t know how right you are.”

He tried not to flinch as her finger traced the blotch. This second scar took the imperfect shape of a written letter “k” that had been pushed over onto its legs—the same shape as the Inconjunct rune.

By itself an Inconjunct meant either “as far apart as possible” or “as in-correct as possible.” Therefore, a Braid paired with an Inconjunct could mean “to disorganize to the furthest extent” or “to deconstruct to the basic components.”

Deirdre swore under her breath: “Bridget, damn it!”

Shocked by the druid’s blasphemy against her own goddess, Nicodemus turned around. She had lost her half-smile and was frowning at his neck.

“You are distressed, Deirdre?” Magistra Okeke asked. “You thought perhaps Nicodemus was the Peregrine?”

The druid sighed and returned to her chair. “Yes, Amadi Okeke. The answer to both of your questions is yes.”

“Well, druid, I agree with your assessment,” the sentinel said. “If this scar is fate’s work, then it is a clear sign that Nicodemus is not the Halcyon. But I wonder if it might have another meaning.”