Authors: Blake Charlton
Something twitched at the light’s edge. It was a small creature. Its oily blue back was sleek and armored with hexagonal plates—a nightmarish land turtle. It hissed as it stumped forward. Dark tendrils sprouted from the creature’s footsteps and grew into ivy vines with unctuous black leaves.
A lance of red light dropped from the ceiling to strike the turtle’s back. With a crack, the beast’s shell shattered. It screamed as blue oil flowed out of its broken shell. A second turtle materialized and then a third.
As the turtles approached, they trailed wakes of burgeoning black ivy vines. More and more turtles came in from the blackness. Another lance of red light shattered the hexagonal plates on a creature’s back. There came two more blasts of light, then ten more.
On the table, the body still lay covered by a white cloak. Then a wind whipped through the cavern and tossed back the figure’s white hood.
The face revealed was Nicodemus’s own. For a dizzying instant Nicodemus was not just himself but also the figure lying on the table. He was also the turtles crawling on the floor and a terrified neophyte running through the woods back to Starhaven.
As the figure on the table, he sat up. His cheeks bulged and his lips parted to loose a deafening metallic clanging. A tiny ball was flying around inside his mouth.
Suddenly Nicodemus woke in Shannon’s feather bed. He had escaped the nightmare and was staring straight at the vibrating hour bell crying out its earsplitting alarm.
When Shannon returned to his study, he found Amadi ransacking the place with three of her Northern sentinels. Shannon recognized the first—a slender male Ixonian—as Kale, Amadi’s personal secretary. The other two were the fools she had sent to follow him.
Upon seeing him, the strangers began forging censor spells—enmeshing texts that could wrap around his head and prevent him from spellwriting.
Shannon, ignoring them, walked behind his desk and set Azure on his chair. He removed several walnuts from a jar on a bookshelf. “I believe an explanation is due,” he said mildly.
Amadi answered tensely: “Magister, you deliberately deceived the sentinels I sent to guard you.”
Shannon offered a walnut to Azure’s outstretched foot. “I was being guarded? I didn’t notice. Your sentinels must write excellent subtexts. I wonder how they lost me.” He smiled at the two sentinels who had been following him.
They made a comical pair. One was tall and fat with golden buttons on his sleeve. The other was short and thin with silver buttons.
Azure cracked the walnut in her beak and picked out the meat.
Amadi looked at the short sentinel. “In the Marfll Tower,” the man blurted. “He went into a privy and then wrote a text to climb to a bridge above.”
Shannon laughed and accepted Azure’s empty walnut shells. “You flatter me, Magister, to claim I’m capable of such a feat at my age.” He laughed again. “In fact, I left the privy by the balcony so that I could question the gargoyle that empties the latrine. Surely your companion watching the balcony saw me.” He raised his eyebrows at the fat sentinel.
The man looked away.
“Oh, how embarrassing,” Shannon said through a half-smile. “You didn’t consider that the privy might have more than one exit. Well, no matter; you may question the balcony gargoyle. It will recall our conversation.” He handed Azure another walnut. “I examined other gargoyles afterward.” He listed them.
Amadi eyed her underlings. “Go and verify what Magister says.”
With a commotion of bobbing heads, the two hurried from the study.
“And Kale,” Amadi said to her secretary, “you may deliver those messages now. Interrupt me only with urgent news.”
The young Ixonian nodded and left, closing the door behind him.
Amadi, pushing a dreadlock from her face, turned back to Shannon. “Magister, I thought we had an understanding. I am trying to prove your innocence.”
“Amadi, I simply did not know I was being…guarded, as you put it.”
“Magister, I’m not a child anymore.” A hint of pain sounded in her otherwise controlled voice. “You knew you were being watched.”
“Amadi, I don’t—”
“Very well.” Her tone was testy. “So there will be no future misunder-standings, I tell you now that we’ve placed a watch on your quarters above the Bolide Gardens. We did this after following Nicodemus there. We did not disturb his sleep, but after he left my authors searched the place, taking care not to disturb anything. If you persist in this suspicious behavior, we will have to search it more thoroughly.” She paused for effect. “Also we have written robust wards on the doors and windows.”
Shannon raised an eyebrow.
“No author or text will be able to enter or leave your quarters without disspelling a ward. I would advise against such an action; anyone attempting to sneak in or out of your quarters will be cut in two at the waist. Of course, the sentinels watching your quarters will disarm the wards when you enter or leave.”
Shannon made no attempt to hide his irritation. “Your reaction seems extreme considering that you have no evidence of misconduct on my part.”
“None indeed? Do you care to explain why your face looks like a lion’s scratching post?”
He rolled his blind eyes. “I told you a spellbook deconstructed when I was working late last night. I can fetch what’s left of the book, several books, actually.”
“Of course you can. And the men I sent to confirm your story about researching gargoyles, no doubt the constructs will exonerate you. You’re a linguist studying textual intelligence. No doubt you edited—”
“Magistra, you go too far! I have answered your every question, allowed you to interrupt my research, even given you access to my students. And how do you repay my good will? By spying on me, by ransacking my library, by accusing me of tampering with academy constructs.”
Amadi pursed her lips.
“So I will say again,” he continued, his voice calmer, “that you owe mean explanation.” He held out another nut for Azure. “Without one, I must complain to—”
“Two of your students have died.”
The walnut dropped from his hands. “What did you say?”
“Two of your students have died. Adan of Roundtower and Eric Everson. Adan was found on the smithy roof. It seems he jumped from the Weshurst Bridge. His older brother perished in the Astrophell fire. The other boy, Eric, came running in from the forest with a misspell tearing up his insides. The curse worked him to exhaustion. In his robes, the boy had a Numinous scroll—seems he stole the manuscript and was playing with it in the forest.”
“Blood of Los,” Shannon whispered and sat heavily in his chair. Azure climbed onto his shoulder and began preening his dreadlocks.
Amadi took the seat in front of his desk. “There’s no sign that either death was murder. But in light of what happened to Nora Finn, I believe something is awry. So I will ask you again: Magister, where have you been for the past hour?”
“I speak the truth when I say that I was talking to gargoyles,” Shannon said numbly.
The murderer had struck faster than he had thought possible. More terrifying, Shannon had issued orders to all wizards supervising cacographers that their charges were not to leave Starhaven. How could the murderer have induced the boys to disobey and escape their teachers?
The murderer had said he could wield dreams as others might wield a net. The monster must somehow be using dreams to compel the boys to stray out of Starhaven’s protective walls. “Creator forgive me!” he whispered to himself. This changed everything.
Amadi began to ask a question about the two poor boys.
He stopped her and withdrew the severed clay arm from his robes. The thing was beginning to lose its shape. Nevertheless, he laid it on the table.
While Amadi stared at the arm, he described Nora Finn’s private library and his fight with the murderer.
Amadi stared at him with a neutral expression. “Magister, you expect me to believe this?”
His tone grew more urgent. “Go to the Gimhurst Tower; see Nora’s private library for yourself.”
“According to your tale, the deconstructing spellbooks will have destroyed everything in the private library—even your attacker’s weapon. And you said the creature ran off with Finn’s research journal. There would be nothing to find.”
Shannon had not thought of this. “But the arm.”
Looking at the limb, Amadi took a long breath. “I have never heard of anything, living or magical, that changes from flesh to clay. Perhaps such a transformation was possible on the ancient continent. Perhaps a deity could achieve such a thing with a godspell.”
Shannon felt his hands go cold. Godspells were immensely powerful and ornate texts written by deities. They were also exceedingly rare.
Amadi was studying Shannon’s face. “Magister, do you believe you con-fronted a god last night? Surely other authors would have detected the presence of a deity in Starhaven.”
She was right. “Perhaps not a god, but a godspell,” he said quickly. “Amadi, you must believe me. There are forces acting here beyond anything we’ve known before.”
She paused and then asked her next question in a softer tone: “Magister, have you ever had visions not related to quaternary thoughts?”
He blinked. “No, of course not. You think I’m mad?”
“Tell me about your relationship to the druid Deirdre.”
“Druid?” he asked in confusion. “Deirdre? Nothing, nothing. She asked for an interview with Nicodemus, and to help the convocation I agreed to—” He stopped. “You think I’m mad and it has something to do with the druid?”
Amadi shook her head. “With the boy. He has a…power about him. Why didn’t you tell me of his relationship to prophecy during our first interview?”
“Because there is no proven relationship.”
Amadi tilted her head to one side. “It seems the boy unknowingly draws spellwrights—you, possibly the druid—to his cause. Consider that his peers are dying of misspells. Perhaps he is responsible for…what you perceived.”
“What are you implying?”
“Think of the boy’s scar—a Braid broken by an Inconjunct. The counter-prophecy predicts that the Storm Petrel will ‘untie the Halcyon’s weavings’ and that he will ‘break the braids the Halcyon ties between the human kingdoms.’”
Shannon stood and began to pace. “Amadi, you question my sanity while believing that a mere cacographic apprentice is the Anti-Halcyon? That’s madness. How can you believe that a crippled boy is the Storm Petrel? The champion of the demon-worshipers?”
“I look for theories that can explain the recent deaths. This theory is the only one that can explain them all.”
Shannon shook his head vehemently. “But I’ve spoken to the provost. He agrees that Nicodemus’s scars were most likely the result of a fanatical mother who branded him.”
“I’ve since talked to Provost Montserrat. He believes we should reevaluate Nicodemus.”
Shannon felt nauseated. “You think Nicodemus killed the other cacographers?”
She shook her head. “Nicodemus was lecturing neophytes when the young ones died. Besides, there is no evidence that either boy was murdered. As I said, the counter-prophecies teach us that turmoil shall follow wherever the Storm Petrel flies. If I am right, Nicodemus is unaware of his true nature but is driving these horrible events by some unknown power.”
Shannon stopped pacing. Things would become chaotic indeed if Amadi publicly declared that the counter-prophecy was coming to pass. He needed to stop her. He needed to protect the Drum Tower. If he were free for just another day, he could sneak the cacographic boys to the compluvium, where the gargoyles would protect them.
“Magister,” Amadi said, “you must admit that Nicodemus might be the one of counter-prophecy.”
Suddenly Shannon saw his opening. It would require a bit of finesse, a bit of a bluff. He walked back to his chair but did not sit. “I suppose your faction will be pleased that you are stirring up excitement about the counter-prophecy.”
Amadi’s eyes narrowed. “Sentinels may not play in the game of factions.”
Time for his bluff. “There are some who could link you to the counter-prophecy faction. And if Nicodemus is dangerous, then it might seem that you are letting him run a little wild, letting the bodies stack up a little higher, collecting a little more blood to bolster your claims about the counter-prophecy.”
Amadi’s face became blank. “What are you saying, Magister?”
“I am saying that if you intend to make claims about counter-prophecy you had best keep a tight watch on Nicodemus and the rest of the Drum Tower. You had best do all that you can to prevent further deaths. If you don’t, maybe a rumor will imply that you shirked your duties so as to breed fear and so build support for your faction.”
Amadi grunted. “You are trying to force me to protect the cacographic boys from your imaginary monster?”
He sat down. “We would both get what we want.”
“I don’t take well to threats, Magister. I’m not your student any longer. You can’t possibly connect me to any faction. Besides, I have precious few sentinels available to me as it is. With the convocation in progress, the provost’s officers are stealing my every free author to look after our guests. But what you say does make some sense.” She paused. “Very well, I’ll placetwo guards before the Drum Tower at night and two to follow Nicodemus. But I’m also assigning two to follow you.”
Shannon suppressed a smile. “I shall welcome the protection. But we have to make sure the endangered boys don’t leave Starhaven. I’ll reem-phasize my orders that cacographers are not to be let out of doors. You had best seal the Drum Tower at night and write protective wards on the doors and windows. I’ll need passwords in case I have to reach the students.”
Amadi nodded slowly. “Very well.”
Shannon sighed in relief. “Amadi, you’ll be glad you took my advice. Now I must go to my field research in the compluvium. Nicodemus will meet me there; I will lead your sentinels over from here. They can watch over us both. Later we’ve more research in the Main Library.”
Amadi leaned forward and spoke earnestly: “Magister, I will go to the Gimhurst Tower and search for Finn’s private library. But, as I have said, there is no direct evidence that either of the boys was murdered. Please keep an open mind about the counter-prophecy. Consider that Nicodemus might be the Storm Petrel.” She paused. “I suspect we are dealing with a force far more dire than a simple murderer.”