Authors: Blake Charlton
“One year my father returned from a pilgrimage to Mount Spires with my infant self in his arms. He never spoke of my mother. He died shortly after I came to Starhaven.”
The woman nodded. “You are the one who can forge runes in both of the high wizardly languages but can only touch simple spells?”
Nicodemus’s mouth went dry. “I am.”
“I believe your name was mentioned along with the wizardly prophecy.”
“But I am not the one they predict.”
Deirdre’s mouth went flat as a table edge. “I must ask you an important question. On some people, some wounds do not heal into smooth scars. They form dark, bulging scars called—”
“Keloids,” Nicodemus said flinching. “I know what they are. I have one. On my back.”
“A congenital keloid?”
Nicodemus blinked.
The druid’s expression remained unchanged. “It’s congenital if you were born with it.
“My father passed away before the wizards could inquire about it.”
Deirdre did not move. “So it might be congenital.”
“But the keloid is not in the shape of the Braid,” he added nervously, praying that she would not ask to see it. “Or at least, not perfectly. There’s another keloid near it. My keloid is not the Braid the Halcyon will wear.”
“I see.” Deirdre regarded him for another silent moment. Slowly her half-smile crept back across her full lips. “You may go, Nicodemus Weal.”
Nicodemus exhaled in relief and bowed. Neither druid moved. “Good-night, Deirdre, Kyran,” he said, and turned for the Drum Tower.
“I
RONIC
.” D
EIRDRE LAUGHED
as the boy’s robe merged with the shadows. “Wrapped in black literally, not metaphorically.” She lifted her cowl.
“Why didn’t you make him show us the keloid?” Kyran moved to stand beside her. He limped slightly, favoring his left leg and using his walking staff for balance.
She smiled and idly fingered one of the buttons on her sleeve. “Do you have any doubt what we will see?”
“No. No, I don’t.”
“It is as our goddess said it would be.” Deirdre closed her eyes to relish the moment.
“He intrigues you.”
She opened her eyes and looked at him. “You were supposed to write some warning magic.”
This made him scowl. “You mustn’t say ‘warning magic.’ A spellwright would say ‘a warning spell’ or use a spell’s specific name.”
“You’re changing the subject.”
Kyran continued to scowl. “I did set a warning spell. The boy walked right through it. Wherever he touched the text, the rune sequences reversed or twisted. He corrupted the spell without even knowing it.”
“And he gleaned your subtext.”
“He did.” Kyran glared at her with beautiful brown eyes. “You shouldn’t have talked to him for so long. What if you had another seizure?”
She shrugged. “You would have invented an explanation. To him I seem human.” She looked at the tower into which Nicodemus had disappeared. “He’s been cursed, you know.”
“You see it, too?”
“Feel it.”
A rook called from high above the fastness. They looked up.
“The boy looks like you,” Kyran said.
“Yes. Interesting to find so much Imperial blood in an obscure, minor noble.”
“Hiding him from the other druids won’t be easy. Nor will be taking him.”
“Goddess below, Ky!” Deirdre swore. “Stop thinking like a rabid lycanthrope. We can’t ‘take’ the boy. True, he must go to our goddess’s ark without delay, but there are complications. You must think of our escape and how the wizards will react. He must go willingly.”
Her protector was silent for a long moment. “He intrigues you,” Kyran repeated at last.
“He’s a child.”
A new subtext was weaving darkness around Kyran’s waist, returning him to invisibility. He stared at her silently as the subtext continued up to his shoulders.
She scowled. “You’re jealous?”
“Far from it.” The subtext covered his chin. “I remember when I intrigued you, so I don’t envy the boy.” His eyes became soft and then disappeared. “I pity him.”
F
ROM AN EMPTY
gargoyle’s stoop high up on an abandoned tower, the creature looked down into the moonlit Stone Court. A boy dressed in black was making for the Drum Tower. Two figures robed in white stood among standing stones.
“Druids,” the creature muttered. “I hate druids.”
The two white-robes below had spoiled his chance to catch the boy. Had he acted immediately, he could have charged into the courtyard, killed them, and censored the boy. But their unexpected presence had delayed him too long; a moment ago he had spotted a wizard in a nearby courtyard casting two new guardian spells. Now was the time for retreat.
Worse than ruining this particular opportunity, the white-robes could create much larger problems. Long ago, on the ancient continent, the creature had faced the druids when their magical school was at the height of its power. The millennia that had passed since then had reduced modern druids to little more than gardeners and carpenters. Even so, the white-robes knew more of the ancient magics than the wizards. Unless handled carefully, the druids could make it all but impossible to reach the boy.
A cold autumn wind whipped about the creature’s robes, making them flutter. When he crept away from the ledge, his legs ached and a dull pain throbbed across his forearms.
This body would not last much longer.
“No matter,” he muttered, turning away from the Stone Court. Perhaps an important wizard or druid would wander away from the inhabited buildings. In the meantime, he could write a few nightmares.
Where Amadi sat, Shannon saw only darkness. Now, more than ever before, his blindness both frightened and infuriated him.
“You believe,” he said, forcing his voice to be calm, “I pushed Nora Finn from the Spindle Bridge?”
“I seek the truth in all places,” Amadi answered evenly.
Shannon grasped the arms of his chair so hard his fingers ached. Was her accusation a disguised attack or an earnest attempt to discover the murderer? There was no way of knowing.
“What you’re saying is absurd; I have no connection to Nora’s death.” He stood and walked to the window. “Wouldn’t I have blood on me? Nora’s or my own?”
Amadi’s chair squeaked in a way that told him she was standing. “Magister, the body was discovered five hours ago. The villain has had ample time to conceal evidence. And you are connected to the murder—twice connected. Four days ago, Astrophell sent a colaboris spell awarding Magistra Finn the Chair for which you two were competing.”
“So I killed Nora to steal her honors?” He faced the window. “Fiery blood! Do you think—”
“Secondly,” Amadi broke in, “Magistra Finn’s body was riddled with a misspell, and you are the academy’s authority on misspells.”
“I am a linguist researching textual intelligence. Of course I study textual corruption and repair.”
He heard Amadi’s boot heels click against the floor. She was coming toward him. “I wasn’t thinking of your research—although that provides a third connection. I was thinking of your mentally damaged students who misspell texts simply by touching them.”
So there it was, the Northern fear of cacographers. He turned his head to show her his profile. “My students aren’t damaged,” he said in a low tone.
“I believe you’re innocent.”
He turned back to the window.
“Magister, if you help me, I can clear your name. But I must know everything you know about misspells and misspellers.” She paused. “Yourreputation makes this a perilous situation. If you’re seen as resisting my investigation, it will go poorly.”
“My reputation?”
“Every spellwright in this academy knows how important you were in Astrophell. More than a few think you are bitter, perhaps paranoid. Everyone saw how fiercely you competed with Finn for academic appointments.”
“I might be competitive, Amadi, but you know I would never murder.”
“To prove that, I need your cooperation.”
Shannon took a deep breath in through his nose. She was right. Resisting might paint him with shades of guilt.
Now, even more so than before, he had to show that he had become an innocent researcher without political ambition. “If I cooperate, may I continue my research during your investigation?”
“Yes.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Let’s begin with the misspellers. Why are they here?” Receding footsteps told Shannon she was walking back to her chair. Likely she wanted to sit down again. He didn’t follow. As the junior wizard, she could not politely sit while he stood. He remained by the window.
“In Starhaven,” he said, “as in other wizardly academies, a spellwright must achieve fluency in one of our higher languages to earn a wizard’s hood, fluency in both higher languages to earn a grand wizard’s staff. Spellwrights who cannot learn either may still earn a lesser wizard’s hood by mastering the common languages. But a few fail even this. Their touch misspells all but simple texts. Here, in the South, we call such unfortunate souls cacographers.”
Amadi grunted. “It’s the same in the North. We simply do not name dangerous spellwrights so.”
“In Starhaven, we do not believe such students are dangerous. We do not permanently censor magical language from cacographers’ minds; we permit them to fulfill what roles they can. At present there are maybe fifteen living in the Drum Tower. All but three are under the age of twelve.”
“Why so many squeakers?”
“Most of the older ones integrate themselves into the academy as lesser wizards.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?”
“Dangerous?” Shannon’s voice rose. “Dangerous to the cacographers? Possibly. Every so often, a text reacts poorly to their touch. Still, I’ve never seen an incident result in more than bruises or a misspelled construct. But are cacographers dangerous to wizards? Dangerous to spellwrights fluent in one or both of the world’s most powerful magical languages?” He snorted.
Shannon heard Amadi’s feet shuffle and guessed that she was shiftingher weight and wishing to sit down. “Magister, this goes against what I was taught, against what you taught me.”
He planted a hand on either side of the windowsill. “I taught you long ago.”
She clicked her tongue in frustration. “But I’ve read of these misspellers—cacographers, as you call them. Many witches and rogue wizards come from their stock. In fact, one such misspeller was an infamous killer. He was a Southerner, lived in this academy in fact. Now, why can’t I think of his name?”
“James Berr,” Shannon said softly. “You are thinking of James Berr.”
“Yes!”
Shannon turned toward his former student. “Berr died three hundred years ago. You do know at least that, don’t you?”
Silence filled the room for a moment, then Amadi’s chair creaked a loud complaint as she sat heavily.
Shannon stiffened.
“Please continue, Magister,” she said acerbically. “What have I misunderstood? What was so terribly benign about that misspelling murderer?”
Shannon turned away and spoke in short, clipped words. “It was an accident. One of Berr’s misspells killed a handful of acolytes. He admitted guilt and they allowed him to stay on as a low-ranking librarian. The boy was only trying to learn. No one would teach him, so he experimented. Unfortunately, two years later, a misspell killed several wizards. Berr fled into the deep Spirish savanna and died.”
“So cacographers are dangerous, then?”
“Not once in the three hundred years following James Berr has there been such a dangerous cacographer. It is the Northern fascination with misspelling that makes you suspect that every cacographer is a viper in the bush. A fascination, I might add, that has been championed by the counter-prophecy faction, much to the detriment of our academies.”
“Magister, I know you have tangled with the counter-prophecy leader-ship. But I would be careful what you say. Your own provost has spoken sympathetically of their interpretation of prophecy.”
Shannon pushed a stray dreadlock from his face. “And you, Amadi, where does your allegiance lie?”
“I am a sentinel,” she replied. “We do not play the game of factions.”
“Of course you don’t,” Shannon said coldly.
“I did not come here to be insulted, Magister. I came for information.” She paused. “So, tell me, are there any Starhaven cacographers with particular strengths?”
Shannon exhaled through his nose and tried to calm down. “A few.”“And has any cacographer learned to spellwrite in the higher wizardly languages?”
Shannon turned. “What are you implying?”
“The misspell that killed Magistra Finn was written in Numinous.”
Shannon stood up straighter. “I’ll not have you trying to blame a cacographer simply because you’ve been frightened by a villain who used a misspell.”
“You were never so protective of your students in Astrophell.”
He laughed dryly. “You didn’t need protection, Amadi. These children are different.”
“Different or not, you can’t protect them from a just investigation. I ask again: Do you have a cacographer who can write in the higher languages?”
“There is one. But he would never—”
“And who,” Amadi interrupted, “is this boy?”
“My apprentice.”
Before Nicodemus had taken five steps away from the druids, he began forging the Drum Tower’s passwords.
Elsewhere in Starhaven stood doors that would not open unless fed hundreds of elaborate sentences. But the Drum Tower’s door required only one sentence written in a common language.
Even so, it took Nicodemus an eternity to forge the necessary dim green runes. They had a texture like coarse, stiff cloth. As he worked, he could almost feel Deirdre’s stare jabbing into his back.
As soon as the passwords were complete, he dropped them on the black door handles. A tongue of white runes flicked from the keyhole to pull them into the lock. Nicodemus waited impatiently for the tumbler spell to disengage the device. As soon as the iron bolt clicked, he slipped into the entryway and heaved the door shut.