Spellwright

“You see this world as a battlefield between your kind and demonkind. But humans, gods, and demons are simply currents in a conflict of two larger forces: that of linguistic order and stasis, and that of linguistic error and change. The wizards worship order. They look to the forces that flow toward increasing order. They long for a Halcyon, a river-king of immutable language. They want everything made smooth and calm. And they fear the Petrel-a river-king of mutable language. The academy fears the storm and the change the Petrel will bring. The academy assumes that unchanging language will fend off the demons.”

Nicodemus’s hands were no longer trembling; they were clenched in anger. “And you’ve decided that it’s chaos and error that will oppose the demons? You’ve made me into a champion of mutable language?”

Chimera growled, “Life is mutable language, language that grows through error. Without error in Language Prime we are doomed. This is what I showed James Berr: I showed him that he could become the avatar of change, of disruption, of originality.”

“Originality?” Nicodemus asked through grinding teeth. “By making us into monsters?”

“That which is original creates a new origin. That which is original, by definition, must stray off the previously worn paths. It must wander; it must err. Because of me, Nicodemus, you will generate mutable language, you will become mutagenic.”

Something hot pressed against Nicodemus’s back. “ALL THAT IS CREATIVE COMES FROM ERROR!” Chimera’s voice boomed in his ear.

He spun round and tried to grab hold of her. “Damn you!” he bawled. “Damn you! You’ve made me into the Storm Petrel! You’ve made me into the monster!” His arms flailed wildly but struck nothing.

“You call that which errs grotesque?” Chimera asked from a distance. “You call the original monstrous? Then know that you’ve always been the monster. You’ve always been a cacographer. This is your true nature. This was James Berr’s true nature. He too railed against it, and it consumed him. Will you deny your own self?”

“I AM NO JAMES BERR!” Nicodemus bellowed. “I never will be. I am no force of error. I wasn’t supposed to be this way; I was cursed. I’ll recover the emerald. I’ll complete myself and become the Halcyon.”

Chimera’s response came as a low hiss. “You might yet wrest the Emerald of Arahest from the demons. That would make your life a lie. You will never escape your past as a cacographer. The emerald would make you a partial Halcyon. But know that there already is a true Halcyon.”

“Impossible!”

“Fellwroth told you of the Alliance of Divine Heretics? The renegade deities also trying to breed a true Imperial?”

Nicodemus clenched his jaw. “The monster told me.”

“Then know the Alliance has given you a half sister, your mother’s other child. She’s only a child now, but she may one day become the Halcyon. You never will.”

The rage burning in Nicodemus exploded. Summoning all his strength, he filled his body with miles of sharp Numinous sentences and lashed out in the direction of Chimera’s voice.

He shrieked as the incandescent sentence uncoiled into the darkness. The words of anger burned with a dazzling golden light.

And for a moment, outlined against the mundane blackness, there shone a creature made of darkness tangible. Her endless body spread out, looping and bulging like a worm’s. In places her skin shone slick with black slime, in others knobby branches covered in scales erupted from her serpentine flesh.

And then Nicodemus’s misspelled sentences crumbled into a coruscation of golden sparks.

Chimera’s next words hit Nicodemus like thunder. “GO THEN AND DENY YOUR NATURE! SEEK YOUR EMERALD, YOUR LAPIDARY LIE!”

SUDDENLY BACK IN his body, Nicodemus found himself falling away from the Bestiary. Tears filled his eyes and hot pain tore through his throat.

He was shouting wordlessly.

His tailbone struck ground and shot a jolt of agony up his spine. He fell backward and stared at the ceiling.

“Nico!” exclaimed John. Suddenly the big man was leaning over Nicodemus, bending down to grab his shoulder.

“Don’t touch me!” Nicodemus bellowed, whipping his arm around to cast out a hasty sheet of Magnus.

The spell flashed out into a plate of silver light that smashed into John’s hand. The misspelled text shattered but not before breaking the big man’s ring finger back until it snapped.

John cried out as the spell sent him sprawling backward.

Nicodemus pushed himself away from John. “STAY BACK!” he yelled at Shannon and Deirdre as they stepped toward him.

Hot tears blinded his eyes. Mucus coated his upper lip.

“No one touch me!” he bawled. “No one touch me ever again!”

CHAPTER

Forty-one

Nicodemus let go of Shannon, who turned away to vomit Magnus bywords on the ground.

No one spoke as he retched. Azure reformed her textual connection to Shannon and then provided an image of Nicodemus squatting beside him. The firelight made the boy’s green eyes seem darker, more haunted.