Spellwright

“You see, Nicodemus,” Smallwood said as they walked, “our research spell seeks to learn how the text around the Index works, for clearly the artifact possesses some form of textual intelligence. It might tell us much about quaternary cognition-how certain spells allow us to think with text. Some speculate the Index might be a Chthonic creation.”

Just then the party came to the cavern’s end and beheld a guardian spell sleeping in front of a wide metal door. The golden construct’s massive head rested upon her spherical Magnus passage. Slowly a single canine eyelid rose to reveal a burning eye. Suddenly the construct was on all fours, growling fiercely. Shannon tossed a thick stack of passwords at it.

The guardian snapped the text out of the air as if it were a ham steak. After a long distrustful stare, it bowed. Behind the spell, the door swung open to reveal a windowless room with stone walls. At the chamber’s center, a marble podium held the Index.

Polished brown leather covered the book’s face. Two brass bands wrapped around its spine, securing themselves to the board with three steel studs apiece. A single brass fore-edge clasp held the book shut, and triangular steel tabs protected its corners. As Nicodemus drew closer, he saw innumerable sunbursts etched into the brass. There was no ornate boss upon the face or jewels encrusted in the metalwork, but still it was one of the handsomest books he had ever seen.

After putting down his stack of manuscripts, Smallwood began to undo the buttons that ran down his sleeves, all the while instructing the sentinels to unload their books onto the empty shelves that lined the walls.

Shannon had already unbuttoned his sleeves to reveal arms that constant spellwriting had kept muscular in spite of his age. “Our research spell is named traseus,” he explained to Nicodemus. “It’s a Numinous and Magnus hybrid designed to visualize the movement of the artifact’s language as it searches for a mundane text. The only problem is that traseus is an expansive spell; that is why we need your assistance.”

Nicodemus cringed as he slipped his arms out of his apprentice sleeves. If Shannon and Smallwood required more runes than the two could produce on their own, it was going to be an onerous task indeed. He looked back at the sentinels, who presently were suffering one of Smallwood’s lectures. “Might we ask them to help?” Nicodemus asked Shannon softly.

“As fully invested wizards they would be offended. Besides I’d rather have them lounging about. If they become bored they’re more likely to be distracted.” He cleared his throat meaningfully.

Nicodemus nodded. “And how much of the spell has been written?” Most often grand wizards wrote long research spells over several days, storing subspells in scrolls or books. Then, at casting, they would peel off the subspells and splice them together.

“None,” Shannon admitted. “We’ve only drawn up outlines.”

“And how many runes will we require?”

“Several hundred thousand in each language,” Shannon said with a sigh. “I’m sorry, my boy, but this might tire you.” He stepped closer, a green sentence conspicuously draped across his forearm.

Nicodemus took the common language spell and translated it: “Don’t forget; your to distract Smlwd and wtch-hntrs.”

Nicodemus whispered, “Yes, Magister. Do you have any ideas how to sidetrack them?”

The old man shook his head slightly. “Do you?”

Nicodemus’s heart beat faster. “Not yet.”

CHAPTER

Twenty

The traseus spell proved to be epic indeed. But Nicodemus could not help parse or analyze the text. The only thing he could contribute was strength. And to harness his strength, Shannon had composed the wordweave spell: a text he hoped would endear Nicodemus to other wizards.

To cast wordweave, Nicodemus arranged both the Numinous and Magnus alphabets into a grid of common language sentences. The linguists then used the grid to pull Nicodemus’s runes into their bodies.

As soon as a wizard withdrew a rune, Nicodemus forged a replacement and maneuvered it into position. Instantly a rune in the opposite alphabet disappeared-Shannon was writing in Magnus, Smallwood in Numinous-and Nicodemus would replace it, and then a rune in the other alphabet would disappear and so on for hours.

The first to tire of this were the sentinels. They paced or inspected the Index or the bookshelves. Two stepped outside to examine the guardian spell standing watch before the door.

During this time, Nicodemus forged in his arms and slipped the runes down to his fingers. But after two hours of dropping runes into place, his wrists began to ache. When he asked if they might break, Smallwood explained that traseus would be volatile until it was nearly complete; interrupting its composition early would make the spell deconstruct. They worked in silence for another hour.