Spellwright

For a few moments traseus swirled sluggishly. But then the textual currents gained a windlike fluidity and blew around the textual globe in thousands of different currents. Faster and faster the spell spun until Nicodemus could no longer make out individual sentences. When Smallwood next opened the book, faint purple light flashed around the Index. The grand wizard yipped in joy as the traseus spell gained velocity.

But then something caught.

Several sentences became rigid. Lines snagged and split. Currents spun out of control and formed a linguistic hurricane in the spell’s lower hemisphere. The textual storm raged with percussive force, sounding miniature thunder cracks as it broke through stiff sentences. The purple glimmers around the Index disappeared.

“The text is deconstructing!” Shannon called to the sentinels. “Shut the vault!”

They needed little convincing; in the next instant the chamber door began to swing closed.

Shannon withdrew a scroll from his belt-purse and peeled a Numinous spell off its parchment. “Whatever happens, stay within this text,” the wizard instructed Nicodemus, casting a golden, spherical shield around him. As an afterthought, Shannon placed Azure on his apprentice’s shoulder.

A metallic clang reverberated through the room as the vault’s door shut. All was silent for a moment and then several traseus lines broke with a deafening crack. A feathery Numinous geyser spewed from the sphere’s upper pole, making the spell wrinkle like a winter apple.

With a backhand stroke, Shannon cast a Magnus lash against the spell and cut open a man-sized rift. “Timothy!” he called. “Get out now.”

Smallwood didn’t need to be told twice; he scooped up the Index and dashed out of the spell.

Together the linguists hurried back and edited themselves into the protective Numinous spell that surrounded Nicodemus.

Outside the shield, traseus collapsed and began to deconstruct violently. Decaying sentences flew about, striking the translucent shielding spell with jarring force. The three men silently watched the resplendent chaos. All were exhausted.

Unfortunately, their protective spell was no larger than a broom closet and they found themselves standing uncomfortably close.

“Nicodemus,” Shannon asked, buttoning up his sleeves, “what did you see when the spell was functioning?”

“Purple flashes around the Index.”

Shannon nodded. “As did I. What did you see, Timothy?”

“Nothing,” said the pale-faced wizard as he crouched on a stool, which was contained within the protective spell’s limited space. Both Nicodemus and Shannon stared at the Index lying in the man’s lap.

The air was cold, and so Nicodemus drew his arms back into his sleeves.

With a little shuffling, Shannon managed to turn back toward the vault. Ostensibly he was watching the deconstruction, but by patting Nicodemus’s shoulder, he furtively cast a common language sentence into the younger man’s chest.

Translating the line, Nicodemus read: “Mst get Index frm Smllwd while valt is closed. Ideas?”

Nicodemus had been staring out at the deconstruction with unfocused eyes. The message gave him a wild idea.

He handed Shannon a reply: “Y have an other shield? Like this won?”

Shannon nodded.

“Get it redy.”

Shannon pretended to cough. “When?” he grunted between hacks.

Nicodemus made a show of thumping Shannon’s back then grabbed the grand wizard’s robes and yanked down hard. Just before the old man fell sideways, Nicodemus cast an answer into his chest: “Now!”

CHAPTER

Twenty-one

With a cry, Shannon fell to his left and knocked Nicodemus toward Smallwood’s stool. To avoid landing on the sitting wizard, Nicodemus threw his left hand against the Numinous shield. Nevertheless, his hip crashed into Smallwood’s face and sent the wizard sprawling back onto the textual shield. As Nicodemus had hoped, the Index fell to the floor.

Everyone was shouting. The spherical shield seemed about to tip and send them tumbling over each other like bugs in a rolling glass bubble.

But Shannon leaned back against the shield’s opposite wall, balancing it. Then, faster than Nicodemus thought the old man could move, he bent down and retrieved the Index from the floor.

Nicodemus exhaled with relief. Now came the tricky part: getting Shannon some time alone with the Index so that he could research their enemy.

Since his first day in Starhaven, Nicodemus had worked on preventing his touch from misspelling magical text. He had focused on rune order, memorized complex sentence structures, learned to block out every thought but those of preserving the spell at hand.

Now, heart racing, he did the opposite.

“Magisters!” Nicodemus cried while nodding toward his hand. His fingers were jammed into the shield’s golden sentences. “It’s misspelling!”

A dark line grew up from Nicodemus’s hand as he willed his cacography to misspell the previously smooth sentences into crinkled zig-zags.