Spellwright

The worm retreated again but too slowly. Kale’s spearhead plunged into its abdomen. The thing shrieked and tried to pull away, but Kale had twisted his spear and caught the thing’s carapace with the spearhead’s barbs.

“Magistra,” he called, improvising a club of blunt passages. “By the bridge!” With a powerful club stroke, he split the construct’s head with a crack.

Amadi looked beyond the secretary and saw another construct scampering toward the bridge. By this time, she had composed another lacerate disspell. “Where’s the fourth?” she shouted. “Find it.”

As she had written it to do, her lacerate dispersed midair and bombarded the unfortunate monster with a storm of blades. The thing clicked and squealed as it began to writhe into deconstruction.

“I can’t find the fourth!” Kale called. “I can’t find it!” He was turning around frantically, looking for the fourth monster.

Amadi’s heart went cold. Not eight feet behind him, one of the monsters had reached a bookshelf. It reared up on its abdomen and used its childish hands to pull a heavy codex from the shelves.

“Behind you!” Amadi shouted.

As Kale spun around, the giant worm opened the book. Its head unraveled itself into a cloud of glowing golden prose.

Kale lunged. But even as his spear whistled through the air, the creature jammed its textual head into the book. Instantly, the thing’s body textualized and dove into the pages.

Kale’s spear swung through empty air as the codex fell to the floor and snapped shut.

“Damn it! Get back from the book!” Amadi ordered. Kale deftly jumped away. She ran in and covered the infected codex in a thick Magnus shield.

“Magister, what’s happened?” a frightened voice asked.

Amadi glanced up to see the boy who had led them to the library staring at Kale. She returned to swaddling the book with Magnus sheets.

“What were those things?” the boy asked.

Kale squatted down to look in the boy’s eyes. “Are you all right, lad? There’s no danger anymore, but we need to stand farther away.”

The boy nodded as Kale pulled him back. “What were they?”

“Bookworms,” Kale explained gravely. “Malicious language that invades manuscripts. They eat all the prose in a text and use it to make copies of themselves. When there are too many bookworms in a codex, it explodes. They use the explosion to spread themselves to other books.”

“And one of them got into that book?” the boy asked.

“That’s why Magistra is casting a containing spell around it. That will protect us if it bursts.”

Amadi had never encased an infected codex before, and so she was relieved when she glanced up and saw a small train of librarians rushing toward her. At their head strode an ancient grand wizard in a deputy provost’s robe.

“Sentinel Amadi Okeke of Astrophell, I presume?” the deputy provost boomed. She was a short, fat woman. A thin halo of white hair wreathed her wrinkled face. Her hood was lined with orange cloth signifying that she was a librarian. Given her rank, she was undoubtedly Starhaven’s Dean of Libraries.

“Yes, Magistra,” Amadi blurted, silently cursing herself for not learning this woman’s name.

The dean wasted no time. “What is this situation?”

“A violent deconstruction produced four class-four bookworm constructs,” Amadi reported. “Three curses were deconstructed but the last infected this codex.”

The ancient dean nodded to a librarian behind her. “Hand that to Magister Luro here. He’ll lift the curse or destroy the book.”

Amadi handed the infected codex to the young grand wizard who stepped forward.

The deputy provost studied her for a moment. “Magistra, we are facing a bookworm infection unlike any I have known. Starhaven’s protective language is among the most robust in the world, and yet these curses have spread to four libraries. They are rapidly destroying invaluable manuscripts.”

The ancient woman shook her head. “They’ve tertiary cognition and their executive language confounds all but our most direct methods of deconstruction. Whoever wrote them has an astounding understanding of textual intelligence.”

“Textual intelligence?” Amadi repeated. That was Shannon’s specialty.

“Indeed,” the dean continued. “I must have all available sentinels under my command until this infection is contained. We cannot let the foreign delegates see this chaos. It would embarrass the academy.”

As if to punctuate her point, a massive silver ball blossomed on the farthest bridge. An instant later, a thunder-like boom shook the library.

Amadi flinched. “Yes, Magistra, right away.”

But the other woman was already striding off in the direction of the blast. Her train of librarians hurried after.

Amadi turned to her secretary. “Wake our sleeping authors and fetch those not fulfilling essential duties. They’re to report to her immediately.”

Kale raised his eyebrows. “Even those guarding the Drum Tower and Magister Shannon?”

Amadi took a deep breath. “Leave the two following Shannon, but pull the guards from Shannon’s quarters and the Drum Tower. We’ll put them back as soon as the infection’s contained.”