Spellwright

But he couldn’t ignore the dreams. He looked back at the door. Perhaps he should take the other male cacographers up to the compluvium? But if Shannon had wanted him to do that, he would have said so on the scroll.

Again Nicodemus raised his hands to breathe on them, and again he brushed the wound on his cheek.

“Fiery blasted blood!” he swore out loud, the pain igniting his frustration and anger. “I was supposed to be the Halcyon! I was supposed to be sure and decisive. And now I’m afraid to do anything!”

He sat before the fire and held his hands toward the coals.

He must have been cursed. He wasn’t supposed to be like this. The golem’s author must have stolen his strength and his ability to spell.

But if that were true, it would mean that he could restore his ability to spell. It would mean he could end his cacography.

Nicodemus focused all of his attention on the hope of completing himself. He fed it all of his fear and uncertainty. His desire grew and began to radiate heat. He wasn’t going to pace about like a dithering boy. The monster had stolen part of his mind. Hatred blazed within him. He would get the missing part of himself back!

He stood up and decided that he would take the male cacographers up to the compluvium; from there he could plan his next move. Perhaps he would seek to free Shannon. Perhaps he would find a way to strike back against the golem.

Again the most recent nightmare returned to him. “The white beast will find you unless you fly from Starhaven,” April had said. “Fly with anything you have!”

In a way, he was fleeing out of Starhaven proper to the compluvium. The dream must have predicted this. But what to take with him? He looked around at his cot, his robes, his books, his endless pages of spelling drills. What would help protect the boys or harm the golem? His eyes fell on Shannon’s open scroll and its radiant Numinous paragraphs.

Abruptly, he realized he couldn’t take the boys to the compluvium.

Not yet.

The meaning of Shannon’s words was suddenly clear. The old man was a linguist after all, and linguists studied all aspects of language… even metaphor.

Dogfood.

LEAVING THE DRUM Tower proved simple. Shannon’s key disspelled the ward on the door and, of course, there were no guards in the Stone Court.

Nicodemus worried about being stopped in the hallways. But as he hurried through the stronghold, he found it mostly empty. Occasionally he spotted teams of wizards rushing through a hallway as if on an urgent errand. Oddly, they were usually led by librarians.

At the Main Library’s entrance, Nicodemus reached into Shannon’s scroll and pulled out the passwords. Careful not to hold the text too long, he tossed the paragraph to a guardian spell.

The construct snapped it out of the air and glared at Nicodemus. The canine spell would tear his arms off if it discovered a misspelled rune sequence. A long moment passed as it chewed the words. Nicodemus was about to turn and run when the spell stretched into a dog bow.

Filled with dread, Nicodemus stole into the library. Without sunlight streaming through the windows, the place was dark. Rows of tapers produced dim globes of shifting light that stretched up to the ceiling like an ascending column of stars.

Nicodemus found the place unnervingly empty. He had expected at least a dozen wizards to be working by candlelight. But instead he saw only a handful of librarians rushing off to unknown tasks.

Finding the Index’s chamber was easy enough. And the guardian standing watch before the chamber let him pass when he fed her Shannon’s second paragraph.

As he approached the Index, his hands began to shake. Back in his room he had been so sure-use the Index to discover Shannon’s message, then sneak it away to the compluvium where he could use it to research spells that might harm the golem.

But now Nicodemus noticed faint Numinous sentences running through the chamber’s door frame that he hadn’t seen before. They could only be the sentences of an alarm spell. Removing the Index would trip that spell and summon swarms of sentinels.

He could not steal the Index, but he could still discover why Shannon had sent him there.

With nervous steps, he crept into the chamber and stared at the Index’s blank cover. From outside came the grinding vibration of the guardian shifting her Magnus ball. After cradling the book in his arm, Nicodemus undid the clasp.

Magister Smallwood had said that the Index could search the text of any codex within Starhaven’s walls. And Magister Shannon’s personal research journal had three asterisks embossed on its spine and face, thereby making “***” its title.

Nicodemus opened the Index with the intention of discovering what Shannon had written for him in his research journal.

Warmth bloomed across his cheeks as his body synaesthetically reacted to the Index’s magic. He had expected some synaesthesia, but the strength of this reaction was unsettling. Had something gone wrong? He tried to shift his weight.