Spellwright

The second spell shone Numinous gold. Nicodemus recognized the latere subtext-a favorite of Magister Shannon, who sometimes demonstrated a love of practical jokes rare for a grand wizard. This spell formed a halo that continuously showered light-bending runes on its wearer. Laterecasters became invisible so long as they remained still. Slow movement made the air shimmer; rapid movement revealed glimpses of the caster’s legs or arms. More important, not even a grand wizard could glean its presence.

“This subtext is truly wonderful,” Master Shannon had once mockingly lectured. “For when one packs a friend’s shoes full of snow, one does want to be there when he puts them on.”

Fear and guilt assailed Nicodemus as he thought of Shannon imprisoned.

But with grim determination, he focused on recovering the emerald and forced himself to consider the latere subtext. It might work; he would have to move slowly and be sure not to stand where the guards might walk. However, it was very complex.

The third spell burned with the violet light of the Index’s language. It was written in a terse, self-reflexive style and possessed a brief description:

The words of sceaduganga cover the body, allowing our authors to walk unseen in shadow but not bright light. It deadins the sound of footsteps.

This was precisely what Nicodemus needed. With a flash, the sceaduganga spell crashed into his mind.

Having gotten what he sought, Nicodemus removed his hand from the Index and felt his mind drop back into his skull. As before, the transition from book to brain made his thoughts feel strangely confined.

Nicodemus closed the Index. On the gate, the two guards were discussing an ongoing bookworm infection. Apparently there were supposed to be other guards on the front gate, but the provost had pulled them away to help hunt the worms.

One of the stronghold’s cats now prowled the other side of the corridor. Nicodemus glared at the feline, willing it not to come his way and by purring reveal his presence. Another breeze set the torches to guttering.

After a long breath, Nicodemus turned his mind to the sceaduganga spell. Because the text had come from the corrupted Index, it was already slightly misspelled. And for that reason, Nicodemus concentrated on keeping his cacographic mind from further distorting the newly learned spell. After another long breath, he set to writing the subtext along his right forearm.

Although each violet rune required a surprising amount of energy, writing the spell took only moments. When finished, the sceaduganga solidified into a transparent cylinder on his palm. He frowned at his first attempt in a new language. Most likely it was misspelled. He cast the text into the air, expecting it to crash onto the floor.

But it did not fall.

It shot upward and smashed against the ceiling. “Fiery blood!” he whispered as violet sentence fragments snowed about him. His second attempt behaved like a proper misspell and plummeted to the ground. The third spell shot across the corridor to strike the cat and render it invisible. The rats wouldn’t like that at all.

The fourth spell crashed onto the floor like the second, and the fifth deconstructed before leaving his hand. Nicodemus’s face grew hot with frustration. He badly wanted to break something other than another sceaduganga subtext.

Suddenly his keloid came alive with pain. Clapping a hand onto the scars, he discovered that they were almost as hot as boiling water. This had happened twice before when he was making his way to the front gate. It made him worry about the last thing the emerald had said: “Beware the scar; it will betray you to Fellwroth.”

What that meant, Nicodemus couldn’t imagine. And he couldn’t waste time thinking about it now. He needed to get out of Starhaven.

So he took slow breaths and waited for the scar to cool. When it did, he bent down to inspect the decaying halves of his last two subtext attempts. Both spells had split at the same point in their primary sequence. Undoubtedly, he had made the same cacographic error in both.

“Los damn my cacography,” he hissed, fighting a fresh wave of self-hatred. “If only I had that emerald!”

He forced himself to think logically. Was there a way to rewrite the spell to avoid the commands that contained difficult spellings?

He grunted. Perhaps there was. But that would mean deliberately re-spelling, deliberately misspelling. His whole life he had waged war on his cacography. True, intentionally misspelling the shielding spell back in the Index’s chamber had increased his control of that text. But now he was considering something more egregious-willfully composing a misspell.

But the present situation afforded few options: he could either try a respell or lurk around Starhaven until the sentinels or the golem discovered him.