Spellwright

So he made another attempt at the subtext, this time deliberately altering the fractious paragraph. When finished, the respelled text glowed deep purple.

Wincing, Nicodemus cast the pale cylinder into the air, where it floated and began to spin faster and faster until it seemed as if it might split apart.

But the misspelled subtext did not break; rather it cast out a sentence from either side of its body. The whirling lines covered Nicodemus’s feet and wove a textual sheet up his leg. Within moments, he was enclosed from boot heel to top hair in light-bending prose. The spell left two thin slits open for his eyes so he might see out from the disguising words.

Elation flushed through Nicodemus.

Slowly, he stepped from behind the tapestry. His boots made no sound on the cobblestones. But as he drew near a torch, the sentences nearest the light began to fray and deconstruct.

This was strange; light shouldn’t damage magical language. He moved away from the torch and fed more purple sentences to the subtext. The deconstruction stopped and the spell regained its integrity.

Carefully Nicodemus stepped through the gate and past the guards. A nervous smile began to curl his lips. The guards could not see him; they could not hear him.

It was a wonderful feeling. He had respelled the ancient sceaduganga. Perhaps, one day, he would publish his creation and name it the shadowganger subtext.

His smile grew as he slipped across the drawbridge and onto the mountain road. “Dear heaven, I’m free,” he whispered as Starhaven’s lofty towers came into view, black against the starry sky.

With a laugh, he turned away from the academy of strict wizardly language and knew that he was safe under his disguise-safe under an epic of concealing, respelled prose.

CHAPTER

Thirty-one

Nicodemus walked into the cold autumn night.

Wind rushed through the evergreens and tore leaves of scarlet and yellow from the aspens. The crisp air smelled of damp earth, moldy leaves. Before him a steep mountain road curved down to the hamlet of Gray’s Crossing. Behind him rose Starhaven’s black silhouette.

Even though Nicodemus had seldom left the academy and never traveled this road at night, he noticed little of the dark beauty; his mind was too distracted by recent memories and new emotions.

At first he felt only exhilaration. His cacography had helped him escape! But then he turned a bend and saw a rotting log that resembled a woman’s body, curled up and facing away. A shiver ran down his body. The toppled trunk grew larger in his vision, revealing pale mushrooms scattered like warts across the wood, their roots eating into the rot.

Devin’s half-crushed face flashed before his eyes. He tried to think of the emerald, but his fear and grief would not dissipate. Devin and Kyran were dead. The demon Typhon had turned John into an unwitting killer. Far worse, the monstrous Fellwroth was still alive. The damage Kyran had done to the metal golem was of no consequence. Fellwroth might already be forming another body.

Nicodemus closed his eyes and again sought the emerald’s image, but again he failed. Fellwroth would keep coming, no matter how many times he escaped, no matter how many golems he deconstructed.

And yet, when the golem had grabbed his throat, he had heard the emerald’s voice as his own childhood voice. He had learned that the gem was the missing part of himself. He had learned that his nightmares had contained visions of Fellwroth’s living body.

But could that knowledge do him any good? He wasn’t the Halcyon. Prophecy dictated that the Halcyon would be born with a Braid-shaped keloid. Nicodemus’s keloid had been created after his birth, when his father had branded him with the emerald.

Worse, Nicodemus still had no idea where Fellwroth’s true body might be. True, he knew it was lying in a cavern with a standing stone… and inhabited by nightmare turtles? It was nonsensical.

His fear grew and the keloid began to burn again. The scars grew so hot he feared they might singe his hair. He paused to fan the back of his neck.

While he waited for the keloid to cool, he pulled the Seed of Finding from his belt-purse and tore off its encircling root. As before, part of the artifact melted and then re congealed on the back of his hand as barklike skin. Now Deirdre could find him.

However, the Fool’s Ladder had landed her on Starhaven’s eastern side. She would have to make a long hike around Starhaven to the road Nicodemus now traveled. Even if the druid had set out at once, she could not find him before morning. Until then, he needed a safe hiding place.

He started down the road again, hoping to reach Gray’s Crossing quickly.

But the night was not the same; he was not the same. The forest loomed larger and blacker. In the blue moon’s light, once familiar meadows became otherworldly landscapes. All around him lurked the loneliness of the road. He shook his head and tried to push away thoughts of Kyran and Devin.