Spellwright

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Nicodemus saw no dazzling flash, felt no rush of power. Everything seemed the same.

And yet, somehow, he knew exactly what to do. His right hand tightened around the emerald and his left landed on the opened page of the Index.

His mind flashed into the Index’s starry sky to collide with tirade-an epic Numinous-Magnus spell possessing an aggressive and self-reflexive style.

A scriptorium of grand wizards would have needed a year to craft such a versatile text without error.

But when Nicodemus forged within the emerald, perfectly formed sentences exploded into his hand and spilled down his arm. In the next heartbeat, he blazed from toe to tongue with violent language.

The spell’s dazzling glare illuminated Fellwroth’s white-robed figure. The creature’s hood had fallen during the fight, and Nicodemus looked on his enemy’s face.

Limp white hair hung down to Fellwroth’s thin shoulders. His pale skin shone with a dull sheen like maggot’s flesh. His smooth jaw, hollow cheeks, and snub nose seemed human but strangely asexual.

Between the creature’s pale lips opened a maw filled with a hundred quivering tendons. His eyes gleamed red. His forehead presented a golden rectangle of flowing Numinous sentences.

With a backhand slash, Fellwroth cast a spray of needle-like disspells.

But Nicodemus threw out both hands and cast his tirade. The spell produced a Numinous sheet that enveloped the disspells and then discharged a Magnus sphere. This latter passage smashed into Fellwroth’s chest and knocked the monster to the ground.

Nicodemus leaped up from the table and cast a thousand filaments of intertwined Numinous and Magnus.

Though sprawled on the floor, Fellwroth thrust his right hand upward to produce another spray of disspells.

But Nicodemus’s tirade was too cogent. The filaments darted through Fellwroth’s disspells and unwound.

The Magnus tirade coiled around the creature’s body, binding his arms to his side and wrapping his legs together. The Numinous tirade spun a web around the monster’s mind, cutting him off from all magical language.

“Hold!” Fellwroth cried. “I yield!”

Nicodemus stood over his spellbound foe expecting to feel triumphant. But the only emotion he felt was uncertainty.

Just what in the Creator’s name happened now?

Though tirade’s glow had faded, the remaining flamefly paragraphs provided ample light. Nicodemus looked around and saw Deirdre lying on the floor. She was struggling against the Magnus chains contracting around her neck.

Nicodemus caught the text between thumb and forefinger. Using the emerald, he gleaned the spell’s structure and edited two passages. A link snapped, and Deirdre yanked the thing from her throat.

Across the cavern, Shannon was lying motionless on the ground. Azure stood beside him, trying to pluck Fellwroth’s censoring text out of the old man’s mind.

Nicodemus thought for a moment and then extemporized a vinelike Numinous disspell. He cast it onto Shannon with an underhand toss. The disspell grew up the old man’s body and delicately removed the censoring text.

Groaning, Shannon began to stir.

A smile crept across Nicodemus’s face as his self-doubt began to fade. Without the emerald, he would have misspelled such a text within moments. He was whole now, complete.

“You cannot kill me,” a voice rasped. “Without me, Shannon will die.”

Nicodemus turned back to see a spellbound Fellwroth glaring at him with baleful red eyes.

“Only I can disspell the old wizard’s canker curses,” the creature rasped. “I spread dozens more throughout his gut. You need me. Only I can teach you how to remove them. Only I can teach you the meaning of Language Prime. You will never understand that life is made of magical text and-”

Nicodemus flicked a Magnus gag across the monster’s mouth.

He went to Shannon. The old man was on his hands and knees, vomiting another glowing pool of logorrhea bywords. Threads of blood now coiled within the silvery text.

It seemed that Fellwroth had told the truth about planting more curses in Shannon’s body.

“No,” the old linguist sputtered while trying to wave Nicodemus away. “Find out about the Disjunction. Question the monster.”

Nicodemus scowled. “Magister, hold still. I have to disspell your curses.”

“Later,” Shannon grunted. “The sentinels will be here soon. We must get Fellwroth to-”

“Magister!” Nicodemus snapped. His voice was firm though his hands had gone cold with fear. “Be quiet and hold still!”

The wizard sat on his haunches. “Very well, but hurry. We don’t have long.”

Nicodemus had to touch the old man to disspell the curses. But as he reached for his teacher’s cheek, his hand froze. It was shaking.

“I’m not the Storm Petrel anymore,” he whispered to himself. “I won’t curse him. I’m the Halcyon now.”

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He had the emerald. His doubt and fear should have vanished with his disability.

“I am the Halcyon now,” he assured himself and pressed his palm against his teacher’s cheek. The old wizard drew in a sharp breath.

Suddenly Nicodemus was looking through Shannon’s skin and sinew to the old man’s stomach. It was not pink flesh he saw, but the cyan glow of the organ’s Language Prime text. Five knobs stood out on the otherwise regular folds. They glowed brighter than the rest of the stomach.

Nicodemus set about disspelling the cankers. It was difficult work; Fellwroth had cruelly restructured Shannon’s Language Prime prose. Worse, the old man flinched every time Nicodemus made a major textual change.

“Is it done?” Shannon asked when Nicodemus removed his hand. The pain had made his face shine with sweat.

“I disspelled the worse curses around your stomach, but I saw smaller cankers on other organs. They’re not growing quickly. And I want to study them more before-”

“Disspell them later,” Shannon said while restoring Azure to her perch on his shoulder. “We haven’t long before Starhaven realizes we’re here and comes for us.”

Nicodemus helped his teacher stand. “Why do we need to worry about the other wizards?”

Shannon took a step on unsteady legs. “When the provost learns the truth about you, Nicodemus, we’ll land in the largest embroilment in the history of academic politics. If we want to avoid becoming the provost’s political prisoners, we must learn everything we can from that monster.”

Nicodemus turned to look at Fellwroth, still spellbound and lying on the floor.

Deirdre had picked herself up and gone to Boann’s ark. Fellwroth had written a Numinous shield around the object, but the avatar had forced her arms through the prose to lay her hands against the stone.

The contact seemed to be strengthening the ark; a red aura was growing around the stone and gradually deconstructing Fellwroth’s Numinous shield.

“Monster, I’ll have the truth from you.” Shannon limped over to stand above Fellwroth. “What do you know about the Disjunction?”

The creature glared with bloody eyes. When Shannon disspelled the gag, the thing laughed. “With what do you threaten me, Magister? Torture? Death? Neither will work. You, old goat, will never have my obedience.” The bloody eyes swiveled to Nicodemus. “But the boy might.”

Nicodemus frowned. “What are you playing at?”

Fellwroth grinned. “You may not need me to disspell the old man’s curses. But I command the forces of the Disjunction. Let me live and I will put all the resources of the demon-worshipers at your command. You can rule as a new emperor.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Nicodemus snapped. “I’d rather rot in hell than be your ally.”

The monster continued to stare at Nicodemus. “Think on it. You can’t go to the wizards; they will never overcome their belief that you’re the Storm Petrel. They will imprison and manipulate you. And you can’t trust that girl dressed up like a druid; she betrayed me and will betray you.”

Nicodemus’s heart grew cold. “Deirdre betrayed you?” he asked, remembering his first encounter with Fellwroth in the Drum Tower. The monster had acted surprised when Deirdre had resisted.

Fellwroth ignored this. “We do not have to serve the demons, Nicodemus. You can use me to resist the Disjunction. Think of the opportunities. I can show you how to find the demon-worshiping cults. I can help you eliminate them or manipulate them. Nicodemus, if you want to protect humanity, you cannot afford to destroy me.”

Nicodemus looked at Shannon.

The old linguist began to scratch Azure’s neck. He took a long moment before nodding.

“Very well,” Nicodemus said, turning back to the monster. “Tell me everything you know about the Disjunction.”

“Talk fast,” Shannon said. “The sentinels will be here soon. How did Typhon cross the ocean?”

Fellwroth’s red eyes darted between teacher and student. “I am neither human nor a construct, something in between. By combining dust with demonic godspells, Los sought to create a new race to replace humanity. I was to be the first of the new men. He gave me life, but he never completed me. The Pandemonium was away at war on the coast, trying to stop the humans from escaping across the ocean. They had left Mount Calax empty but for Los and my unfinished self. A party of powerful human avatars surprised the arch-demon. Sacrificing their lives, they combined their godspells to drain Los of all strength until he became solid rock. I was left incomplete and forgotten in Los’s mountain palace.”

Fellwroth shifted uncomfortably beneath the restraining Magnus sentences. “Having no devotees, the demons could not pursue humanity across the ocean. And only Los knew how to break their bonds to the earth of the ancient continent. But I am part of the ancient land-a being made from godspells and dirt. So when-centuries after Los’s demise-Typhoneus accidentally discovered me, he knew I could be his vessel to the new world. The demon implanted himself inside of me, made me his ark. We built a crude ship and sailed to this land.”

“And why did you cross?” Shannon asked. “Were you going to ferry the demons across one by one?”

Fellwroth shook his head. “Only an Imperial’s fluency in Language Prime can reanimate Los’s frozen body, so we crossed the ocean to breed one. Typhon had reconstructed the genealogy charts of the Imperial blood-lines. That’s how he created you, Nicodemus. And once we had your Language Prime fluency, we set about creating a dragon that could carry us back to the ancient continent.”

Nicodemus frowned. “Why not simply sail back?”

“Can’t be done,” Fellwroth replied. “Being trapped on the ancient continent has driven the demons mad with bloodlust. Mindless, they stalk the southern shores and will destroy any approaching ship. Typhon and I escaped by sail only because the demons did not imagine it was possible. Now their fury is whetted; even Typhon would not have survived a landing by ship.”

“So you need a dragon to fly over them?” Nicodemus asked.

The monster shook his head. “The flying helps, but it wouldn’t be sufficient. The dragon I completed could fly, but the demons would have torn it into pieces. A true dragon is more than wings and scales. True dragons can change the nature of a mind; they make their victims think unthinkable thoughts.”

Shannon exhaled. “A true dragon is a type of quaternary cognition spell?”

Fellwroth answered without taking his eyes from Nicodemus. “Precisely. Only a true dragon can travel past the demons to Mount Calax. There we could reanimate Los with your ability to spell in Language Prime. Los could then tame the feral demons and break their ties to the ancient continent. Then the War of Disjunction would begin at last.”

“So then why send your dragon to burn in Trillinon?” Shannon asked before laughing dryly. “No, let me guess. You killed Typhon before the dragon was finished. When you tried to complete the wyrm on your own, you failed to make it powerful enough to get past the demons. So you sent the dragon against Trillinon to cause havoc.”

Fellwroth bared his teeth at the grand wizard.

Shannon responded with a humorless smile. “So I am right. But tell me why you killed Typhon. Why sabotage your own plan?”

The monster hissed. “Typhon was a fool. The old goat was so bent upon reconstructing Los that he failed to see that I am Los’s legacy. He jeopardized my life for trifling matters. So when the emerald showed me how to kill him in the river, I did so and stole part of the demonic godspell. That’s how I learned to manipulate dreams.”

“There are no more demons on this continent, then?” Nicodemus raised his eyebrows. “So to stop the Disjunction, all we need do is kill you?”

“Not quite, boy.” Fellwroth produced a toothy smile. “Typhon and I established hidden cults in every human kingdom, each of which will continue trying to breed a true Imperial. If you want to prevent the War of Disjunction, you will need me. I can help you destroy the cults or rule them. You can choose to do either, but to have any hope of discovering them you must protect me from the wizards and from that vile woman.” Fellwroth nodded to something behind Nicodemus. “I won’t have a betrayer near me.”

Deirdre approached. Her green eyes shone with a wild energy. She had recovered her goddess, her pure love. “How could I have betrayed you, monster?” she asked. “When from the beginning I sought nothing but your death?”

Something occurred to Nicodemus. “Fellwroth, how did you find Boann’s ark? Why bring it here?”

The creature laughed and looked at Deirdre. “You mean she doesn’t know? Her hussy of a goddess never told her?”

Deirdre stepped beside Nicodemus. “Hold your tongue.” She leveled her greatsword at the monster’s head. “Or I’ll cut it out.”

“Nicodemus, Boann is traitorous,” Fellwroth replied hotly. “She wants to control you.”

Shannon stepped forward and pulled Deirdre’s sword arm down. “We need to handle this carefully,” he muttered.

Fellwroth continued to glare at the woman. “Boann and I made an arrangement. The goddess agreed to serve the Disjunction if she could become a powerful demon.”

“You lie!” Deirdre growled.

Shannon laid a hand on her shoulder. “Easy,” he murmured.

Fellwroth laughed. “Stupid girl. You were the one who negotiated the agreement. You offered to capture Nicodemus for me because I did not then know his identity.”

Deirdre looked at her two companions. “Don’t listen. He’s trying to trick you into distrusting Boann.”

Nicodemus met her gaze. “Deirdre, how did he know where Boann’s ark was?”

Fellwroth was the one who answered. “The girl begged for her life when I cornered her in that Chthonic tower. She told me where I could find the ark and how to surprise the druids protecting it. How else could I have gotten it here so quickly?”

Deirdre shook her head. “It’s a lie.”

Nicodemus’s fingers tightened around the emerald. Something was wrong. “But why did you bring it here, Fellwroth? The spell that knocked the emerald from your hand came from the ark.”

The creature sneered in disgust. “Boann suggested that I bring the ark here to reassure me of her allegiance. If I had her ark, she could not break her word and run away with you, Nicodemus.”

The monster sniffed in disdain. “Even though I was foolish enough to agree, I took a precaution: I sealed the ark with protective text. It was a strong shield, but one short spell could slip through if the ark knew exactly how my prose was written. Somehow the emerald plucked that knowledge from my mind and fed it into the deity inside the stone. Somehow the emerald told the ark exactly when to strike so that I would drop the stone.”

Nicodemus’s brow furrowed. “But Boann shouldn’t know about the emerald. Only you, Fellwroth, knew about the emerald. Well, you and…” He stopped himself from saying “Typhon.”

Cold terror spread through Nicodemus.

“You see, neither the girl nor the goddess can be trusted.” Fellwroth insisted.

“You can’t believe him, Nicodemus,” Deirdre insisted, her chest heaving. “It’s been a year since I sinned against Boann, and we are so close to redeeming-”

“Deirdre, something’s wrong,” Nicodemus interrupted. “Listen, a year ago Fellwroth killed Typhon. You started having seizures just after that.”

Deirdre shook her head again. “We knew that, Nicodemus. We knew that Boann saw Fellwroth killing the demon. That’s how she learned of you. That’s why she sent me to rescue you.”

“No, Deirdre,” Nicodemus said, taking a cautious step closer. “We don’t know that for fact; that’s what we suspected. But what if it isn’t true? What if Typhon succeeded in infecting Boann when he was in her waters? You told us that Boann kept her ark in the Highland rivers.”

Fellwroth’s crimson eyes bulged. “Boann inhabited that river? Deirdre said the goddess was of the city. Nicodemus, quickly, we must get away from the ark. She’s not Boann’s avatar anymore!”

Deirdre’s sword arm was trembling.

Nicodemus began composing restraining Magnus sentences.

Fellwroth kept talking. “Nicodemus, Shannon, we need to get away. There are fates worse than death! She’s not Boann’s avatar! We have to escape Typhon!”

“Deirdre…” Shannon started to say.

But Deirdre, moving with inhuman speed, slammed her elbow into Shannon’s face and then thrust her blade into Fellwroth’s skull.

The Numinous rectangle on the creature’s forehead exploded and sent a wall of force careening through the cavern. When the shockwave hit Nicodemus, everything went black.

Then he was lying on his back staring at a torrent of blazing Numinous prose streaming from Fellwroth’s corpse to the ark.

Nicodemus extemporized a disspell along his forearm and cast it at the textual stream.

But his text crumpled in the air and fell.

Numbing shock filled Nicodemus as he watched the disspell shatter on the floor. How could he have misspelled?

He looked down at his hands and found them empty.

The emerald was gone.

A rumble shook the stairs under Amadi’s feet.

Slowly the sentinels pushed open the giant iron doors that led onto the Spindle Bridge’s landing. Before her stretched the moonlit bridge and the dark mountains beyond. “Secure the landing,” she ordered.

The twelve sentinels who had volunteered for the expedition began to spread out. They were all excellent spellwrights: ten wizards and two grand wizards. Three bore caesura wands, another a tundern wand. The rest carried spellbooks full of wartexts.

The dean of libraries and the rector had accompanied the party to observe.

Simple John stepped beside her and pointed. “There!”

Amadi’s gaze followed his finger to where the Spindle Bridge met the mountainside. A hole seemed to have been blasted in the Spindle. Out of it shone a golden blaze.

The sentinels muttered. Someone was casting a powerful Numinous spell from inside the mountain.

“Kale,” Amadi ordered, “stay here with John and the provost’s officers. The rest of you, advance slowly and keep closed ranks. Subdue anything dangerous, and kill anything nonhuman.”

Deirdre stood frozen in her thrust-legs bent, arms extended, hands locked around the sword hilt. Fellwroth’s unmoving body lay before her.

When Nicodemus said Deirdre’s name, her eyes moved but her body remained as stiff as stone.

Shannon lay behind her, bleeding from his nose and a wound on his shoulder. Azure had disappeared.

Nicodemus went to the wizard and turned him over. He took care to touch only the old man’s robes, never his skin. Without the emerald, he was once again the mutagenic Storm Petrel.

Shannon looked up at him with a dazed expression. “Fellwroth… is dead?”

“He is,” Nicodemus croaked, crouching beside the old wizard.

“And Deirdre is… Typhon’s avatar?”

“She didn’t know.” Nicodemus shoved his arm under the wizard’s back.

“But how did you figure it out?” Shannon gasped as Nicodemus tried to lift him.

“Magister, now is not-”

“No…” the old man said between rapid breaths. “You have to tell me.”

Nicodemus grimaced. “Fellwroth cut Typhon in Boann’s river. After that Deirdre started having seizures and seeing visions of Fellwroth attacking Typhon. Something of the demon must have infected Boann’s ark and later her avatar. Deirdre didn’t recognize the change because she thought it was Boann’s punishment for having an affair with Kyran.”

Only four flamefly paragraphs remained; they hovered above Shannon, shedding a small pool of wan incandescence.

Shannon shook his head. “But how do you know that?”

“Fellwroth’s words,” Nicodemus answered. “The creature was terrified that Typhon was after us.”

Shannon inhaled sharply as Nicodemus sat him up.

The younger man continued to explain as he draped the old man’s arm over his shoulder. “Typhon knew Fellwroth would have to find me when the emerald needed replenishing. So he pretended to be Boann and sent Deirdre here. She was to bring me to the ark; that way Typhon could invest his soul into me and use me to defeat Fellwroth. But when Fellwroth caught Deirdre alone, the demon changed his plan. He tricked Fellwroth into bringing the ark up here, next to his real body, knowing that Fellwroth would bring me here.”

The old wizard groaned as Nicodemus hoisted him to his feet. “But why,” Shannon asked as Nicodemus wrapped his arm around the old man’s waist, “did the demon want you in the same place as Fellwroth and the ark?”

Nicodemus was now half-walking, half-hauling the wizard toward the Spindle Tunnel. “The demon knew that if Fellwroth died near the ark, he could steal the creature’s power. So Typhon waited for me to arrive, and then cast a spell to tear the emerald from Fellwroth’s hand and give it to me. He knew I could defeat Fellwroth when the emerald completed my mind. But now he’s taken the emerald back. I can’t find it.”

Nicodemus stumbled and nearly fell. Warmth spread across his cheeks. “All the things that’ve happened in the past few days, they’ve all been part of Typhon’s plot to kill Fellwroth and recover the emerald.”

A slow clapping sound echoed through the cavern. Nicodemus stopped.

In the darkness before the Spindle’s entrance stood a man-seven feet tall with a silken mane of red hair and a beard to match.

Two amused all-white eyes stared down at Nicodemus. The newcomer’s obsidian skin was black and glossy, making it hard to see his narrow nose and high cheeks. The broad muscles on his torso bulged as he clapped, and out from his back spread two long wings, checkered with red and black feathers. A loincloth covered his groin but not his thick, powerful legs.

When the demon spoke, his voice rumbled. “Impressive that you managed to understand so much.” His calm laughter sounded like distant thunder. “Nicodemus Weal, you’ve grown.”

The demon wore a friendly, almost avuncular, grin. “You’ve gleaned my plan almost exactly, save for one thing.”

“Typhon,” Nicodemus said breathlessly.

The demon nodded. “Set the old one down. I’ve censored him.”

With a start Nicodemus realized that Shannon had gone slack in his arms. Careful not to touch the old man’s skin, he laid the old linguist on the ground.

“Have you ever seen a deity before?” Typhon rumbled, his checkered wings fluttering.

Nicodemus shook his head.

The demon nodded sympathetically. “It is overwhelming for most mortals. But my boy, I want you to overcome this. I want you to think for me. Think of when Fellwroth discovered you and Deirdre in the Drum Tower. What should I have done?”

“You could have sent Deirdre into a fit,” Nicodemus said automatically. “If she had given me to Fellwroth, the creature would have taken us here right away.”

Typhon’s crimson beard split into a smile. “Correct. After Fellwroth captured the ark, he enclosed it with a Numinous shield. I had not anticipated this. The spell almost completely blocked my control over Deirdre. That’s why she continued to execute my previous instructions-which were to seduce you and bring you to Gray’s Crossing.”

The demon paused. “Nicodemus, it is the shame of the world we had to meet this way. I am your creator. I brought your parents together, and I ensured that you would end up as a Starhaven cacographer.”

The demon’s black lips grimaced. “It hasn’t been the best home, I realize. For one of your talents, being a cacographer must have been difficult. But the alternative was to watch an Alliance assassin take you from me.” He shivered. “And I couldn’t watch another of my Imperial boys die.”

Nicodemus blinked.

The demon was studying him. “Fellwroth told you of the Alliance of Heretics, yes? About the clandestine human deities also trying to breed a Language Prime spellwright? They have been murdering your cousins for centuries. And they will kill you in a heartbeat. That is why you must let me protect you.”

Nicodemus stood paralyzed by shock. The demon’s tone was one of genuine concern.

Typhon took a step closer. “We are so close to our goal now that we no longer need to hide you in wretched Starhaven. Join me now and you will help me compose a new dragon. With Fellwroth dead and the emerald restored to its full power, we will need only seven or eight years to write a new wyrm. Then you will become the first dragon lord, a new kind of being invulnerable to the attacks of the Alliance.”

This last startled Nicodemus out of his paralysis. “In a dream I was your dragon. I’d rather cut my own throat than help you create such a monster.”

Typhon shook his massive head. “You were not my dragon; you were Fellwroth’s dragon. That slave turned my draft into a cliched, fire-breathing lizard. Fellwroth never understood what a true dragon is. Nicodemus, they are texts more glorious than you can now imagine. I could give you the spells needed to understand how glorious dragons are and how glorious you and I shall become.”

Rather than answer, Nicodemus looked around for an escape or a weapon. He saw only Deirdre, frozen still as a statue.

“She can’t help you yet,” Typhon rumbled. “She is my avatar now and possesses most of my soul. It will take time to win her over, but you and I will win her.”

When Nicodemus took a step back, Typhon flicked his hand out as if casting a spell. Nicodemus flinched, but nothing happened.

The demon frowned. “Curious,” he said. “The censoring text I just cast around your mind misspelled and deconstructed. Does your cacography influence language unknown to you?”

Nicodemus’s mind filled with images of the night terrors that had hidden him from Fellwroth. He took another step back.

Typhon flapped his wings once. “I do not want to restrain you. We are not enemies.”

He held out a massive obsidian hand, in the center of which sparkled the Emerald of Arahest. “When I trust you, you shall have this back. You shall survive the War of Disjunction and live with Deirdre. You two will become the first dragon lords. From your children shall come a race to replace humanity. Demonkind will reward-”

“You crippled John!” Nicodemus heard himself shout. “You crippled me! You and I shall only and ever be enemies!”

The demon sighed. “Fathers and sons, authors and texts, they often clash before reconciling. I am going to restrain you now. If you struggle-”

Typhon’s next words were drowned out by an earsplitting thunderclap. A brilliant spray of Magnus flew up from the demon’s back to splash against the ceiling. Someone had dashed a wartext against the malicious deity.

Nicodemus spun around and ran for the kobold caves at the back of the cavern. Behind him, Magistra Amadi Okeke’s voice rang out. There was a brief silence, which was broken by a blast of sound so low and loud that it vibrated Nicodemus’s chest like a drum.

He looked back. Typhon roared at a dozen sentinels as they came swarming down from the Spindle Bridge. A storm of silver and gold spells flew from the spellwrights. Typhon pulled back his wings and-

Nicodemus slammed into something and suddenly was on his back. Groaning, he sat up. In front of him, he could feel a solid but invisible barrier. His cheeks burned hot. Typhon must have cast some textual wall at the cavern’s end, and Nicodemus must have run straight into it.

Dazed, Nicodemus wondered how his mind had unknowingly disspelled the censoring text Typhon had cast about him when his body had smashed so painfully into this text.

The barrier must have been written in a different language. One like the Chthonic languages, that used logical spellings. His mind quickly distorted those languages with illogical spellings. That would mean that he could misspell the barrier only slowly.

But slowly was better than not at all. He pushed his hand into the barrier and felt his cacography begin to corrupt the prose.

Another roar rolled through the cavern.

Nicodemus looked back to see Typhon lunge forward and grab a sentinel by the robes. With a one-handed heave, the demon flung the man upward, crushing his head into the low ceiling.

On the cavern’s other side, a sentinel lifted a silver hammer-a tundern wand-and struck it against the ground. A subterranean lightning bolt flew out of the artifact and erupted beneath Typhon’s feet into a spray of jagged Magnus sentences and rock fragments.

But neither words nor stone pierced the demon’s obsidian skin. With a backhanded lash, Typhon cast a blade of red light that flew across the cavern and cut the tundern wielder in two.

The surviving sentinels, Magistra Okeke at their front, were retreating into the tunnel.

Nicodemus turned to the textual barrier before him. It continued to shift under his hands but felt no weaker. This was taking too long. He’d never break through in time.

“Nicodemus,” Typhon bellowed behind him. “We must get you away from here. These humans will kill you. I’ve been imprisoned for too long, and too much of my soul is locked into Deirdre. I’m not strong enough to kill them all at once.”

The five sentinels had fallen far back into the tunnel. Typhon raised a massive hand and struck the tunnel floor. A burst of glowing red streamers erupted from the demon’s fist and then blasted down. The cavern trembled as part of the Spindle’s floor fell into blackness.

With cries of shock, the sentinels ran deeper into the tunnel. Typhon cast an unseen spell that knocked free another bit of the floor. Through the growing hole Nicodemus could see the moonlit forest far below.

A sentinel who had not retreated fast enough shouted as the stones beneath him gave way. There was a silver flash as he tried to textually stop his fall-then nothing.

Typhon roared.

Nicodemus’s head felt light. His lips were numb. He couldn’t deconstruct the barrier fast enough.

One of the sentinels threw a Numinous spell that exploded against Typhon’s shoulder. The flash briefly illuminated Shannon’s unmoving form. “Magister!” Nicodemus exclaimed. He could not leave Shannon behind.

But how to retrieve the old man? Without the emerald he stood no chance of injuring the demon. If only he had time to write out a subtext to hide himself, he could…

“Fiery blood!” he swore and pulled back the sleeves of his robes. “Of course.” He began to pinch the Chthonic sentences tattooed on his right hand.

At first the sentences were recalcitrant and kept inscribing themselves back into his skin. But with a fury of yanking, he managed to disengage the spell.

The Chthonic ghost had warned him that Wrixlan and Pithan sentences would score his skin. But even so, Nicodemus was shocked by the searing agony that consumed his arms as the sentences unwound.

Once free of his arm, the purple language spun itself into Garkex, the firetroll.

Previously the construct had been no bigger than a child. Now the three-horned spell stood six feet tall and possessed arms so muscular they bulged like flour sacks stuffed with river stones.

Initially Garkex wore a grumpy why-did-you-wake-me expression, but the instant the troll’s eyes fell upon Typhon they bulged with fear. With a snort, the construct scooped up Nicodemus and began to tear the other Wrixlan constructs from his skin.

Every inch of Nicodemus’s arms and forearms burned with pain as the purple prose was ripped from him. He fought the urge to cry out as Garkex rolled him over and over and peeled off more fantasies.

After what felt like an infinity of agony, the troll set Nicodemus down.

All of the night terrors now stood around them: Fael the lycanthrope, Tamelkan the eyeless dragon, Uro the nightmare insect, and many others. Because the constructs had absorbed some of Nicodemus’s strength by storing themselves on his skin, each one had grown.

In the next instant the fantasies scooped up Nicodemus, placed him on Tamelkan’s back, and surrounded him with their concealing dark blue skin.

Typhon tossed a last spell at the sentinels. The Spindle had not fallen, but for fifty feet the tunnel’s bottom had been ripped out.

“Nicodemus, they are far enough back,” the demon called. “They can’t hurt you now. Nicodemus?” He had turned and was peering into the cavern.

“Magister Shannon,” Nicodemus whispered to Garkex. “The body there. We need to retrieve the body and escape.”

The troll nodded.

“Nicodemus, this is not the time to hide,” Typhon rumbled. “Wizards are finicky authors.” The demon began searching the cavern’s northern edge.

The huddle of night terrors-Nicodemus suspended in the middle-crept away in the opposite direction.

“The wizards believe in a false prophecy and think you are the Petrel,” Typhon said. “They’ll censor and kill you.”

The pack of invisible monsters approached Deirdre. Most of her body was still frozen, but she had managed to drop her sword. Her head hung forward and her chest heaved.

A sudden volley of Magnus spells filled the cave and smashed against Typhon’s side. The sentinels hadn’t given up. Roaring furiously, the demon ran to the cavern’s mouth to return the attack.

Seizing the chance, Garkex darted out to grab Shannon and slung the old man over his shoulder. With the troll gone, Nicodemus’s left shoulder had become visible. Typhon was still preoccupied by the sentinels, but Deirdre-standing not five feet away-turned her eyes on him.

Panic flashed hot in Nicodemus’s mind. How complete was Typhon’s control over her? For a moment he considered attacking her to keep her from raising the alarm. But the idea died almost as soon as it formed. Instead he pleaded with his eyes and brought a finger up to his lips. Garkex returned with Shannon and plopped the old man onto Tamelkan’s back.

Slowly Deirdre’s chest filled with air as if she might scream.

Nicodemus shook his head vehemently.

Her chest contracted. “Please,” she croaked, “kill me.”

“Please,” Deirdre whispered. “I hold most of his soul.”

Nicodemus felt his blood go cold. “I can’t-”

“You must,” she hissed. “If I die, so will he.”

The cavern shook again with Typhon’s roar. A red glow grew around the demon and then flashed. All was silent for a moment and then a distant sentinel screamed.

“Nicodemus,” Typhon called in an anxious voice. “More wizards will come soon.” The demon had turned around and was striding into the cavern. “We must…” his voice died as he looked down to where Shannon had once lain. “The old one,” he rumbled.

“Please!” Deirdre whispered.

Suddenly Nicodemus had to look away from an intense white blaze. It was Typhon. The demon had held up his right hand to cast a spell that shed pure physical light. It glared brighter than sunshine.

All around Nicodemus the constructs screamed. Physical light deconstructed Wrixlan and Pithan, and each of the night terrors was written in purple prose.

Typhon turned toward Nicodemus. In the piercing blaze, the night terrors had become visible. The demon’s all-white eyes opened wide.

Realizing that they could hide no longer, Garkex spouted flame from his horns and charged Typhon.

The other night terrors followed, shrieking out a caterwauling war cry.

Nicodemus grabbed hold of Shannon, just barely pulling the old man off Tamelkan before the eyeless dragon charged into battle.

Typhon meet Garkex with a blast of red light that deconstructed the construct’s left arm. But with a brutal right-handed slash, the troll raked his claws across Typhon’s cheek and knocked the demon’s head to one side. The rest of the nightmares rushed forward in a tide of scales, tentacles, and talons. They bowled into the demon and knocked him onto his back.

“Kill me!” Deirdre cried. “His control over me lessens.” Her arms had gone slack. She looked at Nicodemus with wide, pleading eyes.

“Deirdre, I c-can’t possibly-”

“The blade,” she said nodding to the greatsword she had dropped. “Pick it up.”

The cavern blazed brighter with Typhon’s white light. Garkex bellowed as Typhon crushed the troll’s chest with a blazing fist. The other night terrors were deconstructing as the light frayed their exterior sentences.

Nicodemus picked up the sword and stepped toward the brawl; he would rather die with a weapon in hand than hide in a corner.

“For pity’s sake!” Deirdre pleaded. “Typhon corrupted my goddess. He led me to endanger Kyran. Don’t let me live to serve the demon.” Tears filled her eyes. “He will twist my will. He will make me one of them!”

Nicodemus could not move.

Before him Typhon leaped to his feet with a deafening roar. The demon tore apart Fael, the night terror lycanthrope. Oily blood now seeped from small wounds across the demon’s head and chest. Only Tamelkan, the eyeless dragon, remained.

“Now!” Deirdre pleaded. “Nicodemus, before it is too late!”

Typhon lunged forward and caught the small dragon’s head. With a quick twist of the torso the demon snapped the wyrm’s neck and threw it aside.

Nicodemus raised his sword.

Typhon turned to him. “Nicodemus, stop. You will only harm yourself.”

“Nicodemus!” Deirdre cried. “I beg you!”

Typhon shook his head. “I have chosen the two of you to beget a new race after the War of Disjunction. You are to know unparalleled happiness. You must survive together!”

“Please,” Deirdre whispered. Her tear-bright face shone with torment and longing. Her trembling hand drew back her cloak to reveal the dirty white cloth above her left breast. “Save me if you bear me any love.”

“No!” Typhon bellowed as Nicodemus thrust the rusted blade through Deirdre’s heart.

Deirdre convulsed. Her hands came up to grasp the sword.

Typhon howled, a torrent of crimson blood spewing from his left breast. The demon fell to his knees, wings flapping wildly, arms trembling.

Deirdre collapsed into Nicodemus’s arms. They sank slowly to the floor. She looked up at him, struggling for breath. He could barely see through his own tears.

Without warning, a massive obsidian arm pulled them apart and tossed Nicodemus to the ground. Typhon lifted Deirdre up and pulled the sword from her chest. He hugged her close. “No!” she gasped. “No! Nicodemus, help! He’s healing-”

The demon had dissolved into a dark cloud that was imbuing itself into Deirdre’s body.

Confused relief flooded through Nicodemus. Deirdre wouldn’t die after all. The demon’s red and black wings now grew from her back. She held the greatsword in one hand.

Nicodemus struggled to his feet and grabbed her arm. Touching her sent a shock through his body and filled his mind with a vision of Deirdre as a girl running through a field of heather. He saw her holding a child. Then he was back in the present. She was holding him. Her once green eyes were now black as onyx.

She began to whisper, not with her own voice, but with Typhon’s rumbling one. “Lord Severn, April, James Berr,” she whispered. “You’ve always been mine. The next dragon will make you mine again.”

Nicodemus opened his mouth but could not speak.

“Kill the beast!” a woman’s voice bellowed as a Magnus wartext shot over Deirdre’s head. Suddenly Magistra Okeke and two sentinels rushed into the cavern casting violent language at Deirdre.

The sentinels must have magically spanned the distance from the fractured Spindle Tunnel to the cavern.

With a shove, Deirdre sent Nicodemus flying to slam against the cavern wall. Everything disappeared for a moment. Then he was slouched on the floor.

Deirdre leveled her greatsword at the sentinels. With blinding speed, she dodged around the spells to charge the black-robes. The first she slashed across the chest, the second across the throat. But when she lunged for Magistra Okeke, the woman leaped back in time to avoid the blade.

Another silver spell flashed through the cavern and knocked the sword from Deirdre’s hands. One of the sentinels remaining in the Spindle had renewed the attack.

With a cry, Deirdre ran for the cavern’s entrance. Nicodemus struggled to his feet in time to see her leap out into the tunnel.

He ran forward and saw her drop out of the tunnel’s decimated floor and spread her wings.

She was too heavy to fly, but by flapping hard she turned south and began a slow descent to the forest. Occasionally her arms swung out with the effort. Once, before she had fallen too far, Nicodemus glimpsed in her hand the small, glinting emerald.