Nicodemus smiled and stepped outside; now he would have time to sit on the bridge and read the knightly romance tucked under his arm. A warm breeze picked up as he turned westward.
Starhaven was built halfway up the Pinnacle Mountains. From a distance the stronghold’s crenellated walls and massive gatehouse made it look something like a great Lornish castle. But unlike a castle, Starhaven possessed a forest of towers, each an impossibility of height. The mightiest among them-the Erasmine Spire-stood so tall that from its top an observer could peer down on the Pinnacle Mountains.
Even from Nicodemus’s present height, halfway up a lesser tower, he could see for miles. Tan patchwork fields of small farms dotted the near landscape. Away from these homesteads, lush oak savanna spread out to the horizon.
To Nicodemus, the long view made the bridge an ideal spot for dreaming and reading.
He smiled again as he opened his knightly romance and heard the familiar creak of a new spine. The pages smelled like childhood.
Nicodemus’s smile grew sad. He would like to sit on the bridge all evening. But soon he would have to return to his chores. He looked eastward across Starhaven to the abandoned Chthonic Quarter. Already the evening air above the flat-topped towers was filling with bats.
What a strange sight the Chthonic people must have been, Nicodemus thought. Some stories described them as childlike creatures with bulbous eyes and teeth like needles. Others spoke of clawed monsters with armored plates covering their skin.
Nicodemus looked beyond the Chthonic Quarter. Only a few slivers of sunlight found their way through Starhaven’s myriad towers. Most such columns of light landed on the mountains, but just then one illuminated the Spindle Bridge, which arched between the stronghold and the nearest cliff face.
All other Starhaven bridges were wafer-thin testaments to Chthonic stonework. But the Spindle was a thick, round affair, like the bough of an enormous tree. Nicodemus leaned forward.
Even from his present distance, he could see the designs the Chthonic people had scored into the mountain’s face. To the left of the Spindle were outlines of ivy leaves; to the right a geometric pattern-three squat hexagons stacked one atop another and flanked by two taller hexagons.
The carvings made him think of the fabled Heaven Tree Valley. Some stories said the Chthonic people had escaped the Neosolar Empire by following the Spindle Bridge to a valley where the flowers bloomed as large as windmills and the mushrooms grew as wide as pavilion tents. With a sigh, Nicodemus looked down at his book.
But he could not find the book.
In his hands sat a lump of bloody clay.
With a cry, Nicodemus dropped the wet mass. It struck the bridge stones with a plop. He tried to step back but his legs wouldn’t move, nor would his arms. The blood and clay blackened until it seemed to be made of the night’s starry sky.
Slowly, the dark mass crept onto Nicodemus’s feet. The oil coated his ankles and made them dissolve. He fell like a toppled statue.
His jaw struck the bridge stones, mashing his molars down on his tongue. Salty blood filled his mouth.
He shrieked as he felt the oil spreading up his legs, his torso, his neck. The sky went black and descended like a sheet. His skin began to rot into large gray scales. The bridge stones trembled and then dissolved into waves that stretched out to the horizon and became the ocean.
Blood seeped from between the patches of Nicodemus’s skin. Bones erupted from his back to form wings. His throat convulsed and then stretched out. His rotting skin hardened into rubicund scales.
And then Nicodemus was aloft, pushing his wings down through thick ocean air. Before him flourished the dawn’s golden effulgence. But he was something brighter still. If others could see him now, then all would bask in the splendor of his broad chest, golden eyes, ivory teeth. His tail shook like a streamer in the air.
On the horizon, a dark strip of land emerged and became an urban silhouette. Nicodemus had never seen the place before but knew it well. The city encrusted a half-moon bay like a scab around a sore. Further inland stood five hills. Even from this distance, Nicodemus could see the citadel’s crumbling marble walls. Behind and above this memory of the ancient world, the Neosolar Palace towered high, its magically polished brass reflecting the red sunrise.
Suddenly the world froze. Nicodemus, wings outstretched, hung perfectly still in the air. Somehow he had become more than one person. He was now an old fisherman looking up from the harbor at the strange flying creature. He was also a beggar girl gazing up from an alley at a cube of solid blackness hovering in the sky. And yet he was also a young wizardly apprentice, far away and asleep in the Drum Tower.
But then a blaze of irrational hatred ignited inside of him. The world unfroze and he was again a glory of claws, wings, teeth.
He dove. The air screamed past as the city rushed up at him. The moment before impact, he flared out his wings and whipped his hind legs around and into the palace. His claws struck the roof, making stone and metal splash into the air like water drops. Working his powerful wings, he exhaled a plume of fire into the palace’s open wound.
It took eight more diving passes to topple the central tower. Now the sun was up, but the smoke from his destruction dimmed its brilliance to a burning haze.
The first attackers were insignificant beings, as helpless as the ants they resembled with their metal armor and swarming regiments. They came screaming up from the city. Against his scales, arrows produced only pinpricks of pain. He climbed high into the air, then stooped into a sharp dive. The soldiers bristled with spears and pikes. But at the last moment, he fanned his wings and veered right. With claws extended, he struck a wall.
The falling debris crushed most and sent the others fleeing. Perched atop the crumbling wall, he ended each remaining life with a thin jet of fire.
When he took wing once more, an arc of silvery Magnus leaped up from the citadel and struck him just above his right foreleg. The blow sent him plummeting toward the ground. It was only with a desperate working of wings that he stayed aloft.
Slowly, he regained altitude and turned toward the citadel. As he approached, a second textual blast erupted from the walls. Now prepared, Nicodemus ducked under the spell and dove toward the huddle of wizards who had been casting the attack spells.
A few of the black-robes fled, but most held their ground and cast up a wall of text. A single tail lash shattered the shield, leaving the wizards susceptible to his breath.
In savage celebration, he toppled another wall and loosed a roar that rattled his teeth.
But then the world exploded into strange fire. All around him, gouts of orange-black flame gushed from the toppled stones. Searing pain awoke his instincts. He leaped into the air, but the fire rose with him. The undying flames flickered and snarled in the wind of his wing-beats. What strange magic was this?
Nicodemus bellowed.
Then he saw them peering from behind light-bending subtexts-a whole caucus of pyromancers in their orange robes.
An ambush! He had flown straight into a spell written in the fire-mages’ pyrokinetic language. Now the malicious text was burning into his scales, turning his glorious body into ash.
Panicked, Nicodemus worked his wings. To the east, the ocean gleamed in the morning light. The sea! Perhaps it could quench the textual fire.
With a few powerful flaps, he was away from the citadel and high above the city’s mercantile heart. But the spellwrights would not let him go so easily. A burning lance of yellow light tore into his right wing. The spell shattered the fourth phalangeal bone and opened a hole in the wing’s membrane. A second spell smashed into his belly and sent him faltering down toward the city.
He screamed out terror and flame. Five excruciating wing-strokes stopped his fall and renewed his sprint for the sea.
Slowly he realized that the ocean could no longer save him. Each painful stroke tore a larger hole in his left wing. Once in the sea, he would not be able to regain flight. He would be an easy target for the human warships. Worse, he might not reach the ocean; one more spell would send him crashing down into the city.
But the moments stretched on; each wing-beat flooded his mind with agony. He was not a mile from the estuary now, and still the fire-mages withheld the killing blast.
