it had to be kept secret from the other demon-worshipers. The creature had wanted something like a challenge, but he couldn’t risk losing the cacographer.
To the north, a twig snapped. Moving among the trees was a short human in black robes. The plan had worked; the young were easily swayed by dreams.
But perhaps this boy was not the one he sought. Perhaps Shannon and he would play another round. Perhaps the old fool would put up a fight before the creature tore out his throat.
The black-robed human moved closer to the clearing’s edge.
The creature frowned and decided that he shouldn’t wish for a prolonged match with Shannon. If the emerald were lost, he would have to start over.
The creature began to forge the long Language Prime sentences necessary to compose a canker curse. The War of Disjunction would come sooner if the text he was writing didn’t rip this child’s guts into bloody ribbons. The creature’s lips stretched into a long, lupine smile.
At the clearing’s edge-peering about with curious eyes for the beautiful meadow seen in a dream-was a young cacographic boy.
CHAPTER Fifteen
Nicodemus stifled a yawn and opened the door to Shannon’s quarters. The front room was a wide, sunlit place with an expanse of Trillinonish carpet, a writing desk, two bookcases, and four scroll racks.
Nicodemus removed his boots and socks in the Northern fashion and padded over to the windows. Outside the midday sun poured dazzling light onto the Bolide Garden.
Once the square had been a lush patch of grass lined with trees. Nicodemus had played among them as a neophyte. But two years ago the elms had died of an unknown disease.
Since then janitorial had undertaken a renovation of the entire square. The recent need to prepare for the convocation had stopped all landscaping and left the garden full of pale dirt.
The mounds directly below Shannon’s quarters were muddy and dark. A fountain had once stood there. One of Starhaven’s underground aqueducts must have a poorly sealed outlet at that spot.
A sudden yawn made Nicodemus’s jaw crack. “Heaven, bless Magister for ordering me to nap,” he murmured. Fingering the hour bell he had taken from the classroom, he thought about what Shannon had said about the murderer, the dragon, and the possibility that Nicodemus was connected to prophecy. The old man’s words filled his heart with wild hope and fear. Then there was the druid. Could he trust her?
He fought another yawn and realized that he was too exhausted to think clearly. He turned for the bedroom.
Shannon was Trillinonish by birth, but his mother had been Dralish. Her influence on Shannon’s taste was seen in the four-post feather bed that had been hauled all the way from Highland.
Sitting on the bed’s edge, Nicodemus examined the spherical brass hour bell and the rectangular mouth cut into its bottom.
From his belt-purse, Nicodemus drew a folded page that he had taken from Shannon’s desk. It contained a one-hour tintinnabulum spell.
Though it was composed in a common language, the text had a complicated structure. Normally, if Nicodemus concentrated on keeping the runes from rearranging, he could briefly touch such spells without misspelling them. However, his exhaustion would increase his chances of misspelling. So he bit his lip in concentration and peeled the spell’s first paragraph from the page.
The white words leaped into the air around his pinched fingers and pulled the sequent sentences up with them. The paragraphs began folding into a rectangular cage.
Nicodemus redoubled his focus. He had only this one tintinnabulum; misspelling it would preclude his nap.
At last, the concluding paragraph jumped up and formed a ball that flew around within the tintinnabulum cage. Each time it struck a textual wall, the ball silently deconstructed a rune segment. The spell’s cage could withstand the ball for one hour; after that, the ball would break free and ring the bell.
Nicodemus inserted the spell into the bell’s mouth, set the device on the bedside table, and fell back onto the feather bed.
He felt his head meet the pillow; he felt his breathing slow; he felt his legs jerk as they sometimes did before sleep. But he did not feel as if he were falling asleep. He felt as if he were… spinning?
A scrub jay cried.
Nicodemus opened his eyes and found himself lying in a meadow outside Starhaven. He recognized the place as “the glen”-a clearing where students went to drink lifted wine or to lock lips.
Here he had kissed Amy Hern for the first time. That had been years ago.
It had been a quiet evening after a brief snow shower. Their every footstep had produced a crunch, their every breath a plume of feathery vapor. Above them the sky glowed a solemn winter lavender that painted all the branches purest black. Her lips felt chapped against his lips; her tongue, hot against his tongue. They had been only acolytes.
Remembering Amy, Nicodemus winced. She was no longer Amy Hern but Magistra Amaryllis Hern-a lesser wizard in Starfall Keep. He had not seen her since her departure four years ago. Nor had he received any reply to his messages other than an impersonal note about her new life in Starfall.
In a lucid moment, Nicodemus realized that he was dreaming. He sat up expecting to wake on Shannon’s feather bed, but instead sat up in the glen.
A neophyte stood to his right. The boy had his back turned and was looking toward the aspen trees.
Something large was moving among the pale trunks. Its footfalls sent vibrations through the ground. Its breath was long, slow, bestial.
Nicodemus tried to stand but his legs were clumsy. He felt intoxicated.
The creature stepped out from the trees. Nicodemus tried to look at it but his eyes would not focus on it. The thing’s body billowed up into a mass of blurry pallid flesh. Again he struggled to stand but only fell forward. He tried to look up at the creature but again could not focus on it.
The neophyte turned to run. Drunkenly, Nicodemus got onto his knees. Just then a thin rod of flesh exploded from the monster. It shot across the clearing to impale the boy’s lower back. The child kept running.
Nicodemus tried to cry out but fell forward. Dirt filled his eyes. With clumsy hands, he cleared his vision.
Then he was no longer in the glen. He was in an underground cavern.
The ceiling glinted with quartz. The floor shone uniformly gray. Before him stood a black stone table with a body atop it. A pale cloak covered the figure. In its gloved hands lay a small gem that glowed green. The stone was lacriform-tear-shaped.
Something twitched at the light’s edge. It was a small creature. Its oily blue back was sleek and armored with hexagonal plates-a nightmarish land turtle. It hissed as it stumped forward. Dark tendrils sprouted from the creature’s footsteps and grew into ivy vines with unctuous black leaves.
A lance of red light dropped from the ceiling to strike the turtle’s back. With a crack, the beast’s shell shattered. It screamed as blue oil flowed out of its broken shell. A second turtle materialized and then a third.
As the turtles approached, they trailed wakes of burgeoning black ivy vines. More and more turtles came in from the blackness. Another lance of red light shattered the hexagonal plates on a creature’s back. There came two more blasts of light, then ten more.
On the table, the body still lay covered by a white cloak. Then a wind whipped through the cavern and tossed back the figure’s white hood.
The face revealed was Nicodemus’s own. For a dizzying instant Nicodemus was not just himself but also the figure lying on the table. He was also the turtles crawling on the floor and a terrified neophyte running through the woods back to Starhaven.
As the figure on the table, he sat up. His cheeks bulged and his lips parted to loose a deafening metallic clanging. A tiny ball was flying around inside his mouth.
Suddenly Nicodemus woke in Shannon’s feather bed. He had escaped the nightmare and was staring straight at the vibrating hour bell crying out its earsplitting alarm.
