CHAPTER Sixteen
When Shannon returned to his study, he found Amadi ransacking the place with three of her Northern sentinels. Shannon recognized the first-a slender male Ixonian-as Kale, Amadi’s personal secretary. The other two were the fools she had sent to follow him.
Upon seeing him, the strangers began forging censor spells-enmeshing texts that could wrap around his head and prevent him from spellwriting.
Shannon, ignoring them, walked behind his desk and set Azure on his chair. He removed several walnuts from a jar on a bookshelf. “I believe an explanation is due,” he said mildly.
Amadi answered tensely: “Magister, you deliberately deceived the sentinels I sent to guard you.”
Shannon offered a walnut to Azure’s outstretched foot. “I was being guarded? I didn’t notice. Your sentinels must write excellent subtexts. I wonder how they lost me.” He smiled at the two sentinels who had been following him.
They made a comical pair. One was tall and fat with golden buttons on his sleeve. The other was short and thin with silver buttons.
Azure cracked the walnut in her beak and picked out the meat.
Amadi looked at the short sentinel. “In the Marfil Tower,” the man blurted. “He went into a privy and then wrote a text to climb to a bridge above.”
Shannon laughed and accepted Azure’s empty walnut shells. “You flatter me, Magister, to claim I’m capable of such a feat at my age.” He laughed again. “In fact, I left the privy by the balcony so that I could question the gargoyle that empties the latrine. Surely your companion watching the balcony saw me.” He raised his eyebrows at the fat sentinel.
The man looked away.
“Oh, how embarrassing,” Shannon said through a half-smile. “You didn’t consider that the privy might have more than one exit. Well, no matter; you may question the balcony gargoyle. It will recall our conversation.” He handed Azure another walnut. “I examined other gargoyles afterward.” He listed them.
Amadi eyed her underlings. “Go and verify what Magister says.”
With a commotion of bobbing heads, the two hurried from the study.
“And Kale,” Amadi said to her secretary, “you may deliver those messages now. Interrupt me only with urgent news.”
The young Ixonian nodded and left, closing the door behind him.
Amadi, pushing a dreadlock from her face, turned back to Shannon. “Magister, I thought we had an understanding. I am trying to prove your innocence.”
“Amadi, I simply did not know I was being… guarded, as you put it.”
“Magister, I’m not a child anymore.” A hint of pain sounded in her otherwise controlled voice. “You knew you were being watched.”
“Amadi, I don’t-”
“Very well.” Her tone was testy. “So there will be no future misunderstandings, I tell you now that we’ve placed a watch on your quarters above the Bolide Gardens. We did this after following Nicodemus there. We did not disturb his sleep, but after he left my authors searched the place, taking care not to disturb anything. If you persist in this suspicious behavior, we will have to search it more thoroughly.” She paused for effect. “Also we have written robust wards on the doors and windows.”
Shannon raised an eyebrow.
“No author or text will be able to enter or leave your quarters without disspelling a ward. I would advise against such an action; anyone attempting to sneak in or out of your quarters will be cut in two at the waist. Of course, the sentinels watching your quarters will disarm the wards when you enter or leave.”
Shannon made no attempt to hide his irritation. “Your reaction seems extreme considering that you have no evidence of misconduct on my part.”
“None indeed? Do you care to explain why your face looks like a lion’s scratching post?”
He rolled his blind eyes. “I told you a spellbook deconstructed when I was working late last night. I can fetch what’s left of the book, several books, actually.”
“Of course you can. And the men I sent to confirm your story about researching gargoyles, no doubt the constructs will exonerate you. You’re a linguist studying textual intelligence. No doubt you edited-”
“Magistra, you go too far! I have answered your every question, allowed you to interrupt my research, even given you access to my students. And how do you repay my good will? By spying on me, by ransacking my library, by accusing me of tampering with academy constructs.”
Amadi pursed her lips.
“So I will say again,” he continued, his voice calmer, “that you owe me an explanation.” He held out another nut for Azure. “Without one, I must complain to-”
“Two of your students have died.”
The walnut dropped from his hands. “What did you say?”
“Two of your students have died. Adan of Roundtower and Eric Everson. Adan was found on the smithy roof. It seems he jumped from the Weshurst Bridge. His older brother perished in the Astrophell fire. The other boy, Eric, came running in from the forest with a misspell tearing up his insides. The curse worked him to exhaustion. In his robes, the boy had a Numinous scroll-seems he stole the manuscript and was playing with it in the forest.”
“Blood of Los,” Shannon whispered and sat heavily in his chair. Azure climbed onto his shoulder and began preening his dreadlocks.
Amadi took the seat in front of his desk. “There’s no sign that either death was murder. But in light of what happened to Nora Finn, I believe something is awry. So I will ask you again: Magister, where have you been for the past hour?”
“I speak the truth when I say that I was talking to gargoyles,” Shannon said numbly.
The murderer had struck faster than he had thought possible. More terrifying, Shannon had issued orders to all wizards supervising cacographers that their charges were not to leave Starhaven. How could the murderer have induced the boys to disobey and escape their teachers?
The murderer had said he could wield dreams as others might wield a net. The monster must somehow be using dreams to compel the boys to stray out of Starhaven’s protective walls. “Creator forgive me!” he whispered to himself. This changed everything.
Amadi began to ask a question about the two poor boys.
He stopped her and withdrew the severed clay arm from his robes. The thing was beginning to lose its shape. Nevertheless, he laid it on the table.
While Amadi stared at the arm, he described Nora Finn’s private library and his fight with the murderer.
Amadi stared at him with a neutral expression. “Magister, you expect me to believe this?”
His tone grew more urgent. “Go to the Gimhurst Tower; see Nora’s private library for yourself.”
“According to your tale, the deconstructing spellbooks will have destroyed everything in the private library-even your attacker’s weapon. And you said the creature ran off with Finn’s research journal. There would be nothing to find.”
Shannon had not thought of this. “But the arm.”
Looking at the limb, Amadi took a long breath. “I have never heard of anything, living or magical, that changes from flesh to clay. Perhaps such a transformation was possible on the ancient continent. Perhaps a deity could achieve such a thing with a godspell.”
Shannon felt his hands go cold. Godspells were immensely powerful and ornate texts written by deities. They were also exceedingly rare.
Amadi was studying Shannon’s face. “Magister, do you believe you confronted a god last night? Surely other authors would have detected the presence of a deity in Starhaven.”
She was right. “Perhaps not a god, but a godspell,” he said quickly. “Amadi, you must believe me. There are forces acting here beyond anything we’ve known before.”
