Deirdre looked out the window again. Shannon and Nicodemus were hiking up the steep stairway between the wall and the tower. She would need to climb up a few more floors to keep them in view. She set off in the opposite direction from Kyran.
For once, Deirdre was not irritated by her short stature. She did not need to stoop when stepping through the Chthonic doorways, nor did her small feet slip on the short steps.
A cloud of pigeons shot past a nearby window. Deirdre found herself thinking about Shannon. Was Nicodemus’s trust in the old wizard well placed? Dare she approach him?
Because she was preoccupied with these questions, it wasn’t until she had completed a circuit around the tower, and so climbed to the next level, that she noticed the footsteps.
She stopped near the top of the staircase. The footsteps ceased as well. “Ky,” she called, “you’re to follow the sentinels, not follow me around like a mother hen.”
At first silence greeted her words. But then the footsteps returned at a sprint.
Deirdre’s heart began to pound. The wizards had not allowed her to wear a blade. Instinctively, her eyes searched about for a weapon and fell on the horizontal bars the Chthonics had built into their windows. She rushed over and grabbed two rods that had been drilled into the window frame.
No living man could have pulled them free. But Deirdre needed only to put one foot on the wall and heave. The bars exploded from the frame with small clouds of pulverized stone.
The footsteps were loud and echoing now. She crouched and held the two steel bars up in Spirish fighting fashion.
The figure that came running up the staircase wore a tattered white cloak-more a hastily sewn sheet than a proper garment. A voluminous hood covered his head and face.
As Deirdre raised her crude weapons, the creature ran through a square sunbeam. An object extending from his hand became a blazing rectangle of reflected light.
The glare momentarily dazzled her eyes, so it wasn’t until the creature was a few steps away that she identified the steel object as an ancient Lornish greatsword.
“LISTEN CAREFULLY,” SHANNON said, stepping onto the wall at the end of the Sataal Landing. “We don’t have much time.”
Azure was riding on the wizard’s shoulder and using her eyes to see for him.
“Of course, Magis-”
A few inches ahead, the wall plummeted roughly seventy feet to the shaded impluvium: a deep rainwater reservoir that provided water to Starhaven’s inhabited quarters through a series of aqueducts. Beneath the surface lay massive valves and floodgates. Around them moved what Nicodemus first took to be bulbous gray fish, but then he realized they were the water gargoyles that operated the valves.
Beyond the impluvium stretched a mile-wide half-bowl of roofs, gables, and gutters that funneled rain down to the reservoir. This metastructure, composed of the southeast quarter’s many different contiguous buildings, was known as the compluvium; and everywhere on it-squatting, stooping, or crawling-were the gutter gargoyles. The constructs were busy mucking leaves out of the aqueducts, scaring off birds, or mending leaky roofs.
“Amazing,” Nicodemus half-whispered.
“All of these gargoyles are controlled by a faction to which I once belonged,” Shannon explained, hurrying toward a spiral staircase on the wall’s opposite end. “If you or the Drum Tower is ever endangered, you must bring all the male cacographers here. That brute down by the Sataal Landing will obey your commands. You’re to bring the boys here to the compluvium and hide them; it’s a large place and the gargoyles know many secret nooks.”
Nicodemus swallowed. “Endangered by what? The murderer? The sentinels?”
“I’ll answer in a moment,” Shannon huffed. “First let’s be clear about what you are to do. Come.” They reached the spiral staircase and hurried down the narrow steps. Azure had to bob her head to keep a clear view of where they were going.
At the bottom of the stairs stood a gated tunnel leading into a building Nicodemus didn’t recognize.
Using a few Numinous passwords, Shannon opened the gate and pulled it wide. “If danger finds you even in the compluvium, lead the boys through here.” Azure whistled nervously as they stepped into the tunnel. “Watch your head.”
The tunnel proved to be both dark and long. But together master and apprentice trudged through ankle-deep water to another gate. Shannon sprang the lock and led Nicodemus onto a short walkway that faced the sheer rock face of the Pinnacle Mountains.
They had come onto Starhaven’s easternmost wall.
Shannon hurried along the walkway to the Spindle Bridge’s landing. Standing beside the bridge was another of the four-armed, hawk-headed gargoyles.
Shannon stopped before the gargoyle and turned to his apprentice. “You are to bring the boys to this construct. He guards a system of constructs and spells we call the Fool’s Ladder. It’s the only way out of Starhaven beside the front gate. If need be, you can escape into the forest and then lead the boys down to Gray’s Crossing.” He withdrew a pouch from his robes and tossed it to Nicodemus.
When the younger man caught the bag, it clinked. “Magister!” he exclaimed while peering inside. “There’s enough gold here to buy the whole town of Gray’s Crossing.”
“Hopefully there’s enough to buy escape or protection.”
“But shouldn’t I just find you if there’s danger?”
“There might not be time to find me.” He closed his blind eyes and rubbed them. “Besides, if you truly are in danger, it will be because I am dead.”
THE BLADE FLASHING toward Deirdre’s throat was spotted with rust.
She leaped backward, gracefully finding new footing on the narrow steps. Her opponent’s crude white hood still covered his face. She wondered how the creature saw. She also wondered why he had risked an attack inside Starhaven, where he could not use magic.
The thing advanced with a backhand stroke. She met the blade with a parry of her right bar. The force of the creature’s blow nearly knocked the bar from her hand. The thing possessed strength that rivaled her own. She threw a quick overhand slash with her left bar.
The creature brought up his left arm in time to save his head.
The steel bar smashed into the thing’s forearm with enough force to crack a boulder. But there was no crunch of bone. The rod sank two inches into the arm and stuck.
The creature twisted away. In her shock, Deirdre lost her grip on the bar and it slid from her fingers. The monster lunged at her with another thrust.
Deirdre danced away but caught her heel and toppled backward onto the stairs. The creature raised the sword overhead; her bar was still stuck in his forearm.
Clay! she realized. The damned thing was made out of clay!
The greatsword flew downward. Deirdre rolled right and heard the weapon crash against the step beside her. When she looked up, the blade was again flashing toward her.
With both hands, she threw up her remaining bar. Steel met steel with a deafening clang. She kicked down, slamming her heel into the thing’s knee. Any blood-and-bone joint would have snapped, but she felt the creature’s flesh give.
The thing collapsed with a whistling shriek, but she could tell that the kick had not done lasting damage.
Somehow the creature had known she had no magic or blade. Being made of clay, the monster faced no danger from blunt weapons no matter how powerfully wielded. Only if she could find the author’s true body could she kill the creature.
Wasting no time renewing her attack, Deirdre struggled to her feet and ran up the stairs.
“DEAD?” NICODEMUS SAID. “Magister, why would you be dead?”
“Follow me onto the Spindle Bridge,” Shannon said wearily. They walked side by side. The clicking of their boot heels on the bridge echoed loudly.
Far below them stretched the alpine forest; ahead, the sheer mountain face. As they went, Shannon related everything he knew about Nora Finn’s murder, his encounter with the inhuman murderer, Amadi’s suspicions, the
