Far below them glistened the impluvium. The aquatic gargoyles that operated the reservoir’s valves were still at work despite the hour. Their movement slowly churned the water, transforming its surface into a coruscation of reflected moonlight.
Deirdre spoke. “That hawk-headed construct with the four arms, the one we passed to get into this place, if it obeys your commands, why didn’t you have it follow us?”
“So it can guard our backs,” Nicodemus replied, giving John’s hand an encouraging squeeze. “There are only two ways into the compluvium.”
Together the party hurried down the spiral stairs to the tunnel Shannon had opened. The image of Shannon bound and censored in a sentinel prison haunted Nicodemus as they sloshed through the tunnel to the other side.
When they emerged onto a walkway on Starhaven’s easternmost wall, John made a few soft noises. On the landing before the Spindle Bridge stood the second hawk-headed gargoyle. Behind it, the Spindle stretched out through the air to the mountainside. Far below them swayed the dark boughs of the forest.
“I am Nicodemus Weal,” Nicodemus told the four-armed gargoyle. “You are to obey my commands and the commands of my companions in white.” He nodded to the druids. “We must use the Fool’s Ladder.”
The construct tilted its head first to one side and then to the other. Its multi-jointed wings snapped open. They stretched nearly fifteen feet in either direction, presenting a solid flank of stone feathers.
With four heavy steps, the gargoyle plodded away from the bridge. The thing’s crashing footfalls sent rattling echoes running down the Spindle Bridge.
Starhaven’s easternmost wall had two massive iron doors that opened onto the landing. The giant gargoyle took a defensive stance facing the doors. “Could Fellwroth have formed another golem yet?” Nicodemus asked, turning to the druids.
Kyran studied the massive gargoyle. “It depends on what earth the monster is using. He could have formed a clay body long ago.”
Deirdre moved to stand next to Kyran. Beside her, John squatted down and pressed his hands against his face; it seemed his wits had not yet recovered from Kyran’s stun spell. Nicodemus wondered what the big man would be like now that the demonic curse had been dislodged from his mind.
A silvery glow drew Nicodemus’s eyes back to the bridge. Beside the railing now stood a Magnus spell in the shape of a straight-backed chair. Nicodemus walked over to inspect the text. Five feet in height and three in width, the thing could comfortably seat even John’s girth.
Curious as to how the spell would carry them to the ground, Nicodemus peered over the bridge’s railing. “Fiery blood!” he swore.
A foot below him-its stomach growing directly into the bridge’s stones-was half a gargoyle, as if someone had bisected the construct and fused the abdomen to the bridge.
The gargoyle wrinkled its porcine snout and stared at Nicodemus with tiny black eyes. Despite its bestial face, the spell’s muscular torso was the same shape as a man’s. “One at a time,” it creaked.
Just behind the construct grew its exact twin. Another such grew behind it, and so on all the way down to the forest.
Nicodemus blinked. “Do we just sit in the chair?” he asked. “You hand it down among yourselves to the ground?”
The pig-faced thing nodded. “Sit down and hold on.”
When Nicodemus straightened and looked back, he found the two druids looking at him. “Is the ladder over the side?” Deirdre asked.
“No, we sit in this silver chair; there’s a train of gargoyles back there. They’ll hand it down.”
“Silver chair?” Kyran repeated.
Nicodemus had forgotten. “You can’t see it because it’s written in Magnus. I’ll show you where to sit.”
There followed a brief argument about the order in which they should descend.
As the druids talked, Nicodemus glanced at the iron doors that led onto the Spindle Bridge’s landing. It was good to see the hawk-headed gargoyle was also watching the doors.
In the end, Deirdre insisted that she go down first. Nicodemus showed her where to sit and where to hold on. The cold autumn breeze smelled of pine resin.
“Are you sure I’m secure?” she asked nervously. “I don’t like holding on to something I can’t see. How do you know I won’t fall when-” She yelped as the chair tipped backward and slowly sank over the bridge.
Nicodemus ran to the railing and anxiously watched as the muscular gargoyle handed the silver chair down to its neighbor. Deirdre had shut her eyes and was squeezing the chair arms with white-knuckled determination. The next gargoyle took the chair and handed it down again.
Kyran appeared at Nicodemus’s side and produced a single slow laugh. “She hates high places. But she’s got steel in her soul. Anyone else that scared of heights would be shrieking.” He paused. “How old are you, boy?”
Nicodemus looked over, but the man was staring down at Deirdre’s descent. “Twenty-six on Midwinter’s Day.”
“Just a weanling. Ever been in love?”
Nicodemus thought of Amy Hern and the things they had said to each other and what little it had come to. “I hope there’s more to it than what I’ve known.”
Kyran produced another humorless laugh. “A good answer.”
Nicodemus stood in awkward silence as Deirdre finished the descent. The gargoyles brought the chair up faster than they had handed it down.
John was next. Surprisingly, when Nicodemus directed him to sit in the chair, the big man calmly obeyed. “Why isn’t he more distressed?” Nicodemus asked.
Kyran sighed. “It was the stun spell. He can’t remember anything now. It should wear off in a few hours.”
“I’m worried he might get confused halfway down. Is there any spell you can-”
His voice died when Kyran tore a button from his sleeve and pressed it to John’s chest. A globe of verdant light bloomed from the druid’s hand and then condensed into a many-tendriled vine.
“Wondrous spell!” Nicodemus whispered as synaesthetic warmth flushed across his face.
The leafy vine spread across Simple John, binding his arms to the chair’s arms, his legs to the chair’s legs. With dazed calmness, the big man watched the magical plant grow until he was completely entwined. At that point, the vine produced several pendulous bunches of blue wisteria blossoms.
“Flowers,” the big man said with difficulty.
Nicodemus squinted at Kyran’s sleeve.
“Those aren’t buttons, are they?” The druid shook his head. “Seeds augmented with druidic texts.”
Just then the chair tipped over the railing. John yelled and began to squirm, but Nicodemus called out reassurance and the big man stopped struggling.
As before, the gargoyles handed the Magnus chair down at a controlled pace. “Deirdre will cut him free when he reaches the bottom,” Kyran explained.
The uncomfortable silence returned as the two men watched the chair carry John down to the forest. When the gargoyles returned the chair, relief washed over Nicodemus. He told Kyran how to sit in it.
“I’ll see you on the ground,” the druid said as the spell tipped over the railing and began to descend.
Nicodemus nodded and was about to reply when the world erupted into a blaze of silver light. A roar like that of a landslide filled the night.
Nicodemus spun around in time to see the gargoyle’s right wing disintegrate into a roiling Magnus effulgence.
“NICODEMUS!” KYRAN CALLED from beyond the bridge.
Nicodemus looked down and saw the druid on the Magnus chair, already seven feet below. Green bolts of light crackling around his hands, he pulled another seed-button from his sleeve.
Suddenly, a shrill scream drowned out all other sound.
Nicodemus spun around to see the giant gargoyle turning so it could swing its remaining wing forward with deadly force. Before the gargoyle stood a white-robed figure.
Fellwroth in a new golem!
A hood covered the monster’s face but his ashen hands were bare and holding a thick spellbook.
