“Fiery blood, but I’m tired,” Shannon said, putting Azure in his lap and surrounding her with his cloak. The parrot stuck her head out of her new cloth nest so she could continue seeing for them both. “What a wonderful view!” the old man said with a wrinkled smile.
Far ahead of them, the Erasmine Spire shone with the sunset’s glow. Gradually Shannon’s breathing slowed.
A colaboris spell erupted from the Spire and flew over the eastern horizon and into the coming night.
“A boy is trapped in an academy,” Nicodemus said softly. “He learns he is incomplete. He sees those around him suffer. For a moment he glimpses himself entirely before he escapes. But no matter where he goes, no matter what he becomes, he will cause or witness suffering. Still, he wants nothing more than to try to end the suffering.”
Shannon said nothing for a while. “You know that I have begun to ghostwrite?” he asked.
“An impressing matrix shines about your head when you sleep,” Nicodemus said without looking over. “It shines in Azure’s mind as well. I think it has something to do with dreaming. Have the cankers grown worse?”
To see them with his Language Prime fluency, Nicodemus would have had to touch the old man. He dared not.
Shannon took a long breath. “No. In fact, I’ve been feeling better. I suppose this improvement is temporary. There’s no way of telling. I believe we will recover the emerald in time to cure the thing growing in my gut. But… I don’t want to be caught unawares. I’m ghostwriting… as a precaution.”
Nicodemus nodded. “It is a race, then, between my training and your disease. If I lose, you die.”
Shannon sighed. “There is no race, Nicodemus. To help fight the Disjunction, you must learn to control your Language Prime fluency. You must do that alone; I cannot teach it to you. And now that the Index is misspelled, only you can use it to learn about Typhon. Those tasks will take years if not decades. Leave this valley before then and you won’t be able to oppose the demons. You won’t even be able to survive.”
“Magister, the kobolds say I am the most powerful spellwright they have ever known. And I command a small army of their warriors.”
The old man shook his head. “Kobolds rarely leave their underworld. A kobold army would be helpless on the war field. And, Nicodemus, your spells only function in the dark. You must continue to train in the wizardly languages. If you run after Deirdre and the emerald before then, it won’t take Typhon or your half-sister long before they realize you’re powerless in daylight.”
“I won’t watch you die!” Nicodemus replied hotly. “I know what I must do now.”
Shannon opened his mouth as if to object but then shook his head. They both fell silent.
Gradually the sun sank below the horizon and the stars made their slow debut. A wind picked up and began to sing its whistling song among the bare branches.
“Nicodemus, you haven’t escaped Starhaven,” Shannon said. “You think you’re out here. You think your strength lies in your Chthonic texts or in your skill as a commander. You think you’re incomplete without the emerald. You can’t see that your true strength is already inside of you. And that means you’re still in that academy.” He nodded toward the spire. “You’re still running from golems.”
Nicodemus pursed his lips but said nothing.
“You must realize that you are complete now.”
The young man shook his head. “You are dying. Deirdre is enslaved. The purpose of my life is to regain the emerald and end my disability. Nothing will be right until then.”
Shannon began to protest but then stopped.
They sat together, in silence.
AN ICY WIND curled around Nicodemus and Shannon and flew away north.
It blustered about on the white mountains and then split itself among Starhaven’s many towers. It howled over the bridges and sprayed dry snow into the gargoyles as they pushed drifts from eaves and cleared ice from the gutters.
The wind circled the Drum Tower and rattled its paper window screens. Simple John-now Lesser Wizard John of Starhaven-removed a screen and looked into the night. He took a long tremulous breath and again thought about his dead friends: Devin, Nicodemus, Magister Shannon.
Behind John someone knocked, likely a young cacographer. As the new Master of the Drum Tower, John replaced the screen and turned away from his sadness to see to the little one.
Outside, the wind swirled away from the Drum Tower before dropping into the Spirish stable yard to ruffle Amadi’s thick cloak. She was overseeing her sentinels as they prepared for the long journey back to the North.
Though her expression was calm, her heart teemed with fear and anticipation. Colaboris spells had carried reports of Fellwroth and Typhon to the other academies. Not everyone believed the news, but no one denied its effect. Thoughts of prophesy were now on every wizard’s mind, political speculations on every wizard’s lips. And now she was returning to Astrophell, where the game of factions was being played with murderous intensity.
Inside the stable, she put politics and prophesy aside long enough to inspect every pack, saddle, and horse her party would take on their journey. Then she dismissed the sentinels and walked alone into the snowy stable yard to look up at the stars.
Once back in Astrophell, she would owe loyalty to no faction. Alone, she would have to navigate the infighting and gather information useful to Shannon and Nicodemus once they emerged. Doing so would undoubtedly incur the distrust of every major faction. The slightest mistake could kill her.
Amadi smiled. In her soul she loved nothing so much as great purpose. Now she certainly had that.
The icy wind grew stronger. Pulling her cloak more tightly around her shoulders, Amadi started off to find her bed and dream of Astrophell under the hot Northern sun.
Above her, the wind rushed out of Starhaven and rolled down the foothills. It passed over the ruined Chthonic village and made the ghosts look up with wide, amber eyes. They could not feel cold, but they shivered nonetheless. They knew that the world was about to change.
Onward the wind tumbled, down the foothills to the Westernmost Road. Then to the north it flew, traveling to warmer lands. Slowly the landscape shed snowy white for lush green. Now the wind turned westward, blowing long waves through the tall savannah grass until it crossed a narrow caravan road and crested a ridge. Here stood a tall sandstone watchtower.
Beside this fortification crouched Deirdre, her red-and-black wings fluttering in the wind. Before her, the road ran straight for five miles before meeting the tan walls of a Spirish city. Even in the dim starlight, she could see the city’s many tiled roofs and the wide octahedral dome of its temple.
Slowly, Deirdre stood. Tears streamed down her face, and blood ran down her arms. At her feet lay four dead city guards. Typhon had compelled her to kill them; he wanted the city to receive no warning of his approach.
The wind blew harder, scooping under Deirdre’s wings and lifting her a few inches off the ground. Involuntarily, she tightened her fist around the Emerald of Arahest. She had been through the deep savanna and fought the beasts that lived there. She had seen the unspeakable things Typhon had done to those beasts with Language Prime.
The wind lessened and she sank until her boots touched ground. Then she started walking. A fresh surge of tears coursed down her face. She was already grieving for what Typhon would force her to do in the city.
From her contact with the demon’s mind, she had learned about the newest Language Prime spell he had begun to write. That is why she prayed that neither Boann nor Nicodemus nor Shannon tried to rescue her. If any of them did, they would face a spell that none of them could truly comprehend or even see.
They would face a true dragon.
Epilog
The linguist felt as if he were choking on his own words.
They were short, commonplace words originating from his old heart, making it beat faster. He took Azure out from under his cloak.
She had been sleeping in the warmth and sent him a testy sentence.
