Spellbound (27 page)

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Authors: Blake Charlton

BOOK: Spellbound
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Cyrus was still holding the metal cat. He tucked it under his arm. “I saw something like that once on a merchant galley bound for Warth. We broke company when the galley reached the Dralish port, but for a while we docked the airship on their deck. When in Dralish waters, schools of seals would swim up beside the ship. They weren't natural. They swam as if of one mind. They all studied us, counted us on the ship. I swear you could see them reading the ship's name off her hull.”
“You think somewhere in the city there's a druid?”
“Or several,” he said and then added, “though I suppose it could be a shaman down from Verdant.”
Suddenly Francesca remembered the cat. She looked back down at its brass eye, and the glorious flight of ideas tore through her brain once again. “No, it's druids.”
“The cat told you that?”
“Yes, and if we're going to catch him, we'll need a lot more hierophantic text. When's the earliest you can get more charged sailcloth and some coins? Our only chance will be when he's in the market. We'll need silver to catch him.”
“Catch whom? What are you talking about?”
She shook her head. “Just tell me, how soon can we get more cloth?”
“If we can catch a morning patrol, I could get to the sanctuary and back an hour before dawn. But, Fran, for what? The night market? Just what in the burning hells did this cat tell you?”
She pointed at the lifeless brass eye. “It just told me who's been smuggling Lornish steel into Avel.”
The wind picked up as Nicodemus took his students over the wall.
It was an involved procedure, requiring several complex hoisting spells written in the Chthonic languages. But the kobolds threw their minds and muscle into the task, and their allies in the city watch pretended not to notice. All told, it took maybe a quarter hour.
Then they were hurrying into the safety of the grass ocean. The savanna grass grew to seven feet and consisted of thick bamboolike shafts. The Silent Blight had killed about one in twenty stalks, their shallow shafts becoming brittle in death; even so, the grass would have stopped any party not led by a lycanthrope or a kobold. The powerful wind was making the tops of the grass dip and sway in a loud rush.
With textually augmented machetes, Jasp and Dross took the lead. The party moved quickly, having cut the path when sneaking into the city.
Over the sound of the wind in the grass, Nicodemus could hear a few guttural voices. He could feel the ground vibrated by heavy footfalls. The lycanthropes had arrived, summoned by the scent of open wounds. But the wolves also recognized the smell of kobolds. They would come no closer.
To Nicodemus's eyes all living things glowed softly cyan. But surrounded as he was by the grassland, his Language Prime vision penetrated only twenty paces or so into the stalks before everything seemed an indistinct glow. During the dry season, when the stalks dried to golden yellow, he could see for miles and make out individual birds and reptiles and insects. But in the late wet season, peering into the grassland was like peering into murky water. He could make out the lycanthropes only as massive, sleek shapes.
The wolves' throaty voices sent Nicodemus's memory back to when he'd left the Heaven Tree Valley with fifteen of his best students. Collaborating with Magistra Amadi Okeke—their agent within Astrophell—they had discovered that Typhon had made Avel his new stronghold. The journey took them nearly forty days of trekking through the Savanna, suffering heat by day and lycanthropes by night. Five of his students died during the journey. Then
had come the delicate task of infiltrating the city, befriending the Canics, beginning the secret war against Typhon.
Nicodemus's thoughts returned to the present when they emerged onto a short, muddy bank. Before them stretched a small cove of the reservoir. The wind had blown its surface into miles of half-reflected starlight. To the west, clouds were gathering.
The kobolds jogged along the bank to find the two skiffs they had hidden in the grass. Dross, Slag, and Flint loaded Vein in one boat. Jasp carried Magister Shannon into the second boat and took up the forward seat. Nicodemus pushed the second boat into the water and then hopped in and assumed the aft seat. He and Jasp placed their long oars in their locks.
In moments, both boats were lauched and rowing windward. No other vessels could be seen. The lake towns had migrated far up the narrows to fish among the shallows. In half an hour, they were out on the main water of the reservoir.
For Nicodemus, rowing a lake skiff with a kobold was a tricky proposition. With his greater height and longer limbs, Nicodemus could produce a longer stroke. But a muscular kobold could exert inhuman torque. It had taken weeks of practice before Nicodemus and his students could avoid sending the skiff in circles. Worse, once at speed, dropping the oar became a dangerous mistake; the boat's momentum would push the oar blade aft, the handle fore, and in the process evict the rower into the lake.
Though the kobolds believed in Nicodemus, they were still kobold warriors. A mistake at the oars would diminish their respect. So Nicodemus paid special care to his technique: release, feather the oar, recovery sweep, right the oar, catch, drive, repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Over and over.
Shannon was sitting in the stern, bundled up in a cloak and holding Azure in his lap. When it began to rain hard, Nicodemus halted long enough to write the old man a canopy of Chthonic language. Once rowing again, he told Shannon of Francesca's report about Vivian and Lotannu. He also explained about Francesca's Language Prime text shining unnaturally brightly.
“You're sure it's her Language Prime?” Shannon asked.
“And when I'm close to her, I feel my face getting hot, like I'm having a synesthesic reaction.”
“You mean you blush.”
“It's different. I can't put my finger on it.”
Shannon seemed to think for a moment. “Whatever Francesca is, Deirdre sent her to us. It suggests that Deirdre has a plan.”
“I hope so.”
“Because you don't have a plan,” Shannon said coldly.
Nicodemus grimaced but said nothing.
Shannon shifted in his seat. “And Typhon has let my ghost free, meaning he's set a plan in motion as well.”
“Magister, the ghost … I didn't mean to say—”
“It's nothing.”
“Once we've recovered the emerald and I can cure you, you'll be able to write a new ghost that—”
“We've been over this,” Shannon interrupted and then cleared his throat. “Your half sister's agents—Lotannu and Vivian—they are aware of the Savanna Walker?”
“It seems so. It won't take them long to find him, or vice versa. We're running out of time.”
“We've run out of the time we gave ourselves when we left the Heaven Tree Valley.”
A flush of anxiety moved through Nicodemus, but he forced his voice to remain steady. “Magister, we didn't leave the valley too soon. I couldn't watch you die.”
The old man was quiet for a moment and then said, “Now you're going to watch me die anyway.”
“Magister! When we have the emerald—”
“We won't have this argument again. The question is what to do now.”
Nicodemus readjusted his grip on the oars. “What else can we do but sleep at camp and return to the city in the evening to meet with Francesca?”
Shannon scowled. “To follow whatever Deirdre's plan is? To try to discover this second dragon?”
“Unless you have a better scheme.” The rain was letting up.
“But what is Deirdre thinking?”
“We could ask Boann,” Nicodemus suggested.
“We will. I wish we knew something for certain about Francesca other than her Language Prime text shines too brightly.”
“We know she's got a tongue sour enough to curdle milk by talking to it.”
Shannon sniffed with amusement. “Yes, we know that.”
“It's because she's so pretty and tall. She's probably used to rebuffing advances despite keeping her hair in that tight braid and wearing a haughty expression. If only she'd had less sourness and more knowledge about the second dragon.”
“How could we have fought Typhon for the past three years and not have encountered this second dragon?”
“Whatever it is, Francesca's bright Language Prime gives me hope that Deirdre knows what she's doing. It truly is amazing how brightly she shines.”
“You think it's something to do with her ability to fight off the second dragon?”
“I don't know what to make of it.”
They fell silent. Nicodemus focused on his rowing. They had entered one of the narrows. Redwood-covered hills rose on either side of them, silent and dark.
Shannon spoke again, “Where is your half sister again?”
“Amadi's last report puts her in Ogun meeting with envoys from Starfall and Starhaven.”
“Attempting to prevent the League of Starfall from forming?”
“So it seems.”
“But she's sent Lotannu and Vivian Niyol,” Shannon mused. “I understand why she let Lotannu go; he's special talents. But Vivian?”
“What do you know about her?”
The old man shrugged. “Not much. She was at Starfall Keep most of her career. Never heard her name until I was shipped down to Starhaven. Her fame was rising as mine was falling. I think she was one of the first in Astrophell to support the counter-prophecy faction.”
Nicodemus pulled his oar. “Should we try to scare Vivian off? Buy a little time?”
“Not until we know more about what Deirdre is planning,” Shannon said, rubbing his eyes with a bony hand.
Though he had seen the thin appendage so many times before, Nicodemus felt his stomach tighten. Shannon seemed to be growing frailer by the day. “Magister, what was it like to see your ghost?”
The old man's expression contracted into one of pain. “It's almost worse that he still exists … and that he is longing for me. It makes me feel … almost dead already.”
“We're going to recover the emerald. Then I'll cure your cankers—”
“And I'll have time to write another ghost. I know, I know, Nicodemus. I hope so too.” He sounded exhausted.
Nicodemus fought the urge to stop rowing and take Shannon's hand. But touching the old man would only give his mentor more cankers. “Magister, you can't give up.”
The old man paused. “I won't, my boy.”
Nicodemus forced himself to ignore the empty feeling in his chest. Instead he visualized the emerald. If he could only end his disability, if he only had the emerald. He had to redouble his resolve. “There's much to live for,” Nicodemus said awkwardly and then refocused on his rowing. All he could do now was sweep and dip and drive, sweep and dip and drive.
Shannon adjusted his blankets. “Yes,” he said weakly. “Much to live for.”
They rowed on in silence for a moment. And then Shannon sniffed as if amused. “You know,” he said, “I don't think the remarkable thing about Francesca is her Language Prime.”
“No?”
“No, she's remarkable because of something that she just made you say.” He paused. “I never heard you say something like that.”
Nicodemus frowned at his oar stroke. “Something like what?”
“That you think she's pretty.”
Nicodemus dropped his oar.
 
WOLF'S CREEK WAS
a slender extension of the narrows that snaked into the Auburn Mountains. Here, unlike elsewhere on the reservoir, water lay beneath sheer stone banks. The fisherfolk avoided the place for fear that the lycanthropes might leap down on them from the forest. But for the past two years, the creatures stalking the banks were not lycanthropes. The kobolds' camp—a collection of cabins built amid a dense redwood grove—lay a half mile west of the creek.
Nicodemus, wrapped in a thick wool blanket, sat on a stone bank watching his students fish. Jasp had gotten Shannon to write a few flamefly paragraphs onto a stalk of savanna grass. One held the flylike lights over the dark water while Vein and Flint lay flat against stone ledges.
Nicodemus could see into the life of the reservoir. Tiny floating plants gave the water its deep greenness; as such, the water shone with dilute Language Prime. Through this wan glow he saw the brighter shapes of fish circling the dangling flameflies.
“It is strange fish are drawn to brightness,” a soft, singsong voice said above and behind him. “It does them no good.”
“Goddess,” Nicodemus said in greeting to Boann, the Highland deity who had made Deirdre into an avatar. Since Typhon had nearly destroyed her ark, Boann had become little more than a ghost. She was a young deity with bright lapis eyes and hair that looked like a miniature rushing river. Her green robes floated as if suspended in water.
Around them, the forest was quiet save for the dripping of rainwater from branches. The rain had stopped and the winds were calming.
“Shannon told me of your daylight misadventure,” Boann said. “I've thought about Deirdre's plan, but I have no deeper insight into what it might be.”
Nicodemus nodded.
Boann sat next to him. “You took a bit of a swim on the way home.”
“Shannon told you?”
“I felt it.”
Nicodemus nodded; she was a water goddess after all.
“Shannon said you dropped your oar because you were thinking of a pretty girl.”
Nicodemus groaned. “I feared the kobolds would think less of me for it. But while I was clambering back into the boat, Shannon explained I was distracted by thoughts of Francesca. I think Vein understood, but most of them were confused. They have trouble distinguishing male humans from female humans. But once they understood, they couldn't stop laughing. Dross and Jasp especially. I doubt either of those two will shut up about this for years.”
Boann smiled.
“I pity any nearby fishermen; guffawing kobolds sound like echoes escaping from the burning hells.”
“You were distracted by Francesca?”

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