only native Ixonian. Therefore she was—Nicodemus realized too late—the only one who could have judged this plan’s feasibility. “There’s no time to get Magistra.”
“She’s not going to like that,” Rory said.
“Nor will she like you two bungling our only chance to take down the River Thief,” Nicodemus replied as he cast a shadowganger spell first on Sir Claude and then on himself. “Here’s the game: The three of us stow away on the third boat. Once they take her out and board her, Sir Claude will play the Wounded Bird to get the River Thief’s complete attention. I’ll hop in the water and play a Papa to the Rescue. The neodemon will either try to kill me outright—if so, Rory, set the boat on them—or more likely the neodemon will spellbind Sir Claude and me and set off downriver. You two give me an hour to proselytize. If the River Thief converts, great. If not, I play spellbreaker while Rory kills everyone and keeps the boat afloat until Doria catches up with us. Understood?”
“How will Doria know to catch up with you?” John asked.
“You’re going to tell her,” Nicodemus replied. “As soon as we stow away, disspell the godspell around Doria’s mind. Tell her about our infiltration game and that she’s to come after us.”
Rory coughed. “She’s not going to like that.”
“You already said that,” Nicodemus replied. “Other comments?”
The shadowganger subtext had transformed Sir Claude into a shadow. He picked up the massive book, which John had dropped next to him. This was one of Sir Claude’s copies of the Canticle of Iron, a tome of thin metal sheets upon which the Lornish holy texts and many highsmith spells were written.
“My lord,” Sir Claude said as he rose to a crouch, “are you sure you want to place your honored life, not to mention my own humble existence, in the hands of a tulip gardener?” He nodded toward Rory. “I am, of course, deeply impressed by the druidic art of cultivating pansies, but forgive me if I’m just a bit queasy about playing Wounded Bird to a hostile river god, in the middle of said god’s river, while hoping a spellwright schooled in the deadly art of pruning will protect me.”
Rory snorted. “Perhaps we should rely on your deadly art of whining, given that you can only regurgitate the same four spells over and over.”
“Oh, you’ve caught me out, druid,” Sir Claude replied with lazy sarcasm. “I am quaking in my boots. Would you hold my hand to help me feel safe?”
“The two of you will shut, the burning hells, up,” Nicodemus growled. “You will both do as ordered or I will personally deconstruct the excuse for prose you both call original. Am I understood?”
Sir Claude muttered, “Yes, my lord,” and Rory grunted.
“So, yes, Sir Claude, we are going to put our lives in the hands of a gardener because—as I hope you aren’t too stupid to appreciate—druids can spellwright in wood and our barges are covered so completely with Rory’s subtexts that he alone can keep us safe when there’s blood in the water. So, if you want to survive your Wounded Bird act, then you had better make friends with the white robe.”
The knight bowed to Rory. “Sir, my words were spoken both in haste and with little thought for your many and various excellent qualities. I am profoundly apologetic.” His tone was anything but.
The druid started to reply but Nicodemus cut him off, “We’re going.” He turned toward the boats.
“But Nico,” John interrupted, “if you’re going to play Papa to the Rescue by jumping in the river … what about your first rule of fighting a water god?”
Nicodemus paused. “We don’t know for certain that the River Thief is a water god. It’s only the most likely possibility.”
“Or for that matter, my lord,” Sir Claude added, “what about your second rule of fighting a water god?”
They had a point. “Well …” Nicodemus said, “the exception proves the rule.”
Sir Claude coughed. “Forgive me, my lord … but … I believe some excellent scholarship has shown that the modern use of that saying is incorrect.”
“What?”
“I think the original sense of ‘prove’ could mean either ‘to establish’ or ‘to test.’ It’s something called a contranym: a word that means both one thing and it’s oppo—”
“I know what a—” Nicodemus started to snap.
“So if you’re going to get in the water while trying to take down a water neodemon,” John added helpfully, “you’re going to try to prove your rule is a bad one.”
“Hey, who here is prophetically connected to the inherent ambiguity and error in language?” Nicodemus asked.
“Technically,” John replied, “you.”
“Then, technically, I decide what rules we’re try to prove and how. Right?”
No one spoke.
“Good,” he said curtly. “Follow me.” He turned and ran for the third riverboat.
As his bare feet padded along the dirt, Nicodemus struggled against the urge to glance back. He had no doubt that Rory—young and thirsty for glory—would follow, but Sir Claude had joined Nicodemus’s party only recently.
However Nicodemus did not look back; doing so would show a concern for insubordination, and the past thirty years had taught him that the best way to prevent insubordination was to pretend it was impossible and then land like a lightning bolt on anyone who acted otherwise.
So Nicodemus dashed from tent to tent down the riverbank. Blue and white moonlight wavered on the currents. The stolen boat had turned and the stranger vessels were disengaging. There wasn’t much time now. Though the tropical night was humid, a chill ran through Nicodemus.
Beside him sounded footfalls on sand as Rory and Sir Claude caught up. Nicodemus paused and then ran for the third boat. He passed one of the incapacitated watchmen and then waded waist deep into the river to the moored barge. Then he was pulling himself onto the bow and scurrying down the hatch into the cramped hold. His every step seemed to make some board creak. In his imagination the wooden complaints rolled out across the water, clear and loud enough to alarm the River Thief.
The hold was as humid as a dog’s mouth. Nicodemus cast a few flamefly spells to shed flickering light over cargo lashed in place. Carefully he climbed over two chests and wedged himself between a barrel and the portside hull.
A moment later he saw Rory’s bulky shadow come down the hatch into the hold. Nicodemus cast another flamefly paragraph to let the druid know where he’d hidden himself. The druid found a hiding place in the aft hold.
A creak from the stairs announced Sir Claude’s arrival. Again Nicodemus threw out a flamefly spell. A moment later Rory cast some druidic text that briefly burned with blue flame. Sir Claude paused and then disappeared into the shadows near the starboard hull. Nicodemus was impressed. By choosing that spot, Sir Claude had evened the boat’s ballast. Now they wouldn’t list to one side and raise any suspicions. That Sir Claude would know to do such a thing raised Nicodemus’s curiosity.
Per reports from his Lornish allies, Sir Claude had been knighted fourteen years ago during the Goldensward War—a border dispute between Lorn and Spires that rapidly escalated in hostility between league and empire and was resolved only with frantic diplomacy. Afterward Sir Claude had become a royal spy who worked his way into the confidence of a seditious seraph before revealing his treachery to Argent, Lorn’s metallic overgod. Nothing in those reports suggested Sir Claude’s exposure to matters maritime. It made Nicodemus wonder if there was something more to Sir Claude than he had appreciated.
Had the Lornish crown sent him one of their spies as an emissary to send a message? Or to keep a closer eye on him? Nicodemus couldn’t rule out those possibilities. However, the Lornish crown could have chosen