nodded to one of the blackened bodies. “Not in combat at least. A fire neodemon?”
“I’d say lava neodemon, given the scent of vog. But given what’s in the cabin, it’s got to be more than your commonplace lava neodemon.”
“What’s in the cabin?”
Doria took a deep breath. “There are some things in my life I wish I could unsee and unremember. What is in the cabin, it’s one of those things.”
“That bad?”
“That bad.”
Nicodemus raised his eyebrows. Doria wasn’t one to exaggerate. He followed her aft. The moment he set foot in the cabin he regretted it. Three bodies were huddled in the corner, all badly burned, all of them children. The oldest couldn’t have been more than six.
“Seeing how they’re huddled, I’m guessing the crew was trying to get them off the island, away from whatever was attacking,” Doria said beside him. “The children’s burns are bad, but not bad enough to kill. It’s mysterious. Those two however …” she gestured behind Nicodemus.
He turned to find two adult bodies sitting against the wall, their heads lolling at odd angles. Below the neck, each man was painted with blackening blood. In each hand, each man held a curved knife. “Opened each other’s throats?” he asked.
“Too far apart. Slit their own.”
“Madness then. Something drove them mad.”
“Something on Feather Island,” someone said from behind them. Nicodemus looked back to see a pale Rory and a thin-lipped Sir Claude standing in the doorway. Their expressions were tense. Apparently the present situation was enough to quell their feud.
Nicodemus nodded. “Or something that was on Feather Island a few hours ago.”
Doria sighed. “Should we continue on to Chandralu?”
Nicodemus rolled his neck as he thought. His keloid scar was itching again. Distracted, he wondered if he should rewrite the tattooed spells around it. But then he forced himself to focus. Head to the city or investigate? “If we did find trouble on Feather Island, we’d be in river barges, which are hardly ideal for fighting. And except for Doria, none of us is suited for combat afloat.”
Doria shrugged. “Leandra on her catamaran and with her shark god in tow wouldn’t be a bad idea … but, Nico, what if this neodemon gets away?”
“My Lord Warden,” Sir Claude added, “the neodemon who did this must have very, very malicious requisites. Burning his victims, driving them to …”
Nicodemus nodded. “One of the deadliest creatures I have ever faced was the Savanna Walker of Avel. He had been born with the same capabilities that I have, but by distorting his Language Prime and his magical language, he learned how to wound the minds around him, causing insanity.”
Doria made a thoughtful sound. “You never told me the Savanna Walker produced carnage like this.”
Nicodemus shook his head. “It was different. The Savanna Walker could induce blindness, deafness, aphasia, that sort of thing. When he completely corrupted a mind, he made men his homicidal slaves. But he never made men suicidal and he had no power of flame. The lava neodemon that did this may be as dangerous or even more so. Sir Claude, I take your point. We can’t let this monster roam the bay.”
The knight bowed his head.
Nicodemus turned to look at the three children. He tried not to shudder. “It seems I had better figure how much we will have to bribe the captain to change course for Feather Island.”
Whatever trouble Leandra had gotten herself into, she was going to have to manage it alone for a bit longer. And whatever had made Leandra think she might murder her mother … well … he would just have to trust his wife and daughter to find some way to avoid killing each other.
Empress Vivian Niyol, the Blessed Halcyon, the Creator’s Champion of Humanity, the Future Vanquisher of Los and his Demonic Invasion, the Sovereign of all the Kingdoms of the Second Neosolar Empire—whose exalted person had been raised above every menial task—had to line edit.
And it was glorious.
Vivian had to line edit every waking moment without pause, rest, reservation. She wrote in Numinous. Its golden spun-glass sentences coursed into her room from every direction and wove themselves into an incandescent halo suspended a few inches above her head. Down from this halo a hundred thousand sentences dropped like lightning bolts to pierce her brain.
This was her master spell.
Maintenance of this glorious text required all of her attention, all of her strength. The text was of staggering length and spread out from her in all directions for several miles, coordinating several thousand subspells of many different languages.
The task of constantly casting, recasting, editing, rewriting the master spell required so much of Vivian’s mind that it intoxicated her. Literally, wonderfully. Her existence had become trancelike. The intricacy of the world had been replaced by innumerable concatenating paragraphs, the brightness of the sky by a luminosity of prose.
In this exalted state, Vivian could not remember or understand things which previously had been elementary. She knew that she sat on a wide comfortable wooden throne. The room around her was small, but furnished with thickly woven rugs and white cushions. She remembered, vaguely, that along one wall ran a gallery of windows looking out onto blue sky and swirling clouds. But the brilliance of her Numinous text outshone the daylight and illuminated the dark. Vivian had lost track of time shortly after she had first cast this master spell twenty days … or had it been thirty … or even forty … days ago. She couldn’t tell.
And as for the spell’s function … it was for … for … She could remember only that it was designed to fool her half-brother Nicodemus.
Older memories were clearer. For example, around her neck she wore a simple silver necklace, which held the Emerald of Arahest against her chest. She remembered that it was only through this magical artifact that she could cast and recast the master spell.
She remembered that the Emerald held her half-brother’s ability to spell. The demon Typhon had stolen this ability into the Emerald when Nicodemus was an infant. Vivian had been born with an identical ability; however, years ago, during the intrigue in Avel, the creature known as the Savanna Walker had destroyed that portion of Vivian’s mind.
After Typhon had been defeated, Nicodemus had given her the Emerald. At first she had not understood it. His explanation at the time—that his cacography had made him a champion for creativity and intuitiveness in language—had seemed weak.
However, once Nicodemus had begun to cast his metaspells and new divinities swarmed across the league kingdoms, she had seen how shrewd her half-brother had been to give up the Emerald. Nicodemus was infinitely more dangerous without it. He and his demonically written wife had created a new, dangerous civilization through exploitation of religion and superstition.
Vivian’s more recent memories were nebulous things; they seemed to have shape until she reached for them, and then they dissolved. Nicodemus had recently committed … some transgression. What … she couldn’t remember.
The wizardly prophecies described the Halcyon as the protector of humanity during the Disjunction, but they also described the Storm Petrel, who would betray humanity. She had hoped Nicodemus would not be involved in prophecy. But perhaps Vivian’s previous self had discovered that Nicodemus was in fact the Storm Petrel.
Vivian tried harder to recall, but the halo’s sentences began to strike her head more frequently. Tension gathered in the Numinous matrix. She put aside everything but the master spell. She had to keep casting and recasting.
Before