words.”
The murderer was right. Shannon could not dash off a spell in time.
“Enough banter,” the creature hissed. “You can accept my offer or force me to kill every boy in—”
Shannon dove to the floor. Something whistled above his head and struck the wall behind him with a clang. He grabbed hold of the Magnus spell in Nora’s book and pulled.
The wartext leaped from the page into an effulgence of silver runes. Shannon did not know the spell’s name or how to wield it, so he blindly threw his arm out toward the voice. The text uncoiled into a long, liquid lash and struck with serpentine quickness.
The murderer cried out with surprise as the silvery text struck a bookshelf. The spell cut through several leather-bound codices with a loud ripping sound.
With a blast of air, each severed spellbook exploded into a blazing nimbus of sentence fragments. Shannon flinched, the brilliance dazzling his text-sensitive eyes.
Then the murderer was on top of him. The universe became a seething blackness of elbows and knees as they rolled over one another. A hand was trying to pull the Magnus spell from Shannon’s hand, and then a hard object cut a line of pain across his forehead.
Yawping savagely, Shannon jerked his right hand free and whipped the Magnus spell around. It cut though something with a soft swish.
Instantly the weight lifted from Shannon’s chest. The room filled with a high, keening scream. When Shannon sat up, a page of golden text shot toward him. He recognized the page as belonging to Nora’s research journal the instant before it smashed into his nose. The murderer must have struck him with the book.
Suddenly he was on his back and struggling to get up. His head felt full of cotton and his ears were ringing. Deconstructing sentence fragments coated every inch of the private library’s floor and walls. The fragments were squirming, spinning, and leaping into the air.
Beyond the chaos, Shannon saw Nora’s research journal flying away into a patch of darkness that must be the hallway. The inhuman scream began to fade.
Slowly he realized what he was seeing: the murderer had taken Nora’s journal and fled.
All around Shannon the deconstructing fragments began to burst. Each small explosion flung phrases across the room. The sharp language cut into his mind and body with hot shards of pain.
Desperately, Shannon felt around the floor for any clue as to why the murderer had fled. His fingers found something long and partially surrounded by cloth. He picked up the strange object and ran out of the library.
Behind him the decomposing sentences began to tear open the other spellbooks. Soon they would spill their contents into the growing textual storm. Shannon pulled the subtextualized door shut.
The hallway went black. Shannon could hear the deconstructing literature crackle and hiss behind the subtext.
But he was safe now. The chaotic language, left in the private library, would deconstruct into nothing.
Something wet and hot was running down his face. Blood.
He was still holding the mysterious cloth-covered object. Perhaps Azure could look at it for him.
Azure!
Fear tore into his gut. What had the murderer done to his familiar?
“Azure!” he called hoarsely. “Azure!” He had turned and was running blindly, arm stretched out. His hand struck a wall and he nearly fell. There came a faint whistle from behind.
He spun around and saw with intense relief a coil of Numinous censoring texts lying on what he assumed to be the windowsill. The murderer had bound the bird magically but had not killed her. The villain must have known hurting Azure would have made recruiting him impossible.
Shannon hurried to pick up the censored bird.
In her fear, Azure bit his pinky hard enough to draw blood. But Shannon wouldn’t have cared if she had snapped his finger in two. Cooing softly, he unwound the censoring texts from the bird’s head.
Once her mind was free, Azure cast to him a deluge of terrified text: a white-cloaked figure appearing in the hallway and a blazing Numinous spell that came from outside the tower to envelop her mind.
It seemed odd that the murderer had written the censoring text to strike from outside the tower; then Shannon remembered the thing’s claim that it could not spellwrite within Starhaven’s walls.
“Los damn it, but what could the creature be?” he hissed while scooping Azure up as if she were a loaf of bread.
In his left hand, he still gripped the strange cloth-covered object he had picked up in the private library.
On trembling legs and looking through Azure’s eyes, he hurried down the Gimhurst Tower. His breath became ragged as he ran into Starhaven’s inhabited quarter.
Twice, mangy cats scattered before him. He did not slow until flickering torches appeared along the walkways. Only then did he take the time to look at himself through Azure’s eyes.
The deconstructing sentence fragments had torn holes in his robes and cut small bloody lines into his hands and face. More shocking was the gash that slanted down his left brow. Two of his silvery dreadlocks had been cut by whatever blade had made that wound.
After hurrying through several buildings and across the Grand Courtyard, Shannon reached the Erasmine Spire. Thankfully there were no other wizards about to see him trot up the stairs and into his study.
Still panting, he set Azure on the back of his chair and the strange cloth-covered object on his writing desk. Though she still sent him frightened memories of the attack, Azure was beginning to calm down.
Shannon cast a few flamefly paragraphs above his desk. Once there was enough light, he coaxed Azure into standing on his shoulder. After saying a brief prayer to the Creator, he turned Azure’s eyes to the strange object he had taken from Nora’s library.
At first he could not understand what he was seeing.
It lay on his desk, wrapped in what was left of a white sleeve. He must have cut it off with the Magnus spell.
Slowly, tentatively, he turned the thing over.
It had been detached just above the elbow joint. There was no blood. Its curled fingers were perfect, down to the hairs growing on the back of the thumb.
“Heaven defend us,” Shannon whispered in shock. “The days of prophecy are upon us!”
Patches of the object seemed to be made of pale skin. But even as he watched, these slowly darkened into clay.
Save for this strange fact, the thing was an exact replica of a man’s severed forearm.
Nicodemus mounted the last few steps to stand panting before a tower door. It was identical to the one he had seen in his dream the previous night.
Contrary to his expectations of danger and intrigue, the day had been long and tiresome, full of busywork for Magister Shannon’s research. Moments earlier he had wolfed down his dinner so that he could find a view of the sunset he had seen in his sleep. It had been a strange dream—one that did not fade after waking but grew more vivid.
He pulled the door open to reveal a narrow stone bridge and, beyond, the Erasmine Spire. The sunset bathed the Spire in vermillion light.
Nicodemus smiled and stepped outside; now he would have time to sit on the bridge and read the knightly romance tucked under his arm. A warm breeze picked up as he turned westward.
Starhaven was built halfway up the Pinnacle Mountains. From a distance the stronghold’s crenellated walls and massive gatehouse made it look something like a great Lornish castle.