She smiled and then, dreamily, nodded.

Shannon stood and looked toward Nicodemus. "What was it you wrapped her in?"

"A tapestry," Nicodemus said weakly. "From the Stacks."

Shannon sighed and turned back to the gargoyle. "Please re-hang that tapestry and finish reshelving. Use the rest of the night to name yourself."

The energized gargoyle nodded eagerly then scooped up the tapestry and scampered out the door.

"Magister, I-" Nicodemus stopped as Shannon turned to face him.

The old man was dressed in the billowing black robes of a grand wizard. Even in the dim moonlight, the lining of his large hood shone white, indicating that he was a linguist. Silver and gold b.u.t.tons ran down his sleeves, signifying his fluency in Numinous and Magnus.

Shannon's blind gaze was turned slightly away, but when he spoke, Nicodemus felt as if the old man was staring through his body to his soul.

"My boy, you surprise me. As a younger spellwright, I bribed a few constructs, even got into hot water with overly ambitious texts. But your disability places a special burden on us both. I keenly want you to earn a lesser hood, but if another wizard had seen that misspelled gargoyle...well, it would have ended your hopes of escaping apprenticeship and made life harder for the other cacographers."

"Yes, Magister."

Shannon sighed. "I will continue fighting for your hood, but only if there won't be a repet.i.tion of such...carelessness."

Nicodemus looked at his boots. "There won't be, Magister."

The old man began to walk back to his desk. "And why in the Creator's name did you touch the gargoyle?"

"I didn't mean to. I was editing text into her when there was a crash. Then it sounded like someone was running on the roof. It made me accidentally touch the gargoyle."

Shannon stopped. "When was this?"

"Maybe half an hour ago."

The grand wizard turned to face him. "Tell me everything."

As Nicodemus described the strange sounds, Shannon's lips again pressed into a thin line. "Magister, is something wrong?"

Shannon went to his desk. "Light two of my candles; leave one here, take one yourself. Then run up to Magister Smallwood's study. He always works late. Ask him to join me."

Nicodemus started for the candle drawer.

"Then you're to go straight back to the Drum Tower-no detours, no dillydally." Shannon sat down behind his desk. "I will send Azure to your quarters with a message. Am I clear?"

"Yes, Magister." Nicodemus set up and lit the candles.

Shannon began sorting through the ma.n.u.scripts on his desk. "You'll spend tomorrow with me. I've received permission to begin casting a primary research spell and will need your a.s.sistance. And then there's my new composition cla.s.s to teach. I'll have you excused from apprentice duty."

"Truly?" Nicodemus smiled in surprise. "Might I teach? I've practiced the introductory lecture."

"Perhaps," Shannon said without looking up from the ma.n.u.script he was reading. "Now run up to Magister Smallwood and then straight to the Drum Tower, nowhere else."

"Yes, Magister." Nicodemus eagerly picked up a candle and made his way to the door.

But when he put his hand on the latch, an idea stopped him. "Magister," he asked slowly, "did that gargoyle have secondary cognition all along?"

Shannon paused and then put down his ma.n.u.script. "My boy, I don't want to raise false expectations again."

Nicodemus frowned. "Expectations about what?"

"The gargoyle had primary cognition until you misspelled her."

"But how is that possible?"

"It shouldn't be," Shannon said before rubbing his eyes. "Nicodemus, for this convocation we are hosting delegates from the North: Astroph.e.l.l wizards, some of my former colleagues. Some of them belong to the counter-prophecy faction and so will distrust cacographers even more than other Northerners do. It would be exceedingly dangerous if they learnedthat your touch both misspelled a gargoyle and elevated her freedom of thought."

"Dangerous because they would want me censored?"

Shannon shook his head. "Dangerous because they would want you killed."

CHAPTER Three

On the way to Magister Smallwood's study, Nicodemus looked at his candle. It was quavering in time to his hand's fine tremble.

He had never known Shannon to betray even a hint of anxiety. But when the old man had mentioned the Astroph.e.l.l delegates, his tone had been strained, his words clipped. The danger the Northerners posed must be real indeed.

Worse had been Shannon's statement about not raising "false expectations." Nicodemus shivered; the old man could only have been referring to Nicodemus's lost hope of fulfilling the Erasmine Prophecy.

"Fiery heaven, don't think on it," Nicodemus muttered to himself, as he had done countless times before.

A row of arched windows, all filled with ornate tracery, ran along the hallway. Nicodemus stopped to peer between the flowing stone beams to the starry sky beyond. He slowed his breathing and tried to soothe his frayed nerves.

But his hands still trembled, and it wasn't Northern delegates or unful-filled prophecies that made them do so.

It was the memory of Shannon's face when the old man had stepped into the moonlight-his white eyebrows knitting together in disapproval, his lips narrowing in disappointment.

The memory made Nicodemus feel as if something were tightening around his heart. "I'll make it up to the old man," he whispered. "I will."

He turned from the window and hurried down the hall to an open door spilling candlelight into the hallway. "Magister Smallwood?" He knocked on the doorjamb. The grand wizard looked up from his desk.

Smallwood was a thin, pale spellwright with a tousled wreath of gray hair. His eyes, though beginning to cloud over, still held black pupils within brown irises.

Nicodemus cleared his throat. "Magister Shannon sends his compliments and asks that you join him in his study."

"Ah, good, good, always happy to see Shannon," Smallwood said with an absent smile. He closed his book. "And who are you?"

"Nicodemus Weal, Magister Shannon's apprentice."

Smallwood leaned forward and squinted. "Ah, Shannon's next cacographic project?"

"I'm sorry?"

"I don't remember the last boy's name. And I've never seen you before."

In fact, Nicodemus had been bringing Smallwood written messages for nearly two years. However, this was the first time Nicodemus had spoken directly to him. "I'm sorry, Magister, but I don't understand about the cacographic project."

Smallwood stretched his arms and adjusted his hood, which like Shannon's was lined with white. "Oh, you know, Shannon takes his work with the Drum Tower boys so seriously. And he's always got a pet cacographer. It's ridiculous the rumors that go round about him; he's so proud when one of you earns a lesser hood."

"Yes, Magister," Nicodemus said, trying not to frown. He had heard rumors about Shannon's former career in Astroph.e.l.l but never a rumor about the old man's current position as Master of the Drum Tower.

"So, what exactly does Shannon have you doing to earn that hood?" Smallwood asked.

"He's written a spell that allows him to pull my runes into his body. It helps him spellwrite longer texts. We're hoping that if enough linguists feel I'm helpful, they'll give me a lesser hood lined with white."

"Ah, yes, and I'm to be the first who finds you useful." Smallwood's smile seemed genuine. "I believe you'll be a.s.sisting Shannon and me tomorrow. Very exciting, very promising research spell we'll be attempting."

"I'm honored to be part of it, Magister."

"And are you teaching yet?"

Nicodemus tried to sound confident. "Anatomy dissections, but not a spellwriting cla.s.s yet. I'm very much looking forward to it."

"Yes, well, keep pestering Shannon about that; the academy will keep a hood away from you until you're fifty unless you teach composition." The linguist's gaze wandered to the books on his desk. "Did Shannon want me right away?"

"I believe so, Magister."

Smallwood stood. "Very well, very well. Thank you, Nicolas; it is good to meet you. You may go."

"Nicodemus, Magister."

"Yes, yes, Nicodemus, of course." He paused. "Pardon me, but did you say Nicodemus Weal?"

"Yes, Magister."

Smallwood studied Nicodemus with a focused intensity. "Of course,"the grand wizard said at last, suddenly earnest. "Foolish of me to forget you, Nicodemus. Thank you for the message. You may go."

Nicodemus bobbed his head and retreated. He hurried to the hallway's end and then ducked into a narrow spiral staircase. Shannon had instructed him to go straight back to the Drum Tower, so he jogged down to the ground level and out into a torch-lit hallway. Walking eastward, he pa.s.sed Lornish tapestries and gilded stone arcades.

But he was blind to their beauty.

His thoughts were troubled by what Smallwood had said about Shannon. All the apprentices knew that Shannon had suffered some kind of fall from grace back in Astroph.e.l.l, but Smallwood had implied there were more recent rumors involving Shannon and cacographers.

Nicodemus bit his lip. Smallwood was famously absentminded; it was possible that he was mistaking old rumors for new.

But if that was the case, what exactly had Smallwood been misremem-bering when he mentioned Shannon's "next cacographic project" and his new "pet cacographer"?

Nicodemus turned to mount a narrow staircase.

Shannon had begun teaching cacographers only fifty years ago, when he arrived at Starhaven. So the source of Smallwood's rumor must have occurred since then.

Reaching the oak doors at the top of the stairs, Nicodemus pushed them open and looked out on the gray slate tiles that paved the yard of the Stone Court.

Centuries ago, the Neosolar Empire had renovated the courtyard after taking Starhaven from the Chthonic people. However, none of the succeeding occupying kingdoms had built over this aspect of the stronghold.

Consequently, the Stone Court demonstrated the cla.s.sical architecture so common to Starhaven's Imperial Quarter: walls decorated by molded white plaster, arched doorways, wide windows. Each entryway was flanked by a pair of stone obelisks.

However, because of the Stone Court's remote location, the wizards had filled it with several objects too unsightly to reside in Starhaven's more populous quarters.

A forest of Dralish standing stones stood in the courtyard's center. On its eastern edge loitered two marble statues of Erasmus and one of Uriel Bolide. And everywhere-curled up, sprawled out, or lying on any available stone ledge-were sleeping janitorial gargoyles.

Nicodemus started for the Drum Tower, which ab.u.t.ted the court's eastern limit. But as he went, he saw something move within the stone forest.

He stopped.

The movement had been too quick to be that of a janitorial gargoyle. And no neophyte should be awake so late. Perhaps it was a feral cat?

It came again: a pale blur between two standing stones. Apprehension gripped Nicodemus. Wizards wore only black. Cloth of any other color signified an outsider...or an intruder.

Starhaven's many towers hid the blue and black moons, but the gibbous white moon hung directly overhead and flooded the court with milky light. As Nicodemus snuck among the standing stones, a crocodile-like gargoyle sleeping on the ground rolled over to regard him with a half-opened eye.

Someone was whispering behind the megalith to Nicodemus's left. "Who's there?" he asked in his boldest voice and stepped around the megalith.

Before him stood a short figure robed in white cloth. It spun around with inhuman speed.

CHAPTER Four

Magister Shannon, sitting behind his desk, looked in the direction of Smallwood's voice. "Thank you for coming so late, Timothy."

"Quite all right; I'm always up," Smallwood said with his usual warmth. Shannon could not see the other wizard, but judging by his voice, he was standing by the bookshelves.

"But I'm surprised you're awake," Smallwood added. "I didn't think you were a night owl."

Shannon grunted. "I'm not. Two hours ago, I was in bed. A relay text from one of my research projects woke me with a report of unusual guardian activity around the Drum Tower. Seems they've been chasing something around on the roofs."

"Guardian spells," Smallwood said with a disdainful sniff. "Sloppy prose, if you ask me, written with too much sensitivity. Likely they were chasing a feral cat that wandered in from the uninhabited quarters."