Several sentences became rigid. Lines snagged and split. Currents spun out of control and formed a linguistic hurricane in the spell's lower hemisphere. The textual storm raged with percussive force, sounding miniature thunder cracks as it broke through stiff sentences. The purple glimmers around the Index disappeared.

"The text is deconstructing!" Shannon called to the sentinels. "Shut the vault!"

They needed little convincing; in the next instant the chamber door began to swing closed.

Shannon withdrew a scroll from his belt-purse and peeled a Numinous spell off its parchment. "Whatever happens, stay within this text," the wizard instructed Nicodemus, casting a golden, spherical shield around him. As an afterthought, Shannon placed Azure on his apprentice's shoulder.

A metallic clang reverberated through the room as the vault's door shut. All was silent for a moment and then several traseus lines broke with a deafening crack. A feathery Numinous geyser spewed from the sphere's upper pole, making the spell wrinkle like a winter apple.

With a backhand stroke, Shannon cast a Magnus lash against the spell and cut open a man-sized rift. "Timothy!" he called. "Get out now."

Smallwood didn't need to be told twice; he scooped up the Index and dashed out of the spell.

Together the linguists hurried back and edited themselves into the protective Numinous spell that surrounded Nicodemus.

Outside the shield, traseus collapsed and began to deconstruct violently. Decaying sentences flew about, striking the translucent shielding spell with jarring force. The three men silently watched the resplendent chaos. All were exhausted.

Unfortunately, their protective spell was no larger than a broom closet and they found themselves standing uncomfortably close.

"Nicodemus," Shannon asked, b.u.t.toning up his sleeves, "what did you see when the spell was functioning?"

"Purple flashes around the Index."

Shannon nodded. "As did I. What did you see, Timothy?"

"Nothing," said the pale-faced wizard as he crouched on a stool, which was contained within the protective spell's limited s.p.a.ce. Both Nicodemus and Shannon stared at the Index lying in the man's lap.

The air was cold, and so Nicodemus drew his arms back into his sleeves.

With a little shuffling, Shannon managed to turn back toward the vault. Ostensibly he was watching the deconstruction, but by patting Nicodemus's shoulder, he furtively cast a common language sentence into the younger man's chest.

Translating the line, Nicodemus read: "Mst get Index frm Smllwd while valt is closed. Ideas?"

Nicodemus had been staring out at the deconstruction with unfocused eyes. The message gave him a wild idea.

He handed Shannon a reply: "Y have an other shield? Like this won?"

Shannon nodded.

"Get it redy."

Shannon pretended to cough. "When?" he grunted between hacks.

Nicodemus made a show of thumping Shannon's back then grabbed the grand wizard's robes and yanked down hard. Just before the old man fell sideways, Nicodemus cast an answer into his chest: "Now!"

CHAPTER Twenty-one

With a cry, Shannon fell to his left and knocked Nicodemus toward Small-wood's stool. To avoid landing on the sitting wizard, Nicodemus threw his left hand against the Numinous shield. Nevertheless, his hip crashed into Smallwood's face and sent the wizard sprawling back onto the textual shield. As Nicodemus had hoped, the Index fell to the floor.

Everyone was shouting. The spherical shield seemed about to tip and send them tumbling over each other like bugs in a rolling gla.s.s bubble.

But Shannon leaned back against the shield's opposite wall, balancing it. Then, faster than Nicodemus thought the old man could move, he bent down and retrieved the Index from the floor.

Nicodemus exhaled with relief. Now came the tricky part: getting Shannon some time alone with the Index so that he could research their enemy.

Since his first day in Starhaven, Nicodemus had worked on preventing his touch from misspelling magical text. He had focused on rune order, memorized complex sentence structures, learned to block out every thought but those of preserving the spell at hand.

Now, heart racing, he did the opposite.

"Magisters!" Nicodemus cried while nodding toward his hand. His fingers were jammed into the shield's golden sentences. "It's misspelling!"

A dark line grew up from Nicodemus's hand as he willed his cacography to misspell the previously smooth sentences into crinkled zig-zags.

Strangely, the complex Numinous sentences misspelled exactly the way he wanted them to. Most of the time, Nicodemus's touch had made magical text dangerously uncontrollable. The opposite now seemed to be true. But he didn't have time to dwell on this phenomenon; he had to get Shannon away from Smallwood.

"I can't let go!" he lied. "I'm stuck!" A second dark line spread down from his hand. Together, the strata of corruption pulled a deep furrow into the spherical shield. "Magister, use the other shield!" Nicodemus hissed to Shannon. "Form another sphere."

Just then a deconstructing Magnus line punched through the furrow.The silvery fragment struck Nicodemus in the face, cutting him from cheekbone to jaw.

"Nicodemus!" Shannon called as a spray of blood filled the air.

Nicodemus clapped his free hand against the wound. The contracting ring of misspells now encircled the shield and was pinching the text down on top of him. "Magister Smallwood," he called. "Help!"

The shielding spell was now nearly two spheres joined by a furrow. It looked something like two fused soap bubbles.

Smallwood had been tottering to his feet. Now Nicodemus's cries turned his eyes up to where the apprentice's hand was contextualized into the shield. With a squawk, the pale wizard jumped up and began parsing the corrupted Numinous sentences enmeshing Nicodemus's hand.

When Shannon moved to help, Nicodemus shook his head. "Magister, go! Use the other spell."

Reluctantly, Shannon withdrew a small scroll from his belt-purse. With practiced motions, he peeled the Numinous text from the parchment and edited it into the shield's wall closest to him. The increased textual area in Shannon's sphere reduced the restraining tension on the misspelling furrow; it closed into a tight knot, effectively separating the shield's two spheres.

Nicodemus released the text and withdrew the cacographic force he had been exerting on the shield. Smallwood frantically set to cutting out the corrupted sentences.

Shannon, now standing in a separate protective spell, nodded to Nicodemus and rolled his shield toward the chamber's other side. Just before the wizard disappeared into the storm of deconstruction, Nicodemus saw him cradle the Index in his right arm and open its cover.

"Nicodemus, how could you have been so careless?" Smallwood squawked, finishing the seal on their protecting spell.

The shield had shrunk. Nicodemus had to crouch, his head tilting to one side as he pressed a hand to his cheek to stop the bleeding.

"Shannon trusts you cacographers too much," Smallwood said in the harshest tone Nicodemus had ever heard him use. "You could have killed us. Could have killed us and deconstructed the Index!"

Nicodemus mumbled an apology.

"Well...show me that cut," Smallwood said, his tone softening. "I'll do what I can until Shannon can st.i.tch you up with Magnus."

Nicodemus dropped his hand and looked away. Spikes of pain lanced into his head as Smallwood scrubbed the wound with his sleeve; neverthe-less, Nicodemus couldn't suppress a small, self-satisfied smile.

"THAT STUNT WITH the shield was exceedingly foolish and..." Shannon muttered to Nicodemus. the shield was exceedingly foolish and..." Shannon muttered to Nicodemus.

Four sentinels were accompanying them back to the Drum Tower, and one of the Northern spellwrights was now frowning at the old man.

Shannon waited for the Northerner to look away before finishing his sentence. "Exceedingly foolish, Nicodemus, and exceedingly brave."

Nicodemus started to smile but agony lanced across his wounded cheek. Despite being placed with care, Shannon's Magnus st.i.tches were extraordinarily painful. "What did you learn?" he asked.

Sitting on Shannon's shoulder, Azure raised her head to inspect the nearby sentinels. The party was now marching along a wide Spirish arcade in Starhaven's northern quarter. Presently none of the sentinels was close enough to overhear.

"Nothing about a gem or emerald and Language Prime. And nothing about the Chthonics, ivy, or turtle sh.e.l.ls." Shannon paused. "I am sorry, Nicodemus; I just realized I forgot to search for remedies for cacography."

A sinking sensation filled Nicodemus. "That's not important right now. What of our enemy?"

A smile formed beneath the wizard's short beard. "I discovered what manner of creature we face."

Nicodemus turned to the grand wizard. "Magister!" he whispered before remembering himself and returning his gaze to the ground. "What is our enemy?" he asked more quietly.

"We face a golem," the wizard whispered. "They are spells of the ancient world. According to the literature, no one has encountered or created one on this side of the ocean."

"Los in h.e.l.l," Nicodemus quietly swore. "So we face an author with knowledge of the ancient texts. Perhaps a demon-worshiper after all. What else, Magister? What kind of construct is a golem?"

Again Azure examined the sentinels; they were still too far to overhear. "To create a golem text," Shannon whispered, "an ancient spellwright had to convert his mind into complex text called a 'spirit,' which contained all of an author's magical and mental abilities. This spirit was then invested into a golem body made of earth-most were clay, but there was mention of metal or rock. While animate, a golem is not a construct but a living creature. A golem's durability depended on its substance: an iron golem would outlive a bra.s.s golem, a bra.s.s golem would outlive a mud golem, and so on. But the st.u.r.dier the golem, the more text and time it required to form."

Nicodemus held his tongue as a turn in the arcade brought a sentinel within earshot. Only when the man had moved away did he reply: "And that's why cutting off the murderer's arm didn't slow him down?"

Shannon nodded. "The author's spirit simply disengaged from the wounded body and then formed a new one. But from what I understand, any golem entering Starhaven would suffer from the stronghold's Chthonic metaspells. A clay golem shouldn't last five hours in this place. And one couldn't spellwrite within our walls."

Nicodemus eyed the nearest sentinel. "So the malicious author is not in the stronghold. He could be anywhere."

"Anywhere close by," Shannon corrected.

Fear began to cool Nicodemus's excitement. "We must find the author himself. We could slay the man or creature or whatever it is while its spirit is still in the golem."

Shannon shook his head. "If we knew where the author's body was hidden, we could do just that. But we've no way of finding the fiend."

"But then how can we fight it?"

Shannon started to reply but then stopped as the sentinels stepped in close. Ahead of the party stood the entrance to one of the long halls that separated the Spirish Quarter from the Imperial Quarter. The Drum Tower wasn't far off now.

Once inside the hall, the sentinels spread out, giving Nicodemus and Shannon enough room to whisper.

Shannon explained in a murmur: "If a golem deconstructs before its author's spirit can disengage, then the author dies along with the body. Different golems have different vulnerabilities. Clay golems, being malleable, are impervious to all but the most severe crushing and piercing attacks. However, as I discovered, they can be easily cut."

"But a golem made of granite?"

"Would be slower, stronger, and endangered by blunt attacks of sufficient force." The wizard took Azure onto his hand. "Nicodemus," he said loudly, "would you hold my familiar for a moment? I need to readjust my hood."

Nicodemus held out his hand and was not surprised when the parrot pressed a short Numinous sentence into his palm. "Take a good look at that sequence," Shannon murmured while pretending to fuss over his hood. "Do you think you could recognize it?"

Nicodemus shifted Azure to his other hand and squinted down at the line. If translated it would read, "nsohnannanhosn." Nicodemus cleared his throat. "It's your name written backward and then interdigitated with your name written forward?"

The old man chuckled. "You can't spell out the ingredients for ham and eggs, but you can glean that?"

Nicodemus shrugged. "Order never mattered to me."

"You may hand Azure back now," Shannon announced for the sentinels' benefit.

When Nicodemus obliged, the wizard whispered. "That will be my cipher for any broadcast I send. If anything should happen we can find each other using...what's the matter?"

"I'm sorry, Magister, I know most apprentices can cast broadly, but I've never-"

"It's a ball of short messages that's cast into an ever-expanding sphere. Spellwrights use them to find each other when lost. They're forbidden in Starhaven because of the confusion they'd cause. However, in an emergency, I'll begin casting many of them so you can find me. Some will have the correct cipher, some a decoy cipher. Each one is an expanding sphere. You are to follow only the correct cipher to its source."

The party climbed a short, wide stairway.

"One more thing," the wizard said: "that furrow in my Numinous shield back by the Index, how did you make it?"

Nicodemus explained how he had deliberately used his cacography to misspell the shield's smooth sentences into crinkled conformations. He didn't mention the strange sensation of increased control he had felt when corrupting the text; that still confused and troubled him. So instead, he focused on how his misspelled sentences had pulled the furrow down into the shield and so distracted Smallwood.

Shannon raised his eyebrows. "You did that by misspelling?"

"No, Magister," Nicodemus said, grinning despite the pain. "When I did that, I couldn't have spelled more correctly."

Shannon chuckled. "Well done, my boy."

The party filed out through a door and into the Stone Court. Nicodemus was shocked to see that the Drum Tower's main door and the ground floor windows were covered by blazing Numinous bars.

The old man explained: "The spells blocking the doors and windows are wards. They can be lifted by applying a key, much like a door's pa.s.swords. I've convinced Amadi to give me a key. I'd like you to have a copy in case you need to leave the tower. If possible, I will send Azure with a key to your window tonight. Otherwise I'll give you the key tomorrow."

Nicodemus nodded. "The wards are to protect us cacographers from the murderer?"

"I wanted more, but the provost doesn't want the convocation's atten-dees to know about the murderer. I don't know if the wards will stop an author capable of composing a golem. But there will be two sentinels guarding the tower. There will also be two of them watching my quarters. So at least we will be safe tonight."

Nicodemus glanced at the old man. "But we haven't talked about everything in my last nightmare. There's the cave I saw with the body and the strange turtles and the hexagonal pattern at the end of the Spindle Bridge. Perhaps our enemy has something to do with the Spindle. Some door in the mountainside or something about moving the mountain..."

Shannon motioned for Nicodemus to quiet down. "I've thought of that too. But there's nothing we can do tonight. Now we need to rest while it's still possible."

The old man paused. "Tonight I want you to pay special attention to your dreams."