With panicked determination, Nicodemus returned to writing Shannon's anti-golem spell along his left forearm. Farther down the wall, the hawk-headed gargoyle screeched as it hobbled toward them.

Kyran pulled his arm back, and again fiery branches bloomed from his fist.

But it was too late. Fellwroth had cracked open a spellbook and now flicked out a net of Numinous and Magnus.

The censoring text enveloped Kyran and knocked him onto his back. The burning branch spell rolled out of his hand and lost its fire.

"Kyran!" Nicodemus cried. Fellwroth's luminescent Numinous pa.s.sageshad intertwined about the druid's head, censoring him completely. He began to thrash.

Fellwroth rushed forward. Nicodemus peeled his rendition of Shannon's spell from his forearm and cast it. A comet-like spell shot through the air but splashed against the golem's chest. Nothing happened.

It had misspelled.

Nicodemus cursed. He had failed Magister Shannon. The old man had worked so hard to get him the anti-golem spell and his cacography had made a mess of it.

The golem laughed. "There's nothing you can do, whelp. This body is solid iron."

Nicodemus ground his teeth. He could not reproduce Shannon's spell, but he'd be d.a.m.ned before he gave up.

He extemporized a Magnus lash along his thigh and pulled it free. But with a turn of his hand, Fellwroth cast a Numinous wave that shattered Nicodemus's text into phrases.

Nicodemus began to write a second lash, but the monster's pale hand flicked out and grabbed his throat.

Fellwroth's touch made the keloid on Nicodemus's neck flare up with scalding pain. It felt as if the scars had caught fire.

The world dissolved into blackness.

BEFORE N NICODEMUS BLAZED the image of his last nightmare. He was again in the low cavern, staring at a body shrouded in white. "Fellwroth's true body," a boyish voice said. the image of his last nightmare. He was again in the low cavern, staring at a body shrouded in white. "Fellwroth's true body," a boyish voice said.

A small tear-shaped emerald sat in the monster's hands. The voice spoke again. "I dream your dreams; you dream mine."

With shock, Nicodemus recognized the voice as his own childhood voice. It was coming from the emerald.

And then everything changed and Nicodemus was far away. He was in a dark room looking at his father-a tall man with long black hair and olive skin. An infant lay on a table.

"This was how we were separated," his boyhood voice said as Nicodemus's father pressed an emerald against the back of the infant's neck. The child shrieked as white light erupted from the gem and cut into his neck.

When the light died the child was left with an angry keloid scar shaped like a Braid rune marred by an Inconjunct rune.

Nicodemus inhaled sharply. His father had branded him. He had not been born with a keloid as the Halcyon was prophesied to be. He could not be the Halcyon!

"Think no more on that," the emerald voice said. "Think on this." Suddenly Nicodemus was in a strange land surrounded by rolling highlands. It was night and a wide river stretched before him.

"This is how Fellwroth took possession of us," the emerald said.

A giant was standing thigh-deep in the dark water. He had long red hair and skin that shone glossy black like a raven's wing. From John's description, Nicodemus recognized the demon Typhoneus.

Suddenly Fellwroth appeared behind the demon and brandished a blade of white light. Silently, Fellwroth stabbed Typhon in the side-stabbed him again and again until the demon collapsed and transformed into a ball of glowing red language. Fellwroth hacked the red language into bits that floated down the river.

Again everything dissolved into blackness. "Beware the scar," the emerald's voice said. "It will betray you to Fellwroth."

THE VISION DISAPPEARED and Nicodemus was again standing on the wall before the compluvium. and Nicodemus was again standing on the wall before the compluvium.

Fellwroth's golem had pulled back his hand as if burned by Nicodemus's skin. The monster's ragged white hood still concealed his eyes, but the thin bloodless lips had parted in shock.

Suddenly Nicodemus understood. "The emerald is the stolen half of my mind," he said. "It's the one sending me these dreams. Sending me dreams of where your true body is, dreams of your crimes. Before I saw the dragon and what you did to Eric. Now I've seen what you did to Typhon."

Fellwroth's lips worked soundlessly.

"You were the demon's slave!" Nicodemus exclaimed.

Fellwroth struck out with his hand and screamed: "I CUT HIM IN THE RIVER!"

Nicodemus jumped back and caught Fellwroth's blow on his shoulder. Pain exploded through his chest, and the world spun round. His back hit the ground.

When he looked up, Fellwroth was standing over him with clenched fists. A golden Numinous spike jutted out from the monster's right hand, a Magnus spike from his left.

"I'll hew your r.e.t.a.r.ded mind in half!" Fellwroth snarled and drew back his right fist.

Suddenly Kyran was above them both. Blood covered the druid's face. Again the magically burning branches were growing from his hands. With a snarl, he grabbed hold of Fellwroth's raised fist.

The branches snaked down the golem's arm. Their flames flared into ablaze that burnt off the golem's sleeve and began to melt his arm into quick-silver.

With a metallic howl, Fellwroth turned and slammed his right fist, and its long Magnus spike, into Kyran's stomach.

Nicodemus cried out and struggled to find his feet.

Blood spread across Kyran's belly, but the druid only grasped Fellwroth's arm more tightly. The blue flames roared louder as the burning branches spread down the creature's shoulder.

The monster's howl became a gasp as he squirmed away from Kyran and fell backward onto the cobblestones.

Somehow Kyran yanked Nicodemus to his feet. "For Deirdre," he grunted, and cast a common language sentence into Nicodemus's shoulder.

The now writhing golem was trying desperately to pull the burning th.o.r.n.y branches from his flesh. His right arm had melted down to a thin, useless stalk.

"Don't be like me, boy." Kyran pulled Nicodemus away. "Be anything: be wild, be saintly, be wicked. Love all or love none, but don't be like me."

Suddenly the war-weight gargoyle was before Nicodemus. "Get him to safety at any cost," Kyran commanded.

Before Nicodemus could protest, the hawk-headed gargoyle grabbed hold of him and-as if he weighed no more than a kitten-hoisted him into the air. Nicodemus clutched the Index to his chest.

An inhuman scream turned Nicodemus's eyes back to see the metal golem. The monster had extinguished the blue flames and was now on his feet and charging. A long Magnus lash glittered in his waxy hands. Kyran moved to meet the creature, blue fire again blazing from his fists.

"Kyran, no!" Nicodemus yelled.

With a vicious strike, Fellwroth brought his Magnus lash around, tearing through Kyran from shoulder to hip.

Nicodemus cried out.

The golem charged forward and raised his Magnus lash to strike at the gargoyle.

But then Nicodemus was in the air, falling at tremendous speed. His stomach clenched.

The hawk-headed gargoyle had leaped from the wall.

Nicodemus had only a glimpse of the impluvium's gla.s.sy surface before they splashed into it. The moment the gargoyle's feet hit water, its arms lifted Nicodemus up over its head to reduce the shock of impact. Even so, the crash of water seemed to jar the wits from Nicodemus's mind.

His first lucid thought, ludicrously, was for the Index's safety. Hetightened his grip on the book even though the water was surely destroying its pages.

His next thought was of the golem. He opened his eyes and felt the shock of icy water on his eyeb.a.l.l.s.

The gargoyle's weight was fast pulling them down into the impluvium's depths. But after craning his neck around, Nicodemus could see a blurry white column of bubbles created as the golem hit the surface.

Suddenly a stone face covered with fish scales loomed before Nicodemus. The aquatic gargoyle's rough hands grabbed hold of Nicodemus's robes and pulled. Then dozens more of the tiny hands set upon him, pulling him somewhere. He fought the urge to scream.

Above him the metal golem was sinking fast, its white cloak billowing in the water.

A high-pitched whine filled the water and abruptly many gargoyle hands were shoving Nicodemus into a dark hole. He fought to escape but there were too many.

They stuffed him into a small, black s.p.a.ce. A sheet of metal closed above him and there followed a second whine.

In complete darkness, Nicodemus prepared to die.

But the whine grew louder and then Nicodemus was falling, tumbling, banging against the sides of some long tube. He shouted and felt the cold water fill his mouth. The tube began to bend and he slid along its algae-coated bottom.

Suddenly he fell into a mixture of air and water. Something was roaring like a waterfall.

He splashed down into what seemed to be a waist-deep underground river. His mouth opened and drew in long gulps of air.

He let the powerful current pull him along. Slowly the waterfall's roar faded and he could hear things moving in the darkness above him-small, rustling things that spoke with creaking voices.

And then, without warning, he was outside. Above him shone a crystalline night sky. Around him stood a forest of dark towers. A few bats flitted about in the chilly air. Nearly two hundred feet below stretched the weed-covered gardens and stone walkways of the Chthonic Quarter.

The gargoyles had dropped him into an aqueduct, Nicodemus realized, as he floated into another tunnel. The icy current carried him northwest through several towers and across the high aqueducts until it dropped him into a ma.s.sive bra.s.s cistern in the Spirish Quarter.

Whispering thanks to every deity and gargoyle he knew, Nicodemus pulled himself out of the water and ran.

At first he fled aimlessly. He feared that Fellwroth might have followed him down the aqueduct. But once sure that he had escaped, Nicodemus snuck into an old janitorial closet to catch his breath and dry off.

To his shock, he discovered that the Index was miraculously dry. He turned the codex over again and again, looking for some reason why it had not so much as a damp page.

He found no clue. But as he turned the book over, the thrill of escape faded. The keloid scars on his neck began to burn, and his hands began to shake.

At first he thought only of Kyran's horrible death. But then he remembered the sentence the druid had cast into his shoulder before dying.

He pulled the line free and translated it.

Reading Kyran's final words made him feel numb for a while. Then he thought of Deirdre and then of Devin. He thought of John and of Magister Shannon. He thought of his father, branding his infant self.

When the tears came, he did not try to stop them.

CHAPTER Thirty

Hugging the Index to his chest, Nicodemus peered around the tapestry he was hiding behind.

He stood at Starhaven's westernmost point, in the main hall of its gatehouse. The academy's entrance lay beyond. Two guards, both women, paced the drawbridge.

Each woman was casting, from her waist, a white sentence that held a spellbook open beside her. This action, called "floating a spellbook," gave each spellwright quick access to her book's prewritten offensive language.

Slinking back behind the tapestry, Nicodemus closed his eyes and envisioned the emerald he had seen in his dreams. The stone was a small, flawless teardrop. At the gem's center glowed a verdant spark. This was the missing part of himself.

He shuddered.

If not for this gem, he wouldn't be cacographic. More important, Kyran and Devin wouldn't be dead.

In his imagination, the gem shone brighter and his determination to recover the missing part of his mind grew. Summoning this mental image was how he had stopped the tears in the janitorial station. It was how he would prevent them now.

He let the emerald's light burn away all his sorrow, all his doubt, all his weakness. He must find a way to regain the emerald, to complete himself.

He felt his belt-purse for Deirdre's Seed of Finding. Once away from the stronghold, he would tear the root from the artifact to let the druid know where he was.

Again glancing from behind the tapestry, Nicodemus inspected the two guards. The younger one had long black hair and a pale face. She was unknown to him. But the elder guard's silver hair and dark face were vaguely familiar. If he remembered correctly, she was one of Starhaven's foremost Numinous authors.

Biting his lip, Nicodemus leaned back into his hiding place. Perhaps he should chance a return to the Fool's Ladder; he was never going to escapeStarhaven through the front gate. To get past these guards he'd have to be invisible.

An idea grew in his mind.

Perhaps he could find an invisibility subtext so simple that he could repair any misspellings the corrupted Index might introduce into it.

He opened the book. At first he could not make sense of what he saw. It seemed to be the chapter of an old treatise, but why it had appeared was a mystery.

From Towards a Uniform Spelling Uniform Spelling by Gaius Rufeus by Gaius RufeusMany today argue that tolorence for alternative spellings encurages creativity. I conseed that for many texts there are a few alternative spellings that are not only functional but also superior to the conventional spelling. But the number of these fortunate mistakes is dwarfed by the number of alternative spellings (or we should call them misspellings) that are nonfunctional and, in certin cases, dangerous. If wizards are to survive as useful members of the Neosolar Empire then a standard for...