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Authors: Blake Charlton

BOOK: Spellbound
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Only a few moments ago she would have cackled to see every inch of Cyrus's nonveiled face blushing so brightly. But now, in the presences of the old woman, she felt a pang of sympathetic embarrassment for him.
“Your pardon if I've made you uncomfortable, Francesca,” Vivian said casually.
Taken aback, Francesca looked at Vivian. The old woman was smiling, smug as the cat that swallowed the crow. Francesca's embarrassment turned to anger. The old crone had just beaten her at her own wordplay, and she knew it. Show-off.
Francesca's mind raced, searching for some scintillating remark. But, aggravatingly, she could think of nothing to say other than, “I am also finding myself curious about your errand.”
Vivian nodded. “Very well. Lotannu and I are here with the permission of the Celestial Court; we've come to solve something of a mystery. Or, rather, to find someone who has gone missing.”
Francesca tightened her hands into fists. “And who would that be?”
“A rogue wizard,” she replied. “Perhaps you heard of him when you were in clerical training. He was only a boy of twenty-five years then. His name is Nicodemus Weal.”
With every ounce of her restraint, Francesca kept her expression neutral. Cyrus, however, visibly flinched.
“You are surprised, Cyrus Alarcon?” Lotannu asked.
“Of course,” Cyrus answered. “Among hierophants, the story went round that Weal claimed he was the wizards' prophesied savior and then murdered his peers. Some said the wizards even found evidence of demonic involvement, something about a being made entirely of metal. But I thought they were only rumors.”
“And you are not surprised, Francesca?” Vivian asked.
“A healer learns to hide her surprise,” she answered. “Patients aren't reassured when their wounds elicit expressions of shock.”
“I see,” Vivian said.
Cyrus spoke, “What makes you think Weal is in Avel?”
“I can't go into the details,” the ancient woman replied. “I can tell you that we must be discreet. If word gets out that two grand wizards are hunting for a rogue, he's likely to flee. That is why I must ask both of you for secrecy.”
“You have it,” Cyrus said.
Vivian cocked her head to the side. “Once in Avel, Lotannu and I will be changing into costumes. I'll be posing as a rich Verdantine merchant, looking for trading partners in Avel. Lotannu will be my master of coin. This is why I could not bring my familiar; a merchant shouldn't travel with a tame coyote. We could use your help in our ruse. But that is not the main reason I hope to enlist you, Francesca. I learned from the marshal that today you witnessed an aphasia curse moving through the sanctuary. Is that so?”
“It is.”
Vivian nodded. “I want to hear everything you can remember. I believe what you saw is the first manifestation of what could become a plague.”
Francesca frowned. “A plague of aphasia? But it's not caused by an infection.”
Vivian took a long breath. “Not typically, no. My friend Lotannu is our premier expert on how magical text interacts with the mind. He has studied a few years with the clerics, though he still is a wizard.” She paused. “The curses known to cause aphasia do not spread from mind to mind. Or rather, the human curses that cause aphasia are not infectious.”
“You think the curse I saw was not written by a human?” Francesca asked, thinking about what Deirdre had said to her about the Savanna Walker.
Vivian nodded slowly. “Before I answer that, please consider the gravity of the situation: if an aphasia curse became infectious it might spread through Avel and this wind garden. Via hierophantic kites and merchant ships, the curse would spread across the continent. In the space of a year, every spellwright might become aphasic. What does that sound like to you?”
Cyrus let out a long breath. “Like the Disjunction destroying human language.”
Vivian held out an open palm. “Francesca, please take my hand. What I am about to say is difficult to believe; I want you to know how earnest I am.”
Tentatively, Francesca placed her hand in Vivian's. The elderly woman's knuckles were swollen with decades of use. Vivian's skin, though smooth, was blotchy with liver spots.
“Perhaps the aphasia curse was not written by a human,” Vivian said slowly. “Perhaps it was written by a dragon.”
Suddenly, Francesca was light-headed.
Vivian went on to describe how, a decade ago, a dragon had attacked Trillinon. The wizard and pyromancers had wounded the beast badly enough to stop its attack, but it dashed its body into the city and started a disastrous fire. The wizards had studied the wyrm's remains and discovered that the creature was more than a giant flying lizard; it possessed potent text that could alter the way nearby humans thought. Though Vivian had come to Avel searching for Nicodemus Weal, the news of aphasia had made her suspect a developing dragon was in the city.
Francesca listened with attentive neutrality. A feat made more difficult when she remembered Deirdre's warning that there were two dragons.
When Vivian finished and asked if they would help investigate the aphasia curse, Francesca and Cyrus glanced at each other and then, unenthusiastically, agreed.
Vivian then explained that many of the hierophants would complete their wind-garden duty that evening and fly back to Avel. They were all to return to the city with off-duty pilots. Until then, the wind marshal had made the visiting pilot's quarters available if she and Cyrus wished to rest.
Francesca jumped at the offer of privacy.
Cyrus led her through a set of narrow halls to another long, narrow room, this one lined with sleeping cots. Francesca collapsed onto one. He sat on its neighbor.
“Cyrus, what in all the hells is happening? This morning I was sewing up lacerations and cutting out swollen appendixes. Then I kill a patient and she comes back to life. No wait, she's an avatar. No wait, she's here to tell me the War of Disjunction has begun and a demon is ruling Avel. Oh, and the Savanna Walker is real and screaming through the sanctuary. And a Second Civil War might break out. And, by the way, an infectious aphasia curse might be coming from the Savanna Walker, who's also a half dragon. One of two dragons, actually. The second of which only I can find.”
Francesca paused to inhale and start again. “Oh, it just so happens, maybe you'd like to know that, dragons—funniest thing—are not always
flying, fire-breathing storybook monsters. Sometimes dragons are ill-defined embodiments of all things powerful, deadly, possibly imperceptible, and yet really God-of-gods damned deadly.”
Cyrus was calmly unwinding his turban. He had heard rants like this before. “It's not exactly what I expected when I got out of bed either.”
“Cyrus, did you have to come back to Avel?”
He looked at her. “What do you mean?”
“To get closer to being a captain, did you have to come back here?”
He adjusted his veil. “I suppose not. Roundtower's air warden had just been made a marshal. I could have taken his vacancy instead of coming here.”
“So why Avel?”
“Not to be near you, if that's what you're thinking.”
“Why would I think that?”
He looked away. “Roundtower is all mountains and military. Hotheaded lancers and garrison officers. No culture other than tavern brawls and prostitutes. And, as you so kindly pointed out, I knew I'd have to wait decades to make captain at my next post. So, I chose to be comfortable in a proper city like Avel. And anyway the winds up in Roundtower are hazardous. Flying about those crags, in that thin air, is tricky for a veteran. Training new pilots in the mountains?” He shook his head. “Hard way to live.”
She made a low, disbelieving “huh” noise.
He looked at her for a while and then sighed. “You think I'm fooling myself?”
She nodded.
“And you're about to say so in some emphatic and nearly obscene way.”
Another nod.
“God-of-gods, Cyrus,” he said in a nasal voice, “you're so full of hogwash that you could clean every pig in Lorn white as a blond baby's bottom.” For good measure, he threw his hands in the air and exhaled dramatically.
She frowned. “You took the emphatic and nearly obscene words right out of my mouth.”
He laughed softly. Then after a moment he said, “I suppose I did come back because of my memories of being happy here.”
“You left Avel for a reason. It wasn't working.”
He didn't reply.
“What was her name?”
“Silvia. She was in Sharptree with me. That wasn't working either.”
“She still there?”
He shook his head. “She's a ship warden in the merchant marine service, mostly sails the Chandralu to Tillinion trading route.”
“Sounds nice.”
“I hear that it is. Hear she spends her leave with a wing commander in the Ixonian expedition.”
Again she said, “I'm sorry to hear it, Cy.”
“No, no. I'm happy for her.” He paused. “Did you take another lover?”
“Another cleric, hydromancer trained. We've been on and off. Presently off. He went back to Port Mercy for more training just before the rains began. I miss him sometimes, not often. I'm too busy.”
“That's nothing new for you.”
She sat up. “Nothing new.”
He nodded.
“I'm sorry, Cy.”
“Don't be. I didn't come back in hopes of reliving our old life. We were happy here for maybe a year; then we had to make different choices.”
“It was a good year,” she said. “Mostly.”
“Mostly,” he agreed. “Honestly, I didn't expect to see you at all.”
Francesca rubbed her neck. “And you shouldn't have. The chances of us being thrown together like this were almost nothing.”
“Deirdre knew who I was?”
“She did, but she seemed unaware of our history.”
He ran a hand through his black curls. “I have this sensation that everything's tied together: Deirdre, the Savanna Walker, the
Queen's Lance,
the brewing rebellion, you and me … but I can't see how.”
She nodded. “It's like we can see all the flies caught in a spider's web but not the web itself.”
“Or the spider.”
Francesca fell back onto the bed. “Or the spider.” They fell silent for a while, and she could hear the wind blowing and ropes creaking. It was a good sound. Finally she asked, “You suppose Deirdre is telling the truth about Typhon?”
“Until an hour ago, I would have said it was impossible. But now … well, seems anything's possible. But … it wouldn't be logical for the demon to spin this web. If he's enslaved Cala and is pushing for another civil war, he should do everything possible to hide himself and the rebellion.”
“Do we tell Vivian?”
“Los in hell, no! Can't you tell she's up to more than she's telling us?”
“She is.” Francesca pushed the heels of her hands into her eyes. “And the old frog is damned good at outdoing someone at her own game. Guess that's how she became a deputy vice-chancellor.”
He grunted. “That satisfaction comment that had me blushing?”
“And my hobbled response,” she said and rolled her neck. “I hate losing my own game.”
“Don't let her get under your skin,” he said. “What do we do now?”
“Sleep is always the answer,” she replied. “We're both exhausted, and we can't do anything until they fly us back to Avel.” She rubbed her cheeks. “God-of-gods, I killed a patient today.” She searched her heart for the terror and shame she previously felt. It was in there somewhere, but muted now by the exhaustion.
Cyrus lay down in his cot. “Deirdre set you up so that you couldn't save her.”
“She'd been saved before. A master physician could have saved her.”
“So, you're not a master physician. You're not even sixty yet.”
She groaned. “Some of my peers are master physicians. I should be.” “Still so hard on yourself, Magistra?”
“Shut it, Air Warden,” she said and rolled onto her side. “Didn't you want to be made captain by now?”
He ignored this. “So, what do we do once we're back in the city?”
“We find the only fly more thoroughly ensnared in this web than we are.”
She heard Cyrus let out a single, humorless laugh and then say, “Nicodemus Weal.”
Outside, the wind picked up and there came a splatter of rain striking a roof. “This Nicodemus, he's supposed to be a cacographer?”
“Mmmhmm …” she said drowsily. Clerical training had taught her nothing if not to fall asleep quickly.
“And cacographers are wizards who spellwrite backwards? Or remember things backwards?”
“No, no,” she rolled on to her side. “Well, some might … but mostly they misspell any text they touch. They can think of magical words they want, but they can't think of how to spell them.”
The bed beside hers creaked as if Cyrus was shifting his weight. “So then, cacography is something like aphasia?”
Her legs jerked slightly, the way they often did right before she fell asleep. “I guess … Cyrus, where are you going with this?”
“I'm not sure. It's just that … maybe Vivian was wrong about the aphasia being related to a dragon. Maybe it's related to the rogue cacographer.”
“Let's talk about it … later” she mumbled.
“You're sure cacography has nothing to do with getting things backward?”
“Mmmhmm …”
Cyrus was saying something else, but she couldn't make it out. The rain
grew louder on the roof, and Francesca felt her mind float free into a dream.
 
VIVIAN WAITED IN
silence and listened to the footsteps of the cleric and the hierophant as they walked out of the mess hall. She kept her composure as the footsteps faded. Lotannu's hand left her shoulder. It sounded as if he was walking to the door.
“Are they gone?” she whispered, even as the edges of her mouth curled into a smile.
Instead of an answer, she got a laugh suppressed into a snort, then one of Lotannu's deep guffaws.
Then she was laughing too, laughing hard.
“Burning heaven, Viv!” Lotannu half-whispered. “Were you trying to make it harder on me? Meek as a fawn? Young Lotannu? Where in the flameless hells did you drag that up from?”
“Creator bless me,” she said, “but I would have given anything to see the hierophant's face when I flirted with him.”
“That poor bastard!” Lotannu said with a snort. “There he is, trying to seem composed for the pretty cleric a head taller than he is and you make him blush like a baboon's backside.”
Vivian exploded with more laughter. Finally, she had to put her hand to her chest and slow her breathing. “Oh, doesn't it feel good to be out here, away from the factions? It's like when we were young.”
“Like when I was young. I don't think the historical records go back far enough for us to know what it was like when you were young.”
She chuckled. “Don't get me started again. I'd nearly forgotten what it's like to do something without needing to get the Long Council's permission or argue for hours about what this might mean to the future Halcyon.”
She heard the chair next to hers shudder as Lotannu sat. “Burning hells, just the mention of the Halcyon gives me a headache. Thank the Creator all the prophecy-crazed academics are tied up in Ogun and that the Long Council doesn't know about the conversation we just had.”
“Doesn't know and never will.” She paused. “Did you get a good look down into the city when we flew over it?”
Vivian did not completely understand it, but Lotannu had written a spell that allowed him to “see” the quaternary thoughts other spellwrights were thinking.
Lotannu grunted. “There were three entities in the sanctuary thinking with magical text. At such a distance, I could see only outlines of the thoughts.”
Vivian rubbed her chin as she tried to imagine what it would be like to
see a thought. Lotannu had shown her once. He'd cast the fine golden mesh upon her head. With a hybrid mind, half brain and half spell, she had understood. She'd seen the quaternary thoughts forming inside Lotannu's mind, seen them grow and evolve as they spoke, seen them combine with her own quaternary thoughts during the conversation and transform into something new.
But as soon as he had removed the spells, she'd lost it all. It had been like rousing from a dream that had been understandable in sleep but was nonsense to the waking mind.
“Three beings in the sanctuary thinking quaternary thoughts,” she mused aloud. “Only in the sanctuary? Nowhere else in the city?”

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