Spellbound (53 page)

Authors: Blake Charlton

BOOK: Spellbound

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He kissed her.
“Then you shall always be a healer. I wouldn't want you any other way.”

AT LONG LAST,
the signal flags flying from Avel's lofting kites commanded the
Queen's Lance
to return to the wind garden for refitting. With his muscles aching and his eyes stinging, Cyrus set the necessary texts in motion. The
Queen's Lance
broke patrol formation and headed west.

Cyrus and every other hierophant who had fought for the monotheist fleet had been working double shifts. Glancing back at Captain Izem, Cyrus saw an exhaustion in the other man's eyes that must have mirrored his own.

The winds and rain had let up, and so the flight over the Auburn Mountains took little time. But when the
Queen's Lance
flew above the lush green pass filled with wide-mouthed windcatchers, Cyrus noticed something odd about the garden tower. The jumpdeck was crowded with pilots, and ten lofting kites were flying in a chain of tethers, one atop the other. As they flew closer, Cyrus saw that each was flying the flag signal for “Victory.”

From behind him Izem laughed.

“Captain?” Cyrus asked. “I've never seen anything like it.”

As the
Queen's Lance
came around and made ready to dock, a roar of cheers rose from the jumpdeck.

“It's a hero's salute,” Izem replied. “For the
Queen's Lance,
her crew, and most especially her pilot.”

Cyrus felt his face flush warm as he realized that last title belonged to him.

“Cyrus,” Izem yelled, “I hope you're not fond of being an air warden, because after this I think the air marshals are going to condemn you to be an airship captain.”

WHEN THE ATTENDANT led Nicodemus into the study, he found Vivian dressed in heavy wizardly robes and wearing long black gloves. Lotannu stood a few feet behind her. They eyed him coldly.

Behind Nicodemus stood DeGarn, the captain of the surviving highmiths, and the most senior of the druids.

Nicodemus bowed. “Sister. Magister Lotannu.”

Neither of them spoke for a long moment. Then she bowed her head. “Nicodemus.”

“What should I call you?”

“It seems that news is already abroad about us. The wider world is calling me by my pseudonym. So you may also call me Vivian.”

As she spoke, Nicodemus realized that she was a few years younger than he was. “I hope my words during our meeting with Canonist Cala were clear.”

She nodded. “They were.”

“There are a few things I should like to say to you in private.”

She only looked at him.

“I see no reason why we should be enemies,” he offered.

“You have enabled the separatists,” she said coldly. “Now humanity will not stand united against the demons.”

“They will not be united under your rule, but that does not preclude cooperation.”

She clenched her gloved hands. “I thought you forswore political involvement.”

“So I have.” He paused. “Should you wish to communicate with me, I will always welcome it.”

“You are gracious.”

He started to turn away but then stopped. “The gloves won't keep you far enough away from others,” he said.

“What's that?”

“Your disability. The gloves might keep you from giving canker curses to others, but you'll always feel too close to other living things. It will haunt you.”

Her expression became stony. “Thank you for that insight.”

He studied her and wondered if he was a fool to have come. “I will leave this city within the hour. We may not see each other again until the Disjunction. Maybe not even then.”

“Perhaps not.”

He bowed and again started to turn away, but again he stopped. “Vivian, did you know our mother?”

“Until I was seventeen, when she died.”

Nicodemus felt his throat tighten. He hadn't realized that he'd been harboring a hope. “What was she like?”

Vivian pressed her lips together. “A devout woman.” She studied Nicodemus for a moment longer. “She thought of you often. Whenever news came of an assassinated demonic Imperial, she would cry. Some part of her hoped you had been killed so that you might not grow up worshiping Los. Some part of her hoped that you had not been assassinated, so you might at least live to manhood.”

Nicodemus nodded. “Did she look like you?”

The tension around Vivian's eyes lessened. “She was far prettier.”

He studied her face for a long time. And then, he really wasn't sure why, he tossed something to her with an underhand throw.

With a shout, Lotannu cast out a Magnus spell. Instantly, the Emerald of Aarahest hung suspended by a mesh of silver words.

Vivian and Lotannu looked at each other and then at him. “What is the meaning of this?” she asked.

“I could never be a Halcyon. All my life, I've been trying to fill an emptiness inside. But that emptiness â¦ I've built myself around it. Filling it in would be like filling in the empty space within a cathedral.”

“But why give this to me?”

He met her green eyes. “You were raised to be the Halcyon. You believe in order and empire. Maybe you can do something worthwhile with that. Maybe you can repel the demons. I couldn't, and frankly I'd be happier with the burden on your shoulders. Without the emerald, Francesca and I are something larger than we are with it. So now, after curing Magister Shannon's canker curses, I have no more use for it.”

His half sister stepped forward. She reached out for the emerald but then stopped. “I want no debts between us.”

He met her eyes. “Then acknowledge that not every soul worships order as you do.”

She looked from the emerald to him. “I will acknowledge that. And I will do what is best for humanity.”

“Then take the emerald, and answer to your conscience.”

She peeled off a glove and plucked the stone from the air. An instant later she formed an intricate, twisting passage of Numinous and let out a long sigh of relief. Lotannu approached but then stopped. “You needn't worry, Magister, she won't impart canker curses any longer.”

Lotannu took Vivian's hand. They both turned to him. “You didn't have to do this,” Lotannu said.

“But I am thankful I did. And you needn't worry about me; I know how to survive as a cacographer.”

“Nicodemus, you've done humanity a great service,” Vivian said softly. She looked at him. “Perhaps I can reciprocate. When searching Typhon's quarters we found documents naming the different organizations of demon worshipers in all six human kingdoms. They could help us eradicate the threat that is already among us. I shall have copies made and sent to your â¦” She looked at DeGarn. “To your allies.”

Nicodemus bowed. “Thank you kindly, sister. We shall put them to good use.” He paused. “I should also like to discuss Typhon's research spell, the one Magister Akoma discovered, the one that can change the nature
of language in a large area. It is, I believe, related to the Silent Blight that is reducing Language Prime misspelling across the continent.”

Neither Vivian nor Lotannu seemed surprised. Nicodemus continued: “With that metaspell and the emerald, you might make magical language more logical in the realms within your new empire. It might also tempt you to impose the same influence on the forming League of Starfall.”

All warmth fell from Vivian's face.

“Before you attempted that,” Nicodemus added, “I'd remind you that Magister Akoma made a copy of that metaspell and placed it in Francesca's clinical journal, which I have. I'm sure you would rather I not cast that spell with the intent of counteracting your influence.”

Lotannu spoke. “Nicodemus, please listen. I have done little the past day but scrutinize that metaspell. By making magical language more logical it will increase the power of our spellwrights. It will help us repel the demons.”

“And have you considered,” Nicodemus asked as casually as he could, “what would happen to creatures like Francesca, who are constructed of intuitive rather than logical language?”

Lotannu blinked. “I suppose they would weaken.”

“We suppose the same thing. We also suppose that creatures like Francesca would become much more powerful if I were to cast this metaspell.”

Lotannu tensed as he understood where Nicodemus was going.

Nicodemus looked at Vivian. “I believe Lotannu is now foreseeing what Francesca foresaw in her draconic form. Sister, if you and I were to compete in casting this metaspell, we would split the human world. Magical language would become different in your empire and in our league. Your spellwrights would strengthen, but your constructs and deities would weaken. The opposite would happen in our lands.”

Vivian nodded slowly. “It would be a schism.”

“Then we shall swear not to cast these metaspells?”

She nodded. “We shall â¦ but â¦ practically speaking, how long do you think either empire or league can resist the temptation to invoke an advantage?”

“Hopefully long enough to prepare for the War of Disjunction,” Nicodemus quickly replied. “Sadly, we do not have any foresight as to when the revived Los might bring the demonic host across the ocean. Perhaps you do?”

Vivian shook her head. “Maybe the demons come in a year, maybe in fifty.” She paused. “Nicodemus, for an apolitical man, you have taken steps that have momentous political implications.”

He smiled at her. “Runs in the family.”

She laughed humorlessly.

He bowed. “Farewell, sister.”

After a lengthy pause, she returned the bow and said in a cold tone: “Farewell, brother.”

FRANCESCA WAS LOOKING out the window at the rain when the door opened. She'd hoped it was a highsmith come to take her to the caravan. But Cyrus stepped into her room. His turban was unwound, his veil lowered to reveal his short black beard. His eyes seemed solemn even though he wore a slight smileâthe expression of someone recalling a bittersweet memory.

“Hello Cyrus,” she said nervously and watched the colors of his name roll away from her mouth. He began speaking blurry rainbows. She shook her head and said, “I can't understand you.”

He grabbed the skirt of his robes and a square of cloth cut itself free. She understood and pointed to the room's small writing desk. He sat and dipped a corner of the cloth into the inkwell. The dark stain ran up into the cloth. He spread the sheet on the desk to reveal a sentence:
“I heard you're leaving with Nicodemus for Starfall.”

She nodded.

His eyes fixed on hers.

Using her finger, she wrote on the cloth:
“Are you coming through all the chaos okay?”

He smiled his bittersweet smile and wrote,
“The air marshal of the western fleet promoted me to captain. I will have a ship far sooner than I ever expected.”

Francesca laughed bright orange.
“Cyrus, that's wonderful! Congratulations! What kind of ship?”

He looked at her soberly.
“Astrophell has commissioned a new Kestrel so it may serve diplomatic duty to their new archchancellor, the woman who it seems will soon be empress.”

Francesca's smile wilted.
“You'll captain Vivian's airship?”

He nodded. His expression had become solemn.
“I shall be captain of the new empire's command ship.”

“
Cyrus!
” she wrote hastily.
“Vivian will use your knowledge of Nicodemus. That must be why she's promoting you.”

He frowned.
“She's promoting me because I assisted her investigation and brought down two rebel destroyers in the Second Siege of Avel.”

“Yes, of course,”
Francesca wrote.
“You are the hero of the siege. I don't doubt it â¦ but, don't you see that Vivian and Nicodemus are bound to clash? You would be opposing us.”

Cyrus stared at her for a long moment.
“Us?”

She felt a chill move through her. She nodded.

“You and Nicodemus?”

“Yes.”

“Does he feel the same way?”

“I hope so.”

Cyrus held very still for a long while.
“I always loved you, and I never understood why.”