Spellbreaker (46 page)

Francesca tightened her grip of Nicodemus's hand. “Lea this is madness. You don't have to kill anyone.”

Leandra looked between her parents, her large brown eyes studying them. “I have been trying to find some way to escape killing one of you. I can't tell you how much I have agonized over it. Even though this spell keeps me from loving, I still feel worry and guilt and the hundred other horrors that it would bring on. That's why I had to try this.”

“Try what?” Nicodemus asked more breathlessly than he intended. His lips were tingling.

Leandra looked at her mother. “What is death now in this age of wonders? If a heart stopped, and you were nearby you might be able to restart it. You might say that man died and you brought him back.”

Francesca shook her head. “It's more complicated than that, Lea. If a heart were in an arrhythmia I could…” She shook her head, spoke again in a firmer voice, “Lea, what are you thinking?”

“Death is a state from which no one has yet come back. And until someone is brought back from one such state, it is death. But what if I put one of you in a state that, for all I know, is death and yet the other one of you were able to bring the other back. Then I would have killed one of you and yet not.”

“Lea,” Francesca said in disbelief, “are you trying to get into a semantic argument with prophecy?”

Nicodemus's hands and feet felt numb. His lips tingled and it seemed an effort just to breath. “Lea, what are you saying?”

Leandra reached out and took Nicodemus's hand and to his horror he found that he couldn't move his fingers.

Leandra looked at her mother. “I think your first problem will be his mind. If I understand, being aware during what follows would drive him mad. After that, you'll have to write some text that breathes for him. Maybe some spell to pump his blood. I don't know. Maybe it's impossible. If I did know, this wouldn't have a chance of cheating prophecy.”

And then Nicodemus understood. His body felt insubstantial. He tried to stand but his legs only flopped beneath the table. He looked at the brass teapot and saw what he had thought had been a bit of silver wire which in fact was a needle.

“Lea,” he mumbled with clumsy lips, “what have you…”

She looked at him with haunted eyes. “I'm sorry, Daddy. I have to go.” She stood.

Francesca screamed something. Nicodemus wanted to stand but flopped backward. Then he was aware that Francesca's arms were around him, laying him on the ground.

His body no longer seemed a body. He could move no limb, could feel no sensation. The visible world blurred, but he could still see his wife hovering over him, pressing her fingers to his neck to find a pulse. Doria and Ellen stood beside his wife, wanting to help but unable to touch him for fear of contracting a canker curse.

Nicodemus could see on his wife's face how fast she was thinking, how desperately she was trying to make a diagnosis. Within the muscles of her forearm, she extemporized a censoring spell to render him unconscious. Frantically she tilted his head back pressed her mouth to his and blew a breath into him. His chest inflated as if it were a bellows or some other lifeless and mechanical thing.

Then Francesca sat up and pulled the censoring spell from her forearm. He tried to push the air from his lungs, to form the sounds to tell her what she needed to know to save his life. But the air came too slowly “T…” he said. Tried again. “T…” But she cast the spell, and sent him down into unconsciousness before he could speak the name of the poison.

 

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

The nauseating guilt and fear of a murderer churned through Leandra. It was the same emotion she had felt when her prophetic godspell first projected her mind forward twenty-four hours. Hopefully she had just cheated prophecy.

Dhrun began to lead her out of the tearoom, but Francesca managed to jam a breathing spell down Nicodemus's throat, pass the spell to Ellen, and then run after her daughter. “Lea, don't!”

Leandra wondered if she had misjudged her mother, if draconic jaws were about to close around her. Holokai stepped in front of Francesca. Mother and daughter locked eyes. “Lea, don't do this.”

“It's already done,” she answered coolly, sadly.

“My lady,” Doria said from behind Francesca. “My lady, only one side of his chest is moving. The breathing tube is in too far or maybe he's misspelled your text.”

When Francesca looked back, Leandra knew she would get away. Her father's cacography would slowly misspell any therapeutic spell, requiring the physicians to continuously edit their texts. Moreover Francesca was the only one who could tend to Nicodemus without contracting a deadly canker curse.

Leandra straightened. “Go to him, Mother.”

Francesca turned back to her daughter. Holokai put out a hand to stop her, but Francesca grabbed the shark god's arm and pulled him close and snarled before pushing him back. “What did you give him, Lea? Tetrodotoxin?”

“My lady,” Doria said, “he needs you!”

After glaring for another moment, Francesca went to Nicodemus. As Leandra turned to go, her mother shouted, “Stop her!”

Dhrun stepped out of the tearoom and into the hallway. Leandra followed and saw Mykos with two of his guards all leveling knives at Dhrun. Each man carried a spear, but in close quarters they were useless.

Dhrun crouched. His four arms circled in a wrestler's anticipation. “Step aside, Mykos,” Leandra said calmly. “There'd be no point to killing you and your men.”

The old guard looked from her to Dhrun. Slowly he lowered his dagger and then nodded to his men, who followed suit with apparent relief. They stepped aside and Dhrun led the party through the dark hallways.

On the wide balcony atop the pavilion's staircase they found her father's spellwrights, Rory and Sir Claude. The druid brandished a large wooden staff, and the knight was covered with fluid metal armor. Two thin blades protruded from the basket hilts around his hands. Behind the spellwrights stood five red cloaks with spears and the space to wield them.

Leandra looked behind her and saw that they had been followed by her mother's twin druids, Mykos, and the two guards.

“My lady warden,” Sir Claude said, “you seem lost. Let us conduct you back to your ailing father.”

“Very amusing, sir, but stand down and spare us all bloodshed.”

“You know we cannot,” Sir Claude said. “Please, my lady, for the sake of your father.”

Leandra murmured to her gods, “Can we manage it?”

“Not without killing,” Dhrun replied. “And maybe not at all if the spellwrights are good.”

She nodded. “Leave the spellwrights to me. Take the guards down as fast as you can. Kai, protect our backs.”

The shark god grunted in the affirmative.

Leandra walked toward her father's spellwrights. “I appeal to your loyalty to my father. He will need you by his side.” She stopped before the knight. Rory's knuckles tightened around his staff and the red cloaks shifted. But Sir Claude did not so much as blink.

“Sir,” she said, “there is no point fighting a tidal wave.”

“You are not a wave, my lady. You are a woman.”

“Betting on what I am would be reckless. Last warning.”

“My lady, for your father's sake, turn back.”

“For my father's sake, step aside.”

“I cannot,” he said softly. He paused. His eyes softened. He spoke in a near-whisper. “We've all seen enough death.”

Leandra saw the resolve in his dark eyes. He was twice her age, the veteran of a horrible war. She wondered if she would ever know as much of life as he had.

“Very well,” she said with a sigh, “take my hand and then lead me back to my father.” She held out her empty palm.

Rory and Sir Claude looked at her hand.

“Sir, take my hand and lead us back in peace. Or do you doubt my honor?”

Sir Claude studied her face for a moment. Then the blade and basket hilt on his right hand retracted. He laid his hand in hers and said, “I trust your honor.”

“You shouldn't have.” She sent a shock of cacographic force through Sir Claude's armor, breaking every spell in his steel and freezing him in place. She lunged for the druid even as blue light burst from his staff. She grasped the wooden weapon and dispelled the text within it. A small explosion knocked her to the ground.

Above her a red cloak thrust a spear at Dhrun. He caught the shaft with his two lower hands while striking the red cloak's face his upper hands. Dhrun pulled the spear from the red cloak's hands and spun it around his waist while shoving the man into the red cloak behind him. Instantly Dhrun lunged at another red cloak, turning the other man's spear with his upper hands and driving his own spear into the man's gut with his lower.

Leandra fought to her feet. Sir Claude would be frozen in his armor until he extemporized enough text to restore its fluidity. But Rory had pulled a wooden button from his sleeves. Blue flames danced from his fist. Leandra leapt upon him, dispelling his every text. So long as she held on to him, he was not a spellwright but only a man.

Nevertheless he was a man with nearly a foot of height and a hundred pounds on her. He slammed his elbow into her jaw. Light flashed across her vision and the world spun. Then she was on her back and looking up at Rory who had pulled another button from his robes. The blue flames again erupted from his fist. He made to strike Leandra, but a spear struck a glancing blow against his hip and he staggered back.

Ten feet away, Dhrun recovered from his spear throw and ran at Rory. Somehow Sir Claude freed himself enough to step in front of the god. With a bellow, Dhrun slammed all his hands into the knight's breastplate.

Sir Claude went tottering backward until his lower back struck the staircase's banister. His momentum tipped him back. With his upper body still immobilized within steel, he could not bend or grasp the railing. He flipped over the rail and fell.

A horrible scream filled the pavilion as Rory fell on Dhrun. Both the druid's fists blazed with blue flames that spread down Dhrun's body whenever a blow landed. But as Rory brought another roundhouse punch down, Dhrun turned to catch the blow with his upper hands and with his lower hands he grasped the man, pivoted his hips, and threw him to the ground. The floorboards buckled. The druid moved his legs weakly but did not get up.

“Go!” Leandra shouted and turned to see how Holokai was faring. Immediately she regretted it. The hall was strewn with bodies and blood. The twin druids were fleeing down the hallway as Holokai crouched over one of the bodies. His eyes were black and cold, his face a mask of blood, his leimako covered in gore.

“Kai, not now!” she yelled. “Come on!”

The shark god looked up. His mouth was all blood and teeth.

Leandra turned around. Rory lay on the ground, groaning. Dhrun stood over him, leveling a spear at this neck. The bodies of red cloaks lay all around. Leandra grabbed Dhrun's arm and ran down the stairs.

The pavilion's ground floor seemed empty. She led her gods out onto a nighttime street lit by torches and three-moonlight. After making sure that Dhrun and Holokai were beside her and unharmed, she looked back at her home of sixteen years. She might never come back.

Through the open door, she saw Rory stumbling down the staircase. Blood flowed from one eyebrow and his face was a contortion of terror. For an instant, Leandra feared that they would have to kill him too. But then he ran toward a crumpled body on the pavilion floor.

As she started off down the dark street, Leandra watched Rory kneel beside the body and try to turn it over. Steel glinted on arms still frozen. When the knight had struck ground head first, the weight of his armor had snapped his neck.

It was a pity.

She had rather liked Sir Claude.

*   *   *

Francesca jerked awake, stumbled backward. Her hands flailed, pulled taut a silver sentence connected to Nicodemus's breathing apparatus. The runes strained, snapped. A rush of air escaped the bellows, air that should have gone into Nicodemus's lungs.

Beside Francesca, Ellen cried out and with quick fingers extemporized a few sentences to fit the spell back together.

“But I can…” Francesca started to say, but Ellen had already repaired the bellows. It contracted and Nicodemus's chest rose.

“My lady, that is twice now,” Doria said behind her. “You won't do your husband any good by falling asleep on another spell.”

“I'm fine,” she insisted. “I haven't been up that long. In training I stayed up for days in a row.”

“In training you didn't take on a dragon's form and survive several lightning strikes.”

“You have me on that one.” Her eyes stung.

Doria's expression softened. “Magistra, you need to sleep.”

“But Nicodemus—”

“Will be fine. Besides, Magistra, your patient will need a well-rested physician if anything goes wrong.”

Feeling defeated, Francesca turned to the windows. All three moons had set. Three hours until dawn and the city was dark. She looked from Ellen working on Nicodemus's breathing spells to Doria's stern expression.

Nicodemus lay still as death. His heart continued to beat without sign of arrhythmia. That at least was a mercy. She had bound his brain up with censoring spells. Regaining consciousness while paralyzed would surely drive him mad.

With Doria and Ellen's help, Francesca had written three copies of every text needed. Nicodemus gradually dispelled all texts in contact with him. Though the other women could not touch Nicodemus, they could replace the decaying spells. “You're sure you'll be okay?” Francesca asked.

“No,” Ellen answered flatly as she worked the bellows, “but if we're not okay, we'll scream loud enough for you to hear.”

Doria rolled her eyes. “My lady, go lie down. We'll fetch you at the first sign of trouble.”