Spellwright

The gnarled kobold scratched his beardless chin. “Considering he has been skinwriting for only a season, he is the best I have seen.”

Shannon spoke up. “And that troubles me. His disability in the wizardly languages is growing worse. He cannot control even simple spells now.”

“Magister! Boann!” Nicodemus yelled from the water. “There are kobolds all around!” Two more subtextualized kobolds were stalking the shore. The monster he had thrown off with the blast spell had regained his feet.

Boann called down to Nicodemus. “Tonight, your task is to avoid capture. If you can make it to sunrise without being tied up or killed you are doing well.”

The boy had covered himself with plates of violet light, textual armor, she guessed. He seemed about to answer her when the kobolds charged.

The chieftain nodded at the blast and counter-blast of textual battle. “This is excellent. Now we shall teach him evasion and stealth. In late autumn we shall put warriors under his charge and teach him to lead. He will compete in this year’s New Moon War. Then other tribes will witness his power and know that we have found our savior at last.”

Shannon was scowling. “That would slow his training in the wizardly languages and delay his attempt to learn more about his new Language Prime fluency.”

Boann waved this comment away. “Those can wait. After so much loss, he will benefit from a taste of success and a chance to become a leader.” She looked at Shannon. “Besides, if he is to survive outside of this valley, he will need time for the lessons of warplay to become instinct.”

Shannon narrowed his white eyes. “So let us teach him to survive, but why turn him into some kind of warlord?”

“Not a warlord,” Boann corrected, “but a commander. His half-sister is presently being tutored by Trillinonish generals and Ixonian admirals. She is the one who will lead humanity’s forces in the War of Disjunction. But before she does that, she must track down and kill the Language Prime spellwright who enabled Typhon to write the dragon that attacked Trillinon. I doubt she knows that she is training to kill her half-brother.”

Just then the kobolds yelped as Nicodemus cast an indigo shockwave that knocked them over. Wasting no time, the boy sprinted away down the lake shore. The kobolds struggled to their feet and hallooed a hunting call as they ran in pursuit.

“Compared to her agents, these kobolds will seem mild as kittens. And don’t forget that Typhon will have a half-completed dragon at his command,” Boann said to Shannon. “We must do this to keep him alive long enough to fight in the War of Disjunction.”

Shannon pulled a silvery dreadlock from his face. “Perhaps this training will keep his body alive, but what will it do to his soul?”

Boann looked back to the lake and thought about this. “Shannon, my new friend,” she said after a moment, “I don’t know.”

A DARK MOOD came over Shannon as life in the Heaven Tree Valley took on a new, more urgent rhythm. Each morning, Nicodemus came stumbling in, often bleeding and always chattering about what he had learned in warplay. One night it was how to scale a city wall with Chthonic spells. Another night it was how to outflank a hostile force or how to attack an enemy camp or some other blood-minded action.

The boy also talked about his discovery that kobolds could briefly touch him. Their blue skins were remarkably resilient to the cankers his touch produced. The monsters could simply rip them off without consequences other than minor bleeding. Though such contact came only during fighting, the boy was relieved to touch another living creature without killing it.

After describing the night’s warplay, Nicodemus would sleep until late afternoon and then study the wizardly languages with Shannon.

But the boy’s cacography was indeed getting worse. The spelling drills had no effect. Worse, when asked to compose an original spell, the boy would write a tattooed draft on his forearm before attempting a wizardly version.

Some days Shannon despaired of teaching and took Nicodemus for long walks around the valley. He told the boy about his childhood, of his diplomatic service during the Spirish Civil War, of his disastrous love and the loss of his wife.

Nicodemus listened carefully. At times, to Shannon’s surprise, he found himself being consoled by his student. It gave him a hollow feeling.

Worse, Shannon’s old body began to suffer from bouts of severe fatigue. Often his stomach hurt after meals and sometimes he had difficulty in the privy. As the days got colder, he spent more and more time sleeping before the fire.

One day, he felt too weak even to walk with Nicodemus. The result was an argument: Nicodemus insisted that he would soon be strong enough to pursue Typhon. Shannon had refused to listen and pointed out that Nicodemus’s precious Chthonic language functioned only in the dark and neither Typhon nor his half-sister’s agents would do him the favor of attacking only at night.