Spellbreaker (58 page)

Francesca had pointed out that in draconic form she could fly Leandra away. The Trimuril flatly rejected this and insisted that Francesca remain in the city as their aerial defense.

To the dismay of both Nicodemus and Francesca, Leandra had expressed apathy toward her escape. She continued to insist that there was no moral difference between empire and league. Until their civilization became more humane, she did not see any compelling reason to fight for its survival.

These sentiments, expressed in the cool detachment that Leandra affected when the loveless spell was around her head, brought a troubled silence on the Council. Fortunately, the Trimuril revived a sense of purpose by reviewing the state of the city. Casualties were high; however, because several deities had rapidly contained all fires, the losses were less than feared. More encouraging, the city's fervent prayers had incarnated several deities whose sole requisites were deflection of rocket or cannon fire.

Then there was the Savanna Walker. The giant black dragon remained frozen in the harbor while the pitiful man lay unmoving in the infirmary. The Trimuril expressed her hope that he might recover in time to wield the dragon against the imperial fleet.

Nicodemus held his tongue even though he doubted the wisdom of allowing such a monster to live. He knew now that he had made a mistake by letting the Savanna Walker live all those years ago. Leandra had caught his eye with a significant look. After the council's conclusion, they had a whispered conversation. The result of that conversation was the reason Nicodemus was staring at the mosquito net and waiting. At last Francesca's breathing slowed and she gave the slight kick she often did just before dropping into deeper sleep.

Nicodemus crept out of bed. After pulling on a white lungi, he slipped out of the suite and found Doria waiting for him with a kukui lamp.

“Rory?” he asked.

“Asleep at last. The poor man is so heartbroken that I had to give him something to sleep.” She frowned. “What is this about, Nico? Why the secrecy?”

He started down the hall. “I don't want to tell you because you'll disapprove.”

“I disapprove of your not telling me.”

“Then we've reached the same result with less work.”

Doria rolled her eyes.

In front of Leandra's suite, Dhrun stood guard dressed in a black lungi and a vest of scale mail. Two swords hung from his hip. He scratched on the door when he saw them coming. The screen slid back to reveal Leandra dressed in a blue lungi, white blouse, white headdress.

Nicodemus frowned. “Are you shorter?”

“You never notice when I get a haircut or a new dress, but I shed the cannibalized aspects of a shark god and all of a sudden you're an attentive father.”

“I'll add it to the list of my paternal shortcomings.”

“Then I'll get a haircut tonight so you can notice tomorrow.”

A thought occurred to Nicodemus. “Lea, could you put Holokai's language back on? Then maybe you could escape Chandralu by swimming under Vivian's fleet.”

She shook her head as she stepped out of her room.

“I had to take off Holokai's aspects; having that much divine language integrated into my body was accelerating my disease flare. Once I removed the shark god's texts, they deconstructed. Besides, Vivian knows we have submarine deities; she'll write some epic text to monitor the Cerulean Strait and the mouth of the Matrunda River to catch me.”

Nicodemus frowned. “She certainly might.”

“Anyway, you still want to do this?” Leandra asked.

“Yes, but you don't need to come.”

“I want to. Besides, I took another dose of the stress hormone; I won't be able to sleep.” They walked together down the hall.

Nicodemus noticed that the return of the loveless spell had cured Leandra's facial rash. “Are you still in a disease flare?”

“I'm not sure. It's complicated because of Holokai's texts. It should get better now. I don't want to talk about it. Shouldn't we be discussing what we are going to do?”

“And what, exactly,” Doria asked, “are we going to do?”

Nicodemus looked back at his old friend and saw her walking uncomfortably beside Dhrun. Only the night before the two of them had been facing off after Leandra had paralyzed him.

Leandra laughed. “You didn't tell Doria? Will she disapprove?”

Nicodemus sighed. “Yes, and she'll be good enough at disapproving when she sees it. No need to give her the advantage of information beforehand.”

Doria coughed. “You two are giving me a very bad feeling about this.”

They walked down the pavilion steps. Five watchmen were waiting. Nicodemus nodded to the captain and they set out into the night. The streets and steps were empty save for the crews clearing the rubble. When Doria realized where they were headed, she groaned. “I changed my mind. You two aren't giving me a very bad feeling so much as a catastrophically bad feeling.”

A quarter hour later, they arrived in the infirmary.

The pavilion was packed with those who had been injured during the day's attack. Three guards and an older physician waited for them. The physician bowed and introduced himself as Magister Sarvna, dean of the infirmary. “Forgive me, Lord Warden, that I must greet you with such a small party; my staff are very busy.”

“Yes, Magister, of course,” Nicodemus replied. “How is he?”

“Better. We've kept him restrained and censored, as your lady wife ordered. No one has touched him. In fact, he woke up a few hours ago, but his mental status seems … altered.”

“Altered?”

“He can't seem to make any sense with his words.”

Nicodemus grimaced. “Does he speak gibberish with lots of rhyming and repetition of similar sounding words?”

“Yes, it is peculiar.”

“His mental status isn't altered; it's returned to its natural state. Take us to him.”

After bowing, the dean led them through a maze of hallways to a small room lit by two glowing blue vials that the hydromancers used as textual lamps. A single bed stood in the middle of the room. Lying upon it, frail and disturbingly pale, was the Savanna Walker. All four of his thin limbs had been bound to the bed frame with both metal and textual bonds.

He appeared to be sleeping. But when Nicodemus and Leandra stood at the foot of his bed, he let out a creaking laugh. “Nicoco, the retardation at the end of creation … Nicoco…” He laughed again.

“Thank you, Magister,” Nicodemus said to the dean. “All of you, please leave us. You too, Doria. Please wait in the hallway; we may need you.”

The Savanna Walker continued to laugh and croak “Nicoco” as the others withdrew.

“He didn't sound like this before,” Leandra whispered. “He was more … formidable.”

“Because no more diamond mind,” the Savanna Walker moaned. “No more, no more diamonded minded. My fertile, filthy mind is back but with nothing else.” His eyelids opened wider, his bright green eyes locking on Nicodemus's. “Cosang, consanguinity, we are here again. We are the retardation at the end of creation.”

Nicodemus kept his expression impassive. A frown tugged at the corners of Leandra's mouth.

“Oh, but Nicoco, I know why you came. Because I am no more. Freedom and a filthy mind are mine again but nothing else no more no more. Always and in all ways, so much hunger. But I will have it no more no more, only the retardation at the end of creation.”

“James Berr,” Nicodemus said slowly.

The ancient man cringed, turned his head sharply away. “No, no, Nicoco! Nonono—” His panicked words decayed into a wheezing cough. His whole body convulsed which each breath until he fell back in exhaustion.

“James,” Nicodemus said, “what happened out there?”

The old monster lay silent. When Nicodemus repeated the question, his lips drew back, revealing jagged yellow teeth. “It was our cosang! She did it! She did it to me! So iron-minded!” Then he fell back, completely slack.

“Who did what?” Nicodemus asked. “Our cousin? Vivian?”

“Yesyesyes! Her that did it to me and to all of you.”

“Did what?”

“She saw what was keeping me diamond-minded and the illusion I spun. The smoke and void that everyone sees the horrors in. She saw how the dragon changes other minds. And she reached out with her iron words and she took it away from me. She snuffed out my draconicness and made me free.”

Leandra spoke, “So you can't inhabit the black dragon anymore?”

The old monster paused and then, slowly, turned his eyes on Leandra. He began to howl a horrible laugher that sounded with one breath hilarity, with the next terror. “It's you,” he said to Leandra. “The great goulish soul around which we all swivel. Me, your father, our cosang. Every life around, our souls swivel and suffer around you. But I am your slave no more no more.”

Nicodemus was pleased to see that Leandra did not react to the Savanna Walker's ravings. Rather she kept her eyes fixed on the monster and asked, “Can you become the black dragon again?”

He paused, a leering smile on his lips. “Oh, noooo. Nonono, great soul. Great Los. Diamond demon. I can't. I am no longer a spell writher, a spell wrighter. She snuffed all magic out of me.” He began his horrible howling laughter again.

Leandra looked over at Nicodemus and asked, “Vivian permanently censored him?”

“Yes, yes!” the Savanna Walker yelled before Nicodemus could reply. “She took her hide-me-spell, the one that has been keeping her fleet unseen. She took it and turned my own illusions inside me. I saw into my own smoke. The way I bent the other minds, so I was bent. She did the anti-dragon thing. She took away my draconicness…”

Leandra asked, “Vivian can deconstruct a dragon?”

“Yesyesyes, you great soggy soul. With the Emerald, that she can do. And you know who's next?” He leered at Leandra. “Know who's next? The diamond-minder mother. The mother otherwise. She'll do the anti-dragon thing to her.”

“Oh,” Leandra said, a rare note of surprise in her voice. “Francesca?”

“They'll be no thing left of her,” the Savanna Walker snarled. “Like there is no thing left of me. Without the words, I wither away.”

When Nicodemus saw Leandra's look of confusion he said, “Now that he's not a spellwright, he'll die soon.”

“Yes yes, Nicoco.” The Savana Walker whispered. “I dreamed of you. For so long … We're both caught in the rot. Caught caught in the rot. Around and around we went in this life, maybe the last, maybe the next. Around her.” He showed his teeth at Leandra.

But Leandra was looking at the ceiling as if her thoughts were a thousand miles away.

“James Berr,” Nicodemus said and waited for the old monster to look back at him. “I need you to clearly answer these questions. Can you become the black dragon again? Can you protect us?”

“Oh no, Nicococreaker.”

“What else can you tell us about the Ancient Continent or Los?”

“No no no thing, Nicoco.” Again the laughter. “You have no decision to decide. No more letting me live, huh? It was a missed take before, yes?”

Nicodemus tried to hide his shock that the Savanna Walker should know the purpose of his visit. If he and Leandra had judged the Savanna Walker to be too dangerous, they were going to kill him quickly before the city could lose its soul by using him to save its life. But now … He nodded. “It was a mistake to let you live that night out on the savanna.”

The Savanna Walker hissed. “Yes, I want it quick.”

“I…” Nicodemus started to say but found his resolve faltering.

The Savanna Walker interrupted. “Now you don't want? Now you don't know how? Because I want the death. You won't give it because I want it?” Howling laughter. “You would have murdered my mind if I had wanted to live and eat you all. But now! Ha! Oh, miserable muddy us with the retardation at the end of creation. Now you won't kill me because I want you to. Retardation at the end of creation. Reetaaaardation…”

Leandra asked, “If he's permanently censored, how long will he live?”

Nicodemus thought. “It's impossible to know. Maybe a day, maybe a year, maybe a decade.”

“Is there any way to know if he's telling the truth?”

A sudden icy certainty swept through Nicodemus. There was one way. He started to speak but then stopped when he saw the Savanna Walker's bright green eyes staring at him. Both men were silent. Slowly the Savanna Walker nodded as if he could see what Nicodemus was thinking. Perhaps he could. “Lea,” Nicodemus said, “take the hydromantic lamps out. Leave us in darkness.”

“Are you going to tell me what that overly cryptic statement is about?”

“If he truly is not a spellwright any longer, he will have lost his fluency in Langue Prime. If I touch him—”

“The quick death,” the Savanna Walker said in a low, plaintive tone. “Give it only quick.”

They all stood in silence for a moment. Then Leandra said, “You're sure, Dad?”

Nicodemus drew a long breath. The Savanna Walker never took his eyes away from his own. “Yes, Lea, take the lamps away.”

Leandra nodded and took the lights into the hallway. When the door slid shut, it dropped them in complete blackness.

Nicodemus could still see the Language Prime in the Savanna Walker's body. He could tell the Savanna Walker was looking up at him. Then in a soft voice, the ancient and battered man said, “Quick quick … Do this … mercy…”

Then Nicodemus set his hand down on the Savanna Walker's forearm. Instantly, the other man's Language Prime misspelled and distorted. A tumor bulged up under Nicodemus's fingers.

The Savanna Walker was no longer a Language Prime spellwright.

So Nicodemus reached up to a sharply worded paragraph tattooed on his neck. With a quick backhand slash, he cast the words through the skull of his old enemy.