“Your pardon, Magistra Deirdre. I didn’t know you were a druid.” He bowed.
“Do not call me Magistra. Druids hold no titles.” Her voice was calm, but her eyes flicked up and down Nicodemus like flames lapping at a dry log. She walked toward him. “Are you a wizard?”
To her right, the air shimmered. A warm blush spread across Nicodemus’s cheeks. “Hoping to become one soon,” he replied.
“An apprentice, then. Who is your mentor?”
“Magister Shannon, the well-known linguist.”
The druid seemed to consider this. “I have only recently become aware of Shannon.”
Nicodemus nodded and then smiled. If he could impress this woman, it might help Shannon ’s status in the convocation. It was a small thing, but perhaps then Magister would sooner forget the misspelled gargoyle.
“May I assist you?” Nicodemus asked the druid and then bowed to the shadow on the druid’s right. “Or your companion?”
Deirdre’s full lips rose into a sly half-smile. She examined Nicodemus, then nodded. “Forgive the subtext,” she said. “Kyran is my protector.”
The shadow beside her welled up out of the ground and coalesced into a human figure whose cloaking subtext fell away, causing the moonlight to shimmer.
Nicodemus nodded to the newcomer. Standing several inches over six feet, the man cut an imposing figure. He had undone the wooden buttons running down his white sleeves to better expose his muscular arms for spellwriting. His complexion was fair, his lips thin, his long hair golden. No wrinkles creased his handsome face; however, among spellwrights, that was not necessarily an indication of youth.
In his right hand, Kyran held a thick oak staff. Nicodemus eyed the object; supposedly the druid’s higher languages gained special abilities when cast into wood.
Deirdre was gazing about the Stone Court. “We wish to make devotions to our goddess. A wizard told us there were standing stones here, but these rocks are arranged neither in circle nor grid.”
A nearby crocodile-like gargoyle crawled away, perhaps to find a quieter sleeping spot.
“And you wizards have covered the stones with these strange stone lizards.”
Nicodemus bowed. “Please excuse the disorder. The standing stones were a gift from a Highland lord. We do not know how they should be arranged. As for the gargoyles, they’re not lizards but advanced spells we call textual constructs. You see, Magnus, one of the wizardly high languages, can transform its textual energy into stone.”
The druid smiled slightly as if he had just said something amusing.
Unsure what to do, Nicodemus offered more information: “These are janitorial gargoyles. We’ve written an affection for stone into their minds. So they climb all over the occupied towers, tending to the roofs, searching for crumbling mortar, and keeping the birds away.”
Deirdre continued to watch him in smiling silence.
“But if you want to make devotions,” Nicodemus added awkwardly, “you might feel more comfortable in one of our gardens. Magister Shannon has just taken quarters above the Bolide Garden, but it’s still being renovated.”
The male druid spoke. “Why is this place so empty? Where are the other wizards?”
Nicodemus smiled; here was a question he could answer authoritatively. “We’re all present. Starhaven only seems empty because it is so large. Once it housed sixty thousand Chthonic people. Now only four thousand wizards and half as many students live here. We are still exploring the uninhabited Chthonic Quarter. There is much to learn. The Neosolar Empire, the Kingdom of Spires, and the Kingdom of Lorn all occupied Starhaven. Each settlement left a distinctive mark on-”
Deirdre interrupted. “What is your name?”
Nicodemus froze. Had he been talking too much? “Nicodemus Weal,” he said, bowing.
“Tell me of your parentage.”
“My parents?” This was unexpected. Had he offended? “I a-am the bastard son of the late Lord Severn, a minor noble of northern Spires.”
The druid nodded. “Your family provides for you still?”
“N-no. Wizards abjure all ties to family and kingdom when they become neophytes. And my younger brother, the new Lord Severn, sees me as something of a threat.”
“What of your mother?”
“I never knew her.”
“A bastard who doesn’t know his mother?” She raised a disbelieving eyebrow.
“One year my father returned from a pilgrimage to Mount Spires with my infant self in his arms. He never spoke of my mother. He died shortly after I came to Starhaven.”
The woman nodded. “You are the one who can forge runes in both of the high wizardly languages but can only touch simple spells?”
Nicodemus’s mouth went dry. “I am.”
“I believe your name was mentioned along with the wizardly prophecy.”
“But I am not the one they predict.”
Deirdre’s mouth went flat as a table edge. “I must ask you an important question. On some people, some wounds do not heal into smooth scars. They form dark, bulging scars called-”
“Keloids,” Nicodemus said flinching. “I know what they are. I have one. On my back.”
“A congenital keloid?”
Nicodemus blinked.
The druid’s expression remained unchanged. “It’s congenital if you were born with it.
“My father passed away before the wizards could inquire about it.”
Deirdre did not move. “So it might be congenital.”
“But the keloid is not in the shape of the Braid,” he added nervously, praying that she would not ask to see it. “Or at least, not perfectly. There’s another keloid near it. My keloid is not the Braid the Halcyon will wear.”
“I see.” Deirdre regarded him for another silent moment. Slowly her half-smile crept back across her full lips. “You may go, Nicodemus Weal.”
Nicodemus exhaled in relief and bowed. Neither druid moved. “Goodnight, Deirdre, Kyran,” he said, and turned for the Drum Tower.
“IRONIC.” DEIRDRE LAUGHED as the boy’s robe merged with the shadows. “Wrapped in black literally, not metaphorically.” She lifted her cowl.
“Why didn’t you make him show us the keloid?” Kyran moved to stand beside her. He limped slightly, favoring his left leg and using his walking staff for balance.
She smiled and idly fingered one of the buttons on her sleeve. “Do you have any doubt what we will see?”
“No. No, I don’t.”
“It is as our goddess said it would be.” Deirdre closed her eyes to relish the moment.
“He intrigues you.”
She opened her eyes and looked at him. “You were supposed to write some warning magic.”
This made him scowl. “You mustn’t say ‘warning magic.’ A spellwright would say ‘a warning spell’ or use a spell’s specific name.”
“You’re changing the subject.”
Kyran continued to scowl. “I did set a warning spell. The boy walked right through it. Wherever he touched the text, the rune sequences reversed or twisted. He corrupted the spell without even knowing it.”
“And he gleaned your subtext.”
“He did.” Kyran glared at her with beautiful brown eyes. “You shouldn’t have talked to him for so long. What if you had another seizure?”
She shrugged. “You would have invented an explanation. To him I seem human.” She looked at the tower into which Nicodemus had disappeared. “He’s been cursed, you know.”
“You see it, too?”
“Feel it.”
A rook called from high above the fastness. They looked up.
“The boy looks like you,” Kyran said.
“Yes. Interesting to find so much Imperial blood in an obscure, minor noble.”
“Hiding him from the other druids won’t be easy. Nor will be taking him.”
“Goddess below, Ky!” Deirdre swore. “Stop thinking like a rabid lycanthrope. We can’t ‘take’ the boy. True, he must go to our goddess’s ark without delay, but there are complications. You must think of our escape and how the wizards will react. He must go willingly.”