“Nicodemus Weal,” Fellwroth said with a laugh, and stepped into the stables. “You are not as foolish as I thought.”
The stasis spell manifested itself as a column of slowly rising Magnus passages that entrapped a man as firmly as tree sap imprisoned a bug; something Nicodemus seemed to be discovering. The upward current of sticky words had lifted the boy four feet into the air and was slowly rotating him. Currently a black-robed back faced Fellwroth.
Fellwroth began to write a Numinous disspell down the sand golem’s right leg. “I will edit you from the stasis, boy, so don’t squirm—” He jerked back in shock. “You!”
Staring down with a lopsided smirk was the big male cacographer whose mind Typhon had distorted.
“What is meant by this?” Fellwroth growled.
The big man’s mouth quivered. “Siii…Simple John show himself to north sentinels on road. T-th-they never have see Nico, so they believe John when he says he is Nico.” The big man exhaled as if saying so much exhausted him.
Fellwroth resisted the urge to grind the golem’s sandy teeth. “Don’t waste my time, oaf. If the sentinels come before I have answers, I’ll rip you in half.”
The cacographer started to stutter and struggle, but the stasis text kept the oaf spellbound. Fellwroth waited impatiently for what felt like a quarter hour before speaking. “All right, calm down. I won’t hurt you if you tell me what I need to know.”
The big man swallowed. “Nnnn…Nico sends John as messenger. Nnnn…Nico wants to have proof that red-eyes man is…t-t-telling the truth. Then Nico submit to…submit-t-t…to red-eyes man.” The oaf stopped to pant.
A soft crunch in his jaw filled the golem’s mouth with sand. “Blood and damnation,” he cursed and spat the sand out. He had been unconsciously grinding the golem’s teeth. “So what does the boy want?”
The oaf took a few breaths. “Red-eyes man is to go t-t-to place in Gray’s Town…no, Gray’s Village…no, Gray’s Crowing…”
“Gray’s Crossing,” Fellwroth snarled. “Hurry!”
The cacographer nodded. “Red-eyes-man is to find Mag-g-gister Shannon and is to fix broken person part of Shhhh…Shannon. Nico will be—”
A ratlike gargoyle scurried into the stable. “Fear! Fear! Took too long to reach you. Had to ask other gargoyles where to reach you.”
Fellwroth glared at the construct. “What is it? What did you hear?”
“Fighting in the Spindle!” the thing yelped. “Our protections torn apart! Living body under threat!”
Suddenly the stables rang with loud, hearty laughter.
Fellwroth looked up at the big man’s smiling face. “Fool! So willing to believe in my disability? You truly think I talk that slowly?”
A wordless, animal shriek escaped from Fellwroth’s sandy throat. The monster lashed out with the half-written disspell. But the unfinished text was too dull. It bounced off the stasis spell. Worse, the force of the rebound snapped the sand arm off at the shoulder.
“WEAL!” Fellwroth shrieked, “I’LL TEAR YOUR THROAT OUT FOR THIS, WEAL!”
Fellwroth wrenched his spirit from the sand golem and sent it racing upward toward the Spindle Bridge.
FELLWROTH’S TRUE EYES snapped open to see Deirdre. Her rusted greatsword swung up above her head and then flashed downward with all her divine might.
Fellwroth flinched, but the blade came to a clanging halt as it struck the Magnus shield written above the black table.
Light from a hundred flamefly paragraphs illuminated the cavern. Previously Fellwroth had seen the place only in the dark.
The low ceiling sparkled with quartz chips. The cavern widened only a little way into the mountain. The floor was smooth and gray.
Boann’s ark—encased in Numinous—stood at the head of the table. Farther into the mountain, the cavern descended into myriad kobold tunnels. In the other direction loomed the entrance to the Spindle’s tunnel. A patch of starry sky shone through a hole the humans had torn into the tunnel’s roof.
With another screech, Deirdre’s greatsword crashed down onto the textual shield above Fellwroth. A plate-like paragraph buckled under the strain.
Suddenly the world flashed full of golden light, and Fellwroth realized that Shannon was standing beside Deirdre and dashing disspells against the shield. The blue parrot sat on the old linguist’s shoulder.
More terrifying, Nicodemus—standing at the table’s foot—was jamming his fingers into the shield. Blurry rings of misspelled prose radiated out from the whelp’s touch.
Fellwroth bellowed out his rage and terror. The attack had almostworked. If the big oaf had distracted him for a few moments more, the three humans would have broken through his shield and slain his body.
But now his left hand closed around the Emerald of Arahest. With a flash of heat, the gem bestowed