once. “I do not want to restrain you. We are not enemies.”
He held out a massive obsidian hand, in the center of which sparkled the Emerald of Arahest. “When I trust you, you shall have this back. You shall survive the War of Disjunction and live with Deirdre. You two will become the first dragon lords. From your children shall come a race to replace humanity. Demonkind will reward—”
“You crippled John!” Nicodemus heard himself shout. “You crippled me! You and I shall only and ever be enemies!”
The demon sighed. “Fathers and sons, authors and texts, they often clash before reconciling. I am going to restrain you now. If you struggle—”
Typhon’s next words were drowned out by an earsplitting thunderclap. A brilliant spray of Magnus flew up from the demon’s back to splash against the ceiling. Someone had dashed a wartext against the malicious deity.
Nicodemus spun around and ran for the kobold caves at the back of the cavern. Behind him, Magistra Amadi Okeke’s voice rang out. There was a brief silence, which was broken by a blast of sound so low and loud that it vibrated Nicodemus’s chest like a drum.
He looked back. Typhon roared at a dozen sentinels as they came swarming down from the Spindle Bridge. A storm of silver and gold spells flew from the spellwrights. Typhon pulled back his wings and—
Nicodemus slammed into something and suddenly was on his back. Groaning, he sat up. In front of him, he could feel a solid but invisible barrier. His cheeks burned hot. Typhon must have cast some textual wall at the cavern’s end, and Nicodemus must have run straight into it.
Dazed, Nicodemus wondered how his mind had unknowingly disspelled the censoring text Typhon had cast about him when his body had smashed so painfully into this text.
The barrier must have been written in a different language. One like the Chthonic languages, that used logical spellings. His mind quickly distorted those languages with illogical spellings. That would mean that he could misspell the barrier only slowly.
But slowly was better than not at all. He pushed his hand into the barrier and felt his cacography begin to corrupt the prose.
Another roar rolled through the cavern.
Nicodemus looked back to see Typhon lunge forward and grab a sentinel by the robes. With a one-handed heave, the demon flung the man upward, crushing his head into the low ceiling.
On the cavern’s other side, a sentinel lifted a silver hammer—a tundern wand—and struck it against the ground. A subterranean lightning bolt flew out of the artifact and erupted beneath Typhon’s feet into a spray of jagged Magnus sentences and rock fragments.
But neither words nor stone pierced the demon’s obsidian skin. With a backhanded lash, Typhon cast a blade of red light that flew across the cavern and cut the tundern wielder in two.
The surviving sentinels, Magistra Okeke at their front, were retreating into the tunnel.
Nicodemus turned to the textual barrier before him. It continued to shift under his hands but felt no weaker. This was taking too long. He’d never break through in time.
“Nicodemus,” Typhon bellowed behind him. “We must get you awayfrom here. These humans will kill you. I’ve been imprisoned for too long, and too much of my soul is locked into Deirdre. I’m not strong enough to kill them all at once.”
The five sentinels had fallen far back into the tunnel. Typhon raised a massive hand and struck the tunnel floor. A burst of glowing red streamers erupted from the demon’s fist and then blasted down. The cavern trembled as part of the Spindle’s floor fell into blackness.
With cries of shock, the sentinels ran deeper into the tunnel. Typhon cast an unseen spell that knocked free another bit of the floor. Through the growing hole Nicodemus could see the moonlit forest far below.
A sentinel who had not retreated fast enough shouted as the stones beneath him gave way. There was a silver flash as he tried to textually stop his fall—then nothing.
Typhon roared.
Nicodemus’s head felt light. His lips were numb. He couldn’t deconstruct the barrier fast enough.
One of the sentinels threw a Numinous spell that exploded against Typhon’s shoulder. The flash briefly illuminated Shannon’s unmoving form. “Magister!” Nicodemus exclaimed. He could not leave Shannon behind.
But how to retrieve the old man? Without the emerald he stood no chance of injuring the demon. If only he had time to write out a subtext to hide himself, he could…
“Fiery blood!” he swore and pulled back the sleeves of his robes. “Of course.” He