making me give a short lecture about Los to the rest of the girls on janitorial. It’s her idea of a penance. The old shrew knows cacographers never study theology. I was supposed to look it up but didn’t.”
Nicodemus raised his eyebrows. “When do you lecture?”
“In half an hour,” Devin said with a glare that dared him to chide her. Fortunately, he knew enough to keep his mouth shut. When she spoke again, it was in a calmer voice. “Nico, tell me everything you know about Los.”
“I’m a cacographer too, you know. I never took theology either.”
“But you memorize everything Shannon says and fawn—”
“All right, all right. Back on the ancient continent there was a golden age when the Solar Empire…and that’s not the Neosolar Empire, which formed on this continent. Anyway, the original Solar Empire existed in peace with the gods. But someone committed a grave sin that enabled Los, then a powerful earth god, to become the first demon.”
“But what sin—”
Nicodemus shrugged. “Every religion has a different answer. Probably no one’s right; probably that knowledge was lost when our ancestors crossed the ocean. As wizards we hold to no belief and so are not bound to a religion or kingdom. All you need to know is that Los took a third of the deities to Mount Calax and turned them into demons. He made an army of all the demons and called it the Pandemonium. That’s where the word comes from: Pan, all, demonium, demons. So when we say the class was pandemonium we’re using hyperbole to—”
“Blasted pisser—” Devin cut herself short and calmed down. “Nico, I get it. Could you just give me the history without your linguistic ramblings?”
Nicodemus grumbled about history and linguistic ramblings being the same thing before continuing. “So after Los formed the Pandemonium, there was a war between deities and demons called the Apocalypse. When it became clear the demons would win, the human deities built huge Exodus ships to cross the ocean. Somehow—no one’s sure how—a group of human heroes turned Los into stone. This bought the ships enough time to get out to sea. The demons, being bound to the ancient continent, couldn’t follow. Then a powerful wind called the Maelstrom scattered the Exodus ships. That’s why each of the current landfall kingdoms has people of different shapes and colorings.”
Devin narrowed her eyes. “In ancient kingdoms everyone looked the same?”
“More or less. Certainly someone like me with black hair and olive skin would not have come from the same kingdom as someone with your red hair and freckles.”
“There’s no need to be snotty, Nico. Cacographers aren’t taught this stuff. And I don’t hang on Magister’s every miniature lecture like you do. When wizards gossip, I’ll listen. But I’d rather chew gravel that listen to most of their academic babble.” She sniffed. “Just another reason why it’d be better if I were illiterate.”
“I’m sorry, Dev, I didn’t mean…But don’t be so unhappy. Even if they permanently censored you, it’s not as if you would be free. You’ve told me yourself, magical illiterates are bound to the land or their trade. They have to work in the fields for lords or barons or whatnot.”
She only shrugged and turned back to her stew. “Couldn’t be worse than it is here.”
Nicodemus leaned forward. “Dev, you’d have no spells to wash your face or clean your teeth. No constructs to empty the night pot. And you’d be short-lived.”
Suddenly her brown eyes burned with their characteristic fire. “Well f—” Again she visibly suppressed an obscenity. “I don’t care a fig for that! Not all of us are as strong as you, Nico. I’ll barely see a century. And I’m nearly fifty already. I might not look it, but I am. If I were illiterate, at least I wouldn’t outlive my family.”
Nicodemus started to protest but then stopped. “You’d want to get married?”
“Oh, a bloody donkey’s ass-crack on that!” she snapped. “I damned well don’t want to get married.” She began stirring her stew with trembling hands.
Nicodemus could not think of what to say, so he sat in silence and waited until she appeared calmer.
“Dev,” he said at last. “Last night I asked you what Smallwood meant when he called me Shannon’s new pet cacographer.”
“Forget it. It’s nothing important.” She scowled. “Though it proves my point about being illiterate.”
Nicodemus touched her elbow. “Tell me? Please?”
Devin looked at him. “It’s all hearsay.”
He nodded.
After laying her spoon down, she scooted a conspiratorial half-inch closer on the bench. “Well, years ago