flying and blew Azure from Shannon’s shoulder. The poor bird had to flap hard just to stay over the bridge.
“Four runes!” Nicodemus said while struggling to tame his hair. “The language from which all other languages come has only four runes?”
Shannon held his arm up as a perch for Azure. “Strange but simple geometric runes. Two were hexagons with a few radial strokes; the other two were pentagons attached to similar hexagons.”
“But, Magister, that can’t be right.”
“It’s difficult to believe,” Shannon said as Azure landed on his arm. “The simplest common language possesses twenty-two runes. And the most complex, the shaman’s high language, has over sixty thousand runes.”
As the wind relented, Nicodemus tucked his hair into his robes. “But a language with only four runes could have only four single-rune words, sixteen two-rune words, sixty-four three-rune words, and so on.”
“Exactly,” Shannon said, helping Azure climb back onto his shoulder. “Primal words must be very long. Consider that a common language possesses a hundred thousand words, Numinous three times that. So, assuming Language Prime has a vocabulary of at least three hundred thousand, it would need words up to…” He paused to calculate. “Nine runes long to create all those words. But if it had twenty runes, it would need words only…” Another pause. “Only five runes long.”
Nicodemus closed his eyes and tried to figure out what calculations his teacher had used to discern that.
Shannon let out a long sigh. “And with only four runes, those long words would be nearly indistinguishable. Think of trying to memorize athousand nine-digit numbers consisting of the numerals one through four. Impossible. And the sentences would be hundreds, maybe thousands of runes long. Utter gibberish.”
Nicodemus stopped calculating and laughed. “Imagine trying to spell in that language. Everyone would be a cacographer.”
Shannon started to say something and then paused. He frowned. His mouth opened, closed, opened again. “Nicodemus…that is a profound idea.”
“It is?”
A contrary breeze, this one blowing from Starhaven, flowed over the bridge. It brought with it the autumnal scents of moldy leaves and wood smoke.
Shannon was nodding. “What if cacography is simply a mismatch between a mind and a language? Our languages express meaning in a way your mind has trouble reproducing consistently. But you do not structure them illogically. When I edit your texts, they work without error.”
Nicodemus nodded, his ears hot with embarrassment.
“But could we compose a language your mind could easily process? If so, then the reverse should be true: we should also be able to create a language so complex that not even the most powerful mind could spell it consistently.”
“Oh,” Nicodemus said, realizing what Shannon meant. “And maybe that’s what the Creator did when making Language Prime. It could be a language so complex that any human attempting to read or write it would be cacographic.”
“More than cacographic, completely incompetent.”
Nicodemus’s hands again began to tremble with excitement. “Magister, there might be a connection between Language Prime and my cacography. Maybe the druid is right. Maybe the monster stole part of me and put it into the emerald. Maybe I’m not supposed to be cacographic!”
Rather than reply, Shannon began to walk toward the Spindle’s end. Before them loomed the mountain’s rock face and the Chthonic engravings—ivy leaves to the left and the geometric design to the right.
The old man spoke. “My boy, we may be witnessing the first days of prophecy. This morning’s dragon attack on Trillinon could mark the beginning of a conflict that will engulf all kingdoms and threaten human language itself. But what frightens me just now is the change I hear in your voice.”
He stopped and turned to Nicodemus. “Do you believe that you are the Halcyon?”
“I—” Nicodemus stammered. “You think I’m being foolish to believe that the druid might be right about prophecy?”
The old wizard shook his head. “Not in the least. Besides the present circumstances linking you to prophecy, I have noted the strange effect you have had on some texts. Just last night when you misspelled a gargoyle, you elevated her freedom of thought. Such a phenomenon is unheard of. Perhaps this happened because you are the Halcyon, perhaps because of another reason tied to prophecy. But you didn’t answer my question: Do you believe you are the Halcyon?”
“I haven’t…I don’t know if I am or not. I suppose you’re right, we can’t jump to conclusions. But my point is about cacography. If the murderer magically stole my ability to spell, perhaps I can magically get it back!”