the classical architecture so common to Starhaven’s Imperial Quarter: walls decorated by molded white plaster, arched doorways, wide windows. Each entryway was flanked by a pair of stone obelisks.
However, because of the Stone Court’s remote location, the wizards had filled it with several objects too unsightly to reside in Starhaven’s more populous quarters.
A forest of Dralish standing stones stood in the courtyard’s center. On its eastern edge loitered two marble statues of Erasmus and one of Uriel Bolide. And everywhere—curled up, sprawled out, or lying on any available stone ledge—were sleeping janitorial gargoyles.
Nicodemus started for the Drum Tower, which abutted the court’s eastern limit. But as he went, he saw something move within the stone forest.
He stopped.
The movement had been too quick to be that of a janitorial gargoyle. And no neophyte should be awake so late. Perhaps it was a feral cat?
It came again: a pale blur between two standing stones. Apprehension gripped Nicodemus. Wizards wore only black. Cloth of any other color signified an outsider…or an intruder.
Starhaven’s many towers hid the blue and black moons, but the gibbous white moon hung directly overhead and flooded the court with milky light. As Nicodemus snuck among the standing stones, a crocodile-like gargoyle sleeping on the ground rolled over to regard him with a half-opened eye.
Someone was whispering behind the megalith to Nicodemus’s left. “Who’s there?” he asked in his boldest voice and stepped around the megalith.
Before him stood a short figure robed in white cloth. It spun around with inhuman speed.
CHAPTER
Four
Magister Shannon, sitting behind his desk, looked in the direction of Smallwood’s voice. “Thank you for coming so late, Timothy.”
“Quite all right; I’m always up,” Smallwood said with his usual warmth. Shannon could not see the other wizard, but judging by his voice, he was standing by the bookshelves.
“But I’m surprised you’re awake,” Smallwood added. “I didn’t think you were a night owl.”
Shannon grunted. “I’m not. Two hours ago, I was in bed. A relay text from one of my research projects woke me with a report of unusual guardian activity around the Drum Tower. Seems they’ve been chasing something around on the roofs.”
“Guardian spells,” Smallwood said with a disdainful sniff. “Sloppy prose, if you ask me, written with too much sensitivity. Likely they were chasing a feral cat that wandered in from the uninhabited quarters.”
“That was my first thought. I came here to look up a few things about editing the guardians’ sensitivity. But then my apprentice appeared; seems he heard someone running across the roof of the Stacks.”
When Shannon looked at his bookshelf, his eyes saw through the leather bindings to the radiant paragraphs contained within the books. As he watched, a rectangle of green text separated from the rest and unfolded into two smaller rectangles. Smallwood had pulled a book and was browsing through it. “Timothy, are you listening?”
“What? Yes, yes, of course,” Smallwood replied and clapped the green rectangles together. “So you think one of the delegates might be sneaking about the roofs?”
Shannon shrugged. “Could be a foreign spellwright. Could be a wizard.”
“But spying on the Drum Tower? I know the cacographers are close to your heart, but shouldn’t intrigue focus elsewhere? The Main Library, say, or the provost’s quarters?”
“Precisely what worries me.”
Smallwood coughed. “Agwu, might you be overreacting? I know you were more…involved in Astrophell, but this is Starhaven.”
Shannon rubbed his mustache to hide his frown.
Smallwood continued. “Perhaps the Astrophell delegates have put you on edge? Brought back the old instincts?”
“Perhaps but unlikely,” Shannon insisted. “I’ve two guardian spells in the linguistics library. I’d like them cast to patrol around the Stone Court. But first I need you to rewrite their protocols to communicate with the gargoyles sleeping there.”
It sounded as if Smallwood were shuffling his feet. “Tonight?”
Shannon crossed his arms and looked where he thought his colleague’s face might be. “It would help me focus on our research spell tomorrow.”
“Tonight it is, then. I am grateful you’ve included me in this research.”
Shannon let out a breath he had not known he was holding.
The rectangle of green prose floated back up to its proper place: Smallwood was reshelving the book. “Is Azure about?”
Shannon shook his head. “She’s delivering a message for me.” He did not mention that she was also flying about the rooftops searching for anything unusual.
“Pity,” Smallwood said, his voice heading for the door. “I wanted to see her Numinous dialect again. Agwu, before I go…do I remember correctly that your apprentice was thought to be the Halcyon?”