the forest. When the gargoyles returned the chair, relief washed over Nicodemus. He told Kyran how to sit in it.
“I’ll see you on the ground,” the druid said as the spell tipped over the railing and began to descend.
Nicodemus nodded and was about to reply when the world erupted into a blaze of silver light. A roar like that of a landslide filled the night.
Nicodemus spun around in time to see the gargoyle’s right wing disinte-grate into a roiling Magnus effulgence.
“NICODEMUS!” KYRAN CALLED from beyond the bridge.
Nicodemus looked down and saw the druid on the Magnus chair, already seven feet below. Green bolts of light crackling around his hands, he pulled another seed-button from his sleeve.
Suddenly, a shrill scream drowned out all other sound.
Nicodemus spun around to see the giant gargoyle turning so it could swing its remaining wing forward with deadly force. Before the gargoyle stood a white-robed figure.
Fellwroth in a new golem!
A hood covered the monster’s face but his ashen hands were bare and holding a thick spellbook.
As the stone wing whistled forward, Fellwroth calmly peeled a Magnus spell from the book. With a wrist flick, the monster cast the spell onto the ground. It bloomed into a row of thick, silvery poles. The gargoyle’s wing struck the shafts with an ear-grating chirp.
Fellwroth ran forward, pulling a whiplike Numinous disspell from the spellbook. With a screech, the gargoyle swung its two right arms. Fellwroth dodged under the blows and flicked out his golden whip. The long, luminous sentences wrapped around the gargoyle’s lower right bicep, cutting deep into the construct’s Magnus skeleton.
With a backhand jerk, Fellwroth pulled the whip taut. The force ripped the Magnus sentences from the gargoyle’s arm and tore them into frayed ends.
Now deprived of its linguistic skeleton, the gargoyle’s lower arm froze into immobile stone.
With a scream, the hawk-headed construct struck out with both its left arms. Fellwroth ducked again, but this time the gargoyle’s lower fist struck his shoulder.
With a resounding clang, the blow sent Fellwroth skidding across the landing. He slid across the stones, a trail of white sparks spraying behind.
“Celestial Canon!” Nicodemus swore. “It’s a golem made of metal.”
Remembering the Index, Nicodemus opened it and planted his hand on a page. Instantaneously the book renewed his knowledge of the spell Shannon had written to trap Fellwroth’s spirit within the golem.
With a thundering rumble, the giant gargoyle charged. But the golem quickly regained his feet and rewrote his Numinous whip.
Nicodemus started forging Shannon’s spell along his left forearm. “No!” a voice cried from behind.
He turned to see Kyran hoisting himself over the railing. The druid must have created some ropelike spell and hauled himself back up. “We don’t fight,” Kyran growled. “We run!”
There was a sudden crash. Nicodemus looked back. With its three good arms, the gargoyle had grabbed hold of Fellwroth and hoisted the monster over its head. With a scream, the gargoyle hurled its foe against the wall.
The metal golem crashed into the stones with enough force to crack two of them.
“Now! Run!” Kyran commanded, pulling Nicodemus along the landing and back into the tunnel. They sprinted through the darkness to the compluvium.
Kyran stopped at the stairwell and looked up at the wall that could lead them back to Starhaven proper. Then he looked out into the compluvium’s myriad gables, gutters, and shadows. “What kind of body?” he asked.
“Metal,” Nicodemus panted.
“It will last too long. We can’t hide out there in the compluvium. So we run back to the wizards and search for another way down to Gray’s Crossing.”
Before Nicodemus could agree, the other man turned and sprinted up the stairwell, his blond hair glinting in the double moonlight. Nicodemus followed.
They were halfway up the stairs when a golden flash made Nicodemus look downward. Fellwroth was backing out of the tunnel. The monster was hurling curses back the way he had come. An avian screech echoed out of the tunnel; the war-weight gargoyle wasn’t far behind.
Nicodemus and Kyran topped the stairs and dashed along the wall. They had to reach the steps down to the Sataal Landing.
Suddenly the moonlight ahead of them shivered as if it were full of hot air. A horrible idea flashed through Nicodemus’s mind. “Kyran, wait!” he called, skidding to a stop. The druid ignored him. Nicodemus peered over the wall’s far side. “Kyran, it’s a trap!”
The druid stopped. “What?”
Nicodemus pointed over the wall. Below him stood the Sataal Landing’s last cloister and the steep stairs nestled between the wall and the Karkin Tower. “The second