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Spellbound (Excerpt)

In a world where one's magical prowess is determined by one's skill with words and ability to spell, Nicodemus is a wizardly apprentice afflicted by a curse that causes him…

By

Published on August 23, 2011

Now that we’ve run a sweepstakes, we invite you to enjoy the first two chapters of Blake Charlton’s Spellbound, sequel to Spellwright, which is out on September 13!

In a world where one’s magical prowess is determined by one’s skill with words and ability to spell, Nicodemus is a wizardly apprentice afflicted by a curse that causes him to misspell magical texts. Now, the demon who cursed him has hatched a conspiracy to force Nicodemus to change language and ultimately use it to destroy all human life. As Nico tries to thwart the demon’s plan, he faces challenges from all sides. But his biggest challenge is his own disability, which causes him to create chaos wherever he goes.

***

Chapter
One

Francesca did not realize she had used an indefinite pronoun until it began to kill her patient.

Someone, no one knew who, had brought the young woman into the infirmary with an unknown curse written around her lungs. Francesca had cast several golden sentences into her patient’s chest, hoping to disspell the malicious text. Had it gone well, she would have pulled the curse out of the woman’s mouth.

But the curse’s style had been robust, and one of Francesca’s mistakenly ambiguous pronouns had pushed the curse from the girl’s lungs to her heart. There, the spiteful text had bound the once-beating organ into silence.

Now plummeting toward death, the girl bleated a final cry.

Francesca looked around the solarium and saw only white walls and a window looking out onto the city of Avel. Voices of other medical spell­ wrights sounded from down the hallway; they were also working to save pa­tients wounded by the recent lycanthrope attack on the city walls. Both the infirmary and the neighboring sanctuary were in crisis, and so Francesca was alone.

To her horror, Francesca’s first reaction was relief that no one had seen her mistake.

She turned to her patient. The girl’s wide green eyes had dilated to blackness. Her distended neck veins betrayed no pulse.

Francesca’s fingers tingled. This couldn’t be happening. She never made mistakes, never used indefinite pronouns.

The patient had been able to whisper her name when the curse was still on her lungs. Now Francesca addressed the young woman: “Deirdre, stay with me.”

No response.

Francesca could not see the curse; it was written in a language she did not know. But the golden countercurse she had cast now visualized the malicious text that spellbound the young woman’s heart.

Invasive action was needed.

Spellwrights created magical runes in their muscles; presently, Francesca used those in her left forearm to write a few silvery sentences that glowed on her skin. With her right hand, she pulled the spell free. It folded into a short, precise blade.

Francesca moved with confidence. She was a remarkably tall woman, lithe, clothed in a wizard’s black robe and cleric’s red stole. Both her long hair and wide eyes were very dark brown, making her pale features more striking. An illiterate would think she had maybe thirty years. A spellwright would know she had twice as many.

With her left hand, Francesca tore off her patient’s blouse. Deirdre’s smooth olive complexion, small chin, and raven hair indicated her youth. Yet there was something mature in the creases around her eyes.

Just then the floor shook and the wooden rafters chirped—a small earthquake possibly, or the blast from another lycanthropic attack. Some­ where in the infirmary or the adjacent sanctuary a man wailed.

Francesca laid her left hand on Deirdre’s shoulder. As a physician, she shuddered—cold, and full of doubt. Then she leapt into the safety of action.

After a few steady cuts, she lifted Deirdre’s small breast upward to expose the lattice of bone and muscle. The next cut ran between the fifth and sixth ribs, starting at the sternum and traveling around to the spine. The blood that flowed was bright red. Encouraging. Darker, slower blood would have confirmed death.

Francesca pried the ribs apart and extemporized a spell to hold them open.

The distant wailing grew more urgent.

“Deirdre, stay with me,” Francesca commanded as she slipped her hands into the girl’s chest and found her heart. Francesca held her breath as she pulled off the malicious sentences.

The floor shook again. A second and then a third voice joined the wailing.

Francesca bit her lip and unraveled the curse’s last sentence. The heart swelled with blood but did not beat. Francesca began to rhythmically squeeze the organ with her hand. She was about to call for help when the heart began to squirm.

It felt like a bag full of writhing worms.

“God-of-gods,” Francesca whispered. When a heart was denied blood, its once-coordinated action might expire into a chaos of separate spasms.

She continued to compress the heart. But each time she squeezed, the writhing lessened. The muscles were fading into death.

Francesca did not stop, could not stop.

More voices had joined the wailing, which rose and fell in an eerie tempo. Though almost musical, the wailing was wholly unlike the devotional songs the Spirish people sang during daily worship.

Some new crisis was sweeping through the infirmary or the sanctuary. Perhaps more wounded citizens had come in from the lycanthrope attack. Perhaps one of the lycanthrope spellwrights had even breached Avel’s walls despite the daylight.

But Francesca didn’t care about any of that. Her hands had gone cold. Her legs trembled. She was leaning on her patient. The world dissolved into a blur of tears.

The girl’s heart was still.

“Creator, forgive me,” Francesca whispered and withdrew her hands. “I’m sorry.” A painful tingling now enveloped her fingers. “I’m so . . . so sorry.”

She bowed her head and closed her eyes. Time became strange to her. She’d always been proud of her ability to prognosticate—to look forward into patients’ lives and anticipate their chances of cure, their moments of danger. But she had not foreseen Deirdre’s death; it seemed to jolt her out of time, out of her own body.

For a moment it felt as if she were someone else, as if she were standing in the doorway and looking at the physician who had just killed her pa­tient. In this dissociated state, she felt both safe and profoundly numb.

But then she was back in her own body, blinking through tears. She had not wept before a patient, alive or dead, for time out of mind. But now she had used the wrong word, a damned indefinite pronoun. Now her care­ lessness had killed.

Hot self-hatred flashed through her. She bit down on her lip.

Then, as suddenly as it came, her anger vanished, and she remembered her last day at the clerical academy in Port Mercy. She had asked her men­tor for parting advice. The ancient physician had smiled tightly and said, “Kill as few patients as possible.”

The young Francesca had laughed nervously.

Now, standing beside the first patient she had killed, she laughed at the memory, could not stop laughing. The strange hilarity was like gas bub­ bling out of her. Kill as few patients as possible. It was suddenly, terrifyingly hilarious.

Gradually her laughter died, and she felt hollow.

Around her, the infirmary resounded with wailing. She took a long breath. Other patients needed her. She had to counterfeit composure until true composure came. By extemporizing a few absorbing paragraphs, she cleaned the blood from her hands.

The floor shook again. “Is he loose?” someone whispered.

Startled, she looked toward the door. No one was there.

The whisperer spoke again, “Is he loose already?”

Francesca turned around. No one was in the solarium, and nothing but minarets and the alleyways of Avel were visible out the window. The hall­ way? Empty.

A weak groan. “He’ll be here soon. Help me up.”

Suddenly Francesca understood who was speaking, and her own heart seemed to writhe like a bag of worms.

She looked down at Deirdre, at the being she had mistaken for a mortal woman.

“You’re an avatar?” Francesca whispered. “A member of the Celestial Canon?”

“Avatar, yes. Canonist, no,” Deirdre corrected, pulling her bloody blouse over her now miraculously intact and scarless chest. “Sacred goddess, I for­ got the shock of coming back.”

Francesca stepped away. “What the burning hells is happening?”

The immortal woman looked at her. “A demon named Typhon has in­ vested part of his soul into me. He won’t let me die.”

“Won’t . . .” Francesca echoed, “. . . let you die?”

The other woman kneaded her temples. “I’m Typhon’s rebellious slave. The bastard can control most of what I do unless I find a way to kill myself. Given my restraints, self-assassination takes a bit of ingenuity. But if I can off myself, I win roughly half an hour of freedom after revival.” She smiled at Francesca. “Today, my creative method of suicide was you.”

Relief swept through Francesca. “You set me up? It was impossible to disspell that curse on your lungs?”

The other woman pressed a hand to her sternum and winced. “Not impossible; a few master clerics have managed it over the years. I’m always heartbroken when they save my life.”

The hollowness returned to Francesca’s chest. Failure. She had killed a patient after all. Despite sacrificing most of her life to medicine, she still wasn’t a master.

Deirdre closed her eyes and quirked a half smile. “It’s sweet to be free again. Almost intoxicating.” She shivered as if in pleasure but then opened her eyes and grew serious. “Now that I’ve come for you, so will he.”

Francesca took a step back. Nothing felt real. She laughed in disbelief. “I’m sorry . . . but . . . could you excuse me for just a moment? I’m punish­ing myself for killing you by going completely out of my bloody mind.”

“You are Cleric Francesca DeVega?”

“Oh, I was a cleric until a moment ago when I went as crazy as a spring hare.”

Deirdre frowned. “Have I pushed you too far? Forgive me. I shouldn’t be so glib. You have a reputation for . . . bravado.”

Francesca laughed. “To hell with ‘bravado’; I’ll tell a superior he’s an ar­rogant hack if he’s harming my patient. But now that my shoddy prose has killed, I—”

“Cleric,” the other woman interrupted. “You were meant to fail. If you hadn’t, I wouldn’t be free. I’m sorry I pushed you. But right now, I need to break the demon’s hold on you. Around your left ankle there is a fine silver chain. Show it to me.”

Francesca blinked. “What?”

“On your left foot, there’s an anklet. Show it to me.”

“My lady avatar, with all due respect, I don’t even own a God-of-gods damned anklet.”

“Just show me your left foot,” the woman said and pointed. “Now.”

“You can’t seriously . . . oh, what the hell, here look.” She pulled off her leather slipper and wool sock before lifting up her leg. She wore nothing on her foot but a few freckles. “See, my lady, there’s nothing on WHAT IN THE BURNING HELLS IS THAT?”

Deirdre had reached out and unclasped a thin silver chain from Fran­cesca’s ankle. The semidivine woman now held it out. “I’m not a spellwright. I don’t know how, but it prevents its wearer from sensing it. Typhon was using it to keep you in Avel. If you had tried to leave the city, it would have rendered you unconscious. Or maybe something worse. I’m not sure. Here, take it.”

Francesca stared at the anklet as if it were a viper. “This can’t be happen­ ing. And . . . and what would a demon possibly want with me?” Her voice cracked on the last word.

Deirdre grimaced. “He wants to use your skills as a physician to help force a powerful spellwright to convert.”

“Convert to what?”

“To the demon’s cause. Look, I’ll explain what I know as soon as we are somewhere safer, but now hurry and take the anklet.” Deirdre was still holding the silver chain out. Her arm was trembling. “I haven’t yet re­gained my strength. There’s a nonmagical anklet on my left foot. Put it on your own foot. That way if a demonic agent catches you, he might think you are still bound.”

Francesca started. She took the offered anklet, tucked it into her belt purse, and then found an identical one on her patient. After removing the chain, she fastened it around her own left ankle and discovered the skin around her ankle had grown calluses where the chain would have rubbed against it. In a few places, she had small scars where the anklet’s clasp might have cut her. She must have been wearing the undetectable anklet for a very long time. For years perhaps.

Deirdre cleared her throat. “Do I have your attention now, cleric?”

“More than anyone else ever has,” Francesca answered faintly.

“Good. I have an agent waiting on the street to take that anklet and hide it . . .” Her voice trailed off as the floor trembled and the wailing surged. “Damn it all!” she swore.

“What is it?” Francesca asked. Suddenly, orange flashes speckled her vision. Again the floor shook. This time the ceiling rafters chirped and the wailing grew even louder.

Deirdre’s dark face paled. “He’s never gotten so close so fast.” She beck­ oned Francesca to come closer. “Carry me. Quickly now, the aphasia’s be­ gun. My agents on the ground will be compromised. This is horrible. We must go before the beast arrives.”

“Before . . . whom . . . before who arrives?” Francesca found it difficult to speak. The ideas were clear in her mind, but the words for them escaped her intellect. The orange flashes dancing before her eyes were growing brighter.

“Hear that wailing?” Deirdre asked. “He’s touched those minds. They have thoughts but not words. It’s called aphasia. You’re beginning to feel it; you’re slightly aphasic already. Now, unless we flee before he arrives, you may never speak a clear word again.”

“H-him?” Francesca stuttered at the bedside. “The demon?”

More voices joined the wailing and began to rise and fall in an eerie cacophony of call and answer.

“Not Typhon, another slave. One I wanted to trap with that anklet. But my agents on the street are as good as dead. The beast has never moved this fast before. Damn me! We must flee before he enters the infirmary.”

With difficulty, Francesca lifted Deirdre from the table. Her eyes could not focus. Deirdre wrapped her arms around Francesca’s neck. The cater­wauling rose into an ecstatic crescendo and then fell dead silent. The ground shook.

“Goddess, defend us,” Deirdre whispered, tightening her arms around Francesca. “He’s here.”


Chapter
Two

Suddenly conscious, Shannon dropped the text he had been holding. It fell to the wooden floorboards and shattered.

Strange.

He frowned at the scattering golden runes and then yawned so power­fully his jaw cracked. Wincing, he rubbed his temples and wondered why he had awoken standing up and holding a spell. Even more disconcerting, he had no idea where he was.

Looking up revealed a circular room with white walls and rows of bookcases. Bright sunlight poured in through an arched window that looked out onto a small sunlit city.

Stranger still.

The city’s many sandstone buildings huddled so tightly that in most places only alleys ran between them. Only a few wide streets were cobble­ stoned. Tall, crenellated walls divided the city into different districts. Every­ thing was wet from a recent rain.

The closest districts boasted an abundance of gardens—squares filled with flowering vines, walkways flanked by palms and cypress, tiled courtyards with leafy trees, almond and orange.

Farther districts were filled with dilapidated buildings and sprawling shacks. A portion of the farthest district seemed to have recently burned down.

Along the city’s edge ran massive sandstone walls crowned with brass­ roofed watchtowers. Beyond the city, green savanna rolled away under a lacquer-blue sky.

All this indicated that Shannon was in a city of Western Spires. But which one?

It was too small for Dar. There was neither ocean nor steep mountains nearby, so it couldn’t be Kara. Avel, then? The gardens and savanna sug­gested so.

But how in the Creator’s name had he come here? He rubbed his eyes and tried to think straight. Thoughts moved through his mind with strange speed, as if he were dreaming.

The last thing he remembered was living a hermit’s life in the Heaven Tree Valley hundreds of miles away in the Pinnacle Mountains. He had been training his pupil, who was named . . . was named . . . It was hard to remember. Did it start with an n?

He knew the boy’s name, to be sure. But the memory of it was buried in his mind. His pupil’s name was . . . It was . . .

In the distance, voices began to wail. It was a quavering sound, haunt­ ing, not quite musical. Perhaps a chant? Shannon frowned. He was in a tall Spirish building filled with something that might be devotional song. A sanctuary?

Shannon nodded to himself. He had to be in either Avel’s sanctuary or the infirmary built next to it. Either way he was in a building sacred to the city’s ruler, the canonist Cala.

But what in the Creator’s name was a canonist?

He had to think hard to find the memory: a deity could invest part of its soul into a human to create an avatar. But if a deity placed all of its soul into a human, the result was a canonist, a demigod more powerful than an avatar but weaker than a freely expressed deity. Only Spires had canonists because . . . because the sky goddess Celeste maintained a list, a canon, that named all the demigods she allowed in Spires. She did that to . . . Shannon knew it had something to do with the Spirish Civil War. Hadn’t he fought in that war?

Another yawn popped Shannon’s jaw. Exhaustion was making him stupid. Things would make more sense after a nap.

He turned, looking for a place to lie down, and was surprised to dis­ cover a large redwood door and table. On the table lay several cloth-bound books, the nearest of which had been splattered with red ink. A square of paper lay on its cover. Something had been written on it in black ink. Shannon leaned forward to read. It was difficult to make out. There was a red blotch on the paper, then the thin spidery words “our memories are in her” and another blotch. No punctuation or capitalization.

Despite his growing confusion, Shannon yawned once more and blinked. He examined the note again, and his breath caught. The blotches weren’t stains of red ink.

They were bloodstains.

A thrill of fear ran through him. Remembering the dropped magical text, he looked at the floor for the rune sequences. They had been written in Numinous, a magical language that could alter light and other magical text. To those fluent in the language, Numinous runes shone with golden light.

The distant wailing was growing more insistent.

Despite his fear, Shannon’s eyelids grew heavier as he examined the scrambled spell. It had broken into two heaps of rune sequences. He must have been holding two sentences, each of which had formed its own small mound.

Pieces from the larger pile had scattered farther, some disappearing under the door.

He turned to the smaller pile first and pushed the fragments into a line.

When translated, they would read: gain eea ’red Youcans use beca you ead.

Another yawn. He shook his head and tried to focus. The period behind ead meant it should come last. The capitalization in Youcans indicated it should come first.

Youcans lacked spaces and so would likely become you can s or maybe you cans. He paired this capitalized fragment with others that might fol­low. Youcans’red? No. Youcansuse? No. Youcanseea—

He froze. Youcanseea? He inserted three spaces: You can see a . . .

Shannon looked up again at the walls, the window, the city, the sky. “Creator, save me!” he whispered. “What’s happened?”

Though some of Shannon’s memories seemed hidden, he knew he was supposed to be blind. Decades ago, he had looked at a forbidden text; it had destroyed his mundane vision. Since that day, he had seen only through the eyes of his familiar, a parrot named Azure. But now he beheld the mun­dane world with his own eyes. How in the Creator’s name was this possible?

He turned back to the runes and added the gain, beca, and use to the translation.

You can see again because

His fingers shook so badly he couldn’t pick up the remaining sequences.

But it didn’t matter.

He already knew how the sentence would read. The last three fragments—you, ’red, and ead—were already in order.

You can see again because you’re dead.

Spellbound © Blake Charlton 2011

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Blake Charlton

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I put the 'sexy' in 'dyslexia.'
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