Читать книгу Spellbound: Book 2 of the Spellwright Trilogy - Blake Charlton - Страница 16

When the lofting kite rose to a height above the Auburn Mountains, Cyrus moved his hands along the suspension lines, and the canopy split itself in two.

Half of the red sailcloth wrapped around Cyrus and Francesca, covering them from chests to feet. Short lateral wings formed along this encasement. The remaining cloth bulged into a round jumpchute that, blasting wind, pulled them toward the mountains.

A stiff textual shield formed within the tension lines, protecting Francesca and Cyrus from the rushing air. It was not so loud as to force either occupant to yell, but it was loud enough that both had to speak with conscious volume.

As they flew, the distant white speck that Cyrus insisted was an incoming warship grew slightly larger. Francesca asked about it, but Cyrus declined to explain until they were close enough to recognize the ship.

Meanwhile, Francesca watched the reservoir pass under them. They had flown over the main body of water and were now above the narrows—six riverlike projections that wound into the green foothills. She could make out a few single-sail fishing boats on the water.

At various points in their twisting course, the narrows expanded into wide coves. In these bobbed small lake towns, lashed-together house boats anchored in deep water to ensure they never drifted close enough to the shore to be vulnerable to lycanthrope attack.

Now, at the rainy season’s end, the fisher folk followed the water as far out as the base of the Auburn Mountains. In the dry season, Cala drained the reservoir to irrigate the canyon floor, and the fisher folk slowly migrated their lake towns toward the city. When the reservoir went dry, all of the lake towns banded together to form a small muddy township just outside the Sliding Docks. Some would find work in the Water District; others would chance a wagon ride over the Auburn Mountains to work among the fishers in Coldlock Harbor.

“Fran,” Cyrus said over the wind. “I really must know: What was attacking the sanctuary?”

She looked at him. He looked back. She had no idea what had actually happened in the infirmary. Should she tell him what she had seen? Or, at least, what she had believed she had seen? Deirdre had said that Cyrus was trustworthy, but Francesca didn’t know if she could trust Deirdre.

Besides, Deirdre didn’t know Cyrus like Francesca had known him.

The whole situation was a disaster. Usually, she would remind herself that confronting disasters was what she did. But an hour ago she had failed in a crisis, killed her patient. Worse, a demonic spell had been wrapped around her in the form of that anklet for years. The world as she had known it had broken to pieces.

And that, Francesca reminded herself, was all the more reason why she had to remain composed. After a long breath, she smiled tightly.

Cyrus had always been committed to duty. So long as her plans coincided with his sense of honor, he would make an excellent ally. But how would he react when she explained a demon might be ruling Avel? For all Francesca knew, Cyrus was a demon worshiper. She had to choose her words carefully.

“Francesca,” she said loud enough to be heard over the wind.

His veil moved as if he were frowning. “What?”

“It’s Francesca now. Not Fran.”

His eyes narrowed. “Francesca, what’s happening in the sanctuary? I need to know.”

“Hours ago, lycanthropes attacked a caravan coming in through the Northern Gate. The wounded were brought to the infirmary. A woman named Deirdre claimed she’d been struck by a lycanthrope spell and that only I could save her. By the time I got to her, she was nearly dead. An unknown text was compressing her lungs. I tried to disspell it, but it crushed her heart. She died on my table. A few moments later she came back to life.”

“What?”

“She came back to life. She’s an avatar, a creature possessing part of a deity’s soul.”

“A canonist?”

She shook her head.

“But if she’s not a canonist, how is she in Avel? Celeste would destroy any divinity not listed in the Celestial Canon. Perhaps she is serving Canonist Cala?”

“I’ve no clue.”

“Holy sky, Francesca, you must know something!” He said the word “something” with the same patronizing tone he had once reserved for their personal arguments.

“Oh wait, Cyrus, you’re right. I do know something. I was just too God-of-gods damned stupid to realize it until some patronizing man with an intelligence rivaled by garden tools told me I do,” she replied hotly, and then for good measure added, “you pretentious bastard.”

He only laughed. “Haven’t changed, have you? Still all fiery sarcasm or calm compassion with nothing between. And still speaking like an antique. I never heard anyone but you and my grandmother name the Creator as the God-of-gods.”

Francesca clenched her teeth. “Just shut it and listen.” She explained how she had carried Deirdre to the roof while others lost their ability to speak and began to wail.

She did not mention Typhon or Deirdre’s belief that the demon had brought Cyrus back to the city as a “screen.” However, she repeated Deirdre’s claim that the Savanna Walker was the cause of the aphasia.

Cyrus looked at her. “The Savanna Walker’s a child’s tale.”

“The aphasia curse was real enough.” As she said this, Francesca thought of the text that had spellbound Deirdre’s heart. Suddenly, she knew how to prevent Cyrus’s sense of duty from endangering them both. He wouldn’t like it … if he ever found out about it. She looked at him. “I’m worried a curse might have gotten into you.”

Cyrus looked at her. “An aphasia curse or the one that crushed the avatar’s heart?”

“Either.”

Cyrus looked at her. “If I become ill or aphasic, we’ll fall out of the sky.”

“I can cast a countercurse to see if you have any foreign text in your body.”

“What about the text I’m writing in my heart?”

“I edit the countercurse so it won’t interfere.”

He nodded.

“Give me your arm.”

When Cyrus obeyed, she took his wrist with her left hand. With her right, she cast a needlelike Magnus sentence and jabbed it into one of his arm veins.

Using her hand muscles, Francesca wrote a compact medical text in Magnus and Numinous. It took a few moments. When it was ready, she used the Magnus needle to cast it into Cyrus’s bloodstream. He wasn’t fluent in the wizardly languages, so the spell was invisible to him. But Francesca watched the silver-gold spark tumble up his arm and into his shoulder.

“Hold still,” she commanded and watched the spell flow into the center of Cyrus’s chest and then shoot to the area under his right pectoral muscle. The text had passed through the right chambers of his heart and been pumped into his lung.

“Do you see a curse?” he asked.

“I said hold still!”

She watched the spell tumble though the lung’s fine capillaries. Then it made sudden, halting progress back to the center of his chest. She tensed. When it reached the left side of his heart, she cast a backhand wave of Numinous signal spells into his chest. One of these struck the spell in his heart and commanded it to unfold.

She nodded with satisfaction as her text unobtrusively explored the beating left ventricle of his heart.

Using her thigh muscles, Francesca forged several wide sheets of Numinous signal spells. By flexing her leg, she mashed the sheet into an unstable ball. Every few moments, part of the sheet decayed and sent single texts flying in random directions.

She flexed and extended her legs five times more until the decaying ball radiated a shower of signal texts in all directions. Every few moments, one struck the text in Cyrus’s heart, commanding it not to take action.

They were now flying above the highest foothills. Here the narrows ran between steep gorges. The dark Auburn Mountains stood before them.

“Burning heaven, Fran, do you see something in me?” Cyrus asked.

“I don’t see a curse. But I placed a spell in you so I can monitor you.”

“You think I might become aphasic later?”

“In all likelihood you’re fine, but I want to be safe. Just stay close to me for a while … for my sake.” She squeezed his arm.

He stared at her and then turned back to the jumpchute.

She studied the spell in his young, healthy heart. As often happened when she examined a body, she felt as if she could look forward into time and see the different, older men he might become—some hale and athletic as he was now, some soft with inaction, some wasting away from disease.

Suddenly, Cyrus broke her reverie: “You know something you’re not telling me.”

“I do, but it’s not about your health,” she said, knowing that she was, in at least two senses, lying.