Spellbreaker by Blake Charlton Read Free Book Online Page B

John among Starhaven’s cacographers to unwittingly spy on Nicodemus. During Nicodemus’s initial confrontation with Typhon, John had escaped the curse and regained his natural intellect. However, the struggle had separated John and Nicodemus for a decade.
    That John felt as he had in Starhaven suggested he might have a curse locked around his mind. The River Thief might have cast an incapacitating godspell on the whole party. Only he and John would be resistant; Nicodemus because his cacography would misspell the text, John because his childhood spent battling such a spell had given him some inherent immunity. “John, drag Rory to me.”
    â€œWhy—”
    â€œJust do it quickly and … well … here, let’s free you completely.” Nicodemus peeled a tattooed disspell from his neck. The luminous violet sentences folded into a tight cage.
    Nicodemus had learned this violet language from the kobolds of the Pinnacle Mountains. It was one of the few magical languages with a structure logical enough to resist his cacography; however, it was sensitive to sunlight and would deconstruct in anything brighter than two moonlight.
    With a wrist flick, Nicodemus cast the disspell against John’s forehead. The violet prose sprang around John’s head before sinking into his skull. The luminous sentences flickered as they deconstructed the River Thief’s spell.
    The big man’s head bobbed backward. He flinched, grimaced, wrinkled his nose, sneezed. “Flaming hells, Nico, it feels like you just filled your mouth with snow and started licking my brain.”
    â€œWhat an expressive image you’ve come up with,” Nicodemus said dryly. John had never lost his puerile fascination with vulgar imagery. As a child, Nicodemus had gotten into many Jejune wordfights with the big man. Now, it was less amusing.
    â€œYou could have warned me.” John groaned.
    â€œSomehow the River Thief has obtunded our party and is stealing our cargo. That’s why you’ve agreed to haul, with particular care and haste, Rory out here.”
    Nicodemus could not pull the druid from the tent as his touch misspelled the Language Prime texts in almost any living creature, thereby cursing them with mortal cankers. His wife and daughter, being partially textual, were among the few who could survive his touch. This immunity had been a great comfort to him years ago when his family had still been close together, physically and emotionally.
    John disappeared into the tent and after some rustling pulled a limp Rory of Calad into the moonlight.
    The druid was maybe six feet tall, dressed in white robes, broad shouldered, in possession of long glossy auburn locks. His freckles and slight chubbiness gave him a disarmingly youthful air that belied his fifty years.
    Nicodemus cast a disspell onto the druid’s head. As the sentences contracted, Rory’s eyes fluttered. Then the violet sentences crushed the godspell around his mind. Rory convulsed once, opened his eyes, rolled over, vomited.
    Nicodemus grimaced sympathetically. “John, quietly as you can, haul Sir Claude over here. Stay low. Rory, can you hear me?”
    The druid spat. “Yes, but it feels as if—”
    â€œAs if a block of frozen mucus is fondling your brain?” John asked helpfully.
    Rory looked up at John, frowned. “Yes … yes, that’s exactly what it feels like.”
    Nicodemus rolled his eyes. “Shut it you two. John, fetch Sir Claude and one of his metal books. Rory, hold still.” Nicodemus began to forge a shadowganger spell on his forearm.
    The druid pressed a hand to his stomach. “I promise not to move another muscle unless it involves puking myself inside out.”
    Nicodemus pulled the shadowganger spell from his arm and cast it on the druid. The violet paragraphs spun around Rory, bending light away from him until he seemed another moonshadow.
    John appeared with Sir