Still on his hands and knees, he turned to face uphill.

All around, the terrors whispered about their fear that he would flee back to Starhaven and deprive them of a feeding.

An endless moment passed as Nicodemus kneeled, adrift in a fantastic universe.

But then the image of the small emerald appeared before his eyes. At that moment, he decided to remain. He would rather die trying to find the missing part of himself.

The nightblue terrors burst onto the road, moaning with rapture. They circled him: a nightmarish jamboree of limbs, bellies, and teeth. He remained on his knees, frozen with fear.

Some of the monsters were strangely familiar-a small eyeless dragon; a giant insect with a human face; a troll’s three-horned head.

Others were such phantasmagoric unions of limbs and fins and fangs that they were impossible to perceive in their entirety. Some of the monsters grabbed at his clothes; others ran their claws through his hair.

But as the night terrors touched him, Nicodemus began to sense their thoughts and feelings. Somehow he knew that his choice to stay on the road had affected them in ways they did not realize.

Just then the wind brought rhythmic hoof beats up from the mountainside. The night terrors froze like stone carvings. Some put claws to batlike ears. Now they could hear the four-beat song of a galloping horse.

Every monster shuddered; they knew what was coming up from the town. They had felt the foul thing riding down this same path not an hour previous.

Suddenly and completely, the emotions in their oily hearts transformed. The monsters changed their minds. With split lips and forked tongues, they whispered around fangs and tusks, telling each other what must be done.

Fighting through his paralyzing fear, Nicodemus tried to crawl farther down the road. But dread placed too heavy a weight on his back and he collapsed. The keloid scar on his neck burned.

Having reached a decision, the nightblue terrors scooped up Nicodemus and carried him into a roadside ditch. There they piled on top of him like children rough-housing with their father. They were determined to cover his every inch with their deep-blue skin.

The horsesong slowed to the two-beat rhythm of a trot. Realizing that he had forgotten the Index on the road, a three-horned troll scampered out, picked up the codex with bony claws, and dove back into the pile of monsters just before a horse and rider came into view around the bend.

Still paralyzed, Nicodemus lay under a blanket of phantasms, all of which had become as still as death. Though a webbed hand covered his right eye, he could still see with his left.

Four white horse legs appeared as the animal trotted to within five feet of where he lay. Two tattered boots dropped into view as the rider dismounted.

The newcomer spoke with a low, gruff voice: “I know you are near, Nicodemus Weal. Your keloid calls out to me.” The boots took halting steps around the horse.

Through terror’s haze, Nicodemus recognized Fellwroth’s voice.

“Moments ago the keloid’s texts became diffuse. Something is interfering. But still, I knew I’d find you on this road. You took your sweet time, whelp. I had to wait in the miserable town until I felt you coming down the mountainside.”

The boots limped up the road as Fellwroth searched. The monster inhaled with a slight whistling sound.

“Impressive, this spell that hides you and masks the keloid’s spells,” he growled. “It must be in a language I have never encountered. You must have a new protector; we both know your retarded mind could never manage such a subtext.”

Fellwroth now stepped into the meadow on the road’s opposite side. Nicodemus, numb with terror, could do nothing but watch as the fiend’s cloaked back came into view.

The monster had donned a new white shroud, but he limped badly and his right sleeve hung lifelessly at his side.

This was the same iron golem Nicodemus had faced in the compluvium.

Apparently finding nothing in the grass, Fellwroth staggered back to the horse. “This body has known too much abuse. I have only a few moments. Likely this golem will fail before I find you.”

The creature took in another whistling breath. “You are out of Starhaven now, so the game has changed. Your power is greater than I’d supposed. Perhaps we can come to an agreement.” He paused for another difficult breath. “Whelp, you now have a choice. And it is vital that you make the right one.”

The monster stepped straight toward Nicodemus. “If you continue to run from me, you will die.”

The boots stopped not a foot from the pile. “I would rather you lived. That is why I will tell you how to recover the missing part of your mind.”

FELLWROTH WAS SO close now that Nicodemus could hear something squeaking like a rusty door hinge inside the golem’s body. The monster’s heart?

“I trust Shannon has told you about Language Prime,” Fellwroth said in a slow, metallic voice. “I trust he told you that it is the first language, the source of all magic. But your old teacher might not have known that Language Prime can be used to change a living creature’s body and mind.”

The monster’s boots shifted toward the meadow. “You should know your father was a demon-worshiper. When you were an infant, Typhon gave your father an emerald we brought across the ocean from the ancient kingdom of Aaraheuminest. But that is an archaic name. The fools of this age have contracted the name to Aarahest.”

With a gravelly crunch, the boots pivoted back to face Nicodemus. “Your father used the emerald to cut into your mind. It stole a rare talent that you inherited from your Imperial ancestry. It stole your ability to spell correctly in any language, even Language Prime.”

The boots turned downhill. “When I touched you, we both saw your father drawing your ability to spell into the emerald. I had not realized until that moment that the emerald had scarred you. If I had, I could have used the keloid to identify you. But no matter. Now anyone holding the emerald gains the Language Prime fluency that you were born with.”

Now the boots turned uphill. Apparently the monster had not given up searching for him. “But unfortunately, the gem loses strength over time. So once every four years, Typhon had to replenish the emerald by touching it to you. The gem is losing strength now. I tell you this so you will know how valuable you could be to me. I reward those I value.”

The monster paused as if to emphasize this last claim before continuing. “Who you were and how to reach you, the old monster hid from me. And when I killed the demon, I did so before learning how to find you.”

An eerie, metallic laugh filled the night as the monster moved out of Nicodemus’s view. “And maybe that is what the emerald wanted. The gem looks after itself, Nicodemus. It longs to return to you. It is insidious. It sends dreams to those near it; it tries to deceive its wielders. It betrayed Typhon. It showed me in a dream how to kill the demon when he was trying to infect a minor deity.”

Fellwroth’s footsteps halted. “The emerald is using me to find its way back to you. But its desire to be near you now betrays you.”

The golem laughed again. “The keloid on your neck is a by-product of the stone. It is not truly part of you. It grows out of proportion of your body. It is disobedient like a canker curse, and like a canker it can forge magical language. When I touched you, the scar sensed that my living body now holds the gem. And so the keloid began to forge Language Prime spells. It broadcasts them to reveal your location to the emerald.”

Through the haze of his terror, Nicodemus remembered how the keloid had become unbearably hot.

“I had hoped to follow the keloid’s signals to you,” Fellwroth added. “But this strange spell that is hiding you from my eye is also diffusing the signal.”