A hood covered the monster’s face, but his scarred left hand came up to press against a maggot-white throat.

“This golem fails,” he hissed. “I leave you, Nicodemus, with a choice. Surrender to me in Starhaven and know godlike power, or resist and die.”

A violent cough wracked the monster’s chest and threw his head back. His hood slid off to reveal a long mane of pallid hair. Where there should have been smooth forehead shone a bar of flowing Numinous text. His skin was as white as paper. The features of his handsome face were delicate-thin lips, a snub nose, wide eyes.

Another violent cough wracked the creature and he fell forward, his chin striking gravel not four inches from Nicodemus’s nose.

Patches of the golem’s skin began darkening into gray iron. The thing stared straight at Nicodemus with eyes that had neither white sclera nor dark pupil. They were everywhere blood-red flecked with black.

With a violent shudder, the golem pulled his hand up as if to strike out with a spell.

But a night terror leaped off Nicodemus and onto Fellwroth’s arm. It was the three-horned troll. The squat creature pinned the golem’s arm to the dirt road.

Suddenly Nicodemus realized that he had seen the troll before. Many times before.

Something was wrong. Horribly wrong.

Nicodemus’s heart beat frantically. He struggled to escape the pile of night terrors, but now bright orange flecks flew across his vision. The ground seemed to spin. He was going to faint.

All around him, the night terrors began whispering, urging him to stay still so they could keep him hidden. Before him appeared the small, eyeless dragon with tentacles growing from its chin. He recognized this night terror too; it was called Tamelkan. He had given it that name when he was fourteen years old.

Since arriving at Starhaven, Nicodemus had been imagining monsters to infest the nearby forests. Inspired by countless books of knightly romance, he had dreamed of venturing from the academy to confront his invented foes.

Now, as impossible as it seemed, his dreams had become real. The night terrors that had hidden him from Fellwroth, the creatures that now held him down, were the same monsters he had imagined as a boy.

In a confused panic, Nicodemus thrashed harder and threw off two of the blue monsters. He staggered onto his knees, but Tamelkan lunged at him. The dragon’s tentacles wound around his head.

Overcome by his own dark fantasy, Nicodemus fell backward into unconsciousness.

CHAPTER Thirty-two

When Nicodemus awoke, he was floating through the night-shaded forest.

High above, a breeze whispered through the leafy canopy and set the black boughs swaying. A dappled wash of moonlight ebbed and flowed across the forest floor.

Remembering his near capture by Fellwroth, Nicodemus sat up with a cry. He must have fainted after the golem had expired.

His panicked voice seemed to shatter into a hundred pieces. He fell to the ground, his bottom painfully flattening a snowberry bush.

All around him ran the night terrors that had hidden him from Fellwroth. As he remembered, the creatures were the same monsters he had imagined for his boyhood adventure fantasies. Here was Fael, the lycanthropic neo-demon; Tamelkan, the eyeless dragon with a tentacled chin; insect-like Uro with a human face and hooked hands; Garkex, the horned firetroll.

In his dreams, the monsters had been massive creatures. But these blue-skinned renditions were miniature; even the mighty Tamelkan was no larger than a deer.

Nicodemus remembered that the imaginary beasts had pinned him down on the road. In fact just before he had fainted, Tamelkan had wrapped its tentacles around his head. But the night terrors did not seem hostile now. In fact, when he woke, they had been gently carrying him through the forest.

Garkex-a stone-skinned, three-horned firetroll with serrated tusks-scolded the other monsters in an unintelligible, squeaky voice. The troll was holding the Index above his head.

The sight made Nicodemus wonder if he had gone mad. What he remembered seemed like a hallucination or a nightmare. Had he truly met Fellwroth and learned that his parents were demon-worshipers?

As he considered this question, Garkex’s cries seemed to calm the other monsters. They stopped their flight to peer back at Nicodemus.

Garkex continued his unintelligible harangue. Slowly, like frightened dogs, the monsters returned. Some were bowing, some lowering their muzzles or eye-stalks.

The firetroll planted himself directly before Nicodemus and presented the Index.

Nicodemus shook himself. No, he wasn’t crazy; he truly had encountered Fellwroth, and he truly was staring at Garkex-his fictional childhood nemesis.

He took the Index from the diminutive troll and hugged it to his chest. Garkex began to lecture him-his horns spitting minute orange flames when he squeaked out more vehement syllables.

Nicodemus stared blankly at the monsters as they lifted him up and recommenced their journey through the forest. He wondered if he should try to flee.

But if the night terrors had wanted him dead, they could have torn him to pieces when he fainted. Or they might simply have let Fellwroth find him.

He decided to let the monsters carry him.

As they went among the widely spaced trees, speckled moonlight passed over them. Their course brought the party to a mountainside creek, which the monsters crossed with impressive speed. Then Nicodemus found himself being carried through a wilderness of sword ferns that tickled his legs. Garkex chastised the vegetation for getting in their way.

When they passed into another patch of moonlight, Nicodemus saw the cold turn his breath into pale jets of air.

The monsters marched through meadows, along ponds, and through dense thickets. Scattered through the forest were dead or dying trees. Watching this scenery, Nicodemus thought about what Fellwroth had told him.

Could he believe the golem? Could it be true that a demon had arranged his birth?

Nicodemus’s heart beat faster. From the day he had learned that he was a cacographer, everything had seemed to be error. Life wasn’t what it was “supposed” to be. He wasn’t supposed to be a source of misspelled, dangerous language. He was supposed to be the Halcyon, the wellspring of constructive, healing texts.

But now it seemed that his disability, his monstrosity, was exactly what was meant to have happened. He came from a family of demon-worshipers. He had been bred to be a monster.

It was possible that Fellwroth had lied. But some instinct deep inside Nicodemus knew that the golem had been telling the truth.

“I won’t be a demon’s puppet!” Nicodemus growled, clenching his hands. The golem had said that those of Imperial blood could be tools used to assist or resist the Disjunction.

Well then, he would become a weapon for the resistance.

He closed his eyes and imagined the Emerald of Arahest. Its brilliant, lacriform shape appeared before him. Here was his salvation. He would focus his every desire on recovering the gem. And when he had it back, his mind would be complete. Then he could oppose the Disjunction.

Suddenly the keloid scars on his neck grew hot. “Fiery heaven!” he swore.

Fellwroth had said that the keloids were betraying his location by broadcasting spells written in a language he couldn’t see. But the golem had also said that some force was diffusing these same spells. He supposed the night terrors now carrying him were the force interfering with the keloids’ spells. But despite the diffusion, Fellwroth could still approximate his whereabouts.

There was no escape.

And there was the dragon to think of. What if Fellwroth truly had used the emerald to create the dragon that attacked Trillinon? Could Nicodemus continue to live knowing his death would delay another such attack? Did he have a responsibility to kill himself?