Fantastic Schools: Volume One (Fantastic Schools Anthologies Book 1)

by Christopher G Nuttall

  Ardmoor gave him a withering look: “Perhaps just to thank you for doing nothing for the last ten years and leaving him a tender and appetizing morsel for dessert, now he’s polished off his main course. Or perhaps for leaving him some very powerful allies.”

  “Don’t blame me for that, Ardmoor! It was Plumbgood who gave the orders here.”

  “And you obeyed them. That is precisely what I am blaming you for.” Ardmoor turned back to the students. “As of now, I am taking charge of this school as its Acting Headmaster. I’m very sorry for what’s happened to you. You are not monsters. It’s not your fault that you are at Calarzat. It’s even less your fault that you have been taught so little.

  “Despite that, the real situation is this: You—we, in this room—are now the last defense of mankind. That is one of the reasons, in fact, that Calarzat was founded. Professor Plumbgood was more concerned with making you safe and normal than he was in making you adults.” Ardmoor took a deep breath.

  “Therefore, as much as it may pain you, I need to see what each of you are capable of.”

  The biggest of the werewolves rose. Cocked his head. “The Dark Lord is coming here?”

  “That is what I said, yes.”

  “And you want to see what we can do?”

  “If I have to repeat myself after every sentence, it will be a long night, Mr….”

  “You want a name? Wolves don’t have names. Don’t need ‘em. I’m Alpha.”

  “Thank you for volunteering, Alpha. Show me what you can do.”

  “What I can do?” Alpha hopped from foot to foot, as if he could hardly contain himself. “What I can DO?”

  Ardmoor didn’t move. Just stared.

  “It goes like this!” and in an implosion of gray fur, the angry young man was gone, and in its place a huge wolf galloped toward Ardmoor, jaws wide and slavering.

  “Fulgurum!”

  Lightning shot from the end of Ardmoor’s stave. It had appeared in his hand faster than anyone could follow. Alpha screamed and fell twitching to the floor. The wolf seized, and the young man reappeared in its place, with black, smoking burns scorched into his body.

  “Submit,” said Ardmoor, putting his foot on the young man’s shoulder.

  “Fuck you,” snarled the boy.

  “As you will,” said Ardmoor. He stepped back. “Ogu zvoguuz!” A black beam shot from his stave. The young man convulsed once, and died.

  Ardmoor took a step forward and locked eyes with the rest of the pack. “Would any of the rest of you like to show me what you can do?”

  The biggest girl dropped to her knees. “Pack leader,” she grated. The rest of them followed suit.

  “Pack leader. Pack leader.”

  “So long as that’s understood,” said Ardmoor. “What’s your name?”

  “Vyelka, Pack leader,” said the girl, keeping her eyes downcast.

  “Are the rest of you as capable as your erstwhile leader?”

  “Almost. Pack leader.”

  “Then I’d suggest that if it comes to fighting a real wizard, you confine yourselves to leaping out of shadows. Unless some of you have managed some real offensive magic? Or even defensive magic?”

  “We were never taught such things,” Vyelka said.

  “Of course, you weren’t.” Ardmoor turned a baleful eye on Urbanis.

  “Well, what did you expect us to do, make them deadlier?”

  “You were expected,” said Ardmoor frostily, “to teach them something practical. Something that would keep them safe. In case, they, trying to live lives as normally as possible, might be attacked by someone who decided that the only good werewolf was a dead one. A shield. Or concealment. Something!”

  “We… that is, Professor Plumbgood thought… in case they should, ah, behave antisocially as adults… the responsible thing…”

  “Would be to leave them as vulnerable to destruction as possible. Yes. I see they’ve learned that lesson well. So well that their leader was willing to turn on us because he’d decided that his entire lack of education was a plot to make him easily killed.”

  “And that is not your plan?” asked Vyelka.

  “No. You have no reason to believe me, I suppose. But if the Dark Lord wins, he already has several adult werewolves who are fully-trained sorcerers as well. That makes you weak. And he is not gentle with weakness.” Ardmoor turned. “Let’s see this end of the table.”

  One by one, Edric watched his classmates demonstrate their skills again. Ardmoor looked at the dark sphere.

  “And what is your name?”

  “Nyctera.”

  “And what is that you are in the middle of?” he asked.

  “Like Ian, my parents tried to conceal me from the Dark Lord. Since he is known for using darkness as a weapon, they tried to protect me from it.”

  “What is the effect?” asked Ardmoor. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “I see in the dark,” said Nyctera.

  “See in the dark?” echoed Ardmoor. “That seems far too simple.”

  “I see only in the dark,” said the voice. “But I should show you.” The field of darkness shrank, and shrank, and suddenly, there she was, her skin paper white, dressed in a long, white skirt and blouse. Her eyes were blank orbs of onyx. “I can’t see anyone now,” she said.

  “They blinded you?” asked Ardmoor.

  “It’s worse than that,” muttered Tallmadge.

  And suddenly, the lights in the room went out. All was swallowed up in the most complete darkness Edric had ever experienced. Something brushed past him. Ardmoor gasped.

  “My table knife is at your spine, Professor,” Nyctera said. “Your light spell will not work. I keep my field of vision limited as a courtesy to my fellow students. But I would not want you to think we were all helpless.”

  And suddenly, the lights came on again, leaving Professor Ardmoor half-engulfed by the sphere of darkness.

  “Indeed not,” he said, taking a long step away. “Well done.”

  Ardmoor’s gaze swept over Edric and Karen. “Karen, I have known since I brought her here. And Edric…” he trailed off.

  Don’t tell them what I become, Edric thought. Did Ardmoor read his mind? “Edric knows more of Porcinoma than probably anyone here in this room.”

  “All right,” Ardmoor said. “It’s time for our Council of War. I think we will not find a better location for it, seeing as we are all here.” He waved his stave. Immediately, a map in three dimensions, made up of glowing wires, formed in the air in front of them. It formed a rough cone made up of concentric circles descending until it hit a glowing red shape. Something was wrong with the shape, Edric realized. It looked as though it had been folded into directions that shouldn’t—that couldn’t, really—exist. It sucked at Edric’s attention like the hole left by a missing tooth.

  “Professor Urbanis, please summarize what we will find, and where.”

  Urbanis sighed. “Calarzat has one entrance, but it’s not designed to keep people from getting in. The largest circle contains the student dormitories and the dining hall, where we sit. The next circle down, is for classrooms, where the students spend most of their time. The aquaria and terraria are on the fourth circle, as are the exercise rooms. The fifth circle is magical resource storage and hazardous labs. The sixth circle is professorial quarters and…” Urbanis hesitated, but under Ardmoor’s glare, continued. “And the relic laboratories.”

  “Is there anything there we can use?” asked Ardmoor.

  “Used?” yelped Urbanis. “They can be investigated with the most extreme care. But if you meddle with them, I won’t even be on the same floor, Ardmoor. I swear it!”

  “In this, I trust your judgment, Urbanis,” said Ardmoor. “But am I correct in seeing that multiple staircases connect each floor, except from the fifth to the sixth?”

  “Yes. There is but a single entry,” said Urbanis. “And from the sixth circle to the Chamber.” He gestured to the shape.

  “Wha
t about teleportation?” asked Ardmoor.

  Urbanis shook his head. “Only known faculty can do it here.”

  Ardmoor turned to the students. “The Chamber is why the Dark Lord and his new allies are coming here.”

  “Stop dancing about it, can’t you and tell us what it is!” roared a voice. With shock, Edric realized it was his.

  He braced himself for a stunning rebuke, but Ardmoor merely nodded. “Sorry. Sometimes I forget that I am talking to pupils. But you are also soldiers, now.

  “The Chamber contains an… artifact of tremendous power. The Dark Lord now dominates the whole of the sorcerous world. With Calarzat’s power at his command, he will be, effectively, a god.”

  “Excellent,” muttered Karen.

  “Now let’s see what you know,” said Ardmoor. “Karen, what can we expect the Dark Lord to attack with, besides of course his formidable magical skills?”

  “Undead, of course,” she said. “It’s not as though his strength ever was in originality. He’s just extremely powerful. He’ll throw hordes of wights at us. Plus whatever wannabe dark lordettes he decides to bring along.”

  “Correct. Among those will be now be Henry Mason. What do we know about him? Callahan?”

  “I don’t know. I always thought he was good. At everything, I mean.”

  I thought he was good, too. We all did.

  “He’s good at flying, I know that,” put in Gwen.

  “Yes, all those years on Porcinoma’s Skyball team,” put in Ian. “I saw him play, once. Don’t you know him, Edric?”

  “He’s in his sixth year,” said Edric. “I’ve seen him maybe twice.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “Until now, he’s never killed,” said Nyctera, from inside her sphere of darkness. “He always defended himself with paralysis compulsions.”

  “Very good,” said Ardmoor. “Not many people know that. Anything else?”

  “He’s always in the company of his best friends, Roger Shrewsbury and Harmony Farmwell,” said Karen.

  “Yes. What do we know about them?”

  “Harmony Farmwell is some sort of magical prodigy. She’s won just about every award Porcinoma has. Some people say Mason cheats off of her.”

  “She is an exceptional sorceress,” said Ardmoor. “Edric, you do know her. What’s she like?”

  Edric’s mind spun. Everyone was looking at him. He hadn’t mentioned that Harmony had tutored him along with some of the other struggling Owltalon second-years. She’d been kind. Willing to help.

  Just days ago, when he’d sent her an owl asking her in desperation for advice on Theriomorphosis… had she been planning to turn even then? Had she sabotaged him?

  “She’s brilliant,” he heard himself say. “She just sees how magic works. If you’re wondering whether you know a spell she doesn’t, you don’t. She knows exactly how smart she is, but sometimes…” he trailed off.

  “Yes?” prompted Ardmoor.

  “Sometimes she assumes that she’s solved everything,” Edric said. “She’s overconfident.”

  “Thank you, Edric. Did you ever meet Roger Shrewsbury?”

  Edric shook his head.

  “Isn’t he Henry Mason’s best mate?”

  “I heard he played chess. On the school team,” said Edric, suddenly. “His first year. But never since.”

  “Yes. And you’ve never heard anything else about him, have you?” asked Ardmoor. “What does that lead you to conclude?”

  “I don’t know, sir,” said Edric.

  “Yes you do,” said Ardmoor. “You know exactly what I’m driving at.”

  Edric thought furiously. “You mean he’s a strategist,” he finally said. “That his strength comes from being unknown. Like a chess player who tries to fool his opponent.”

  “Exactly.” Ardmoor gave him a wintry smile. “And chess is all about positioning. About timing. The ideal place to stop them is in the choke point between the fifth and the sixth floors. They will be expecting this. And they will hope for it, because it will mean abandoning the Institute’s magical resources to them. Therefore, I am throwing them open. You will all arm yourselves with whatever you know how to use. If you find yourself overwhelmed, retreat to the sixth-floor staircase.

  “I want the teams arranged as follows: Edric and Ian, Callahan and Nyctera, the wolfpack, and Karen and Gwen.”

  “Sir,” said Edric, gaining confidence. “If I may, it should be Gwen and Ian. They’re the deadliest together in the light.”

  “Here, what about me?” said Ian. “Sorry, Gwen, but if I take a look behind me…?”

  “Don’t,” said Ardmoor. “All right, what else?”

  Edric gained confidence. “Nyctera and Karen,” he said. “Because whatever Karen’s going to do, she could use the cover of darkness.” Karen snorted and looked like she was going to say something, but subsided at a glare from Ardmoor. “And that leaves me with Callahan,” said Edric.

  “Why do you think your combinations will work against our attackers?” asked Ardmoor.

  “I don’t especially think they will, sir,” said Edric. “But if they do, well… when Henry Mason and his mates fought the Dark Lord, they won because they stuck together. They still will stick together. And we have to be at our best together.”

  Ardmoor nodded. “All right, then. Everyone follow me, and we’ll gather our supplies. Choose carefully; we’ll have to destroy the rest.”

  Three hours later, Callahan and Edric sat crouched beneath Calarzat’s north stairwell. Explosions sounded from the upper floors. They’d been going on for about a half-hour. Calarzat’s locks and wards were still holding.

  “So, what you said about the pairs complementing each other, that made sense when it came to Nyctera and Karen, and especially Ian and Gwen,” Callahan said. His hand was alternately glowing like embers and then flaring off bright bursts of yellow flame.

  “Yes?”

  “But I don’t understand how we complement each other. In fact, I still don’t know why you’re here.”

  “Right,” Edric said, lightly. “Because we don’t have to talk about it; that’s the rule, right? According to Karen.”

  “Bloody unfair to those of us who can’t help confessing,” Callahan grumbled. “I need to know.”

  Edric turned to him. “All right, boyo,” he said, affecting Callahan’s Irish brogue as best he could. “When they come down those stairs, they’ll be looking at me. Don’t you be doing that.”

  “Why not?” asked Callahan.

  “Because I don’t want you deciding to burn me instead of them.”

  “How could you think I’d…?”

  “Trust me.”

  Callahan opened his mouth, closed it, and nodded. “How long do you think it’ll take before…”

  A final roar of thunder sounded from up the staircase, and a horde tumbled down the stairs at them.

  The bodies were gray-fleshed and rotting. Here and there crawled a few that looked a bit fresher. Some of them wore remnants of Porcinoma robes. Those were half-animal, or insect, warped by the power of the Baleful Transform in death, and mercifully unrecognizable.

  Edric raised the cryostave he had taken from the stores of Calarzat.

  “Psychra!” he cried, and a beam of ice-blue swept the horde of maddened and undead.

  Some of them froze outright. Others merely slowed. But those shielded by the newly frozen dead clambered over them and howled at Edric.

  Then Callahan cut into them. The white heat slammed into the undead and clung to them. Edric was forced back by the heat of it. Where it hit the frozen dead, they melted into thick, blackish-grey goo, running over the floor in a foul ichor. Edric thought, for a moment, that he could see something that looked like a girl made out of flames caressing one of the taller zombies and ripping him apart in soft, slow caresses. The fire is my friend, Callahan had said. It looked like rather more than a friend, Edric thought.

  Edric shifted his aim to the zombies crowding the door. “
Psychra!” he shouted again.

  Just then, Edric heard a familiar voice from the top of the stairs. “Roger, darling?”

  “Yes?” the answering voice was bland.

  “Our dear colleagues seem to be having trouble overrunning a couple of children down this flight of stairs. Take care of it, won’t you? I have some dogs to put down.”

  Harmony’s voice. It sounded just like it had in the Owltalon common room, but all the warmth had been sucked out of it. Only a cold, brassy confidence remained. Edric felt his control slipping, his body starting to flow at the edges. Hold it together. Hold it…

  “Of course.”

  Roger.“Callahan,” called Edric, barely able to spare thought to speak. “It’s Roger! He’s coming.”

  Chess-player Roger. He remembered when he’d heard Roger had played chess; it was after he’d overheard him talking in the halls with Henry Mason about using his knights to…

  …attack from unexpected angles.

  Edric whirled.

  Behind him stood a boy not much taller than himself. His face was nothing particular. Edric wouldn’t have recognized him at all except for the bright red hair that was the trademark of the Shrewsbury family. He cocked his head.

  “I know you,” Roger said. “From Porcinoma. How did you end up here? And still recognizable?”

  “With difficulty,” Edric heard himself say.

  “I’ll bet,” said Roger. “And that toy in your hand. Was that harder to come by? Klepsei!”

  The cryostave slipped from Edric’s fingers and flew into Roger’s. “Thank you,” the traitor said, leveling it at Edric’s face. Time seemed to stop. Death colder than space gathered in the stave’s tip. “And good-bye.”

  Edric’s last vestige of control snapped. He dissolved into a snarling, snapping mass of limbs and teeth, morphic field gone. His flesh ran off his bones and over the floor, arms and fangs spasmodically forming and dissolving. It was agony of chaos and ecstasy of release all at once.

  Roger screamed in terror and backpedaled. Edric threw himself forward blindly. Eyes. He had at least four, but none of them were pointed the right way. He snapped out with mouths, lashed out with tentacles. He felt one of them connect and bit convulsively.