Fantastic Schools: Volume 2

by Nuttall, Christopher G.

  “Did you meet the ship, Magus?” a boy asked.

  Leonid grinned. Jokes about his age were common enough from his class, and he didn’t mind. “No, that was my father,” he quipped back, to some amused chuckles.

  He got the lecture back on track smoothly. “So why are we covering apportation? Well, there are applications where it makes sense. It used for traveling to the realms. It’s more expensive than passage on a ship, but a lot of companies do business in Nightmare these days, and it’s worth it to them to have an executive get to a meeting in a few seconds rather than a week. And some folks are rich enough to take a vacation that way. There are a number of firms in Dracoheim that specialize in transport.

  “Also goods that are high in value and low in weight—Ferose clockwork engines, for example, or Nivose metapharmaceuticals. It depends on what’s more important—cost or speed.”

  He stepped to the calculating engine and turned it on. The gears clacked as it reset itself to all zeroes. He looked back to his class. “Some of you will never see an apportation rig outside of this class. Some of you may be prepping one every day of your career. It all depends on where you end up working. When I was in private practice, I don’t think I opened one more than a half dozen times. But it’s important to understand the principles involved in any event.”

  He went to empty side of the chalkboard and wrote 9.9 mC.

  “Today, gentlemen, we are going to Ventose.”

  He then wrote down a series of coordinates, then checked them against his notes. Satisfied, he nodded. “This is a spot in the Stone Forest, about twenty miles north of the Malignium. It should be empty—we don’t want to disturb any chigoes. We haven’t filed an import plan, so we aren’t actually going anywhere. We’re just going to open the apport link, verify that it goes where we want it to go, and shut it down.”

  Lastly, he chalked 180s. “Three minutes should be enough time to let you all take a look through the window—not that there’s going to be much to see.”

  He turned to face the class. “You’ll find the worksheet you need in Appendix C, on page 432. I’m going to give you...” he pulled out his watch and checked it. “...twenty minutes. Work it out separately, and then compare your answers. When I get back, I expect you to have settled on one answer. Remember, we need a value for the theta, rho, and lambda axis, an initial charge value, a differential plotted over time, and, of course the duration.” A grin. “That’s the easy part—I gave you that one. One hundred eighty seconds.”

  The students obediently opened their textbooks and got their notebooks and slide-rules out. Leonid checked his watch again as he left the classroom. Two short hallways and a flight of stairs took him to his office. A buff-colored internal mail envelope sat in the wire basket that hung on the outside of his office door; he snagged it as he unlocked the door.

  Sitting at the desk in his cluttered little office, Leonid reached behind him to pull an alchemical retort from one of his bookshelves, then a small beaker. He poured himself a neat shot of absinthe from the retort and sipped it as he sorted his mail.

  His subscription to the Journal of Noetic Materials Science was up for renewal; did he want to the college to renew it? Yes, please.

  A reminder that midterm marks would be due on Oneday the 34th of Siebenember. No problem; his teaching load was light, and his marks were mostly tabulated already. He made a note to have a chat with one of his first years, Connors, about his performance in Intro to Lab Prep. The young man was eager to learn but tended to be sloppy.

  Would he still be willing to act as a chaperon for the Autumn Mixer Dance? Absolutely! Looking forward to it.

  The minutes from the last Thautamagy Department Meeting. Blah, blah, blah, blah, and in conclusion, blah.

  He polished off his shot and glanced at the wall clock. Time to go back and see how the boys were doing. He set the retort and the beaker back in their places and grabbed a licorice candy from a dish on his desk to suck on.

  He heard the low buzz of conversation in the room as he approached. It cut off neatly when he opened the door.

  “All right,” he said. “Before I get your numbers for the exercise, I wanted to remind you all that tickets for the Autumn Mixer go on sale next week. This is our year to host, so there’s also going to be sign-up sheet for volunteers for decorating the gym. I’ll be chaperoning again, so I’ll expect you to be on your best behavior and treat the young ladies of the Quayside School of Nursing with professionalism and respect.”

  “Are you going to be dancing, Magus?”

  Leonid grinned. “I will. And if Matron Eleanor attends, you might even get to see my tango.”

  Then he turned serious. “Okay, let’s take a look at your data. Mr. Burke, how about you give me the figures?”

  As the student read off the numbers, Leonid chalked them on the board. Then, keeping his face and voice neutral, he asked, “Did everyone get the same numbers? Any disagreement?”

  Silence greeted his words.

  “This is not a trick question,” Leonid said kindly. “I want to make sure that you all understand how to do these calculations properly.”

  “I got one point six E for the rho index,” a student spoke up from the back. “but I know what I did wrong.”

  “Which was?”

  “I forgot to renormalize after I divided both sides by negative E.”

  Leonid nodded. “I threw you boys a curve on the local coordinates. Anybody else forget to renormalize?”

  A couple of hands went tentatively up.

  “You didn’t remember summer,” he chided them.

  He wrote SUMMER on the board, and then tapped each letter in turn. “Verify your symbol set. Check your units. Be sure of your metrics. Double check your math. Equalize your terms. And lastly, renormalize your terms. If you have any complex numbers, you need to get them out of there.”

  He turned back to the class and said seriously, “Accuracy, gentlemen. Accuracy. You have to get it right. Right the first time, right every time. We are dealing with powerful and unforgiving forces here. There are no second chances in magic. If you get nothing else out of this class, I want to you to get in the habit of double checking everything. It’s got to be a habit. A reflex. We all make mistakes, but in this business, mistakes kill.”

  He paused to look over his class. Their faces were grave. He nodded. “You have to catch your mistakes before they become disasters. Once the working has started, it’s too late.”

  Then he lit a cigarette and smiled. “Well, if you’re sure this is right, let’s get it going. How about you set the engine, Mr. Kent?”

  Kent came forward with his notebook and a look of almost comical concentration on his face. While he was inputting the numbers, Leonid said, “And, Mr. Shotwell, if you would be so kind as to ground the accumulators before we begin. They are going to be gathering a wicked charge on this exercise; we want to start them as close to flat as possible.”

  Shotwell came up and took a short wooden wand with a copper tip from the workbench. Carefully, he touched the tip to each of the glass accumulators in turn. Sparks flew as the wand released the stored energy.

  “The rest of you come down here and gather around. During the three minutes that the grid is active, the space directly above the energized copper will be coincident with Ventose. The ceiling of this room is equipped with a dampening grid, otherwise the area of correspondence would extend upwards to the limit of the generator’s power—about twenty feet.”

  Leonid gestured for the students to form a circle around the plate. “Watch the accumulators. Do not touch them—they can give you enough a shock to stop your heart.”

  He waited until the students had formed a circle around the copper sheet, all of them giving the glass topped accumulators a wide berth.

  “The area that we will be congruent to in Ventose is relatively empty; that’s why I chose it. I have done this particular exercise for the last ten years with these coordinates. However, remember this is
an alien universe. The other realms are collectively called Nightmare for a reason.”

  He looked over at Kent, who was frowning down at the dials on the calculating engine.

  “Are we all set, Mr. Kent?”

  “Yes, Magus.” He didn’t sound sure.

  “Someone... you, Mr. Baker. Double-check the program.”

  Baker dutifully looked over the dials and checked them against the figures on the board. “He’s got it right.”

  “Then let’s do this thing,” Leonid grinned at the students. These boys had grown up in a world shaped by magic. They had lived in houses lit by electricity produced by aefrits, ridden in cars fueled by elixir made by undines, owned toys and tools made by the forged ones of Ferose. They had seen oneiroi walking the streets of their city.

  And yet, this would almost certainly be their first look into one of the alien universes that made it all possible. These boys weren’t rich kids; they were the sons of commercial fishermen and dockworkers. A generation ago, they would have no doubt followed in their father’s footsteps, but the new technologies spawned by industrial magic had created a demand for skilled workers.

  And if most of them never attained the lofty title of magus, what did that matter? They’d make a good living in the power plant or refineries or as lab workers.

  Leonid took out his keys and unlocked the connection the school’s generators. A red light glowed in a caged bulb above the panel. “We are live, gentlemen,” he said. “Mr. Kent, begin the program.”

  Kent pulled the start lever on the calculating engine, and the dials began clicking through their complex movements, regulating the flow of energy into the copper sheet.

  The air above the plate grew cloudy, and then, very suddenly, they could see through the mist to another world. It was an impressive view.

  The Stone Forest of Ventose was a jagged landscape. Rock spires thrust up through the ground, ranging from a few feet high to enormous monoliths that stretched up until their tops were lost in the mist. The sky was a dull, almost metallic gray, glowing with a sourceless light that made no shadows. Leonid had selected the coordinates to put the point of correspondence at the top of a sharp rise, and the alien world stretched out for miles below them.

  The rapt fascination of the class was gratifying. This was Leonid’s favorite part of teaching magic: the wonder on the young men’s faces as they saw with their own eyes the power of the craft.

  “Ventose, gentlemen,” Leonid said. “The Realm of Lord Chimiculeon the Many.”

  He glanced on the time display on the calculating engine. It clicked from 157 seconds to 156, then to 155.

  Just then a beetle the size of a large dog swooped out of the mist and into the classroom, its wings clattering as it flew. The students, startled, jerked away from the path of the creature. Leonid saw Shotwell, intent on avoiding the flying thing, about to brush up against one of the accumulators. He reached to pull the boy back and one of the other students bumped into him from behind.

  The shock of the stored energy of the accumulator threw Leonid forward onto the conductive sheet, but instead of copper there was dirt under his feet. His boot caught on a stone, and he staggered forward, still dazed from the jolt. His legs went out from under him, spilling his down the slope. His head hit the base of one of the stone pillars, and the lights went out.

  “Magus!”

  Leonid blinked away tears and looked up into the face of one of his students... Shotwell, it was.

  “Is he alive?” Someone else asked. Also a student. Mr... Kent.

  His head was clearing. He still felt the tingles from the jolt he’d gotten from the accumulator. He couldn’t have been out more than a few minutes.

  Minutes.... shit. The contingency field must have collapsed by now and behind Shotwell’s head he could see the shifting gray of Ventose’s sky.

  “It’s okay,” Leonid said, trying to sit up. His head ached, and he felt nauseated. “They’ll send someone for us. Might be an hour or more, they’ll need to wait for the interference to—”

  “We don’t have an hour, sir.” Kent whispered.

  Leonid turned his head—a bolt of pain lancing down his spine—and saw Kent. There were figures behind the boy, and Leonid struggled to focus on them.

  Smaller than man-sized, with long thin limbs, far too many of them.

  Chigoes.

  “It’s okay,” Leonid repeated. His voice sounded shaky to his own ears. He made an effort to control it. “A moment, if you please,” he called to the crowd of natives. “I hit my head in the transfer, I’m still a bit...”

  He started to lever himself to his feet.

  The response from the chigoes was immediate. Complicated machines that had to be weapons were leveled in his direction. Leonid sat back down, cursing his fuzzy head. Were those... yes, the weapons, the glint of armor on their bodies, the military stance. Warrior caste.

  But why? Why would a squad of warriors be out here in the middle of nowhere? And why would they be drawing down on three unarmed humans?

  “They say we’re smugglers, sir,” Shotwell said softly. “I tried to convince them we’re not.”

  “I am Magus Leonid Vetch,” Leonid said. “I am bound by oath to the Lord Mayor of Dracoheim, and, through him, I am signatory to the Accords of Nightmare. These men are Thodd Shotwell and Vladimir Kent, my apprentices, and I am guarantor of their obedience to those same accords. We intend no insult to the lands of Ventose or the Court of Lord Chimiculeon. We are here by mistake—a training accident.”

  One of chigoes stepped forward. It stood just under four feet tall and was mostly legs—powerful hind limbs like a grasshopper and two sets of long arms. Its body was covered with a jointed carapace. Only its face looked soft, disturbingly human features on its insectile body.

  “I am Captain Tethikthik of the Royal Guard. We have been hunting for some time a smugglers who bring unlawful goods from Nivose into our realm. We have reports that they apport into this region—just the area where you have appeared.”

  “We’re not morauxe,” Kent protested. “We’re human. From the Midworld.”

  The captain nodded. “Yes, but it is not uncommon for morauxe to hire human magi.”

  “I see,” Leonid said slowly. It made sense. Smugglers would choose the Stone Forest for the same reason he had, because it was uninhabited. “Wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “We must question you.” The captain’s voice was firm.

  “Can’t you do something?” Shotwell whispered.

  “Help me up,” Leonid said.

  With one of the boys on either side he was able to get to his feet. The dizziness and sickness would pass, he knew. It was far from the first time he’d gotten a nasty shock in the lab.

  “As visitors—however unintentionally—in your realm we will, of course, cooperate fully with the Royal Guard,” Leonid said to the captain, then turned to his students.

  “The justice of the Court of Lord Chimiculeon is beyond question,” Leonid said, addressing his words to his students but speaking as much for the benefit of the guards. “As innocent men we have nothing to fear.” He managed a grin.

  “But...” Shotwell gestured uphill, towards where they had apported in.

  “My colleagues will send someone looking for us,” Leonid said.

  “They will be questioned as well,” the captain said, “and should you be as innocent as you claim, you will allowed to leave together.”

  “But...” Shotwell said again. He seemed unable to say more.

  “Mr. Shotwell,” Leonid said sternly, “I have pledged my cooperation to Captain Tethikthik—” he only stumbled slightly over the name “—and as my apprentice I have guaranteed your cooperation as well. Do you understand me?”

  Shotwell looked to the armed chigoes and then back to Leonid. “Yes, Magus,” he said.

  Leonid’s eyes flicked to the captain and then back to the boy.

  Shotwell took the hint. “Your instructions, sir?” he sai
d formally to the captain.

  “Come with us.” The captain turned and headed down slope.

  Leonid headed after him, noticing that while the captain had turned his back on them, the other guardsmen had not. Shotwell and Kent fell into step beside him.

  Leonid turned to Kent. “Do you understand as well?”

  Kent nodded. “Our full cooperation with the representatives of the Court.” He smiled. “I had nothing planned for the weekend except going crabbing with some of the guys. This is going to be an interesting story to tell.”

  Leonid smiled back. “That’s the spirit.”

  The chigoes were all different. They ranged in size from knee-high on the humans to nearly as tall as they were. Most had six limbs, but some had eight, and one seemed to have a dozen, all spindly and in constant motion. They had hard carapaces in patterns of dark colors, deep reds, blues, greens, purples. In the gray light they shone like oiled metal.

  Their weapons were as varied as their own bodies, each clearly built to their own requirements. Only the ammunition seemed standardized; they were all loaded with gleaming steel arrows with wicked serrated tips.

  Leonid couldn’t tell how the bolts would be propelled and didn’t want to find out. He didn’t know much about chigo technology. Nobody did, really. There wasn’t much trade between the Midworld and Ventose. Lord Chimiculeon had accepted the Nightmare accords and agreed to the exchange of embassies but seemed to have little interest in the Midworld or the human race. There was a complicated three-way alliance between Verdemaire, Ventose, and Ferose, but Leonid didn’t expect any humans outside of few specialists knew the details.

  Nor did humans have much interest in Ventose. The insect-like chigoes were too disturbing. Other oneiroi like norns, rashlings, and even morauxe were more or less humanoid, if not human. The djinn, undines, and aefrits were entirely alien, with bodies that weren’t physical, living masses of wind or fire or water.