A Scholar of Magics

by Caroline Stevermer

  Jane’s eyes, intent behind her goggles, held his for a long moment. “For now, Greenlaw is my home. Where is your home?”

  “For now?” Lambert hesitated. Already his work at Glasscastle had come to an official end. Before the day was over, he might see its unofficial end. Yet something in his heart made Lambert answer finally, “Glasscastle. For a little while longer.”

  “And after that?” Jane’s eyes were as gentle as her voice.

  “I don’t know.” Lambert made himself smile. “I’ll have to see.”

  Jane smiled back. “Sometimes I catch myself thinking it’s such a pity you are a man. But then again—” She broke off, as if taken aback by what she had been about to say.

  “Then again, what?” Lambert looked at her curiously.

  All Jane’s attention was on the motor car as she put the Minotaur into gear and started on her way. A bit gruffly, she answered, “Then again, maybe it isn’t.”

  That it was not quite five o’clock when the Minotaur drew up at the great gate of Glasscastle owed more to Jane’s utter disregard for the laws against driving to the common danger than it did to Lambert’s navigation. Their traveling luck had improved, Lambert decided.

  “At last.” Jane, her illusion held so close a casual onlooker couldn’t see it, was out of the dusty vehicle as soon as she’d shut off the engine. She pulled off her goggles and ran to the gatekeeper. At the gatekeeper’s refusal, she turned to beckon Lambert to sign for her admittance.

  Lambert followed more slowly. “Are you sure you want to leave the Minotaur right there by the bench?”

  “It will be fine there for the moment.” Jane composed herself while Lambert signed the visitors’ book, but impatience shimmered around her like heat off a roof. “I must see Robin as soon as possible.”

  “We don’t even know that they’ve brought them all back yet. That was a lot of livestock for anyone to move,” Lambert pointed out. “Mixed stock, at that.” He was just glad he wasn’t the man in charge of the herd.

  The gatekeeper spoke up. “The transformations, you mean? They’re back. Came by special train last night. They’ve been quartered on Midsummer Green. It took hours to change the trespassing spell so they would all be safe on the grass. Quite a sight, it is. There’s no end to the number of would-be gawkers I’ve had to turn away.” The gatekeeper’s expression made it clear that he would be only too glad of an excuse to turn Lambert and Jane away too.

  “Excellent. Good work. Keep it up” Jane swept Lambert after her through the arch. Once inside Glasscastle, she stopped in her tracks. “Oh, dear.”

  Before them, scattered across Midsummer Green, tranquil in the steeply angled shadows and deep golden sunlight of the summer afternoon, were the denizens of St. Hubert’s. There were not just deer, cats, rats, and dogs of every description. There was a badger, a seagull, several hedgehogs, and a fox. The serenity that kept them in place was as palpable as the scent of fresh-cut grass, a drowsiness that was almost audible in the perfect silence. They were people shaped like animals, not true animals at all, but they were remarkably calm people.

  A handful of undergraduates displayed the only signs of energy. Prompt to exploit the novelty of being able to walk on the grass, they’d brought cricket gear and set up an impromptu pitch. Play had not yet commenced, due to a spirited disagreement over who would umpire.

  Caught up in the peace of the place, Lambert started to yawn and stifled it. “What a spectacle. All we lack are some of the buffalo from the show.”

  Porteous, carrying a black leather satchel the size of a violin case, joined them in time to overhear Lambert. “It does resemble one of the more detailed Netherlandish Adorations of the Lamb, does it not?” Porteous paused to reconsider. “Perhaps I mean Adoration of the Lambs. No. I certainly do not. Adorations, definitely.”

  “Is that Robin with Amy?” Jane asked, at the same moment Lambert asked, “Where’s Voysey?”

  “Please.” Porteous held up his hands. “One at a time.” To Jane, he said, “I believe that is your brother, couchant just over there.” He pointed to a black-and-white border collie lying at the feet of Amy Brailsford, who was sitting on the grass, resplendent in white linen. “We sent for her. We thought your brother would prefer it that way.” To Lambert, he said, “We aren’t positive by any means, but we think Voysey is the fox.” Porteous patted the satchel at his side. “We’re safe enough. He’ll not get at that infernal device of his again.”

  “Where’s Fell?” Lambert and Jane asked together.

  “Now that’s a curious thing. We took him under our care, for his own protection, you understand?” Porteous paused to make sure that they did indeed understand. “But now we can’t seem to find him anywhere.”

  Jane and Lambert exchanged horrified looks.

  Porteous looked rather horrified himself. “Yes, I know. He can’t have escaped on his own. Someone must have helped him.” He hailed Jack Meredith as he passed. “Any sign of Fell yet?”

  “Hello, James.” Meredith answered Porteous as if he were the only one there. “They’re still searching the Holythorn quad, but no. Not yet. Another hour, perhaps.” He walked away without waiting for more questions.

  “That’s strange.” Porteous was looking at his pocket watch. “It’s past five o’clock. Did you hear the bells strike the hour?”

  Lambert ignored the older man’s fussing, annoyed at the way Meredith had given him the cut direct. The message was clear. Now that the Agincourt Project was over, now that he was of no immediate use to Glasscastle, Lambert was no longer of any interest to Meredith.

  “My dear child, what are you doing?” Porteous was staring at Jane with a combination of outrage and repulsion. “You assured me you could manage your duplicare spell by yourself.”

  Lambert put Meredith’s discourtesy out of his mind and turned back to see that both Jane and her illusion were now clearly visible. The illusion was frightened. It had already faded to sepia, and was walking rapidly away from Jane across the velvety turf of Midsummer Green.

  The effort it took to exercise her magic within Glasscastle had turned Jane herself pale. She was ashen, as white as whey under her veil. Plaintively, she tried to call her illusion back. The illusion walked on, ignoring her. Jane gave up and followed it across the green.

  “See here, you can’t do that,” Porteous called after her. He turned to Lambert. “She can’t do that.”

  But Jane was following the illusion toward the quadrangle in front of Wearyall. Both were walking, but the illusion was walking faster. It moved with the air of someone who was being pushed along by a high wind, or pulled along against her will. The hem and cuffs of the motoring coat it wore, a faded duplicate of Jane’s, seemed to flutter and blur at the edges, as if some unseen force consumed them. Jane followed, first on grass and then on gravel.

  Lambert saw what was coming and felt every bruise he carried come to life in empathy. The spell on Midsummer Green had been adjusted, but every other green in Glasscastle was as dangerous as ever.

  Lambert grasped Porteous by the elbow and jostled him after Jane and her illusion. “Come on. The illusion can walk on the grass of any green, not just Midsummer. Jane can’t. Unless you catch up with Jane, the illusion will give Jane the slip when she can’t go any farther without a Fellow of Glasscastle as escort.”

  Protesting vigorously as the satchel banged his thigh every step of the way, Porteous yielded to Lambert’s urging. “It’s past five o’clock,” he protested.

  “It’s been a long day for me too,” Lambert replied, “but you have to keep up with Jane.”

  “You don’t understand. Listen!” Porteous shook off Lambert’s grip and sketched a gesture that took in all of Glasscastle. “Why have the bells stopped?”

  At last, Lambert noticed the silence. The drowsy serenity of Midsummer Green grew deeper still as they skirted the quadrangle in front of Wearyall College. “I don’t know why. Just hurry up.” Lambert hustled Porteous along at a half ru
n that brought them to Jane’s side.

  “No chanting, either. This is bad,” said Porteous. “This is very bad.”

  Lambert kept after him. “I don’t care. Keep going.”

  It was all too easy to keep up with Jane now. Her pursuit of the illusion had flagged until she could hardly take two steps together. The illusion cut across the green of St. Joseph’s quadrangle and increased its lead. Lambert let Porteous go and took Jane’s arm. He felt her sag against him, still walking, but only with his help. Her breath was coming fast and shallow, her skin waxen and damp with sweat. Lambert tried to halt her. Jane forged on.

  “Easy, Jane.” Lambert steadied her. “Just hold up for a minute. Catch your breath before you go on.”

  Jane’s words came out in gasps. “I can’t. She pulls. She’s draining me.” She staggered on, panting.

  “Something’s wrong,” said Porteous. “No bells. No chanting. That means something’s gone wrong with the wards themselves.”

  Together they followed Jane’s illusion through the gates of the botanical gardens, through the sudden chill shade of the triumphal arch, and into the sun-baked afternoon heat of the herb garden. The illusion, now pale almost to invisibility, moved faster as it crossed the rose garden to the second gate. They lost it for a moment, too faint to see in the dark blue shadows of late afternoon, but when they joined it in the walled labyrinth, there it was, moving swiftly through the pattern of the boxwood hedges.

  Lambert stopped at the mouth of the labyrinth. When he had accompanied Fell there, days before, the hum of Glasscastle’s wards had been a steady drone, a single constant note. Now there was utter silence. No hum. No bells. No birdsong. Lambert’s heart sank.

  “The wards are down,” said Porteous. He sounded as if he were praying. “The whole place is open.”

  Jane dropped to the ground at Lambert’s feet.

  Lambert knelt beside her. “What’s wrong?”

  Jane’s eyes were terrible. “It’s too strong.”

  “What is?”

  “The drain. It—pulls.” Jane made a dreadful soft sound—pain stifled. “It has her now.”

  Lambert looked up from Jane to see where the illusion was. He had to rise to his feet to see over the boxwood hedges. Difficult to be sure, for by this time the illusion was little more than a troubling of the air, but he thought he saw it move into the hexagonal center of the labyrinth as it faded completely. Eyes strained to catch further sight of the illusion, Lambert realized he could see, drifting in the center of the labyrinth, what he had never beheld before.

  Glassy, transparent, visible only as their motion caught the angled sunlight, barriers drifted around the hexagonal heart of the labyrinth. Walls hitherto unguessed-at were there, hidden in light, revealed by light. Lambert watched as they shifted, stately as clouds drifting across the sky on a fine afternoon. He perceived that the full scope of the maze took in not only the labyrinth itself and the garden that surrounded it but the stones and spires of all Glasscastle, university and town alike. The walls were held within walls, barriers within barriers, as neatly as the rings of an armillary sphere nested.

  The illusion had moved into the precise center of the labyrinth as it disappeared. Where had it gone? Had it gone?

  Lambert kept his eyes fixed on the hints of light that showed where the barriers were drifting. He did not look down as he stepped into the pattern of the maze. He did not spare a thought for Porteous, left beside Jane. The gleam of the transparent barriers was all that drew him. At last, he would see the heart of Glasscastle.

  No bells, no birdsong, and no sense of time passed as Lambert made his way to the center of the labyrinth. He might have crossed it in a few strides, the journey went so quickly. He might have been crossing it for years. Rapt, he set foot on the flagstones at the edge of the central hexagon. He felt the scrape of them beneath his boots, yet he saw no flagstones. The hexagon before him was open to the sky, a well of green translucent glass that fell away out of light into unimaginable shadows. But the well was not empty.

  When he looked down, Lambert felt his heart lurch with dread and with surprise. Below him, six feet down and drifting slowly downward, Fell was caught in the translucence of the well. Holding him there, gathering power as he gathered light, was the Earl of Bridgewater.

  Bridgewater was more Merlin than Arthur now, with his hat gone and his silver-streaked hair flowing almost to his collar. He grappled Fell to him, using both height and strength to subdue his captive. Bridgewater spoke slowly, with great effort, as if to soothe Fell. “Steady. Nearly ready now.”

  Jane’s illusion was gone. Forever gone. Lambert knew it without knowing how. The drowsing silence had pulled it to Bridgewater and Bridgewater had consumed it. Much of Jane’s strength had gone with the illusion, strength that now belonged to Bridgewater. More strength was going, pulled inexorably into Bridgewater’s light.

  Lambert knew without analysis that Glasscastle itself was adrift, its power and serenity pulled into Bridgewater’s orbit. As the transparent barriers continued to drift, gleaming in the fading daylight all around him, Lambert knew that Fell was adrift too. Bridgewater held him fast. It was Bridgewater’s grasp of Fell’s strength that had given him the foothold he needed to win Glasscastle. There was a piece of “Bridgewater’s magic in everything, and every tendril it sent forth was a taproot, draining the magic, drawing it back for Bridgewater’s use.

  Lambert could see it all in the way Bridgewater held Fell, a puppeteer with his puppet well in hand. Lambert could see it all in the way Fell blinked up at him, as if blinded by dazzling light.

  Fell’s voice was a rasp of pain, a husk of sound. Only the acoustics of the well gave the words strength enough to reach the surface. “Samuel, are you there?”

  From childhood memory, a scriptural reference stirred and surfaced. Lambert knew the books of Samuel, his namesake, best of all. The mere recollection calmed him: The Lord called Samuel and he answered: Here am I. “Here am I. Hang on.” Lambert found himself short of breath. “Just hang on.”

  Not a rasp. A scrape. “I will. But you—” The voice hesitated, grew minutely stronger. “You must hurry. Kill me before he gets it all.”

  Fell’s words struck Lambert like a blow. Kill Fell?

  Bridgewater tightened his hold on Fell.

  Fell made a sound. It was not a word. It wasn’t even the shape of a word. It was a sound of pain, frustration, and despair. After that sound, there was nothing. Only silence.

  Still Lambert hesitated. The silence grew. The light was fading. Even as Lambert watched, Fell and Bridgewater sank farther out of sight into the depths of the well. He tried to say “Hang on” again but the words didn’t come. His mouth was dry. His eyes were wet.

  There was only silence. No chanting. No bells. No birdsong. Lambert turned and ran. All he saw was the labyrinth before him. All he heard were his own swift footsteps. That and the scrape of his panting breath, the beat of his leaping heart as he raced from the core of the labyrinth to the labyrinth’s mouth.

  At the labyrinth’s entrance, Lambert tripped over Porteous, who was still leaning over Jane. “My dear child,” the booming voice beseeched. “My dear child, you must try to breathe. That’s it. Try.”

  Lambert dared not spare a glance at Jane. He ignored Porteous and went straight for the black satchel. The latch yielded to force and he pulled the two halves of the top apart with a snap, as if opening a doctor’s medical bag.

  The Agincourt device, absurdly ornate, lay gleaming within. Lambert clawed it out, turned it over in his hands, hefted it, and looked through the sight. The image was inverted. Very dirsconcerting, to see the world turned upside down. From the outside, the device seemed just as he remembered it. He wished he’d had a better view when Voysey had aimed it at him.

  To Porteous, Lambert snapped, “Have you disarmed this thing?”

  Porteous gaped at him. “No. We don’t know how. We haven’t had time to learn.”

  Before Porteo
us had finished speaking, Lambert was back in the maze. He wanted to hurdle the hedges, to cheat the long switchbacks, but he knew better than to try to cut corners. There was meaning in the intervals of the pattern, just as there was meaning in the intervals of St. Mary’s arches, and meaning in the intervals of the chants.

  Lambert ran as fast as he could through the maze. This was a pattern he understood. He knew he had to stick to it, every step. It was part of the game. Just as in baseball the infielders threw the ball around the horn after a putout, each putout a different pattern but every pattern counterclockwise; just as the third baseman, and only the third baseman, was to touch the ball last on the return to the pitcher, this was inevitable, a pattern he knew to the marrow of his bones.

  It mattered that Lambert follow the pattern. It mattered that he take each step in its proper order. The desire to break the pattern was part of the pattern, and that temptation augmented the power the pattern held. Turning and returning, Lambert ran back to the heart of the maze.

  It took forever. It took five minutes. It took fifty years. Lambert reached the heart of the labyrinth, looked deep into that well of glass, raised the Agincourt device, and took aim. The frantic beat of his heart made it hard to keep his hands steady, to keep the target in its sight. His breath tore in and out. He tasted blood.

  Lambert dropped to his belly on the ground, propped his elbows to steady his aim, and forced himself to breathe evenly. His pounding heart made the device seem to pulse in Lambert’s grasp. From this angle the drifting barriers were harder to see, slower and more random in their movement. There was no possibility of calmness, no chance of deliberation. He had Fell in his sight. Lambert moved just enough to draw a bead on Bridgewater’s head.

  If this doesn’t work, I’ll have to try it on Fell. And if that doesn’t work, I may have to try to kill Fell after all.

  His father’s words came back to him. Never aim a gun at anyone unless you’re fixing to kill him. The memory settled him down. He steadied his breathing.

  The gleaming shift of a barrier held Lambert up another five heartbeats until it cleared his view. He pulled the trigger. The device made a noise Lambert had never heard before—a piercingly sweet note just beside his ear—the only sound left in the world. Something inside the device shifted subtly and then it felt as inert in Lambert’s hands as a bugle or a flute. Lambert closed his eyes. He held his breath until spots danced on the inside of his eyelids.