Time of Trial

by Michael Pryor

  Alone on the bridge, Aubrey wished that a battalion of trained magicians stood with him.

  It was up to him to do something, one of those moments that aroused equal parts terror and exhilaration. Sometimes he felt as if his entire life was a series of trials, each an opportunity to fail spectacularly or to succeed with glory. He preferred the latter and was deathly afraid of the former.

  He twirled his cricket bat. He was dwarfed, outnumbered and unprepared. He was dressed in cricketing whites. He had lemon squash all down his arm.

  Apart from a case of fright that’d choke a chicken, he thought, I’m in fine shape.

  With a roar that set the church bells ringing, the battlefleet swept over the town.

  Aubrey was knocked off his feet by the gale that accompanied the fleet as it thundered overhead. By the time he picked himself up, spitting road dust from his mouth, the ships had rumbled over the cricket ground. Pandemonium erupted. Tents were uprooted and whirled into the air. Spectators staggered every which way, some being flung off their feet as the stormfleet bore down on them. Dogs went berserk, running in circles and barking. The hot air balloon was wrenched from its moorings, and the last Aubrey saw it was streaking away to the south, white-faced passengers clinging for dear life.

  With fumbling fingers, Aubrey unbuckled his pads and slung them away. He sprinted for an oval that had become a riot, feverishly flicking through his accumulated store of magic lore, trying to find something that could help.

  The sun had disappeared, swallowed by the stormfleet as it circled, but the change in the weather had brought no rain. Instead, the cricket ground and its surrounds had become a howling cauldron. The wind was coming from all directions, so those seeking shelter could find no leeside on the pavilion or under the few trees that hadn’t been shredded by the force of the storm. A plucky motorist drove off, heading for the main road, his motorcar crammed with passengers. He parped his horn as he passed Aubrey, but a few yards away, where the driveway to the cricket ground reached the main gate, the motorcar shuddered.

  Aubrey stared. The motorcar hadn’t just stopped – it had been slapped sideways, its front wheels wrenched into the ditch on the side of the driveway by an unseen force.

  With some difficulty, the motorcar backed out of the ditch, then accelerated again toward the gate. This time, the vehicle was violently jerked to the right with the sound of breaking glass. The driver was flung out, but even as Aubrey hurried up, the young man had picked himself up and was dusting himself off. ‘Oh, I say!’ he shouted over the howl of the wind. ‘My hat!’

  His boater was a mess. Aubrey shrugged. ‘What happened?’

  The young man’s passengers staggered out of the motorcar. They milled about uncertainly. ‘No idea, old sport. Ran into the gatepost, I suppose.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Aubrey shouted. ‘Look.’

  Just a few feet away, the air had taken on a greasy, shimmering aspect. As Aubrey peered at it, holding up a hand to shield his eyes from the upraised dust, he could make out that the air was moving, vibrating and rushing past at a dizzying velocity, enough to blur the scene on the other side. It made the trees and the town beyond look as if they were smeared with oil.

  ‘Watch!’ He bent and picked up a small stone. Squinting, he threw it at the barrier of moving air. Then he ducked as the stone shot back at them. It hummed past his head and smashed one of the headlights of the motorcar.

  ‘Sorry,’ he shouted, but he was apologising to no-one. The young man and his companions were scurrying back toward the pavilion.

  Aubrey looked up to see that the stormfleet had blockaded the cricket ground, surrounding it in a swirling wall of cloud that extended from the heights right down to the earth. The magical warships were circling, patrolling the tight confines of this small area. The roar of their great guns punctuated the howling of the wind. Lightning tore at the dark grey, churning mass and made the gloom momentarily lighter with its ghastly, harsh radiance. The people trapped within the wall of cloud were starting to cluster in the middle of the cricket ground, near the pavilion. Anyone foolish enough to try to find a gap in the spinning cloud wall was twisted aside or knocked to the ground as soon as they touched it.

  Aubrey decided he wasn’t achieving anything where he was. He had to find Caroline and George.

  He struggled toward the panicked crowd, battling the wind that tore at him. Each step was an adventure, for the wind was coming from all directions, but as he neared the building Caroline appeared. Even windswept, she was composed. ‘Where did you disappear to?’ she cried over the shrieking of the wind.

  ‘I went for a stroll! Lovely day for it!’

  The look she gave him plucked at his heart. He was acutely aware of her presence, even more so since their agreement to remain good colleagues and fellow adventurers rather than anything more. Her movements, her subtle grace, her laugh, were more irresistible than ever and yet he was honour bound to do nothing about it.

  Keeping a friendly distance was the sensible thing to do, with their demanding studies and other commitments. Very rational, very sensible, and very, very difficult to endure when her presence was so intoxicating and frustrating. Sometimes he thought it would be better not to see Caroline at all. Then he’d be horrified by the prospect of not seeing her and he’d plunge back into his sea of indecision.

  ‘The ships!’ Her eyes were bright as they always were in times of high adventure. It was one of the things – one of the many things – that Aubrey adored about her. Her reaction to danger? Exhilaration! ‘What are you going to do about them?’

  Another thing about Caroline. She had confidence in him – at least, where things magical were concerned.

  ‘We seem to be trapped!’ Aubrey did his best to sound as if this were of no real importance.

  A large picnic basket tumbled past. Caroline looked heavenward, then frowned, then she looked at Aubrey again. ‘Why?’

  Aubrey gaped at her. He’d been busy working on ‘How’ rather than ‘Why’. He assumed that ‘How’ would give him a way to counter the stormfleet, perhaps a way to escape. ‘Why’ had slipped his mind.

  A wave of dust made him close his eyes. When he opened them again, the cruising battleships were still there, the destroyers were still there, the tending craft still trailing in the skywake of the larger ships. ‘Good question!’ he shouted.

  Around them, couples in what had been their outdoor finery were tottering, arm in arm, uncertainly. Knots of burly young men were hunched over, as if they could batter their way through the elements.

  ‘You have a good answer?’ Caroline shouted, obviously deciding that succinct communication was the order of the day.

  By now a few others were milling around Aubrey and Caroline, no doubt through some primitive notion of safety in numbers. All were bedraggled, fearful, unkempt, a far cry from the carefree picnickers who’d been enjoying a sunny afternoon.

  Aubrey quickly sorted through his options, limited though they were. Motorcars obviously had no hope of battering through the storm curtain. Communication with the outside world was impossible. Sitting tight and waiting for rescue was the most sensible thing.

  Aubrey was about to recommend as much to Caroline when he glanced upward. The underside of the cloudy warships glided high overhead like sharks. He squinted, then stared. Something was falling from the largest of the ships. At first, he thought it was an anchor, which set his mind racing as to the implications of a threatening spectral fleet anchored in the middle of Albion’s greatest university. Was it taking hostages? Trying to sabotage the nation’s intellectual efforts?

  Then the shape resolved itself and bone-melting fear muscled its way into Aubrey’s consciousness. ‘Depth charge!’

  Caroline whirled. ‘What?’

  Aubrey threw caution to the winds – a simple task in the circumstances – and took her around the waist. Her eyes flew open wide and she automatically applied an agonising nerve hold to his elbow.

  ‘High ex
plosive!’ Aubrey gasped. ‘Submersible killer!’

  The brick wall of the pavilion was the nearest possible shelter. He was about to gallantly throw himself on top of her – with the sole intent of protecting her – when the blast struck. A familiar wave of magic battered at him and ripped at the fragile bond that held his body and soul together.

  Blackness, dark and terrible, swept him away.

  Two

  ‘Dashed poor timing, that storm. I was in good form,’ George said from where he was sitting at the foot of Aubrey’s bed. Outside, the college clock struck five.

  Caroline was there too, sitting on a rickety wooden chair dragged from Aubrey’s desk, balancing a cup of tea on her knee. She hadn’t touched it for some time; Aubrey was sure it was cold.

  Otto Kiefer was standing at the window. He alternated between looking at Aubrey with an expression of satisfaction, and glancing uneasily through the drawn curtains. Aubrey thought he couldn’t look more furtive if he’d tried.

  Aubrey stretched and enjoyed the sensation. He realised he felt much better than he had any entitlement to. He ran a quick inner inspection and found no aches, no tender gums, no strained vision. A further check revealed that his body and soul were snugly united. Settled. As one. Which, again, was unexpected, given what he remembered.

  He sat up and the room spun around him. He was perversely grateful and let himself sag again.

  ‘Be easy, now,’ Kiefer said. ‘You still need rest.’

  ‘It was a near thing,’ Caroline said. ‘If not for Otto, I don’t know what would have happened.’

  Aubrey had a fair idea. He shuddered. Carefully, he lifted himself onto one elbow. ‘The stormfleet. What happened?’

  ‘The depth charge exploded with a great deal of noise,’ Caroline said. ‘Then the clouds opened, the rain nearly drowned everyone, and lightning struck the pavilion, but suddenly it all stopped.’

  ‘The clouds, the storm, everything just evaporated,’ George said.

  Caroline nodded. ‘Everyone was dragging themselves away and George and Kiefer and I found you face-down in the mud.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘We thought you could tell us what all that was about,’ George said. ‘Rather dramatic as it was.’

  Aubrey swallowed. ‘It was Dr Tremaine. I recognised his magic.’

  He recalled his first magical encounter with the ex-Sorcerer Royal, when he’d inadvertently established a tenuous magical connection with the magician. It was unpredictable but at times it provided an intimate apprehension of the great sorcerer’s magic. Occasionally useful, he was profoundly disquieted by it and the implications– which he was sure he hadn’t fully determined.

  Caroline stiffened. ‘Tremaine.’ She still had the ex-Sorcerer Royal fairly in her sights for causing the death of her father.

  With his free hand, Aubrey patted himself to make sure he was unharmed. ‘I seem to attract his attention, for one reason or another.’

  ‘Nothing to do with foiling his plans more than once?’ George frowned. ‘I say. It’s beginning to sound like he has a vendetta against the Fitzwilliams, isn’t it? First he attempts something on your father, then your mother, and now you.’

  Kiefer shook a fist. ‘Tremaine!’ he cried with such venom that everyone stared. ‘He must be stopped.’

  ‘You won’t find any argument about that here, old boy,’ George said after a moment’s embarrassed silence. ‘No Tremaine supporters in this room.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ Kiefer subsided. ‘That is why I wanted to find you, Fitzwilliam.’

  ‘I see,’ Aubrey said. Only one conclusion could be drawn. ‘What’s he done to you, Kiefer?’

  Kiefer slumped, almost comically, until he was sitting cross-legged on the floor. He put his head in his hands. ‘He killed my father.’

  Caroline gave an involuntary cry.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ Aubrey paused in the face of Kiefer’s grief, but he needed to go on. ‘How did this happen?’

  ‘My father was a good man.’ Kiefer’s voice was muffled by his hands. ‘He went to work for Dr Tremaine. He was promised much by the government – money, position, even a title.’

  ‘Tremaine is a bad person to work with,’ George said. Caroline nodded sharply.

  Kiefer lifted his head. His eyes were rimmed with tears. ‘My father was the finest industrial magician in Holmland. The finest.’

  Aubrey was naturally tender-hearted; he hated to see suffering. Whatever had happened to Kiefer’s father was another score in the account against Dr Tremaine. ‘I know what it’s like to have a great father. It’s an honour and a burden.’

  Kiefer nodded. ‘That is right. You understand, with a prime minister for a father.’

  ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Caroline said. Aubrey could hear the tension in her voice, the strain that was always there when the subject of Dr Tremaine surfaced. ‘Can you tell us what happened?’

  ‘My father was working on enhancing the action of catalysts in chemical processes.’ Kiefer massaged his forehead with both hands. ‘It is an area that I have also dedicated myself to. I aim to finish his work.’

  ‘It’s useful magic,’ Aubrey said. ‘Your father would have been an important man.’

  ‘He was. He made great advances with osmium and platinum and the like. But Tremaine wanted more and more, faster and faster. He forced my father to experiment on other materials.’ Kiefer paused and swallowed. ‘Then, without telling my father, Tremaine removed the protective spells in the reaction chamber. Under pressure, it exploded.’

  For a moment, the room was silent as they each contemplated the horror. ‘I’m sorry,’ Aubrey said again. He knew it was inadequate, but it was all he had.

  ‘Thank you.’ Kiefer cleared his throat, looked away for a moment, then he fixed Aubrey with a direct gaze. ‘I know about you and Dr Tremaine, Fitzwilliam. In fact, I know many things.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘He saved you, old man,’ George said. ‘After the depth charge thing. We thought you were in extremis, if you know what I mean.’ He raised an eyebrow significantly.

  Kiefer nodded. ‘I brought that device with me all the way from Holmland. It is what saved you.’

  ‘Device?’

  ‘On your chest. I knew you would need it.’

  Aubrey looked down, awkwardly, past his chin, but found it difficult to make out the object nestled on his chest. He sat up in the bed and took hold of it, to find that it was hanging from a fine metal chain around his neck. He stared at it dumbly.

  It was a tiny wire cage in the shape of a sphere, perfectly round, wrought of silver or some other shiny metal, about the size of a small egg. Inside it was a solid metal ball, silver again. When Aubrey tilted it the ball rolled freely around inside the cage.

  ‘And what is it?’

  ‘It is a Beccaria Cage,’ Kiefer said. ‘A protective device that will keep your body and soul together.’ He beamed. ‘It is the cure for your condition.’

  ‘My condition? What do you know about my condition?’

  ‘We didn’t say a word,’ George said in response to Aubrey’s accusatory look. ‘He seemed to know all about it. After we carried you to your room, he produced this gadget from his pocket and it did the trick.’

  ‘You were crying out,’ Caroline said. ‘In pain.’

  ‘I don’t remember,’ Aubrey said softly, but he had a dim impression of what he had endured. Somewhere, deep inside, part of him did remember, would never forget. Struggling, he remembered struggling, and an awful sense of separation.

  ‘My uncle Maurice told me all about you,’ Kiefer said, interrupting Aubrey’s thoughts.

  Aubrey frowned. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know anyone called Maurice.’

  ‘He said he met you last year. At the Faculty of Magic. At the University of Lutetia?’

  Aubrey couldn’t have been more surprised if Kiefer had turned into a pig. In their recent escapade in Lutetia, they had spent some time in the decrepit Facult
y of Magic. ‘He was a caretaker.’

  ‘He had been a caretaker there for a long time. He saw much.’

  ‘I suppose he did.’ Aubrey chewed on his lip. ‘He knew about my condition?’

  ‘He did. Two months ago, he wrote a letter and told me about it. He knew I was coming to Albion to continue my studies. He asked me to find this device at Fisherberg Academy, and bring it to you.’

  Aubrey flicked the Beccaria Cage with a fingernail. ‘So you stole this thing for him.’

  Kiefer looked horrified. ‘Stole it? No! It was in a basement, in a box with my name on it, just as Uncle Maurice said it would be.’

  ‘And how did Maurice organise this, then?’ George asked.

  ‘He has many friends. He corresponds with people all over the world.’

  ‘And he thought it could do me some good?’ Aubrey said.

  ‘He wasn’t sure. He said he wanted to do you a good turn, for what you did for the Faculty of Magic.’

  Aubrey hadn’t done much, apart from levitating the central tower and sending it across the city of Lutetia. He supposed that the faculty may have achieved some prominence because of it. Of course he’d heard about the renewed interest in magical studies at the University of Lutetia and how the department was undergoing a reinvigoration, but he wasn’t sure that he could take all the credit. The study of magic was booming all over the world in these exciting and turbulent times.

  ‘But he wasn’t sure?’

  ‘No. But I was curious. I undertook some research, which confirmed it. The device is powerful, emitting a soul-stabilising field of immense puissance.’

  ‘I say,’ George said, ‘you wouldn’t be studying magic, would you?’

  ‘I began my studies in history, but I am studying industrial magic at the moment. I am taking some special classes here before resuming my studies at the Fisherberg Academy. Pressure containment and catalysts, mostly. I will be successful, you know.’

  ‘A fine institution,’ Aubrey said. The Magic Department at the Fisherberg Academy had produced many excellent magicians, especially those who worked with physical magic, hard-edged spell casters greatly prized by industry. Aubrey had no prejudice against industrial magicians, unlike many of his contemporaries. He admired their work and the way they improved many processes that were vital for the health and happiness of the entire community.