Instrument of Peace (Symphony of the Cursed Book 1)

by Rebecca Hall

  “At least we agree on something,” Aroha said, smiling up at them from the bottom of the stairs. There was something decidedly shark-like about that smile. She was flanked by a couple of her cronies and there was a guy lurking nearby as well who Mitch thought might be with them. He’d been too busy trying to identify Aroha to pay attention to her companions. Aroha clearly didn’t have the same problem, her friends flanked them and herded them towards the doors and out onto the fields.

  “I call dibs on the illusionist bitch,” Gwen said. Mitch smirked, there was no way Aroha would be able to stand up to Gwen.

  “Do you know what the others can do?” Mitch asked.

  “Millie is a plant mage and Hannah is a weather witch, I never went to school with Marcus but I think he’s a pyromancer.”

  Marcus growled at them and Mitch decided that any other questions could wait until he didn’t have a gorilla looming over him. They stopped in the middle of the field. Mitch supposed it was as good a place as any, at least any stray magic was more likely to hit the Arena or one of the nearby houses than the pre-school or the primary school. The pre-school was on top of a small hill, further evidence that Rotorua didn’t really understand the concept of flat land.

  He couldn’t believe he was about to get in a fight with a bunch of second rate magicians he’d never met all because he was teammates with a girl he didn’t like. The universe could be horribly unfair sometimes. If they let him, he’d be more than happy to take Gwen and just walk away from the whole mess. It wasn’t as if he cared about the Academy’s reputation.

  Lightning slashed across the sky. Mitch knew that it was magic. It had rained for most of the day but those weren’t thunderclouds up there. The way it streaked towards them instead of the Arena or the surrounding trees was another clue. It fizzled out before it could strike them. Mitch smirked, Hannah clearly wasn’t a very good weather witch. He assumed she was the tiny blonde with the pixie haircut who was mouthing words at the sky. Her hands worked the air before her, calling down another lightning bolt that fizzled out though the following roar of thunder was deafening. Clearly the task of calling down enough lightning to stun them without inflicting permanent damage was beyond her. Mitch snorted, it looked as if she was milking an invisible cow, and turned away. Hannah wasn’t going to be a problem.

  Aroha’s other shadow was sitting cross-legged, her hands buried in the grass. She was chanting as well and the ground was churning as tree roots advanced towards them. Her voice grew in volume, Mitch wasn’t sure if she was trying to be heard over the thunder or if she believed that the roots needed to hear her spells. Either way she could be Hayley’s problem, Mitch wasn’t about to hit a girl and it would be incredibly embarrassing if she managed to trip him up first.

  Some sort of heat haze shimmered in front of Aroha despite the cold.

  “Sloppy,” Gwen breathed. The heat haze condensed into a straitjacket and Aroha struggled against it, vainly trying to break free. Even Mitch knew that the best way to fight illusions was to ignore them, fighting them just made the illusion more real. She’d be better off trying to distract Gwen but rational thought didn’t seem to be her strong suit.

  Mitch turned to Marcus, slightly relieved that he wouldn’t have to fight one of the girls. Mitch wondered what kind of pyromancer Marcus would be; some favoured the human torch route while others lobbed fireballs at anything that moved. He suspected the latter, he didn’t think Marcus would be able to do the human torch thing without torching his own insides. Of course, I could be wrong he thought as Marcus advanced on him with flames crawling over his skin. Mitch was quietly impressed that he hadn’t torched his own clothes.

  He dried his sweaty palms on his pants. Marcus was bigger and stronger than him and he was on fire. Mitch had ten years of Academy training and the ability to make himself fire proof, an ability that he’d never learnt to extend to his clothing. Even if he won this could be embarrassing. Fat drops of freezing rain began to descend and Mitch revised his opinion of Hannah’s skills. Perhaps she wasn’t very good with lightning but she was making one Hell of a storm.

  Marcus hissed and spat, steam rising from his body as the flames dimmed. Maybe he wasn’t that good after all. Mitch grinned, if the rain was enough to put a damper on him them he was unlikely to do well in the cold. Thanks to Miss Sindri, cold was something Mitch had a lot of experience with. He moved away from the girls so that he wouldn’t distract them and focused on lowering the temperature around himself. Marcus clearly decided that he couldn’t afford to wait for the rain to stop; he charged. Mitch forced the air to cool faster and the rain bucketing down around him froze. He strained his limited telekinetic abilities and directed as much of the ice as he could at Marcus. By the time Marcus reached him he was blinded by the rain and his own sopping wet hair and his flames had gone out. Mitch pivoted to the side and tripped him before backing away and continuing to pelt the bigger boy with hailstones.

  Hail was falling everywhere now, not just within the sphere of his magic. The wind whipped this way and that, pelting them all with hailstones, heedless of what side they were on. More and more lightning was lancing down at them, at everything, and Mitch gulped as he became increasingly certain that Hannah had lost control of the storm.

  There was a loud crack and a cry of pain from Millie. Mitch’s head jerked around but she was still sitting where she had started, her hands embedded in the muddy ground. She wasn’t looking at Hayley, she was looking at a branch that was only just attached to its tree. Mitch dived to the ground as the wind whipped it free and sent it hurtling at his head.

  “What the Hell do you think you’re doing?” Millie screamed.

  “It isn’t me,” Hannah yelled back. She’d sunk to her knees and abandoned her imaginary cow. She looked exhausted. “I’m trying to stop it.” Mitch raised an eyebrow and his estimation of her stupidity and courage. He suspected that the best she could do was turn herself into a human lightning rod. He checked on Gwen and Aroha. Gwen had conjured an impressively wind-resistant umbrella and Aroha was still struggling against her illusory straightjacket. She was going to be covered in mud by the time she freed herself. Marcus was back on his feet but he didn’t seem inclined to continue so Mitch ducked under the shelter of the make believe umbrella.

  Marcus helped Hannah to her feet and the two of them went over to where Aroha was writhing across the ground.

  “Let her go,” Marcus said.

  “Please,” Hannah added, “we won’t cause any more trouble.”

  “We’re done,” Millie agreed as she joined them. Her hands were covered in dozens of criss-crossing green lines. Hayley slipped under the umbrella on Gwen’s other side. It really was an awfully good umbrella, it was even stopping the almost horizontal rain. Mitch wished they made real umbrellas that were this good.

  Gwen smiled, “I’m not doing anything, that’s her magic.” The three of them started walking back to the Arena and Mitch laced his fingers through Gwen’s. He glanced back when Aroha started to yell something at them only to be shushed by her friends. She’d freed herself from the straightjacket but Mitch didn’t think any amount of magic or washing powder would get the mud out of her uniform. He inspected the damage to his own uniform; it didn’t look too bad all things considered, just dripping wet.

  They stepped into the lee of the Arena and Gwen let the umbrella vanish. Mitch started using magic to dry out his clothes.

  “Let me,” Gwen said, “you’ll leave everything all stained and wrinkled.” For a second he was subjected to the odd sensation of appearing to be wearing completely clean, dry clothes while his sodden mud stained uniform clung to him. He closed his eyes and focused on how much less uncomfortable a dry uniform would be. “Done,” Gwen said, kissing him lightly.

  “I hope I’m not supposed to be sleeping beauty,” Mitch muttered opening his eyes.

  “I think sleeping beauty is supposed to have longer hair,” Gwen said. Mitch looked away as Nikola sprang to mind, he usually
kept his hair long. “Don’t worry, I like your hair,” Gwen added. Mitch draped an arm around her and together they went back inside.

  “Next time you’re on your own,” he said, looking over his shoulder at Hayley. She wasn’t wet either.

  #

  Mitch re-shelved the book and wiped his hands on his pants. It made him feel a little better but he’d need a hot shower to feel really clean again, and maybe a bottle of bleach for his eyes. He hadn’t liked that book at all and why anyone would ever want to do that to another human being completely baffled him. He wouldn’t even consider it. There were still plenty of other books in the cursed section that he could check but he couldn’t bring himself to actually touch any of them, let alone read them. Whatever happened to driving people insane or just straight up killing them? Right now living with the family curse, or not living with it, seemed like a far better option than reading another of those books

  “Should you even be in here?” he asked when the cursed section’s other visitor coughed.

  “What?” Nikola blinked at him and coughed again.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be in the infirmary or something?” Mitch asked though Nikola looked relatively healthy for once. It was probably the lack of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. They hadn’t had any aftershocks all term.

  “It’s a cold not pneumonia,” Nikola said, pulling another book from the shelf. He flicked through it, shook his head and put it back. “I’m still trying to catch up after last term.”

  “Oh...” Mitch looked away feeling absurdly guilty about being able to heal himself when he got sick.

  “What are you doing here?” Nikola asked, leafing through another book. “I don’t think any of our recent assignments have touched on this.” He waved at the shelves with his free hand.

  “They don’t.”

  “Family curse?” Nikola guessed. This time he kept the book he’d pulled down.

  “Yeah,” Mitch said, watching him go to Mr Greeves and sign the book out. He turned his attention back to the cursed books. Even when he wasn’t touching them they made his skin crawl and his stomach turn. He swallowed bile and left them behind. There were other things that he needed to find now that the catalogue computer was free.

  He typed in ‘The Burning One’, and rubbed his arms while it searched, jumping when he heard Nikola sneeze. The Library was almost deserted. The first snow of the year had fallen a couple of days ago and no one was making the walk to the library unless they had to. The little wheel spinning round and round on the screen was almost hypnotic; it would have been actually hypnotic if the damn thing wasn’t taking so long.

  He rubbed his arms again, his skin still crawling, and tried to remember why he’d decided to spend Saturday doing non-school related research. The computer screen flashed and a long list of titles appeared. 497 results found. Mitch scanned the first couple of pages and found dozens of references to the witch burnings, pagan superstitions, failed alchemical concoctions and pyromancers. The pyromancers seemed most likely but the biography section was as boring as the cursed section was creepy and it wasn’t as if the cryptic lake monster had given him a deadline.

  He returned to the search bar and tried ‘The Fallen One’. He drummed his fingers on the desk as he waited. 356 results found. Mitch groaned and started scanning the new list. More alchemical failures, aeromancers, failed experiments with broom sticks and flying carpets, even a handful of bible references. He was about to give up when something caught his eye. He scrolled back up the page and combed through it carefully, reading every entry until...

  “The Fall of Angels. A treatise on the Fall and the Eternity War.” Mitch stared at the reference number; surely something about angels should be with the rest of the religious texts. He clicked on the link and read the synopsis. It wasn’t quite what he was looking for but it wasn’t as obviously wrong as everything else either. And the Taniwha had mentioned the Eternity War. He groaned when he saw that it had already been issued and checked the return date; Saturday 28 June. Mitch ground his teeth together. He couldn’t believe he had to wait until the end of the term to get his hands on a book that probably wouldn’t help him at all. The 28th of June was right in the middle of the testing and he was supposed to go up north with Gwen over the holidays. He hit the reserve button anyway, hopefully it would come back early.

  After wasting half the afternoon on fruitless endeavours he didn’t feel like studying any more. He trudged back through the snow and tried to wash away the feel of the cursed book before going in search of Bates.

  “What are we watching?” he asked when he found Bates in the TV room. He laid claim to a couch and helped himself to a handful of popcorn.

  Bates shrugged, “Gwen and Richard are off getting something, hopefully they’ll get us some more popcorn as well.”

  “Mindy?”

  “With Belle, they were threatening to paint my nails so I left,” he shuddered.

  “But you would look so pretty with painted nails, Bates,” Gwen said, returning with Richard. “Something in hot pink, or maybe magenta.” Bates pulled a face while Mitch tried not to laugh.

  “Tell me you got something good,” Bates said.

  “Iron Man,” Richard said, fiddling with the DVD player. The remotes never worked properly with so much magic around.

  “Again?” Mitch asked, sitting up so that Gwen could share his couch and taking advantage of Bates’ distraction to swipe the bowl of popcorn.

  “Yes again,” Richard said as the opening credits started to play, “I don’t think they’ve bought anything new all year.” Mitch sighed, at least re-watching Iron Man was better than being subjected to a chick flick.

  “Have you decided what you’re betting on yet?” Bates asked.

  “Betting on?” Mitch said, completely baffled. He wrapped an arm around Gwen and glared at Richard as he tried to squish on to the end of the couch. There were plenty of other places for him to sit though Mitch noted that other people were beginning to drift in. The joy of having fresh snow to play in was already melting away and mountains of homework and revision were hardly an appealing alternative.

  “Yeah, Angel Girl’s speciality. You still haven’t picked,” Bates reminded him.

  “Oh, right,” Mitch said.

  “Come on Mitch, Gwen said you got into a scuffle with some of the riff raff during that maths contest, you must have some idea.” Mitch wasn’t sure he’d call it a scuffle, not when Mr McCalis had put the three of them in detention when they got back. Mitch was glad it hadn’t been worse. It probably would have been if they’d done anything really dangerous. Scuffle or not the only thing it had told him was that Angel Girl could counter plant magic.

  “Is Earth magic taken?” It was as good an option as any.

  “Yup,” Bates didn’t even bother looking at his notebook.

  “I’ll think about it,” Mitch promised. They’d been studying magical specialities all term in Magical Theory, no doubt he’d be able to find something that fit in the endless lists. Maybe he could find something that combined defence with an IQ up in the ionosphere. “What did you bet on, Gwen?”

  “Not until you make your bet,” Gwen said. Bates looked as if he had more to say but he was shushed by the rest of the room. Mitch grinned and offered him the popcorn. Only the kernels were left.

  LESSONS IN OBEDIENCE

  “Who recognises this sigil?” Miss Sindri asked, pointing to the elaborate design on the whiteboard. “Well?” Under her relentless prodding most of the class raised their hands. “Excellent, Miss Akiyama, can you tell me what it is?”

  “It’s the sigil at the centre of the Obsidian Mirror,” Hikari said.

  Miss Sindri sighed, “Can anyone tell me its name and purpose?” Mitch fancied that he could hear crickets chirping as everyone lowered their hands and tried to avoid any action that might be misinterpreted as volunteering information. He’d actually done the readings the night before but it hadn’t sunk in. They’d been doing Alchemy
for less than half a year and Mitch had already decided that he hated it. Its bizarre mixture of chemistry and symbology was not for him. He preferred physical properties to magical ones and the sigils might as well have been Greek to him, or they would have been if he hadn’t had to learn Greek in year nine. He looked at Gwen out of the corner of his eye. After years of training in pattern recognition and memory exercises Gwen had no problem replicating the confused jumble of lines that was all Mitch saw when he looked at the sigils or recalling their meaning. She’d been top of the class for most of the year despite her indifference to the property-based part of the course. Today she looked just as baffled as everyone else and was doodling in the corner of her page. Mitch was reasonably sure that it wasn’t a sigil she was doodling either. He wracked his brains, trying to recall the reading while some of his classmates started surreptitiously leafing through their notes or the textbook. He thought the pair in front of him were playing noughts and crosses.

  “Rhadhassa,” Mitch said, finally recalling its name.

  “Well done, Mr Mitchell,” Miss Sindri smiled at him and Mitch felt his cheeks flush. Why couldn’t alchemy be taught by some eccentric old man? It didn’t seem fair that their most difficult class was taught by their most attractive teacher. “Can you tell me what it does?” Mitch shook his head and stared at the table. “Mr Leiser,” Miss Sindri called on the one member of the class who still had his hand up.

  Nikola cleared his throat, “Rhadhassa is used for diffusion, typically of magic though it will work on almost anything if connected to the proper sigils. It’s the inverse of unity.” Mitch mentally tried to flip the sigil but couldn’t. He’d just have to take their word for it.

  “Thank you Mr Leiser,” Miss Sindri said, beginning to draw unity on the board.

  “You’re drooling,” Gwen hissed as soon as her back was turned. “Honestly Mitch, she is way too old for you.”

  Mitch was about to point out that she wasn’t that old when he realised that trying to convince his girlfriend of that probably wasn’t a good idea. “I was not drooling,” he whispered back, keeping one eye on Miss Sindri in case she happened to turn and see them. Fortunately, they weren’t the only ones having a whispered conversation and all of her attention seemed to be devoted to drawing unity.