by Rebecca Hall
“Crude,” Nikola whispered, pushing himself off the wall he’d leaned against. His face had almost completely drained of colour but he was still the first person to follow Miss Sindri into the darkened staircase. Mitch hurried after him and sighed in relief when it was Hikari who followed him rather than Gwen.
Sigils lit up as they descended the stairs, revealing more inlaid in the walls in almost every mineral and metal under the sun. Mitch could identify some from his lessons but they hadn’t covered the vast majority of them yet. Either they were far further behind than he thought or materials that they wouldn’t be taught about had been used. Mitch hoped it was the latter, as far as he was concerned a sparkly rock was just a sparkly rock, he didn’t care what its silicon content was or how it could be used to amplify certain types of magic. Nikola was shaking his head and muttering to himself. Mitch sharpened his ears; from what he could make out Nikola was complaining about the sentence structure. Mitch didn’t really understand how the sigils went together. He kept his eyes fixed on Nikola’s back, ignoring the way the sigils moved in the corner of his eye. It made his skin crawl and he was going deeper and deeper into them.
The stairs ended in a cavernous chamber after forty-seven steps. Mitch stared, it was hard to be sure in the dim lighting but the chamber seemed to extend well beyond the Academy buildings; he thought it might encompass the entire Academy. The floor, ceiling and walls were all inlaid with sigils as were the round columns dotted around the place at random. The only light was the soft silver glow that indicated an active sigil, it seemed to burn a little brighter whenever someone touched one and he saw that Nikola was carefully stepping over them.
“Meet me back here in twenty minutes,” Miss Sindri said.
“What do you think?” Mitch asked, skipping over to where Nikola was meandering through the columns. It almost reminded him of the old children’s game.
“They’re idiots,” Nikola said, “that one,” he pointed to the nearest column, “is supposed to repel anyone of impure blood.”
“You mean like halfbreeds?” Mitch asked, peering at the column; he thought he recognised the sigil for blood.
“No,” Nikola said, shivering, “I mean impure blood. They don’t specify if it’s been tainted by magic or poison or illness, or if it’s one of the half human children conceived on Halloween. It isn’t even tied to humans. It’s basically meaningless.”
They kept walking, following whatever strange order Nikola was picking out from the sigils. Mitch could only identify one or two on each column; Nikola knew what all of the columns were meant to do and related it in a whisper. At one stage he paused to conjure a packet of painkillers and a drink bottle, wincing as he worked the magic.
“How long did you spend studying these?” Mitch asked as they passed a column intended to prevent the Academy catching fire. Nikola said that they’d got that one right; if they hadn’t then even striking a match would have been impossible.
“I told you, it was my first language. I did everything with these until I was sent to the Munich Academy. Apart from languages of course, but I mostly learnt those through osmosis. Most of the books at home are originals.” Mitch shook his head, he had enough trouble with the conventional languages that they were taught at the Academy.
“How are they powered?” Mitch asked as they began to circle back around to where Miss Sindri was waiting for them. Without a power source most sigils were just overly complex scribbles. Nikola blinked at him.
“We’re standing in a well,” he said.
“I guess you don’t mean the kind that’s full of water.”
“Did they actually teach you anything useful during your first eight years here?” Nikola asked, rubbing his arms.
“Maths, history, science, assorted languages.”
Nikola sighed, “A well concentrates ambient magic, the first ones were natural but Merlin found a way to duplicate them on a smaller scale.”
“We spent a whole term on Merlin,” Mitch said. He didn’t remember any mention of wells then but it had been five years ago and he hadn’t liked history. Nikola sneezed. “They should have put in a ward to keep people from getting sick,” Mitch said. They’d lived in dormitories for their first three years and had shared rooms for the three after that and even now they were always in close proximity to others.
“Even you ought to know that magic can’t support the immune system.” Mitch did know; he could heal himself of any illness but only by supplanting his immune system with magic. “There are wards for sterilisation,” Nikola conceded, “but they’re more complex than anything here.”
“You should get yourself a coat,” Mitch said. Watching Nikola shiver was beginning to make him feel cold.
“What good would that do? I’m not good with high concentrations of magic remember.” He sneezed again. Miss Sindri glanced up and then returned to her conversation with Hikari while they waited for the rest of the class to return.
“This is the Ward Room,” Miss Sindri said once the last student, Gwen, had wandered up. She was standing almost directly opposite him, making it impossible for him to watch Miss Sindri without seeing her. He shoved his hands into his pockets and stared at the sigils covering the ground. They were far more interesting than his cheating ex anyway and just as nonsensical. The influence of the Twisted Curse had been removed and she still wasn’t the slightest bit ashamed of what she had done.
“The dozens of wards intended to protect the Academy are centred here,” Miss Sindri said, “they are designed to protect us from both mundane and magical dangers. However, Miss Band’s actions revealed a fatal flaw in the wards that the world’s greatest ward masters are now working to repair.” Nikola snorted. Mitch was inclined to agree with him. Miss Sindri explained what some of the nearby columns did, doing an impressive job of ignoring Nikola’s whispered commentary. Mitch half expected her to throw him out; Nikola could probably skip Alchemy for the rest of year and still pass the exam with flying colours. He’d probably correct the questions. Mitch had derived an unholy amount of glee from doing that in their year six maths exam.
“Can anyone tell me how you can test a ward to determine if it is functioning correctly?” Miss Sindri asked. For once Nikola didn’t bother putting up his hand.
“Blood,” Gwen said. She didn’t raise her hand either.
“And what happens if the ward isn’t functioning correctly?”
“Backlash,” muttered half the class. They’d had to try powering their own sigils, though not with blood, and those who’d mis-drawn the sigils had paid for it. Mitch had got his right on the first try but he’d spent a long time painstakingly copying the sigil. It was a little like technical drawing and that was the closest he’d ever come to being good at art. Otherwise he could stay inside the lines nine times out of ten.
Miss Sindri nodded and withdraw a plastic packet containing a little silver needle. “None of you are to try this until you have your Masters in Alchemy,” she said, “when a sigil is tested with blood the backlash can be fatal.” A number of the class shuffled back. She pricked the ball of her thumb with the pin and pressed it to the nearest sigil. Mitch swore and squeezed his eyes shut to protect them from the sudden blaze of light, certain that when he opened them again he’d be faced with another dead teacher.
“As you can see the wards are functioning correctly,” Miss Sindri said brightly. Mitch opened his eyes, blinking them clear of afterimages. The rest of the class was doing the same except for Nikola who’d evidently known what to expect.
“Your nose is bleeding,” Mitch said, nudging him on the shoulder.
“Are there any questions?” Miss Sindri asked. A third of the class raised their hands. Mitch caught her eye, nodded to Nikola and pointed at the stairs.
“Go, don’t forget to do your homework.”
Mitch towed Nikola towards the door, insanely glad that he didn’t have Nikola’s sensitivity to magic.
“Thanks,” Nikola said when they made it back to
the basement. His nose wasn’t bleeding any more and he’d stopped shivering but he still shied away from the light.
“Look on the bright side,” Mitch said, “we’re going to be first in line for lunch.”
“You are, I’m going to find somewhere dark and quiet to lie down.”
“Infirmary?”
“My room’s closer,” he led the way outdoors, whimpering softly when they stepped into the spring sun and vanishing upstairs as soon as they reached the main building. Mitch went and started the lunch line.
DANCE WITH THE DEAD
The Taupo Events Centre looked smaller than Mitch recalled. Maybe it was the lighting; it wasn’t usually lit up by candles and glowsticks. Mitch hoped they had a good sprinkler system. The windows had been covered and the ceiling strung with cobwebs and bats while shadowy trees concealed the climbing wall and tiered seating. The tables clustered at one end of the hall for tired dancers were made out of iron and shaped to look like spider webs that cast disquieting shadows across the room in the flickering candle light. The chairs were made of hundreds of differently sized spiders and Mitch had no intention of sitting on any of them no matter how tired he was. The only thing in their favour was that all of the spiders were normally sized, flawless replications complete with eyes and hairy legs. They appeared to be moving, crawling over one another. Mitch shuddered and looked away; he still had nightmares about the last pack of spiders he’d encountered.
They moved deeper into the hall, tendrils of dry ice curling about their feet while the air overhead filled with cavorting shadows. The shadows wouldn’t have been nearly so unnerving if they’d known where the ceiling was. Someone was insanely good at making shadow puppets. Mitch looked at them once and then kept his gaze down; there were things in those shadows that looked far too menacing for mere silhouettes of textured darkness. Mitch had expected a D.J. or a band hidden in a corner behind more shadows and spider webs. Instead someone had dragged in a pipe organ and a vampire in evening dress. Mitch couldn’t help grinning at that, the flyer was proving to be surprisingly accurate. He hoped Mindy didn’t see that as an excuse to create another zombie horse, he wouldn’t have agreed to this if he’d known that it was her idea.
The pipe organ imposed some order on the dance floor. Most people shuffled about the floor or swayed in place, while those who knew how engaged in formal dances. There were none of the wild movements that Mitch had come to associate with nightclubs after Gwen had snuck him into a few. The fact that none of the dancers were synchronised, everyone seemed to pick up the dance at the beginning rather than matching themselves to everyone else, or even performing the same dance, only slightly ruined the effect. So far no one had crashed.
Mindy seized Bates’ hand and dragged him onto the dance floor though Bates didn’t resist that much. Mitch smirked; he’d always suspected that Bates actually liked the ballroom dancing lessons that the Academy had subjected them to in P.E. Mitch was just glad that he’d be able to dance without looking like a complete muppet.
He drifted over to the bar, relieved to see that something in the hall had escaped the spider theme. He didn’t think he’d be able to drink from a glass of tiny spiders. The bar was made up of a series of long dark coffins instead and the goblet that the fanged bartender gave him was shaped like a skull. Mitch groaned, he almost would have preferred a goblet made of spider web but that would have ruined the effect of drinking blood red wine, from a skull.
“That’s real bone you know,” a voice whispered behind him. Mitch choked on his wine and dropped the goblet. It bounced off his shoe and splattered the floor with wine. Mitch rounded on the whisperer but couldn’t identify him in the crowd, half of which seemed to be laughing at him as he made an ass of himself. This time he ordered coke and it did come in a spider web glass. Spiders, coffins, organ music, he couldn’t have imagined a cheesier Halloween party if he tried and yet the whole thing had a creepy, almost sinister air to it that was not helped by the shadowy trees growing up the side of the room and obscuring the exit signs. They were probably in violation of the fire safety regulations.
Clutching his reassuringly non-sticky spider web glass, he melted into the crowd. Now that he was free of Bates and Mindy he could appreciate the time and effort that must have gone into decorating the events centre. There was no sign of the climbing wall and assorted courts that Mitch usually associated with it; everything had been subsumed in shadows, spiders and clichés.
The shadow trees were his favourite he decided, he didn’t have any bad memories associated with trees although that was unlikely to last long; they’d be replacing Cryptozoology with Cryptobotany next year. They were slowly stretching higher and higher, their branches providing a resting place for the equally shadowy bats and somehow supporting the far more tangible spider webs. One of the bats got caught in a web and struggled to free itself; Mitch looked away, shuddering, before any shadowy spiders could emerge and eat it. He still couldn’t work out how they were being made.
Moonglow began to filter through the spider webs as the candles died and Mitch relaxed a little now that they weren’t in immediate danger of incinerating themselves; those spider webs were probably flammable. For the first time there was some indication that the special effects were being coordinated by someone, the brightest moonbeams illuminated those with especially well done costumes or expert dancers.
He mooched along the wall, trying to avoid attracting any attention. He wasn’t sure what would be worse, having to converse with some complete stranger about mundane matters or being seen in the ridiculous costume Mindy had picked for him. He kicked at his robe irritably, he couldn’t believe that he’d had to come to a Halloween party dressed like a fucking wizard. And not just any wizard, oh no, he was Harry Dresden. He had to concede that it was better than Harry Potter, as he wasn’t readily identifiable, but only slightly. He had an overlong faded black bathrobe, Mindy could have put him in a leather duster at least, black boots, shield bracelet, staff and pentagram. At least the pentagram was safely hidden under his robe where no one could see it. He should’ve kept his mouth shut when people started asking about his middle name.
He kicked at his robe again, as if any real magician actually needed all of these silly props, all they did was get in the way and try to trip him with every other step. He found a convenient shadow to lurk in near the open door and the only source of fresh air in the hall. He leaned the staff against the wall, shoving it deep into the shadows so that he wouldn’t look like such a muppet with a staff in one hand and a spider web glass in the other. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to dance with the bloody thing anyway. His teachers had been very precise about where his hands were supposed to go and their instructions had not included a wizard’s staff. At least the robe kept him warm; the doors let in a brisk breeze and mid spring wasn’t known for its tropical temperatures.
“Tinkerbell.”
Mitch shuffled forward to spot the speaker. It was the same voice who had told him that the goblet was real bone. He almost tripped over his robe instead when a familiar voice answered. Mindy could have at least found one that was the right size.
“Lucifer.” Hayley; he’d known she was in town, she’d been on the bus from the Academy with them, but he hadn’t expected to see her here.
“However did you guess?”
Mitch finally managed to peer around a tree and concluded that it hadn’t been that hard. The guy was a couple of years older than him with sleek black hair, fair skin and bright red eyes. Burnt and tattered wings hung from his back and he wore a torn and bloody robe. Mitch barely spared him a glance.
Hayley’s dress was green, gauzy and strapless, threaded in gold and ending in a short tutu that barely covered anything. Mitch stared, though she’d probably slap him if she happened to turn around. Green gloves adorned in paua shell reached up to her elbows and more paua shell adorned her ballet shoes and the ribbons twisted around her calves and through her hair. Mitch swallowed before he could star
t drooling. He’d never imagined Tinkerbell as anything but blonde before but he didn’t mind the departure from tradition. She even had gossamer fine wings of green veined in gold that fluttered in the breeze.
“I didn’t,” Hayley replied so softly that he wouldn’t have heard if he hadn’t been so completely focused on her.
“Then it’s almost time,” Lucifer replied, sounding almost maniacally gleeful, “shall we dance?” He bowed and offered her a pale hand darkened by a splatter of dried blood. His wings extended slightly, helping him keep his balance. Idiot, Mitch told himself, the wings aren’t real, they just caught in the wind at exactly the right time.
“Yes,” she took his hand, careless of the dried blood, and Mitch could only watch as she was dragged onto the dance floor by the devil and disappeared from view.
He grabbed his staff, Mindy would probably set a zombie horse on him if he lost it, and headed back towards the bar, deciding that this time he’d take his chances with the goblets. He staggered, using his staff to keep himself upright. A nearby couple weren’t so lucky and they looked around uneasily as they helped each other up.
“Earthquake.”
The word ran around the hall in whispers, far scarier than any of the decorations, even the spiders. A few years ago they barely would have noticed, not here in the Shaky Isles, but that was before Christchurch, Tongariro and Wellington. Now it threw a damper on the night. The organ player tried to compensate but he was playing an organ. Mitch took advantage of the distraction to push his way to the bar and order another drink, doing his best to ignore the smooth feel of bone in his hand. It couldn’t possibly be real.
He told himself that again and again as he sipped his wine. It was just pottery or glass, maybe even ceramics. He couldn’t get Lucifer’s words out of his head and as long as they were there he couldn’t convince himself that it wasn’t bone he was holding. Smooth, polished bone with the holes filled in and... wine slopped over his shaking hand. He glared at the cup, they would have had to have killed hundreds of monkeys to get real skulls and customs would have had a field day with it when they were imported. He swallowed the rest of the wine in a single gulp and abandoned the goblet, resolving to stick to coke for the rest of the night.
