Miss Ellicott's School for the Magically Minded

by Sage Blackwood

  “But we must help her,” said the queen. “And we know her greatest strength is—”

  “Summoning,” several people murmured.

  Queen Haywith nodded. “Therefore, I suggest we allow her to summon our power.”

  “But she’s just a girl!”

  “I was just a girl when I died defending Lightning Pass,” said the girl who was wearing Chantel’s robe. “And since then, Lightning’s never been able to manifest himself again. Until now.”

  “Because no one would let the snake into their head,” Chantel told her distractedly. “They were too shamefast and biddable.”

  “Silence!” said the hawk-nosed woman. “You can give us your opinion when you’re dead.”

  “Well, I’m willing to give her my power.” The girl who had died defending the city turned to Chantel. “Summon it when you need it.”

  “Thank you,” said Chantel.

  She would’ve liked to know who the girl was and how she’d died, but there was no time. Anything could be happening.

  “We haven’t decided—” said the hawk-nosed woman.

  “When you summon our power,” said a man with a thin gray mustache, “your own spells will be stronger.”

  “Great,” said Chantel. It was taking all her deportment not to actually hop with impatience. “Thank you.”

  “What other spells can you do?” asked the hawk-nosed woman, in a nice leisurely tone, as if nobody’s friends were stuck on any rooftops in front of attacking armies.

  “There’s no time!” said Chantel.

  “There has to be,” said Queen Haywith. “We must be prepared to do the spells too, when you summon. Tell us quickly.”

  “Oh,” said Chantel. “Um, okay, levitation. Light-globes.” Would there be a use for that? “Ice. Adhesion. Wards. Shrinking. Making plants grow. Kindling fire. Abnegation. Inversion.”

  “Ah, inversion.” A man chuckled. “That’s a good one. Do you remember the time—”

  He broke off when Chantel shot him an absolutely frantic Look.

  “Very well,” said the hawk-nosed woman. “You may summon our power for all of these things, when your need is great. But only then.”

  “You will also need to summon courage,” said Queen Haywith. “But that, of course, is your own.”

  “Thank you,” said Chantel. “Really. And I need to get back right now. So can you please send me?”

  “Us? Send you back?”

  “We can’t send you.”

  “Silly girl.”

  “Summon the city.”

  26

  IN WHICH SOME THINGS CHANGE, AFTER ALL

  It wasn’t too difficult. It was a bit like summoning Lightning, and asking him to bring his city with him.

  Chantel emerged into a blast of cold wind. She was high in the air, on Lightning’s back. She ached abominably. That was from being caught in the deluge. Every part of her was bruised, possibly even her hair. But there was no time to think of herself as she surveyed the destruction below.

  All six of the seven buttons had collapsed. The rest of the wall, and the front gate, had held firm. The water level in the city was much lower now, and the first terrible flood was over, but the wreckage of it lay in wide alluvia outside the tumble-down gaps in the walls. Slabs of wall, and rocks, and smashed wood, and . . . bodies. It looked like a lot of Sunbiters had been killed when the buttons came down. And a lot of Lightning Pass soldiers. Frantically, Chantel looked around for the people she knew. Bowser, was Bowser all right? He’d been in that boat. And Anna, and the other girls on the rooftop, and . . . and Franklin . . .

  Too small.

  Chantel had a whole city to fight for.

  Lightning flew lower. The invaders were pouring through Dimswitch. Chantel did not see the red-horned helmet of Karl the Bloody. No, there it was, lying on the ground beside a heap of bodies . . .

  A couple of sorceresses clambered through the rubble in the gap that had been Dimswitch, slipping and sliding on wet rock, struggling to raise a ward. One of them was Miss Ellicott. Chantel saw her furiously making ward signs with both thumbs as she climbed. Chantel urged Lightning on, but before she could get any closer, the invaders closed in. Chantel saw Miss Ellicott’s tall form just once more, over a crowd of soldiers’ heads, and then the battle intervened.

  And Chantel couldn’t decide what to do. It was already too late. The Sunbiters were in the city and there were far too many of them, and she couldn’t ask Lightning to breathe fire because there were Lightning Pass people mixed in with them, and . . .

  Right. So the first thing was to stop any more from getting in.

  Ice.

  Chantel did the ice spell, and she summoned the power of the Circle of Mages. Some of the power came easily, from people who had been used to giving. And some of it Chantel really had to struggle to get ahold of. Once she had it, though, she didn’t need anything else to do the spell. No ingredients, no signs. She just thought

  ice

  and it happened.

  Ice covered the rocks, and the Sunbiters slipped, slid and fell. The water flowing out of the city froze. It froze around boats, and around the legs of people sloshing through the flood.

  This was not ideal, but it would do for now.

  Everyone who tried to cross the gap slipped and fell. Dimswitch was a sea of waving arms and legs.

  Chantel summoned more of the Circle of Mages’ power.

  The battle in the lower city needed her attention, fast.

  It was a boiling mass of raging humans, and it poured from Dimswitch up through the square called Traitor’s Neck, and all the way to the square in front of the Hall of Patriarchs. With the remaining water in the lower city turned to ice, the enemy had stopped moving forward.

  There was steel and blood. The steel, she could do something about. Chantel drew on the Mages’ power hard, and thought

  shrink

  And the people below her were clutching weapons the size of toothpicks.

  For a moment, the fighting stopped. The whole crowd was stilled and astonished.

  Then they began punching, kicking, and trying to strangle each other.

  Chantel thought

  inversion

  Everyone in the battle was suddenly seeing everything upside down, and they couldn’t figure out which way to swing their fists. The trouble was some people adjusted to the change quickly, and—

  “Frozen legs,” Lightning remarked laconically.

  What—oh! Chantel had forgotten that most of these people were standing with their legs encased in ice. Others had climbed out of boats and were sliding atop the ice, which made them taller than the frozen people and capable of doing serious damage to them. The people who’d been standing in the now-shallow water were in danger of losing their legs to frostbite. Chantel had to take the ice away.

  While she was doing that, huge rocks began flying into the melee from above.

  The invaders’ catapults! Chantel had forgotten about them. And the first few rocks landed before she could remember which spells to use. Shrinking, levitation—she did both furiously, and the rocks began rising as softly as autumn leaves, caught in an updraft. Meanwhile she and Lightning flew over Seven Buttons and set fire to the Marauders’ catapults.

  Just as the last one was erupting in dragonflame, Chantel heard the clash of weapons from behind her. Lightning wheeled and flew back over the city. With Chantel’s back turned, the shrunken weapons had regained their former size. The battle was on again.

  “Lightning, what do I do?” Chantel yelled.

  The dragon seemed to think about this for an unconscionably long time. Meanwhile people were killing each other.

  At last he turned his head in midflight and suggested, “Tell them to stop?”

  Why would they listen to me? Chantel almost asked.

  Wrong question, she chided herself. “All right. Land on top of the tower on the Hall of . . . of Whoever, please,” she said.

  Dragons have a sense of the
dramatic. Lightning swept low over the fighting throng, so low that his claws rattled against the invaders’ helmets and his wings swept the surviving recruits’ floppy gray hats off their heads. Then he swooped upward sharply—Chantel nearly slid off his back—and landed atop the tower.

  Chantel looked out over the battling throng. She cupped her hands to her mouth and yelled more loudly than she had ever yelled in her life.

  “EVERYBODY STOP FIGHTING RIGHT NOW! OR THE DRAGON WILL FRY YOU!”

  And for emphasis, Lightning sent an orange jet of fire blasting out over the throng. And Chantel summoned the Circle’s power to control the flames, and made the fire longer, and turned it into a great loop, and then used it to write in the sky

  Stop Fighting

  And it worked. At least for the moment. They stopped. They stared. Every face in the square was turned up to the tower, to Chantel and Lightning. Amid the crowd Chantel saw Sunbiters and sentinels, new recruits and sorceresses and the ordinary people of Lightning Pass.

  “GOOD!” Chantel yelled. “NOW—”

  But a voice boomed from the tower window below her. “Don’t listen to the sorceress! Fight on, men of Lightning Pass! Defeat the Marauders within your gates!”

  It was the king. And he went on and on, and his voice became noticeably richer, and louder, and more important-seeming . . . because some surviving sorceress, Chantel realized, was putting a Gleam spell on him, and making him ten feet tall.

  “Lightning,” said Chantel, between clenched teeth. “Now, to save lives, I would . . . I would . . . will you please . . .”

  “Fight on, for your country!” proclaimed the king, in rolling, golden tones. “Fight on, for your honor! For what is right! Drive back the Maraud—URK!”

  And as Chantel looked over the battlement, the king, not ten feet tall but only ordinary sized, tumbled from the window with a crossbow bolt through his neck. He splashed into the shallow floodwaters.

  There was a long, long moment in which everyone took in what had just happened. And it seemed to go on and on, but it wouldn’t really, Chantel realized. And when it was over, the fighting was going to break out worse than before, and a lot more people were going to die . . .

  “Lighting, what do I do?” said Chantel.

  But she already knew. She didn’t even need him to say, as he did . . .

  “Pockets?”

  Chantel reached into the pocket of her robe. She had a lot of things in her pockets, but only one had a hope of stopping this war. Chantel took out the circlet of gold, and she held it in her hand.

  We did not tell her to do this, did we?

  Of course not.

  But we knew she would.

  We did not know.

  We hoped.

  Chantel looked down at the streets and squares. The fighting was just about to begin again. Men were hefting swords and axes. People who were alive were about to die.

  And Queen Haywith was right, the dragon had changed Chantel. She was a dragonbound sorceress, and she had a crown in her hand.

  And she put it on her head.

  And she clambered onto the dragon’s back and said, “Go, Lightning,” and he fell from the tower and spread his wings over the square, and landed with a splash, sending up sheets of water over the battle scene.

  Chantel stood up on the dragon’s back. And every eye in the square was turned to her—Sunbiters and Lightning Pass people.

  “The fighting must stop now,” said Chantel. “There will be no more.”

  She looked out over the flood. There were many people, besides the king, who were lying motionless in the murky water. So she really meant this next part.

  “If the fighting does not stop now, then the dragon will scour the battleground with flame, and no one will escape.”

  Lightning would do it, because she would do it, if she had to.

  “Lay down your arms,” said Chantel.

  And then, slowly, they did. And swords sank, and crossbows floated, and the battle was over.

  “Who shot the king?” someone asked.

  Probably somebody who was very good with a crossbow, Chantel thought. And wanted to save lives.

  But she chose her words carefully. She would always have to, from now on.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Everyone, please start looking through the water. We may be able to save some of the wounded.”

  Chantel was exhausted. She and Lightning had stood guard all through the day and the following night to make sure the fighting didn’t start up again, as the wounded were gathered up and treated and the dead were laid out.

  Someone had set up some sort of fancy chair on a dais for Chantel, there on the steps of the Hall of . . . Whoever. Chantel sank gratefully into it. Tired as she was, she kept up her deportment. Queens needed it.

  Many people, as weary as Chantel, were sitting on the steps, talking to each other about what would happen next. This talking was probably good, Chantel thought. She was much too tired to listen to it.

  The Sunbiters had to leave the city. Chantel had given orders. But they were to have time. They were still tending their wounded, still gathering their dead. Their chieftain moved among them, his red-horned helmet gleaming in the moonlight as he stooped to tend a wounded man . . .

  . . . which went to show, Chantel thought foggily, that there was some kindness even in Karl the Bloody. But wasn’t Karl the Bloody dead? Hadn’t she seen the red-horned helmet lying on the icy rocks, just about the time she’d last seen Miss Ellicott?

  “Miss Ellicott?” she said aloud.

  “No, it’s me.”

  Anna stood before her.

  Ridiculously, Anna tried to curtsey, but Chantel scrambled down and stopped her.

  “The girls?” she asked.

  “They’re all right,” said Anna. “And Bowser, Bowser’s all right, but, but—”

  Chantel felt a wave of dread.

  “But Miss Ellicott’s not, Chantel. They found her a few hours ago.”

  “I saw her fall,” said Chantel. And when Miss Ellicott fell, what was left? The old world was gone.

  What was left was for Chantel to do her duty.

  “She died nobly,” said Chantel. “Defending Dimswitch after it fell.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” said Anna, and Chantel drew back and looked at her to see if she was being sarcastic. “Most of the patriarchs are dead too. But not Sir Wolfgang,” Anna added.

  It figured. There always had to be a Sir Wolfgang, to tell you how the world looked from his point of view, as if it was the only point of view that mattered.

  “Where is everyone?” Chantel asked.

  “The girls and Miss Flivvers are down in the dragon’s lair,” said Anna. “Miss Flivvers really doesn’t like it much. But I thought we shouldn’t go back to the school till we were sure where things . . . well, actually, the girls don’t want to go back at all. They prefer the cave. And—and I really think you should get some sleep, Chantel.”

  “Queen Haywith lived to grow old,” said Chantel, swaying on her feet.

  “Are you all right?” said Anna.

  Chantel was exhausted. But she had to watch what was going on in the city. She couldn’t take her eyes off things for a moment. True, Lightning was watching everyone, but Lightning was a dragon, and he tended to miss some nuances. She turned to tell Anna this, and the flagstones came up to meet her. She was asleep before they did.

  A lot happened in the days after that. The invaders withdrew from the city (which, after all, was remarkably full of dragon) and the new queen made certain decrees about the port fees and the road tolls, which the Sunbiters found satisfactory.

  With the lower fees, more ships landed in the port, and soon there was more to eat in Lightning Pass. But the queen was most particular about shipments of serum for spotted swamp fever, which she insisted had to be landed without charge and without delay, and then carried up the toll roads as quickly as possible.

  Meanwhile, there was that extra food s
tored in the castle subcellars. The new queen appointed a kind woman and her daughter from the harbor district to be in charge of distributing it.

  Chantel supposed that later she would have to have a council or something with whom she would discuss such matters, but for now, she needed to get things done, and it was easiest to just do them.

  She didn’t like the castle at all; it was too far away from things in general, and so she held court in the building that she was trying to get everyone to call the Hall of the People. She sat in a carved chair at a table that had once had nine chairs around it. And people came to see her. It seemed to her that at least half of these people were Sir Wolfgang. She had to keep sending him away.

  A man who looked like death, only with a lot of bruises and a badly torn black robe, came and asked her for a job.

  “I’m the royal summoner,” he said. “You’ll need me. When you want someone, I’ll bring ’em.”

  Chantel thanked him politely and told him she could do her own summoning.

  She saw the surviving sorceresses. They thought they should be put in charge of Miss Ellicott’s School for Magical Maidens. Miss Flivvers thought she ought to be.

  Chantel thought Anna should be.

  “What the school should be,” said Anna, “is a place for finding out about magic, for re-learning what’s been forgotten and for discovering new things.”

  “And I suppose it will still just be for girls,” said Bowser.

  He was using crutches, because he’d broken a leg in the battle. He had a scar on his face. He hadn’t done too badly at soldiering in the end. But he still just wanted to be a magician.

  “In the Ago,” said Chantel, “when there were queens, women and girls were not the only ones who could do magic.”

  Bowser brightened slightly.

  “There were mages,” said Chantel. “Women and also men. Sorceresses and sorcerers.”

  “Then we’ll have boys in the school,” said Anna. “We’ll let—well, I suppose we’ll let in everybody who wants to learn. Even Leila, I suppose.”

  “Did Leila survive?” said Chantel.

  “Of course,” said Anna. “People like Leila do. And I think we should still call the school Miss Ellicott’s.”