Schooled in Magic 5 - The School of Hard Knocks

by Christopher Nuttall

  “I see,” she said, out loud.

  “You also need to work on your Wandwork,” Zed added. “Have you been taking lessons?”

  “Yes,” Emily said, “but...”

  “Keep working on them,” Zed said. “You need to produce precisely the right amount of magic or the results will become dangerously unpredictable. I chose this potion because it is quite forgiving, as Alchemical brews go. Others... would have exploded in your face when you inserted the wand.”

  Emily flushed. She didn’t like using a wand. It was far too easy to become dependent on it... and then to lose her magic if–when–she was denied access to a wand. The staff had been quite bad enough, but the wand was worse. She’d honestly prefer to use her own magic without a wand.

  Zed seemed to read her mind, again. “Very few magicians can use magic in alchemy without a wand,” he said, dryly. “You could try, but the resulting explosions could seriously harm you–if you were lucky.”

  He snorted. “I can try to teach you techniques, if you like,” he added. “But I would advise against it.”

  But you won’t take back the offer, Emily thought. There would be no protective wards if she tried to use her magic without a wand. The resulting explosion might kill her... and Zed could swear, quite honestly, that it had been a terrible accident and that he’d tried to warn her it was a bad idea. And it would be her own determination to avoid using a wand that had killed her.

  She took a breath. “Can’t I practice with water first?”

  “Not unless you want to scald yourself,” Zed said. He rose to his feet. “You would blast the water to instant steam.”

  He turned and walked back to the caldron, then turned to look at her with wary respect. “Go back to your hall and have a shower–wash thoroughly,” he added. “There are chemicals in the air that shouldn’t be allowed to rest on your dress longer than strictly necessary. In Fifth Year, you will be expected to shower before and after class, using showers right next to the classroom.”

  Emily frowned. Professor Thande had never made a big deal about showering after class, although he had lectured his students on other safety precautions. Perhaps it was something to do with the more dangerous concoctions they were making, she decided, or perhaps there was something else involved. The lesson plans were quite different to Whitehall’s.

  “Thank you,” she said, standing. “It was an interesting lesson.”

  Zed smirked, rather sardonically. “I will see you on Thursday,” he said. “Until then, make sure you concentrate on your essay writing. I expect a decent follow-up to the last essay you wrote.”

  Emily sighed. She had yet to meet a teacher who hadn’t handed out an essay as a way of welcome his or her students back to Mountaintop. In that, at least, Mountaintop was entirely like Whitehall. But the essays did force them to think, instead of regurgitating facts and figures as she’d done on Earth. She would still have traded half her fortune for access to Wikipedia, though. Earth’s basic knowledge was more precious than gold on the Nameless World.

  She curtseyed to him, trying to push as much respect into her motion as she could. Maybe he didn’t like her and probably never would. He could still teach her something new.

  “Dismissed,” Zed said, quietly.

  Emily nodded and walked out of the room, back towards Raven Hall. A handful of students, their passage illuminated with light globes, ran past her, shouting and screaming. She sighed–she couldn’t help thinking of them as children, even though the youngest was no younger than fifteen–and shook her head. There was no time to think about it, she told herself, as she entered the hall. She had too much work to do.

  And start sniffing around, she reminded herself, firmly. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?

  Chapter Fourteen

  EMILY FELT THOROUGHLY UNCLEAN AS SHE stumbled away from her first class in Death Magics, following several other students with equally stunned expressions. None of them had really comprehended what Death Magics might be until they’d watched Professor Yagami take a corpse, cut it open and start explaining the many weird and thoroughly unpleasant uses for dead human body parts. Emily had seen Shadye use reanimated skeletons as servants, but Professor Yagami’s work was far worse. She hadn’t wanted to know how the skin of a recently dead magician could be used to produce a book of magic.

  When she returned to Raven Hall, Frieda was sitting on her bed, reading a book. Emily nodded to her, then saw an envelope resting on top of her bed. When she opened it, she discovered that it was another invitation from Aurelius. It ended with a suggestion that she showed the note to Nanette ahead of time.

  She must have asked him about Friday night, Emily thought. The Head Girl hadn’t said anything to her since then, which Emily had taken for a tacit announcement that Emily had been telling the truth. And he doesn’t want her to wait up for me.

  She sighed, then undressed and stumbled into the shower. The hot water washed the grime from her skin, but she still felt vaguely dirty. Working with Alchemy had included dissecting frogs and other small creatures, yet it had never involved dead human flesh. But that would change, the professor had pointed out, with an unpleasant gleam in his eye. Human flesh, particularly flesh from a magician, had all kinds of interesting and unpleasant uses.

  After showering, Emily donned a spare uniform and then took the note over to Nanette, who was lecturing two of the other girls. The Head Girl didn’t seem pleased by something, but she took the note without comment, skimmed it quickly and then returned it to Emily with a nod. Emily gave her a nervous smile in return, then walked to the refectory, where she ate dinner before making her way to Aurelius’s office. The note had specifically told her to eat before she met him. Emily couldn’t help finding that a little strange.

  A pity we’re not supposed to store food under our beds, she thought, as she knocked at the door. Whitehall allowed students to buy food at Dragon’s Den and bring it back to the school, but Mountaintop had no such tradition. But then, Mountaintop was far more isolated than Whitehall. Whatever had caused the desolation above the school, if the reports were to be believed, had destroyed every human settlement for miles around. The dwarfs had only survived by digging deep below the ground.

  The door opened, revealing Aurelius standing in front of a table and reading a heavy tome. He slammed it shut as Emily entered the room and curtseyed, then placed the book on the table and bowed to her, before motioning to the chair. Emily nodded and sat, resting her hands in her lap. Aurelius looked normal, but there was a faint hint of... excitement surrounding him that bothered her. The last person she’d seen who’d had the same air had been Hodge.

  “Another week gone,” Aurelius said. It sounded as though he were trying to make conversation before the big event. “And how are you finding your studies?”

  Emily looked down at her hands. “Death Magics is a disgusting class,” she said. No matter how hard she’d scrubbed her hands, she still thought she could smell the stench of dead flesh embedded in her fingernails and warped into her skin. “But otherwise they’re proceeding well.”

  Aurelius smiled. “And your private tutoring?”

  “It is actually helping,” Emily said. Zed might still regard her with bitterness, but she had to admit he was a good tutor, one-on-one. She’d learned more from him, as treacherous as it seemed to admit it, than from Professor Thande. But then, she’d never had private Alchemy lessons at Whitehall. “But it may be a long time before I complete the class project.”

  “It’s worth doing,” Aurelius said. “A skilled brewer can support himself indefinitely if he can master the more complex concoctions.”

  He sat down facing her. “There is a specific reason I asked you here so late at night,” he said, bluntly. “Do you know what it is?”

  Emily tried to think of a possible explanation, then shook her head. There would have been more time right after classes if he’d wanted to summon her immediately–or he could simply have called for her during her free peri
ods. Unless, of course, he had something unpleasant or outright illegal in mind... it struck her, suddenly, that she had no idea what Mountaintop thought of student-teacher relationships. They were frowned upon at Whitehall.

  “No,” she said, out loud. Surely Aurelius wasn’t trying to seduce her physically as well as mentally. He had to know from Lin that Emily had.... issues with men. “Unless you want me to read more books in your library?”

  “Not tonight,” Aurelius said. He paused. “It is my intention to introduce you to one of the oldest and most dangerous branches of magic in existence. Only the most powerful of magicians, including your father, dare to dabble in such matters–and even they can get into real trouble if they make a mistake. You would not be introduced to such magics at Whitehall. If your apprenticeship contract deemed them necessary, you would be taught them by your master.”

  Emily frowned. “Should I be learning them now?”

  “You are very far from a normal student,” Aurelius pointed out. “And you never know which piece of information, which forbidden skill, will come in handy until you actually need it.”

  “I know,” Emily said. Lady Barb had said much the same, normally before assigning reading materials and essays on a whole series of different subjects. “I’ll do my best.”

  Aurelius gave her a toothy smile. “You cannot afford mistakes,” he said. He picked up the tome with one hand and passed it to her. “Demons are prone to taking advantage of the slightest mistake.”

  Emily looked up sharply. “Demons?”

  “Oh, yes,” Aurelius said. “Demons.”

  “I was taught that summoning demons is a Black Art,” Emily objected.

  “Lord Whitehall would say that,” Aurelius countered. He gave her a twisted smile. “They prefer to ban the magic completely rather than give people the training they need to do it safely. It might give people ideas.”

  Emily frowned. She couldn’t dispute that some governments in the Allied Lands tried hard to censor knowledge they considered dangerous, but everything she’d heard about demons suggested that they were always chaotically evil. They just couldn’t be trusted. And yet... the prospect of learning something unknown to most of her fellow students was terrifyingly seductive.

  She took the book, feeling torn in two. Part of her recalled Shadye’s bargains with a demon–or something he’d called the Harrowing–and recoiled in fear. The other part of her was fascinated. Demon-summoning had rarely even been mentioned in the books she’d read at Whitehall and, when it had been, it had included strict warnings never to even try to summon a demon anywhere near the school. After her near-disaster with the pocket dimension she’d tried to build, she hadn’t been inclined to try to design a summoning ritual.

  “The more ordered magicians rarely call on demons,” Aurelius said, as Emily opened the book and began to parse out the text. “But those who are forced to rely on their own resources often use demons to assist their spells. They can be quite practical, but they have a nasty habit of getting out of control... the DemonMasters often wound up dying at the hands of their own creatures.”

  The book was difficult to read, even with a pair of translation spells. Emily couldn’t help thinking that the author had had orders to write a specific number of words, for he never used one word when he could use three and a single sentence when he could write an entire paragraph. His words were a mixture of practical advice and demented raving, reminding her of some of the other ancient books she’d read. By the time she had finished, she couldn’t help having second thoughts about the whole affair.

  “Put this on,” Aurelius said. “And come with me.”

  Emily looked down at the piece of cloth he’d given her. It felt like a scarf, but one that seemed designed to fit over her head than wrap around her neck. She’d seen something like it before, she recalled, but it took her some thought before she placed it. A Muslim girl she’d known, vaguely, had worn something like it to keep her hair concealed. It saved her having to pin a scarf in place.

  Aurelius smiled at her expression. “Demons are prone to grabbing someone by the hair, if they feel they have a chance,” he said. “It’s better to wear protection than risk losing your hair–if you’re lucky.”

  Emily looked at his close-cropped skull. “Is that why you wear your hair so short?”

  “More or less,” Aurelius said, as he opened a hidden doorway at the rear of his office. “It also got in the way when I was naught but a young apprentice.”

  He led her down a long flight of shadowy steps into a single darkened chamber, then cast a light spell. Emily frowned, feeling more than a little apprehensive as she saw the circles carved in the ground, reminding her of the ritual chamber Lady Barb had shown her months ago. One large circle would keep the demon sealed in, she reasoned from what she’d read; the two inner circles would provide protection for the DemonMasters. Once the circles were active, the writer had warned, they could not be crossed. To do so was to court death.

  “Take this,” Aurelius said, holding out a tiny vial of reddish liquid. “Blood. Payment for the manifestation.”

  Emily took the vial automatically. “Whose blood is it?”

  “Mine,” Aurelius said.

  Emily felt her mouth drop open in shock. Magicians never shared their blood, with good reason. Aurelius had given her a gift beyond price, even though she suspected she wouldn’t be allowed to take it out of the chamber. Whatever he intended her to do, with a demon, he definitely wanted it to happen.

  Aurelius smiled at her stunned expression. “You will be summoning a demon I have in thrall, which is safer than trying to call something new out of the Darkness. But as you are the principal speaker, you will have to do the talking. I won’t even be able to hear the demon unless you allow it.”

  He paused. “You know the words of summoning?”

  “The ones written in the book?” Emily hedged. “Which one of those is the demon’s name?”

  “None of them,” Aurelius said. He stepped across the outer circle, then knelt down and drew out a glyph on the stone floor. “This will ensure that only the demon we want has access to the circle.”

  He’s done this before, Emily thought, disquieted. Aurelius moved with an easy precision that spoke of long practice. Whatever the dangers of summoning demons, he’d chosen to take the risk many, many times.

  She was having second thoughts–if not third, fourth and fifth thoughts–as she took her place inside the secondary protective circle. All of the stories about idiot apprentices who accidentally summoned demons, but were then unable to dismiss them suddenly seemed very real, even though she’d also memorized the words of banishment. Aurelius reminded her–again–not to step out of the circle without his permission, then motioned for her to begin. Emily took a long breath, then started chanting the words over and over again, feeling more than a little silly as the minutes ticked away and she lost track of time. But the sudden surge of tainted magic around her was no joke.

  She felt dizzy for a long moment as something materialized in front of her. It was hard to look at it, harder still not to stumble back until she accidentally broke the circle, but somehow she remained still. She wondered, an instant too late, if she shouldn’t have used magic to stick her feet to the floor... yet it might have damaged the ritual. Demon rites seemingly had to be quite precise.

  “WELL,” a voice boomed. “WHAT HAVE WE HERE?”

  The demon slowly took on shape and form as Emily stared at it, silently willing the creature to assume a shape she could tolerate. Massive bulging eyes, a grinning mouth of unkempt teeth, a dark outfit glittering with chains and metal skulls, a shock of uncombed hair... it looked oddly familiar, in a way that shouldn’t have been possible. And yet... she knew what she was seeing.

  “You took that image out of my mind,” she accused. There was no way it could be a coincidence. The books had said it was possible–and that the demons couldn’t share what they saw without permission. “Didn’t you?”

&nbs
p; The demon’s form solidified as it hung in front of her, like a puppet hanging from invisible strings. “And why not?” It asked. The creature’s voice buzzed through her mind without ever passing through her ears. “It is such an appropriate form for you.”

  Emily fought to control her reactions as it loomed closer. The more she stared at it, the more she realized that she didn’t quite understand what she was seeing. Part of her mind insisted the demon was no taller than herself, but the other part of her mind insisted that the demon must be thousands of miles tall... and yet, somehow, it fit into a chamber that couldn’t be more than ten yards from floor to ceiling. Her head swam again as it smiled at her, a terrifying Joker-like smile, and hovered its way around the circle. Emily turned to follow, keeping it in sight at all times. The last thing she wanted was it hovering behind her.

  “We know you, down in the Darkness,” the creature said. It came to a halt, facing her. “You have been noticed.”

  “Oh,” Emily said. This was not going as the book had suggested. “And what is said about me in the Darkness?”

  “That you will be responsible for much change and misery,” the demon said. It dropped to the ground and stood upright, towering over her. “It is always fun to watch someone become corrupted by good intentions. To think that she can change the world and yet stumble when it becomes clear that the only way to achieve real, lasting change is to slaughter everyone who gets in her way. You are far from the first person with lofty ambitions and hopes for change.”

  It leaned closer, giant glowing eyes meeting hers. “We see the future,” it said. “You will bring much death. All of the probability lines are tangled around you.”

  Emily forced herself to think clearly. Divination–seeing the future through magic–was almost impossible, certainly on a large scale. She had suspected, from what she’d read, that the core problem was that the prophet was part of the prophecy; the mere existence of the prophecy changed the future to the point where the prophecy was rendered invalid. But a demon, disengaged from the human perception of time, might be able to see the future, at least in general terms. It was quite possible that the demon truly could look into her future.