Schooled in Magic 5 - The School of Hard Knocks

by Christopher Nuttall

  And she found herself, somewhat against her will, liking Aurelius. She didn’t want to go to him and confess she’d broken a whole series of rules. He might stop trying to show her new magics or even deny her access to his library as a form of punishment, something she would consider worse than any beating. She didn’t want to let him down.

  She gritted her teeth, then but nodded.

  “I’ll deal with you,” she said.

  Nanette looked, just for a second, relieved. “You are being punished,” she said, “for slapping a younger girl and fighting in the hall. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes,” Emily said, tonelessly.

  “I have already punished Helen, Rook and Ten,” Nanette continued, as she rose to her feet and stalked around the desk. “Once your punishment is complete, it is over. It is not to continue. You are not to recriminate with them and they are not to recriminate with you. If there is a second round of fighting, you will all regret it. Do you understand me?”

  It was all Emily could do not to run. “Yes,” she said, instead. “I understand.”

  She winced as she saw the small paddle in Nanette’s hand. This was going to hurt.

  “Bend over,” Nanette ordered. “Place your hands on the desk and hold the position.”

  Emily did as she was told, gritting her teeth in anticipation. There was a long pause before the paddle struck her behind. And again. And again, until it was finally over.

  “Stand up,” Nanette ordered.

  Emily forced herself to obey, tears streaming down her face as her hands moved to rub her behind. The fire was slowly fading, to be replaced by a dull ache that told her she wouldn’t be sleeping comfortably over the next couple of days. She’d had worse, she told herself. The Sergeants had never intended to hurt their students in Martial Magic, but they’d often left her aching and bruised after a milling session or a long forced march through the countryside. But it was the humiliation of knowing she’d been walloped that felt the worst. Everyone in the hall would know what had happened to her.

  “I would suggest you spend some time with your Shadow,” Nanette said, once Emily had managed to calm herself. It sounded as though she were advising Emily to walk and water her pet. “You should talk to her, at the very least. And maybe even do something with her, once or twice a week. It would be better for her if you did.”

  Emily nodded, then and gratefully fled the room.

  Chapter Seventeen

  NONE OF THE OTHER GIRLS SPOKE to Emily as she hobbled back to her bed, then cast several privacy wards and lay down on the sheets. The dull ache wouldn’t fade for quite some time, she knew from bitter experience, no matter what she did. None of the potions she had obtained over the last couple of weeks were intended to help with corporal punishment. Somehow, she had a feeling that the school’s administration would frown on anyone who produced a pain-relief potion for sore bottoms.

  She heard a cough as she lay down and turned her head to see Frieda, sitting on her bed and staring at Emily. “You... you did that for me?”

  There was something so plaintive in her voice that Emily’s heart broke. “Yes,” she said, slowly. How could she confess that she’d never really understood she had an obligation towards Frieda until it was too late? She couldn’t, could she? “I’m sorry.”

  Frieda looked surprised. “Why?”

  “Because... because it was the right thing to do,” Emily said. She cursed her own mistake under her breath. “And because doing that to you was awful.”

  Frieda lowered her eyes. “I’m used to it,” she said. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  Emily felt another stab of guilt at her words. She’d been bullied a little on Earth, but mainly she’d just been left alone–completely alone. It was funny, part of her mind noted, how it was easy to accept that it wasn’t Frieda’s fault she was bullied. But then, Frieda didn’t seem to have any awareness that it was wrong. Gritting her teeth, Emily sat upright, despite the pain, and beckoned for Frieda to sit next to her.

  Up close, the girl was thinner than Emily had realized. Throwing caution to the winds, Emily poked and prodded at her, then cast a handful of diagnostic spells. Frieda wasn’t just thin, she was emaciated, practically on the verge of starvation. Her dress - and Emily’s reluctance to peek - had hidden it far too well. Even using the simplest spells would drain her energy quite badly, Emily realized; it was one of the reasons students at Whitehall were almost always thin, despite being fed huge meals three times a day. And then there were the signs of physical abuse...

  Emily wrapped her arm around Frieda, then started casting a number of Healing spells. One by one, the marks on Frieda’s skin healed up. But the scars on Frieda’s mind would remain.

  “You don’t have to do that,” Frieda said softly, as if she couldn’t believe anyone would do anything like it for her. “I...”

  “Yes, I do,” Emily said, studying Frieda’s face. Her Shadow looked torn between hope and fear. “You need to eat more, really.”

  “I can’t,” Frieda said. “I don’t have any money.”

  Emily stared at her. She was familiar, all too familiar, with being unable to afford lunch at school. The introduction of free lunches on Earth had been a lifesaver, literally, for her. And, as far as she knew, food was included in Whitehall’s fees, even for scholarship children. She’d certainly never noticed Imaiqah limiting her intake...

  “My scholarship doesn’t cover it,” Frieda admitted, lowering her eyes in shame. “All I can afford are the basics...”

  Emily felt a hot spike of anger. Food didn’t cost that much in the Allied Lands... and even if it did, students like Frieda needed to eat, just to build up their magic. How could anyone reasonably expect them to live and study magic on a starvation diet? And no one had asked her to pay for the food she ate... she swore under her breath, silently promising to raise the issue with whoever she had to, just to make sure Frieda had enough to eat.

  “It will,” Emily said. If worst came to worst, she could pay for it herself. She had plenty of money, after all. “What do you spend money on, anyway? I assume you do your own accounting?”

  “I have notes,” Frieda said. She started to scramble to her feet, but stopped as if she were afraid Emily would get upset if she moved. “Do you want to see them?”

  “Just tell me,” Emily said. She didn’t have the time to parse out Frieda’s handwriting. “What do you spend money on, weekly?”

  “Books, clothes and my wand,” Frieda said. “I had to have it replaced twice after... after it got broken.”

  Was snapped, Emily translated, mentally. “But why do you need a wand?”

  Frieda stared at her blankly, as if she’d suddenly started speaking French–or English. “To channel my magic,” she said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I’m not... I’m not from one of the Great Houses.”

  Emily frowned. “What does that have to do with it?”

  “I can’t channel my magic properly,” Frieda confessed. “I need the wand.”

  “You shouldn’t,” Emily said. “I...”

  She stopped in horror as the full enormity of the trick Mountaintop had played on its scholarship students dawned on her. There was no need for a wand, no matter where the student had come from; Emily had certainly never needed one and she’d never known that magic was even possible until she’d been kidnapped into the Nameless World. Imaiqah had never used a wand, while Alassa’s magic had been crippled until she’d learned to cast spells without using her wand. And it had been Zed who had taught her how to use magic.

  Emily stared down at her hands, thinking hard. She’d assumed–anyone would have assumed–that Zed had tried to teach her properly, then given up. Alassa had been one hell of a Royal Brat at the time, acting more like a dumb blonde cheerleader than bothering to develop her own mind. It hadn’t been until Alassa had come within millimeters of death that she’d grown up and started taking her studies seriously. But had Zed steered her towards dependence on th
e wand?

  Emily knew the dangers. Using wands regularly, for everything, risked losing the ability to cast spells without one. It was as problematic, in its own way, as being unable to cast spells without hand gestures, which was why it was so hard to escape the relatively simple freeze spell. And if Frieda had been kept from learning to use magic without a wand...

  It keeps her under control, she thought, numbly.

  Emily shook her head in disbelief. A girl from a very poor mundane family wouldn’t know the dangers of using a wand. Her classmates from the Great Houses would be taught the dangers before they ever entered Mountaintop, perhaps even taught that their ability to channel magic without a wand was something that couldn’t be taught, only inherited from their parents. And by the time they figured out the truth, if they ever did, it would be too late.

  “Tell me about your life,” she said, instead. “Where were you born?”

  “A village in the Cairngorms,” Frieda said. She laughed, a little bitterly. “It never really had a name, not for us. It was just The Village. I was the youngest of nine children, and have five sisters. When the magician came looking for talent, my parents sent me with him quite willingly.”

  Emily shuddered. She’d been in the Cairngorms. The locals had more use for boy children than girl children, who couldn’t do so much around the farm and eventually left to marry into a different family. Lady Barb had told her that unwanted children were sometimes sold to the highest bidder or simply exposed to the elements and left to die. It was a cruelly hard life, where one mouth could make the difference between making it through the winter or starving to death.

  It was horrific. But the peasants had no choice.

  Her eyes narrowed as a thought struck her. “Have you been home since then?”

  Frieda shook her head. “It would be costly...”

  Her voice trailed away as Emily glared. She had never wanted to go back to Earth, so she’d allowed herself to fall completely into the Nameless World. But then, there was nothing for her back home. Even if she knew how to get to Earth and come back safely, she would still refuse to go. Frieda, on the other hand, had been completely separated from her parents and brought to a whole new environment. Even if she’d wanted to go home, Emily suspected, she would have nothing in common with her family. They might even be scared of her.

  Maybe they should be, Emily thought, darkly.

  “I don’t want to go back anyway,” Frieda said. She sounded conflicted, as if she wasn’t sure if she wanted to go back or not. “I was always the runt of the family.”

  Emily could well believe it. The more children a poor family had, the smaller the amount of food they had to go around. If Frieda was the youngest, she would have had the least amount of food... hell, she was lucky she hadn’t died years ago through simple malnutrition. And it wouldn’t even be the most horrific thing she’d seen in the mountains.

  Maybe Mother Holly had had a point, after all. Reforming the social system that bound people to the mountains might be the only way to save lives.

  “I understand,” Emily murmured. She wrapped an arm around Frieda and gave her a tight hug. “How do you cast spells?”

  “With my wand,” Frieda said, softly.

  Emily shook her head. “I mean, how do you input the spells into the wand?” Alassa had never been able to do it for herself, relying on her former cronies. “How were you taught to prime your wand?”

  “Chanting,” Frieda said. She picked up her wand and then started to chant a handful of words in a language Emily didn’t recognize. “It works.”

  Emily felt the magic field twist around the wand as Frieda chanted. Was it some sort of mnemonic to shape and trigger the magic without letting the user know what was actually happening? Or what they were actually doing?

  She frowned in puzzlement. There were no magic words, as such, when it came to basic charms. A magician could shout Abracadabra as loudly as he liked and nothing would happen, unless they had primed the spell to trigger upon hearing that word. But Frieda clearly seemed to believe it was possible... and what she’d just done suggested it was possible.

  “So it would seem,” Emily said, slowly. “Have you ever tried to cast magic without a wand?”

  “It doesn’t work,” Frieda said.

  “It should,” Emily countered. “I never used a wand until I came to Mountaintop.”

  “You’re the child of a Lone Power,” Frieda objected. “You should be able to work magic without a wand.”

  Emily hesitated. “One of my best friends comes from a mundane family,” she said. “And she can work magic without a wand.”

  She paused. “How do you cope in classes?”

  “I...” Frieda swallowed and started to talk. “I don’t do well.”

  Emily listened, feeling her sense of guilt grow stronger, as Frieda described the boarding school from hell. Emily had had some protection; Frieda had none. She’d been bullied incessantly since she’d arrived at Mountaintop for her preliminary year of preparatory studies, before going into First Year. That was something Whitehall would do well to copy, Emily noted, but Frieda had found it a foretaste of hell. The itching hex had been mild, compared to some of the other tricks that had been played on her.

  “I’m stupid,” Frieda concluded. “I don’t deserve to be here.”

  “You are not stupid,” Emily snapped. God knew she’d felt the same way from time to time, back when she’d been too hungry to study properly. It had taken her a long time to realize that she’d been beaten down by her own attitudes far more than anyone else, even her stepfather. “You just need to learn to study properly.”

  “They keep saying I should study harder,” Frieda said. “But I can’t...”

  She broke off, bitterly.

  “We’ll study together,” Emily promised. She hadn’t realized she had an obligation, but she did now. And she was damned if she was allowing Frieda to remain in ignorance any longer, no matter the cost. If she could tutor Alassa as a First Year student, she could tutor Frieda as a Third Year. “And I will teach you magic.”

  And make sure you eat properly, she added, in the privacy of her own mind. There were potions Frieda would probably need, just to help her put on some weight. They were rarely used in Whitehall, but Emily knew how to make them. She’d just have to ask permission to make them herself if she couldn’t get them from the infirmary.

  Frieda stared up at her disbelievingly. “Really? You’d do that for me?”

  “Yes,” Emily said. She rose to her feet and started to pace, brushing against the edge of the wards. “I think I should have been doing it from the start.”

  “But...” Frieda lowered her eyes. “I’m not worthy of your time.”

  “Yes, you are,” Emily said. It was going to be a problem, but she hadn’t intended to do more than keep her ears open for a while longer. Besides, Frieda might make an excellent source of information. “And I should have been paying attention to you from the start.”

  She hesitated, before looking directly at Frieda and speaking with as much sincerity as she could. “I’m sorry, Frieda,” she added. “The fault was mine.”

  Frieda still looked disbelieving. Emily wasn’t too surprised. Somehow, she doubted that any of the older girls had ever bothered to apologize to her before. They would have been much more likely to use her as a servant, if not a slave. There was no way any of them would have bothered to teach her anything useful. And Emily was sure that most of the spells Frieda had been taught weren’t intended to help her defend herself.

  “When you came here,” she asked suddenly, “what did they tell you about your future?”

  “They said I’d marry a magician,” Frieda said. “And that our children would be blessed.”

  She didn’t seem to find the concept offensive. Emily wasn’t surprised. Frieda would never have been able to choose her own husband, even if she’d never developed magic. Her father would have married her off for his best advantage, although there were few a
dvantages to be had in a tiny village. Perhaps the best she could hope for was marrying the local headman’s son. But that might have been thoroughly unpleasant... Emily remembered Hodge and shuddered.

  But it was odd. Frieda might make a powerful magician if she was taught properly. She could be a Healer, or an Alchemist, or even a Combat Sorcerer. Maybe she would still have made a good Healer if she remained restricted to a wand; basic Healing spells could be cast with a wand, if necessary.

  And yet, the whole idea of forcing common-born magicians to use a wand from the start was deeply offensive. It crippled them, all unknowingly, and weakened their potential power in the bargain. Why would anyone do that? The Allied Lands was permanently short of good magicians. There was nothing to gain in deliberately crippling Frieda or the others like her.

  Just because you can’t think of something doesn’t mean that they can’t, she reminded herself, sharply. Some of Imaiqah’s moves on the Kingmaker board had made no sense until they’d exploded in Emily’s face. They may think they have a very good reason to keep the system in place.

  “We shall see,” Emily said. “Do you have a copy of your timetable?”

  Frieda nodded and reached for her bag, waiting at the end of her bed. “Here,” she said, producing a sheet of torn parchment. “I had to repair it myself.”

  Emily sighed before she took it. Frieda had duties on Sunday, then classes all day on Monday.

  “We’ll use one of the spellchambers on Monday evening,” Emily said, after a moment. It was her turn in the spellchamber, after all. She’d intended to practice other spells, but it was as good a time as any to start trying to teach Frieda how to use magic properly. “I want you to meet me there thirty minutes after classes end, all right?”