Schooled in Magic 5 - The School of Hard Knocks

by Christopher Nuttall

  And that led to a different thought. If they don’t have a nexus point, she asked herself, what do they use instead?

  She canceled the ward before stepping back into the main room. The magic that had hovered over the MageMaster’s bed was almost completely gone, the last traces fading away into nothingness as she watched. Emily quickly searched the room, but found nothing apart from a set of runes she recognized from her classes the previous year. One channeled magic into the room, while the other two were designed to help keep their target awake. And, beyond them, there were a set of runes she didn’t recognize at all. She tried to work out what they did, but got nowhere. They were too advanced for her current level.

  A nasty thought struck her and she froze. If they were keeping him alive, she thought, did I just kill him?

  But he’d been alive when the proctors came for him...

  She braced herself, then touched the key around her neck once again. This time, her awareness of the school came quicker, showing her the charms and spells that were slowly unlocking themselves. The MageMaster might not be dead, but the magic he’d anchored in place was coming apart at the seams. She concentrated and realized that the MageMaster had been entirely correct. The system was designed to have a living mind–a single living mind–as the linchpin. There was no way they could prevent the entire system from collapsing now, until they put someone else in the MageMaster’s place...

  And the key might just be the key to Mountaintop.

  “I am giving it to you,” the MageMaster had said. “It will be yours.”

  Ownership, Emily thought, as she opened the door. There was no sign of Markus. He gave me ownership of the key as well as the key itself.

  She glanced up and down the corridor, but saw nothing. Had the proctors taken Markus, or had her spell collapsed, releasing him? But he hadn’t charged into the room, intent on capturing Emily before it was too late. Perhaps he’d gone directly to Aurelius, to report his failure... but his failure would be self-evident. Even without the key, Emily could sense the wards were slowly starting to come apart. Mountaintop would soon be completely defenseless.

  Pushing the thought aside, she cast a light globe and hurried down the corridor, trying to make her way to the caves. There were almost no students in the corridors and those she passed looked frightened, but unaware of Emily’s involvement. A handful of staff passed her, escorting lines of young students back to their halls, yet they showed no interest in her either. Their eyes were as frightened as their students. Whatever happened, whatever they did, their world was about to change.

  A proctor loomed up in front of her suddenly, grabbing for her arm. Emily tried to yank herself free, then brought up her knee to strike the proctor in the groin. The proctor showed no sign of any reaction to her blow. Instead, he turned and started to pull her back towards the offices.

  Emily braced herself, then tugged at his hood. It came free. Hundreds of images from zombie movies flashed into her mind as she saw the gray flesh, preserved forever by a spell; she sensed the soul magic flickering and flaring around the proctor. The key felt warm against her chest. It was suddenly the easiest thing in the world to pull the magic from the proctor, sending him–it–crashing to the ground.

  Emily recoiled in disgust as, free of the spell, the body started to decay into a puddle of rotting flesh. But, before the face had become utterly unrecognisable, the proctor hadn’t seemed any older than Emily.

  Death Magic, she thought. Had someone found a body, then cast preservation and reanimation charms on it and turned it into a proctor? Or was something more sinister underway? Shadye had used skeletons as servants, after all.

  But there shouldn’t have been any reason for Mountaintop to do the same. There was no shortage of living people who would be glad of the chance to work at a magic school.

  She shuddered as she walked towards the gate leading into the caves. Magic crackled around the structure, clearly intended to keep the students from exploring the underground network, but it was pointless. The gate lay open in front of her. Emily’s eyes narrowed, suspecting a trap, yet the more she looked, the more confident she was that there were no unpleasant surprises waiting for her. Whoever had opened the gate had been in so great a hurry that he hadn’t bothered to seal it behind him.

  New flickers of magic ran through the air, heading past her and down towards the secure door. Emily hesitated, one hand touching the key hanging around her neck, then started to walk towards the gate, alert for any traps. Someone could easily have hidden a security charm in the web of magic surrounding the entrance, relying on the sheer quantity of charms to hide its presence. But then she felt magic flickering behind her and spun around, just in time to deflect the freeze spell aimed at her back. She’d concentrated so hard on the threat in front of her that she hadn’t sensed the person sneaking up behind her.

  “Emily,” Nanette said. Her voice sounded strong and confident, but there was an underlying worry that would have been alarming, under other circumstances. She could probably sense the school’s wards collapsing, too. “I have orders to take you to a secure room and place you there until the proctors can judge you.”

  Emily stared at her, feeling the pieces slowly falling into place. The MageMaster had talked about a girl Aurelius had used as a spy, then rewarded. Nanette had no allegiances to any magical family, as far as she could tell; her office was certainly barren of portraits, compared to Markus’s room. And her feet were pockmarked, something that magic could easily cure, if she’d had access to Healers from a very early age.

  “Please don’t do anything stupid,” Nanette added. “There isn’t time for us to fight.”

  And they said Nanette was elsewhere last year, Emily thought, ignoring her. Nanette had manipulated her–and she’d done it so effectively, she must have had prior knowledge of Emily. And the only person who could have done that was...

  She took a breath. “Hello, Lin.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  “MY NAME,” NANETTE SAID, “IS NANETTE.”

  “But you were Lin,” Emily said. It was hard to connect the mousy little girl she barely recalled, a last remnant of the magic she had used to protect herself, with the strong and confident Nanette, but the more she considered the idea the more Emily was sure she was right. Nanette looked like an older version of Lin. “You spied on me at Whitehall.”

  “And you were brought here to take my place,” Nanette said. She sounded jealous, of all things. “If I had had a free choice, I would have refused to accept you at Mountaintop.”

  “But Aurelius didn’t give you a choice,” Emily said, as more pieces of the puzzle fell into place. Aurelius had rewarded his spy, all right, by making her Head Girl. “You already knew me. Who else could be relied upon to make sure I did what I was told?”

  She sighed. She’d assumed–careless, Sergeant Harkin’s voice mocked her–that Nanette was from one of the Great Houses. It had seemed a reasonable assumption, as Markus had definitely received his post because of his family connections, but it was clearly in error. And some of Nanette’s actions made more sense, now Emily realized just how far Nanette had to fall if something went badly wrong. She couldn’t rely on her family to help her.

  “You were his client,” Emily said. Aurelius might have been telling the truth about the flaws in the system–he’d clearly understood its weaknesses–but he hadn’t avoided exploiting them. Offering Nanette special lessons would have gone a long way towards making the girl devoted to him. “What else have you done for him?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Nanette said. “What have you done?”

  Emily winced, suddenly understanding why Nanette was jealous. She’d seen Emily as a rival, not for a suitor, but for a father-figure. And Emily might have more to offer Aurelius than Nanette could ever hope to match. What was loyalty compared to the ideas that had reshaped the world and defeated two Necromancers? She had watched Emily grow closer to Aurelius, her wariness blossoming into an intellectual relati
onship, and grown more than a little concerned for her position. And why not?

  “It doesn’t matter either,” she said. Part of her felt almost sorry for Nanette. The rest of her mind, recalling how Nanette had tried to kill her, told that part of her to shut up. “Where are my notes?”

  “Somewhere safe,” Nanette said. She smirked. “Copied, of course.”

  “Of course,” Emily echoed. In truth, she wasn’t surprised. “Why did you try to kill me?”

  “I wanted to cover my tracks,” Nanette admitted. “The Gorgon would have made a more than acceptable scapegoat.”

  “True,” Emily sneered. She allowed her fury to show. She’d never realized just how much casual racism there was against Gorgons, not emotionally, until she’d heard the staff considering simply smashing the statue the Gorgon had become. “But your plan misfired.”

  “So it did,” Nanette said. “No plan is ever perfect, Emily. All you have to do is adapt and improvise when all hell breaks loose.”

  She lifted a hand. “And now, I have to take you to your cell,” she added. “I held back in our last encounter...”

  “No, you didn’t,” Emily said, cursing under her breath. She wasn’t sure how much magic she could summon, while Nanette was clearly at the top of her game. “I think you wanted to give me enough of a hammering to put me firmly in my place.”

  Nanette’s eyes narrowed. “Did he tell you that?”

  “I never told him about the duel,” Emily said. Had Aurelius been using the wards in the school to monitor her? “Did you?”

  “No,” Nanette said.

  She tossed her head. “You’re nothing special,” she added. “I watched you at Whitehall, and I watched you here at Mountaintop. You have the potential for power, but you lack the confidence–the arrogance–of a sorcerer. I honestly don’t understand how your father didn’t teach you to hold your head up high, or look people in the eye when you talk to them. I would have thought that a willing daughter would be a more than competent assistant for his work.”

  “I’m getting better,” Emily said, defiantly. The key warmed for a long second, then cooled again as magic flared around them. “I had a great deal to learn.”

  “Or was your father abusive?” Nanette asked. “Mine used to beat me with a belt. My first use of magic was blasting him right out of the house. Why wouldn’t a Lone Power be just as unpleasant to a daughter who clearly didn’t develop magic as a child?”

  That, Emily thought, was distressingly close to the truth. She had never realized until Hodge had tried to rape her and its aftermath, just how many scars had been left on her soul by her stepfather. Nanette was quite right, she had to admit; she’d merely blamed Emily’s experiences on the wrong person.

  But she was working to try to overcome her problems, now she knew what they were. The old Emily would never have dared allow herself to be kidnapped if she’d been offered a choice.

  “I think my past is none of your concern,” she offered, tartly. “Why was your father so unpleasant to you? Did he know what you were?”

  “His people believe that a couple marries for life,” Nanette said. She shrugged, although she never took her eyes off Emily. “When my mother died giving birth to a stillborn child who should have been my brother, my father went a little mad. I might have been more sympathetic if he hadn’t taken it out on me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Emily said. She’d gone looking for a father-figure too, in a way. “Nanette...”

  She took a breath. “I have to find my Shadow,” she said. “You shouldn’t try to stop me.”

  “I have no choice,” Nanette said. “I don’t have a castle in Zangaria to call my own!”

  “I could take you in,” Emily offered. “It isn’t as though I don’t have the room.”

  Emily could have kicked herself a moment later. She wasn’t sure where that had come from, but it was a workable option. With the proper oaths, Nanette might be a very useful source of assistance in her long-term plans. She was clearly intelligent enough to master magic at a very early age, if Aurelius had used her as a spy. And to pose as the harmless Lin when she’d been sharing a room with Emily and the Gorgon, or being pranked by other Second Years at Whitehall. It must have been humiliating to know she could easily best any of them, yet she had endured their taunts. And she’d completed her mission in the end.

  She’s a better spy than me, Emily thought, ruefully. A week in place and she already had runes scattered through our room.

  “I don’t think I can leave him,” Nanette said. She lifted her hand and shot a spell at Emily, testing her defenses. Emily stepped to one side, rather than waste energy deflecting the spell, and allowed it to hit the gate. Magic flared behind her, then fell into nothingness. “And I don’t trust you to keep your word.”

  “Tell me,” Emily said. “Do you trust him?”

  “He made me Head Girl,” Nanette pointed out. “That must have cost him.”

  “It probably did,” Emily conceded. She saw, all too clearly, just how strong a hold Aurelius had on Nanette. A little care and attention, a handful of advanced lessons... and he’d made himself an ally for life. “Nanette... Lin... you have to listen to me.”

  “No, you have to listen,” Nanette said. She launched a second spell, a wide-band stunner that was weak, but almost impossible to dodge. Emily had to block it, gritting her teeth as her skin tingled before the spell faded away. “I have more training than you can imagine.”

  “I think I beat you before,” Emily said, cheekily. She met Nanette’s eyes and held them. Lady Barb had told her, more than once, that a show of confidence could defuse a fight before it even began. “And I have a few surprises too...”

  Nanette didn’t bother to respond. Instead, she tossed spell after spell at Emily, ranging from simple prank spells to nastier ones that could do real damage if they broke through Emily’s defenses. Emily retaliated by creating a bubble shield around herself, using it as cover as she tried to get closer to Nanette, ducking or deflecting as many spells as she could before they could hit her.

  Her enemy didn’t seem amused by the handful of spells Emily threw back at her, all borderline lethal, but she didn’t seem worried either. A fireball flashed past her and struck the stone wall, then exploded. She barely seemed to notice.

  Emily gritted her teeth, feeling cold hatred swelling within her breast. This was the girl who had raided her notes, stolen her private thoughts, meddled with her mind and almost killed her and one of her friends. This was the girl who had almost pitched her headfirst into a feud with the Gorgon, a feud that could easily have killed them both; this was the girl who had tricked the Gorgon into petrifying both Emily and herself. Part of her was glad Nanette hadn’t accepted her offer, even though it meant she had to waste time fighting her. The thought of beating her into a bloody pulp was almost hypnotic.

  “You’re running out of magic,” Nanette said. “What were you and he doing that cost you so much?”

  Well observed, Emily thought. She was only throwing a handful of spells at Nanette, while the older girl was firing them at her like bullets from a machine gun as if she had a limitless supply of energy. Last time, Emily had been caught by surprise; she’d never realized that harmless Lin had so much training. Now... she knew just how capable Nanette could be, and she still found herself wrong-footed. And she was so short of magic herself.

  “He was showing me how to become the best,” she said, hoping to lure Nanette into a foolish reaction. Duels had been lost before, she’d been told, because one duelist jeered the other into making a foolish move. “And how to be his favorite.”

  Nanette hissed, then threw a wave of magic at her. Emily was picked up and flung against the stone wall, held firmly in place by the spell.

  I shouldn’t have said that, she thought as Nanette stalked forward. The magic was so strong it was actually breaking the stone around her, now that the school’s wards were falling apart. Emily recoiled as unpleasant crawling sensations moved over
her skin, reaching under her dress to press against her bare flesh. The key flared, as the magic touched it, but did nothing.

  “I will not let you replace me,” Nanette said. “I think you got lucky.”

  Emily scrabbled for her magic, but nothing formed. Nanette had learned from her previous defeat, she thought, as she realized just what spells and wards Nanette had worked into her magic. It had to cost her dearly to hold the magic in place, but as long as she did, she could keep Emily helpless indefinitely. She could neither move enough to lash out at her or cast a spell.

  “I think you beat Shadye through luck,” Nanette remarked. “You don’t have the power to beat me, so you certainly don’t have the power to beat a Necromancer. And then the Grandmaster, not you, killed the Mimic. And I’d bet good money that you didn’t kill the other Necromancer either. Or maybe you just killed her through poison and everyone thought you’d done something special.”

  Emily felt her bones starting to ache as Nanette pressed the magic against her chest. She tried desperately to think of an option, a way out of the trap, but nothing came to mind. The key didn’t seem inclined to do anything to help, while she couldn’t even break the wave of magic holding her in place. Nanette inched closer and closer, her eyes glinting with power and cold hatred. She wanted Emily dead, not for political purposes, but merely because she thought Emily had stolen Aurelius from her.

  Desperately, she reached for the binding surrounding the Death Viper and released it. The snake bracelet became a snake, clinging to Emily’s arm. She felt the surge of sensations as the familiar bond came back to life, then winced as the magic holding her tightened its grip.

  “Tell me,” Nanette said. “Do you honestly think I would fall for the same trick twice?”

  The Death Viper lunged. Nanette lifted a hand to swat it away, but screamed in pain as she touched its poisoned scales. The magic holding Emily in place snapped out of existence as Nanette clutched her hand, and stumbled to the ground. She’d been lucky, part of Emily’s mind noted dispassionately. If the Death Viper had bitten her, she would already be dead.