Schooled in Magic 5 - The School of Hard Knocks

by Christopher Nuttall

  She snorted as the corridor twisted around them. “I will be sending messages to the White Council and the Mediators,” she added. “There will be no more common-born children sent to Mountaintop, at least until we obtain guarantees of their future safety. It won’t stop the bastards trying to recruit more children, unfortunately, but it will make it harder for them.”

  Emily nodded. “Are you going to tell the world?”

  “We will see,” Lady Barb said. “I don’t think full disclosure would suit everyone.”

  “Imaiqah could have gone there,” Emily said. Two years ago, Imaiqah had been nothing more than a common-born magician, a person of wild blood, but no family connections in either world. If she’d gone to Mountaintop, what would have become of her? Would she have been floating in the hidden chamber when Emily broke in to free her Shadow? “How many others died since they started harvesting children for magic?”

  “Too many,” Lady Barb said. “But we also have to consider the long-term stability of the Allied Lands. You put Zed in power; wait and see, for a year, if he manages to come up with a new solution to the problem. Or try and devise a solution yourself. And if he doesn’t come up with something new, Emily, then you pressure him into changing his ways.”

  “I see,” Emily said, unhappily.

  She didn’t like it. The logic was clear, but she didn’t like it.

  “We all make compromises,” Lady Barb said. She stopped outside a door, then smiled. “I took the liberty of making a few arrangements for you. Open the door.”

  Emily looked at her, but obeyed.

  As Lady Barb turned to go, Emily heard Alassa calling out to her.

  “Emily! Welcome home!”

  “Thank you,” Emily said, as her friends clustered around her. Alassa and Imaiqah gave her hugs; the Gorgon and Jade, more reserved, each shook her hand. “I...”

  “Sit down,” Alassa urged. Imaiqah pushed a mug of Kava into Emily’s hand as Alassa continued. “We’re sure you have a lot to tell us.”

  “I do,” Emily said, feeling an unaccustomed lump in her throat. She had friends! Real friends! Friends who had taken time away from their studies to greet her! “And...”

  She hesitated. The visions had never faded from her mind. If she told them what she’d seen, they would have the same problem she had, the problem of making sure that none of them came true. But the mere act of telling them could start them walking down the path that led to their deaths.

  And yet... didn’t they have a right to know?

  “I have something to tell you,” she said, finally. “But you have to give me your word that you will keep it a secret, at least for the moment. This cannot be shared with anyone else.”

  She waited, carefully erecting a pair of privacy wards around the small group. Imaiqah and Jade agreed at once; Alassa and the Gorgon, both responsible to their parents, hesitated before giving their words. Emily felt a flicker of guilt–she knew she was about to disturb them–and started to explain.

  Chapter Forty

  “DEMONS ALWAYS LIE,” THE GORGON SAID, once Emily had finished. “Can we take what you saw for granted?”

  “We can’t,” Jade said. He was the only one Emily hadn’t seen die–or seemingly on the verge of death. “Even if it showed you true possibilities, it told you nothing useful.”

  “Like who I will marry,” Alassa said, throwing a sharp glance at Jade. “Or when the wedding will actually take place.”

  “You had... what? Twenty suitors last year,” Emily pointed out. “You could marry anyone.”

  “Not now,” Alassa said. “My father has high hopes of a very important match.”

  “Or when any of us will die,” Imaiqah said. Her face was pale, but her dark eyes were resolved. “The warnings are practically useless.”

  “Not entirely,” the Gorgon said. “We know that one of them was centerd around Alassa’s wedding. What about the others?”

  “I don’t think there was any focus,” Emily said. The suggestion she would be a Mimic, one day, was terrifying. “The only one I had any location for was the one in the heart of Whitehall.”

  “There is a gaping emptiness at the heart of Whitehall,” Jade mused. “Shadye went for the nexus point as soon as he broke into the castle. Maybe another Necromancer did - will do - the same thing.”

  That wasn’t entirely accurate, Emily knew, but it was close enough. What would happen, she asked herself, if a Necromancer did manage to gain control of the nexus? Shadye had clearly believed the power would help him ascend to godhood, yet she doubted that all of the nexus points were in the Allied Lands. It was quite possible there were others within the territory controlled by the Necromancers. What had happened to those?

  “We don’t have enough details to speculate,” the Gorgon said. Her snakes hissed in unison, showing her dismay. “All we can do is guess.”

  They fell into uneasy contemplation. Emily looked down at her hands, biting her lip. Perhaps it had been a mistake to tell them what she’d seen... but she hadn’t really had a choice. They had a right to know... or, she wondered, was that what she told herself to make it feel better?

  “Maybe you shouldn’t get married,” Imaiqah said, addressing Alassa. “You would be spared a wedding day...”

  “I have to get married,” Alassa said, “or the Line of Alexis will end with me. And then there will be civil war.”

  Jade cleared his throat. “Shouldn’t we be taking this to the Grandmaster?”

  “I wanted to discuss it with you first,” Emily said. “But I think we may have no choice.”

  “If only we could study your memories directly,” the Gorgon said.

  Emily shook her head. Thanks to Void, anything short of demonic magic wouldn’t work on her–and even then, she would have to give the demon permission to share what it saw in her head. She knew how to summon them now, how to bind them into a form she could tolerate, but it was too risky, even for this. And she knew it would take whatever permission she gave it, find a loophole and use her own words against her.

  And what will they say, she thought, if they knew I knew how to summon demons?

  “That isn’t a possibility,” she said.

  Alassa clapped her hands together, once. “I think we need to start thinking about the future,” she said. Like it or not”–she nodded to Emily–“we are in the heart of world-changing events. Our friend here has changed the world at least three times...”

  “But who’s counting?” Jade asked, mischievously. “Just once is more than most people manage.”

  Emily felt herself blush with embarrassment. Jade had always teased her lightly; in hindsight, she realized it had been a way of expressing his affection, even his attraction. Now... they were just friends, yet he still teased her. But he was right.

  “We should form our own quarrel,” Alassa said, firmly. “We wouldn’t be limited to people from the Great Houses. We have royalty”–she tapped her chest between her ample breasts–“the merchant clans”–she nodded at Imaiqah–“and even a combat sorcerer and a Gorgon. And I’m sure we can find others, too.”

  Jade smiled. “You don’t want to ask the tutors?”

  “Too set in their ways,” Alassa said. She rubbed her jaw, lightly. “It takes great force to make anyone like them change.”

  Emily frowned, inwardly. She liked the idea–there were advantages to it, as far as she could see–but it would mean giving up more of her time to be with others. She cursed herself for her own selfishness a moment later. They were her friends! She should spend time with them, not do her own thing. And she knew others who would be happy to join. Aloha, for one; Markus, perhaps, if he wasn’t already pledged to a different quarrel. Perhaps she could even write to some of the Third Years she’d known at Mountaintop and invite them to join.

  Nanette would have been perfect, she thought, if she hadn’t been evil. And where is she now?

  “This would be an interesting experiment,” the Gorgon said, calling Emily’s thought
s back to the room. “But do you think we could stand up to the Necromancers?”

  Alassa looked at Emily. “Maybe,” she said. “But we will fail if we don’t try.”

  “True,” Emily agreed. She thought, rapidly. Perhaps the vision had been a hint in the right direction, rather than a warning. “There might be a third way to kill Necromancers.”

  Jade looked at her. “Do tell?”

  “I can’t, not now,” Emily said, flatly.

  She ran her hand though her hair. “If we do this,” she said, “we would need to create a secrecy agreement, an oath to keep our secrets to ourselves. And we would need some organization, too.”

  “Alassa can lead it,” Imaiqah said. “She’s good at taking command.”

  “You were the most competitive person in Second Year,” Emily agreed. “But can you take command of this?”

  “Not without risking it becoming tied to Zangaria,” Alassa said, slowly. “You should take command.”

  Emily shook her head. She was no leader. The thought of taking command of anything was daunting, even though she was a noblewoman thanks to King Randor. But she had a feeling he’d planned to use Emily’s inexperience to control her as soon as he’d offered her Cockatrice. He certainly hadn’t trained her to serve as a baroness.

  “I nominate Imaiqah,” she said, instead. Her friend was clever, unassuming and very capable. “She can serve as our chairperson.”

  “Good thought,” Jade said.

  “We can hold the next meeting tomorrow,” Alassa said. She looked at Emily. “When will you be returning to classes?”

  “Next week, I hope,” Emily said. She had no idea how well she would do on the tests. “And I have to move to a proper room. Madame Razz won’t be pleased.”

  “Madame Razz isn’t our housemother any longer,” Alassa said. “Third Years have Madame Beauregard. She’s tougher than Madame Razz.”

  “Joy,” Emily said. Madame Razz had been tough, all right, and very short with any girls who forgot any of their possessions when they arrived at Whitehall. But she’d also been fair to the girls–and woe betide any boy who tried to enter their rooms without permission. “I’ll have to speak to her soon, I think.”

  “No doubt,” Alassa said. “It’s good to see you again.”

  “You too,” Emily said.

  A bell rang through the school. Emily rose automatically, then remembered she didn’t actually have classes to attend. Instead, she watched her friends leave, feeling an odd pang in her heart. Once they were gone, she released the Death Viper and stroked its head, trying to assuage her sense of abandonment. She knew better, and yet she still felt bad.

  “I’m glad to see that little monster survived,” Lady Barb said, as she stepped into the room. “Have you thought of a name?”

  “Aurelius,” Emily told her.

  Lady Barb snorted. “Fitting,” she said. She watched Emily change the snake back into a bracelet and pull it over her wrist. “The questioners have decided to call it a day, you’ll be pleased to hear. You can spend the rest of the day in the library or providing assistance to some of your tutors.”

  “The library sounds fine,” Emily said. She had some cross-referencing to do, but she thought she was on a solid path to finding a way to make a practical magical battery. The pocket dimensions she’d created could store power, yet discharging it in a controlled manner was a major headache. But she’d had an idea. “And then dinner?”

  “I think you can return to the Great Hall,” Lady Barb agreed. “We can move your young friend into a First Year room tomorrow.”

  “She’ll like that,” Emily said. There were no Shadows in Whitehall. Frieda would be able to concentrate on her studies rather than satisfying Emily’s every whim. “And some better friends her own age won’t be a bad thing.”

  “Just keep an eye on her,” Lady Barb said. “I didn’t like everything I heard at Mountaintop.”

  “I suppose not,” Emily said.

  The library was just as she remembered, although there were hundreds of students fighting over a handful of tomes that had yet to be duplicated by the budding printing presses. Emily found a table in the corner, then started to look for several books she knew were normally assigned to Fifth and Sixth Years. Thanks to Aurelius, she had to admit, she knew enough of the basic concepts to understand what she was reading, although the practice was still beyond her. She’d need help from an expert to actually complete her design.

  Dinner was better than she recalled, although some of the stares from well-connected students suggested that some rumors had already leaked out. Emily did her best to ignore them; instead, she pointed out a few of her friends and acquaintances to Frieda, ending with Melissa and her cronies. She couldn’t help wondering what Melissa thought of the rumors, assuming she’d heard any of them. If Markus hadn’t been at Mountaintop, Melissa would have been in Raven Hall when Emily arrived. And who knew what would have happened then?

  When dinner finally came to an end, she led Frieda back up the stairs to their room. Lady Barb had warned her that they would both have to be up early, Frieda to go to her first set of classes and Emily to answer yet more questions. She would have preferred to visit her friends, but sleep seemed more important. If she was lucky, she’d be sharing a room with one of them at the end of the week.

  “I can’t sleep,” Frieda said, after they were in their beds. “This room feels so empty.”

  “I had problems sleeping when there were twenty girls in the hall,” Emily confessed. She looked over at Frieda. “Would you like me to tell you a story?”

  “My mother used to tell me stories,” Frieda said, softly. “Do you think she’s still alive?”

  “I think so,” Emily said, although she wasn’t so sure. The Cairngorms were a harsh place to live, even for strong men. Frieda’s mother could easily have died by now, her body buried beneath the trees and left to return to the land. “You could write her a letter, or even go see her...”

  “I was never allowed to go,” Frieda said, miserably. “They always said I was a burden.”

  “They wanted you to stay at Mountaintop,” Emily said. Subtle magic, combined with the lingering awareness of the rejection, would have helped break the ties binding the students to their mundane families. “But Whitehall won’t force you to stay here over the summer.”

  She hesitated before getting up and walking to Frieda’s bed. “Move over,” she said, as she sat down. “And I’ll tell you a story.”

  “Please,” Frieda said.

  Emily thought, fast. Most of the stories she knew would require far too much explanation, or modification. But there were some that had universal appeal.

  “Once upon a time,” she said, “there was a magician who made chocolate. This man owned a vast factory on the edge of a very poor town. And in that town there lived a young boy...”

  It wasn’t quite the original, she knew. She’d often considered trying to recall stories from Earth and transcribing them, but it had seemed a pointless exercise. And yet, as she detailed the adventures of Charlie and four insufferable brats, Frieda relaxed and curled up against her. By the time Emily had detailed the unfortunate end of a very spoiled brat, Frieda was fast asleep.

  “Sleep well,” Emily murmured. “You’re safe now.”

  And, with that, she closed her eyes and went to sleep.

  Epilogue

  THE CHAMBERS HE’D ONCE KNOWN LIKE the back of his hand were in ruins.

  Aurelius stumbled through the hidden sections of Mountaintop, feeling as though he was in an unending nightmare. The experiments of countless researchers had been left in ruins, while the wards were no longer even slightly responsive to his touch. There should have been light everywhere, he knew all too well, as he stumbled towards a hidden passageway leading up into another set of research chambers, but the light globes were gone. It cost him more than it should have done to produce one of his own.

  He crawled up the stairs, fighting the growing temptation to ju
st lie down and die. It was overpowering, a sense that he had not only been beaten, but beaten so comprehensively as to be beyond any hope of recovery. And yet he’d never given up before, no matter the problems he’d had to overcome to advance the Star Council’s agenda. Whatever had happened–and his memory refused to remember what had taken place before his collapse–it could be overcome and he could recover.

  There was no light in the research chamber either, he discovered as he forced his way through a door that was suddenly very resistant to his touch. He saw why as soon as he stood up; the magic that had once run through the room like water was gone, redirected to another part of the school. Panic yammered at the back of his mind as he thought of just how much magic had gone into Mountaintop, once upon a time. Had the corridors above his head caved in, now the magic was gone? Or had the other tutors decided to abandon him to his fate? Their oaths might just allow them to leave him to die...

  Raw hatred surged through him as he staggered towards the crystal column. His daughter Renate had been there, trapped and held in stasis like a fly in amber. He’d loved her with all his heart, yet he’d been forced to watch helplessly as her own magic slowly tore her apart. In the end, the only way to save her life had been to deprive her of everything, even idle thought. It was no life for a young girl, but he couldn’t bear to see her die. He couldn’t kill her. He just couldn’t do it.

  But now her column was dark and, when he peered into the crystal, it was clear that the magic holding her in place had failed. Renate was dead. It should have held her in stasis forever...

  ...And then he heard someone behind him.

  “You’re stronger than I thought,” a familiar voice said. “I would not have expected you to actually make it to this chamber.”

  “Cloak,” Aurelius said. He tried to turn around, but his legs buckled under him and he fell to the hard stone floor. “What... what happened?”