Work Experience (Schooled in Magic Book 4)

by Christopher Nuttall

  Emily frowned. “Why?”

  “Because my magic will regard yours as an intrusion,” Lady Barb explained. She sighed and lay back on the blanket. “This isn’t a normal disease or a broken bone, just my magic responding to my abuse. Give it time to recover and I’ll be fine.”

  “What if you’re not fine?” Emily asked. “What should I do?”

  Lady Barb gave her a long considering look. “If I die...you should have a contingency plan,” she said. She chuckled, rather harshly. “You seem to move between complete dependence or complete independence, depending on how far you trust your companion. Go back to the town, use the money in my pouch and catch a ride with the postal coach. He can take you down to the nearest city, where you can get a portal to Dragon’s Den. Make sure you take everything useful from my body before leaving it.”

  Emily swallowed. The matter-of-fact instructions were more worrying than shouts and screams. She wanted to retort that Lady Barb’s death would be more than a minor inconvenience, but she didn’t quite dare. “What should I do with your body?”

  “Burn it to ash,” Lady Barb said. “Don’t worry about prayers. You don’t know the ones my family uses, so...”

  She shook her head. “Just leave me to sleep, now,” she added. “Make yourself breakfast, then do some practicing...but nothing with the staff. Leave the staff alone.”

  “I will,” Emily promised. Lady Barb had told her not to experiment without supervision, but she hadn’t expected to get unwell. “Can I practice with pocket dimensions?”

  “Carefully,” Lady Barb said. “Very carefully.”

  She closed her eyes. Emily watched her for a long moment, then turned and stepped past the wards, one hand raised in a defensive posture. Nothing moved to attack her, nothing moved at all, apart from a rabbit at the edge of the clearing. Emily shot a stunning spell at the creature and knocked it out before it could escape. The sergeants would have reproved her for wasting magic, but she didn’t have time to set traps. She certainly didn’t want to leave Lady Barb alone for longer than strictly necessary.

  Gritting her teeth, she picked up the creature, snapped its neck and started to cut it apart for food.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  LADY BARB REMAINED ASLEEP, EVEN WHEN Emily cooked several pieces of rabbit in the fire and ate them with Kava. Emily watched her, concerned, then placed several more pieces of meat under stasis spells, so they would be ready when Lady Barb was awake. Reaching into her bag, she found one of her notebooks and started to brainstorm, working out how best to create a pocket dimension that could serve as an emergency shelter. When she ran out of ideas for that, she jotted down everything she could remember about the very first aircraft to leave the ground on Earth. Maybe, just maybe, a craftsman in Zangaria could produce his own version of the Kitty Hawk.

  She looked back at her earlier pages and sketched out an idea for a slide rule that might be useful for craftsmen. But she couldn’t remember enough about the concept without memory spells to write down everything. She made a silent promise to herself to explore the concept more thoroughly when she returned to Whitehall, then opened a new page and jotted down more ideas for her bank. One branch would be opened in Cockatrice, but another would be opened in a nearby independent city-state. She had the feeling that it would be better to keep the bank as separate as possible from her other innovations. And sticky-fingered aristocrats.

  It would be a headache to make it work properly, even with magical versions of ideas from Earth. She would need to find someone to manage it full time, someone she could trust, but who could do that in Zangaria? Bryon was busy with Cockatrice, Imaiqah’s father had his own business...and besides, neither of them could stand up to King Randor. And yet, political interference would doom her bank as surely as anything else. She might be better starting the whole project somewhere well away from Zangaria.

  “I wonder if Aloha would like the job,” she mused, out loud. Aloha had worked out a word processor-like device, using the concept Emily had taught her, even if it would be years before they came up with a working computer. But it was possible to devise a spell processor...Emily had sketched out notes, although she wasn’t sure how to make them practical. Or, if that happened, what it would do to society if it worked.

  She went back to her patient and touched Lady Barb’s forehead, wincing at the heat. The older woman seemed to be burning up from the inside. Emily placed a mug of water next to her, then stood up and walked out of the wards, carrying the bag with her. Once she was outside, she started to practice with the pocket dimensions again, carefully. She managed to put together two stable dimensions in a row using the square before placing it behind her and concentrating on creating one in thin air. But it took several tries before she managed to make it work properly.

  “The wood must be a crutch, too,” she muttered, as she sat down just outside the wards, exhausted. She didn’t see how the square prevented the pocket dimension from expanding outwards, but perhaps it was just a matter of perception. She saw nothing, so there seemed to be no barrier to prevent expansion. Concentrating, she tried to visualize it in her mind, but she lost it every time she opened her eyes and saw nothing. “Or maybe I’m not doing it properly.”

  She glanced over at Lady Barb before getting one of the books she’d brought along and starting to read. It wasn’t as interesting as she’d hoped, but it did help to pass several hours while she recovered from using so much magic. The writer knew what he was talking about, yet he wrote in such a boring manner that Emily found herself yawning halfway through the first chapter. It was odd – Alchemy was exciting, sometimes terrifyingly so – but this style of boring readers to death seemed to be typical of half of her textbooks. But then, maybe the writer was trying to discourage experimentation.

  Emily sighed as she reached the end of the third chapter. Part of her just wanted to whine that Alchemy would never be one of her skills, while the other part of her knew that she needed a basic grounding in the subject even if she never sought mastery. Potions and concoctions brewed by oneself worked better, she’d been told, than anything brewed by anyone else. But her rational mind refused to grasp why this was so. Maybe it was just the simple fact that she’d never been very good at cooking...or maybe it was her inability to understand things that the locals took for granted.

  She found herself worrying about the future, distracting herself from the present. Would she pass her exams in Fourth Year? Like Alassa, she could skip the exams without threatening her future...but she didn’t want to skip or fail them, not when she’d worked so hard. Exams on Earth were largely useless, in her opinion; exams in Whitehall were terrifyingly important, at least to students without an aristocratic background. And she didn’t want to disappoint her supervisors by refusing to take the exams or flunking them. And yet...

  Maybe I can hire a tutor, she thought. Professor Thande was a genius, but he didn’t have enough time to give one-on-one coaching to his pupils. Whitehall’s teaching staff were overworked and underpaid, yet they weren’t the only masters of their subjects. Emily made a private resolution to hire a tutor at the end of Third Year, if she didn’t improve by then, and study intensely over the summer.

  She looked over at Lady Barb, then stood up and started to cast spell after spell, cycling through every pattern she remembered. Her magic seemed to sparkle as it danced around her, then faded back into nothingness as she finally relaxed, gasping for breath. Her tutors had told her to practice often, but they probably hadn’t expected her to practice so furiously – or to be alone, without supervision. Not for the first time, she realized just how lucky the students were to have Whitehall. Their spells could be carefully monitored, even without a tutor in the room, and emergency measures could be taken if necessary.

  Tiredly, she sat back down and tried to relax. But the book was boring rather than relaxing, and she was too worried about Lady Barb to do any more brainstorming. Instead, she pulled the bracelet off her wrist and placed it on the g
round, then undid the spell keeping the snake as a bracelet. Her mind twisted uncomfortably as the snake returned to its natural shape, then relaxed. It seemed unbothered by the experience of being held in stasis.

  Emily reached down to pet it before catching herself. The snake might not be poisonous to her, but the only way to test the snake’s skin was to touch it – and if it still threatened her, she risked losing a hand. She got an odd sense of reassurance from the snake, yet she still didn’t dare touch it. Instead, the snake slithered over towards the bloodstains on the ground and sniffed at them. Emily had a mental impression of a reptilian-like creature stalking the countryside in pitch darkness. It didn’t seem to worry the Death Viper.

  “But it wouldn’t bother you,” Emily said, addressing the snake. “Would it?”

  The snake didn’t seem to understand. Emily was almost disappointed. Some familiars she’d seen at Whitehall seemed almost intelligent – but then, they’d spent long enough with their owners to bond with them completely. They’d picked up a little of human intelligence, if she recalled the books correctly, although they would never be autonomous entities. The Death Viper, on the other hand, hadn’t been with her for more than a day—at least, it hadn’t been awake.

  “Not fair, is it?” She said. The snake seemed to bob its head in agreement. “I have to wear you as a bracelet, so the bond can never really deepen.”

  On impulse, she picked up a twig and tossed it towards the edge of the clearing. The snake gave her an unreadable look – she felt a sense of puzzled amusement coming from its mind – then gave chase. It picked up the twig in its mouth, then carried it back and dropped it in front of Emily. Emily smiled and looked down at the twig. It was marred slightly where the snake had bit it. She didn’t dare touch it with her bare hand.

  The snake’s amusement seemed to grow stronger. It was laughing at her!

  “I should have gone for a dog,” Emily said, reprovingly. “What do you think of that?”

  The snake seemed to twitch, as if it knew the humans didn’t really get to choose what animal they bonded with. Dogs were among the best, because they were faithful and loyal; cats seemed more inclined to take advantage of the bond, as if the human was their slave. Snakes...she knew nothing about how snakes reacted to the bond, if only because there were no other snake familiars in Whitehall. Maybe they were just as faithful as any other familiar, they just showed it differently.

  Emily sighed and reworked the spell. The snake shrank down into a bracelet, which she picked up and put back on her wrist. It wasn’t intelligent enough to know that it was losing time by being transfigured. She felt a moment of guilt – being an inanimate object was bad enough, but she thought it would be worse if she wasn’t even aware of time passing – which she ruthlessly pushed aside. The snake was simply too dangerous to treat as a normal pet.

  She heard a gasp and spun around. Lady Barb shuddered violently, then started to choke on her own tongue. Emily had thought that was impossible.

  She jumped through the wards and lifted the older woman into a sitting position, grimacing at the sweat that now stained Lady Barb’s clothes. There were spells to help someone who was having difficulty breathing, yet she didn’t dare use any of them. She tried frantically to remember how to give CPR, but apart from a few snide jokes she couldn’t recall a thing. It was a skill that should be taught in school. Desperately, she took a breath and then pressed her mouth against Lady Barb’s lips, blowing into her chest, time and time again. There was a hiccupping sound, then Lady Barb started to breathe again. Emily almost collapsed in relief.

  This must be the peak, she told herself, as she held the older woman tightly. Lady Barb was shaking, magic sparkling around her body. Emily tightened her grip, shivering herself as the temperature started to drop. She couldn’t tell if it was a side-effect of the magic or something else, something darker. Could Lady Barb’s coldness be seeping into her? Or was she just imagining it?

  The older woman let out a strangled cry, then subsided. Emily took her pulse – at least she knew how to do that, thanks to lectures at Whitehall – and realized, to her relief, that it was growing stronger. She didn’t let go until Lady Barb sagged, then fell into a more comfortable sleep. Emily lowered her back onto the blanket, then stood up and walked back to the stream to pick up some more water. When she got back, Lady Barb was still, but clearly breathing normally. Emily mopped her forehead, settling down to wait.

  Magic can’t solve everything, she thought, bitterly. It would have been so much easier if she could just click her fingers and put everything to rights. But she couldn’t. Magic had caused the problem in the first place – and, unlike some of the nastier hexes and curses she’d seen, it wasn’t something magic could fix. What if it had been worse?

  She reached for her book and tried to read another two chapters, but her mind refused to concentrate, leaving her with no memory of the words she’d read. Frustrated, she stood up and started to pace the edge of the wards. It was early afternoon and it didn’t look like they would be moving anytime soon. She damned herself for her selfishness a moment later. Lady Barb had been on the verge of a very serious illness, perhaps even death, yet she’d been thinking more of her own convenience rather than her mentor.

  A rustling sound behind her made her snap around, just in time to see Lady Barb sit upright. “That was unpleasant,” she said, tartly. She still sounded weak, but she was definitely getting better. “Water?”

  Emily filled a mug from the cauldron, then used a spell to cool the liquid before passing it to Lady Barb.

  “Thank you,” Lady Barb said, between sips. She finished the water; Emily hastily filled the second mug, then refilled the first. “You’re a good nurse.”

  Emily flushed, wondering just how much Lady Barb remembered.

  “We’ll stay here for the night,” Lady Barb said, looking up at the sky. “We should be able to start walking again tomorrow.”

  “Good,” Emily said, doubtfully. She looked the older woman up and down, noting just how badly her clothes were soaked with sweat. “Will you be all right to walk by then?”

  “Probably,” Lady Barb said. “Once the peak is over, magic tends to replenish itself fairly quickly. A few more hours of sleep probably won’t hurt.”

  She pulled herself to her feet, then staggered through the wards and over into the bushes to answer nature’s call. Emily returned to the cauldron and brewed up another mug of Kava, although she knew she’d have problems sleeping. She didn’t have any way to calculate just how much caffeine was in the drink, but a mug or two had kept her awake over long nights when she’d been trying to finish an essay at the last moment. There was probably more caffeine in Kava than the average cup of coffee.

  Lady Barb returned, stumbling slightly as she walked. “Thank you for taking care of me,” she said, as she sat down on the blanket. “I don’t know if I would have made it without you.”

  Emily gave her a long look. “Did you know that would happen?”

  “I knew it was a possibility,” Lady Barb said, mildly. “But it had to be done.”

  “You shouldn’t have risked your life,” Emily protested. “I...you could have died.”

  Lady Barb coughed, rudely. “Remind me,” she said. “Just who was it who stormed King Randor’s castle, alone, to save her friend?”

  “That’s different,” Emily said.

  “Oh,” Lady Barb said. “How so?”

  Emily found herself struggling for words. The truth, she suspected, was that she didn’t want to lose the older woman. They might have started with a prickly relationship, but they’d become friends – or as close to friends as they could, given their relative positions. And there were times when she thought of Lady Barb as a mother...

  “I don’t know,” she said, finally. She wasn’t sure she wanted to confess the truth. “I just...I don’t want to lose you.”

  Lady Barb reached out and touched her hand. “I am a Mediator of the Allied Lands,” she said, soft
ly. “Putting my life in danger is part of the job. In this case, we have a rogue magician – perhaps a necromancer – running around, doing something that is almost certainly dangerous. It is my duty to take whatever risks are necessary to stop him before it gets too far out of hand.”

  Emily scowled. As soon as a necromancer went to work, she suspected, it was already out of hand.

  “And in this case, I needed to snap Lord Gorham back to normal as soon as possible,” Lady Barb added. “Whatever the necromancer wanted, Emily, those runes were a big part of it.”

  “But what did he want?” Emily asked, mournfully. “It makes no sense!”

  “That generally means that we’re missing part of the puzzle,” Lady Barb reassured her. “But the sooner we get on to Easter, the better. I have a feeling we’ll find our answers there.”

  She looked over at the preserved rabbit. Emily took the hint, canceled the spells and then passed the warm meat to Lady Barb.

  “We will take a slight detour to a village on the route,” Lady Barb said, as she ate. “I’d prefer not to have to forage for food any more than strictly necessary.”

  Emily nodded, remembering foraging expeditions with Sergeant Miles. He’d assigned push-ups for every poisonous mushroom they’d picked by accident, then lectured them on the dangers of eating the wrong thing. She’d privately resolved never to forage for food again if she had any alternative. Even something that was technically safe to eat could make her very unwell.

  “I saw a dragon last night,” she said, changing the subject. “Is that a good sign?”

  “It’s a good sign as long as it didn’t try to eat you,” Lady Barb said. “The mountainfolk tend to leave dragons and their eggs alone, but there’s no shortage of idiots who come up to the mountains in hopes of catching and bleeding a young dragon. Or trying to take an egg before it’s hatched.”