Infinite Regress

by Christopher G. Nuttall

... And it was only a matter of time before the end finally came.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  “THE ANSWER HAS TO LIE IN here, somewhere,” Professor Locke said. “Keep looking.”

  Emily rubbed her eyes. Gordian had listened to her explanation of Frieda’s disappearance—she tried to keep herself from thinking of Frieda as dead—and then sent her to work with Professor Locke. Emily didn’t think he knew she’d stopped to confront Jasmine on the way, but she couldn’t help thinking of the assignment as a punishment. Cabiria was missing, leaving her alone with a professor who alternated between urging her onwards and glaring nastily at her.

  “Professor Lombardi thinks we have no choice, but to push on,” Gordian had said. The school had rumbled, ominously, at his words. “If you can dig up something—anything—from the archives, it may be helpful.”

  “I will,” she said to Professor Locke, feeling too tired to care about her tone. “But surely you have been through these documents before?”

  “I didn’t know half as much as I do now,” Professor Locke snarled. He picked up a roll of dusty parchment and thrust it towards her. “See if you can make any sense out of this.”

  Emily sighed, but took the scroll and opened it carefully, using the spells she’d been taught to ensure it wasn’t damaged. She made a mental note to try and talk Gordian into having the scrolls copied, now that printing was a fast-growing trade within the Allied Lands, then bent her head over the document. The writing was so small that she couldn’t help wondering how the original writer had managed to produce it, at least without computers and printers. She had to use a magnifying spell to pick out the words, which made it impossible to use a translation spell. Whatever language had been used to write the scroll, it seemed to have little in common with High or Low Imperial.

  They must have known about translation spells when the scroll was written, she thought, as she started to copy the words one by one. The original writer deliberately created the document to make it difficult to translate, unless the reader made a copy or already knew the language.

  She shook her head, fighting a yawn and bitter tears. No matter how hard she worked, she couldn’t forget Frieda, couldn’t forget that her friend was missing, perhaps dead. She tried hard to focus on the document, but Frieda’s face kept popping up in her mind. There had been no time to come to terms with her death, let alone hold a remembrance ceremony for her. How could they, when the remainder of the castle might collapse at any moment?

  Damn you, she thought, eying Locke’s head as he studied yet another document. This is all your fault.

  The document slowly revealed its secrets, one by one. It was a set of tales from the very early years of Whitehall; some familiar to her, others new and disturbing. Surely Lord Whitehall had not turned an entire invading army into pigs, then dined on their hams! It would take a fantastically-powerful magician—or a nexus point—to cast such a spell on so many people, then hold it in place long enough to have dinner. The whole story sounded more like vicious slander, written after Whitehall was safely dead. She worked her way through the entire scroll, but the more she looked at it, the more convinced she became that it was absurd.

  “There’s nothing here,” she said, finally. “I think it’s useless.”

  She rolled up the scroll and put it to one side. There were descriptions of great arts performed by Lord Whitehall and his allies, but nothing practical, nothing to suggest how those spells had actually been cast. Indeed, some of the spells were so powerful—and so unlike any she’d seen at Whitehall—that she couldn’t help wondering if Whitehall had been a god among men. Even Void, she was sure, couldn’t have cast such spells.

  “Take this one,” Professor Locke ordered. He passed her a manuscript book, tightly bound with a strap. A nasty-looking hex hovered over the clasp. “If my source is correct, it was written by Master Keldor in the last years of his life.”

  Emily frowned as she tested the spell, trying to find a way to undo it without destroying the book. Master Keldor had been mentioned in a handful of books, but most of what was known about him was third or fourth-hand at best. The only thing known for certain—and that only because every source agreed on it, even if they disagreed on everything else—was that he’d been a member of the Whitehall Commune. But the spell was surprisingly persistent for one that had lingered for centuries. It shouldn’t have been able to do that at all.

  “It didn’t,” Professor Locke said, when she asked. He sounded more like his old self as he took the book back, then undid the spell. “According to my source, who claimed to be the last descendent of Master Keldor, the manuscript was written on his skin. Any of his descendents could renew the spell, if they wished. I had to be shown how to remove the hex before I could read it myself.”

  Emily winced. She’d come across quite a few books that were written on human skin, the words etched out in blood; they’d always been listed amongst the darkest of tomes. And yet, how could Master Keldor have written the book on his own skin? It sounded more like an attempt to make the manuscript seem more important than it actually was, rather than a genuine remark. And yet...

  This is the skull of John the Liar, she thought, recalling a con artist she’d seen at the Cockatrice Faire. And this, the smaller skull right beside it, is the skull of John the Liar as a child.

  She smiled at the memory—she found it hard to imagine anyone falling for the trick—then carefully opened the manuscript. It felt clammy to the touch, a faintly unpleasant whiff of something drifting up from the pages as she smoothed them down. The words were written in the same language as the earlier scroll, but there had been no attempt to make it difficult to use a translation spell. She cast the spell and watched, feeling an odd sense of relief, as the letters shimmered into something she could read.

  The writer, she decided as she slowly read her way through the first few pages, had been as mad as a hatter. He started out by talking about the castle—she assumed he meant Whitehall—and then jumped into a long and complicated story about three witches and a king who would never claim his throne. It made Macbeth sound tame, Emily thought, but she didn’t see the relevance. She’d wondered why the book’s owners would allow Professor Locke to take it—if it dated all the way back to Lord Whitehall, it was literally priceless—but it didn’t seem as if there was anything useful within its pages. The handful of mentions of names she recognized were interspersed with snide remarks about people she’d never heard of and long discourses on the nature of life, the universe, and everything. She honestly couldn’t decide if she was looking at genius or madness.

  She turned the page and froze. The writer had drawn a picture of a spider-like creature, practically identical to the drawing she’d seen in the tunnels below Whitehall. There were no words written beside it, save for the ancient rune for danger. It was drawn so badly that she couldn’t help thinking the writer had been terrified out of his mind. Beneath it, there was another drawing, a spiral blurring in the air. It looked oddly familiar... she puzzled over it for a long moment, then realized—to her horror—that she was looking at a drawing of a Mimic. If the spell wasn’t obscured by a misty glow, she thought, it might look a little like the drawing in front of her.

  The lights dimmed, just for a second. Emily looked up—Professor Locke hadn’t even stirred as he pored over another scroll—then returned her attention to the manuscript. The owners hadn’t realized what the drawing was, she suspected. It was unlikely they knew anything about the Mimics, certainly not their true nature. If they had, they would never have let Professor Locke take the book. Or had he even bothered to ask permission first...?

  She eyed Professor Locke thoughtfully, feeling suspicion gnawing at her. The professor had been desperate to unlock the school’s secrets, even when it had started to look like a really bad idea. Had he stolen the book? How many of the manuscripts piled up in the office were stolen? Or was she merely being paranoid?

  She swallowed—there was no way she could ask, n
ot now—and turned her attention to the remainder of the book. Large parts of it seemed to be nothing but ravings; she shook her head in droll amusement at a long rant against schooling women in magic. Master Keldor seemed to believe that teaching girls to use magic was a bad idea—an attitude she’d heard before—although he did have a different set of justifications. Witches, he felt, had problems having children. Emily hadn’t heard anything about that in five years on the Nameless World.

  Caleb’s mother had children, she thought, tartly. Perhaps it was just another excuse to deprive women of their rights. God knew Alicia wouldn’t have had so many problems if her father had Confirmed her when she’d turned sixteen, as he would have done for a boy. How many other female magicians have children?

  “Professor,” she said, looking up. “How many of the female staff have children?”

  Professor Locke blinked at her. “Madame Razz and Mistress Irene have children,” he said, shortly. “You’ve found the claim that witches can’t have children, then?”

  Emily nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “Master Keldor—or whoever wrote the book—seems to have considered witches a separate group from magicians,” Professor Locke said. “It’s possible that some aspect of witchcraft did dull their fertility. Certain rites and rituals used today do have such an effect. But we may never know for sure.”

  “I see,” Emily said.

  She sighed as she returned to the remainder of the manuscript, frowning as she thought she sensed a deeper meaning in some of the ravings. Maybe she was too tired to think properly, but the line about Whitehall pressing his head into the nexus point might refer to him communing with the spellwork he’d crafted. And the maddeningly imprecise references to jigsaw puzzles might just be linked to the spell matrix. It was a kind of jigsaw puzzle, one where putting the wrong piece in the wrong place would mess up the remainder of the spellware. In hindsight, Professor Lombardi’s attempt to alter the spellwork had probably caused a whole series of other problems...

  The door opened, revealing a pale-faced serving girl. Emily rose and took her tray, then thanked her as she smelled the hot Kava. There was no milk, she noted, merely a small pot of sugar. Gritting her teeth—Kava tasted bitter without milk, no matter how much sugar she ladled into the mug—she poured two mugs and passed one to Professor Locke, then took the other one back to her desk. She’d get the jitters soon, but it would keep her awake for a while longer.

  She frowned as she read through the final section. Whitehall, according to Master Keldor, hadn’t just stuck his head in the nexus point—it was written in a tone that suggested he might as well have stuck his head in a toilet—he’d locked it in place. He actually said the same thing over and over again, repeating it at least four times before changing the subject. Was it important? Or...

  Emily froze as it clicked into place. She’d always considered casting spells to be very similar to computer programming, but she hadn’t thought through the implications of a genuine magical computer. Altering some of the settings through the consoles was presumably easy, yet actually repairing the damage required direct access to the programming itself. And Professor Lombardi, for all his skill, hadn’t realized the sheer complexity of the system. His changes had only made matters worse.

  She put the book aside, then picked up the spell diagrams and began to work, hastily. When he’d touched the consoles, Professor Locke had altered one of the settings... and, instead of trying to put them back to normal, Professor Lombardi had effectively taken an axe to the computer and clobbered it. She cursed herself under her breath as she realized just how badly she’d stumbled. There was no one else on the Nameless World that knew anything about computers, yet she’d missed the clue that had been right in front of her. It should be relatively simple, she saw, to fix the damage and then reopen the doors.

  Unless it’s too late, she thought, numbly. The collapse might already be too far advanced.

  “Professor,” she said, rising. “I have to go.”

  Professor Locke stared at her. “Go? Go where?”

  “The control room,” Emily said. She cursed her tiredness a second later. It might have been smarter to claim she was going to find the nearest chamberpot. Now the facilities had stopped working, the staff had established makeshift toilets. “I think I know how to get us out of the trap.”

  “You have done quite enough damage,” Professor Locke snarled. His expression hardened, suddenly. “You’re staying right here, as the Grandmaster ordered.”

  Emily stared at him, then glanced up as a dull quiver ran through the school. Was Professor Locke going mad? To have all of his dreams turn into nightmares, to have his proudest accomplishment snatched away, to watch helplessly as the finest example of ancient magic collapsed into rubble... it was enough to drive anyone crazy. Surely, he had to know what would happen if the pocket dimension collapsed. There would be no hope of survival. They’d be crushed into nothingness.

  “I have to go,” she said, turning towards the door. There was no time to argue. She could deal with the consequences later, if there were consequences. Professor Lombardi would probably argue in her favor, if nothing else. “Professor...”

  A hex flared over the door. “You are not going anywhere,” Professor Locke snapped. Emily turned, just in time to see him rise to his feet. His face was red with fury. “Where are the books?”

  Emily stared at him. “I swore an oath...”

  “You’re crafty,” Professor Locke snarled. A hex—a torture hex—glimmered over his fingertips, casting a sickly yellow light over his face. “You could evade an oath, if you tried.”

  He held up his hand in a casting pose. “Where are the books?”

  Emily hesitated, thinking hard. Professor Locke had snapped completely. There was no way he would be allowed to remain at Whitehall if he tortured a student, even if it didn’t get him executed or transported to the Garden of Stoned Philosophers. Gordian could never allow him to stay, let alone teach. And Locke no longer cared...

  She winced as she backed into the wall. There was nowhere to run.

  “Tell me,” Locke snarled. “Where are the books?”

  Emily threw a force punch at him, slamming him backwards. Sickly light flared around the older man as he tumbled to the floor, screaming in pain. His spell had backfired, Emily realized in horror. If she could feel it, even at a distance, he had to have massively overpowered the spell. She’d been tortured before, but this was different. It might have killed her—or driven her mad—if he’d cast it.

  The spell faded. Locke stumbled into a sitting position, blood pouring down his nose, and struggled to raise his hand. Emily found herself torn between trying to help him and running for her life. Locke had definitely snapped if he was more concerned with trying to hurt her than repairing the horrendous damage he’d inflicted on himself. Torture spells could cause nerve damage, she’d been taught, dooming the victim to a pain-racked life if they didn’t receive immediate medical attention. It was one of the many reasons they were banned...

  Locke cast a spell at her, a spell she didn’t recognize. Emily sidestepped it, then threw a stunning spell back. Locke’s protections seemed to have been warped out of shape, rather than destroyed; the stunner should have just knocked him out, but instead it picked him up and threw him against the far wall. He crumpled to the ground and lay there, stunned.

  Shit, Emily thought.

  For a long moment, she could barely move. She’d attacked a tutor! It hadn’t been a duel, it hadn’t been a test of her skills... she’d attacked a tutor. He might have been preparing to cast a torture spell... or had he? Had he been hoping to intimidate her? She had no doubt he’d try to claim he had no intention of actually casting the spell... if Gordian still wanted to expel her, she’d just given him enough excuse to kick her out as soon as the gates reopened. No one could argue with him now.

  Another quiver ran through the school. She cursed, then turned to the door and tore it open, stumbling out into the cor
ridor. It had changed; now, it looked like the corridor outside the private workrooms, heavily warded to protect the students and their secrets. But when she closed her eyes and centered herself, she could feel the nexus point below her. It felt different...

  Gritting her teeth, drawing on the last of her reserves, she started to run.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  SHE HEARD SOMEONE CALLING OUT BEHIND her as she ran downwards, but she ignored them. The corridors were in ruins, pieces of debris lying everywhere; she had to force herself to keep running when she had to jump over chunks of stonework and pieces of statues that had been shattered by the constantly-shifting corridors. The tremors grew stronger as she plunged down a corridor that had been lined with suits of armor. Now, the suits of armor lay on the ground, in pieces. She tripped over a breastplate and swore as she nearly fell to the ground, then caught herself and kept moving. Everything was different.

  Keep focusing on the nexus point, she told herself, as she plunged down a long and winding set of stairs, then along a darkened corridor. The lights brightened and dimmed, seemingly at random. She did her best to ignore the shadows as they crept forward, without ever touching her. Let it guide you down.

  She tore past a handful of younger students, ignoring their shouts and the hex one of them hurled at her back. There was no way to know what they were doing there, if they’d escaped the Great Hall or if they’d been trapped—elsewhere—by one of the changes. Oddly, the thought gave her a flicker of hope. Frieda might have been trapped, but she might also have been freed. She clung to it as she reached the final stairwell, then hurried down to the lower spellchambers. They looked to be in ruins, the spellware torn and broken. She smiled, despite herself. The spellchamber she’d damaged was hardly a problem now.

  Something moved ahead of her. A handful of dummies, advancing towards her. She slowed, then cursed as she saw a student’s body lying on the ground. The dummies had gone rogue... why? There was no time to find out. She gathered her strength and cast a series of blasting spells, pushing all the power she could into them. The lead dummy barely had a chance to cast a spell of its own before it disintegrated into rubble, followed by the others. It crossed Emily’s mind, as she started to run faster, that Sergeant Miles would not be pleased at losing the remainder of his dummies. But they shouldn’t have gone rogue in any case.