Trial By Fire (Schooled in Magic Book 7)

by Christopher Nuttall

  The Grandmaster groaned, one hand rubbing his hidden eyes. Emily watched, concerned; the demon had claimed the Grandmaster was blind, particularly to demons. What had he done, in the past, that had blinded him? Aurelius hadn’t been blind and he’d raised several demons before his untimely death.

  “And we brought it back with us,” he said, bitterly. “You wouldn’t have known what you were seeing, and I couldn’t see it.”

  “I didn’t see anything,” Emily said. She’d watched as he’d checked Shadye’s small hoard of objects, one by one. “There was nothing to suggest we were carrying a demon with us.”

  “Of course there wasn’t,” Master Grey snapped. His face was paler than normal, but he seemed otherwise composed. “Just another case of you making a mistake that has disastrous consequences. Didn’t you think you’d run out of luck eventually?”

  Emily opened her mouth to retort, but the Grandmaster spoke first.

  “Tell me what happened,” he said. “I need to know in as much detail as possible.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Emily said. She gathered herself, then carefully went through the entire story, starting with the mist and ending with the demon shoving her out of Alassa’s mind and back into her body. Her chest still hurt, although she knew there was no real injury. But it had felt so real! “It said it had woven its way into their thoughts.”

  “That’s what demons do,” the Grandmaster said. “It didn’t make an overt deal with them, I suspect; it just touched their sleeping minds and laid their traps.”

  “Shadye would have bound it to the ring,” Master Grey sneered. “It didn’t need to make a deal to remain on this plane.”

  “It said as much,” Emily said. She looked at the Grandmaster. “Can’t you take the ring out and deny permission for the demon to enter? Or simply destroy the ring?”

  “It’s firmly lodged in their minds now,” the Grandmaster said. He looked down at Alassa, clearly choosing his next words carefully. “They effectively gave it permission to remain anyway.”

  “But you rule Whitehall,” Emily protested. “If you could accidentally allow the demon entry...”

  “I don’t rule the students,” the Grandmaster said. “They would have to forsake the demon on their own, which will be hard while they’re in comas. It laid its plans very well.”

  “You brought the demon here,” Master Grey said, looking at Emily. “If it wasn’t for you, it would never have gained access to the school.”

  Emily looked down at the floor. Cold logic told her he was wrong...but emotion told her something else. If she hadn’t insisted on going to the Dark Fortress after defeating Shadye, the demon might have simply remained where it was, destroying the lives of anyone stupid enough to visit the fortress. Whatever Shadye had left there would be safe enough as long as the demon stood on guard. But she’d gone to the Dark Fortress...

  The Grandmaster didn’t escape the Nightmare Hex, she thought, numbly. I broke free and that snapped him out too.

  “She didn’t know what she - what they - were doing,” Lady Barb said. “You can’t blame her for ignorance.”

  “She should have known,” Master Grey insisted. “Is ignorance a defense when hundreds of students are trapped in thrall to a demon? Is ignorance a defense when those innocent students will have to be killed to dislodge the demon from our world?”

  “We’re not killing anyone,” Emily said. “There has to be a way to free them.”

  “There isn’t,” Master Grey said. “The only way to convince a demon to let go would be to find something it wanted and make a trade, but what would it want? Demons enjoy suffering! They like watching us scream!”

  “We will go through the older books,” the Grandmaster said, coolly. “It may be that there is a solution. Lord Whitehall was known for banishing demons in his time.”

  Lady Barb frowned. “Can you read the books?”

  “You can,” the Grandmaster said. “And there are other collections elsewhere.”

  Mountaintop, Emily thought.

  “None of that changes the fact that the White Council will order us to do something drastic,” Master Grey snapped. “We’ll have to kill everyone touched by the demon!”

  “We can keep the demon from spreading its wings further,” the Grandmaster said. “Now that we know what we’re dealing with, we can keep it in check.”

  Master Grey glowered at Emily. “How many students are on the verge of falling prey to its influence?”

  “I don’t know,” Emily said.

  She gritted her teeth. Her body hurt, a dull ache that seemed to pervade every last cell and even her soul. She wanted bed, desperately; she knew she didn’t dare sleep, not with a demon spreading its influence through the school. And Master Grey just wouldn’t shut up! She had to fight to keep her temper in check, after she’d been forced to watch Frieda die. He’d made it seem real...

  “I don’t know,” Master Grey mocked. “I don’t know! That could almost be your refrain!”

  He glared at her, savagely. “Several hundred students are about to die at our hands,” he snapped. “Several hundred students! And it’s all your fault.”

  “Quiet,” the Grandmaster ordered. “I was with her. The responsibility is mine.”

  “Everyone knows there are things you can’t see,” Master Grey said. He sneered at Emily. “But she should have been able to see them.”

  Emily forced herself to ignore him. “There’s a library in Mountaintop,” she said. “Zed said I could go there, if I wanted. There are books on demons there.”

  “You wrecked Mountaintop,” Master Grey thundered. His voice turned accusing. “And now you’ve wrecked Whitehall! Do you think the school will remain open when we know there’s a demon on the prowl?”

  The Grandmaster sagged, resting on his staff. Lady Barb gave Emily a warning look, then hurried to his side. Emily felt another stab of bitter guilt. She liked the Grandmaster, she’d enjoyed the walk through the Blighted Lands...everything that had happened, since then, felt like her fault. And Master Grey’s words, his harsh words, cut into her very soul. They made her want to throw caution to the winds.

  “Mountaintop was killing its students to sustain the wards,” Emily shouted, feeling her temper fray. It was hard, so hard, to believe he was wrong. If she hadn’t gone to the Dark Fortress, the demon would never have come to Whitehall. Alassa, Imaiqah, the Gorgon, Aloha, and everyone else would be working on their coursework, not resting in demon-induced comas. “Did you know that, when you left? How many of your friends died to keep the school running?”

  “Hard choices have to be made,” Master Grey shouted back at her. “Do you think you can just pick matters up and then drop them again? Be committed, or don’t commit yourself at all!”

  He took a breath. “And don’t waste my time babbling about things you don’t understand, you ignorant child,” he snapped. “Just shut up!”

  Emily’s temper snapped. “If you think you can shut me up,” she shouted, caught between rage and exhaustion, “shut me up!”

  Master Grey, just for a second, showed a flicker of triumph. “I accept your challenge,” he said, in a voice so polite that it was shockingly clear he’d faked his earlier rage. “My second will discuss the details of the duel later today. To the death, of course.”

  “No, he won’t,” the Grandmaster growled. He pulled himself upright and fixed Master Grey with a stern look. “I do not permit dueling in my school.”

  Master Grey stared back at him evenly. “She issued the challenge,” he said. It dawned on Emily that she might have made a horrific mistake. “It is my right to settle it as I see fit.”

  “Then you can wait until after the exams,” the Grandmaster told him, flatly. “Or are you disputing my right to issue orders in my school?”

  “Very well,” Master Grey said. “The duel can wait.”

  He bowed politely to the Grandmaster, then strode out of the room, closing the door loudly behind him. The Grandmaster took a mo
ment to center himself before he opened the door and followed Master Grey. Emily turned, wincing as Lady Barb caught her arm in a vice-like grip. A wave of her hand closed the door, then established a privacy ward.

  “Sit,” Lady Barb grated. “Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in?”

  Emily hesitated, then shook her head. “No.”

  “You practically challenged him to a duel,” Lady Barb said. “And he saw fit to accept your challenge. He’s going to kill you.”

  She glared at Emily, then started to pace from side to side, her fists clenched. “You were manipulated,” she added, tiredly. “We were all manipulated.”

  Emily didn’t see it. “By the demon?”

  “Perhaps,” Lady Barb said. She swung around, her eyes flickering as if she were searching for an invisible enemy. “But no; I think Master Grey intended to goad you to a point where you issued something that could be taken as a challenge. Making you think you’d watched your little friend die...that you’d failed to save her...might have been intended to push you over the brink.”

  “I didn’t mean to challenge him,” Emily said, stunned. Master Grey had switched from asshole to teacher and then back to asshole, time and time again...had he been deliberately trying to keep her off balance? She could have endured constant disdain, but it had been hard to cope when she’d never known which of his two personalities would emerge to take the lesson. “I...”

  “You told him to shut you up,” Lady Barb said. “It might not be the formal slap, but it’s certainly close enough. The White Council might rule in his favor if it came to court.”

  Emily closed her eyes and tried to recollect what she’d been taught about dueling. She’d never felt inclined to duel for fun, so the only real lessons she’d taken had been at Mountaintop and the rules were softer for students. A tutor couldn’t challenge a student, she was sure, but a student could challenge a tutor. There were rules, she thought, yet she’d never bothered to look them up. It had never seemed important.

  She opened her eyes, feeling a terrible numbness spreading through her chest. “What do we do?”

  “You can’t do anything,” Lady Barb snapped. “I imagine the Grandmaster will try to bring pressure on him to refuse your challenge, perhaps with some face-saving formula about blaming everything on the demon. It might work; hellfire, it might even be true. If not...”

  She sat on the bed, facing Emily. “You don’t have many options,” she said, tiredly. “You didn’t accuse him of something unforgivable, so you can’t discover his innocence and retract your challenge on those grounds. He’d have every right to make you eat crow if you issued a false accusation, even if you believed it to be true at the time. Or you could retract it anyway...?”

  Emily frowned. “What’s the catch?”

  “He might claim compensation from you,” Lady Barb said. “It isn’t impossible for him to lay claim to Cockatrice itself. The White Council might back him up, if they heard the case; he could presumably argue that he’d won by default and was thus entitled to everything you own. King Randor wouldn’t be pleased, but trial by combat has been laid down in his law. It might be hard for him to object.

  “Or he might demand you. As a slave.”

  “No,” Emily said.

  “He could,” Lady Barb said. “There is precedent for that, too.”

  She met Emily’s eyes. “Everything he did, it seems, was done to create a situation where he can kill you, without fear of retaliation,” she warned. “Or otherwise render you harmless. If you ran, and you could run, your property would be seized and your reputation destroyed. I don’t think anyone would believe you actually killed two necromancers if you couldn’t face a single combat sorcerer.”

  “I can’t,” Emily said.

  “He has twenty years of experience,” Lady Barb agreed. She tapped her palm as she spoke, underlining each word. “He’s stronger than you, faster than you, tougher than you and nastier than you. You don’t stand a chance.”

  I could blow him up, Emily thought, vindictively. She could reuse the nuke-spell, if they were somewhere isolated. Master Grey wouldn’t be expecting a small nuclear blast. It would probably kill her too, but she wasn’t inclined to care. Or...

  She looked at Lady Barb. “Where will we be fighting?”

  “Here, perhaps,” Lady Barb said. “The seconds are normally charged with finding a suitable place.”

  Emily groaned. Using the nuke-spell in Whitehall would not only destroy the school, killing everyone inside, but also destabilize the nexus point. The resulting explosion would devastate the land for hundreds of miles around, slaughtering millions of innocent civilians and unleashing wild magic in its wake. She couldn’t have that on her conscience, not if all she wanted to do was drag him down beside her. She’d have to fight without the greatest weapon in her arsenal.

  I could use the battery, she thought. But to do what?

  Lady Barb met Emily’s eyes. “I suggest you write to Void,” she added. “You might wind up owing him a second favor, but he might be able and willing to help. Although...if he kills Master Grey now, it’s going to look very bad.”

  “As if I went running to daddy,” Emily said.

  “Quite,” Lady Barb agreed. “It would make him look bad too, of course.”

  “Of course,” Emily echoed. “If I fight, I die; if I retract the duel, I lose everything; if I run, I lose everything, apart from my freedom?”

  “Correct,” Lady Barb said, coldly. “You have enemies, Emily. I dare say that both the Ashworths and Ashfalls have good reason to want to hammer you. Others...will recall what you did last summer and decide it might be better to have you rendered harmless. Some of the Mountaintop alumni will certainly blame you for what you did to their school. It wouldn’t look good for you, if the matter did come to court.”

  She sucked in her breath. “Run.”

  Emily blinked. “What?”

  “Take some money and your books and run,” Lady Barb repeated. She leaned forward, her blue eyes suddenly intent. “You can’t best him and you don’t want to wind up a slave. Go!”

  “I can’t,” Emily said. She looked at Alassa, lying still and silent on the bed. “I can’t leave them like this.”

  Lady Barb shook her head. “What can you do to help?”

  “I don’t know,” Emily said. She thought hard, but no ideas came to her. What could she offer a demon that it might want? “But I can’t do nothing. I can go to Mountaintop...”

  “Zed might take you in,” Lady Barb said. “Master Grey wouldn’t be able to force him to throw you to the wolves, if he gave you his protection. But you’d still lose everything else.”

  “And be trapped there,” Emily said. Mountaintop had been stuffy and claustrophobic even before she’d discovered the school’s darkest secret. “I wouldn’t want to stay there...”

  “You will die,” Lady Barb said. “Don’t you understand me? You will die!”

  She reached forward suddenly, magic crackling around her fingertips. Emily, already tired and drained, could barely resist as Lady Barb shattered her remaining wards, yanked Emily to her feet and bent her backwards over her knee, hooking her leg over Emily’s legs to keep them trapped. Emily was utterly trapped, unable to move.

  “I did that, easily,” Lady Barb said. “I could break your neck in this position and you wouldn’t be able to stop me. Do you think he’ll be any slower than me? Or weaker?”

  “No,” Emily gasped.

  Lady Barb pushed her to her feet, and sighed. “I’d beat you black and blue if I thought it would help,” she said. “He should have sent you for a thrashing, not chosen to take it as a challenge. If I’d realized in time...he must have had this planned for months, just gauging what buttons to press to make you angry...”

  She shook her head. “Go back to your room and get some rest,” she ordered. “Make sure you set up a warding circle first or...

  “The demon might not be able to touch you,” she added. “You
are, after all, Shadye’s Heir. It practically admitted as much.”

  “I’ll set up the circle anyway,” Emily said. She didn’t want to take the word of a demon, not when she was too tired and depressed to think clearly. “What about Frieda?”

  “I’ll speak to her,” Lady Barb said. “She can share a room with one of the other Fourth Years, if necessary. I can take you to Mountaintop tomorrow morning, if you wish; let me know so I can contact the MageMaster ahead of time.”

  Emily yawned. “Maybe in the afternoon,” she said. She took one last look at Alassa, her face inhumanly still. “He did say I can visit whenever I wanted.”

  “Better not to presume too much on that,” Lady Barb warned. “And Emily?”

  “Yes?”

  “Think,” Lady Barb said. “Think as hard as you can. Because if you don’t find a way out, you will die.”

  I can’t beat him in a fight, Emily thought, numbly. She knew that was true. A man who’d been the undisputed champion on the dueling circle was unlikely to be beaten by a simple trick. And if I run, I lose everything.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  IT WASN’T AN EASY NIGHT.

  Emily slept poorly, despite the warding circle and the potion she had taken as a last resort to help her sleep. Nightmares of the demon, and Master Grey, haunted her dreams, blurring together into a single malevolent entity. By the time she finally gave up on sleep and forced herself to get out of bed, she felt as though she hadn’t slept at all. She stumbled into the shower and washed herself in cold water, then dressed in her robes. Her body felt so tired and drained she just wanted to lie back down and sleep. But there was no time for sleep.

  She picked up a handful of books from her bedside table and frowned as she saw the parchment, glowing faintly to alert her to unread messages. Jade had sent several messages, frantically asking what was going on. Where was everyone? Emily stared at it blearily for a long moment before recalling that everyone with a copy of the parchment, save for herself and Jade, was under the demon’s thrall. She reached for a pen, but stopped herself. What could she tell Jade? How could she tell him that his fiancée was held by a demon and his former master intended to kill Emily in a duel? And yet, she knew she had to tell him something. He would probably have heard all sorts of rumors, if he’d checked with the other magicians in Zangaria...