Emily nodded, shucked off the gown - someone had changed her clothes while she was asleep - and pulled on the clean set of clothes. The snake-bracelet hadn’t been removed from her wrist, thankfully; she stroked it gently, feeling the scaly pattern against her fingernails. Master Grey would be in for a very nasty surprise if he claimed it as part of his reward for beating her...
She pushed the thought aside. “How long was I out?”
“Nine hours,” Lady Barb said. “The Grandmaster’s body was removed to the crypt, where it will be held until burial. By tradition, it will be at least three weeks before he is cremated and placed in the ground.”
So he can’t rise again, Emily thought. Zombies were a very real threat in the Nameless World, even though she’d never seen one. Death Magics had been a thoroughly horrifying class. And the demon will have his soul forever.
It was a bitter thought. None of the books had suggested any way to recover a soul, once the body had died. Demons held their prey closely, refusing to let them go. Even if she summoned the demon herself and offered the trade, it was quite possible the demon would refuse. She’d already traded herself, after all. She cursed under her breath before following Lady Barb out of the room and past a long row of occupied beds. The demon’s former victims were slowly fighting their way back to awareness.
They’ll have to live with what the demon whispered into their minds, she thought, grimly. It will overshadow the rest of their lives.
It wasn’t a pleasant thought. If their weaknesses had been enough to convince them to subconsciously lower their defenses and allow the demon into their souls, it had to be bad. Who knew what private dreams or petty guilt pervaded their minds? Or what insecurities weakened their defenses? There was no way to know. If the demon could play at being a Nightmare Hex, it could reach into their souls and drag out the very worst of their fears.
Lady Barb kept walking until they reached the Armory, and led the way into a large spellchamber. “The last duel at Whitehall was fought in the Great Hall,” she said, as she closed and warded the door. “By tradition, senior students and tutors were allowed to witness the contests before the Grandmaster banned them from taking place. I imagine Master Grey will insist on having as many witnesses as possible.”
Emily nodded, unsurprised.
“You and he will step into the dueling circle, carrying only a wand or a staff,” Lady Barb continued. “His second will be required to search you, to verify that you are carrying nothing that could give you an unfair advantage; your second will do the same to him. Once the circle is sealed, only one of you will leave alive.”
“I know,” Emily said. She leaned forward. “Who’s his second?”
“I don’t know,” Lady Barb said. “I believe he wanted Sergeant Miles, but Miles flatly refused when asked. He said there were plenty of ways to teach you to watch your mouth without a duel to the death.”
“That’s good,” Emily said.
“Maybe,” Lady Barb said. She looked Emily in the eye. “Given the nature of the duel, it’s unlikely either second will have to do anything. There are few rules to actually break.”
“True,” Emily agreed. “Will you be my second?”
“If you like,” Lady Barb said. She gave Emily a sharp look. “I can’t fight the duel for you.”
“I know,” Emily said. “Is there anything else I should know?”
“Master Grey is experienced in both duels and bare-knuckle fighting,” Lady Barb said, as she checked the spellchamber’s wards. “Don’t expect him to give you a fighting chance, or to waste time showing off instead of actually trying to kill you. I have no idea why he set out to contrive a duel, but I don’t think he’ll try to make it look even. He just wants you dead.”
She stepped into the warded circle and held up her hand. “Watch,” she said. She tossed a handful of fireballs at the wards, then followed up with a lightning bolt and a spell Emily didn’t recognize. “You’ll understand, I think, that each of those fireballs will snatch away one of your protective wards.”
“I understand,” Emily said. Lady Barb cast a dozen more fireballs with no apparent effort, and stopped. “How many fireballs can he produce?”
“Far more than you,” Lady Barb said, tartly. “The fireball is a popular spell because it is simple to cast and very effective, even against a warded target. He can hammer your wards down faster than you can replenish them.”
“It isn’t imaginative,” Emily pointed out.
Lady Barb tossed a fireball at her. It smashed against Emily’s wards and vanished.
“It doesn’t have to be,” Lady Barb said, as the fireball faded away. There was hardly any heat. “The only thing that matters is winning. You won’t get points for being imaginative.”
Emily swallowed. Sergeant Miles had said much the same, back when he’d been asked about dueling lessons. A duel, particularly a non-lethal duel, was judged on fighting technique as much as who actually won. Someone who performed a particularly tricky spell might win on points, even though they lost the fight. But a lethal duel...she could perform a dozen fancy spells and still wind up dead.
“Mediators are trained to win,” Lady Barb added. “That’s why the training is so hard. We see it as better to expose weakness now, while someone is an apprentice, rather than when they’re on the front lines.”
She motioned Emily into the circle. “Time for you to show off what you’ve learned,” she concluded. “I expect you not to hold back, not even once.”
Emily blanched. “I could kill you!”
“Master Grey will kill you, unless you kill him first,” Lady Barb pointed out. She waved a hand at Emily, who felt herself shoved back into the wards by an invisible force. “Go into the arena prepared to kill, or run now. You have no other choice.”
Emily gritted her teeth and knuckled down to some hard fighting. It rapidly became clear that she was out of her depth, as long as she stuck to standard spells. Lady Barb was a tough opponent, even when she kept her distance; Emily could barely keep her wards in place as Lady Barb slammed spell after spell into her defenses. And then she unleashed other spells that nosed right through her wards...Emily felt the world shrink around her as she was turned into a tiny statue, utterly unable to move. By the time she broke the spell, Lady Barb could have killed her a dozen times over.
“You need to watch for tricks like that,” Lady Barb said, as Emily stumbled back to her feet and lifted her hands in a defensive crouch. “One common trick is to throw several fireballs so closely together that the ward cannot dispel them in time. You’d be burned quite badly, at the very least.”
I see, Emily thought. It suggested...possibilities. She’d have to borrow a spellchamber and practice. But would he expect something based on Earthly science?
She tossed a transfiguration spell at Lady Barb, trying to turn her into a toad. The spell struck the older woman’s wards and vanished, the sheer complexity of the spell - even if it was intended for a prank - working against it. Lady Barb gave her a sharp look that promised pain, clearly believing that Emily wasn’t taking it seriously. Emily ignored her and tossed three more spells at her, watching how and when they faded away. Lady Barb’s wards seemed to ignore anything that didn’t pass close enough to her to be effective.
Makes sense, Emily thought, coldly. She wouldn’t want to waste magic on protecting herself from something that isn’t a threat.
She ducked another spell, throwing herself to the side as Lady Barb launched a powerful force punch at her. If it had struck home, it would have slammed her into the wards and probably stunned her. Lady Barb lunged forward, throwing a set of ward-breaking spells directly at Emily before grabbing her by the arm and throwing her to the stone floor. Emily gasped in pain, recoiling as Lady Barb made a show of slamming her fist into Emily’s neck. It would have killed her if Lady Barb hadn’t pulled her punch.
“You can’t stop him,” Lady Barb said, as she stepped backwards and held out a hand to help Emily to her fe
et. She didn’t even seem winded by throwing so many spells around. “You have to run.”
Emily said nothing. Her entire body was aching, while her magic felt drained, as if she’d used too much too quickly. Older magicians could use more magic, she knew from bitter experience, and Lady Barb was at least a decade older than her, perhaps more. Master Grey could wait for her to exhaust herself, then move in for the kill. Or perhaps simply charge at her, overwhelm her wards with his own and then snap her neck.
“I tried to talk him out of it,” Lady Barb added. “He’s adamant.”
“Maybe he just wants revenge for Mountaintop,” Emily said. Zed had cautioned her that he had little influence over Master Grey...how hard had he tried? Perhaps he’d made the choice to do nothing, to leave Emily in the bed she’d made for herself. God knew he might still have some lingering dislike for her. “Or...”
She shook her head. Master Grey had clearly disliked her even before they’d met for the first time. Jade had told her that he’d been angry when he’d written to her...and that she’d withheld the truth about Shadye’s death. But if she had told the truth, the entire world would have found out soon enough. The necromancers would know her reputation was largely based on a bluff. Without a nexus point, snapping a second necromancer out of existence was impossible.
“I don’t think it matters,” Lady Barb said. She sighed and dispelled the wards. “Take a horse from the stable, take supplies...and go.”
“No,” Emily said. “I’m tired of running.”
“You’re feeling guilty,” Lady Barb said. “I understand. It’s never easy to live when someone dies. But you won’t bring the Grandmaster back by throwing away your life.”
“Then everything I built goes to him,” Emily said. She cursed herself for the oversight. It wouldn’t have been hard to gift Frieda some money, if nothing else; she could have written the bank charter so she had only non-voting stock. “I can’t let that happen.”
“It will happen anyway, when he wins,” Lady Barb said. “He could lay claim to everything you ever touched.”
“I’d like to see him try to put the genie back in the bottle,” Emily muttered. She’d introduced too many ideas for them to be easily suppressed, not now. Trying to stop people using English letters and numbers would be impossible. Printing presses? Steam engines? The basic concepts were hardly a secret, not any longer. Gunpowder was the only concept he might manage to suppress, if Imaiqah’s father and King Randor didn’t keep quiet. “I don’t think he could succeed.”
“He could try,” Lady Barb said. “Emily...”
Emily shook her head. “We need to keep practicing,” she said, shortly. “I’m learning a great deal from you.”
“Then you can learn how easy it is for me to beat you,” Lady Barb said. She restored the wards and stamped over to the far side of the chamber. “I wondered if this was some demented attempt to Claim you, but he was utterly adamant that nothing less than your death would suffice. Once you two enter the circle, like I said, only one of you will leave alive.”
She held up her hand, clearly ready to cast a spell. “And if I have to beat you black and blue to make it clear that you don’t have a chance, I will.”
“I know,” Emily said. “Are there any rules about how he wins?”
“No,” Lady Barb said, shortly. “It’s a duel to the death. All he has to do is kill you. It doesn’t matter if he burns you to ash, or snaps your neck, or cracks your skull with his fist and tears your brain apart. The only real rule, once you’re in the circle...”
“...Is that only one of us will come out,” Emily finished. It was a very simple rule. “It doesn’t matter if I use a new spell?”
“He knows spells you’ve never encountered,” Lady Barb snapped. “I don’t think anyone will care, as long as one of you dies.”
Emily nodded, and braced herself. Lady Barb wouldn’t go easy on her.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“THIS ISN’T A SAFE PLACE TO be,” Master Grey said.
Emily refused to give him the satisfaction of jumping at his voice. She’d been unable to sleep, so she’d wandered through the darkened halls and up to the battlements, where they’d held the ill-fated midnight feast. The moon hung high overhead, casting an eerie light over the school; she’d just sat on the battlements and stared out at the darkened lands beneath the castle.
“It isn’t as if you care,” she said, finally.
“I would prefer you didn’t die in a stupid accident,” Master Grey said. “There are no wards to catch you if you stumbled and fell off the battlements at midnight.”
“Yes, I know,” Emily said. She’d had to jump out of a window to escape the Mimic. “But there’s no need to care.”
Master Grey shrugged, then sat down a safe distance from her. Emily briefly entertained the idea of tossing the Death Viper at him, then realized it would probably be pointless. His stance told her that he was ready for a murderous attack. No doubt he thought he could escape anything she did and wait for her to show up for the duel.
She turned to look at him, bitterly. “Why are you doing this?”
“It has to be done,” Master Grey said. There was no hatred or anger in his voice, merely calm acceptance. “You need to be removed.”
Emily clenched her fists. “I killed two necromancers and this is my thanks?”
“You also came within a hair’s breadth of triggering a war between two families,” Master Grey said, curtly. “Thousands of people, including some of the most prominent magicians in the world, could have died. The changes you have wrought will reshape the world...”
“That isn’t a bad thing,” Emily snapped.
“...And cause chaos when we need to face the gathering storm on our borders,” Master Grey continued, as though she hadn’t spoken. “You make changes, you reshape the world, without ever considering the consequences. The damage you did to Mountaintop alone will weaken our ability to produce more combat sorcerers to defend our lands.”
“Mountaintop was draining the life and magic from some of its pupils to feed the wards,” Emily snarled.
Master Grey looked back at her evenly. “Would you prefer they were drained by advancing necromancers?”
He went on before she could formulate an answer. “Our one priority is to defeat the necromancers, nothing else,” he said. “The balance between magicians, kingdoms and city-states is a reflection of our single overarching goal. We do not have time to quibble over the methods we use to fight, nor do we have time to scrabble over who rules the roost.”
“Says the people in charge,” Emily pointed out.
Master Grey shrugged. “You should know just how few people take the threat over there--” he pointed a finger towards the Blighted Lands “--seriously,” he said. “Too many kings and princes would prefer to forget the necromancers exist.”
“I never forgot,” Emily snapped.
“And yet you were prepared to cripple us,” Master Grey said. “Your actions have proven far too dangerous, Emily. You introduce revolutionary new ideas to kingdoms, threatening the balance of power; you crippled Mountaintop, threatening our ability to fight; you insisted on returning to the Dark Fortress, bringing back a demon that attacked students and eventually claimed the Grandmaster’s life. You’re just too dangerous to be allowed to live.”
Emily looked out over the land. Would it have been better if she’d done nothing? If she’d plunged herself into magical studies and chosen not to introduce any new ideas? But Shadye wouldn’t have let her be, she knew, even if she hadn’t befriended anyone at Whitehall. He would have gone after her anyway...
...And so would far too many others.
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” she said, finally.
“So am I,” Master Grey said. Oddly, she had the feeling he was being completely sincere. “But I don’t have a choice.”
Emily looked at him. “Who put you up to this?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Y
our reputation will not survive beating a nineteen-year-old schoolgirl,” Emily said, bitterly. “Even if you manage to survive the repercussions, no one will ever trust or hire you again. You’re throwing away a career for...what? The pleasure of killing me with your bare hands? Who made it worth your while to sacrifice everything?”
“I have always placed the good of the Allied Lands ahead of my personal desires,” Master Grey said, stiffly. “I didn’t need someone to tell me you had to be killed.”
“Your career will come to an end,” Emily said. “Would you really surrender everything that means something to you because you want to kill me?”
“I owe someone a favor I cannot refuse,” Master Grey admitted. “But I did not need to be talked into recognizing you as a possible threat.”
“Fulvia,” Emily guessed. Master Grey had ties to the Ashworths...ties that might not have snapped when he’d become a Mediator. “Who else could it be?”
“You did risk her life and that of her entire family,” Master Grey pointed out. It wasn’t a denial. “She has good reason to hate you.”
“She was going to arrange for her eldest granddaughter to be married off against her will,” Emily snapped. She’d known it happened, intellectually, but she still had some problems understanding how anyone could tolerate it. “How is that different from rape?”
“It isn’t,” Master Grey said. She blinked in surprise. “But we must all sacrifice our personal desires to protect the Allied Lands.”
“Says the person who doesn’t have to open his legs for a rapist,” Emily snarled. Cold hatred flared through her voice. It would have been easier, perhaps, if he’d invented a justification for arranging and then forcing marriage. “You’d feel differently if it was you being given away as easily as a stud bull.”
Master Grey showed no visible reaction. “I am sacrificing my career,” he reminded her. “I don’t have the freedom to deal with you without a price.”
“Damn you,” Emily swore.
“No doubt,” Master Grey said. He rose to his feet. “We are due to meet one final time, Lady Emily, in nine hours. I would advise you to get some sleep, but...”
Trial By Fire (Schooled in Magic Book 7) Page 35
