The Gordian Knot (Schooled in Magic Book 13)

by Christopher Nuttall

  But I wouldn’t go any further, she told herself. Would I?

  “Welcome back,” Professor Armstrong said. “I trust you remember my warning from last year?”

  Emily nodded. She liked Professor Armstrong, more than she cared to admit. He was a towering man, with long red hair and a long red beard that hung down to his chest. His face was scarred and pockmarked, his hands were large enough to make her feel uncomfortable, yet there was an odd gentleness about the way he moved that reassured her. She didn’t blame him in the slightest for warning his students that lateness would not be tolerated. He had too much material to cover in too little time.

  “I want you to sort yourselves out into groups of three,” Professor Armstrong added. “Make sure you pick a pair of partners you can work with. You’ll be doing a lot of work with them over the next few months.”

  “Emily,” Cabiria said. “Over here?”

  Emily hesitated, then hurried over to join Cabiria and the Gorgon. She’d worked with Caleb last year, but she didn’t think she could do it again, not even when there would be a third person in the group. There would be too much drama. She didn’t think they had to do another group project, but there was no point in taking chances. Besides, she got along with Cabiria and the Gorgon. Most of the other students didn’t like them that much.

  “Very good.” Professor Armstrong waved a hand at the blackboard. It filled, rapidly, with a complicated spell diagram. “In the previous year, we looked at establishing anchored wards against external threats, with a particular concentration on protecting your house and your private rooms. I trust you took the opportunity to practice over the summer?”

  Emily nodded. Lady Barb and Sergeant Miles had forced her to practice time and time again, then talked her through the basics of ward-etiquette. Putting up a temporary ward to protect your bedroom was fine—even if you were sleeping in another person’s home—but establishing a permanent ward was far less acceptable. Emily had puzzled over it until she’d realized that a permanent ward would interfere with her host’s wards, perhaps weakening them from the inside. She wouldn’t care to get the blame for someone breaking into a house and wrecking the place.

  “My parents were very proud of me,” Cabiria muttered. “But they refused to test my wards.”

  “This year, we will split our attention,” Professor Armstrong informed them. “First, we will be studying nestled wards, how you can place one ward seamlessly inside another to expand its function; second, we will be looking at wards designed to monitor the interior of your houses and—if necessary—react badly to misbehavior. Those of you interested in a career in wardcrafting might want to pay very close attention. We’ll only be touching on the basics, but you need to master the basics before you go onwards.”

  Emily exchanged glances with the Gorgon. Neither of them were likely to study wardcrafting in detail, let alone seek a wardcrafter apprenticeship, but it was better to construct your own wards rather than rely on someone else. Besides, she had too many secrets to conceal. Lady Barb had given her a whole series of practical lessons in ward maintenance, but she was uneasily aware she probably couldn’t ward a whole house from scratch. It was something she’d need to master before too long.

  “I have given you several warnings before.” Professor Armstrong’s eyes swept the room. “This one, perhaps, is one of the more important warnings. We will be using blood, later in the year, to anchor and personalize your wards. I expect you to remember the rules for handling blood and follow them to the letter. Anyone who doesn’t recall them should brush up on them before the end of the week. Carelessness in handling your own blood tends to find its own punishment.”

  “How true,” Cabiria muttered.

  Emily nodded. She’d learnt that lesson five years ago. She took extreme care with her own blood, even when she cut her finger. It wasn’t paranoia, either. A skilled mage who obtained—somehow—a sample of her blood could use it against her, easily. If Shadye could do it, she had no doubt another magician could do it too. She would have preferred not to use blood magic at all, if it could be avoided.

  But a ward that isn’t tied to me won’t be so effective, she thought, glumly. I won’t be as attuned to it as I need to be.

  She pushed the thought out of her mind and started to take notes as Professor Armstrong launched into a long and complicated lecture. As always, he took complex subjects and broke them down into bite-sized chunks—giving her time to parse out each and every segment—before demonstrating how they went together. Emily knew, from bitter experience, that turning theory into practical reality wouldn’t be easy, but it was still important to understand the theory behind the nestled wards. She’d crafted anti-magic wards before, even overpowered them, yet her work had been crude. A skilled magician might have been able to overwhelm them.

  “You’ll notice that the lower section of spellwork here”—Professor Armstrong pointed to a complex set of spell notations—“defines the lower level of magic. Magic below that level simply doesn’t activate the spell. Why might that be so?”

  Caleb stuck up a hand. “Because you’d start draining personal wards if you didn’t set a lower limit,” he said. “You might even drain a magician’s reserves.”

  “Correct,” Professor Armstrong said. “Outside a prison, it is very rare to see wards designed to drain a magician completely. Even in a prison, it is generally considered preferable to use potions to keep a magician from using magic. Why? There is a very real risk, if you do, that you’ll accidentally kill your captive. The disadvantages of that should be obvious.”

  “Depends on the captive,” Cirroc said.

  “Anyone dangerous enough to warrant that level of security would be executed out of hand or stripped of his magic,” Professor Armstrong said. “There would be no great advantage in keeping him alive.”

  He glanced at the blackboard. “The spellwork here”—he tapped the diagram—“is designed to react to active spellwork. When the ward senses the magic, it automatically starts to redirect and absorb the spellwork. It doesn’t try to break up the spellwork because the results of that can be dangerously unpredictable. It also doesn’t try to absorb all the magic because ...?”

  “It might overload the local ward structure,” Caleb said. “If the ward is dislodged, it’ll collapse.”

  “It depends on how firmly the ward is anchored,” Professor Armstrong said. “There are designs that allow magic to be vented into the air or dumped into the bedrock, but they have their advantages and disadvantages. We’ll look at those later.”

  He smiled. “But enough of that now,” he said, nodding to the blackboard. The diagram changed, becoming something far simpler. “For the moment, I want you—in your teams—to construct these two wards. You will not find it easy.”

  Cabiria reached into her desk and produced a hearthstone. “Why does he need three of us to put the ward together?”

  Emily frowned. She could understand why a team might be required to ward an entire house, but a tiny hearthstone? One of them would have enough problems; three of them would just keep getting in each other’s way. There was no way they could do it as a team. She tapped the hearthstone, making sure it was inert before they began. Perhaps they were meant to take turns.

  “If you set up the first ward, we can watch carefully and make unhelpful remarks,” the Gorgon said. Her thoughts had clearly been heading in the same direction. “We might see what you do wrong.”

  “The trick is getting it right the first time.” Cabiria sketched out a runic diagram, carefully weaving the two wards together. “How does that look?”

  “Very strong,” the Gorgon said. “But if one ward comes down, the other will collapse too.”

  Emily nodded in agreement. There was no way the ward would last indefinitely. It was too weak, even after it was properly established. She thought the wards shouldn’t be so closely connected. The inner ward wouldn’t help tie the outer ward in place.

  “I think we’d have worse p
roblems if someone battered down the outer ward,” Cabiria countered. “Why do we need a sensing ward if someone is crashing through the walls?”

  “It would be a little bit redundant,” Emily agreed.

  “You’d also lose all sensing wards,” the Gorgon said. “You wouldn’t be able to track someone trying to sneak into the house.”

  “Point,” Cabiria said. She winked. “But you have to learn to walk before you can run.”

  Emily watched, carefully, as Cabiria set up the ward. It was an order of magnitude harder than the ward lines they’d crafted last year, she noted; the inner ward had to be perfectly positioned or it weakened the outer ward. She couldn’t help thinking, as Cabiria struggled to balance the two wards, that it would be easier to separate them. But that would have disadvantages of its own.

  “Someone who casts a full-scale cancelling spell is going to bring your edifice crashing down,” she pointed out. “And you might not be able to counter it in time.”

  “You can tune the wards to resist cancelling spells,” Cabiria pointed out. Sweat trickled down her face as she held the wards together. “Otherwise everyone would be using them to break through wards.”

  “You’d need a lot of power too,” the Gorgon added. “Particularly if you wanted to cancel a household ward.”

  “True,” Emily agreed. Could she cast one with a battery? It was certainly worth trying at some point, just to see what happened. If it worked, she’d have a secret weapon up her sleeve. “I wonder ...”

  She broke off as Cabiria’s ward collapsed into a flickering mass of spellwork that vanished a second later. Cabiria snapped out a swearword, then picked up the hearthstone. It was cracked and broken, utterly beyond repair. Emily shook her head in amused disbelief. She’d never seen that happen before.

  “You tried to force the ward into place,” Professor Armstrong said. Emily looked up. He was standing in front of the table, studying the hearthstone. “You need a delicate touch.”

  “I thought the wards would work together,” Cabiria said. “Why didn’t they?”

  “Because the wards aren’t static,” Professor Armstrong said. “And you didn’t account for that when you planned the spell.”

  He turned and walked away. Emily exchanged a look with the Gorgon, then picked up a piece of paper and started to write out her own spell diagram. If Cabiria’s spell had failed because the nestled wards couldn’t cope with their own fluctuation, perhaps she could keep them further apart and only link them in a handful of places. Perhaps, if she was very careful, she could oscillate them both ...

  “This should be workable,” Cabiria said. She’d been scribbling notes too. “If I limit the power surge ...”

  “The ward needs a certain level of power to survive,” the Gorgon pointed out. “You’d be starving it of power.”

  “Try to limit the intake.” Emily finished her own diagram and reached for a new hearthstone. “Let me see what I can do ...”

  She concentrated, muttering the spells under her breath as she built up the wards. The first ward went together perfectly, but the second started to flicker out of control almost as soon as it was in place. It just wouldn’t stay still. Emily cursed, fighting to hold it together, but they seemed to be intent on collapse the moment she took her eyes off it. Fixing it in place seemed impossible. And then the first ward started to collapse too.

  “Bugger,” she muttered, as the spellwork finally disintegrated. “What happened?”

  “I don’t think your foundations were secure,” the Gorgon said. “Let me try.”

  Emily nodded and watched as the Gorgon went to work. Her spellwork was a little more stable—she’d seen Cabiria and Emily both fail—but it refused to last more than five minutes without constant maintenance. It was better than hers, Emily acknowledged without rancor, yet it was useless. There was no way anyone could constantly monitor and maintain their household wards if they hoped to do anything else at the same time.

  This would be so much easier with a nexus point, she thought, sourly. A vast source of power would let me build all the individual wards I want.

  “It’s nearly time for lunch,” Professor Armstrong said. His voice echoed around the room, calling their attention to the front. “None of you succeeded. Don’t feel too bad about it, please. Very few sorcerers manage to get two wards working together on their first try.”

  He paused long enough to let that sink in. “You will need to work hard to develop the fine touch you’ll need to put multiple wards into place,” he added. “It is not something you can master overnight. I would be surprised if any of you manage to master the basics by the first half-term. Practice, practice and practice some more.”

  Emily rubbed her head. She could feel a headache coming on.

  “I’ll see you all again, tomorrow,” Professor Armstrong said. “Dismissed.”

  The Gorgon tapped Emily’s shoulder as she rose. “Coming to lunch?”

  “I have to speak to the professor,” Emily said. “But I’ll see you down there.”

  “Emily,” Professor Armstrong said. He eyed her as she rose. “What can I do for you?”

  “I have to set up a dueling club, then run a contest,” Emily said. She cursed the whole concept under her breath. A day of schooling and she already felt overworked. “I was wondering if I could ask you for help setting up the arena.”

  Professor Armstrong gave her a sharp look. “Are you asking me to set it up for you or to teach you how to set it up?”

  “To teach me,” Emily said. She would have liked to pass the job to someone else, but she doubted anyone would volunteer to do it for her. “And also to make sure it’s safe.”

  “Dueling is not safe,” Professor Armstrong said. “You should know that, young lady.”

  Emily nodded, remembering when Master Grey had burned to ash ... when she’d burned Master Grey to ash. The stench had haunted her for weeks afterwards, lingering in her nostrils no matter how many showers or baths she took. Even the training duels at Mountaintop had not been safe. There was no way to make them safe without twisting the whole concept beyond repair.

  “I would be honored to help you.” Professor Armstrong smiled. “It will serve as a practical lesson, perhaps. There are students who could benefit from such instruction.”

  “Me included,” Emily said. She could always use the practice. Besides, she’d been taught to go back to the basics every time she didn’t understand something. “But I don’t want to risk lives.”

  “I won’t let a mistake get past me,” Professor Armstrong said. “But I will make you pay for any errors that might be life-threatening.”

  “I have no doubt of it,” Emily said.

  Professor Armstrong gave her a droll smile. “I should be free on Saturday. We can do it then.”

  Emily winced. She’d made plans to go to Dragon’s Den with Frieda. But those plans would have to be changed. There was no way Professor Armstrong would change his timetable for her. Head Girl or not, she was still a student. She couldn’t make demands of her professors.

  “That should be fine,” she said. The volunteers would have to be alerted, of course. She’d tell them over lunch. “What time?”

  “I think an early start would be good,” Professor Armstrong said. “After breakfast?”

  They’re going to hate me, Emily thought. But they did volunteer to assist.

  “That should be fine,” she said, again. “And thank you.”

  “Thank me with some hard work,” Professor Armstrong said. “I want you to pass your exams. That glitch in your last set of papers could have killed you.”

  “I know,” Emily said.

  “Luckily, you made up for it,” Professor Armstrong added. “You might not be able to do that again.”

  He smiled. “Go for lunch,” he said. “And I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Emily nodded and left.

  Chapter Thirteen

  IT FELT ODD, EMILY DECIDED, TO share lunch with Cabiria and the Gorgon
, rather than Caleb or Frieda. She wasn’t sure why that was the case—she’d shared lunch with Alassa and Imaiqah all the time—but it was. Perhaps it was the fact that they had clearly opened their friendship to include her—three outcast girls instead of two—or perhaps it was the fact that they both talked more about their studies than anything else. But she couldn’t help feeling grateful to them too. It was a sign, perhaps, that she wasn’t completely isolated from her peers.

  Just most of them, she thought, glancing along the table. Maybe I should have talked more to the others before Alassa and Imaiqah left.

  She shook her head in annoyance, dismissing the thought. There was no point in crying over spilt milk. The students had developed friendships and study groups since they started at Whitehall and there was no room for an interloper. She was lucky that Cabiria and the Gorgon had decided to invite her to sit with them. Her eyes swept the room, picking out students she knew. Most of the Sixth Years were chatting away in their little groups—she spotted Caleb sitting next to Cirroc and Mathis—and clearly trying to recover from the first day back at school. The only person missing was Melissa, who might have decided to go to the library instead of eating. Emily hoped she’d have enough sense to make sure she didn’t go hungry. There was a great deal of practical magic in healing.

  The bell rang as she sipped her juice, reminding her that she was meant to be on her way to Soul Magic. She put the glass down and took a moment to center herself—her memories of soul magic weren’t good—and then bid Cabiria and the Gorgon farewell. They waved her off, then returned to their conversation with nary a break. Emily couldn’t help feeling oddly isolated as she walked through the door and out into the corridor. She was alone in a crowd of students.