Schooled in Magic

by Christopher G. Nuttall

  Emily shivered. It was easy to feel safe inside the tower, but suddenly that safety felt like an illusion. She’d seen both Shadye and Void do things that she would have sworn were impossible only a day ago. What could she do if Shadye captured her for the second time? He certainly wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

  “There’s also the fact that you need to be trained, and trained properly,” Void said. His voice was mild, but there was a force behind it that made her sit up and take a good look at him. “Right now, you’re a potential source of magic for any untrustworthy mage out there; Shadye won’t be the only one who wants to capture you once word gets out. Shadye wanted to use your power and your status–your presumed status–as a Child of Destiny; others will have far darker ambitions. You need training and I can’t train you.”

  Emily felt her heart twist. She had expected, she realized now, that Void would train her. He was odd, but she was coming to like him. The thought of leaving his tower and going out into the wider world beyond chilled her, particularly with hostile wizards out there intent on capturing her and taking her power–the power she hadn’t even known she possessed–for themselves. She certainly didn’t want to think about what they might do to get their hands on her power.

  “I’m a bad teacher,” Void admitted, when she pressed him. “I’ve had seven apprentices in my time. Three of them had to be dismissed for disobedience, two died in magical accidents, one went rogue and became a necromancer ...”

  There was a long pause. Emily finally broke it. “And the last apprentice?”

  “I had to kill him,” Void said flatly. Emily wanted to ask, but she had the feeling that it might be unwise to press him any further. “Suffice it to say that my history of tutoring apprentices is not good.”

  He hesitated, as if he was unwilling to admit to anything else. “There’s also the fact that you need a far wider field of study than I can provide for you in my tower. You’ve only met myself and Shadye–and there are plenty of other types of magician out there. I would just limit you if you studied under me. You deserve better than that.”

  There was a second pause. “I’m sending you to Whitehall,” he said. “You’ll be safe there.”

  Emily blinked, trying not to feel abandoned. “Whitehall?”

  “There are only a handful of places where new wizards are trained,” Void explained. “Of all of them, Whitehall is the oldest, constructed back in the days of the Old Empire. Politically, it’s unaligned in the power struggles between the Allied Lands–and it is a bastion against the necromancers. Your presence elsewhere may”–he paused, as if he were selecting his next word carefully–“upset people.”

  “I don’t understand,” Emily said. “Why am I so special?”

  Void snorted. “Luck.” He shook his head, ruefully. “If word gets out to the Allied Lands that you are a Child of Destiny–even if you’re not a Child of Destiny in anything other than the literal sense–there will be repercussions. And once they realize just how much power is welling up inside of you, they will either try to co-opt you or kill you.”

  He shrugged. “It won’t surprise you to know that the Allied Lands spend as much time fighting each other as they do fighting the necromancers. We mock them for their disunity, but ours is just as bad.”

  Emily frowned. “So which side are you on?”

  Void gave her a sharp look, and then nodded in understanding. “I’m a graduate of Whitehall myself. As such, I owe overall fealty to the Allied Lands as a whole, not to any single country. Those of us who are on the sharp end in dealing with the necromancers have no time for power struggles between the Allied Lands. Maybe Princess Samira didn’t actually want to marry Prince Davit ... whatever really happened, it’s not an excuse to start a war that creates openings for the necromancers to break into the Allied Lands.”

  “You said that the necromancers were tightening the screws,” she said. “Can’t the Allied Lands see that they’re in trouble?”

  “I’m sure they can,” Void said. “They just don’t bother to actually think about what they’re doing.”

  He looked at her, directly. “Whitehall sits in the mountains, at a crossroads of power where two ley lines intersect. That gives the school’s wards incredible power. No necromancer can enter the school, or its grounds, and no one from the Allied Lands would dare to breach its walls without permission. The Grandmaster’s will is absolute within the school.”

  Emily found herself smiling. “His name wouldn’t be Dumbledore, would it?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Void reminded her, archly. “Those of us who seek great power keep our names secret, remember?”

  Emily flushed at his tone.

  “I have made arrangements for you to go there today and be enrolled at the school, before anyone apart from Shadye and I learns of your true nature,” Void continued. “You don’t need to worry about payment; the Grandmaster owes me a favor or two, so he has agreed to waive the tuition fees in your case. Besides, I think that if you have proper training, you will be formidable indeed. I rather doubt that Whitehall is anything like the schooling you had back home, but it will provide you with the grounding you so desperately need.”

  “Thank you,” Emily said. It was hard to escape the conviction that she was being abandoned, but it was clear that Void was doing his best for her. Going back to school ... well, she would actually be learning something more fascinating than sanitized facts and pointless nonsense. Besides, if Void was right and other magicians would be seeking her out, she’d better learn to defend herself as quickly as possible. Shadye had overpowered her with contemptuous ease.

  Void smiled. “You’re welcome,” he said. “If you become a defender of the Allied Lands, standing beside us, I will be more than repaid.”

  He stood up. “I have also made arrangements for your transport. The kitchen staff will provide you with food for the journey.”

  Emily blinked as she stood up herself. “You won’t be coming with me?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Void said. “Don’t worry. Your transport”–he grinned, as if he were smiling at a private joke–“trust me, no necromancer is going to want to risk drawing the attention of your transport.”

  “Right,” Emily said. All of a sudden she felt as if Void had given her a red shirt to wear, perhaps complete with a targeting circle. But then, he had lived in this world for his entire life. No doubt he knew what he was doing. “I meant to ask you something.”

  Void lifted a single eyebrow, patiently.

  “Your servants,” Emily said, quietly. “Why do they all look so ...”

  She couldn’t think of a suitable word, but Void understood. “They have pledged themselves to me for the duration of their services. In order that they might live here, they have accepted powerful loyalty spells, ones that prevent them from doing anything contrary to my interests.” He gave her a reassuring smile. “You’re starting to sense magic properly, my dear.”

  Emily winced. She had no way to be sure, but she would have bet good money that the spells went a great deal further than simply ensuring the loyalty of his servants. The blank stare in the girl’s eyes chilled her. Perhaps she no longer had any real free will of her own, or perhaps Emily was just imagining it. She hoped that she was imagining it.

  She shook her head. This world might be more exciting than her old world, but it had dangers of its own. And Shadye wasn’t the only one who misused magic.

  Chapter Four

  “HOW BIG IS THIS TOWER?” EMILY asked.

  Void smiled as they kept walking up stairs that seemed to reach all the way to heaven. “It’s as big as it needs to be.”

  “That isn’t an answer,” Emily said, irritably. The knapsack of food and drink Void’s servants had given her was dragging at her shoulder. This world had clearly not invented comfortable rucksacks - at least, not yet. Absently, she wondered what–if anything–she could introduce from her world to make lives easier here. “How big is the tower?”

  V
oid’s smile grew wider. “The tower is far larger on the inside than on the outside. Each successive owner has added more to the interior, creating a mass of passageways and compartments that run for miles underground. Even I couldn’t tell you just how big the tower is on the inside.”

  A gust of cold air struck her as they finally reached the top and out onto the battlements. Emily felt a wave of vertigo as she realized just how long a drop it was to the ground far below, and just how small the battlements were. A child could climb on them and then be blown off by a sudden change in the wind. They didn’t look very secure to her eyes, but as far as she could tell the true defense of the tower rested in Void’s magic. A small army of men could climb over the battlements if they could get past the wards.

  “He comes,” Void said, pointing towards the sun. “Look!”

  For a moment, Emily saw nothing. Then, out of the sun’s glare, a dark winged shape dropped down towards the tower. It was so large that she had problems trying to take it all in; its green scales flashed in the sunlight, while its brilliant golden eyes and wings were so immense that they seemed to stretch for miles. Giant claws, each one larger than Emily’s entire body, glinted with light as the dragon dropped to the battlements, landing with a gentle thump. It seemed impossible that the tower could even hold up under its weight.

  Emily shrank behind Void as the dragon opened its mouth, a wisp of smoke emerging from its nostrils. Inside, there were razor-sharp teeth and a long tongue that licked at its lips, as if it had decided that the two humans would be a pleasant snack. For a being that large, the rational part of Emily’s mind insisted, two humans would be nowhere near enough to sate its hunger.

  And then she caught the golden eye and froze, transfixed.

  Somehow, she knew that the dragon was old. The magic field surrounding the creature bombarded her with impressions and sensations, piling them into her mind. It was old enough to have seen eons pass while it drifted through the skies, heedless of the scurrying humans on the world below. She no longer felt any sense of threat from it, merely a sense of ancient knowledge and amusement.

  Void seemed equally stunned by the dragon, even though they had to be a fact of life in his world. But how many magicians, Emily asked herself, knew dragons personally?

  “It has been a long time,” the dragon rumbled. Emily shuddered at the thought of what a dragon might consider a long time. All of the fantasy books she’d read had claimed that dragons had very long lives. “Do you finally wish to call upon the debt I owe you?”

  “I do,” Void said. His voice sounded tinny in comparison to the dragon’s deep rumble. “This girl needs transport to Whitehall.”

  Emily suddenly felt very small as the dragon’s great golden eyes peered down at her. “A traveler from another world,” the dragon stated. It wasn’t a question. “How strange. We have not seen one like you for many years.”

  It bent its head down towards the ground. “You may ride on my back. None will dare harm you while I am here.”

  Void nodded to Emily. “You can trust him to take you to Whitehall,” he said. “And I will see you again, soon enough.”

  Emily hugged him, suddenly, and then turned to face the dragon. She’d always had the impression that dragons were romantic, but there was nothing romantic about this dragon. Up close, there was a faintly disconcerting smell–sulfur, she guessed–and the scales felt uncomfortably hot to the touch. Years ago, at a petting zoo, she’d touched a snake, but this was very different. Touching the dragon was like touching an armored tank that had been out in the sun.

  “Use the scales to climb on my back,” the dragon said. It sounded vastly amused at her struggles. “You cannot hurt me.”

  Emily hesitated, and then scrambled up, half-expecting to feel scales giving way under her weight. But nothing happened. She reached the dragon’s back and swung her legs over the side, clutching a scaly hump that rose up in front of her. A moment later, there was a sudden gust of wind and the dragon threw itself upwards, into the air. The ground dropped away with terrifying speed. Emily yelped and clutched the hump tighter, trying not to look at the ground, or at the wings as they flexed against the air. She’d flown in airplanes before, of course, but this was different. She knew there was nothing between her and the ground. If she fell, she would plummet to her death.

  The airflow seemed remarkably mild as the dragon twisted in midair, rather like a rollercoaster, and snapped at a bird with its sharp teeth. There was a brief explosion of feathers and nothing else, apart from a dragonish gulp. Emily shivered again as the dragon leveled out and started to fly away from the tower; somehow, she managed to turn just long enough to see Void’s tower as it receded into the distance. It looked like a giant chess piece, standing alone in the middle of the forest.

  There was a wave of heat as the dragon blew fire into the air, its entire body flexing underneath her. Emily told herself firmly not to be scared, trying to convince her eyes to look back down at the ground. If she’d had any doubts that she was in a different world, they would have faded away when she saw the villages below. They were primitive, utterly untouched by the modern world. The only genuine road she saw reminded her of the stone roads the Romans had built when they’d conquered most of Europe; the remainder were little more than muddy paths traversed by horses and carts. Most of the fields were tiny compared to the ones she’d seen back home, worked by hand rather than by combine harvesters. If she recalled correctly, medieval farming had never been very efficient. It had taken the development of modern technology to make farming on a vast scale profitable.

  Down below, she caught sight of people working in the fields. It was hard to be certain, but they looked to have been beaten down, as if they knew that they weren’t working for themselves. Perhaps they weren’t, she told herself, as she saw a handful of others who were clearly standing guard, watching the workers. Armed guards, she guessed, as the dragon flew over a small castle-like building at the centre of a number of villages. The local baron probably lived there, exploiting the peasants and taking all of their crops for himself. Perhaps he didn’t even leave them enough to live on.

  The dragon blew more fire into the air as it flew over a colossal lake sailed by hundreds of tiny fishing boats. Emily glanced to the other side and saw that the lake was actually a giant inlet linked to the sea, allowing sailors to dock their boats on the shore where they were sheltered from storms and powerful waves. None of the boats looked particularly advanced either. The largest she could see was not much bigger than a fishing boat from back home. Perhaps they didn’t bring the bigger sailing ships into the lake, or perhaps they simply didn’t exist. Void hadn’t said much about local geography, but he’d hinted that the necromancers were pushing in on the Allied Lands. Perhaps the Allied Lands had no time to explore the rest of their world. Coming to think of it, she asked herself, did they even know that their world was a sphere?

  If this world is a sphere, she thought, after a moment. If magic was real, why couldn’t there be a flat world?

  In the distance, a wall of mountains rose up in front of them, covered with hardy green plants that seemed to provide food and shelter for a tiny human population. The dragon roared and lunged forward, diving between the peaks and dancing through the mountains, playing chicken with the rocky walls. A long valley opened up in front of them and the dragon flew down it, heedless of the small village hidden away from the rest of the world. Emily winced in horror as she caught sight of people staring at the dragon, then running away in terror. They had to think that the dragon was intent on eating them, or on eating their animals. A woman stood up at the edge of the village, shouting at the dragon, only to be ignored. The dragon was too high for Emily to make out even a single word.

  But how could she understand anyone in this world?

  The dragon chuckled as he lifted up above a mountain peak, and then dived down into another valley. This one seemed to be completely deserted, nothing more than trees and flowers hidden away by mount
ain peaks. The dragon jinked right and left, before flying up and over a giant statue that someone had carved into the side of the mountain. Even looking at that statue gave Emily a chill. She’d seen pictures of giant statues that had been destroyed in Afghanistan, but this one was larger–and clearly not human. Giant pointed ears dominated a face so cruel and calculating as to be completely alien, with eyes made black gemstones that glowed in the shadow cast by the statue. Beyond it, there were a row of seats looking out over a depression in the rock. It took her a moment to realize that she was looking at a sporting arena. The entire area seemed completely deserted ... ... yet she felt the hackles rising on her neck as the dragon lifted up into the air. It felt as if they were being watched by unfriendly eyes.

  Helplessly, she glanced around, feeling the sensation growing stronger and stronger with every second. There was nothing that looked threatening, apart from the statue itself, but it was just a statue. Wasn’t it?

  But this was a world where magic worked, she reminded herself. A statue might come to life and fight the dragon in a world like this, for all she knew.

  The sensation fell away as the dragon lifted even higher into the air, leaving the eerie statue and arena behind. Emily allowed herself a sigh of relief as the mountains became foothills, revealing a ruined city on the other side. It looked as if someone had bombed it to hell and then the citizens had abandoned it. There were hundreds of damaged buildings, along with dozens of statues that had been knocked to the ground. One towering building had been left intact, right in the centre of the city; the remainder had simply been wrecked by whatever force had torn the city apart. Emily wondered absently if Hiroshima had looked like that, before trying to deduce what magicians would use in place of a mundane atomic bomb. Maybe they enslaved dragons and used them to wage war on entire cities ... again, there was no way to know.