Web of Lies (The Hundred Halls Book 2)

by Thomas K. Carpenter

  "But that wouldn't explain how I got placed with you all," said Aurie. She opened her mouth to say something else, but then thought better of it. Based on the way her lips had been formed, Pi thought she was about to say Violet. It would make sense that Violet had sabotaged Aurie to get placed into the last group, but it backfired in the sense that Pi was already in it.

  They went through another round of introductions and were preparing to enter the puzzle room, which could be reached through a blue door, when Echo spoke up.

  "Harpers."

  Everyone froze as they tried to work out the meaning of the word.

  "Harpers," he said again, emphatically, as if he expected them to understand.

  "What's that?" asked Pi.

  "Harpers. We're Harpers," he said forcefully. His eyes searched around for support, but when he found none, he looked back into his hands.

  "Ernie," said Pi, "we want to understand, but you're going to have to explain. Give us context."

  "Echo," he said without looking up. "My name is Echo."

  "Echo, can you explain?" she asked.

  "Hannah, Aurelia, Rigel, Pythia, Echo, Raziyah," he said.

  Pi shared a dumbfounded look with her sister. She had no idea what to make of it.

  Then Hannah clapped her hands. "Harpers! That's awesome!"

  "It is?" asked Pi.

  "Harpers," repeated Hannah. "Hannah, Aurelia, Rigel, Pythia, Echo, Raziyah. We spell out Harper. We're the Harpers. That's our team name."

  Echo beamed up at Hannah. Pi didn't quite get it, besides that it was a nice succinct name, but the way his whole face was a light bulb was enough for her.

  "Great job, Echo," she said, deciding at the last second not to pat him on the back. He didn't look like the type that enjoyed invasion of personal space. "Now let's get in there and start solving this puzzle."

  The next room was a featureless white box with only one entrance, the one they'd come through, and an object floating in the center. One very large object.

  "It's like the cube from the test," said Rigel.

  "But much bigger," whispered Raziyah. "Much."

  The cube in the test room had been small enough to pick up. About the size of a Rubik's cube. This cube was about ten feet to a side and floating in the air as if it were filled with helium.

  They circled the cube, examining the six sides, glancing beneath it, touching it. It differed from the test cube in that it was made of obsidian, or at least that's what they thought it was.

  They tried a few spells, including one on their eyes to check for magical auras. The only thing that glowed was the cube itself in a very homogenous way. There were no lines, or faez clumpings to indicate latent spells, no words written on the cube or walls like in the test. No one could really even explain how the cube was floating.

  They spent a few hours examining it, trying to penetrate its secrets, but not a one of them was able to uncover a single clue. Eventually, they gave up, and made plans to rejoin at a later date. Everyone's next priority was the first day of classes at their respective halls.

  Pi was anxious to actually start. The summer of direct tutelage from Professor Mali had been exhausting, especially the parts in the Verum Locus. She also wanted the additional access to the hall's libraries that second year students were afforded. She had a lot of research to do about the maetrie, especially the Ruby Court. She had no intention of becoming their slave for eternity.

  Chapter Seven

  The office of Semyon Gray was located in the underground waterfall, on the east side of Arcanium. Aurie had been sent to his office, rather than stay in the classroom with the other students for the second-year class on truth, which made her wonder if the incident with Violet was the reason. Before she'd left the classroom, Violet had given her a snotty parting glance as if she knew what was coming.

  Aurie hadn't been in this part of the hall before, but a bobbing will-o'-wisp led her through the lower passages, so she had no problem finding her way. As the sound grew, she knew she approached the place where the water from the moat cascaded into the cave system beneath the school.

  A deafening sheet of water burst past the stone stairs. The surface was slick, so Aurie had to hold onto the rock. The limestone cave shimmered with magical light, reflecting what appeared to be glass imbedded in the walls. The stairs curled around the waterfall like a corkscrew, until at last the path went into the pool at the bottom. Aurie had the impression of movement within the water, though she saw nothing more than darting shadows.

  Aurie walked back and forth a few times, trying to figure out where she was supposed to actually go, when a female fourth-year student strolled out of the waterfall unaffected. The water diverted around the student, keeping her perfectly dry. A stone path was camouflaged by the roiling waters.

  The girl stopped next to Aurie. "Don't worry. It's a little freaky at first, but you get used to it. Just don't step off the path, or the falling water will knock you into the pool."

  The girl left, leaving Aurie wondering if this wasn't a prank. She was afraid she was going to take one step into the waterfall and get knocked off.

  Summoning her courage, Aurie stepped forward. Once she realized the magic of the path protected her, she kept going. The water stream was a good five feet thick.

  On the other side was a smaller cave with a series of partitions. A pair of voices, Semyon Gray's and Professor Mali's, carried to Aurie's location. The discussion sounded serious, and she wondered if she should announce her presence, rather than be seen eavesdropping, especially if she was in trouble.

  "...the whole thing is disturbing," said Semyon. "How did we not know that other recording was in the gem?"

  "Professor Delight has been performing that duty for years. She swears she didn't know it was there," explained Mali.

  Semyon cleared his throat. "Can we trust her judgment?"

  "Semyon..."

  "Right. Sorry. I'd forgotten," he said. "How do we know that was him? That it wasn't the Cabal that put it there?"

  "It doesn't seem like them, and why make him look so terrible? I've checked with a few of the others and they all think it's the real deal. The next question is what is the item? Invictus had some pretty powerful artifacts. What if it's one of those?"

  "And give it to the students? Why would he do something foolish like that?" he said.

  "There are rumors of—"

  "Yes, yes. But I don't believe them," replied Semyon. "It's just not possible."

  "At the very least, we know the Cabal is looking for a powerful spell. What if it's—"

  "Joanie. It's not possible. There's no way a single spell could do that. It's like asking a fish to do quantum mechanics," he said.

  "Then what do we do?"

  A heavy sigh. "Keep our eyes and ears open. You'd better get going. I have another appointment soon."

  Before Professor Mali could roll out and catch her eavesdropping, Aurie backed into the waterfall. She was so focused on not getting caught that her foot went off the edge of the stone. The water pressure immediately pulled her to the left, launching her into the pool headfirst.

  The thunderous waterfall pushed her deeper, knocking the breath from her lungs. She didn't know which way was up and flailed frantically.

  She kicked hard towards what she thought was light, but only succeeded in slamming her head against a stone wall. Her mouth opened momentarily, letting in a bit of water, choking her.

  Aurie started to panic. They were expecting her but didn't know she'd arrived yet. She was going to drown in the pool fifteen feet away from her patron.

  Then something long and powerful wrapped around her in a coiling embrace. For a brief terrifying moment, Aurie thought she was getting pulled deeper, but then the thing stretched upward and deposited her gently on the stone. Aurie rolled onto her hands and knees and coughed out a mouthful of water, catching only the tip of something dark and snakelike slipping back into the pool.

  Patron Semyon Gray stood abov
e her with a look on his face that hovered between concern that she'd almost died and concern that she couldn't even walk through a simple waterfall.

  He gestured, a series of movements with his right hand, like a maestro conducting a symphony, and the water squeezed from her clothes into a pool beneath her. The eloquence and efficiency of his spellcraft made her delirious with envy.

  She opened her mouth to ask about it, but he'd already strolled back into the other area.

  "Patron Gray," she began, but stumbled upon her words when she saw the miniature dragon curled on his desk snoring. The scaly silver creature raised a curious eyebrow, peeking momentarily at Aurie, before returning to glorious slumber. "I'm sorry about back there, falling in, my foot slipped, so I, uhm, thank you..."

  He leaned against his desk, steepling his fingers. The gray in his tight black curls had spread. He looked weary.

  "I watched a video the other day," he said in his upper-class English accent.

  Aurie winced. "I should have been in more control. I'm sorry. It just happened."

  "You weren't in control?" he asked.

  The emphasis of his surprise worried her, making her wonder if she were in more trouble than she thought.

  "Describe to me exactly how you created the spell that made their clothes fall off. Exactly. Leave no detail out," he said firmly.

  Nothing came to her right away. That day had been a bit of a blur, mostly she'd been focused on how she felt, her anger in that moment, then later she was trying to comfort Echo, who had been traumatized by it.

  "I don't know," she admitted sheepishly.

  "How can you not know?" he asked, frowning. The creases around his mouth had deepened until they were valleys.

  "I was angry at Violet for what they'd done to Echo," she explained. "It's hard to remember."

  He slapped the palm of his hand against the front of the desk, startling the little silver dragon into lifting its tiny head and giving a snort of disapproval before curling back into a ball.

  "So it wasn't an explicate spell. You weren't holding it back, releasing upon the trigger word," he said.

  "No," said Aurie.

  He loomed over the desk, flecks of anger making his expression twitch with disapproval. "How can you expect me to believe that you spontaneously made those girls' clothes fall off in front of Arcanium? How can you convince me that you didn't plan an ambush to embarrass and demoralize Violet and her friends from the Order of Honorable Alchemists?"

  "I swear I didn't plan to do that," she said.

  The way his shoulders sunk gave her the answer. His frown changed from disappointment to sympathy.

  "For the sake of your continued schooling at the Hundred Halls, I need to understand how you performed that near-miracle," he said.

  "I wish I could," she said.

  "It appears on the video that you planned and executed a clever ambush," he said.

  The sea of cameras recording the event came back to haunt her thoughts.

  "Violet and her friends ruined Echo's things. I was just reacting to that," she said.

  "The video appears otherwise. I'm not as familiar with these new terms, but I think the phrase is that video went viral."

  "Could I be expelled?" she asked.

  "No," said Gray. "But I'm worried about your control. If you didn't execute a cunning trick, then you have larger things to worry about."

  "I didn't even know Violet was going to be there," she said.

  "I believe you," he said. "But I need to understand what happened, what you were thinking, what you might have said, or did."

  Aurie focused on remembering the incident.

  "I remember wanting to get revenge on them for what they did to Echo's backpack. I was thinking about their purses, dresses, whatever, and wanting the threads to break, or loosen, so their clothes were helter-skelter. At the moment the faez converged, like a power grid had dumped its magic into me, I said the word ragged, and then, well, you saw the video," she explained.

  "Could you do it again?" he asked, and handed her a piece of string.

  She stared at it for a moment, trying to conjure the feeling she had with Violet. Summoning faez was easy, but it took a spell to convert it into something useful. Faez was like flour—you needed to mix it a certain way and bake it at the right temperature or it wouldn't be a cake.

  "Ragged," she said to the string.

  Patron Gray took it from her hands and pulled on it. She knew it wouldn't break, even before he tugged. He handed it back to her.

  "Try again," he said. "This time, imagine you are speaking to it like an old friend. And focus your faez, that last effort was pathetic."

  Aurie held the string across her hands as if her palms were a platform. She gathered her faez, let the word fill her mind, and spoke to the string, imagining the threads breaking.

  "Ragged," she growled at it.

  Nothing happened. She felt a little silly grimacing at the string in her hands.

  He plucked it away, a thought perched on his lips. His gray eyes scoured his shelves.

  "It might be that word is too emotionally charged for you right now," he said, pulling a cracked mug off the shelf. The coffee cup looked like it'd been dropped, and a large gap went through the middle.

  "What are we even doing?" asked Aurie.

  "Mendancy," he said.

  "Mendancy?"

  "The magic of lies."

  Her mouth grew dry.

  Patron Gray went on. "You understand, of course, the purpose of truth magic. Verumancy. That you take what's there and make it more of what it is. Truth magic is often thought of as enhancing magic. It's like a pep talk for the world."

  "So lying magic is convincing something that it's not?" she asked.

  "You've got the idea," he said.

  "Oh my," she said, holding her hand to her mouth. The time with Violet wasn't the first. She'd been using it to fix her old clothes rather than buy new ones, or when she was working in the clinic. She just hadn't realized that it wasn't truth magic.

  "Aurie," he said seriously, getting her attention. "You must understand that we do not normally teach this type of magic. It's quite dangerous."

  "How?"

  He pointed to the cup. "I dropped that the other day and haven't gotten around to repairing it. Convince it that it can hold water."

  "Convince it?"

  "Yes. Convince it."

  She focused her mind on the glass mug, imagined it holding water, that it was whole, a complete thing. "You are whole."

  The release of faez made her skin tingle. She nodded to Patron Gray.

  He picked up a pitcher from his desk, being careful not to disturb the tiny dragon, and poured water into the glass mug. Nothing came out the crack. It held like it was whole.

  Aurie whistled at her own work.

  "That's cool. I still don't understand how it's dangerous."

  "How long will that hold?" he asked.

  Aurie shrugged.

  "Imagine you convince a car engine that it's not really broken, and when you're flying down the highway, it fails, right when you need to swerve out of the way of a lorry. Or if you're walking across a broken bridge, convincing the planks that they can hold your weight. What if they fail then?" he asked.

  Aurie started to see the problem. She held up the mug, admiring the way the water moved against the hole without coming out.

  "This one looks—"

  As the words left her lips, the spell failed, dropping the water onto her face, making her sputter and spit.

  Once she'd wiped it off, she said, "Okay, I get it. It's dangerous."

  "It's why we don't teach it. Too many wizards have died over the years. When you start lying, it becomes too easy, and you eventually forget what's real and what's not," he said.

  "Then why are we talking about it?" she asked, guessing the reason, but wanting to hear it.

  "Because you need to learn it. Clearly you have a knack for mendancy, and you're one of the strongest
faez users I've ever seen. But if you use it incorrectly, you could get someone killed."

  "I wouldn't do that," said Aurie.

  "What happens when you're in a tight spot? The beauty of mendancy is that it's easy, and it works, except when it doesn't."

  "I see," she said. "Which professor teaches lying magic?"

  "We don't have one. As I said before, it's too dangerous."

  Aurie squeezed her fists. "Then how am I supposed to learn?"

  "I will teach you," he said.

  "You? I'm honored," she said.

  "Honor has nothing to do with it. I have a responsibility to my students, especially troublesome students with more power than sense," he said.

  The rebuke stung. She lowered her head.

  "Oh, don't feel remorse for your actions. While your methods were unorthodox, you were protecting your friend from harm. Trouble is not always a bad thing," he said, looking away, regret squeezing his lips together. "And you came to the Hundred Halls to learn control. If you already could, the Halls would be pointless."

  "When do we start?" asked Aurie.

  "Not today," he said. "I have other pressing matters. I will contact you in a few weeks, but in the meantime, keep practicing, on anything available. Just be careful and not pick anything that you need to truly rely on."

  He looked distracted. She wanted to ask him about the gem, and Invictus, but didn't want him to know she'd been eavesdropping.

  "Patron Gray," she said as she prepared to leave.

  "Yes?"

  "Thank you." She gave him her most earnest smile.

  He straightened, tall and serious. "You might not say that once we begin lessons."

  Chapter Eight

  The air turned cool as autumn placed its arms around the city of sorcery, transmuting the sugar maples and yellow birch to fiery gold. Pi made her way to the Glass Cabaret, weaving around the heavy crowds that descended on the city near Halloween. She hated the way the tourists left their trash on the streets, overloading services, creating a heavy stink as she passed each alleyway.

  Radoslav met her in the back room looking more dour than a corpse. A white rose poked from his pocket, accenting his pallid features.

  "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were concerned," she said.