Study in Slaughter (Schooled in Magic)

by Christopher Nuttall

  “That’s good,” Alassa muttered. “I can wear those dresses mother sent for me.”

  Emily was less sure that allowing students to wear their own clothes was a good idea. Everyone wearing the same robes ensured that the richer students couldn’t purchase incredibly expensive outfits to show off their wealth. Back home, those who had been able to afford designer clothes had lorded it over those who couldn’t—like Emily. Now, she was wealthy by local standards, but she still didn’t want to wear anything apart from robes. The dresses she’d worn in Zangaria had been uncomfortable, to say the least.

  She caught sight of Melissa and her cronies chattering away about what they would buy in Dragon’s Den. The announcement hadn’t been made earlier, she realized, because it would force the students to buy new clothes at Dragon’s Den—at least until they arranged for some of their clothes to be sent from home. Maybe someone at Dragon’s Den had bribed the school to make the announcement just before the first weekend visit...no, that didn’t seem too likely. Whitehall was far richer than Dragon’s Den.

  The Grandmaster stood up again. “Thank you, Master Tor,” he said. No one, thankfully, seemed to be expecting applause. “There are a handful of minor matters that I need to cover and then we can eat.”

  He seemed rather amused at the relief that swept through the hall. “As you know,” he continued, “we allow you students to practice certain kinds of spells on one another as pranks, believing that it encourages you to learn how to counter such spells without assistance from outside. Provided such behavior does not get out of hand—and provided that you have mastered the spells sufficiently—we do not intervene.”

  Emily winced, remembering just how close she had come to killing Alassa. The locals might regard certain spells as little more than practical jokes, causing embarrassment and humiliation at worst, but she could never see them as anything other than loaded weapons in the hands of children. But they did have a point. Nothing provided incentive to learn cancelling spells like being turned into a frog by another student. Melissa was alarmingly inventive with transformation spells.

  “However, you are now second years, with a year of experience under your belts,” the Grandmaster said. “You are absolutely forbidden to start any sort of prank duel with first years. They are unlikely to be able to counter your spells, or match you—and if they can, you should be ashamed of yourselves. If any of you start it, you will be severely punished; if they start it, we expect you to show restraint. Remember that you are older than the new students, remember that you should know much more magic and protections than they do—and if you can’t remember that, remember what it feels like to face the Warden.”

  “Good piece of advice,” Alassa muttered.

  Emily nodded. She had cast spells on her seniors—in Martial Magic, where she’d been the youngest pupil in the class. But they’d been under the watchful eye of the sergeants, who would have hammered anyone who acted badly. Outside the classrooms, she could easily imagine older pupils trying to dominate the younger ones...if they’d been allowed the chance. After what had happened to the three of them when they’d used magic on one of the servants, she had no doubt that the teachers kept a sharp eye on them through the building’s wards.

  “There are also certain pranks which are on the banned list, at least in public,” the Grandmaster continued. “You’ll find the current list pinned up in the common rooms; I suggest that you study it carefully and remember not to use them, at least unless your life is in grave danger. Those who do use them, on anyone, will regret it.”

  He smiled, pressing his hands together as if he were in prayer. “And with that completed,” he concluded, “we can eat.”

  Emily smiled at the cheers that echoed through the room. A small army of servants emerged from the concealed doors, carrying giant platters of food. She felt her smile growing wider as one of the servants placed a large roast chicken at one end of the table and started carving it up into slices, which were then passed down the table to the students. Another started carving up roast beef, while a third cut up a faintly greasy meat she didn’t recognize. Others passed out potatoes, vegetables and steaming jugs of gravy.

  Once, she would have been lucky if she’d had enough to eat. Now, eating too much was a very real problem.

  Alassa went on happily about Ken teams throughout the meal, while Emily listened as politely as she could. It was odd to see her chatting to Imaiqah about something that didn’t involve Emily, but it boded well for their future. Besides, Imaiqah had been ennobled along with her father in the wake of the coup attempt in Zangaria. No one could claim that she wasn’t an aristocrat now.

  The servants finally removed the plates and replaced them with cakes, ice cream and a jelly-like substance Emily had tried once and resolved never to try again. Instead, she took a piece of chocolate cake and munched it thoughtfully, wondering why the cooks had never thought of baking a carrot cake. She’d always loved them on Earth...

  She looked up in surprise as a hand fell on her shoulder. Mistress Irene was standing right behind her.

  “Stay behind,” she ordered, as the Grandmaster started to dismiss the staff, signaling that the students could leave at any moment. “We need to talk to you.”

  Chapter Three

  IT HAD BEEN SEVERAL MONTHS SINCE Emily had last set foot in the Grandmaster’s office, but it didn’t seem to have changed at all. The room was empty apart from a desk, a handful of chairs and a single crystal ball in one corner. High overhead, a glowing ball of light provided oddly-tinted illumination. The Grandmaster’s blindness, Emily realized as she sat down, made it harder for him to produce light globes. And he wouldn’t need decorative elements either.

  “Wait,” Mistress Irene ordered, when Emily opened her mouth. “The others are on their way.”

  Emily felt herself squirming against the hard wooden chair. In her experience, unexpected summons to a teacher’s office meant trouble; the last time she had been summoned to a teacher’s office had been when she’d made a mistake while writing an essay for Advanced Charms. Professor Lombardi had pointed out, in great detail, that if she’d tried it in real life, the results would have been disastrous. He’d made her write her own critique and then rewrite the entire essay. But she hadn’t even been at Whitehall for months.

  The door opened, revealing the Grandmaster, Master Tor and Sergeant Miles, who shot Emily an encouraging smile. It was easy to forget that Miles was one of the most powerful magicians in Whitehall; he looked friendly, almost reassuring. But Emily had seen him casually working spells that were well beyond her.

  “Thank you for coming,” the Grandmaster said. He sat down behind his desk, motioning for the others to take seats of their own. “As you are no doubt aware, your status changed over the last few months.”

  Emily flushed. King Randor had sprung her ennoblement as a surprise, making it impossible for her to turn it down. Maybe she would have turned it down anyway, if it had just been him, but Alassa had been there too. The King, she suspected, had counted on that to ensure that Emily did what he wanted. And she had.

  “This presents us with a unique set of problems,” the Grandmaster continued. “Your guardian insisted that you receive full training as a sorceress of the Allied Lands, a person owing allegiance to the White Council and the Allied Lands as a whole. However, your ennoblement makes you a subordinate of King Randor of Zangaria—and you are assumed to be compromised, no longer able to judge fairly in disputes between the Allied Lands.”

  Emily opened her mouth to protest, but he held up a hand, silencing her.

  “As such, we are caught between two different sets of demands,” he added. “King Randor has made no demands, but his rivals may insist that you never be allowed to serve the White Council. If so, it would be difficult to deny the justice of their request. Your guardian, however, may take exception to that.”

  “And that might have been what King Randor had in mind,” Master Tor said.

  The Grandma
ster shot him a sharp look, then continued.

  “We will continue to train you, for now,” he said. “However, you should be aware that you may not be permitted to take fifth and sixth year courses. The political situation may well have shaken itself down by that time.”

  Emily scowled, inwardly. There was no way to know what to say or do.

  “There is a second problem,” the Grandmaster added. “You have received almost no training in estate management, for the very simple reason that such courses are almost never offered at Whitehall or any other academy. Normally, estates are passed from parents to children; the parents generally ensure that their children know what they are doing before they pass on and leave the estates to their heirs. You, however, have inherited an estate with almost no background knowledge at all. King Randor may not have appreciated your ignorance when he gave you the estate.”

  “I had to learn quickly,” Emily admitted.

  “I would be surprised if you had done more than scratch the surface,” the Grandmaster said. “It is also possible that King Randor intended to rely on your ignorance. As you should have learned by now, a Baron of Zangaria is capable of acting independently and eventually challenging his sworn overlord for power. An ignorant baron, one dependent on the King for advice, might suit him perfectly. You need to be aware of that possibility.”

  He pressed his fingertips together. “We will be arranging for someone to teach you the basics,” he added. “However, this needs to remain a secret. Even if King Randor doesn’t object, others will see it as threatening Whitehall’s neutrality. Once the classes are arranged, we will come up with a cover story—and I strongly suggest that you don’t even tell your best friends.”

  Emily nodded in bitter understanding. Alassa had to answer any question put to her by her father—and King Randor was Imaiqah’s monarch. Telling either of them would ensure that it would eventually get back to King Randor. She felt a pang of guilt at keeping something from her best friends—and another pang when she remembered that she hadn’t told Imaiqah about her origins—and pushed it aside. The Grandmaster was right, but she didn’t have to like it.

  “Second, you passed your first year of Martial Magic with decent marks,” the Grandmaster continued. “As you have more schooling to do, it was decided that you should move into the advanced class, rather than apprenticing yourself to a combat sorcerer or allowing your skills to atrophy over the next five years. However, this causes other problems.”

  He nodded to Sergeant Miles, who smiled at Emily. “Your origins make it difficult for us to track the process of your magical development with any actual reliability,” he said. “You are also young, the youngest pupil to join the class since it was founded. There are spells covered during the advanced classes that you will probably be incapable of casting yet, no matter how practiced you are. Accordingly, you will receive special instruction from Lady Barb or myself. Furthermore, as there is no point in allowing you to attend Defensive Magic, you will spend that time practicing with us or older students. We will work out a timetable once we know your electives.”

  “Thank you,” Emily said, softly.

  “This will not be an easy year,” Master Tor said. “Second Year is rarely easy, even for the best of us. Your life is absurdly complicated.”

  Emily glanced at him and saw...something in his eyes. Dislike? Disappointment? It was impossible to be sure. But she’d never met him, although she dimly recalled seeing him once or twice last year. They’d never talked, not even to exchange greetings.

  “But I have faith that you will learn to handle it,” the Grandmaster said. “Thank you for your time, Lady Emily.”

  “Thank you,” Emily said, standing up and bobbing him a curtsey.

  Outside, she found herself in an unfamiliar corridor. The school must have been reconfiguring its interior again, she decided, just to ensure that they remembered how to cast the spell to find their way around. She’d had enough practice last year, once she’d mastered it, to allow her to cast it easily. A tiny ball of light materialized in front of her and started to drift off down the corridor. Emily followed it until it halted in front of a blank wall. Once she put her hand against it, the blank wall opened up, revealing a hidden passageway. Like the first year rooms, it was a long corridor, studded with doors leading into private rooms. Hurrying forward, Emily saw the light float to a halt in front of a single door and flicker out of existence. Shaking her head, she put her hand against the door and it opened.

  She expected to see Alassa and Imaiqah. They’d certainly requested to share rooms. Instead, two strangers looked back at her.

  “I think I’m in the wrong room,” Emily stammered. The spells on the doors shouldn’t allow any other student to enter without at least one of the roommates accompanying them. “I’m sorry...”

  She started to back out of the room, only to run into Madame Razz.

  “I’m afraid not,” Madame Razz informed her. “This is your room.”

  Emily stared at her. “Madame...I requested to share with Alassa and Imaiqah,” she said. “We all made the same request.”

  “And it was overruled by Master Tor,” Madame Razz said, bluntly. “He insisted that you receive different roommates.”

  There had been a time when she would have accepted that meekly. No more.

  “Why?” She demanded. “I...”

  “I would advise you not to speak to anyone in that tone of voice,” Madame Razz said, coldly. “And I would suggest that you ask him yourself. You will be able to find him in his office tomorrow morning. Until then, sleep here and refrain from unpacking.”

  She caught Emily’s arm before she could step back. “And I would also suggest that you apologize to your new roommates,” she added. “Feuds can get very nasty when they are between people sharing the same room.”

  Emily flushed as she turned and stepped back into the room. Her trunk—the spare she’d borrowed in Zangaria—had been neatly placed by her bed. Unusually, the bed sheets were already made up for her, although she suspected that she’d have to do it herself in future. A trio of desks had been placed against the far wall, one of them already covered in books and paper, rather than parchment. She couldn’t help smiling at the evidence of her own work. Paper had been unknown in the Allied Lands until she had arrived. It was still hideously expensive, but that would change.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, addressing the room as a whole. “I didn’t expect to be here...”

  “Nor did I,” the first roommate said. There was something oddly inhuman about her voice, something that made Emily’s hair prickle. “But I failed second year.”

  She turned, allowing Emily to see her clearly. Her body was human, although strongly muscled, but there was something serpentine about her face and her hair was a teeming mass of snakes. Emily almost stumbled backwards in shock at the overwhelming wrongness of it all, even though she’d seen weirder things. She’d heard of Gorgons, the intelligent cousins of medusas, but she’d never come face-to-face with one.

  “Most people have that reaction,” the Gorgon said, dryly. Up close, Emily could see hints of scales under her skin. “Gorgons that can perform magic are quite rare—apart from the standard magic the faerie built into us. I can turn you into stone two different ways.”

  Emily hesitated, then extended her hand. “Emily,” she said, simply. “Pleased to meet you.”

  The Gorgon took her hand and shook it. There was something faintly dry about her skin, as if it were flaking off very slowly.

  “My name is”—she made a hissing sound, with the help of her snakes, that Emily couldn’t have hoped to repeat—“but humans can’t actually pronounce it. You may as well just call me Gorgon...and if you call me Snake Face I’ll turn you into stone.”

  “I’ll bear that in mind,” Emily said, dryly. She’d met the real Snake Face; a medusa kept by the Sergeants as a particularly unpleasant surprise for the students. Medusas looked humanoid, but they weren’t really intelligent. “Why
did you have to repeat the year?”

  The Gorgon shrugged. “I failed three of the final exams,” she admitted. “There was no way I could proceed into the next year, so they ordered me to repeat the year.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Emily said, sincerely. She looked towards the other roommate, who was lying on her bed. “And you?”

  The girl rolled over and looked up at Emily. She was short and slight, with brown skin, dark eyes and very black hair. “My name is Lin,” she said, softly. Her voice was so quiet that Emily had to strain her ears to listen. “I came from Mountaintop.”

  Emily smiled at her. “A transfer student?”

  “Happens from time to time,” the Gorgon said. “It’s supposed to promote understanding between the different magical schools and institutes.”

  “Oh,” Emily said. “What’s Mountaintop like?”

  “I can’t really say,” Lin said, still very quietly. “We don’t talk about the school outside the wards.”

  “Bit more particular who it takes in,” the Gorgon supplied. “There are no shortage of rumors about it too.”

  Lin didn’t seem disposed to argue. She merely lay back on the bed and closed her eyes again.

  “I’ve been hoping to speak with you,” the Gorgon said, turning back to Emily. “Did you really beat a necromancer?”

  “Yes, I did,” Emily said, tiredly. It had been a very long day. “But I can’t really talk about it.”

  “Of course not,” the Gorgon agreed. She sounded rather rueful. “I would like to discuss it at some point, however. Necromancers are a persistent problem for my tribe.”

  Emily frowned. She’d studied orcs and goblins and a handful of other semi-human creatures, all seemingly created by the faerie for reasons beyond human comprehension, but she’d never actually considered Gorgons, beyond the basic fact that they existed. Most humans were scared of them, not without reason. Their unintelligent cousins could cause real trouble if they were allowed to run around without any supervision.