Study in Slaughter (Schooled in Magic)

by Christopher Nuttall

  Which might have been what Lady Barb was talking about, Emily thought, as she stepped into the dining hall herself. It was crammed with students, all trying to eat and talk at the same time. Alassa and Imaiqah sat at one end of a table, joined by two dark-skinned girls Emily didn’t recognize. They were probably Alassa’s roommates. The thought made her glance around for the Gorgon and Lin, but she didn’t see either of them.

  “We’re just sorting out the team,” Alassa explained, as Emily picked up a plate of food and sat down next to them. “We actually have more volunteers than I expected, so we’ll be trying out tomorrow night—I wanted tonight, but the older teams have priority at the arena.”

  “And more practice at cheating,” one of the two dark-skinned girls said. She held out a hand to Emily. “I’m Sam, by the way, and this is Song.”

  Emily shook her hand, then Song’s. Up close, the girls seemed to come from different ethnic groups, even though they both had dark skin. Sam seemed African, while Song appeared to have some Chinese blood in her. But then, racism against humans didn’t seem to be part of Whitehall’s world. There were too many non-humans around to make racism against humans very practical. It struck her, suddenly, that the Gorgon must have had a very hard time of it.

  “Pleased to meet you,” she said, seriously. “Are you Ken-mad too?”

  “Of course,” Song said. “Who wouldn’t be?”

  Emily hesitated, noticeably

  “You can try out, and then say you tried,” Alassa told her, quickly. “Besides, you might enjoy it.”

  Emily took a bite of her food, controlling her reaction. If Alassa became a completely sports mad fanatic...

  She’ll still be your friend, she told herself, firmly. Besides, learning how to run a Ken team will probably be good training for being queen.

  They finished their lunch, then checked their timetables. “I don’t know anything about Professor Eleas,” Song said. “Is he one of the tougher teachers?”

  Emily shrugged. She hadn’t heard of him either.

  “Better not be late,” Alassa said. “The notes on the timetable say that we need to be there on time or we need not bother coming at all.”

  “Sounds tough,” Song agreed. She pushed her plate aside and stood. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter Seven

  PROFESSOR ELEAS WADDLED INTO THE CLASSROOM five minutes after the lesson was supposed to begin—and, like Lady Barb, closed the door firmly behind him before marching up to the front of the room. Emily found herself staring at him as he turned to face them; unlike most of the other tutors, he wore nothing more than a simple loincloth, exposing his chest...which was covered in blue tattoos that seemed to have been carved into his skin. In fact, she couldn’t see a single part of his body that wasn’t covered in tattoos. Even his bald head seemed to have runes carved into its flesh.

  He was short, his head barely coming up to Emily’s shoulder, with a potbelly and bright, twinkling eyes. Emily found herself liking him on sight, even though she suspected that, like Sergeant Miles, his affable exterior was intended to hide great power. His gaze swept across the room and, if anything, his eyes grew brighter with suppressed amusement. Emily honestly couldn’t see what he found so amusing.

  “Good afternoon,” Professor Eleas said, calmly. “Before we start, I have a simple question for you. Why do you have your hands on your heads?”

  Emily jumped as she realized, to her horror, that her hands were resting on her head. The entire class was the same...and no one had noticed. When had it even happened? She pulled her hands down and stared at them, then looked up at the teacher. She’d experienced compulsion spells before, but nothing so...subtle. There hadn’t even been a hint that something had been wrong.

  “Try looking under your chairs,” Professor Eleas said, dryly.

  Emily, along with the rest of the class, stood and picked up the chair, looking underneath. Carved into the wood were three runes, barely visible to the naked eye. The last vestigial traces of magic surrounding them were flickering and fading away, leaving the runes—she hoped—harmless. She turned the chair back over and sat down, carefully. This time, she felt the subtle magic pushing at her mind. If she hadn’t been watching for it, she would never have realized that it was there.

  “Believe it or not,” the professor said, “that was not a particularly subtle magic.”

  He cleared his throat as the remaining students returned to their chairs. Now that they knew about the runes, it was easier to resist their compulsion, although Emily saw a number of hands twitching, as if they were about to go up again before the student caught the motion and held them down. The whole trick was thoroughly nasty.

  “There were three runes involved,” Professor Eleas explained. “The first one was a basic command, the second two pushed you into missing the effects of the first command—and the odd behavior of your fellow classmates. However, the runes would not have lasted for very long, once you activated them when you sat down. Nor, for that matter, would they have been effective if you had been watching for them. Even something as simple as knowing that they are there can negate their effects.”

  Emily scowled. She hadn’t thought to check under the seat before she sat down, nor had anyone else. The whole notion of being manipulated so easily was terrifying, which was probably why the professor had introduced them to it so bluntly. They had to learn to take it seriously.

  The professor smiled at their expressions. “How many of you,” he asked, “have used a transfiguration spell?”

  Emily hesitated, then raised her hand. So did almost everyone else.

  “The important detail about such spells is that they demand that you be as precise as possible,” the professor said. “You cannot cast a spell intended to cause random transfiguration. Instead, you have to determine just what you intend to turn someone into, along with the other factors. Failing to be precise may prevent the spell from working—or it might produce unexpected effects.

  “Subtle magic, however, works better when it is imprecise. The runes I used to demonstrate such power to you are about as blatant as the magic becomes—ever. Indeed, the mere nature of the compulsion meant that there was a possibility that some of you would notice it and, in doing so, allow others to realize that they too were being controlled. A more subtle rune might go completely unnoticed. For example, you might not be assured of success if you tried to use the runes to give someone a broken leg, but you would be almost certain to succeed if you merely aimed at an injury.

  “There are other dangers. A standard compulsion spell leaves the victim in little doubt of what has actually happened to him, while the less powerful spells can be unreliable. Subtle magic, on the other hand, can push someone into doing something—and encourage them to invent their own justification for their actions. It is a great deal harder to realize that one is being influenced through subtle magic, particularly when one has almost no experience with magic at all.

  “Most importantly of all, a transfiguration spell requires power and discipline to cast it,” he concluded. “All a subtle magic rune requires is a low level of ambient magic in the vicinity. What, do you think, are the implications of this?”

  There was a long pause. It was finally broken by Imaiqah.

  “Ah...anyone can use the magic runes,” she said.

  “Correct,” Professor Eleas said. “There is no reason why a mundane couldn’t learn to draw the runes himself in an attempt to cast magic. It might work—or it might not. It can be incredibly difficult to determine if such attempts have actually worked or if the ‘success’ is really nothing more than a coincidence. Those of you intending to go on to a career in law enforcement will need to bear that in mind.”

  Emily held up her hand. “What happens if the runes are drawn poorly?”

  “It depends on how they are drawn,” Professor Eleas said. “We will be covering that later, but they can simply fizzle out—or do nothing at all, or produce unexpected effects.”

  He pa
used and gazed around the classroom. “In this class, you will learn the basic runes and how to read and use them,” he said. “Should you stick with the class until fourth year, you will master the complete runic alphabet; if I haven’t scared you away by then, you will learn how to craft your own runes in fifth and sixth year.” His smile grew wider. “There are plenty of people who will argue that subtle magic and runes are not really magic, but such people are short-sighted. Used properly, subtle magic can be devastating.”

  Emily listened with interest as he outlined a number of cases he had handled before coming to Whitehall to teach. There had been an elderly woman who had used subtle magic against her neighbours, several cases of secret admirers trying to make the objects of their affections fall in love with them and one case of a powerful lord being cursed by one of his subjects. Emily found it hard to blame the subject; the lord had taken the man’s sister into his castle and used her as a concubine, then discarded the girl when he had tired of her. The lord had been withering away by the time someone found the runes and destroyed them.

  “Destroying the runes can cancel out the long-term effects of the magic,” Professor Eleas explained, when Sam asked. “However, the effects that had already taken root proved immensely hard to destroy. They had blended with the person’s mind.”

  Alassa had a different question. “Is it possible to protect yourself against such magic?”

  Emily frowned. From what she recalled of the Royal Bloodline, it stood to reason that such protections would already be part of Alassa’s package. But the runes had clearly affected her too...unless the professor had somehow keyed them to overcome the Bloodline. Maybe they were just powerful enough to do that. Sooner or later, wouldn’t she have wanted to use her hands?

  “We will be covering that in later classes,” the professor promised. “However, there are several steps that need to be covered first.”

  He picked up a set of tablets from his desk and held them up in front of the class. “The precise design of the rune is merely one aspect of the whole,” he informed them. “You have to be careful in choosing precisely what material you use to harbor the rune, as different materials produce different effects. A rune scratched out in the earth might work very quickly, but it also wouldn’t last very long. In contrast, a rune carved into metal can take weeks or months to take effect, yet those effects can last indefinitely.”

  Building up a charge, Emily guessed, thoughtfully. Outside Whitehall and the other nexus points, the level of overall magic in the air wasn’t very high. And the easier it is to destroy the rune, the lesser the effect.

  “You will have noticed runes carved into the stone of Whitehall, helping to channel the power of the nexus point,” Professor Eleas said. “Those runes have to be very carefully placed, as a single mistake can render the whole process worse than useless. Once built up, the network needs to be left intact. Removing a single rune could cause the whole network to fall apart.

  “Furthermore, you can carve runes into your own flesh,” he added, one finger touching the tattoos on his chest. “Doing this is immensely dangerous; you have to carve the important runes out yourself, rather than allow someone else to do it for you. And you have to do it without painkilling potions or anything else that might interfere with your concentration. A single mistake would be disastrous.”

  Emily shuddered. It had been hard enough removing a splinter with a pair of tweezers; she honestly couldn’t imagine carving runes into her own flesh and watching the blood dripping to the ground. And if she couldn’t use an anaesthetic...she couldn’t imagine managing to keep the rune so perfectly precise. How had the professor managed to carve so many runes into his own flesh?

  She frowned as the professor turned slightly. How had he managed to carve them into his back?

  “You are not to experiment with carving runes into your own flesh,” the professor informed them. “If you are caught trying, you will be expelled for gross stupidity. But if you’re not caught, you may wind up wishing that you had been caught and expelled. The consequences of making a mistake can be shattering.”

  He launched into another series of cautionary tales. Emily shivered as she listened to the story of the man who had accidentally ensured that he would never fall in love, the woman who had blinded herself, the children who had killed their own parents through drawing out runes in their house...the list went on and on. She honestly couldn’t understand why anyone would experiment with such power. But if they had nothing else, why not?

  “I have a question,” Melissa said, suddenly. “How did you manage to carve the runes into your back?”

  “I had a friend to assist me,” Professor Eleas said.

  Emily blinked. “But you said...”

  “The important runes are the ones that have to be carved out personally,” the professor explained, patiently. He twisted around, showing them the carved runes on his back. “You will study these in greater detail later, but the ones on my back channel power, rather than collect it. I had to make the decision to carve this rune”—he tapped a rune just above his heart—“myself, then do it.”

  Emily felt her blood run cold. Shadye had told her to stab Sergeant Harkin there with a necromantic knife, trying to pull his magic out of his body and into her wards. It would have killed her, or driven her insane, if the Sergeant had possessed magic. Instead, the absence of any power had rocked Shadye back enough for her to break free. Was there any significance in the rune’s location? Had Professor Eleas performed a necromantic rite when he’d finished carving runes into his own flesh?

  But there was nothing particularly difficult about the rite, Emily knew. As long as the magician was prepared to go insane, it was fairly simple to perform. But what did it mean if someone was trying to draw on their own power? Was that really nothing more than what she and every other magician did?

  Imaiqah poked her. “Emily? Are you all right?”

  Emily nodded, hastily.

  Professor Eleas seemed not to notice. “For self-carving to work, you have to make the decision, in full awareness of the possible consequences, to actually proceed with the carving,” he explained. “Should someone try to carve a rune into your flesh without your permission—let alone with your participation—it is unlikely to last very long. Bodies tend to resent cuts and bruises at the best of times, so once the rune heals its effects start to fade away. Naturally, some aspects may linger for a long time, but they can be overcome.”

  Emily silently considered what else could be done with runes. If they served to direct magic, even to reshape it, what could she do with them? Store and redirect magic? But if channelling vast amounts of magic was that simple, the necromancers would never have to channel the magic through their own minds, driving themselves insane in the process. She’d read enough history books about people who thought they could play with necromancy without going insane to know that hundreds of ideas had been tried. They had all ended in disaster.

  “You will be pleased to know that there are limits to runes and the subtle magic they can work,” Professor Eleas said. “The runes on your chairs, for example, were designed to affect the person who sat down—they were not targeted on any of you specifically. Placing the rune, therefore, is a serious problem. If you craft a rune intended to help one of your friends, you have to make sure that the rune doesn’t affect someone else. Indeed, the more people who can be touched by the rune, the less effective it will be. We shall discuss other ways to target the runes and subtle magic later on in the year.”

  Blood, Emily thought, remembering Shadye. Blood was the easiest way to influence or control a person—or even to find someone, if they were hidden away. They could never be completely severed from their blood, at least not without performing the charms to do so right away.

  “In addition, we will be covering ways of finding runes,” he added. “As you can imagine, if someone suffers a run of bad luck, it might be possible that their enemies have crafted a rune and hidden it nearby. However,
given the right spells, the rune can be tracked down and destroyed. We shall be working on that and other protections throughout the year because they are vitally important skills. Failure to master them will leave you exposed to hostile rune-crafters.

  “There are books in the library you will need to read,” the professor concluded. “I have written out a full reading list, which you can pick up from that desk over by the door. If you decide you wish to continue with this class, you should make an attempt to have the basic texts read by the end of the week and the remainder by the end of the month. I would also advise you to invest in a dictionary of runes. This new-fangled printing press makes copying such books so much easier.”

  Alassa tossed Emily a mischievous look, then winked. “I bet he wrote the textbook,” she muttered, deadpan.

  “Stay behind after class, Lady Alassa,” Professor Eleas said, crossly.

  Emily stood up with the rest of the class, then headed outside to wait for Alassa. Sam and Song said goodbye and headed off to the library, carrying their reading lists with them.

  “It looks longer than I thought,” Imaiqah said, as she skimmed the reading list. “When are we going to have time to do anything?”

  “Good question,” Emily agreed. Lady Barb’s reading list would already take up too much of her free time...and she was sure that the other tutors would have their own reading lists. If there were other books being produced on the printing presses she’d inspired, they might even be expected to buy new copies. “I don’t know.”

  Alassa emerged before Imaiqah could say anything. “He did write the dictionary,” she said, as they fled down the corridor. “But he says it’s a very good one.”

  Emily started to laugh. “We can go to the library now and have a look, then get an early night’s sleep,” she said. “Tomorrow...”

  “Defensive magic,” Alassa said, rubbing her hands together. “That should be fun.”

  “Martial magic,” Emily said. Thankfully, it was the only class she had on Tuesday—and it started late, after lunch. She’d have a chance to browse through the library and write down her ideas before they faded from her mind. “Good luck with yours.”