Study in Slaughter (Schooled in Magic)

by Christopher Nuttall

  Emily sighed as the game went on and on. There was no set time limit; the game ended when all of the players from one team were pushed out of the arena. It could go on forever, she realized, even though she knew that the players couldn’t play eternally. The Stompers would probably have the edge in raw endurance. She looked around at the spectators, wondering just how they could spend the entire afternoon watching the game. It might take hours before one team came out ahead.

  And she wanted to experiment with Yodel’s book.

  I’m sorry, she thought, and left the stands. No one seemed to notice as she walked back towards the school and in through one of the side entrances. Unsurprisingly, the building almost seemed deserted; the students who weren’t watching the game would probably be in the library, frantically looking up spells, case studies and precedents for their classes. There was more homework and private study in Whitehall than she’d ever had on Earth.

  No one was in the bedroom as she stepped inside and sat down in front of her desk, looking down at the spell she’d composed. She’d scrawled the components out carefully, as Professor Lombardi had taught her, then checked them one by one to see how they interacted before she tried to actually cast the spell. Creating a pocket dimension, even a relatively simple one, was fiendishly complex. If she hadn’t had some insights from her own universe, Emily suspected that it would have been impossible without many more years of schooling.

  Maybe I can make a TARDIS next, she thought, as she checked the spells one final time. It should work, she assured herself. Every step seemed to fit together perfectly.

  Carefully, she reached for the iron hoop she’d borrowed from the armory and placed it on the desk, positioning it so it stood upright. The instructions for actually casting the spell had told her that a solid inanimate object –preferably made of metal—would make the best anchor. Creating a pocket dimension that was attached to her seemed tempting, but the spellbook seemed to think that was a very bad idea. It didn’t go into details. Emily had puzzled over it at first, then realized that if something went wrong and the pocket dimension expelled its contents back into the normal world it might well kill the magician who created the spell. It was far easier to abandon a trunk if necessary.

  Concentrate, she told herself. The instructions insisted that she visualize the edge of the universe inside the hoop, as if it were a soap bubble. She closed her eyes and held the thought in her mind, then swore mentally as she realized that she would need to be looking at the spell while she cast it. There were treatments to ensure a perfect memory, but the permanent ones were dangerous. She would never be able to forget anything.

  Bracing herself, she struggled to hold the image in her mind as she looked down at the spell, understanding finally why enchantment wasn’t taught until fifth year. The kind of mental discipline it took to cast the spell was far greater than anything she’d ever tried, even the healing spell Lady Barb had taught the class. And to think that it had seemed easy! But it had been, with the power of the nexus behind her. This spell couldn’t draw on the nexus, or it would be completely useless outside Whitehall.

  She cast the spell, focusing on the image. There was a spark of magic...then nothing. Emily glared at the hoop of metal, then tried again. This time, there wasn’t even a spark.

  Emily shook her head and focused her mind. Yodel had probably had years of experience in memorizing and casting complex charms before starting to work on enchantment; he could probably cast the spells with his eyes tightly closed. Emily, on the other hand, had to do two things at once—and they tended to cancel one another out. She gritted her teeth, focused on the spell, and ran through it again. This time, the spark of power shimmered into life. The interior of the hoop was glowing with an eerie translucent light. A second later, it popped out of existence and the magic faded away.

  “Well,” Emily said, out loud. “At least that was something.”

  But it felt odd. Either the spell should have worked or it should have failed. Instead, it had clearly done something...and then collapsed. Shaking her head, she looked back down at the sheet of parchment, trying to see what she’d missed. Perhaps she’d messed up one of the spell components and the power had simply dissipated into the ether. But no matter how she looked at it, she couldn’t find anything wrong.

  She ran through the steps in her head. First, visualize the exterior of the pocket dimension where it connects to the main dimension. Second, blow out the dimension like a soap bubble, taking care not to exceed the level of magic and destroying the entire spell. Third, link the gateway to the hoop and seal the dimension. Done properly, it would be difficult for someone to even find a trace of its existence, let alone break into it.

  But she honestly couldn’t see where she was going wrong.

  It was possible, she knew through experience, to drain her magic, but she didn’t feel drained. She cast a light globe spell, then banished it; her magic seemed to be working perfectly. And yet the spell wasn’t working quite right. Putting more power into it, according to the notes, shouldn’t be necessary at all. Still, the only alternative was swallowing her pride and asking Yodel. It crossed her mind, briefly, that she could ask Void, but she didn’t want to share her thoughts with anyone until she knew if it actually worked.

  The hoop was warm to the touch, she realized, as she repositioned it on the desk. That was...odd too. She looked down at the book, but saw nothing about the anchor growing hot—or risking its own destruction. The book had advised her to pick something solid, yet it hadn’t said why. That, in her experience, was alarmingly common in spellbooks. She cast a cooling charm, then closed her eyes, visualizing the edge of her pocket dimension. Maybe it would work better now she had a handle on how the magic was supposed to flow.

  She opened her eyes, trying to keep the visualization in her head, and looked down at the spell once again. It seemed to come easier this time, now that she’d cast it several times; there was a surge of magic and the faint shimmer fell over the hoop once again. And then it just snapped out of existence. There was a wave of heat so strong than Emily pushed her chair back from the desk, feeling as if her face was starting to burn. She yanked the papers away from the desk before they could catch fire, ignoring the heat. The hoop was glowing so brightly that she was surprised it hadn’t exploded.

  The door burst open.

  Emily spun around and saw Master Tor, storming into her room. He looked furious, far too like her stepfather for comfort; Emily recoiled, feeling somehow violated. She hadn’t even known that male teachers could get into the bedrooms, although it did make sense. He was their Head of Year, after all. Behind him, she saw a nervous-looking Madame Razz.

  Master Tor glared at her. “What the...”

  He saw her notes and glanced down at them. A moment later, his face turned purple with rage. “You...”

  Emily cringed back, expecting a blow at any moment. For a chilling moment, she thought she saw the face of her stepfather, drunk and furious, overlaying Master Tor. He gathered himself, then caught Emily by the ear and dragged her out of the bedroom. Emily gasped in pain, then forced her legs into motion as he pulled her down towards his office. The handful of students they passed on the way stared at them in astonishment—and horror.

  “In,” Master Tor said, pushing her into the office. He pointed towards the corner. “Stand there and wait!”

  Emily found her voice. “I...”

  “Shut up,” Master Tor snapped. He pushed her into the corner. “Stay there, don’t move and don’t leave the office. If you do, I’ll damn well see to it that you are expelled.”

  Emily staggered as she heard him leaving the office. She wanted to look around, or to run, but she knew that it would be useless. The office was probably warded to let him know what she did while she was inside, or to keep her from leaving. Besides, she needed time to think and calm herself. She’d thought that the effects of the phobia spell had worn off, but it was clear that they were still lingering in her mind.


  And they don’t have any mental health professionals here, she thought, bitterly. Naturally, a world where certain kinds of magic could drive one mad wouldn’t want to develop cures, would it? And nothing in her life had convinced her that psychologists actually knew what they were talking about. But she would have been very grateful if someone had erased the phobia spell from her mind.

  She cursed herself under her breath, wishing that she’d stayed at the arena, no matter how boring she’d found it. It might have saved her from getting into trouble...but she’d intended to run the experiment anyway. She might just have done nothing more than put the trouble off for a few days—or even hours. And Master Tor had practically threatened to expel her...

  It felt like she was alone for hours before Master Tor finally returned to his office, giving her plenty of time to worry about what he was doing. Searching her trunk? It should have been impossible, but she knew better than to assume that breaking Yodel’s enchantments was beyond Professor Lombardi—or the Grandmaster. Or was he shouting at the Grandmaster and trying to convince him to expel Emily, risking Void’s wrath—and King Randor’s? Or was he merely taking his time to make her sweat? Or searching for an extra painful cane? It was almost a relief when he returned to his office and closed the door behind him.

  “Stay there,” he grunted. “Hands on your head, where I can see them.”

  Emily obeyed, and waited. She heard the rustle as he worked his way through the papers—her papers or essays; she didn’t know—and waited, as best as she could. The sergeants were fond of telling her that military service was mostly boredom, with fleeting moments of terror, but it didn’t seem to compare with waiting for the hammer to fall. Or perhaps it was entirely the same thing.

  “Turn,” he ordered, finally.

  Emily shifted around, not daring to take her hands from her head, and met his eyes. He was furious—and all of that anger was directed at Emily herself. It struck her, suddenly, that she had been very careless. He hated her and now she’d given him a reason to demand that she be expelled. And she didn’t even know why!

  “So tell me,” he ordered, after a long chilling moment that had Emily half-convinced that he was going to kill her on the spot, “just what were you thinking?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  MASTER TOR WENT ON BEFORE EMILY could say a word.

  “Did it penetrate whatever you use for a mind,” he demanded, “that Whitehall is largely constructed within a pocket dimension? Your spell, as limited as it was, could easily have interfered with it.”

  Emily stared at him in horror. She’d known, but she hadn’t considered the implications—and the book hadn’t bothered to mention them. But it wouldn’t have done, she suspected; nexus points were rare and required different techniques to harness and control.

  “Did it occur to you to wonder,” Master Tor added, “why enchantment isn’t taught until fifth and sixth year? Why most enchanters learn their trade through apprenticeships? Why your class on Construction and Warding barely touched on it? The spells themselves cannot be practiced in Whitehall. Those spells have to be taught outside the school.”

  His eyes bored into hers. “The wards protecting the school automatically shut down any spells intended to create pocket dimensions,” he snarled. “Under the circumstances, you’re very lucky that you didn’t accidentally start a fire too.”

  Emily found herself torn between relief and fear. Relief that her spell had been fine—it had been the wards that had prevented it from working properly—and fear for her future. Master Tor was quite right; it had been stupid of her to experiment in Whitehall, particularly when a few questions would have told her why it was stupid. And she had thousands of square miles of land in Zangaria she could have used to carry out her experiments.

  “This piece of work”—Master Tor waved her parchment at her—“is crude, unformed—and could have done serious damage, if you’d lost control of it. I would appreciate knowing just what you were thinking when you started your little project.”

  “I wanted to learn how to make my own trunks,” Emily said. It was partly true, after all—and she didn’t want to share her other idea with anyone, at least until she knew if it would work. Once she’d created the pocket dimension, she would have embarked on the next stage of the project. “I’ve already lost one...”

  “You are one of the richest students in Whitehall,” Master Tor snapped, effortlessly overpowering her voice. “If you wished, you could buy trunks for every single student without straining your resources.”

  “Yes, but they wouldn’t be mine,” Emily said, frantically. She wanted to run and hide, not stand there and face him. “And I don’t have that much money...”

  Master Tor gave her a furious look. “Do you have enough money to replace an entire school?”

  His voice hardened. “What you did was criminally irresponsible,” he added. “I shudder for the poor peasants of Cockatrice, living under a baroness who thinks nothing of the danger to others when she works her magic. And you do realize that most peasants cannot leave their lands? They’ll be exposed to you until the day you die.”

  That stung. Emily recalled the sort of brat Alassa had been before Emily had almost killed her; she’d shown a complete lack of concern for those she considered her social inferiors. But Emily hadn’t been like that...or like some of the others she’d heard rumors about, during her time in Zangaria. The less said about Princess Lucinda the better.

  “I didn’t mean to put anyone in danger,” she said, trying to control her voice. “I...”

  “You didn’t mean to put anyone in danger,” Master Tor repeated. His voice became mocking. “I do believe that is almost worse! You didn’t even think about the possible harm you could have done before you started messing around with pocket dimensions.”

  He looked her right in the eye. “That book is only available with a permission slip from the Head of Construction,” he said. “Where did you get it?”

  Emily hesitated, then confessed. “I borrowed it from Yodel, in Dragon’s Den,” she admitted. “I...”

  Master Tor interrupted her. “And he loaned it to you, just like that?”

  He went on before Emily could admit to making a deal with Yodel. “I shall insist that the Grandmaster have strong words with him,” he snapped. “Taking on apprentices is one thing, but actually giving out books...you stupid girl! Why didn’t you ask him to teach you on weekends? You could have performed the spell safely in Dragon’s Den.”

  Emily shuddered, remembering her stepfather. He’d been fond of calling her a stupid girl too.

  “Stop snivelling,” Master Tor ordered. “Do you have the slightest comprehension of just how far the repercussions could have reached if you managed to actually damage the school?”

  “...Yes,” Emily said. She felt very small and stupid. If Whitehall had been damaged, if the nexus point had been warped...there were cautionary tales about what happened to people who meddled with nexus points. None of them ended well. “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry,” Master Tor repeated. “You’re lucky you didn’t accidentally start a fire and burn yourself to ash and you’re sorry?”

  “There aren’t any rules against it,” Emily said. “I...”

  “Very few people would be stupid enough to start experimenting with pocket dimensions without reading up on them first,” Master Tor said. “Or were you so determined to see if you could master the spell that you didn’t even think to ask a few questions? Lady Emily, this is a place of education! Had you bothered to ask, we would have explained to you why trying to build your own pocket dimensions inside Whitehall was an immensely foolish idea. It’s hard enough to convince the wards to accept trunks and other dimensionally-transcendent artefacts that are created outside the building. Why didn’t you ask?

  “Or weren’t you told, back when you started, to be careful what spells you cast?”

  His eyes bored into hers. “The most ignorant Hedge Witch would be aware of the
danger,” he sneered. “Why weren’t you?”

  Emily gritted her teeth, but said nothing. Like so much else, it was something that would be immediately obvious to a native of this universe, but utterly unknown to someone from Earth, where pocket dimensions were the stuff of science fiction and fantasy. But hadn’t there been an episode of Doctor Who where the TARDIS had been twisted around so that there was no way out?

  “I have spoken with the Grandmaster,” Master Tor added. “He is not happy.”

  Cold ice ran down Emily’s spine as he continued. “He doesn’t intend to expel you,” Master Tor added. “He does, however, intend to ensure that you receive a very severe punishment. There may also be punishment for Yodel. Giving that book to anyone was not wise.”

  “It wasn’t his fault,” Emily said, quickly. “I borrowed the book...”

  “And you seem to be alive and human,” Master Tor sneered. “Dear me—did you manage to steal the book without being caught and punished? Or did you think that your status as the Necromancer’s Bane was enough to save you from the consequences of your actions?”

  Emily did her best to ignore his tone. “I made a deal with him,” she said. “He didn’t know what I wanted to do with the book and...”

  “Do you think,” Master Tor enquired archly, “that makes it any better?”

  Emily remembered what he’d said earlier and flushed.

  “The Grandmaster will talk to him,” Master Tor said. “After that...we shall see.”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to point out that Yodel had wanted to move to Cockatrice, but she held it back. If Yodel was forced out of Dragon’s Den, he could just go directly to Cockatrice and set up shop there. Even without any further patronage, an enchanter could find work anywhere. There was no shortage of demand for their skills. Master Tor didn’t need to know that Yodel had options. Besides, it wasn’t fair that he should suffer the consequences of Emily’s misdeeds.