Study in Slaughter (Schooled in Magic)

by Christopher Nuttall

  Rumors had definitely spread throughout the school, she realized, as other students glanced at her, their faces torn between awe and fear. A number of students grinned at her, rubbing their rears to suggest that they were pleased the Warden was gone, others seemed to shrink away from her, as if they believed that Emily would explode at any moment. She held her head as high as she could, fighting the urge demanding she run for her life and hide.

  Maybe I should just go, she thought, as they walked into the Great Hall. I could go back to Zangaria—or Void.

  The thought reminded her that Void hadn’t attended the inquest either. She knew nothing about the laws governing such bodies, but she was fairly sure that if Alassa felt she should have been there, Void would feel the same way. Hadn’t the Grandmaster called him? Or had he felt that matters would proceed more smoothly without his presence? What would Void have to say to Master Tor?

  You can’t keep relying on him to hold your hand, she told herself, sternly. He isn’t going to do everything for you.

  The glances and muttered whispers seemed to grow louder as she found a seat and sat down. She locked her eyes on the stage, where she knew the Grandmaster would stand, and refused to give anyone the satisfaction of looking at them. Somehow, as she caught sight of Mistress Irene and Sergeant Miles, it was hard to keep her face under firm control. Everyone seemed to be staring at her.

  There was a subtle shift in the wards as the Grandmaster entered the Great Hall and stepped up onto the stage. Now she’d had a moment to think, Emily could tell that the ever-present sense of the wards had changed, fading slightly. Without the Warden, was it even possible to maintain the wards? Lady Barb had as good as told her that monitoring the interior of the school would be much harder without him. And she’d seen enough in the Construction and Warding textbooks to know how difficult it was to produce even a basic ward without the near-limitless power of the nexus.

  The Grandmaster looked tired, she realized, as silence fell over the Great Hall. He looked utterly drained, as if he’d been up all night. Perhaps he had, Emily decided; they would have needed to take control of the wards and replace the Warden as quickly as possible. If they could replace the Warden. How long did it take to produce a homunculus anyway? Lady Barb had implied that it could take a very long time...

  “Yesterday afternoon,” the Grandmaster said, in a quiet voice that somehow seemed to echo over the Great Hall, “the Warden was destroyed by an unknown person. The Warden appears to be beyond repair.”

  A low rustle ran through the hall. Emily felt dozens of eyes turning towards her, then looking away.

  “We have been unable to determine the identity of the person responsible for the act,” the Grandmaster continued. “Nor have we been able to rule out the possibility that he or she might strike again. The Warden’s destruction opens up far too many possibilities for someone with bad intentions.”

  This time, the gazes felt darker. Emily fought down the urge to cower.

  “Accordingly, we will be taking immediate steps to assure ourselves of the safety of those within these walls,” he said. “Classes will be cancelled for the next few days”—there was another rustle, as if some of the students wanted to cheer, but didn’t quite dare—“while we carry out our investigation. We may wish to speak to some of you concerning where you were when the Warden was destroyed. You may wish to start thinking about how you can prove where you were at the time.”

  Alassa has hundreds of witnesses to prove that she was playing Ken, Emily thought, as the Grandmaster’s sightless gaze panned over the gathered students. So does Imaiqah and the rest of the team—both teams. But everyone else?

  “We strongly suggest,” the Grandmaster said, his voice breaking into her thoughts, “that you try to avoid being alone. Stay in groups when outside class—and go from room to room as quickly as you can. If you feel the urge to go some place alone, ask your teachers or older students to walk with you. They will provide the escort.”

  He paused. “If any of you know or suspect anything about the person who destroyed the Warden,” he concluded, “please tell us as quickly as possible. Hiding the truth, out of loyalty or fear, will only make the matter worse. Consider the safety of everyone in the school before you decide what to say.”

  Emily nodded, inwardly. Whitehall had at least one thing in common with schools on Earth: the students disliked sneaks, students who betrayed their secrets to their tutors. Even now, the students would hesitate to tell the Grandmaster anything, even if they knew that one of their fellow students was a murderer. But surely they’d report it if they saw someone making a stone knife? It wasn’t as if they didn’t know that the only magicians who used them on a regular basis were necromancers...

  But would they want to sneak?

  The Grandmaster gave them all a dour look. “Are there any questions?”

  A fourth-year girl Emily didn’t know put up her hand. “Are you going to send us home?”

  “Not yet,” the Grandmaster said. “Your schooling is still of primary importance. If matters grow worse, however, I will not hesitate to take firm action.”

  Emily scowled. The killer might not have committed murder by killing the Warden—she doubted that the Allied Lands saw him as human, not if they didn’t accept Gorgons as human—but the next target might well be a student. If there was a next target. Maybe the killer had been frightened by the Grandmaster’s speech and had decided to keep his head down in future.

  “Go eat breakfast,” the Grandmaster ordered, finally. “If any of you wish to talk to me, my office is always open.”

  Alassa nudged Emily as the students stood and started to make their way towards the dining hall. “That was interesting,” she said. “Do you have any idea who they might have as a suspect?”

  Emily shrugged. “Travis? Master Tor?”

  She thought about it, briefly. If she was ruled out, the last person to see the Warden alive would have been either Travis or Master Tor. Simple logic—which might not apply in a world touched by magic—suggested that one of them had to be the killer. Assuming, of course, they had been the last people to see the Warden. There were plenty of ways to turn invisible in Whitehall.

  Travis was a jerk, yes. But was he a killer? And what about Master Tor? Was he a killer?

  “But if the Warden wasn’t human,” she muttered to herself, “his death might not be taken as murder.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  THE DINING HALL WAS FILLED WITH excited chatter as Emily stepped inside, following Alassa and Imaiqah as they made their way to the second year table. She forced herself to keep walking forward as students stared at her, some of them so distracted that they forgot to chew their food. A handful looked terrified; the moment she sat down, several others stood and walked away. Emily watched them go, wondering if they thought that she was contagious—or a murderer. No doubt the rumor mill wouldn’t have bothered to take account of her innocence.

  “They’ll be talking about something else soon enough,” Alassa assured her, as the maids brought trays of food. “Just you wait until the next game.”

  Emily snorted as she picked at her food. It was unusual to have breakfast served, rather than being allowed to take whatever they wanted to eat; the Grandmaster must have decided to ensure that everyone had a proper breakfast for once. The bacon and eggs tasted like ashes in her mouth, even though she was very hungry. It took her a moment to realize that her plate had been subtly hexed. The realization almost made her stand up and run out of the dining hall.

  “Toads,” Alassa said, as she cancelled the spell. “And they will be toads, when I find out who did it.”

  Emily gritted her teeth as she ate, wondering just who had managed to hex her plate without being noticed. They’d had to have been very lucky to get the right person—or had they just been hexing every plate...She shook her head, bitterly. None of them used food testing spells in Whitehall, normally. There had never been any need.

  She looked up at the high
table and saw Master Tor, staring at her. Had he hexed her food? Surely, a tutor with years of experience could do it without anyone noticing. But it seemed too petty to be him. Besides, he was sitting next to Mistress Irene, who might have been harder to fool. Emily knew from experience that she was almost as good with charms as Professor Lombardi.

  “They’ll interrogate anyone who cannot prove where they were when the Warden died,” Alassa said, clearly trying to distract Emily from her thoughts. “And then...I don’t know what they’ll do, if they can’t find the killer that way.”

  Emily shrugged, wishing she’d spent more time reading true crime stories while she’d been on Earth. But then, she suspected that most police techniques wouldn’t be much use in Whitehall. Some of the cases studies Master Tor had given them had included locked room murder mysteries where—literally—a wizard had done it. Forensic testing wasn’t much good if there was nothing to use it on.

  But she had to admit that Alassa was making sense. Logically, the killer would be someone who couldn’t account for himself during that time...

  “Thank you,” Emily said, softly. She’d helped teach Alassa how to be more...caring and thoughtful. It had definitely been worth it. “But I don’t know what will happen next.”

  She looked back at her plate, then took a piece of bread from the nearby basket and used it to mop up the remains of the egg. Whoever had hexed her first plate didn’t seem inclined to try again, thankfully. She wanted to eat more—she hadn’t realized just how hungry she actually was until she had started to eat—but she knew better. It wasn’t as if she was going to be doing much exercise later in the day.

  A hand tapped her shoulder and she jumped, spinning around to see Master Tor.

  “Report to my office at ten bells,” he ordered, flatly. “And wear working robes.”

  He marched off before Emily could say a word. She watched him go, then glanced at her watch. She had barely twenty minutes before ten bells, hardly enough time to wash, dress and run back down to his office. Alassa shot her a sympathetic glance as she pushed the plate into the center of the table, where the maids would recover it, and stood.

  “He really has it in for you,” Alassa said, as she stood up herself. “I’ll let you use our shower.”

  Emily wanted to hug her as they walked out of the dining hall and ran up the stairs towards the dorms. She tested her door as they passed, but discovered—unsurprisingly—that it wouldn’t allow her access without either of her roommates. The Gorgon had been at breakfast, while Lin...Emily shook her head. Where Lin was hardly mattered, as long as she wasn’t in the bedroom they shared. No doubt the Gorgon had convinced her to spend the morning in the library or somewhere else instead.

  Alassa’s room wasn’t any different to Emily’s, apart from the addition of a wardrobe that was just as dimensionally transcendent as the trunks. Emily took the towel her friend offered her gratefully, then went in to shower. Normally, she would have luxuriated in the water, but she didn’t feel right using someone else’s facilities. They brought back bad memories from her time on Earth. Besides, she had a feeling that being late to Master Tor’s office would just make it worse.

  “I could come with you,” Alassa said. “If he was the person who destroyed the Warden...”

  “I think you’d just wind up in trouble too,” Emily said. “I’ll be fine.”

  She scowled at the thought. No matter how much he disliked her, surely Master Tor wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble of trying to frame her if he intended to simply kill her instead. Besides, the more she thought about it, he would have been very stupid if he thought that such a clumsy frame would work. It suggested that someone else was involved.

  But who? And why?

  “This is one of the robes I bought for messy work,” Alassa said, passing it to her. It was a dirty brown robe, surprisingly unstylish for Alassa. Normally, everything she wore was carefully tailored to show off her body to best advantage. “You’re a little shorter than me, but you can still wear it and you won’t have to go begging to Madame Razz—or your roommates.”

  Emily felt tears prickling in her eyes as she pulled the robe over her head. It smelt faintly of paint, probably from when Alassa had taken the Artwork taster class. People were rarely nice to her and, somehow, she found it impossible not to be almost pathetically grateful. Alassa gave her a hug as she tied the sash around her chest, then nodded towards the door. Emily hesitated and stepped outside.

  The short walk to Master Tor’s office was disturbing. A handful of students saw her and stared, or headed away from her as quickly as possible. Emily couldn’t help thinking of some of the repulsion charms mentioned in the book of practical jokes she’d found back in first year, or the spells that worked like stink bombs. She felt eyes boring into the back of her neck as she reached Master Tor’s office, although when she looked around she saw nothing. But that didn’t mean she was imagining it...not in Whitehall. Invisibility spells were relatively simple.

  “Lady Emily,” Master Tor said, as she entered. He looked pleased to see her, which didn’t bode well. “Take a seat.”

  Emily sat on the chair he indicated, careful to wince when her bottom touched the hard wood—and to hide her reaction when he smiled at her expression.

  Pervert, she thought, darkly. Suddenly, using a homunculus to administer punishments made a great deal of sense.

  “You will be serving an hour of detention every day for the next two weeks,” Master Tor said, without preamble. “Should you have classes that leave you physically or mentally exhausted, you may approach me about moving the detention to another day. Failure to attend your detentions will result in dire punishment.”

  And you said nothing about actually agreeing to move the detention, Emily thought, feeling cold rage pulsing through her soul. Martial Magic left her feeling shattered afterwards—and so did several other classes. What did he have in mind for her detentions? She’d never served one before, not in Whitehall.

  Master Tor stood. “Come with me,” he ordered, and strode out of the office. “Now.”

  Emily followed him up three flights of stairs and down a long series of corridors that she had never explored before. Whitehall’s interior was just as confusing as the TARDIS, with its own network of secret passages and hidden chambers. Some of the passageways she knew, from their explorations of the castle, but others were completely unknown. She sometimes wondered if the Grandmaster knew all the castle’s secrets.

  He stopped, just inside a set of corridors. “This used to serve as a barracks for guards, back after the Fall of the Empire,” Master Tor said. Oddly, he dropped into lecture mode. “The Grandmaster of that era was less convinced of his ability to manipulate the nexus point than some of his predecessors and insisted that the school also serve as a garrison. When the nexus point was fully under control, the troops were withdrawn and the barracks were abandoned.”

  Emily peered inside. It was larger than she’d expected, consisting of four large rooms crammed with metal bunks, two giant bathrooms that could hold dozens of men at once and one completely empty room. Dust was everywhere, lying on the floor like snow; wooden shields and swords hung on the walls, mounted on rusty handles. She could see a handful of footprints where someone had moved in and out of the room in the past. It was impossible to tell just how long it had been since the section was last visited.

  “The Grandmaster has decided, in the wake of recent events, that we should play host to a garrison once again,” Master Tor informed her. “Your task, for the duration of your detentions, will be to clean this entire compartment and get it ready for human habitation. You will expel the dust, you will clean the floors, you will check the pipes and you will prepare bedding, all on your own. You may not use magic—and you may not ask anyone else to use magic on your behalf.”

  Emily stared at the dusty floor in horror. Whatever he might have thought of her, she had been the only one doing the cleaning back home on Earth; she wasn’t too proud to c
lean the floors or do anything else domestic. But without magic it would take hours to clear out the entire section, even if the dust was the worst of it. She saw something moving in the semi-darkness and shuddered. Spiders...God alone knew what else was lurking in the abandoned section.

  “Cleaning equipment has been provided,” Master Tor added. “You may draw it from the cupboard down the hallway. The servants have been ordered not to assist you.” He gave her a long considering look. “The sooner you complete the task, the sooner you will be free of these punishment duties. I would suggest that you start right now.”

  Emily scowled at his back as he walked off down the corridor, then turned to gaze into the compartment. It looked worse than ever, she realized as she stepped inside; quite apart from the dust, there were unpleasant-looking stains everywhere and the room smelt faintly of too many unwashed bodies in close proximity. She took a breath, then sneezed as the dust tickled her throat. The sneeze set more of the dust spinning through the air.

  Magic could clean this up in moments, she thought, bitterly. How long will it take to do it by hand?

  She walked through the entire compartment, avoiding the spiders and other insects as best as she could. What was she supposed to do with them? Kill them all? Somehow, she found the thought unpleasant, even though she disliked spiders. They hadn’t been doing any harm. She remembered the Death Viper and shuddered. Knowing her luck, the spiders were deadly poisonous.

  The bathroom was dank and dirty, smelling faintly of something Emily would have preferred not to think about. She tested the pipes and discovered, not entirely to her surprise, that they had been disconnected from the rest of the school. There was no way to know how to reconnect them; given Whitehall’s ever-shifting interior, it was possible that she would need to ask someone to help link them back into the plumbing. It would have to wait until the rest of the compartment had been cleaned.