Study in Slaughter (Schooled in Magic)

by Christopher Nuttall

  Irritated, she looked at the next one and realized that it was more of the same, although the author did include an incredibly colorful account of an encounter with a Mimic that—he said—had sparked off a lifelong interest in the creatures. It hadn’t done anything for the writer’s mental stability, she decided, after reading the next few chapters. He’d come to the conclusion that everyone apart from himself was a Mimic and he’d eventually been locked up to stop him performing Mimic-detection tests. Emily read the description of the test in the hopes that it would be something workable, but it didn’t take long to realize that it was about as useful and impartial as dunking witches.

  Both books agreed, however, that all verified Mimic attacks were spaced out by months, at least. The Mimic had been able to take someone’s place and pose as them—perfectly—for a long time, perhaps even forgetting what it really was. It had to forget, Emily decided, unless there was something utterly inhuman about its mindset. How could it be happy posing as someone else?

  But it didn’t quite make sense. Emily could understand why one human would wish to take over another’s life. Everyone believed that the grass was greener on the other side of the hill. Taking someone else’s life, if it were possible to pose as them so completely, might seem an ideal solution. But why would a Mimic, an inhuman creature, want to be human? How the hell could something like it have evolved?

  The Gorgon might want to be human, Emily thought, slowly. But why would a Dragon—or a Mimic?

  Dragons, she suspected, had evolved to use the magic field to their own advantage. It was the only way something their size could fly. A Mimic might have done the same, but it still seemed odd. What sort of possible evolutionary advantage would pretending to be something else so completely grant it? It was such a complete pretense that its personality was utterly subsumed in the host. Assuming, of course, that it had a personality.

  She remembered the sense of pure malevolence from the Mimic and shivered. They did have personalities. And they hated humans.

  She picked up the third book and smiled in relief when she realized that it was far more practical. There was no decisive test for a Mimic, but a Mimic couldn’t change its form and hide without something to copy—and there seemed to be limits on just what it could copy. It didn’t seem to be able to turn itself into an object, or anything smaller than a puppy—and anything smaller than a human didn’t last very long. If the Mimic remained in that form while devouring life energy, it would return to its normal appearance within a few hours.

  But a human form could be assumed for weeks, perhaps months...

  Except that wasn’t what had happened. Travis had died and the Mimic had replaced Danielle. Danielle had died and the Mimic had replaced Kay. Kay had died and the Mimic had, somehow, replaced Sergeant Bane. If Emily had managed to escape, she found it hard to understand why Sergeant Bane had been caught, but perhaps he’d simply been trapped. The notes made it clear that running through the Mimic would have meant instant death.

  But all of those deaths had happened within a few days of one another.

  She glared down at her notes, convinced she was missing something. Why had the Mimic even stayed at Whitehall? Why had it killed the Warden rather than simply leaving the castle when it began to remember who and what it was? Why had it sought to convince the Grandmaster that there was a necromancer on the loose? There was nothing in the books to suggest that the Mimics ever bothered to conceal their activities. Why should there be when they were effectively unstoppable?

  “What,” she muttered out loud, “am I missing?”

  She’d panicked—and accidentally cast the detection charm. The Mimic had lit up brightly...

  “But it can’t be that simple,” she mused. “Otherwise someone else would have found a way to track and identify them by now.”

  They’d practiced using the charms extensively in first year—and most students would light up as brightly as the Mimic. Protection charms, practice wards...all of Whitehall’s students were tainted with magic. They could never be completely free of it, even if they refrained from using their powers...hell, they couldn’t refrain from using their powers. Eventually, the magic would break free.

  And then it struck her.

  She flipped back through the books, checking every recorded location of a Mimic sighting. They all took place away from magical centers such as Whitehall—or the other nexus points. This Mimic wasn’t just pretending to be human, it was pretending to be a magician. Just by being in Whitehall and posing as a student, it was burning up magic at a terrifying rate. And once it ran out of magic, it would be forced to revert back to its normal form.

  They suck up magic to survive, just like Dragons, she thought, numbly. The Mimic was lashing out with the fury of a wasp caught in a jam jar, aided by a cold inhuman intelligence and a certain awareness of how humans thought. It had created the illusion that there was a necromancer in the school, disguising just how often it needed to feed. And that meant...

  Her blood ran cold. The Mimic had attacked Sergeant Bane—and it had immediately come after her. If it had learned from him what she’d done with the nexus point, it might have decided that Emily was the key to a feast of magic from the nexus. Or perhaps Sergeant Bane had intended to visit her in the barracks and the intention had carried over when the Mimic had assumed his form.

  And if it realized that I might have a way to make necromancy viable, it will be all the more determined to capture me, Emily thought. She swallowed a curse, then hesitated. Perhaps there was a way to catch it before it caught up with her again.

  She took a new sheet of paper and started to scribble down notes. “Take each student into the great hall and force them to burn up as much of their power as they can,” she muttered to herself. “If one of them happens to be the Mimic, they will be exhausted and revert back to natural form when they can no longer maintain the disguise.”

  It seemed simple, although she knew there would be objections. She wasn’t too willing to burn up all of her power—it crossed her mind that it might be because she was the Mimic, all unknowing—and she suspected that everyone else would feel the same way. They would be rendering themselves defenseless and, if what Kyla had said was true, the level of hexing in the school had skyrocketed since they’d ended up trapped.

  She looked back at the more practical book and worked out how it insisted that a Mimic could be trapped. The wards would have to be constructed with extreme care, then manipulated to force the Mimic back into the zoo...rather like handling antimatter, she decided. Maybe they could just leave the Mimic in its cage, sealed up forever. The books had no idea if they could starve the Mimic to death.

  Or she could create another pocket dimension and snap the Mimic out of existence. It had worked for Shadye. Why wouldn’t it work for a Mimic?

  Because no one knows anything about Mimics, her own thoughts answered. Would one even be sucked into a gravity well?

  It was hard to imagine an entity made of mist not being sucked inside, but she knew better than to assume something that looked like mist actually was mist. In fact...why did the Mimic flinch back from a detection charm, when a lethal spell had gone through it as if it were made of...well, mist?

  “This is not going to be easy,” she told herself, as she stood. “But there isn’t any choice.”

  Lady Barb and the Grandmaster would have to be informed, then they would have to be talked into trying it, even though most of the school would object. How long would it take to test everyone? Emily had exhausted herself before, casting magic, but many of the remaining pupils were older and more practiced.

  She gathered the books together, then called Lady Aylia and waited for her to enter the room. When she came, she was escorted by Imaiqah, who looked tired, but surprisingly happy.

  “I won the match,” she said, before Emily could ask why she was so cheerful. “I am now the Kingmaker of Second Year. I’m going to be playing the champ from third year tomorrow, then fourth year if I be
at him...”

  “Alassa is going to want you to be practicing Ken,” Emily reminded her, mischievously. “How is the team?”

  Imaiqah’s eyes darkened. “We’re not allowed outside the building at all,” she said, softly. Under her delight at winning, Emily realized suddenly, she was scared. “We can’t play Ken inside the building.”

  “We could probably play it in the Great Hall,” Emily said. She had a sudden mental vision of balls going everywhere while the players tried to dodge, but she forced it aside with a grimace. No doubt the Grandmaster would order mass expulsions after the chandeliers were destroyed, although he couldn’t get anyone out of the castle while the Mimic remained outside confinement. Maybe he would just turn the culprits into frogs instead. “Or the dining hall.”

  “There isn’t food to waste,” Imaiqah said. “Do you remember the food fight?”

  Emily nodded. It had been started by some third years—fourth years now—before the end of last term. They’d used magic to hurl plates of food everywhere, encouraging others to fire back with bowls of soup, cakes and whatever else came to hand. The resulting devastation had ruined hundreds of robes and caused a mess that the original perpetrators had been forced to clean up, by hand. Emily had the feeling that they hadn’t regretted it very much.

  “Now, there’s barely enough food for a few weeks, assuming we use it carefully,” Imaiqah added. “I was asked to help the cooks with their calculations.”

  “Ouch,” Emily said. Food was difficult to transfigure, let alone produce from nothing, even for magicians as powerful as the Grandmaster. Producing enough food to keep the entire school alive might be beyond even his formidable power. “How long do we have?”

  Imaiqah hesitated. “A month at most,” she admitted, finally. “Perhaps less. Perhaps much less. The cooks were talking about seeing who brought food from home.”

  Emily made a face. She’d never had parents who cared enough to send her food, but some of the students at Whitehall were luckier. Alassa’s mother had been discouraged from sending a whole trunk-full of goodies, while other parents had sent snacks, care parcels or even pre-prepared meals. But surely even the most indulgent of parents couldn’t have sent enough food to feed the entire school.

  “Maybe they’ll let us go out and scavenge,” she said, finally. But she could easily see the Grandmaster refusing—or the Allied Lands taking steps of their own to seal off Whitehall. A Mimic was a deadly threat. “Or maybe not.”

  “I’ll put the books back where they belong,” Lady Aylia said. “If you have an idea, you might want to use it now.”

  Emily nodded and stepped out of the private room, casting the seeker spell in the air to locate Lady Barb. The needle appeared, pointing downwards. “Probably in her office,” Emily said, as they left the library. “I think she’s looking for a solution too.”

  Imaiqah caught her arm. “Do you have a solution?”

  “I think so,” Emily said. She hesitated, looking down at her notes. “It may work, given a chance.”

  The almost worshipful look in Imaiqah’s eyes was disturbing, she realized. She’d been a small girl, Alassa’s victim, when they’d first met, even if she had learned how to use magic to defend herself, just like Emily. And her association with Emily had brought her family money, power...and eventual ennoblement. Emily knew that her friend owed her a great deal, yet such admiration bothered her. She didn’t want to spend the rest of her life casting a shadow over her friends.

  But she still kicks your ass at Kingmaker, she thought, ruefully. Imaiqah had plenty of talents of her own, even if they didn’t seem so spectacular. And she’s much better at handling bargaining than me.

  “This corridor should be busy,” Imaiqah said, as they stepped into the main thoroughfare. “But everyone is hiding in their rooms or trying to distract themselves...”

  Emily scowled. Few of the children of Whitehall had grown up in constant danger, even those born to wealthy and powerful families. They knew that the building was effectively under siege...and a Mimic was moving through the building, killing people and assuming their form. Anyone could be the Mimic. She couldn’t really blame them for being scared, even though being alone was asking for trouble. How long did it take a Mimic to assume a new form?

  “Yeah,” she said, absently. “I...”

  There was a blinding flash of light, directly ahead of them. And then the first hex came out of nowhere, aimed right at Emily’s face.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  EMILY JUMPED TO ONE SIDE, WINCING as she felt the heat of the hex flash past her and smash harmlessly against the wall. Who was attacking her now? Melissa? She couldn’t see any sign of her attacker, apart from a hex that came out of thin air and spun towards Imaiqah. The attacker was completely invisible.

  A third hex darted towards her, striking her protections before she could react. Her protections glowed as they tried to repel the hex, but it clung on and started to burn its way towards her. Emily had seen Sergeant Miles cast spells that wore down a person’s defenses, but she hadn’t seen anyone else do the same, not even Void. She cast the counter-spell, then threw a hex of her own back towards where she thought the attacker was. It missed.

  Imaiqah cast a series of tripping jinxes down the corridor, trying to expose the attacker. Emily smiled to herself—her friend was more ingenious than most people gave her credit for—and cast a spell of her own, summoning white mist out of thin air and directing it down the corridor. She would see the person moving through the mist even if they were invisible. A wave of magic came back at her and shoved her backwards, hard; oddly, it didn’t seem to be focused enough to hurt. Emily kept her balance and deflected another hex as the mist rolled down the corridor. It crossed her mind, briefly, that the attacker might mistake the mist for the Mimic...

  Was the attacker the Mimic? It seemed unlikely that it would risk using magic so blatantly, not if she was right about each use of magic limiting its time in a new body. But maybe it didn’t know that about itself...there was no way for her to know. A shape appeared in the mist, smaller and slighter than Emily remembered, then another hex came darting out at Imaiqah. There was a brilliant flash of light and her friend vanished. Emily cursed inwardly and looked down. There was a tiny statue of Imaiqah where she’d been standing on the floor.

  She threw a hex towards the shape in the mist, trying to make out its features now she had a rough idea of where the attacker was. Most invisibility spells, the Sergeants had explained, didn’t work so well once the hunter had a good idea of where the attacker actually was. She peered and frowned, puzzled. Melissa was tall, taller than Emily; her attacker actually appeared to be shorter. And then a powerful spell blasted out of the mist and slammed directly into Emily’s defenses.

  Brilliant green balefire crackled over her, followed rapidly by a wave of heat that left her exposed face and hands feeling scorched. Emily swore out loud and threw back the most powerful immobilization jinx she could, then cancelled the attacker’s spell before it could do real harm. She’d hoped that the wide-angle spell would be enough to catch the attacker, but it didn’t seem to have caught anything. And, as the mist slowly faded away, the corridor appeared to be completely empty.

  Emily didn’t lower her guard. She peered down the corridor, looking for telltale signs of the attacker’s presence. Who was he? Or she? There had been no hint of gender in what little she’d seen of the attacker. It wasn’t as if she were short of enemies, but the spellwork seemed a little too advanced to be a second year student. She doubted that any of the first years would try to challenge a second year, not yet. They could barely master a simple jinx, let alone powerful hexes.

  She knelt down beside Imaiqah and touched the statue, hoping to free her friend. Nothing happened; the spell holding her in an immobile form was surprisingly tough, beyond Emily’s ability to remove. She gritted her teeth and tried again, but the spell refused to budge. That wasn’t a practical joke, certainly not at second year level. The atta
cker...

  A spell struck her legs and they seemed to turn to jelly. Emily crashed to the stone floor, letting out a yelp of pain as she banged her elbow. She rolled over and cast another spell back at the attacker, but she missed completely. The invisible attacker had to be moving as soon as he or she threw the hex that might betray their position.

  “Damn it,” Emily said, out loud. “Who are you?”

  Desperately, she shaped an illusion spell in her mind, casting the image of a Death Viper and sending it hissing towards the corner where she hoped the attacker was standing. There wasn’t a student in the school who didn’t know what a Death Viper was, not after the Grandmaster had ordered all of them to take a good long look at the one held captive in the armory. Emily heard a very feminine gasp, followed by a scorching hex aimed right at the illusory snake. It would have killed it if the colorful creature had been real. She seized her chance and threw the same spell she had used on Melissa at the attacker. It was deflected back at her, the blast picking Emily up and throwing her back down the corridor.

  She hit the ground again, gasping in pain. Her body remembered how badly jumping out of the window had hurt; this seemed worse, as if her repaired bones had broken once again. She grunted and rolled over, just as another spell struck her. Her entire body froze solid, leaving her utterly unable to move—or defend herself. She couldn’t help wondering what would happen if the Mimic came across her right now...

  The sergeants had told them that, in a real fight, they couldn’t stop until their opponent was definitely out of it. Emily struggled to cast the counter-spell without moving her hands, knowing that she might be knocked out at any second. But the spell refused to work properly...strong arms gripped her shoulder and started to drag her down the corridor, before suddenly letting go. Absurdly, Emily felt an urge to laugh. She wasn’t that heavy, was she? Besides, anyone who could cast such spells could easily use a levitation charm to move Emily’s body anywhere she liked.