Study in Slaughter (Schooled in Magic)

by Christopher Nuttall

  “Very good,” the Grandmaster’s voice said. “Now, start casting spells.”

  Emily hesitated, bracing herself, then cast the first of the most power-intensive spells she knew. Magic crackled around her, growing brighter and brighter as she pushed more magic into it, lighting up the entire chamber. She concentrated, closing her eyes as she drew on her deeper reserves of magic, feeling time slowing to a crawl...and then the magic slowly faded away. She found herself kneeling on the floor with no clear awareness of how she’d fallen—or why. Her body seemed suddenly very frail.

  “Well done,” the Grandmaster said. “You appear to be human.”

  “Thank you,” Emily muttered.

  She was weak, so weak that it was hard to move, but she did manage to look at her bare hand. The nightmares about actually being the Mimic had chilled her to the bone. Had she suggested the test, she asked silently, because she had subconsciously worried that she might have been the Mimic herself? Once again, there was no way to know.

  “Come here,” Lady Barb said. She was standing right next to Emily...how had she gotten there without Emily noticing? “It’s all right. You’re human.”

  Emily couldn’t say anything as Lady Barb helped her to her feet and pulled her out of the wards, then—instead of going into the Dance Hall—pushed her into a small seat at one end of the Great Hall and pressed a small glass mug into her hand. The replenishment potion smelt ghastly—she recalled Professor Thande telling her that potions were deliberately made to taste awful, simply to ensure that the users didn’t become addicted—but she felt better the moment she downed it.

  “You might want to stay here,” Lady Barb said. “It was your idea.”

  The next few students were all sixth years, including Cat and Bran. Emily watched, wondering why she had never been scared of any of them, as they expended vast amounts of power before sagging to their knees. But then, she had met Shadye—and Void. The students didn’t have anything like their raw power, or experience. Not yet.

  Better not let Alassa get into another fight with Cat, Emily thought, as Lady Barb helped him into the Dance Hall. Next time he might overwhelm her with ease.

  The thought made her scowl. There was a rule against seniors picking fights with juniors, but if the juniors started it the seniors were allowed to put them in their place. In hindsight, if Alassa hadn’t hurt Cat so badly in the opening round, she might just have ended up as a frog—or worse. But then, that game had brought out the worst in everyone.

  Sergeant Miles came over and knelt down beside her. “They found Bane’s body in a closet,” he said, grimly. “The general theory is that he went inside...and the Mimic was behind him. And that was the end.”

  Emily nodded. Mimics were rare...but everyone was scared of them, with good reason. If a powerful combat sorcerer like Sergeant Bane could be overwhelmed, no one was safe—not even rogue talents like Void or necromancers like Shadye.

  The next set of students looked more reluctant to take part in the tests, but the Grandmaster left them no option. Emily quietly made mental notes of their power levels and what sort of spells they used, noting that two of them seemed content to hurl spell after spell rather than picking one and pushing as much power into it as they could. Did that imply a lack of discipline, a shortage of imagination...or what? She couldn’t help glancing at her watch and scowling as yet another student walked into the Dance Hall. At this rate, they were going to spend the entire day performing the test.

  She looked over at Lady Barb as a thought occurred to her. “What happens to all the magic?”

  “It gets vented out into the wards,” Lady Barb said, tightly. Perhaps she remembered the experiments Emily had had in mind. “We can’t leave so much residue in such a small place.”

  Emily blinked in surprise as she realized that Lin was the next student. Her roommate looked small and weak against the wards, her face so pale that it lacked all color. Lady Barb spoke softly to her, cajoling Lin into casting a simple light charm. The light globe blazed brightly for long minutes, longer than Emily would have believed possible, then faded away as Lin slumped down.

  Interesting, part of her mind noted. Lin has significant power reserves.

  She scowled as the thought nagged at her. She hadn’t seen Lin in many classes; she seemed to have chosen very different classes from Emily, classes that didn’t require much in the way of magic. It was easy to believe that Lin didn’t have much magic, but she had secured a place at Whitehall—and Mountaintop. She couldn’t have done that without real potential.

  Lady Barb escorted Lin into the Dance Hall, then came back to watch as the Gorgon entered the trap and started to cast spells. She was good, better than Emily had realized...but then, she did have an additional year of practice. And a lot of anger to work out...Emily shivered as she saw the snakes, hissing and biting at the air as the Gorgon worked her magic. By the time she slumped too, the wards were positively glowing with released energy.

  “Gorgons have a powerful magic of their own,” Sergeant Miles said, softly. “They can be very dangerous opponents.”

  The next four students passed without incident, but the fifth seemed hesitant, reluctant to enter the wards. He was short and thin, reminding Emily of a boy she’d known from Earth who’d been the target of a very nasty gang of bullies. No one had done anything to help him, just leaving him to their mercy. He’d almost killed himself the year before Emily had been plucked away from Earth forever.

  “Just cast your spells,” Lady Barb ordered, calmly. “It won’t take very long.”

  The boy gave her a resentful look—there was something in his dark eyes that made Emily shudder—and started to cast spells. He wasn’t very good, Emily realized; there was something about him that reminded her of Imaiqah, before she’d become friends with Emily and started to stand up for herself. Emily knew little of mental health, but she would bet half of her fortune that low self-esteem contributed to poor magical skills. It was something, she promised herself, that she would research later.

  But there’s a taboo on exploring ways to help the mentally ill, she reminded herself. It will need to be explored carefully...

  She sensed the sudden change an instant before the boy’s form dissolved into the eerie form of the Mimic. Emily realized—as she sensed Sergeant Miles stumbling backwards—just how easily the Mimic had found its latest victim. With a student who needed to spend time alone, all it would have had to do was find him and then overwhelm him. If it could overwhelm a combat sorcerer, it wouldn’t have any trouble with a weak third-year student.

  “Tighten the wards,” Mistress Kirdáne barked. “Hold it in place!”

  The pulsing mist seemed to turn until it was looking directly at Emily. It knew her, Emily realized mutely; it remembered her from its unsuccessful attempt to consume her and take her place for its own. There was nothing that passed for an expression, no hint of a human face in the mist, but she could feel its cold hatred and abhorrence. And she was sure the creature was no beast. It had planned its hunt with great cunning.

  She didn’t realize she had taken a step forward until Sergeant Miles caught her, dragging her back roughly. The pain snapped her back to herself, clearing her mind; the Mimic had almost manipulated her into trying to release it from the wards. She heard a humming in her head as the Mimic glowed brightly, then a dull twang rang through the room as one of the wards snapped. And another.

  “Replace the wards,” the Grandmaster ordered. “Hurry!”

  A third ward broke. Sergeant Miles let go of Emily’s arm and ran forward to add his weight to the struggle, but the Mimic broke free before he could start casting wards. For a long moment, it floated in the center of the room, then lunged sideways, into the Dance Hall and out of sight. Emily heard screams as students fled in all directions, forgetting that they had to remain where they were...

  “It’s gone,” Lady Barb snapped. She sounded badly shaken. “And so have the students!”

  Emily realized jus
t what the Mimic had had in mind—and cursed. With the students panicking, it could replace one of them and no one would be any the wiser. At the very least, they would have to run the whole experiment over again...and the wards had just proven themselves unable to hold a Mimic. But they’d worked before...

  “We kept feeding it,” Mistress Kirdáne said, numbly. “It never seemed to test the wards—but as long as we were feeding it, why would it bother to leave?”

  Sergeant Miles clapped his hand onto Emily’s shoulder. “It was a fine plan,” he said, softly. “You did well, even if it didn’t work perfectly. It wasn’t your fault.”

  Emily shook her head, bitterly. She couldn’t escape the feeling that it was her fault.

  “So,” Master Tor said, addressing the Grandmaster while looking at Emily, “what the hell do we do now?”

  “I don’t know,” the Grandmaster admitted. “I just don’t know.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  THERE’S NO WAY OUT,” IMAIQAH SAID. “Is there?”

  Emily lay on her borrowed bed, staring up at the ceiling. Imaiqah’s roommates had been lucky; they’d managed to go home before the Mimic had been revealed and the wards sealed them into the building. And she had been glad of the chance to move into Imaiqah’s room, once she had convinced Madame Razz that she wasn’t going to touch any of Imaiqah’s roommate’s possessions. Besides, it was unlikely that they were going to escape Whitehall.

  “I don’t know,” she confessed. The Grandmaster had looked beaten, defeated, when the Mimic had vanished, leaving confusion and terror in its wake. By now, it would have eaten another student and taken their place. It could be anywhere. “If we don’t dare lower the wards...”

  But would the wards even hold it? They’d assumed that the Mimic was trapped in the zoo, but it hadn’t seemed to have any difficulty breaking out of the trap when it had known that it had been caught. What if the Mimic could simply move through the wards once it had finished devouring everyone in Whitehall? The school would remain forever sealed, a mystery to baffle the Allied Lands, while the Mimic went on to dine elsewhere.

  She looked across the room at her friend and felt a surge of guilt. It was all her fault. If she had never come to Whitehall, Shadye would never have dared attack and the Mimic would never have been released. She knew that she hadn’t chosen to jump into this new world, or to be sent to Whitehall, but it was hard to truly believe it wasn’t her fault.

  “It could have eaten us all,” she mused, out loud. “Why didn’t it?”

  Instead, the Mimic had broken through the wards and fled. And yet...what had it to fear? It was effectively invulnerable—she’d seen lethal curses simply passing through the mist, as if the Mimic wasn’t really there—and it could have drained everyone in the Great Hall before escaping to finish off the rest of the school. Without the Grandmaster and the other staff, Whitehall would have collapsed into anarchy and the Mimic could have moved from victim to victim, utterly unnoticed in the chaos.

  “Maybe it can only drain one person at a time,” she muttered. That would certainly explain how the original capturers had caught it; there had simply been too many targets for the Mimic to choose one to drain. Or perhaps it had known better than to assume a new form in front of human eyes. Was there something about the human form that would make it vulnerable?

  She sat upright. Being transfigured—into animals or inanimate objects—was a regular incident at Whitehall, even for a sixth year student like Travis. What would happen to a Mimic impersonating a human when a transfiguration spell was cast on it? Was that another way to test for a Mimic—or was the duplication so good that the spell was allowed to work perfectly? Maybe, if they could identify the Mimic’s human disguise, they could trap it in stone...what would happen if the Mimic looked into the eyes of a Gorgon?

  Or a pocket dimension, she thought, sourly. But the wards were too badly damaged to allow her to manipulate them for a second time—and producing her own pocket dimension risked interfering with Whitehall’s interior. Maybe it was worth considering, as a desperation measure, but otherwise...she doubted the Grandmaster would be so tolerant a second time, particularly when the wards were trying to keep the Mimic in.

  “I...I thank you for staying the night,” Imaiqah said. “I didn’t want to sleep alone.”

  Emily couldn’t blame her. No one went anywhere alone now, not when the Mimic might swoop down on them and take their place. Students hid in their rooms, clutching weapons and preparing spells that might as well be snowballs, if matched against a Mimic. The hexing in the corridors had only grown worse as fights broke out, the students finally realizing that they might no longer have academic careers to protect. She had to admit that there was a certain temptation to hunt Melissa down and hex her into next week. Even with the staff patrolling the corridors and large parts of Whitehall declared off-limits, there was plenty of space for mischief—and malice.

  “Me neither,” she admitted. And she was sick of the Gorgon’s sullen dislike and Lin’s quiet passivity. Maybe they would have gotten along better if the Mimic hadn’t been revealed...no, the Mimic had had nothing to do with Emily’s experiments. That had been her fault, all the way. “I don’t know what else to do.”

  Imaiqah stared at her. “You came up with a mad plan to rescue Alassa and save her Kingdom,” she said. “Surely you can come up with something to face a Mimic.”

  Emily winced, inwardly. “My first idea worked a little too well,” she muttered. The Mimic had been revealed...but the trap had failed utterly. Now, she rather doubted there was any point in trying again. Even if they caught the Mimic, they’d have to trap it...how? “The only other idea...”

  She stopped, considering. If the blood test worked—and there was no clear evidence, one way or the other—how far did the blood have to be taken from the Mimic before it reverted to its natural form? There was nothing in the books to suggest an answer, although she was sure that Mimics would have cut themselves beforehand. Perhaps they’d simply moved on to consume and replace the person who’d seen their blood dissolving into mist. Or perhaps the magic they used was effectively a permanent form of transfiguration.

  We could test everyone and move the blood as far from them as possible, she thought. If the blood sample reverted to mist, it would identify the Mimic without it knowing that it had been caught. Or would it?

  Come to think of it, hadn’t the Changelings on Deep Space Nine always been the first ones to suggest the blood tests? They’d had a way to fool them.

  Imaiqah picked up one of her textbooks. “I wonder if there is any point in reading this now,” she said. “What can we do in Whitehall?”

  Emily felt another bitter pang. Perhaps she could go into the library and request books that would otherwise be forbidden, now that there was no hope of escape. She could spend the rest of the month satisfying her curiosity, even as she slowly starved to death. But part of her refused to give up hope. There was no such thing as an unbeatable enemy. She, of all the people in the Allied Lands, ought to know that a seemingly-invincible foe could be defeated.

  “Good question,” she muttered.

  The first year was always a little chaotic, with students coming in all the time. Second year was meant to be a little more orderly. Even if the Mimic were destroyed tomorrow and the wards went down, they’d missed out on several weeks of schooling...as had the ones who had left the school. What would happen to them?

  She stood and gave her friend a hug. “We’ll get out of this somehow,” she said, although she heard no real conviction in her voice. “Get some sleep. The world will look better tomorrow.”

  Imaiqah gave her another worryingly worshipful look. “I’m sure you’ll think of something,” she said. “But don’t turn out the light.”

  Emily smiled, sadly, as she returned to her bed. It had taken her months to get out of the habit of leaving a light on overnight, yet another legacy from her damned stepfather. And then Alassa and Emily had been attacked in their own
bedrooms, while staying at another kingdom. If Whitehall had had electric lighting, she might never have managed to sleep in the dark.

  She closed her eyes and tried to sleep, wishing that she had a sleeping potion or something intended to ensure she didn’t dream. But there was none; Kyla and Professor Thande had ordered that all potions were to be reserved for those who needed them to heal, rather than just have a dreamless sleep. Sergeant Miles had pointed out, when Emily had asked, that it was better to be able to snap awake instantly than remain in a slumber when someone dangerous was in the room. He was right, Emily supposed, but what was she meant to do about the Mimic? If Sergeant Bane hadn’t been able to destroy it, what hope did she have?

  Sleep came...and she plunged into nightmares. Shadye’s face appeared in front of her, laughing even as he plummeted into the black hole and fell out of existence. Master Tor sneered at her, then somehow became her stepfather and advanced on her with his hands raised, as if he intended to beat her senseless. Melissa smiled at her and grew into giant form...no, Emily had shrunk. Her tormentor lifted a foot and brought it down on Emily...

  ...And the Mimic arose in her place.

  Emily snapped awake, glancing around in absolute terror. There was no one in the room, apart from Imaiqah, who was tossing and turning on her bed. Sweat was pouring down Emily’s body, a mocking reminder of the fear the nightmare had inflicted on her. She couldn’t help pinching herself to be sure that she was awake.

  Just a dream, she told herself, as she looked down at her hands. They looked reassuringly human. Just a damned dream.

  She lay back and tried to sleep, forcing herself to recite the one thousand known uses of human blood in alchemy. Professor Thande had given them the list...and then cheerfully informed them that most of the uses were thoroughly illegal, although he did add that if they needed the potions, they shouldn’t worry about silly little laws. Emily found it hard to imagine many reasons for using any of the potions, unless she had very dark intentions. Most of them were truly unpleasant as well as illegal.