Fantastic Schools, Volume 3

by Emily Martha Sorensen

  He shook his head. “Right now, the best you can hope for is working for Matt,” he said. “And you might not like that very much.”

  I bit my lip. Matt and I had reached an understanding, based partly on the fact we were both apprentices ... in a manner of speaking. I didn’t think things would go so smoothly if Matt was actually running the shop. Master Pittwater was right. It was rare, very rare, to find a magician who was comfortable serving under a mundane. They had to be very rich and powerful if they wanted willing service. Matt might, or might not, tell me to leave. He certainly wouldn’t treat me as anything like an equal.

  “No, Master,” I said. Hopelessness welled up within me. What good was I? I’d spent my teenage years in the shop. Even if I tried to find another master, in a mundane field, I’d be competing against younger boys who weren’t so aware of their rights. I couldn’t think of anyone who’d take me. “What ... what am I going to do?”

  My mind raced. There were other apothecaries and potion houses, but they wouldn’t want me as an apprentice. They’d just want me to slice and dice the ingredients, leaving the actual brewing to the magicians. I didn’t mind the menial labour, and I knew I was good at it, but I didn’t want to spend my entire life supporting others. I wanted to do something for myself.

  Master Pittwater raised the scroll. “I have an old friend,” he said. “Master Landis. Have you heard of him?”

  “No, Master,” I said. I knew very little about my master’s social life. He rarely left the shop, as far as I could tell. There’d been a big conference a couple of years ago about something and he’d had to attend, but he’d grumbled so extensively about it afterwards that I’d had the feeling it hadn’t been pleasant. If he had friends, I’d never met them. “Who is he?”

  “We were at Heart’s Eye together, in a manner of speaking,” Master Pittwater said. “He’s younger than I, with more ... interest in innovation. And he’s gone back to Heart’s Eye.”

  I blinked. I knew the story, of course. Everyone did. Heart’s Eye had been occupied by a necromancer until the Necromancer’s Bane had kicked his ass in single combat and killed him. Since then ... I’d heard all sorts of crazy rumours, from her turning the school into a giant super-fortress to the school preparing to accept new students. I wasn’t sure what to make of them. I’d been in the shop, too busy trying to accomplish the impossible to pay much attention. In hindsight, that might have been a mistake.

  “Heart’s Eye is becoming something new and different,” Master Pittwater said. “Lady Emily believes that magic and mundane technology” —he stumbled over the unfamiliar word— “can mix. Or so Landis tells me. I have communicated with him, and he has informed me that he would be happy to take you as a prospective apprentice or, at the very least, provide gainful employment long enough for you to find your feet. Heart’s Eye has only been open for a few months, but it is already expanding rapidly. I think you’d do well there.”

  “I ...” I stared at him. “I don’t know what to say.”

  I shivered, torn between hope and fear. I’d admired the steam engines as they made their way between Beneficence and Cockatrice. I would have applied to work as a driver if I hadn’t been so obsessed with theoretical magic. The gods knew that nearly every young man —and at least half the young women—in the city dreamed of driving an engine. I also knew very few would make it, at least at the start. It would be years before the railways reached all the way to Alexis and beyond. Vesperian, damn the man, had put the brakes on investment.

  “It’s like this.” Master Pittwater met my eyes. “Matt has two years to go, at his current rate, before he’s ready to take the exams. Once he does, I intend to retire. Matt will probably take the shop. I’d certainly prefer to let him have it, rather than surrender it to someone I didn’t teach personally. And once that happens—and it will—your career will be curtailed. You will certainly not get any further.”

  He let out a breath. “It is unlikely that any theoretical magician will take you on,” he added, stiffly. “Very few of them have the resources to take on an apprentice. Those who do are connected to magical families and probably wouldn’t want someone like you, who has neither magic nor connections. My recommendations only go so far. I cannot guarantee that you’ll get anywhere at Heart’s Eye, Adam, but I don’t see any other option. If nothing else, you will be no worse off.”

  I tried, desperately, to think of an alternative. Nothing came to mind. The Apothecaries Guild had always looked down its collective nose at people like me, mundanes who worked in magic shops. Matt might have a claim, if Master Pittwater died unexpectedly; I certainly did not. I eyed Master Pittwater, wondering if he was on the verge of death. He was the oldest person I knew, old enough ... I shook my head. That line of thought wasn’t remotely productive.

  “Master,” I said. “How long do I have to decide?”

  Master Pittwater glanced at the scroll. “He needs an assistant,” he said. “I’d say you have a week, no more. If you agree, I’ll pay for your trip through the portals to Farrakhan and railway journey to Heart’s Eye itself. They seem to prefer newcomers to travel via railway, at least for the first time. I have no idea why. I’ll also give you a stack of references, if you need to find employment somewhere else.”

  He frowned. “If you accept, I can write to him now and say so. That should ensure you get the post.”

  I nodded, slowly. “And he would teach me?”

  “He’ll give you a very basic apprenticeship,” Master Pittwater said. “What you make of it, afterwards, is up to you. If some of the wilder concepts work, you might manage to build an entire career on it. If not ... you’ll be in a position to make a place for yourself. Heart’s Eye doesn’t have a small army of guilds, not yet. You won’t have to bow and scrape in front of them for employment.”

  “That sounds wonderful,” I said, weakly.

  I sat back and forced myself to think. Master Pittwater was right. I hated to admit it, but he was right. My career really wouldn’t go anywhere if I stayed here. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life working for Matt or another alchemist who didn’t see me as anything more than a servant. And there was nowhere else to go, not really. Sure, I could get a job at the docks, but it would be hard, dangerous and poorly paid. Otherwise ...

  “I’ll have to speak to my parents,” I said. “But ... yes. I’ll go.”

  Master Pittwater smiled. “I’ll write tonight,” he said. “And hopefully make arrangements for you to go as soon as possible.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I ...”

  “Thank me afterwards,” Master Pittwater said. “I don’t know if I’m doing you any favours at all.”

  I stood and bowed, then hurried out of the shop. The streets were already heaving with people as apprentices, workers and visitors headed back home after work or went straight to the pubs. It was traditional for apprentices to go out drinking and carousing every night ... I felt a sudden pang of regret that I wouldn’t be doing that any longer. Drunken fights were always fun, although the hangovers weren’t remotely pleasant. One of the advantages of working for an alchemist was that there was always a hangover potion on hand.

  My parents were not pleased when I told them what was happening. I wasn’t surprised. Two of my brothers had already left, leaving the family shop in my sister’s hands. She did it perfectly well, in my opinion, but my father had always been an old-fashioned sod. He feared her husband, when she married, would take the business for himself. I doubted it was going to happen. My sister was tough. She’d come pretty close to breaking my jaw once, and I doubted she would hold back if she had an overbearing husband. I almost felt sorry for whoever she married.

  And besides, I hadn’t wanted to inherit the business anyway.

  Master Pittwater might have been old, but he moved with commendable speed. The following day, he told me he’d booked my trip through a pair of portals, gave me a pouch of money and a small collection of books and proffered his formal blessing.
Matt slapped me on the back, wished me luck and promised there’d always be a place for me if I wanted to return home. I wondered, as I waved goodbye, precisely what Master Pittwater had told him. I’d never thought Matt would stay and run the shop ...

  The trip would have been enjoyable, if the sudden shift in time zone hadn’t caught me by surprise. The portals might have taken me halfway across the world in the blink of an eye, but the railway was slow and bumpy and extremely uncomfortable. I was already tired when I reached Heart’s Ease and made my way to Heart’s Eye. I was barely even awake when I was shown to my room—Master Landis had told the staff I was coming—and didn’t even bother to undress before I hit the sheets. And then Lilith woke me ...

  And that, more or less, brings us back to where we were.

  Chapter Three

  I stood, frozen solid, and waited.

  There was nothing else I could do. The magic held me still. Lilith didn’t pay any attention to me as she took the ingredients I’d prepared and turned them into a potion. She moved in and out of my field of vision, as if I was nothing more than the statue I so resembled. The helplessness gnawed at me as I waited, mocking me. She was younger than me—probably—and yet she’d overpowered me effortlessly. My sister had clobbered me once, but that was different. I could have clobbered her first, if I’d tried.

  “Good,” Lilith said, more to herself than to me. The potion was bubbling merrily as it settled down. “Very good.”

  I wanted to scream. I wanted to ... I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. There was nothing I could do. Master Pittwater had been right. I could run the calculations and plot out how best to turn a collection of ingredients into a potion, but I could never do it myself. Lilith could ... and more, much more, beside. I felt a surge of pure hatred, mingled with bitter regret. I’d been assured Heart’s Eye would be different. So far, it was shaping up to be worse.

  The door opened. Master Landis stepped into the room. His eyebrow raised as he saw me, then looked at Lilith. She glanced at him. I couldn’t see her face, but ... Master Landis gave her an indulgent smile and waved a hand at me. The spell broke. I dropped to the floor, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. It was all I could do not to scream. I didn’t want to give Lilith the satisfaction.

  “He was very cheeky to me,” Lilith said, in a tone one might use to talk about the weather. “I had to put him in his place.”

  “Good, good,” Master Landis said. There was a hint of exasperation in his tone, rather than anger. “I’m sure he won’t do it again.”

  I tried not to glare as I picked myself up, Matt had used magic on me. Once. Master Pittwater had strapped him so hard he hadn’t been able to sit down for a week afterwards. I’d seen the welts. After that ... we might not have been close friends, but at least we’d managed to work together. Lilith ... I couldn’t believe she’d simply been allowed to get away with it. I had to bite my tongue to keep from snitching. The little ... witch ... deserved it and worse.

  “Come over here,” Master Landis ordered. “Pittwater spoke highly of you.”

  “Thank you,” I managed. I could feel Lilith’s gaze boring into my back. “He spoke highly of you, too.”

  Lilith made a spluttering noise behind me. Master Landis didn’t seem to care.

  “What do you get,” he asked instead, “if you mingle Tostada Powder with Raymore Oats at room temperature?”

  “A mess,” I said. It was true, although it was hardly precise. “The two simply don’t blend at room temperature. Worse, they clog up the rest of the potion and expend the magic too early. You have to put the powder in water and bring it to the boil before you add the oats.”

  “Good, good,” Master Landis said. “Why can’t you use preservation spells on regeneration potion?”

  “Because the magic within the spells triggers a reaction within the potion,” I said. It had been one of the very first things I’d learnt as a shop assistant. “The potion goes sour very quickly and becomes useless.”

  “Any fool knows that,” Lilith put in.

  “Yes,” Master Landis agreed. “How do you compensate for the effect?”

  I hesitated. As far as I knew, there was no way to compensate for the effect. Regeneration potions were incredibly difficult to produce, even for trained alchemists. There’d been times when they simply couldn’t be brewed in time. The best of them needed blood, skin and even bones from the patient ... I frowned. Was there something I’d missed? Or was it a trick question?

  “I don’t think you can compensate for the effect,” I said. “Stasis spells, preservation spells, even basic freeze charms ... they’d all have an effect on the potion. You could freeze it the mundane way, but it would take too long and ...”

  “Impossible,” Lilith said.

  Master Landis held up a hand. “It might work, but keeping the potion stable would be impossible,” he said. “You’re right. As far as we know, it cannot be done.”

  I had no time to enjoy the moment. Master Landis bombarded me with questions, ranging from easy to extremely difficult, including a couple I had to work out before I dared open my mouth. I had no idea how well I was doing, although Lilith snorted a couple of times at some of my more uncertain answers. Master Landis seemed inclined to ignore her, something that annoyed me. Lilith’s attitude was going to get her in real trouble if she mouthed off to someone really dangerous.

  “Very good,” Master Landis said, after what felt like hours. “You have a good grounding in basic magical theory.”

  “But almost no practical skill,” Lilith put in. “I told him that ...”

  I promised myself I’d find a way to get a little revenge as Master Landis showed me around the lab. It was even bigger than I’d thought, with a small kitchen next to the washroom and a preservation cabinet humming with magic in the next room. I was impressed, particularly with the library. Master Landis passed me a handful of papers and told me to check his work, forcing me to go through the calculations one by one. They looked accurate, but not precise. A skilled brewer could easily compensate for any weaknesses as he prepared the potion. It was only people like me who needed to be perfectly precise.

  Except I can’t even get started, I thought, sourly. There’s no way I can trigger the reaction myself.

  The day wore on. Master Landis had me slicing, dicing and otherwise preparing ingredients as he and Lilith turned them into potions. Lilith shot me snide looks every time I brought her a tray of ingredients, to the point I was tempted—very tempted—to make a mistake that would ensure the cauldron exploded in her face. Master Landis would have fired me on the spot, if he didn’t kill me outright ... I ground my teeth, meditating on the value of patience. I’d find out what was actually going on first, before I did anything. I had never known a master to put up with such behaviour from an apprentice. There had to be a reason why Master Landis was letting her get away with it.

  I studied him, thoughtfully, as he brewed. Master Pittwater had been cool and calm and very precise. Master Landis seemed much more of a performer, practically dancing as he placed the ingredients in the cauldron and triggered the reaction that turned them into potion. It was impressive, although I couldn’t help thinking Lilith found him rather embarrassing. She cast sidelong looks as he worked, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing. How long had she been his apprentice? It had to have been quite some time if she was confident he wouldn’t punish her for bitchiness.

  “Done,” Master Landis said. He put out the flame, then nodded to me. “Bottle it up and label everything, then put it in storage. We’ll take it to the infirmary later.”

  “Yes, Master,” I said.

  Lilith shot me a nasty look. I ignored her as best as I could. Master Pittwater had made sure I understood precisely how to label the vials, noting everything from the potion name to the precise time and date it was brewed. The basic healing potion would last for weeks, as long as it wasn’t exposed to the air. I wondered, suddenly, just how many people got hurt at H
eart’s Eye? I’d heard enough horror stories about magic schools to know the answer might be terrifyingly high.

  Master Landis didn’t seem to tire. Instead, he tossed more and more questions at me as he worked his way through his books. It was strange to realise just how much I didn’t know ... just how much I could never know. Matt had tried to explain magic to me, and how it felt to use it, but I hadn’t been able to follow his explanation. It was like trying to imagine myself a girl, only worse. There were spells and potions to turn boys into girls—and girls into boys—but there was no way to become a magician. If there had been ... I was sure Master Pittwater would have made it for me. There were certainly plenty of rich mundanes who would have paid through the nose to become magical.

  Lilith’s disdain seemed to grow with every successive answer. I rapidly came to realise she was more annoyed by correct answers than mistakes. Did she feel threatened? I found it hard to believe. She had magic, and I did not; and that was the end of it. I could plot out how to produce a potion, but I couldn’t brew it. She’d get the credit if she took something I plotted and actually made it work. I wouldn’t have faulted her, either. It was a great deal easier to plot how to do something—anything— than actually doing it.

  I allowed myself a sigh of relief as Master Landis seemed to run out of questions. He really did remind me of someone, although I wasn’t sure who. Master Pittwater? My imagination suggested that Master Pittwater could be Master Landis’s father, but it didn’t seem likely. They were very different. I wasn’t a carbon copy of my father, yet we were very clearly related. Besides, I’d never seen any sign that Master Pittwater was interested in women. Or men. How had they even met? Unless Master Landis was a lot older than he looked, they were from different generations. I wasn’t sure I dared ask. It would be better to wait long enough to figure out what would offend him before I tried.