“Very little,” Cirroc said. “I can’t betray him openly.”
But you have, Emily thought. She felt a pang of sympathy. Cirroc could betray his master for the best of all possible reasons and... there would be people who would judge him harshly. Whistleblowers never prospered because they were seen as betrayers. And if he catches wind of what little you’ve told me, you’ll never have another shot at an apprenticeship.
“I understand,” she said. “And... I thank you.”
She cast her mind through the wards. Master Highland was in one of the offices, doing... nothing. Or at least it looked as though he was doing nothing. He was alone... maybe he was just doing paperwork. In hindsight, she wondered if she should have tried to turn the wards into a surveillance network that tracked more than just magic. But she couldn’t trust anyone with that sort of power, not even herself. And even if she did, no one else would.
“Don’t mention it,” Cirroc said. “Ever.”
He moved away from her, heading towards Seth. The alchemist’s apprentice looked... worried. Emily saw him casting sideways glances at the mirrors, careful to keep his distance even from the ones that looked normal. She didn’t blame him. The mirror that had swallowed Caleb and spat out a duplicate had looked normal too, right up until they’d begun to mess with it.
And Alt-Caleb was so scared, she thought. His fear had tainted her. She could practically feel it clinging to her mentality. Cold logic told her there was no reason to be scared, but cold logic seemed flimsy and weak in the face of overwhelming fear. What could do that to someone? Emily had been scared of her stepfather—she had a nasty feeling she’d panic if she came face-to-face with him, even now—but she hadn’t been that scared. What was he scared of?
She wondered, numbly, if Hoban had a point. If she hadn’t survived the battle with Shadye, who knew what would happen to Caleb? But... the battle with Shadye wouldn’t have happened, in the first place, if she hadn’t been there. Caleb... would presumably have had his accident, with or without her, then... then what? He could have retaken the year, passed his exams and graduated and gone on to a brilliant apprenticeship... unless something else had happened. But what? Dua Kepala might have overwhelmed Farrakhan without her, he might have overrun the rest of the kingdom, but... he wouldn’t have reached Beneficence. Not yet.
You’re wool gathering, she told herself, firmly. Concentrate on the here and now.
“There’s a lot of complex magics worked into the mirror,” Hoban said. “They’re pretty hard to follow. I can’t even get an analysis spell to work.”
“Whoever designed these things didn’t want them studied too closely,” Seth muttered, from where he was standing at the edge of the room. “The mere act of looking might damage them.”
“True.” Hoban looked up. “Trying to work an analysis spell on a portal would cause the portal to collapse.”
Emily frowned. “I didn’t know that.”
“It isn’t commonly advertised,” Hoban said. “My master—my former master—thought it was because half the portal spellware was somewhere else, on the other side. The analysis spell wrenched the first half out of alignment with the second and the portal collapsed, as the spells were no longer linked together. Here, though, it feels different. The magic doesn’t seem to have a second half.”
“Which makes sense if it leads into a mirror dimension, rather than simply jumping from one place to the other,” Emily pointed out.
Seth scowled. “It makes no sense. Why would anyone bother?”
“A first-year levitation spell for one’s trunk is puny,” Frieda commented. “You still have to work to carry the trunk up and down the stairs. Compared to a sixth-year spell, it’s cumbersome and useless. But compared to carrying it without the spell, it’s a miracle.”
“It’s magic,” Seth snapped.
“She’s right.” Emily met his eyes, evenly. “Maybe the mirror portals don’t eliminate all the distance between two points. What I saw certainly suggests there’s some walking involved as you move from point one to point two. But reducing the distance sharply isn’t to be sniffed at, if the alternative is having to walk ten miles instead of one.”
“Which might explain why mirror portals were never used outside the school,” Hoban commented. “At some point, the distance you’d have to walk would have become impractical.”
He looked at Emily. “Do you have any feel for how far you walked?”
“No.” Emily shook her head. “But it certainly felt like I didn’t walk very far. It took longer to get back here than it did to get there.”
“But you wouldn’t have been moving in a straight line,” Seth argued. “You couldn’t move through the walls. Could you?”
“No.” Emily silently gave him credit for pointing it out. “But that might be why they used the mirrors in the first place.”
Master Highland stepped into the room. “Any luck?”
“I’ve started to unlock the spellware,” Hoban said. “But it isn’t doing anything...”
He broke off. “Ah.”
Emily looked up in alarm. “Ah?”
“You might want to back off.” Hoban’s voice was calm. Too calm. “Something is happening.”
Frieda looked torn between standing next to him and retreating as fast as she could. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know.” Hoban probed the mirror with his wand. “The spellware is changing, twisting...”
“Put up some wards,” Master Highland said, practically. “Hoban, step back...”
Emily nodded and cast the first ward. The magic moved... oddly, as if it were being drawn to the mirror. Master Highland raised his voice as he chanted a protection spell, the words hanging on the air like thunderclaps. The magic drifted, spinning through the air, slowly warping out of shape... she felt a flicker of alarm as it struck a chord of memory. Something she’d seen, a long time ago. A very long time ago...
“Get back,” she snapped. The protective wards were breaking. The mirror was shimmering, changing. The reflections were gone, replaced with something that hurt her eyes. She couldn’t force herself to look at it. “Hoban, get back.”
“I don’t understand,” Hoban said. “I...”
“Get back,” Emily snapped. The wards snapped, fragments of raw magic rushing towards the mirror. It was turning into a black hole, absorbing magic... and only magic. She could feel it tugging at her protections, but not at her. “Now!”
Hoban glanced up, into the mirror, then turned and stumbled away as fast as he could. Tears streamed from his eyes, tears mixed with blood... Emily heard Frieda cry out in horror, casting a spell that should have yanked Hoban towards them. But the magic failed...
“We have to move,” Master Highland barked. “Lady Emily, we need to seal the room!”
“Too late,” Emily said, quietly.
The mirror warped, twisted and became... something else, something shimmering in and out of reality. She found it hard to snatch more than brief impressions—claws, tentacles, long spider-like legs that were utterly inhuman—as the last of the wards snapped out of existence. It was bigger, somehow, than the room, as if was somehow warping the space around it to allow itself to fit. Big, bulbous eyes scanned the room... Emily heard someone cry out in terror. She didn’t know who. One thought dominated her mind as the creature took shape... she knew what it was, knew they were in terrible danger...
A Manavore...
Chapter Twenty-Four
FOR A LONG MOMENT EMILY STOOD, rooted to the spot.
She’d seen Manavores in the past, hundreds of years ago. They’d relentlessly harried Lord Whitehall and his commune, hunting down and slaughtering everyone with even a hint of magic... until she’d figured out how to destroy them. They were almost unstoppable, their multidimensional nature allowing them entry to confined spaces—even, perhaps, allowing them to sidestep their way around walls and other physical barriers. Sheer terror gripped her mind. She’d survived her first encounter with a Manavore by the s
kin of her teeth and this one was even closer... behind her, she heard someone cry out. Again.
“Stay still,” she ordered, as the Manavore’s extendable eyes peered around the room. Being so close to the creature was sheer hell, but... Manavores saw the world through very different eyes. They ignored people without magic. And modern magicians didn’t leak magic like their counterparts from the past. If they were lucky, the Manavore might not even be able to see them. “Don’t use magic...”
Seth let out a howl and hurled a fireball at the creature. It seemed to come apart into a flurry of spellwork, then raw magic, as it touched the Manavore’s field. The Manavore moved so quickly it practically teleported, looking right at Seth as the last of the magic drained away. Emily opened her mouth to shout a warning, but it was already too late. Half-translucent claws and teeth materialized out of nowhere, tearing into Seth. The alchemist’s apprentice came apart, his body warping and twisting into nothingness as the Manavore picked him apart. Emily had a brief glimpse of his face, soundlessly screaming, before he popped out of existence. The creature seemed unsatisfied by its victory. It inched forward, half-seen tendrils sniffing the air. Emily knew it was only a matter of time before it picked them out or...
It could go straight for the nexus point, she thought, numbly. She was beyond terror now, but her thoughts flowed like lead. Did a Manavore eat the nexus point, draining it dry?
She heard someone whimper behind her, scented urine on the air. She didn’t look to see who it was, not when she understood. Manavores were immune to magical attacks and almost certainly immune to physical attacks too. It was hard to hit something when you couldn’t even touch it. Most of the creature was rotating in and out of... somewhere else. A thought struck her, and she cursed herself for missing the clue when it had been right in front of her. Someone in Heart’s Eye had tried to duplicate her trick of cutting the creature off from its source of power, using a spellchamber to host the runes. But it hadn’t worked.
“Emily.” Frieda’s voice was very quiet, as if she thought the Manavore could hear. “What do we do?”
“No magic.” Emily forced herself to think. Even if they managed to slip out of the room and bar the door, they wouldn’t be able to stop the Manavore if it wanted out. It could simply jump over the walls, if it wished; it could move through the higher dimensions and walk around anything she put in its path. No, she’d have to kill it. “Everyone. Slip over to the walls. And press yourself against them.”
The Manavore moved, sniffing the air. Emily forced her legs to move, somehow stumbling back as the creature inched forward. It was coming at her... no, it was heading to the nexus point. She wondered, suddenly, just how intelligent the creature actually was. She hadn’t seen any signs of real intelligence the last time she’d encountered the Manavores, but that meant nothing. The creatures hadn’t needed to be intelligent when they’d hunted magicians who didn’t have the slightest idea how to stop them. A grown man hardly needed intelligence to beat up a child.
This way, she thought, as she reached the door. She threaded out a little magic, just enough to catch its attention. That’s right. Come after me.
“Follow us down the corridor,” she ordered. “When I say the word, hit it with very focused spells. Do not give it any magical traces to follow. And, as soon as you cast the spells, change position at once. It will come after you.”
She thought fast as she made her way down the corridor. The stone seemed to twist around the Manavore, as if it was hollowing out a space for itself as it moved. Emily cursed under her breath. If they’d had any hopes of hiding in the air vents or small places, they’d been soundly dashed. The Manavore could go places humans couldn’t. And if it scented magic, it would follow the source to the very end of the world.
Perhaps we should point it down the unexplored corridors, she thought. And let it have the pleasure of triggering the traps.
She raised her voice. “Cirroc, warn the others to get out of the way,” she ordered. “And to be prepared to flee the school if this goes wrong.”
“Got it.” Cirroc sounded nervous, but willing. “No magic?”
“Not yet.” Emily wished she’d taken the time to detail how to destroy a Manavore. As far as she knew, the creatures weren’t mentioned in any modern books. They’d been defeated so long ago that no one living—save for her—knew how to stop them. But if she’d written instructions down, someone would have asked pointed questions. “Let it follow me down the stairs.”
The Manavore kept coming as she reached the stairwell leading down to the Great Hall. A handful of people stood at the bottom, concerned. Yvonne and Praxis... Emily swore and shouted a warning, ordering them to get the hell out before it was too late. Yvonne had no magic, but Praxis... Emily wondered, suddenly, if Yvonne could walk right up to the Manavore without being seen, let alone hurt. The creatures only seemed interested in magic. They might ignore Yvonne completely. And if she found a way to hurt them, they might not realize what she’d done or who’d done it.
Which doesn’t mean they can’t hurt her, Emily thought. She sat on the banister and slid down the stairs. The Manavore stopped at the top, its mere presence poisoning the air all around it. And if they cut their way through the magicians, the mundanes will be next in line.
She pushed the thought aside as she reached the bottom. The Great Hall had emptied, thankfully. She pulled the chalk from her pocket and hastily started sketching a set of elegant runes on the floor, hoping the chalk would last long enough to defeat the Manavore. The creature seemed to hesitate, then lunged down the stairs. Emily looked up and froze as teeth and claws hurled towards her, time seeming to slow down as they reached...
A spell crashed into its back. The Manavore stopped—dead—then practically flowed up the stairs. Frieda was already moving, but the creature had her scent; it nearly caught it before Master Highland zapped it in the back with a twisting spell Emily didn’t recognize. Bolts of lightning crackled around the Manavore, so powerful that she could feel her hair trying to stand on end. It would have stopped any normal foe in its tracks. The Manavore just ate up the magic and came at him. Emily saw Master Highland pale as he realized, too late, the danger. He’d expended too much power in casting the lightning to protect himself... or hide.
She cast a spell hastily, yanking Master Highland off the stairs and pulling him to her as hard as she could. The Manavore seemed to flow after him—she had the strangest sense the creature was actually crawling across the ceiling, although she thought it was an illusion—as she cancelled the spell, allowing him to fall. It was a gamble—she didn’t know he could catch himself in time—but she had no choice. If they were lucky, the magic trail would break and Master Highland would become invisible—again—before he cast a spell to save himself. Cirroc threw another spell at the Manavore’s back, distracting it. The creature seemed to twist around and lunged towards him. Cirroc had the sense to be well away by the time it plunged through where he’d been...
“Keep it busy,” she shouted. Master Highland had landed neatly on his feet, cancelling the levitation spell as soon as it had saved his life. Emily silently blessed his cunning as the Manavore’s field washed over her, its senses probing for magic. She had the uneasy sense that it was just playing with them, that it expected to be able to end the matter at any moment... it was a cat, playing with the mice. “Don’t let it kill anyone!”
She returned her attention to the runes as the Manavore lunged at Frieda, who cast an illusion to distract the creature and ran down the corridor. The Manavore popped the illusion like a soap bubble—Emily wasn’t even sure it knew the illusion was there as it ran through the spellwork, absorbing the magic—and kept moving, chasing Frieda. Hoban hovered above the fray, casting a fireball at the Manavore before dropping down and out of sight. The Manavore ran up the wall and across the ceiling, defying the law of gravity as well as every other physical law. Hoban laughed as he caught a rope and swung across the room, using no magic. The Manavore s
eemed completely blind to his presence.
Frieda appeared, peeking through one of the lower doors. “Emily?”
“Just a moment,” Emily said. She studied the runes, knowing there would be no second chance if she failed. The Manavore seemed to be growing larger, its bulk spreading out to fill the entire hall. Hoban was already beating a retreat, trying to find a place to snipe at the creature without being killed immediately. “This needs some work...”
She muttered a silent prayer that the chalk would last long enough for the spell to work—she would have preferred to carve the runes in wood or iron—and then looked up at the Manavore. It had become a terrifying mass of claws and tentacles, teeth and eyes... it was utterly inhuman, utterly alien. Just looking at it made her want to throw up, yet... she couldn’t look away. It seemed to draw her towards it, pulling her in... she pinched herself, hard. The Manavore was trying to get her to walk straight into its mouth.
Or whatever it has that passes for a mouth, she mused, as she raised her hand. It didn’t precisely eat Seth, did it?
She cast the spell. This time, she didn’t try to hide her position. The Manavore flickered, changing position with terrifying speed. She couldn’t follow the movements. Indeed, she wasn’t sure it was moving in any conventional sense. The creature glared, then started to flow towards her. Emily stood her ground, balling her fists although she knew they would be absolutely useless. She wanted to turn and run, but her legs refused to move. The creature held her in its grip. She couldn't move. Teeth and claws snapped out towards her—the eldritch light grew stronger, burning into her very soul—as the creature crossed the runes on the floor. It was all she could do to close the runes...
Magic flared. She stumbled back, its grip on her snapping as the runes cut it off from its power source. The Manavore howled—a mental sound battering against her mind, not a physical sound that hurt her ears—as the magic grew brighter. Emily stumbled , falling to the floor. The Manavore was twisting, moving in directions the human eye wasn’t designed to comprehend. Emily covered her eyes, peeking between her fingers. The Manavore’s scream of frustration and rage grew louder—a wave of malice battering against her mental shields as it pushed against the wards—and then started to fade. It had made a dreadful mistake, she realized dully. It was caught in a web that forced it to expend its energy, but it didn’t have to expend its energy so quickly. It was practically committing suicide.
Mirror Image (Schooled in Magic Book 18) Page 23