She sucked in her breath. “And we have a responsibility to find Caleb. I won’t leave him... wherever he is.”
Master Highland looked as if he wanted to say something, but didn’t. Emily scowled, inwardly. Had he been hoping she’d abandon the school? Or... was she just being paranoid? It was hard to argue that the school shouldn’t be evacuated. If every charmed mirror was actually a Manavore, and they might come to life at any moment, the entire group was on the verge of being slaughtered. They might be inside a ticking time bomb with no idea of when the timer would reach zero.
“I’m going to stay,” she said. “If any of you want to leave, you may do so. I won’t hold it against you.”
“That’ll make you the only one,” Jayson said. “Personally, I want to stay. I haven’t sorted out the library yet.”
“And that won’t do anyone any good if we’re all brutally killed,” Master Highland said.
“Feel free to leave,” Frieda said again. She stuck out her tongue. “I’m sure there are places where you would be almost welcome.”
Master Highland raised a hand, then lowered it slowly. “Lady Emily, I must insist...”
“Yes.” Emily shot Frieda a reproving look. She didn’t want to tell Frieda off in public—she wasn’t sure she had the standing to tell Frieda off in public—but she had no choice. “Please don’t sharpen your tongue on anyone.”
Frieda smiled, as if she knew Emily wasn’t angry. “Yes, My Lady.”
“So you can be respectful.” Master Highland snorted. “How... astonishing.”
Hoban bristled. “If you want to take it outside...”
“No one is going to be dueling anyone, not here.” Emily looked around the room, trying to gauge who would be the first to snap. They were all tired, frustrated and fearful. It would have been hard to cope even if they’d been the best of friends. She’d been on enough route hikes and forced marches to know just how easily tempers could boil and overflow into violence. “I think it’s time we went to dinner, then bed. We’ll continue in the morning.”
“Good idea,” Master Highland said. “Some food will do us all good.”
Emily nodded, tartly. She wanted to go after Caleb now, but... she didn’t know how to proceed. The Manavore was gone. And if it was gone... she felt her heart sink as she realized they might have lost all hope of finding Caleb. Their Caleb. If it had been that Manavore that had switched Caleb with Alt-Caleb...
Her eyes dropped to her drawing. A two-dimensional creature might be able to deduce the presence of a third dimension, but... it couldn’t make any practical use of the knowledge. Or could it? If it somehow climbed into the third dimension... Emily shook her head slowly. They were blind, fumbling through darkness without having the slightest idea of what was lurking in the shadows. Her spider-drawing couldn’t see her looking down from her lofty perch. Was something looking down at her from a dimension she couldn’t even perceive? She had no way to know.
No wonder so many religious people go mad, she thought, sourly. If constant surveillance changed a person’s behavior, what did it do when someone thought there was no way they could sneak even a little privacy for themselves? God would see them, wherever they went. There’s no hiding place at all.
“Go tell your subordinates what happened,” Emily ordered. She put the thought out of her mind. “Tell them that anyone who wants to leave, can. It won’t be held against them. By me or anyone else. And if they want to stay...”
She allowed her voice to trail off, just for a moment. “We’ll solve this, somehow. It won’t be the first problem we’ve solved.”
“We can.” Hoban sounded confident, more confident than she felt. “All the really old tombs, the really dangerous ones, are puzzles that need to be unpicked. And I’ve done it time and time again.”
“Really?” Master Highland sounded unimpressed. “And how many of them produced... things... that swallowed your magic?”
“Two of them were charmed to make it impossible to use magic.” Hoban didn’t sound annoyed by the question. “One of them was cunningly designed to allow someone to grow overconfident before the hammer fell, dropping them into the crocodile pit. It came very close to killing me too.”
“How... reassuring,” Master Highland said. His voice dripped sarcasm. “I feel better already.”
Emily stood, dismissing the meeting. “We’ll continue tomorrow,” she said, firmly. “For now, food and bed.”
“Hear, hear,” Cirroc said.
Chapter Twenty-Six
EMILY DIDN’T SLEEP WELL, EVEN AFTER she ate a good dinner and cast a set of protective wards around her bedding. Her body was tired—her eyelids heavy—but her mind kept churning, recalling everything that had happened over the past day. She tried to meditate, to use magic to plunge herself into sleep, yet it didn’t work. On some level, she realized dully, she didn’t want to sleep. Her own mind was working against her.
She slept restlessly, falling into nightmares only to jerk awake and sit up, half-expecting something horrific to be crawling out of the covered mirrors. But there was nothing in the dorm save for a handful of sleeping forms. The loudest sound was her own pounding heart. She wiped sweat from her brow, wishing—bitterly—that Cat had stayed with her until she’d regained her powers. She wanted someone to hold her in the dead of night...
Her thoughts spun in circles as she tried to force herself to sleep. She was forgetting something, but what? Something was nagging at her mind, something that had fallen out of her thoughts... something important. The Manavore lurked at the back of her mind, fear and panic threatening to overwhelm her every time she let go of her thoughts. She tossed and turned, trying to clear her thoughts and sleep. But her blankets were damp with sweat...
She sat upright, sharply, as it struck her. She knew what she’d missed.
“Emily?” Frieda’s voice came out of the darkness. “Are you alright?”
“No,” Emily said. She felt torn between giving in to her tiredness and a new sense of urgency. “I’m a bloody idiot.”
Frieda crawled over to sit next to her. “How so?”
“I was here two years ago,” Emily said. The memories were suddenly overwhelming, now she’d remembered. Had she been made to forget? Or had she simply put them out of her mind? A lot had happened since she’d first visited Heart’s Eye, from the near-collapse of an entire city to an outright civil war. “And there were carvings on the walls, down near the nexus chamber. Some of them depicted Manavores.”
She started to sit up. “I have to go look at them. Now.”
Frieda caught her arm. “Wait until morning,” she said. “You look ghastly.”
Emily bit her tongue to keep from saying something she’d regret. “We don’t have time.”
“You’re not in any state to do anything.” Frieda pulled her back down. “Go to sleep. If you start messing with magic now, you’ll probably blow us all up.”
“Thanks,” Emily said, sourly.
She gritted her teeth. She knew Frieda was right. But the thought of Caleb—her Caleb—stuck in an alternate universe chilled her to the bone. She didn’t know—she had no way to know—how much time they had before it was too late. Alt-Caleb had been utterly terrified, and he’d been scared of practically everything. What sort of world had he come from? She didn’t think she wanted to know.
And the universe might just be one of a million billion possibilities, one that might have already collapsed into non-existence. She wished, suddenly, that she’d spent more time studying multiverse theory while she’d been on Earth. But then, all the theorists and alternate historians had lacked anything resembling hard data. And, while I’m wishing, I wish I’d spent more time studying just about everything else too.
Emily must have drifted off, because the next thing she knew was the alarm charm dragging her out of an unsound sleep. She rubbed her eyes, feeling parched. Her head hurt. She forced herself to stand, drink water from her canteen and stumble into the shower. Her body felt gr
imy. Frieda picked up a pair of robes and followed her, looking stubborn. Emily guessed Frieda intended to make sure Emily had a proper shower and breakfast before they actually did anything.
And Master Highland is not likely to believe me if I tell him I forgot. Emily washed thoroughly, enjoying the sensation of water washing over her body. He’ll think I was keeping things from him. And he’ll be right.
She muttered a charm to dry herself, then pulled a robe over her head as Frieda showered and joined her. Emily wanted to go straight down to the nexus chamber—a quick check revealed that the wards hadn’t healed themselves after the Manavore had torn gaping holes in the structure—but she knew it was pointless. Instead, she banged on the boys’ dorm and, when one of the apprentices showed himself, asked him to wake Jayson and send him down to breakfast. He could come with her when she went to look at the carvings. She would sooner have taken Caleb, but...
Her heart twisted. Where was Caleb?
Yvonne greeted Emily as she walked into the dining hall. “We have something to show you,” she said, cheerfully. She looked as though she hadn’t slept, but—somehow—as bright and cheerful as someone who’d managed a decent night’s sleep. “Can you come to the workshop?”
“Later.” Emily took a bowl of stew from the cook and sat down at a table. “Frieda is going to make me eat.”
“Good.” Yvonne sat next to her. “We spent all night fiddling with ideas.”
“Good,” Emily echoed. She took a bite of her stew, barely tasting the food. Her throat felt sore, as if she had the beginnings of a cold. “Did you find anything useful?”
“We think so.” Yvonne smirked. “If these... Manavores really can’t see people without magic, we could simply walk right up and stick a knife in them.”
“Except a knife might not actually kill them,” Emily pointed out. “They’re so much bigger than we are.”
“There are insects that are so tiny you can barely see them with the naked eye,” Yvonne countered, “that can kill a man.”
Emily’s fingers played with the snake-bracelet on her wrist. “True...”
She frowned, remembering when she’d been taught to harvest ingredients from magical or dangerous animals. Her tutors had made it clear that panic was her worst enemy, that anyone who panicked while they were trying to drain a poison sac or remove hairs was likely to get seriously injured... or worse. And most of the creatures they’d used as sources hadn’t been particularly intelligent. That didn’t stop them from being dangerous, but—as long as one knew what one was doing—they could minimize the risks. She had no idea how dangerous the Manavores truly were.
They don’t have to be intelligent, she thought, grimly. We don’t declare a national emergency and call out the army for ant infestations.
“Knowledge is power,” Frieda said. “And so is being underestimated.”
“Sergeant Miles.” Emily smiled. “He told you that too?”
Frieda nodded. “He said I’d never make a soldier. I was too short and skinny, not enough upper-body strength. But that didn’t mean I was harmless.”
“No,” Emily agreed. Frieda had come a long way in four years. “But sometimes... the odds are too great for any level of knowledge to overcome.”
Yvonne cleared her throat. “My crew voted to stay,” she said. “I told them—I told them—that anyone who wanted to go could go. But they all stayed.”
Emily sighed, inwardly. She had no intention of punishing anyone who wanted to leave, but... that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be punishment. Someone who left would be branded a coward by the people he’d left behind, assuming they survived. They would find it hard to get work, once word spread. If they didn’t... she shook her head. She’d done everything she could. She couldn’t force the people who stayed behind not to talk...
And if we all die here, she mused, the people who fled will look very smart indeed.
Cirroc entered, looking tired. “Jayson sends his compliments,” he said, “but he’s still waiting for the shower.”
“Tell him to get some breakfast too,” Frieda urged. “You both need it.”
Emily finished her stew and stood. “Tell him I’ll be in the workshop,” she said. “Make sure he eats before coming down.”
“Yes, Mistress.” Cirroc winked at her. “It shall be done as you command, Mistress of a Thousand Hearts...”
“Oh, shut up.” Emily knew Cirroc was merely teasing her, but it didn’t make it any easier to bear. “Did you sleep well?”
“No.” Cirroc shook his head. “I was too busy thinking about... that thing.”
Frieda swore. “What about the other mirror? Is it still intact?”
Did it turn into a Manavore too? Emily kicked herself, mentally, for not thinking of it. There could be a second monster rampaging through the halls right now...
She closed her eyes, communing with the wards. There was a huge blank spot where the first Manavore had been, but... there didn’t seem to be any damage around the second mirror. It looked as though nothing had happened... she cursed under her breath. They were going to have to inspect the second mirror closely, after setting a trap. If another Manavore appeared, it would be caught and killed—or banished—before it could kill anyone.
“Check the other mirror, then set up a runic trap,” she ordered. “But, right now, it looks inert.”
“Good,” Cirroc said. “I’ll see to it personally.”
Emily turned to Yvonne. “Let’s go.”
They walked down to the workshop, careful to give the handful of mirrors—covered or not—a wide berth. Someone had been trying to paint over some of the mirrors, covering them with black paint... it should have worked, Emily thought, but the paint refused to stick to the mirror. It just slid off and pooled on the floor. It didn’t look as though it had had time to set before it was too late. She considered a handful of possibilities for making it stick, but came up with nothing. The mirrors were just... unnatural. She wondered, grimly, just how many were actually Manavores.
We should have thought of that, she told herself, although she knew it was pointless. We live in a world where an entire army can be turned into something harmless and smuggled across the border or carried into a castle...
“Lady Emily,” Praxis said, as Yvonne led them into the workshop. “I trust you slept well.”
“Well enough,” Emily lied. Praxis’s eyes were slightly wide, suggesting he’d taken a potion to keep himself awake. He was going to pay for that, sooner or later. “What do you have for me?”
Yvonne and Praxis exchanged glances, silently agreeing that he should speak first. “I took the runic network you crafted apart to see how it actually worked,” Praxis said. “I calculated that it should be possible to use a much smaller runic network—perhaps even a single rune—to achieve the same effect... if, of course, one could actually get it into position. A single rune on the floor would be easy to avoid.”
“Of course,” Emily said.
“So we devised a way of carving the rune into bullets,” Praxis explained. “It lacks power, but that shouldn’t matter. If my calculations are correct, it would actually be drawing power from the target itself. My guess is that it would either slow down or outright kill a Manavore.”
“By giving it indigestion,” Yvonne put in.
“It would be more accurate to say that it would disrupt the target’s magical structure,” Praxis said, “but your expression is more colorful.”
“Well, of course.” Yvonne smirked. “Marketing is half the struggle.”
Emily frowned. “Are you sure this will work?”
“It should.” Praxis looked rather less sure than he sounded. “The bullets are propelled by gunpowder, not magic. They shouldn’t be drained as they pass through the target’s absorption field because there’s nothing to drain. And while the rune could, in theory, be drained, the rune actually has no inherent magic itself. It merely draws on ambient magic and reshapes it.”
He shrugged. “The effec
t won’t last more than a few seconds, naturally. But it should be long enough to give the target a terminal case of indigestion.”
Yvonne grinned. “It does sound better, doesn’t it?”
She turned to Emily. “We brought supplies to start churning out muskets and pistols with us,” she said, “as well as a bunch of half-completed weapons. My crew have been carving out the runes all night. We should have a small number of weapons ready by the end of the day.”
Master Highland is going to love that, Emily thought, sardonically. Mundanes could use runes, but they were officially discouraged from doing so. There were enough horror stories to make someone who wanted to experiment think twice. I wonder what he’ll make of it.
Frieda had a more practical question. “You can really put them together that quickly?”
“We have most of the equipment and supplies with us,” Yvonne assured her. “If we had to start completely from scratch, it would take considerably longer.”
She lowered her voice. “We’re going to have to start thinking about setting up warehouses as well as railway lines,” she added. “It might be some time before we can draw anything but sand from the desert.”
“Sand has its uses,” Emily said, “but I understand.”
“And probably set up a few other things in Heart’s Ease,” Yvonne said. “I got a set of letters I was going to bring to your attention, at the next board meeting. There are merchants and industrialists who want to set up shop in Heart’s Ease.”
“They may think twice, when they realize we have a problem.” Emily eyed her thoughtfully. “What do you think of it?”
“It depends.” Yvonne shrugged. “The real problem is moving goods and supplies around, as you know. Once we have a railway line, things will get easier. And, naturally, anything we design here can be produced elsewhere.”
Emily nodded. Very few of her innovations had remained her property for long. She hadn’t realized just how many people would be interested in stealing the ideas she’d introduced and then improving them until the process was already well underway. She didn’t mind, not really. The more minds working on a problem, the more people trying to make a profit for themselves, the faster technology would advance. They were already talking about steamboats moving up and down the rivers or sailing out to sea. She hadn’t designed any of those boats.
Mirror Image (Schooled in Magic Book 18) Page 25