Instrument of Peace (Symphony of the Cursed Book 1)

by Rebecca Hall

  “Rhadhassa is primarily used as a purifier,” Miss Sindri said finishing the final line and turning back to them. Mitch seized a pen and tried to look attentive. “Properly employed it can separate a compound into its constituent elements, flush poison from a wound or turn a student who is talking instead of taking notes into a loose collection of hydrogen atoms,” she finished, slapping her hands down on her workbench. Mitch’s eyes widened even though he had been taking notes, and half the class jumped. The only thing that could be heard in the sudden silence was Nikola coughing.

  “Due to its versatility Rhadhassa is rarely employed on its own save by the greatest of alchemists. It can cause incalculable damage when it’s not properly directed. On the Obsidian Mirror it is linked to seven primary sigils and dozens of secondary ones that limit its effects to the subject of the testing. Now, can anyone tell me what its function in the testing is or how it determines the subject?”

  The imaginary crickets started chirping again; no self-respecting real cricket would be caught anywhere near the Academy in winter. Once again Nikola was the only person to raise his hand. For someone who claimed to be behind he seemed to know a lot about Alchemy. Mitch ran over the testing in his mind and tentatively raised a hand.

  “Blood,” he said when Miss Sindri called on him, “that’s what tells the Obsidian Mirror who the subject is.” His words seemed to be sucked into the silence.

  “And what does it do once it determines its subject?”

  “Ummm...” Alchemy might not be his strong suit but deductive reasoning was, “it separates our magic into its component parts.”

  “Excellent, it appears that two of you have functioning brains after all,” Miss Sindri said.

  “Teacher’s pet,” someone coughed from the front of the room. The rest of the class giggled, even Gwen. Mitch looked for Nikola and found him blowing his nose. He doubted that the colour staining Nikola’s cheeks was from embarrassment. Miss Sindri glared at them, tapping her fingers impatiently until they quietened.

  “Your textbooks contain all of the sigils used in the testing,” Miss Sindri said, passing out a worksheet. “You will explain the function of the seven primary sigils and how they interact with Rhadhassa. If you do not finish it in class you can finish it tonight. Anyone who doesn’t finish it by our next class will be finishing it in detention.”

  The entire class groaned, Mitch along with them. Cross-referencing the seven primary sigils with Rhadhassa itself would be a pain. Miss Sindri handed him a worksheet and he groaned again, the worksheet just showed the sigils, not their names or meanings and he didn’t think Miss Sindri was inclined to tell them the page numbers. He was proved right a few seconds later when Hikari asked.

  He tore a piece of refill into strips to use as bookmarks and started leafing through the book, comparing every sigil to the ones on his worksheet. The rest of the class didn’t seem quite so resigned to their fates and were arguing loudly with Miss Sindri or gossiping with one another. Perhaps it wasn’t that surprising that they were getting mountains of homework this term; this wasn’t the only class where no one seemed inclined to actually do the work, the others were just as bad and they had exams soon. He found one of the sigils and gave in to the temptation to look around. The only other person who seemed to be working was Nikola. He must have swallowed the textbook whole because Mitch couldn’t see it on his desk. He resisted the urge to tell his classmates to shut up and kept working.

  When the lunch bell rang he’d only finished two of the sigils, life and negation. The few people who still had their books out, those who’d resigned themselves to doing the work, hastily put them away and raced for the door. Miss Sindri was there first.

  “I’m afraid you will be a little late to lunch today,” she said, “since you’ve wasted so much of my time you can make it up to me now. Mr Leiser, Mr Mitchell, the two of you may go.” Mitch tried not to grin as he trailed Nikola out of the room. He turned to wave at Gwen and she glared at him in response.

  “I can’t believe she’s actually keeping them back,” he said to Nikola. Their teachers loved to threaten them with missing lunch but they never actually did it. They needed to eat before their practical magic lessons in the afternoon. Usually the threat, along with a couple of well-placed detentions, was enough to make everyone pay attention and work.

  Nikola shrugged, “They’ve been cracking down over the last few weeks.”

  “I think they need a refresher course on moderation,” Mitch muttered, pushing open the door to outside and shivering as the icy wind hit him, “they can’t just keep ignoring us and punishing the whole class.”

  “Watch them,” Nikola said and sneezed repeatedly.

  “You’ll be in just as much trouble as the rest of us tomorrow,” Mitch reminded him though he wasn’t sure if Nikola would actually be in class tomorrow.

  “The only one I haven’t finished is Enkai.” Mitch swung his bag around and rummaged through it until he found a pen, his hand brushing the Archangel feather that he still hadn’t had a chance to return, and scrawled Enkai across the back of his hand. They joined the lunch line and Mitch sighed in relief when the door closed behind them.

  “Here.” Nikola pulled out a pen and paper and wrote out the names of the sigils.

  “Thanks,” Mitch said, taking the piece of paper. The pen vanished just as mysteriously as it had appeared. Nikola had just saved him hours of searching for the right ones.

  “Don’t mention it,” Nikola said. He coughed and leaned against the wall panting. Mitch could see the beginnings of a rash spreading across the back of his hand as he rubbed his arms though it was quite warm in the dining room. Mitch was considering removing his coat. “Tell Dr Henly I’m sick,” Nikola said once he caught his breath. He ducked out of line and made for the doors. Mitch watched him go and then turned and collected lunch before going in search of Bates and Mindy.

  “No Gwen?” Bates asked when he sat down, “Don’t tell me you ditched her for Nikola and she’s off crying in Richard’s arms.”

  “Miss Sindri held back most of the class, dickhead,” Mitch replied kicking him under the table. “And Nikola’s alright, he just gave me the answers to our homework.” He hadn’t really but looking the names up in the index would be a lot faster than comparing pictures. He pulled the piece of paper out of his pocket and tucked it into his textbook before he could lose it.

  “What the Hell were you doing?” Bates asked, “We had blood flying everywhere in Xenobiology and Dr Maclyn didn’t say a word. Most fun I’ve had all year.”

  “Hey,” Mindy said elbowing him in the side.

  “Second most fun,” Bates grunted, “You can’t even tell my lab coat is white any more. I’m going to have to dump it in a bucket of bleach tonight.”

  “I’m trying to eat,” Mitch said. He liked blood just fine so long as it stayed inside of people where it belonged, though it did explain why they reeked of hand sanitiser. He focused on eating and pretended not to hear Bates’ half whispered “Pansy”.

  #

  “A test score of forty-three percent fire, thirty-five percent telekinesis indicates a strong gift for Pyrokinesis,” Mr Crane said, tapping the figures on the whiteboard. “The permutations on the remaining twenty-two percent are indicative of a number of different sub specialities. A score of fifteen percent heat would suggest that the magician in question has an unparalleled ability to manipulate the temperature of the flames while a score of twenty percent earth would suggest a volcano mage. Magicians that specialise in Volcanomancy are extremely rare due to the necessity of having a notable affinity for two of the primary elements.”

  Mitch zoned out again. He tried to pay attention in all of his classes but the theory behind how their specialities were calculated had long since lost its appeal. Even his love of maths wasn’t enough to make the equations scrawled across the board or the long tables of references interesting, not after the first couple of weeks. Fortunately, it didn’t look as if his lac
k of attention would be noticed. Two of his classmates hadn’t shown up, though he suspected that Nikola was in the infirmary, and of those that had one was sleeping and half of the others were engaged in a magical variation of Chinese Whispers that Mindy had started. On his other side Hikari had populated her desk with a cavorting origami zoo, showing an impressive level of fine control over the air currents and a complete lack of interest in their class.

  Convinced that nothing he was going to do would attract undue attention, he at least had a pen in hand, and that Mr Crane would continue to drone on for the rest of the lesson, he began leafing through the book of tables. Hayley’s speciality would be in here somewhere, he just had to work out what it was. He scribbled a few notes in the margin of his notebook, trying to recall every time he’d seen her use magic and what kind of magic it might have been.

  He started with the earth based and defensive specialities but none of them seemed to fit. He scrawled a couple of hasty equations as he tried to work out the ratios she would need to perform her observed magics and then ran through them again to make sure he hadn’t mucked up. He scowled at the result, he was confident in his equations which meant that either Millie was far worse at magic than he thought or Hayley had a total score of 127 percent.

  He flipped to the section on vision magics and scanned through it. See the future, see the past, see the history of an object, see the history of a place. He never would have guessed that there were so many vision magics, no wonder the book could double as a door stop, or, if it came to it, a blunt instrument. He wished the specialities were listed alphabetically instead of by commonality; he had no idea how rare Clairvoyance was. It couldn’t be that rare, not with both Belle and Hayley showing signs of it. Apparently it was that rare; it was the last entry in vision magics.

  He ran a finger across the columns and sighed, the numbers were even higher than for a seer. Perhaps Hayley was clairvoyant but if she was she wouldn’t be able to do anything else. He reached the final column in the table and stopped. He usually ignored it, it had almost no relevance to a person’s primary speciality, but he’d never seen that before. He stuck his hand in the air.

  “Yes Mr Mitchell?” Mr Crane asked, sounding faintly surprised that someone might have a question. Mitch gratefully lowered his hand, he’d had to switch twice and had had to resort to waving to get Mr Crane’s attention. He’d considered jumping up and down and saying ‘pick me, pick me’ but his classmates would never have let him live that down.

  “What is celestial magic sir? I haven’t heard of it before,” Mitch said.

  “Celestial magic is not the subject of today’s lesson and it has very little relevance to your studies as a magician.” Mitch hung his head. He should have known it wouldn’t be that easy, he’d just have to add it to his list of things to look up in the library.

  “However,” Mr Crane continued, “it is a topic of great interest to theoretical magicians and, indeed, to this class, particularly Mr Leiser, who is regrettably absent, and Miss Lamdon,” he finished sharply. Perhaps he’d noticed Mindy’s game of Chinese Whispers after all.

  “Me sir?” Mindy asked, “how?” Most of the class seemed to be paying attention now, more out of fear that they’d be the next ones called out than any real interest, but Mitch was interested.

  “Celestial magic is the rarest strain of magic there is,” Mr Crane said. “Anyone found to have a gift for it is automatically granted admission to the Academy, as was Mr Leiser. It is also something of an enigma. We have no idea what it can do on its own but even in the smallest percentage it appears to act as an amplifier for other branches of magic.”

  Mitch made a note to see how much of an amplifier it was, perhaps then he could get Hayley’s scores to add down to 100 percent.

  “Clairvoyance is a well-known example of its effect,” he said, fixing his gaze on Mindy. “Seers see possible futures and with the proper training they can learn to identify the most likely. A Clairvoyant sees the future and, regardless of how improbable an event might seem, what a Clairvoyant sees happens and only if they have a proper understanding of the cause and effect in play can that future be altered. That, Miss Lamdon, is what we believe your sister has specialised in.”

  Mitch shuddered, that wasn’t a speciality he’d wish on his worst enemy let alone a twelve year old girl.

  “In all of human history,” Mr Crane continued, “only two magicians are thought to have had an affinity for celestial magic in excess of 10 percent, Merlin and Morghana.”

  Mitch began reworking his equations. He knew that Hayley was good but he had a hard time believing that she was the next Merlin. He wondered what kind of magic Merlin had specialised in. He’d never thought about it before but Mr Crane had the class’s attention now and he was being pelted with questions, Mitch didn’t think he’d appreciate one about Merlin’s speciality. Maybe he’d be able to look that up as well so long as he didn’t mind not sleeping tonight. Thanks to Nikola he thought he might be able to finish his Alchemy homework but he was less certain about everything else.

  Mr Crane held up his hand for silence and slowly the class complied. “Excellent, now that that little diversion is out of the way we really must get back on topic. Celestial magic has no relevance to the subject of pyromancy.”

  “What if a pyromancer has celestial magic?” Rodrigo asked. Mr Crane ignored him. At least now he was droning a little faster.

  MIRROR LIGHT

  Mitch leaned on the railing and studied the heptagram carved into the obsidian floor below. The curves and angles of the sigils jarred his eyes. There was something not quite right about the way they were linked together even though he knew that they were perfectly aligned after that wretched Alchemy assignment. It felt as if they were looking back. Mitch squeezed his eyes shut but the feeling persisted. He’d never liked the Obsidian Mirror.

  In the centre lay Rhadhassa, the sigil glittering in the light of the rising sun. Mitch shivered, the mirror itself was somewhat sheltered by the surrounding hourglasses and the balcony overlooking it, but the balcony was open to the elements. Fortunately, today the elements were a cold, clear sky. The testing wouldn’t stop for rain or snow.

  He knew that obsidian reflected all magic, its effects tempered and directed by the sigils carved across its surface and inlaid with brightly polished silver. They did their best to blind him with reflected sunlight. Mitch could think of plenty of things he’d rather be looking at first thing in the morning, the inside of his eyelids for one or breakfast if that wasn’t possible.

  He made do with the hourglasses surrounding the heptagram. Some were taller than he was and had smaller hourglasses tucked inside them, sometimes as many as three, while others were so tiny that an egg timer would look massive in comparison. All of them were filled with minerals in almost every conceivable colour, carefully chosen and refined to react to only one strain of magic. Their teachers would be waiting outside the mirror to record the results when the hourglasses stopped spinning.

  He yawned and rubbed his eyes. He’d wanted to sleep in, he’d had his last exam the day before yesterday, but it had been impossible to sleep with Bates pounding on his door.

  “It’s not that early,” Gwen said at his side.

  “Yes it is,” Mindy grumbled, “they haven’t even opened breakfast yet.”

  “Only because it’s Saturday,” Gwen said. She leaned into him and Mitch wrapped an arm around her, half convinced that he was being used as a wind shield. He couldn’t believe that he was going to make it to breakfast on a Saturday; he usually slept in until lunch.

  He glared at Mindy who was huddled against Bates. This was all her fault, she’d dragged them out here to watch Belle’s testing. Well, she’d dragged Bates, and Bates had decided to drag Mitch as well. Gwen had already been up. Mitch would never understand morning people. Hayley stood on the opposite side of the mirror looking wide awake. She had to be freezing dressed like that. It wasn’t snowing now but it had overnight and it prob
ably would before the day was done and she’d come outside without her jacket. She was insane. Everyone knew how exposed the mirror was, something about proper walls and a ceiling trapping stray magic that would interfere with the results. Whatever the reason the end result was that they froze at the mid-year testing in the winter cold and melted at the end of year testing in the summer sun. He wished they would get on with it. Almost as if they had heard his silent urging the teachers ushered Belle onto the mirror.

  She was definitely freezing. Their teachers were quite insistent that nothing be allowed to influence the testing and that meant a long shower with only a thin, undyed robe to go on afterwards. The robe was only used once. In the summer it was bearable, provided the wind didn’t flip the bloody thing up, in winter it was torture.

  She looked tiny below them. She didn’t even come up to the centre of the four elemental hourglasses, positioned at the points of the compass, with their trio of smaller hourglasses tucked inside. The wind ripped through her robe and pulled at her wet hair but she kept walking across the mirror, shivering and rubbing her arms as if that would do any good. He could feel the sigils tearing at his eyes but he kept his eyes fixed on Belle, he still remembered his first testing and it hadn’t been fun. The least he could do was watch hers.

  Belle stopped in the centre of the mirror and raised her head, the sunlight bringing out flashes of red in her hair. Her eyes darted from face to face, locking on Mindy for a second before moving on to Hayley. Hayley smiled and she smiled back before revealing the tiny silver needle hidden in her left hand. She pricked the ball of her thumb and knelt to press a single drop of blood to the centre of Rhadhassa. It stared to glow, the light spreading through the interconnected sigils and towards the silver hourglass housings. Mitch swallowed and looked away, unable to handle the way the sigils seemed to twist in his eyes. He wasn’t the only one, Gwen had her eyes closed and Mindy had buried her face in Bates chest. Hayley was the only one still watching.