The Quantum Games (Alchemists Academy #3)

by Kailin Gow

  The Alchemists Academy

  The Quantum Games

  Book 3

  kailin gow

  The Alchemist Academy

  Published by THE EDGE

  THE EDGE is an imprint of Sparklesoup Inc.

  Copyright © 2012 Kailin Gow

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  For information, please contact:

  THE EDGE at Sparklesoup

  14252 Culver Dr. A732

  Irvine, CA 92604

  www.sparklesoup.com

  First Edition.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  ISBN: 978-159748-007-9

  DEDICATION

  This is for the parents/teachers who approached me at a book signing and ask if I can come up with a series featuring a male main character in my typical fantasy adventure, educational mode that can be used for class discussions. So here’s the first of my series featuring a male main teen character and his adventures. If you like action, fantasy, and Arthurian magic, I present The Alchemists Academy.

  Prologue

  Wirt followed as Ms. Burns led the way through the woodland near the Alchemists Academy’s giant tree home. Her fire engine red hair bobbed like a beacon in front of him, tied with feathers and charms, sweeping back to reveal ears with the slightest of points. Those, along with the teacher’s almost unearthly beauty and perpetual youth, marked her out as one of the fey. She was wearing a deep red dress today that went with her hair, along with solid walking boots that meant she kept up a swift pace between the trees.

  Wirt found it a little strange that the teacher was shorter than him now, but he’d grown a lot in the course of the mid-term vacation. He was still leanly built, and his dark hair still had a tendency to turn into a disheveled mess if he didn’t make an effort, but other than that, he hardly looked like the same boy who had first come to the Alchemists Academy from Earth.

  He was dressed a little differently, for one thing. Thanks to the trunk from Ms. Lake that could produce whatever clothes he required, he was wearing dark pants made from a material that didn’t seem to be like most other cloths, along with a cream tunic with a hood that was currently up, shielding him from the wind blowing between the trees. It was close enough to his old hooded top and jeans, but somehow, it felt more… current to wear this kind of thing. On his feet, Wirt wore a pair of solid black boots, similar to those Ms. Burns was wearing. He was also carrying a dark wooden box, which Ms. Burns had handed him when they set out walking.

  She hadn’t told Wirt what was in the box yet, or what they were going out into the woods to do. That was normal, though. Ms. Burns seemed to almost take delight in Wirt not knowing what would be coming in her lessons, which could involve anything from her setting painful challenges for him to simply meeting some of the stranger creatures that lived in some of the places the schools network of transportation tubes connected to.

  There had been a lot of lessons so far. Over what was meant to be the school’s vacation, Ms. Burns had seemingly made it her business to prepare Wirt for the dangers he might face in the Quantum Games, the contest that would determine who would take the remaining place in the school’s elite class. His friend Spencer was entered in it too, as was Roland Black, the recently arrived school bad boy who seemed to be taking orders from someone else, and who definitely didn’t have anyone’s best interests at heart but his own. Both of them had come from families with strong traditions at the school. Both of their fathers had competed in the Quantum Games.

  “Focus, Wirt,” Ms. Burns said, looking back at him. She didn’t look more than about twenty, but Wirt knew she had to be much older. She’d told him once that she was from his future, and she’d always given him the impression that she was preparing him for something more than just the contest to come, though she wouldn’t say what. That was the thing with the school. Thanks to its principal, Ender Paine, it was so filled with intrigues that it was hard to guess what anybody there really wanted.

  “Maybe if you told me what I should focus on?” Wirt suggested.

  Ms. Burns shrugged, looking around. They were at the edge of a small clearing with plenty of scrub.

  “This is as good a place as any,” she said. “Open the box, Wirt.”

  Wirt did as she told him, and started when he saw what was inside. It was a dark sphere about the size of a small basketball, which seemed just a simple matt black until Wirt stared at it a little longer. When he did so, a rainbow of different colors seemed to shift just under the surface, pulsing and twisting as the power within sought to get out.

  “This is a quantum ball,” Wirt said.

  “I would say that you’re very observant, Wirt, but that would be a lie given that Roland has had one in your room for months.” Ms. Burns nodded to the ball. “Pick it up please.”

  Wirt made himself do it. It felt a bit like picking up an unexploded bomb. His brain told him that it wasn’t actually anything like that, and that the ball wasn’t dangerous at all until a wizard or witch used magic to spin it up to the speeds used in the sport of hyper-leap, but the rest of him still wasn’t completely convinced. The fact was that a ball like this could kill people, disintegrating them so thoroughly that even the strongest magic couldn’t pull them back together.

  With Ms. Burns watching though, he couldn’t just stand there. She was one of the few teachers there who seemed to actually care what happened to him. He picked up the ball, holding it out in front of him one handed.

  “Now spin it, please,” Ms. Burns said.

  “Why?”

  “Would you do it if I said ‘Because I’m your teacher and I say so’?”

  Wirt shook his head. “It’s the vacation.”

  “The vacation is almost over, Wirt. In any case, I believe that Ender Paine allowed you to stay only on the condition that you stuck to school rules. Or didn’t get caught breaking them, if you want me to quote his exact words.”

  That was true. Unlike almost everyone else in the school, Wirt didn’t have anywhere to go during school breaks, so the headmaster had reluctantly allowed him to stay. His deputy head, Ms. Lake, had probably had something to say in that. The part about not getting caught was pure Ender Paine, though.

  “Wirt,” Ms. Burns said, “the Quantum Games are close, and you need to learn to use that ball, or you will lose. You might even die. Now spin the ball.”

  “I don’t know how.”

  “Just put magic into it. And don’t try to tell me that you don’t know how to do that. We both know you have a lot more power than you give yourself credit for.”

  Wirt didn’t argue. With Ms. Burns, there wasn’t much point. Instead, he focused on putting power into the ball, and it slowly began to spin on his hand. As it did so, the colors within seemed to flow to the surface, glowing brighter and brighter the faster the ball was spinning. In just a few seconds, Wirt had it spinning fast enough that it was a multi-colored blur.

  “What now?”

  “Now we need a target.” Ms. Burns whispered something, almost to herself, and Wirt knew she was casting a spell. Something stirred on the edge of the trees, stepping forward. Wirt saw that it was a deer, a young male, with only partly developed antlers and a rich brown hide.

  “You want me to kill it? While it’s just standing there?”

  “You’re right,” Ms. Burns said, and whispered something else. The
deer loped off into the woods. “Well, what are you waiting for, Wirt? After it!”

  “But…”

  “What do you think the Quantum Games are?” Ms. Burns demanded in a tone of voice that was suddenly angry. “You had the chance to back out before vacation, but you didn’t take it. Now, you’re entered in a contest where you will have to throw that ball, and at much more than a deer! Get after it, or save us all some trouble by packing your bags and leaving.”

  The worst part was that Wirt knew Ms. Burns was right. He’d made his choice. He didn’t have one now. So he set off towards where the deer had gone into the woods, half hoping that it would have fled completely by then. It wouldn’t have, though. Ms. Burns wouldn’t have let it.

  “How do I even find it?” Wirt asked.

  “When you play with the quantum ball, the game becomes like a hunt. If you see the ball coming, it’s easy to transport yourself away with magic, so each player looks for an advantage, hunting the others.” Ms. Burns looked grave then. “You have to become the hunter, Wirt, not the hunted. Too much depends on it. So open your senses. Let your magic enhance them. Feel the forest around you.”

  Wirt wasn’t sure what the teacher meant, and frankly, it sounded like some kind of fey thing, living at one with the world, but he tried. He tried to listen for any little sound. He tried to watch for any sign of the deer.

  “It isn’t listening,” Ms. Burns insisted. “It isn’t seeing. It’s both of them, and more, and neither, all at once.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Since when did anything around this school make sense?” Ms. Burns demanded. “Shut your eyes, Wirt. Reach out with your magic. Reach out and feel the natural pulse of the forest. You can feel the individual elements. A forest is all of them, all at once.”

  That made slightly more sense, because Ms. Burns had been working hard with him on elemental magic, using her own idiosyncratic methods. She’d thrown him off the tree into a pond of his own making to teach him about water. She’d thrown rocks at him until he’d melted them with fire. This was just the same. Just the same.

  Wirt reached down into himself for his magic, but some instinct made him stop short of pushing it out into the world. Instead, he did the opposite, drawing magic in, feeling it. Feeling the web of power that underpinned everything. For a moment, it felt like he could feel every plant in the wood, every animal, every hoof strike on the ground as the deer made its way around the edge of the clearing.

  “You can feel it, can’t you, Wirt?” Ms. Burns seemed excited, her eyes burning with it. “Throw the ball.”

  Throw the ball. Kill the deer. For what? So he could learn a lesson? So he could become what other people wanted him to be? No, not just that. So he could survive. So he could stay there at the school. So that he might finally have a chance with Alana. Yet for all that, he had to kill a defenseless animal, when they wouldn’t even be able to eat it afterwards.

  “Power is useless if you don’t use it, Wirt,” Ms. Burns said.

  “Have you been listening to the principal?” Wirt asked. “Because that sounds like something he might say. Be all you can be. Take over the world while you’re doing it. Just don’t get caught.”

  “It has to be used to do good too. Now throw the ball!”

  The deer leapt into the clearing again, and in that moment, Wirt knew what he had to do.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered to his target, and he threw the quantum ball. It sped across the space between him and the deer like a miniature sun, then shot past it, just as a wild dog leapt from the trees after the deer. The quantum ball struck the dog, and then there was nothing. Not a thing. Not a trace. Nothing but a fine layer of ash on the ground as the deer loped off into the woods.

  Ms. Burns watched it run, then picked up the ball, looking at Wirt with obvious surprise. Wirt just shrugged. The ball was aimed at the deer and would have gotten it, had it not been for the wild dog. Did Ms. Burns know that was going to happen? Pushing him pass his limitations and fears like she that time she pushed him off the tree to what looked like sure death?

  “I think that’s enough of a lesson for today,” the teacher said. She sounded pleased. Wirt didn’t question it. He was just glad to be able to get out of there.

  Chapter 1

  They used transportation magic to jump back to Ms. Burns’ classroom with the quantum ball. The place was, like most of the rest of the school, empty at the moment. The lines of desks were neatly arranged, without any students there, while there were bookshelves off to one side, beside Ms. Burns’ desk, which seemed to have been grown out of the living tree that the room sat inside. Possibly it had, since that was so how most of the teachers liked to arrange their rooms.

  “Since you’re here, Wirt,” Ms. Burns said, “would you help me put away some new books on the shelves?”

  There were a couple of large cardboard boxes sitting in front of the bookcases. They were open to reveal stacks of books piled haphazardly within. Those Wirt could see were leather bound and looked to be quite old.

  “Where did you get those?” Wirt asked. “I mean, it’s not like you’ve been anywhere, because you’ve been here, teaching me.”

  Ms. Burns smiled. “You have one of the most impressive talents for transportation magic I’ve seen, we live in a giant tree with transport tubes that stretch into other dimensions, and you still can’t understand how I could get hold of a load of old books? For all you know, I could have been darting all over the Hundred Kingdoms to fetch them.”

  “Were you?”

  “No, I ordered them from the book shop in the next village. But that isn’t the point, Wirt.”

  Wirt tilted his head to one side. “What is the point then?”

  “The point,” Ms. Burns said with a smile, “is that they are all sitting in boxes when they should be on my shelves in alphabetical order.”

  Wirt wanted to say no, because after all, the teacher had just tried to force him into killing the deer, but Ms. Burns had also done a lot to help him over the vacation. She had taught him a lot about defensive magic and the use of the elements. She had pushed him to use more and more of his magical abilities, putting him in situations where he had to use them or face something worse. She had also almost certainly added her voice to Ms. Lake’s when it came to getting him allowed to stay there. Ender Paine certainly hadn’t done that out of the kindness of his heart, because the principal didn’t have any kindness that Wirt could see, and he tended to view students as an occasionally necessary irritation within the school.

  So Wirt started sorting through the books and putting them up on the shelves. Most of them were written in languages he couldn’t understand. Some were in swirling, cursive scripts that he knew from having asked Ms. Burns before were in the language of the fey. Others had writing that looked angular and impossible to read, or so twisted that Wirt’s eyes skipped off the letters without taking them in.

  “I’m impressed by what you managed out there,” Ms. Burns said, taking a seat at her desk.

  “I thought you wanted me to kill the deer,” Wirt shot back, a little sharper than he intended.

  “I wanted you to be ready. Of course, I expected you to miss.”

  Wirt turned from the bookcase in shock. “You what?”

  Ms. Burns smiled. “Everyone misses the first time, Wirt. That, or they can’t contain the power of the ball and it does unintended damage. It is simply how these things go. The ball takes focus, along with a real feel for what is going on around the thrower. That you managed to hit the wild dog without harming the deer was… impressive.”

  Impressive. Wirt didn’t say anything. He was still angry that she’d made him throw the thing at all. All through this school, people seemed to be determined to make him into something that he wasn’t. Ms. Burns was just the latest in a long line of people who’d offered him a lot, but who clearly expected something in return.

  Ms. Burns continued. “You need to be careful though, Wirt. The qua
ntum ball is like all the other magical artifacts here. It has enough power to be unpredictable. Using it is a responsibility.”

  “I thought you wanted me to use my magic?” Wirt demanded, pushing another book into place on the shelves. This one had red leather binding, along with a title he could read. Flames and Flammability: Adventures in Pyromancy.

  “I want you to use it responsibly.” Ms. Burns stood then, moving around her desk until she wasn’t far from Wirt. “You will have a lot to do with your power. A lot of people will be depending on it. It’s important that you develop it the way you should, or the consequences could be unthinkable.”

  Wirt put away the last of the books and turned away from the bookcase. “You keep saying things like that, but you won’t tell me why. No one here will, but everyone obviously has something in mind for me. You, Ms. Lake, the principal. Even the school governors.”

  “What do you know about them?” Ms. Burns asked sharply. “Those things are dangerous beyond anything you could imagine.”

  Wirt nodded, but he didn’t mention the whispering he’d heard when standing between the vile looking and misshapen statues of the school’s ‘governors’ or the things they’d been saying about him.

  “Is there anything here that isn’t dangerous?” he asked.

  Ms. Burns sighed. “I’m not a danger to you, Wirt. There are things I can’t tell you, but I have your wellbeing in mind with everything I do. I wouldn’t even be here otherwise.”

  “But how can I believe that when you won’t tell me what’s going on?” Wirt demanded. “Besides, even Ender Paine probably thinks he’s doing what’s best for me.”

  “Ender thinks he’s doing what is best for himself,” Ms. Burns said. “He wouldn’t have given you a scholarship otherwise.”

  “At least I know that about him. With you… with Ms. Lake…”