Bookworm

by Christopher Nuttall

  Chapter Six

  “He’s got no money left?”

  Daria started to chuckle. “No money...and he owes money to every loan shark in the city!”

  “I don’t think it’s quite so funny for him,” Elaine said, before she started giggling herself. It was funny, damn it. “He might have to start watching what he spends money on now.”

  “Drink and whores,” Daria said, tartly. She shook her head in disbelief. “I wonder how long it will be before he has to sell his grand house.”

  “Maybe he can’t,” Elaine said. The orphanage hadn’t been a proper school, but they had battered reading, writing and basic maths into her head. She might have become an accountant – or a housewife – if she hadn’t had a talent for magic. “The house could already be used to back a debt. Someone might be intent on claiming it even now.”

  She grinned at Daria. “Maybe he’ll have to sell some of the tacky ornaments his family has been collecting for a thousand years,” she added. “And what will happen when people realise that he’s selling them off?”

  The great houses in the Golden City seemed strong and untouchable, which was probably why Lord Howarth had got away with his gambling debts for so long. But if the loan sharks scented weakness, they would probably start demanding more and more guarantees from her Guardian before they agreed to hand over further cash. How long would it be before one of them decided to call in the debts and demand the mansion in payment? And what would happen when they tried? The aristocracy might close ranks behind Lord Howarth, or they might throw him to the wolves for fear of provoking their own creditors to demand immediate payment. It would take the Grand Sorcerer to sort out the mess – and the Grand Sorcerer was dead.

  “Well, he deserves it,” Daria said, unsympathetically. “How exactly has he treated you over the last eight years? The best that can be said of it is that he largely ignored you.”

  She paused. “You’re not his adopted daughter, are you? You can’t get any of this muck on you?”

  Elaine snorted. “I’m not even a ward to him,” she said, dryly. “I don’t think they can demand that I pay his debts, or anything that I might have to do if I was his daughter.”

  “Perhaps you are his daughter,” Daria said, mischievously. “Would you inherit his debts if he spent your entire life ignoring you?”

  “He would have to have started having kids when he was seven,” Elaine said. She had wondered, back when she’d hoped that Lord Howarth would be more than a distant presence in her life, but the timing didn’t work out. It was possible, she supposed, that she was his half-sister, yet that wouldn’t force her to pay any of his debts. “Besides, he spends more money each day at the tracks than I earn in a year. His creditors aren’t going to get money out of me that I don’t have, are they?”

  She chuckled as she walked back into her room. “I think we’d better get dressed,” she added. “It won’t be long until the funeral begins.”

  It had been nearly two years since she’d worn sorcerer’s black. The robes had been given to her after her graduation by the staff, a tradition that Millicent and her cronies hadn’t hesitated to use to make fun of the younger Elaine. Only poor graduates were allowed to keep their robes. Richer graduates tended to purchase their own tailored robes after their graduation and exchange them regularly, in keeping with the dictates of fashion. Elaine had had to let out the hem herself over the last few days, using half-remembered sewing lessons from the orphanage. Neither of them could have afforded a tailor, or even one of the seamstresses from the poorer parts of the city.

  She pulled the robe on and looked at herself in the mirror. Graduate or not, she just didn’t look very impressive. She bit her lip as she picked up her wand and stowed it away in her sleeve, wondering if she should even go to the funeral. Everyone who was anyone would be there, attempting to make deals and political alliances even during the funeral itself, but she wasn’t anyone. The Grand Sorcerer hadn’t even been a nodding acquaintance. She’d only ever seen him once, at a dinner hosted by the Peerless School. And she couldn’t even remember what he’d looked like.

  There had been a faint note of unease hanging in the air as she walked back to the apartment after Judd had tossed her out of the mansion’s gates. The Grand Sorcerer was dead...and everyone knew that that meant the competitions to select his successor were about to begin. Once he was decently buried, the competition would start in earnest. Elaine half-wondered what would happen if she’d been born with enough talent to make her own bid for supreme power, before pushing the thought aside. Even with the spells floating within her mind, including ones that would see her put to death if anyone realised she knew them, she was no match for a more talented sorcerer. Anyone who thought they could be the next Grand Sorcerer would have power to spare.

  “Come on out,” Daria called. “What do you think?”

  Elaine stuck her head out of her room and smiled at her friend. Daria wore black, setting off her long red hair nicely, with her robes pulled tightly around her body. She looked spectacular, even though she was going to a funeral. Elaine made a mental bet with herself that there would be no shortage of sorcerers trying to ask Daria to come out with them. The normal rules about how unmarried females should behave didn’t apply to female magicians.

  “Striking,” she said, resignedly. The spells that would have made her just as stunning floated up to the surface of her mind again, tempting her. Each time she pushed them back down, it got a little harder. “You’ll bring the dead back to life.”

  “Let’s hope not,” Daria said. “The last thing I need is to be branded a necromancer and chased out of the city by a horde of angry sorcerers.”

  Elaine shrugged. “I suppose not,” she said. She checked her wand out of habit, before heading over to the door. “Shall we go?”

  The streets were buzzing with people as they walked towards the Parade of the Endless, the massive arena at the heart of the city. Elaine saw hundreds of guards and soldiers trying to keep order and failing miserably, if only because thousands of magicians and sorcerers had descended on the Golden City, intent on networking while they buried their former master. Every year, there was a magical convention – and every year, families were dispatched out of the city by everyone who could afford to send them away to safety. Magicians loved to show off, or play practical jokes on the defenceless commoners...and there was no longer a single authority who could provide a final sanction for misbehaviour. The streets wouldn’t be safe until the new Grand Sorcerer was established and had a chance to impose his authority. Still, she doubted that any of them would try to pick a fight with two graduates in black robes. It was very hard to gauge a magician’s power until it was too late.

  “Over there,” Daria said. “That’s Hanson – I used to date him before I graduated. Nice guy, but a little grabby in bed. Watch yourself.”

  She pulled Elaine over towards the young man and his cronies before Elaine could object. Hanson was fairly handsome, in a bland way that suggested he used glamours to improve his looks. Hardly uncommon among sorcerers, male or female, but something Elaine had always considered rather dishonest. He smiled brightly when he saw Daria and gave her a hug, before looking over at Elaine and dismissing her a moment later. Elaine rolled her eyes, even as she felt the old stab in her heart. She would have loved to have a guy chasing her, just once.

  And there were spells in her mind now that could turn Hanson, for all his magical talent, into her devoted lover...

  The crowd pressed closer as they approached the gates. Elaine had only been to the Parade of the Endless once before, but in its own way it was as magical as the Great Library. No matter how many people crammed into it, it would always be large enough for more – and all of the spectators could see perfectly. The knowledge in Elaine’s head provided a precise description of the spells used by the city’s founders to warp space around the Parade of the Endless, hollowing out the interior to allow it to become bigger on the inside than on the outside.
In some ways, it was rather like the mirrored alternate dimension that made up so much of the Great Library. Mirror magic was complicated and very unstable, at least under normal circumstances. The sheer level of talent that had gone into producing the Great Library stunned her. Even knowing how it had been done, she doubted that any of the magicians of her era could have duplicated the feat...

  “But I’m telling you, this is my wife,” a man was saying. Elaine felt a shiver as she recognised the man he was trying to speak to as Inquisitor Dread. Who governed the Inquisitors when their only master was dead and his successor not yet selected? The Inquisitor looked tired, even behind the glamour hiding his face. “One of those bastards did this to her!”

  He was holding onto a pig’s neck, despite its struggles. “You have to do something,” he insisted. “She can’t remain like this forever!”

  The press of the crowd pushed Elaine and Daria away before she could hear Dread’s response. With so many sorcerers around, it was unlikely that the Inquisitor would be able to catch up with the culprit before he managed to escape into the crowd. The gods alone knew what the poor woman had done, if anything. Perhaps she’d been rude to the magician, or perhaps she’d refused a crude attempt at getting her into bed, or perhaps she’d just been a convenient victim. Dread could probably break the spell once the man had stopped begging for assistance and let the Inquisitor do his job.

  Daria grabbed her arm as the magic caught at them, allowing the crowd to see the small party gathered at the bottom of the arena. “Look,” she hissed. “See anyone you recognise?”

  Elaine sucked in her breath. Millicent was standing with some of the senior wizards, right next to a woman wearing a black garment that covered everything but her eyes. The woman was holding Millicent’s arm tightly, as if she didn’t quite trust the young sorceress to behave herself. Beside her, there were several wizards she recognised from the Peerless School, tutors in everything from potions to advanced spell-binding. She’d never liked the spell-binding teacher, she recalled, not least because of his thoroughly unpleasant branch of magic. He’d always given her the impression that he would have preferred to have everyone wearing one of his collars, with him in firm command of them all. The potions master beside him, by contrast, was fat and always friendly, even to a girl with strictly limited talents for producing potions to order. Elaine had some good memories of his patient tutoring and how he’d helped her get a passing grade.

  “That’s Millicent,” she said, sourly. At least something had managed to distract her nemesis from her studies. “Who’s the woman who’s hiding her face?”

  “Lady Light Spinner,” Hanson supplied. Elaine was surprised he’d lowered himself to answer her question. Perhaps he was just trying to impress Daria. “She is the Court Wizard to the Empress of the South.”

  Elaine remembered what Millicent had said and shivered. If Millicent had been telling the truth, Lady Light Spinner intended to try to become the next Grand Sorcerer. A Court Wizard in such an important post would be incredibly powerful – and whatever else could be said about Millicent, she didn’t lack talent or power. If her relative became Grand Sorcerer – Grand Sorceress – Millicent would be even more unbearable.

  “And maybe she was seduced by the Empress of the South,” Daria added, with a wink. “You think that she might be a man under that veil?”

  Elaine started to giggle, only to force it down as silence rolled out from the centre of the arena. The Caretaker, the current head of the Regency Council in the absence of a Grand Sorcerer, stepped forward. He was an old man, a distant relative of Lord Howarth if Elaine recalled correctly, although there were few formal ties between their families. She wondered absently if the old man knew about his relative’s spending problem and what, if anything, he intended to do about it. Letting a noble family fall into wrack and ruin wouldn’t make him popular, but failing to force his relative to pay his debts could unleash unpleasant consequences. It hadn’t been that long ago since the wealthy merchants had successfully pressed for their own representation on the city’s council.

  And without a Grand Sorcerer, whose decision would be unchallengeable, who knew who would still be standing when the dust settled?

  She smiled as she caught sight of another man standing to one side with his fellow commoners. Councillor Travis was a dour-faced man, with a pleasant-looking wife and a pretty daughter. Still not a social equal to Lord Howarth and the rest of the aristocracy, he was probably richer than any of them – or maybe all of them put together. His family had been among the first to take advantage of the iron dragons built by the technicians to bring the Empire closer together and it had given them an unbeatable edge. Perhaps his daughter could marry Lord Howarth and bring her dowry to the aide of the Lord’s finances. But would she ever be accepted by High Society?

  “Thirty-seven years ago,” the Caretaker said, his voice easily audible throughout the arena, “a sorcerer stood before the Regency Council and was elevated to the position of Grand Sorcerer. He ruled firmly, but fairly, striking a balance between the different poles of our society. It was our dearest wish that he would continue to rule for many years to come.”

  And that, Elaine knew, was nothing less than the truth. It was humbling to realise that the Grand Sorcerer – the late Grand Sorcerer – had ruled for longer than Elaine had been alive, but the time between Grand Sorcerers was always uneasy for everyone. The knowledge in her mind whispered a single question; what was worse than a single all-powerful sorcerer ruling the world? Two all-powerful sorcerers, fighting.

  “But the gods have chosen to take him from us to their realm,” the Caretaker continued. “It is fitting that we now consider the position he held – and the responsibilities he discharged so capably. The Grand Sorcerer serves as the ultimate bulwark of our society. To rule is also to serve – and he understood that better than many other rulers. We will miss him now that he is gone.”

  He stepped forward to the black casket positioned in the exact centre of the arena. “I charge you all to remember what he did for us,” he said, softly. His voice was still easy to hear. “And to remember that power alone is nothing without responsibility. May his successor be so wise.”

  “May his successor be so wise,” the crowd echoed.

  Elaine caught sight of Millicent and saw her staring soberly at the casket where the Grand Sorcerer lay. Millicent was part of the established order in a way that Elaine could never be, but the established order had been badly shaken the moment the Grand Sorcerer passed away. She understood, better than Elaine would have done without the new knowledge in her head, just what it meant to lose the centre of their world. All of the old certainties had died with the Grand Sorcerer.

  “The Grand Sorcerer was a great man,” Administrator Mentor said. The master of the Peerless School looked grim, despite his youthful looks. Elaine remembered a very unpleasant interview with him after Millicent had successfully framed her for theft and shivered inwardly. She had managed to prove her innocence eventually, but it had come at a cost she hadn’t been entirely willing to pay. “He knew what he could do – and what he should not do, even though it was within his power. We will not see his like again.”

  Daria nudged her. “Wasn’t he the one who had you caned?”

  “Yes,” Elaine said, shortly. Millicent wouldn’t have been punished like that. But Millicent had powerful relatives and Elaine had no relatives at all. “Do you think that he wants to become Grand Sorcerer himself?”

  “He has the power and connections,” Daria muttered back. “And he has been master of the Peerless School long enough to grow bored. He might want to grasp the highest position in the world.”

  Elaine shrugged and turned back to watch the funeral. Each of the tutors and councillors had a chance to speak. Councillor Travis spoke briefly, but fittingly, commending the Grand Sorcerer for his services to the city. Millicent’s aunt didn’t speak at all.

  Finally, the Caretaker stepped forward again. “We shall not s
ee his like again,” he said, softly. “And now we bid him farewell.”

  The casket blazed with a brilliant white light, so bright that Elaine had to cover her eyes from the glare. A faint afterimage seemed to hang in the air for a long moment, and then it was gone, reducing the Grand Sorcerer’s body to dust. His soul was long gone. And yet there were spells in Elaine’s mind that would have allowed her to call him back to the world...

  “Goodbye,” the Caretaker said.

  Elaine saw the expression on the Administrator’s face and shivered. The senior wizards were sharing the same thought. Their master was dead...

  ...And the contest to select the next master was about to begin.

  Chapter Seven

  “Put a smile on your face,” Daria urged. “This is supposed to be a party.”

  Elaine looked up at her. After the funeral, Hanson had invited Daria to a party in honour of the Grand Sorcerer – and Daria, ignoring Elaine’s protests, had insisted on dragging her along. Elaine felt terribly out of place; the singing, the dancing, the couples kissing in the rear of the vast hall...it all felt alien to her. How could she join the couples on the dance floor...even though part of her wanted to join them and dance the night away?

  “I should go home,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t belong here.”

  “Oh yes you do,” Daria said. “You deserve a chance to have some fun, you know? Come and dance.”

  “I can’t dance with you,” Elaine protested. “That’s...that’s not decent.”

  “I think no one bothered to tell those two that it isn’t decent,” Daria said, nodding towards two boys who were dancing together. “Which one of them is the girl, do you think?”

  Elaine flushed as Daria pulled her to her feet. “But I wasn’t going to dance with you,” Daria added. “You! Come over here.”

  One of Hanson’s friends came over, staring blankly at Daria. “You two are going to dance,” Daria said, firmly. She leaned closer to the boy’s ear and whispered something in it that made him flush. “And if he lets you down, I’ll cut off his...”