“True,” Lady Barb agreed. “But that doesn’t make it your responsibility to deal with the aftermath.”
Emily shook her head, slowly. The great advantage of everything she’d introduced to the Allied Lands was in how easily everything could be duplicated. Kings and princes had barely realized there was a new system of reading and writing–to say nothing of numerals and printing presses–before it had already swept the Allied Lands. People who had been forced to memorize hundreds of thousands of symbols to read and write–and even those interested in basic learning had needed to master thousands of symbols–had no trouble at all with the English alphabet. Their spelling might be chaotic, but it was far superior to the previous system. And there were other innovations on the way.
But she had no idea how many of her notes Lin had copied or stolen over the months they’d shared a room. Had she copied the plans for steam engines, rifles and machine guns... or something far more dangerous? The nuke-spell? Mother Holly’s death had been largely explained, according to the Grandmaster, by her losing control of the magic she’d stolen, but Emily doubted the cover story would be universally believed. Mountaintop might put her notes together with the observed end results and draw the correct conclusion.
“We don’t know much about Mountaintop,” Lady Barb said, breaking into her thoughts. Her voice was oddly pensive. “The exact location of the school is unknown. We don’t even know the names of most of the teachers who teach at Mountaintop. The only thing we know for certain is that almost all of the magical families send at least one or two of their children there to study. And that they graduate a sizable percentage of the combat sorcerers available to the Allied Lands.”
Emily frowned. “You don’t even know where to look for the school?”
“We have a rough idea,” Lady Barb explained. “But we don’t have a precise location.”
“Oh,” Emily said.
She rolled her eyes. Magicians seemed to have a somewhat childish obsession with secrecy, even though she had good reason to be grateful for the law that insisted that no magician could be forced to share his inventions and innovations with his peers. Apparently, spying on one’s fellow magicians could take up a great deal of an up-and-coming magician’s time, something Emily found a little depressing. Earth had only progressed as far as it had because ideas were shared, then improved upon and shared again. There was no such thing as crowd-sourcing for magicians.
It was something she wanted to change. But, given how hard it was to encourage magicians to work together, she knew it wouldn’t be easy.
“I thought everyone knew where Whitehall is,” she said. “How can they be unaware of Mountaintop’s location?”
“Different priorities,” Lady Barb said. “Back in the days of the Empire, Whitehall was meant to introduce the magical and non-magical families as much as it was meant to teach, while Mountaintop was dedicated to turning out combat sorcerers. They were allowed to hide themselves from detection.”
She shrugged. “And now... we don’t know where to look for them,” she added. “They don’t seem to have a nexus point for us to track. But neither do any passing necromancers.”
Emily shuddered. Shadye had torn Whitehall apart in his bid to capture her, despite the presence of hundreds of magicians of varying levels of power and training. The battle had been savage and would have been lost if Emily hadn’t thought very fast on her feet. It was quite understandable that Mountaintop would wish to hide. But it was also very worrying.
“They could kill me or keep me prisoner indefinitely,” she said, numbly.
“They would be fools,” Lady Barb said, bluntly. “Holding you indefinitely, let alone killing you, would certainly provoke a reaction from your... from your supposed father. The more blatant methods of controlling your mind would also be considered far beyond the pale. If they weren’t desperate, I suspect, they would never be considering any form of blatant attempt to grab you.”
Emily looked at the older woman. “Desperate?”
“They’re taking a risk,” Lady Barb said. “A serious risk. This could spark off a civil war among magicians, draw the wrath of a Lone Power or even hand the Allied Lands to the necromancers on a plate. They wouldn’t be committing themselves this openly if they didn’t have good reason to believe it was necessary.”
“I see,” Emily said.
She sighed, knowing she’d already made up her mind. “How are we going to do this?”
“If you’re willing to take the risk,” Lady Barb said, “you and I will travel to the White City. I have an open invitation to meet up with several prominent figures in the White Council and I intend to introduce you to them.”
Her lips quirked. “It will be completely hush-hush, of course,” she added. “The entire city will be aware of your presence within hours.”
Emily had to smile. “And they’ll try to kidnap me?”
“They’ll certainly have no better chance,” Lady Barb said, smiling back. Her expression vanished a moment later. “However, they’ll probably want to make it look like an accident that you ended up in Mountaintop. They wouldn’t kidnap you violently and then expect you to play the role of a normal student.”
“I suppose not,” Emily said. The Grandmaster had said the same thing. She had a sudden mental vision of being chained to a desk and being expected to pay attention to a faceless teacher. It didn’t seem like an environment that would be conducive to learning. “They’d want me to think I’d been rescued from a worse fate.”
“It’s quite likely,” Lady Barb agreed. She reached out and gripped Emily’s shoulder. “You have to understand the risks, Emily. We will give you all the protections we can, all the little precautions that most magical children learn from the day they start practicing magic, but it would be easy for them to play games with your mind. You, of all people, know how easy it is to influence a person’s thoughts.”
Emily nodded, eyes downcast. Blatant mind control spells were noticeable, but subtle magic, pushing a person’s thoughts in a particular direction, was incredibly hard to spot, let alone counteract. A victim might never realize that he or she wasn’t acting of his own volition. If Lin hadn’t used such magic on her, Emily reflected bitterly, the spy might have been discovered before the Mimic had been destroyed and the wards lifted, allowing her to make her escape.
She looked down at the two bracelets on her arm. One was her familiar, trapped in an inanimate form; the other was a protective bracelet she’d sewn herself, back during the days they’d stayed in the Cairngorm Mountains. The second bracelet protected her from subtle magic, she knew, but the first thing any kidnappers would do if they wanted to make her vulnerable would be to remove the bracelet and everything else. Her lips thinned at the thought, then relaxed.
They’d have a very nasty surprise if they removed the wrong bracelet, she thought, morbidly.
“There are other forms of temptation,” Lady Barb told her. “You could be offered power beyond your wildest dreams.”
“I have power,” Emily pointed out. “But I never wanted it.”
Lady Barb lifted an eyebrow. “You never wanted to reshape the world to suit yourself?”
Emily flushed red. On Earth, she would have given her eyeteeth for enough power to protect herself from the outside world, but she’d never wanted power over other people. But being a baroness was all about having power over her subordinates... her serfs. In a very real sense, she owned hundreds of thousands of people. It wasn’t something she was comfortable with, nor did she really want it. Yet, as far as she could tell, there was no way to put it down.
“Not like that,” she said. If she’d been able to choose, she would have gone into a library and just stayed there. “Can they offer me something beyond being a Baroness of Zangaria?”
“Yes,” Lady Barb said, flatly.
Emily waited for her to elaborate, but the older woman said nothing, withdrawing into her thoughts. There was a peal of thunder in the distance, loud enough to su
rprise her. When she looked up, she saw dark clouds gathering over the mountain peaks in the distance. The weather surrounding Whitehall, thanks to the nexus point under the castle, was variable and subject to change without notice.
Lady Barb climbed to her feet. “We’d better get down off the mountain,” she said, as she held out a hand to help Emily. “We don’t want to get caught in a rainstorm.”
She kept talking as they found the path and made their way downwards, passing endless bushes of prickly thorns and trees that seemed to reach upwards to infinity. “You won’t be able to change your mind afterwards,” Lady Barb warned, as Emily followed her. “I don’t think we will be able to get someone in to help you. Picking you for this mission is clever, but it has a great many risks.”
Emily frowned. “Clever?”
“Anyone else–any normal exchange student–would be kept under tight supervision,” Lady Barb said. “He would never be shown any of the innermost secrets of Mountaintop. You, on the other hand... they’d want to seduce you to their side. They will have good reason to show you everything they can.”
A low rumble of thunder interrupted her words. Moments later, raindrops started crashing down around them. Emily cast a basic ward to protect herself, then kept following Lady Barb as water started to pool around their feet. Lady Barb didn’t bother with a ward. She didn’t seem to care about the water, Emily realized. All that mattered to Lady Barb was getting back to Whitehall as quickly as possible.
“You need to watch your back carefully,” Lady Barb warned, as they reached the edge of the wards protecting the castle. Lightning flashed as they stepped through the wards and ran towards the heavy doors. “You cannot trust anyone there.”
Emily canceled her protective spell as they tumbled into the castle. “Is there no one who could advise me?”
Lady Barb hesitated. “There is someone,” she said, finally. There was something in her voice that made Emily reluctant to press the issue. “I will speak with him and see if he will assist us.”
She took a breath before casting a spell to dry herself. “You can join me and Sergeant Miles for dinner tonight,” she said. “Then you can go to bed. There will be quite a bit of preparation to do before we turn you loose on Mountaintop.”
Emily nodded, feeling a sudden surge of affection for the prickly older woman. “Thank you,” she said, sincerely. She paused. “Did you know about this before we left for the mountains?”
“Yes,” Lady Barb said. She held up a hand before Emily could say a word. “And I didn’t tell you, to answer your next question, because you didn’t need to worry about it during our holiday.”
“Holiday,” Emily repeated. It had been muddy and unpleasant and she’d seen more than she’d wanted to see of how the poorer parts of the Allied Lands lived. But it had also been educational, and she’d enjoyed having Lady Barb to herself. It was almost like having a proper mother. “Thank you, I suppose.”
“Thank me when you come back,” Lady Barb said.
She turned and headed towards the stairs, then stopped and looked back. “Join us in my apartment at three bells,” she told Emily. “I’ll have a book sent to you, one from the forbidden section. I want you to read it thoroughly, as I will quiz you over dinner. And then you will have some hard choices to make.”
“I understand,” Emily said, even though she didn’t. But she also knew she’d get nowhere by badgering the older woman. Students at Whitehall were expected to do more than just memorize something long enough to pass an exam and then forget it. “I’ll see you at dinnertime.”
Chapter Three
“I UNDERSTAND THAT YOU READ THE book,” Professor Eleas said, the following morning. “Do you understand what we’re asking you to do?”
Emily swallowed, and nodded. The book had made uncomfortable reading. There was one permanent defense against subtle magic, but it involved carving runes into her bare flesh, personally. The defense, for reasons the book’s author had felt unable to specify, didn’t work so well if someone else carved the runes.
She looked around the office, unwilling to meet the petite professor’s compassionate gaze. It was a fascinating room, lined with overflowing bookshelves, enough books to keep Emily going for weeks. One wall was decorated with tiny knives and surgical tools that were part of the professor’s craft, while a small chair sat in the far corner. Emily wanted to look away from it, knowing–thanks to her reading–what purpose it served. Reluctantly, she looked back at the professor. His gaze had never left her face.
He was a short potbellied man, wearing nothing more than a loincloth. His skin, even his bald head, was covered in runes, mostly carved by himself. Emily shuddered at the thought of pricking her own skin with a knife, let alone following a careful outline to complete the rune on her bare skin. The professor had carved so many runes into his body that a single mistake could have destroyed his life’s work. Few magicians used so many runes, even to protect themselves. Emily understood why.
“Emily,” the professor repeated. “Do you understand what we’re asking you to do?”
“Yes,” Emily whispered. “You want me to carve my own skin.”
“Yes,” Professor Eleas said, bluntly. “It will not be easy. One mistake, just one, and we will have to heal the skin quickly and start again. We cannot risk allowing you to walk away with an imperfect rune on your body. The results would be... bad.”
Emily nodded, unable to speak. Her reading had told her precisely how bad it could be, if she made a single mistake. She might accidentally curse herself, leave her mind open and vulnerable or even blight herself with bad luck. There were too many dangers for anyone to accept it blithely.
“They’ll know what I did,” she said, quietly.
“They will,” Professor Eleas agreed. “But how could they complain?”
They couldn’t, Emily thought, gazing at the professor’s bare chest. Everyone who can uses protection against subtle magic.
“Lady Barb will draw out the rune on your body,” the professor said. He touched his chest, between his nipples. A large rune had been carved out there, glowing with a faint blue light. “But I will have to check it before you start carving.”
Emily flushed. “There’s no alternative?”
“I am the expert,” Professor Eleas said. He didn’t sound annoyed. “There’s no time to call anyone else, Emily.” He tried a reassuring smile. “Lady Barb will be in the room.”
Emily cringed, mentally. She’d never liked undressing in front of anyone, even other girls. Growing up in a house where her stepfather had watched her had left her mentally scarred, unable to wear tight-fitting or revealing clothing for fear of exposing far too much. And yet, somehow, it was no longer as horrifying a thought as it had once been.
But there was no time to dwell on her feelings.
“I understand,” she whispered, gritting her teeth. “Let’s get on with it.”
Professor Eleas nodded, making a motion in the air with his left hand. Moments later, Lady Barb entered, her face utterly expressionless. Emily knew the older woman well enough to understand that she was worried, perhaps more worried than she was prepared to admit. She’d known just how hard it would be for Emily to expose herself to anyone.
“Draw out the rune,” Professor Eleas ordered, passing her the chalk. “I will turn my back.”
He suited action to words as Lady Barb stepped over to Emily and motioned for her to take the chair. Magic–barely powerful enough to be sensed over the constant background hum from the school’s wards–shimmered around Emily as she sat down, doing what it could to prepare her for her ordeal. Lady Barb sighed, then pointed a finger at Emily’s shirt. Flushing, Emily pulled it off, then removed her makeshift bra. Lady Barb rested one hand on Emily’s shoulder and then started to draw on her bare flesh between her breasts. Looking down, Emily could see a simple rune taking shape. It looked like a slightly lopsided six-point star.
“Done,” Lady Barb said. Compared to the complex, snake-
like runes on the professor’s bare back, it was simplicity itself. “Professor?”
Emily closed her eyes, feeling her face grow red and hot. There was a long pause, then she heard the professor turn away again. Lady Barb pushed something into her hand; Emily opened her eyes and saw a simple silver knife. She knew, from experience, that it would be spelled to remain sharp and clean indefinitely. And that it would cut through her flesh as easily as it would cut through butter.
“Be careful,” Lady Barb said, as she rolled a large mirror over to allow Emily to see what she was doing. “And if you make a mistake, put the knife down at once.”
“I know,” Emily said, miserably. She had to do it. If anyone else did the carving, the rune could simply be healed, canceling the magic. The only way to embed it into her skin properly was to carve it herself. “I understand.”
She couldn’t help staring at her breasts as she lifted the knife, feeling just how solid it was in her hand. They were nowhere near as large or shapely as Alassa’s–but then, she’d never wanted to have giant breasts in the first place. Her damned stepfather had left her with enough body issues to worry about what would happen, if they’d been any larger. And besides, she simply hadn’t eaten enough as she was growing to make them grow properly, along with the rest of her body. She’d been more than a little malnourished when she’d arrived at Whitehall.
At least I’m not a D-Cup, she thought. That would attract far too much attention.
Carefully, she placed the blade against her chest, but hesitated. There was no way any form of pain relief spells could be used, not here. Magic always came with a price, she knew, and pain was part of the price for carving magical runes into one’s own body. She gritted her teeth, then pressed the blade against her skin. It was hard, so hard, to overcome her body’s reluctance to harm itself. But if it wasn’t, she suspected, she might have killed herself long before she’d discovered the multiverse was far bigger than anyone knew.
Schooled in Magic 5 - The School of Hard Knocks Page 3