Schooled in Magic 5 - The School of Hard Knocks

by Christopher Nuttall

  Emily forced herself to look away, then started to put the first ingredients in her wok. Magic flared to life almost at once as the ingredients mixed, much to her alarm. She’d seen quick-reacting potions before, but this was different. Hastily, she charged the wand with the first piece of spellwork–thankfully, she’d had enough practice with her staff not to overdo the spell–and started to use it to stir the mixture, allowing power to flow through the wand. She braced herself for another explosion, but all the mixture did was start to bubble.

  She glanced at the sheet of instructions, then picked up a vial of Basilisk Blood and started to drip it into the mixture. The reaction was immediate; one moment the mixture was bubbling like cream, the next it started to glow with magic. Emily jumped backwards, just in time to avoid having her face singed when the wok exploded. As before, the blast was contained by the wards, but the smell wasn’t. Emily wrinkled her nose, and cringed mentally as Zed made his way back to her seat. He didn’t look happy.

  “Too much Basilisk Blood,” he said, angrily. “The precise level of blood required changes depending on just when your mixture starts to boil. You need to tighten your senses to detect the changes within the brew.”

  “Yes, sir,” Emily said. She cursed under her breath. Cooking had been bad enough, yet it had been easy compared to Alchemy. But then, she’d always been more interested in feeding herself than trying to make her food taste nice. And she hadn’t always had the ingredients to follow the recipe precisely. “I didn’t catch it in time.”

  “No, you didn’t,” Zed agreed. He gazed down at her for a long moment, but simply waved his hand, banishing the mess. “Start again. This time, pay closer attention to the magic as it swirls around the wok. You don’t want to lose more ingredients by missing the signs that indicate it is about to blow.”

  Emily nodded in relief. She had few illusions about the cost of Basilisk Blood–or many of the other ingredients in the recipe. There were breeders who reared such creatures as casually as farmers reared sheep or cattle, but it was an immensely dangerous occupation. And some of the other creatures they raised made Basilisks look as dangerous as kittens. She knew that Whitehall and Mountaintop were immensely rich, by the standards of the Allied Lands, yet she’d just wasted a sizable amount of money. It would be hard to blame Zed for being angry with her.

  “Thank you,” she said, instead.

  Zed gave her a sharp look, then marched away to deliver a sharp lecture to Claudia. The girl looked annoyed; she’d managed to make it through the first three steps, only to lose control of her mixture as she started to add several other ingredients. Emily turned her attention back to her wok, primed the wand with the spells she would require later on in the mixture, and started again. This time, the third step turned into something corrosive; she dropped the wand as it started to melt in her hand.

  “You used too much power,” Zed said, stamping back over to glare down at her wok. “Did you prime the wand ahead of time?”

  Emily winced at his accusing tone, but nodded.

  “This is rather more complex than anything simple,” Zed said, making the word a curse. “A staff is poor preparation for using a wand in alchemy. I would suggest that you have a word with one of the Wandmistresses. They will be able to teach you the finer points of handling a wand.”

  Several of the girls tittered. Emily felt her cheeks heat, realizing that he’d finally managed to take a shot at her. She had a feeling, given just how many wands she’d seen in Mountaintop, that students were taught to use them earlier than at Whitehall. He’d just managed to send her back to the local counterpart of kindergarten. But, given the dangers of using wands too frequently, surely it wasn’t worth the risk.

  But he was right. She did need the lesson.

  “Yes, sir,” she said, subdued. “And...”

  “Wait,” Zed said, as three more woks exploded into flame. “We will discuss the matter later, sometime later in the week.”

  He walked back to the center of the room, then turned to face his students. “As you can see,” he said, with a sudden smile, “this is quite a complex brew. None of you got past the fourth step.”

  There was a long pause. Emily heard one of the girls muttering unpleasantly, just loud enough to be heard. Zed waved a hand at her and she froze, unable to move or speak. Emily shivered–she hated that spell; even being turned into an animal was preferable–and forced herself to listen. It was clear that Zed didn’t tolerate interruptions.

  “We will be doing this again and again until you all manage to brew it successfully on a regular basis,” Zed informed them. “I will be talking to some of you individually over the next few days, discussing how to improve your brewing skills. This is complex enough, after all, to defeat even experienced magicians. Only a skilled Alchemist can guarantee not to waste ingredients in a futile attempt to prepare Manaskol.”

  He paused. “I would suggest you go back to your dorms and wash thoroughly before dinner,” he added. “Those of you I told to stay behind, stay behind. Everyone else can leave.”

  Emily rose with the other students and–feeling as though she’d passed a test of some kind–stepped through the door and made her escape. It hadn’t been quite as bad as she’d feared, but she knew it might get worse... that it would get worse. Zed had clearly spotted her weakness and intended to exploit it.

  She sighed, but followed the other girls back to Raven Hall. Zed was right. They definitely needed to wash... and then she could do some research. She’d never studied the use of wands in Alchemy, after all, and it was clear that she needed to learn.

  And besides, she told herself, the more she knew, the harder it would be for him to embarrass her in front of the class.

  Chapter Ten

  EMILY HAD FELT EXHAUSTED AND STRESSED at the start of her Second Year at Whitehall, but Third Year at Mountaintop was worse. Five days of classes, some where she excelled and some where she was behind the other students, had taken their toll. Zed’s constant gaze, when she was in his class, was unnerving, as was his habit of correcting her more blatantly than he corrected anyone else. And then there was the constant need to watch what she said...

  She staggered into Raven Hall, feeling like a shower and an early bed without bothering to go for dinner, but stopped in annoyance as she saw an envelope on her bed. Frieda would have been given it, she knew, and told to place it there for Emily... she shook her head, fighting down the sudden surge of irritation, and reached for the envelope. Inside, there was a short note inviting her to the Administrator’s office after dinner. It didn’t look, despite the flowery language, as if she were being offered much of a choice.

  Annoyed, Emily grunted to Frieda when the younger girl entered the dorm and walked out, heading for the refectory. Dinner, unlike lunch, was served between six and eight evening bells, with students invited to attend whenever they felt like it. Emily had a private suspicion that several of the students had held midnight feasts, perhaps in some of the passageways that weren’t officially part of the school, but no one had invited her to join their gatherings. Besides, she’d also heard Nanette catch several girls trying to sneak out of the dorm on Wednesday and give them a sharp lecture. She wasn’t sure that sneaking out was worth the risk just yet, not when she was probably still being watched closely.

  Dinner was relatively simple compared to Whitehall’s fare, but there was a lot of it. Emily ate quickly–she’d been eating much more since coming to the Nameless World–then walked out of the refectory and through the maze of passageways towards the Administrator’s office. The wards pervading the school, as always, perplexed her more than she cared to admit. They didn’t seem to monitor the students as closely as the wards pervading Whitehall, but they did prevent certain kinds of magic from being used in the corridor. Any night-vision spell seemed to fail completely.

  It puzzled her. She could understand limiting the number of spells the students could use on each other outside class–bullying was alarmingly easy with m
agic–but why prevent students from using a spell to see in the dark? Unless they were afraid that students would walk into one another in the darkness... no, that made little sense. No matter how many other spells she tested, she hadn’t found anything else the wards barred. She was tempted to ask Aurelius, but she didn’t quite dare. There were several other questions she didn’t dare ask him, either.

  She stepped into the lighted administrative complex and winced, inwardly, as she saw a line of unhappy-looking students in front of a stone door. As she passed, a boy emerged, trying to look as though his punishment hadn’t really hurt. Emily wanted to roll her eyes–young men seemed to be the same in both schools–but instead she averted her eyes as she walked up to the Administrator’s office and pressed her hand against the stone door. It opened smoothly a moment later, allowing her to step inside. The office appeared to be empty.

  “Come through here,” Aurelius’s voice called. It echoed from a third door, one that had been firmly closed the first time she’d visited his office. “It’s quite all right.”

  Emily stepped inside and stopped dead. The room seemed to be a comfortable sitting room, complete with stuffed sofas and a small table, but it wasn’t that that caught her attention. Ahead of her, covering the far wall, was a painting that seemed to glow, suggesting that the artist had worked magic into his work. Emily stepped forward involuntarily and stared. She had never cared much for art–her first art teacher had been unbearably pretentious–but this was something different.

  “It catches everyone that way,” Aurelius said. Emily flushed. She’d been so captivated by the painting she hadn’t seen him lounging on one of the sofas. “Please. Feel free to study it.”

  “Thank you,” Emily said. “What is it?”

  Up close, more and more detail was revealed as she stared at it. The painting showed two men, one wearing monkish garb, the other wearing wizard robes and a pointy hat. Both of them stood inside circles drawn on the ground, which were surrounded by hundreds of demonic monsters, their claws trying to rend and tear at the two magicians. Both of them looked a little apprehensive, as if they’d bitten off more than they could chew. Emily leaned forward, trying to drink in every last detail. She couldn’t help noticing that both magicians held books under their arms.

  “They were the last of the DemonMasters,” Aurelius said. “Back then, magicians summoned demons regularly, sacrificing a little of their lifeblood to keep a horde of monsters at their beck and call. The ones who had the most demons under their control were known as the DemonMasters. They were greatly feared by all who knew them.”

  He nodded to the book under one of the magician’s arms. “That’s a Book of Pacts,” he said, flatly. “The details of each bargain were recorded in the magician’s own blood, then stored for later reference.”

  Emily turned to look at him. “What happened to them?”

  “Seven hundred years ago, according to legend, that one”–he pointed to the man in wizard robes–“challenged the other to a duel. They drew their circles of protection, then started summoning monsters and hurling them at each other. But the monsters grew more and more powerful until they finally broke through the circles. Both magicians were devoured. It was the end of an era.”

  He smiled at her, and pointed to one of the bystanders. “Do you recognize that man? The one standing next to the white-haired girl?”

  Emily frowned. The bystander looked young, physically, but his hair was shockingly white and his face was lined and grave. His female companion had the same appearance of youth mixed with great age. He leaned on his staff and watched as the two DemonMasters met their ends. But his face was completely unfamiliar to Emily.

  “No,” she said.

  “If legend is to be believed,” Aurelius said, “he is Lord Whitehall. The founder of your former school.”

  “Seriously?”

  “I am not in the habit of joking,” Aurelius said, sternly. He shrugged. “But legend is often unreliable. There are too many records from that era that were deliberately destroyed–or lost in the chaos of the Faerie Wars. Even Mountaintop’s origins are lost in a haze of lost documents, disinformation and outright lies.”

  Emily could well believe it. “And the girl?”

  “No one knows,” Aurelius said. “She’s only mentioned in a handful of manuscripts dating from that era, all of which contradict themselves blatantly. There are some people who believe she never existed at all.”

  He turned and sat down on the sofa, beckoning for her to sit facing him. “I don’t know if you’ve tasted this before,” he said, pouring hot brown liquid into a glass, “but you might like it.”

  Emily sat, smoothing down her dress, and took the proffered glass. It felt warm against her bare hand, but there was clearly a charm worked into the glass to prevent it from burning her skin. A simple spell revealed it was safe to drink. When she tasted it, she thought of tea, strong sweet tea. And a faint hint of sugar.

  “Nice,” she said, slowly. She’d rarely tasted tea on Earth. “What is it and why don’t we have this in Whitehall?”

  “You probably have to ask for Teh Tarik,” Aurelius said. “Not everything is provided; sometimes, you have to ask.”

  He poured himself a glass and sat back on the sofa. “You’ve completed your first week at Mountaintop,” he added. “Are you enjoying yourself?”

  “It’s proving... very challenging,” Emily said, after a moment. Mountaintop felt familiar enough for the differences to be truly disconcerting. She really didn’t like having a Shadow hovering around her bed, as if she expected Emily to find her something useful to do. “But it’s also proving very interesting.”

  “Good, good,” Aurelius mused. He looked down at the glass in his hands. “The remaining students have all returned to school–those we haven’t frightened off, that is. From now on, the wards protecting the school will be tightened. It will be difficult to leave until the end of the first semester. Do you want to remain here for the next three months, at the very least?”

  Emily hesitated. She didn’t want to seem too enthusiastic. And besides, part of her wanted to forget the mission and go straight back to Whitehall, where there were no Shadows, watching eyes and teachers who openly disliked her. She would be safe there.

  But you’d pass up the chance to learn just what is happening here, her thoughts rebuked her, gently. And you do want to know what happened to Lin, don’t you?

  “I have some questions,” she hedged. “Why didn’t anyone tell me about the Shadows?”

  Aurelius looked surprised. “Oversight,” he said, finally. “The details are included in the prospectus we provide to all new students and their families. Some students serve as Shadows as a way to pay their tuition fees. Your father should have discussed the issue with you.”

  “I don’t think he expected me to come here,” Emily pointed out, snidely. Nanette had implied that all students spent time serving as Shadows. She would have to ask more questions and sort out the discrepancy later. “He sent me to Whitehall.”

  “True,” Aurelius agreed. He looked up, meeting her eyes. “If there are other details you wish explained, Nanette will explain them to you. It is part of her duties.”

  She hasn’t had time for me since the others returned, Emily thought, a little resentfully. Jade had always found time for her... but then, they’d shared a class. Nanette was in charge of the entire Hall, as well as serving as the school’s Head Girl. She had no time for anyone, let alone Emily.

  “I’ll ask her,” she said, instead.

  “Please,” Aurelius said. “Do you have other questions?”

  Emily hesitated, then shook her head.

  “Then we do need an answer,” Aurelius said. “Do you wish to stay? You will be unable to leave until the end of the first semester at the very earliest.”

  “What happens,” Emily asked, “if I get expelled?”

  “You get turned into something inanimate for the rest of the semester,” Aurelius said. She
rather doubted he was joking. “There are other ways to deal with rowdy or disobedient students than simple expulsion.”

  “Yes, sir,” Emily said. She took a breath. “I would like to stay.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Aurelius said. He looked down at his glass and took a sip of his drink. “You will, of course, have to take the oaths.”

  He reached into his pockets and withdrew a sheet of paper. Emily took it and scanned the words automatically, feeling magic tingling around her fingertips. It wanted her to swear the words out loud, to bind them to her with her magic...

  I swear, upon my magic and my life, that I will keep the secrets of Mountaintop, that I will uphold the traditions of Mountaintop, that I will honor the teachers of Mountaintop and that I will put my magic at the school’s disposal, should I be called upon to serve.

  * * *

  She’d expected something worse, she knew, but the oath struck her as curiously imprecise. What were the secrets of Mountaintop - and what were its traditions?

  Even so, it didn’t matter. She couldn’t swear the oath without fatally compromising her mission. But she did have a way out.

  “No,” Emily said. She winced at his suddenly dark expression, but forced herself to remain calm. “My father ordered me not to take any oaths without consulting him.”

  “That will not be necessary,” Aurelius said, too quickly. For a second, so quickly she was half-convinced she was imagining it, he looked worried. “We would not ask you to go against your father. You will be spared the oaths for your first semester, at least. Should you wish to stay longer, we may have to open discussions with your father.”

  Emily kept her expression blank, but she was frowning inside. Aurelius had given in way too easily. She’d expected to be asked to take oaths, sooner or later; indeed, she’d been surprised when she realized she’d been accepted without being asked to swear even a basic oath of secrecy. Maybe he’d just been planning to dangle the joys of Mountaintop in front of her before insisting she took the oaths.