Schooled in Magic 5 - The School of Hard Knocks

by Christopher Nuttall

  “And that makes us superior,” Robyn said. She eyed Emily with frank puzzlement. “Do you really think that mundanes could be our equals?”

  She waved her hand, casting a spell. A glimmering image of her face appeared, and then faded away. “How many of them could do that?”

  Emily met her eyes. “We can have children,” she said. “Steven and Marius”–she nodded towards the two Sixth Years, talking earnestly about something at the far side of the room–“cannot, at least not without perverted spells. Does that make them inferior to us, or superior? Or just different?”

  She fought down her temper. This was important. “You can’t judge a person on birth,” she warned. “You have to give them the options they need to shine.”

  “You were born to a Lone Power,” Robyn observed. “Why would you believe that people might be... equals?”

  Emily cursed herself for getting too wrapped up in the argument to realize that she was treading in dangerous waters. “I was largely brought up by the servants,” she lied, allowing a hint of bitterness to enter her voice. “My father had very little to do with me.”

  “Maybe he considered you a disappointment,” Robyn said, nastily.

  Maybe it was my fault my real father vanished, Emily thought, bitterly. Would things have been better if he’d remained with my mother?

  She cursed under her breath. There was no way to know.

  But Emily herself proved her point. Trapped in a poor household, forced to fend for herself just to eat and drink, she had never had a chance to shine. In the Nameless World, with friends and tutors who actually cared, she had grown and blossomed. And changed the world. How many others had the same intelligence as Imaiqah, but lacked the magic to take them out of their mundane lives and into Whitehall? Or had access to the tutors who could teach them how to read and write?

  That will change, she swore to herself. One of her planned innovations for her Barony was to insist that everyone had at least some schooling–and it would be practical, too, with English letters and Arabic numerals. The guilds would hate it, at first, but it would eventually give them a far greater pool of potential recruits. But she’d have to fight to make sure there wasn’t a teacher’s guild. She had far too much experience, on Earth, with incompetent teachers being allowed to remain in place because they had tenure or it was too hard to sack them.

  “My father is his own man,” she said, as Robyn cleared her throat. “And I have never been allowed to forget it.”

  “Probably not,” Robyn said. She sighed. “But you do realize my point?”

  “I think it is a flawed point,” Emily said, carefully. “You are claiming superiority based on an accident of birth, not on achievement. You might as well give one Ken team a colossal lead in points, then declare their inevitable victory a fair match. But it wouldn’t be remotely fair.”

  She smiled, grimly. “Would it not be better to help people achieve their potential?”

  Robyn looked down at the table. “Do you feel we could?”

  “I think we have to try,” Emily said. Perhaps it was arrogant of her to start introducing concepts from Earth, but she hadn’t felt she had a choice. The natural beauty of the Nameless World was more than offset by the lives lived by most of its population. Hot and cold running water alone would make one hell of a difference. “And we cannot start by declaring that magicians are insurmountably superior to mundanes.”

  “But we are,” Robyn protested. “I could cast a spell and turn a mundane into a frog. But could he do that to me?”

  “No,” Emily said. “But that brings us back to the idea that a particular talent, an accident of birth, grants superiority. Does the ability to have children make a woman superior to a man?”

  “My mother would argue it does,” Robyn said. “I suspect my father would disagree.”

  She smiled, but there was a ragged edge to her smile. “But the gap between the two genders is not insurmountable,” she said. “There are spells that can make a man capable of bearing a child, at least for some time, and potions that can cause a complete shift in gender. No power we know will make someone a magician if they do not already have the potential for magic.

  “A weak man can build himself up and make himself strong,” she added. “But a mundane cannot become a magician. At best, he can wield magical tools.”

  “But a mundane could produce a magical child,” Emily countered, remembering Imaiqah. “I don’t think that leaves them completely talentless.”

  “My children might be great magicians,” Robyn said. “But should I bask forever in their reflected glory?”

  She shrugged. “And even children who are expelled from Mountaintop or Whitehall rarely go back to their hometowns,” she pointed out. They have tasted a better way to live.”

  Emily nodded, sourly. She had grown up in a world where hot and cold running water had been on tap, where there were health and safety regulations, excellent medical care and Internet access. In many ways, she was the only pupil whose living conditions had degraded since she had come to Whitehall, although she wouldn’t have given it up for anything. But that wasn’t true of anyone else. Even Alassa hadn’t had hot and cold running water in her father’s draughty castle. But that was likely to change.

  She changed the subject. “Tell me about the MageMaster,” she said. “What is he like?”

  “Dying,” Robyn said. “The last I heard, he was in his private quarters. But no one has been allowed in there since his illness was first reported.”

  She shrugged again. “I think there’s going to be an almighty fight over who gets to succeed him after he passes on. Most of the tutors have already started jockeying for position and support among the Great Houses.”

  “But there can be only one,” Emily said. She knew that the tutors were positioning themselves. “They can’t all win.”

  “No, but they can make deals,” Robyn said. “If they convince their supporters to support someone else, that person will have a better chance at winning. So the frontrunners will try to make deals with the lesser candidates, then combine their votes in hopes of winning enough support to proceed and win the chair. And then spend the next decade paying off their debts.”

  Emily had to smile. “You seem to know a lot about it,” she commented.

  “Basic politics,” Robyn said. She snorted. “I’m distressed your father kept you so ignorant, Emily. You should have been learning this as you drank your mother’s milk.”

  “I have enough to keep track of,” Emily said. The politics of Whitehall, the politics of Zangaria, the politics of the Allied Lands as a whole... they all started to blur together into one tiresomely complex mass. And then something changed and she had to start figuring them out all over again. “And my head starts to hurt when I think about it too much.”

  “Then bear this in mind,” Robyn said. “No one, absolutely no one, reveals the true level of their involvement in anything, ever. You have to watch everyone to see who moves first, Emily, and yet you must always remember that whoever moves first may not be the most important person involved. And that everything comes with a price.”

  “Which might be enforced magically,” Emily said.

  She was about to say something else, but the bell rang, summoning them to the table. Robyn banished the privacy wards, rose, and led the way towards her seat, motioning for Emily to follow her. There was a logic to the seating pattern, Emily had been told, but it escaped her. The seniors sat at one end, yet the juniors were scattered around in accordance with some arcane procedure. She had a private suspicion that the procedure changed every day to allow the students to meet others in the quarrel.

  “There is an issue we have to discuss,” Steven said, when everyone had sat down and the table had been called to order. “The problem is the growth of... disputes among First Years.”

  “Hardly a problem,” an older boy said. “First Years have been having disputes since time out of mind.”

  “How true,” another boy sa
id. “Weren’t you the one who had a month’s detention for accidentally booby-trapping the wrong classroom?”

  “So I misread the timetable,” the first boy said. “A minor accident...”

  Steven banged the table. “This is not a conventional dispute,” he said. “I think we are approaching the level of organized violence.”

  Emily winced. Steven was right.

  “The fact remains,” the first boy said, “that this isn’t exactly uncommon. The new bugs have been learning all sorts of new spells just to keep up their fight. Some of them will make good recruits for us next year. Why, exactly, do we wish to discourage it?”

  “Because matters are getting out of hand in a time when there is a political dispute,” Steven said. Robyn had once said that he loved to hear himself talk and, Emily had to admit, she was probably right. “The Mage Master is dying and the tutors are starting to get more and more annoyed, while the proctors... well, the proctors are the proctors.”

  He looked around the room, his gaze alighting on Emily for several seconds before moving on. “I want each and every one of you to concentrate on stopping the fighting, if you see it happen,” he said. “The last thing we want is a blanket reaction from the tutors, particularly the ones who want to impress the governors with just how firmly they can respond to any problems within the school. We’re not talking about simple canings here!

  “Yes, many of the students taking part will make good recruits,” he added, “but only next year. Right now, they won’t be much good to anyone if they’re all expelled as a group, will they? Talk to them, warn them to stop being idiots and deal with them if they persist. Or there will be real trouble.”

  Robyn elbowed Emily. “He wants to be Head Boy,” she muttered, using a charm to hide her words from everyone else. “It would look good on his resume.”

  Emily frowned. “I thought he was in Sixth Year,” she replied. “How can he take Markus’s place?”

  “He can if he convinces enough of the tutors that he did something when Markus didn’t,” Robyn said. “The Head Boy is regarded as too easy-going right now.”

  Emily rolled her eyes. “What do they want?” she asked. “Markus to stand in the corridor and flog anyone who even looks at him funny?”

  “Probably,” Robyn told her. “This is politics. Each tutor has a good chance that they won’t have to deal with the consequences. So they do their best to look tough. And whoever gets the job after the MageMaster dies will have to sort out the mess.”

  She sighed, and returned her attention to Steven.

  Emily looked down at the table, trying to avoid a handful of accusing stares. It was her fault, even though she didn’t think she’d really had a choice. She was damned if she was leaving Frieda as the victim. But... things had definitely got out of hand.

  I’ll have another word with her, she told herself. And try to rein her in.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “THERE’S ANOTHER NOTE FOR YOU,” Frieda said, when Emily returned to Raven Hall. “I think it’s from the Administrator. And I just finished washing your clothes.”

  “Thank you,” Emily said. She’d never been comfortable around servants, even in Zangaria, and having Frieda act as a servant bothered her. “Pass me the note.”

  She took the envelope, opened it and read the handful of lines. Aurelius was inviting her, again, to his office after dinner. Emily sighed–she felt too tired to do anything more than fall into bed and sleep–but nodded to herself. If nothing else, she would definitely learn something new from the Administrator. It almost made up for having to deal with problems she wouldn’t have to face at Whitehall.

  “We need to talk,” she said, firmly. She pulled Frieda onto the bed, then cast a privacy ward. “I want you to do nothing more than defend yourself in the future, understand?”

  Frieda opened her mouth to argue, but Emily cut her off.

  “You have been noticed,” she said, sharply. She had no idea about how older students were allowed to handle her Shadow, but she rather doubted that any of the tutors would complain if Steven boxed Frieda’s ears. “And this is going to cause you problems in the future. I want you to stop!”

  She gritted her teeth. “I won’t be here next year,” she added. “You could be expelled, or simply held back a year, or even forced to take on binding oaths as a condition for you remaining in school. I want you to do nothing more than defend yourself.”

  Frieda looked oddly upset. “But why?”

  “Because there’s a fine line between defending yourself against bullying and becoming the bully,” Emily said. Something clicked in her mind and she swore, inwardly. She’d coped with Alassa’s early attempts at bullying because Whitehall’s staff had stepped in when things had gone too far. But Mountaintop’s staff hadn’t done more than shrug until matters had gone way out of hand. “And you are on the verge of crossing that line!”

  “I’m not,” Frieda protested. “I just want to make it clear that I can defend myself.”

  “I think you’ve succeeded,” Emily said. “But those people you are fighting have older brothers and sisters–and parents who have political and magical power. Do you think they will sit back and let you do anything you like, time and time again? These parents have real power and you are almost defenseless!”

  Frieda stared at her, mulishly. “All the better that I make my mark now,” she said, stubbornly. “If I can’t win, I can at least fight until I am overwhelmed.”

  Fatalism, Emily thought, remembering her holiday in the Cairngorms. The locals had a fatalistic attitude to life–whatever happened, happened–that had bothered her more than she wanted to admit. But then, they had little hope of anything better in their lives, apart from passing their homes and farms to their children. They might regard defeat and death as the natural outcome of life and just content themselves with making it harder for either one to actually win.

  “You have a bright future ahead of you,” Emily said, although she wasn’t sure that was true. But then, the quarrels would definitely want someone as powerful and capable as Frieda was becoming. “You shouldn’t throw it away for a private feud.”

  “I don’t know if I have a future,” Frieda said, standing and pushing against the edge of the wards. There was a bitterness in her voice that tore at Emily’s heart. There would have been no future for the younger girl without magic. “And why should I hold back now?”

  “Because I said so,” Emily snapped. “I can’t stop you making the choice to keep fighting, if you want, but I have to remind you of the possible consequences.”

  She reached out and smacked Frieda’s bottom, hard. “You will throw away everything I taught you if you keep acting like a child,” she added. She hesitated, then decided to cast a spell to prove a point. "Listen to me, and listen well. If you keep doing what you’re doing, other people are going to start doing this."

  Frieda flipped over and flew upwards to the ceiling, her feet sticking firmly to the stone. Her dress, Emily noted, was charmed to keep it in place, even if she did end up upside down.

  “And if I can overwhelm you so easily,” Emily continued, “what could an older magician do?”

  Frieda looked down at her. “I...”

  “You could be turned into something else, permanently,” Emily said. She put as much conviction into her voice as she could. “Or made to do whatever the magician wanted, or frozen in place, or trapped in a tiny room, or... ”

  She reversed the spell. “Please, Frieda. You must listen.”

  Frieda dropped down and landed next to Emily, her body shaking with outrage or shock.

  “I care about you,” Emily said, quietly. “Don’t let this get any further out of hand.”

  She stood, dispelled the wards and walked out of the room, heading down to the refectory. Outside, the corridors felt tense, almost as dark and dangerous as Whitehall when the Mimic had roamed the school, hunting for victims. Several of the halls had stronger security precautions than Emily had expected,
including wards intended to keep out uninvited guests. She shook her head in bitter disbelief, then cursed herself. It seemed to be her fate to be a disruptive influence wherever she went. As she made her way to the refectory she had the feeling that someone was shadowing her, a spell aimed at her back.

  But nothing happened.

  Dinner was simple enough, but the tables were separated and several groups of students were eating together, eying the other tables worriedly. Emily couldn’t remember such an awkward dinner since the aftermath of the coup in Zangaria, where everyone had looked as though they expected everyone else to draw swords and start a massacre. Now, she suspected, a single hex would start a bloodbath, or someone would cough and someone else would take it as a sign to start a fight. She took a plate of food, ate it as silently as she could, then left the room, feeling–once again–as though someone had drawn targeting crosshairs on her back. The two proctors who passed her in eerie silence simply ignored her. But it was clear they were looking for trouble.

  She reached Aurelius’s office and knocked on the door. It was almost a relief when it opened and, after it closed behind her, the sensation of being watched faded away. Had someone been following her? Or was it just general paranoia, combined with a sense that no one would pick a fight inside the Administrator’s territory? In Mountaintop, she reminded herself, they really were out to get her.

  Or they will be when they work out that I caused the problem in the first place, Emily thought. Nanette knew, so she rather assumed the other seniors also knew. Perhaps Steven had been aiming his words at her specifically. But what else could I have done?

  Aurelius stood by the bookcase, his back to her, reading a book. He put it down as she entered and turned to face her, his face lighting up into a smile of welcome. Emily smiled back, feeling oddly relieved to see him, then took her normal seat. Aurelius sat down facing her and crossed his legs. His robes glittered brightly under the light globe overhead.