That may change, Emily thought, as the carriage rattled across the bridge. The scent of fish hung in the air, making her gag. Firearms and steamboats will change everything.
Lady Barb glanced back at them both and pulled to a halt next to the guardhouse. A pair of grim-faced men inspected her papers, glanced at Emily and Melissa, and waved them through without further ado. Emily kept her face expressionless as Lady Barb drove them past a series of fortifications, stopping just as the first row of terraced houses came into view. It looked as though someone had discovered the concept of skyscrapers without actually being able to build them properly. Emily couldn’t help being reminded of Lego cities built by children, as if bigger houses had been piled on top of smaller houses. She was mildly surprised that whole blocks of buildings hadn’t come toppling down by now. The builders were either very good or magicians.
“Thank you for the ride,” Melissa said. She scrambled down from the carriage, collected her bag and nodded to Lady Barb. “I’ll see you tomorrow, probably.”
Emily frowned as Melissa turned and headed off down the street. “Is she safe here?”
“She’s a magician,” Lady Barb said, as if that were answer enough. “And even if she weren’t, Beneficence is one of the safest places to live...at least outside the Lower Depths. The City Guard is known for being very alert to possible threats.”
She whipped the horses back into motion and guided the carriage along a dark road. The buildings loomed close, overshadowing them; pedestrians walked past the carriage, heedless of the potential danger. A handful of young children - male and female - were following the horses, waving cheerfully. Emily kept one hand on her money pouch as she studied the locals. Many of them looked wealthier than the commoners she’d seen in Zangaria...
...And dozens of women were walking alone.
“This is Magicians Row,” Lady Barb said, as they turned into a short cul-de-sac. The scent of magic surrounded them, beating on the air. “Most of the magicians in the city live here, so be on your best behavior.”
Emily nodded, watching the passing buildings with wide eyes. They were decorated with runes and large signs advertizing their wares. A cluster of alchemists sat next to a large building offering enchanted artefacts; beyond them, a small inn offered a place to meet magicians who didn’t have an establishment of their own. There weren’t so many people on the streets, she noted; magicians tended to have nasty senses of humor and she had a feeling the local residents weren’t averse to playing tricks on their neighbors. A handful of children wearing robes ran past, playing with a floating light ball. Emily wondered, suddenly, what it would have been like to grow up surrounded by magic.
I could have asked Melissa, she thought. She would have been able to tell me.
She felt her heartbeat starting to race as Lady Barb pulled up next to a grey building. It looked smaller than she’d expected, but living space was expensive within the city.
“Just remember what you’ve been told,” Lady Barb said, as she tied the horses to a hitching post. She’d drilled proper manners into Emily until they were both thoroughly sick of the whole thing. “And remember that Caleb will be as stressed about it as you.”
Emily nodded, smoothing down her robes. She didn’t have any real family, not in the Nameless World; Caleb, on the other hand, was bringing her home to meet his family. It had to be nerve-wracking for him. Lady Barb looked her up and down, eyed the ring on her finger and then turned to knock on the door. Emily could feel wards shimmering around the house, inspecting them, even before Lady Barb touched the wood. They were nested together so carefully that she wouldn’t have cared to try to break into the house.
And anyone caught breaking into a magician’s house can be killed, or transformed, or enslaved, she thought. And no one will say a word.
She felt her heart skip a beat as the door opened, revealing a stern-faced woman who looked like a sharper version of Caleb. Long brown hair, a shade or two darker than Emily’s, hung to her shoulder blades; she wore a long dark robe suitable for a combat sorcerer, with a wand, a knife and a short sword hanging from her belt. There wasn’t a hint of vulnerability in her movements. Emily had to fight down the urge to take a step backwards as the woman studied her through unblinking eyes.
“Lady Emily, I presume,” she said, finally. “I am Mediator Sienna of House Waterfall. I bid you welcome to my home.”
“I thank you,” Emily said, remembering her manners. “I pledge to hold my hand in your home.”
Lady Barb echoed her a moment later. Sienna nodded to her, one combat sorceress to another, and then turned to lead the way into the house. Emily couldn’t help looking around, fascinated; the house was smaller than she’d expected, but it glowed with life. Magical lanterns hung from the walls, which were decorated with paintings clearly drawn by children. A handful of medals, including one she knew came from Zangaria, were embedded in the stone, protected by a layer of magic. Caleb’s mother paused for a second beside a household god, hidden in an alcove, then opened the door into the living room. Emily smiled in relief as she saw Caleb, sitting on a hard wooden chair, then braced herself as she saw his siblings sitting around him. He didn’t look pleased to be sitting right next to them.
“Lady Emily,” Sienna said. “Allow me to introduce my family. My husband, General Pollack; my eldest son, Casper of House Waterfall; my daughters Karan and Marian of House Waterfall. My younger son, Croce of House Waterfall, was held back at Stronghold and could not attend.”
Emily bowed her head in greeting. General Pollack looked formidable; he reminded her of Sergeant Harkin, only slightly less muscular. His face might have been handsome, once upon a time, but he had a moustache big and bushy enough to hide his mouth. Beside him, Casper looked just as muscular, his hair cropped close to his scalp. He eyed Emily with an odd fascination, as if he considered her to be both beautiful and dangerous. The younger girls seemed on the verge of giggles; Karan looked like a younger version of her mother, while Marian looked blonde and bubbly. It was clear, just from the way magic shifted around her, that Karan had come into her magic.
Sienna sat, resting her hands in her lap, and motioned for Emily to sit facing her. Lady Barb sat next to Emily, her face expressionless. Caleb met Emily’s eyes, just for a second, and they shared a moment of perfect understanding. The meeting couldn’t get any more awkward, could it?
“Fetch the food and drink,” Sienna ordered. The younger girls rose and scurried off into the kitchen. “We have prepared a small selection of snacks for you now, Lady Emily, and we will share a formal dinner later.”
“I thank you,” Emily said.
Sienna smiled, very briefly. “Did you really challenge Master Grey and then kill him?”
“Unintentionally,” Emily said. There was no point in trying to underplay it. Sienna would have read one of the many eyewitness reports of the duel. “He took something I said as a challenge and accepted it.”
“And lost,” Sienna said. She studied Emily carefully. “You must be very formidable, Lady Emily, to have beaten a combat sorcerer in your Fourth Year. I congratulate you.”
“It was impressive,” General Pollack agreed. His voice was thick, with an accent she couldn’t place. “But so, too, was the death of two necromancers.”
“I was lucky,” Emily said. She’d expected to be questioned about Void and her future plans, not Shadye and Mother Holly. “They made mistakes.”
“Everyone does,” General Pollack said. “Victory in war tends to go to the one who makes the least mistakes.”
“Father,” Marian said, as she returned carrying a tray of food. “You don’t have to start one of your war stories again.”
Her father glowered at her, then looked at Emily. “There are at least twenty other necromancers in the Blighted Lands,” he said. “It is believed that at least one or two of them is planning a new invasion of the Allied Lands. What will you do when they come across the borders?”
Emily swallowed. What
she’d done to Shadye was impossible to duplicate, at least without a great deal of raw power or a nexus point. Maybe she could lure another necromancer into Whitehall...somehow, she had the feeling the new Grandmaster, whoever he turned out to be, would frown on such a plan. But what she’d done to Mother Holly...the Nuke-Spell would be easy to duplicate, too easy. A single magician with a grudge against Beneficence could wipe out the entire city in a split second.
“I will do whatever seems best at the time,” she hedged. She didn’t even know if the Nuke-Spell could be used near a dozen other magicians without one of them cracking the secret and using it himself. Industrial espionage was rife among magic users. “Until then, I won’t know.”
“You might have to make your mind up very quickly,” General Pollack said. “If you are powerful enough to stand against a necromancer without going mad...”
Lady Barb cleared her throat. “I believe this conversation has taken a detour,” she said. “It is not remotely proper under the circumstances.”
Sienna smiled. “I must agree,” she said. “What are your plans for the future, Lady Emily?”
Caleb’s mother, Emily decided, was definitely formidable. She tossed question after question at Emily, some clearly understandable, others confusing. Why would she care what Emily liked to eat in the mornings? Or what spells she used on a regular basis to make her life more comfortable? By the time she died down, a little, Emily was feeling as if she’d been through another set of exams. It was almost a relief when General Pollack leaned forward.
“I was sorry to hear about Harkin’s death,” he said. “We were in the same Regiment at Stronghold, Lady Emily. He would have been proud, I think, to learn he’d turned his own death into a tactical advantage.”
Emily felt a stab of bitter guilt. She’d liked Sergeant Harkin, even though he’d been easily the most intimidating person she’d met. And he’d died at her hands...
“Thank you,” she said, softly. “What was he like? I mean, as a child?”
“Tough,” General Pollack said. “Never backed down from a fight. Never had the patience to...ah...speak sweetly to those in power. Always looked after his men, even when some lordly prat like myself wanted to get them killed. Broke my nose once when I argued with him. I wasn’t surprised when he became a sergeant at Whitehall. Someone needs to teach the snotty kids that mundanes can be dangerous too.”
He’s right, Emily thought. Someone does have to teach the students that magic doesn’t make them invincible.
“Father,” Caleb said.
Casper cleared his throat. “You killed Master Grey,” he said. There was something in his voice that worried her. Even if Caleb hadn’t warned her about his elder brother, Emily suspected she would have taken an instant dislike to Casper. “Have you realized that automatically puts you at the top of the dueling league?”
Emily blinked. She hadn’t thought about it. And yet, the first time she’d met Master Grey, she’d seen him duel. Lady Barb had even told her that Master Grey was too stubborn to simply walk away from the field. It would have been easy to take a fall during a non-lethal duel and leave the league.
“I’m not a duelist,” she said, uncomfortably. She didn’t like fighting. “And I don’t intend to join the league.”
“You can’t avoid it,” Casper said. “Everyone who wants to be on top will be thinking about challenging you. I would...”
“That will do, young man,” Sienna snapped.
You want it, Emily realized. She thought, suddenly, about simply offering to give it to him. It wasn’t as if she wanted or needed the ranking for herself. And if it brings you happiness, why not?
She dismissed the thought a second later. Casper would hold the title only as long as it took someone else to take it from him. He wouldn’t even gain a reputation from holding it unless he actually fought a proper duel with her. No one would be impressed if she simply surrendered it to him; they’d just take it and then try to make use of it for themselves.
“I apologize for my son’s rudeness, Lady Emily,” Sienna said. Her voice was so cold that Emily felt a stab of sympathy for Casper. “I assure you he will be disciplined.”
“We thank you,” Lady Barb said. Her voice was so tightly controlled that Emily had no difficulty in realizing she was trying not to laugh. “And we will happily consider the matter closed.”
Emily met Caleb’s eyes. He seemed torn between amusement and embarrassment. Emily couldn’t help wondering what it would have been like to have a caring mother, instead of a neglectful drunk. Would she have been glad of the support from someone who put her first or frequently embarrassed? If Lady Barb had been her real mother...
I would have been a very different person, she thought.
“We have prepared a room for you both,” Sienna said. “If you will do my family the honor of staying with us for two days, my son will happily show you around the city.”
“The honor is ours,” Lady Barb replied, formally. If things had gone badly, she could have declined and that would be the end of the courtship. “We thank you for your hospitality.”
Sienna clapped her hands together. “Karan, show Lady Emily and Lady Barb to their room,” she ordered. “Marian, Caleb; make yourselves scarce.”
Poor Casper, Emily thought.
She kept her face expressionless as Karan showed them up the stairs and into a medium-sized bedroom with two small beds. Lady Barb cast a privacy ward at once, then gave Emily a mischievous smile.
“Caleb will not be allowed to be with you without a chaperone, at least inside the house,” Lady Barb said. “But I’ll see to it you get some time alone together tomorrow. Just try not to do anything too demonstrative in public.”
She paused. “Do you like his family?”
“I don’t know,” Emily admitted. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of either of Caleb’s parents, although the girls looked as if they would be worth knowing. “But I do like him.”
“Ah,” Lady Barb said. “But you’re not just marrying him, are you?”
“No,” Emily agreed.
She scowled to herself as she started to undress. It was something to think about when she got a chance. But for the moment, all she wanted to do was sleep.
Chapter Nine
“I’M SORRY ABOUT CASPER,” CALEB SAID, the following morning. “He’s...a little surprised he wasn’t the first one to bring a girl home.”
“I think he wanted the dueling ranking,” Emily said. She pulled her cloak over her robes as they stepped out of the house. “I could just give it to him.”
Caleb looked torn. “Someone would kill him for it,” he said, finally. “He can be a prat half the time, but I don’t actually want him dead.”
Emily nodded. Casper had been subdued through the dinner, which had been something of a trial. General Pollack had talked incessantly about the need for unity against the necromancers, while his wife and Lady Barb had chatted about training the next generation of combat sorcerers and Emily had done her best to chat with the younger girls. Karan seemed to admire her, something that probably shouldn’t have surprised Emily, but did, while Marian had found it hard to even meet Emily’s eyes. Caleb had kept his mouth firmly closed. Emily had wished she could do the same.
She followed him down the road, passing a handful of magical shops, and out onto a wider street that reminded Emily of Alexis. It was lined with shops and stalls, the latter hidden under canopies that suggested it was about to start raining at any second. Hundreds of men and women were wandering around, chatting with their friends or haggling with the stallkeepers. Emily was amused to note that at least one of the stalls was surrounded by a number of middle-aged women, holding printed books in their hands and discussing the heroic endowments of the book’s hero.
“Mother caught Karan with one of those books,” Caleb muttered, as they passed. “She was not happy.”
“She’s too young to be reading something like that,” Emily said. She’d glanced at a couple of the
books, only to be repelled by a crudity that had put the handful of romance novels she’d read on Earth to shame. “Isn’t she?”
“She’s old enough to marry,” Caleb pointed out. “But I don’t think mother liked the story.”
“I wouldn’t like my daughter reading anything like that either,” Emily said. “They’re not particularly realistic.”
“And thank all the gods,” Caleb said.
Emily nodded and listened as Caleb talked about Beneficence. The city was divided into twenty-one districts, according to him, segregated by wealth and power. It was very familiar, Emily reasoned, although even the richest inhabitant couldn’t buy a mansion in the island city. There just wasn’t the space to go around. Most of the citizens worked, directly or indirectly, for the fishing trade, though the printing press and a number of other innovations had caused a small revolution. Emily wondered, absently, just how the locals would react if they’d known who she was and what she’d done. She’d designed their first printing press.
Though they’ve improved on the original design by now, she reminded herself. It isn’t mine any longer.
She pushed the thought aside as they passed a pair of temples, both flanked by giant statues of the gods. A handful of men in red robes stood outside the largest temple, handing out written leaflets and glaring at anyone who refused to take one. Emily took one and parsed it out, slowly; it called for the reader to repent of their previous gods and embrace the concept of justice.
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