It was a relief when the road finally reached bottom and headed down into the town. Someone had pulled the soldiers back to the castle, and crowds of people were bustling around, their faces torn between worry and relief. She wondered just how much they knew about what had happened in the castle, but decided it probably didn’t matter. The rumors would be much – much – worse. Several people cast odd glances at her, then looked away hastily. Emily forced herself to stand upright as she strode towards the headman’s house, trying to project a display of confidence. She wasn’t sure it worked.
The town was definitely better organized than the first village they’d visited. Behind the home of the local blacksmith, there was a fishmonger, calling for people to come and eat his fresh fish. The blacksmith himself – one of the beefiest men Emily had ever seen – didn’t seem impressed, either with the shouting or with the stench drifting through the air.
“Get your fresh fish here,” the fishmonger called, as the stench of fish drifted through the town. “Fresh fish! It’s lovely!”
“Your fish stinks,” the blacksmith shouted. “It’s rotten!”
Emily wrinkled her nose, then walked on to the headman’s house. Behind her, she heard the sounds of a fight breaking out. She didn’t look back.
There were two men outside the headman’s house as she approached. Emily forced herself to keep projecting confidence as she walked up to the door. One of them opened it for her and called inside, while the other bowed deeply but kept one hand on his sword. Emily wondered, absently, just why they were guarding their headman, before deciding it didn’t matter. She stepped inside and blinked in surprise as she saw the headman, sitting on a chair that seemed to balance on top of a ladder. It had to be his version of a throne.
She concealed her amusement as he stepped down and bowed to her. “Lady Sorceress,” he said. Up close, he was shorter than she’d realized – and fat enough to roll downhill. She couldn’t help wondering how he managed to eat so well, particularly when she hadn’t seen any other fat men since leaving the Faire. But he certainly looked kinder than Hodge’s father. “What can I do for you?”
Emily reminded herself, firmly, that she wasn’t a supplicant. “There are two matters that need to be discussed,” she said, trying to channel Lady Barb. “Have any children gone missing from your town?”
The headman looked surprised. “Of course not,” he said. “We haven’t lost anyone.”
But you gained one, Emily thought. Somehow, Rudolf had managed to pose as a townsperson for several days. She kept that thought to herself.
“No one,” she said. Surely, even the most powerful runes couldn’t hide a missing child from her parents? “The next issue, then: where is Rudolf?”
The headman started. Clearly, he’d been anticipating some uncomfortable questions from his lord after Rudolf had been discovered in his town. Emily wondered just what Lord Gorham would do, then decided that it was likely to be horrific. Or perhaps he would just invite Lady Barb to use magic to interrogate the headman.
“I don’t know,” the headman said, finally. “He ran into the countryside and vanished.”
Emily studied him for a long moment, deciding he seemed to be telling the truth. “Tell him that the matter has been solved and he is welcome to return home, should you see him again,” she said. She suspected that Rudolf had friends in the town, insofar as he could have friends. The social gulf between him and the townsfolk was staggering. “But the countryside isn’t safe.”
The headman’s eyes narrowed. “Why not?”
Emily hesitated. She could tell them about the necromancer...but what good would that do? It wasn’t as if they could do anything about it – all they could do was flee. But if they did, where would they go? She doubted that any of the other tiny kingdoms in the mountains could handle a horde of refugees. And yet, if they stayed where they were, they would be nothing more than fodder for the necromancer.
“I met up with a poisonous snake on the road yesterday,” she reminded him, finally. The entire village would have heard about the snake by now. “I was able to...deal with the snake, but I don’t think Rudolf would be so lucky.”
The headman paled. “I will pass on your message, if I see him. But he may have fled by now.”
Emily hoped not. She dreaded to imagine what one of the other mountain lords would do with Rudolf, let alone the necromancer. Lord Gorham would have to make whatever concessions they wanted, just to have his son returned.
“Please tell him, if you see him,” she said, “Spread the word.”
“Of course, My Lady,” the headman said.
Emily flushed, half-convinced she was being mocked. Sergeant Miles used the exact same tone when he was pointing out one of her mistakes, and she’d never liked it.
“Thank you,” she said, tartly.
She turned and walked out of the house, heading towards the post office. The postal service in the Allied Lands was run by the White Council rather than any of the independent kingdoms or city-states; in some ways, it reminded Emily of the Pony Express. But compared to email it was slow, cumbersome and unreliable. Magic could be used to move messages faster, but that required careful spellwork. She suspected she would have to look into it when she reached Fifth Year. Linking two crystal balls together was more complex, apparently, than it seemed.
The officer on duty – a part-time worker – took the letters, checked the seals and then stowed them away in a box. If he noticed Emily’s subtle check for magic or magical influences, he said nothing. Emily thanked him and left, picking up a copy of the latest broadsheet on the way out. She snorted in amusement as she read the front page story, as it was focused on the antics of Princess Lucinda, who lived on the other side of the Allied Lands. Why would anyone in the mountains really want to know about her?
She was still smiling at the thought as she returned to the castle.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“HE DOESN’T REMEMBER MUCH,” LADY BARB said, two days later. “I wish I could say I’m surprised.”
Emily nodded. Lord Gorham seemed to have blocked the whole experience out of his mind, leaving them without any leads to follow. None of his servants had any idea when the runes had first started to appear, either.
The more Emily looked at it, the more it seemed like the mystery necromancer had covered his tracks well. But why would a necromancer bother to hide?
Lady Barb smiled at her. “You did well with the sewn runes, by the way,” she added. “I think it will be a long time before anyone tries the same trick again.”
Emily let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. There were rules on sharing magical knowledge with mundanes, even though telling the maids how to sew protective runes had seemed the only answer. If Lady Barb had chosen to be annoyed...but Lady Barb was practical, certainly more practical than whoever had dreamed up the rules. Spreading that sort of knowledge far and wide would certainly make it harder for the mystery necromancer to spread his influence.
“We can’t stay here any longer,” Lady Barb continued. “I think we need to head onwards to Easter.”
“Where Lady Easter rules,” Emily said. She tried to recall the map she’d seen of the mountain states. “Isn’t that two days away?”
“More like four,” Lady Barb admitted. She grinned at Emily’s expression. “The direct route leads far too close to old ruins, so I’d prefer to avoid it.”
Emily shivered. Old ruins could only mean one thing, buildings constructed during the days of the Faerie. She’d seen one of them up close in the mountains near Whitehall and still had nightmares, sometimes. There were too many dangers in such ruins for anyone to be complacent about approaching them. Even a necromancer would have second thoughts about trying to enter such a place.
“Go pack your bag,” Lady Barb added. “And make sure you pack extra cloths with sewn runes. We might need them.”
Emily hastened to obey. When she returned, she found Lady Barb deep in conversation wit
h Lord Gorham. He looked pale and wan, but at least he was moving around. Emily waited at the door for them to finish, wondering just where Rudolf was now. He’d never returned to the castle. Maybe he was just waiting for the two magicians to leave.
“Come on,” Lady Barb said, finally. “Let’s go.”
The walk down the mountain path was no better this time. Emily kept her eyes firmly on the road until they reached the valley, then followed Lady Barb through the town and onto a path leading through the forests. This path was harder to follow than the last, she decided after spending thirty minutes scrambling over rocks and streams that were deceptively small, but treacherously fast. By the time they passed the river that marked the edge of Lord Gorham’s territory, she was exhausted, sweaty and desperate for a break.
“Not too much further to go,” Lady Barb said, encouragingly. For once, she looked exhausted, too. “You can do it.”
Emily scowled. The older woman had never shown a trace of being tired before, so why was she tired now? God knew Lady Barb had joined route marches with Martial Magic before...she hadn’t shown any real tiredness then either, any more than Sergeant Miles. She couldn’t help a flicker of concern. Was something wrong...or had her lack of sleep finally caught up with her? She doubted Lady Barb had had more than a few hours of sleep while they’d stayed at the castle.
She expended a great deal of magic there, she thought. She might be exhausted...
Lady Barb pressed onwards, somehow, until they reached another clearing. This one looked wilder than the last, as if someone had cut down the trees without bothering to do anything else to prevent them from growing back. Emily puzzled over how they’d removed the logs, then looked at the river and knew the answer. They’d simply floated the logs down to the town below, one by one. It was simpler than trying to drag them down overland.
“They prefer not to cut trees too close to the town,” Lady Barb explained, as she shrugged off her pack and placed it on a rock. “There’s an old tradition about what happens to towns that aren’t surrounded by trees.”
Emily removed her own bag and placed it next to Lady Barb’s. “What is it?”
“They believe that the trees provide some manner of protection,” Lady Barb said. “If they’re cut down, the town itself will die soon afterwards.”
It didn’t seem anything more than a superstition, Emily decided. The forest might make it hard for an invading army to reach the town, but it was far from impossible. A small band of raiders might manage to destroy the town before help could arrive from the castle, if Lord Gorham cared to try to save his people. He would, wouldn’t he? Lord Gorham had seemed more concerned about his people – and his son – after the runes had been removed. But she understood just how strongly people could cling to tradition.
Lady Barb held out a hand. “Pass me your staff,” she ordered. “Now.”
Emily hesitated, then removed the shrunken staff from her sleeve and passed it to Lady Barb, feeling the same odd reluctance to let go of it as always. Lady Barb enlarged it to cast a spell that removed the others embedded within the wood. Emily felt an odd vibration in the local magic field, which faded away rapidly into nothingness.
“You remember the rules, I assume,” Lady Barb said. “Or do I have to repeat them?”
“I remember,” Emily said. Sergeant Miles had gone through the rules every time he’d allowed Emily to use her staff, reminding her that she didn’t dare become dependent on it. She found it humiliating to be warned, time and time again, but she understood the dangers well enough to be careful. Alassa would never have progressed beyond First Year if she hadn’t rid herself of the wand. “I know the dangers.”
Lady Barb returned the staff. Emily took it, feeling an odd mixture of relief and revulsion. It was strange to realize that she was considered too young to use a staff, but there was no choice. Dozens of necromancers wanted her head, with or without it being attached to her body at the time. And then there were her other enemies. Even so...Sergeant Miles had once knocked her out, just to get her to let go of the staff. He’d had no other options.
“You know how to create a fireball,” Lady Barb said. “This time, I want you to create the spell, then embed it within the wood.”
Emily closed her eyes, caressing the staff with her fingers. It was strange, she realized, just how close the embedding process was to the power-sharing ritual. Sergeant Miles had never mentioned the latter, but they were definitely linked. One shared raw power, the other shared the spellwork that directed the power. She shaped the spell in her mind, envisioning it moving into the wood. There was a quiver of magic, then it was done.
“Good enough,” Lady Barb said. “It won’t last, of course.”
“I know,” Emily said. “But it will last long enough.”
She sighed. Even the hardest wood couldn’t hold spellwork indefinitely. Most magicians had to constantly renew the spells they kept in readiness. Alassa’s former cronies had done it for her, back when she’d been dependent on the wand. Some magicians, she’d been told, were never taught how to cast spells without a wand. Somehow, they were kept from realizing that they didn’t need one.
Lady Barb nodded and pointed to a tree. “That will do as a target,” she said. “Blast it.”
Emily held up the staff to channel her magic into the embedded spell. There was a flash of light as the fireball streaked across the clearing and struck the tree, blasting it out of the ground and sending it falling against another tree. Emily stared in astonishment as the tree slowly crashed to the ground, smashing itself into splinters.
It was so much easier to use magic with a staff.
Which is the trap, she reminded herself. It’s too easy to forget how to cast spells in your mind.
The staff seemed to glow with power as Lady Barb directed her to embed another two spells within the wood, then trigger them one after the other. Emily concentrated, feeling her power sucked into the wood as she triggered the spells. Two more trees were destroyed, one turned to ice and shattered, the other yanked out of the soil and dashed to the ground.
It was suddenly very hard to let go of the staff. No matter how she tried to tell her fingers to let go, they refused to move...
She yelped in pain as Lady Barb slapped her rear. Her fingers unclenched, allowing the staff to fall to the ground. Lady Barb picked it up, then shrank it back down to pencil-size and shoved it into her pocket. Emily glowered at her resentfully, rubbing her behind, but she knew better than to object. She’d come too close to dependency.
“No more experiments with the staff for a week,” Lady Barb ordered. There was no give in her voice at all. “And if you touch it, you’ll regret it.”
Emily nodded, shamefaced. There were older boys at Whitehall who’d tried to sneak into the sealed section of the armory and recover their staffs, despite the Sergeant’s strict orders. Holding the staff was addictive; the temptation to use it almost overpowering. Even the threat of dire punishment wasn’t enough to prevent an addict from striving for his fix. One boy had been forbidden to touch his staff ever again.
She blushed, remembering. Aloha had made a crude joke and the rest of the girls had started giggling. And then Emily had taught them the words to A Wizard’s Staff has a Knob on the End. The boys hadn’t seen the humor at all.
Lady Barb snorted, rudely. Emily realized she was waiting for an answer.
“I won’t,” she promised. How could she when Lady Barb was keeping it in her pockets? But then, an addict might be stupid enough to try to steal it anyway. “Why does that keep happening?”
“You’re not mature enough to handle it,” Lady Barb said, tartly. “If the Grandmaster hadn’t insisted...”
She shook her head, long strands of blonde hair coming loose and falling down around her skull. “I told him that it wasn’t a good idea. You keep dancing on the edge of addiction.”
Emily blanched. Addicting her to the staff would be the easiest way to render her powerless once the staff was taken aw
ay. She trusted the Grandmaster...but what if she was wrong to trust him? Might he be hoping that she would destroy her own ability to cast spells...or would he merely be relieved if that happened? But why would he want to cripple her?
“If that’s true,” she said, wondering how she dared ask, “why does he want me to learn?”
“You have enemies,” Lady Barb said. “The more weapons in your arsenal, the better.”
Emily relaxed. It was nothing more than paranoia, driven by her feelings of loss whenever she let go of the staff. The Grandmaster controlled Whitehall and the nexus under the school. If he’d wanted to kill her, he could have done it at any moment and made it look like an accident. Besides, he wasn’t an evil man. He didn’t have to take her into the school and teach her how to handle her magic.
“Start carving out the runes,” Lady Barb ordered. “You can make another few pocket dimensions.”
Emily nodded and started to work, unable to avoid noticing how the older woman sat down to watch rather than peering over Emily’s shoulder. Normally, she would be grateful to avoid such close supervision, but now it bothered her. Lady Barb seemed to be weaker than normal, far weaker...and there was a necromancer running loose. Emily watched her out of the corner of her eye as she set up the square, then started to craft out the pocket dimension, piece by piece. This time, the magic flowed easier than before.
“Good work,” Lady Barb said. “Now, dismantle it and start a new one.”
Emily glanced at her in concern, then went back to work. Lady Barb said nothing as she completed the next dimension, so she dismantled it and built up a third. This time, she tried adding some modifications to the programming, trying to program it to reopen and collapse at a specific time. The spells didn’t seem to work quite right; it took her a moment to realize that she was actually putting the timing spells in stasis, along with whatever was in the dimension itself. It seemed that wrapping two layers of spells inside the dimension wasn’t possible, at least not for a single magician. Building something the size of Whitehall would be impossible without a dedicated team and a colossal power source.
Work Experience (Schooled in Magic Book 4) Page 23