“But anyone who rose that high should have known better,” Emily objected. “Necromancy always comes with madness.”
“Yes,” Sergeant Miles said. “I don’t understand it.”
Emily frowned, considering the possibilities. It was the sudden surge of raw power, according to some of the books she’d studied, that drove necromancers insane. After her experiences in the past, she could well believe it. No magician could channel so much power without going mad. And yet, Dua Kepala was clearly carrying out a plan instead of looting, killing and burning at random. He’d even been smart enough to get an army across the Desert of Death ...
“Go wash,” Sergeant Miles ordered. “And report to the kitchen just before dinner.”
“Yes, Master,” Emily said.
Her body ached uncomfortably as she stepped through the door, closing it behind her. Cat was standing there, looking worried. Emily flushed, helplessly. He wouldn’t have heard anything, she thought, but his imagination would have filled in the gaps. He’d studied under Sergeant Miles too.
“You’re alive,” he said.
“Yes,” Emily said. She bit down on a sarcastic comment about pointing out the obvious. “So are you.”
“I didn’t fight a duel,” Cat said. He put out a hand to steady her as they walked down to the barracks. The beds, thankfully, were empty. “You’ve improved.”
“Thanks,” Emily grunted. “So have you.”
“So has Casper,” Cat said. He smirked. “I never knew he had it in him.”
“People can surprise you,” Emily said, stepping into the washroom. Someone had already filled the bath with cold water. “Can you heat up the water?”
Cat gave her a sharp look, then cast the spell. “See you at dinner,” he said. “Don’t forget to wear a maid’s outfit.”
Emily snorted. “Sergeant Miles told me to wear trousers,” she said. “Nice try.”
“Worth it,” Cat said. He headed to the door. “Be seeing you.”
Chapter Twenty-One
EMILY FELT MORE HUMAN AFTER A long bath, although her body still ached and her jaw throbbed where Casper had struck her. She resisted the urge to drink something for the pain, instead concentrating on her mental disciplines as she made her way down to the kitchens. The servants had already laid out the food, a strange mixture of warm meats and breads that reminded her of Middle Eastern food on Earth. She took Casper’s tray, then walked back up to the dining room.
And if he makes fun of me, she thought as she pushed the door open, I’ll ...
She cut off that thought, sharply. She’d come up with a plan to help him. She wasn’t about to ruin it because he laughed in her face. But then ... she could always challenge him herself, after the war. General Pollack could hardly complain if she sought to regain her title. But she didn’t want the title ... perhaps she’d just refuse to spar with Casper, afterwards.
The dining room was little more than a pile of cushions, her fellow apprentices and their masters lounging on them as if they didn’t have a care in the world. General Pollack stood behind Casper, his face unreadable. Someone had opened a bottle of wine, the fumes tickling Emily’s nostrils as she strode into the room. Thankfully, Casper didn’t appear to be drinking. Instead, he sat upright, his eyes bright with a strange mixture of relief and fear. Master Grave, Emily suspected, had pointed out that he’d claimed a poisoned chalice. Everyone would want a chance to claim the title for themselves.
“My Lord,” she said, stiffly. She’d never liked watching servants abase themselves, but it was worse — far worse — when she had to do it herself. “Your food.”
“Thank you,” Casper said. He took the tray, then waved to a cushion next to her. “Please, be seated.”
Gaius snorted. “One doesn’t invite one’s servant to sit.”
“I do,” Casper said. He winked at Emily. “Please, sit.”
Emily shrugged and sat as the rest of the maids entered the room, carrying trays of food and drink. Casper seemed ... calmer somehow, even though he must know he’d caught a tiger by the tail by "winning" the duel and claiming the title. She could only hope, as she took her own tray of food, that the improvement would last for the remainder of the war. In truth, the war had yet to begin.
“You fought well,” General Pollack said. “It was an impressive contest.”
“Casper did very well,” Emily said. Did General Pollack suspect something? He didn’t have any magic himself ... logically, he shouldn’t have seen more than flashes of light. But he was an experienced officer. He knew how magic worked, even if he couldn’t use it himself. And his wife was a combat sorceress. “He saw an opportunity and took it.”
“He did indeed,” General Pollack said. He definitely sounded proud. “And it won him a title.”
Emily kept her face expressionless. Any reasonable parent would surely have qualms about their child winning a title that everyone else would try to take, but the Nameless World took a fundamentally different attitude than Earth. Children weren’t shielded from the harsh realities of life, certainly not amongst the magical families. It made them stronger, more able to cope with changing circumstances. She wasn’t sure if it was an improvement or not.
“We’ll be lining up to challenge him,” Gaius said. He held out a sheet of paper. “I’m in first place, followed by ...”
“There will be no more challenges until after the war,” Sergeant Miles said, flatly. There was a muttering of agreement from the other masters. “If you want to kill each other, you can do it after we beat the necromancer.”
“That’s not fair,” Sawford protested. “We all want a shot at the title.”
“And we happen to need you alive, for the moment,” Master Storm said. “Afterwards ... if you’re stupid enough to want the title, you can fight for it.”
Emily nodded, slowly. She knew quite a few magicians — Lady Barb, Sergeant Miles, Grandmasters Hasdrubal and Gordian — who didn’t take part in duels. Lady Barb had even pointed out that it was one way to keep your enemies guessing about your true power. A skilled observer could learn a great deal, just by watching a duelist in the ring. The title was definitely a two-edged sword.
She chewed her food slowly while listening to Master Storm and Master Grave talking about an adventure they’d had, somewhere in the Mountains of Mourning. They were good storytellers, she conceded, but the story confused her more than she cared to admit. Magic that didn’t seem to obey the usual rules? She puzzled over it for a long moment — if there was a nexus point, the possibilities were literally endless — and then dismissed the whole story for later contemplation.
“I used to attend Heart’s Eye,” Master Highland said. Emily leaned forward, interested. She was always fascinated to hear about other magical schools. “It was an interesting place, very much like Whitehall and Mountaintop. But the original designer was fascinated with mirrors.”
Casper frowned. “Mirrors?”
“I bet it was a girl,” Gaius said.
Master Highland ignored him. “There were mirrors everywhere,” he said. “You couldn’t walk down a corridor without seeing your own face looking back at you. I never quite understood why.”
“They might have been charmed,” Emily mused.
“Perhaps,” Master Highland said. “But how and why? No one knows.”
“Heart’s Eye wouldn’t be the only place with secrets,” Sergeant Miles pointed out. “There are countless secrets under Whitehall. And Mountaintop and Stronghold have secrets of their own.”
Emily glanced at him, surprised. She knew more of those secrets than anyone else. It wasn’t something she wanted to talk about. And yet, who knew what had leaked out, in the days since Whitehall had nearly collapsed into nothingness? She wasn’t sure how the outside world had reacted, but she was sure they would have wanted some kind of explanation from the Grandmaster. Whitehall had effectively vanished for more than a week.
“Everyone has secrets,” General Pollack said. He sipped his goblet
, thoughtfully. “The real question is just what might have fallen into enemy hands.”
“Aye, there’s the question,” Master Highland agreed. “But no one knows the answer.”
Emily made a face. Whitehall was crammed with books on magic, ranging from basic textbooks that anyone could buy to forbidden tomes that couldn’t be found anywhere else. A necromancer would have all the magical training he wanted, if he could be bothered reading the books. Who knew what had been hidden away in Heart’s Eye? She couldn’t think of anything significant involving mirrors, but magic had surprised her before. They might have been something very interesting before the school had been destroyed.
She cleared her throat. “Did the school have any founding stories?”
“Very little that can be verified,” Master Highland said. “The only fact we know for sure is that the school was founded by a master magician who taught others — his successors eventually created a school. Other sources insist that the founder was mad, or that his successors overthrew him in a coup, or that he ...”
He shrugged. “The story everyone believes is that the founder was exploring the roots of magic itself,” he said. “And he uncovered something so dangerous that his apprentices turned on him. But it could be just a story.”
Emily nodded. She’d met Lord Whitehall and his commune. They’d been nothing like their legend. It had been odd reading all the stories with the advantage of hindsight, noting what had been twisted or altered so thoroughly that the truth was completely gone. Half the members of the commune — even the male members — had been lost and forgotten by history, surviving only in her memory. It was strange, so strange, to think that people she’d known only months ago were now dust and less than dust.
And the truth will be lost forever, she thought. Gordian had discouraged her from writing their story, pointing out that it would upset a great many apple carts. Unless I write a book myself first.
“That’s quite possible,” Sergeant Miles said. “Stories change in the telling.”
“Back when I was an apprentice,” Master Storm said, “my master was quite insistent on finding and exploring the tomb of a long-dead magician. He was convinced that the magician owned a number of artefacts that had been buried with him, after his death. The stories about the artefacts were truly impressive.”
“And unbelievable,” Master Grave put in.
“There might have been some truth in the stories,” Cat pointed out.
Master Storm smiled. “I spent half of my apprenticeship criss-crossing the Allied Lands, looking for the sorcerer’s tomb,” he said. “It was fascinating, to be fair. Someone had deliberately left clues leading to the tomb.”
Emily had to grin. It sounded like the plot of a bad movie.
“Eventually, we found a solid lead on the tomb,” Master Storm said. “It was hidden deep within the Yvonne Badlands.”
Casper frowned. “The Yvonne Badlands?”
“It used to be a small town, very isolated from the rest of the kingdom,” Sergeant Miles said, curtly. “Something ... happened ... there, a couple of hundred years ago. Now the entire area is cursed, if you believe the locals. There’s so much raw magic within the badlands that no one will go there without powerful protections.”
“Which we had,” Master Storm said. “It was a creepy place, to be sure. There was so much raw magic splashing around that nothing could be trusted. Even on the fringes, we saw creatures that might once have been men, warped and twisted by the magic. The land itself seemed dead as we advanced towards the tomb. My master thought that the sorcerer must have done something to hide his tomb. As it turned out, he’d done a great deal worse.”
Emily felt a shiver running down her spine as Master Storm lowered his voice. “The tomb itself was buried under an island, in the middle of what had once been a lake. It was a marsh when we arrived, a marsh so treacherous that putting the slightest foot wrong would result in instant death. But we carefully picked our way through the marsh until we reached solid ground.”
Gaius leaned forward. “Why didn’t you transfigure yourselves into birds and fly?”
“There was too much magic in the air,” Master Storm said. “Flying would have been incredibly dangerous. Even very basic spells behaved oddly. We didn’t dare try to move at night because our night vision spells kept threatening to fail.”
He paused. “The tomb itself was quite visible, once we were on the island. In hindsight, that should have warned us that something wasn’t quite right. But my master was so determined to find the artefacts that he didn’t hesitate. He touched the tomb ... and woke the sorcerer.”
Cat coughed. “He was alive?”
“He’d faked his death, somehow,” Master Storm said. “Or maybe he was a lich. And he was a monster. My master gave his life to stop him. There are days when I wonder if the sorcerer managed to survive. I never found a body.”
“You mean he might still be around?” Casper asked. “Is that possible?”
“A sorcerer with the right spells could live for centuries,” Master Storm said. “And I was never quite sure if this sorcerer used similar spells or had permanently enchanted his own body, turning himself into a lich. I never saw him again.”
Emily frowned. “Didn’t anyone go back to the tomb?”
“There was some talk about sending a larger party to search the tomb and destroy anything that might prove dangerous,” Master Storm said. “But, from what I heard, they couldn’t actually find the tomb. The badlands are thoroughly untrustworthy.”
Cat rubbed his forehead. “Surely someone could have found something.”
“No one ever did,” Master Storm said. “Or if they did, they kept very quiet about it. If you had the Sword of Silver, would you go around telling everyone?”
Emily shrugged. Ancient, all-powerful artefacts were unknown on the Nameless World. A sword that made its bearer invincible ... it didn’t exist, not outside stories about the Emperors and their families. There were no magics that couldn’t be countered, once the advantage of surprise was lost. She couldn’t imagine something that would be such a game-changer ...
... And she wouldn’t want to become dependent on it, if it existed.
“The Sword of Silver was lost,” Cat said. He grinned. “But if I found it ... would I become Emperor?”
Sergeant Miles laughed, not unkindly. “I’m sure the kings and princes would happily bow the knee to you, if you found the sword,” he said. “You can pick up a dozen fakes if you know where to look.”
Emily had to agree. King Randor wouldn’t give up his throne to anyone, even if they were carrying the Sword of Silver. Magical swords being lost and found at random was no basis for a system of government. And besides, magical knowledge had expanded in the years since the Second Faerie War. The Sword of Silver might be as obsolete as a musket on a nuclear battlefield.
She leaned back and listened as the masters told story after story, ranging from believable tales of their adventures to stories she knew had to be exaggerated, if they weren’t made out of whole cloth. Sergeant Miles talked briefly about Shadye’s attack on Whitehall, reminding everyone that Emily had killed a necromancer, before shifting to a story about patrolling the edge of the Allied Lands. Master Highland told a complex story about a werewolf and a vampire running loose in Craggy Falls, the latter hunting the former for reasons that made no sense to anyone. They’d both been killed in the end, but not until after they’d left a trail of dead bodies behind them. General Pollack finished by telling a story about his first campaign, before he’d met and married his wife. Emily found it hard to imagine him as a young man, but she held her peace. Of course he would have been a young man once.
“You never said much about your father,” Casper said. “What happened to Grandfather?”
“He died when you were two,” General Pollack said. “I’m not surprised you don’t remember him.”
Casper smiled. “Was he looking over your shoulder on your first command?”
Unless Randor tries to legitimatise Alicia’s child, she thought. By her admittedly off-hand calculations, Alicia would be giving birth in another month. In theory, he couldn’t; in practice, he might just be able to swing it. And who knows what Alassa will do then?
“Once he thought I could handle it, he gave me more independent responsibility,” General Pollack said, finally. He looked as though he wanted to say more — and that he would, if they’d been alone. “But I had to take over the family at a very young age.”
“There was an old witch who lived in a village,” Master Bone said. “No one paid any attention to her until children started to go missing. Eventually, the villagers realized that she’d always been the one to see them last and screamed for help. I went there and discovered that she’d been sacrificing the children, trading their blood for more life for herself. She’d been dealing with something from the Darkness. The remains ...”
He shook his head, looking pale. “I had to kill her,” he said. “Her magic was no match for mine. And yet ... it took hours of effort, hours spent slicing her body apart, before she finally died. She must have gone mad in her final hours, trapped in a body ruined beyond repair. I don’t know who or what she was dealing with, but it did hellish work.”
Emily swallowed. “She must have regretted it,” she said.
“I hope so,” Master Bone said. He glanced at Casper. “Everything comes with a price.”
“She could have traded for magic instead,” Casper pointed out. “Or youth and beauty.”
11- The Sergeant's Apprentice Page 21