11- The Sergeant's Apprentice

by Christopher Nuttall

  ... But Emily knew it was just a matter of time before it collapsed in on itself. The old spells the designers had used to keep it intact were gone. She hadn’t had time to rebuild them, even if she’d known which spells had been used and how. In truth, she was surprised the entire building hadn’t fallen to ruins by now.

  Lady Barb caught her arm. “Did you bring a chat parchment with you?”

  Emily shook her head. She’d left her personal parchments in the barracks, while Gaius had destroyed the official parchment before any of them could use it. If they headed back to Farrakhan ... she gritted her teeth as she realized the danger. There was still an entire army between them and the city. Lady Barb might be able to intimidate the orcs into leaving them alone, but she couldn’t. Her reserves were far too drained.

  “The haze is gone,” she said. She could tell that much, at least. “Couldn’t you teleport back to the city?”

  “Perhaps, but I’d prefer not to risk it,” Lady Barb said. Emily gave her a puzzled look. “The haze might still be there.”

  Emily nodded. Lady Barb had a point. They still had no idea how the haze had been produced, let alone used to disrupt the city. Just because it was gone from Heart’s Eye didn’t mean it was gone everywhere else. Trying to teleport back to Farrakhan might end very badly. And yet, she wanted to get away from the necromancer. Who knew what damage the duel would do to the nexus point? If it destabilized, the explosion would kill both of the combatants and devastate the land for thousands of miles around. It had happened before.

  We’re stuck, she thought, turning to look over the desert. Smoke was still rising from the remains of the city. Were those orcs in the distance, or was it a sandstorm? She had no way to know. And we can’t stay here.

  She closed her eyes for a long moment, then knelt down and touched the sand. A faint trickle of power was running through the ground, spreading out from the nexus point. Old Whitehall had been surrounded by wild magic, she recalled; a side-effect, she suspected, of an untamed nexus point. The present-day school didn’t have anything like so many problems. Who knew what would happen here, in the future? And who knew what would happen if she moved from dormant nexus point to dormant nexus point, infusing magic and bringing them slowly back to life? The Blighted Lands might be up for grabs ...

  And yet, that might come to nothing if we can’t stop him, she thought. Void and Dua Kepala were still fighting. He could devastate the kingdom if he ever manages to reduplicate himself ...

  She looked up at Lady Barb. “We have to go back.”

  Lady Barb shook her head, firmly. “You’re in no state for a fight.”

  “I know,” Emily said. She stood. Her body felt strong, but she knew it was an illusion. She would collapse the moment the potions wore off. Lady Barb would have to get Emily to safety by herself. “But I don’t think there’s a choice.”

  She turned and started to walk towards Heart’s Eye. “I think there’s a way to stop him permanently,” she added, without looking back. She could feel the nexus point growing stronger as she walked, calling to her. The spells she’d put in place were still growing into something mighty. “But we need to be there to do it.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  THE SOUND AND FURY OF THE ongoing battle grew louder as they made their way back towards Heart’s Eye. Emily had half-expected to encounter more orcs — or former captives — but the burned and blasted remains of the city were deserted. Either the orcs had headed back to Farrakhan, perhaps in hopes of linking up with the rest of their army, or they’d fled from the combatants. Emily was tempted to try to spy on the fight — Void had definitely managed to force the necromancer out of the chamber before he could do something with the nexus point — but Lady Barb flatly refused to allow her to go too close. Even at a distance, the waves of magic from the combatants was enough to make Emily’s hair stand on end.

  “You do not want to be caught in the middle,” Lady Barb told her, firmly.

  Emily braced herself as they reached the giant stone doors. One of them had fallen off its hinges and now lay on the sandy ground; the other hung listlessly, as if it couldn’t decide if it wanted to fall or not. She eyed it warily, then led the way past the stone doors and into the school. The building felt different now, magic flaring through the corridors as if it didn’t quite know where to go. There was a low hum in the air that made her ears hurt, rising and falling in time with her heartbeat. She glanced from side to side, then hurried down the corridor. The mirrors showed scenes out of nightmare, twisted images of worlds that didn’t exist — that she hoped couldn’t exist. She caught sight of her own reflection, her face blackened and twisted, her eyes terrifyingly hopeless. And then her reflection seemed to slip back to normal.

  I saw something like this before, she reminded herself. In the Dark City.

  She pushed the mystery aside for later consideration as they found the stairwell and headed down towards the nexus chamber. The heartbeat was growing louder, oddly off-key. She couldn’t help comparing it to a badly-tuned generator, steadily growing worse and worse until the noise it made was acutely painful. The lights seemed to be breaking down completely; some so bright it was hard to walk past them without flinching, others so dim that she had to fumble forward. She didn’t dare use magic to make it easier to see.

  “This place is breaking down,” Lady Barb said. She caught Emily’s shoulder. “Was it like this in Whitehall, last year?”

  “No,” Emily said. She didn’t really want to remember the nightmarish moments when she’d thought Frieda had died, right in front of her. “It was worse.”

  The mirrors were glowing now, pearly-white light that burned through her eyelids and dug into her brain. She covered her eyes as best she could, wishing she understood just what magics had been used to build Heart’s Eye. And what they’d been doing, back before Dua Kepala had stormed the school. Maybe there were papers lying around, explaining precisely what had happened ... she doubted they would be that lucky. Dua Kepala had had a decade to search the school for anything useful, then read his way through the school library. He should have known precisely what they’d been doing.

  Perhaps they were trying to expand their tap on the nexus point, Emily mused, as they found the second stairwell. The roof was starting to crack ominously, dust powdering down from high overhead. And somehow they quenched it instead.

  It was possible, she supposed. Nexus points were ... odd. The school’s researchers might not have understood what they were playing with, particularly as they didn’t have her insight into their timeless natures. Maybe they’d put too much strain on the spellware they’d used to tap it ... or maybe they’d caused a recursive feedback loop that had somehow tied up the entire nexus point until a surge of magic had somehow shaken it free. Or maybe ... she pushed the thought aside for later contemplation. They didn’t have time ...

  “Ah,” she said, as they reached the bottom of the stairs. Their path was blocked by fallen rocks, making it impossible to get through. “Can you get them out the way?”

  “I’d prefer not to try,” Lady Barb said. She held up her hand, casting a spell. “Blasting through or levitating them out might weaken the remainder of the ceiling.”

  Emily glanced up. The rocky ceiling looked solid, but it might be an illusion. She had no way to know how weak the rock was until they tried to make their way through the block. And if Lady Barb was right, they might bring the ceiling down on their heads.

  She reached out with her mind, questing for the nexus point. It was clearly visible, right on the other side of the blockage. She gritted her teeth, then turned to hurry in the other direction. If they were lucky, they might encounter another way into the chamber. Lady Barb followed her, glancing from side to side as the thrumming noise grew louder. The flickers of magic — of things at the corner of her eye — were growing stronger, each one pricking at what remained of her confidence. She couldn’t help feeling uneasy as they found another blocked passageway, then another. They
might have to blast their way through after all ...

  “There,” Lady Barb said. “Move!”

  Emily nodded as she hurried down the tunnel and into the nexus chamber. She could see light pouring down from high overhead, flashes and flickers of magic clearly visible as the two sorcerers kept fighting. Void had smashed the roof wide open, she realized, torn between amusement and horror. If nothing else, they would have a chance to escape if the building finally gave up the ghost. But then, there would be a necromancer waiting outside ...

  She walked out of the passage and onto a bridge, bracing herself. The bridge was broken — she wondered if it had been the one they’d smashed in their attempt to kill the necromancer — but she was close enough to the nexus point to reach out and touch the spells she’d implanted. They were twisting out of shape, unable to quite compensate for the unstable nexus point. Maybe that was what had caused the problems, Emily thought, as she sat on the end of the bridge and closed her eyes. The nexus point wasn’t anything like as stable as the one she — and Lord Whitehall — had tamed.

  It just woke up, she reminded herself. She could feel it, twisting in and out of reality, reaching into dimensions beyond her comprehension. It was all she could do not to try to peer through the dimensional walls, even though she suspected it would be suicide to even try. I think ...

  “Shit,” Lady Barb swore. “Emily ...”

  Emily opened her eyes and looked back. A figure was standing at the tunnel entrance, brilliant yellow flames flickering around its hand. Just for a second, she thought it was Dua Kepala — a third Dua Kepala — and then she realized it was something else. A hooded monster, wrapped in rags and held together by magic ... a proctor, perhaps? Mountaintop had used something similar to keep the students in line. Had Heart’s Eye done something similar?

  Lady Barb held up her staff. “We might have to move,” she said. “Whatever this thing is ...”

  The thing threw an eldritch fireball at them. Emily started, nearly falling off the ledge as Lady Barb deflected the fireball. It wasn’t balefire, it was something else, something so dark and unpleasant that she didn’t even want to look at it. The creature advanced, throwing fireball after fireball ... the more she looked at it, the more Emily became convinced it wasn’t even remotely human. A watchdog, perhaps ... something akin to Shadye’s servants. And yet it seemed able to use magic... Dua Kepala might have stitched it together from the remains of his twisted magicians.

  The proctors used magic, she recalled. The creature seemed largely immune to Lady Barb’s spells. And they had powerful protections ...

  Lady Barb took a step forward and lashed out with her staff, knocking the creature off the ledge. Emily stared in horror, unsure of what would happen when — if — the creature touched the nexus point, but instead the creature floated casually in the air, one inhuman finger reaching out to point at them. Lady Barb swore, then cast a spell that made Emily’s senses reel. The creature snapped out of existence, a thunderclap echoing through the air a second later.

  Emily stared. “What was that?”

  “If you still want to become a Mediator, ask me after you start your apprenticeship,” Lady Barb said, in a tone that suggested Emily would be wise not to probe the issue any further. She’d heard that tone far too often, when she’d asked too many of the wrong questions. “It’s technically forbidden.”

  Emily nodded, then turned her head back to the nexus point. The spells were starting to crack, despite her best efforts. She reached out again, hastily filling in the holes. It would have been easier if she’d had a chance to stay and work with the spells, but Dua Kepala had made sure she couldn’t. She felt a hot flash of anger at Casper’s death — he hadn’t deserved to die — as she started to expand upon the spells, trying to ignore the tears trickling down her cheeks. God alone knew how she was going to explain everything to his father, or his brother, or the rest of the family ...

  “I think I have it now,” she said, as the spells slotted into place. She reached out, hoping to sense the remnants of the original spells, but felt nothing. Whatever had snuffed out the nexus point had also wiped the spells from existence. She would have to rebuild them from scratch, if she lived long enough. “I’ve got the nexus point under firm control.”

  “I suggest you hurry,” Lady Barb said. Her voice was calm, too calm. “We’re not alone.”

  Emily sucked in her breath as her awareness started to expand. There were more hooded creatures, whatever they were, entering the chamber. She recoiled as her expanded senses touched their magic, realizing — to her horror — that it was an abomination in more ways than one. Dua Kepala — or whoever had created them — had taught them to use their life force as a source of magic, drawing directly on it to cast spells. She wasn’t sure if it was an off-shoot of necromancy or something new, something dangerous. Did it really count as necromancy if the person you were harvesting was yourself? And would it really drive the magician insane?

  It doesn’t matter, she told herself, as she drew on the nexus point. It’s still an abomination.

  It was hard, so hard, to wield the magic without the specialized spellware she’d used back at Whitehall. The user interface she’d touched — that she’d had a hand in creating — had made manipulating the nexus point easy. Lord Whitehall ... she’d known Lord Whitehall was powerful, but he’d controlled his nexus point by force of will alone. Emily knew she couldn’t match him, not yet. There was no hope of building a second pocket dimension, not with the tools she had on hand. But there were other tricks she could do.

  She reached out with her magic, with the nexus point’s magic, and grabbed hold of the creatures. They had no chance to resist before she tossed them up and out of the school, pushing them as hard as she could. They’d be thrown so far, she thought, that they’d burn up when gravity finally reasserted itself and they started to fall. Even if they didn’t, the impact would smash them beyond repair. She took a moment to focus herself, to remind herself to be careful, then opened her mind again. With the nexus point boosting her magic, it was easy, all of a sudden, to find the two magicians outside the school.

  Void was ... she shook her head in disbelief as she realized just how much power he held within his wards, just how complex his spells were. She’d thought Sergeant Miles had introduced her to something complex — and she’d seen the spells governing Whitehall — but Void was light-years ahead of her. Magic flowed from him in an endless series of conjoined spells, each one blurring together to attack Dua Kepala on a dozen different levels. And his defenses ... Emily was, just for a second, utterly lost in awe. Dua Kepala was a staggeringly powerful necromancer, yet his strongest attacks seemed to be powerless against Void.

  He was holding back, Emily thought. In hindsight, Dua Kepala should have effortlessly thrashed both she and Casper. But then, having them both as spell-controlled traitors would have made it easier for him to storm Farrakhan. Or was he devoting much of his power to keeping the bilocation spell together?

  She pushed the thought aside as she studied Dua Kepala through her ever-expanding spellwork. Unlike Void, he was a solid wall of power, a glowing beacon of tainted light shining in the darkness. There was nothing subtle about him, no sense of control or discipline ... the affably evil person they’d met was gone. He lashed out at Void, time and time again, his magic crashing back every time. And yet, his mind had expanded so far that Void’s spells were barely affecting him too.

  If this goes on, the winner will be the one who runs out of power last, Emily thought, as she gathered herself. Maybe she couldn’t make a pocket dimension. There were other things she could do. We need to get him in here.

  It was hard to talk, somehow. She’d lost all sense of her own body. But she tried. “Lure him in here.”

  She felt — or thought she felt — a hand on her shoulder. But it was lost in the wave of sensation from the nexus point. She’d underestimated it, she realized; she’d guessed its role, yet she’d underestimated it. Great st
ratas of power were plunging down — or rocketing up or screaming sideways or in directions she couldn’t comprehend — but also fanning out into the earth below her feet. It was hard to keep track of her own mind when the nexus point called to her, offering her something she would never get as a human. The understanding grew and grew ...

  No, she told herself, sharply. I’m human.

  Void cast a spell, cutting into the ground below Dua Kepala’s feet. The necromancer tumbled, too insane or too tired to levitate, back into the chamber. Maybe he thought he could reach the nexus point himself and use it. But he was too late. Emily reached out, shaping the spell in her mind; she caught the necromancer, almost effortlessly. It dawned on her, as she probed his warped magic and mind, that she was practically using a necromantic spell herself. The spell she’d cast was basic, but — thanks to the nexus point — she’d overpowered it.

  Dua Kepala twisted savagely, firing bolt after bolt of raw magic in all directions. Emily smothered them effortlessly, using a cancellation charm she’d learned in first year. The irony made her laugh, despite the growing discomfort. If she’d known she could use such spells against Shadye ... but she couldn’t, not without the nexus point. No ordinary magician could overpower the spells enough to make them effective against a necromancer. She drained his magic, even as she studied how he stole and manipulated mana. Necromancy was, in the end, pure brute force. Dua Kepala was the sole necromancer, as far as she knew, to uncover a loophole in the rules.

  They know it’s possible now, Emily thought. Casper was dead, while she — and Void, and Lady Barb — would never talk, but it hardly mattered. They know it can be done. And they’ll solve the problem, sooner or later. The next two-headed necromancer might be far more dangerous.