11- The Sergeant's Apprentice

by Christopher Nuttall

  A problem for another day, her own thoughts answered her. Dua Kepala had gone insane, in the end. He’d clearly been pushing the limits even before his first body had been tossed into a nexus point and destroyed. Maybe the White Council can dissuade others from following in his footsteps.

  She drew on her understanding of soul magic, as limited as it was. Soul magic was — it had to be — a key part of the bilocation spell. The two souls had to be linked together or else they would become two separate people, assuming they survived. What would happen if you did split a soul? Was that even possible? She pushed the thought aside — anything was possible with enough power — and studied Dua Kepala, systematically probing his mind until she was sure there were no more duplicates. There had only ever been two bodies.

  Goodbye, she thought. The surge of vindictiveness surprised her. But then, she’d seen the costs of his war. Die.

  She reached out one final time and ripped his wards open. There was a surge of raw magic — terrifyingly powerful, enough to tear through her personal defenses like paper — but the nexus point absorbed it with almost casual ease. The necromancer screamed as she ripped out the last of his magic, the noise so loud she heard it even through the roaring in her ears, then fell silent as his body collapsed into blighted dust. Magic had been the only thing keeping him alive, and now it was gone. She felt him die, part of her delighting in his death. Dua Kepala had been a monster, directly responsible for thousands upon thousands of deaths. He deserved to die ...

  And yet, her mind kept expanding, no matter how she tried to slow down and let go of the nexus point. She could fix the damage, she could heal the school ... she could see something hidden, right at the edge of her awareness. Something was there. Something was looking back at her. And then it was gone as the magic started to crumble around her, the spells slipping from her mind. She was dimly aware of something — someone — screaming ...

  ... And then she fell into the darkness.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  “WELCOME BACK TO THE WORLD,” LADY Barb said, as Emily opened her eyes. She was lying on a makeshift mattress, in a barren room. “How are you feeling?”

  “Odd,” Emily rasped, after a moment. Her throat felt as though she had been eating broken glass. And her body felt weird, although she couldn’t put her finger on why. “Where am I?”

  “Just outside Heart’s Eye,” Lady Barb said. Her eyes narrowed. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  Emily hesitated, trying to recall. Her last memories were a jumbled mess. “I’m not sure,” she admitted. Void had been there, hadn’t he? And Dua Kepala? And ... her head started to throb as she tried to untangle the memories. Her mind had, just for a few minutes, gone places she couldn’t recall. “Did I kill him?”

  “You did,” Lady Barb confirmed. “Dua Kepala is dead.”

  “He didn’t have any more bodies,” Emily said. She wasn’t sure why she was sure, but she was. “There were only ever just two.”

  “But it allowed him to retain most of his sanity,” Lady Barb said. Her lips pursed in disapproval. “Someone else will try, given time.”

  Emily nodded in grim agreement. “Tell them he was a freak,” she said. “Or that he was careful to restrict his intake ...”

  “That’s been tried,” Lady Barb told her. “And it didn’t last for very long.”

  She reached out and touched Emily’s forehead, very lightly. “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m not sure,” Emily said. Her headache was fading, but her head still felt fragile. And her throat still hurt. “How long was I asleep?”

  “A couple of days,” Lady Barb said. She rose, pacing the small room. “The war’s over, so naturally everyone and his dog is on the way to share the credit. There are more troops and combat sorcerers heading to Farrakhan than I’ve got hairs on my head. The bards will start howling and screeching about how their master was the one to score the decisive blow during the final engagement ...”

  She turned to face Emily. “They don’t know everything that happened here,” she added, “but they do know they’ve got you to thank for it. They’ll be singing songs about your great victory for years to come.”

  Emily groaned. She’d heard too many songs about her, after she’d defeated Shadye. They had all been embarrassing, particularly the ones that claimed she’d used sex magic — or worse, the power of love — to win the battle. Unfortunately, there was no way to stop the bards from making up their own versions and singing them all over the Allied Lands ...

  Her blood ran cold. “Casper,” she said. Casper was dead. “Does ... does his father know?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Lady Barb said. She shot Emily a sympathetic look. “I’m afraid that won’t make your life easier.”

  “I know,” Emily said.

  “You’ll have to account for his death,” Lady Barb said. “And you may have to duck suggestions that you killed him so Caleb could inherit.”

  Emily scowled. “I didn’t.”

  “I know you,” Lady Barb said. “I know you wouldn’t do anything like that. Others, the ones who don’t know you — or don’t like you, will be less charitable. Fulvia was hardly the first person to quietly murder her way into power.”

  “Ouch,” Emily muttered. “What do I do about it?”

  “Nothing, at the moment,” Lady Barb said. “A lot depends on General Pollack and his wife, really. They may accept your version of events or they may push for a full inquest into Casper’s death. If the latter ... you’ll be called upon to swear an oath that you didn’t kill him.”

  “I could do that now,” Emily pointed out.

  “You’d also have to go over everything that happened since you left Farrakhan,” Lady Barb added, dryly. “You might wind up bearing part of the blame even if you didn’t deliberately kill him — or set out to get him killed.”

  She shrugged. “But this may never materialize,” she said, as she picked up a canteen and held it out to Emily. “Drink. Your ... guardian ... wants a word.”

  Emily looked up. “Void is here?”

  “He was searching the city, last I heard,” Lady Barb said. “Who knows what the necromancer might have left lying around?”

  She shrugged as Emily sipped the water. “Lord Fulbright and his men arrived shortly after the enemy force disintegrated,” she added. “They’re patrolling the ruined city and—” her lips quirked “—striking many dramatic poses. You’d think there was a small army of women around to impress.”

  Emily had to smile. “Really?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Lady Barb said. “He did request a chance to pay his respects, but I told him to wait.”

  “I think I’m going to have a relapse,” Emily said, wryly.

  Lady Barb nodded. “I know just how you feel,” she said.

  She took back the canteen and closed the lid. “I’ll call for Void now, unless you want to go straight back to sleep,” she said. “Afterwards, when you feel up to it, I’ll take you back to the city. I’m afraid there will be a lot of questions. You may want to come up with some answers.”

  Emily sat upright and looked down at herself. Someone had loosened her riding outfit, but — thankfully — they hadn’t undressed her. She tightened the straps as she rose to her feet, her legs wobbly until she was standing up. Her nostrils tightened as she caught a whiff of herself — she needed a bath and clean clothes, the sooner the better — but at least she was reasonably presentable. She didn’t think Void would expect anything more.

  And he’d know to wait, if he did, she thought, as she paced from side to side. Her body seemed to work, despite the faint headache. He probably helped carry me out of the chamber.

  She closed her eyes for a long moment, feeling for magic. Lady Barb was easy to sense, a tight knot of power standing nearby; beyond her, there was almost nothing save for the nexus point. Wards had already formed around the school, mimicking Whitehall’s protections. It would be years before they grew into something as complex,
unless she found a way to speed up the process, but they were well on the way. And her connection to the wards was faint, but unmistakable.

  The door opened. Emily’s eyes snapped open as the magic spiked within the room. Void was standing in the doorway, peering at her. She smiled at him, feeling suddenly shy. He exchanged a long look with Lady Barb, then waved a hand in the air. Emily raised her eyebrows as two chairs materialized out of nowhere. Creating items from scratch, even relatively simple chairs, required vast power and skill. It was well beyond her.

  “I’ll be ready when you want to leave,” Lady Barb said, tartly. It struck Emily, suddenly, that her mother and father figures were fighting over her. “One of the guards will take a message for me.”

  She left the room. Emily sensed privacy wards slipping into place as she took one of the chairs, running her fingers along the wooden seat. It felt real, even though it had been made from pure magic. Or had the spells condensed matter from the air and turned it into wood — or something like wood? It would be years before she could cast the spells and find out for herself.

  Void glanced at her hand as he sat down. “I see you’re still wearing the ring I gave you.”

  Emily nodded. She’d never understood why some girls wore rings, back home, but she thought she understood now. She’d never taken it off, even when she’d been in the bath. A simple charm protected it — and made it impossible for most people to see, unless she deliberately brought it to their attention. It was one of her most prized possessions.

  “We don’t have long to talk,” Void said. “Dua Kepala’s death will trigger a power struggle on the far side of the desert. I intend to see what advantage we can gain from pushing several necromancers into combat. But I wanted to speak to you before I left.”

  “Thank you,” Emily said, quietly. She had so much she wanted to tell him, but she didn’t know where to begin. “You saved my life.”

  “You may have saved mine,” Void said. He smiled. “For which I thank you.”

  Emily shook her head. “I saw your spells,” she said. “You’re ... you’re brilliant.”

  Void preened. “Hard work and bloody-mindedness,” he said. “But do you see, now, why I would have been a poor tutor?”

  “I think so,” Emily said. “You’re so advanced that it’s hard for you to get back to the basics.”

  “Precisely,” Void said. He leaned forward, as if he were inviting her to share a joke. “And while you can jump ahead in some ways, failing to get the basics down before you proceed always bites you in the end. I could have taught you a few things, back when we first met, enough to be dangerous, perhaps. You wouldn’t have reached my level.”

  Emily met his eyes. “And now?”

  Void looked back at her. “And now ... what?”

  “Could you teach me now?”

  There was a long pause. “Maybe,” Void said, finally. He cocked his head. “A little bird tells me you want to be a teacher.”

  Emily blinked. The only person she’d told that to was Gordian. She hadn’t meant to keep it a secret, not really. There just hadn’t been time to sit down and discuss it with anyone else before leaving the school. She’d still need an apprenticeship and some practical work experience before she could even be considered for a teaching post.

  She frowned. “Gordian told you?”

  “Whitehall is required to discuss the aptitudes and ambitions of students with their parents,” Void said. “Or their Guardian, in your case. His letters make interesting reading.”

  “I’m sure they do,” Emily said. What else had Gordian told Void? “Is it wrong to want to be a teacher?”

  “It’s not living up to your full potential,” Void told her, dryly. “You’d be better suited to doing private tutoring on the side.”

  He shrugged. “If you want an apprenticeship with me, do well on your final exams and I’ll consider it,” he added. “Not everyone will see it as a good idea, given our ... relationship, but they’ll respect your right to decide. And you do need a tutor who can shut you down if necessary. If you lost control, Emily, it wouldn’t be the first time an over-ambitious apprentice lost control at the worst possible time and caused a disaster.”

  Emily winced. “Does that happen often?”

  “Not that often,” Void said. He gave her a sardonic smile. “But some people have been expecting you to lose control for years.”

  Emily shook her head. She wasn’t used to strangers, complete strangers, debating her life as though she was a pop star, a politician, and an aristocrat rolled into one. The idea of strangers talking about her was terrifying. She’d never wanted that kind of fame. And yet, she understood their fears. A young woman who could kill a necromancer after a year of schooling ... what would she be able to do after she graduated?

  And I might have lost control, she thought, recalling the nightmarish days after the duel with Master Gray. Her own power had almost killed her before she’d stabilized herself. They might be right to be worried.

  “I won’t lose control,” she said, although she wasn’t sure if that was true. “I ...”

  Void reached out and patted her shoulder, awkwardly. “Do you want to know something important?”

  Emily nodded.

  “Every year, people — students, apprentices — go looking for shortcuts,” Void told her. “They use memory charms to skim-read books, they build tools and devices to chop up alchemical ingredients, they brew potions designed to make them smarter, they search for ways to boost their power ... eventually, inevitably, some of them try necromancy. They think, because they always think, that they can handle it, that they can cope with the surge of power.”

  “But they’re wrong,” Emily said.

  “Exactly,” Void said. “They don’t understand — they can’t understand — that they have to build up the basics first. Even after six years of schooling, there are apprentices who still don’t understand. And so they look to necromancy as a shortcut, heedless of the dangers lying in plain sight. Madness isn’t the only problem, Emily. What do they do with the power once they have it?”

  He held up a hand, palm upright. A plate of sandwiches materialized in the air and landed neatly on his palm. “Merely having the power isn’t the same as knowing what to do with it,” he added, as he held the tray out to her. “Their spells are suddenly overpowered because they lack the years of practice in controlling their magic. And so they often injure others or kill themselves because they can’t handle it. There’s no shortcut to true power.”

  Emily took a sandwich, inspecting it carefully before taking a bite. It looked like beef, tasted like beef ... she probed it with her senses, but as far as she could tell it was real, no different from the sandwiches she’d eaten at Whitehall, between her exams. She couldn’t help being impressed. Creating food from scratch was far more complex than creating chairs.

  “And even if they do manage to stabilize themselves,” Void continued darkly, “they’re still cripplingly immature, driven by desires and urges their superiors left behind years ago — decades ago. They’re the ones who will set up magic-ruled kingdoms because they have yet to overcome the desire for power, for forcing people to kneel before them, for all the wine, women, and song they could possibly want. And in time, they become monsters.”

  “If they’re not monsters already,” Emily mused. She took another sandwich and ate it, slowly. “Are they flawed from the start, or does the power drive them mad? Madder?”

  “No one really knows,” Void said. “But that’s why students like you are gathered in Whitehall. It makes it easier to convince you that your power doesn’t make you a god.”

  “The Grandmaster said the same thing, last year,” Emily said.

  Void’s face darkened, just for a second. “Yes. He would have done.”

  He cleared his throat. “There’s one other thing we need to discuss,” he added. “Heart’s Eye ... you do realize you own the school?”

  Emily stared. “I do?”

 
; “Yes,” Void said. “You killed the former owner and tamed the nexus point. None of the former owners are alive, as far as I know. Even if they were ... their claim would have been lost, I suspect, simply because they made no attempt to recover the school. You’re the sole person with a claim to Heart’s Eye.”

  He paused. “Casper might have had a claim, if he’d survived,” he added. “The laws of magical ownership are idiosyncratic. Maybe he had a claim. But he didn’t survive, so the point is immaterial.”

  Emily shook her head in disbelief. First Whitehall, now Heart’s Eye? But she didn’t really own Whitehall. She merely had a controlling interest in the wards. Gordian was probably trying to figure out a way to hack the control systems or convince her to add other governors — administrators — to the wards. She couldn’t blame him, not really. Who knew what would happen after she died?

  “That’s probably the most valuable piece of property in the world, even without the wards you crafted,” Void added. “With the wards, it is literally priceless. Do not give it up lightly. There will be people who’ll try to browbeat you into surrendering the school. Don’t.”

  “I won’t,” Emily said. She frowned, remembering Master Highland. He’d studied at Heart’s Eye. Surely he’d want a chance to recover his alma mater. And yet, it was hers. She’d crafted the wards, basing them on Whitehall’s. If nothing else, she’d be their administrator for a long time to come. “They’ll understand, won’t they?”

  A thought struck her. “Caleb and I were talking about a university, a place for higher education. Heart’s Eye could host it ...”

  “It could,” Void agreed. “And it is yours, so no one could argue if you wanted to turn it into a palace and declare yourself a queen.”

  Emily shook her head and smiled. “Sounds too much like hard work.”

  “And not really worth doing anyway,” Void agreed. “Technically, you also own the surrounding city, but there may be other claims to that too. I advise you to pick your battles carefully. Luckily, it will be several years before anyone tries to reclaim the city.”