Past Tense (Schooled in Magic Book 10)

by Christopher Nuttall

  She studied him, grimly aware of his eyes scrutinizing every inch of her. Master Chambers was tall and muscular, his brown hair cropped close to his skull. That, at least, explained why Julianne had wanted Emily to cut her hair. Demons had a nasty habit of grabbing hold of exposed hair and tugging, hard. Sometimes, she’d been warned, they yanked hard enough to pull the magician across the circle and into their hands. And no one, not even a Lone Power, could hope to escape.

  And he didn’t like her. She could see the distrust in his eyes as he gazed back at her.

  Of course he doesn’t trust me, she thought, as Master Chambers finally looked away. He knows nothing about me.

  “Bernard, your master will meet you outside in forty minutes,” he added. “Take ... Lady Emily ... with you.”

  “Of course, My Lord,” Bernard said.

  Master Chambers gave Emily one final look, then turned and strode away. Robin nodded politely to them both, then hurried off towards the nearest door. Emily felt an odd stab of sympathy. Having Master Chambers for a tutor, she rather suspected, wouldn’t be a comfortable experience. But then, anything involving demons was incredibly dangerous.

  “Demons,” she said. “Is he really the most powerful of the DemonMasters?”

  “He claims to have thirty-one demons in his thrall, bound to his power,” Bernard said. “I have no reason to doubt his claim.”

  “I find that hard to believe,” Emily said. From what she’d been told, holding even one demon in thrall was hard enough. “Thirty-one?”

  “He couldn’t fool my master,” Bernard said. There was a hint of obvious pride in his voice as Julianne reappeared and started to collect the plates, jug and honey pot. “Julianne’s father is not so easily fooled. He never lets me get away with anything.”

  Emily concealed her relief with an effort. Bernard might try to summon a demon, if Robin gave him the instructions, but Lord Whitehall would never let him get away with it. The stink of demonic malice would give him away, long before he could come up with a plausible lie ... if, of course, there was such a thing. Could anyone hope to conceal a demon? Shadye had concealed a demon within a ring, she recalled, but he’d had the demon’s cooperation. She doubted that any demon would see value in assisting Bernard to stay out of trouble ...

  And if he does get caught, he’ll be in deep trouble, she thought. Whitehall, if the stories are true, never liked demons.

  She watched Julianne leave—and watched Bernard, watching Julianne leave. He was smitten; the tenderness on his face made him look very different. She wondered, absently, just what Julianne thought about him. Maybe she should ask. She’d always found it hard to talk about such matters, but ...

  “Forty minutes,” Bernard said. “What do you want to do until then?”

  “Get clean,” Emily said. “Is there a place I can wash up?”

  Bernard looked awkward. “I’ll have to ask Julianne,” he said. “She’s the person to ask if you want anything like that. We just had a basin of warm water.”

  “That would be enough,” Emily said.

  She frowned as she spotted one of the other masters entering the hall. “I meant to ask,” she said, remembering how they’d bowed to Master Chambers. “How does one address a master?”

  Bernard considered it for a moment. “You were never taught etiquette?”

  “Not enough,” Emily said. It was likely to have changed and evolved before she’d arrived at Whitehall. Besides, if nothing else, talking about etiquette would keep Bernard from asking more awkward questions. “I don’t know how to introduce myself, let alone ask for help without getting into trouble.”

  “I imagine your tutor didn’t plan to introduce you,” Bernard said.

  He paused, stroking his chin. “You address your master as Master or My Master,” he said, after a moment. “In conversation, you would call him Master Whitehall. All other masters are addressed as Lord or My Lord, unless you were friends before he reached his mastery. In that case, you can address him by name. Apprentices can be addressed by name, unless you have a reason to give their rank—in which case, you would address them as Apprentice Whatever.”

  Emily nodded. “Why is Whitehall ...”

  Bernard pointed a finger at her. “Master Whitehall.”

  “Why is Master Whitehall called Lord and Master Whitehall?”

  “He combines both titles,” Bernard said. “Address him as Master unless you’re being strictly formal or begging for mercy.”

  He shrugged. “If a master approaches you first, make sure you rise and bow to him,” he added. “If you approach him, go down on your knees and wait for him to acknowledge you before rising. Should he offer something to you, take it with your casting hand. Do not offer your other hand, whatever happens, unless you need both hands ...”

  Emily held up a hand. “My casting hand?”

  “The hand you use to cast spells,” Bernard explained. His eyes narrowed. “How do you not know that?”

  “I was taught to use both hands,” Emily said. She was right-handed, but her tutors had insisted on their students using alternating hands when they cast spells. Only a couple of students in first year had been unable to use both hands—and the problem had cleared up, she recalled, with practice. “Aren’t you?”

  “That’s odd,” Bernard said. “I was always taught to use my right hand.”

  He frowned. “I suggest you hold out both hands, then,” he added. “But be careful.”

  Emily swallowed. Whitehall—her Whitehall—had been very different from Earth. But this Whitehall was familiar enough to be disconcerting. Something that would have passed unremarked in her Whitehall might start a fight here, hundreds of years in the past. She’d have to watch herself, but she wasn’t sure how.

  “I will,” she said.

  Bernard rose. “I’ll find you a place to wash,” he said. “And then my master will ...”

  He paused, then bowed hastily as an older man hurried over to them. Emily bowed too, realizing that she was looking at yet another master. He looked to be in his nineties, although that proved nothing; he might well be no older than forty. She couldn’t help thinking of Albert Einstein as the man studied her. He had the same impression of being nothing more than a kindly old grandfather.

  “Lady Emily,” he said. “I need to talk to you.”

  Bernard cleared his throat. “Lord Wolfe, Master Whitehall wishes to talk to her in thirty minutes,” he warned. “I ...”

  “I will have her there for him,” Lord Wolfe said.

  “Don’t worry,” Emily said. “I’ll be fine.”

  Bernard nodded. “I’ll inform my master,” he said. “He may want to give you more time with Lord Wolfe.”

  “That would be good,” Lord Wolfe said. He grinned at Emily. “This way, please.”

  Chapter Five

  THE CAMP FOLLOWERS HAD DONE A remarkable job at cleaning the dirt and grime from the floor, Emily decided as she followed Lord Wolfe through a maze of disconcertingly familiar corridors. It might not be anything like as clean as King Randor’s castle—at least, not yet—but the future school was starting to look livable. Small groups of workers swept the corridors, while apprentices—some throwing doubtful glances at her as she passed—prowled the corridors, searching for more traps.

  Probably keeping them busy, she thought, as they walked into a small room. They will have cleared or triggered all the traps in this section, surely?

  “I have no idea what this room was, once upon a time,” Wolfe said. He closed the door behind them, but made no move to cast a privacy ward. Was that technique still to be discovered too? “But it will suffice as an office, for the moment.”

  Emily nodded. Someone had set up a rickety-looking wooden table and a single chair that seemed to be on its last legs, but otherwise the room was bare. The only source of light was a torch, burning merrily against the stone wall. It made her realize, again, just how lucky she’d been to live in a world where electric power was cheap and simple.
Castles without magic were dark and gloomy places.

  Wolfe motioned with his hands towards the table, which was covered in ancient books and pieces of parchment. One of the rolls of parchment was unrolled, with the four corners held in place by small stones. Emily took a look at the writing; her eyes widened as she realized she was looking at spell notations. Very primitive, compared to what she was used to, but clearly a step in the right direction. She took a step forward, wondering if Wolfe would seek to bar her from studying the parchment, yet he made no move to stop her. His eyes merely watched as she bent over the table, slowly tracing out the notations.

  “You’ve seen something like it,” Wolfe said. It wasn’t a question. “What do you make of this?”

  Emily hesitated, unsure how much she could say. It was hard to be certain—there were plenty of differences between the spell notation in front of her and the techniques she’d been taught by Professor Lombardi—but it looked as though Master Wolfe had been trying to unlock the secret of tapping a nexus point. She couldn’t think of any other explanation. The spells he’d detailed required a power source an order of magnitude more powerful than any living sorcerer.

  “You’re trying to tap the nexus point,” she said, carefully. There was no point in pretending to be an idiot. She’d shown too much command of magic. “How long have you known the point was here?”

  “There were stories of nexus points,” Master Wolfe said, vaguely. “I’ve always wondered what one could do with a great deal of power.”

  “Anything,” Emily said.

  She studied the diagrams for a long moment, slowly working her way through them. They were flawed—she could see a number of serious problems that Wolfe would have to overcome—but she could recognize the bare bones of what would eventually become the control room. The control room they’d discovered under Whitehall. It had a long way to go ...

  Perhaps too long, she thought. Master Wolfe had done a good job, but his proposed network of spells was far too inflexible to control a nexus point. And yet, the nexus point was tapped in this time.

  “Your tutor clearly had some idea of what to do,” Master Wolfe said. He picked up a roll of parchment and unfurled it. “The spells you used to tap the nexus point worked.”

  “Imperfectly,” Emily said, as she studied the parchment. Master Wolfe was clearly brilliant, perhaps the smartest man she’d ever met. He’d not only copied the work she’d done, with assistance from the commune, but used it as a starting point to devise his own spellwork to control the nexus point. “It nearly killed me.”

  “But it worked, once you had help,” Master Wolfe said. “Your tutor must have been truly brilliant. Master Stark? Master Joffre? I know that both of them chose to withdraw from society to carry out their own research, rather than taking more apprentices. One of them could have taught you.”

  Emily shook her head, wordlessly. It was tempting to claim she’d studied under one or both of them, but Master Wolfe had known the two men he’d mentioned. He’d catch her in a lie and then she’d be in real trouble. She considered, briefly, telling him the truth, yet she knew she didn’t dare take the risk. It would blow a hole in established history. And yet ...

  She looked back at the parchment. Master Wolfe had done a remarkable job, but he still had a very long way to go before he could hope to tap the nexus point properly. It was unlikely that he would make the breakthrough he needed tomorrow. The more she looked at his work, the clearer it became that he’d crafted a brute-force solution to the problem, rather than something capable of adapting and evolving to changing circumstances. There was no Warden—and there wouldn’t be, if he didn’t alter his approach.

  And if this is a stable time loop, she thought, I need to help him.

  She leaned on the table, thinking hard. If time couldn’t be changed, then she was meant to be here -- meant to be in the past. And if that was true, perhaps she was meant to be helping Lord Whitehall and Master Wolfe establish the school. It was what the Dark Lady had done, if the remaining stories were to be believed. And no other candidate for the role had shown up, as far as she knew. None of the other women in the castle knew magic.

  The possibilities opened up before her. If she was meant to help Master Wolfe, she’d have a chance to use the nexus point to get back home. And watching—and helping—as the original spellwork slipped into place would show her how to do it for herself, later. She’d be able to answer all of Professor Locke’s questions, even if it didn’t look as though there were any real secrets of the ancients. Only demons ... and the start of something more.

  Find out what else needs to be kicked off, she told herself. She’d have to pick Bernard’s brains and find out what he knew—and what he didn’t know. And then see how you can start the ball rolling.

  “Lady Emily,” Master Wolfe said. “Are you going to answer my question?”

  Emily blinked. What question?

  “I’m sorry, Master,” she said. “I was miles away.”

  “I could tell,” Master Wolfe said, sardonically. “I was asking you what your tutor taught you about controlling a nexus point.”

  “I didn’t learn everything,” Emily said, carefully. “He didn’t trust me with all of his secrets.”

  “A common problem,” Master Wolfe said, disdainfully. He sounded angry, although not with her. “A sorcerer discovers something new, then refuses to share it with his friends and apprentices. The secret is lost when he dies, only to be rediscovered years later by another sorcerer.”

  “And the whole pattern just keeps repeating itself,” Emily said. “Time and time again.”

  “I’ve been trying to convince some of the other masters to share their secrets more openly,” Master Wolfe told her. “But very few of them are willing to discuss such matters.”

  He sighed, then looked up at her. “What did your tutor tell you?”

  Emily took a breath, thinking hard. She didn’t know everything. She’d barely had the time to start unlocking the secrets beneath Whitehall before she’d been tossed back into the past. She couldn’t help feeling that Professor Lombardi would have done a better job, if he’d been sent back in time instead. But what she did know would be enough to start Master Wolfe working towards a proper control system. And he’d put it together personally, so he’d understand—at a very basic level—how it worked.

  “He believed that basic spellware was too ... rigid to handle the power flow,” she said, reaching for a sheet of parchment. She stopped herself a moment later. A piece of parchment would be hideously expensive in this time. Paper ... there was no way she could introduce paper, not now. “You need something that adapts to changing circumstances.”

  “Like a living mind,” Master Wolfe said. She’d half-expected him to dismiss the concept out of hand, but he sounded thoughtful rather than dismissive. “Did your tutor believe he could take control of the nexus point directly?”

  “He might have,” Emily hedged. Shadye had certainly believed he could take direct control of the nexus point, but he’d been halfway to being an eldritch abomination at that point. “I think it wouldn’t have worked.”

  “Trying to channel that much power would have been fatal, surely,” Master Wolfe said. “Do you think that was why he died?”

  Emily shrugged. She had no idea what would have happened if Shadye had tapped the nexus point, but she didn’t want to find out the hard way. If necromancy could drive a person mad, she hated to imagine what tapping a nexus point could do. Perhaps it would simply have shattered his mind beyond repair ... or, perhaps, it would have turned him into a dark god. It wasn’t a pleasant thought.

  “There are supposed to be rituals for transferring power,” Master Wolfe mused. “But they don’t always work.”

  He looked down at the parchment for a long moment. “The spellwork would have to be more than merely adaptable,” he said. “It would have to be a living mind. But how to make it work? How to make it survive?”

  “Tell it to survive,” Emi
ly said.

  Master Wolfe looked up at her. “What do you mean?”

  “You’ll be setting the conditions when you create the living mind,” Emily said. “You can just tell it that it can handle the power. It won’t be smart enough to realize it should be dead.”

  “I shall have to meditate on that,” Master Wolfe said, slowly.

  He reached for a slate and started to scribble down notes. “Taking control of the nexus point was risky enough,” he added. “But if we have so much power at our disposal, making it do anything—without worrying about spell structures—would be quite possible.”

  Emily watched as he worked, unsure if she’d said too much or too little. There were too many gaps in her knowledge, both of the school’s history and of the ancient piece of spellwork, for her to be sure. Master Wolfe seemed to have taken her ideas and run with them, but who knew how far he could go? How much did they know?

  “I wish your tutor had left you some notes,” Master Wolfe said, grimly. “Did he have anything written down?”

  “Not as far as I know,” Emily said. It was true enough. “All I have is my memory.”

  Master Wolfe muttered several unpleasant-sounding words under his breath as he returned to scribbling. Emily didn’t blame him for being frustrated, not if new tricks and techniques were discovered, lost, and then rediscovered time and time again, rather than allowing later researchers to build on the early discoveries. Even in her time, the Sorcerer’s Rule had made it harder for research notes and details to propagate through the Nameless World. A sorcerer could not be forced to share his work ...

  ... And even though it had worked in her favor, she knew it was a problem.

  It will be worse here, she thought, numbly. If history was to be believed, Lord Whitehall had been the first person to set up an actual magic school. The unattached apprentices are lacking even the basics of magical education.

  She cleared her throat. “Do you share what you know of spellwork?”

  “Far too many magicians are not interested in my work,” Master Wolfe said, flatly. “I have offered, regularly, to teach them, but they do not care.”