Past Tense (Schooled in Magic Book 10)

by Christopher Nuttall

  “We will be encouraging the apprentices to develop their powers gradually,” Whitehall said, firmly. “And that will also allow them to mask their powers.”

  “Our students would have a great deal to unlearn,” Master Drake said. “But if I had learned some of the runic structures before I started studying transmutation ... it might have made me a better magician.”

  “And apprentices would no longer be bound to one master,” Sake said. “They’d be able to free themselves from a bad master.”

  “Not all masters are bad,” Master Chambers snapped. “And what about the secrets?”

  He took a breath. “I have secrets I will not share with anyone, save for my apprentices,” he said. “Do you expect me to share them with everyone in the commune?”

  “You may make your own choice in such matters,” Whitehall said. “Personally, I intend to put the basics on the table for everyone.”

  “And I,” Master Wolfe added.

  “I do not believe this,” Master Chambers said. He glared at Whitehall. “This is her idea, isn’t it?”

  “It is a logical solution to our problem,” Whitehall snapped. “Or do you have a better idea of how we can teach fifty apprentices with only nine masters?”

  “This is her idea,” Master Chambers repeated. Emily winced at the scorn in his voice. “Do you trust her that much?”

  “Tell me,” Master Keldor added. “Do you know if she’s even human?”

  “She could be a succubus,” Master Reaper said. “My ... contacts ... will not be drawn on her.”

  Emily felt her cheeks heat with embarrassment. A succubus, her? There had only been a handful of mentions of succubae in the books she’d read, all hints and innuendo rather than hard facts. She’d certainly never met one. Any magician stupid enough to try to create one -the books had insisted they needed to be created—had to be out of his mind. It was a great deal easier—and safer—to find a village girl to impress. There was no shortage of commoner girls who would happily marry a magician, knowing it would mean they would never have to be poor or hungry again. Creating a succubus was nothing more than a way to die happy.

  “She is human,” Whitehall said, flatly.

  “She is unusually pretty,” Sake countered.

  “And you’re ugly,” Drake snarled. “Let’s not confuse the issue, shall we?”

  “I’ve traveled far,” Lord Alfred said, suddenly. “I have met and bedded girls with skin as black as coal, girls with almond eyes and yellow skin, girls so pale that the merest blush made their faces glow. There were girls so strong that they could have passed for men and girls so weak that they had to be carried around in wagons. And yet they were all human.”

  Master Keldor sneered. “The pieces fitted, did they?”

  “Yes. Yes, they did,” Lord Alfred said. “Lady Emily is human.”

  “And yet she is just an apprentice,” Master Chambers said. “We should not be taking her suggestions ...”

  “She should be classed as a master,” Master Wolfe countered. “Or have you forgotten that she saved our lives? We would be dead without her and don’t you forget it!”

  “I have forgotten nothing,” Master Chambers said. “But I have also not forgotten ...”

  He broke off for a long moment, clearly gathering his thoughts. “Tell me,” he said, looking at Whitehall. “Are you really prepared to throw out hundreds of years worth of tradition on the say-so of a girl you barely know?”

  “I wouldn’t have said hundreds of years,” Lord Alfred commented.

  “Shut up,” Master Chambers hissed. “I want an answer.”

  “Tradition is failing us,” Whitehall said. “The demons are untrustworthy. And establishing a ... a school is the best solution to our problems.”

  He took a breath. “Yes, she helped inspire the concept. And yes, I understand that you don’t like her. But that doesn’t mean that her concepts are invalid. We’ve already seen proof that some of them work very well.”

  “She’s certainly got your ear,” Master Chambers snapped.

  “I hope she hasn’t got another part of your anatomy,” Master Keldor added, darkly.

  Emily blushed, furiously. Did they really think that she would ...?

  Probably, she thought. They’re not used to powerful women.

  “I believe I have stated my case,” Whitehall said. “Are there any other objections before we move to the vote?”

  “You want to throw away a tradition that has served us very well,” Master Chambers said. “I think you will boost your own position at our expense.”

  Whitehall scowled at him. “Any relevant objections?”

  Emily winced. She hated political discussions and did her best to avoid them, but even she could tell that had been a mistake.

  “You will be leading a pack of hundreds of semi-apprentices,” Master Chambers snapped, sharply. “And we will have no apprentices.”

  And the more apprentices a master has, Emily thought, the greater his prestige.

  “Then we vote,” Whitehall said. “All in favor, say aye.”

  Emily scowled as the vote was taken. Whitehall, Bones, Alfred and Wolfe voted in favor; Chamber, Keldor, Drake and Reaper voted against. Sake, apparently, had abstained—or, perhaps, he was waiting to see which side would make the better offer. She thought she understood why Chamber and Reaper had voted against—they were both DemonMasters who stood to lose a great deal if demons were officially banned—but Drake? He’d benefited from the new arrangement.

  Whitehall clearly shared her disappointment. “Drake?”

  “I am not blind to the advantages that come from sharing secrets,” Drake said. “But I am also not blind to the need for apprentices—and for private tuition, later in life.”

  You want to have your cake and eat it too, Emily thought. And you might just have scuppered the entire school.

  Sake cleared his throat. “I did not vote,” he said coolly, “because I was only recently raised to mastery. And I believe that both sides have valid arguments.”

  “Really,” Master Chambers said.

  “I would like to propose a compromise,” Sake continued. “We will give all the new apprentices basic training, the training any of us would have to give a true apprentice before starting his proper training. At that point, we would have plenty of time to choose our apprentices after they start showing their specific talents for magic.”

  Drake stroked his chin. “Which would have the advantage of ensuring that the apprentice is genuinely interested in the discipline he wants.”

  “As well as a firm grounding in everything else,” Wolfe added.

  “And yet, those apprentices will not be true apprentices,” Master Chambers objected.

  “I would not have stayed with Master Gila,” Sake said, bluntly. “I intended to leave as soon as I gained my mastery. There was no argument that could have convinced me to stick with the constant beatings, the fits of rage, the willingness to test new and unpleasant ideas on me ... I was obedient, but he had done nothing to earn my loyalty.”

  He paused. “If there had been options, a way to leave ahead of time and find another master, I would have taken them,” he added. “And if your apprentices are ill-suited to your branch of magic, do you really want to keep them?”

  Drake looked at Whitehall. “Compromise,” he said. He didn’t seem to have listened very closely to Sake. “All apprentices get the basics—from us, from any other masters we can recruit. And then we choose our apprentices from among the trained magicians.”

  “Agreed,” Whitehall said. He silently canvassed the other masters. “Sake?”

  “Then count my vote in favor,” Sake said. “I believe that is six votes to three.”

  Master Chambers snorted. “This isn’t just a break with tradition,” he snapped. “This is a slap in the face of the DemonMasters. It will not stand.”

  “Then go,” Whitehall snapped back. “Your pet demons have been luring us into madness for hundreds of years.�
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  “I found this place with the rest of you,” Master Chambers reminded him. “I have a claim to it too.”

  He marched to the door, then stopped. “I believe this will go badly wrong,” he added. “And when it does, I will laugh.”

  Emily wasn’t sure if she should laugh or cry as he stalked out of the door, followed by Master Reaper. Keldor exchanged a handful of words with Whitehall, then left the room too, closing the door behind him. Whitehall ... Whitehall looked tired. Emily couldn’t help wondering if he’d readied himself for a fight.

  “We’ll start work tomorrow,” Whitehall said. “If we are lucky, we should be able to head to the Gathering in a week or so.”

  “Unless the Gathering has been interrupted,” Wolfe pointed out. “The Manavores are on the prowl.”

  “All the more reason to tell them about the runes,” Whitehall said. “And to invite them to join us here.”

  He dismissed the rest of his group, then looked up towards the vent. “I should tell you,” he said wryly, “that those who eavesdrop rarely hear well of themselves. But I imagine you’ve learned that lesson for yourself by now.”

  Emily recoiled in shock. How the hell had he known the snake was there?

  “And you can report to me after dinner,” Whitehall added. “I’ll be wanting your input too.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  EMILY COULDN’T HELP FEELING NERVOUS —VERY nervous— as she approached Whitehall’s office after dinner. There had been no sign of him or any of the other masters in the Great Hall, leaving her fretting over the mystery of just how he’d known she was eavesdropping. No matter how she looked at it, she just couldn’t figure it out. Aurelius hadn’t made a sound—hell, the Death Viper should have been effectively invisible. And yet Whitehall had known she was watching through the snake’s eyes.

  She recovered the snake from the vent, then tapped on the door, wishing she was somewhere—anywhere—else. Whitehall had trusted her and she’d betrayed him, simply by peeking on his secret meeting. It was expected, in her school, that students would try to spy on each other, or their tutors, but she had no idea how Whitehall would react. He might applaud her skills or evict her from the castle ... the door opened a moment later, allowing her to slip into the room. Whitehall was sitting behind his desk, scribbling notes on a piece of vellum. He glanced up at her and smiled.

  “Eavesdroppers rarely hear well of themselves,” he said, as he nodded to a chair. “I trust you’re not too offended?”

  Emily colored as she sat down. “I’ve heard worse,” she said, although that wasn’t entirely true. No one had accused her of trying to seduce King Randor—or Void. “Why are they so ... so angry?”

  “There are always winners and losers in anything,” Whitehall said, sardonically. He gave her a sharp look. “I would have expected you to know it.”

  “Yes, Master,” Emily said. “But Chambers and Reaper don’t stand to lose that much.”

  “They will lose the prestige that comes with being DemonMasters,” Whitehall said. “We have already determined that our new apprentices will not be taught how to summon and use demons. Without that, their ability to win apprentices and gain influence will be severely limited. They’re too old to learn new tricks.”

  “They could,” Emily insisted.

  “I doubt it,” Whitehall said. “They have grown too reliant on using demons.”

  Emily nodded. That made sense, she had to admit. Master Chambers had grown far too used to taking spells from the demons and casting them, without any awareness of how the spells actually worked, let alone how they could be modified by capable students. His demons might have given him insights in some areas, but they’d left him terrifyingly blind in others.

  She took a breath. “How did you know I was listening?”

  Whitehall gave her a rather crooked smile. “You have until the end of this discussion to work it out,” he said. “And if you do, we’ll forgo punishment for both spying on us and getting caught.”

  Emily swallowed. “Yes, Master.”

  Whitehall smiled. “We’ll be spending the next four or five days organizing the teaching patterns,” he said. “If nothing else, the apprentices will have to learn how to draw the runes you devised—you’ll be willing to help teach them, won’t you?”

  “Yes, Master,” Emily said. She wondered, vaguely, if the apprentices would actually listen to her. Bernard listened, but she’d beaten him in a duel. “If that is your wish.”

  “We’ll be traveling to the Gathering in six days, depending ...” Whitehall added, and paused. “I’ll be taking you, Julianne and Bernard. Lord Alfred may be in attendance too. Have you ever attended a Gathering?”

  Emily shook her head.

  “Dozens of masters and hundreds of apprentices—and would-be apprentices—will be gathering, nearly two hundred miles from here,” Whitehall explained. “We will have ample opportunity to tell them about the castle and our planned new approach to magic.”

  “Oh,” Emily said. She frowned. “Is it safe to travel?”

  “It’s never safe to travel,” Whitehall said. “But we need additional masters and apprentices.”

  Emily nodded, sourly. As interesting as the Gathering would be, there was no way she could look forward to the trip. Two hundred miles was nothing on Earth—a car could travel two hundred miles in less than a day—but it was a significant trip on the Nameless World. At best, it would take several days ... and if they were expected to walk, it would take a great deal longer. Whitehall did have some horses ... she shuddered at the thought of riding a horse for several days. Alassa might be horse-mad, but Emily had never liked the smelly beasts.

  And the Manavores were out there, somewhere.

  She leaned forward. “Master ... won’t the Gathering make a very tempting target?”

  “Yes, it will,” Whitehall said. “It may even have been cancelled.”

  Emily shook her head in disbelief. But then, there were no communications spells in the past, no way to get a message from one place to another instantly. Whitehall might arrive at the Gathering only to discover that it had been cancelled, or that the camp had already been attacked and destroyed by the Manavores. It was just another thing she’d had to get used to after her arrival, although there were spells, in her era, that could get a message from place to place. She’d just never learned them until she’d had a reason to learn.

  “And we’re going,” she said. “Is there no way to check if it’s still taking place?”

  “Not really,” Whitehall said. “I was hoping that some of the other communes would find their way to the castle, but we haven’t seen them.”

  He sat back in his chair. “You will be coming, won’t you?”

  Emily rather suspected it wasn’t a request. She was his apprentice, as far as he was concerned; he couldn’t leave her alone in the castle. Who knew what sort of mischief an unsupervised apprentice would get up to? And besides, she was still a young girl in his eyes. Whitehall knew—intellectually—that she could look after herself, but emotionally it was a very different matter. He felt responsible for her safety.

  “If you wish me to come,” she said, silently resigning herself to a long and uncomfortable trip, “it will be my pleasure.”

  Whitehall gave her a look that suggested he knew she wasn’t happy about the trip, but said nothing. She wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d been a little perplexed by her reluctance to go. For most villagers, going to the next village was hard enough—traveling to the nearest town or city was the trip of a lifetime. And for a young girl, who wouldn’t be expected to travel at all, the opportunity to go on a trip was not to be missed.

  Julianne will love it, she thought.

  She took a breath. “Is it wise to leave Lords Chambers and Reaper here alone?”

  “They will not be unsupervised,” Whitehall said. “Drake and Wolfe will keep a close eye on them.”

  Emily had her doubts. She’d always had the impression that Ch
ambers simply didn’t respect Wolfe—or Bones. Even now, with their disciplines becoming increasingly useful, he didn’t think highly of them. But they would definitely respect Drake—and perhaps Sake too. And their ability to tamper with the nexus point was very limited.

  Unless they want to cause an eruption of raw magic, she thought. The results would be quite disastrous.

  “They will honor the commune,” Whitehall added. “A vote, once taken, cannot be overruled.”

  “Yes, Master,” Emily said. She didn’t believe it—Master Chambers had good reason to be annoyed at the way the vote had gone—but there was no point in arguing further. Whitehall still saw Master Chambers as a friend. “I understand.”

  Whitehall nodded, curtly. “I trust you have been keeping an eye on Julianne?”

  Emily kept her face blank, refusing to allow the sudden shift to throw her.

  “She’s been behaving herself,” she said, slowly. “Apart from sleeping through dinner, I suppose.”

  “Understandable,” Whitehall said. He met her eyes. “But that wasn’t what I meant, and you know it.”

  Emily hesitated. She knew precisely what Whitehall meant. “She and Bernard are drawing closer,” she said, flatly. “But they haven’t gone further than kissing.”

  Whitehall gave her a sharp look. “Are you sure?”

  Emily fought down a flicker of irritation. She understood Whitehall’s concerns, but she found it hard to accept them. Julianne was nineteen, by her own reckoning; hell, if she’d been born to a normal village family, she might have had two or three children of her own by now. She had the right, as far as Emily was concerned, to decide what to do with her own body. But Whitehall would feel very differently.

  “To the best of my knowledge,” she said stiffly, “she hasn’t been alone with him long enough for anything to happen.”

  She paused. “You did send them off together.”