Past Tense (Schooled in Magic Book 10)

by Christopher Nuttall

  He’d be down here if he could see the gates, she thought, grimly. Chambers must have told him where to look, but he doesn’t have the mental discipline to see through the first line of defense.

  Or he’s just there to keep us penned up, her own thoughts countered. They may already know that Keldor’s plan went awry.

  “There’s a magician lying in wait for us,” she hissed. Julianne paled. “Stay here. I’ll deal with him.”

  She wished, absurdly, for a sword or a dagger as she stepped through the wards. Her magic was far stronger than any mundane weapon, but Keldor had reminded her—again—that she could not depend upon it. The magician looked up, surprised—from his perspective, she had practically materialized out of nowhere—and then jerked up a hand. She slammed a hex into him before he could cast a spell, heedless of the dangers of using modern spellware in the ancient castle. The magician slammed back against the wall, then crashed to the ground, leaving a trail of blood behind. She was relieved, deep inside, to realize that she didn’t recognize him.

  Stunned, she thought, as she checked his pulse. But he’ll probably live.

  She beckoned Julianne through the gates, then searched the magician thoroughly. He had five small pouches at his belt, each one filled with ... something ... that had an evil aroma, but nothing else. Julianne looked revolted and muttered something about death magics and blood-based potions, then leaned away from the fallen man as Emily carefully took his pouches and dumped them through the gates. Whatever they were—and the magic surrounding them had felt evil—they wouldn’t play any further role in the battle. She cast a spell on the magician, just to make sure he would remain asleep for the next few hours, and reached out with her senses. Flashes and flickers of magic were darting through the castle.

  “There’s a battle going on,” she hissed. Chambers had probably planned to turn the nexus point against the loyalists. Keldor would have done it too, if Julianne hadn’t managed to surprise him. Any hope of a quick victory had died with him. “But I don’t know who’s winning.”

  Julianne stared at her. “Can you sense my father?”

  Emily shook her head. “Not at this distance,” she said. “But we need to get up there.”

  She contemplated possibilities as they made their way towards the stairs, cursing under her breath as she realized just how few options there were. Sergeant Miles had taught her that castles—and this castle was no exception—were designed to make it harder for the attacker to break in, but their interiors tended to be double-edged swords if the attackers actually did get into the castle. A couple of magicians guarding the stairwell would be quite enough to keep the defenders pinned down, at least before the attackers started hurling fireballs or other spells into the bowels of the castle. She might be able to punch her way through, but it would reveal her presence to everyone else.

  We could go up the side of the castle, she thought. But can we get outside?

  It didn’t seem likely. She had no idea how much experience Master Chambers had of warfare, but she’d seen bows and arrows at the Gathering. A handful of bowmen could keep the defenders from making a sally, let alone trying to scramble up the stone walls and crawl into an upper window. And Julianne probably couldn’t get up the walls in any case. Emily wasn’t entirely sure she could. Whitehall—her Whitehall—was charmed to make that difficult.

  We could teleport, she thought. But how would the wards respond to that?

  She cursed Master Wolfe under her breath as she reached the bottom of the stairs and peered up, her senses probing for trouble. A surge of magic—and a teleport spell was easily powerful enough to qualify—would trigger the wards ... and then what? She doubted he’d been able to program them to dump her into the oubliette, if there was an oubliette. But merely preventing the spellwork from forming would be quite bad enough. She’d waste a great deal of her reserves for nothing.

  And that’s the good option, she thought, tartly.

  There were no magicians at the top of the stairs, according to her senses, but that proved nothing. Chambers might well have hired sellswords, although she found it hard to imagine that he’d found many willing to attack a magician’s home. Even the lowliest of the apprentices could pose a serious risk to mercenaries. But then, Chambers could have promised them magical protection and enough money to make them independently wealthy for life. It wasn’t the sort of offer that could be sneered at easily, despite the risks.

  She pushed the thought out of her mind as she motioned Julianne to stay back, then slowly inched her way up the stairs. The flickers of magic from high overhead were growing stronger all the time, suggesting that the battle was intensifying. Both sides would have realized that neither one was going to get an easy victory. And they were committed. Neither Chambers nor Whitehall could just walk away from the castle, not now ...

  “All right, girl,” a voice growled. “Come on up.”

  Emily looked up. Four men were standing at the top of the stairs, carrying swords and peering down at her with disdainful expressions. Sellswords, she decided; none of them had any trace of inherent magic surrounding them. They did have some protections, she realized, as she slowly walked towards them, doing her best to seem both obedient and fearful. But their protections simply weren’t very good.

  Chambers should have listened to Wolfe, she thought, gathering her power. His protections are full of holes.

  She cast the spell, pushing it forward as she reached the top of the stairs. The four men froze completely, utterly unable to move. Emily smiled, even though she knew they would probably have raped her and Julianne if they’d had a chance. Clearly, Chambers’ warning about female magicians—if he’d bothered to issue such a warning—had fallen on deaf ears.

  He probably didn’t, she thought. Convincing the sellswords to join the fight would have been hard enough without it.

  “Come on up,” she called. “Hurry!”

  Julianne ran up the stairs, her eyes going wide when she saw the frozen men. Emily nodded to her, then led the way down the corridor. The sound of fighting grew louder, the flickers of magic stronger and nastier. It sounded as through the enemy had secured the entrance hall, but not managed to push much further into the castle. Sergeant Miles would not have been impressed.

  She sucked in her breath as she stuck her head into the dining hall. Several magicians were fighting savagely, brilliant spells smashing into wards or exploding uselessly against the stone walls. It didn’t look as though either side was thinking tactically, she noted; they stood, gathered together, blasting away at the other side. A child with a machine gun could have killed everyone on both sides within seconds. And it was hard, so hard, to tell just who was on which side.

  And then she saw Bernard, standing with his fellow magicians.

  Emily braced herself, gathering her power, then threw a spell towards the opposing side, shaping the spell to tear through their defenses. Their position wavered and broke as her spell struck them, utterly unprepared for an attack from the side or a spell designed to pick its way through the weak points in their protections. She saw Master Reaper turning to face her, his face contorted with hatred; he made a gesture towards her, a second before a fireball slammed into his chest and incinerated him. A demon rose up from his body and glided towards Emily, its face twisted with malice ...

  She froze, numb horror rooting her to the spot. The demon was so powerful that its mere presence blanked everything else out, as if it were realer than real. It was hard, so hard, to get a clear impression of what it looked like, but its mere presence was like trying to stare into the sun. She suddenly found it impossible to muster a spell or run for her life ...

  “Down,” a voice shouted.

  Emily staggered backwards as the spell snapped. Something—another demon—flashed past her and dove into the first demon. Moments later, they both blinked out of existence, leaving nothing but a malign stench in the air. Emily turned. A young man was standing behind her, his face tried and worn. She had b
arely a second to recognize him as one of Master Wolfe’s students—a magician of so little power that he would never have amounted to anything, without his understanding of spellwork—before he turned and hurried away from her. He’d had a demon, she realized numbly. And he’d unleashed the demon to save her life.

  Bernard ran past her and grabbed Julianne, hugging her tightly. Emily rolled her eyes as she cast spells to cover them—making out in the middle of a fight was crazy—and watched the loyalists as they began mopping up the room. The remaining attackers were swiftly killed by the defenders, without even a hint of mercy. It would have sickened her a year ago, she knew, and in some ways it still did. But it was their world.

  And they cannot be allowed to escape, she told herself, numbly. Or continue the fight elsewhere.

  “Emily,” Bernard said. Emily turned back to him. He was flushing and Julianne, holding his hand tightly, refused to meet her eyes. “What happened?”

  “Keldor betrayed us,” Emily said, shortly. “He did something to the control system, weakening it. I ... it needs Whitehall to retake control.”

  “Understood,” Bernard said. He looked grim. “I don’t know what happened to him.”

  Emily closed her eyes, reaching out with her senses, but there were so many magical traces in the hall that she couldn’t sense anything useful. Whitehall couldn’t be dead, could he? She had read a number of accounts of the founding of the school that insisted Whitehall lived to a fine old age, but she had good reason to know that most of the history books were either inaccurate or flat-out wrong. And yet, they all agreed that Whitehall lived for decades before turning the school over to Bernard.

  But all of the books are intensely focused on him, she thought, numbly. Master Chambers and Master Drake are barely mentioned ... and Julianne isn’t mentioned at all.

  “We have to find him,” she said. “Come on.”

  Bernard looked astonished as she led the way towards the door, then hurried past her and into the corridor. Emily was surprised he didn’t send Julianne back to her room, although she supposed he might just have believed that Julianne was safe with him. Tama was in for a horrific time, Emily was sure, when Bernard realized what he’d done to his wife. She just hoped he didn’t blame Julianne for it too. She’d known men who’d done just that ...

  Because they believe it’s impossible to rape a good woman, she thought, grimly. It had made her sick when she’d had to stand in judgement, knowing that the law of the land and her sense of right and wrong were in conflict. And because they think a woman can only get pregnant if she enjoys herself.

  She pushed the thought aside and reached out, again, with her senses. There was another battle going on in the Great Hall. She tapped Bernard on the shoulder and muttered advice, then followed him as he slipped down towards the hall. The waves of magic were getting stronger, mingled with flickering bursts of concentrated malice that sent shivers down her spine. There were demons ahead of them, waiting. And she knew she couldn’t ask anyone to sacrifice themselves on her behalf, not for a second time.

  There has to be a way to banish them, she told herself. But how?

  Whitehall was standing, his back to them, as they entered the Great Hall. Master Chambers was standing at the other end of the room, his eyes burning with red light as he hurled spell after spell towards his former friend. Emily felt sick as she tasted the magic, grimly aware that Master Chambers was working demonic power into his spells. It made her wonder if it had been Chambers, rather than Robin, who’d bargained for the control spell. He might have nudged Robin into using it in the hopes of provoking a confrontation.

  “You,” Master Chambers howled. Emily shuddered as she saw the rage and hatred on his face. His sanity was gone, gone completely. The invisible presences surrounding him were laughing at her. “You ...”

  She threw herself to the side as a wave of magic lashed out at her, but she couldn’t move fast enough to escape. The magic slammed into her protections, crawling along them as it searched for weaknesses. There was no elegance to the spell, but it hardly mattered. The demonic malice—and his madness—gave it power. She thrust the wards away from her, hoping that it would be enough to keep the spell from touching her. Master Chambers would never be satisfied with merely killing her.

  “Enough,” Whitehall said. “Chambers ...”

  “Die,” Chambers screamed.

  Dear God, Emily thought, as another wave of magic slammed into Whitehall’s shield. He’s a necromancer!

  She threw a spell of her own, hoping Master Chambers hadn’t been using necromancy long enough to start the transformation into an eldritch abomination. Perhaps he’d had enough experience controlling his own mind, after using demonic magic, to avoid the first bouts of outright madness. But the spell merely glinted off him, as if he was already too far gone to be stopped. Emily shuddered as Bernard, Julianne and the other magicians started pouring spells into Chambers’ wards. She knew with a sick certainty that it wasn’t going to be enough.

  A wave of pain almost drove her to her knees as the door behind Master Chambers bulged in a direction her eyes couldn’t follow, a creature slipping into a room. Master Chambers turned, letting out a terrible scream as he saw the Manavore; magic boiling around him as he readied himself to attack ...

  And then, quite casually, the Manavore opened its mouth and swallowed him.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  ABSOLUTE SILENCE FELL.

  The Manavore stood there, looking at them with semi-translucent eyes. Once again, Emily found it hard to even look at the creature, as if there was something about it that defied her imagination. It was a spider, but it wasn’t a spider; it was a mangled construct of a dozen different animals, her mind desperately trying to make sense of something completely beyond its comprehension. The walls were faintly visible through the translucent creature, but they were bent and twisted, as if the mere presence of the Manavore was enough to bend reality around it.

  Master Chambers unleashed a vast amount of magic, and Master Keldor took down most of the wards, Emily thought. In his bid to prevent Whitehall from reshaping the magical community, Master Chambers might well have destroyed it. There had been nothing about this in the history books. We might as well have been announcing our presence to every last Manavore in the world.

  The magicians seemed entranced. Emily glanced from side to side; Bernard and Julianne were staring at the Manavore in horror, but most of the others were just stunned, as if it had cast a spell over them. None of them had seen a Manavore before, not directly. Even when they’d fled, they’d seen nothing beyond flickering impressions that had rapidly faded from their minds. But now ... now they were looking straight at their foe. They would have been safer staring into the face of a medusa.

  She gritted her teeth in pain as the magic field shifted and tilted towards the Manavore. The shock jerked the others out of their trance; they started casting spells, only to watch helplessly as their spells struck the Manavore, broke apart into glistening flickers of magic and vanished into its aura. It was feasting, she realized; there was so much magic in the air that it was blinded to their presence. But that wouldn’t last ...

  “Emily,” Julianne screamed.

  Emily turned and swore as she saw the doorway bulging, distorting out of shape until a second Manavore entered the hall. Something nagged at her mind—the Manavores seemed to need to use doors, despite their transdimensional nature—but she had no idea how to make use of it. She glanced at Whitehall and cursed again. The older magician was staring around him, his eyes wide with shock. His dream was dying, and he could do nothing. And then he snapped out of his trance.

  “Get out of the room,” he bellowed. “Set up the runes in the corridor!”

  The magicians turned and ran towards the final door. Emily couldn’t help noticing that several of the younger men and women were panicking, their faces utterly terrified. She didn’t blame them. They’d grown used to being powerful, to being unstoppable ... and the
n the Manavores had shown them that they were small fish in a very big ocean. They’d watched helplessly as a DemonMaster, who also happened to be a necromancer, had been destroyed in passing.

  She glanced back and swallowed, hard, as more Manavores swarmed into view. They’d consume the stray magic from the battle, then come hunting more. Stopping one or two with the runes she’d devised might be possible, but stopping five or six ...? She had no idea if they were smart enough to recognize the threat and avoid it—if they didn’t already know what had happened to the first Manavore—yet it didn’t matter. One Manavore might be trapped, while the others killed the trappers and then fought their way onwards, hunting down the remaining magicians.

  Whitehall caught her arm and yanked her forward, slamming the door behind him. Emily rather doubted it would stand up to a good kick, let alone a Manavore. Perhaps they needed an open door—the laws of magic governing magical creatures often made no sense—but even if they did, there was no reason they couldn’t go out through one of the other doors and scuttle around the corridors until they found their prey. And their distortion effect probably meant they could fit down even the narrowest corridors ...

  “Every magician for a hundred miles is here,” Whitehall snarled. “Even those who opposed me were brought here by Chambers!”

  Emily swallowed, hard. Had history been derailed beyond repair? Both sides in the conflict were on the verge of being wiped out. The nexus point—and the castle—would be forgotten soon enough, an experiment that had failed. And her? Would she simply blink out of existence, or would history rewrite itself to allow her to exist? She glanced at the demon on her shoulder, but no answers were forthcoming. Maybe it was just waiting until she died before returning to the Darkness. None of the books she’d read had said much about the demonic realm, but she found it hard to imagine that it was a very pleasant place.