Past Tense (Schooled in Magic Book 10)

by Christopher Nuttall

  “Bernard,” Whitehall snapped. “You need to set up the runes. Organize teams to slow them down.”

  “Yes, Master,” Bernard said. He was still holding Julianne’s hand. “What about ...?”

  “If you find any of his supporters, put them to work,” Whitehall ordered. “Hurry.”

  He glanced at Emily, tightening his grip on her hand. “Come with me.”

  Emily nodded as he pulled her down the corridor. “We need to retune the wards!”

  “If we can get control,” Whitehall snapped. “What happened?”

  “Keldor betrayed you,” Emily said. She caught one last glimpse of Bernard and Julianne, then followed Whitehall down the corridor. “He damaged the control systems.”

  Whitehall looked pained. “How badly?”

  “I’m not sure,” Emily admitted. “He locked me out, somehow.”

  She met his eyes. “Did you order Master Wolfe to prepare wards to stop my magic?”

  “Yes,” Whitehall said. He had the grace to look ashamed. “I’m sorry.”

  Emily sighed. “I survived,” she said. She ran through the rest of the story as they passed the frozen sellswords and hurried down the stairs. Whitehall glanced at them, but said nothing. “And the school itself has to survive.”

  “Because of the future,” Whitehall said.

  “Yeah,” Emily said. She allowed herself a moment of bitter regret. “You know, don’t you?”

  “It took me a long time to figure it out,” Whitehall said. He reached out and squeezed her hand, gently. “You’re from the future.”

  Emily nodded. “You can’t make a record of that,” she said. How had Whitehall figured it out? “And you mustn’t tell anyone.”

  “Of course,” Whitehall said.

  “Thank you,” Emily said. She gave him a sidelong look. “How did you figure it out?”

  “You were too good,” Whitehall said. “You spoke with too much assurance. You knew spells Wolfe insisted were too advanced for anyone, even him, yet there were also odd gaps in your knowledge. And the demons Master Chambers summoned to interrogate insisted that you hadn’t existed prior to the moment you fell out of the nexus point.”

  “And so you knew I was lying,” Emily said.

  “I knew you were lying about something,” Whitehall said. “And there were too many odd discrepancies in your story, things that didn’t quite make sense. And eventually I patched it all together.”

  He leaned forward. “How far back did you come?”

  “I’m not sure,” Emily admitted. They reached the nexus chamber and paused to allow Whitehall to inspect the wards. “Our records aren’t that good.”

  “I see,” Whitehall said, tartly. “Do they remember me?”

  “Yes,” Emily said. “But that’s all I’m going to say about it.”

  Whitehall scowled, but nodded reluctantly. “Do you want me to do anything for you? I could leave a note for my successors ...”

  Emily considered it, briefly. Would she have fewer troubles with Gordian if he’d had a note, purportedly from Lord Whitehall himself? One telling him, perhaps, to listen to her? But she doubted that any such note had been found. It had been nearly a thousand years, after all; there was no way they could be sure that such a note would survive. And she didn’t know that one had survived.

  “No,” she said, slowly. “Just ... try to forget the details.”

  Whitehall nodded as they walked into the nexus chamber. She knew he had to be brimming with questions, but he held his tongue. Emily knew she wouldn’t be able to avoid asking questions about the future, despite the risk of damaging the timeline still further. Whitehall seemed more capable of controlling himself.

  He asked if they remembered him, she thought. And that was all he wanted.

  “He didn’t damage the spellware that much,” Whitehall said, thoughtfully. The nexus point glittered in front of them, waiting. Emily couldn’t help wondering just how long it would be before the Manavores came down to consume it. “But it will take some time to expel the creatures completely from the castle.”

  “Chambers inadvertently called them,” Emily said. “The magic he unleashed ... it summoned them.”

  “So I gathered,” Whitehall said. “And he was killed before he could do anything.”

  Thank God, Emily thought.

  She nodded as Whitehall went to work. For the first time, she sensed a flicker of motion from the demon on her shoulder, a sense that it had turned its head to watch Whitehall at work. She eyed it warily, wondering if she should make her way down to the statue chamber while Whitehall was working on the nexus point. It would be simple enough to take advantage of his work to ensure that the chamber remained undiscovered, at least until her past self came along. The demon might have its own plans for the nexus point.

  “I want you to do something for me,” Whitehall said. Emily glanced at him, worried. “You remember the Books of Pacts? I want you to take them into the future and destroy them there.”

  Emily gave him a sharp look. “Are they safe?”

  “Lord Alfred had many demons under his command,” Whitehall said. “And some of them were never successfully bound by anyone else. Those books are going to be targets for every thief in the world as word spreads—and you know it will spread.”

  “The demons will make sure of it,” Emily said.

  “Take them into the future,” Whitehall said. “Go now. Keep them out of reach. And once you’re there, destroy them.”

  Emily sucked in her breath. The books were tempting, even though she’d felt the evil surrounding them every time she’d laid eyes on them. And yet, now she had a demon on her shoulder, it was all too easy to wonder if that was still true. Could she touch the books without being repulsed? Could she use the books without feeling as though she was touching something unbearably filthy?

  You can get used to anything, even hanging, she recalled Lady Barb saying once, as long as you do it long enough.

  “If I can, I will,” Emily said.

  “If you can’t, make sure no one ever finds them,” Whitehall warned. “They’re too dangerous to be allowed into unsuspecting hands.”

  Emily nodded. “I’ll see to it,” she promised. “They’re still in the library?”

  “Yes,” Whitehall said. He looked down at the ground for a long moment. “We never found Robin’s Book of Pacts. And I have no idea what’s happened to Chambers’.”

  “It’ll show up again,” Emily predicted. “I ...”

  She turned, sharply, as she sensed the world changing behind her. The corridor was swelling open, as if it had turned to liquid; a Manavore, large enough to pass for a bus, ran towards them, even though it shouldn’t have been able to fit in the corridor. Emily cursed, then looked at Whitehall. It would take far too long to set up the spell.

  “How long?”

  “Ten minutes,” Whitehall said. He sounded bitter, resigned. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’ll distract it,” Emily said. It wouldn’t be easy. She doubted the creature could see her, against the blaze of power from the nexus point. “And ... if I don’t see you again, tell everyone I said goodbye. And live long and prosper.”

  She gave him a last look, trying to fix his features in her mind, then ran forward, summoning her magic and pushing it forward. Mistress Irene would have slapped her for extruding magic in such a manner, pointing out the danger of filling the air with raw unfocused mana, but there was no choice. The Manavore rolled to a halt as it tasted Emily’s magic, then spun around until it faced her. She felt invisible eyes peering at her and did her best to look back evenly, despite the strain on her reserves. There was no sense of anger, hatred or malice, merely a cool dispassion that surprised her.

  The Manavore scuttled forward, claws reaching out to strike. Emily turned and ran, leaving a trail of magic behind her. She was all too aware that it could move faster than her, but it seemed content to swallow the magic she was obligingly pumping out. Was it intelligent enough to reali
ze the disadvantages of killing her, unlike the farmer who owned the goose that laid the golden eggs, or did it not see her? Her body wasn’t saturated with sloppy magic.

  Gritting her teeth, she hurled a fireball behind her as the Manavore kept moving, snapping at her heels. Perhaps it wasn’t stupid after all, she thought, as she picked up speed. If she slowed down long enough to draw runes, it would consume her before she could even begin; if she kept moving, she’d eventually run out of reserves—and tire. And when she did, it would overrun and kill her.

  Crap, she thought. She reduced her mana output, trying to distract it, but the minute her output grew too low the Manavore started to flow back towards the nexus point. This is going to get me killed.

  She hit the creature with a fireball, cursing under her breath as it turned back to resume the chase. The choice before her was nightmarish. She could break contact at any moment, if she chose to allow the creature to start making its way back to Whitehall. And she had no idea just how much time he needed before the Manavores could be isolated and expelled from the castle. Hell, she had no idea if Bernard or Julianne were still alive. History said they would survive—it struck her, suddenly, that she had never had a chance to say a proper goodbye—but she had no idea if that would hold true indefinitely. Master Keldor had been credited with writing a book, she recalled; had he written that before his death, or had another magician taken the name?

  An idea struck her as she fled down the stairs, the Manavore in hot pursuit. She ran past the library and straight into the statue chamber, feeling the last of her reserves dwindle to nothing. And the lower her reserves became ... she stumbled as her legs threatened to give out, only the grim memory of Master Chambers’ death keeping her on her feet. Gritting her teeth, she thrust her awareness ahead of her and linked into the spells she’d intended to use to freeze herself in time. As soon as the Manavore ran into the chamber, she drew on the spells and lashed out at the creature, trying to drain its magic and shove it back to its own realm.

  The Manavore screamed, a sound that echoed in her head even as she fell to the ground and covered her ears, desperately. She turned, just in time to see the stone walls warping and twisting around it; a second later, the world spun madly as it died. Emily retched as the floor heaved, as if she was on a boat in the middle of a dreadful storm; she felt desperately seasick for a long moment before the sensation vanished, leaving her lying on the stone floor. Even in death, the Manavore cast a long shadow.

  And I sensed something when I explored this section for the first time, she thought, pulling herself upright. All that remained of the Manavore ...

  She found herself struggling to breathe as she felt Whitehall’s will working its way through the castle. Her body hurt. Her reserves were almost gone. It wasn’t easy to keep going, not when she wanted to just collapse to the floor and sleep, but there were other Manavores in the castle. Perhaps they’d all be flocking to the nexus chamber, ready to consume the source of magic itself. Or perhaps Whitehall had already isolated them and the battle was about to end.

  The demon is gone, she realized, dully. What happened to it?

  There was no time to worry about it, not now. Gritting her teeth, she stumbled back to the library and unpicked the wards. The two books were sitting on a table, surrounded by a pair of wards that should have taken her hours to unravel. But they broke the second she touched them. She puzzled over it for a long moment, then realized that Whitehall must have been planning to ask her to take the books for a long time. He’d keyed the wards to allow her to take the books at will. Picking them up—they still felt unpleasant to the touch—she carried them out of the room and back to the statue chamber. She’d just have to make sure they were isolated and then destroyed as soon as she got back to her own time.

  She dumped the books on the floor, as soon as she entered the chamber and started to test the spells. But all her work—all her careful work—lay in ruins. The Manavore’s remains—the impression it left on the air—had changed everything. She couldn’t use the chamber as she’d planned, yet she had to use the chamber. Her recollections told her she had used the chamber.

  Gritting her teeth, she started to work to rebuild the spells, one by one. But everything had changed. She wondered, grimly, if she could alter the interior dimensions of the school to shift the Manavore’s remains away from her spells, but Master Wolfe hadn’t even begun to craft the interior before his death. There was no help for it. She’d have to adjust her spells to compensate for its presence and hope for the best.

  I could go back up and ask for help, she thought. But ...

  She shook her head. She’d already interfered too much. There was no way to know how much was too much, and how much would cause her to blink out of existence. She had to go back to the nexus point ...

  As soon as the spells were in place, she picked up the books and walked to the center of the room. The spells glimmered around her, ready and waiting. She took a long breath, mouthing a prayer to a God she’d never really believed in ...

  ... And knew, a second later, that she’d made a terrible mistake.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  FOR A LONG MOMENT, PANIC GRIPPED her mind.

  She couldn’t move. She couldn’t even feel her body. Her heartbeat seemed to have stilled; she couldn’t even breathe. She was trapped in stone, yet awake and aware; she was trapped, held in place by her own magic. Panic battered at her defenses, trying desperately to push her magic away from her body, but her own spells held it firmly in place. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t break the spell. She’d keyed the spells to be broken—slowly—by her own touch, yet she couldn’t even begin to touch herself. She was trapped.

  It felt like hours before she managed to gather enough of her mind to focus and take stock of her situation, but it was pointless. Her spell had failed. No, it had worked, but only in part: her body would be preserved until her past self touched it, but her mind was still active, all too aware that it was trapped in stone. Horror ran through her as she realized she’d be completely mad by the time her past self touched her stone body. There was no hope of keeping herself sane without magic. Hell, she had no idea how long she’d been trapped in stone. She hoped—prayed—that it had already been a year, but cold logic suggested otherwise. Not knowing just how fast time was progressing probably wouldn’t help either ...

  Absolute despair washed through her mind as she realized she’d effectively killed herself, yet she could never die. The Emily that would escape the spell, centuries in the future, would be utterly insane, armed with all the knowledge and power she’d gathered and hoarded over the last five years. She doubted her future self would be sane enough to make sure the time loop was completed, hurling her past self back in time ... hell, she might just think it would be better to break the time loop.

  But I did it once, she thought. Didn’t I?

  “Well,” a quiet voice said. The amused condescension running through its tone would have made her flinch, if she could have moved. “This is a mess, isn’t it?”

  Emily cursed, mentally, as the demon stepped into view. It was familiar, all too familiar: it was the same demon she’d met under Mountaintop, hundreds of years in the future. Or was it? The demon she’d met had assumed that form—massive bulging eyes, a grinning mouth of unkempt teeth, a dark outfit glittering with chains and metal skulls, a shock of uncombed hair—to prove a point. Perhaps this demon had merely copied the same form. Or perhaps, from the demon’s point of view, their first meeting had already taken place.

  They exist outside time and space, she thought, as the demon reached forward and stroked her stone chin. All times are now to them.

  “Of course it’s a mess,” the demon added, answering its own question. “You’re trapped in stone by your own power. Quite a mess for anyone, particularly now. No one is going to find you for nine hundred and seventy-two years.”

  It smirked, unpleasantly. “And you’ve already been trapped for--” it made a show of
consulting a pocket watch hanging from a chain “--around five minutes, forty-seven seconds.”

  Emily felt numb horror running through her mind. It had felt like hours. She would have liked to believe the demon was lying, but ... demons couldn’t lie, not directly. And no matter how she thought about it, she couldn’t see any attempt to mislead her. There had been no weasel words, just a blunt statement that allowed no room for misunderstandings. Five minutes ... she didn’t know how she’d stand another hour of being trapped in stone, completely alone.

  And having the demon for company won’t be much of an improvement, she thought. It could drive me insane by talking.

  “Well, quite,” the demon said. It drew back so its huge yellow eyes could peer into Emily’s unblinking gaze. “But it’s not much fun if you can’t talk back, is it?”

  Emily had only a moment to realize that the demon must have read her mind before the world blurred around her. Her body ... changed. The demon, she realized numbly, had yanked her into the mental plane, the place where she’d confronted the demon that had invaded Whitehall before Grandmaster Hasdrubal’s death. She shivered as the mists rose up around her, forcing her to remain focused on the demon. It drifted in front of her, its mere presence holding her spellbound. She knew better than to take her eyes off a demon.

  Think, she told herself, sharply. It wouldn’t have done this unless it wanted something.

  “We can talk normally,” the demon said. The mocking tone hadn’t faded. “But not, I’m afraid, for very long. Time is not quite on our side.”

  “I thought you had nothing but time,” Emily said, tartly.

  “Time is ... a confused structure,” the demon said. “And you know that you have to get back to the future—and you have to arrive relatively sane.”

  “Relatively sane,” Emily repeated.

  The demon shrugged. “If you are not sane, as you have already realized,” it said, “the loop in time will not be closed. History itself will shift. And everything will change.”