The Zero Equation (The Zero Enigma Book 3)

by Christopher Nuttall

  I blinked as I caught up with his words. Two groups?

  “The upperclassmen responsible are being severely punished,” the Castellan added. “In addition, their punishment books have been taken away. They no longer have the authority to issue punishments, nor will they be allowed to patrol the school.”

  “Ouch,” Akin muttered.

  I nodded in agreement. I’d heard of students being suspended - or even expelled - but I’d never heard of an upperclassman losing his punishment book. It was a demotion, to all intents and purposes. They’d practically been turned back into lowerclassmen. And the upperclassmen who’d kept their books? Did they now have the authority to issue punishments to the demoted upperclassmen? I was sure the thought had gone through their minds. It had certainly occurred to me.

  “This will mean that the patrol schedule will have to be revised,” the Castellan told us. “I will outline a provisional schedule to the upperclassmen after this meeting. However, right now, there is a more important matter to discuss.”

  He leaned forward. His robes obscured much of his body language, but I could tell he was tense.

  “Jude’s has a long and proud tradition of neutrality,” he told us. “Whatever the situation on the other side of the walls, we take our neutrality seriously. Children from all walks of life, from all of the Great Houses, can come to Jude’s and study in reasonable safety. We seek to provide a place where lessons can be learnt, without too much being at stake. We do not take sides.

  “I understand that tensions have been steadily rising for the past five months. I understand that many of you feel that your families are under attack, or that you have to fight to defend yourself against a hostile world. But you are children. You are safe here.”

  “Hah,” I muttered.

  I rolled my eyes, despite knowing I’d be in trouble if I was caught. Jude’s had never been safe, not even for Alana or Isabella. And it had been worse for Rose and me, because one of us lacked magic and the other lacked status. I dreaded to think about what might happen if we lost the war. We might be able to stay at Jude’s for a few years, if we were very lucky, but afterwards? The thought of being forcibly adopted was terrifying.

  “We cannot tolerate - we will not tolerate - the House War spilling into the school,” the Castellan warned. “The next students to engage in bitter conflict in our corridors will spend an hour in the stocks. Do not assume that I am bluffing. You will regret it.”

  His words hung in the air. I believed him. Or at least I believed he would try. If he couldn't rely on the upperclassmen to keep order, what then? There were nearly a thousand students in the school. The teachers couldn't police them all. Could they?

  “Lowerclassmen, you are dismissed,” the Castellan said. “Return to your dorms and stay there until dinner. Upperclassmen, remain behind.”

  Akin rose. “I’ll see you later,” he said. “Try not to get into more trouble.”

  “We’ll do our best,” I said. “You take care of yourself too.”

  I stood. The remainder of the lowerclassmen were filing out in a hurry, as if they couldn’t wait to be gone. I didn't really blame them. I wanted to be gone too. Catching the Castellan’s eye would just get me in trouble, again. I had a feeling he wasn't bluffing about the stocks. Dad had told me that, sometimes, it was important to make a show of one’s strength. The Castellan needed to make an example of someone.

  But we’re just firsties, I reminded myself, as we walked up the stairs. Making an example of an upperclassman will be far more effective.

  “What happened to your cheek?” Isabella was standing outside the dorm, looking cranky. I had the feeling she was waiting for her cronies. “It’s a great improvement.”

  I rubbed my jaw. “None of your business,” I said. I’d almost forgotten about the bruise until she reminded me. “And you ...”

  Sandy came up behind us. “Get in there,” she snapped. “And before you ask, I do have my punishment book.”

  “Oh,” Isabella muttered. “What a shame.”

  For once, I actually agreed with her.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  If the Castellan had hoped that his words - and threats - would have any real impact, he was soon sorely disappointed. Rumours kept sweeping through the school, panic spreading in their wake. Aguirre Hall had been destroyed. House Rubén had been forced to surrender and their children were going to be adopted into House Aguirre. Shops and businesses had been destroyed; fishing boats and clipper ships had been sunk; House MacDonald had switched sides; House Bolingbroke had declared neutrality and withdrawn from the conflict ... I nearly panicked myself when I heard that my parents had been killed and we were going to be put in Uncle Nathan’s tender care. He wasn't a bad man, but he wasn't my dad. How could he take Dad’s place?

  And each wave of rumours brought conflict into the school. There were no more major skirmishes between the two sides - or four, six, or eight, depending on whom you believed - but there was plenty of hexing in the corridors. I saw entire lines of students waiting outside the infirmary, hoping that the healers could remove the hexes that marred their bodies. Tutors - and the handful of trustworthy upperclassmen - stalked the corridors, handing out lines and detentions with a free hand. And the Castellan hadn't been bluffing about the stocks. There seemed to be a new student in the stocks every day.

  But it wasn't enough. I tried to keep my head down, reminding myself - time and time again - that the rumours were never confirmed - but it was impossible. Alana and Robin weren't the only ones who seemed to believe I could be a decisive factor in the House War. Older students begged me for protections, or weapons, or something else that might tip the balance. I was grimly aware that Sandy, at least, had already figured out a way to go around my protections and it was just a matter of time until someone else did the same. Very few students were stupid. Stupid magicians rarely lasted very long.

  The only place that appeared to be safe, at least for me, was the workroom. Magister Tallyman was kind enough to let me work in peace after classes, although he sometimes allowed Rose and Akin to join me. I wasn't sure if that was a little additional kindness or an attempt to pretend he was still neutral, but I didn't mind. Their company was infinitively preferable to everyone else’s. They also knew to keep their distance. I’d lost too much work when someone - accidentally or deliberately - walked too close to my workbench.

  And I designed and forged weapons.

  It wasn't something I wanted to do, but ... Alana was right. We were at war. I’d seen factions break apart, only to reform moments later under different names. The conflict outside the school found an echo inside the school, with students exchanging hexes in the name of their future patrons. And Alana was right in the middle of it, issuing orders to older students who would be subordinate to her when she graduated. I hated to watch, knowing it would tear the city apart. But I saw no choice.

  “I need you to look at this,” I told Rose, one evening. “What do you make of my box?”

  Rose eyed it warily. “It doesn't look like much.”

  I nodded, without taking offense. The wooden box really didn't look like much. It looked as if it had been put together by someone with only the vaguest idea of what he was doing, rather than a skilled forger. The family carpenter would have laughed himself silly if he’d seen the ramshackle box. It was the size of my trunk, yet the sides looked oddly slanted and the lid was too large. And ... it looked as if one good kick would smash it to splinters. Rose was quite right not to be impressed. She’d only had a few months of training, but she could already do better.

  “No, it doesn't,” I agreed. I pointed to the clasp. “But try to open it.”

  Rose nodded and reached for the lid. It refused to budge. She pulled at it for a long moment, then tried to pry up the lid. It didn't move either. The design might be inelegant, but it was workable. I’d crafted another Object of Power. No one would be able to get into the box without my permission. The sort of force necessary to burn t
hrough the spellform would destroy the box and its contents.

  I motioned for her to step back, then touched the clasp. It opened, immediately.

  Rose’s eyes narrowed. “Blood-bonded?”

  “Something like that,” I said. Actually, I’d keyed the spellform to test for an absence of magic as well as a single specific user. It hadn't been easy. The first couple of designs had worked, in theory, but practically they’d been useless. Someone would have been able to open the box with a long stick, then simply take what they wanted. “It’s keyed to me.”

  I turned the box - it was light in my hands too - and showed her the contents. I’d forged dozens of Objects of Power over the last week, from spellcasters to protective amulets and bracelets. Some of my earlier designs had been retired - I no longer needed to use such limited artefacts - while others had been improved. And, unlike the box, they could be used by anyone.

  “It's bigger on the inside,” Rose said, admiringly. “How long did it take you to forge?”

  “A week,” I admitted. The books claimed it could be done in less than a day, but I wasn't so sure. But then, I’d only been able to snatch a few moments each day to forge the box. “I had to carve out the interior dimensions, then embed the trays and shelves within the framework.”

  “Clever,” Rose said. “You could turn this into a house!”

  “I doubt it,” I said. Theoretically, it was possible. Practically ... I wasn’t so sure. If the spellform ever collapsed, the contents would be violently ejected in all directions. That might explain just how weird the Eternal City had become, after the magic went away for a few seconds. The pocket dimensions had spewed raw magic in all directions. “Building something larger than this would take too much time.”

  But I had to admit I was almost tempted. A house that was tiny on the outside, but immensely huge on the inside ... I could simply stay inside, whatever happened. And yet, there would be no way out, save for the front door. I considered the possibilities for a long moment, then decided it wasn't worth the effort. The risk of getting trapped and running out of food would be too great.

  I shook my head. “I want to add you to the list of people who can get into the box,” I said. I didn't need to add that there was only one person - me - who could get inside. Alana and Bella might try, if they thought the box was blood-bonded, but they’d fail. “And ... I’m going to put the sword inside too.”

  Rose cocked her head. “You could forge another box, put the sword inside and give it to Akin’s father,” she suggested. “He’d have the sword, but he’d be unable to use it.”

  “... I could,” I said, after a moment. “If we’d had that idea a month or so ago ... it’s too late now, I think.”

  “I know,” Rose said. She reached out and patted my arm, awkwardly. “Is there anywhere for you to go?”

  I shrugged. If I ran ... where would I go? I was too young to pass unnoticed. If I went to the king, I suppose I could trade my services for safety ... or maybe I could go further away. A clipper ship might take me, no questions asked, if I gave them a handful of Objects of Power or a great deal of money ... no, they would ask questions. I was simply too noticeable outside the city.

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “If something happens to me ... open the box, then do what you see fit.”

  I took her palm, took a tiny blood sample and worked it into the clasp. That had taken more time and effort than the rest of the box put together, but - as I watched the blood slowly seeping into the metal, I knew it had been worth it. Rose would be able to open the box, with or without me. If something happened ... I wanted to cry in frustration. I wanted to explore my gifts, not prepare for a war.

  But the Castellan is losing control, I thought, numbly. What’ll happen when his authority finally collapses?

  It wasn't a pleasant thought. Magister Von Rupert and Magister Grayson had had me assisting them with the wards, but it was clear - to me, at least - that they’d reached the limits of what they could do. The wards were already fraying badly, simply because they couldn't draw enough power to function properly. It was only a matter of time until they collapsed completely. And then ... the school would be defenceless. The factions would be free to fight as they wished, until they brought down the entire building. I just didn't know what to do.

  I could tell them the truth, I told myself. But what would they do then?

  Rose nudged me. “Cat?”

  I blinked. “Sorry,” I said. “I wandered into my thoughts and got lost.”

  “It certainly looked like you were lost,” Rose said. She shot me a reassuring look. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “It’s all going to be fine,” I lied, as I closed the box. I didn't want to talk about it. There was just too much at stake. “See if you can open the box now.”

  Rose reached out and pressed her fingers against the box. It opened the moment she touched the clasp. I allowed myself a moment of relief, then closed the box again. We’d take it up to the dorms, then hide it under Rose’s bed. No one would look twice at it. Everyone knew Rose was too poor to purchase a trunk. Her clothes had arrived in cloth bags that Isabella - and almost everyone else - had mocked endlessly. They’d mock her ramshackle box too, but this time the joke would be on them. I’d carved her initials into the wood just to be sure they drew the wrong conclusion.

  “Clever,” Rose said.

  “You’re welcome,” I said. I nodded to her workbench. “Do you want to keep working on your sensor?”

  Rose winked at me, then hurried back to her workbench. Magister Tallyman might have turned a blind eye to some of what we were doing, but he wouldn't be pleased if Rose didn't have a working sensor by the time her mock exams rolled around. I wouldn't have blamed him, either. Sensors were hardly complex Devices of Power, although they could be tricky to forge if the dimensions weren't entirely correct. I watched her sit down and set to work, then turned my attention back to my notebook. Magister Von Rupert had forced me to ask myself many questions about the magic field.

  The ancients had it easy, I thought, sourly. They weren't alone.

  I looked down at my notes, trying to understand how the field worked. Logically, if we were going to run out of magic, we’d have done it already. Society had been using magic for the past two thousand years ... longer, perhaps, if one believed the stories about world-spanning empires that predated the Thousand-Year Empire. There was definitely a great and ancient civilisation on the other side of the world - Hangchow - as well as the remains of something near the Saragossa Archipelago. And yet, there might be a lot of magic. No one was more aware than I that most spells used relatively little magic.

  And there might be something replenishing the magic, like plants turn carbon dioxide into oxygen, I considered. But what?

  There was no answer. But there had to be something replenishing the magic, didn't there? Or ... had we simply not run out of magic yet? The world was immense, three-quarters covered in ocean. If everyone alive took a drink from the oceans at the same time, the total level would barely drop at all. Or so I thought ... I considered the numbers for a long moment, then decided it was a waste of effort. We used much less magic, relatively speaking, than the Thousand-Year Empire. Maybe the magic field had slowly replenished itself since the empire had crashed into rubble.

  I shook my head. What had Tyros and his friends done? Tyros had insisted that they’d drained all the magic in the Eternal City, but I knew the magic had come back. Akin and Rose had both used magic freely during our escape, as had our former captors. Did that mean the field had levelled out? Or ... there was no question that something had happened to the magic in the Eternal City. Even I had felt uneasy as we sneaked through the rubble. If they’d drained the magic, how had their Object of Power functioned?

  Presumably it stopped working when the local magic level ran too low, I thought, as I considered the possibilities. Something designed to simply use magic ... it would be horrendously inefficient, but that was part of th
e point. It would have to constantly raise the power drain too, otherwise it might just stabilise. We had light-crystals in the school that glowed constantly, without running out of power. And that means ...

  Almost against my will, the concept came to life in my mind. The equations were crude and wasteful, utterly inelegant, but workable. Once established, the Object of Power would turn into a magic whirlpool, sucking in magic until it ran out ... at which point, it would collapse in on itself. And yet, I couldn't see any hint of limitations. The device Tyros and his friends had built should have kept going until the entire magic field was drained dry. They should have removed all the magic.

  But the Eternal City was falling down around their ears, I reminded myself. I’d heard the stories of flying buildings and I’d seen the rubble. Perhaps one of the falling buildings had landed right on top of the Object of Power, smashing it beyond repair. It wouldn't be a particularly strong device. A good whack with a hammer would be enough to disable it permanently. I wonder why they didn't think of that?