And then he fell down into absolute blackness.
Chapter Five
Elaine felt Light Spinner’s magic billowing through the air as she ran to a window and leapt out, floating on the air and heading towards the riot. For a moment, Elaine wanted to follow her, but sanity reasserted itself before she could jump out of the window herself. She simply didn’t have the power to fly – or levitate – herself for longer than a few seconds, no matter how tightly she finessed the spells. Instead, she ran to the door – passing a handful of servants, who looked thoroughly terrified – and out into the gardens.
She was greeted by absolute chaos. On the other side of the railing, people were running in all directions, while the City Guardsmen were hanging back, desperately trying to pretend that they weren’t there. Shouts and screams echoed over the palace as Light Spinner swooped down, her raw power scattering the remaining protesters. There was so much magic crawling through the air that Elaine found herself wondering if the whole affair was a trap for the Grand Sorceress, before deciding that any such trap would be unnecessary. Someone with the power to create the magic pulse wouldn’t need such tricks. They could just walk into the palace and challenge her directly.
Elaine reached the gates and stared in horror at the scene before her. Countless people were scattered on the ground, some bleeding badly after being trampled by their fellows. Others were held in place by magic, or transfigured into animals or inanimate objects; a dozen had warts and boils burned into their faces through various prank curses and hexes. The Levellers had been thoroughly hammered by person or persons unknown, she thought, feeling sick. This was the sort of abuse of magic the Grand Sorceress was supposed to prevent ... and it had happened right in front of her residence.
Light Spinner dropped to the ground, robes billowing around her, as a pair of Inquisitors arrived. Elaine heard her snapping at them – where had they been when all seven hells were breaking loose? – but tuned her out, searching instead for the source of the magical pulse. It was easy to tell that the magical field had been badly disturbed, as if someone had rung a colossal bell and the echoes were still audible. She might not have been the most sensitive magician in the world, but it was easy to trace the pulse back to its source.
A young man lay on the ground, completely stunned. Elaine knelt down beside him and took his pulse, then drew her wand and started casting diagnostic charms. The results shimmered up in front of her; a moment later, she felt her eyes narrow in puzzlement. None of the charms seemed able to decide if she were dealing with a magician or a mundane. There was magic in him, definitely, yet it was concentrated in his brain. But a normal magician would have magic flowing through his body.
She looked up as more Inquisitors and a string of druids finally arrived, followed by a small army of City Guardsmen, who had been emboldened by the appearance of their ultimate superior and her Inquisitors. Elaine couldn’t blame them for keeping back; City Guardsmen weren’t meant to take on magicians, no matter the situation. It was rare to have any Guardsman with magic of his own; the ones who did tended to be transferred to the Inquisition.
“Find out what happened,” Light Spinner ordered, her voice somehow effortlessly ringing out above the throng. “And get these people some medical attention!”
Elaine scowled inwardly as Light Spinner, followed by a worried-looking Dread, came over to where she was waiting. It was impossible to read her expression behind the veil, but Elaine knew her well enough to know that she was deeply annoyed; someone, for whatever reason, had seen fit to challenge her authority right in front of her palace. And she’d also heard the Leveller attack on her person ...
Light Spinner stopped, peering down at the young man. “Is that ... is that the source of the pulse?”
“I think so,” Elaine admitted. “Who is he?”
She studied the young man for a long moment, feeling an odd sense that she’d seen someone like him before. He was handsome enough, with short brown hair and flawless face, but there were odd lines carved into his skin that suggested age or bitter experience. His clothing, however, suggested the aristocracy; bland his outfit might have been, but the tailoring was superb. Elaine could never have afforded such clothes, at least until she had been promoted. And she would have considered it a waste of money in any case.
“He reminds me of Duncan or Jamal Conidian,” Dread said, slowly. “What happened to him?”
“I’m not sure,” Elaine confessed. Dread was right; there was something about the stunned youth that reminded her of Charity Conidian. She cast the charms again, allowing him to see the results as they appeared in front of them. “But he was the source of the magic pulse.”
Light Spinner shook her head. “Take him to the hospital,” she ordered, as she stepped backwards. “You can run tests on him there.”
Elaine nodded. There was something ... odd about the way the magic field was responding to the boy. No, she corrected herself, the young man. She cast a second charm over him and discovered that he was a mere sixteen years old, even though he looked older. A moment later, Dread bent down and searched the man with practiced ease, turning up nothing apart from a medallion hanging around his neck. There were a handful of tracking charms placed on it, all seemingly inactive.
“No wand,” Dread said. “And he isn’t wearing school robes.”
Elaine heard the puzzlement in his voice and frowned. Most magicians owned and used a wand, but there were quite a few who didn’t. Their magic worked better without one; Light Spinner, like most of the other Senior Magicians, wouldn’t use a wand at all unless she required absolute precision. A reputation for wand dependency would suggest to her enemies that removing her wand would render her helpless.
But it was rare for a school-age youth not to own a wand. He would carry it everywhere, even if he didn’t use it regularly. Unless, of course, he had no magic.
She raised her own wand and cast a levitation charm. “I’ll take him to the hospital,” she said, as she floated the stunned man into the air. Thankfully, it was easier to levitate someone else than herself. “Can you find out who he is and why he was here?”
“I can try,” Dread said, with droll amusement.
Elaine felt herself flushing. The only person who had any right to issue orders to the Inquisitors was Light Spinner, who also seemed rather amused at Elaine’s presumption. Irked at herself, Elaine manipulated her wand, sending the floating body drifting ahead of her as she walked away from the crowd. The hospital wasn’t far from the palace, thankfully. Levitation charms didn’t require much power, but maintaining them for long was incredibly draining.
The hospital seemed to be in chaos as she entered, she discovered. Druids and healers were running everywhere, while a handful of City Guardsmen were bringing in wounded from the riot outside the palace. Elaine hesitated then, as she wasn't wearing her purple robes, lifted her Privy Council ring and showed it to one of the druids, who blanched. Everyone knew that the Privy Councillors had almost unlimited authority, even though Elaine rarely used it. She just didn’t have the mindset for going into a building and barking orders.
But she had to right now.
“I want a private room,” she said, sharply. “And a druid to attend me as soon as possible.”
She thought better of that a moment later. “No, I want the druid once everyone else is dealt with,” she added. There was no reason to believe that her charge was in immediate danger; if she took a druid away from emergency medical care, it was likely that someone innocent would die. “Until then, find me a room.”
The druid showed her to a small room, bringing back unhappy memories of the day she’d been turned into a Bookworm. Elaine levitated her charge inside and gently put him down on the bed, then collapsed into a chair in sudden exhaustion. It didn’t seem fair, somehow, that she knew so much, yet she didn’t have the power to make half of the spells she knew work. But she knew, better than anyone, that life wasn’t fair. Sweat prickled her back as she sagged, then
forced herself to stand upright and take some water from the sink. She needed a drink desperately.
Outside, she could hear the chaos growing louder as more and more patients were brought into the hospital. Elaine hoped that most of them could be healed quickly, but the druids were likely to be overworked and understaffed, particularly after a number of the most powerful druids had been killed by Kane. Taking another sip of water, she stepped over to the young man and started to cast another series of charms. The results seemed thoroughly unique.
There was magic, but it was definitely concentrated in his brain. No matter how she fine-tuned the scans, it was definitely isolated ... she even ran a scan of herself, just to make sure that the charms were working properly. It wasn’t the only oddity. Unconscious magic helped children to heal quickly, even without immediate medical care, but there were definite signs that her charge hadn’t healed quickly. She scowled, feeling knowledge from a thousand medical textbooks spinning through her head; there were signs that magic had been used to treat him, but it was external magic. A mundane who had been treated by the druids would have shown the same results.
And his body showed the faint disturbance caused by one too many transfigurations. The spells used weren’t dangerous, not in the sense that they could accidentally kill, but so many transfigurations had to have inflicted some damage. Elaine shivered, remembering the day Millicent had turned her into a frog for a week, back at the Peerless School. If her readings were accurate, this young man had gone through much worse ...
“But if you’re related to Duncan Conidian,” Elaine said, out loud, “why didn’t you defend yourself?”
Maybe he couldn’t, her own thoughts answered her. No wand, no school robes ... and you never saw him in the Great Library. What does that suggest?
She shivered. Not seeing him in the library proved nothing; she wasn’t sociable enough to wander the halls and reading rooms, chatting to students. That was Vane’s job. Added together, however, it was starting to suggest a very disturbing picture. Absently, she tried to find out why the young man was still asleep and found nothing. She couldn’t help remembering the days after she’d been turned into a Bookworm. She’d been stunned for several days too.
There was a knock at the door, which opened to reveal Dread. The Inquisitor looked as stony-faced as ever, but Elaine knew him well enough to realise that he was tired and not entirely happy with the world. Elaine cancelled her charms and looked over at him, wondering what he’d found out. And, for that matter, just what had happened outside the palace.
“His name is Johan, Johan Conidian,” Dread said. His voice was almost devoid of emotion, another sure sign that he was more tired than he wanted to let on. “And he’s a Powerless.”
Elaine shook her head. “There’s magic in there,” she said. “Very odd magic, but it is there.”
She scowled as Dread started to cast his own charms, feeling a moment of pity for the young man. The Conidian Family was powerfully magical; if Johan was genuinely powerless, his life must have been hellish. Elaine might have been a low-power magician, but she was still a magician. A Powerless wouldn’t be any sort of magician ... and, born to a magical family, would get absolutely no respect. No wonder he’d been transfigured so often. His brothers and sisters must have thought of him as a permanent target for their pranks.
The Peerless School encouraged a limited amount of pranks – Elaine thought of it as bullying – in the hopes it would provide incentive for the prank victims to study and develop their magic. But all such pranks were supposed to be carried out in the school ... and targeted on other student magicians. Targeting a Powerless, one who couldn’t defend himself at all, was just evil. But it seemed that the Conidian had allowed it to happen. Had he thought, Elaine asked himself, that repeated pranks would encourage his son to develop magic? Or had he merely hated the living evidence of weakness in his bloodline?
Dread finished casting charms and stepped backwards. “Wonderful,” he said, sardonically. “The last time I saw anything like this was when I first met you.”
Elaine remembered. “But he wasn’t in the Great Library when it happened,” she pointed out, keeping her voice calm. Magical accidents that boosted – or weakened – someone’s power were rarely good news. There were times when she still marvelled that she had been allowed to wake up, after becoming a Bookworm. “I don’t think that any such spell could have affected him.”
“I do not know if that would make a difference,” Dread countered. “And what has happened to him now?”
“Unknown,” Elaine said, tersely. All the knowledge in her head seemed useless. There were plenty of cases where trauma affected a person’s magic, but they had all required the victim to be a magician. Johan ... had never been a magician. He hadn’t even had the signs that Elaine had shown, back in the orphanage. “He had no magic. Now ... he has magic inside him.”
Dread lifted his staff, then tapped its iron tip on the floor. “What is he going to become?”
“I don’t think that you should kill him now,” Elaine said, quickly. “This is utterly unprecedented.”
“So is what happened to you,” Dread reminded her, “and you know who was behind it.”
Elaine shivered. The Witch-King ... did he have something to do with Johan’s accident? But there was no way to be sure, one way or the other. For all they knew, it was Johan’s grandchildren who would be the essential part of the Witch-King’s plot.
“I think that the Grand Sorceress should make that decision,” Elaine said. She knew that Dread had the authority to kill, if he believed that the Empire’s security was at risk, but she didn’t want to see Johan dead. If nothing else, what had happened to him might revolutionise the study of magic. He had been Powerless ... and if he’d developed magic, it would change the world. “What happened outside?”
Dread’s face twisted into a grim scowl. “A bunch of magicians, mainly students, attacked the Leveller rally,” he said. “So far, we have nineteen dead, thirty-seven injured, twelve forced transfigurations and thirteen people suffering the after-effects of various compulsion charms.”
Elaine shuddered. She knew, all too well, just how vulnerable non-magicians were to magic, even if they had purchased protective amulets and spells from magicians. Even student magicians could have inflicted considerable harm on the protesters ... and they had, it seemed. By the time Light Spinner had intervened, they’d killed nineteen mundanes.
She gritted her teeth. “Who did it?”
“We’re still putting together a case,” Dread said. “The Grand Sorceress is not happy. No matter what the Levellers were doing – or saying – such attacks cannot be tolerated. However, we don’t have any real idea just who carried out the attack. The witnesses all agree that they used disguise charms to obscure their faces. They didn’t even bother to come up with actual faces; they just ensured that no one could see their features.”
Elaine rubbed her eyes, suddenly feeling very tired. She knew what would happen now; if they hadn’t been caught in the act, the perpetrators would swear blind that they were innocent ... and, as they probably had magical relatives, they would bring colossal pressure to bear on Light Spinner to let them off with a slap on the wrist. If, of course, there was enough proof to bring them to face her in the first place. Few magical families would care if their children killed – directly or indirectly – a handful of mundanes. What were they going to do about it?
“The last thing we need is another challenge to the Grand Sorceress’s authority,” Dread added. “We may wind up quietly ignoring the whole affair.”
“I know,” Elaine said.
She’d thought that the Grand Sorcerer was all-powerful. It hadn’t been until she’d joined the Privy Council that she’d realised that there were limits, particularly when other powerful magicians – or magical families – were involved. Even the most powerful magician in the world would have hesitated to confront several families acting in concert ... and they would, if they bel
ieved that their children were in danger. Light Spinner might be unable to get anything done if the families chose to challenge her openly.
And, with the Empire already weakened by Kane, the last thing they needed was the suggestion that the Grand Sorceress couldn’t keep order. It would undermine the Empire’s stability further ... she scowled as she remembered her last letter from Bee. He’d told her that his mistress, the Empress of the South, had been asking him for his impressions of the Grand Sorceress and openly questioning her ability to handle the task of running the Empire.
“I’ll concentrate on Johan,” she said, finally. “Can you interview his family? See what they make of the whole affair?”
“Once I get some free time,” Dread said. He turned and started to walk towards the door. “If we can catch the perpetrators red-handed, it might be harder for them to hide behind their families.”
Elaine nodded, then turned back to Johan as Dread left the room.
“What are you?” she asked. There was no reply, apart from the steady rise and fall of his chest. “And what are you becoming?”
Chapter Six
Johan felt ... weird.
It was an odd sensation, one that seemed to twist and turn through his head, making it impossible for him to even get a grip on what it actually was. He thought he had a headache, save that there was no pain; it was almost as if he were dreaming that he had a headache. But there was something very wrong in his head ...
Johan had nightmares regularly, but this was different. There was a sense of reality that was lacking in his other nightmares, a sense that he couldn’t escape no matter what he did. In a way, he was almost aware that he was dreaming ... and, at the same time, he was convinced that he wasn’t dreaming. There was a sudden stab of pain, so painful that he screamed ...
... And then he snapped awake.
His head suddenly hurt as light blazed down from high overhead. Stunned, he squeezed his eyes shut as daggers seemed to plunge through his eyeballs and into his skull. He tried to recall what had happened, but nothing came to mind. Had one of his siblings played a trick on him ... or had something else happened? His memory seemed to have failed him, although it was hard to concentrate. Pain ... and something else ... seemed to be coiling in his mind, burning through his thoughts. He just wanted to roll over and die.
Bookworm II: The Very Ugly Duckling Page 5