Bookworm II: The Very Ugly Duckling

by Christopher Nuttall

  Some trainee magicians were allowed to practice on each other, but Elaine had a feeling that would be very dangerous, at least until they had a better handle on how Johan’s powers actually worked. If a lighting charm and a cooling charm had produced near-lethal results, what would a levitation charm do, let alone a transfiguration spell? She had a mental vision of the unhappy student being slammed into the ceiling at terrifying speed, and shuddered. Most of the transfiguration spells would be worse than lethal ...

  She crossed her legs and sat, as comfortably as she could. “Sit in a manner you find comfortable,” she ordered. Surprisingly, he knelt back on his haunches. Elaine frowned, wondering if he’d been treated like a servant – or a slave – and then remembered that his family worshipped a god that demanded kneeling as part of the rites. “I want you to close your eyes and listen for your heartbeat.”

  The comforting sound of her own heartbeat echoed in her ears as she cleared her mind. It was a basic exercise, one she’d been taught in her first year at the Peerless School ... and one of the few exercises that she’d mastered before Millicent and her cronies. It didn’t require magical strength; rather, it required an awareness of one’s own mind and how best to calm it down.

  “Focus on your heartbeat,” she ordered, trying to split her attention between her own mind and issuing instructions to him. She honestly had no idea how her tutor had managed to teach an entire class when sinking into her own mind had to be a colossal temptation. “Listen to it pounding inside your chest. And then see if you can touch your magic.”

  It was there, shimmering throughout her body. Elaine felt ... aware of it, aware of the raw power ... and the faint, almost imperceptible dark sheen that hung over her magic like a cloud. Heat seemed to stab through her eyes, only to vanish moments later, leaving her grimly aware that it was still there. No matter how often she washed, she knew, part of her would always feel unclean.

  “Focus,” she said, forcing herself to remain awake. She’d often slipped fully into the trance in the past, using the exercise to merge fully with her magic. “Concentrate on your magic.”

  “I can’t,” Johan said. The frustration in his voice was enough to bring him out of the trance, if he’d ever been in it. Boys tended to have a harder time picking up the skill than girls, which often led them to underestimate the value of the exercise. But without it, their magic would be dangerously crippled. “What am I supposed to do?”

  Elaine opened her eyes. Johan’s eyes were squeezed shut.

  “You’re trying too hard,” she said, reaching out to take his hands. He jumped at her touch, his eyelids flying open. Had no one touched him before? How many people, Elaine thought, had refused to even talk to a Powerless, for fear that it might prove contagious? It might have been kinder to send Johan to an orphanage. “Relax.”

  She talked him through it again, careful not to close her own eyes. Johan relaxed slightly, although it was clear that he still had his doubts. Elaine wasn’t too surprised. She was so practiced that it was hard for her to remember just how difficult it had been at the start.

  “I can hear my heartbeat,” Johan whispered. “But I can’t feel anything else.”

  His magic is all in his mind, Elaine thought. The standard exercises were focused on the heartbeat because magic ran through the entire body, but Johan’s magic was concentrated in his mind. For once, she found herself at a complete loss. All of the exercises she had been taught assumed that the magician was ... normal. Johan very definitely was not.

  The exercises wouldn’t hurt, she knew. Mundanes used them too, even if they didn’t have magic. But they probably wouldn’t help.

  “Open your eyes,” she ordered. “Unless you actually want to sleep.”

  Johan grinned, embarrassed. “How often do people drop off while they’re practicing?”

  Elaine grinned back. “It’s the one class in the Peerless School where you can fall asleep and not be punished for it,” she said. One of her tutors had had the nasty habit of firing hexes at any student foolish enough to fall asleep in her class. The others had normally just sent the offending student to the Administrator for punishment. “But you are expected to master the art before moving up to the next level.”

  “Maybe you should tell me what the exercise is supposed to do,” Johan said. “If I need to actually know ...”

  Elaine felt a hint of pride. Her student had figured something out for himself, despite an almost-complete lack of magical education.

  “Magic flows through our bloodstream,” she said, then hesitated. “Well, a normal magician’s magic flows through her bloodstream. It’s why magicians heal so quickly from injuries and rarely catch diseases, among other things. The exercise is designed to allow you to make contact with your magic on a conscious level and direct it, both inside and outside your body. You could, for instance, tell it to heal you quicker – or channel it out deliberately.”

  Johan hesitated, then scowled in understanding. “Jamal is never ...”

  He broke off and started again. “But I couldn’t feel my magic,” he said, carefully. “What does that mean?”

  “Your magic is concentrated in your brain, as far as I can tell,” Elaine said. She cast another diagnostic charm and studied the results. There didn’t seem to be any major change since the last time she’d checked him. “Nor does it seem to be spreading out through your blood. I may have to speak with some of my old tutors and ask for advice.”

  “I see,” Johan said. Elaine rather suspected that he didn’t. Magical control was largely instinctive for young magicians. His siblings had probably had a great deal to unlearn when they’d gone to the Peerless School. “So what do I do with it?”

  “I’m not sure,” Elaine admitted. She looked down at her hands for a long moment. “I would like to take a blood sample, for tests. Would you allow that?”

  She saw the conflict on Johan’s face and felt a stab of guilt. Giving a blood sample away was dangerous for anyone, but it was hellishly dangerous for a magician, particularly an untrained one. Blood rites were either strongly controlled or very definitely illegal, with very good reason, yet dark wizards weren’t known for caring about the law. Even though he’d been a Powerless, access to Johan’s blood could have been used by a dark wizard to endanger his entire family.

  “I want your sworn word that you will not let the sample be taken or used by anyone else,” Johan said, after a long moment. “As a magician, you can swear such an oath.”

  “I would have to run the tests myself,” Elaine hedged. Johan had been told to be careful with oaths ... as had she, with far more reason. An oath sworn on her magic would have disastrous consequences if she broke it deliberately. But part of her didn’t want to share her experiments with anyone else. “Very well. I will swear.”

  She made the oath, then used her wand to draw a small blood sample out of Johan’s arm. It was clear that he didn’t heal quickly, she realised, as she bottled the sample and stowed it away in her personal pocket dimension. Even Dread or Light Spinner would have had problems breaking in and, if they did, a second spell would destroy the interior, reducing the blood sample to worthless ash.

  “It didn’t hurt,” Johan marvelled. “Why did it always hurt before?”

  Elaine made a mental note to have a few words with the hospital’s administrators. Casting a numbing spell was hardly difficult. Zacharias had taken out his frustration at wasting time on the Powerless boy, not his far too powerful and well-connected father. Elaine could understand the irritation, but there were definite limits.

  “The druid who attended you was an asshole,” Elaine said. She kept her eyes on the tiny cut, noting that it wasn’t even clotting over. It would have been simple to tell him to try to heal himself, but she doubted that he could do it safely. Druids had extensive training to ensure that they didn’t accidentally make the patient’s condition worse. “Don’t worry about it.”

  She cast a healing spell and watched as the wound sealed itself u
p. “Time to try something else,” she said, standing up. “Have you ever tried to cook?”

  “The cooks used to let me help in the kitchen, before my mother told me that I couldn’t go bother them,” Johan said, morosely. He seemed rather puzzled by the question. “But I don’t know how good I was at it.”

  Elaine smiled, leading him over to the workbench. She opened the compartment underneath the wooden top and produced a cauldron, several bags of ingredients, a bottle of water and a spelled heater, ready to warm up the liquid. Potions could be fun, if one had the patience to do more than memorise a handful of recipes. It still surprised her just how few students failed to work out how to proceed beyond rote learning, even though she now knew more potion recipes than all of the tutors in the Peerless School.

  “On the face of it,” she lectured, “a potion could be made by anyone, mundane or magical. But potions, certainly anything involving magical ingredients, require a magician to make them. Why would that be the case?”

  Johan thought about it, furrowing his brow. “Because magic is needed to work with magic?”

  “Close enough,” Elaine said. “The art to potions isn’t just brewing, but mixing together the intrinsic magic in the ingredients. That requires the power of a magician to manipulate the potion while it is being prepared. A skilled brewer will eventually gain a feel for how potions work that will allow them to develop newer and better potions.”

  She set up the cauldron with practiced ease, then poured in the water. “I took the liberty of preparing the ingredients earlier, she said, as she stepped aside to allow Johan to stand in front of it. “I’m going to issue instructions and you are going to brew.”

  Johan nodded, looking surprisingly interested. That would probably change, Elaine suspected, no matter the outcome of this experiment. Few students had the patience to do more than memorise the simpler formulas. Johan didn’t strike her as having the determination to study and brew until he was an expert.

  “Right,” she said. “Start by adding the shredded root weed ...”

  Seven minutes later, it was clear that everything was not going according to plan. Johan could follow instructions, but his potion refused to blend together into the bright orange liquid Elaine remembered from her studies. The Numbing Potion was a firm favourite among her fellow classmates – she hadn’t realised until midway through her first year precisely why it was taught to them – and it was considered simple to brew. But Johan’s potion was nothing more than muddy water and wasted ingredients.

  Elaine wasn’t too surprised. Johan wasn’t in touch with his magic at all, despite being born to a magical family. He didn’t know how to extend his magic outside his body, let alone into the potion. All he could do was cast spells ... it would be enough for him, she was sure, but she knew that they had to unlock the mystery behind his power. Why did he have such odd limits?

  “It hasn’t worked,” she said, shaking her head. Johan stirred it frantically, but nothing happened. “We’ll have to figure out a way for you to get in touch with your magic before returning to potions.”

  “Charity always made it seem so easy,” Johan muttered, crossly. “Why can’t I do it?”

  “Because your magic isn’t manipulating the potion,” Elaine said. A thought struck her and she picked up the grimoire from where it lay on the bench. “Put this on your head and see what happens.”

  Johan gave her a look that suggested he thought she had gone insane, but obeyed.

  “Nothing,” he said, after a long moment. “It’s just a heavy book.”

  Elaine took the book back, thinking hard. Even mundanes could sense the wards surrounding the Great Library, but Johan hadn’t noticed a thing. Nor had he sensed the almost stifling presence of the wards in the chamber, or the magic surrounding some of the artefacts on the table, where even an untrained magician should have been able to sense them. His vast power in one field seemed to be matched by almost complete helplessness in others. It just didn’t make sense.

  Johan leaned forward. “Are you all right?”

  “I need to think of better tests,” Elaine said. She considered, then pushed the thought aside for later contemplation. There were other issues that needed to be addressed. “And I need to teach you how to cancel your spells properly. In fact, we’ll do that now.”

  She couldn’t help smiling at his relief, which covered her concern. Johan’s case was completely unprecedented, unlike hers. But there were enough similarities to worry her, starting with the fact that someone seemingly powerless had developed remarkable abilities that might be very dangerous.

  Could this be the work of the Witch-King?

  Chapter Ten

  Where in the name of all of the gods was Johan?

  Duncan Conidian tossed the question over and over in his mind, trying to think of a proper answer. There had been tracking spells attached to Johan, but none of them seemed to be working any longer. That was ... worrying. Jamal and Charity had both mastered the art of removing such spells, yet Jamal would hardly do anything for Johan and he’d threatened Charity with an awful fate if she even thought about removing the spells. As humiliating as it was for Johan to know that his father was watching him, it was far safer for him than letting him wander the streets without some protection. After all, he had none of his own.

  But it was three days after he’d vanished and there had been nothing, nothing at all. Duncan couldn’t help imagining his body being found as the Inquisitors and City Guardsmen cleaned up after the riot, but surely someone would have notified him? Or perhaps not; Johan’s mere existence was a closely-guarded secret. The family would be shunned if the world knew that they had produced a Powerless. Johan might be dead and no one would ever know.

  He’d made very quiet inquiries, but there had been no positive results and he didn’t dare push too hard. Even the people who were completely dependent on his patronage might turn against him if they knew about Johan, or start using the information for blackmail purposes. The family couldn’t take the risk, not when they had a chance to rise to the very highest levels of society. But where was Johan?

  Jamal had come home, smirking from one side of his face to the other – and Duncan had interrogated him, wondering if Johan had been transfigured and abandoned somewhere. But Jamal had sworn blind that he’d had nothing to do with Johan’s disappearance and Duncan had been forced to believe him. Asking his eldest son and heir to swear on his magic would have been a grave insult, after all. And besides, whatever cruel tricks Jamal had played in the past, he had never really risked Johan’s life.

  Not that you did much to stop it, he told himself, angrily. Once, he’d thought that Jamal’s bullying would bring out the magic he was so sure lurked inside Johan. And then he’d stopped thinking about his second son altogether. It had been easier to turn a blind eye than face the fact that his bloodline had produced a Powerless. Jamal had been right, all those years ago. Johan should have had his memory modified and been sent to an orphanage. Cruel, but kinder than endless taunting from his siblings.

  There was a tap on the door.

  “Come in,” he snapped. The hesitant sound told him that it was almost certainly one of the maids. “And it had better be important!”

  May stepped into the room, her eyes downcast. Jamal had hired her purely because of her looks, Duncan knew – and she was a looker. Duncan didn’t care – his son should learn to be a man in all ways and experimenting with a maid was far less dangerous than flirting with the daughter of another magical family – but Jamal had moved on after a few months of having May in his bed. She’d since tried to seduce Duncan himself, fearful for her position in the household. Duncan’s reaction had taught her never to try that again.

  “The Druid Zacharias is at the door,” May whispered. Her voice was barely loud enough to be heard, unsurprisingly. She was absolutely terrified of him. “He wishes to speak with you urgently.”

  Duncan’s eyes narrowed. The druid? He’d called Zacharias three days ago f
or yet another series of tests on Johan; he certainly hadn’t expected to see him again for another year, where they might run yet more tests. Zacharias was lean and hungry, ready to do anything for gold coins, something that made him more than a little untrustworthy. No one knew better than Duncan just how easily oaths could be subverted by a devious magician.

  “Send him in,” he ordered. “And then wait outside.”

  May bowed and retreated. Duncan cast a handful of concealing charms over his desk – he didn’t want Zacharias to see anything he didn’t have to – and then waited for May to show the druid back into his office. Zacharias looked ... keen. That bothered Duncan more than he wanted to admit. The druid definitely knew something ... and wanted something else in exchange.

  “There have been developments,” Zacharias said. “Are you aware that your son Johan was taken to the hospital?”

  Duncan stared at him, his feelings torn between relief and fear. Johan was safe ... but if they’d tested him, they’d know he was Powerless. And if they’d actually identified him ...

  “... No,” he said, finally. “But it is a relief to hear that he is safe.”

  Zacharias smiled. “He may also have developed magic,” he said.

  It took Duncan several seconds to understand what the druid had said. “Magic?”

  “Magic,” Zacharias repeated.

  Duncan swallowed, feeling hope swelling inside his heart. “If this is a joke, or a hoax,” he said, “I swear to you that you will regret it.”

  “He was apparently caught up in the riot three days ago,” Zacharias explained, pretending to ignore the threat. “For some reason, he was out of it for two days, during which time he was cared for by the Head Librarian and an Inquisitor. As he was one of my patients, I managed to take a look at his record. The tests definitely detected magic.”

  His smile grew wider. “And they did some experiments when he awoke,” he added. “One of them apparently damaged the wards in the hospital room.”