Johan turned and stared. His face was etched with horror, much to Elaine’s relief. He’d shown similar horror when he’d accidentally turned Charity into a rat. At least he wasn’t likely to go seek revenge on everyone who had abused him, even if he was turning his back on his family.
“I didn’t mean to,” he protested, as he stepped towards her. “I ...”
Elaine would have smiled as reassuringly as she could if she had been able to move a muscle. Instead, she concentrated ... but nothing happened. Had Johan’s bubble altered the spell or was she too agitated to think properly? It was hard to be sure. She tried again, and again, yet her body refused to move. Johan touched her, lightly, as if he wasn’t quite sure what had happened.
“Move again,” he said, desperately. “Please ...”
Elaine toppled forward. She would have hit the ground if Johan hadn’t caught her and broken her fall. Carefully, she returned her wand to her belt and stood upright, leaning on him for a long moment. The attempts to free herself had failed, but they had still cost her a great deal of energy. She really needed a rest and some time to think.
“I didn’t mean to do that to you,” Johan said. “I just imagined a mirror.”
“I know,” Elaine said, unable to keep an edge out of her voice. “Be careful what you imagine in future.”
“That can’t be the answer,” Johan said. “If that were true ...”
His voice trailed off. Elaine could guess what he was thinking. If that were true, wouldn’t poor Jayne have been stripped naked as soon as he looked at her? There were no shortage of spells that did just that, spells that were often used in the Peerless School as pranks. But Johan hadn’t stripped anyone naked.
“I think you probably have to actually want something to happen,” Elaine said. It might explain his poor results with actual spellwork. He wanted the spell to work so desperately that it was colossally overpowered. “I think you really wanted to destroy your father’s letter.”
Johan nodded. “I did,” he said.
He reached into his pocket and produced a sheet of paper. “That’s the reply I wrote,” he explained. “If you’re going to take me on as an apprentice, you might as well read it.”
Elaine skimmed it. Johan didn’t mince words; after giving his father a piece of his mind, he told him in no uncertain terms that he would not be coming home. The letter fairly dripped with anger and hatred. Elaine barely knew Johan’s father, but she would have bet good money that he would lose control of his own magic after reading the letter.
“I think you shouldn’t be so rude,” she said, softly. She disliked confrontation, as a rule, and pointlessly irritating Johan’s father would do no good for future relationships between them. “He is still your father.”
Johan glared at her, his face twisted into a stubborn pose. “And I don’t want anything to do with him, ever again,” he said. “I’d sooner be a Nancy-Boy in Red Street than speak to him again.”
Elaine lifted her eyebrows. “Where did you hear of them?”
“Jamal mentioned them once,” Johan admitted. He frowned, curiosity winning over anger. “What do they actually do?”
“You don’t want to know,” Elaine said, reluctant to allow him to change the subject. “But you shouldn’t send this to your father. He could make life very difficult for you.”
Johan’s glare returned. “How?”
“He is the head of a magical house and master of a patronage network that stretches over the entire Empire,” Elaine pointed out, ruthlessly. “Even if he doesn’t try to have you brought home as a runaway child, he can still ensure that you have no hope of getting a job. Your magic might be new and interesting, but not many people will gamble on taking you on when your father is badmouthing you to everyone.”
Johan scowled, then bowed his head.
“I won’t let him think that I am going back to him,” he said, firmly.
“Then don’t,” Elaine said. “But think carefully about what you want to say.”
“He’ll think I’m showing weakness,” Johan muttered. “I know him.”
Elaine smiled. “Write it out, then we will have lunch and go to the zoo,” she said. “It’s been too long since I’ve been there and you might like it.”
“No one ever took me,” Johan said, softly. Elaine felt a matching wince as she remembered how few outings she’d been able to take from the orphanage. Only a handful of wealthy benefactors had paid for them ... and they had never met the hidden costs. “Thank you.”
He looked up at her, suddenly. “Do I scare you?”
The sudden change in subject surprised Elaine, as – she realised – it had been meant to do.
“No,” she said, after a long moment. “Not you personally. But the potential you represent worries me greatly. It could turn the world upside down.”
Chapter Seventeen
Johan mulled over what she’d said as they shared a dinner of roast beef, potatoes and several different kinds of vegetables, unable to come to any firm conclusion. If he represented previously undiscovered potential ... what did it mean?
Power always comes with a price, his father had been fond of saying, but Johan had never really seen it. Jamal certainly hadn’t paid a price for having his power, while Johan had paid too much for not having any power. Even now, he couldn’t help thinking that he was still paying. The closest thing he had to a friend was scared of his potential. What did that mean for the future?
“If this happened to me,” he asked, “what’s to stop it happening to someone else?”
“Nothing,” Elaine said, simply. “But then, we don’t know if you unlocked some hidden power within your blood or if you somehow gained powers in a freak accident.”
Johan scowled. “I’m always going to be alone, aren’t I?”
“Everyone is alone,” Elaine said. The bitterness in her voice surprised him, reminding him that he knew almost nothing about her. Someone who held such a high position should be firmly in the public eye, but Elaine had shunned it to the point that he hadn’t known who she was until she introduced herself. “Even the most outgoing person in the world has secrets they don’t dare share with their closest friends.”
She finished her plate and stood up. “I’m going to change,” she said. “I suggest that you do the same. Just wear something suitable for a walk out in the city.”
“Father would say I should wear a fine suit if I didn’t want to wear robes,” Johan pointed out. “Can I just wear plain clothes?”
“If you want,” Elaine said. “Just remember you have to walk in whatever you wear.”
Johan watched her go, then stood up himself and walked over to the wardrobe. Whoever had filled it had done an excellent job, he had to admit; they’d given him several sets of robes, but also trousers, shirts, waistcoats and underclothes. Pulling out a pair of simple, but elegantly tailored trousers, he undressed quickly and started to pull on the new outfit. A quick glance in the mirror confirmed that he looked different enough that the handful of people who knew him would probably fail to recognise him.
I should start working on glamours, he thought, sourly. His father had a network of friends and clients, all of whom might start looking for him. Johan had no official portrait, as part of his family’s attempts to pretend that he didn’t exist, but he had the distinctive features of his family. They would probably start by looking at Jamal’s portrait, then try to imagine someone younger and a little softer. God knew Jamal had remarked, more than once, that Johan had a weak chin.
He pulled his shirt on hastily as there was another knock at the door, then called to invite the knocker into the room. Elaine stepped inside, wearing a simple pair of trousers and shirt herself, her hair braided into a ponytail and allowed to hang down her back. She looked nothing like the Head Librarian. If she hadn’t had a wand at her belt, she wouldn’t have even passed for a magician.
She wasn’t beautiful, not conventionally beautiful. Certainly nothing like Jayne or Charity, bot
h of whom were stunningly gorgeous. But there was something about her that Johan found oddly compelling.
“I meant to ask,” Johan said, trying to cover his embarrassment at staring at her. “Why is there a rule that only magicians can carry wands if wands are useless?”
Elaine gave him an odd look, then nodded. “It’s considered rude to brush your magical field up against another magician’s field,” she said. “If you carry a wand, on the other hand, it’s a simple way to identify yourself as a magician. But if you pretended to be a magician ... well, you might run into some trouble.”
Johan could understand it. Jamal was always picking fights with his fellow magicians, constantly testing himself against them. If he happened to pick on a mundane pretending to be a magician ... it would be a one-sided slaughter. And besides, magicians had higher social status than mundanes. If people started pretending to be magicians, the social scale would be upended.
“You may not want to announce yourself,” Elaine added, breaking into his thoughts. “Your magic is odd enough that I’d prefer not to see you get into a duel.”
“Even with Jamal?” Johan asked. “I could surprise him ...”
Elaine gave him an icy look. “Your brother may be an ass,” she said, “but if he’d been a weak magician or a coward it would have been discovered long ago. Magicians constantly jostle for status, after all. And while your powers are odd, you are not all-powerful. Jamal might beat you through experience alone.”
Johan scowled. He’d always assumed that his brother was just bragging about how great a duellist he was, showing off to his powerless sibling just how much he could do. But he’d never heard anything to suggest that Jamal genuinely did have a reputation outside the house, one held by magicians who had no reason to be nice to him. Maybe Jamal hadn’t been boasting after all.
No, he was boasting, Johan told himself. He might just have had something real to boast about.
“I understand,” he said, out loud. At least Jamal was in jail ... or was he? “How long will Jamal stay in jail?”
“It depends on the Grand Sorceress,” Elaine admitted, as she headed towards the door. “And how much political support your father manages to round up.”
Johan picked up the letter he’d written and passed it to her. Elaine skimmed it quickly, nodded in approval and stuffed it into an envelope. It drifted away a moment later, heading towards the library’s mail room, where it would be handed over to the postmen. Johan, who had once been told that he would never have any other career, had researched them and discovered that a letter could reach its destination in the Golden City within hours. It had seemed like a fun job from the outside ...
... But his father would never have agreed to let him go.
Outside, it was cooler than he remembered as winter came on. The crowds seemed to have largely abandoned their more ... interesting outfits, choosing instead to wrap themselves in fur coats or heavy robes. Most of the students seemed to be running to and from the Great Library, studying desperately for the exams at the end of the month. Practical magic, Johan had once been told, could be practiced anywhere, but students who wanted good jobs had to study magical theory, law and many other topics. It still galled him to know that he could have found a good job, even without magic. And now that he did have magic ...
He gritted his teeth. If his father only wanted him with magic, he told himself again, he was damned if he was going to give the old man anything.
Elaine seemed to be picking a rather roundabout route to the zoo, he realised, but it took him several minutes of observation to realise that she was deliberately avoiding the crowds as much as possible. Johan could understand that, even though he had never found the streets too disconcerting. But then, he’d only been able to slip out occasionally and he wouldn’t have allowed fear of crowds to keep him from the streets. Taking his eyes off Elaine, he looked around, drinking in his newfound freedom.
Shoppers thronged the streets, looking for bargains, while roadside stalls tried to sell them food and drink. A variety of smells met his nostrils as he saw food from all over the Empire, from plates of hot and spicy curry to boiled fish and stringy vegetables. One stall was offering frozen cream – the seller was bawling loudly that it actually helped cool the blood – while another was offering bowls of hot soup. Johan remembered, with a sudden pang, the day he’d sneaked out of the house and bought himself a meal at one of the stalls. It had tasted good, all the more so because he’d been free ... if only for a few short hours.
It was almost a disappointment when he reached the zoo. On the outside, it was just a long low building, barely larger than his family’s house. Elaine led him inside ... and his whole world seemed to shift on its axis. The interior of the building was not only far bigger than the outside, it was spelled to give each animal a proper habitat. All around him, children were marvelling at a strange creature that looked like an oversized spider. The creature seemed to be eying them back with murderous intent.
“A Dark Wizard produced that creature using magic,” Elaine commented. “It couldn’t have existed otherwise. He was planning to produce a small army of them to terrorise the region, but the Inquisitors stopped him before he got much further. As it is, the eggs the creature produces can be used in a number of interesting and complicated potions.”
Johan eyed the spider, feeling oddly reluctant to turn his back on it. The children might be awed, but just looking at it brought out a fear of insects he hadn’t known he had. On eight legs, he asked himself, just how fast could it move? He didn’t think he really wanted to know the answer.
Elaine seemed more relaxed as they made their way through the zoo, pausing to look at each and every strange creature. Johan found himself relaxing too, wondering why his father had never brought him to the complex, even when he had been young enough to hope that his magic simply hadn’t developed yet. He glanced at Elaine, wondering just how old she really was. Glamours could hide signs of ageing, but he had a feeling that she wasn’t much older than Charity or Jamal. But if she was on the Privy Council ...
There’s no requirement to sit on the council, he reminded himself, apart from magical power and political power. She could have that at sixteen years old, if her parents were dead ...
“Thank you for bringing me here,” he said, and meant it. “This is fantastic.”
Elaine smiled back at him, then walked onwards. There was a giant scorpion, a creature that resembled a cross between a lion and a bear, a massive snake with something firmly fixed over its eyes, a small army of ants that seemed intent on building a colossal anthill in the centre of the zoo ... he found himself starting to grow tired, without even having seen everything in the complex. Five giant monkeys swung over his head, then made rude gestures towards the visitors. The kids laughed and ate it up. Their parents seemed much less amused.
“It’s not as if they can punish the monkeys,” Elaine commented, dryly.
Johan laughed.
An hour later, they left the zoo and headed towards a small café. Johan smiled openly as they stepped inside, remembering Charity’s tales of how she’d met new friends in similar places, places Johan had never been allowed to visit. Now ... he was almost disappointed. There was no magic in the darkened room, nothing special at all. But then, the café was some distance from the Peerless School. It was quite possible that few magicians came to drink there.
Elaine ordered for them both, then settled back to relax. Johan smiled at her, wondering if he dared ask if he could take Jayne next time. But she’d warned him that Jayne might not be interested ... his head hurt as he contemplated all the possibilities. Jamal, the lucky bastard, had been able to have his fun with the maids. Johan had known that none of them would have let him touch ...
There was a sudden loud noise from outside, followed by screaming. Johan saw Elaine jerk upright, drawing her wand from her belt. Brilliant light seemed to flare through the café’s windows as the screaming grew louder. Elaine moved her wand in a complic
ated pattern – summoning help, Johan assumed - then stood up and headed for the door. Johan hesitated, then followed her. Behind them, the handful of other people in the café were hiding under the tables. He found it hard to blame them.
Outside, all hell seemed to have broken loose. A handful of masked magicians were standing in the middle of the street, casting spells in all directions. Johan saw, to his horror, a pair of small children struck by an odd spell, their forms blurred together into a frozen nightmare. A woman was attacking her husband, several children were attacking their parents ... and others had been turned into frogs or inanimate objects. He froze, remembering what Jamal had done ...
... But Jamal was in jail. He had to be in jail. He couldn’t be one of the masked magicians, could he? Johan knew that Jamal was good at getting out of trouble, but surely he wouldn’t be stupid enough to worm his way out and then do the same crime again? No, this had to be his friends ...
“Power to the powerful,” one of the magicians called, amplifying his voice so that it could be heard all over the city. “Power to those who can take it ...”
His voice cut off as Elaine hit him with a stunning spell. He crumpled to the ground, his mask falling to reveal patrician features and long white hair. His comrades turned to stare at Elaine, then started hurling spells in her direction. Eldritch fire crackled around her as she used her wand to deflect the spells; Johan stared in horror, unable to quite comprehend the magnitude of their transgression. They weren’t just fighting with another magician, they were fighting with a Privy Councillor! There was no way that the Grand Sorceress would let that pass.
But they don’t know she’s a Privy Councillor, he thought, numbly. She isn’t wearing the robes.
Elaine stumbled backwards as curses and hexes crashed into her protections. Johan hesitated, unsure of what to do, then started to cast the first spell Charity had shown him. One of the magicians snickered out loud – the gestures were recognisable, even if Johan hadn’t been wearing magician’s robes or carrying a wand – clearly convinced that a light spell couldn’t even begin to hurt him. And then he jumped backwards as blinding white light blazed into existence, followed rapidly by a wave of heat.
Bookworm II: The Very Ugly Duckling Page 16