Crown Prince Dater hurried up to her, holding a mug of beer in one hand. “Lady Emily,” he said. “You are truly a great sorceress.”
Emily cringed, inwardly. “Thank you, Your Highness,” she said. “I did my best.”
The Crown Prince leaned forward. “Marry me.”
“I...” Emily blinked in surprise as she realized he was serious. She had to fight to keep from laughing. “I...”
She shook her head. “I have to complete my apprenticeship before I think about marrying anyone,” she said. She’d thought the Crown Prince was already married. He was certainly old enough to start churning out the heir and the spare. It had been his brother who’d courted Alassa. “And I don’t know where I’ll go afterwards.”
The Crown Prince bowed. “Please keep me in your thoughts,” he said. “And afterwards... my father will wish to thank you personally.”
He hurried away. Emily watched him go, feeling... she wasn’t sure how she felt. She’d never been the kind of person to have one-night stands, to have a brief loveless encounter that didn’t even last a day... and yet, part of her had been tempted to ask the prince if he wanted to share her bed. Just for a night... she shook her head, firmly. The last time she’d felt anything like it, she’d ended up in a doomed relationship with Cat. And if he’d been anywhere near...
Cat’s with my other self, Emily thought. Perhaps that’s for the best.
Lady Barb walked up and nodded. “How’re you feeling?”
“Tired,” Emily admitted. Lady Barb would understand, even if no one else did. “Tired, and a little overwhelmed.”
She allowed her eyes to drift over the celebrating men. It was well after midnight, yet the party was still going strong. She caught sight of the Crown Prince, sharing a jig with two men he would have never so much as looked at... she shook her head. They’d regret it in the morning. A handful of sorcerers were casting spells for fun, showing off their powers... they’d probably regret that in the morning too. And it was all for her... she sighed as she turned back to the older woman. She understood, now, why brides often turned into monsters. She just didn’t share the impulse to remind everyone, time and time again, that it was her day.
“You can go lie down,” Lady Barb told her. “The party isn’t technically over until the guest of honor leaves.”
Emily flushed. Alassa had explained it to her, once upon a time, but she’d forgotten. The king - or the guest of honor - was expected to withdraw, once the party was officially over. The rest of the guests would take it as a sign they could leave as well, without giving offense, although they could stay for a short time after to show their appreciation to their host. She hadn’t thought it applied here, but...
“I’ll go,” she said. She caught the older woman’s eye, silently asking her to come. “Did I do the right thing?”
“You can’t go wrong if you kill a necromancer,” Lady Barb told her, as they walked back to Emily’s room. “And the future will take care of itself.”
Emily nodded, slowly. The necromancer would have killed them, if he’d had a chance. And if his allies had arrived... she swallowed, hard. She’d barely been able to kill one necromancer, even with a pair of nasty tricks up her sleeve. Three of them might have been impossible, too much to challenge without sharing everything she knew. And that would have led to disaster. She was already second-guessing her decision to share the batteries. God alone knew what they would do with the nuke-spell.
She opened the door. Penny wasn’t there. Emily wondered, idly, if Penny would stay with the party until it finally wound down, then decided it wasn’t her problem. Lady Barb bid her goodnight, then left. Emily closed the door behind her, then sat on the blanket and stared at herself in the mirror. Her face was... strange, pale in places, red and bruised in others. And her hair felt limp and untidy. She wondered, suddenly, just how her evil counterpart had felt when she’d dispatched her first necromancer. She’d already been on the verge of madness when she’d killed her Shadye.
There was a sharp knock, a very masculine knock, on the door. Emily looked up, unsure if she should answer or if she should pretend to be asleep.
“Come,” she called.
The door opened. Master Lucknow stepped into the room.
Emily stood slowly, unsure what to say. He shouldn’t have disturbed her, not now. She’d just gone toe-to-toe with a necromancer. Her thoughts raced, trying to guess what he wanted... trying to decide what she could say or do. Did he... did he have... intentions? Or did he want a private chat? She braced herself, ready to tell him precisely where to go. If he had intentions, she’d give him an earache.
“Lady Emily.” Master Lucknow squatted on the floor. She wasn’t sure if he was trying to put her at ease or simply unable to remain standing for long. He’d pushed his magic hard over the last day too. “I need to talk to you.”
“I see.” Emily leaned against the wall, crossing her arms under her breasts. She wanted to sit too, but she had a feeling that would be taken for weakness. “What about?”
Master Lucknow met her eyes. “What did you do?”
“I killed him,” Emily said, bluntly. She tightened her mental defenses, silently grateful Void had insisted she practice time and time again until she could keep him out of her mind. It wasn’t the overt stab into her mind she had to fear, but the subtle probe that would learn something and withdraw unnoticed. “And that’s all there is to it.”
“No, it isn’t,” Master Lucknow said. His eyes continued to hold hers. It didn’t feel like he was trying to probe her mind, but it was hard to be sure. “What did you do to him?”
Emily rested her hands on her hips, leaning forward to confuse her body language as much as possible. She had no idea how old Master Lucknow was, but as he’d been a master who’d likely trained a bunch of apprentices, the odds were excellent he was very good at reading people. Emily disliked exaggerating her actions, trying to conceal her feelings behind subtle overacting, yet she saw no choice. He might be trying to read her body language, not her mind. It was something, perversely, that might be harder to avoid.
“I killed him,” she repeated.
“How?” Master Lucknow let out a breath. “Lady Emily... if... if whatever you did is a technique that can be used again, time and time again, we need it.”
Emily let out a breath. There was no good answer, not one that ended with her keeping her secrets to herself. There’d been too many questions, six years ago, about what she’d done to Shadye. Too many people who’d wondered if Whitehall was bluffing, when it claimed a lowly student had killed a necromancer; too many people who’d wondered if that student was a necromancer herself. And she’d cheated, when she’d fought Dua Kepala. There was no nexus point near the fort. The closest - dead - nexus point was buried under the Castle at the End of the Land. Whitehall was even further away.
“I used a battery,” she lied, smoothly. It wasn’t entirely untrue. “I emplaced a cancellation spell within a valve, then supercharged it with power from the battery. The spell was so powerful it weakened his wards to the point his magic broke free and consumed him. And that was that.”
Master Lucknow stared at her for a long moment, as if he was trying to tell the truth from the lies. Emily watched him, patiently waiting. The secret to a good lie, Void had taught her, was to keep it simple and convincing. Insisting she was telling the truth was an excellent tell she was lying. Let him consider the story, let him realize it could work... let him believe it had worked. And it would, if someone lasted long enough to cast the spell. A normal magician didn’t need to worry about stockpiling such vast amounts of magic. The trick would be largely useless against someone who wasn’t already unnaturally powerful. Even Void would be unaffected...
“You supercharged the spell,” he repeated. “A necromancer could power the spell himself, couldn’t he?”
“Perhaps,” Emily said. She’d never considered it, but... she kicked herself. She should have. The batteries were new, but wands
and staffs were old. Embedding a spell within a piece of wood was hardly difficult. Hell, a necromancer could enslave a first-year student and put them to work carving wands. “It wouldn’t be that useful for them.”
“They might render someone effectively defenseless,” Master Lucknow said. “That would be bad.”
“Yes,” Emily agreed. She had her doubts - if the necromancer was close enough to supercharge a cancelation spell, he’d be close enough to do something worse - but she could see the logic. “He might wind up accidentally blowing himself up, though. The spell wouldn’t be very focused.”
“No,” Master Lucknow agreed. He stroked his chin. “You really are dangerous, aren’t you?”
Emily felt a chill running down her spine. “How do you mean?”
Master Lucknow’s smile was bleak. “You killed... how many necromancers have you killed?”
“I’ve lost count,” Emily said. It wasn’t entirely untrue. “Shadye, Mother Holly, Dua Kepala, King Randor, Bersuit...”
“And you’ve turned the Allied Lands upside down,” Master Lucknow said, as if she hadn’t spoken. “Your innovations” - he made the word a curse - “have changed everything.”
“It would have happened, with or without me,” Emily said. “I...”
“Maybe,” Master Lucknow said. “And maybe you’re an element of chaos in an orderly world.”
Emily snorted. She was too tired to be polite. “Do you think that’s true?”
She pushed on before he could answer. “It strikes me that half the problems you have are of your own making. Mistreated peasants who want to be free, mistreated traders who’d like to keep some of their earnings, mistreated newborn magicians desperate for power... if it hadn’t been me who’d introduced gunpowder, someone else would have.”
“Maybe,” Master Lucknow repeated. He stood. “Get some rest, Lady Emily. Tomorrow... we’ll see how the necromancers react to losing one of their own.”
“Another of their own,” Emily said, tartly. “Maybe they’ll just cut and run.”
“And run where?” Master Lucknow leaned forward. “Emily, they have nowhere to go. And that means they’ll be desperate.”
He opened the door before she could answer and left, closing it firmly behind him. Emily stared at the wooden door, sweat pouring down her back. That had been... worrying, deeply worrying. She’d known there were people who resented her, who worried about her, but... she wondered, suddenly, just what side Master Lucknow was really on. He’d begged her to help, yet... she made a mental note to write to Jan, to ask him what his master was thinking...
And Master Lucknow didn’t let Jan join the army, Emily thought, as she lay back on the blanket. It was odd for an apprentice not to follow his master. Jan might not be a combat sorcerer, but he was no slouch. If nothing else, he could have charged batteries for his superiors. Why?
She put the thought aside as she closed her eyes. It was time to sleep. She’d worry about everything else later.
Chapter Twenty-Five (Emily1)
“WELL,” CAT SAID, AS HE PULLED his horse to a stop. “That’s your destination.”
Emily frowned, feeling the oath pushing at her as she stared towards the distant castle. She’d expected something akin to the Inverse Shadow, a Faerie ruin designed and built by creatures that were so far from human it was hard to believe they had anything in common. She’d expected a towering ziggurat or a twisting thing that led the eye in directions the human mind was not designed to grasp. She’d expected... she sucked in her breath as she pulled on the reins. The castle looked to have been built by humans. It reminded her of Old Whitehall.
She sucked in her breath. The castle appeared to be made of sandstone - it didn’t look like real stone - but otherwise it was kin to her first true school. It squatted on what had once been a hillock, before the castle-builders had turned it into a fortress and necromancy had worn down the surrounding countryside. She was reminded, suddenly, of Alexis... of a twisted version of the old castle surrounded by rickety buildings, slave camps and nightmarish creatures from the pits of hell. It felt as if the necromancer had tried to copy the northern city, but succeeded only in stamping his impression upon the land.
“I can’t sense him,” Cat said, quietly. “Do you think he’s gone?”
Emily shrugged. They’d spotted vast armies of orcs making their way north, tearing up the landscape as they’d hurried towards the mountains. There’d been no sign of the necromancer himself, but they’d seen quite a few of his enforcers. The creatures, whatever they were, had paid no attention to them. They seemed to have assumed that anyone wearing their cloaks had to be one of them, carrying out orders from their distant master. Emily guessed they weren’t trained to suspect everyone. Or... her lips quirked into a cold smile. The easiest way to get into a heavily-guarded castle, she’d been told, was to claim orders from higher up. A lowly guard might hesitate to disturb his superior, just to check they weren’t lying. A particularly idiotic superior might not realize that punishing someone for asking questions meant people wouldn’t ask questions when it counted.
Her eyes ached as she surveyed the castle, wondering who’d built it and why. No one knew who’d built Whitehall, or Laughter, or any of the other castles that had been constructed sometime before the dawn of recorded history. Emily knew there were gaps in the historical record - she was fairly sure the winners had written the history books, only to see their accounts watered down and forgotten over the next few centuries - but losing an entire civilization was more than a little odd. She shook her head. The castle was protected, heavily so, yet... she didn’t think the necromancer was there. Her other self had drawn him away.
She glanced at the sky. They’d ridden for four days. Cold logic told her they should hole up and rest, but the oath demanded she go now. That she entered the castle, with the batteries, and reignited the nexus point. That she... she glanced at Cat, then nodded to herself. It was time to go.
“Just look like you belong,” Cat advised, as they started to canter through the town. “And don’t let yourself get distracted.
Emily shuddered. The town was... weird. Human slaves genuflected as they cantered past, orcs and other - stranger - creatures paid them no mind. She saw another cluster of blacksmiths, forging weapons; she winced when she saw cages crammed with men, women and children, awaiting the slaughter. A handful looked too finely dressed to be local. She’d heard rumors that people were kidnapped and shipped over the mountains, but she’d never believed them. Not until now. She wanted to free the captives, but she knew they’d never make it out. She’d have to come back for them once she’d reignited the nexus point.
The sense of unreality grew stronger as they made their way up to the castle. There were no guards on the gates, no watching sentries on the battlements. The gates themselves hung open, like they were being dared to enter. The wards snapped and snarled at them when they reached the top of the hill, starting with an aversion ward powerful enough to deter any mundane. Emily had to fight to keep her mind focused as they rode into the courtyard and dismounted. The ward faded, only to be replaced by a nastier defense. She gritted her teeth, silently grateful that Void had forced her to practice time and time again. The wards weren’t particularly subtle - and they weren’t connected to a living mind - but they were hard to weaken enough to let them sneak through. She had to resort to snapping two of them, just to get into the castle.
“Interesting,” Cat said, as they stepped through the nearest door. “Where’s the welcoming committee?”
Emily glanced at him. Cat was right. No defenders worthy of the name would have let them get through the gate and into the courtyard, let alone into the castle itself, without doing something to try to slow them down. The castle’s passive defenses were intact - the corridors were surprisingly narrow, the doorways low enough to force her to duck her head as she passed through - but they were worthless without defenders to take advantage. She reached out with her senses, feeling nothing beyond
creepy magic resting in the stone. The dead nexus point felt... she frowned, wondering where she’d felt something like that before. Not Heart’s Eye, she thought. It was somewhere else.
“We have to move,” she said. The castle was starting to feel oppressive, even though there were no visible threats. The air felt... wrong, hot and humid and yet dry at the same time. It smelt of something she didn’t want to think about too much. The knapsack felt heavy, as if the batteries were weighing her down. The oath was urging her on, demanding she hurry. “Stay alert.”
She cast a night-vision spell as they inched their way through darkened corridors. The castle felt like Whitehall - like Whitehall had been before the sorcerers had managed to make it bigger on the inside - but it was very different. The walls were lined with dark stone, bare of paintings and displays of magical artefacts; the corridors were dusty with the weight of eons. She frowned when she spotted scratches on the walls, as if some strange creature had been clawing the stone; her eyes narrowed when she spotted a chamber that looked like an empty library. There were no books within eyeshot, something that bothered her on a very primal level. Dua Kepala had been the only necromancer she’d known who’d been particularly interested in reading, but that didn’t mean there weren’t others.
I’ll come back, she promised herself. The possibility of finding books and scrolls from the castle-builders themselves was tantalizing, even though she doubted any would have survived the Blighted Lands. God alone knew how many times the castle had changed hands. Rangka was nowhere near old enough to remember the Faerie Wars, let alone Lord Whitehall and the dawn of the modern era. If even one book survived...
“Here,” Cat said, indicating a stairwell leading down into the darkness. “Shall we?”
Oathkeeper (Schooled in Magic Book 20) Page 23