Trial By Fire (Schooled in Magic Book 7)

by Christopher Nuttall

“Understand this: if any of you, and I mean any of you, mocks them, or treats them as anything other than decent people, you will regret it. Whatever happened to them, be it tragic or funny, I expect you to be professional at all times. You will not mock, you will not judge, you will not dispense unwanted advice. If you break this rule, you will not be allowed to take part in any more field trips and it will be reported to the Quorum of Healers. There is a very strong chance they will deny you the chance to enter Fifth Year.”

  She scowled. “I may also put you in the stocks for the rest of the day,” she added. “A few hours of people throwing rotten vegetables at you would probably teach you a lesson, don’t you think?”

  Emily winced, inwardly. Lady Barb had a point. She would have hated to be gawked at by a handful of trainees while someone was trying to heal her...and to have those trainees mock her would be more than she could bear. But Lady Barb hadn’t issued such a warning while they’d been in the Cairngorms. Had she assumed Emily wouldn’t be foolish enough to mock the people they were trying to help, or had she planned to cut Emily off the moment she started?

  And it would be worse if I were giving birth, she thought. She’d seen a woman give birth in the Cairngorms, a woman who might have lost the baby without the two magicians. I’d hate to be stared at by a pair of male magicians.

  “We will go through the procedures for visiting both Dragon’s Den and the Halfway House later, once we have a visiting schedule,” Lady Barb said. “I will be giving priority to those who plan to take the oaths and go on to Fifth Year. Are there any final questions?”

  Melissa raised a hand. “If we’re going to the Halfway House,” she said, “is there any actual danger?”

  “There may be some danger,” Lady Barb said. “Some of the cursed can behave unpredictably, others are cursed in a manner deliberately designed to harm or kill anyone who tackles the curse. You will be warned before meeting any truly dangerous patients and talked through security precautions. If you do feel yourself to be in any danger, you are authorized to use magic to escape.”

  Alassa coughed. “If the curses cannot be removed,” she asked, “why are they still held at the Halfway House?”

  “The Healers in charge have not given up on removing the curses,” Lady Barb said. “Bear in mind that the only other option, with some of the patients, is to kill them. Indeed, in some cases it might be a mercy.”

  But a Healer cannot kill, not even to put someone out of his misery, Emily thought, glancing down at the oath and its ramifications. The Halfway House is stuck with patients it can’t cure, kill or release.

  There was a long pause. “You may come to me at any moment if you wish to discuss the issue further,” Lady Barb concluded. She made a show of looking at the clock. “And now, unless there are any more questions, we will make good use of the remaining time by reviewing the material we covered in Third Year.”

  The class groaned. “Penelope,” Lady Barb said. “Why is it dangerous to offer Sleeping Potion to a victim of the Night Terror Hex?”

  Penelope gulped. “Because...because it actually enhances the effects of the hex,” she said, desperately. “The victim will fall further into its clutches.”

  “Very good,” Lady Barb said, without a trace of irony. “Tam. Why can’t you use a simple canceling charm on the victim of a compulsion curse?”

  “Because the curse might react badly unless the charm is applied properly,” Tam said. “I...”

  “Close enough,” Lady Barb said, “but do a little additional reading. The curse might only be partly cancelled, causing mental problems for the victim.”

  Emily sighed and glanced at her watch. There was only half an hour to go before the end of class, but it was going to feel longer. Much longer.

  And then she really needed to talk to Lady Barb.

  Chapter Nine

  “EMILY,” LADY BARB SAID WHEN THE class came to an end. “Stay behind a moment.”

  Emily nodded, relieved. “I’ll meet you in the bedroom,” she muttered to Alassa. “You can tell me about your day.”

  “Of course,” Alassa said. Her blue eyes glimmered with concern. “Take care of yourself, all right?”

  Emily nodded, and waited for the classroom to empty. Lady Barb relocked the door as soon as Melissa had left - she’d hung around long enough for Emily to suspect she wanted to talk to Lady Barb, too - and led Emily through a door into a sideroom. Inside, there was a pair of comfortable chairs, a table, and a pot of steaming liquid. Lady Barb motioned for Emily to sit, then poured a couple of mugs of Kava. Emily took hers and sipped gratefully.

  “It’s going to be a very busy year for me,” Lady Barb said, bluntly. “I may have less time for you than you might have hoped. If the Grandmaster hadn’t needed a second tutor at such short notice...”

  She shrugged, and sat facing Emily. “As your adviser, it is my duty to discuss your career options with you before you go to your career session,” she added. “I should tell you, right now, that you probably wouldn’t make a good Healer.”

  Emily blinked, stung. “Why not?”

  “A Healer requires a certain degree of empathy,” Lady Barb said, flatly. “You’re not very good at noticing when someone else is in pain, or feeling any strong emotion. I think you could probably master the healing spells - no one would deny you’re good with charms - but you’d have problems actually coping with the job. How long did it take you to notice that Alassa and Jade were in love?”

  “I had my nose rubbed in it,” Emily said, ruefully. In hindsight, it had been alarmingly obvious. “I didn’t notice at all.”

  “Quite,” Lady Barb agreed. “There are times when a Healer has to speak to a patient and gently coax them to talk about their problems, some of which are embarrassing and some of which will reflect badly on others. I don’t think you have the empathy required to handle the job.”

  I helped Frieda, Emily thought, mulishly. But how long had it taken her to notice that Frieda was suffering? And I...

  She recalled everything she’d seen in the Cairngorms and shuddered. Lady Barb was right; she’d either ignore a problem, missing its very existence, or go overboard in trying to fix it.

  And you know you can’t take the oaths anyway, her own thoughts mocked her. Why are you trying to stop someone dissuading you from even trying?

  “I do want to finish the year,” she temporised. “But I don’t think I could become a Healer permanently.”

  “It would be permanent,” Lady Barb said, tartly. “That’s the point of the oaths.”

  Emily looked at her. Something clicked in her mind. “You’re not a Healer, are you?”

  “They wanted me to become a Healer,” Lady Barb said. “I was told I had a natural talent for Healing. It wasn’t true, of course. I merely had my mother teaching me the basics long before my father sent me to Whitehall. By the time I finished my Fourth Year, the pressure to become a Healer was almost overpowering. My tutor even offered to take me on walkabout, just as I took you, to see that the job needed doing.”

  “I see,” Emily said. “What happened?”

  Lady Barb met her eyes. “The third village we visited was dominated by an old crone, a witch with a handful of spells and infinite malice. The day after we arrived, she blinded a young girl for an imaginary offense. Can you imagine what it would be like, growing up in a tiny village, unable to see anything?”

  Emily shuddered. The villagers in the Cairngorms hadn’t been able to provide for cripples, not when there was barely enough to feed the men and women who did the hard work of tending to their tiny farms and growing food. If the girl had been lucky, she would have been bought by someone who needed a wife and didn’t care about her blindness; if she had been unlucky...Emily shook her head, cursing silently. There was no such thing as a happy ending for a cripple in the mountains.

  “The spell was easy to break,” Lady Barb said. “I broke it. I freed the girl...and then I hunted down the witch. By the time my tutor caught up with me,
I had flayed the skin from her bones, using spells my father had taught me to keep her alive. The moment the spells broke, the witch died in agony. My tutor...quietly understood, I think. She took me straight back to Whitehall, and nothing else was said about me becoming a Healer.”

  “Because you’d killed someone in cold blood,” Emily said.

  “It was very hot blood,” Lady Barb said. “I wanted the witch to suffer.”

  She shrugged. “Emily, Healers can only heal,” she said. “I’ve known Healers who were forced by their oaths to heal people who had been tortured, so the torturers could start all over again. Or keep quiet about people committing truly ghastly acts. Or...

  “I wanted to do more than just heal,” she concluded. “And I think that’s true of you too.”

  Emily nodded, slowly. She understood just how the younger Lady Barb had felt, even if she’d grown harder and more cynical between then and their first meeting. Someone preying on the villagers could not be tolerated, not when there was no one who could help her victims.

  “It is,” she said. “But I am still going to try to pass Fourth Year.”

  “So you should,” Lady Barb said.

  Emily took a breath. “Can I ask you about something else?”

  “Master Grey,” Lady Barb said. It wasn’t a question. “I believe he volunteered for the job.”

  “Oh,” Emily said. “Why?”

  Lady Barb smiled. “Why did he want the job, or why did the Grandmaster accept his application?”

  “Both,” Emily said.

  “I have no idea why he wanted the job,” Lady Barb said. “It isn’t a post that will allow him to claim a permanent tie to you - or Aloha. He may expect you to apprentice with him formally, at the end of Sixth Year, but that would be rare. We normally prefer to have someone apprentice with a master they haven’t met beforehand, just so they start with a blank slate.”

  “Master Grey doesn’t have a blank slate,” Emily muttered. “He hates me. And...and I almost had a panic attack.”

  Lady Barb eyed her for a long moment. “You did face a Nightmare Hex yesterday,” she reminded her, dryly. “They do tend to dig up long-buried feelings and memories.”

  Emily nodded. She would have liked to believe that was true, but...there was a part of her that couldn’t help feeling worried, as if Master Grey had darker ambitions than merely supervising two semi-apprentices for a year. The same nagging fear that overshadowed her memories of her stepfather pulsed over Master Grey, the sensation that he might not do something today, but he would one day.

  “As for why the Grandmaster accepted him,” Lady Barb continued, “you do realize that he is a practiced combat sorcerer with a proven track record of turning out above-average apprentices? Jade is merely the latest in a long line of students who owe him for their training. And he’s a champion duelist as well. You could do worse, much worse, for a tutor.”

  “Dueling is barbaric,” Emily muttered. She’d seen Master Grey in action, after the end of Second Year. He’d insisted that anyone who challenged him had to fight to the death, just to keep the number of challenges down. And he’d never even looked like losing. “And he hates me...”

  “I don’t think he actually hates you,” Lady Barb said, curtly. “His report from the Faire did make interesting reading - he called you grossly irresponsible no less than seven times - but I don’t think he hates you. He may feel that someone has to take you in hand and teach you some common sense before your luck runs out.”

  Emily cringed. “Why couldn’t it have been you?”

  “I like you too much,” Lady Barb said.

  Emily started. Lady Barb liked her too much?

  The older woman reached out and patted Emily’s shoulder. “You told me you thought of me as a mother,” she said. “Will you take some motherly advice?”

  “That isn’t fair,” Emily mumbled.

  “All’s fair in love and war,” Lady Barb said. She smiled, tightly. “Will you take some advice?”

  “Yes, please,” Emily said.

  “The world is full of assholes,” Lady Barb said. “You will have to meet and deal with people who will be abrasive, or unpleasant, or outright hate you because of what you’ve done, the titles you hold, or merely because they just don’t like your face. I don’t think you have the option of vanishing into your castle and hiding, just because you’re afraid of confrontation, not given the position you hold. You need to learn how to cope with people who don’t like you.”

  “And the Grandmaster selected Master Grey,” Emily mused, “because he knew we disliked each other?”

  “It’s a possibility,” Lady Barb said. “Did you listen to his speech, earlier today?”

  Emily nodded, once.

  “We try to turn out magicians who can handle anything without losing control,” Lady Barb said, softly. “Having a hard time with Master Grey, here and now, will be better than having a hard time outside Whitehall. He may push you to the limit, he may force you to carry on no matter the pain, but he won’t kill you.”

  “But I had a panic attack when I saw him,” Emily protested.

  “Then you need to work to overcome it,” Lady Barb said. “Do you realize that could be a dangerous weakness?”

  She sighed, looking down at her hands. “You are growing in power every year - even without the battery,” she added. “In three years, you will be let loose upon the world. A person with the perceptiveness to understand your weaknesses could easily use them against you, even if they don’t have magic themselves. I’ve seen people dominated by others who should, on the surface, be far weaker than them. You could wind up the same way.”

  Emily shuddered. “I wouldn’t...”

  “It’s easy to say that,” Lady Barb said. “But is it actually true?” She smiled, but it didn’t touch her eyes. “Are you familiar with the Duchy of Bothell?”

  “No,” Emily said. It was somewhere to the south of Zangaria, if she recalled correctly, but she’d never visited. Alassa’s procession through the Allied Lands hadn’t bothered to stop at such a minor state. “Why?”

  “I was there three years ago, back when I was working for King Randor,” Lady Barb said, softly. “The Duke himself died six years ago, leaving his daughter on the throne. She was the undisputed ruler of the duchy, but she was ruled by her husband, someone she’d met and married just after her father died. He was horrible to her, Emily, even though a single word from her could have had him beheaded. Instead, she just...did as she was told.

  “You could wind up just like her, if you’re not careful. Better to learn how to deal with assholes here and now, where you have friends and advisers, than out in the wider world.”

  “I know,” Emily said, miserably. Her stepfather had held a similar influence over her early life. “Can’t I just stay in Whitehall for the rest of my life?”

  “It depends,” Lady Barb said, tartly. “Do you want to give up Cockatrice and everything you’ve created?”

  “I think I’m just going to put researcher down as my planned career,” Emily said. She didn’t want to think about the prospect of abandoning Cockatrice. “I could research in my spare time.”

  “You could always point out that you will probably spend most of your time at Cockatrice,” Lady Barb offered. “I doubt Alassa’s session will be anything more than a pleasant chat, assuming she goes at all. But they may want you to consider serving the Allied Lands in other ways. You would probably make a good Mediator.”

  Emily blinked. She hadn’t considered the possibility.

  “It’s a worthwhile job,” Lady Barb added. “And you have the power, courage and connections to see it through.”

  “I’ll look it up,” Emily said. “Can I pick your brains about it later?”

  “Of course,” Lady Barb said. “But then, you could also ask Master Grey. He would be happy to talk to you about it.”

  Emily rather doubted it. “I’d prefer to talk to you,” she said. “Really...”

  “
And I will send you to Master Grey,” Lady Barb said, sharply. “You do have to learn how to cope with assholes, Emily, and one of my motherly duties involves pushing you to learn how to handle them.”

  She sighed. “Look at it this way,” she added. “Spend the next term learning from him. If it really turns bad, if it really fails, I will raise the issue with the Grandmaster. He will not be pleased, of course, and nor will I, but we may be able to find another option.”

  “Oh,” Emily said.

  She swallowed, thinking hard. Cold logic told her Lady Barb was right. She did need to learn to handle people like Master Grey, people who would hate and resent her. But emotionally...she didn’t even want to think about facing him. He reminded her far too much of her stepfather for her to be rational about him...

  Which was the point, wasn’t it?

  “I’ll do my best,” she promised. She would force herself to remember, time and time again, that Master Grey was not her stepfather until she actually believed it. And she would try to go to his lessons with an open mind. Aloha was right. Master Grey could actually teach them something new. “But what if -”

  “Look at it this way,” Lady Barb said. “Are you actually going to let him win?”

  Emily shook her head, slowly. Master Grey disliked her; worse, he thought she was grossly irresponsible. She was damned if she was proving him right.

  “Good,” Lady Barb said. “That’s a much better attitude.”

  She finished her Kava and leaned forward. “Have you arranged a working meeting with Caleb yet?”

  “Not yet,” Emily said. In all the excitement, it was something she’d overlooked. She pulled her timetable out of her pocket and glanced at it. “I was thinking tomorrow afternoon.”

  “You’d better remember to tell him that,” Lady Barb said, dryly. “I’m not going to be taking messages to him for you.”

  Emily blushed. “Sorry...”

  Lady Barb laughed as Emily looked down at her mug. “I’ll give you a piece of advice for free, Emily, because you should know it already,” she added. “Get started on your project as soon as possible and do as much as you can before classes really start to get tougher, because they will. You know the milestone deadlines?”