Little Witches (Schooled In Magic Book 21)

by Christopher G. Nuttall

  Chapter Eighteen

  EMILY PASTED A NEUTRAL EXPRESSION ON her face as she strode into the lecture hall and headed for the podium. Lady Damia had insisted she spend Sunday preparing for the class, giving Emily very little time to read and mark Karalee’s essay before heading back to work on Monday. She’d still managed to put a lot of thought into the lecture, not least because - for once - there were no limits on what she could actually say. Lady Damia hadn’t even demanded Emily share the notes- and lesson plans - before she went to work.

  She smiled as the room quietened. She’d made a deliberate decision to wear a black shirt and trousers, rather than her dress; she’d donned a handful of protective charms and amulets as well as an enchanted blade, the latter dangling from her belt in a manner that would have earned her a punishment duty if she’d been in Martial Magic. Sergeant Harkin would not have been amused. It might look dramatic, but it was dangerous. If nothing else, drawing the blade would be difficult. She might as well have strapped it to her back!

  Presentation is half the battle, she thought. Void and Lady Barb had drummed that into her head, although they were both more comfortable with the limelight than Emily. As long as I look the part...

  She smiled. Jade or Cat would have been far more impressive, although half the girls would have been swooning over them. She’d overheard some talk at breakfast about a handsome boy in Pendle... she wondered, idly, if the boy knew the witches liked him. They’d talked about him in terms that had made her blush... she shook her head. The witches wouldn’t pay too much attention to Jade or Cat’s lecture, even though they were both combat sorcerers. She hoped they’d listen to her.

  Emily braced herself, then unmasked her power. It thrummed on the air. Silence fell as the witches, from the firsties to the oldest girls, stared at her. It seemed as through the entire school had chosen to attend the lecture, even though it was not - technically - compulsory. Lady Damia had told the students so, in a manner that suggested they really should consider it mandatory even though it wasn’t. It was hard not to be annoyed. Emily was tempted to say hello, then tell the students the required part was over and they could go if they liked. But they needed to know.

  “Necromancers are uniquely dangerous and remain so, even though the Necromantic War is officially over,” she began. “On one hand, they are alarmingly powerful. They can take a very basic spell and overpower it, to the point it becomes dangerous even to a far better trained magician. And on the other, they’re crazy. It is very difficult to predict what a necromancer will do because they’re insane. They will draw up absurd plans, they will betray their allies, they will even eat their own seed corn... because, at base, they are completely mad. You cannot make a deal with a necromancer because the necromancer would be too insane to keep it. He’ll betray you on a whim, just because it seems the right thing to do at the time. There is no way you can rely on him for anything.

  “There are people who try to argue that one can perform the necromantic rite without going insane. This isn’t true. Some necromancers go completely insane and destroy themselves, directly or indirectly; some manage to maintain a facade of sanity long enough to establish themselves before they lose it completely. Worse, the rite makes the necromancer dependent on a steady stream of life and magic from sacrificial victims. Even if a necromancer managed to perform the rite once, without going mad, having to repeat it time and time again would drive him completely insane.”

  She paused. “There is no way to save yourself from the madness,” she warned. “If you experiment with necromancy, you are signing your own death warrant.”

  Her words hung in the air. The necromantic rite was easy, chillingly so. The witches would have been warned of the dangers, warned not to risk driving themselves crazy in a bid for power, but... how many of them would have listened? Laughter was a long way from the Craggy Mountains. Very few of them would have seen a dark wizard, let alone a necromancer. It would be easy for a poor or desperate student to convince herself that she could handle the power, that she wouldn’t go insane. And she would be wrong.

  “Assuming the necromancer survives,” she continued, “he will start evolving into a creature of dark magic. The hunger for more life and magic will grow stronger. So, too, will the insanity. The only thing holding the necromancer together will be his own sense of self, which will be rooted in madness. The necromancer will be unable to admit, even to himself, that he has made a mistake. If he makes a misstep, he will insist that he meant to make it. He will insist that it’s all part of a grander plan. And he will convince himself of this, because the only alternative is losing cohesion and tearing himself apart. Necromancers have died that way.”

  “Good riddance,” someone muttered.

  Emily smiled. “It’s easy to underestimate a necromancer, if you’re not face to face with him,” she warned. “The average necromancer, on the surface, has far less magical knowledge than a second-year student. Their spells are very rudimentary, as I said, but they are massively overpowered. They can cast a first-year fireball that will crack a sixth-year shield... and they can do it repeatedly. Worse, as they evolve, they develop a form of immunity to magic. They can simply absorb the vast majority of spells aimed at them.”

  She paused. “And, because they’re no longer wholly human, by that point poison rarely works. It simply isn’t easy to get a lethal potion through their defenses. They are, in short, very difficult to defeat.

  “We do have some advantages. Their madness is overwhelming. They have run headlong into traps because they’re too insane to see the dangers. They can be tricked into wasting time chasing a string of combat sorcerers, constantly switching their focus from sorcerer to sorcerer. And, if they can be tricked into expending their power, at some point they will drain themselves dry. That’s.... inconvenient... for a regular magician. For a necromancer, it’s lethal. They are so dependent upon magic that they cannot survive without it.

  “And, if they are no longer wholly human, their bodies are no longer producing magic, either.”

  She allowed her words to hang in the air. No one was entirely sure if necromancers produced magic like normal magicians. There was no way to tell. But everyone agreed that no regular magician could hope to produce enough magic to power a necromantic body, one utterly dependent upon magic to survive. A drained necromancer would shortly become a dead necromancer. The trick was getting them to expend enough power to push them past the point of no return.

  “How,” she asked, “do we beat them?”

  She allowed the question to hover for a long moment, then answered it. “Ideally, you will never have to face a necromancer. The Blighted Lands have been broken. The remaining necromancers are being hunted down and killed, one by one. But you know, as well as I do, that the temptation to experiment with the rite remains strong. The second necromancer I killed thought she was doing the right thing, when she used the rite. Perversely, it was her lack of selfishness that drove her over the edge. She wasn’t self-centered enough to avoid a slip into instant madness.”

  Or so people think, she added, silently. We don’t know for sure.

  “Very few magicians can take a necromancer on one-on-one and hope to survive,” Emily added. “Your best bet, as I said, is to force the necromancer to drain his power until he passes the point of no return. This will not be easy. One solid hit from him and your body will be torn to pieces, the remnants scattered across the Allied Lands. If he gets his hands on you, you’ll be drained of all energy and your remnants left behind as the necromancer continues his rampage. If you are alone, if there is no one else who can help you, evade the necromancer as much as possible while trying to lead him away from the local population.”

  She paused. “If you are in a group, you have more options. Half of you can evacuate the area, while the other half keeps the necromancer busy. Once there are no more people - power sources - within range, you can back off yourself and see if the necromancer has passed the point of no return. There are p
lenty of ways to delay him, and force him to expend power, without putting your lives at risk. If he grabs hold of you...

  “There are stories about quick-thinking magicians who managed to teleport themselves, and the necromancer, into the Blighted Lands or empty islands, well away from any sources of magic. Bear in mind that those are only stories. It would be extremely difficult for anyone to cast such a spell, if a necromancer was holding them. We don’t know what really happened because no one reported back. It’s possible the teleport spell tore both the necromancer and the caster apart. It’s also possible the necromancer survived long enough to make it back to the Allied Lands. We simply don’t know.”

  Emily wished, suddenly, for a glass of water. “There are also stories about magicians poisoning their magic, a moment before they were drained. Again, they’re just stories. We don’t know what really happened and I suggest, if you find yourself in such a mess, that you don’t try to be clever. The necromancers will not be impressed, much less deterred, by how well you can manipulate spellware. The only thing they care about is raw power.”

  She allowed her voice to harden. “They are not invincible. They can be beaten. But you must not panic. You must not let them unnerve you. You cannot imagine what it’s like coming face to face with a necromancer until you do. The most terrifying dark wizards in the world are nowhere near as terrifying as a necromancer. And the further they’ve evolved into monsters, the more terrifying they are.

  “I cannot prepare you for that. No one can. But if you remain calm and focused, you have a good chance of walking away alive.”

  She smiled, humorlessly. The students were watching her, silently. For once, everyone - even Dionne and her friends - appeared to be paying attention. They hadn’t seen her as anything more than a new teacher, despite her reputation. They hadn’t really believed in her, until now. Emily wanted to shake her head. Seven years ago, she hadn’t believed in magic either. Coming face to face with Shadye, then Void, had almost destroyed her. Shadye would have killed her, if Void hadn’t intervened. She knew she couldn’t have stood up to him long enough to escape.

  And if I went back in time, with all the power and knowledge I’ve amassed over these long years, I’d kick his ass, she thought. That would be one hell of a surprise for him.

  Lady Damia stood. “Does anyone have any questions?”

  Lenore held up a hand. “How did you survive Shadye?”

  Emily allowed herself a moment of relief that she’d anticipated the question. She hadn’t dared tell anyone the truth, not even after she’d reached the point she no longer needed to hint at powers beyond the average. It would have been far too revealing, if she’d admitted she needed a nexus point to repeat the feat. And yet... now, it didn’t really matter any longer. The Blighted Lands had been broken. The last of the old necromancers were being hunted down.

  “I cheated,” she said. “I let him expend his power chasing me, while preparing a trap that held him long enough to push him past the point of no return. And that was the end.”

  An older student she didn’t recognize held up a hand. “Why do their eyes go red?”

  “I don’t know,” Emily said. “The general theory is that red eyes are an early sign of their evolution into something inhuman, but no one really knows for sure.”

  “I heard a story that you destroyed a necromancer’s wards,” another student said. “Is that true?”

  “From a certain point of view,” Emily said. It was how the batteries were used to kill necromancers. Ironic, given that she’d come up with it as a cover story to hide something more dangerous. “Their wards are often very fragile. If you can blanket them with a powerful cancelation spell, you might manage to break them. If that happens” - she smiled - “they often lose control of their power and get blown to pieces.”

  “Why can’t the rite be cast safely?” Dionne sounded thoughtful. “It’s just another spell.”

  “There is no way anyone, even the strongest magician in the world, can contain the power long enough to make it safe,” Emily said. It was theoretically possible to channel the power into a battery, but she was determined not to open that can of worms. “You might as well drink an entire cauldron of painkiller. Your pain would be gone, but your life would be gone, too.”

  She met Dionne’s eyes. “Hundreds of magicians, some very experienced, have experimented with the rite,” she said. “Perhaps they were already insane, as the rite requires a deliberate decision to kill someone for their power. Perhaps they weren’t. Either way, they went mad as they became necromancers. There is no way to avoid the madness.”

  Her words hung in the air. “Necromancers do not care about anything beyond power. They have nothing beyond an endless hunger. They have no loves nor lusts, no desires beyond the desire for power. I’ve been in three necromantic lairs. They were barren, more like the home of a wild animal than any human. The Redoubt is more habitable than any of them. You live here” - she waved a hand at the walls - “in luxury, compared to a necromantic lair.

  “Yes, there have been people who believed the rite could be used for good. But they have always been proven wrong.”

  “As you have been taught,” Lady Damia added, sharply.

  Emily paused. “King Randor was a cunning man,” she said. “He was intelligent and clever and genuinely believed he was doing the right thing for his kingdom and his family. He was smart enough to admit that, one day, his daughter would succeed him and work towards it, even though he wanted to keep power, too. And then he experimented with necromancy and descended into madness. He was on the verge of slaughtering his entire population when I stopped him. Everything he was, everything he’d been, was gone. All that was left was a lust for power.”

  She wondered, as the bell rang, how many students would listen to the warning. It wouldn’t be that hard for Dionne to figure out how to perform the rite, if it wasn’t already included in the restricted textbooks. In theory, anyone smart enough to work out the details should be smart enough to understand the dangers. In practice, magicians were often arrogant enough to believe that they - and they alone - could handle the power. Their overconfidence would blind them to an endless liturgy of failure and madness.

  “Congratulations,” Lady Damia said begrudgingly, as the students hurried for the doors. “I think you’ve impressed them.”

  “It was easier than handling a normal class,” Emily said. It was true. The students had paid rapt attention. “Do you think they listened to my warnings?”

  “We’ve never had a necromancer, not one,” Lady Damia told her. She sniffed, disdainfully. “Women are often more careful than men when it comes to jumping into things without question.”

  Emily frowned. “There’s always a first time.”

  “Yes, but not here,” Damia said. “I doubt anyone would be foolish enough to try.”

  “There’s always a first time,” Emily repeated. It was a law of nature. There was always a first time for everything. “Do you know how many people thought I was a necromancer?”

  “Yes,” Damia said. She gave Emily a long, thoughtful look. “And how many of them changed their minds after they met you?”

  She turned and strode off. Emily frowned as she stared at Damia’s back. It was unlikely, on the face of it, that Dionne would experiment with necromancy. She was a magic-born student, with enough skill in magic - and family connections - to ensure a long and successful career. Emily had looked her up. The chances were good she’d reach the very top of her family, given enough time. Dionne would never feel as if she were on the verge of losing everything, as if she had no choice but to gamble with necromancy...

  Fulvia never risked it, Emily thought. The former Matriarch had committed a whole string of crimes, against both her family and outsiders, but she’d never experimented with necromancy. Not even when she knew she was dying. She had all the power and skill she needed.

  She put the thought out of her mind as she headed for the dining hall. She had two more
classes after lunch, both of which required her to follow a set lesson plan. She wasn’t going to enjoy it. Talking about necromancy allowed her more freedom and yet...

  Lillian met her outside. “That was fascinating,” she said. She looked as if she wanted to hug Emily, but didn’t quite dare. “I enjoyed it.”

  “Thank you.” Emily had to smile. Perhaps she’d make a better teacher than she’d thought, after the first couple of lessons. “Just take the warnings seriously, please.”

  “I will,” Lillian assured her. “And thank you.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “YOU’VE HAD AN INTERESTING COUPLE OF weeks,” Headmistress Duchene said, as she poured cups of tea - or something like it - for them both. “What do you make of the school?”

  “It’s enough like Whitehall,” Emily said, “for the differences to creep up and surprise me.”

  “That’s always been the case,” Duchene said. She passed Emily a cup, then sat behind her desk. “Laughter has always tried to differentiate itself from the other schools.”

  Emily took a sip. “Might I ask why?”

  “There’s always been a strand of... opposition... to practical female education,” Duchene said. “We are seen as disruptive, perhaps even subversive, of the natural order. Kings and aristocrats fear we will incubate a sense of independence, of freedom, in their daughters, perhaps making them reluctant to let their fathers choose their husbands or simply walking away from the aristocracy altogether. Magical families aren’t opposed to female education, as you know, but they have similar concerns. And commoners think their daughters will put on airs and graces when they return from school.”

  She studied her cup thoughtfully. “There’s a case to be made that our current problems have been blown out of all proportion by our enemies,” she said. “It’s happened before.”

  Emily leaned forward. “How?”