Her eyes narrowed. She could see the problem. Karalee had to plan out a treatment for a person with multiple broken bones and internal bleeding, the latter caused by a particularly nasty curse. It was a complex puzzle. The curse couldn’t be removed as long as the bones were broken, but trying to repair the damage would cause so much pain that the patient would die in screaming agony. And giving the patient a painkilling potion would make it impossible to treat him. The two sets of magic would interfere with each other.
“Interesting,” she said, mildly. “What have you tried?”
Karalee stared at her. “If I treat him without painkillers, I’ll kill him. If I treat him with painkillers, I’ll kill him. Either way, he dies.”
Emily raised her eyebrows. “Why does he die?”
“Because you...” Karalee visibly bit down on the next word and started again. “He dies because he’s in agony.”
“Yes,” Emily agreed. “Why is he in agony?”
“Because I can’t do anything about the pain,” Karalee said. “And if I try, it will make things worse.”
“Why?” Emily met her eyes. “Think it through. Why will you make it worse?”
“If I give him even a mild painkilling potion, the magic in the potion will disrupt my attempt to fix the damage,” Karalee said. “And that will make it impossible to handle the more difficult work of fixing the internal injuries.”
“Why?”
Karalee glared at Emily, then realized what she was doing and looked away. “The curse is held in place by the broken bones,” she said. “I cannot remove it as long as the bones remain broken. If I try to fix the bones, the pain will make the internal injuries worse and kill him.”
“Quite,” Emily agreed. She’d always disliked it when teachers pretended to be obtuse - she’d often felt that some of them weren’t pretending - but she was starting to see the point. “So what’s the actual problem?”
“I...” Karalee ground her teeth. “He’s going to be in terrible pain.”
“Yes,” Emily agreed. “And what do you have to do about it?”
“Numb the pain,” Karalee said. “But I can’t do that without using a potion or a spell.”
“Can’t you?” Emily felt a flicker of exasperation. “If you can’t complete the assignment without numbing the pain, you have to find a way to numb the pain. How can you do that?”
“I can’t,” Karalee protested. “The magic in the painkilling...”
Her voice trailed off. “I... can you... can you numb the pain without using magic?”
“Yes,” Emily said, bluntly. “How do you think chirurgeons do it?”
Karalee said nothing. Emily guessed she’d never thought about it. Healers regarded chirurgeons as butchers, when they thought about them at all. They simply couldn’t heal injuries and save lives with a wave of their hands. She’d seen the chirurgeons who’d accompanied the army, men who’d been forced to save wounded soldiers by amputating their arms or fitting them with wooden legs. They knew so little about germs that their makeshift hospitals were often more deadly than the battlefield. Even now, she’d found it hard to change things. Too many chirurgeons refused to even wash their hands before they went to work.
“Go look it up,” Emily ordered, quietly. “And see if you can make it work.”
She watched Karalee go, then leaned back in her chair. The chirurgeons were a long way from the doctors she’d known on Earth, but... the seeds had been sown. Given time, she was sure, they’d eventually develop all the skills she’d known and more. The chirurgeons and healers at Heart’s Eye were already working on combining their knowledge. A thought struck her and she reached for a notepad, writing a quick letter to Caleb. If he sent her a handful of tools and other items...
If he has time, she thought. His last letter had warned that the facilities were dangerously overstretched. Heart’s Ease was expanding so rapidly there was a very real chance the town would start sprawling over the border. He might have other problems right now.
She watched the girls as she considered other options. The common-born would have no trouble understanding the mundane viewpoint... perhaps. Emily grimaced. Frieda’s family had been horrifically abusive, to the point she didn’t want to go home. She wasn’t the only one who’d had problems... Emily wondered, suddenly, how many of those girls - and boys - would embrace magical supremacism. They’d see themselves as victims and they’d have a point. Hitler and Stalin and everyone who’d followed in their footsteps had done the same, damn them. Once they’d gotten their foot in the door, they wedged it open.
Her lips quirked. The trouble with keeping an open mind is that something nasty might crawl in.
Karalee returned, looking downcast. “There’s a painkilling brew that doesn’t require magic,” she said. “It’s supposed to work.”
“It should,” Emily agreed. It wouldn’t work as well as a magic potion, from what she recalled, but it should numb the pain. “Will it trigger the curse?”
“No,” Karalee said. She paused. “I don’t think so.”
“It might be your best bet,” Emily said. “Of course, there are also non-magical ways to knock the patient out. You could keep him asleep while you fix both sets of damage and then wake him safely with magic. He’ll have a rough few hours, but at least he’ll be alive.”
Karalee smiled. “I... I never thought about it...”
“No,” Emily agreed. “Magic is wonderful. It does a lot for us. But magic can easily become a crutch. And once we become dependent on it, we find ourselves blind to other possibilities.”
“But...” Karalee looked at her work. “What if it isn’t perfect?”
Emily smiled. “What if a potion isn’t perfect?”
“I’d know,” Karalee said. “I wouldn’t know about this... this liquid.”
“Medicine,” Emily supplied. “And no, you wouldn’t. There are risks involved in brewing anything. It’s easier to spot something going wrong with a potion because the brew explodes or goes sour. But you can test the medicine to make sure it isn’t lethal without adding more than a trace of magic to the liquid.”
“But that would still be enough to make healing him impossible.” Karalee’s face fell. “It doesn’t work. If I test the medicine, I render it useless. If I don’t, the patient might die because the medicine is useless anyway. I don’t...”
Emily cocked her head. “Think it through,” she said. “How do you test the medicine without contaminating it?”
“I don’t know,” Karalee said. “I...”
She stopped. “I could separate some, couldn’t I? I could test and discard a batch and...”
“Very good,” Emily said. She was tempted to point out that it was what alchemists were trained to do, when they weren’t brewing potions that could only be made in precise quantities, but she refrained. The message could be passed along later. “You’d be able to limit the risk of contamination if you test a small amount.”
She leaned forward. “And you’d also be able to calculate roughly how much you should give the patient,” she added. “An overdose of medicine could be just as bad as an overdose of potion.”
Karalee nodded and hurried back to her desk. Emily watched her go, wondering if the message would sink in. There was no way to solve the problem by using magic and magic alone. Mundane medicine did have its uses. And so did everything else. There was a staggering amount of things within the school that came out of mundane shops and workshops, from the paper notebooks to alchemical and enchantment tools. Damia was wrong. There was no way the magical society could isolate itself completely without cutting its own throat.
I wonder if Dionne will figure out the answer, Emily mused. And what she’ll make of it.
Emily finished her letter as the bell rang for bed, then dismissed the students and started to tidy up the classroom. There was the usual collection of markings on the desks, but nothing concerning Pendle. Emily was almost relieved. She’d seen too much about Pendle in the last few
days. She finished cleaning up, then headed through the door and locked it behind her. There was nothing in the classroom worth taking - and almost no prestige to be won by breaking into the chamber - but she still had to lock it. The room provided the sort of challenge that appealed to the magical mindset.
More to the adolescent mindset, she thought, amused.
Her good humor vanished as she rounded the corner and saw Dionne standing at the foot of the stairwell, talking to Mistress Jens. Emily hesitated, then slipped past them and stopped as soon as she was out of sight. She should have been able to hear them easily, but someone - Jens, probably - had cast a privacy charm. Emily couldn’t help feeling that wasn’t a good sign. Jens had said nothing to her after their brief conversation, but... she knew, now, that Emily wouldn’t go along with her.
I have to look up her past, Emily thought. And see if she really can become Headmistress.
She walked up the stairs and stopped outside her room. The wards felt odd, as if someone had tried to break into the chamber. She frowned as she realized none of the trap spells had actually worked. Two of the spells had triggered... Emily frowned as she traced the magic. There’d been two intruders this time, the second undoing the trap spells almost as soon as they were cast. The pattern was weird, as if the intruders had combined very limited power with considerable understanding of magic. Emily didn’t think any of the students were that good. It would take years of practice for a low-power magician to be able to maximize her potential.
Interesting, she thought. The inner defenses were still in place. The would-be intruder hadn’t even managed to scratch them. Who tried to break into my room and why?
A nasty thought ran through her mind. Unless they did succeed and then rebuilt the wards to make me think they’d failed.
The thought nagged at her as she stepped inside and looked around. Nothing had been touched, as far as she knew. She’d mentally noted the location of a dozen items and none of them had been moved. A skilled searcher might have been able to pick everything up, take a look at it and then put it back, but...
She ran her hand through her hair as she sat down, finished the letter to Caleb and placed it in the box for posting tomorrow. Hopefully, Caleb would send her what she needed. If he didn’t... she smiled as she opened her bag and started to dig through the supplies. It was time to show everyone, not just Karalee, what mundanes could do.
It might be the only way to outflank all three factions, she mused. It wouldn’t be easy, but... hopefully, her reputation would work in her favor. Let the students see they’re all flawed.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“WHAT THE...?”
Emily hid her amusement as the girls entered the classroom, their eyes going wide as they saw the surprise waiting for them. She’d pushed the tables to one side, giving her more than enough room to display the items she’d been sent; she’d installed a large bathtub, two display stands and a handful of other oddities around the room. Damia had raised a whole series of objections, when Emily had explained what she had in mind, but reluctantly acceded when Emily had pointed out that the vast majority of the students wouldn’t be staying at Laughter or Pendle for the rest of their lives.
“Stand against the wall,” she ordered, calmly. “And don’t touch anything until I give the word.”
She studied then, savoring their bemusement. They didn’t know what to make of what she’d done. Good. Her eyes wandered across the girls, noting the puzzlement on Dionne’s face. Her cronies seemed equally unsure. They stared at the display stands and the two glass vases of flowers Emily had placed on them, artwork that looked as if they were worth a million crowns. Emily knew they were worth far less, but she’d gone to some trouble to pretty them up. She’d also wrapped the vases in so many protective charms that it would be difficult for a magician to touch them.
The door closed on her command. She straightened, clasping her hands behind her back as she studied the group. They were still unsure of what was going on. Emily wondered what they were thinking, what ideas they had. It was hard to imagine. She knew what they were for, after all. The girls could be thinking along the correct lines or their minds could be wandering so far from the truth that she’d have problems following their logic. They weren’t stupid, but they lacked the insights and understandings she took for granted. She supposed they felt the same way about mundanes, too.
“Tell me something,” she said, her eyes drifting across the class. “What are we going to be doing this afternoon?”
“We’re going to take a bath?” Samantha was one of Dionne’s groupies, although she had the makings of an independent mind. “You’re going to bathe us?”
Emily had to smile. “No,” she said. There were rituals that involved sharing water, but she’d been cautioned not to use them. “Anyone else?”
Lillian stuck up a hand. “You’re going to show us curses on objects?”
“We covered that last year,” Dionne snapped. “We’re not due to look at it again until...”
“A better guess, but no.” Emily cut Dionne off. “I’m going to show you a handful of things. And then I want you to think about them. Pay close attention, because your homework for the class will include a detailed essay on just what you see today.”
She walked to her desk and opened the box to reveal the toy steamboat. It looked incredibly crude, compared to the marvels of science and technology she’d seen on Earth, but it was a genuine work of art. The craftsman who’d put it together had done a wonderful job, given the limitations he faced. He’d installed a tiny furnace, a boiler, and a giant paddlewheel at the back. It looked like a riverboat from the antebellum south. It was hard to believe for some, Emily knew, that it was just a matter of time before the toy’s scaled-up sisters started making their way up and down the rivers, binding the Allied Lands together.
The boat was heavier than she’d expected. She silently congratulated herself on having the foresight to test everything before she actually tried to show off. The girls watched, puzzled, as Emily lowered the toy steamboat into the water and let go. The steamboat was perfectly balanced. It wouldn’t sink.
“It’s a toy,” Dionne said. “Why...?”
“You’re half-right,” Emily agreed. “It is a toy. It’s also a demonstration model of a tiny steam engine. Watch. I will give a dozen crowns to the girl who catches me using magic.”
She smiled as the girls peered closer. A dozen crowns would go a long way. Even the girls who could afford to write off a dozen crowns wanted the prize, if only for the pleasure of catching her out. They’d tell stories about the day they outwitted the Necromancer’s Bane... Emily felt her smile widen as she poured the oil into the furnace, then picked up a match and set fire to the oil. The girls wouldn’t believe she’d managed to slip something past them. They’d know, even if they didn’t want to admit it, that she hadn’t used magic.
The flames grew, rapidly, heating the water. Emily said nothing as steam started to move through the valves, turning the paddles as it sought to escape. The girls gasped as the toy boat started, then glided forward. It was rough, very rough, but it worked. There wasn’t so much as a hint of magic in it. The bigger boats would be far more stable, she knew, with bigger boilers and far more effective steering. The toy bumped into the far side of the bath and slowly turned around.
Emily looked up. “Who caught me using magic?”
There was a brief, awkward silence. Emily waited, wondering if one of them would try to bluff. She had no intention of letting the bluffer get away with it, if she tried. Emily knew she hadn’t used magic. She’d gone over the boat in clinical detail, just to make entirely sure there wasn’t a trace of magic before she risked showing it to the girls. The craftsman was a master. She made a mental note, as the silence grew longer, to ensure he was paid extremely well. The example in front of her was more convincing than a hundred papers on the advantages of steam engines.
“No one caught me,” Emily said, “because I didn’t use
magic.”
“It has to be magic,” Hannalore said. “How is it even running?”
“There’s a fire in the furnace,” Emily said. “It heats the water in the boiler... what is, in effect, a giant kettle. The water turns to steam, which tries to escape through the valves” - she pointed to the funnel - “and turns the cogs, which in turn spin the paddles. It’s a little more complicated than that, and we’ll cover it later if you’re interested, but that’s the basic idea. And, as you can see, there’s no magic in it.”
“It can’t steer, either,” Dionne pointed out. She sneered, but the look was unconvincing. “It’s just going from one side of the bathtub to the other.”
“True,” Emily agreed, evenly. “This is a toy. The scaled-up models will have paddlewheels on each side. When the sailors want to change course, they’ll speed up one of the paddlewheels” - she demonstrated with her hands - “and the boat will turn. It isn’t wholly perfect, of course, but it’s far superior to a sailing ship on a river. Given time, they’ll beat sailing ships on the open sea, too.”
She looked from face to face. “And this toy, this tiny version of something much larger, was built without magic.”
“Incredible,” Lenore said. She leaned forward. “The boiler might burst, if the steam didn’t flow out, but you could put a charm on the boiler to keep it from happening...”
“They’ve done that,” Emily said. “But you thought of it quicker than any of them.”
Lenore glowed. Emily smiled as she watched them play with the boat for a long moment, then returned to her desk and pulled out the model railway engine. It was even smaller than the steamboat, made so carefully that it was a miracle it even worked. Emily suspected a little magic had been used to make the components, but the last traces had been absorbed into the ether long ago.
Little Witches (Schooled In Magic Book 21) Page 24