The Gordian Knot (Schooled in Magic Book 13)

by Christopher Nuttall

  And being Head Girl doesn’t help, she thought, as younger students scurried to get out of her way. They all think of me as one of the tutors.

  She sighed, inwardly, as a cluster of Second Years ran around the corner ... and practically screeched to a halt when they saw her. They’d been playing freeze tag in the corridors, Emily noted, as she pretended not to see them. It was a fun game, for younger students. She wondered, absently, if she should have tried to introduce a formalized version of freeze tag as a project, rather than dueling. It wouldn’t have been that hard to come up with a list of rules and plan a contest. God knew three-fourths of the student body had played it over the last few years.

  A couple of female students scattered, leaving behind a third frozen into an embarrassing position. Emily rolled her eyes and silently cast the counterspell, shaking her head in amusement as the young girl squeaked and ran as if the devil himself was after her. Did she expect punishment for being frozen? She’d hardly be the first person to be frozen in Whitehall. Or did she expect Emily to be a bitchy upper-class student? It wasn’t common for senior students to socialize with their juniors.

  She watched the younger student vanish down the corridor, then slowly climbed the stairs towards the upper levels. The wards hummed around her, growing stronger as she reached the healing section. It was unusual for anyone to enter, Emily recalled, without a long-term plan to become a healer, even though there were few prospective candidates. The requirements were just too demanding. Even if they failed the exams, they’d still be bound by the oaths. It would make it hard—very hard—for them to take up another career.

  The painting on the wooden door—a snake, eyeing her unpleasantly—came to life as she approached. Emily could feel the wards poking and prodding at her, making sure she was exactly who she claimed to be. She braced herself, feeling as if she was being watched from up high, a second before the feeling vanished. The door opened a moment later, the snake hissing quietly as Emily walked into the classroom. An elderly lady, so frail that Emily couldn’t help thinking a gust of wind would blow her over, was sitting at a table. The rest of the room looked more like an examination chamber than anything else.

  Emily looked around, interested despite herself. The walls were dominated by diagrams of the human body, showing everything from veins and chakras to skeletons—male and female. She couldn’t help being fascinated by a set of hand-drawn diagrams that were more detailed than anything else she’d seen in the Nameless World, even though she wasn’t sure she wanted to know how the healers had garnered that kind of knowledge. Smaller diagrams discussed the life cycle of a human, the reproductive and menstrual cycle, the innermost workings of the brain and a dozen other subjects. She was tempted to ask if she could stay and study them. Healing had never really interested her—she didn’t have the patience, let alone the dedication—but knowledge was always useful ...

  The elderly woman cleared her throat. Emily turned back to her, suddenly aware that she was being very rude. The woman—the tutor, Emily assumed—looked frail, but there was a strength about her that suggested she was no pushover. Her bushy white hair rested atop a face covered in wrinkles, yet still projected determination and power. Emily could feel the magic curling around the woman, barely visible under her wards. This, she realized numbly, was a magician in absolute control of her magic. Even Lady Barb allowed flickers of her power to leak out when she was upset or angry.

  “Lady Emily,” the woman said. Her voice was strong, too. “I am Samra. I am a Healer, a Mistress of Soul Magics and a Mistress of Charms. Do you wish to see my qualifications?”

  “No, thank you,” Emily said. There was something in Samra’s voice that practically dared her to ask for proof. It was hard to escape the feeling that Samra didn’t want Emily in her classroom. She hadn’t even invited Emily to sit down. “I don’t think you’d be here if you weren’t qualified.”

  “I would be elsewhere, if I could,” Samra said, her voice tart. “The Grandmaster has made it clear to me that you are to be tutored in Soul Magic, without taking any binding oaths. I am not pleased about this. There would be nothing stopping you from abusing your knowledge.”

  She met Emily’s eyes. “Healers swear such binding oaths to keep them from abusing their powers. Even for one such as I, the temptations are sometimes too much to handle. I accepted the oaths because I feared what I might become, if I abused the power in my hands. If it was up to me, you wouldn’t be taught Soul Magic. Or anything, without the oaths.”

  Emily swallowed. Her throat was suddenly dry. Aurelius of Mountaintop had taught her a handful of healing spells, then given her a rough introduction to Soul Magic. She hadn’t even scratched the surface of the possible, yet ... she understood just how easily some of the spells could be abused. She didn’t blame Samra for being worried. Healers had far more power perversion potential than a doctor on Earth.

  “I understand,” she managed, finally.

  “Understand this.” Samra pointed a long finger at Emily’s chest. Emily had to fight the urge to take a step backwards. “Healers are not allowed to kill. A Healer who does kill signs her own death warrant. Her oaths would kill her before the wheels of justice caught up with her. That is a form of judgement. A Healer cannot knowingly break her oaths.

  “If you abuse the magic I will teach you, I will kill you. I will accept the judgement of my oaths and go to my death knowing that you will no longer be able to pervert my teachings. And I will do it with magic that even your father would find hard to defend against, if he realized he was under attack before it was too late.”

  She rose, slowly. “Do you understand me?”

  “Yes,” Emily managed. She knew enough about Healers to realize it was no idle threat. Her defenses were good, but Healing magics—when perverted—were almost impossible to stop. And if Samra was willing to sacrifice her own life to kill Emily, it would merely give the magic extra punch. “I understand.”

  “Good.” Samra walked around the desk and headed to another room. “You have a great deal to learn before I can put you in a class with other trainees. If you don’t learn the basics, you’ll get nothing—at best—from the class.”

  Emily sighed to herself—she’d heard that before—as she followed Samra into the next room. It looked like a study, complete with bookcases and a pair of comfortable armchairs. Soft light shone down from high overhead, somehow warm and welcoming even though she couldn’t sense the source. Samra picked up a small mirror and held it out to her. Emily took it, puzzled. It was a small handheld vanity mirror, no larger than a hairbrush. Alassa had been fond of carrying one just to check her hair. If someone hadn’t carved a handful of runes into the gold edge and more into the handle, she would have dismissed it as something along the same lines.

  “Know thyself,” Samra said, as she sat in one of the chairs. “And understand this—you will not share anything you discover about your classmates with anyone. Or I will kick you out of the class and do everything in my power to get you kicked out of the school.”

  “And what if they discover things about me?” Emily turned the mirror over and over in her hand. “Truths I would sooner keep secret?”

  Samra gave her a nasty look. “We all swore oaths. Whatever we learn through soul magic, whatever a patient tells us in confidence ... we keep it to ourselves. I could not discuss your affairs with anyone without my jaw locking closed. It is not a pleasant experience. Nor is it possible to hide what I tried to do.”

  Emily made a face. Melissa had cast a mouth-sealing spell on her once, back when she’d had a pointless feud with Alassa. It had been horrific, even though she’d been able to breathe through her nose. Imaiqah had been able to undo the spell, but a Healer probably wouldn’t have that option. They’d have to go to another Healer and seek help, which would expose what they’d tried to do. Their peers would not be impressed.

  Samra pointed to the mirror. “Hold it up in front of your face and admire yourself,” she ordered. “Now.”
>
  Emily lifted the mirror, feeling oddly embarrassed. She’d never been particularly vain, not when she’d never wanted to be attractive. Her stepfather had been bad enough even when she’d been a scrawny girl in third-hand clothing. Any lingering traces of vanity she’d had when she’d arrived at Whitehall had vanished when she’d met Alassa. The princess’s perfection was just overpowering.

  “Look at your features,” Samra said. “And concentrate.”

  “On what?” Emily tilted the mirror. “My nose?”

  “On your face,” Samra said. “Concentrate.”

  Emily sucked in her breath. Her hair framed her pale face, a face too long and too sharp to be conventionally attractive. Or so she’d always thought. It had never crossed her mind that someone might find her attractive, not in any way she’d want to be found attractive. She’d been surprised when Jade and Caleb expressed interest ...

  They said my face had character, she thought. Alassa had said it too, insisting that Emily would be beautiful if she put more effort into her appearance. And they didn’t think it was a bad thing.

  She studied her own appearance, unsure what she was meant to be looking for. Her eyes seemed shadowed, somehow; her pale face seemed to blur, her lips thinning ... she seemed older, all of a sudden. Her head felt ... she wasn’t sure how it felt. It was translucent, as if she could see her thoughts throbbing through her head and ....

  A stab of pain tore through her head. She screamed, throwing the mirror aside. Her head spun, as if she’d suddenly fallen backwards or ... she wasn’t sure what she was feeling. It was suddenly very hard to focus. Her thoughts were a tattered mess.

  “That’s not uncommon,” Samra said.

  Emily opened her eyes, unsure when she’d closed them. Her eyes felt as if someone was stabbing knives into her eyeballs.

  “Very few people master it on the first try,” Samra continued.

  Emily felt sick. Her head throbbed with pain. She had to swallow, hard, before she was sure she wasn’t going to throw up. Her entire body felt limp, as if she’d run for miles before collapsing in a heap. She wasn’t even sure she could muster the energy to sit up and find the mirror. A vague part of her mind prattled on and on about seven years of bad luck. In the Nameless World, it was quite possible that wasn’t a superstition.

  “Oh,” she managed. “What happened?”

  “In order to use soul magic properly, you have to know yourself.” Samra stood—Emily breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the mirror in Samra’s hand—and walked over to the sideboard. When she returned, she was carrying a glass of water. “Drink this, then ready yourself to try again.”

  Emily sipped the water, eying the mirror as if it were a deadly weapon. Perhaps it was. The pain had been agonising, even though it only lasted for seconds ... perhaps longer. Her head no longer felt as though a hundred elephants were trying to stampede through her thoughts, but she still felt fragile. She wasn’t sure she wanted to try again.

  It was hard to speak. But she had no choice.

  “What ... what is that?” She waved a weak hand at the mirror. “What are we doing?”

  Samra eyed her as if she were a particularly interesting specimen on the dissection table. “I told you,” she said. “Know yourself.”

  “I don’t understand.” Emily forced herself to sit upright. “What is this?”

  “When you look into a regular mirror, you see your face,” Samra said. “When you look into this mirror, you eventually see your soul. You look at yourself from the outside, as it were, and learn things about yourself that you never really knew. Once you know yourself, you can proceed to the next step, which is peering into someone else’s soul.”

  “Gordian used ...”

  “Grandmaster Gordian,” Samra corrected.

  “Grandmaster Gordian used soul magic on me last year,” Emily said. She wondered, absently, if Samra had advised him. “He helped Frieda look into my mind.”

  “A step born of desperation,” Samra said, sounding coldly disapproving. “It was not a wise thing for him to do. Even with your consent, the risks were high. I would not have authorized it in his place.”

  “I volunteered,” Emily said.

  “That doesn’t make it right,” Samra said. “Soul magic is dangerous. If you take it lightly, you can destroy your mind—or someone else’s mind.”

  She held out the mirror. “Again,” she said. “And again, until you know yourself.”

  Emily hesitated. “Why do I need to know myself?”

  “When you are physically naked in front of another person, and he is naked too, there is still a clear line between you and him,” Samra said. “Even in the throes of sexual congress, when he is deep inside you and pumping hard, you are still two separate people. He will pull out of you, eventually, without difficulty. You and your lover are not the same person.”

  She paused. “Using soul magic, on the very lightest level, is like being naked in front of someone else. But as you go deeper, you run the risk of blurring into their magic and soul. The most intensive sexual experience has nothing on it. They are totally vulnerable to you, but you can also be influenced by them. And if you don’t know yourself, you will never be able to tell what’s you and what’s them.”

  “So I might come out thinking I’m a boy,” Emily said.

  “Yes,” Samra said, flatly. “Or worse.

  “You will be able to tell, once you know what you’re doing, if someone has been ... influenced ... or not. I believe that is what Gordian wanted to check. If I’d been there ... I would have insisted on doing it myself. Frieda didn’t have direct contact with your mind, but the risks were still considerable.”

  “I trust Frieda,” Emily said.

  “Frieda would not have wanted to hurt you, I am sure,” Samra said. “Many of the men who hurt women and vice versa don’t want to hurt them either. But saying or doing the wrong thing at the wrong time can cause hurt that cannot be mended, even with the best of intentions. And that’s just in the regular world. In soul magic, the slightest misstep can be disastrous. You cannot hide from the truth in your own head.”

  Emily kept her face blank. She’d met a number of people who did just that, as far as she could tell.

  “Now.” Samra indicated the mirror. “Let us try again, shall we?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “YOU DIDN’T DO TOO BADLY, FOR your first time,” Samra said, an hour later. “You’ll need practice, of course, but you’re getting there.”

  Emily barely heard. Her head was throbbing with intense pain. Sheets of fire seemed to be crashing through her mind, as though her very thoughts were burning. If it was this painful just to look at herself, she couldn’t help wondering how anyone lasted long enough to gain a soul magic mastery. It was hard to imagine someone as frail as Samra surviving such brutal treatment. But then, she wouldn’t have been an old woman when she was in school.

  “It does get better,” Samra said. “Right now, you’re trying to twist your head to look down your back.”

  “I can’t twist my neck to look down my back,” Emily pointed out, crossly. The headache was slowly fading, but her entire body was now aching. “It’s physically impossible.”

  “It’s a very limited metaphor,” Samra acknowledged. “Your magic—your insight—doesn’t want to look at yourself. Naturally, it is resisting.”

  “As if I was trying to perform surgery on myself,” Emily said. Sergeant Miles had taught them a great deal of battlefield medicine, but he’d made it clear that they weren’t to try to heal themselves unless there was no choice. “My body rebels against it.”

  “Your mind, yes.” Samra shrugged and reached into her pocket, producing a small vial of potion. “Go back to your room and get into bed, then drink this. It’ll help you sleep.”

  Emily took the vial and eyed it, warily. It was unmarked. “What is this?”

  “A strong sleeping draught,” Samra said. “Make sure your wards are up. You don’t want to be awoken
ahead of time.”

  I have to eat dinner, Emily thought. And yet, she didn’t want to eat dinner. Sleep sounded very attractive, all of a sudden. She could sleep, then cook something on her own stove ... even slip down to the kitchens. She was Head Girl. She could even ask the cooks to send something to her room, if she wished. I ...

  “Thank you.” She rubbed her forehead, wishing the pain would go away. “When ... when do we meet again?”

  “Thursday, I think,” Samra said. “Come to my office after your last class. The sooner you master the basics, the better. You’ll have to work hard to catch up with the others.”

  Emily groaned. “Does it get easier as we go along?”

  “I’d say it gets different,” Samra said. “Soul Magic is never easy.”

  She nodded to the door. “I’ll see you later. Goodbye.”

  Emily took the hint and headed to the door, pocketing the vial as she walked through the outer classroom. Melissa and a dark-skinned girl Emily didn’t recognize were sitting at the table, working through a large medical textbook. Emily couldn’t help feeling a moment of respect for Melissa, if she’d been studying soul magics as well as healing. She was clearly stronger than Emily realized.

  She’s always been very sure of herself, Emily thought. Melissa had possessed the nerve to defy her entire family, including her fearsome grandmother. Emily wasn’t sure she’d have been able to do that, if she’d fallen in love with someone the family considered unsuitable. And she’s taken on one hell of a challenge.

  Melissa looked up. “Did you have a good first lesson?”

  “It could have been better,” Emily said. Her lips twitched. She supposed it could have been worse. “How did you cope?”

  “It’s like push-ups,” Melissa said. “The more you do them, the easier they get.”

  Emily had to smile as she walked through the door and down the stairs. Sergeant Harkin had been horrified, utterly horrified, when she’d started Martial Magic and he’d seen how few push-ups she’d been able to do. She’d been forced to do more and more until her arms were aching, but she had to admit that it had gotten easier—slowly. Aloha hadn’t been too pleased either, even though she’d been starting out too. Emily had made her look bad.