The Gordian Knot (Schooled in Magic Book 13)

by Christopher Nuttall

  “Oh.” Emily wasn’t ready to pretend enthusiasm. Maybe, next term, she could dump the club on Cirroc. “Did they accept the planned rules?”

  “For the moment,” Gordian said. “They’ll want us to change them later, I think. Our students will acquire bad habits.”

  “More bad habits,” Emily said, before she could stop herself.

  Gordian gave her a sharp look. “You feel that we are teaching students bad habits?”

  “Dueling and fighting are two very different things,” Emily said, unwilling to back down from the unspoken challenge. “The club isn’t preparing students to fight.”

  “But it is laying the groundwork for our return to the interschool dueling contests,” Gordian said. “In times such as these, Emily, it is important for the schools to work together. Your position as dueling champion could have opened many doors, if we had a position in the league.”

  “Until I lost it,” Emily said.

  “It would have been enough,” Gordian said.

  Emily shrugged, expressively. It hadn’t been easy to hold back, when she’d been dueling with Casper. Giving him an opening, even a tiny one, had been harder. Everything she’d been taught had called for drawing on all of her power and pounding him into the ground, to kill him before he killed her. She’d run a colossal risk just to let him hold the title for a few wonderful days.

  And he was killed in combat, she thought. He never had to defend his title in the arena.

  “I expect you to make sure we put on a show,” Gordian added. “Put the best of the duelists in the ring, then pit them against one another. Make it spectacular.”

  And if someone gets seriously hurt, Emily thought sourly, will you consider that spectacular too?

  “I’ll do my best.” She already had over ninety students who wished to compete in the first round. Thankfully, the ones who were more interested in having fun than winning had chosen not to take part. “But time really is not on my side.”

  “I saw your application to abandon your extra credit project,” Gordian said. “Do you really want to quit now? You put in a great deal of work over the last two years.”

  Emily resisted, barely, the urge to scream. He sounded as though he was trying to be helpful, but she was sure he wasn’t. A helpful man wouldn’t have encumbered her with so much extra work that she was trying to find ways to pawn it off on her fellow students. Perhaps she could talk Melissa into manning the office, one day per week. Or Caleb. They’d both be better at talking to young students than she was.

  “I don’t have the time to do justice to the project,” she said, flatly. “We decided we’ll pick it up later, when we’re less busy.”

  “Or pass it on to someone else,” Gordian said. “Have you considered that?”

  “Not yet,” Emily said. The thought was tempting, but she didn’t want virtual spellware to get out of her hands. Someone without scruples could really misuse it. “It’s ours, sir.”

  “Quite understandable,” Gordian said.

  He made a show of looking at his watch. “Before you go, there is one final matter. A trio of historians are planning to visit over the half-term. Their original intention was to explore some of the tunnels and examine the documents you recovered, but I believe they’ll want to speak with you about what you saw.”

  Emily frowned. “All of it?”

  “Not all of it,” Gordian said. “But you could tell them enough to fill in some of the blanks.”

  “Maybe,” Emily said. She wondered if it was worth trying to bargain. She’d talk to the historians if Gordian let her put Cirroc in charge of the dueling club. But she had a feeling that would get her nowhere. “I kept meaning to read some of those documents myself.”

  And look for others, she thought. If Master Wolfe had—somehow—survived and made his way to Beneficence, might he have concealed other documents below the school? What else might be down there?

  “A good idea,” Gordian said.

  Emily looked down at the table, considering the problem. History was important. And yet, it was in the past. She wasn’t sure what would happen if the truth—or even part of it—came out. Would the magical community be really bothered if it learnt that Lord Whitehall hadn’t been some insane combination of Dumbledore, Gandalf and Q? Or would there be a reopening of interest into some more dangerous questions? What had really happened when Whitehall had been founded and why? Who’d really been there?

  “It depends on time,” she said, finally. “I have a great deal of work to do.”

  And I did promise to help Frieda, she added, silently. Perhaps if we can get over the major problem, she’ll calm down.

  “Talk to me about it first,” Gordian said. “We don’t want to tell them everything.”

  Emily nodded. The truth would only upset people.

  And start them experimenting with time travel too, she thought. The spells weren’t actually that complex, but any would-be time traveler needed a nexus point and a way to navigate. It would be impossible for anyone to succeed without both, as far as she knew, yet that wouldn’t stop sorcerers from trying. And who knows what will happen then?

  “I advise you to be careful,” Gordian warned. “People are watching you.”

  “I know,” Emily said.

  She rose. “I’ll see you at the contest,” she said. “And I hope you enjoy it.”

  “I’m sure I shall,” Gordian said.

  Emily walked out of the room, feeling her thoughts and emotions churning. Something had to be done about Frieda, but what? Emily wasn’t even sure she knew what was going on. There had been a girl on Earth who had gone downhill rapidly, but her parents had been going through a messy divorce at the time. Frieda hadn’t seen her parents for nearly four years.

  Find her and ask, Emily told herself, firmly. Then you can decide how to proceed.

  But when she looked for Frieda, her younger friend was nowhere to be found.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  IF EMILY HADN’T KNOWN BETTER—AND she wasn’t sure she did—she would have wondered if Frieda was avoiding her. Frieda took classes as normal, thankfully, but when she wasn’t in class she was walking the grounds or wandering through the mountain paths on her own. Emily couldn’t tell if Frieda was ashamed of her conduct or angry at Emily for giving her a mild telling off, but it didn’t matter. She was surprised, four days later, when Frieda showed up for the first dueling contest.

  Emily saw her with the others and sighed, inwardly. There was no time to have a private chat, not now. Seventy-eight students were waiting on one side of the arena, holding their tokens in their hands and clearly impatient for matters to begin; Gordian, a handful of tutors and the dueling league representatives were standing on the other side, chatting quietly amongst themselves. Emily couldn’t help wondering if she was the subject of some of those discussions. A number of representatives had been glancing at her with more than passing interest.

  She looked up at the clear blue sky and sighed. It was a perfect day, a minor miracle given how rapidly the weather near Whitehall could change from brilliant sunshine to a freezing snowstorm. If she had been free, she would have walked the mountains herself—perhaps invited Frieda along so they could talk outside school—or even strolled down to Dragon’s Den. Instead ...

  “You all read the rules.” She waved her hand in the air, triggering the tokens. The spell was simple enough, linking two students together at random. There was no way to avoid the simple fact that the older students were likely to dominate, but at least the younger ones would have a chance to move on to the second round. “Find your partners, then line up in front of the dueling rings. Do not step into the circle until you are ordered to do so.”

  She smiled, inwardly. Professor Armstrong had checked and rechecked the original dueling circle, then forced her and the other students to add a whole series of dueling rings. It had been practical work Emily would have enjoyed if she hadn’t been all too aware that lives depended on their wardcrafting. Profess
or Armstrong had promised her that he wouldn’t allow a real mistake to go through, even if it meant someone ending up in trouble, but she knew how easy it would be for something to go wrong. Too many spells were about to be exchanged in close quarters.

  “In order to progress, you have to win at least two out of three duels,” she reminded them, as the younger students shuffled about, trying to find their partners. Next time, Emily promised herself, she’d just pick couples herself, even though there would probably be complaints that the selection process wasn’t truly random. “Those of you who win all three will have higher marks as you go into the second round.”

  She glanced at Cirroc, Jacqui and Cerise. Cirroc looked excited—he’d been disappointed when Emily had told him he couldn’t take part himself—but Jacqui and Cerise looked as if they were waiting for something. Emily eyed them suspiciously, trying to convince herself that neither Jacqui nor Cerise was stupid enough to try anything in front of a dozen tutors and three outside representatives. And yet, she was sure that Jacqui had deliberately manipulated events so she had to deal with Frieda. The snide suggestions and constant interruptions suggested that Jacqui thought she would make a better Head Girl.

  And I’d give her the post, if I could, Emily thought, wryly. It isn’t really a reward for anything.

  “Make sure they follow the rules,” she told her assistants. She hadn’t seen any more blatant attempts to push the limits, but she had a nasty feeling it was just a matter of time. “And don’t let them hurt each other.”

  “Of course,” Cirroc said. He didn’t sound impressed. “We’ll look after them.”

  Emily scowled at him, then walked to the first dueling circle. Adana stood there, facing a second-year boy Emily vaguely remembered as being one of Caleb’s mentees, last year. He looked nervous when he saw Emily, his face falling sharply. Emily wondered what was bothering him—the storm of rumors had somehow managed to get even more intense over the last few days—but whatever it was, she was sure it wasn’t important. She would be a fair and impartial referee and that was all that mattered.

  “Into the circle,” she said. Behind her, she heard whizzes and bangs as two contestants began their duel. “When I blow the whistle, you may begin.”

  Adana looked confident, Emily noted. She was Melissa’s cousin, if Emily recalled correctly; she’d been taught a number of dueling spells—and self-defense spells—when she’d come into her magic, before she’d been sent to Whitehall. Emily would not have cared to face her as a firstie, even though it hadn’t taken long for Emily to pick up a number of spells of her own. Adana lacked Tiega’s undoubted skill—and vindictiveness—but she was still formidable for her age. Her opponent didn’t look anything like so calm.

  Emily blew the whistle. Adana opened the duel by hurling a massively overpowered transfiguration spell at her opponent, who jumped out of the way rather than try to block it directly. It was a smart move, Emily noted, as he launched a set of needle-hexes back at Adana. Even if he had managed to block the spell, Adana would have had a clear shot at him before he managed to recover and return fire. Perhaps the duel wouldn’t be as one-sided as she—and Adana—had assumed ...

  Someone has definitely been teaching Adana, she thought. The younger girl fought with a mixture of skill and cunning, hunching down and expanding her wards to provide a smaller target. Her opponent was larger, but he made up for it in speed. He might lack Adana’s collection of spells, yet he was smart enough not to give her an opening. And yet, he also lacked a certain ruthlessness. I wonder if ...

  Adana whooped as she snuck a spell through her opponent’s defenses. Emily winced inwardly at the shock on the young boy’s face, an instant before his body shrank and became a mouse. He scuttled away at speed, but it was clear that he couldn’t continue the duel. Emily waited for ten seconds to see if he could free himself from the spell, then blew her whistle.

  “Well done,” Emily said, as Adana released the spell. The boy snapped back to normal. “Go wait for your next duel.”

  She met the boy’s eyes as Adana strode off, waggling her hips in a manner that would probably have earned her a particularly unpleasant hex from her great-grandmother. “You didn’t do badly,” she said. “But you’re not casting your spells fast enough.”

  “Thank you,” the boy said, sourly. “I tried ...”

  “Sometimes, that is all you can do,” Emily said, as reassuringly as possible. He hadn’t broken and run, had he? That counted for something. Sergeant Miles would probably have approved. A brave man could be trained. A coward was better off well away from the battlefield. “Good luck with your next duel.”

  He nodded and walked off. Emily took a moment to note that both Frieda and Tiega had made it through their first duels, then turned her attention to the next pair of duelists. She winced, openly, the moment she saw them. A firstie and a Fifth Year? The outcome was practically pre-ordained. She was tempted to order them both to find other partners, but the selection process had been random. Perhaps she should have put her thumb on the scale.

  “I’m not going to give up,” the firstie said.

  “I wasn’t expecting you to give up,” his opponent countered.

  Emily sighed and blew the whistle. The duel shouldn’t have lasted more than a handful of seconds. And yet, the firstie had guts, if not brains. He kept moving, ducking low and jumping high ... he even attached himself to the wards, firing hexes down at his opponent’s head. Emily made a mental note to recommend him to Sergeant Miles. The firstie lost—his opponent finally managed to hit him with a gust of freezing air, then locked him in place—but he’d put up an impressive fight. It was hard to say who’d truly won the duel.

  Particularly as the odds were so unbalanced, she thought, as the two opponents left. It hadn’t escaped her notice that there was a greater gap between the two contestants than there had been between Frieda and her victims. Doing so well with the odds so heavily slanted against you definitely counts in your favor.

  She shook her head, then supervised the next set of duels. Some of them surprised her—the opponents were imaginative and flexible—while others were boring, nothing more than hexes being exchanged like tennis balls until one side slipped up and lost. She suspected that some of the latter duelists were in for an unpleasant surprise when they faced someone a little more imaginative. Frieda would have smashed them flat, even when they were older and more experienced. But then, losing was a great teacher. Sergeant Harkin had told her that time and time again.

  And he ensured that I lost, Emily recalled. Her magic had been pitiful compared to the older students, back in her first year, but her hand-to-hand combat skills had been worse. She had improved, over the years, yet she knew she would never match Jade or Cat. I learnt never to let a stronger man get within arm’s reach of me.

  She muttered a spell to amplify her voice as the final duels came to an end. “Those of you who want to withdraw, hand in your tokens,” she ordered. “The rest of you, get a drink and catch your breath. We’ll be starting the next set of duels in ten minutes.”

  Gordian walked over to her, his face utterly blank. “Not bad so far,” he said, curtly. “They”—he nodded towards the representatives—“seem to like it. They’re just wondering why you don’t have a ranking ladder.”

  Emily shrugged. “First, we’re starting from scratch.” She’d considered duplicating the league’s ranking system, but it had never struck her as particularly clever. Besides, too many students would have to start out ranked at the bottom. “And second, we have too many duelists to go through in too little time.”

  She smiled as she glanced at Frieda. It was nice to see her younger friend looking happy again, although they were going to have a serious conversation relatively soon. Frieda wasn’t going to go anywhere for half-term, was she? Emily made a mental note to catch up with Frieda after dinner, then turned her attention back to Gordian. The Grandmaster was reviewing the results, nodding happily to himself.

  “We’ll
probably have to hold separate contests for each year,” she said, as she read the results. She’d been right. They were weighted in favor of the older students. “But you can do that next year.”

  Gordian nodded. He wouldn’t have Emily next year ... the thought caused her a pang, even though she knew she’d be coming back one day. She hadn’t abandoned her dream of teaching. It was an odd career, she’d been told, but it was the one she wanted. And besides, she was good at one-to-one tutoring.

  I might start teaching at Heart’s Eye instead, she mused. Gordian would be relieved. He wouldn’t have her in his hair any longer. And then I can set my own class sizes.

  She glanced at her watch, then blew the whistle. A number of duelists had backed out, she noted; she reset the tokens, then watched the contestants take their places. There was no chatter this time, just a grim determination to get ahead. She felt a moment of sympathy for anyone who wasn’t good enough to stand their ground, then pushed it aside. It was a sport, not war. And it wouldn’t keep them alive, if pressed.

  It might, she told herself.

  Gordian stood beside her, completely silent, as the first pair of students marched into the dueling ring. They were both Fifth Years, Emily noted; they fought like experienced magicians, rather than duelists. The line between legal and illegal spells was brushed over a dozen times in the first two minutes alone, forcing her to make split-second decisions between blowing the whistle and letting it stand. She couldn’t help thinking, judging by the way they hurled spells at each other, that there was something deeply personal in it. Perhaps they really didn’t like each other. By the time one of them was blown back against the wards, hard enough to stun him, they’d exchanged so many spells that the ring was on the verge of collapse.

  “Not bad,” Gordian said, as Professor Armstrong hastily checked the ring. “Not bad at all.”