Schooled in Magic

by Christopher G. Nuttall

  To feel that inhuman confidence all the time... Cold logic told her that she had hurt herself just from a few short minutes of being under the spell; in some ways, she’d gotten off lightly. Emily could easily have damaged the tutor’s office–or worse. But cold logic seemed almost unreasonable compared to the thought of using the spell again.

  No wonder, she told herself, that the Berserker spell was so dangerous. A magician could easily become addicted to the sensation.

  The thought of addition was chilling. As a little girl, she’d tried to smoke ... and quickly discovered that cigarettes made her cough. Unpleasantly. But if she’d continued to smoke, she suspected, eventually she would have become addicted to the sensation and smoked a dozen a day, like some of the older girls she’d known back home. And there were people who drank all day and drug addicts who would steal from their grandmothers for one more hit and ... she shuddered as she realized the only person she would be stealing from would be herself.

  Yes, the spell offered a chilling temptation. It was one that she had to resist. Because it would be too easy to become an addict and lose all control.

  She stumbled back to her bedroom and collapsed on her bed, sleeping for several hours before she woke up, very early at five bells, the following morning. Neither Aloha nor Imaiqah seemed to have tried to wake her, which was probably fortunate. She’d been so drained that their efforts would only have given her a headache. Leaving them to sleep –she had no idea when either of them had gone to bed–she stumbled into the washroom. She inspected her face in the mirror and shuddered. She looked like an addict who had been forced to go cold turkey.

  After washing her face, she stumbled back outside and noticed a small box someone had placed beside her bed. She’d been warned that it was a good idea to check for magical surprises before touching anything that looked out of place, but she was too drained to focus enough magic to cast even the testing charm. There didn’t seem to be any mana surrounding the box. Shaking her head, she pulled it open and saw what looked like several slabs of milk chocolate and a handwritten note suggesting that she eat all of the chocolate as soon as she woke up. There was no signature.

  Sniffing the chocolate suddenly made her aware of just how ravenous she was, so she took a bite and chewed it thoughtfully. It tasted odd to her, sharper than the chocolate she’d enjoyed back home, although that could be nothing more than differences in production. As a kid, she’d been forced to do a project on making chocolate, which she’d thought would be interesting until she’d discovered that they weren’t going to actually make chocolate for themselves. Early chocolate, if she recalled correctly, had been sharper than modern hyper-processed chocolates. She couldn’t remember why.

  The chocolate made her feel better very quickly, replenishing much of the energy she’d lost in casting the spell. Indeed, she felt as if she could recast the charm ...

  Furiously, she shook that thought out of her head, cursing herself under her breath. That charm, she knew, would be a temptation until the end of her life. Worse, it was one that she would have to use from time to time, for perfectly legitimate reasons. It wasn’t as if she could thrust the knowledge out of her head and never find it again.

  No wonder Mistress Irene had banned her from discussing it with the other students. Emily, at least, knew the dangers of addition. The other students wouldn’t know anything about the dangers of drugs, alcohol or smoking. Coming to think of it, did they even have tobacco?

  If they don’t, Shadye will probably try to import it, she thought as she dressed. It was funny how quickly she’d become used to wearing the robes, as well as the undershirt and the slightly itchy knickers. She found her essay in the pockets and glanced at it quickly, wincing at the handful of spelling mistakes. Back home, misspelling a word could lead to embarrassment; here, the consequences could be worse. Who knows what kind of damage that could do?

  Leaving the other two to sleep, she walked out of the bedroom and down to the massive dining hall. It was almost deserted, apart from a pair of older girls and a handful of boys from the Ken teams, bulking themselves up before morning practice. A couple of them shot sharp glances at Emily, but the remainder ignored her completely, too busy arguing over tactics for the next game with one of the other schools. Emily had the impression that there was no such thing as tactics in Ken; the game seemed to go to the team that was better at reacting, improvising and cheating. Apparently, cheating was legal if the team got away with it.

  Her own table was completely empty, unsurprisingly, but the chefs had food ready to go. Emily took a plate of bacon, eggs, sausages and bread, as well as a sauce that tasted like a strange combination of tomato and chili, and walked back to the table to eat in peace. She couldn’t deny that she was eating more at Whitehall than she’d ever done back home, but maybe it wasn’t too surprising. Magic cost energy and energy could be replenished by eating; indeed, she hadn’t seen any real fatties among the students at all. Even the least sporting of them still had to cast magic. She hadn’t put on any extra weight at all.

  “But I’m telling you that Jolie has a weak spot,” one of the sporting boys said, loudly enough for her to hear him without straining. “I’ve watched every game and I’m telling you that he can’t tell the difference between a real ball and an illusion cast by another player. All we have to do is throw a real ball and a few illusions at him and he’ll be in the sin bin for hours!”

  Emily rolled her eyes as she ate, listening to the argument without paying particular attention. Some things never changed, it seemed, and one of them was school sports. The jocks who were top of the social scale just for kicking a ball around considered themselves the best of the best, and were in for a nasty surprise when they graduated and discovered that playing football wasn’t considered a marketable skill. And they’d considered themselves God’s gift to girls ... she shuddered at the memory of her stepfather’s boasting, then pushed it aside. If he’d had as many conquests as he claimed, on or off the field, he would never have married Emily’s mother.

  It might be different in a magical world, she told herself. Ken taught skills that might be desperately needed in wartime.

  The dining hall was slowly filling up as she finished her meal and carried the plate to the collection hatch. Too many of the students were glancing at her and then trying to make it look as if they’d been looking at something else, enough to make her feel horribly exposed. How could they believe all the nonsense rumors about her that were spreading through the school? Half of them contradicted the other half, or were demonstrably incorrect. They thought that she was a Child of Destiny, or they were scared to death of her ... Emily shook her head as she walked out of the door and headed up to the library to get some reading done before first period.

  Surprisingly, the day went quickly until the final two periods. Basic Charms was simple–this time, Lombardi had given them a complex spell that could be knocked down easily to a pair of components–and she actually managed to brew a working potion in Alchemy. She took the opportunity to ask Thande if they could create transfigured ingredients for alchemical research, ones that actually relied on having been touched by magic. Once she’d managed to explain herself, Thande had pointed out that it would still be an unreliable process. If a transfigured ingredient was different from a natural ingredient, and it was, trying to take advantage of it could be dangerous.

  “And here we are again,” Harkin announced, when they reached Martial Magic. He stood in front of them, one hand tapping his baton against his leg. “I trust that you all managed to have a proper lunch before coming to the field?”

  Emily nodded. A couple of students from the first class hadn’t eaten properly and regretted it very quickly. After that, they’d all learned their lesson; they should eat and sleep whenever they could, because they never knew when they might be in combat. Harkin often offered words of advice, wisdom passed down from soldier to soldier, that often turned out to be practical surprisingly quickly. He wasn’t just
telling them stuff, but showing them as well. It was a far superior way to learn than anything she’d seen back home.

  “Excellent,” Harkin said, once they had all nodded. “Now, the squads. There are twenty-four of you, so four teams of six. Let’s see, shall we?”

  Emily winced as Miles stepped forward, lifting one hand to cast a spell. She’d always hated team selections back home, largely because the team captains always picked her last, along with the fat boys that everyone knew were useless in games. It had been a relief when they’d stopped picking her altogether, if only because she couldn’t bring herself to care who won and who lost. There was no way that could be important to her, not back home. But it would be important in Martial Magic.

  Miles cast a row of lights into the air; red, green, blue and yellow. There was a moment where the lights stayed stationary in the air, then the lights flashed towards the students, splitting up so that there was one light floating over each head. Emily looked up and saw a red light hanging over her head, just like the one over Jade and four other students. She winced inwardly as she realized that she would be sharing a team with five older boys, all of whom would presumably know more magic than her. At least Aloha wouldn’t be dragged down by being on the same team as Emily.

  “Divide into your teams,” Harkin ordered. Oddly, there was one girl per team. Emily couldn’t decide if that was a good or bad thing. “You have ten minutes to learn about each other. I suggest you hurry.”

  Jade waved to her as the line broke up and Emily walked over to him, slightly puzzled. She hadn’t known anyone until she’d come to Whitehall, but surely the others would know each other ... or perhaps not. Jade was sixth year: two of the others were fifth year and the remaining two were fourth year. They might not be aware of each other unless they happened to have a reputation, like Emily. She winced again, and then shook her head. At least it wasn’t a reputation for being a slut or a tease.

  “My name is Jade,” Jade said. He sounded so serious that Emily found herself smiling helplessly. “My father was a Knight of the Allied Lands; my mother is a seamstress in Farfel City. I had hoped to become a Knight myself, but when I developed magic I was sent directly to Whitehall. And I am a Prefect.”

  “Yes, I know,” one of the fourth year boys said. “Does that make you the leader?”

  “I think we rotate the position of leader,” the other fourth year boy said. “That makes much more sense.”

  Jade tapped his palm impatiently. “You can introduce yourself next. Who are you and where do you come from?”

  Emily listened as Cat, Bran, Pillion and Rupert introduced themselves. Cat and Pillion, like Jade, were the children of soldiers, although Cat’s father was apparently a high-ranking General while Pillion’s father was a mystery. Bran and Rupert came from trading families and neither of them had expected to join the military until they’d been tested and told that they would do well in Martial Magic. Finally, Emily’s turn came and she hesitated. At least she now had a workable cover story.

  “My guardian is an eccentric magician,” she said. It was true enough. She didn’t understand the relationship between Void and Whitehall–partly because no one seemed willing to talk about it to her–but Void was her guardian, standing in place of her parents. “He discovered that I had a talent for magic and sent me here.”

  Which was true enough, she knew, in the same sense that one could call a werewolf a fur rug by leaving out most of the important details. Apparently, it wasn’t that uncommon for independent sorcerers to have servants, and Emily could have been the daughter of one of those servants, picking up magic from her mother’s master. Unspoken, it seemed, was the possibility that the sorcerer might have been her father. And it gave her a good excuse to be reluctant to talk about her origins, or being unsure of the correct etiquette, or simply being unaware of the fragile balance of power in the Allied Lands.

  “Excellent,” Jade said. He sounded frighteningly like Sergeant Harkin. “This is a team and we are meant to work together. Anyone who doesn’t cooperate will regret it. We play together, study together and win together.”

  Emily scowled inwardly. She liked her time alone, mostly.

  “Now all we need is a name,” Jade continued. “What should we call ourselves?”

  Slytherin, Emily thought. She didn’t say it out loud. Jade would probably want to know where it came from and what it meant, and she had no idea how to explain Harry Potter to them. Besides, if she told him about games played on broomsticks he’d probably want to set one up immediately and expect her to play.

  “Stalker’s Stalkers,” Cat suggested. “My father’s old unit was named after his Major.”

  “Maybe not,” Bran countered. “I don’t think the Sergeant would approve.”

  “Red Team,” Emily suggested. “Or maybe Redshirts?”

  It struck her, a moment later, that that would be a bad omen. But Jade seemed to be taking it seriously.

  “Deep in thought, I see,” Sergeant Harkin said. Emily jumped as she realized that he was right behind her. “And have you come up with a proper name for your team yet?”

  “Ah ... Redshirts, Sergeant,” Jade said quickly. “It could be Redcoats, but some of our parents would object.”

  “Yes,” Harkin agreed, flatly.

  Emily was puzzled until she remembered that the British Army’s officers had used to wear red uniforms to ensure that the blood wouldn’t show and discourage their troops. There was no reason why this army wouldn’t have followed the same logic, although she wasn’t sure that it was truly that logical. Identifying the officers for watching snipers struck her as a bad idea.

  “Redshirts ... ” He looked directly at Emily. “And have you mastered the skirmishing spells?”

  “Yes, Sergeant,” Emily said, trying to project confidence into her voice. She had learned them from Madame Irene, but she wasn’t sure that she could cast them at will. “I think so.”

  “There is no room for ‘I think so’ in war,” Harkin informed her. He raised his voice. “Cast the shielding charm now, if you please.”

  Emily tried to cast it and succeeded on the second try.

  “It works,” Jade muttered to her. “Well done.”

  “Now,” Harkin said, somehow projecting his voice across the field. “When I blow the whistle, start casting the skirmishing spells at enemy teams. The team with the last player standing wins. Go!”

  He blew the whistle. There was a moment of stunned silence, broken by Jade hurling a spell at the nearest player from a different team. His body started to sparkle, just as everyone started hurling spells at very close range. Emily managed to fire a bolt at Sissy, a girl who had shown no interest in her one way or the other, before four different enemy players struck her with their own spells. She hit the deck as sparkles started to form around her body, silently grateful that she hadn’t been turned into stone this time. Looking up, it was evident that the only survivor from all four teams was Aloha. Her roommate looked muddy; it took Emily a moment to realize that she’d dropped to the ground as soon as spells started to fly and then picked off the remaining survivors before they realized that she wasn’t sparkling.

  “Good thinking, Aloha,” Harkin said. Emily saw Aloha looking embarrassed–praise from Harkin was rare, it seemed–as she stood upright. “So, what went wrong there?”

  His face twisted into an amused scowl. “Only one person had the wit to seek cover, what little cover there was. Everyone else was an easy target–although quite a few spells missed outright. And the person who took a shot at me wasted his chance to win the match.” There was a glitter of humor in his eye for a brief second. “Fighting in a crowded room is something that you have to learn to avoid, if possible. The nastier military spells will do as much harm to you and yours as they will to the enemy.”

  Miles clicked his fingers and the sparkles vanished. “We’re going to start altering the positions now,” Harkin continued. “And then we’ll see if we can’t bash some proper tactics
into your heads.”

  Emily found herself enjoying the exercises, much to her surprise, as they played two more rounds in the forest. The trees provided additional cover; the bogs and other nasty surprises made it harder to concentrate on just the opposing team. Harkin watched them, shouting advice when one of the teams made an obvious mistake, once directing a new team into the forest to engage the victors of the first match. Emily managed to take out three other players before being taken out in turn. By the time class came to an end, she was tired, muddy and happy.

  “I expect you to spend some time practicing in teams,” Harkin said. “Leaders: make sure you take the right safety precautions, or there will be beatings. Next period, we will be discussing proper tactics for magic spells. Why not see what you can find out for yourselves first?”

  Emily walked back to the building, unable to resist smiling at the expression on Aloha’s face.

  Her roommate looked delighted with herself. And she deserved to.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “YOU’RE NOT THINKING,” IMAIQAH SAID REPROVINGLY. “I just took your king.”

  Emily nodded sourly. She’d played chess as a younger girl–she’d been very good at it, she considered–but Imaiqah was unquestionably a skilful player of kingmaker. The game was close enough to chess to confuse Emily, because–as far as she could tell–the real key piece was the wizard, rather than the king or queen. Worse, the king was a mighty piece and the Queen was almost helpless, an inversion that puzzled her. Most confusingly of all, servants–pawns, by any other name–couldn’t always be promoted to replace the queen, if she happened to be lost. The servant she had designated as crown prince became king if–and only if–the original king happened to be lost. If both the king and crown prince were taken, or if the king was ‘checkmated’, the game ended.