Schooled in Magic

by Christopher G. Nuttall

  Emily nodded towards a tiny carving of a bird. “What’s that?”

  “Touch it,” Yodel said. He smiled at her expression. “It’s quite harmless, I assure you. I do good work.”

  Up close, the wooden bird was very detailed. Emily allowed her fingers to touch it lightly and ...

  ... She was flying through the air, her wings beating as she soared over the land far below ...

  ... And then she was back in her own body, staggering back.

  “Not many people manage to cope for long, their first time,” Yodel said kindly. “I charmed a bird’s memories into it, and then allowed people to feel them for themselves. They miss out on so much when all they can do is transfigure themselves and others into birds.”

  Emily stared at him. “I found it ... disconcerting,” she said, after a long beat. She could feel her heart thudding in her chest. “Do people actually buy things like that?”

  “You’d be surprised,” Yodel said. He tapped a kingmaker board. “Perhaps I can sell you one charmed to actually play by itself? Or one designed to enhance your own playing skills?”

  “Cheating, you mean,” Emily said. She’d once played a boy who’d used an Ipad to cheat before she’d caught on to what he was doing. “I wouldn’t learn anything from that, would I?”

  “Matter of opinion,” Yodel said. He stopped and looked directly at her. “And what, really, do you want?”

  “I need a storage chest,” Emily said. “I was told that you were the best enchanter in town.”

  “The best for half the continent,” Yodel informed her. He led Emily into one of his backrooms and summoned a ball of light. “As you can see, I have seven different chests in stock at the moment, all charmed to hold almost anything and sealed to one user. Or I can make you another chest to your specifications, but that will cost more.”

  Emily looked at one of the chests and fell in love. It was a mahogany treasure chest right out of a pirate movie, with a single large golden lock on the front. She touched it, very lightly, and felt spells crackling around the wood, waiting for the wrong person to try to open it.

  Yodel tapped the lock and it opened, revealing an interior that seemed to stretch to infinity and beyond. He picked up a wand and dropped it into the darkness, then held his hand over the chest.

  “Wand,” he said. The wand popped up into his hand. “Should you forget what you put into the chest, you can order it to show you everything, or merely empty itself out onto the floor.”

  “Clever,” Emily said much more sincerely this time. “How secure is it?”

  “The charms are guaranteed to stand up against anyone but a first-rank curse-breaker,” Yodel informed her. “But if someone breaks the charms without the correct spells, it will collapse the pocket dimension and everything inside will be lost. I can produce a chest that connects to a permanent pocket dimension, allowing you to recover your property later, but that will be rather more expensive. This one costs approximately twenty gold coins.”

  Emily looked at the chest and couldn’t resist asking the obvious question. “What if I wanted to sleep inside the box?”

  “The preservation spells–which are of my own design–wouldn’t let you,” Yodel said. “I have known sorcerers who have tried to design chests with sleeping accommodations, but the spells are far from simple and easily frayed. It is not recommended.”

  “Pity,” Emily said. She’d been having visions of something rather like the TARDIS. “Can you have it shipped to Whitehall?”

  “Once you purchase it, I can have it transported to the building,” Yodel said. “You’ll have to bond yourself to the chest here and now, but there would be no problem with shipping it to you. It would be useless to anyone else, including me.”

  He straightened up and closed the lid. “Do you want to buy it?”

  Emily looked at the other chests, and then back at the original. “Yes,” she said, reaching into her money pouch. “Twenty gold coins, right?”

  Yodel took the money and ordered her to press her hand against the chest’s lock, while muttering a spell under his breath. Emily felt a slight tingle and nothing more, but when she tried to open the lock it opened easily, almost as if the heavy wood weighed nothing at all. She put it down and watched as Yodel weighed the gold, before nodding and passing her a parchment scroll. It was written in a spidery hand that she found difficult to read.

  “Instructions,” Yodel grunted. “And is there anything else you can buy while you’re here?”

  “I don’t think so,” Emily said as he escorted her back to the door. “What is that ... hand and candle thing for?”

  “It’s a Hand of Glory,” Yodel said. “You can use it to open doors, or gateways; you could go anywhere with it. Very few people know how to make them and the price is staggering.”

  Emily looked at the hand and made a mental note to consider the possible implications later, then paused in the doorway. “When will the chest arrive at the school?”

  “Tomorrow, probably,” Yodel said. “I’ll have to see what else is purchased today, and then send it all up in one carriage.”

  Outside, Emily gathered herself as the noise of the city returned to her ears, before glancing into the nearby clothes store. Imaiqah was still inside, trying on dresses; Emily rolled her eyes and looked around for another store, one that might be more interesting.

  There was an Apothecary on the other side of the street and, remembering what Professor Thande had said about buying ingredients from Apothecaries, Emily walked over and opened the door. Inside, there was a large room crammed with shelves, each one containing bottles and jars of ingredients. There was a faint smell hanging in the air that reminded her of spices from Earth. She had to fight down the urge to sneeze.

  “Welcome to my store,” a voice said. She looked up and saw a fat woman with a big smile that didn’t quite touch her eyes. “I hope that you’re not planning to leave without paying for what you take?”

  Emily blinked in surprise, and then anger. “I am just browsing,” she said, annoyed. How dare a shopkeeper accuse her of planning to steal from her store? “Do you treat all your customers like this?”

  The woman drew back. “I can see that you have too much pride to steal. And are you looking for something special? I have crushed dandelions that can be used to charm an unwary heart into love or care. Or I can sell you seeds that grow into sweet-flavored leaves. Very good for those who want to relax.”

  “I’m just looking,” Emily said, picking up a jar marked Bat Urine. She couldn’t imagine what it could do, but she’d seen Professor Thande produce all kinds of potions with weird ingredients. “Do you have anything ... interesting?”

  “I have a very small bottle of Dragon’s Blood, but it was promised to another customer,” the woman said. Her smiled grew wider. “It is going for the low price of five hundred gold coins, but it can be yours for six hundred ...”

  Emily started to laugh. Dragon’s Blood was rare, very rare. Very few books agreed on the subject of dragons, but they all said that dragons were very hard to kill, let alone bleed for their magically-charged blood. And they were powerful, shielded from almost all charms by scaly armor and the raw magic field that allowed them to fly. There were legends of entire countries destroyed in the past by angry dragons. None of them made pleasant reading.

  It had to be fake. One might as well buy a luxury yacht for ten dollars.

  “Ah, I can see that you’re a real magician,” the woman said. “I can sell you something really interesting, if you’ll come with me ...”

  She walked through a curtain into a rear compartment. Emily followed her and readied a shielding charm just in case it was a trap. She stepped into what looked like a strange pet shop. One cage was filled with spiders, each one larger than her hand, endlessly scuttling around behind the glass walls. Emily felt her skin crawl as the spiders turned to look at her, before returning to their dance. She looked away and saw another tank filled with sparkly fish, reminding her of
the charms they’d used in Martial Magic. A third cage held a pair of white mice and a dozen rats; apart from twitching, they seemed to be doing almost nothing.

  “They were produced by an animalist magician with plenty of magic and a willingness to do anything just to see what would happen,” the woman informed her. “They can actually think for themselves, would you believe? I shudder to think of what would happen if they got loose among the rats in the town.”

  Emily shook her head in disbelief, a little overwhelmed by the sight.

  The shopkeeper misunderstood. “You think that that isn’t fascinating? Come and look at this!”

  She tapped a birdcage angrily. Something stirred in the far corner.

  Emily frowned. At first, she thought that she was looking at a tiny bird, complete with wings, and then she saw the body between the wings. It was impossible ... and yet, she’d seen enough over the past weeks to know that nothing was truly impossible when it came to magic.

  “Ah,” the woman said. “I’ve impressed you at last, have I?”

  Emily said nothing as she stared at the fairy. She was tiny, barely larger than Emily’s middle finger, but chillingly human. Her naked body suggested a teenage girl, with blonde hair and perfectly-shaped breasts, yet she had black wings growing out of her bare back. Emily couldn’t believe what she saw.

  Slowly, the fairy settled back in the cage, as if she were trying to cover herself in a desperate search for modesty–or merely hide from their gaze. Very briefly, she met the fairy’s dark eyes. It was impossible to escape the sense that the fairy was an intelligent creature in her own right.

  Emily felt guilty–and dirty - for even looking at the poor creature.

  “What ... ?” She swallowed hard, and then started again. “What do you intend to do with her?”

  “It, dear,” the woman said. “Not her. I intend to cut off her wings and use them to produce a very specific potion, and then sell her to one of the city’s selectmen with rather curious tastes in ...”

  “You can’t,” Emily interrupted her. “That isn’t something you can just kill.”

  “She isn’t human,” the woman said. Emily felt sick, fighting down the urge to cast the botched spells she’d tried to use on Alassa again. Only the danger of challenging a magician of unknown power convinced her to stay her hand. “I bought her fair and square.” Her voice became calculating. “Unless, of course, you wish to buy her for yourself?”

  Emily stared at her, not bothering to disguise her loathing. “How much?”

  “Interesting,” the woman mused. “You want the entire creature, I presume? That could cost you ten gold coins.”

  “Ten gold coins,” Emily repeated. The price for fake Dragon’s Blood made that look like nothing, but ten gold coins was a major chunk of her savings. “How much would you make if you sold her and her wings?”

  The fairy howled as she heard the words, a thin sound that almost made Emily’s heart break.

  “Maybe seven gold coins,” the woman mused. “But you could easily make your money back if you ground her up and mixed the remains with ...”

  “I’ll give you eight gold coins,” Emily said. It might not be a smart thing to do–she had no idea how many fairies there were–but she felt as if she had no choice. She wasn’t going to leave the fairy to be mutilated and then used for whatever horrifying purpose the town’s selectman had in mind. “And that’s the best offer you will get.”

  The woman reached into the cage, picked up the fairy by her gossamer wings and pulled her out of the cage. Emily winced when she saw the dark wings, shimmering like a soap bubble on the verge of bursting, just before the fairy was dumped into her hand. She resisted the urge to stroke the creature as she put her down on the table and reached into her coin pouch for the money. Maybe she had been cheated, but she couldn’t do anything else. The fairy’s plight had affected her on a very basic level.

  “Here,” she snarled, and gave the shopkeeper the money. “Thank you!”

  She picked up the fairy and stalked out of the store, into the open air. The fairy’s wings came to life at once, beating against her palm until she opened her hand and let the fairy drift up into the air like a giant bee. Her dark wings were moving so rapidly that the fairy seemed surrounded by inky darkness.

  Feeling like a pervert, Emily looked away, embarrassed. When she looked back, the fairy was gone.

  Imaiqah was still trying on clothes, utterly unaware of what Emily had just done. Some of the clothes looked like silk, which came–if Emily recalled correctly–from living creatures. Were they animals in this world, or were they as intelligent as the fairy she’d liberated? The thought sickened her. Professor Locke had claimed that human mistreatment of other intelligent creatures had helped lead to the wars that had almost destroyed humanity. How many other crimes, beside slaughtered fairies and bled dragons, were committed in the name of magic?

  Shaking her head, Emily walked onwards until she happened to glance into a courtyard and saw Alassa sitting in front of a table, a glass of red liquid sitting in front of her. The Princess didn’t look happy at all, Emily realized; in fact, it almost looked as if she had been crying. Emily hesitated, unsure of what she should do, before stepping into the courtyard and realizing that it was an upscale drinking establishment, almost completely deserted. Alassa looked up, saw her, and made a face.

  Emily almost walked away, but something told her to stay. She’d worked with Alassa on Basic Charms long enough to know that there was a human being buried under the royal arrogance and carelessness that seemed to make up her public persona. Besides, she had hurt Alassa very badly, even if it had been thoroughly deserved. No one could experience something like that without being badly scarred, even if nothing was visible.

  “Hi,” Emily said, as lightly as she could. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Alassa’s hand twitched, as if she were on the verge of reaching for her wand. “Do you think I want to talk about it?”

  Emily almost walked away a second time, and then forced herself to sit down. “I think you need to talk about it,” she said seriously. Alassa’s face reminded her of her own, back when she’d seen no way out of her life, apart from death. “You seem depressed.”

  Alassa began to laugh, bitterly. “Depressed,” she repeated. “I have a problem and I don’t know how to cope with it. I’d say I’m depressed!”

  Emily studied her for a long moment. “And what is your problem?”

  Alassa’s laugh became a cruel, sardonic giggle. “My problem?” She repeated, between giggles. “My problem is you!”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “ME?”

  Alassa nodded, looking down at her glass. “You. You’ve ruined my life.”

  Emily stared at her, puzzled. How, exactly, had she ruined Alassa’s life?

  True, the Royal Brat had needed a lesson in the dangers of picking on people, and she was actually making progress on Basic Charms - with Emily’s help.

  But then, Emily thought, it was possible that Alassa, unlike many of the other students, had never had to grow up. Instead, she’d been a Royal Princess, coddled from the moment she drew her first breath.

  One of Emily’s older teachers from back home had told his class that there was a difference between urban children and those from the countryside. Urban children were rarely taught anything useful, at least in a practical sense, while the children from the countryside started helping their parents from a very early age. Emily hadn’t believed him at the time–she knew kids who’d had paper routes to earn money–but right now she understood what he meant. A child like Imaiqah, born to a hard-working merchant, needed to help her father as soon as she could walk, just to repay the resources he’d invested in her. Imaiqah had needed to grow up very quickly; indeed, Emily suspected that Imaiqah’s natural mathematical talents were far greater than anyone Emily had known back home, perhaps because Imaiqah had been figuring sums for her father as soon as she could grasp the concept of two plu
s two.

  Alassa, on the other hand, had never really had to learn anything, let alone work for a living or train for war. A Crown Prince was taken to the field as soon as he could walk in order to be schooled in the arts of fighting, but no one would dream of exposing a Crown Princess to such treatment. Those delicate little girls were the mothers of the next generation of royalty. They were to be cosseted and protected and...

  ...Whatever else could be said about Alassa’s upbringing, she had not been properly prepared for the real world. Alassa was a Mary of Scotland, Emily decided, rather than Elizabeth of England. And Mary had ended up having her head cut off by her cousin, the first Queen Elizabeth.

  “I didn’t mean to ruin your life,” Emily said after a long pause. It was hard to pick and choose the right words. Her school had once sent her to a psychologist and she’d found the entire process maddening. The moron had asked silly questions and then not even bothered to listen to the answers. Now, she felt a twinge of sympathy for him. “And I didn’t mean to get you paddled either.”

  Alassa glared at her. “Did you mean to almost kill me?”

  “No, but you did start it,” Emily said. She wasn’t about to prostrate herself in front of a spoiled brat, even if Alassa had started to grow up. “You turned me into ... something and you tormented my friend. Didn’t anyone tell you not to do someone a small injury?”

  Alassa picked up her glass and took a swig. “My parents told me that I would be Queen one day,” she said, absently. “I tried to act like a Princess.”

  “I’d say you succeeded,” Emily said, unable to resist the chance to be snide. Of course, Alassa didn’t understand the joke. She turned back to the original topic of conversation. “What happened?”

  “I don’t understand,” Alassa said. “Where did I go wrong?”

  Emily felt her eyes narrow. “What did your parents say to you?”