Schooled in Magic

by Christopher G. Nuttall

  Shaking her head, Emily walked back to her bedroom, unsurprised to discover that Alassa had dragged in a set of blankets and lay on the floor, next to Imaiqah’s bed. Both girls looked nervous; they’d been reading books on potions and complex spells in a desperate attempt to distract themselves. Emily reassured them as best as she could, even though she knew it would be futile, and crawled into her own bed, closing her eyes. Sleep overcame her and she plunged into darkness ...

  And dreamed.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  SHE HAD TO MOVE. SHE KNEW that for a fact, something so deeply embedded in her mind that questioning was impossible.

  She had to move.

  And yet she could not move. Her legs felt as if they were trapped in concrete. Movement was impossible ...

  … She was dreaming. She knew she was dreaming, believed it to be true. And yet something was wrong.

  An alarm bell rang at the back of her mind, screaming an alert, but every time she tried to focus on it her mind slipped away. She knew something was wrong and yet she could do nothing.

  It was a nightmare and nightmares had to be endured ...

  ... She stood up. In her dream, she saw nothing wrong with this, or with the fact that she still felt as if she couldn’t move. Two contradictory things could be true at the same time in a dream, she knew, even if the logical part of her mind suggested otherwise. The alarm bell grew louder, but she could still do nothing. Her legs moved of their own accord as she walked to the doorway and stepped into the long hallway ...

  ... Blood was everywhere. There were nearly a hundred students in the strange stunted classes that made up the first year curriculum at Whitehall–and they were all dead. Her dazed mind believed it, without reservation, even as she tried to understand how she alone had survived to tell the world.

  She caught sight of Melissa and her two friends, their bodies torn apart by giant monstrous claws, and felt nothing. Their eyes looked at her. Staring. Accusing. Judging. Something about the whole scene bothered her, but she couldn’t understand what. A strange mist had fallen over her thoughts ...

  ... She was in shock, she told herself, and it seemed logical. No sane human being could look on a scene of mass slaughter and not feel horror and revulsion. She had to be in shock; later, she would remember what she’d seen and feel it. Melissa hadn’t deserved to die like that, nor had her friends. How could anyone be blamed for wanting to strike back at Alassa?

  Emily pushed the thought aside as she crept down the corridor towards the exit. Whitehall had been invaded; the tutors were dead, along with the rest of the students. She was on her own ...

  ... A demon rose up in front of her, snarling its fury. Emily lashed out with her magic, feeling power surge through her as if she were tapping the vast fields stored within the school itself. The demon stumbled backwards, hitting the floor with a mighty crash.

  Emily stepped through the now demon-less door and out into the school itself. Blood and bodies lay everywhere; the monstrous army had torn through everyone in the school, even the youngest students. Emily pushed herself into the shadows as she heard monsters approaching, knowing that she didn’t dare be seen. She was the last defender of Whitehall and she would see to it that the monsters paid for their crimes...

  ... She hadn’t known about any secret passageways until she opened one of them, stepping into a darkened tunnel that led downwards - into the bowels of the school. She walked down the stone corridor, glancing through peepholes that allowed her to see into different classrooms; the monsters had torn through the students in front of the tutors, before murdering the tutors and pinning them to the walls. Professor Thande had been beheaded and tipped upside down, his blood flowing to the floor; Professor Lombardi had been cut into a dozen pieces and scattered around his classroom. She was alone in the school, apart from the monsters ...

  ...Something was definitely wrong, but cold resolve pushed her doubts aside. Whitehall, her new home, the home she’d embraced so completely that she had never looked back, was dead. And all she could do was avenge it.

  The sound of alarm bells grew louder, yet she thought nothing of them. All that mattered was extracting revenge. Even the discovery that one of the peepholes looked out into the changing rooms didn’t distract her from her quest...

  ...She stepped out of the passageway, spells charged and primed, ready for the command to unleash themselves. There would be monsters blocking her path, she knew. They’d have to be killed and killed quickly, before they could summon reinforcements. But, instead, there were bodies scattered everywhere. Emily recoiled in horror as she realized that she was staring down at the last stand of the Redshirts. Jade had died from a sword wound to the throat that had almost beheaded him. Cat had been partially transfigured and then left to die of shock. Bran had a long spear rammed through his head. Rupert had been poisoned, judging by the look of agony on his face. And there was no sign of Pillion at all. It took her a long chilling moment to realize that his body had been blown apart and she was walking through the remains of her teammate. They’d fought bravely and they’d lost ...

  ... But something was wrong.

  Emily stopped, staring at the bodies. Something was nagging at her mind, something so obvious that she should see it at once, and yet it was so hard to think clearly. What was wrong with her? Aside from shock.

  A monster howled behind her. Startled, she headed towards the doors that led into the castle’s deepest secret, the magical core that linked directly to the ley line nexus. The monsters would be sorry that they’d ever invaded Whitehall and slaughtered her friends. They would pay ...

  ... The door opened, revealing five necromancers. Emily reacted on instinct, unleashing the spells that she’d stored inside her body; they tumbled backwards. Waves of magic spun around her as she ran past them, heading towards the nexus, a source of mana so powerful that it took the most complex wards she’d ever seen to tap and use it for the school. Behind her, the necromancers were rallying, putting aside their differences to stop her; she found herself deflecting freeze spells and even a deadly killing curse without difficulty.

  This had to be a dream ...

  ... She ran right into the wards, feeling something welling up from inside her, and the world went black...

  Emily’s eyes snapped open. The Grandmaster was staring down at her, his face twisted with anger ... and fear. What was he doing in her bedroom?

  No, she wasn’t in her bedroom. Instead, she lay on the floor of a chamber she didn’t recognize ...

  ... And something was very wrong. It took her a moment to realize the wards that had been an ever-present background noise since she had come to Whitehall were ... gone.

  The Grandmaster hauled her bodily to her feet. “What have you done?”

  Emily stared at him, confused and disoriented. She wore her nightgown, part of her mind noted. What had happened to her? The last thing she recalled was going to sleep and dreaming and ...

  He shook her, raw magic crackling around his fingertips. “What have you done?”

  “Sympathetic magic,” Professor Thande said. Emily looked at him, feeling her head spinning. Wasn’t he dead? She’d seen the body ... hadn’t she? “Look at her hands, Grandmaster.”

  The Grandmaster caught Emily’s left hand and wrenched it open, twisting it sharply enough for Emily to cry out in pain. There was a bloody mark on her hand, where she’d squeezed it so tightly that her nails had cut into her skin. She’d done it to herself ... her head, still spinning, couldn’t cope with what she saw. If the Grandmaster hadn’t held her upright, she would have collapsed and probably fainted on the stone floor.

  “There were necromancers,” she said, finally. But ... but necromancers never worked together for long–and none of them would want their rivals to gain control of Whitehall. “I saw necromancers ...”

  “You nearly killed a dozen of my staff,” the Grandmaster snarled. Emily stared at him, slowly realizing that her nightmare had been more than just a ni
ghtmare. “And the wards are coming down.”

  “She doesn’t know, Grandmaster,” Thande said patiently. “Very few top-rank magicians could master a protection against sympathetic magic once the caster had their hooks in them. A first-year student couldn’t hope to defend herself.”

  Emily stared at him. “What ... what happened?”

  “You were cut when you were kidnapped in Dragon’s Den,” the Grandmaster said bluntly. He relaxed his grip on her, just enough to allow her to breathe normally. “Malefic cut you and then left you alone, knowing you would escape. Once he’d killed his two allies, he took your blood to the necromancer, who used it to influence your mind. Whatever you thought you were seeing wasn’t real. He used you as his puppet.”

  Emily ... felt soiled. Violated. She’d known that mind control spells existed; she’d seen them on her very first day in the new world. And yet, she had never really grasped the fact that she could be ... influenced by someone outside the school’s wards. All the little practical jokes she’d learned were nothing compared to the delusion that had been inflicted on her ...

  ... It struck her, in a moment of horror, that she might have killed some of her friends. Shadye had woven a net around her mind and manipulated her as easily as she might manipulate a character in a computer game. And she hadn’t known the difference.

  “He used you to bring down the wards,” Thande said. “The school is now defenseless.”

  “But...” Emily swallowed and started again. “But I thought there were spells to cut the link between me and my blood. Weren’t they performed at the infirmary?”

  “You can’t sever the link completely,” the Grandmaster said flatly. “All you can really do is ... weaken it to the point where it’s effectively useless for magic. Kyla performed the spells to weaken the link at my request, but Shadye must have done something to ensure that the link could only be rendered dormant, not destroyed. And then he used it when the time was right.”

  Emily stared at him, realizing–for the first time–just how patiently Shadye had plotted and schemed ever since Void had snatched her from his clutches. Void had risked his life to save her, which meant that Emily had to be important–and everything she’d done since then only underlined her status as a Child of Destiny. And he had to have been delighted when his servants had kidnapped Alassa as well. No one would consider that Emily had been the prime target when the kidnappers had also walked away with a Royal Princess. But it had all been intended to obtain a sample of Emily’s blood, then allow her to escape, never knowing that had been the plan all along. And Whitehall had performed the standard checks and known that Emily was safe ...

  And then he’d forced her to betray Whitehall ...

  The Grandmaster frowned. “I am going to have to scan your mind,” he said. “Please try to relax. It can be painful if you fight.”

  Emily had no time to object before he locked eyes with her. She found herself unable to look away. The sense of being violated returned, a thousand times stronger, as she felt the Grandmaster rummage through her thoughts. Oddly, the sense of being isolated from her own mind, as if she were looking down at herself from the outside, allowed her to see the subtle tendrils Shadye had crafted and spun into her mind. And how her own mind, responding to his prompts, had created a scenario powerful enough to keep her enthralled until it was far too late.

  “I’m going to have to cut those links,” the Grandmaster said - or thought. Their minds were so entangled that Emily honestly couldn’t tell the difference. Mr. Spock couldn’t have done a better job. “And you really shouldn’t have sworn that oath.”

  Emily winced, expecting immediate death. But she hadn’t intended to betray the fairies–she hadn’t realized that the Grandmaster intended to scan her mind in time to say anything–and the oath didn’t seem to consider it a breach of contract. And yet she had still failed ...

  “Don’t worry about it,” the Grandmaster ordered. “There is little need for fairies to be slaughtered, save for spells that”–there was a hint of hesitation–“you are really too young to know about. I will keep their secret.”

  Emily smiled, but didn’t relax. “Will you swear an oath to that effect?”

  “Smart people try to avoid swearing oaths,” the Grandmaster said. There was a moment as he peered into the delusions her mind had created. “You were a tool in the hands of a necromancer with power and knowledge.”

  “I feel bad enough already,” Emily snapped. Mind-to-mind, there was no way to conceal anything from him, or to swallow her tongue before she said anything. She flushed hotly, embarrassed; it was a feeling that was only made worse by his shimmer of amusement. “Can you stop him from doing it again?”

  “Yes,” the Grandmaster said patiently. There was a moment when he seemed to be working directly on her mind. “It is done.”

  Emily felt her head spin one final time, just as Thande pushed a potion-filled gourd into her hand . He urged her to drink it. It tasted foul–all medical potions tasted foul, for some reason–but as soon as she swallowed the first drops she felt a great deal better.

  But she couldn’t rest for long. A clanging alarm in the distance brought her to her feet–without any clear memory of how she’d once again been on the floor–and reaching for her sword before remembering that she was in her nightgown. At least she was decent, thankfully. One of the ones she’d considered wearing back home would have shocked local opinion.

  “The outer wards are gone,” the Grandmaster said, quietly. “The spells that redirected the power of the nexus are collapsing. It won’t be long before the inner wards are gone too.”

  Emily stared down at her bloodstained hands, knowing she had failed. She’d loved Whitehall far more than any other school she’d attended, for it had given her a chance at a very different life. The tutors hadn’t treated her as an idiot, nor had they been idiots themselves. Even the harsh discipline seemed unimportant compared to what she had learned to do.

  But she’d betrayed the school. There was no way they’d let her attend another magic school after this, assuming she survived the next few hours. The scenarios her mind had constructed might come true after all. Shadye would want to capture as many of the students as possible–he could sacrifice them to boost his power–but he wouldn’t want to risk capturing the tutors. They knew enough magic to be dangerous.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, finally. It seemed so inadequate. “I ... I didn’t know ...”

  “Very few people could have realized what was going on and broken free,” Professor Thande assured her. “You are far from alone.”

  The Grandmaster stood up. “Professor Thande, I need you to start evacuating the younger students through the portals. The school’s interior dimensions are based on different spells, so they should remain stable until the necromancers reach this room and start trying to fiddle with the wards. I’ll have Whitehall open sealed corridors for the students to escape.”

  “I have war potions brewing in my office,” Thande said. He sounded ... reluctant to run. “I can’t leave the building ...”

  “You can return once the younger students are out of here,” the Grandmaster said. There was no give in his voice at all. “The building’s interior defenses are still intact–Shadye wouldn’t have known about them when he was a student–so we should be able to put up a good fight, but we have to assume the worst.”

  There was a bleakness in his voice that almost crushed Emily’s soul. Whitehall was the linchpin of the southern defenses. If it fell, the necromancers would be able to ravage at least eight countries before they ran into more natural barriers to their expansion. The Allied Lands would be weakened, perhaps crippled, even if they did finally put all of their differences aside and unite behind a single monarch.

  And it was all her fault.

  She looked up suddenly. “Shadye was a student here?”

  “There was a ... difference of opinion,” the Grandmaster said. “He left the school and vanished. It was a long time be
fore he resurfaced and longer still before we realized that Shadye had once been one of our students.”

  Emily looked back down at her hands. “So you know his name,” she said. “Couldn’t you ...”

  “Not enough of it to matter,” the Grandmaster admitted. “And even if we did, he knows how to ward himself. Using his full name against him is unlikely to work.”

  He turned and marched to the door. “I can’t put you on the front lines. Shadye is crafty and has plenty of raw power, perhaps enough to re-establish a link between his sample of your blood and you. We cannot take the risk.”

  Emily hesitated, then nodded once, bitterly. She wouldn’t have trusted herself either, because there was no easy way to know if she was acting of her own will, or if Shadye was mentally influencing her until she thought that stabbing the Grandmaster in the back was a good idea. Shadye could twist her mind to the point where she could become convinced that black was white, right was wrong and monarchy was actually a viable governing system.

  “I’m going to put you in my office,” he said as they left the chamber. There were bloodstains on the floor where she had fought the demons, unaware that she was smashing her way through tutors. Naturally, there were no bodies outside the chamber. “You can wait there until the battle is won, or I order you to run. They won’t allow you through the portal so you’ll have to flee into the countryside and hope that your patron picks you up.”

  Emily scowled. It was unlikely that Void would want anything to do with her after she’d been so badly compromised.

  “We could call him,” she suggested instead. “Wouldn’t he help?”

  “If we cannot use the interior defenses to hold Shadye back until he exhausts himself,” the Grandmaster admitted, “we’d just be bringing him more targets.”