The Silver Dwarf (Royal Institute of Magic, Book 4) (9 page)

“Sounds good,” Ben said, standing up. He glanced at Charlie, who rose with him. “So, what do we tackle first?”

“I saw how horribly behind you are in the Scholar Department,” Charlie said with a severe frown. “So let’s hit the library. We need to get you up to
speed.”

Ben groaned, his enthusiasm suddenly dulled. “I thought you might say that. I really don’t get how you enjoy it so much.”

“I’ll attempt to show you. Come on.”

While the Department of Scholar was never going to be as fun as the Spellsword or Warden departments, Charlie certainly made it more bearable. He knew
where all the good books were and managed to limit the monotonous reading. To Ben’s surprise, he found that there were talking books that read to you and
responded to your questions. Then there were diagrams, illustrations, and real-life examples of things they were studying – maps; historical documents;
real bits of armour from past battles – all located in areas of the library Ben didn’t know existed. With Charlie’s help, it wasn’t long before Ben was
starting to catch up in the Scholar Department.

Then the tables turned. With Ben now up to speed, it was his turn to help Charlie, who was horribly behind in the Warden Department.

“I hate real-life exercises,” Charlie muttered.

Ben and Charlie were hurrying down the hill, towards the Dragonway.

“Why? Simulations are okay, but you can’t beat the real thing,” Ben said.

Charlie had been given an assignment from Heidi, the Warden responsible for tracking low-level Unseens. A pixie was rumoured to be attempting to travel to
London without a proper visa, and it was Charlie’s job to make sure that didn’t happen. He had with him his spellshooter, armed with a number of basic
spells, and a small wooden box to capture the pixie if necessary.

“I just hope the pixie listens to reason, because I really don’t want to try to catch the thing in this,” Charlie said, holding up the box miserably.

“You’ll be fine,” Ben said with a grin. “Remember, the objective is to stop the pixie getting on the Dragonway – it doesn’t really matter how you do it.”

Ben and Charlie headed straight for the Dragonway entrance, and stopped at the archway in front of the stairs that led to the platforms. Ben didn’t have
his spellshooter, nor did he plan on helping Charlie with the capture, as that would violate the objective requirements. Charlie was supposed to do this by
himself; Ben was just here for moral support.

“Look relaxed,” Ben said. “You look too obvious, like you are clearly here on duty.”

“Well, I have the stars floating over my shoulder, don’t I?” Charlie said irritably. “It’s hard to avoid being seen as an Institute apprentice like this.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Ben said. “If you look relaxed, you’re less likely to be suspected, which will make stopping the pixie easier – trust me.”

Charlie attempted to relax, and even tucked into an apple, which helped. Ben spotted several pixies enter the Dragonway, but it wasn’t for another twenty
minutes before Charlie’s eyes widened.

“There he is!” he said, pointing.

“Put your finger down. You’re calling attention to yourself.”

Charlie’s brow was starting to perspire and he wiped it with a chubby hand.

“Stay relaxed,” Ben said. “He’s coming this way, and he clearly hasn’t noticed you yet. Just ease yourself into position.”

The pixie was clearly troubled. He flew just above the crowd, occasionally knocking his legs into a lumbering giant or a hulking troll. The pixie’s nerves
could help Charlie or they could make things complicated, depending on how Charlie handled it.

“Here he comes,” Charlie said. He looked just as nervous as the pixie, but to his credit, the moment they locked eyes on each other, Charlie put on a
passable show of authority.

“Excuse me, Mr. Alendor?” Charlie said, stepping forwards, into the path of the pixie.

The pixie gave a little start, as he finally clocked Charlie, just feet from his face.

“Yes,” the pixie said, in a typically high-pitched voice. “What is it?”

“My name is Charlie Hornberger, and I work for the Institute,” Charlie said, pointing to the stars above his shoulder. He pulled out a letter. “I have been
led to believe that you plan a trip to London without holding the necessary paperwork. Is that correct?”

“Yes. No – possibly,” the pixie said. There was a growing alarm in his voice, and he made several furtive gestures with his wings that Ben was fairly sure
Charlie hadn’t noticed.

Stay calm, Charlie
, Ben wanted to say. The trick was to let the pixie know they were on the same side.

Charlie produced a small bracelet from his pocket. “If you agree to wear this tracking bracelet and calmly return home, I will be happy to forget the
matter.”

Too early!
Ben thought.
You haven’t won him over yet.

The pixie looked at Charlie, and then over his head, at the stairs leading up to the Dragonway platforms.

Ben tensed himself. Charlie, on the other hand, had his arm halfway extended with the bracelet to the pixie, a hopeful smile on his face.

The pixie bolted, flying right over Charlie’s head, zooming up the stairs.

Charlie whipped round in astonishment. “Shit! I thought I had him.”

“Not quite,” Ben said urgently. “Let’s go, you have to get him before he makes it onto the Dragonway.”

To Charlie’s credit, he responded immediately, reaching for the wooden box, and flying up the staircase. Ben followed just behind. Charlie did a decent job
of avoiding fellow passengers, mainly by screaming “Sorry, excuse me, coming by, Institute business!” at the top of his voice. Ben could just make out the
wings of the pixie as it sped along the bridge that overlooked the platforms. As it approached platform seven, it took a shortcut, and flew over the
bridge, directly towards the platform, avoiding the need for stairs.

“Oh no you don’t,” Charlie said. He ran right up to the edge of the bridge, stuck his spellshooter through the rails, and trained it on the pixie. Before
Ben had time to ask what he was attempting, Charlie fired a couple of white spell blasts. The first skimmed by the pixie, but the second hit him right in
the back. The pixie’s wings immediately stopped flapping, and the pixie fell the remaining few feet onto the platform. He got up straight away and started
running towards the dragon.

Charlie darted down the platform stairs, with Ben just behind. To Ben’s amazement, Charlie managed to close the gap on the wounded pixie with some
determined running.

“Got you!” Charlie cried, and leapt onto the pixie. They both hit the floor. Ben hung back, ready to help, but there was no need. The pixie squirmed and
fought, but it was no match for Charlie’s superior strength. Ignoring the scratches and bruises from the pixie’s sharp nails, Charlie stuffed the squealing
pixie into the wooden box, and slammed it shut.

Charlie sat, legs sprawled, on the platform floor, huffing and puffing, but with a large smile plastered across his face.

“That was impressive,” Ben said, hauling Charlie to his feet. “I mean it. The shot under pressure was fantastic, and the way you chased him down was epic.
A few weeks ago you’d never have been able to do that.”

Charlie was beaming from ear to ear. “Let’s get this thing back to Heidi, before it tears a hole in the box. Then I think we both deserve some serious
lunch.”

Over the next couple of weeks, Ben and Charlie continued helping each other in their weaker areas, while working to finish up the checklist in their strong
fields. It was a harmonious relationship that worked wonderfully, except for the odd occasion when they both got stuck, such as the time they failed to
convince a family of dwarves to sell them a set of cooking bowls for their target price. Or when neither of them could work out how to resolve a petty
squabble between two neighbouring pubs. Diplomacy and Trade continued to be a pain at times.

“Other than those two hiccups, we’re doing okay though,” Charlie said.

“That’s great,” Natalie said. “You guys will definitely be ready in two weeks’ time.”

The three of them were back in the common room, catching a well-earned break, before another intense session in the combat room for Spellsword training.

“You guys are still on the checklist, then?”

Aaron’s voice floated across the room. He was sitting on a table with the other grade-two exam candidates.

“Yes, we are,” Ben said coolly.

Aaron shrugged. “I see. I thought you’d be done by now, Ben. I’m finished, and now just spending time revising. I highly recommend it if you want to score
high grades in the exam.”

“Are the rest of you guys finished?” Ben asked.

They all shook their heads, and Ben felt a little better.

“I’ve still got to finish up the Warden and Trade checklists,” Frederick said. “Trade is a nightmare.”

“We’ve got a little bit to do on each of the departments,” Amy said, referring to herself and Georgia. “But I definitely want to take Aaron’s advice and
get some revision in before the exam. I bet it will help.”

She gave Aaron a smile, and was delighted when he returned it.

“It will be interesting to see what scores we all get,” Aaron said. “Personally, my family are expecting me to maintain my record of straight As. I don’t
want to disappoint them. How about you, Ben? What are your expectations?”

Ben shrugged. “I just want to pass, and make it to the third grade.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll do that,” Aaron said. “However, you’ll need a really good score if you want to—”

Aaron’s sentence was cut short, as his eyes shot past them to someone who had entered the common room.

Ben turned. It was Dagmar, and she was marching right up to them.

“Ben, Charlie, come with me,” Dagmar said.

Without waiting for a reply, she turned, and immediately left.

Ben and Charlie exchanged confused glances, and then followed Dagmar out of the common room.

“Where are we going?” Ben asked.

Dagmar was marching upstairs, her large feet clacking on the marble staircase.

“The War Room,” Dagmar replied, upon reaching the gallery on the Warden floor. She looked even stonier than normal as she led them through the double
doors, and along the corridor. Ben immediately spotted Wardens hurrying along at breakneck pace, many of them lost in conversation, so that Ben had to
sidestep to avoid being knocked over. Dagmar didn’t move a jot, and several Wardens almost crashed into her, until they spotted who she was, and promptly
moved aside. Dagmar eventually stopped by the aforementioned War Room. Ben could hear lots of voices beyond.

“Stay by me or you’ll get flattened,” Dagmar instructed.

Without further explanation, she opened the door, and they stepped inside.

Sticking with Dagmar was harder than Ben had anticipated. His first reaction was to stop and stare. The room was huge, and absolutely packed. There must
have been at least fifty members in the room, almost all of them talking, or shouting, creating a scene of mayhem. Taking up most of the right side of the
room was a huge table, on which a giant map of England lay, dotted with tiny, coloured flags, reminding Ben of various war games he’d played. Surrounding
the table must have been at least two dozen Wardens, plus several apprentices, busily placing more flags or shuffling existing ones to different positions.

“Ben! Charlie!”

Dagmar’s sharp voice called them from the other side of the room.

“This is Lorena,” Dagmar said, introducing the two of them to a small, shapely Warden with three red diamonds floating above her shoulder. “You will be
under her. I have told her specifically that you are not to work more than an hour a day.”

Dagmar said no more, and promptly left them in the hands of Lorena.

“I am extremely busy, so I will be brief,” Lorena said in an appealing, but hurried voice. “See this table? We call that our incoming table.”

The table in question wasn’t as big as the one across the room, but it looked just as interesting. There were dozens of large bowls that were being filled
with spells from Wardens. Each bowl was marked by county – Sussex; Surrey; London; Middlesex; and so forth.

“Each spell has been fired at an Unseen. Unlike most spells, these ones do not explode on impact, but return to the spellshooter with information that we
can use to track the Unseen. Make sense so far?”

“I think so,” Charlie said. “The spells in the bowls contain data on Unseens we’re tracking in various parts of England.”

“Good. Now, look what happens to each spell.”

They watched as an apprentice took one of the spells, and squashed it onto an empty flag. Immediately the flag turned red and started vibrating. The
apprentice did this at least a dozen more times with other flags, and then headed over to the large table on the other side of the room, dodging and
weaving his way through all the members, most of whom didn’t notice his presence.

“The apprentice will run over, and stick all the flags in their correct places. The flags will vibrate until placed in the correct position.”

“What are the colour codes?” Ben said, already suspecting he knew the answer.

“They represent the different races. Red is goblin; green is troll; purple is dark elf; and so forth. There are more than a dozen different colours.”
Lorena clapped her hands. “Right, I need to get going. Charlie, you take South London. Ben, I want you on West Sussex. Dagmar informs me that you’ve got
only an hour, so you’d better get going. Your bowls are getting full. Come and see me before you leave.”

Ben and Charlie exchanged looks, and sat down in front of their respective bowls. There were already a dozen other apprentices on the table, working
furiously, dipping their hands into the bowls and squashing the spells against the flags with frightening pace.

“Oh, hello Ben, I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Abigail!” Ben said with a smile. “I didn’t expect to see you here either. How are you doing?”

Ben hadn’t had much time to check up on her progress since he had gone all-out on the apprenticeship, but was delighted to see how much she appeared to be
enjoying herself. She looked as petite as ever, but her delicate features and long lashes made many of the younger apprentices give her a second glance.