Blaze of Glory (2 page)

T
HE DISASTROUS MAGICAL EXPERIMENT HAD TAKEN PLACE
three months earlier.

The evening was mild for early spring, although the
wind appeared to have ambitions greater than mere
breeziness. The smell of honeysuckle came through the
open window to the room Aubrey shared with George at
Stonelea. It was the heady, redolent scent of late spring.

The rooms at the school were spare but serviceable,
which was very much the Stonelea way. Aubrey wished
that comfort had been part of the four-hundred-year-old
school charter, but the glowering portraits of the founders
in Clough Hall announced to the world that comfort was
for other people, not for Stonelea boys. Judging by the
portraits, it seemed that rigid posture, enormous bushy
eyebrows and lack of a sense of humour were the qualities
the Stonelea founders most approved of.

The beds had thin mattresses, lest anyone be tempted
to sleep too long when there was work to be done; but
desks were large, all the better to study. Aubrey had
covered most of his with as much alchemical apparatus as
was allowed, although he'd often wished he'd brought the
larger alembic from home. The chairs were wooden and
straight-backed, but George had somehow obtained a
battered armchair, which took up its position under the
single window. Boxy wardrobes completed the furniture
in the room. Aubrey's was topped with suitcases, while
George had perched his cornet case on top of his.

Aubrey sat at his desk in a fury of planning. At times
like these, the outside world seemed to disappear and he
became lost in the intensity of his devising. He was
ablaze, as he knew he was on the cusp of moving from
preparation to action. He was burning to launch into the
experiment that had absorbed him since he'd made his
remarkable find.

A week ago, while he'd been doing some idle research
into the history of magic, Aubrey had found some
ancient scraps of parchment inside a book on classical
magical philosophy. The spells were incomplete, but
intriguing enough to set Aubrey on a researching spree.
Now, he was nearly ready to put his findings into action
and undertake a grand experiment.

'So, Aubrey,' George said, 'd'you think the King's decision
to marry a tree was a good one or not?'

Aubrey lifted his head from his papers, straightened,
and turned to find George nodding at him seriously from
the depths of the moth-eaten armchair.

'The King's marrying a tree?'

'Some sort of beech. Lovely bark, apparently.'

Aubrey's mind was still on the details of spell duration,
magical forces and the dangers of concatenation. He tried
to drag his attention back to the mundane world in order
to follow what George was talking about.

The King's behaviour had been slowly becoming
stranger and stranger in the five years since the death of
Queen Charlotte. The Crown Prince was, in reality,
handling all official functions of the monarchy, even at
his tender age of eighteen. Most people understood, but
it wasn't the sort of thing that was spoken aloud in good
company. The public still seemed to like the King, but
the affection had been growing strained as his behaviour
grew more and more erratic.

Marrying a tree, though, was taking eccentricity to a
level that even the most loyal Albionites were uncomfortable
with.

'Where's the ceremony to be held?' Aubrey asked
cautiously.

George grinned. 'Ah, at last, a reaction! Do you realise
that's the fourth question I've asked you in the last half
an hour? And the first one you've actually heard?'

'So the King's not marrying a tree.'

'Not that I've heard. But there is a rumour that no-one
is allowed to use the word "porridge" in his presence, so
I wouldn't be surprised at anything. Thank goodness for
the Crown Prince.'

'Mmm,' Aubrey said. His mind was already turning
back to his books.

George stood and sighed ostentatiously. 'I can see that
you're not going to be any use for a while.'

'Sorry, George. This Nature of Magic stuff has me
excited.' Aubrey pushed his hair back from his eyes. 'In
class today Mr Ellwood said that unlocking the Nature of
Magic will be the greatest advance in magical theory
since Baron Verulam's Magical Revolution –'

George held up a hand. 'That's enough, old man. You
know that magic talk makes me dizzy.' He reached on top
of the wardrobe and seized his cornet case. 'I'm off to
practise. I'll leave you to your stuff.'

Aubrey didn't hear the door close behind his friend.
He was already immersed in the intricacies of arcane
magic theory and feeling the thrill that comes from
exploring the frontier of knowledge. He wondered if this
was how one of his personal heroes, the great Baron
Verulam, had felt.

Baron Verulam's staggering insights three hundred years
ago were the birth of modern magic, taking it out of the
dark ages of superstition and trickery. Verulam's insistence,
despite the scorn of his contemporaries, was that
magic should be treated in a scientific manner, through
experimentation and observation, to try to establish consistent
laws that would lead to reproducible results. This
empirical approach to magic was the great leap forward,
and light was brought to bear on what had previously
been a dark art. Modern magic grew from ancient
magic in the same way that the half-mad, half-intuitive
fumblings of alchemy gave birth to the rational science of
modern chemistry.

Slowly, great minds came to see the worth of Verulam's
ways. Spells became more reliable as the underlying
laws were established. Fewer disasters resulted from spell
casting. Gradually, magic became dependable enough
to be used to assist the growth in mechanics and technology
in the Industrial Revolution, much to the benefit
of the nation of Albion. Its growth as the powerhouse of
the modern world could be traced to the savants, thinkers
and practitioners who were alive to the possibilities of a
rational approach to both magic and technology.

The growth in technology outstripped the rise of
magic, however, due to one important aspect: magic
could only be performed by those few with the natural
aptitude for it. This aptitude also brought an awareness
of magical forces, and an ability to see the effects of
magic in a way others could not. It could be enhanced
by study and diligence, but without the inherent magical
capacity, spells could not be cast.

From an early age, it was apparent Aubrey had this
ability. It had appeared in his family over the centuries,
but only rarely, skipping whole generations and then
blooming unexpectedly. It was a gift, much like a gift
for higher mathematics or a gift for music. Aubrey was
humbled by it and determined to make the most of it.

He seized his copy of Tremaine's
Towards a Theory of
Magical Forces
, which he'd had sent down from the
university library. He'd used Mr Ellwood's name on
the request, but he was sure he'd have it back before his
teacher noticed. The Tremaine book was large, leatherbound,
and very, very new. When he opened it the heady
fragrance of fresh print rose from the pages. He enjoyed
the sensation for a moment, then began to read the
introduction.

Dr Mordecai Tremaine was the Sorcerer Royal, adviser
to the government on all matters magical. From his
studies, Aubrey knew that Dr Tremaine was a radical
thinker on the Nature of Magic, and since that subject
was the current hothouse of argument, debate and occasional
fisticuffs between major magical academics, Aubrey
wanted to know what the Sorcerer Royal's views were.

Aubrey began to frown as he read. It didn't take long
before he closed the book in disappointment. He rubbed
his eyes and sat back in his straight-backed chair.

The book was nothing new. It was a compilation of
a series of groundbreaking papers published last year in
The Greythorn Journal of Magic
, papers Aubrey had already
read in his quest to know more. Dr Tremaine's notion
was that magic was a phenomenon with some similarities
to electricity, magnetism and light. It obeyed laws and it
could be manipulated by magicians, who have the special
ability to draw on a vast magical field, channelling it to
their ends via the mechanism of properly constructed
spells. But where did this magical field come from? In
the final paper of the series, Dr Tremaine explored the
possibility that it was humanity that brought about such
a universal magical field, caused the generation of such a
reservoir of enormous magical force. Was it human
awareness? Human intelligence? Human souls? In the
end, he left this question unanswered – tantalisingly so to
Aubrey's way of thinking.

In class, Aubrey had learned of the shock this series of
papers created in magical circles. Fusty academics who
for years hadn't considered anything more important
than whether to have another cup of tea or not were
almost rioting in the corridors and cloisters of the
universities. Dr Tremaine was praised, condemned, questioned
and even, in one overdramatic display, burned
in effigy. How could humankind possibly have an effect
on such a powerful force? Alternative theories sprang up,
where magic was compared to an invisible fluid that filled
the cosmos, or a form of power bestowed by creatures
unknown.

Such controversy excited Aubrey's curiosity and fired
his imagination. He wanted to be part of the great enterprise,
to debate, to spar, to cross intellectual swords with
others afire with the quest to discover the Nature of
Magic – and more. Magical Theory still had much to
do. Many areas were virtually untouched as savants
experimented, observed and tried to quantify the effects
of magic. Names were made in an instant by researchers
stumbling on new laws or new applications of old laws.
Great and powerful functions were being discovered
almost daily. These were heady, exhilarating times, but
Aubrey's great fear was that everything would be discovered
before he could finish school and begin serious
research. So he'd decided he couldn't wait.

He scanned the pages he'd been working on. All his
preparations were in order. It was time. He closed the
books on his desk and gathered his papers. He slipped
them into a satchel and threw it over his shoulder. He
found several sticks of chalk, which he dropped into his
pocket.

He left a light on for George, then hurried out of
the room.

The corridor was still lit by gas jets, the program for
converting the school to electrical lights having stalled
at the library and the assembly hall while contractors
and the headmaster argued over costs. The gaslight gave
Aubrey's shadow a yellow cast, as if it were jaundiced.
He reached the end of the corridor and went into the
night.

The wind seemed to have leapfrogged 'breeze' and
gone directly to 'gale'. Its ambition seemed to be causing
as much mischief as possible. Aubrey held a hand in front
of his face to avoid the dust and shredded ivy leaves.
Assorted bangs and clatters echoed around the quadrangle
as unfastened shutters enjoyed their freedom and branches
whipped at stone and glass. He squinted and leaned into
the wind and, in the manner of a man walking through
thigh-deep mud, pushed step by step towards the Magic
Laboratories.

The Magic Laboratories were contained in a large
stone building a hundred yards to the south of any other
structure at Stonelea. After a series of fires and explosions
and one memorable earthquake had destroyed fourteen
centres for magical experimentation, it had been decided
that moving such a facility away and surrounding it with
a good deal of open space was a wise step in assuring the
ongoing future of the school.

Aubrey had trod this path many times before, so his feet
took him automatically through the darkness and the
wind. It gave him time to think as he pressed on through
the avenue of elms and past the broad sweep of lawn
that led to the caretakers' barracks. The wind was coming
from his right and he had to lean to one side to counter
it. He screwed up his eyes as a blast of sand flew from the
mound near where builders were constructing an extension
to the music wing. The music wing was dark and
silent and Aubrey wondered idly where George was
practising his cornet.

His thoughts turned to rehearsing some of the more
difficult parts of the spell he was about to cast. Much of
it was in language unfamiliar to him, but there lay its
potential.

Language was at the heart of magical manipulation.
Baron Verulam had established that language was part of
the vital talent that enabled magicians to bend magic to
their will. The trappings of spells since the dawn of
time – incense, hand-waving, ingredients rare and often
distasteful – were simply not essential. Sometimes they
could be used as props to help focus the magical force,
but that was all. Language was the key.

Magical energy was so powerful, so wild, that every
spell had to be organised in meticulous detail, with
every element in the spell naming and limiting the variables
and constants involved. There was no room for
inaccuracy, ambivalence or ambiguity. Precision was the
paramount quality of each spell, and magicians shared
this painstaking approach with watchmakers, accountants
and tightrope walkers; only the last had the same awareness
of the perils of not achieving perfection.

Aubrey knew that much magical language used today
was the descendant of spells that had been used from the
earliest days of shamans and hedge wizards, a language
quite unlike the language of everyday communication. It
had grown into an argot, a jargon special to spells, and
it had been augmented by every language imaginable,
especially any with pretensions to learning. Latin and
Greek elements were common in the language of spells,
and experimentation threw up other possibilities as well.
Magical language was an unruly beast with a thousand
fathers and a thousand mothers, none of whom would
recognise their offspring. The result was a language that
tended to be inexact.