Past Tense (Schooled in Magic Book 10) (16 page)

And it’s true of all their spells
, she thought.
They’re slopping so much magic around that it’s damaging their minds
.

She sat down, hard. Master Gila’s eyes were going red, necromancer-red. Was that a side-effect of the slow descent into insanity? Mother Holly’s eyes had gone red too. Perhaps someone
had
tried to use the necromantic rite before, only to discover that they couldn’t find enough power to keep themselves alive. But it hardly mattered. Sparks of power burning through a magician’s mind would be enough to eventually drive them mad.

And that explains the curse too
, she told herself.
If they’re slopping magic around, it might well make them sterile.

“Emily,” Master Wolfe said. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Emily said. “You must
not
use that rite to empower yourself.”

Her mind raced. Lady Barb had told her, back in Second Year, that there were curses that rendered women barren and men sterile. And while the latter could be reversed, the former were permanent. There was nothing that could be done, Lady Barb had said, to undo the destruction of a woman’s eggs. The female reproductive system was far more delicate than the male ... a female magician might accidentally render herself barren, simply by allowing her magic to slop around her body.

And if she believes it will make her barren,
her own thoughts added,
it will
.

“Explain,” Master Wolfe ordered.

“There will be a surge of power,” Emily said. It would be worse for Master Wolfe, unless he had wards she hadn’t sensed. “You won’t be able to contain it. The surge will just burn through your mind. If it doesn’t kill you, it will drive you insane. You’ll be running around, lashing out at random.”

They must have improved upon the spells they use
, she thought, as Master Wolfe took back the parchment and stared at it.
If they learned to use less and less power, to focus it properly, they’d avoid doing any damage to their bodies or minds. And that’s what I learned to do when I arrived at Whitehall
.

Master Wolfe looked dubious. “I can alter the spell matrix,” he said, studying the proto-mimic. “It should be enough ...”

“The surge would be an order of magnitude more powerful than anything you’re used to handling,” Emily warned. “A human mind would be unable to handle it.”

“And if you’re wrong,” Master Wolfe said, “you’re denying me the chance to boost my magic.”

“I’m not wrong,” Emily said. She took a breath. “You could rewrite some of the more common spells to use less magic.”

Master Wolfe lifted his eyebrows. “Is that what you were taught to do?”

“Yes,” Emily said, reluctantly. There was no help for it, not now. Professor Lombardi had taught her to always work out what the spell actually did—and rewrite it, if necessary—before trying to cast it. “You said that magicians always go mad?”

“They do,” Master Wolfe confirmed. “Master Gila’s eyes are already red. He is not long for this world.”

Emily nodded. “He’s probably used too many spells that have nasty side-effects. And that spell of Robin’s will damage his mind, if he uses it extensively.”

Master Wolfe cocked his head. “And how would you suggest rewriting it?”

Emily held out her hand and cast a light-spell. A glowing ball of white light hovered above her palm, casting an eerie radiance over the table. Master Wolfe stared at it with genuine fascination, then cast a spell of his own. Emily felt her magic waver, but the light globe merely flickered once before returning to normal. Master Wolfe reached out, very gently, and held his palm over the globe. It didn’t seem to bother him.

“It’s cool,” he said, in wonderment. “There’s no heat.”

“It produces light,” Emily said. Was Robin at risk of setting fire to something? His light globes had been quite warm, after all. “It doesn’t produce anything else.”

“Very clever,” Master Wolfe said. He frowned, stroking his chin, as the light globe finally flickered and died. “I shall have to give the subject some thought.”

“You could start rewriting some of the other spells,” Emily said. “If you could get the same effect with less power ...”

“If,” Master Wolfe said. He sighed, heavily. “There are spells I could never get to work because I didn’t have the power.”

“Not casting those spells might have kept you sane,” Emily pointed out.

She looked down at the necromantic rite, feeling a twinge of sympathy. Everyone had different levels of magic—she’d been taught—but how one used what one had was often just as important as their power reserves. A magician with vast power might throw it around carelessly, expending it until he was left drained; a magician with limited power might spend it carefully, hoarding it until it could be used for best effect. But here, where crudeness and brute force spells seemed to be the order of the day, Master Wolfe would be at a staggering disadvantage. No
wonder
he’d been willing to invent—perhaps reinvent—the necromantic rite, and then plan to use it.

Shadye might have been like that too
, Emily thought. It still galled her that she knew little of Shadye’s past, other than the simple fact that he’d been expelled from Whitehall in Second Year. Perhaps he’d been looking for ways to boost his power even then, rather than put in the hard work necessary to learn how to use what he had.
He wanted a shortcut too
.

Master Wolfe gave her a sharp look. “Why do I have the feeling you’re not telling us everything?”

“I swore oaths to my tutor,” Emily said, hastily. She’d given Master Wolfe too much, too quickly. “He wouldn’t want me to share everything.”

“I see,” Master Wolfe said. Emily rather suspected he didn’t believe her, not completely. “I will consider your words. But for the moment ...”

He pulled out a new sheet of parchment and started to talk through what he’d already done, explaining his work on the nexus point. Emily was quietly impressed, although she had the feeling that it would be years before the spellware was firmly locked in place. Master Wolfe talked about spells that were only theoretical, spells that were beyond even the powers of the strongest magicians ... spells that might become possible, once the nexus point was turned into a source of unlimited power. He was, Emily reminded herself again, a genius. His understanding of the nexus point, based on only a week of study, was far superior to hers.

“Some of the traps we found were quite odd,” he commented, softly. “Did you have a hand in creating them?”

Emily shook her head. “I didn’t place any traps here,” she said, truthfully. “We never stumbled across any either, back when we first entered the castle.”

“A shame we don’t know how long it was between your arrival and ours,” Master Wolfe mused. “It might tell us useful things about the nexus point’s interaction with the local magic field.”

He didn’t seem inclined to keep studying the matter, to Emily’s private relief. She had the feeling she’d said too much already, although she’d had no choice but to keep him from trying to use the necromantic rite. If he’d chosen to sacrifice someone to boost his own powers ... Master Wolfe didn’t seem like a monster, yet she knew that magicians rarely thought highly of mundanes. And now, when magicians were hunted by mundanes, who could blame him?

And if they do manage to devise spells that are less dangerous to human minds
, she thought,
they could actually take their place in society
.

“Your magic is odd,” Master Wolfe said. He rolled up two sheets of parchment as he spoke, not quite looking at her. “I can tell you’re a magician, but you honestly seem less powerful than I. And yet I have been told that you turned Bernard into a frog, an act that requires staggering levels of power.”

Emily sighed. She was surprised someone hadn’t already asked her that question.

“I was taught to mask my power,” she said, flatly. “My tutor ...believed a magician shouldn’t show off his power unless it was necessary.”

Master Wolfe frowned. “To keep people from realizing that you were a magician?”

“Among other things,” Emily said. In her time, deliberately showing off one’s power was a challenge to a fight. “He believed that one should always conserve power.”

“Because one never knows when one might need power,” Master Wolfe said.

Emily nodded, and asked a question that had been nagging at her. “Why don’t you have an apprentice?”

“Most apprentices prefer to apprentice themselves to someone who can show them more powerful spells,” Master Wolfe said. “They don’t appreciate the potential of my work.”

“They should,” Emily said. “Why don’t you start teaching the basics to some of the unattached apprentices?”

“Because they wouldn’t learn,” Master Wolfe pointed out. He nodded towards the sheets of parchment. “They would assume this is useless.”

He shook his head. “My master wouldn’t have taken me on,” he added, “if he’d had someone with more power who was also willing to learn. And now ... many of the secrets he uncovered—the secrets he taught me—will die with me.”

“They don’t have to,” Emily said. The thought of Master Wolfe being forgotten was horrifying, although she already knew that history had forgotten him. Every last discovery made during this era was credited to Whitehall. “You could share them ...”

She paused. “And if you can work out ways to cast spells with less magic,” she added, “you’ll have many more potential apprentices willing to work for you.”

“I’ll think about it,” Master Wolfe said.

He paused. “And now, if you don’t mind, we need to tighten up the spells,” he added. “I want to be sure we have everything under control before we start turning our dreams into reality.”

T
HE DOOR LEADING TO
M
ASTER
G
ILA’S
chambers felt ...
ominous
.

Emily stopped outside the wooden door and hesitated, feeling oddly reluctant to lift her hand and tap on the wood. Bernard and Robin had both advised her not to approach Master Gila, no matter what Whitehall might have said; it had taken Emily two days to work up the nerve to walk down to his chambers and step into his power. The sense of standing far too close to a dangerous wild animal grew stronger, the longer she stood outside his door. And yet, trying to approach his apprentice had proved futile. Sake couldn’t tell her anything without permission from his master.

And I killed two necromancers
, Emily reminded herself, as she knocked firmly on the wooden door.
I can handle a single magician
.

“Enter,” a voice called.

Emily pushed the door open and forced herself to step into the room. Master Gila was seated in one corner, half-hidden in the semi-darkness. And yet his presence dominated the room, a brooding sensation that made her hackles rise as she looked around. A light globe—one of Robin’s—spun in the air, casting a flickering light over a wooden table. Leather straps hung down from the table, suggesting that patients—or victims—needed to be firmly tied down before Master Gila went to work. Emily knew enough about medicine—or what passed for medicine—in the Nameless World to know that might well be true.

Master Gila looked up at her, his red eyes pulsing with cold dislike. “What do you want?”

“Master,” Emily said. Up close, his eyes weren’t as bright as Shadye’s, but it was clearly just a matter of time before Master Gila fell completely into madness. Maybe red eyes were a warning of madness in magicians. “I was hoping you could show me some of your healing spells.”

Master Gila laughed, humorlessly. “Do you think I would offer a healing spell free of charge?”

“I can offer you a spell in exchange,” Emily said, calmly. She cast a light globe of her own into the air. Master Wolfe’s spell wasn’t as flexible as the one she used, but it was vastly superior to Robin’s. And it drew on far less magic. “Or we can discuss other terms.”

“A little of your blood, perhaps,” Master Gila said. He snickered. “Or would you give me an arm and a leg?”

Emily blanched. “I do know other spells,” she said, slowly. “But I won’t offer you blood.”

“Smart girl,” Master Gila said. He rose to his feet, moving with a ponderous grace that reminded Emily of a walrus. His magic sparkled around him, pushing against her defenses and driving her back. “Do you really want to see my healing spells?”

For a long moment, Emily hesitated. Master Gila was on the verge of utter madness. She had the feeling that trying to extract a secret from him might be a dreadful mistake. And yet, there was no one else who could show her healing spells. There was no other way to know what spells were currently used. Learning his secrets was worth a high price.

“Yes,” she said.

“Then you shall,” Master Gila said. He sounded affable, suspiciously affable. “Cast more light globes, if you please.”

He raised his voice as Emily went to work. “Eldora!”

A door opened, a moment later. Master Gila’s wife stepped into the room, her eyes flickering from side to side nervously. Emily blinked in surprise, then looked at Master Gila. His expression was contorted into a sadistic smile that sent a chill running down the back of her neck. She’d faced necromancers and a combat sorcerer, but the aura of utter madness surrounding the older man was worse. She had the feeling that his madness had reached a point where he would do anything, purely for his own amusement.

“I haggled intensely with demons to learn how to heal the sick,” Master Gila said, as his wife stood in front of them. Her eyes were permanently lowered, her hands clasped in front of her as if she were a serving girl. “They were reluctant to show me many spells, at first; I had to force them to teach me the tricks. But it was worth it.”

He looked at Emily. “A damaged body must be rebuilt,” he added. “And that requires vast power and knowledge.”

Emily frowned as he nodded to his wife. Eldora unbuttoned her dress and let it drop to the floor. Underneath, her body was scarred, brutally marked in a hundred places. Emily stared in horror. Eldora looked as though she’d been beaten savagely, time and time again; she hadn’t even been given time to recover between beatings. She’d seen something like it, back in the Cairngorms, but this was far worse. Eldora, moving like a woman two or three times her age, climbed onto the table and lay on her back. Her husband snapped the leather straps into place with practiced ease.