Schooled in Magic (32 page)

“Right,” Emily said, doubtfully. She’d
met
Alassa. Emily had the private suspicion that Alassa wouldn’t be able to hand out patronage on a whim, even if there were few other restraints on her behavior. If gold was the only metal of value, there would only be a certain amount of gold available to back investments. “Why don’t the banks see his past success and gamble on him producing more money in the future?”

A thought struck Emily and she scowled. “Unless you have to be rich to actually put money in the bank, right?”

Imaiqah nodded.

Emily rolled her eyes. “Why am I not surprised?”

Smart banks, back home, knew better than to try to charge their customers to use their services. Their customers weren’t just placing money in the bank; they were effectively
loaning
it to the bank, allowing the bank to use it to make other loans. A bank that charged customers for every little service–even something as simple as withdrawing money from an automated cash dispenser–would rapidly lose business. Here, she suspected, customers were charged for putting money in the bank, let alone everything else.

Suppose your total weekly earnings were ten silver coins, she considered. You should put it in the bank, behind solid doors and powerful wards, but the bank charged you one silver coin for each deposit and another silver coin for withdrawals. A smart merchant wouldn’t give away money like that; he’d keep it under the bed, protected by whatever spells he could convince a wizard to make for him. As a result, there would be nothing fuelling economic growth.

“What a mess,” she muttered. Coming to think of it, surely
someone
must have thought of opening up an investment bank. But didn’t that require impartial laws? “What are you going to tell him?”

“Father always taught me never to promise something I couldn’t provide,” Imaiqah admitted. “I can try, but ... Alassa isn’t going to do something for me, so I’ll just have to suggest that he either approaches the King directly or abandons the idea of Royal Patronage. But approaching the King will be expensive.”

Emily frowned. “You have to pay to see the King?”

Imaiqah shook her head. “You need an audience with His Majesty, so you approach the Royal Chamberlain or one of his flunkies. The King is supposed to see all comers, but the Royal Chamberlain is the one who determines who gets to go in before the King gets bored. So you have to cover his palm with silver to get him to let you in early, yet”–she shook her head again–“if someone with more money or higher status arrives after you, you might not be allowed to see the King at all.”

“Typical corrupt politician,” Emily said dryly. “He doesn’t even stay bribed.”

“And then the King’s advisors might have something to say about your plea,” Imaiqah added. “They might want a bribe themselves, or a share in the profits. Your competitors might have bribed them to try to prevent you from gaining patronage, or the guilds might think that you’re trespassing on their territory, or ...”

“I see,” Emily said. It was a wonder that
anything
got done, even in a relatively small Kingdom in the Allied Lands, though that rulers had absolute power. Maybe she should introduce the idea of democracy instead ... except it would probably lead to civil war, after which the necromancers would happily march in once the Allied Lands had finished tearing themselves apart. “Maybe he should just start selling them, knowing that they will be copied. At least the Royal Court won’t be making a profit.”

“Taxes,” Imaiqah reminded her. “Another good reason not to put money in the bank. And if they think you’re profitable enough to be interesting, they might try to muscle their way into your shop.”

Emily closed the chest, thinking hard. She had a chunk of money now, and Void had given her some more, and there were other ways to make profits in the future. Once she had enough money, she could open a bank herself, maybe somewhere where the aristocrats would have difficulty seizing the money. Or maybe ...

She’d left her purse with Void, because it was useless. Her debit card wouldn’t be anything more than a curiosity to the locals, but what if she could duplicate the basic idea behind the card? It was simple, apparently, to link two mirrors together in an unbreakable manner and use them as ... well, cell phones. One could be linked to a bank, which would verify that the carrier had fifty gold coins in their account and issue a promissory note to pay the seller when they or a designated representative visited the bank. She’d have to set up a helpdesk for her customers, maybe staffed at all hours. Who knew
when someone would call? Maybe the mirrors could be keyed to only work for one person. She scribbled that idea down so she wouldn’t forget it, reminding herself to look into how the city-states operated. They might be more tolerant of an investment bank than any of the monarchies.

“And now I am rich,” she said, looking at the money. “What should I do with it?”

“Father says that if anyone asks, I should tell her to go purchase something at his store,” Imaiqah said. They shared a laugh. “More seriously, you either need to place it in storage here or purchase your own treasure chest. That one is keyed to me, not to you. Storage is safer, but if you place it there Madame Razz will be able to monitor what you do with it.”

Emily scowled. Madame Razz seemed to strike her as exactly the wrong sort of person to know what Emily was doing at any given time. They’d barely talked since Emily had entered the school, but Emily could sense Madame Razz’s looming presence–and disapproval–every time she walked into the dorm. Emily had even heard her giving an angry lecture to a first-year girl who had apparently forgotten items she was meant to bring from home, a lecture that had reduced the younger girl to tears.

“Another good reason to create a proper bank,” Emily said to herself. Parents and teachers never seemed to learn that kids kept things to themselves if the school refused to keep their secrets. A bank that didn’t ask questions might earn vast profits through silence. “But if I lose the money, I don’t get it back.”

“Of course not,” Imaiqah said. “You’d only get it repaid if it went into storage and you lost it anyway.”

Imaiqah frowned. “Ask Aloha to put in her chest until after the visit to Dragon’s Den,” she suggested. “She’ll probably try to charge you a gold coin for the service, but she won’t try to steal any of the money. Or we can seal that chest before you give it to her. When you’re in the city, buy a proper chest from a reputable Enchanter and have it delivered to the school. It can be a good thing to have a chest that no one, not even a tutor, can open without destroying the contents.”

Emily blinked. “You mean they look inside our cupboards?”

“I wouldn’t be too surprised if they did,” Imaiqah said darkly. “Do you know how many dangerous alchemical ingredients we’re not supposed to bring into the school?”

“No,” Emily admitted.

“Dragon’s Blood is the prime example; it’s so hugely magical that you can break through almost any ward by applying it properly,” Imaiqah said. “You barely need to prepare it at all, according to Professor Thande. Or there’s venom from a Basilisk, eyes from a Cockatrice ... apparently, there’s a function for Centaur’s blood that Thande told us we weren’t supposed to know until we graduated. Anyone who is caught with any of those ingredients can be expelled. They’re
that
dangerous.”

“Oh,” Emily said. There was a pause. “They can’t force you to open your chest?”

Imaiqah looked shocked. “Of course not. You
can’t
open a magician’s chest without their permission. Outside Whitehall, only an idiot or someone tired of life would try to break into a magician’s house. The magician could do
anything
to them and no one would dare complain. It’s one of the fundamental rules of magic!”

Emily looked down at the board and suspected that she knew why. “No one’s told me when we’re going to Dragon’s Den,” she said, changing the subject. “When
are
we going?”

“Two weeks, I think,” Imaiqah said. “It’s not a
right
, so if you manage to get in trouble–again–you probably won’t be allowed to go. I’ve heard that some students have begged to be caned rather than denied the chance to get out of the school for a few hours.”

“Oh,” Emily said. “And what does the Warden say?”

“Tells them not to waste his time,” Imaiqah said. She chuckled. “Perhaps they should pretend that they don’t care about going.”

Emily wasn’t sure if
she
cared. She wouldn’t have cared back home, but here ... she’d seen almost nothing of life, apart from Void’s tower, Whitehall and ruined cities. It would be nice to see how ordinary people lived. Perhaps it would give her more ideas for things that could be introduced from her world.

“Ask your father about stirrups,” Emily said, finally. She’d confirmed that they didn’t exist in this world, which wasn’t too surprising. The Persians who had fought the Roman Empire had relied on their horsemen, but they had never invented stirrups either. “Maybe he can offer them to the Kingdom’s army.
That
should earn him some patronage.”

T
HE AIR NEAR DRAGON’S DEN SMELLED...ODD.

Emily stuck her head out of the carriage window and peered out as they drove down the slope towards the city. Dragon’s Den was situated in the middle of a large valley, surrounded by a handful of farms concealed and protected by the vast mountains that also protected Whitehall from the necromancers. The farms didn’t seem large enough to feed an entire city, but if they had portals, she reasoned, they could bring in food from anywhere else if necessary. She sniffed the air and winced as she realized that the city–more like a large town, by her world’s standards–didn’t have anything reassembling proper sanitation, not like Whitehall. The population must be living in squalor.

The horse-drawn carriages shuddered as they crossed a bridge and headed towards a giant stone dragon placed in front of the town, looking north. It was remarkably lifelike, so lifelike that she couldn’t help wondering if it was a real dragon that had been turned to stone by a medusa like Snake Face. Up close, the dragon was ugly as sin, but there was a certain nobility about it that held her gaze. She wanted to see if she could cast a spell to release it from petrification, if it was a real dragon, yet what sort of spell would work on it?

The carriages rumbled past the statue and towards the walls surrounding the city. Ahead of them, the gates were slowly starting to open.

Emily’s eyes opened wide as the carriages advanced through the gate–through a section that was obviously intended to trap anyone trying to storm the city–and into the city itself. It was small, but intensely populated, with massive buildings piled on top of other buildings which provided enough living space for thousands of people. The buildings looked vaguely Roman, reminding her of artwork she’d seen in comics about an indomitable Gaul. Many of them had a statue placed in front of the entrances - all human. They couldn’t
all
be petrified humans, could they?

“They’re local gods,” Imaiqah said when Emily asked. “They’re raised up to protect the people who live inside the buildings.”

The carriages rumbled to a halt inside a large courtyard. Mistress Irene shouted for them to climb out.

Emily found herself gagging as she stumbled down to the ground, breathing in something she didn’t even
want
to identify. The ground was covered in cobblestones that
looked
clean–probably wiped by servants or slaves - but the smell of horse poop was ever-present. She suddenly remembered reading about the problems New York had with the horse-drawn carriages back in the 1800s and shuddered. Dragon’s Den would likely have the same problems, without even the hope of automobiles to make the problem go away.

“Some of you have been here before,” Mistress Irene said, after the students had gathered around her. “For those of you who haven’t, Dragon’s Den is a free city. Try not to irritate the City Guard too much as the Grandmaster will be very annoyed if he has to smooth out ruffled feathers.”

Her voice hardened. “Keep one hand on your money pouches at all times and don’t ever drop your locking spells. If you do happen to run into trouble, cast a summoning spell and call me at once. Don’t let any shopkeeper push you into buying anything, unless you break it. Bargain at will.

“I’ll expect you all back here by sixteen bells. Anyone who returns too late will not be coming here next month.”

Imaiqah grabbed Emily’s arm as the students started to disperse out of the courtyard, and into the city. “We have plenty of time to explore,” she said. “Where would you like to go first?”

Emily hesitated. The only kind of shopping she really enjoyed was book shopping, but books were hideously expensive in this world. It was remarkable just how many books Whitehall had been able to amass over the years if every book had to be handmade. Maybe the accountants from the Accounting Guilds would become bookmakers once they were put completely out of business, making books a little cheaper. And maybe the ability to read would spread further, enough to widen the market a little. Only a relative handful of people in this world knew how to read.

“Anywhere,” she said finally. She
did
have gold coins in her money pouch, after all. “I need to buy a chest, don’t I?”