Schooled in Magic (34 page)

He pulled his invisibility spell around himself and vanished, just as time started to return to normal.

I
MAIQAH DIDN’T SEEM TO HAVE NOTICED
that anything had happened, which was something of a relief. Emily’s thoughts were churning as they walked onwards, and Imaiqah’s chatter helped distract her from her worries. Just what had she started by introducing a concept as simple as Arabic numerals, or even bras? Or stirrups?

“This is an Enchanter’s store,” Imaiqah said, as they paused outside a stone building marked
YODEL
. She hesitated. “They normally allow only one person to enter the shop at a time, so I’ll go visit the clothes store while you purchase a chest.”

Emily nodded. “Very well. I’ll see you after I’m done.”

Imaiqah had been rewarded by her father for discovering Emily; he’d sent her enough money to buy a formal dress for the next public event in Whitehall. Alassa had made fun of Imaiqah’s clothes, among other things, and Emily could understand why Imaiqah would want a change.

The door opened as she approached, allowing her to step into a darkened room smelling faintly of wood. It was crammed with dozens of artifacts, some apparently recognizable and others completely beyond her understanding. One table held a human hand with the fingers removed and replaced by candles; another held a skull with glowing rubies in place of eyes. Emily studied the hand for a long moment, sensing powerful magic flickering around it, but she couldn’t even begin to determine its purpose. Instead, she looked at a candlestick and frowned. It seemed perfectly normal, one she could have bought back home. As far as she could tell, it didn’t seem to have any magic at all.

“You’d discover that it only works when lit,” a voice said, from behind her. She spun around to see a little old man, wearing a workshop robe and dark glasses. “Should you light it, you will be the only one able to see the light. It is a simple charm, but very effective.”

“Clever,” Emily said.

“Yep,” Yodel agreed. He pointed to the skull. “Long ago, there was a great magician who copied his mind into his friend’s skull so that future generations would have access to his wisdom. The spell was duplicated and there are now countless copies of long-gone mages floating throughout the world. Do you wish advice from a past master of the art?”

Emily hesitated, and then shook her head.

“A wise decision,” Yodel said. “I find that their screaming tends to outweigh the prospect of learning advanced magical knowledge from them. Besides, the
real
masters never try to duplicate their smarts.”

He turned and led her further into the store, pointing at various objects. “I could give you a crystal spelled to alert you when your enemies are near. Or you could have a glass that always provides fresh water. Or even a metal wand for charging ward-spells.”

Emily nodded towards a tiny carving of a bird. “What’s that?”

“Touch it,” Yodel said. He smiled at her expression. “It’s quite harmless, I assure you. I do good work.”

Up close, the wooden bird was
very
detailed. Emily allowed her fingers to touch it lightly and ...

... She was flying through the air, her wings beating as she soared over the land far below ...

... And then she was back in her own body, staggering back.

“Not many people manage to cope for long, their first time,” Yodel said kindly. “I charmed a bird’s memories into it, and then allowed people to feel them for themselves. They miss out on so much when all they can do is transfigure themselves and others into birds.”

Emily stared at him. “I found it ... disconcerting,” she said, after a long beat. She could feel her heart thudding in her chest. “Do people actually buy things like that?”

“You’d be surprised,” Yodel said. He tapped a kingmaker board. “Perhaps I can sell you one charmed to actually play by itself? Or one designed to enhance your own playing skills?”

“Cheating, you mean,” Emily said. She’d once played a boy who’d used an Ipad to cheat before she’d caught on to what he was doing. “I wouldn’t learn anything from that, would I?”

“Matter of opinion,” Yodel said. He stopped and looked directly at her. “And what, really, do you want?”

“I need a storage chest,” Emily said. “I was told that you were the best enchanter in town.”

“The best for half the continent,” Yodel informed her. He led Emily into one of his backrooms and summoned a ball of light. “As you can see, I have seven different chests in stock at the moment, all charmed to hold almost anything and sealed to one user. Or I can make you another chest to your specifications, but that will cost more.”

Emily looked at one of the chests and fell in love. It was a mahogany treasure chest right out of a pirate movie, with a single large golden lock on the front. She touched it, very lightly, and felt spells crackling around the wood, waiting for the wrong person to try to open it.

Yodel tapped the lock and it opened, revealing an interior that seemed to stretch to infinity and beyond. He picked up a wand and dropped it into the darkness, then held his hand over the chest.

“Wand,” he said. The wand popped up into his hand. “Should you forget what you put into the chest, you can order it to show you everything, or merely empty itself out onto the floor.”

“Clever,” Emily said much more sincerely this time. “How secure is it?”

“The charms are guaranteed to stand up against anyone but a first-rank curse-breaker,” Yodel informed her. “But if someone breaks the charms without the correct spells, it will collapse the pocket dimension and everything inside will be lost. I can produce a chest that connects to a permanent pocket dimension, allowing you to recover your property later, but that will be rather more expensive. This one costs approximately twenty gold coins.”

Emily looked at the chest and couldn’t resist asking the obvious question. “What if
I
wanted to sleep inside the box?”

“The preservation spells–which are of my own design–wouldn’t let you,” Yodel said. “I have known sorcerers who have tried to design chests with sleeping accommodations, but the spells are far from simple and easily frayed. It is not recommended.”

“Pity,” Emily said. She’d been having visions of something rather like the TARDIS. “Can you have it shipped to Whitehall?”

“Once you purchase it, I can have it transported to the building,” Yodel said. “You’ll have to bond yourself to the chest here and now, but there would be no problem with shipping it to you. It would be useless to anyone else, including me.”

He straightened up and closed the lid. “Do you want to buy it?”

Emily looked at the other chests, and then back at the original. “Yes,” she said, reaching into her money pouch. “Twenty gold coins, right?”

Yodel took the money and ordered her to press her hand against the chest’s lock, while muttering a spell under his breath. Emily felt a slight tingle and nothing more, but when she tried to open the lock it opened easily, almost as if the heavy wood weighed nothing at all. She put it down and watched as Yodel weighed the gold, before nodding and passing her a parchment scroll. It was written in a spidery hand that she found difficult to read.

“Instructions,” Yodel grunted. “And is there anything else you can buy while you’re here?”

“I don’t think so,” Emily said as he escorted her back to the door. “What is that ... hand and candle thing
for
?”

“It’s a Hand of Glory,” Yodel said. “You can use it to open doors, or gateways; you could go
anywhere
with it. Very few people know how to make them and the price is staggering.”

Emily looked at the hand and made a mental note to consider the possible implications later, then paused in the doorway. “When will the chest arrive at the school?”

“Tomorrow, probably,” Yodel said. “I’ll have to see what else is purchased today, and then send it all up in one carriage.”

Outside, Emily gathered herself as the noise of the city returned to her ears, before glancing into the nearby clothes store. Imaiqah was still inside, trying on dresses; Emily rolled her eyes and looked around for another store, one that might be more interesting.

There was an Apothecary on the other side of the street and, remembering what Professor Thande had said about buying ingredients from Apothecaries, Emily walked over and opened the door. Inside, there was a large room crammed with shelves, each one containing bottles and jars of ingredients. There was a faint smell hanging in the air that reminded her of spices from Earth. She had to fight down the urge to sneeze.

“Welcome to my store,” a voice said. She looked up and saw a fat woman with a big smile that didn’t quite touch her eyes. “I hope that you’re not planning to leave without paying for what you take?”

Emily blinked in surprise, and then anger. “I am just browsing,” she said, annoyed. How
dare
a shopkeeper accuse her of planning to steal from her store? “Do you treat all your customers like this?”

The woman drew back. “I can see that you have too much pride to steal. And are you looking for something special? I have crushed dandelions that can be used to charm an unwary heart into love or care. Or I can sell you seeds that grow into sweet-flavored leaves. Very good for those who want to relax.”

“I’m just looking,” Emily said, picking up a jar marked Bat Urine. She couldn’t imagine what it could do, but she’d seen Professor Thande produce all kinds of potions with weird ingredients. “Do you have anything ...
interesting
?”

“I have a very small bottle of Dragon’s Blood, but it was promised to another customer,” the woman said. Her smiled grew wider. “It is going for the low price of five
hundred
gold coins, but it can be yours for
six
hundred ...”

Emily started to laugh. Dragon’s Blood was rare, very rare. Very few books agreed on the subject of dragons, but they all said that dragons were very hard to kill, let alone bleed for their magically-charged blood. And they were powerful, shielded from almost all charms by scaly armor and the raw magic field that allowed them to fly. There were legends of entire countries destroyed in the past by angry dragons. None of them made pleasant reading.

It
had
to be fake. One might as well buy a luxury yacht for ten dollars.

“Ah, I can see that you’re a
real
magician,” the woman said. “I can sell you something
really
interesting, if you’ll come with me ...”

She walked through a curtain into a rear compartment. Emily followed her and readied a shielding charm just in case it was a trap. She stepped into what looked like a strange pet shop. One cage was filled with spiders, each one larger than her hand, endlessly scuttling around behind the glass walls. Emily felt her skin crawl as the spiders turned to look at her, before returning to their dance. She looked away and saw another tank filled with sparkly fish, reminding her of the charms they’d used in Martial Magic. A third cage held a pair of white mice and a dozen rats; apart from twitching, they seemed to be doing almost nothing.

“They were produced by an animalist magician with plenty of magic and a willingness to do
anything
just to see what would happen,” the woman informed her. “They can actually
think
for themselves, would you believe? I shudder to think of what would happen if they got loose among the rats in the town.”

Emily shook her head in disbelief, a little overwhelmed by the sight.

The shopkeeper misunderstood. “You think that that isn’t fascinating? Come and look at
this
!”

She tapped a birdcage angrily. Something stirred in the far corner.

Emily frowned. At first, she thought that she was looking at a tiny bird, complete with wings, and then she saw the body between the wings. It was impossible ... and yet, she’d seen enough over the past weeks to know that nothing was truly impossible when it came to magic.

“Ah,” the woman said. “I’ve impressed you at last, have I?”

Emily said nothing as she stared at the fairy. She was tiny, barely larger than Emily’s middle finger, but chillingly human. Her naked body suggested a teenage girl, with blonde hair and perfectly-shaped breasts, yet she had black wings growing out of her bare back. Emily couldn’t believe what she saw.

Slowly, the fairy settled back in the cage, as if she were trying to cover herself in a desperate search for modesty–or merely hide from their gaze. Very briefly, she met the fairy’s dark eyes. It was impossible to escape the sense that the fairy was an intelligent creature in her own right.

Emily felt guilty–and dirty - for even
looking
at the poor creature.

“What ... ?” She swallowed hard, and then started again. “What do you intend to do with her?”

“It, dear,” the woman said. “Not
her
. I intend to cut off her wings and use them to produce a very specific potion, and then sell her to one of the city’s selectmen with rather curious tastes in ...”