Schooled in Magic (5 page)

“I have been summoning Beings and making enquiries,” Void informed her as the serving girl removed the platter after Emily had finished. “It seems that you have been the victim of ... imprecise specifications.”

He’d said much the same thing yesterday, Emily knew. “Shadye was very specific in his demands,” Void continued. “He ordered certain entities to bring him a Child of Destiny, with great magical powers, yet no real
awareness
of those powers. Unfortunately for him, he failed to specify what a Child of Destiny actually
was
, or where he or she should actually come
from
. Had he specified that the entities should concentrate their search on
this
world, you wouldn’t be in this mess.”

Emily nodded thoughtfully. She hadn’t known that she had magical powers, but then there was no such thing as magic in her world. Unless, of course, Arthur C. Clarke had been right when he pointed out that a sufficiently advanced technology was no different from magic. Or perhaps mental powers–assuming that
they
existed–were really no different from magic, either.

Or maybe you should just go with whatever Void says
, a voice at the back of her head said.
The laws governing magic in this place might be very different from anything you’ve ever read about
.

Void’s eyes twinkled. “Necromancers rarely bother to consult with others, if they can even bring themselves to recognize that outsiders might bring a new perspective to their problem. No doubt he believed that the entities would obey orders...which, to be fair, they did. He just wasn’t specific enough to get them to do what he wanted.”

“And so they picked me up instead,” Emily mused.

“If nothing else,” Void added, “think of it as a lesson in the requirement for absolute precision when dealing with magic and magical entities.”

He shook his head. “But that leaves the problem of deciding what to do with you. Shadye may not have realized that his summoning failed–indeed, given that I plucked you out of his grasp before he could sacrifice you, he may believe that he succeeded, only to lose you to me. He will certainly be looking for you; he may even try to remove you from my Tower and take you back to his territory.”

Emily shivered. It was easy to feel safe inside the tower, but suddenly that safety felt like an illusion. She’d seen both Shadye and Void do things that she would have sworn were impossible only a day ago. What could she do if Shadye captured her for the second time? He certainly wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

“There’s also the fact that you need to be trained, and trained properly,” Void said. His voice was mild, but there was a force behind it that made her sit up and take a good look at him. “Right now, you’re a potential source of magic for any untrustworthy mage out there; Shadye won’t be the only one who wants to capture you once word gets out. Shadye wanted to use your power and your status–your
presumed
status–as a Child of Destiny; others will have far darker ambitions. You need training and I can’t train you.”

Emily felt her heart twist. She had expected, she realized now, that Void would train her. He was odd, but she was coming to like him. The thought of leaving his tower and going out into the wider world beyond chilled her, particularly with hostile wizards out there intent on capturing her and taking her power–the power she hadn’t even known she possessed–for themselves. She certainly didn’t want to think about what they might do to get their hands on her power.

“I’m a bad teacher,” Void admitted, when she pressed him. “I’ve had seven apprentices in my time. Three of them had to be dismissed for disobedience, two died in magical accidents, one went rogue and became a necromancer ...”

There was a long pause. Emily finally broke it. “And the last apprentice?”

“I had to kill him,” Void said flatly. Emily wanted to ask, but she had the feeling that it might be unwise to press him any further. “Suffice it to say that my history of tutoring apprentices is not good.”

He hesitated, as if he was unwilling to admit to anything else. “There’s also the fact that you need a far wider field of study than I can provide for you in my tower. You’ve only met myself and Shadye–and there are plenty of other types of magician out there. I would just limit you if you studied under me. You deserve better than that.”

There was a second pause. “I’m sending you to Whitehall,” he said. “You’ll be safe there.”

Emily blinked, trying not to feel abandoned. “Whitehall?”

“There are only a handful of places where new wizards are trained,” Void explained. “Of all of them, Whitehall is the oldest, constructed back in the days of the Old Empire. Politically, it’s unaligned in the power struggles between the Allied Lands–and it is a bastion against the necromancers. Your presence elsewhere may”–he paused, as if he were selecting his next word carefully–“upset people.”

“I don’t understand,” Emily said. “Why am I so special?”

Void snorted. “Luck.” He shook his head, ruefully. “If word gets out to the Allied Lands that you are a Child of Destiny–even if you’re
not
a Child of Destiny in anything other than the literal sense–there will be repercussions. And once they realize just how much power is welling up inside of you, they will either try to co-opt you or kill you.”

He shrugged. “It won’t surprise you to know that the Allied Lands spend as much time fighting each other as they do fighting the necromancers. We mock them for their disunity, but ours is just as bad.”

Emily frowned. “So which side are you on?”

Void gave her a sharp look, and then nodded in understanding. “I’m a graduate of Whitehall myself. As such, I owe overall fealty to the Allied Lands as a whole, not to any single country. Those of us who are on the sharp end in dealing with the necromancers have no time for power struggles between the Allied Lands. Maybe Princess Samira didn’t actually
want
to marry Prince Davit ... whatever really happened, it’s not an excuse to start a war that creates openings for the necromancers to break into the Allied Lands.”

“You said that the necromancers were tightening the screws,” she said. “Can’t the Allied Lands see that they’re in trouble?”

“I’m sure they can,” Void said. “They just don’t bother to actually
think
about what they’re doing.”

He looked at her, directly. “Whitehall sits in the mountains, at a crossroads of power where two ley lines intersect. That gives the school’s wards incredible power. No necromancer can enter the school, or its grounds, and no one from the Allied Lands would dare to breach its walls without permission. The Grandmaster’s will is absolute within the school.”

Emily found herself smiling. “His name wouldn’t be Dumbledore, would it?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Void reminded her, archly. “Those of us who seek great power keep our names secret, remember?”

Emily flushed at his tone.

“I have made arrangements for you to go there today and be enrolled at the school, before anyone apart from Shadye and I learns of your true nature,” Void continued. “You don’t need to worry about payment; the Grandmaster owes me a favor or two, so he has agreed to waive the tuition fees in your case. Besides, I think that if you have proper training, you will be formidable indeed. I rather doubt that Whitehall is anything like the schooling you had back home, but it will provide you with the grounding you so desperately need.”

“Thank you,” Emily said. It was hard to escape the conviction that she was being abandoned, but it was clear that Void was doing his best for her. Going back to school ... well, she would actually be learning something more fascinating than sanitized facts and pointless nonsense. Besides, if Void was right and other magicians would be seeking her out, she’d better learn to defend herself as quickly as possible. Shadye had overpowered her with contemptuous ease.

Void smiled. “You’re welcome,” he said. “If you become a defender of the Allied Lands, standing beside us, I will be more than repaid.”

He stood up. “I have also made arrangements for your transport. The kitchen staff will provide you with food for the journey.”

Emily blinked as she stood up herself. “You won’t be coming with me?”

“I’m afraid not,” Void said. “Don’t worry. Your transport”–he grinned, as if he were smiling at a private joke–“trust me, no necromancer is going to want to risk drawing the attention of your transport.”

“Right,” Emily said. All of a sudden she felt as if Void had given her a red shirt to wear, perhaps complete with a targeting circle. But then, he
had
lived in this world for his entire life. No doubt he knew what he was doing. “I meant to ask you something.”

Void lifted a single eyebrow, patiently.

“Your servants,” Emily said, quietly. “Why do they all look so ...”

She couldn’t think of a suitable word, but Void understood. “They have pledged themselves to me for the duration of their services. In order that they might live here, they have accepted powerful loyalty spells, ones that prevent them from doing anything contrary to my interests.” He gave her a reassuring smile. “You’re starting to sense magic properly, my dear.”

Emily winced. She had no way to be sure, but she would have bet good money that the spells went a great deal further than simply ensuring the loyalty of his servants. The blank stare in the girl’s eyes chilled her. Perhaps she no longer had any real free will of her own, or perhaps Emily was just imagining it. She
hoped
that she was imagining it.

She shook her head. This world might be more exciting than her old world, but it had dangers of its own. And Shadye wasn’t the only one who misused magic.

“H
OW BIG IS THIS TOWER?” EMILY
asked.

Void smiled as they kept walking up stairs that seemed to reach all the way to heaven. “It’s as big as it needs to be.”

“That isn’t an answer,” Emily said, irritably. The knapsack of food and drink Void’s servants had given her was dragging at her shoulder. This world had clearly not invented comfortable rucksacks - at least, not yet. Absently, she wondered what–if anything–she could introduce from her world to make lives easier here. “How big is the tower?”

Void’s smile grew wider. “The tower is far larger on the inside than on the outside. Each successive owner has added more to the interior, creating a mass of passageways and compartments that run for miles underground. Even I couldn’t tell you just how big the tower is on the inside.”

A gust of cold air struck her as they finally reached the top and out onto the battlements. Emily felt a wave of vertigo as she realized just how long a drop it was to the ground far below, and just how small the battlements were. A child could climb on them and then be blown off by a sudden change in the wind. They didn’t look very secure to her eyes, but as far as she could tell the true defense of the tower rested in Void’s magic. A small army of men could climb over the battlements if they could get past the wards.

“He comes,” Void said, pointing towards the sun. “Look!”

For a moment, Emily saw nothing. Then, out of the sun’s glare, a dark winged shape dropped down towards the tower. It was so large that she had problems trying to take it all in; its green scales flashed in the sunlight, while its brilliant golden eyes and wings were so immense that they seemed to stretch for miles. Giant claws, each one larger than Emily’s entire body, glinted with light as the dragon dropped to the battlements, landing with a gentle thump. It seemed impossible that the tower could even hold up under its weight.

Emily shrank behind Void as the dragon opened its mouth, a wisp of smoke emerging from its nostrils. Inside, there were razor-sharp teeth and a long tongue that licked at its lips, as if it had decided that the two humans would be a pleasant snack. For a being that large, the rational part of Emily’s mind insisted, two humans would be nowhere near enough to sate its hunger.

And then she caught the golden eye and froze, transfixed.

Somehow, she
knew
that
the dragon was
old
. The magic field surrounding the creature bombarded her with impressions and sensations, piling them into her mind. It was old enough to have seen eons pass while it drifted through the skies, heedless of the scurrying humans on the world below. She no longer felt any sense of threat from it, merely a sense of ancient knowledge and amusement.

Void seemed equally stunned by the dragon, even though they had to be a fact of life in his world. But how many magicians, Emily asked herself, knew dragons personally?

“It has been a long time,” the dragon rumbled. Emily shuddered at the thought of what a dragon might consider a
long
time. All of the fantasy books she’d read had claimed that dragons had
very
long lives. “Do you finally wish to call upon the debt I owe you?”

“I do,” Void said. His voice sounded tinny in comparison to the dragon’s deep rumble. “This girl needs transport to Whitehall.”

Emily suddenly felt very small as the dragon’s great golden eyes peered down at her. “A traveler from another world,” the dragon stated. It wasn’t a question. “How strange. We have not seen one like you for many years.”