Study in Slaughter (Schooled in Magic) (16 page)

Master Tor’s office door opened when she approached, beckoning her inside. Bracing herself, Emily walked into the room and nodded politely to Master Tor, who held out a hand for the essay. Emily kept her face as expressionless as possible as she passed it to him and stood at parade rest, silently grateful that the sergeants had insisted that they spend so much time standing to attention. Before she’d come to Whitehall, she would have been fidgeting within minutes.

“Werewolves become extremely dangerous when the full moon is up,” Master Tor said, when he had finished reading her essay. “If you happen to encounter a werewolf during that time, you will be very lucky to survive—and if you are bitten, you will become a werewolf yourself. There is no cure for lycanthropy, nor is there any way to moderate the hunger and lust of born werewolves. In packs, at least, they turn their aggressive tendencies on each other.”

Emily shuddered. The packs seemed to be dominated by the rule of might making right. An alpha male could never rest, even when in human form; another male could issue his challenge at any time, demanding control of the pack. And such duels were always to the death. The victor would gain power and unrestricted access to the pack’s females, who had their own hierarchy. It made the power struggle in Zangaria looked genteel by comparison.

“In human form, they
still
act as a pack,” Master Tor added. “When alone, they may seem human, but they are very far from it. You can never trust them completely.”

He put the pieces of parchment down on the desk, then looked up at her. “Did you learn something from this essay?”

“Yes, sir,” Emily said, shortly.

Master Tor studied her for a long moment. “And do you have any
questions
about this essay?”

Emily hesitated, then nodded. “Why are Gorgons excluded from human settlements too?”

“They do tend to scare people,” Master Tor said. “Do you know that Gorgon petrification is almost impossible to reverse? The Gorgons themselves can do it; human sorcerers can rarely cure someone who has been turned to stone by a Gorgon. They were created by the faerie—and, like all such creatures, they have unpleasant surprises running in their bloodstream. And they
worship
the faerie.

“A deal was made in the closing days of the Empire,” he added. “If they stayed in their own lands, we wouldn’t try to destroy them. They are not really part of the Allied Lands—your roommate wouldn’t be here at all if she hadn’t developed an independent talent for magic. And when she finishes her education, she may not be able to
use
it.”

Emily scowled. “But why is that a
problem
?”

“The Gorgons worship the faerie,” Master Tor reminded her, shortly. “What would happen if they tried to bring them
back
?”

“I see,” Emily said, slowly.

But she didn’t, not really. The Gorgons could surely have called the faerie back by now, if that were possible—and if that was what they wanted to do. And if they were constantly treated like dirt by the nearby humans, they might well want to upend the balance of power once again. It just didn’t seem
right
to treat them as animals.

“I have checked your timetable,” Master Tor said, changing the subject. “You should have no problems with the rest of the term, although I am obliged to warn you that you only have a month to switch or drop classes without repercussions. I have also reviewed your curriculum for Martial Magic. I would advise you to concentrate heavily on wards, booby traps and other passive defenses. Your expertise in this is shockingly low.”

Emily nodded, surprised that Master Tor was trying to be helpful. Each Martial Magic class drew in students from several different years, but Emily was still the youngest—and least experienced—of them all. Aloha would have mastered Construction and Warding in her second year, while also taking the first year of Martial Magic. Jade would have had five years of experience and education under his belt before joining the first class himself.

“Yes, sir,” she said, finally.

“They will be testing you first, on Monday afternoon,” Master Tor added. An odd little smile played over his lips. “I suggest that you spend the rest of the weekend researching in the library. You’re going to need it.”

Or wind up completely humiliated
, Emily thought, ruefully.
Just like playing Ken
.

“Thank you, sir,” she said, out loud.

Master Tor marked her essay quickly, then passed it back to her. “There are some aspects you need to research more,” he said, “but you can leave that until the end of the month. It doesn’t really need revising.”

The door swung open behind her. Taking it as her cue, Emily nodded to him and turned, walking out of the room. The door swung closed, allowing her to look at the notes he’d written at the bottom of the essay. He insisted that she did more research.

“Fine,” Emily muttered, as she started to walk towards the library. “I’ll
do
some more bloody research.

Chapter Thirteen

S
O,” SERGEANT MILES SAID, ON MONDAY
afternoon. “Are you ready for this?”

Emily looked up at Blackhall and shook her head. If anything, the small mansion looked even more sinister in the twilight. Darkness would fall completely, she suspected, before they returned to Whitehall. There were no lights in the darkened windows, suggesting an unfriendly welcome. If anything, the windows seemed to absorb the light.

“Smart answer,” the sergeant said. As Master Tor had warned, he’d pulled her aside as soon as she had changed and taken her to Blackhall, while the others went with Sergeant Bane to jog around the school. “Have you mastered the emergency spell?”

Emily nodded and cast it into the air, careful not to actually move her hands. The instructions for casting the spell had been very clear on that point. All it did, she’d learned while studying the spellbooks, was create a surge of magic, one that could be detected by a trained sorcerer or pre-programmed wards. Sergeant Miles nodded as the spell shimmered into life and then faded away. They’d been warned that it wouldn’t last very long.

“Should you find yourself stuck, cast that spell and I will come to the rescue,” he said, giving her a reassuring smile. “That will, of course, result in you being marked down for the day—should you wind up knocked out or otherwise helpless, you will
also
be marked down. Don’t use the spell unless there is no other choice.”

Emily nodded, feeling her throat constrict. She’d faced worse than a haunted house, hadn’t she? But two trained combat sorcerers had spent months devising tests for students, all of whom were more experienced than herself, and she knew that it wasn’t going to be easy. Just touching the wrong thing might cost her the whole exercise.

Better than costing you your life if you have to do it for real
, she thought, remembering the days of chaos in Zangaria. Sneaking through the castle’s wards had been difficult—and if she hadn’t had a sample of Alassa’s blood, it would have been impossible. She was ruefully aware that a trained sorcerer would probably have done a far better job.

Sergeant Miles reached into his pocket and produced a small glowing orb, barely smaller than Emily’s fist. “Your task is to find this orb’s counterpart in the house and then remove it from the property,” he said. “You may take as long as you believe necessary, but
do
bear in mind that the longer you stay inside, the weaker you will become. Next time, you might want to bring water and foodstuffs with you.”

Emily flushed. She hadn’t been told to bring water and food, but she hadn’t been told that it was forbidden either. And if she had, the worst that would happen was that it would get confiscated before she went into the house.

“Good luck,” the Sergeant said, taking a step backwards. “And be
careful
.”

“Wait,” Emily said. “How should I enter the house?”

“Any way you please,” Sergeant Miles said. “It’s up to you.”

Emily turned back and faced the house, then slowly walked towards it until she was only a meter from the stone wall. She could sense hints of magic crackling through the stone, almost certainly basic protective wards firmly embedded within the rock. Breaking them required more force than any magician had, short of a necromancer. A team effort might work, she knew, but it would certainly alert the person who had put the wards together. She wouldn’t have put it past the sergeants to have someone
inside
the house, reconfiguring the wards to trap unwary students.

She stopped in front of the main door and cast the basic magic detection spell. The doorknob lit up with an ugly red color, so bright that it took her a moment to realize that the entire door was glowing red. Touching the doorknob would probably mean instant failure. Shaking her head, she walked around the house, checking each of the windows. They were all warded, several quite imaginatively. One of them actually looked unprotected until she was almost close enough to be caught. The rear door was just as heavily protected as the front door.

Picking her way through the wards might be possible, she told herself, but she knew she should look for a simpler solution first. Carefully, she checked the walls themselves; if
they
weren’t so heavily protected, maybe she could blast her way into the building. She certainly hadn’t been forbidden to do that either. But there were loose traceries of magic running through the stone, grounding the wards. Knocking the wards down might be impossible.

Emily exclaimed in frustration and took a step or two backwards, staring up at the rear of the house. There
had
to be a way in somehow...she walked around the house, looking for the solution, dimly aware that the sergeant was watching her. And then it hit her. There was a gap between the rear door and the stone floor. It didn’t seem to be protected. Emily walked up, shaped a shrinking spell in her mind and cast it on her own body. The door seemed to expand in size rapidly as she shrank.

Her mind spun as her perspective altered. Instead of being a footstep or two away, the door seemed to be miles from where she was standing—and the gap underneath the wood seemed impossibly huge. Emily fought down the sense of dizziness—being shrunk messed with a person’s mind, even if there
were
protections woven into the spell—and ran forward. It still seemed to take a long time before she passed under the door and into the house.

She heard a scuttling sound in the darkness and hastily undid the spell, staggering as she returned to normal size. A spider or cat might be harmless to a normal-sized human—although she’d seen films where the enemies were tiny but poisonous spiders—but they would be lethal to her if she remained barely five centimeters tall. The darkness inside the building fell around her as though it were a living thing; gritting her teeth, she cast the spell for a light globe and sighed in relief as it burst into life, illuminating the long corridor.

It was simple, almost completely unfurnished apart from a handful of portraits. The walls were made of cold stone, tingling with magic running through them. There were no obvious threats, which only made her more suspicious. The sergeants wouldn’t have created obvious threats, but ones that would try to take their students by surprise. Emily cast the revealing spell and saw nothing, apart from a faint glow from the walls.
That
bothered her. It didn’t seem likely that
all
they’d done was ward the walls.

Carefully, she cast a seeking spell into the air, concentrating on the image of the orb the sergeant had shown her. An arrow appeared in front of her, pointing upwards. The hidden orb was on one of the upper levels. Emily had only used the seeking spell twice, but the spellbooks had been clear on its limitations. It might point directly towards the hidden object, yet it wouldn’t take account of walls or ceilings that might be in the way. And it could be fooled, if the wards were configured to do so.

She felt a tingle at her feet and looked down—and swore. Dark shapes were clustering around her boots, while the carpet was starting to feel as if it were turning into quicksand. Emily tried to yank her boots free, only to discover that the carpet had a firm grip on them and all that happened was that she fell over. Her bare hand touching the carpet seemed to make the effect worse; she forced herself to scramble forward, not daring to keep her hand anywhere for more than a few seconds. Desperately, she cast a practical joke spell—it undid shoelaces—at her own boots, then pulled her feet out of them. They vanished into the carpet moments later.

Emily ran down the corridor until she reached the end of the carpet and jumped onto the stone floor, realizing—a moment too late—that might have been a dreadful mistake. But the floor seemed solid and reassuring...she looked back at the carpet and cast the revealing spell, wondering why the magic hadn’t shown up the first time she’d looked for it. It took her a moment to realize that the magic had actually been buried under the hallway and had come crawling up when she’d stepped onto the carpet for the first time. The spell hadn’t found anything because the magic had been out of range.

Devious
, she thought, looking around. There was a rickety stairwell ahead of her, looking barely strong enough to hold her weight. Carefully, she tested it and discovered a handful of obvious spells, each one ready to throw her down the stairs and back into the hallway. Putting her foot in the wrong place could be disastrous...she looked around, but the only other options were a pair of locked and charmed doors. Breaking the charms holding them closed was beyond her abilities. Inch by inch, she picked her way up the stairs, avoiding each of the hidden charms. When she reached the top, she almost relaxed as she triggered the seeker spell again. This time, the arrow pointed towards a blank wall.

Emily gritted her teeth, then cast the revealing spell yet again. The entire wall lit up with red light, practically
daring
her to take her best shot. She stepped backwards instead, looking down the corridor. It ran in the opposite direction, but there might be a way around the first wall if she looked around. The only other alternative was to go back down the stairs and try to find another way up. Shaking her head, she walked down the corridor, casting the revealing spell every fifth step. The walls kept lighting up with red light. But a door, when she found it, was completely free of magic. Suspicious, Emily used a spell to open it from a distance and peered inside. There was nothing but absolute darkness.