Study in Slaughter (Schooled in Magic) (19 page)

“No,” Alassa said, as they left the room and headed down to the arena. “I think we’re facing the Stompers. Gar’s team. At least there will only be one set of opponents.”

Emily smiled, ruefully. Gar had been a fifth year when she’d come to Whitehall, but he hadn’t been in her first Martial Magic class. She only knew of him because everyone kept pointing him out as a great
Ken
player and nothing else. A jock, in other words. Emily wasn’t even sure what someone like that could
do
outside Whitehall, not when there were few championship games outside Kingmaker. And Kingmaker was a Chess-like board game.

But Ken requires some skill and cunning
, she reminded herself.
Maybe he excels in other areas too
.

The arena seemed even larger than she remembered as Alassa pointed her towards the stands. There were hundreds of students there, chattering happily amongst themselves as they waited for the game to begin. A number of students were tossing balls around
inside
the arena, although it looked like a piece of harmless fun rather than an early game. Alassa winked at her, then headed off towards the changing room. Emily, wishing that she had bought a book, found a seat and sat down, waiting for the game to begin.

It seemed like hours before the referee finally blew the whistle, evicting the students from the arena. Emily covered her ears as his magically-amplified voice bellowed out over the stands, announcing the Stompers and their new challengers, the Upstarts. Emily had to laugh; she’d known that Cat and his fellow Captains had termed Alassa’s team the Upstarts, but she hadn’t realized that Alassa had taken it for her own. If they won, the joke would be on their opponents.

The arena seemed to sparkle to life as the two teams marched inside. Alassa’s face was set in a firm expression of grim determination, while most of the others looked rather nervous. It was impossible to blame them. The game they’d played during the tryouts was simplicity itself, compared to the regular version of
Ken.

“Take your places,” the referee ordered. “Captains...shake hands.”

Emily watched as Alassa and Gar shook hands, both of them trying to do as much harm as possible. Alassa was good at hiding her feelings, but Emily could tell that she’d been hurt; Gar looked too thick-headed to notice if someone had crushed his hand into a pulp. Emily briefly considered what sort of spells she could throw at him, before realizing that it would be futile. The arena wouldn’t allow outsiders to do more than point and laugh at the players. It seemed, she decided, that cheating was only permissible if it was done by the players—and if they weren’t caught at it.

“On five,” the referee said, as the Captains returned to their places. “Here come the balls!”

The spectators cheered as twenty balls plummeted down into the arena, their colors already flickering between green, yellow and red. Several players moved to trap balls, but no one tried to pick them up. Being hit by another ball while carrying one could mean being removed from the game completely, depending on the precise color. Emily smiled as the referee blew his whistle, marking the start of the game. Immediately, the Upstarts grabbed balls and started to throw them at their opponents.

It was lucky, Emily realized, that there
was
only one opposing team. If there had been four teams in the arena, she had a feeling that the three older teams would gang up on the Upstarts and try to force them out of the arena. Even with only one team, it was clear that the Upstarts were badly outmatched by the more experienced players. Or were they? Gar’s team seemed to be largely composed of show-offs, while Alassa had worked hard to convince her players to work together.

Even so, the Stompers were brutally aggressive. They pushed through the corridors, trying to overrun the Upstarts. Their main target seemed to be Alassa herself, unsurprisingly, but that had clearly been anticipated. While Alassa was dodging balls, several of her teammates managed to score. The Stompers, irritated by the fact they might lose, redoubled their efforts, including throwing a handful of jinxes towards the opposing players. One of them was so blatant that the referee blew his whistle and sent the offending player off the field.

Emily sighed as the game went on and on. There was no set time limit; the game ended when all of the players from one team were pushed out of the arena. It could go on forever, she realized, even though she knew that the players couldn’t play eternally. The Stompers would probably have the edge in raw endurance. She looked around at the spectators, wondering just how they could spend the entire afternoon watching the game. It might take hours before one team came out ahead.

And she wanted to experiment with Yodel’s book.

I’m sorry
, she thought, and left the stands. No one seemed to notice as she walked back towards the school and in through one of the side entrances. Unsurprisingly, the building almost seemed deserted; the students who weren’t watching the game would probably be in the library, frantically looking up spells, case studies and precedents for their classes. There was more homework and private study in Whitehall than she’d ever had on Earth.

No one was in the bedroom as she stepped inside and sat down in front of her desk, looking down at the spell she’d composed. She’d scrawled the components out carefully, as Professor Lombardi had taught her, then checked them one by one to see how they interacted
before
she tried to actually cast the spell. Creating a pocket dimension, even a relatively simple one, was fiendishly complex. If she hadn’t had some insights from her own universe, Emily suspected that it would have been impossible without many more years of schooling.

Maybe I can make a TARDIS next
, she thought, as she checked the spells one final time. It should work, she assured herself. Every step seemed to fit together perfectly.

Carefully, she reached for the iron hoop she’d borrowed from the armory and placed it on the desk, positioning it so it stood upright. The instructions for actually
casting
the spell had told her that a solid inanimate object –preferably made of metal—would make the best anchor. Creating a pocket dimension that was attached to
her
seemed tempting, but the spellbook seemed to think that was a very bad idea. It didn’t go into details. Emily had puzzled over it at first, then realized that if something went wrong and the pocket dimension expelled its contents back into the normal world it might well kill the magician who created the spell. It was far easier to abandon a trunk if necessary.

Concentrate
, she told herself. The instructions insisted that she
visualize
the edge of the universe inside the hoop, as if it were a soap bubble. She closed her eyes and held the thought in her mind, then swore mentally as she realized that she would need to be looking at the spell while she cast it. There
were
treatments to ensure a perfect memory, but the permanent ones were dangerous. She would never be able to forget
anything
.

Bracing herself, she struggled to hold the image in her mind as she looked down at the spell, understanding finally why enchantment wasn’t taught until fifth year. The kind of mental discipline it took to cast the spell was far greater than anything she’d ever tried, even the healing spell Lady Barb had taught the class. And to think that it had seemed
easy
! But it had been, with the power of the nexus behind her.
This
spell couldn’t draw on the nexus, or it would be completely useless outside Whitehall.

She cast the spell, focusing on the image. There was a spark of magic...then nothing. Emily glared at the hoop of metal, then tried again. This time, there wasn’t even a spark.

Emily shook her head and focused her mind. Yodel had probably had years of experience in memorizing and casting complex charms before starting to work on enchantment;
he
could probably cast the spells with his eyes tightly closed. Emily, on the other hand, had to do two things at once—and they tended to cancel one another out. She gritted her teeth, focused on the spell, and ran through it again. This time, the spark of power shimmered into life. The interior of the hoop was glowing with an eerie translucent light. A second later, it popped out of existence and the magic faded away.

“Well,” Emily said, out loud. “At least that was
something
.”

But it felt
odd
. Either the spell should have worked or it should have failed. Instead, it had clearly done something...and then collapsed. Shaking her head, she looked back down at the sheet of parchment, trying to see what she’d missed. Perhaps she’d messed up one of the spell components and the power had simply dissipated into the ether. But no matter how she looked at it, she couldn’t find anything wrong.

She ran through the steps in her head. First, visualize the exterior of the pocket dimension where it connects to the main dimension. Second, blow out the dimension like a soap bubble, taking care not to exceed the level of magic and destroying the entire spell. Third, link the gateway to the hoop and seal the dimension. Done properly, it would be difficult for someone to even
find
a trace of its existence, let alone break into it.

But she honestly couldn’t see where she was going wrong.

It was possible, she knew through experience, to drain her magic, but she didn’t
feel
drained. She cast a light globe spell, then banished it; her magic seemed to be working perfectly. And yet the spell wasn’t working quite right. Putting more power into it, according to the notes, shouldn’t be necessary at all. Still, the only alternative was swallowing her pride and asking Yodel. It crossed her mind, briefly, that she could ask Void, but she didn’t want to share her thoughts with anyone until she knew if it actually worked.

The hoop was warm to the touch, she realized, as she repositioned it on the desk. That was...
odd
too. She looked down at the book, but saw nothing about the anchor growing hot—or risking its own destruction. The book
had
advised her to pick something solid, yet it hadn’t said why. That, in her experience, was alarmingly common in spellbooks. She cast a cooling charm, then closed her eyes, visualizing the edge of her pocket dimension. Maybe it would work better now she had a handle on how the magic was supposed to flow.

She opened her eyes, trying to keep the visualization in her head, and looked down at the spell once again. It seemed to come easier this time, now that she’d cast it several times; there was a surge of magic and the faint shimmer fell over the hoop once again. And then it just snapped out of existence. There was a wave of heat so strong than Emily pushed her chair back from the desk, feeling as if her face was starting to burn. She yanked the papers away from the desk before they could catch fire, ignoring the heat. The hoop was glowing so brightly that she was surprised it hadn’t exploded.

The door burst open.

Emily spun around and saw Master Tor, storming into her room. He looked furious, far too like her stepfather for comfort; Emily recoiled, feeling somehow violated. She hadn’t even
known
that male teachers could get into the bedrooms, although it did make sense. He
was
their Head of Year, after all. Behind him, she saw a nervous-looking Madame Razz.

Master Tor glared at her. “What the...”

He saw her notes and glanced down at them. A moment later, his face turned purple with rage. “You...”

Emily cringed back, expecting a blow at any moment. For a chilling moment, she thought she saw the face of her stepfather, drunk and furious, overlaying Master Tor. He gathered himself, then caught Emily by the ear and dragged her out of the bedroom. Emily gasped in pain, then forced her legs into motion as he pulled her down towards his office. The handful of students they passed on the way stared at them in astonishment—and horror.

“In,” Master Tor said, pushing her into the office. He pointed towards the corner. “Stand there and
wait
!”

Emily found her voice. “I...”

“Shut up,” Master Tor snapped. He pushed her into the corner. “Stay there, don’t move and don’t leave the office. If you do, I’ll damn well see to it that you are expelled.”

Emily staggered as she heard him leaving the office. She wanted to look around, or to run, but she knew that it would be useless. The office was probably warded to let him know what she did while she was inside, or to keep her from leaving. Besides, she needed time to think and calm herself. She’d thought that the effects of the phobia spell had worn off, but it was clear that they were still lingering in her mind.

And they don’t have any mental health professionals here
, she thought, bitterly. Naturally, a world where certain kinds of magic could drive one mad wouldn’t want to develop cures, would it? And nothing in her life had convinced her that psychologists actually knew what they were talking about. But she would have been very grateful if someone had erased the phobia spell from her mind.

She cursed herself under her breath, wishing that she’d stayed at the arena, no matter how boring she’d found it. It might have saved her from getting into trouble...but she’d intended to run the experiment anyway. She might just have done nothing more than put the trouble off for a few days—or even hours. And Master Tor had practically threatened to expel her...

It felt like she was alone for hours before Master Tor finally returned to his office, giving her plenty of time to worry about what he was doing. Searching her trunk? It should have been impossible, but she knew better than to assume that breaking Yodel’s enchantments was beyond Professor Lombardi—or the Grandmaster. Or was he shouting at the Grandmaster and trying to convince him to expel Emily, risking Void’s wrath—and King Randor’s? Or was he merely taking his time to make her sweat? Or searching for an extra painful cane? It was almost a relief when he returned to his office and closed the door behind him.