Study in Slaughter (Schooled in Magic) (24 page)

Emily remembered his lectures on the rule of law and nodded. “He thinks that the Allied Lands should have a federal structure?”

“The concept isn’t fully developed,” Lady Barb explained. “That faction is largely made up of independent magicians and traders. I suspect that it will fracture if it ever managed to get into power and start bending the rest of the Allied Lands to its will.”

“While the other faction just wants to stay with aristocracy,” Emily deduced. “Why...?”

“Just after the empire fell, there were several attempts to reunite the world by force,” Lady Barb explained. “None of those attempts succeeded, but many aristocrats still hold dreams of total power. I would not expect King Randor to hesitate if he was offered the position of High King—or emperor. But every other monarch would oppose him on principle.”

“Because
they
want to be High King,” Emily said. “But what does that have to do with
me
?”

Lady Barb snorted, rudely. “You came into this world and changed it,” she said. “Not just beating a necromancer, but by introducing all kinds of minor improvements that have started to spread out of control. And then King Randor offers you a position that, just incidentally, binds you to him. Just what do you think Master Tor’s faction thinks of you now?”

Emily felt her blood run cold. “They think I’m going to help him conquer the world?”

“Yes,” Lady Barb said, simply.

She smiled at Emily’s shocked disbelief. “You are the greatest force for change this world has seen since the first necromancers,” she said, dryly. “Or didn’t you
realize
that? If King Randor has you in his corner, or at least has people
thinking
that you’re his powerful ally, he can boost his own status within the Allied Lands. Tell me...what
didn’t
happen during the holidays?”

Emily hesitated, then saw it. “Alassa didn’t get married,” she said. “But that wasn’t my fault...”

Lady Barb shrugged. “Alassa is your friend and your future liege,” she said. “How much do you think that has improved her status when it comes to marriage?”

She shook her head. “I suspect that Master Tor considered you a potential ally for
his
faction before you became Baroness Cockatrice,” she added. “Instead, you’ve threatened to upset the balance of power in favor of monarchy.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Emily protested. “But...”

“That doesn’t always matter,” Lady Barb reminded her. “And now he had another demonstration of what he thinks is your gross irresponsibility.”

“I didn’t kill the Warden,” she said. “I...”

She stopped as a thought struck her. “Why did they keep saying that someone had
destroyed
the Warden?”

Lady Barb chuckled, lightly. “What made you think that the Warden was
human
?”

She nodded towards the table where Paddy lay. “The clue is in the name,” she said. “
Warden
; linked to the wards. The Warden was the embodiment of the monitoring functions built into the wards that supervise you and your fellow students. Like Paddy, he was a homunculus, if rather older and more capable than any other.”

“Because he drew power from the wards,” Emily guessed.

“Yes,” Lady Barb agreed. “Think about what the Warden
does
—did. He was created to be an impartial judge and punisher. Or didn’t it occur to you to question that either?”

Emily shook her head. “But Paddy...you stabbed him a dozen or more times,” she said. “How could the Warden be killed so easily?”

“That is indeed the question,” Lady Barb said. “Stabbing him should not have killed him; breaking his neck should have taken mere moments to fix. A necromancer might have been able to slash through the protections and vaporize him, but we could hardly have failed to notice the sudden surge of power. No, we are left with a mystery. What can kill someone like him?”

She shook her head. “A disturbing mystery,” she added. “Someone in the school capable of such a feat...and remaining completely unknown.”

Emily shuddered. “And tried to frame me,” she said. The potion must have been stronger than she’d realized, she decided, for she found it easier to think about it now. “Or was that sheer luck?”

“Could be,” Lady Barb agreed.

“Right,” Emily said. “Can the Warden be repaired?”

“I don’t know,” Lady Barb said. “Professor Lombardi will be looking at him, but I have a feeling that the magical core that powered him will have been shattered beyond repair. It should have been impossible, inside Whitehall. Trying to use him as a source of power for necromancy...either it would have failed or the entire school would have been wiped out in a giant explosion. Necromancers are rarely
that
stupid.”

Emily nodded. “Could you plug Paddy into the wards?”

“Perhaps,” Lady Barb said, “but I doubt it. Paddy was designed to be a simulation human, not a semi-autonomous entity in his own right. I’ll mention the possibility to Professor Lombardi, just in case.”

She looked at Emily, her eyes suddenly sharp. “Tell me,” she said. “What exactly were you
thinking
when you started meddling with pocket dimensions?”

Emily hesitated. “The Sorcerer’s Rule...”

“I’d advise you not to cite that too often,” Lady Barb said, dryly. “Or have you forgotten what happens to magicians who insist on pushing the limits a little too far?”

“Professor Thande told us,” Emily admitted. “They get sent off to isolated places and told to do their experiments there.”

“Master Tor won’t be the only staff member demanding your expulsion if you keep doing experiments and refusing to talk about them,” Lady Barb warned. “What were you doing?”

When Emily hesitated, she held up her right hand. “I, Lady Barb, swear upon my magic that I will not deliberately share anything Lady Emily discloses to me in confidence without her permission,” she said, tartly. “You
do
recognize the oath, don’t you?”

Emily nodded, mutely. If Lady Barb deliberately broke it, she might die—or lose her magic.

“And now
that
is done,” Lady Barb added, once she had cast a series of privacy wards into the air, “perhaps you could tell me just what you had in mind?”

“You told me that I needed more power to teleport,” Emily said, after a long moment. Perhaps it
would
be a good idea to talk about the idea first, before she experimented again, somewhere outside Whitehall. “I started thinking about how I could
store
magic. You can anchor shaped magic in wards, but raw magic seemed to drift away into the background
mana
. It rarely stays still.”

“Or controlled,” Lady Barb said. “Which is why so many of your peers are discovered when they start to perform random acts of magic. The magic seeps out of them.”

Emily nodded.
She
hadn’t performed any random magic, but she’d been on Earth where magic didn’t exist—or was so low that it was barely noticeable. Imaiqah, on the other hand, had nearly scared the life out of her brother when she’d come into her magic. If she hadn’t gone to Whitehall, she might have accidentally done much worse.

“Yes,” Emily said. “The magic level evens out, like pouring water into a bathtub. There’s no way to concentrate it safely unless it’s firmly anchored—and then it’s not easy to use it for anything else.”

“That isn’t exactly unknown,” Lady Barb said. “It takes years of training and practice to build up the channels to muster vast amounts of magic.”

Emily nodded. “I started thinking,” she said. “What would happen if the magic had nowhere to go?”

“If you tried to hold it in your wards,” Lady Barb said slowly, “it would eventually drive you insane.”

That, Emily
did
know. Mistress Irene had warned her to make sure that she tried to perform at least some magic every week, cautioning her against allowing it to build up inside her mind. Eventually, it would burst out—or damage her. Suddenly, the insanity shown by all surviving necromancers made a great deal of sense. They didn’t
dare
let go of the power they had stolen.

“So I thought that I could put it somewhere else,” Emily continued. “If it was pumped into a pocket dimension, it would have nowhere to go, so it would remain concentrated. And it wouldn’t have to be shaped because it was just resting there, not helping to maintain the dimension. I could then draw upon it at any time...”

“You...” Lady Barb had gone very pale. “Do you have
any
idea what that could do?”

Emily started at her expression. “Power a teleport...?”

“Power a necromancer,” Lady Barb said, sharply. “How long would they be able to remain semi-sane if they could put the power
outside
their own minds?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Could you even channel the power when you accessed it?”

Emily hesitated. “I was thinking that I could use carved runes to help direct it into my spells, without actually pushing it through my mind,” she said. “Like Subtle Magic, but it would take effect immediately—the runes would collapse, but the magic would already be completed. I could teleport...”

“Or unleash hell,” Lady Barb said, stiffly. “Do you have
any
idea just how dangerous you are?”

She stared down at Emily, who fought the urge to jump backwards. “There are...rituals for sharing power,” she explained. “They’re rarely used because most sorcerers will not cooperate enough to lower their guard around their
fellow
sorcerers. It’s quite possible that research into such rituals accidentally paved the way for the discovery of necromancy. This...
trick
of yours might make them workable, with only
one
sorcerer.

“Or a necromancer could funnel magic into a pocket dimension, storing it elsewhere,” Lady Barb added. “This could upset the entire world.”

Emily nodded, miserably. And to think that it had seemed such a tempting prospect...

“I would
strongly
advise you to destroy all your notes and to ensure that you never mentioned it again to
anyone
,” Lady Barb said. “You could trigger an earthquake if you had enough magical power, even without a nexus. Luckily, even a necromancer would have trouble gathering enough power...unless someone shares your idea with him.”

“I will,” Emily promised, softly.

“I should make you swear an oath,” Lady Barb said. “Or sign a contract.”

She reached out and caught Emily’s shoulder. “You don’t think small, do you?”

“But this could be used against the necromancers,” Emily pointed out, desperately. “It would allow us to match their power.”

“Maybe,” Lady Barb said, slowly. “But I think you should realize, right now, that you do
not
need more enemies. You already have people advocating your murder in the White Council—or in the rest of the kingdoms. How many more do you want to hate you?”

It’s going to get worse when they realize the implications of gunpowder
, Emily thought, grimly.
But that genie is firmly out of the bottle
.

“I understand,” she said, finally. “I won’t play with it again.”

“Wait for a few years, then we can think about it,” Lady Barb suggested. “But it might be best not to tell everyone the truth.”

Emily bowed her head.

“King Randor set me up,” she said, softly. “Didn’t he?”

“He certainly played on your ignorance,” Lady Barb agreed. “Of course, he
did
have to reward you. Kings who don’t reward their friends tend to run out of them when it really matters. And he clearly intends to ride the tidal waves you’ve created rather than just let them swamp his kingdom. And if it won him the High Kingdom...he’d be happy to let you change the world to your heart’s content.”

She pointed a long finger at Emily. “I would be happy to talk to you, under whatever oaths of secrecy you require, about any new...
ideas
you have,” she added. “But I would suggest that you
didn’t
try any experiments before sharing them with me.”

Emily nodded.

“Master Tor sent you to the Warden,” Lady Barb added. “What else did he say?”

“That I couldn’t use magic outside class,” Emily confessed. “I...”

“That’s going to be bad, if your enemies find out,” Lady Barb said. “I’ll escort you back to your bedroom. And I would strongly suggest that you went straight to sleep. You can talk to your friends tomorrow. No doubt plenty of idiots will want to thank you for destroying the Warden.”

“But I didn’t,” Emily said.

“That makes it harder—much harder—for the staff to monitor the interior of the school,” Lady Barb added, smoothly. “You might want to remember that.”

Emily frowned. What was Lady Barb trying to tell her?

“Just be careful,” Lady Barb warned her. “You don’t want to get
seen
.”

Emily smirked in sudden understanding.

“Master Tor will probably insist on other punishments,” Lady Barb said. She reached out, swung Emily around and smacked her bottom several times. “Should he ask, tell him I punished you. I suggest you don’t go into details. Just look embarrassed and grimace every time you sit down.”

“Thank you,” Emily said, rubbing her rear. The sting was fading already. “I...”

“Don’t mention it,” Lady Barb said. “
Ever
.”

Emily nodded. She had the feeling that next time, if there was a next time, would be a lot harder. “What are they going to use now the Warden is gone?”

“Someone will probably have to take over his duties,” Lady Barb said. “I don’t know how long it will take them to produce a new one. It could be quite some time.”

“I did touch the wards, back when I was facing Shadye,” Emily pointed out. “I could help...”

“I’ll suggest that to the Grandmaster,” Lady Barb said. She hesitated, then continued. “But you may not have
quite
known what you were doing. They don’t normally let anyone but qualified professors work on those wards. There are some secrets to them that no one else is allowed to know.”