Work Experience (Schooled in Magic Book 4) (15 page)

“I understand,” Emily said, reluctantly. She knew Lady Barb knew more about the whole system than her, but it still annoyed her. “I’ll let you handle it.”

Lady Barb gave her a long look, then nodded.

E
MILY HAD NEVER SEEN MOUNTAINS IN
person until she’d been kidnapped by Shadye. Since then, she’d seen the mountains that surrounded Whitehall and explored them with Jade, but the Cairngorms were different. She couldn’t help staring as the mountains grew closer, reaching up towards the sky, their peaks lost in dark clouds that flickered with lightning – and perhaps magic. The countryside changed too; trees clung closer and closer to the road, casting dark shadows over the wagons. Emily shivered as she peered into the forest, wondering what might be lurking inside. She’d read enough to know that
anything
could be waiting for them in the darkness.

The convoy lurched to a halt. “Here we are,” Lady Barb said, as she passed the reins to Jasmine. “That’s where we’re going.”

Emily followed her pointing finger. The trees parted, just enough to reveal a rocky path leading up into the mountains. Emily shivered when she saw the shadows moving ahead of them, then pushed the thought aside and picked up her bag. Lady Barb exchanged a few brief words with Jasmine before she jumped down and headed to the lead wagon. Emily said goodbye, biting her tongue to keep from asking Jasmine what she’d said to Lady Barb, then jumped down herself. Up close, the path didn’t look any more inviting.

A cold wind blew through the trees as Lady Barb came to join her, the horses neighing in farewell as the convoy started to move out. Emily waved to Jasmine as the last wagon moved past, then drove down the road and vanished in the distance. She couldn’t help missing the convoy, now they were alone. It seemed impossible to believe that there were any other humans nearby. She would almost sooner be somewhere – anywhere – else.

“No time to waste,” Lady Barb said, briskly. If she thought the surroundings were ominous too, she kept it to herself. “Come along.”

She turned and started to walk up the path. Emily followed, silently grateful for the long marches in rough terrain the sergeants had forced upon her. Without them, she knew she would have had real trouble walking up the path. The footing was unstable and there were nasty-looking jagged rocks everywhere, as if whoever had made the pathway had deliberately set out to make it all but impassable. She heard the sound of water tinkling in the forest, but saw nothing within the shadows. There didn’t even seem to be any animals anywhere nearby.

“Jasmine was very interested in your offer,” Lady Barb said. She didn’t sound winded by the march. “I gave her a signed paper to show to the recruiting officers, when she comes into her magic. Her fees will be paid at that time, if she still wants to go.”

Emily nodded. “Will she actually go?”

“It depends,” Lady Barb said. “She may not develop enough magic to fit in at Whitehall – or she may never develop magic at all. If so...”

Her voice trailed off, but Emily understood. There were a handful of people who had magic, but were never able to actually access and use it. For an ordinary person from an ordinary family, it was no hardship; they might never even know what they had. But for someone from a magical bloodline, being unable to use magic would be disastrous. There were only a handful of courses at Whitehall that didn’t include magic.

She shivered. It hadn’t taken her more than a few days before she’d learned enough spells to make her really dangerous, at least to someone without magic. That, she’d been told, was the real reason why Whitehall and the other magical schools recruited from non-magical bloodlines, quite apart from any genetic requirements. It simply wasn’t safe for magical children to be taught alongside non-magical children.

“We shall see,” she said, out loud. “That was an impressive spell you used on the brats.”

Lady Barb smiled. “Keep concentrating and you might be able to do it yourself,” she said, dryly. “But it isn’t particularly easy.”

They walked in companionable silence for nearly thirty minutes before they came to a bridge. Emily felt a chill running down her spine as she looked at the bridge – and at the rushing water underneath, racing towards an unknown destination. There were enough jagged rocks half-hidden by the water to make crossing without a bridge a dangerous prospect. But there was something about the bridge that bothered her, even though she couldn’t place her fingers on it.

“Look at the logs,” Lady Barb said. She pointed a finger towards the pieces of wood. “They weren’t cut with axes or saws.”

Emily frowned. They looked almost like someone had
chewed
them. Something very big. The teeth marks looked several times the size of her mouth, yet there was something disturbingly human about them. Lady Barb looked around, studying the water, then smiled and pointed towards a large rock on the far side of the river. Emily followed her gaze, but frowned in puzzlement. The rock was large enough to stand on, easily. But there was nothing else odd about it.

“Watch,” Lady Barb said. She picked up a stone and tossed it towards the rock, striking it easily. “Watch and learn.”

Emily jumped as the stone started to move, standing upright and revealing a humanoid form. For a moment, she thought it was
made
of stone, before she realized that it was actually very good at blending into its surroundings. Emily couldn’t help thinking of a giant misshapen baby, made of grey flesh. It had to be a troll, a wild troll. The creature stood, dark eyes searching for the person who had dared to set foot on his bridge.

“Don’t worry,” Lady Barb said, before Emily could say a word. “Just don’t show any fear and it will be fine.”

Emily swallowed nervously. Trolls were slow, she knew from lessons, but they never gave up their prey without a fight. And their thick skins protected them from all kinds of magic.

Lady Barb stepped forward, holding her staff in one hand. The troll stopped moving its head and glared at her, never taking its eyes off the staff. It recognized it, Emily realized.

“Follow me,” Lady Barb hissed. She knelt down and started to crawl across the bridge. The troll made a hissing sound, like a kettle that had been left on too long, but made no attempt to grab her. “Hurry!”

Emily hesitated, then crawled after the older woman. The bridge felt terrifyingly unstable, as if one false move would toss her off into the troll’s waiting jaws. It hissed again as she passed over its position, then fell back into hiding. Emily sighed in relief as she reached the far side of the bridge and looked back. The troll was almost completely concealed within the rushing water.

“They’re not very smart,” Lady Barb commented, as they walked away from the bridge, “but they have a natural talent for building bridges that appear safe until it’s too late. Most people who live here know to look for signs a troll built the bridge.”

Emily frowned. “Why don’t the locals try to kill it?”

“They’re not fond of visitors in these parts,” Lady Barb admitted. “They wouldn’t care too much if the troll ate someone, particularly a taxman.”

She smirked. “But those particular people are probably inedible,” she added. “They couldn’t be eaten at all.”

Emily had to smile, feeling some of the tension draining away. “What about the children?”

“They generally learn better from a very early age,” Lady Barb said. “Although they have to be careful. Some of the creatures that lurk in the innermost reaches of the forest are quite cunning and very dangerous.”

She launched into a story that reminded Emily of
The Boy Who Cried Wolf
, except the boy actually
did
see a dangerous creature, which vanished the moment he called for his father and uncles. His relatives didn’t believe him, beat him and left him alone with the sheep. But the creature reappeared and kept reappearing until the boy no longer cried for help. And then it ate him up, followed by the sheep.

Emily had no trouble that the story was factual, at least in some ways, even if it did raise the question of just who had managed to tell anyone what had happened. There were all kinds of monsters running loose in the world, from centaurs to goblins and orcs. Even dumb animals could develop a kind of intelligence if they were exposed to wild magic – or to the experiments of magicians with more power than ethical boundaries. Hell, there were even magicians trying to breed intelligent horses, claiming they would be useful in war. But there were so many variables in magical breeding that Emily suspected the whole idea was asking for something to go badly wrong.

They were trying to breed royals
, she thought. Alassa’s beauty wasn’t natural; it was the result of decades of magical experimentation.
But it comes at a cost of near-sterility.

She mulled it over as she kept walking, wondering just where the troll had come from. It might have looked humanoid, but there was no hint of humanity around its eyes, suggesting that it wasn’t a descendent of a human who’d been touched by the Faerie. Maybe it had just evolved through contact with wild magic, like the dragons and the other completely non-human creatures that hid from human eyes. She shook her head, dismissing the thought. It was unlikely she would ever know.

They reached a clearing and stopped long enough to catch their breath. Emily looked up towards the higher mountains and saw a dark castle perched on a peak, towering ominously over the land. It didn’t look any bigger than her castle in Cockatrice, although it was difficult to be sure.

“It belongs to the local lord,” Lady Barb said. She shrugged, expressively. “You can imagine how hard it was to build, even with magic.”

Emily rolled her eyes. If there was one constant between this world and Earth, it was that the rich and the powerful demanded accommodation in line with their status. The aristocrats built towering castles and manor houses for themselves, while the commoners had to struggle in tiny hovels, fighting to survive another day. This was something she knew her innovations would eventually challenge, but it wasn’t going to be an easy transition. There were times when she wondered if she shouldn’t have kept her mouth shut instead of introducing new ideas to the Allied Lands.

But gunpowder might make it easier for them to fight the necromancers and their armies
, she thought. Orcs were tough and bred like rabbits – and the necromancers could intimidate them into unquestioning obedience. And each of them was tougher than the average human.
And English letters will allow millions to learn to read.

Lady Barb smiled at her before leading her back to the path. This time, it snaked into a long, tree-covered valley. Emily was suddenly very aware of birds flying through the trees, while a handful of small animals could be heard in the undergrowth. It was almost as if someone had flipped a switch, turning on the sound. She shook her head in puzzlement as she heard something ahead of her, then caught sight of a handful of sheep – and a pale-skinned boy watching them. He started, lifting a heavy wooden stick, but relaxed when Lady Barb held up her hands.

“We’re almost there,” Lady Barb commented. “Not long to go now.”

Emily nodded at the boy, who smiled shyly. She had to look strange to him, she realized slowly, almost like someone from a different planet. Even though she was wearing a basic walking outfit rather than robes, she still looked different. She wondered, absently, what sort of life the boy led among the mountains, but she didn’t dare pause long enough to ask. Lady Barb was walking faster now that the end of the walk was in sight.

“A word of warning,” Lady Barb said, once they were out of earshot. “You’ve grown used to magic at Whitehall.”

Emily hesitated. She’d been at Whitehall for two years and there were times when magic – and the customs of the Allied Lands – could still surprise and horrify her. There was so much she had to learn, more – she suspected – than she would ever be
able
to learn, no matter how much time she spent in the library. And then there was the strange and confusing history of the Allied Lands. The more she looked at it, remembering what she knew from Earth’s history, the more she suspected that history had been ineptly rewritten.

“Yes,” she said, finally.

“You use magic as naturally as breathing, now,” Lady Barb continued. “When you are injured, you can be healed within a day. You turn your friends and rivals into small animals or objects and think it’s nothing more than a great joke.”

Emily shook her head. Magical transformation – voluntary or involuntary – might be a regular part of life at Whitehall, but it wasn’t something she suspected she would ever grow used to. And then there were the transformed beasts she’d seen hunted in Zangaria...

Lady Barb looked into her eyes. “That isn’t true for the people here,” she warned. “Magic is strange, powerful and unpredictable...for them. They’ve seen people warped and twisted by wild magic, to the point where they’re often glad to give up their children who happen to have developed magical powers. Quite a few of your fellows at Whitehall will never go home once they graduate. Some of them may not even wait that long to break all contact with their families.”

Emily swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. She had never really wanted to go back home, but surely someone who had a loving family would feel differently. But if the locals were so scared of magic...

“Don’t use magic directly, unless you have no other choice,” Lady Barb said, gently. “We don’t want to scare them if it can be avoided.”

She turned and led the way down the path. Emily followed after a moment, remembering how much magic she’d seen in Whitehall – and how little she’d seen in Zangaria. But even there, among the aristocracy, there was power enough to allow them to stand as equals to magicians. Here...she swallowed again, realizing just how powerless the locals actually were, compared to her friends. Magic would terrify them.

“They used to kill very young children who showed signs of magic,” Lady Barb called back to her, without turning around. “We think it still goes on, in places.”