Work Experience (Schooled in Magic Book 4) (29 page)

Emily nodded. She’d been shocked when she’d first discovered how easy it was to use magic to manipulate a person’s mind, but she’d been at Whitehall, where help had been on hand if necessary. Here, there was no one to help Lord Gorham...and he wouldn’t want to admit, even to himself, just how easily he’d been manipulated. His pride wouldn’t let him. It reminded her of a lecture from her professor, months ago.

“The mind exists within a framework – and if that framework is warped by subtle magic, it is impossible to tell from the inside that it has been warped,” the Professor had said. “A person on the outside might notice odd behavior, but a person on the inside will accept it as completely normal. Given time, they will betray everything they hold dear, still convinced they are doing the right thing.”

She shivered. Or, as a philosopher on Earth had put it, if the universe was shrinking, and all the tools one used to measure it were shrinking as well, how would anyone know the universe was shrinking?

“Get some sleep, then go down to the town and speak to the headman,” Lady Barb added. Emily glanced at her watch and realized, to her shock, that it was three bells in the morning; she’d quite lost track of time. “Ask him if the dead children came from his town – and if Rudolf is still around.
Someone
must have known he was there.”

She smiled. “And post the letters at the same time,” she ordered. “We need to alert the White Council.”

Emily yawned as she walked into the next room. The maids had set up a small bed for her and a larger one for Lady Barb, but considering the castle, she cast wards and checked for runes before climbing into bed. If nothing else, she told herself, she could have a proper wash in the morning.

When she awoke, she discovered that the maids had to carry in a large bathtub, followed by buckets of water, just to make sure she could have a bath. Guiltily, she cursed her own oversight, tipping the maids with coins from her pouch. Of
course
they didn’t have hot running water in the castle.

She washed herself thoroughly and wrapped one of the cloths around her wrist. The rune the maids had sewn into it looked to be firmly in place, but she checked it anyway, just to be sure. She’d been told that a sewn rune would start to unpick itself if it was on the verge of being overwhelmed, yet there had been so many runes in the castle that she wasn’t sure if that would still hold true. Perhaps there had been so many runes in this place that the runes intended for Rudolf had been drained of power by the ones affecting his father. But, as far as she knew, there was no limit on how many runes a magician could use.

Lady Barb was still sitting next to Lord Gorham, asleep in a solid wooden chair. A protective ward spat sparks at her as she approached, so she left Lady Barb alone and walked into the main hall. The maids had already set out breakfast, which – thankfully – looked more appetizing than the meat from the previous night. Emily ate quickly, thanked the maids – they seemed astonished to be thanked for anything – and walked to the castle gates.

“I can escort you down to the town, Lady Sorceress,” the Captain of the Guard said, bowing low. “It isn’t safe down there.”

“No, thank you,” Emily said. “I want a chance to clear my head.”

And Rudolf won’t show himself,
she added in the privacy of her own thoughts,
if he sees me surrounded by guards
.

She regretted her decision almost as soon as she started to walk. The road was narrower than she’d realized, with plunging cliffs on both sides. It was easy to imagine accidentally walking over the edge in the darkness – or being thrown off the road, if she was trying to attack the castle. She couldn’t help thinking of some of the pictures she’d seen of homes built by mighty sorcerers, sorcerers with more power than sense. They’d balanced castles on tiny threads of land or sculpted them out of clouds. But it didn’t take much magic to disrupt the spells holding them together, allowing gravity to reassert itself. Void’s tower was far simpler, she remembered, and safer for him.

It was a relief when the road finally reached bottom and headed down into the town. Someone had pulled the soldiers back to the castle, and crowds of people were bustling around, their faces torn between worry and relief. She wondered just how much they knew about what had happened in the castle, but decided it probably didn’t matter. The rumors would be much – much – worse. Several people cast odd glances at her, then looked away hastily. Emily forced herself to stand upright as she strode towards the headman’s house, trying to project a display of confidence. She wasn’t sure it worked.

The town was definitely better organized than the first village they’d visited. Behind the home of the local blacksmith, there was a fishmonger, calling for people to come and eat his fresh fish. The blacksmith himself – one of the beefiest men Emily had ever seen – didn’t seem impressed, either with the shouting or with the stench drifting through the air.

“Get your fresh fish here,” the fishmonger called, as the stench of fish drifted through the town. “Fresh fish! It’s lovely!”

“Your fish stinks,” the blacksmith shouted. “It’s rotten!”

Emily wrinkled her nose, then walked on to the headman’s house. Behind her, she heard the sounds of a fight breaking out. She didn’t look back.

There were two men outside the headman’s house as she approached. Emily forced herself to keep projecting confidence as she walked up to the door. One of them opened it for her and called inside, while the other bowed deeply but kept one hand on his sword. Emily wondered, absently, just why they were guarding their headman, before deciding it didn’t matter. She stepped inside and blinked in surprise as she saw the headman, sitting on a chair that seemed to balance on top of a ladder. It had to be his version of a throne.

She concealed her amusement as he stepped down and bowed to her. “Lady Sorceress,” he said. Up close, he was shorter than she’d realized – and fat enough to roll downhill. She couldn’t help wondering how he managed to eat so well, particularly when she hadn’t seen any other fat men since leaving the Faire. But he certainly looked kinder than Hodge’s father. “What can I do for you?”

Emily reminded herself, firmly, that she wasn’t a supplicant. “There are two matters that need to be discussed,” she said, trying to channel Lady Barb. “Have any children gone missing from your town?”

The headman looked surprised. “Of course not,” he said. “We haven’t lost
anyone
.”

But you gained one
, Emily thought. Somehow, Rudolf had managed to pose as a townsperson for several days. She kept that thought to herself.

“No one,” she said. Surely, even the most powerful runes couldn’t hide a missing child from her parents? “The next issue, then: where is Rudolf?”

The headman started. Clearly, he’d been anticipating some uncomfortable questions from his lord after Rudolf had been discovered in his town. Emily wondered just what Lord Gorham would do, then decided that it was likely to be horrific. Or perhaps he would just invite Lady Barb to use magic to interrogate the headman.

“I don’t know,” the headman said, finally. “He ran into the countryside and vanished.”

Emily studied him for a long moment, deciding he seemed to be telling the truth. “Tell him that the matter has been solved and he is welcome to return home, should you see him again,” she said. She suspected that Rudolf had friends in the town, insofar as he
could
have friends. The social gulf between him and the townsfolk was staggering. “But the countryside isn’t safe.”

The headman’s eyes narrowed. “Why not?”

Emily hesitated. She could tell them about the necromancer...but what good would that do? It wasn’t as if they could do anything about it – all they could do was flee. But if they did, where would they go? She doubted that any of the other tiny kingdoms in the mountains could handle a horde of refugees. And yet, if they stayed where they were, they would be nothing more than fodder for the necromancer.

“I met up with a poisonous snake on the road yesterday,” she reminded him, finally. The entire village would have heard about the snake by now. “I was able to...deal with the snake, but I don’t think Rudolf would be so lucky.”

The headman paled. “I will pass on your message, if I see him. But he may have fled by now.”

Emily hoped not. She dreaded to imagine what one of the other mountain lords would do with Rudolf, let alone the necromancer. Lord Gorham would have to make whatever concessions they wanted, just to have his son returned.

“Please tell him, if you see him,” she said, “Spread the word.”

“Of course, My Lady,” the headman said.

Emily flushed, half-convinced she was being mocked. Sergeant Miles used the exact same tone when he was pointing out one of her mistakes, and she’d never liked it.

“Thank you,” she said, tartly.

She turned and walked out of the house, heading towards the post office. The postal service in the Allied Lands was run by the White Council rather than any of the independent kingdoms or city-states; in some ways, it reminded Emily of the Pony Express. But compared to email it was slow, cumbersome and unreliable. Magic could be used to move messages faster, but that required careful spellwork. She suspected she would have to look into it when she reached Fifth Year. Linking two crystal balls together was more complex, apparently, than it seemed.

The officer on duty – a part-time worker – took the letters, checked the seals and then stowed them away in a box. If he noticed Emily’s subtle check for magic or magical influences, he said nothing. Emily thanked him and left, picking up a copy of the latest broadsheet on the way out. She snorted in amusement as she read the front page story, as it was focused on the antics of Princess Lucinda, who lived on the other side of the Allied Lands. Why would anyone in the mountains really want to know about her?

She was still smiling at the thought as she returned to the castle.

“H
E DOESN’T REMEMBER MUCH,” LADY BARB
said, two days later. “I wish I could say I’m surprised.”

Emily nodded. Lord Gorham seemed to have blocked the whole experience out of his mind, leaving them without any leads to follow. None of his servants had any idea when the runes had first started to appear, either.

The more Emily looked at it, the more it seemed like the mystery necromancer had covered his tracks well. But why would a necromancer bother to hide?

Lady Barb smiled at her. “You did well with the sewn runes, by the way,” she added. “I think it will be a long time before anyone tries the same trick again.”

Emily let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. There were rules on sharing magical knowledge with mundanes, even though telling the maids how to sew protective runes had seemed the only answer. If Lady Barb had chosen to be annoyed...but Lady Barb was practical, certainly more practical than whoever had dreamed up the rules. Spreading
that
sort of knowledge far and wide would certainly make it harder for the mystery necromancer to spread his influence.

“We can’t stay here any longer,” Lady Barb continued. “I think we need to head onwards to Easter.”

“Where Lady Easter rules,” Emily said. She tried to recall the map she’d seen of the mountain states. “Isn’t that two days away?”

“More like four,” Lady Barb admitted. She grinned at Emily’s expression. “The direct route leads far too close to old ruins, so I’d prefer to avoid it.”

Emily shivered. Old ruins could only mean one thing, buildings constructed during the days of the Faerie. She’d seen one of them up close in the mountains near Whitehall and still had nightmares, sometimes. There were too many dangers in such ruins for anyone to be complacent about approaching them. Even a necromancer would have second thoughts about trying to enter such a place.

“Go pack your bag,” Lady Barb added. “And make sure you pack extra cloths with sewn runes. We might need them.”

Emily hastened to obey. When she returned, she found Lady Barb deep in conversation with Lord Gorham. He looked pale and wan, but at least he was moving around. Emily waited at the door for them to finish, wondering just where Rudolf was now. He’d never returned to the castle. Maybe he was just waiting for the two magicians to leave.

“Come on,” Lady Barb said, finally. “Let’s go.”

The walk down the mountain path was no better this time. Emily kept her eyes firmly on the road until they reached the valley, then followed Lady Barb through the town and onto a path leading through the forests. This path was harder to follow than the last, she decided after spending thirty minutes scrambling over rocks and streams that were deceptively small, but treacherously fast. By the time they passed the river that marked the edge of Lord Gorham’s territory, she was exhausted, sweaty and desperate for a break.

“Not too much further to go,” Lady Barb said, encouragingly. For once, she looked exhausted, too. “You can do it.”

Emily scowled. The older woman had never shown a trace of being tired before, so why was she tired now? God knew Lady Barb had joined route marches with Martial Magic before...she hadn’t shown any real tiredness then either, any more than Sergeant Miles. She couldn’t help a flicker of concern. Was something wrong...or had her lack of sleep finally caught up with her? She doubted Lady Barb had had more than a few hours of sleep while they’d stayed at the castle.

She expended a great deal of magic there
, she thought.
She might be exhausted...

Lady Barb pressed onwards, somehow, until they reached another clearing. This one looked wilder than the last, as if someone had cut down the trees without bothering to do anything else to prevent them from growing back. Emily puzzled over how they’d removed the logs, then looked at the river and knew the answer. They’d simply floated the logs down to the town below, one by one. It was simpler than trying to drag them down overland.

“They prefer not to cut trees too close to the town,” Lady Barb explained, as she shrugged off her pack and placed it on a rock. “There’s an old tradition about what happens to towns that aren’t surrounded by trees.”