Infinite Regress (39 page)

... Someone is screaming in the distance...

... A spider-like creature, maddeningly out of focus, looms over her suddenly. She draws a knife from her belt and hurls it at the creature, causing a backwash of magic that picks her up and hurls her across the room...

... Someone is screaming in the distance...

... The room is permeated by a blur of multicolored lights...

“Emily,” a voice snapped. For a long moment, Emily was unsure if she was still dreaming or awake. “Emily, wake up!”

Emily opened her eyes and found herself looking up at Melissa. Instinctively, she tried to lash out, but her hand was caught in the sleeping bag. Her body was drenched in sweat, her head throbbing with pain... she’d been having a nightmare. She hadn’t had such a bad nightmare, she recalled as she forced herself to sit upright, since after Master Grey’s death.

“Emily,” Melissa whispered. She’d cast privacy wards, Emily realized. Her screaming might have disturbed the other girls, if Melissa hadn’t acted quickly. “What happened?”

Emily fought to recall the nightmare, but it was already slipping from her mind into a blurred haze of strange images and sensations. She had been in the control room, hadn’t she? Had someone made her go there again? But Melissa wouldn’t have let her leave without a fight, surely? She tested the room gingerly, hunting for traces of magical residue, but sensed nothing. Nothing suggested that she’d stunned and frozen Melissa before sneaking out and down into the tunnel network.

It will be guarded
, she thought, as she stood. Her clothes felt unclean, stained with dust and sweat.
There’s no way down into the tunnels
.

“I don’t know,” she said, finally. “I had a nightmare.”

“I’m not surprised,” Melissa said, bluntly. “You’re not the only one to have problems.”

She waved a hand towards Tiega, who shifted uncomfortably in her sleeping bag and Dulcet, who seemed ill at ease. Emily eyed the two girls for a long moment and then headed for the door. She needed to
breathe
. Melissa took a sharp breath as Emily opened the door, but made no move to stop her. Emily wasn’t sure if she realized Emily merely needed some space or if she suspected Emily would get in trouble, when she was caught outside the classroom. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she needed to be alone for a few minutes.

Closing the door behind her, she leaned against the wall and took a deep breath. The air was cold, colder than she’d expected... the wards, naturally, ensured that the school stayed the same temperature all year round, regardless of the season. Now, the wards weren’t maintaining the temperature or cleaning the air. She shuddered as the implications struck her, again. They might just run out of air if they didn’t manage to transfigure carbon dioxide back into oxygen. She hoped, desperately, that Professor Lombardi could produce the right mix of oxygen and nitrogen to allow them to continue to breathe.

“Emily,” Aloha said, from further down the corridor. “Is there a
reason
you’re out of the classroom?”

Emily jumped. She hadn’t heard the Head Girl sneaking up on her. Sergeant Harkin would have bawled her out for not being better aware of her surroundings, particularly when the entire school was in danger. She dreaded to think what Lady Barb or Mistress Danielle would have said, if they’d caught her. Hell,
Aloha
was hardly likely to be
polite
about it.

“I had a nightmare,” Emily admitted. She tried, again, to recollect the dream, but the last memories were gone. “I couldn’t sleep for long.”

“A common problem,” Aloha said. “You’re not the only one with bad dreams.”

Emily nodded, shortly. She wasn’t too surprised. The students of Whitehall seemed to be tougher than the students she recalled from Earth—they certainly were more willing to solve problems themselves, rather than go to a higher authority—but being trapped in a collapsing pocket dimension would give anyone nightmares. Maybe she hadn’t been the only student who’d woken, screaming.

“Professor Locke was raging,” Aloha added. “He was down in his office, tearing through manuscripts and screaming in rage.”

“He thinks all the credit for uncovering the secrets of the past will be stolen,” Emily said, shortly. She wondered if she should be more concerned about the priceless—and irreplaceable—documents stored in Professor Locke’s office. They might be useless when it came to unlocking the secrets, but they
were
unique. “And he blames me for stealing the books.”

Aloha gave her a sharp look. “What books?”

“Long story,” Emily said. She shook her head, slowly. She’d
liked
Professor Locke, right up until the moment he’d started to threaten her. He was growing increasingly unstable, driven by his obsession. And yet, she knew what it was like to lose something she wanted desperately. “He genuinely
wanted
to unlock those secrets.”

“And if he hadn’t,” Aloha said curtly, “we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“Yeah,” Emily agreed.

She scowled at the thought. Grandmaster Hasdrubal had known, she suspected, that meddling with the control systems would be disastrous. Or maybe his early life had conditioned him not to rock the boat too much. Either way, he’d preserved Whitehall... without ever leaving a note for his successor explaining what he’d done.

And Gordian had authorized Professor Locke to explore the tunnels, starting the slow collapse of the entire school.

“There are some basins and buckets of water in the next classroom,” Aloha told her, breaking into Emily’s thoughts. “Go wash your face and hands, then go back to bed. Mornings always come too soon.”

Emily smiled. “Is it really morning,” she asked with tired humor, “if we can’t see the sun?”

“The clocks still work,” Aloha said. She cleared her throat, loudly. “Go get yourself a wash, then sleep. You look terrible.”

“Thanks,” Emily said, sourly. “I feel terrible too.”

M
ELISSA LET HER SLEEP UNTIL FIVE
bells, Emily discovered when she woke for the second time, but she didn’t feel any better. She dragged herself awake and settled down to watch the students while Melissa took a quick nap. The entire room was drenched in silencing wards, ensuring that a student who had a nightmare wouldn’t be able to disturb anyone else. Even so, she still felt tired, thirsty and headachy when Madame Razz knocked at the door to wake the students. It was almost a relief to chivvy the younger girls into the Great Hall and collect a mug of Kava and a breakfast of porridge and fried sausages.

“Emily,” Caleb said. He looked pale, but otherwise fine. “Are you all right?”

“Bad dreams,” Emily admitted. She’d never told him about her nightmares. “I didn’t sleep very well.”

“A couple of young idiots tried to sneak out in the middle of the night,” Caleb told her. “I didn’t sleep very well either.”

Emily winced, then caught Professor Lombardi’s eye. The tutor waved them both over, so Emily said her goodbyes to Melissa and led Caleb to Professor Lombardi. Two other charms tutors—Professors Jayne and Ronald—were standing nearby, carrying wands, staffs and a collection of manuscripts so ancient that the only things holding them together were a number of preservation spells. Emily wasn’t surprised when the manuscripts were passed to Caleb and her, freeing up the tutors to carry their tools. The only real surprise was a grim-faced Professor Locke walking in to join them before they could leave the hall.

“It has been made clear to me,” Professor Locke said, “that I owe you an apology for my harsh words.”

“Thank you,” Emily said. Part of her still hurt at the memory of his accusations, but there was no point in pushing the matter. “I accept your apology.”

“Good,” Professor Lombardi said to everyone. “Now, follow me.”

He led the way out of the hall and down towards the gates. Emily and Caleb found themselves bringing up the rear, Caleb eying Professor Locke’s back with an unfriendly gaze while Emily brooded. Who had told Professor Locke he should apologize? Sergeant Miles? Professor Lombardi? Or Gordian? The Grandmaster had to be having second or third thoughts about the whole project. But he had no choice, Emily knew. Unlocking the secrets of Whitehall was all that would keep them from ending up like Professor Rooihemp—or worse. They might all be crushed out of existence if the walls collapsed in on them.

“I’ve been going through my papers,” Professor Locke said, as they reached the gates. The spells that had concealed them seemed to have vanished completely, leaving them easily visible to the naked eye. “There’s very little concerning the control room itself, but there are a number of vague hints that might be useful.”

“We’ll go through them once we get down there,” Professor Lombardi said. He glanced back at Professor Locke, then at Emily. “None of you are to touch
anything
. I do not want to rearrange the interior of the school again.”

“Yes, sir,” Emily said.

Caleb leaned forward. “Were our bedrooms ever located?”

“They’re right at the top of the school,” Professor Ronald said. He turned to wink at Caleb, then smile at Emily. “You’ll have to climb all the way up to recover your trunks.”

He smiled as he turned back to Professor Lombardi. Emily eyed him, thoughtfully. She had never seen him before starting Fifth Year, suggesting he was a new hire. He was a short man with jet-black hair, his face so free of blemishes that she suspected he used magic to alter his appearance. It was impossible to deduce his age, but he had to be in his early thirties at the very least. Come to think of it, he might well be considerably older. Whitehall’s staff was supposed to have at least a decade of experience before any of them started to teach.

She pushed the thought out of her head as they walked through the gates and down the flight of stairs to the control room. The dust seemed to have been stirred up by
something
; it lay in rows, as if someone had tried to plough the dusty floors without sweeping up or otherwise removing the dust. She used a charm to cover her mouth, glancing into the library chamber as they passed. The books were indeed missing, but she couldn’t taste her magic in the air. It had already faded into the background.

If it was there at all
, she thought. She doubted either Sergeant Miles or Professor Lombardi would make such a mistake, but she knew she hadn’t been there. Caleb’s theory—that someone had faked her signature—might be right after all. But the nightmare worried her, all the more so because she couldn’t remember the details. Shadye had used a nightmare to warp her perceptions too.
There’s no way to know for sure
.

Professor Lombardi led the way into the control room, then stopped. “Do not touch
anything
,” he repeated, sternly. A dull thrumming echoed through the room, forcing him to raise his voice. “I’ll have the hide of anyone who does.”

Emily glanced around. The crystalline consoles
definitely
reminded her of a starship bridge, perhaps one of the alien ships from
Babylon Five
... or, perhaps, the starship
Enterprise
, if the bridge had been made out of crystal instead of touch-screens. She could see pieces of spellware drifting within the bigger crystals, each one dancing around with a multitude of others that seemed perfectly in harmony. It was almost like watching a coordinated dance; the dancers moved in harmony, as long as they all remembered their steps. Indeed, just
watching
the spellware was almost hypnotic.

“We will start by copying the spellware,” Professor Lombardi informed them. “You all know how to analyze a piece of spellwork, so we’ll merely follow the same procedure.”

He motioned for Emily and Caleb to put the manuscripts down against the wall, and then passed out large sheets of paper. Professors Jayne and Ronald started work at once, sketching detailed spell diagrams that were both vastly more complex—and yet more simplistic—than anything Emily had seen before, save for the Mimic. Indeed, she suspected the Mimic was
far
more complex. Perhaps it had been created later, by the same person who’d created Whitehall...

If Lord Whitehall created the Mimics
, she thought, as she started to draw her own diagram,
what does that say about him?

“This piece of spellwork is simple, but it interacts with four more,” Professor Jayne said, thoughtfully. She was easily the oldest magician—at least in appearance—that Emily had met, her body withered and her hair as white as snow. Emily had no idea why she hadn’t used spells to regain her lost youth, but there was nothing wrong with her mind. “I think that tampering with one piece of spellware will create a domino effect that will damage several more.”

“And they’re so
small
,” Professor Ronald added. “How do they even
work
?”

Professor Lombardi glanced at Emily. “Care to offer a suggestion?”

Emily swallowed. Between them, the three charms tutors could have well over two
centuries
of experience. They’d forgotten more than she’d ever learned. The thought of lecturing them on
anything
was terrifying. But she’d done more practical work on such spells than anyone else, save the creator of the Mimics...

“It’s like a house,” she said, looking up from her diagram. “Each brick relies on the bricks above and below it, sharing the weight. Here, a number of very small spells work together to produce an effect that might be produced with a single larger spell, but with much less flexibility.”

She looked back down, feeling oddly nervous. As far as she knew, she and Gordian were the only living people who’d actually held control of Whitehall’s wards, working through the user interface in the nexus chamber above them. The system had been astonishingly flexible, flexible enough to allow her to craft a pocket dimension within Whitehall,
without
risking the destruction of the entire school. And yet, Master Tor had been utterly horrified when she’d started to experiment with pocket dimensions herself. The wards
had
to be capable of adjusting themselves to handle a new pocket dimension, provided the dimension was attached to the wards.