Schooled in Magic (25 page)

“Or there’s the claim that you were influenced by the necromancers, or Alassa’s political enemies, and manipulated into injuring her ...”

Emily coughed, fighting to clear her throat. “It wasn’t anything like that,” she admitted. “I ... I lost my temper and almost killed the stupid bitch.”

Aloha looked at her for a long moment. “What happened?”

There was a long pause as Emily tried to think. How far could she trust Aloha? She might take whatever she heard to Sergeant Harkin and ... no, that was silly. The Sergeant would have heard from the Grandmaster and the rest of the tutors. If he wanted to boot her out of Martial Magic, he would have already decided to expel her. Shaking her head, Emily explained the whole story from beginning to end.

Afterwards, Aloha started to giggle. “And you’re meant to be a Child of Destiny,” she said tartly. “May the gods help us.”

Emily started to point out that she
wasn’t
a Child of Destiny–again–but settled for giggling instead. It
had
been a mistake–and she was confident that a trained combat sorcerer, or a necromancer, would have been able to brush aside her botched spells and kill her before she could cast something more workable. Alassa wasn’t
that
much more advanced than Emily, even if she’d had tutors teaching her spells by rote ever since Alassa’s magic had come to life.

Emily shook her head. “Why do they tolerate her? They told me there are no politics in the school.”

Aloha snorted. “They like to say that, don’t they?”

She tapped Emily’s forehead sharply. “There is no way that they can avoid facing the fact that Alassa is the heir to one of the most powerful of the Allied Lands, or that her death would shift the balance of power.” She paused. “We may be supposed to learn to get along with our fellow magicians, even ones from rival countries, but Alassa is an extreme case. If she hadn’t been the only child of her parents, I think she wouldn’t have been sent here at all. Her younger sibling–if she’d had one–could have become her Court Wizard. Or she might have had a brother who would be automatically first in line to the throne.”

“Oh,” Emily said. She remembered Shadye and shivered. “And why are they so
disunited
when the necromancers are at the gates?”

“Because they’re stupid,” Aloha said. “Or at least that’s what Professor Locke says, boiled down to its nub. The Allied Lands are afraid that someone might attempt to re-establish the Empire, so they watch their fellows as carefully as they watch the necromancers–and the necromancers are a great deal farther away. Unless you happen to live on the borders ...”

“Idiots,” Emily said, flatly. “And they just let Alassa make enemies for herself?”

“Kids have been fighting each other with magic since Whitehall was established,” Aloha said. “Alassa knows better, I think, than to pick on someone who might actually be
important
. Apart from you, I suppose. A Child of Destiny might up-end her Kingdom in passing.”

Emily thought about the ideas she’d sent to Imaiqah’s father and went cold. None of them were particularly complex–some of them would probably need some modification before they actually produced something workable–but they would
definitely
up-end local society even if they never spread any further. A system that required accountants who had trained for years wouldn’t be happy when Arabic numerals made counting so much easier. And without patents, or at least any way to enforce them, the changes would spread rapidly.

But you can’t overthrow a kingdom with a bra
, she thought. She’d seen footage of topless protestors burning their bras, but she couldn’t remember them actually achieving anything beyond creating an internet sensation that lasted for a few hours.
And you can’t use accountancy to count the King into surrendering his Kingdom
.

“And it also helps to build up friendships and gangs,” Aloha added, unaware of Emily’s thoughts. “By the time you get into second-year, you’ll discover that you have to work with your allies against other gangs, or you’ll be completely on your own. And outnumbered. You and Imaiqah had better start making other friends fast.”

“Joy,” Emily said. She found herself touching her rear. She shuddered, angrily. “And did all this happen to you?”

“I learned fast,” Aloha said. Her voice hardened. “Now tell me; what were you thinking when you cost us so many room credits?”

Emily blinked. “Room credits?”

“Whatever you do reflects on the room and your roommates,” Aloha coldly informed her. “I have no doubt that Madame Razz will deduct points from us based on what you did to Alassa.”

“But that isn’t
right
,” Emily said. “Why are you being punished for
my
failing?”

“Because roommates are supposed to help teach their fellows how to behave,” Aloha snapped. “You failed, so I failed, so the next visit to Dragon’s Den will be less ... pleasant than I expected. Or do you have enough coin to give me an advance?”

Emily stared at her, confused. “Dragon’s Den?”

Aloha gave her a surprised look. “I can understand that they sent you here when your magic blossomed into life, but why didn’t they give you even a simple introduction to the school?”

“I...” Emily started to say, then stopped. If she told Aloha the truth about where she came from, what would it do to this world? Was it possible that the necromancers might eventually find out about it and invade Earth, or ... hell, who needed the necromancers? Alassa’s parents might just decide on a war of conquest themselves. “They were in a tearing hurry.”

Or maybe the necromancers
couldn’t
go to Earth. Emily had magic, but her magic hadn’t come to life until she’d been transported to this
mana
-rich world. It was quite possible that the necromancers would find that they had no powers on her world, or the spells keeping them alive at such great cost would simply collapse and they’d die instantly.

Unless, of course, there actually
was
a secret magical society back home, one that had never bothered to send her an owl inviting Emily to Hogwarts. But somehow, she doubted it.

“Dragon’s Den is a free city ten miles west of Whitehall,” Aloha explained. “It used to be a trading hub before the necromancers pushed their borders up to the mountain. Now, it’s one of the first lines of defense against future incursions. We get to go there every three weeks to buy snacks, supplies and just get out of Whitehall for a few hours. But if we’ve lost room points over this, I won’t have so much to spend.”

“I’m sorry,” Emily said, and meant it. Aloha had had nothing to do with the fight between her and Alassa, let alone the mixed spells that had nearly killed the silly brat. “If I can draw on some of my pocket money, I’ll try and make it up to you.”

Aloha shrugged. “We’ll see what Madame Razz says, later.” She slapped Emily’s rear sharply, causing her to cry out in pain. “Just
don’t
do that to me again.”

Emily glared at her resentfully, before somehow managing to pull herself to her feet and pick up her pencil. “The Warden also wants me to write an essay,” she said, bitterly. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

“You could have been expelled,” Aloha said unsympathetically. “Or you could have been ordered to write out lines. Or ... you got away with nearly murdering a Royal Princess. Stop complaining.”

“Thank you, Miss Mature,” Emily said, finally. Or maybe she was being unfair to her roommate. This wasn’t a world where childhood extended until well into one’s teenage years, but one where children had to become useful as quickly as possible. Imaiqah had told her that she’d worked for her father from a very early age. “I don’t know how to write an essay.”

Aloha snorted. “You’ve had some formal schooling,” she said dryly. “Didn’t they teach you how to write essays?”

They had, but they’d been written on computers. If Emily had a thought that would better the first paragraph, it could be rewritten with ease, while spelling and grammar was checked by the word processing program. Her handwriting had never been good, partly because she hadn’t been forced to practice time and time again.

Here, even a short essay would be an absolute nightmare. Any mistakes would force her to rewrite the entire thing onto a new sheet of parchment, unless she could find an erasing spell. And she was
certain
that she would be marked down for every little spelling mistake.
And
she would have to write the essay in English and hope that their translation spells understood it properly. Her previous work had been enough to convince her that the spells had problems with certain figures of speech.

“You’d better learn fast,” Aloha said, her voice still dry. “This is a punishment essay. Failing to complete it will only get you caned. Again.”

Emily winced. Once had been quite bad enough.

Aloha saw Emily’s face and took pity on her. “Work out what you want to say first, then draft out the essay on parchment,” she suggested. “And then write it down section by section, with spells to clear up any mistakes. With a little work, you can save yourself from having to do it over and over again.”

Her face tightened. “And
don’t
leave it until the last minute. It will only cause you more trouble.”

Emily nodded. “Is there no way to create an automatic pencil around here?” Aloha looked blankly at her. “I mean, a pencil charmed to write down whatever you say ... ”

“There was a fourth-year who charmed his pencil into writing out ‘I will not cheat in class’ one thousand times after he was caught by Professor Thande,” Aloha said. “He was given an award for original thinking
after
he was severely punished. But all he wanted the pencil to do was repeat the same line, time and time again. I’ve never heard of a pencil that wrote what you told it to write.”

Aloha’s voice lowered. “You want me to ask someone from an advanced class?”

“If you could,” Emily said, “I would be grateful.”

Her mind raced ahead, thinking hard. What if someone could produce a computer made out of magic–or, more practically, something like those crappy word processors they’d had to use before the school had actually invested in computers? Maybe a key could be charmed to represent a single letter and, when pressed, the letter would be displayed in front of the writer. And then some programming would give her a workable word processor.

But producing something like that might be difficult. Except that ... she had a feeling that it would be easier than producing an automatic pen. Lombardi had explained, time and time again, that the easiest way to produce
anything
magical was to break it down as completely as possible, making sure that every spell component worked perfectly.

“And then I might have another idea for them,” she said. She’d have to write it all down on parchment. A twinge of pain from her rear reminded her that she didn’t dare start working on
this
project, all the while neglecting the punishment she’d been assigned. “I’ll have to write down the basic concept first.”

“Do your essay first,” Aloha advised. “Go to the library now and start researching.”

Emily hesitated, thought, and then nodded. But before she did anything else, she needed to know what showed on her face.

Slowly, she walked into the washroom and glanced at the mirror. No one would ever believe that she hadn’t been crying; the entire school would know that she had been punished. She didn’t want to walk out of the bedroom, knowing that everyone else would know, and yet ... what else could she do?

Carefully, she washed her face, wishing that they had some proper cosmetics. It was irony indeed that when she’d finally found a use for them, she could no longer buy the overpriced junk in stores. No doubt perfume, if it existed in this world, was hideously expensive.

“Good luck,” Aloha said, when Emily walked back into the main room and headed for the door. “Don’t tell anyone else what happened. Let them wonder and fear you.”

Emily snorted, then left the room. Outside, a handful of girls glanced at her and then looked away, too quickly.

Feeling as if someone were drawing a targeting crosshairs on her back, Emily left the dorms and headed down the corridors towards the library. Everyone seemed to be looking at her, staring at the girl who had come so close to murdering a right royal brat. No one said anything, but she could feel their gazes boring into her from behind. It seemed to take hours to reach the library and pass through the silencing field that kept the room reasonably quiet.

Imaiqah wasn’t here to help this time, but Emily was starting to see how the library went together. There was a long section on Charms, including several books that discussed magical accidents caused by sorcerers who didn’t cast their spells properly.

After picking one of them up and reading for a while, Emily realized in horror that the Warden had actually
understated
the danger. One idiot girl, having brewed a potion to make herself look like another girl, had made the mistake of using a cat hair as the source of genetic material. She’d turned herself into a cat-girl from a comic book, at least on the surface; inwardly, she’d warped her body so far that recovery was impossible. The poor girl would forever remain one of a kind, a strange hybrid of human and cat. Apparently, the book concluded, her technique had been duplicated, deliberately, by a sorcerer who wanted an army of inhuman soldiers. It hadn’t worked as well as the monsters created by the necromancers, but it had been bad enough to require a full regiment of troops and a squad of combat sorcerers to clear up the mess.