Schooled in Magic (65 page)

Emily managed to pull herself upright to glare at him. “How many did I kill?”

“None,” the Grandmaster said.

Emily breathed a sigh of relief.

“But you froze Madame Razz and knocked out seven combat magicians when you tried to enter the nexus chamber,” the Grandmaster added. “I suppose Shadye didn’t want to risk you becoming aware that something was wrong by killing them outright.”

Emily looked down at her hands. “I knocked out seven combat magicians?”

“Shadye did, working through you,” the Grandmaster said. Emily wondered, suddenly, if he was lying. She’d thought that she was fighting demons. “It wasn’t your fault. They know that.”

He stood. “Your friends wish to see you now that you are awake. Would you like me to have them called here, now?”

“I don’t know,” Emily admitted. She wanted to be alone, even though part of her mind insisted that was the worst possible thing she could do. “Are they ... are they scared of me?”

“I think half the school will be a little scared of you,” the Grandmaster said grimly. “But your friends should stick with you. They know the real you.”

No, they don’t
, Emily thought. She’d never told them where she really came from, or
why
her morals were so different than theirs. Or, for that matter, why she had insights into magic and science that they found so revolutionary. And she had effectively lied to them more than once to keep her secret.

“Yes,” she said finally. She shouldn’t be alone. “Call them in.”

“One other point,” the Grandmaster said. He hesitated awkwardly. “You made a bargain with the Unseelie Court.”

Emily froze, expecting her oath to kill her before remembering that the Grandmaster had pulled the information from her mind against her will. She hadn’t even
considered
allowing him to learn the answer to his questions by reading her mind, which was probably what had saved her life. It hadn’t been her fault.

“I understand why you made the bargain, and that you were given no time to think, but it was not wise,” the Grandmaster said. He held up a hand before she could speak. “Say nothing to me, even now. Oaths can be tricky things and this one could kill you. But understand: the Unseelie are
not
human. They may well demand something from you that will cost you everything, perhaps even your humanity.”

Emily wanted to point out that the human race used the fairies as potion ingredients and it was hard to blame them for wanting to remain hidden, but she held her tongue. The Grandmaster was right; it had been foolish to make the oath, even though there had been little choice. She couldn’t have left the Redshirts to be boiled alive and eaten by the Orcs, or whatever fate their dark master had planned for captured students. They deserved much better than abandonment.

“If their demands are unreasonable, bring them to me and we will try to ... negotiate,” the Grandmaster said. “Or you could allow the oath to take its toll.”

And die
, Emily thought, feeling sick.

The Grandmaster bowed to her. “I thank you for saving my school. And I hope that your remaining years will be less exciting.”

He walked out of the doorway and left Emily alone.

She glanced around, noting the pile of flowers in one corner of the room and a handful of bottles someone had placed on the table near the bed. It was still hard to move her body without feeling dizzy, but she managed to reach a bottle of juice and take a swig without pouring it down her neck and spilling it on the bed. The liquid was refreshing, enough to make it easier to remain upright without falling back on the bed.

A moment later, the door burst open and Alassa and Imaiqah ran into the room.

“You’re awake,” Imaiqah said. She threw herself at Emily and gave her a hug. “They kept saying that you were on the verge of death!”

“I felt that way,” Emily admitted, unwilling to talk about what had happened. Shadye hadn’t just wanted to kill her; he’d wanted to corrupt her, to force her to take up necromancy and serve him as a slave. If it hadn’t been for Sergeant Harkin, he might have succeeded. “But I’m getting better.”

Alassa took Emily’s hand, squeezing it tightly. “You’re going to be even more famous, thanks to her,” she said, nodding at Imaiqah. “My parents have
insisted
that I invite you back home between terms. I think they want to squeeze some political advantage out of you.”

Emily blinked. “More famous?”

Imaiqah reached into her robes and produced a scroll of cheap parchment. “I told my father about what you did, about how you defeated a necromancer in single combat without actually
being
a necromancer and he had it written up for the broadsheet singers,” she said. “The news has been spreading through the Allied Lands and everyone
loves
you.”

Feeling an odd sense of doom, Emily unrolled the parchment and found herself looking down at a charcoal drawing of her face. It wasn’t a bad likeness, although her eyes looked slightly slanted, but it was the caption underneath that caught her eye. It read “Lady Emily, Necromancer’s Bane.” There was nowhere near as much text below the portrait as there would have been in a newspaper from back home, but the writer had managed to cram a number of exaggerations and outright lies in anyway. It would have been proof that some things were truly universal if she hadn’t been so flabbergasted and annoyed.

“You do realize ... ” She began, and then stopped. Of course Imaiqah hadn’t known how she’d beaten Shadye. If the Grandmaster hadn’t known, how could she? “Half of this story isn’t true.”

She gazed down at the line of text that claimed to be the story of her origin and rolled her eyes. It didn’t mention alternate worlds or necromantic kidnappings. Instead, it suggested that she’d been adopted by a farming couple who had found her hidden by the roadside, managing to imply–without ever directly stating it–that she might have aristocratic blood. It also hinted that her parents had been murdered by a necromancer and she had devoted her life to their destruction.

“They’ll be expecting me to dress up as a bat next,” she muttered as she rolled up the parchment and passed it back to Imaiqah. On the plus side, anyone who actually
believed
that story would prove himself an idiot. And a fearsome reputation would make it harder for established interests to block ideas and concepts she’d introduced into the world. “Or maybe fly through the sky faster than a speeding bullet.”

Imaiqah blinked. “You don’t like it?”

“It isn’t even remotely true,” Emily pointed out. It wasn’t even the story she’d given them when they’d asked where she’d been born. “They have to know that.”

“The common people are fond of believing silly stories,” Alassa said dryly. “If they knew little about your origin”–she shot Emily a look she couldn’t interpret–“the writers will simply make something up. By now, there will be a hundred different versions of your origin and of how you beat a necromancer. The real necromancers will be unable to deduce the truth from the lies.”

“Assuming that one of them doesn’t get it right,” Imaiqah added. “You’d be astonished how many people have been sending you letters, and presents, and ...”

“Threats,” Alassa butted in. “Some people are already hinting that you have already fulfilled your destiny.”

Emily opened her mouth and then closed it again, unable to think of a suitable response. She didn’t want to be considered a Child of Destiny, or
special
. Or, for that matter, dangerous. But she
was
dangerous to the established order in the Allied Lands, simply by being a font of ideas for Imaiqah’s father and others like him. And when she started a bank to reward others with good ideas ... it was going to change the world.

“I wish I knew,” Emily said, after a long pause. It was difficult, but she managed to swing her legs over the side of the bed and stand up. “Can you find me some potion for energy and dizziness?”

“You were badly drained,” Imaiqah said, carefully. “You really should stay in bed.”

Emily shook her head. “I need to find something mindless to do,” she said. Everything she’d seen and done was bubbling to the top of her mind, threatening to drive her insane. She’d effectively killed a tutor she’d respected, even admired. And one who had worked at a school for magicians without having any magic himself. She still couldn’t believe that no one had realized until it was too late. But then, who would have dared to cast a practical joke charm on one of the Sergeants?

“There are teams sorting through the remains of the alchemy classrooms,” Alassa said. She hesitated. “I’d suggest that you got dressed before you went down there.”

Emily looked down at her gown and nodded. “Very well,” she said. It was difficult to dress herself, even in a basic robe, but somehow she managed it. The more she moved, the more responsive and steady her body became, helped by a potion Alassa found in a nearby cupboard. “Let’s go.”

E
MILY STOOD ALONE IN THE MIDST
of a vast crowd.

The remaining students had been joined by a small army of parents, aristocrats and people who just wanted to be seen there. Emily had donned her training uniform, as instructed by Sergeant Miles, but the crowds had no difficulty in picking her out and pointing at her, as visitors to a zoo might point at a particularly interesting animal. Very few had risked speaking to her and those who had tried to speak with her had made her feel more alone than ever. She wasn’t a person to them, just a force of nature that they thought they could bend to their own use.

It made her feel sick.

Sergeant Miles hadn’t said anything to her about Sergeant Harkin’s death, but she’d overhead whispers from the remaining students in Martial Magic, which probably meant that they were all around the school. They thought that she’d killed him in a necromantic rite; they chose to ignore the fact that he’d
told
her to kill him - and that Shadye had given her no choice. The other students, apart from Jade and the rest of the Redshirts, seemed either contemptuous or terrified of her. They wondered if the school had a necromancer attending classes beside students who would provide an excellent source of power.

Those weren’t the only whispers. The Grandmaster had told the school, after Emily had recovered enough to join the rest of the students for dinner in the dining hall, that Emily had defeated and killed Shadye. That was true, as far as it went, and no one disputed that Emily deserved the awards the Grandmaster had given her, but now they were wondering about favoritism. Would Emily be punished if she did something bad? Would the tutors
dare
to punish her if she did something
really
bad? These questions struck Emily as absurd, yet the next two broadsheets she’d read had claimed that she had enough power–naturally–to blink the rest of the necromancers out of existence. Who would dare to try to discipline a walking, talking atomic bomb?

Maybe I should get myself punished deliberately
, she thought as Sergeant Miles began to bark orders.
Convince them that I am still a normal student. But that only works in sappy novels about boarding schools written by writers who have never attended one
.

She picked up her handle and helped to lift Sergeant Harkin’s coffin, carrying it out into the cemetery. The dead students would be buried in their home countries, but the tutors were all going to be buried at Whitehall. She caught sight of the angelic statues and shivered as they moved towards the hole in the ground where Sergeant Harkin would be laid to rest. The whispers only seemed to get louder as the watching crowd realized that Emily was one of the pallbearers. Those who knew that she had killed the Sergeant were shocked, even if Sergeant Miles had been the one who had ordered it.

The Grandmaster stood at the front of the crowd, surrounded by several dozen men and a handful of women in the black uniforms of combat magicians. Harkin would have trained them, Emily realized, wincing at the way they looked at her. She had killed him and some of them - perhaps all of them - would never forgive her for it. They either didn’t know what had really happened, like the other students, or they didn’t care.

“Lower the coffin,” Sergeant Miles ordered quietly. He tapped his throat as the pallbearers obeyed, boosting his voice so he could be heard all over the cemetery. “Sergeant Harkin joined the army as a very young man and served in a dozen battles, earning medals and promotion, before finally being invited to serve as a Drill Sergeant at Whitehall. He shaped the lives of hundreds of students, preparing them for the duties of combat magicians in a time of war. Those who passed his course knew more than just magic; they knew how to
fight
.

“He had no magic, but he never let that stand in his way.

“To be a Drill Sergeant is never easy. Many capable soldiers have failed to train new recruits even if they serve brilliantly in combat, or behind the lines. The Drill Sergeant must
understand
his charges, knowing that they will come to regard him as a sadistic monster. He must push them to their limits, reforming them into soldiers
without
breaking them. He must pretend to be a sadist without actually
being
a sadist. It is not always easy to tell when one is crossing that line.