Faculty of Fire (40 page)

No. I couldn’t do it.

“Good luck!” I shouted to Alice and Chas, and jumped back down into the room.

Naive was just about to close the curtains over the creeper. I rushed to help him, but we were too late anyway.

“What’s all this?” the troll thundered, glancing into the room and seeing only two people instead of the four who ought to be there. “Where are the other two?”

“They jumped out the window,” I replied cheerfully as I neatly covered the window with the curtains.

“Right, out of the way, small fry,” the troll roared, tossing Naive and me aside with a single gentle push, as if we were as light as feathers.

“What kind of wonder is this?” he exclaimed when he saw my “weed”. “Aha. They climbed out along this thing ...”

“Aha,” I confirmed. “And that thing won’t hold you.”

“Why would I even want it to?” the troll asked in surprise. “Three of you are enough for me. And they’ll catch the rest on the next floor.”

I must confess that I felt relieved. I was afraid he might try to pull the “weed” off or, even worse, climb out after Alice and Chas. But apparently he wasn’t going to do anything of the sort, because he believed they’d be caught on the next floor anyway. So there were trolls wandering around on the other floors too? Now that was news! A full-scale invasion from the sound of it.

“And you, small fry, have really got my goat now,” the troll remarked, grabbing Naive by the scruff of the neck and trying to fling him out through the open door.

I decided to try the civilised route of negotiation.

“I beg your pardon, I don’t know the proper way to address you, but we’ll go with you quietly, there’s absolutely no need ...”

The troll was clearly not as civilised as I might have thought. Otherwise he wouldn’t have thumped me on the ear ...

A young man dressed in bright-coloured hand-me-downs declared in swashbuckling fashion:

“If you know everything you want ...”

“ ... either you don’t know very much ...” a beautiful girl continued.

“Or you don’t want very much,” the young man concluded.

I came round in a medium-sized hall with one curved wall (it was a perfectly standard hall, the Academy had hundreds like it). No windows, walls that were, naturally, completely smooth, with a blue sheen. It reminded me of the Meditation Hall where we had spent so much time, except for one thing – standing in the middle of this hall was a strange object made up of a huge number of prisms connected together at all sorts of tricky angles. The sum total of this combination looked rather like a human figure. Some kind of monument that they’d stuck up to someone, maybe?

“At last someone’s come round,” a strange rumbling voice muttered.

I’d heard that voice before somewhere.

“Hello,” I said uncertainly, and looked around to see who it was.

It turned out I really wasn’t alone in the hall. But the other four people lying on the floor beside me (three in yellow livery and one in blue) were all unconscious. “I beg your pardon, but who are you?” I enquired, looking closely at everyone on the floor, in case one of them moved his lips.

“I’m the automag,” the voice replied.

Ah, the automag! Yes, I’d heard that before. Wasn’t that the entity that Caiten created using his own technology, which nobody really understood apart from him? It was the automag’s voice we’d heard before the first test at the enrolment, and then afterwards in the Golden Half-Moon. The first-year students weren’t really supposed to know about this, but our tutor often used to tell us about his inventions during lectures ... and on a couple of occasions he had mentioned his pride and joy – the automag. Although I hadn’t really understood much of his explanations ...

“My name’s Zachary,” I said, introducing myself.

“I know,” the automag replied.

“Then maybe you know what’s happening in the Academy?” I asked eagerly, getting up rather unsteadily off the floor.

I was still dizzy and my head was aching. The troll had really clouted me hard.

“Yes, I do,” the automag replied. There has been an attack on the Academy and most of the students and Craftsmen are barricaded in the Main Hall.”

Then there was silence.

I walked over to one of the people on the floor.

Neville. He was breathing. So he was all right.

“Who has attacked?” I asked.

“Trolls ... mostly.”

“Mostly?”

“Well ... there’s someone who let them in. It was almost certainly a man who did it.”

That was logical. It was probably impossible to take the Academy by surprise without help from a traitor.

I walked over to the man in blue livery. Caiten? So they’d caught him too? I wonder how they’d managed that.

“It wasn’t difficult,” the automag replied. “When magic doesn’t work, most of the Craftsmen are absolutely helpless.”

“I see,” I muttered.

Stop! I hadn’t asked my question out loud, so how could he have answered it?

“I tuned myself to the wavelength of your thoughts,” the automag answered. “I hope that our conversation will move along more quickly now.”

He hopes ...

I hastily walked round the other two lying on the floor-- Naive and Steel. Both were breathing regularly, so they were alive. So that meant they hadn’t caught Chas and Alice yet? I hoped they were all right ...

“And why are you in such a great hurry?” I asked absentmindedly.

“In a few minutes my energy will run out and I’ll switch off.”

“What? I thought the Academy had endless amounts of energy ... after all, they work spells here all the time ...”

“Nonsense,” the automag interrupted. “Energy has to come from somewhere ...”

And it has to go somewhere. I knew that.

“Well ... that’s clear enough, they get it from the rays of the sun, from the earth, from the air ...”

“Precisely,” the automag agreed. “But the Academy uses an immense amount of energy every day, more than the Emperor ever dreamed of.”

““And where does it come from?” I asked.

“Every ‘daisy’ in the city sends a tenth of the energy it gathers during the day along a special energy line to the Academy’s reservoir.”

Oho! That was some admission. So the Academy lived at the city’s expense?

“You could put it that way, yes.”

He was reading my thoughts again.

“And why has the energy stopped coming in now? That’s why you’re running out of energy, isn’t it?”

“It’s not just me that’s running out of energy, but the whole Academy,” the automag replied, and I could hear a note of resentment in his voice. “One of the Higher Craftsmen took advantage of the fact that almost all the Craftsmen and pupils were in the Main Hall and realigned the teleports with the external force field dividing us off from the outside world. Now the teleports can only be used by trolls, and the external defences won’t let anyone out. And worst of all – this someone has drained our Energy Reservoir!”

A traitor? In the Academy?

“But what about the Higher Craftsmen? Haven’t they done anything?”

“Yes,” said the automag.” The first wave of invaders that broke into the Main Hall was wiped out in an instant.”

“And then?”

“Then the Craftsmen used up all the energy that they could obtain.”

“And there was nowhere for any new energy to come from ...” I half-asked, half-stated.

“Precisely so,” the automag agreed. “And without energy the mighty Craftsmen were left as helpless ...”

“As little children,” I concluded for him.

It was strange, at first I’d thought this automag was some kind of stupid elemental who could only think with difficulty. But now his speech had become a lot more human, and he had begun to express his thoughts much more clearly.

“In general, I’m forbidden to talk freely with people, but I think the situation we have now is special,” said the automag, replying to my thoughts. “I’ve got almost no time left. Listen carefully, the only chance you have is to make your way to the History Museum.”

“The History Museum,” I repeated passively. “There is one here, but where exactly? I’ve never been there. Why do we want to go there?”

“Just tell father that you should go to the Museum.”

“Whose father?” I asked, puzzled.

“My father,” the automag growled.

I didn’t think he could get angry.

“You have a father?” I asked, astounded.

“Tell Caiten,” the automag said in a surprisingly quiet voice. “Caiten ... Caiten ... Cai ...”

“Automag!”

Silence.

“Switched off,” I declared. “Okay then, let’s wake up our army...”

I decided to wake up Neville first, as the most cool-headed.

“Neville,” I called to my friend, shaking him by the shoulder.

“Ah? What?” he muttered, struggling to open his eyes, then suddenly leapt to his feet and howled: “Where’s the troll?”

It was so unexpected that I was struck dumb for a moment. So much for being the most cool-headed.

“He’s not here,” I explained hurriedly. “I think he brought us here, and then went to collect the next batch.”

“May a dragon take him,” Neville swore, rubbing his back. “That stone blockhead really belted me hard ...”

“Right royally,” I agreed, automatically raising a hand to my own aching head. “We’re in an awful mess now ...”

“Come on then, tell me,” said Neville.

“No, not like that,” I said, talking a grip on myself. “First let’s bring the others round, and then I’ll tell you everything I’ve found out.”

Scene 2

“And before he switched off, he just had time to say that we should go to the History Museum.”

At that point Caiten, who had been nervously circling round me all the way through my story, stopped and exclaimed:

“Why, of course! That’s the only place where we can find weapons.”

“Weapons?” Naive asked like an echo.

“So where is this Museum?” Neville asked briskly. “And how can we get to it?”

“We can’t get there on foot,” Caiten growled. “The Museum’s up on the top floor. I just wish I knew what ideas the automag had about that ...”

“Do you think it’s worth listening to that heap of metal?” asked Steel, who had been unusually quiet.

Caiten swung round towards him: “That heap of metal is at least a hundred times more intelligent than you are!”

“I only asked,” Steel said with a shrug.

“Well, if you don’t mind, just keep quiet for a while, will you.”

The Vickers brothers and I exchanged glances of surprise. Our tutor was certainly feeling pretty edgy.

“Which floor are we on now?” Neville asked me in a quiet voice.

“How should I know?” I answered. “I was unconscious when I was brought here, like you. And why we were brought here is another question altogether.”

“When we see our troll, we’ll have to ask him about that,” Neville laughed. “Caiten was probably sitting here with his precious automag anyway when the attack happened, but how did Steel get here? Where did they catch him?”

That was a very relevant question, and we promptly put it to Steel himself.

“Well, when I left the ward, I decided to pop back to my room to ... to do a couple of things. And when I came back out, the tower suddenly shook like crazy.”

“And you ran into a troll too?” Naive shouted out happily.

“Exactly,” Steel said with a forced smile.

“I’ve got it!” Caiten suddenly explained. “The teleport in Romius’s study! The traitor may have sabotaged the general teleports, but I doubt if he got as far as a Higher Craftsman’s study.”

“So all is not lost after all?” Neville asked with a hint of hope in his voice.

Caiten merely smiled mysteriously in reply.

“The first thing we have to do is clear out of here, or before we know it that troll will be back with a new batch of prisoners.”

We didn’t need to be persuaded. It was just unfortunate that the door was locked.

“It can’t be locked,” said Caiten, mystified. “It’s an energy lock, and there isn’t any energy ...”

“You tell that to the door,” Neville suggested. “Maybe it’ll realise its mistake and open up.”

Caiten scratched his head: “Did I ever mention to you that these doors are very flimsy?”

“I get the hint,” Naive said happily.

“Goodbye, door,” Neville sighed. “He used to run into the house like that sometimes, when he was very hungry. And every time the door was reduced to splinters.”