Read Work Experience (Schooled in Magic Book 4) Online

Authors: Christopher Nuttall

Tags: #magicians, #magic, #alternate world, #fantasy, #Young Adult, #sorcerers

Work Experience (Schooled in Magic Book 4) (8 page)

BOOK: Work Experience (Schooled in Magic Book 4)
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Lady Barb stepped over the glowing blue line and turned to face her. “This should not be dangerous,” she said, “but it can be. Do you want to back out now?”

Emily shook her head. She didn’t even know what was going on.

“Then step into the circle,” Lady Barb ordered. “But don’t put your foot down on the blue light.”

Emily obeyed. A shiver ran down her spine as she sensed the sudden absence of the remaining ambient magic. The runes, she realized, had to be absorbing and directing the
mana
out of the circle, creating a space that was completely empty of undirected magic. Her own magic suddenly seemed to blossom within her, making her very aware of its presence.

“Sit down,” Lady Barb ordered. She produced a knife from her robes and examined it, carefully. Emily stared at it in horror until she realized that the blade was silver, rather than stone. “We are going to explore the simplest form of ritual.”

Emily nodded, her throat suddenly dry. The books she’d read in the library had talked about how magicians could use rituals to cast formidable spells, but they hadn’t gone into details, beyond a handful of warnings about how immensely dangerous such spells could be. Given some of the stories, Emily could well believe it. One story talked about a group of magicians who had destroyed an entire city.

“Sit down,” Lady Barb repeated. Emily obeyed, hastily. “And give me your hands.”

Emily hesitated, then held out her hands. Lady Barb took them and held her, gently.

“Now,” Lady Barb said. “I want you to close your eyes and focus on your magic. It should be easy here.”

It was, Emily already knew. She closed her eyes...and the sensation of her magic, pulsing in tune with her heartbeat, grew stronger and stronger. The magic seemed to swell within her, then fade away, then swell again in an endless tide. Lady Barb rubbed her palms gently as the sensation overwhelmed her. The touch was all that was keeping her from being completely absorbed in her own mind.

“Visualize the magic moving through your bloodstream,” Lady Barb instructed quietly. “Imagine it moving from place to place, carrying power through your body.”

Emily nodded, keeping her eyes closed. The more she focused her mind, the more she was aware of magic moving through her bloodstream...and concentrating in her mind, her heart and her womb. It reminded her of the moment Shadye had forced her to stab Sergeant Harkin with a necromantic knife, right in the heart. Shadye had intended to force her to drain the Sergeant’s magic, unaware that Harkin had no magic. Now...

“Be aware of your skin, holding in the magic,” Lady Barb said. Her words made it real, somehow. “Concentrate your mind on visualizing the skin.”

There was a long pause. “I’m going to cut your palm,” she added. “When I do, try to direct some of your magic up and out of your body. Don’t channel it through your mind, channel it through the cut. Do you understand me?”

Emily nodded, nervously. There was a faint stabbing sensation from her palm, then nothing. But she could
see
her magic reacting to the cut, flickering around as if it wasn’t quite sure what to do. Emily hesitated, then attempted to guide some of her magic out of her body. But it refused to do more than spin around the cut. And then the cut closed up completely.

“You healed yourself,” Lady Barb observed. She sounded more amused than annoyed. “I’m going to cut you again.”

There was another stabbing sensation. This time, Emily managed to guide a little magic up and out of her body. It seemed to fade away into the chamber, directed by the runes. Emily felt a sudden dizzy sensation, then the cut healed again. Lady Barb’s grip tightened, just slightly, then relaxed.

“Using your mind’s eye,” Lady Barb ordered, “look upwards. Sense the magic.”

Emily forced herself to concentrate, despite the sudden weakness in her limbs. Above her, magic was slowly seeping into the runes. It was
her
magic, she realized, now as familiar as her own face. And it was fading away...

“Open your eyes,” Lady Barb said.

Emily opened her eyes and looked around. The entire chamber was glowing with light, banishing the shadows. Her magic, she realized, was powering the runes, which had directed the magic into harmless light. Lady Barb let go of her hands, then stood. But when Emily tried to stand, her legs betrayed her. She couldn’t stand upright at all.

“It always leaves a magician weak, the first time,” Lady Barb said. “How are you feeling?”

“Spent,” Emily said. She tried to analyze her own feelings, but they were in such a conflicted mess that it was impossible to sort them out. Giving up magic like that made her feel uncomfortable, yet there was a strange tingling in her hand that was almost pleasurable. “What...what happened to it?”

“Here, the runes redirect the magic,” Lady Barb said. “When a ritual is used in the field, one of the magicians is placed in charge of shaping the magic and directing it towards its target, leaving the others vulnerable. Does it remind you of anything?”

Emily shivered. “Necromancy.”

Lady Barb nodded. “There are two differences,” she said. “First, the magicians involved in a ritual are giving up magic willingly – and a controlled amount of magic, rather than everything they have. Second, the magic gathered is not channeled through the prime magician’s mind, but through the spell-structure and runes he has created. Insanity is not a serious risk.”

“I see,” Emily said. It was still almost impossible to even think about moving. “Can’t this be used to match a necromancer?”

“Once or twice, if you happen to get lucky,” Lady Barb said. “But setting up a ritual can take time and effort. Necromancers don’t have to worry about it.”

Emily nodded.

Lady Barb squatted down until she was facing Emily, looking into her eyes. “Can you think of another danger?”

The basic necromantic rite wasn’t complicated, Emily knew; Shadye might have taught her, but she could have figured it out from what she’d learned in books and private sessions with Mistress Sun. But it was all-or-nothing; the necromancer took everything his victim had, drawing it through his mind and driving himself insane. And yet...it wasn’t just magic they took...

She shuddered. “Life force,” she said. “A ritual can be used to share life force.”

“It can,” Lady Barb agreed. “And only necromancy is considered so vile.”

Emily blinked in surprise. “Why?”

Lady Barb gave her a reproving look. “Oh, Emily,” she said, in a voice more suited to an aged grandmother than a middle-aged woman, “you have so
many
years left and I have so
few
. Why don’t you give me some of your years?”

She continued in a more normal voice. “There are rejuvenation spells that drain life force from their victim and give it to the caster,” she added. “If enough life force is drained, the victim will die of old age.”

Emily shuddered at the implications. “A magician could have a child, then drain that child,” she said, remembering how her magic had concentrated around her womb. “Or they could kidnap a newborn and drain her. Or...”

“It’s been known to happen,” Lady Barb said, shortly. “And while rituals require a degree of consent, you know how easy it is to just strip magic and life force from an unwilling victim.”

She helped Emily back to her feet. “We need to leave the chamber to finish draining away the magic,” she said, as she picked Emily up in a fireman’s carry. “It will take some time for it to be clean again.”

Emily nodded, still feeling exhausted. Lady Barb carried her out of the chamber and back up the stairs, then placed her down gently on a chair in the library. Emily sat there and watched as Lady Barb resealed the bookshelf, then walked away and left her alone. She couldn’t muster the strength to move until Lady Barb returned, carrying a mug of hot Kava in her hands. Emily took it and sipped gratefully.

“Be very careful with the drink,” Lady Barb warned her. “If you spill it on a book, my father will come back to murder you personally.”

“I understand,” Emily said, quickly. She’d always hated people who damaged books – and that had started on Earth, where truly irreplaceable books were rare outside academic libraries. Here, where only a relative handful of books were printed on her printing presses, a damaged book might be impossible to replace. “I won’t spill a drop.”

“See that you don’t,” Lady Barb said. She looked around, her gaze moving from shelf to shelf. “My father loved this room. He designed it personally.”

Emily nodded, sipping her drink.

“You did very well, for a beginner,” Lady Barb added. She looked up, meeting Emily’s eyes. “I would suggest that you don’t try again for several days, though. And
don’t
discuss this with anyone else. If Jade asks you what you were doing, tell him that I was forcing you to brew.”

“I won’t,” Emily promised. The Kava made her feel better, although her magic felt weak and wan inside her. She couldn’t help wondering just how long it would take to regenerate. Her palm itched and she glanced at it, seeing two faint scars where Lady Barb had cut her. “What happened to the blood?”

Lady Barb smiled and passed her the knife. Emily tried to cast a cleansing spell, but it refused to work properly. Lady Barb shook her head, then offered Emily a cloth. Emily cleaned the knife carefully, admiring the way the light glimmered off the silver blade, then put the cloth in her pocket. She knew better than to leave samples of her blood lying around, particularly after Shadye had used one to control her.

“Sit here until you feel better,” Lady Barb urged. “I can find you a book, if you like, or we can chat...”

“Batteries,” Emily said, as something
clicked
in her mind. “That’s why you showed me the ritual.”

Storing magic wasn’t easy, if only because it tended to leech out into the surrounding atmosphere. The only way to lock it in for longer than a few hours was to use wards or dedicated spell-structures, which had to be carefully configured...and still tended to lose magical energy over a long period of time. Building semi-permanent wards was Fifth and Six Year level at Whitehall. But even wards weren’t raw magic.

Emily had reasoned that the magic wouldn’t flow away if the magic had nowhere to go. If a pocket dimension was used as a storage space, the magic would be trapped. But her first experiments had been halted and while she’d done some theoretical work, she’d never been able to create a pocket dimension of her own. And she hadn’t worked out how to insert magic into the dimension.

But the ritual might work, she saw now. All she would have to do was concentrate, cut her own palm and emit magic into the pocket dimension. It would be stored there...

“Very good,” Lady Barb agreed. “And how do you plan to use it?”

Emily hesitated, realizing Lady Barb was right. Necromancers went insane because they channeled vast amounts of power through their minds. If she drew on a battery, she would be running the risk of being driven insane by her own power. Coming to think of it, could she draw on someone
else’s
power from another battery? What if it was that, rather than contact with their own magic, that drove necromancers insane?

But it was something she didn’t dare try to test.

“You could probably use it like a modified ritual,” Lady Barb said, after a moment. She stood up, pulled a book from the shelves and opened it, looking for a particular chapter. “You’d have to set up the spell-structure, rather like using a wand, then open the hatch and let the power flow. But if it failed...well, you might end up with an explosion. Or a wave of wild magic.”

Emily frowned. The whole concept sounded obvious to her. “No one ever tried this before?”

“Not as far as I know,” Lady Barb admitted. “But you know how easy it is to hide something in this world – and how many sorcerers keep secrets.”

The Mimic
, Emily thought. Everyone had believed that they were living creatures – and why not, in a world that included dragons, demons and gorgons. But they were actually spells, the most elaborate and complex spells Emily had ever seen. Someone had created them, built them up piece by piece, then sent them out to wreak havoc. And no one had had the slightest idea what their creator had done until Emily had uncovered the truth.

“We will be practicing creating pocket dimensions while we’re walking from village to village,” Lady Barb said. She pointed a long finger at Emily. “And you will be
very
careful what you do. There isn’t anyone who can help out there, apart from me.”

Emily nodded, ruefully.

“I learned my lesson,” she said, tartly. “I...”

“Really?” Lady Barb asked. “Remind me; which students were faking library passes when they should have been in New Learning?”

Emily flushed. New Learning was her least favorite class, if only because most of what it taught was derived from innovations Emily herself had introduced. She wasn’t even sure why the Grandmaster and Mistress Irene had inserted her into the class. But Alassa had talked her into skipping once, then they’d faked library passes for the next two classes. Eventually, inevitably, they’d been caught. They hadn’t been able to sit comfortably for several days afterwards, to say nothing of having to redo several essays and other assignments. It hadn’t been a pleasant week.

She yawned, suddenly.

“You can have a nap,” Lady Barb said. She gave Emily a smile as Emily blushed furiously at her sudden loss of control. “I’ll send Jade a note explaining that I’ve worked you halfway to death and you’ll see him tomorrow. Speaking of which, I will have to leave the house early tomorrow morning. When you wake up, make sure to eat breakfast, then start practicing your potions. I want them all perfect by the time I return.”

She helped Emily to her feet, showed her the brewing chamber, then escorted her into her bedroom. Emily closed her eyes as soon as her head hit the pillow, and fell asleep.

This time, there were no dreams to torment her.

Chapter Seven

T
HE FOLLOWING MORNING, THE HOUSE FELT
oddly empty – emptier than yesterday. Emily awoke, feeling much better, washed herself and walked down to the kitchen. A note on the table reminded her about her potions work, ending with a dire threat to forbid her from seeing Jade if she hadn’t produced a series of perfect potions by the time Lady Barb returned home. Emily rolled her eyes, then took the bowl of porridge off the stove and ate it slowly, savouring every bite. It wasn’t something she’d expected to like, after having to subsist on her own homemade gruel, but she enjoyed eating it at Whitehall.

BOOK: Work Experience (Schooled in Magic Book 4)
7.46Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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