Past Tense (Schooled in Magic Book 10) (28 page)

At least I’m not spying on the boys
, she told herself. It wasn’t a convincing argument.
And the discussion concerns me
.

“We have a problem,” Whitehall said, once the door was closed. “They’ve found us.”

“
One
of them has found us,” Master Chambers corrected. “And it was destroyed.”

“By
her
,” Master Keldor said.

“She gave me a copy of the runes she used,” Whitehall said. He passed the parchment to Master Wolfe. “I have no reason to doubt her story.”

“My apprentice confirms it,” Master Chambers said, grudgingly. “The hunters
have
found us.”

“None of us had any warning,” Master Reaper said. “I have been attempting to divine the future. None of my ...
contacts
... gave any warning about this.”

Demons
, Emily thought.

“Nor mine,” Master Chambers confirmed. “Are we sure it was one of
them
?”

“Your apprentice said so,” Master Drake snapped. “And so did Whitehall’s apprentice. Apprentices.”

“They could have been fooled,” Master Chambers said. “And encountering the creature could have been nothing more than bad luck.”

Master Wolfe leaned forward. “I questioned young Bernard extensively,” he said. “There is no reason to doubt their story.”

He paused. “The creature was extremely resistant to magic,” he added. “It shrugged off both direct and indirect attacks, as well as ...
snuffing out
... a demon. If it was not related to the hordes that destroyed our settlements and slaughtered dozens of magicians, we will have to come to terms with the fact that there are
two
forces out there hunting us.”

Logical
, Emily noted.

“Emily believes that the creature actually
eats
magic,” Whitehall said. “Our ...
sloppy
... magic draws the creatures to us.”

Master Chambers snorted. “First you argue that uncontrolled magic causes madness,” he said, sharply. “And now you argue that sloppy magic lures the hunters.”

“The hunters have targeted magical villages almost exclusively,” Master Drake said. “I have only heard of a handful of attacks on mundane villages and all of them housed at least one magician.”

He paused. “And we have learned, in the last few weeks, that many of our spells are overpowered,” he noted. “We can achieve so much more with less, if we knew better what we are doing.”

“And you may be giving up some of your power,” Master Chambers said. “Have you considered the possibility?”

“When we came to this castle, turning someone into a frog for a few hours would leave me tired and drained,” Master Drake said, curtly. “Now, I can cast the spell several times in a row without feeling so rotten afterwards. And a couple of apprentices can
also
cast the spell without constantly casting smaller spells to build up their reserves.”

Emily shivered.
She’d
boosted her reserves, after the duel with Master Grey, but it had come with a price. And Void had admitted, openly, that he’d worried about her sanity. Whitehall and his commune didn’t know about the dangers of pushing themselves too hard, tacitly accepting the risk of either driving themselves mad or burning out their magic. But they didn’t know what they were doing to themselves.

Master Wolfe nodded. “And there’s another point,” he added. “Apprentice Bernard was very clear on the important matters. It was he and Apprentice Robin who were targeted first, even though there were two other magicians present ...”

“You need to control that girl,” Master Chambers said, to Whitehall. “There’s nothing more disruptive than a disobedient apprentice.”

“Particularly one who involves herself in the affairs of her betters,” Master Keldor added, darkly. “If I had talked to my master the way she talks to you ...”

“She is clearly unused to living in a commune,” Whitehall said.

“She is clearly unused to being brought to account for her actions,” Master Chambers thundered. “She taught your daughter
magic
! The curse will strike them both.”

“They believe the curse can be handled,” Master Wolfe said. Emily honestly wasn’t sure if he believed his own words. “And we need to know if ...”

“It
can
be handled,” Master Chambers said. “By not learning or using magic.”

“I worked my way through the figures,” Master Wolfe said. “There are no incidents, as far as anyone can recall, of a witch giving birth ...”

“We
know
,” Master Chambers interrupted.

“... But there are also creditable reasons to worry about men too,” Master Wolfe continued, ignoring the interruption. “I have no children;
you
have no children ... the largest number of children born to any magician, any
male
magician, is
three
. And
that
father was a notorious seducer: his three children were born to three different mothers.”

He nodded to Whitehall. “And Whitehall, who never uses demonic spells, still only has one child,” he added. “He ...”

“Should have married again,” Master Keldor said. “So should the rest of us.”

Whitehall cleared his throat. “We have three problems,” he said, cutting off any further digressions. “First, the hunters—the Manavores, as we have termed them—are clearly sweeping the area for us. Second, we now understand both the true nature and the
cause
of the curse—and that it affects men as well as women. And third, we have rather more apprentices than we can hope to teach.

“At the same time, we have also discovered--” he nodded to Wolfe and Drake “--that combining the different magical disciplines leads to more useful and versatile spells. Spells, I might add, that we don’t need to draw from demons.”

“And how to tame the nexus point,” Wolfe said. “We are constantly expanding the control structure under the school.”

Emily felt a thrill of excitement. Wolfe had taken her ideas and run with them, creating what would eventually become the control room she recalled. How long would it be, she asked herself, before the first Warden was ready to take his place? Maybe not long, now that some of Master Keldor’s work had been integrated into the growing structure. He knew more than anyone else about how the human body worked.

Whitehall pressed his fingers together as he surveyed the room. “I believe we need to rethink our approach,” he explained. “And that we should ... expand the commune to the point we can teach multiple apprentices at once.”

“Out of the question,” Master Chambers snapped. “Do you have any idea of the
dangers
?”

“We can prepare for the dangers,” Whitehall said. He kept his voice calm, but Emily caught the underlying edge. “There’s enough power in the nexus point to protect the apprentices from harm.”

“He does have a point,” Lord Alfred said. Emily was surprised. Lord Alfred had always struck her as a doddering but kind-hearted old man. “Teaching one student at a time does allow us to catch their mistakes before it’s too late. Trying to teach even two or three students will make it harder to save them from themselves.”

“We will be encouraging the apprentices to develop their powers gradually,” Whitehall said, firmly. “And that will also allow them to mask their powers.”

“Our students would have a great deal to unlearn,” Master Drake said. “But if I had learned some of the runic structures before I started studying transmutation ... it might have made me a better magician.”

“And apprentices would no longer be bound to one master,” Sake said. “They’d be able to free themselves from a bad master.”

“Not
all
masters are bad,” Master Chambers snapped. “And what about the secrets?”

He took a breath. “I have secrets I will not share with anyone, save for my apprentices,” he said. “Do you expect me to share them with everyone in the commune?”

“You may make your own choice in such matters,” Whitehall said. “Personally, I intend to put the basics on the table for everyone.”

“And I,” Master Wolfe added.

“I do not believe this,” Master Chambers said. He glared at Whitehall. “This is
her
idea, isn’t it?”

“It is a logical solution to our problem,” Whitehall snapped. “Or do you have a better idea of how we can teach fifty apprentices with only nine masters?”

“This is her idea,” Master Chambers repeated. Emily winced at the scorn in his voice. “Do you trust her
that
much?”

“Tell me,” Master Keldor added. “Do you know if she’s even
human
?”

“She could be a succubus,” Master Reaper said. “My ...
contacts
... will not be drawn on her.”

Emily felt her cheeks heat with embarrassment. A succubus, her? There had only been a handful of mentions of succubae in the books she’d read, all hints and innuendo rather than hard facts. She’d certainly never
met
one. Any magician stupid enough to try to create one -the books had insisted they needed to be
created
—had to be out of his mind. It was a great deal easier—and safer—to find a village girl to impress. There was no shortage of commoner girls who would happily marry a magician, knowing it would mean they would never have to be poor or hungry again. Creating a succubus was nothing more than a way to die happy.

“She is human,” Whitehall said, flatly.

“She is unusually pretty,” Sake countered.

“And you’re ugly,” Drake snarled. “Let’s not confuse the issue, shall we?”

“I’ve traveled far,” Lord Alfred said, suddenly. “I have met and bedded girls with skin as black as coal, girls with almond eyes and yellow skin, girls so pale that the merest blush made their faces glow. There were girls so strong that they could have passed for men and girls so weak that they had to be carried around in wagons. And yet they were all
human
.”

Master Keldor sneered. “The pieces fitted, did they?”

“Yes. Yes, they did,” Lord Alfred said. “Lady Emily is human.”

“And yet she is just an apprentice,” Master Chambers said. “We should not be taking
her
suggestions ...”

“She should be classed as a master,” Master Wolfe countered. “Or have you forgotten that she saved our lives? We would be dead without her and don’t you forget it!”

“I have forgotten nothing,” Master Chambers said. “But I have also not forgotten ...”

He broke off for a long moment, clearly gathering his thoughts. “Tell me,” he said, looking at Whitehall. “Are you really prepared to throw out hundreds of years worth of tradition on the say-so of a girl you barely know?”

“I wouldn’t have said
hundreds
of years,” Lord Alfred commented.

“Shut up,” Master Chambers hissed. “I want an answer.”

“Tradition is failing us,” Whitehall said. “The demons are untrustworthy. And establishing a ... a
school
is the best solution to our problems.”

He took a breath. “Yes, she helped inspire the concept. And yes, I understand that you don’t like her. But that doesn’t mean that her concepts are invalid. We’ve already seen proof that some of them work very well.”

“She’s certainly got your ear,” Master Chambers snapped.

“I hope she hasn’t got another part of your anatomy,” Master Keldor added, darkly.

Emily blushed, furiously. Did they really think that she would ...?

Probably
, she thought.
They’re not used to powerful women
.

“I believe I have stated my case,” Whitehall said. “Are there any other objections before we move to the vote?”

“You want to throw away a tradition that has served us very well,” Master Chambers said. “I think you will boost your own position at our expense.”

Whitehall scowled at him. “Any
relevant
objections?”

Emily winced. She hated political discussions and did her best to avoid them, but even she could tell that had been a mistake.

“You will be leading a pack of hundreds of semi-apprentices,” Master Chambers snapped, sharply. “And we will have
no
apprentices.”

And the more apprentices a master has,
Emily thought,
the greater his prestige.

“Then we vote,” Whitehall said. “All in favor, say aye.”

Emily scowled as the vote was taken. Whitehall, Bones, Alfred and Wolfe voted in favor; Chamber, Keldor, Drake and Reaper voted against. Sake, apparently, had abstained—or, perhaps, he was waiting to see which side would make the better offer. She thought she understood why Chamber and Reaper had voted against—they were both DemonMasters who stood to lose a great deal if demons were officially banned—but Drake? He’d
benefited
from the new arrangement.

Whitehall clearly shared her disappointment. “Drake?”

“I am not blind to the advantages that come from sharing secrets,” Drake said. “But I am also not blind to the need for apprentices—and for private tuition, later in life.”

You want to have your cake and eat it too
, Emily thought.
And you might just have scuppered the entire school
.

Sake cleared his throat. “I did not vote,” he said coolly, “because I was only recently raised to mastery. And I believe that both sides have valid arguments.”

“Really,” Master Chambers said.

“I would like to propose a compromise,” Sake continued. “We will give all the new apprentices basic training, the training any of us would have to give a
true
apprentice before starting his proper training. At that point, we would have plenty of time to choose our apprentices
after
they start showing their specific talents for magic.”

Drake stroked his chin. “Which would have the advantage of ensuring that the apprentice is genuinely interested in the discipline he wants.”

“As well as a firm grounding in everything else,” Wolfe added.

“And yet, those apprentices will not be
true
apprentices,” Master Chambers objected.