Study in Slaughter (Schooled in Magic) (28 page)

“Trapped,” she muttered. “But there has to be a way out.”

Aloha looked over at the chains. “Maybe one of us is meant to be hooked up,” she mused. “If the wards think that one is a prisoner...”

Emily snorted. “Do you think that’s likely?”

“Secret lairs created by sorcerers can be thoroughly weird,” Aloha pointed out snidely. “Can you think of anything else?”

Emily looked around. The walls seemed solid—she cast detection spells anyway, just in case one of them was an illusion—and there was no way to open the trapdoor in the ceiling. She was tempted to start hurling spells at the lock, hoping to break it through brute force, but it would be a good way to exhaust herself even if she succeeded. And then she took a careful look at the door and burst out laughing.

Aloha glared at her. “What’s so funny?”

“The hinges,” Emily said, as she walked up to the door. “The hinges are on the
inside
.”

It took several moments to use a manipulator spell to unscrew and remove the hinges, but when they were gone the door just fell inwards, allowing them to escape. Outside, there was a dark corridor and a ladder leading upwards. There didn’t seem to be any way up apart from using the ladder, so they checked it carefully and removed a number of hexes before clambering up into the next level. Even a simple hex could have stopped them both if they’d been caught on the ladder.

“We need to go up another level,” Aloha said. She nodded towards a second staircase, leading up to the upper levels. “And
look
! It is absolutely crammed with hexes.”

Emily heard the exasperation in her voice and smiled, tiredly. “Maybe we can climb up the banister,” she said, after a moment. “Or...”

Aloha looked at the rotting wood. “I wouldn’t care to try,” she said, as she cast a second set of detection spells. “Let’s see what we have here.”

It took nearly twenty minutes to remove enough of the hexes to allow them to make their slow way up to the next level. This time, there were three possible directions to go, but only one of them seemed to lead them towards the orb. Emily hesitated, wondering if the sergeants would have
expected
them to take the direct path, but Aloha strode onwards before she could find the words to suggest that they do something else. The moment she joined Aloha in the corridor, the door slammed shut, cutting off their line of retreat.

“Drat,” Aloha said, out loud. “And the spells are back in the walls.”

Emily nodded, casting detection spells of her own. Someone was quite determined that they make their way down the corridor to face whatever was lurking at the far end. Aloha created a light globe and sent it drifting down the corridor, hoping to spring whatever trap waited for them before they got too close. But nothing happened. Carefully, they inched their way down the corridor...and inched their way down the corridor...and inched their way down the corridor...

Aloha bit off a nasty word in a language Emily didn’t recognize. “Stay here,” she said, and walked ahead of Emily into the darkness. A moment later, Emily heard someone behind her and spun around...to see Aloha. “They’ve rigged the entire corridor with some kind of labyrinth spell.”

“A hamster wheel,” Emily muttered. No matter how far they walked, they wouldn’t get anywhere. It was a very neat trap. “Cast a dispersal spell?”

“On three,” Aloha muttered back. “One...two...three!”

They cast the spell together, feeling a long moment of resistance as the spell on the corridor struggled against it...and then shattered. Emily felt her head spinning and closed her eyes; when she opened them, there was a wooden door at the end of the corridor. It seemed as though it had never been any more than five meters from end to end.

“Follow me,” Aloha said, as she checked the doorknob—and then opened the door. Eerie green light washed out. “I...”

She stopped, dead.

Emily stared, unsure of what had happened. Something seemed to have captivated Aloha, holding her spellbound...and utterly mesmerized. If Emily hadn’t been behind her, she might have been caught too. There was something about what little she could see of the light that was almost hypnotic. If she looked at it for too long, she would be trapped too.

Bracing herself, she came up behind Aloha and pushed her hand over her friend’s eyes. Aloha started, then twisted around until she had her back to the light. Emily pushed her gently forward until they were close to the source of the spell, then cast the strongest dispersal charm she could. The eerie light vanished, revealing another treasure chest, positioned in the center of the room. Sunlight was streaming in through a large glass window.

“I...thank you,” Aloha said, as she staggered to the floor. She sounded disorientated—or drunk. “I...I just couldn’t break free.”

“If it had been just one of us,” Emily said, “we would have been caught and trapped.”

Aloha nodded. “Thank you,” she said. She sounded stronger, thankfully. “Why...why do you want the suction spell anyway?”

“To suck up dust,” Emily said. She was sure that she had already explained. “I can’t use magic...”

“Use runes,” Aloha said, flatly. “There are quite a few that repel dust. Draw them on the floor with chalk, then let them do their job. It’s slow, but it will work.”

“Master Tor said no magic,” Emily said, slowly. “I thought an enchanted hoop wouldn’t count...”

“Neither would runes,” Aloha insisted. “Draw the runes in the right place and the dust will inch towards the corner. Done properly, it will even start cleaning the rest of the floor.”

“I could get rid of the spiders that way too,” Emily mused. “There are runes to repel insects...”

“You might want to check with Mistress Kirdáne,” Aloha warned. “If the spiders have been there for decades, they may object to being moved.”

Emily nodded, wordlessly.

“Master Tor seems to be
really
mad at you,” Aloha added. “He wasn’t so bad to me last year, even when I messed up an essay. I just had to redo it and then look up various examples to justify my case.”

“Wonderful,” Emily muttered. “It’s political.”

“I hate politics,” Aloha commented.

“No...ah,
combat sorceress
can afford to be a virgin where politics are concerned,” Emily misquoted. Trying to explain the origin of the quote would be a waste of time. “Politics is the root of wars.”

Aloha snorted. “Really? I thought it was power-mad necromancers.”

She pulled herself to her feet and walked towards the chest. “The key’s in the lock,” she commented, dryly. “Does that mean it’s safe, do you think?”

“No,” Emily said, sharply. Although, she supposed, if one of them was caught by a hex, the other could free the victim. “Check it for surprises first.”

“Nothing,” Aloha said, after a moment. “Check it yourself.”

Emily ran through the detection spells, but found nothing, either on the key or on the chest. Aloha flipped open the chest and saw the orb sitting on a velvet sheet, waiting for them. They exchanged glances—surely it couldn’t be so easy—and then Aloha reached for the orb and picked it up.

“Well, we got it,” she said. She sounded as puzzled as Emily felt. It wasn’t like the sergeants to just let them waltz out with the orb. “Why...”

There was a dull rumble behind them. Emily swung around to see the walls starting to close in on them. The door was gone. They stared around, looking at the window. It seemed impossible to get out in time to escape before they were crushed into pulp...

She remembered what Sergeant Miles had said and grabbed for the orb. Before Aloha could stop her, she threw it at the window, smashing it through the glass and out of the building, satisfying the terms of the challenge. Moments later, the walls stopped advancing and started to retreat. The door reappeared in front of them.

Aloha stared at her. “How...?”

“He told us that the orb had to be outside the building,” Emily said. She was just relieved it had worked. “He
didn’t
say we had to
carry
it out ourselves.”

“It seems to have succeeded,” Aloha said, slowly. She sounded rather doubtful. “Are you always looking for ways to cheat?”

“If you’re not cheating,” Emily said, quoting Sergeant Harkin, “you’re not trying.”

She smiled at the thought as they made their way down the stairs and out of the house. Magic was all
about
cheating, she’d come to realize, all about finding shortcuts to power and fame—or simply to get things done. Whitehall was designed to
encourage
them to master their powers and think of new applications...

“Well done,” Sergeant Miles said. He was holding the orb in one hand, studying it thoughtfully. “Quick thinking to get out of a lethal trap. You’d be surprised how many people go to pieces or freeze when they think there’s no way out.”

“It was Emily who saw it,” Aloha admitted. She sounded annoyed with herself. “I missed it completely.”

“But I wouldn’t have gotten through all of the traps without you,” Emily said. She’d frozen in Zangaria and it could have gotten her and Imaiqah killed. “I...”

“You’d better practice,” Sergeant Miles said. He passed Emily the orb. “The next test will involve much more teamwork...”

He turned to see Lady Barb running towards them. “Emily,” she said, “where were you for the last hour?”

“She was in Blackhall,” Sergeant Miles said, before Emily could say a word. “Why?”

“They just found a body,” Lady Barb explained. “Travis is dead.”

Emily stared at her in horror. “Travis is dead?”

“Yes,” Lady Barb said. Her tone was very grim. “And it seems that it was the work of a necromancer.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

G
ET THEM BACK TO THE SCHOOL,”
Sergeant Miles said. “I need to go to the Grandmaster.”

“He’s ordered a full lockdown,” Lady Barb explained. “The students are being chased back into their dorms.”

And they’ll find a way to blame me for it
, Emily thought, bitterly.
Or...

She stopped. “So where is he?”

Lady Barb scowled at her. “Who?”

“The necromancer,” Emily said. “If he just sucked in power, he should be easily noticeable...”

“Good question,” Lady Barb said. “We don’t know.”

She nodded towards the path leading back to Whitehall. “That way,” she ordered. “Now.”

Emily mulled it over as they were chivvied down the path through the darkening forest. She’d been allowed to read books on necromancy and most of them agreed that a newborn necromancer was immediately noticeable. Even if they didn’t go insane at once, there should still have been a colossal surge of power. It would take an experienced necromancer to dampen the surge—and most of them saw no
reason
to hide.

And Travis was dead.

She’d never
liked
Travis; he’d been a jerk, abusing his power for his own amusement. But he hadn’t deserved to die. But...he’d also been a strong magician and student of Martial Magic. What sort of inexperienced necromancer would target him? Or had he been tricked somehow...

Lady Barb slowed as they approached the armory. “Aloha,” she said, “I’m going to take you to Mistress Irene’s office. She’ll escort you back to your room.”

Emily blinked in surprise. She wasn’t entirely sure where Aloha was sleeping—they were no longer roommates—but she had thought that her room wouldn’t be too far from Emily’s bedroom. In Whitehall, of course, that didn’t always mean anything. The interior just kept shifting around. But she took one look at Lady Barb’s grim face and kept her thoughts to herself. Lady Barb was good at concealing her feelings, but Emily was sure that she was deeply worried.

Mistress Irene didn’t look any better. She motioned for the two girls to wait while she had a brief discussion with Lady Barb, concealed behind a privacy ward. Emily couldn’t hear a word and she had never leant how to lip-read, but from their expressions and gestures it seemed that they were having a major disagreement. Finally, Mistress Irene cancelled the privacy ward and nodded for Aloha to accompany her. Emily watched her go, then turned to face Lady Barb. She looked quietly furious.

“You were in Blackhall for over an hour,” Lady Barb said. “It is unlikely that they can blame this on you.”

Emily sagged in relief. She’d been with Aloha in Blackhall—and Sergeant Miles could verify that they’d been inside the mansion—but it would have been harder to prove where she was earlier. There had been a free hour; Emily had been forced to use it to make more progress on cleaning the wretched barracks. The sooner she looked up some cleaning runes, the better.

She concentrated, trying to remember what little she could of police procedure. “Who found the body? And where?”

Lady Barb gave her an odd look, but answered the question. “Danielle,” she said. “Travis’s girlfriend. They were planning a quiet rendezvous in the upper levels of the North Tower; when she arrived, she found him dead.”

Emily felt a moment of pity for the girl, even though she had some problems imagining
anyone
wanting to date Travis. But then, many of the girls on Earth had dated absolute jerks too. It had never made any sense to her. Luckily, none of the boys had ever tried to ask
her
out. Jade had been the first to see her as a desirable person.

“She was very upset,” Lady Barb said darkly, “and went screaming through the castle. The entire school heard before the Grandmaster put the castle into lockdown.”

Emily nodded. They’d
definitely
try to blame her.

Lady Barb led her out of the office and through a twisting series of passageways that seemed to go up and down at random, finally coming out in a deserted corridor. Emily could hear someone speaking at the far end as she glanced out of the window and realized that they were in the upper levels of Whitehall. Lady Barb caught her arm and gently pulled her down into the tower room, where—rumor had it—older students were allowed some degree of privacy. Travis’s body lay on the ground, a stone knife stabbed through his heart.