Work Experience (Schooled in Magic Book 4) (44 page)

“He’s under a spell,” Emily said, softly. “I don’t think he can see us.”

Rudolf gave her a sharp look. “Are you sure of that?”

“...No,” Emily admitted.

She studied the guard’s blank expression thoughtfully. There were upper-level obedience and loyalty spells that were so powerful that they damaged their victim’s mind, leaving them little more than robots, even if they had been forced to accept the spells. Could Mother Holly have enchanted the whole castle? It would be simple enough, Emily decided, assuming that the hedge witch had long lost any moral objections she might have had to taking someone’s free will. Lady Easter could just have called her guards in, one by one, to be enchanted.

But is she doing it of her own free will
, Emily wondered,
or is she merely the first victim
?

“Leave him,” she said. She braced herself, then squeezed past the guard, uncomfortably aware of his body pressing against hers. He showed no reaction at all. “Hurry.”

Rudolf followed her as she found the stairwell leading down into the castle. It looked almost painfully cramped, just like some of the stairwells in Zangaria. An attacking force that happened to get over the walls would still have to advance one by one into the castle itself. And they probably couldn’t swing their swords properly inside the stairwell.

“Let me take the lead,” Rudolf said. “You’re probably more capable of helping me then I am of helping you.”

Emily watched as he stepped into the stairwell, then followed, feeling claustrophobic as the stairs led down and down. There was almost no lighting, leaving her feeling her way forward. If she’d worn a dress, she might well have tripped and fallen down the stairs.

By the time they reached the bottom, she was on the verge of creating another light globe and to hell with stealth. Rudolf sucked in his breath sharply as he stepped out into another guardroom. There were more guards waiting for them. But they didn’t move.

“They’re under a spell, too,” Rudolf said.

Emily nodded as she followed him out into the guardroom. There were five men, wearing light suits of armor, standing in the room. They showed no reaction to the intruders, not even when Emily walked over to the other door and opened it. Outside, she saw a servant marching through the corridor, eyes as blank and unseeing as the guards. She couldn’t help thinking of the Borg from
Star Trek
. They’d ignored intruders on their starships until the intruders had posed a threat.

“I could smuggle an entire army past them,” Rudolf muttered, as he joined her in the corridor. “What’s the point of keeping them all under control like this?”

Emily shrugged. “A magician wouldn’t need an army,” she said, although she knew it wasn’t strictly accurate. Shadye had produced an army of monsters to attack Whitehall. “But if these guards are loyal to Lady Easter, they might react badly if they knew she was under outside control.”

The interior of the castle wasn’t as bare as Lord Gorham’s castle. Tapestries hung everywhere, each one showing an achievement of Lady Easter and her three daughters. Emily would have thought they were propaganda if it hadn’t been for the fact that no one outside the castle staff would see them. Or maybe the guards and soldiers were expected to admire them and understand that while Lady Easter had the body of a weak and feeble woman, she had the skill and determination to do well by her tiny kingdom.

Would that have been enough,
Emily asked herself,
if Rudolf had married one of her daughters? Or would the guards have switched their loyalty to him at once?

They stopped when they reached a large chamber. A throne, painted gold, sat at one end, while a large stone table was placed in the center of the room. Emily froze as she heard singing, then dragged Rudolf to one side, hastily casting concealment spells over them both. As long as they were quiet, she muttered, they should remain undetected.

It was only just in time.

T
HREE GIRLS LED THE WAY, WEARING
long white dresses that were tied around their waists with rune-sewn cloths. All three of them were singing softly, chanting words that Emily didn’t recognize, their faces blank and almost motionless. There was something about their appearance that reminded Emily of Alassa, save for the birthmarks all three of them had on their faces, just below their left eyes. Lady Easter’s daughters, Emily guessed.

Rudolf tensed beside her. His father had tried to force him into marriage with a brainwashed girl.

He’d described the oldest girl as ugly. Emily didn’t see it; the oldest girl looked plain, but very far from ugly. Her face was pale, as if she hadn’t seen the sun since the day she was born, while long dark hair cascaded down her back. The white dress, almost translucent, revealed that her breasts were high and firm, bigger than both of her sisters. Emily suspected, rather cynically, that if Rudolf hadn’t been homosexual he would have found far fewer complaints about the marriage.

The two younger girls weren’t really prettier, she decided. One of them had dark hair too, while the other had red hair that hung down to her shoulders. Unlike her sisters, she didn’t seem to want to go in for the long hair that was traditional for aristocrats, probably deciding that it was a pain to wash. Emily privately suspected that the fashion was just another way to control women; they were forced to spend hours washing and dressing or they wouldn’t look fashionable. Thankfully, magic made personal grooming a great deal easier.

She watched as the three girls, still singing, came to a halt beside the stone table. Moments later, an older woman entered, her back as straight and stiff as a board. Emily glanced into her eyes, very briefly, and saw a furious struggle taking place inside the older woman’s mind. Lady Easter wasn’t a willing participant in what was going on, she realized numbly. Mother Holly had laid compulsion spell after compulsion spell on her until it was a miracle she could still resist, even if only mentally. Her body did as it was commanded by the hedge witch.

Lady Easter sat on her throne, eyes locked on the stone table. Emily studied her for a long moment, wondering if she dared try to cancel the spells, then turned her attention back to the entrance, just in time to see a young girl enter. She looked to be about twelve, young enough to be innocent, old enough to be poised on the edge of womanhood. Like the others, she wore a long white dress, her face scrubbed clean, then carefully made up by experts. There was a vacant expression on her face that suggested she was drugged rather than under any form of magical compulsion. Emily gritted her teeth as the girl inched towards the stone table, then was helped to climb onto the stone by the three daughters.

The magic field rippled suddenly as Mother Holly entered the room. Emily had never seen her before, but she couldn’t be anyone else. She walked like an old woman, she had the face of an old woman, yet her body seemed to be middle-aged at most. Rudolf trembled beside Emily, either in fear or in anger, and she caught his arm before he could do something stupid.

She focused her attention on Mother Holly. Why did she look so
old
? Emily puzzled over it for a long moment before deciding the rituals that stripped children of their life force had been misapplied. Or maybe Mother Holly just wasn’t vain enough to try to rejuvenate her face as well as her body. There were sorceresses who didn’t care about their appearance, just as there were sorceresses who wasted hours rejuvenating themselves or applying careful glamors.

But there was something deeply wrong with the old woman, she realized. Her face twisted constantly, moving from a faintly regretful expression to an expression that delighted in the pain and fear she was inflicting. The woman’s hands twitched constantly, as if she was on the verge of casting a spell, while her long white hair moved in odd patterns. Emily couldn’t help thinking of gorgons, except there were no snakes in place of hair. There was nothing, as far as she knew, that could account for such an effect. Maybe she was having a reaction to all the magic she was using.

Mother Holly walked up to the throne, passing close enough to the hidden couple to touch, then turned and faced the table. Two guards appeared, both wearing black robes, carrying Lady Barb between them. Emily had to cover her mouth to stifle a horrified gasp. Lady Barb had been beaten bloody, then chained so heavily that she could barely stand upright -- hands cuffed behind her back, chains encircling her ankles. And a nasty, but familiar, scent wafted over the room...

Emily cursed mentally as she realized what must have happened. There was a potion that damped a person’s magic, at least for a few hours, rendering them helpless. Emily had been forced to drink it, two years ago.

They forced her to drink it
, she thought, fighting to keep from springing out to help her mentor.
They wouldn’t have been able to batter her halfway to death if they hadn’t stolen her magic...

She shuddered. And now Lady Barb had no magic, not as long as they kept forcing her to drink the potion...

She switched her attention to the guards, resisting the urge to leap out and attack the old witch. One of them looked as blank as the other guards, obeying orders robotically, while the other seemed to be practically shaking with horror. Emily looked into his eyes and realized that the guard had seen terrible things. She wondered if they could count on him as a possible ally, but dismissed the thought. The guard was too terrified to do anything but watch helplessly, no matter what happened.

The horrible spell book had talked about spells to terrify people into servitude. Perhaps Mother Holly had tested one on the guard, only to discover that it rendered him largely useless. And then she’d just left him that way...

Emily heard a loud thump as the door slammed closed. The chamber was sealed.

“Well,” Mother Holly said. Her gaze was fixed firmly on Lady Barb. “You came to restore the old order.”

Lady Barb showed no reaction. Emily cringed, mentally. Just how badly had the older woman been hurt? She didn’t look to have any broken bones, but someone could be beaten into submission without breaking any bones. The bruises suggested that she’d been worked over by experts, using everything from their bare hands to the flat of their blades. Blood had dried on her bare flesh.

“But you have failed,” Mother Holly said, when Lady Barb showed no reaction. “The old order has failed.”

Lady Barb coughed, then spat. Emily couldn’t avoid noticing she’d spat blood.

“You are messing with powers you don’t understand,” Lady Barb said. Her voice was strong enough to hold attention, despite the beating. “You have to stop this.”

Mother Holly stepped forward until she was standing in front of the table, looking down at the young girl. “I have seen too many aristocrats” – the word was a curse – “abuse the common folk,” she snapped. “Why should I not wage war on them?”

“You’re killing more commoners than the aristocrats ever did,” Lady Barb pointed out. “I know you’ve taken at least twenty children – and I’d bet you took more. How can you justify
that
to yourself?”

For a moment, Emily thought the question had started to unravel Mother Holly’s determination to proceed. Her face shifted rapidly, as if there were two personalities struggling for control. She must have done
something
to the skull, draining it of the personality its creator had left in place.

What if the personality had tried to overwhelm Mother Holly, only to come to a draw? Or perhaps they were still fighting.

“I have watched peasants starve because they are not allowed to keep enough food for winter,” Mother Holly said. “I have watched girls taken into the high castles because they are pretty. I have watched boys beaten for daring to go too close to the castle and older men crippled for trying to hunt for food. I will do whatever it takes to prevent the aristocrats from abusing their subjects.”

Emily puzzled over it. If that was the case, why hadn’t she killed Lord Gorham and Rudolf, rather than trying to control them? And why try to have Rudolf marry Lady Easter’s daughter? Unless...perhaps the objective was to give the mountains a single royal family once again? There would be fewer people trying to claim tax, for one thing, and it would be far easier for Mother Holly to control them.

“I will break your mind if you refuse to pledge your servitude to me,” Mother Holly hissed as she produced a knife from her belt. A wave of dark magic washed across the room. Emily didn’t need to see the knife directly to know that it was made from grey stone. “And what is left of you will never be found.”

“Go to the devils,” Lady Barb said. She managed to stand up straighter, despite the chains, looking Mother Holly right in the eye. “You’re already halfway there.”

Mother Holly snarled and raised the knife, ready to plunge it into the girl’s chest. Rudolf moved before Emily could stop him, throwing himself at Mother Holly’s back. She turned, surprised, as the concealment spells snapped. They couldn’t hide someone who drew attention to himself. Rudolf barely made it halfway to her before his entire body froze and he fell to the ground.

Emily cursed and hastily returned her staff to normal size. Mother Holly stared at her, lifting her hand. Emily threw herself to one side as a fireball rocketed past her and struck the far wall, setting fire to one of the tapestries.

She channeled her power through the staff despite the risks, trying to use a basic freeze spell on Mother Holly. A wave of raw magic deflected her spell, followed by another that yanked the staff out of her hand and sent it flying across the room. Emily shaped another spell in her mind, but it was too late. A third wave of magic caught her, picking her up and holding her upside down, hanging helplessly in front of Mother Holly.

“Well,” Mother Holly said. Up close, her breath stank – and there were faint hints of red light in her eyes. Emily remembered Shadye and shuddered. “Who might you be?”

She cast a spell that made magic crackle around Emily, but nothing happened. Mother Holly repeated the question; Emily braced herself to resist a compulsion…yet there was nothing.