Bookworm II: The Very Ugly Duckling (32 page)

She was woken by the sound of a chiming bell. Elaine sat upright in bed, reaching desperately for her wand ... someone or something was
outside
. She pulled herself out of bed, clutching her wand, and slipped over to the window, drawing back the curtain to peer outside. A dozen sheep were milling around outside the hut, escorted by a large dog with disturbingly human eyes. Or was it a werewolf? Werewolves might have been rare in the Golden City – Daria had been an exception – but they were quite common in rural areas.

Feeling unaccountably grimy, Elaine pulled on her dressing gown and headed out into the main room. It was cold, cold enough to make her shiver; carefully, she cast a handful of heating charms and then started to look for the bath. As the Inquisitor had said, it was really a large metal tub and nothing else, barely large enough for her to kneel down in the water. Elaine filled it with water, then had to use magic to drag it back into her room, where she started to heat it. She had the feeling that the Inquisitors simply stripped off and washed in the main room, heedless of who might see. But Elaine had never been able to undress in front of Daria, let alone anyone else. She’d done quite enough of that in the orphanage.

When she finished, she dressed properly in trousers and a shirt – still feeling grimy – and took the tub back into the living room. Johan had awakened, she realised; he was standing on the porch, staring out across the countryside. After the rainstorm, the air was fresh and clear; in the distance, the mountains seemed to glow with light and magic. It reminded Elaine of stories about people who had encountered wild magic in the countryside, wild magic that had changed them – and not always for the better. She levitated the water up and tipped it down the drain, then walked out to stand beside Johan. He looked ... relaxed.

“Thank you for bringing me here,” he said, softly.

“You’re welcome,” Elaine said. It was good to see him so relaxed. “I hope that you’re ready to eat something?”

Johan nodded eagerly and followed her back into the main room. Elaine opened one of the cupboards and produced bread and cheese, followed by a large jug of milk. It was astonishingly creamy, she discovered, as she poured it into a pair of mugs. She honestly couldn’t think why the milk in the Golden City wasn’t so rich.

“So,” Johan said, as he ate his bread and cheese. “What are we doing today?”

“More magic,” Elaine said, reaching for her notebook. She was reluctant to risk experimenting with magic that required a human target – particularly after what had happened to Charity – but there were plenty of other experiments they could run. For one thing, she wanted to know the limits of Johan’s endurance. “Incidentally, have you ever tried casting a spell on yourself?”

Johan blinked in surprise. “No,” he said. “Is that ... I thought that was a bad idea.”

“Depends on the spell,” Elaine said. “Trying to heal yourself or to ...
improve
your body can have disastrous effects. But trying to fly isn’t so difficult, if you have the power reserves.”

“Improve one’s body,” Johan mused, a wicked grin on his face. “Do you think that Jamal ever tried to improve himself?”

“I doubt it,” Elaine said, tartly. Everything she’d heard about Jamal suggested that he already considered himself perfect. “But others have done, over the years ...”

She shuddered at the memory.
She
had never felt the urge to try to improve herself, but some of the girls in her dorm had tried. One had warped her face, one had given herself breasts so large that they were bigger than her head and one had done something so terrible – Elaine had never been sure of the details – that she’d had to spend the rest of the term in hospital. After that, they’d all been given a stern lecture and threats of dire punishment if anyone tried again.

Not that it stopped the next generation
, she thought. The Privy Council had debated the matter, once. In the end, they’d reluctantly conceded that they should make sure that glamours were taught to students at a very early age, perhaps helping them to realise that they didn’t
need
to actually change their bodies. But the cynic in Elaine told her that it wouldn’t work. Glamours weren’t
real
, as she knew all too well.

She finished her breakfast and put the plates in the sink. Surprisingly, after Johan had finished
his
breakfast, he began to wash the plates. Elaine watched, with some amusement, as he wiped them clean; he hadn’t been taught to do
that
by his family. But then, he
was
a good boy ... pushing the thought aside, she found her coat and shoes and waited for him to join her at the door. When he did, she led the way outside.

It was surprisingly warm as they walked away from the hut towards a muddy clearing. Elaine sucked in her breath sharply as her feet squelched their way through the mud, disliking it intensely ... and the sight of the bog, only a few metres away, did nothing to encourage her. It was a small bog, yet she knew that putting one foot wrong could result in her being trapped or worse. Could she actually sink to her death in the mire?

“Can we go walking later?” Johan asked. “I want to explore.”

Elaine sighed, but nodded. “Let me set up a tracking spell first,” she said. “This isn’t the Golden City. It’s far too easy to get lost out here.”

Johan nodded.

They stopped in the middle of the clearing and looked around. According to Dread, the Inquisitors sometimes used it for practicing both spells and unarmed combat, but there was no trace of magic in the area as far as Elaine could sense. It had probably faded into the background over the years, she decided, as she located a large rock at one edge of the clearing. Beyond it, the trees closed in, casting a sinister shadow over the scene.

“You see that rock,” Elaine said. “I want you to make it float in the air.”

“Understood,” Johan said. He concentrated ... and the rock rose up into the air. It was a far steadier movement than anything Elaine would have expected, particularly from such an inexperienced magician. Even if
she
had cast the spells, the rock would have wobbled badly as gravity fought to pull it back to the ground. “How long do you want me to hold it up?”

Elaine frowned. “Are you concentrating on it right now?”

“Yes,” Johan said. “Should I stop ...?”

“Try and stop,” Elaine said. A moment later, the rock fell to the ground and landed hard enough to send mud flying everywhere. Elaine wiped it off her shirt with a grimace, then looked over at Johan. A normal magician’s spells would have left the rock in the air until they ran out of power. “Would you like to try something risky?”

Johan nodded, although his face was pale. “I want you to try to lift
yourself
up into the air,” Elaine ordered. “Just imagine that you’re floating about a metre above the ground.”

There was a long pause. Nothing happened.

“It isn’t working,” Johan said, sourly. Like most youngsters – and all magicians - he’d dreamed of being able to fly. “Why isn’t it working?”

“I’m not sure,” Elaine said. If he had been a normal magician, she could have taught him the spells, but she had a nasty feeling that the results would be disastrous. “I want you to ...”

She broke off as she felt herself rising up into the air until she was about two metres over Johan’s head. Her blood ran cold as she realised that Johan had not only tried something without warning her, he’d also endangered her life. What if he
couldn’t
put her down safely and she broke a leg? The closest druid was miles away.

Good thing I didn’t wear a skirt
, the irrelevant part of her mind pointed out.

“Lower me down, gently,” she ordered, fighting to keep her voice level. “You do
not
want to drop me.”

Slowly, she felt herself being lowered to the ground. Gritting her teeth, she tried to sense the magic holding her, but felt almost nothing apart from the glow of her own wand. It was almost as if Johan’s magic didn’t really exist, which was impossible. There were a long string of near-disasters to prove that it
did
exist.

“If you had done that at the Peerless School,” she said, once she was back on the ground, “you would have been sent to the Administrator for a caning. If you were lucky! You could have been expelled for
that
stunt.”

Johan paled. “I just wanted to see if it worked,” he said. “I ...”

“There were ways we could have prepared for it,” Elaine snapped, more rattled than she wanted to admit. What if she’d been flung so high up that she could no longer breathe? “We could have done it over a lake, perhaps. What would you have done if I’d broken a leg?”

“I ... I don’t know,” Johan admitted. “I could have tried to heal it.”

“That’s not a good idea unless you happen to know what you are doing,” Elaine said. “And you can’t cast normal spells. We’d have to have a druid arrange for you to practice on a live patient and most of them would object, strongly. Healing is much more than just melding the bones together.”

She took a look at his face and lowered her voice, slightly. “We will keep pushing the limits,” she added, “but we have to be careful. We’re all alone up here.”

“Apart from the sheep,” Johan said.

And a possible werewolf
, Elaine added, in the privacy of her own mind. Most city-folk were terrified of werewolves, not without reason. There was no point in mentioning the possibility to him.

“Come on,” she said, out loud. “Let’s go make some sandwiches, then we can go on a walk.”

Johan remained pensive until they walked back down the path and saw the lake in front of them. A boat was positioned on the shore, tipped upside down to ensure that the rain just cascaded over it and fell to the ground. Elaine had to smile as Johan discovered the sign that identified the boat as belonging to the Inquisitors, then promised that they’d find the paddles and take it out soon. The thought made her nervous – she had never been boating before – but it was worth it if it made Johan happy. They both needed to relax.

“Tell me,” Johan said, when she said that out loud. “What do you
do
when you aren’t actually working?”

“Read, mainly,” Elaine admitted. “And I’m writing my own spellbook. If it ever gets published ...”

Johan gave her an odd look. “Why ...?”

“I’ve been creating spells that have all of the unnecessary gibberish stripped from them, spells that require very little power to work,” Elaine said. “That means that we will end up with more low-power magicians.”

“And none of the high-power magicians like that thought,” Johan guessed. Elaine nodded. “Is that why they’re scared of me?”

“I’m afraid so,” Elaine admitted. “And that is why you have to be careful not to give them any other reason to be scared.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

House Rendang, Duncan considered, was caught between a rock and a hard place.

They were one of the oldest families in the Empire, with a lineage that included at least one Grand Sorcerer, but they were
poor
. The rental on lands they owned were enough to maintain their position in the Golden City, yet not enough to allow them to consider themselves rich or diversify into more lucrative fields that would set their finances on steadier ground. In their place, he would have withdrawn from the Golden City entirely and spent a few decades saving money in a cheaper part of the Empire, but their pride wouldn’t allow them to admit defeat.

It was a measure of how poor they were, he realised, that they only seemed to have a handful of servants. Their mansion was larger than the one he’d purchased six months ago, but there was something
faded
about it, as if it were slowly decaying into dust. It would take a small army of servants to repair the damage and they clearly didn’t have the funds to hire them, even on a temporary basis. Duncan smiled to himself as the servant – clearly an old retainer – led him into the Rendang’s study. They were desperate, giving him an advantage. He hoped.

The
real
question was just what was going on between Johan and Jayne. Jayne worked for the Head Librarian, which raised a red flag in Duncan’s mind. Had
she
ordered Jayne to start a relationship with Duncan’s son? It would hardly be unprecedented, not when the greater magical families would often try to court new-bloods to add their wild magic to the family’s heritage. And it would help her attach more strings to Johan ...

Or was it the Grand Sorceress’s idea? He barely knew the Head Librarian, but he’d spent enough time with Light Spinner to know that she didn’t lack for courage or cunning, which was partly why she was still Grand Sorceress. It would be simple for her to quietly insist that Jayne spend time with Johan and then let nature take its course, or even offer the girl vast rewards if she cooperated. Apparently, Jayne was looking for a potions apprenticeship at a very early age. A word from Light Spinner could ensure that she had her choice of Potion Masters to teach her.

The Rendang rose to his feet as Duncan entered his study. He was a tall, powerfully-built man who somehow managed to look imposing, despite greying hair and a growing paunch. Duncan bowed – a gesture of respect, coming from someone who was nominally a social equal – and then stepped backwards. The Rendang stepped forward and held out a hand. Duncan shook it firmly, feeling a hint of triumph. He’d been acknowledged as an equal!

“Thank you for coming,” the Rendang said, waving Duncan to a comfortable chair. “Can I offer you anything?”

Duncan’s spies had told him that the Rendang Family was renowned for its wine cellar, but he knew he needed a clear head. “Kava would be sufficient,” he said, briskly. It would be an insult to refuse altogether. “There are matters I would discuss with you.”

The Rendang nodded. “I confess I am curious,” he said, mildly. “What can I do for you?”

“I must speak bluntly,” Duncan said. “Your youngest daughter appears to be courting my son. Is this happening on your orders?”

“I would not presume to tell Jayne who she could or could not court,” the Rendang said. His face was set in an expressionless mask. “She is certainly not courting anyone on my orders.”