Thaumatology 101 (19 page)

‘Huh,’ Lily replied, ‘I’d have had the entire thing ground off the slab and recut the lot.’

‘That,’ Ceri said, ‘would take far too long. Cheryl insists he wouldn’t have sabotaged this, and killing himself probably wasn’t part of the deal.’

‘No,’ Twill remarked as she supervised the dish-mop in cleaning the pans, ‘someone did that for him. Though I’m still convinced he could not have been a zombie.’

‘I had a thought about that,’ Ceri said. She shovelled stew into her mouth and frowned at her tablet.

Twill and Lily looked at her expectantly. ‘Well?’ Lily asked after a few seconds of silence.

Ceri looked up, blinked, and swallowed. ‘Huh? Oh, right, Shane. What if he wasn’t so much a zombie as a puppet?’

‘I don’t get it,’ Lily replied.

‘Someone who we all suspect but who shall remain nameless kills Shane, maybe because he’s failed, maybe because he wouldn’t go as far as they wanted. They raise him as a zombie, and then they possess him, probably with one of the incorporeal demons.’ She looked down at her tablet again. ‘He was basically an undead puppet being driven around by a demon.’

Lily wrinkled her nose in disgust. Twill frowned. ‘That could work,’ the fairy said. ‘Demon possessions aren’t easy to sense without seeing the subject, and by the time I did I was more concerned about staying alive.’

Ceri nodded. ‘This circle is just a bit off,’ she said, bouncing the conversation away from Shane’s miraculous corpse again. ‘There are tiny little errors in some of the barrier runes. Not enough to make it fail, but enough to make it… leak.’ She put the tablet down and concentrated on her food. ‘That’d explain why the room was so hot all the time. And there’s no way Shane came up with this on his own. The outer barrier runes are Ctholnaraeic and that’s not something I’d expect someone like Shane to have come across. Also explains why the circle could be breached using that opening rune.’ She grinned, happy to have discovered the solution to a problem.

‘Can you fix it?’ Lily asked her. Ceri felt it was a mark of their stabilised relationship that Lily did not just say she
could
fix it.

‘I’ll need to take a proper look at the carvings tomorrow,’ she said. ‘On the plus side, I think the circle might even be tighter than usual once fixed because of the advanced rune structure. Right now, I gotta run.’ She pushed her chair back and headed for the door. ‘I have a test to ace.’

Stockwell

The coffee room conversation dropped in volume as Ceri walked in. Her steps faltered and then she picked up the pace again, pulling herself upright and ignoring the looks from about a third of the people on break from their classes. She wanted the coffee, and Bellamy had made it quite plain that this was the only day they would get a chance to grab some while he marked their tests. Still, none of the others had come down.

As she turned from getting her drink, a woman at one of the tables caught her eye and waved to her. Younger than many in the room, she looked vaguely familiar and Ceri walked over trying to figure out who this person was. She was sitting at a table with a group of others, but it did not look like any of them were too worried about the approaching magician. Small mercies and all that. Short, half-oriental, probably, with shoulder-length black hair, Ceri still had no clue who the woman was, just the nagging feeling she should.

‘You’re Ceri Brent, right?’ the girl said as Ceri arrived at the table.

‘Uh, yeah, but I don’t…’

‘Jenny Li, we went to school together.’ Recognition dawned across Ceri’s face. ‘Well, I did languages and you did science, but we did English and Maths in the same classes.’

Ceri nodded and sat down in the chair next to Jenny. ‘Yeah, I remember, what’re you doing here?’

Jenny nodded to the old Chinese woman sitting opposite. ‘Gran likes to learn and someone’s got to look after her,’ she said, grinning.

Mrs Li laughed. ‘Oh yeah, she likes it just as much as me, don’t you let her fool you.’

Jenny giggled. ‘Okay, yeah, we’re doing Egyptology this time. It was Mesopotamian Myth and Folklore last semester. You’re doing the PPC course, right?’ Ceri nodded. ‘I thought you were a norm? You never had to do any of the magic classes in school.’

‘I was,’ Ceri said. ‘I’m working at the Metropolitan, there was an accident and I got belted with a huge dose of thaumic energy and… Well, now I can work magic.’

‘That was you?’ The voice came from an old man sitting two down from Mrs Li. ‘I read about that in the paper. They say you’re goin’ t’ find them teenal particles.’

Ceri grinned. ‘T-Null,’ she said, ‘and we found them. There was a little article about it in Thaumatology Monthly, but I guess no one reads that here.’ There were a number of shaken heads, which figured, it was a magazine for thaumatologists, enchanters, and wizards. A few witches and thaumaturgists read it too, but it was fairly esoteric compared to… ‘Anyone read the Wednesday Witch?’ Ceri asked.

‘Oh yes,’ Mrs Li said, nodding. A couple of the other women nodded. ‘It good for the gossip pages.’

‘And the remedies,’ added another woman, late-middle-aged and possibly hypochondriac.

The man who had spoken earlier leant across the table, offering his hand. ‘Benson West,’ he said, ‘pleased t’ meet you, Miss Brent.’

Smiling, Ceri shook his hand. ‘It’s Ceri,’ she said.

‘Ben,’ he replied. ‘Don’t you go mindin’ them folks as are shy of the magic none. People our age remember the Shatterin’. Some of ‘em are still a bit tetchy about it, y’know?’

Ceri shrugged slightly. ‘My parents were born after, I learned about it in History. I was normal until last month. Suddenly some people look at me funny.’

‘Ah well,’ Ben said, ‘most of ‘em will tell you tales of how terrible it was after the War. Magic this and that comin’ out the woodwork like woodlice. People spontan’usly turnin’ into frogs. Tidal waves, earthquakes, tornados… It’s all a load o’ bollocks!’ He gave a lop-sided grin. ‘Now them kind of things happened, out in Nip-land an’ America an’ Germany. And it was
hard
here for a few years, but we’d just been through a world war! Anyone thought it’d be sunshine an’ roses was a nut.’ Several of the older people around the table nodded and grunted in agreement. ‘Truth is, we had miles of salt water between us an’ the bad stuff.’

Ben was brighter than he looked and knew more about magic than Ceri bet he normally let on. Britain
had
been protected from the worst excesses of the Shattering by the North Sea and the English Channel. In most of Europe, going east as far as Moscow, there had been real chaos and those countries had never fully recovered. The western side of America was still owned by the natives who had grabbed their land back in a line down from North Dakota to Texas, which had given them the country’s major oil reserves. China had done reasonably well, so had Australia; distance and water had been what kept you safe.

‘It’s more to do with superstition than truth,’ Mrs Li said. ‘People fear what they don’t understand, dear. It cliché, but it true.’

Ceri finished her coffee. ‘I better get back upstairs and make sure I’m still on the course,’ she said.

‘Nice seeing you again, Ceri,’ Jenny said.

Ceri grinned. ‘Nice seeing all of you.’ She waved and headed back out, hearing the conversation grow that little bit louder as she left. Damn, that was going to take some getting used to.

Bellamy nodded to her as she walked into the room. ‘Miss Brent, excellent score, please take your seat.’ He stepped around from behind his desk as she did as he had asked. ‘You’ve all passed, I’m sure you’ll be happy to know. Now that that’s over with, we can start evaluations.’ He turned and picked up a plastic bottle of salt and a wooden box. ‘This is a thaumiton source,’ he said. ‘Irradiated iron-silver, for the thaumatologist in the room.’ He smiled stiffly at Ceri who wondered if it had really been that obvious she would ask. ‘And this is common salt. Pretty much all practitioners should be able to create a basic containment circle. Let’s see how tight you can make it.’ His eyes scanned the room. ‘Mr Watts, let’s start with you. North is that way,’ he pointed back over his shoulder.

Containment circles were a pretty basic skill. Wizards, of course, learned to create powerful ones which could hold demons, but witches used them when performing delicate work to keep external influences out and the other professions usually learned them for basic protection. The most basic form was a circle, usually of salt, which was then energised by the magician’s power. Generally, the stronger a mage was, the better the containment and Bellamy had a digital thaumometer on hand to see how much energy was escaping their circles.

He let Watts form his circle, then he placed the source in the centre of it and lifted the lid. Ceri’s scalp itched almost instantly; it was a fairly strong source. Backing away two steps, Bellamy took a reading on the meter. ‘Very well, Mr Watts, raise it.’

Ceri felt the wizard’s power build and release. There was a hesitancy to it she had not expected from a professional wizard and she wondered exactly
how
he had got the court order to re-certify. The salt ring glowed a dull red briefly, then the colour shifted more toward orange and Watts relaxed.

‘Ninety-two per cent reduction, Mr Watts,’ Bellamy said. ‘You can drop it now. Your technique is good, but you’re a little hesitant.’ Stepping forward, Bellamy covered the source again and took it away. A dustpan and brush was produced to sweep up the salt circle. ‘Miss Tooley, would you mind.’

The teenager’s circle was a bit more of an irregular decagon, but her over-dramatic incantation was spoken confidently and seemed to make up a bit for the messy ring. The two students were boringly confident, having probably done the same exercise a hundred times in practical classes. Raven the Goth Witch gave a moving and entirely unnecessary evocation to Hecate, but her technique was flawless and she actually managed to do better than Watts had.

‘Miss Brent,’ Bellamy said, ‘let’s see what a degree in thaumatology can do for us.’ Ceri did not like the way he said it; he sounded like he had a beef with theorists. She decided not to mention she had a Masters degree.

She put her tablet aside and stood, walking over to take the salt from him. A slow blink and her Sight was showing the flow of magic in the room. Raven had half a dozen amulets or charms on her; Ceri was a little surprised to see that one of them seemed to be an illusion charm to make her skin paler. Watts had something magical in his breast pocket, though she could not tell what it was. Even through its insulating box, the thaumiton source was a dull glow. Ceri took a second to line herself up with Magical North and proceeded to mark out her circle in one long, even stream of salt.

‘A little larger than required,’ Bellamy commented, ‘and you began a few degrees off north.’

‘Treat and Broadville,’ Ceri said, ‘demonstrated in eighty-two that aligning a basic circle to Magical North rather than Magnetic or True North produces a measureable increase in efficiency.’

‘Really,’ Bellamy said. He put his box of magic in the centre of her circle and stepped back. ‘Well, let’s see how “efficient” it is.’

Like Watts and the two students, Ceri did not go in for elaborate incantations to raise a circle. Concentrating her will, she raised her right hand and pushed power into the ring of salt. The powder shone white briefly and she saw the column of barrier magic go up, blocking the thaumitons radiating from the box.

Bellamy looked down at the meter and frowned. He turned one of the knobs on the box, and then clicked it through another setting. ‘I’m reading… about four millithaum,’ he said.

‘That’s basic background for London,’ Marks said, sounding slightly awed. His own circle had managed to cut out about eighty-eight per cent.

‘Yes, well,’ Bellamy said, ‘you can drop the circle, Miss Brent.’

‘You’d better reset your meter, sir,’ she said. ‘You’ll blow the transducer if you expose it to that source on a micro-thaum setting.’ The knob clicked twice and Ceri withdrew her will. There was a sputter of energy from the salt ring, some of it at the northern point puffing out a few inches. Bellamy glanced at his meter again, probably to make sure that the source was still working.

Bellamy closed the box and placed it on the table at the front. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘I’ll have your evaluations ready for tomorrow. That’s all for today. Tomorrow we’ll be going through basic first aid, recognition of curses, maledictions, and unwanted side-effects. Miss Brent, could I have a quick word?’

Ceri packed her tablet away while the others filed out of the room. She looked up as Bellamy approached her. ‘Is there a problem, sir?’ she asked.

‘Not as such, it’s just… your technique is a little strange,’ he said.

‘Just applying what I learned, sir,’ she said.

‘Not that, and class is over, I’m Carl.’

‘Ceri.’ She smiled. ‘What’s wrong with my technique then, Carl? I admit I’m kind of winging this stuff half the time. That was the first circle I ever actually invoked.’

Bellamy’s expression was half-shocked, half-exasperated. ‘The first… Right, well, obviously there’s
nothing
wrong with your technique. You managed complete containment with a very basic circle.’

‘Then, uh, what?’

‘Well, that’s just it,’ Bellamy said, ‘you managed full containment with a basic salt circle. That takes… a lot of power and you didn’t break a sweat. Even with your “more efficient alignment” putting out that much power should have left you breathing hard at the very least.’

‘Oh,’ Ceri said. ‘I hadn’t really thought about that. To be honest, I’ve not really
done
anything much with it. Emergency stuff, um, I renewed the enchantments on my house. My parents were…’

‘I remember your parents,’ Bellamy said. ‘I’m sorry for your loss. You renewed the enchantments on your house? Can I ask how you did that?’

Ceri smiled. ‘I guess it’s not a trade secret. The boundary enchantments I re-inked. The door enchantment I used salt and chalk as a transfer medium to re-energise the symbols. Then the main house enchantments were done through this really clever model system. I think my mother came up with it since the notes were in her handwriting.’