The Alchemists Academy Book 2: Elemental Explosions (17 page)

            Wirt shook his head. “That’s just it, Spencer. I don’t think it was just him being stupid. And it’s more than him just being unpleasant.”

            “Isn’t that bad enough?”

            “Not compared to this,” Wirt insisted, “I think that Roland is actually plotting something worse.” Wirt took a breath and started to explain. “I’ve caught him a couple of times now talking to this… thing in a box. Explaining how well their plan was going. Explaining how they had something big planned for the middle of the term.”

            “That doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” Spencer said, but Wirt could tell he was only trying to keep from getting too worked up by it.

            “Really? I
know
he had something to do with the ropes disappearing. Last night, he was talking to that box of his about putting them back somewhere they could easily be found.”

            “So he’s trying to cheat his way through the tests?” Spencer sounded a little more angry at that, but he still obviously hadn’t grasped the full implications.

            Wirt shook his head again. “He’d already used the ropes for something, so I think he was just trying to cover his tracks. And I think leaving them in the giant’s castle was to give him a legitimate excuse to go after the eggs. I mean, if he had come back with some, no one would have made him give them back, would they?”

            Spencer paled at that, and Wirt knew that his friend had begun to see just how dangerous Roland was.

            “So all the danger we were in… Alana getting hurt…”

            “Wasn’t an accident,” Wirt said. “It was all part of whatever game Roland is playing. Even him making Alana like him is part of it, I think. He said something to his box about getting close to a girl as part of his plan.”

            “So that isn’t even real?” Spencer looked calm, but Wirt had the feeling that it was that tense, still calm that came before a storm. “Alana likes him so much, she’s so totally infatuated with him, and it’s all just part of some plan on his part?”

            Wirt nodded. He didn’t know what to say. Perhaps he should have told someone all this far earlier. Perhaps if he had, Alana wouldn’t have been hurt, and none of this would have happened with Roland.

            “I’m sorry, Spencer. I should have told you.”

            “No, it isn’t your fault. It’s… it’s
his
.”

            Spencer stood up as he said it, and Wirt realized a fraction of a second too late that he was staring across the cafeteria with a determined expression. By the time Wirt had looked around, spotted Roland standing in line by the serving hatch and turned back to Spencer, his friend was already up and moving, striding across the cafeteria floor.

            Roland saw him coming, but obviously didn’t read Spencer’s expression very well, because he was his usual taunting self.

            “Spencer. You’ll have to do some extra work to catch up, not getting any marks in that last-”

            The punch from Spencer was far better than Wirt might have believed he could throw, catching Roland cleanly on the jaw before he piled in, bearing the other boy to the ground in a tangle of limbs, lashing out wildly. Roland fought back, trying to wrestle his way to the top while throwing punches of his own, and when Wirt tried to pull the two of them apart, he caught a stray fist right in the eye. It said a lot about the chaotic scramble that he couldn’t even tell which of the two had thrown it.

            Things went rapidly downhill from there, as more students tried to help break up the brawl, only to be dragged into it. It seemed that the students of the Alchemists Academy liked nothing so much as a good fight, and they were only too happy to join in. Maybe it was just the stress of the last few weeks of tests letting itself out in one huge explosion of action, but the fight sucked in student after student, until practically everyone seemed to be involved.

The strange thing though was that none of them used magic. Wirt would have thought that, with almost all of them able to manipulate the elements, or transform one another into things, there would have been spells flying in every direction. Somehow though, it was only fists, though that was bad enough, when he was caught near the center of the sudden outbreak of violence.

            “Stop this at once!”

            Ms. Burns’ voice cut through the chaos, and the amazing thing was that it did stop, both instantly and completely. Students looked around in confusion, looking at the people they were fighting with the slightly embarrassed expressions of people who weren’t quite sure why they were doing it.

            “Now, does somebody want to tell me what happened?” the teacher demanded. “Come on, who started this?”

            All the eyes in the room turned to Spencer and Roland. Oh, and to Wirt, which Wirt felt was exceptionally unfair. Particularly given what Ms. Burns said next.

            “Spencer, Roland, Wirt. To the headmaster’s office. Now.”

******

Ender Paine kept them waiting, of course, leaving them sitting on those hard benches outside his office, under the scrutiny of those vile-looking statues. Wirt, Spencer and Roland occupied different benches, generally not looking at one another, and certainly not talking. Wirt could feel the beginnings of a black eye forming, while both Roland and Spencer sported bruises.

            They sat there for what felt like an eternity before the door to the headmaster’s office swung open and they found themselves summoned inside. Ender Paine was waiting for them, sitting behind his desk and gazing at the three of them calmly as they stood before him.

            “Would one of you care to explain what happened to turn part of my school into such chaos?”

            Wirt thought about explaining everything, up to and including what he had heard from Roland, but he’d had time to think, on the benches. That wasn’t the way to deal with this.

            “Well then,” the headmaster continued, “would you like to suggest to me why I shouldn’t trap each of you in an inter-dimensional space and keep you there for the safety of my remaining pupils?”

            It was Roland who spoke up. “Mostly, headmaster, because that would mean the school no longer received my fees.”

            Wirt waited for the headmaster to explode at that, or to turn Roland to stone, or something equally unpleasant. For a moment, it seemed that the room itself darkened, and power rushed in until Wirt could feel the hairs on his arms standing up. He wanted desperately to take a step back, but his feet appeared to be stuck to the carpet. Ender Paine stood, dark fire dancing between his fingers.

            Then he smiled. “True. And also true of young Spencer, of course. As for Wirt here… well, I am sure you would only escape. I really do hope that this isn’t going to be a repeat of what happened when your fathers were here.”

            Wirt didn’t understand, and it seemed that some of his confusion must have shown on his face, because Ender Paine raised a hand and the dark fire he had been holding leapt from it to form a flat surface, not unlike Priscilla’s mirror.

            In it, Wirt saw two figures who looked enough like Spencer and Roland that Wirt knew they had to be their fathers when they were their age. Spencer’s father was holding a ball. Except that, as he spun it between his hands, Wirt saw that it wasn’t just any ball. It was a quantum ball, like the one Roland kept beneath his bed, the one that could disintegrate a target once it was at full speed.

            It was at full speed in the image Ender Paine showed them, glowing with all the weird colors of its twisted rainbow at the moment the young Mr. Bentley threw the ball at the boy who looked like Roland. Only it didn’t hit him. It should have. It was heading straight for him. Yet at the last second, a second form threw itself in front of Mr. Black. It was a girl, and Wirt just had time to see that she was very pretty in the instant before she disintegrated completely.

            “Ah, Elise,” Ender Paine said. “Such a sweet, innocent, and above all
foolish
girl. And apparently, the cause of so much trouble. Do I need to show you the part after this, when the young Henry Black tried to murder her killer with magic? Or have we all learned enough for now?”

            The headmaster was looking straight at Wirt. Not at the others. At him. Apparently, it was Wirt he wanted to learn whatever lesson he had in mind here. Wirt nodded.

            “Good,” Ender Paine said. “Then I am prepared to let this go with only a minimal punishment. Each of you will translate for me a page of the
Book of Klaa
by this time tomorrow. If it is not on my desk by then, of course, I will think up something suitably unpleasant in terms of your endless torment.”

            Spencer raised his hand. “Um… excuse me, Headmaster.”

            “Yes boy?”

            “Isn’t the
Book of Klaa
the one that drives those who read it insane?”

            “And your point is?” For a moment, the headmaster’s eyes went cold again.

            “Nothing, Headmaster. Just checking.”

            “Then get out, all of you.”

            The three of them left as quickly as they could, Roland hurrying on ahead. Wirt hung behind with Spencer.

            “Did your father really do that?” he asked.

            Spencer looked at him sharply. “That was the game, Wirt.” He paused. “Sorry. My father doesn’t talk about it much. And what Roland’s father did next…”

            “He tried to take revenge for this Elise.”

            Spencer nodded. “She was an accident, but Roland’s father trying to kill mine wasn’t. He almost did it, too. They’ve hated one another for years, and I can see why. Roland is… I don’t know what he is, but I know I don’t like it.”

            Wirt nodded. He thought he understood. “So long as this doesn’t turn into something like that.”

            Spencer shook his head. “It won’t. Now, are you coming? We have an incredibly dangerous book to translate.”

Chapter 19

T
he next day found Wirt in Ms. Burns’ class on elemental magic once more. He had, with Spencer’s help and the aid of a pair of glasses kept in the library for just that use, managed to get his required translation to the headmaster on time. Now, he was working with the others on using temperature changes to achieve a variety of effects, from cooking food to freezing things solid. By the end of the class, Wirt and the others had an array of popsicles in front of them, containing everything from a perfectly preserved flower to a frozen rock.

            The bell went for the end of class, and Wirt rose with the others to leave. Ms. Burns stepped in front of him, though.

            “I have another lesson for you, Wirt. Come with me.”

            Wirt followed, wondering what it would be this time…also wondering what Ms. Burns’ teaching method would be, too, because he could still remember being pushed off a branch by her all too clearly. Thankfully, though, this lesson seemed to be taking place at ground level, because Ms. Burns led Wirt outside, onto the field in front of the school.

            “Stand here,” Ms. Burns instructed, indicating a patch of ground. Wirt stared at it, trying to work out if there was anything worryingly different about it, then looked up, making sure that nothing was poised to fall on him there. With the way Ms. Burns’ last lesson with him had gone, he wasn’t going to take any chances. Finally satisfied that the spot in question was simply a perfectly ordinary patch of grass, Wirt stood on it.