The Alchemists Academy Book 2: Elemental Explosions (18 page)

            At that point, Ms. Burns picked up a stone and threw it at him.

            It hit Wirt in the ribs, and he flinched automatically. “What did you do that for? That hurt.”

            Ms. Burns wandered over and poked the spot where the rock had hit. “Oh, don’t whine, it’s not like it broke anything.”

            “You still threw a rock at me,” Wirt complained.

            Ms. Burns shrugged. “And I’m going to throw a few more in a minute. It promises to be a fun morning, on the whole.”

            “But that’s… that’s…”

            “Designed to teach you something, Wirt.” Ms. Burns moved back to her mark, selecting another stone. Wirt noticed now that she had a small stack of them at her feet. Ms. Burns spotted his look and smiled. “These are from the bottom of Ms. Lake’s home. They’re some of the ones people have skimmed into it over the years. Plenty of ammo for today’s lesson, I think.”

            Wirt wasn’t sure why it was such a big deal that a teacher was planning to throw stones at him all morning. Maybe it was just the part where Wirt had subconsciously put Ms. Burns into the tiny category of the school’s “good” teachers, where “good” mostly meant that they weren’t inclined to try killing their students, and didn’t actively promote the virtues of being a power hungry evil wizard the way the headmaster did. Of course, given that Ms. Burns had almost killed Wirt the first time they met, that was probably not the safest categorization out there.

            “You’re really just going to stand there and throw stones at me?”

            Ms. Burns quirked a smile. “You’re really just going to stand there and let me?”

“So I could just move?” Wirt asked.

“I guess so. Of course, if you
do
move from that spot, you will instantly fail my elemental magic class.”

            Which would almost certainly mean not making the final fourteen of the elite class. Ms. Burns had Wirt between a rock and a hard place. Well, a series of rocks, anyway. So was that all this was? Another test? Some kind of weird hazing thing to determine how much Wirt would put up with when ordered around by an authority figure?

            “So what is it I’m meant to do about the stones?” Wirt asked determined to find out.

            Ms. Burns shrugged. “Whatever you can.”

            She lobbed another stone his way, not as hard as the first one, so Wirt was able to knock it out of the way with his hand.

            “The problem with doing it that way,” Ms. Burns observed, winding up like a baseball pitcher, “is that it hurts.”

            She threw the next stone, and sure enough, it stung when Wirt tried to parry it away, leaving an ugly looking welt on his palm.

            Ms. Burns went on as though he hadn’t just yelped in pain. “And of course, if I had placed a spell within the rock… well,
anything
could have happened when it touched you.”

            “So what am I meant to…” Wirt paused, realizing the foolishness of even asking it, given where he was. “Magic.”

            Ms. Burns smiled. And, Wirt noticed, she didn’t reach for any more rocks straight away. “Finally. What took you so long, Wirt?”

   ize=        Wirt just shrugged.

“No, seriously. What took you so long? You’ve spent more than a year at a magical school, you have significant talents for whole areas of magic, and yet when I start throwing rocks at you, your first response is depressingly physical. The same thing was true of that fight you had with Roland and Spencer.”

“I wasn’t having a fight,” Wirt argued. “I was just caught up in it.”

“And you couldn’t have ended it magically?” Ms. Burns demanded. “You could have temporarily transformed everyone in that room into something, or frozen their feet to the floor, or blown them back with strong winds. Yet your first response, your
only
response, was to try to pull them apart. Look where that got you.”

Wirt wasn’t sure about that. “So you’re saying that I should only use magic?”

Ms. Burns shook her head. “I’m saying that you should make the most of the talents you possess. Currently, it’s like someone having a virtuoso talent for the violin, and then deciding to work in an office instead. Or a natural race car driver who insists on walking everywhere.”

“So you want me to be the best I can be?” Wirt asked, and he couldn’t help a hint of sarcasm dripping into his tone.

“I want you to make the most of your magic,” Ms. Burns shot back. “Trust me, you have plenty of it. It’s just… buried. It has been hidden away for too many years.”

“What?”

“We’ll get to that,” Ms. Burns promised. “At least, I hope we will. You have to master this first.”

“Um… you aren’t about to ask me to undertake some impossibly dangerous quest are you?” Wirt asked.

“Me?” Ms. Burns asked innocently. “I just want you to do something about the rocks, Wirt.”

She bent and threw one in a single motion, catching Wirt off guard.

“But what am I meant to do?” Wirt asked.

“Donheigt you remember our lesson with the snowballs?”

Wirt did, but he had a feeling that a simple heat shield wouldn’t be enough. He tried it anyway, though, and got another bruise for his trouble.

“It needs to be more heat,” Ms. Burns said, “and it needs to be much more focused. A general shield is good when someone is throwing pure bolts of an element at you, letting you cancel water with fire, fire with water, and so on. For actual physical objects, you need to intercept them more accurately, and more actively.”

“So I need to shoot them down as they come in?” Wirt asked.

Ms. Burns nodded. “You could put it like that, yes. Now, are you ready for another try?”

“Does it really matter whether I’m ready?”

“Not really.” Ms. Burns hefted another rock and took aim while Wirt tried to summon up every scrap of elemental power he could. He would be ready for this. He would shoot down these stones before they got anywhere-

            The first rock hit Wirt on the knee, stinging and bruising. The second struck his shoulder. The third-and here Wirt could see why Ms. Burns had been the one conducting the throwing rocks for accuracy test a few days ago-hit him in the solar plexus, making him double up as the breath went out of him. Part of Wirt wanted to tell Ms. Burns that this was stupid, and that he wanted nothing further to do with it. Except that, if he did that, he would fail. Wirt was certain that Ms. Burns was deadly serious about that part.

            The fourth rock flew at him then, and Wirt reacted on instinct, raising one hand. He felt power surge up through him then, rising up in a wave that seemed to burn and freeze him at the same time, bursting out along that raised arm and flying forward until…

            The rock exploded, turning into a shower of dust motes. Wirt was so shocked that he’d managed it that he barely reacted to the fifth rock, thrown straight at his head by Ms. Burns. That one exploded just inches from him, disintegrating only moments before it would have connected. More rocks followed, and Wirt found that he just had to focus on them for the power to leap out, turning them to dust before they got anywhere near him. After a dozen or so, Ms. Burns put a stop to her pitching, nodding with apparent satisfaction.

            “There,” she said, “that wasn’t so hard, was it? Incidentally, you can put your hand down now, Wirt.”

            Wirt lowered his arm, looking at it like the limb was a loaded weapon. Which it was now, of course. That was a lot of responsibility.

            “Why did you teach me this?” Wirt asked.

            Ms. Burns shrugged. “Because you’ll need it. Only next time, the flying objects will be moving a lot faster, and if you miss one, just one, you’ll get a lot more than bruises as your reward. You’ll be disintegrated.”

            “You’re talking about the quantum ball,” Wirt guessed. “What is it you know that I don’t, Ms. Burns?”

            “Oh, hundreds of things,” the teacher said with a smile that was as enigmatic as it was infuriating. “Right now, for example, I know that you’ll want to hurry back to the room you’re sharing with Roland.”

            “What?” Wirt started to ask. “Why?”

            Wirt didn’t get an answer to that though, because Ms. Burns chose that moment to vanish, obviously using a transportation spell to head off to some other part of the tree. Not knowing what else to do, Wirt transported himself to a spot outside the door to his room. The door was locked when he tried the handle carefully, but by pressing his ear to the wood, he could just about make out Roland’s voice inside.

            “Yes,” Roland said, “things are still on course. We are almost in a position to act.” There was a pause, Wirt guessed it was for the voice from the box to speak. “Yes, I understand. I know what is at stake.” Another pause. “I know this is too important for that. Are you sure the artifacts in the school will give us the power we need?”

            This time, Wirt thought he caught the faint rasp of a voice raised in anger.

            “No, I would never question you. I just want to be sure that taking over will give us enough power to do everything that needs to be done. Yes, I understand. I’ll do it. I’ll do everything that’s needed.”

            Wirt had had enough. It was time, he decided, to jump in there and confront Roland directly. Except that, just as he started to whisper the words to a transportation spell, a hand closed on his shoulder. Wirt whirled, ready to defend himself, but it was only Spencer.

            “We have to go,” the other boy said. “The headmaster wants to see everyone in the solarium. I think… I think this might be it, Wirt. I think he might have results for us.”

Epilogue

T
he solarium was silent without Ender Paine having to work any kind of magic this time. Everyone was too tense to speak, especially once they had looked up at the front of the room, where fourteen scarves hung over some of the low branches of the plants there. The headmaster stood at the front, as usual, with Ms. Lake on one side of him and, more surprisingly, King Wilford on the other. Robert and Priscilla stood with their father, and for once, they lent a regal air to proceedings, rather than merely making Wirt wonder when their presence would make something go wrong.

            Wirt couldn’t help shuffling a little in place. It was finally time. Time to find out if he had made it, or if the last few weeks of effort had been for nothing. They had flown by, and Wirt found himself thinking back to all the things he could have done differently. All the things he could have done better. He had thought that he would have time to make up for things like his poor performance in glamour spells, yet now there was no time left.

            In a way, that was a relief. There were no more tests to sit. No more stupid quests to try to make sense of. No more games to play for the amusement of men like Ender Paine. Wirt could finally relax in a way he had not been able to all through the term so far.

            Of course, in several much more important ways, the thought was an absolutely terrifying one.

            Wirt looked around himself, trying to count the students remaining in the room. Remaining in contention for those fourteen precious places. Wirt counted twenty, which meant that ten of the original class had dropped out early. It wasn’t enough. Not to make Wirt certain. Not even to make him confident. More than a quarter of the students in this room would be sent home today, told in an instant that they weren’t good enough, and any dreams they had of working in the top few jobs of the magical world would be shattered, just like that.