Schooled in Magic Read online

  The sorcerer started to laugh. “I told you where you are,” he said, mockingly. “Even if you escaped my dungeons, where would you go?”

  He was right, Emily realized. She’d never heard of the Craggy Mountains, let alone the Blighted Land of the Dead. And he had never heard of Kansas. No matter how she wanted to avoid it, she had to accept the fact that she had somehow been transported from her own world to one where magic worked, where skeletons could be used as servants and an evil sorcerer could sacrifice her for power. She was utterly alone, ignorant of even something as basic as local geography.

  Shadye was right; even if she did escape, where would she go?

  They reached a stairwell leading up into the darkness. Shadye seemed unbothered by the lack of illumination, as did the skeletons, but Emily found it hard to restrain her panic as they climbed onward and upward, while she was unable to see anything. Her legs bumped against the walls from time to time, the spell binding her holding her body as firmly as ever, just before they finally walked out into the open air. The ground below their feet was mud...no, she realized suddenly, it was ash. She sniffed and then shuddered at the stench of burned flesh in the air. In the distance, she caught sight of what had once been a forest. Now, it looked as if something had killed the trees, leaving their dead remains standing in the midst of the darkness.

  “The Necromancer Kings faced the assembled might of the Empire not too far from here,” Shadye said with heavy satisfaction. He seemed to like the sound of his own voice. “They say that the skies were black with dragons and terrible lizards as they fought for forty days and forty nights. In the end, so much magic was released that the land was permanently warped by chaos. Those who stray into these lands without protection find themselves twisted and transformed into horrors. Few dare to visit my fortress, even though they believe that they have powers that can match my own.”

  Emily found her voice. “Why did they fight?”

  “The Necromancer Kings wished to enjoy their powers without restraint, to create a world where their whims and wishes would be the whole of the law,” Shadye said. “But the Empire and their wizards believed the necromancers to be an abomination. The wizards believed that they had won, yet the Harrowing can never be stopped. All they could do was delay it, for a time.”

  He stopped and muttered a series of words under his breath. There was a brilliant flash of light, bright enough to make Emily squeeze her eyes closed against the glare. When she reopened her eyes, she saw a large building made out of dark stone right in front of them, as if it had been there all along. Perhaps it had been invisible, she told herself, taking some measure of comfort from the thought. If Shadye had needed to hide his dark temple, or whatever it was, it suggested that someone was watching for him. Maybe he’d been lying when he’d claimed that no one came into the Blighted Lands of the Dead.

  The skeletons carried her into an opening that appeared out of nowhere, an instant before her head would have slammed into the stone. Inside, there was a sense of overpowering vastness, as if the building was much larger than she could comprehend. The smell of blood assailed her nostrils; a moment later, as she looked around, she saw great waves of red blood washing down the walls and pooling on the ground. Shadye seemed unbothered by walking through the blood, bowing from time to time towards statues that appeared out of nowhere, only to vanish again when Shadye walked past. They were disturbing. Oddly, the ones that looked most human were the most disquieting. One of them, a stone carving of a handsome man with sharp pointy ears, was impossible to look at directly. Another, an eldritch horror out of nightmares, seemed almost friendly by contrast.

  And yet she couldn’t understand why one scared her more than the other.

  “There,” Shadye said. He reached into his robe and produced a sharp black knife, carved from stone, before addressing the skeletons for the first time. “Place her on the altar.”

  The altar was a simple stone block, easily large enough to accommodate her–or any other sacrificial victim. Emily opened her mouth to protest, but it was futile; the skeletons picked her up and carried her forward with implacable strength. Somehow, the simple lack of carvings on the altar was even more terrifying than the horrors she could see in the distance. It struck her, suddenly, that there was no doubt to whom the altar was dedicated. This place belonged to Satan. It was a place beyond the sight of God.

  She tried to recall the prayers she’d learned as a child, but nothing came to mind. Instead, she kept trying to struggle, but the force holding her refused to surrender. The skeletons placed her on the stone and stepped backwards, almost as if they were admiring their work.

  “We begin,” Shadye said. He started to chant as he waved the knife in the air. Emily couldn’t understand a single word, but she felt the gathering power in the chamber, as if someone–or something–was slowly pressing itself into existence. Brilliant tingles of light danced over her head, slowly fading into a darkness so complete that it sucked up the light. In the last moments of gloom, she saw new statues–savage-faced angels–appear at the edge of the chamber.

  Shadye stopped chanting. Absolute silence fell, as if unseen watchers were waiting for a final command. The summoned presence hung on the air, its mere existence twisting reality around it.

  Emily saw something within the darkness, a hidden movement that seemed to be only present within the corner of her eye. A strange lassitude fell over her, as if there was no longer any point in fighting and it was time to accept her fate. Shadye stepped forward, one hand holding the knife as he raised it up and over Emily’s heart...

  And then, suddenly, there was a brilliant flash of light. The summoned presence simply vanished.

  Shadye bit out a word that was probably a curse and ducked as a bolt of lightning sliced through the air over his head, before smashing into the far wall. She twisted her neck as another flash of light lit up the chamber, revealing another dark-clad form standing at the far end of the room. Darkness fell for a second before the third flash of light showed the figure much closer, followed by the monstrous angel statues, which had moved when Emily wasn’t looking. Her savior? It was obvious that he didn’t want Shadye to have her.

  “No,” Shadye snapped. He lifted his hand, somehow plucked a fireball out of empty air and threw it at the newcomer, who lifted a staff and deflected it into the darkened reaches of the chamber. There was a deafening explosion as it struck one of the angel statues, which appeared undamaged. “You will not cheat me!”

  A second later, the newcomer tossed a spell of his own. Shadye vanished in a flash of light.

  The spell holding Emily to the altar snapped at the same instant, allowing her to move again. She sat up, only to see the newcomer race toward her. Another flash of light revealed that his face was hidden behind a wooden mask. He reached for her and she drew back, suddenly unsure of what this new man wanted. Shadye had wanted to sacrifice her. What would this man want?

  “Take my hand if you want to live,” the newcomer said, when Emily balked. The darkness was flooding in from all sides, pushing in around them as if it were a living thing. “Come with me or die!”

  Emily didn’t hesitate any longer. She took his hand.

  And then the dark chamber vanished in a final blinding flash of white light.

  Chapter Two

  ONCE THE BRILLIANT LIGHT FADED AWAY, she was standing in the middle of a very different room.

  “Welcome to my Tower,” her rescuer said. His face was still hidden behind a wooden mask, but his voice was kind. “Don’t worry. Shadye can’t get you here.”

  Emily nodded, trying to keep her body from shaking. Her knees threatened to buckle, but she did her best to look around this very strange new place. The room in which she stood was large, but crammed with strange devices and boiling pots of liquid that looked as if they were about to bubble over and spill on the ground. Dark lines had been drawn on the floor, creating patterns that changed every time she looked at them. Light steamed in from a massive wi
ndow, bright enough to suggest high noon. But it had been dark just a moment ago...

  “Here,” her rescuer said, as she started to shake again. He passed her a glass of clear liquid. “You may need this to calm yourself.”

  Emily hesitated. All her life, she’d been told that she shouldn’t take gifts from strangers–but she did need a drink. Besides, if he wanted to poison her, he could probably have done it without forcing her to drink anything. That decided, she drank the water. It was cold, almost tasteless, but refreshing. Afterwards, a strange calm descended on her mind.

  The man nodded to a pair of wooden seats below the window and Emily walked over to them, peering out of the window overlooking a green and pleasant landscape. Everywhere she looked, there were forests and lakes–but no sign of human life at all. The ground seemed to shimmer with magic.

  She caught herself and looked back at the newcomer. “Who are you?”

  “You need to know one rule right from the start,” the man said slowly, as he removed his mask and pulled back his hood. “Do not ever ask a sorcerer his name. Ask instead what he would like to be called.”

  Emily sucked in her breath as he looked up at her. He looked surprisingly young, with a handsome face and a shock of brown hair, but there was something in the way he moved that nagged at her mind. It took her several seconds to realize that he wore a young body, yet walked in the manner of an older man. His lanky body seemed almost as strange to him as it did to her.

  He smiled at her and she suddenly felt reassured. “You may call me Void, if you like,” he said. “Please, be seated. You must have many questions.”

  “Yes,” Emily said. Hundreds were tumbling through her mind. One question seemed very important. “Why...why did you rescue me?”

  Void seemed oddly surprised by the question. “Why not?”

  Emily studied him, trying to understand. He’d risked his life to save a girl he didn’t know? Why would the question surprise him? Or maybe he’d jumped in to prevent Shadye from sacrificing her and thought that Emily would be able to deduce that for herself...

  She cleared her throat. “What...what did you do to him?”

  “Shadye?” Void seemed to smile. “I stunned him, rather badly.” His smile faded away into a grim expression that seemed more natural to him. “Sadly, I fear that he will get better.”

  Emily stared at him. “Why didn’t you kill him while you had the chance?”

  “His protective wards wouldn’t have slipped that far,” Void said. “I couldn’t have sneaked the attack in at all if he hadn’t been in the Inverse Shadow. He had to lower part of his guard just to enter the building.”

  Emily felt a wave of confusion. What had been so special about the Inverse Shadow?

  “But I got you out,” Void added, with a childish grin of triumph. “My old master would be turning in his grave. If he were in his grave.”

  Emily had to smile back, and then collected herself. “Right,” she said. “Where am I?”

  Void didn’t seem surprised at that question. “You’re in my Tower, located on the edge of the Greenwood, in the Southern Marches of Barcia.” He studied her face for a long moment, thoughtfully. “But that means nothing to you, unless I miss my guess.”

  “No,” Emily said. Despite the calm, she felt her thoughts starting to spin. Where was she? “Shadye said he brought me here.”

  “He did,” Void confirmed. He paused, just for a second. “Actually, he ordered creatures from the realm between the worlds to deliver him a person fitting specific criteria. They brought him you.”

  Emily shook her head in disbelief. “And why me? What makes me so special?”

  A third question appeared in her mind a second later. “And how can I get home?”

  Void hesitated. “I only sensed your arrival in this world, so I confess that I don’t know why Shadye thought that you were important,” he admitted. For the first time, he seemed rather unsure of himself. “As to getting you home...it may not be possible. It may never be possible.”

  There was something in the way he said it that kept her from realizing his true meaning for almost a minute. “I can never go home?”

  The thought staggered her. Her life hadn’t been good; she’d watched her mother drink herself close to death while her stepfather had been unpleasant and abusive whenever he cared to remember that he had a stepdaughter. But it had been her life. She’d had her books, the company of the nerds and geeks whenever she wanted to play games, and a bright future ahead of her...

  ...Or had she?

  Her teenage years would have ended with her going to college, and then perhaps searching for a job. She would never really be able to live her own life, nor find a position that suited her. She knew from older acquaintances that it wasn’t easy to find a job, let alone make ends meet in the adult world. One day, all the skills she’d learned at school would be utterly unimportant. The only consolation was that those who had ruled the school through being popular, pretty or athletic would be even less important.

  And it was hard to escape the thought that no one would miss her now that she was gone.

  “The problem is locating the world that birthed you,” Void admitted, breaking into her thoughts. “If we were to open a gateway into the worlds beyond to locate your home world, the necromancers would have their chance to interfere with the magic, perhaps killing you or the conjurers. Even if they didn’t, searching for your world might attract attention from beings that live outside the normal walls of our reality.”

  Emily remembered the dark presence in what Void had called the Inverse Shadow and shuddered. “So I can never go home,” she said softly. In some ways, having no choice made it easier. “Why did Shadye think that I was a Child of Destiny?”

  Void’s eyes went very wide. “He thought that you were a Child of Destiny?”

  “He said I was,” Emily confessed. “But my mother was called Destiny.”

  Void stared at her for a long moment, then burst out laughing. “Shadye would have been in for a shock when he finished sacrificing you. The Dark Gods would not have thanked him for your soul.”

  Emily didn’t understand the joke at first–and when it dawned on her, it didn’t seem very funny. “But he would have killed me!”

  Void nodded. “My guess is that one of the criteria I mentioned was that you would be a Child of Destiny. But the creatures that inhabit the worlds beyond are mischievous, prone to reinterpreting orders if they’re not very specific. A Child of Destiny...if he didn’t bother to clarify what that actually meant, they might have gone after you instead. But you’d still meet the other criteria.”

  He studied her for a long moment. “Wizards have been attempting to use magic to foretell the future for thousands of years,” he added. “It rarely works very well, because the future is constantly in flux. Sometimes knowing about a possible future destroys it; sometimes knowing what is in store makes it inevitable. Even the best of wizards will leave the future to take care of itself.

  “But we do know that some people are born to be at the heart of history. Those people will make decisions that reshape destiny, that completely alter the future. If Shadye had offered you to his dark lords, they would have rewarded him with power beyond imagination.” His smile flickered back into existence. “But Shadye has a great deal of imagination.”

  Emily rubbed her eyes, trying to comprehend what he was telling her. “But I don’t have any say in what happens,” she said, finally. “Back home, I was nothing.”

  “No one is ever nothing,” Void said cryptically. “The Children of Destiny are rarely seen and recognized in advance. Sometimes, we only ever realize that they were there in hindsight. Who would have thought that the lowly goatherd Avon would become the linchpin of an alliance that would push the necromancers back into the dark lands? In hindsight, we know that he was living at the crux point–and if they’d killed him before his time, the necromancers would have had the world.”

  “Or if they’d convinced hi
m to join them,” Emily guessed.

  Void nodded.

  Emily remembered the history she’d studied, very taken by the thought. “Or if he’d fled from the battlefield...”

  “Precisely,” Void said. He stood up and looked up, out of the window. “Do you know that there are more necromancers in this world than there are powerful sorcerers?”

  Emily rolled her eyes. She’d barely been in the new world for more than an hour, maybe two. How could she have hoped to learn anything about its history, culture or geography? Shadye certainly hadn’t been interested in educating her. How did Void expect her to know anything?

  “The only thing that keeps them from crushing us is that we can work together and the necromancers are unable to cooperate very well,” Void explained, without looking back at her. “Every one of them believes that his rivals would stick a knife in his back the moment he looked away. They have good reason not to trust one another...”

  He turned and looked down at her. “They are still gaining in power,” he said. “Three years ago, the Kingdom of Gondar was overrun by their forces and the population was enslaved.”

  Emily stared at him. “And you could do nothing? With all your power, couldn’t you do something to keep it from happening?”

  Void looked down at his hands. For the first time, Emily realized that they were scarred, as if he’d been cutting himself time and time again. “All our efforts could do little more than hold back hell long enough to get a tiny percentage of the country’s population out before it was too late. With Gondar in their hands, they have a land route through to Chirico, which now needs to pull back its troops from the border defenses and see to its own defense.”