Past Tense (Schooled in Magic Book 10) (33 page)

“Yes, My Lord,” Emily said. “Julianne assured me that we should be able to get our clothes washed at the Gathering.”

“Of course,” Lord Alfred said. “We have to look our best.”

Emily hid her amusement with an effort. Alassa wasn’t quite as obsessed with cleanliness as Emily herself, but she’d insisted on changing her clothes every day. Emily didn’t really blame her, either. But then, Julianne had only a handful of outfits and she’d already loaned two of them to Emily. Thankfully, altering borrowed dresses to fit her was the work of a few hours.

And there will be hardly anywhere to wash along the way
, Emily thought, morbidly.
We’ll going to be smelly by the time we arrive
.

“We won’t be coming back to the castle for at least a month,” Lord Alfred warned. “If you leave something behind, we won’t be able to go back for it.”

Emily nodded as she started to repack her bag. There was no way she could take any reading matter along—she would have been glad to have
anything
to read—and everything else was in very short supply. Whitehall and Bernard intended to hunt for food along the way, she’d been told, if they failed to buy it from nearby villages. And if they failed to catch anything ...

We can eat plants, if necessary
, she reminded herself.
We just have to be careful what we put in our mouths
.

She watched as Lord Alfred hastily packed his own bag. He seemed to be bringing more clothes than Emily and Julianne combined, although she supposed he was going to be carrying his bag. Whitehall had made it clear that they wouldn’t be bringing servants along with them. Emily would have suspected that she and Julianne would be expected to do all the work, but Whitehall seemed to have accepted his daughter as a promising magician in her own right. Perhaps she, Julianne and
Bernard
would be expected to do all the work instead.

“It will be an interesting journey,” Lord Alfred commented. “I haven’t been on the far side of the mountains for
years
.”

It took Emily a moment to realize he meant the Craggy Mountains. They’d be heading into the Blighted Lands—or what would
become
the Blighted Lands, in her time. She tensed, recalling the long walk from Whitehall to the Dark Fortress, then dismissed the thought. The Faerie Wars had yet to begin, let alone the rise of the Necromancers. There was no reason to worry about walking into the Blighted Lands.

But then, the Manavores are on the prowl
, she reminded herself.
We might never make it to the Gathering
.

“It should be interesting,” she agreed, neutrally. “Do you think ...”

She stopped as she saw Lord Alfred open a drawer and pick up a heavy book. An aura of pure evil filled the room. She took a step backwards reflexively as he placed the book on the table, its
malice
so powerful that it dominated the room. It was suddenly hard to remember that there was
anything
else in the room. The book was ... it was just
there
.

“That’s a Book of Pacts,” she said. She hadn’t touched it, but merely being so close to the book made her want to hurry to the shower and scrub her skin raw. “You ...”

Lord Alfred gave her an affable smile. “I
am
a DemonMaster,” he said, reprovingly. His fingers traced the sigil on the cover. “And I have fifty-seven under my command, bound to my name and my blood.”

Emily found her voice. “Does Lord Whitehall know?”

“Of course,” Lord Alfred told her. There was a reproving tone to his voice. “We have been partners for decades, young lady.”

“But you voted against bringing demons into Whitehall,” Emily said. “You ...”

She cursed herself a moment later. The book had rattled her more than she cared to admit—and she’d practically just confessed to eavesdropping on the fateful meeting. Unless Whitehall had told her afterwards ... she knew she didn’t dare claim that was true, if Lord Alfred asked. He might well check it with Whitehall.

“Demons are tools,” Lord Alfred said. If he noticed her slip, he gave no sign. “And like most such tools, they are best used once the user actually knows what he’s doing.”

Emily frowned. “You intend to teach your apprentices how to summon demons?”

“If they ask,” Lord Alfred said. He smiled, thinly. “I haven’t survived so long by being careless, my dear. My apprentices will be made
very
aware of the dangers before they draw out their first circle.”

“They might not
want
to summon demons,” Emily pointed out. “They’d be able to do everything themselves.”

“Perhaps,” Lord Alfred said.

He sighed, heavily. She couldn’t escape the impression that he was suddenly a great deal older. “When I was a young man, there was an ... incident,” he said. He leered cheerfully at the book. “I had seduced and bedded the daughter of a local headman—she wasn’t much of a lay, but it was quite a challenge. She was devoted to the Crone, you see.”

“I’m sure she was,” Emily said, disapprovingly.

“The headman sent out his goons to capture me,” Lord Alfred added. He didn’t seem to notice her disapproval. “I fled into the night, knowing that it wouldn’t be long before they tracked me down. And so I summoned a demon and bargained for my life. I wanted to be hidden from the trackers and guided to the nearest safe town. A thunderstorm sprang up, hiding my tracks; the demon told me that the next town was only a mile away. It didn’t take me long to reach it.”

He looked up at her. “Now tell me,” he said. “Did the demon cause that thunderstorm to take place ... or was it going to happen all along?”

“I don’t know,” Emily said, after a moment.

“Nor do I,” Lord Alfred told her. “Demons are cunning, my dear. They will take whatever loophole you offer them and turn it against you. I might well have reached that town anyway, if I’d just continued down the path. Was it really worth the price I paid?”

Emily shrugged. “And what happened to the girl?”

Lord Alfred ignored the question. Instead, he packed the book into his knapsack—the aura of evil vanished as soon as the book was out of sight—and slung the bag over his shoulder. He seemed younger, somehow, as he headed for the door, even though there was something wrong with the way he walked. But then, if he hadn’t been reasonably healthy for his age, he wouldn’t have lasted long in any case. The Nameless World was not kind to the elderly.

Unless they happen to be magicians
, Emily thought, as she followed him through the door and down to the courtyard.
I wonder how old he really is
.

She puzzled over the problem for a long moment, then pushed it aside as they stepped into the courtyard. Four horses were waiting, Whitehall and Bernard brushing them down while Julianne checked and rechecked her potions bag. Emily had watched her put it together the previous evening and she’d been quietly impressed by just how much Julianne could do with a few herbs and a little water. She could brew cures for a dozen ailments if necessary, without needing to harvest anything else from the surrounding forest.

“You’ll be riding behind Julianne,” Whitehall said, as he nodded to the nearest horse. The beast gave Emily a disdainful look. “We have to leave the remaining horses here.”

Emily nodded, privately relieved. She could ride, but she didn’t
like
it. She’d half-hoped there would be a carriage—there was no hope of anything better—yet Julianne had pointed out, when she’d asked, that there were hardly any roads near the castle. The network of Roman-like roads Emily had seen in the future simply didn’t exist. And she had a private suspicion that what few roads there were would be nowhere near as good. The peasants had no particular desire to make it easier for royal officials and tax collectors to make it around the kingdom.

“It’s better this way,” Julianne whispered, as her father walked back into the castle. “I don’t have to be trapped behind father—or Bernard.”

Emily nodded in agreement. She was mildly surprised that Julianne knew how to ride—women were rarely taught how to ride unless they were nobility—but she had no hesitation in taking advantage of it. Julianne felt the same way too, she suspected. Being forced to ride behind her father would have been bad enough, but riding behind her boyfriend would have been indecent. And Emily would have had the same problem if she’d ridden behind Whitehall ...

“Just try not to gallop too fast,” she muttered back. “I think the horse hates me.”

Julianne gave her an incredulous look as Whitehall re-emerged from the castle and ordered them to mount up. Bernard climbed into his horse’s saddle with admirable skill, but Emily had to scramble up after Julianne. Alassa had taught her how to get onto a horse without using a stand, forcing her to do it again and again, yet she’d never been very good at it. The horse twitched uncomfortably as she settled, wrapping her arms around Julianne, then started to amble towards the gates. Bernard and Whitehall cantered past, while Lord Alfred seemed to be bringing up the rear. His horse snorted unpleasantly.

It probably senses the Book of Pacts
, Emily thought, darkly.
And really doesn’t want to be anywhere near it
.

“Here we go,” Julianne said. “Hang on!”

Emily swore out loud as the horse lunged forward, galloping out of the castle and towards the forest. There
was
a path, she saw now; the commune had hacked and slashed their way through the foliage, clearing their way to the castle. But it had already started to close, the trees and bushes pressing closer and casting long shadows over the path. Emily hunched low as the horses rode into the forest and cantered along the path. She couldn’t escape the sense that it was only a matter of time before she cracked her head against a low branch and tumbled off the back of the horse.

“You don’t need to hold on
so
tightly,” Julianne teased. She didn’t seem bothered as the horse picked up speed. “What happened to the girl who killed Master Gila?”

Emily felt her cheeks heat. “She doesn’t like riding horses,” she said. She thought she saw something moving, within the shadows, but they were past before she could get a clear look at it. “And she would prefer to walk.”

Julianne laughed. “And would she prefer to spend months traveling to the Gathering?”

“No,” Emily said.

She cursed under her breath. If she’d known where the Gathering was going to be—or if she’d had a decent map—she could have tried to teleport. But no one—not even Whitehall—knew that teleportation was possible, at least without the help of a demon. The spell—and the spell for portals—was far too advanced for her to introduce, at least until Master Wolfe had built up enough expertise with spellware to make it work. Coming to think of it, she hadn’t read
any
reference to teleporting before the Second Faerie War. It was possible that the spells wouldn’t be invented until then, centuries after Whitehall.

The horse seemed to move faster and faster as they plunged through the forest and out onto a muddy track. Emily realized, to her shock, that they were actually approaching the Craggy Mountains, heading towards a pass that had long since been closed in her time. The mountains grew closer and closer, the horses slowing as they picked their way through the stony ground; the temperature fell sharply as they made their way through the pass, then out into the far side. Emily silently tried to match up the geography to what she’d seen in the future, but rapidly decided it was impossible. Too much was going to change in the next thousand years.

“It isn’t so bad,” Julianne called back. “Is it?”

Emily shrugged.

She would have enjoyed the trip, she admitted privately, if it hadn’t been on horseback. They found a campsite when the sun started to set and stopped for the night, sleeping under the stars, but when she awoke her body was aching so badly that she had to swallow one of Julianne’s potions before she could climb back on the horse. She was all too aware that she was sweaty and unclean—and she’d slept in her clothes, which hadn’t helped—but the stream they’d found was nowhere near large enough for a proper wash. Indeed, she found herself wishing she’d remained at the castle, even though Master Chambers had been left in charge. It couldn’t have been worse ...

Don’t be silly
, she told herself, as the horses started to gallop again.
Of course it could have been worse
.

The countryside blurred into a mixture of trees, cropland and tiny villages that looked little different to the villages she recalled from her own time. None of them were bigger than a dozen or so houses—she had the impression that Whitehall was deliberately skirting the larger towns—and the peasants seemed worn down and tired by their constant backbreaking labor. Their masters, whoever they were, would be just as greedy and rapacious as any of the aristocrats she’d met in her own time, although the handful of bigger houses didn’t
look
strong enough to resist a determined assault. No doubt the peasants were too tired and worn to revolt.

Castles are still in their infancy
, she thought, dully.
Which leads to the question of just who built Whitehall
?

She frowned as she contemplated the problem, using it to distract herself from the trip. No one in the commune knew who’d built the castle; indeed, they hadn’t even
known
about the castle until Lord Alfred’s demon had pointed them in its direction. Emily would have wondered at such ignorance, if she hadn’t known that a combination of concealment spells and sheer isolation—and the slow spread of news—would have made it harder for anyone more than a few miles away to know the castle existed. Dragon’s Den certainly didn’t exist, not now. There might be no settlements for hundreds of miles on the other side of the Craggy Mountains.

But that raises the question of just how they built it
, she thought,
and why
?

It was possible, she supposed, that something had been forgotten in the last few hundred years. Lord Alfred was the oldest member of the commune, but she doubted he was any older than seventy—and there wouldn’t be many others who reached his age. For all she knew, the area surrounding the castle had been heavily populated a mere couple of hundred years ago, before
something
had caused the population to flee. Perhaps there had been a violent surge of raw magic from the nexus point. The villages she’d seen wouldn’t last long without constant maintenance, even if they survived whatever had happened to their inhabitants. There might be hundreds of villages buried under the forest.