The Cunning Man, page 28
Panic shot through him as Morris dropped the device. It shattered into a thousand pieces. For a moment, Adam dared to hope it would end the spell, but it kept twisting their bodies into living nightmares. His panic grew worse. Normal transfiguration spells included safeguards. They couldn’t be made permanent. Lilith could change him into whatever she liked and the spell would wear off, sooner or later. This spell ... he didn’t know. Whoever had cast it was clearly more capable than the average first-year student. They might be chickens for the rest of their lives ... hell, they might be captured and eaten by people who didn’t know they’d once been human. They might have been sentenced to death.
Taffy was a chicken now, her beak tapping the floor. Her eyes, what he could see of them, were mindless. Arnold ... Adam’s vision warped as his eyes changed, the slow and agonising transformation reaching its zenith. He tried to think, all too aware he had bare moments before his thoughts became ... a chicken’s thoughts. His body felt wrong as he hopped forward, each piece of crystal on the ground distracting him for seconds that felt like an eternity. The chicken’s simple thoughts threatened to overwhelm him, dragging him down into madness, as he jumped onto the chair, then the table, then the runic diagram. It might kill him - the thought felt as if it would be the last coherent thought he’d ever had - but it was better than life as an unthinking beast. He fell into the rune ...
... The world twisted. He screamed and screamed again, only slowly realising that he was human again. His body felt bruised and broken, although ... he rolled over and fell off the table, landing roughly on the floor. The ceiling above his head was scorched and pitted ... it hadn’t been like that before, had it? He wasn’t sure. He was so dazed he couldn’t swear to his own name. Something was touching him ... he jumped back, with no clear memory of stumbling to his feet. A chicken ... a chicken?
“I ...” He was looking at one of his friends. He knew it. “I’m coming ...”
He drew out a second diagram, then motioned for the chicken to step on it. The chicken looked at him blankly. They were remarkably stupid birds, if he recalled correctly. He pushed the diagram against the chicken, doing his best to ignore the surge of heat that tore the parchment to ash as the spell broke. Taffy appeared in front of him, as naked as the day she was born. Adam stared at her in confusion, only slowly realising he was naked too. His clothes were lying on the floor, in rags.
It was all he could do to look away and release the other two from the spells. Morris looked practically catatonic. Arnold didn’t seem concerned. He hugged Taffy tightly, then walked into the dorm as if he didn't have a care in the world. Adam blinked in surprise, before Arnold returned with a small bottle. He uncorked it, then pressed it against Morris’s mouth. The stench of brandy filled the room. Adam almost wanted a drink himself. He didn’t normally drink, but ...
Taffy started to cry. Arnold passed the brandy to Adam, then held Taffy gently. She was naked, but there was nothing sexual in it. She was ... Adam vowed brutal and bloody revenge as he took a sip himself. Whoever was behind the curse - and it was a curse, not a hex - was going to pay. He’d see to it personally.
“Jasper,” Morris said, coughing and spluttering. “It was Jasper!”
Arnold looked at him. “What happened?”
Morris stole the brandy and took another swig. “He ... he stepped out of the wall as I walked past and ... and did something to me. He gave me the crystal and told me to take it to the common room and ... and I did it. I couldn’t help myself. I just did it and I ...”
He stared at his hands. Adam understood. He’d been terrified, the first time he’d been transfigured, and that had been a simple spell. One moment, he’d been human; the next, he’d been a frog. This transformation had been slow and painful ... he suspected it had been designed to make the process as unpleasant as possible, even though it had also given him a chance to figure out how to escape. Jasper hadn’t wanted to just punch back ... he’d wanted to hurt and humiliate them. And he’d succeeded.
“It couldn’t have been just Jasper,” Arnold said. He helped Taffy to her feet, then pushed her towards the female dorms. “He couldn’t have gotten the crystals and sneaked them into the room without help. The wards would have noticed something so ... blatantly dangerous.”
Adam cursed under his breath. He knew a great deal about wards, although most - pretty much all - of his experience was purely theoretical. In theory, something like the enchanted and charged crystal should have set off alarms. In practice ... the university was nowhere near as heavily protected as the average magic school. It might be possible for Jasper to sneak the crystals around the building without being detected. Or ...
“He had help,” Arnold said. He dressed slowly, his face grim. “It would take a skilled magician to shield the crystals from detection. And your girlfriend’s father is the prime suspect.”
“Master Dagon?” Adam stared at him in shock. “You think he did it?”
“Who else?” Arnold finished dressing and turned away. “He has the power. He has the skill. He has the access. And he has the motive.”
“I ...” Adam didn’t want to believe it. Master Dagon was an ass - and, if Lilith was to be believed, he’d dragged his daughter along with him rather than let her set out on her own - but would he risk unleashing such dangerous magics? He might not care about Adam and his friends, yet ... he was risking a confrontation with the rest of the council as well as Lady Emily herself. “It would be madness.”
“Perhaps that’s the plan,” Arnold said. “No one thinks he’s mad enough to do it, so he gets away with it.”
He shrugged. “Next time you see Lilith, see what she says,” he added. “In the meantime, we’ll plot revenge.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The next few days were rough.
Arnold had vetoed making a formal complaint, on the grounds they hadn’t been kept from their studies, but Adam had half-hoped the staff would step in anyway, particularly after someone spread the story far and wide. It was tempting to believe, as Adam suggested, that someone on the council - and he named a name - had insisted the council should do nothing, that there had been no real harm done. Adam found it incomprehensible. The transfiguration spell had been no mere joke, but pure torture.
“We’ll find a way to strike back,” Arnold said. “You find something new to shock the magicians.”
His words hung in Adam’s mind as he worked in the lab, alongside Lilith. She spoke to him as little as possible, even when they were digging through potions recipes and working on ways to adapt them. Adam couldn’t tell what she was thinking. It was common, back home, to think of girls as mysterious creatures, their thoughts flighty and incomprehensible to a young man. He knew, intellectually, that was silly. And yet, Lilith’s thinking made no sense. Did she like him? Did she hate him? Was she ashamed of herself for kissing him, or hexing him, or ... or what? Was she afraid of what her father might say, if he knew? Adam watched her, wondering what was going through her mind. It could be anything.
Lilith shook her head and stepped back from the table. “That’s it for the day,” she said. “My head hurts.”
Adam nodded. It had been a long and completely unsuccessful day. Master Landis had spent the last few days instructing Lilith in advanced brewing, and directing Adam to take notes for later adaptation, but today he’d left them alone. Adam wondered if he trusted them to be mature or if he simply wanted them to get their issues out of their systems as quickly as possible. He’d certainly told them both off for snapping at each other when he’d started to delve into advanced potions. It would be a great deal worse, he’d cautioned them, if they moved into alchemy in the wrong frame of mind.
He glanced at the clock, then took a breath. It wasn’t fair, he reflected, that the boys were expected to ask the girls out. The mere act took more bravery than standing up to a street tough, particularly when the girl could crush the boy’s hopes with a single word. And if she told the entire world ... Adam would almost sooner be turned into a slug than have the entire city laughing at him, for daring to take the risk of making his feelings known. The only upside, he told himself, was that Lilith didn’t seem to have any friends her own age, beyond him. Who would she tell?
“Lilith?” Adam’s mouth was dry. “Lilith ... what are you doing tomorrow at lunchtime?”
Lilith shot him an unreadable look. Adam cringed, inwardly. The older boys back home had talked about words that could make a girl melt, but ... Adam was suddenly certain they’d been talking nonsense. It wasn’t that easy to convince anyone to spend time with you ... he swallowed, hard, forcing himself to keep talking even though he wanted to run. Lilith might have plans...
“I was wondering ...” He stopped and started again. “I was wondering if you would like to go to the foundry, to see the latest steam engine take to the tracks, and then go get something for lunch?”
Lilith’s eyes bored into his for a long, cold moment. Adam forced himself to stand his ground. Her face gave him no clues. She might be trying not to laugh ... no, that wasn’t likely. Lilith had never had any qualms about laughing at him before ... he braced himself, expecting a hex or a curse or something nastier. If she thought he was playing games...
“I have no plans,” Lilith said, with excessive formality. “I would be delighted.”
Adam smiled, even though he wasn’t sure of his own feelings. “Meet you in the entrance hall at 1100?”
“Please.” Lilith looked as if she wanted to say something else, but refrained. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Adam sketched a bow, then hurried out the chamber before his nerve failed him. She’d said yes! She’d said ... he felt his heart pound as he remembered the last time they’d gone to dinner. He was suddenly torn between the urge to go back and invite her to dinner now and the urge to run, to have nothing to do with her ... he shook his head. She’d said yes. And that was all that mattered.
His heart was still pounding as he returned to the dorm. There was no sign of anyone. Arnold and Taffy had probably headed straight for the private bedrooms immediately after they’d finished for the day ... he felt a surge of conflicting emotions he didn’t want to look at too closely. Taffy was like a sister. He didn’t want to date her. And yet, it was never easy to know that his friends were engaging in intimate relationships while his bed was cold. He’d never liked the bragging back home because he’d never done anything he could brag about ...
And most of the braggarts were liars, he reminded himself, sternly. They probably never even had a girl look twice at them, let alone decide to share her bed.
He wondered, as he went to dinner alone, what Lilith did when she wasn’t in the lab or with him. There was no sign of her in the dining hall. Did she take her meals with her father? Or was she just coming later? Or ... maybe she was in the library. She seemed to enjoy reading about everything, from basic magical theory to concepts that had either been left in the past long ago or proved - after extensive research - to be completely impractical. It was nice to know, Adam reflected, that they had something in common.
A low clucking noise echoed through the air. He looked up to see Jasper smirking at him. The magician’s nose looked ... unbroken, without even a hint it had ever been broken. Adam’s fists clenched of their own accord. It just wasn’t fair. There were lads back home who’d bear the scars of street fighting the rest of their days, some of whom hadn’t been anything like as badly hurt. The urge to get up and smash his fist into Jasper’s nose again was almost overwhelming, but ... he knew he’d never get close enough to strike. Jasper would zap him before he even got around the table. Instead, he finished his dinner and left the room. The sound of clucking echoed after him.
Bastard, Adam thought. He’d never met anyone he hated quite as much as Jasper and that was saying something. He was a newborn magician ... he should know what it was like to live without magic. He probably left home and never looked back.
He walked back to the dorm and headed to the shower. There was no sign of Arnold. Adam guessed he and Taffy were still busy ... he told himself, firmly, that he shouldn’t be so envious.
Be patient, he told himself after he’d showered, as he pulled the curtains around his bed and slipped under the sheets. There’s no need to hurry.
The thought mocked him as he closed his eyes and tried to sleep. His body wanted a relationship ... no, his body wanted sex. He knew people who’d gotten into trouble because they’d let their emotions overwhelm their common sense - Jack had been thrashed by Marcy’s father for kissing her, Oswald and Cathy had had to get married in a hurry when it became clear she was pregnant - and yet, he still wanted to do it. And yet ... he shook his head as he drifted off to sleep. He was young. He could wait.
He awoke, feeling as though he hadn’t slept at all. It was easy to think the clock was lying when it insisted it was 0900. He staggered into the shower and turned on the tap, allowing the water to wash away the tiredness. Lilith wouldn’t be impressed if he turned up yawning ... his heart twisted, his nerves threatening to drag him down. It would be the first time they’d been alone together, outside the university, since their kiss. He felt anticipation and fear in equal measure. Who knew what she thought?
There was no sign of her, or Arnold and Taffy, as he went for breakfast, then returned to the dorm to change into his best clothes. It struck him, not for the first time, that they simply weren’t fancy at all, not compared to anything she might wear. He wondered if he should have spent some of his allowance on better clothes, before remembering who he was and where he came from. Spending money on clothes was a luxury when there were thousands of garments being passed down from generation to generation, each one patched and patched again until it fell apart. Even then, it wasn’t done. Seamstresses would take the remnants and turn them into patches for newer and better garments.
His heart beat faster as he made his way down the stairs and into the hall. What if she wasn’t there? What if she didn’t come? There were girls, back home, who’d done that ... some deliberately, some not. It wasn’t uncommon for a girl to be caught sneaking out by her parents, to be marched back to her room for a thrashing before she went to bed. And yet ... he’d heard stories about girls who claimed they’d been caught, after standing a boy up. Who knew if they were telling the truth?
The hall was nearly empty. He felt his heart sink, an instant before she stepped out of a side door and smiled at him. She was ... Adam tried not to stare. She wore a dress cut to reveal the tops of her breasts, a dress that shimmered around her thighs and legs ... he found himself speechless, unable to keep from staring and, at the same time, all too aware he shouldn’t even think of staring. And then it struck him that she must think him a clown. Even Jasper wore better clothes in town.
“You look stunning,” Adam managed. “I ...”
“Thank you.” Lilith dropped a perfect curtsey, then held out an arm. “Shall we go?”
Adam took her arm and allowed her to lead him through the door and down the road to the town. Heart’s Ease seemed to have grown in leaps and bounds overnight, as if the residents had thrown up more apartment blocks and shacks in the wink of an eye. He’d heard there were more people flowing into the town, coming from all over the known world, but he’d found it hard to believe. Heart’s Ease was nowhere near as confined as Beneficence - the city sat on a giant island - and yet it was starting to give the impression of being even more crowded. The stench of too many people in too close of a proximity hung in the air.
He found himself unsure of what to say as she leaned against him. Her touch was distracting. What could they talk about? He understood, now, why so many people back home talked about the weather. It was a nice, safe topic, one that allowed them to build a rapport without ever quite touching on dangerous issues. He opened his mouth and took a breath. The air was hot and dry and tasted of tainted magic ... no different at all from the first breath he’d taken, back when he’d clambered off the train and into a whole new world. He smiled. She’d think he was an idiot if he tried to discuss the unchanging weather with her.
Lilith glanced at him. “What’s so funny?”
“I was trying to decide if I should talk about the weather,” Adam admitted. “Why does the air taste of tainted magic?”
“Good question.” Lilith seemed relieved to have something to talk about, too. “You know there is a nexus point under the university? When it was a school ... the necromancer snuffed out the nexus point, killing the school. We think that had an effect on the lands surrounding the school, as the Desert of Death started to expand shortly afterwards. It wasn’t until Lady Emily reignited the nexus point, somehow, that the land started to heal.”
She paused. “The general theory is that the necromancer’s magic somehow tainted the air and sand around us,” she added after a moment. “But in truth we don’t know for sure.”
“Lady Emily reignited all the nexus points,” Adam mused. “What does that mean for the Blighted Lands?”
