Bookworm II: The Very Ugly Duckling Read online

  “Johan,” a voice said. It was soft, female ... and completely unfamiliar. “Can you hear me?”

  Johan felt his entire body twisting in pain. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again as his stomach heaved violently. By all the gods! It was worse than when he’d caught that bug as a young man and spent two weeks in bed with cramps ... his siblings, of course, had escaped entirely, thanks to their magic. Had he been ill? Or had something else happened, something his mind refused to remember?

  “Yes,” he managed, finally. The urge to retch was growing stronger and stronger. “I ... sick ...”

  He open his eyes. The light had dimmed, thankfully, but he could still see two anxious faces peering down at him. One wore the white robes of a druid, complete with golden sickle on his belt; the other wore the purple robes of a Privy Councillor. Johan found himself coughing instead of laughing, even though seeing her was funny. What sort of Privy Councillor would come to investigate a mere Powerless? A moment later, he retched violently, but there was nothing in his stomach to throw up. It was no relief.

  “You’ve had a bit of a nasty blow, young man,” the druid said. His voice made him sound ancient, but that was rather reassuring. Incompetent magicians didn’t last long. “How are you feeling?”

  “Head hurts,” Johan managed. His chest hurt too. “Throat dry. I ...”

  “Here,” the druid said, passing him a flask of clear liquid. Johan sipped it gratefully, recognising the taste of purified water. The water made his head feel better, although something was still pounding away inside his skull. It was funny; he almost felt as though he were outside his body, looking in. “How much do you remember ...?”

  As if the question had unlocked memoires he’d pushed aside, Johan suddenly remembered everything. The Levellers, the rally, Jamal ... and something that had unlocked itself inside his skull. He reached up to touch his head, feeling it throbbing lightly, as a desperate hope suddenly blossomed to life inside his mind. What if ... what if he’d developed magic? No matter how much he’d fought before, he had never broken out of any of Jamal’s spells. Even the weakest compulsion had held him in thrall until the spell was lifted.

  But it seemed too good to be true.

  “Jamal,” he said, suddenly. “He was at the rally and ...”

  The Privy Councillor leaned forward. “Your brother was one of those who attacked the rally?”

  Johan found himself staring at her. She was young – he doubted that she was much older than Jamal – yet there were lines on her mousy face that suggested that she was older than her years. It was hard to credit the fact that she was a Privy Councillor, but who else would dare wear purple outside the house? There were laws against wearing robes if there was no claim to them.

  “Yes,” he said, sourly. Memories of horror rose up in front of his eyes, mocking him. Jamal wouldn’t be punished, of course. He was never punished when he was cruel to outsiders, or even to his siblings. “He and his friends attacked the rally.”

  The druid waved his wand at Johan. “And what happened to you?”

  “I don’t know,” Johan admitted. He described what had happened as best as he could, ending with the sudden collapse of Jamal’s spell. “What do you think happened to me?”

  “I wish I knew,” the druid said. He looked at the Privy Councillor. “Medically, he’s fine, although I would suggest two more days in bed for observation. I don’t know enough about his ... other condition to comment. This is completely unprecedented.”

  The Privy Councillor didn’t seem surprised. “I’ll see to him,” she said, as the druid started to walk towards the door. “Do you have any other advice?”

  “Get a witness statement from him,” the druid said.

  Johan watched him leave the room, then turned his head so he could look at the Privy Councillor. “My Lady,” he said, carefully, “what happened to me?”

  The Privy Councillor seemed oddly bothered by the formality. Johan felt a moment of panic – his father had drilled etiquette into him, but he hadn’t really expected his powerless son ever to have to meet a Privy Councillor – and wondered if he had gotten it wrong, before pushing the thought aside. No doubt it was about to be explained to him in great detail just where he had gone wrong.

  “My name is Elaine,” the Privy Councillor said. Now the druid was gone, her voice seemed to relax slightly. “I don’t really need such formality.”

  Johan studied her for a long moment. There was none of the style his mother affected, none of the confidence that Charity strove to project at all times ... and there was no family name. That meant ... what? No family? But any family would be proud to have a Privy Councillor in the family. They were always powerful magicians as well as the trusted friends and confidants of the Grand Sorcerer. Or at least everyone took them to be the Grand Sorcerer’s friends. He had his doubts about how close his father was to the Grand Sorceress.

  But the name was oddly familiar ...

  Of course, he thought, remembering one of his father’s rants. The Head Librarian.

  “My name is Johan,” he said, finally. “What did he mean about my condition?”

  Elaine looked down at the floor, then back up at him. “There is magic in you,” she said, flatly. “But it is very odd magic indeed. You were tested before, I understand?”

  Johan found himself unable to speak. Magic! It was like a dream come true ... and that made him suspicious. One of his father’s more useful pieces of advice had been a warning that anything that sounded too good to be true probably was. He’d tried to send away for a potion that claimed to bring power to the powerless, only to have his father point out that it was utterly useless. And he had been tested extensively, every year. They’d never found a trace of magic.

  “I was,” he said, suddenly despondent. It was better than hope. “They found nothing.”

  “We found something,” Elaine assured him. “But like I said, it’s odd.”

  She gave him a long considering look. “Do you know any spells?”

  “Charity tried to teach me a few,” Johan said, before he could stop himself. If she chose to take that to the Inquisition ... teaching magic to mundanes was strictly forbidden, even though there was nothing they could do with it. “But they never worked.”

  The memory was a bitter one. His sweet sister had sat down with him and talked him through a series of spells, spells so basic that even his younger siblings could cast them at a very early age. He’d mastered the words and hand gestures that should have cast the spells, but nothing had ever happened. Of course not, Jamal had sneered. The Powerless had no magic to make the spells work.

  And then he’d blackmailed Charity by threatening to tell their father.

  “I had to struggle to make my spells work too,” Elaine admitted. “I was fourteen when I cast my first successful spell.”

  Johan gave her an appraising look. He was old enough to remember both Chanel and Chime developing magic and casting spells with apparent confidence by the time they were seven years old. Even Jamal, according to their father, had developed later than that. It was that sort of access to magic that marked someone who could become a Privy Councillor, not a late developer. Everyone knew that the later magic appeared, the weaker the magician. Their magic clearly didn’t want to get free.

  But clearly what everyone knew wasn’t enough.

  Elaine motioned for him to sit upright. “Cast a spell,” she ordered. “Any spell.”

  Johan hesitated. Part of him wanted to test it at once, part of him was scared that it would fail and that he would go back to being powerless. Maybe it was just a freak response to the spells, he told himself, or maybe Jamal had created something to give the illusion of magical powers where none existed. Was his brother really that good at magic? Whatever else could be said about Jamal, he was a skilled magician.

  But, in the end, the desire to test it won out.

  Charity had explained, back during the first lesson, that creating light was one of the
easiest spells in the spellbooks. Almost every magician worth his salt could cast it, which hadn’t made him feel better when it had failed time and time again. He’d never told anyone that he had spent time practicing after she’d stopped trying to teach him, but nothing had happened, not even a single spark.

  Carefully, he ran through the words and gestures ... and nothing happened.

  The sense of disappointment was crushing. He sagged, almost slipping and falling off the bed. Elaine reached out, put a hand on his shoulder, then started to cast new charms over him. Johan closed his eyes, angrily blinking away tears. He might as well reconcile himself to being a prisoner for the rest of his life, he told himself, and serving as the target for his nephews and nieces as they came into their magic.

  “The magic twitched,” Elaine informed him. “Try again.”

  Johan stared at her, wanting to push her away, but not quite daring. “There’s no point,” he said, bitterly. “What’s the use of trying?”

  “I felt the same way too,” Elaine said. There was so much bitterness in her voice that he found himself believing her. “But try again.”

  Johan sat upright and cast the spell again. Nothing happened.

  “Again,” Elaine ordered, watching the results from her wand. “And again.”

  Johan gritted his teeth, hating her in that moment ... and cast the spell one final time. There was a sudden ... surge within his head and brilliant white light blossomed into existence, right in front of him. It was far brighter than anything Charity had produced to show him how she did it, bright enough to blind ... Elaine let out a cry and covered her eyes, just as a wave of heat struck them both. But Charity’s spell hadn’t produced any heat ...

  “Cancel it,” Elaine ordered.

  “I don’t know how,” Johan protested, feeling panic bubbling through his mind. Charity hadn’t taught him how to cancel spells. The light was growing brighter, so bright that he could see it through his closed eyelids. “How?”

  “Draw in your magic,” Elaine ordered. “Focus your mind and concentrate on bringing it back into yourself.”

  Johan tried, but nothing happened. The light was still growing brighter and the room was growing uncomfortably warm. Panicking, he wished it gone ... and the light snapped out of existence. The room seemed a great deal dimmer now the light had faded away.

  “Interesting,” Elaine said. Her face seemed soaked in sweat. There was a nasty red mark on the side of her face that had been facing the light. “But you definitely have magic.”

  “I have magic,” Johan said, dazed. It couldn’t be true ... and yet it was. He knew, deep inside, that he had cast his first spell. The light spell was merely the beginning. “I have magic!”

  “You do,” Elaine confirmed, dryly.

  She didn’t understand. Even if she hadn’t come into her magic at fourteen, she would still have been a known magician. Her magic would have been detectable, even if she had been unable to access it. No one would have teased and tormented her like Johan had been treated by his family. Her family would have respected her even if she wasn’t a strong magician. And if she hadn’t been born to a magical family, her magic would have been a sign of favour from the gods. But Johan ... he’d been completely powerless, without even a hint of magic ...

  Until now.

  A sense of exultation ran through him. He wanted to jump to his feet and scream for joy, he wanted to run home and make his father proud of him, he wanted to find Jamal and teach his older brother a lesson ... there were so many things he wanted to do. His father couldn’t keep him a prisoner now, could he? How could he when all of his children were now magicians? Johan could take magical lessons, he could master magic ... he could become powerful. He could rise ...

  ... And yet he was no longer sure if he wanted to make his family proud. What had they done for him?

  He’d hoped to go into the Civil Service and just leave them behind. He would have missed Charity, but the others ... none of them had really cared for their powerless brother. Even Charity had played pranks on him from time to time. And his father’s disappointment was worse than his rages. Even now ... did he really want to seek their approval?

  “I want to do it again,” he said, quickly. “Can I? Please.”

  Elaine frowned. “I think I should teach you how to cancel spells first,” she said, firmly. “And I also need to talk to you about what happened two days ago.”

  Johan gaped at her. “Two days?”

  “You were asleep for two days,” Elaine confirmed. “Since then ... investigations have been proceeding. But we will want a witness statement from you.”

  “I understand,” Johan said, reluctantly. He wanted to try more magic, but he had a feeling that she would want him to take it slowly. The gods knew that his father had closely supervised his children as their magic started to blossom into life. “What do you want to know?”

  “Who carried out the attack,” Elaine said. “And why.”

  Johan hesitated. Did he really want to land Jamal in serious trouble? Now that Johan had magic too, maybe they could patch up their relationship ... he dismissed the thought, angrily. No matter the pressures piled on Jamal, there was no escaping the fact that his brother was a nasty bastard ... and that he’d tortured dozens of people two days ago. Johan had been powerless, he knew what it must have felt like to be at Jamal’s mercy. How could he defend his brother, even if he now shared the same magic? Besides, it wasn’t as if Jamal had shown him any kindness since it had become clear that he had no magic.

  “My brother,” he admitted, reluctantly. His father would be furious, but Johan found it hard to care. A thrashing would be better than the sense of disappointment that radiated from his father every time he came face to face with his powerless son. “And he thought that they were getting uppity.”

  Elaine’s face twisted. “I have no doubt he did,” she said. “Do you know who else was involved?”

  “Some of his friends,” Johan said. “I don’t know their names. We were never introduced. He was so scared of having them think that he had weak blood that he never introduced me to any of his friends. But you can get it out of him ...”

  “The Inquisitors probably can,” Elaine agreed. “Do you know the name of the druids who tested you for magic?”

  Johan frowned, surprised by the sudden question. “No,” he admitted. “But wouldn’t there be records?”

  “Depends how much your father paid out in bribes,” Elaine said. Her lips turned downwards, briefly. “I’ll check the records here, then find out from your father if necessary.”

  Johan yawned suddenly. “Sorry,” he apologised. “Why am I tired?”

  “You haven’t eaten for two days,” Elaine pointed out, dryly. “I’ll order you some food, then you can rest before we start carrying out more tests. There are quite a few oddities about your magic.”

  “My magic,” Johan said, with heavy satisfaction. “Are you going to teach me how to use it?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Elaine told him. “But I do know that the Grand Sorceress is very interested in your progress.”

  Johan looked at her, thoughtfully. Once, having wealthy and powerful people paying attention to him would have seemed welcome. Now, it was downright terrifying.

  And yet he was a magician!

  “I should ask you,” he said. “Has this ever happened before?”

  “A mundane developing magic?” Elaine asked. There was an odd note to her voice, a suggestion that she wasn’t quite sure she was answering the right question. “No, it hasn’t. And that’s why it bothers us.”

  Johan nodded in understanding. If anyone could develop magic, the Empire’s social structure would be upended and destroyed. He could understand, now, why the Grand Sorceress was so interested in him ...

  He’d been right. It was definitely terrifying.

  Chapter Seven

  More disturbed than she wanted to admit, Elaine ordered dinner for both of them and then concentrated on analysi
ng the wards surrounding the chamber. They were some of the most complex wards outside the truly ancient buildings, constructed by some of the best ward masters in the Empire. Among other things, they monitored the condition of patients within the hospital, alerted the staff if anything went wrong and prevented self-harm or suicide. And Johan’s magic, whatever it was, had damaged them.

  The wards tracked and nullified bursts of uncontrolled magic. It wasn’t uncommon for magicians to lose control of their magic when they were ill or badly injured; the wards should have tapered any burst of magic down and redirected it somewhere harmless, if they hadn’t managed to simply absorb it. But Johan’s magic had burned through them as easily as fire burned paper. The wards had been badly damaged, rendered utterly useless.

  And it happened so quickly, Elaine thought, that no one managed to sound the alert.

  She looked back at Johan as a nurse entered the room, wheeling a trolley of food ahead of her. It smelt better than she recalled, the last time she’d been in hospital, but then she’d been so desperately worried about her new talents that she hadn’t really been able to enjoy a few days of rest. And besides, Johan did come from a powerful family. The hospital administrator was probably trying to butter his father up ...

  But that wouldn’t go very well, Elaine knew. Lady Light Spinner had issued orders that no one, apart from Elaine and Dread, were to see Johan. If his father turned up and demanded entry – he hadn’t, as far as Elaine knew – he would be denied. The administrator’s hopes of a new hospital wing, donated by a grateful and wealthy father, might be thoroughly dashed.

  “There are nutrient potions in the soup,” the nurse said, addressing Johan. “You’re to drink all of it, as you haven’t eaten in two days. Then – and only then – you can eat the rest of your food.”