Bookworm II: The Very Ugly Duckling by Christopher Nuttall Page B

him.”
    “I do not know if that would make a difference,” Dread countered. “And what has happened to him now?”
    “Unknown,” Elaine said, tersely. All the knowledge in her head seemed useless. There were plenty of cases where trauma affected a person’s magic, but they had all required the victim to be a magician. Johan ... had never been a magician. He hadn’t even had the signs that Elaine had shown, back in the orphanage. “He had no magic. Now ... he has magic inside him.”
    Dread lifted his staff, then tapped its iron tip on the floor. “What is he going to become?”
    “I don’t think that you should kill him now,” Elaine said, quickly. “This is utterly unprecedented.”
    “So is what happened to you,” Dread reminded her, “and you know who was behind it.”
    Elaine shivered. The Witch-King ... did he have something to do with Johan’s accident? But there was no way to be sure , one way or the other. For all they knew, it was Johan’s grandchildren who would be the essential part of the Witch-King’s plot.
    “I think that the Grand Sorceress should make that decision,” Elaine said. She knew that Dread had the authority to kill, if he believed that the Empire’s security was at risk, but she didn’t want to see Johan dead. If nothing else, what had happened to him might revolutionise the study of magic. He had been Powerless ... and if he’d developed magic, it would change the world. “What happened outside?”
    Dread’s face twisted into a grim scowl. “A bunch of magicians, mainly students, attacked the Leveller rally,” he said. “So far, we have nineteen dead, thirty-seven injured, twelve forced transfigurations and thirteen people suffering the after-effects of various compulsion charms.”
    Elaine shuddered. She knew, all too well, just how vulnerable non-magicians were to magic, even if they had purchased protective amulets and spells from magicians. Even student magicians could have inflicted considerable harm on the protesters ... and they had, it seemed. By the time Light Spinner had intervened, they’d killed nineteen mundanes.
    She gritted her teeth. “Who did it?”
    “We’re still putting together a case,” Dread said. “The Grand Sorceress is not happy. No matter what the Levellers were doing – or saying – such attacks cannot be tolerated. However, we don’t have any real idea just who carried out the attack. The witnesses all agree that they used disguise charms to obscure their faces. They didn’t even bother to come up with actual faces ; they just ensured that no one could see their features.”
    Elaine rubbed her eyes, suddenly feeling very tired. She knew what would happen now; if they hadn’t been caught in the act, the perpetrators would swear blind that they were innocent ... and, as they probably had magical relatives, they would bring colossal pressure to bear on Light Spinner to let them off with a slap on the wrist. If, of course, there was enough proof to bring them to face her in the first place. Few magical families would care if their children killed – directly or indirectly – a handful of mundanes. What were they going to do about it?
    “The last thing we need is another challenge to the Grand Sorceress’s authority,” Dread added. “We may wind up quietly ignoring the whole affair.”
    “I know,” Elaine said.
    She’d thought that the Grand Sorcerer was all-powerful. It hadn’t been until she’d joined the Privy Council that she’d realised that there were limits, particularly when other powerful magicians – or magical families – were involved. Even the most powerful magician in the world would have hesitated to confront several families acting in concert ... and they would , if they believed that their children were in danger. Light Spinner might be unable to get anything done if the families chose to challenge her openly.
    And, with the Empire already weakened by Kane, the last thing they needed was the suggestion