by V. St. Clair
“Do you think it’s possible?” he asked with interest, turning to the Master. “Could we actually have transferred energy from the void-realm to ours without meaning to? The implications of that would be enormous and far-reaching…it could change everything.”
The Master of Powders looked less-than-ready to commit to such a thing and only said, “Hmm…maybe. Though even if we did manage it, it is not an experiment I’d care to repeat without very close study and extremely controlled conditions. Even then, it’s the kind of discovery that could only be revealed in very tightly kept circles…”
“Why do you say that?” The momentary joy Aleric had experienced at the thought of hitting upon another game-changing idea vanished at the prospect of having to keep it secret.
“If it is possible to remove energy from the void-realm and bring it into ours, the process might also work in reverse,” Sark said with a shudder. “Can you imagine the horror that might entail?”
Aleric could, and it wasn’t pretty. The thought of getting sucked into the other realm, or of creating some kind of magical black hole that no one knew how to stop, was terrifying. It made him nervous just thinking about how that very thing could have happened without them even realizing it during this last trial they just completed.
“Unskilled mages could never be allowed to attempt it, or to even know it was possible,” Sark continued. “The consequences would be disastrous.”
“Yes, I understand,” Aleric sighed. “I suppose we should refocus on our original topic, if you have any ideas on how to fix our error.”
Master Sark looked thoughtful for a long moment and then said, “I wonder if we’re getting some shifts in the magnetic properties of our grinds during the mixing process.”
“You think the ultra-fine is polarizing away from the low density green?” Aleric asked thoughtfully, intrigued by the idea and wishing he had been the one to think of it.
“It would explain the apparent congealing, and the poor blending.” He shrugged.
“We could try adding saccharin syrup to counteract the effect,” Aleric suggested, doing some quick figures in his head to plot out the model.
Yes, saccharin should stabilize the bond…hellebore would be viscous enough, but would also evoke a chemical change.
“Not a bad idea. Let’s get this mess cleaned up and set up to try again.” Master Sark nodded curtly, then seemed to focus on the char marks bordering the edges of their previous attempt. “And this time, we upgrade our safety gear…”
They spent days running through different trials, consuming all of Aleric’s free time with little reward. The saccharin did prove effective as a stabilizer, but it also quenched the reaction; there was an optimum amount to add in order to get what they wanted, and the two of them hadn’t quite found it yet, though they were getting closer.
Unfortunately, Aleric had to meet with his father tonight to review the ledgers, and he was disappointed with the overall lack of progress to report. He spent much of his free time that day trying to think of ways to make his work sound more impressive than it really was, though there would be ramifications to that later if he overinflated his success and the project turned out to be a dud.
He had no idea where Asher was, probably off doing cartwheels for Maralynn somewhere. He hadn’t seen his best friend much in over a week, both of them absorbed in their respective projects. He had been surprised to learn that Asher was keeping up with their original research topic in Prisms, since it was no longer a secret what he was working on. Then again, without Aleric competing with him over it, there was no real reason to abandon his research…
I’m surprised he hasn’t asked me for help, to see if I’ve picked up anything he hasn’t.
Or maybe he wasn’t surprised after all. Despite not hailing from a Great House, Asher was one of the most self-confident, prideful people he knew. Asking for help would have been seen as failure, and as much as Asher claimed he didn’t care about his grades, he did not like to believe himself unequal to any task.
So Aleric walked alone, enjoying the climate-controlled atmosphere around the grounds, even though spring was rapidly approaching and it probably felt nice even outside of the area. He passed the obstacle courses where students brought their familiars for training, in an effort to keep them in peak physical condition and to teach them precision tasks, like climbing rings or navigating a maze of tubes without getting lost. Cinder had perfected such things years ago, and was currently off hunting while Aleric brooded.
He found himself near Torin’s log cabin on his way back to the school, passing the pen of familiars who had not yet chosen masters to bond themselves to, and stopping to admire them. As always, his eyes quickly located Bonk in midst of them, lolling about in a sunbeam near a small pool of water.
Without thinking, he hopped the short wooden fence—the magically inclined creatures knew not to leave without being claimed by a mage—and approached the mottled-brown dragonling.
“Hello, Bonk,” he greeted the familiar pleasantly, stopping a respectful distance away and ignoring a dog that ran past them.
Unsurprisingly, Bonk didn’t answer, though he did give Aleric a brief look that said he was aware of his presence. Over the course of his research, Aleric had read that it was occasionally possible for magically inclined creatures to communicate with mages, though usually it only happened when that mage sustained major brain damage of some sort. Insanity, schizophrenia, and other mental illnesses allegedly rendered one’s mind more receptive to the ambient magic all around them, and therefore better able to interpret the speech of other magically inclined creatures. It was an enviable talent, though he didn’t much fancy paying the price to obtain it.
I wonder if people who can understand a dragonling’s screeches can hear it as words in Common, or if they just learn to interpret what each screech means?
“Enjoying the sunlight, I see,” he said to Bonk, who made a noise of contentment and rolled onto his stomach so that he was lying face-down on the ground. Not moving his arms or legs, this made Bonk look dead to the casual observer.
Maybe if I could communicate with him effectively, I could convince him to help me out…
He still didn’t know why Bonk had refused to ally himself with him when he first came to Mizzenwald at the age of ten. He had been hoping—as everyone hoped—to win himself a dragonling, the most magically powerful familiars a person could ever hope for, and he had done that with Cinder. He had been thrilled with his good fortune, until he learned that Bonk, who had been hanging around for almost forty years now, was the most powerful dragonling anyone had ever seen. He was also the weirdest, and the only creature to remain in the pen for longer than two years in search of a master. Aleric had done his best to convince Bonk to assist him with his work ever since—an animal didn’t have to be a familiar to help one out magically—but with no success whatsoever.
“I don’t know what you’ve been waiting for these last forty years, but you’re never going to find a master who lives up to your standards,” he informed the dragonling, annoyed. “At the risk of sounding supremely arrogant, I’m one of the best mages you could ever hope to meet, and if I’m not good enough for you then no one is.”
Bonk rolled back over and gave him a beady look. Aleric could swear that the dragonling stuck his tongue out at him for a moment.
“Besides, you’re odd. I don’t know what happened to you in the Forest of Illusions while you were there, but I’ve never heard of another dragonling with such little pride for their species.”
In response, Bonk turned his back to Aleric and stuck his butt up in the air, wiggling his tail back and forth in mockery as he flashed him.
“See? You’re ridiculous,” Aleric reiterated. “How did you get to be so freakishly powerful? You delight in petty mockeries and in chasing squirrels—the stupidest of all creatures.”
Bonk perked his ears at the word ‘squirrel’, looking around rapidly in search of one.
“B
ack again, I see,” Torin’s voice interrupted his one-sided conversation with Bonk, who looked absolutely delighted to see the man and took flight to alight on his shoulder.
For all that Asher resembled his father in appearance, Aleric couldn’t see much similarity in the two otherwise. Torin was humble, kind, not typically sarcastic, and— quite frankly—magically useless. Well, perhaps that wasn’t true, but he certainly didn’t exert himself to become a heavyweight in the magical world, contenting himself with a life of caring for familiars over learning powerful spells. How a man like him and a magicless woman managed to produce someone as gifted as Asher was beyond him.
Though Asher’s mother was well on her way to being insane soon after he was born…and insanity does strange things to the magically inclined.
It was commonly accepted that if Asher’s mother hadn’t been losing her marbles when she was pregnant with him, he would almost certainly not be a prism-user, and possibly not even magically gifted at all. Being able to utilize prisms properly required a mind that was carefully balanced on the razor’s edge between brilliance and insanity, which was why most people failed utterly at it.
It must be strange, to owe his success to the destruction of his mother.
He occasionally wondered what Asher thought about the entire thing, though he had never gotten up the nerve to ask him because it was a horribly personal question.
“Hello, Torin,” he greeted Asher’s father at last. “I was just walking around the grounds and noticed Bonk lying around.”
“Still trying to convince him to help you with something useful?” the man smiled knowingly.
Asher must have told him.
“It would be nice if he’d consent to assist me. There is magic I’m someday going to be ready to try that even Cinder might not be powerful enough to channel, and I don’t want to risk his wellbeing finding out whether I’m right or wrong.”
Some kinds of magic could be channeled through a magically inclined familiar to prevent the effects from being felt by the mage. Since familiars had enormously powerful Sources, they were able to easily convert and utilize much more demanding spells than any mage alive.
“But you’re willing to risk Bonk to your experimentation?” Torin asked skeptically.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Aleric backtracked. “I would never try something out on him unless I was sure he could handle it properly. I just meant that his capacity for channeling power is higher than Cinder’s.”
Torin nodded.
“Well, any luck getting him to agree to help you?”
Aleric frowned and said, “Sadly, no. He stuck his tongue out at me, flashed his butt, and then you came out to join us.”
Torin chuckled and patted Bonk fondly on the head. Aleric had no idea how the man could be so fond of a creature that hung around for years on end, eating all his food and causing trouble without doing anything useful in return.
“That sounds like Bonk, all right.” He turned to the dragonling and said, “It’s past dinner time, little guy. Can I interest you in some leftover fish and cauliflower?”
Bonk let out a sound that was eerily similar to a cheer, and flew into the log cabin without further ado.
“You’re welcome to join us, of course, though I assume you’ve already eaten,” Torin informed him politely, and Aleric shook his head.
“Thanks, but you’re correct. Anyway, I need to get back home to review ledgers with my father.”
“Sounds dull,” Torin answered immediately.
“It is,” Aleric replied, surprised into honesty. Most people didn’t seem to think any part of his duties for the House were boring.
Torin smiled at him and said, “Well, better you than me, son. Speaking of sons, if you see mine anytime, tell him I’m proud of him for slaying all those arena monsters on his own. I hear it was quite impressive to watch.”
Surprised, Aleric raised his eyebrows and said, “That was weeks ago. You haven’t seen him since the last arena challenge he was in?”
“Before that, actually,” Torin replied evenly. “You may not have noticed, but we don’t talk much these days.”
Uncomfortable, because he suspected that some of the fault for that lay with him, Aleric said, “I had noticed…but I didn’t want to ask in case it was personal.”
Torin shrugged and said, “He’s a teenage boy. Teenage boys are arrogant louts who think the sun shines out of their every orifice and that the world revolves around them. Hopefully he’ll grow out of it soon.”
The look he gave him clearly included Aleric in that general comment about boys their age, but he didn’t call him out specifically, nor did he seem to be annoyed with Aleric in particular.
“Uh, right. I’ll tell him when I see him, then…”
“Thank you. As much as he makes me want to tear my hair out—and his, lord that boy needs a haircut—I am actually quite proud of his accomplishments, and it’s probably good for him to be reminded of it every now and again.”
Must be nice…Aleric thought bitterly. That was one thing he had always envied about his best friend: Torin had always clearly cared for Asher, and wasn’t afraid to say he was proud of his son. Heck, the man had left his mentally ill wife and moved across an entire continent to protect his son, making sure he had the best high-cost education available, even though he was too poor to afford it and had to come to terms with the Masters, working almost for free just to keep Asher enrolled.
He’s built his entire life around caring for his son and making sure that Asher gets all the best opportunities he can give him. My father calls me the shame of the House every time I sneeze during a business meeting.
“Well, I’d better get going,” Aleric said, desperate to get away from this painful reminder of how lucky his best friend was.
“Take care, Aleric. Enjoy the ledgers.”
Aleric waved and then hurried off, jumping the wooden fence again before realizing that he could have just translocated away from the grounds from inside. He stopped in the grass, feeling like a fool, and focused his mind, lowering his prisms into place in front of his right eye and finding the arrays that would allow him to transport himself directly to the Frost estate.
He walked up the cobblestone roadway to the front gates, trying to shake his bitter thoughts and get his head on straight. Facing Cowen Frost with anything less than his full attention would only lead to disaster.
When he arrived at the door, the doorman informed him that his father was in the library, on the second level. Aleric frowned thoughtfully as he climbed the stairs, because in the entirety of his sixteen years, he had never been allowed to enter his father’s library. It was apparently the largest room in the entire estate, which was saying something since there were some enormous rooms on the ground floor, though Cowen Frost guarded that library as though it was…well, as though it was his firstborn son.
He had no idea why the man guarded the Frost library so jealously, since there was no real advantage to denying Aleric access to the family books, most of which were probably about magic anyway, and therefore valueless to his father.
He won’t have much say in the matter once he’s dead. Then I can do all the reading I want…
That was a bittersweet thought. Even as much as he disliked being around his father, he still didn’t wish the man dead.
I just wish he appreciated me a little more…
He passed his bedroom on the second floor, as well as the much larger one that his parents shared, moving towards the library at the end of the hall. When he arrived at the double-doors, it was to find them (predictably) closed.
Aleric lifted his hand and knocked purposefully to announce his presence, waiting on the other side for his father to answer.
Cowen Frost tugged the door open just far enough to see out of it, took one look at him and said, “Yes? What do you want?”
“To balance the ledgers, sir. You asked me to come by after dinner tonight to review the accounting with you.”
>
For a moment his father looked utterly bewildered by this, and then his expression darkened immediately as he said, “Of course I did. Wait in the office for me.”
His memory loss is becoming more and more apparent…
Aleric wondered how long his father would be able to keep his momentum as the forbidding, all-powerful head of a Great House before others began to notice his failing memory as well.
Nothing could be more dangerous than to ask about it.
“Yes, sir.” Aleric turned and walked down the hall, back to the office his father had mentioned, which lay between the master bedroom and the one that he occupied when living at home.
The workspace itself was neat and orderly—how else, at the Frost estate?—despite most of the wall space being lined with filing cabinets full of folders and papers. Aleric silently bet himself that he could name a sheet of paper, and his father would be able to locate it within his filing system within two minutes.
He left the large, cushioned seat behind the desk open for his father, instead taking the slightly shorter, slightly less comfortable one to its right. Then there was nothing to do but wait. He hadn’t brought a chrono with him, but he was certain he was sitting there alone in the office for at least fifteen minutes, time he could have spent doing anything more useful if he wasn’t here. Perhaps he should go knock on the library door again, in case his father had already forgotten he was there…?
Thankfully the door opened and his father entered the room before he was forced to seriously consider going back to disturb him again. The man probably knew exactly how long he had kept his son waiting, and had likely done so to underline the importance of his time versus Aleric’s, a constant reminder that things would be done according to his will alone.
