by V. St. Clair
Finally, whatever was upsetting Bonk’s stomach began sliding up his throat, creating a noticeable bulge that Hayden was not at all looking forward to seeing up close.
“Whoa, Bonk, that thing is huge…” he recoiled in revulsion. “What the heck did you take on…a badger?”
In response, Bonk coughed the mass into Hayden’s lap, and all Hayden could do was stare at the thing in utter shock.
Even covered in slime, muck, and bits of whatever else occupied the inside of Bonk’s stomach, the object was immediately recognizable as a prism. Hayden pulled off one of his socks and began cleaning the thing as best as he could, wishing he had a pair of prism-handler gloves like his father’s to keep from getting his fingerprints all over the thing.
It took both of his socks and the corner of his bed sheet to get the thing shined up properly, and Hayden held it by the very edges as he turned towards the light and put it in front of his right eye.
It was a mastery-level violet prism, which made up for the fact that it still smelled a little like dragon puke.
Looks like I’m not unarmed after all, Hayden thought with glee, a smile creeping onto his face as he patted Bonk on the head.
Then, on the heels of that thought he added, Thanks, Asher.
15
Modified Alignments
Hayden slept late the next morning, since there wasn’t really any place he needed to be. In fact, if not for the realization that he was wasting valuable time that would be better served strategizing, he might have stayed in bed all day.
After Bonk had coughed up his mentor’s gift to him, Hayden had promptly become paranoid that his father would somehow sense the prism in the house and come searching for it. That had prompted him to hide it in the most secure place he could find inside of his bedroom, which happened to be in his pillowcase. He knew it was a pretty poor hiding place for anyone who was actively searching for something, but since the room was sparsely furnished it was either the pillowcase, the desk-drawer, the closet, or under the mattress. Of all the options, the pillowcase seemed like the best bet—plus it would be readily accessible to him if he happened to be attacked inside his bedroom.
Again, Hayden thought mulishly, still angry about being caught off guard by Master Sark in the dead of night at the Trout estate.
“Well, Bonk, let’s go get something to eat and see if we can find out anything useful about this place’s defenses.”
The little dragon perked up at the promise of food and took flight, coasting out of the bedroom behind Hayden and gliding overhead as they made their way towards the first floor.
It took Hayden a few attempts to find the kitchen, as he still hadn’t spent an appreciable amount of time in the Frost estate until now.
I guess that’s one good thing about my captivity: plenty of time to explore my house.
As nice as the mansion was, he wasn’t particularly looking forward to dying here.
I wonder if I’ll even want this place when all this is over with, making the large assumption that I actually find a way to defeat my father in combat.
The bad memories alone might drive him to sell it, though no one else would probably want to live in it either, unless they were a strange Frost-family enthusiast. Maybe it could be a museum of some sort…
It was eventually Bonk who found the kitchen, following his superior nose and leading the way. They had to descend a partial flight of stairs to get inside, as the kitchen was recessed into the ground, making it feel almost like a basement.
Six people were sitting around a wooden table in the center of the room, in various stages of eating breakfast. The rest of the space was lined with countertops and islands. One entire wall was devoted to ice boxes, gas-fired burners and ovens.
Apparently the poor souls who worked here weren’t used to being visited in the kitchen, because most of them blanched at the sight of Hayden and Bonk and leapt to their feet.
“Sir!” a man who looked old enough to be Hayden’s grandfather greeted him reflexively, obviously terrified.
“Whoa, relax,” Hayden held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I’m the sane Frost, remember?” His eyes went to Hattie, and she was the first to take her seat and give him a small smile. “I was just looking for breakfast for Bonk and I.”
A middle-aged woman with frizzy brown hair went over to one of the ice boxes and withdrew a plate of raw meats that had been covered in foil, which she placed on the table for Bonk. Hayden was tempted to tell her that his familiar would have been just as happy with a soap cake or a mouse, but remembered that his father insisted on Things Being Done Properly.
Bonk descended on the plate with indecent fervor, startling those nearest into scooting back in their chairs.
“It’s alright, he won’t hurt you,” Hayden explained. “He just acts like every meal is his last. Actually, he’s quite friendly, for a dragon.”
Hayden noted that no one was scurrying about to get him any food, and finally added, “Uh, I don’t suppose there’s anything left for me?”
The other six people were all finishing cereal or buttered toast, which looked really good right about now.
Looking mildly uncomfortable, Hattie said, “Sorry, sir, but when you missed breakfast your—the Dark Prism—said that you obviously didn’t need to eat this morning. He had us throw your portion away.”
“Ah.” Hayden supposed he should have seen that coming. “Out of curiosity, what was on the menu?”
The others began to relax when they saw that he wasn’t angry with them. He’d never seen such a skittish group of people in his entire life. Then again, they were kidnapped from their homes by the bogeyman of their nightmares and made to serve him in his fortress under threat of death. I guess I might be skittish too under those conditions.
Technically, Hayden supposed he was in the same situation—worse, probably—but since he had been living with his association to the Dark Prism for five years now it wasn’t nearly as surprising or paralyzing as it would have been at the age of ten.
“Ham and bacon, spiced potatoes, rye toast with jam, poached eggs and juice,” Hattie rattled off.
“Wow, sounds delicious, though ham and bacon together seems a bit excessive.” He smiled. “I’d settle for some of that lovely-looking cereal right now if there’s any more of it to be had.”
“Would you like it in the formal dining room?” the man who had first greeted him asked as he went to pour Hayden a bowl.
“Good heavens, no. It’s weird enough eating in that room when there’s only one other person; I can’t imagine how awkward I’d feel eating in there alone.” He shuddered at the thought.
It would also remind me constantly of how my father almost strangled me to death last night for making the mistake of addressing him as ‘Father.’
Despite his assurances, the others still looked surprised when he joined them at the table in the kitchen, though Bonk smoothed things over by making himself endearing and allowing the others to pat him.
An all-purpose companion, Hayden thought cheerfully.
“Where are the rest of you?” he asked after taking another mental headcount. “I thought you told me yesterday there were still nine of you here,” he addressed the last to Hattie, who nodded.
“The others are already out working. We have to get going soon as well or we’ll get in trouble.”
“I see,” Hayden said at the same time as one of the others blurted out, “Are you really going to take down your father and free us all?”
An awkward moment of silence fell over the table, and then Hayden said, “Well, that’s my plan. If I die, you can assume it didn’t work out for me, though eventually the team of mastery-level mages I was working with will figure out how to bust in here and then they’ll try to take him down too. You might be able to escape during all the fighting once the defenses are down.”
The middle-aged woman with the frizzy hair frowned and said, “You seem very cavalier about the thought of dying here.”<
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Hayden shrugged and said, “I was a little less casual about it when I first found out that that is my father’s eventual plan for me no matter what, but I’ve had a night to sleep on it. Now the only thing it means is that I have to think of a way to defeat him sooner rather than later, but the price of failure is the same as the price of doing nothing, which is strangely freeing,” he elaborated around a mouthful of cereal. “It means I don’t have to worry about holding back.”
The others looked at him like he was either crazy or heroic, maybe a touch of both. Hayden certainly didn’t feel terribly heroic sitting in the kitchen right now, with no real plan and only one prism to fight with.
Still, yesterday I had no plan and no prisms to fight with, so things are looking up every day. Maybe tomorrow I’ll stumble upon an entire cache.
“Speaking of the defenses around this heap of stone…what can you tell me about them?” Hayden polled the others. “I know you recently lost one of your friends, and I’m sorry for bringing it up, but anything you can tell me about what happened to him would be helpful.”
A few of the others exchanged grimaces or looked down at the table in front of them, but finally someone answered.
“Jack got fed up with being held here; he said no man was going to keep him cooped up forever, and that he was going to get out or die trying. Obviously, you know how that turned out for him.”
Hayden nodded but didn’t speak, silently urging him on.
“A few of us were watching when he said he was making a break for it. He looked around to make sure the Dark Prism wasn’t watching—though he almost never does, he’s always cooped up in his workshop. Then he ran for it.”
“Just like that?” Hayden interrupted. “He ran for the main gates?”
The man nodded confirmation.
“For a minute we thought he might make it. He got to the gates and flipped the lever on this side that lets them open. He slipped through and made it maybe three feet before he died.”
Hayden raised an eyebrow even as he processed the fact that all of the defenses appeared to be on the outside of the gated wall. If someone with no magical prowess whatsoever could walk out the front door, it made him feel better about his ability to roam the front yard without getting his head lobbed off.
“What exactly happened to him?” Hayden pressed apologetically.
“I don’t know,” the man snapped, “it’s not like I understand all that magic business you people do.”
Hayden backtracked.
“I know you won’t know the spells that are up, but if you could tell me what you saw, and—sorry—what it looked like when Jack died, it might help me and my friends break through them.”
“You don’t even know when your friends are coming,” the man eyed Hayden skeptically. “Besides, it’s not like you can send them a letter and tell them whatever we tell you, so what’s the point?”
Hayden frowned and said, “I’m working on a way to contact my friends, so don’t worry about that part.” Well, that was sort of true, and if they inferred that he had some kind of elite magic that could get a message through those walls and across however-much distance then Hayden wasn’t going to relieve them of their ignorance.
Hattie looked impressed with him, and he tried not to feel guilty for pretending to be further along than he was with his plan. He resolved to spend the rest of the afternoon trying to research a way to get a letter out of this place.
“There wasn’t a lot to see,” the man admitted at last. “At first we thought he was having a stroke or something, since he just stopped in his tracks and started screaming.”
“He put his hands over his eyes,” the woman with frizzy hair added softly. “Like his eyes were hurting him really badly all of a sudden. He just fell on the ground and screamed and screamed until he didn’t move anymore.”
What in the world?
Hayden was at a loss for what sort of spell would make a person’s eyes hurt so badly they died from it. Their description had raised more questions than it had answered. Had Jack been paralyzed, or was he just in too much pain to think of moving? If he had been able to move, could he have pressed on and eventually broken through all the invisible barriers, or would something else have prevented it? Just how many different defensive spells were in place around the perimeter of this place, anyway? Obviously enough that they could stop both magical and non-magical people, which implied that the spells didn’t rely on entering through the Foci—or at least, not all of them did.
“Does that help you?” Hattie interrupted his train of thought. “Do you know what got him and how to get around it?”
Hayden didn’t want to give them false hope, but he also didn’t want to reveal just how bleak things were looking right now.
I’m in way over my head.
“Yes, it helps. I don’t know exactly what that spell is yet, but it narrows down my search a lot, so I might be able to figure it out with some research in the library.”
“The library where the Dark Prism does his work?” one of the others asked in alarm. “Do you think he’s just going to let you sit there and dig through his library for a way out of here while he stands ten feet away from you?”
Hayden shrugged and said, “Why not? I’ve gotten the impression that my father doesn’t feel terribly threatened by me, which is all to the good. He doesn’t consider me an enemy worthy of close scrutiny, so he may not care what I’m doing as long as it doesn’t threaten to kill me before he can do it himself.” He stood up and said, “Come on, Bonk. Let’s go ask Father if I can do some reading.”
The others watched him go, their expressions leaving no doubt in Hayden’s mind that they didn’t necessarily consider him to be ‘the sane Frost’ anymore.
Hayden stopped outside the door to the library and took a deep breath for courage. He entered without knocking, trying to look purposeful and unafraid. His father was staring out the broken window with an abstracted look on his face, and Hayden wondered what he was seeing with his mind’s eye. He could tell the exact moment that his father registered his presence in the room; there was a subtle focusing of his eyes and a tightening of his features that would have been imperceptible if he hadn’t been looking for it.
“Good morning, sir,” Hayden greeted deferentially, hedging on the side of courtesy for now.
“Closer to noon,” the Dark Prism answered without looking at him. It was amazing how many of the things the man did were subtle power-plays, intended to put him in a position of dominance and intimidate everyone else. It was even more amazing—to Hayden at least—that he recognized these gestures for what they were, and wasn’t falling for them. Well, maybe a little, but he was growing more comfortable dealing with his father as he got more experienced at it.
“Breakfast sounded delicious,” Hayden added pleasantly. This didn’t rate any kind of response from his father. Switching subjects abruptly he asked, “Do you mind if I use the library?”
“For what purpose?” the Dark Prism asked without any sign of surprise, or any other obvious emotion.
“If I’m just sitting around, passing time until you’re ready to leach the life out of me, I’d rather do some studying to keep my mind occupied.” Well, that was true enough. “I’m supposed to be in my fifth year of school right now at Mizzenwald, and it feels weird not to be up to my eyeballs in homework.”
Now his father did look at him, though Hayden had no idea what he had said that was particularly attention-grabbing. It was hard to tell what the man saw value in.
“What level were you at in your schooling?” he asked with idle curiosity.
Whoa, is my evil father showing an interest in how I’m doing in school? It was probably just because he was curious as to Hayden’s strengths and weaknesses—magically-speaking—but it was still odd to be asked.
“Last year I hit mastery-level prisms and started helping Asher with his research,” Hayden watched the man’s face closely for signs of anger at the mention of his
old friend’s name, but there was nothing. “I was hoping to start the last round of Abnormal Magic and mastery-Wands as well. I’m pretty good at Charms and Healing, less good at Elixirs and Conjury, and was declared a menace against humanity in Powders during my first term.”
His father considered him for a moment and then said, “I was always quite adept at Powders.”
“Yeah, I heard. Master Sark—Kirius, to you—was still teaching there the last I saw him. He spent years trying to get me expelled, but I saw a chapter in Te—in my friend’s Powders book, where you and he discovered something together.”
He had almost said Tess’s name, and while he assumed his father could guess who he was talking about if he cared to try, he wasn’t going to bring her to his attention any more than necessary.
“You said you began prism-based research in the last year,” Aleric gave him a measured look, as though appraising his value.
“With Asher, yes. I started working on mapping a new alignment back in my third year, but only because the Fias were running the school during the war and they were slave-driving us for profit.”
“Excuse me?” his father asked softly, as though this was brand new information to him.
Of course, he probably doesn’t remember much of our conversations inside the schism, otherwise he might not be planning to murder me.
“The northern sorcerers invaded the Forest of Illusions when it was on the coast and set up base there. They had most of the Masters and Council members trapped inside, draining their Source power continuously with these spikes that were linked to Suppressors, which they used to dampen magical power in the area so no one could attack.”
The Dark Prism lifted his eyebrows in mild appreciation of this, and Hayden was forcibly reminded of his meeting with the Magistra, who had claimed an acquaintance with his father and thought he would like her tactics. It seemed she was correct.
“An elegant solution,” Aleric allowed judiciously. “If memory serves me correctly,” and it may not, was implied, “the Magistra was both intelligent and merciless.”
