The Wizard Heir

by Cinda Williams Chima

  The dreams came like heat lightning in summer, terrible dreams that illuminated those places in Seph’s soul that were better left in the dark. The violence was sometimes physical, sometimes emotional, or both. All of his fears and insecurities surfaced and became weapons against him. The worst of it was that he never knew what to expect. Sometimes he would struggle to stay awake, then fall asleep in the early hours and sleep untroubled until his alarm sounded. Sometimes he dreamed three nights in a row, then nothing for three days.

  The bizarre occurrences that had always dogged Seph seemed to intensify. He touched a light switch in his room and the electrical power in three buildings went out. Cakes fell and milk went sour in his presence. Hawks and ospreys collected on the roof of his dormitory and escorted him to his classes, swooping down on faculty along the way. The water froze in the pipes of the administration building, and trees bloomed out of season. A pack of wolves haunted the campus for a time, gray shadows lurking among the trees.

  Seph constantly second-guessed his decision. He knew there was no guarantee he could find help outside of the Havens. Maybe Leicester’s offer was his only option. Maybe his magical outbursts would increase until he had to be shot like a rabid beast.

  The leaves on the aspens had been turning when Seph mailed his first letter to Sloane’s. They lay like gold dust on the ground when he posted his second. He began to write several times a week so he could feel that he was really doing something. He gave up on sane and nonaccusing and resorted to desperate and threatening. There was never any response.

  He tried to phone off-campus a half dozen times, from various phones and under assumed names. He was always intercepted by polite staff members who referred him to Dr. Leicester.

  He continued to eat dinner at the Alumni House. They were his only potential sources of information, his only avenue of hope. They’d been trained in wizardry; they already knew how to manage their power. He reasoned that if he could win some of them over, they might share the secret that would prevent the dreams.

  He focused especially on Peter Conroy. That first day, Peter had been eager to talk with him, obviously had information he wanted to share. But now Peter practically ran the other way when Seph approached. If he managed to corner him, some of the other alumni would intervene. Something had happened to frighten him away.

  Others of the alumni worked hard to win him over. They shared no useful magical secrets with him, but plied him with offers of food, liquor, and illicit drugs. Faculty and alumni mingled at parties where he seemed to be the unwilling guest of honor. Maybe, he thought, drugs and alcohol would help.

  But something told him they wouldn’t.

  Bruce Hays whispered to Seph about the unlimited power that lay within his grasp. “Maybe you report to Dr.

  Leicester,” Hays explained. “But when you think about it, the rest of the world reports to you.”

  Aaron Hanlon advised him that, given the current unsettled political situation, it was best to shelter under the protection of a powerful wizard. “There’s going to be bloodshed,” he warned. “Though Dr. Leicester is doing his best to prevent it. Just like during medieval times, it wouldn’t hurt to have a patron.”

  It was like being rushed by a desperate and diabolical fraternity. But, given the fact that Trevor and the other Anaweir were avoiding him, Seph found himself spending more and more time in their company.

  Seph was in the warehouse, stumbling through darkness, his wet shirt pressed to his face to defend against the oily smoke. His throat was raw from shouting and from breathing in the toxic air. He could see nothing, could hear nothing, save the roar of flames and the groaning of the old building as the timbers burned through.

  “Maia! Maia, can you hear me?”

  The fire crews had arrived, and were pouring water on to the roof. He was sloshing through knee-deep water while the skin on his upper body blistered and burned. He reached down, wet the shirt again, and pressed it to his face. He breathed in the stench of burning hair, and realized it was his own.

  He was in a corridor now. When he extended his arms, he could feel walls to either side. He must be in the office areas to the back. Perhaps she’d taken refuge here when the way out was blocked. He passed through several doorways, carefully closing the doors behind him to keep the flames at bay a little longer.

  Then he heard it, a faint cry from somewhere ahead. “Help!”

  He stumbled on, touching the walls now and then to guide him. The walls were hot, the paint sticky under his hand. “Maia!”

  He pushed through another doorway.

  “Seph!”

  The voice was weak and thready, but close, now, only a few feet ahead and to the right.

  “Keep talking, Maia. I’m here to get you out.” He crawled along the floor, groping with his hands, until he felt fabric under his fingers. She was huddled in a corner, where she’d retreated to try to keep her face beneath the smoke.

  He tried to gather her up in his arms, but at his touch, her skin charred and burned and turned to ash, spiraling to the floor. He tried again, and her flesh crumbled in his hands, revealing bone. He screamed and let go, and she fell.

  “Maia,” he breathed, sliding to the floor, gathering her lifeless body into his lap, rocking her as gently as he could. “Maia, I’m so sorry.” The heat was blistering. His tears evaporated, hissing, as soon as they emerged.

  He was aroused by an incessant pounding. Firefighters. He didn’t answer. He’d resolved to stay and burn. Somewhere, a door opened and closed.

  “Seph?”

  How did they know his name?

  Everyone knew. Everyone knew he was guilty.

  “Go away,” he whispered, holding fiercely to Maia’s body. “You’re too late.”

  Someone had hold of his arm, shaking him. “Seph! Come on! Snap out of it.”

  Seph opened his eyes to a view of Trevor’s worried face. He looked over Trevor’s shoulder. He was in his room. Sunlight dappled the hardwood floor. He had no idea what time it was. “Sorry.” He forced the word out painfully, groaned, and wound his fingers into the bedclothes. “I’m okay now. Please. Leave me alone.”

  Wood scraped against wood as Trevor pulled a chair up next to the bed. It creaked as he dropped into it. “I don’t get it,” he said.

  Seph turned his face away. There was no point in pretending. He felt like crap and knew he looked it. The room still reeked of vomit and terror.

  When he was younger, they’d said he was possessed. He supposed he preferred crazy. But he knew what happened when the only people who care about you are on retainer. You end up in places like this. He needed to plan, to strategize. But first, he needed to get rid of Trevor.

  “Look, I was up barfing all night, all right?”

  Trevor cleared his throat and looked away. “I heard you.”

  “So I don’t want company.”

  Trevor didn’t move, but sat, biting at his lower lip. “I don’t get it,” he repeated. “You’re one of them.”

  Seph blinked, brushed the back of his hand across his eyes, refocused on Trevor’s face. “What?”

  “You’re one of them. You’ve been hanging out at Alumni House. So why are you up screaming every single night? I have to wear my headphones to get any sleep.”

  “Oh. Well. Sorry. I get nightmares when I’m sick. That’s all.”

  “What did you do? You must’ve really messed up.”

  “What are you talking about?” Seph rolled onto his back, staring up at the ceiling.

  Trevor leaned in close, breathing the words into Seph’s ear, as if afraid of being overheard. “He calls it therapy.” Trevor looked down at his hands. “The dreams, I mean.”

  Seph’s battered mind grappled with this, teasing out a revelation. “You’re telling me Leicester has something to do with ...with ...”

  The look on Trevor’s face was a yes. “It’s like, whatever you’re scared of, that’s what he uses.”

  Seph shoved himself into a half-si
tting position, leaning back against the carved headboard. “You’re saying he makes people hallucinate. Dream. Have nightmares.”

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  “This happened to you?” Seph gestured weakly, taking in the trashed room.

  Trevor swallowed hard. His dark face was nearly gray, the brown eyes muddy with remembered pain, his hands clasped tightly together. “I acted out a lot when I first got here.”

  “He uses this . . . as punishment?”

  “He calls it therapy,” Trevor repeated. “If you don’t cooperate, I guess he thinks you need more therapy. So ...in a way ...”

  “And other people have dreams? The Ana . . . other students? Not just us?”

  “Everybody has dreams, at least at first. He says they’re working through their hostility. Only, I figured you were different. I mean, you’re like him. You and the alumni. Y’all have . . . some kind of power. Elsewise, why would the alumni stay? I’d leave, quick as I could.”

  Seph was only half listening. He wasn’t crazy. It wasn’t his own power that was destroying his mind. It was a spell. It must be. Leicester was spelling him, making him think he was crazy, make him desperate enough to agree to . . . to ...what?

  “Just do what he says,” Trevor said, as if reading his mind. “Whatever he asks. I can tell you from experience what will happen if you try to fight him. It’s up to you, but my advice is to sit up and speak and roll over, whatever it takes. Sucking up ain’t that hard, once you get the hang of it.”

  “Doesn’t anybody complain?” Seph asked.

  “What’re you going to say?” Trevor lifted his hands, palms up. “You had a nightmare at school and Dr. Leicester did it? Who would believe a story like that from someone with a track record like mine?”

  “Leicester says this is a place for . . . for psychiatric cases. He told me we’re hallucinating.”

  “I guess it’s possible. I was a little rough before I got here, but nobody ever said I was crazy. Before I came to the Havens, all I dreamed about was girls.”

  “Couldn’t your parents get you out of here, if you asked them?”

  Trevor laughed bitterly. “Look. My parents love the Havens. This is the first school that didn’t expel me inside of six months. All of my bad behaviors have been—what’s the word—extinguished. I’m getting good grades. I’m probably going to college. I’m not a problem anymore. How’m I going to convince them to bring me home?

  “A few times, since I’ve been here, parents have come to campus all fired up about something they’ve heard.

  Leicester meets with them, and they go away satisfied. Or, at least they go away. He can be very persuasive, I guess. Anyone who complains really pays for it later.” He cleared his throat. “Besides, it ain’t so bad if you don’t give him a reason to mess with you.”

  Seph remembered their visit to the Alumni House, Trevor begging Warren not to tell Dr. Leicester. “So what are Leicester and the alumni up to?”

  Trevor shook his head. “I don’t know, and I don’t want to. Tell you the truth, he don’t seem interested in the other students. I’m not sure he could pick me out of a lineup. But I’m not stupid. I figured out that if I cut class and messed with the teachers and smoked in the locker room, I’d pay for it. So I stopped. And since then he’s left me alone.”

  Seph pushed back his sweat-matted hair. “Listen, how can I call out of here?”

  “You can use any of the campus phones,” Trevor said. “If you have a calling card, the office makes the call for you.”

  “No, I need a phone I can use myself.”

  “There’s some kind of code to call direct. The office makes the calls.” Trevor hesitated. “Who you going to call?”

  “I need to reach my guardian. I’ve got to get out of here. Leicester won’t put the calls through.”

  “Just be careful, Seph. Leicester knows everything. What he doesn’t know, he’ll get out of you somehow.”

  “So if he asked you about this conversation, you’d tell him?”

  Trevor raised his hands, palms up. “Look, man, don’t blame me. It’s like you can’t help it. He’s a hypnotist or something.”

  Or something. Of course. Which meant Seph couldn’t confide in anyone, or ask anyone for help.

  “You mentioned someone named Jason. What’d he do? What happened to him?”

  “Look, forget I ever said anything about him.”

  Seph rested a hand lightly on Trevor’s shoulder, looked him in the eyes. “Tell me.”

  Trevor swallowed hard, as if trying to stop the words. “He was stirring things up. Wanted people to fight back against Dr. Leicester. Him and Sam and Peter. Then Sam drowned, and Peter and Jason are with the alumni now.”

  “Sam drowned?” Seph repeated. “Do you think . . .”

  “I don’t think anything.” Trevor gave Seph a look. “And don’t you push, because that’s all I know.”

  Seph had to find a way to escape. Leicester had made it clear he wasn’t going to let him go until he got what he wanted. With Leicester torturing him every night, Seph didn’t know how long he could keep saying no.

  After the conversation with Trevor, Seph began waging a very small, very unequal war against the Havens. He tried to run away three times in October, but they seemed to have an uncanny ability to track his movements. He hid in a delivery truck, but was intercepted at the gate. He tried to steal the school van, but the electrical system shorted out when he put the key into the ignition.

  His class attendance deteriorated. He took a case of beer from the Alumni House, and drank until he passed out, hoping to anesthetize himself. The first part of November, he set a fire in the art and music building after hours. When they dragged him into Leicester’s office, he said, “Expel me.” Instead, they confined him to his room and the dreams intensified.

  Night and day began to merge into a long and painful continuum. If he stayed up all night, he hallucinated during the day. Several times, hopelessly confused, he begged Trevor to tell him whether he was awake or asleep.

  Trevor seemed to have forgiven Seph for the sin of being gifted. He tried to help by cooperating with all of Seph’s experiments. On the theory that his dreams were being triggered by something in his room, Seph spent the night on Trevor’s floor. The dreams followed him. Trevor stayed over in Seph’s room, so he could wake him when the dreams began. But it was impossible to wake Seph from his nightmares, and Trevor couldn’t bear to be anywhere near while they were going on.

  Meanwhile, Leicester and the alumni watched him, like predators stalking wounded prey, waiting for him to falter so they could close in for the kill.

  Gregory Leicester sat in his favorite chair and gazed moodily out to sea. It was unnaturally dark for that time of day, and the lights were already ablaze out on the dock. They were predicting a northeaster, one of the first of the season. Leicester could always detect the drop in pressure when a storm was on the way.

  Joseph McCauley was both extraordinarily powerful and amazingly resistant. He’d been at the Havens for more than three months under intensive pressure. Save the one previous failure, no one had ever held out so long. Could Joseph have had some contact with Jason? No. He’d been careful to keep the two apart.

  As always, Leicester was impatient with the process, more so in this case, given the prize that lay within his grasp. Recruitment was messy and uncontrolled, and there was always the chance that the intended would escape by taking his own life. This his continuing rebellion was a warning. He resolved to have the staff keep a closer eye on Joseph.

  He was sure the matter could be handled more efficiently. He had no doubt he could quickly get what he wanted, given a free hand with the boy. It was D’Orsay who had insisted on this tender approach, the dreams that marked the soul and not the body. D’Orsay believed it would be difficult for the Wizard Council to trace this kind of slow poison to them, if it came to that. It was splitting hairs, but then that was a politician’s job.

  L
eicester wished he had Joseph’s Weirbook. It would help to know a little more about him, his strengths and weaknesses. That might bring some insight, provide a strategy. He hungered for the opportunity to put that remarkable power into play.

  He drained his glass, feeling a little better. The boy knew there was a way out; he couldn’t help but be tempted to take it eventually. It might take a little research, a little more pressure, but Leicester was confident he would be successful in the end.

  Chapter Seven

  Jason

  You don’t have to understand. You just have to survive, Seph told himself.

  He dreamed every night now, and the nightmares were longer and more intense than before. He felt wasted mentally and physically, yet he forced himself to get up out of bed and walk over to the cafeteria and eat breakfast. Sometimes he went to class, sometimes he just returned to his room and lay staring at the ceiling.

  They were coming in the daytime too, striking out of nowhere, splitting him cleanly from reality in an instant. He would awaken screaming in math class, crying out in the middle of government, muttering and twitching in chemistry class. He nearly blew up the building when he ignited the chemicals in the lab.

  Everyone pretended not to notice. It was as if he traveled around campus with a dreadful disfigurement, and those around him had been told not to stare and point. It was impossible to learn anything. He no longer fought back, no longer spun any plots against them. The spark of resistance was extinguished in him, save his refusal to give them the one thing they wanted. He was like a prisoner under torture who refuses to surrender the password long after he’s forgotten why. It was all he could do just to be in the world.

  The only thing that helped was walking. As long as he kept moving, the demons couldn’t catch him. At first he walked restlessly from building to building. Later, he put on snowshoes and walked for miles through the woods. Once he made it as far as the wall that bordered the property. But he couldn’t find the gate and he couldn’t seem to get a grip on it to climb before they came and took him back.