The Iron Trial

by Holly Black

  Call flung out his arm. He felt a burst of dull heat explode around him. A wave of sand and rock cascaded up from the ground, hammering against the wyvern’s chest.

  The beast flew back and was knocked hard against the cave wall, before slumping to the ground. Call blinked, pushing himself slowly to his feet. When he was up, he looked around with new eyes.

  Oh, he thought, seeing the mayhem unfolding all over the room, the fire streaking past and kids spinning in circles as they lost their concentration and their magic tossed them from side to side. He understood, all at once, why they’d been practicing in the sand room for so long. Against all odds, magic had become automatic to him. He knew the concentration it needed.

  His wyvern was struggling to its feet, but now Call was ready. He focused, throwing his hand out, and three stalactites cracked free, slamming down and pinning the wyvern to the ground by its wings.

  “Ha!” said Call.

  The beast opened its beak, and Call moved to retreat, knowing he wouldn’t be fast enough to avoid the monster’s breath —

  “Give me Miri,” Tamara yelled, coming from the shadows. “Quick!”

  Reaching for his belt, Call pulled out the knife and tossed it to her. The wyvern’s mouth was open, smoke just beginning to curl out. With two quick strides, Tamara walked through the smoke to the wyvern and moved to stab the blade through the wyvern’s eye. Just as it was about to hit, the monster disappeared in a great gust of blue smoke, returning to its element with a howl of rage. Tamara began to float upward.

  Call grabbed her leg. It was a little bit like holding the string of a balloon, since she continued to bob in the air.

  She grinned down at him. She was smudged all over with dirt and sand, her hair loose and tumbling around her face. “Look,” she said, gesturing with Miri, and Call turned in time to see Aaron, free of the ice, sending a flood of small rocks toward a wyvern. Celia, from her perch, rained down more stones. In the air, they became a massive boulder that dispersed the creature with a single strike before it crashed into rubble against the far wall.

  “Only one more,” Call said, panting.

  “No more,” Tamara told him gleefully. “I got two. Although, I mean, you did help a little with the second.”

  “I could just let you go right now.” Call tugged on her leg threateningly.

  “Okay, okay, you helped a lot!” Tamara laughed, just as the room broke into applause. The Masters were clapping — looking, Call realized, at him and Tamara and Aaron and Celia. Aaron was breathing hard, glancing from his hands to the place where the wyvern had disappeared, as if he couldn’t believe he’d thrown a boulder. Call knew how he felt.

  “Whee!” said Tamara, waving her arms up and down as she bobbed. A moment later, the apprentices who had floated up to the ceiling were slowly floating down, Call letting go of Tamara’s ankle so she could land on the floor feetfirst. She handed Miri back to him as the other apprentices landed, some laughing, some — like Jasper — silent and grim-faced.

  Tamara and Call made their way toward Aaron among the hubbub of voices. People were cheering and clapping them on the backs; it was a little like what Call had always imagined winning a basketball game would be like, though he’d never won one. He’d never even played for a team.

  “Call,” said a voice behind him. He turned to see Alex, a big grin on his face. “I was rooting for you guys,” he said.

  Call blinked. “Why?” It wasn’t as if they’d talked much, or at all.

  “Because you’re like me. I can tell.”

  “Yeah, right,” Call said. That was ridiculous. Alex was the kind of guy who, back home, would have been pushing Call into a mud puddle. The Magisterium was different, but it couldn’t be that different.

  “I didn’t really do much, anyway,” Call went on. “I just stood there until I remembered to run — except then, I remembered that I can’t run.” He saw Master Rufus circling through the crowd to approach his apprentices. He wore a small smile, which for Master Rufus was like leaping and cartwheeling down the hallways.

  Alex grinned. “You don’t need to run,” he said. “Here, they’ll teach you how to fight. And trust me, you’re going to be good at it.”

  Call, Tamara, and Aaron went back to their rooms feeling that, for the first time since they’d gotten to the Magisterium, everything was falling into place. They’d done better than all the other apprentice groups, and everyone knew it. Best of all, Master Rufus had gotten them pizza. Real pizza from a cardboard box with melty cheese and lots of toppings that weren’t lichen or bright purple mushrooms or anything else weird that grew underground. They ate it in the common room, friendly-fighting over who got the most pieces. Tamara won by eating the fastest.

  Call’s fingers were still a little greasy as he pushed open the door to his bedroom. Full from pizza and soda and laughing, he felt the best he had in a long time.

  But the minute he saw what was waiting on his bed, that all changed.

  It was a box — a cardboard box taped up heavily, with his name scrawled in Call’s father’s spidery, unmistakable handwriting:

  CALLUM HUNT

  THE MAGISTERIUM

  LURAY, VA

  For a moment, Call stood and stared. He moved slowly over to the box and touched it, running his fingers along the duct-taped seams. His father always used the same heavy tape to pack up boxes, like when he had to ship something that had been ordered from out of town. They were practically impossible to open.

  Call took Miri out of his belt. The knife’s sharp blade tore through the cardboard as if it were a sheet of paper. Clothes spilled out onto the bed — Call’s jeans, jackets, and T-shirts, packets of his favorite sour gummi candy, a windup alarm clock, and a copy of The Three Musketeers, which Call and his dad had been reading together.

  When Call picked up the book, a folded-up note fell from between the pages. Call lifted it and read:

  Callum,

  I know this isn’t your fault. I love you and I am sorry for everything that happened. Keep your chin up at school.

  Affectionately,

  Alastair Hunt

  He had signed it with his full name, as though Call were someone he hardly even knew. Holding the letter in his hand, Call sank down onto the bed.

  CALL COULDN’T SLEEP that night. He was keyed up from the fight, and his mind kept going over the words of his dad’s note, trying to puzzle out what they meant. It didn’t help that Call had immediately eaten all but one package of the gummi candy he’d received, making him about ready to bounce off the cave roof without the need for wyvern breath to propel him. If his father had sent Call’s skateboard (and it was annoying that he hadn’t), he would’ve been careening into walls with it.

  His dad had written that he wasn’t angry, and the words he picked didn’t sound angry either, but he sounded something else. Sad. Cold, maybe. Distant.

  Maybe he was worried about the magicians stealing Call’s mail and reading it. Maybe he was afraid of writing anything private. It was an understatement to say that his dad could be a little paranoid sometimes, especially about mages.

  If only Call could talk to him, just for a second. He wanted to reassure his father that he was doing fine and that no one had opened the package but him. As far as he could tell, the Magisterium wasn’t so bad. It was even kind of fun.

  If only the Magisterium had telephones.

  Call’s mind went immediately to the tiny tornado on Master Rufus’s desk. If Call waited to be taught how to pilot the boats to sneak back there, he might be waiting forever to talk with his father. He’d proved at the test that he could adapt his magic to many situations he hadn’t been specifically trained for. Maybe he could adapt to this one, too.

  After so long with only the two uniforms, it was awesome to have a bunch of clothes to choose from. Part of him wanted to put them all on at once and waddle through the Magisterium like a penguin.

  In the end, he settled for black jeans and a black T-shirt with a fade
d Led Zeppelin logo on it, the outfit he deemed most suitable for sneaking around. As an afterthought, he buckled Miri’s sheath through a loop of his belt, and ducked out through the darkened common room.

  Looking around, he was suddenly aware of how much his and Tamara’s stuff was spread all over the place. He’d left his notebook on the counter, his bag tossed haphazardly on the couch, one of his socks on the floor beside a plate of crystalline cookies with a bite missing. Tamara had scattered even more — books from home, hair ties, dangly earrings, pens with feathered ends, and bangle bracelets. But of Aaron, there was nothing. What little stuff he had was in his room, which he kept super clean, the bed made as tightly as if this were a military school.

  He could hear Tamara and Aaron’s steady breathing coming from their rooms. For a moment, he wondered if he should just go back to bed. He still didn’t know the tunnels very well and remembered all the warnings about getting lost. They weren’t supposed to be out of their rooms this late without permission from their Master, either, so he was risking getting in trouble.

  Taking a quick breath, he pushed all doubts out of his mind. He knew the way to Master Rufus’s office during the day. He just had to figure out the boats.

  The hall outside the common room was lit by the dim glow of rocks and had fallen utterly, eerily silent. The quiet was punctuated only by distant drips of sediment falling from stalactite to stalagmite.

  “Okay,” Call muttered. “Here goes nothing.”

  He started down the path he knew led toward the river. His footsteps beat a pattern, step-shuffle, in the quiet.

  The room the river ran through was even more dimly lit than the hall. The water was a dark, heaving rush of shadow. Carefully, Call picked his way along the rocky path to where one of the boats was tied up at the river’s edge. He tried to brace himself, but his bad leg wobbled; he had to get down on his knees to crawl into the boat.

  Part of Master Rockmaple’s lecture on elementals had covered those that could be found in the water. According to him, they were often easily persuaded by a small amount of power to do a mage’s bidding. The only problem was that Master Rockmaple had talked theory but hadn’t explained any technique. Call had no idea how to do this.

  The boat rocked under his knees. Mimicking Master Rufus, he leaned over the edge and whispered, “Okay, I feel really stupid doing this. But, uh, maybe you could help me out. I’m trying to get downstream and I don’t know how to — look, could you try to keep the boat from knocking into walls and spinning around? Please?”

  The elementals, wherever they were and whatever they were doing, didn’t offer any response.

  Luckily, the current already ran in the direction he was going. Leaning out, he pushed off the riverbank with the heel of his hand, sending the boat wobbling toward the center of the river. He felt a moment of heady success, before realizing he had no way to stop the boat.

  Recognizing there wasn’t much he could do, he slumped against the seat at the stern and resigned himself to worrying about that on the other end. Water lapped against the side of the boat, and every so often, a fish would rise, pale and glowing, to dart across the surface before disappearing into the depths again.

  Unfortunately, it didn’t seem that he’d done the right thing when whispering to the elementals. The boat turned through the water, making Call dizzy. At one point, he had to shove off a stalagmite to keep the boat from running aground.

  Finally, he came to a riverbank he recognized, the one near Rufus’s office. He looked around for some way to steer toward the shore. The idea of sticking his hand into the cold, black water didn’t appeal to him much, but he did it anyway, paddling frantically.

  The prow bumped against the shore, and Call realized he was going to have to jump out into the shallow water, since he couldn’t get the boat to press itself against a ledge like Master Rufus did. Bracing himself, he stepped over the side and sank immediately in the silt. He lost his balance, falling and banging his bad leg against the side of the boat. For a long moment, the pain took his breath away.

  When he recovered, he realized his situation was even worse. The boat had drifted into the middle of the water, out of his reach.

  “Come back,” he yelled to the boat. Then, realizing his mistake, he concentrated on the water itself. Even as he strained, all he was able to do was make the water swirl a little. He’d spent a month working with sand and no time at all working with the other elements.

  He was soaked and soon his boat would be gone, disappearing into a tunnel and flowing deeper into the caves. Groaning, he splashed his way onto shore. His jeans were heavy and sodden, clinging to his legs. They were also cold. He was going to have to walk all the way back like that … if he could find the way back.

  Pushing concerns about later out of his mind, Call headed to the heavy wood door of Master Rufus’s office. Holding his breath, he tried the knob. It swung open without even a squeak.

  The small tornado was still spinning on Master Rufus’s rolltop desk. Call took a step toward it. The small lizard in the cage was on the workstation as before, flames flickering along its back. It watched Call with luminous eyes.

  “Let me out,” the lizard said. It had a whispery croaking voice, but the words had been clear. Call stared at it in confusion. The wyverns hadn’t spoken during the exercise; no one had said a single thing about elementals talking. Maybe fire elementals were different.

  “Let me out,” it said again. “The key! I will tell you where he keeps the key and you will let me out.”

  “I’m not going to do that,” Call told the lizard, frowning. He still couldn’t quite get over the fact that it talked. Backing away from it, he moved closer to the tornado on the desktop.

  “Alastair Hunt,” he whispered to the spinning sand.

  Nothing happened. Maybe it wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d hoped.

  Call put his hand to the side of the glass. As hard as he could, he pictured his father. He pictured his father’s beaky profile, and the familiar sound of him repairing things in the garage. He pictured his dad’s gray eyes, and the way his voice rose when he was cheering on a sports team or lowered if he was talking about dangerous things, like magicians. He pictured the way his father had always read him to sleep with a book, and how his woolly jackets smelled like pipe smoke and wood cleaner.

  “Alastair Hunt,” he said again, and this time the spinning sand contracted and solidified. In seconds, he was looking at the figure of his father, his glasses pushed up on his head. He was wearing a sweatshirt and jeans and had a book open on his lap. It was as if Call had just walked in on him reading.

  Abruptly, his father stood up, looking in his direction. The book slid away, vanishing from view.

  “Call?” his father asked, disbelief tingeing his voice.

  “Yes!” Call said excitedly. “It’s me. I got the clothes and your letter and I wanted to find some way to contact you.”

  “Ah,” said his father, squinting as though he was trying to see Call better. “Well, that’s good, that’s really good. I’m glad your things made it.”

  Call nodded. Something about his father’s cautious tone took the edge off the pleasure he felt at seeing him.

  Call’s father pushed his glasses higher on his nose. “You look well.”

  Call looked down at his clothes. “Yeah. I’m okay. It’s really not so bad here. I mean, it can be boring sometimes — and scary other times. But I’m learning stuff. I’m not such a bad mage. I mean, so far.”

  “I never thought that you would be unskilled, Call.” His father stood up and seemed to move toward where Call was standing. His expression was strange, as though he was steeling himself to some difficult task. “Where are you? Does anyone know you’re speaking with me?”

  Call shook his head. “I’m in Master Rufus’s office. I’m, uh, borrowing his miniature tornado.”

  “His what?” Call’s father’s brows knitted in confusion, then he sighed. “Never mind — I’m glad to h
ave a chance to remind you of what’s important. The mages aren’t what they seem. The magic they’re teaching you is dangerous. The more you learn about the magical world, the more you will be drawn into it — drawn into its old conflicts and dangerous temptations. Whatever fun you’re having —” Call’s father said the word fun like it was poisonous. “Whatever friends you’re making, don’t forget that this life isn’t the life for you. You must get away as soon as you can.”

  “Are you telling me to run?”

  “It would be the best thing for everyone,” Alastair said with perfect sincerity.

  “But what if I decide I want to stay here?” Call asked. “What if I decide I’m happy at the Magisterium? Will you still let me come home sometimes?”

  There was a silence. The question hung in the air between them. Even if he was a magician, he still wanted to be Alastair’s son, too.

  “I don’t — I —” His father took a deep breath.

  “I know you hate the Magisterium because Mom died in the Cold Massacre.” Call spoke rapidly, trying to get the words out before his courage failed.

  “What?” Alastair’s eyes went wide. He looked furious — and afraid.

  “And I get why you never told me about it. I’m not mad. But that was war. They have a truce now. Nothing’s going to happen to me here in the —”

  “Call!” Alastair barked. His face was pale. “You absolutely cannot stay at the school. You don’t understand — it’s too dangerous. Call, you must listen to me. You don’t know what you are.”

  “I —” Call was cut off by a crashing noise behind him. He spun around to see that the lizard had somehow managed to knock its cage off the edge of the workstation. It was lying on its side on the floor, covered by a flurry of papers and the remains of one of Rufus’s models. From inside, the elemental was muttering weird words like Splerg! and Gelferfren!