Cave of Nightmares

by V. St. Clair

  “Do you have a familiar yet?” Conner changed the subject, which Hayden was immensely grateful for.

  “No, I just got here today.”

  “Oh, well I’m sure they’ll throw you into the pen soon enough.”

  Hayden had no idea what that entailed, but he didn’t want to look stupid by asking. Maybe Zane would explain it to him later.

  Zane managed to turn the subject back to a safer topic after that, and soon Hayden was listening to the others argue over whether it would be worse to lose one eye or one Focus. Hayden still had no idea what a Focus was, but he didn’t think that losing an eye sounded like very much fun at all. He was a bit surprised that the others all said they’d prefer it of the two options.

  “What about you?” Conner turned to him. “Though I guess it’s not really a fair question since you’re a Prism major. Are you right or left-eyed?”

  Hayden thought back to the metal headpiece he tried on back in the testing chamber.

  “Right-eyed,” he answered hesitantly.

  “Okay, so say you had to choose between losing one of your Foci or your left eye; which would you pick?”

  He didn’t want to admit his ignorance on the subject so instead he asked, “Why are we even debating which body part we’d prefer to lose? How about we just keep them all?”

  Tamon snorted.

  “I might as well lose my right Focus entirely.” He held up one hand for them to see, and Hayden noticed a clear crystal bracelet circling his wrist, about as wide as a pencil. “I’ve got such a big corrector on it it’s just about useless anyway.”

  The bracelet reminded him unpleasantly of the lead Binders he was forced to wear for the last two years, though he suspected that this one wasn’t designed to block magic.

  Hayden managed to get through dinner without humiliating himself and was feeling quite proud of the achievement as he followed Zane and Conner out of the dining hall. Unfortunately he couldn’t help but notice that a lot of people were staring at him as he passed, which probably meant that word about his famous father had gotten out by now.

  Well, at least I won’t have to explain it to the entire school one-on-one.

  It wasn’t until the three of them returned to their dorm room that he met Kayce, their fourth roommate. Kayce was well-tanned and muscular for his age, with very short dark hair and a scar along the edge of one cheek. He took one look at Hayden and then promptly ignored him for the rest of the night.

  Zane gave him a commiserating look and shrugged, as though to say well, you can’t please everyone.

  Still, climbing into bed that night, Hayden finally had a reason to feel hopeful. He could make friends here in this strange world of magic that he now belonged to, and maybe he could even make a name for himself someday. For the first time in a long time, he was looking forward to the future instead of waiting for it to pass him by. He fell asleep to the sound of Conner’s owl hooting softly from its wooden perch.

  ***

  Hayden woke up for breakfast at the same time as his roommates, yawning in the early morning light and thinking that it would take a while to get used to this routine. At the orphanage in Merina he had been permitted to sleep much later, though that was probably only because there was nowhere he needed to be and nothing he needed to do there.

  He pulled on one of his two pairs of pants, faded tan with a hole in one knee, and followed the others down to breakfast in the dining hall. If he thought people were staring at him the night before, it had increased ten-fold this morning as he took his seat beside Zane, at a different table than last night. Kayce didn’t join them, but Conner did.

  “I wonder where I’m supposed to go after breakfast is over,” Hayden mused out loud. “The rest of you have classes, don’t you?”

  Zane tried to talk around a mouthful of biscuit.

  “Yeah, I’b got Elixirs firs’ ding.”

  Mira leaned across Zane to see him. “Didn’t the Masters give you any instructions?”

  Hayden searched his memory of the day before but honestly couldn’t remember if they’d told him anything or not. He had been so overwhelmed it was hard to retain anything he heard that day.

  His question was answered more satisfactorily a few minutes later, when he felt someone tap him on the shoulder and Conner said, “Master Asher, good morning, sir.”

  Hayden turned in his chair found himself facing a wall of bright red robes. He tilted his head upwards and the Prism Master gave him a friendly wave and said, “Good morning. If you’re finished stuffing your face, I’ll take you to get your Foci tested.”

  Hayden immediately stopped eating, though he was still hungry, not wanting to seem rude.

  “Good luck,” Zane mock-saluted him. “See you later.”

  A lot of people were whispering behind their hands as Hayden rose and followed the Prism Master out of the dining hall. If Asher noticed the attention he didn’t comment on it, motioning for Hayden to walk beside him when they entered the hallway and made their way towards the grounds.

  “Do you usually take new students to get their Foci tested?” Hayden had been under the impression that it wasn’t typical.

  “Do I escort them personally, you mean?” Master Asher answered him without turning his head. “Generally not, but I wanted to have a private discussion with you before you begin my class, and this seemed the best time to do it.”

  Hayden didn’t like the sound of that one bit. He assumed that he was about to get an earful about how Asher didn’t want to teach him prisms because he might turn out evil like his father.

  “What did you want to talk about, sir?” he asked cautiously, wondering if people would ever stop comparing him to Aleric Frost.

  “One thing at a time, Hayden. After we test your Foci, we’ll talk.” Master Asher led him on a path that went around the castle to the west, revealing a series of smaller buildings and shops that Hayden hadn’t even noticed the day before. It immediately put Hayden in the mind of the small village square near the orphanage in Merina, where the blacksmith, the armorer, the apothecary and the library were all located—only these shops clearly weren’t any of those places now that he took a closer look...

  “This is where you can get most of your raw materials for lessons. That hut with the crossed wands over the door sells materials for Willow’s classes, obviously, and so forth,” he explained helpfully.

  “Do we have to pay for things here?”

  This time Master Asher did turn to look at him.

  “I expect that most of your father’s assets were seized by the Council when he died. They’re probably not giving you much, are they?” Asher sighed and continued without waiting for him to answer. “Luckily, no, we do not charge for basic raw materials here. It’s one of the expenses that the school absorbs for young mages in training. Some of your more advanced and rare materials will need to be purchased, but you shouldn’t need them for quite some time. Also, clothing will need to be purchased, if you’re interested.”

  Hayden nodded, relieved at the prospect of upgrading his wardrobe.

  “Since you’re new and mostly-untested in all of the major and minor arcana, you’ll be automatically enrolled in the level-one class for all the majors except for Prisms. You’ll also be put into level-one Healing, which is a requirement for all students. Next year you will be eligible to drop some subjects and add more of the minor arcana to your schedule if they interest you.”

  “What Prism class am I going to be in?” Hayden followed him past the shops and into a small stone building that stood off to the side, up a well-trod dirt path in the grass.

  “You’ll be starting in my second-level class. The first year is largely introductory and aimed at determining if any of the students can actually perceive the difference between magical arrays and scattered light,” he explained. “I’ve already seen evidence that you understand the basic workings of the prism, so we can skip all that.”

  Hayden felt unusually proud of himself for qualifying f
or a second-level class when he hadn’t even been here a full day yet.

  They entered the stone building at the outskirts of the cluster of shops, which looked no bigger than his dorm room from the outside. On the inside it was a different story entirely. The room was massive and high-ceilinged, painted a stark white color that made him squint against the brightness. The walls were lined with racks of long tubes of crystal the width of his arm, and in the center of the mostly-empty room was a complicated jumble of wires resting on a wooden table, and a machine with dozens of miniature rotating saws built into it. Hayden thought it was a colossal waste of space for such a large room.

  There was only one other person in the space with them, a man in his early fifties, with a bald patch in his blond hair and warm brown eyes. He looked as though he’d lost a great deal of weight in a short time, his skin hanging slightly loose on his frame.

  “Ah, young Master Asher, how can I help you today? Does your corrector need adjustment?” He belatedly caught sight of Hayden and his eyebrows lifted.

  “No, my Foci are fine,” Asher greeted the man cordially. “I’m here to have Hayden Frost tested. Given his practical exams yesterday, I think he may need some correction.”

  “Of course, very good.” The man looked a little surprised by Hayden’s last name, but he didn’t look angry or repulsed by him. “If you’ll just hop up on the table here, we’ll get you all wired up.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but can you explain to me what a Focus is or why it needs correcting?” he asked nervously, not liking the look of those wires.

  It was Master Asher who answered him.

  “Of course, I forgot that you didn’t know.” He leaned against the table, looking thoughtful. “Every mage has two Foci, which acts as channels for magic, one in each hand.”

  “So magic comes out of our hands?” Hayden tried to imagine that.

  “Well, there’s much debate as to where our magic is actually stored and dispersed. Most people argue that it’s in the soul itself, but yes, the hands are where it is channeled and brought out into the world.”

  “So there’s one Focus in each of my hands that lets me do magic?”

  “Yes, exactly. Most people’s Foci are perfectly aligned and can transmit magic without correction, while some are not so fortunate.” Master Asher ran a hand through his shaggy hair. “Blast, I’m not doing a good job of this, am I?” He tried again. “Think of the foci in your eyes. Some people can see perfectly fine without any assistance, while others need corrective lenses in one or both eyes to see properly.”

  That made much more sense, and Hayden nodded understanding.

  “Right, so, it’s the same principle with your magical Foci. If one or both of your channels are misaligned, you get a crystalline corrector to wear on your wrist that will fix it. A clear Focus is extremely important to a mage, because it keeps your magic consistent and predictable, and prevents accidents.”

  That didn’t sound so bad, and Hayden began to relax.

  “I heard someone complaining about wearing a corrector last night at dinner.” He thought back to Tamon saying that his right Focus was nearly useless. “But why would anyone not like wearing a corrector if it helps our magic?”

  “Ah,” Master Asher held up a finger. “Excellent question. Focus-correctors have the unfortunate side-effect of dampening magical power.”

  “You mean they make us weaker?”

  “In a sense, yes. Power is the price you pay for control.” He was watching Hayden closely as he spoke. “The larger the corrector, the more it will dampen your power, which is likely why your classmate was complaining about his. Let’s say, for example, that the fire you created yesterday was intentional, and is your normal level of power without Focus-adjustment. With a corrector on, you may only be able to produce a campfire, as opposed to a blazing inferno.”

  “But if I take off the corrector, then I could still make the bigger fire?”

  Asher nodded. “It doesn’t remove your power, it simply controls it. Now imagine the converse: you intend to make a campfire for your friends, but accidentally incinerate them because of a flux in your Foci.”

  Hayden shuddered at the thought of accidentally killing someone with his magic.

  “Now you see why we trade power for control, for those of us who need it.” He held up his left arm, and the sleeve of his robes fell back to reveal a crystal band that was triple the thickness of Tamon’s on his wrist. “Don’t think that it will make you weak to wear one of these, or two, if necessary. I have the distinction of wearing the thickest corrector in the history of Mizzenwald, and I’m one of the most powerful people I know.”

  Hayden did feel better about the possibility of wearing a bracelet knowing that even some of the Masters had to.

  “Okay, so how do we test my Focus?” He turned back to the man with all the wires, who had been setting up the machine full of tiny saws while they were talking. Hayden watched him slide a tube of crystal into one end of it to prep it for cutting.

  That must be the machine that makes the bracelets.

  “We clamp these wires to each of your fingers, hand you a prism, and ask you to cast with it at that convex lens.” The man pointed to a circular lens on wheels that was the size of a trashcan lid, which also had wires clamped all around its circumference.

  “The lens will absorb your magic and determine whether your Foci are aligned properly, and if not, it will calculate how thick of a corrector you need.”

  Hayden hopped onto the table and sat with his legs dangling over the edge, facing the giant lens. The man who ran the machine began attaching wires to each of his fingertips and then measured the diameter of each wrist and keyed something into the machine.

  Master Asher pulled a prism from a pocket in his robes (not off of the belt where he kept his own) that looked exactly like the one from yesterday, and handed it to Hayden.

  “Alright, hold that in front of your dominant eye, aim for the lens, and cast.”

  Hayden touched only the edge of the prism, careful not to smudge it with his fingerprints. He held it in front of his right eye and looked at the giant lens on the other side of the room. The walls were bright enough that he could see the flecks of color in the glass, but the pattern didn’t feel right yet so he slowly turned the prism until something looked familiar.

  He took a deep breath, aimed his hand and thought, Fire.

  Again, the prism disintegrated into dust as soon as he used it, and Hayden dropped his empty hand in surprise. The lens didn’t burst into flames like he thought it would, but it changed to a dark red color and he heard a loud BANG! as though someone had struck it with a hammer. A tiny crack formed in the center of the thick glass, and Master Asher raised his eyebrows in surprise.

  “Oh my, that’s very interesting.” He gave Hayden another appraising look.

  “Was that supposed to happen?” He winced and tried to read the expression on the others’ faces.

  “No one’s ever damaged the lens before. It’s meant to absorb powerful magic.” The man looked at him in alarm and took a step backwards.

  “Yes, something is not right here…” Asher trailed off thoughtfully, but just then the machine turned itself on and began cutting the crystal.

  “So I need a corrector?” Hayden watched it working, a little disappointed.

  “Apparently so,” the Prism Master replied without looking at him.

  The other man walked around the side of the machine, read the display, and shouted, “IMPOSSIBLE!” so loudly that Hayden jumped and fell off the table.

  Asher turned to his colleague while Hayden scrambled up off of the floor.

  “What now?”

  “It can’t be right….The lens must have been damaged and made an error,” he was muttering to himself while the saws trimmed away at the crystal tube. “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life.”

  Master Asher grew impatient and walked around the whirring machine to join the man, scanning the readouts
for himself. His mouth opened in shock.

  “What in the—three-inch correctors? Two of them?” He made a strange face at Hayden. “Your Foci must be so scattered it’s amazing you can channel magic at all. If this readout is correct, you’ll officially be the owner of the largest correctors in the documented history of the Nine Lands.”

  Hayden felt his cheeks burn, mortified at how broken he was. The machine eventually stopped cutting and spit out two identical crystal bracelets that were indeed three inches wide.

  “Well, time to find out if the lens knows what it’s talking about.” Master Asher walked back to Hayden and handed him the cuffs. They were open on one end, enough that he could slip them onto his wrists if he turned them sideways first. Once on, they fit snuggly without being too tight. He didn’t feel any different than before.

  “Good thing I thought to bring two low-grade prisms instead of one.” Asher handed him a fresh one. “You know what to do.”

  Hayden held the prism up in front of his eye and turned it until the familiar pattern came into view. Taking a deep breath for courage, he aimed at the lens and thought, Fire!

  This time nothing happened to the lens, or nothing visible at least. The prism also didn’t disintegrate in his hand, though it seemed to shrink a little. Master Asher took it from him and examined it closely.

  “Hmm, well you were still able to summon enough power to consume part of it, but it was much more controlled this time.” He looked back at the chart readouts. “Yes, this is much better.”

  “It doesn’t seem possible.” The other man was still staring at Hayden like he was a freak.

  Maybe I am.

  “He shouldn’t be able to do anything with correctors that thick on. He might as well be wearing lead Binders.”

  Master Asher shrugged. “Apparently that’s not the case with young Frost, though I must say, this reeks of magical damage. Come, Hayden, time is ticking and we’ve much to discuss.”

  He thanked the man for helping them and led Hayden back outside, motioning for him to sit down at a grouping of park benches a little away from the rest of the material shops.