Cave of Nightmares

by V. St. Clair

  He didn’t notice Oliver until he was walking past him, or the sleek black dragon that was perched on the table in front of him. Oliver’s dragon was slightly larger than his, and it took one look at Bonk and let out an angry hiss. A narrow jet of fire shot out of its mouth, startling its owner.

  Bonk changed positions on Hayden’s shoulder, turning backwards and lifting his tail into the air, flashing his bottom at the other dragon in obvious disdain. Oliver sneered at him and Hayden hurried past to take his seat beside Zane.

  “Good lord, Hayden. Where did you pick up a dragon?” his friend greeted him, admiring Bonk while Hayden loaded up a plate with the leftover food.

  “Long story. He’s my familiar now though.”

  Conner let out a low whistle.

  “Wow, dragons are really rare familiars: they’re pretty choosy about their masters. You and Oliver are the only ones in the school right now who have one besides Master Asher.”

  “Reading between the lines, I don’t think Slasher cares for the competition,” Zane chuckled.

  “Oliver’s dragon is named Slasher?” Hayden frowned, wishing he’d gotten to pick a cool name for his dragon.

  “Yeah, why? What are you calling yours?”

  “Bonk,” Hayden answered lamely.

  The others looked at him with raised eyebrows.

  “Uhh…that’s cool,” Zane said without conviction. “Where’d you think of that?”

  Hayden could feel his cheeks burning. “I didn’t. He’s been in the pen for fifty years, and after a while the guy before Torin named him because he flew head-first into a tree while chasing a squirrel.”

  Mira, who was sitting nearby, giggled at the explanation.

  “Can I pat him?” she asked hopefully, and Hayden shrugged.

  “Yeah, I guess so. He bit me earlier and poisoned me, but Torin says he won’t hurt anyone now that he’s claimed me,” he cautioned, turning towards Bonk and getting a face full of wing. “Um, hop down now, Bonk. Mira wants to pet you.”

  Bonk looked at him like he was an idiot, hopped onto the table, and submerged his face in Zane’s apple pie.

  “Bonk!” Hayden chided him, but Zane was laughing.

  “That’s okay, I was almost finished anyway,” he grinned. “Still, you don’t ever see Slasher eating apple pie.”

  Mira leaned across him and gently stroked Bonk’s back.

  “Oh he’s adorable. I wish I had a little dragon now.”

  “I hope you figure out a way to train him to eat Oliver,” Tamon piped up, grinning. “That guy could stand to come down a few notches.”

  “Don’t say that, Tamon!” Zane sounded unusually stern, but his expression immediately cleared. “Poor Bonk would get terrible indigestion after eating all that hot air.”

  They shared a laugh at that, stopping only when a shadow settled over the table in front of Hayden. He turned around and found himself looking at Masters Asher and Kilgore, who were still wearing their metallic red robes.

  “Bonk, you little menace! I thought that was you I saw!” The former looked absolutely delighted to see the little dragon, and Bonk took flight immediately and went to perch on the Prism Master’s outstretched arm without being summoned.

  “It seems the little guy has found a master at last,” Kilgore looked pleased for the first time since Hayden met him, stroking the dragon’s smooth wings and feeding it a piece of meat from his hand.

  “You two know him already?” Hayden asked curiously, surprised by the reception. It looked like Bonk had more fans at Mizzenwald than he did.

  “Of course we do,” Master Asher grinned. “He was in the pen during our school days too. That crusty old man, Torin, has made a favorite of him for years now. I can hardly walk into the cabin without running into the little devil.”

  Hayden didn’t like hearing Torin called a crusty old man, because he was one of the nicest people he’d met so far. Master Kilgore must have caught the look on his face because he said, “Watch it, Asher, it looks like your father’s gotten another devotee.”

  “Wait, what?” Hayden asked, confused.

  Master Asher grinned.

  “You didn’t know that Torin is my old man? Most people catch the family resemblance.” He passed Bonk back to Hayden, who was stunned at his own stupidity for not figuring it out immediately.

  “Come on Asher, let’s leave the boy alone so he can eat,” Kilgore chuckled, and the two of them bid Bonk farewell and walked away.

  “How can Torin be Asher’s dad? Torin’s so…normal,” Hayden asked the others, aghast.

  “Master Asher’s one of the best prism-users to come from this school in centuries,” Mira said reverently.

  “You only like him because he’s good looking,” Tamon chided her, and she blushed furiously and looked away.

  “But Torin said he was only fifty-three, so that would make Asher even younger than I thought.” Hayden was still trying to wrap his mind around it.

  “He’s definitely the youngest of the Masters,” Zane explained. “I think he just turned thirty a few months ago. Heck, Bonk is almost twice his age; think of all the mages your familiar has met over the last fifty years.”

  A new thought hit Hayden then, but he was careful not to voice it out loud until dinner was over. Conner said he was going to the library to check out a reference book, leaving Hayden and Zane alone in the dorm room together.

  Zane was feeding his fox scraps from dinner when Hayden spoke again.

  “If Bonk has been here for fifty years…I wonder if he ever met my father.” He watched the dragon closely. Zane looked up in surprise.

  Come to think of it, Torin might have known him too, depending on when he started working here….

  “Huh, I don’t know. I guess he might have seen him a few times around Torin’s cabin,” he answered thoughtfully. “Your dad had a dragon as a familiar too, you know.”

  Yet another thing we have in common.

  Hayden sighed.

  “No, I didn’t, but I’m not surprised.” He addressed Bonk, “How about it? Did you know Aleric Frost?”

  Bonk let out an ear-splitting screech and took flight, disappearing somewhere on top of Hayden’s bed. Zane jumped and tripped over Felix, crashing to the ground on his butt.

  “I take that as a yes,” he grumbled, climbing back to his feet and checking to make sure his fox was unharmed.

  They were interrupted by Kayce, who opened the door, took one look at them both, and then promptly resumed ignoring them as he had the night before. Hayden wasn’t sure he’d ever heard Kayce actually speak, and wondered if it was just because of him being there or if their roommate was naturally quiet.

  Hayden decided not to press his luck and went off to take a shower, hoping to give Bonk some time to calm down. By the time he got back there was no sight of the little dragon anywhere in the room, but Conner had returned from the library. He and Kayce were at their desks, finishing up their homework in silence. Hayden tried not to disturb them as he climbed the ladder into bed.

  It wasn’t until he pulled back the covers that he saw Bonk curled up beneath them, trembling. Concerned, Hayden pulled the dragon into his arms as he lie down, whispering softly to him.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s okay now, he’s not here.” He stroked the dragon’s head until the shaking subsided.

  Even magical dragons are afraid of my father.

  Hayden sighed, recalling Torin’s explanation of how Bonk liked to sleep with people. He thought about getting him a perch like Conner’s owl had, but he was too tired to care tonight.

  “Come on Bonk, time to sleep now.” He watched the little dragon close his eyes lazily.

  He thought he heard Conner chuckle from his desk, but Hayden was asleep before he could think to ask what was funny.

  5

  The Powders Effect

  Hayden dressed carefully the next morning, pulling on his mage-belt and prism-holder before double-checking to make sure he�
�d picked up all his materials the day before. This was going to be his first day of actual classes and he had no idea what to expect from them.

  Zane and Conner tried to reassure him during breakfast, telling him what the different Masters were like and promising that he wouldn’t be expected to know anything about magic on his first day, with the result that Hayden was feeling slightly less anxious as he followed their directions to his first class of the day, which was Wands.

  Master Willow’s classroom was in the same part of the castle where he’d been tested for his major. He still didn’t know his way around the school very well, but fortunately he fell in behind a few first-years who were going to the same place, and he tried to memorize the route as he followed them.

  The classroom was laid out much like the room he was tested in, with the desks angled so they formed a wide semi-circle that faced the front of the room. There were three rows of desks spaced concentrically, and the seats were filling rapidly. Hayden estimated that there were about forty people in this class.

  Not sure whether there was assigned seating, he waited awkwardly near the front of the room to see what was left over. By the time Master Willow arrived and shut the door behind him there were only four vacant seats remaining, and Hayden settled into one in the front row and unpacked his bag, preparing to take notes.

  A few people were staring at him but he determinedly ignored them, and soon Master Willow drew everyone’s attention as he began the lesson, turning back the sleeves of his long red robes.

  “Yesterday we discussed the basic properties of natural magic, and why different types of wood are used for different sorts of spells. Today we’re going to begin with birch, the most basic of the woods we use.” He paced across the length of the room, his red robes swishing behind him.

  If ever a man looked more like his name…

  The Master was tall and willowy, with grey-white hair even though he didn’t look old. His robes hung loosely on his thin frame, but he still gave the impression of great strength and intellect, as well as a reassuring steadiness that most of the others were lacking, like nothing could faze him.

  “You were each asked to procure a standard level-one birch wand as part of your basic toolkit,” he continued. “Remove it from your belt and hold it in the air, if you please.”

  Hayden looked at the others to make sure he grabbed the right wand. He wasn’t the only one to do so. When they were all holding their wands in the air, Master Willow continued.

  “Look around at your classmates’ wands for a moment and tell me what observations you can make.”

  For a moment no one spoke, and Master Willow motioned for them to lower their wands. Hayden set his on the desk in front of him as Willow called on one of his classmates at random.

  “Alexi?”

  “All the wands are the exact same length?”

  Willow gave Alexi a wry look.

  “Are you asking me if they are the same length or telling me?”

  “Telling,” the boy answered meekly.

  “That is correct,” Master Willow nodded. “Every level-one birch wand starts out at a little over twenty centimeters. That length was determined to yield its maximum harmonic efficiency.” He paused while they took notes. “However, as most of you know by now, channeling magic through an instrument consumes that instrument. Observe.”

  He held up a birch wand that looked exactly like theirs and waved it in front of him. A bouquet of flowers appeared in his hand and he tossed them to a girl in the front row, who admired them with a giggle and turned to show her friend.

  The Master picked up an unused wand and held it up beside the first so they could see the difference. The first one was only slightly shorter, less than half a centimeter different. Some of the people in the back had to squint to see the change.

  “That didn’t affect a very large change, but what about now?” He waved the first wand again and his desk grew a trunk like a tree, with smaller branches and leaves sprouting out from the top and skewering a sheet of paper that was sitting there.

  Some of Hayden’s classmates made excited exclamations about the magic, but Hayden was focused on the Master’s wand, which was now less than half the size of the first.

  “Can anyone tell me why the first spell consumed so little and this one took more than half of the wand away?”

  There was another moment of silence. Hayden wasn’t sure why he raised his hand, but Master Willow called on him before he could think better of it.

  “Hayden?”

  “Um, I think it’s because the second spell was a lot more powerful than the first, so it consumed more of the wand in exchange,” he thought back to his brief conversation with Asher when he was explaining prisms.

  Master Willow looked intrigued.

  “So you believe that the more power you channel through an instrument, the more it is consumed in the process?”

  Hayden nodded.

  “As it happens, you are correct,” Master Willow nodded to him. “The materials consumed are proportional to the power that is channeled.” He paused to let them copy that down. “It is known as the Law of Equivalence, and it applies to all the different forms of magic. Nothing can be created without something being destroyed in the process; in most cases, the instrument we use.”

  The class digested that in silence.

  “I was channeling a large amount of power for the wand I was using, and it was mostly consumed in the process. One of the most challenging things you’ll have to learn as a mage is how to get the maximum efficiency out of your instruments. If I had used a level three maple wand I would have seen almost no loss at all.” He resumed pacing the room in front of them.

  “Maple is a much stronger core than birch, and is capable of channeling much more powerful magic.” He paused. “Some of you may be asking yourselves then, why anyone would waste time with a birch wand when they could just buy maple and be done with it.”

  Most of the class nodded their heads in agreement.

  “Does anyone want to guess at the answer?”

  No one seemed eager to volunteer. Master Willow’s gaze lingered on each of them for a moment as he looked around the room.

  “Anyone?” his eyes met Hayden’s, prompting him to speak.

  “Is it because different wands are made for different things?” he offered meekly, drawing off of what Master Asher had told him about different prisms. “So maybe there are things a birch wand can do that a maple wand can’t?”

  Willow gave him another nod.

  “For someone who didn’t come from a magical household you seem to know a fair bit about it,” he noted, moving on. “Your classmate is correct once again. Different woods are capable of different things. A mastery-level elder wand could start a small earthquake, but it can never boil water. For heat you would need either oak, cherry, or elm.

  “My classes are largely centered around learning what the various different types of woods and levels are capable of. Some of you may show a natural aptitude for it, while others of you will be less successful,” he said without apology. “The most difficult part of any class, including mine, is not the rote memorization of facts and figures. The hard part will be during the arenas, when you are being relied upon to use your magic in a dangerous situation and you’ve got to work with what you have on hand.”

  He looked around at them all.

  “I’ve had level-five students whose knowledge abandoned them during that critical moment, and they failed when it mattered most.” He sighed. “That is why we have our challenge groups, to prepare you for the real world, so that you do not panic when it counts and get crushed beneath an elephant like Ulrich the Unwise.”

  Hayden still didn’t know exactly what the challenge groups were, but he was beginning to get nervous about it, though he also made a mental note to ask Zane about how Ulrich the Unwise got crushed beneath an elephant because it seemed worth knowing.

  Master Willow spent the rest of the lesson going over t
he many properties of birch and highlighting its general uses. Hayden had four pages of notes by the time class was finished, and packed his bag with his head swimming with new knowledge.

  “You did well today, Hayden.” He didn’t notice Master Willow behind him until the Master spoke. He turned around, surprised.

  “Oh, thank you, sir,” he responded, embarrassed but pleased.

  “Don’t dawdle or you’ll be late for your next class.”

  Hayden nodded and hurried out the door, retracing his steps back to the main foyer. His next lesson was Conjury, which was taught by Master Reede in the rear courtyard, which he hadn’t been to yet. It seemed impossible for there to be so many courtyards, shops, and cabins on all sides of the castle. Mizzenwald was like its own small town.

  He got lost twice looking for the back entrance to the grounds, but after he got the nerve to ask a group of sixth-year students where to go they pointed him in the right direction.

  I’m just glad I didn’t run into Oliver and his friends.

  He didn’t know what to expect from an outdoor class but was surprised by the wide expanse of smooth black stone floor he was confronted with in the middle of the grass. There were no chairs or desks, but large down-stuffed cushions had been set out around the perimeter of the strange black stone, where most of his classmates were now sitting.

  Hayden chose a seat directly in front of him, putting his back to the castle and unpacking his bag. He glanced at his neighbors to see where they were in the textbook and opened his to page ten, examining the large drawing of a simple circle with one short line intersecting the bottom arc.

  Master Reede looked about the same age as Torin, though he was a bit shorter and much less stout. He wore his sandy hair in a long braid down his back and had what looked like a snake fang for an earring.

  “Did everyone read the text on the basic summoning circle?” he said by way of greeting, standing in the middle of the stone rectangle and looking around at them all. His eyes rested on Hayden for a moment.

  “I haven’t, sir,” he said apologetically.

  “Understood. Read it tonight and you should be fine,” Master Reede continued on. “The rest of you should have learned by now that the circle is the most basic element of conjury. He held up a pink piece of chalk. “Who wants to take a stab at drawing one?”