Cave of Nightmares

by V. St. Clair

  “Keep your mouth shut and try not to fall behind, Frost.” Oliver turned his back on him and followed his friend.

  It was slow, difficult work, climbing the mountain. The snow was slick, and they all slipped more than once and had to catch themselves before sliding down the steep slope. Hayden’s ears and face were frozen, his breath rising in front of him in puffs of white mist as he walked into the wind.

  He had no idea how long they climbed before the way leveled out for a bit—it felt like an hour—but he took the opportunity to end the unpleasant silence.

  “How much further do we have to go?”

  Oliver glanced at him briefly, his pale skin chapped from the cold. The snow coated his blond hair so thoroughly that it made him look aged.

  “We’re about halfway there,” he responded curtly, continuing alongside his friend, who was panting with exertion and cold.

  They walked in silence for a few minutes longer before Oliver asked, “How did you break my prism?” apropos of nothing.

  Hayden was surprised by the question and answered truthfully, “I used Break.”

  Oliver looked momentarily pensive. “That’s in the glass amber prism, right?” He searched his memory. “Yellow-green-red, with a minor of blue-violet?”

  “Yellow-green-yellow-red,” Hayden corrected automatically. “The red band is really thick, so it’s hard to see the other yellow in the major alignment.”

  “Oh, right.” Oliver nodded in understanding. “That still doesn’t explain how you broke my prism though. I was using a level-two glass, rose-tinted.”

  Hayden shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, I think I was a little too enthusiastic and used too much will. Master Asher said something about my will being stronger than yours at the time.”

  Oliver frowned thoughtfully but offered no further commentary. Jasper glanced back at the pair of them and said, “Don’t waste your breath talking to the little twerp.”

  Oliver seemed to remember that he hated Hayden then because the next look he gave him was disdainful, and he moved forward to walk alongside Jasper once more. The path grew more perilous as they climbed higher, narrowing dangerously as the snow flurries picked up, until they could hardly see three feet in front of their face.

  “We need to stop for a few minutes and take cover until this cloud passes,” Oliver sounded like he didn’t relish the prospect, rubbing his reddened ears to keep sensation in them. “I don’t feel like testing Willow’s alertness by falling off the side of the mountain and hoping he catches me in time.”

  His friend mumbled dark agreement, and they moved towards an outcropping of rock that provided cover from the snow and wind when they ducked beneath it. Hayden was thankful for the rest, because his legs were aching from exertion and he couldn’t feel his hands or nose. He tried rubbing his palms together to generate heat but all it did was make his freezing fingers ache.

  Oliver looked at him like he was an idiot and equipped one of his prisms. He twisted it around for almost a full minute before he found the array he was looking for, and Hayden felt a blast of warm air as the snow beneath them melted.

  Oh, duh. He’s casting Heat.

  Feeling stupid for not thinking of it immediately, Hayden removed his own clear prism from his belt and equipped it, finding the array much faster and adding to the warmth of their little shelter. He tried to channel slowly to conserve his prism as long as possible, surprised to find that he was doing a better job of it than Oliver.

  Jasper was giving Hayden a hateful glare.

  “I wish Slasher was here,” he broke the silence, still frowning. “We could have him start a fire for us so you wouldn’t have to use up your prisms. And he could poison Frost and make it look like an accident while he was at it.”

  Hayden scowled, unpleasantly surprised when Oliver shrugged and said, “I’ve thought about it before, but his stupid dragon would just cure him before Slasher could do any real damage.”

  “You sure about that? Boink—or whatever the heck he’s called—is about as defective as they come,” Jasper raised an eyebrow.

  “Even a defective dragonling has enough magic to cure its master of another dragon’s poison,” Oliver sighed regretfully. Hayden was beginning to get annoyed that they were discussing him as though he wasn’t there or was too stupid to understand them.

  “Why do you two hate me so much anyway? I’ve never done anything to you other than exist,” he interrupted, and the older boys turned to him in surprise, like they weren’t expecting to see him.

  “You’re the reason we’re freezing our butts off on top of Mount Arawas right now,” Jasper snarled at him, his gel-spiked hair sagging from the moisture of the snow.

  “Uh, not to sound argumentative…but you guys are kind of the reason we’re all here right now,” Hayden countered. “I was just trying to get to lunch when you two got mouthy with me.”

  “You punched my brother in the face,” Oliver sneered at him.

  “He tried to murder my familiar.”

  “Dragons can’t be killed so easily. Even you should know that.” Jasper rolled his eyes in disgust.

  “Lorn can’t look at me without bad-mouthing me to all of his dumb friends during class,” Hayden frowned.

  “If you didn’t waltz around like you invented magic, trying to make everyone else look bad, maybe he’d leave you alone,” Oliver countered.

  “What?” Hayden leaned back in shock. “I don’t act like I invented magic. I started this year at a huge disadvantage and have been trying to catch up ever since.” That was true enough. Just yesterday his attempt at a freezing spell had caused his beaker of water to turn black and explode.

  “Oh please,” Jasper looked away from him. “Compounding your prisms in your first arena challenge, sucking up to Master Willow during Wands, putting together a challenge group with all five majors on it so you could start in the third-year rankings even though you were only in school for a week…you’re begging for attention as badly as your worthless father was.”

  Hayden raised his eyebrows in genuine surprise.

  “All of that was an accident,” he admitted truthfully, earning a stunned glance from Oliver. “I only compounded my prisms because I thought I was about to die—for real—and didn’t even know what I was doing at the time. And I don’t suck up during Wands class, I just keep getting lucky and figuring things out on my own because I don’t know enough to do things the right way. And when I picked Tess for my challenge group it wasn’t because I was being crafty…it’s because she’s the only one I knew out of the people there.”

  Oliver was giving him a strange look, but Jasper plainly wasn’t buying a word of it.

  “Oh sure, you’re not the bad guy at all,” he grimaced. “Except in a few years you’ll want a research position with Asher, and he’ll give it to you because you’ve been his pet since the minute you arrived. Then you’ll want to make a name for yourself, and you’ll get caught up in broken prisms until you go crazy and kill off all your relatives and their perfectly harmless wives…”

  “Uhh…what?” Hayden interrupted, confused, and Jasper muttered a string of curse words and went out to see if the snow had subsided, leaving him alone with Oliver Trout.

  “You didn’t know?” Oliver asked curiously, his blond hair soaking wet from the melted snow, his skin paler than usual.

  “Know what?”

  “After your dad went nuts, one of the first things he did was kill off the rest of his family…those who wouldn’t swear themselves to his cause, that is.” He shrugged. “Guess he didn’t want the competition.”

  “What does that have to do with Jasper?”

  “One of your dad’s cousins was married to Jasper’s mom. When they turned down his offer he murdered them all.” Oliver frowned. “He probably would have gotten Jasper too, except he was staying over at my house that night.”

  Hayden felt his mouth fall open in surprise.

  “Wait—you mean I’m related to Jasper?
”

  Oliver shrugged, “Distantly, by marriage, yes.” He didn’t look nearly as stunned as Hayden felt right now. “One of your few surviving relations, I expect, since your father was fairly thorough about offing the rest of them; the ones who were threats.”

  Hayden groaned. “Is there anyone in the Nine Lands my father hasn’t attempted to murder? It’s getting hard to keep track of all the people who hate me because of him.”

  Oliver idly examined his fingernails. “I doubt it.” Without another word to him he ducked out into the snow, tucking the remnant of his prism back into his belt. Hayden shivered and did the same, his wet hair and skin freezing instantly in the biting wind.

  The snow wasn’t falling as hard now, though Jasper was nowhere to be seen. His footprints were visible headed around the bend up the hill, and Oliver narrowed his eyes and followed without checking to see if Hayden was still behind him.

  They caught up to him after a few minutes and hiked the rest of the way up the mountain in uncomfortable silence. Hayden breathed a cold sigh of relief when he saw the small pond on top of the mountain, the water miraculously unfrozen even though everything around it was. Oliver filled the small bucket and looked up at the sky for some sign of Master Willow.

  Fortunately they weren’t waiting long, and the Master alit on the ground as a bird before reappearing in a swirl of red robes, taking a look at the three of them and nodding his head.

  “Finally finished? Good, then let’s go, I have other things to do tonight.” He motioned them towards him and clasped his Mastery Charm. Hayden had no idea how he was going to transport them without a summoning circle, but his question was answered when they appeared in the stone rectangle where he had Conjury lessons and saw Master Reede tucking his chalk away.

  He must have summoned us from this side.

  “Off you go, boys, and do try to avoid unnecessary squabbles in the future.” Master Willow walked away from them without a backwards glance, red robes swishing behind him.

  Hayden removed his coat, disoriented by the abrupt change in climate, and tromped back to his dormitory without talking to anyone, thinking about the things Oliver had told him back on Mount Arawas. His father’s shadow seemed to haunt him everywhere he went. Had he really been so paranoid that he murdered Jasper’s parents while he was at a friend’s house, just because they didn’t want to join him in taking over the world? And could he blame Jasper for hating him now, if so?

  ***

  Hayden was almost surprised when he made it through the next three months without getting in trouble and officially completed his first term at Mizzenwald. All around him his classmates were talking excitedly about their plans for the one-month summer break from school, most of them involving seeing their families. Hayden seemed to be the only person who wasn’t looking forward to the break at all, because he had nowhere to go and no one to see.

  After listening to Conner, Tamon, and Mira brag about their plans for the following month for forty-five minutes at dinner on the eve of their departure, Hayden made up an excuse about needing to ask Master Asher a question just so he could escape.

  It was still sunny outside when he stepped onto the front lawns to clear his head, and would be until almost bedtime at this time of year. As far as Hayden could tell, he was alone right now on the grounds; everyone else was finishing dinner or hanging out in the common areas, saying goodbye to their friends or making plans to meet over the holiday. He frowned and set off at random, walking around the eastern side of the castle and hoping the fresh air would soothe him.

  He tried not to think about how empty and lonely the school would be once everyone else left, instead focusing on how nice it would be not to have to see all the people who hated him or thought he was an attention-seeking show-off. Oliver and Lorn would doubtless be returning home to visit their family, and Jasper might even accompany them since he didn’t have parents of his own.

  The thought of Jasper made him distinctly uncomfortable now, especially because Hayden knew whose fault it was that the older boy no longer had a mother and father to go home to.

  We’re both orphans because of my dad.

  That line of thought did nothing to cheer him up, so he pushed it to the back of his mind for the umpteenth time and continued walking. The lights were on in Torin’s cabin, and Hayden brightened fractionally as he realized that Torin and the Masters were likely to remain at school for the summer.

  At least I won’t be completely alone.

  He knocked on the door and was surprised when a seventh-year student opened it and greeted him.

  “Oh, hello…” Hayden said awkwardly. “Is Torin in?”

  “Yeah, go on in, he just finished giving me my instructions for watching over the pen during summer break,” the older student said pleasantly, walking out of the cabin as Hayden entered.

  Why is he telling a mastery-level student how to care for the animals over break?

  His silent question was answered when he saw the packed bags stacked next to the door. Torin had his back to him and seemed to be completing an inventory of the bottles of herbs and medicines shelved along the wall. He turned when he heard Hayden’s footsteps behind him.

  “Hayden, what brings you out to see me so late in the evening?” he greeted him pleasantly, continuing to search for items on the shelves and making notes on his clipboard.

  “I was just taking a walk to clear my head and I saw the lights on in here.”

  “Oh, yes. I’m just finishing my inventory before I take off tomorrow.”

  Hayden tried to keep the disappointment in his voice to a minimum. “Where are you going?”

  “Oh I’ll do a bit of traveling over the holiday, see if I can find any interesting creatures out there to study.” He looked absolutely thrilled by the prospect.

  “Is Master Asher going with you?” Hayden tried to sound as casual as possible.

  “Nah, he likes to do his own thing. Research, I suspect, though he claims he’ll be off partying just to annoy me.” Torin rolled his eyes at the bottle of belladonna he was examining. “The Masters usually take off during the summer and winter breaks to travel the world and bring back new research topics.”

  “Oh…” Hayden couldn’t entirely keep the disappointment from his voice this time, his stomach turning to lead. If even the Masters were leaving for a month he would truly be alone here. Would the cooks even stay behind to feed him, or would they leave him behind as well?

  Torin must have heard the desultory note in his voice, because he stopped taking inventory and turned to look at him. “Why do you ask?”

  Hayden smiled reflexively and tried to look nonchalant when he said, “Oh, I was just curious what you all did during breaks,” like it was a matter of no importance. Torin seemed to see right through him.

  “You sticking around here with the cooks and cleaners, or do you have somewhere else to go?”

  “I’m going with Zane to visit his family,” he lied instantly, surprised at the readiness with which it came to him.

  Torin’s face relaxed. “Oh, good. I don’t like to think of you here all alone this summer. The place feels like a mausoleum when it’s empty.”

  Hayden suppressed a grimace at the thought.

  “Yeah, well, I just wanted to say goodbye before I left…” He was beginning to wish he’d never come out here. “I’ll let you get back to your inventory.”

  “Take care, Hayden.” Torin gave him a brief wave. “See you at the start of term.”

  The walk back to the castle was thoroughly depressing after that, a preview of what it would be like to have the place all to himself, since he didn’t pass another soul.

  Well, at least I’ll have Bonk. I’m pretty sure he’s not going on holiday anywhere.

  Hayden snickered at the thought and stepped inside, making his way to the dormitory now that dinner was finished.

  At least I’ll be able to…he struggled to think of some benefit to being locked in a castle for a month by
himself…I can get a head-start on my reading for next term…practice my conjuring and wands and stuff…

  Even in his head it sounded like the lamest holiday ever, but he was at a loss for what else to do. He passed dozens of rooms with the sounds of laughter and chatter permeating through the walls, especially in the common area. It was like poison to him right now.

  He was thoroughly depressed by the time he pushed open the door to his own room. Connor and Zane were inside, doing some last-minute packing before tomorrow morning.

  “Where’ve you been?” the former asked.

  “Oh, I went to say bye to Torin since I won’t see him for a month. He’s headed off to look for wild animals to study or something like that,” Hayden shrugged.

  “That sounds like my idea of a nightmare,” Conner grumbled, and Zane laughed. “Anyway, where are you headed for break?”

  Hayden winced and looked away from them, walking over to his bed on the pretext of checking on Bonk, who was fast asleep.

  “Oh, I thought I’d just hang around here for a while…get a jump on my studying.”

  Zane surprised him by saying, “Nice joke, my friend, but you’re coming home with me for the holiday, remember?”

  Hayden, who remembered nothing of the sort, turned around and gave his friend a strange look.

  “Uh…when did we decide that?”

  “Weeks ago,” Zane gave him a mock-scowl. “I can’t believe you forgot you were invited! I guess that explains why you’re not done packing yet.”

  Conner laughed at Hayden’s apparent memory loss, but Hayden was too choked up with relief to care.

  I have somewhere to go. I don’t have to stay here all by myself…

  “Oh, well I guess I’d better start packing then,” he said with a strangled laugh, and Zane rolled his eyes and loaned him a bag to cram his things into.

  Hayden wasn’t the only one to wake up very early the next morning. Conner was already dressed and heading out for breakfast, and Kayce and his bags were gone before the sun even began to rise. Zane yawned blearily as Conner announced his goodbyes to their sleeping forms from the doorway and then took off.