“What does it do?”
“Draw is used when you want to make yourself a human magnet for non-magnetic objects,” the Prism Master explained. “You cast it once at the thing you want to summon to you, then you cast it again with the violet-yellow inversion right beside it and it will also summon nearby like items within the vicinity.” He passed the prism back to Hayden so he could look for himself. “It’s the blue-green-blue-yellow with the prime trifecta next to it.”
Hayden quickly located it and made a mental note to remember it in the future.
“How come you don’t carry a blue prism of your own?” He just realized that he only really saw Master Asher with clear or violet ones in his belt.
“I do, sometimes, but generally if I need colored prisms I opt for the violet as a sort of catch-all.”
“What do you mean?” Hayden had never been permitted to use a violet prism before, nor did he know anyone other than Asher who carried one.
“Violet is the only mastery-level tint I normally need, because I can compound it with a clear prism and reproduce most of the arrays that are visible in any of the other colored prisms. I only bring along other tints if I’m going to use highly specialized, obscure spells that can’t be found in the violet, because it saves room on my belt.”
Hayden frowned.
“But if you can just use violet instead of carrying around all these different colors, then why don’t they let us use them in the I.S.C.?”
Master Asher gave him a contemplative look and said, “Violet is only permitted at the mastery-level because it has such a wide breadth of powerful arrays in it. Novices could accidentally kill themselves with a violet prism, and not even violet can do everything, so it’s still important to learn the other colors.”
Hayden nodded wearily and said goodnight to the Prism Master, walking upstairs with Bonk to get cleaned up. He was sure that his roommates would be waiting for him in the dormitory, eager to hear all about his exploits that day, and Hayden was too worn out to even be properly hungry right now.
Sure enough, as soon as he had showered and tracked down Master Kilgore to get some pigment-removing solvent for his face and hands, half the students in his year were waiting for him in the third-year common area. He sat down with Bonk and someone brought him some crackers and cookies from the snack cart while he was barraged with questions, until he finally fell asleep mid-sentence, at which point he announced he was going to bed.
As glad as he was to be back at school, there wasn’t much time to relax the following day, because they had their first challenge arena that night. He deliberately held back in Charms to conserve his Source power and energy for that night, and even forced himself to be polite to Lorn during Elixirs since they would need him later.
Master Asher began teaching them about green-tinted prisms, which were used for highly-specialized, very specific types of magic, and were therefore quite limited in functionality. Hayden took notes until his hand hurt (there was still a light layer of pink pigment on it that Master Kilgore said should wash off by tonight) and then made his way to lunch.
He sat with his usual group of friends, and Tess’s cat, Mittens, hopped onto the table and began examining Bonk at close range. Mittens and Bonk must have decided they were friends at some point, because they bumped heads and then turned their attention to the food in front of them.
Hayden yawned sleepily and Zane said, “Cut that out. You better have some energy left over for the arena tonight or we’re going to bomb big time.”
Tess frowned and said, “He has a right to be tired after what he went through yesterday,” and Zane looked stunned at her speaking up for a change.
“I’ll be fine,” Hayden assured his teammates, startling in surprise when Master Asher took the seat right beside him and began feeding Horace and Cinder bits of meat from his plate.
“You lied to me,” he greeted Hayden casually, and the others gasped. “Well, I suppose it would be more accurate to say that you deceived me. I guess you didn’t lie outright.”
“What do you mean, sir?” Hayden asked in genuine surprise, trying to think of what he’d done or said during class that was false.
“You greatly undersold your performance against Davis from Isenfall in the retelling last night.” He was giving Hayden a shrewd look. “You neglected to mention that he was compounding against your single prism, and that he had a level-four offensive amplifier on top of that.”
Hayden tried not to look guilty when he answered.
“I didn’t leave that stuff out on purpose, I just didn’t want to sound like I was making excuses for why he beat me.” That was more-or-less the truth, because Hayden had been cautious about bragging ever since his peers started calling him a show-off last year.
“Well it paints a considerably different picture of your performance. I was beginning to think that you’d simply choked under the pressure.”
Tess said, “You were able to fight against another natural prism who had that much power on his side?” and Hayden felt his ears burn at the admiration in her voice.
“Your Source is ridiculously large,” Zane added before he could respond to Tess.
“How did you find out what really happened?” Hayden asked Master Asher, who raised an eyebrow at the question.
“Willow told me this morning. Arturius Mandra talked to him last night— apparently you made quite an impression on the Wands Master of Valhalla.”
Hayden looked puzzled.
“I don’t know how, we didn’t talk about anything important,” he explained. “Truthfully, I thought he was going to punish me for trying to punch Oliver in the face when we were on the floating platform, because he caught it with his hand, but he just told us to beat each other up somewhere else.”
Master Asher snorted in amusement. “Sounds like Mandra,” he concurred cheerfully. “I must say, Hayden, when I told you to use the opportunity to network with foreign mages, I rather expected you to be buddying up to other students. Leave it to you to go straight for the Masters when looking for allies.”
Hayden’s face was red with embarrassment, and Cinder hopped from Asher’s shoulder onto his and cuffed him affectionately with his wing, which immediately made Bonk jealous.
“I wasn’t trying to buddy-up to anyone; he just sat next to me during the Powder trial and introduced himself. None of the other students wanted to talk to me because I was the youngest competitor and my father was the stupid Dark Prism.”
Asher’s expression flickered to something horribly close to pity for a fraction of a second, but his smile returned so suddenly that Hayden wondered if he hadn’t imagined the change after all.
“Well, it never hurts to have friends in high places,” Asher said neutrally, rising to his feet and summoning Cinder back to him. “Good luck in the arena tonight.”
The Prism Master’s abandoned plate was only half-finished, and he moved over to another table of fifth-years to join them for the remainder of lunch. Zane took one look after him and said, “I can never tell if he’s crazy or brilliant.”
“A little of both, maybe,” Hayden shrugged and turned back to his food, wishing he still felt hungry.
He bolted down his dinner that night and took a quick shower, determined to get the rest of the dye off of his skin. It mostly worked: his face and hands were clean, but part of his hair was still yellow.
He checked his belt to make sure he had all his weapons and then jogged back downstairs to meet up with the rest of his group. He ran into Zane in the Pentagon and the two of them cut through the main hallway that led to the rear entrance of the school, closest to the Prisms classrooms. It was already dark out, and Hayden checked his chrono as the two of them jogged up the hill that led to the translocation circle, arriving in the nick of time.
Tess and Lorn were already there, standing awkwardly beside each other in the translocation circle and not speaking. Lorn looked like he had a bad case of lockjaw and Tess appeared to be trying to will herse
lf invisible.
“About time,” Lorn greeted them, his irritation obvious.
Hayden ignored him and took his place inside the translocation circle, nodding to the mastery students as soon as Zane was inside. He’d almost forgotten the strange sensation of being sent to a place that didn’t really exist, the way everything blurred together like melted candle wax as his brain struggled to comprehend it.
Then he blinked and they were standing on a snow-covered mountain, in the middle of a blizzard.
The four of them began shivering the moment their bodies registered the temperature change, and Hayden snatched the letter with instructions on it from the dead branches of a small bush and tore it open with fumbling, shaking fingers.
“It says we have to rescue the hostages from the yetis’ lair,” he read out loud. “Also that we—” he paused in shock.
“That we what?” Lorn snapped, shuddering and fumbling with the drawstring on his belt to draw out a powder.
“We’re not allowed to use weapons from our major,” Hayden finished with a frown, glancing down at the four prisms on his belt.
“WHAT?!” Zane and Lorn shouted at the same time. “How is that fair!?” the latter added.
“C-come on…” Tess said through chattering teeth, turning her back to the howling wind that dropped the temperature below zero. “L-let’s g-go b-b-before we f-freeze to d-death.”
There was too much truth in that to ignore, so the four of them set off along the path ahead of them, barely able to see three feet in front of their faces in the rampaging blizzard.
“D-does anyone know h-how we can stay warm?” Tess added in a small voice, after no more than two minutes of walking.
Hayden drew his cherry wand and cast Heat, knowing that he was using up his best offensive wand right now, but if he didn’t do something fast then they weren’t even going to make it to the yeti lair.
A blast of warmth surrounded them, melting the snow from their skin and clothing, and Hayden saw the color return to his teammates’ faces as they breathed in relief.
“Thank the holy arcana that you know how to use wands,” Zane mumbled appreciatively, continuing on the path.
“We’d better hurry,” Hayden frowned. “This won’t hold out for long with me channeling so much power through it, and we’ll be right back to where we started unless you guys have anything for warmth.”
“If I could use my powders then we’d be fine,” Lorn grumbled furiously, picking up the pace as requested.
“Well, sure, if I could use my prisms I’d be a lot happier as well, but there’s no use harping over it.”
“I’ve got an oak wand,” Zane added. “It’s alright for heat, but I can’t use wands as well as Hayden so it won’t be as warm.”
Their path was sloping upwards now and getting steeper by the minute. Hayden tried not to look too closely at his cherry wand, which was almost three-quarters consumed after only ten minutes.
“There! Up ahead there’s a cave entrance!” Zane shouted in excitement, pointing through the fog of falling snow flurries.
Thinking that at last something had gone right, the rest of them hurried as fast as their legs could carry them through the snow, Hayden’s calves burning from exertion. He felt the wand vanish from his hand as the last of it was consumed, and they were hit with the freezing cold air all over again as they approached the mouth of the cave, only this time it was worse because they were soaking wet.
They stumbled blindly into the cave, desperate to escape the wind-chill, and paused.
The cave was massive. Icicles hung from the ceiling like stalactites, and the floor was slick with well-trodden snow. There were four different pathways in front of them, one leading upwards, one downwards, and two remaining level and turning off to the left and right.
“We’re going to be searching forever,” Zane groaned in dismay. Hayden was alarmed to note how blue his friend’s lips and hands were becoming.
“Can’t anyone conjure us some jackets and mittens?” Lorn scowled at him, the only one besides Zane who had any conjury chalk with them.
“I don’t know how,” he admitted ruefully.
“I’ll walk you through it,” Zane assured him. “Come on, this rock looks big enough to draw on.” He motioned towards a large stone near the path that led upwards.
Hayden removed his level-two conjury chalk and drew the basic summoning circle, wincing a little at how uneven it was since his hands were trembling violently. Zane looked tortured but didn’t comment on his atrocious drawing skills.
“Ok, now put a single-pairing through the bottom and a triple through the right side.” He watched Hayden work in silence. “Now do a single-braid around the bottom left arc…”
Hayden was still terrible at braiding, and it showed worse than ever on this attempt.
“This is making my soul hurt,” Zane joked feebly, opening his mouth to give Hayden the next instruction for completing the diagram.
The words never made it out of his mouth, because at that moment something massive jumped off of the path above them and crashed into Zane, knocking him to the floor with a strangled cry of pain.
“ZANE!” Hayden was flung backwards, cutting his hand on a jagged bit of ice as he struggled to his feet but ignoring the pain. His friend was being held by a ten-foot yeti, one of Zane’s arms clearly broken and dangling uselessly at his side while the shaggy white monster gripped him in its claws.
Tess was halfway through drawing a scripture and Lorn was grabbing a birch wand when the yeti oh-so-casually ripped Zane in half.
Hayden didn’t remember if he screamed or not, only that white stars of light popped in front of his eyes as he watched his friend’s demise, and then he was slumped on the ground with his heart racing and a deathly chill settling over his extremities.
He blinked hard until everything came back into focus. Lorn waved his wand and tree branches burst out of the cave wall and wrapped around the yeti like chains, holding it in place. Tess was finishing her scripture with tears in her eyes, her skin ghostly-pale in the cold, and the yeti was struggling against its bonds. Hayden could hear the branches straining and snapping under the pressure.
Lorn’s wand had been entirely consumed by the complex spell and he was fumbling around his belt frantically for another weapon. Hayden staggered to his feet and grabbed his clear prism without thinking, and it burst into dust in his hand and vanished.
Tess finished her scripture at last, slammed it printed-side down against the cave wall, and pulled a bow and four arrows out of the rock. The yeti had managed to free its right arm and was now tearing at the branches holding its left. With a surprising amount of skill, Tess nocked an arrow, aimed, and fired into the yeti’s neck.
The monster stopped struggling and collapsed against its bonds, clearly dead. The silence that it left in its wake was deafening.
“Where did you learn to shoot a bow?” For some reason this was the only thought Hayden’s mind could process at the moment.
“My dad’s been teaching me since I was six,” Tess replied softly.
“Fat lot of good you did us, Frost,” Lorn snapped at him hatefully. “Wait until everyone hears how our great prism-wielder fainted during battle and left me and his girlfriend to clean up the—”
Tess stepped forward and punched Lorn in the face with all the strength she could muster, bloodying his mouth and knocking him to the ground.
“You shut up, Lorn Trout! Zane was just ripped apart and we’re all freezing to death and can’t use our primary weapons! So you just shut your stupid mouth!” she shrieked at such a high pitch that only dogs would be able to hear her soon.
Lorn and Hayden stared at her for a long moment in stunned silence, and then the latter offered his nemesis a hand to help him to his feet.
“Come on, we’ve got to keep going…Zane’s not really—” he couldn’t bring himself to say the word. “He’s outside with the mastery students right now, probably lolling about with a glass
of lemonade, laughing at our misfortune for being stuck here.”
Tess lowered her bow and walked back to the half-finished summoning circle of Hayden’s.
“Do you think it’s still usable, or do the blood smears ruin it?”
“I have no idea how to finish it without Zane here,” Hayden felt as though his best friend really had just died, despite the fact that he kept telling himself it was only an arena and that everyone was fine.
“Figures,” Lorn mumbled, and the three of them set off down the central path without debate because it had the most yeti footprints in it, following the curve to the right.
“What are we going to do if we find more of them?” Tess asked softly. “I’ve just got my bow and a charm or two.”
Hayden frowned and took inventory as he continued walking. “Other than my prisms, I’m down to a maple wand, half a stick of chalk, and an elixir.” At the moment he couldn’t even remember what the bright purple elixir in his belt contained.
“I’m down to nothing but powders,” Lorn frowned. “Wish we’d gotten Laraby’s oak wand off of him before his body disappeared.”
Hayden was tempted to take a leaf out of Tess’s book and sock Lorn again, but that would accomplish nothing right now, and besides, his muscles were much too stiff and cold to exert that kind of energy needlessly.
It felt like the path they were on was winding them around one large circle, but so far they hadn’t passed any crossways to turn onto. Tess was shaking so badly that Hayden was surprised her legs could even hold her upright.
As soon as he thought that, she collapsed, shivering on the ground.
“Come on, get up, we don’t have time for this,” Lorn groused, but Tess’s skin was cold to the touch and turning blue.
“She’s freezing, you idiot!” Hayden snapped, frantically trying to think of a way to warm her.
“So am I, but you don’t see me flailing around on the ground like an idiot.”
The Other Prism (The Broken Prism) Page 14
