The Other Prism (The Broken Prism)

by St. Clair, V.

  He was asleep within five minutes.

  ***

  Hayden expected to be the subject of much gossip the following morning, and while people did turn to look at him as he entered the dining hall for breakfast, nobody jumped out of their seat to mock him, which was an encouraging way to start the day.

  In fact, the people he passed on the way to his table said things like, “Way to flatten that worm from Isenfall,” or “Nice work, Frost.” Even Oliver Trout gave him the shadow of a nod, for once without an accompanying request to jump in a lake.

  Will wonders never cease?

  In Charms that morning, Master Dirqua announced that they would begin using a wider variety of spells in their charms (though they were still on the basics). Hayden managed to make a decent level-one offensive charm: the emblem was a carved wooden axe, imbued with Reflect and Push spells.

  “Good work, Hayden,” Master Dirqua told him after his fifth attempt at imbuing the charm. “I see you’ve finally got past that hiccup with your Reflect backfiring.”

  “Yes, I don’t know why I had so much trouble with it the first four times.” Hayden frowned at his shortcomings.

  “Mages always struggle with more advanced spells in Charms until they get a feel for it,” the Master explained mildly. “I assume you’ll want to switch out your defensive charm for an offensive one before the third trial of the Inter-School Championship?”

  Hayden shook his head. “No, sir, I think I’ll just keep the one I’ve got.”

  Master Dirqua raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Oh? It’s not often I hear a student opt for defense over offense during the Championship…”

  “Well, I figure I’ve got enough offensive spells between the four prisms I’m allowed, and since Davis from Isenfall has set his sights on me, I need all the defense I can get.”

  The Charms Master looked thoughtful now. “That’s a fair point. If you’d like, I can help you make a slightly better defensive charm. We’re halfway through the school year—you’re probably capable of it by now.”

  Master Asher had told Hayden expressly not to take off his current charm for any reason, even at the promise of a better one. In fact, Hayden had promised the Prism Master that he wouldn’t get rid of the first charm he ever made. He wasn’t keen on sharing that insight with Master Dirqua though.

  “No thanks, I think I’ll stick with the one I’ve got for now,” he said airily, and at Dirqua’s skeptical glance, explained, “I’ve gotten used to how it works, and it’s served me well so far. I’d hate to change things up halfway through the competition.”

  “Well, if you’re sure…” he still looked mildly suspicious.

  “Yeah, I am. If I change my mind I’ll let you know though.”

  Master Dirqua nodded and left Hayden in favor of reviving one his classmates, who had tapped into too much Source energy and passed out cold. Wondering for the umpteenth time why Asher insisted on Hayden keeping the same old charm all year long (couldn’t he just tie himself to a new charm so that Hayden could still summon him if necessary?), he fingered the wooden shield emblem thoughtfully for a moment, before letting it drop to his chest and getting back to work.

  Elixirs class grew more difficult by the day, and Hayden sometimes wondered whether he was only sticking with it out of determination not to fail, and because Master Kilgore was one of his favorite teachers. Fortunately, despite the increasing challenge of the class, he was finally beginning to make sense of it in his head, and hoped he was reaching a turning point. The last thing he wanted to do was hang around a subject he was bad at for years on end, when he could be focusing on something that came more naturally, and he had already noticed a definite downturn in the quality of his conjury attempts recently. He didn’t want to drop out of two majors in one year.

  After Hayden took his finished sample to Master Kilgore’s desk for grading and prepared to depart, Lorn Trout surprised him by calling his name.

  “Hey Frost, wait up.”

  What fresh misery is this?

  If Lorn Trout wanted to talk to him, it could hardly be anything Hayden wanted to hear. He and Lorn had been enemies from their very first encounter with each other, in the underwear section of The Magical Mage. It suddenly occurred to him that that was a really odd place to make a mortal enemy.

  “What?” he was careful to keep the displeasure in his voice at a minimum.

  Lorn fell into step beside him. “Summer break is starting in a few days.”

  “Yeah, so?” Hayden raised an eyebrow in surprise, not sure where the other boy was going with this. Surely he wasn’t about to invite Hayden over to his house for the summer…

  “So I assume we aren’t holding challenge arena practices until we come back, right?”

  It had never occurred to Hayden that his team could continue practicing for their arena challenges during their break. He tried to imagine the look on Zane’s face if he announced that none of them would be able to go home.

  “Uh, no, we’re not. Why? Did you want to?”

  Lorn made a face at him. “Hardly, but Oliver says a lot of the serious groups still plan practice sessions over the summer break. Since you’re supposedly our great leader, I can blame us not practicing on you.” He looked decidedly pleased with this.

  Hayden rolled his eyes at this predictable response and continued walking towards Prisms.

  “Where do you go during the summer, anyway?” Lorn surprised him by asking. “Back to that orphanage?”

  “Why do you care?” Hayden snapped, nettled.

  Lorn shrugged. “I don’t, really. I was just curious.” For some reason he was still keeping pace with Hayden.

  “Last summer I stayed with Zane’s family. This summer I have business in Merina.”

  “Business?” Lorn’s pudgy face registered shock. “What business could you possibly have with anyone? Or does that just mean that Laraby’s family wouldn’t invite you back this year?”

  Hayden balled his fists but kept them at his side, determined not to punch Lorn in the face (again). He still hadn’t forgotten the detention he served last year where he had to wade through a stinking bog and had his first encounter with a hydra.

  “They did invite me back, but I have other things to do, which are none of your business.” Hayden turned and walked into the Prisms classroom, eager to leave Lorn behind him.

  It was true that Zane had invited him to stay with his family over the summer (this time he even swore that he got their permission ahead of time). But it was also true that Hayden had other plans this year, things that had been on his mind for some time now. He was going to visit the orphanage in Merina, briefly, because he wanted to see how Anna was doing and if she still remembered him. He hadn’t forgotten her kindness to him during his stay there, and how she had accompanied him to his trial and stayed positive for his sake.

  The second thing he wanted to do was visit his father’s house.

  He wasn’t wholly sure why he wanted to go to the place where the Dark Prism lived and practiced corrupted magic. Maybe because he was tired of everyone knowing more about his father than he did, or perhaps just because he wanted to see the place where so many generations of Frosts grew up before his father killed them all.

  Either way, he was sure that the place held answers for him—or closure, at least. As the only surviving member of the Frost bloodline he had a right to visit the place, didn’t he?

  Master Asher swept into the room and put an end to his thoughts, turning Hayden’s attention to the diagram of a prism alignment he had drawn on the board in colored chalk.

  “Today we’re going to continue work with the level-three green prism.” He held one up for them to examine, as none of them had been given permission to own one yet. “As you doubtless remember me telling you, this has a very narrow range of specialized magic available to it. Today we’ll be focusing on the alignments for Lock and Unlock.”

  “A prism can unlock a door?” Hayden blurted out in surprise. Oliv
er rolled his eyes at him, but Master Asher just smirked.

  “As I said, specialized magic.” He nodded and continued. “The alignment for Lock is drawn on the board behind me. As you can see, it is comprised of two simple alignments, one complex, and an inversion…”

  Hayden began taking notes and attempting to recreate the sketch with his colored pencils so he could study it later. The ability to lock and unlock doors with magic…well, it seemed like a handy skill to have. He was determined to do his very best work so that Master Asher would give him permission to own and carry a green prism sometime soon.

  Hayden was the only one in the entirety of Mizzenwald at present who could say that Prisms was his most relaxing class. He took notes and answered questions whenever he was called on, getting many more right than his classmates. When they were dismissed for lunch, Hayden waited behind to speak to the Prism Master.

  “Yes, Hayden?” Asher acknowledged him without turning his back away from Cinder and Horace, who had just flown into the room to join him for lunch.

  “I was just wondering if I’m allowed to leave for the summer break, or if you’re going to continue our study sessions for the I.S.C.?” It was Lorn’s question that had given him the idea.

  “I do a considerable amount of research during our breaks from school, so we’re going to have to halt our lessons until term resumes,” he answered without apology, and Hayden exhaled in relief.

  “That’s alright, because there were things I wanted to do during the summer anyway.”

  Now Master Asher turned to look at him. “Oh? Like what?”

  “I wanted to go back to Merina and visit someone at the orphanage…” he trailed off, embarrassed. “And I wanted to visit my father’s house.”

  Master Asher looked only mildly surprised to hear about Hayden’s desire to see the old Frost estate.

  “On the first, I wish you well. As to the second…well, you’ll need to stop in at the capitol in Kargath to get permission for that. They don’t let just anyone into the Dark Prism’s home—in fact, I don’t believe anyone except the Council of Mages are granted entry at present.”

  “Why not?” Hayden asked in shock.

  I guess it was stupid to think they’d just leave the place open to the public…

  “Hayden, the most powerful dark mage of the century used it as his base of operations. There’s no telling how much of his corrupted instruments and writings he left behind in that house, aside from what the Council has already uncovered and destroyed.”

  “But if they’ve had years to search the place and they haven’t found anything else…”

  “Well, yes, but you do understand that it takes a considerable amount of time to safely search the place? There’s no telling how many hidden caches Aleric had, or how many dangerous traps were laid for interlopers. I’m told they’ve already found several of each, though they may be done searching the place by now.” He shrugged. “Either way, you’ll need permission from the High Mayor to see the place without getting arrested.”

  Hayden shuddered at the thought of being confined to lead Binders again, glad that he thought to talk to Master Asher before embarking on his journey. He thanked the Prism Master for the advice and then hurried off to his dormitory to wake Bonk for lunch.

  ***

  Hayden was all packed and ready to set off for Merina when he got the summons from Master Willow.

  Wondering what in the world he could have done to deserve being chased down by the Master of Wands on the first day of summer break, he stared at the note for several minutes, tilting it towards the light as though determined to catch a forgery. The contents gave no clue as to what he was being summoned for. All it said was: come to the dining hall immediately.

  Deciding he’d better do what he was told, he got dressed quickly in the dark without waking the others, slung his bag over his shoulder, and departed. Bonk settled onto his free shoulder until they were on the landing, and then he took flight and soared around the vaulted ceiling while Hayden continued down to the ground floor.

  He passed several early-risers in the Pentagon, lugging their things out to the main courtyard in the hopes of getting out before the rush. Master Reede’s mastery students were already setting up in the courtyard, pre-drawing a series of translocation circles and yawning in the early dawn light.

  Hayden moved past the exit and continued on to the dining hall, where he was surprised to find himself alone with the remaining three members of Team Mizzenwald. All of them looked just as confused as he was by the summons, and Hayden silently took a seat at the table they were all occupying. Masters Asher and Willow looked odd without their bright red robes on, like they could be any ordinary people.

  “Good, you’re all here,” the latter greeted them. “I don’t expect this will take long, and then we’ll have you on your way home.”

  “Excuse me, sir, but why are we here?” Reya asked uncertainly, halfway raising her hand as though she was in class.

  “You are here because there have been some disturbing reports from several of your eliminated competitors in the competition. Three of them are claiming that their magic failed them during the trials, resulting in their losses. They seem convinced that the source of this failure was externally-driven, rather than a simple loss of focus.”

  Hayden’s mouth dropped open in surprise. He remembered hearing one or two people insisting that their magic hadn’t worked properly, but he hadn’t really given it any thought before now because it seemed ridiculous.

  “Are you serious?” Oliver interrupted with a snort of derision. “We’re taking the word of people who lost? They’re clearly only crying about it because they’ve shamed their schools and don’t want it to be their own fault.”

  Hayden quickly glanced around at the others to see how they were taking this. As much as he hated to admit it, Oliver did make a fairly compelling point. Master Willow frowned.

  “That has also crossed our minds, you can be assured,” he replied tersely. “However, there has been enough concern raised over it that each of the schools has been tasked with assessing their contestants’ magical flow and assuring that there have been no artificially-induced interruptions.”

  “Is that even possible?” Hayden asked quietly, aghast at the prospect of someone else messing with his magic.

  It was Master Asher who answered him. “It is highly-unlikely, as there aren’t many ways to tamper with another person’s channeling, but yes, it is possible.”

  The four of them digested that in silence for a long moment, before Oliver asked, “So how will you verify that we’re alright?”

  “It’s simple, really,” Asher continued. “We’ll have each of you hooked up to the potentiometer, and you’ll cast a continuous stream of magic for a set period of time. At the end, it will tell us whether there have been any variations within your consistency, and whether they are internal or externally-driven.”

  Hayden had no idea what a potentiometer was until the Masters led them out of the dining hall and through the main doors, wrapping around the side of the school where all of the supply shops were. It wasn’t until they entered the small cottage, off to the side of the normal stores, that Hayden understood.

  This was the place where his Foci were tested at the beginning of last year, where he’d learned that his magical conduits were so destroyed that he needed the largest correctors in the history of mage-kind to stabilize his magic. The table was still set up in the vast, empty space, the same as before. The giant glass lens was also propped up about halfway across the room, with the clamps fastened all around it.

  That must be the potentiometer.

  Oliver looked like he found this entire thing to be an exercise in futility, but he allowed the Masters to attach the other end of the clamps to each of his fingertips without comment. When he was all wired up, he turned to face the giant lens.

  “Cast continuously for a full minute,” Master Willow instructed him, and Oliver nodded curtly and threw
a pinch of emerald green powder into the air.

  The lens turned the same color as the powder as Oliver cast at it, both hands extended out in front of him as he channeled his power. Hayden had no idea what spell he was casting, but supposed it didn’t matter. They waited in silence until one minute elapsed, and then Oliver dropped his hands and the lens returned to its normal transparency.

  The Masters stepped around the side of the machine that normally cut down Focus-correctors, which was now obviously giving them some sort of summary of Oliver’s power.

  “Overall, not bad,” Willow commented with a nod. “Consistent flow, steady power, very little fluctuation…”

  “Except around the twenty-second mark.” Master Asher pointed to a spot on the display. “You’re eventually going to have to get a corrector on your left arm, despite your determination to put it off as long as possible,” he chided Oliver, who grimaced.

  “I’m fine without it.”

  “Asher is correct,” Master Willow added. “While you still don’t show much variation, it’s double the amount you demonstrated two years ago. It won’t get better on its own; you will eventually need a corrector.”

  Hayden was privately delighted to hear that Oliver I’m-So-Awesome Trout needed Focus correction as well.

  After some more grumbling from Oliver, the Masters called Reya forward to take her turn with the potentiometer. As soon as she was hooked up to the clamps, she pulled out her oak wand with some difficulty and cast at the lens. A minute later she was pronounced clear, and Griff was called forward.

  The others left as soon as their testing was complete, so by the time it was Hayden’s turn he was alone in the vast, white room with the Masters. He felt a flicker of unease as they fastened the clamps over his fingers, remembering what had happened the first time he visited this room. His channels were so badly warped that he cracked the lens, though it had obviously been repaired since then. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going to go horribly wrong, and that the Masters had saved him until last for that very reason.