The Schism (The Broken Prism Book 4) (10 page)

He selected a clear diamond and a crystal prism from their respective boxes, unsure of what the difference was between them in terms of what they could do, or even if there was a difference. He also picked up a violet prism, the rarest, strangest, and arguably the most powerful of the prisms. After holding it up to the light and looking through it for a minute—it still gave him a headache if he turned it too quickly—he carried his prisms up to the counter.

The owner of the store held up his index finger upon his approach but said nothing, continuing to smooth away some minute flaw in the prism he was working on, and Hayden stood there patiently until he finished working and lifted the magnifying lens away from his eye.

When he met Hayden’s eyes at last, he didn’t look angry. He didn’t exactly look
pleased
either, but Hayden had learned to take what he could get.

“Just the three?” he asked with interest, examining the prisms Hayden had set on the counter and recording them on his ledger to charge the cost to the school. Hayden had a new appreciation for those ledgers after spending the better part of last year with accountants running the school.

“Yes, why? Are there other prisms I should be interested in?” If so, that was news to him, because he’d only ever seen Master Asher work with clear and violet prisms.

“I just assumed that now that you’ve been cleared for all materials, you would want one of everything.”

Hayden momentarily turned back to look around the shop. There were boxes of the individual tints in the mastery-level—though only a few in each, as they were clearly not popular.

“I might come back for others at some point, but I thought I’d start with the basics until I get into class and figure out what Asher wants me to do.”

“I suppose you’re already planning some way to get into trouble this year, since you can’t seem to avoid it,” the man changed topics abruptly. “Thinking about taking on that schism that’s marring the grounds for a bit more fame? Mind you, I wouldn’t be upset if you wanted to seal that thing off for us….Gives me the willies just thinking about what might come through there next.”

“Knowing Asher, he’ll probably make that my final exam for the year.” Hayden grimaced, and to his surprise the man actually smiled for the briefest of moments.
Wonders never cease.
“But no, I hope to have a very boring, normal year for a change.”

“Hmph, we’ll see about that.”

On that slightly ominous note, Hayden left the shop with his new prisms and went to buy new clothes from The Magnificent Mage, but he couldn’t stop thinking about what the owner of Pounds of Prisms had said. Now that he thought about it properly, it did seem horribly likely that he’d end up inside that schism at some point this year—maybe in a freak magical accident, knowing his luck.

He made a mental note to confirm with Master Asher that he didn’t plan on punishing Hayden by sending him into a realm of anti-magic that he knew almost nothing about, and then tried to push it from his mind.

He found Zane after he was finished shopping, and the two of them discussed what they thought their classes were likely to entail this year while they walked back upstairs with their purchases. Zane was going on and on about learning to transport living creatures this year.

“—don’t understand. I’ll be able to conjure or send animals through my circles now,” he said in an exasperated tone, obviously frustrated that Hayden wasn’t properly awed by this. “I could summon our familiars to us in a fight, maybe even inside the challenge arenas. Actually, I need to remember to ask Reede if that’s even possible, since the arenas aren’t technically a real place…” he drifted off, lost in thought.

Hayden watched Bonk fly in through their open dormitory window and reflexively offered his shoulder as a perch.

“But wait a minute…” he frowned at his friend, the image of Bonk stirring something in his memory. “You summoned Bonk to us way back in our first year, when we got translocated to that stupid cave full of wargs who wanted to eat us. If you hadn’t done that, our corpses would be fertilizing mushrooms right about now.”

Zane snorted in amusement and said, “Well, yeah…but I have no idea how that happened. My circle wasn’t nearly strong enough to bring a live creature through—especially a dragonling—it really shouldn’t have worked at all. I went back and did some calculations afterwards, and even if I
had
been trying to summon Bonk—which I wasn’t—he should have died during the transition.” He made an apologetic face.

Hayden glanced down at his familiar.

“Then how in the world did he manage to come help us?”

Zane shrugged. “How should I know? Reede reckons it’s because he’s so…you know, weird…he’s like the Hayden Frost of dragons—his magic doesn’t always make sense.”

“Thanks,” Hayden said flatly at the perceived insult.

“Oh, you know what I mean.” Zane rolled his eyes. “Your Foci are messed up and your Source power is crazy for no good reason, that’s all I mean. We all know that Bonk is super powerful but really odd, and his magic doesn’t always work the way it should.”

Changing the subject, Hayden said, “So now you’ll be able to actually summon animals to us by choice? What about people?”

Zane frowned. “No, unfortunately we don’t get to learn translocation stuff until our mastery year, so that’ll be next year for me.”

“Wonder if Asher will start teaching me how to translocate myself now that I’m in his mastery Prism class,” Hayden mused out loud.

“I hope so, then you can tell me all about what it’s like and give me a leg up on the competition before next year. I’ve got to start working my butt off to try and convince Reede to take me as an apprentice in the next year or two, or I’ll miss my chance forever.”

Hayden stared thoughtfully into space for a minute before speaking again.

“I want to ask Asher if he’ll let me apprentice to him on his research, but the last time I asked he almost murdered me with his prisms at the very thought.”

Zane frowned. “Well, yeah, that’s not really encouraging…but wasn’t that back in first year?”

“Yeah, it was. He told me later that he didn’t want to risk repeating history, with me turning down the same path as my father, and all the blame he would get again for it.”

“Well, after everything he went through last time, I can’t say I blame him…but maybe things have changed, now that he’s seen you work over the last three years. It’s obvious you’re not even a little bit like your old man, or Asher wouldn’t still have your back after all this time.”

“Yeah, maybe. I guess I should ask him again,” Hayden decided at last, sincerely hoping that this time he didn’t get attacked by his mentor for bringing the subject up. He had done a terrible job with his resolution not to get beaten up last year, but was hoping for better results this time around.

Zane must have read something of his feelings on his face, because he said, “Maybe make sure he’s unarmed when you mention it, just in case.”

“Thanks, pal, you always know how to cheer me up,” Hayden said sarcastically, elbowing him as they entered their dormitory.

“Anytime,” Zane replied with a grin.

6

The Apprentice

Tess didn’t return to Mizzenwald until the night before school started. Hayden had been starting to wonder whether he ought to go searching for her on the road from Mizzenwald, and was debating writing a letter to her formidable father, asking if everything was alright. The sight of her cheered him immensely, not the least of which because the other girls lurking around him seemed to vanish when she was present, like she was a talisman for warding off unwanted attention. Hayden assumed that word had gotten out about her hunting skills.

“Where have you been?” he asked her after a cursory hug before breakfast on the first day of classes. “I was terrified that you’d been eaten by a hydra or something on your way to school this year. I even considered checking with your dad to make sure you were okay, and you know how much your father terrifies me.”

Tess raised an eyebrow and said, “Being eaten by a hydra would have been tricky, as there aren’t any lakes on my way to Mizzenwald.”

Zane and Conner laughed, and Hayden rolled his eyes.

“I’ve never pretended to be good at geography.”

“I was helping my dad fight off monsters around our neighbors’ farms, and then we got roped into getting them out of the nearby town too. We made a lot of extra money this winter, but it was exhausting work. Not enough mages are willing to risk themselves fighting all these monsters these days; they want to stay holed up where it’s safe, doing their research.” She said the last part with an uncharacteristically scathing look.

“Oh good, now that I know you were in mortal peril during the winter holiday while I was off training to be a snob, I feel
much
better about things.” Hayden scowled.

Tess smiled, which somehow made her look even prettier, and said, “Oh yeah, I heard you won your stuff back. My roommates were so excited about it I wondered whether you’d started handing out money in the Pentagon.” She rolled her eyes.

Hayden groaned.

“I’ve been trying to pretend I don’t notice all the girls staring at me ever since I sat down and started eating honey cakes this morning,” he confided to her. “I intend to stay near you as much as possible in the hopes that you act as a shield against unwanted attention.”

“So now that you have a huge mansion, when are you inviting us over for the party?” Tamon interjected, shoveling oat paste into his mouth.

“Probably sometime after I’ve hired a basic support staff and made sure there aren’t any evil prisms or booby traps still lying around. It would kind of dampen the festive atmosphere to have my guests tripping over the Black Prism while visiting my new house.”

Conner raised his eyebrows and said, “I thought the Council of Mages spent years searching the place, especially for the infamous Black Prism. What makes you think you’re going to find anything they missed?”

Hayden hesitated before answering, because no one but Master Asher knew that his blood could open hidden secrets in the house because it was similar to his father’s. It didn’t seem like a good idea to make that public knowledge, especially since his mentor thought he’d be bled dry by the Council in their fervor to find the legendary Black Prism, which had been missing since Aleric Frost met his unpleasant fate.

“Well, none of them are natural prism-users,” he said at last. “Since my father was also a prism-user, there might be something I notice that the others missed, especially since they wouldn’t let Asher take a stab at it.”

The others seemed to accept his explanation at face value, though Zane shot him a brief glance that suggested he thought there might be more to the story, but mercifully he didn’t press the issue.

Bonk diverted everyone’s attention by submerging his head so deeply into the communal jar of honey that he had trouble getting it back out. Hayden had to rescue his familiar before he drowned, and spent the remainder of breakfast wiping the dragonling’s face clean while muttering scathing admonishments about Bonk’s intellect under his breath.

He spent so long cleaning one of his familiar’s ears that he was nearly late to his Abnormal Magic class, and took off running through the school and out the back doors, taking the stairs down to the basement at a jog.

The classroom was laid out the same way as last year, with the entire floor space cleared and all of the chairs pushed up against the walls. Hayden took the closest empty seat, and was interested to note that there only appeared to be seven people in the level-two class this year. The Absorber that had stood in the center of the room last year was gone, though the fire pit was actually lit for the first time Hayden could remember.

As they were in a basement and the area around Mizzenwald was climate-controlled, he expected the room to be stifling, but it felt no different than it had outside. He also swore he could detect a faint breeze moving through the space, though that should be impossible, being underground.

Master Laurren entered the room just as Hayden was unpacking his bag and preparing to take notes, looking as pale as ever, his strange, blue-violet eyes providing stark contrast to his black hair. As he swept past Hayden in his metallic green Mastery robes, a student to Hayden’s left asked, “Is it windy in here, sir?”

“Of course it is, Carl—otherwise we’d all be drenched with sweat with the fire going,” he replied automatically, as though it was a completely ridiculous question. Hayden was just glad that someone else had asked it instead of him.

“How is that possible?” Carl continued, apparently deciding that it was worth any slight on his intelligence to know the answer.

In response, Laurren reached into his robes and extracted a mastery-level elder wand, holding it up briefly for them to see before replacing it in his pocket.

“You’re keeping it cool in here with magic?” Hayden blurted out, surprised.

“One might surmise that, yes. Alternatively, I could have been ignoring
Carl’s question entirely and just decided to flash this elder wand about for no apparent reason.”

Okay, I probably deserved that…

Ignoring the jab, Hayden pressed on. “But doesn’t that take an enormous toll on your magic? Holding that kind of spell—something strong enough to change the climate—for an entire class period has to be draining your Source even faster than it will deplete your wand.”

Master Laurren stopped his pacing and gave him an appraising look, clearly pleased that Hayden understood the enormity of what he was doing so casually.

“It does take considerable effort to maintain, yes—which is partly why I chose the elder wand, as it greatly reduces the magical backlash one might expect to see with other woods.”

Hesitant to push his luck, Hayden paused for a moment before asking, “Do you have the energy to do that and still teach and do other magic?”

Master Laurren flashed a toothy smile and said, “We shall see. If I pass out before the end of the lesson, then the answer is probably ‘no’.”

And with that he changed the subject and began their lesson before anyone could question him further.

“After our unwanted guests from the north visited last year, I thought it might be appropriate to begin the term with an overview of some of the more abnormal aspects of sorcery—what little I know of it, at least.”

The level of interest in the room heightened palpably. Hayden leaned forward in his chair; he had a personal interest in learning more about how the sorcerers worked their magic, on the off-chance he ever found himself battling any of them again. Given his terrible luck, it seemed likely, especially if any of them had survived the battle in the Forest of Illusions; there were probably posters with his face on them littering the northern continent, offering a reward for his head. Whether it was still attached to his body when presented was likely optional.

“Given the strained relations between us and our northern counterparts, we know almost nothing about the workings of their magic. We can only hope that they are similarly blind to the intricacies of ours.” Laurren paused for a moment to allow this to sink in. “What we
do
know is that a lot of their spells involve an external conduit, like fire, or blood.”

Hayden narrowed his eyebrows at this. Apparently Master Laurren knew what he was thinking, because without even glancing at him he said, “Go ahead, Hayden— ask your question.”

Frowning at his predictability, he said, “Why do they need a conduit to channel their magic? Don’t they have Foci like we do?”

Obviously hearing what he expected to, Laurren smiled and said, “In fact, no, we don’t believe that they do. Actually, there’s been some recent debate around that, given our new…” he stopped himself and changed tracks. “The popular opinion right now is that they
do
have Foci that connect their Sources to the outside world, but that they purposely break that connection with the siglas they draw on their hands.”

A girl to Hayden’s right said, “Why would they do that? Doesn’t it just make things harder for them?”

“I truly have no idea,” he shrugged inconsequently. “But a few of us believe that it’s because their siglas are infused with a different sort of power that amplifies their magic—once they find a conduit—so they believe the benefit is worth the inconvenience. It’s also a way for the Magistra to control his or her subjects, by limiting access to conduits if necessary, handy in the event of a civil war.”

“But that doesn’t make sense,” Hayden raised his hand while speaking. “Last year I ended up with siglas on both of my hands, and I could still use my magic, even with my Focus-correctors on.”

The Master spared him a thoughtful look and then said, “You weren’t just wearing any sigla….You bore the Magistra’s own symbol. I doubt she would have limited her own power in any way, which is probably the only thing that saved you.”

Hayden grimaced at his foolishness for so casually donning the unknown sigla just before heading into battle. Now that he considered all of the horrible things that could have gone wrong—and the fact that if magical creatures in the Forest of Illusion hadn’t been pleased with him and helped him remove them, he might be stuck magic-less forever—he was horrified at his blasé attitude towards using them back then.

“Anyway, the point is that we believe the sorcerers utilize conduits to make up for their lack of Foci. This is why they often draw their own blood when casting spells, or why they carry portable fire-starters.” He gestured to the fire pit in the center of the room. “Now, most blood-based spells are forbidden teaching material in the Nine Lands—”

“How come?” another student interrupted. “I’ve heard that using blood—especially if you’ve still got your Foci intact—gives you huge power amplification. You all might have had better luck defeating the sorcerers when they first showed up if you’d been fighting like them.”

Master Laurren’s frown was so ominous that it almost made Hayden shiver.

“Opening such a powerful magical connection between your body and the environment has very dangerous consequences.” His voice had grown eerily soft, so that Hayden found himself leaning forward to hear better. “The risk of magical backlash and distortion is enormous.”

“What do you mean?” the classmate asked, confused by the Master’s grim attitude.

“I assume you know that magical backlash occurs to some small extent with every spell you cast, though normally not enough to be bothersome,” he addressed the class in general, raising his voice back to normal volume. “Some of the more complex spells you’ll ever attempt may produce a large amount of backlash if performed incorrectly, which can lead to disastrous consequences—like irreparable damage to your Foci, for instance.”

Or colorblindness,
Hayden thought to himself as he met Laurren’s eyes, and he knew that he and the Master were thinking the same thing in that moment.

Laurren broke eye contact first and continued. “Obviously we don’t want our mages crippling or killing themselves after all the effort we exert training you up. There are few enough of us as is, in proportion to the staggering monster population these days.” He avoided Hayden’s eyes when he added, “And magical backlash is about the
best
you can expect from messing with blood-magic. Mental distortion is exponentially worse. If you can’t remember the side-effects of distortion, ask Hayden how it worked out for his father.”

An uncomfortable silence filled the room as people turned to glance at Hayden and then look away awkwardly. Truthfully, Hayden was just surprised that there was more than one way to get driven nuts by magic, though now that he thought about it properly, he supposed it must be possible with each of the major and minor arcana in some way. That wasn’t a reassuring thought.

“I feel compelled to warn you that after the fall of the Dark Prism, the Council of Mages made the punishments much more severe for violating the prohibition on blood-based magic. If proven, it carries an automatic death sentence, whether you show symptoms of distortion or not. I might also add that they get pretty jumpy at the thought of another Dark Prism wreaking havoc on the world these days, and that their definition of ‘proven’ is pretty loose.”

That was just the sort of thing Hayden could imagine the Council trying to accuse him of to get rid of him as a nuisance.