Cave of Nightmares (38 page)

“Okay, so everyone remembers the rules for the final, right?” He asked for the third time, scowling at a group of second-years who were being raucously loud on the other side of the common area.

“Yes, we remember,” Zane said in agonized tones. “It’s going to be really difficult and we’re going to be timed.”

“At the very least,” Tucker grumbled.

“And we’re only allowed to bring one instrument into the arena with us this time,” Tess added with a frown. This was the part of the challenge that was going to be the most…well, challenging.

Hayden had never entered an arena with only one weapon before. Usually he had a choice of wands, prisms, and even elixirs or conjuring
chalk if he wanted to bring them along. For the finals they were being restricted to one item each, and they had spent the last twenty minutes arguing strategy on what to bring.

“It just makes the most sense for each of us to bring our most versatile ins
trument from our major of focus,” Zane said for the second time. “I’m a natural conjurer; there’s no reason for me to waste time bringing a wand into the arena if I only get one weapon. I’ll bring a fresh piece of level-three chalk and if we need any conjuring done then that’ll have to do.”

Tucker nodded. “It’s hard to know which wand I should bring
though, not knowing what the arena will be ahead of time. If I bring maple and need to do earth-based magic then we’re screwed, unless the rest of you are able to cover for it. On the other hand, if I bring birch and need elder…”

“And what about me?”
Tess frowned. “I’m a double-major. Do I bring a powder or an elixir?”

“Look, we can drive ourselves crazy guessing what we’ll need, but it’s going to come down to luck
in the end,” Hayden interrupted. “Our best bet is to balance ourselves as well as possible. If Tess brings a defensive elixir, then Tucker can pick his most offense-heavy wand in case we need to fight monsters. Zane’s chalk will either be able to conjure what we need or it won’t, and I’ll bring my clear prism because it’s got the best balance of offense and defense. Between all of us we shouldn’t be totally doomed no matter what they throw at us.”

He certainly hoped that was true, because they were near the top of the third-year rankings, and despite the fact that none of them dared express the desire out loud, every one of them wanted to ace the final
arena and come out number one on the rosters. Right now they were tied for third with one other team, and were only trailing first place by a half-point average.

“That sounds like as good a plan as any,”
Zane shrugged agreement. “Besides, Hayden’s our fearless leader. If it all goes wrong we can throw him under the carriage during the review and save ourselves.” He grinned, and Hayden smacked his friend in the side of the head.

“Alright, elder it is,
” Tucker nodded, clearly relieved to have the decision made for him.

“I’ll bring Need along
since you gave me enough dragon scales to make it,” Tess said to general astonishment.

“What the heck does
Need do?” Zane asked the question the rest of them were obviously thinking.

“It uh, gives you what you need most.” Tess looked like she was trying to think of a way to explain it without making them feel like idiots. “It’s like a free spell, basically. If you need a spear, it will turn into a spear. If you need to breathe underwater, it’ll do that too.” She sighed. “The one I made will probably only last a minute or two, but it seems like a good idea to have a wil
dcard in case we get into trouble.”

Hayden was thoroughly impressed with her skill at elixirs and made a note to give Bonk extra apple pie tomorrow night for shedding scales at such an opportune time.

“Okay, yeah.” Tucker looked enthusiastic about their prospects. “We might actually pull this thing off.”

On that hopeful note
they returned to their rooms to get a good night’s sleep.

Well, no matter how badly we do
, we’ll still be pretty high up in the rankings, and then we’ll have two months off for winter break before we start the next school year.

Hayden sincerely hoped that this time he wouldn’t encounter any angry dragons.

It was
raining heavily the next night. They could hear it hammering against the walls during dinner, adding to the general cacophony of noise in the dining hall. Hayden tried not to take it as an ominous sign of things to come, but the dark gloom and occasional thunder claps did nothing to relax him. He’d gotten a brand new clear prism earlier in the day so he’d be at full-charge, but accidentally left it in his dorm room before lunch and had yet to retrieve it.

He had to leave dinner a few minutes early to jog up to his room and s
natch the prism from his desk, twisting it into his eyepiece preemptively but keeping the monocle raised so he could see normally until he was inside the arena.

He was drenched within a minute of leaving the castle, running towards the circle of barely-visible lights even though there was no cover there to shield him from the rain. The others were already waiting for him, a
long with a group of thoroughly annoyed mastery-level students who were manning their usual posts around the circle to translocate them.

It’s not our fault it’s raining. Tell the Masters to use more specific climate control next year.

He’d learned long ago that they allowed it to rain inside the boundaries of Mizzenwald to keep all the plant-life from dying partway through the year, but it was still a bad night for a storm.

“You four ready to go?” The mastery students looked like they were eager to send them on their way and seek shelter while t
hey waited for Hayden’s group to finish the arena.

“We’re ready,” Hayden answered after making sure each of his team
mates had their one allowed weapon on hand.

The mastery students placed their wet palms against the rectangular blocks and closed their eyes to focus. The world began to blur
around them as expected, but a thunder clap that was loud enough to shake the ground and nearly deafen them sounded partway through the translocation, startling half of the mastery students mid-cast. One of them lifted his hands to cover his ears reflexively and Hayden felt a strange tug, accompanied by an unsettling change in the blurring world, as though lots of different places were trying to share the same space.

He blinked hard and a wave of nausea hit him. The world was so blurred around him that he was barely able to see the mastery students
’ looks of horror as one of them yelled, “Put your hand back down, QUICK!”

Suddenly
the world stopped blurring and everything came into jarring focus, like a rubber band that had just been recoiled. Hayden blinked again and they were gone.

19

Cave of Nightmares

Hayden wasn’t the only one who staggered upon landing in the pitch-blackness of wherever they were. He heard a horrible retching sound coming from Zane as his friend leaned over and puked on the ground.

“Where are we? I
can’t see anything,” Tucker asked in a low voice, presumably because he didn’t know if they were alone here.

“I don’t know, but I think something went wrong with the translocation…” Hayden blinked a few times to get his bearings, straining his eyes to see
through the blackness. “They might have still sent us to the right place though; someone start a light.”

“Hold still, I’ll get it,” Tucker lit the tip of his elder wand. “It’s a waste of resources, but this wand is strong enough that it won’t drain very fast and maybe we can find a better light
source later.” He held it up over his head so they could take in their surroundings.

It looked like they were in some sort of cave, though they couldn’t see an exit from where they were standing. There were spider webs all over the ceiling above them, trailing down the sloping walls w
here they came together. The floor beneath them was hard-packed dirt and they stood in a little cul-de-sac, the ground sloping upwards on one path and downwards on the other.

“
Uhh…I hate to be the one to say it, but I don’t see any instructions from the Masters here.” Zane was still kneeling on the ground near a puddle of sick, his face chalk-white.

Hayden’s stomach turned to
lead when he realized his friend was right. There were no envelopes waiting for them here.

“We must be in the wrong arena…that’s all,” Tess tried and failed to sound confident, her soft voice squeaking.

“No, if we were in an arena there would be instructions…even a mastery-level one,” Tucker said in a low voice, directing his wand light all around to get a more complete view of their surroundings. “I think we’d better just wait right here until someone comes to get us.”

“Do you think the Masters will know something’s
gone wrong?” Hayden asked quietly, praying they were alone in the cave but keeping his voice down just in case they weren’t.

“They’ll have to when they’re waiting in the arena and we don’t show up. The mastery students are bound to rush off and tell them what happened, so
they’ll be along to get us soon,” Tucker said with growing confidence.

“What if they don’t know where they sent us?”
Tess whispered.

“They’re smart, they’ll find us.” Tucker didn’t sound entirely sure this time.

Still, they didn’t have a better plan for escaping, since they didn’t even know where they were. For all Hayden could tell, they weren’t even in Junir anymore.

They stood there in silence for maybe two more minutes, wet and shaking while they waited
for rescue. Then they heard a low growl.

“What was that?”
Tess’s voice was so squeaky that soon only dogs would be able to hear it.

“Probably just…bad weather
or something…” Tucker took a step backwards, holding his wand aloft.

“Yeah, um…do you think we should put the light out
, just in case?” Zane suggested weakly.

“Oh sure, it’ll be much better facing a wild animal in the dark,” Tucker mumbled sarcastically
, abandoning his “bad weather” theory immediately.

“Maybe it’s something okay…like a dog…” Hayden put in hopefully.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t a dog that loped into view from the upwards-leading path. It was a warg.

Hayden had heard stories about them as a child, but he had never seen a
warg in real life before. The closest thing it could be likened to was a wolf: a
huge
wolf, ten feet long and taller than any of them, with evil red eyes and fangs that extended past its jawline. In Sudir they believed that wargs could rip out your soul with those fangs.

“Oh hell…”
Zane’s voice wavered as the warg took a calculated step towards them. “Um, Hayden…now would be a really great time to smite that thing with your prism.”

Hayden’s
brain jogged into action, and he pulled the eyepiece down over his eye and turned towards the light of Tucker’s wand so he could look for a promising array. He saw dozens of them immediately, but there was something unsettling about each of the arrays, though at first glance they looked correct.

Frowning
he said, “Tucker, bring that light closer.”

The
warg took another step towards them.

“Faster would be better than slower…”
Zane trilled as Tucker took a measured step closer to Hayden, not wanting to provoke an attack with any sudden movements.

With the
light properly in front of him Hayden looked into the prism again. Something about it made him uneasy, though he had absolutely no idea why. He twisted it slowly in the eyepiece, the metallic clicks jarringly loud in the echoing cave.

“Seriously, Hayden…
do something…” Zane’s voice was pleading, and Hayden felt all the blood drain from his face as he lifted the eyepiece and faced the others.

“Something’s wrong with my prism.”

“What do you mean?” Zane nearly shouted, and the warg charged.

“RUN!” T
ucker tore off on the only path available to them, the one headed downwards. The rest of them raced after him single-file due to the narrowness of the passage, with Hayden bringing up the rear. He could hear the warg’s thundering footsteps behind him as it slid around a corner, and bile rose in his throat.

I’m going to die, I’m going to die,
it’s going to eat me…

Tucker waved his wand without looking back and the tunnel behind Hayden exp
loded, caving in and pelting his back with bits of hard dirt and rock as he barely avoided the avalanche.

“Did I get it?” Tucker called back without slowing down, and Hayden twisted
back to look.

“Yeah, it’s on the other side of
the tunnel.” He slowed to a jog and the others did the same.

“Now we can’t get out that way,” Tess whispered, her whole body shaking with cold and fear.

“Well, there’s a soul-eating monster that way, so we’ll just have to look for another exit.” Tucker was panting from exertion, though his face blanched when they heard the sounds of scraping from the other side of the collapsed dirt.

“Oh no, I think it’s trying to dig through…”
Zane muttered.

“We’d better keep moving and try to lose it.” Hayden jogged forward, and the others followed without hesitation.

The path split off in three different directions ahead of them, each looking as dark and fathomless as the others.

“Um, left,
” Hayden chose at random, continuing on the path, grimacing when he got a face full of spider webs.

“You mind telling me why you can’t use your prism?”
Zane was right behind him, gagging and spitting out spider webs of his own as they took another sharp left. Hayden had no idea how anyone was supposed to find them in this maze, but they had no choice but to move forward and pray for an exit. If they could just get out of here, they could walk until they came across a town and send word to Mizzenwald.

“I don’t know
, something’s wrong with it…”

“
What’s
wrong with it? You don’t think it’ll work?” Tucker tripped over a protruding rock and nearly lost his footing entirely, cursing and jog-limping behind them with the elder wand still lit.

“No, I think it will still work, there’s just something off about it…” Hayden had absolutely no idea how to explain the problem to anyone else. He wasn’t even sure what was wrong with it himself.

“Well if it still works then
use it!
” Tucker chided him as they entered a wide-spot in the cave. It was a high-ceilinged area formed in almost a perfect circle, about thirty feet in diameter. It took almost no time to realize that it was a dead-end.

“No, I can’t use it—I don’t know…” Hayden pulled the eyepiece down and looked through the prism once more. Just like last time, he couldn’t pick out any
specific thing that was wrong with it, and yet his stomach knotted unpleasantly just looking at it. “I think it’s broken.”

“What d
o you mean, broken? How the heck did you break a brand new prism?!” Tucker was on the edge of panic, hurrying around the room, desperate to find a hidden escape.

“I don’t mean I
broke
it. I think it’s an imperfect prism.” Hayden’s words were met with a horrible silence. Even Tucker stopped running around the wide space and looked at him in horror.

“But…but you got that prism brand new, from the store at school. You don’t think the jeweler made a mistake, do you?” Tess asked softly.

“No, it was fine when I bought it; I always check my prisms before I leave the store.” He frowned. “After that I left it in my room all day…”

“You think someone swapped it out for a broken one?”
Zane sounded aghast at the very thought. “Who in the world would be stupid enough to give you an imperfect prism right before your final arena challenge, knowing whose son you are?”

He seemed to arrive at the answer at the same time Hayden did.

Oliver or Jasper.

Zane
paled. “They can’t have expected you to really use it…not even
they
would be that malicious, would they?”

Hayden frowned. “I don’t know. They should know that a natural prism user can tell when there’s something wrong, so maybe they just expected me to not be able to use it at all during the final arena…which would be fine if we were actually
in
an arena…”

“Lord, but if you
did
use it…” Zane shuddered at the thought. “It would be worse than expulsion for them; it would be prison!”

“Um, guys, I hate to say this, but I’m the only one who’s used magic thus far and my wand is about
half-spent. If Hayden’s useless then one of you two better get to work on something,” he nodded to Tess and Zane. “Or else we’re going to be feeling our way out of a monster-infested cave in the dark.”

“Let’s go back the way we came and try another path…
there’s got to be a way out of this place.”

They hadn’t
even made it halfway up the passage before they heard the sounds of growling and thumping headed towards them. Without saying a word, they turned back in unison and sprinted back into the dead-end room, which at least gave them space to fight in.

Zane
dropped to the floor at the far end of the room and began drawing a circle on the ground, about a meter in diameter. Hayden had absolutely no idea what he was planning to summon, but anything was better than waiting to die.

It’d be great if he could summon an entire box of
prisms from the store at school—or better yet, Master Asher.

“Hayden,” Tucker grabbed his arm, pulling him against the wall beside him so that their backs were to it. Tess was standing somewhere between them and
Zane, looking terrified but resolved. “If push comes to shove…if we’re going to die here…you have to use that prism to save us.”

Hayden’s heart skipped a few beats and he nearly passed out from the drop in blood pressure.

“You know I can’t do that. For me more than anyone, I can’t use it. I can’t be like my father…” His voice was shaking horribly. It sounded foreign, even to him.

“If the alternative is all of us dying a violent death…”

“I’d rather die than become him. I promised Asher I wouldn’t use an imperfect prism, no matter what,” his voice grew stronger, though the sounds of thumping footsteps headed towards them was testing his resolve on that whole “I’d rather die” argument.

“That’s very brave and noble, but the rest of us really
don’t
want to be eaten by a warg,” Tucker pleaded.

Hayden said nothing, his palms sweating profusely as he contemplated their options.
This would be a really good time for us to have more than one weapon apiece,
he thought ruefully.

Zane
finished drawing his conjuring circle just as the warg bounded into sight, covered in dirt but clearly hungrier than ever. Tess and Tucker let out identical moans of terror as it sprinted towards them.

The former raised his half-spent wand as though about to cast,
but his mouth just hung open soundlessly; he apparently couldn’t think of what to use against the charging warg. Hayden dove out of the way and rolled across the hard ground, his ribs aching from the impact. The wand was knocked out of Tucker’s hand and rolled towards the center of the space with the tip still lit.

Tess must have di
ved out of the way as well, because she was struggling back to her feet from Zane’s left. Tucker was bleeding from a long scratch on his arm but seemed otherwise unhurt.