The Other Prism (The Broken Prism) (2 page)

Hayden tried to change the subj
ect by turning to Master Willow and asking, “What brings you and Master Kilgore to Kargath today, sir?”

The Master of Wands looked surprised by the question.

“We’re here to give an accounting of your last year of schooling and answer any questions the Council has.”

B
efore Hayden could ask the next obvious question, Magdalene Trout beat him to it.

“Isn’t Masters still at Mizzenwald?” She glanced around the table with a small frown, as though expecting to see someone who wasn’t there. “I
’m surprised he didn’t come to speak on Hayden’s behalf.”

Hayden had absolutely no idea who she was talking about until Master Willow said, “Asher is away from
Junir at the moment and immersed in a research project of his.”

“
Hmph,” another Councilman scowled. “You won’t hear me crying over his absence.”

Feeling like he was missing something, Hayden turned to Master Kilgore and asked, “Master Asher’s last name is…Masters?”

Kilgore smirked. “Of course—you didn’t think
Asher
was his last name, did you?”

Hayden had never really thought about it before, but since the other Masters all went by their last names he just assumed…but then again, Torin also went by his first name
, and he was Asher’s father.

“But why doesn’t he use his last name like everyone else?”

It was Master Willow who answered. “He and his father use their first names to avoid confusion.”

Master Kilgore added, “Asher also says that
‘Master Masters’ sounds ridiculously stupid,” with a chuckle.

“I suppose we should get down to
business.” Calahan set down his fork (the second-largest of the four, with only two tines) and rested his elbows on the table in front of him, hands clasped beneath his chin.

“You’ve read the report we sent immediately following the end of the year?” Master Willow asked neutrally.

The Masters wrote a report about me at the end of last term?
He wasn’t at all sure that he wanted to know what it said about him.

Calahan
nodded, giving Hayden another curious glance. Bonk seized the opportunity to hop down into Hayden’s lap and begin picking at his leftover food with an unusual amount of grace, like he didn’t want to be scolded for using the wrong silverware either.

“Does he really have three-inch F
ocus-correctors on each hand?” a dark-haired woman on Calahan’s left asked curiously. Hayden didn’t like being discussed as though he wasn’t in the room, and he especially didn’t like calling attention to the many things that made him odd, which was why he wore long sleeves in the first place.

When it became clear that everyone was waiting to see his correctors for
themselves, Hayden sighed and rolled up his sleeves. More than one of the mages at the table gasped, despite being forewarned about the size of his Focus-correctors. Magdalene Trout leaned forward in her chair and said, “Can you really still channel magic with that much adjustment?”

“Yes, quite normally,” Master Willow answered on his behalf.

One of the Councilmen Hayden didn’t know the name of whistled. “His Source must be massive.”

“Not entirely surprising, given his bloodlines,”
Calahan murmured.

Great, just what I need,
Hayden thought ruefully,
everyone to be reminded of who my evil father was.

“Just imagine what kind of power he could wield if his Foci were undamaged.” A collective shudder seemed to go around the table. “If his Source is potent enough to overcome the dampe
ning effect of three-inch correctors on each hand, he might have even more latent ability than the Dark Prism himself.”

Hayden wasn’t the only one who frowned at the comparison, though he imagined t
he others were just worried about the thought of another Frost with that kind of power at his disposal. He wished the Council of Mages would focus on something else before they were tempted to put him back in lead Binders.

Apparently Master Kilgore agreed
, because he said, “He’s had his struggles like anyone at Mizzenwald, but he’s come through it alright.”

“
Yes,” Master Willow agreed without looking at him. “Hayden was very studious last year, and worked hard to get up to speed in his classes. He has a natural understanding of magic and how to use it to achieve his goals, given his limited training.”

It was
awkward listening to the others talk about him, and Hayden wasn’t sure whether he was supposed to participate in the conversation or pretend he couldn’t hear them. He compromised by focusing his attention on feeding Bonk bits of torn-up flat-cakes.

“Hmm, yes, I saw the report from his final arena challenge…
.Very disturbing, of course,” Calahan said darkly. “To think if he’d actually
used
—”

“But he did
not,” Master Willow cut him off before he could speculate further down that ominous line of thought.

Only
weeks ago, Hayden and his challenge group had faced their final arena for the year, where they were accidentally transported to a real warg den and had to fight for their lives until help arrived. It was only then that Hayden discovered someone had swapped his glass prism out for an imperfect one, the very thing that led his infamous father down the evil, twisted path that made him the terror of the Nine Lands for over a decade.

“Yes, that is very fortunate. This conversation would be much different if he
had
used it,” Calahan sighed. Hayden suspected that the main difference would be them exchanging his Focus-correctors for lead Binders and possibly jailing him for the rest of his natural life.

They talked about Hayden as though he wasn’t in the room for a while longer, but Masters Willow and Kilgore said mostly good things about him
, without being overly-flattering. They did mention some skirmishes between himself and the Trouts— which caused their mother to narrow her eyebrows thoughtfully—as well as the discord between Hayden and Jasper Dout, who was ultimately responsible for giving him the broken prism at the end of the year.

At the end of the meal the Council dismissed him and the Masters so they could have a private discussion.
Hayden found himself standing in the hallway with Kilgore and Willow, both of whom looked perfectly at ease in their surroundings.

“So, um, how do you think it’s going in there?” Hayden solicited nervously, while Bonk hopped from his shoulder over to the Master of Elixir’s without being asked.

“There’s nothing to worry about, Hayden,” Master Willow assured him airily. “If they were going to punish you, they wouldn’t have had this meeting over breakfast. Their minds were made up long before they arrived, and the rest is just posturing.”

Hayden certainly hoped the Master of Wands was right about that.

“Can I ask why Master Asher didn’t…”
take an hour out of his busy day of research to translocate himself here and speak on my behalf
sounded rude even inside his head, “…why he couldn’t come here today?”

Kilgore seemed
to get the gist of his question, and quietly motioned Hayden a little further away from the door to the dining room.

“Most of the
Council members don’t trust or like him very much. He didn’t think it would do you any favors to have him here, so Wil and I came instead,” Kilgore explained quietly.

Hayden’s lips parted in surprise. “Why don’t they like him?”

Kilgore grimaced behind his red-grey beard. “It’s a long story and not mine to tell.”

Before Hayden could question him further, the Council of Mages called them back inside and officially declared
themselves satisfied with his progress over the last year, just as Master Willow predicted.

And it was over, just like that. For three weeks of waiting, Hayden was strangely disappointed that the meeting itself had been so uneventful and brief.

“Do you have other business in Kargath, or would you like a translocation back to Mizzenwald?” Master Willow asked him after the Council members filed out of the dining room and went their separate ways.

“I guess there are only a couple
weeks left before the start of term, so I might as well go back to school.” Hayden was just relieved that he wouldn’t have to buy a map and find his own way back from Kargath in the snow.

“I’ll drop you off before
I check on my research students.” He motioned for Hayden to lead the way back to his room.

Hayden summoned Bonk back to him and said goodbye to Master Kilgore
, before showing Willow to his room on the fourth floor and hastily packing his belongings, pell-mell, into his bag, so as to not keep the man waiting.

“Where are your re
search students at right now?” he tried to draw the Master into conversation while he hurried around the room to make sure he got everything.

“
Half of them are at school developing their projects for next year; the other half are in Wynir working on a way to quantify the amount of TMS that occurs as a result of complex spell-casting in a variety of different wand types. Wynir is an ideal location due to its proximity to the Forest of Illusions at the moment.”

Hayden paused in the middle of packing and furrowed his eyebrows pensively.

“TMS…I read about that late last night…” he racked his brain for the answer. “Isn’t it tan—something magical seepage?”

Master Willow looked pleasantly surprised to learn that he had been reading about wands during his winter holiday.

“Tangential magical spillage,” he corrected, picking up Hayden’s textbook from the floor and opening it to the page he had bookmarked. “Ah, yes, you’re in the chapter about pine, the most notorious wood for TMS.” He looked at Hayden again, who was busy trying to count socks as he stuffed them into his bag. “You’re already a hundred pages into the level-two textbook?”

“Yes, but I’ve had to read through it very fast
, so I’m not sure how much it’ll help me…” Hayden sighed. “I’m just trying to cram in as much as possible so I don’t fall behind in your level-three class on the first day.”

Master Willow
was still giving him that unnervingly thoughtful look.

“Focus on the summaries at the end of each chapter as well as the glossary
of terminology. If you can start the year with a decent understanding of things like TMS, splintering, and blending, you should be fine.”

Hayden wished someone had told him
that three weeks ago.

“The only one I’ve read about so far is TMS, and I’m not sure I understand it fully,” he admitted, gently taking the book from Master Willow’s hand so he could pack it as well. “The book makes it sound like magic just spews out of your wand whenever you try to use it.”

“That is more or less what happens,” Master Willow nodded. “The more complex your spell-casting is, the more strength of will it takes to pull it off properly. As you know by now, some woods are more stable than others, which is both a good and bad thing. The less stable a wand is, the more complexity it is capable of, which means you can cast difficult and powerful spells through it. On the other hand, the instability also means you’re more likely to get TMS, which consumes your wand much faster than desired. You may only get one or two high-powered spells out of a mastery-level wand for that reason alone.”

Hayden finished packing his bag but made no move to leave the room, contemplating what Master Willow just told him.

“So when you cast something really difficult, you’re exerting a lot of will on the world…and it pushes back?”

“Something
like that,” the Master of Wands confirmed. “Essentially, when you channel powerful magic through your wand, you get a lot of garbled magic sent back in return, which consumes your instrument. We call that tangled mess of magical energy TMS, and Wand majors have spent a century trying to figure out how to predict and minimize it.”

“So that’s why very difficult spells sometimes go really wrong when people cast them, because of TMS?”

“Often, yes.” Master Willow seemed pleased with his uptake. “I have a colleague in Wynir who was trying experimental magic with pine and experienced such a high amount of TMS that he lost a hand in the backlash.”

Hayden shuddered at the thought.

“Are you ready to return to Mizzenwald?” Master Willow glanced around the room to verify that it was free of personal effects.

“Oh, yeah, thanks.” Hayden held onto Bonk to make sure
he wouldn’t get left behind, while Willow drew a ten-centimeter yew wand, grabbed Hayden’s arm, and translocated them with a simple flick of the wrist.

Hayden blinked and found
himself standing in the warm sunlight of the main courtyard at Mizzenwald. There were two or three other students outside right now, working with their familiars at the obstacle courses. Hayden was glad to know that he wasn’t going to be alone in the castle for the next few weeks.