The Other Prism (The Broken Prism) (28 page)

“Hayden, hello, fancy meeting you here.”
He beamed at him. “Cal, long time no see—”

“Not long enough for my liking,” muttered the chairman.

“—and Brandon, hello,” the Master continued as though there had been no interruption. “Has anyone ever told you you’ve got an excellent tailor?” He admired the suit.

“If you refer to me so informally again, I’ll find something to have you arrested for,” the High Mayor said darkly.

“Of course, where are my manners?” Asher didn’t look daunted in the least. “Your Eminence, Most High of Mayors, it is an honor and a pleasure to be in your exalted company—”

“That will do, Masters. Now stop being obnoxious, if you can manage it.”

The Prism Master smiled cheerfully and fell silent, though Calahan opened his mouth and said, “What are you
doing
here?”

“
I heard that my young protégé was in town, requesting a tour of his late father’s mansion, and that you refused him access to a place he is perfectly entitled to visit.”

The two older men couldn’t have looked more surprised if Asher had announced he was actually a woman. It was the first real expression that Hayden had seen on the High Mayor’s face since meeting the man.

“Wha—how could you know that he was here?” Calahan blurted out in indignation.

Master Asher just smiled benignly.

“Never mind that,” the mayor interrupted. “How could you know that we denied his request? I have systems in place that should render it impossible for magical eavesdropping to work in my office.”

Asher raised an eyebrow in amusement.

“I didn’t overhear anything; I just assumed you would refuse him.” He shrugged.  “Clearly I wasn’t wrong.”

The High Mayor exhaled in relief, but
Calahan looked more annoyed than ever.

“Surely even
you
can see why it is impossible for the boy to go there,” he spoke about Hayden as though he wasn’t even in the room, which was fine with him right now.

Asher looked surprised. “Why? Has the mansion burned down?”

“Of course not, but you know I can’t allow the son of the Dark Prism to access his father’s caches of magical weaponry.”

Asher raised an eyebrow. “Can’t, or won’t?” He didn’t wait for a response. “And I refuse to believe that the Council of Mages left any weaponry—magical or otherwise—lying around the place, after you’ve spent the last three years going over it with a fine-toothed comb.”

“The Dark Prism was brilliant. Evil, but brilliant all the same. If you don’t imagine that he has hiding places and booby traps all over the estate…we’ve had to examine every inch of the place to be sure there aren’t more hidden caches to discover.”

“I can imagine.” Master Asher nodded in sympathy. “And when’s the last time you actually found anything?”

“Six months ago,” Calahan admitted warily. “There was a stone column that concealed a book on corrupted inverse-alignments. Took seven of us to figure out what spells we needed to access it.”

“
Well there you have it,” Asher waved a dismissive hand. “I don’t think Hayden wants permission to look for his father’s old research notes, and you’ve just said yourself that you’ve found everything in plain—and not-so-plain—sight. Surely it can’t hurt to let him walk around the main floor space. I could chaperone if you’d like.”

“Over my lifeless, rotting corpse,” the High Mayor interjected, pressing his hands against the desk in front of him. “You are the last person I would trust in that house, as you well know.”

Offended on his mentor’s behalf, Hayden spoke up at last. “Master Asher isn’t evil just because he was friends with my father when they were teenagers.” He set his jaw firmly, trying to remain calm. “They stopped being friends when my father started screwing around with broken prisms, and he almost got killed fighting against him in the end, so stop acting like he’s the bad guy.”

The others looked universally stunne
d that he opened his mouth, even Master Asher. Calahan recovered first.

“
And why did Asher live, when so many others died? The Dark Prism spared him, which begs the question of whether their entire fight was staged for our benefit, to make sure that Aleric had a mole inside the magical community even if things went south for him.”

Asher rolled his eyes. “We’ve been over this numerous times. I seem to even remember being acquitted of wrong-doing during my trial. I have no idea why Aleric spared me, as I was unconscious and suffering the effects of light-sickness at the time.”

“There is still the question of the Black Prism,” the High Mayor said quietly, and the others fell silent.

“I don’t know where it is. I’ve never known where it is,” Asher broke the silence first. “If it didn’t turn to dust in the explosion that took out Hayden’s home, then he hid it somewhere fantastic, because I know you’ve been searching for it for years.”

Hayden’s stomach rolled over as he realized what they were discussing. His father’s famous Black Prism, which was never consumed no matter what he cast through it, the thing that had destroyed so many lives…

“It’s still missing?” He frowned.

“Yes, it is,” Calahan answered him. “No one has seen it since they’ve seen your father.”

Asher changed the subject abruptly.

“Hayden is the sole surviving Frost, which makes him the legal heir of the estate. At some point in time you must turn it over to him to occupy or sell at his discretion. You can’t legally bar him from going there now unless you can prove it is dangerous, and as long as you don’t have him rooting around wall panels for illicit magical items, I don’t see why it should be. If you don’t like me as an escort, then send one of your lackeys.”

Calahan
and the High Mayor frowned in silence for a long moment, but finally the latter said, “Very well. He can visit the place during his winter break from Mizzenwald. That will give us a few months to ensure that the main areas are safe, and he will be accompanied by someone from the Council.”

“Fabulous,” Asher drawled sardonically. “Well, I’ve got pressing business in
Wynir, so I’d best be off. Hayden, do you need a lift back to Mizzenwald?”

“Yes, please.” He scrambled out of his seat, thrilled that he was being allowed to visit his father’s house, and that he wouldn’t have to spend the next two weeks walking back to school, begging food from strangers
or relying on Bonk’s hunting skills.

“
Wynir?” Calahan interrupted. “Surely not the Forest of Illusions?”

Asher stopped and turned back around. “It
is
a good place to work magic, as it’s positively brimming with it…”

“We’ve closed off mos
t of the primary entrances to the Forest, in light of the scouts we’ve intercepted from the northern continent.”

Asher grimaced and said, “The north is planning another war?”

“It seems they still want control of the Forest—and the rest of us—as badly as ever.” Cal looked grim. “We’ve eliminated their first wave of sentries, but I don’t doubt that they’ll send more. It would be ideal if the Forest would relocate itself further inland so that it’s not accessible from the coast.”

“I don’t think their sorcerers will be afraid of moving inland, even if it does
move,” Asher countered reasonably.

“No, but it will make things more difficult for them and give us time to head them off.” He sighed. “We’re still granting limited access for those with Mastery status or equivalent, but there ma
y come a time when even that won’t be allowed.”

“Are you enlisting fighters?”

“Yes, we are. Magdalene is in charge of spreading word of the threat throughout Junir, and drafting mages who can fight when the time comes. I don’t doubt that you’ll be seeing her soon.”

Hayden didn’t like the sound of the Prism Master going to war one bit, and was sure that Oliver and Lorn felt the same way about their mother leading the troops from
Junir.

“Alright, well thanks for the advanced warning.” Asher nodded cordially to each of the men and then led Hayden out of the office and through the Small Council chambers. They didn’t speak again until they were outside of the compound entirely.

“Sir, does this mean that you and the other Masters are going to have to go to war against the north?”

“Possibly,” Asher frowned, angling his strange circlet so that it shaded his eyes from the sun. “But there’s no point in worrying about that now.”

“How come your circlet has those different eyepieces?” Hayden pointed at it for good measure, and Master Asher brought the eyepieces down over his left eye so Hayden could see.

Hayden had only ever seen eyepieces capable of holding one prism, but this one had four. Three of the monocles were attached to the circlet in a half-circle along the left side of his face, leaving his right eye
unobscured. The fourth monocle was stacked in front of the one directly over his eye. There were prisms in all four eyepieces.

“It’s an advanced compounding circlet,” Asher explained, demonstrating. “When you’ve finished the mastery level at Mizzenwald, you’ll be cleared to upgrade to one, though I don’t wear mine most of the time because it’s so heavy. You see, there are three prisms in the primary slots, so you can switch between them quickly without having to stop and change out prisms.”

He rotated the eyepieces so that each one moved in front of his eye as the entire thing spun in a circle in front of his face.

“The secondary slot—the compounding slot—can be brought down behind the primary,
so you can compound your prisms without having to hold the second one in your hand. It leaves both of your Foci free.”

Hayden stared in awe, immediately itching to own one of those circlets himself, because it would be a lot more useful in the I.S.C. than the one he was using right now. Master Asher apparently read the longing on his face, because he said, “It is primarily used in combat situations, where speed is of the essence, though I’m using it for my research in the Forest of Illusions because I get tired of holding prisms up to the light after a while.”

“I wish I could use one now for the I.S.C.,” Hayden grumbled.

“Patience, young Frost. Your time will come soon enough.” The Prism Master smirked and spun the prisms around so that he was lined up to compound violet-violet. “Now take my arm if you want a ride back to school.”

Hayden took hold of Asher’s forearm and said, “I thought you didn’t need to use prisms to travel if you had a Mastery charm.”

Asher frowned and said, “I’ll explain it someday.” Then they were gone.

Hayden blinked and stared at the castle he had come to call home, still amazed that they could travel such vast distances in the blink of an eye. He released Asher’s arm.

“How did you know that
Calahan and the mayor would say no?”

The Prism Master gave him a wry grin and said, “I’ve known them for years. When you told me you were going to petition them, I knew they would do anything
they could to prevent it, especially since you’re young and don’t understand the law or your rights.”

“Well, thanks for coming to help me,” Hayden frowned. “But how did you know what day I would be there?”

“Oh, I’ve got friends in all sorts of places, and where I don’t have friends, I generally have people who owe me favors.”

“Who owed you a favor?”

“Cecily, the clerk in the mayor’s office. I told her a few weeks ago that if anyone showed up wanting to see the old Frost mansion, she should notify me, since I knew she’d have a way of summoning Cal for the mayor whenever he needs it.”

Hayden raised an eyebrow in surprise, because he couldn’t imagine someone as humdrum as Cecily knowing someone as eccentric as Master Asher.

“What did she owe you a favor for?”

Master Asher clapped him on the shoulder and said, “That’s a story for a different day. Enjoy the rest of your break, Hayden. I’ve got a magical forest to explore.”

And with that he was gone.

15

The Oculus

H
ayden was quick to share the details of his holiday as soon as his roommates returned for the autumn term. The four of them plus Tess were sitting on down-stuffed chairs in the third-year common area, sipping cocoa while Hayden explained his meeting with the High Mayor and the head of the Council of Mages.

“Holy harpies, weren’t you afraid they were going to arrest you for even asking?” Conner
made a face.

“Not until I got there. If Asher hadn’t shown up and annoyed them until they gave in, I might be sitting in a stockade somewhere
right now,” Hayden admitted.

“Good of him to keep an eye out for you during the holiday,” Zane agreed. “But I feel compelled to point out, as your friend, that you have the worst summer holiday luck of anyone I know. Las
t year we met a dragon at my place, and this year you nearly get killed at your childhood home and then arrested by the High Mayor in Kargath. You should probably just stop vacationing before it kills you.”

Hayden rolled his eyes and Tamon snorted in amusement. Tess frowned seriously.

“Do you really think we’re going to go to war against the northern continent soon?”

“
Dunno, but the Council must think so if they’ve started restricting access to the Forest of Illusions,” Conner said without turning away from his snowy owl, who he was attempting to feed by hand.

“Why would the northern continent be so interested in the Forest?” Hayden asked no one in particular. “Don’t they have one of their own?”

“I have no idea, but the Forest of Illusions is the most magic-infested place on our continent—possibly in the world,” Zane explained. “It’s so chock-full of magic that it isn’t even stable enough to sit still for more than a few years at a time, which is why it’s always moving to different places on our continent.”

“I don’t know much about the northern mages at all,” Tess frowned thoughtfully. “My dad just says they’re evil and dangerous, and that they hate us.”

It was Tamon who answered. “That’s partially true. They’re called sorcerers, not mages, and I think their magic is very different than ours. I’ve heard that they do all sorts of things to make themselves more powerful, like bypassing their Foci or using blood in their magic.”

Hayden shuddered and said, “That sounds unnatural.”

“Well, there’s a reason we don’t do any of that stuff down here.” Tamon shrugged. “Hopefully they’ll stay on their side of the sea for a good long time, because the last thing we need right now is war with the north. We’re being overrun by magical monsters and we’re only just beginning to recover from the reign of the Dark Prism.” He glanced at Hayden. “No offense, man, but it’s true.”

Hayden sighed and said, “I know.”

“If they do attack, I’m not sure what will happen to Mizzenwald,” Conner put in. “If it comes to war, they’re going to be drafting all of the powerful mages they can find, and the Masters of the Great Nine have to be near the top of that list. Would they close to the school down until the war is over or try to keep it open?”

“Surely they wouldn’t take
all
of the Masters…” Zane trailed off. “I mean, someone has to stay behind and run the place, or all of us mages-in-training will be put off our learning schedule and they won’t have any reinforcements if the fight drags on for years.”

“Well, let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that,” Hayden said quietly. “If there’s one thing we could all use right now, it’s a little peace and quiet.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Zane raised his glass of peach tea and took a large gulp, and the others followed suit.

Three days later Hayden made a resolution to stop wishing for things, because it always seemed to backfire immediately, as though the universe was playing some giant cosmic joke on him.

The day started out innocently enough. Since Lorn returned from the holiday just the
day before, they had an extended practice session for their challenge group, and for once they actually worked well together as a team. Hayden was in fairly high spirits by the end of it, and thanked everyone sincerely for their hard work.

After
a relaxing lunch with his friends, he took Bonk out to the main courtyard to play ‘fetch’ for a while. Dinner was salmon croquettes, which weren’t Hayden’s favorite, but other than that it was a good enough meal. It wasn’t until Zane suggested that they go outside and practice conjury that things began to go wrong.

“Why do you insist on making me practice my summoning circles when we’re on break? I’ll have to draw enough of them when we start classes again tomorrow,” Hayden groaned.

“Because you’re still kind of terrible at it, and I don’t want you to translocate your face to Mount Arawas on accident because you can’t figure out how to draw a double-stranded braid,” Zane answered without apology.

Hayden made a face at the mental imagery that invoked and said, “Fine. But it’s
a wasted effort. I’m just not ever going to be very good at Conjury. Truthfully, I might drop the class at the end of the year.”

“But you can’t drop Conjury! You’re better at it than Elixirs, and you’re sticking with that
, aren’t you?” Zane looked aghast at the prospect of anyone dropping his favorite subject.

“Actually
, I’m getting a little better at Elixirs, especially since Tess has been nice enough to help me out with the homework. She explains it better than Master Kilgore sometimes.” Hayden smirked, and Tess blushed at the compliment. “And anyway, I may not be great with elixirs, but I enjoy the class more than Conjury. Master Kilgore doesn’t ever imply that I might have a nerve disorder because I can’t draw a straight line without my hand wobbling.”

Zane snorted in amusement.

“Then it’s my job to improve your conjuring before the end of the year so I can convince you to stay in the best subject ever,” he rallied immediately. “Now get outside and get to work.”

Hayden
sighed and got to his feet. To his surprise, so did Tess.

“Can I
come watch?”

“Sure,” Zane agreed immediately. “Maybe that will encourage him to try a little harder, since you’ll be there to witness his shame if he fails.”

Hayden scowled and stuck out his foot, tripping Zane as he passed, though his friend recovered his balance before falling over. It was true that Hayden hated looking like an idiot in front of Tess, mostly because she seemed to hold him in high esteem—a rarity, as most people still thought Hayden was the Dark Prism reborn—and her good opinion was important to him.

They settled onto the stone floor in the main courtyard, and Zane challenged him to conjure a ham from the kitchens. Hayden knew that it would require a double-braid and three crosshatches, a difficult fe
at for him to pull off on a good day, and he scowled and got to work, trying to make the pink chalk lines as precise as possible.

When he was finished
he leaned back to examine his work. The circle itself wasn’t half bad, and the crosshatches were the right length, though perhaps not evenly centered, but the braiding was as dreadful as usual.

Zane barely suppressed a shudder at his poor drawing skills just as Tess said, “It’s not that bad.”

Zane snorted. “Go ahead then, Hayden. Let’s see you conjure up that ham.”

Hayden, preparing for the worst, closed his eyes and focused his will entirely upon the thing he was trying to summon and put his hand into the middle of the circle, grasping and pulling upwards from the ground. He knew immediately that something was off, because a ham shouldn’t be struggling against him, but it wasn’t until Tess gasped and Zane laughed that he opened his eyes and looked at the live badger in his grasp.

He panicked and released it before it could bite him, and the three of them watched it scamper off past the boundaries of the school and disappear from sight. Zane was laughing so hard that it looked painful.

“That wasn’t…so bad,” Tess offered diplomatically. “I mean, at least you summoned a live creature without hurting it on accident.”

Zane eventually calmed down and wiped the tears from his eyes.

“Yes, but where in the world did you conjure that badger from? There’s no way we have them running around the kitchens here.”

Hayden scowled and said, “I have no idea. I was focusing on the kitchens as hard as I could.”

“Well, that just goes to show you why you need to work on your artistic abilities,” Zane countered.

Hayden was about to tell Zane where he could shove his piece of chalk, when he was startled by a loud shouting noise coming from the east side of the castle and drawing nearer by the second.

The three of them stopped talking and turned towards the noise, Hayden’s muscles tensing in preparation for the unknown. To his surprise, Bonk flew around the corner and soared toward them at speed. He had
something clamped in his teeth and something in his claws, but the dragonling was moving too quickly for Hayden to see what either object was.

“What in the—”

Zane cut himself off when the source of the yelling became apparent. The owner of the Pounds of Prisms shop came careening around the corner, chasing Bonk and shouting something about thievery. He had threatened to disembowel Hayden’s familiar twice by the time the dragon reached him and deposited the things he was carrying.

Hayden was stunned when Bonk opened his mouth and dropped the green prism into his hands, and even more so when he deposited the phial of murky brown elixir at Tess’s feet.

“Bonk, what in the world have you done?” Hayden greeted him in alarm, as the owner of the prism shop came to a halt in front of them, panting from exertion and looking murderous.

Bonk shifted casually behind Hayden as though hoping to go unnoticed, and it must have worked, because the angry man directed his fury at Hayden and said, “You and that menace of a dragon have gone one step too far this time!”

“What are you talking about? What happened?” Hayden was struggling to catch up to the situation, still clutching the green prism in his left hand.

“I caught your little pet stealing that prism for you, and I know for a fact that you’re not cleared to carry green prisms yet!” He pointed triumphantly
at the prism in Hayden’s palm.

“Hey there,” Zane interjected hotly, “Hayden didn’t tell Bonk to take that prism for him! We were just sitting out here, minding our own business when you and Bonk showed up.”

“I have no quarrels with you, Larraby, though I think you keep poor company. Your ancestors would be ashamed if they saw you supporting the son of the Dark Prism.” The man scowled at Hayden as though it was all his fault Zane was his friend. “But that boy and his menacing dragon have gone one step too far this time, and the punishment for theft and carrying equipment you’re not cleared for is expulsion.”

Hayden blanched and said, “But I really didn’t tell him to take—”

“And you, young lady,” he whirled on Tess. “I don’t know if you’re permitted to carry whatever’s in that phial or not, but if you’re determined to dishonor your mother by hanging around the riff-raff who killed her, then you deserve expulsion too.”

Rage swelled inside of Hayden so rapidly that his vision went black for a moment
, and he clenched his jaw so hard that he nearly cracked a tooth. It was fortunate that Zane took the opportunity to yell, “Hayden didn’t kill Tess’s mother, you psycho!” before Hayden could do something truly stupid, like stand up and punch the man.

Tess looked white and miserable, and Hayden wasn’t sure who he wanted to shout at more, the man yelling at him or Bonk
, for causing all of this trouble. Just as he was concocting a way to shriek at them simultaneously, the owner of the prism shop took a step backwards and said, “What the—?”

If he didn’t look so frightened, Hayden would have gone on with his rant the way he planned, but the fear on the older man’s face caused the three of them to turn around and see what he was looking at over their shoulders.

Bonk took flight and soared back towards the castle without prompting, as Hayden, Tess, and Zane stared open-mouthed at the strange phenomena behind them.

At first it was hard to figure out what they were looking at. Hayden squinted and craned his neck, certain that his eyes were deceiving him. Then he panicked.

In the middle of thin air, a pair of dark brown eyes hovered in a blurry face. The only thing he could be sure of was that the eyes were focused on him and his friends at that exact moment. It looked as though the air between them was a series of curtains that were being pulled back one by one to sharpen the image on the other side—like a window into another world that was gradually becoming clearer.

“What
is
that?” the owner of Pounds of Prisms sounded terrified.

Hayden had no answer. He had never heard of this before, of the air becoming so thin that it revealed hidden people. Reflexively, he glanced at Zane and Tess.

“Who is that?” Zane’s voice shook strangely. “And how did he penetrate the shields around Mizzenwald to look into the grounds?”