The Schism (The Broken Prism Book 4) (21 page)

“This hallway connects to the main part of the house, and since most guests have to pass through it at some point, it’s where most of the Frosts’ accolades are displayed. You see, there’s a writ of merit to your grandfather for donating much needed medicines to Osglen after a nasty hurricane twenty years ago,” he pointed to a long scroll on the wall that had been inked and stamped with a lot of fancy insignias. “That next one is to Herewald Frost for becoming the youngest ever Chief Mage on the Council.”

“What’s that awesome-looking crown for?” Zane pointed to a crown that looked like it was made entirely of diamond. The light streaming in from the grounds scattered colored bands all around it, like an oddly-shaped prism. It was rimmed in thin bands of onyx and had a colored ‘M’ etched into the center of it above the forehead. Hayden could tell it must be very important to be so prominently displayed on a pedestal at the end of the hallway, just before the next room.

“That’s the extremely-rare, highly-coveted Crown of Mastery,” Asher explained, admiring it briefly. “It was given to Hayden’s great aunt for demonstrating total mastery of all five of the major arcana—quite a feat,” he continued. “There are probably only a handful of these on the entire continent.”

Fia Valay stopped to examine it more fully, taking care not to give offense by touching it, while the rest of them continued on to the next room. Hayden remembered the formal dining room from his last visit, with the table large enough to seat forty and the three chandeliers dangling high above. Even Tess raised her eyebrows in amazement at how large the room was.

“Tell me the family didn’t eat dinner here every night by themselves,” her father said incredulously, like he couldn’t imagine such wanton extravagance.

“This was only really used for parties or business meetings. Normally the family ate in the secondary dining room, which can only comfortably seat ten,” Asher explained. “One time Aleric and I thought to play a joke on his father, and we moved this monstrosity of a table onto the roof, along with all the chairs. It took a considerable amount of time and magic to pull off, and we thought we were terribly clever, until his father came home with a large delegation including most of his business partners from around the Nine Lands—apparently they were supposed to close a major business deal that night and we had no idea.” Asher grimaced at the memory. “The whole lot of them walked into this empty room, and I swear the old man didn’t even blink at the sight of all the furniture gone. He asked us where everything was, and then calmly announced that they would be dining on the roof that night to enjoy the spectacular view and nice weather—thank the heavens it wasn’t raining that night. He nearly flayed us alive later—privately, of course—but he did get his deal to go through, and for a short time afterwards rooftop dining became trendy among the elite families.”

They shared a moment of stunned silence as their imaginations ran with that. Asher walked a few more paces and then gave the carpet a sad smile.

“About here is where I accidentally vomited on the carpet after sampling his Aleric’s father’s whiskey…” he frowned. “You can still tell that they cut that patch out and replaced it. Aleric took the blame for it, and the next time I saw him, half his face was swollen and black-and-blue. He would never say that his father had beaten him for it, but I always knew the truth.” He paused for a heavy moment. “He was a good friend.”

Even Tess’s father looked uncomfortable now, which was saying something, as he hated the Dark Prism more than most for robbing him of his wife.

Asher shook his head to clear it and brightened.

“Sorry, I’m being maudlin. Let’s continue on a more cheerful note.” He walked to the next room.

True to his word, Asher only shared humorous stories for the remainder of the visit, showing them around every room in the house while surreptitiously checking hiding places he must have known about for signs of Aleric’s magic. It was more than Hayden had ever really heard anyone share about his father at one time, and he tried to absorb everything, adding to his mental picture of who the man had been before his days as the Dark Prism. Still, by the time they left the Frost estate that night, the only story that really stood out in his head was the one he’d heard back in the formal dining room.

Asher must have been able to read his silence, because after they dropped everyone else back off at their respective destinations, he motioned for Zane to go on inside and asked for a private word with Hayden.

“Did you find anything suspicious while we were at the house?” Hayden interrupted before he could speak, not sure he was ready to put his feelings into words just yet.

His mentor allowed the change of subject.

“No, though I don’t doubt there are still things hidden around the place. I’d have to do a more exhaustive search to even hope of finding any of them; the Council seems to have picked off all the obvious things.”

“Oh, well you’re welcome to stop by when you find yourself with limitless leisure time to look for corrupt magic,” Hayden said. “Not that I really expect to find the Black Prism hidden under a couch or anything, but let me know if I need to bleed on anything to see if it opens up for me.”

“I’m never sure if I want to find the Black Prism or not,” Asher admitted. “On the one hand, it’s an evil relic that should be destroyed. I don’t like to think of it lost somewhere in the world, sitting on some ignoramus’s bookshelf gathering dust, waiting for someone to come along who understands the value of it.” He frowned. “On the other hand, finding such a priceless instrument comes with its own set of temptations. I’m the curious sort—you know as well as I do that I’d be tempted to at least examine it before destroying the thing, and having examined it…who’s to say it won’t tempt me in some way to use it?” He shuddered.

Hayden considered that for a long moment.

“I don’t know…I’d still trust you with it more than any of our friends on the Council of Mages. I believe you would destroy it properly, even if you looked at it for a minute first. But them? They’d probably try to preserve it as an artifact, or study it, or use it as a threat to keep people in line…”

Asher waved a hand to concede the point and said, “Sorry if I bothered you with my reminiscing today. I didn’t think the memories would come to me so powerfully just from visiting the place, but it stirred up a lot of things I haven’t thought about in years.”

Hayden shrugged. “No, I like hearing about how my father was before the Dark Prism part of his life—that’s all anyone else ever wants to talk about. But at the same time, it’s really depressing to hear how he was, knowing what he became. Hearing what a good friend he was to you, and then realizing that that person somehow changed into the one that tried to kill you and everyone else he was angry at…it just makes me realize more and more that it could really happen to anyone who isn’t careful with their magic. It’s a sobering thought.”

Asher nodded.

“I can’t imagine being so lost in my own head. It’s the main reason I’m not looking forward to entering the schism, in the event we can’t find anyone else to close it and it doesn’t go on its own.”

Hayden jumped as though startled.

“You can’t volunteer to go into that horrible thing! Your left Foci might be damaged enough to withstand the effects for a while, but your right one is completely intact!”

Asher looked like he was debating whether to share his next thought with him. Finally he reached some internal decision and said, “Yes, but the Council is becoming increasingly desperate. I’d shield you from the truth, but you’ll hear about it when you return to school anyway—the rumor mill is unstoppable around that place.” He sighed.

“What’s happened now?” Hayden asked with mounting dread.

“As you correctly pointed out, it would be really helpful to have two damaged Foci before tackling the schism, so some genius on the Council came up with a way to solve that problem…”

Having a sudden, sickening idea where this was going, Hayden said, “Tell me they didn’t.”

Asher nodded. “I’m afraid so. They attempted to warp the Foci of a—I suppose he was a volunteer—badly enough to need extensive correction, but not so badly that he couldn’t perform magic any longer.”

“Did it work?” Hayden had a horrible feeling that he knew the answer before he even asked.

“Their first volunteer was permanently crippled—magically speaking, that is. The second changed her mind halfway through, after suffering the excruciating agony of having one of her Foci overwhelmed by magic.”

He frowned and added, “The third died.”

“They
killed
someone?” Hayden asked, aghast.

“Not intentionally, I’m sure.” Asher said, though he scowled. “It’s not the kind of thing anyone has tried to do on purpose before, and it’s certainly not an exact science. I don’t believe there has been a fourth attempt yet—they’re likely running low on volunteers at this point.”

“No kidding,” Hayden mumbled darkly.

“That being said, before they can get to the lunacy of making the volunteerism mandatory, several of us Masters will likely take a stab at it, if only to delay the inevitable for a while longer.”

“Can they actually
force
people to endure torture so that they can be thrown into a schism and told to fend for themselves?” Hayden asked in disbelief.

“Not legally, but you know how these things go. Who can argue that a person didn’t volunteer except for the victim themselves? And if they aren’t in any condition to remember the events leading up to it, or if they’re in no condition to speak of them…”

“Great, something new to have nightmares about,” Hayden grumbled. “They’ll really do anything to avoid having to go inside the schism themselves, won’t they? Can’t they be overthrown and replaced with better leaders?”

Asher shrugged and said, “They aren’t the first rulers to scamper to the top of the food chain on the backs of the common mage, and they won’t be the last, I’m sure. The best we can do is work around them until they die off or are replaced by better people. Anyway, sorry to give you nightmares—I’ll leave you to get what rest you can.”

And with that, he was gone.

Hayden slept poorly that night, and found the rest of his holiday much less enjoyable than the first part, though Bonk occasionally brought him dead squirrels in what he supposed was a gesture to cheer him up.

It was almost a relief to get back to Mizzenwald, if only because he stayed so busy during the school year that it was much harder to find time to dwell on his darker thoughts. He told Zane and Tess what Master Asher had shared with him regarding the new plan of attack by the Council of Mages, and they shared in his horror at the thought of someone willfully warping their Foci.

“How do they even go about it?” Zane wondered out loud in the fifth-year common area on the night of their return to school, spearing a marshmallow on a stick and holding it over the fireplace to toast it.

“Well, most Foci damage is caused by trying to force way more magic through them than what they can handle, like what happened to Hayden on the day his parents died,” Tess explained gently, glancing at his Focus correctors. “Obviously Hayden’s case was an extreme example, but I imagine it didn’t feel very nice having your magical conduits overwhelmed—which is probably why they’re not having a hard time finding people who are willing to try it.”

Hayden recalled what he could about his light-sickness, the searing pain shooting through his arms as though he was being burned alive from the inside out, the blinding, stabbing sensation in his head, the nausea and vomiting…

“Honestly, it was mortal agony, and I can’t even remember it all that well,” he admitted. “I think it was so terrible that my mind blocked the worst of it from my memory, but what I
can
recall was the absolute worst pain I’ve ever endured in my life—and that’s saying something, because I get my butt kicked by someone or something almost daily since I started coming to school here.”

Zane chuckled in appreciation of his humor, but still looked nauseous at the thought of light-sickness.

“Obviously the people signing up for it don’t know just how awful it is until they experience it for themselves,” he shuddered, causing his marshmallow to fall of the stick and into the flames. Scowling, he situated a new one on the stick and tried again.

“You know,
eventually
the word is going to get out about the poor results of their Focus experiments, and the Council is going to run out of options,” Zane frowned. “I don’t envy their position right now; it’s not like they have much of a chance of closing the thing themselves, but if they don’t somehow manage it then they’re going to get the blame for leaving a schism open in the middle of a school for magic.”

“That’s still no reason to force mages to risk their lives, or damage their Foci irreparably, just to save their careers,” Tess argued with a scowl.

“I’m not saying it is,” Zane countered lightly, “just that it must be a tough position to be in.”

“I think I’m going to bed,” Hayden announced after dropping his third marshmallow into the flames and taking it as a sign to quit trying. “I haven’t been sleeping really well, and the Masters won’t go easy on us in classes tomorrow even though it’s our first day back.”

His friends bade him goodnight, and he returned to his dorm room alone, considering whether he should review some of his notes tonight or just save it all for tomorrow. Knowing he was likely to regret not brushing up on his reading, he still decided to turn in early for the night, vowing to study extra hard during his breaks the following day.