The Other Prism (The Broken Prism) (12 page)

“Um, I don’t know…I guess I did alright on the endurance trials the other day…” Hayden wasn’t really sure how to respond.

“Yes, I heard about that. It was telling, to be sure, but even then you weren’t tapping directly into your Source, so it wasn’t a true indication of how developed you are—magically speaking.” He considered Hayden for another brief moment. “Yes, I think you will go very far in Charms if you choose to stick with it.”

He had a slightly manic gleam in his eye now.

“Thank you, sir,” Hayden replied.

“I expect you’re going to be looking for a sponsorship with Asher in a few years, but if he’s too uptight to give you one, let me know and we can work something out.”

Surprised by the invitation, Hayden could only gape stupidly at Master Dirqua as he turned back to the rest of the class, most of who were slumped around various parts of the room, looking drowsy.

“About what I expected from the first day,” he announced to the room at large. “Rest up until the bell rings and you can be on your way; I’m going to grade some homework.” He grabbed hold of his Mastery Charm and vanished from the middle of the room.

Stunned by the abrupt dismissal, Hayden got up and decided to spend his free time outdoors, carefully stepping over the sleeping forms of his classmates.

***

Lorn Trout must have done alright on his Elixir’s final last term, because he was in the level-two class with Hayden this year. Though Hayden normally went to great efforts to avoid anyone whose last name was Trout, today he did his best to heed Master Asher’s advice and sat next to his nemesis.

Lorn spared him a wary glance, looking no more pleased to see Hayden than Hayden was to see him.

“What do you want, Frost?” Lorn greeted him coldly.

“I’m told that we’re in the same challeng
e group this year,” Hayden said as neutrally as possible.

“I don’t like it any more than you do,” Lorn scowled, looking more like Oliver by the day.

“Right, well, there’s nothing to do but get over it I guess.” This was more difficult than even Hayden thought it would be. “We all want to do well in the rosters this year, so we need to learn to work together.”

“I know that, Frost,” Lorn snapped. “Just don’t expect me to be all chummy with you.”

Hayden rolled his eyes. “I’ll try not to lose sleep over it.”

For a minut
e they sat in a silence filled with mutual disdain.

“We’re probably going to get together three times a week to prepare for the arenas
, like last year. Just show up and make sure we all know what you can do with Powders, and between you and Tess we should be fine.”

Lorn made a face at the mention of Tess.

“Don’t insult me by pretending that Tess the Mess is any competition for me in powders; elixirs I’ll grant her, but I mop the floor with her in Sark’s class.”

Hayden balled his hand into a fist and said, “Don’t ever call her that again or I’ll knock your teeth out,” through gritted teeth.

Lorn rolled his eyes, and fortunately Master Kilgore entered the classroom and put an end to their horrible, failed attempt at reconciliation.

Prisms class was uncomfortable because it was the first time he had seen all of his classmates since the final scores went up on the wall in the Pentagon. It was also the first time he had come face-to-face with the Prism Master since his tantrum the night before.

Master Asher acted completely normal, which would have been reassuring exc
ept that Hayden knew how well Asher could feign emotion (or lack thereof) when he wanted to. The Prism Master also pretended not to notice the tension between the five students in his level-three class, and began teaching them the chapter on complex alignments.

Even Hayden found it difficult to keep up in class today, because the simple alignments he was used to looking for rarely had more than four or five different colors to keep track of, while complex alignments could have up to thirteen bands of color to remember
in very precise order.

He took just as many notes as everyone else and hoped that it would be easier to find in the prism than it was to memorize from the textbook.

Master Asher approached him as he was packing his bag, head spinning with images of complex alignments and trying to remember if he had ever actually seen one in any of his prisms before.

“
What does your evening schedule look like this week?” Master Asher’s voice broke his train of thought, and he fell into step beside him as they walked towards the dining hall.

“Uh, I don’t know. I think our challe
nge group is going to practice on Lenthin, Serin, and Vadin, and I haven’t looked yet to see when our first arena is scheduled for. Other than that I guess I’m free.”

Master Asher nodded.

“Your team is up in two weeks, but you’ve got your first competition for the I.S.C. the day before.”

Hayden
’s eyes widened in shock.

“So soon?
They’re not giving us much time to prepare…”

“No, they aren’t. That’s why we do the tryouts for them after the first week.” Asher sighed. “You and I need to start meeting
to prepare you for it. I was our Prism in the I.S.C. twice while I was in school, so I can give you a rough idea of what to expect. I’ll also have to speed up parts of your education a bit to make sure you have a decent chance of holding your own.”

Hayden nodded enthusiastically, because he was always eager to learn more about prism-based magic.

“Okay, when do you think we should meet?”

“Hmm…well I’ve got some other commitments for a research project right now, so we might be working at odd hours. Stop
by my office just before lights-out tonight and I can walk you through the basics at least.”

“Alright, I’ll be there.” Hayden entered the dining hall and turned to join his friends, trying not to think about how exhausted he was going to be if he was spending his nights doing extra work on prisms in addition to his normal class load and challenge arena practice sessions.

He sat down beside Zane and across from Tess, informing them both that their first practice would be on Lenthin, which didn’t come as a surprise to either of them.

“One of us better tell Lorn so he can’t blame us for excluding him,”
Zane sighed regretfully, “though nothing would make me happier.”

“I’ll do it tomorrow in Elixirs,” Hayden volunteered. “And while we’re on the subject of Lorn…
” he started as neutrally as possible, “we all know how annoying he is, but we also need to learn to work with him, so let’s try to keep the animosity to a minimum.”

Zane and Conner stared at him as though he’d just grown a second head. Even Tess lifted her eyebrows in surprise.

“Since when did you decide to make peace with the Trouts?” Zane asked in disbelief.

“I’m not saying we need to be friends with him, we just need to learn to work together if we don’t want to botch up our arenas,” Hayden replied with a frown.

“If you say so, boss.” Zane shrugged.

“Let’s talk about something more cheerful,” Tamon grimaced. “Like game night.”

“Oh yeah, Hayden, I meant to tell you,” Zane brightened immediately. “We’re all going to get together after dinner tonight in the common area for game night. We decided that we’re not having nearly as much fun as we need to at school. Are you in?”

Frowning, Hayden shook his head.

“Sorry, I don’t think I can. I’ve got homework to do and I’ve got to finish it before lights out, because I’m supposed to meet Master Asher to do some more prism work to get ready for the I.S.C.”

Tess looked
disappointed. The others were incredulous.

“You’ve got extra lessons with Asher after dinner? When are you supposed to
sleep?
” Zane asked.

“No idea, but the first competition is the day before our first arena challenge, so I’m probably going to have my nose to the grindstone until that’s finished and I have some idea of what I’
m doing, though I guess if I lose in the first round of the competition the rest of my year will be a lot less busy.”

Tamon grimaced and said, “Well don’t you dare fail out on purpose; they’ll skin you alive—or worse, expel you.”

Hayden waved a hand in acknowledgement and returned to his pea soup, yawning widely and wondering if he was tired because of stress or because of the magic he used in Charms class this morning.

It took him the better part of the evening to finish his homework, and he wasn’t at all sure that his Conjury essay was
as good as it could have been, but he had no choice unless he wanted to be late for his meeting with the Prism Master. As it was, he was still cutting it close on his timing, and had jogged past the common area and down two flights of stairs before realizing that he still had Bonk sitting on his shoulder.

There was no time to return his familiar to the dorm room, so he told Bonk to be good unless he wanted to wait in the hallway. Stopping just long enough to catch his breath, Hayden knocked on the door to Master Asher’s office on the ground floor, not terribly far from where his private living area was located.

“Come in,” the Prism Master called out from inside, and Hayden pushed the door open and entered the room.

If Hayden had ever thought that the desk in Master Asher’s classroom was cluttered, he revoked the sentiment immediately. The Prism Master’s office made his classroom look positively tidy. Four desks had been pushed together in the center of the room to form one massive table, which was entirely covered by large sheets of paper with partial prisms and complex alignments drawn on them. Sheaves of paper were stacked on the floor, lining the walls,
and an entire bookshelf was crammed full of partial prisms: some were lopsided, others looked like they had holes carved out of the center of them, and some were three different colors.

For a long moment, Hayden stood in the doorway and looked around the room, trying to take it all in. He had absolutely no idea how the Prism Master could
ever find anything he was looking for.

Asher was sitting in one of three chairs in the room, reclined back with his feet propped up on the large table of drawings. His eyepiece was in front of his left eye, and he was looking through a violet-tinted crystal prism as well as a clear one, which he was holding up in front of it.

“Just a second, I’m tracking an alignment,” the Prism Master greeted him, rotating the clear prism slowly and cocking his head to one side. Trying not to bother him, Hayden sat down in one of the other chairs, forbade Bonk from spitting fire under any circumstances (as much paper as there was, the entire room would likely go up in flames), and examined the top sheet of paper on the floor nearest him. There were a surprising number of calculations and angles drawn on it; Hayden didn’t understand a bit of it.

“Okay, I’ve got it,” Asher captured his attention, returning the clear prism to his belt and moving his eyepiece out of the way so that it rested on top of his head. “Been chasing that one for a while now; twenty-six bands long and I still can’t tell if it actually does anything useful.”

Hayden wasn’t sure how to respond to that, and Master Asher changed the subject before he could think of anything.

“Anyway, you don’t care about that. Let’s talk abou
t the Inter-School Championship. What do you know about it so far?”

Hayden frowned thoughtfull
y. “Not much, just that the five eastern schools compete and the four western schools compete, and the winners from each go up against each other in the finals.”

“Actually, you’re in luck. We only go up against the western schools every four years, because organizing that kind of effort is a nightmare. We’re on one of the off-years right now, so this is really just the Eastern I.S.C.”

Hayden wasn’t remotely upset to learn that there was one less competition for him to partake in this year.

“I’ll tell you how the tournament is going to g
o,” Master Asher said. “The five Prisms—one from each school—will meet first at Valhalla in Amvale. You’ll duke it out over whatever challenge they give you, and whoever comes in last place will be out of the competition. The remaining four will then go on to round two, which will take place here at Mizzenwald. After that it’s Isenfall, and lastly Branx, in Wynir.”

“Has the Prism for Mizzenwald ever lost in the very first round before?” Hayden didn’t like to think of himself being the first to disgrace the school.

Master Asher gave him an understanding smile when he answered. “Yes, but not in almost thirty years. On the other hand, after me, you’re the youngest to compete for Mizzenwald during that time frame, so just do your best and no one will think the worse of you even if you do come home early. Well, they might—” Master Asher quickly amended, “—but I doubt anyone except for the Trouts will tease you about it to your face.”

Hayden had more important things on his mind than whether
or not the Trouts would tease him.

“Wait, you were my age when you were in the I.S.C.?”