by V. St. Clair
Exasperated, Asher said, “The spell development was a complete waste of time,” desperate to make him understand so that he could be on with his work. “It isn’t about the spell itself; it never was. I spent all this time trying to make a modified Boil, when what I really needed was Trish to barge in on me mid-cast and startle me into brilliance.”
Now most of the Masters were looking at him like he was insane. Why do they always look like that when I’m talking to them?
“You lost me,” Kilgore said bluntly. “What does Tricia have to do with this?”
“Nothing,” Asher began. “Well, everything…in a way. See, she walked in on me when I was trying to cast Boil underwater and surprised me, and my mind latched onto a group of arrays that made me half-successful when I wasn’t even thinking about it. That made me realize that I was thinking about this entire thing too hard…it should be more intuitive than re-deriving all our classic spells with wide-bands.”
“Go on,” Master Willow urged him gently.
“It wasn’t the spell that needed to change—those months of modifications were useless—it was the modifier. The color bands you need for the main spell determine what modifier you need, and my theory is that it should just be a direct inverse through wide-bands. Then the trick is to not focus too hard—which is counterintuitive since you need as much focus as possible for normal casting. But working with diffuse bands is different, you see? You need to relax your focus as much as possible…”
“Do you people actually find this sort of thing interesting?” Reede interrupted, addressing the two prism-users blandly. “All those colors and measurements and inverses make me want to fall asleep where I stand. Chalk is so much easier to work with.”
But Master Antwar understood what he was saying, well enough to frown thoughtfully and say, “An interesting theory…but I still don’t want you risking your safety on something that hasn’t been thoroughly vetted yet. You could cripple yourself for life.”
For a moment, Master Laurren’s words came unbidden to Asher, that he would become damaged in some way and then they would be friends or something. He felt cold, paralyzed with fear, wondering how he would ever be brave enough to attempt this, knowing the likely consequences…
But wait, he also said that not all damage was magical, so that implies I’m hurt in some way that has nothing to do with magic.
His fear abated, but he was still confused and uncertain, and Asher Masters hated feeling uncertain.
I can’t live in fear of words that may or may not be true, or I’ll become useless as a mage.
He took a breath and said, “There’s no real risk, aside from my drowning if I stay underwater for too long. I’d appreciate some help if I seem to be sinking to the bottom with my eyes wide and staring, or if you see me clutching my throat at some point.”
Antwar ignored his sarcasm and said, “You can’t know that the risk is minimal if you haven’t proven the theories yet.”
“Yes I can,” Asher asserted, confused by the Master’s resistance. “I said I was using direct inverses for my wide-bands. You know that direct inverses have a negating effect on tangential magical spillage, so the pushback will be nonexistent even if the spell goes completely awry.”
At the completely stunned and baffled look on his mentor’s face, Asher added, “You did know that, didn’t you, sir?”
“Of course I did, Asher,” the Prism Master bit off a little sharply, though his face was flushed from the lie. “I didn’t hear you say you were using direct inverses at first. I suppose the experiment is all right then…”
He had no idea that there was a cancellation effect on TMS from an alignment’s direct inverse, and his colleagues can tell he’s lying…
The others exchanged brief glances, their expressions carefully neutral, and said nothing. Asher pushed the small victory from his mind, because it wasn’t every day that he knew more than the Prism Master of Mizzenwald about prisms. He couldn’t even remember where he had picked up that tidbit of knowledge; he’d just assumed it had come from his mentor during one of their lessons over the last six years.
“Anyway, I’m going to go in there and try a different spell…maybe I’ll cast Grow on that tree over there and see what happens.” He pointed to a nearby pine tree, motioning for his mentor to loan him a new prism. “If you all wanted to go about your normal business, rather than breathing down my neck while I work, I wouldn’t be at all upset.”
Master Reede smiled pleasantly and said, “I wouldn’t miss this for the world, Asher.”
The others looked equally determined to stay and watch him, so Asher sighed and levitated himself into the air until he was high enough to descend into the bowl of water.
Why didn’t I think to fill this thing with warm water?! he cursed himself mentally as soon as he hit the cold surface. He always seemed to forget minor details like that when he was focused on a new bit of magic; if he wasn’t careful, one day he really would damage himself magically from carelessness alone.
He equipped the clear prism he’d gotten from Antwar, took a deep breath, and submerged himself in the water, pushing down from the surface as far as possible and turning in the direction of the sun to get enough light to cast from. Master Reede had made the bowl as thin as possible, so he was able to see through the glass fairly well, and he began looking for the Grow alignment in his prism, trying to ignore the presence of the Masters entirely.
He found the alignment quickly, though it was skewed by the wide-bands from looking at it through glass, the same ones that had been plaguing him for months now. He wanted to kick himself for not realizing he would need a new modifier sooner, but things always seemed obvious in hindsight.
He turned the prism slightly and found the inverse orange-orange-blue band, aimed at the pine tree he had indicated to the others, and relaxed his focus as much as possible.
Grow.
He kicked his feet to bring himself back to the surface of the water so he could see properly. To his delight, the Masters all had their backs to him, watching the pine tree rapidly grow larger until it was double its original size. They were exclaiming over it with interest and looking quite pleased with his success.
Ha! I did it!
Before he could celebrate too much, Willow turned back to him and said,
“Cast Shrink on it to return it to normal.”
So Asher held his breath and submerged himself again, stopping his first spell and then finding the new alignment and inverse for Shrink. Clearly the Master of Wands wanted a proper trial before they declared success officially.
His Shrink spell returned the tree to normal proportions, and then they made him swap prisms and try Suspend, Push, Pierce, and finally, Break on the bowl itself. Asher was dropped to the ground in a torrent of water that rushed out of the break in the glass, getting to his feet and shivering from cold as the air hit him.
Master Antwar shook his hand and said, “Congratulations, Asher. You’ve managed to make the next big breakthrough in prisms. You’ll need to write it up formally to make it official, and I’ll add my signature and call a peer review together to finalize it. After that, you and I will need to prepare a textbook chapter on it that can be added to next year’s revisions of the mastery-level prism texts.”
Asher was flushed with success, grinning like an idiot while Master Kilgore clapped him on the back and grunted approval and Reede suggested casually that maybe all these years of putting up with him had finally paid off for the school; Mizzenwald got a large percentage of monetary gains related to the discoveries of its faculty and students.
He left the others to clean up the remnants of the glass bowl and share the news with their peers, walking towards his father’s cabin to tell him the good news in person. Now that he thought about it, this could be the first time he had gone to visit his father all year with something other than a complaint. His walk became a jog, which became a run as he drew closer, brimming with energy that he was itching to burn off. He wanted his fathe
r to be the first to hear about his success, and he wanted to deliver the news in person.
He burst into the cabin without knocking, stopping only when he saw that Torin was in discussion with none other than Aleric Frost, who was holding one end of a potentiometer needle with a thoughtful frown on his face. They both looked up at the sound of him barging in on them, and Torin raised his eyebrows and said, “Are you all right, son?”
“Of course I’m all right—better than all right, really...” Asher began, still grinning.
“Really? Because you look terrible,” Aleric pointed out doubtfully. “Your face is stained orange, you’re soaking wet, and you have a weird smile on your face that is actually quite unsettling.”
Asher ignored all of this, focused only on his father as he said, “I cracked the secret to underwater casting. The Masters just confirmed it now, and they’re calling the peer review to make it official across the Nine Lands. I’ve done it!”
Torin’s expression changed from concerned to pleasantly surprised, and the smile made the resemblance between them much more apparent.
“That’s fantastic, Ash! I knew you could do it!” he came over and pulled his son into a big bear hug, nearly crushing his ribs from the pressure. “Your mother would be so proud of you.”
For once, the mention of his mother didn’t hurt him, and he was able to remember her as she had once been, when he was very young, smiling and watching him play outside with maternal joy on her face.
He drew back slightly from the hug so he could say, “I’m going to be published in the next revision of the mastery-level texts. They’ll have to pay me royalties for the right to use my discovery, and it opens up a huge new set of possibilities for prism discoveries now that water isn’t a barrier anymore. We won’t be so poor, and I won’t have to ask you for money every time I want to do something! I mean, we won’t be rich…but we can finally take a little more pride in our family name without people sneering at us.”
Torin shook his head like he was being silly and said, “I have always had pride in our family, regardless of our financial standing or influence in the magical community. Your financial independence will be nice, because I know it has been a thorn in your side for years now, but the only thing I care about—as your father—is seeing you successful and happy. If discovering new magic is fulfilling to you, then I am fulfilled.”
Asher, still giddy with joy, hugged his father again, laughing openly as Torin told him again how proud he was of his only son. It suddenly seemed stupid that they had spent all this time sniping at each other over the past year and arguing constantly, but all of it was blessedly forgotten for the time being, and a part of Asher never wanted the moment to end.
It was only belatedly that he remembered his best friend (and biggest competition at Mizzenwald) was in the room as well, and that he had rudely pulled his father away from whatever they had been working on together to celebrate. Asher turned his head slightly to find Aleric standing exactly where he had left him, still loosely holding onto the end of the potentiometer with one hand. His friend had an odd look on his face; even though he was smiling, he seemed to be in some kind of pain, and he was turned away from the sight of Asher and his father’s embrace as though it was blinding, like staring at the sun.
Blinding, and painful.
16
Perception and Intuition
Aleric felt like he was frozen in time, an observer to his friend’s seemingly-endless moment of victory and joy. He only realized his muscles were taut when they began to ache, but for some reason he couldn’t consciously relax them. He couldn’t have been standing there for more than a minute or two, but the moment seemed to stretch out into eternity, and he felt like he was looking at his friend and Torin from the other end of a long tunnel.
He turned his face away to avert his eyes from the sight of the naked joy on his best friend’s face. There was something embarrassing and unseemly about that kind of raw emotion, and it made him uncomfortable.
It wasn’t as though he begrudged his friend the success. It was a huge breakthrough for their field, and he had always known that Asher possessed a brilliant mind and was worthy of the victory. But even knowing what he now knew about his own father, Aleric could never conceive of the man ever embracing him like that or telling him that money and glory meant nothing next to his personal happiness. He had never been more envious of his best friend than in that moment, and it made him feel petty, ugly, and somehow diminished.
“Hey, Aleric,” his friend addressed him now, apparently finally remembering he was in the room with them. “Sorry for interrupting you and my dad with the gushy display of emotion.”
Asher looked mostly normal again, though his face was still slightly flushed—or maybe it was just the orange tint—and he was having a hard time containing his smile. Aleric hitched a grin on his own face and said, “No worries. I’d be hard-pressed not to act like a loon if I’d broken the puzzle of underwater transference as well.”
His friend looked slightly embarrassed for his earlier behavior and said, “No you wouldn’t. I remember when you and Sark got the Law of Transversion and you barely cracked a smile.”
But I spent all night lying awake in bed, grinning like an idiot where no one could see me, and imagining all of the medals and glory I’d be shrouded in by the Council of Mages. I even pretended that my father was openly proud of me…
“You’re right; I was just saying that to make you feel better about losing all control of yourself.” He was still grinning, hoping it didn’t look as unnatural as it felt. “Anyway, it seems my theory with the potentiometer was a bust, so I’ll leave you two to celebrate.”
His friend looked slightly guilty now and said, “No, no, I’ll come back to the castle with you. I need to change clothes and get the remnants of burn paste off my face before I’m stained permanently.” He turned to his father and said, “I’ll see you later.”
Torin waved them off, though Aleric was uncomfortably aware of those scrutinizing eyes following him out the door. Torin was a shrewd man, and doubtless Asher had told him enough about Aleric’s contentious relationship with his own father for the man to know something of his feelings. He should have done a better job of concealing his hurt, and normally he would have, but he was so blindsided by the entire thing that he hadn’t had time to prepare himself…
“Hey, congratulations on the find,” Aleric told his friend as they walked towards the school. “I just realized in all the commotion that I haven’t actually said that to you yet.”
“Oh, right, thanks.” Asher was back to normal now, calm and in control, though there was still a spring in his step that was undeniable. His friend had never been as good at hiding his feelings as him, and was a much more emotionally volatile human being in general, which was why he got into trouble with the Masters so much.
What a great victory, Aleric. Congrats on being more emotionally repressed than your brilliant, well-liked friend.
That was an ugly thought and he ignored it as they entered the castle, where people were already eyeing Asher because of the state he was in.
“It’s a huge find,” Aleric continued, trying to be properly joyous on his friend’s behalf. “I can’t wait to see the Council of Mages grit their teeth and reward you for it.”
Asher laughed and said, “Yeah, they’ll probably try to touch me as little as possible when handing me my certificate though…won’t want to contaminate themselves with common blood.”
Aleric chuckled and said, “Hey, like you told Torin, you’re raising your family’s social influence considerably with this. If you keep up with it, they’ll have to start inviting you to all those boring meetings, where we tell each other how great we all are, and eventually no one will even remember where you came from.”
Asher rolled his eyes and said, “Somehow I don’t think I’m cut out for politics. Can you imagine me sipping champagne at one of your father’s business meetings and acting like a boot-kisser?�
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No, in truth, Aleric couldn’t imagine his friend getting through the entire meal without bluntly revealing his true thoughts about everyone in the room. That tendency, which Aleric admired so much in him, would keep him from the most important roles in society: the Council of Mages or a Master of the arcana.
“You could if you exerted yourself a little. You just seem incapable of keeping your mouth shut when it’s good for you.”
Asher shrugged and said, “A commoner until the end,” with tones of mock regret. “Anyway, I’m going to go shower and try to get warmed up; that water I was in was freezing. I’ll see you later.”
“Enjoy.”
Aleric returned to his workroom, where he had been immersed in research on stopping the effects of memory loss before he’d had his idea about the potentiometer. Potentiometers were used to gauge magical capability, as well as point out any limitations or handicaps in a person’s Source. There was a large one that the school kept on hand for testing all new students when they arrived at Mizzenwald, to see if they suffered from Focus damage that would require correctors on their wrists. But that potentiometer was only tuned to look at how straight a person’s channels were, which was critical to casting magic successfully; they did nothing to gauge a person’s raw power.
Aleric knew that Torin owned a more sensitive potentiometer: one that was tuned to reveal the extent of a person’s capabilities, shown as a spectrum of colors. It probably cost a fortune, but it was a necessary tool of the trade for someone like Torin, who was in charge of going out every summer to find magical creatures in the Forest of Illusions that would consent to come to Mizzenwald and become familiars for new students. He needed to do extensive testing on each animal to make sure they were a proper fit before bringing them to the school.
Still, the school probably fronted a lot of the money for the potentiometer, if they didn’t own it outright. There was no question that Torin did his job very well—it seemed no one in Asher’s family was capable of being bad at what they did—but the fact remained that the man must work practically for free to pay off all the debts, loans, and favors he had to employ to keep Asher enrolled at Mizzenwald all these years.