by V. St. Clair
Master Sark was still holding his arm as Hayden tried to take in his surroundings, but it was hard to see properly in the dark. All he could make out as the Powders Master shoved him forward was some kind of giant structure in front of them that glittered oddly in the moonlight. It was the tallest building he had ever seen—dozens of stories high, and also oddly shaped, like a giant needle....
The Crystal Tower. I’m at the Crystal Tower.
Remembering the numerous times he had been told that if he ever walked into this place he would never walk back out, he began fighting much harder, managing to elbow the Master of Powders in the nose. Sark cursed as his nose bled freely, but didn’t release Hayden, instead shaking him hard enough to rattle his brain and make his head hurt.
“Pull another stunt like that and I’ll have you vomiting yourself unconscious,” he threatened furiously, pushing Hayden through a set of double-doors that opened when Sark put his hand against them.
“Why are you doing this?” Hayden demanded hotly. “I know we’ve never exactly liked each other, but I thought you were at least on the right side.”
“You aren’t nearly as clever as you think, Frost,” the Master grumbled as they stepped inside the Crystal Tower. When the doors closed behind them Hayden thought, Well, there goes my freedom.
At least the interior of the building was still lit by mage-light, so for the first time since he’d been abducted, Hayden could properly see. From the outside, the Crystal Tower had looked like a giant glass needle, but from the interior the walls looked as opaque as any other building. It was odd to him that he couldn’t see outside, knowing that the exterior walls were glass.
The Crystal Tower was also roomier on the inside than it looked, an effect that probably took a lot of magic to achieve on a place so large. Mage-lights in sconces dotted the wall along both sides of the narrow corridor that Master Sark was now towing him down.
“You of all people should want to see an end to my father,” Hayden informed his least favorite Master quite calmly, accepting his fate. “How is locking me up going to help anyone achieve that?”
Sark didn’t answer, though a muscle tensed in his jaw, and Hayden gave up on the man. They stopped in front of the first office they encountered, and Master Sark raised his fist and knocked firmly on the door, using his free hand to check his nose and verify that it had stopped bleeding. Hayden only wished he had hit him harder.
The door was answered by one of Hayden’s least favorite people in the world a moment later.
“Hello, Hayden,” Calahan greeted him with real delight, not bothering to conceal his surprise at having Hayden delivered to his door. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“Yeah, I heard,” Hayden answered flatly, allowing himself to be steered into the office. Master Sark shut the door behind them, giving Hayden the feeling that he was being entombed in here with the two men.
Calahan’s office was circular and high-ceilinged, giving the illusion that they were standing in a large well. A floor-to-ceiling bookshelf lined the walls behind an enormous mahogany desk, which was mostly filled with neat stacks of paper or file folders. Two filing cabinets flanked the desk on either end, and Hayden didn’t doubt that every folder inside was color-coded and in alphabetical order.
Hayden was shoved roughly into one of four padded chairs surrounding a small meeting table, also circular. Calahan sat down opposite him, but Master Sark remained standing near the door.
“Well, well, Kirius, fine work,” the Chief Mage smiled tiredly, the flickering mage-light in his office casting ghostly shadows over his face. Up close, Hayden was surprised by how wrung out the man looked: his skin had a slackness that Hayden didn’t remember seeing before, and there was something almost grey about him.
Paranoia—and his colleagues—have really done a number on him. If he wasn’t about to be locked up by the man, he might feel sorry for him.
“I discovered his hideout and removed him before anyone could miss him,” Sark drawled, almost sounding bored.
“And where was he hiding all this time?” Calahan asked with interest.
“With a friend,” Sark shrugged, his eyes not meeting Hayden’s. Hayden thought it was odd that he wasn’t mentioning Magdalene Trout by name, but perhaps Sark had his own reasons for keeping silent about it. Whatever those reasons were, Hayden had no intention of selling out the woman who had given him shelter, so Sark’s vagueness on the matter happened to suit him.
Calahan opened his mouth and looked like he was going to press for more detailed information, but Master Sark beat him to it by adding, “You said there was a reward involved?”
The Chief Mage actually looked surprised that the man would ask about such a thing, as though this was out of character. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to actually cough up any money for me.
“Yes, of course. Once the guild banks open tomorrow, we can arrange the transfer.”
“Do you seriously believe that I brought my father back from the other realm on purpose and turned him loose on a world that my friends live in?” Hayden asked Calahan, wishing he had something to cover his feet, because they were still freezing and wet from the snow outside.
“If you were innocent, you would have turned yourself in as soon as you returned to Mizzenwald and proven it.”
“Oh sure, because you’re nothing but fair. I learned an important lesson last year while I was studying up on estate law to get my inheritance back.”
Calahan looked only vaguely interested as he said, “And what was that?”
“That the law cares nothing for morality. You can be on the right side and still lose.”
Neither man made any attempt to deny the truth of this.
Switching tracks, Calahan turned to Master Sark and said, “I don’t suppose you found any of your colleagues helping him conceal his whereabouts?”
Hayden tensed in preparation for having all of his other teachers thrown to the wolves, but all Sark said was, “Unfortunately, if any of them were helping him, I have found no proof of it.”
It was all Hayden could do to keep his mouth from dropping open. He could have sworn that one of the others had told him that Sark was in on their plans from the beginning even though he didn’t attend the meetings, which meant that he was lying to Calahan for seemingly no reason.
Maybe he still feels some allegiance to them, even if he’s sold me out.
Calahan didn’t look like he completely believed this testimony, because he added, “Are you certain, Kirius? You could earn yourself a substantial promotion if you were to give evidence against traitors.”
“I know, and I wish that I could. But I cannot lie in good conscience, and I didn’t see any of the others around him.”
“I find it hard to believe that Asher Masters isn’t up to his eyeballs in this. He has always sheltered the boy, stepping into his best friend’s shoes as a surrogate father figure since the moment he laid eyes on him.”
Master Sark shrugged and said, “He likely has been helping Hayden, but I can’t prove it.”
“Hmm…well, keep looking,” Calahan relented at last. “I’ll escort Hayden to a holding cell for the night, and we can begin the real work tomorrow morning.”
That doesn’t sound pleasant.
“Where are you putting him?” Sark sounded almost bored. “The fifth level?”
“No,” a nasty smile played across Calahan’s face, “the twentieth.”
Master Sark, who was halfway to opening the door, stopped in place and turned around so fast it would have been comical under different circumstances.
“The twentieth?” He looked aghast, which did nothing to bolster Hayden’s mood. “You’re not putting him into one of the Boxes, are you?”
Hayden had no idea what the Boxes were, though somehow he didn’t think it was the loose, plywood variety that he was imagining in his head.
“Why not? He is a criminal with dangerous powers, and the son of the most feared mage in the Nine Lands. It woul
d be irresponsible to place him anywhere less secure.”
“Sure, I’m the danger to the Nine Lands. Weren’t you hanging a medal around my neck a few months ago?” Hayden asked sarcastically.
“You know I only did that to shame you into volunteering for a task you were clearly the only suitable candidate for, and if I had won the vote in Council that day we would have bodily thrown you into the schism with or without your consent.”
Hayden’s eyebrows lifted in surprise.
“You mean I have enough friends in the Council that they voted you down? Wow, Cal, not even your own people seem to like you very much.”
“Don’t address me so informally, you ungrateful whelp,” Calahan snapped at him, red-faced. “And don’t assume that anyone on my Council spared you out of affection or loyalty. They simply believed that the common people adored you so much that they would start trouble if they heard you were condemned to die against your will. But that love is fast evaporating since you’ve resurrected their worst nightmare and then disappeared these last few months.”
Hayden had noticed the inflection on the word ‘my’ when Calahan was describing ‘his Council’. He really thinks these people belong to him…
“You’ve been trying to get me banned from using magic, imprisoned, or killed since the day we met. I’ll call you whatever I want, Cal,” was all Hayden said in response.
“Get up,” Calahan surged to his own feet and grabbed Hayden by the wrists, none-too-gently. “I’m going to enjoy the look on your face when I introduce you to your new home.”
Master Sark was still watching the pair of them in silence, an oddly neutral look on his face. For a moment Hayden thought he saw sympathy there, but was sure that he had made it up, given what he knew of the man.
If he didn’t want to see me suffer whatever Cal has planned for me, he wouldn’t have dragged me out of bed in the dead of night to turn me over to him while everyone else was asleep.
He tried not to think of what the others would assume when they woke up and found him gone. They might think he lost his nerve and ran away, but Zane would know better.
Unless Zane thinks I left without him and struck out on my own…
He liked to think that Zane would know better, but if there were no signs of a struggle and Hayden had simply vanished from the Trout estate…
All of my things are still there, he realized with a wave of relief. They’ll know I wouldn’t go anywhere without taking my circlet and weapons with me. Bonk will eventually come back from his hunt, and they might be able to use him to track me and find out what’s happened…
While he was thinking this, Calahan had pulled him out of the office and down a short corridor towards a strange set of doors that looked like iron gates on hinges. Behind the doors he could see a very small room, completely empty of furnishings.
Is that one of the Boxes? Hayden thought with wonder. It’s certainly small enough to qualify; it doesn’t even have a toilet!
With a wave of his wand, Calahan opened the iron gates in front of the room and pushed Hayden roughly inside. Hayden was surprised when the Chief Mage followed him in and shut the doors behind them.
“Oh lord, you’re not staying in here with me, are you?” He’d rather be in utter solitude than have Cal for company.
Calahan looked at him like he was stupid and said, “Don’t be ridiculous, Frost.” He waved his wand in an agitated sweeping gesture and Hayden’s knees buckled as the ground seemed to be pushing him upwards, fast.
“What’s happening?” he asked, terrified. He braced his hands against the walls to steady himself, though there was nothing to hold onto if the floor dropped out from beneath him.
“It’s an automated lift. You didn’t think I was going to walk you up twenty flights of stairs, did you?” The Chief Mage smiled nastily at his fright, and Hayden forced himself to relax.
“Are there people waiting at the top who just sit around all day, waiting to cast the magic in case someone needs to move from one level to the next?” That sounded like the most boring job ever.
The question earned him another unpleasant look from his captor.
“Of course not; it’s fully-automated.”
Against his will, Hayden was impressed. He could appreciate the sheer amount of magic it must have taken to make such a thing possible.
In less than a minute the lift slowed to a stop, and Calahan waved the doors open again. Hayden had never been prone to claustrophobia, but he immediately began to feel the effects of the cramped space on this higher floor. They were at the top of the needle-shaped building, with the smallest amount of free space available, and there was much less lighting up here. In fact, it was completely dark when they stepped off of the lift until Calahan activated a single torch along the wall, which cast light oddly through the circular foyer they had stepped into.
It took Hayden a few moments to realize that there was no magic on the interior walls on this level to make them appear opaque—in fact, there was probably magic in place to make them seem even more transparent, because the torchlight glinted off of crystal in all directions. It was still pitch-black outside, but Hayden could imagine what the view would look like during daylight, with a panoramic view of the world from the twentieth floor of the Tower.
Calahan didn’t push him, but made a sweeping, After you, gesture that motioned Hayden forward. Upon closer inspection, there were five closed doors off of the circular foyer.
“Which one is mine?” Hayden asked without interest, trying to savor his last few moments of relative freedom.
“That one,” Calahan pointed to the one directly in front of them, and Hayden walked slowly towards it. He considered putting up a fight, even now, but wasn’t sure what the point would be. Calahan was armed and he wasn’t, and even assuming he could overpower the man, what was he supposed to do—kill the Chief Mage and escape? Then he really would be a criminal.
Wondering what kind of horrible, cramped, smelly, torturous room he was about to enter, Hayden took a deep breath and opened the door in front of him. The room was dark, and Calahan did nothing to light it, so Hayden shuffled into the pitch blackness, feeling around carefully with his feet so he wouldn’t trip over anything.
The moment he crossed the threshold of the room it felt like he was punched in the gut. He gasped and doubled over, trying to figure out what had hit him and how he hadn’t sensed it coming. His Focus-correctors grew warm and heavy on his wrists, and Hayden dropped to his knees on the hard crystal floor and heard the sound of a door shutting loudly behind him.
The last thing he heard as he grabbed his stomach and fought the urge to be sick was the sound of callous laughter as Calahan got back on the lift and left him alone in the dark.
9
Unwelcome Surprises
Hayden was only able to mark the passage of time by the gradual progression of daylight filtering into his cell the following morning. The sharp pain in his body had faded to a dull ache, not enough to prevent him from moving around or thinking clearly, but enough to always be at the edge of his awareness, no matter what else he was focused on.
As the sun came up, Hayden pulled himself upright and slumped against a wall, little though he liked resting his body against a surface he could see through. His body was sore and sluggish after spending the entire night awake and in considerable discomfort, though he still hadn’t figured out what exactly this place had done to him.
Now that he could see, he took the time to examine his new living quarters properly. The floor beneath him was the same clear crystal as the exterior of the building, and despite the fact that he knew there were nineteen other levels directly beneath him, there must have been some kind of magic on the floor to make it look as though his room was hovering unsupported, because he could see straight to the grassy ground far below.
Hayden had never exactly been afraid of heights, but between the transparent walls on all sides and the deceptive flooring, he had the sensation of sitting in th
e clouds, waiting to plummet to his death at any moment. Sunlight sparkled off of the exterior crystalline walls and refracted around the room, casting brilliant slices of colored light all around. The effect made him feel like he was sitting inside a prism, which wasn’t nearly as enjoyable as he might have guessed prior to experiencing it. In fact, he was glad that he didn’t have any actual prisms with him, because looking through them would probably just give him a screaming headache right now.
Other than himself, the only other thing in the room was a bucket and a rope that hung from the ceiling. The former was obviously for using the restroom, and after experimenting with pulling on the second, he discovered that it signaled someone down below to come and empty the bucket. Otherwise he was left alone for the entire day, with someone appearing at three separate intervals to bring him food and water. He tried interrogating these infrequent visitors, asking what was going to happen to him, when his trial would start, if anyone had shown up demanding to see him…but no one said a word to him or even looked at him in response. He might as well have been invisible for all the good it did to speak.
If he had ever lived through a longer, slower day he couldn’t remember it. Whatever weird effect the room was having on him, it kept him feeling slightly nauseous and off-balance during every waking second. By evening, the sun glare in his room was so unpleasant that he just curled up with his face pressed against his knees, closed his eyes, and waited for it to get dark again.
That night he gave in to exhaustion and slept fitfully, feeling not-at-all refreshed when he woke up the following morning. It was another excruciating day of boredom and silence, though he tried to keep his mind sharp by mentally rehearsing all of the spells he could think of, first with prisms, then with wands, elixirs, conjuring chalk, and even powders—though the last was a short list. Around mid-day he finished his meager lunch of hard bread, cheese, tomatoes, and milk, and did a few experimental sit-ups, determined to keep himself in some kind of fighting shape on the off-chance he ever got out of here.