by V. St. Clair
If he remembers that, then he probably remembers all of the horrible things I said about him and his path towards evil. This could get awkward…
“I suppose he took an interest in you, being one of the few prism-wielders at Mizzenwald during your time,” his father continued thoughtfully.
“I was the only Prism major there, actually,” Hayden corrected, still unsure as to why they were having this conversation or what state of mind his father was in right now. It was always difficult to tell, but it was impossible tonight to determine whether he was about to be tricked, murdered, or if they were having their first semi-normal discussion.
“Not entirely surprising; natural prism-users are quite rare. It takes a unique level of awareness to be able to interpret light as magic.”
Hayden said nothing in response to this. He didn’t know what the man wanted him to say.
Finally, because the silence was becoming unbearable, Hayden blurted out, “I don’t think that was the only reason he watched out for me. I mean, I think he would have still had my back even if I wasn’t a Prism major,” addressing his father’s earlier point.
For the first time since he’d entered the room, the Dark Prism turned to face him. Hayden had no idea if he could actually make out the features of his face after staring into the fire for so long, but the man’s gaze was steady and he didn’t act like he was trying to blink his surroundings into focus.
One more mystical power my father possesses.
“And why is that?”
Now it was Hayden’s turn to break eye contact and stare into the fire, because it was easier to speak freely when he wasn’t watching his father watch him.
“He always felt partly responsible for what you became, even after most people stopped publicly shaming him over it. He thought he should have recognized what was happening to you and found a way to save you before you were too far gone to recognize friend from foe.” Hayden’s eyes began to water from the warmth of the fire and he blinked the moisture from his eyes. “He told me once that if you were still…” –sane—“like you were back then, you would have wanted him to look after me if you weren’t able to. He said you would have been proud to have me as a son.”
Well, there we go, I’ve just said about ten different things that are all triggers for him to go nuts and strangle me. Let’s see just how effective Cinder’s magic really was this afternoon.
He waited to feel some sort of pain, but it never came. Finally, he turned to look at his father again, only to find that the man was staring at him as though finally seeing him for what he was. It was an odd feeling.
“I never wanted a son,” the Dark Prism said at last. “I don’t even remember your mother’s name, or her face. She was nothing to me but a passing whim.” He didn’t say the words cruelly, just matter-of-factly. It still hurt to have himself and his mother marginalized like that.
“You were too busy trying to impress your own father,” Hayden answered instead.
And how much of this could have been avoided if that stupid, over-bearing jerk had just sprinkled some praise upon you?
A hint of the familiar danger flickered behind Aleric’s eyes, but it winked out so fast that Hayden wasn’t sure if it was really there, or just a trick of the light. Still, when his father spoke again, he said, “Do not speak of him again or you will regret it,” in a tone that brooked no argument.
Casting for a maybe-safer subject, Hayden said, “Asher never betrayed you, you know. He didn’t turn his back on you until he had no other choice. He abandoned his other research projects when you started working with broken prisms and has been working on finding a way to reverse the distortion in your mind ever since.”
Rather than acknowledge the spirit of this, his father said, “You call them ‘broken prisms.’ ”
Oh right, I probably should have said ‘modified prisms’ since he finds the term less offensive, Hayden realized in retrospect. The term had come to him out of habit.
“Yes?” he asked cautiously.
“Since returning to this realm, I’ve heard whispers that you have earned that title for yourself somehow: the Broken Prism. And yet, I don’t believe you have ever used them.”
At first all Hayden could think was, Wow, that nickname actually stuck? Then he explained, “It’s nothing to do with actual imperfect prisms, other than as a play on words. A couple of bullies who kept picking fights with me during my first year at Mizzenwald gave me the name because of my enormous Focus-correctors, implying that I’m defective in some way. The broken prism-user, you see?”
His father tilted his head slightly in acknowledgement.
“Most notable mages do not receive a secondary name until middle-age is upon them. I was considered quite young at nineteen, when others began referring to me as the Dark Prism.”
Hayden was a little surprised that people had used that name within his father’s hearing, as it had a negative connotation. Then again, he had no idea how the man actually felt about the name—perhaps he liked it.
“And yet you’ve received your name even before me,” his father finished without emotion.
“Not by design,” Hayden explained. “People only noticed me at all because of your legacy and the fact that I was the last surviving member of the Frost family—until you returned from the schism, obviously,” he amended. “Most of the attention I got was negative, and I kept getting thrown into stupid situations and blundering through them with talented friends and dumb luck. Somehow things snowballed and here we sit.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes longer. Hayden’s exposed arms were beginning to get very warm from sitting so close to the fire, but he didn’t dare move. His father had finished burning the book he had been tearing pages from, and hadn’t reached for another, much to Hayden’s relief.
“What did Cinder do earlier when he did that silent screaming thing?” he asked, since he might as well try to get as much information as possible while his father was feeling forthcoming.
“Occasionally I attempt alignments that cause my mind to scatter. Cinder refocused it.”
Oh great, he was probably practicing one of those lovely alignments that will help him wrench out my Source.
“It seems to have worked pretty well…” Hayden offered cautiously. “You seem a lot more like how you were when we met inside the schism.” And I liked you a lot better as Hunter.
“You think I am unaware of the price I pay for the magic I have learned?” His father asked evenly. “I know that my thoughts and memories are no longer linear, and occasionally those connections become frayed or sever altogether. I understood what the cost would be before I ever started using modified prisms.”
Astounded, Hayden asked, “Then why did you do it? Was making someone else proud really so important that you would throw your whole life away for it?”
“You have no idea the amount of magic I have discovered since I began working with alternate prisms,” his father said flatly. “The Frost family has always been amongst the greatest in the Nine Lands, and new magical discoveries have become a rarity in the last generation. I have forgotten more new magic than you will ever know.”
Hayden didn’t doubt that for one second, and it also wasn’t the first time he’d heard that people were discovering fewer and fewer new spells in recent years. It still didn’t seem a goal worth giving up one’s sanity and becoming a mass murderer for.
“I don’t deny that you probably know more ridiculously-complex, powerful magic than all ten Council members combined,” assuming they’ve managed to replace the ones you killed back at the Crystal Tower and have ten again… “But do you ever wonder whether you made the right decision?”
His father’s gaze turned unexpectedly sharp and he said, “No, never.” He paused before continuing. “It does no good to question one’s decisions after they are made. There is nothing to do but keep forward momentum at all times, because to look back is to see the sand crumbling beneath one’s feet. It is one t
hing you would have learned, had you grown up in this house: there is only one direction to move in, and that is forward.”
Hayden raised his eyebrows and gave this some serious consideration. To never doubt his decisions, to never second-guess himself and just accept that he was on the path he was meant to be on…there was something freeing about the idea of abandoning his worries. And in some ways, this is what made great leaders and revolutionaries what they were, the ability to always look ahead and not behind.
By the same token, there was no one rule that could be adhered to all of the time, including this. There are times when a person has to be able to reflect on their decisions, acknowledge they were wrong, and change directions before too much damage is done. His father was a prime example of what total inflexibility in this regard could lead to.
“You know, I’ve seen a bit of Asher’s research,” Hayden said cautiously. “The stuff he was working on for reversing the effects of distortion on your mind. It looks promising, though it’s still incomplete.”
His father said nothing, turning back to stare at the fire while Hayden spoke.
“If you agreed to work with us…if you added the weight of all the things you’ve discovered that no one else knows, we might be able to finish it and use it to help undo some of what’s been done.”
“No,” his father answered definitively. “I chose my path years ago, and he chose his. To remove the distortion is to remove all of the things I have sacrificed and discovered; I doubt my old friend’s spell will let me select which parts of my memory I retain and which I lose. Even you should know enough of me by now to realize that I would not ever want to be less than what I am; I will never go back.”
Well, it was worth a shot.
Another heavy moment of silence passed between them, until finally Hayden got up the nerve to ask, “Sir, why did you want to see me tonight?” He only just realized that they had never really gotten to the point of him being summoned here.
There was something undefinable in his father’s expression when he turned to Hayden and said, perfectly deadpan, “I don’t remember.”
18
Asher
Asher Masters paced his office, which was hard to do in the cramped quarters. His feet automatically bypassed stacks of papers that littered parts of the floor space, though they were nowhere near as large as they were before his office was blown up and his research scattered to the wind. As it was, he could probably step over the piles if he wanted to, but he had already trained himself to simply walk around them while crossing the room in three long strides, first one way, then the other. If he moved fast enough he could make himself dizzy.
If I never stop running, I can outpace time itself…
Pacing gave his brain the false impression that he was actually accomplishing something, even though he was about as useless as a drying spell in a desert. Sitting made him feel stagnant, defeated. Moving made it seem like he was going towards something, progress of a sort.
He missed a step and accidentally kicked over a pile of mathematical notes—he didn’t even remember which project they were associated with anymore. Papers scattered all over the floor beneath his worktable and chairs, but he made no move to bend down and retrieve them. If Hayden were here, he’d make some dry, pointed comment about the merits of a tidy office.
Well, he isn’t here. For all I know, Aleric has already disposed of him.
Asher paused and glanced down at his worktable. It looked exactly the way he and Hayden had left it during their last meeting, several months ago now. It wasn’t that he left the space untouched on purpose—well, not exactly. Soon after their last meeting, Hayden had ventured into the schism, returned with his father in tow, and all hell had broken loose. There hadn’t been time for either of them to resume work on their projects, even had they been inclined to do so. Then that useless sack of oxygen, Laris, had let his career objectives outweigh his good sense, and they’d had to have Hayden arrested while they still controlled the situation. He, Asher, certainly didn’t have time to work on his projects with Aleric loose, Hayden on trial for his life, and the Council spying on his every move.
Then the boy went and got himself kidnapped from the heart of the Crystal Tower.
No, it wasn’t fair to blame Hayden for that. What else could he have done when his father came to get him? The boy was weaponless and alone, weakened from his time in the oppressive cells that were typically used to contain only the vilest of criminals.
He must have been terrified.
So there really hadn’t been time for Asher to sit down and sort through his and Hayden’s research notes, much less to decide which ones to shelve for later and which to throw away. All of that made perfect, rational sense, and yet he knew it wasn’t the real reason he had left things intact at all. The true reason wasn’t rational or logical, but emotional. If he shelved Hayden’s notes, he was acknowledging that his protégé might never come back. And if he admitted that, he might not work as hard to find a solution to the insolvable problem of getting through Aleric’s unassailable defenses, overpowering the most magically-skillful man on the continent, and rescuing his son before all was lost.
Aleric’s son, not mine.
Sometimes it was hard to forget that fact, after all the time and energy he’d invested in the boy.
His thoughts turned back to the defenses around the Frost estate. Most of his colleagues and a few of the Council members had probed them experimentally, testing to see what they could unravel magically without raising any alarms. Some of it was surprisingly straightforward, probably aimed at barring non-magical interlopers rather than trained mages. Aleric had always been contemptuous of those who couldn’t interact directly with the world’s magic, often speaking of them as though they were second-rate humans.
Why did it take me so long to realize what he was becoming?
He waved away the unproductive thought and made another pass across the room. Between a couple dozen of the most powerful mages in the Nine Lands, they had been able to work together and map out a surprising number of the Frost estate defenses. Even better, they were fairly certain they could break through them given sufficient time and coordination, though it would all have to be done at once to prevent Aleric from discovering their attempt until it was too late to put up new defenses.
But then they had hit a barrier of magic so foreign, so powerful, that none of them knew what to make of it. Normally a mage—especially one who possessed a Mastery Charm—could close his eyes and open his Foci, allowing any nearby magical constructs to filter into his awareness. Eventually a person could become good at unraveling what magic they were sensing, and thus derive a workaround.
But this spell had nothing. Any time he stood before the wall and stretched his senses, he could only soak in magic until he hit that bear of a spell, at which point he would feel a stab of pain behind his eyes and then nothing. It didn’t help that the other, more trivial spells were blocking his path, and he had to sort through them in his mind before even attempting to comprehend The Beast—as they’d hatefully dubbed it.
At times like this it felt like a cosmic joke was being played on them all. Corrupted, distorted magic had proven itself enormously more powerful and diverse than what mankind had been able to collectively glean through legitimate sources. Why did the dark, evil magic have to be the most powerful? How were they supposed to fight such a thing without succumbing to it themselves?
“I don’t suppose you have any bright ideas, do you, Cinder?” he asked out loud without thinking.
There was no answer, neither the soft fluttering of wings, nor the screech of a dragonling.
Idiot, he chided himself for the dozenth time. He had grown so used to the dragonling’s company that he forgotten that Cinder wasn’t here with him anymore. He’d gone back to his real master and was probably helping Aleric keep Hayden in line.
If he’s even still alive.
Kicking over another stack of papers just because
he could, Asher stopped pacing and left his office, feeling suddenly claustrophobic in the confined space. He threw open the door more forcefully than he’d intended, startling a passing group of level-three students when the door banged against the wall. The children jumped out of his way and cast frightened looks at him, and he blew past them without apology, his metallic red Mastery robes billowing behind him.
They weren’t the only students who seemed afraid of him these days, not that it much mattered to him what others thought. Some of them were doubtless wondering if he was going to join up with his old friend and start slaughtering the innocent; most of them could probably just sense what a bad mood he had been in since term started, and were trying to stay out of his way, which suited him just fine.
He was passing through the Pentagon when someone did finally get up the nerve to speak to him.
“Sir—Asher, wait!”
Oliver Trout still hadn’t gotten used to treating the other Masters as his peers. Not surprising, as he hadn’t been elevated to their status for terribly long, and was trying to overcome years of conditioning to view the others as his superiors.
Then why didn’t I have that problem when I became a Master?
Asher had been calling the Masters by first name since his fifth year of school—countless detentions hadn’t been able to break him of the habit.
I’ve always been arrogant enough to believe myself equal to or better than everyone else.
Another unflattering admission to himself, though most of his recent revelations were. Since Aleric made his grand reappearance at Mizzenwald at the end of last year, all of his normal emotions had taken a back seat to his anger, which burned through everything in its path.
He wasn’t even sure what he was angry at, truth be told. Himself, for failing to be good enough to rescue Hayden when it counted the most? Hayden, for foolishly believing in him and relying on him all these years? Aleric, for getting them all into this mess in the first place?