The Schism (The Broken Prism Book 4)

by V. St. Clair

  We need to get moving—I don’t have time to second-guess myself.

  “There’s something about this place, isn’t there?” Tanner spoke before Hayden could open his mouth. “I mean, it isn’t the scariest-looking place I’ve ever been, but something about the air gives me the heebie jeebies.”

  Harold nodded and said, “I feel it too,” with a little shudder. Other than being generally dark and bleak, there was nothing identifiably terrifying about the world here, and yet the feeling seemed to seep through their pores.

  “We need to get going,” Hayden informed them, mastering his fear. “We follow the ley lines over here to the right,” he added, deciding on the spot.

  “But what about those lines over there?” Harold pointed to the left, frowning. “We were told to follow the lines, but no one ever said there’d be more than one set to follow. How do you know that’s the right way?”

  I don’t. I’m just taking a gamble that this isn’t the ‘left’ that Laurren was talking about, but if I’m wrong then certain death awaits us.

  What he said out loud was, “Asher told me to follow the biggest grouping, which are these right here.” He pointed again, feeling slightly guilty for telling the lie but not wanting to stand here and have a debate about it until he went insane.

  The others looked relieved to have a clear direction and nodded agreement, and the three of them set off.

  “Keep your eyes sharp. I don’t know the laws of this place—magically, I mean—so we have to assume we could be attacked at any time by monsters,” Hayden instructed, keeping a hand near one of his knives as they followed the overhead ley lines, occasionally glancing up to make sure they stayed directly beneath them.

  The others nodded and Harold said, “I can’t imagine where we’re going to find to camp for the night in a place like this. I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep a wink, even if we find some decent shelter.”

  “That’s good,” Hayden said without looking at the man, “because I don’t intend to stop and sleep until we get out of here. I don’t know how long it will take for the magic in this place to affect my mind, and I don’t intend to find out.”

  The others looked mildly alarmed at being told they wouldn’t get any rest until they made it through the schism, but no one was arguing with him.

  Yet, Hayden couldn’t help but add mentally.

  “So, uh, tell me about yourselves” he continued, because the silence of the place was oppressive and it was easier to ignore it if they were talking.

  Tanner answered first.

  “I grew up in Serina; dad kept chickens. I didn’t want to run the farm when I reached my majority, so they gave it to my little sister and I trained in the local regiment there.”

  Serina wasn’t too far from Merina, where Hayden had grown up. Surprised, Hayden asked, “Was there much to do in the militia? I didn’t think there were any big wars in the last couple decades…”

  Tanner shrugged and said, “There’s always people who need to hire protection; that’s mostly what I ended up doing, guarding cargo and the like. Of course, during the Dark Prism’s days…” he trailed off uneasily, giving Hayden an embarrassed look.

  “I know my father was evil, there’s no sense in dancing around it,” he assured the others. “Trust me, I’m not offended by your mentioning it. I never even met the man until the day he died, and I don’t even remember what he looked like.”

  Looking visibly relieved, Tanner continued.

  “So, I did that for a long time, then I got tired of the life and wanted to settle down, so I started apprenticing with a blacksmith to try and learn the trade.”

  Harold raised his eyebrows in surprise and said, “You started apprenticing that late in life? You know you’ll never be a full smith, right?”

  Tanner shrugged again, unbothered by that fact.

  “I know, but I don’t mind the work, and it lets me stay in one place and bring home decent wages. I’ve been courting this lady, you see…”

  And you threw it all away to come here? Hayden almost asked out loud.

  After a moment of silence he said, “What about you, Harold?”

  “I’m from Merina,” the stout man replied, his gaze continuously shifting left and right to look for monsters, though the dusty plain they were crossing made the element of surprise almost impossible.

  “Oh, wow, me too,” Hayden interjected.

  “I know,” Harold interrupted, not sounding impressed. “The space all around your old house is still junked up with magic; no one can rebuild there.”

  Oh, right, forgot about that…

  Hayden had visited the site of his childhood home during his second summer at Mizzenwald, and had stupidly walked into the dense cloud of magic that still blanketed the place and prevented animals and humans from returning there. He would have died had it not been for Bonk turning full-sized and carrying him out of the area. He wondered if the magic would ever dissipate from around his old home, or whether it would be a scar on the land forever—a gruesome monument to his loss.

  Passing over the awkward moment, Hayden said, “So what do you do for a living when you aren’t braving schisms?”

  “I run a butcher shop in the east end of town.” Knowing that this didn’t really sound impressive given their current assignment he added, “I’ve been hunting my own food since I was eight years old. I’ll kill anything we run into.”

  Hayden nodded and for a few minutes they were silent, as the ground sloped upwards and they had to strain to climb the hill without slipping in the dirt, which was packed so tightly that it provided no traction whatsoever.

  Finally, Tanner said, “What about you?” to Hayden.

  “What do you mean, what about me?” he asked, panting slightly as they crested the hill.

  “What do you do when you’re not busy being all heroic?” There was a slightly sarcastic edge to his voice that let him know his companions didn’t entirely buy Calahan’s spiel about how awesome he was.

  “Uh, I guess there’s not much to say. I was a nobody who lived with my mother until I was ten, then the Dark Prism showed up, blew up my house, and killed my mom. After that I spent two years in the orphanage in Merina while the Council of Mages decided what to do with me, and eventually they decided I should come to Mizzenwald and learn magic.”

  A decision that Calahan has likely been kicking himself over ever since.

  “Did you really do all those things your Chief was rattling on about?” Harold asked with narrowed eyebrows.

  “Would you have come along with me if I hadn’t?” Hayden asked curiously.

  “Maybe…” the butcher said with serious deliberation. “We’re being paid a fortune to do this—enough to live off of for the rest of our lives.”

  Well at least you signed up for this voluntarily. I’m not even being paid, Hayden thought grimly.

  What he said out loud was, “My good friend Cal speaks in half-truths. I was involved with all of the things he said, and at least partially responsible for the success. Honestly though, I had help on a lot of it, help I probably would have been dead without.”

  He waited to see what they’d make of that, whether they were getting ready to try and overthrow him and declare themselves in charge from here on out. To his surprise, Tanner merely nodded and said, “Fair enough. I can respect your honesty.” Harold said nothing.

  They walked for a long while, though it was hard to have any concept of time inside this realm because the sky never changed; it was as overcast and dark as it had been when they first arrived. The wind didn’t seem to reach the clouds, because Hayden could swear they hadn’t moved a bit, simply sitting static overhead. His stomach growled and he felt tired, which was the only real indicator of time passing at all to him.

  He began to relax and think that maybe they would avoid being attacked by monsters during this journey after all. It had been hours (or so he guessed), and they hadn’t seen any sign of life yet. Maybe all the monsters were sleepi
ng, or they were avoiding the trail along the ley lines, or…

  An enormous shadow passed overhead, though it took a moment for the thought to register in Hayden’s mind because the sky was so dark to begin with. As it grew larger, the warning bells in Hayden’s brain went off and he said, “Look out!” and dove to the ground, rolling without knowing what he was diving away from.

  Harold was just as quick to react and had veered off in the other direction, but Tanner hadn’t moved fast enough and was now bleeding from a long gash along the entirety of one arm. Looking up, Hayden saw the cockatrice regaining altitude, preparing to turn around and dive for them again.

  Hayden had only seen one cockatrice before, and it was a fictitious replica inside of the challenge arena at Mizzenwald last year. That one had been small—hardly larger than Bonk—which according to Lorn Trout made it even more dangerous. If that was the case then this one should be a wuss, because it was easily six feet tall, its wingspan nearly double that as it soared overhead.

  The cockatrice spun around and dove towards them again. Panicking, Hayden fumbled around his belt for a prism before realizing that he didn’t have any magical weapons on hand, and had to scramble to his feet and run to avoid being ripped in half. He frantically felt around his belt for anything that might be helpful and came up with a knife and his buckler, which suddenly seemed very small and insignificant against such a formidable enemy.

  The cockatrice let out a huge gout of flame and Hayden thrust the buckler in front of him without a second thought. The shield wasn’t nearly large enough to protect his entire body, but it did at least cover his face and chest, which was where the hottest part of the flame hit. He could feel the heat blistering the treated wood and steel frame from the other side, nearly dropping it as the handhold grew hot.

  He heard some kind of battle cry from behind the cockatrice, which had landed on the ground and was focusing on Hayden, and soon Harold could be seen climbing on the thing’s back, sword in hand. Harold plunged the blade into the creature’s back, which seemed like it should have killed it instantly but only succeeded in making it really angry.

  The cockatrice shook Harold free, launching the stout butcher off of its back with an impressive shriek. Hayden heard the man’s body slam against the ground but couldn’t see it behind the massive wingspan of the monster that stood between them. The cockatrice made a noise that sounded like it was getting ready to spit on him, and knowing what to anticipate, Hayden dropped his shield and ran towards it as fast as possible, seeking refuge up against its body just as it spat poison all over the place he had been moments before.

  The cockatrice looked down at Hayden there and spread its wings as though to take flight—probably just long enough to get airborne so it could stomp on him—and Hayden drew the first knife that came to hand and plunged it into the beast’s gut. It just so happened that he stuck the knife in right as the cockatrice launched itself into the air, which resulted in the blade slicing through its stomach as it moved. The knife was ripped out of Hayden’s hand as the monster lifted off with the blade still inside it, and the resulting shriek from his foe forced him to cover his ears for fear of going deaf. The cockatrice returned to the ground with a loud thud, nearly squashing him, stomping around in pain as Tanner reappeared to its left, loaded a crossbow and shot a shaft right between its eyes.

  The cockatrice fell over, dead.

  For a long moment no one moved. It wasn’t until Hayden felt his adrenaline peter out and the stuffy feeling in his Foci that his brain kicked back into action, though he felt more tired than ever.

  “Is anyone hurt badly?” he asked, getting to his feet and checking himself for injuries. His shirt had burned through across his stomach, where the buckler wasn’t able to shield him entirely, and his skin beneath it was red and sensitive to the touch. Fortunately the shield had absorbed the most concentrated part of the flame, or he’d probably be a pile of ashes right now.

  “My arm’s still bleeding, but otherwise I’m okay,” Tanner panted, collapsing to the ground and using his good arm to fish around his backpack until he extracted a roll of bandages and some water.

  “What about Harold? I saw him get thrown but I didn’t see how he landed,” Hayden looked around the cockatrice’s body.

  “It’ll take more than a few bumps and bruises to do me in,” the butcher’s gruff voice answered back as he limped into view. “You okay, kid?”

  “Yeah, just a mild burn,” Hayden assured him, opening his own bag to spread some burn paste across his torso, feeling the immediate relief. Harold helped Tanner wash and bandage the long gash on his arm.

  “Thought you were going to just run around crying while the rest of us killed that thing,” Harold said at last, giving Hayden a slightly suspicious look. “You didn’t look like much of a hero fighting that monster.”

  Hayden scowled and said, “I’m used to fighting with magic. I panicked at first and it took me a minute to refocus.”

  “Yes, well, we got it in the end,” Tanner said in a placating voice, glancing between the two of them. “Should we get going in case more show up from all the noise?”

  As tired as they were, no one disagreed. Hayden tilted his head back in what was rapidly becoming a familiar position, searching for the ley lines. He found them almost immediately—though the light was faint—a little to the south, and they corrected their course and set off again after gathering their weapons from the fight.

  “How long do you think they’ll keep working their magic from the other end of the door?” Harold asked as they continued crossing the planes towards a densely-packed wooded area up ahead.

  “They’ll keep the Closing spell going for as long as it takes,” Hayden stated firmly.

  Harold cocked an eyebrow at him and said, “They’re going to give up on us eventually. I’m just asking how long you think we’ve got before that happens.”

  “Asher won’t give up on me, not for a very long time,” he answered with just as much confidence as before. He knew that his mentor would make sure they gave Hayden ever possible chance at making it back before giving up on him.

  “If you say so,” Harold relented, though he obviously wasn’t convinced. Hayden wasn’t sure how much he liked the man, and wished he could be a bit more agreeable, like Tanner, who had remained mostly silent since they fought the cockatrice. Hayden wondered if his arm was hurting a lot more than he let on.

  As they neared the wooded area, Hayden saw the ley lines disappear into the tangle of trees and knew there would be no avoiding the forest. Upon closer inspection, it was the strangest forest Hayden had ever seen after the Forest of Illusions: the trees were multi-colored, though muted so that it was hard to tell what color they were from a distance; the branches and leaves twisted into shapes that seemed improbable for trees—twisting upwards like horns, wound in circles so that the leaves made strange concentric patterns, or sticking almost straight up into the air so that the entire tree looked like a giant feather duster.

  Owls and bats peered down at them from the higher branches that Hayden could see, and he knew that there were probably hundreds of different types of animals in the forest—hopefully some of them friendly, or at least neutral. All in all, it was the last place he wanted to go right now.

  So of course it’s right in the middle of our path.

  “Holy gods, what is that?” Harold stopped dead in his tracks, staring straight ahead.

  Thinking the man was a bit dim, Hayden said, “It’s a forest…”

  “No, he means that,” Tanner corrected him, pointing.

  In Hayden’s fascination with the forest, he had overlooked the strangest feature of all. There was a wooden structure built just to the side of their path, with a thatched roof that had poked through in places and two square holes in the front that were unmistakably meant to be windows.

  Mouth dropping open in astonishment to mirror his companions, Hayden said, “Is that a house?”

  14

 
; A Fork in the Road

  The three of them stared at it for over a minute in silence, trying to wrap their minds around the concept of a house existing in a place like this.

  If there’s a house, then there must be people. Someone lives here…

  He wasn’t sure if that made him feel better or worse. The presence of other people in this realm meant that they weren’t so totally, hopelessly alone, but on the other hand it also meant that someone had survived in here long enough to build a house and make a life of it. Anyone who could do that must be totally nuts by now, and may not be all that friendly towards a trio of heavily-armed strangers…

  “Should we check it out?” Tanner asked hesitantly. “I mean, if there are other people here, they might be able to help us…”

  Harold was obviously taking Hayden’s darker view of the matter, because he said, “Or else they’re whackjobs who like living in this scary hellhole, and they’re going to try and murder us as soon as we knock on the door.”

  The other two looked towards Hayden for an answer, which he found a little surprising.

  Guess they’re still content with letting me make the decisions…

  “I think we ought to check it out. We should be prepared for hostility, but there’s also a chance that it’s Delauria’s people, or maybe even one of the earlier expeditions.”

  Frowning, Harold said, “If it was any of them, why would they stop here instead of pushing through the forest to the other door? They knew they could be rid of this place if they could just get to the other exit.”

  Hating to agree with the surly butcher, Hayden nodded and said, “I know. But maybe there’s a reason they weren’t able to go on, like they’re badly hurt, or their mage went nuts and they’re not sure how to continue alone…” he knew his excuses sounded feeble at best, but he honestly had no idea why a person would build a home here and was curious to find out.

  “Either way, we need to rest up and eat something or we’re going to be useless by the time the next monster shows up,” Tanner pointed out rationally.