Cave of Nightmares

by V. St. Clair

  There was a shuffling noise as everyone hurried to comply, some of them rummaging around in their bags while others, like Hayden, simply removed their wand from their belt.

  “Now, as you all learned from the reading, birch is a particularly good wood for casting nature-based magic.” Master Willow paced the front of the room in what Hayden was beginning to understand was his usual style. “In fact, it is the best-quality wand possible for natural magic, which means that…”

  He pointed to a girl named Jeena with short red hair two seats away from Hayden, and her eyes widened in surprise.

  “Um, it means that birch is the most efficient…so less of it is consumed during the casting of soil and plant-based magic?”

  “Correct,” Master Willow nodded, withdrawing a birch wand from his own belt. It was shorter than the rest of theirs, and thicker. “This is a mastery-level birch wand, which means that it takes even more powerful magic to consume it than yours.” He set it down on his desk and turned to a pot of dirt that sat on a stack of papers. “Each of you come up here and take a small scoop of this back to your desk, along with one of these seeds.” He pointed to a pile of seeds that Hayden hadn’t even noticed until then.

  Confused but intrigued, the class formed a line in front of Master Willow’s desk and collected their ingredients. Hayden dipped his hand into the dirt pot like the others before him and pulled out a palm-full of the loose, moist contents, grabbing a seed at random (they all looked different) and returning to his desk.

  He tried to arrange the dirt into a neat little pile on his workspace like some of his classmates, examining his birch wand until Master Willow addressed them again.

  “Now you’ve all got your basic materials. I want each of you to put the seed in the dirt, and be sure to cover it completely.”

  Hayden did as he was told.

  “Next, point your birch wand at the dirt and will the seed to grow.” He held up his mastery-level wand and demonstrated for them. A giant blue-belled flower erupted from the small pile of dirt, and a few of them gasped in awe.

  The rest of them were less successful.

  Hayden copied Master Willow’s gesture and thought, Grow, but for all the good it did he might as well have skipped the effort. The seed remained hidden in the dirt and his wand was intact.

  Most of his classmates were struggling similarly, though a few of the wand majors managed to successfully cast the spell on their first attempt and were looking pleased with themselves.

  Master Willow didn’t seem surprised or disappointed, and called them back to order.

  “Most of you performed as expected, which is to say, poorly,” he admitted candidly, and Hayden felt his ears burning. “It means that you have not yet tapped into the nature of wand magic and how it is performed. Most of you will improve by varying degrees, while some of you will never truly be able to command a wand.”

  Hayden swallowed, praying that he wasn’t one of the people who weren’t able to perform wand magic, because he found it quite interesting.

  “Wands are different than the instruments of the other major arcana because they are pure,” he explained patiently. “Powders and elixirs are formed by magical manipulation and chemical alterations, conjury chalk is a refined amalgamation of phosphorus and other calcites, and even prisms are purified from their natural form to increase lustre.” He glanced at Hayden. “Wands, however, are simply made from wood—free of additives and magical manipulation.”

  Hayden was hurriedly trying to take shorthand notes so he wouldn’t forget any of this later.

  “Since a wand is pure, it provides a powerful link to the natural world. In order to tap into that link, a caster must develop a keen understanding of the object he’s trying to manipulate,” Master Willow continued. “For instance, the seeds and dirt in front of you,” he pointed to them. “In order to make the seed grow you need to connect to it perfectly: imagine where it came from, what formed it, whether it is arid or hydrated, and so forth. Similarly, you need an understanding of the dirt that it is covered in; its physical properties at the very least. Only once you’ve taken the time to forge a connection to something may you exert your will upon it.”

  That sounded extremely difficult to Hayden, who had no idea how he was supposed to develop a keen understanding of every object in the entire world so that he could cast magic on it at will. The thought of carrying a reference book around with him on the composition and nature of all things while he was in the middle of a challenge was daunting.

  “I see we’re running close to the end of the lesson for today, so I give you all this homework assignment for the night: take your materials with you and try to develop a better understanding of them. Practice the Growing spell and come to class tomorrow, ready for a fresh attempt.”

  Hayden was trying to figure out how he was supposed to transport a pile of dirt around in his school bag, but fortunately Master Willow passed out little paper cups with lids on them and solved the problem for him.

  He was thinking about wand magic during the entire walk to Conjury, taking in his surroundings as he moved through the castle and trying to get an appreciation for just how many objects there were in the world that he would have to try and develop a magical link to.

  Master Reede soon put an end to his musings, informing them that they would begin their first attempts at conjuring that morning. Today he had his long blond hair coiled in a knot on the back of his head, and the metallic thread in his bright red robes picked up the gleam of the sunlight as he walked across the black stone floor in front of them.

  “Hopefully you all practiced your circles last night, because if not, your summoning today is going to be dreadful,” he announced cheerfully, looking through the numerous chalk-slots on his belt as he spoke. “Of course, some of you won’t be able to conjure so much as a tea-cup despite your best efforts, and you’ll spend the remainder of the year dreading my class.”

  He was still rummaging around his belt, apparently not finding what he was looking for because he said, “Drats, I’ll have to use my level-four,” and withdrew a slender piece of white chalk.

  “This,” he held up the piece of chalk, “is a level-four instrument, which is complete overkill for the activity we’ll be doing today,” he sighed. “Unfortunately I seem to have forgotten my level-one materials, so it’ll have to do.” He dropped to his knees in the middle of the great stone floor and drew a quick, perfect circle.

  “I want you all to spread out a bit and draw a circle of this approximate size.” He knelt patiently in the middle of the black slab while they all hastened to comply. Hayden ended up only a few feet away from him by the time they’d all spread out, and took much more care in drawing his circle than the Master had. His circle was still nowhere near perfect, but it was much closer than his previous attempts and he was pleased with it.

  “Alright, you’ve all got your circles?” Master Reede glanced around at them all. “Stebbins, redraw yours or you’ll put an eye out trying to use it.” He pointed to one of Hayden’s classmates, who scowled and erased his first attempt. “As you learned yesterday, the chalk is going to act as your instrument, and will be consumed in the process of conjuring.”

  He leaned forward and drew a quick line through the lower arc of his circle.

  “I want all of you to draw a single crosshatch through the bottom of your circle, one inch in length, divided evenly across the arc. Remember, the circle is oriented based upon your will, so it’s important for you to assign a top and bottom to it before continuing.”

  Hayden stared at his circle for a moment in silent contemplation. His natural inclination was to assume that the edge closest to him was the bottom, but after looking at it for a moment he realized that his eye was more focused on the right side, where the arc was a little fuller than the rest, making it slightly unbalanced. Deciding that that direction was going to be ‘down’, he took out his ruler and carefully drew the crosshatch through it.

  Master Reede
was on his feet, walking amongst them and making sure that they had followed his instructions. He asked three people to redraw their crosshatches because they were either too short or too long, but he passed Hayden’s without comment and returned to his own circle in the center of the floor.

  “Alright, you’ve all done a decent enough job that you shouldn’t injure yourselves when you attempt to conjure.” He looked relaxed, but Hayden would have liked to hear something more confident than “shouldn’t” right now.

  “As you know, the single crosshatch is the most basic of additions to the summoning circle, and is only capable of minor magic. You’ll be attempting to conjure single-entities with this formation, and by single-entity I mean things that are singular in composition. For example, this blade of grass—” he plucked one from the ground and twirled it in his fingers. “It is fairly homogenous from one end to the other, and not overly complex.”

  He set it down and stepped away from their smooth black floor, looking around the lawn for a moment until he located a pebble.

  “This stone is somewhat more complex, because it is composed of many different elements and compounds. I could potentially conjure it with a single crosshatch, but none of you would manage it without at least a double pairing.”

  He set it down and moved back to his summoning circle.

  “As time passes you will begin to develop an understanding of the nature of things, and you’ll get an innate sense for what sort of diagram you need to draw,” he explained. “Until you graduate the first-level class, all summoning circles must be approved by me or a mastery-level student before you use them. If you’re caught attempting configurations that you haven’t been cleared for, you’ll either be expelled from my class or from Mizzenwald entirely, depending on the severity of your deviation,” he warned them.

  “And so, let’s get down to it.” His expression brightened once more and he knelt down beside his circle. “When I tell you to begin, you are going to place your hand, palm-down, in the center of the circle and concentrate entirely upon the thing you’re trying to summon. You must picture it in your mind as clearly as possible and will it to come to you. When you think you’ve got it in your head, lift your hand slowly from the circle as though you are literally trying to pull the thing out from the ground, like so.”

  He placed his hand inside his summoning circle to show them, and as he lifted it they saw the blade of grass lying where his hand had been.

  “There, see? Easy-peasy.” He smirked. “Now each of you try—and stay quiet so your peers can concentrate. Take as long as you need to mentally ready yourself, and attempt to summon a blade of grass.”

  Hayden leaned over his own circle, knees aching a little from being pressed against the hard stone floor, and placed his hand in the center of it. He closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind of everything except the image of a blade of grass, his mind tracing over the details of it. He found it strangely similar to Master Willow’s instructions on understanding the nature of things for Wands, and hoped he would soon become good at both.

  When he finally felt confident that he was thinking of the blade of grass as hard as possible, he began trying to will it to him, imagining it popping out of the stone beneath his hand as he lifted it off the ground.

  The chalk circle vanished as the magic took hold, though Hayden frowned slightly at the result. He had conjured not one blade of grass, but a small pile, and the thin blades looked like they’d been sent through a shredder before coming to him. His attention was soon diverted by the screams of his classmates.

  Hayden looked around wildly, and his stomach plunged as he watched his nearest neighbor shrieking at the place where his right hand used to be, because it was no longer attached to his arm. There were more screams around him, and Hayden turned in every direction, discovering that at least five of his classmates no longer had their conjuring hands. There wasn’t any blood; the skin was folded over cleanly on their wrists as though they had never had a hand at all.

  One of the girls who lost her hand was sobbing hysterically and the boy closest to Hayden leaned to the side and vomited all over the stone floor. Hayden lurched out of the way to avoid being hit with sick, and Master Reede called them all to order.

  “That’s enough, everyone stop panicking.” He sounded ridiculously calm given that five of his students had just lost limbs in his class. He walked past Hayden and hopped into the grassy lawns, looking around at ground-level as he addressed them.

  “Losing an extremity—typically your conjuring hand—happens when your mind is not sufficiently focused. It can also mean that you’re just abysmal at conjury, of course.” He knelt down and picked up a lifeless, pale hand from the ground and tossed it back to the stone floor they were all sitting on. Several students scurried away to avoid being hit by the flying limb as the Master of Conjury continued to prowl the lawn around them.

  “Instead of pulling the grass out, you allowed it to pull you in.” He located another hand and tossed it back towards them. Hayden suppressed a wave of nausea as it hit the stone with a thud near him and flopped sickeningly so that it laid palm-up. He was glad he’d only eaten toast for breakfast.

  “All conjurers lose a hand at some point; it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Actually, I once managed to send both my legs to the top of Mount Arawas in my sixth year of school.” He tossed a third and fourth hand back to them.

  “The important thing is that you not let it frighten you out of conjuring ever again. I know it’s scary the first time it happens, but if you have that fear in your mind on your next attempt it’s only going to continue to occur. Let it simply serve as motivation to dedicate your mind wholly to the task at hand before performing magic.”

  He was still sweeping across the lawns, and now he turned back to the class.

  “Where in the blazes did one of you send your hand to?” He walked back to them and gestured to the pile of extremities on the ground. “Well, go on, sort out which hand belongs to who.”

  It was the strangest thing Hayden had ever witnessed, watching his classmates come forward and sort through a pile of dead hands. When they were all claimed, only the girl who had been sobbing was left without one, and she looked terrified.

  “What if you can’t find it?” Her eyes watered once more.

  “Anabel, has it escaped your mind that I happen to be the Master of Conjury?” He flashed a winning smile at her. “I just needed to know whose hand I was looking for first.” He motioned for them to clear a space for him on the stone floor, and they moved back quickly.

  He exchanged his level-four chalk for a bright pink piece from his belt and sketched a large circle on the black stone, big enough for four of them to stand comfortably inside if they wanted to. In a matter of seconds he added two long lines through each of the four quarters of the circle, and a third to the one closest to him. Inside the circle he drew a square, adding three long curling lines from the center through the boundaries of the circle, finishing with a flourish. It was the most symmetric, perfectly-drawn thing Hayden had ever seen. It had taken about ten seconds.

  Master Reede took Anabel’s remaining hand in his and examined it closely, flipping it over once or twice to see the back as well. Then he motioned for her to move out of the way, placed his hand in the center of the configuration, and immediately pulled her lost limb into view. Hayden gasped as the entire intricate drawing vanished in the blink of an eye.

  “Here you go, my dear, one left-hand as promised.” He passed it back to her. “Those of you who have lost a limb, head over to Mistress Razelle and she’ll reattach it for you. The rest of you get back to your circles and I’ll be around to check on the results of your first attempt.”

  Hayden wasn’t quite able to recover from the sight of his classmates’ missing hands as quickly as Master Reede, and as their instructor moved amongst them offering commentary and advice on their first attempts at summoning, he began to wonder what he’d gotten himself into by coming to Mizzenwald
.

  “This is your circle, Hayden?” he pointed to the pile of shredded grass, crouching down so they were on eye-level.

  “Yes, sir,” Hayden answered, bracing himself for criticism.

  “Not terrible for a first attempt,” Master Reede said fairly. “You were a little overzealous and pulled more than one strand, but that will get better with practice and confidence.”

  “How come it’s all shredded?” Hayden asked.

  “Things must have gotten a little criss-crossed in your will. You’ve either got thoughts lurking at the back of your mind that interfered with your summoning, or your will wasn’t entirely focused on the grass.” He shrugged. “Again, practice and experience should improve that with time.”

  He got up and went to the next person, and Hayden exhaled in relief, thankful that he wasn’t one of the worst in the class. Of course, he wasn’t the best either; about half the class had successfully conjured their pieces of grass without issue, even the ones who weren’t Conjury majors.

  Still, better a pile of worthless grass than a missing hand.

  His mind was reeling by the time he went to Powders.

  7

  Pounds of Prisms

  By the end of the day Hayden was more than ready for their two-day weekend. His Healing class had been taught by a sixth-year student because Mistress Razelle was busy reattaching his classmates’ hands from their Conjury lesson that morning, and despite the fact that Hayden wore a dust-mask in Powders that day, Master Sark declared his finished product “a sin against mankind”.

  By the time he got to Elixirs, Hayden had a pounding headache, which a room full of simmering vapors only worsened. To cap things off, Lorn Trout managed to slip an extra cup of water into Hayden’s cauldron as he was passing, which completely ruined his sleeping elixir.