Cave of Nightmares

by V. St. Clair

  He and Zane had carefully decided not to mention any part of their episode with the dragon around Mizzenwald, because if the Masters found out they might demand a true account of what happened, and besides…they weren’t actually positive that they were allowed to perform magic outside of Mizzenwald at their age, and didn’t want to find out the hard way.

  Torin looked like he’d been home for a few days, but the Prism Master was wearing dust-covered casualwear and carried a knapsack over one shoulder as though he’d just gotten in. They both turned around at the sound of his footsteps, and Asher gave him a mischievous grin.

  “Ah, good, there’s our famous dragon-slayer in the flesh,” he greeted him cheerfully, and Hayden felt his mouth drop open in shock.

  “How—how did you know about that?” he demanded. All of his carefully-crafted plans with Zane were suddenly useless.

  “Oh come now, you must realize that I have friends,” he looked mildly offended by Hayden’s slowness. “Besides, we mages are a tight-knit community, especially locally. You can’t be surprised that word got out after two twelve-year old mages slew a fully-grown dragon.”

  “But how did you know I was one of them?” Hayden pressed, still off-kilter from the Prism Master’s prescience.

  Master Asher smirked. “Your and Zane’s names were mentioned in the encounter, and coupled with the fact that you left Mizzenwald with two prisms and are returning with none, it seemed a pretty safe guess.”

  “Oh, darn. Zane and I were hoping no one would hear about it outside of Calypso,” Hayden mumbled.

  “You mean you didn’t come here to brag to us about your success?” Asher looked slightly surprised.

  “No, I was actually hoping Torin could take a look at Bonk,” Hayden explained. “He was eaten by the other dragon and got some bad bites from it. A local healer did her best with him, and I let him play in the fireplace as much as possible since then, but he still can’t fly much.”

  Torin and Asher looked absolutely stunned by this announcement, the former holding out his arm for Bonk, who took flight and coasted over to him without being asked.

  “Back up to the part where Bonk was consumed by another dragon,” the Prism Master narrowed his eyebrows. “He looks surprisingly well for it, by the way.”

  “Umm…what have you heard about what happened in Calypso?” Hayden asked tentatively, wondering how far-fetched the story had become in the retelling.

  “A load of waffle, I suspect, though I took care not to say so at the time.” Master Asher gestured for him to sit down on a closed barrel near the wall, picking one nearby to settle himself on while his father began examining Bonk through a magnifying glass. “Something about you and your classmate engaging in an epic mage-battle and calling down lightning to smite your foe.”

  “Oh, uh…” Hayden winced, “yeah, that’s not what happened at all.”

  Asher chuckled. “With level-one prisms and level-three conjury chalk, I should think not.”

  Hayden frowned and shared an (embarrassingly) honest account of what happened that day.

  “Zane and I were walking through an apple orchard while Bonk flew around to get some exercise. We’d heard there was a non-magical dragon harassing Calypso, but no one knew where its lair was.” He sighed. “Of course we ran into it, because I have absolutely terrible luck. Anyway, it passed over us at the orchard and we took off running, but it gave chase.”

  “Most monsters do have that annoying tendency,” Master Asher pointed out brightly.

  “It got ahead of us and we couldn’t pass it, so we tried backing away slowly but it still attacked us. We had to dive out of the way for the first couple passes. Zane wanted to conjure a weapon, but there was nothing to draw on because we were out in a field.”

  Despite the fact that Torin was checking the inside of Bonk’s mouth and mixing herbs together in a mortar, Hayden knew he was listening intently as well.

  “Then I…well, I panicked.” He scowled, hating to admit it. “I had my glass prism equipped, and I cast—um, fire at it,” he mumbled the last part.

  Asher clapped a hand over his mouth that didn’t entirely stifle his laughter. Even his shoulders shook with it. At the look on Hayden’s face he said, “I’m sorry, it’s only funny because you survived.”

  Cheeks burning, Hayden went on. “It attacked us again and I dove out of the way, and when I looked back it had Zane in its claws. It lifted him into the air like it was going to eat him, so I did the only thing I could think to do…”

  He was watching the Prism Master’s face very carefully when he finished, “I compounded my prisms.”

  Asher didn’t look terribly surprised to hear this, nor angry. He frowned thoughtfully and asked, “What did you cast?”

  Relieved, Hayden continued. “The first thing I saw that might be useful was Break. I tried it, hoping to break the leg that was holding Zane so it would let go and give us a chance to run. It sort of worked…I mean, I don’t think its leg actually broke, but it did roar and let go of Zane, so I must have hurt it a little.”

  Torin glanced up at him, clearly impressed.

  “That’s quite a feat, injuring a dragon by yourself, especially at your age.”

  “And with level-one prisms at that,” Master Asher added.

  “Thanks. Um, after that I was fresh out of ideas though, and Zane’s leg was hurt so we couldn’t run very fast. The dragon was going in for the kill and then Bonk came out of nowhere and flew straight into its mouth.”

  Asher leaned back in surprise and turned to his father, who was giving Bonk an admiring look and said, “You clever little devil.”

  “Clever? Really?” Asher’s skeptical eyebrow suggested otherwise. “It sounds ridiculously stupid.”

  “That’s what we thought, at first,” Hayden explained. “But the big dragon took a few steps towards us and then just keeled over dead. We pried its jaws open and found Bonk alive, so we hurried home with him because he was gasping for air.”

  Torin began feeding Bonk the crushed paste he’d just completed, which must have tasted terrible because the little dragon shook his head emphatically while he ate it, like he was trying to shake the taste.

  “I assume he poisoned his counterpart?” Torin asked with professional interest, and Hayden nodded. “You clever boy,” he added to Bonk.

  “Next thing I know, the town is holding a festival in our honor and we’re heroes.” Hayden frowned. “I tried explaining what really happened, but no one wanted to hear it.”

  Master Asher chuckled in amusement.

  “Did you get any spoils off of the smote dragon?”

  “Yeah, Zane and I each got one of its teeth.” Hayden opened his bag and held it up for them to see. Torin whistled in appreciation and even Asher looked impressed.

  “Is Bonk going to be alright?” he asked the former, who nodded.

  “He’s healing up fine. Whoever worked on him obviously wasn’t a mage, but did a pretty fair job, all things considered,” Torin explained. “Looks like they used alemnis and acacia on him. Probably cost you a hundred credits to have him treated, am I right?”

  “A hundred credits?” Hayden’s mouth dropped open at the staggering number. That was a fifth of his yearly allowance from his father’s accounts. “I—I don’t know how much it cost; they waved the charges since Bonk killed that big dragon.”

  Torin looked pleasantly surprised.

  “Oh, well that was nice of them. The town must have chipped in to cover the expenses.”

  “Does it really cost that much just for some paste?” Hayden asked, aghast.

  “Not here, because we have the materials readily available courtesy of the Forest of Illusions,” Torin explained. “But in an ordinary town where they don’t treat a lot of magical creatures, they’ll be paying premium prices for the ingredients and probably have a hard time getting them at all. It’s lucky they had any alemnis on hand or he would be a lot worse off.”

  Hayden suddenly wished he could
go back to Calypso to thank the townspeople for their kindness.

  “Am I going to have to explain to all the other Masters about what happened?” he addressed Asher, not relishing the prospect.

  “Oh, I suppose I could tell them something on your behalf…especially since Sark is so edgy about you compounding prisms.” He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Though I’d love to see the look on Kilgore’s face when he hears you used fire against a dragon.” He chuckled at Hayden’s embarrassment but made a placating gesture at a scowl from his father. “I’ll take care of it.”

  Hayden exhaled in relief.

  “Can I ask you something else?” he didn’t wait for a response before continuing. “How would you have gotten rid of the dragon, if you were in my place?”

  The Prism Master gave him an appraising look, followed by a pensive stare.

  “Given my superior prisms, I would probably compound my violet-tinted crystal with my clear diamond and cast Stop.”

  Hayden frowned thoughtfully. His prisms were capable of casting Stop, but he didn’t see how it would have helped him at the time.

  “You would…freeze it long enough to run away?” he speculated.

  Master Asher chuckled. “No, no, though I can see where you’d be confused. Compounds done with diamond or crystal are the most powerful, probably strong enough to penetrate even a dragon’s thick hide. I would target its heart, specifically.”

  “Oh.” Hayden thought that over for a minute. He hadn’t ever considered being able to use Stop for such an ominous purpose, only for freezing something in motion.

  “It’s extremely difficult to stop a heart with that spell, especially on a dragon, and would only work with advanced compounding and a ton of power and will behind it,” Asher explained, apparently sensing his unease. “Life is the most difficult thing to remove with magic, as it should be.”

  A heavy silence fell while they all digested those words.

  Torin broke it first. “Leave Bonk with me for a bit and I’ll speed up his healing. He should be back to normal by the time term starts.”

  Hayden nodded gratefully and stood up, tucking the dragon tooth back into his bag. For some reason Master Asher decided to leave at the same time as him, and the two walked side-by-side towards the main entrance of the castle.

  “So, um…did you get any good research done over the holiday?” Hayden ventured, not sure if he was allowed to pry into the Prism Master’s business or not.

  “Actually, yes,” he sounded pleased. “It was quite productive. I also met a very pretty girl who showed me around the theatre district during my free time.”

  Encouraged by Asher’s willingness to answer his questions, Hayden asked another. “What did you work on?”

  “Well, women like to feel appreciated for their efforts, so I tried to make sure—”

  “I meant your research, sir,” Hayden interrupted, and Master Asher looked almost amused by the change of subject.

  “I’ve been working on the same thing that all Prism majors study,” he explained, “discovering new arrays of power—specifically in compounded crystal-crystal prisms.”

  Hayden frowned thoughtfully. “Is there still much left to discover?”

  Master Asher looked stunned by the question. “We’ve barely scratched the surface of the power of prisms!” The sudden passion for learning in his voice startled Hayden. “You might as well take a cup of water from the Gawain Sea and claim to have captured the whole of it! There are thousands—millions of arrays to be seen, most of which are still too complex for mere humans to even perceive properly, let alone use.”

  Hayden thought about his own brief attempts at compounding, and the thousands of light patterns he was presented with, most of which he couldn’t even begin to make sense of.

  “Anyway, I’ve been mapping an array for months now that seems promising,” Master Asher continued, his voice returning to its normal pitch and volume.

  “What does it do? Or what do you think it does?”

  The Prism Master grinned at him. “I think it will bring the rain.” He paused for a moment to let that sink in. “Can you imagine it? Being able to summon rain, no matter where you are? We wouldn’t have to worry about droughts and bad harvests ever again.”

  Hayden had never survived a very bad drought since Junir’s climate was very well-balanced, but had heard that some of the western lands suffered huge casualties in years past from lack of food and water as a result of the droughts.

  “That sounds like a very good thing,” he answered sincerely. “Do you enjoy doing research?”

  Asher gave him a strange look. “If I didn’t then this would be a terrible position for me to hold.” He smirked. “Yes, I enjoy research very much. When you start my higher-level classes you’ll begin to see my name referenced in publications.”

  Hayden was forcibly reminded of seeing his father’s name alongside Master Sark’s in Tess’s textbook on powders. Perhaps that was what drove him to ask his next question.

  “Do you think I could do research with you someday?”

  Master Asher’s reaction was completely unexpected. Hayden had anticipated a smirk, perhaps a noncommittal joke. Instead the Prism Master stopped dead in his tracks and gave him a wide-eyed stare that was almost…frightened. Hayden took a step back in alarm, because his mentor had just removed a diamond prism from his belt as though he was getting ready to equip it and use it to murder him.

  “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t—” Hayden had no idea what he was saying, but Master Asher recovered his composure in the blink of an eye and glanced down at the prism in his hand as though unsure of how it had gotten there. He returned it to the vacant slot on his belt and attempted his usual airy tone, not quite pulling it off.

  “You’re still years away from worrying about apprenticeships,” Master Asher spoke without quite meeting his eye. “By the time you’re at the mastery-level you may not even be interested in it. I’ll see you in class, Hayden. Glad you made it back in one piece.”

  He walked off without giving Hayden a chance to respond, taking long strides in his obvious haste to get away. Hayden had no idea what he’d said that was so horrible, and could only conclude that Master Asher was aghast at the prospect of becoming his sponsor.

  And why shouldn’t he be? I’m the Dark Prism’s son. Nobody trusts me with advanced prisms.

  He was having a difficult time swallowing for some reason, trudging into the castle with a heavy heart. All of his previous joy at being home had evaporated strangely, and now he almost wished he was back at the orphanage.

  I always thought Master Asher was on my side.

  The young Prism Master had always acted as though he trusted him, defending him to Master Sark and the others when he got into trouble, saying he would always be there to help him if he needed it.

  He even lets me talk to him and Torin on family day sometimes because I’m all alone.

  It was now almost impossible for him to swallow, and Hayden was beginning to suspect his airways would close off if he didn’t think about something less depressing. Imagine Lorn’s face when he hears you’ve defeated a dragon.

  Even that thought was bitter and unsatisfying, because he knew how little he deserved the honor. He heard Tamon call out to him as he passed the common area on the sixth floor and sped up, desperately wanting to be alone right now. He was nearly sprinting by the time he flung open the door to his room and threw himself face-down on top of his bed, devoutly thankful that none of his roommates were back yet.

  He didn’t want any of them to see him cry.

  17

  Sleep

  Torin was true to his word and returned Bonk to him in good health by the beginning of the fall term. Word soon got out about their exploits in Calypso, and Hayden and Zane were fortunate enough to be present during the moment that Oliver’s friends broke the news to him and Jasper during lunch.

  “Interesting,” Zane remarked with badly-suppressed glee, “I didn’t know a pers
on’s face could become that red without their head exploding.”

  Tamon, who was sitting with them remarked, “Oliver’s head exploding would drastically improve his looks, if you ask me.”

  The others laughed at that, though Mira rolled her eyes even as she joined in. “You’re just jealous of him because he’s so popular.”

  “Yeah, with idiots and jerks,” Tamon mumbled mutinously, earning another chuckle from Zane.

  “Jasper looks like he wants to have his falcon gouge your eyes out, Hayden.”

  Hayden followed Conner’s line of sight and noted that his assessment seemed accurate. Jasper was glaring daggers at him, though he quickly turned away as though none of them were worthy of his attention when he spotted them looking.

  Hayden sighed. “What else is new?”

  Master Asher must have kept his word and told the other Masters something convincing about the slaying of the dragon, because no one else asked him for an explanation or even mentioned it at all. The exception was Master Kilgore, who asked him to stay behind in Elixirs long enough to say, “Really, Frost—fire? Against a dragon?”

  Ashamed of his blunder all over again, Hayden hurried off to Prisms and took his usual seat beside Tucker, wondering how Asher was going to act around him. This was the first time he’d seen the Prism Master since that unpleasant moment in the courtyard.

  As it turned out, Master Asher seemed completely normal. He began teaching them about how some minor alignments could be inverted to produce major alignments—called the Law of Inversion—and whenever his eyes met Hayden’s he looked perfectly cheerful.

  He informed them that their homework was to look for examples of such alignments in their clear and amber prisms, and that there would be a prize for whoever correctly identified the most before the next day.

  To no one’s real surprise, Hayden was able to identify twenty different qualifying alignments, more than double what any of his classmates had found. His reward was a blue-tinted glass prism, which Master Asher informed him he now had permission to carry and use. Amazed and pleased, Hayden tucked it into his third prism slot and resolved to examine it in more detail later that night.