Cave of Nightmares

by V. St. Clair

  “Kind of makes you wonder,” Tucker said as they were walking back upstairs to drop off their things before dinner, “what he would have done if someone else won the challenge.”

  “What do you mean?” Hayden asked, confused.

  “He’s made it clear that not many of us are ready for another tinted prism yet. If he was just angling for a chance to reward you, why didn’t he just ask you to stay after class and tell you you’re okay to use blue prisms? Why make you prove how much better you are than the rest of us?”

  Hayden frowned. “I don’t know what Asher’s thinking these days.” That was true on more than one level.

  Tucker shrugged. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing. We’ve got another challenge arena coming up in a few weeks, so figure out how to use that thing, because we need all the help we can get.”

  When Hayden entered the dormitory after dinner that night, it was to find his part of the room thoroughly trashed: books all over the floor, clothing smeared with mud (and worse) and desk supplies smashed and unusable.

  “Whoa…” Zane and Conner followed him inside, eyes widening with shock. “Who do you think did this?”

  Hayden scowled and examined a group of snapped pencils on the floor. He was suddenly glad that he brought Bonk with him to dinner that night, or who knows what might have happened.

  “I’m beginning to think there is a reason that Jasper and Oliver were late arriving to the dining hall.”

  Zane looked outraged on his behalf.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll get them back for this. They’re just jealous because you’re making them look bad by being smarter than them.”

  Hayden wasn’t entirely sure if that was true, but he was too tired to care just now. He began the laborious process of putting the room back in order, salvaging what could be kept and throwing away the rest. Fortunately both Conner and Zane had some useful repairing spells and the damage wasn’t as bad as he’d initially believed, though all of his clothing had to be sent to the laundry to get the mud and bird poop off of it.

  Zane and Conner spent the next hour coming up with all sorts of devious ways they could pay the older boys back, with Hayden only half-listening.

  “—know what you should do first thing tomorrow?” Zane got his attention. “You should tell Master Asher what they did. I’ll bet he sends them somewhere really horrible for detention,” he added with grim satisfaction.

  Hayden’s stomach flipped unpleasantly at the thought of asking the Prism Master for help now that he knew how the man really felt towards him.

  “No,” he said too quickly, surprising his roommates. “I don’t want them to know they’ve gotten to me,” he added immediately, trying to look calm and reasonable. “Besides, there’s no proof that they were the ones who did it, and I might just get in trouble again for picking fights.”

  Zane gave him a strange stare and said, “You’re Asher’s favorite. He’s got to believe anything you say.”

  “I’m not his favorite.” It was everything Hayden could do not to sound snappish when he said it. “Anyway, you both had some good ideas for payback, so we’ll just keep this between us for now…see how they like it when it comes back on them.”

  That immediately set Zane and Conner on another discussion about what they could possibly do to make Oliver and Jasper pay for their sins. This time Hayden joined in.

  ***

  It took three days for them to exact their revenge, mostly because there were so many details to work out to prevent them from being caught. In fact, it might not have been possible for their plan to work at all if Hayden hadn’t recently been granted permission to use blue-tinted glass prisms.

  The three of them waited until Kayce was asleep before sneaking out of the room and into the darkened hallway. It was after midnight and none of the lights were on in the castle, giving it an ominous, oppressive feeling.

  “I could give us a little light…” Conner offered in hushed tones, but the others waved him down. “Too risky. If any of the Masters are up they’ll see us right away.”

  Still, by the time they’d crept back to the main stairwell and were heading downwards in the near-blackness, Hayden would have given almost anything for a bit of light. Every creak and groan of the building made the hair on the back of his neck stand up, and more than once they thought they heard voices.

  Since Oliver and Jasper were almost at the mastery-level of schooling, they were on the second floor, and the three of them turned down the hallway and moved slowly as they counted doors. Zane had been sent as a lookout during dinner just the night before to read the names next to each room and figure out which one was theirs.

  Ten…eleven…twelve…thirteen. Hayden stopped in front of the right door and looked at the others, eyes straining in the darkness to see their features. They were almost at the point of no return…

  Zane pulled the chalk from his pocket and felt around for the doorknob, drawing a small circle beside it that was just large enough for his hand to fit inside. Hayden admired his ability to draw crosshatches and braids in the dark, returning the chalk to his belt and sticking his hand straight through the middle of the circle and the wooden door as though it were made of jelly.

  Zane was elbow-deep in the door before he twisted his arm to the side and grabbed the knob. They heard the lock click—it sounded loud in the silence—and the door eased open. Conner and (surprisingly) Kayce had worked on installing a lock on their own door after the recent vandalism, though Hayden was starting to second-guess its security now that he saw how easily his friend bypassed the older boys’.

  Hayden and Conner slipped inside the room, but Zane gave a muffled gasp from behind them. When they turned they saw him still kneeling in front of the door with his arm still sticking through the wood, which seemed to solidify around him.

  “What’s wrong?” Hayden asked as quietly as possible. His friend let out a helpless sigh and said, “I’m stuck. The circle disappeared when I unlocked the door and now I can’t get my arm out.”

  That was not a consequence they had foreseen, and Hayden and Conner exchanged a nervous glance. Neither of them was good enough at conjury to replicate Zane’s circle to get his arm out.

  Conner flicked his wand and a bright bead of light lit the end of it, nearly blinding Hayden, whose eyes had become accustomed to the darkness. He heard the sound of rustling sheets from one of the beds nearby as he lowered the eyepiece of his circlet over his right eye, the blue prism already loaded.

  Sleep, he thought at the rustling form, which immediately fell silent and still. He turned to the other three and repeated the spell, anxious to keep them unconscious until the three of them were long gone.

  “How do we get you out of there?” Hayden turned back to Zane, his voice still a whisper but much more relaxed.

  “I don’t suppose either of you can draw a twice-hatched, single-braided circle?” he sighed, already knowing the answer.

  “Can’t you just draw it with your left hand?” Hayden asked desperately, while Conner moved further into the room to begin exacting their revenge on Oliver and Jasper while the boys slept.

  In the residual light from Conner’s wand, Hayden could see Zane scowl at him. “About as accurately as you can target through a prism with your left eye.”

  Hayden had actually never tried to use his left eye before for casting, and pulled the clear prism from his belt to hold it up in front of him. It felt strange and awkward, like writing with his left hand would be, even though he could see the colors and arrays just fine. He had the feeling that he could cast this way if he had to, but it would be sloppy and badly-focused.

  Zane had used his left hand to remove the chalk from his belt and pass it to his right on the other side of the door.

  “What are you doing?” Hayden whispered.

  “Attempting to get myself out of this,” his friend grumbled. “If I use my left hand I’ll probably end up vanishing my conjuring arm entirely, and then I’ll have to explain what
happened to Master Reede so he can attempt to find it for me.” He scowled and twisted his arm uncomfortably in the wood, clenching his teeth in pain as he tried for a good angle to draw from. “I don’t suppose you want to explain why we’re in the sixth-year dormitories after midnight with my arm stuck in a door?”

  Hayden didn’t, so he watched helplessly as his friend attempted to draw a conjury circle without being able to see it, wishing they had never come here tonight. They were going to get in a world of trouble if they were discovered…

  The sound of fluttering wings nearly stopped his heart.

  Oh no…we forgot about the familiars….

  Conner clearly had this thought at the same moment as he did, and stopped drawing on Oliver’s face in black ink long enough to stumble backwards in horror. Jasper’s falcon was waking up. If it thought they were attacking its master it would try to tear them to pieces, and if Slasher woke up….There was no way they could overpower a magically-inclined dragon long enough to escape undetected.

  Hayden swung the eyepiece with the blue prism in it out of the way, held the clear one in front of his right eye and thought, Focus!

  Jasper’s familiar became suddenly interested in staring at its perch. Hayden had no idea how long the spell would hold, but by some miracle Zane managed to free himself without losing an arm or breaking the door, and the three of them took off down the hallway without pressing their luck any further.

  They didn’t stop or speak until they were safely inside their own room, where Zane flipped on the lights and sat down heavily on his bed, white-faced.

  “That was close,” he said in a low voice, despite the fact that Kayce was a heavy sleeper and probably wouldn’t wake up even if the sun crashed into the world and exploded.

  “Yeah, um…maybe we shouldn’t try anything like that again,” Hayden grimaced, thinking through all the things that could have gone wrong and how much trouble they would get into for being out of bounds.

  “I didn’t even get a chance to see…did you do it?” Zane turned to Conner, who gave them a wry grin.

  “Yeah, well—sort of,” he winced. “I got Jasper fine, but I was halfway through writing ‘loser’ on Oliver’s face when the falcon started to wake up and I never finished.”

  “Well, I guess we’d better get some sleep while we can. It should be a pretty interesting day tomorrow, unless they can figure out how to get that stuff off before classes.” Hayden climbed back into bed to follow his own advice, though his heart was racing so fast he thought he’d be lucky to ever sleep again.

  Oliver and Jasper didn’t make an appearance in the dining hall the next morning, though word had already gotten out that they had been pranked during the night. Hayden and his roommates tried not to look guilty or pleased when Tamon and Mira hurriedly explained it to them over breakfast.

  To Hayden’s surprise, Master Asher seemed to think it was a good day to share a meal with them, motioning for Tamon to scoot over so that he could take the seat directly across the table from Hayden. The look on his face was completely inscrutable, but Hayden’s stomach clenched unpleasantly.

  He knows…

  “Good morning,” Master Asher greeted them cheerfully, yawning as he filled his plate with eggs and bacon. His tousled hair was uncombed, giving the impression that he simply rolled out of bed, put his robes on, and came to breakfast.

  “Good morning sir,” three of them answered in unison. The table conversation had come to a halt since the Prism Master sat down.

  He must have noticed, because he said, “Carry on with whatever you were discussing; don’t let me bother you.”

  Conner hesitantly explained, “Mira was just telling us that someone played a prank on Oliver Trout and Jasper Dout.”

  “Yes, so I’ve seen.” The Prism Master managed to look less-than-amused even with a mouthful of fried eggs.

  “Then it’s true?” Mira asked him. Hayden wished someone would change the subject now that one of the Masters was at their table.

  “I’m afraid so,” Asher continued in a neutral tone. “Apparently during the night someone broke into their room and wrote insults on their faces with black ink…though obviously the attacker wasn’t too bright because they spelled ‘loser’ incorrectly.”

  Conner’s skin was dark enough that it wasn’t obvious if his cheeks were flushed, though Hayden could almost sense his friend clenching his hands into fists under the table.

  “By the time I saw them they were incoherent with rage,” Asher added.

  “Why did they come to you, sir?” Tamon asked curiously, trying to prevent his boa constrictor from slithering onto the table and consuming everything in sight.

  “They didn’t. They went to Kilgore, hoping an elixir would take care of it and no one would be the wiser. Elias informed the other Masters and I was nominated to examine the room for signs of magic.”

  Hayden was fairly certain his heart was going to explode if it beat any harder; it was physically painful. Almost against his will he asked, “Will Master Kilgore be able to remove the ink with an elixir?”

  He immediately regretted opening his mouth because it caused Asher to focus his gaze on him. Despite the fact that the Prism Master looked perfectly relaxed and amiable, Hayden still felt like his mentor was irritated with him.

  “Yes, he will. Unfortunately, the elixir takes time and skill to produce, so he has had to pull two of his research students off of their assignments to brew it while he teaches classes.” Asher still looked eerily neutral. “I hardly need to add that these sorts of juvenile pranks do nothing to endear the guilty party to my colleagues and I. It is nothing but a waste of time and resources to correct.”

  Zane didn’t seem able to meet Master Asher’s eyes when he said, “Maybe Oliver and Jasper did something to provoke it.”

  “I don’t doubt that they did,” the Prism Master conceded. “However, no preemptive strike was reported, which makes this look like an unwarranted, malicious attack on two unconscious students.”

  “Um, not that I support what happened…” Tamon interjected nervously, “but why didn’t they wake up when someone was drawing on their faces? I didn’t think anyone but Kayce could sleep through something like that.”

  Master Asher frowned and did not look at Hayden when he said, “They were put into magically-induced sleep. I expect if they ever discover the identity of their attackers they will be out for blood, and both have powerful allies in the magical community.”

  Hayden’s insides went glacial. Oliver’s mother was on the Council of Mages. She could get him arrested, expelled…maybe even worse. Why had he let his friends talk him into this?

  “Um, do you think you’ll be able to tell who did it just from looking around their room?” Conner asked quietly, and Hayden wished he could mentally will them all to shut up before they made things worse.

  “I’ve no idea,” Master Asher shrugged and stood up. “Excuse me, I need to prepare for my first class.”

  Zane and Conner seemed to breathe a sigh of relief when he left the table, but Hayden felt more jittery than ever. They made small talk until the end of breakfast and then went their separate ways for class. Zane walked with him until they reached the main foyer with the major arcana drawn on the walls.

  “I guess we shouldn’t have taken revenge on Oliver and Jasper after all,” Zane grimaced. “But hey, at least we didn’t get caught.”

  Oh yes, we most certainly did.

  “Mm, yeah,” was all Hayden could bring himself to say. “See you later.”

  He hurried to Wands but had a hard time focusing on today’s lesson, instead spending his time trying to figure out if Master Willow knew of his guilt. It was hard to say whether Asher would tell the others or not: he certainly had no reason not to, but Willow wasn’t glaring hatefully at him, so maybe the Prism Master just hadn’t gotten around to it yet.

  “Frost,” Master Willow startled him, and Hayden immediately blurted out, “I’m sorry!”

 
A few of his classmates snickered, though the Master of Wands simply raised an eyebrow and said, “I’d rather you show me you know how to cast the Squeezing spell than apologize to me for why you didn’t.”

  He just wants you to demonstrate the spell…he called on you at random…

  Rattled, Hayden lifted his wand and cast the Squeezing spell at a potted plant, which instantly tightened its tendrils into a fierce grip. He had no idea how this spell would come to any practical use, but couldn’t bring himself to think about it just now.

  “Good work, Hayden. Let’s continue…”

  It’s going to be a long day.

  By the time he got to Prisms he was thoroughly miserable. He’d spent the better part of the day trying to discern whether the other Masters knew about his part in the prank on Oliver and Jasper, and when it seemed that they didn’t, he turned his attention to why they didn’t know.

  Maybe Zane was right…maybe Asher did just sit with us because he felt like it…

  He was beginning to doubt his ability to read the Prism Master, who he used to think he understood fairly well. He had a headache by the time he sat down in class and took out his book.

  They were continuing their study of inverse alignments, and Asher was explaining tips for how to remember which arrays were inverted and which were standard.

  “I will now demonstrate what inverse alignments are capable of, but I’ll need a volunteer,” Master Asher continued without drawing breath, “Hayden, please equip your prism.”

  Hayden, who hadn’t volunteered or even met his gaze, tried not to look worried.

  It’s not weird that he would pick me for a demonstration…I’m a natural prism like him.

  “Which one should I equip, sir?”

  Asher blinked once and said, “The blue one.”

  It’s still a coincidence…Hayden assured himself, growing less confident with every second that passed. It has more diverse spells than the other ones you have…