The Other Prism (The Broken Prism)

by St. Clair, V.

  Hayden closed his eyes and began to mentally run through a list of spells and which prisms they were associated with.

  “Everyone got it?” Master Asher waited for them to nod, and Hayden opened his eyes and focused on his target, lowering the eyepiece of his prism-holder into position. “Alright then…begin!”

  The word “break” appeared in black on Hayden’s target and he almost smiled as he pulled out his amber prism and twisted it into place, because after using it against a dragon who was trying to eat him and Zane, it was a spell he would never forget.

  He heard a thump, the target swayed as though he had physically hit it, and the word changed to “light.” Hayden hurriedly swapped out his amber prism for his clear one, twisting it around in the eyepiece to find the right orientation for the light array. After “light” came “summon”, which he had only discovered the night before in his rose-tinted prism.

  And so it continued, with Hayden swapping out prisms as quickly as he could and twisting them around the eyepiece to find the right arrays, occasionally hearing the sounds of the other competitors’ targets being hit, but too busy to turn and see how they were progressing. His nerves were getting the better of him, and by the time he hit the target for what felt like the fiftieth time, he was mentally chiding himself for doing some of his slowest casting ever.

  After his “focus” hit the mark the target remained blank, momentarily confusing him. Then he realized he must have finished the task, and looked around to see how the others were faring.

  His four classmates were still casting. Oliver was squinting through his blue-tinted prism on Hayden’s immediate right and struggling to find the array for Sleep. He had forgotten about the crowd while he was working, but now Hayden could hear the chatter, as though someone had suddenly turned the volume back up on his ears. A group of mastery-level students had seats near the paved part of the courtyard, and one or two of them were clearly impressed with his casting.

  Master Asher was leaning casually against a cherry-blossom tree, eyes darting between the remaining competitors’ targets as they were hit, taking mental notes. Willow was speaking quietly to Master Kilgore behind his raised hand, and Master Sark—who hated Hayden on principle—was staring at him with an expression Hayden couldn’t interpret.

  It took the others at least two minutes longer than it took Hayden to finish the task, and he felt awkward standing around the courtyard watching them, but wasn’t sure what else to do. He searched the crowd sitting on the lawns and saw where his friends were still sitting. Zane gave him a thumbs-up.

  Kevin was the last to finish, and at that point Master Asher jotted down some quick notes on a piece of paper—probably their scores—and came forward to give them their next test.

  “Your second and final test of today will be of endurance.”

  While he was speaking, Master Reede was drawing some quick circles on the ground near the benches and using them to summon five heavy-looking blocks of metal. Hayden had no idea what they were supposed to do with them, but hoped it didn’t involve physical strength, because they looked like they weighed two-hundred pounds apiece.

  “Each of you will use your rose-tinted prism to cast Suspend on one of these four-hundred-pound weights and hold them at least four feet over your head,” Master Asher continued calmly. Hayden suppressed a grimace, though he was eager to point out the fact that as soon as they tired, those ridiculously heavy weights were going to fall on their heads and crush them.

  Perhaps the Prism Master could see the question on his face because he added, “I’ll be ready to intervene when your weights drop, though if you feel yourself fatiguing to the point of failure, I’d appreciate a hand signal ahead of time.”

  Not entirely reassured, Hayden watched in silence as Master Asher equipped one of his diamond prisms and moved the five weights so that they rested in front of each of them. Hayden couldn’t help but wonder if the block of metal in front of him was going to be the thing that killed him in a minute or two.

  “And…begin!”

  Hayden eyed the deceptively small metal block through his rose-tinted prism and cast Suspend on it, immediately feeling the weight of it as it rose off of the ground. It was chest level…eye-level…now over his head….When he felt like he couldn’t raise the block another inch, Master Asher called out that he was at an acceptable height to hold.

  He had his head tilted back as far as it would go in order to keep the block in sight for the casting, every muscle in his body locked as though he was actually carrying the weight by hand. Suspend was a slow-burning spell in terms of prism-consumption, so he was bound to tire and give up long before his prism ran out. It was impossible to look at his classmates to see how they were faring, but he heard someone groaning audibly under the strain and assumed they weren’t doing any better than him right now.

  Every second was torture, like having the wind knocked out of him over and over again without getting a chance to catch his breath in between. He took to counting time in his head, setting small goals for himself like, Ten more seconds, just to give his brain something to focus on other than the strain on his body and mind. At one point the metal block wavered dangerously overhead, and he had to sharpen his focus and hone his willpower to recover in time.

  He had no idea how long he was standing there since he was counting in ten-second intervals; hours perhaps, or maybe days. He could see the rose-tinted prism gradually being consumed inside his eyepiece, the edges drawing inwards so that the colors came into sharper and sharper focus through the remaining glass. Sweat trickled unpleasantly down his face and neck, saturating his shirt. He determinedly ignored it.

  Ten more seconds…ten more seconds…

  His throat felt dry and he was beginning to get light-headed.

  Six…seven…eight…nine…

  Patches of color were wavering in front of his vision and he felt his body sway to one side as he lost balance.

  …ten.

  He must have blinked, because when he returned to awareness he was sitting down, slumped forward on the warm pavement with his legs splayed out in front of him. He blinked rapidly to focus his vision and looked around, momentarily confused by his surroundings.

  The metal block that had been hovering over his head was now resting beside the others near Master Reede. His classmates looked as exhausted as Hayden felt, their faces lined with fatigue and their hair matted with sweat. Most of them were drinking from large bottles of water, which Master Asher was presently handing him.

  Realizing how parched he was, Hayden gulped down half of the bottle before he came up for air, painfully unclenching his fists (which he didn’t realize had been tightened until just now). He could hear all the excited chatter around him, but it was impossible to distinguish individual words from the general noise. Every one of the Masters—with the exception of Asher—were giving him a strange look right now.

  He had no idea why they were all staring at him, and before he could ask Oliver grumbled, “What kind of monster are you?”

  Stunned by the question, Hayden just gaped up at him stupidly until Master Asher offered him a hand to help him to his feet.

  Hayden swayed unsteadily until he found his balance, deciding that he was in desperate need of sleep. It was hard to believe that he had woken up only a few hours ago, because it felt like he had been awake for days.

  “Well, I think that about sums everything up for today,” the Prism Master said cheerfully, brushing his shaggy curls out of his eyes. “All of you get some rest and prepare for tomorrow. Your scores will be posted in the foyer before dinner.”

  Master Kilgore began clearing the courtyard for the Elixirs challenges. A dozen students hurried forward with quart-sized cauldrons or carrying tables and ingredients to set up.

  Hayden stumped off wearily to find his friends—the crowd seemed to part around him as he trudged across the lawns. Bonk, who had been perched on Tess’s shoulder while he was competing, flew out to meet him and t
ook his usual place on Hayden’s sweat-soaked shoulder. He knocked his head against Hayden’s several times in what was probably meant to be a show of support, but only succeeded in giving him a mild headache.

  Most of his friends were staying behind to watch the Elixirs competition, but Zane followed him back to the castle.

  “How’d I do?” Hayden asked wearily, blinking hard several times in an effort to keep himself awake.

  “Seriously? You don’t know?”

  “I wasn’t exactly paying attention to what was going on around me; I just know I finished the speed trial first, which is surprising because that was some of my slowest casting ever.” He was so tired that his words were slurring. He’d never used enough magic to fatigue himself like this before.

  Zane saw him yawn and copied the gesture reflexively before answering.

  “Dude, you annihilated the others. That was the fastest prism-casting I’ve ever seen, aside from Master Asher himself. Oliver did the next best after you, but Kevin and Cindy looked like clumsy apes in comparison.”

  Hayden groaned weakly as they started up the stairs, because his energy was flagging more by the minute and he wasn’t sure he was going to make it up all five flights without collapsing.

  “What about the endurance? I guess I managed to edge out the others on that one too, but I don’t know how close it was.”

  Zane snorted so loudly it sounded painful, startling a group of first-years who were walking past them in the opposite direction.

  “Are you kidding me? You crushed everyone else and then proceeded to mop the floor with their remains. There was nothing close about it at all,” Zane grinned at him. “The Masters were starting to get really freaked out, and Tamon started taking bets with all the people around us on how long you’d hold out. He made twenty-two credits off of it, by the way.”

  Hayden glanced at him in alarm. “How long did I make it?”

  “Almost fifteen minutes,” Zane said in awe. “The next closest was Oliver and he only lasted five. Hayden,” he continued seriously, “you lasted three times longer than seventh-year students. You’re a beast.”

  Hayden couldn’t believe it had only been fifteen minutes; it had felt like hours. He also felt strangely cold and anxious at the thought of being such an anomaly, because he didn’t want all the attention he was constantly getting, and now he’d gone and invited more of it. He shivered convulsively as they turned onto the fifth-floor landing.

  “I didn’t know how long the others would hold out, and I couldn’t look without dropping my weight. If I had known the average would be four or five minutes, I would have stopped sooner.” His mind was processing things slower than usual and he just recalled an earlier point of Zane’s. “And what do you mean the Masters were getting freaked out?”

  Zane was half-carrying him past the common area and towards their room when he answered.

  “Because you’re wearing three-inch Focus-correctors, the biggest in the documented history of magic, and you’ve still got triple the endurance of fully-trained wizards without even trying.” He marveled at Hayden. “Your Source must be ridiculously huge, and by huge I mean legendary.”

  Hayden felt a strange mixture of pride and shame, because it was just one more thing that made him an outcast, even as accomplished as it made him feel. There would be time to mull over his feelings in more detail later, but right now all he wanted was to sleep for a week or two until he regained some energy.

  He collapsed face-first onto his bed, hearing Bonk squawk as the dragonling was crushed beneath him, but too tired to roll off of him. He was asleep before Zane could even shut the door.

  4

  Strength of Will

  It was after dinner when Hayden woke up feeling warm and comfortable. He yawned drowsily and rolled onto his back, slightly alarmed to find that Bonk had been squished beneath him this entire time, though the dragonling couldn’t have been too bothered by it because he was sound asleep. Bonk stirred and flapped his wings once or twice while Hayden attempted to massage a kink out of his own neck from lying in one position for so long.

  Upon discovering that he was alone in the room, Hayden realized that he had just blown an entire day worth of downtime by sleeping. Thinking grimly of how much homework he still had to do before Gerin, he forced himself out of bed in the pursuit of food. He caught his sleepy reflection in passing and scowled at the creases etched into his face from the bed sheets.

  Bonk was clearly itching to get some exercise, opting to fly rather than sit on Hayden’s shoulder for a change. He soared overhead near the upper floors as Hayden went downstairs and turned into the main foyer. Hayden stopped here, because the familiar walls of the pentagonal foyer now bore five official-looking sheets of golden paper near the entrance to the grounds. He had a feeling that he knew what those papers were…

  Sure enough, as he moved closer he could read the heading of the major arcana on each one, his eyes scanning quickly to find the only list that mattered to him. There it was, the Prisms roster, the last sheet of paper on the right. His name headed a short list:

  Prisms

  Speed Endurance Total

  Hayden Frost 9 11 20

  Oliver Trout 6 7 13

  Kevin Serilla 5 6 11

  Andric Scott 5 5 10

  Cindy Olterra 4 5 9

  Hayden read the scores several times until he was confident that he’d memorized them. Zane hadn’t been joking when he said that Hayden was crushing the others; for the second time in two years he had managed to score an eleven on a ten-point scale, which was previously unheard of. Cindy and Andric wouldn’t be able to beat him at this point unless they got perfect scores tomorrow and he put up zeroes.

  Feeling a competitive streak that he hadn’t been aware of before, Hayden smiled and turned towards the dining hall, tilting his head back to look for Bonk in the high-ceilinged foyer. The dragonling was perched at the edge of the crown-molding almost three stories above him, looking like a gargoyle. Hayden whistled and the dragon came floating down to him, though he continued to fly around the corridors instead of perching.

  I’ve just got to stay ahead of Oliver and I’ll have this thing in the bag.

  He wasn’t sure when his attitude towards the Inter-School Championship had changed, but Master Asher’s advice to him about making valuable connections and earning his own reputation had struck a chord in him at some point, and now he was determined to do his best.

  He opened the double doors and was confronted with the sight of an empty dining hall. The lack of people made the space seem much larger, and Hayden’s footsteps echoed eerily off of the wooden floor as he walked around the tables and knocked on the door to the kitchens.

  A young woman in her thirties with short, curly brown hair and bright green eyes answered, a cooking apron still tied over her dress.

  “Hello, can I help you?”

  “Um, yes please. I missed dinner and I was hoping there was still something to eat.”

  She eyed Hayden skeptically and opened the door a little wider so that she could lean against the frame.

  “And how will you earn it?”

  Hayden’s eyes widened in surprise.

  “Uh…what do you mean?”

  “Why should I go to special effort to feed you for no reason?” She looked at him like he was being stupid.

  “Because I’m hungry and you’re a cook?”

  The lady scowled. “It’s not my fault you missed dinner. If you want me to go out of my way to make you something to eat you’ve got to earn it, or else you can just wait until breakfast like everyone else.”

  Hayden’s stomach growled mutinously.

  “What do I have to do?”

  She shrugged. “Something interesting. You’re a prism-user, surely you can make something pretty and dazzle me with magic.”

  Hayden tried to think through his list of spells for something that looked “interesting”. Unfortunately the only ones he knew were functional, not dazzling; he
doubted she’d been impressed if he tried to suspend her in mid-air. Master Asher could probably make one of his crystal butterflies in the blink of an eye, but he hadn’t taught Hayden anything flashy like that yet.

  “I don’t really know any magic that’s fun to watch…” he frowned, his stomach growling again.

  “How about poetry? I like poems.”

  Hayden answered this with a resounding silence.

  “Are you any good at making up poetry?” she tried again, obviously under the impression he hadn’t understood her the first time.

  Why in the world would I be good at poetry?!

  Hayden clenched his jaw to prevent himself from saying that out loud and getting in trouble. All he wanted was something to eat, was that so much to ask?

  “I’ve never tried before,” he admitted.

  “Well, try now,” she pressed him, smirking at his discomfort.

  Closing his eyes and praying for inspiration, he began:

  “There once was a boy named Frost,

  Who was hungry enough to eat an ox.

  The cook wanted to see magic,

  But his poem was tragic,

  And now he fears all is lost.”

  The cook suppressed a snort with difficulty.

  “That was really awful,” she agreed cheerfully. “Not even worth a loaf of stale bread.”

  Before Hayden could resort to begging, Bonk grew tired of flying around the dining hall and alit upon his shoulder. The cook’s eyes immediately went to the dragon and widened with obvious delight.

  “Is that your familiar?” She was eyeing him approvingly.

  “Yes, this is Bonk,” Hayden said calmly, sensing a new opportunity. “Would you like to hold him?”

  “Ooh yes,” she beamed at him.

  “Promise to feed us and you can,” he countered, expecting resistance. To his surprise, she agreed immediately and went off to get him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and some soup.

  I should have thought of Bonk sooner. Hayden had yet to encounter a girl of any age who could resist the urge to fawn over his familiar.