The Other Prism (The Broken Prism)

by St. Clair, V.

  He made no mention of his worries to his friends at breakfast (though Tess asked him more than once why he was being so quiet), and was quite relieved to depart for Charms class by himself.

  The moment he sat down, he locked eyes with the one of the girls who had been whispering about him in the common area yesterday and she blushed and looked away. The classroom filled up rapidly around him, and Master Dirqua materialized into the center of the circle of desks just as the bell rang.

  “Today you will begin your first attempts at producing a charm,” he greeted them, his metallic green robes swishing behind them as he paced back and forth. “You should have read all about low-level defensive charms by now, so if you’ll turn to page twenty in your books we can get started.”

  There was a rustling of paper as everyone found the right page, which had a very basic wooden carving in the shape of a shield, followed by a list of detailed instructions for how to imbue it with magic and link it to a Source.

  “In time, some of you may begin crafting your own emblems, but I don’t teach that until my second-level class because of the time involved. For now you’ll be using template emblems that have been crafted by a charm supplier.” He reached into a pocket of his robes and extracted a double-handful of small wooden shield emblems that looked exactly like the picture in Hayden’s book.

  “Take one of each and pass them around,” he deposited the wooden shields with a clatter on the desk nearest him, and a wad of leather string in front of the girl who wouldn’t look at Hayden earlier.

  For a minute there was silence as the materials were passed around the room in a circle, until everyone had an emblem and a long piece of string in front of them.

  “First things first, go ahead and secure your emblem to the string and fashion a necklace out of it,” Master Dirqua instructed them, moving around the room to help those who were having difficulty.

  Hayden had to re-tie the knot on his necklace after trying it on and discovering he had made it much too long, but he wasn’t the only one to make adjustments and Master Dirqua waited patiently for them all to finish before moving on.

  “Everyone have their necklaces ready? Good, now you must each choose whether you want your charm to be bound in blood or hair.” He said this as though it was a matter of no importance. “Blood is the most powerful of all binders, so charms bound with blood are therefore the most effective, but there is no question that you can get good reliability out of the other binders as well.”

  One of Hayden’s classmates raised their hand.

  “If blood is the most powerful, then why doesn’t everyone just bind everything with it?”

  Master Dirqua smirked as he answered. “It’s sometimes overkill, depending on what you’re trying to accomplish. For instance, this charm of Sight,” he gestured to one of the many emblems hanging around his own neck. “This allows me to see through the eyes of animals that are in the vicinity. As you can see, I’ve done the binding with hair, because I really don’t need the added power of blood. All I’m doing is seeing through the animal’s eyes; I’m not trying to control it, fight with it, and so forth.”

  He dropped the charm so that it disappeared amidst the others around his neck and continued. “Quite truthfully, the reason most mages don’t use blood unless they need to is because it gets very tiring always pricking your fingers for a fresh supply.”

  Hayden was completely prepared to believe that, because he didn’t even like the prospect of doing it once.

  “For the charm you are making—a defensive one—you would do best to bind it in blood if you can stand to. It will heighten the protection it gives you, which is generally important to the mage wearing it.” He looked around the room and saw that a few of them were looking squeamish, adding, “Of course, since this is your first charm and you might soon produce a better one, you may wish to use hair until you’ve gotten the hang of it and worked up to something more advanced.”

  Some of Hayden’s classmates exhaled in relief, but Hayden considered the wooden shield in the palm of his hand. He had no idea how soon they were going to be able to move on to more advanced charms, and he would have challenge arenas and the Inter-School Championship coming up very soon. It would be better to go in as well-equipped as possible since he had no idea what he’d be facing.

  Frowning, he accepted one of the pins from the box that was being passed around and pricked his thumb with it. It didn’t hurt as much as he expected, and he squeezed a drop of blood onto the back of the little wooden shield.

  When everyone was finished with their bindings (most people chose to use hair), Master Dirqua addressed them all again.

  “Now for the hard part. You’re going to use your instrument of choice to imbue the charm with power, as described in your textbook. For today’s charm, you’ll want to use simple spells such as: Repel, Ward, Banish, or Cleanse—if you know it.”

  Hayden raised his hand.

  “Can we only put one spell into the charm?”

  Master Dirqua smiled at him.

  “You can pack as many of them into your charm as you want—up to five, for the time being. Remember, if you’ve got five spells loaded into your charm, it is going to activate all five of those spells whenever you have need of one of them, and it will be pulling directly from your Source to do it. Five spells straight from the Source when you haven’t built up your resilience yet will probably require you to take a nap to recover your strength immediately after.”

  Hayden remembered how it had felt after his endurance trial the other day, how he had been too fatigued to do anything but get to his bed and sleep for the rest of the day.

  “Sir?” Another student raised his hand. “I always see the Masters holding their charms when they’re using them. Does that mean that it won’t work for us unless we’ve got our hand on it? Because during a challenge arena we might need both hands for our other weapons…”

  Master Dirqua shook his head.

  “An excellent question, and no.” He smiled. “A charm will work as long as it’s around your neck. The reason that we hold our charms while using them is because it amplifies their power,” he explained.

  There was a long moment of silence and then someone else asked, “How?”

  The Charms Master looked like he had been waiting for the question. “Think about what is on the other side of the palm of your hand.”

  Another moment of silence. A girl to Hayden’s left said, “The back of your hand?”

  There were a few chuckles at that, and she blushed in embarrassment.

  “Try again,” Master Dirqua said blandly.

  “Your Focus,” Hayden volunteered.

  The Charms Master nodded at him. “Much better. You see, clasping an emblem in your hand when you use it is a way of channeling magic through both your Source and your Focus at the same time. That acts as an amplifier and yields more power, though of course it also ties up one of your Foci to do it and will fatigue you even faster.”

  Hayden pondered that for a moment in silence.

  “Now then, get to it. Use your weapon of choice and focus your spell-casting on the charm in front of you.” Master Dirqua called them back to order, and Hayden withdrew a prism from his belt without even thinking about it.

  They were in an interior room and the lighting wasn’t fantastic, so Hayden had to squint and rotate his prism a few times to find a good array, and then he lost it a moment later. He would either have to get up and move closer to a lamp or make his own light source.

  Frowning, he held up his clear prism and activated the Light array without even having to look for it, setting it off to the side and equipping one of his other prisms. A few people gasped at the sudden brightness of the room, and Master Dirqua watched him with mild interest as he dialed in his blue-tinted prism and cast Shield, followed by Banish. Neither prism shrank noticeably, and he was once again delighted by the heightened power of level-three prisms. He pulled on his rose prism next and added Repel and Cleanse
to the shield. He didn’t yet know the alignment or the prism for Ward, so he took out his level-three oak wand and made that his fifth, extinguishing the light from his clear prism as he did so and returning all his materials to their holders.

  It was then that he noticed that a lot of other people were watching him. Master Dirqua had a hint of an ironic smile on his face.

  “What?” Hayden asked dumbly. “Did I do something wrong?”

  The Charms Master said, “Not at all. I find it interesting that you immediately went for the maximum number of spells allowable as soon as you had the chance.” He folded his arms across his chest. “None of your other classmates dared more than two; you must be feeling adventurous, or very confident in your Source’s stamina.”

  Hayden frowned at the attention, looking around the room at his classmates.

  “No, I’m just trying to plan ahead, because I expect that the I.S.C. is going to start soon and this might be the only charm I have to wear by then. I want it to be a good one in case I need it.”

  Now the Charms Master looked thoughtful.

  “You’re not going to have a lot of time to practice pulling magic from your Source between now and then. What happens when you use it during the competition and have to lie down and rest immediately afterward?”

  A few of the others laughed at that, but Hayden met the Master’s gaze steadily.

  “I’ll just have to practice a lot so that that doesn’t happen,” he said calmly, feeling stubborn.

  “Well then, no time better than the present.” Master Dirqua reached into his belt and extracted a mastery-level ash wand. “What spells did you imbue your charm with?” he asked with casual interest.

  Hayden swallowed hard, suddenly nervous.

  “Shield, Banish, Repel, Cleanse, and Ward,” he answered.

  “Very good. I’m going to cast a basic offensive spell against you, and if you’ve imbued your charm properly, it should be deflected by your shielding spell.”

  Hayden frowned. “What if it makes me tired or doesn’t work?”

  Master Dirqua smiled politely. “Then you’ll be in some mild discomfort and may miss your next class.” He shrugged as though it didn’t matter either way. “The rest of you, pair off into groups and test each other’s defensive charms like I am about to do with Hayden. Those of you who need to rest afterwards may lie down for the remainder of class today.”

  The sound of chairs scraping on the floor filled Hayden’s ears as his classmates moved around to pair off, but he could tell that many of them were still watching him. He didn’t dare take his eyes off of Master Dirqua, anticipating a surprise attack.

  Without thinking about it, Hayden lifted his hand and clasped the charm tightly like he always saw the Masters do, which seemed to delight the Charms Master.

  “My, my, you are feeling confident in your Source.” He flicked his wand at Hayden without warning, and Hayden’s eyes widened in surprise as he felt a blast of magic radiate out of him. It was different than when he cast with prisms, which was a very streamlined process through his Foci; this felt like magic was coming out of every pore of his skin, forming some invisible cloud all around him, like it was tugging on every molecule of his body at the same time...

  His charm must have worked, because nothing happened to him as a result of Dirqua’s casting, and a moment later Hayden felt the magical cloud dissipate from around him. He stifled a yawn, though on the whole he didn’t feel too bad, not nearly as tired as he had been during the endurance trial.

  The Charms Master was watching him carefully, eyes widening in pleasant surprise when Hayden remained on his feet.

  “How do you feel?” he inquired politely.

  “Not bad,” Hayden admitted, looking around the room at the others who were still watching him, though some of his classmates had moved on to testing their own charms and were now slumping tiredly at their desks or on the floor.

  “Huh,” Master Dirqua tapped his chin thoughtfully, returning the wand to his belt and moving closer to Hayden. “That is very interesting…” he mused out loud, before turning to look at the class. “Why aren’t you all testing your charms? Carry on.”

  Immediately, everyone else began focusing on the task at hand, and Master Dirqua now stood directly in front of Hayden, speaking to him privately.

  “Asher did say you had a respectable amount of Source power, but I am beginning to think he was grossly understating the situation, for whatever reason he saw fit.”

  “Um, I don’t know…I guess I did alright on the endurance trials the other day…” Hayden wasn’t really sure how to respond.

  “Yes, I heard about that. It was telling, to be sure, but even then you weren’t tapping directly into your Source, so it wasn’t a true indication of how developed you are—magically speaking.” He considered Hayden for another brief moment. “Yes, I think you will go very far in Charms if you choose to stick with it.”

  He had a slightly manic gleam in his eye now.

  “Thank you, sir,” Hayden replied.

  “I expect you’re going to be looking for a sponsorship with Asher in a few years, but if he’s too uptight to give you one, let me know and we can work something out.”

  Surprised by the invitation, Hayden could only gape stupidly at Master Dirqua as he turned back to the rest of the class, most of who were slumped around various parts of the room, looking drowsy.

  “About what I expected from the first day,” he announced to the room at large. “Rest up until the bell rings and you can be on your way; I’m going to grade some homework.” He grabbed hold of his Mastery Charm and vanished from the middle of the room.

  Stunned by the abrupt dismissal, Hayden got up and decided to spend his free time outdoors, carefully stepping over the sleeping forms of his classmates.

  ***

  Lorn Trout must have done alright on his Elixir’s final last term, because he was in the level-two class with Hayden this year. Though Hayden normally went to great efforts to avoid anyone whose last name was Trout, today he did his best to heed Master Asher’s advice and sat next to his nemesis.

  Lorn spared him a wary glance, looking no more pleased to see Hayden than Hayden was to see him.

  “What do you want, Frost?” Lorn greeted him coldly.

  “I’m told that we’re in the same challenge group this year,” Hayden said as neutrally as possible.

  “I don’t like it any more than you do,” Lorn scowled, looking more like Oliver by the day.

  “Right, well, there’s nothing to do but get over it I guess.” This was more difficult than even Hayden thought it would be. “We all want to do well in the rosters this year, so we need to learn to work together.”

  “I know that, Frost,” Lorn snapped. “Just don’t expect me to be all chummy with you.”

  Hayden rolled his eyes. “I’ll try not to lose sleep over it.”

  For a minute they sat in a silence filled with mutual disdain.

  “We’re probably going to get together three times a week to prepare for the arenas, like last year. Just show up and make sure we all know what you can do with Powders, and between you and Tess we should be fine.”

  Lorn made a face at the mention of Tess.

  “Don’t insult me by pretending that Tess the Mess is any competition for me in powders; elixirs I’ll grant her, but I mop the floor with her in Sark’s class.”

  Hayden balled his hand into a fist and said, “Don’t ever call her that again or I’ll knock your teeth out,” through gritted teeth.

  Lorn rolled his eyes, and fortunately Master Kilgore entered the classroom and put an end to their horrible, failed attempt at reconciliation.

  Prisms class was uncomfortable because it was the first time he had seen all of his classmates since the final scores went up on the wall in the Pentagon. It was also the first time he had come face-to-face with the Prism Master since his tantrum the night before.

  Master Asher acted completely normal, which would have be
en reassuring except that Hayden knew how well Asher could feign emotion (or lack thereof) when he wanted to. The Prism Master also pretended not to notice the tension between the five students in his level-three class, and began teaching them the chapter on complex alignments.

  Even Hayden found it difficult to keep up in class today, because the simple alignments he was used to looking for rarely had more than four or five different colors to keep track of, while complex alignments could have up to thirteen bands of color to remember in very precise order.

  He took just as many notes as everyone else and hoped that it would be easier to find in the prism than it was to memorize from the textbook.

  Master Asher approached him as he was packing his bag, head spinning with images of complex alignments and trying to remember if he had ever actually seen one in any of his prisms before.

  “What does your evening schedule look like this week?” Master Asher’s voice broke his train of thought, and he fell into step beside him as they walked towards the dining hall.

  “Uh, I don’t know. I think our challenge group is going to practice on Lenthin, Serin, and Vadin, and I haven’t looked yet to see when our first arena is scheduled for. Other than that I guess I’m free.”

  Master Asher nodded.

  “Your team is up in two weeks, but you’ve got your first competition for the I.S.C. the day before.”

  Hayden’s eyes widened in shock.

  “So soon? They’re not giving us much time to prepare…”

  “No, they aren’t. That’s why we do the tryouts for them after the first week.” Asher sighed. “You and I need to start meeting to prepare you for it. I was our Prism in the I.S.C. twice while I was in school, so I can give you a rough idea of what to expect. I’ll also have to speed up parts of your education a bit to make sure you have a decent chance of holding your own.”

  Hayden nodded enthusiastically, because he was always eager to learn more about prism-based magic.