Forest of Illusions (The Broken Prism) (7 page)

Hayden nodded and unfastened his belt full of prisms, wands, and elixirs. He removed the level-two offensive amplifier he’d made only a week ago, but left his defensive charm on, figuring it couldn’t hurt to have some magical protection right now. Master Asher collected all of his things, including his circlet, and carried them into his colleague’s office for safekeeping.

“Alright, I believe we’re ready to begin,” Laurren turned to Hayden, removing a phial of murky brown liquid from a pocket of his metallic green robes and passing it to him. “Drink this when you’re ready. We’ve got bandages and basic first-aid supplies on hand, but if something unexpected happens we’ll have to take you to Razelle.”

Asher grimaced and said, “I’d rather avoid that if possible. She looks like someone’s sweet aunt, but I have a feeling she’d skin us alive if the mood struck her.”

Master Laurren didn’t disagree with this, and the two of them turned to focus on Hayden as he uncorked the phial and tilted his head back, draining it in one gulp.

Hayden couldn’t decide if the
Mnemora tasted good or bad as he swallowed it: one second he was convinced that it was bitter, like something gone to rot; the next moment he thought it was sweet, like the strawberry tarts his mother used to bake for him.

He shuddered and set the empty phial aside, still sifting through the onslaught of tastes in his mouth, like every memory he had was represented there in some way. The Masters were watching him curiously.

“How do you feel?” Asher asked, after allowing him a moment to collect his thoughts.

“My mouth tastes weird, but other than that I don’t feel any different,” Hayden replied.

They stayed there in silence for several minutes, waiting for some strange feeling to overtake Hayden, for his memories to come rushing back—anything that would make this endeavor worth it.

“Well, that was anticlimactic,” Master
Laurren sighed at last, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “I was sure it would work on him, given that he’s already so susceptible to magic due to the strength of his Source.”

Asher nodded but said nothing, still watching Hayden closely.

“You mean it doesn’t work on me? This whole thing was a waste?” Hayden didn’t bother hiding the disappointment from his voice.

“That may not be a bad thing. Some things are better left forgotten,” the Prism Master attempted to console him.

“No,” Hayden set his jaw firmly, “I want to know what happened that day, and I’m going to figure it out. Somehow.”

“Sometimes I’m reminded that you truly are
Aleric’s son,” Asher sighed in resignation. “He would get that same stubborn look on his face and refuse to give up on something he wanted badly enough.”

Hayden got to his feet, grumbling, “Yeah, well I guess I’m going back to lunch. Thanks for trying to help me,” he managed to sound
more respectful and grateful than he felt.

“I’ll join you. I need to keep an eye on you until you’re through my class today
anyway,” Asher assured him, motioning for Hayden to precede him up the stairs and back into the castle.

“Why? I thought the
Mnemora didn’t work.”

“It appears not
, but as you know by now, magic sometimes affects you in strange ways. There’s a possibility of a delayed reaction, and I don’t want you to be on your own if that happens, for your own safety and for others’.”

Hayden grimaced at that sobering thought, and the two of them didn’t speak
again until they had settled in with Hayden’s friends in the dining hall for the remainder of lunch.

Zane glanced
at Master Asher in surprise before saying, “Are you allowed to tell us why you ran off in such a hurry, or is it a big secret?” to Hayden.

“Just something Hayden was working on for
Laurren and I,” Asher answered for him, reaching across Tess to spoon some pudding into his bowl, adding copious amounts of whipped cream on top.

Everyone looked curious about what Hayden would be working on for such an odd pair of Masters, but no one was brave enough to ask with the Prism Master sitting there.

“It’s no big deal, just an experiment that didn’t work,” Hayden shrugged and tried to look nonchalant, adding some whipped cream to his apple pie and scowling when Bonk dunked his head into it before he could take the first bite.

“Oh, speaking of experiments,” Tess brightened, reaching into her belt and extracting a small bottle of green liquid, “I managed to make level-
five Strength for the first time, and I thought you might like some for our arena challenge tonight.”

Hayden felt his ears go red as he reached across to accept it with the others watching. “Oh, thanks, that’s bound to come in handy.”

“What, you didn’t make me and Lorn anything?” Zane batted his eyelashes at her, using his most annoyingly-honeyed voice.

“Actually, I did make you something.” Tess handed him a pink phial. “A focus amplifier for your conjury,” she explained. “It burns out quickly, but it should give you a few minutes of improved summoning. Somehow I forgot to make Lorn anything,” she added with an impish smile, and Hayden grinned at her.

“Wow, thanks,” Zane admired the phial in his hand for a moment before adding it to his own belt. “As long as the Masters don’t pull another stunt like our first challenge last year and try to murder us all, we should be fine.” He finished speaking before he remembered that Master Asher was sitting right beside him, blanching slightly as he looked to see whether he was about to be chastised.

“You’re in the fifth-year rosters,” the Prism Master pointed out. “Of course we’ll be trying to kill you,” he added cheerfully, finishing off his pudding and shoving the empty bowl towards Bonk so the dragon could lick it clean. “Come on, Hayden, time for me to stomp you some more with prisms.”

“I thought we were doing formulas today,” he protested mildly.

“I changed my mind. The best way to make sure you’re recovered from our experiment is to put your magic through its paces.”

Hayden made a face at the thought of how much pain he was going to be in in a few minutes as he got to his feet.

“You could try to sound less happy about it,” he told the Prism Master. Asher simply chuckled and led the way from the dining hall to the rear exit of the school, back to their usual practice grounds near the cliffs.

After an hour of getting beaten soundly by the Prism Master in combat, Hayden was declared provisionally clear of side-effects from the
Mnemora and was sent on to his next class, grumbling mutinously about Asher’s claim that he had to ‘pummel the snot’ out of him just to make sure there was no lingering Mnemora in his system.

“He shouldn’t be so hard on you,” Tess chided mildly at dinner that night, examining the bruise on Hayden’s jaw with a wince. “If he isn’t careful, he could really hurt you.”

“I don’t love getting my butt kicked, but I’d rather know what I’m going to be up against if I ever get into a fight in the real world,” Hayden replied evenly, pushing his unfinished bowl of peas towards Bonk, who made a face and turned his back on them. “Besides, in a weird way I feel like he’s showing me respect by not holding back as much when we battle this year, like I’m a worthy opponent or something.”

He felt stupid as soon as the words were out of his mouth, expecting to be derided by his friends, but to his surprise Tamon nodded and said, “I can see that. Still, Asher’s not really the benchmark of a typical adult mage’s skill; he’s no joke. If you ever get to the point where you can hold your own in a real fight against him, you’ll be
pretty untouchable.”

“Must be nice, getting private lessons,” Zane
said wistfully. “If I asked Reede to give me extra training, he’d just draw a circle of banishing and send me to some monster’s lair to fight for my life while he offered critique from the sidelines.”

Conner snorted at that and said, “Well, it would doubtless be good practice.”

“It’s not my fault I’m the only person in the level-four Prisms class,” Hayden shrugged. “If not for that, Asher probably wouldn’t have time to train me either.”

“That’s true,” Zane conceded. “Come on, we’ve got our arena challenge tonight; we’d better get out there.”

Conner and Tamon wished them luck as the three of them set aside their dinners and made their way to the cliffs that overlooked the Gawain Sea, not far from where Hayden had recently dueled the Prism Master.

Lorn was waiting for them in the circle of lights that radiated up from the grass, along with the mastery-level students who were charged with sending them into the arena. Hayden began to feel the nervous anticipation of what was to come, and couldn’t help but harken back to their first challenge of the year before, when everyone on his team died a horrible death
and he battled Asher on the lawns afterwards.

“Are you four ready to go?” one of the mastery students asked without real interest, motioning for them to cluster together in the summoning circle.

“As ready as we’ll ever be,” Hayden answered for them, glancing at his teammates. He saw the world blur and melt together out of his peripheral vision, and in the time it took him to blink twice, they were inside the arena.

It was a jungle, and it was swelteringly hot. Vines dangled down through the canopy of trees, and some of them looked sturdy enough to support his weight if he cared to swing on them. The air was so thick with humidity that it steamed off of the ground and the trees, giving the place a generally eerie feeling, not unlike the Forest of Illusions.

“What land are we supposed to be in?” Lorn asked curiously, turning around in all directions and wiping the sweat from his forehead.

“No idea,” Zane answered truthfully. “I don’t usually vacation in jungles like this or I might know.”

“There’s the envelope,” Tess located the packet with their instructions tucked into the notch of a large sycamore, and stood on her tip-toes to reach it. She frowned as she read it silently. “It just says ‘Do what you have to do.’ ”

“What in the name of the arcana does that mean?” Zane scowled. “Why even bother giving us directions if they’re going to be so useless?”

He flinched away from a monkey that dropped down from the nearest tree to shake its fist at him, like it was insulted by his attitude.

Probably one of the Masters,
Hayden thought to himself, again wiping the sweat from his brow. He briefly entertained himself with trying to figure out which of them it might be—he thought it looked a bit like Sark…

Lorn rolled his eyes at Zane
just as Hayden said, “Let’s get going. We don’t know if we’re being timed.”

“And which way are we supposed to be going?” Lorn frowned. “I don’t exactly see a signpost
, and as Laraby said, out mission statement isn’t very clear.”

He was right. The area they were standing in looked completely nondescript, and they were free to move in any direction.
There was nothing but jungle on all sides of them, none of it looking particularly interesting or unique. If they chose the wrong direction, they would probably encounter a series of monsters and traps, though that could also be said if they guessed correctly…

“That way, I guess.” Hayden pointed behind Tess,
for the sole reason that the trees formed a neat-looking canopy overhead, and with a shrug the others turned to follow him.

The forest
got denser and thicker the farther they walked, and soon Tess had to stop and use her scriptures to summon a machete to hack the foliage out of their path. Zane found a surface large enough to draw a circle on and conjured a wicked looking scythe for the same purpose.

“I could burn a path for us if this stuff is dry enough to catch fire,” Lorn suggested after getting tangled in the undergrowth for the third time.

“Yeah, because that’s what we need right now, a forest fire,” Zane said with derision.

Hayden was just about to suggest that maybe they should change course and try a new direction when the way began to clear. At first he was so relieved that he didn’t even notice the cockatrice standing in their path, until Tess let out a soft gasp and stopped walking, her machete held at combat height.

“Are you kidding me?” Zane peered up at it. “I thought those things were supposed to be massive.”

Hayden was sort of thinking the same thing. They’d read about cockatrices in their classes, but the strange griffon-dragon hybrid description always made it sound like the things were enormous. The one standing in front of them wasn’t too much larger than Bonk—maybe thigh-high on Hayden. The cockatrice’s wingspan was much larger than Bonk’s, however, stretching out two feet on either side of its compact body. It was almost cute.

“Yeah, well…maybe it’s a baby,” Hayden theorized out loud. “We should probably walk a wide circle around it just to make sure it’s parents aren’t lurking around anywhere.”

“Are you kidding me?” Lorn didn’t sound skeptical like Zane when he said it; on the contrary, he sounded terrified. “The smaller a cockatrice
is, the more dangerous. That thing could probably spit on us and we’d all drop dead.” He took a nervous step backwards while the creature studied them intently.