The Iron Trial Read online

  Call spun back to the tornado, but it was too late. His concentration had been broken. His father had vanished, his last words hanging in the air.

  You don’t know what you are.

  “You stupid lizard,” Call yelled, kicking one leg of the workstation. More papers slipped onto the floor.

  The elemental went quiet. Call fell back into Rufus’s chair, putting his head in his hands. What had his father been saying? What could he have meant?

  Call, you must listen to me. You don’t know what you are.

  A shiver went down Call’s spine.

  “Let me out,” repeated the lizard.

  “No!” Call yelled, glad to have a target for his rage. “No, I’m not going to let you out, so just stop asking!”

  The lizard watched beadily from its cage as Call knelt down and began to pick up papers and gears from the model. Reaching for an envelope, Call’s fingers closed on a small package that must have also been knocked off the table. He pulled it toward him, when he noticed his father’s unmistakable spidery handwriting yet again. It was addressed to William Rufus.

  Oh, Call thought. A letter from Dad. That can’t be good.

  Should he open it? The last thing he needed was his father saying crazy things to Master Rufus and begging for Call to be sent home. Besides, Call was already going to be in trouble for sneaking around, so maybe he couldn’t get in much more trouble for opening mail.

  He cut the tape free with the jagged edge of a gear and unfolded a note very like the one he had received. It read:

  Rufus,

  If ever you trusted me, if ever you felt any loyalty to me for my time as your student and for the tragedy we shared, you must bind Callum’s magic before the end of the year.

  Alastair

  FOR A LONG moment, Call was so angry that he wanted to smash something, and at the same time, his eyes burned like he was about to cry.

  Trying to hold back his temper, Call pulled out the object that had been tucked into the package beneath his father’s letter. It was the wristband of an older Silver Year student, studded with five stones — one red, one green, one blue, one white, and one as black as the pools of dark water that ran through the caves. He stared at it. Was it his father’s bracelet, from the time he’d been in the Magisterium? Why would Alastair send that to Rufus?

  One thing is for sure, Call thought. Master Rufus is never going to get this message. He jammed the letter and envelope into his pocket and clapped the wristband around his wrist. It was too big on him, so he pushed it high up his arm, above his own cuff, and tugged his sleeve down over it.

  “You’re stealing,” said the lizard. The flames still burned along its back, blue with flashes of green and yellow. They made shadows dance along the walls.

  Call stopped cold. “So what?”

  “Let me out,” the lizard said. “Let me out or I’ll tell that you stole Master Rufus’s things.”

  Call groaned. He hadn’t been thinking straight. Not only did the elemental know he’d opened the package, but it also knew what he’d said to his dad. It had heard his father’s cryptic warning. Call couldn’t let it repeat those things to Master Rufus.

  He knelt down and lifted the cage by the iron handle on its top, setting it back on Rufus’s work table. He looked at the lizard more closely.

  Its body was longer than one of his father’s boots. It looked a little like a miniature version of a Komodo dragon — it even had a beard of scales, and eyebrows — yeah, it definitely had eyebrows. Its eyes were big and red, glowing steadily like embers in a fire. The whole cage smelled vaguely of sulfur.

  “Sneaking,” said the lizard. “You’re sneaking, stealing, and your father wants you to run away.”

  Call didn’t know what to do. If he let the elemental out of its cage, it could still tell Master Rufus what it had seen. He couldn’t risk being discovered. He didn’t want to get his magic bound. He didn’t want to let down Aaron and Tamara, not when they’d just started to be friends.

  “Yup,” Call said. “And guess what else I’m stealing. You.”

  With a last look around the office, Call left, carrying the lizard’s cage with him. The elemental ran back and forth inside, causing the cage to rattle. Call didn’t care.

  He walked down to the water, hoping a new boat might have drifted by. There was nothing but the underground river lapping at a stony beach. Call wondered if he could swim back, but the water was icy cold, the current was running in the wrong direction, and he’d never been the strongest swimmer. Plus, he had the lizard to think about and he doubted its cage would float.

  “The currents of the Magisterium are dark and strange,” said the elemental, its red eyes glowing bright in the gloom.

  Call tilted his head, studying the creature. “Do you have a name?”

  “Only the name you give me,” said the lizard.

  “Stonehead?” Call suggested, looking at the crystal rocks on the lizard’s head.

  A puff of smoke came from the lizard’s ears. It looked annoyed.

  “You said I should name you,” Call reminded it, squatting down on the bank with a sigh.

  The lizard’s head squeezed between the bars. Its tongue shot out to curl around a tiny fish and pull it back between its jaws. It crunched away with disturbing satisfaction.

  This had happened so fast that Call jumped, nearly dropping the cage. That tongue was scary.

  “Fireback?” he suggested, standing, pretending he wasn’t freaked out. “Fishface?”

  The lizard ignored him.

  “Warren?” Call suggested. It was the name of one of the guys who sometimes came by to play poker with Call’s father on Sunday nights.

  The lizard nodded in satisfaction. “Warren,” it said. “Warrens are there, under the earth, where creatures dwell. Warrens to sneak and spy and hole up tight!”

  “Uh, great,” Call said, thoroughly unnerved.

  “There are other ways than the river. You don’t know the way back to your nest, but I do.”

  Call regarded the elemental, who looked up at him through the stone bars of its cage in return. “A shortcut back to my room?”

  “Anywhere. Everywhere! No one knows the Magisterium better than Warren. But then you will let me out of the cage. You’ll agree to get me out of the cage.”

  How much did Call trust a weird lizard that wasn’t really a lizard?

  Maybe if he drank some of the water — which was gross, full of eyeless fish and weird sulfur and minerals — maybe he could do better magic. Like the way he had with the sand. Like he wasn’t supposed to. Maybe he could draw the current backward and bring the boat to him.

  Yeah, right. He had no idea how to do that.

  Call, you must listen to me. You don’t know what you are.

  Apparently, he didn’t know lots of things.

  “Fine,” said Call. “If you get me back to my room, I’ll let you out of the cage.”

  “Let me out now,” wheedled the elemental. “We could go faster.”

  “Nice try.” Call snorted. “Which way?”

  The little lizard directed him, and he began to walk, his clothes still wet and cold against his skin.

  They passed sheets of rock that seemed to melt into one another, columns of limestone and curtains of it, falling like draperies. They passed a bubbling stream of mud snaking back and forth between Call’s feet. Warren urged him ahead, the blue flame on his back turning the cage into a lantern.

  At one point, the corridor narrowed so much that Call had to turn sideways and squeeze himself between the sheets of stone. He finally popped out the other side like a cork out of a bottle, a long tear in his shirt where it had caught on an edge of rock.

  “Shhh,” whispered Warren, crouching ahead of him. “Quiet, little mage.”

  Call was standing in the dark corner of a huge cavern full of echoing voices. The cavern was almost circular, the stone ceiling overhead sweeping up into a massive dome. The walls were decorated with jewel formation
s that illustrated various weird, possibly alchemical symbols. In the center of the room was a rectangular stone table with a candelabra rising out of it, each of a dozen tapers dripping thick streams of wax. The big, high-backed chairs around the table were filled by Masters who looked like rock formations themselves.

  Call flattened himself into the shadows so he wouldn’t be spotted, pressing the cage behind him to hide the light.

  “Young Jasper showed bravery in throwing himself in front of the wyverns,” said Master Lemuel, with a glance at Master Milagros, amusement showing on his face. “Even if he was unsuccessful.”

  Anger raced through Call’s veins. He and Tamara and Aaron had worked hard to do well on that test and they were talking about Jasper?

  “Bravery will only get you so far,” said Master Tanaka, the tall, thin Master who taught Peter and Kai. “The students who returned from our most recent mission had plenty of bravery, and yet those were some of the worst injuries I’ve seen since the war. They barely made it back alive. Even the fifth years weren’t prepared for elementals working together like that —”

  “The Enemy is behind this,” Master Rockmaple interrupted, running a hand through his ruddy beard. The image of the injured students, bloody and burned, coming through the gate had stuck with Call, and he was glad to know that wasn’t how students returned from a typical mission. “The Enemy is breaking the truce in ways he thinks we won’t be able to trace back to him. He is getting ready to return to war. I’ll wager that, while we’ve deluded ourselves into thinking he’s staying in his remote sanctuary, working on his horrible experiments, he’s actually been making greater and more devastating weapons, not to mention alliances.”

  Master Lemuel snorted. “We have no proof. This could simply be a change among the elementals.”

  Master Rockmaple whirled on him. “How can you trust the Enemy? Anyone who wouldn’t balk at putting a piece of the void inside animals and even children, who slaughtered the most vulnerable among us, is capable of anything.”

  “I’m not saying I trust him! I just don’t want to prematurely panic that the truce has been broken. World forefend that we break it because of our fears and, by doing so, incite a new war, one worse than the last.”

  “Everything would be different if we had a Makar on our side.” Master Milagros tucked her pink lock of hair behind her ear nervously. “This year’s entering students had exceptional Trial scores. Is it possible that our Makar could be among them? Rufus, you’ve had experience with this before.”

  “It’s too soon to tell anything,” said Rufus. “Constantine himself didn’t start showing signs of an affinity with chaos magic until he was fourteen.”

  “Maybe you just refused to look for them then as you refuse to look for them now,” said Master Lemuel disagreeably.

  Rufus shook his head. His face was rough-edged in the flickering light. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “We need a different plan. The Assembly needs a different plan. It is too great a burden to set upon the shoulders of any child. We should all remember the tragedy of Verity Torres.”

  “I agree, a plan is needed,” Master Rockmaple said. “Whatever the Enemy’s scheme, we can’t just bury our heads in the sand and act like it will go away. Nor can we simply wait forever for something that might never happen.”

  “Enough of this bickering,” said Master North. “Master Milagros was saying earlier that she’s discovered a possible error in the third algorithm of folding air into metal. I thought perhaps we could discuss the anomaly.”

  Anomaly? Figuring that there was no point risking discovery to listen to something he wouldn’t understand anyway, Call slid back into the gap between the rocks. He wriggled through, emerging on the other side with his mind full of his father’s words. What was it he had said? The more you learn about the magical world, the more you will be drawn into it — drawn into its old conflicts and dangerous temptations.

  The war with the Enemy had to be the conflict Call’s father had been talking about.

  Warren stuck his scaly nose through the bars, his tongue flicking in the air. “We go a new way. Better way. Fewer Masters. Safer.”

  Call grunted, and followed Warren’s directions. He was beginning to wonder if Warren actually knew where they were going, or if he was just leading Call deeper into the caves. Maybe he and Warren would spend the rest of their lives wandering the twisty caverns. They would become a legend to new apprentices who would speak about the lost student and his caged cave lizard in hushed tones of dread.

  Warren pointed and Call scrambled up the side of a pile of rocks, sending shards flying.

  The corridors were bigger now, zigzagged with sparkling patterns that teased Call’s mind, as if they could be read if he only knew how. They passed through a cave full of odd underground plants: big red-tipped ferns that stood in still pools of glittering water, long fronds of lichen drifting from the ceiling and brushing against Call’s shoulders. He looked up and thought he saw a pair of glittering eyes disappearing into the shadows. He stopped.

  “Warren —”

  “Here, here,” the lizard urged, flicking his tongue toward an arched doorway at the other end of the room. Someone had carved words into the highest part of the arch:

  Thoughts are free and subject to no rule.

  Beyond the archway flickered an odd light. Call moved toward it, curiosity getting the better of him. It gave off a golden glow, like that of a fire, though it was no warmer when he stepped through the door than it had been on the other side. He was in another large space, a cavern that seemed to spiral down along a steep and winding path. All along the walls of the room were shelves holding thousands upon thousands of books, most with yellowed pages and ancient bindings. Call stepped to the center of the room, where the sloping path began, and looked over the edge. There were levels and levels, all illuminated with the same golden light and ringed with more bookshelves.

  Call had found the Library.

  And other people were there, too. He could hear the echoes of their hushed conversation. More Masters? No. Glancing around, he saw Jasper three tiers down, in his gray uniform. Celia was standing across from him. It had to be really, really late, and Call had no idea why they were out of their rooms.

  Jasper had a book open on a stone table, his hand extended in front of him. Again and again he thrust out his fingers, gritting his teeth and scrunching up his eyes, until Call started to worry he was going to make his head explode, trying to force the magic to come. Again and again, there was a spark or a puff of smoke between his fingers, but nothing else. Jasper looked ready to scream with disappointment and frustration.

  Celia paced back and forth on the other side of the table. “You promised that if I helped you, you’d help me, but it’s almost two in the morning and you haven’t helped me with anything.”

  “We’re still on me!” Jasper yelled.

  “Fine,” Celia said long-sufferingly, sitting down on a stone stool. “Try again.”

  “I’ve got to get this right,” Jasper said softly. “I’ve got to. I am the best. I am the best Iron Year mage at the Magisterium. Better than Tamara. Better than Aaron. Better than Callum. Better than everyone.”

  Call wasn’t sure if he belonged on that list of people Jasper clearly worried he wasn’t better than, but he was flattered. He was also a little disappointed that Celia was hanging out with Jasper.

  Warren scrabbled in his cage. Call turned to see what the fussing was about.

  The lizard was staring at a framed illustration of a man with huge, red-orange spiraling eyes magnified and diagrammed to one side of the body. Chaos-ridden, Call thought. A shudder ran through him at the sight — along with something else, some feeling he couldn’t quite put his finger on, as if the inside of his head was itchy or he was hungry or thirsty.

  “Who’s there?” Jasper said, looking up. He raised his hand defensively, half shielding his face.

  Feeling stupid, Call waved. “It’s just me. I got a lit
tle — lost — and I saw light coming from in here, so I —”

  “Call?” Jasper stepped away from the book, his hands flailing. “You were spying on me!” he shouted. “Did you follow me here?”

  “No, I —”

  “Are you going to tell on us? Is that the idea? You going to get me in trouble so I don’t do better than you at the next test?” Jasper sneered, though he was clearly shaken.

  “If we want to do better than you on the next test, all we have to do is wait until the next test,” said Call, unable to resist.

  Jasper looked like he was going to burst. “I’m going to tell everyone you were sneaking around at night!”

  “Fine,” said Call. “I’ll tell everyone the same thing about you.”

  “You wouldn’t dare,” Jasper said, grabbing the edge of the table.

  “You wouldn’t, would you, Call?” Celia asked.

  All of a sudden, Call didn’t want to be there anymore. He didn’t want to be fighting with Jasper, or threatening Celia, wandering around in the dark, or hiding in a corner while the Masters talked about things that made the hair rise up on his neck. He wanted to be in bed, thinking over his conversation with his dad, trying to figure out what Alastair had meant and if there was any way that it wasn’t as bad as it had seemed. Plus, he wanted to hunt around the bottom of his box for any last gummi candies.

  “Look, Jasper,” he said. “I didn’t take your spot on purpose. You should at least be able to tell by now that I actually, really, didn’t want it.”

  Jasper dropped his hand. His expensive haircut was growing out, his black hair falling over his eyes. “Don’t you get it? That makes it worse.”

  Call blinked at him. “What?”

  “You don’t know,” Jasper said, his hands curling into fists. “You just don’t know what it’s like. My family lost everything in the Second War. Money, reputation, everything.”

  “Jasper, stop.” Celia reached for him, clearly trying to snap him out of his rant. It didn’t work.