The Mana Helmet
The mention of David settled him a little. Even so, Chris hesitated. What good would it do if David punished them only after everything had already gone to ruin? The damage would be done by then. Spilled water, and no gathering it back up.
"These really are expensive clothes. Wash them wrong and they'll be ruined."
"If they're ruined, I'll pay for them."
"And do you have the money to pay?"
Stan answered by gesturing at the goods stacked high along the wall.
"They may look like junk, but they're expensive. The price of a few clothes is nothing. Come on, let's haggle the laundry fee."
"I haven't decided to leave the washing with you yet."
"What's wrong with you—can't make a decision? Or are you just indecisive by nature?"
"I don't cultivate that sort of thing."
"Good. That's how a man ought to be."
Scott opened the bag and drew out the bundle of clothes.
"Aigoo, that's a lot of laundry."
Stan looked it over, then held up four fingers.
"I'll have to take four."
"Four copper coins. Well, that's about—"
Stan cut him off at once.
"If it were the rags you're wearing, maybe. Clothes wealthy nobles wear? Not a chance. Four silver coins."
For a month of laundry errands Chris was paid two silver coins a head. Four people meant eight silver a month. Wash twice in that month and he'd have nothing left; go a third time and he'd be in the red.
"That's absurd. Let's say one."
Stan narrowed his eyes, putting on a show.
"Hey now. I told you it's four."
Chris opened his eyes wide and didn't give an inch.
"That isn't even a serious price."
"Fine. I'll concede. Three."
"Pay three and I don't keep a single coin."
"Liar."
"Forget it. Give me the clothes back."
Chris went over to Scott and started putting the clothes back into the bag. Stan sighed as if he had made an enormous concession.
"All right. I'll concede again. I'll do it for two."
Four had dropped through three and landed on two. If it could fall that far, Chris thought, it could fall to one.
"One."
Stan's sigh went deeper.
"Take the laundry back. Aish. Wasted the whole day."
When the man gave up, Chris faltered.
Is two silver the fair price?
Seeing him hesitate, Stan pressed.
"Well? What'll it be?"
"Fine. Two."
"Smart choice."
"The spatial bag, please. It's borrowed."
"Yeah, take it."
Scott wrote out a claim slip.
"Bring the slip when you come for the clothes."
"I will."
"See you in five days."
Chris gathered the bag and left the shop, and Scott laughed.
"A green little first-year. Cute."
"You think so? Doesn't look like much to me."
"Pride stung from getting the price beaten down, I suppose."
"Watch your mouth."
"Does he look talented?"
"Far as I can tell, he's hopeless."
"Then this time next year he'll just be another villager."
Meanwhile Chris, out of Stan General Store, crossed the square toward the shop Juan had entered. The black signboard bore no letters, so there was no guessing what kind of place it was. Even if something had been written there, the odds were high he couldn't have read it.
Is this even a shop? Or Juan's house?
He was lingering out front when the door opened and a white-haired old woman came out and beckoned.
"If you've got business, come in."
Chris waved a hand.
"I don't really have any business."
"No business, and you're skulking around someone else's shopfront?"
"The sign's unusual."
"What's unusual about it?"
"There's no shop name on it."
"You can't see it?"
"Of course I can't. This is a shop, isn't it?"
"It is."
"What do you sell?"
"A magic shop. Brian Magic Store."
"Are you Brian, ma'am?"
"Have you ever seen such an idiot? Do I look like a man to you?"
"No."
"It was my husband's shop."
"Ah. I see. And your husband...?"
The old woman let out a heavy sigh, her face full of old history. Chris hurried into another question.
"What does a magic shop sell?"
"Everything to do with magic. If you want a look, come in."
Curiosity stirred, and Chris followed her inside. The first thing to catch his eye was the row of staves laid neatly in the display case beneath the counter—some thick as clubs, some thin as switches, some short as rolling pins, some long as brooms.
"Quite a variety of staves."
"As many attributes as there are, there are that many kinds of mage."
"Water, fire, earth, wind, metal. Five doesn't seem all that varied."
"That's just Mickclonia Magic Tower's system of classification."
The old woman gestured for him to lower his head. He didn't want to, but something in the air made refusal difficult, and Chris bent down.
She caught him by the ear, drew him closer, and put her mouth to it.
"Mickclonia Magic Tower is a bit backward compared to the other towers."
"Other towers?"
"The Grant Kingdom has three magic towers. Mickclonia, where you study. Then Hermann Magic Tower and Laphunian Magic Tower. Laphunian takes the five great elements, drops wind, and puts wood in its place."
"How did you know I attend Mickclonia?"
"A boy who's just appeared in the village. Obvious."
Her face was far too close, and it made him uncomfortable. A withered old woman smiling as she talked was burdensome in its own right, so Chris shifted toward the wall. Stones lay in the case there.
Remembering the stone that had heated the cauldron during his test, he asked.
"These are mana stones."
"They are."
"What's this empty spot?"
"Where I used to keep mana stones of rare attributes. I was lucky enough to get a few once and put them out, but after they sold I never managed to restock."
"What attributes?"
"Things like light and darkness."
"Those exist?"
"They do."
Chris slipped in the question that had nagged him since he first peered into the shop.
"What did Juan leave with?"
"Juan sent you? So you're a dud too."
"No, that's not—"
The old woman drew him along at her own pace.
"I can fix it for you."
"Fix what?"
"You came because you can't feel mana."
"I can't feel it yet, but that's not why I came. There's still plenty of time. Not one of the apprentices in Lion Pavilion has felt it."
"Oh? Then why did you come?"
"A laundry problem."
"So what's in that spatial bag you're holding—laundry?"
Old ginger bites the hardest, they say, and the elders in this neighborhood were sharp. She saw straight through the bag.
"I left the laundry at Stan General Store."
Color began to rise slowly in the old woman's face, starting at the neck. Watching the red climb from her chin toward her forehead, Chris thought of water coming to a boil.
Any moment now.
She bellowed.
"That bandit bastard got you!"
"Bandit?"
"He gouged you blind, didn't he. How much did he skin you for?"
Pressed by the force of her, Chris answered straight.
"Two silver coins."
"Robbed. Clean robbed. That bastard swallowed you whole without even plucking the feathers."
Chris had already been turning over the possibility that he'd been overcharged.
"Then next time I'll just leave it somewhere else."
The old woman came over quickly and seized his hand.
"Next time, come to my place."
Her hand was rough as tree bark.
She must have had a hard life when she was young.
Chris pulled his hand free.
"I'll think about it."
"Fine if you don't come to me. But don't you ever set foot in that old coot's shop."
"Is he a bad man?"
"He's vicious. You'd be lucky if all he did was squeeze your money."
The long nail on her index finger jabbed Chris in the stomach.
"He'll scrape out your guts, too."
Chilled, Chris stepped back.
God. Shit.
"You're scarier than Stan, ma'am."
The old woman grinned. The red that had taken over her face was already gone. She whispered, almost fondly.
"Call me Donna."
The gentle voice was somehow unpleasant.
"Yes, Grandma Donna."
"The laundry's already left, Juan didn't send you, and if you haven't given up on mana either, then why did you come?"
"You told me to look around."
"I did. But you were snooping first."
"I saw Juan go in."
"Juan. Poor child. The others try for a few years and give up... Ten years at the longest, and they throw in the towel... And that boy has been going on like that for well over thirty years."
Donna suddenly clapped her hands.
"Which is why I made a solution!"
Chris recalled what she had said a moment ago.
That she could fix it for me.
He swallowed hard.
"You're saying you can solve the mana problem?"
Donna nodded, her face solemn.
"How?"
She went past the counter into the inner room. A little later she returned with a bizarre object. At a glance it looked like a soldier's helmet, except wings were fixed beside the ears and something long jutted from the forehead like an insect's antenna.
"What is this?"
"A helmet that lets you feel mana. For short, a Mana Helmet."
"Can you really feel it?"
"How would I know?"
Chris frowned.
"May I try it on?"
"Normally, no..."
Donna held the helmet out as if granting him a favor.
"Try it."
Chris put on the Mana Helmet and tightened the chin strap. Then he quieted his mind and recited the spell—the magic incantation that was supposed to let him feel mana.
He concentrated for a long while, but no mana came. Disappointment clenched around his chest.
"It doesn't work."
He said it while forcing the disappointment down, then took off the helmet and handed it back to Donna. She touched the antenna-like protrusion.
"You fit a mana stone in here."
"And without one...?"
"Obviously it does nothing."
"Could I try it with a mana stone in?"
"Do you have a mana stone?"
Chris pointed at the display case.
"There are plenty right here."
"Do you have any idea how expensive mana stones are? I can't burn a costly stone just so you can try it on."
"How much are the helmet and a mana stone?"
"The Shay Mana Helmet is a hundred gold coins. Mana stones vary by attribute, but the lowest-grade ordinary ones run about three or four silver."
Chris's mouth fell open.
"A hundred gold coins!"
Until the day he left the estate, Chris had not owned a single thing. The rag on his back was all he had. He had wrung his fellow apprentices' purses to scrape together eight silver coins, and at least half of that had to go to the laundry. To someone like him, a hundred gold was a sum past imagining.
Seeing his reaction, Donna hid the Mana Helmet behind her back.
"You're broke, aren't you."
"Is the helmet really reliable?"
"What in the world is ever certain? Life is uncertain."
"It's a hundred gold coins. You can't say something that irresponsible."
"I took it in at a steep price myself. There's no margin."
"Is the one who made it Shay?"
Donna answered defensively.
"A truly famous mage."
To Chris, she looked as if she regretted stocking something so expensive.
If it doesn't sell, she's the one who has to swallow the loss. No wonder she's wearing thin.
"I'll pass."
"This is the only one. Once it sells, you'll never get another."
"Who would buy this?"
"Someone wants to."
A thought flashed through him.
"So this is what Juan means to buy."
He didn't think Juan had a hundred gold coins.
"So buy it. Quickly."
"No, thank you."
Juan had said thirty-five years had passed since he entered the tower. Chris had not been there a month. A great deal of time still remained, and Chris did not abandon hope.
"Thank you for letting me look."
As he left the shop, Donna's voice flew after him and lodged in his back.
"The way I see it, you've got no talent. Don't torture yourself with false hope. The moment you decide it won't work, come straight to my shop and buy Shay's helmet. If someone else buys it, that's the end."
Chris made a sound of pure annoyance.
"Don't jinx me."
"Save your money. You have to save your money. That's the only way you'll survive."
Chris shut the door with a sharp crack. Stan, Donna—every last one of them was an irritating human being.