Kind to the Dying
"So you've got something to fall back on."
The mage's lips twisted.
"Fine. Show me this paltry little trick of yours."
"One last offer. I won't breathe a word of what happened today, so just go."
"No."
Chris let out a sigh.
"What's your name?"
The sudden drop into blunt speech soured the mage at once.
"What did you say?"
"I asked your name. Ears clogged? Want me to dig the wax out for you?"
"Why do you want my name?"
"I heard you talking with Wolfgang and Jefferson."
"Then you should already know that learning my name means you die."
"Turn it the other way. Couldn't you just as easily take it as me telling you I mean to kill you?"
Lapin lunged forward and bellowed.
"You wretch! What filth is this, in front of a great mage? On your knees, and beg forgiveness!"
Chris jabbed a finger at him and shook his head.
"You son of a bitch! The moment you're in trouble, you sell out your own?"
"Why, you—! Lord Mage, I'll deal with him myself."
He snatched a sword off the ground and came on, face twisted with malice, swinging for Chris's neck. Chris ducked the blade, stuck himself tight against the man, and flung an arm out to hurl a stone at the mage. It tore through the air and slammed into the barrier with a thunderous crack, ricocheting away. The mage frowned as the impact shivered through the shield.
This one's no ordinary man.
Even so, he didn't feel his life was in any danger. His magic sat too high for that.
"An aspiring knight, are you?"
"..."
"Did you lay hands on the wife of the knight you served? Is that why you're on the run, dressed up as a porter?"
While he asked, Lapin kept hacking away, desperate to cut Chris down somehow. But Chris stayed glued to him, and the sword only whirled through empty air. There wasn't room enough to land a hit.
"Tch!"
Lapin gave up on the edge and drove the pommel down at Chris's shoulder. Chris didn't bother to block. The pommel struck twice, and neither blow did a thing.
"Why aren't you hurt?"
Lapin cried out in shock. Chris didn't answer. He simply lifted the man and hurled him at the mage. The space between them split—and Lapin, caught in the middle, split with it.
"Gyaah!"
Lapin died on that last scream.
The mage spoke.
"Using a comrade as a shield. Cruel little bastard."
"What is that magic? It doesn't sit quite like wind."
The mage answered as he came closer.
"You seem to know a thing or two about magic."
"A little."
"How?"
"You asked if I was an aspiring knight."
"And?"
"Who's a knight's natural enemy? Mages. Of course you learn about magic. I studied hard."
The mage sneered without bothering to hide it.
"Listen to this nonsense. A knight's enemy is the knight of another domain, another kingdom. How dare you measure yourself against a mage of the Magic Tower."
"You still haven't given me your name."
"My name is Paron. Paron."
"Affiliation?"
"Does a man about to die need to know that too?"
"Yeah."
"For now, say I'm with the Rafunians."
"'For now.' There's a story in that. Since you're talking, tell me the other thing as well."
"The other thing? What?"
"The magic that splits a man in half."
"Space magic. A higher order than elemental magic."
"Answering every question. Surprisingly kind of you."
"I'm kind to people who are about to die. And I'm curious about you. I answered honestly, so you'll answer honestly too."
"Why?"
"A deal ought to be fair."
"Did we make a deal?"
"I'll take it as implied consent."
Chris cocked his head, then nodded.
"Fine. Nothing I can't answer. What do you want to know?"
"The treasure."
"Why ask me that?"
"I spent a moment wondering why you'd hide your skill and play at being a porter."
"And?"
"Assume you infiltrated for the treasure, and every question answers itself."
"You gave it a decent think. But you're wrong."
"Wrong?"
"I took the job so I could live quietly in hiding."
"So my joke was true? You really did it with a knight's wife—"
Chris cut him off with a laugh.
"The one hunting me isn't a knight. It's a mage."
"A mage? Ah. So that's why you studied magic. Whose bad side did you get on?"
"I can't give you the name. Just know he's a far better mage than you."
"A lie."
"Why do you think I'm lying?"
"Better than me means a Ring Binding mage. You couldn't possibly have slipped out of hands like those."
"You're wrong. It's the truth."
"If what you say is true, you shouldn't have hired on as a porter. You should have buried yourself in some mountain hollow where no one lives."
He was right. Deep in the mountains, alone, Chris would have been safe, and he would never have come face to face with a mage like this. But he hadn't wanted to live that way. If all I'm going to do is live lonely and alone, why learn magic at all? He had learned it so he could do everything he wanted, eat everything he craved, and take every pleasure within reach. So he had taken work with a merchant guild... and walked straight into this.
Chris clicked his tongue and muttered.
"Has the ruin's curse followed me all the way out here?"
"What was that?"
"There's a thing."
"If it has nothing to do with the treasure..."
His voice went cold.
"Die!"
Chris had expected a wind blade, a fire arrow, or another cut through space. He was wrong. Walls of earth surged up from all four directions and slammed together with him caught in the middle. Only his head remained above the vise as the walls cinched inward, trying to crush him flat. From the outside it looked as if he were being overwhelmed, but Chris still had a little room to spare.
"Hah!"
He drove strength through his whole body. Bracing against the pressure, he triggered the spell he had been quietly preparing since the conversation began, and grass shot up long and fast to wind around Paron.
Paron shouted in surprise.
"You're a mage!"
"I told you I studied hard."
The grass rose harder still and bound Paron tight. In an instant he was a cocoon.
"You think trash magic like this can hold me?"
Paron sneered and thrashed. He didn't budge an inch, and his expression changed at once.
"You're Seed Cultivation!"
Grass kept swarming in, wrapping him thicker and thicker, as if every blade on the plain were rushing to join the rest. He was paying dearly for letting his guard down. The fight was not over, though. He was a mage who had reached the very peak of Seed Cultivation, and even with his body pinned he could still cast. Mana from his Thought Space poured out through the staff. The grass wrapped around it burst apart, and flame leapt up from that spot to burn what remained.
The fire couldn't clear it all. The grass closed in faster than it could burn, and the new growth hardly caught at all, soaked through with moisture.
"Fire! Burn fiercer—"
As he fed the flames with the chant, grass crawled up his face and tried to force its way down his throat.
"Ghk— ghk—"
The incantation died unfinished. He clenched his teeth and forced the magic out by will alone. It was weaker than a spoken spell, but it manifested all the same. A wind blade sheared away every stalk climbing his neck, and a small barrier formed an instant later to shield his face, his head sitting inside a great bubble of air.
If Chris had looked like the one being crushed at the start, Paron looked like the one being crushed now. Look closer, though, and it wasn't quite so simple. Even as the grass tormented him, Paron was pouring tremendous mana into his earth magic, and every grain of soil clenched around Chris with force behind it. The pressure felt like the deep sea. Without a grandmaster's body, he would have crumpled like a tin can under a boot.
"I'm confident in a contest of mana."
The barrier wrapped tight around Paron's face muffled the words. Chris heard them anyway, and pretended he hadn't.
"What?"
"I said I'm the better man in a contest of mana!"
"What?"
"A contest of mana—"
Paron realized he was being toyed with and stopped mid-sentence.
"You dare mock me!"
He wrung out more mana and fed it into the earth. The pressure on Chris grew fiercer still.
"Hn."
At the groan, Paron thought it was working and pressed harder. But Chris wasn't groaning from pain. His mind had drifted somewhere far from the urgency of the moment.
And I trained so hard.
After leaving the ruins he had worked until he could recite the Acrian Magic Book from end to end, and still he couldn't overwhelm Paron with magic. He had almost never beaten an enemy by spellcraft. Most of his victories leaned on his body. That body was his greatest weapon, and yet he wanted to win by magic, because he was a mage. Once his magic had found its footing he had prided himself on standing at the top of Seed Cultivation by spells alone, and fighting Paron had shattered that pride. On magic alone, Paron was the better of the two. Not by much. A little. A very little. And that little left Chris bleak.
He let out a long breath and set his jaw. This was no time for idle thoughts. Paron had grown careless and fallen into a bad position; Chris could just as easily get himself killed by taking it easy.
When you fight, you always give everything.
He shouted it inwardly and thrashed. Paron felt the resistance and sneered.
"Thrashing won't undo my magic—"
He broke off, eyes wide. Cracks were racing through the earthen wall that held his opponent. The wall split, and Chris burst free. He layered a strength-enhancing spell over himself and ran like a shot arrow, too fast for Paron to answer. The distance between them vanished in an instant.
"No!"
Chris ignored the terror-struck shout. His fist moved. The barrier around Paron's face had only been meant to keep grass out of his mouth, and it wasn't particularly strong. It met the blow and shattered like a wafer, and the same fist crashed into his face. Paron's head left his shoulders, vanishing so cleanly it was as if nothing had ever sat above his neck.
Chris exhaled long and released the spell. The grass binding Paron fell away. He caught the body as it lost its strength and collapsed, took the staff, stripped the robe, collected the spatial pouch, crushed the chest, and set the corpse alight.
"That needs burning too."
He started toward Paron's flying head to retrieve it, then stopped short in surprise. The blow had been hard enough to tear the head from the neck, and yet the face had kept its shape.
"It ought to be pulped past recognition..."
He approached carefully and nudged the head with his toe. The skin of the face slid off in a strange way.
"It's a mask."
Chris peeled away the mask that had covered Paron's face. Beneath it, the face was mashed beyond recognition, just as he had expected. The mask itself was not intact—the shape was warped—but nothing had torn. It had endured a grandmaster's fist.