The Troll Beneath the Floor
Simon turned the glass in slow circles, and the wine spun inside it.
"Complicated."
"I'll make it simple."
Doltan began to lay out the account he had assembled: Gary's words and conduct on the day he came to the branch, the conversation that had passed between them aboard the ship, and everything the Black Hand Guild's intelligence network had scraped together afterward.
"Gary is a man with no known identity. The three great magic towers of the Grant Kingdom and the Tuleno Magic Tower of the Albar Kingdom alike say they don't know where he came from. As if he dropped out of the sky. At any rate, he killed Sid and David, slipped into the Children of the Mask—the Hermann Magic Tower's famous spy organization—and worked in the dark. He has a knack for changing his face at will, and with that knack he infiltrated the Horace Ruins, struck some sort of deal with the Ring-Binding mages, and then cheated every last one of them. It was closer to toying with them than to a swindle. For that crime the three great towers and the Tuleno Magic Tower are hunting him. The towers call him the Forbidden Mage."
"The Forbidden Mage?"
"They say he stole the towers' most secret intelligence."
Simon drained the wine and set the glass down with a sharp clack.
"We have to learn those secrets."
A crack ran through the glass.
"We're throwing everything we have at it."
Abas answered with force, then added a question of his own.
"I heard you went up top today."
Simon smiled bitterly.
"Three hours of being dressed down."
"Over what...?"
"A Gold Key came out of the magic safe Gary won at auction. A key that opens ruins. That's why."
The Header auction house was under the management of its branch manager, Doltan. He bowed his head, his face set hard.
"I apologize."
"It's in the past."
He said so, but the regret remained.
"To think a key was sitting in there."
He poured himself another glass and drank the regret down with the wine.
"Gary, I mean. Mages went in after him one after another. Will he be all right?"
"I'm told the place you're sent depends on the order you enter. I'd put his chances of coming through unharmed at about three in ten."
"Doesn't the second person to enter drop into the same place?"
"If the gap in time isn't too great, yes. That's what I was told."
"And the second entrant was?"
"Daryl."
"Would Daryl leave him be?"
"That's why I said three in ten."
"None of you thought of going into the ruins yourselves?"
"The remaining mages held the entrance until the passage closed."
"So the key's passage shut."
"Yes. We confirmed it had closed, then moved the ship."
"The name of the ruins?"
"We believe they're the Sitta Ruins. Shall we activate a magic circle and go in ourselves?"
"No. Those above will see to it."
"I hope we get our hands on Motaro this time."
"We will. We must."
Chris and Daryl had split the city in half and were combing it as if they meant to pick it clean of lice. They went house by house, peering inside, until the search grew so tedious that they paused for a short rest—and a voice-bird came winging in. Daryl's looked as if it had been carved from wood.
"Even at this very moment, the ones behind us are closing in. You don't get to loaf."
Chris answered, aggrieved.
"I'm only resting a moment."
"You can't keep the Motaro even if you find it, so you're dawdling. Is that it?"
"I'm a man who keeps his word. I've been turning this place inside out for a month with nothing to show for it, and the strength's gone out of me. I'll rest a little, then move again. Don't worry. But how did you know I was here, to send a voice-bird?"
"I checked with Mental Force."
"So a Seven-Ring mage's Mental Force can do that sort of thing?"
"Not exactly. We aren't far apart, and the only living people nearby are you and me. That's what makes it possible. In a place where many people live, it's hard to pick out one."
"I see."
"Enough chatter. Get to work."
"Yes."
Chris watched the voice-bird dissolve into the air as if it were melting, stretched, and got to his feet. He rubbed his eyes to chase off the drowsiness drifting down on him and took up the search again.
The sun sank by degrees. After ten more houses, he chose a suitable one and went in to sleep. He swallowed one of the meal-substitute pills Daryl had given him, conjured water and drank it, then rolled up a carpet so thick with settled dust that lying on it bare-skinned looked like a sure way to catch a skin disease, shoved the bundle aside, and lay down on the bare floor.
He went through the thing he did every night before sleep—reciting the Acrian Magic Book—and tried to settle, but strangely sleep would not come. The deeper the night grew, the wider awake his eyes became.
What is this? Why can't I sleep?
Chris released the Mental Force he had been able to use since becoming a Ring-Binding mage. Centered on him, it spread outward in concentric rings. Nothing caught.
There's nothing here?
He turned onto his side and courted sleep again. It still refused him.
Why am I like this?
He sat up. This time, instead of magic, he sharpened the bodily senses of a Grand Master. A sixth sense beyond the five caught hold of something.
The floor!
He got up and stared down at it.
It's just a floor.
He swept the surface with his palm. Near his feet, a hairline crack caught under his fingers—so fine that if he had not been touching with care, he never would have felt it.
He gathered mana into all ten fingers and drove them into the floor.
They sank.
His fingers went in as if into pudding. He put his strength into them and lifted, and a section of the floor rose, revealing the stairs that had been hiding beneath. He threw the floor fully open and set a foot on the steps.
Could there be Motaro inside?
If there was, he would hand it over to Daryl and get out of the ruins at once.
He formed two fireballs to serve as both ward and light, floated them ahead of him, and started down. The stairs were far longer than he had expected.
When he had descended to roughly the depth of a fifth basement, the stairs ended and a corridor began—narrow, and long. If concealed weapons launched from the walls, he would be in a bad way, so he wrapped a barrier around himself beforehand. A double one, at that.
After about a hundred steps, an arched stone door appeared. Strange patterns were carved into it, much like the markings on the underground pillar the evil spirit Tenbo had led him to, and on the wall where the ogre Kanta had been. Looking closer, they were not exactly the same. They differed by about two percent.
He studied the door for a long while, then tried pushing it. It did not budge. Just in case, he pulled, then shoved it left and right. It still would not move.
He had a guess at how to open it, but an uneasy feeling asked whether he ought to try.
Do it? Don't? Do it? Don't?
Last time, he had come out ahead. He had gained the Acrian Magic Book, and useful teaching besides. But profit then was no promise of profit now. The chance of some unforeseen calamity was about even. Even so, turning back was not easy. Curiosity over what might lie inside rose like storm clouds in the rainy season.
I'm a Ring-Binding mage and a Grand Master. I'm not going to die, am I?
At the very least, he thought, he could run. If he made it back to the surface, Daryl, a high-ranking Ring-Binding mage, would save him.
Let's go in.
Chris set his hand on the door and poured in mana in the same pattern he had fed into the ogre Kanta's sigil.
Click.
As before, a portion of the door's lower edge opened like a drawer. From the spatial pouch Daryl had given him, he took one high-grade mana stone and placed it inside. The drawer did not close. It had been the same with the ogre. The feeling was of being shaken down.
Is there an ogre here too?
He hoped so. Ogres had turned out, unexpectedly, to be beings one could reason with.
Then spend big.
He put a single supreme-grade mana stone into the open section.
Clack.
The drawer shut, and light spilled from the door. A moment later a sound like a bolt sliding free rang out. He tried pushing the door, but it would not open. It only shifted a little. He hooked his fingers into a gap in the pattern and slid it sideways. The door opened smoothly.
Not a hinged door. A sliding one.
He sent the fireballs in first and, still wrapped in his barrier, stepped boldly inside. Then he saw the being seated at the center of the room, in a chair as grand as a throne, and his mouth fell open so wide he worried his jaw might come unhinged.
A troll sat in the chair.
A troll!
After meeting an ogre, he had learned that trolls truly existed. He had never thought he would actually meet one.
Krrrrrr.
A sound fit for a monster rolled from the troll's mouth. Its lips parted, and thick-looking spit dripped. Then two yellow lights appeared in the air. The troll had opened its eyes.
Tense, Chris swallowed. An awkward silence prowled the room.
"Hoooo."
The troll let out a long breath, and the smell of its mouth came rolling over him. It was so foul it felt like drinking poison.
Surely it isn't actually poison?
He had never heard of trolls spitting venom.
"Does it smell that bad?"
The troll spoke. Having been through this once already, he was not startled the way he had been with the ogre.
"A little."
Astonishingly, the troll flushed. Chris rubbed his eyes, certain he had seen wrong.
Good heavens. The troll is embarrassed.
Now that was something to be shocked by.
"What year is it?"
The conversation was running in a pattern much like the ogre's.
"Ten thousand years since the sky opened... and a little more than ten years after that."
Chris kept himself polite. Calling an ogre a monster and being rebuked for it, then attacking and having his throat seized in the counterblow, had taught him something about conversation. Thanks to that, he could avoid needless friction.
"That will do."
The ogre had said it would do, too.
"What, if I may ask, will do?"
"Nothing you need to know."
The ogre had said he didn't need to know, too.
"What are you plotting?"
"Sharp, aren't you."
That was as good as admitting there was a plot.
"What in the world are you—"
The troll cut him off.
"I'm not the one plotting. The ones trying to start something are you humans."
"Us?"
"Nothing good will come of looking into it."
The troll changed the subject.
"Were you the one who woke me?"
"I did open the door."
"Do you have mana stones?"
"If I give you mana stones, what will you give me?"
"Sharp indeed. What do you want?"
"A magic book worth using after Ring Binding."
"Your greed runs too far."
"The ogre was open-handed. A troll, it seems, is small-minded."
The troll's right eyebrow rose.
"You met an ogre?"
"Yes."
"Who?"
"Kanta."
"You met an ignorant one."
"Kanta said it was trolls who were ignorant."
The troll snorted.
"Crazy ogre bastard."
"By any chance, are there elves in the ruins as well?"
"Why are you looking for elves?"
"If there are ogres and trolls, I thought there might be elves too."
"Not here."
"Which is to say they exist somewhere."
"Yes."
"In some other ruins, perhaps?"
"Who can say."
"I thought dragons, ogres, trolls, elves—all of them—were things people had made up. So how did they go extinct?"
"Extinct? What are you talking about?"
"The dragons opened the sky and migrated to another world, didn't they? I've never heard that ogres, trolls, and elves went with them. So they ought to exist around us, and they don't. One beast apiece, sitting in the ruins..."
The troll cut him off in an unpleasant tone.
"Beast?"
"I'm sorry. I had it in my head that trolls and ogres were monsters. In any case, there's only one of you, isn't there?"
"We cannot live in an inferior world."
"An inferior world?"
"This world you live in."
"What's wrong with our world?"
"It's a gutter."
"A gutter? Why?"
"The mana is far too thin."
"It isn't."
Chris drew a deep breath.
"There's this much."
"A man who lives in the high mountains doesn't know how thin the air's oxygen is around him. Only after he comes down to the lowlands does he realize he has been living where oxygen was scarce."
"What's oxygen?"
The troll clicked its tongue.