A Tree Against Lightning
Explaining the Acrian Magic Book would do more for him than simply being handed enlightenment, and so the troll agreed. Chris listened to the interpretation and slapped his knee. Each time the troll spoke, a passage he had only half grasped grew sharp, and lines that had hung over him as dim as a bank of storm cloud came clear.
This is much better.
The benefit was so plain that Chris began dragging out even the passages he thought he already knew. He and the troll differed on more than a line or two. Of every ten, about three came out differently. In most of those the troll's reading was the better one, though here and there his own proved superior. The split seemed to spring from the difference between human and troll.
He learned the whole of it over again, from the first word to the last, and the hours passed in earnest study. Only now did he feel, with fresh force, how much a good teacher's instruction mattered. A small enlightenment came to him, and he seized the fragment of it. If he tried now, he thought he could weave the second ring.
Chris poured the mana stones out of his spatial pouch in a heap and concentrated.
What kind of tree should I weave?
He had no intention of binding an evergreen broadleaf, not after Daryl's advice. Even if he wove a tree, he wanted a different kind. All at once he remembered Stan attacking with electricity.
What tree can stop lightning?
A tree cannot endure a thunderbolt. He had once seen a great trunk, thick enough that a man's arms could not have spanned it, split open when lightning struck on a rainy day.
Chris looked up at the troll, who was watching him with keen interest, and asked.
"Is there a tree that can block lightning?"
"No."
The troll thought a moment, then added,
"Among the things a tree produces, though, there is something that blocks lightning rather well."
In that instant a cargo he had hauled while working at the Senpo Trading Company rose in his mind — a black thing that gave off a foul stench.
"Rubber!"
The troll nodded.
"Thinking of weaving a rubber tree?"
"Yes."
"Ever seen one?"
"No."
"Empty your mind. Empty your head."
"Why?"
"I'm going to send an image. If you've got a wall up, it won't get through easily."
Chris lowered the mental barrier he had kept raised ever since he entered Ring Binding. The image the troll sent rose before him.
"Is this a rubber tree?"
"It is."
"Does it stay green in winter?"
"It grows mostly in the tropics…… There are kinds that grow in parts of the temperate belt…… but if a hard winter drags on, I expect it would die."
If it grows in the tropics, the leaves would always be green. Then it's an evergreen. It feels as if it would overlap the first ring. An imaginary rubber tree might be better. A black tree that flings lightning aside.
Chris made his decision.
He erased the image the troll had given him and chose imagination instead. A dusky tree germinated before the Klpandi. It broke through the soil, bent, and wound about the Klpandi's lower half.
It works!
Swept up in the thrill, Chris began to absorb the mana stones. The ring drank their mana at a frightening speed.
Chris opened his eyes, feeling clear. The troll was looking quietly down at him.
"How much time has passed?"
"By my body's reckoning, three days."
"Longer than I thought."
He rose, refreshed.
"What? Leaving?"
"I don't have any mana stones."
A single supreme mana stone lay on the floor. He had spent all the rest weaving the ring.
"Would you teach me for free?"
The troll drew a hard line.
"That won't do."
A jerk of the chin indicated the last stone, and the troll went on.
"You giving me what's left as a gift?"
"A gift would sit awkwardly between us. Tell me a place where Motaro is likely to be, and I'll give you this."
"Trade Motaro for a single mana stone? Deal with a magic tower and you'd get a thousand of them."
"You don't feel like dealing with a magic tower, do you?"
"Why do you think that?"
"If a tower suited you, you wouldn't be hiding in a place this far out of the way."
"I'm not hiding…… though you may be right."
"Are you saying you are hiding, or that you aren't?"
"Call it close enough."
Chris picked up the stone and tossed it over.
"If you don't want to trade for Motaro, then tell me why you're here."
The troll took the stone and answered.
"To pass the time."
"Time?"
"Trolls live longer than humans. That doesn't mean we were born with a lifespan as monstrous as a dragon's."
Chris's mind spun at a frightening speed.
"You said you were waiting for a human mage to set something in motion. That takes an enormous stretch of time — the incident comes after your life would have ended — so you stayed in a frozen state, to meet that moment."
"Not frozen. Close enough, though."
"So you endured the years that way…… Ten thousand years since the Opening of Heaven…… and that time has come?"
The troll smiled.
"Yes. The moment the waiting ends is drawing near."
Chris's expression turned grave.
"Is it a calamity for humans?"
"It might be. It might not."
"It is a calamity."
Sensing the certainty carried in his voice, the troll's head tilted.
"I spoke with reservations. Why did you judge it that way?"
"Because they're mages."
"And?"
"Mages have garbage for personalities. How could anything a mage does be good for other people?"
The troll laughed again.
"Clear-cut."
"It is clear-cut. Bastards."
"You're a mage yourself. What you're saying now is no different from lying on your back and spitting straight up."
"I'm a good mage. One of the very few good mages there are."
"May that heart of yours not change. Our business is finished, so leave."
"One more question before I go. What is your name?"
"Carmin."
"That's a feminine name."
"Because I'm a woman."
"Ah — because you're a woman. Yes! Wait, what?"
Chris's eyes went wide with shock.
"Is it strange that I'm female?"
"Of course it's strange."
"Why?"
Asked like that, he had no answer.
"You're a troll."
"Trolls breed. We can hardly all be male."
"…"
"Did you think we were born out of mud, puddles, and rocks?"
"…"
"You really did think that. Ignorant fool."
Chris cleared his throat.
"I'm sorry for being ignorant."
Carmin accepted the apology.
"What's your name?"
"These days I go by Gary."
"An alias?"
"Yes."
"Your real name?"
"I have too many dangerous enemies. It's a little awkward to give my true name."
Carmin clicked her tongue.
"The more I learn about you, the stranger you get."
"I never wanted a life this complicated either. I wanted to live simply. Farewell."
"Right. Off you go."
"Yes."
Chris ducked his head in a short bow and turned. As he went out, the door shut with a heavy sound. He climbed back up, rebuilt the floor as close to what it had been as he could, and covered it with the carpet. Then he stepped outside the house. The sunlight was blinding.
He ambled along in the sun. Once he was well clear of the place where the troll had been, he did as she had taught him and spread his willpower thin, sending it far and wide. No living thing caught in it.
Have they left?
They must have searched the whole city for Motaro, or come up empty and moved on. He had no idea that Daryl, wary of intruders, was weaving a ring deep underground.
Why didn't they look for me?
The answer came at once.
They didn't choose not to look. They couldn't find me.
The troll's refuge lay deep underground, guarded by a door carved with a complex pattern.
Should I leave?
Chris took out the Silver Key and turned it over in his fingers. He had promised Daryl a year of cooperation, and walking away like this left a sour taste. He put the key back.
I'll look a little longer.
Chris went out beyond the city.
Five small steles, none of them reaching a grown man's waist, stood gathered in the shape of a pentagon. The patterns cut into their surfaces so resembled eyes, noses, and mouths that they gave off a curiously dainty air.
At blazing noon, under a fierce sun, an old man in a ridiculous conical hat, his body wrapped in a black robe, walked slowly up to the stones. From a pocket of the robe he drew a supreme mana stone and brought it to the place that corresponded to a mouth. His hand sank straight into the stele, which had looked perfectly solid. When it came back out, it was empty.
He circled the rest and set a stone into each of the others. Then he stepped back about five paces and chanted. A faint vibration rose from the ground, and the earth at the center of the steles split. A red coffin climbed into view, shedding an ominous air.
Bang.
The lid blew off as if it had exploded, and red smoke poured out. From within the smoke a wrinkled hand shot forth, its nails grown long. Wrist followed, then forearm and shoulder, and at last a face creased like a dried date.
The old man who emerged from the coffin was naked. He made no move to cover himself, and looked at the mage who had woken him.
"Grain. How many years has it been?"
"A hundred years have passed."
"Why wake me so early?"
"The preparations are nearly finished."
"Nearly?"
"To bring them to a close, we need an elder's power."
"The others?"
"They should all be awake by now."
"How far along?"
"Ninety-eight percent. But…"
"But what?"
"Filling the last two percent is difficult. We've drawn so much mana that it is gradually running dry."
"The remedy?"
"There is talk of laying everything bare and obtaining the magic towers' cooperation."
"Must we borrow the hands of yokels like that?"
"Mana stones grow harder and harder to supply. The caliber of mages entering the ruins isn't what it used to be, either."
"Magic towers…… Very well. Push it through."
"This is only my own thought, but even a hundred percent may not be enough."
"Why do you think so?"
"The calculations could go astray."
"Could they?"
"Set it exactly at a hundred percent and we cannot meet the unexpected. We need at least three percent more in reserve. To be comfortable, five percent more."
"We can't even fill the last two percent, which is why we're joining hands with the towers. You think that's possible?"
"If we mobilize the empires and the kingdoms as well, it can be done."
"We have nothing to give them."
"Why nothing? I believe we do."
Grain sent the rest by Thought Language, and the mage who had come out of the coffin laughed.
"Yes. For an emperor or a king, that would be a great gift."
No trace of beasts showed itself. Only insects appeared now and then, and even they were so feeble they crept along like sick old men. The Horace Ruins had at least been jungle. Here there was nothing of the kind. Between stretches of wasteland, ruined villages stood far apart. The Sitta Ruins were dying.
Chris muttered.
"Unpleasant place."
It was in far worse shape than the Horace Ruins. Holding to the hope that decent land might appear once he was clear of this stretch, he walked on at a steady pace.
Because of the year's promise, he did not consider opening a passage with the Silver Key. He had not sworn it upon his mana, so it seemed unlikely to hinder a later rise in realm — but one never knew. A promise he had thought trivial might catch him by the ankle in the end.
It wasn't as if he had anything else to do. He might as well endure.