Do Not Test My Patience
"Still. This bastard really isn't coming."
Chris stared out the window, crooking a finger.
"You there. I saw you. Get in here. Now."
He flicked his hand, and a ball of fire shot out and struck the tree. The man who had been standing behind it stepped into view, fear stiff on his face.
"If you're not inside by the time I count to ten, you become Motaro material. One, two..."
Segorin broke into a panicked run. The instant his hand closed on the door handle, Chris's count sped up.
"Six, ten!"
The door flew open and Segorin came through. As he drew near, Chris slapped him across the face at twice the force he had used on Alex.
Smack.
It was only a palm to the cheek, yet bone cracked, and broken teeth went flying.
Daryl snapped in irritation.
"That's enough."
Chris had been about to hit him again, and stopped. Segorin did not react with Alex's stupidity. He drew a magic staff and mended the broken cheekbone.
"You called for me?"
Chris sat, and crossed his legs.
"Yes. I called. Why were you hiding outside instead of coming in?"
"I didn't know it was you calling. If I had, I would have come at once."
He rounded on Alex and roared.
"You wretched boy! You should have said plainly who was summoning me. What do you mean, sending a sound transmission that vague?"
Chris thought back over the sound transmission Alex had sent. It was true the message had never mentioned him. Even so, that was not Alex's fault. Had Alex spelled the thing out in tedious detail—that Grain's disciple was cutting off his own arm and claimed to be calling for him—Segorin would never have appeared. A Sikbae mage had nothing at all to gain by getting tangled up with the disciple of a man who made Motaro.
"If Alex had sent that sound transmission with the who, the what, the when, the where, the why, and the how all neatly filled in, you wouldn't be standing here."
Segorin waved it off.
"Not at all."
"A Jenyeom sends you a sound transmission telling you to come, with some urgent matter as the excuse, and you're so annoyed you set out to take him down a peg. Then you see a clerk, a Gyesin, and a Jenyeom fleeing the café in blind panic, and you realize this is no ordinary business. So you haul them in, interrogate them, and learn that a pack of foul-tempered mages is gathered inside. And you've been hanging back ever since, watching which way the wind blows. Have I got it right?"
"No."
Chris studied the wrinkled face and the loose, sagging jowls.
"How old are you?"
"Four hundred and forty-eight."
"Wilbur said five hundred and fifty."
Segorin glared at Wilbur.
"Wilbur has it wrong."
"I see. And you were once engaged to Catherine?"
"Yes."
"You heard why I called you here?"
"Yes."
With that one answer he had admitted he had questioned the people leaving the café and pried the information out of them. A beat too late, he corrected himself.
"No."
"So which is it. Yes, or no?"
Sweat beaded on Segorin's forehead.
"I apologize."
"Then don't do things you'll have to apologize for."
Chris formed a blade of wind and cut Segorin's arm off.
"Ghk."
A throttled groan escaped him. What made an old man frightening was precisely this: he did not scream the way Alex had, and he did not fall into a panic. He set his teeth, staunched the blood, and sealed the stump.
"Tough."
"I was prepared."
"Ah. So you heard I'd cut off Alex's arm, and figured yours might go as well."
"Yes."
"Seems you took me for a worthless piece of trash. Didn't you?"
"No."
"Don't give me that. You thought I was some son of a bitch who cuts off other people's arms whenever he feels like it. That's exactly what you thought."
Daryl cut in.
"Well, it's true."
Chris shrugged.
"It is true. But you were happy enough to shield Alex. Why didn't you stop me from cutting this one's arm off?"
"Because, right now, there is someone here who can stop you."
"Who?"
"Me."
The door opened, and Richard came in. He looked like a mage drawn in the illustration of a storybook. White hair was combed neatly back, baring a tidy forehead, and a white beard hung long enough to sway against his chest. His nose was a classic hawk's beak, the bridge jutting sharply, and his upper lip lay buried beneath a mustache thick as a brush. Under heavy brows, his eyes threw a light like the edge of a blade.
"Ah, Elder Richard. I was about to come find you. This works out nicely."
Richard sneered.
"Why? Were you planning to cut my arm off as well?"
Chris looked from Alex to Segorin to Richard, and smiled.
"Segorin wasn't merely loitering outside, reading the room. It seems he called you in to help, Elder."
"A sound judgment."
At a wave of his hand, Alice and Catherine, who had been seated in front of Chris, were pushed aside. Richard brought a chair and sat down before him.
Daryl shifted her place to a spot behind Richard. She was quietly making it known that, if it came to a crisis, she would take his side.
"I'd love to offer you tea and cake, but every clerk has gone, so I can't."
"I rarely eat."
"Yes. I heard as much from Wilbur."
"How do you intend to pay for cutting off the arm of my disciple, and the arm of my disciple's disciple?"
Chris smiled, and answered with a question.
"What do you do when a Jenyeom or a Sikbae lies to a Chukhwan and behaves without manners?"
"You punish them."
"Yes. So that's what I did."
"If you belonged to the same magic tower, that would be permitted. But you are an outsider."
"Grain came out of Mick Magic Tower. I am Grain's disciple. Taken broadly, we are one household."
"You do not belong to our tower."
If he peeled off the mask, revealed who he truly was, and declared that he really did belong to Mick Magic Tower, what kind of reaction would that earn?
An entertaining one, no doubt. And then it would become a nuisance.
Chris touched his face, then folded his arms.
"Aiyu. And here I held back, thinking we were of the same tower. If I had known Elder Richard would draw the line this coldly, I would simply have killed them."
The skin beneath Richard's eyes quivered.
"You lean on whoever stands behind you, and you run your mouth too freely."
"If the man behind me is Grain, running my mouth is a reasonable risk."
"You invoke your master's name so lightly?"
"He and I aren't the sort to bind ourselves in ceremony."
"And yet a man who scorns ceremony cuts off an arm for bad manners?"
"The lack of ceremony is between Grain and me. It doesn't extend to anyone else."
"Do not test my patience."
Chris accepted the warning. Grain was far away, and Richard was right under his nose.
Clown about and catch a beating for it, and the only one who loses is me.
Richard and Daryl, though, seemed certain he would keep pushing. The moment Chris slipped a hand into his robes, their brows twitched.
He drew out a small wooden box and set it on the table.
"My master told me to present this to you."
He slid the box across. Richard pressed a finger down to stop it sliding off the edge, then lifted the lid. His face brightened. The irritated crease between his brows smoothed out all at once.
"Convey my thanks."
Every scrap of ill will he had nursed toward Chris was settled by a single Motaro. He tucked it away.
"Elder Richard, you're a Seven-Ring, aren't you?"
"I am."
"Eat that, and you're an Eight-Ring. You'll be wanting two more after this. Perhaps three."
Chris's gaze, as he counted on his fingers, came to rest on Alex. He slapped his own thigh.
"Ah. So that's how it is."
"So that's what?"
Chris ignored Richard's question and spoke to Alex.
"What's the attribute of your seed?"
Alex's face went red. He looked ashamed.
"Why can't you answer?"
"I don't know yet."
"You don't know?"
In that instant Richard drove a message straight into his mind.
Chris did as he was told.
That bastard Alex wasn't going to sleep easy after this.
He'd be so desperate to learn why Richard was shielding him that he wouldn't get a mouthful of soup down.
Chris inclined his head toward Richard.
"Congratulations. An Ultimate Mage is as good as already yours."
Richard shook his head.
"No one knows what will become of a man. With that in mind, I would like to commission one more Motaro."
Daryl spoke.
"I would like to commission another as well."
"As you are aware, the orders are badly backed up. For the time being, we are honoring only one per person."
Richard said,
"In return, we are offering mana stones, and diligently carrying out the work Grain assigned."
"There are too many urgent cases—tower masters whose lives are running out, and Julien, who has already exceeded his limit—so a second order will have to wait."
"I would ask you to indulge me."
"I can move an order up the line..."
Richard's face lit with pleasure.
"You can?"
"Of course. I am the one and only disciple of the great Ultimate Mage Grain. If there weren't a privilege or two in it, who would ever be his disciple?"
"What do you want in exchange?"
"I would prefer that one of those two no longer exist in this world."
Richard understood at once which two he meant.
"Why?"
"I find them unpleasant."
"Unpleasant..."
Richard stroked his chin, then swung his staff with the speed of lightning. Segorin's head flew. A heartbeat later, the torso froze solid.
Thud.
The head that had struck the floor rolled, and stopped. By chance the eyes were turned on Richard, a deep grudge clotted in them. The look displeased him. He burned the head to nothing.
Chris clapped.
"Immaculate technique."
His voice was cold enough to raise the hair.
"I'll have it sent within the month."
Daryl said,
"And what about me?"
Chris's eyes slid to Wilbur, and she cried out in a fury.
"Not him!"
"So you truly love him. As for the price I'll take from you, Elder Daryl, I'll think on it at my leisure."
He had not wanted to part from Alice this way, not when he was seeing her again after so long. But with Richard and Daryl beside him, he could not so much as show that he knew her.
The only two friends he had in the world walked out of the café. The only friends he had wanted to see were leaving. He wanted to call after them, but he could offer no reason the others would accept, and so he let them go. Chris swallowed the ache of it. Richard and Alex left as well, and Daryl and Wilbur with them.
As ever, Chris was left alone. Segorin's torso remained, set aside by Richard to be used as material, but that could hardly be counted as a person.
At dusk the clerk returned to the café. He found Chris sunk in the slowly dying light and startled so badly he nearly went into a fit. Left as he was, the man looked ready to faint, so Chris invented a task for him.
"Bring me one of every kind of cake."
The clerk filled the order, trembling all the while. Chris forced the cake down, mouthful after stubborn mouthful. He had thought a sunken mood would rob it of any taste, yet the cake was still delicious.
When you've no appetite, nothing beats cake.
"That was excellent."
He had offered the courtesy before he realized he had no money.
Should have told Wilbur to settle the bill.
The clerk, watching him stand there awkwardly and dig through his pockets, grasped the situation and blurted out,
"You don't have to pay."
"That won't do."
"No, truly. We'll cover it."
"No. Put it on my tab. I'll come back later and settle it."
The clerk did not believe the promise to pay. In his experience, no one who said such a thing had ever settled a tab.
Had the man been an ordinary customer, he would have taken a club to him until the money came back up. Not this time. The clerk hoped he would never visit again. He hoped the debt would never be paid.
"I really mean it. You don't have to."
Chris patted the clerk's shoulder with kindly familiarity.
"I'm a man who keeps his promises. Your shoulder is terribly stiff, though."
The clerk screamed inside.
Because of you!
"You seem badly stressed. Stress is the enemy of good health."
Chris left the shop smiling.
"Until next time."
The clerk waited until he was certain the man was gone, then scattered a line of salt before the door, to keep him from ever crossing it again.