The Mission, Part One: Cutting Them Off
Grain turned visitors away on the grounds that crafting Motaro demanded the most painstaking care. To Chris, it looked like an excuse. If people started coming in person to beg favors, it would be nothing but a nuisance.
For that reason, almost no one came to the cave. Contact arrived by communication orb and voice-bird, and nearly all of it was looking for Grain.
Not a single person ever reached out to Chris on his own. So it caught him off guard when a voice-bird came flying straight at him.
We have brought the item requested by Hermann Magic Tower. We would like to call on you in person.
Grain's interest stirred.
"Did you put in a request with Hermann Magic Tower behind my back?"
"No."
The denial leapt out on reflex, and only afterward did the memory surface. He had once leaned on Emerick — half request, half threat — and told him to bring a mask.
"Ah. Right. I remember."
Chris tested the air.
"May I step out?"
"Mm. Go on."
Chris turned to the voice-bird, brightening.
"Having you come all the way here is a bit much. Let's meet at a café I like."
Which café?
"The one in Clock Tower Square. Ask around nearby and anyone will know it."
The commotion Chris had kicked up had made the place famous.
Yes. Understood. We will see you there.
The voice-bird hesitated, as if it still had something more to say, then broke apart like a bubble of air and vanished.
The courtesy had been so thick that it left him oddly uneasy.
As Chris made for the mouth of the cave, Grain's voice chased him.
"See? I'm such a wonderful master."
Chris stopped and turned.
"What makes you think so?"
"I don't dig into your past or your secrets. I don't even ask what you're getting up to behind my back, or what you're trying to get your hands on. That makes me an excellent master."
"Yes. I suppose it does."
Chris conceded without a fight and started down the mountain. He had chosen the café because he didn't want Grain watching him take the mask. The hope of running into Alice and Catherine by chance had nudged the choice as well.
On the way, he stopped to look in on Wilbur. Not knowing the man's house, he planted himself where they had met before and shouted.
"Wilbur!"
He must have been home. The door of a house wrapped in a beautiful garden opened, and Wilbur came out looking thoroughly put out.
"What brings you here?"
He asked it from behind a guarded stance. A communication orb sat in his hand; one wrong move and he looked ready to call Daryl.
"Where'd you get the orb?"
"I acquired it recently."
"Who gave it to you?"
Chris smiled crookedly and waggled his little finger.
"An older lover, was it?"
Wilbur's face went stiff.
"Mind your manners."
"Pretty boy's angry, I see."
"If you came to make jokes, I'll be going back inside."
Chris followed him in. Wilbur made no effort to hide how little he wanted him there, but Chris set his face like iron and ignored it.
"A guest shows up and you don't even offer tea?"
"Wait."
A short while later Wilbur brought the tea out, and it was black. The Iron Skin solution that had once scorched Chris's skin raw came roaring back, and a shudder ran through him.
Wilbur drank the cup he had poured for himself.
"You're not drinking?"
"My appetite just died."
"Your business?"
"Pretty boy, you really are impatient."
"I'm not. I'm a calm person."
"So you only got impatient because you can't stand being around me, even for a moment?"
Wilbur started to answer, then let out a sigh. Watching him sink so fast into gloom, Chris hurried the words out.
"All right, all right. I'll get to it. What are you going to do?"
"If you lop off the beginning and the end, I have no way of understanding you."
"The gate in the sky is going to open, isn't it? Are you following Daryl, or staying?"
"I was told the passage is dangerous, and that only those at Ring Binding can enter."
"Then take Motaro and raise your realm to Ring Binding."
"I've heard that forcing your realm up by a shortcut like that brings severe side effects."
"They say the Middle Realm has ways to ease those side effects."
"I want to walk the orthodox path."
"The magic you learned at the tower is a heretical path to begin with. It isn't orthodox."
"Don't spread nonsense."
"The mages who stayed behind here were rotten from the start. Greedy, unpleasant, criminals, butchers, schemers. There's no way magic from men like that was the good kind."
"There is no such thing as good magic or evil magic in this world. A cow drinks water and makes milk; a snake drinks the same water and makes venom. Good and evil split according to the mage's nature, and nothing more."
"Well, well. You talk just like a monk."
"I'll say it again. I'm not going."
"If every Ring Binding mage vanishes, you planning to live it up here all on your own?"
"Think whatever you like."
Chris set about persuading him.
"How many people ever cross from Seed Cultivation to Ring Binding? You're lucky if even one comes out of a whole cohort. Stay here and never reach Ring Binding, and you just die for nothing. Better to take Motaro and climb."
"I don't have Motaro, either."
"If you say you'll go, Daryl will get it for you no matter what it takes."
"Will she, really?"
"At the café that day, Richard chose Motaro over Segorin. But Daryl shielded you to the very end. That means she holds you dearer than Motaro. She might even give up her own share."
"I don't want to impose on her like that."
"Between lovers, what imposition is there?"
Chris winked.
"People in love shouldn't keep a ledger."
Wilbur was cold.
"If your business is finished, please leave."
"Fine. Stiff as a board."
As Chris took hold of the door, Wilbur spoke to his back.
"Why come to me and say all this?"
"Who knows how the future turns out? A clever rabbit digs three burrows. You widen your options. You try this and that."
"This and that?"
"If I end up going to the Middle Realm, I'll need someone I can trust enough to join hands with."
"And I've been chosen as that candidate?"
"That's right."
"Why?"
"Among all these bastard mages, you look like you've got the least rotten character."
"Is that a compliment, or an insult?"
"A compliment, obviously."
Chris waved and left the house.
They had tidied the surroundings and were waiting. Chris, who had been hoping for a chance meeting with his friends, took one look at the café and felt the disappointment settle in. The only people inside were mages of Hermann Magic Tower. Aside from them, the place was empty.
The moment Chris stepped through the door, Tower Master Hell flung both arms wide in a fierce welcome.
"How good to see you."
Chris grumbled inwardly.
We're hardly on hugging terms.
He didn't let it reach his face. He put on a moderate smile and inclined his head.
"Yes. Good to see you."
Hell turned the opened arms smoothly aside, as if that had been the intention all along, and indicated a chair.
"Please, sit."
Chris perched on the edge of the chair Hell had designated.
"May I see the item first?"
"Of course you should."
At his gesture, a man Chris had never seen held out a spatial pouch. Chris confirmed the mask inside, then spoke.
"Emerick?"
Emerick lit up. He had clearly expected to be ignored the moment the mask changed hands.
"Yes. I am Emerick."
"First time I've seen your real face."
"Yes."
Chris kept his word.
"This is a man who has labored day and night for the tower. I hope you'll treat Emerick well."
Tower Master Hell answered.
"Of course."
At that firm assurance, Emerick's face brightened. His business done, he withdrew and took a seat at another table.
Chris looked over the faces arranged before him. Hugo and Pearson sat to either side of Tower Master Hell, and behind them their disciples — Ethan, Hector, and Joffrey — stood in attendance.
"So these are the colleagues who entered the Horace Ruins back then."
Hugo spoke.
"You fooled us completely."
His tone was sour, as if the old grievance still rankled.
Chris shot back.
"I've got grievances of my own."
"What grievances!"
"You never gave me a mana stone, and the lot of you vanished through the magic circle on your own. Thanks to that, I nearly ended up stranded there for life."
Hell clamped down hard on Hugo's forearm and sent a thread of telepathy.
Hugo took the warning and drew his upper body back.
Hell spoke.
"Shall I call you Sid, or David?"
"These days I go by Gary. Call me Gary."
"Very well. Gary. In light of old sentiments..."
He indicated the spatial pouch Emerick had handed over and went on.
"...and in consideration of the fact that we carried out your request, I hope you'll hear ours."
Chris had a fair idea what they wanted, but he confirmed it.
"You want me to make one more Motaro."
"Yes."
"Orders are backed up too far. I can't take another."
"I heard you accepted Elder Richard's request."
Chris frowned.
"That got out as a rumor?"
"Yes."
If they hadn't heard it, they would never have come in person.
Chris was displeased.
"Somebody with a loose mouth is the problem."
Hell bowed his head.
"I beg you."
A tower master who looked down even on kings was lowering his head to a young mage of no known origin. There was no way the man was easy inside. Irritation sat in the eyes he kept on the table.
Chris, by contrast, was tasting a thrill. A worthless slave from an obscure domain, after every hardship imaginable, had climbed to a place where a tower master bowed. He couldn't help the satisfaction. Even so, he didn't forget his station and run wild.
He knew perfectly well that every scrap of power he currently enjoyed came from Grain, standing behind him.
"I'd grant the favor if I reasonably could, but there are still plenty of people who haven't received a single one. I have the king's orders to clear as well, so I don't have a moment to breathe."
Hugo and Pearson bowed too.
"We beg you."
"We will not forget this kindness."
Awkward, Chris scratched his head.
"When I accepted Richard's request, my master gave me a fierce scolding."
"Please, consider our circumstances."
"If you keep this up, I'm the one in a bind... Fine. Let's do it this way. Add a little more, as a rush fee."
"A rush fee?"
"Pay double the normal price, and I'll use that as grounds to open my mouth."
Hell looked troubled.
"This is my entire fortune."
Chris examined the highest-grade mana stones in the spatial pouch held out to him. It came to exactly the price of one.
"This won't do."
Hugo's face darkened.
"Motaro is already expensive. How can you tell us to pay twice that?"
Pearson spoke.
"Because the fee for Motaro is taken in mana stones, the price of stones has shot through the roof lately. What we scraped together down to the last speck is about that much. We're penniless now."
"Hold on. How many do you want?"
"Three."
Chris was dumbfounded.
"You're paying for one and asking for three? Even if you paid for six, I'd have to think about whether to give them to you."
"We're sorry."
"You already took one! Ah, these fine gentlemen are greedy."
Chris returned the spatial pouch of mana stones and rose. Then he raised his voice.
"If you want them before the year is out, bring six times the price!"
He walked past the three Ring Binding mages as they pleaded. Then his gaze went to the disciples standing in attendance behind them.
"Why are you dragging these kids around? Did you bring them so you could offer them up as ingredients the moment I say yes?"
Ethan, Hector, and Joffrey went pale with fright.
Hell answered.
"The times are unsettled, aren't they. We're afraid someone else might kidnap them while we're out, so we keep them with us for protection."
"Cherished disciples, I see."
Even so, if he handed over Motaro on the spot, they would put the boys forward as ingredients.
"Contact me when you've gathered the mana stones."