A Scream from the Second Floor
He forced his heart back into some kind of order and went down to the first floor, only to run straight into Alex. Of all the days. The gloom sank deeper.
"What brings you here?"
"Is it strange for me to come to my own dormitory?"
"It's strange when you haven't shown your face in a fortnight."
"I don't see Mark. Where is he?"
Since when is the prince your friend? Insolent little bastard. He swallowed the curse and answered.
"He'll be at the training grounds, I expect."
"He isn't, which is why I'm asking you, you pathetic wretch. Where's Mark?"
Chris answered, flat as still water.
"He must have gone down to the village."
"Pathetic. A talentless fool couldn't make it even if he worked himself raw, and this one doesn't even try—off playing every day. Of course he'll never amount to anything."
Prince Mark had been slipping away from his place more and more often lately. Chris didn't believe for a moment that he was out amusing himself. He was only worried.
"Why are you looking for the prince?"
"The year's nearly up, isn't it? I thought I'd offer him a little advice."
Advice. He came to rub salt in the wound.
Watch Alex's words and conduct long enough and the pattern showed itself: whenever his own affairs went sour, he turned up at Lion Pavilion and vented his spleen on whoever was unlucky enough to be standing there. Is Lion Pavilion your trash bin? Is the prince? Nasty little shit. Chris went on cursing him inwardly, and smiled.
"Then give the advice to me."
He pressed his palms together in an exaggerated plea.
"I am truly desperate for counsel."
"I have no advice to waste on the likes of a slave."
Alex spat and left. Nobles, people said, didn't spit even in the street. This one spat indoors.
"Son of a bitch."
He got the curse out cleanly once Alex was gone, then headed outside and made for the place where Alice was meditating.
"Do you know where the prince is?"
"No. Why?"
Chris pointed at the spot where Mark usually sat in meditation.
"He's been away from his place far too often lately."
He lowered his voice.
"I'm worried."
"The year's almost up. Of course he's unsettled."
Alice sighed and went on.
"I'm unsettled too."
The sigh was contagious. Chris let his own breath out and laid a hand on his chest, touching the stone beneath his clothes. The pebble necklace Donna had given him had brought him no luck, but it steadied his heart all the same.
"Keep at it."
As he turned to go, she asked.
"You're not meditating. Where are you off to?"
"Stan General Store."
"You picked up the laundry the day before yesterday. Why today?"
"To ask about a job."
"Oh."
Alice let out a lament.
"Chris. You gave up after all."
"Yeah."
"I'll come with you."
"You too?"
"I should start looking for work myself."
"I heard they don't throw you out of the dorm the moment the year is up. They give you about three months. Try a little longer."
"Enough. I've tried plenty."
"It's a waste to quit now."
"And you?"
"Me? I'm a little..."
"A little what?"
"There's a reason."
"Tell your big sister."
"We're the same age. What big sister?"
She had once insisted to Smith that she was a year older, only to confess later that they were in fact the same age.
"My birthday comes first."
"I told you I'm an orphan. I don't even know when my birthday is. So how is yours earlier?"
No one remembers the day they were born. They only know because family tells them. Chris, who had never had anyone to look after him with any affection, did not know his.
Alice jabbed a thumb at herself and preened.
"I'm an early-year baby. Born in January. Obviously my birthday comes before yours."
"What day in January?"
"January fifth."
"Then I'm the older one. Mine's January first."
"You said you don't know your birthday."
"I just remembered."
"You're ridiculous."
Bickering over birthdays, the two of them set off for the village. A little later, walking a lonely mountain path, they heard a strange sound from the ridge.
Chris spoke.
"What is that?"
"I don't know. What is it..."
"Let's go see."
Alice caught his sleeve as he started up the slope.
"Haven't you heard the stories? Apprentices who loitered around a mage's dwelling, got caught, and were dissected?"
"Those are tower legends. All nonsense."
"You think so?"
"No illustrious mage would ever set up house near a dorm full of lowly apprentices."
They crept on, making as little noise as they could.
"Sounds like a person, doesn't it?"
"Yeah."
"Over there."
As the sound drew nearer they dropped flat and crawled.
"Sharp stone under you. Watch out."
"Ack!"
"I told you to watch out."
They hid behind the brush and eased their heads up. The one making the noise was no mage. Alice saw who it was and blurted it out in surprise.
"It's Mark!"
Chris hissed through his teeth.
"Keep your voice down."
"That...!"
Mark had a bizarre helmet on his head and was flailing like a man drowning. Chris stared at it and muttered.
"That's the Mana Helmet from Brian Magic Store."
Mana stones hung from the antenna-like protrusions, swaying every time Mark nodded along with the spell he was chanting.
Alice nodded.
"So the prince bought the Mana Helmet."
"You knew about it?"
"Yeah. Granny Donna tried to talk me into buying one."
"I begged her over and over to hold it until I could scrape the money together, and she went and advertised it to half the world."
Alice's eyes went wide.
"You were going to buy it?"
"Yeah."
"How were you going to raise that much money?"
"Pool it with the others from our batch and buy it together. And now it's in the prince's hands."
Turn it over, and it made sense. Eleven months ago, everyone who entered the tower had been nothing more than an aspiring mage, still at the stage where it was an open question whether they would ever become one. A hundred gold coins was a crushing sum even for a noble. Unless a house ranked among the richest in the kingdom, no one would have sent a child off with a hundred gold in pocket money when there was no promise of magehood at the end of it.
Only someone of a prince's rank could get his hands on pocket money like that.
No wonder he never haggled the laundry fee. With that much money, dickering over laundry would be petty. Our prince put on airs at the start, but he was never a small man.
Suddenly Alice was crying. Chris asked, startled.
"Why are you crying?"
"Look at him. It's sad."
Hearing her, he saw it too. The prince looked pitiful. Driven by the single wish to sense mana, he had strapped on that ridiculous helmet and was thrashing in it, hidden away for fear the others would laugh, clinging to the thing the way a drowning man clutches at straw. Anyone who didn't know the circumstances would have sneered and called him simple.
"Hiyah! Hiyah!"
He had gone past chanting and was shouting with the effort now, his body rocking forward and back, then side to side.
"Let's go."
Alice tugged at Chris.
"I can't watch. It's too miserable."
Then Mark's foot caught on a root jutting from the ground, and he went down.
"Agh."
His ankle had twisted. He screamed in pain, tore the helmet off, and flung it away—then crawled after it on hands and knees like some four-legged animal. He caught the rolling helmet, clutched it to his chest, and sobbed. The crying grew louder, until at last it broke into hiccuping, choking gasps.
Tears came to Chris as well. He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand.
"Let's go."
They came down the mountain with tear tracks fastened to their faces like buttons, their chests tight and hollow.
They stopped at Stan General Store and asked about work. Scott studied the two of them for a long moment, then sighed.
"Wouldn't you be better off staying at the tower?"
"We can't stay."
"Stay on as a tower hand, like Juan."
Chris pictured himself doing the menial chores Alex set him and shook his head. Being worked like a dog by that man would be miserable beyond words.
"I'd rather work outside."
Scott looked at Alice.
"And you?"
"I think the tower would be all right for me."
Chris said,
"You might have to wash Alex's underwear. Still all right?"
"I'm fine with it."
"You've got a stronger stomach than you look."
Scott spoke.
"Then, Alice, you speak to David."
"Mage David?"
"He's kind. Ask him for work and he'll find you a good place. If you can't land something at the tower, come back and tell me. I'll look into it. Chris, you ask David first as well."
He added,
"There's still a month left, isn't there? Don't give up in the meantime. Keep trying. You might sense mana at the very last moment."
Chris asked,
"Has anyone ever succeeded right up against the deadline?"
"There have."
Chris's eyes lit at the answer. The words that followed dropped his shoulders.
"I've seen three in twenty years."
"Damn. We're finished, then."
Alice said,
"I hope the prince succeeds."
Stan came out from the back of the shop.
"It's not a laundry day. What's this about?"
Scott answered for them.
"They stopped by looking for work."
"You should have spoken to David first. He's kind to a fault. He'll roll up his sleeves and treat it like his own affair."
"I already advised them to."
Chris and Alice said their goodbyes and left the store.
Alice asked,
"Does Mage David look kind to you?"
"No. He isn't a kind man. There are just so many mages with garbage for personalities that, to Stan and Scott, someone like him might pass for kind."
Alice wanted one last look at the staves, so they ducked briefly into Brian Magic Store and came back out.
Chris said,
"Let's eat lunch before we go. My treat."
It was the first time he had ever offered to buy anything. A question mark settled between Alice's brows.
"Why all of a sudden?"
"I just felt like it."
"I'm asking why you suddenly felt like it."
"I scraped that money together tooth and nail for the Mana Helmet, and now there's no use for it. It's not as if I have family to look after, the way you do."
He pointed at the sky.
"The sun looks good today."
"All right. Let's eat."
They took their time over lunch, then set off back toward the village. They had eaten their fill until their bellies stuck out, but the walk along the mountain path flattened them again.
Chris said,
"I was so full I thought I'd skip dinner. Looks like I'll have to eat after all."
"I couldn't eat like that. You eat so well—no wonder you keep shooting up."
"I've grown?"
"About a palm taller than when I first saw you."
Back in the barony, too little food and a slave's life had left him smaller than others his age. At the tower he ate well and caught up to average.
"I wish I'd grown another handspan."
Talking about height, they stepped into the entrance hall of Lion Pavilion. In that instant a scream tore through the building.
"Aaaagh!"
The cry shook the pavilion. Both of them froze, hearts clenched, the backs of their knees gone weak.
Faye came into the hall, shouting.
"What was that?"
"A scream, from the second floor..."
Only then did the shock let Chris go. He sprinted for the stairs.
"Ah—ah—"
Smaller than before, the scream filled the corridor and came pressing in.
"It's the prince's room."
Chris burst into Mark's room. Tony sat on the floor, arms and legs thrashing.
"What happened?"
"Ah—ah, the prince... the prince, he..."
His finger shook as if he had the ague, and where it pointed the prince sat—with a dagger driven into his chest, wrinkles gathered tight around his closed eyes.