Thirty-Two Silver Coins
Chris forced his caved-in chest to open.
"Nothing."
"Then why did your face change?"
"Did it?"
"It most certainly did. Have you hidden something in your room?"
Chris didn't dare attempt a lie.
"Yes."
"What?"
"Silver coins..."
William turned to Carl.
"Did you find them?"
"Yes. He'd hidden silver coins up in the ceiling."
"How many?"
"Thirty-two."
"Did you bring them?"
"I left them where they were."
At that answer Chris let out a sigh of relief, and Carl, watching, glared. His eyes said it plainly: You thought I'd covet a pittance like that, you stupid bastard.
Chris, who had in fact been thinking exactly that, flinched and drew his neck in. Carl took the cringe for an answer and bit down on his lip. Had the high-ranking mages not been standing beside them, Chris would have been beaten within an inch of his life.
William looked at him.
"Anything else hidden?"
"No."
Randal gave the Jenyeom mages their orders.
"Check their alibis."
Randal's disciple David and William's disciple Peter stepped forward to question the squad. Carl hesitated, reading the room, then moved to assist them.
He seized Chris by the ear and planted him in a chair beside the fireplace. The pain was sharp enough that Chris thought the ear might tear clean off, and his face crumpled into a grimace.
Little by little, the old habits of the barony were showing through — the defensive cringing he had used to lessen a beating. At a glance it looked like the behavior of a fool. To a mage's keen eye, it looked deliberate.
Randal stepped in front of him.
"Why are you acting like an idiot?"
"Me?"
"You're putting on a fool's act. Did you think I wouldn't notice?"
Randal struck Chris's temple with his staff.
Thud.
Chris toppled sideways off the chair. His ears rang. Certain he might be burned alive if he stayed where he'd fallen, he gathered his dazed wits and prostrated himself before Randal, eyes fixed on the toes of the mage's shoes as he recited, desperate.
"I was born a slave, and this foolish look is simply who I am. After I entered the Tower a good deal of that servility faded, but when I take a shock as great as today's, the old self comes out before I know it. I lived fifteen years as a slave. It hasn't been a year since I came to the Tower. Set the two spans of time side by side and the first is overwhelmingly longer. One year is far too short to scour out a slave's instincts."
Fortunately, the excuse landed. Randal accepted it and returned to his fellow mages.
Carl clicked his tongue.
"So that's why you clung to a mere thirty-two silver coins?"
"It's my entire fortune."
"Fine. Sit."
Chris glanced about, then sat.
"From here on, we'll be checking alibis."
"What's an alibi?"
"You can stop playing the fool."
Shame flushed Chris's face.
"I'm truly asking because I don't know."
"An alibi is proof you weren't at the scene."
"And what is proof you weren't at the scene?"
The face that asked it had gone red all the way to the forehead.
"Worthless apprentices like you can't be in two places at the same time. If it's proven you were somewhere else when Mark died, then you aren't the culprit."
"Ah, I understand. Only... for that to work, don't we have to know when Mark died?"
"There's a way to know."
Chris couldn't follow.
"How do you know?"
Carl's irritation flared.
"I ask the questions."
"Yes."
Chris hunched his neck, then looked around. The other members of the squad were giving their own statements, broken down hour by hour, of everything they had done that day.
The high-ranking mages pretended not to listen while taking in every word. The moment Alice said she and Chris had set out for the village together, Thomas clicked his tongue.
"Tsk, tsk. Gallivanting about like that — no wonder they can't sense mana. This cohort has no diligence in it."
The injustice of it burned.
You can say we failed for lack of talent. You cannot take our failure and call it a lack of effort. We tried. We tried with everything we had. We lived fiercely.
Every one of the squad had. That was why Chris respected them.
Trying hard doesn't mean everyone succeeds. The world doesn't work that way.
He wanted to say it aloud. The sense of wrong curdled into grief, and a tear slipped free.
Carl asked, "What time did you and Alice leave for the village?"
"Around eleven."
"A former slave wouldn't own a luxury like a clock. How did you know the time?"
Chris pointed to the grandfather clock standing in the parlor.
"We left Lion Pavilion about ten minutes before eleven. I talked with Alice for roughly ten minutes, so we would have set out for the village around eleven."
"Subtract departure from arrival, and the time in between won't be exact, will it?"
"No. Without a clock of my own, there could be an error of about ten minutes."
"Ten minutes? No more than that?"
"There's a clock tower in the square at Stratton Village. I make the trip often enough to have a rough sense of how long it takes."
"All right. And after that?"
"Between Lion Pavilion and the village, I saw the prince..."
"What? You saw Mark?"
The other mages' eyes snapped to Chris. Startled, he hiccuped.
"Hk— yes. Hk—"
"The time?"
"Between half past eleven and eleven thirty-five."
"Exact?"
"It's about the midpoint between Lion Pavilion and the village, so roughly then."
"What was Mark doing on the mountain?"
"The prince was desperate. He knew that once a year had passed, his chances were all but zero. So he kept moving from place to place, trying to sense mana. Lying down, sitting, walking, even running..."
He said nothing of the Mana Helmet. He had overheard Alice's statement, and she too had kept silent about the helmet — likely because speaking of it would have made the prince look too pitiful. Or perhaps because she thought he would be mocked for it.
"And then?"
"I pretended not to see him and went on to the village."
"Why didn't you greet him?"
"How would the prince have felt if a lowly slave witnessed him thrashing in desperation? I didn't dare offer a greeting."
"Good. Continue."
"I entered the village at ten past twelve. I checked the village clock tower, so that time is exact."
"Certain? An investigation will turn up everything!"
"Ah!"
Chris slapped his knee.
"The guard at the village entrance saw us. We even greeted him. His name is Buzz."
"Good."
Carl shaped a voice-bird, whispered something into it, and sent it fluttering out of the parlor.
Nothing the Magic Tower undertook was to be taken lightly. Chris was impressed.
They confirm it on the spot.
Then he tilted his head.
"Excuse me, Mage Carl. Buzz isn't a mage. Can he receive a voice-bird?"
"I don't even know what Buzz does or where he lives. How would I send him a voice-bird? Try using your head."
In a heartbeat, Chris had been reduced to a thoughtless fool.
"Then who are you sending it to?"
"Headquarters, regarding the passage passes..."
He broke off, irritated.
"I told you I ask the questions."
"Yes."
"What did you do in the village?"
"I stopped by Stan General Store and asked about a job."
"A job?"
"A noble like Tony can fail to sense mana, get driven out, and simply go home. Someone like me, if I fail to become a mage and return, has his status as a slave restored. So I meant to stay on in Stratton."
"Why ask Stan?"
He drops the name so freely. They must know each other.
"We're acquainted through trade. We're on good terms."
"Trade?"
Carl snorted.
"What does a lowly apprentice like you have to trade?"
"I collected the prince's laundry and left it with Stan General Store. At first, with all the nobles and Catherine as well, the income was decent. After Catherine and Alex sensed mana they sent their washing elsewhere, and once Tony dropped out too I was dealing only with the prince..."
A mournful look crossed his face as he rubbed the temple Randal had struck.
"And now my last customer... is gone."
"The thirty-two silver coins?"
"Yes. Earned as a brokerage fee."
"Next?"
"I left Stan General Store and went to Brian Magic Store at half past twelve. There's a clock there, so that time is exact as well."
"You were trading with Brian's shop too? Now that's unexpected."
"No. The prices there are astronomical. How could trash like me do business with them? I looked around the way one looks at treasures."
"Do you go often?"
"Yes. Looking at treasures is fun. I left the shop at one and went to Hannah's Restaurant for lunch."
"You came begging for work because you can't go home, and you went to a restaurant?"
"Yes."
"You don't consider that a luxury?"
"It is a luxury. But at the time..."
"At the time, what?"
Chris bit his lip, then dropped his head.
"Asking for a job meant I had completely given up on becoming a mage. I was miserable, lonely, depressed, and a little angry. So, to change my mood — as a gift to myself — I went to a restaurant that didn't suit me."
"I see."
"I left the restaurant around two and left the village ten minutes later. I greeted the guard on the way out, so he'll remember. I got back to Lion Pavilion around twenty past three, heard Tony scream, went up to the second floor, and saw Prince Mark's body."
When the alibi was finished, Chris sat in silence. One after another, the rest of the squad brought their statements to an end as well.
David, Peter, and Carl made their reports to the mages. The Jenyeom-realm mage who had listened took no notes, and neither did the high-ranking mages receiving the report.
They remember all of that?
Then a mage's memory must be extraordinary. Someone dull-witted could never become one.
A voice-bird flew in through the open front door. It opened its beak before Carl, and a voice spilled out.
Of the passage passes issued to Lion Pavilion, only two crossed the boundary today. The passes belonging to Chris and Alice went out through the boundary at 11:40 in the morning and returned at 2:40 in the afternoon.
Chris started at the voice-bird's words.
The passes had a function like that!
The Tower was truly not a place to take lightly.
Randal spoke.
"So the wretch and the wench check out. For now."
Chris bowed his head and thought, Answer that with something clever like 'How prettily put,' and I'd be burned to cinders.
All at once William's temper snapped.
"Why hasn't that bastard Sheikh shown up yet? You did contact him, didn't you?"
The sparks landed on Peter. Peter bowed his head, all deference.
"Yes. I contacted him."
Thomas said, "That one was always slow to get off his backside."
Just then a young man in a yellow robe sauntered into the parlor. Randal looked at the newcomer and snapped.
"The damned wretch didn't come himself. Sent a disciple in his place."
Chris rubbed his eyes at the sight of the newly arrived Jenyeom mage. Since coming to the Tower he had seen plenty of handsome faces and plenty of ugly ones, but never anyone who looked quite like this. The man resembled phlegm that had crawled out of a pig's throat. Or perhaps something that had crawled out of a nightmare.
"I am Harvey, chief disciple of Archmage Sheikh."
Harvey was still offering his greeting when William flared.
"Where is Sheikh?"
"His training has reached a critical stage. He cannot come out."
He drew his staff and leveled it at the apprentices.
"Greenhorns like these, I can handle on my own."
"You can really do it?"
"My master said to me, 'Of all the disciples I have taught, you are the finest.' As his chief disciple, I will do my utmost."
Randal said, "Do you imagine we're doing this because we have time to burn?"