The Last Thing the Prince Saw
Randal swung his staff at the empty air. A red line scored itself across the void, and within the circle geometric patterns and letters cut themselves into being.
Tony whispered.
"It's a magic circle."
Since entering the tower, the only magic Chris had seen was the earth spell that had suffocated Henry and the spell that launched a message-bird. This was the first time he had witnessed magic that actually looked like magic.
Not one of the Lion Pavilion apprentices could look away. Chris asked.
"What kind of magic circle is it?"
"It looks like something for moving things."
Peter raked the chatting apprentices with a sour look. They flinched and shut their mouths.
Randal spoke.
"Thomas. You send the message."
"Fine."
The message-bird Thomas formed was twice the size of Kal's, and its beak was keen enough that it looked capable of killing a man. He set words inside it and let it fly. The bird passed through the magic circle and vanished.
A short while later, the message-bird Sheikh had sent shot out of the circle, shrieking loud enough to ring in the ears.
The voice alone made plain how foul-tempered a man Sheikh was.
"And the rest of us aren't?"
Fuming, Thomas launched another message-bird. The answer that came back was much the same.
In Sheikh's reply, Chris felt all over again a thing he had already known: mages did not count apprentices as people.
"If he weren't a prince, I wouldn't have cared either."
Thomas sent another message-bird. Hearing him, Chris thought, So a prince, at least, counts as a person.
A moment later, Sheikh's reply slipped free of the circle. The beak opened, and a shout burst out of it.
The message-bird dissolved into the air the way a thing melts into water. The circle Randal had raised vanished with it, shedding red sparks.
Randal's eyes bulged.
"Is he really weaving rings?"
Harvey coughed, awkward, and gave no answer.
"So it seems he is."
Chris turned it over. Rings? What are rings? He had no idea, but weaving them was plainly a matter of real weight. The three mages called for Sheikh no further. Strangely, though, they looked to be in a fouler mood for it.
Harvey stroked his staff, showing a flicker of eagerness.
"Where should I start?"
Randal pointed at the corpse.
"Start with the time of death."
Harvey circled the body, murmuring a chant. Black smoke spilled from the head of his staff, gathered into the shape of a hand, and closed over Mark's head. From that black hand came a sound that stood the hair up along the spine—a long, crawling shhhhhk.
"I've got it."
He counted on his fingers as he spoke.
"It's half past seven now... so he died roughly between noon and two in the afternoon."
"Are you certain?"
"That's when the soul left. I'm certain."
Chris wore a vacant look. You can tell when a soul departed? Magic really is something. Harvey, who looked like phlegm spat from a pig's throat, had evidently learned a specialized magic that did not match his face.
William gave the order.
"Sort out who has an alibi and who doesn't."
The apprentices split into two groups. On the side with alibis stood only Chris and Alice. Tony, Faye, and Smith had none.
Juan stood apart, watching the mood of the room.
Thomas asked.
"What's that one?"
David answered.
"A dormitory servant. He came to make dinner and got caught up in this, it seems."
"You. Shrink into a corner."
Juan did as he was told.
Randal looked at the three without alibis.
"No thought of confessing?"
All three opened their mouths at once to protest their innocence.
"It wasn't me."
"I'm innocent."
"It wasn't me."
William said.
"Confess, and I'll kill you cleanly."
Who would confess when the reward was death? Chris thought it a strange way to draw out a confession.
"Deny it and get caught, and I'll torment you even after you're dead."
Those words sent a chill through the marrow of his bones. Mages, it seemed, had ways to go on tormenting a person after death. The thought of a companion falling into hands like that was too hideous.
"Last chance. Confess!"
All three held to their innocence.
"I don't like damaging a corpse, but there's no help for it."
Randal clicked his tongue and ordered Harvey.
"Begin the eye examination."
Harvey drew a dagger and carved away Prince Mark's eyelids. The brutality turned Faye's stomach, and she retched.
"Urgh. Urgh."
Vomit splashed across the parlor carpet. While Smith soothed her and patted her back, Chris was staring at Harvey, who had begun to hum. The man seemed glad of the work.
Rotten bastard.
Chris cursed him inwardly. All at once Harvey's dagger pointed at him.
"Shall I carve your eyes out too?"
Chris ducked his head in a hurry.
Even a bastard has sharp instincts.
Randal said.
"Stop minding things that aren't your business and finish the task you were given."
"Yes."
Harvey put the dagger away and gave his staff a shake. Both of Mark's eyes sprang from their sockets and rose into the air. As Harvey's mana seeped in behind the pupils, images burst from the retinas. Chris stared, wide-eyed, taking it in.
Black. The scene Mark's eyes cast forth was black through and through.
What is that? Why is it nothing but dark?
He couldn't understand it.
Thomas made no effort to hide his disappointment.
"The last thing he saw before he died was the inside of his eyelids."
William took it up.
"The fool died with his eyes shut."
Randal said.
"He should have died glaring at the one who killed him. Young people these days are too soft. No backbone."
From their words, Chris understood why nothing but blackness had leapt from Mark's eyes. Harvey's magic was a spell that drew out the last thing Mark had seen.
Thomas said.
"This has gotten troublesome. What now?"
Randal looked at Harvey.
"Harvey. Can you pull the scene before that as well?"
"As Master Sheikh's chief disciple, of course I can manage that much."
He chanted and poured in more mana, and a new scene flowed from the eyes. At first it was blurred. Gradually it grew sharp.
"A dagger."
The dagger buried in Mark's chest was plain to see. Mark had looked down at the blade that killed him, and then he had closed his eyes.
"Raise the line of sight."
"Go further back."
At the mages' direction, the mana Harvey was driving into Mark's eyes grew steadily stronger. The image had only just begun to climb away from the dagger when the eyes burst into flame. A foul stench rolled out, and the scene they had been showing vanished.
"Damn it!"
"It cut off at the crucial moment."
The mages stamped their feet in frustration.
Chris was not frustrated. He had been sick with dread that the killer's face might appear, and he swallowed a sigh of relief—quietly, so no one else would notice.
Peter, William's disciple, spoke.
"Master, let's not make this complicated. Let's keep it simple."
David asked.
"What are you proposing?"
A thin, eerie smile settled at the corner of Peter's mouth.
"We torture them."
Faye took fright and began to sob.
"Quiet."
When Randal snapped, she clapped a hand over her mouth and killed the sound. A silent wail went on for some time.
Harvey sneered at Peter.
"Torture, like some ignorant commoner? A mage of the great Mick Magic Tower?"
Peter flared.
"Nothing ends a matter faster than torture."
"A mage ought to speak with magic."
David frowned.
"Don't tell me you mean memory extraction."
"That's right."
"Do that, and the one who suffers it stands a high chance of being left an imbecile."
"Our illustrious master improved the memory-extraction spell. About half of them can keep their wits."
William said.
"That's worth trying."
Half of them turned into idiots, and that's worth trying?
Chris was sickened by the kind of people mages were.
Bastards.
Faye, Smith, and Tony went white. Faye was so frightened her tears dried up. She looked at the other two and begged.
"Please. Just confess."
She pleaded without pride.
"Save me. I'm begging you."
Watching his companions suffer, Chris felt something tear in his chest. For eleven months they had eaten, slept, and endured side by side. They had stood together against Alex's torment... Alex. Yes. Alex.
Chris shouted.
"There are more suspects!"
David asked.
"What are you saying?"
"There are more people who live in Lion Pavilion. Alex, and Catherine, and Frank! Of the passage tokens issued to Lion Pavilion, only Alice and I crossed the barrier today, so those three were in the tower as well... and they might have harmed Prince Mark..."
Thomas said.
"A fair point."
Randal said.
"Thomas, no. Why would Spirit Awakening mages who have already succeeded in sensing mana hold a grudge against apprentices? To them, apprentices are insects."
Chris said.
"When an insect crawls up, you stamp it dead. It would be that kind of feeling."
Peter asked.
"Did Mark crawl up?"
Before Chris could answer, Randal spoke.
"An apprentice would never dare crawl up."
Chris said.
"If they had left him alone, perhaps."
Randal glared at him.
"You talk too much."
The staff in his hand gave a twitch. Chris felt sweat slide down the small of his back. He was that afraid, but he could not stand to watch his companions die, or watch them be made into idiots, and so he scraped together what courage he had and forced his mouth open.
"Alex often came by and tormented Mark. He talked down to him and ignored him. He sneered, he scorned, he despised him... Standing there beside them was enough to make me miserable."
"He was trying to spur him to work harder. Over something like that..."
"He came to Lion Pavilion today!"
William asked.
"Truly?"
"Yes. He came around half past ten and looked for Mark."
Chris clapped his hands.
"That's it. Alex is the culprit. He would have met the prince and mocked him and made his life a misery, the way he always did. Lately the prince's mood has been at rock bottom, so he wouldn't have been able to endure it and would have answered back, and then Alex's temper would have exploded and the dagger would have gone in—like this. Deep!"
Thomas pointed at David.
"Bring all of them. Now."
David left at a quick pace.
Alice, watching the mages, took Chris's hand and whispered.
"Be careful. Keep this up and you could die."
Chris swallowed. Cold sweat was still running down his back.
"I will. Thank you for worrying."
A little later, David came back in.
Thomas asked.
"Why are you alone?"
"I sent a message-bird to the person in charge."
"Go yourself and bring them."
David looked at the members of Squad 1 with an aching softness in his eyes.
"I was worried about the children."
On a lord's land you were put to work at five or six, and once you passed twelve you were treated as an adult and made to do an adult's share. Fail at what you were told and you were beaten to death, or you starved. So Chris did not think of himself as a child. In a barony, a fair number were already married at that age. In David's eyes, though, they still seemed young.
David hesitated, then went on.
"Should I go and fetch them now?"
Randal said.
"If you've sent the message-bird, that's enough."