A Light Sentence
Jake forgot to feed them for four days. By the time he finally came around, Chris didn't even have the strength to curse him. He snatched the bread and crammed it into his mouth, and at the sight of that Jake tossed him a second piece.
"Hungry, are you. I'm feeling generous."
"Give me another one too!" Joe shouted.
"Not you."
Jake handed out the bread and was gone almost at once. Chris took the edge off his hunger in a rush, drew some water and drank, then lay down on the floor.
"Does Jake forget often?"
Tom was tearing his bread into little pieces and eating it bit by bit.
"Not often. Now and then."
"When it goes on, how long can it last?"
"He skipped a whole month once."
"That's not forgetting. That's starving people to death. Are you sure he really forgot?"
"Probably. I'd say so."
"How is that even possible?"
"Cultivate long enough and you lose track of time."
"Jake has to eat too, doesn't he?"
"Mages have pills they take in place of meals. Swallow one and you don't need to eat. Lower-realm mages take them often. The higher ones only now and then, or so I've heard."
Chris moved closer to the next cell and lowered his voice.
"Was that when the madman ate his cellmate?"
Tom dropped his voice as well.
"That's right."
The answer only raised another question.
"The cannibal survived by eating the man locked up with him. How did you survive, old man?"
"I eat light."
"Oh, come on. That doesn't make any sense."
Joe spoke up.
"That old bastard plans ahead. He'd been setting bread aside."
"You can hear us?" Chris asked.
"Of course I can. It's dead quiet in here. You think a whisper hides anything? I heard every word. Madman. Cannibal. The day you walk out of here, you die by my hand."
He licked his lips with a tongue furred thick and white.
"No. Let me correct that. You won't die by my hand. You'll die in my mouth. I'll tear you apart alive and eat you."
Then he threw his head back and laughed like a man who was truly mad.
"Heeheeheehee."
The laugh crawled over Chris's skin.
A genuine lunatic.
The next day Jake held out an envelope along with the bread.
"Letter."
Chris opened the envelope and drew the letter out. The cell was dim from end to end, and the writing was hard to make out. Worse, he had been dragged in halfway through learning to read, so words he didn't know were scattered through the page.
He carried it toward the strongest patch of light and held it up in front of his eyes. It was from Alice. She hadn't known her letters any more than he had. She must have learned them after reaching Spirit Awakening.
Chris,
When I heard you'd killed Juan, I was so shocked I thought I was going to faint.
Why in the world did you do it?
Word of his motive didn't seem to have reached her. A mage at Spirit Awakening would have had a hard time learning anything that private.
I wanted to know what happened, and I wanted to see whether you were all right, so I requested a visit. They refused me. They said a Spirit Awakening mage isn't allowed inside Mick Tower.
Two of the words were beyond him, so he asked Tom in the next cell.
Is the cell all right? They say you have to live there for twenty years, and I'm worried you won't be able to bear it. I wanted to leave some money for you, but they told me the tower prison has no such system. I can't send food in, either.
"Shit!"
The curse tore up from deep in his gut. It was through Alice's letter that he learned he had been sentenced to twenty years.
"This is fucked!"
"Why the swearing?" Tom asked. "Bad news?"
Despair hit him.
"Apparently I have to rot in here for twenty years."
"Light sentence."
Chris's cheek twitched.
"Twenty years is light?"
"The jailer told you. Sentences in here run from ten years to three hundred. Twenty is nothing. It'll be over before you know it."
"How is that nothing? I'm seventeen. Seventeen! In twenty years I'll be thirty-seven."
"Thirty-seven is still a child."
"On the baron's land where I lived, most of the slaves were dead once they passed forty. Only people with a bit of property made it to around sixty. If I get out and die four years later..."
Tears rose, and he couldn't go on.
"There's a man in here with three hundred years. Don't take it so hard."
Irritation flared.
"And who exactly got three hundred years?"
"I did."
"What?"
"I got three hundred. I'll be released in another hundred and fifty years."
For a while Chris couldn't speak. Only a stunned sound slipped past his lips.
"You're saying you've lived in this prison for a hundred and fifty years?"
"Yes."
"Don't lie to me. Even if you were born in here, that would make you a hundred and fifty. How does a person live that long?"
Tom looked at him the way one might look at some strange creature.
"You're an apprentice, aren't you? Or were you hired on as a laborer from the start?"
"I passed the Wind Cauldron test and entered the tower as an apprentice. That's what I am."
"And you don't know something that basic?"
"Basic how?"
"That mages are divided into Spirit Awakening, Thought Formulation, Seed Cultivation, and Ring Binding."
"I think I've overheard as far as Thought Formulation."
"The Micklonian Magic Tower leaves its apprentices far too much to themselves. That's why it ranks last among the three great towers of the Grant Kingdom."
"And that has something to do with living a long time?"
"Reach Spirit Awakening and you can live to a hundred. Barring death in a fight, an accident, or forcing a breakthrough, that's about the span."
"Truly?"
"Yes. Enter Thought Formulation and your life grows by another two hundred years. Seed Cultivation adds three hundred more. Ring Binding is a little more complicated... call it roughly four hundred on top of that."
"A hundred, plus two hundred, plus three hundred, plus four hundred. You're saying a person could live as long as a thousand years?"
"Some live shorter, some longer. On average, that's about right."
Tom laughed at the blank look on Chris's face.
"You don't believe me?"
"I don't."
Chris looked at him with new eyes.
"What realm are you in, Tom?"
"Seed Cultivation."
"And Joe, over there?"
Joe answered before Tom could.
"Seed Cultivation. Same as him."
Then, without warning, Tom's hand shot out and seized Chris by the collar. They had drawn close while he asked about the words in the letter, and he was caught with no chance to pull away.
Tom had been locked in this prison for a hundred and fifty years. There was a good chance he was no longer in his right mind. The memory of Randal burning Jack to death flashed through Chris's mind, and he screamed.
"Aaagh! Aaagh!"
Tom yanked the cord at Chris's neck and drew out a necklace.
"What's this?"
Panic had him. He couldn't answer.
"What's the matter with you?"
His wits returned, late.
"I thought you were going to hurt me."
"There's a formation in here that interferes with magic. I can't cast a thing. How would I kill you?"
"Ah. Right."
Only then did he answer the old man's question.
"It's a good-luck necklace."
Donna had given it to him, and he wore it always. They hadn't searched him when he was brought in, so it was still around his neck.
"Cheap little thing."
Tom tucked the necklace back inside his clothes.