The Fifty-Fifth Step
He was so exhausted that day that he went to bed early, and the sound of the iron door opening dragged him out of sleep. That sound raised gooseflesh on him no matter how often he heard it. He never got used to it.
After Jake had gone, Chris ate his bread and spoke.
"I'll be leaving tomorrow."
Tom was still working a mouthful of his own bread.
"Go ahead."
Chris waited quietly. Tom, however, only went on eating, and Chris waited until he had finished. At last the meal was done, and Chris opened his mouth.
"Tom."
"Yeah."
"I said I'm leaving tomorrow."
"Yeah. I heard you."
A thirsty man, Chris decided, had better dig his own well.
"Is that all?"
"Yeah."
"Truly?"
"I said it was."
"Master. You told me that if I fully master Iron Body, I skip Thought Formulation and go straight on to Seed Cultivation."
"That's right."
"I don't know how."
"That isn't Iron Body. It's the ascension magic that follows from it."
"Yes. Please teach me that. The cultivation magic of ascent."
"I said I'd teach you Iron Body. I never said I'd teach you Seed Cultivation."
"They're a set, aren't they? Of course you ought to teach them together."
"Learning has its stages. Like Jo said, keep skipping stages and the side effects get worse. You've skipped more than most. It'll be harder on you."
"I won't practice it. Just teach me the secret."
Tom's voice was firm.
"No!"
"You've taught me so well all this time. How can you suddenly be like this?"
"Complete Iron Body. Then I'll teach you the ascension magic on the spot."
"And how am I supposed to complete this on the spot?"
Call the Black Spheres in his limbs to mind, and the way ahead was a blank wall. His chest felt stuffed, as if a boulder had been set upon it. And now that he thought of it, there really was a rock at his solar plexus. It had been only a rock of mental image, but Chris had seen it, and in that instant a real rock had come into being.
"I don't have the confidence."
"Then stay in the cell with me."
Chris did not want that. He wanted out, to walk where he pleased. He wanted fresh air, hot sunlight, a body sunk in warm water. He wanted meat with the juices running off it, sweet cake, a drink of sweet juice.
"I don't want this prison anymore. I can't endure it. I mean that."
"And how do you think I feel?"
He wanted to say that those who could leave ought to leave, but he swallowed it.
"I have a favor to ask."
"If it's a favor I can grant, I'll grant it. Please, speak."
"Your tower holds a contest once every fifteen years, where the Spirit Awakening apprentices match their skill."
"What kind of contest?"
"Climbing the stairs."
"That counts as a contest?"
"They make it difficult with magic."
"Ah. Then I suppose it would."
Tom pointed at the floor with a finger.
"They climb the stairs here. In Mick Tower."
Chris thought of Mick Tower, and of the white staircase he had seen when he first entered the magic tower.
"I came up those stairs when they brought me into the prison."
"Dig into the inside of the white stairs and you'll find a magic circle that interferes with magic. The prison was built on top of it."
The shape of the tale was turning grim. Chris scented danger, and his nostrils flared.
"What is it you want?"
"Those stairs looked awfully solid. Can I break one at my level?"
"You've got Iron Body. Break it with Iron Body!"
So that's why he taught me Iron Body.
An ill foreboding crept over him.
"What happens if I break the fifty-fifth step?"
"The interference array wavers for an instant. That's when I smash the prison with magic and escape."
"And what happens to me?"
"What are you talking about?"
"If my actions are the reason you break out, the people above won't just let it pass, will they?"
He would not die an easy death.
Chris pictured himself turned into the material of some experiment on a living body, and a shudder ran through him.
"I'll take you with me."
"Take me with you?"
"The moment you learned magic from me, you crossed a river you can't cross back. There's no returning."
"You mean I'm transferring to Laphunian Tower?"
"Yeah. Laphunian's far better than Mickclonia."
"Will Laphunian Tower even welcome me?"
"I'm the one bringing you. Who's going to dislike you?"
His voice warmed.
"Trust me and come along. Come to Laphunian with me, and learn the magic that comes after Iron Body."
He had tossed out the carrot.
"I'll think about it."
Chris went to the farthest, most tucked-away corner of Tom's cell and clutched his head. When Tom had said he had a favor to ask, Chris had been inclined to grant it, so long as he reasonably could. He had thought of Tom as the man who saved his life.
When he first entered the prison, Chris had had something to count on. If Yan, captain of the royal knights, petitioned for leniency — better still if the princess added her voice — the tower would mind Yan's standing and let him out quickly.
That faith, that expectation, that hope: Alice's letter had smashed them all to pieces.
Whether Yan had broken his promise, or the tower had ignored his request, a sentence of twenty years had come crashing down.
Twenty years. A sentence of twenty years!
Chris had fallen into despair. If Tom had turned his back on him, he would not have lived to see this day. By offering his teaching, Tom had hauled him out of the river of despair in which he flailed, and pieced a shattered hope back together.
Because of that, Chris had survived, and he had carried gratitude toward Tom. That gratitude had now curdled into suspicion.
Did he teach me from the very start just so he could do this?
"Hmm."
The thought of Jo's sudden death drew a stifled groan from him. The day before Jo died, Chris had said he would tell Jake that he had attained Spirit Awakening. He had said he would leave the cell. Tom had been unable to teach him because of Jo. Then Jo had died without warning, and the way to instruction had opened. To call it coincidence, the timing was far too neat.
Chris balled a fist and clamped it over his mouth, stopping the question that was about to burst free.
Tom killed Jo.
Chris had seen Tom use magic. Had he not seen that magic, the thought would never have come to him. An old man stripped of magic had no way to cross the cells and kill him.
I saw his magic.
And so he had come to the truth. In that moment, Chris's eyes grew distant.
I saw it. I felt it. That's how I could reach the truth. That's what seeing is.
Then Tom spoke.
"I taught you a secret among secrets. The core of our tower, I taught you that. Is it so hard to grant one small favor for a man like me?"
In that instant, Chris's insight shattered. He felt a crucial chance slip past him, and he let out a sigh of regret.
"Chris?"
"Yes. I understand. I'll do it."
"Thanks."
If he took it as given that Tom had killed Jo, then everything that had happened was explained. That Tom had offered instruction, and that of all the magics he might have taught he had gone out of his way to teach Iron Body — all of it made sense.
He taught me so he could use me.
The back of his head went numb, as if a hammer had struck it.
Mages really can't be trusted.
Betrayal blew his gratitude clean away.
As if I'd save him.
Chris resolved that he would not set one foot upon the stairs of Mick Tower.
At the sound of the iron door opening, Chris pressed himself to the bars. Jake came over and spoke.
"Hungry today, are you?"
"Jake, I sensed mana."
"What?"
"I sensed mana!"
"Oh!"
Jake's eyes went round.
"Mana's thin in the prison. Must've been hard."
"That's why I suffered like I was dying. Could you tell the higher-ups?"
Jake's expression turned stern.
"I can tell them. But if they judge it a lie, you die."
"I won't be dying."
Seeing how sure of himself he was, Jake nodded.
"Looks like it's real."
A communication orb sat before Daryl, one of the Three Great Elders of Mickclonia Magic Tower. Richard's face was reflected within it.
A strange smile caught at the corner of Daryl's mouth.
"So he has found the will to come out at last."
"I wish he would get on with it."
They had waited more than a hundred and fifty years for Tom to act. Even for mages, whose long lives gave them a sense of passing time unlike that of ordinary people, a hundred and fifty years was a long span. Worn out with waiting, there had been times they meant to kill Tom and be done with it.
Chris stepped through the iron door and drew a deep breath.
"Whoa!"
A cry of astonishment escaped him.
"The mana here is abundant."
A single door lay between the two spaces, and yet the difference was stark.
Jake grinned.
"That iron door isn't thick for nothing."
"At this rate, I could swim in a sea of mana."
"That's because you've come out of a place that was far too barren. Once you adapt, it'll feel about the same as before. People are animals of adaptation."
He saw Chris off all the way to the tower's front gate.
"Congratulations. You're free now."
Chris stepped outside, spread both arms wide, and thrust out his chest. His lungs swelled as he drank the air in to the full. The air was sweet. The sunlight dazzled, and the wind was cool. Autumn's vigor came riding that wind and stirred his heart.
"Ah. This is good."
It was so good he thought he might faint. A mage in yellow robes shot him a baffled glare. The look seemed to say, What the hell is this guy?
Chris cleared his throat and made for the stairs. He stood on the topmost step and looked down, then descended slowly and halted at the fifty-fifth.
"Hmm."
He gave it a light stamp. He felt no difference.
The same.
He went up and down around the fifty-fifth step. They were the same stairs. Chris paced for a moment, then simply went on down.
I'm not breaking any stairs. No point giving myself a headache over them.
Having come all the way down, Chris scratched his head, at a loss.
Where do I go?
There was nowhere to go.
The tower had been like this when it threw him into prison, and it was like this when it let him out. No word beforehand, and no one to guide him. They simply left him where he stood.
Truly unfriendly.
The smithy? Or should I just leave for good?
Chris shook his head. He wanted to become a mage. To become a mage, he had to learn at the tower.
"I got in at such a cost. I can't give it up."
"Chris."
He turned at the sound of his name. David was coming down the stairs.
"You're out early."
"Yes."
Chris dipped his head.
"Hello. Have you been well?"
"Well enough. And you seem to have been we—"
He had started to speak, then faltered at the sight of Chris's thick beard and wild, matted hair. No one looking at him would have thought he had been well.
Chris let out an awkward little laugh.
"It wasn't so bad. I even learned some magic."
"You learned magic in prison?"
"There was a senior prisoner named Jo. He was a mage."
He could not tell the truth — that he had learned from Tom, a man of another tower — so a lie was inevitable. The dead do not speak. Jo was not going to rise again and insist that it was all a bald-faced lie.
"A blessing in disguise, then."
"Did you perhaps come to guide me, sir?"
"Yes. Let's go."
"Where to?"
"To where the Spirit Awakening apprentices stay."
"So they're taking me in."
"You sensed mana. Of course they have to take you."
Have I stepped out of the world of rudeness and into the world of courtesy?
Feeling a quiet joy, Chris followed David.