He Had It Coming
As of now, Chris knew the locations of exactly five buildings inside the tower: the Lion Pavilion, the lecture halls, Mik Tower, the forge, and the VIP Guest Pavilion. The Training Wing had just been added to the list.
The Training Wing sat in a basin beyond a single mountain. Now and then mages drifted overhead on brooms or carpets, but among those in flight there was not one yellow robe.
"Is flying forbidden at the Jenyeom realm?"
"It is. You can't fly until Sikbae."
Twenty dormitories stood in the Training Wing, one building assigned to each intake.
"You'll live with the latest cohort. That'll do."
David watched Chris step into the dormitory marked Dormitory 1, then left the Training Wing.
Just inside the entrance a small room had been set aside. Its window opened onto the corridor, so whoever sat there could easily track everyone coming and going, and a nameplate on the door read Proctor's Office.
Chris was peering down the hall when the window slid open and a girl with her hair in a single braid stuck her head out.
"So you're the new Gyesinsa. The mister they said was coming."
She took in the state of him and her brow tightened.
"Did you wash ashore off some deserted island?"
"I just got out of prison."
She clearly hadn't known about the time inside. Her eyes went round, and in her startlement she yanked her head back and slammed the window hard enough to crack.
"Hey."
Chris rapped the glass. It opened about a finger's width.
"What?"
The voice was curt.
"You the proctor?"
"I am."
"So you manage Dormitory 1?"
She must have caught a bad feeling. No answer came.
"First time in the Training Wing, and it's all strange to me. Mind showing me around?"
Her eyes slid left, then right.
The window shut again. Chris stood there at a loss, scratching his cheek, and he had scraped at it five or six times when the door opened and the girl came out. She drew a long, deep breath.
"My name is Hailey. Yours, mister?"
She held out a hand.
"Chris. Good to meet you, Hailey."
He moved to take it, but Hailey whisked her hand away. She had offered it meaning to shake; one look at his overgrown nails, and the will to do so had apparently died.
Embarrassed, he turned the outstretched hand and scratched the back of his head.
"And I'm not a mister."
"How old are you?"
"Don't know."
She stared as if he were hopeless.
"You don't even know your own age?"
"I lost track of how many years I spent in a cell."
Her opinion of him, already low, punched straight through the floor.
What a strange man.
Hailey said, prim-faced, "Do not come within three steps of me."
"Why? Do I smell?"
Chris sniffed at himself. When he buried his nose in an armpit, Hailey's whole face crumpled.
"Mister, that is disgusting."
Mister?! Disgusting?!
The words cut. In his own heart he was still the teenager they had locked away.
"I'm not a bad person."
"Enough. Follow me."
Hailey set off at a brisk pace.
"This is the lounge, which doubles as a reception room. That way is the recreation room. This way, the reading room. Here's the training room. The dining hall is over there, and the toilets and baths are over there. That cover it?"
"Where's the room I'll be living in?"
"Wash first. Cut your hair, too. I'll show you the room after that."
As Chris started for the baths, she stopped him.
"Wait a moment."
Hailey went down to the basement and came back up a short while later.
"There's a storeroom underground where we keep supplies."
She held out a set of clothes.
"A former resident left these. The ones you're wearing, throw them out..."
She shouted, "No—burn them! Burn them!"
"I like these clothes."
"They probably have lice."
"There are no lice. I think you've got a prejudice. Prison is surprisingly clean. Boring enough to drive you mad, sure, but it isn't filthy."
"If I say burn them, burn them!"
Hailey shrieked it, and Chris, abashed, nodded.
"I'll burn them."
"The incinerator is behind the building."
She also pressed scissors and a razor on him.
"Cut your nails. Cut your hair. Shave the beard."
Then she pointed at the baths.
"Now wash."
Chris took the clothes she had given him and went in. He set a trash bin in front of himself and dumped what he had been wearing, hacked his hair short with the scissors, roughly trimmed the beard, and cut his fingernails and toenails.
After that he studied himself in the mirror. The hair was patchy. The beard was patchy.
Better to just shave it all off.
He cropped everything as short as the scissors allowed, stepped into the washroom, soaped his head and showered, then took the razor to beard and scalp until both were clean. Then he washed again.
Changed into the clothes Hailey had provided, he came out carrying the bin and found her waiting.
"Mister, you're bleeding?"
He had nicked his scalp in two places while shaving his head.
"It's fine. Thanks for the clothes."
He offered the thanks and stepped outside Dormitory 1. Around the back of the building, just as Hailey had said, stood the incinerator.
He emptied the bin and realized he had nothing to start a fire with. He was casting about for an ember when Hailey approached.
"Bow your head."
"What?"
"I said bow your head."
Overborne by the force of it, Chris bowed.
Hailey dabbed medicine onto his scalp where the blood had dried, then pointed at the heap of trash and spoke an incantation. The ring on her index finger flashed, and a blossom of flame slammed into the garbage. With a whoosh the trash caught, and the stink of burning hair and beard was foul.
"So you can use magic."
"Obviously."
She gave him a suspicious look.
"You can't, mister?"
"Nope."
"You have felt mana, though?"
"Yeah."
"A complete novice, then."
Chris rubbed at his nose.
"Something like that."
David approached a two-story building that looked like a rich man's villa.
"Master."
The door opened, and Randal's voice came through.
"Come in."
David checked the set of his clothes and stepped inside. Randal sat before the hearth, and at the movement of his hand the fire swelled and shrank, restless.
"I delivered Chris to the Gyesin dormitory."
"And what did you make of him?"
"Years in a cell have left him looking so wretched that he was difficult to judge, but I sensed nothing special."
The flames split in two. One became a lion, the other a tiger, and tiger and lion fell on each other in a savage fight.
"Watch him. Carefully."
"Is that really necessary?"
The tone turned severe.
"If I tell you to do it, do it."
"May I ask the reason?"
In that instant the tiger swelled, swallowed the lion in a single bite, kicked free of the hearth, and lunged out. It stopped a hair from David's nose.
David rocked back on instinct. The tiger's jaws gaped and its tongue rolled out, flame licking along it.
Randal's lips parted, slowly.
"The reason..."
The tiger's tongue stretched long and coiled around David's neck. If that thing tightened, his head would part from his shoulders.
"I don't know it either."
With a crack like a bursting firework, the tiger blew apart. The beast was gone, but a few embers still dropped onto David's cheek and left their marks.
Randal lifted a finger toward the ceiling.
"Because the order came down from above."
"Why the Tower Lord would take an interest in a worthless child like that..."
Randal's finger climbed higher.
"It isn't the Tower Lord."
"Then an Elder—!"
"Curiosity invites death."
David flinched at the warning.
"Be careful."
"Yes."
David finished his report and went out. The moment he used a healing spell, the marks on his face vanished in a hurry.
Chris followed Hailey up to the second floor.
"There are doubles and quads, but you, mister, get a single."
"Oh ho. Special treatment because I'm new?"
"The other residents refused. They don't want to live with an old fogey."
"Ah."
His mood sank.
"I'm not that rigid. I'm not some old fogey."
"I'll be watching what you do from here on."
Hailey unlocked the door with a key.
"This is the room."
She handed him the key.
"Breakfast is from seven to nine. Dinner, from six to eight. Once the hour passes, the food is cleared, so keep the time. If something's unclear or uncomfortable, come to the proctor's office."
That was what her mouth said. Her eyes said that, if he could help it, the mister should not come at all.
"Right. Thanks for showing me around."
"Don't mention it."
Hailey left, and Chris threw himself onto the bed. After sleeping on nothing but hard bare floor, lying down felt as if his body were melting soft. Bed and body became one, and once he was down, getting up again was difficult. He had sunk deep into the sleep that comfort brings when a knocking reached him.
"Mister!"
Hailey's voice. Chris wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth, picked the grit from his eyes, and opened the door.
"What?"
"It's seven. I called because it looked like you'd miss dinner."
"Is it that late already? Thanks."
Chris ran down to the dining hall. Food had been laid out on the tables along the wall, and he heaped a plate full and carried it over.
He stuffed his mouth with beef braised down in wine and chewed. Meat juices and the sweetness of the wine mingled until his tongue seemed to melt. He took a mouthful of milk to rinse his mouth, then packed it full of beef again, and he was so moved that tears came.
Lost in the food, he had paid no attention to anything else, but a fair number of Gyesinsa were eating in the hall. When he wept and shoveled it down like a man starved for three days, the people sharing his table got up and moved.
"Looks like a beggar."
Someone offered the unkind verdict, and Hailey rose to his defense.
"He starved in a cell, he says. Don't be so hard on him."
The defense had the opposite effect.
"He was a prisoner?"
"What did he do?"
"Oh my, look at that shaved head. He looks vicious."
"You can tell at a glance he's a violent criminal."
The abuse hammered his ears. Chris set down his fork and waved a hand.
"Kids, your big brother isn't that bad a person."
A short boy came up beside him. Chris asked, "How old are you?"
The boy said, "Ten. Name's Lai."
"Whoa."
The exclamation slipped out of Chris.
"Feeling mana at ten. Lai, you're a genius."
"Pretty much. So what crime did you commit, mister?"
"I killed someone."
The residents of Dormitory 1 recoiled.
"He says he killed someone!"
"He's a murderer."
"What if he comes for me while I'm sleeping?"
"From tonight on, I'm locking my door properly."
The boy was so startled he sat down hard.
"So you are a bad guy, mister."
"The one who died was worse."
"How is the victim the worse one?"
"He had it coming."
Lai backed away, then bolted out of the dining hall at a run. Chris, bitter, went back to his meal. His heart was uneasy, but his tongue was far too happy. He put away two more platefuls before his pace finally slowed, and he was drinking a last glass of juice and rubbing his stomach when Hailey came over and whispered.
"You have to hide that. What are you doing, saying it straight out?"
"Hide what? That I killed someone?"
"Yes."
The children of this intake had entered the tower after Chris went to prison, so they knew nothing of his circumstances. Among the seniors, though, someone surely did, and sooner or later the rumor would make its rounds. If the truth could have stayed buried forever he might have lied, but it was bound to come out eventually, and a lie was something he could not tell.