What Donna Left Behind
The next day, Chris made his way to the notice board in the square. Commissions for Spirit Awakening mages were posted there, sorted by attribute. His own was wood, but he could not admit as much, and so none of those jobs were his to take.
Keeping a secret is inconvenient in all sorts of ways.
He muttered it to himself. Looking closer, he found a column tucked into one corner and marked as open to any attribute. Only a single commission was written there.
Any interested Spirit Awakening mage is to come to Room 12 of the Training Wing.
The attribute-less are welcome.
Without a seed, a person could not sense mana, which meant an attribute-less mage could not exist. Here, attribute-less only meant that the attribute was not yet known. Those born to a rare one sometimes had trouble identifying it, and cases of the sort turned up now and then.
Chris went to Room 12 of the Training Wing. It was a round hut, closer to a tent than a proper building.
"Is anyone there?"
He called softly and pushed the door open. A dozen chairs stood on the worn carpet spread over the floor, but only three of them had found an owner. The three men sitting there wore uncomfortable expressions. One face was familiar: they had entered the tower in the same class.
A commoner, wasn't he? The name... Andy, was it?
Andy recognized him as well, and his face twisted. Chris had been about to greet him, but the change of expression killed the greeting before it left his mouth.
"Chris. I'm not like you."
Andy said it defensively. Chris sat down beside him.
"And how are you not like me?"
"You never even learned the breathing method properly, so you weren't evaluated at all. I at least sat the evaluation. It just came back negative."
"Did it."
"Evaluation Papers are expensive. The tower only subsidizes four of them."
"So I heard."
"I'm probably metal. Or wood."
Andy wanted that to be true. The papers for those two attributes were the cheapest of the lot, and the moment one stepped into the special attributes, the price climbed out of all proportion.
"Then why haven't you been tested before now?"
"Because the papers are expensive. I've been saving."
"And once you've saved, what are you buying?"
"A metal-attribute Evaluation Paper. I've almost got it. Just a little more."
"And if you aren't metal?"
Andy sighed.
"Then I buy wood."
"So another seven or eight years of saving."
"My family's poor. Nothing else for it."
Chris turned his gaze aside. The other two were strangers to him, and both looked younger.
Around twenty, I'd say.
Working from that, they must have come in somewhere between his own class and the dormitory class in residence now.
"You two staying in Dormitory 2, by any chance?"
Both nodded.
Guessed right.
"You saving for metal and wood as well?"
They shook their heads at the same time and sighed.
"Why?"
The taller of the two answered.
"I tested for both. Negative."
His name was Howard. His father was a lesser noble, so the household was far from comfortable. They had supported him until he could buy the metal and wood papers, and the moment both came back negative, the support had stopped. A special-attribute Evaluation Paper cost a minimum of a hundred gold coins, enough to shake a domain's finances. If success had been guaranteed they would have torn the estate up by the roots to pay for one, but there was no such guarantee.
The shorter one was Douglas. His father had been knighted, yet he held no land, which left the family worse off than Howard's. They had borrowed money they did not have in order to back him, only to be told he was neither wood nor metal, and now Douglas could not face his father. The man wanted him to abandon magic and change course toward knighthood. Douglas still could not let it go, so he was saving.
Can a commission like this really gather a hundred gold?
Chris was skeptical. Even so, he did not advise them to give up. He did not consider his own life well enough lived to be counseling anyone else on theirs.
The counsel came from Douglas instead.
"Wouldn't you be better off not running around saving money like the rest of us? Train hard in the Mick breathing method and get the Evaluation Office to subsidize your papers."
He envied Chris's position. Chris waved the notion off.
"I'm not trying to buy Evaluation Papers. I need money to live on."
"You don't have any at all?"
"I'm picked completely clean."
"What money is a man supposed to have after that long in prison?" Andy said. "He's my classmate, but the sentence went on so long he's living in Dormitory 1 instead of Dormitory 3."
Howard's face hardened, and so did Douglas's.
"You were in prison?"
Chris shrugged.
"Yeah."
"In our class he's the most famous name after Andrew, Alex, and Catherine," Andy said. "Looks like the class after us doesn't know."
"Famous for what?" Douglas asked.
"Killing a servant in his own dormitory."
"Wow. That's something."
Howard and Douglas shifted their chairs and opened the distance. Chris spoke anyway.
"It was self-defense."
The two turned their faces from him and did not answer. Chris looked at Andy and let the sarcasm show.
"Thanks for the kind introduction."
"Don't mention it."
Silence held for a while after that. Chris was the one who broke it.
"Across Dormitories 1, 2, and 3, are the four of us the only ones without an attribute?"
"In Dormitory 3, it's only me," Andy said. "I don't know about the other dorms."
Chris nearly added that Alex did not know his seed attribute either, then swallowed it. Alex had reached Thought Formulation, so he did not live in the dormitories. And if word reached that man's ears that they had been talking behind his back, it could turn into a nuisance.
"Dormitory 2 is just the two of us," Howard said. "What about Dormitory 1?"
"I don't really know whether there are any or not."
"How can you not know?"
Chris answered in a regretful tone.
"We don't get along."
"An ex-convict, so they're shunning you."
"Well. Something like that. The classes ahead of us didn't come?"
"A lot of time has passed. They've probably saved up and figured theirs out."
"Is saving money that easy?"
At Chris's question, all three shook their heads.
"Not easy, no."
"What happens if the attribute is so rare you never find out what it is, right to the end?"
"Who knows," Andy said.
Douglas's lips parted a fraction and then closed again. Chris caught it.
"You know."
Douglas scratched his head.
"Not really. I overheard something in passing, over drinks."
"What?"
"I heard a high-ranking mage takes them away."
"Why would a high-ranking mage take someone with no attribute?"
"No idea."
Chris folded his arms.
"The magic tower has far too many secrets."
Just then the inner door of the hut opened, and Harvey came out. In that instant Chris shot to his feet and bolted. He left in such a rush that the chair his knees drove backward toppled with a clatter, and the mood in the room went to pieces.
What's the matter with him?
Looks like he's running.
Why run?
Because he saw that man.
Who is that?
No idea. Never seen him before.
He doesn't have a pleasant face.
No. He looks dangerous.
The Spirit Awakening mages who remained traded the exchange in silence, every one of them drawing into a defensive posture.
Chris, meanwhile, had burst out of Hut 12 and was cursing under his breath.
Crazy bastard. He posted that commission so he could experiment on living people.
Chris knew exactly what sort of man Harvey was. There was no world in which he answered that call.
After the encounter with Harvey, Chris abandoned any thought of earning money by taking the tower's commissions.
Better to make it in Stratton.
He set off for Brian Magic Store. Stan General Store had an employee besides Stan, a man named Scott. Brian Magic Store had only Donna. She was old, and doing every task alone would be too much for her.
I'll work under Donna. Take my wages in mana stones...
His imagination took off from there. Donna had no husband. From the look of things, she had no children either. She was old enough that no one would think it strange if she died tomorrow, and there was no one to inherit what she owned.
Work hard enough under her, and she might leave the inheritance to me.
For that, he would have to curry favor.
Her temper's a bit nasty, but I can manage it.
I can humor her.
He thought of the Staircase Festival, three years off.
She'll be dead by then.
If she wasn't, he could wait for the one after.
Eighteen years. That's nothing.
And if she still hadn't died, then thirty-three years from now.
As if she'd live that long.
Brian Magic Store rose in front of him. The signboard was as black as ever.
Will the letters show once I reach the Thought Formulation realm?
He knocked. Knock, knock. No answer.
"Grandmother."
His voice was respectful.
"Madam."
His manner was respectful too. He opened the door with care and stepped inside, looking around. Donna was slumped over the counter.
"Are you asleep?"
Nothing.
"You must be sleeping. I'll watch the shop, so go on inside and rest comfortably."
Still nothing.
"Goodness. You've fallen very deeply asleep, haven't you."
Chris brushed the back of Donna's hand, then flinched and snatched his own away. It was not a deep sleep. She had fallen into a sleep from which she would never wake.
"Grandmother."
He called quietly and held a hand in front of her nose. Donna was not breathing.
She's dead!
The regret that struck him was genuine.
Ah. If only you'd lived a little longer before dying.
How much better if they had worked side by side for a month or two and she had died after that. He could have fussed over her like a grandson, inherited legally, and then—
Wait. There's no one here right now.
Chris swallowed.
"Hello! Is anybody there?"
He called toward the inner room. The place was as quiet as a grave.
If there's no heir, whoever sees it first claims it.
He went to the display and, at the last moment, turned his hand aside. Expensive goods stood in rows. They would not have been left out like that for no reason.
Her husband was an outstanding mage, wasn't he.
There would be security magic on them, or some device. The sort of spell or mechanism that made an unqualified hand trigger an explosion, a fire, a bolt of lightning, or a curse.
Could I disarm it?
Not with his skill. He had learned two breathing methods and Iron Body, and not a single spell fit for real use.
He paced back and forth in front of the case.
"What if I play the madman and just take something out?"
If he had been this careful and nothing happened at all, the letdown would be unbearable. He stepped around behind the display and was about to open the glass case when he stopped. The more he thought about it, the more certain he was that a device was waiting. His eyes went to Donna.
"Donna will have a release on her."
The ring on her middle finger drew his eye. The stone was large, a fine surface for engraving a spell.
If I put that ring on...
As he approached her, something pressed under his foot. He looked down and saw a black pouch, its mouth half open. His gaze traveled up, then down again. Set her position against the pouch's, and the situation inferred itself: she had died while looking through it.
What's in the pouch?
He picked it up and put his hand inside. The hand sank deep, far deeper than it had any right to. Judging by the pouch's length, it could not possibly hold that much depth.
A spatial pouch!
Something caught at his fingertips. The moment he closed his hand around it, a thrill lanced through the crown of his head.
A mana stone!
And not an ordinary one. The sensation was far crisper than a mid-grade stone.
This isn't even high-grade.
Top-grade. He stirred his hand inside the pouch, and dozens of mana stones brushed his fingers. Had there been one or two, he would have taken them and run on the spot. There were so many that he hesitated instead. It was nearly enough to frighten him.
He set the pouch down beside Donna, then picked it up again.
With just this, I can complete Iron Body.
"Grandmother, I'll take this and put it to good use."
Donna's face seemed to accuse him.
"I'm telling you, it's for a good cause."
He offered a prayer for her repose.
"Go to heaven."
Then he tucked the pouch inside his clothes and left the shop. Mindful of other eyes, he walked slowly on purpose at first, and little by little quickened his pace. By the time he had left the village behind, he was running at full speed.