The Secret of the Fourth Ring
Chris's eyes went perfectly round, the picture of a man hearing the thing for the first time in his life.
"A magic circle?"
"Don't play innocent. I know you know. That Tower Master's party over there came for the same prize. They didn't come to avenge those Tiller so-and-sos."
"Surely the Tower Master knows where the magic circle lies. He is the Tower Master..."
Chris had guessed the truth himself — that the Tower Master did not know. He had simply not seen fit to say so.
"Why wouldn't he know? He's no puppet Tower Master."
Color climbed into Hell's face. His eyes seethed with fury.
"Tower Master. When you ordered me to guide you to the place where Tiller, Dalton, and Kagon died — that was so you could learn where the magic circle is, wasn't it?"
The Tower Master did not answer.
Julien spoke.
"Let's join forces."
"Join forces?" Chris asked.
"I wasn't talking to you."
Julien's voice turned earnest.
"Listen, Tower Master Hell. Nothing good comes of us fighting among ourselves. Take my hand and we'll enter the ruins together — before the ones who went ahead claim every last treasure. Time is money."
Chris did not expect the alliance to hold. The teleportation circle that led to the ruins had to be a place of extraordinary importance to Hermann Magic Tower — precious enough that they had kept it secret even from their own Tower Master. Bring a mage of another tower there? Unthinkable.
To his surprise, he was wrong. Hell accepted the offer.
"Fine. In exchange, swear a Mana Oath that you will never reveal the location."
Julien hesitated a moment, then nodded.
"I'll swear it."
The instant the pact was struck, every eye swung to Chris. He swallowed.
"I'll guide you."
They had agreed. He had no way to refuse.
"But please — swear to me as well."
"Swear what?"
"That if I cooperate, you won't harm me."
Sort mana, refine it, rearrange it, compress it, and give it direction, and it becomes magical force. Bind that force a second time and compress it hard enough, and it turns volatile — genuinely dangerous. Chris had done exactly that to the force he had sent into his heart and brain. If they refused, he meant to set it off.
The mages of Hermann Magic Tower made no effort to hide their displeasure. In the end, they nodded.
In the dead of night, four carpets cut through the sky. A spell to scramble light clung about them, so anyone on the ground would have been hard-pressed to know they were there.
Watching the Tower Master sit cross-legged on the carpet with his eyes shut, Chris asked, "With concealment like this, we could travel by day, couldn't we?"
"There may be mages who can read a shadow and know. We ought to be careful."
"I heard the towers keep teleportation circles at the great crossroads. Couldn't we travel by circle?"
A teleportation circle cost a great deal to activate, so only a high-ranking mage could use one. Chris had never ridden one. He wanted the experience while it was on offer.
"This is Alvarda."
"And so?"
"Touleno Magic Tower controls the circles in this region."
"Ah."
The understanding arrived a beat late. They don't trust Julien. Mana Oath or not, they expect him to try something.
At midnight the next day, as they crossed the border of the Grant Kingdom, Chris spoke.
"We're in home territory now. We can travel by circle from here, can't we?"
"No."
The carpet lost altitude and sank toward the ground.
"Why not?" Chris asked, once he had jumped down.
The Tower Master rolled the carpet into a bundle and gave no answer. It came from Julien instead.
"Use a circle and your trail shows. The Tower Master wants his movements hidden."
"Ah. I see."
They went into a cave Pearson had shaped with magic, and rested.
Ethan, disciple of Tower Master Hell, brewed tea. The other mages drank what he offered. Chris refused. He had no idea what they might slip into it.
Hugo cut a sidelong glance at Chris and sent a thread of Thought Language to the Tower Master.
They had already found more than one suspicious corner in Sid. They were swallowing his contradictions and traveling beside him only because he held the information they wanted so badly.
Chris shifted over to where Ethan, Hector, and Joffrey had gathered — the disciples of Hell, Hugo, and Pearson.
"We're all on the same side, and still it's deceive and be deceived, hide and look away... Why are we doing this?"
The three ignored him.
Julien came up beside him.
"A magic tower has always been a secretive place."
The moment he drew near, the three Seed Cultivation mages startled as if a skunk had turned its backside on them, and cleared out. Chris found Julien no easier to bear, but he did not move.
"The Tower Master and the elders sit at the very top of the tower. Others may keep secrets, but among themselves they ought to be frank."
"Why?"
"So the tower is properly run. So it develops. So its strength grows..."
Julien cut him off, cold.
"Idealism. The world does not run on ideals."
His voice dropped into something confidential.
"The true secrets lie between the elders and the Tower Master."
Julien slung an arm around Chris's shoulders. At once Pearson shot to his feet, eyes blazing — he had decided some trick was underway. Hell caught his wrist and pulled.
Chris indicated Pearson, who stood there in awkward suspension.
"Why is he acting like that?"
"He's speaking with the Tower Master in Thought Language."
"About what?"
"Sid is suspicious. Julien is not to be trusted. Mind we don't take a knife in the back. That sort of thing."
Chris creased the bridge of his nose.
"I can understand them finding you suspicious. That I should be suspicious is harder to accept. Do you find me suspicious as well, Julien?"
"Very."
"You don't trust me. Why are you traveling with me?"
"If it gets me into the ruins, I don't care if you're the worst son of a bitch alive. The Tower Master feels the same."
"Why is Tower Master Hell willing to endure a suspicious man, throw in with an enemy, and even set himself against the elders of his own tower, all to slip into the ruins in secret? And you, Julien — why are the ruins so desperate a matter for you?"
"The Tower Master's affairs, ask the Tower Master. If you want mine..."
It sounded as if some immense secret were about to spill out. Chris swallowed and fixed his eyes on Julien's mouth. The voice, briefly paused, came slowly.
"I don't have much life left."
It was not the immense secret Chris had been waiting for. Frankly, the answer was a disappointment, and his reply came flat.
"Ah. I see."
"I need to bind one more ring. Soon."
"Soon?"
"Yeah."
"If you bind a ring in Seed Cultivation, you rise to Ring Binding, don't you? Your lifespan would have grown then... Does it grow again each time you bind another ring?"
"Yes."
Chris's mouth fell open.
"Rising to Ring Binding by binding a ring adds four hundred years, so if you made nine rings, nine times four hundred is three thousand six hundred years. That's astonishing."
"That's not how it works. People misunderstand, because they don't know."
"Not ordinary people. The mages of the towers believe it."
"Only the underlings would."
By a wide margin, Chris was the person drawing the most attention in that place. He knew where the magic circle to the ruins lay, and so a good many ears were bent on the conversation. Ethan, Hector, and Joffrey were eavesdropping as well. Chris glanced their way. From the look of them, those three knew little of Ring Binding either. He sighed.
"Mages have far too many secrets. Why hide something so simple?"
"And is it simple? The tower's core secret may be bound up in it."
"A core secret... Is that really so?"
Julien smiled, mild and unreadable.
"Who can say."
"Precisely how does the lifespan work?"
"It depends on the mage."
"On average, then?"
"The first ring adds a hundred years if the gain is short, two hundred if it's long. Each ring after that, fifty years at the short end, a hundred at the long."
"So if you bind every ring, you live a thousand years more at most, five hundred at least."
"That's right."
"Then why did people come to say four hundred years?"
"Up to three rings, we call it Lower Ring Binding. Up to six, Middle. Up to eight, Upper."
"Upper only goes to eight? Not nine?"
"Nine is special. That's why we call them Ultimate Mages, set apart."
"Ultimate Mage?"
"A man whose magic has reached the extreme. For the record, our tower hasn't got one. That's how rare a mage he is."
Julien's eyes sharpened.
"There might be one, somewhere... In any case, I've never seen one. Say, Tower Master Hell — does Hermann Magic Tower have an Ultimate Mage?"
Hell did not answer. Chris spoke.
"Does dividing Ring Binding into Lower, Middle, Upper, and Ultimate Mage have something to do with the claim that lifespan increases by four hundred years?"
"It does. I told you. An Ultimate Mage is truly rare. Men who've bound nine rings are exceedingly scarce. Even seven is hard."
"Ah. I see it now. Few live long enough to fill out the whole span."
"Right. Most bind two rings or so and stop there. Even if luck or skill carries you into the Middle grade, it ends around five or six. Upper is... difficult."
Julien shook his head.
"Truly difficult."
"Average it out, and once you rise to Ring Binding you live about four hundred years. So the four-hundred-year account isn't exactly a lie."
"Something like that."
Julien's finger swung toward Hell, Hugo, and Pearson — the Ring Binding mages of Hermann Magic Tower.
"Those three. Two rings, I'd say."
Chris saw their eyes flicker, and understood that Julien was right.
"Did you read their realm with magic? I didn't sense you cast a thing. Remarkable."
"You don't need magic to know that."
"Not magic?"
"Weigh the circumstances and it's plain. Why are they willing to brave a clash with the elders just to sneak into the ruins?"
"I wouldn't know."
"Same as me. They want more rings, to stretch a life that's hit its limit. That's why they're even keeping a suspicious little bastard like you around."
"What you're saying doesn't hold."
"Why not?"
"They might have one ring. Or two. Or three."
"I saw their magic. One ring couldn't cast that skillfully. Two or more."
"Then it could be three, couldn't it?"
"Three is absolutely not it."
"Why?"
"Once you've bound three, and the years pass, and your life starts to run out, an elder comes and teaches you the secret."
"The secret? What secret?"
"The secret of binding the fourth ring."
Chris cried out, startled.
"There's such a thing?"
"There is."
He pressed again.
"Truly?"
"Yes."
Chris looked at the three Ring Binding mages of Hermann Magic Tower. They did not stir. They already knew.
"This secret — it would be of use to those three as well, wouldn't it?"
"Obviously."
"If they knew it, they could bind one more ring. Is that what you mean?"
"That's what I'm telling you."
"And yet the elders won't teach it to a man with two rings?"
"Don't call it two rings. Call him a Two-Ring Mage."
"A Two-Ring Mage?"
"One ring, a One-Ring Mage. Two, a Two-Ring Mage. Three, a Three-Ring Mage. Four, a Four-Ring Mage... And the ninth isn't a Nine-Ring Mage. It's an Ultimate Mage."
Julien let the silence sit a moment, then went on.
"They don't teach the secret as far as Two-Ring Mage. That's why those three are losing their minds. A way to lengthen their lives plainly exists, and the elders will not teach it. They rage. They resent. And then they hate. That's why they set themselves against the elders and strike out like this."