Oaths Without Shackles
Chris tilted his head.
"Why won't you teach them?"
"The rule is that you bind the first three on your own. That's the only way to reach Ultimate Mage."
"And if someone uses that method at two?"
"Then Ultimate Mage is off the table."
"Never? Not under any circumstances?"
"Magic is the art of making the impossible possible, so I won't swear to never... but I doubt it."
"From their side of it, they're desperate, aren't they?"
"They're about to die. Of course they're desperate."
"They're Chukhwan."
"So what?"
"Reaching a realm like that is hard. Truly, truly hard. Principle or no principle, shouldn't you teach them anyway?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I can't spend finite resources on someone whose way upward is already sealed."
"So you know the secret."
"I do."
"And right now you're acting out of line yourself, aren't you?"
"I am."
"Slipping into the ruins without telling Touleno Magic Tower we exist — that's betraying Touleno, isn't it?"
"You could see it that way."
"Then why are you doing it?"
"I told you a moment ago. My life is hanging by a thread."
"You said you know the secret of binding rings. Bind one with it and extend your life."
Julien laughed as if he couldn't believe his ears.
"Brat, if that worked, I'd have bound one ages ago."
"If you know the secret, why can't you bind them?"
"You learned all sorts of secrets when you started in magic, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"Then why aren't you Chukhwan?"
"Because I don't have the ability..."
"Kid, learning a secret doesn't mean you master it. Those so-called secrets are closer to shortcuts, and the further along you go, the harder the rings become to bind."
"So even if you know the secret, it's difficult."
"It is. The first one is relatively easy. Learn it, and the effect shows at once. After that, the difficulty..."
He shook his head.
"It's hard. Very hard."
"Is there a way past that in the ruins?"
"There is."
"A spellbook?"
"......"
"An elixir? Some kind of potion?"
"......"
"A spirit beast?"
"......"
"Why did you suddenly stop talking?"
"I've already said too much."
"Truly?"
Julien pointed at the Tower Master's disciples.
"Even they are hearing this for the first time today."
Ethan nodded without thinking, then flinched and stole a glance at his master.
"See? This is precious knowledge. You don't hand it to a Sikbae."
Chris couldn't make sense of it.
"No matter how I turn it over, it doesn't seem like much."
Julien switched to Thought Language.
—I told you. It's tied to the Tower's core secrets. It may look like nothing, and still be vital.
—If that's true, why tell me?
—Stop scheming and cooperate. I can trust you, can't I?
—Yes. Trust me.
—Hah.
—What?
—I don't trust a word out of your mouth.
He gripped Chris's shoulder hard, then let go. Julien went deeper into the cave, and Chris looked at Hell.
"Why didn't you tell your own disciple even something this simple?"
Hell glanced at his disciple before he answered.
"The Elder Council warned me off it."
"Why would the Elder Council police a thing like that?"
"I don't know either."
The Rules
By day they walked, and by night they flew, until they entered the Landrik Mountain Range. Julien muttered under his breath.
"So it was the Landrik Range after all."
Hell asked, "You'd guessed?"
"Not quite guessed. It was one of the places I had my doubts about."
Hugo looked at Chris. "How much farther?"
"We're nearly there."
"You said that two hours ago. And an hour ago."
"This time we really are nearly there."
A short while later they came upon a tower standing as if buried in the deep mountains.
"This is it!"
Hugo broke into a run, flushed with excitement. Every mage except Pearson sprinted after him at full strength. Chris looked at Pearson, who had remained at his side.
"You're not going?"
"I am."
With that, he jabbed Chris in the ribs.
"Move."
Chris started walking, grumbling. "That's hurtful."
"What's hurtful?"
"I did everything you told me, and you still don't trust me."
"I don't?"
"Isn't that why you're stuck to my side, watching me?"
"Think what you like."
They came up on the magic circle at a brisk pace and found the mages clustered at its center, every one of them grimacing at the stretch a falling rock had smashed. Whoever had cleared away the stone Chris had thrown, it was gone.
Hell glared at him. "Didn't you repair it the last time you used it?"
"I did."
"Then why does the circle look like this?"
"After the five mages went through, Scott threw a rock and wrecked it."
"Why?"
"To stop anyone who stumbled onto it from using it, I'd guess. That's only my guess. I could be wrong."
Julien said, "Repairing this is going to be a pain."
Hugo asked, "Can you fix it?"
"Give me the mana stones and I'll fix it."
"If you pull something while you're repairing it..."
Julien frowned and cut him off. "I came all this way with you. Let's trust each other and get on with it."
The Chukhwan mages opened their spatial pouches. Mana stones poured out in an endless stream, and Chris stared, appalled.
"Did you loot the Tower's warehouse?"
Julien laughed, a rough bark of amusement. "Looks that way, doesn't it."
Add the stones it had taken to repair and activate the circle before to what this would cost now, and Hermann Magic Tower might as well have had two of its foundation pillars ripped clean out.
When Chris tried to watch the repairs, Hugo drove him outside. Chris clicked his tongue and withdrew.
That night the mages gathered in the tower they had chosen for lodging. Chris stared out the window, then flung out a hand and grumbled.
"There are towers everywhere, and we have to cram into one room?"
Julien shrugged. "We don't trust you, so we stay together. What else is there to do?"
Chris tested the air. "I've done my part. I kept the promise. I'd like to leave now."
Hell's voice was flat and final. "No."
"Why not? You promised you'd let me go if I led you to the place."
"Recall the oath. Guide us to a place where a teleportation circle to the Horace Ruins exists, and we would do you no harm. That was the wording."
Chris protested. "And I did that."
"We have to confirm where the circle leads."
"What do you mean...?"
"What if the place on the other side is under the sea? A cliff? The middle of a jungle? Another magic tower? Then we're the only fools."
"I'm telling you, it's real."
"That's your claim."
"Wow. You really can't trust anyone."
Frustration got the better of him, and he struck his own chest.
"Try living with a little faith!"
Julien snorted. "We're mages. Faith is the thing furthest from what we are."
Chris raised his voice. "Why are mages such rotten people?"
"Isn't it stranger when a man who's lived a thousand years is still in his right mind?"
"I'm young. Good faith is soaked into my bones. I've got a long way to go before I rot."
Pearson said it sullenly. "And that same fellow wears a mask on his face and plays at being a spy."
"There were circumstances..."
"Yes. Exactly that. Unspeakable circumstances are why we don't trust you."
Chris let out a sigh. "Fine. All right. How do you mean to confirm the circle is real?"
Hell said, "Obviously we go to the ruins and see."
"You mean I have to go too?"
"Of course."
Chris put on a face fit for weeping, and Julien laughed.
"Every high mage hungers for those ruins. Why are you so reluctant to enter?"
"I wanted to go, once. Not anymore. It's a place where monsters like you wander around. I don't want to die. There's too much I still want to do, and too much I still want to eat."
"So your situation is different from ours, with our lives hanging by a thread?"
"Yes."
He answered without hesitation, then glanced around to read the room.
"No — well, not necessarily."
"Right. Old men and a young man like you live under different circumstances."
Chris tried to soothe him. "You look young. You don't look a day over forty."
Hugo said, "We look as old as we are. Dried right up."
Chris waved it off. "Aigoo, don't say that."
"Anyway, you're entering the ruins with us. And if that place turns out to be somewhere it shouldn't be, you'll suffer for ten years and then die. Pain you can't even imagine."
Chris pointed at their disciples. "Are they coming too?"
"They are."
"If everyone goes, who activates the circle?"
"We can do it from inside."
"Last time it took five hundred people as a sacrifice. What about that?"
"Gathering five hundred takes too long. We'll substitute mana stones."
"That'll take an absurd number of stones. Do you even have that many?"
"We do."
"You've gone past ripping out the Tower's pillars and dug up the foundation stones. The Tower backed you that far, and you're doing this? This is betrayal."
"A spy, and you say the damnedest things."
"Everything I did as a spy, I did for Hermann Magic Tower. I nearly died on the job more than once..."
Chris crouched beneath the window and added, "It stings, being scolded by the Tower Master's own party."
He put on a wounded look and connected to the mask. The first time he had entered the mask's world, he had believed he himself had made that mental image, and the mistake had become an insight that carried him into Jenyeom.
He learned later that the space linked to the mask was not his creation. It belonged to the mask.
To gain insight from a misunderstanding — a truly strange thing.
Strange things happening to me aren't exactly rare.
Chris focused on the world inside the mask. Five windows had once floated there. Now there were only four.
Why is one empty?
The vacant place was where Number One had been.
Stan went into the ruins.
The ruins lay so far off that the mask seemed unable to hold the connection. He had long expected Stan to be among the five mages who had gone through. After all those years of hardship in the village beneath Mick Magic Tower, there was no chance Stan would let someone else eat the fruit.
When Number One's absence inside the mask turned that expectation into certainty, a strangely tangled feeling settled over him.
I might run into Stan in the ruins.
For a while he turned over what excuse he would make.
Tap.
Someone touched his arm, and Chris nearly jumped out of his skin. He cut the connection at once and drew his arm in. Julien was watching him with a peculiar look.
"Where did you leave your mind?"
While he was connected to the mask, he could not perceive anything outside. Chris regretted connecting with people right beside him.
Careless.
"I was just..."
He dragged the words out, hunting for an excuse. Julien pressed him.
"Just what?"
"My mind is a mess..."
"A mess how?"
"It hurts, and I'm unsettled."
"Specifically — what hurts, and what has you unsettled?"
"......"
"Why can't you answer? Were you about to pull something?"
"It's not that..."
When Chris could not readily answer, the other mages turned suspicious eyes on him as well. He sighed.
"Number One was so pleased when he found this circle. I was pleased too. I thought I could finally take the mask off and go back to the Tower with my head up. Then I find out the Tower Master is at odds with the elders. If Number One learns I led all of you here, he won't let it pass... he'll try to kill me... and I don't think the Tower Master is going to look kindly on me either. What am I supposed to do with my life now? Think about it. If you were in my place, Lord Julien, wouldn't you be unsettled?"
He sighed again.
"When I think about what's ahead, my head hurts enough to split."
The excuse seemed to land. Julien patted his shoulder and left.
For two days they repaired the circle under Julien's direction. Aside from part of the center, it was intact, so the repair did not swallow nearly as many mana stones as before. Activation, though, looked as if it would. There were no five hundred bodies left to serve as living mana stones.
Julien gazed at the finished circle with a pleased expression. Then he looked at the three mages of Hermann Magic Tower and spoke in a smooth, suggestive voice.
"Before we go in, I have a proposal. If we find treasure inside, won't you give me first choice?"
Pearson cut him off without hesitation. "Not a chance in the world."
Hell was just as firm. "No."
Hugo nearly cursed, then swallowed it. "If you want this cordial relationship to continue, don't make unreasonable demands."
From the way they reacted, they seemed to want the same treasure.
Julien spread his palms, trying to settle them.
"You lot don't know how to negotiate. Aren't you curious what I'd offer in return?"
None of the three was curious. With their lives on the line, they answered stiffly. When they ignored him, Chris slipped into the conversation.
"I'm curious."
Julien said, "Concede once, and in exchange I'll teach you the secret of binding rings."
The words detonated.
"What!" Hell roared.
"You're insane!" Hugo's eyes bulged.
"Damn you!" Pearson spat.
Chris joined the uproar.
"You're allowed to teach that? You said you couldn't!"
Julien shrugged as if he had expected the fury.
"My life is on the line. There's nothing I can't do."
"Isn't there some restriction? Teach it to someone unqualified and your heart bursts, or your Klpandi breaks, or your skull blows off?"
"Hahaha. What an imagination you have. There is a restriction, but nothing like that."
"What is it, then?"
"When I learned the secret, I swore a Mana Oath. The others probably did something similar."
"A Mana Oath?"
Chris's face went grave.
"And you're allowed to break that?"
"I am."
His heart dropped.
"Then the Mana Oath you swore to me — you could break that too?"
"When you swear a Mana Oath, have you ever felt something like shackles locking shut?"
"No."
"A feeling of your Thought Space tightening around you?"
"No."
"A feeling that your Klpandi had been fouled?"
"No."
"An ominous chill crawling up the back of your neck?"
"No."