I Am David
One day, Chris sat with two masks before him and could not decide.
Wear one, or leave them be.
The question pulled him back to Stan. Why hadn't Stan looked at the masks after entering the ruins? Had he been so certain no spy would ever make it inside that the thought of connecting never even crossed his mind? Or had the hunt for treasure simply kept him too busy to remember?
And if he had put a mask on—could he have known, and still left his people to their own devices?
No. That isn't it.
If he had seen the fourth and fifth windows appear, he would have made contact. He would have asked how they had gotten in.
Chris worried at the problem until a more interesting thought surfaced.
"What if I put a mask on and reach out first?"
He could ask why Stan had never checked them.
Chris took a mask in each hand. I can't spend the rest of my life sealed in here. Even if it's a risk, I'll connect with Stan and ask him to pull me out.
Between Cyril's mask—Agent Number Four—and David's—Agent Number Five—he chose David's. If Stan already knew that Four and Five had entered the ruins, it would be wiser to wear the mask of the one who had arrived later. Speak through Four's, and Stan might well demand to know why the report had come so late.
Chris put on David's Number Five mask and connected. The windows for Number One and Number Five came into view. The first burned bright; the fifth, the mark of the Number Five mask, was dark. The Number Four window he had been using until now was gone.
Timothy, Cyril, Sid—and now he was David. Too many false names. They're starting to blur. That won't do.
"I am David. I am David. I am..."
He repeated it until the name settled, drew a long breath, and carefully called Number One through the mask's window.
"Number One. Number One, can you hear me?"
The answer came back hard.
"Five! Where are you?"
From the sound of him, he hadn't checked the masks at all.
"Inside the ruins."
"How did you get in?"
Chris started to answer, but the man rushed on.
"Later!"
The connection died. Chris moved to speak again, sensed the reluctance on the other end, and let the link go.
He turned the mask over in his hands. Why put the conversation off? Whatever surrounded Stan, it had not been a moment for talking.
"Ah."
He thought he understood why Number One had never checked the masks. Connecting to one shut out everything around you. Take a blow while you were linked, and you would be helpless. He doesn't trust the people beside him.
The mages who had entered the ruins together were partners and rivals at once. Among the elders, some were surely nearing the end of their lives. The moment anything that could stretch a lifespan turned up, the scramble would turn bloody. With a fight like that waiting, no one could afford to lose himself in a mask.
"So the elders aren't exactly fond of one another."
Chris let the hours pass in meditation. That night, Number One's voice came through the mask, and Chris connected at once.
"How did you get in?"
"I entered with the tower master of Mickclonia Magic Tower."
"Why didn't you report?"
"Your window had vanished from the mask, so I had no way to reach you. I've done nothing but worry. Have you been in the ruins this whole time?"
A brief silence, and then the answer came.
"Yes."
"That's a relief. When I saw Number One's window disappear, I feared something had happened to you."
"Contact was cut once I entered the ruins. When did you come in?"
"A few days ago."
"Why did you wait so long to make contact?"
The reprimand in the voice was sharp. If David had still been alive to suffer a conversation like this, he would have been seething. He walks into the ruins without a word and never even thinks to check a mask. David would have grumbled something of the sort.
"I checked the mask today."
Stan's rebuke was light, and no less cutting for it.
"You should have been checking constantly."
Irritation pricked Chris, and he answered with a careful edge.
"And why is it that you haven't checked, Number One?"
He thought he heard a cough. Stan changed the subject.
"Explain, in detail, how you came to be here."
"Tower Master Hal ordered my master to—"
Stan cut him off.
"Did your master come in as well?"
"Yes. Hal, Sheikh, Randal, William, Harvey, Peter. With me, seven in all."
"Good. Go on."
"We entered the ruins through a magic circle and dropped into a jungle."
"A jungle?"
"Yes. Did you fall somewhere else, Number One?"
"I did."
"Then meeting will be difficult."
"Better if we don't."
"Why?"
"Meeting a Mick Magic Tower party that came in after me would mean they'd caught up."
"Ah. Of course."
"So?"
"I wandered for days, followed the traces of something man-made, and found a mage of Hermann Magic Tower standing guard over a magic circle."
"Hermann? That's our tower."
"Yes."
"You're saying Hermann sent in another party besides us?"
"If what he claimed is true, then yes."
"Who entered?"
Chris owed no loyalty to Tower Master Hell, who had dragged him in by force and then abandoned him. He told the truth.
"According to the Hermann mage who was left behind, the names were Hell, Hugo, Pearson, Ethan, Hector, and Joffrey. And Julien."
The reaction exploded.
"Julien? That wastrel Julien of Touleno Magic Tower?"
"You know of him. Yes—that Julien."
"Damn it all! Entering without permission is bad enough, and he drags mages from another tower in with him! They've lost their minds."
"I don't know the particulars."
Stan seemed to be swallowing his rage. For a while there was no reply. Chris could picture the long breath on the other side.
"Where did they go?"
"They moved on through the magic circle here."
"Moved where?"
"How would I know? I arrived after they'd gone."
"This mage who was left behind. Who was he?"
"He said his name was Sid."
"What did you say? Sid!"
Sid was a name Scott had coined for him, and he had been using it since the camp. Stan's violent reaction made it plain he knew who Sid really was. So Scott reported in. Or perhaps Stan was the one who named him Sid.
"You're certain?"
"Yes."
"Why was he left behind?"
"By his own account, he was abandoned, but—"
Stan cut in.
"Why abandon him?"
"He never meant to come here. He was threatened and dragged along. The tower master told him that if he didn't reveal the location of the magic circle in the Landrik Mountain Range, he would kill him."
"Even so, he should have kept his mouth shut. Pathetic. A spy's life is secrecy. We drilled that into them."
Chris could almost hear the click of a tongue. Bastard. Easy to say, when it isn't your neck. He cursed Number One in silence. Aloud, he stayed polite.
"A moment—Sid was a spy?"
Stan made a pained sound.
"Sid is Number Four."
Chris cried out as if stunned.
"How could that be!"
"Where is Sid?"
"He's dead."
"Dead! How?"
"Sheikh killed him."
"He seems to have answered the questioning readily enough. Why kill him?"
"He'd buried the teleportation circle here under dirt to hide it. That was what put him on the wrong side of them."
"If Number Four had known they meant to kill him, he would never have answered. Why was he so at ease?"
"I think he trusted a Mana Oath that they would do him no harm."
"They broke a Mana Oath?"
"In substance, yes. By the letter, no. The one who swore was Tower Master Hal. The one who did the killing was Sheikh, so..."
"He should have bound all of them. Number Four was careless."
Chris made a show of reflection.
"Yes. He wasn't thorough enough."
"You should have stopped them from killing him."
"I didn't know Sid was Number Four. Even if I had, stopping them would have been difficult. I can't overturn a decision made by my superiors. All the more so when the man was a disciple of a rival tower."
"And after they killed Sid?"
"They all moved through the magic circle. I was the only one left."
"Left alone? Why?"
"The circle takes only one at a time, and the toll is fifty highest-grade mana stones."
"They abandoned you to save the stones?"
"They said someone had to remain and stop whoever came after, but from the look of them, they left me because the stones were too precious to spend."
"And what was your master doing?"
"Randal had already gone through. He didn't know what happened afterward."
"At your level, holding off the mages who come later would be difficult."
"I can hide the circle, the way Sid did."
"Did you?"
"Yes. I covered it with dirt."
"Don't bother. Destroy it outright."
Stan, it seemed, wanted no one else coming up behind him.
"There's a warning inscribed on it. Destroy the circle, and a severe price follows. The circle at the destination wasn't destroyed, so I expect the same warning is posted there—that breaking it would bring disaster down on them."
If the arrival circle were destroyed, the departure circle would not function. That was how such arrays were made. Tower Master Hell's party had crossed without trouble, and Tower Master Hal's after them, which meant the circle on the far side was intact.
"First Number Four, and now you've been left behind. An unfortunate coincidence. Did they suspect you?"
"I don't believe so. They would never have brought someone under suspicion into ruins this important in the first place. I think the bad blood between Sheikh and Randal is what did the damage."
"Sheikh and Randal don't get along?"
"No."
"Then why travel with Randal? As you said yourself, in ruins this important, you don't travel with someone you can't stand."
"That's what I thought."
"You talk as if it were someone else's affair."
Because it is. What came out, against that thought, was an apology.
"I'm sorry."
"A spy doesn't carry on like that."
"Yes. I'll correct it."
"Why do you think it happened?"
"I believe Tower Master Hal chose Randal."
"Why?"
"It's only my guess. May I say it?"
"Go on."
"Just as with our Hermann Magic Tower, didn't Mick Magic Tower also have people who went in ahead of the rest?"
"Yes. They did."
Mick Magic Tower's Three Great Elders had entered first. Long before anyone else.
"Just as Tower Master Hell's party went in without the Elder Council's leave, I think Tower Master Hal's party from Mickclonia entered without the permission of the Three Great Elders. If they cross paths in the ruins, Randal will be the one to step forward and make the excuses."
"Is Randal close with the Three Great Elders?"
"I couldn't say about all of them. I believe he's close with at least one."
"Why do you think that?"
"It's an old matter. Do you remember Prince Mark Grant studying at Mick Magic Tower?"
"I remember."
"When Prince Mark was murdered, they meant to kill every suspect, but someone got Alex out."
"Yes. That happened."
"The one who contacted someone then, to keep Alex alive, was Randal."
"Someone... someone... who would that have been?"
"Elder Perez ordered that every suspect be killed. The person who could defy that order..."
"Would have held a comparable station. Richard, or Daryl. So Randal is close with one of the two."
"Yes. That's my guess."
Number One turned the subject.
"What did you do with the mask?"
"The mask?"
"The one Number Four was wearing."
"Ah. That."
"Don't tell me you lost it."
"Sheikh cut off Sid's head and put it in a spatial pouch."
Number One's reaction flared.
"Why take the head?"
"He's a black mage. He must have had a use for it."
"Damn it."
He let the silence sit a moment, then spoke.
"Understood."
Number One moved to cut the link, and Chris spoke in a rush.
"I have a request."
"A request?"
"I'm stranded at the magic circle in the jungle. Please get me out of here."
"Get you out?"
"Yes."
"When I don't even know where you are?"
"Ah!"
Chris was thrown.
"You're saying there's no way?"
"There isn't."