Bad Luck
He had been worrying over it for a long while when the mask, ridden by an evil spirit, drifted up through the air and bobbed to a stop in front of him.
"What are you doing here?"
"Deciding whether to eat it."
The spirit cut him off.
"Eat it."
"I have a feeling there'd be side effects."
"Motaro doesn't have side effects."
"Tom. Are you serious?"
"Of course."
The spirit answered with force, then asked,
"Why are you calling me Tom?"
"I can't keep calling you an evil spirit."
"A name is fine. Why Tom?"
"Something about you feels like Tom."
"Who's Tom?"
"A man I knew."
"Don't call me Tom."
"Then what should I call you? What's your real name?"
"Tenbo. Call me Tenbo."
"All right."
Chris tucked the glass vial into his spatial pouch and stood.
"So you're not eating it after all."
"I've decided to take it later. When my life is hanging by a thread."
"Wouldn't it be better to take it now and become a Chukhwan?"
"Why do you think so?"
"You've got a way up to Chukhwan sitting in your hand. Turn it down, live out your days as a Sikbae, and then die because some Chukhwan gets hold of you—wouldn't that be a rotten way to go?"
"I won't have any cause to fight a Chukhwan."
"You really believe that?"
"I can run."
Tenbo changed the subject.
"How long are you planning to stay here?"
"I'd like another three or four years in this cave. I know I won't get them."
The eye-slits of the wraith's mask crumpled inward.
"You want to stay here that long? Why?"
"By then, anyone stronger than me will have found what they came for and left the ruins."
"And why did you decide it's impossible?"
"The pills I've been eating in place of food have run out."
On the hundredth day since he had entered the cave, Chris stood before a pillar of the gazebo. Just as the wraith Tenbo had taught him, he poured mana into it—a different pillar from the one he had used to draw out the jar of stored mana stones—and the base clicked open.
He packed mana stones into the drawer-like cavity. The pillar sealed shut, and light began to gather.
Tenbo settled onto Chris's shoulder.
"Put your hands on the pillar and chant the spell."
Chris pressed both palms to the stone and spoke the incantation. The pillar glittered like a mirror throwing back sunlight. A moment later the glare burst outward, blinding, and Chris was gone.
Tower Master Hal of Mickclonia Magic Tower was in a foul mood. He had entered the ruins full of expectation and come away with almost nothing, and Sheikh, Hibi, and David were still missing.
What had happened at that magic circle?
Days of turning it over had brought him no answer, and the ignorance sat in his gut like a meal that wouldn't go down. He went about with his face twisted as if he'd stepped in shit, and the other mages watched his temper. All of them wore funeral expressions and did nothing but walk.
"Wouldn't it be better if we split up to search for treasure?"
Hal nodded.
"Two groups. We'll search—"
Light flashed in the brush at his three o'clock, and the order died unfinished.
"Let's go."
Hal broke into a run toward the undergrowth.
"A hidden magic circle!"
He shouted it, excitement climbing. A fierce hunch told him treasure was about to show itself. As the light died, a human shape wavered into view, and Hal knew him at once.
"Sid!"
The voice that hit him the instant the teleport finished made Chris jerk his head around. Tower Master Hal of Mick Magic Tower stood there with his eyes blown wide. Behind him were Randal, William, and Peter, every one of them staring in shock.
The moment Chris registered them, he ran with everything he had. The Grand Master's body gave him lightning for speed, and he didn't stop there—he cast a haste spell on top of it, then raised a wind to shove at his back. What he had learned from Tenbo paid for itself in the escape.
Of all the places to come out. Right under their damned noses.
He cursed as he ran. His luck was rotten to the bone.
Tower Master Hal came after him under every spell he could hang on himself.
"Hold it right there!"
Meaning to bleed off Sid's speed, Hal sprayed attack magic. Wind blades came knifing in from every side, eager to cut Chris to pieces.
Chris blocked them with a barrier and kept running. He didn't slow by so much as a step.
Hal pursued hard and shouted after him.
"What did you do to Sheikh?"
Randal was chasing too, teeth clenched. He roared,
"David! Where is my disciple David?"
Chris had no answer ready. He had never imagined he would run into them at all, least of all in the very instant he stepped out of a magic circle. Only as the seconds passed did a story he could spin begin to take shape.
"Sheikh is dead."
Randal cried out, desperate.
"And my disciple?"
"Your disciple is alive."
Tower Master Hal shouted,
"Sheikh was a Chukhwan, and he's dead. How is David alive when he's nowhere near that strong?"
A pit yawned open at Chris's feet before he could answer. William had shifted the earth. Chris cleared it in a single bound.
"David isn't a Jenyeom. He was a Sikbae."
He told them the truth. They didn't believe it.
Hal bellowed,
"Liar!"
"On my honor, it isn't a lie. David really was a Sikbae."
"If David's alive, where is he?"
"Stop chasing me and I'll tell you."
Randal shouted,
"You killed him, didn't you?"
"I told you David's alive. How could someone of my skill kill him?"
"You're a Sikbae. Killing a Jenyeom like David wouldn't be hard."
"How was I supposed to kill him with a Chukhwan mage wide awake right beside him?"
Hal said,
"A moment ago you said Sheikh was dead."
"Mm."
"Even if you didn't kill them yourself, you're tangled up in their disappearance. That's certain."
"Why would you think that?"
"Because you're perfectly fine. And because you're running."
"That's thin."
"An innocent man doesn't run."
"You're chasing me like you mean to kill me. What else am I supposed to do?"
"No. You ran the instant you saw us. Something's pricking you. What is it?"
"If I tell you the truth, can you swear you won't harm me?"
Randal shouted,
"I swear!"
Hal said,
"I swear as well. Speak!"
They had sworn, and still Chris said nothing.
William snapped,
"We swore. Why won't you talk?"
"I just remembered I can't trust an oath from any of you."
Hal said,
"I am tower master of the great Mickclonia Magic Tower. I don't break my word."
"After you went through the magic circle, Sheikh tried to kill me. That was on your orders. How am I supposed to trust you now?"
Hal faltered for a beat, then said,
"Sheikh tried to harm you?"
"Don't play innocent."
"If he did, it was his own judgment. Nothing to do with me. Even so, I'll apologize in his place."
"Hypocrite."
Chris spat the word at him and spat for real. In that same instant, three fire swords loosed by Randal threatened his back.
Randal said,
"If Sheikh attacked you, how did you survive his hand?"
Chris didn't turn to meet the swords. He laid a thick barrier across his back and took them with his body. They punched into the barrier and detonated where they stuck.
The blast cracked open with a thunderous roar, and Chris staggered as the leftover force slammed through him. The power was tremendous. It still wasn't enough to so much as scratch a Grand Master's body.
He dragged his briefly slowed pace even higher. At that moment the ground ahead reared up in a wall. William's work.
Chris cocked his fist and drove it forward. Wind mana and metal mana clung to it and shaped themselves into a gauntlet, and the translucent, metal-sheened fist crashed into the earthen wall William had raised.
A hole blew open through the middle. Chris went through it. Watching him shrug off wind blades, fire swords, and an earthen wall one after another, Hal said,
"That one's no ordinary Sikbae. He's a Sikbae on the edge of Chukhwan."
William nodded.
"That's right. An ordinary Sikbae couldn't move that fast."
"With skill like that, he could have ambushed Sheikh and killed him."
Randal shouted, thick with spite,
"Sid! You killed all of them, didn't you?"
Chris denied it hard.
"I did not!"
"What in the world are you?"
"I told you before. I'm Sid of Hermann Magic Tower."
"I don't believe you."
"Then don't."
The forest ended and open ground began. Chris ran along a road paved in yellow brick. At the end of it a staircase rose, oppressive in its height.
He hit the stairs at a dead sprint and nearly pitched onto his face the instant his foot touched a step. Some grotesque force had cinched itself around his body.
What is this?
He climbed with the stairs of Mick Tower in mind, the ones he had ascended during the Stair Festival. Those had fought climbers with crushing gravity. These weren't especially heavy, and yet they were no easier. His body was wrung tight, and his legs grew heavier with every step.
What kind of magic is this? A spell he had never so much as heard of.
It doesn't get worse the higher I go. Does it?
The "does it" was what got him. It did. Every step cost more than the last.
Did they build these in imitation of Mick Tower's stairs?
He looked down at the dreary steps underfoot, so sharply unlike Mick Tower's brilliant white, and realized he had it backward.
These stairs aren't modeled on Mick Tower. Mick Tower copied these.
From that he understood that the Horace Ruins were older than Mick Magic Tower. What stunned him was that after so many long years of excavation, treasure still remained.
He reached a landing and was catching his breath when the pursuers from the tower arrived at the foot of the stairs. They didn't climb. They glared up at him, and for a moment a vicious staring match held.
Hal set his right foot on the lowest step.
"Find any treasure?"
Fortunately, the landing carried none of the binding pressure. Chris rolled his shoulders, swinging his arms loose, and answered,
"No."
"Lying again."
"What makes you think it's a lie?"
"You know these ruins well enough to use a secret magic circle none of us knew about. No chance you came out empty-handed."
"It sounds much grander when you call it a secret circle."
Hal climbed another step.
"What's that mask on your shoulder?"
Chris glanced down. It ought to have been torn off in the sprint, but the mask clung to his shoulder as if it had put down roots.
"Nothing you'd benefit from knowing."
Hal stepped onto the second stair, and Randal and William set foot on the first. Randal appealed to him, almost pleading.
"Please. Tell me what happened to my disciple. It was you who killed him, wasn't it?"
"This is unexpected."
"What is?"
"I didn't think you had any affection for your disciple. And yet you're worried sick."
Randal exploded.
"What do you know, that you dare judge me!"
"I know you very well. And I know your disciple very well too."
Hal cut in.
"You know David? Have you met him before?"
"I have."
"What is it you know about him?"
Chris ended his rest and started up the stairs again.
Randal snarled,
"Talk!"
Hatred boiled in the shout, but he didn't attack. Magic, it seemed, would not manifest properly on the stairs. Chris nearly tried a spell of his own, just to test it, then held back.
"Tell me about the stairs, and I'll tell you what I know."