Chapter 14 – When Embezzlement Becomes A Habit
Dusti found it surprising and a bit funny. He could tell that Amon was seeking trouble with Shog. This boy is audacious. But Amon did have reason to seek revenge. Shog had almost cut his finger last time when Amon had done nothing to offend him. But Dusti still didn’t expect that the boy would take action.
Amon claimed that he found natural ores in the stream. It certainly wasn’t impossible, just rare. Even if someone found ores in that way, they would just open them at home and tell n.o.body. No one would know if they earned extra parangons.
In effect, what Amon was doing was forcing Shog to pay the tax for him, which was his promise as part of his apology.
Shog’s face screwed up, but he couldn’t be too mean in front of the crowd, so he asked, “Amon, my lucky and honest boy, can you let me have a look at your parangons?”
He thought that Amon had at most one or two ores. When Amon took out a wrapped sheepskin sheet and unfolded it, the crowd burst out in low exclamations. Shog felt his sight go dark, and then promptly pa.s.sed out. Fortunately, his servants grabbed him in time to prevent his head from bouncing off the steps
Twenty transparent standard parangons lay at the center of the sheet. In the middle of them was a l.u.s.trous blue parangon, glistening as if there was water flowing inside.
The crowd was shocked speechless. Silence reigned until the mayor, the first to recover, gasped, “Amon, you…you…you just picked them up?”
Amon nodded calmly, “Yes. I think the mountain torrents flushed through and opened a vein, so a pile of ores was brought to a stream, and I found them by luck.”
Dusti felt his throat go dry. He swallowed hard, looked around and said in a low voice, “Actually, you can……you don’t have to……you won’t……”
He did not say a complete sentence, but it was easy to understand. Amon could have kept the parangons to himself and told n.o.body. He did not have to confront Shog and force him to fulfill his promise. It did no good for him because Shog was surely going to retaliate, and Amon wouldn’t be able to take it because Shog was much more powerful than he was.
Someone reminded, “Lord Macrobe pa.s.sed out. What do we do?”
Amon continued, “Lord Dusti, I want to pay my tax. You won’t let me violate the laws, will you?”
Dusti sighed, “Wake Lord Macrobe up. We know that the tax of Amon’s family this year is going to be paid by him!”
The crowd did not know why Shog pa.s.sed out, but Dusti did. If there had been just twenty parangons, he would not have made such a scene because he just needed to pay eighteen parangons for Amon. It was a sum that caused a great deal of heartache, but nothing too extravagant. But the blue one changed everything. The townees did not know its value. According to tax law, it was worth two hundred standard parangons.
So Shog had to pay one hundred and ninety-eight parangons as tax for Amon. Since one parangon was worth twenty gold parans, Shog needed to pay nearly four thousand gold parans. It was a sum that could buy a luxury manor with a herd of servants, cows and sheep.
Shog felt someone rubbing his chest. He woke up and managed to stand up with his servants’ help. He asked in a trembling voice, “Amon, do you really need to pay your tax?” He stared at Amon so hard it was as if his eyes were going to burst into flame. If he could set fire to things with his eyes, Amon would have already been burned to ashes.
Amon did not dodge his eyes and looked back provocatively. He replied clearly,”Yes, I do. Or do you, my lord, want me to practice tax evasion?”
Shog was cornered. He had no choice but to pay the tax for Amon. He dodged Amon’s eyes and spoke to Dusti in a begging voice, “Lord Mayor, I now receive and register these twenty-one parangons as Amon’s income and pay its tax.”
He thought that only Dusti could understand his complex meaning. This was a wordplay. A blue parangon was also a parangon, so registering twenty-one parangons seemed to be alright. But there was a little secret in this wordplay, which was also Dusti’s and Shog’s most important source of income. They used to be delirious when there were special parangons extracted in the town.
The Ducians did not know the true value of the special parangons. Once extracted, they would be collected as tax. No special parangon would appear in the trade as currency, so the townees only knew that they are very rare — not even one in a hundred. Lord Dusti would happily gave a standard parangon as an extra reward to the miner who extracted a special parangon.
The rest was an underhanded deal between the Mayor and the clerk. A special parangon was worth two hundred standard parangons, and the one who found it should get twenty standard parangons, but in fact he only received one as the extra reward. The other nineteen parangons went into Dusti and Shog’s pockets. This was not even the most profitable way. If Shog twisted his words, with Lord Mayor’s permission, to register it as a mere standard parangon, then this special parangon could bring them at least one hundred and ninety-eight parangons!
But today the situation went opposite his expectations. The more valuable that blue parangon was, the more Shog had to pay for Amon. Shog was suggesting Mayor Dusti to do the trick again and register it as a mere standard parangon. He even tipped him the wink that once they got Aquaticore from Amon, they could make a fortune with it.
Mayor Dusti hesitated too. He coughed. But before he could say anything, Amon cried, “Sorry, my dear priest, please don’t forget that I can read too! Please register according to the facts! Twenty standard parangons and a blue parangon. I can read it.”
Shog shook as if he had been hammered, then fell on his servant’s shoulder. He did not dare to looked at Amon, so he turned to Dusti. Dusti’s face got longer. He spoke to Amon in a deep voice, “Leave the procedures to us, my boy. Don’t worry. We won’t let you pay any tax. By the way, your Aq— blue parangon, can you hand it to me? We will give you an extra reward.”
Amon objected, “If the tax was paid, I should keep all I get, shouldn’t I?”
Dusti felt his throat go dry again. He said quickly, “Special parangons are to be confiscated. You’ll get your reward. You won’t lose anything—”
He could not finish his phrase. Amon felt a hand put on his shoulder and he heard Crazy’Ole’s voice rise unhurriedly, “Lord Mayor, I often see injustices these days. Some people seize the things that don’t belong to them so many times, that they begin to take it for granted, and forget that they actually don’t own those things. One day when they fail to seize those things, they feel angry and think that the true owners don’t deserve having their own property. What kind of men are they, my lord?”
Amon watched Shog begging Dusti like a dog. The embers of fury in his head suddenly turned into a firestorm. He almost lost his cool and punched him. The idea had spun through his thoughts like a wildfire, making him shake uncontrollably. Crazy’Ole had showed up at the right time. He held onto Amon’s shoulder and pinned him down from the rage.
Mayor Dusti stopped, but Crazy’Ole went on, “They are truly demons. Desire is not a sin. It drives people to create and to pursue a better life…… But I have to tell a story: There used to be a man who stole a coin from me every day. n.o.body punished him. Then one day I kindly told him that it was not good, and he hated and cursed me. He asked me to encourage him to continue stealing from me and praise him for it, otherwise it would be my fault. He totally forgot that he had already obtained so much from me……Please tell me, who was at fault?”
Stared at by Crazy’Ole, cold sweat bedewed Dusti’s forehead. He stepped back and turned to Shog, “My clerk. Amon’s request is normal and legitimate. Register his income and let him see: twenty standard parangons and one blue parangon, tax paid by Shog Macrobe.”
As Dusti finished his last word, Shog’s eyes rolled back as he shook, spitting out a mouthful of blood and pa.s.sing out in his servant’s arms. His servants brought him to the shrine in a flurry. Most people did not understand what had happened. To them, Lord Macrobe suddenly fell severely sick.
Crazy’Ole watched Shog being carried into the shrine. Then he said to Dusti, “The clerk is ill and cannot work. Please register it yourself, my lord.”
Dusti wiped off the sweat on his forehead and nodded, “Alright, I’ll register it. Just bring the boy away!”
Amon was struggling to restrain his rage. But seeing Shog spit blood and pa.s.s out, hurt worse than by a punch from him, he somehow calmed down. He felt that the dear priest was now like a worm. Crazy’Ole’s hand tightened on his shoulder, and he felt himself turning around and left with Crazy’Ole.
……
“Oh my boy, I know Shog deserved it, but you are causing suffering for no one except yourself. Do you now better understand the power of two sides? Learn to face it, just like you learned how to use your arms……What you did today is dangerous. You are possessed by your desire. If you cannot learn to face it in this test, I will not be seeing your success any time in the future but rather your cold body.” said Nietzsche, finis.h.i.+ng his goblet of wine in his home. He did not bring a goblet for Amon.
“Are you saying that Shog is going to retaliate?”
“What else could it be? You know it! He’s going to kill you……Don’t you know the value of an Aquaticore?”
“No, I don’t. You didn’t tell me. But I think it‘s worth something, isn’t it？”
“People in our town don’t have the same concept of money as the people outside. Let me tell you. An Aquaticore is worth two hundred parangons, or four thousand gold parans. And it is not something you can buy whenever you want. Such a great fortune can cause carnage at any time. A child like you won’t have a bone left. Now that I’m with you, you are still safe in the town, but what are you going to do with it when you are alone? ”
“Seems that you knew what I was going to do but you didn’t stop me.”
“I can’t stop you every time. You have to face the desire youself. From now on, you should try to understand the way to deal with it, live with it, even enjoy it. But never let it influence your mind and body……By the way it’s not bad to see you punis.h.i.+ng Shog. He earned it. Just beware of yourself from now on.”
“I think I understand now.” nodded Amon.
“Great. ” Crazy’Ole stood up, “Now you can learn the basic first-level magic. There are many kinds of magic: element control, spiritual magic, theurgy, spatial magic, message magic, and so on. It is hard for a sorcerer to master all kinds of magic. Most of them focus on the ones they are good at. I don’t know what suits you the best. But now that we have the Aquaticore, let’s start with water magic.”
The magic was mysterious and abstruse in Amon’s imagination, but Crazy’Ole told him that the criteria of a first-level mage was quite clear : to cover the ground with ice!
Summoning the water in the atmosphere and freezing it to ice on the ground somewhere near the caster. That was what Amon was going to do. He did not know that it already contained three water magics. Although they were all first-level magic, it was not simple at all to combine them naturally and cast with ease.
Crazy’Ole did not tell Amon what this meant to an apprentice who had just begun to learn magic. He just told him that it was the very beginning.
Freezing water to ice was quite easy. Amon succeeded in his first try after Crazy’Ole taught him. Summoning the element of water to form ice on the ground was harder, but Amon managed to do it in a few days. Crazy’Ole smiled and told him, “You can exercise it over and over again. But try not to use the Aquaticore when you cast.”
Amon found it ten times harder to cast the same magic if he stopped using the Aquaticore as a medium. By tradition Crazy’Ole should have given him a staff, but the old man seemed to have forgotten it. He was asking Amon to cast the magic by his own, without the help of any medium.
Amon could not do it. In fact, many primary mages, even most third-level mages, failed to do so. There should at least be a staff inlaid with a standard parangon! But Amon knew perfectly the principle and the skills needed to do it. The technique was not a problem for him. He just didn’t have enough power. Frustration? Doubts? There was nothing but to practice!
Then Crazy’Ole started to explain to Amon the characteristics of the Aquaticore and how to use it.The Aquaticore could not only help awakening the power, but also greatly facilitate casting any water magic. If Crazy’Ole had asked Amon to cast magic all by his own from the very beginning, he would definitely have failed. The Aquaticore was a cheat.
But cheating can only serve two purposes: first, to thoroughly master a magic and fully understand its principle and key points, and second, to surpa.s.s one’s limit in a life-and-death fight. Once you learned to cast magic, cheating while practicing it would not strengthen your own power but create dependence and self-satisfaction.
So Amon did as Crazy’Ole demanded. He still could not pave the ground with ice without the help of the Aquaticore. But he was not anxious. He tried with the Aquaticore once in a while to see how much his power had grown. He was satisfied to see that the iced surface enlarged each time, and formed quicker and quicker.
Crazy’Ole knew perfectly well that it was extremely hard now for Amon to pave ice on the ground stealthily all by his own. It would astound him if Amon did it easily. Even geniuses had their limits! Apart from this, Crazy’Ole did not teach Amon anything. He did not even teach Amon body arts.
One day, Amon spent a whole afternoon building an imperceptibly thin layer of ice in front of the door of Crazy’Ole’s house. He was planning to catch Crazy’Ole by surprise when he slipped over it. But the ice disappeared strangely when Crazy’Ole came home while Amon behind the door slipped and fell on his back.
Crazy’Ole told Amon, “You are a first-level mage now, my boy. It’s an enviable feat. But I only hope that time is enough for you…… The disaster is coming soon. You need to have the power to protect yourself and know how to do it.”
“What disaster?” asked Amon curiously.
But Crazy’Ole did not want to continue on this topic, he replied with a question, “Do you still go to the cold spring to practice your magic?”
“Yes. It’s my habit now.”
The cold spring was no longer biting cold as it used to be. It was now a normal fresh spring. But Amon was used to calling it the cold spring, as well as going to bathe and practice magic there. It was deep in the Charcoal Forest, peaceful and familiar for Amon.
Crazy’Ole did not comment on his choice. He nodded and said, “Good. Do what you like.”
Amon did not understand the coming disaster Crazy’Ole was talking about, but he did experience a disastrous incident that night.