My Path to Magic 2: A Combat Alchemist

by Irina Syromyatnikova

  Satal enjoyed his temporary solitude; his children were in school, and his wife went to visit her friends. Baer thought that bonding with Rustle had made the magician more accessible and friendly. Kevinahari struggled to develop these features in him for years, and now they came to the former coordinator in a matter of weeks. Ignoring the fact that nine out of ten magicians paid for meeting the creature by loss of their mind and early death, Rustle was the best teacher anyone could ask for.

  "I thought you would leave the city."

  "I don't like the countryside. And I was eligible for six months' leave with pay," Satal explained, meeting his guest in a housecoat and slippers. "It would be stupid not to use it."

  Baer gladly realized that Satal was not opposed to be chewing the fat about the old job. The captain brewed green tea for himself and complained about the new management. Contrary to his expectations, the magician didn't support the critics of his rival, "You misjudged him. He follows a plan. This is his special strategy."

  Baer squinted suspiciously: "Oh, really?"

  "Oh, yes!" the magician did not miss an opportunity to boast. "I've read one top secret document, where all the points of his plan were explained. His actions are a part of an ingenious trap."

  "A trap for bookworms?" Baer tried to make a joke. "Paper consumption in my office doubled; all our staff does is sit and write, sit and write. And when they do something, they act by the book."

  Satal shook his head in disagreement. "Believe me, his goal is worthy! Larkes is an experienced hunter. He plays his game neatly and without fuss. Look at me: I stuck my neck out too far and immediately lost my job. Glad that I am still alive. His return to the position was perceived placidly by the general public. Isn't it stupid? He knows all the ins and outs of the region, and no one takes him seriously."

  "Maybe they're right, at least partially?" the captain doubted.

  "No, no! He never discloses his true goals and never does what is expected of him. Moreover, people are accustomed to his unpredictability; no one takes it as a threat. The weak and weird shorty-mage managed to instill obedience in all his personnel - in twenty thousand employees, and he can say who is doing what without asking for help from lower level supervisors. Isn't it impressive?"

  Baer recalled his impression of Larkes' behavior. "If we consider his management style in such a plane…"

  "That's it! His style is good in one situation only - if an unknown internal enemy constantly operates against NZAMIPS. But this is exactly what we face now, right?"

  Then it dawned on Baer: "So he is trying to catch the higher-ups…?"

  Satal nodded solemnly. "Everything is going according to his plan!"

  "And Grokk died according to his plan?"

  "Practically, yes. Larkes needed to preserve his image of a weak leader, but the situation demanded decisive action. In that critical moment they castled: Larkes was promoted, and I plugged the breach. And for the next two years they tried to come up with a reason to bring this smartass back. Do you know that he held his first management position at the time of the Inquisition? And they were selecting rather special types of characters! When the Holy Fathers were gone, he started his career almost from the bottom and made good progress. He is stubborn as a bulldog, vindictive as Rustle, and strongly motivated. Artisans have no chance!"

  And the former senior coordinator snorted joyfully.

  Baer attempted to rearrange his impressions of Larkes in the new order. For some reason he was sure that Satal had not known such subtleties before. "Have they told you this in the ministry?"

  "Why in the ministry?" the magician became slightly offended. "I put two and two together myself and then pinned Larkes, so he opened his folder for me."

  Baer swallowed the question as to why Satal hadn't done that while he was in power. The idea that the higher-ups played some complex political games in his own city brought Baer to a state of near panic. "What if his plan fails?" the captain exclaimed involuntarily.

  "Why would it?" Satal was surprised. "Do you really believe in their invulnerability?"

  "But so far…"

  "Bullshit! The sect was not eradicated in the past primarily because there was no valid reason to prosecute them - until recently, they positioned themselves as guardians of the light and the justice, and then there was no one left to confront them. They don't have this advantage anymore. We fight on par with them!"

  The captain remembered the time when the name of the sect was associated with an ancient enigma and did not cause fear. The revelations of the mysterious teachers were perceived with interest, and their first victims with a sense of humor: "Some people always find a way to get into trouble!" But eventually people discerned in the artisans' divinations familiar features of the forbidden magic, not sunk into oblivion yet.

  Baer sighed and tried to drive his concerns to the far corner of his consciousness. "What should I do now?"

  "Same as always. I didn't tell you anything you couldn't guess yourself."

  Baer decided not to go back to the office; he had a lot of work at home related to his wedding next week. He needed to help his bride, Ms. Oakley, negotiate prices with the owner of the nearest cafe, where they would hold a banquet, and borrow a couple of extra beds for close relatives. The city surrounded Baer, so familiar and so alien at the same time. The giant arena of confrontation…He thought that in the worst case he would move his family to Krauhard.

  Chapter 29

  I met the cotton growers and learned that they ran into a serious problem finding qualified personnel. They asked me to help with the launch of a steam turbine that small-town mechanics were afraid to approach. Naturally, their modern machine was equipped with dark magic locks and controls.

  "It looks like locals don't understand what our project will bring to their backwater," the foreman - a dark magician himself - complained to me. "New roads, the development of the energy sector, new jobs at the processing factory. Why don't we see a lineup of people who want to make money?!"

  "They would be glad to make the line," I grunted, "but they lack the necessary education. Rural schools are just elementary, and even they are not available everywhere."

  The growers argued that they taught their new hires the basics of the profession at the expense of the company for two months, but the majority of the trainees dumped the courses. Wild people, what else could I say?

  As I was making contacts with Suesson businessmen, Chief Brian's experts dug dirt like starving boars. Winter, frost on the ground, cold rain every second day did not stop these maniacs from screening tons of soil manually. My heart ached just from looking at their work; I even offered to help them build a dredge (they worked up to their knees in water in the pits), but they thought that I scoffed at them, for some reason. Well, it is well known that the police are people with no imagination!

  Once, Brian rushed to my house and started banging on the door. It was midnight.

  "Master Tangor, are you there?"

  "Yeah…" Where else would I be at night?

  "Will you do one more ritual? We're ready, just waiting for you."

  I fully woke up. "You've lost your mind, chief! I am already in bed." I didn't lie; I was in my pajamas. But Brian insisted.

  "I remember you told me that night is the best time for the ritual…"

  "Let it be the next night!"

  "I did not want to say this, but any day we expect an inspector from the central office. My superiors do not like that I make so much noise about the murdered kids."

  And the inspector would disband the local police team, of course. If I wanted to participate in the investigation, I needed to go with him right away. "Well then, why are we still here? Drive your car to the porch! I don't want to get wet."

  In every district, NZAMIPS had a special room for dangerous rituals. In Suesson, a barn on the outskirts of the Upper Shaft served that function. The atmosphere inside favored meditation: semidarkness, the sound of rain pouring on the roof, charcoal braziers
in the corners, and the delicate scent of burning wood in the air. The already-prepared protective pentagram waited for me: I made it myself long ago, working with the corpses of murdered kids, and had not erased it, since no one but me enjoyed the premises. A coat rack was to the left of the door, and a metal table with the object of our interest - to the right.

  A fragment of jaw, split obliquely, lay on a porcelain tray. The way it was damaged seemed familiar (the previously examined bones of children were cleaved similarly), but this one belonged to an adult and was much older; it had a spongy texture and was crumbled on the edge. I sensed no magic in it (at least, no dark magic) and did not expect any surprises. "Let's start!"

  My meditation lasted eight hours instead of the usual two, and Brian became nervous. There were no other necromancers in Suesson, so he called a healer, who said that he would intervene when my body's dehydration reached dangerous levels. Having calmed down the maelstrom of visions in my mind, I noticed strangers fussing around me. An unknown healer forcefully tried to feed me with an inhibitor. "Do you want to kill me?" I yelled at him.

  "He feels better now," the sadist chuckled and stepped away.

  "How do you feel?" Chief Brian sat next to me.

  "Alive," I began to realize that something extraordinary happened. "Contact Coordinator Larkes immediately and tell him that you found human remains of the Nabla epoch in Suesson. Use exactly these words, all right? I suspect a necromantic ritual. Let him take measures!"

  I requested to notify Kvayfer that I got sick and went home to get my head in order. I had no doubt that the last bone was linked to the murders. Somebody brought it from the depth of an ancient mine to the surface. From the memory of the deceased I learned that he did not die in a blissful narcotic stupor; before his death he was hiding in endless caves filled with piles of corpses, slowly decaying in full blackness. Perhaps, the ancient guy had some dark magic potential - he managed to escape the otherworldly over and over again, but he was uninitiated; his Source had not spoken to him.

  "The perimeter leaks in three places," I recalled the lines from Uncle Gordon's book. Shadows of the past looked over my shoulder. Perhaps, I was immersed too deeply in the memory of the deceased or took his tragic death too much to heart: the transformation from the brightly lit and inhabited galleries of the ancient mine to hell as the light faded out constantly replayed in my head. Elevator and communication lines didn't work, and people got stuck underground, surrounded by the otherworldly: through his eyes I saw a ghoul and a totally unknown supernatural creature (could I claim a new species discovery?). A desire to see the faces of friends who didn't exist for thousands of years flashed in my heart. Apparently, I needed time to separate my psyche from the soul of the deceased guy, but the next morning a courier from Chief Brian delivered a message about the arrival of the promised inspector.

  "What do I have to do with this?" I thought that the inspector was going to check Brian's work.

  "He wants to talk to all experts who participated in the investigation."

  "Okay, count me in!"

  For some reason, the inspector decided to interview the experts in the open field, on the spot where the last bone was discovered. Brian's policemen dropped me off right in the dirt. Lots of unfamiliar people jostled around the pits: "cleaners" in uniforms, police in helmets, and experts in civilian costume, all wearing rubber boots. Brian was taking care of a funny couple: a tall blond-haired man with an aquiline side view and a bony dark mage with a surprisingly expressionless, moronic face. Naturally, this pair attracted my attention. I guessed they were the inspector and his bodyguard. The "cleaners" did not like them, either; they hung around with gloomy faces, listening to the conversation of the blond-haired with Chief Brian and trying to approach the combat mage from behind.

  My helper Sean, one of Brian's assistants, pointed to the blond. "The chief is with Inspector Giom. You need to talk to them." I nodded and shook off the dirt from my pants with the usual spell. All dark mages turned their heads to me. The blond snapped his conversation with the chief in the middle of a sentence and stared at me. I walked up to him. Brian introduced us to each other in a rapid patter; the chief felt ill at ease - the inspector pressured him.

  "Was it your work - the rituals of animation?"

  "Yes."

  "Including the last one?"

  "Yes." And I felt really shitty afterwards.

  "When will you finish your report?"

  "Tomorrow." If he tried to rush me, I would send him to hell.

  "What's the age of the last bone, in your opinion?"

  I stupidly stared at the annoying official. Only now I realized that the inspector was a white mage. "What age are you talking about, man? This bone is thirty thousand years old, maybe even a hundred thousand." Was he going to investigate that murder, too?!

  "Why do you think so?" the magician's eyes narrowed.

  "There was a sure sign."

  "We have already reported Mr. Tangor's conclusions to the leadership," Chief Brian intervened.

  The blond visibly winced. "Good. Do not go away; I might have more questions for you!"

  No problem, but I didn't want to mess mud around the excavations and climbed up a hill slope, where it was drier and cleaner. This land hadn't been ameliorated by cotton growers yet, so I could see from the top gnawed by erosion, rocks and lichens, and sparse clumps of steppe grass.

  Luckily for us, the day was sunny. A light breeze brought distinct smells of spring; water sparkled in the soil upturned by the criminalists; rocks, washed by rain, displayed the arabesques of minerals. I watched how inspector Giom confidently converted a "conversation with the experts" into his solo performance. The "cleaners" saw no reason to listen to the visiting pundit, though they did not dare to move away from him as I did.

  I had no previous experience with white magicians who wanted to be in command. I heard there was such a phenomenon, but never witnessed it. Superiority seemed to have no value to the white. Some of the white mages were obsessed with a desire to arrange everything in the best way possible, and their inflamed sense of responsibility was the cause of their striving to hold the reins of power. In my opinion, such white were not much different from the artisans.

  Half an hour later the people downhill started loading into vehicles of different colors: Inspector Giom decided to examine the place where the corpses were found. I regretted that I didn't ride my motorcycle, trying to save on fuel; now would be a good time to turn around and flee on the sly. I took a seat in the truck along with criminalists. They were prejudiced against the dark - they ignored me but, unhappy with critical comments made by Inspector Giom, vigorously quarreled with each other. I seemed to be the only respondent whom the inspector did not humiliate.

  Eight small graves were located on the shore of a man-made lake, where the dredging operations of the growers had caused terrain instability, exposing the first skeleton. The mournful discovery was made nearly a year ago; the grave pits became overgrown with thick weeds that completely covered faded yellow police flags marking the site. Small waves persistently licked the shore, as if aiming to destroy all traces of the villainy.

  The inspector gathered an obedient herd around himself. I grunted and went to look at a giant slagheap to assess the extent of reclamation work needed. A dark magic background was strongly sensed in this area: the vents of the ancient mines nearby were capped by powerful magic seals; besides, the "cleaners" recently put warding signs and protective perimeters around and nailed tracking amulets of instrumental control to the rocks. I understood why murderers had chosen this place for their rituals: magic seals on vent shafts overlapped an echo of any ritual.

  Chief Brian's assistant came to me from behind, "Inspector Giom is calling you."

  "Why?"

  "I do not know."

  "Go and ask." My mean dark nature longed to avenge the frustrating day on someone.

  I enjoyed the scenery around until Giom's bodyguard climbed up to me. I might well po
ur my irritation on him - I disliked this man!

  "Climb down!" he commanded decisively.

  "Or what?" I put the question squarely.

  The bony guy meaningfully touched one of his amulets. I smiled broadly in response. He did not know whom he tried to scare! I was ready to incinerate his amulets: I activated my Source and sharpened my senses, well-honed by necromantic practices. My enemy paled - perhaps, he finally realized the extent of his problem - but didn't back away. It was even better!

  And then I realized that I didn't need to resort to a fight.

  "Okay, let's go!" I grinned and ran down to the "cleaners" - three gloomy, angry combat mages were about to smash some heads regardless of their ranks.

  "Hey men, why do you shy away from your work?"

  The senior of the three "cleaners" frowned, trying to catch the essence of my claim, their awakening Sources singing with very high pitch.

  "There is a vent shaft without any seals uphill," I gestured pathetically. "This shithole is full of ghouls!" Ghouls or not, but one otherworldly creature was certainly inside - I sensed it as if somebody scratched my nerves with sandpaper.

  The senior "cleaner" twitched, torn by two conflicting desires: to beat me or run up the hill to check my words.

  "There are otherworldly in the shaft, nearby and aplenty!"

  The "cleaner" realized that my message would free them from the duty to stay by the inspector.

  "Follow me!" he roared and rushed up the hill like a gallant steed. His exuberant folk speech was heard by the entire honorable company. The "cleaner" swore at a nerd, who made a new passage in the old mine and left it uncapped, so artfully that I was envious and appreciative of his experience and practice!

  The inspector imperceptibly disappeared.

  "Let me drive you home," Chief Brian offered. That was nice of him; I was afraid that they would leave me there alone.