“What happened to you, Professor?” Mara whispered, then clapped both hands over her mouth.
Fortunately for her, the black wizard was too engrossed in the music representing the broken shards of other people’s hearts to hear what she said.
The music played on, Dumsky’s stare growing darker and darker as he immersed himself deeper and deeper into his past.
Chapter 39
Making his way along the dark, half-flooded underground passage, Doom clutched the rubber boots he’d stolen at a flea market with both hands to keep them on.
“You couldn’t care less about your appearance, but you still do your best to keep yourself clean,” Robin said from a deep armchair.
Anastasia was warming a small teapot on a hot plate.
They used the small room, a former boiler closet Robin had transformed into a movie theater, as their hiding place. As it was somewhat elevated above the rest of the basement, it wasn’t flooded, though the way there was blocked by intricate black-magic traps in addition to the water. When they went there the first time (prompted by Robin, who claimed there was an untold treasure of knowledge waiting at the finish line), Alexander had literally gotten in over his head destroying other people’s spells.
“What are we watching today?” Robin clicked the remote control, scrolling down the virtually endless list of movies. “Titanic? Les Miserables? Hachiko?”
The hot plate Anastasia pottered around stood on a wood stub. The halved log served as a table. Meanwhile, the giant, almost 80-inch TV screen was connected to…a dozen potatoes and forty oranges pierced with wires.
Needless to say, the potatoes and oranges were enchanted. By Anastasia. That kind of magic was too fine for Robin, and Alex was just learning how to use it. Anastasia was teaching him.
If Professor Raewsky had known Anastasia (Nastya, as he called her) did that, he…
He’d probably have praised her first. And then he would have burned the whole basement down.
The main rule at Follen School was: no technology.
Coal heating. No electricity. A Faraday cage inside the walls to fully block off wireless signals coming in from outside.
No web access.
No magic lenses.
How did Robin get the TV and hot plate in here? That was a riddle Alexander struggled to solve.
“The Pianist, maybe?”
“The Pianist? Are you crazy, wifey? The basement’s already flooded. When the wonder kid sees The Pianist, it’ll be like drowning inside the Titanic. I’m not DiCaprio, and I’ll be able to get on the raft, but…”
“You think Hachiko would be less emotional?”
“The kid is a total cat person. He’ll just giggle at a great comedy like that.”
“No. The Pianist.”
To emphasize that it was her final word, Anastasia dropped a tray with three plain tin mugs on the log table. Delicious vapor came from the strong black tea with lemon and sugar. A weird but tasty drink.
***
Mara wondered how someone could drink that much without getting drunk. Professor Dumsky was already pouring a glass from his third bottle of whiskey, and his rhythm remained perfect. There was not a single false note as his fingers glided over the keys just as smoothly, shedding invisible blood.
***
“That’s it. Just a bit slower,” Anastasia said again. “Don’t hurry. Feel the rhythm.”
In the middle of the vast dark hall with curtained-off windows, a little boy and a tall, beautiful girl from the icy lands of northern Russia were playing a grand piano.
Anastasia was playing it, actually. Alexander was just learning.
For the second straight week.
But he could at least play a small, two-act piece.
“Oh, Sasha, I don’t know. Honestly.”
“Is there anything you don’t know, Anastasia?”
“Sure. Why so surprised?”
“Um…” The boy was embarrassed. “I don’t know. I always used to think you knew everything. Not like Robin.”
“Hey!” came an indignant echo from the far corner. “I’m right here.”
“I know,” Dumsky teased.
Anastasia laughed and patted the boy’s hair down. Unlike her boyfriend, she never ruffled it.
Alexander hated having his hair ruffled.
“No one in the world can know everything, Sasha.”
“Even Professor Raewsky?”
A heavy silence fell on the room. It was so heavy that the black curtains covering the old stained-glass windows felt like spider silks or flying fluff in comparison.
“Not even him, wonder kid. Not even him. Okay, let’s move on to the third part.”
“Great!”
***
“May the Serpent guide you through the sands, Farrokh.”
“Loki by your hearth, Robin. Who’s that hiding behind your back?”
“I’m not hiding!”
“He isn’t.”
“Oh, I beg my pardon then, monsieur, for daring to disrespect you. Would you care to share your good name?”
“Alexander Dumsky.”
“What a brave name. Like a general.”
“Don’t tell me you knew Alexander the Great.”
“What if I do?”
“Then you’re a liar.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re no more than four hundred years old. Sure, you’re really old even though you pretend otherwise, but that’s not old enough to have met Alexander the Great. He lived much earlier.”
“Wow.”
“You can call him wonder kid, Farrokh. When he grows up, he’s going to beat every single member of the club.”
“Even you, Robin?”
“Pffft, I’ll be first. Actually, I’m here for a drink and to enlist Alexander in the organization. But I don’t see you letting me get started with either.”
“You’re his guarantee?”
“Yes.”
“It looks like this young genius is the only Follen student you brought here.”
“The others—”
“…are hurting cats! And Robin won’t let me curse them.”
“Enough of your cursing. Jessie already spent six weeks in the hospital.”
“That’s because you stepped in. I’d have had him there for sixteen.”
“Oh Serpent. Who did you bring us, Robin Loxley?”
“Oh, Farrokh, if you only knew. If you only knew.”
***
“The Robin Loxley & Alexander Dumsky spacecraft embarks on a long voyage across the ether ocean, sails filling out—”
“The Treasure Planet had ships,” the boy interrupted. “Not spacecraft.”
“It’s descending from the stratosphere.” Robin reached for the boy to pull him down off his shoulders, but Alexander clenched his legs tighter around Robin’s neck. Robin snorted. “Then stop arguing.”
Anastasia was putting out sandwiches on the tablecloth as her men peered up at the starry heavens.
Dumsky loved the night sky over the manor lost somewhere in the Myers City suburbs. It looked like the curtain in the piano hall, the one pierced by needles in multiple places and then illuminated from the other side with stage lights of all different colors.
The way they did it at the Abyss.
But Anastasia wasn’t supposed to hear that.
Not the part about the sky, of course, but about the Abyss. About Robin taking him there.
Anastasia would have killed him.
“Dinner’s ready,” the witch called over.
“Let’s go, wonder kid.” Robin started for the tablecloth.
They were having a picnic that beautiful summer night while the other ten Follen students were snoring peacefully in their beds.
“Robin?”
“What, kid?”
“Why does no one want to make friends with me?”
Robin choked on air and almost stumbled.
“Hey, stop it. First of all, you do have two friend
s: me and Anastasia. And the rest…um… How should I put this?”
“Put it the way it is.”
“Okay, I will. You’re really weird, Alexander. Why insist on being called that, by the way? Alexander. So boring. Why not Alex? And you talk like you’re as old as the Professor, not an eight-year-old kid. I won’t call you a kid, though. A little nerd and Mr. Books, that’s you. Nobody likes people like that. If you want to be liked, keep it simple, Alex. Comb your hair. Take a shower twice a day, not when you start smelling like your books or your cats. Wear decent clothes instead of that sack of yours. Basically, be an eight year old, not an old man trapped in a boy’s body.”
“So, you want me to be like you?”
“Like me?” Robin laughed. “You could hardly achieve that degree of perfection. But still, you can use my example as a reference point for your long and complicated journey from wonder kid to normal black wizard.”
“So grandiose.”
“Oh, and stop lecturing other people! Particularly when they’re twice as old as you.”
***
The music stopped abruptly. That seemed to wake Mara from a deep sleep.
Blood was dripping onto the keys.
That time it wasn’t metaphorical blood. It was real.
And the professor was plucking the shards of his crushed glass out of his palm. Silently, without a trace of emotion on his poker face.
***
“Help…”
“Alex, help…”
“Sasha…”
“Alex…”
“Alex…”
“Doom…”
The little boy, chained by magic and unable to move, stood in the middle of a giant pentagram. Its twelve rays ended in stone altars, each with a human body on it.
They were all naked.
Cut up.
Disemboweled.
But still alive and able to speak.
And there was a man. The Professor in his white smock, a twisted ritual dagger carved with ancient runes and symbols in his hands.
He stepped slowly toward Alex.
“It ends. It all ends now.”
But Alex wasn’t looking at the Professor. He couldn’t take his eyes off the hands reaching out to him.
Jessie. Patrick. Irma. Ganesh. Parfen. Idma. Hayasie. Olaf. Helen. Jessica. Barry.
Robin and Anastasia.
All Follen students.
All his friends.
They were begging for his help, and he couldn’t move. He couldn’t break the chains of Professor Raewsky’s magic.
“It all ends now!”
Raewsky lifted his dagger over Alex’s head.
“Help…”
“Save us…”
“Help…
***
“…help…”
Blinking, Doom woke up from his daydreams.
Alcohol, recently getting out of jail, the rush of adrenaline, and the memorable date made for a nasty cocktail.
“Can I do anything for you, Professor?”
Alex turned to see Mara Glomebood holding out a couple bandages.
“Tomorrow, 8 a. m., Magic Range One.”
“Excuse me?”
“Anyone who’s late will earn themselves a curse.” Alex closed the piano lid, leaving a bloody handprint on it, and plodded toward the stairs.
He didn’t look back.
Chapter 40
“Are you sure he’s coming?” Travis was working on a Rubik’s cube in the stands of Magic Range One, which looked much like a regular university stadium. “Ten minutes after the time he set.”
“Hey, Travis, what do you want Mara to say?” Eleonora, a breathtaking beauty even in a sweat suit, came to loom the whole of her perfect figure over Travis. “You weren’t the one who slipped out of the dorm late last night to talk to Werewolf at the Schooner!”
“I was too busy working on my term paper for Magic Principl—”
“That thing isn’t due for two months! You were playing League of Legends 2 all night, so stop lying to me, you geek!”
“I won’t say anything about what you were doing all night.”
“You’re just jealous.”
“And you—”
“…had better all shut up if you don’t want me to curse you.”
The stands instantly fell silent. The students (four of the five, as Leo was too busy polishing his nails) turned toward the exit. Swaying slightly as he ascended the stairs and holding to his forehead a bottle filled (instead of the mineral water the label said was in it) with melting ice cubes, the crumpled-looking Black Magic Professor of First Magic University was walking toward them.
Alexander Dumsky in the flesh.
Unshaven, wearing a wrinkled shirt and half-loosened tie.
The friends had yet to see their supervisor looking like that in the four weeks they’d spent at the university.
“Did you drink all night?” Travis dropped his cube in surprise.
Bouncing across the concrete, the cube rolled up to the feet of the professor, whose face betrayed the pain every impact triggered in the space between his temples.
“I get your youthful curiosity about what other people do at night…”
“You’re less than four years older than us!”
The professor cringed at Eleonora’s indignant scream.
“…but no. I wasn’t drinking.”
The students were about to comment on that when the professor finished.
“I was bingeing. Bingeing like the dickens. I remember filling the Schooner’s cash register to the brim… Hell’s bells. But drinking… No, I only got started with that this morning.” The professor shook his bottle of water, grimacing once again. “Stupid hangover. Who invented them?”
“Are you going to run our first practice session like that?” Jing Wai asked calmly with his usual poker face. He was wearing his favorite black-and-yellow gym suit.
“Ah, Bruce Li. Good morning to you, too. To answer your question, I could train you little kittens high on amestris.”
“You’re on drugs?!”
“Oh, stop yelling,” the professor shouted back and groaned in pain. “No, I’m not. But enough talking. Head to the range.”
The students exchanged glances and started down to the practice field, which was actually somewhat different from regular stadiums. The perfectly trimmed lawns, the running tracks, and plenty of other things were the same, but they came with tall concrete walls enclosing it all. The walls were literally stuffed with magic crystals to absorb all the magic and make sure none of it leaked outside the stadium.
Not only could the crystals accumulate mana, they could also release it. The energy they produced, while unusable for wizards, was enough to power part of the campus.
A sustainable cycle.
“Leo, wake up,” Mara said as she clapped her friend on the shoulder.
The pink-haired (apparently in preparation for another photo shoot) idol in his gaudy suit gave a small start but went back to polishing his nails.
“Oh, Mara, you smell fantastic today. Dior? Chanel? Did you go see the stylist I recommended?”
“Leo. We’re on the range.”
“Range? Which diet is that, dear? I eat only healthy carbs.”
Smiling, Mara patted her friend’s hair and pulled him slightly by the hand. He followed obediently, still running the file over his nails.
Alex shook his head as he watched, though he stopped short in pain.
Sure, the pain was caused more by what he saw than by shaking his head. The buzzing in his skull made it feel like there were a dozen firemen at work trying to put out the fire in his… And all because he’d been unfortunate enough to bump into Lebenstein on his way to the range.
The dean had apparently misunderstood his request not to shout—he’d started squealing like a pig before Christmas.
Whatever. I’ll straighten things out with the fat one right after I finish up with these students.
“Interesting.” Alex be
nt over, regretting the move immediately, to pick up the Rubik’s cube. It looked like the usual child’s toy, but to assemble it, wizards had to use pure magic instead of their fingers. Excessive pressure could crack the cube. It was a great exercise for training fine magic motor skills.
Anastasia would have solved it in a flash. Robin would have ruined scores of them.
What surprised Doom as he straightened up, also regretting that move immediately, was that the Ibn Sina’s cube he was holding didn’t have a single crack, however tiny. That meant Travis What’s-his-last-name wasn’t just good at controlling his magic; he was perfect.
“Hey,” Alex called to the students ahead of him. “Think fast.”
He tossed the cube to Travis, who turned around to catch it. While in the air, the cube assembled itself, forming six perfect surfaces that were each a different color.
“How did you…?” The redhead turned the cube over in his hands, obviously struggling to come up with an explanation.
“Years of practice, boy,” Doom smirked.
Assembling the cube was the very first thing he’d learned at Follen School. Anyone who failed to assemble it in ten minutes with zero damage to any side got lashed.
With a literal lash.
At Raewsky’s (may his soul be devoured by hell’s demons) own hand.
Robin had just gotten used to the lashes.
But Doom didn’t want to.
Making his way down to the practice field behind his students, he leaned his back against a football goalpost. The European version of football was more popular in Atlantis than the American game.
“Professor, we’ll go activate the practice stands.” Eleonora headed toward the control panel, but Alex stopped her.
“Hey, blondie, don’t bother.”
“What did he call me?” she hissed to the other girl, apparently assuming that Alex couldn’t hear her.
And he really couldn’t. But he did know how to read lips.
“I think he said blondie.” Mara appeared equally astonished.
Is she a half-dwarf or a Thumbelina? Pampered kids. All of them.
“How are you going to test our abilities, Professor?” Jing squinted. “You haven’t visited any of our magic practice sessions, unlike the other supervisors. And I don’t think you’ve read any of our reports.”
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