The Fixer Of God's Ways (retail)

by Irina Syromyatnikova

  And now, instead of staying at home and listening to goldfinches, the sleepy curator - along with his chief - waited at the ferry terminal for his charge. The sailing was delayed. The owners of the bright market booths began looking in the sky - they sensed an approaching storm. It was a normal weekend morning: the seaside market was full of townsfolk, donkeys roared, salesmen shouted, freshly caught fish glistened, colorful fruits towered in pyramids, juicy shrimp sizzled on open braziers, their smoke mingling with the aroma of baked bread and the iodine odor of seaweed into a perpetual cocktail.

  The ferry rounded the cape, positioned ahead of the cloud front. Sellers and greeters moved to the pier, flowing around the only limo in town - the vehicle belonged to the senior coordinator of the region. Cars weren't popular here: their engines easily overheated, and brakes often failed on steep slopes.

  Matthew shuddered at the thought that someday alchemists would create a jalopy suitable for the local conditions. Knowing the tourists' love for expensive holiday delights, he had already pictured all of Tanur hammered with metallic monsters. So far, residents of the Cape of Tanur successfully avoided vehicles due to the compactness of the town; for longer distances they preferred a commuter ferry to the coastal tract - a land route to the Golden Harbor.

  The curator was mentally prepared for the meeting. To become friends with a new magician in the presence of another - even more so, the host of the region - was a task not suited for an amateur. Matthew thought he would not let the senior coordinator humiliate the novice. The presence of a witness - the curator - should make them observe proprieties, but he wasn't sure of the sanity of both magicians.

  Matthew had worked with retrospective animators before, and he didn't notice any special meanness in them, especially in comparison with the army mages. However, Mr. Axel singled out this guy and called him a necromancer, while the boss scornfully nicknamed necromancers from his own forensic department "puppeteers".

  Suddenly, the old sorcerer stopped impatiently fiddling with his vest, as if he suddenly turned to stone. Matthew looked around stealthily - the ferry had already docked, and the dark magician was to disembark first. The curator noticed that the noise on the wharf subsided. And then he understood why Mr. Axel's face flashed.

  A boy of an absolutely incredible appearance walked down the gangplank: he wore field army pants and boots, an oversized shirt with the inscription "I am an Inquisitor!" and a leather cap on top of his orange-red hair. People on the pier tried to keep away from the weird young man.

  "Motherf*r!" Matthew's boss whispered.

  Mr. Axel twitched to run away from his guest, but then he forced himself to stay and face this challenge.

  The boy came up to them. "Hello! How are you doing?" he raised his cap, greeting them. Matthew recalled his teenage niece, who was fond of strange hair styles and colors, but she'd never been able to achieve such a crying mess.

  "Good day, Master Tangor," the old sorcerer submitted. "Where is your dog?"

  "They'll bring him any moment," the young scarecrow snidely grinned.

  A pair of sailors disembarked a shaggy stuffed dog. Longshoremen loaded the boy's luggage into the limousine without a smile or a single oblique glance at the coordinator; they were not suicidal - locals knew Mr. Axel's face. Matthew took the driver's place, his boss took the passenger side, and the visitor climbed into the back seat, in every possible way showing that one more person would not fit there. His stuffed animal stuck its snotty nose between the front seats and sniffed interestedly.

  'My God, this doormat can sniff!' Matthew was stunned. The curator hadn't realized yet that it was a zombie; if he had, he would have run away to Ho-Carg even under the threat of being fired. He drove the car onto a steep serpentine road, feeling with his back that townsfolk disapprovingly shook their heads in his direction and discussed the incident.

  'I'll pretend that everything is okay; a dark magician with a "nest" on his head is nothing. Who knows - maybe it's a new fashion in the capital?!' Matthew's desire to avoid trouble was so great that the curator convinced himself of the banality of the event. Yeah, red-haired dark magicians were there at every turn! "Welcome to Tanur, sir," he purred amiably to the boy. "Would you like me to take you to the hotel of your choice, or you'd rather use the NZAMIPS guesthouse? The guesthouse is comfortable and totally free!"

  "Free is good," the young magician nodded. He spoke with a drawling northerner's pronunciation and a barely noticeable, but familiar, accent. Matthew interpreted his words as consent and turned to the guesthouse. The curator was eager to know whether Tangor was a NZAMIPS employee. If he wasn't, the coordinator would be guilty of misuse of ministry funds.

  "We've taken the liberty of bringing into your suite a set of chemicals and an extra bath," Mr. Axel had personally chosen the potions for the necromancer. "Let the maid know when you want to be rid of the bath's contents." The senior coordinator did not want him to drain the contaminated water into the municipal sewer.

  "Great!" the young man came to life. "Do they serve free food, too?"

  "Only breakfast," Matthew sighed. "But you can order meals from nearby restaurants." All of them in Tanur were within the field of vision. "Across from your hotel there is a pub, Northern Star. They cook excellent fish."

  "No, thank you, no more northern stars for me," Tangor grinned.

  The curator finally recognized his accent. The most difficult case in Matthew's practice was an ordinary "cleaner" from Krauhard. Not that the "cleaner" had an especially difficult personality or filthy habits; he just did not know about the existence of other points of view, and he wasn't interested in them.

  'If I had known where the young talent came from, I would have rejected this job under any pretense!' But now it was too late to go back on his word; the boss would not forgive his subordinate such a trick.

  "We'll discuss the business side of your visit tomorrow in my office. The car will pick you up at ten a.m.," Mr. Axel said in a sepulchral voice.

  "Fine!" the young man generously allowed.

  Check in at the guesthouse took a quarter-hour and went surprisingly smoothly. Despite his shocking appearance, the boy didn't mind filling out the necessary forms, and he indulgently tolerated the stupid questions of the porter.

  At this time the senior coordinator allowed himself to retreat. Matthew was supposed to stay with Tangor in order to strengthen their relationships, but the boss wanted his help.

  "He has neither shame, nor heart!" Axel muttered enviously, walking out into the street.

  The senior coordinator himself loved to shock people but, caring for his social image, he couldn't afford such disrespect for the public's opinion. What Matthew witnessed today was a well-crafted psychological attack on Mr. Axel, which landed right on target. The senior coordinator was crushed. Of course, later he would figure out how to nullify the advantage achieved by the boy, but today he felt deeply insulted. The curator wondered which of the empaths he knew could demonstrate the same masterly and merciless knowledge of the dark nature as the young man; he admitted that nobody fit that description.

  Matthew doubted that the boy would cleverly use his preponderance; most likely, the two darks would come to a magical feast fight, which they proudly called a duel. "The boy will be a tough nut to crack," the curator sighed.

  The senior coordinator hissed something obscene in the old Katahon language and climbed into his limo, in the front seat again, though usually he preferred to take the back seat. This detail said a lot to the curator: his boss disdained even the place where his foe sat. No one managed to annoy the old sorcerer that much before!

  Matthew spent the entire evening re-reading manuscripts on the psychology of the dark character. Researchers agreed that owners of the dark Source acquired the ability to think critically after they had reached the age of a hundred years old. Youngsters under thirty were supposed to be understandable, predictable, and manageable. There were exceptions to the rule: near-death life experience could accel
erate their maturation…

  'I'll submit a request for his profile tomorrow. Perhaps, a talent in retrospective animation accelerated his development. Or, maybe I look for a problem where there is none, and the boy just likes this fashion style!'

  But tomorrow morning proved that the youngster deliberately dressed up to insult the senior coordinator in public. When Tangor came down to the limousine, he looked like a role model of an intelligent dark magician: an expensive black suit, polished shoes, trousers with ironed arrows, and a silk shirt in fashionable blue-gray stripes. His tie was fastened with a gold pin. Surely, his hair wasn't red. If somebody had said to the curator that this guy was the same tattered scarecrow in army boots, he wouldn't have believed it.

  Mr. Axel had chosen the win-win tactic for communications with the boy: he held himself with dignity. The senior coordinator welcomed the guest, keeping all possible ceremonies and procedures acknowledged among the dark. Matthew understood that the old sorcerer would stubbornly demonstrate to the impudent youngster how the REAL magicians behaved. By the way, the coordinator never treated his subordinates like that.

  Tangor behaved respectfully, as befitted a visitor who invaded alien territory: he kept his hands in plain sight and carefully averted his eyes.

  The curator tried to imagine the future of the magician, who was full of youthful energy and devoid of youthful mistakes - a fearless creature, not acknowledging conventions, easily taking on any new roles and just as easily throwing them off. What passions and vices would he be guided by? Especially when he came into full force? 'And he'll smoke the sky for at least another three hundred years,' Matthew said to himself and became horrified.

  Chapter 24

  I managed to disgrace Axel in front of his people, and my suffering in Finkaun was avenged a hundredfold. I would even have walked naked on the street to see how the old bastard's eyes became glassy, I swear!

  After checking in, I washed the red color from my hair and put away my military uniform in a suitcase. Tomorrow locals would forget about me, but they would remember that a respectful representative of the government, noble magician Mr. Axel, welcomed a strange guest. I would depart soon, but he would stay… Axel was aware of the consequences of my diversion, but treated me nicely. Mr. Senior Coordinator gave me a list with the locations of strange ancient objects (which included Undegar's mine, where we met a golem) and permission to work in his private archives.

  "Perhaps you'll figure out something, but in my opinion, without The Word about the King, you won't get the full picture," Axel was skeptical.

  I wondered why all senior magicians were fixated on that book. Personally, I did not think that The Word had any relationship to The Liturgy of the Light. The book talked about the origin of the supernatural. What could it have in common with the sect of half-witted white mages? If artisans had really known what they were doing, the otherworldly would have been finished off long ago.

  Purely out of respect for the seniors, I decided to familiarize myself with Uncle Gordon's treasure and called Suesson on the same day. To my luck, I caught Quarters in Kvayfer's office.

  "Ron, do me a favor: find a flat metal case with a book in my garage, behind the shelves, on the right, in a box with a brass scrap, and mail it to me along with the case."

  "No problem. Dictate your address!"

  "Be careful. I keep containers with enchanted sand there. Please do not tip them over, I beg you!" The untamed remains of the golem would make a circus of their life, if let loose.

  As I dictated my address, Quarters enviously sighed (the blissful Southern Coast!). I prepared to patiently wait for the parcel to arrive - it should take about three weeks. Meanwhile, I could rummage through Axel's library.

  Every day I went to the old mage to work. No, not to NZAMIPS; Axel kept his valuable assets at home. His house on the outskirts of the Cape of Tanur was vast and sturdy; it had massive old-fashioned furniture, a wide veranda, and steep stairs leading to a secluded bay. His home was inaccessible to thieves and otherworldly.

  Axel did not guide my search, and I was thankful to him for that. I bought a shabby school globe (the local bookshop did not have a map of suitable scale) and began to mark the locations of the ancient artifact. The most famous was King's Island, then Sa-Orio's inverse pyramids and Kashtadar's necropolis, and the least known were wells under the thawing multi-foot layer of ice on the Northern Islands. Last on the list was a tomb in Polisant mound, discovered literally this spring. A note handwritten by Axel was added to the description of the tomb: "From the words of Alex Clements, an archeologist and a white mage, there was a metal door at the bottom of the well; bugs from the tomb attacked the expedition." I didn't know about Alex's involvement; I thought he was hiding from me.

  I wondered why the old mage collected all this stuff…Perhaps, my new curator, assigned to me by Axel, could satisfy my curiosity.

  Matthew Rayhan was a solid gentleman in clean and ironed attire; he met me with impeccable politeness at the door of the guesthouse and unobtrusively followed me for the whole day, patiently enduring my questions. In his eyes I read, "Why am I being punished? Why me?" which I ignored. It was his job to keep my spirits high, not vice versa. The presence of a harmless companion suited me well, especially if I could learn from him about Axel.

  "How long have you known your senior coordinator?" I threw the bait.

  "All my life," Mr. Rayhan sighed sadly.

  "How easy is he to deal with?"

  "The senior coordinator is so busy that he usually has no time to deal with me," the curator smiled softly.

  Either they didn't get along well or didn't meet at work. Well, I would act impromptu.

  In the evening, when Axel stopped by his archive to make sure once again that I didn't steal anything from his precious collection, he found me flipping through the most exotic of his books, World Description by Itoran Vabbe, handwritten with honey-colored ink on bluish-gray parchment.

  "You have an outstanding collection," I told him absolutely frankly. "Why are these books not widely published? So many questions would have been answered at once!"

  "Can you read the book?" the old man raised his eyebrows.

  "Of course!"

  "I wasn't aware that they taught Philam's runes at the university now."

  I held back a patronizing smile and generously explained to him my method of extracting meaning from the books - with Rustle's help. The language of the book had no significance for the monster; the more ancient the text, the greater the chance that the monster had been in contact with its author. Nothing improves relationships between dark mages better than a voluntarily rendered trust.

  "Never heard of such a method," the magician shook his head. "What did the monster demand in return?"

  "No idea. I didn't ask him." Rustle stopped counting every small favor he did for me, and we co-existed in perfect harmony. But I stayed vigilant, anyway.

  "You've been enormously lucky," Axel grunted.

  I pretended not to hear. "Why do you need all these books? Especially in unknown languages."

  "Your life can make strange turns," Axel seated himself in a chair, and I viewed it as a good sign. "You are too young to fully understand it. There are times when even army mages have doubts. I saw villages turned into cemeteries in one night. I've been to completely lifeless valleys, where even worms didn't survive. Times might come when people will be drawn to you as their last hope, and you won't know how to help…We must be ready for anything!"

  "It's my turn to ask now: why are you doing this search? At your age, I was interested only in drinks and entertainment," Axel's voice acquired a grumbling tone.

  Presumably, it was before the time when my grandfather forced him to respect the law.

  "They nearly killed me twice," I reminded. "They deprived me of my father's care and livelihood. They destroyed my property, after all!"

  "If our enemies did not exist, we would have to hire them for money," the old mage chuckled. "Don't
you see: what happened to you was for your benefit?"

  I shrugged, "It was my merit, not theirs. And next time they might be luckier. Why do they still exist?"

  "We do our best. The sect has lost many people in the last couple of years. Though, some managed to escape…" the coordinator chuckled.

  "As long as they possess the artifact, even a handful of them can reach their goal."

  "And what will happen then?" Axel asked.

  "That's what I'm trying to figure out."

  "God help you," Axel stood up. "You are a smart guy, you'll cope. If your dad had listened to the seniors, he would have succeeded, too."

  "He was short of time!" I took his words as an insult.

  "Believe me, more time wouldn't have helped him," the old man spoke thoughtfully. "When he settled in Finkaun, things went upside down. If mysteries can be solved just by reading ancient treatises, we wouldn't be living in such a mess." Axel sadly looked at me and left the room.

  And I returned to the World Description. That's how we lived.

  I searched for books with any hint of White Halak and ancient rituals. With a mute reproach Axel leveled off unevenly standing books (even the ones that I hadn't touched) at the end of each day.

  The Southern Coast helped me to completely recover. What could heal your nerves better than the spectacle of an infinite space of salt water, rhythmically rolling its waves on the shore; open sky, with clouds constantly swirling into obscure figures; fresh and cheap seafood; and fascinating reading? I lived a problem-free life. A walk from the guesthouse to Axel's home no longer made me breathless or sweaty. The curator, sighing sadly, always trudged after me.

  The package from Suesson arrived in twenty-five days. Diligent Quarters inserted the metal case with the Word into a bigger metal box, so the relic book made it to my place in perfect condition. The book had less than fifty pages. I was skeptical that the origin of the supernatural could be described on fifty pages. I took a day off at Axel's archives, made myself comfortable, and opened The Word about the King. Instantly, the centuries separating me from the author disappeared.