My Path to Magic
( My Path to Magic - 1 )
Irina Syromyatnikova
Irina Syromyatnikova is one of Moscow’s finest writers of science fiction and fantasy. In Russia, “My Path to Magic” is a very popular series of three novels in the subgenre of technomagic. The first book of the same name is followed by “A Combat Alchemist” and “Benefits of the Dark Side.”
Against a backdrop of numerous fantasy novels, this book stands out as a wolfhound among lapdogs. It features intrigue, eclectic ambience, easily relatable characters, a detailed and convincingly pictured world, and a balanced, well-developed plot. The number of characters is not so large as to get lost in them, but not so few as to lose interest. The series stands out as a surprisingly strong technofantasy.
Irina Syromyatnikova
MY PATH TO MAGIC
Edited by Amanda Bosworth
Translated by Irina Lobatcheva, Vladislav Lobatchev
Illustrated by Nick Mingaleev
“Dark magicians often write memoirs. Usually we either boast of our incredible toughness or complain about repressions. (Have you ever attempted to repress a dark magician? Don’t even try!) In reality, our life is pretty boring and mundane. But who would write about its prose?”
— From the unfinished treatise “About Power”
Part 1. THE KING’S ISLAND
Chapter 1
Please do not think that I am making excuses; dark magicians are really very respectable people! And well provided for, by the way. Our world is full of odd, inexplicable powers and chilling phenomena that white wizards are helpless against. Commoners want safety and security that is unattainable without the dark magic power. Therefore, a dark magician is a highly paid and scarce specialist; in most counties, for every twenty and even thirty white enchanters, there is only one dark mage. Such was the consequence of an unwise policy of previous years that impaired that particular heritage in the nation. At least their descendants have realized it and repented. Therefore, the situation currently is like this: a genuine, professional dark magician is a very respectable man, but any self-taughts and amateurs are heavily persecuted. This is fair: while a white idiot’s mistake results in scorched cookies or hail instead of rain, a screwed up dark spell will trigger a disaster. Zombies, vampires, invisible beasts, ever-burning fires and an epidemic of lethargic sleep are some of the most innocuous consequences of our mistakes. That’s why we are all conscripted to serve in the army and almost entirely employed by the government; that’s why dark magic is often shamefully called “combat.” Our craft is not a good job for idiots!
Now, tell me how a student dark mage is supposed to develop his skills—not to mention some cash on the side—so needed by every college student?!
Well, in my first year I allowed myself to moonlight as a dishwasher and a waiter in a pub, but I gradually learned that wasting so much time to earn scraps was an unacceptable luxury. For the sake of a miserable couple hundred crowns in the present, I risked ruining my “bright” dark future. I had to find a job that for a couple hours a week would earn me the same money; otherwise, I would have looked forward to six years of penance, fasting, and abstinence. A grant from Ronald the Bright’s Fund covered tuition and housing, but the cash allowance from my dear family wasn’t enough for anything better than bread and milk in the big city where I lived. I could, perhaps, take a credit from the Gugentsolger’s Bank secured by my future earnings, as many students did, but that meant I would belong to these crooked penny-pinchers for a whole ten years after graduation from Redstone University of Higher Magic. Hands off me!
Of course, I meant to use my natural talent in the dark arts. I wasn’t going to call forth any filth or to flirt with the supernatural, but I could handle some magic. Small otherworldly phenomena were vulnerable to even the most ordinary rituals. I knew when to stop, never took up what I couldn’t manage, and even played it safe, relying on spontaneous curses: “donkey ears,” “loser’s tail,” “eviction of violent hobgoblins”—anything that did not carry deadly threat but made life difficult. (In our trade it was called “taking out the garbage”.) I charged little and did a thorough job, always taking into account the client’s wishes. Alas, it had ended stupidly. One bozo had fantasized that I cheated him out of his pitiful twenty crowns and reported me to the cops. He thought I tried to con him because I called him on the phone, imagine it! As it often happened with the commoners, he was convinced that all magicians were the same, and an image of a decent mage in his mind was that of an ordinary white magician. There were more of them, after all. All the white wizards actively dislike technology since it is unnatural, they think. I am dead serious! They prefer to drag themselves to a client through the whole city or send a courier. But the dark magicians coexist perfectly with any machinery: animated nonlife is right up our alley.
Mad with boredom, the cops had found me right away, but, fortunately, before I did anything. It’s not that easy to catch a dark mage with his pants down! I had never worried about a police ambush before, but my common sense has always directed me to carefully consider my surroundings before venturing into something. Thus, they had found no evidence. However, any possible conviction for illegal spellcasting would put an end to my future career, and I had no choice but to deny everything.
Despite my exuberant character, typical for a dark magician, I had never even been to the police before, much less to the Special Department of Magic Affairs. And yet it seemed to me that the government agency should have looked somewhat different. That is, not a filthy basement with furniture bolted to the floor and light bulbs hanging loose on the cords. However, there was no mistake: everyone who worked there sported a badge with the abbreviation NZAMIPS. As far as I knew, this designation wasn’t decrypted in any official document, letting your imagination fly. Both the magicians and the townsfolk called this office simply, “NZAMIPS”.
At first, as we walked through the corridors, everything looked fine and civilized: inspectors spoke with visitors, couriers scurried back and forth, typewriters snapped, potted ficus trees blossomed. But then we went down to the basement and walked into that room: muddy plaster with brown stains, crumbling tiles on a concrete floor, dim light bulb flickering on the ceiling, iron table against the far wall and no chairs. This place had the refined atmosphere of the times when people could be burned alive just on a suspicion of being a magician. I felt as if I had been dunked into a tub of cold water.
Wasting no time, my convoy pushed me to the center of the room and handcuffed me to a chain hanging from the ceiling. Dear mother! There was a real iron chain with magic bracelets. I had seen such in a movie before. No, this couldn’t be real; I was sleeping.
The door had creaked nastily, and a new character showed up.
The new policeman was an ordinary man, not a magician, but with such a build that simply glancing at him made me uneasy. ‘That’s why all the books depict wizards as weaklings!’ whirled in my mind.
“Well, punk, are you gonna squeal?” this cross of a goblin and a steam train smiled sinisterly at me, rubbing his hairy paws.
Typically, the dark magicians are hostile, but even our militancy has some limit. In abject fear, I forgot everything that I was intending to say.
“Didn’t do anything!” I voiced my last argument.
In half of the cases, problems that people bring to magicians are purely of a psychological nature. A soulful conversation and an aromatic candle are usually enough to cure their woes. No wonder that a lot of university courses have nothing to do with magic! Among my clients there were no mages, so the cops couldn’t prove the fact of my witchcraft.
I just was not sure anymore that they needed any proof.
The investigator slammed his fist on the table, and it became clear to me why the table was made of iron.
“Don’t try to lie to me! I see right through you!”
He grabbed me by the shirt and lifted me off the floor.
“Confess!”
It’s been a long time since someone dared to touch me without my permission—to a dark magician that was an invitation to fight. Was it any other guy, I would slam his face with my fists regardless of his body size. Even with my hands tied up, I would have chewed off his nose. But not with that cop! Everyone knew the gruesome nature of the dark magicians; no one would believe that I was not at fault. I tried to swallow a curse rushing from my tongue and smother the flames of my Source. To cast a spell on the policeman would be exactly the opposite of what I needed at the moment. Even not being a full-fledged mage, I would have chopped this idiot up like wood.
Meanwhile, it seemed the goblin had determined to commit suicide: he kept shaking me like a ragdoll and then leaned back and swung his hefty fist, aiming at my stomach. Until the very last moment, I had not believed he would hit me. In our modern, humane world, would our police really beat up a minor?! I hadn’t been prepared for that—that’s why my wheeze sounded especially pathetic.
What had started then was a nightmare: a sacred ordinance called by the dark mages the Empowerment and not similar at all to the Initiation of the white magicians. The difference between them is fundamental: the whites are forced to beg and flirt with their Source to extract its Power and not to frighten it; but our Source itself will scare off, if not drain, anyone. Under normal circumstances, the Empowerment is a long process, the essence of which is carefully concealed from the novices. The procedure requires the presence and assistance of several recognized masters to reduce the possibility of deadly outcomes. I, however, got smacked into this with no safeguards.
For a moment, a dark flame had blinded me, darting to my throat like a hot wave, trying to take away my senses and willpower. It was worse than being in front of a judge: my own Power was ready to crush and subdue me. It was impossible to be prepared for this, as such readiness could not be developed even with time and practice; the Empowerment was a moment of revelation, after which you either remained yourself or ceased to exist. And in that particular case two lives were at stake: a tiny protuberance of the Power escaped from my control would have transmuted the foolish cop into a skeleton. There was no time left for deliberation. Waiting for instructions (from whom?) was senseless; I had to cling to the raging Power with all my claws and teeth and tear, tear, tear… And you know what? That despicable thing was doing the same to me. For a few minutes we were like two grappling cats, my yin to its yang, and then, with an incredible effort of will, in the existence of which I had not believed before, I managed to plug and tame that flow and emerge on its surface, under the blinding light of the bulb.
The attack had passed as quickly as it had begun.
The Source hid somewhere inside me like a dog who had soiled the floor. To teach it to serve me and give me its “paw” in submission required long and hard work, but the process had been initiated. Not daring to believe in my salvation, I cautiously took a deep breath. And then my gaze fell upon the cop, who looked me in the eye with a suspicious gleam of intelligence.
I am a magician, and for the magicians the psychic shocks are worse than physical trauma. The effort that was required to complete the ritual had bottomed out my reserves. All of these terrible things: the walls, the light bulb on the cord, his face—came together in my brain, magnified as if by a lens; I gasped and fell unconscious. The last thing left in my mind was the cursing cop trying to keep me upright.
I do not know for how long I was passed out, but probably for quite a while; by the time I opened my eyes, there were more people milling about. Besides the goblin, I saw a young officer (a dark magician, if my senses are correct), and an elderly white mage with a stethoscope on his chest. On the faces of all three I read a purely medical interest.
“How are you feeling, young man?” That was the old guy. I mumbled in reply something that satisfied him. “The first acquaintance was a success!”
For some strange reason, the attitude toward me had changed dramatically. Even the goblin-like cop hadn’t yelled, instead grunting almost kindly.
The next thing that I remembered was a conversation with a pretty woman officer in a sunny and spacious room. Honestly, it would be a stretch to call it a conversation; she gave me a long, heartfelt lecture about the dangers of careless witchcraft, occasionally slipping under my nose disgusting photos from the police files to illustrate her thesis. What she said I knew already in theory and would have preferred to avoid looking at human stumps and giblets, but I did not want to open a lengthy discussion. I nodded and agreed with everything.
Perhaps the shock of clashing with the prose of life added some credibility to my words; ultimately, they believed in my virtue. They put me in a file, warned me that I would be under the watch, threatened to call my dean’s office, and finally kicked me out, not caring how I’d get home in such condition.
“Breathe! It will only make you stronger!” goblin laughed. “Join us after graduation—General Miklom will always find a job for a brave kid.”
At this point, I was caught up in revelation: I realized that I would never, ever work for the police.
Making my way to the exit of the building, I ran into the stoolie, my backstabbing client. The guy was still giving his testimony, but, seeing me, he became agitated and waved his hand.
“I understand,” he began briskly, “you cannot help me today, but, perhaps, on Thursday…”
Apparently, he thought that after all that had happened I would still work for him. Truly, the sweet simplicity is worse than witchcraft.
“I do not understand what you are talking about,” I muttered and stumbled away.
Let him deal with the “evil eye” by himself! He will be very fortunate if the “cleaning” service charges him less than two hundred crowns.
Passing through the gleaming glass and copper of the main entrance of the police department, I still could not fully comprehend my luck. My imagination turned window designs into camouflaged jail mesh, and every move behind them betrayed a spying gaze on me. An arch over the courtyard resembled an entrance to a tomb. Having moved away from the police building to a safe distance, I turned into a small park and sat on the nearest bench, trying to put my jumbled feelings in order. The evening had not yet come; from the moment I had entered the client’s apartment, four hours had elapsed at most.
But it sure felt like a lifetime had passed.
Thoughts slowly caught up with my stupid head.
Apparently, there wasn’t going to be a court trial. Not that I did not understand what I was doing (dark magicians start learning the law while still in high school), but I sincerely believed that I could afford some flexibility in interpretation of the legislation by taking precautionary measures. So typical—how many times do we have to hear that the matches are not toys before we realize that the rule applies to us as well?
“This world does not belong to magicians, either white or dark,” I recalled the words of Uncle Gordon (to tell the truth, he was not quite my uncle, but I digress). “Do you think there have not been enough wiseasses trying to prove otherwise?”
Yes, Uncle, there have been quite a lot of them, and it isn’t by chance that they were all idiots. Any magic, especially white, doesn’t make new things; its essence is an illusion. It won’t turn lead into gold or make bread out of sand or wine out of water. Bread, wine, and gold for magicians are made by real people, so you should never anger them—you cannot afford it (and this isn’t just some theory, it’s a verifiable fact)!
But what to do with our innate nature, our character traits that have long become a byword? For twenty years you learn the rules, but once your mentors are done with you, you immediately forget them and
go back to level zero. It’s sad to admit, but dark magicians are more receptive to learning lessons through getting their ass kicked, and I was no exception to the rule. I guessed I should be grateful to the cops: they slapped my wrists right on time, halting the development of pathological inclinations in my character.
The only confusing moment left was behavior of the goblin-like officer (of course, he was not an actual victim of a secondary magic mutation, but a striking similarity to a goblin in appearance was there). What did he really want from me, and why did he give up? It was unlikely that my fainting had caused him to stop; if he feared accusations of police brutality, he would not have called witnesses while I lay unconscious. Personal prejudice against dark magicians? Then NZAMIPS wouldn’t keep him—if he were not expelled by coworkers, then customers would beat him up for sure. But do I really care for the issues that cops might have?
My tamed Source was devotedly licking my wounds, while I quietly enjoyed the happy ending. Only the dark magicians are able to relax while sitting on a busy intersection. All the white mages familiar to me were obsessed with face-to-face contacts and personal space and could loosen up only in tranquil surroundings. But to me, the impersonal, mechanical movement of the masses had a more profound calming effect. The never-ending city noise I perceived as music.
Carthorses pulling a covered wagon emblazoned with the logo of a famous transportation company sullenly marched along the pavement. The huge beasts, almost three meters at the withers, were bred by magic and controlled by it. An abundance of “horse power” was typical for Redstone. For those who liked speed and weren’t burdened with luggage, a merry tram rang along the rails. A rumbling limousine propelled by an “alcoholic’s dream” engine had crossed the intersection. I had sniffed after it, hoping to catch a familiar scent of spirits, and enviously watched the car passing by. No comparison with the tram! I had great respect only for the steam engines, but within the city boundaries the trains were not allowed: too many university students were white magicians, for whom a clash with a hissing and steaming iron horse caused severe stress and nervous disorders. Give them any authority, and they would make all of us change back to horses! The municipality was very proud of the fact that all of the power plants had been relocated to the suburbs.
My Path to Magic mptm-1 Page 1
