It was difficult to imagine something worse than Rustle, except for a gang of ghouls: the latter could chase you even in the day time. Had Pierre entered the basement, Rustle would have marked him and, perhaps, let him go the first time. But after a few days the victim would have experienced an unbearable urge to come back and, preferably, not alone. Children were particularly susceptible: there were times when the first victim of the monster’s hug came back accompanied by ten to fifteen people—friends, acquaintances, parents. In contrast to the predatory echo, Rustle was a mobile creature, which meant that it could try to catch us in the darkness.
“Are we going back to the base camp?” Gerick inquired.
“No!” Mr. Smith interrupted him. “We’ll go directly to the Trunk Bay.”
Surely, they suspected Rustle. Moreover, quite active Rustle, because they didn’t notice the otherworldly on their first trip, but it was present now. Suspicion of possible contact with the creature was enough to hold us in the Trunk Bay for a month—there was a local NZAMIPS’ center and a special hospital for victims of otherworldly creatures. For those victims who were still alive, of course.
“Will the quarantine days be paid for, sir?” Uncle took a businesslike tack. “My nephew and I are surely clean.”
“Are you going to argue with NZAMIPS’ officers, Mr. Ferro?” Mr. Smith narrowed his eyes.
Uncle Gordon shrugged. Shit, that was it for my salary! We will be paid, at best, for one week. Well, at least I had seen the King’s Island; not many could boast that. The ship passed by the prison wharf, hanging its flags and giving a signal, but nobody appeared on the shore. Mr. Smith ordered the ship to slow down and climbed to the signal mast to examine the camp with binoculars.
“It looks like we have to go there, sir!” Uncle approached Mr. Smith while the latter came down. “They should hear us by now.”
Smith stared intently at the pier.
“A couple of hours, that’s all we have, sir,” Uncle nagged.
“I know! You’ll go with me.”
Their eyes met. The issues of hierarchy were left behind, disagreement forgotten—they had a common enemy now, and that reconciled dark magicians better than any preaching.
“Let’s take my nephew—his eyes are better than mine!” Uncle offered generously.
I wasn’t particularly happy about his suggestion, but did not object; they could use an extra pair of hands, and people insensitive to dark magic should not go there. Mr. Smith was giving the final instructions: “Whoever tries to follow us should be tied up and watched after—very likely, he is infected. Do not approach the bank, even if I myself call to you. On our way back to the ship, call us; if we don’t answer, do not let us come close, just go to the open sea. Do not wait till sunset. Go to the Trunk Bay and ask for help.”
The captain nodded hard, while Uncle Gordon filled large flasks with sea water. It is salt, not silver, that is most effective against otherworldly entities of low caliber, while the stronger ones are basically immune to common rituals with salt.
We approached the shore at the slowest speed. Uncle steered and Mr. Smith looked for all sorts of threats on land. As a result, it was me who noticed a strange something at the moorage. Something floundered about in the water. A corpse? Uncle brought the boat almost to the shore, where the surf hissed on the boulders, and a strange white object rolled and pitched in the waves. Mr. Smith sorted it out at once and cursed; it was Alex, alive but nearly frozen to death. We dragged the poor guy into the boat (he could not move) and tried to bring him back to life. One look was enough to realize that he was not just swimming. Alex got into the water fully dressed, even in his shoes, though one sleeve of his shirt was practically absent. He had a long white scratch on his cheek. That couldn’t be from a fight; these weren’t the type of people to brawl. Alex wasn’t in a condition to explain the reasons for his grievous state; he was desperately shaking and had managed to bite his lips until bleeding. He kept pointing in the direction of the prison and moving his hands up and down.
“The tower?” Uncle guessed.
The white mage nodded, though it looked more like a convulsion.
“Follow me!” Mr. Smith jumped onto the dock.
I gave my jacket to Alex, shouting, “Stay here! Do not go ashore; if we show up, call us. If we do not come back until sunset, go to the ship, but first call them, too. They are all on alert now.”
The expedition camp was suspiciously quiet: no one walked, no one talked. The generator stalled again, which implied something serious. Keeping the jars of saltwater ready and trying to stay away from windows and doorways, we advanced into the prison, where sounds of scuffling could be heard distinctly.
The water tower was the only structure that the prison’s architects decided to leave as it was, probably because they were not going to live there. Actually, that thing should have been called “a water tower pond”: the tower wasn’t stuck in the middle of the yard but was adjoined to the rock; above the construction there was a huge reservoir, half of which rested on man-made supports, and another half on the rock. The reservoir was filled with streams flowing down from the mountains after rain—the only source of water on the island. If the developers had limited themselves to a plain dam, their descendants would have had no problems, but the former owners wanted to squeeze in a distribution system with pipes and valves. That was why the ancient foundation was raised and fortified, and the tower itself was tightly packed with stairs and bridging. No space left for windows, and oil lanterns were the only source of light inside. The place turned into a cozy, dark room, as though specifically designed for otherworldly creatures. At the time of the expedition’s arrival, the tower had stayed unlocked for over a hundred years, and any protective or ward-off spells had long worn down.
Near the entrance to the water tower we found a crowd of people: the guard that remained in the camp, the cook, and the student, whose name I could not remember. Mrs. Clements did not let them go inside, clinging to the door with a dead man’s grip. The ensorcelled people were not smart enough to grab her by the arms or to bend down and get past; they stupidly pushed and impeded one another. Still, there were three of them, and she was alone.
“Hold on, Rina,” Mr. Smith gasped.
“It’s Rustle, and it’s everywhere!” she croaked in response.
Uncle popped open a flask and splashed into the darkness. We heard a sound resembling rustle of many dry, falling leaves; a lantern above the door flashed brighter, and the attack of the enchanted people subsided.
“Grab them!” Mr. Smith ordered and jumped first, pulling out from the heap a burly security guard and wringing his hands behind his back. I focused on the cook—he was shorter.
Mrs. Clements, dirty and tired, followed us.
“I thought it was the end,” she groaned. “They were dragging me with them!”
“When had it found time to seize so many?” Uncle puffed (the student he dealt with began to resist). “We’ve been here for only a week.”
“Knuckleheads!” Mr. Smith hissed through his teeth. “I told you, you should have hired only local workers for the expedition, or the dark mages, but not these donkeys!”
Yes, in Krauhard only a small child could fall prey to Rustle’s charm.
“Arguing now is pointless,” Mrs. Clements sighed. “The caretaker disappeared before our arrival. In this place, Rustle’s activity grows stronger than elsewhere; this should have been taken into account.”
“Here is your caretaker!” Uncle announced in a cheerful voice.
On the shore, between us and the dock, stood a man, dead by all indications. The lower half of his face was missing completely; the wound had had time to dry out and turn black, and there was no fresh blood left in him. Softened tissues melted off the bone, kept in place by the skin only. As such, the body could only be preserved on the King’s Island—the place was almost sterile. For some reason, I did not want to know what this corpse was capable of.
Mr. Smith s
queezed the guard’s neck and lowered the unconscious man to the ground, “Rina, watch him!”
The dark magician stepped forward, blocking the dead man’s way; threads invisible to the naked eye danced around his hands, a whole lace of black silk. There it was, real magic! When the weaving had been done, Mr. Smith threw it forward, as if it were a catching net. The body of the deceased caretaker was instantly fettered with black strands and began to sink. Nothing could keep it upright, the bones broke through the skin, and the smelly, bubbling mess plopped to the ground.
“Move, move, move,” Mr. Smith muttered, turning to the guard again.
There was no need to persuade us. I enjoyed the spectacle of the dark magician performing enchantment. The group of people, enchanted by Rustle, had slightly sobered up, so it did not take much time to tie their hands and place them on the boat. The sun had touched the water by the time the ship picked us up, and the King’s Island sank into a deep shadow. It was clear to all that the expedition had come to the end.
Perhaps, those who had bet on the deceased King were right—he really knew how to stand up for himself.
We were leaving the accursed island, having lost no one, but having gained nothing (except for the valuable life experience, of course). Expeditioners, affected by Rustle, were tightly bound and locked in the hold, while the ship’s crew was making warning signs against us. Uncle looked like he had single-handedly saved all of us and triumphed over the King himself. Mrs. Clements cried on the shoulder of Mr. Smith for the rest of the trip to the Trunk Bay (six hours at full speed). He stroked her hair and whispered in her ear something soft and comforting. I did not dare to ask about their relationship; there were questions that a dark magician would not hesitate to give a box on the ears for.
Chapter 6
Early the next morning, our ship entered the Trunk Bay; signal flags hung off the mast, and a dull, monotonous warning bell, ringing loudly from the ship, carried the plague alarm. The guard towers winked with lights through the morning fog, and at the entrance to the channel we were met by the iron gates that quickly reminded me of Capetower, though the gates were opened this time. Our captain was nervous, Mr. Smith impatiently tapped on the rail, and it took a good half hour for the quarantine staff to wake up, notice us, and point to a berth for mooring the ship.
Contrary to our expectations, the expedition’s appearance did not make a sensation in the Trunk Bay.
The head of the quarantine service and concurrently the chief of the local NZAMIPS’ office took news of the death of the prison’s caretaker with gloomy fatalism, “We were telling him: ‘Get out of there while your head is still on your shoulders,’ and his response always was: ‘Everything is under control, everything is under control!’”
The chief of NZAMIPS, Mr. Harlik, was a longtime friend of Uncle Gordon and a man of good sense, so in the quarantine zone we were immediately enlisted into the conditionally healthy and employed as civilian nursing assistants. Surprisingly, the staff had almost no dark magicians. Chief Harlik, chronically suffering from misunderstandings around there, poured his heart out to us, inviting for tea every evening.
“Will you be expelling Rustle?”
“Where would I find it now? This abomination preys on people and then goes into hiding at once. No, I will collect the caretaker’s remains and conserve the building; now, finally, the capitol authorities won’t argue with that.”
“How had people lived there before?” I wondered.
“Before… three years ago our hospital was nearly closed—no patients; nowadays we are building a new one. Not enough beds. Before, we were barely surviving. Now, we live.”
It was difficult to argue with Chief Harlik—he knew too much about everything.
For me, twenty-eight days at the Trunk Bay was a real vacation: full board, comfortable rooms, and a rich cultural program. Chief Harlik was an expert in Krauhard’s folklore and a very sociable man—a rarity among the dark. He willingly offered his insights on everyday happenings, did not ask any questions about my training with the Source under the guidance of Uncle Gordon, and taught me basic expelling rituals (just in case). How simple could life be when your superiors were of your own kind!
I wrote a letter to Mom, delighting her with the news that the work on the King’s Island was over, and complaining that we would have to wait a bit for the transport to go home (she did not need to know about the quarantine). Meanwhile, my theoretical knowledge of the otherworldly was enriched with practical content: doctors began inviting us for reception of new patients and suppression of the most violent—only the dark magicians were able to react properly and quickly enough to the attacks of the consciousnesses, plagued by the otherworldly. I dealt with children: many, many children with smiles, jerky movements, and unpredictable mood swings. In each of my little patients I seemed to see Lyuchik, and soon I clearly understood that my white family must move out of Krauhard.
“The kids come from the Brand’s Valley,” Chief Harlik explained. ” A town with a lot of foreigners sprang up there in the last ten years. Now the rules of dealing with the supernatural are taught in schools as the main subject; I would have started teaching them even earlier, but parents are against it—a child’s psyche is unstable and all that stuff. So now children are being taken to us, while their parents aren’t; they die on spot because they don’t know the rules half as well as their kids.”
Well, at least regarding knowledge of the rules, I wasn’t worried for Lyuchik.
For our voluntary assistance as nurse aides, we had accrued salary of one crown per day. Together with twenty crowns, earned in less than two weeks during the expedition, our total amounted to nearly fifty. Please note that it was earned through honest hard work! Still, that money couldn’t come close to solving my financial woes, and I started crying to Uncle about my bitter fate. How could it happen that my father, a dark magician, did not leave any inheritance to his son?
Uncle shrugged: “If you want to, I’ll ask Harlik to find out what happened. In his last years your father had no contact with me, but you’re right, it does look strange. Me—I am a mediocre alchemist, but he was a real magician, tough and mighty. What happened to him?”
It was so great to have good friends, even though for the dark it was the exception rather than the rule.
We returned home with less than ten days left until the end of my summer vacation. Joe hid the hives somewhere (though the bees were flying in the garden), but they didn’t bother me anymore. I had become a real dark magician, tough and brave.
The time left before my return to Redstone was spent tastefully: I drove a moped around, scared cows, told stories of the King’s Island to the younger ones (that were nothing like reality), helped Uncle Gordon catch up with the work that had accumulated in his garage over the past month, and collected rumors about events that took place in Krauhard. Chief Harlik was right: everything pointed to the return of the ancient, legendary times. I finally decided to talk about it with my stepfather.
“Joe, I heard rumors that Krauhard is getting restless of late. You ought to move somewhere closer to Redstone or to the capital.”
My stepfather sighed sadly: “We should. But we have no money to move, Thomas, even if I immediately find a job after the move.”
“Then at least Lyuchik has to be sent away. To some boarding school or maybe to your relatives, if you have any.”
“I’m thinking about it.”
I put my honestly earned fifty crowns on the table. “Take this! When I’m back at Redstone, I’ll send you more. Think harder.”
He hesitated, but didn’t rush to take the money. Another helpless white on my hands!
“What now?”
“You are so concerned for the family, you do so much for the kids… and I have never apologized to you!”
“For what?” I did not understand.
“I invaded your house, took the place of your father… perhaps, you’re angry with me.”
I sighed. How t
ypical for the white to apply his standards to everybody. And I thought he was an empath.
“Have you not been lectured about the psychological differences in the school of magic?”
“Yes I have, of course. I always tried to… well… to treat you with understanding…”
But he never understood me fully, anyway.
“If my father had spent enough time at home to be remembered. If you had come to our house when I was eight, not eleven. If you had tried to preach to me. If you had forbidden me to buy that damn moped. If you had bought those fucking bees before I left… Anyway, if you had done things differently, I would have hated you to the depths of my soul. But you hadn’t… I think blood parents also don’t always understand their children, but somehow they do well.”
He smiled.
“You have become more mature. Wiser.”
Just one thing left now: I had to find a job. Oh, money, money…
The day I was leaving for Redstone turned out to be noisy and senseless. On the eve of my departure, I went to the station and performed a little trick: I sold my express non-stop railroad ticket to one lucky guy. I was going to return to Redstone by suburban railroads, changing them at every town. It was not quite legitimate, but that way I would save an extra eighteen crowns. The bad thing was that the way back by the suburban railroad would take twice as much time.
My mother kept trying to shove a jingling worn-out wallet in my backpack, and I kept taking it out.
“Tommy, please, take it for your trip!”
“I don’t need money!” I was dead set on that. “You need it more. I can always make money in the city.”
If I only knew how!
At the last moment it turned out that the train I needed did not stop at the Wildlife Outpost, and Uncle Gordon had to give me a ride on his jalopy through two mountain passes. There were pros to it—no time for a teary parting, and cons—I did not manage to talk to Mom about my father again.
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