“Whatever you say, Tom,” he shook his head. “I can’t understand you, the dark.”
Brave bully Quarters… scared?
As it turned out, he was not alone in that. Outside the university, the white moved only in groups of three or four now; they had gone through some kind of “safety” training and became atypically anxious thereafter. Freshmen were counted twice a day, in the morning and in the evening. Students self-organized into patrol groups with men on duty, and these guards imposed the dormitory curfew. I wondered how they intended to make the dark mages observe all these rules. Especially the novice magicians, who were finishing regular classes well after midnight and by the end of the day were in such condition that no artisans were necessary.
Organizing the dark proved to be easy. They were offered a cab and a free dinner daily. With beer. Freebies! All the dark students appeared right on time, by 12 am, without fail. Even I felt the temptation to freeload in the dormitory and barely suppressed it. Are we, the dark, so predictable?
These extraordinary measures fostered a serious mood. For a while I honestly tried to scare myself, picturing that I was being hunted by freaks, but could not continue in that vein for long—it was boring. What could they do to me? Kill me? The most horrible thing I could imagine was a burnt out light bulb at the porch and Rustle waiting for me at the door, but that could not happen in the city (knock on wood)—too many ward-off spells were pinned around, and NZAMIPS was on standby. The maximum that I managed to achieve was to develop a habit of looking on both sides of the street and staying sober in unfamiliar places.
I was not allowed to attend dark magic classes—the doctor from Krauhard informed the university about my injury (what a pathetic snitch; one excuse - he was white). I spent spare time in the library, as a good student.
I had two topics of interest. The number one was Rustle. Certainly I wasn’t the first dark magician it infected; people must have tried to get rid of the creature before, and some reports on the progress made should exist somewhere. I couldn’t believe that one of my kind had successfully expelled Rustle and hadn’t bragged about it. However, material on the most dangerous otherworldly phenomenon was surprisingly scarce. The reasons for that could be twofold: either Rustle was of no interest to anyone but me (nonsense!), or the results achieved were “not for mere mortals”. I needed to ask the captain about Rustle, but instead I inquired about some white idiots.
Second, Uncle’s book burned in my hands. I asked Johan’s advice without going into detail and learned that the address on the parcel wasn’t even a building—it was a botanical garden. The name also seemed suspicious, for Pierrot Sohane was a character in a fairly well-known fable. Combined, the two facts pointed to a white magician who lived in solitude and kept neutrality. Clearly, he wasn’t a merchant, because a seller would not name a buyer “my precious friend” and wouldn’t complain, “I hadn’t hoped to find you alive”. Moreover, he would not persuade in his letter that he “solemnly kept without any selfish interest an ‘unnamed something’ just for the sake of continuity”. A rhythm of these phrases stuffed up my ears, and I wasn’t eager to meet the “insignificant master of mirrors”. Thus, I needed to figure out what I had in hand not to be strangled at the first attempt to sell the rarity. And what if the book was stolen?
To identify my treasure was no easier than to pin Rustle down. I couldn’t match the text with any known writing style and could not exclude the idea that the content was simply encrypted. The only recognizable elements were numbers at the beginning of each chapter, though there was a chance the numbers were dates, and they would be current in a couple thousand years. My research revealed a similar font in one place, in a copy of the legendary The Word about the King. These were the most ancient extant chronicles, and my treasure looked like a luxurious notebook in comparison. To focus my search, it wasn’t enough to just browse through its illustrations—I needed to attain a thorough grasp of the subject and honestly tried, but it was impossible to achieve.
Of all the historical nonsense discovered, I was pleased with one interesting fact: it turned out that Roland the Bright was a holy dark magician. Funny, Ronald the “Bright” was dark! Well, at least not “white”. How this man could stand such a moniker was mind-boggling.
* * *
The senior coordinator of the region sat in his office, happy and well-fed, like a big black tomcat. Shadows of thinning foliage fluttered on the walls, creating a feel of the jungle. Locomotive knew that he would never occupy that room again—associations would be too strong.
“One is apprehended,” Satal rumbled.
Captain Baer gently shook his head: “Why have you decided that Melons was one of the artisans? She is accused of illegal practices and a murder, but that is just one episode. We didn’t find any evidence that somebody was behind her. What if she is just another red herring?”
“She confessed to the murder too lightly,” the coordinator hemmed. “There was a chance that she managed to impose the shackles of deliverance on the first attempt, but why did the peaceful herbalist place the pump-sign on the table top?”
“The means of inorganic estrangement of the channel,” Locomotive corrected habitually.
“Forget about the terms!” Satal brushed him aside. “There is only one application for the Source that was detached from its managing will—the armory curse. Especially powerful. A peaceful herbalist? Ha!”
“You propose a special interrogation?”
“Wanna bet?” Satal snorted. “She will die in our hands under the interrogation, and all the newspapers will shout about the ‘police brutality’,” the coordinator obviously mimicked someone and was pleased with that. “Let everything go its normal way.”
“Unauthorized use of the shackles,” Locomotive stated, “and theft of the Source.”
“Death penalty,” the coordinator confirmed, “and I will not permit any advocate to find extenuating circumstances in this case. She was a certified magician and could not be unaware of what she was doing; the fact that the kid died before they managed to find an application for his Source was pure luck. Our luck.”
The dark magician enjoyed the hunt for invisible artisans amidst the stone jungle. The beast followed the trail of another beast—they were human beings only partially… Locomotive blinked, driving off an ugly image. The dark could not behave differently, but Baer was a regular human being—he had to take care of people instead of Satal.
“Our guy came into the spotlight in this case.”
The coordinator got a little distracted from his triumph: “Leave him. You won’t do anything.”
Locomotive frowned: “I do not understand what you mean, sir.”
“You do,” Satal dismissed. “He is dark; you can’t say to him, ‘Go here but don’t go there.’ If you start taking care of him, he will resist and become less manageable. Hopefully, the sect will be disoriented without Melons, and we will apprehend them before they get ready for some serious steps. Let’s go back to work, back to work!”
Captain Baer shook his head again.
He participated in the arrest of Mrs. Melons and watched the doctor at that very moment when all her plans were dashed. Her face, the face of a white magician who deliberately decided to kill, stuck in Locomotive’s memory, and one word swirled in his head: “witch”! The captain was accustomed to the intricate logic of the dark, to the delirious talks of the street preachers—but a normal-looking person, behaving as if she lived in another dimension, was something new for him. The relativity of good and evil was brought to absurdity when the good was measured not even by profit, but by some unattainable and unknown ideal that, for some reason, justified any crime. He was there at the moment when Melons made a decision that determined her future behavior and confessions, and he could swear that this story wouldn’t end well.
The armory curse. God save us…
Chapter 22
I was bored. I couldn’t get drunk, unless I did it at home - it was safe in t
here, but the pleasure wasn’t the same.
The biggest problem of any dark mage is what to do with his spare time, particularly if a reliable source of livelihood has been found already.
My work at BioKin had come to a halt: Polak negotiated the acceptance of the prototype of the gas generator with the client, and we all awaited the result. Johan, in his work time, scribbled an article about the new approach to the application of advanced micro-organisms and pestered me with questions about the alchemical part. Carl scoffed at the fermentation vat, throwing into it all sorts of rubbish to test. We both knew that a device with such parameters would thresh any sewage with the equanimity of a pinion, and all these “tests” for the machine were like spitting in the locomotive firebox. The red-haired cousin of Quarters went on maternity leave, the father was an alchemist’s assistant (also red-haired), and their child would probably have fire-red hair that one could only touch with mittens. The future father was present at work only as a piece of furniture; his thoughts hovered somewhere far away.
I brewed coffee for myself and counted days until the moment that I would join my magic classes again. I never thought I would miss them! Of course, I could quit and forget the entire shit business, but I was expecting triumph ahead, and it would be a disappointment not to share it.
My third wish was to find new sorts of fun; Rustle heard it but did not fulfill.
I decided to act rapidly; I bought a ticket to the theater for a play with the neutral name “The Road to Exile”. And I liked it. After the first three scenes I began quietly giggling, at the end of the first act I already roared with laughter, and in the middle of the second act the attendant requested that I be quieter.
“I do not know what you have found so funny about the drama, young man,” an elderly gentleman, sitting right next to me, noted after the performance.
Still twitching convulsively, I explained to him in what condition a dark mage must have been to start talking with his crosier. Again, a crosier! A purely phallic symbol. The idea of its magic properties must have been introduced to the masses by combat mages, but I knew that the only real use of that thing was beating enemies on the head (which, probably, was widespread entertainment in the past). An ideal object to store spells has a round, at most cylindrical, shape; one object can’t hold more than one spell at the same time. So, a really mighty magician is a man, adorned with silver beads from head to toe, but on the stage he would be mistaken for a homo.
I could give a thumbs-up to the theater as my new entertainment, but the next play was called “The Rose of the Wind” and created an unwelcome association with the white. Well, to hell with them!
To visit the horse race, maybe? But I had no spare money to waste.
I decided to join a student club; it was kind of late - a year left till my graduation. They didn’t let me into the “Green World” club—pushed me out the door. Quarters suggested a yacht club, but I declined—I disliked moisture. I went to a meeting of fans of antique mechanics, and for two days I dreamed of gears. I even promised to find authentic weights for clocks. Surely, I could find something at the junkyard next time. The historic club offered a series of lectures on the origin of magic; I went there to ask about Roland (why he was nicknamed “the Bright”), got into a dispute about northern shamans—to prove my point I quoted an excerpt from the book “The Word About the King”—and made all feel jealous.
Captain Baer came to me and spoiled the mood: “I know that you do not care, but bear in mind: the Melons trial is over, but she has friends. Before, they wanted to appear good-natured, but now they will seek revenge. Watch out!”
And what am I supposed to think about the police after that?
I bought a ticket to the theater one more time, again for a tragedy—“King George XIV”, and guessed it would be as laughable as the previous one.
But Polak saved me from the bizarre escapades with unpredictable consequences: once, closer to the end of the day, the boss came into the office shining like a brass chandelier and said that BioKin had successfully handed over the gas generator to the client. The concept had been approved, the firm was commissioned to design two versions of industrial-scale devices and soon, as the finale of the two-year ordeal, the team would have a grand banquet. Well, finally!
Nothing warms the heart of a dark mage more than plenty of free food and drinks of the sort that he cannot afford, and a chance to strut before a gathering of cultured people, knowing that they won’t be rude or get into a fight. The only fee for participation in the event was the obligation to silently listen to the solemn forty-minute speech by the owner of the sewage factory and the invited mayor of Redstone. The floor was given to no one else; Quarters said that this way his uncle could emphasize that he had wiped the noses of all the skeptics. He had the right to!
Then all knocked back, and the party went on. I methodically tasted the contents of all bottles and decanters on the table, discovering how much I had missed of life. What could I taste in my Krauhard? Beer. Mead. Once-tried moonshine at the fair. Uncle told me a story: someone in our valley made homebrew once, but the drink had attracted chariks (a supernatural thing, plentiful as mosquitoes in Krauhard), and he no longer risked it. There was no demand for hard liquor in Krauhard! Even in Redstone, I acquired no taste for strong booze - did not like to lose consciousness. But there were white, red, fruity, wormwood drinks… Though, I must admit that after the third glass the difference between the drinks disappeared.
“Hey Tom, don’t drink anymore,” Quarters took the glass out of my hands.
I was stunned with surprise: “Why?”
“Because! I briefly saw one guy here. He used to hang out with Melons; I do not understand what he is doing at the party. He was not invited! You can get into trouble…”
Damn it, what bad timing! Why am I so unfortunate with banquets?
Quarters was already grogged; caring about me in his condition was surprisingly touching.
“No more!” I sincerely promised and switched exclusively to appetizers; they were also very good at the sewage tycoon’s soiree.
The party proved to be no worse than at home: snobbishness quickly evaporated, the guests danced to music and without it, loudly talked and laughed. Johan, who drank only apple juice the entire evening, entertained a group of white mages in deeply philosophical conversation; Polak danced around another sponsor. Some plump little man pestered me with the question of whether I got paid enough.
It was close to midnight when a waiter came over with the message that the requested carriage had arrived. It must have been Quarters who ordered it for me. Actually, I intended to spend the night at the party—they said that the hall was rented until noon the next day. But if the carriage had arrived, I had to go. In the end, a feather bed at home was softer than flooring. What if I caught a cold on the floor?
Sighing, I moved my extra few pounds into the carriage that was waiting at the entrance, was painfully stung by something in the darkness, cussed out the cab driver (who smelled like a fishing tacklebox), and sharply fell asleep.
I didn’t remember the moment I nodded off: there were neither twilight glimpses of consciousness, nor visions—nothing. I closed my eyes and then opened them under a high ceiling with a dome. The blue sky could be seen through broken fishnet windows without glass, and I felt cold. It was no longer summer.
Shivering, I realized first that I lay not at home, second that it was in an unknown place, and third that I was completely naked.
And then all the liquid I took imperiously demanded to be let out.
“Lie down quietly!” a voice commanded from the off-stage. “A horrible curse will not let you move.”
I gently patted myself, found nothing (no pants, either!), and sat down. I wondered whether they really expected me to fall for such a stupid joke.
Two (white mages, by all indications) stared at me in shock. They were kind of chewed up, and because the body’s physical health directly depends on the condition
of the soul, I concluded that they were experiencing mental stress. Especially bad looking was the guy nearest to me with a spear in his hands. His eyes shone feverishly, his cheeks were sunken, and his hair tousled. The spear looked genuine and antique, though he held it as casually as a whisk.
“We do not fear thee, sorcerer! The teacher has killed your magic; now you cannot hurt anyone.”
What a clown.
They looked painfully familiar, and the zombies of White Halak suddenly surfaced in my memory. Of course! That meant he would easily jab a spear into my chest without thinking twice, if I let the situation slip into fisticuffs. On the other hand, maybe they wouldn’t dare. How could the captain say that they were “gullible, suggestible, and industrious”?
I had not known that the need to go to the bathroom could stimulate my thoughts that much.
“You betrayed your souls, miserable freaks!” I announced in a tragic voice. “You are the same as zombies, and the dead are at the mercy of dark magicians. Obey! I curse you on the first star, the sepulchral fog, and guts of a black cat! Ow-ow! Let you lose the true vision and skill to separate illusion from reality! Let it be!”
I said that and snapped my fingers, intending to cause a sheaf of colored sparks. Instead, I puffed up a huge ball of fire above my palm. I quickly shook it off under the table—it started smelling of smoke.
In short, it was time to get away.
As expected, the enchanted mages couldn’t critically think of the situation. While the white fools clapped their eyelids at me, wasting time, I gathered an armful of clothes and was gone. I didn’t care what was going to happen with them; it was their fault anyway.
I got out of the building into the junkyard, pulled on the crumpled clothes, and looked around. The place that I had left was a public use building, about to be demolished, but still quite sturdy (foliage on its marble steps, peeling colonnades, dome devoid of glass). A greenish-turbid river rolled its waters around: we were on the island in the middle of it. Now I understood why no one had noticed the hideout of those fools—water barriers greatly weaken magic background.
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