Mr. Fox took a deep breath.
“A strong core, balancing the astral plane. I should have guessed myself.”
Mrs. Hemul smiled with relief: “Everything will be fine, you’ll see.”
Chapter 30
The kids approached the idea of a trip with naive enthusiasm. Lyuchik was too little when Uncle Gordon once dragged me out into nature and promised a walk along the Trail of the Brave, a historical landmark in Krauhard. I distinctly remembered how I cursed my long-legged ancestors. That was the last time Uncle managed to trick me into something like this, and in the absence of a grown-up dark magician a night-time walk around Krauhard was a steep extreme. I reasonably believed that after the trip to the hills the kids would forget about me for a long time. The main thing was not to knock myself out.
I entrusted Lyuchik with packing, as the most reasonable of us, and we left early—to buy some stuff for the trip, especially shoes (the ones that I had were not suitable for a long stroll). I needed to go shopping and at the same time to stop by the animal cruelty prevention office—to return the folder to the lieutenant and to check some of my theories.
The head of everything was available, as expected. On my appearance, he slammed a notebook (either he was reading or writing one) and stood up to greet me.
Instead of shaking hands, I handed him the folder and flopped into the chair for visitors.
“Lieutenant, what is the local situation with criminals?”
He shrugged: “There is no such situation—no crimes.”
“And in the past?”
His gaze became clouded: “My father died in a bank robbery.”
“Hmm. How were the robbers planning to flee?”
“I have no idea.”
But that was an interesting question, given that one could get here only by train. Or did they intend to run away on horseback through the steppe?… With some effort I focused on the case. “Are the crime stats available?”
“Of course!”
He took from the drawer and showed me a folder with annual reports. I rustled through the papers for ten minutes.
“Are the dates of disappearance of the missing white available?”
Clarence took out of his desk a sheet filled with the names.
“Hmm. So ten years ago, after the first disappearance, the crime rate diminished. And then these suicides started.”
The lieutenant nodded in silence.
I rummaged in my memory through mountains of information on general magic, learned at the university. Damn, I was going to be an alchemist! My knowledge of magic theory was limited.
“I give up. I cannot imagine a magical influence that could cause such an effect.”
“I can,” Clarence said quietly.
I suspiciously squinted at the lieutenant: “That is, you did notice a strange magic background in the vicinity of the town? With a palpably depressive effect on the psyche?”
“Anyone who has ever left the town and come back was able to perceive it, but the white can hardly recognize the external source of their bad mood.”
Because we are suggestible, he meant. I banged my fist on the table: “Why didn’t you say so? I have lost so much time!”
“To say what?” the lieutenant snapped. “I have no evidence to prove it but my senses! You got to feel it yourself.”
I closed eyes and began counting. Up to thirty-five.
“So, what is it? Let’s talk straight; we are short on time.”
I felt an urge to beat him when the case would be over.
“In theory, a protective spell exists, a side effect of which is the emotional ‘rollback’ that inhibits aggression,” Clarence explained. He took my rudeness in stride with surprising calm. “Putatively, the spell is deadly, but I cannot imagine a white mage using it on someone other than himself. Furthermore, nine times in a row, to explain all the deaths.”
“I personally met one like this.”
Deceased Laurent had exercised his deadly spell only three times; his colleague was more successful and, obviously, had set a record.
I pondered the lieutenant’s version—the rollback inhibiting aggression, trying to assess the extent of its impact on reality. Never guessed that I would need knowledge of white magic! But the fact that Rustle stayed silent since I came to Mihandrov brought on some bad thoughts: the effect of the spell took away some very important component of the environment.
“Do you know how it could end?”
The lieutenant blinked—he did.
“Then why are you still here?”
“How about responsibility for the town, its residents?”
The white, what one could expect from him! He surely wanted to be a hero, if he was with NZAMIPS.
“Will you confirm my words?” Clarence perked up.
“It’s useless,” I waved, “we have only circumstantial evidence: statistics, our senses; there, real people die every day. Our superiors are morons,” I visualized Satal, “they won’t do anything until it is too late.”
“What about their social responsibility?”
I rolled my eyes. He was just like a naive kid!
“Wake up, man! In Redstone, the “cleaners” didn’t notice three ghouls, each over a century old. Doesn’t it say anything to you?”
“But… what should we do then?”
He started panicking, and not without a reason. For me, the most appropriate solution was to grab Lyuchik with both hands and run. But when it blew up here, Satal would drown me in shit, and Lyuchik wouldn’t be proud of his brother (the town will blow—no need to ask a fortune-teller).
“We will work on that,” I tried to concentrate. I dropped by to check some suspicions and finished by taking obligations on my shoulders! “Perhaps you know the name of the murderer?”
Clarence shook his head. “No. It ought to be someone from the boarding school’s staff, but plenty of people resigned after the scandal, so the guy might not be here any longer.”
Lovely! The culprit ran away, and we had to clean up shit after him.
“It doesn’t matter,” I slapped my knee. “The shield has been accumulating potential for ten years; this we can’t change. We will provoke detente!”
“What?”
“Detente. We need to get some of the “cleaners” in here and make them stay—under any pretext. Then we will educate residents and place ward-off signs around the town. There have been no victims for a whole year; therefore, the shield is about to fall apart, and it will be hot in Mihandrov. The supernatural that the spell drove out of here for ten years will run back at once.”
“Do you think it is time to engage volunteers?”
“It needed to be done yesterday, and tomorrow will be too late. Are you familiar with the theory?”
He silently put a stack of brochures on the table. I leafed through one: the Publishing House of the Trunk Bay. Home, sweet home!
“That will do. Think of a reason; lie, mystify if necessary. You’re a magician after all! I’ll notify my superiors, but it will take time while they come to an agreement… As they say, if you are drowning, you are on your own. It’s sink or swim.”
And we parted at that.
I came back to the B&B in a state of quiet madness. These are my holidays, guys, come on! Of all the options, I chose the shittiest town. If not for the two restless white kids with me, I would have been stuck here, like a fly in honey. Interesting who had advised Joe to send his son to Mihandrov.
* * *
Edan Satal was suffering from a hangover after the lengthy holidays, and he preferred to hang out at work, raising suspicion in Baer that the senior coordinator was afraid to scare his family.
Locomotive looked into the swollen eyes of his chief and thought that the common salutation in this case would be a straightforward mockery.
“A telegram from Mihandrov.”
Satal read through a piece of paper with one eye and pushed it away in disgust. “Nothing new!”
The c
aptain was a bit surprised. “A magic phenomenon of such magnitude is a rather alarming sign. It could trigger a serious breakthrough of the supernatural energy…”
The coordinator groped for a mug on the desk with some murky dishwater inside (Baer was not good at potions) and took several big gulps—it helped a bit.
“Axel has got a full desk of such messages; Artrom County is famous for that. Half of them are the repercussions of weather spells; another half is unidentified ancient garbage. The wandering white magic is horrible stuff. Artrom is the place where White Halak stood! Tell him to dig deeper. Axel needs specifics. He asked to solve the problem, not to report it.”
Locomotive neither slammed the door—that would be too petty, nor sent the valuable directions to Mihandrov (Tangor wasn’t a fool; he would figure that out himself). But he forwarded a copy of the telegram to Artrom, just in case. Let them know that the reports were sent not only to them. Last year the amount of observed supernatural phenomena in Redstone increased by three hundred percent (in spite of all magic perimeters and ward-off signs), and Baer did not want to become famous as someone who knew about the impending disaster and did nothing.
Chapter 31
Some twists of fate make even dark mages uncomfortable; at the thought of a curse hanging over Mihandrov my skin began to itch. I almost forgot to buy a backpack but, by some miracle, managed to acquire walking shoes of a disgusting bright orange color. I had to pretend that it was intended like that and bought a shirt of the same horrible color. Now I looked like traffic lights.
Once again I thought over the chance to flee, but I would have to drag Lyuchik overcoming his resistance, and people around could misinterpret that. On the other hand, the safest place is always near a dark magician. And we will let the zombie-dog run ahead of the group; it would be a pleasant surprise for the maniac.
In the evening at the B&B, swearing softly but terribly, I tried to stuff enough grub for three people, socks, blankets, the traveling kit of an exorcist (nowhere without it!), and a canister of drinking water in the backpack. Plus a tent on top of everything… Well, I could leave it out and say that otherwise we wouldn’t gain the experience of real hikers. Sleeping under the sky and stars—a hiker’s dream! The idea of the trip did not seem as smart as before, but it was too late to retreat; moreover, it was vital to me to free up some time, and I did not know how to get it in any other way. I took Uncle Gordon’s beads with a pair of student curses, in case the worst came to worst.
The next morning we left for the trip. I, wise and prudent, with the bamboo handle from a mop (yes—my staff), and the two white kids, hopping with excitement. Well, surely, they would not be skipping for long…
Honestly, I did not plan the route. Judging by Lieutenant Clarence’s map, the area around the lake was quite the same in all directions (except for Mihandrov on the east): hills near the water surrounded by the steppe stretching for seven days of walking. We passed the territory of the school, got out through a fallen section of the fence (supposedly it was the security perimeter), and went on, maintaining a general direction towards the west, to the lake. Vegetation changed quickly and substantially: instead of lush park greenery, we now walked through gullies, dry standing grass, and weeds. It started smelling strangely; even touches of air to the skin felt differently than before. The wildness of the landscape awakened some ancient instinct that caused us to tread carefully and stay quiet; the white were silent, but their excitement sparkled around. New experiences and sensations are good stimuli for a child’s mind!
I tried to keep track of time until we reached the boundary of the notorious defensive circle of the deadly spell (Clarence said it would be impossible to miss it). I wanted to get an idea of how the spell was distributed in the area. It was clear to me that its perimeters followed the signs’ line, but the shields were set differently - along the axes in two directions, as far as the power would allow. In dark magic, the curses that generate shields exist for as long as the energy of the Source is pumped in; that is, only in the presence of a dark magician. In white magic, as I understand, the spells act differently: they create some distortion of the structure of reality, the longevity of which depends not so much on the input energy, but on the resistance of environment (there is not even one formula for that in the dark section of magic foundations). An experienced white magician could make his creation so natural that its influence would last for centuries. However, precisely that feature—the change in the environment—made the results of divination so ambiguous.
I was slowly losing my mind from attempts to sort out the situation. Logically thinking, if there was a shield, then the pentagram that created it should be somewhere in the centre, too. If we found at least some trails of the pentagram, the arrival of the “cleaners” to Mihandrov would be guaranteed. It remained to understand where the middle of that white spell was…
After three hours and two stops for rest, the kids turned visibly sour.
“Hold on, boys, we have just a little bit left until the lake!”
The terrain started to slope, green grass replaced dry weeds, and rabbit burrows began to tuck under the feet—all that was an indication of our proximity to the lake. Therefore, we didn’t need to save water for the tea and could even wash our feet after the walk—very conducive for relaxation. By the time the surface of the lake started shining ahead (they called it a lake? To me it was more like a rain puddle!), the kids were exhausted, and I had to set up our camp alone and in silence. The white fell asleep barely touching the ground.
Well, wasn’t I a genius? No bustling, fussing, or excessive energy. We were going to have dinner, overnight sleep, and slowly go back tomorrow. And I will have a day off with no threat of the jump ropes for me (knock on wood).
The next moment I learned that my attitude towards the children was outrageous. I was sent to help people, but instead I scratched my ass for a week and played the fool. Clearly, the area of distorted reality had been left behind, because Rustle was back. But my personal monster forgot that I couldn’t care less for its opinion. Imagine how comic the situation was: the supernatural creature criticized the dark magician for his sloppiness. Rustle’s anger would have been righteous had I intended to work on holidays. The local NZAMIPS had ten years to sort out the situation, and now what—one poor student ought to work the whole Mihandrov’s division? Ha-ha!
By evening, the kids perked up just enough to eat cereal, watch the sunset, say “Ah!” and get into their sleeping bags. Nice. As a final touch, I put an amulet on Petros’ neck, warding off mosquitoes (otherwise, my white kids would look like leopards by the end of the trip), and crawled under the blanket. Coals smoldered in the neat fire hole, insects avoided flying around me (wise choice on their part), and the zombie-dog guarded us at a distance. I had rarely felt this good.
For the first time I realized that I did not regret becoming a magician. Magic abilities give me certain freedom, confidence in the future. It would be stupid to have Power and deny it, right? Now I could wander the expanses of Ingernika, not fearing loneliness and darkness, and lack of means…
The dissatisfied Rustle cut in again—I was bored without it—and said that all my thoughts were complete crap. In its view, it was time for me to make kids, not to entertain them, and, if I wanted to sleep outside, I should have a cool chick by my side, together in one sleeping bag.
With a surprise, I realized that the otherworldly wight was interested in sex. It missed that feeling, imagine that! Shit! Get out of my mind, you filthy animal!
Rustle maliciously hinted that at such a time and place (at night, at the campfire) I had no reason to show off.
I promised myself that when I came back, I would confess in necromancy and finish my life in the electric chair!
Rustle retreated, hiding in the inaccessible depths of my consciousness and indignantly broadcasting obscene pornographic pictures. Oh my God, where did it pick them up? Quarters was a fan of that stuff, but even he didn’t see such p
erversion… So many people deathly fear that beast, but all it has on its mind is obscenities! And what shall I do when I really get a girlfriend, have a threesome?
That night in my dream I saw Rustle in the jar. What was interesting: the jar I remembered clearly, but how I put the monster in there I could not recall.
Needless to say that my white kids came back as heroes, tired and happy. They stuffed pockets with all sorts of rubbish (stones, dead beetles, last year’s snake skins), managed to see a real fox and find an eagle feather (I declared it was an eagle). Walking at a slower pace but not stopping for rest, we reached the school before lunch. On the way back I lied with great inspiration about the King’s Island, my work in NZAMIPS, my evil boss—a genuine dark magician (finally I had somebody to complain to!), about my student life in Redstone, and the kids compassionately sighed and asked hundreds of meaningless questions. We made a detour to enter through the main gates; I delivered the children to Mr. Fox and sighed with relief. Now they had a week worth topics for discussion!
“You turned our entire school upside down,” Mrs. Hemul noticed, but she did not look unhappy at that.
More to come!
“You’d better repair the fence at the rear; a few sections were overturned,” I suggested heartily. “You won’t close the perimeter without them.”
She thanked me very seriously. Lyuchik arranged for sort of a meeting at the square (even senior students came for it); Fox dragged Petros off to take a bath; I flirted with the idea of going to bed, but reluctantly went to town—it was time to get down to business that the kids didn’t need to know about. I was going to please Rustle!
Clarence was in the office: the enterprising white magician drew propaganda posters, focusing on illustrations from the Krauhardian brochures. His pictures looked even more fearsome than the originals. I guessed that a man like him wasn’t susceptible to any “rollback”.
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