Fox went pale. “The zombie is more up your alley,” he almost hissed.
I did not argue: “Yes, I make them, but I can destroy them. But Milos will manage only the first part, at best. What will the guy do when he realizes that the animated corpse is not his pet?”
I sensed growing attention on me with all my skin; I was looked at from all sides, and I felt like making a speech. “The world must be loved for what it is; we must not pick out the most delicious parts of it, like raisins from a bread loaf. Not all of what we like is good, and not everything that hurts us is evil. Among your pupils there are girls—how will you explain to them what childbirth is?”
He even turned green at that.
“Don’t you like babies?” I purred softly. “Don’t you know where they come from?”
Fox turned and fled. I showed him us—the dark! All the white minnows in the park ran to the side with a soft shur-shur-shur. I beat Fox with means specific to the white—I gave a different explanation—and now kids would not calm down until they determined which of us was right. Poor teachers! To be honest, the phrase about the bread loaf was prepared ahead of time; I came up with it when tried to get rid of the nightmares caused by visions of White Halak.
The dark, having nightmares! If I said that to anybody, I would be laughed at.
“If you decide to stay here,” I told Lyuchik, “never trust to what that guy says. He is crazy!”
“I thought so too,” the kid nodded very seriously, “but I do not know why.”
God knows how sick I was of their gooing!
“Don’t be puzzled about ‘why’,” I chuckled. “Teachers must understand more than students, not just talk convincingly. He is a theoretician on life, damn it.”
So, I finally got two days off. Now I had plenty of time to wander around and visit Mihandrov’s barely any sightseeing spots. Still, the town itself was quite interesting. It was in the condition of “antiquity without decrepitude”. I didn’t mean miserable huts hanging onto each other in clusters. This condition is laid with the first stone of the foundation, ripens for centuries, and is lost if the ancient brew is diluted with even a drop of contemporary design. So, Mihandrov was soaked in the antiquity so strongly that its age was nearly impossible to determine. I was sure that the town was like that before the deadly spell, and it would maintain the same appearance many, many years later: white walls, slate roofs, low stone fences—like the pictures of ancient towns in school textbooks.
Vines did not grow in the neighborhood of Mihandrov (Alfred had said something to that effect, but I did not save it in my memory); however, there was a man living on the lakefront who regularly supplied the town with fresh beer. I knew the road to his pub, a stylish basement with huge barrels, wooden tables, and indispensable bundles of garlic. Compared to the best Redstone restaurants, it differed only by the absence of a fireplace (the latter was not needed here) and by a shorter menu list (mostly fish was present). I seriously considered buying a house in Mihandrov, although it will be scorching heat here in the middle of summer…
I know it sounds selfish, but I vitally needed a break in communication with the white. In the end, a mage’s physical state depends on the condition of his soul, and my contacts with the white drove me crazy lately. Besides, the “cleaners” from Artrom were expected to come to town any minute now, and a sharp transition to communication with the combat mages could be harmful to my health. Who would need me then as a cripple?
I did not manage to get drunk on light beer, and stronger drinks were unavailable in Mihandrov at all. I was too lazy to drag to the train station for liquor and went back to the mansion to swing in a wicker chair, take a nap, and think how nasty Satal felt in Redstone now (it was freezing cold there). Clarence didn’t bother me. Twilight began to darken, dinner was getting closer, and the smell of fried fish wafted from the windows of the kitchen. Fish was everywhere in Mihandrov.
And then it struck.
No, there was no sound; it just felt as if a big toothy saw touched the nerves of Max and me. The dog that had been soaking in a tub with some preservative since morning howled hoarsely. I told it to shut up and stay in the bath, clicked the “whistle” in my pocket, and ran to pick up my traveling kit. The unforgettable feeling that mauled my nerves could mean only one thing: the supernatural was hovering nearby.
With the staff and the suitcase in hands (just like in a fairy tale), I rushed to where my intuition strictly forbade me to go. In a hurry, I burst straight in, cutting corners on the slopes where one wrong move would make you fly headfirst to the lake below. Yet I was glad that I wasn’t running in the direction of the school. Somewhere halfway up hill, I caught up with Fox, who wheezed on the rise. I wondered where the man was going to. Pulling up my socks, I overtook him, and while the white climbed the slope, I made a loop and broke into the overgrown park from the other side (first!). There it was! A large open space covered before with grass and bushes was now filled with ash-gray dust.
“Witch’s baldness!” Fox breathed out, having made his way up through the thickets of the wild rose.
I wondered how come he knew what that was. Witch’s baldness was a rare type of supernatural phenomenon, surprisingly difficult to get rid of: the source of the supernatural was deep underground. That is, a normal pentagram won’t decimate the bald unless you draw it after removing the top five feet of dirt, standing right in the centre of contamination. I had to move backwards - the border of the baldness shifted significantly closer to me.
“I have never seen them growing so quickly!” I gasped in shock.
“What should we do?” Fox screamed in panic.
That was a good demonstration of his self-control.
“I will take care of it, and you run and tell people to get out of their homes. They are too close!”
“Close” was not the right word: roofs were already visible at the bottom of the hill slope. They were within a stone’s throw! The NZAMIPS’ “whistle” was of no use—they were too far to help. Alfred, sent as a courier to Artrom, wouldn’t be able to come back earlier than in twenty-four hours, and I didn’t need another white here. The lieutenant would be a burden.
The bad news was that I could not kill such a huge otherworldly creature alone, and at the speed it grew (thirty feet in diameter for half an hour that we took to reach the place) very soon the power of the combat mages of the whole Ingernika wouldn’t be enough to cope with it. When the “cleaners” arrived at the place (if they hurried up), only one remedy would be left: the armory curse. It required five to seven victims - people who did not manage to get away from Mihandrov in time. Theoretically, one experienced dark mage would be enough to kill the supernatural with the armory curse. But I wasn’t taught at the university on how to perform it.
I wasn’t taught…
And then I thanked all the gods for putting in my way that loathsome creature, Edan Satal. No, he did not teach me the deadly curses—he was not suicidal—but he set my teeth on edge with all sorts of high-level shields and barriers. I recalled what I needed; however, my knowledge was purely theoretical. But when had it stopped me before? After assessing the growth rate of the witch’s baldness, I breathed out a fire weaving that burned down bushes in a sixty-foot radius, took a marker out of the bag, and began to draw. That would be a perimeter, a simple ward-off perimeter, only turned inside out: it would keep the creature inside.
There was no time to measure out the sectors; I had to act by eyeballing it. As a result, instead of the minimal twelve signs per perimeter, I drew eleven. I hoped it would work anyway! The marker ran out before the last couple of lines were drawn—it was not meant for spells of that size—and I didn’t have time to look for a replacement. No more than half a meter remained between the baldness and the line. Simple chalk was no good for such a surface, and to redraw the pentagram on a larger scale was meaningless. A perimeter of such size could not be activated. This was the end, not for me, but for most of the townsfolk for sure. Such a c
rowd of people would not be able to leave the town quickly.
I threw off the empty marker tube and screamed hoarsely, like an animal.
“This? This?” someone poked me in the back.
That was Lieutenant Clarence, white as chalk, with the exact same bag as mine and with the same token from the sorcerer’s traveling kit. My God, what did he need it for?
I snatched from his hand the white tube and finished drawing in feverish haste.
“I-isabertana dar-ram!”
A wave of power from the Source, zonked from such treatment, swept through the line of signs, activating the spell—akin to what Uncle Gordon used to scare mice. Smaller in size, but with a higher price tag. The toothed crown of the three-dimensional perimeter soared above the ground and struck inward.
I had done what I could. If this failed, I would have to grab Lyuchik and run away. I heard a thump behind my back—Clarence fainted. Of course, he was drenched in my power! I looked—the witch’s baldness stopped growing and even slightly leaned back from the burning line of signs—then I heaved the brave warrior on my shoulder and carried him to the road, bypassing the baldness.
Fox was waiting next to a striped police car; hence, he had not warned the residents of nearby houses. What a jerk! Well, at least he didn’t run away.
“What’s the situation?”
“I have locked the witch’s baldness by a reverse perimeter; meanwhile, it’s holding up, but I can’t do any more alone. We have already called the ‘cleaners’; they should be here soon. Can you drive? Go to the train station and wait! Bring Clarence to life and let him call the ‘cleaners’ and prepare for evacuation in the event of the armory curse. I will stay here and maintain the perimeter.”
For a white mage, Fox recovered very quickly, but he couldn’t steel himself to follow my orders.
“Why?” he demanded explanation.
I thought his question referred to the strange supernatural entity.
“Your town’s suburbs are absolutely sterile—I mean, relative to dark magic. No disturbances, no complex flows. If an otherworldly creature comes into such environment, it begins to develop explosively. Have you ever heard of Nintark? Here you go! Something similar happened there. When you meet our team of mages, tell them about this; the ‘cleaners’ are not that bright and may not guess themselves.”
It seemed he did not accept my answer. He wanted to say something but refrained, nodded, and finally left, and I went back to the baldness—to terrorize my Source and pour power into the perimeter. The waiting promised to be long.
The chalk marks were ill-suited for the long-term divination, and my asymmetrical, unbalanced perimeter powered out like a leaky tub. I had to update the curse virtually every fifteen minutes, to sit to the side and keep watching. How inopportune was that beer! It was getting dark and cold. A perked-up Clarence returned to me with blankets and sweet juice: a magician’s first aid. I sent him for an alarm clock; I feared to death that I would miss the baldness’ growth. The moon slowly drifted over the lake and down the hills, the east brightened, and it started smelling of trouble.
No, I wasn’t tired; it just became awfully difficult to concentrate on the perimeter and even to remember to watch it. My thoughts ran like mercury balls; clearly, if the ‘cleaners’ did not arrive by the early morning express, I would have to flee. It would be even wiser to take the very same express myself, but that sound idea came into my head too late.
When I heard the familiar screech of Mihandrov’s police car’s transmission, I mistook it for the sound of the silly alarm clock. I would need to ask Clarence… But instead of the lieutenant some absolutely unfamiliar people came out of the bushes, and, judging by the fact that their very appearance aroused my irritation, at least one of them was a dark magician.
“Shit…!” a burly fellow with a crew-cut in a dark red field uniform expressed what they were thinking as they approached. With such a face he could only be the commander. “Sergeant Claymore,” he introduced himself, shook hands, and jerked me, forcing to stand up. “Your work?”
To tell him it was not mine? Maybe he saw some other dark magicians here?
“Squalor,” a thin sharp-nosed nerd with a goat-like squint muttered through his clenched teeth. Either he needed glasses, or he hadn’t been beaten by the dark for very long.
“Stop talking!” the sergeant barked, the sharp-nosed shut up, and even I no longer wanted to object. “Remove the unauthorized persons. Where is Rispin?”
Another dark, younger, burst through the bushes with two huge trunks. Well, it looked like they were itching to climb the hill, but to go through the wicket—no way! Was there some hidden sense in that? I wasn’t going to wait until they pushed me out and began a slow descent to the road. The trio left an elephant trail behind. At the bottom of the hill, Clarence gently helped me get into the back seat of his limousine; alas, he did not have a second blanket for me.
“What’s going on there?” the lieutenant asked tensely.
I tried to shrug. My brains thawed slowly from the stress; I wanted neither to speak nor to think.
“Will they cope?” Clarence worried.
How should I know?
“You’d better U-turn your car right here,” I advised him, “driving in reverse isn’t speedy.”
There were no streetlights in Mihandrov, so nights were very much like in Krauhard here: dark and misty. The lake breathed out fog, and a rather chilly breeze came out of the steppe; the sun rose fast, and day started instantly. I slept peacefully under Clarence’s jacket for an hour and a half and was awakened by a strike of lightning, typical for the expelling curse. It blew off so strongly that the car bounced. The lieutenant ruthlessly pulled the improvised blanket off me. The sky was already bright.
The sergeant climbed down the slope, swearing, along with the sharp-nosed assistant with my staff in his hands! Their younger colleague, named Rispin, showed prudence and went through the gate—an extra one hundred meters, but much more convenient.
“In my twenty years of experience I haven’t seen such a hefty creature before,” the sharp-nosed guy said, trying to push me out of the car, but I tenaciously clung to the seat. Clarence’s cabriolet was not designed for five, but it was not my problem. Let them sit on each other’s knees!
“Gorchik, as you were!” the weary sergeant ordered and decisively took a seat beside the driver.
Rispin pushed on Gorchik with his hip, the compacted people compressed to the limit. And we were off. Personally, I was happy at how everything turned out; I even began to doze off again, and only Gorchik, sandwiched in from both sides, angrily sniffed and almost pinched us in annoyance.
“Drop me off at the school,” I asked Clarence.
“No need to,” the lieutenant advised. “Yesterday I warned Mrs. Hemul; it’s all under control. And the perimeter is working; the gates will stay locked until 11 a.m.”
I asked about the time—there was more than an hour before the school’s opening—and I had to agree: showing up looking like I had a sleepover in the bushes would discredit the image I had created. And to stay awake for another two hours was beyond my strength.
“I’ll be waiting for you in the office at seventeen hundred!” the sergeant shouted at our parting.
“It won’t work,” I warned him honestly. I would be sleeping, no matter what.
“Well,” he displayed some compassion, “then tomorrow at ten hundred—no excuses!”
And they drove off. With a short delay, I began to feel resentful. Geez, he wasn’t even my commander! And he wasn’t at home! What right did the guy have to order me? But, on second thought, I decided that to learn about the plans of the long-awaited “cleaners” was absolutely necessary; hence, I had to go. But I would stop their every attempt to benefit at my expense! If the dark mages cut their way to higher status, they become absolutely unbearable.
In the mansion, the tender-hearted Mrs. Parker released Max from the bathroom. Either she was a secret necroma
ncer or believed that the dark magician’s dog had the right to be strange, one way or another. Mrs. Parker recognized in the preservative solution a remedy against fleas, and she washed and brushed Max’s coat with a special homemade lotion that kept its hair not just shiny, but also tangle-free. With the thought that I ought to get the magic recipe from her, I fell into bed and slept for almost twenty-four hours.
* * *
Mrs. Hemul watched the assistant principal walking around his office, and tried not to display her concern. Mr. Fox no longer cast even a shadow of sympathy—rather, he frightened her. Where did he hide such a chasm of complexes and prejudices, and why hadn’t she noticed them before? All his quirks and reservations from the last six months now acquired a much more sinister meaning.
“It’s the dark mage’s fault!” Mr. Fox insisted feverishly. “Our troubles started after his arrival.”
Long ago, at the time of the Inquisition, it was proved that the occurrence of supernatural phenomena did not depend on the will of the dark, but on the properties of the environment. The arsenal of dark magicians has plenty of abominations, but guests from the other world are not part of it. But Fox rejected the truisms straightaway, and to reach out to his common sense was getting more and more difficult.
“Even if it is so, would you prefer that the breakthrough occur in his absence? We had lived for ten years without any supernatural manifestation; it was too long even for the capital.”
“Who told you that?” Mr. Fox frowned in annoyance.
“Lieutenant Clarence came to see us yesterday. We talked.”
It was the young policeman, pale from shock, who told her about the need to lock the ward-off perimeter—not the experienced assistant principal, too busy buying train tickets to carve out a minute and call to warn her. In the morning the whole school had seen an ugly scandal: Fox yelled at her for not unlocking the gate for him to leave. The assistant principal did not accept the directrix’ explanation that, if she unlocked the perimeter, they wouldn’t be able to repeat the reactivation sooner than in four hours - he needed to go. Mrs. Hemul cowardly regretted that she hadn’t let Petros out of the gate with suitcase earlier. They would have already been freed from the presence of Fox, who created problems for everyone, but the assistant principal hadn’t informed her about his intention to take Petros out of the school, either.
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