That was why we had so few dark magicians! No one in his right mind would agree to such a travesty—if he had a choice, of course. From this reasoning followed a sad conclusion that all those present, except for me, were insane.
Mr. Rakshat wasn't particularly spiteful with me, but he did not improve my mood; perhaps, I was the only dark in the university's history who fell into the autumn depression. My finances were dwindling like golden leaves falling off trees; it didn't matter how frugal I was; money could not multiply in the absence of income. Add to that the cost of supplies, essential for a novice magician, payment to the "chatterbox"—my answering service, a fine for the violation of municipal bylaws (for drinking with Quarters), and you will understand that I was on the rocks long before the foliage had flown off.
My mulishness did not allow me to ask for help from the family. I had already borrowed from Ron and a few other friends with the promise to pay it back at the end of the month. Students were short of money after summer vacations and lent with reluctance. The day that I went to bed hungry for the first time in my life inevitably came. That fact impressed me deeply. No room left to maneuver; reluctantly, I set a date for an appointment at Gugentsolger's Bank and tried to figure how much money they would snooker from me. Apparently, I would give them back twice as much as I would borrow.
The first call came at the peak of my desperation.
The "chatterbox" handed me a piece of paper with the address and name of the client.
"I said that your next free day would be Saturday, and they didn't mind. I don't know what you're gonna do, but good luck to you."
I laid out a course on the map and was making a detailed plan of the campaign all of Friday; a trip through the fields and communication with the client needed to be thoroughly prepared for. That day I ate only two pies stolen from a freshman's bag (shame on me); hence, I approached the preparation with the uttermost care.
My bitter experience suggested that it was not enough to be a dark magician—you ought to look like one. So when I approached the farm gate, I was dressed in a shiny black raincoat (on a perfectly clear day), official business attire from a rental shop, and wore black dance shoes (brand new; it was a gift from my mother on admission to the university). That was exactly how a classic dark mage should look. One my hand played with a bunch of keys from storage lockers with a shiny nickel-plated pendant shaped like a car, another held a spacious gripsack, borrowed from the university's amateur theater. Let people think that I came here by car rather than guess that I walked ten miles from the station!
A little girl sat on the grass before the gate and played with a rag doll.
"Good afternoon," I hissed coldly, "how can I find Mr. Larsen?"
She squeaked and ran away. A minute later a middle-aged gentleman in traditional farmer clothes (plaid shirt, homespun overalls) came out from the house (I suspected an uninitiated white mage in him). He looked at me childishly, with a mixture of fear and admiration. "Wow! A genuine dark magician!"
I smiled sternly and condescendingly, imitating the most hostile teacher from my school, and then demonstrated a silver business card with my initials and indistinct logo (I had a whole five of them with me).
"Have you called our firm?"
"Yes!" he breathed out, stunned.
" 'Neklot & Sons': we will solve all your problems!" I proudly announced. "I understand that you believe your house is cursed. Can I take a look around?"
"Yes, yes, of course! Will you allow me to take it?" he held out his hand toward my gripsack.
With pleasure, I handed my heavy baggage to him and added strictly: "Be careful with it! Inside are my tools."
Just one look at the interior of the house was enough to understand—this task was beyond my skill level. The supernatural was certainly present there: all corners were covered with thin black gossamer, visible on the walls in some spots and translucent on the glass. That was phoma, one of the simplest manifestations of the otherworldly, a brainless mold. It was dangerous if it struck roots—in that case it was easier to burn the house than to clean it. Almost no time remained until the moment when all isolated pockets of phoma would merge in a deadly black cocoon.
"Has anyone died already?" I tried to stay as indifferent as possible.
"No, no," he shook his head.
Well, it would not stand true for long. In any other circumstances, I would have smiled sweetly and buzzed off, but the money wasted on renting the suit was big enough to make me cry. And then, the phoma was primitive; I knew curses to expel it (though I never used them—Chief Harlik taught me the basics, but he was not stupid enough to teach the youngster anything serious).
"Have you seen our price list?" I asked him in order to buy some time and gather my thoughts. "Have a look at it! Your case is number five."
He took out of my hands a piece of paper filled with letters of elegant gothic font.
"Three hundred crowns?"
I shrugged, rejoicing inside: if he refused, I would retreat without losing face.
"If you are not happy with our prices, I would recommend calling the local 'cleaning' service."
The farmer shook his head: "He had already been here and done nothing. Let it be three hundred! Will you do the job?"
If the local mage had been here and found nothing, he had to be burned—not as a sorcerer, but as a charlatan. So, he will not notice my mistakes and won't be able to track me down.
Three hundred crowns...
I feigned the most disgusting smile I was capable of.
"Who do you think I am? Our company guarantees the expulsion of any dangerous phenomenon and warrants no otherworldly recurrence. Of course, if you manage to curse your house twice, we won't be responsible for that."
He quickly nodded: "I got it! When can you start?"
"I would like to finish everything today—I don't really want to come this far twice. And fuel is not cheap these days..."
"Good! Is there anything you need?"
I nodded: "Remove all people, pets, and plants from the house. I will start working after the dusk, so you have time. It would be better if you stay overnight at your friends' place."
All inhabitants of the house (there were many) sprang into motion. The farmer harnessed two heavy carthorses into a hefty three-axis cart. Then they loaded it with everything they needed for a sleepover. Cats and kittens, puppies and dogs, rubber plants, violets, two boxes with a collection of cacti and a cage of parrots, an aquarium, and what not! A pile of pillows, embroidered by hand; a porcelain set, carefully packed in a basket; bundles of albums with pictures of family and bags of clothes—as if all of them were just waiting to be taken away. Perhaps the people subconsciously sensed the approaching crisis and were glad to get out of there at least for a short time.
Ignoring the hustle and bustle, I watched for the phoma: it was a clear day, and the otherworldly was quiet, but such violent activity would wake it up early.
The sun had not touched the horizon yet when the farmer's family was ready to leave. The owner came up to me, questioning, "Are you sure...?"
Tell him that I was not?
"Do not worry. Come back after the dawn, check the results, and pay me for the job. You may want to bring along some experts, although I wouldn't recommend that you rely on the local 'cleaning' service."
"Yeah, sure!" he breathed out and ran to the cart with his family. He was obviously happy with the opportunity to foist his problem off on someone else.
I waited patiently until the creaking of the wheels, the shrill cries of children, and the dog barking subsided. I needed silence to calm down, call the Power, and stop thinking that the work would be simple; overly self-confident dark magicians died young, slowly and painfully. A fight with any, even the most innocuous, otherworldly is a battle for life and death, and let that death not be mine.
I took off and carefully folded my suit, wrapped it in my raincoat, and put it outside the gates, where the precious clothes would be safe. I left d
ressed in black sports pants, a faded T-shirt, and some rubber boots that I borrowed from the farmer—nothing valuable. If by morning I should turn into a spot of black slime, my financial situation would not be affected. The only cause for concern was mosquitoes. (I hate insects! The first thing I will do when I get back to the university will be to learn a spell that will repel mosquitoes or exterminate them on approach.)
Now it was necessary to set the boundaries of the battle zone. I took out of my gripsack an enchanted compass and a bunch of knitting needles, with pieces of shiny foil screwed to their blunt ends. Ideally, I should have used mirror fragments, but I had not figured out how to drill holes in the glass and did not dare to purchase ready-to-use enhancements—for reasons of conspiracy. Following the compass needle, I walked around the house, marking my way with needles and cursing the damned insects (the ritual didn't allow hand-waving or accelerating one's pace), then moved into the house and drew lines with crayons around all windows that were within my reach. The battlefield was set.
Settling in the room that I felt was the center of the phoma's expansion, I pulled out of my bag a portable altar (a simplified model, designed for students) with an embossed coordinate grid that greatly facilitated the drawing of pentagrams. Charting a ward-off symbol took no more than a minute. Then I chose three candles from the set: red, black, and white (the latter not to be confused with colorless!), and slightly melted and attached them to the surface of the altar. (Tipped over candles caused injuries in dark magicians more frequently than even the otherworldly itself). Then I settled down to wait for night to fall.
The sun had not set completely when the phoma showed signs of awakening to its mysterious non-life. It was big, hungry, and irritated by the lack of conventional food sources. When the clock boomingly struck 11 p.m., I decided to light the first candle.
The flame was tiny but of the white shade that could not be produced by the combustion of any ordinary matter. Only white magicians made that kind of candles and used it to keep off the melancholy that so often beset their delicate souls. I found a better use for those things. Touching the white tongue of the flame with my finger, I ordered: "Flame of the fire, listen to me! What I name, I want to see. Phoma, phoma, phoma!"
The problem of simple spells is not their low efficiency, but the side effects. If the phoma had not been nearby, the temporarily animated candle would have cruelly taken revenge for my audacity: I would have lost my magic power for a few days and hallucinated phomas everywhere. But the supernatural's presence was assured in that room, so the candle's spark grew twice in size and flowed upward as a luminous white smoke, outlining the contour of the invisible monster. I kept waiting. After about half an hour, the pattern of infection became clear.
The farmer was lucky—he had left home in time. The otherworldly was almost ripe. Its isolated pockets of mold grew up into thin cilia-tentacles, ready to connect and form a solid body trap. It was foolish of them to let the phoma evolve into its current condition! Those peasants grew fat, became relaxed, and forgot to worry about invisible threats. I should have left everything as it was and let those boobies be eaten.
But three hundred crowns...
The next step would be to entice the undead and seal it off; in this procedure, time was of the essence. I should activate the seal after the entire phoma was within its boundaries, and I could not let the creature just eat the bait and get out. Focusing and alerting the Source, I touched the red candle and ordered: "Flesh, burn!"
In accordance with the theory, the candle emitted an inimitable, unique flavor that attracted the otherworldly to the live beings. The smell of food irresistibly beckoned the brainless thing. The phoma did not possess a real body of weight and volume, and the creature that filled the whole house with its snake shoots instantly shrank to the size of a roll of wool and tightly entangled the bait. At that very moment, when the last smoky process slunk defeated into the boundaries of the pentagram, I grabbed the Source by the scruff and tossed it directly into the black candle.
"Dangemaharus!"
The true meaning of this word had been lost to the dark ages, but it is known that for a simple force attack one could not think of anything better. The black candle exploded into a ball of fuming flame that instantly filled the contour of the pentagram. Among jets of fire, the phoma rushed as chaos of black lines. I squeezed the Source with all my strength, arousing to life the most destructive hypostasis of dark magic—the Infernal Flame. The latter was too strong for the inferior otherworldly, but I hadn't yet perfected other methods of expelling. The phoma squeaked and vanished in a green flash, no grueling hours-long struggle; I spent more time taming the fire and preventing it from splashing on the floor. I did not know if I killed the being that was not alive to begin with, but the phoma wasn't there anymore. So, technically, it was dead now.
I spent another hour making sure that no other supernatural beings were left in the house. Along the way, I discovered the source of the phoma—an old, beat-up dresser. I did not know where they found the dresser and why the otherworldly occupied it for such a long time without manifesting itself but I, personally, was not going to buy anything from flea markets anymore. You never know what you will bring home!
While I was cleaning the room, tearing off candle-ends from the altar and wiping magical signs off of windows, dawn was breaking. It did not make sense to go to bed. I fired up the wood stove in the kitchen and made coffee from the farmer's stock; then I finished the food left over in a pan and disposed of a pastry that had been thoughtlessly abandoned on the table by the owners. Life was getting better; what still remained, however, was to get paid.
The owners arrived at nine in the morning, when the sun was already high. I met them at the door of the house (with the suit, raincoat, and model shoes on and the gripsack in hand), smiled to the farmer, and coldly nodded to his companion, a withered priest of unknown confession (to be honest, I am not religious).
"We have solved your problem. Please inspect the house!"
They came in and, judging by how quickly the farmer's face brightened up, he sensed that now all was well. The old priest roamed about the rooms for some time, but he was forced to admit that the dwelling was completely safe. Wildly shying, Mr. Larsen handed me a weighty bag of coins.
"You cannot imagine how thankful we are to you! I thought this nightmare would never end."
Well, in a couple of days their nightmare would have ended anyway, but I wasn't going to upset the client who paid money. I feigned a dry, cold, very dark magic smile and nodded: "Our staff does not make mistakes! We have recently entered the market in your area and would be grateful if you recommend us to your friends." I gave shining business cards to both of them. "I ask you for a small favor: please do not give our contact info to the magician who examined your home before me. Dark mages are very sensitive to outsiders in their territory. I fear that he would try to hide his blatant incompetence through an ugly scandal."
The farmer and the priest nodded so vigorously that I guessed that the local "cleaner" had already managed to manifest his appalling side.
"A word of advice. If you buy second-hand items, soak them in salt water or, depending on the nature of the object, pour rock salt and leave it on for a day. This will help you avoid trouble in the future. Seeing me off is not necessary!"
I moved off, proudly keeping my back straight and not turning around. I walked along the trail that wound through the hills and fields. Next time, I will get a cane and learn how to handle it elegantly. A cane with a knob in the form of a skull.
The trip to the station would have to last a whole day, and I intended to take classes at the university the next morning. The noticeably weightier gripsack didn't get on my nerves any more, and the thought of three hundred crowns warmed my heart.
My visit to Gugentsolger's could be postponed for a while.
* * *
A black lacquered carriage drawn by a pair of well-fed trotters stopped in front of a large farmhous
e. Four children of different ages played inside the gates in the company of a sprightly red dog and a melancholic pony. Two people sat on the box of the carriage, and one more man—a passenger—sprawled on a leather seat and looked bored. The coachman stayed with the horses, and his satellite jumped down from the box and quickly went into the house. This man's appearance could not generate any sympathy: he was lean and thin-boned by nature, with a puffy face, swollen eyelids, bluish-gray nose and cheeks from a mesh of burst blood vessels. His black coat was quite worn out and shiny on the elbows, and his pants looked chewed and stretched at the knees. The passenger from the leather seat gave him a contemptuous glance, stood up, causing the seat to squeak sadly, and slowly followed the first man. That passenger was tall, dressed in the impeccable suit of a public bureaucrat, and his bearing reminded one of a guard officer; upon his appearance, the red dog hid behind the children's feet and began growling with displeasure.
The owner of the house wasn't happy with the arrival of the guests.
"Look, that asshole is back again!" the farmer said through his teeth, watching the approaching people through the slit in the curtains.
"We did not call him!" his wife stepped in.
"That's right. Take the children out of sight; I'll meet them."
My Path to Magic Page 9
