by Dmitry Bilik
“That’s the house we’re looking for, over there,” Jan said, pointing at one a couple of buildings down.
“How are we supposed to get over there?”
“The spell is called Levitation. I’ve improved it, but...”
“But what?”
“I haven’t yet leveled it up completely. Normally, you can only use it on yourself. I, however, wanted to make it a combat spell, so I modified it to be able to cast it on an opponent in battle. For now it only works for three seconds.”
“Tell me what we need to do.”
“Just take a running jump, and then I’ll catch you with the spell.”
“What do you mean by ‘catch’?”
“I mean catch.”
“To be honest, I don’t think it’s a good plan. Do you?”
Jan shrugged. “I don’t know. Litius seems to think so. The most important thing is for you to make it to the opposite roof.”
“And then what?”
“There’s not a lot of space between the other two buildings. Also, the Seers’ residence is one story lower.”
“Oh great. And here I am hoping that Litius thought with his head and not his posterior.”
“He did think. He made a scheme on a piece of paper and did all the calculations. He said you should make it.”
“Well, if he says so!”
But it was too late to back out. Well, I suppose I could, but who knew when I’d ever get another chance like this?
“OK, so what do I need to do? Just jump?”
“Wait. You need to wait a moment.”
He was right. Even though we were still some distance away from the square, Players would occasionally pass by below.
The right moment came twenty minutes later. Jan slapped me on the shoulder, “Go.”
And, well, I went.
I accelerated and jumped. At least I didn’t scream. I must have looked like someone having a heart attack on a roller coaster.
But Jan didn’t let me down. When I was still about five feet away from the roof, I became weightless, as if stuck between this reality and some other world. It was an odd feeling, like I was a naughty kitten lifted by the scruff of the neck.
But I didn’t get the chance to get used to the feeling. Bam! I fell onto the roof, smacking my chest. It looked like I’d indeed made it.
I turned to Jan who gave me a thumbs-up. The joker. Grunting, I stood up and staggered to the opposite edge of the roof.
Your Stealth skill has increased to level 2.
I sure needed that now. It did in fact seem to be possible to jump all the way. It was no more than four yards away. I’d just needed to be quick. I’d be spotted — that much was certain.
I took a few steps back and ran.
Crack!
The bone-snapping sound was so loud that I’m sure even Bumpkin had heard it back in my house.
Only then did I scream.
The agony! Blinded by pain, I didn’t even realize at first that I could rewind time.
[ ∞ ]
Only after I’d stepped and lifted off the roof, did the agonizing pain release me. My memory came back — and with it, I realized what I’d done wrong the first time.
A video I’d watched three years ago flashed through my mind — an interview with a freerunner. He was talking about the importance of shifting your balance when you fell so that you wouldn’t fight gravity.
Bingo! I landed on my toes, reached out, and somersaulted to a stop.
Your Acrobatics skill has increased to level 4.
That’s how I should land in the future: nice and easy. I sprang to my feet and ran to a small garret that led inside. I climbed in, fearing that the door might be locked. But I was in for a crazy streak of luck.
I drew my knife and dashed into a long corridor on the top floor. I had two more rewinds in reserve. I quickly took in my surroundings. The residence wasn’t meant for the likes of me, I could see that. It was all oak doors, decorative MDF wall panels and brass lamps hanging from the ceiling.
If only I could figure out where the Magister was. There was no way there’d be a sign hanging on the do…
I tried to rub my eyes — that was exactly what was hanging there, a black sign with white lettering that read Magister.
Feeling as if this place was the center of something inconceivable, I inched toward the door. I pulled it and it gave.
It was dark inside. Little light penetrated the windows hung with thick curtains. All I could see was the outline of a massive figure in an armchair.
“It’s about time,” said a raspy, old-sounding voice. “I was starting to think you wouldn’t come.”
Chapter 16
A GOOD PLAN is when the things actually follow your well-conceived scenario. A bad one is when new glitches just keep cropping up, forcing you to improvise. And a truly useless plan is when you realize that it makes up part of someone else’s clever little scheme.
Judging by the stranger’s confident voice, my arrival hadn’t surprised him. What a bastard! He didn’t even twitch.
“Who are you?”
“It says it right on the door: I’m the Magister.”
With a click of a switch, a lamp went on on a tiny table next to the chair, illuminating the owner of the raspy voice. He was an old, chubby man with darkly tanned skin and green eyes.
The Magister looked intently at me for a few more moments, clearly waiting for something, and then burst out laughing.
“Sorry, I love pulling people’s legs. I thought it would be fun to put up that sign. Well then, let’s begin!” he lifted a finger, apparently as a summons.
Cold hands clamped down on my shoulders from either side of me.
Well, well, well. So you thought you got me, didn’t you?
[ ∞ ]
“I thought it would be fun to-””
Without waiting for him to finish, I swayed to the left and immediately jerked my elbow up. I heard a crackle, followed by a scream.
Your Hand-to-Hand Fighting skill has increased to level 7.
Bingo. I rolled aside, whipping out my knife in the process, and turned to my attackers. So, who’s the first?
It turned out that I had three adversaries: two humans and an Abbas. Actually no, scrap that. There were two of them. The Abbas was already doubled up on the ground, clutching his face. Courtesy of my Insight skill, I knew the two remaining fighters’ identities: one was the Master, and the other Wittechar, whatever that was supposed to mean.
The one known as the Master reached his arm out in front of him, mouthing something. A fiery sword appeared in his hand.
Dammit! I was down to my last time rewind.
“Stop! Stop!” the Magister jumped to his feet. “Stop now! Artan, take Nicholas out. Yulo, just stay where you are.”
The luminous sword disappeared instantly. The Master grabbed his wounded colleague under his armpits and dragged him toward the door. I recognized the second guy as the poor bastard I’d clobbered earlier next to my house. Judging by the barely visible symmetrical bruises next to his eyes, his nose must have been broken at least a few days prior. He’d probably used magic to heal himself. It might be a funny coincidence, but it looked like I’d just made yet another enemy.
But that wasn’t what I should be worrying about right now.
The Abbas stayed in the room along with the Magister who sat back down and started to nervously drum his fingers on the armrest.
“Put your knife away. By the way, where did you get a weapon made of moon steel? Anyway, let’s take things one step at a time. Sit down. If we wanted to hurt you, Artan would have shredded you in an instant.”
That was far from a sure thing. He may have an instant but I had four seconds of potential advantage.
“Sit down already! We need to have a chat.”
He indicated a chair behind me. I looked at the open door through which the two Seers had just left. Following my glance, the Abbas reached out and slammed it shut.
&n
bsp; Very well, then. Let’s have a chat. I sat down but didn’t put my knife away. I’d love to know where the room’s windows opened up onto.
“What do you need?” I asked.
“The same as you — information. Let’s do it this way: you tell us everything you know, including about the Chorul.”
“And what’s in it for me?”
The Magister laughed. “Yulo, you hear that? He wants to bargain. All right. Then I’ll answer your questions.”
“All of them?”
“All of them. Just don’t forget the race characteristic of the Abbas. What, you don’t know? They can detect any lie.”
“And what’s gonna happen afterward?”
“I don’t know. You’ll go to a bar and drink some vodka. You do drink vodka in Russia, don’t you?”
“Yes, and we sleep with bears. So you’re gonna let me go, then?”
“What we need is information, not your savaged body. So what do you say? Is it a deal?”
“Deal. But you need to swear...”
My phrase seemed to have baffled Oliverio. He slapped his knee and burst out laughing.
Your Persuasion skill has increased to level 3.
Your Persuasion skill has increased to level 4.
“You’re a quick learner! OK, I swear to the Chorul’s killer who was born in Cesspit that I won’t deliberately harm him unless under a threat to my life or the Order’s existence, or unless he presents mortal danger to this or any other world.”
He wasn’t born yesterday, was he? It was clear this wasn’t his first rodeo and he knew the importance of the fine print.
I squinted from the bright light that enveloped the Magister, sealing his oath. Very well. Now we could talk.
“What do you want me to tell you?” I asked.
“Everything. Starting at the beginning. Who are you and how did you become a Player?”
“My name is Mikhail...” I began brazenly.
Hearing that, the Abbas clicked his tongue. The black growths on his head twitched.
Okay, okay, just checking. “My name is Sergei...”
It turned out that talking was indeed my thing. Maybe if I’d been born two or three thousand years earlier, I would have become the second Homer. I recounted everything in detail. A few times, I wanted to embellish the events just to make myself look like less of an idiot, but the Abbas kept clicking his tongue, forcing me back onto the path of truth.
After about ten minutes, the Magister knew all about some of my escapades. However, I’d told him nothing about what had happened in the foundation pit. Ditto for Hunter, Bumpkin, and everything that had followed, except for a few insignificant details and probing questions on my part.
“So that’s how you do it,” the Master said, scratching an eyebrow. “I admit that when I saw it, I was confused.”
“When you saw what?”
“How you rewind time.”
“No one can see it. For you, the future I rewound no longer exists.”
“You need to understand that I’m a Prophet. Not the most powerful one, of course. We can focus on a particular person in order to see the possible alternatives of their future. That requires maximum concentration and years of practice developing your abilities. Anyway, I won’t bore you. As soon as you came in, I saw everything you could do. And then...”
He trailed off, looking at me closely as if in hesitation, then continued, “A white spot appeared in the future, exactly during those four seconds, and you dropped out of my visions. That’s never happened to me before, ever.”
“So what now? You gonna send me to a lab as a guinea pig?”
“No, of course not. Still, I think that you’re in possession of a much more powerful weapon than you realize. And I don’t want it to be used to harm the Cesspit or any other world.”
“I had no intention-”
“Sergei, I’m afraid no one’s gonna ask your opinion here. You killed a Chorul — that’s something no one has ever been able to do. That’s not within the powers of a Player, let alone a commoner. It seems to me that the whole setup has been carefully and very subtly orchestrated.”
“Could you at least tell me what Choruls are?”
“Ah, that’s complicated,” Oliverio said, scratching the bridge of his nose, “but I’ll try. This may sound like a fairy tale, but beyond the black passageway that stretches past two consecutive Hazy worlds, lies Archaeth, the world of the Choruls. It’s mysterious and little studied because...”
“Because the Choruls don’t like outsiders.”
“Exactly. But that’s an understatement. They can’t bear them. Their level of tolerance for migrants is zero,” the Magister smiled. “Many Players, including Wandering Gods, have tried different methods to infiltrate Archaeth. But they’ve always failed.”
“Because the Choruls can rewind time?”
“Not quite. What happened with you is more of a mutation. I don’t know the reason for it — whether it’s your race, or more specifically, the mix of races, or just pure chance. As I was saying, no one has ever killed any Choruls because they know everything that’s going to happen to them in the future.”
“How can that be?”
“Imagine you’re a young child. You approach a river to cross it by a flimsy bridge. But you know where and when that bridge in front of you is going to break.”
“Like déjà vu?”
“You could put it that way. Choruls live their lives simultaneously in the past, present, and future. They exist in all dimensions. You can’t kill a Chorul because he’ll know you’re going to try to. He’s forewarned...”
“And therefore, forearmed.”
“Exactly. So what happened with you is unusual, to put it mildly. And it attracted a lot of unwanted attention.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The attacks on you and other Players. What did you say the name of your attacker was?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“So tell me, then.”
I shrugged. It wasn’t much of a secret, especially because I still didn’t quite understand a lot about their power games.
So I gave him the name.
“The Darkest One?” the Magister repeated eagerly. “That could be helpful. That means we really are looking for a Wandering God.”
“What do you mean, you’re looking?”
“Well, of course. We really don’t want such an ability to land in the hands of a powerful but unscrupulous Player. There was a strong probability that you’d come here to see me. All we had to do was make it possible for you to reach us. Which was why we began looking for that lunatic under the Guards’ guidance.”
“And? Any results?”
“None at all. He seems to have disappeared from the face of the earth. He’s definitely been here: I can still detect his vibrations in the places where he’s been, but there are no traces of where he might have gone. It just doesn’t make sense.”
“Now what?”
“I’ll send all the information to the Grand Master,” Oliverio took out his phone.
I spotted the blinking WhatsApp icon. Was this for real? They communicated things like this through WhatsApp?
“He’ll decide what to do next,” Oliverio continued. “But knowing him, we’ll stay here for the time being to monitor the situation, so to speak.”
“What about me?”
“I don’t know. You can go get a drink at the Syndicate. They’ve just had a delivery of Nogglean ale, I hear. Or you can go home. It’s up to you.”
“Can I go? Really?”
“Do you think I’m not going to keep my word, especially since I took an oath? Yulo, please see our guest out,” he ordered without waiting for me to answer. “And if you find out something important or if you need protection, the doors of the Seers’ home are always open to you.”
The Abbas stood up and headed unhurriedly toward the door. He had an unusual gait: his limbs were slightly twisted forward, so he sort of b
obbed as he walked.
He glanced expectantly at me. I had to get up.
“Good-bye,” I said, remembering my mother’s lessons in good manners.
“I hope to see you soon, Sergei,” the Magister said, nodding at me.
