My Path to Magic 2: A Combat Alchemist (24 page)

Bilious
and uncompromising quarantine healers gave Satal one day off for the delegation of powers to the new senior coordinator of the region. Normally temperamental and energetic, Satal was atypically quiet and sad, with an unfocused look. Captain Baer, instructed by the healers how to react to their patient's condition, wondered what visions
Rustle
shared with his former boss at these moments.

As soon as the former coordinator passed
the secret keys and codes to the new one, he would promptly return to the quarantine hospital at the "cleaner" base. Satal was the only patient there, but the mage couldn't feel bored during his forced detention - there were too many familiar people around.

"
How are your boys?" The story of Satal's children was still fresh in Baer's memory.

Sata
l smiled wanly: "They are fine. I do not communicate with my family now - my sons shouldn't see me weak."

Baer
totally understood him; the captain's numerous nephews seemed to be angels compared to the Satal twins.

A
black limousine with noticeably flashing protective signs under the enamel drove into the courtyard, with tires rustling. A short man with a leather briefcase in his hand and a neat badge on his lapel got out of the car. Senior coordinators bowed to each other in their usual "dark" style - without touching and shaking hands. Good thing that there was no feeling of mutual hostility in their postures and gestures.

"
Did you work with him?" the empath asked Baer.

The captain
grimly nodded. "For fifteen years. But I rarely saw him - his office was in Gerdana."

Kevinahari
thoughtfully tilted her head. "A little reserved, not prone to emotional outbursts, reasonable. Not a bad combination for a superior of his rank!"

Captain Baer
winced - his opinion of Larkes was ambiguous, but he did not want to criticize the new senior coordinator. "He's a very good leader, one of the best. His employees always did exactly what he wanted, though they never knew and were unable to understand what it was that he wanted." Baer remembered that a few very competent employees resigned or moved to other departments, because they couldn't endure the fact that they were treated by Larkes like extras in his plays and productions. Their attempts to obtain an explanation for his orders were perceived by Larkes as sabotage, refusal to work, and a personal insult.

The r
econfiguration of the signs and seals of power took half an hour - Larkes was well familiar with the procedure. For a final touch, both magicians moved into the senior coordinator's office.

"
You've confiscated the captain's room," Larkes noticed, smiling reproachfully. Satal shrugged; the friendly behavior of his rival disoriented him, though the former senior coordinator suspected that his colleague's smiles were just a mask.

"
He survived it!"

"W
hy didn't you want to work from Gerdana?"

"
Too far from the city."

"
In case of an attempt on your life, there would have been less civilian casualties there."

Sata
l recalled a few of the latest episodes, but retorted anyway. "We should allow no such attempts!"

"
I agree!" Larkes stated solemnly, and by doing this he plunged his colleague into confusion once again.  "How is your talented young student doing? I must admit that teaching a necromancer combat skills has produced a brilliant result."

Sata
l chuckled and decided to end their strange conversation. He pulled out of a drawer a big puffy envelope and silently handed it to Larkes. The envelope instantly disappeared in the suitcase of the new coordinator.

"
I'm heading back to the quarantine," Satal sighed. "My healer Mr. Arverti is probably pissing fire by now. Avoid the hands of the local healers – they are horrible people!"

Larkes
saw his colleague to the porch, heartily wished him a successful end of the quarantine, then shut and locked his office door, turning the key twice. A smile brightened his face and then faded, giving way to doll-like stillness. The mage called his Source and carefully examined the room, nodded satisfactorily, and only then dumped the contents of his suitcase on the desk: a few cardboard folders, two dozen amulets, a beautiful crystal inkwell, and a long wooden pencil box, decorated with a strange ornament. Then he examined in detail his predecessor's gift. The big white envelope was stuffed with papers - copies of reports, maps, charts, and messages. The new coordinator shuffled them, re-assembled them according to some order known only to him, and then hid them inside a simple gray folder, which had the handwritten title
The King's City
. The folder took a place on the bookshelf, perfectly blending into the room environment.

* * *

After learning from newspapers who would replace my teacher, I experienced mixed feelings. On one hand, Larkes seemed to be a more accommodating boss and he owed me a favor, on the other hand - he became my supervisor now. I doubted that he would treat me as his senior.  Most likely, he would adhere to the formal hierarchy of NZAMIPS. I decided to deal with the problem as a typical dark - pretending that it did not exist - and began to pester Captain Baer to settle my dispute with the Roland Fund. The result turned out to be very different from the one I hoped for.

"
Mr. Larkes recognizes the priority of the Roland the Bright Fund," the captain cheered me. "You had signed the contract with them before the one with us. You'll work off what you owe them first, and then what's left from your contract with NZAMIPS."

This skunk Larkes implied that
I owed them my life for the next seven years! "Will NZAMIPS leave me alone for three years?" the thought was pleasant, but unrealistic.

"If your
local authorities need help, the time of your work for them will be credited toward the overall duration of your NZAMIPS contract…"

I
nearly choked with indignation. "What did you say? The remaining four years will be cut for me in coupons? No magicians work on such terms! I'll take you to court! And I'll tell everyone your secret – that the resurrection of animals is legally allowed!"

My
last argument was serious. What a pity that at the first meeting with Satal I did not know about this small, but important gap in legislation. Probably, the authors of the relevant chapters of the law based their provisions on the horrible side effects of waking up human consciousness single-handedly. A general belief that any necromantic spells were forbidden was totally mistaken, though the legislation would probably be amended soon. Meanwhile, fans of animal corpses could only be punished for the physical damage caused by their zombie-pets. I was serious about complaining to journalists that NZAMIPS pursued me illegally!

Captain Baer
started getting angry, but I did not relent. In the end, we concurred that a day of full-time work for the local NZAMIPS would be credited as a week toward the remaining four-year period under my contract.

Thoughts
of harshness and the injustice of life made me restless; besides, my treatment with inhibitors was over. Reactivation of my Source after a long period of suppression was akin to the new Empowerment. I expected to experience again all of its thirty three joys: unbridled lust for domination, inflated self-esteem, paranoid suspiciousness, irritability, mulishness, and laziness. I desired to kill everybody; huge Redstone suddenly became for me as small and cramped as my Krauhardian village. In nearly every place I met people who knew me, and I hated this. Bartenders in pubs greeted me by name and asked about my health ('I will outlive you, jerks!'), my former classmates got in my way all the time wondering how I was ('As if I am in hell!'), and when I almost collided with Larkes on the headquarters porch, I understood that the Roland Fund emerged in my life very timely.

I quit my job at
Biokin (finally) and set to work on Polak's project. Given my limited knowledge of biology, my chances of developing brilliant insight into ore microbiology were miniscule, but I hoped to grasp the depth of my ignorance within the time left. I decided to familiarize myself with the terminology at least, because for the next three years I would lack access to the libraries - fellows of the Roland Fund typically worked in places where no sane alchemist would voluntarily go.

But
I had no peace even in the library. Yesterday morning, when all the professors were supposed to be in their classes, I was caught by a nightmare of all the university’s darks - by Professor Shnise, an extremely boring theorist of white magic, lacking any feeling of self-preservation.

"
Good afternoon, Mr. Tangor. What are you doing in the library? Are you feeling nostalgia?"

"No,
I came to educate myself." I tried to hide a monograph about inhabitants of the sea by covering it with a reference book.

"
It is commendable! What do you think this is?" he put under my nose a piece of paper.

I
barely fought a desire to hit him in the face. "A white spell, sort of."

"
You, dear, are truly a universal mage!" he laughed contentedly. I guessed that our librarian, Stephanie, blabbed to him about my strange interests. And I purposely did not approach this guy with questions - not to run into his silly sense of humor!

"
I think it's just a piece of a bigger scheme, a part of an external circuit. There should be more to it," I elaborated.

"You are right
," he pulled out another sheet and then put the two together for a second. "I, too, believe that it's a part of a complex perimeter. Well done! Frankly, I thought that Stephanie was kidding."

He left me w
ith a businesslike air and nearly instantly disappeared from sight. Why do people call the dark inconsiderate? White nerds like Shnise are much worse!

By the end of
the deferral period given to me by the fund's commissioner, I realized I wanted - or more correctly, not just wanted, but was eager - to work far, far away in the wilderness!

Before leaving Redstone, I needed
to check on the recovery of my Source, so I went to the testing ground.

Colonel
Fatun refused to help me. "I'm not going to provoke you, do not expect that. I'm a psycho, but not suicidal. Here's an imitator and crayons for you, go and exercise."

My
Source responded promptly and habitually, and I blew a phony undead into such tiny pieces that they perfectly blended with the soil. When I called out to Fatun, he responded with a delay - he was hiding from me across the river! I did not need more deferrals - I could pack a suitcase and leave. All that remained was to drop by the commissioner and find out where I should go.

* * *

"Do you really want to give away such a specialist to the Roland Fund?" Captain Baer felt uneasy after his talk with Thomas Tangor.

"
My friend, do you have other dark magicians under the age of thirty in your department?"

Baer
strained his memory and was forced to admit that he didn't.

"
There you are! No signed contract can accelerate the physiological maturing of a mage. To develop a healthy psyche, a dark under the age of thirty should have the freedom to choose what he wants to do with his life. Any forceful intervention in this process full of sacred sense will produce a permanent node of conflict in his mind, and the mage will see enemies in the wrong people. It is not constructive. Satal may not know this, but why did Kevinahari overlook the fact that Tangor was too young to be forced to sign a long-term contract?

Baer
became confused. "Sir, there were some circumstances…"

"
Yes, yes, I read his file," Larkes' gaze shifted toward the wall, hung with portraits. "He is a very talented young man. As I see, the 'cleaner' hadn't found the right approach to him."

'
Tangor did not realize how lucky he was that Larkes did not linger at Redstone for one more year,' the captain said to himself.

"
I hope that our young talent will recognize soon that he has mistakenly chosen alchemy as his preferred field. Let the Roland Fund be the source of his irritation for the next three years. Think for a minute, why does the fund refuse to lend money to students of combat magic?"

"
Why did they not agree to the buyout option?"

"
They would be happy to," the senior coordinator smiled serenely, "but the fund is controlled by the government, and the state wishes Tangor to pay off with his work."

"
To be honest, I feel more relaxed without our student alongside."

"Have
you noticed that, too?" Larkes perked up. "There is something in the young man's nature that drives him into the epicenters of conflicts. It would be better if for the next year or two he stays away from Redstone."