My Path to Magic 2: A Combat Alchemist (7 page)

BOOK: My Path to Magic 2: A Combat Alchemist
2.34Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

But
then I decided to stay a little longer to check that I hadn't hurt innocent people. The captives began to appear from the building, a bit recovered from my curse, injected with inhibitors of magic up to their ears, and masterfully apprehended. Five of them were quiet and looked a little surprised, but the sixth - a skinny girl with make-up a la forest diva - swore so artfully that the seasoned police officers blushed and turned away. Then she noticed me and quickly figured out who was the cause of her failure (a clever girl!): "Go to hell, you damn bastard! Let the ground burn under your feet! Let the rats eat your children! Let you drown in your stinking shit, and the shitty wave cover you up to your head!"

How lovel
y, and with so much expression! I imagined Satal in the situation she described and sighed regretfully. What could sweeten my dark mage ear better than the impotent curses of my enemies? While I enjoyed her swearing, a cop hit the girl in her ribs a couple of times.

"
Don't be hard on her," I chided him, "she is a white, after all."

My words shocked both of them,
for some reason, and further on they walked in wondrous harmony, without screaming and resistance. And my superiors still did not show up at the school!

* * *

"Are you deliberately getting into critical situations?" Satal kept asking me.

I shook my head, denying
his outrageous accusation. Low afternoon sun penetrated the office's curtains, and a breeze from the open window fiddled the fabric, clinking the rings of the fixtures. My superiors fed me with tea from Kevinahari's stock in the office of the senior coordinator. Captain Baer looked exhausted, Curator Kevinahari - extremely pleased with herself, Colonel Fatun - as if he just stole a cup of tea and was enjoying the misappropriated thing now. Satal finished his drink in one gulp and walked back and forth across the room, resembling a big weighty raven.  Perhaps it was his way to cope with stress.

"What did they
want to accomplish?" I was curious. "There wasn't a single child with the Source - neither dark nor white - among the hostages."

"It was the ritual of the cleansing fire
," the captain muttered, looking at Satal almost with hatred.

"I
needed all my people to capture the murderers of the cadets!" the coordinator bristled. "The artisans would have broken through if I had loosened up the cordon. And we would have had even more victims!"

"Do not quarrel
, let's celebrate success!" Kevinahari, as usual, tried to suppress the conflict.

The captain buried his look in the cup
. I was glad that I didn't come to see my bosses in the morning. They would have let off their steam on me! I recalled that I hadn't asked them yet what happened to Charak. "My teacher of necromancy has disappeared," I said offensively.

"I know," Satal murmured, "the scum
we have just apprehended was about to kill him. The manqué killer is one of the leaders of artisans, a white mage!" the coordinator's eyes shone feverishly. "He was taken red-handed and resisted NZAMIPS officers.  I will untie his tongue!"

Uh-huh.
I didn't doubt it for a second!

"
What about my university practice in combat magic? Will you give me credit for helping to free the hostages?"

Sat
al instantly came to his senses: "You want me to give you credits, when you have not started your practice yet?"

Ugh, w
hat a bore! "When should I start, sir? I don't have much time left till graduation."

"You
r semester will end in two weeks. I will think of something when the time comes."

I
was not aware that he knew my university timetable so well.

"I
have received the last credits for classes this morning. And my thesis is finished, you only need to sign it," I hinted cautiously.

The senior coordinator der
isively snorted: "Leave it on my desk, I will have a look. Get yourself ready, you'll go on Sunday."

"Where to?"

"Where will your superiors send you? To the capital, for now. You wanted to start faster? You will get it faster."

What an outrage!
I finished my tea in one gulp and left the room, slamming the door. It's unbelievable what a dark magician has to go through to achieve his goal!

Chapter 7

The heart of Ingernika
pumped to the beat of unbearable heat. Sunlight refracted in the flickering haze of air, and the capital city sank into the dazzling radiance of noon. White domes of buildings and narrow slits of streets mingled with the land. The transcontinental express arrived at the central station of Ho-Carg on schedule, and the suffocating heat of the desert penetrated the deep shadow of the platform with a long line of cars. The train seemed to be freshly taken out of a blacksmith's forge; it was scary even to approach it.

A
senior curator from NZAMIPS wiped his instantly perspiring face with a handkerchief; in his other hand he held a pointed felt hat. Next to him there was a young man.

"Be
patient. We'll see him soon. Are you excited?"

The young man shook his head
in denial.

"
That’s the right attitude, Dennis," the old clerk smiled reassuringly. "Perhaps your acquaintanceship will last your lifetime, but I can't exclude that you won't get along well. I would have preferred to bring a more experienced curator to this case - do not take it personally - but the youthfulness of our new charge dictates some age limitations. Dark magicians are very sensitive to issues of hierarchy…"

Arriving
passengers left the train without haste. The express had to stay in the capital for three hours, getting ready to leap through the hot sands of the desert - this part of the ancient caravan route was completely lifeless, and the train usually crossed it at night.

The curators
recognized their guest at once; a young dark appeared on the platform in the company of a shaggy dog. A porter rolling a wheeled suitcase of monstrous size followed after them. The young man's face bore the stamp of a brutal undeserved insult. Both curators sighed heavily; they knew firsthand what a dark magician in a bad mood was capable of. Dennis made the particular facial expression that trainees of the support services learned from the start: a mix of distraction and friendship with a slight touch of moronity; such a grimace was guaranteed to cause minimal aggression in the dark mages.

When the mage reached the end of the platform, he slowed down and instantly singled them out of the
crowd of greeters. The senior colleague of Dennis blossomed with an ingenuous smile and began to bow like a wind-up toy: "Mr. Tangor? Good day, sir! We welcome you in Ho-Carg, the capital of Ingernika! I am Aren Felister, and this is my assistant, Dennis Rockem."

The magician
glanced at Mr. Felister cautiously, like normal people look at an unfamiliar idiot. Though the young man's face lacked the typical-for-the-dark-mages expression of assertive insolence, the curators suspected the worst: it was well known that if a combat mage did not swear recklessly at the people around him, then he was gathering his power for an attack.

"How was your trip?" the senior curator changed his approach instantly, and now his voice manifested servility.

Dennis knew that his superior consciously tested different approaches to their charge to let his young colleague observe the mage's reaction and then act without errors. So far, the result was unimpressive: the entire posture of the dark - "at ease", jaw forward, lower lip out - testified that his opinion of the capital's curators neared the level of plinth.

"Would you like to have a bite first?" Dennis decided to
try a win-win approach: a free meal for any dark mage was of top importance. "There is a good wine cellar not far from here."

The young magician looked
down at him. He was of the same height as Dennis, but the curator physically sensed that the mage treated him as a subordinate.

"A good idea!"
the mage said.

Dennis
took the mage's suitcase from a porter and walked forward, pointing the way.

From the train station to
the doors of the promised wine cellar was no more than two hundred meters, but this short trip produced an everlasting impression on the visiting northerner.

"Yeah…
" the magician stretched shockingly, slowly regaining liveliness in the twilight of the cellar. "I knew about your climate, but I could not imagine it would be so hot…"

"Oh,
it will get better!" Mr. Felister hurried. "It's forty six Celsius in the sun now, but the temperature will drop to around ten degrees at night."

"How can
you live here?" the northerner was stricken by Felister's comment.

"
Sleep in the daytime, party at night, as they say. But not all can afford this," the senior curator scratched his nose. "Is your dog prone to heat stroke?"

T
he magician looked at the beast: "Rather, he's at risk of rotting. By the way, I have to bathe my dog!"

Dennis recalled the mage
's dossier he had read on the eve of their acquaintance. Curators studied in great detail what necromancers were capable of. Dennis knew that only patriarchs could raise a zombie with independent consciousness. No wonder that Mr. Felister wanted to personally meet a talented novice who was on par with seasoned necromancers. The zombie-dog noticed their attention and lolled its puckered blue tongue out.

Meanwhile, the senior curator tried to cement his success:
he was convincing the dark not to drink, not to go out, and to stay quiet for the next couple of days. And the trick was to do it in such a way that the visitor did not think for a second that they wished to limit his freedom.

"You need to h
ave a good rest to adapt your body to the local weather and time zone," the curator cooed.

K
eeping the northerner inside as long as possible was fundamentally important: in Dennis' memory two visitors from the north had a heat stroke, three caught a cold, and one ended up in the hospital with a heart attack as a result of heavy drinking under the sun.

"Where
will we go?" the magician skipped the senior curator's lecture. He graciously accepted a cup of cold green tea and diligently studied the menu.

"To the
suite the ministry has reserved for you…"

"I mean the ultimate goal of my trip."

"You will learn it at a meeting with your NZAMIPS superiors on Monday. And you'll have time to explore the city."

The
young dark resumed his temper.

"I am serious!
I need to know where to send my luggage. The cargo train will arrive in two days, and I am not going to waste my money on renting a warehouse."

Dennis honestly tried to envisage what
item would require delivery by freight train for such a short trip, but his imagination failed.  Necromancers were famous for their extravagance!

"We
'll provide you with a storage space," Mr. Felister announced in a slightly trembling voice.

"Cool!" the rising star of necromancy rejoiced.
"Will you also buy a few chemicals?"

"
Huh?"

"For my zombie."

Dennis furtively looked around. No, no one seemed to overhear them. Any rumors that his charge brought a zombie into the capital city could ruin his career forever.

"In the m
inistry hotel you'll find everything you need," the senior curator promised firmly, even if he had no clue what his young charge needed at the moment.

The magician put on the table a piece of paper folded in
to fours.

"It's the list of chemicals that I
need," he explained seriously. "Add to this a bathtub, a big one."

The curator's s
mile looked a bit intimidated. Dennis mentally ran over the profile of his charge kindly provided by the leading curator of the northwestern region, Ms. Kevinahari; in her opinion, Thomas Tangor was balanced, difficult to manage, and persistent in achieving his goals. All dark mages were stubborn, but if the expert emphasized this character trait in particular…Dennis started suspecting that their charge was planning to run his hideous rituals in Ho-Carg. Usually, curators for the ministry's visitors were white, but demanding that a white work with a necromancer was akin to requesting him to perform suicide: watching a forbidden spell casting would have caused a stroke in white mages. Luckily, Dennis was a regular guy with no propensity to any magic.

"Do you want me to call a car for you?"
Mr. Felister asked hopelessly, studying the list of chemicals.

The
young magician almost choked on his salad: "Can we wait here till evening?"

"
Yes, surely," Dennis started up. "The heat will abate in a couple of hours."

"
Then I'll leave you with my assistant; I have some urgent business to attend to," the senior curator summed up cruelly. "I'll book a car and Dennis will take you to the hotel. Do you have any other needs?"

T
he dark mage shook his head in denial.

"Have a nice evening!"

Looking at the retreating back of his superior, Dennis guessed that his first independent assignment wouldn't be simple. He recalled a favorite saying among curators: "We all know it is not easy to deal with the dark magicians, but only curators know
how
it is not easy."

The necromancer finished his meal, ordered fresh newspapers
and a refill of tea, and immersed himself in reading. Dennis diligently waited - support services didn't employ hyperactive personalities. After about half an hour the dark mage noticed the presence of the interlocutor.

"Do you know by chance if
there are artisans in your city?"

"There are some," Dennis didn'
t deny.

"And what do you do
with them?"

The young curator tried to
recall the events of the last few months.

"We carry on our fight for the minds
of people. They spread rumors - we refute them and engage in educational work, as everywhere else."

The
magician chuckled incredulously: "We apprehended a couple of their leaders and numerous small shots in Redstone over the last three years. Have you heard about it, or do you get all your news from the mass media?"

"
I do not know all the details," Dennis reacted philosophically to the distrust of the dark. "The artisans behave more quietly in the capital, where there is a policeman or two on every corner. They have no space to breathe here!"

The dark
mage pulled on his eyebrows and continued reading. Dennis decided to add to his charge's dossier "he is persevering and provident". How many combat mages take the time to learn in advance in what environment they will have to operate?

"Your
boss mentioned a suite in the ministry hotel…What's this?"

"It's more of
a room really, in the local tradition, without an in-unit kitchen and bathtub."

The m
inistry's management would have placed visiting darks into shared rooms to save more money on guests, but a shared dark room would end in murder.

The magician sin
gled out the detail most important for him: "Where can I take a bath then?"

"In the capital, it is customary to bathe
in special outbuildings called bathhouses."

And
it wasn't cheap; the high cost of bathhouse tickets taught people to save precious water much more efficiently than any sermon: water came to the city via an aqueduct, the capacity of which was limited. When the city experienced water shortages, public bathing facilities were the first to close. But the northerner didn't need to know about these subtleties.

"Hmm.
It's quite unusual. Women and men together?"

"No, in separate compartments.
Sometimes on different days."

The magician became somber, but not for long.  The conversation slipped to
the urban attractions. Surprisingly, the guy was not interested in normal "dark" entertainments like camel racing and dog fighting. Instead, his unhealthy attention was drawn to the local drama theatre.

"What is on there?" Tangor revived.

"
The Rainbow
Curse
", the curator was stunned. Never before had he heard of a dark who had an interest in cultural events.

"What is it about?"

"About the Dark Ages," Dennis wriggled - he wasn't an avid theater-goer.

"Will you buy me a ticket?"

"I doubt it," the curator admitted. "The play is on its second week since the premiere."

The next unusual thing
- the northerner was interested in books – was accepted by Dennis a little easier.  He vowed to get a membership to the famous metropolitan library for Mr. Tangor and gloated a bit, thinking that the senior curator would break his back to fulfill this promise. Dennis was determined to light up an icon lamp to his ancestral spirits and donate an incense stick to the Custodian of the Desert, for the exotic interests of his charge promised him nothing but problems. But the rapport was established, and the time until sunset flew by unnoticed. When darkness fell on the hot streets of Ho-Carg, the car promised by Mr. Felister arrived to pick them up. Tangor mannerly spread a cloth on the car seat and let his zombie-dog sit on it, ignoring the disgruntled looks of the driver.  Dennis single-handedly pushed the giant suitcase in the trunk, and the ministerial car - a cumbersome monster with a heat pump on the roof - slowly moved, sharing the streets with horse-drawn phaetons, white shiny limousines, and rickshaws.

BOOK: My Path to Magic 2: A Combat Alchemist
2.34Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Spain: A Unique History by Stanley G. Payne
The Lords of Valdeon by C. R. Richards
Wife in Public by Emma Darcy
Fizzlebert Stump by A.F. Harrold
The Farmer Next Door by Patricia Davids
The Protector by Marliss Melton
Arrowland by Paul Kane
Best Man by Christine Zolendz