My Path to Magic (2 page)

The attack had passed as quickly as it had begun.

The Source hid somewhere inside me like a dog who had soiled the floor.  To teach it to serve me and give me its "paw" in submission required long and hard work, but the process had been initiated.  Not daring to believe in my salvation, I cautiously took a deep breath.  And then my gaze fell upon the cop, who looked me in the eye with a suspicious gleam of intelligence.

I am a magician, and for the magicians the psychic shocks are worse than physical trauma.  The effort that was required to complete the ritual had bottomed out my reserves.  All of these terrible things: the walls, the light bulb on the cord, his face—came together in my brain, magnified as if by a lens; I gasped and fell unconscious.  The last thing left in my mind was the cursing cop trying to keep me upright.

I do not know for how long I was passed out, but probably for quite a while; by the time I opened my eyes, there were more people milling about.  Besides the goblin, I saw a young officer (a dark magician, if my senses are correct), and an elderly white mage with a stethoscope on his chest.  On the faces of all three I read a purely medical interest.

"How are you feeling, young man?"  That was the old guy.  I mumbled in reply something that satisfied him.  "The first acquaintance was a success!"

For some strange reason, the attitude toward me had changed dramatically.  Even the goblin-like cop hadn't yelled, instead grunting almost kindly.

The next thing that I remembered was a conversation with a pretty woman officer in a sunny and spacious room.  Honestly, it would be a stretch to call it a conversation; she gave me a long, heartfelt lecture about the dangers of careless witchcraft, occasionally slipping under my nose disgusting photos from the police files to illustrate her thesis.  What she said I knew already in theory and would have preferred to avoid looking at human stumps and giblets, but I did not want to open a lengthy discussion.  I nodded and agreed with everything.

Perhaps the shock of clashing with the prose of life added some credibility to my words; ultimately, they believed in my virtue.  They put me in a file, warned me that I would be under the watch, threatened to call my dean's office, and finally kicked me out, not caring how I'd get home in such condition.

"Breathe!  It will only make you stronger!" goblin laughed.  "Join us after graduation—General Miklom will always find a job for a brave kid."

At this point, I was caught up in revelation: I realized that I would never, ever work for the police.

Making my way to the exit of the building, I ran into the stoolie, my backstabbing client.  The guy was still giving his testimony, but, seeing me, he became agitated and waved his hand.

"I understand," he began briskly, "you cannot help me today, but, perhaps, on Thursday..."

Apparently, he thought that after all that had happened I would still work for him.  Truly, the sweet simplicity is worse than witchcraft.

"I do not understand what you are talking about," I muttered and stumbled away.

Let him deal with the "evil eye" by himself!  He will be very fortunate if the "cleaning" service charges him less than two hundred crowns.

Passing through the gleaming glass and copper of the main entrance of the police department, I still could not fully comprehend my luck.  My imagination turned window designs into camouflaged jail mesh, and every move behind them betrayed a spying gaze on me.  An arch over the courtyard resembled an entrance to a tomb.  Having moved away from the police building to a safe distance, I turned into a small park and sat on the nearest bench, trying to put my jumbled feelings in order.  The evening had not yet come; from the moment I had entered the client's apartment, four hours had elapsed at most.

But it sure felt like a lifetime had passed.

Thoughts slowly caught up with my stupid head.

Apparently, there wasn't going to be a court trial.  Not that I did not understand what I was doing (dark magicians start learning the law while still in high school), but I sincerely believed that I could afford some flexibility in interpretation of the legislation by taking precautionary measures.  So typical—how many times do we have to hear that the matches are not toys before we realize that the rule applies to us as well?

"This world does not belong to magicians, either white or dark," I recalled the words of Uncle Gordon (to tell the truth, he was not quite my uncle, but I digress).  "Do you think there have not been enough wiseasses trying to prove otherwise?"

Yes, Uncle, there have been quite a lot of them, and it isn't by chance that they were all idiots.  Any magic, especially white, doesn't make new things; its essence is an illusion.  It won't turn lead into gold or make bread out of sand or wine out of water.  Bread, wine, and gold for magicians are made by real people, so you should never anger them—you cannot afford it (and this isn't just some theory, it's a verifiable fact)!

But what to do with our innate nature, our character traits that have long become a byword?  For twenty years you learn the rules, but once your mentors are done with you, you immediately forget them and go back to level zero.  It's sad to admit, but dark magicians are more receptive to learning lessons through getting their ass kicked, and I was no exception to the rule.  I guessed I should be grateful to the cops: they slapped my wrists right on time, halting the development of pathological inclinations in my character.

The only confusing moment left was behavior of the goblin-like officer (of course, he was not an actual victim of a secondary magic mutation, but a striking similarity to a goblin in appearance was there).  What did he really want from me, and why did he give up?  It was unlikely that my fainting had caused him to stop; if he feared accusations of police brutality, he would not have called witnesses while I lay unconscious.  Personal prejudice against dark magicians?  Then NZAMIPS wouldn't keep him—if he were not expelled by coworkers, then customers would beat him up for sure.  But do I really care for the issues that cops might have?

My tamed Source was devotedly licking my wounds, while I quietly enjoyed the happy ending.  Only the dark magicians are able to relax while sitting on a busy intersection.  All the white mages familiar to me were obsessed with face-to-face contacts and personal space and could loosen up only in tranquil surroundings.  But to me, the impersonal, mechanical movement of the masses had a more profound calming effect.  The never-ending city noise I perceived as music.

Carthorses pulling a covered wagon emblazoned with the logo of a famous transportation company sullenly marched along the pavement.  The huge beasts, almost three meters at the withers, were bred by magic and controlled by it.  An abundance of "horse power" was typical for Redstone.  For those who liked speed and weren't burdened with luggage, a merry tram rang along the rails.  A rumbling limousine propelled by an "alcoholic's dream" engine had crossed the intersection.  I had sniffed after it, hoping to catch a familiar scent of spirits, and enviously watched the car passing by.  No comparison with the tram!  I had great respect only for the steam engines, but within the city boundaries the trains were not allowed: too many university students were white magicians, for whom a clash with a hissing and steaming iron horse caused severe stress and nervous disorders.  Give them any authority, and they would make all of us change back to horses!  The municipality was very proud of the fact that all of the power plants had been relocated to the suburbs.

I smiled dreamily, imagining myself in a limousine.  A successful dark magician could afford more than that.  So far, I hadn't committed any fatal missteps, hadn't been charged with anything, and didn't need to run away.  In essence, two ideas were crowding my mind: first, I could be congratulated on becoming a full-fledged magician, and second… how was I supposed to make money now?

* * *

The current chief of the Department of Magic Affairs, Conrad Baer, was a cop of the sixth or even seventh generation.  His ancestors began to serve the law shortly after the last king had left Ingernika.  They had steadfastly safeguarded their fellow citizens during the awful years of plague and in the times of trouble at the turn of the millennium, occasionally distracted by civil wars and revolutions.  The key to the success of the dynasty was the unique physical characteristics of the Baer family: the look of the Department's chief could discourage even the most boisterous dark magicians.  Since his college days, Conrad proudly carried the nickname "Locomotive" and was the first member of his dynasty to be promoted to captain.  This latter fact was considered a source of pride, but sometimes with a touch of bitterness.

With noticeable relief, the captain took off his anti-magic protective suit.  Government specialists made this thing look like a regular police uniform, but it weighed as heavy armor.  But wouldn't you put on anything for the sake of saving your own life?  Contact with young magicians, possessing unknown powers and temperament, demanded extreme precautionary measures.

Wiping sweat from his neck with a paper towel, Locomotive pulled out a phone and dialed a familiar number.  The massive apparatus with brass handle and a pearl insert on the disk liked to play tricks on the captain, but it always connected him to this number on the first attempt.

"Lucky you!" the captain announced to an invisible interlocutor.  "I met your godson today."

"How did it go?" someone on the other end wondered vaguely.

"Hard to say.  Initially I thought they had messed up his file, attributing him to the mages.  He fainted, can you imagine?"

A quiet chuckle came out of the phone.

"Yes, his father was also very reserved.  He will become a powerful magician!"

"Strong, that's for sure.  I have recorded his aura; drop by when you have time, take a look.  We'll pray together."

"Thanks!" the tube commented.  "I owe you."

The captain waited until he heard a dial tone but did not put the phone back.  Instead, he took a bottle of malt whiskey out of a drawer and measured a cup.  Usually, he did not drink during work hours, but today was especially nerve-wracking.

Conrad Baer was not a magician and did not feel magic powers.  He understood what had happened in the cell only after viewing a record on a crystal that permanently engraved this event for his superiors.  It was then that he decided to have a drink.  Due to the proximity of Redstone University, his department had a special covert function: to tease dark magicians in order to get an imprint of their aura.  The not-quite-so legitimate procedure was helpful in avoiding problems with their identification later on, but it was recommended before the initiation of a magician and certainly not during it.

The captain, being a knowledgeable police officer with fifteen years of experience, stupidly and foolishly put himself under the attack of the combat magician; any anti-magic protection would not have saved him if the kid had lost consciousness three seconds earlier.  It was hard to tell what the thing rushing toward him from the transcendent depths was willing to incarnate into, but the consequences of such events the captain had seen before.  The glitter of the walls fused into glass, puffy bluish dead bodies in the police uniform, green pools of slime in the spots where people stood a minute before—that was only a small part of the surprises that dark magic concealed!  The boy kept control over his power, and for that he deserved if not full forgiveness of his sins then at least a good discount.

But one couldn't trust the phone with such revelations, so nobody knew about Captain Baer's second birthday, and he had to celebrate it alone.

Chapter 2

An echo of the encounter with NZAMIPS reached me on Tuesday, during a lab on alchemy.  I had already handed in my notebook with finished lab assignment and idly wondered if I could remotely ignite magnesium shavings in a flask on the professor's desk.  Close connection with the Source inside provided me with interesting possibilities…  One thing stopped me: I was the only magician in the classroom.  That wasn't a joke!  Half of the students at the University of Higher Magic were not magicians; our school became well-known for its Faculty of Alchemy instead.  It is believed that the alchemic talent is as inborn in people as a talent for magic, only it is harder to find.  By the way, I received a scholarly grant from Ronald the Bright's Fund for winning an alchemical tournament.  I always liked to watch the pendulum swing, play with lens light refraction, and mess around with chemicals, especially with those that had a propensity for burning and exploding.  Unfortunately, due to that, lab classes turned for me into a real torture—I could hardly keep myself from trifling.

Before I had a chance to pull off something nasty, a freshman had opened the door without knocking and cried out: "Provost calls for Tangor!" and ran away.

My mood went sour immediately.

A dark magician in a bad mood is the worst curse possible.  Dying of curiosity, my classmates pretended to rifle through their notebooks, but they hesitated to offer any comments.  After the bell had rung, Ronald Rest, known as Ron Quarters, burst into the classroom, almost knocking the professor down.  Clearly, he wasn't scared of mages, either dark or white.

"What's up, Thomas?" Quarters yelled.  "Dragon summons you!"

Thomas Tangor is me.  I categorically do not accept any nicknames, because "Tangor" is already short enough.

"Hi," I muttered, unwilling to develop the conversation further.

"What have you done?" Quarters poked about.

"Got into a fight."

"Ooh," he stretched the sound out in disappointment and left.

Yes, a fight involving a dark mage student is corny, boring, and uninteresting.  Fits the dark magician image too closely.  In contrast to the faint-hearted white enchanters, we love open conflicts, and the sight of blood pleasantly excites us.  Not of our blood, naturally.  University administrators have always been faced with a tragic dilemma: to order the dark to behave the same way as other students is useless, but to leave such behavior unpunished is untenable.  And then some smartass (if I had known who, I would have raised him from the grave!) had found the perfect solution: correctional work.  Something like scraping pots in the university canteen or cleaning stables and toilets.  To refuse meant a discharge from the university for breach of the discipline code.  For three years I was able to avoid this dubious "joy", but yesterday's visit to NZAMIPS seemed to put an end to my fortune...