The Fixer Of God's Ways (retail) (6 page)

* * *

About fifteen years ago, after the death of Tangor Sr., Larkes was approached by a peppy man with piercing eyes and offered…everything for ridding Ingernika of artisans. Larkes was able to foresee the behavior of people better than any empath, and Minister Michelson chose the uncommunicative dark among hundreds of other promising officers, entrusting the Department of Theological Threats to a man, whose eagerness to exterminate the sinister cult to its last member he knew and appreciated.

The
group for the functional design of object strategies now met with its permanent leader twice as frequently as before. Mr. Geniver reported their recent findings, occasionally turning to the map on the far wall, labeled with push pin flags of assorted colors.

"
The artisans are ridding the area of ballast," his boss summed up.

Geniver nodded,
"And making a pantheon of martyrs. Obviously, they decided to sacrifice part of their sect. I am afraid they'll become stronger!"

L
arkes kept silence. The presence of a seer among the artisans upset all their plans. They had a few moles in the sectarian core, but their people were dying for no apparent reason. Colonel Kilozo, who had infiltrated into the sect, hadn't contacted them yet, either.

"
We'll detain their agent in the ministry and make noise," Larkes finally decided.

"What's the point?" Geniver
retorted. "The guy is totally under our control!"

"The point, my dear, is to make our actions look haphazard."

The analyst grimaced, "As you wish. You are the boss."

Larkes nodded mech
anically, thinking about how the blind could corner the sighted, and he couldn't come up with a solution offsetting the artisan-seer. The dark mage decided to wait for Fate to say its word, bewildering the sectarians in the meantime.

* * *

People in the courtyard of a large white mansion watched a grass frog and laughed. They were forced to live in a confined space week after week, but their relationships remained warm and friendly. All this was due to a woman over fifty, a compassionate and merciful white. From time to time, she cautiously glanced at the windows of the mansion and then smiled at her companions again.

Inside the mansion, a
bearded white mage enjoyed a play of her aura: it was a rare combination of subtle shades, and even he, the acknowledged master, experienced difficulty in interpreting them.

"I miss Derik,
" the old mage said to a man sitting across the table from him. The chair of the Council of the Order of the Celestial Knights and his new aide met daily.

"Yeah
, he was a deft liquidator," the aide nodded.

The
interlocutor didn't see the face of the white patriarch - otherwise he would understand that Derik wasn't just a skillful killer for the old mage, but rather a thoughtful companion and a younger friend, whom the mage had known for over twenty years. Could that white girl in the courtyard replace Derik? The patriarch closed his eyes, trying to decipher modulations of light, not visible to a mere eye. Her aura was pierced by bizarre cascades of flashes of emotions, and none of them were primary; a purple haze near the nape of her neck indicated a sharp mind. In the deeper layers of her consciousness he found a wandering shadow of doubt or mystery, lit by a golden fire of faith. He felt the urge to win her trust!

T
he mage shook off his pensiveness, "The young necromancer must die."

"Is he worthy
of your worry?" the interlocutor questioned his boss' order. "His injury is deadly. He won't ruin our plans anymore."

The patriarc
h turned away from the window and looked straight into the eyes of his aide, "This mage has accomplished the unimaginable - something that was considered theoretically impossible. We must make sure - I stress it - absolutely sure that he is dead. One Roland-destroyer was enough!"

The aide to
the patriarch quickly nodded.

Haino did not like
his new aide. His former assistant hadn't doubted his teacher's conclusions until the very end. Haino shouldn't have rushed to punish Derik for a couple of strange questions. Where could he find such a servant now? Verily, God sent him grievous trials to test his faith!

That winte
r was dry and cold in Suesson. Petrified roads and black weeds sadly rustled under the wheels of my motorcycle; my breath exhaled snowflakes; I felt as if nature shared my suffering. I lived the quiet life of a provincial magician - worked as a district alchemist, slowly recovering from the incident in Finkaun. Reich made an attempt to renew our acquaintance but, having seen me, he didn't show up anymore.

NZAMIPS terminated my contract,
as promised. I wasn't their employee anymore, and they severely cut my disability benefit. I didn't feel well and was in no mood to quarrel. As a result, they stripped me to the bone. Though, honestly, I was ready to give up a lot more to not see the brazen face of my favorite teacher.

NZAMIPS
held out without my help for half a year. In March, two army trucks came to me through the most impassable mud. A demanding bass horn lured me out of the house - the bumper of the first truck abutted against the gate. A driver in the field military uniform stuck out his head from the cabin, looking at the unexpected obstacle.

I
stood on the porch, letting them beep as long as they wanted - I wished to have nothing in common with them.

Two s
oldiers jumped out of the truck, leaped over the fence, and started lifting the latches of the gate. The scumbags didn't pay any attention to my presence! I became outraged, and my psyche abruptly completed its recovery.

"Hey, you, go back! Turn around!
Get out!"

They didn't listen to me!
The trucks were already driving into the yard. Two soldiers pulled out a long heavy box, inside which something was dully knocking. Dennis, my former Ho-Carg curator, jumped out of the cabin and started fussing around the box.

"After counting to three
, I'll strike!"

"
Master Tangor…"

"I don't want to
talk to you!"

Dennis
gestured toward the box, "He will die!"

The soldiers threw off the lid of the box.
Indeed, he would die soon. A body, already familiar to me, was screwed to a solid wooden frame. The zombie looked horrible: cracked skin, sunken eyes with a blank look…In magic vision, his vital meridians looked like tattered ropes. Obviously, NZAMIPS magicians had no power or skill to maintain his meridians' integrity.

"What is it?"
Johan was the last person to whom I wanted to talk at the moment.

"A zombie!" I explained with grim candor, enjoying
the abashment of the visitors. "A smart one."

The white sidled
up to the box and peered inside, "Is he all right?"

Wha
t a strange question! Particularly when it was asked about the corpse. "No, not quite. Step aside, please."

Johan obediently closed his eyes and clasped his head
in his hands - he knew well how to protect himself from dark magic. I gritted my teeth and weaved a resuscitating spell.

"Now
his body is okay."

The zombie
suddenly went limp in the box. So the strange knocking was his convulsions. Wow, they managed to drive even a zombie to death!

"
Get out now!" I was about to push them in the neck out of my home, but sneaky Dennis appealed to Johan.

"
Maybe you don't know, but this zombie saved Master Tangor's life. Artisans inflicted deadly injury on him at the necromantic ritual, and the hostile energy had to be diverted somehow. We are unable to support this creature. We would have to burn the poor guy, if Master Tangor refuses to take him."

Johan winced,
"Thomas, he is a human being!"

"How do you know?"

"I see it!"

Ugh!
What on earth made our white mage get out of his lab? When Johan just came to my place, I was afraid that he would be scared of zombies. Far from it - Johan loved my dog. If I condemned the corpse to…hmm…death, he would be upset and screw up my wonderful project with ore bacteria.

"It's a zombie, a monster!" I tried to reason with Johan
, but without success.

"He has a soul!" the white
retorted.

I
wondered how he managed to discern the soul in the rotten corpse.

"We'll pay for your work," Dennis
threw in his two cents.

"How much?"

He agreed to double my previous rate. I had a feeling I would regret my kindness. From Dennis' words, the zombie remembered nothing about his past or pretended he did not remember.
Rustle
or my efforts must have wounded his awakened consciousness. NZAMIPS attempted to save him - to experiment with or to keep such a rarity as an exhibit.

I decided to
ask the zombie himself, "Do you understand me?"

"Yes."

"Do you promise to behave decently?"

"Yes, I do
."

"
Unscrew him!"

And
the number of dwellers in my house increased by one. Johan named him Mr. Flap.

* * *

In late spring, when Suesson's roads dried out, Johan, radiant as a brand new coin, announced that he had made some progress with our biomining project. He completely reworked my idea.

Three aquariums, distinctly smelling
of acid, towered on the table. One of them had pieces of ore, perforated like a rotten apple and covered with herpes-like excrescences; a neat lattice, encrusted by conches of thumb-nail size, protruded from another one. Fish were swimming in the third tank. A piece of ore broke up right in front of my eyes, revealing inside a long, pink creature, not very happy that it was found.

"What is it?" Quarters and I asked almost in unison.

"A driller!" the white replied with quiet pride.

When a moment of
confusion had passed, he gave us a half-hour lecture. I knew that natural magic was an art (a separate field of knowledge, distinct from white magic in the same way that necromancy was different from dark magic), but I didn't fully appreciate how special it was. Tenderly smiling, Johan drummed his fingers on the aquarium glass, boasting about the achievements of his pets as if he personally helped every one of them. However, his success was obvious: the drillers crumbled the rocks, the bacteria digested minerals into soluble form, the mollusks precipitated the finished product, and the fish swam around eating all those who didn't work hard enough. Johan offered an elegant solution to the problem of temporary removal of the swimming "supervisors" - fish gathered in a separate pen in response to a colored light signal, giving the "workers" time for private life and reproduction.

"What is
this gray stuff?" I pointed my finger to grayish-brown tumors.

"Sea urchin.
The drilling species."

I
couldn't imagine that the hedgehog could live in the sea and drill. But Johan's fish looked disreputable. "Why are they so small? Is this fish fry?"

"No," th
e white magician raised his eyebrow. "You demanded a certain level of efficiency. This size is optimal for current conditions. I'll modify the species when conditions change. The live regulator splendidly controls the work of the ensemble," he shyly glanced at his aquariums.

"We can
scale this up now!" I announced solemnly. "The pilot test will be done here, in the ravines. Hey, Ron, can you rent a dredger for us?"

"No problem.
Will do," Quarters nodded solidly.

"May I include you
guys as co-authors in the article?" Johan asked timidly.

"You may," I
allowed, picturing how our names - of a typical dark and a white - would look together. "On one condition: you'll publish it after we have applied for a patent."

And everything
was set in motion.

My
life started acquiring its usual rhythm: supervising dredging, quarrelling with Quarters, writing project documentation, and ordering equipment and barrels of chemicals for Johan - all on the move.

Colonel Reich
received a new trendy truck as compensation from the Salem Brotherhood and now proudly drove it around Suesson. Dick Kirchun, the most inquisitive of the Reich's "cleaners", invited himself to visit me to see my zombies. He brought a sausage for Max and tried to become friends with Mr. Flap, but they wisely kept away from the preoccupied mage. The sausage attracted Bandit, and the cat gladly left his hair on the mage's wool pants.

By fall w
e managed to dig out holes and constructed a chain of concrete pools. The pools were built at a slope, so water could drain naturally. After the first heavy rainfall we were ready for the field trial.

I dropped
the test portion of ore into the pool (a hundred pounds), and Johan loaded it with our "workers".

N
ext day I didn't find any ore left - our critters had eaten all of it along with delivery bags made of iron wire! "Hey, Johan! Don't you think that our critters could be dangerous, say, for ships?"

"
No, I don't. They are absolutely safe!" Johan's eyes flashed. "They are not active at low acidity."

I wasn't so
sure. Well, not a big deal! People could revert to wooden ships, if anything.

Now we could start the trial. Polak and I
loaded the pool with two tons of nobody-knew-what kind of rocks and began waiting for the result.