My Path to Magic 2: A Combat Alchemist (12 page)

For the rest of the morning I slept like a baby,
and no nightmares tortured me. Ho-Carg seemed to be too big and disordered for a minor accident in the ill-fated warehouse to agitate the city. It never occurred to me that gossip in the capital spread even faster than in a Krauhard village (phones are evil) and, unlike journalists, gossipers did not bear any responsibility for their words.

I happily missed the first wave of panic that raged before the release of
the morning newspapers. A purring doorbell and persistent knocking on the door woke me up. Mr. Felister and some unfamiliar clerk stood behind the door; their faces instantly blossomed with moronic smiles at the sight of my grim personage. Max poked his nose at his welcoming guests, but I held him off with my hip: yesterday I did not have the patience to comb the zombie, who knew what crammed into his hair at the artisans' lair.

"How are you, Mr. Tangor?
" the senior curator almost sang. "Unfortunately, yesterday Dennis didn't feel well…"

"I also felt sick."

"Oh! I'm sorry to hear that. Would you like me to call a healer for you now?"

"No
thanks."

I shut the door in front of
them and went back to bed. Alas, my sleep did not want to come back. I hated any and everyone. The clock on the ministry building struck twelve p.m. I recalled that I did not take a bath before going to bed yesterday and decided to visit the bathhouse and the dining room, and to celebrate the successful completion of my vengeance.

The
hotel's yard was unusually crowded: a dozen gloomy figures wandered in circles, ignoring the afternoon heat. Army mages gathered together and listened to the instructions of a tough gray sorcerer; nobody fussed around my motorcycle, and I thought I could relax for a bit.

There was only one client
in the bathhouse except me: Larkes patiently waited for me in the pool. "How are you?"

Instead of replying, I plunged into the
pool with a running start. Larkes calmly endured a splash of water.

"Strange things happened
in our town yesterday," he said without a hint of emotion.

"Really?"

"The chief of the city police managed to surprise his higher-ups."

"
Really?"

"Decisive actions of
the police," his face shuddered incomprehensibly, "prevented a coup, or at least big trouble. Our brave men armed with shields and batons tied up all the conspiracy leaders in a more or less alive condition at some secret place. For the city authorities the incident became an unpleasant surprise. A grandson of the police chief was kept as a hostage at the same secret location."

"The relative of the
police chief is white?" I did not believe him.

Larkes pretended he did not notice my
slip of the tongue.

"His
younger son married an empath. And guess what was most interesting? It all happened thanks to an anonymous tip-off."

"It's a miracle!" I answered diplomatically.

"The townsfolk," Larkes' face expressed grim obsession (or maybe it was his smile?), "are gossiping about a new organization of assassins whose goal is to liquidate artisans. The name of the group has the word 'chaos' in it."

"
Oh my God…"

"O
stensibly, this group recruits only ordinary people, whose relatives were victims of artisans, and after several years of brutal drilling these militants can bring down any magician at once, leaving no trace. They mark their victims with orange powder."

I
regretted that I had started this conversation.

"And no later than yesterday," he
continued, "a detachment of fierce avengers attacked one of the artisans in the center of the city, driving the poor man to total insanity. A wave of arrests swept the city. Tons of banned weapons have been seized. Guests of NZAMIPS - especially dark mages - are advised not to leave the ministry's territory; there is a rumor that artisans are readying a counter-attack."

"
Do you know who that anonymous informer was?" I asked cautiously.

"I don't have a clue!
How about you?"

"The same.
No idea."

"May I ask you for a small favor?" Larkes sighed.

"Yes, of course."

"Do not leave
your room until the noise subsides. I will try to speed up your departure to Arango."

"No problem!"

"It's funny," Larkes muttered, "it took you less than ten days to find the headquarters of rebels. My colleagues chased them for two years. How did you accomplish this?"

I
t was useless to try to portray my innocence to him. "I did not care about these headquarters! You were with me, and you know - I wanted to find an enemy who ordered the killing of my uncle."

Larkes
snorted incredulously: "They say, some magicians hear the Voice of Destiny and execute the Supreme Will. I guess you are one of them, and now I see why Satal is still at the helm."

"What's wrong
about him?" I took offense for my teacher.

"Nothing.
He is a 'cleaner' to the bone, organically unfit for teamwork.  He was promoted to the position of senior coordinator for his ability to strictly follow orders. Our higher-ups believed that with growing covert activity around Redstone it would be important to have a leader who would not yield to provocations."

"But it wasn'
t him who hired Grokk (rest in peace, officer) as the chief of the 'cleaners'," I chuckled.

"No, it wasn'
t him," Larkes sighed. "Let's go for a bite?"

I did not mind, but
I noted that Larkes gracefully refused to listen to my criticism of his precious self. I saw why things became so messy in Redstone: for a number of years the region was led by this analyst-theorist. The "cleaner" Satal was a better fit to rule NZAMIPS than this nerd!

A
t least Redstone had NZAMIPS. I was curious to see what Arango looked like now - the region that lived without NZAMIPS supervision for five years.

After
lunch Larkes accompanied me to my hotel. At first, I did not understand why he wanted other people to see us together. It turned out that this egghead foresaw subsequent events better than me. I did not realize that army magicians from my hotel, being forbidden to leave the yard, paid all their attention to my motorcycle and zombie, and my modest person stood in their way.

T
hree combat mages waited for me at the gate; their faces promised nothing good to me. I tried to bypass them, but they immediately reshuffled, firmly blocking my way. I stopped and asked, "What the hell do you want?"

A mage in the ran
k of lieutenant replied, "Let's talk."

"
No time for that!"

"You
'll have to!"

I am bra
ve, I am very brave, but there were three army mages against me. I thought for a moment if Larkes was worth anything, and disregarded this nerd's help. "Gentlemen, get ahold of yourselves! Such behavior on the territory of the ministry…" - talk of the devil, and he is sure to appear. It was Larkes, and now I had to defend him, too!

The army mage
s put up their shields in sync, readying for a confrontation. Suddenly I felt that Larkes also called his Source. The power of his channel was so-so, but the quality of his weaving…He tossed out a curse from his palms as a gray haze, and the shields of the bullies simply folded.

"Gentlem
en!" Larkes raised his voice. "I repeat, pull yourself together! Violators of my order will be punished by a demotion in rank and a fine of two monthly salaries!"

I did not know what was more convincing: the unexpected fiasco, the threat of demotion
, or the possibility of losing the money the dark were always short of, but the combat mages decided to listen to the voice of reason. They stepped aside, breathing threateningly, and let us pass.

I was shocked
; "Why didn't you use your power against me, if you are so cool?"

He made an arrogant face, but smugness shone through it.
"I always find a way to come to an agreement without resorting to a fist fight."

"But this is boring!"

"My parents were normal people and taught me a multitude of other ways to have fun."

So, he was a magician in
the first generation. It happened sometimes. I shook my head in sympathy, "I understand you, man; my mother married a white guy. Can you imagine that? This will sound odd to you, but I still like helping people!"

Larkes habitually twitched his face and did not comment.

I honestly tried to keep my promise to Larkes to stay at home. My patience lasted for two days; even books that Dennis brought from the metropolitan libraries helped no longer. I was strongly drawn to bullying. For example, I wanted to adjust the security amulets on my motorcycle to sound infinitely; the army mages would have to go to me every time and ask me to stop that howling, and I would scoff at them.  I had to let the steam out; otherwise, the consequences could be unpredictable.

I chose a compromise:
I broke my promise but for a good reason - I went to see Hemalis to check if he knew that his enemy was arrested. Though dark mages were strongly discouraged to leave the ministry's territory, nobody set any magical barriers or cordons around the hotel; the only vehicles were removed from the parking lot. And it worked better than building a fortress wall: the dark were too lazy to walk a mile on foot to the central avenue.  They preferred to spoil each other's nerves in the hotel yard. Naturally, such primitive methods did not work with me, a necromancer from Krauhard. I went out through the main gate, walked down the hill, and ten minutes later was on a busy street. Neither the first, nor the second carriage driver wanted to take me to the plague block; the third one refused, too, but I became agitated, and he agreed to a double pay.

Ho-Carg subtly changed
since the rebel's arrest: it became quieter, dejected, and less metropolitan. Military patrols baked in the heat, wandering here and there, and barricades of sandbags, wooden shields, and protective signs grew at the police stations and government agencies. I saw no children around.

I looked at the awakening of the streets from
the daily torpor and thought I would retain the capital city in my memory as fussing and worrying. I recalled that Ho-Carg was known for its gourmet wine, famous strip dancers, and theaters, and I would have nothing to tell Quarters if I didn't urgently fix this situation while I was still in town.

Maitre Kebersen Street
was empty except for two burly movers in uniform who carried furniture to a huge cargo van near the Hemalis building. I went up to the fourth floor and realized that it was Hemalis who was moving out.

"Mr.
Tangor!" the old man started. "Sorry for this mess! Would you like a cup of tea?"

It was impossible to convinc
e him that I did not want tea. Five minutes later we were sitting in the kitchen and having a cold drink with a citrus smell. Almost all of Hemalis' belongings were packed in bales and baskets.

"I am moving out!" the
white beamed. "I am so grateful to you, so grateful! How can I thank you for your courageous act?"

Actually
, I came in to hand him a trophy earring from his enemy's body, but now I thought that such a gift would frighten the poor man to death. "No problem, it wasn't a big deal. I just wanted to ask why you waited for so long with the book. Fifteen years passed before you started acting and sent the
Word
to Uncle Gordon."

He sighed sadly, "I was afraid of th
e people who killed your father. If your dad, a powerful magician, was murdered, imagine what they would have done to me! They would have crushed me with one finger if I had stood out."

"What
did you say?" a frightened Hemalis shrank, and I told myself to slow my pitch.

"Oh
…you did not know that your father was killed?"

I stood up, feeling myself a fool
: up until now, my family and friends were telling me that my father's death was due to a failed curse. Their former slips of the tongue and oddities came together in my mind, snapping in place.

"Why then…
" the world reeled and plunged into a bloody mist; an unaddressed hot wave of hatred rose up inside me.  My agitated Source struggled to find the target;
Rustle
woke up inopportunely with his curiosity, and I threw my rage at the monster. The searing touch of his magic sobered me.

When
my hatred had subsided a bit, I started analyzing a reason for it and realized it was not about my father - I did not remember him.  I did not know him well: my mother and Joe had managed to make my memories about my dad completely sterile. The personality of Toder Tangor didn't overshadow my life. The reason for my anger was not grief, but a realization that many of my problems had names attached to them.