My Path to Magic 2: A Combat Alchemist (14 page)

"What
do you have there? Iron?" a young magician panted, helping me mount my suitcase on the motorcycle's luggage rack.

"How did you guess?" I
answered cheerfully. For a trip I took a canister of oil and water; and after honking to the gang of thugs (these assholes began to shout and toot), I decisively turned to a country road that led roughly in the direction I needed.

'
Get ready, Arango, Tangor is coming!'

The fu
rther the road progressed from the railroad station, the stronger was my feeling that Captain Ridzer deceived me – that he dropped me off in the wrong place.

After all the rumors about Arango, I expected to see
a naked landscape, rocks gnawed by the otherworldly, bones and skulls everywhere. Instead, a sea of grass with mockingly chattering grasshoppers (I heard them despite the engine's noise) rippled before me from horizon to horizon. There were neither misty hollows, nor black whirlpools, nor impenetrable thickets, nor bottomless bogs. Any semblance of forest was wiped from this place a long time ago. Only landmark oaks grew along the boundary paths; depressions and ravines, almost imperceptible to the eye, were filled with shrubs trimmed by cattle. Full of suspicion, I tried to find anything that secretly carried a threat, but in vain. Where could the otherworldly appear from in such a place? Arango was perfectly safe, in my opinion.

A cloud of midges hung over the grass in
the warm air; birds scurried in the sky, busy with the midges, towers of windmills pleasantly broke the monotony of the horizon. The blades of my motorcycle easily coped with the midges and grass, though at the expense of burning more oil than usual. The country road looked well-beaten but overgrown over the last season. I was tempted to stretch the trip for an additional day or two, buy a local beer, and arrange a day off for myself. Only two things stopped me: the fast approaching exam date, and the fact that I hadn't started my practice yet, in Satal's apt words.

Loneliness in the fields affects you stronger than any kind of
magic. All of the thoughts and worries in my mind quietly faded away; my consciousness seemed frozen in anticipation of either the end of the trip or some unarranged meeting. To feel this magic, you need to experience solitude in Arango. Its spaciousness was endless. It seemed possible to take in the entire eastern province of Ingernika at a glance - the land was so even, the air was so clear.  Clouds bent in the sky, forming white arches; grass wasn't withered even in the middle of summer, and a cool breeze gently blew from the mountains. It was hard to believe that the Inner Desert was just a hundred kilometers away.

I felt
I could drive and drive nonstop, but in the late morning the sun began to bake, and I decided to take a break, wash my hands, have a bite, maybe take a nap, and check if I was moving in the right direction. Even Max became tired of playing in the grass and ran on par with my motorcycle. Now we both vigilantly looked around, searching for a shelter.

The universal grandeur
of the steppe awoke the farmer in me, and I spotted grass that wasn't mowed.  The strong backs of grazing cattle were nowhere in sight. Then I spied a turn to an unnamed village. I could have noticed that the path to the village was too overgrown, but what dark mage would draw his attention to the degree of grass trampling? The farm gates were welcomingly wide open; only silence, impossible in a normal rural yard, alerted me; there was neither humming, nor barking, nor human voices. I stood in the middle of the overgrown yard and stared dully at the boarded-up windows and abandoned barns.

There we
re some unpardonable things for which we literally killed in Krauhard, and even the police didn't punish us for that. The Law of Abandoned Buildings was created specifically for such cases. Clearly, residents left this place more than a year ago, but the house wasn't burnt, and its roof wasn't taken off. The deserted building became a perfect nest for the
phoma
, as if somebody specifically left this place as a breeding ground for the otherworldly. I did not set the house on fire right away, afraid of spreading it beyond the farm's borders - I did not want to compete for the speed record with the wildfires. I walked round all of the outbuildings, tore off the window shutters to let light inside, opened the barn door, and took off a cap from the well. Ehh! I wouldn't advise anyone to drink from that well in the near future - of course, the place was too small for the
twisted
, but quite okay for the
black strand
, which obviously already dwelled in the water. I went inside in search of salt to pour into the well; my Krauhardian pride didn't allow me to leave the place as is for the otherworldly to feed. I found an ax to make alerting signs. It took me a little over one hour to secure the farm from the supernatural.  Why didn't the owner do the same before leaving?

I waited
under the roomy wooden awning of a drying shed till daytime heat was gone, thinking that the place didn't need tough "cleaners", but rather a pair of policemen with cudgels to teach farmers some good sense. There were some problems in Arango, but not of the supernatural character: just the human folly that could be beaten out of the brain without any magic, by brute force. I drove further and saw over and over again abandoned houses, tightly closed barns, capped wells, and other misdemeanors that were punishable by jail. These idiots deserved to die of plague - stupidity should not be encouraged.

By evening I noticed
the roof of a large village on the horizon. One of them presumably belonged to the office of Arango's NZAMIPS. Four dark magicians lined up across the road; their arrangement suspiciously reminded me a cordon. I was being welcomed, but somewhat unkindly, with rods. Their stern look didn't bother me - my victory in Ho-Carg made me unreasonably bold.

"Your password!"

"Shit! I came from Ho-Carg. You should have known about my arrival."

"Prove it!"

Max walked closer and showed his teeth to them. I had never met people before who rejoiced at seeing my zombie. It was the proof they wanted - that I belonged to their kind.

What I took for a village was a small town
with the inimitable name Tyukon Town, for some strange reason built in the middle of the steppe. In the twilight I discerned neat two-story houses with no gardens, a church, a town hall, as well as a lack of people on the streets. I saw black windows and boarded-up doors. Dim oily lights illuminated only one - main - street; the place promised to become as ghostly as the farm where I was a few hours before.

The
office of Arango's NZAMIPS occupied a single building in town with an illuminated facade and aversive signs around its foundation. Behind the door displaying the plate "Chief," I met an elderly dark magician of moderate maliciousness who was in charge of the office. Along with him, there were also five middle-aged "cleaners", obviously his subordinates, who were unusually quiet and tense (dark mages don't twitch like that).  I needed their help in finding a way through the steppe to the coastal city.

After introducing myself, I immediately
inquired, "What happened, sir? May I assist you with anything?" It was surely an inappropriate time to request their help.

"Have you met anybody on your way?" the chief narrowed his eyes.

"No one. No one at all."

"We have lost an officer
," he said without a transition. "My people have been searching for him for the third day in a row."

"How
come?"

"Just like that!  He went on a routine inspection and vanished."

"People don't disappear without a reason!"

The guy suddenly became
angry; my implied disbelief seemed to touch him personally:

"It'
s none of your business, wise-ass, got it?"

I understood:
they wouldn't help me unless I came up with some idea right away.

"Let
my Max follow his trace!"

He winced,
"A good idea, but it's too late for that; besides, he was driving his jalopy."

"But my dog is quite unique."

Sparkling intuition was not among this guy's talents.  It took him half an hour to agree: "Okay, there is no harm in trying. But I cannot provide you with any vehicle. Only one car left, and it is reserved for urgent needs. Who knows what else will happen? Perhaps we can rent a horse from the locals."

H
e wasn't curious, either. He surely didn't think about how I got to his town: had I walked on foot from the station?

"I need a canister of oil and one
of your mages who can identify the missing officer."

The chief
frowned, "I am short of staff. Take Paulo with you. He is useless now. He is our empath."

"A white mage?
Are you kidding? I'm a necromancer. What if I need to cast a spell?"

The
chief of the "cleaners" choked at the news. "Do not say the 'N' word to the local people! They are wild barbarians, they believe in fairy tales. My deputy will go with you, but not today. Stay overnight in our guest room and come back in the afternoon tomorrow."

Another angry boss
on my back…Their guest room was a tiny place under the roof, with a chair, a bed, and window curtains, decorated with embroidered roses. I pondered on an odd pattern: the worst things seemed to occur in the quietest, most peaceful places. Perhaps that is a universal law: whoever lives sweetly ends his life awfully.

I went to bed
– and planned to get up before dawn. When I woke up in the morning, Arango's charm vanished: birds and green grass didn't move me, drowsy heat did not enfeeble me, and gorgeous landscape turned into false scenery, hiding the predatory nature of the area. A calendar giggled in my head, counting the days till my final university exam. I looked for a chance to start a fistfight. No matter who knocked off the missing "cleaner" (surely he was already dead), it would be curtains for the guilty; I was going to execute the killer personally.

My d
og caught his task on the fly. I did not know how Max sensed the traces, but from the town's outskirts he confidently led us along the road through the field. I quickly realized why the chief shook off his deputy onto me: he suffered from verbal diarrhea, a rare but severe problem for a dark mage. My motorcycle jumped on potholes like a jerboa, but the talkative blockhead behind me didn't fall silent for a second. I wished he would bite off his tongue. If I hadn't previously lived in a white family, NZAMIPS would have lost another officer that day, I swear on my mother's life!

T
he "cleaner" behind my back boasted wildly, excitedly, not interested in my response and not worried about how his boasting looked from the sidelines. According to him, Arango's NZAMIPS was really tough. Then why did so many refugees flee? It was the locals' own fault, in his view.

"
I remember one story:
phoma
covered an entire house, but the owners didn't allow burning it off - it was private property. My boss had found a way to deal with them. You don't like the law? Get in the house, and if you come out alive - your way is the right way" he bragged.

I
pitied those villagers: the chief of the "cleaners" chose the toughest and most ruthless form to acquaint them with reality (if I were in his shoes, I would just show them an illustrated brochure; it would be enough to scare the peasants). Catching myself in compassionate thoughts, I almost groaned. Why did I feel sympathy for the stranger-idiots? Such handling of villagers should cause only a mischievous grin in a dark magician. I wasn't such a weakling before, was I?

The talkative "cleaner" could not imagin
e how close he came to being cursed to death.

Our trip ended in a flop.
We failed to find the missing Officer Gatay, but discovered his truck (it huddled on the sidelines of a wide dirt road). There were some strange emanations around his track and no trace of his body. Max looked frankly puzzled. We called other "cleaners" for help. They found nothing and became angrier. Gatay's mates did not believe in the desertion of their co-worker (otherwise he wouldn't leave behind his track) - they blamed the otherworldly. But I knew the dark mage might have met another enemy - quite material and originated in this world – artisans.  The fact that the grass at the track was too fresh pointed to white magic manipulations to erase traces. I kept my observations to myself - the "cleaners" became too agitated. The result of our trip was the returned truck and a lot of work for the staff empath.

The same evening
we gathered in the chief's office. Curator Paulo, a well-dressed middle-aged empath, hopelessly tried to get the attention of the "cleaners". They were outraged and humiliated, and the smell of duels filled the air. Of course, they chose me, the outsider, as a scapegoat. I didn't hope for their gratitude anymore, and I welcomed a good fight. It was time to check if there was any benefit from Satal's lessons.

A "cleaner" of
a gangster type with tattooed knuckles and two missing front teeth ripened for the fight first - he made an awkward joke on my account. He didn't need to show wit: his first words had no meaning, they were just a tribute to the ritual of invitation to a fight. Now it was my turn to respond: by boasting, demoting his status, and threats…

And I did:
"Your job is to haul manure.  That's why you were sent here, you, an incompetent idiot. You are unfit for anything else. Too green! I could teach you a thing or two, but I am too lazy to flog you. But if you wish, you are welcome, toothless, I'll teach you for free!"