My Path to Magic 2: A Combat Alchemist

by Irina Syromyatnikova

  After Satal and Fatun's training, all the blissful contemplation induced by Charak's lessons was vanishing without a trace.

  I stared grimly at my pants, burnt in two spots; soon I would have to buy a new pair of pants for my classes with the necromancer: the old man, pedantic in the extreme, would say nothing, but look askance at me if I wore torn clothes.

  "You must be prepared for anything!" Satal noticed didactically. He was fresh and vigorous, as if he had not hurled spells at me for two full hours without a break. This scumbag always gets off scot-free!

  "We are done with studying classic attacks," the senior coordinator elaborated his thought. "At the next lesson, we'll learn the nuances that amulets bring to combat magic."

  I sighed, "Sir, tell me honestly, are we going to war with Kashtadar?"

  Satal laughed contentedly, "Your thinking, kid, is on the wrong track." He was in a good mood. "If Ingernika had had an external enemy, you wouldn't have needed these skills: in war, the winner is defined by blunt power. But in peacetime, as an employee of NZAMIPS you will likely face a treacherous attack of some outcasts, and I do not mean crazy white idiots. Why do you think no one dares to resist NZAMIPS? Because of our reputation! And this reputation must be retained."

  "Are you alluding to a duel?"

  The sham "corporal" guffawed abominably. Satal glanced at him and shook his head disapprovingly: "They will call it a duel, if you win. In reality, you can be assaulted suddenly, unexpectedly, and without any special reason, because dark mages do not hesitate to attack. There are plenty of psychos, and we need to tame them. Do you think mage-perpetrators agree to wear the shackles of deliverance? Ha-ha!"

  The newly revealed prospect did not please me: "Do you mean I will be arresting mages?" Indeed, it was my lifelong dream to tinker with unruly mages!

  "Who knows? I participated in an arrest for the first time while still being an intern - when I dropped by the guardhouse to have tea," he smiled again; these memories seemed to amuse him. "Local detectives besieged a smuggler, he was a half-pint and a weak, self-taught mage, but he fought us tooth and nail so that we barely managed to apprehend him. By the way, only a single combat with a licensed mage will be considered a duel - the winner of which takes the magic seal of the loser."

  Yeah, like a souvenir from the grave. For twenty years they taught me that use of dark magic tricks in fighting was not good, that NZAMIPS would come and punish you; and now I heard another tune: I was NZAMIPS myself, and that would be me handing out that same punishment. No, I was not frightened, but the whole thing sounded so primitive! Where was the triumph of the spirit, the intellect, the moral superiority in all that, after all? Throw a weaving in the face and a curse in the ass of a criminal - that's all combat magic is!

  Satal noticed my hesitation and squinted:

  "Or you'll wait till an uncle "cleaner" will come and do the dirty job for you?!"

  I shook my head. Surely, I would prefer to fight people with my brains than with my fists, but learning a couple of tricks wouldn't hurt me. How could I explain my doubts so that he would understand?

  "Sir, are you sure that I will ever meet an enemy worth my current efforts?"

  That was it, exactly! Most offensive of all would be to learn all this combat magic crap and find out that I could not apply it.

  The senior coordinator took a deep breath: "Kid, believe me, you will find enough foes among dark mages. There will always be a fool willing to test the hardness of the gates with his own forehead. Fatun, what's your score?"

  "Three," the "corporal" grinned.

  Hmm. Three duels weren't that many, considering his wicked character.

  "Mine is five!" Satal announced proudly. "You will meet enough of them too, kid. It'll be a pity if the government heavily invests in your education, and then some snotty dropout crushes you for your arrogance."

  Excellent, I had to work hard in order to save money for the government! In short, Satal did not convince me of the usefulness of his lessons, because the only magician against whom I wished to apply the combat magic art was he himself.

  Finally, it came to my mind to ask Charak whether such multidiscipline training was a usual thing. With his four hundred years of experience in dark magic, he had certainly come across similar situations! Yeah, four hundred years of service, it was an incredible record. Magicians live long, and necromancers - even longer. Charak remembered the Inquisition epoch and even the reign of King Girane (though he was a five-year-old kid at the time); naturally, with such life experience he looked at things from a special perspective and was willing to share it with his student. By the way, Charak finally satisfied my long-standing curiosity: why dark magician Saint Roland was called "the Bright". "It was a compromise," Charak smiled conspiratorially. "Because he used to hit in the face those who called him Roland the White."

  To clarify why my training was so many-sided, I needed to turn the conversation with Charak in the right direction. This task was not simple, because when the old necromancer began talking, I became so thrilled that I easily forgot with what I intended to start our talk. To make sure that I would get the answer I was interested in I wrote myself a note and kept it in front of me, greatly amusing the necromancer with that.

  Meanwhile Charak started his lecture with a smile: "You're practically a degreed magician. Can you formulate the basic principles of necromancy?"

  Oops. I was hoping that he would put the material in my beak already chewed!

  "Well," my brains almost perceptibly creaked, "the basis of necromancy is weavings; in other words, dynamic curses. The dynamic curses are based on equating a flow of thoughts to a flow of ethereal energy." In the senior year of our university program, we just touched lightly on the relevant sections of magic: their mastering required a certain talent, bore deadly risk, the result was unpredictable, and the university did not want casualties among students, especially shortly before their graduation. What I was practicing with Charak was, a priori, very dangerous. Dark students were taught professional safety for many more hours than the secrets of magic, so my memory obligingly gave out dribs and drabs of relevant material. Some spells (so-called "dynamic curses") were especially dangerous due to the relatively high likelihood of backfire - energy poured into a spell could hit the mage casting the spell. It is common knowledge that combat mages often kill themselves, so no wonder that magicians tried to avoid the dynamic curses wherever possible. Recalling how my necromantic amulets heated up after a spell casting, I could imagine what happened to the brains of mages under a backfire - if they made a mistake. But I knew nothing of the risks a successful spell could generate.

  "Is that all you know?" Charak gave a sad smile. "Did you ponder over it at all? Making an imitation of a being as complex as yourself doesn't go unpunished. Initially, a necromancer recreates a human whom he is going to raise in his own mind. And the part of his brain which will be occupied by the other person's imprint will never be the same thereafter. On top of this, our spell craft requires fine-tuning to varying circumstances; hence, it is useless to memorize necromantic curses. Instead, you should learn the general principles of our art."

  Charak observed how my face changed expression and nodded with satisfaction: "The main occupational risks for necromancers are madness and the loss of one's own personality to an outside entity; any safety against this is fundamentally impossible. Death per se leans toward the lowest of our risks. Our professional hazards are a side effect of the reconstruction in our mind of the alien personalities that we raise."

  And how wonderful it all began! Though there clearly was a catch somewhere.

  "Is it very harmful?"

  "In most cases, not so much. The effect is observed for two to three days, usually no longer, if the ritual is performed by the book. A serious risk arises only when a necromancer tries raising a corpse alone - that is, when he attempts to retain in his mind all aspects of the alien personality. But we, as you've seen, are not engaged in this."


  Yes, that was true. Charak strongly opposed my attempts to create a more or less functional zombie to collect firewood for our bonfire. Now I knew he was not guided by ethics; the necromancer had safety in mind!

  "Are you scared?"

  A silly question! Dark mages are not afraid of anything, but I did start having some doubts regarding the path I chose.

  Charak smiled blissfully and a bit madly: "You are worried about what you might lose, and you don't think about what you can gain! Look at me - I haven't lost myself after raising thousands of zombies. If the integrity of your personality is not lost, you will restore yourself sooner or later and you'll likely be more perfect and complete. There is some benefit that cannot be obtained in any other way…"

  "Zombies?" I ventured to suggest.

  "This is secondary," the necromancer brushed me off. "A human understands another human by identifying with him, by reading the other person's mind through his gestures, looks, intonations. However, everyone remains alone in his or her own world from birth to death, as in a shell that other humans can penetrate only as a pale shadow. But a necromancer is capable of crossing the impenetrable shell - I mean an opportunity to live the lives of dead people raised by us. A chance to acquire talents which you have not been endowed with in your own life, to try new feelings, visions, ideas that you would have never learned on your own. You know," the necromancer's cheeks flushed with embarrassment, "it makes you quiver better than any wine. But at the same time it's the reason why you cannot raise a zombie with its memory fully intact, when you act alone. If you incorporate the entire personality of a deceased being, the latter will likely replace or change forever your self-identity."

  Charak paused: either he ran out of steam, or he was giving me time to reflect on what he said. Recent oddities acquired a frightening meaning. I might go daft, and no one would notice. No, there would be someone to notice: Rustle touched my mind: "I'll help you, I'm with you."

  "Do not worry, necromancers work in teams," my mentor decided to cheer me up. "For the recreation of a complete replica of a deceased being, twelve necromancers - the Magic Circle - must act together. Perhaps, necromancy is the only type of dark magic that requires teamwork."

  I was struck by a sudden guess: "So, the government doesn't have enough mages for the Circle…"

  "Right," Charak nodded sadly, "and I am already too old for such exercises."

  The magician who had managed to stay alive for four hundred years had every right to excuse himself from the Circle.

  "Whom do they wish to raise?" I could not resist asking.

  "No idea," the necromancer shrugged. "You will find out soon. At first, you have to learn all types of weavings and how to conjugate them. I don't know what exactly you will be doing in the Circle."

  Thus, my tranquilized mood after necromantic classes was indeed a sort of insanity, as Rakshat suggested. I pondered for a while how to mitigate the mental side effects of necromancy. I could double my time of meditation and workout after the classes, as my martial arts instructor taught me long ago, and chat more with my acquaintances. All of these things were easy to accomplish: less than a month remained till the end of my university classes; I had earned almost all my required credits and sent off my thesis on alchemy for review. Now I had more spare time, and Quarters was already out of the hospital. Doctors advised him to spend more time with his friends, but Sam disappeared, and the other acquaintances passed him by as if he were a leper - they feared that Ron's company could attract the attention of artisans to them.

  "Tom, you have no idea how cool it is to have a dark mage as your friend!" Quarters was genuinely moved by my visit. "The dark are absolutely unyielding people. I am glad there is something unshakable in life, after all!"

  "I am more or less familiar with the tactics of white psychopaths." I was flattered by Ron's compliment. "The artisans can't get close to me other than by sudden attack. I almost quit drinking - I am not going to give them this chance."

  Quarters grimly nodded, "They screwed up my life too, these scumbags! My mother forced me to sign up with Alcoholics Anonymous."

  I snorted mockingly - Ron certainly wasn't the right candidate for such "treatment".

  "I am lost; I do not know whom to believe any more," with a tragic look Quarters emptied his glass of beer. "Now I understand the expression 'dark times!' "

  "This time is quite ordinary," I did not agree with him.

  "Indeed?" he moved closer conspiratorially. "We enjoy peace here, but in the eastern provinces there is unrest, quite frankly. My uncle said that the government found out some crying abuses of power there: one local top official managed to cut the number of 'cleaners' to zero. Now residents are fleeing from there, and Kashtadar threatens to invade our country if we do not calm the unrest."

  "Let officials from the capital sort it out; they are paid to do just that. A face-off war with Kashtadar won't happen, as knowledgeable people told me."

  "I sort of envy you," Ron grinned. "You firmly stand on your feet: a combat mage and alchemist, plus the support of NZAMIPS. Good for you!"

  "I would not say so. I owe two years to the Roland Fund."

  And this circumstance was greatly spoiling my mood. Typically, the Fund's fellows had to pay the money back by their work at assigned places; sometimes the Fund did not mind getting their loan repaid in cash, but I couldn't count on that. By the way, as soon as I began pondering on that matter, the placidity caused by my necromantic practice vanished immediately. The closer I was to graduation, the more often it was happening. Thus, one Sunday morning I got up for my combat training in my normal spirited mood.

  The sun shone, birds sang on the island. Lacking my necromantic numbness, I finally realized that I felt profound abomination toward the situation: two seasoned combat mages kicked poor me like a ball and called it "training", and I had nothing to fend off my teachers. I felt like they humiliated me. Enough of this mockery! I pondered what could be done against them. In the presence of two strong opponents, I did not experience any combat ardor and had no desire to commit a painful suicide.

  I worked on defense from an attack with amulets during that class. My task was to determine when my opponent was switching from an assault with a weaving to an amulet-enhanced attack and set up a special screen against it. In case of a breach, which was quite likely as I just learned how to shield myself from a combined blow, I expected a very unpleasant effect: Satal aimed below my waist. What a vindictive bastard!

  If he knew how it would end…

  Seeing how he was about to punish me, I became angry and decided to use one trick: I formed a two-fold shield. Its first, weaker layer was supposed to passively accept a blow of the hostile magic and dissipate, convincing my opponent of the success of his attack. But then its second layer came into play, strengthening and deflecting the hostile energy after a second delay - when my opponent was not expecting anything more. I confess, at the time I did not think how my trickery could hurt Satal and honestly did not realize the might of the curse I produced. My sophisticated shield, worthy of a master of magic, enhanced and reflected back the energy of Satal's blow, hitting the most vulnerable spot on my teacher's body. Poisonous-green sparks danced with purple flashes, and a beautiful branching lightning discharged below Satal's waist. As the final chord, the river around the island became covered in mist.

  Satal blundered: my trick fooled him, and he was late with his shield. I did not envy my teacher - he had no time to diminish the energy of the kickback. To be fair, he would never hit me if I was not prepared to respond - he was afraid of seriously injuring me. So my counterattack was dishonest. Satal, alive, slowly wiped his face, brilliant from sweat. I really felt guilty, but at the same time I thought I missed a good chance to rid myself of all my problems at once.

  "Hey! What are you doing?" the "corporal" asked us suspiciously, shaking off his own weavings (but without such a dramatic effect).

  Satal could not talk: a senior coordinator with a trembl
ing voice would be a shame for the entire profession.

  "I think we're done for today," I dared to suggest.

  Satal managed to approach me, shook my hand in silence, patted me on the shoulder, and walked toward the pier.

  "You know," Fatun summed up, looking down and digging in the sand with a toe of his boot, "you'd better stay away from duels. Except for a fist fight, maybe."

  I sighed and told the colonel everything that I thought of him in the most simple and easy to understand words. This scoundrel's muzzle became as radiant as a copper basin, and he hastened after his boss.

  Well, they were driving me nuts, they were!

  Chapter 6

  "Brilliant…" the senior coordinator moaned, staring at the ceiling with eyes drunk from adrenaline shock. "Brilliant…And he tinkers with stupid alchemy!"

  A forgotten cup of tea cooled on his desk. The dark magician sat in his chair transversely, with his feet almost over the chair's back. He was recalling his last combat lesson. Kevinahari wondered whether she needed something stronger than tea to bring him out of the trance.