The magician glanced at Mr. Felister cautiously, like normal people look at an unfamiliar idiot. Though the young man's face lacked the typical-for-the-dark-mages expression of assertive insolence, the curators suspected the worst: it was well known that if a combat mage did not swear recklessly at the people around him, then he was gathering his power for an attack.
"How was your trip?" the senior curator changed his approach instantly, and now his voice manifested servility.
Dennis knew that his superior consciously tested different approaches to their charge to let his young colleague observe the mage's reaction and then act without errors. So far, the result was unimpressive: the entire posture of the dark - "at ease", jaw forward, lower lip out - testified that his opinion of the capital's curators neared the level of plinth.
"Would you like to have a bite first?" Dennis decided to try a win-win approach: a free meal for any dark mage was of top importance. "There is a good wine cellar not far from here."
The young magician looked down at him. He was of the same height as Dennis, but the curator physically sensed that the mage treated him as a subordinate.
"A good idea!" the mage said.
Dennis took the mage's suitcase from a porter and walked forward, pointing the way.
From the train station to the doors of the promised wine cellar was no more than two hundred meters, but this short trip produced an everlasting impression on the visiting northerner.
"Yeah…" the magician stretched shockingly, slowly regaining liveliness in the twilight of the cellar. "I knew about your climate, but I could not imagine it would be so hot…"
"Oh, it will get better!" Mr. Felister hurried. "It's forty six Celsius in the sun now, but the temperature will drop to around ten degrees at night."
"How can you live here?" the northerner was stricken by Felister's comment.
"Sleep in the daytime, party at night, as they say. But not all can afford this," the senior curator scratched his nose. "Is your dog prone to heat stroke?"
The magician looked at the beast: "Rather, he's at risk of rotting. By the way, I have to bathe my dog!"
Dennis recalled the mage's dossier he had read on the eve of their acquaintance. Curators studied in great detail what necromancers were capable of. Dennis knew that only patriarchs could raise a zombie with independent consciousness. No wonder that Mr. Felister wanted to personally meet a talented novice who was on par with seasoned necromancers. The zombie-dog noticed their attention and lolled its puckered blue tongue out.
Meanwhile, the senior curator tried to cement his success: he was convincing the dark not to drink, not to go out, and to stay quiet for the next couple of days. And the trick was to do it in such a way that the visitor did not think for a second that they wished to limit his freedom.
"You need to have a good rest to adapt your body to the local weather and time zone," the curator cooed.
Keeping the northerner inside as long as possible was fundamentally important: in Dennis' memory two visitors from the north had a heat stroke, three caught a cold, and one ended up in the hospital with a heart attack as a result of heavy drinking under the sun.
"Where will we go?" the magician skipped the senior curator's lecture. He graciously accepted a cup of cold green tea and diligently studied the menu.
"To the suite the ministry has reserved for you…"
"I mean the ultimate goal of my trip."
"You will learn it at a meeting with your NZAMIPS superiors on Monday. And you'll have time to explore the city."
The young dark resumed his temper.
"I am serious! I need to know where to send my luggage. The cargo train will arrive in two days, and I am not going to waste my money on renting a warehouse."
Dennis honestly tried to envisage what item would require delivery by freight train for such a short trip, but his imagination failed. Necromancers were famous for their extravagance!
"We'll provide you with a storage space," Mr. Felister announced in a slightly trembling voice.
"Cool!" the rising star of necromancy rejoiced. "Will you also buy a few chemicals?"
"Huh?"
"For my zombie."
Dennis furtively looked around. No, no one seemed to overhear them. Any rumors that his charge brought a zombie into the capital city could ruin his career forever.
"In the ministry hotel you'll find everything you need," the senior curator promised firmly, even if he had no clue what his young charge needed at the moment.
The magician put on the table a piece of paper folded into fours.
"It's the list of chemicals that I need," he explained seriously. "Add to this a bathtub, a big one."
The curator's smile looked a bit intimidated. Dennis mentally ran over the profile of his charge kindly provided by the leading curator of the northwestern region, Ms. Kevinahari; in her opinion, Thomas Tangor was balanced, difficult to manage, and persistent in achieving his goals. All dark mages were stubborn, but if the expert emphasized this character trait in particular…Dennis started suspecting that their charge was planning to run his hideous rituals in Ho-Carg. Usually, curators for the ministry's visitors were white, but demanding that a white work with a necromancer was akin to requesting him to perform suicide: watching a forbidden spell casting would have caused a stroke in white mages. Luckily, Dennis was a regular guy with no propensity to any magic.
"Do you want me to call a car for you?" Mr. Felister asked hopelessly, studying the list of chemicals.
The young magician almost choked on his salad: "Can we wait here till evening?"
"Yes, surely," Dennis started up. "The heat will abate in a couple of hours."
"Then I'll leave you with my assistant; I have some urgent business to attend to," the senior curator summed up cruelly. "I'll book a car and Dennis will take you to the hotel. Do you have any other needs?"
The dark mage shook his head in denial.
"Have a nice evening!"
Looking at the retreating back of his superior, Dennis guessed that his first independent assignment wouldn't be simple. He recalled a favorite saying among curators: "We all know it is not easy to deal with the dark magicians, but only curators know how it is not easy."
The necromancer finished his meal, ordered fresh newspapers and a refill of tea, and immersed himself in reading. Dennis diligently waited - support services didn't employ hyperactive personalities. After about half an hour the dark mage noticed the presence of the interlocutor.
"Do you know by chance if there are artisans in your city?"
"There are some," Dennis didn't deny.
"And what do you do with them?"
The young curator tried to recall the events of the last few months.
"We carry on our fight for the minds of people. They spread rumors - we refute them and engage in educational work, as everywhere else."
The magician chuckled incredulously: "We apprehended a couple of their leaders and numerous small shots in Redstone over the last three years. Have you heard about it, or do you get all your news from the mass media?"
"I do not know all the details," Dennis reacted philosophically to the distrust of the dark. "The artisans behave more quietly in the capital, where there is a policeman or two on every corner. They have no space to breathe here!"
The dark mage pulled on his eyebrows and continued reading. Dennis decided to add to his charge's dossier "he is persevering and provident". How many combat mages take the time to learn in advance in what environment they will have to operate?
"Your boss mentioned a suite in the ministry hotel…What's this?"
"It's more of a room really, in the local tradition, without an in-unit kitchen and bathtub."
The ministry's management would have placed visiting darks into shared rooms to save more money on guests, but a shared dark room would end in murder.
The magician singled out the detail most important for him: "Where can I take a bath then?"
"In the capital, i
t is customary to bathe in special outbuildings called bathhouses."
And it wasn't cheap; the high cost of bathhouse tickets taught people to save precious water much more efficiently than any sermon: water came to the city via an aqueduct, the capacity of which was limited. When the city experienced water shortages, public bathing facilities were the first to close. But the northerner didn't need to know about these subtleties.
"Hmm. It's quite unusual. Women and men together?"
"No, in separate compartments. Sometimes on different days."
The magician became somber, but not for long. The conversation slipped to the urban attractions. Surprisingly, the guy was not interested in normal "dark" entertainments like camel racing and dog fighting. Instead, his unhealthy attention was drawn to the local drama theatre.
"What is on there?" Tangor revived.
"The Rainbow Curse", the curator was stunned. Never before had he heard of a dark who had an interest in cultural events.
"What is it about?"
"About the Dark Ages," Dennis wriggled - he wasn't an avid theater-goer.
"Will you buy me a ticket?"
"I doubt it," the curator admitted. "The play is on its second week since the premiere."
The next unusual thing - the northerner was interested in books – was accepted by Dennis a little easier. He vowed to get a membership to the famous metropolitan library for Mr. Tangor and gloated a bit, thinking that the senior curator would break his back to fulfill this promise. Dennis was determined to light up an icon lamp to his ancestral spirits and donate an incense stick to the Custodian of the Desert, for the exotic interests of his charge promised him nothing but problems. But the rapport was established, and the time until sunset flew by unnoticed. When darkness fell on the hot streets of Ho-Carg, the car promised by Mr. Felister arrived to pick them up. Tangor mannerly spread a cloth on the car seat and let his zombie-dog sit on it, ignoring the disgruntled looks of the driver. Dennis single-handedly pushed the giant suitcase in the trunk, and the ministerial car - a cumbersome monster with a heat pump on the roof - slowly moved, sharing the streets with horse-drawn phaetons, white shiny limousines, and rickshaws.
The capital seemed to come out of its midday torpor: on recently quiet streets one could now hear the shrill signals of horns and laughter and murmurs of thousands of voices, though they were muffled by the time they reached the cabin. The zombie-dog delicately smelled of lilies, the necromancer smelled of nothing at all, and Dennis began to feel unconscious respect for him. Tangor looked like a well-bred magician; even his strange interests seemed to bear the stamp of his aristocratic origin.
And yet, when the car arrived at the ministry's hotel, Dennis experienced incredible relief. It remained to put the necromancer in his room, show him the direction of the pool and the dining room, and then he would be free until tomorrow morning.
The curator dragged his charge's luggage with all possible haste to the third porch of the building, but Tangor himself wasn't in a hurry, diligently looking around as if afraid of something. The dark mage's fears proved true: as they approached the porch its door flew open with a kick, and a grim stranger in a military cap appeared on the threshold, his clothes marked with the fluorescent filaments of officer insignia. Dennis dashed aside, pulling away the suitcase: he instantly recognized by the arrangement of stripes the most bellicose of their client varieties. A combat mage in the rank of army colonel came out from the depth of the entrance with the dignity of a mountain lion and, without glancing aside, moved in the direction of the parking lot for ministry vehicles. Mr. Tangor cautiously stepped aside and watched his colleague passing by. The curator took a breath - they had the misfortune of running into Tangor's neighbor and fearlessly entered the building. There were no other tenants in this two-unit section.
Inside, the mage meticulously checked the quality of the chemicals delivered by Mr. Felister, the presence of sheets and towels in the room, whether there was a bucket of water for his zombie and, finally, unable to nag at anything, Mr. Tangor waved his hand letting his curator go. He did not have to repeat; Dennis immediately hid behind the door.
"Congratulations on the first day of your solo job!" the senior curator patiently waited for his younger colleague at the porch. "How is he?"
"We came across his neighbor at the entrance," Dennis said.
The chief shook his head sympathetically. "It happens. What do you have planned for tomorrow?"
Dennis listed the enchanting plans of his charge. "Also, he needs a map of the city with all the streets."
"Will do," Mr. Felister promised. "Try to persuade him not to take the beast along. Perhaps, he will get access to the library with the zombie, but they will not let the dog into the botanical garden under any circumstances. By the way, are you absolutely sure he wants to visit the botanical garden?" Dennis nodded grimly. "An odd interest."
"Very true."
"Let him run around to weary himself. On Monday he'll be calmer."
Dennis nodded and dragged his feet to the gates and out of the hotel's territory; he wasn't eligible for a free drive in a ministry vehicle, and a rickshaw was too expensive; he had to go to the Old Blocks on foot.
The city seethed and sparkled with lights, as if trying to help the sky regain its daylight rage. With the fall of twilight the streets became filled with people. In the middle of summer the capital almost completely shifted to a nocturnal mode of living. Dandies in brightly embroidered beaux gowns sedately walked along the streets, clerks in suits hurried to their homes, other people cheerfully clattered around. And a strong smell hovered above this bustle. Dennis, born in Ho-Carg, unmistakably distinguished its origin: it was the smell of sweaty and dirty human bodies - a sure sign of poverty and disease. Lately, this sweetish stench was everywhere, spread by a crowd of people from Arango, who literally flooded the city. These poor beings took up all the low-wage jobs and, unable to cope with the high cost of the metropolitan life, sheltered in basements in horribly unsanitary conditions, threatening the rest of the city with the specter of a new plague.
There were lobby talks in the ministry that the government had doubled the troops at the expense of northerners and was about to send them to the depopulated lands of Arango province, which was now treated as enemy territory. Kashtadar was bulk-buying from refugee children with magic abilities, and residents of the regions affected by the invasion of the Arango escapees demanded that the poor people be sent back to the East Coast.
"Why didn't they die in the place where they were born?" Dennis could not help thinking, coming across an unkempt vagabond in the crowd, and he immediately felt ashamed of his thoughts: he considered himself a humane and enlightened man. But that stench…It was driving him crazy.
* * *
I couldn't say that I was pleased with the chance to visit the capital during summer. It was not exactly my dream to get into the desert at its hottest. How did it happen that Ingernika's capital was settled in such a vile place? Perhaps, because in the entire former Kingdom of Ingerland, Ho-Carg was the only (literally the only) city left intact after King Girane and the father-inquisitors' escapades. Anyway, one could have chosen a better place for the capital.
A heat pump on the roof of our train was on its last legs; I felt like a steak traveling through the oven. Looking through the train window at the salt pits, which were mined for saltpeter from time immemorial, I pondered that I would hardly enjoy a town founded by slaves and convicts. I was about to hate Ho-Carg, but the capital's service stunned me!
Two boobies from the local NZAMIPS met me on the platform, posing as gracious hosts. I managed to shake off my suitcase on them at once - it was incredibly heavy because of the lead enchanted padding at the bottom which hid Uncle's book from prying eyes. Then they offered a free dinner. Yes, they paid for me and didn't even blink!
I felt like a real dark magician, and I liked that feeling! Then there was a free ride in a car with a personal driver, free chemicals, a pair of socks my s
ize and slippers in the room. My mood spoiled at the realization that I was not the only one enjoying such treatment.
Early in the morning I decided to try a local bathhouse. It was a bit unusual: it had a few basins and no shower. Instead, there was a common swimming pool, where for the first time in my life I saw four dark magicians spending time together without fighting. Two "cleaners" - you could always recognize them by their looks - sluggishly swore at some officials. Third, a lean mage from the army (judging by his muscles and tan) meditated with a damp cloth on his head. Fourth, an elderly magician was sadly sitting on a stair in the corner of the pool. As soon as I recalled how hot it was outside during midday, I became sad too. I basked in air bubbles from the jets for about an hour while Max soaked in the bathtub under the porch stairs. When I returned, I found my neighbor standing near my zombie. I looked at him indignantly, and he got it and left.
Then there was brunch in the dining hall. Plenty of tasty food and not an ounce of strong drink, not even beer. Of course, having finished their meals, dark mages instantly moved to merrier institutions, but I noticed a company of empaths in the corner of the dining hall: they sedately drank green tea and intended to spend a whole day doing just that.
I pondered for a moment and stayed with the empaths; I couldn't do anything else on such a hot day. My local cicerone found me there and brought a map of the city, cheering me up. I methodically browsed the map for all the geographic names associated with a theater, fables, botany, and Pierrot Sohane. Finally, I had an opportunity to work on resolving the painful puzzle of the letter that cost Uncle Gordon's life. The letter surely contained some encryption, intuitively decipherable by the addressee from the point of view of the sender. I lived near Uncle Gordon for fifteen years - I had every chance to grasp his way of thinking. I planned to visit a few places in town to ease my guesswork and find that "precious friend" who would tell me what he "solemnly kept" for "continuity's sake". After looking at the map, I realized that Ho-Carg was a huge city, and over three dozen places could be associated with the sender of the letter. I diligently wrote all of them down on a piece of paper.
My Path to Magic 2: A Combat Alchemist Page 8