My Path to Magic 2: A Combat Alchemist

by Irina Syromyatnikova

  * * *

  It is common knowledge that dark mages do not have true friends and cannot feel affection, devotion, or loyalty, because of their kinship with the otherworldly. Rem Larkes could refute this statement: he experienced a strong and bright feeling, which remained a secret to the others - an ambitious magician with modest power could not afford to look strange. This feeling arose long ago: life was simpler then, both of them were dark magicians, and Larkes firmly believed that he would sort out his odd affection for his friend later. But Fate decreed otherwise.

  The absurd death of Toder Tangor - ironically, the strongest magician in their generation was killed by a bolt - did not break or weaken Larkes' attachment to his friend; instead, it turned into insatiable hatred. If a staff empath had known about Larkes' love, he would have thought of something to soothe Larkes' sorrow, but the dark mage did not trust anybody from his childhood. Larkes did not care that, as time passed, his feeling increasingly resembled a rare and destructive madness. The obsessed magician was heading toward his goal, compensating for his weak inborn potential with persistence and hard work. The artisans could not commit a worse faux pas than killing his friend; the days of the sect were numbered since then.

  In all of his offices Larkes always hung on the walls portraits of the twelve greatest magicians of Ingernika, and his deceased friend was inevitably among them. Now, looking at the large, slightly officious daguerreotype, the First Aide to the Minister melancholically pondered whether the striking resemblance of father and son was a sign sent purposely and personally to him. He came to the conclusion that it was definitely a sign. The young guy with somnambulistic accuracy bumped into artisans wherever he was heading. He figured out the shelter of the old fox Sigismund Salaris in Mihandrov; his elegant-in-its-negligence attack prevented the coup in the capital. Larkes was older than he looked - he was brought up in the old-fashioned tradition, on tales about The Soul of the World and The Lady Fate. It was quite obvious to him WHAT drove the boy, even if Thomas Tangor himself did not suspect anything.

  His secretary calmly waited when the First Aide would deign to break from contemplation of the portraits. The clerk was convinced that the dark mage harbored a dream to be among the elect.

  "Speak out!"

  "A message from Arango, sir! A dark magician, one of the 'cleaners', disappeared; likely, he was killed. One uninitiated dark was presumably abducted. In both cases NZAMIPS found traces of white magic. Should we begin deployment of the project?"

  Larkes turned his head to the wall displaying a map of the continent.

  "Ignore this! The ritual had never been undertaken before more than three hundred miles away from King's Island. Hand your materials over to General Zertak without comment. Let him solve his problems."

  The secretary bowed and left. Larkes returned to the contemplation of the portraits.

  Chapter 17

  When the ship dropped us off at steeply sloping rocks, I unconsciously waited to see a duplicate of King's Island. However, it quickly became evident that the place was unfit for the otherworldly: fancifully weathered rocks baked under the sun, and nature had left no shaded cracks for supernatural creatures. Combat mages could relax.

  As soon as our schooner disappeared over the horizon after unloading, an all-terrain rubber-tired truck appeared out of the wide cleft and cheerfully drove us across the island. It was a tiny piece of land - approximately a mile by a mile in size; at its southern end rain filled the crater of an ancient volcano, forming a small lake. The northern, flatter part of the island hosted a well-equipped camp with huge army tents, a field kitchen, showers, and toilets. For a moment, I regretted that I wasn't an archaeologist, but then I recalled another name for their profession - pit diggers - and I stopped envying.

  An abundance of dark magicians around didn't allow me perceive this place as a resort. As far as I knew, I was brought here to participate in the Circle of mages for a necromantic ritual and, apparently, it was some military project.

  They treated me tactfully, with respect: they provided a bed to rest, gave me plenty of grub, and didn't talk about the work. One ban was in effect for everybody: no spitting or swimming in the lake; it was the only source of drinking water on the island. Once, in Redstone, I saw a brochure advertising the holidays on the South Coast; the area around the camp was exactly like from the brochure's pictures, except for a lack of palms. There was even a tourist attraction – the ruins of a pirate fortress on the slope of the crater (nothing special, just a pile of rocks as high as humans). My impression of the island was a bit spoiled by dark mages, who walked around my tent like cats near a plate of sour cream. I did not feel like sleeping, and after tossing and turning in bed, I decided to familiarize myself with the island. I thought I needed to demonstrate to all that I wasn't a mollycoddled retard!

  The first dark I bumped into on the path was a short skinny man in an old-fashioned striped suit of venerable age. He was more curious than aggressive.

  "How are you?" the man raised his straw hat.

  Mr. Barray appeared in my peripheral vision.

  "Fine, thank you. How are you?" I decided to be polite with him. "We have not been introduced."

  "Kraps," he smiled politely, "from the Attorney General's Office."

  "Thomas Tangor, a freelancer," I decisively squared my shoulders. "He would regret it if he dared to mock me."

  The necromancer noticeably brightened: "Toder's son? Please accept my condolences! He was a very capable…ehh…man."

  I was glad that I already knew about my father's death from Hemalis. Thanks, mother, for your secrecy…I nodded solemnly, accepting his condolences, "It was a great loss for all!"

  To my surprise, he agreed.

  "What brought you to the island?" the old man asked.

  "I have some work to do here."

  "Good for you! We are about to start a very interesting experiment, if things will work out, naturally."

  I pretended that I understood. Mr. Barray decided to intervene: "Mr. Tangor, will you have a few minutes to talk with the expedition's leadership? Mr. Nursen will explain your role to you."

  Why did Nursen hide this till now? I could never understand these "nerds" with their secrecy! I nodded, and we went to the dining area to meet my boss. I was introduced to some new people whom I had not seen in Gilead: an army officer, an old alchemist, and a girl who seemed to be a healer. Ironically, Mrs. Clements - an archeologist from the expedition to the King's Island and Alex's former supervisor - was not among them; it turned out that Alex grew up into an independent researcher.

  "Why do you think we brought you here?" the army officer with the last name of Stephenson asked me (judging by his firm look, he was a colonel, at least).

  "No idea. Nobody says anything!"

  Jim Nursen immediately started educating me. Mr. Barray secretly sighed; I did the same. At least Nursen did not stutter!

  "We've made major discoveries in the City of Nabla," the archaeologist declared proudly. And shut up.

  "Where-where?" this part was worthy of continuation.

  "In the settlement of the most ancient civilization of our world."

  "Ahh," I heard nothing about it.

  He stared at me suspiciously, expecting a different reaction. "Have you ever been interested in ancient history?"

  "Not quite…"

  "I see," he sighed ruefully. "Then I'll start from the beginning. The history of mankind is very complex and ambiguous. The so-called City of Bekmark is officially acknowledged as the oldest human settlement. This ancient metropolis was buried under a giant landslide approximately thirty thousand years earlier than people settled in Capetower, the second oldest town."

  "Okay," I read about Capetower when I searched for information about technomagic.

  "I do not know what you have read about it," he said as if he had heard my thoughts, "but if we assume a high level of civilization at Capetower, for the Bekmark civilization we have absolute proof of their extraordinary
technical progress. A self-propelled vehicle identical to ours in everything except for exterior design was restored from a pile of rust in excavation by means of retrospective necromancy."

  I was stunned by his statement. An imprint of the essence of an artificial object? How could it be possible?

  "Yes," he grinned, "archaeology is moving forward. And we have found a third layer of civilization here, on this island."

  In short, this discovery was made by laypeople. During the last conflict with Kashtadar, one of the navy officers noticed that the Bird Islands had a strange shape. The guy, abusing the privileges of his position, convinced the magicians on his ship to probe the sea floor in the area. He thought the island served as an ancient port, and along with the port he hoped to find sunken treasures. The results were discouraging: something huge, round, and metallic was sitting on the continental shelf of Bird Island. Naturally, military leadership became interested in the discovery. They invented an underwater bell for greater depths (it was designed specifically for Bird Island) and performed extensive research on the anomaly. Many theorists speculated about the nature of the object, but none came close: when the bell's operator dug the silt a couple of times, the sediment crumbled and revealed the tip of a giant glass hemisphere. Thus they found a real sea treasure - the City of Nabla.

  "It's a titanic construction!" Nursen sighed. "Our technological progress hasn't reached that level yet, which will not allow us to create anything similar. The underwater dome has retained air inside, only its door hatches had corroded slightly. If the general public had learned of the underwater city, it would have been the biggest sensation of the last millennium."

  "If three civilizations have already vanished, it can happen again with the current one," Mr. Barray commented quietly.

  "Yes, it's true!" Nursen responded. "Three civilizations successively replaced each other in our world, all three disappeared almost without a trace, and two of them were superior to ours. Our archaeological community barely accepted the existence of the Bekmark civilization - people do not want to admit that humankind could revert to primitiveness or go extinct; but here it is - proof that regressions of such magnitude did take place in the past. Moreover, each time collapse was virtually instantaneous. Ancient Capetower's records unequivocally say that the world outside their island disappeared in one day, though many historians commonly interpret this revelation as a later insertion made by copyists. Personally, I believe that in the underwater dome of Nabla people died all at once, as in Bekmark: dead bodies lay randomly along the corridors, some - right where they worked. One corpse fell with his hydro suit half-off. A terrible picture," he frowned, "two of my colleagues went mad after working in Nabla. What will the impact of this discovery be on the ordinary people, do you think?"

  Yeah…A sudden, unexplained apocalypse, regularly mowing the inhabitants of our world. An upsurge of religious fanaticism would be the most innocent consequence.

  "We need to figure out what happened to them to save our own civilization," Mr. Barray summed up. "And we invite you to the City of Nabla."

  Now, once I learned of the existence of such a place, they couldn't keep me away from it. My student practice, graduation, and contract work for NZAMIPS didn't matter anymore; I was ready to risk my life just to have a peek at such a miracle!

  "Okay," it took from me Herculean efforts to hide my avidity for the treasure. "I realize the importance of our work and will make every effort to do my job properly."

  Jim Nursen began smiling cheerfully, while Mr. Barray squinted suspiciously - he certainly knew a bit more about the dark.

  The following day I devoted to meeting with my colleagues and to practicing work as a team. None of the senior necromancers refused to participate in the training, and I did not want to stand out. The enlisted necromancers were about eighty years old on average (maybe even older - the dark always look younger their real age). It was evident that soon the government would face a serious shortage of…hmm…retrospective animators. I made a note of this for my future salary negotiations with NZAMIPS.

  At dawn the next day we boarded a large high-speed steamship, from stem to stern decorated with Navy pennants. There were no civilians among its crew, perhaps in order to ensure the utmost secrecy of the location of the glass dome.

  The sun was rising over the ocean and slowly filling the endless space of water with light. Light golden haze hung over the waves. From horizon to horizon there was nothing in sight except for water. Our journey resembled a trip to the enchanted land. Noisy sea birds were left behind; only the steady hum of the turbine and smarmy rustle of waves broke the silence. The elderly necromancers dozed, Alex joyfully smiled at the wind, and I thought of the technology the Navy used to probe the ocean bottom. Our steamer made a sharp turn and docked to another ship, taller and wider, with no markings on it. Authorities were safeguarding the horrible secret very seriously…I was the first to climb a rope-ladder.

  The construction designed for deep water research was called a bell, and it was far bigger than I expected - about seventy feet long - and shaped like a cigar. Its coin-sized dowels made me think of an inside-out boiler, and it had a cap with the flywheel of a notorious fermentation vat - and we were about to dive into this vat. Other details of the design were not visible; the bell was almost entirely in the water. For its rise and dive the ship had a special hole in the middle. Such flight of imagination and scale of preparation for the underwater research appealed to me.

  "A good iron pot!"

  "Actually, it's made of bronze; the bronze keeps spells longer," one of the crewmembers replied.

  My rating of the monstrous construction sharply surged: the fact that they used magic in the design testified that developers approached their work seriously. "How many people does it take?"

  The sailor hesitated, "About fifteen passengers. Of course, it's uncomfortable."

  And now the pot was to carry twelve necromancers at once, not including the crew of three people. Lovely! All my life I wanted to sit on someone's head.

  "G-good luck!" Alex looked at the underwater boat with reverent awe.

  "You'd better wish me patience."

  My colleagues began to board the pot. Judging by their gloomy faces, they were well familiar with the boat.

  "Can't we dive in groups?" I watched as the crew packed us inside.

  "No. The hours of operation of the oxygen regenerator are limited."

  If I hadn't had a burning desire to get to the underwater city, I would have found what to say to the crew. The elderly magicians sat closely on the benches, stared point-blank at each other, and breathed angrily. The creators of the underwater boat apparently hadn't thought through its design. We were like twelve genies in a bottle or, rather, in a pitcher.

  Our diving into the abyss took more than half an hour. I was bored and pondered why our forefathers built a city in such a shithole. Surely, we were fortunate it was underwater - nothing would remain of it on the ground, but I couldn't grasp their logic. According to my notions, developers either saw something insanely valuable in this place or were hiding from something or someone. My speculations on this topic gradually became more and more perverted: from the domination of dragons on the surface, which forced the Nabla civilization to move into the ocean, to the commodity-money relations of our ancestors with the distant circles of Hell.

  We didn't feel stuffiness or lack of oxygen inside; the only indication that we were deep under water was silence, as if the world beyond the bronze shield ceased to exist. We neither laughed, nor joked, nor moved unnecessarily, and nervously waited. Signs of white spells mysteriously flickered on the boat walls (I never thought before that the white could succeed in something alchemical!). My tension grew, as if hordes of ants crawled under my shirt, whereas I could not scratch myself; my colleagues looked no better. Unlike me, they knew what they were up to, because they had been there before.

  When the crew began to shift the gear shaft and steering wheel, it came
as real salvation - our nerves in the sailing sarcophagus were on edge.

  The boat's bottom touched the hatch; the crew diligently checked the reliability of the docking and lifted the hatch lid - no more than a few spoonfuls of water leaked through the seals. To us it looked like a new space opened up under the bottom, a hole into another world.

  Hello, City of Nabla! I decided to ask Mr. Barray who this Nabla was - I would bring this guy to life, thank him, and put him back to rest.

  I was the last one to board and the first to go out. The enchanted blue lantern dimly glowed inside the dome. Mr. Barray handed me a brighter lamp, but it did not help see better - all I saw were the distant corners of a spacious hall drowned in darkness. Apparently, this section of the dome was originally designed for boat docking, and our shipbuilders simply copied the ancient mounting dimensions. The closest wall of the hall had four sliding doors, which formed a large semi-circle; one of the doors was opened, allowing me to see another hatch, similar to the one we had entered through. Metallic carcasses of benches stretched along the walls of the hall; thanks to unexplainably dry air, they stayed tarnish- and rust-free despite the passage of thousands of years. There were neither cobwebs, nor the remnants of vegetation, nor any corpses. Two corridors came out from the hall; one led to a strange double staircase going up; the entire opening of the second was covered by a membrane of oiled silk. To the right of the staircase there was a gap in the wall, which opened up a hollow suspiciously resembling a nest of sand gnats, as they were described in the ancient manuscripts.

  Mr. Barray went down right after me. The crew handed him a small metal suitcase, and he changed a cartridge in the oxygen regenerator huddled under the lantern.

  "The air in the dome doesn't have enough oxygen," he explained. "The regenerator makes air suitable for breathing just in this room. We don't want to disturb the existing balance - oxygen could be detrimental for ancient artifacts. So, please, do not go beyond the area marked with chalk!" The chalk line was drawn just before the silk membrane.