As soon as we got out of the slit, I freed the coluber from my control. The construct rushed to climb the wall, fell down, and started venting his anger, throwing rocks in our direction. Five sent down a lightning bolt. This seemed to add power to the coluber. Reich was right: the use of magic against the construct was making it stronger.
Two refreshed his immobilizing spell on the broken bones of Three, and Chris started moaning with redoubled force.
"Get up, jerks!" Reich terminated our short rest. "Move."
He sent a scout forward, and the rest of us made a hammock from our overalls to carry our cripple. We moved up the tunnel, thirsty and hungry; water and moonshine were long gone. It was obvious that Chris would not survive if we were to walk there for a long while.
My mind was busy dating the mines. The first one was built in the epoch of Messina Fowler, as I learned from the ritual with the ancient jaw. The tunnels of the second one were made later, perhaps at the time of the City of Bekmark or Capetower; its builders were proficient in dark magic and alchemy. The second mine did not look abandoned in a hurry; surely, the coluber and the ghoul were left there for protection. Against whom? My not-so-very-clear picture of the world became even blurrier. The scout spotted ahead the gray sawyer, and while Reich attacked the otherworldly, I took a blissful respite. I lay on the floor, dying of thirst, and delirious images of water wandered in my weary mind. Reich finished off the otherworldly disgustingly quickly and raised us to our feet by kicking. Chris threatened to kill us if we dropped him.
A tunnel, which we were passing now, seemed to be made in relatively modern times - its sides and roof were supported by heavy timbers. I was about to drop dead, when the tunnel ended in a large cave. An oily puddle gleamed in a hollow near the cave's rear side. Reich hand scooped its water, tasted it, and spat it out. I strained my Source and made out of the poisonous brine three pieces of pure ice. With trembling hands Reich split each piece in half. I had never tasted anything more delicious in my life. It was bliss! But if I were Chris, I would not relax: we had no food.
The tension eased, and the "cleaners" got in a mood to talk.
"By the way, I know where we are now," Two croaked after recovering breath.
"It's Palovy Grabny," Reich muttered dully. "You cannot confuse such squalor with anything else."
Yes, he was right: the sides of the last tunnel looked like their makers had no sense of geometric proportion, as if an army of beavers gnawed them.
"Its shaft is only a hundred feet deep," Five breathed out.
One hundred feet was not one thousand; if there was no other choice, I would grow my nails longer and climb out of it with my fingers. Probably, the others thought the same. We lifted Chris up and moved forward.
And then, as in normal dungeons, we met the otherworldly, and plenty of them: predatory echo that filled narrow passages with velvety curtains of darkness, phoma grown into rocks, burrows of gray sawyers, and a real diamond among them - zherlyak - an air funnel filled with small rocks that stripped a victim to the bones like sandpaper. In short, the "cleaners" were busy. It was for the best: I did not know how the rest of the mages endured starving, but I was catching myself thinking that the dead flesh was edible too, and I waited for someone to die.
The subsequent events are a little sketchy in my memory. We walked, sweeping away everything in our path; twice Chris was almost swallowed up by the supernatural, but his teammates repulsed the attacks - in my opinion, because they had his flesh in mind for themselves. My next vivid recollection was our quarrel in the shaft of a mine: it was already night on the surface, and we decided to climb up at dawn. The shaft was protected by amulets against otherworldly. Now we could even let NZAMIPS know about ourselves by damaging the shaft's amulets, but then we would have to repel attacks from the emboldened otherworldly for the whole night. In the midst of our quarrel a cautious voice from the heavens said, "Hey!" and continued on into the silence, "Anyone alive down there?"
The "cleaners" burst into cries of relief and conflicting requests to run, stand by, carry, throw. Their opinions were split as to what exactly the unknown man should do first; eventually, they asked for a rope. The puzzled voice began questioning us what length, strength, and color of rope we wanted. I realized who was up there - a white - and shuddered. He would be seriously looking for exactly the kind of rope we had asked for and wouldn't bring any other!
"No, man, no!" I smacked people around me, forcing the "cleaners" to shut up. "Just bring help, got it? Bring someone to help as soon as possible!"
I thought they would kill me, but the colonel bellowed, "Freeze! The master is right. It's Malek. Didn't you recognize him?"
The name seemed to be familiar to all. The "cleaners" immediately cooled down, started smiling, and made themselves more comfortable.
"It would take him forever!"
Oddly enough, Malek found help quickly; in half an hour we heard another voice from the surface, much less friendly: "Who's there?"
The "cleaners" began shouting merrily. "Gerry, you asshole, bring a rope! And the grub. More grub! And a healer!"
This episode was my last memory of that day for a banal reason: I was attacked by Rustle. Usually reserved, the monster was enraged; he ignored my fake lightning and frenziedly brought down upon me waves of destructive energy, aiming to burn my mind up in smoke. But after two days of fasting, I myself was just one step from undeath. We grappled within my mind - two equally powerful, nasty creatures. My poor body was not designed for such a strain, and our fight ended in a real electric discharge - I got burns. The healers considered me epileptic and sent me to the hospital for recovery. So, three of us were placed in the same hospital room: Chris, me, and Reich. The colonel suddenly developed an ulcer. Reich was fine as we ran through the tunnels; he was healthy until the moment he heard that Coordinator Larkes looked for him, wondering why he took along a non-core specialist into the pit.
I was lying on a bed enclosed with cloth screens and pondering what to do next with the tenant in my mind. There were no precedents for the complete exorcism of Rustle. He started a fight exactly when I needed him most! What happened to him? I addressed the question to myself - the monster rustled somewhere at the edge of my consciousness. 'C'mon, monster, where are you?' A delusional feeling visited me as if Rustle was scared like a plain human being. So, he was not only obsessed with morality, but also prone to phobia. I started exuding empathy and understanding: "Come on, dear, show yourself, I will not hurt you, and maybe even help." The monster was incredibly intimidated by something that I saw underground; he instantaneously identified this thing as a threat and attacked me in a state of deep shock.
The only unusual thing I met there was the coluber, but the alchemical construct couldn't hurt my otherworldly. Rustle didn't believe me; it turned out that it was exactly the thing that horrified him!
"Calm down, dear, there's no reason to fear it. The construct is securely locked, and if it escapes from there, I'll send it directly into a volcano, and its shields won't help."
Rustle gave me a colorful image of the invincible construct walking through fire and smoke. I gave him back a picture of the shining glass millipede, a carrying crippled Three on its back. Rustle chilled out. Emboldened, I showed him a couple of Messina Fowler's memories, but the monster was not interested in the epoch of Nabla and disappeared.
I did not immediately realize the importance of my latest finding: Rustle was not eternal; apparently, at the time of the underwater City of Nabla the monster hadn't existed yet. But he was present in the past of the technomagic civilization that created the coluber. I reached into the drawer and grabbed my diary and the fragment of black glass from the mine. Then I scribbled on a blank page:
"Archaeology:
1. City of Bekmark
2. Capetower
I need a bone from each!"
Well, the task was written down, and that meant the job would be done one day.
I threw the diary back into t
he drawer and decided to take a break from business for a week, but my rest was spoiled: visitors constantly dropped in and brought gifts. I never knew I had so many well-wishers! The "cleaners" on both sides of my bed terribly envied me - nobody visited them. They would not take treats brought for me (they were too proud for this), so I became inventive and pretended that the cabbage filling of Polak's pastries was making me sick (as well as the pumpkin and pea stuffing). Then, as a favor to me, Reich and Chris instantly ate away any quantities of food I gave to them, while I had to chew my share of treats secretly at night under the pillow. I didn't have enough patience to continue like that for a long time and soon recovered.
Chapter 34
"Thank you, my friend, you've pleased me. Get well, I won't bother you."
Reich couldn't avoid a conversation with Larkes: Lemar mercilessly set a phone line in his house. The result of their talk made the senior coordinator do several things; the first one was a phone call.
"Hello, my dear," the magician's voice was filled with chagrin. "It seems that you one-sidedly ended our agreement."
The phone vigorously protested.
"Really? Then tell me, what the heck were your "brothers" doing in Suesson?"
The phone reported back with confidence.
"Really?" Larkes' voice gained a thoroughly calculated dose of poison. "Have they received an approval for murdering my staff, too?"
The senior coordinator's question was akin to thunder and lightning to his interlocutor; the tube became silent. "Look here, dear," the coordinator let his voice ring with rage, "if my people in Suesson experience even minor difficulties, especially from the mass media, the details of your fun time in Caffolk will instantly become known to the public. Yes, yes, I mean your 'study' of dark Sources. I swear that your sect will be banned immediately!"
The phone trembled in terror.
"Take care, my precious." Pleased with the impression he produced, Larkes hung up. The coordinator came to believe that a periodic shake-up was useful not only for the dark. The white were also prone to overdoing things; from time to time they should be poked in the face with the consequences of their good intentions that end up leading to hell on a regular basis. Purely for keeping them in shape.
He called his secretary next.
"Organize an information umbrella for the events in Suesson. You have to offset Giom's report of the artisans' presence; ideally, fabricate something about the death of a maniac-murderer."
The secretary nodded and went out; Larkes followed him with blank eyes (he was recently told that his aide was too communicative and prone to criticizing his chief's actions). It was time to get rid of the guy; the young man didn't understand that his boss owed nothing to anybody. He was absolutely not obliged to make a good impression on anyone, including his driver and cleaning lady (as all the other dark, Larkes treated issues of hierarchy very seriously).
The coordinator returned to the report he was reading when his subordinate showed up in the room.
The mage's premonitions came true: sectarians, identified through his team's hard work, began acting. One of the suspects met a prominent person who, Larkes knew, was an artisan. This person was a white patriarch, a fierce fighter against the Inquisition, an advocate for the unlimited use of magic and, at the same time, the creator of the sign-restrictor, restraining the dark Empowerment. The paths of the two men crossed for no more than a couple of minutes, but Larkes was sure: the go-ahead to begin the sect's operation was given and received.
The artisans would develop the main act artisans in a deep province, while NZAMIPS forces would concentrate in Redstone. The best choice would be Septonville, a quiet town with forty thousand residents, surrounded by pastures and rocky hills, and known for an abundance of migrants from Krauhard.
Migrants! As with every dark, Larkes felt contempt for the losers. As soon as Krauhard began to justify its legendary reputation as a place with the highest rate of occurrence of the supernatural, people ran from it like a flock of stupid sheep. Of course, they needed to blame somebody for their misfortune. It was a perfect breeding ground for the sectarians; among these imbeciles the artisans drew new soldiers.
Obviously, Septonville was already imbued with artisans. Larkes pondered how to send his spies into the town covertly. What could distract artisans' avid observers and allow his people to get closer? A circus! Yes, a circus with elephants and dwarfs, performing bears, trapeze artists, a grim dark mage, and a horde of red clowns. In a noisy crowd, among colorful wagons, he could hide a regiment of stormtroopers, not to mention two strangers, who knew how to stay unnoticed. A perfect cover-up!
Senior Coordinator Larkes had a sense of humor.
* * *
I stood and stared blankly at a moldy rock in the aquarium; it was ore bacteria, the miracle of white magic - a thin layer of white mucus on the surface of the boulder. The miniscule miners liberated valuable metals as ions into surrounding water, and then the dissolved metals needed to be somehow precipitated. (In my opinion, such extraction was cost inefficient even if it mined gold and platinum.)
Johan volunteered to devote me to the subtleties of his research. Evolution had already created all the basic variants of metabolism and feeding long before us. Johan selected the best initial mineral-crunching bacteria and amplified its ability to release metals. His problem was to save the new property of the microbe along with its former useful features including viability - to make the new species competitive versus the wild one.
"Our environment is extremely aggressive!" Johan's eyes sparkled. "Billions of beings live unseen around us, ready to multiply unstoppably if they find food. If a newly invented entity is unable to repel the natives, it will be simply eaten alive."
Another issue was to preserve the desired properties in the offspring of the newly created species, because the descendants quickly got rid of the unnecessary bells and whistles. "It requires a titanic effort! Otherwise, the mouse-weavers become ordinary gray rodents, and the unique singing sunflowers become vulgar oilseeds," the white mage preached.
"What do you think of our project?" I asked Ron.
Looking at Quarters, I felt indescribable pleasure: Ron's lips were smashed, and a bruise of fantastic color flourished under his eye. The smart city guy decided to flirt with local chicks, and hot rural boys beat up the bugger. Ron left the battlefield on foot, but with such a face that he wasn't likely to get another date in the next couple of weeks. That's why Quarters saw enough of the moldy boulders - he had nothing else to do in his spare time.
"You are lucky to have Johan on your team," Ron replied.
"I have one idea - let's talk about it over a glass of beer. Are you free now?" I wanted to discuss it with Ron and my companions in a pub.
"No, we have all hands on deck currently." Quarters started working for the cotton growers as an alchemist. Who would argue - they needed good specialists.
"Well, don't complain then! How about you, guys?" I asked Johan and Polak, but they didn't reply. Bandit peed into the Polak's sneaker, and the hubbub raised carried me out into the street by a sound wave. The motorcycle started up instantly and, affectionately roaring, carried me towards the smells of spring and beer.
My hanging out at night and Bandit's vigilance saved my life. I was on my way back home in the middle of the night, in a peaceful mood, fed, beered, and happy, and paid no attention to my surroundings. Around my farm I set a security perimeter -another cat wouldn't go through it (in case Bandit wanted female company).
Suddenly a surprising picture caught my eye: Bandit perched on the edge of the rostrum that I built for Max (my zombie liked to sit high and look into the distance) and hissed at something or somebody. His hair was raised on end, making the cat look like a ball of fur. My faithful dog sensed no danger, though he was a bit confused by Bandit's company.
I wondered what could scare the brazen beast and checked the perimeter seals - nobody had broken them - then strained my feelings to embrace all natural a
nd supernatural beings. Suddenly I discovered a pulling vacuum in the area between the house and the barn. The being standing there was invisible even to my magical sight: he was covered by a special shield. I activated my Source, made a weaving with the vilest post-effects I could think of, and attacked the unwelcome guest.
My pre-emptive strike saved my life - the enemy rushed to me at an incredible speed. When he moved closer, I stunned him with a weaving from my necromantic arsenal and realized it wasn't a human. An anthropoid construct, intensely smelling of dark magic, froze before me. Its body was made of metal-like parts. A multitude of black weavings, incredibly subtle in structure and hardly discernible to the human eye, served as controllers, making the golem change its shape and move.
I would have given half of my life for a chance to learn how to create these things!
For a moment, the construct was disoriented by my attack, and I seized control over it - the coluber's controllers were similar. Right on time - the construct protruded a hefty blade that touched my chest, and my reverence before its amazing design instantly vanished. My thoughts now flew in the opposite direction: how to break it. I sent the construct into the garage, took a circular-blade saw from the barn, and tried to cut the golem into pieces. The enchanted flesh softened under the blade, melted, and corroded steel, like a strong acid. And no trace of the cut remained on it. I couldn't fasten the golem - it would flow out of any shackles. Maybe to immure? But I did not have a large tank on hand. I recalled Rustle's raving about the invincible beings and ran into the house to take a piece of the glass disk I brought from the mine. In my previous experiments the glass didn't cut anything but paper. I decided to try it now on the golem - after all, the underground ghoul was shredded by disks made from the same material.
My Path to Magic 2: A Combat Alchemist Page 29