The Fixer Of God's Ways (retail)

by Irina Syromyatnikova

  There was no discussion after my presentation. The army mages surrounded Max and started to palpate and pinch my poor dog. Theorists of magic from back rows fiercely debated among themselves what my zombie could or couldn't do; practicians from the first rows scribbled in their notebooks, copying my posters. I indulgently listened to the nonsense regarding the need to continue my interesting studies. The chairman praised my interesting experience, though nobody heard him because of the noise. The work of our section was successfully wrecked.

  My favorite teacher was beside himself with joy, and his eyes shone with emotion, "Brilliant! We are the best! You see, there was nothing to fear! And Axel won't pester you anymore!" They didn't serve alcohol in the bar but, apparently, Satal had a flask of brandy with him.

  "I can guess why Axel wanted to frame me, but you, sir! What was the point of my presentation?"

  Satal shrugged. "Do you know that I am merely the chief of the regional department of practical magic now? But I see a chance that my department will rise up soon!" and he eyed Max with an appraising glance.

  I thought it would be clear from my speech that to convert a ghul into a manageable zombie was a difficult task. Though, to crank the same with bugs was much easier. Let them do what they wanted!

  * * *

  "Have you heard the latest news, Master Haino? They brought the devil's incarnation into the Dryden House! It's disgusting! I will never go there again."

  "It's to our advantage, my friend. Rumors will inevitably leak to the press, and when our plans come true, the government will have to blame itself for flirting with necromancy. They will forever lose the desire to play with bones!"

  "From this point of view…you are right, as always!"

  Chapter 5

  I didn't show up at the conference again, with the tacit approval of my teacher. Next day reporters were on duty at the door of the Dryden House and even tried to bribe the hotel staff, who religiously kept my confidences.

  I used my spare time to tour the town. First of all, I visited old Finkaun, the former capital of Ingerland - several blocks of "antique" buildings with narrow slits of streets in the core of modern Finkaun. The old town was surrounded by luxury residences - former mansions of the nobility. Probably, all the white lived in that part of the city; even in Ho-Carg I did not see so many healers, teachers, and artists per square foot. Every second building in the core was either a school, or a clinic, or a museum.

  Some cranks come to Finkaun to enjoy the beauty and elegance of the noble antiquity. Personally, I was bored with the town of my ancestors. Even the former residence of the Inquisition didn't impress as much as the ruins of the castle on King's Island. I visited the house where I spent my childhood, and it didn't touch any strings in my soul. I came to the cemetery where the Tangors were buried, and I felt nothing to look at the black granite headstones. The chain of Tangor generations was irreversibly broken, and now Uncle Gordon - a Krauhardian unrelated by blood - was closer to me than my other relatives, aside from my mother and my little brother and sister. I still hoped to find my father's money, but, considering inflation, it probably became worthless by now.

  The necromantic ritual that I came for was being postponed over and over again - the government couldn't gather enough members of the Circle: they didn't show up, despite their contracts. Instead of cancelling the ritual, authorities searched for a less skilled replacement. If only I had inquired into why so many dark magicians suddenly withdrew from the ritual…

  It took two weeks to collect enough dark mages for the Magic Circle. My colleagues turned out to be magicians between thirty and fifty years old. It was a so-called "transitional generation" - when formal training in necromancy had already become unavailable, but the "correction" of dark Sources at the Empowerment hadn't been implemented yet. In other words, they could be talented but lacked proper schooling. There was also one guy my age. Apparently, one of the elders began teaching him. The necromancers were agitated and unhappy - we failed to achieve concordant teamwork either at the first or at the second training. Before, I wondered why the sessions were needed - a dozen disgruntled dark magicians was really something!

  After the third session, a curator from NZAMIPS who came to watch our work said, "It won't work. At best, you'll get nothing; the group can't unite in the Circle. At worst, well…"

  Satal came to our next training, and later asked me, "Where did they dig out such retards?"

  "I have no idea. By the way, coaching is not included in my contract." Despite this statement, I tried to teach them some sense.

  Satal promised his help with replacing the worst of my colleagues. It took another two weeks. By now, I was away from Suesson for a month, and my business remained unattended to. This summer season was already lost for the biomining project. I would be back to Suesson in the fall; Kvayfer would fire me and give my job to Quarters. How would I repay the Roland Fund's loan if I couldn't cope with a simple job in Suesson?

  The new group that I gathered with Satal's help performed the training exercise surprisingly smoothly and I, a young and bold fool, decided to go forward with the ritual, despite my premonitions.

  Authorities booked the basement of the King House for us, though its standard protection means (powerful, but coarse) did not meet the requirements for necromantic rituals. It took another month to upgrade the place to modern safety standards, and I passionately participated in the process, bringing the specialists in workplace hazards to tears from my thoroughness. I didn't sympathise with their desire to save money on my safety.

  The ritual started well, better than I hoped for, considering that I was the only necromancer who had participated in the Circle before. Our weavings were coherent and saturated, and they easily entered into resonance.

  When minor distortions appeared, I corrected them and continued. But the distortions did not attenuate.

  Suddenly, at the crucial moment, I felt that some of the participants lost control over their spells. Heroism is out of place in dark magic. I started dumping the energy of our Sources into accumulators to stop the divination as quickly as possible, but it was too late - one of the mages fell down (they told me later that his heart stopped beating at that moment). Our weavings maintained balance for another second, but then began breaking. I sharply exponentially complicating my spells to compensate for the loss and prevent the Circle from falling apart. The danger of breaking the Circle was in the backlash: it would return to every participant with the full force of the entire Circle and burn us to ashes. The others were helping me intuitively, and I felt as if we still had twelve members in the Circle.

  Though I stabilized the Circle for the time being, it was clear that we wouldn't be able to accomplish our task. I carefully siphoned energy from our weavings into the accumulators, but its level didn't drop, as if we became hooked up to an extra source of power. With horror I realized that it was a spirit that we had awakened; he was amending our weavings to raise himself. I started mercilessly breaking our connections to him, causing members of the Circle to fall off one by one. I had to leave the Circle last, exposing myself to the backlash of unused magic energy, and - which was much, much worse - I would receive the entire consciousness of the raised corpse.

  This feeling was…memorable. I was like salt in a glass of water: the barriers of my personality broke up, carrying away fragments of my will and pieces of my intelligence. I sank into infinity. It would have been absolutely impossible to retain my integrity, to keep sanity, if Rustle hadn't saved me. His inconceivable essence saved the image of me as a whole, serving as the bearing point, and absorbed the consciousness of the ancient man at the same time. I owed my life and lucidity to the otherworldly!

  When I came to my senses, a healer tried to feed me with inhibitors, using my weakness. I managed to throw the potion in his face, "No, I you can't do this to me!"

  The inhibitors are used as first aid for any type of magic-related injury, mostly to keep a maimed magician from going on a spre
e. Loss of control by a mage could be very costly for the people around. But my case was different: while the alien psyche was inside me, shutting down or inhibiting the dark Source could be lethal for me.

  One of the necromancers from the Circle supported me, "He is not done yet. He did not finish the ritual."

  And I passed out or maybe fell asleep.

  I woke up in a hospital. Satal sat in the chair at my bedside.

  "What a mess you've got yourself into…Do you remember what happened?"

  "There was an accident."

  "It wasn't an accident, Tom. One mage from your Circle was poisoned. Did anybody offer you a meal before the ritual?

  "Yes." I recalled a hotel employee with a tray; he didn't look like a poisoner to me.

  Satal marked something in his notebook. "But you didn't eat it. Why?"

  "We are supposed to fast before the ritual for at least 24 hours, if you do not want to crap your pants right in the middle of the divination."

  "But that guy had had his dinner!" Satal angrily frowned, but didn't badmouth the deceased guy. "The artisans are too clever: their poison proved to be harmless to non-mages. Many hotel guests had eaten that yuck, but only your necromancer and two healers were hit."

  Yes, such poison exists and has a very poetic name. Master Tiranidos devoted an entire chapter to it in his book. The poison isn't deadly, unless you start doing an extremely complex divination…

  "Are you still with me? Are you okay?" Satal looked worried.

  "Yes, yes…Sorry, I was thinking!"

  Satal glanced at me strangely, "Don't even think that it was your fault. The support service is responsible for what happened. Curators should have watched their charges better. How often did you see yours?"

  "Once."

  "Exactly! Artisans fooled me, too. I knew something was cooking. None of the experienced necromancers agreed to participate in the ritual. Only Axel, a vulture, showed up!"

  It was the most sincere confession of guilt that I had ever heard from Satal. Was my condition so bad?

  "Tell me, what do you want most for yourself?"

  His question meant nothing good for me. I didn't doubt it for a moment: "Get rid of all the contracts!"

  "Let's do like this: the healers will put you on your feet, you'll get monetary compensation for your workplace injury, and only then NZAMIPS will terminate your contract. Remember: Larkes is on your side."

  I was struck by the thought that two dark mages, not related to me by blood, cared about my life!

  The captured spirit pounded in my temples - Rustle couldn't clear my mind of his presence. My fair and principled monster merely delayed my demise: the dark Source did not tolerate such mockery when two personalities were locked in one body. My death was imminent - nobody knew how to help me evict my unwelcomed guest.

  Chapter 6

  In the hospital I was visited by several luminaries. Professors thoughtfully shook their heads and looked with interest at the thin spiral burns on my hands left by the unfinished ritual. One of the guests (a white, of course) asked my healer a funny question, "Does your patient understand speech?"

  One night was especially restless for me. Strange sounds, smells, and nightmarish visions persistently chased me. In the morning I found my favorite teacher near my bed.

  "Good morning, teacher!"

  "What's up, kid?" Satal looked abashed. It was unusual.

  "Will you get up by yourself?"

  "Do I have to?" They didn't even let me die in peace!

  He sighed heavily, "Yes, you do!"

  "We have a problem," Satal tried to help me dress, but just slowed me down. "The mass media is outraged: someone told them that a zombie, which was in our possession, has fled."

  Naturally! The artisans wanted to develop their success. "How can I help?"

  "According to the newspapers, the zombie killed his creator and hid somewhere in the city. He's extremely dangerous."

  Laymen feared my poor dog as if he was a ghoul. True, a cat or dog, animated by some idiot, would be capable of making some damage, but they couldn't frolic for long: they had to be treated with revivifying curses every now and then. Without them, a bloodthirsty zombie would simply fall apart - in contrast to a ghoul generated by the supernatural.

  "Do you want me to speak out as a well-recognized expert?"

  "Yeah, sort of. Don't worry. You are an alchemist, alchemist! Just help us cope with the journalists."

  I had no other choice. The scribblers would believe no one but me, the zombie's creator. It was a thoroughly conceived attack on NZAMIPS, and the ones who planned it did not expect me to survive after the ritual.

  I was angry and dreamed of driving all the artisans to the mad house, where they would drink bitter potions with a laxative effect till the end of their evil lives. They would shit their pants and cry, shit their pants and cry!

  Perhaps my thoughts were written on my face, because security unsuccessfully tried to block my entry to the press conference. Representatives of NZAMIPS glibly answered a barrage of questions from journalists, not letting me open my mouth. But one lively guy set his sights on me, and my grim smile in reply didn't discourage him.

  "Sir! You, you," a lone hero stepped forward. "Why does NZAMIPS support this controversial art? What is the practical value of necromancy?"

  The police experts had already lectured them the on benefits of zombies for forensic science. I had to come up with something more original to blow their brains.

  "Necromancy is the future of medicine!" I blurted without hesitation. "The progress of white magic has slowed down. The methods of healing live flesh were developed centuries ago and have barely changed since then. Necromancy brings a fresh approach to the treatment of defective body parts. It can give dying organs a new, almost eternal, life! Necromancy will overcome the limited regeneration capacity of human bodies! So far, the process of turning the living into the undead hasn't been studied at all! Research in this field will open up limitless opportunities!"

  The inner beauty and ethereal harmony of my idea paralyzed NZAMIPS officers, and they lost control over the audience. The journalists didn't expect scientific revelations from me, either. The question of necromantic healing was hushed up. Instead, we bickered about the combat potential of zombies. I preached that classic zombies weren't good as an offensive weapon - a couple of experienced combat mages would beat up a mature ghoul - not to mention a man-made zombie. The future lies in the synthesis of magic and alchemy. Not without reason our forefathers created combat golems entirely on other principles! The score was in my favor. A new question rescued the debate from transition to physical arguments.

  "What do you have to say about Mr. Firsen's words?" a lady in glasses with huge lenses wedged into the conversation.

  I wish I knew who Mr. Firsen was and what he had said. I grimaced meaningfully: "We must trust our common sense, but not the gossip of feral peasants." The funny thing was that my words were right to the point.

  "How did you know that the witness was a plowman from Arango?" the lady reporter jumped up.

  I quickly figured out how to elaborate on my comment, "It's mere logic. Only a man who hasn't been in contact with NZAMIPS for long can think that our staff would be creating problems for themselves. The poor fellow has lost everything due to the connivance of local authorities. He wants to hold us responsible, but it's not NZAMIPS that he should blame for his misfortune."

  "Do you use human corpses in your work?"

  I shrugged, "Sometimes, but only with the relatives' consent."

  Reporters began shouting, and I was forcefully pushed behind the scenes. Satal grabbed my jacket and vigorously shook me, "What are you blabbing about, you…instigator?!"

  "Come on, teacher! I can't be wrong! I don't believe that Charak was secretly stealing corpses from a cemetery."

  "Get out!"

  A local police officer approached me, laughing: "No problem! You gave them a few interesting points to discuss. It's muc
h better than unaddressed hysteria."

  "Why are you so happy? The situation is far from laughable. Our enemies gossiped about zombies not for nothing. The zombies will appear from somewhere soon! Don't you know that white mages can raise corpses, too?"

  Was I the only man capable of reasoning, despite the abundance of guests in my mind? Was I the only one who thought of the artisans' cunning?

  "We are searching for them," the police officer, who finally presented himself to me as Captain Firsen, nodded gravely. "Sensors of instrumental control are fine-tuned to track necromantic rituals."

  This press conference calmed down the media. The journalists were impressed not so much by my explanations, but by my appearance: the rumor that zombies tore apart their creator proved to be wrong. I feared that from now on I would be remembered as a necromancer. And they hadn't even figured out yet who my father was!

  Chapter 7

  Captain Firsen, the chief of Finkaun's NZAMIPS, and his entire division combed the city block by block in search of the artisans. With the same success they could have carried water in a sieve. No doubt, someone alerted sectarians about the raids, as well as leaking the exact date of the ritual that ended so tragically for me. Needless to say, Captain Firsen thirsted for help and welcomed the arrival of Edan Satal, plenipotentiary of Senior Coordinator Larkes.

  Satal brought a new direction to the search. "The artisans have to secure a place where they can make zombies from sensors of instrumental control. Last time, they used a specific perimeter to block magic emanations. Pay attention to the places with non-standard or recently modified perimeters," the magician thoughtfully scratched his head, "and check all local almshouses, hospitals, nursing homes, and boarding schools."

  With Satal's luck, the search for the elusive artisans brought results in one day. As soon as three "salesmen" approached the gate of a private hospital for children with developmental disabilities, the building was covered with a security perimeter of enormously high power. Nearby amulets of instrumental control started pulsing hysterically. Troops of "cleaners" and the police, bored from sitting in the barracks in the "ready to move" position, sighed with relief and rushed to perform their awaited duty. Captain Firsen arrived on the scene with the first group. Apparently, the fanatics hadn't raised zombies yet, but they were determined to slam the door upon leaving.