"There were eight million of us, but only five people survived: four, who decided to climb up to the surface, and I, who wandered amidst corpses for seven days, choking from the stench of decomposing bodies and afraid to fall asleep. In the beginning, I was so glad to see our rescuers. How could they do this to me?"
Then he complained so familiarly about his difficult life that I started feeling tooth pain. No doubt, it was written by a dark. The poor man was rescued, but instead of delivering him to a safe and comfortable place, the unknown people crammed him into a shelter along with three hundred others like him. They tormented him by giving him healing potions. His emotions poured over the edge. His name - Ed Rooney – was only mentioned by the author on the fourth page.
The future looked bleak for Ed. The rescuers evaded his questions, their guards were armed, and all the dark in the shelter were under tight control. This uncertainty had lasted for nearly a year, by the end of which the number of inhabitants in the shelter had doubled. Then their guards began taking people away for a "treatment"…Soon after that, their shelter was attacked. Ed believed that either defenders or attackers or both used magic, judging by the tremor of the walls and the cracked glass. The inhabitants of the shelter were herded into one room, where they were informed that the rescuers tested a device that could save the world, but their tests were meanly interrupted. Now the device would have to be used as is, unfinished. There was a risk that things would go wrong, but they shouldn't fear: the shelter was safe and had plenty of food. They merely needed to keep doors, marked with warding signs, locked. Then they were shown a movie about how to protect yourself from the otherworldly. Finally, all the guards left to "fight with insurgents", and the rescued blocked all doors and began waiting. Several hundred people in a confined space under constant deadly threat was an explosive mix, and after a brutal brawl the crowd broke into smaller groups, each hostile to the other.
The defense means proved to be unreliable ("perimeter leaks in three places"), the shelter didn't remain safe for long, and food storage was severely depleted. Otherworldly creatures accumulated in the black tunnels around the hall, and nobody fought them. Some groups united around a leader, whose name was Salem. "His ability to foresee the otherworldly attacks is scary," Ed said about him. Salem saved all his close and distant relatives - they were with him in the shelter. The leader preached that hiding in dungeons was a road to nowhere, and he inspired his people to battle through to the surface.
The book was fun to read, but I didn't see what these memoirs had in common with the origin of the supernatural. Though one thing was clear: the civilization of Ed Rooney was aware of the otherworldly, as opposed to the contemporaries of the City of Nabla.
Then the narration suddenly changed; this part was written by a different author, and the new man had no connection with Rustle. However, the monster was able to relay the content, because one of his victims read the Word once, after the second author, named Abraham, made his records. Abraham continued the work of Ed Rooney and told the story of Salem's group.
The second part started with the same complaints. Abraham worked for a respectable development firm that was building a…the reader didn't understand some words and concepts, so I decided to call it a Project. The ambitious Project was designed to save the world: billions of lives, a multitude of states, and several isolated settlements (islands, perhaps?). After the launch of…Something, the Project was expected to perform…sort of a protection. And they had finally completed its construction.
Then trouble appeared; it was something related to celestial. A settlement of the Project builders exploded and plunged under water. But Abraham was clever and managed to escape. The poor fellow hopelessly tried to find somebody alive and was slowly losing his mind. Luckily, he met Salem's group; they moved "to the south", and he joined them. He cursed the perfidy and miserliness of the Project developers, who killed so many good people because of poor quality materials the workers had to use.
There was one more part in the book, written by that very same Salem. I re-gained the clarity of perception, though not as explicit as in the beginning. The leader of the survivors (he was declared the king) reported that the Project didn't work well: too many otherworldly broke through it. Salem accused the respectable developers of flirting with otherworldly abomination. (Was the Project a large-scale ritual with human sacrifices?)
According to Salem, Slicker-Abraham said that his higher-ups could disable the Project by turning off the… Something by means of the…Other-thing, but where to look for the latter no one knew. Without the Other-thing, the…Something could only be disabled from a station in an abandoned shelter, but Salem wouldn't go there. The trip would be too long and risky, and he had three small kids to feed. Besides, that shelter would be watched by Guards, and no live human could get past them. Salem believed that his world would benefit from having a little bit of the otherworldly, and "those shitty 'celestial angels' would not dare to show up near me". In case someone ventured to disable the…Project, Salem provided technical drawings and particulars, which he and Abraham had gathered, on the following thirteen pages. (I shed tears, noticing on the pages the same symbols that were on the walls of the golem's cave in Undegar's mine). There was also a logo with a stylized wing, which I didn't recognize. The infamous Project had sixty-four anchor points, and one of them was undoubtedly in Undegar.
But it was not the end of the chronicle; another author replaced Salem. A distant descendant of Salem (he called himself Barkus), also a king, added a new chapter to the protracted saga. The guy's handwriting was awful.
The "celestial angels" returned to the warm beaches of the Southern Coast and told peaceful fishermen that they would fix an error, after which "the otherworldly would stop coming". Barkus was very skeptical; the otherworldly did not bother him much. His tribesmen shared his views, and they decided to move to "a new place". The "angels" did not keep them, but promised to kill the fishermen if they would return. Barkus, as one of the elders, replied that they wouldn't let the "angels" in their new homes, even if they begged. Barkus' people got into their boats and sailed away. The manuscript didn't say where to, but I had some ideas in this regard.
The last record was made by Narmar, one of Barkus' grandsons. He narrated that they didn't let strangers from a southern town inside their homes. The aliens were left overnight, tied to a tree, "by the will of the ancestors". Next morning, only two remained alive, "and they joined us". The said act became the tribe's rite of passage. (Could that be a test for the presence of a dark Source and an ability to fight the otherworldly?)
Well, it was the end. Where was the terrible secret? Where was the overall theory of the supernatural?! Only the technical drawings of…Something had some value, but the book didn't make it clear to me whether I should break or fix it. And there was nothing about the location of the abandoned shelter at the managing station!
I forgot to thank Rustle for helping me with the manuscript. He took offense and disappeared. I was left to sort things out myself. The night flashed by unnoticed. In the morning, I put the book back into its case and went for lunch. I had no desire to go to Axel on an empty stomach.
Chapter 25
Larkes fulfilled his threat and sent Satal to audit the investigation into the explosion at the Kerpan labs. The Army Security Service was very annoyed with the intrusion of a civilian into its area of responsibility. Even in his nightmares Satal did not imagine himself in the role of an auditor. His instincts and character demanded action, but he had to let the military do their job. The former senior coordinator resorted to a trick: he requested to be copied on all reports related to the case and studied them very carefully. The first meeting with his participation took place three days after the explosion, and it unexpectedly proved that the touched-by-Rustle magician truly understood more than some army experts.
The cause of the explosion was quickly identified, once the debris was dismantled. The site for the bomb was chosen ideally - a di
ning room for the technical personnel. But the timing of the explosion - seven p.m. - was strange; there were only a cleaning lady and a cook on duty. A box of dynamite was delivered by a security officer, who was later killed in the explosion.
"We are searching for his contacts," a captain from the military intelligence reported. "Last year he visited the Southern Coast. Perhaps, he was recruited by our enemies there."
"Nonsense!" Satal retorted. "The officer was sick for three days right before the explosion. He wasn't at home - nobody saw him. Perhaps he was captured and exposed to a ritual."
"To which one, for example?" the captain bristled.
"The spiritual patronage! It's from the arsenal of white magic," Satal snorted. "The empire uses this method on all of its soldiers and views it as part of a patriotic upbringing. I personally interrogated two Sa-Orio saboteurs."
Such a simple idea didn't illuminate the brains of army intelligence. They habitually looked for rottenness in their own people. They couldn't admit that the civilian mage was smarter than them.
The captain's eyes flashed, "We will check."
"Please do," Satal agreed. "Don't forget to check if relatives of the unfortunate guy were also exposed to the same ritual. Figure out where he had been for the three days before the diversion."
Next day Satal asked the captain, "What are the results?"
The officer answered evasively, "In progress."
"Elaborate!"
The captain gritted his teeth. "We are checking records of instrumental control around his house, as well as at the homes of his close family and friends."
With a grand gesture the former coordinator let the captain go. The officer clicked his heels and walked out, mentally cursing the NZAMIPS that put the dark magician in his face.
In the evening, the mage received another pile of protocols. Malicious army officers got into a habit of fixing their every sneeze in triplicate, and they sent him a thick volume of papers daily. A few minutes after one a.m. Satal broke into the captain's apartment. The army officer barely restrained himself from hitting the mage in the face.
"Did you see this?" Satal poked a crumpled piece of paper under the captain's nose.
"No," the officer answered honestly and attempted to hide in the bathroom, but the magician deftly slid after him.
"Look at it! The instrumental control registered an outburst of magic activity near the hospital! On the grid the surge had an oval shape."
"Healers always cast spells there," the captain yawned. "Their burn center accepts patients around the clock."
"The hospital has an eight-tier filter! Their spells have a star shape, not an oval!"
The captain took the record sheet off Satal and tried to collect his thoughts. "It looks like the villain used a water trap to mask traces of his spells," he stated.
"But I saw neither a river, nor a lake nearby!" the mage was surprised.
"There is a powerful water-bearing layer underground," the captain scratched his head. "The municipality is repairing a sewer near the hospital. I guess we've found the place of the ritual."
"What are we waiting for?" the dark irradiated enthusiasm.
"Wait a minute," the captain found a pair of clean socks and a shirt.
They found the section of the sewer, where the unknown magician carried out the forbidden ritual, almost immediately. Saboteurs left hooks and ropes, with which they tied up the victim. Investigators recorded an aura of the mage who performed the ritual; it was a white magician. Usually NZAMIPS didn't collect the crystals of the white mages' aura, so the chances to figure out his name were slim.
The captain had a list of suspects. One of them lived in a two-story apartment near the hospital, and there was a sewer manhole in the basement. The captain decided to arrest the alleged saboteur.
"Right now?" Satal started. It was midnight.
"No. We'll wait till late morning. Most of the tenants will be gone to work; perhaps, the suspect will go outside too." The captain didn't want to storm the house, unless it would be absolutely necessary. The white magician driven into a corner could become unpredictable.
"I see," the dark became disappointed and fell asleep in the chair at the captain's house.
In the morning the captain allowed himself a little revenge - he did not wake up the dark mage and began the assault operation without Satal.
The storm troopers entered the house under the guise of chimney sweeps. The white magician was apprehended quickly and quietly: he was sprinkled with a magic inhibitor from head to toe. It turned out that the white arrived from Sa-Orio. He lived in isolation, fearing hostile attention. His companion-in-arms, also a resident of the empire, had fled, leaving his inconvenient ally with no escape routes and no money.
The detainee was a middle-aged man, physically and mentally exhausted by the permanent threat of being caught; the magician was almost glad that he was captured, but he did not want to cooperate. Satal volunteered to break the white's silence…
The prisoner, portraying himself as a tough guy, nearly lost consciousness at the visit of the former senior coordinator. The intelligence officers knew Sa-Orio's traditions and weren't surprised with his reaction, and Satal merely didn't notice anything.
"Your officer was supposed to bring the bomb at lunch time," the saboteur came out of his shell. "The enchantment did not stick well to him - that's why he delivered it late. I warned my senior, but he was not listening!"
"I guess our officer deserved a medal for his heroic resistance," Satal hemmed, causing willies and violent hysterics in the white.
"Have mercy! My kids will die! We have no food, no water in my town! After our last dark passed away, it became really bad. Night visitors are overpowering us. The recruiter promised that my family would move to a safer place."
"Don't stretch your greedy hands to our land, moron! Clean out your place! Look, Zertak freed Arango from the otherworldly in six months, and it's totally safe there now."
"It's not that easy," the intelligence officer noted. "Sa-Orio has no magicians of General Zertak's scale. Their combat mages kept the supernatural under control until an uprising in the central province, brutally crushed by the emperor. And the School of the Dark Source was thinned out for disloyalty. Sa-Orio darks lost one-fifth of their men. The ravaged territory wasn't rebuilt; empty villages became a hotbed of otherworldly creatures, and now the situation is worsening in avalanche mode. Soon the supernatural will throw them off into the sea."
Satal frowned; the imperial wizard continued to whimper and snot. "If they can't control their home territory, how are they going to do it in Ingernika?"
"Who knows?"
"They are morons!"
"Yes, in some sense."
Considering his work finished, Satal called Larkes to boast about his success.
"What do you mean - you are coming back?" the tube asked him coldly. "The second spy hasn't been captured yet. Zertak just told me that his people are combing the region, and you, my dear, will supervise them!"
"What the hell! I have a newborn baby! My children will be orphaned!"
"I will talk to your wife. I'm sure your boys will be okay without you. Next week I will have a meeting at the ministry. The problem of Sa-Orio's saboteurs should be resolved by then." And Larkes hung up on him.
Satal was hissing and spitting, but his boss was far away, and the combat magician could not defy his order. The staff of Kerpan's NZAMIPS anxiously watched the raging sorcerer. A couple of hours later Satal suddenly calmed down and locked himself in a dark room, where he stayed alone for a while, mumbling something under his breath. The empaths called for a healer. When the healer on duty heard whom he would have to take care of, he called the "cleaners" for help. All the "cleaners" suddenly happened to be away on business trips. The healer was still looking for someone brave to deal with Satal, when the magician took a NZAMIPS car and darted away into the night.
Next morning he returned with a man, tied up by a clothesline. "Here'
s your spy! Interrogate him."
A day later, someone from Army Intelligence saw Satal in a Redstone restaurant, eating grilled goat cheese with a sour look, as if the delicious dish was disgusting. The officer didn't dare to approach the mage.
* * *
After listening to an informal report of his subordinate on the phone, the senior coordinator offered to have him take a week off. Satal cussed in reply, fully exposing his plebeian origin (contrary to Satal, Rem Larkes was of noble lineage). Satal was so predictable! Not everyone dared anger a combat mage, especially one as famous as Satal, but Larkes did it often, making his staff work much more efficiently. They should perceive a daily routine as a rest!
The senior coordinator recalled that he needed to check what one very active lady was doing. According to his agents, she tried to hire a combat mage. This scribbler wormed her way into the young boy's confidence and did her black deeds in his absence! Larkes decided to deal with her personally and without witnesses. His average magic abilities played into his favor - the mage never had a curator. No one followed him; his subordinates became accustomed to not asking questions.
This time the senior coordinator didn't drive his car; he bought a train ticket to the place, where twenty years ago he often wandered amidst century-old lime trees, hoping to meet his god, his best friend.
What was going to happen at thirteen Linden Street, Larkes pictured as clearly as if he was personally there. Rofan Bass, a student of the College of Applied Magic, desperately needed money, though he hadn't received a magician's seal yet. When Fiberti offered him the crazy sum of one hundred crowns for a simple divination, Bass did not hesitate a moment. She wasn't local and her fable about grandfather's legacy wasn't trustworthy; but a hundred crowns were real, and half of that amount would be his, even if he failed.
Larkes was planning to catch the boy and Fiberti red-handed. As a preventive measure, he came to the college and gave the students a brief but heartfelt speech against unlicensed witchcraft. Thus, he made sure that Rofan Bass would recognize his face at the crucial moment.
The Fixer Of God's Ways (retail) Page 16