The Fixer Of God's Ways (retail) (24 page)

"We are the government agents! We i
nfiltrated the ranks of artisans to destroy them from within."

"What
?" the dark couldn't believe it.

"
It's true! We intended to interrupt a malicious ritual, but artisans unmasked us and left."

I
t sounded convincing; their unwitting savior did not know Haino's character.

"
What ritual are you talking about?" the young man was curious.

"
They said the source of dark magic was hidden here, but I wouldn't blindly trust the words of artisans."

For a
while the dark kept thoughtful silence and then chuckled, "Get up and move! I'll deliver you to NZAMIPS. You can give them a headache!"

This
turn suited Lavender well. Obeying the commands of the unexpected savior, they walked to the exit - not the same one that Haino used.

"E
h,
Rustle
take me!" the mage exclaimed suddenly and then gestured to the monster, calming the creature down. "It was metaphorical speech," he explained to him.

"
I forgot about my dad's cache!"

"
Your dad left something in here?!" Lavender was startled.

"He d
id. But it's none of your business. Move faster!"

* * *

Two people whiled the night away by the campfire near the dump. They kept stubborn silence. It was quite cold. Larkes cut down twigs, and Fiberti gathered them and put them in the fire. No one wanted to leave the place first. Poorly enchanted lamps with blue flashes oozed the smell of rotten eggs. City authorities didn't dare to leave the vicinity of the dump without light, despite severe budget cuts.

A
group of three people appeared from the dump; Fiberti took them for a family, at first. After the second look, she recognized in the shorty a young guy, led by the hand by an unpretentiously dressed woman.

"Move, move, you
half-baked artisans!" a familiar voice said. "Rid yourself of your habit to harm dark mages."

"
He is having a nervous breakdown!" the woman argued with Tangor.

"
Me too!"

"We are
government agents; you'll be rewarded for helping us."

"Thomas?"
Fiberti sobbed. "Thomas!"

One
man from the group of three turned and walked to their campfire right through the snow drifts. "Wow! A field tribunal is assembled! Hey, agents, come here!"

T
he odd couple caught up with the dark at the campfire: it was a short guy with wandering look and a surprisingly strong woman, a white mage, who practically dragged the boy. All three smelled like shit, and Larkes shamefacedly pressed his "whistle" - he didn't want them inside his limousine. He had a rapid response team for this, after all!

"
Where have you been, Thomas?!" Fiberti resented, but her voice treacherously trembled.

"
Do not be angry, Clara," the dark purred conciliatorily, and the woman melted.

Larkes felt a
sting of envy at that; he could never avoid a scandal so easily.

"
Down there it was a real madhouse! A crowd of white mages put up a fight with the guards of the catacombs and nearly destroyed the shelter with the artifact. At first, I didn't know that they were white. I hit them as before, and - please note - no one died! By the way, they got inside through the Academy of Empaths. Where was the Academy's security? The last two I had to pull out myself. They swear they are government agents."

"
Colonel Kilozo?" Larkes guessed.

"
Yes, sir!" the white roused.

"Larkes,
Senior Coordinator of the Northwestern Region. Nice to meet you in person. As for your friend, I thought you had worked alone."

The
colonel instantly changed her statement, "The boy was involved in the sect against his will!"

L
arkes narrowed his eyes shrewdly. Under his stern gaze the young artisan quickly returned to his senses and began whining. "He would have killed me, if I had not followed him!"

"
Who?" both dark mages asked in unison.

"
Leon Haino," Kilozo explained. "They are relatives."

"
Fear not, kid! I will kill him first," Larkes donned such a horrible smile that even Tangor flinched.

Fiberti
no longer cared about clashes between magicians. "Let's go to a warm place! We've been waiting for you for eight hours! I'll get pneumonia!"

Tangor
and Fiberti got back on the road and strode towards downtown; the scout and the becalmed artisan followed. Larkes lingered till the arrival of the rapid response team; let them see who they kept waiting!

My
retaliation at the artisans was accomplished: I thwarted their plans and handed over Shorty Sam and the scout to authorities. With Colonel Kilozo's help, a dozen of the highest ranking artisans were captured in one day.

Fiberti
returned to Redstone to record our adventures.

I thought that Larkes
forgot about the
World Axis
, because I didn't hear from him for a few days. I was mistaken; he set security guards at the Academy of Empaths and at the dump, and chirped about my discovery to connoisseurs of antiquities. Stunned archeologists and just curious people gathered in crowds near the entrance to the catacombs;
Rustle
's golems guarded the passageway from inside. The monster treated his newfound nest as an ardent owner would and didn't allow anyone in. I shared his attitude: give scientists your finger and they'll cut off your whole arm.

I
lost interest in my dad's cache and was about to return to Suesson. And then the wonders began.

My new curator, a sad old man with a goatee, casually asked if I wante
d to move into a roomier unit. My frivolous "Yes" hadn't died away yet as they placed me in a luxury suite free of charge, similar in size to our house in Krauhard. Plus free dining and maids of easy virtue. Every morning I had a brutal hangover…It looked like Larkes was testing the limits of my impudence.

The reason was simple
: they asked me to stay in Finkaun till the end of the
Project
. Actually, if they had dared to treat me rudely, I would have disclosed to the townsfolk a sensation: "
Rustle
is in Finkaun!"

I remembered
a silly Krauhardian saying about a cat drowned in sour cream. Now I understood what the unfortunate animal experienced. When you get what you desire, you don't want it anymore.

Such
surfeit doesn't do the dark any favor, really! You quickly get used to the good and fearfully look to the future. It's so hard to refuse a freebie that is literally pushed into your mouth. My pride took time off, and I realized that I wouldn't give up such a life voluntarily. In fact, NZAMIPS counted on that.

Worrying about my professional degradation, I
ordered from a porter the previous year's subscription of
The Northwestern Alchemist
and forced myself to continue the search for my father's cache. Without much ado, I got into the catacombs through the cemetery's outcropping. Larkes took care of the cemetery's guards: the cemetery was closed for maintenance (!) because of me.

It took about two hours to find my d
ad's cache: he set it in a small room not far from the ancient shelter. Its door was locked and jammed, but
Rustle
sent a golem to open it for me. There seemed to be a strong fire in the hallway, and heat deformed the armored plates of the door. It was for the better, as it saved my family's cache from unwelcome visitors.

T
he contents of the cache turned out to be priceless. First I spotted books - more than in Axel's collection - on handmade shelves and in stacks on the floor, lavishly sprinkled with protective potions against rot and bugs. I was the owner of historical relics, more precious and famous than the ones in the National Library! I could forget about working for money for the rest of my life! If I sold just one such book…Larkes would instantly nationalize my collection. No, no.

I spent h
alf an hour anxiously fingering treasured books and tormenting myself with a question: how would I carry them? And where to? I had not built my tower yet! Some of these concentrates of knowledge were sheathed in copper and half of my weight; the dimensions of others were greater than the dining table in my Suesson house. Obviously, I couldn't transport my legacy in one run, and I couldn't leave it out of sight. Eventually, I decided not to move the books from where they were, and leave them under the watchful eye of
Rustle
.

Besides the
books, I found a chest with unfamiliar amulets and other useful magic stuff. I thought of testing them, then pictured the consequences of activation of an unknown amulet and locked the chest for safety reasons. Unfortunately, I found neither coins, nor ingots of gold, nor loose diamonds, and left the cemetery with mixed feelings. I had become rich - an idiot's dream came true - but I could not show the cache to anyone. The same NZAMIPS would confiscate it all. These shameful wolves would surely find a reason for it!

After a
month of paradise at NZAMIPS expense, Larkes made it clear to me that such things as free donuts did not exist: he politely asked me to meet with a very (very!) important person. I couldn't decline his request - he had been too helpful recently.

The
very important person didn't name himself; perhaps, the occupant of a mighty government office was afraid that the Krauhardian bastard could curse him. I hoped I had earned the reputation already. I survived an interrupted Circle, wiped artisans' noses, almost single-handedly ensured victory over the empire, and forced the Salem Brotherhood and graybeard necromancers to respect me. I felt as if they had not called me to a meeting, but I graciously deigned to take a visit. The unknown petitioner behaved with dignity and expounded his thoughts in a soulful baritone, "On behalf of the government of Ingernika and my ministry, I would like to ask you for a favor that you have the right to reject. The matter concerns the discovery you've made in the catacombs under Finkaun - the ancient artifact, about which the artisans knew more than us, unfortunately. Our experts need to know how the artifact works and what consequences an interference in its operation will cause. In the past this city had been the center of catastrophes. Such a coincidence bothers us. Given that Leon Haino escaped, solving the mystery of the artifact becomes especially important."

"The
Circle," I stated. "You are asking me for another ritual of the Magic Circle."

"Yes," the
polite gentleman admitted.

I
remembered a promise I made to myself: to no longer participate in the Circle. The last time NZAMIPS missed an attempt on one of the members of the ritual, and I barely survived. But, on the other hand, the ritual would allow me to get through the life of that ancient guard and see not only the
Project
, but the entire ancient world as a whole…I chewed my lips for a bit. "Well, we can discuss it. But I have a condition: I will select magicians for the Circle."

T
he nameless mister cheered up, and five minutes later we were already bargaining. He negotiated doggedly, as if I were trying to pull the money out of his wallet!

For the past two years
authorities markedly improved their understanding of the Magic Circle's needs. This time they gathered the participants of the ritual at the base of Finkaun's "cleaners" and treated us, necromancers, much better. First of all, I didn't have to crawl on all fours, debugging safety systems; a large heated barn was packed with safety amulets no worse than the Kerpan Labs. Second, they had even drawn all pentagrams for us! Local "cleaners" jealously watched the fuss around the strangers and kept silence. Two unfamiliar curators alternately approached me to ask if I sensed any problems. Yes, I did - I suspected that I was already in heaven.

I was given a book on necromancy from
an incredibly secretive archive (by the way, I had the same manuscript in my father's library, too), and now I read with great interest about the troubles I managed to avoid in previous necromantic Circles. The book wasn't useful for anything else; in our business you either have the talent or you don't, and reading doesn't help.

T
he only problem that bothered me was young necromancers, members of my previous Circle. I didn't finish the ritual in Finkaun. Though they agreed to participate again, I was afraid that they might say, "Tangor just puffs his cheeks." And I needed their help.

It
proved I was worried for nothing. They pestered me with one question only: "Didn't you die, Master Tangor?"

"I was
very sick, but I am fully recovered now."

Charak
asked my permission to replace the necromancer, who died in the last Circle. "If you are against of me, I will leave, of course," the old sorcerer sighed with false repentance.

Yeah, and I
would have to train someone else for two months. "No, teacher, if you want to help us, then please do your work!"

I needed
to make sure he would not kick in during the ritual.

The
Circle went off casually, without any incidents. The deceased woke up willingly and parted with us without objections - either the personality of the ancient man wasn't particularly stubborn, or the stars were good for us. But what I learned in the Circle totally crushed, devastated me! The crazy cultists were right in almost everything!

Our
World and the Other World were not spheres on threads; it was a false picture, a deception skillfully embedded in the mass mind. Geometric shapes and the locations of the worlds were impossible to describe; they were somewhere and somehow in space, and sometimes they manifested themselves in the same point of the Multiverse at the same time. A superimposition of the worlds obviously caused penetration of otherworldly into our reality, and this had not occurred once in the history of mankind. The otherworldly was ruthlessly fought back most of the time, but once in a while supernatural entities overpowered natural beings, leaving a nearly dead world behind. People couldn't change the existing order of things, as a shrimp cannot manage the ebb and flow of the sea.

And then HE
came, a genius of such intellect and malice that all of our Jack the Rippers would quietly weep in the corner.

Mankind
always gave rise to individuals with inexplicable affinity to the otherworldly and then persistently tried to get rid of the "devil spawns", because they often weren't cute and harmless.

It was
noted that some people survived global attacks of the supernatural. HE discovered that survivors of such collisions had an affinity to the otherworldly. HE gathered the descendants of such people and helped them to settle here, on this soil, immediately after the last apocalypse.

HE
invented a sort of a crosspiece, which connected together both worlds and kept them at some distance from each other. And the connection point was at the place
I called the
World Axis
. Thus HE created the world, in which the otherworldly was present constantly but in small, manageable numbers. HE developed a civilization, which would not be destined to die from the clash of worlds.

HE
made dark magicians a precondition of the sustained existence of mankind.

I must admit that HE had not asked
the opinions of his contemporaries on this matter.

E
very human with the dark Source is truly like a thread, crosslinking the fabrics of universes, not allowing them to part, but making global attacks of chaos impossible, at the same time. Now, the supernatural comes into our world constantly, but not in extreme numbers. That is, for deliverance from extinction mankind is paying with a constant headache. Well, isn't it a miracle - our dark magic?

W
hat a storm of debate this news caused! The supervisor of the ritual rushed into his office to write up non-disclosure agreements. The young necromancers participating in the Circle chatted day and night, exchanging their views. Perhaps I was the only one dissatisfied: the raised man knew nothing of the "celestial angels" and
The Liturgy of the Light
. He was an ordinary guard, after all. The ritual didn't help me to figure out why artisans were so eager to access the
World Axis
and what the effect of
The Liturgy
would be on the ancient artifact. I tried to instill doubts in others, but to no avail.

"Their
Liturgy of the Light
should be a typical ritual of suppression of magic," Charak stated authoritatively. "The same for
Shackles of Deliverance
, only with a greater action area."

Uh-huh.
The dark Source is crotchety: it won't return to you if you are exposed to the
Shackles of Deliverance
more than twice. In contrast,
Liturgy
was executed by artisans countless times. Also, nobody asked why we still experienced the massive attacks of the otherworldly AFTER the launch of the
Project
.

"
Why are supernatural phenomena growing in numbers now?"

"These are
insignificant details," the old necromancer retorted.

I
disagreed with him. What exactly
The Liturgy of the Light
did to the ancient artifact remained a mystery to me; to solve it I needed to make another trip down there. I would have to pass through NZAMIPS posts and protective perimeters. With Larkes' help, of course.

According to the official version,
artisans planned to blow up King's Castle through the catacombs.