Irina Syromyatnikova - My Path to Magic

“I personally met one like this.”

Deceased Laurent had exercised his deadly spell only three times; his colleague was more successful and, obviously, had set a record.

I pondered the lieutenant’s version—the rollback inhibiting aggression, trying to assess the extent of its impact on reality. Never guessed that I would need knowledge of white magic! But the fact that Rustle stayed silent since I came to Mihandrov brought on some bad thoughts: the effect of the spell took away some very important component of the environment.

“Do you know how it could end?”

The lieutenant blinked—he did.

“Then why are you still here?”

“How about responsibility for the town, its residents?”

The white, what one could expect from him! He surely wanted to be a hero, if he was with NZAMIPS.

“Will you confirm my words?” Clarence perked up.

“It’s useless,” I waved, “we have only circumstantial evidence: statistics, our senses; there, real people die every day. Our superiors are morons,” I visualized Satal, “they won’t do anything until it is too late.”

“What about their social responsibility?”

I rolled my eyes. He was just like a naive kid!

“Wake up, man! In Redstone, the “cleaners” didn’t notice three ghoul s, each over a century old. Doesn’t it say anything to you?”

“But… what should we do then?”

He started panicking, and not without a reason. For me, the most appropriate solution was to grab Lyuchik with both hands and run. But when it blew up here, Satal would drown me in shit, and Lyuchik wouldn’t be proud of his brother (the town will blow—no need to ask a fortune-teller).

“We will work on that,” I tried to concentrate. I dropped by to check some suspicions and finished by taking obligations on my shoulders! “Perhaps you know the name of the murderer?”

Clarence shook his head. “No. It ought to be someone from the boarding school’s staff, but plenty of people resigned after the scandal, so the guy might not be here any longer.”

Lovely! The culprit ran away, and we had to clean up shit after him.

“It doesn’t matter,” I slapped my knee. “The shield has been accumulating potential for ten years; this we can’t change. We will provoke detente!”

“What?”

“Detente. We need to get some of the “cleaners” in here and make them stay—under any pretext. Then we will educate residents and place ward-off signs around the town. There have been no victims for a whole year; therefore, the shield is about to fall apart, and it will be hot in Mihandrov. The supernatural that the spell drove out of here for ten years will run back at once.”

“Do you think it is time to engage volunteers?”

“It needed to be done yesterday, and tomorrow will be too late. Are you familiar with the theory?”

He silently put a stack of brochures on the table. I leafed through one: the Publishing House of the Trunk Bay. Home, sweet home!

“That will do. Think of a reason; lie, mystify if necessary. You’re a magician after all! I’ll notify my superiors, but it will take time while they come to an agreement… As they say, if you are drowning, you are on your own. It’s sink or swim.”

And we parted at that.

I came back to the B&B in a state of quiet madness. These are my holidays, guys, come on! Of all the options, I chose the shittiest town. If not for the two restless white kids with me, I would have been stuck here, like a fly in honey. Interesting who had advised Joe to send his son to Mihandrov.

Edan Satal was suffering from a hangover after the lengthy holidays, and he preferred to hang out at work, raising suspicion in Baer that the senior coordinator was afraid to scare his family.

Locomotive looked into the swollen eyes of his chief and thought that the common salutation in this case would be a straightforward mockery.

“A telegram from Mihandrov.”

Satal read through a piece of paper with one eye and pushed it away in disgust. “Nothing new!”

The captain was a bit surprised. “A magic phenomenon of such magnitude is a rather alarming sign. It could trigger a serious breakthrough of the supernatural energy…”

The coordinator groped for a mug on the desk with some murky dishwater inside (Baer was not good at potions) and took several big gulps—it helped a bit.

“Axel has got a full desk of such messages; Artrom County is famous for that. Half of them are the repercussions of weather spells; another half is unidentified ancient garbage. The wandering white magic is horrible stuff. Artrom is the place where White Halak stood! Tell him to dig deeper. Axel needs specifics. He asked to solve the problem, not to report it.”

Locomotive neither slammed the door—that would be too petty, nor sent the valuable directions to Mihandrov (Tangor wasn’t a fool; he would figure that out himself). But he forwarded a copy of the telegram to Artrom, just in case. Let them know that the reports were sent not only to them. Last year the amount of observed supernatural phenomena in Redstone increased by three hundred percent (in spite of all magic perimeters and ward-off signs), and Baer did not want to become famous as someone who knew about the impending disaster and did nothing.

Some twists of fate make even dark mages uncomfortable; at the thought of a curse hanging over Mihandrov my skin began to itch. I almost forgot to buy a backpack but, by some miracle, managed to acquire walking shoes of a disgusting bright orange color. I had to pretend that it was intended like that and bought a shirt of the same horrible color. Now I looked like traffic lights.

Once again I thought over the chance to flee, but I would have to drag Lyuchik overcoming his resistance, and people around could misinterpret that. On the other hand, the safest place is always near a dark magician. And we will let the zombie-dog run ahead of the group; it would be a pleasant surprise for the maniac.

In the evening at the B&B, swearing softly but terribly, I tried to stuff enough grub for three people, socks, blankets, the traveling kit of an exorcist (nowhere without it!), and a canister of drinking water in the backpack. Plus a tent on top of everything… Well, I could leave it out and say that otherwise we wouldn’t gain the experience of real hikers. Sleeping under the sky and stars—a hiker’s dream! The idea of ​​the trip did not seem as smart as before, but it was too late to retreat; moreover, it was vital to me to free up some time, and I did not know how to get it in any other way. I took Uncle Gordon’s beads with a pair of student curses, in case the worst came to worst.

The next morning we left for the trip. I, wise and prudent, with the bamboo handle from a mop (yes—my staff), and the two white kids, hopping with excitement. Well, surely, they would not be skipping for long…

Honestly, I did not plan the route. Judging by Lieutenant Clarence’s map, the area around the lake was quite the same in all directions (except for Mihandrov on the east): hills near the water surrounded by the steppe stretching for seven days of walking. We passed the territory of the school, got out through a fallen section of the fence (supposedly it was the security perimeter), and went on, maintaining a general direction towards the west, to the lake. Vegetation changed quickly and substantially: instead of lush park greenery, we now walked through gullies, dry standing grass, and weeds. It started smelling strangely; even touches of air to the skin felt differently than before. The wildness of the landscape awakened some ancient instinct that caused us to tread carefully and stay quiet; the white were silent, but their excitement sparkled around. New experiences and sensations are good stimuli for a child’s mind!