Irina Syromyatnikova - My Path to Magic

I wasn’t taught…

And then I thanked all the gods for putting in my way that loathsome creature, Edan Satal. No, he did not teach me the deadly curses—he was not suicidal—but he set my teeth on edge with all sorts of high-level shields and barriers. I recalled what I needed; however, my knowledge was purely theoretical. But when had it stopped me before? After assessing the growth rate of the witch’s baldness , I breathed out a fire weaving that burned down bushes in a sixty-foot radius, took a marker out of the bag, and began to draw. That would be a perimeter, a simple ward-off perimeter, only turned inside out: it would keep the creature inside.

There was no time to measure out the sectors; I had to act by eyeballing it. As a result, instead of the minimal twelve signs per perimeter, I drew eleven. I hoped it would work anyway! The marker ran out before the last couple of lines were drawn—it was not meant for spells of that size—and I didn’t have time to look for a replacement. No more than half a meter remained between the baldness and the line. Simple chalk was no good for such a surface, and to redraw the pentagram on a larger scale was meaningless. A perimeter of such size could not be activated. This was the end, not for me, but for most of the townsfolk for sure. Such a crowd of people would not be able to leave the town quickly.

I threw off the empty marker tube and screamed hoarsely, like an animal.

“This? This?” someone poked me in the back.

That was Lieutenant Clarence, white as chalk, with the exact same bag as mine and with the same token from the sorcerer’s traveling kit. My God, what did he need it for?

I snatched from his hand the white tube and finished drawing in feverish haste.

“I-isabertana dar-ram!”

A wave of power from the Source, zonked from such treatment, swept through the line of signs, activating the spell—akin to what Uncle Gordon used to scare mice. Smaller in size, but with a higher price tag. The toothed crown of the three-dimensional perimeter soared above the ground and struck inward.

I had done what I could. If this failed, I would have to grab Lyuchik and run away. I heard a thump behind my back—Clarence fainted. Of course, he was drenched in my power! I looked—the witch’s baldness stopped growing and even slightly leaned back from the burning line of signs—then I heaved the brave warrior on my shoulder and carried him to the road, bypassing the baldness .

Fox was waiting next to a striped police car; hence, he had not warned the residents of nearby houses. What a jerk! Well, at least he didn’t run away.

“What’s the situation?”

“I have locked the witch’s baldness by a reverse perimeter; meanwhile, it’s holding up, but I can’t do any more alone. We have already called the ‘cleaners’; they should be here soon. Can you drive? Go to the train station and wait! Bring Clarence to life and let him call the ‘cleaners’ and prepare for evacuation in the event of the armory curse. I will stay here and maintain the perimeter.”

For a white mage, Fox recovered very quickly, but he couldn’t steel himself to follow my orders.

“Why?” he demanded explanation.

I thought his question referred to the strange supernatural entity.

“Your town’s suburbs are absolutely sterile—I mean, relative to dark magic. No disturbances, no complex flows. If an otherworldly creature comes into such environment, it begins to develop explosively. Have you ever heard of Nintark? Here you go! Something similar happened there. When you meet our team of mages, tell them about this; the ‘cleaners’ are not that bright and may not guess themselves.”

It seemed he did not accept my answer. He wanted to say something but refrained, nodded, and finally left, and I went back to the baldness —to terrorize my Source and pour power into the perimeter. The waiting promised to be long.

The chalk marks were ill-suited for the long-term divination, and my asymmetrical, unbalanced perimeter powered out like a leaky tub. I had to update the curse virtually every fifteen minutes, to sit to the side and keep watching. How inopportune was that beer! It was getting dark and cold. A perked-up Clarence returned to me with blankets and sweet juice: a magician’s first aid. I sent him for an alarm clock; I feared to death that I would miss the baldness’ growth. The moon slowly drifted over the lake and down the hills, the east brightened, and it started smelling of trouble.

No, I wasn’t tired; it just became awfully difficult to concentrate on the perimeter and even to remember to watch it. My thoughts ran like mercury balls; clearly, if the ‘cleaners’ did not arrive by the early morning express, I would have to flee. It would be even wiser to take the very same express myself, but that sound idea came into my head too late.

When I heard the familiar screech of Mihandrov’s police car’s transmission, I mistook it for the sound of the silly alarm clock. I would need to ask Clarence… But instead of the lieutenant some absolutely unfamiliar people came out of the bushes, and, judging by the fact that their very appearance aroused my irritation, at least one of them was a dark magician.

“Shit…!” a burly fellow with a crew-cut in a dark red field uniform expressed what they were thinking as they approached. With such a face he could only be the commander. “Sergeant Claymore,” he introduced himself, shook hands, and jerked me, forcing to stand up. “Your work?”

To tell him it was not mine? Maybe he saw some other dark magicians here?

“Squalor,” a thin sharp-nosed nerd with a goat-like squint muttered through his clenched teeth. Either he needed glasses, or he hadn’t been beaten by the dark for very long.

“Stop talking!” the sergeant barked, the sharp-nosed shut up, and even I no longer wanted to object. “Remove the unauthorized persons. Where is Rispin?”

Another dark, younger, burst through the bushes with two huge trunks. Well, it looked like they were itching to climb the hill, but to go through the wicket—no way! Was there some hidden sense in that? I wasn’t going to wait until they pushed me out and began a slow descent to the road. The trio left an elephant trail behind. At the bottom of the hill, Clarence gently helped me get into the back seat of his limousine; alas, he did not have a second blanket for me.

“What’s going on there?” the lieutenant asked tensely.

I tried to shrug. My brains thawed slowly from the stress; I wanted neither to speak nor to think.

“Will they cope?” Clarence worried.

How should I know?

“You’d better U-turn your car right here,” I advised him, “driving in reverse isn’t speedy.”

There were no streetlights in Mihandrov, so nights were very much like in Krauhard here: dark and misty. The lake breathed out fog, and a rather chilly breeze came out of the steppe; the sun rose fast, and day started instantly. I slept peacefully under Clarence’s jacket for an hour and a half and was awakened by a strike of lightning, typical for the expelling curse. It blew off so strongly that the car bounced. The lieutenant ruthlessly pulled the improvised blanket off me. The sky was already bright.

The sergeant climbed down the slope, swearing, along with the sharp-nosed assistant with my staff in his hands! Their younger colleague, named Rispin, showed prudence and went through the gate—an extra one hundred meters, but much more convenient.

“In my twenty years of experience I haven’t seen such a hefty creature before,” the sharp-nosed guy said, trying to push me out of the car, but I tenaciously clung to the seat. Clarence’s cabriolet was not designed for five, but it was not my problem. Let them sit on each other’s knees!