Irina Syromyatnikova - My Path to Magic

“Nerves,” I shrugged.

Uncle struggled out from the hold and, having discerned the shore, began to rub his hands involuntarily: “Wow, how deliciously captivating! What’s inside?” he asked Mrs. Clements.

“It should not concern you!” she said coldly. “The ruins are under the state’s protection, and you will not approach them.”

What a witch… Uncle saddened noticeably.

We quickly left behind the mysterious construction, but I was still puzzled, trying to figure out in what era our ancestors could build something like that. As an alchemist, I knew how heavy one such plate could be, and it was incomprehensible how the plates were assembled in such a big stack. And how they worked from the inside, not the outside. History wasn’t my strongest subject, but I always thought that in previous centuries people lived somewhat simpler.

The situation intrigued me; surprises on the King’s Island were in store for all.

“As you know, I do not like to hire locals!” Mrs. Clements thoroughly stirred a spoonful of white powder in a quarter of glass of water and swallowed the resulting mess in one gulp. The taste of the medical medley made her shudder. Her conversation partner lazily mumbled something from his bunk.

“Especially those, who are also wild drunks,” she hid a box of medicine in a leather case. “You get little help but problems through the roof from them.”

“Do not rush to conclusions, they were not drunk,” Mr. Smith got up on his elbow. “As to their uproar… Both of them are dark—a huge fortune! Hiring those two in Ho-Carg would have eaten our entire budget, but here they will work for us almost for free. Let me deal with them, okay?”

“No problem!” Mrs. Clements easily agreed. “I do not think that we will need their skills. The last commission had worked on the island three years ago, and their review was favorable. The caretaker still lives in the castle, and NZAMIPS would not have allowed this if they had any doubts.”

“The last three years… These three years have been too strange,” Mr. Smith sighed, “but I hope you’re right. That will be better for all of us.”

The island rejected us. It became clear from the very first minute of our stay there.

The fog cleared when we reached our destination. The sun did not show up; instead, the sky was filled with a translucent pearl-gray haze—a common phenomenon for Krauhard. When the monotony of the landscape became tiresome, the cliffs parted, revealing an entrance to a deep bay, the ancient name of which had been reliably forgotten long ago, and for the last three hundred years it was known simply as the Prison Bay. On the far side of the island one could see buildings of the type more common for Ingernika: rough masonry made from local stone, guarded windows, rusty stains on the walls. The buildings were subtly immersed in landscape, pretending to be a mirage; only their roofs of red tiles dotted the background of gray rocks. There were no external walls - the place had never been used as a fortress. And who would ever think of guarding the King’s Island? From the outset, the complex was built as a prison, Vale of the Doomed—a name that had become a household word. If memory served me correctly, it was the first specialized institution of that kind; before, criminals were either flogged publicly or had their heads lopped off, nothing in between. Indubitably, given their particular character, there were far more dark mages held there over the years than anyone else, and that brought about all sorts of silly superstitions. A black slab of some unknown material, obviously predating the construction of the prison, served as its foundation.

Crossing the natural breakwater, the ship gave a signal. Then another one. And another. Then the noise of the engine changed: the team started backing up; it seemed that the captain did not dare to approach the pier head-on. After a short meeting, they lowered the dinghy on the water and Mr. Smith went ashore with one of the guards. They returned two hours later and, after another meeting, the ship finally moved forward. Lady-crocodile, as if nothing had happened, began directing the unloading.

I drew two conclusions from what was going on: first, something went wrong, and second, mere mortals were not supposed to know what exactly went wrong.

“Keep your eyes open,” Uncle whispered to me.

The unloading made me set my concerns aside for a moment. Students, cursing, hauled a cart with the expeditionary belongings to a building (at least we had a cart. Without it, to carry that mountain of stuff over would have taken until the end of summer). Uncle Gordon and I, armed with poles, rolled barrels with fuel for the generator up the hill (not really a difficult task, but it looked technically daunting from outside). That white guy was busy with the dynamo-machine in the outbuilding. I couldn’t believe my eyes: didn’t they find a dark mage to send?! After the third barrel, I really wanted to ask what he was doing there for so long. After the fourth one I acted.

The outbuilding strongly smelled of oil; the white had managed to fuel the tank. Burnt fuses lay on the floor: an emergency breaker was triggered, but, at first glance, neither the generator nor its winding looked damaged. The student was yanking the start-up handle again and again to no visible results. The poor fellow was in a trance; the machine was not working. I needed to rescue the guy and myself. Literally. That was one of the most annoying traits in the white mages—if something really upsets them, they could cry for weeks. More than once had I witnessed a funeral of a broken cup, not to mention of dead mice and birds. The most unforgettable spectacle for me, though, was a man gently carrying a caught cockroach into the street. Imagine: the cockroach must have been captured first and then carried outside without being hurt. In short, I was not thrilled with the prospect of spending four weeks in the company of the emotionally shell-shocked white. Much less so, on King’s Island. Ha!

“Hey, make way for an alchemist!”

He sulked and started looking like Lyuchik.

“Don’t lose heart!” I patted him on the shoulder. “I will fix it right away.”

The problem was as simple as a stump and wasn’t related to alchemy at all, but rather to the “science of shitty contacts”—that sorry excuse for a mechanic had not pushed the fuses far enough into the slots, causing the generator not to start up. When the machine started, the student genuinely lit up.

“If something else happens,” I smiled amicably, “call me. I’ll try my best to help!”

He nodded and smiled.

“Mr. Tangor! What are you doing there?” Mr. Smith barked from somewhere.

“I’m taking out the garbage!” I yelled out the first thing that came into my mind, winked, and was gone.

As it turned out, Mr. Smith yelled for a good reason—the weather had changed dramatically. Although the day was at its height, a strip of thick fog crept out from the sea to the shore. It looked utterly suspicious. Our superiors began fretting; we were ordered to grab and drag everything that could be damaged by dampness into the house and leave the rest outside in its place. The boat started backing up to anchor somewhere in the middle of the bay, out of harm’s way. By the time the trembling white curtain of fog reached the shore, the doors of the prison’s only residential building had been closed tightly, and the members of the expedition had made their home as comfortable as they could.

We were given a corner room overlooking the prison yard, though we couldn’t see anything because of the fog. In the light of the day, such as it was, the room looked cozy, just a little dusty. Uncle checked for ward-off spells on the windows, clicked his tongue, and did not change anything. The thick fog splashed outside, like milk, and poured into the water; the sun illuminated it from within, and the air seemed to glow faintly. An infernal spectacle that we, Krauhardians, did not like to admire.