Matabar

Book II. Chapter 36 - The end of the Long Night

Ardi and Milar made their way over to Mshisty. Not because they wanted to—especially given the captain’s words, which were a puzzle yet to be solved—but because a military mage with a Pink Star had a far greater chance of helping everyone else than Ardan did. He could barely keep his own feet beneath him.

Whatever Elani’atie had done when leading him down the path to that great shard of Ice and Snow, the journey had taken no less of a toll on him than it had on the Sidhe herself.

“Any ideas?” Milar asked, his voice rough and clipped.

Before them lay the best hound of the Black House, a man awash in blood, some of it his own, some of it a vampire’s. His limbs had been pierced through and his cloak was a charred ruin, fused to his skin where a defensive seal had flared to life, postponing his inevitable meeting with the Eternal Angels.

Ardan glanced at the unconscious forms of Alexander and Din, propped back-to-back against each other. They likely didn’t have much time, which meant there was no time left for doubt.

“The Major is not going to be happy about this,” Ardi whispered, opening his grimoire to a clean page. “No, he is most certainly not going to be happy.”

“Ard, I don’t need to hear it twice,” Milar grunted through his nose. “I specifically don’t give a damn about what that bastard will or won’t like.”

This always amazed Ardan. It wasn’t like Milar was fearless, but he certainly possessed a complete and utter lack of deference to the powerful. Whether it was Edward, Mshisty, or even the Colonel, Milar Pnev behaved exactly as he saw fit. Perhaps that was why, despite all his achievements, his years of service, and the effectiveness of his investigations, he still wore the stripes of a captain and nothing more.

Ardan knelt and, after fumbling through the pockets of the man’s cloak, fished out two accumulators the color of his own Stars. He slotted them into his rings and then carefully examined Mshisty’s body. The wounds on his limbs looked severe, and, more importantly, more than a minute had passed since they had been inflicted.

But the problem was not so much the obvious physical damage—caused, in essence, by simple kinetic energy—as it was the places where the brighter blood crystals had pierced the major. There, the hollows of the wounds, shallow as they were, were framed by expanding halos of darkness.

“It’s some kind of Ley-poisoning,” Ardi whispered, chewing on the end of his pencil.

“What was that, Magister?”

“Just talking to myself.”

Milar’s gaze was fixed on his subordinates, and he paid no mind to Klementiy and Parela, who were also in a sorry state.

“Hurry up.”

“I am hurrying, Captain.”

“You’re not doing a damn thing, Magister!”

“Perhaps you’d like to conjure a seal out of thin air in my place?” Ardi shot back, unable to restrain himself as he shook his grimoire. “Or maybe you could give me some time to work in silence?!”

Milar raised his hands in a gesture of surrender and took a few steps back.

Ardan turned back to the wounded mage. He needed a measuring instrument to determine the depth of the corruption in those areas that were not just damaged, but infected with malicious Ley. Ideally, he would have something like a stationary Elissaar Seal, the kind they used in hospitals. But, for want of anything better, he would make do with…

“AAAH!” Mshisty screamed as the pencil began to probe inside his wounds.

He screamed, and the consciousness that had been slowly returning to him fled once more.

Milar said something behind him, but Ardi was too focused on his task. If this had been some problem involving objects, vectors of motion, or a tangled runic linkage, he would have felt more confident.

But the Healing Arts were… Well, they were an art, as foolish as that sounded. And this was not an art in which Ardan excelled. He had probably made more progress in the military disciplines than he had in medicine. This was because his Matabar blood had always helped him, and healing others with Star Magic was an even greater chore than healing oneself.

“Focus,” Ardan coached himself. “It’s all the same runic connections… You passed the exam, after all.”

“Yeah… for the first year, by the Eternal Angels,” a voice sounded from behind him, but Ardi once again just waved his partner away.

The pencil flew across the page. He started with a few contours as the foundation for the future seal: one to stabilize blood pressure, another to maintain the overall integrity of the structure, a third and fourth for analgesia and disinfection. A fifth… no, the fifth would need a third Star, and this wasn’t a problem set—it was a living person. A person who was alive for now. Also, Ardan had no Blue Star to draw upon, just as he had no right to a second attempt, or a third.

If he failed to help Mshisty, then three more Cloaks would be joining the major on his trip to the Eternal Angels.

Ardan set his staff aside, scratched the back of his head, and began to scatter arrays across the schematic.

“It’s just a problem… a materials problem… only the material is biological…” Ardan muttered to himself. “Broken biological material… It’s the same as a part falling from a crane… or a broken machine… In principle, it’s all the same…”

Of course, it was not at all the same, and the differences were so numerous that the similarities were close to absolute zero. The same zero Ardan was ready to give himself for the monstrous mess of fixed and free arrays he had produced.

The young man’s first impulse was to tear out the page and start over—just as he always did when he felt his solution was far from ideal. But in this case, he wasn’t indulging in his “research hobby” —he was dealing with a bloody mess of flesh and poisoned Ley.

But even if he erased half the arrays, leaving only the most essential, it still wouldn’t solve the problem of the structure’s overall congestion. And when you added the fact that every living organism had its own Ley-field, and the vectors within the seal had to account for the target’s individual characteristics, then… It was simpler to imagine Ardan was shooting into the void while hoping to hit a target the size of a coin.

And the connections themselves were multiplying too quickly. By now, the schematic numbered some twenty-eight of them. And the possible combinations were more than could be listed in a week.

No, a standard approach wouldn’t solve this. If he’d had a Yellow Star and the ability to use the Elissaar Seal, he might have handled this in a couple of minutes without any trouble, but that was just a fruitless fantasy.

Yes, it was becoming painfully clear why the Empire had so many cripples with amputated limbs… It was terrifying to imagine what the Healing Arts had been like before Senior Magister Elissaar’s revolutionary discovery.

A revolution… Yes, Ardan would have to think unconventionally and, most importantly, quickly. Which meant he had to take the most obvious problem and approach it from the most unobvious direction.

What was the main issue here? Major Mshisty had received a significant dose of malicious Ley, which was currently destroying him from the inside. And while Ardi had no idea about its characteristics, concentration, or other properties, he knew one thing—it had some kind of negative charge. And any charge, according to Paarlax, has two positions, so…

“Reverse the poisoning, of course!” Ardan tapped his forehead with the pencil and narrowed his eyes. “If I reverse the poisoning, I can make it repair the very areas it damaged!”

“Are you still speaking Galessian, Magister, or have you switched to your own language?”

Without turning, Ardan made a rather indecent gesture behind his back, to which Milar only snorted. And it was a snort of some perverted respect.

All that remained was to figure out how to reverse something he didn’t understand. It was one thing to try to change the direction of a charge when you had a full list of its properties and characteristics and it was another thing entirely to act blind.

The Misty Helper was… no help to him. Ardan didn’t even have a clue about how he could modify his own seal to have the properties of attaching to a biological object. Although, wait, didn’t he? Of course he did—such a seal already existed, and it was called the Elissaar Seal!

“Ahgrat!” Ardan breathed out.

“I certainly hope, partner, that you prayed for the souls of Peter Oglanov and his assistant in that exclamation. You know, the ones we left by the lift.”

Ardan slowly turned to Milar, who was nervously tapping the toe of his shoe on the stone platform, and then just as slowly turned back to his grimoire.

According to the general principles of how Ley energy functioned, Ardi knew that any Ley-charge, regardless of its other properties, possessed the most important one—a constant aptitude for metamorphosis. This was because Ley, at its core, had no clear structure, and any of its states was considered simultaneously transitional and permanent. It was this axiom that Ardan’s theory regarding his future “transmutational runic links” relied on.

“There’s no other choice anyway,” Ardan exhaled and, opening the page where his encrypted transmutation formulas were stored, he began to frantically calculate the nodes of the connections.

The young man was grateful to fate that it had kept him from owning his own arithmometer for so long, because he hadn’t lost his ability to make complex mental calculations.

He ended up with something… not exactly coherent. Overall, his formulas could hardly be called scientific, and were more like the dabbling of a clumsy schoolboy, but still, the schematic was ready.

After inscribing the last rune into the chain of tangled connections, Ard took his staff and rose to his feet.

“Will it work?” Milar asked.

Ardi grimaced and reluctantly answered:

“I give it nineteen to one.”

“Oh, a ninety-five percent chance of success?” Milar’s spirits lifted, but after seeing the expression on Ardi’s face, he couldn’t hold back a curse. “Fuck… It’s not in our favor, is it?”

Ardan gave him a brief nod and didn’t bother asking Milar not to swear. It was frowned upon not only by the teachings of the Face of Light, but by the Firstborn as well. On this, the two peoples agreed. Dark words brought dark events, whether they were magical or not.

On Ardi’s part, it would have been hypocritical to mention restraint in speech, since he himself was resorting to one of the few curses he knew in the Fae language more and more often, and-

“Are you going to stand there all day?” The rhythm Milar was tapping out grew more and more impatient, and his oval face seemed to stretch longer and longer.

“Yes,” Ard breathed out. “You’re right.”

And then, without taking his eyes off the schematic, unsure if he might fumble the spell from sheer exhaustion, the young man struck his staff against the ground. A green seal flared, and a wave of misty light washed over Mshisty. He had neither the strength, nor the time, nor the skill in the Healing Arts to shape the spell into any specific form according to engineering principles.

At first, nothing happened to Mshisty, but then a loud, almost inhuman scream pierced the air:

“AAAAAAAAH!” The major’s body arched like a bow so violently that it seemed like his heels and wrists would tear apart. It almost looked like he was ready to defy physics and start flying just to escape the agony.

Startled, Milar and Ardan recoiled in unison. They did so just in time, for a moment later, the major collapsed onto his back and began to convulse with a violence worthy of the final moments of a wretch tortured to death in the most gruesome ways.

Mshisty beat his hands against the stones and clawed at the floor with his fingers, tearing out and breaking his nails. He ripped out the remaining hair on his head, bit through his lips, and then spat out a mixture of blood, something resembling a half-digested lunch, more blood, mucus, and something dark green.

“What are you standing around for?!” Milar roared and, shrugging off his jacket, rushed toward Mshisty. “Help me!”

But the major had already fallen silent. He looked even worse than before Ardi’s seal. Long, bloody fissures snaked across his skin, several of his bones were clearly broken, and he was noticeably short on fingernails and teeth.

“What have you done, you genius?” Milar asked, his tone dry and devoid of all emotion.

Ardan, wiping away a cold sweat, stepped closer.

“It should have worked…” He flipped through his grimoire, examining the seal he had just drawn again and again. “I transmuted the reverse runic linkages, embedding the basic properties of the poison into them, and so the interaction with the Ley-field should have been minimal. And the analgesic should have… Ahgrat.”

“It’s starting to get on my nerves that I keep hearing that mix of a sneeze and a cough from you.”

“The transmutation affected the analgesic contour along with all its arrays, so they were taken out of the equation and not connected to the external Ley-field…” Ardan felt like his heart had taken a voyage to the most remote parts of his body, and it was in no hurry to return. “I messed up a little.”

“A little?!” Milar nearly bellowed, gesturing at Mshisty. “You call this a little, by the Eternal Angels?!”

“And you think that after one year at the Grand University and six months with Aversky, I can now heal wounds left by an ancient vampire?!” Ardi finally, as the cowboys on the Polskih farm would say, let go of the reins and began to shout back. “I don’t even understand what I just did!”

“Then how in the hell did you do it at all?!”

“Well, I just did it! Somehow!” Ardan pointed just as emphatically at the motionless Mshisty. “See! He doesn’t have any signs of poisoning anymore!”

“Yeah, well, he doesn’t have many signs of life, either!”

“I can hear his heart beating!”

“It’s probably doing that out of indignation at your stubbornness!”

“My stubbornness, Milar? And who was it that decided to visit both the Night Folk and an ancient vampire in a single night?!”

“What, should I have dragged it all out for a couple of months again? Made sure the Puppeteers and the Colonel both took a turn stretching out our… places. The ones you, Magister, sometimes think with instead of your head!”

“Oh, right, of course, that’s probably why I had to make a deal with who-knows-what to pull those places of yours out of the fire!”

“And if you had just come with us from the start…”

“…maybe everyone would be dead…”

“…maybe we could have come up with a smarter strategy…”

“…that would have ended in more explosions and fines…”

“…not necessarily.”

Who knows how long the simmering argument would have continued if not for Mshisty’s hoarse, barely audible voice interjecting.

“Stop bickering… like a husband and wife… Go get a hotel room… if that’s the kind of relationship you have.”

Milar and Ard turned to Mshisty in unison, confirmed that he was breathing evenly and even rolling his eyes, and then looked at each other.

Simultaneously, the partners extended their hands.

“I got carried away, Ard. It’s been one hell of a night.”

“Sorry I lost my temper, Milar. What a restless night.”

And once again, there was a cough.

“Oh… I’m about to cry… Help me up, gentlemen.”

Somehow, with a combined effort, they managed to get the groaning, bloodied military mage, who resembled a boiled beet in some places, onto his feet. He even found the strength to brush himself off and rasp:

“Hand me my staff, student.”

Ardan, who’d already vented his ire (he had never been able to “let go of the reins” for more than a few seconds, and even that was extremely rare), calmly passed his own staff to Milar and bent down to pick up Mshisty’s steel instrument. Though in the hands of this particular mage, the staff was more of a weapon, in every sense of the word. The cold Ertalain steel, with its multitude of engraved seals, burned Ardan’s palms with an unfamiliar and alien sensation.

And he couldn’t say that he liked it very much. The familiar branch of an Alcade oak was somehow dearer and more beautiful to him than this insanely expensive, clearly high-quality, and far more suitable for the craft of war bit of Ley-technology.

As soon as he took his staff in hand, Mshisty drew a sharp breath through his nose and struck the magic steel against the stone platform. A seal nearly two and a half meters in diameter flared beneath their feet and hundreds of snow-white dove feathers fell upon them, circling them in a slow dance.

Covering an area of no less than twenty square meters, the spell enveloped all the injured at once. The feathers touched their exhausted and wounded bodies, dissolving into a white mist that was drawn into their skin.

“When you get home, you’ll need to eat a lot and drink just as much,” Mshisty said, his voice now quite healthy and even fresh.

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Ardan heard what the major was saying, but he couldn’t tear his attention away from the sensation the magic feathers were evoking. It was as if something soft, very gentle, and just as familiar, something like home, had touched his skin. But not from the outside, from within. It spread like a soft treacle throughout his body, seeking out the most tired and wounded corners of his tormented flesh. And there, in the midst of the pulling pain, a calm appeared. It was as if he were drinking thick, hot cocoa, but not with his mouth—with his wounds.

Ardi looked at the places where his blood had recently crusted over thanks to his Matabar ancestors. The scab fell away, revealing pink skin.

“Enhanced regeneration,” whispered an awestruck Ardan. “Powered by Ley and the body’s own resources. With multiple free-target selection… The healing magic of the Pink Star.”

“The others were only hurt by kinetic forces,” Mshisty explained, stepping away from the two partners and approaching his subordinates. “Stop lying on top of each other like you’ve decided to try getting married again, you incompetents.”

All of the major’s feigned courtesy and politeness vanished in an instant. Without any concern for the well-being of the sergeant and captain, he kicked both of them with the toe of his heavy boots without a second thought. Parela groaned but soon slid off Klementiy, who seemed very reluctant to open his eyes.

“Remember that dark mage of the Yellow Star we fought last year? The one from Tazidahian? He beat you up far worse than this dead thing did, Klementiy, but if you insist on extra training…”

“Yes, sir!” Klementiy snapped to attention, looking quite comical with his perfectly-whole and fresh face and lack of wounds, yet dressed in torn and tattered clothes. “I have no desire for extra training whatsoever.”

“A pity,” Mshisty flashed his canines like an animal. “Then the whole department will go to the field training ground for our vacation.”

Ardan felt as if he were seeing two different people at once. One Mshisty was a perfectly ordinary, polite, somewhat pensive gentleman who could easily be counted among the high society. The other, the one before him now, fit all the descriptions that were whispered about him behind his back.

“Raving bastard,” Milar drawled, not lowering his voice, and walked over to Alexander and Din.

Klementiy and Parela’s faces went pale, but Mshisty only graced Milar with… a look of respect. But it was the kind of look Ardan never wanted a mage of the Pink, or, Sleeping Spirits forbid, the Black Star, to ever give him. In that respect, one could read an absolutely animalistic desire to test their strength and fight for territory.

Ardan had seen that look not once, not twice, but a hundred times. Whenever Ergar, Shali, or Guta had encountered someone on the trails they’d considered worthy of a fight, they had always looked at their opponents with those same burning eyes bereft of reason.

“What do you think, Milar, when will our new guy be able to do that?” Alexander asked, yawning.

He got to his feet on his own and then helped Din up, who looked somewhat lost.

“What happened?” Din kept turning his head from side to side, only occasionally glancing at his knives. One was bent, the other broken off at the guard. “Damn it… Dagdag is going to give me a whole lecture again about the importance of government property. And I hate his lectures. He’s no fun. Doesn’t get my jokes at all. What a grumpy dwarf. I always tell Plamena about how-”

“Din!” Milar and Alexander barked in unison.

Ardan, meanwhile, was clenching and unclenching his fist, listening to his own senses. The magic Mshisty had used was on such a celestial level that even if he spent a week buried in scientific literature, Ardan wouldn’t be able to understand even a tenth of the schematic. It had used too much of what he hadn’t even begun to explore yet, or more likely, he hadn’t even suspected that such knowledge and topics existed.

“Want to come with us, Corporal?” He was suddenly asked.

While Milar, Din and Alexander were discussing something about needing to call in several groups of operatives and Dagdag’s brainiacs, a refreshed Mshisty approached Ardan.

“I beg your pardon?” Ardan asked, not quite understanding the question.

“You handled my poisoning excellently, Corporal Egobar,” the major, as if swapping a mask, once again appeared to be a calm and restrained nobleman. “I’m not quite sure how, but your approach was creative. I value that in mages. With these gentlemen,” he nodded toward the trio of Cloaks, “you’ll get bogged down in useless and pointless investigations. But in my department, we can help you with your real talents.”

Mshisty’s crazed gaze, which had lost all traces of anything human, shifted to the spot where a stain that was once an ancient vampire remained.

“Thank you for the offer, Major, but I must refuse,” Ard blurted out without a second thought and moved as quickly as possible toward Milar and his colleagues.

He wouldn’t agree to be the subordinate of a madman (an even greater one than Milar sometimes was) under any circumstances.

“Hey, Corporal… When you ignite your Blue Star, let’s have a bloody duel. Don’t worry, I’ll use a limiter.”

Before Ardi could reply, Milar turned to Mshisty and said gruffly:

“When we get to the surface, you one-armed imbecile, you’ll talk to me, not my partner.”

“Oh, Captain Pnev, don’t you doubt it,” Mshisty’s eyes flashed. “You and I will most certainly have a talk.”

For a moment, silence hung over the platform.

“Why do I get the impression, gentlemen,” Din whispered almost inaudibly, “that I’m going to have to ask Dagdag for a spare set of underwear as well?”

As usual, no one paid any attention to Din, and soon the seven Cloaks, supporting each other both literally and figuratively, began the trek back.

No one said much of anything. It wasn’t so much that fatigue was setting in (just mental exhaustion and a growing hunger, as Mshisty had warned them), but the atmosphere was not conducive to conversation. They were indeed walking, as Milar had said, through a labyrinth. Ardi didn’t even want to imagine how it would feel to be lost amid these constricting, heavy walls of brick and bone, looming overhead and squeezing his shoulders.

There were many skeletons along the way. They had twisted bones, shattered chests, and crushed legs, and they were sometimes toothless or jawless. Only shadows danced among the grim decorations of the narrow passages, marked by arches invariably framed with those same skeletons. Even the air here felt not just stale, but dead.

Sometimes, Ardi felt a tingling in his fingers. It was likely that before the ancient vampire had been laid to rest and before Elani’atie had fled from here, the labyrinth had been shrouded in the magic of the Aean’Hane arts. And those skeletons now serving as silent wardens of the stones’ peace were none other than the unfortunate souls who had failed to find their way to the dark temple.

This guess was confirmed by the pale faces of the Cloaks; even Mshisty was glancing at the walls like he was expecting a trap. And in places, Ardan noticed marks left by chalk, and Klementiy’s cuffs, besides being stained with blood, were indeed smeared with a recognizable, fine white powder.

They were navigating by using these marks.

At first, Ardan tried to keep track of the direction they were heading in, but then he gave up on the useless endeavor and focused on not tripping. For some reason, he was sure that his fear of enclosed spaces, which was making it harder for him to breathe now than when Guta had used to playfully place his paws on the little hunter’s chest, would not simply let him get back on his feet and walk.

Fortunately, the labyrinth was not too deep, and they soon emerged into a room similar to the one where Ardan had met Elani’atie. It had the same wide corridor with cells arranged in a checkerboard pattern. Only unlike the one where Ardi had found ruined laboratories and a tattered library of forbidden knowledge, here…

He sharply turned away, subconsciously hoping that his mind wouldn’t have time to register what he had seen. Alas…

His eyes had already seared the image into his memory. There were bloody racks, butchering tables where it was not animals that had been “processed,” cages whose bars had moved together, piercing their victims with jagged spikes, and also… piles of bodies. They’d been thrown into a corner like meat that had served its purpose. The remains were now just… spoiled, rotten meat devoid of any meaning or significance.

Peter Oglanov had wanted to find the children.

He had succeeded.

He’d found them.

What was left of them…

“This is beyond good and evil, Magister,” Milar whispered, his voice barely audible. “This… not even the Firstborn who’d ruled Ectassus had done things like this. I’m not even asking who, I just don’t understand… why.”

Ardan wanted to tell himself that he was barely holding back the urge to vomit, but no. He had seen too much in the past year for his stomach to try and part with its contents. No, he was disgusted and, why deny it, scared out of his wits, but he wasn’t nauseous. Or, well, he was as queasy as any other time he’d found himself in a tight space.

“Neuroplasticity,” Ardan said aloud, his tongue thick and sluggish. “Morimer mentioned it, and I did a little research.”

“Research?” Milar was clearly looking around. “Should I be worried?”

“No,” the young man shook his head and immediately regretted it. He did feel nauseous after all. “I asked Elena for some non-Star literature. She recommended something to read. There’s a theory that under great stress, substances are produced that accelerate one’s mind. They make it more sensitive and better at implementing survival mechanisms.”

“Ah, is that when it feels like time is slowing down?” Milar clearly didn’t want to end the conversation. And Ardan didn’t blame him. Words helped distract you. “And your reaction time gets better?”

“Something like that,” Ardi mumbled. “I didn’t quite get it. There were a lot of words I didn’t understand.”

“You don’t understand some words?”

“I stopped studying non-Star science as soon as I graduated from school, Milar. And they don’t exactly explain these topics in great depth in Evergale.”

“Well, at least you studied at all, after the reform,” the captain grumbled, alluding to the fact that he had been a child back when the then-Grand Prince Pavel Agrov had not yet passed the education reform through Parliament. “What’s the gist of it, in short?”

“In short: the more pain and fear they feel, the easier it is to conduct…” Ardi struggled to get the next word out. “Experiments.”

Milar exhaled and shook his head.

“You know what, Ard? Sometimes, I think that without you mages, whether you are Star or Aean’Hane ones, the world would be a better place,” the captain cast a fleeting glance into one of the cells and immediately looked away. “And then I realize that nothing would really change in the grand scheme of things.”

“Probably,” Ardan didn’t argue or defend Star Science.

“You have no idea, kid, what Star Magic is capable of when it’s not shackled by state prohibitions…”

Mart Borskov had been right. However, after finding himself in this foul-smelling stew, Ardi no longer had any desire to imagine what those who possessed Stars, but unfortunately lacked a moral compass, were capable of. Or if, like Lea Mortimer, they had a broken one.

Finally, they left the cells coated in dried blood and tears behind and emerged at the place where the Cloaks had fallen. This had most likely been a technical platform originally and was later converted into a trap.

The characteristic marks on the walls left behind by tools and, of course, magic, spoke to this.

“You didn’t exactly hurry,” a familiar voice remarked.

Peter Oglanov was still stout, balding, with wrinkled skin covered in the marks of alcohol abuse and a round face with intelligent eyes. Except now, a hastily-bandaged arm slung in a shirt tied by its sleeves, a hairy belly dotted with bruises and cuts, and a smile missing several teeth had been added to the picture.

Next to Oglanov, on the cold floor, leaning her back against the iron teeth that had been welded to the lift platform, lay his assistant. Ardan remembered her being a pretty young girl. And now…

Now… one could only hope that her psyche was not as damaged as her body. Though it was unlikely.

“I would say I’m glad to see you, young man,” Oglanov was keeping his eyes fixed on Ardan and clearly trying not to look at his wounded, heavily-breathing assistant, “but, considering the circumstances, I would have preferred not to see you again until the moment music started playing in my house that I would no longer be able to hear.”

Milar stepped closer and asked curtly:

“Can you stand?”

“Are you talking about my legs, Captain, or my morale?” Oglanov, it seemed, couldn’t see very well, as he didn’t immediately catch Milar’s gaze. “In either case, the answer is no. But my morale could be helped by a bottle of booze and a couple of months on the Azure Sea.”

The former head of the Metropolis’ detectives’ department, and now private detective, tried to force a chuckle but only ended up coughing, then spat out some phlegm and blood several times.

“The vacation can wait, old man, we’ll get you to a hospital first,” Milar nodded to Alexander, and he approached Oglanov, then lifted him into his arms with some effort, but he did lift him.

Alexander clearly possessed a strength that was not entirely human, though he was neither a mutant nor a descendant of the Firstborn.

“I hope it’s not your hospital, Captain… Damn it, this is the second time in six months that I’ve ended up in another man’s arms. A man could get used to this.”

Din, in turn, went to Oglanov’s assistant and gently, like she was a vase of the most fragile glass, lifted her into his arms. For a moment, the jacket Oglanov had covered the girl with slipped from her face, and a heavy, oppressive silence hung in the air.

“They were trying to find out what we knew about some key,” Oglanov told them, his voice hoarse, tired, and full of emotional pain. “First, they tortured me. Then they decided to change tactics. I didn’t know anything. I told those bastards just that—I don’t know anything. But they kept going. And at some point, they switched to her. They thought I’d talk if they made me watch. But I had nothing to tell them… I was just looking for Irigov’s accomplices, not all this… And you know-”

He didn’t get to finish. Parela lightly tapped her staff on the ground, and the silhouette of a woman’s headscarf briefly appeared over the faces of Oglanov and his assistant. It covered their eyes, and both of them fell into a deep, peaceful sleep, though the assistant was already sleeping. Or in a state of shock.

No one said a word to Mshisty’s subordinate. What Oglanov had been saying could be related to Milar’s department’s investigation, and was therefore top secret.

“It’s going to be a bit shaky, but I don’t have any accumulators left to ensure a smooth transition,” Mshisty announced as he stepped forward.

And before anyone could ask the major what he meant by that, Mshisty had already tapped his staff on the ground. A white whirlwind appeared at the feet of everyone present, and a moment later, they were torn from the floor. Their ears were hit by something akin to a sledgehammer, and their stomachs did a somersault. For a moment, Ardi thought he would lose consciousness. And it seemed like that was exactly what happened to Klementiy, who collapsed into the “arms” of the whirlwind carrying them up the shaft.

The metal cover over the entrance burst like a sheet of paper, and they were finally free.

***

Alexander and Din gently laid the wounded detective and his assistant on the passenger seats of their car, covered them with blankets, and closed the doors.

Milar was smoking, of course. Parela was lecturing Klementiy, who was trembling slightly and swaying from side to side. It was hard to tell what had frightened him more—the estate with all its underground horrors, or Mshisty’s promise of taking them to the training ground.

Speaking of which, the major, after remembering his promise, approached Milar. Despite wearing torn clothes, he still had the expression of a man who not only believed, but knew that he was on a different rung of some invisible ladder than everyone else around him.

Edward had sometimes looked like that too, but only when he’d been talking to someone he’d disliked.

Like Captain Pnev, for example.

“You wanted to talk to me, Cap-”

Milar’s fist slammed into an invisible barrier that appeared a few inches from Mshisty’s face.

“I respect your courage, Captain,” the major used his staff to lower the captain’s numb arm. Neither Alexander nor Din drew their weapons. “But even if you had landed that hit, I would have just written a report. Or have you not been before the commission in a while?”

“A report?” Milar narrowed his eyes, rubbing his shoulder. “You mean the report I’m going to file with the Colonel in the morning, where I’ll detail how you risked our lives for your stupid rivalry with Aversky, may the Eternal Angels accept him?”

Mshisty just shrugged.

“And do you have any proof of that, Investigator?” The major asked in an even, almost friendly tone.

What a truly strange, two-faced man.

Ardan was once again convinced that he would probably never meet any “ordinary” Cloaks.

“You knew where we had to go, which means you had a way of finding the correct route. And are you telling me that Mshisty, the renowned military mage,” Milar said those last few words with unconcealed sarcasm, “didn’t notice a trap? And what’s more, when we fell, no one was hurt precisely because of your magic. Which means you could have stopped the fall entirely.”

Mshisty, maintaining his mask of indifference, tapped the toes of his shoes together several times, producing rhythmic clicks. Apparently, this gesture was the equivalent of applause for him, for obvious reasons.

“All that’s left is to prove it, right?”

“Prove it?” Milar lowered his voice, and his tone rang with iron and gunpowder, just like in the Crimson Lady’s brothel. “Do you understand that you risked our lives and our operation? I don’t need proof to state my doubts about your professional fitness in my report.”

“Fair enough, Captain,” Mshisty didn’t deny it. “Nor do I need any proof to express my doubts in my report. My doubts about the lady that the corporal who appeared out of thin air brought with him. The corporal who, though I don’t remember exactly how, managed to take down an ancient vampire.”

“He only finished him off,” Milar cut him off sharply. “You almost-”

“I’m almost armless, but not brainless, Captain,” Mshisty interrupted. “And unlike you, I’ve had the pleasure of crossing, let’s say, swords with the Aean’Hane on more than one occasion. So I know their magic,” the major sniffed the air loudly. “By its scent. And that place reeked of the Aean’Hane arts. Just as your subordinate reeks of them. Funny, isn’t it? According to his documents, he’s just a Speaker. But in reality, he’s actually an Aean’Hane? At his age? Not even a descendant of Aror Egobar should be capable of that. So what does that mean? He somehow borrowed Aean’Hane powers? Or maybe it’s connected to that mysterious lady? Where is she, by the way? I don’t see her.”

Mshisty smiled condescendingly and swept his staff through the air, tracing the road and the field leading to the estate with its tip.

“So, Captain, as long as your suspicions are just in your head and not on paper, mine will remain with me as well,” Mshisty’s eyes flashed and he narrowed them slightly. “Or you can put your report on the Colonel’s desk, and mine will appear right next to it. We’ll be reporting to the commission together, so to speak. And while you and I might get off with a reprimand, your subordinate,” Mshisty nodded toward Ardan, “probably won’t. Especially after what you two pulled in the Archive.”

Ardan remembered how Milar had warned him about the consequences of certain decisions. And those consequences, it seemed, were here. Unfortunately, at the time, they’d had no other way to solve the problem.

“Get lost, Mshisty,” the captain hissed.

“That’s rude, Captain, very rude. Judging by your success, or rather the lack of it, we’ll clearly have to work together again someday,” Mshisty turned and took a few steps toward his “Derks,” then suddenly stopped. “You don’t seem to want to duel me, Corporal. Allow me to motivate you: I have a certain recording at home called ‘Alaine enea anauta.’ A souvenir, so to speak, from my wild youth.”

Ardan instinctively took a step forward, but immediately reminded himself where he was, who he was, and what kind of man had said those words to him.

“There, I can see you’re now sufficiently interested, Corporal,” Mshisty nodded, still not turning around. “If you prove yourself worthy in the duel, I’ll give you this recording. I have no other feelings for you besides a sporting interest sparked by your deceased friend.”

And then Mshisty, after waiting for Parela to open the door for him, got into the car, and the vehicle soon disappeared into the gloom of the nighttime road.

“What did he just say to you, Ard?” Milar asked when they had moved away from Alexander and Din.

Unlike Mshisty’s department, they would have to wait for a team from the Black House. Only after that could they go home.

“‘Alaine enea anauta,’” Ardi repeated. “It means ‘Songs of the Elder Mothers’ if you translate it to Galessian. Someone probably recorded it during ‘Operation Mountain Predator.’”

“Is it something important?”

Ardan didn’t answer right away.

“For my father and great-grandfather—yes. But for me… I don’t know, Milar. It’s hard to say. If I think about it, it’s probably more of a no than a yes. But I’d still like to hear it.”

“I understand,” Milar exhaled a cloud of smoke. Ardi was certain that his partner truly did understand, and wasn’t just saying it out of politeness. “I can call in a few old favors. Mshisty isn’t as untouchable as he thinks. Yes, I’ll lose my trump card when dealing with that rabid dog, but we’ll get that record.”

“Thanks, Milar. Honestly, thank you very much, but…” Ardan looked at his staff. “You know, when I was little, Ergar, that was the name of-”

“Your snow leopard mentor,” the captain took the tin can he had converted into an ashtray from the car and flicked his burnt tobacco into it. “I remember, Magister.”

“Right, yes… He always lamented that I never had the slightest desire to fight other hunters for the sake of fighting. I was more interested in the scrolls of Atta’nha than in finding out who was stronger or more agile,” Ardan looked to where the major’s car had long since disappeared from view. “Mshisty may be insane, but he’s still Mshisty. You understand?”

“Not really, to be honest.”

“You can’t just throw away opportunities like getting to test your magic against a Pink Star military mage.” Ardan, for the first time in a long while, was feeling a little excited. Usually, only his research elicited such a response from him. “Besides, he might be an excellent mage, but he’s a terrible investigator. I would have agreed to his proposal without any recordings and… Ow! What was that for?”

Ardan rubbed his bruised leg where the captain had given him a rather sharp kick.

“Oh, nothing, just checking if you have a prosthetic. You know, in case Aversky came back from the dead and took your form.”

***

A bell chimed above his head, and Ardi found himself in “Bruce’s.” After all the misadventures and the long period when the bar had been closed, the familiar atmosphere of endless celebration now reigned here once again.

Glasses clinked and foam sparkled atop cider, beer, and ale; the light from the Ley-lamps bathed lazily in the crimson and golden hues of the many wines; patrons laughed, chatted, and clattered their utensils against their plates. Someone was dancing. A band on stage was playing, sparing neither their strings nor their keys.

Ardan greeted the massive bouncers, whom he had seen… at the start of that same day? It sure felt like a couple of weeks ago, at least.

It was funny how days sometimes blurred so much that it seemed like only an hour or two had passed, and at other times, they stretched out for so long that you forgot the last time you had laid your head on a pillow.

Ardi looked toward the door leading to the residential staircase and… didn’t go over to it. Instead, he climbed onto a bar stool, placed the hat Arkar had given him beside him, and then looked at Arkar.

The half-orc, as always, was working behind the bar. He was helping the bartenders serve customers and keeping a watchful eye on the place with a gaze that was at times serious, and at other times amused. He would greet people occasionally, and sometimes he’d briefly retreat into an inconspicuous room that was guarded by a red rope and several bouncers.

“Tess has already gone to bed. She asked me to tell you to come up.”

“Yeah… maybe… I’ll go home a little later,” Ardi felt like if he went home right now, he would bring something with him that should under no circumstances ever get near his fiancée.

The half-orc narrowed his eyes at him and set aside the towel he was using to wipe the glasses clean.

“The night was a tough one… You had a hard night, I mean?” Arkar asked.

Ardan nodded.

Arkar nodded too and, without asking any questions, took out a bottle of orcish mead—his second favorite drink after cheap whiskey. And right in front of Ardi, he placed his own squat mug, which Arkar never allowed anyone else to use. He immediately poured warm, thick cocoa into it.

“Went to the gaff… to the market, I mean, with the lads today, to restock the kitchen,” Arkar sat down on a stool and, after taking a sip of mead, wiped his lips with his hand. “And can you imagine, those scroungers tried to shortchange me.”

“Seriously?” Ardi asked in surprise, taking a sip of his drink. “Is there someone new there?”

“That’s just it, Matabar, there’s not,” Arkar lightly thumped his fist on the table. “I’ve been coughing up… doing business, I mean, with that dwarf for five years now. I say that I need twenty-eight kilos of beef hooves, for khash. And then I see him getting the wrong boxes from the warehouse…”

“Did they short you by much, orc?”

“You bet! The bearded bastard tried to rip me off for almost a dozen kso! Do I look like I carry them out of the house in my hem every morning like a port girl?”

“And what happened next?”

“Well, then I…”

The patrons laughed, ate, drank, danced, and listened to the music. Outside the window, the summer night of the Metropolis danced with the wind and the salty ocean spray. Sometimes, steamships hooted, occasionally, guards whistled, and car horns beeped.

Ardi and Arkar sat and talked about nothing, for which Ardan was deeply grateful to his… he didn’t know what to call him. Maybe… a friend?