Mr. Smith squeezed the guard’s neck and lowered the unconscious man to the ground, “Rina, watch him!”
The dark magician stepped forward, blocking the dead man’s way; threads invisible to the naked eye danced around his hands, a whole lace of black silk. There it was, real magic! When the weaving had been done, Mr. Smith threw it forward, as if it were a catching net. The body of the deceased caretaker was instantly fettered with black strands and began to sink. Nothing could keep it upright, the bones broke through the skin, and the smelly, bubbling mess plopped to the ground.
“Move, move, move,” Mr. Smith muttered, turning to the guard again.
There was no need to persuade us. I enjoyed the spectacle of the dark magician performing enchantment. The group of people, enchanted by Rustle, had slightly sobered up, so it did not take much time to tie their hands and place them on the boat. The sun had touched the water by the time the ship picked us up, and the King’s Island sank into a deep shadow. It was clear to all that the expedition had come to the end.
Perhaps, those who had bet on the deceased King were right—he really knew how to stand up for himself.
We were leaving the accursed island, having lost no one, but having gained nothing (except for the valuable life experience, of course). Expeditioners, affected by Rustle, were tightly bound and locked in the hold, while the ship’s crew was making warning signs against us. Uncle looked like he had single-handedly saved all of us and triumphed over the King himself. Mrs. Clements cried on the shoulder of Mr. Smith for the rest of the trip to the Trunk Bay (six hours at full speed). He stroked her hair and whispered in her ear something soft and comforting. I did not dare to ask about their relationship; there were questions that a dark magician would not hesitate to give a box on the ears for.
Chapter 6
Early the next morning, our ship entered the Trunk Bay; signal flags hung off the mast, and a dull, monotonous warning bell, ringing loudly from the ship, carried the plague alarm. The guard towers winked with lights through the morning fog, and at the entrance to the channel we were met by the iron gates that quickly reminded me of Capetower, though the gates were opened this time. Our captain was nervous, Mr. Smith impatiently tapped on the rail, and it took a good half hour for the quarantine staff to wake up, notice us, and point to a berth for mooring the ship.
Contrary to our expectations, the expedition’s appearance did not make a sensation in the Trunk Bay.
The head of the quarantine service and concurrently the chief of the local NZAMIPS’ office took news of the death of the prison’s caretaker with gloomy fatalism, “We were telling him: ‘Get out of there while your head is still on your shoulders,’ and his response always was: ‘Everything is under control, everything is under control!’”
The chief of NZAMIPS, Mr. Harlik, was a longtime friend of Uncle Gordon and a man of good sense, so in the quarantine zone we were immediately enlisted into the conditionally healthy and employed as civilian nursing assistants. Surprisingly, the staff had almost no dark magicians. Chief Harlik, chronically suffering from misunderstandings around there, poured his heart out to us, inviting for tea every evening.
“Will you be expelling Rustle?”
“Where would I find it now? This abomination preys on people and then goes into hiding at once. No, I will collect the caretaker’s remains and conserve the building; now, finally, the capitol authorities won’t argue with that.”
“How had people lived there before?” I wondered.
“Before… three years ago our hospital was nearly closed—no patients; nowadays we are building a new one. Not enough beds. Before, we were barely surviving. Now, we live.”
It was difficult to argue with Chief Harlik—he knew too much about everything.
For me, twenty-eight days at the Trunk Bay was a real vacation: full board, comfortable rooms, and a rich cultural program. Chief Harlik was an expert in Krauhard’s folklore and a very sociable man—a rarity among the dark. He willingly offered his insights on everyday happenings, did not ask any questions about my training with the Source under the guidance of Uncle Gordon, and taught me basic expelling rituals (just in case). How simple could life be when your superiors were of your own kind!
I wrote a letter to Mom, delighting her with the news that the work on the King’s Island was over, and complaining that we would have to wait a bit for the transport to go home (she did not need to know about the quarantine). Meanwhile, my theoretical knowledge of the otherworldly was enriched with practical content: doctors began inviting us for reception of new patients and suppression of the most violent—only the dark magicians were able to react properly and quickly enough to the attacks of the consciousnesses, plagued by the otherworldly. I dealt with children: many, many children with smiles, jerky movements, and unpredictable mood swings. In each of my little patients I seemed to see Lyuchik, and soon I clearly understood that my white family must move out of Krauhard.
“The kids come from the Brand’s Valley,” Chief Harlik explained. ” A town with a lot of foreigners sprang up there in the last ten years. Now the rules of dealing with the supernatural are taught in schools as the main subject; I would have started teaching them even earlier, but parents are against it—a child’s psyche is unstable and all that stuff. So now children are being taken to us, while their parents aren’t; they die on spot because they don’t know the rules half as well as their kids.”
Well, at least regarding knowledge of the rules, I wasn’t worried for Lyuchik.
For our voluntary assistance as nurse aides, we had accrued salary of one crown per day. Together with twenty crowns, earned in less than two weeks during the expedition, our total amounted to nearly fifty. Please note that it was earned through honest hard work! Still, that money couldn’t come close to solving my financial woes, and I started crying to Uncle about my bitter fate. How could it happen that my father, a dark magician, did not leave any inheritance to his son?
Uncle shrugged: “If you want to, I’ll ask Harlik to find out what happened. In his last years your father had no contact with me, but you’re right, it does look strange. Me—I am a mediocre alchemist, but he was a real magician, tough and mighty. What happened to him?”
It was so great to have good friends, even though for the dark it was the exception rather than the rule.
We returned home with less than ten days left until the end of my summer vacation. Joe hid the hives somewhere (though the bees were flying in the garden), but they didn’t bother me anymore. I had become a real dark magician, tough and brave.
The time left before my return to Redstone was spent tastefully: I drove a moped around, scared cows, told stories of the King’s Island to the younger ones (that were nothing like reality), helped Uncle Gordon catch up with the work that had accumulated in his garage over the past month, and collected rumors about events that took place in Krauhard. Chief Harlik was right: everything pointed to the return of the ancient, legendary times. I finally decided to talk about it with my stepfather.
“Joe, I heard rumors that Krauhard is getting restless of late. You ought to move somewhere closer to Redstone or to the capital.”