Ah, he had latched onto the “cleaner” as an interpreter! Gorchik looked at me with grim doom; I smiled back without any sympathy.
I had some business to Lyuchik.
“Hey, they aren’t serving lunch today. Let’s go find something to eat in town?”
“Can we take Petros?”
At that moment, I realized that the kids should not know the details. “He will be fine; Mrs. Hemul is with him now.”
The kids put their necks out to listen to our talk; someone could not resist saying, “What happened? What’s going on?”
I cleared my throat diplomatically. “I cannot violate the confidentiality of the investigation. You’d better direct your questions to Sergeant Claymore; he is the boss. I am sure he wouldn’t mind holding a press conference.” I knew that one mention of the press conference would stall his brains. “I can only say that the danger is over, but the school is poised for change.”
“We’ve been experiencing an entire year of ‘changes’, ” one of the teachers muttered.
“You are mistaken; nothing has changed since the commission’s work. But there will be changes now, and I’m sure, for the better.”
That was it. If they had any brains, they would understand the hint, and if not, it would be better for them to keep the state of blissful ignorance.
Lyuchik didn’t go with me; he decided to stay with the white to support them morally. I made sure the “cleaners” understood the simple idea that Lyuchik was my brother and then portrayed myself as a battle-worn warrior and went off. I could no longer look at the white and the “cleaners” together! I came back to the garage and worked on the famous Mihandrov car until evening. I enjoyed the work as a cat delights in valerian, and I was late for a meeting with Claymore by half an hour.
By the time I arrived, the atmosphere at NZAMIPS had reached a fever pitch. Lieutenant Clarence was nowhere to be seen: he had either fled or gone to work with the townsfolk. It was twilight already: they could kill me and secretly throw in the lake.
“So, the press conference, you said?” the sergeant roared in place of a greeting.
It was my turn to stand awkwardly and look askance—I wasn’t going to fight with him over nothing!
“I did not want to bypass the senior officer.”
He pondered it and decided to forgive me. “Judging by the imprint of the aura, that corpse was Fox’s work,” the sergeant magnanimously told me. “Why we don’t record imprints of the white magicians, too?!”
He was very cheerful; hence, they found a reason to flee from here.
“It’s unfair,” I agreed.
“Let’s drink to this!”
Bottles of fresh beer and a bag of lovingly-packed snacks appeared from under the table, and my account of events gradually melded into the booze on the occasion of the successful completion of the case. It was the first time I shared a table with a company of combat mages, and their nasty reputation was not confirmed. Normal men, not any worse than Quarters! We knocked back, sang a few songs from the army’s repertoire; Rispin told a few fresh anecdotes, Gorchik started to squint with both eyes, the beer was over, and we parted peacefully. They went to their hotel, and I - to Mrs. Parker’s mansion. The naive sergeant could afford to sleep tight, but I had to get up at dawn tomorrow: a brain-twisting intrigue, spun by me with an eye on the coordinator, entered its final stage.
An encoded telegram bearing the name of Satal came at the last moment; the senior coordinator intended to leave Redstone for the capital and was nervous and swore all morning. Sparing the nerves of his subordinates, Captain Baer personally delivered the telegram to the boss—a half-sheet of text; obviously, the sender didn’t try to save money on the letters. As soon as the coordinator read it through, his face brightened, and lips twisted in an arrogant smirk.
“That’s another story! A priest that was making human sacrifices got caught and decimated in Mihandrov. The central database identified him as Sigismund Salaris, an artisan; he was wanted for fifteen years.”
The captain gasped: “The same Salaris? Nintark’s confessor?”
“Yeah,” Satal good-naturedly allowed his subordinate to read the telegram. “By the way, your Larkes swore that he saw him dead.”
“Why is he mine?” Locomotive was offended.
“He ruled here all this time, the talentless parasite let business slide!” the dark mage became a bit gloomy. “They will say that it’s Axel who caught the artisan.”
“Not a big deal,” Locomotive comforted his boss, “you have caught two artisans.”
“True, but no one believes that they were the artisans,” Satal objected reasonably. “However, I am sure that the center of their interest is not Polisant. The death of the living legend of the cult will make them more active,” the senior coordinator rubbed his palms in anticipation, “now they’ll come to us in flocks!”
Locomotive pictured artisans thronging to Redstone and shivered. God save us, no!
Chapter 35
The rambling holidays were finally over; my ill-fated trip had come to an end. I could stay for a couple more days (nobody would kill me for that), but then I would have to attend the funeral of Mr. Fox. That was Mrs. Hemul’s idea—the deceased assistant principal should not remain in the memory of the children as an evil person.
“Anyway, he was their teacher; they learned a lot from him. You cannot say to a child, ‘Remember this and do not remember that.’ The children must realize the ambiguity of his personality themselves, separate in their minds the right and the wrong. I know you see this as over-complacency, but his death closes all accounts, and we need forgiveness for ourselves in order to live on.”
Well, maybe for the white it is so, but I could not picture myself grieving about artisans—even after a liter of beer.
And yet, Mrs. Hemul wanted to know the results of the investigation, because the achievement of clarity is a fundamental feature of the white; they physically cannot disregard or forget something important. The wise directrix chose the easiest way to reach her goal; she invited all interested parties to dinner at that same pub, at her own expense. Claymore’s eagles came in full strength. I did not want to go, honestly; I was too proud for that. But I was asked by Clarence to be there. Max came with me: I had already introduced it to the “cleaners”, and an extra set of teeth during the meeting would be helpful.
The sergeant expounded readily and in detail the results of the investigation, half of which was done by someone else. The main achievement of the “cleaner” was identification of Fox—the nice nelly—which provided an objective basis for my fanatical ravings about the artisans (I was very grateful to him for that). “By joining the artisans’ cult, he took the alias Sigismund Salaris, under which he became famous, in some way. He was the mastermind behind the branch of the cult that decided to openly challenge the authorities and establish a community in Nintark. Of course, later he was considered dead and was searched for without passion, but all the time he was hiding here.”
Mrs. Hemul took the news of the artisans with amazing composure, having practiced for years approaching horrific news with a stone face. I wondered what she was before she came to Mihandrov.
“I confess I always perceived the artisans as mentally ill, but now I see that my ideas were too primitive. Fox talked sensibly and consistently, but he was able to do absolutely unthinkable things at the same time. And most importantly: why? For what purpose?”
“‘Why’ is clear,” I could not refrain, “he wanted to protect bigger things by sacrificing the smaller ones, so to speak.”