Chapter Two

YOU HAVE TO SAY – ACE!

I bought the flowers at the entrance to the subway. The color of lilacs, like Shani’s eyes and hair. Tonight, we were supposed to have dinner...On my dime. With my own hard-earned money. For the first time! It was something to celebrate. And also to take Shani for a ride on the motorcycle. She flatly refused, though. She didn’t like technical gadgets. Didn’t want to touch them or use them. The only exception she made was for the electric sewing machine. The only thing she liked from tech stuff.

Throughout the subway ride, people glanced at me with smiles. Probably thought I was another love-struck fool rushing to a date. Let them think what they want! Though, in hindsight, I should have bought the flowers at the exit, not the entrance to the subway. It was somewhat awkward. Fairies aren’t the subject of male courtship. They’re not women in the human sense. Although look like striking beautiful anime-type girls.

The last three hundred meters from the station to Shani’s studio, where I lived on the top floor, I covered with a quick and determined stride. Rehearsing my speech on the go. I needed to joke. Compliment her. Make her happy. Elicit that rare smile of hers.

I pushed the door of the studio open, surprised for a moment that it wasn’t locked. Shani usually had a paranoid meticulousness about locks. Without giving it much thought, I called out for her. I ran upstairs. Opened the door to my room and... I didn’t manage to do anything. Nor could I. The revolver was in the desk drawer. Lately, I had been going unarmed. Who needed me, anyway? Just some ‘alien’ from another world. Incapable of adapting to foreign customs, yearning for my world. So distant and now unknowably located.

Two pairs of hands on either side of the doorframe, like a giant vacuum cleaner, pulled me into the room and laid me on the floor. So forcefully, it squeezed my chest. I exhaled noisily, tensing my muscles. They’d break my ribs now if I didn’t exhale the remaining air, flattening myself on the floor to spread out the pressure. Ronkas are as strong as gorillas, they say, capable of lifting four hundred kilograms.

“Careful! Don’t hurt him!”

The voice of an unknown had an immediate effect. The pressure eased. I exhaled loudly again, stirring up a light dust from the floor. I hadn’t cleaned in a while. Laziness. Shani would scold me. That is if they don’t kill me right now.

“Turn him over!”

The ‘turnover’ was successfully occurred. And I saw the entire company of visitors.

Two burly Ronkas of middle age, just as I had guessed. The prime of strength and speed of these “mutant-micro giants.” As dull-witted as they were strong. And a short-statured type with a pale face, in white ‘floury’ makeup. With the face of a geisha. The layer of powder on his face was so thick, that one could have scraped it off with a spatula. A white cloak and a leather vest. His arms were adorned with numerous bracelets, from bone to metal. A strange character. A Sabverian shaman? They usually live underground, hardly ever surfacing. What he is doing here?

“What do you want, guys?”

They were slightly taken aback by my calm tone. Inside I was scared. Very scared! I just pushed the fear to the furthest shelf in my mind through sheer willpower. Let it watch from there and not interfere with my actions. Fear can’t be eliminated. It can’t be conquered. It needs to be negotiated with. About boundaries. I’m not fighting you, and you’re not hindering me. OK? Agreed? Great! But yes, I am scared, very scared. Don’t worry about that, I’m almost ready to wet my pants.

“Is this him?” asked the man with the bracelets, apparently the leader, ignoring my question.

One of the Ronkas replied in a low, chesty bass:

“Aha. Him. The sharpshooter! Hit ‘shield’ in the bullseye with seven hundred stags. He was calculating something for a long time with a pencil in a notebook. He also had this thing. It... – the hefty man, struggling to describe my anemometer, helplessly spread his arms – it spins like this when there’s wind. And shows something.”

“An anemometer?” asked the leader.

“I don’t know, boss. Everyone laughed when he did that. Especially when he was counting. But when he hit the target in the bullseye five times in a row! It was as quiet as an in temple of Semenites in Heavenly Alley.”

“You confirm this?” the ‘boss’ deigned to speak to me.

“What do you want?” I repeated the question, also ignoring him, as he had recently ignored me.

I wondered how dangerous it was to anger him. And who were those people? Perhaps some petty thugs? Ronkas as bodyguards were affordable for many. There was plenty of this ‘kind’ in Bridgeport. How serious was this guy?

That was my first mistake. Later, I realized I should have pretended to comply. Agreed to anything. But under no circumstances should I have provoked a total curse. This ‘flour-dusted’ halfwit didn’t understand jokes at all. He signaled the gorillas. And they pressed me to the floor again. This time, on my back.

The man approached and crouched beside my head:

“I won’t repeat myself, Shooter. Show your stubbornness just one more time, and I’ll do it.”

It was both a threat and a provocation. If I asked what he would do, I’d automatically be breaking the condition, showing stubbornness.

“I confirm.”

“Good boy! You’re sharp!” he said after a brief pause, not waiting for another ‘incorrect’ comment from me.

“Now listen. My boss wants you to bump off a guy. You can handle it since you’re such a clever shooter. Do the job and you’ll get a million reals. Right there, in cash. The boss keeps his word. Who the dead man is, you’ll find out on-site. You’ll be covered from any magical retaliation. At that distance, it will be very weak. Nothing else should concern you. Shoot, take the money, and get out of the city. Clear?”

I licked my dry lips.

“And who’s the dead man?”

The man exchanged glances with the Ronkas. They laughed nervously, probably not understanding what he meant.

“You’re not listening well, Shooter. And I don’t like your hidden stubbornness. Take note, we’ve taken your blue lady for extra assurance. If you resist, it’s not just your head you’ll lose, but also...” He nodded towards the flowers on the floor for Shani. “The same will happen if you report to ‘ammaratia’. Besides, we have our people there. It’ll be worse for you.”

His words about Shani infuriated me. I momentarily lost control, frantically trying to throw off the gorillas, nearly succeeding.

The ‘powder-dusted freak’ shook his head disapprovingly. While the grey-faced brutes held me, he deftly placed something cold on my head, then began to sing a monotonous, indecipherable song. His verbal incantation was reminiscent of Aleut shaman singing. Only a bone Eskimo whistle was missing for musical accompaniment. A minute later, I fell into unconsciousness...

“Curious! Damn curious!” said Kulu-Kulu, having listened to my story.

“Poor boy!”

I was taken aback; the last phrase was spoken by an elderly lady secretary who, it turns out, had been standing at the doorway behind me all this time, listening to my tale.

“This is Professor of Magic Ita Torrin, my colleague, and faithful friend,” Kulu-Kulu introduced her, gesturing towards her with the mouthpiece of his now-extinguished pipe.

“And I thought...” I hesitated to continue.

“You thought I was a witch, Master Light,” Professor Ita finished for me.

I was astounded again. Telepaths! Both of them! In all of Bridgeport, only a few people could read thoughts as if they were words. It seemed I had stumbled into the upper echelon of mages!

“I will help him,” Ita declared, turning to Kulu-Kulu. In her voice was the fatigue of someone who had been writing a dissertation all night. But it was said with firm determination.

“It’s dangerous. Very dangerous, Ita,” Kulu-Kulu responded, averting his gaze.

“I don’t care! I’m tired of it! How long can we endure this corrupt, bandit system of engineers and Zingaru? They do what they want, occasionally killing one of us. And we sit in our holes, hoping we’re not next. What’s the point? If they kill me, at least I’ll take dozens of those creatures with me. Maybe then our so intelligent but cowardly mages will finally stir themselves and do something!

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“Stop, Ita!” Kulu-Kulu suddenly raised his voice. “We can’t win. Don’t push us towards senseless resistance! The system must be broken cleverly!”

“And how should it be broken, in your opinion?” Ita demanded.

“I don’t know. Yet. We’re working on it. Have been for years. You know this. Rash and thoughtless actions will doom us all!”

There was an embarrassing pause, then, “I’ll help him anyway. Come on, Max. You won’t get any help from this old man!”

Lady Ita, without looking back, headed to another room. I glanced questioningly at the Mini-Gandalf; he nodded with an approving smile.

Ita led me into a round room with walls, oddly painted in various colors, and decorated with triangular mirrors on all sides. I saw fragments of my reflection everywhere.

“Undress.”

“What?”

“Undress. To the waist. You don’t need to take off your trousers.”

I obediently undressed.

“Listen carefully and remember everything I tell you, Maxim...”

“How did you know my real name?” I was incredibly surprised by the sudden change in address.

“That doesn’t matter now. In this room, you can’t hide anything from me. Did you understand what my colleague and I were talking about?”

“Honestly, no,” I admitted. “I mean; I know about the corrupt system in Bridgeport. But what do magicians have to do with it?”

Ita nodded, then pulled out from a shelf some permanent makeup tools, and an antiseptic solution, and, after seating me on the floor, sat next to me and began examining my forearm, as if looking for a starting point.

I didn’t object. I’m not fond of tattoos, but I trusted this lady immediately. And what did I have to lose if she was lying?

“Then listen to a short story. About two hundred years ago, this area was a flourishing kingdom of magicians. Ruled by a council of magicians. There were many magic schools and universities, and the residents of this kingdom lacked for nothing. Magic helped cure diseases, and helped grow good crops. Magic was very advanced. Better than anywhere else on the planet. No conquerors dared even think of attacking our kingdom. It would have been pure suicide for them. There were no machines, no firearms here.

“Everyone was happy. No wars, no hunger, no diseases. Until everything changed one day. That’s when the ‘engineers’ appeared. Initially, no one took them seriously. They were given asylum. The strangers stuck together, and nobody paid much attention to them. Establishing a technical corporation, they began, first as craftsmen, to sell their technical novelties. Many considered their wonders a form of magic. They were even registered as a magical guild back then. Can you imagine it?! Such a nonsense! When they started producing weapons, initially, nobody realized how it would change everything. Indeed, lots of people in our kingdom made different weapons: swords, bows, and armor. What’s so special about that? Look at this – Ita abruptly raised her left hand in a defensive gesture, and I felt the air in front of her hand thicken to an incredible density. Like a force shield of a spaceship from a space opera, only miniature.

“Do you know what this is?”

“Yes,” I nodded. “‘Valikula’ – standard protection for magicians against cold weapons.”

“Exactly!” She disabled the shield and resumed etching something on my forearm. “From any cold weapons, even from high-speed crossbow bolts! Easily. But with the engineers, one thing appeared that changed the rules. Radically.”

“Firearms,” I guessed, understanding where her story was leading.

“Yes. And now any, even the weakest moral degenerate, could do what was previously unimaginable. Kill a skilled magician! Just like that.”

“A magical shield can’t stop a bullet. The pressure of a bullet on contact with the shield far exceeds its density. Whereas the shaft of an arrow, once a living substance, easily responds to magical influence.”

“I read in your history about the massacre of magicians in Bridgeport,” I said. “I didn’t know it was so connected to firearms. I thought magicians had an antidote for that as well.”

“No, not if the bullet is already fired. There’s no magic capable of absorbing its energy completely and immediately.”

“Can’t anything be done?”

“The Council of Magicians, or rather what’s left of it, tried to create a shield capable of withstanding the speed and energy of a bullet. But unsuccessfully. This is what Kulu-Kulu was talking about. He and a group of colleagues have been working on it for the last half-century. There are some promising results, but nothing definite yet. And I don’t think they’ll succeed in another half-century. The old magicians knew much more, and even they couldn’t. There’s a fundamental obstacle at the level of physic-magical laws. And they can’t be broken. Just as they can’t be broken in your case.”

“How will you then remove the curse?”

“I won’t remove it, Maxim. I’ll extend it. That’s the maximum that can be done at the moment.”

“What do you mean?”

“To put it simply. The demon spirit tied to your curse perceives our world through your time perception. Time in its world flows differently. And if you try, you can distort its time feel. Making it believe that only a couple of hours have passed here, when in fact a week or more, let’s say.”

“Can we deceive it for long?”

“It depends on the circumstances. You need to follow certain rules to survive as long as possible. I’ll tell you what they are. In addition, I’ll try to encode you for extended protection against magical attacks from your enemies.”

“What kind of protection?” I asked.

“Oh! It’s Kulu’s latest work. He managed to restore the lost incantation of Kembal Urisko. A great mage who lived about twelve hundred years ago in Uria. He’s planning to write a dissertation about it, to boast to his colleagues, but I’ve been dissuading him so far.”

“Why?”

“Do you realize the value and worth of this spell? Once it’s mastered by the elite magicians of Bridgeport, there will be a line of millionaires wanting such protection. It’s very effective. The tattoo will absorb any magic directed against you. Moreover, it glows as an indicator, showing that magic is being used against you. If you had it earlier, the Sabverian shaman wouldn’t be able to cast his fatal curse on you.”

“And you’re just doing this for me? For free? I don’t have millions.”

Ita paused her work for a moment.

“Look into my eyes, Maxim.”

I turned to her, somewhat embarrassed by her strict and soft look.

The wrinkles around her eyes didn’t make her unattractive. The silver in her hair even added a special charm. A beautiful lady, once. She looked intently into my eyes. And suddenly, I understood why she decided to trust me. She knew very well that I was from the same world as the ‘engineers’! ‘In this room, nothing can be hidden from me,’ she had said earlier.

“You hope I can change something in your world?” I asked. “That’s a useless idea. I’m just an ordinary person. Those engineers, who came here, were smart guys. In contrast, I’m not very good with technology.”

Ita shook her head, resuming the tattoo and continuing the conversation:

“I believe it’s no coincidence that you were brought here, Maxim. We – the magicians – believe in fate and destiny. You have some hidden purpose. Just like the ingineers, or ‘engineers’, as you probably correctly pronounce it. Right?”

“Yes.”

“I think we should help you. Kulu-Kulu doesn’t believe in human intuition, but I feel that you are somehow important to our world. I’m even ready to stake my life on it. Otherwise, this system will devour our world. It’s already heading there. Tell me about your world, Maxim, and how did you transfer to us. I need more time to finish...”

Leaving Professor Ita’s place, I remembered my revolver, which I had not gotten back. I hesitated at the threshold. Asking her for a weapon that had so disrupted the lives of local magicians and people felt somehow wrong. But Ita instantly understood what was on my mind.

“Your weapon?”

“Yes, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“Open your palm,” she said unexpectedly. “Get ready and say ‘Ace’.”

I didn’t understand the purpose of these actions, but I complied.

“Ace!”

The revolver landed in my hand with a slight painful thud. Instinctively, I clenched it, preventing it from falling, utterly surprised and impressed.

“You put a spell on it? But it’s a firearm!”

Ita smiled:

“It’s for your protection, Maxim. Keeping you safe is important, I suppose.”

“How far can I summon it?”

“Unfortunately, only a short distance. About twenty to thirty steps. You’re not a magician, and that significantly reduces the range.”

“Thank you,” I said. I had nothing else to offer in return to this remarkable woman. Now, I was the fastest gun on this side of the ‘Mississippi’, or rather Bridgeport. And considering that elite magicians don’t enchant firearms, probably the only one! I’ll probably be in her debt for the rest of my life. I didn’t dare to muster the courage to ask her how to find Shani. That would be too much. But then Ita herself gave me a very useful piece of advice:

“Look for telepaths,” she said as we descended the stairs together. “The person they wanted you to kill is, probably, shielded by a telepath-sensors.”

“Why a telepath-sensor?”

“Because a mage-telepath who reads thoughts as words is an extremely rare subject, and such people hire guards themselves not serve others. It took my whole life to master this complex skill. They usually don’t work for someone else. They easily attain power and wealth if they want. Sensors-telepaths aren’t too common either. They're often used to protect the important bigwigs of Bridgeport. They can sense ill intentions from hundreds of meters away. You’ll only need to check about two hundred candidates, most of whom can be immediately ruled out in the search. As soon as you return to Bridgeport, go straight to the Magic University. It’s on Wooden Snake Street, you’ve heard of it?”

I nodded affirmatively. Who in Bridgeport hadn’t heard of it? The home turf of local Harry Potters. The Magician Academia!

“Ask my student, Eger Rufus. He’s the student council president and my most capable pupil. He has access to the archives with data on magicians. I can’t warn him about your visit, so don’t be surprised if something seems very strange.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing. Just keep it in mind, Maxim from another world...” She smiled saying goodbye. A soft beautiful smile I’ll still remember.