Chapter Six

ZUTAN – MAGICAL ABSURDITY

Rufus and Pars led us to the dining hall. A room with a low ceiling and long tables, each seating at least twenty people, arranged in a neat order symmetrically along each wall. The walls were adorned with paintings featuring strange symbols that were beyond my comprehension. Whether they were works of local avant-garde artists or some magical trinkets, I couldn’t tell. I had heard, though, of a special form of magic related to artistic drawing abilities. Lamps hung from the ceiling on green-painted iron chains and emitted a rather dim light until Rufus casually waved his hand. The remote-magical control worked, and the room instantly brightened, though it still wasn’t quite as bright as electric lighting. It was more akin to forty-watt bulbs in terms of light intensity.

When we sat down at the table, Pars exchanged a glance with the senior and, after a nod from him, turned to us:

“Are you hungry? I can bring something from the kitchen. What would you like?”

I shrugged:

“Just something simple. Bread, cheese, and something to drink, too.”

Dina, however, seemed to think we were in a restaurant:

“Do you have Arraman-style fish? With mustard sauce.”

I looked at her, sitting opposite me, with a sly smirk, only to be embarrassingly shocked by Pars’ affirmative response.

“Yes, of course. It’ll be ready in fifteen minutes.”

Ah, I should have ordered lobsters, I thought belatedly.

Dina stuck her tongue out at me triumphantly.

“Well, tell us,” said Rufus, shifting on the bench and wrapping himself tighter in the blanket after Pars left to fulfill our order. I decided it was wise to keep quiet about my earthly origin. Mages don’t like ‘ingineers’ and probably people from the world of ingineers as well. And I’m practically a guy from there, a living relic to them.

I began my story from the moment I decided to participate in that damned shooting contest.

Rufus listened without interrupting, but his face betrayed his tension. My story stirred him. I would even say it inspired him. By the end, he was listening, propping his chin on his palms and shaking his head as if to say through body language – what a story!

Midway through, Pars joined us with the food, freezing with the tray in his hands, captivated by my detective adventures of the last two days.

When I finished, he nearly dropped it. With a quick spell, he caught it before it hit the floor, although drops of mustard sauce still splattered on the ground.

Ignoring this minor annoyance, he said to Rufus with unmistakable excitement:

“This is ZUTAN!”

“Nonsense,” Rufus responded almost instantly. “It can’t be ZUTAN. He’s not a mage.”

“But what about Ita? I saw her dead myself,” Pars persisted.

“Are you sure? Maybe it was a simulation. Or a zombie.”

Dina triumphantly stuck her tongue out at me again: “Told you so!”

“What zombie, Edger! This is ZUTAN. It all adds up. This Kulu-Kulu lived during the time of the first mage slaughter. He can’t possibly be alive. He would have been at least a hundred and twenty years old back then.”

“Why not? Terber the Nettle lived three hundred years long, and that’s not a big deal. There are ancient mages who have lived even longer.”

“Terber was a specialist in extending life through magical means. That was his life’s work. And he’s half-elf. Kulu-Kulu was a military master of the old mage council. Three hundred years is the limit for the dwarf race. Same for Zingaru.”

“He could have changed specializations after the slaughter and his escape. He had plenty of time for that.”

“Come on, you know it can only be ZUTAN. You’re just afraid of making a mistake!”

Tired of their incomprehensible chatter that completely ignored Dina’s and my presence, I stood up, interrupting their ‘fascinating’ discussion about this ‘Zutan’, whatever it might be:

“Guys! All this is, of course, wildly interesting. For you. But we need to eat and get the list that Professor Torrin promised me. Whether it’s with Zutan or without Zutan, whatever that silly word means.”

They both stopped their argument and turned towards me.

Pars blushed like a teenager on his first date:

“Sorry,” he said and immediately set out the food in front of me and a grinning Dina. Apparently, she hadn’t heard of Zutan either. This word, so stirring to the mages, made absolutely no impression on her.

We ate in silence for a while. Rufus and Pars exchanged glances, visibly agitated. Edger even paced back and forth in the dining hall but refrained from speaking while we were eating. I deliberately ate slowly and carefully. Dina savored her dish, dipping small pieces of fried fish into the sauce and licking her fingers. If I were Rufus, I might have throttled her.

I finished eating before my young captive. Now the three of us, along with the magic academy students, observed the girl.

Eventually, unable to wait any longer for no reason, I addressed them:

“Don’t mind her, she can keep eating while we talk. Anyway, she’s only tangentially related to my case.”

Dina shot me an angry glance. The students noticeably brightened up, and began to chatter. Both at once. Then they stopped, looked at each other, and Pars nodded as if to say, ‘Your turn, senior.’

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“You need to leave Bridgeport. The Hariyans will kill you if you stay. And the sooner you leave, the better. Preferably beyond the Wall.”

I looked into his eyes. What about all this stuff about ‘Zutan’? Such a sudden shift.

“Impossible,” I replied. “I need to rescue Shani. I won’t leave without her.”

“The Shainarian fairy doesn’t need human protection, Master Light. She’s a very powerful magical being. Extremely pacifist in her views, but self-sufficient. If they try to torture her, she’ll simply leave. She’ll vanish as if she never existed. Death for them is not the same as it is for humans. You should know this.”

I shook my head in disagreement:

“I don’t want her to ‘just disappear or melt away.’ She’s a sentient being who feels pain and sorrow, just like any person. Besides, I’m cursed, and fleeing beyond the gates of Agartha won’t save me. And the Hariyans are much more influential beyond the Wall than here.”

“Not everywhere. There are kingdoms where the Hariyans are deeply hated. Langvar, for example. And it’s not far from the wall. You could wait it out there. Besides, your curse has been extended. You have a month or two. Perhaps you could even reach the Semenites. The master of the Semenites sure able to break a curse of this level.”

“It’s not certain it will work,” Pars interjected with a short, pessimistic remark.

“Yes. The Semenites aren’t fond of Bridgeport,” confirmed Rufus. “Though they might make an exception for you. Especially if you tell them about ZUTAN.”

“What is that? Can you explain?” I asked, slightly irritated. None of these guys were offering anything remotely optimistic or encouraging like Ita Torrin’s words.

“To put it briefly, ‘Zutan’ is a magical absurdity. The word translates from an ancient language used when verbal means were widely applied for casting spells. Verbal magic is rarely used now, but the special language developed for its invocation is still mandatory for those studying magic.”

At this point, Dina choked, gulped down some water, and, waving her hand, remarked:

“Can’t you make it any shorter?”

“He’s not explaining it for you. Don’t interrupt,” I snapped.

Rufus continued:

“It’s hard to fully explain this to someone who’s not initiated. You’ve seen and spoken with dead people. If it was Zutan, of course.”

“With ghosts?” I asked.

“No. Zutan isn’t astral visions. Everything was real. But if you go back to that place now, you’ll likely not even find the house, let alone the characters who’ve long been dead. What happened to you was impossible. Mage Kulu-Kulu has been dead for ages. And Professor Torrin died a year ago.”

“Is there a logical explanation for this?” I asked, utterly astonished.

“There is. For example, Professor Ita faked her death. And Archmage Kulu-Kulu is an ultra-long-liver, and they’re both hiding, planning something. What exactly, I have no idea.”

“How can we verify this?”

Rufus shrugged.

“Dig up the crypt where Ita’s body lies. Although mages of such caliber could fake even a corpse if they wanted.”

“I still don’t understand how dead people could host me in their home, cast spells for me? Engage in normal political conversations about the current political situation as if they were alive?”

Rufus spread his hands:

“That’s ZUTAN. It’s a phenomenon that breaks the fundamental laws of the universe. The cause and the effect relationship. A crack in the world where something utterly strange, impossible happens. Zutan is an extremely rare occurrence, and one as detailed and prolonged as yours has only happened a few times in the entire history recorded by sentient beings. If it was Zutan at all, of course. More likely, it’s the second scenario.”

“Wait, how did I even get this address? How could a disentchanter give me – a total stranger – the address of dead people or those in hiding?”

The students exchanged glances again.

“And where did you learn about this disentchanter? What was his name?”

“I found it in an ad in the ‘Bridgeport Morning Herald.’”

“From yesterday’s issue?”

“Yes.”

“Pars!”

But Pars had already risen and dashed off for the newspaper, a step ahead of the senior.

Three minutes later, he burst back in with a stack of newspapers.

“Here!” he said. “This is for yesterday and the day before.”

Rufus gestured for me to proceed, and I began to search the classifieds column for “my” ad.

However, it was fruitless. I couldn’t find any ad for a disenchanter, even though I remembered its contents perfectly. Baffled, I scanned through all the pages. Twice.

“What the devil is this!” I thought.

“Do you at least remember the address?” Rufus asked after several long minutes, as I rifled through all the issues from the past week – maybe it was in another issue.

“Of course. Dead King’s Alley, house twenty-three. Certified Disenchanter Dr. Leticia Sirius. I also wrote down the phone number. Here,” I showed the notebook with the number and address. Pars chuckled triumphantly and said:

“This is ZUTAN, I told you. Absolutely amazing! I never thought I’d experience ZUTAN in my life! Loads of great mages have died without witnessing even a minor Zutan. By the way, Dead King’s Alley is right opposite the Rose Cemetery. Just across the road.”

“So what?” I asked. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Well, Ita Torrin is buried in the Rose Cemetery. It’s just part of the ZUTAN. You entered it at some point when you were looking at the ads, and exited when you returned to the road in Bridgeport.”

“That proves nothing,” Rufus stubbornly retorted. “Stop deluding yourself with false hopes. Remember rule thirty-three.”

“A mage does not believe without evidence,” Pars muttered the rule from some sort of magical catechism and added: “I’ll go there at dawn.”

“I will too,” I said.

“You can’t!” both students exclaimed almost simultaneously. “The Hariyans will kill you if you’re seen wandering around the city, Max!”

“I’ll take the risk.”

“Don’t,” Pars pleaded. “We can hide you here. We can disguise them as students,” he suggested, turning to Rufus.

The senior student nodded affirmatively.

“There’s no sense in going there in a group. Especially someone with such a profile and at such an address probably doesn’t exist.”

“I could call.”

“We don’t have a phone here,” Rufus admitted, slightly embarrassed. Probably ashamed in front of me for the mages’ shunning of technological novelties and excessive conservatism.

“No problem,” I reassured, “I’ll call from a payphone outside.”

“Very well. Let’s go then.”

Rufus stood up.

“The girl can be sent to the women’s wing. And there’s a spare bed in my room for you. You need a good night’s sleep.”

I was indeed dying for sleep. The stress of the shootout at the warehouse had passed, and my body was demanding rest. Fatigue washed over me like a wave. Within fifteen minutes, I was in Rufus’s room.

I fell asleep the moment my head hit the pillow...