Vol 5, Chapter 17

"Hey, wait. What peasants?"

"Who else is there to hunt? They've even wiped out the goblins in the vicinity of the Academy."

"Stop, stop, stop. This was a bad idea, forget it," I tried to backpedal, cursing the ambassador in my mind.

"Come on, it's a great idea, Randal. Besides, I've already promised this lady. If you've changed your mind, you don't have to come."

The Prince waved dismissively and prepared to leave, the girl tugging him by the other hand.

"Killing Commonwealth citizens will hurt international relations," I blurted out the first argument that came to mind.

"Pfft, you sound like the Count. Boring."

Stefan pulled a face, and seeing this, his new companion decided to join the conversation.

"You needn't worry about the consequences. Near the Academy live only those whose families haven't produced a gifted child in three generations. Trash, refuse. The Academy administration won't object — they might scold for appearance's sake."

"And you don't feel sorry for them?" I fixed the girl with a stare, but she wasn't the least bit fazed.

"Do you feel sorry for the animals slaughtered for your breakfast?"

"That's different." I frowned.

Looked like the Prince had picked up some sort of psychopath. Though she seemed pleasant enough: short, light hair, almond-shaped eyes. Only her gaze was unkind…

"I agree, it's different," the Prince unexpectedly nodded. "We're not going to eat them, ugh. We're not even going to run screaming through their homes killing everyone. I'm not a maniac, after all. We'll do it like last time — we'll go to the camp and call for volunteers for deadly contests. Whoever dies, dies. And whoever wins, we'll free from the camp, I give my word."

"Most noble!" the girl exclaimed sincerely, without a trace of sarcasm in her voice.

"Of course, watching the winner can be quite entertaining," the Prince joked, bowing and miming the removal of an invisible hat.

"Deadly contests?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Well, for example, a series of races where the last one is killed. We'll think of something interesting," the Prince smiled.

"And if no one agrees to them?"

"I bet they'll have a royal battle for the right to participate. They've only got a couple of weeks to live anyway." He waved a hand. "So, you coming with us? It's not much different from what the Fourth Duke does in his dungeons."

"No," I answered sharply.

"As you wish. Thanks for the idea, I'll deal with the bore myself."

With a wave, the pair departed, and I went to find the ambassador.

*********************************************************

"And who did you think they'd hunt?" Nerd asked ironically when I showed up in his office.

"Wolves. Boars. Even a manticore!"

"A manticore, heh. In most Commonwealth territories, anything larger than a rabbit by a couple of inches has long since been exterminated. And valuable beasts like manticores are bred in preserves, where no one will let you in for fun."

"There must be some animals to hunt here?"

"There are people. The ungifted have no more rights than animals. From the outside, it might seem they live better than peasants in our lands. Thanks to the mages, there's no shortage of food. All dangerous predators are either destroyed or under control. Idyllic… But at the same time, the Commonwealth suffers from overpopulation. Plenty of commoners, few mages. So the Commonwealth tracks groups that produce the fewest gifted children and… brings them to the Academy for use."

"Use?" I rolled the word on my tongue. It didn't have a good ring to it.

The Count grimaced and shook his head.

"I won't go into details. I'll just say you'll get nothing worse than a reprimand for such 'entertainment.'"

"It's still killing defenseless people."

"By the One, I don't like it either. But if it's necessary… Besides, they're doomed anyway. A quick death is a mercy."

"To hell with that! We need another plan."

"If the Prince's mind is set, nothing will change it."

"He'll listen to you."

"I'll grant that. There's a chance he'll listen… but this time I'm not going to oppose him. If only because I have no other guaranteed way to get him out of the Academy. Last year, he left the city only for this."

"Aren't you afraid that when he returns he'll do the same thing with his own subjects? If his games come to light, the King won't thank you," I pressed, pulling out the ring.

Don't think for a moment it won't come to light!

Nerd shrugged and tapped a fingernail thoughtfully on a metal paperweight.

"The mages' corrupting influence has long since seeped into the kingdom. Their ideas of total superiority over the ungifted have found fertile ground. Soon, such people will stop hiding in underground gatherings and will act openly, without fear of public condemnation. There's no point fighting it — even the King has stopped. The aristocracy sees any attempt to tell them how to treat their serfs as an infringement of their rights… But let's leave that. Have you told Lady Nala yet?"

"Not yet." A new idea formed in my mind. "Perhaps she won't like your plan? Even if mages see commoners as a resource, surely they still value rationality? Why waste important resources on pointless entertainment?"

The Count gave me a skeptical look.

"For starters, they're not important. The Commonwealth literally has nowhere to put excess people. Since the last uprising, they've kept strict control over population numbers, while boosting birth rates in every possible way to avoid reducing the number of mages. As a result, there are always more people than the Commonwealth wants to have. Besides, you're talking about Lady Nala. She's a block of ice, not a person. There's not a chance she'll abandon her plan just because it costs a dozen slaves their lives. I can only wish you luck…"

Ending his monologue, he pointed to the door with his eyes. Fine, I'd try my luck with Nala. And if that didn't work…

I stepped forward and silently took the paperweight from his desk. Good steel was just what I needed right now, and this amount was just enough for a small pistol.

Because if she didn't listen to my arguments, I'd have to stop the would-be Squid Game host myself.

***********************************************************

After sending one request for a meeting via blood-ink scroll and spending several hours wandering shops in search of flint, I stood at the appointed meeting place, waiting for Nala to arrive.

The location mentioned in the message was quite far from the main streets. To reach the abandoned-looking house, I had to pass through several narrow alleys. There wasn't a soul in sight: a shabby little pocket of silence in the middle of a bustling city.

I'd been waiting for Nala here for about twenty minutes.

With a sigh, I sat down on the slightly grimy stone porch and drew my custom derringer from my boot. Two short barrels, two rather awkward flintlocks, or more precisely, pyrite locks. To my surprise, flint was hard to come by in the city, but pyrite was available in the very first shop I checked. Better still.

If I had time later, I might work on percussion caps and make the pistol more compact.

I tested the cocking of the lock with my finger and tucked the pistol back. Half a kilo in the boot was, of course, noticeable, and the barrel pressed uncomfortably against my ankle. But it wasn't as hard to draw as I'd feared.

It was while I was in the middle of these practice draws that I heard a knock on the door behind me, from the inside.

Adjusting my sword, I got to my feet and pushed the door open. It creaked as it swung inward, though it had been shut when I arrived.

Inside stood Nala, the dim light made dimmer by thick cobwebs and layers of dust. Curiously, her archmage's robe was spotless, free of both.

"Forgive the setting; one must make sacrifices for safety. I hope you have good news?"

I spent a few minutes summarizing the situation.

"I see. Good work. I believe they'll head for the nearest residential camp. I'll be waiting for them there."

"As for the Prince's plans…" I began, but she cut me off.

"I'll take care of it. Unauthorized seizure of human resources will cause an uproar we don't need. Ideally, no one but the Prince should see me at all, but we'll have to make do. Though I admit, I do like his idea… games of life and death. We'll get along well, he and I. A pity… Hm. If all goes well, there will be a reward. What do you want?"

"There are a couple of mages here I'd like to take from the Commonwealth…"

"Say no more, you have my permission." She cut me off and moved toward the exit. "Now excuse me, I must prepare for tonight. Wait a couple of minutes before leaving, we shouldn't be seen together."

The door creaked shut behind her.

I should have been relieved. No need to shoot the Prince in the knee; the problem had resolved itself. So why the bad feeling?

Her departure had been suspiciously hasty, but with evening approaching, she probably had much to prepare.

Still, the unease wouldn't let go.

I drew the pistol and cocked the hammers. Striding quickly to the door, I opened it.

Empty. The alley was completely deserted, though Nala could only have left at that pace if she'd run.

I didn't like it, but I still didn't have enough to suspect anything. Maybe she really had been in such a rush that she sprinted away the moment she was out of sight?

I went back inside to examine the tracks, the thick dust made it possible.

By the entrance, the footprints merged into a path: twice mine, twice hers. That checked out. I followed them into the room where she'd greeted me. My tracks ended there, but her shoe prints continued deeper into the house.

Pistol at the ready, I followed them. A guest room: just as dusty but much brighter. Sunlight streamed through a large, paned window, heating the pendulum clock standing before it. Squinting against the glare, I approached slowly. There were more prints here than usual, but the sun and the clock's shadow made them hard to read.

Still, hard didn't mean impossible. Shielding my eyes, I studied the ones hidden in shadow. Nala had definitely stood here; more than that, she'd shifted side to side. Studying the clock?

I looked it over. A fairly ordinary piece for this world: a tall case reaching a man's height, a gilded copper dial. Not working.

Hm. Nothing suspicious. Moving on.

Following the prints again, I left the guest room. Bedroom, kitchen, hallway… and that was it. The trail looped back to the entryway where we'd met. In all the other rooms, her steps were even and unhurried. From the entryway, a staircase led to the second floor, but the uniform layer of dust on the steps and the untouched cobwebs said no one had gone up in years.

"Wait a second… then how did she get into the house?" I asked aloud. My gut agreed: this was it, the detail that had bothered me the moment she opened the door.

The door had been locked. I'd checked it as soon as I arrived. And she hadn't been sitting inside for the half hour I'd been on the porch, right?

Puzzled, I returned to the spot with the most prints. So there had to be a secret entrance here somewhere.

I crouched low, almost nose to the floor. Nothing. Old wooden parquet, no sign of any mechanism. The dust would've shown if anything had been moved. I ran my hand over the cool wood hidden in the clock's shadow. Nothing unusual, except now my hand was dirty.

"Hm…" I glanced at the clock again. Could the trick be in it? Maybe the hands had to be turned a certain way?

Looking closely, I saw it was coated with the same dust. No one had touched it in years. No magic in it either: I even drained all the mana from the room just in case there was an illusion. Nothing changed. Dead end.

I eyed the window. Could she have come through there?

No. There were no tracks near it, and the window was solid, impossible to open.

"I don't get it," I concluded, giving up. It felt like she'd just teleported in. And… honestly, why not?

I returned the pistol to my boot. After all, teleportation didn't necessarily mean her intentions were bad. On the contrary, it made perfect sense for her not to walk through the city where she might be seen, and instead teleport directly to the meeting place. And the fact that I had no idea how she'd done it didn't prove anything. The deputy rector of the Academy could have any sort of artifact…

Still, something told me I had to be at the Prince's "hunt" tonight, rather than leave things to chance. And that I might need another pistol.

*************************************************************

Dusk was falling. I sat on a small hill overlooking the camp. My earlier companions hadn't been wrong to use that word instead of "village" or "settlement."

It was indeed a camp enclosed by barred walls. I'd even call it a concentration camp. The only large gates were assembled from steel bars. Towers with magical crystals lit everything for hundreds of meters around. Barracks.

"How much longer? We should've brought food…" complained Asha, whom I'd brought along as artillery support.

"They're coming," I said, watching the road where four carriages, each drawn by golems, had appeared.

They pulled up to the gates, and the passengers disembarked: a dozen members of our delegation, the Prince himself, and that girl with the almond eyes, who had traded her white robe for a black dress.

She went up to the guard and began explaining something to him.

To her surprise, they weren't let in. An argument broke out, and I could hear her angry shouts even from where we stood.

"Let's go," I ordered, and we descended toward the camp.

"Damn you, Merlin, we had an agreement!" the girl was shouting furiously at the guard.

"Circumstances have changed," the guard replied calmly.

"You'll regret this. I'll teach you fear."

"Malvin, stop. He's only doing his job," the Prince said, moving the raging girl aside and addressing the guard. "May I ask what circumstances?"

"These circumstances would be my presence."

The gates opened, and the main player of the scene entered: Nala herself. I prepared to draw my pistol, but… she was acting normally. Unlike the Prince, who looked about ready to drool.

His new girlfriend, of course, didn't like that.

"Hey, how can you feel that way about her?" She looked at him in astonishment, stepping back. "He's mine! What did you do to him?"

"I'd call it love at first sight," Nala smiled loftily.

"And I'd call this the moment you humiliate yourself for life!" Malvina exploded, and I felt a strange unease.

It was something like the sensation of danger, but not quite. Frowning, I looked around. Everything seemed normal. Strange. Very strange.

"I'll haunt your nightmares!" Malvina raged, but Nala took her furious outbursts in stride.

Amusingly, though the two women were almost the same height, Malvina seemed like a dwarf beside the archmage. Mostly because of her behavior. In my mind's eye, she became a yapping Chihuahua.

It seemed Malvina realized this herself and calmed down slightly.

"You're not afraid of me?" she said without her earlier shrillness, glaring.

Nala, smiling like Mother Teresa, stepped forward and whispered something in her ear.

Malvina blushed, flailed her arms in panic, and ran.

Right toward me.

Bang!

The girl nearly knocked me over, only to fall to the ground herself. Her furious eyes locked on me.

"You! You brought her!"

"So what?" I said indifferently into her red, angry face.

"We… we'll meet again, and I'll get my revenge!" she promised, sprinting away down the road and losing a shoe in the process.

Typical. Unable to lash out at the cause of her troubles, she shifted the blame to someone she thought weaker. Not that I'd had anything to do with it...

The Prince, however, seemed oblivious to it all. He was devouring Nala with his eyes, entirely unaware his new girlfriend had fled.

"I… I suppose you… you…" he stammered.

"My name is Nala." The archmage took his hand, and he was utterly stunned.

Pathetic. From the look of it, Malvina had been right, and Nala really had used something. Still… serves him right. Karma.

Shouts came from the road. I turned to see another carriage nearly run over the fleeing Malvina before thundering forward, completely out of control. The horses' eyes were wild with panic; they wheezed and charged straight at the gates, heedless of the fact they'd break their necks on impact.

The guard stepped forward, waved his hand, and the horses' hooves flailed helplessly in the air. He held them there for several minutes before lowering them once they'd calmed.

The carriage door opened, and out stepped Nerd.

The first thing he did was lay into his coachman.

"What in the demon's name happened?"

"The horses got spooked, sir," the man replied guiltily.

"A mess…" Nerd muttered, then approached the happy couple.

"First of all, as the official representative of the Kingdom, on behalf of our state, I want to state clearly that I am firmly against tormenting people who are already doomed, and I ask that it stop immediately."

"Ambassador," Nala greeted him. "The only torment here is before your eyes. No one will die today, I promise."

"Uh…" Nerd was at a loss, glancing at the Prince, who was grinning foolishly while the girl stroked his hand.

Mumbling an apology and awkwardly wishing them happiness, he headed toward me.

"Viscount."

"Count," I nodded.

"They look good together, don't they?"

"I suppose."

"Honestly, I didn't expect this. I've never seen him like this…" the Count went on, shaking his head in surprise.

I had no desire to discuss what states he had or hadn't seen the Prince in. The matter was settled. Looks like I'd worried for nothing. Judging by this, the worst that awaited the Prince was being bedded into unconsciousness. Pfft. And here I'd thought he might be kidnapped, and was planning to fight them off…

The Count looked rather pleased, so I felt like souring his mood a bit.

"Why didn't you say you'd be coming to stop them?"

Nerd smirked into his mustache.

"As I said, your past actions have been too ambiguous. Don't think everyone's forgotten that the Inquisition once investigated you. They wouldn't have done so without good reason, so I wanted to wait and see how you'd act in this situation. Would you agree that they needed to be sacrificed? After all, there were plenty of justifications to be found… not least that they're doomed anyway."

"You've observed?" I snorted.

"Yes, I'm satisfied."

The Count twirled his mustache and cast a thoughtful look at the camp.

"You know, I don't actually care about them. The issue isn't them, it's what we're becoming… what we've already become. The difference between us and the mages of the Commonwealth grows smaller by the day. Do you know why we won?"

I shrugged.

"Because we fought better?"

The Count brightened, clearly thinking it a good moment for a history lesson.

"The Empire had only three uprisings big enough to be called full-scale wars. The first two were similar: a truly great mage was born, head and shoulders above the rest, and by right of power he wanted to change the world order. Both Arkhan and Ozar were immensely strong, and wanted power only for themselves. For the vast majority of people, nothing would have changed — they'd remain a resource. Perhaps only Arkhan might have changed something for the common folk… unimaginably for the worse, forcing them to serve even after death…" The Count's gaze swept thoughtfully over the camp before he continued.

"However, Ozar's uprising changed much for us. Metal mages had never been in the top ranks, but after the uprising, we were made equal to ordinary people — that is, to livestock. That's when we realized we weren't so different from them. That's why the third uprising wasn't led by a single strong leader. It was led by ordinary magisters, who not only weren't superior, but often weaker than their colleagues in other elements. But the magisters didn't march alone. The people were with us. We promised not to herd them, but to rule them. Like the kings of ancient legend. We promised that warriors would be the equals of mages. We swore that commoners would be workers, not cattle. We armed them. We marched in the same ranks. The first isolite was created from the blood of mages; only later was it learned to make it from the blood of magical beasts. Thanks to all this — we won. The Empire split into three parts."

"Three? What about the Theocracy?"

He grimaced.

"They took advantage of our uprising to stab the Empire in the back. They destroyed the capital, using a vile ritual to turn all the mages there into desiccated mummies. We had to give them a bloody nose to make them start distinguishing between metal mages and all other mages. Fortunately, we found common ground in a shared enemy. They helped us, but I'm exactly as grateful to them as they are to us. And I fear that gratitude has long since turned to weightless dust."

"A vile ritual, you say… You mean to tell me that in the Age of Strife we didn't use sacrificial circles?"

"We did," Nerd admitted. "But they were entered by volunteers. That's the difference."

I nodded. Indeed, if so, there was a difference.

From the night's darkness came ringing laughter. The couple flirted while members of the delegation, who'd come to watch a blood show, milled about awkwardly, embarrassed by the turn of events. Some, realizing nothing was going to happen, climbed back into their carriages. Perhaps it was time for us to leave as well.

The Count watched it all sadly, then said quietly:

"Though I've looked after him since childhood, I increasingly find myself glad that the Second Prince has no chance of becoming king."