Готовый перевод Житие Мое / Life of Mine: Глава 2

Chapter 2
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An echo of my acquaintance with the police came over me on Tuesday during the alchemy practicum. I had already handed in my work log to the lab technician and was now idly wondering if I could ignite the magnesium shavings displayed in the flask on the teacher's desk without moving from my seat. Being intimately acquainted with The Source presented interesting possibilities...

What stopped me was that I was the only mage in the audience. And this was no joke! Half the students at the University of High Magic were not mages - the school was known for its Alchemy Department. A predisposition to this science was said to be as much an innate talent as the ability to create magic. Only it was more difficult to detect this ability. By the way, I received my grant from the Roland the Light Foundation for winning the Alchemy tournament. I had always enjoyed observing the oscillation of pendulums, collecting sunlight through the lens, and fiddling with reagents, especially those that tended to burn and explode. Unfortunately, this made the practice torture - I had an unbearable urge to misbehave.

I didn't have time to do anything nasty - some junior opened the door without knocking, shouting:

"Tangor to the Provost!" and immediately ran off.

The mood immediately went down.

A black mage in a bad mood is the worst curse. My fellow students rustled their notes with curiosity, but they didn't dare comment on what was happening. However, this happiness could not last forever. Barely a bell rang, Ronald Rest, a.k.a. Ron the Quarter, burst into the classroom, nearly knocking the instructor to the ground. This one didn't slow down in front of mages, black or white.

"Hello, Thomas!" shouted Quater. "You are summoned to the Dragon!"

Thomas Tangor is me. No nicknames are absolutely unacceptable since the surname Tangor is as good as a nickname.

"Hello," I muttered grimly, not wanting to broach the subject further.

"What have you done?" Quater continued to interrogate me.

"Got in a fight."

Oh..." he grumbled disappointedly and shivered.

A fight involving a black student is corny, boring, and uninteresting. It fits the image too well. Unlike faint-hearted whites, we love open conflict, and the sight of blood gives us a pleasurable thrill. Not our blood, naturally. University leaders are always faced with a tragic dilemma. Demanding that blacks behave like other students is pointless, but leaving such behavior unpunished is also unacceptable. So some smart guy (if I knew who, I would have risen from the grave!) found the perfect solution in all respects - correctional work. That meant scraping pots in the university canteen, scraping manure for the vivarium inhabitants, or cleaning toilets. Refusal meant expulsion from the university for breach of discipline. For three years, I had managed to avoid this dubious joy, but yesterday's visit to the police seemed to have put a stop to my luck.

No, I don't mind, but I do want to point out that some so-called mere mortals turned out to be bigger assholes than any black magician. Take Ronald Rest, for instance, who got his nickname for demanding a "quarter only" before he got drunk, and when he was drunk, he would pester all the males and pick on all the females. His bitter experience taught his fellow students to leave the student's tavern at the mere sight of him. Now, Quater perceived the practice of corrective labor as an outrageous indulgence.

I wish it wasn't a vivarium...

Anyway, I arrived at the door of the office of the Vice-Chancellor for Difficult Students (a euphemism for black mages at the university) feeling sick in advance. The brass sign said that Mr. Darkon lived behind the door, but I thought it should have been a sign to repel ghouls.

Contrary to expectations, the Vice-Chancellor did not seem angry or annoyed.

"I was informed that you spent a couple of hours in our beloved department yesterday." He winked conspiratorially, and I shuddered at the memory. "Don't take what happened to heart." And in response to my puzzled look explained: "All black mages go to the police when they are students. It is another law of nature, and it is not for us to violate it."

Personally, I didn't really care about the statistics, but there was a lively interest in the Vice-Chancellor's eyes:

"And have you tried your strengths on an investigator?"

I shook my head desperately. How could I! Attacking law enforcement with magic was pure suicide.

"Congratulations! So, the first entry on your file will be "particularly trustworthy". Believe me, it will mean more to your career than your best academic record." The Vice-Chancellor has taken on a trusting tone. "After all these years, it seems to me that their main goal is to get the detainee off balance; it must be the only way to find out what a mage is capable of. It's a risky way to go about it, though."

We parted with the Vice-Chancellor with firm handshakes, like people united by the injustice they had suffered. I was dying to know what he was up to. As I was leaving the office, I remembered that I hadn't told him about the Acquisition of the Power. Well, some other time! I'll just be a little more careful.

I had got away from the police, but now I was faced with the problem of cash. I had been able to get away from the cops, but now I was faced with the problem of cash. The impressions of the goblin were still too fresh in my mind, and I did not dare to earn money illegally.

I had to find a job.

As a man of action, the first thing I did was to look around all the neighborhoods around campus for a job that might be available by the summer. The University of High Magic is a special school. There are no exams except for admission and graduation, which makes sense: you can't learn magic right off the bat. There are many, many midterm checkpoints, but, in keeping with an ancient tradition, the teachers take a break twice a year - for two months in summer and three weeks in winter. In winter, most of my classmates stayed in town, but in summer, the university was practically empty. The eve of the summer holidays is the best time to snatch someone's place.

Alas! Most of the openings were for white mages, at most for ordinary people, and no one wanted to have trouble with a black student, especially on the eve of the Acquisition of the Power. Sneaky discrimination! Since a black mage didn't want money!

The only real option was to scrub the floors at the tram depot at night. Thanks, uncle, but when to sleep? In my fourth year at university, specialization began. Since I'd passed my initiation, I'd have to splurge on a full-fledged course in Witchcraft. Pecking your nose over a pentagram? I'd rather be hit in the head with a rock.

I was left with two options: the Guggenzolgers or family help, and I had to decide quickly. I decided to start with the family. What the hell? A family of hereditary black magicians could not be poor! I only needed fifty or sixty crowns a month, but my mother sent twenty, occasionally thirty (like for holidays), and sincerely considered it the norm. We needed to have a serious talk. These things are not solved by letters, and for the first time in three years, I decided to take advantage of another privilege of being a Roland Foundation scholarship holder: an all-expenses-paid trip home and back.

Actually, summer visits to the ancestors are more typical of white students. I always wondered how they managed to get back and forth if they didn't like to use the railway. Ron the Quater was going to the South Coast with two sophomores, and he asked me to come, but I stubbornly refused, spreading the rumor that I had serious business at home-I didn't want to look like a beggar in front of my buddies.

It was easy to get a ticket - the first wagon was not popular with passengers. Few people travel to our region in summer, as in any other season, for that matter. First, the mountainous plateau at the western tip of the continent was renowned for having the nastiest climate in all of Ingernika. It wasn't that it was cold here, but there was never any real warmth. The number of sunny days a year was a handful, and the fog was commonplace. Second, our people are a bit wild: the peasants of Krauchard are prejudiced and still braid silver thread into their horses' manes, nail ram's horns over their gates, and sew black cat fur into their blankets. A land of melancholy, freezing rain, and gale-force winds, whites simply can't take it. And also the land of the undead.

There are no other places where there are so many manifestations of otherworldly forces as here. For the locals, this is a matter of pride and constant concern. Even children know the simple rituals of exorcism, there are ancient, unmapped stelae at every crossroads, and on clear days the frightening and alluring island of the King can be seen from the coast. Who is surprised then that one in five inhabitants of Krauhard is a black mage?

I sat alone on the bench in the carriage, staring blankly through the clouds of smoke at the passing landscape. The dense green of the protective strip resembled a tunnel, with fields, cows, white houses and other thatched pastoralism glimpsed in the rare gaps between the trees. I waited secretly for the evergreen trees to be replaced by low shrubs and weeds, and the fields by stony heaths and deep ravines, but the first greeting from my homeland was, of course, the rain.

I slept most of the way safely and by the time I arrived, despite the early hour, I was awake and refreshed. I had nothing but a small rucksack and a wicker basket of luggage. I could not resist buying a couple of souvenirs for my mother and the little ones, after which my financial situation hit the "bottom of the barrel" mark. The steward, heroically restraining the urge to yawn, gingerly lowered the folding ladder onto the platform, helped me down and sincerely wished me a safe journey - there was a thick milky-white fog outside the train.

It was only when I was immersed in this damp, barely perceptible puff of mist that I realised how homesick I had been. Everything I loved about cities - the smoke of the cars, the never-ending traffic - was just a surrogate for this mysterious, enveloping pseudo-life. A steam train whistled in the fog, and I walked along the platform, past the sign for "Wild Outpost," remembering where the descent was supposed to be.

The fog was barely lifting off the ground and would be gone in an hour at the most, but it was this feature that allowed me to see the feet of those meeting me first, before I could see the faces. There were a pair of ladies' low-heeled shoes (a bit worn and rusty), two men's "don't mind mud" boots, and four horses' hooves waiting for me. It was the hooves that I recognized them from - it was not often that you would find an animal with all four legs of different colours.

"Hello, Ma!"

A woman in a dark knitted jacket emerged from the fog; I would have recognised her anywhere and anytime. She stood on tiptoe and kissed me on the cheek:

"Hello, Tommy! How was your trip?"

"Great!"

"Hello, Thomas. The children have been preparing for your arrival for the third day - the whole county already knows that their brother is coming back. So don't be surprised."

Before I turned to the speaker, I took a deep breath, bringing myself into the state I usually use to talk to clients: detached friendliness, deference without familiarity. I'm sure I'm better at it now than I was three years ago. Standing beside my mother, smiling, was he, one of the three white mages who live in Krowheart. My stepfather.

"Hello!"

"Let's go, let's go," my mother hurriedly led me to the cart.

I found myself drawing this meeting, and my memory was cleverly twisting it to throw out a man I had known for more than a decade. That is to say, not a single thought of him occurred to me. I guess that's how the brain can't see what it doesn't understand. My stepfather take place charioteer place. My mother sat with me, and I, smiling, was still trying to get a sense of recognition.

Blacks and whites never fit into the same family. They are two different people, different universes. All we had in common was food, and we even slept differently. I would not even mention parenting: my stepfather could not argue with me at all, and punishing me was out of the question. From the moment we first met (I was eight, and he was thirty-two), he had been Joe to me and I Thomas to him (Mr. Thomas at first), and I had always considered myself the older man. It wasn't a matter of magical metaphysics - the black talent in me was still asleep at the time, and his white talent was never too strong. My character, my worldview, my personality, everything was as different as night and day.

He liked to sit by the fire and read books - I only came home to eat. He cherished exotic varieties of daisies in the flowerbeds - I repaired the lawnmower in the barn. He brought a good-natured mossy-footed horse to our house, which happily carried the whole family to the market and visits on weekends. I used my first money to buy a scooter that reeked of alcohol and was desperately rambling, and whenever I had a spare moment, I rolled it out onto the driveway in front of the house and cleaned, adjusted, and rebuilt it. That was how we got on each other's nerves for six years after my mother's marriage. Only now, having studied at the University of Redstone for three years, do I realize what a nightmare he lived in. The day I received the invitation from the Roland Foundation must have been the happiest day of his life.

"So, how are things at home?" I tried to be polite.

"Good." Mother hesitated, and I waited patiently for him to continue. "Thomas, we need to have a serious talk."

When she calls me by my full name, it's really serious.

"Yes?"

"Lucie's talent has shown." She took a deep breath. "White one."

Congratulations!

What else could I say? The young white magician is like a naked nerve, completely exposed to the outside. One wrong word, one harsh look, and the kid would be mentally disturbed. Later he will be older, and stronger, but now... And here his brother, the black one, comes to visit him.

"You understand..." the mother began, with embarrassment.

Now, after three years in Redstone, I really understood.

"I will be careful!" I sincerely promised.

I will, but what about the others? There is no place more unsuitable for a little white man than Krowhard.

"What would it be for him to live in our parts of the world?"

In a good way, they should have moved out of here, and have been for a long time. Mother shrugged:

"We try to provide conditions, but with our incomes, we can't expect much."

"Didn't the father leave anything? I would never believe that a black mae couldn't make a living!"

"You probably don't remember. We didn't live like this when he was around. There were savings, but when your father so suddenly... died, I couldn't find where he put them."

Stupid situation.

"We used to have a government benefit, but when you turned eighteen, they stopped paying it."

And the family of four was left with only a schoolteacher's salary.

"You should have told me. I would have sent you money!"

She smiled:

"What money can a student have?"

Really, what money could I have? Oh, money...

"I would have thought of something!" I stubbornly objected.

"Don't be silly, you need to study. You are very talented! Your father would be proud of you."

A cunning plan to increase my allowance had gone awry. Perhaps now I wouldn't have the guts to take money from her at all. It was a blow... But if there was one thing I had learned from the white ones, it was to be philosophical about failure. It's a very important quality! Well, I'll just rest.

The horse was clattering on the rocks, and the old carriage was squeaking with its springs. The fog paled, revealing mossy granite boulders, crooked fir trees, and thickets of shrubbery. It was summer, and the creepers were in bloom. The cart passed the cleft, and the valley stretched out before us, quite wide for Krauhard. Gardens were in full bloom on the southern slope, cattle were grazing in the pastures, and the windows of the huts with their brown slate roofs gleamed merrily. Half an hour more and I was home!

The meeting was noisy. Grown-up Lucik, though white, yelled and jumped for four. His little sister remembered me worse and was embarrassed. But on the whole, little had changed. It was still the same farmhouse, with its neat front garden, where the results of my stepfather's efforts to grow roses in a climate suitable only for wormwood grew, and the cheeky chickens in the yard.

And that's when I caught my eye the small, cheerfully colored crates, set up in the garden.

"What is it?" I asked with an inner shudder, knowing the answer beforehand.

"Well, you know... while you were away, I thought..."

"Bees," I said in a suddenly hushed voice.

If there was one thing I couldn't stand, it was creepy, buzzing, biting insects. Yes, it was going to be a very fun summer.

Mum set the table on the open veranda. I mean, open for all, really for all. In addition to the expected guests, the smell of buns and baked apples brought unwanted guests. The joy of homecoming was spoiled, not to mention the appetite.

The bees regarded me with suspicion. The little aviators flew around me with a thoughtful buzz, trying to get in my face.

"Don't be afraid!" Lucik persuaded.

The white uninitiated mage consoled me, an initiated (!) black one. If I relaxed for a minute... I couldn't even think about it! I am not yet able to tame my Source. The second time could be worse than the first. The policewoman's lecture came alive in my mind with surprising clarity, especially those pictures with the scraps. I have to keep my cool. I can't hurt the people I love. Even if they are white, even they are stupid. But that's easier said than done.

It was enough to spend half a day here to know that the night when something buzzed over my head would be the last for all the inhabitants of the house. And this is no joke. I would have to consult a black mage; fortunately, it was easy enough to find one in Krowhard.

"Ma, I'm going to run to Uncle Gordon's and say hello. Has he moved out yet?"

"Where's he going to go, the old bore!" Mother snorted. "Go. He's been here before, asking about us, but the bees scared him off."

Poor Uncle Gordon.

My desire to visit the old man came as no surprise to anyone - he was closer to me than my stepfather. In fact, a second father. It takes another black one to raise a black one - it is an axiom. Even ordinary people are not always up to the task, let alone whites. This is exactly the kind of case where you have to have the toughness to whip a child like a sissy goat for seemingly innocent pranks before they turn into serious pathology. And don't get me started on the fragile children's psyche. I know what I'm talking about! At some point, you begin to realize what you have done is wrong, but the strength to cope with the black nature is not yet there. When you get your ass kicked, you give yourself a vow: no more! - and sometimes, you even keep your word.

For as long as I can remember, Uncle Gordon has always been a friend of our family. To him, I owe my passion for alchemy and my lack of serious character flaws. He was also the only resident of the valley to have built a house on the northern slope amidst stunted trees and lichen. It was not the property of Uncle's nature but the fact that the main part of his household was a machine yard and a barn. Uncle was the village mechanic. When I arrived, he was tinkering with his tattered truck - it was smelling even worse than it had three years ago if that was even possible. He spotted me, waved me into the kitchen, and appeared about three minutes later, wiping his hands with a rag. He was smiling, not without gloating:

"How's it going at home?"

"Uncle, don't!" I brushed it off and immediately put the question in the spotlight: "I've got to do something. I'm going to kill them all!

Uncle Gordon twitched an eyebrow:

"Are your nerves so bad?"

"I'm so bad with Source."

"Acquisition does not take place until the autumn."

"Already."

He placed his chair opposite mine and ordered:

"Talk!"

So I told him. Who could have warned me that it would be so unbearably embarrassing to talk about my dirty deeds? But my uncle was not outraged; he was deadly serious:

"Don't tell anyone else about this! Understand?"

"Why?"

"Because a "wild" breach is almost guaranteed to get you banned from the profession. At best, you will not be allowed to continue your studies. At worst, you will be put in Fetters and have to go to the police station every week to check in."

"But why?!"

Uncle Gordon sighed heavily:

"Have you read about Baldus the Bloody? And Crom the Ripper? Uncontrollable Acquisition gives you the power of unpredictable properties, the most common spells in your case could work as a weapon curse. Add to that the mental instability and danger of madness. Who would want to take that risk?"

"But... what to do?"

Keep silent?"

"Is that acceptable?" I was amazed. My uncle didn't usually give advice with a criminal connotation.

"But they're not talking, are they? These parasites have recorded your aura print, the crystal should clearly show the moment of breakthrough, but if they admit you were injured because of them, someone at NZAMIPS will be in big trouble. Their artistry annoys a lot of people! They're waiting for you to talk or get caught up in an official test, then there's no way you can prove their guilt."

"I should have been straight away..."

"No, you did the right thing! It was just the two of you. You have no witnesses, especially a mage, and no one will let you hold that crystal. It's not as if they are their own enemy. So why should you be the one to blame? I will show you how to fake the results of the tests. Of course, from now on, you will have to be very careful and think a hundred times before you do anything, and go straight to an empath if you see anything strange, but life doesn't end there."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"You are the son of Toder. I owe a lot to your father, and I don't like the idea of them breaking your fate because of their own mistake. Don't be a sourpuss! In the past, all black wizards had gone through the ritual of Acquiring the Power spontaneously - and nothing, only a few had problems."

I remembered Baldus the Bloody. Uncle went to the kitchen, rattled something in the cupboard, and came back with a small vial of opaque glass in his hands.

"Here, drink this. It will paralyze magical powers. It's a folk remedy. It'll make your stomach twist a bit, though."

I sniffed suspiciously at the vial - the liquid smelled like garlic.

"You will stay at home for a couple of days so that no one will have any questions. Then I'll arrange an expedition for you."

"What?"

"We've got some dudes from the capital coming over, archaeologists of sorts. They're going to dig on King's Island, looking for seasonal workers. Naturally, none of the locals want to hire them. There are no fools. They'll grab hold of you with both hands. I'll have to go with you..."

Here I swallowed the contents of the vial. The strange liquid was a leaden drop in my stomach, but it did not cause any drastic catastrophic changes in my body. I was in the middle of the night, and I was in the middle of the night. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't convince myself of the feeling of waning power or any inner weakness. My uncle noticed my hesitation, grinned, and told me to go home.

In principle, it was already time to go back: it was getting late, and the village was not a city. There were no street lamps. I ran home along the path I had known since childhood (straight ahead, across the river, and past the vegetable gardens), and my thoughts turned to strange twists and turns of fate. Whichever way you look at it, luck was smiling at me. Understand correctly, I do not give a damn about the profession of a black mage (I intended to be an alchemist), but people are suspicious of the tagged by Watchdogs subjects. How do you know if a psychopath has been released from the nuthouse again? I would be exhausted explaining that it was not my fault! But the problem was solved before it became apparent.

And then, as if to compensate for the nerves expended, an exotic excursion loomed on the horizon. Wow, King's Island! Who among the blacks does not want to see this place? It's about time I got here.

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