Fascinating geography
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At the same time, the young necromancer’s conscience whispered: «Where is your pride, Dan? This man almost crushed you to dust a few minutes ago!»
«You are very strong, Dan,» Julius sighed, «but, unfortunately, you are too careless and defenseless.» Do you think it was just that the great Wenceslas wrote the main rule back in the twelfth century – do not call unnecessarily? And you use very strong magic to satisfy your curiosity. I repeat, not once in five hundred years has a single necromancer managed to summon a person for more than ten minutes. I’m generally silent about your hotbed of celebrities.
«What is it, a breeding ground,» Dan waved his hand, «childish pranks, reincarnated mice, boring stuff.»
Judging by what he had just said, he was not at all aware of his strength. Julius looked in horror at the young necromancer, who had just turned twenty-five two weeks ago, and who naively considered such powerful magic to be nothing. The mentor himself, for example, would not have been able to hold out such a rat city for more than five minutes, and even after the end of the operation he would have lain around in a sleepy state for half a day and would have eaten for three.
He remembered his first experience very well. Then, three hundred years ago, when Julius was not much younger than his current student, he went to the cemetery at night to call his drowned sister back into the world. Fifteen years have already passed since the dishonored girl threw herself into the waters of the Vltava, but the then young necromancer brother was sure that sister Katinka would want to look at the blue sky again and climb the mountain in Petrin. Exactly at midnight, the young magician began the ceremony: he lit a candle and began to read invoking spells. And the girl returned. In the dim light, the brother saw her pale violet skin, tangled bleached hair, empty eye sockets and… long nails that no one had cut in fifteen years. Before he had time to realize that Katinka did not want to live, these uncircumcised claws, stained with earth and the flesh of the dead, dug into his cheek. The magician screamed, trying to cast a spell and call his sister away, but the revived suicide decided to take revenge on her brother to the last, and grabbed his chest with her other hand. The necromancer screamed in hellish pain. And Julius would not have taught the young boy Dan three hundred years later if that night and at the very moment when the sister wanted to tear his heart out of his brother’s chest, a priest had not appeared at the cemetery. As soon as drops of holy water touched the girl’s body, she released the helpless magician and went back to the grave.
After that day, Julius was treated for two years by the best healer in Prague. But three scars on his cheek and five on his chest, with their pain, for three hundred years, reminded the magician of the most useful lesson in his life, and for a long time they would not let him forget this nightmare.
His student Dan did not care at all about his health or safety. The boy had more than enough strength, despite the fact that two dozen souls of long-dead people were wandering around the tennis table in his room, and another one was waiting for feedback on the observation deck. For some reason, it seemed to Julius that if suddenly they all went to the third layer, as the Kingdom of the Dead was also called, Dan would give up and restore everything back in fifteen minutes.
It was not for nothing that all the necromancers were thin, physically weak and ate a lot. All these are signs of overexpenditure in calling from the third layer. Dan was different from his colleagues: he was tall, strong and did not at all suffer from excessive thinness. But the guy always ate not just for three, but for five! It was clear that he was not like everyone else.
«You don’t understand your strength, my boy,» Julius spoke slowly, trying to calm the restless student, «abilities like yours cannot be obtained anywhere except from birth.» You don’t need our school, even if it’s the best in the world. You, Dan, have the honor of becoming the most powerful necromancer of our time. But you don’t understand! And it’s dangerous! Because sooner or later your ignorance will be used not for the most noble purposes. As long as you are in Prague Castle, you are safe, but if you take a few steps away from the gate…
The master, stroking the scar on his cheek, spoke kindly, but instructively.
«I’m flattered, of course,» Dan spread his hands, blushing from the praise, «but why do I need such power?» I wanted to be an ordinary medical examiner in Prague. Summon murdered victims at trial, which is what all more or less powerful necromancers do. And as a hobby, I always dreamed of running a celebrity museum. Like, outdo Madame Tussauds from the first layer of the world: she has wax dolls, but I would have living ones! People would take pictures with them for money. Do you understand?
The young necromancer knew how to trick his teacher, because for a good hundred years Julius had been crazy about photography.
Dan lounged on the sofa, dreamily looking at the ceiling. There, Renaissance masters painted biblical scenes. The paintings were so beautiful and interesting that the magician who lived here for five whole years was ready to endlessly look at the drawings on the ceiling of his room. Probably at that moment he dreamed of a personal museum and the profits he would receive from ticket sales.
The mentor got up from the sofa and walked around the mouse composition several times. He muttered incomprehensible words under his breath and pulled at his beard.
Arrogant Dan, dizzy with his own power, sat on the sofa and was already drawing up cost estimates for the creation of the museum.
– Do you know how each of your calls ends? – Julius suddenly asked the guy.
«The disincarnation of the body into which I put my soul,» blurted out the young necromancer. «That’s why I call upon the dilapidated skeletons who have applied to move to the dead. As required by the Council.
The mentor just shook his head:
«That’s what it’s written in the textbooks we cram at school.» This is what happens when you call upon the soul of a rabbit, caterpillar or elephant. The same thing happens when a murdered victim is summoned in court. But when it’s far from being for the investigation…
What is the difference, exactly? Dan glanced sideways at his mentor, distracted from his dreams.
– The textbooks do not say what the consequences of calling without the permission of the Council are. Why, you ask? Because not every necromancer is able to pull out a soul for investigation, and experimenting, as you do, can only occur to a normal person after a hangover. In addition, for mass resurrection they can be disincarnated. And imagine that you live for yourself, relax on the third layer, and then they call you and say: «Go on a business trip for three days to the upper layers for a skeleton!» What would you do, Dan.
The guy, realizing how the soul was summoned, smiled impudently. But the warning about disincarnation haunted him. And the teacher continued. Yes, everything is not so simple on this third layer, where they go after death. After all, the souls of the revived exist at the expense of necromancers, which is why all the magicians of this specialization were weak. What price Dan paid for experiments with so many people is not at all clear, because the guy’s health was fine. True, Julius, slyly narrowing his eyes, whispered at the end: