Fascinating geography
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– Well, yes, I also know amphibrachs! – the creature blurted out, bouncing on one leg.
Looking guiltily at his feet, Dan took the documents from his mentor.
– If you evade, I’ll report it to the Council myself!
No, he will not hide, cowardice is so vile. The necromancer stared at the mirror and began styling his thin ash-gray hair with gel. Having finished with his hair, he went to the window.
– Free! – he shouted to the poor reformer, snapping his fingers.
A moment later, in the place of the ancient man, only a skeleton dressed in a cassock lay lying, and a couple of seconds later, these remains flashed with a bright purple light and dissolved. After Dan freed the souls of the rulers from the tennis table, and the rats were about to scatter, but the forces of the Kingdom of the Dead overtook them, and the animals dissolved in a purple glow. Now neither the elderly skeleton nor the mice will ever be able to find themselves in this world again.
The young necromancer rolled the landscape from the table into a tube and put it in a corner, from where he kicked out the dragon, who had already written five whole pages of the poem.
The master stood silently at the door and calmly watched his student getting ready.
«I need a battle mage, I need a battle mage, a Russian, a battle mage,» Dan whispered under his breath, as if calling for someone.
«What a stupid necromancer,» the mentor shook his head, «you can call the soul of any battle mage from the Kingdom of the Dead whenever you want.»
«I need a living battle mage with whom I could go through this whole test,» the guy corrected his spell when he blew out the burning candle.
He didn’t notice how the smoke, wriggling like a snake, dissolved in the pink light high above his head. For a long time he thought that what was said was not a spell, but simply an installation before the battle. When he said such words, for some reason he felt better, he felt like someone distant, but at the same time so close, hugged him by the shoulders and whispered in his ear: «I’m with you, I’ve always been there, I loved you.»». Dan had no idea who this voice belonged to. When the noise in his ears subsided, the necromancer forgot to think about the surging vision, and silently left the room.
The master went to the window and sadly watched the student go down to the observation deck. The necromancer stood for a long time against the wall under his window, pressing his forehead against the ivy that entwined the tower in which he had lived for five whole years. It’s hard to say goodbye to something that has become almost dear to you. In the same way, Julius, at fifteen, with tears in his eyes, left home, forever, to Prague Castle, where necromancers are taught and souls are summoned for investigation in the European Court.
Dan still had a lot to learn. He was destined to face more than one danger. A battle mage wouldn’t hurt him. But he didn’t know what happened when he said, before leaving the tower: «I need a living battle mage.» But the power of a brilliant necromancer is often enough not only to summon the dead from their subspace…
Chapter 2. Either a girl, or perhaps a vision
– Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! People, I’m dead! – Alina was lying on the bed, looking at the ceiling. – Such a joke had to happen! I died!
She rolled over onto her stomach and, burying her nose in the pillow, continued to giggle hysterically.
– No, well, you had to be so clever! How I want to tell my friends about this!
Sighing heavily, the girl got out of bed, desperately trying to put on slippers. Oddly enough, two large white plush bunnies completely refused to stay on her feet. They didn’t even budge, contrary to all the wishes of their owner. It’s strange, if they are material, they don’t give in, then on what word of honor does a black leather miniskirt and a green turtleneck stay on her body, why doesn’t the blue denim baseball cap with the Nike emblem fly off her head, why on earth didn’t it remain lying on the bedspread shapeless a bunch of tights?
On the bed. Haha three times! Yes, if everything material had refused to accept her body, then she would not have been lying in bed, but would have found herself under the bed among dust balls and old worn-out shoes, which the girl was always too lazy to throw away.
Alina kicked her slippers, naturally, to no avail, and went to the mirror.
She decided that she had died, her body was probably lying in the refrigerator of the morgue, and this image that she somehow felt… what was it? She died. How did this happen? Why does she believe that what she has experienced is precisely death?
The girl arrived in the morning at the Sibirsky Bereg factory, where she had been working as a technologist for three years. Just think, the whole country ate crackers and beer snacks, the quality of which it controlled. In general, many technologists worked at the factory: two for each workshop. But in the fall, Alina was unlucky: her partner went on maternity leave, and the poor thing had to work for two until a replacement was found.
From birth she had a heart with a defect, that is, with a defect, and the double load did not benefit her health. In winter, the director, however, took pity on the unfortunate Alina who overworked and paid for her to go to a sanatorium for the Christmas holidays. Treatment and rest are wonderful, but when, upon returning, double work fell on her again, all the results of healing baths and procedures went down the drain.
The overworked technologist only dreamed of going on vacation to the Black Sea when she got to leave. It didn’t work out. Alina’s heart couldn’t stand it. It has always malfunctioned until today. There’s nothing you can do if you were born sick.
The last thing the girl remembered when she was conscious was the line for packaging fried kirieski. She stood by the belt and carefully watched as the finished product poured into a large basket, but suddenly her vision grew blurry, she clutched her heart, feeling someone stick a thick stake into her chest and turn it. A gentle male voice muttered in her head; at first she thought it was her brother’s, but he spoke not in Russian, but in some similar language. In Ukrainian, or something. The man repeated the same words. It seemed as if he was calling someone or weaving a spell. And then she saw him, a stranger: a tall, broad-shouldered, blond-haired man in something blue, like a sweatshirt, and tight leather pants, his gaze full of fear: his yellow eyes, distorted with horror, like those of an owl, looking straight at her, the victim. His gaze cannot touch, but at that moment it seemed to the girl that these amber eyes with black pupils see right through her, feel every internal organ, and it is because of this that her arms and legs refuse to move, not the slightest sound comes out of her open mouth, her lungs as if covered in cement, they stop breathing, and only the defective valve in the heart begins to work furiously. The stranger took her hand and whispered: «Calm down’… But the girl was still scared, and… opening her eyes, she found herself at home lying on the bed and for some reason immediately decided that everything that happened to her was death.
Why she thought that is not clear. Death is something that no one can describe. Everyone experiences her, but having met her, no one has ever had the happiness of returning to the living and telling their descendants about everything. Alina didn’t think long. There’s nothing to wiggle around here: a heart rupture, and that’s it, the end of life, and the foreigner in a long blue dress is an ambulance orderly who tried to pump her out. And now her soul, having remembered its last appearance, says goodbye to the house where she lived for almost a quarter of a century. How did the talkers broadcast on the radio? The soul wanders around the home for three days, walks around the world for forty, and then looks for a new body.