Edgars Auziņš "Fascinating geography"

– Jak se jmenujete, Linanote 3? – Dan looked sideways at the girl.

Alina stared questioningly at the magician with a stunned look. His phrase was similar to a stupid student stem: «Who wrote Turgenev’s Mu-mu?»

«I don’t name anyone,» she snorted. – And I’m not Lina. You’ve made a mistake.

– You don’t understand me, Russian woman. I’ll ask you what your name is. And Lina… You look a lot like her.

The girl introduced herself and smiled back, as much as her broken cheek would allow her. But the magician opened his mouth in surprise. Even if it’s not Lina, Alina, what’s the difference.

– Are you a foreigner? – she asked in response. – But you know Russian quite well.

– I’m coming to Moscow from Prague. My name is Dan. I study Russian at school. I am a necromancer. I will get…

But he didn’t have time to finish. The orcs, who suspiciously quickly ceased to be interested in the dragon’s poetry, looked at the victim with a grin. But Alina understood perfectly well that the magician she met at the airport did not know combat spells. It’s a shame not to be able to use levitation, but other bells and whistles require strength. If Dan is a necromancer, then all his abilities are in resurrecting the dead, and not in throwing fireballs. That’s why the guy chased the orcs around the plane, because the only thing he could do to them was to exhaust their physical strength.

The sorceress stretched her hands forward and whispered:

– Fuck-tibi-doh-tibi-doh! Kirieshkus-dimedrolus!

She closed her eyes and imagined small crackers, filled with sleeping pills, flying out of the palm of her right hand. For some reason, out of fear, she decided that the stupid orcs would certainly rush to the crackers scattered on the ground and begin to devour them. As if the movie Shurik’s unsuccessful experience with the professor’s sausage didn’t mean anything.

But, alas, even the first point of Alina’s plan failed. She has not yet reached that absolute level when any imagined spells would be translated into reality. I rolled my lip, as they say: it was one to noon in the magical world, and I already wanted to throw homemade spells.

So it turned out that instead of a hail of crackers, a pack of «Kirieshki’ suddenly fell out of the sorceress’s hand. This would have been the end of the stupid idiot if one of the orcs had not picked up the crackers and swallowed them along with the packaging. Alina grimaced, how unsympathetic she was to such a habit of monsters.

Suddenly the non-human grabbed his stomach and spat out a pile of white rounds onto the ground… sucked diphenhydramine tablets. In the best traditions of «Operation Y», as you would expect!

However, the effect of the spell immediately manifested itself, and the orc, unable to overcome gluttony, fell to the ground, snoring loudly.

«You are a very powerful magician, Alina,» Dan patted her on the shoulder. «You are no worse than Lina, with whom I confused you.»

The two remaining monsters, having recovered from putting their comrade to sleep, grabbed him by the arms and ran towards the airport service premises, loudly shouting to the skeletons in the trucks that hooligan magicians were operating at the fence.

«I would probably die if Alina didn’t save me,» said the necromancer, taking the girl’s hand and touching the back of her hand with his lips.

Oddly enough, in her twenty-three years of life the girl had never met such a gallant gentleman as the young necromancer turned out to be. And even if he doesn’t look like Sylvester Stallone or Leonardo DiCaprio, it doesn’t matter that his long-nosed face is not at all photogenic, and his amber eyes combined with thick silver hair made him look like a Japanese cartoon character. But despite all this, there was something attractive about him. She lowered her gaze and covered her bruised cheek with her hand.

– Is a Russian girl embarrassed? – the magician pouted, – Dan doesn’t understand.

– Hey, what are you doing there? – a skeleton on a cart, driving towards the place where the sorceress and the necromancer stood, shouted into a megaphone. – Who allowed you to walk along the runway as if it were Arbat?

The skeletons in Novosibirsk and Moscow were in exactly the same uniforms, only on the back of their orange vests were different airport names.

From her past life, Alina knew very well what the risks of walking along the tarmac were: if you weren’t arrested and called a terrorist, you’d be run over by an airplane or blasted with such hot air that you’d turn into a chop. Airports in the world of magicians were no different, with the exception of the skeletal-goblin staff, of course.

– Levitation! – Alina and Dan said, each in their own language, and jumped over the fence.

– And what about me? – the dragon howled, starting to climb the net in the opposite direction.

«You’ll catch up, poet,» the necromancer waved his hand and walked towards the transport stop.

The sorceress, limping on her leg that was broken on the asphalt (and she only now felt pain in her knee), trudged behind. She still had nowhere to go, and this young man, whom she saw at the most terrible moment in her life (or death), could explain something. What if the ticket was his doing?

«Excuse me, Dan,» she interrupted the short pause, «what did these airport orcs want from you?» Who is Pink Fifa?

– Dan doesn’t know. «Dan is coming to catch Pink Fifa,» he answered dryly and looked back towards the fence.

The persistent dragon had already climbed back, unfortunately for the skeletons, and was rushing after the owner and his random sorceress acquaintance. The necromancer slowly walked to the stop, crossing his arms over his chest and looking at the sky. Alina kept trying to look into his face, but the sharp-nosed magician kept turning away from her.

«Dan, Dan,» she became too intrusively attached to him.

– Tell me, beautiful girl, where in this city should the polyglot magician live?

She stared questioningly at the foreign tourist.

– Dan wants to know Russian without an accent. Then Dan tells the beautiful girl Alina why being with him is dangerous.

«But,» the sorceress became embarrassed, «I have never been beautiful.» I’m ugly.

He stopped abruptly and turned around, grabbing her hands.

– There is no such thing as an ugly girl, every girl is beautiful!

If he had paid attention not only to the self-critical Alina, he would have noticed how his dragon suddenly stopped and began to finish writing the poem.

– And also, Dan, it doesn’t matter to me that it’s dangerous with you, since only you can explain to me what happened to me. You saw it all. You were in non-magical Novosibirsk. And maybe you know who sent me the plane ticket. I don’t know where to go, who to look for, what is expected of me, why did I leave that life? Let me be by your side until I find the answers to my questions. My intuition tells me to do just that.

«No,» the necromancer snapped, quickening his pace.

– Yes! – the sorceress answered persistently, catching up with him. «I saw how helpless you were.» You don’t know how to cast combat spells, and your poet can’t even breathe fire on the enemy to protect you!

– I will show someday that Dan is not helpless and knows how to fight. But Dan does it at too high a price. He doesn’t do this over trifles like orcs.

The dragon jumped forward and, looking displeasedly at Alina, read in broken Russian, as he said, the quatrain he had just written from his brilliant poem.

The Black Dragon and the Russian know, And the ungrateful girl understands, She will be asking for forgiveness, When the Dragon publishes his book, And becomes a great author.

– Which of my ill-wishers taught you Russian? – the magician cursed in his native language.

«Idiot, do you still doubt that I am the most talented dragon in the whole world?» – the pet was offended and, sitting down by the side of the road, wrote down a couple more lines in a notebook.

While he was distracted by the manuscript, the sorceress returned to the question that there was no one to protect Dan. She, of course, admitted that she was not much of a magician, because she had never even studied at the appropriate school.

«You are a strong battle mage, Alina,» the necromancer praised the modest girl, «you use the author’s spell, you are a good warrior, you come with the first layer.»

The terminology is unclear, but certainly familiar. The girl began to remember the novels of Sergei Lukyanenko, where six layers of Twilight were noted. She even tried to tell Dan something about the books she had read, but the necromancer just shook his head and began to desperately convince her new acquaintance that all the stories from writers from the first layer never reflect the actual state of things, and promised to tell about the structure of the world as soon as he will be able to speak Russian without an accent.

The companion who had imposed herself on his head was frightened, but Dan only reassured her and added again that he wanted to speak with the beautiful girl only in her native language. From another compliment, Alina blushed again and walked, looking at the toes of her shoes.

All her classmates at school laughed at her at one time. Because of this, after finishing ninth grade, she went to college, but even there the ridicule of the tall, thin girl did not stop. If there are beautiful princesses in the world, then for balance there should also be stuffed animals with long ugly noses, thin lips, small, poorly developed breasts, chubby knees and narrow hips. You don’t choose your appearance, and neither do congenital diseases. Alina suffered from a weak heart all the time, but for some reason here, in the magical analogue of her own world, she stopped feeling pain in her chest. But all this is not so important… the foreigner called her beautiful. What bad taste this necromancer has.

The girl was distracted from these thoughts by Dan’s shout. He stood on the steps of a stopped minibus and waved his hand to her. The dragon writer had already settled into the front seat next to the driver, a thick-headed golem.

– Alina, do you want to go to the city? – asked the necromancer.

– Yes, sure.

He gallantly let her go ahead of him into the salon and slammed the door.

– Why is the driver a golem? – the sorceress asked him in a whisper.

In fact, minibuses are a purely Russian phenomenon, and the foreigner did not have the slightest idea about the national characteristics of local roads and drivers.

«So that if she crashes into a pole, she won’t die,» the pitch black man sitting opposite her whispered.

«Schumacher’s children are the same as in that life,» she thought. It’s a pity that there was no one to tell these thoughts to. The minibus rushed at full speed towards Moscow, and Alina and Dan played a staring contest and occasionally complained to each other that they were both seeing the capital of Russia for the first time, and where to find a polyglot magician capable of putting fluency in Russian into the mind of a necromancer, they had no representation.

Unfortunately (or fortunately), they were unable to reach the city safely. As soon as the minibus passed the ring road, a police car jumped out across it, and the golem driver had to stop the Gazelle, although slightly denting the side of the patrol Zhiguli car.

A goblin in a gray uniform got out of the car and, looking displeasedly at the damage and presenting his ID, asked the golem:

– Police Sheremetyevo-2. Where is the citizen of the Czech Republic, Daniel Spatnynote 4, necromancer, twenty-five years old, and his black dragon?

The creature sitting next to the driver closed the notebook and chattered when the goblin stared at him:

– I am a white dragon, and you are colorblind, and Dan is not in this machine.

«Alina,» the necromancer whispered to his companion, «you make me become invisible, prosimnote 5. The battle mage must be able to walk to the first layer.»

Should, but not obliged. The sorceress could not do this. And if such an ability came with a full set of magic spells in one package with fireballs, water cannons and diphenhydramine, then she had not yet learned how to use it.

True, there was a clue: all the spells that she cast during the battle with the orcs came from her heart, whatever she wished came true. Yes, with diphenhydramine there was a slight overlay, but still, some semblance of what was desired was achieved. And since Dan claimed that any battle mage could hide in the non-magical analogue of this world, then the spell should work properly. In addition, Alina couldn’t get the names of two parallel worlds out of her head: the first and second layers. Almost according to Lukyanenko. How did Gorodetsky go into the Twilight? Maybe the same principles work on this second layer?

The sorceress found her shadow and imagined that she was falling into it. No, it didn’t work! What was written by science fiction writers in that world did not work here. Or was she just not trying hard enough? The girl once again presented Twilight as it was shown in films, and as the author described matter in novels. But, alas, the substance invented or spotted in the magical worlds by Sergei Lukyanenko refused to obey her. If, in general, there was Twilight around the sorceress.

Dan looked at her pleadingly. No, she couldn’t let her new acquaintance down. Alina closed her eyes and imagined that she was becoming transparent, disappearing, the same thing happening with the necromancer and his dragon.

While the sorceress was weaving a spell to move to another world, the black dragon convinced the police goblin that he still does not distinguish colors, and that there are color blind people who confuse white and black, and he, the dragon, has an accent that is not Czech at all, but Moldavian, and his owner works at one of the construction sites in the center of Moscow. How the animal managed to find out about the Moldovan workers being brought to the capital is unknown, but from the outside his speech looked convincing.

Meanwhile, Alina slowly erased the images of her companions from the second layer. And suddenly… the same feeling: the colors around lost their saturation, and then, as if someone had turned on a switch, and the colors returned to their places. «So this is what happened to me in Tolmachevo,» the thought flashed through her head like a spark.

And now it’s no longer a golem sitting in the minibus, but a bald bully driver, and he communicates with an ordinary Russian cop. He, judging by the conversations, issues a fine for driving on the wrong side of the road. And in the GAZelle’s interior, instead of pitch-black creatures, vampires and other magical creatures, there are ordinary people.

«Here it is, the first layer,» Dan said, taking the sorceress by the hand, «you won’t see us magicians here.» We need to hide quickly. As long as Alina has strength. If she uses up all her magical power, she will die.

But why then, there, in Novosibirsk, did she not lose her abilities and die? One more question for the collection.

Dan walked through the closed door of the minibus and offered his hand to the sorceress. The dragon followed and all three decided to get away as quickly as possible from the GAZelle, on which someone had set a goblin policeman.

It couldn’t have come at a better time when a long red truck passed by, carrying a shipment of Coca-Cola. It was simply impossible not to jump into such a car. So all three fled from the scene along the first layer. Luckily for them, the car in the non-magical world was driving just in time to a store near one of the metro stations. And as soon as the trio finished their journey among the soda cans, Alina returned herself and her comrades back to the second layer.

«It worked,» Dan took a breath, looking around. «You are a strong magician, you need to be on the first layer for twenty-four minutes,» he deliberately looked at his watch, «and not lose your power.» An ordinary magician can be there for ten minutes, or fifteen. Rare mage lasts longer. You are stronger than Lin.

The tired girl sat down on a bench at the entrance to the subway and greedily inhaled the air of the magical world. Although she is a powerful magician according to Dan, this time being invisible took a lot of her strength. Maybe it’s because she didn’t just rub herself over the first layer. It’s okay, she’ll figure this out later. And how did her new acquaintance know what the first layer looked like? Has he been there before with another magician? Or he can do it himself, he’s just saving his strength, you poor bourgeois!

– So, they dragged me to the townsfolk, sat me on a box of brown soda, and I still didn’t have time to tell this goblin policeman that I was a brilliant poet…

«You’ll make yourself known again,» Dan waved his hand in the direction of the advertisement taped to the post.

«A polyglot magician. 456-78-90».

The dragon shuddered from his unkind gaze.

Chapter 4. About Russian slang and Japanese poets

Old man Methodius was sitting in the kitchen drinking tea with raspberries when the doorbell rang.

«How fast they are,» he shook his head and went to open it.

Mother Nature did not endow the old man with a height of a meter with a cap, if not lower.

Jumping, he hung on the handle, and the door opened. On the threshold stood a tall, broad-shouldered man, a thin girl slightly shorter than her companion, and a pet dragon clutching a colorful notebook to its chest.

– Did you call me, gentlemen? – the grandfather lisped into his beard.

And the old man’s hair was thick, long, and curly. Even his light brown hair had not turned grey, despite the fact that this man could have been at least a hundred years old. And if you take into account the specifics of life on the second layer, then all three hundred. But judging by his behavior and the energy that was overflowing, it was as if my grandfather had turned twenty a week ago.

«Yes, dear Methodius,» the necromancer said, putting his hand on his heart. – My name is Daniel, this is my friend Alina, and this is my black dragon.

«Come in, come in,» muttered the magician, opening the door to the library for the guests.

And all three entered the only room, which the owner rightly called a book depository.

The abode of the polyglot magician was no different from the traditional housing of Russians of the twentieth century: a single room, a workplace and a bedroom at the same time, a narrow corridor, a kitchen three by three meters. And, being lined from floor to ceiling with dictionaries of all kinds, such an apartment looked even smaller than what was noted in the warrant.

Methodius covered the windows in the only room with black curtains that did not let in a single ray of light. It was possible to see at least something only thanks to a small lamp standing on a small round table in the middle of the room. All the furniture was made exclusively of wood, and instead of carpets, the old man laid out bear skins on the floor.

«Here,» the grandfather complained, taking a stepladder from around the corner, «he lived in the village, he had a good house, a pine frame, so they demolished it, the damned trolls, they, you see, expanded the city, and so as not to get angry and send letters to the Council, they gave me an apartment.

Grumbling, he placed the ladder at one of the shelves and walked to a round table, on which, in addition to the lamp, lay a large notebook covered in small handwriting. This is how only students write cheat sheets and experienced magicians encode their wisdom.

– Yes, dear guests, what languages would you like to learn? Modern ones – one hundred dollars, ancient ones – one thousand, encryption – five.

«I want to know modern Russian,» Dan said, picking in his pocket for money.