Methodius Buslaev. The Midnight Wizard

“But I knew. However, what became of him is unknown to me. The Ancient One never mentioned it,” announced Yagge.

“It happened on a fall night in the last year of the magic wars,” remarked Sardanapal. “The world was so overcrowded with evil that it already began to tire. The Ancient One and his son were returning after some meeting. It so happened that the two of them found themselves in a remote forest. Suddenly they were attacked. Evil spirits and guards of Gloom surrounded them forming a continuous wall. They could not teleport or summon aid or use incantations – the attackers foresaw everything and provided themselves with strong artefacts. Then The Ancient One plunged his sword deep into the tree. The magic of his sword, the magic of the tree, and the magic of the earth, which the tree was connected to with roots, joined together, and a narrow ring of light was formed around the tree trunk. The Ancient One and his son stood in that shining circle, around which crowded the attackers. Evil spirits swarmed, climbed onto each other, crushed the ones in front, but could not force their way inside the circle. The guards of Gloom were smarter. They got up to a certain distance and, without attempting to force their way in, stood calmly, and awaited their hour. They knew that all the same, they could not force their way into the circle and the wisest thing was not to expend energy in vain. So passed two days and two nights. There were more and more evil spirits all the time. They covered the circle on all sides, even swarmed below, underground. All the time the guards of Gloom were still there. They quietly sat on the ground and waited. All their best soldiers were there – the hunchback Ligul, the swordsman Ares, Horse, and others. They hoped that their time would come. The Ancient One and his son slept in turns, racking their brains over how to send a signal for help and call the remaining powers of Light. Then on the third night, already near dawn, when The Ancient One, on duty till then, fell asleep, the swordsman Ares insulted the son and challenged him. Ares swore the inviolable oath of Gloom that they would fight face to face and if the son won, then they would let him and his father go. The son of The Ancient One, very young and passionate, accepted the challenge. He pulled his father’s sword out of the tree, not noticing that the tip broke off and remained in the tree, and took a step from the circle…”

“And here the evil spirits attacked him?” Tararakh asked anxiously. Forgetting about the shashlik, the passionate pithecanthropus waved Marshal Davout’s sword, splashing Professor Stinktopp with hot fat. “You out of your mind! You zrow your bad shashlik at me!” Stinktopp began to squeal.

“No. I think that the battle was actually honestly fought. There was no point for Ares to violate the oath, and it’s also not his principle,” continued Sardanapal. “While Ares and the son were fighting with cold steel, a tired Ancient One was sleeping inside the circle, seeing and hearing nothing. I think that his sleep was intensified by witchcraft of the Gloom magicians. The son of The Ancient One handled the blade well, but nevertheless not as good as the best sword of the guards of Gloom. A minute had not passed when Ares beheaded him and spilled his blood on the ground… The evil spirits, sensing blood, completely broke loose. They went for the sleeping Ancient One, but could not kill him because the magic circle though weakened, nevertheless sustained; indeed the tip of the sword had remained in the tree trunk… After a day, a detachment of white magicians, having gone through the entire area, found The Ancient One. I was also there, in that detachment. The Ancient One was still under the power of the sleep spell. None of the serious guards of Gloom was there. Only the evil spirits, whom they drove away sufficiently quickly, and whom, rumbling, crawled away along the burrows and the ravines… The Ancient One buried what the evil spirits had left of his son. In complete solitude he dug out the grave with a dagger.”

“I knew nothing. Strange that it was never talked about,” said Medusa.

“Only the closest students and friends of The Ancient One knew this. He made us take an oath to keep silent about this. I would not have violated the oath even now, if I did not see an urgent need,” said Sardanapal.

“Indeed? What’s here with the son of The Ancient One and this boy Buslaev? What connects them?” straightening her glasses, Dentistikha asked.

The academician looked at her with reproach, “You’re rushing it, Deni. The ties of the magic world are too complex to be possible for understanding by a superficial look. The sword of The Ancient One was lost. The hunchback Ligul, who was there with Ares, picked it up from the ground and took it away. This Ligul, once a close friend of Ares, was already beginning to envy him then and little by little became his fierce enemy. But he also remained a friend to some degree. Man has this variation on a theme called ‘cursed friend’. Some time later Ligul found the means to turn the strongest artefact of Light into an artefact of Gloom. For this reason, he brought the sword of The Ancient One through many transformations, in each new transformation making it slightly worse and darker than it was before. However, this occurred so gradually that the sword itself didn’t notice the changes. It became a spear, a fiery whip, a stirrup, a ring, and a dark dagger. In its entire embodiment, it sowed death and took away many lives. But these transformations of the artefact were only partly the way. In the finale, it will again become the sword of The Ancient One, but a sword converted into its own opposite. As a sword of Gloom… I don’t know, has the sword passed all the transformations and who has it now? It’s possible that Ligul still has it. Indeed, does the hunchback not hope to go with its help into the Temple of Eternal Skip, located in Middle Earth, between Eden, where dwell the guards of Light, and Hades, where the Chancellery of the guards of Gloom is? But hardly this even with the power of the sword of The Ancient One.”

“The Temple of Eternal Skip… The temple, over which neither Light nor Gloom has any authority… The Temple is so ancient that all the civilizations of Earth are only sand at its feet,” dreamily repeated Yagge. “Indeed, indeed, I was there. Frightfully long ago. Then there wasn’t even a trace of Tibidox, and Buyan only just stuck its top out of the ocean… Middle Earth, somewhere between Eden and Hades! A foolish moronoid taking it into his head to find them on the globe would only spoil his eyesight, and meanwhile Middle Earth is much more real than all their continents. Imagine an enormous plain – sand bleached by the sun, greyish islets of soil with dozens of stunted trees, and rocks jutting from the ground at unthinkable angles. The rocks stand tight together, precisely forming a corridor. You go between them like in a spiral – there is no flight magic there – and suddenly your sight stumbles upon columns. And you understand that before you is something more ancient than magic, more ancient and wiser than even Light and Dark. Something such that no one among the living now has any authority over.”

“How about Egyptian pyramids?” Nightingale O. Robber asked. Although he played dragonball excellently, he travelled little, and in the previous years even stayed put completely in his native Mordovia, catching passers-by in the forests.

Yagge sneered, “Egyptian pyramids in comparison with the Temple of Eternal Skip – it’s such a sick fantasy along the theme of a vertical coffin… You go along for a few hours, and no time does the Temple get any nearer, or it approaches so gradually that you don’t notice it. Then suddenly – no less surprisingly – you find yourself beside it. The doors of the Temple are always open. You can approach very near and see the floor – black and white marble squares. Another door is visible in the distance, slightly opened but not so that it would be possible to see what’s behind it. But the temptation is great. Certainty it strikes you that there, on the other side, lies something awfully important, some such thing that all present and lost artefacts pale before it… Some such thing, for which those who lived before Gloom and Light, those for whom magic was as natural as breathing, even built this colossal Temple.”

“Can’t you simply approach and have a look? Or use remote sight?” Medusa asked.

The knitting needles in Yagge’s hands traced a reproachful semicircle. “Medusa, dear, although this happened awfully long ago, I was already far from a naive girl and knew enough magic. What variations didn’t I try! Teleportation, flight, all forms of sight, remote intuition… Useless.”

“You vere unable to but Mezodius Buslaeff vill know how?” inflating his cheeks, Professor Stinktopp asked.

Sardanapal compassionately looked at his rat waistcoat. “It’s possible, Ziggy… Everything is possible. Methodius Buslaev, who will become aware of his dark gift. Who, after receiving a cloak, will go to the labyrinth of marble slabs on his thirteenth birthday, will go through the slightly opened door and, after taking what the ancients had left there, will give this to the guards of Gloom. The relative equilibrium between Light and Gloom will be disrupted. Gloom at once will cut its way through all cracks like water oozing through the bottom of a rotted ship. Thousands of eide, which Light is protecting now, will be stolen by Gloom. Everything depends on whether Methodius Buslaev will be able to control this darkness that is primordially placed in him.”

The fire in the fireplace blazed and went out. In complete calm, the heavy velvet curtains puffed up like the sails of a ship. Two ancient black magic books began to rush about in the cage and, having suddenly turned into ashes, crumbled through the bars onto the carpet.

Yagge raised her eyes from the knitting needles. “Well now, I knew it! The loop was torn. And indeed I’m almost finished,” she said with regret.

“Methodius Buslaev! He hasn’t yet been born and Gloom is already in premonition of his birth!” Medusa said.

“Methodius Buslaev… We’ll try to influence him somehow? To get into contact with him? To bring him, eventually, into Tibidox?” the Great Tooth asked huskily.

Sardanapal’s beard did a wavy movement. “What’s with you, Deni? This boy – into Tibidox? With his gift? No, the road to Tibidox is forever denied him. We won’t even be able to interfere, since the matters of Light and Gloom are not subject to us, elementary magicians. We’ll observe the boy from a distance – no more. In such matters there’ll be a little bit of caution… And remember: no one in Tibidox, besides us, must know anything about Methodius! NOT ONE STUDENT! In the next twelve years in any case! I demand, I insist, I, finally, order everyone to take an oath!”

“Sardanapal, what precisely is the boy’s gift? I know what a dark gift is, but how will it appear this time?” Tararakh asked. “We know that its forms are infinite!”

The head of Tibidox stared back at the pithecanthropus’ ardent Asia Minor gaze. “I don’t know exactly, Tararakh! I can only surmise. And if it’s what I think, then it’s terrible. So terrible that I prefer to be silent. And now swear! Well! I want you all to utter May lightening strike me down!”

Several sparks blazed – red and green. Slander, Medusa, Yagge, the Great Tooth, Professor Stinktopp… Sardanapal, attentively following so that everyone without exception would make a vow, let out the last spark. Tararakh, not having a ring, did it without a spark, limiting it to a simple utterance of the oath. The gold sphinx on the office door tucked its paws under and became like a wet unhappy kitten. So many May lightening strike me down in one office in something like a minute – this was a lot even for a sphinx that had seen sights.

Chapter 1

The Lunar Reflection

Edward Khavron thoroughly squeezed out the blackhead on his cheek and, after stepping back, admired his own muscles. He was standing naked to the waist in front of the mirror, and inspecting himself like a doctor from the military registration and enlistment office would inspect a draftee. “Well, am I really not an athlete? Really not a handsome man? I would simply fall in love with myself, but I must go to work!” he said complacently.

“Eddy, don’t pull in your stomach!” Zozo Buslaeva shouted from the room. Even through two doors, she knew all her brother’s tricks.

“What’s with the stomach here? It’s just that I have such bulging solar plexus. But generally you can’t see it under a coat,” Eddy was insulted; however, his mood was destroyed. Oh, indeed these sisters of one’s own! It is necessary to put up with such things from them that one would drown any outsider as Gerasim did to Mumu.

Having thoroughly cleaned his twenty-eight teeth – according to statistics, thirty-two teeth exist only in a third of humanity and in the imagination of writers, who adore indiscriminately endowing their heroes with superfluous wisdom – Edward Khavron made his way to the only room of their apartment. The apartment was misplaced so far in the outskirts of Moscow that now and then it seemed as if Moscow did not exist at all. But the Moscow Ring Highway with its endless cars was visible from the window like on one’s palm. Not without reason they were living on the topmost, sixteenth floor.

The room was partitioned off into two unequal parts by a dresser standing sideways like a screen. In one part – the larger – dwelled Zozo Buslaeva (Khavron before her married life) with her son Methodius. In the other – the rather fine Eddy with his family of suits, twelve pairs of shoes polished to a lustre, and a bar, on which two twenty-kilogram weights tingled despondently at night.

When Eddy Khavron entered the room, Zozo was dejectedly thumbing through a magazine of dating ads, occasionally encircling the most interesting ones with a felt-tip pen. In her passport, Zozo Buslaeva was Zoe. However, Zozo did not like her passport. The pages of the passport contained too much excessive information. In the opinion of the owner, it would be completely sufficient if it would simply appear there: Zozo. Nice, brief, with taste, and allowing room for imagination. Her son Methodius was sitting at the table and already for about forty minutes glumly simulating the writing of a composition on literature. So far, he had given birth to only one phrase: In my opinion, the books are average and not very. With this, his creative juice ran low and now Methodius dully slaved on. Having pensively stomped around in the middle of the room, Eddy Khavron set off to his side behind the dresser and began to get dressed, hypercritically scrutinizing shirts and even for some reason sniffing some of them under the arms.

Methodius considered his own uncle to be like a monkey. Eddy even had hair on his neck. From there it ran down like a snake and in the region of the chest transformed into an untidy reddish lawn. Furthermore, from the point of view of the same Methodius, Edward Khavron was terribly old. He was twenty-nine years old. Unfortunately, in spite of decrepitude, the old age home still would not take Eddy for the time being. Therefore, the wretch had to work as a waiter in the fashionable restaurant Ladyfingers. In his free time, the might-have-been pensioner courted visitors of his institution, preferring rich ladies expressing maternal instinct. “If I would be like Eddy in my old age, I’d jump out the window!” Methodius decided. He slammed shut the notebook with the composition and without any inspiration moved to his chemistry textbook. The day had somehow gone awry.

Zozo Buslaeva crossly nibbled the felt-tip pen and, drawing a horn over one of the photographs, decorated it with dozens of pimples. “Oh, look, what a cad! I’d kill such a man on the spot! What he writes! ‘Lady with apartment and car, I will serenade you on your balcony! Your pussy. Age – 52. Weight – 112 kg. Phone the Bumble Bee Restaurant on Tsvetnoi Boulevard between 9 and 10 p.m. Ask for Victor.’” she exclaimed with indignation.

“I know this Bumble Bee. Such a cheap dive. The last time they washed the glasses was on opening day. Since then the glasses are sterilized only if vodka is in them…” Eddy said capriciously.

“Are you finished?” Zozo asked. She was up on how Eddy adored criticising strange restaurants.

“No, I’m not! And the prices at Bumble Bee are not rounded up. How’s this for price? Sixty-two fifty or a hundred and seven eighty? What fool will add all this up? The higher class the institution – the more the prices round up. It’s easier for a client to be in the mood for generosity, but here he mechanically reaches for the calculator, mechanically starts to count and becomes mean as a result!” the voice said from behind the dresser.

Zozo yawned.

Methodius occasionally fiddled with the chemistry textbook in his hands, moved it aside, and, listening to his internal state, touched the history textbook with a finger. He touched it very carefully and again listened to his sensations. No, again not that… Not one string trembled in his soul. Neither desire nor even a half-desire to be occupied with anything. Why is he like this today? “Interesting, could a lunatic weighing a hundred and twelve kilos break a balcony?” he asked.

“We don’t have a balcony!” Zozo said.

“And no car either! Otherwise, it wouldn’t be necessary for me to catch a taxi eternally. I only have a cell phone, a pile of clothing, and an honest noble heart!” Eddy added.

“What’s that about you having a heart? Did you say something?” Zozo again asked inattentively.

“I said that I’ve had enough of everything. Especially your good-for-nothing with his tricks!” Eddy was offended. At last, he finally decided on a shirt and appeared from behind the dresser. Now in order to become a waiter thoroughly, he only lacked a bowtie. But he usually put it on after being already at work.

“My good-for-nothing? What complaints do you have against Methodius?” Zozo exerted herself.

“He knows what! My complaints are as big as a whale and as serious as a gangster’s family!” Edward unexpectedly leaned over and firmly took Methodius by the ear. “Listen here, victim of an intoxicated midwife! You take any small change from my wallet again, I’ll break you like a hot water bottle, and it’ll be nothing to me! I have the white slip!” he affectionately turned to Methodius, baring teeth as small as a polecat’s. Edward Khavron was simply a pathological skinflint. Now and then, it drove quite a wedge into Eddy and he would even begin to draw lines with a felt-tip pen on toilet paper, placing his signature on the lines. Fortunately, this did not happen more often than twice a year, when he had lost all his money at cards or at the arcades.

“I did not,” Methodius said.

“Don’t you think that I’m a fool. I’m only a fool in profile! How many buttons were done up on my wallet this morning? Two! But I always button only one! And I never zipper to the end in the partition for small change!”

“Look after your buttons yourself! Mom, your relative is killing me! I’ll be one-eared and… ah… deformed!” Methodius reported, after puckering from the pain. The uncle was digging his nails very painfully into his ear. Possibly, they gave the white slip to him lawfully, though also took 300 bucks for it. “Here I’m an ass! The second button! Had to be nabbed for such nonsense,” Methodius thought.

The nails clamped down like pincers on his ear. “Have you understood everything, shorty? What about the take?” Eddy hissed.

“Ah! Leave me alone, twerp! Buy yourself an inflatable doll!” Methodius snapped.

“What did you squeal? Well, repeat it! Repeat, say it!” Khavron raged.