The House with a View of Gloom

The day and the evening passed dully, this was, however, completely in the spirit of their family. Eddy Khavron hung out at home and, panting, was lifting weights, not forgetting while pausing to call Methodius a wimp and a sap. The very strong sweaty body of Eddy Khavron smelled of a stable.

“At your age... huuu... I was unlike those, who... in short, you’re a fool!” He summed it up, lowering the weights so decisively that his sweat pants began to crack.

His sister Zozo Buslaeva had locked herself in the bathroom, turned on the water, and was talking on the phone. Once in a while Methodius heard how his mother laughed loudly and provocatively, even muffling the water. This laughter indicated only one thing: Zozo was concocting for herself a date with the next-in-line example with no understanding of women. Even now, Methodius, in advance, was ready to swear that this was some mothball dolt poured into another mould. He determined this by Zozo’s strained laughter, which was heard twice more often than normal. A feeling suggested to Methodius that the collocutor bored mother stiff and she already mentally wrote him down as surplus.

Methodius usually endured Eddy’s laughter and commentaries. His patience was wasted if and only if Khavron blurted out:

“Listen, I understand that you’re doing homework! But could you not write smaller so that the ink in the pen isn’t used up so fast?”

“Fine!” Methodius said obediently and thirty times finely wrote on the last page of the notebook: Eddy is a fat hippo, squared! “Like this?” He asked, showing the notebook.

“Smart kid! Excellent!” Eddy said with approval. Methodius understood that he read nothing and in general was already distracted from his economic daydreams.

“Ha-ha-ha! You’re such a dear! It seems I’ve known you for a hundred years! No, two hundred years! Ha-ha! Certainly, I don’t have in mind that you’re so old! For a man the main thing is the soul... What you did say, pardon me, is the main thing? Ah, what a comedian you are! Simply Petrosyan Khazanovich Zadornov!” Zozo trilled from the bathroom and shouted with suffering laughter.

Methodius drew a long thick line and shoved the notebook into the drawer. He was fed up with this delirious pair. He felt that he was ready to throw open the window and take a step directly from the windowsill to the clouds. At this moment he understood that today, he would definitely draw on the carpet that same rune from the bottom of the box. Come what may, but he simply could not remain here any longer.

Methodius recollected about the three scoops of ashes, which would be left of him, if he incorrectly drew the rune, but even this suddenly seemed unimportant. Either he would become a wizard and flee from here, or let them gather him from the carpet.

***

The genuine Swiss clock of Chinese manufacturing squeaked unmusically and pitifully, indicating midnight. Methodius, getting up on his elbows, waited patiently until the clock finished torturing the small battery. Not so long ago Edward Khavron had gargled in the shower and run off somewhere. Possibly even to work. He would positively not appear until morning. Zozo Buslaeva was lolling about on the narrow sofa. She had an unhappy look even when sleeping. In the morning, she was expected to get up at the crack of dawn and run five kilometres, teasing doggies out for a walk, and jumping over puddles.

She was introduced to the new admirer, the essayist Basevich from the newspaper Yesterday’s Truth, at the exhibition of auto tires, where the creative person was thoughtfully picking at a Matador tire with his nail, vaguely hoping to scrape up a theme for his new article. Besides work, Basevich turned out to be a health nut. He ate only beets, cooked onions, cabbage, and millet sprouts. Sometimes a couple of cucumbers and a peach. And nothing else.

“A woman, who doesn’t drink a glass of untreated spring water on an empty stomach, does not exist for me!” He stated to Zozo in the first five minutes of acquaintance. Clever Zozo immediately assured him that she drank untreated spring water not only on an empty stomach, but also in place of dinner, and she loved cooked onions only more than beets. She did not suspect that she was a ten. Against a background of mutual love for cooked onions, their hearts rushed towards each other. Moreover, Zozo, never getting up earlier than noon, to the happiness of Basevich, turned out to be a fan of early morning runs.

Basevich immediately became happily excited and, while the highly experienced Zozo was turning over in her mind what the deuce attracted her beyond his language, he stated to her that for the first time after his three unsuccessful marriages, he saw not a frivolous female bitten by the rabid dog of materialism, but a real wise woman.

Overall, the novel developed rapidly and was interrupted for two days only by the unsuccessful experience with the hog. Fortunately, the fan of millet sprouts did not find out about it. About that approximate time, he had scorched his vocal chords gargling with iodine, for two days could not talk on the phone, and was only croaking hoarsely.

However, even in this state he had sufficient strength to phone Zozo on the previous night and croaked that the next day at six in the morning he was coming on the metro in order to jog a little under the windows of the dear woman. It was necessary for Zozo to dig out her tracksuit urgently from the mezzanine and to take Methodius’ running shoes. Luckily, their shoe sizes coincided.

Methodius took out the box and carefully opened it. The bottom of the box was flooded by a deathly glow. The transparent stone blazed in the darkness. The fog inside stretched out and attempted to take the shape of a rune — the same one as on the bottom. The rune suddenly seemed awfully hideous to Methodius. It was like a crushed beetle spreading half-bent legs in different directions. The centre was a circle.

“It’s time!” Methodius thought.

Cautiously looking over at the sleeping Zozo, on whose face the bluish light from the box fell, Methodius hurriedly got dressed, sneaked into the kitchen, and placed the box on the table. He stretched out his hand and decisively took the transparent stone. It was only slightly warm to touch, but, when Methodius, becoming familiar with the rune jumping like a cardiogram, made several strokes in the air, the stone heated up and became almost scorching. The fog inside became a reddish snake, throwing itself to the walls, positively trying to break loose.

“Aha! I cannot even try it out! It’s simply a monumental dirty trick!” Methodius growled and, not giving himself a chance to change his mind, quickly traced the rune on the kitchen floor. This was doubly complicated, since the stone left no trace on the linoleum. It was necessary to draw blindly. Sweat appeared on Methodius’ forehead. Mentally he was already ashes scattered all over the kitchen, soiling Eddy Khavron’s dried shirt, which quivered on the chandelier like a white spectre, chained by a hanger to a bend in the wire.

Methodius drew the last line and stepped back, just like an artist attempting to survey his creation. The stone gradually cooled in his hand, and then suddenly — without any warning or sign — shattered into a fine glass powder in his palm. In the same moment, the rune flared up. A particularly bright flame was on its bent legs. But the centre, where Methodius with foresight drew a big circle, was much paler.

Without waiting until the rune faded, Methodius carefully took a step into its centre. He expected tingling, flash, pain — anything, but what took place. Methodius suddenly understood that the kitchen with the dark-blue photo-wallpaper had disappeared, and he was standing in a completely different place.

Small puddles scattered on the asphalt. The wind, playing, chased the plastic from cigarette packages. The red eyes of traffic lights smashed into pieces in windows and shop windows. The sky, interlaced with cables and billboards, was dusted with stars.

Methodius turned around and immediately leaping into his view was a plaque “Bolshaya Dmitrovka, 13,” fastened at the corner of a long grey house, a large part of which was enclosed in safety construction netting for repairs.

“Skomoroshya Cemetery my foot!” Methodius thought.

***

House № 13 on Bolshaya Dmitrovka, built solidly but boringly, had already been staring with its small windows at the opposite side of the street for almost two centuries. House № 13 is so dull and cheerless that even with one accidental look at it, the mood barometer would come to rest on the “melancholy” point.

At one time, on the same space — possibly the foundation was still preserved — was the Church of Resurrection in Skomoroshkakh. And here, up to the church, solidly buried over the centuries, stretched the naughty Skomoroshya Settlement with saloons, fiery dances, and tamed bears. They led these last ones by a ring in the nose, forced them to dance, and soldiers brought them home-brewed beer in a pail. Almost every night robbers played pranks here, with knives gleaming, clubs brandishing, undressed down to the cross, and even used to look after those who overindulged in drinks till they died.

During the immense fire of 1812, engulfing Moscow from three sides, the Church of Resurrection in Skomoroshkakh burned down, and soon on its foundation the priest Belyaev built a dwelling. But the clerical estate could not be supported at the cursed place — as if the bones of the skomorokhi chased it away. And two decades had not yet passed, when the Versailles Furnished Rooms appeared here, with the sooty tunnel of a corridor, bug spots on the walls, and an eternal smell of cheap tobacco from the rooms. Every evening there were drinking bouts and card games in the furnished rooms, and in the corner room lived a cardsharper, a Pole with dyed moustaches, who played the clarinet well. He lived here for about five years and would have lived longer, had his marked deck not been put on the spot once and a juiced-up artillery major not turned up with a charged revolver.

The Versailles Furnished Rooms were located on the second floor. Setting up shop on the lower floor of house № 13 was the optometrist Milka, from whom Chekhov ordered a pince-nez for himself. From the alley, finding a spot for itself was the little store Foreign News, where high school students bought cigarettes with gunpowder, firecrackers, and frivolous pictures from under the counter. As if in justification for the exorbitant price, it informed confidentially that the cards were from Paris itself, although in actuality the thread stretched into Gazetnyi Pereulok, to the photographer Goldenveizer — a sentimental Bavarian and a splendid artistic painter of animals.

In the Soviet times, house № 13 first turned into the Hotel Mebelprom, and then the united archive of Moscow Waterworks Management moved into it. Brisk archivists in sleeve guards made excerpts, and the first chief of the archive Gorobets, a former midshipman of the Baltic Fleet, cut liver sausage on the varnished desk of Milka, who had died of typhus in Kharkov in ’21.

This way — with furnished rooms, store bustling, and glossy sleeve guards — day after day and year after year the forgotten altar of the Temple of Resurrection in Skomoroshkakh was defiled, until once at dawn two people walked out from a secluded wall of the neighbouring wing of a former military school.

One was an ugly hunchback. Traffic lights reflected off his silvery armour, which for some reason seemed splashed with blood. On his belt, passing through a ring, hung a sword without scabbard. The sword was of a strange shape. It ended in a hook with notches. The blade was covered with cabalistic symbols.

The other, a stocky man moody and stern like a pagan idol, was black-moustachioed, with grey streaks glistening like silver in his beard. A red loose garment with black inserts flowed exactly from his shoulders.

The guards of Gloom, emerging so unceremoniously, looked around. The fog, reeking like a damp blanket, was lying in pieces on the asphalt. The black-moustachioed man raised his eyebrows interrogatively and glanced back at the hunchback.

“Well, and? I’m waiting, Ligul!” He said, breathing with effort through a broken nose.

“Yes, Ares. This is that same house. A rare place, all energy flows necessary to us converge here. Everything necessary is ready. I have seen to it. Shielding magic, fifth dimension... Agents and succubae have been notified. Tomorrow you’ll begin the work: the movement of reports, the sending of eide, and so on. Usual routine work of Gloom. It goes without saying, in the given situation it’ll be more distracting; however, it’s not worthwhile to ignore it. Eide aren’t scattered all over the road. What your primary task will be is known to you,” said the hunchback patronizingly.

“Excellent. Well, titan of spirit and prisoner of body, what else do you have to say? What else have you hit upon in those centuries that we did not meet?” Ares asked ironically. The pretentious tone of the hunchback clearly irritated him.

“That traitors don’t exist, instead there are only morally adjusted people,” the hunchback answered in a thin throaty voice.

“Not badly said, my cemetery genius! You’re a poet and a philosopher, cultivated on the sickly soil of the Chancellery of Gloom. In that case, Judas is nothing but an intellectual, acutely in need of a handful of silver coins, deciding to earn extra money... But enough feeding each other a stew of paradoxes. Let’s return to business. You’re sure that the time has come?”

The hunchback jerked his head up. His voice sounded fanatical:

“Yes. The day has come increasingly closer when Light and Gloom will again join in battle! And Gloom will prevail! The wizards of Light will cease to interfere with us, will hide in their burrows beyond the clouds, and the eide of moronoids, which we now rip out of them with such difficulty, will gush out to us in an endless stream... Everything that we need — this is the last effort!”

Ares looked at him with badly hidden mockery.

“I’m well posted. Very nice that you reminded me...” he said.

Ligul glanced sharply at him. His hand involuntarily slid to his thigh, where the sword was hanging.

“Indeed you hate me, Ares? You would take my head with pleasure, with the hook of your sword you would pluck the darx off me and smash it. And would take away for yourself all eide incarcerated in it!” He hissed.

Ares shrugged his shoulders.

“Possibly. And you hate me, Ligul. We all hate one another. It’s the usual story for Gloom. Do you want us to fight? Perhaps you’ll be luckier and precisely your boot will come down on my darx,” he said coldly.

The hunchback fixed his eyes on him with hatred. It seemed lava was boiling at the bottom of his pupils.

“Now a fight between guards of Gloom is impossible. Must not kill our own while the guards of Light are in power. But later I’ll meet you and let the strongest one win,” he said.

Ares smiled. His teeth were square and wide, the trustworthy colour of ivory.

“Knowing you, I would say: let the most immoral one win. Isn’t that true, Ligul?” He refined.

The hunchback began to grit his teeth, but he got the better of himself. His hand let go of the hilt.

“One day we’ll still return to this conversation. But for the time being get busy with the boy! Twelve years have already passed. His gift is necessary to us,” he said in a honeyed voice.

“Gift, gift... It’s necessary to Gloom, it’s necessary to the guards of Light... As far as I know, until now, they haven’t determined in the Chancellery how worthwhile it is for us to trust the boy. And the main thing, why his gift emerged. Or am I mistaken?” Ares smiled.

“It’s not worthwhile to underestimate the Chancellery of Gloom, swordsman... We haven’t determined only because we don’t want to draw hasty conclusions. We’re interested only in what’s known for sure. The gift of the boy is a dark gift, but he’s managing excellently without darx, which is already suspicious in itself. To manage without darx is a quality of guards of Light. He alone among us doesn’t need eide to support and augment his power. And his power is very significant. He, born at the moment of the eclipse, absorbed into himself the enthusiasm and horror of millions of mortals observing true darkness. And precisely then the gift woke up in him. Without realizing it himself, he learned to amass the most diverse energies: love, pain, fear, enthusiasm — whatever he likes. He makes them his own and can make use of them. The boy works like an enormous storage battery of magic. This side of his gift is completely known to us.”

“That is, our dear Methodius Buslaev is a bio-vampire?” Ares refined with irony.

The hunchback shook his head, sitting so crookedly on his body as if it had been pulled down in a great hurry.

“No. A bio-vampire is one who wrings out energy, attaching by suction to the energy aura of man and drinking it to the last drop. A pitiful essence, a jackal. The boy wanted to shrug off all kinds of auras there, although he also sees them. He’s unique; he catches the spontaneous outbursts of energies. A person doesn’t even notice this. He discards his anger into space simply to get rid of it, and that serenely falls into our boy’s storage, the boy doesn’t even suspect this. Methodius can become an irreplaceable soldier in the struggle with the guards of Light. He’ll mow them down by the dozens, even the golden wings. If we, of course, know how to properly prepare him. A guard of Gloom not knowing how to manage his gift is nothing. But again — the first tasks of Methodius will not be battles. Soon he’ll be thirteen, and you know where he must be on this day.”

“One more thought deep as our abysses, Ligul... Today you’re in great form — you speak solemnly of common truths with a speed very much like that of a high school teacher. You would agree, if not for the training of the boy, you would manage very well without me?”

The hunchback grinned, showing small, corroded teeth.

“Ares, no one argues that you’re the best of the soldiers of Gloom. I would like to know what method of battle you don’t know. And you know extremely well how to impart your knowledge. However, allow me to remind you of something. Once you were even somewhat related to ancient gods, and the uncivilized glorified you as a god. Next, already in the Middle Ages, after that incident, I’ll not remind you which, you went into exile. Don’t forget where you were until I pulled you out! An unpleasant, dim, cheerless place. It seems, a desolate lighthouse on a distant northern cliff in the ocean? I’m not mistaken?”

Ares broodingly looked at the hunchback.

“You’re not. Indeed, you precisely also arranged this exile for me, Ligul. You arranged and you pulled out. An old enemy is more reliable than a friend is already what I always remember about you. And, you know what’s the most amusing? That I also did not forget,” he said quietly.

The hunchback rapidly and uneasily glanced at him.

“Well-well, no need for thanks, old chap. What kind of old scores can be here?” He said. “You’ll find the boy, get in touch with him, and you’ll train him! He must become the horror of Gloom, the nightmare of Gloom, the retribution of Gloom — whatever he wants! This girl, what’s her name there... your servant... will help you... Isn’t that so?”

“Julitta is not a servant! Mark this on your... hump!” Ares said quietly.

Ligul turned pale. The blow hit the mark.

“She’s worse than a servant!” He shouted. “She’s a slave of Gloom. She was cursed even in infancy, moreover by her own mother, who dealt with black magic. They took away her eidos, leaving only a hole. According to the book of life and death, your Julitta had died a long time ago. And the worms should have eaten the girl long ago! Turned out to be an irregularity, eh? Argue with death itself, which isn’t aware of mistakes! It was necessary to finish the girl off, but here you appeared. Why, for what joy? You even gave her some portion of your abilities. If she would at least be a beauty, but only so-so... We gave up on this. A baron of Gloom having lost his mind occupies himself in his deserted lighthouse, what difference does it make?”

“Shut up! Don’t touch with your dirty fingers the memory of one whose nail is worth more than you!”

“You have flawed notions about the market cost of nails,” the hunchback said maliciously. “Yes indeed, of course... Old foolish Ligul! How would he understand the moral castings of Baron Ares, swordsman of Gloom! Only think, what an original story! When you fell in love with a mortal, breaking our laws, had a daughter with her, and saving this ridiculous idyll, you committed massive follies... So much happened at the lighthouse. Waves, stones, and wind should have cleansed your brains. And what? Even at the lighthouse, you didn’t get some sense into your head. Saved this moronoid girl, whom her confused mother had condemned to death. Interesting, for what joy? Or did she remind you of your daughter, whom you couldn’t save? At some point, you’ll finally learn that we are immortal, and moronoids and the children of moronoids — they’re such expendable material... Pawns in the eternal game of good and evil. Foolish flesh, clay with a flickering flame of eidos, which heaven knows why landed there!”

“You got carried away, hunchback! Perhaps, for variety, you should live your own life for a while?”

The hunchback shook his head. In his eyes appeared some kind of dry, feverish lustre.

“Well indeed no! For the time being, yours suits me! I want to understand! Well, tell me, why was that duel necessary to you? Why kill your own while enemies are living? Perhaps they didn’t teach you that you always reserve sweets for dessert?”

“I took vengeance upon those, who crossed my path — directly or indirectly. And, what torments me is that I haven’t taken vengeance on all. One is still living...” Ares said, looking to the side. The plastering of the neighbouring house, 15 Bolshaya Dmitrovka, began to smoke from his look.

“They wanted much better, Ares... They saved you from the vileness of life. You yourself know that magicians, long rubbing shoulders with moronoids, lose their magic! Wallowing, like in a swamp, in petty everyday concerns! Such guards are lost to Gloom. Lost forever!” The hunchback said with conviction.

“I didn’t ask Gloom to crawl into my affairs! It’s enough for you that I hate Light!” Ares bellowed.

“Maybe. But you don’t serve Gloom with all your heart. You value freedom, or what you consider freedom, too much. You’re a fool, Ares! You don’t understand that there cannot be absolute freedom. There are only Light and Gloom. That which is not Light is Gloom. That which is not Gloom is Light. By definition, there simply cannot be any half tones. There cannot be evil on the good ledge or good on the evil ledge! You catch the nuances, Ares? You curse what you’re doing!”

Conversing with Ares, Ligul unnoticeably followed him with peripheral vision, ready to react to the first suspicious motion. However, he missed the attack all the same. He even did not understand if it was an attack or if Ares had employed magic. The hunchback only heard how his armour clanked against the asphalt. The next minute he understood that he was lying on the ground and his own sword tenderly, exactly like a razor, scraped red hairlines on his neck. With the bend of his sword, Ares hooked the chain of the darx and was now coldly examining the hastily changing forms of the hunchback’s silver icicle.

“And indeed you have incarcerated numerous eide in your darx. I heard that in recent years you prefer to buy them from agents and not win them in combat? It’s correct: in all the centuries gold smelled better than Damascus steel.”

“Battles between our own are forbidden, until we’re done with Light,” hissed Ligul.

“A wise and farsighted law! Interesting, who passed it? Indeed not you perhaps, Ligul? Have in mind that the prohibition of duels always led to a drop in morals, obesity, and the triumph of purses! Less blood flows — yes, but instead of blood snot flows... It’s you who wisely made a remark about pitiful essence. A jackal is not a lion, and a beast could never behave like a tsar. You’re a jackal, Ligul. You really think that you’ll know how to bring Gloom under your control?”

Ares moved his hand, forcing the hunchback’s darx to swing like a pendulum on the blade of the sword.

“Only think, how simple! One light motion and the terrible Ligul will be deprived of all his magic and become the usual pitiful spirit...” he said pensively. The lips of Ligul turned white. “But something else bothers me more,” continued Ares. “I think about that one eidos, the fate of which nothing is known to me. And sometimes it comes to my mind that it can turn out to be in your darx, then I lose my head and want to cut you up into dozens of little freaks!”

“I’ve said a thousand times! I didn’t kill yours! I know nothing about the fate of your...” Ligul started.

The hand of Ares trembled. A long scratch appeared on the hunchback’s cheek. The hunchback lifted his hand, wiped the blood off his cheek and thoughtfully licked his palm.

“Don’t utter her name! It’s too pure for you! Or you’ll part with your tongue!” Ares said quietly.

Ligul hastily began to nod.

“So you patronize the girl because she reminds you of that one... Don’t be angry! You see, I didn’t say the name,” he remarked.

“None of your business! Better think about your darx! Lest you’re deprived of it!” Ares said.

The hunchback shrugged his shoulders. He had already gotten the better of his initial fear.

“Silly threat! You’re far from a saint. Perhaps I should remind you how many you have cut down and how many eide are in your own darx?” He asked.

“Not worth it. Everyone I killed, I killed in honest magic battle. I didn’t cut down the sleeping and didn’t kill by stabbing in the back. And especially not children and women,” remarked Ares.

“An honest battle? When one opponent is twenty times more experienced than the other, can the battle really be called honest? It would be honest with an equality of strength!” The hunchback smiled.

“No one prevented my opponents from learning to manage a blade,” Ares said.

“Aha... But at the same time fifteen hundred years as the god of war, participating in all combats and battles, and to acquire the same experience... It’s all demagogy! It’s not possible for another to acquire the same,” growled Ligul.

Ares thought for a bit. Ligul’s words nevertheless shook his confidence.

“They could provide themselves with some artefact! Many did so,” he growled.

“Well now! We returned all to the same stove from which they began to dance. If you cannot win in honest battle, win in a dishonest one,” grinned the hunchback.

Ares lightly tossed his darx and caught it on the sword turned flat. The chain pulled. Ligul tensed up.

“Be quiet, Ligul! Your reasoning is of no interest to me. Forget Julitta. And tell the others, your hangers-on, to forget her. If something happens to her, they have to find themselves a new hunchback. Do you understand everything?” Ares said slowly.

After swallowing hard, the hunchback nodded. The chain for the last time slid on the bend of the sword.

Ligul instantly jumped up and contentedly bared his teeth. Self-confidence returned to him in enormous leaps.

“You’re as good as before, Ares. I was afraid you had lost your form. But I cannot distract you any longer. This is your house. Methodius is also yours. Decide for yourself how exactly you’ll train him. It’s unimportant to me. But be aware of this: the Chancellery of Gloom will not take its eyes off you. And don’t lose time. Methodius will soon be thirteen...”

“You don’t have to tell me this...”

The hunchback stepped back and with his back, he took a step directly into the wall of the house.

“Then till we meet again, swordsman Ares, Baron of Gloom! You know, this is the only chance for you to vindicate yourself after that episode! Or again the lighthouse alone and the same cold waves — day in and day out!” A receding voice reached him.

“For me Light is too dull and Gloom is too foul. Perhaps the lighthouse and solitude is the best way out for me!” Ares thought.

Soon, when the first trolley bus, filling neighbouring alleys with an electrical rumble, briskly rolled along the parallel street, there was already no one near house № 13. However, from that morning on some devilry began to happen to house № 13. Informed people spat and crossed to the other side of the street. At first, as if not having any connection with magic, the chief of the Moscow Waterworks Management United Archive, one of the many successors of the former warrant officer of the Baltic Fleet, was unexpectedly taken to court for an unpleasant financial matter. An audit appeared out of the blue, fists banged on table tops, hearts became flustered, Validol tablets started to jump under the tongue, and centuries of dust was stirred up. Then the entire archive of Moscow Waterworks Management was tossed up into the air, there was a blizzard of papers, and it moved to a new address.

For approximately a month house № 13 stood empty, and during this time someone contrived to break the glass on the second floor using a bottle and warped the Zepter lock with a nail, having installed into its distrustful soul a steadfast aversion to keys. Furthermore, in broad daylight some unknown persons stole the cellar’s figured cast lattices, doing its duty still to the priest Belyaev and having a cross in the decor. They were stolen boldly in broad daylight and were never seen again. Almost immediately, scaffolding was built outside the house and dense safety netting was tightly stretched over it, and, strangely, they completely forgot about its existence...

Meanwhile the present story of house № 13 on Bolshaya Dmitrovka began from this day.

***

Methodius roamed near the house long enough until he was convinced that no one intended to come out for him. The solemn welcome with bread and salt was clearly called off. They either did not want to notice him or were expecting something well defined from him.

“You’re waiting for a visit? Excellent, I’m coming!” Methodius thought with a challenge.

After looking around, he lifted the construction netting and made his way in under the scaffolding. The house was covered in a network of lime ridges. It smelled of damp plaster, peeling by layers. Protecting his head from the metallic clamps of the scaffolding, Methodius found the door — high, wooden, with glass painted on the inside, which could plainly get first prize at a world competition of mediocrity. It opened in, and the scaffolding did not visibly interfere with it. Methodius knocked and then pushed it once, again, and a third time. The door did not yield.

“Hey! It’s me, Methodius Buslaev!” He purposely shouted and heard how his voice resonantly rolled along the empty corridors and the rooms.

Nothing. Nothing and no one. Methodius began to get angry.

“You came to me with your stupid trick! I’m leaving!” He shouted and was already about to leave, when suddenly he heard a low sound.

The door slowly opened a little. Slightly, not more than a third, not to invite but more not to prevent him from entering. Methodius squeezed his way in. He expected it to be dark inside. It turned out to be so. However, the darkness was not complete. He distinctly distinguished a tight landing with dented parquet and stairs going up. Inside, the house appeared deserted. Everything that presented some value had already been taken away. Somewhere on the floor were only some faded paper dropped for uselessness, and a chair without a seat.

Yielding to a vague call, Methodius went up the stairs and turned twice to the left, sometimes groping and sometimes guessing the curves of the corridors. The old oak parquet creaked from time to time under his feet. Somewhere a half-open window also creaked.

Stopping next to a large double door, Methodius thought for a second, and then decisively pushed it. He saw a round table — unexpected in this house deprived of furniture. Two thick black candles, inserted into the eye sockets of a skull, were burning on the table.

And again no one. Methodius experienced a mixed feeling of superstitious fear and irritation.

“The candles I can also light... A skull I can get hold of in the biology lab! Then what? How much longer do I have to wander around?” He asked unhappily.

The strange remark of Methodius had an unexpected effect: someone beside him burst out laughing. Methodius turned sharply but saw no one. He only realized suddenly that the narrow blade of a knife was flying towards him. Everything took place in countable seconds. He only had time to understand that this was death. It was not possible to dodge, but at the last moment, when the blade almost entered his body, without a moment's hesitation and not planning this earlier, he put forward a transparent barrier. Thin as a sheet of paper, durable as steel. The blade tinkled and bounced as if it had hit a solid obstacle.

“Not bad. Instinctive magic protection went into operation. If it were not so, it wouldn’t make sense to bother with the fellow at all,” said someone in an undertone.

There was neither smoke nor flash nor the smell of sulphur — a man simply appeared suddenly next to Methodius. He seemed to Methodius like a pagan idol. Widely set eyes, a broken nose, moustaches, and a beard with grey. A tuft of hair forming a point crawled in the centre of an uneven forehead. He was breathing hoarsely, with effort. But then he was standing so confidently on the floor as if he had grown roots into it.

“Well, what a wrist he has! A leg bone, not a wrist! You crush cut-glass only with such hands,” thought Methodius. He believed that this was the same magician, whom Julitta had invited him to meet.

Methodius did not bow, although at some moment an unknown force attempted to bend his head down against his will. However, he intended and had the ability to resist. Moreover, Methodius put so much force into his resistance that his chin pulled absurdly high up instead of coming down. Feeling awkward, Methodius carefully returned his head to the previous position. The man, from whom, it seemed, nothing could be hidden, cleared his throat with respect.

Julitta appeared beside the table with the black candles. From the previous Julitta there remained only the chubbiness, ashy hair, and the eternal mockery in the eyes — mockery at herself and the entire world. Her clothing had changed strikingly. Over a camisole hung a shoulder belt with a shiny narrow rapier with a bent tip. However, Julitta was not interested in the rapier customary for her. She paid it no more attention than an infant did to the dentures of a grandmother. She was occupied with a box of chocolate rum balls she was holding in her hands.

Ares turned to Julitta and, after nodding at Methodius, asked in a low viscous voice:

“This is the one? I wasn’t mistaken?”

“No, Ares. Methodius Buslaev in person. Uno piece. Dos arms, dos legs,” mockingly confirmed Julitta, biting off a piece of candy.

“An original lad. But I doubt that he’ll be right for us. He’s somewhat emaciated, tousled. Julitta, you haven’t made a mistake? You’re sure this is actually him?” Ares sternly repeated. However, it seemed to Methodius that he knew all the answers already.

Julitta nodded.

“Precisely him,” she said in the sterile voice of an ideal secretary, reading the forehead of Methodius like a sheet of paper. “Methodius Buslaev. Born twelve years ago in the hour of total solar eclipse. Pugnacious and quick-tempered. Inclined to generosity but vindictive. Has not bad health and comparatively flexible psyche. Loves trips.”

“It’s good that he loves trips. This is useful to us. One who loves trips will fall in love with flights,” Ares approved, in a business-like manner rubbing the cut bridge of his nose. “And now what about his parentage?”

“Parentage... mm... Parents are neutral, not warm, not cold. Lives with his mother and her brother. Amusing individuals; however, according to our profile, without abilities,” stated Julitta and ate two more rum balls after this sad news.

“Look, you’ll get sick!” Ares warned.

“Me? But any bug will die once it’s seen me! Let beauties suffer, it makes no difference to me at all: any flood, any swelling, any harmful microbes,” stated Julitta.

“You can talk about yourself afterwards. What more do we have on Methodius?”

“Impressionable. Last year for three months, he tailed a girl from a neighbouring school. He followed her from a distance, saw her home, hiding behind trees, but never once got up close to her. And then the girl’s knapsack with textbooks suddenly flared up. By itself! Must have been sublimation of desire... Now then, having put out the fire, they were acquainted. True, the great love kicked the bucket after the first dozen remarks. The girl turned out to be just slightly smarter than a stool. Our Signor Tomato was very disappointed.”

Methodius, getting mad from the explicit slander, wanted to interrupt, but Julitta stretched out her hand and with a long nail lightly scratched him on the cheek. Immediately Methodius’ lips and gums became stiff as if from narcosis and his mouth moved to the side.

“I hate it when they interrupt me,” said Julitta.

“What about our friend with regards to studies? Of course, moronoid knowledge isn’t worth anything, but it’s interesting all the same with what speed the brook of knowledge waters the convolutions of his brain,” continued Ares with his questioning.

“Signor Tomato is indifferent to his studies. Nothing to brag about. Although some teachers find that he’s not deprived of abilities, but...”

The stiff lips of Ares were extended into a smile:

“Oh, indeed this ‘could, but’ and the simple ‘but’! How often have I heard it! What short words, but how many people have stumbled over them in all the centuries! Much more than over all the objects lying about in the wrong place! More, Julitta! Don’t drag on!”

“But what’s more? Here he is before you. Methodius Buslaev. Please give him a warm welcome!” The little witch shrugged her shoulders.

Ares glided an evaluating glance along Methodius. Methodius felt like huge weights were on him.

“Hm... Well, I don’t know. Well, what do you personally think of him?” Ares asked.

“I simply adore this boy! He’s so nice and pleasant! Would eat him with kasha, but pity the kasha,” stated Julitta.

“Julitta, stop! Your little jokes bore me,” Ares frowned.

“I haven’t even started. Only just warmed up.”

“JULITTA!”

The voice of Ares barely changed, did not become louder; however, it was as if a bell began to ring in it, and both — Julitta and Methodius — felt this. “Careful!" Methodius said to himself. Julitta stopped eating candies and hurriedly bowed her head:

“My apologies, Baron!”

Methodius glanced at her with surprise. Is he really truly a baron? And if not, then why did she call him that?

“You already spoke with him about the training?” Ares continued, clearly and probably intentionally not turning to Methodius.

“Ne-a. He knows less about this than a hen knows about an omelette,” again growing bolder, Julitta said.

Methodius could not control himself. To stand on the side and listen to them talking about him in the third person as if about some insect was against his principles.

“Aha, I understand! You’re like the magicians from the idiotic little book about magic schools! The type that said holeinpipus, waved a wand, and it rained!” He said with a challenge, after discovering that his mouth had already thawed.

He was sure that he blurted out complete nonsense; however, Ares and Julitta exchanged glances with uneasiness.

“Holeinpipus? M-m-m... it seems I actually met something like that in elementary magic. Now I just haven’t heard about magic wands for a long time. It seems to me, magicians had given them up even in the Middle Ages, in an epoch of inflicting rage on artefacts,” knitting his brow, Ares said pensively.

“Perhaps we’re too late, and elementary magicians have already gotten into contact with him?” Julitta asked anxiously.

Ares quickly glanced at Methodius. That one did not have time to avert his eyes. When their eyes met, it seemed to Methodius that his brain turned into ice. Ice, through which the experienced guard of Gloom could easily see the essence.

“No,” Ares said lazily. “False alarm! They didn’t get into contact. He knows nothing.”

“But how about holeinpipus and the information on the schools?”

“Don’t get too wrapped up!” Ares brushed it off. “Common fault of the secret service. The usual flow of secret information into literature. Remind me tomorrow morning to send to the Chancellery a demand for systematic heart attacks of writers. We must thoroughly thin out our secret service agency. Remember?”

“Yes, Baron. Without fail,” said Julitta and made a note to herself on her palm with a pen that appeared suddenly. She clearly did not trust her memory. The dullest pencil is better than the worst sclerosis.

Ares gave a cough. And with this cough it was as if he had placed a dot showing that precisely now, from this point on, the serious conversation would begin.

“You see, Methodius, we don’t have schools. Tibidox and Magford exist only for elementary magicians. We represent another force. A regular recruitment of students and their training aren’t in our plans. Although now and then — in exceptional cases — we’re also forced to take students. However, not many of them. Hundreds of students in a millennium are more than enough for us. Moreover, realistically only a tenth of them stay. But even these ten remaining don’t know about the existence of the others, since we never bring students together. Our training is personalized,” he said.

“And why does only a tenth remain? They don’t like it at yours? They leave?” Methodius asked with a challenge. Although he also felt fear before Ares, all the same he wanted to tease the Baron of Gloom, testing the permitted boundaries.

Ares smirked sullenly.

“They leave. To there and there!” He showed with his eyes looking up and down. Having suddenly understood what he had in mind, Methodius swallowed hard.

“You’ll do nothing,” continued Ares. “The training of guards of Gloom is little like the training of normal magicians. We don’t have exams and evaluations. There are no compositions, accounts, retellings, or homework. We don’t learn incantations by heart and don’t brew decoctions from corns of shrew and St. John’s wart. We train guards, moreover by exceptionally dangerous methods.”

“Why dangerous?” Methodius asked.

“Because we play with those forces, which don’t distinguish between a game for real and a game for fun. It’s never for fun to drop into red-hot lava, to curse, or to chop with a two-handed sword. The notorious dragonball, considered a dangerous sport, is simply child’s play in comparison with our trainings. It’s better for us that a guard of Gloom would not live to the end of the training than fail his task and disgrace us in front of the guards of Light, our enemies.”

“A not so bad chance to remain among the living! One out of ten... On the other hand, this girl Julitta somehow managed to survive. What am I, worse?” Methodius thought, experiencing what they call: torn between desire and fear.

“And you want me to become your student?” He asked.

“Something in this spirit. As a student on probation, hired employee, combat magician — whatever you want. I don’t care a straw about words, the essence is important. Consider that I’ll take you in. You’ll do the same things as Julitta and me. In any free time, I’ll train you to fight, to cut off darx, and to master true magic, which is in you originally. The main thing is to wake it up. This can come in handy for you in the future. Of course, whether you’ll remain among the living, that I personally can’t promise you.”

“And if I refuse?” Methodius asked.

Julitta looked at Ares with alarm.

“If you refuse, you refuse. We respect freedom of choice. It’s the main and mandatory rule of the game. If this freedom doesn’t exist at least in theory, our battle with the guards of Light, which has been carrying on already for all eternity, would be devoid of sense from the very beginning,” coldly said Ares.

“So, I’ll be able to leave?” Methodius asked.

Ares looked at him with irony.

“Easily. We’ll erase today’s meeting from your memory and let you go. It’s another matter that sooner or later your gift will torment you nevertheless. It’s not possible to live with this gift calmly, trust me, but no one has the power to take it away from you. Even me. Except together with life, which, again I repeat, contradicts rules. But if you want — again return to your wretchedness. Set up petty dirty tricks for mother’s admirers and snitch small change from Eddy’s pockets,” he said.

“And what, you never have to snitch small change?” Methodius asked. Ares’ possession of information did not please him, although it no longer astonished him.

“Except according to the call of the heart. Magic will make you independent, in any case, of money. But now I need a definite answer: yes or no.”

Methodius hesitated, floundering in the embraces of temptation. The spectre of success, dressed in a black tailcoat with a collar of realized desires, beckoned him to itself with a well-groomed finger. On the other side of the scale lay the boring to nauseating school and the tiny room in the outskirts, in which Zozo and her eccentric brother enthusiastically damage each other’s nerves on the field of apartment battles. For Methodius, an interesting life in this environment was doubtful.

“Hm... It’s all the same to Eddy, but I can imagine how my mother will treat this. She doesn’t notice me when I’m there. But when I’m not — this she actually notices very much...” Methodius growled.

“I’ll assume responsibility for your maman. I promise she’ll agree. We’ll act courteously but firmly. Tomorrow morning one of our agents will phone her and settle all questions. I can even promise that we’ll manage without zombification magic or other tricks,” said Ares.

“And what is this agent?” Methodius asked.

Having heard the question, Julitta could not control herself and began to laugh. The nibbled candy in her fingers splashed rum.

“An agent? But really you’re not... In any event, you’re a little lost! You’ll even be introduced to these old foxes!” She could hardly utter through her laughter, but immediately she became silent, having caught Ares’ glance.

“If there are no other objections — then one more little ritual. Let’s manage without the rusty needles and the parchments... On your knees!” Ares ordered. In his hands appeared a heavy two-handed sword with a curved blade. The curve at the end for cutting darx was hardly noticeably.

Methodius knelt. The sword touched his cheek, burned it precisely like ice, and descended onto his shoulder.

“I, swordsman Ares, Baron of Gloom, god of war, take you, Methodius Buslaev, as student and armour bearer. I’ll teach you everything I know and be your guardian till death separates us...” raising his voice, Ares pronounced distinctly.

“‘Till death separates us…’ I would also like the guards of Gloom to have authority over me only till death...” Julitta whispered with envy.

Chapter 4

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 634