20th September
It was cold on the southeast coast of Dorgern. A piercing damp wind blew, the air smelled of salt, and pebbles crunched underfoot. Brannon counted his own: Longsdale, hound, witch, Dwyer. Yesterday Nathan spent the whole evening in vain to dissuade the detective from this stupidity, appealing to reason and a sense of self-preservation:
"Do you at least understand that you can simply be devoured?!"
"No wife. No children," Dwyer replied unperturbably. "I wrote my will."
"Well, where are you going into your fifty-six? Have you really not saved up for a quiet old age?"
Dwyer clenched and unclenched his fists, which he used to break horseshoes when he was in a mood, and looked at Brannon thoughtfully. The Commissar surrendered. In fact, it is not for him to tell others about their age...
Redfern was the last to arrive, and luckily without Margaret. Nathan wondered again how the pyromaniac will react to the appearance of the Dorgern consultants, if even one of them made him feel akin to stomach cramps. In the matter that was ahead of them, teamwork is everything, but what kind of coherence can we talk about if Redfern didn't even say hello and immediately walked away along the shore, carefully examining him?
"He'd better stay in his castle," Brannon surveyed the coast. Here and there, the stone fangs of the reefs jutted out of the water. "What if Roismann crashed here?"
"Here," the pyromaniac's voice rang out distinctly in Brennon's ear. "Found."
The commissar winced - the communication device, which he had put on at home, turned out to be quite loud. Dwyer shook his head in a daze and rubbed his temple.
"Go to the green cliff. There are remnants of scales and claw marks."
The cliff rose a dozen feet out of the water. Its base was lavishly streaked with long claws, and emerald scales glimmered in the pebbles. The hound began to sniff something intently in the pebbles, Jen scrambled up the cliff and began to look around.
"Maybe the serpent ate him?" Brennon asked with low hopes. Redfern snorted.
"And it swam to the shore to taste the owner, admiring the beauty of nature! No, judging by the nature of the scratches, the creature clung to the cliff so that Roismann could jump onto land, not into the water."
"I hope it sailed away," Dwyer muttered, crossing himself quietly.
"The corpse is nowhere to be seen!" Jen said. "There are no traces either."
Brannon skirted the cliff. There was no sign on the pebbles of where Roismann had gone when he woke up. The commissar made allowances for the fact that they stepped home from the ship, and the serpent owner had to row. So, perhaps Roismann just crawled over the threshold of the house now, and Nathan was not going to lose this head start.
"Hey!" Dwyer said. "There is something like that!"
Everyone huddled around his find: a darkened stone covered with a network of cracks. Longsdale and Redfern reached for the stone, one with a dagger, the other with a magnifying glass. The pyromaniac immediately pulled back his magnifying glass and said dryly:
"Please."
"The jumping portal activated by an amulet," Longsdale said confidently, examining the pattern of cracks from all directions. "As we feared."
"He will die earlier!" the witch objected. "He's not a flea to jump like that after rinsing in the sea!"
"Why? Quite the opposite: the gap between jumps allows him to more or less recover."
Dwyer stared at the Commissar pleadingly. Nathan coughed loudly.
"Jumping portal," the consultant instantly caught the hint, "is a spell that allows you to teleport to a certain distance in jumps, and not immediately, like we are from the ship to the theater. Such a portal takes less effort, but..."
"He has a limited range," the pyromaniac interrupted just as dryly. "And besides, you need to know exactly at what points the jumps end so as not to die somewhere in the swamp."
Brennon rubbed his temples in silence. If these two attacked him from two sides, then by the end of the operation he would have to be transferred from the post of Commissar to the nearest shelter for the madmen. Even one of them is hard to endure…
"Now it's clear what he comes here, sir," Dwyer said on reflection. "He could get lost in some port, but the distance was important to him in order to jump to the house."
Nathan didn't like the look Redfern gave the detective. He didn't want the pyromaniac to price his cops like they were bulls at a fair!
"Well, gotcha," the commissar nodded. "Is it easier to find him now or more difficult?"
The council pondered.
"Well, in fact, the main drawback of the jump portal is its almost complete impossibility to hide its trail..." Longsdale began.
"I'll follow the direction of the jumps," Redfern cut him off, stepped aside and began to lay out all sorts of magic doohickey on the pebbles.
"I wonder where his Mazandranman is?"
The consultant shook his head. During these days, Longsdale and the witch rummaged through everything they could find about Mazandran magic, but they could not determine whether it was a person or some kind of creature. On the one hand, the savage did not do anything supernatural, but on the other hand, something was not right about him...
The oval outline of a portal glimmered in the air — the two consultants from Dorgern, promised by Longsdale, arrived late, but even it was better than nothing. The commissar pulled himself up tensely. He had never seen other consultants, and just in case he suspected that it would be more difficult to get along with them than with the dealable Longsdale.
First, a large white wolf with blue eyes and a lush silver collar around its neck jumped out of the portal. The beast (at the withers just below a six-month-old bull) measured each one in turn with a gaze from under its brows and only then stepped aside, letting in a tall, thin gentleman of forty-five years old, gray-eyed and fair-haired.
"Gerhard Bergmannn," Longsdale introduced the colleague. Mr. Bergmann smiled affably and shook hands with Brannon and Dwyer, bowing slightly to the witch. Jen nodded to him with restraint.
A puma, like those large mountain cats that Nathan had seen in the north of Mazandran, gracefully slipped ashore. And behind the puma, a short, lean lady, with her brown hair pulled back into a bun, stepped onto the pebbles. She was dressed in a man's suit, and Brennon realized with longing that his worst fears had come true.
"Fraulen Regina Oettinger," Longsdale said, and the lady confidently held out her hand to the Commissar. Nathan was quite surprised by the strength of her handshake - it was in no way inferior to the man's, which, however, is not surprising: the physical strength of the consultants was clearly of unnatural origin. The portal disappeared. The hound, the wolf, and the puma sniffed each other and sat down in a row, looking expectantly at Brannon.
Bloody menagerie, the commissar thought, glad that they were far from civilization, although he could not let go of the feeling that he was taking the circus on tour. He wonder how this lady generally explains to the neighbors the presence of an overgrown cat in the house? And what about the clients?
"Gut mornink," Miss Oettinger said politely. For some reason, the interested glances of the Dorgen consultants focused on Brennon, and he felt uncomfortable.
"Oh, so it's you," Mr. Bergmann said, emphasizing "you" with special respect, Nathan was even embarrassed. "Herr Longsdale haz written on you a lot-often."
"Uh-huh," Brannon replied. "This is Detective Dwyer. I hope you will excuse Mister Redfern. He's, uh... um... a little eccentric."
The pyromaniac ignored the newcomers, buried head over heels in his instruments, but for now he kept himself in control. Longsdale switched to Dorgernian and quickly brought his colleagues up to date. As he spoke, Dwyer tugged at the Commissar's sleeve and hissed in a whisper:
"So, sir, there are a lot of them, or what? I thought ours was the only one!"
"About one hundred and twenty," the commissar answered evasively. "Kind of, um, international police. Do you want to go back to Blackwhit?"
Dwyer looked from the consultants to the animals, from the animals to the pyromaniac, swallowed, cursed, and whispered firmly:
"No, sir!"
Redfern made a sharp gesture for Brannon to come over. On the pebbles, the Commissar saw a map with flickering dots that stretched from the coast into the depths of forests and fields.
"Jumps," Redfern said. "The amulet is designed for six jumps. If we hurry, we have a chance to catch Roismann vomiting on the doorstep of his house."
"It is so hard?"
The pyromaniac muttered something about molecular structures and energy polarity in response, and Nathan intelligently left him alone. On the other hand, the worse it is for Roismann, the better it is for them. The Commissar took the map and walked over to a bunch of consultants who were buzzing about something of their own, consultant's.
"Here," Brannon handed Miss Oettinger the map. "Jumps leads here. Do you recognize the area?"
"Schellenbrook," Fraulein said. "When I gott out, I waz three milez from the Kaizer Road. Here." She ran her finger along the thick gray line. "Itt leads to Weislinden, a village with a post station."
"We need a new portal," Brannon glanced at Longsdale. "Can you organize?"
"Thatt won't be gut forr the three ov you," Bergmann said.
"So it goes. On our own, we will trudge into this wilderness for three days."
"I have mineralized tablets," Redfern whispered in Commissar's ear, sneaking up behind him inaudibly. "Please. Two each. Chew thoroughly."
"Want to go home?" the Commissar asked. The tablets tasted like soda and salt. "You don't seem to like them."
"I'm not afraid of them," the pyromaniac answered chilly. "It's just that they are unpleasant to me."
"Why?" Brannon wondered. He did not see anything unpleasant in consultants: very peculiar - yes, but just unpleasant?
"After the process, they are biological machines. I don't understand why you persist in thinking of them as human."
"Because they are human," the commissar said dryly. "With peculiarities, but human."
The consultants and their animals chose the flattest stretch of the beach and prepared the portal with Jen's help.
"How is Margaret?" Brannon asked to defuse the situation. "I mean, she won't rush after you?"
"She has something to do. I left her a book."
The Commissar decided not to specify which one.
"Keep in mind, as soon as we cross the border of Roismann's possessions, he will immediately understand it. We can disguise ourselves, but we will not be able to hide the fact of violation of the border."
"Damn it! You leave us no hope!"
"I open your eyes to reality," Angel replied with a smile.
"It's a pity, the surprise effect is good," Brennon chuckled. "But, in fact, that's why we need consultants. We do not know what awaits us inside."
"You are surprisingly fearless for a man who only knows one spell."
Dwyer stared in amazement at the Commissar.
"Do you want I teach you more?" Redfern asked good-naturedly, his eyes flashing slyly. "They'll spend at least an hour or two working on the portal."
"And what about the soul, sir?" The detective muttered. "Sin and all that?"
"Come on," Brannon decided unexpectedly. "Something simple and useful."
"Scutum," Angel said, and held up his hand. A dim sun flashed across the edges of the invisible shield. "You need to concentrate will and desire on an imaginary object."
"Oh my God," Dwyer sighed and retreated into the shadows under the cliff so as not to harm his immortal soul with the sight witchcraft. The commissar was not worried about his soul, so he clenched his fist, imagined a round shield like the South Mazandran ones and muttered:
"Scutum."
***
The portal brought them to the side of a wide road paved with white stone. Behind there were meadows, fields, groves, a river murmured in the distance, a village with a post office was visible; a thick spruce forest darkened ahead, and a mighty cliff rose like a wave to the right.
"Kaiser Road," Longsdale explained to Nathan. "It was built at the expense of the treasury and is supported by funds from it. Fraulen OOettinger, did you come out of the forest at about this place?"
The consultant nodded.
"Hiz lairr should be somewherre herre, butt..."
"I nott to see the differrence," Bergmann frowned at the spruce forest. "Human especially."
The animals began to sniff. The pyromaniac took round glasses with greenish lenses from an inner pocket and slipped them onto his nose. Jen stepped forward and stared intently at the forest.
"It'z verry extenzive. Roshenwald stretches for milez and milez, but the habitatt... the rezidence... of thiz mann, Roismann, iz therre, I'm zurre."
"Perhapz itt take place in the depthus of the forestt," Bergmann said thoughtfully.
"But which one?" Dwyer chuckled. "There are so many forests here. Miss, what do you remember?"
"I waz swimming in the riverr. Thatt place iz suppliet with waterr from the forest riverr. I climbed out into the underwaterr channel, and the currentt carriet me out. I swam for a long time and came ashore therre," she waved her hand towards the river. The road above it rose smoothly, turning into a bridge.
"Everything is real here," the witch finally concluded. "Forest, fields, river. But, if you were carried by the current out of the forest, then, I think, a masking spell was laid somewhere in the thicket."
"Well, let's go into the thicket along the river," the commissar decided. "Snappish, look for just in case... well, you know what," the hound obediently buried his nose in the ground, and both Dorgern consultants, as well as their animals, stared at him with genuine amazement.
"Oh, so you are symbionts?" Bergmann asked.
"Who?" Nathan shuddered. The pyromaniac gave a faint cackling laugh and whispered in Brennon's ear.
"And you say - just like human. This is how they define the concept of friendship."
They passed the bridge, turned off the road and moved into a fir forest along the river bank. They walked for quite a long time, when suddenly Snappish snuffled loudly, stopped and began to dig the ground with its paws. Soon it showed the people and animals huddled around the find a deeply dug metal trident with wide teeth, from which a cord of three twisted wires went into the ground.
"What is it?" The Commissar asked.
"A scarer for village lovers of firewood," Redfern said grimly. "Don't try to pull it out. And generally bury it back."
"Why?"
The pyromaniac held his glasses over the trident, and it immediately spat sparks.
"Shallow protective contour. Frightens off, averts the eyes, causes clouding of consciousness. But if Roismann flips the lever in his abode of evil, then all violators of the border will be fried to the bone within a radius of six or seven yards."
Dwyer gave a long whistle and tried to push the Commissar away from the dangerous thing.
"Can you see where the wire is going?" Brannon asked. The consultants, having consulted, divided the directions: Bergmann went in one direction with the wolf, in the other - Miss Oettinger with the puma. Jen again gazed into the thicket of the forest; transparent crimson lights flashed in the witch's eyes.
"It wasn't Roismann himself who buried this thing here," Brennon muttered. "He should have hired someone at least to dig the groove. Surely two or three corpses are buried nearby."
"Or not buried, but running around here in the form of undead," Angel kicked the ground into the hole. The Commissar darkened. Dwyer put his hand on the hilt of the revolver. "This stuff needs to be neutralized before we go inside."
"Why doesn't this contour act on us? Me and Dwyer?"
"Because I gave you an amulet that protects you from this kind of enchantment."
Longsdale, head cocked to one side, contemplated the trident and the wire.
"Fraulen OOettinger, Herr Bergmann, have you found the end of the contour?" he asked. His voice was so loud in Brannon's ears that the Commissar almost missed the consultants ' answers - the contour stretched on and on through the thicket.
"Come back," the commissar decided. "Apparently, Roismann laid several miles of this wire here, around the entire site. We won't waste any time going around."
"I don't think the contour needs to be neutralized," Longsdale said. "Fraulen OOettinger got out of Roismann's laboratories along the bed of an underground canal, and I think we should repeat her path.
"Do you think Roismann won't smell us underground?"
"In general, there is some logic in this," Redfern admitted displeased. "The contour is shallow and most likely runs over the river and canal. In theory, the ground thickness can protect us, as well as the flowing water, which very strongly dispels all the spell."
Brannon glanced over at the large, tall consultant, massive hound and remarked:
"Only one thin lady got out of the laboratories. Can we squeeze through this channel?"
"Oh yez!" Miss Oettinger confirmed eagerly. "We'll have to go turnz, butt we'll all gett through."
"Perhaps, it will be better," Jen said with a sigh. "I don't see any traces of the distortion of reality yet. Maybe we need to go deeper. In any case, it is such a powerful thing that I will detect it even underground. And you will feel everything too."
"Exactly!" Miss Oettinger cried, and Nathan winced. Why didn't the pyromaniac attach some kind of volume control?! "The distorrtion spectrum also workz underrground! I couldn't go back to the channel when I waz looking forr thiz place alone."
Mad woman, the Commissar thought. To climb alone to where she barely got out of!
"Well, if so," he summed up, "we will wait for your return and go down underground."
***
Nathan swam carefully underwater. He was surrounded on all sides by a transparent shell, which retained the air and did not let the water through, so that the gunpowder, weapons and clothes remained dry. Luminous balls glided nearby. This was the kind of magic Brennon loved, although Longsdale and the pyromaniac had to sweat over spells. The hound, the wolf, and the puma swam on their own, but apparently none of them needed air to breathe. People and animals moved in single file one after another, the witch was in front of everyone.
"I wonder if you can dive in such a bubble in the sea?" the Commissar thought. Redfern mumbled something about calculating pressure and air supply, but in general, something can certainly be improved or strengthened...
"Sir, where are you going?!" Jen's voice rumbled in the earpiece. Brannon jerked and looked around. The pyromaniac, the consultants, Dwyer, the animals were all there.
"Where are you turning? You will now return back where we came from!"
"Jen, where are you?" The commissar asked tensely.
"I'm here!"
The pyromaniac swam closer and said:
"This is it. This is where the distortion region begins."
Brannon swallowed involuntarily. He didn't even notice anything! He didn't even realize that he turned back. Judging by the alarmed faces of the consultants, they too did not notice how the enchantment affected them.
"Herre!" Miss Oettinger said. "Thatt'z whatt I said! I even didn't underrstand wherre the entrrance to the canal remained!"
"It is here!" Jen cried impatiently. "Directly opposite you!"
"None of us see it," Longsdale replied. "And you, too, can not be seen."
The water stirred strangely, and a witch suddenly appeared out of it, like Jack-in-the-box.
"What do we do?" Nathan asked. "Can you lead us through the barrier if we take your hands?"
"First you need to drill a hole in these bubbles."
"We can try to merge the two shells into one," Redfern suggested on reflection. "But then I'll have to go first to split the shells when we get to the other side. Longsdale will be in charge of the merger here."
"Well, come on," Brannon nodded. "We will transport the consultants together with the animals. Mister Bergmann, you will be next to Redfern, then Miss Oettinger, then I and Dwyer, and you, Longsdale, will be the last. How long will it take?"
"About half an hour."
"Well, let's hope Roismann won't have time to send the undead horde to intercept."
They didn't make it in half an hour. The water tried to fill into shells during the merger and separation, so in the end it took more than an hour and a half to cross. And what awaited them when they overcame the invisible barrier? The grate was of impressive thickness, in which a new fragment was clearly visible in place of the one that Miss Oettinger had broken down during her escape.
"Hell!" Brannon gripped Dwyer's hand vigilantly as he reached out to touch the bars. "Do you see the sparks? Enchanted!"
"You're just enlightened before our eyes," Redfern muttered. "A grid under a magical high voltage current. Incinerate in place when touched. Be glad that water does not conduct it, unlike electric."
"Where does this parasite get so much power?" Brannon grumbled. The pyromaniac raised an eyebrow.
"From the same place like the lake, which was known you. Roismann had the foresight to build his bunker over the magical vein."
"So there are a lot of them?"
"They entangle our entire planet with their net. I hope you are aware that we live on a circular planet, and not on a disk lying on elephants that stand on a turtle?"
The Commissar never thought about such deep questions. He was always worried about the more practical side of life.
"How to remove this damn current?"
The consultants huddled together and rustled among themselves in Dorgernian. The wolf, the puma and Snappish examined the lattice, but judging by their faces, the result was disappointing. Redfern scowled at the walls and ceiling of the canal behind the bars. He even intensified the light of one of the balls and brought it closer to the grate.
"See?" The pyromaniac asked in an undertone, and pointed Brennon to deep scratches in the stone. "The passage is guarded. Oettinger did not mention this."
"Maybe Roismann got a guard here after her escape."
"Even so, we still won't be able to miss the creature in such a tight space. Unless we'll feed her your detective and while she chews..."
"Hey!" Dwyer snapped indignantly. Longsdale turned to Brannon and said:
"We will try to concentrate the current on one section of the lattice. It will collapse, unable to withstand such voltage, but you all," he looked expressively at the pyromaniac, "better to step back."
"I'll take care of our protection," Redfern replied coldly.
"What do you think, sir," Dwyer asked quietly while the consultants were preparing the sabotage. "Does Roismann already know we're here?"
"I'm sure he knows," Brennon hissed: he didn't like it, not only because Roismann could have unleashed his undead on them, but also because he could sneak out from under his nose. Or maybe he has already sneak out... "But if he's not here, then at least we'll eliminate his lair with a hotbed of all sorts of carrion."
Dwyer scratched his sideburns with his five fingers.
"Sir, how many of them are there? Like Roismann?"
"Enough to forget about a restful sleep," Redfern responded through clenched teeth, and the Commissar involuntarily wondered how often the pyromaniac had met such people.
Part of the grate shimmered bright bluish white. There was a quiet crackling sound, the bars vibrated faintly; the pyromaniac muttered an incantation - scutem and something else, and a transparent barrier appeared between the grate and the people. A bluish flicker streamed down the bars, shooting out sparks, the grating shook and splashed in all directions with drops of molten metal. The water around them boiled, and Brennon was glad for the strength of the bubbles that protected them.
"Well, go?" Dwyer started up, but Bergmann suddenly threw up his hand, blocking their path. The puma froze, the hound and the wolf stared intently into the depths of the canal. A creaking rustle came from it, and four pale green eyes flashed in the darkness - two larger, two smaller. And then something crept out of the darkness with a hiss that Brennon had never seen in his nightmares. And if he would have seen - not the fact that he woke up...
"God..." Dwyer hissed and crossed himself widely, whitening and groping for a revolver.
The reptile was large, dark green and scaly, ten feet long. It crawled, helping itself with four underdeveloped paws and two huge and clawed ones. A tail with a sting wriggled at the back. A wet, forked tongue fluttered between the fangs in the mouth.
"What's this?" Brennon choked out.
"Some kind of hybrid," Angel replied, looking at the monster with interest. "A crossbreed of something with something. There are specific signs of tarasca, manticores and some other..."
"And how to kill it?"
The thing froze a couple of yards from the grate. Long gill slits moved around its neck. Jen raised her hand uncertainly and looked back at the Commissar.
"I can boil it," she whispered. But then the monster decisively intervened in the conversation: it leaned back a little, and then crashed into the grate with its whole carcass, stuck its paw into the gap and almost caught Bergmann, clawed its claws along the bottom of the river, raising a suspension of silt into the water. The magical current passing through the bars of the lattice did not bother the reptile at all, although it left dark stripes on its scales.
Seeing that the prey recoiled, the creature angrily whipped the walls of the channel with its tail and leaned on the grate so that it slightly bent. The consultants pushed the people away from the bars and took a position between them and the monster. Dwyer stammered "Pater Noster". Brennon could only watch helplessly as the puma, hound and wolf attacked the paw and face of the creature, clutching the scales with claws and fangs. The monster shook its head and threw the wolf aside, and then the fanged mouth closed on the hound's back.
"Snappish!" Brennon howled and lunged forward. The hound flushed, an. although the fire quickly died out in the water, the creature roared indignantly and missed what it had caught. A burnt maw with a blackened tongue flashed before the commissar. A huge paw almost hit Nathan on the floor, Dwyer and Jen barely had time to shove him away.
Suddenly Redfern shouted something in Dorgernian and rushed to the consultants. The monster removed its paw and tried with a blow of its head to enlarge the gap in the grate. The puma clawed furiously at its eyes, and in a second had taken out two of the four. Deep blue blood piles rose into the water. The creature pressed the big cat against the grate and sank its claws into its stomach. The hound and the wolf again hung on the monster's paw.
Brannon's head was suddenly clouded by the voices of Redfern and the consultants. They read in chorus some kind of incantation, from which in the cramped space of the river and canal began the real end of the world. The water bubbled and boiled, the grate was white-hot from the magical current, sparks, lights fell in all directions, and bluish-white discharges sparkled. The creature thrashed as if in convulsions, let go of the puma and beat its tail along the walls of the canal.
The Commissar and the detective in their bubbles were swept aside. Nathan, tumbling in the muddy water, could barely make out the figures of the consultants and their animals. He could not even out the bubble and only hoped that it would not burst from such shocks. A long, powerful discharge, similar to underwater lightning, flashed dazzlingly, a barrage of metal debris swept past the commissar, the long body of the puma flashed past. The scaled monster twisted convulsively and collapsed to the bottom of the channel, and finally there was complete darkness.