Volume 6, Chapter 4 – Margo’s Rise. In Life There Can’t Be “Just”
A couple of days later.
"Okay, one more time," — Kavi adjusted his pants busily, his heels clicking on the city's cobblestones.
Margo walked beside him, writing on paper with a quill, managing to hold the inkwell at the same time — all while moving, navigating through crowds of people.
"You go in and say what needs to be done... Something like that," — she began, taking the quill in her teeth, freeing her hand, and reached into her knitted bag for the pistol. "— Hold this carefully. And say it's part of a magical..." — she tried to come up with a good phrase that wouldn't be a lie but also wouldn't scare the newly-minted diplomat. "— Artifact... It was..." — she flipped the page and just started reading, assuring herself she wasn't lying but simply reading what was written.
"This is an artifact from the ruins at the foot of the High Mountain, and it has two parts — a magical one and a semi-magical one, which are, in essence, conductors for the magical part."
Kavi walked around a confused guy studying the city and overtook Margo, starting to walk backward.
"So it's an artifact from the High Mountain... That was... I forgot."
"Yes! Exactly!"
"Just kidding!"
"Repeat."
"Yes, sir!" — he saluted in the GPSD style (left thumb touches the temple, then moves to the left shoulder). "— This is an ancient artifact found in the ruins at the foot of the High Mountain, and so on."
"No, it's not like that," — Margo nervously grabbed the inkwell, drilling him with her gaze.
Kavi played with the pistol, which also infuriated Margo — realizing they were surrounded by thousands of people and it could fall and kill everyone with sound or hit someone with metal.
"Hold it more carefully!" — Margo ran over, pressing the pistol into Kavi's chest and fixing that position with his hands. "— Now repeat."
And he repeated. Three times.
They reached the city outskirts, and the noise of the streets was replaced by the work of industrial estates and warehouses. The clicking of Kavi's shoes became distinctly audible — on par with the roar of furnaces and the clang of sledgehammers.
"And what will you be in this business?" — he asked calmly, strolling with a leisurely gait.
Margo raised her gaze from the papers and smiled.
"No one."
Kavi thought. Very thoughtfully — and stopped in the middle of the road, blending with the noise of cargo carts and workers' chatter. Margo stopped behind his back and looked at the back of his head, praying to LiuHia that everything would go smoothly.
"Something wrong?" — she asked quietly, trying to break through the deafening noise from all sides.
But Kavi heard — as if he'd landed in a vacuum where he could only hear her words and anticipate the developments.
"I refuse," — Kavi spun sharply and shoved the pistol into Margo's chest — sending all the sheets and the inkwell flying onto the stone.
The paper was caught by gusts from the fast-moving horse carts, carrying everything into the sky, while the ink spread in a big stain across the stones.
"What?" — Margo's eyes darted in fear. "— Why?"
"It looks like a criminal organization where the boss is trying to find a pawn," — he threw over his shoulder, quickly weaving through the dense flow.
Margo boiled over — the plan had collapsed again, back to the start. Her eyes filled with tears, and the ink stain slowly spread under her feet, quickly scattering across the road.
"I can do this..." — Margo took a deep breath and ran across the road, nearly getting hit by a horse's hooves.
"STOP!" — she shouted, running into an alley and catching Kavi in the last second.
Kavi stopped — but didn't turn around.
"YOU'RE RIGHT! BUT NOT ENTIRELY!" — she shouted furiously from the other end of the alley. "— Yes, it's illegal — but partially! That is, it's..."
Kavi started walking around the corner.
"YES, IT'S A CRAZY, RECKLESS, AND STRANGE IDEA!" — she cried out with tears streaming down her cheeks. "— It's illegal! Dangerous! Deadly! And there's only one way — forward! But this is the future — better to own this future than to get punched by it when you're not expecting it. IT WILL COME! I KNOW IT!"
Kavi said nothing.
"Maybe..." — Margo began quietly, taking a step forward. "— I'll die. Maybe I'll lose this race. But!" — she stopped sharply. "— I'd rather try and grab onto the last car of a departing Rumalin than stay here... In this herd-like present."
"How interestingly you tell it all," — Kavi sighed, swaying back and forth without turning around. "— You filled an ordinary criminal organization with meanings of 'supposedly' something new and something that will change the world."
"Y-y-you... Don't believe?" — Margo wilted, slowly sliding down the dirty alley wall.
"Believe? In what?" — he smirked, watching carriages race past on the other street in different directions. "— I believe you're trying to drag me into crime — that's clear. But why make up 'something new'?"
"Same as everyone... A herd..." — Margo muttered under her breath, losing all hope. "— Sally... Mits... Menni, you, and hundreds of engineers and blacksmiths..."
Silence...
"LEAVE! Get out! You! LiuHia, all of you — naive little sheep! Who don't understand!" — she pounded the wall with her fist. "— KURIBAL! I hope we'll manage with you!" — she curled into a ball, trying to shut herself off from this whole "naive world."
Silence. No one tried to take a step forward — everyone just ran away, shouting their mantra "Magic is the Grail." There are no people who understand her, who'll grasp the idea, who won't be afraid. Who'll just take it and go with her. Crime or not — what difference does it make? The main thing is what's at the end — and how to get there doesn't matter at all! Margo is ready to walk over heads and be outside the law — but now she also wants to prove it to this whole world, to open their eyes.
—
For a couple of days, Margo just tried to understand who she was and how to act. Kavi left and never came back. She was alone again — but ready to act, ready to reach the goal by any means. And the most insane way was to get into the black world. The world of syndicates, the world of killers and psychopaths. Because she was also a psychopath for this world.
"All that's left is to find a bulletin board that shows the path to the shadow world," — Margo laughed nervously, rocking her head side to side, holding onto the windowsill. Outside the window, people bustled, hurrying somewhere, horses rode by, and everything lived its own life. "— And someone among these little people clearly knows the way to the secret room."
"How to tell? They're all the same, all ordinary — what can distinguish a criminal from an ordinary resident?.." — she mused aloud, studying the people outside the window.
And for hours on end she sat on the windowsill, knees pressed to her chin. Her gaze scanned the entire street and windows of the house, every step — trying to fish out the one who'd lead her to the right place. Already at night, with sticky eyes, she began noticing people — whether a vision or her imagination. She saw a guy standing at the intersection, tapping out seconds like a metronome, slowly rotating his head from left to right. Hours later he slowly walked away, sipping something from a flask — and a new person appeared in his place, also tapping his foot, sometimes shifting to the other edge of the street for some reason. Along the streets, guys and girls passed by in crowds heading one way — and after some time returned along the same street, already holding sacks or boxes that quickly vanished from their hands as soon as a carriage passed by.
When Margo's eyes could barely hold on and her consciousness was drifting, the guy at the intersection's gaze — sharp and precisely into her eyes — instantly woke her, making her fall off the windowsill while her heart raced at a furious speed. Huge exhaustion, paranoia, and a broken psyche were breaking her every second. This fall shut her down, taking her consciousness into a deep, pitch-black sleep.
—
The sleep was deep, and somewhere against the backdrop of serene emptiness, loud knocking could be heard — but her body, even if it wanted to get up, couldn't physically or mentally. And Margo spent a whole day in a hungry coma.
Her eyes lazily, heavily tried to open — but were filled with slime that caused pain with every movement. Her body ached, and her stomach had sunk inward, already going under her ribs. But the knocking didn't end — it grew louder and louder, starting to pound her ears like bells. And Margo didn't know what it was: hallucinations or reality?!
She emptied the whole bucket of water with difficulty, spilling most of it on herself and the floor. The knocking didn't stop — it seemed to sound from inside her head, and her ears were plugged.
KNOCK-KNOCK!!!
"Go knock your own head!" — Margo cried out, exhausted, and passed out.
A bunker in an unknown location.
A young man quickly ran from the magical map lying on a table in a large bunker, filled with magical apparatuses everywhere.
"Sir. He has arrived. One aura flash was detected. One at ten kilometers, in the city... Magama. In the Duchy of Firkun," — the young man reported.
A tall man with rough stubble hurried to the map, where a black dot was visible, spreading across Magama like water ripples.
"Kuribal... He's here. In Firkun," — the man said quietly. "— The second coming of an Archon in half a year..." — he sat down in the chair with fright. "— Thousands of years of silence, and now one unknown and..." — emptiness appeared in his eyes. "— Kuribal..."
"This is truly..." — the young man tried to find words. "— Impressive. To witness this personally is a separate pleasure," — he savored it, standing to the right of the chair.
"Send two Archmages to this city to search for the Archon."
"Yes!" — the young man bowed and ran off to another room of the bunker.
—
"Good day," — an unknown man said, contemplating the view from the window.
Margo hadn't fully woken up yet, but the black silhouette by the window bored into her head. She jumped sharply to the wall, no longer feeling her former exhaustion and pain throughout her body.
"Who are you?" — she asked, pulling the M18 toward herself.
The man took off his hat and turned to her, revealing a dark-skinned face and a small smirk on one side of his lips.
"Does it matter?" — he shrugged, watching as Margo slowly moved the pistol across the table with a clatter.
"What do you want?" — Margo grabbed the pistol with both hands, pointing the barrel at him — though she didn't know how to use it or what it might lead to.
"And you're a girl with a screw loose. Aren't you?" — he waved demonstratively near his temple, noticing Margo's wide pupils darting all over the stranger's body.
"I'm a psychopath!" — she shouted, the pistol ringing as it echoed off the walls of the small room.
"I know how to help you," — he smiled, turning back to the window and folding his hands behind his back.
"And how's that? A hospital and three meals a day?" — Margo laughed loudly. Her hands trembled, and the pistol constantly made a metallic clang that destroyed all silence and filled every pause between words.
"The door to the dark world," — he took a step toward her.
Margo froze, not knowing what to answer. How did he know about her goal — and who was he...
"Why??" — she pushed him aside with her hand when he came too close.
The stranger leaned down, unhurriedly picking up his hat from the floor.
"I want to see the new world from the front rows," — he added, dusting off the hat.
Margo froze, suspecting this figure was simply a product of her imagination and didn't actually exist.
"Y-you..." — Margo slowly slid to the floor. "— You're not real... You're not real... You're delirium, I'm still asleep. Asleep. I died, and you're my schizophrenia," — she rattled off desperately, trying to find at least some justification for the ease and simplicity with which she'd "found" the person.
In her head, the person who'd show her the path to the dark world looked like someone she'd have to fight for her life with — someone who'd try to kill her every second, and someone so greedy for gold that he'd take the last thread off Margo's body.
"Reality... Fantasy, Dream," — the Stranger lazily listed on his fingers. "— Is there a difference? Maybe I'm your alter ego? Or just..."
"NO 'JUST'!" — she cried out desperately. "— In the world, nothing can be 'just'! I spent a month trying to achieve anything, and here you come and say 'oooh! I'll help you'! Because everything's so 'JUST'!"
"Once in a lifetime, anything can happen," — he shrugged. "— Maybe it's just simple, or maybe..." — he leaned over her, approaching her ear. "— Maybe we'll all die under the coming future."
When he used her own words, fury and the desire to beat him exploded in Margo's body. She'd built the whole meaning, tried to explain it to the whole world — and some guy just came and tried to explain her own words back to her.
"This is all a very high-quality hallucination," — Margo began to think, but the man's breath on her ear tried to prove otherwise. But she couldn't accept the fact that this person was real and knew all her words — and said them to her with a calm face, right into her eyes.
"What do you want..." — she whispered quietly.
"I'm a product of your fantasy... Why would an intangible object demand anything?" — he smiled, pulling away from her. "— Only to walk this path together."
"Yeah, and we'll have tea and cookies in the front rows," — she responded skeptically to his words.
"Most likely," — he shrugged, watching the world through the window.
"'Most likely'? Is that a joke or his... My desire?" — Margo thought, holding her head with both hands, trying to understand what kind of hallucination this was.
He looked short — about one hundred seventy-five centimeters — and thin, but the black jacket emphasized his body and made him look broader. The dense knitted wool of the jacket, in which you could peer into every crack, created strange patterns on a micro level. And the rounded hat that lay on his ears added height and elegance.
Black skin was something from the category of "impossible" for her — in her whole life she'd never encountered such people, which added a plus to the "hallucination" column.
"Coming?" — he turned, studying Margo.
"Where?" — she was taken aback.
"To create the future," — he answered calmly, approaching her.
After sorting through doubts and spending her nerves on the whole journey, Margo wanted to trust at least herself — in the form of this man, whom she fully considered her own imagination. And only she couldn't deceive or betray herself.
"Let's go," — Margo got to her feet, packing the pistol and rifle into her knitted bag.
The doors slammed shut, leaving behind only an empty room with ringing silence.