Volume 6, Chapter 5 – Margo’s Rise. Vilan or Kuribal?
With each passing day, Margo became more convinced that Vilan really was her imagination. People on the streets didn't notice him, merchants at markets didn't see him, he left no footprints during rain on cobblestones and dirt roads. But the fact that he avoided everyone yet didn't pass through her surprised her — because why would a hallucination do that? Just to make the brain comfortable? Margo wasn't a great alchemist or healer who knew how imagination and schizophrenia worked, but to her it seemed strange — though pleasant. Sometimes she managed to forget that this person didn't exist.
"What's your plan, Margo?" — Vilan smiled, walking down the road, weaving through the crowd.
"Find an engineer and deceive him," — she answered, feeling uncomfortable talking to herself in public.
"Deceiving is easy in words, but in practice..." — Vilan stopped, letting Margo catch up to him.
"We'll do it," — Vilan tossed firewood into the campfire of Margo's confidence.
"How?" — she was taken aback, stopping next to him.
And Vilan kept stepping left, then right, avoiding any contact with people who didn't notice him.
"We need to give them what they want," — Vilan repeated her words.
"I know!" — she sighed. "— But how do we give them what isn't what it is?"
"And why deceive?" — he smiled, as if showing the obvious. "— Think."
"EXACTLY!" — Margo cried out with joy — and all the people turned sharply, but didn't stop and slowly vanished around the corners of buildings, seeing her off with their gazes like a madwoman.
"Why bring ordinary metal to a magic engineer... If—"
"If you can fill the object with magic and bring it to the engineer," — they said in unison.
"Ha-ha..." — Margo smiled, ignoring the whispers of the crowd. "— Follow me."
Margo quickly, like the wind, sped off down the roads, knocking people over along the way and nearly falling under horses' hooves. Street after street she ran — and Vilan seemed to have vanished without a trace. He didn't run after her headlong, but somewhere walked slowly in the distance.
Margo stopped sharply at an intersection, forcing carts to halt abruptly — and the drivers angrily showered her with curses and every "kind word."
Waiting for the unhurried Vilan, Margo looked at him angrily, not understanding why he (she) wasn't rushing to realize the idea.
"Forgot how to run?" — she asked.
"Why hurry if we've already won? There's no competition — no one is even planning to do the same thing except the DS," — he explained his position. "— But I think even the DS isn't ready to spread its weapons to the masses — for them it's an advantage. Why give the world a slingshot while the world runs around with clubs?"
"But... But..." — she tried to find a justification for her infantilism.
The drivers had already fallen silent and just watched as some girl stood in the middle of the road, blocking traffic and talking to herself.
"Haste is only needed when catching fleas — and rushing to bring the world to its knees is destructive," — he added, pacing from one edge of the road to the other.
Margo fell into thought, stepping off the roadway. The drivers who'd been listening with interest had long lost sight of the madwoman — for them she was a minute's entertainment in the cycle of "home-work-home."
Sitting down on the grass by the road, she wondered if he was right. But all the recent dialogues with the people of this world confirmed her rightness. No one believes in a future where a pistol can replace magic. No one is even planning to do the same thing right now. And the DS... It's somewhere out there — but why would they give this to the whole world if they're a new state? It's easier for them to keep these weapons to themselves and hold everyone back until they get used to the Democracy of Silence.
The wind blew across Margo's face, pulling her from her thoughts. She raised her head and looked at Vilan standing before her. He showed no expression — as if he solved such questions every day and taught another psychopath about life. (It's strange — he's not much like Margo. Maybe that's the point? Margo's brain simply assembled someone who knows how to lie and exist in a world of herds — and use them against themselves.)
"Fine..." — she exhaled. "— First we need the nearest magic shop or market. We'll fill the object with magic and go to the engineers."
"An excellent plan," — Vilan praised. "— But it's better not to fill the object stupidly, pouring magic over the whole thing — no. That's too simple and noticeable," — he explained, pacing before her from side to side, hands behind his back.
"We can draw up a technical specification," — Margo came up with. "— We need to make it so that it's clear what this magic supposedly does in this object," — Margo began to think.
"Right. It's like forging an artifact. Here you can't just fill it — here you need to create knots and the meaning of these patterns," — Vilan added calmly.
Margo and Vilan, sitting under a tree in a small park, started drawing ideas on the ground with a stick. How the magical flows in the pistol would look. For hours on end, Margo enthusiastically drew lines on the ground, not noticing how time flew. She didn't hurry — she just did what she wanted.
And when the idea finally transformed into reality on the ground, night fell. Under the light of magical lamps emitting a soft yellow color, an interesting drawing of magical paths was visible.
The lines ran across the entire body of the pistol, twisting into strange forms at the end of the barrel. Margo didn't know where the sound came from — but when the pistol fell, it hit the back part, which made her draw a large knot exactly in that place, spreading thin lines in all directions along the pistol's shape that turned into a fine web and wrapped the whole pistol.
"Huff..." — Margo stretched. "— How do you like it?"
Vilan leaned in, studying the drawing.
"Very good, actually. You did well."
"Yeah... Only now this needs to be transferred to paper," — she sighed with a smile.
"Absolutely not," — Vilan shook his head. "— You came up with how it'll look. Now..." — he looked at the drawing on the ground. "— Destroy it."
"What??" — Margo jumped to her feet with complete shock in her eyes, holding back the fury that wanted to burst through her teeth. "— I did this all day, and you're asking me to destroy what I created?"
"Exactly," — Vilan nodded. "— It must be in your head, where no one can get it — not in the public domain on the ground or on paper."
"No way!" — she shielded the drawing with her body. "— You yourself said no one cares about this — why hide it if everyone's indifferent to the pistol??"
"Heh..." — Vilan smiled, walking around the tree and coming up behind Margo. "— But right now it's not a pistol — it's a 'magical artifact.' And engineers are quite meticulous people. One will make it and forget — another will start searching for the meaning and essence of all these patterns."
"But wait—"
"No time to wait."
"We have tons of time."
"While the drawing is in the public domain, time is limited," — Vilan parried. "— Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock."
Vilan circled around Margo like a metronome, voicing the seconds, hammering each "tick" into her head, piercing her eardrums.
"STOP!" — she shouted, trying to calm him. "— But even if I destroy it, I need to somehow convey it to the engineer — and how will he make what he doesn't see? And he could also figure out it's not an artifact."
"Seems you've gotten completely confused," — Vilan stood in front of Margo. "— We need two different people. One will create the pattern — those people don't care what to do on objects. Thousands of people come to them daily with all sorts of crazy items. He'll create the pattern — and the second person, the Engineer, must copy it," — he spread his arms to the sides, as if showing how simple it all was. "— And the engineer — you can tell him whatever your soul desires. That it's broken, that it's just an old trinket of your great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother."
Margo fell into thought, sitting down next to the drawing.
She needed to deceive twice — and then deceive the Engineer dozens, hundreds, thousands of times. Ask him to make it again and again. And then involve other engineers, investors, and those who'll buy it.
"How complicated everything is..." — she looked at her drawing, illuminated by the soft yellow light.
"Everything is simple if you don't dig into the deep future," — Vilan explained calmly. "— Right now we just need to create a working copy and understand how the pistol works."
Inhale-exhale.
"Fine..."
A rough boot print appeared on the drawing, completely splattering the whole pattern across the ground.
—
The bells on the door jingled, announcing a new visitor. A rectangular little room filled with various magical artifacts and blueprints that proudly displayed themselves in frames along the entire perimeter of the right wall — and opposite them stood a massive monolithic cabinet with shelves holding curiosities and artifacts of amusing shapes and beautiful colors.
An old man entered from another room, sitting at his work spot and pushing aside old orders he hadn't finished or simply didn't want to. He raised his head and looked at the visitor, waiting for their item or whatever else they might bring him.
"I'm listening — how can I help?" — the old man smiled on autopilot, pointing at his desk, waiting for action.
"I have..." — Margo was a little nervous, trying to control her hands and calm down.
"Bolder — the idea is in your head, and right now it's one step closer to reality," — Vilan encouraged from the corner.
"I have," — Margo swallowed a lump. "— I need to fill this object with magic," — she carefully placed the cold pistol on the desk before the craftsman.
The old man pulled out a loupe-eye, inserting it into his eye socket, clamping it with the muscles around his eye, and quickly ran his gaze over the pistol.
"Good, what are we doing?" — he finished his brief examination of the object's shape. To him it seemed quite simple and smooth — shouldn't take long. "— Do you have a drawing or designs?"
"No," — Margo shook her head, holding the edge of the desk. "— From my... From words..."
"Excellent," — he nodded, pulling out tools of various widths, diameters, depths, and patterns. "— I'm listening extremely attentively."
Margo turned, looking at the corner where Vilan stood, and nodded with a smile. The old man peeked out from behind Margo to see what she was looking at — but found nothing interesting.
"Let's start here," — Margo pointed with a trembling finger at the back of the pistol. "— Here will be the main magic knot."
The old man noticed her long fingers shaking and looked at her.
"Did something happen to you?"
"No..." — she said quietly. "— This thing is very important to me..."
"I understand, I understand," — the craftsman nodded. "— What diameter is the main knot? And what actions should it cause?"
Margo thought for a second.
"Five to seven millimeters. It should be a storage."
"Ah, something like a mini-buffer."
"Exactly."
The old man took a large tool — and his hand glowed, transferring a flow of magic from his body through the tool onto the pistol as onto a canvas.
Slowly, step by step, those very patterns that Margo had recently only seen on the ground, in the dirt, were drawn out. Now they lay on the cold metal and took on a more confident appearance, becoming pleasant details of the pistol for the eye.
The work was finished, the money paid — and as soon as Margo left the shop, she burst into tears, holding in her hands the creation that was already hers, that she herself had imagined and realized. Even though right now it was just a beautiful coat on the cold metal of future technology — the fact that Margo had come up with this coat drew genuine emotions from her soul. She'd walked toward this for a month — and now she was on another step, somewhere between the present and the future.
Tears streamed down, and the smile didn't slide off her face while Margo watched with childish curiosity the transformed pistol under the thin rays of the sun breaking through the overcast sky.
"Congratulations. This is your first victory," — Vilan slowly approached, standing beside Margo.
"Thanks..." — she whispered quietly, swallowing snot again and again — but her confidence had stepped over the former Margo, who'd only had attempts. Now she saw that she really could change something in this world made of a herd of sheep.
"Rest?" — Vilan asked, taking off his hat, twirling it in his hands, studying its shape.
"Eat and then to the engineers," — Margo smiled, wiping tears from her reddened cheeks.
"Then see... Hm..."
"What?" — she raised her head and looked into Vilan's eyes.
"You need a name — and your creation too."
"A name..." — Margo thought, stepping aside and sitting on the steps leading to someone's house.
"I want to call the pistol Margosha..." — she said quietly.
"Sounds elegant, cute — and deadly in the future. I like how it'll sound," — Vilan smiled and started acting out a scene. "— I've got Margosha in my pocket," — he reached for the pocket of his knitted pants. "— You don't want problems..." — he raised his eyebrows and quickly switched to the other side of the confrontation, where he started playing the opponents. "— Hey! Scythe! He's got a Margosha, run!" — he said in panic and started running.
Margo couldn't hold back and laughed, watching the scene with fascination.
Even though from the outside it looked like a psychopath laughing at emptiness with tears in her eyes — she didn't care. Right now she was enjoying seeing how Vilan saw her future creation in the masses.
"And what about your name?" — Vilan returned, adjusting his hat.
Margo didn't want to have a name as the creator and the one who'd physically be in the front rows. She was afraid of those who might get angry at her — and if you think about it, that's the whole world that lives by the principles of bombards, magic, and knight formations, where force is measured not as strength but as quantity. It's simple in their paradigm: if the enemy has a mage and we don't — we field a couple thousand cavalry and bombards. If the enemy has no mage — we field more troops than him. But now the pistol is what will measure not force and quantity — but skill. Because the pistol is a low threshold of entry, unlike magic, which takes decades to learn.
"I'm no one," — she answered quietly, so that even she couldn't hear it.
"Self-critical."
"I mean I don't want to be on stage."
"Interesting."
"I want to be in the front rows — but where the shadow falls."
"The front row is the front row — no matter where you sit, you see everything the same as the others — but they don't see you," — Vilan added.
"Exactly. Now — eat," — she said and put the beautiful pistol back in her knitted bag, slowly heading down the road.
—
After eating, her head was still filled with thoughts that things were finally working out for her — everything was going where she wanted, and all that remained was the hard part... To create the first sample in the likeness of the original.
After an hour of walking through various workshops, Margo was choosing not an engineer but a house. For her, this was the final point of her path — where her organization would start to grow. She wandered for hours through different workshops — somewhere she didn't like the engineer, somewhere the workshop, somewhere the location. She went through them like a person planning to buy a house, and it was important to her that everything was as in her head:
A large two-story workshop in a noisy and popular industrial district, with an eccentric, preferably carefree, engineer who doesn't ask questions at all: "What is this?", "Why is this line here?", "How should it work?", "Why do the magic lines lead to nothing?" She needed someone ready to work and not ask questions that reveal the truth — or, conversely, someone who wants, like her, to show the world a new era.
"Not working out?" — Vilan stopped at another workshop, waiting for the disappointed Margo to come out.
Vilan started a countdown on his fingers.
"Three, two, one."
"Damn it!" — they said in unison as soon as Margo left the workshop.
"Why are these people so..." — Margo said displeasedly, yanking her sleeve that was stuck in the door.
"STRANGE!" — she ripped her sleeve out of the doorway — and Vilan said the word along with her, but quieter.
"They're all just..."
"A stupid herd believing in their magic," — they said in unison.
Vilan had known all her reactions for a long time — and this phrase "herd believing in magic" had already become a permanent slogan for any of Margo's failures involving, even by a micron, a person who considered magic absolute.
"You remember what you wanted," — he asked calmly.
"Yes! To bring them to their knees and put Margosha in a bowl and force them to learn," — she answered nervously, adjusting her torn sleeve.
"No. When we met."
"Well..." — Margo started recalling all the events that had already flown by unnoticed with Vilan. "— I wanted to get into the shadow world."
"Bingo!" — Vilan said and snapped his finger, pointing at her, approaching. "— And also, in secret..." — he leaned toward her ear, which was quite difficult given the height difference. "— In the shadow world there are even... Engineers. Right here," — he started pointing his index finger down.
"And how do I get there?" — Margo's eyes lit up.
"Heh," — Vilan smiled. "— It's all disgustingly simple!"
"Hmm, well tell me your plan."
And Vilan began scrupulously explaining how she could get to where forbidden things are created — without documents or stamps.
—
"Um... Are you sure this is the right style?" — Margo circled the mirror, evaluating the strange, eccentric outfit.
"Pfft... A specialist made this according to your specifications," — Vilan smiled, examining the tall Margo from all sides.
"But it's some kind of rags," — Margo objected.
"Hey, lady! As ordered, so done!" — the tailor ran up, his ego wounded.
"Sorry..." — Margo blushed, examining herself from all sides.
A bunch of holes, part of her body exposed — looked more like a homeless woman or a harlot than someone bringing new technology into the world.
—
"Okay, I'm ready," — Margo blushed, constantly trying to fix her bizarre hairstyle that looked more like a hedgehog's cap with a bunch of trash stuck on the needles.
"With Kuribal we'll make it through!" — Vilan said proudly.
Margo smirked and headed for the tavern.
"To hell with them all," — she added and vanished into the tavern.
"O-kay..." — Vilan was disappointed.