the whole Counsel…”
Stunned, Thomas shifted his gaze between the evil magician and own best friend.
“But you won,” Slymak continued. “The new Counsel took your way. We accepted your knowing, and the magic was extinguished and banned. The mankind started on the path of extending knowledge…”
“I did not want fires made to burn witches!” Oleg interrupted painfully. “The extreme was not only those fires all over Europe but about the knowing itself too. Of all the knowery, which means ‘to know,’ ‘to realize,’ ‘to understand,’ you only took the precise analysis to build all the work of Seven Secret on it. I know that to make a thing straight you need to bend it into other side and there had been a wild outburst of magic in the past… but it’s the way a common man may think! And
The voice of supreme magician grew stern, his eyes flashed angrily from under overhanging brows. “The culture has remnants of old beliefs, magic, superstition, and simply ignorance! That’s not the load to conquer a peak with.”
“Do other Secret Ones hear us talking?” Oleg asked suddenly.
Slymak’s eyes narrowed, he replied coldly, “Even grandmasters and plain masters hear us. In all the parts of the world. But there’s no help for you. Those on your side have only a silent sympathy, and your opponents came here to stop you. Culture is a sluggish, hesitating thing, while civilization means energy, confidence, firm grip!”
“The sunset is far yet,” Oleg said.
“What?” Slymak asked. His lips stretched in a jeering smile. “Will culture have time to develop the same firm grip?”
Oleg shivered, as if he got caught in a cold rain. “Gods forbid culture in power! As well as culture with fists… Let’s leave it, no agreement we can reach on this point. I see it’s not about me. Is it a plot against Kiev?”
Slymak laughed with pleasure. “Our men already have assumed power. Soon they come out openly. Kievins are already slaves, though they don’t know it. But soon they’ll know.”
Oleg clenched his teeth: pain was pulsing in head. He saw the city crackling in crimson flames, men running with raised axes dripping with blood, arrows and darts flying, mad horses galloping with empty saddles… “In thirteen years,” he whispered in depression.
Slymak jumped up in his armchair, took a firmer grip of armrests. His eyes widened. “Have you calculated?.. No, thus, you rely on intuition, or prognostication as you call it. Yes, thirteen is our secret number. We resolved to take power in Kiev and all the Rus’ in thirteen years. To take it openly. To bring down not only Pagan shrines that survived in some villages but the stupid Christian ones too. Wherever we win we’ll put our symbol — the five- pointed star! We’ll put it, Wise… About all the Kiev, our fangs and claws are hidden, waiting for an order, and here, in a safe place, the vigilant brain!”
Oleg drooped, his crackled lips moved, he spoke with entreaty. “Blood again?.. But Kievins shall take axes! When Ruses are at bay, they always clutch at this last argument!.. Fierce killing again, streams bursting their banks with blood…”
“You see?” Slymak asked with keen interest. “It’s a pity our calculations, however precise, give no visualization!”
Oleg shook his head. “Half of Kiev burnt, many people dead… But don’t be glad, Slymak. That day shall see the death of all your men. Of every single one.”
Slymak recoiled, as though punched in face. “When it happens, you say?”
“In 9882 by Russian calendar, 6621 by Jewish, 451 by Saracen, and if we count years since the birth of Christian god, then it’s 1113… Why so much love for baker’s dozen? After that butchery, you’ll never dare to act openly, Slymak. Secretly — yes, but openly — never.”[28]
Slymak narrowed his eyes, as though about to jump. “Won’t
“You know I’m against killing. And what’s the use of fangs and claws… without head?”
“Without head?” Slymak hissed very softly.
A glaring flash of blue fire dazzled Thomas. Oleg was flung to the wall, enveloped in quivering, strangely rustling, like butterfly wings, flames. Thomas rushed with raised sword on the evil wizard but hit against some invisible wall. With fright, he felt separated from the battle, as though by most transparent glass.
The wonderer pushed off the wall, a dazzling white light came on Slymak. The magician stood up (he turned out to be taller than Oleg), jerked his long lean hands overhead. He was unaffected by fire, and Oleg the same, flames clung to him like clothes, but Oleg clenched his teeth, thick blue veins bulged on his forehead, sinews strained in his neck, as though he shouldered a mountain ridge.
The blue fire around Oleg flared up. Slymak stepped to his foe, as though squeezing himself through the mass of invisible glue. The blue and white flames met. Slymak’s face stiffened, as well as the wonderer’s, both were breathing heavily.
Thomas kept clenching his fingers painfully on the sword hilt. Twice he tried to break through invisible wall, slashed it, but the heavy two-handed sword rebounded, almost wrenching his hands. Slymak made one more step. There was a terrible hiss, a downfall of white sparks. Both enemies, the magician and the sorcerer, clenched their teeth and fists, trickles of turbid sweat ran down their scary faces.
Slymak took in a deep breath, alerted. Thomas felt in fear that was a decisive moment in the fight. The blue fire blazed up, started to absorb the pure white light. Oleg bared his teeth in agony, his head tossed back, as he slipped down the wall helplessly.
Thomas, beside himself with fury, bellowed a war cry of Angles, brought the big two-handed sword down with all his might. The gleaming blade, which could break the rider in halves down to his saddle, met an obstacle, all but stopped, then broke through the invisible wall and the sword point reached the enemy magician between shoulder blades!
With a crash, the blue flames vanished at once. It went dark, as the white fire around Oleg was all but a smolder. Slymak turned slowly to Thomas, the sword fell out of the terrible wound, clanged down on the floor. Blood gushed out of the broad cut. Slymak pulled a face of pain mixed with astonishment.
Oleg struggled up his feet, leaning on the wall. His chest heaved fast, his breath wheezed. The wonderer’s eyes were clouded with pain. Slymak lurched in the middle of the room, fell to his knees. His dry lips uttered a faint moan, “How could you?..”
“With no remorse,” Thomas snapped fiercely.
“Noble knight… on back…”
“I don’t mind what a boar thinks of me!” He supported staggering Oleg. “Sir wonderer, are you safe?”
Blood trickled out of Oleg’s lips, set at once. He glanced askew at the dying magician who was still balancing on his knees in the puddle of own blood, said with reproach, “You could do it earlier… You are my only chance!”
Slymak was going as yellow as a dead man, the puddle of blood spreading.
“May I,” Oleg asked, “tell your will to someone? Your last words?”
The lips of supreme magician stirred, he whispered faintly. “Come back… To the head of the Counsel of Secret Magi… your own brainchild…”
Thomas sprang aside from Oleg in fear, felt the sword hilt.
Oleg shook his head. “Until there is power over power… I am the eternal opposition.”
Slymak collapsed face first, splashing the blood over the floor.
Thomas felt sick of the awful wound: cleaved bones, gurgling blood, the body still trying to live… “It is fatal even to a magician,” Oleg told him softly. “Let’s get away from here.”
The opposite wall cracked and slid apart, as though obeying his gesture — or it did obey. In a small room filled up with thick books, rolls of maps and drawings, a small woman sat at the table, her head rested on her hands. She started with fright, and Thomas recognized at once those raised surprised eyebrows, innocent eyes, tender features of her face.
“Sir Thomas,” the wonderer said gloomily, “let me introduce to you… my most dangerous enemy! Gulchachak or Gulcha… Not a true name, but that’s how they call her.”
The woman rose slowly. Her wide open eyes were searching his still face with disbelief. “You… you killed
