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“Ha-ha-ha! Who cares?”
“Don’t I even get a say in your world?”
“You are not in our world yet,” the stranger said. “And, after all, haven’t you heard the saying ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do’? We have our own rules. You must follow them. Otherwise, I will leave and you will miss your only chance.”
The stranger looked as if he did not care at all: He talked about a fight in an unengaging voice, as if Vlad was a plant or a bird. He even turned away, staring at a bush.
“So, I’ll be going now?” he asked without a backward glance.
“No! Wait! I will fight!”
“Oh, thank you!” the stranger took a bow, pretentiously. “To make it less frustrating for you, consider this fight your entrance test.”
“Are you serious?!”
“I’m dead serious. You heard me – I didn’t invent the rules! If you pass, you belong to us. And if you don’t…” the palm of his right hand burst into flame.
The orange glow of fire lit the stranger’s face and eyes.
The next instant, a ball of fire was swooshing toward Vlad. He barely dodged it, but his shirt caught fire. Vlad tore it off, the buttons fell down to the ground. Bare-chested, the boy ran into the forest. Hardly had he reached the trees when a wall of fire rose in front of him. He was taken off the ground and thrown right at the stranger’s feet. The fire was still blazing in the stranger’s hand. Hitting the ground, Vlad got the wind knocked out of him. The stranger leaned over him and smiled wryly.
“It looks like there’s been a mistake at Malefisterium,” he shook his head sorrowfully. “Apparently, you are an ordinary human being. But,” the tone of his voice changed, “I like you. I’d like to teach you something myself, but alas!”
He threw his hand up in the air: Time seemed to slow down. A fiery tail flashed through the air. Vlad snapped his eyes shut and thrust his hand out, protecting himself. He knew he couldn’t stop the ball of fire, but was reflexively trying to keep the fire away from his face.
The fight
A flash of blue light.
The flame in the stranger’s hand burst and threw him off.
Vlad opened his eyes.
His opponent was lying nearby, smoke coming from his hand and the right side of his face. Vlad came up to him, staggering, and knelt down. The skin on the stranger’s hand and face got burnt and was smoking. Some of his hair, the right eyebrow and the sleeve of the shirt were gone.
Vlad realized that the boy was not going to live through such injuries.
The tears came to his eyes.
“So many events on one day, and now a murder,” he lamented. “That’s a fine kettle of fish… It’s a good thing that Father Konstantin is not around. He would never forgive me… What have I done? But I didn’t know! How am I going to get to their world now?”
Vlad bit his lip and passed his hand gently over the healthy hand of the stranger.
The next instant he felt he was suffocating. And immediately he realized he was hanging in the air, and his throat was held by the scorched hand of his opponent. He had sprung to his feet swiftly and now clearly intended to break Vlad’s neck.
“You know, I could have easily burned you to ashes,” the stranger hissed out, though without confidence, “and scatter your ashes to the wind. Then, I would say in the Academy that the crystal responded the wrong way.”
Lilac-colored mist began to flow over the scorched arm of the stranger. It covered the shoulder and the injured half of his face. The boy waggled his head, shaking off the heavy mist.
Vlad opened his eyes wide with astonishment: No trace of injuries could be seen, and the skin didn’t have any burn marks. All the traces of fire vanished from the shirt. The stranger loosened his grip, and Vlad felt the ground under his feet. He fell heavily onto the grass.
“I have to give you credit,” the stranger said in a calm voice. “You managed to surprise me. And it means that you’ve passed.”
Vlad was sitting on the grass and rubbing his neck. He looked at the stranger distrustfully. Though he didn’t seem to attack again, Vlad decided that it would not be wise to provoke him.
The stranger held his hand out, offering help.
Vlad took his hand and felt his feet stand firmly on the ground. The stranger was a boy of uncommon strength, though he clearly didn’t look like an athlete.
“Peter Ravenwood!” the boy introduced himself ceremoniously.
“Vladislav Viggin!” Vlad offered his full name too. “Why couldn’t we have started with this?”
“Because very few people know my name outside the Academy. And those who know it say it with a lot of respect,” there was undisguised arrogance in the voice and gaze of Peter Ravenwood.
“And what is Mister… Ravenwood so famous for?” Vlad asked, with a shade of irony in his voice.
Peter’s eyes flashed.
“Don’t push it,” he patted Vlad’s shoulder. “I was given the order to bring you to the Academy. But masters never specified in what condition. So please, be respectful. I am one of the best students of the Academy, and that is all you need to know for now.”
Vlad bowed his head, hiding a smile. When he raised his head again, there was a serious look on his face.
“Now what?”
“Now,” Peter said with an air of importance, “I need to explain some of our rules to you. You will live on the Academy premises until the end of your education. Of course, if you are lucky to stay alive. Don’t look at me that way! Many of those who were as good as you became crippled or lost their lives. Magic is not about fairies, magic wands, and a happy ending.”
“I already got it,” Vlad mumbled, but Peter turned a deaf ear to him.
“Each newcomer has a mentor from among the senior students,” Peter made a wry face. “Mentors look after their mentees, answer their questions and help them with their studies. But they are neither babysitters nor bodyguards. If you think that your mentor is going to watch every step you take and dance attendance on you, you might want to think twice.”
“So, are you my mentor?”
“I need you like a hole in the head!” Peter brushed the question off. “The Council of Malefisterium will appoint your mentor.”
“Anything else?” Vlad asked dryly.
“Twice a year there is an evaluation of students’ progress.”
“Is it some kind of exam?”
“Yeah, though it is administered by the mentor. Trust me, what has happened here is child’s play comparing with the progress evaluation,” Peter summed up.
Ravenwood walked up to Vlad’s burnt shirt lying on the ground, picked it up and threw it to the boy. The shirt was undamaged.
“Get dressed,” he held out his hand again. “Of course, if you didn’t change your mind and don’t want to go back home.”
“I can’t go back home now,” Vlad said quietly.
Peter nodded knowingly. They joined hands and silently vanished into thin air.
Chapter Four. The Sacred Wood
When observed from the outside, teleportation looks like a person’s disappearance at the place of origin and his immediate reappearance at another place. This process affects people in different ways: Some people get sick to their stomach, some feel dizzy, and others feel like walking up a few steps, being used to teleportation.
Vlad turned out to be quite good at teleportation. At first, he lingered a bit and, instead of grasping Peter’s hand, he gazed perplexedly around. In the very nick of time, when Peter had already lost his footing, he seized Vlad by his finger. That was the only difficulty. Except that Vlad slipped a little to one side and would have fallen when landing, if Peter didn’t catch him with his strong hands.
“Thank you,” Vlad said.
His companion remained silent and only gave him a patronizing look of his dark green eyes.
They found themselves in a strange forest. At first glimpse, the trees looked quite normal with their trunks, branches, and crowns. But there was something weird. Vlad shook his head, looked closer and saw it. The leaves! They were unusually iridescent: In the sunlight, their color ranged from turquoise to ultramarine blue.
“Oh wow!” he emitted a cry of admiration. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
“No reason to be happy!” Peter said coldly. “This place is as dangerous as it is beautiful.”
There was a shade of alarm in his voice. Every now and again, he looked around warily as if looking out for someone.
“I thought we were going straight to Malu… Mala…” Vlad tried to get his tongue around the name.
“Ma-le-fis-te-ri-um!” Peter said. “You should know the name of your own school backwards and forwards! As for the place of our destination… You are right, it should have been the Academy.”
“Did anything go wrong?” Vlad took his words in his own way.
“It’s your fault!” Peter suddenly reproached him.
“My fault?” the boy was genuinely surprised. “How so?”
“Your moment’s hesitation was enough to land ourselves in the soup instead of the right place.”
“Can you explain?”
“You’d been dallying way too long before you trusted me,” Peter replied. “I had to spend some of my energy on getting over your stubbornness. As a result, we missed the target.”
“And how are we going to get ourselves out of it?” Peter’s anxiety was contagious. “Are we going to be teleported again?”
“No way!” Peter made a helpless gesture. “I am not powerful enough to hop around the space back and forth! No attempts are available. Now we are going to walk.”
“Is it a long way?”
“A wrong question!” Peter brushed him off. He never stopped looking out for something in the dense forest.
“Stop grumbling!” Vlad said in an apologetic tone. “Explain it to me in a normal way, I will try to understand.”
“We are not far away from the portal to the Academy…”
“What’s the problem? Let’s go!” the boy took the first step with determination.
“…but we are at a very bad place,” Peter said, and Vlad’s ardor was immediately tamed. “We have to get to the hill over there,” Peter pointed to the hill. “Can you see the fog there?”
“Is the Academy there?”
“There is the entrance to the cave there.”
“Is the Academy inside the cave?”
“Stop repeating over and over again: ‘The Academy, the Academy’! ” There is the portal, right over the hill.”
“Got it! We are going to get to the Academy through the portal.”
“Follow me,” Peter said, finding nothing suspicious. “No time to argue!”
Peter walked with quiet, light steps. From time to time, Vlad had to break into a trot to keep up with him.
The forest was old, deep and impenetrable. The path was littered with dead and wind-fallen trees blocking the way. The boys had to crawl under or climb over them, or even walk around. At first sight, the hill was not far, only within a half an hour walk, but they were approaching it very slowly.
“Hold on!” Peter said in a hushed voice and froze.
Vlad stood still and pricked up his ears.
“I can’t see anything,” he whispered.
“We are not alone,” Peter said. “Let’s change the route.”
“You make it sound like we have to split up.”
Vlad began to worry in earnest, but Peter had already stopped listening. He was anxiously peering at every bush, every tree, as if he was looking for something dangerous hiding there. Only when he made sure that nothing posed a threat to them, Peter gave a signal, and they moved on.
Vlad felt the waves of fear and anxiety coming from Peter and was reflexively hiding behind his back. Anyway, Peter was at home, or rather close to his home, in the place he knew, though only by hearsay. As for Vlad, it was his first time in this forest, and he had no experience or knowledge about anything of the kind.
His companion was right: After spending a few minutes in this wondrous forest, the excitement he felt at first oozed away. Now he was in no mood for marveling at splendors of nature: He could savor his memories about the place later. Right now, he had to get out of there, safe and sound.
Vlad was about to ask another question, but Peter hushed him up. He turned his head and put a finger to his lips so slowly, as if the movement could make noise.
It was something like a blast of wind, short and whistling.
The next instant the forest grew gloomy. The sky became dark with clouds; it was suddenly dreary and cold. The forest, dispiritingly silent just a moment ago, was now filled with mysterious sounds and alarming noises. Birds and wild animals were first to sense impending danger, warning out the rest of the forest inhabitants.
“With dangers awaiting you at every turn, I should have stayed at home,” Vlad said to himself.
Peter, as if responding to Vlad’s thoughts, stopped so suddenly that Vlad bumped into him. Vlad wanted to walk him around and took a step to the side, but Peter grabbed him by the arm.
“Stand still, don’t move,” he ordered, and suddenly there was a hint of steel in his voice.
“What’s happened?” Vlad was taken aback.
Peter pushed him down.
