The door swung open, and a girl, probably around twenty-five, looked at me with surprise. Her eyes were wide with astonishment as she took in my presence, and I, in turn, couldn't help but study her with interest.
She certainly wasn't an old hag, that was obvious. At least, not at this moment.
Standing before me was a beautiful young woman with striking green eyes and a cascade of fiery red hair, wearing a short, stylish dress like the ones girls wore in movies, the kind my parents still usually refused to let me watch.
She smiled, raised an eyebrow playfully, and said:
"Really now... What do you call this, Dorian? First you disappear for years, and then you show up in some boy's body, thinking I'll be so easy to fool? Clever, I'll give you that. Had you just waltzed in, I would've strangled you!"
It seemed someone was about to get into serious trouble. Angry women were like wild beasts, in that it was best to keep as much distance between them and yourself as possible. They could be destructive too, often for no clear reason. Whenever guests with children visited my parents, their girls would always end up ruining my toys...
"And just how did you manage to slip into that boy's body?"
Lacrimosa asked, her eyes flickering with surprise as she looked at me. "I knew you were strong, but this..."
Tell her to calm down and that I need to have a serious talk with her. Actually... Best do it over a cup of tea with jam, Dorian added. She makes the best jam. I swear, I'm not joking this time. Oh, and make sure to introduce yourself. Just call her Lacry. She prefers it.
I followed my friend's advice, and before long, we found ourselves seated at a cozy table, sipping tea as I began recounting Dorian's story. I was hearing most of it for the very first time myself; he'd never been one to share much about his past with me.
Now, at least, I understood that he had been killed. Well, unless, of course, he was spinning lies to Lacrimosa as well.
As I finished telling the story, the witch nodded thoughtfully and cast a gentle smile in my direction.
"You're quite the lucky son of a bitch, Dorian," she said with a hint of admiration. "Even in a situation like this, you somehow managed to come out alive..." She squinted mischievously. "The boy looks a lot like you. Funny how life works... What's your name again?"
"Maxim Temnikov," I replied, spreading a dollop of jam onto my toast.
"So, what are we supposed to do with you, Maxim?" she asked, eyes glinting with curiosity.
I shrugged nonchalantly and took another sip of tea.
"By the way, Dorian, I just had a thought," the witch continued, her voice dropping to a whisper. "If the boy's from another world, then that means I have nothing to fear there. No one will be trying to kill me...
Maybe I could just go with him?"
Tell her it's true, Dorian said, his voice measured. Take her along only if it's absolutely necessary. Not only does dimensional travel cost a lot of energy, Lacry has a habit of bossing people around.
That was exactly what I said.
The witch scoffed and rolled her eyes.
"I knew it! You're still the same old Dorian. Never letting a girl have her fun, always keeping her on a short leash..."
Never forget that Lacrimosa is a witch, Max, Dorian advised me.
Even when she's brewing potions or setting her prices — always bargain.
She'll try to squeeze a little more each time. Do you understand?
"Got it. But why's that?"
Because it's in their very nature, my young friend, Dorian answered thoughtfully. I thought long and hard before I decided to bring her here.
"And what exactly is she capable of? Why might I need her help?"
Oh, Max, believe me, there'll be countless situations where her skills will come in handy. I'll let you know when the moment arises.
"Alright."
I finished the last bit of jam and realized I couldn't keep eating sweets forever. Unfortunately, even the sweetest treats grew tiresome after a while. As soon as I pushed the saucer aside, my thoughts immediately returned to the little chest of artifacts left lying in Dorian's room.
"Lacry, I want to see Dorian's room."
"If he's fine with it, then so am I. His room is your room now, my boy," she said with a warm smile, blowing me a teasing kiss. "Make yourself at home. I still need to sort through the herbs I gathered."
Things were settling into a steady rhythm. No one was bothering me, and everyone was caught up in their own affairs. It was as close to perfect as it could get.
Soon enough, I was sitting comfortably in front of the small chest, burning with anticipation as I lifted the lid. But once it was open, I wasn't entirely sure what I was looking at. A ring of some kind, a piece of chainmail... and a book.
One object in particular caught my eye, but I could hardly tell what it was.
"Dorian, what is this thing?"
A dragon's claw. A highly prized artifact in my world. It has the power to alter the properties of metals and can even transform lead into gold.
"No way..." I stared at the claw, trying to imagine how big a dragon would have to be to grow such a talon. It was about the size of an ostrich's.
"You're pulling my leg. That's way too small for a real dragon."
I'm teasing a little, Dorian chuckled. It's a real dragon claw. A hatchling's.
"It doesn't have the ability to turn lead into gold?"
Nope.
"Then what's it doing here?"
"The dragon's claw is just one of the ingredients for the Elixir of Eternal Life. I was about to start gathering the rest when an unfortunate, and frankly frustrating, incident ruined everything...
"Yeah, I understand..." I set the claw aside, not particularly intrigued by the vague idea of eternal life, and pulled out the chainmail. "This looks a bit too small. Like it was made for a dwarf. Is it enchanted?"
No, it's completely ordinary.
"So it's not made from some kind of super-durable steel or anything like that?"
It was crafted in a fairly specific way, but no, it's not especially durable. In my family, it's tradition to present chainmail like this to the eldest sons, Dorian explained. So for me, it's a truly precious possession.
"And what about this ring? Is it magical, or is it also a precious possession?"
The ring is actually a two-in-one, my young friend — both significant and magical. Go ahead, take it; I believe it will prove very useful to you.
That was a relief, because otherwise Dorian's so-called chest of precious artifacts hadn't seemed all that valuable to anyone but him. But the ring...
"What does it do?"
It's a Night Vision Ring. You'll be able to see as clearly as a cat, whether in the brightest daylight or the deepest darkness.
"Night vision?" I echoed, already thinking of all the ways I could put it to use. "Sounds very promising. And interesting."
I picked up the ring, studied its smooth surface for a moment, turned it over in my hand, then slipped it into my pocket with a grin.
One day, you'll find you no longer need it, Dorian said softly. But until then, many days will pass, so try not to lose it. It's very dear to me.
My very first artifact, in a way.
Why wouldn't I need it anymore? Would it be the result of a ritual I might one day perform, a spell I could sustain permanently, a power granted by the Dark Gift itself, or a change in my body caused by him living inside my head?
Dorian was a strange one. He often spoke in riddles and had no interest in giving direct answers, or any at all if he didn't feel like it. Just trying to make sense of him was enough to give me a headache.
But a gift was a gift, and I happened to like gifts.
"I promise I won't lose it," I said, taking the book in my hands.
"And what's this?"
That, Max, is The Book of a Thousand Places.
I opened it carefully and found, on the first page, an exquisitely detailed illustration of Tenedom, the very house I was now in, accompanied by vague descriptions of the surrounding area. The second page showed a drawing of the Portal Key, a depiction of the blue square covered in countless runes, the same one I had seen Dorian draw and activate in my mind. Some of the runes on the page were bolded, likely forming the pattern that granted access to this realm.
I flipped through a few more pages, but the rest were blank, as if still waiting for their secrets to be revealed.
"Is there only one illustration in here? Does that mean we can only reach Tenedom?"
Ah, you've caught on quickly, my young friend. I'm impressed, Dorian said, his voice filled with quiet approval. The artifact is now bound to you. When I was its master, the pages held many more illustrations, each one a gateway to a distant realm. But they vanished the moment I lost my power. I hope to bring them back.
"What a fascinating artifact." I closed the book gently, running my fingers over the intricately carved bone cover. "Have you visited any other places besides this one?"
No, not yet, my companion replied with a hint of disappointment.
Let's just say I never got the chance. Other matters always demanded my attention, and I kept putting my journeys off for another day.
"That's a pity," I said softly, feeling a twinge of regret. "I'd love to hear your stories. Where did you find this book?"
I took it from a necromancer who believed himself to be more powerful than me.
"I see..." I murmured, watching tiny sparks of light flicker across the book's cover. "And where did he get it?"
The Book of a Thousand Places is an ancient relic from my world, Max, surrounded by countless legends. The most believable tale, at least to me, is that it was crafted long ago by the Chaos God Barbadey. He created these mysterious realms, gifted them to his demon servants, and sealed their locations within this very tome, along with the paths that lead to them.
"How wise is it to enter these demonic realms?"
That's hard to say. But legend has it that anyone who reaches them is granted a rare and precious treasure — a gift from the demons who guard those forbidden realms.
"That sounds hard to believe. Do you honestly think it's true?"
I'm not sure. Before this, I knew only one person who possessed the artifact. Our meeting was... Well, I didn't quite get the chance to ask him all the questions I had in mind.
"I see," I said, gently placing the book back into the chest. "Then we'll have to uncover the truth ourselves when the time comes."
I believe so too, my young friend.
"If everything you've said is true, then there must have been a demon guarding treasures in Tenedom too. Did you see anyone when you arrived?"
Aside from Bormotun, I encountered no one. And as for the treasure... In this case, I believe Tenedom itself may be the reward.
"Yeah, it's quite a remarkable place." I nodded in agreement. "By the way, you promised to introduce me to this Bormotun."
Next time. I promise.
"Isn't it about time we headed back home? I don't want to miss class..."
Don't worry about that. In this dimension, time flows quite differently, much more swiftly. While we've been here, only a few seconds may have passed in your reality. At least, that's how it's always been in my world...
"Fascinating... When we teleport here, do I disappear from my world entirely?"
No, your body remains there. From the outside, it looks like you're sound asleep.
"Still, I need to return. If you're not sure, things might work differently between dimensions. Maybe time moves backward here, or speeds up instead of slowing down? We could come back and find the school year already over. I'd get called to the principal's office again...
They'd scold me for poor attendance..."
Well, if you're that worried...
This time, everything whirled and spun in reverse, the opposite of how we had arrived. Then, in the blink of an eye, I was back in my room.
Outside the window, the rain continued to fall steadily, and judging by the clocks, Dorian was right — scarcely a minute had passed since I left.
During my absence, nothing appeared to have changed at all.
What a remarkable journey that was! It couldn't have been just a dream, could it?
"Dorian?"
Yes?
"Weren't we just at your place in Tenedom?"
Did you hit your head?
"No, I mean... I just thought... I wasn't asleep, was I?"
It was real, he reassured me with calm certainty. You met Hornborn and Lacrimosa. And in your pocket, you still carry the Ring of Night Vision.
I reached into my pocket and checked. The ring was exactly where I had left it.
"I probably should have said goodbye to Hornborn and Lacrimosa," I murmured.
Tenedom is my home, and therefore yours. We are the masters of this domain. You may come and go as you wish.
"I guess so."
I glanced at my Heraldry textbook and let out a yawn. Honestly, I didn't feel like reading it. Better to catch some sleep. Judging by the weather outside, it wouldn't clear up before dinner. Hopefully, the rain would cease by tomorrow.
*** Vologda Principality Kitezh High School of Magic Headmaster's Office Ivan gazed intently at the boy seated before him and an undeniable sense of déjà vu gnawed at him with relentless persistence. Mere days ago, this very boy had sat in the same chair, eyes shining with innocent blue curiosity, gazing back at him as if he saw through to his very soul. The only difference now was in the circumstances that brought them together once more.
Once, it was a skeleton he had danced with beneath the silver moonlight, only to cast it aside and send it wandering the surrounding lands. Now, however, the situation was far more perplexing — almost upside down, turned inside out.
He had just returned from Moscow when he was struck by a piece of news so unbelievable that he refused to believe it at first. Apparently, Temnikov had entered a Distortion of his own accord, vanquished the Curse within, and returned unscathed. How was that even possible? How could anyone begin to make sense of it?
The boy was only twelve years old, yet he was navigating the perilous corridors of twisted magic and destroying Curses as if it were child's play. Who could possibly believe such absurdity? If he dared to present such a tale before His Imperial Majesty and his advisers, some would no doubt dismiss it with laughter, and quite rightly so.
It made little sense to request another audience with the Emperor to elevate Maxim Temnikov's importance based on stories that lacked proof. It would have been nothing short of folly. The Emperor had already received his account of a too young genius with a healthy dose of skepticism even without these latest developments. He had promised to keep a watchful eye on the boy, but now the situation had taken a sudden turn for the worse.
Before rushing to share such extraordinary news, everything needed to be verified. Perhaps the whole story was nothing more than a fanciful illusion, a false alarm, and he was simply getting ahead of himself.
And yet, paradoxically, the account was beginning to take on a remarkably intriguing shape, assuming, of course, the information he had received could be trusted.
A Distortion simply couldn't vanish on its own. Such a phenomenon was unknown to science. There were only two plausible explanations: either the Curse within had been destroyed, or the monsters had escaped and scattered.
If the Distortion had only recently appeared, then the second possibility could be ruled out entirely. For monsters to emerge, the Distortion would have needed time to stabilize and draw in sufficient energy, and in this case, at least a week would have had to pass, not merely a day.
That left only one conclusion: someone had entered the Distortion and destroyed the Curse — the monster, or whatever it had been. And according to all the security seals, no one else had been there except Temnikov. Which meant that...
In essence, the situation was a tangled mess.
The men from Belozersk claimed the boys had made the whole story up, but Ivan wasn't convinced, not with Naryshkin's heir involved. He couldn't speak for Temnikov, but a nobleman of Naryshkin's stature had no reason to lie, especially about something so trivial. Of that, Ivan was certain.
He had listened carefully to the boy's account and was inclined to accept the only plausible explanation — that the Distortion had, in fact, vanished on its own. Yet, as a rational man, that was perhaps the hardest conclusion for him to accept.
What fascinated him most was that the more he observed Temnikov, the more he found himself leaning toward the possibility that, if he set aside the boy's tender age, it might truly have been within his power to do it.
Why not?
He clearly possessed a remarkable innate talent for the Gift. Judging by the sheath at his belt, he had the right weapon as well, and he had received training within his family. So, with a bit of luck, and if the Distortion was not too powerful, it was entirely within the realm of possibility.
The only problem was that he had seen sloths with more self-preservation than this boy. What kind of foolhardy thinking drove someone to walk into such danger alone? It was nothing short of reckless, suicidal stupidity.
Of course, at that age, he likely couldn't fully grasp the extent of the danger he was facing. But that excuse would only hold until someone at school finally spelled it out for him, if he lived long enough to hear it.
At the rate he was going, that was far from guaranteed.
"All right," Ivan said at last, summing up their entire conversation.
"Let's call it an unexplained phenomenon, something science has yet to understand, and assume the Distortion vanished on its own."
"That's exactly what happened," Maxim readily confirmed.
"Good. Now, let's get into details," Ivan paused until the boy's bright blue eyes were fully focused on him, then continued. "Do you know what the Distortions are?"
"Alexey Naryshkin told me they're some kind of Curses or something like that..."
"Yes, that's correct. They are an ancient curse of the Dark God, which has haunted us for several centuries. But you don't need to know all the details just yet."
"He also mentioned that each Distortion is a grotesque reflection of the world as we know it," the boy added with a hint of awe.
"Precisely!" Ivan raised his index finger. "That's where I want to pause and delve deeper. Imagine this: each of these phenomena is like a parallel realm, a mirror of our reality... But the further this mirror drifts away from us, the more perilous it becomes, and the less it resembles our world. Do you follow what I mean?"
"Not entirely," the boy admitted, furrowing his brow.
"Alright, let me paint a clearer picture... Imagine that a Distortion suddenly manifests within my office."
"Uh-huh."
"If you stepped inside, you'd find yourself in a copy of my office.
But here's the catch: there could be an infinite number of variations of that same office. All of these are reflections, distorted, dangerous echoes, and the farther they are from our world, the more lethal and unrecognizable they become, until eventually, you might not even recognize your surroundings at all..."
"These Distortions are truly complex phenomena, huh?" the boy said, sniffing and frowning. "And it's not just monsters lurking there..."
"Right you are." Ivan nodded with a grave expression. "The most dangerous among them are the Curses, which have the potential to break free from those realms. Some not even alive, yet just as deadly."
"How fascinating..." Temnikov shifted nervously in his chair, eyes wide with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension.
"Yes, it's quite fascinating," Ivan agreed thoughtfully. "But not for a boy of twelve. Here, magical storms are a common occurrence, so no one would be taken aback by a Distortion. Still, I want you to grasp this clearly:
Maxim, students are strictly forbidden not only from entering but even from approaching the Distortions. Do you understand?"
"Absolutely."
"This rule applies without exception to all students."
"Naryshkin mentioned that in the fourth year—" "Precisely, Maxim. In the fourth year, with written parental consent, students are permitted to enter the Distortions under the supervision of qualified specialists. We even have a dedicated specialization for this at Kitezh. But before that, it's strictly off-limits."
"I see," the boy mumbled. "Things are quite strict here... Can I at least travel to Belozersk?"
"Yes, you may." Ivan nodded. "But only accompanied."
"By a teacher?"
"No, that would be excessive." Ivan chuckled softly. "If we start assigning teachers to escort every student, we simply wouldn't have enough staff. For you, I believe Alexey Naryshkin will fit that role perfectly. He's dependable."
It was a shame I wouldn't be allowed to go alone, but if I had to have company, Alexey was easily the best option.
"So, can I go then? The classes have already begun."
"Dismissed."
The boy rose and made his way toward the door. Just as he was about to step out, Ivan thought it prudent to add one more rule.
"Maxim."
"Yes, sir?"
"You're also forbidden from leaving the school grounds without Naryshkin's accompaniment. Do you understand?"
"Understood. No wandering off without Naryshkin."