Matabar

Ardi glanced at his watch. It was ten to six. He sighed and, holding onto his hat, surveyed the street with a dispassionate gaze. The Old Park seemed like an odd blending of every architectural style found across the Metropolis.

In equal measure, you might come across red-brick buildings straight out of the Factory District, the kind of snug yet faceless boxes reminiscent of Tend and Tendari. Occasionally — though rarely — hulking high-rises that seemed cold and unwelcoming filled the skyline, and scattered here and there were lavish, colorful facades that looked like they belonged in the Central District.

Despite its name, the Old Park had actually been built even later than the "New City." Once upon a time, townsfolk of the middle class and slightly greater means had lived here, on these hills bordering the Niewa. They weren't exactly the suburbs with their sprawling estates, but they were no mere tenement blocks, either. Then it had become clear that the capital would never stop its relentless expansion that was always hungry for more land. The treasury had bought up these hills and started construction. And yet, due to the peculiar geography of the place, along with some lingering ambitions to imitate the city center's luxury, the Old Park had turned into what it was today.

A jumble of styles. Streets tangled together in complicated knots. Slanted avenues that lacked the perpendicular grace of downtown or the broadness of the New City. A motley crowd roamed about, including, even if not often, the occasional Firstborn you might glimpse going about their business.

Ardan was standing in the middle of a street shaped like a massive stairway carved into the hillside — built not for giants, but for the mythical titans that were said to have wandered the world back in the days when the Spirits had yet to fall asleep.

These were old tales, akin to the creation myths from the Face of Light's religion.

This street rose up the hill in enormous twenty-meter-high steps, each step stretching on for another hundred meters. This continued until it reached the top, where, from spring to autumn, the steel cables of a funicular carried small eight-seat carriages. They would descend from the Old Park's heights straight down toward Niewa Square, near the Crookedwater Canal.

Tess had promised him that come summer, when the capital would once again don its white gowns of night, and when the sun would never truly dip below the horizon — Ardi still couldn't believe such a thing was possible — they would ride the funicular in the twilight that passed for darkness during those two weeks. From that vantage, they'd gaze upon the city as if they were flying.

Tess…

Ardi had wanted to tell her — and apologize — that he probably wouldn't be able to arrive on time. But he'd never quite managed to muster the courage. Instead, he'd taken advantage of the fact that spring was one of the busiest seasons in the atelier. Winter clothes would need a touch-up before being stowed away for the next chill. Seasonal garments had to be repaired or patched after the muck and rains. And given the clientele Madam Okladov worked with, new pieces sometimes had to be made from scratch.

And so, Tess herself had warned him that she might be held up until ten or eleven. The Feast of the Saints would run from the first star of the night until the first dawn's light, so they'd agreed to meet directly at the church.

If Tess managed to finish her work in time, she'd get there on the last tram. If not, she'd take a cab. Which was precisely Ardi's plan as well. He had to hope that Bazhen hadn't been mistaken and that he really would be stuck doing paperwork. In that case, maybe he could manage it in three or four hours if he pushed himself.

Yes, if things dragged on, it would be awkward, but… He already knew he'd done something wrong. He should have let Tess know, should have been honest with her. He'd been berating himself for keeping quiet ever since he'd said goodbye to her and boarded the departing tram. But time was something you couldn't reel back.

He'd soothed himself by vowing that next time, he definitely wouldn't make the same mistake. And, as Guta had used to say: "If all animals always did the right thing, no one would believe it anyway." It was perhaps not the most fitting proverb, but Ardi liked it.

Once again adjusting his hat to keep it from being blown away by the playful spring breeze, Ardan crossed the narrow roadway — just two lanes wide — and found himself before a tall yet otherwise ordinary fence.

Well, it would've been ordinary if not for the boards that had had crossbeams nailed to them with long spikes. These pickets were not the usual two and a half meters, but a full four meters tall. Not to mention the coil of barbed wire running along the top — banned for civilian use in most cases by city regulations — plus the steel plates shining in the lamp glow, which were reinforcing the wooden panels.

There was also the fact that Ardi could feel a faint tingling in his fingertips and a subtle urge to move away from that fence. It was as though it were examining him like a veteran guard dog might — there was no growling, no bared teeth, but it was still alert and watching his every move.

It wasn't hard to guess that the Menagerie had a permanent shield set up over it, considering the sorts of creatures housed within. Perhaps the location had never been ideal, but when the Head Menagerie had first been built for the Grand University, these hills had been relatively empty. A large area of scattered estates had served as a natural barrier between the city and those "potentially dangerous creatures" — or "natural anomalies," as they were sometimes called.

But then half a century had gone by, and now the city had come right to the Head Menagerie's doorstep, along with all its inhabitants.

It was ironic, in its own way.

Ardi made his way along the fence to a fork in the road, where the imposing gates stood. This time, they weren't just wooden boards with iron brackets, but entire logs, each as thick as a man's torso. Why metal hadn't been used here remained a mystery.

These gargantuan gates were locked from within and were undoubtedly opened by some mechanism because moving such a barricade would've required at least ten orcs. Or four ogres. Or two giants. Or…

Ardi sighed and shook his head. There was no point in delaying the inevitable.

He approached an inconspicuous little door set within the fence to the left of the main gates: it was made up of the same planks, hung on hinges, and had a small, brass doorbell.

He turned around.

Though the street wasn't completely deserted, it hardly teemed with life. Three and four-story apartment buildings clustered on the massive top level of the huge staircase hill, then spilled down each tier. Sometimes, it made for curious sights, with a house starting off as a two-story but finishing as a four or even five-story behemoth.

For reasons he couldn't articulate, Ardi saw a parallel between that forced architectural contortion and his own present situation. Even so, he couldn't quite put his finger on what they had in common.

He switched his staff to his left hand and reached out to press the doorbell. Above him, the clouds were gathering, promising rain before the night was over. This was why Ardi, in addition to his suit (one of those he'd gotten from the Jackets) and his coat, had also brought along an umbrella. Just in case he needed it later while looking for a cab.

At first, nothing stirred behind the fence except the howling wind, hinting at a large yard beyond. Then came the sound of trudging steps squelching through sodden ground, confirming his guess of a spacious interior courtyard.

With a scrape, the inspection window slid open, revealing bright brown eyes framed by a shallow web of wrinkles.

"I-" Ardi began.

"Ard Egobar, first year," an irritable voice croaked, full of genuine annoyance. "They warned us you were coming. But show me your papers anyway. Rules, blast them…"

Ardan nodded and produced the official summons along with his documents, which he fished out from the annoyingly-deep inner pocket of his jacket.

He passed his documents through the window. The Menagerie worker took his time verifying every detail — especially the photo, which he compared closely to Ardi's face, and then, with a rusty screech (and perhaps some grinding of his own teeth), slowly turned what seemed like a stiff mechanism on the sliding bolt.

When the door swung open, Ardan stepped inside with another quiet sigh.

His shoes sank into the wet earth. These were lumps of sod churned to a pulp by the endless spring rains of the Metropolis and hammered by the huge tires of delivery trucks. Several such trucks stood near the technical wing, instantly recognizable by its thick, utilitarian walls, which were almost windowless except for narrow glass slits near the roofline. Those walls, sturdy as they were, still bore dark streaks left by dirt, dust, and cargo.

The Menagerie worker reminded Ardi of that grimy, squat outbuilding: he had eyes that were set high and peered out from beneath a heavy brow, along with broad shoulders offset by soft cheeks and a somewhat puffy face, and thick eyebrows bristling like roadside shrubs.

He wore a wide-brimmed hat that seemed just as out of place in the capital as Ardi's own cowboy one. Tall boots swished at his shins. Over his simple suit, he wore a leather coat with a false back. It was so long it looked almost like a cloak.

He carried a pair of heavy gloves — like something out of a steel foundry — hooked onto his belt. And, interestingly enough, he bore epaulets. They denoted three Stars: the first had five points, the second had three, and the third had three again.

"Come on," he urged in a harsh, rasping voice, "before the storm hits."

"Storm?" Ardi echoed, looking up at the sky.

Just moments ago, the dark clouds had been stretched out like a thin veil over the usual springtime sky. But in the blink of an eye, that black fuzz had started piling up, one mass of clouds toppling onto the next, rolling over itself in a hungry swirl.

Somewhere in the distance, above Baliero, lightning flashed, and a handful of seconds later, a deep rumble of thunder echoed across the sky — a young storm flexing its muscles.

"It's the Week of Thunderstorms," the worker explained. He was already at the entrance to the main building, stamping mud from his boots on a worn-out mat. Or he was trying to, anyway — who knew if he was actually cleaning the mud away or just adding more, given how battered that old mat looked. "We'll be enjoying the downpour till the end of the month."

Ardi stepped up onto the porch after him and took a quick look around. The Menagerie's courtyard reminded him of the warehouse where the Spiders had once held Boris captive (not his most pleasant memory). A solid two-story structure stretched along the street with an adjoining technical annex. And there was also the fence, the gates, and a loading area.

Sheets of rolled steel flapped beneath tarps, heaps of unknown materials were piled here and there, and enormous barrels and containers gave the place a dreary, industrial look.

"This way, Student Egobar," the man said tersely.

Ardi, brushing off his shoes, followed the Menagerie worker inside. Taking his cue from the man, he removed his coat and spent a moment fussing with the cloak of his regalia, transferring it to a few special loops on his jacket (he had sewn them on himself). He noticed a fleeting look of scorn on the man's weathered, wrinkled face.

It wasn't exactly derision toward Ardi personally — more like at how he was fiddling with his regalia. Or perhaps it was aimed at the regalia itself…

They now stood in a drab hallway, its bland grayness relieved only by a once-colorful carpet lying on the dark, time-worn parquet floor, a row of hooks for outer garments that served as a rudimentary coat rack, and two doors set into opposing walls.

The worker guided Ardi to the door on the left.

"Forgive me," Ardan started to say.

"Relax, student," the man cut him off in his usual, slightly testy tone. "I'm an old friend — a colleague, once upon a time — of Dean Pimenov. She reached out to me a week after Alirov started flooding her office with petitions. I agreed to help."

By then, they had reached the door. Opening it for Ardi, the man nodded at the hefty stack of papers on the desk.

"Sort out the feeding reports for the fourth horizon, then you're free to go."

"Horizon?" Ardi blurted out the question.

"The Menagerie is underground, kid," the mage explained with a faint twist of his lips. "Built in an old mine sealed off from the Ley. It's been here since before the first wave of estates… Anyway, we never changed the names. First horizon, second, third, and fourth. The rest were filled in and locked up."

"Oh… I see," Ardi said, though in truth, he didn't understand much at all.

As for Dean Eysa Pimenov, the elderly mage of four Stars, and a Senior Magister judging by her medallion, Ardi had scarcely crossed paths with her — maybe once or twice when dropping off forms or practice reports at the dean's office. Why she was doing him any favors now was beyond him…

"Eysa can't stand Alirov," the Menagerie head (it was easy enough to deduce his position) elaborated, almost as if he were reading Ardi's mind. "Don't take it personally. Though Eysa did speak of you as a promising engineer. Seems Convel can't hold a single meeting without saying something nice about you. Talis an Manish as well…"

"Really?" Ardi blinked in surprise.

The mage arched an eyebrow, which, for some odd reason, made his face look like a wrinkled pepper.

"Excuse me," Ardan muttered, feeling immediately awkward.

"Sit down with your documents," the mage waved him over again. "The sooner you start, the sooner you'll finish."

With that, he closed the door behind him. Ardi heard the clump of those heavy boots fading down the corridor. He was left alone in an office that smelled of paper, cheap ink, cigarette smoke, and — more than anything else — despair.

Yes, despair overshadowed all the other scents.

The room was fairly spacious, enough to fit four desks, an old, somewhat battered filing cabinet along the opposite wall, and a couple of wardrobes. Two tall but narrow windows let in the flickering glow of the Ley-lamps outside.

The wind, heralding the imminent storm, carried scraps of newspapers and muddy debris in its invisible arms, flinging them around and peppering everything with the first drops of a cool spring drizzle that was soon to become a downpour.

Ardi set his bag on a creaky chair near the entrance, presumably placed there for just such a purpose.

He walked past the first two desks, circled the third, and approached the last, largest one. Its cracked varnish and worn felt surface spoke of long, grueling hours of use. A battered typewriter stood there, the kind with a sticky "shift arm" and a tendency to break ink ribbons.

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At the center of the desk sat a heavy ashtray, bristling like a hedgehog with a couple dozen cigarette stubs, and perched atop a few sheets of old newspaper. It looked as if it might be carved from bone.

Ardi raised his eyebrows and almost reached out to pick it up, but thought better of it. It was not his place to pry around in someone else's office, even if he had been told to work here.

Speaking of work…

He flicked on the Ley-lamp. Its crystalline filament took a few moments to warm up, humming with a faint static crackle that pushed away the sluggish gloom, sending it slinking off to the corners.

Next to the daunting stacks of paperwork, Ardi found a thin folder that had clearly been waiting for him. Loosening the strings, he opened it and carefully read the instructions on the first page.

They more or less confirmed what the Menagerie overseer had told him: he was to reconcile expenditures against the nominal amount of material purchased. And the utility costs, security expenses, wages and bonuses, and so forth…

"Looks like their accountant might also be working for the Jackets," he grumbled under his breath.

Armed with a pencil, an abacus, and the clunky typewriter, he took the top sheet from the first towering stack and read the heading:

"Feeding the Wolf of Blazing Darkness"

Ardan nearly choked on empty air. Sure, he knew that the Grand University's Head Menagerie contained all manner of creatures, including those that fell under the category of "you're better off not knowing they exist."

He'd only ever read about the Wolf of Blazing Darkness. Anyone who had actually seen such a monster firsthand either led a very interesting life, or a very short one.

Going by academic terms (as Professor Nathan Kovertsky liked to say), it was classified as a "primordial anomaly."

In ancient times, such beasts were believed to be the handiwork of gods. They were later called magical creatures, and were now thought of as "primordial anomalies." These were beings that, due to evolutionary quirks, their habitat ranges, and specific feeding habits, had become exceptionally attuned to the Ley.

And in this case, there was no artificial chimerization or accidental Ley poisoning — it was a real kinship. Such "anomalies" possessed truly astonishing capabilities, making them a prime target for hunters. They were literally torn to pieces for their organs, bones, blood, flesh — everything. Before the development of Ertalain ore and, eventually, the creation of Ley generators, these "anomalies" (particularly their Star Cores) had been the principal source of Ley energy, fueling entire eras of magical progress. That was how things had gone for centuries, driving these wondrous creatures to the brink of extinction. Indeed, some had already crossed that dark threshold long ago…

As for the Wolf of Blazing Darkness, the name spoke for itself. A fully-grown specimen stood nearly two meters at the shoulder and weighed around three and a half tons, and was capable of biting through a carriage axle and pulverizing plate armor. And that was without mentioning the wolf's fur, which constantly burned with black, smokeless fire. In essence, it resembled living flames molded into the form of a wolf.

They mostly roamed the northern shores of the Azure Sea. In nature, they rarely hunted normal prey, preferring the Ley Cores within Ley-poisoned monsters or other "anomalies," which meant local folk often revered them as guardian spirits.

Their talents included a fiery breath, resistance to Star Magic up to two Stars in power, and other "small" gifts. In the wild, by official estimates, fewer than a couple dozen such beasts remained. Perhaps just as many were held captive in Menageries around the world.

In the Empire, hunting or capturing one of these creatures was strictly forbidden due to their near extinction and punishable by massive fines and a lifetime's labor in a camp.

"Bred and raised in the Menagerie," Ardi read the footnote. "Third generation W.B.D. from the Metropolis Head Menagerie. Registry number 4/9/6/349."

W.B.D. was apparently shorthand for the creature's folkloric name. As for the registration number, Kovertsky had mentioned in his introductory course on chimerology how these numbers worked:

The first digit, which ranged from one to nine, more or less indicated how many Stars the "anomaly" measured up to.

Here, it was four Stars.

The second digit, ranging from one to twenty, indicated its "danger level" — one meant an ordinary apex predator in its natural habitat; twenty meant it could be akin to a natural disaster.

The third digit, ranging from one to "infinity," was the recommended number of mages or monster hunters needed to neutralize the creature.

And the final sequence was the actual registry number assigned by the Menagerie in which it resided.

Wild monsters, of course, lacked that final number.

"Its daily ration of ground beef," Ardi continued reading, "is sixty-four kilograms divided into three meals. For each meal, add seven grams of medium-purity, yellow Ley crystal dust."

The young man let out a low whistle and, by force of habit, bit the tip of his tongue. How much was a single such anomaly costing the treasury?

Ardan lifted his gaze to the stack of papers.

In his imagination, the sum the crown spent on studying these anomalies swelled into something so massive that it practically warranted classification as…

"Tomorrow's worries," the young man reminded himself and reached for the next set of documents.

Each "anomaly" had its own hefty stack of paperwork that needed to be calculated, entered into summary tables, then filed accordingly. Sheet after sheet, marveling at what he was reading and trying to figure out how enormous the Menagerie had to be to accommodate dozens of these not-exactly-small "anomalies," Ardan worked quickly, yet scrupulously and responsibly (as always), poring over the figures and tapping his fingers on the typewriter.

Beyond the window, the uneasy skies raged. The black clouds, as though they were competing with the dark waters of the Niewa and the shores of the Swallow Ocean, rumbled with roiling darkness. Lightning flashed ever closer to the capital's center, which seemed to shrink beneath the might of the impassive storm.

The streets lay still, and the few pedestrians hurried to shelter beneath the protective eaves of stone buildings. Cars scattered like ants in all directions, while only the trams stoically pressed on through the thickening torrents of stinging rain.

Ardan stretched and yawned, easing the stiffness in his neck and cracking the knuckles of his slightly-numb fingers. Working with typewriters, given his lifelong struggle with things like manual dexterity, was hardly any easier for him than writing by hand with pen and ink.

Damn those fine motor skills…

And as if to confirm his misgivings, with the next clack, the key pressed down farther than it should have, and the lever gave a nasty crunch, tearing the ink ribbon.

"Sleeping Spirits," Ardi exhaled. "Luckily, I was about to take a small break anyway."

He pushed his chair back and got to his feet. His knees, which hadn't bent in several hours, were less than thrilled by this development, but they had little choice in the matter.

Surveying the office with a thoughtful look, Ardi went over to the far cabinet. It appeared marginally less grimy than the other two, and even the floor around it looked cleaner. But that was merely a trick caused by its use. People frequented this spot more often, which prevented dust from settling into the wood.

He pulled open the heavy cabinet doors and, alongside folders, odd contraptions, jars of formalin — within which floated all manner of research specimens — and other curiosities, he discovered a box of typewriter ribbons.

Removing one, he bit through the twine binding the cardboard packaging, threw it in the wastebasket, and returned to the desk. Only then did he realize that the old machine's release mechanism was broken. The small lever that should have flipped up the metal bar holding the ribbon was missing from its rightful place.

Setting the ribbon spool on a sheet of newspaper, Ardi swept back one side of his jacket and withdrew his father's knife from behind his back. He studied the thickness of the blade, then the typewriter's thin plate, and then the blade again. In the best-case scenario, he would merely dent the delicate metal, and in the worst, he would break it completely.

"Just perfect," Ardi said with a dejected shake of his head, putting the knife away. "But there has to be some way they replace it."

He looked around. There was only one typewriter in the entire room, positioned in the most advantageous spot — at the far end, its back to the window, and flanked by two radiators. Its user would have ample light and warmth, making for comfortable work conditions.

This was surely the boss' desk.

And if the typewriter was standing on the boss' desk — broken, no less — then nobody else would be changing the ribbon. Only the director himself. Which meant…

"Which means…" Ardi sighed, turning toward a simple, everyday safe. It was nothing like the ones at the Grand, and it certainly couldn't compare to the titans of the Black House.

It was a squat, iron-bellied thing with a wheel lock as its mechanism. It slumbered in the office corner. It was a meter tall at most, and about forty centimeters deep. It was also too roomy to hold mere trinkets, and with handles and a lock wheel too shiny for an observant eye to dismiss.

It was clearly used, and quite often at that.

In any other situation, Ardi would simply have left the office and tried to track down the Menagerie's chief to help him with the ribbon change. But now…

Ardan checked the clock. Every minute he delayed threatened to make him late for his meeting with Tess.

Spirits… He should have told her everything right away. But time could not be rewound. Or had he already reminded himself of that?

Ardi glanced over his shoulder, as if worried someone might be watching, then approached the safe and leaned in closer.

Closing his eyes, he opened his mind to the world around him. The safe shimmered, reminiscent of the shards of a glass bottle scattered in the midday sun.

There was a simple shield powered by a small mechanism inside the safe — a blue crystal, nothing more. Ardi didn't have the strength to break such a lock with brute force, and a magical "lockpick" would be no help here.

He exhaled and Listened, paying attention to how the iron gave a subtle creak as the floorboards beneath it trembled. He ran his hand over the wheel, feeling a prickling in his fingertips from the shielding spell. But he was seeking a different sensation: he wanted to feel how the lock wheel, under someone else's touch, would turn from side to side, fulfilling the single task assigned to it by its creators — to open and close the door.

Long ago, Atta'nha had taught the young Speaker how to open locked passages. Ardi had rarely used that knowledge — only a handful of times at most. After all, it was not so much the art of the Aean'Hane as a simple Speaker's trick.

Such a skill wouldn't be able to break a large, stationary shield like the one in Baliero, nor fling open a sealed door in the train that had once transported the Staff of Demons.

But in this particular instance, with a small safe whose sole purpose was to lock and unlock, and whose magical shield didn't seem too sophisticated — apart from containing a three-Star pattern — it might work. The protective wards channeled Star Magic up to three Stars into a sort of reservoir hidden inside the metal, which in turn would use that energy to… send a signal… Or so it seemed.

Ardi wasn't certain. They were still studying single-Star shields at the Grand. On his own, Ardan had been exploring the principles of constructing two-Star shields, whereas this safe apparently employed three.

Casting aside those pointless doubts, he refocused on the faint groan of metal and sensed how the lock wheel yearned to once again fulfill its singular purpose — its very reason for "being." Then he exhaled not fragments of names, but impressions and thoughts of them. A moment passed, then another… and the wheel began to turn on its own, rotating through the numbers, completing revolution after revolution.

For an instant, the Star Magic shield flickered, then died away. The art of the Aean'Hane also involved Ley energy, just as Star Magic did, yet the trick Ardi had just used… It had contained so little Ley that the spell hadn't even managed to detect it.

With a dull click, the door opened, and Ardan, wearing a triumphant — and admittedly rather smug — smile, peered inside. Straight away, he spotted a slender screwdriver with notches on its tip: the very same tool used to remove the typewriter's pressure bar. If not for a flash of lightning, Ardi might never have noticed the cover of a book lying behind the screwdriver.

"The Theory of Creation and Ley.

Senior Magister,

Erzans Paarlax."

For several long, desperate seconds, Ardi fought against his curiosity. Then he succumbed. He pulled out both the screwdriver and the scientific text, nearly knocking over a strange device that was on the lower shelf.

Making sure that the odd steel platform resting under a glass dome was unscathed, Ardi, screwdriver and book in hand, straightened and moved toward the source of light.

Opening it up to the first page, he soon realized that he'd stumbled onto something… incomprehensible.

The work was clearly unfinished, more a scattering of thoughts and various lists of studies and observations than a polished, neatly formulated scientific treatise.

"In this context, I've come to the conclusion that if we can split a beam of light into particles, then why is the same approach impossible for the Ley?

Yes, it's highly likely that we can assert that the Ley is merely a spectrum. But if that's the case, why can't it be broken down into particles just like the spectrum of light?

First, we must understand particles. Everything around us is composed of them. We once believed the smallest, indivisible particle to be the atom. But if that's the case, then what is the atom itself made of? If it's fundamental and indivisible, how does it form? How is it measured? What laws does it follow, and what properties does it display when it changes states?

These questions led me to suspect that the atom is likely not the fundamental particle of existence. There are smaller ones — perhaps entities not of mass, but of energy.

Though one could argue that mass is merely a manifestation of it and another state of energy. After all, it was proven long ago that a heated object is heavier than that same object at rest…

Or perhaps it isn't energy at all, but information…"

Ardi, unable to grasp exactly what he was reading, simply flipped through the pages, which were covered in cramped, ragged handwriting.

"I'm increasingly leaning toward a new idea based on some recent calculations. Atoms really might be made up of smaller particles, which we may never be able to observe, but… that line of reasoning doesn't help much when it comes to something devoid of mass.

Take light, for instance. A recent experiment by Grand Magister Verzer clearly confirms the theory of light speed. This means that it doesn't exist everywhere at once, as was once argued, but instead moves — albeit so quickly that no physical object could ever match those numbers.

Is it possible to split light into atoms?

And even more crucially — can we calculate the number of atoms in gravity? Or in electromagnetic fields?"

The speed of light? He felt like Elena had mentioned similar theories, calculations and experiments before. She was keen on normal and Ley-science and had been planning a career in that domain, though Ardi couldn't recall her complex explanations well enough to grasp what the book was getting at.

"I propose that we introduce a new type — class, subgroup, whatever — of matter. Take, for instance, a field. Perhaps it's also a variety of matter. But then what is its fundamental, indivisible particle?

I suspect that we must step away from our usual worldview and accept that creation might function under entirely different principles than we first thought. The fundamental particle of a field might not be an observable thing at all, but rather a quantitative one — the smallest, quantized unit of transferred energy.

Transferred where? And why are they transferred? I doubt we'll find answers to these questions in our lifetime."

Ardan, forgetting all about the typewriter awaiting a new ribbon, kept poring over the notes of this Senior Magister whose name meant nothing to him.

"If we focus on the Ley's relationship with the planet's electromagnetic field, we can spot a curious feature. It's undeniable that the Ley truly does affect the planet's electromagnetic field, but when we go 'lower,' we see that living creatures aren't all that affected by it.

Yes, there's a popular theory that we've evolved some sort of immunity. But in that case, how could life have originated on our planet at all, if the Ley was inherently a hostile environment?

Our nervous system shouldn't exist in its current form.

Hence, I conclude that the Ley interacts with electromagnetic fields and… also does not, all at once. How is that even possible?"

Ardan nearly choked in shock and glanced at the window, where the spring storm had already seized most of the city. What he was reading resembled a lunatic's asylum notes. And yet, something compelled him onward.

"Today, I once again conducted experiments with light. And strangely, depending on my methods of measurement, light, at a fundamental level, may appear as a wave or as a particle. It depends on which exact experiment I carry out and whether I'm doing any calculations.

It feels as though light 'knows' when I'm trying to measure it and, in deference to my scrutiny, settles on just one of many possible states. But the moment I abandon those futile efforts, the experiment shows all possible states at once.

Where do they go when I try to measure them? We know energy neither appears from nothing nor disappears into it. It only transforms.

Have I uncovered something in my experiments that refutes this principle? Or are my experiments flawed? If they're accurate, then there must be countless realities.

Again, my calculations are at an impasse.

And yet, I'm increasingly convinced that the Ley, by its very existence, is an accident — much like the state chosen by the fundamental particle of light during the computational stage of an experiment.

If that's true, perhaps we're as microscopic to the Ley as atoms are to us? If so, the premise that the Ley has a certain domain… A field of influence limited by our atmosphere… is false.

On the other hand, that relationship has been confirmed by hundreds of experiments.

Am I mistaken again? Or are we missing something that defies rational thought and measurement? If so, how does creation exist at all if it can't be rationally understood? How can a rational mind exist within it? And what, then, is the mind?"

The pages rustled on and on, and Ardi sank deeper into another's madness. A madness which, judging by the dates at the end of these notes, calculations, and experiment logs, had tormented Senior Magister Paarlax for two decades.

"If light has speed, and its fundamental, indivisible element acts as both a wave and a particle while also carrying energy (one form of information), can we draw parallels with the Ley?

The Ley also carries energy, and it, too, is a form of information. Does it have speed? Does the Ley submit to gravity? And if so, what would calculating the fundamental Ley particle — if it exists — offer us?

The existence of a fundamental, indivisible Ley particle…

I believe it exists.

And I believe it can be calculated, and that we can find a way to prove its existence experimentally.

If we find that particle, perhaps it will be the missing block in our tower of knowledge about creation.

I'm attempting to recreate conditions similar to the gas chamber devised for light experiments in order to test the Ley, but so far, my efforts have yielded no success.

I won't abandon my efforts, for I have faith.

Does faith have mass? A positive or negative energy charge?

I don't know.

Perhaps, during my experiments, I'll discover that certain questions will remain forever behind the barriers that the Face of Light has set before us. Or perhaps I'll uncover His direct footprints and prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the King of Kings exists.

Or I'll find that our universe — like any other, even a hypothetical one — is nothing but an accident. But if one reality can be accidental, is it also mere chance that multiple realities exist? Do they exist?

It's astounding how many questions my quest for the Ley's fundamental properties has raised. But this time, I…"

Ardi never got to see what the Senior Magister planned to do "this time," because the soft, prolonged creak of the office door's weary hinges came from behind him.

"Yes, my friend, naturally, I'm still inclined to think that the Ley must be subject to entropy too, and…"

Ardan turned around. There, in the doorway, stood the same head of the Menagerie who had welcomed him inside a couple of hours before, accompanied by none other than Ildar Nalimov, Alice Rovnev's "friend," in the flesh.

"Um…" Ardi mumbled awkwardly. "Good evening?"