Due to mago-technical precautions, materials produced by the Bookburners behave radically differently from most printed or transcribed works. Rather than making its way to the Library, from whence all information flows and ultimately returns, their information is of a sort that remains nailed to the page, perishing with the frail paper. It seems that their work was deemed insufficiently insulting to the Library on its own.
Therefore, any time that a Wanderer has an opportunity to procure a work from the Bookburners, it is considered a great boon to the Library and its knowledge of its foes. One such work, found in 1957 during a extra-planar pilgrimage by Mr. Li Yaotang, was the entirety of a book entitled Escape from Turkistan: On the Run from the Bolsheviki Sorcerers.
The author of the book, a Prof. Felix Konstantinovich Memetov, was a key leader of the Brotherhood of Nine Hundred, one of the organizations instrumental in the creation of this latest iteration of the Bookburners. Due to the aforementioned precautions, Prof. Memetov's rank within the Bookburners is unknown, although several offhanded references throughout the book, as well as its publication by "GOC Internal Press," suggest a relatively high standing.
I have provided commentary in order to elucidate some of the more esoteric passages as well as correct any demonstrably false information given.
- Kouangay Threesands
Archivist, South-by-Southeast wing
One early afternoon in Doroghkent near the close of 1920, a carriage pulled up to my residence from which emerged three men dressed in European-style suits. Such choice of dress in the climes of Turkistan is highly uncomfortable, and I myself had switched to wearing the traditional Podlogi to'n, or colored robe, within a week of my arrival several decades prior.
I recognized one of the three as Mr. G, a man who, if not particularly gifted in the arts of magic, was at least capable of studying them with an earnest passion. Formerly a close associate of mine, G had recently chosen to side with Lenin and his Bolsheviki faction in order to secure a favorable position for himself in the new arrangement of things. Such a disregard for tradition among practioners of the esoteric arts is quite unseemly. The other two fellows were local Podlogis I had not met personally, but knew by reputation as brutes and sadists, without a single redeeming characteristic. Of their intentions, there could be no doubt; I was, at that time well-known about the areas of Doroghkent as an agent of the White faction of democrats against the Bolsheviki.
My cleaning woman and intermittent companion, Gulchitay, greeted them at the door. A master of the intricacies of Podlogi etiquette, she was able to hold them for several minutes with her formulaic pleasantries. While the Podlogi companions were doubtless transfixed by their learned cultural affectations, I can only assume that G was held in place by Gulchitay's will, which, at times, could be entirely otherworldly.
At the time, I found myself incapacitated slightly by the bottles of local araq that had been given me by the descendant of a local emir two days prior. After several attempts, I managed to rise to my feet and place a simple hex upon the majority of my important possessions, those left out being destroyed in prior attempted castings.
Evil detecting cat.
I was hoping that you would say that.
Shots fired.
Old scrolls react unpredictably.
The taller fellow
He grabs as many as he can find before fleeing.
[something clever
Andrei heard Alexander Yevgeneeich before he saw him. Even on the carpeted floor of the hallway, even through the wall, even above the murmur of the crowd, the sound of the old magician's cane rapidly hitting the ground [? was unmistakable.
Fedot Katin
Karina Zakrevsk
Leonid Sozonov
Alexander Ivanovich Slobozhanin
Mikhael Grinin
Yevgeny Ivanovich Saltykov
Maxim Boholyubov
Igor Pokrovski
Vasili Matveyev
Viktor Lazarev
Sergei Loginov
Andrei Ponomaryov
Pyotr Balabanov
Roman Azarov
Ekatrina Yevseyeva
Vira Zubareva
Sofia Artemova
Olga Sukhorukova
Ksneyia Uvarova
Yelena Kirilovna Durov
Adam Loewitz
Introduction
Lay out players (prose), themes (expo), timeframe (expo), and reading/viewing (Bulgakov, Zoschenko, Kryjyzhanovsky, Service)
1918
Sorcerers of the Red Tsar
Market Entry
1919
1920
In Place Of Profit (last Sherridan story)
1921
Exporting the Revolution (fairyland story)
1922
1923
1924
1925
1926
Gana and Gamalcar
1927
1928
1929
1930
1931
1932
The crone laughed, revealing a set of teeth the color of steel. Her eyes remained fixed on Alison. "Dark? You're Dark's lackey? I didn't think that little kalita could return here after what happened to Novgorod! Well, goes to show, there's always time for a second chance…"
Her laughter subsided, but her lips were still parted, and oh god, there were those teeth fitting perfectly together. "But no, I never could stand to make a deal with something like Dark. But you… I think you and I could make a deal."
"That information was destroyed. There never was a Department for Advanced Research, so far as history is concerned."
"What happened, happened, for good and for ill. Don't you know that the truth doesn't burn?"
"It's metastasized."
The elderly man shifts in his chair. His expression doesn't change.
"So, what now?"
"Well, we'll keep up the treatments, obviously. Another round of chemo and radiation [check], and you've got a good shot."
The old man gives a hollow laugh which quickly devolved into a wheezing hack. From his shirt pocket, he took a white kerchief and spat into it. As he refolded the fabric, he tried not to look at the red flecks mixed with the spittle.
"No, 'a good shot' is what I had before it spread. If I drop the treatments, how long do I got?"
"Six or seven weeks. Maybe a little more or a little less, depending. But still, I would strongly suggest continuing treatment."
"And if I stay on the pills and radiation and shit, how long do I got?"
"Well, that all depends on whether or not it responds to the treatment."
"And if how likely is it to respond?"
"Well, with a history such as yours, there's a variety of factors to consider."
"Don't bullshit me. Please. I just want to know."
"There's around a ten percent chance. But again, w-"
"Then fuck it. I'm done."
The old man stood up, supporting his frail frame on the metal cane. He walked to the door, taking small, shuffling steps. The doctor stood up.
"Mr. Kantor, please. There are still plenty of options fo-"
"Nah, I'd just as soon not spend my last few months puking my guts out. Thanks for your help, doc. I'll be seeing you around!"
Abram Kantor waves a tattooed hand without looking back. He gives a gurgling chuckle at his own joke as he opens the door to leave.
1979
A pair of manacles on the ankles.
[Abram talks to goon]
1968
A scene of two skeletons on the back. The one on the right one wears a SS uniform, while the one on the left wears a suit with a hammer and sickle pin. Each holds a rifle with a bayonet, with the blades of the two crossing in the center. Below in Russian it reads "Hitler couldn't kill me, Marx couldn't kill me." In Hebrew it reads "I'll put up a fight when Yaweh tries to kill me!"
[Abram turned down for burial]
1961
A pair of epaulettes on the shoulder. In the center is a stylized skull and crossbones.
[Abram visits dude in the know]
1957
Two stars on the knees.
[Abram + Dude visit Georgian]
[apple]
1955
A blue heraldic lion on the upper back.
[Georgian agrees to help]
[In exchange, asks to keep skin]
1949
Star of David on the wrist.
1943
A series of numbers on the arm, near the elbow.
1927
Two bells on the left shoulder
[Georgian stays as Abram dies]
1925
[SOME MARKER OF THIEFHOOD]
[Abram's death]
1911
A blotchy mark between the index finger and thumb of the right hand.
"Give it, Abram!"
"No, it's mine!"
The older boy snatches the book away from Abram's desk. He holds it above his head, far from where Abram can reach it.
[Abram's skin]
As a matter of course, people did not go to the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of Podlogistan; they were sent there. An isolated, landlocked spit of land divided evenly between a desert in the east and barren mountains in the west, Podlogistan had long served as a place for the government, first Imperial, then Soviet, to send problems that it didn't want to hear about again.
The possibility of reassignment to Podlogistan had long haunted the nightmares of every aspiring bureaucrat; Trotsky had been sent there prior to his exile from the USSR, and the whole republic was seen as cursed. In the bad old days, "assigned to Podlogistan" was a euphemism for two bullets to the back of the skull in an anonymous basement. Germans, Koreans, Tatars, and other "counterrevolutionary ethnicities" were trucked there to ensure their complete isolation. Even the native Podlogis tried their best to stay away, moving mostly to bigger opportunities elsewhere in Central Asia.
But six years ago, a young engineer, sent to survey the republic as punishment for some minor infraction, had discovered something quite fascinating about the barren mountains in the west. Copper. 12.7 million tons of it under the mountains ringing the Panjsher valley. What was more, the whole mass of it was almost at surface level, obstructed only by a few meters of rock, as well as a few villages and habitats for endangered species.
Now every day, more and more brave members of the proletariat were being sent to mine the rich copper veins below the country. The native Podlogis joked that there were more Russians now in the form of engineers than there had ever been before, even during the civil war. The increased number of Uzbeks and Tajiks in the form of miners, cooks, and menial help was also noted, but no one could think of a good joke to make about it.
[Something about tapping the last bit of copper in the area.
Malik Najibulov was the closest, and by rights, he should have heard it first. But he didn't; everyone in the camp heard it at the same time. Heard wasn't the correct word, even. Felt, maybe.
Days later, while being debriefed by state security goons for the umpteenth time, Malik would say that he knew it. The goons rolled their eyes behind their cheap sunglasses. Of course, he knew it. For a split second, everyone in the world knew it.