The Mist and the Lightning. Part 19

Barely overcoming disgust, Kors cautiously stepped into the liquid mud, mixed with hay and dung. Afraid of injuring his feet on some loose horseshoe nail or broken bottle, he took a few steps forward. The edges of his trouser legs were already wet and dirty. Probably, it was necessary to immediately pull them up or roll them up, but then he would look even stupider. Where’s his damn horse, fucking Grrkh? Kors called out to him loudly, immediately hearing a whinny in response from quite a distance away. He quickly passed several low tents. Smoke curled over them, for sure there were housekeeping Verniy and Valentine there, maybe even at that moment they were boiling water for Kors. But Kors didn’t want to see them, and even more didn’t want them to see him in such a pitiful state. He found Grrkh tied up under a rectangular canopy set up on tall poles. His horse stood calmly next to Unclean Power and Beauty. In addition to the fact that a roof was built for the horses, protecting them from the rain, Grrkh was unsaddled and carefully covered with a woolen blanket. Next to him, on a clean pallet, lay hay and a bucket filled to the brim with water. “The horse is treated better than me!” Kors thought angrily. He looked around for his saddle, but couldn’t find it, there was not a single saddle at all. It looked like Verniy had taken all the saddles and harness to his tent, away from dampness and rain. “The horses are well-groomed, and there is more order here than in the tent of Nik and Arel! Only you always have dirt, cold and a mess! Well, go to hell!” Still being angry, Kors roughly pulled off the blanket from the horse and jumped on him without a saddle, feeling a strong shiver ran through Grrkh’s body from the scruff of the neck to the tail. The horse twitched under the rider, and neighed, nervously stepping with his hooves, but Kors paid no attention to this. Yelling a command furiously and kicking the horse’s flanks with his muddy heels, he urged him onward to where he had come from the day before, and where his Parky and Adrian had been.

Responding to the call, Parky jumped out of his tent, and, since Kors took him by surprise, the unclean one couldn’t restrain his emotions, and admiration flashed in his eyes for just a second. Kors noticed this and understood the reason. Yes, the camisole was really luxurious, but Parky couldn’t realize the fact that wearing it in such a situation was inappropriate, just like Nick, and by the way, all the other unclean couldn’t either. And the fact that Kors was wearing expensive clothes, but at the same time had bare feet in the mud, didn’t seem strange to Parky at all.

Kors dismounted. The fact that he was without shoes was incredibly depressing to him.

“Parky! Set up my tent immediately! You have five minutes!”

“Yes, commander! I can suggest you, commander, to take shelter in my tent for the time being. It’s raining.”

Kors didn’t want to go into the unclean’s tent at all, but standing there like a fool in front of his subordinates was also a dubious option.

“All right, just move quicker!”

Kors entered his captain’s tent. To his relief, it was fairly clean and comfortable inside. A table and chairs stood against one wall, and a sleeping place was located at the other, it was a low flooring littered with skins. Tyutya was sitting on it, cross-legged. Undressed, with her bright hair disheveled, she looked in horror at Kors, and he looked at her terrible burn scars in place of her breast and a deep vertical scar on her stomach. “What kind of pervert do you have to be, Parky, to want that?” Kors thought, and, apparently, disgust was involuntarily reflected on his face, because the slave, coming to her senses, grabbed her dress, put it on very quickly, threw on the cape in a matter of seconds and rushed out of the tent. Kors sat down at the table and, taking Parky’s cigarette from the box lying on it, lit it. He heard that there was a fuss in the street, the cries of the unclean, Parks was giving out jerky commands.

After trying to calm down a bit, Kors decided to analyze the situation. What did he do wrong again? Now why did he offend him? What did he say to Nik that was so hurtful? Nothing! He hadn’t said or done anything wrong! It was Nik who offended him, deceived, sucked him out and ate as he wanted. The demon was cynically eating the victim, who didn’t suspect anything and was confident in his honesty. And even after everything that the Demon had done to him, after the lies and betrayal were revealed, he, like a father, sincerely wanted to help him with the treatment! And Nik, as a gratitude, yelled at him and threw a boot at him! His unreasonable outbursts of rage were simply unsettling. Even Prince Arel, despite all his foolishness, behaves more adequately and consistently. Nik is very sick. How annoying it is! Inadequate moron, an orphan with crippled psyche, and in addition sharing a body with a punished outcast Demon. What had Lis told him once? “I’m no longer surprised that your demon friends kicked you out of their world!” Exactly! Lis was right! And what can I want after that? What reasonable action can I await from the abnormal? But, in spite of everything, I’m nice to him, and he is evil again! Why is Nik angry again? He absolutely cannot stand being told the truth. He doesn’t want to hear the truth about himself. He cries, he gets angry. But at the same time, he does nothing to change for the better, and doesn’t listen to anything. “He gets through only thanks to his cute appearance, for which, by the way, he should be grateful to me! And I always looked after him and loved him! And how can I help him, if he rejects everything himself, tramples, repels. Any patience will burst!” Kors thought.

Kors often thought: what if he had remained silent that evening, had not said that he had seen the truth? Everything would remain the same, and the Demon wouldn’t punish him? But then they would continue to consider him a fool, over whom they could make fun and brazenly use him. No, that was not an option either. Now they will at least know that he understood everything and is not so easily fooled. “What a deceiver Nik is!” Kors again went into resentment. “But now Nik won’t be able to fool me anymore. And everything will be fair. Just how? “I’m Nikto, I’m reflecting”, and what are you going to reflect there? I didn't throw my boots at you!”

Kors tried to remember everything he had done to Nik, and everything Nik himself had done to him:

“Nik said, ‘I don't like beating you.’ My ass! In his Limit, he beat me not weakly! He didn’t pity me, he beat me with pleasure. He avenged me in full, both for his interrogation in prison and for Arel. He broke my nose, I was black with bruises, and he fucked me, enjoying the sight of my body covered with purple bruises, admiring my disfigured swollen face. Everything was fine and he liked everything. “I don’t like beating you” – oh yeah! He nearly killed me recently. If Arel hadn’t saved me, hadn’t distracted the Demon, he would have killed me. And yesterday. I still feel that hit. I was beaten with all might. I must have a concussion. Maybe it was not he, of course, but the prince, but in any case, he probably ordered this to be done. Or, even if he didn’t order, and it was entirely Arel’s initiative, he didn’t stop him. Didn’t say anything. I never beat him like that! What was I doing with him? Well… I insulted him, humiliated, “beat with words”, as he says, okay, that’s the least of my worries, these are just words. I tied him up, chained him up and blindfolded him. Well, it started yesterday. He dragged me on chains and blinded me. Also… I was beating him, not hard, but I was beating him. And I will get it, this is also understandable, it also started yesterday. What else? I put a bag on his head, put a stick in his… “Oh-oh-oh! – Kors literally jumped up in his chair, – Well, I have to distract myself now from this… What else could it be? Maybe there is something worse? I gave him a good beating with a belt for a lesson not learned, no… a stick seems to be worse. Shit! – Kors grabbed his captain’s cigarettes again. – Even at the celebration of the victory in Ore Town, I hit him in front of everyone at the table and knocked out his tooth. But damn it, I’m not to blame! Nik anyway had all his lower teeth staggered! I didn’t hit him too hard, the tooth fell out by itself, Prince Arel was the first to loosen them. No, the stick is the worst! Definitely it is the worst! I hope he doesn’t do it now, on the road, then I just won’t be able to get on the horse. No, he won’t. But when we return to the Black City, nothing will hold him back. What to do?! I have to fight, it’s pointless to ask for mercy. Should I call Zaf? He offered it himself. He worries about me because he knows his White Lord. Should I make another deal with the Demon? But what can I offer him? Money, slaves? The demon is not interested in it. Myself? Ha! The demon has taken everything from me! Pride, honor, affections. And love. The Demon has also taken my body and soul from me. Nothing is left. I have nothing to offer him. So what kind of deal can we talk about if I gave everything away a long time ago? And Nick won’t remember how much good I did for him, how I took care of him, treated him, dressed and fed him, he won’t “reflect” this, it’s clear, it’s not interesting to reflect love and care! What to do? To address Leonardo in the city? After all, we really didn’t quarrel, and formally remain friends. Leo has his own Demons, let him deal with my silly one. Gods, what am I thinking about?! Well, what is left? I need support. It is very difficult to live without the support of influential friends, and when you are with support, and the one who needs puts a word here and there, everything is completely different. I need patrons. Well. Zaf himself offered help, that’s great! And he has already warned about a certain “critical situation”. It’s a serious matter, I need to get out. In this, Lis was a master, that’s who could now help, calm the Demon and give me sensible advice on how to behave better. Well, at least he would just defuse the situation and make me laugh with a rude saying of commoners. Yes, Lis, you know how to joke, red-haired beast! But how to contact him? Lis doesn’t hear a damn thing, and neither does my daughter. Shit! Salafael! Should I try to get through to him? He’s the connection of the Demon with Lis. But maybe Salafael only hears the Demon? Or the Demon won’t allow to communicate with him? And if he does, what should I say to Salafael? “Go to Lis and say…” Say what? Tell him all the details? What if Lis is there with his father busy with the affairs of the city? Well, it doesn’t matter, nothing terrible, he will get distracted. What if he’s just lying around drunk? It’s more likely. Surely now his father does everything for him, as I did everything before. Lis can only look for trouble, drink and pour sayings. Salafael has Shag! And Zaf certainly has a connection with his brother! That’s already something!”

Having outlined the circle of possible defenders, Kors calmed down a little. He will not be offended.

“But why is Nik such a fool? Why?” Composure turned out to be short-lived, Kors couldn’t pull himself together. Thoughts swirled in his head over and over again. He went through all the possible options for future events in the third circle, over and over again thinking about the situation in which he found himself and how to get out of it with the least losses. All kinds of versions wound up on each other, the assumptions became more and more fantastic. One by one, Kors smoked Parky’s cigarettes, feeling that he was losing his last strength in empty fabrications, and couldn’t stop.

“What could I be missing? What I didn’t pay attention to? What else can I think of? And how can Lis help? Lis bends himself. They rolled Lis themselves as they wanted before going to Ore Town. He got it great, and he obeyed. How will he help me? With a joke? In fact, I helped him. I acted as his patron, promised to persuade the Demon, change his anger to mercy, so that the Demon would finally allow Lis to wipe the shameful clown makeup from his face. However, I didn’t have time to do this, but Lis thought that I had asked for him, and said to me: “Thank you!” So Lis must now help me! Return a debt! What if I speak frankly with Leonardo in the city? The conversation is very difficult, and what will Leonardo say to this?

“Mission accomplished!”

Kors jumped sharply in surprise. The insane flow of his thoughts was interrupted by Parky. He had entered the tent, unceremoniously jerking Kors back to reality, and now stood in front of him, awaiting further orders.

“Commander, everything is ready,” the unclean one reported again, seeing that Kors was just sitting, staring blankly at him, and was silent.

“Ah… And… horse. Have you put my horse under a canopy?” Kors finally spoke up.

“Yes, sir!” Parky saluted.

“All right.” Kors had nothing to complain about. Parky’s tent was clean and free of luxuries, which Kors felt were not due to his subordinate. Ascetic, modest, nothing more than necessary. Kors’ tent was quickly set up by the unclean ones. The horse was being looked after. Kors got up, proudly straightened his back, and, making a stone expression on his face, headed for the exit. And noticing that he had left dirty footprints in Parky’s tent, he tried to make his face even more haughty.

Entering his room, Kors saw Tyutya. She sat on her knees, her head bowed low, covered with a black cape, and next to her stood a basin of water. Kors understood everything, and immediately sat down on a chair. “If the water is cold, I will make you regret it!” he thought angrily, still wanting to vent his annoyance on someone. But the water in the basin was warm, pleasantly warming her cold feet. Tyutya very carefully and delicately began to wash off the dirt from his feet with a washcloth lathered with soap. Her hands were open, and Kors saw that a thin gold ring with a blue stone gleamed on the slave’s finger. “Oh, Parky, stupid wolf! What are you doing? Why do you give a useless cunning fox precious gifts? How does she do it? How does this red bitch manage to shake it out of him? After all, she has nothing! No tongue, no breasts, a dry cut hole. There is nothing, but, nevertheless, she has an influence on my captain, some kind of secret power, which she shamelessly uses for her own purposes and for her own good. She has hidden leverage, thought Kors, and I have no way to influence Nik! And why don’t I still have such an invisible power as Prince Arel has! That’s the only reason I can’t give them a fitting rebuff. Of course! Arel will quickly crush me with his strength, and Nik even more so possesses it to perfection. But not me! And they are not equal! Why do I hear useless thoughts, but I can’t squeeze anyone? Squeeze anyone’s throat!”

Kors tried to imagine how he squeezes Tyutya’s throat. Parky followed Kors’ orders and covered the slave with a cape, but not the one she wore in the city. This cape was lighter and looser, made of thin silky fabric, falling down in beautiful folds, it didn’t restrict movement so much. On the head, over a long flowing shawl, was tied a wide forehead bandage, tightened with a knot at the back of the head. Little space was left for the eyes. The forehead bandage and the fabric covering the face were connected together over the bridge of the nose with a thin black ribbon. The slave’s eyes were lowered and almost invisible, but Kors, sitting in a chair and looking down at the girl, saw her chestnut fluffy eyelashes tremble when she blinked. He saw that her upper eyelids were beautifully accentuated with black paint. He himself didn’t understand why this irritated him so much, and therefore angrily continued to imagine how he was squeezing her neck with both hands, but Tyutya didn’t raise her eyes and calmly continued to rub his feet with a washcloth. Nothing worked with her!

“Well, if I can’t touch such weak rubbish, then what can I say about others! They’ll kill me now if they want to! On distance!” In desperation, Kors again tried to squeeze Tyutya, and again nothing happened. He stepped back. Tyutya began to rinse his clean feet with water from a jug.

“Tyutya… Tyutya… does this bitch even have a name? Maybe knowing her real name, I can influence her?” And as soon as Kors thought about it, a set of numbers and letters appeared before his eyes. Kors saw it very clearly – “ms13590vg”. He always memorized numerical combinations easily, often marking his documents with numbers. He said to his secretary: “Bring me a folder number such and such from the archive …” I knew by heart all the numbers of the articles of the code. No, it seemed that Tyuti never had a name as such, but she had an inventory number!

Night. A low gray barrack with rows of wicker mats on the floor. Many girls, a couple of dozen, or even more, lie on mats and sleep. Here is Tyutya. She doesn’t sleep, clings to the girl lying next to her, they hug, cling to each other. Tyutya is eight or nine years old, but girls can be older, Kors is already used to the fact that the children in his visions always look not at their real age, because of difficult life circumstances they are thin and small. And Tyutya still has a tongue, and her breast has not yet been touched, it simply doesn’t exist, because it has not grown yet. A whole kaleidoscope of very bright, warm and pleasant moments swirls past his gaze, always associated with this other girl, whose inventory number is “ms137100of”. She and Tyutya are best friends, always together, laughing, hugging, kissing each other. He sees some classes in which slaves are taught to work. Girls also learn to wear a cape, Tyutya and all other learners have no face. They are constantly washing, scrubbing, rubbing and cleaning. They don’t really like it, but there is nowhere to go, and they dutifully perform tasks: they sweep and wash the floors, wash dirty dishes to a shine, weed some beds, pick ripe dark red berries from tall bushes. Daily work from early morning to late evening. On a certain day they are beaten, not for any faults, but just for order, they are beaten quite noticeably. Kors quickly flips through the story of the life of a slave, like the pages of a book that is not interesting to him. He doesn’t want to look at the memories, consisting of endless work, beatings and violence. But he sees that every night Tyutya and “ms137100of” cling to each other on their miserable mats and love each other. Oddly enough, their teachers don’t pay much attention to this. Adult women, covered with capes and faceless, they are not interested in the life of their wards.

And the girls themselves perceive them indifferently, like day and night, rain and wind, some forces of nature that exist in the world around them. Tyutya and her girlfriend dutifully live in the proposed circumstances and at the same time in their personal little world, which no one cares about, and that’s where the girlfriends are interested, and they are happy. But only for the time being. Kors notes that the girls have grown and hears one of the mentors say to the other, pointing to “ms137100of”:

“This one is very lazy, she shall be sent to the hospital, the wounded soldiers need blood. And this one,” and she points to Tyutya, “is more industrious, and a little smarter than her, she shall be a domestic assistant.”

The friends are separated, and Kors realizes that Tyutya has never seen “ms137100of” again, most likely, in the hospital she was very soon gutted into organs for wounded soldiers. And Tyutya was crippled according to tradition, finally wrapped in a yarn and sent to work. But, oddly enough, Kors gets the impression that this girl seems to be always next to Tyutya. Tyutya continues to mentally return to her, recalls their childhood games, and absolutely every night she sees her in a dream, where they play together and love each other. No, she doesn’t suffer, and probably doesn’t even miss her friend in the literal sense of the word, experiencing rather a slight sadness – it happened and, therefore, it was destined to be. Complete acceptance of the situation and submission to fate, no matter how unfair it may be. Accept the situation. ACCEPT and RELEASE.

“Fuck you in the ass, Tyutya!” Kors flared up indignantly in his thoughts. “The last thing I need is your senseless childhood! Well, what a misfortune is this gift – to see other people’s lives! Why do I need this information? So, you, Tyutya, are not indifferent to girls, but what difference does it make to me?!”

Having done her job, Tyutya calmly left, but what was Kors to do now?

“Order to bring more water and wash? Fix myself up?” But he didn’t want to. “Order to bring lunch?” There was no desire. “Order to bring wine?” But Kors knew that in such a mood, wine wouldn’t help him, but only aggravate the situation. Intoxication would give false relief for a short time, and for this it will be necessary to drink a lot, and when he sobers up, he will begin to experience unbearable attacks of fear, much stronger than now, and he would have to drink again to calm down, he would get stuck, and would be long and painfully get out of all this shit. It already happened.

“Maybe go to sleep? But the time is noon,” Kors lost interest in life, and everything was indifferent to him. He lay down on his camp bed and just lay there stupidly, not moving, until Parky disturbed him.

“Commander, may I report? Verniy has come there, he is asking you.”

Kors jumped to his feet, his heart pounding wildly, but he pulled himself together and said with a wry smile:

“What, your friend has come, the same stupid wolf?”

But Parky shook his head in a negative gesture.

“No, commander, don’t compare us. I’m from a free tribe, and Ver is a watchdog.”

“Let him enter!”

But to Kors’ dismay, Verniy didn’t say “Master is calling you back” or anything like that, he only brought dried clothes, boots and a bottle of water.

“Sir, your clothes. And you asked for water, I boiled it well and cooled it. I poured it into a bottle for easy drinking. Here is your drinking water.”

“Thanks,” Kors muttered.

“I wonder what Nik is doing there now?” Kors thought, and couldn’t resist:

“Verniy, what does the master do?”

“The masters are sleeping,” Verniy replied.

“Well, of course! What else can they do!” thought Kors and said:

“Verniy, shift your master from the floor, cover him with a blanket, take care of him.”

Verniy nodded.

“But only if he wants to, you understand.”

“Yes. But try! Don’t you care that your master lay down on the floor and might catch a cold?”

“I try to do my duty as best as possible, but I don’t have the right to tell him what to do,” Verniy explained, “DO YOUR OWN AND DON’T GO OUT OF YOUR OWN.”

“What a stupid dog,” Kors was indignant, “okay! But I hope you still love your master!”

“I love him,” Verniy agreed and left.

And Kors looked at the pile of clothes that the unclean one had brought him. “What's the point of dressing now? Change clothes?” He took his golden cigarette case out of his jacket pocket and turned the flat box sadly between his fingers.

Hike to the Ore Town.

“Vitor, take it.”

Nik tells him, and Kors looks up in confusion.

Nik is holding his golden cigarette case in his hand:

“I have put your favorite cigarettes in it.”

“My cigarette case?”

“Yes, you left it in our room a long time ago and completely forgot about it. You don’t need it anymore?”

“I need it,” and Kors holds out his hand, taking from Nik a flat gold box, decorated with blue stones around the edge, his cigarette case. He opens it and sees with amazement that it is full, one might even say stuffed with cigarettes. They are neatly stacked in rows in two layers, tightly pressed against one another, on both sides.

“Thank you”, Kors thanks, dazed, hesitating at first to disturb the order of his cigarettes, which are so beautifully arranged. But then he pulls out one and lights it up.

“Vitor, I love you,” Nik says quietly.

And Kors doesn’t believe his ears:

“What?!”

Nik seriously and somehow very attentively looks at him and repeats:

“I love you. I don’t play now and don’t reflect.”

And Kors throws away his cigarette, falls to his knees: 

“But why? Why now?!” There are tears in his eyes.

“I don’t know,” Nik shrugs, “it doesn’t happen on purpose, but somehow by itself. It is so? And you can’t explain. But this is for real, I'm not fooling you now. It’s true.”