Ви Корс - The Mist and the Lightning. Part 17

Igmer went to the table and took a sheet of paper, wrote something on it:

“Here is the address of the printing house,” he handed the sheet to Kors, “Ore town is big, but I hope your people will not get lost, after all, this is a city, not swamps.”

And Kors, swallowing the mockery, silently took the sheet.

22

Free will

Kors, Nikto and Arel settled together in the luxurious apartments of the Rainbow Palace.

They now had a huge living room, dining room, several bedrooms and bathrooms. However, Kors was accustomed to luxury, and Nikto and Arel seemed indifferent to everything. They perceived the objects around them exclusively from a functional point of view, without paying any attention to aesthetics.

“Nik, eat,” said Kors and pushed the plate towards him. They were sitting at a set table, and Nik was still sleepy, because Kors woke him up and pulled him out of bed, and Arel stayed to sleep.

“I don’t want to, I can’t eat a morsel in the morning.”

“It's two o'clock in the afternoon.”

“I don’t want.”

“Please. Well, please me!”

“Vitor…”

And, since Nik didn’t take the cutlery in his hands and didn’t touch the food, Kors moved his chair closer to him, and, taking a fork, pricked a piece from the plate on it, handed it to Nik:

“Open your mouth, take it.”

Nik turned away:

“I’m sick even from the very sight of this food, and don’t stick that damn fork in my face! I'm afraid of it!”

They laughed.

“Nik, I'm asking you.”

“What is it?”

“Stew with vegetables and spices of the reds. Beef. It is soft, it literally melts in your mouth. Very tasty. You need to eat meat.”

Kors put down his fork, and took a piece of meat with his hand, handed it to Nik:

“Will you take it from my hands? Well, please!”

Nik quietly, barely audible and shortly growled and doomedly allowed Kors to put a piece of meat in his mouth, swallowed it with difficulty, almost not chewing.

Kors took the following one:

“I will hand feed you, my love. But you will finally get better and gain weight.”

Nik again joylessly, but obediently took the food, took it, along with Kors’ fingers, taking them into his mouth up to the very golden rings with which his hands were humiliated. A precious ring shone on each finger, and each one was worth a fortune. Kors closed his eyes slightly and breathed deeper:

“No, no… don't distract me.”

“I don’t want more, Vitor…”

“Don't growl. The last, last piece. I promise this is the last one.”

Nik obediently took another piece from his hands.

“Well, at least something,” Kors wiped his fingers with a napkin and handed him a glass of wine, “at least you have eaten a little. I’ll feed you more in the evening.”

“Oh!”

“I can’t see how your ribs are sticking out!”

“There, as if behind them, it hurts a lot, I can't eat…”

“This is hepatitis, you need to be treated,” Kors's face showed an undisguised frustration.

He looked at his pale Nik.

“Do you still love me, Nik? Haven’t you stopped loving me?” And in Kors’ voice there was some anxiety.

“I love you very much,” Nik answered simply.

And Kors smiled, pleased:

“Really?”

“Really, Vitor, I love you very much.”

“And I love you!”

“You treat me like a child.”

“Are you unpleased?”

“I’m pleased. But I’m not a child.”

“For me, you are my child. And I am your father.”

Nik bowed down and kissed his hand, kissed the precious rings.

Kors let him do it, slightly closing his eyes in pleasure.

“Why did you tell Igmer that I am your son?”

“I didn’t have to say that?”

“It is possible, but… now others can learn about it.”

“Who? Igmer is red, whom will he tell? Why would he discuss our relationship with the blacks? He didn't attach any importance to my words.”

“Well, I don't know… Vitor, this is…”

“You don’t want to be my son?”

“I really want, and I’m yours, I have written about it on my face, no?”

“Yes. Yes.”

“But I'm worried about your reputation.”

“There is no need to worry. I wanted to, and I said it. Fox now has a father, and you too!

“I hope the black people don’t know about it.

“Blacks think that you are my lover, whom I torture and keep in slavery.”

“Yes, everything is very confusing and I don't like it. One thing falls on another, these rumors around us…”

“Eh, no one really cares, Nik. Only Zagpeace digs under us, the main thing is that Peace doesn’t learn about us, and that’s it.”

“Peace is the one who knows,” said Nik and looked at Kors very seriously, and, as it seemed to him, a little guilty.

“WHAT?!”

“He guesses, or rather, he is sure of it, but so far he keeps it to himself.”

“Who had told him ?! Unclean ones?”

Nikto shook his head.

“No, of course, the unclean ones will never say anything to people.”

“Who then?”

“He guessed it himself. We are still alike, but he is attentive. Nobody saw your Iness, but everyone sees me next to you all the time. You shouldn't have brought me to them, but I shouldn’t have listened to you and took off the mask.”

Kors covered his face with his hands.

“And he realized that you are my son, and thinks that I am fucking my own son?”

“Yes,” Nik nodded, “that’s exactly what he thinks.”

“And how does he imagine it? Does he think I'm completely finished?! That I made my own son a slave and fuck him?! Is he nuts in his fantasies?”

“He thinks that your wife Iness was your white slave, and an incomplete half-blood child from a white slave – he is like trash, not important for a true black, he believes that you don’t hold me for a man. Usually, such children are simply drowned, like kittens, after birth. And that’s why you treat me this way, even though I'm your son.”

“Tell him that you are a Demon!”

“I can’t. Zagpeace hates everything Leonardo does, all these rituals, witchcraft and appeal to Demons. He hates Demons. He won’t help us, but on the contrary will interfere. It will get worse!”

“Much worse! Oh-oh-oh, fuck! What to do?”

“Nothing!”

“It’s good for you to say so, you are poor and unfortunate, you are my victim. And I am a monster, a filthy pervert! He'll put me in jail for rituals with Leonardo, for Kamiel Varah and for incest!”

Kors walked around the room from corner to corner:

“And you were silent! You didn’t tell me anything!”

“I knew that you would start to get nervous from scratch.”

“From scratch?!”

“Nothing will happen, Zagpeace won’t do anything to you and won’t put you anywhere!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. And now he has no time for us at all, he is looking for those reds who held him captive.”

Kors shook his head.

“If I ask you not to communicate with black people, not to talk to Zagpeace anymore, if I ask you not to approach people and not talk to them, will you do it for me?”

“Yes. I promised you this even earlier.”

“And you haven’t forgotten your promise?”

“No, Vitor, I haven’t forgotten.”

“Are you with me? Tell me? Are you with me?!”

“Yes.”

“Say: “Yes, father. I promise you not to get close to people.”

“Yes, father, I promise.”

“I promise you…”

“I promise you.”

“Not to get close to people.”

“Not to get close to people.”

And Kors, in a joyful fit, hugged him:

“Just you and me, without unnecessary people, right?”

“Yes.”

Kors gently kissed him on the cheek, on his own letter, then pulled back:

“It’s almost worn out,” there was some regret in his voice, and Nikto noticed it. He took a pencil from his jacket pocket and handed it to Kors:

“Here it is. Do as you want.”

Kors took a pencil, he heard that Nik in his thoughts quickly thought: “Or do you want to cut your letter with a knife on the back of my head?” Kors froze for a moment, but decided to pretend he didn’t understand.

With a rod soaked in black dye, he renewed his letter. He circled the lines thicker and smoother. The letter “V” stood out brightly on his Nik’s cheek again, and Kors was overwhelmed with emotions, and he understood that they were base and wrong, and that he was feeding Demon with them, and now he was feeding him much more satisfying than with meat before, but Kors couldn’t do anything with himself.

“Let’s go,” said Vitor Kors to Nikto.

“Where?”

“To the doctor.”

“What for?”

“The reds have good medicines, let him give some to you.”

“Vitor, I don't want to.”

“But you need drugs, Nik, and preferably of the Upper.”

“Can you go to him without me?”

“What nonsense?”

“Well, okay, let me go with you and wait for you behind the door.”

“Nik, don't talk nonsense! What a slavish habit of always waiting behind the door? You will just come with me to the doctor’s office, and let him help you.”

“He’s red, I'm not sure he wants to help me.”

“First of all, he heals people, he took an oath and is obliged to help!”

“But not people like me.”

“I love that you keep away from people and don’t trust them, but you don’t have to be completely wild, Nik. Let’s go, why are you against it? Everything is alright. I’m with you, my dear.”

Nik, head down dejectedly, trailed behind the confidently walking Kors, he turned to him:

“Why do you remember now how I took you to dinner with the blacks? These are completely different cases. Don’t compare the noble blacks and the common red healer.”

“He's not common, he is Kudmer’s personal doctor.”.

“And it is very good! It means that he has good expensive drugs. Reds take tattoos and scars calmly, have you seen their teeth? What are you afraid of?”

“Yes, but the red ones treat black water very badly, he will refuse to treat me.”

“What do you mean refuse? Let him try! Then I'll make him do it.”

“Vitor, no… black water is taboo for the reds…”

“We won’t tell him.”

“If he is a doctor, he will understand, and he cannot help, this is taboo…”

But Vitor Kors didn’t listen to him and entered the doctor’s office without knocking. An elderly man in a white robe and a white cap raised his head in surprise and quickly got up from the table, he quickly reached out to the stack of sheets, taking his glasses from it and putting them on.

“A joyful evening,” said Kors loudly in red and himself laughed at what he said.

“Vitor, why are you doing that,” Nikto told him inwardly, but Kors continued to smile insolently, pretending not to hear him. The doctor looked at them, two black warriors in leather clothes, hung with weapons, in some shock.

“I… I… support the policies of the new Head of the town Sigmer and the idea of independence for the red underground people,” he said quickly.

“Underground?” Snorted Kors. “What kind of stupid definition do you give to our world? Why underground? Do you think we all live underground here?”

“This is what the reds from the Upper World think, sir,” justified the doctor, “for them our world is a huge cave in which we live, yes.”

“Okay, let’s skip their silly fabrications and geographic cretinism, we have come on business and for help,” Kors said sharply, and, slightly leaning towards the doctor, carefully looked at the rectangular badge attached to his medical gown at chest level.