Ви Корс - The Mist and the Lightning. Part 16

“Or died in battle. Kors, what's the difference, only my mother tried to kill me three times and couldn’t, and also Karina. And the red ones. And the blacks wanted to hang me not so long ago. I've been walking on the edge all my life.”

“You really have nine lives!”

“Yeah, and each is crappy.”

“I don’t argue, you have experienced a lot of humiliation and suffering, and they didn’t make you better, but only embittered you. I'm sorry. But you had your father's respect. You had the power and you were the winner.”

“Yes, I had no less than you, Kors.”

“Again you are measuring against others. What a habit – to constantly compare yourself with others! To each his own. You know, Nik and Arel also despise people, they don’t care how great a person is, for them he is still a leather bag of shit. And for you, all people are better than you. Maybe you should learn from the Demon and stop considering others so glorious, stop trying to prove to people that you are no worse than them?”

“When will you stop teaching? Read your lectures on how who should behave? You teach all the time. Is this your support?”

“I will ask for you! Even if I get punished for it. I'm already painted and decorated as well as you.”

“Yes,” said Lis, “the game was equal, two pieces of shit played it.”

“Stop it! Lis!”

“Why did you stop calling me Alis?”

“I don’t want. This is your mother’s name, it is… as you say… ignominy.”

Lis chuckled.

“Your mother… she began to engage in this activity, falling into difficult life circumstances, and where was your red father?”

“Kors, he just played with the black girl and forgot about her.”

“She went back to blacks, and they punished her?”

“Yes.”

“Was she in jail?”

“Yes.”

“Where were you at that time?”

“I was with her, women are often imprisoned with their young children, you know. Then we were released.”

“But she was shamefully marked as a whore and made indelible arrows on her eyes, right?”

“What do you think?” said Lis.

“I can't imagine how it feels…”

“Really? You have them drawn on you too.”

Kors swallowed the mockery:

“I seem to be getting used to your unrestrained language. And you know, the name Atley really doesn’t suit you. And the name Sigmer – it is too alien, unusual, this is the name of the reds. Your nickname really suits you best, and even Karina calls you that,” Kors smiled.

And Lis smiled back at him. Seeing his triangular teeth, Kors couldn’t restrain himself and shook his head.

“I now understand that I acted biased. That I was tactless and rude. But you never crushed me in full force, endured. You only hurt me through my daughter.”

“I love her. You began to understand something, but you still didn’t understand about Karina and me. I endure in this relationship! She is my weakness. She will die and I will die!”

“But why, then, are you dragging her everywhere you go and pushing her to the front line?!”

“Yes, because I can’t live without her for a minute!”

“That’s what gives you the strength not to love the Demon, you have Karina! But she also loves you, don’t doubt, I know,” Kors said confidently and remembered about Nija. And about Prince Arel, and Nikto, and Zaf, yeah…

And Lis took a cigarette and silently lit it.

Kors entered the room with the bear on the wall.

Nikto was lying on the bed without moving.

But Kors was determined to ask for Lis with a firm intention to stop this chaos at last.

“Nik?”

Nikto didn’t answer or move.

“Nik, is everything all right?” Kors asked cautiously, something was wrong, and he felt it.

Nikto rose heavily, his face was covered by a mask, black empty eyes “looked” at Kors from the cracks. He just sat with his head turned towards Kors and was silent.

“Where are Arel, Verniy?”

“I sent them to the stable, and what?” nevertheless, to the relief of Kors, Nikto answered.

“Why don’t you ride your horse too?”

“I don’t want.”

“Why? You love him so much.”

“I don’t want anything,” Nikto said, and fell back on the bed.

“Every day you don’t take off your mask and sleep in it.”

“I glued it to my face.”

“But why?!”

“Why?! In order not to do anything else with this face! Not to spoil it even more.”

“Gods, no,” Kors whispered, “you can’t make it worse, everything is already ruined there!”

“I know that no, so I glued this fucking mask to my face,” Nikto shouted, and suddenly, quite unexpectedly and very quickly, grabbed his knife and stuck it into the thigh of his lame leg with all his strength.

Blood splattered in different directions.

Kors’ face changed:

“A-ah! Stop it! Stop it! Leave this body alone! Stop mutilating this body!”

“Damn, I’m going to cut off this fucking leg! Stay away, Kors! Better don’t come!”

Kors rushed out of the room, he ran after Lis, it seemed to him that Lis knew Nikto better, and knew better how to handle him and extinguish his seizures:

“Lis! Lis!”

Lis ran into the room, Nikto was sitting on the floor, fortunately, he didn’t have time to cut anything of his body. And Lis, to Kors’ amazement, quickly approached and kicked Nikto with a foot, right to say, kicked him in the gut, and then with a fist in the temple, and Nikto seemed to lose consciousness from a blow to the head.

Lis turned to dumbfounded Kors:

“This is how these seizures are removed. He needs to be hit and distracted. It is better to blow him down immediately. He blown down, then comes to his senses more or less normal. He will not punish you for this, don’t be afraid. And if you don’t do that, you don’t extinguish him, he will disperse, and it will only get worse, then you will not calm it down at all.”

“Are you crazy?! You hit him too hard!”

“Crazy? Are you fucked up?! Who is normal here? Who?! You spend so much time with them, have you seen your normal Nik well?” Lis eloquently looked at the leg of Nikto, blood continued to flow from the deep cut.

“Did you see him stoned? When he is stoned and having fun? His favorite pastime is to get hold of Arel’s cock or ass or of his own, and drive everything that comes to hand into it. Or fuck Arel for several hours without a break. You have a bad idea, Kors, about the whole degree of douchebaggage of him and Arel, and what they are doing. When Nikto collapses into insanity, he mutilates Arel and himself, and he doesn’t give a damn that scars remain. This is his only favorite pastime. Have you seen his body, his face?”

Kors covered his ears:

“Gods, why can’t you do without such an abundance of obscene words!”

“Because what they are doing can’t be named in another way!”

Nikto stirred with a soft groan:

“Li-i-is, where are your handcuffs?” Nikto held out his hands. “Close me.”

“Maybe you should be attached to the pipe?”

“I'll rip it out, probably,” Nikto raised his impersonal face to Lis, “Lis, I allow you to erase the jester’s mask and pull out the bell. Your soldiers need you. Be what I made you in the Limit.”

“Silver fox?” Lis grinned, he took out his handcuffs, with which he never parted, but was in no hurry to close Nikto’s hands.

“Silver fox is more expensive than an ordinary fox…”

“Are your unclean ones coming soon?”

“They have about one day left to get to Riverside.”

“Maybe you should go to meet them? You will wind down, do something and take your mind off your madness?”

“Yes,” Nikto agreed.

And Lis looked at Kors and said:

“Thanks,” and left.

“But I haven't had time to ask for you yet, oh devil!”

3

The trip

Black water chomped loudly over the side of the ferry raft. Nikto was sitting with his back against the side, his legs bent at the knees and his straightened arms resting on them, his head was lowered. He wasn’t moving.

Kors looked at him closely.

“Nik, are you high?”

Nikto raised his face covered with a mask:

“Yeah,” he drawled.

“And strong? Completely stoned? Yes, Nik?”

“Uh-uh… yes,” Nikto answered a little more clearly, but in unclean, “Nik, you're high,” he repeated and laughed softly.

“Gods, you’re finished! You are really finished, and you will catch an overdose again!”

Nikto answered, dropped his head between his hands again. And Kors saw now only his white top and long bangs with a black strand.

“It’s really difficult with you! Nik… I don’t understand. Do you feel so bad in a human body? In our world? Is it so unbearable?”

“Leave me alone, how tired I am of you all!”

“Nik, speak to me in black, please.”

Nikto raised his head again, and straightened his hair, slightly removing it from the mask:

“I'm fine,” he said in black, still responding to Kors’ request.

Arel, standing nearby and holding his horse by the bridle, as usual, silently listened to their conversation. Smiling slightly, he raised the flask of the unclean to his lips, taking a good sip of it.

“Nik,” Kors continued, “I think you’re doing the wrong thing. You are going crazy from your supposedly limitedness in this body. You have too much pride and no humility. Rather, you completely misunderstand him, you confuse humility with humiliation.”

“As if you understand!”

“Yes, I understand.”

“And, of course, impeccable Vitor Kors, who knows and understands everything!”

“At least I try. I am walking this path. I made peace with Lis, and I understood him. And you continue to mock and humiliate him, yes, then you allow him to hit you on the head, but this is not humility! This is a perversion! And I realized that the half-blood is no worse than me, that he is the same! He’s a man too! And we are equal. And you – no! You, Demon, don’t want to accept the fact that you are the same as us!”

“You are mice!”

“And your wings are now black! And broken. Your wings were broken, I felt it and I was very scared. What is Bustwich?”

“World of Shit, nothing special,” Nikto answered, to Kors’ disappointment, rather indifferently, “just World of Shit, like everything else.”

“What is happening to you?!”

“Nothing,” Nikto shrugged, “nothing happens to me.”

“Do you understand that you are bad at performing tasks and your Missions?”

“So what? Oh, yes, that’s what you said to Arel for ten years. He tried and did. He tried for you, but you stopped loving him!”

“Like your Father God? He disowned you, fell out of love and severely punished you, depriving you of your voice and eyes. You don't have your own voice, you wheeze. And no eyes. They say that the eyes are the mirror of the soul, instead of eyes you have empty glass!”

“What? Oh, spare me this. It's just ridiculous,” and Nikto put his finger to the mask at the level of his mouth, turning it slightly diagonally.

“Arel was unworthy of my love,” said Kors.

“However, you fell in love with him again, but only when he chucked in!”

Kors looked at Arel, who, as before, stood at a distance and was clearly not going to take part in the conversation.

“Arel, why did I stop loving you, what do you think?” Kors asked.

“Because I became dirty,” oddly enough, but Arel answered and drank from the flask again.

“Why did I love you again?”