Ви Корс - The Mist and the Lightning. Part 12

“What?!” Lis looked at Kors with wide eyes, as if he couldn’t fully understand what he had just said. “Don't you dare insult my mother!” Finally, he barely squeezed out of himself.

“As a noble sir, I have the right to do so – your mother is a commoner and a whore!”

“Shut up! Have you overdrank wine or something?”

“It is noble that you protect her, though not very fiercely, rather, within the bounds of decency. After all, you yourself understand everything, but…” Kors threw up his hands, “you observe the norms of behavior, this is normal, Alis, and moreover, this is correct.”

“I am sick of your arguments about the nobility and purity of blood! You consider me a subhuman, but why did you breed a half-blood yourself? Karina is a half-blood just like me!”

“Her mother was a virgin, and Karina absorbed the best of the features of the Supreme White and noble Black race.”

“And what about Nik then? Why so bad? Why hasn't he absorbed the best?”

“He has perfect facial features!”

“Noble sirs are taller, and he is a march! What would you do? Killed him without thinking? Got rid of tribalflaw?”

“He is not a march, and you know that very well, all his flaws are marks of the Devil. And he is shorter in stature because of poor living conditions, he simply didn’t have enough resources to grow tall. He survived.”

“So your half-blood children are noble, and I am not? My father is a noble member of the Superior Race of the Reds!”

“Yes, but there is nothing of him in you, since your mother was a commoner, polluted before him by a hundred other commoners of the same kind.”

“Ah well! Well, look what we dirty commoners will do with you noble sirs!” Lis got up abruptly and, going up to Arel, began to unbutton his fly, Arel shrank in fear, glancing at him from under his brows. Lis dipped his budding cock in his goblet of wine:

“Do you like sweet wine, Arel? Take a sip, suck on the sweet wine.”

And Lis forcibly opened Arel’s mouth with his fingers, pushing the head of his cock inside. Arel, without raising his eyes, took Lis’ cock. Lis turned to Kors, who winced as if in pain as he looked at it.

“This is what we, dirty, wrong and conceived in garbage dumps, will do with you, purebred elite. Look, Kors! See?”

Holding the back of Arel’s head, Lis pushed Arel several times with his cock in the inner part of the cheek, so that Kors could clearly see these pushes. Then Lis pulled out his cock and hit Arel lightly with his hand, slapping him in the face. Arel endured everything in silence, his hair was dispersed, hiding his face, he bent down to the tabletop, allowing Lis to demonstrate his superiority. Lis jerked off his cock, sprinkling a little into Arel’s goblet, and walked away from him.

“Drink!” He ordered. “Drink, true black!”

But Kors, getting up from his seat, walked over to Arel and, pulling the goblet out of his hand, threw the contents onto the floor. Then he took Arel by the forearm, forcing him to stand up, and led him along.

“Arel is ill, he has problems with his head,” he said, and sat the prince next to him.

“Doesn’t he has problems with his head, because his ancestors too closely followed the purity of blood and mated with each other until they degenerated? You are obsessed with nobility and appearance, like all blacks, and I don't care, Kors! I have the wrong hair, the wrong eyes, and the scars too, you can’t figure out how your daughter could love such a freak?”

“No, I can. I told you that you are smart, cunning and quite intelligent.”

“Really? What an honor to hear such praise from a noble black! I led armies, Kors, which you never dreamed of. Well of course I'm pretty smart, thanks for noticing! I am a thousand times higher in rank than you! And I, unlike other people, many times went very far beyond the line and always returned. I took “black water” and jumped off, I was in the Unclean Limitswith Nikto, and I kept my sanity, unlike Arel, who disappeared. The Demon chose me to make king, not you! I wonder why he chose such a filthy half-blood? Not one of you?”

“Yes, your mental abilities are worthy of respect, undoubtedly, and you are fighting very bravely, I don’t argue, and therefore I don’t interfere with your communication with my daughter.”

“Thank you, father! Can I call you father?” And seeing how Kors’ face was distorted, Lis smiled with satisfaction:

“End your ravings about the superiority of true blacks, this is the last time I listened to all this shit.”

“But you should start behaving more decently, Alis! This is killing me! The way you move sharply, constantly smoke, how you freak out and swear with obscene words. You're going to be king. On the throne, will you behave like that too? When they report to you something not very pleasant, you will also twitch, grab a cigarette and say: “Fuck, motherfuckers, what the fuck?”

Lis laughed.

“I can look and speak noble, don’t you believe?”

And at that moment Nikto entered the room.

Then, in the Limit, Nikto nevertheless went to meet Lis and agreed with the unclean masters of Marcus to give him on bail. He handed over his two slaves to the unclean for a while, with an agreement that Lis would soon give three red warriors for Marcus, and then the unclean ones would return the girls and take the red ones. And Marcus would be completely at the disposal of Nikto and Lis. Nikto took Marcus from his World, where time was running too slowly, and sent him to Amba’s house in the unclean district of the Black City. There, in a small basement closet, in darkness and loneliness, chained so that he couldn’t harm himself, barely able to move from a thin straw mat that served as his bed to a hole in the floor to meet his natural needs, on a meager ration, Marcus spent all this time, waiting for his fate to be decided. And now Nikto led him into the room on a chain. Marcus was completely naked. Naked, trembling, shaved bald, he moved on all fours, as befits a Demon’s slave. And he was wearing the attributes of slaves: gloves with heavy bracelets screwed on his wrists, a wide iron collar with a chain, and a mask closed with a lock at the back of his head.

But Lis recognized him right away. Maybe because he saw him crawling in the same way, unable to stand up to his full height, in a low cage near Marg.

“Marcus!” He said happily, quickly approaching them. He couldn’t see Marcus's face and his eyes, because the slits in the mask were literally a couple of millimeters wide. “Marcus! Do you remember me?”

“Answer me,” Nikto ordered.

And Marcus answered, barely audible, with fear in his voice:

“Yes, my master, I remember you. You are a warrior, a commander.”

“Yes,” Lis wrinkled his forehead. “He’s broken. You broke him, Nik.”

Nikto just snorted:

“He’s a slave.”

“Take off his mask.”

Nikto took out the key, unbuttoned the lock, removing the slave mask from Marcus. Marcus didn’t look up, the shameful tattoo was still prominent on his haggard face. And Kors, seeing what was painted on Marcus’ cheek, widened his eyes.

“Here,” Nikto said, “your boy is fine. He was no longer disfigured as you feared,” he handed the chain to Lis. “Hold on, play, I don't really understand why you need it, and even for such a price, but if you want so much…”

Lis looked at Marcus, and his face was no longer happy:

“Couldn’t you have treated him more carefully?”

“He is alive, Lis, he is a slave. What more do you want from me now? I didn’t touch him! He was not beaten or fucked! They kept him in a shackle just so that he would not lay hands on himself, and he was waiting for you.”

“Like a toy in a box,” Lis said quietly.

“What?”

“Thank you, sir. Thanks for this gift.”

Nikto grinned, content:

“Like this.”

The three of them looked at Marcus, because his too realistic, in the smallest detail, tattoo involuntarily attracted the eye, even if there was no desire to look at it. The cock was like a real one, and his head seemed to be pressed against the corner of Marcus’ lips. And Marcus, apparently realizing what they were looking at, shrank even tighter, his eyes filled with tears – to be sure, the unclean ones made fun of him. And its former owner clearly had some sense of humor.

“Can this be removed?” Lis finally asked.

“What for? In my opinion, it's beautiful,” Nikto answered, barely holding back a laugh.

“He is a scientist!”

“And what will he study here?”

“He studies the flora and fauna of our world.”

“What's this? Can he stir up drugs?

“Flora are plants and fauna are animals,” Kors interjected with an explanation.

“So what? Will he study animals?”

“And were they caught? Have you got the bear?” Kors asked.

“Yes,” Nikto nodded. “The unclean ones caught everyone, and put them in cages again. The unclean ones easily found them, they seem to smell them.”

“Well, that's understandable,” said Kors.

“So what are you going to do with the bear?” Nikto continued, looking at Lis. “Why study it? To train? If it doesn’t work out with the throne, will you be a wandering artist, driving around cities with a trained bear? Will you arrange performances?”

Nikto looked at Lis with a grin, expecting his reaction, and he froze for a second, trying to cope with it, and then answered calmly:

“Yes, of course, I will lose the army, I will command the bear. I'll paint my face like a jester, I'm no stranger, and I'll be a wandering artist. Can you borrow a bell into the nose?”

“Lis…” Nikto hesitated. “If we don’t win, it seems to be useful to me. Excuse me for screwing you up.”

“It's all right,” said Lis.

Kors looked at them very seriously: both Lis and Nikto looked somehow unkempt, tortured. Lis was a little over thirty, and Nikto was even less, but the expression of their faces… Both of them were very scarred, broken, it was clear that they had gone through a lot – with a clear imprint of fatigue, they evoked ambiguous feelings. Lis would probably say they looked fucked up. Kors thought that this obscene word, unfortunately, fit perfectly there. He himself, although he was older, but his tongue didn’t turn to say that he “could be their father” – so impeccable Kors looked, well-groomed, taking care of himself and his appearance, a worthy representative of the true black race. A beautiful, clean face, without a single scar. The prideful posture of the born master was complemented by obviously tastefully selected expensive clothes.

“What kind of mood are you in?” He said. “If we don’t win… but what should I do then?”

“You will teach the bear decency,” Lis smiled sadly.

“It would be better if you take less of your… hmmm… “restoratives” and alcohol, it's scary to look at you.”

“Kors, I said to teach the bear, not us!” Lis coughed.

“Alis, are you sick? What happened to you? Do you have tuberculosis?”

Lis looked up at him gloomily, and this look explained everything without words.

Kors’ face twisted.

“I suspected all this time, but didn’t want to believe. This cough of yours… what's with Karina?!”

“Nik said, I can't infect anyone yet. And he will heal me. So fuck off.”

“He should have cured himself for a start! I'll talk to my doctor, find some good medicines for you!”

“He cannot be given medicine,” Nikto intervened, “then bleeding will begin in the stomach so much that you cannot stop it.”