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"Ruchi, Ruchi, wake up, you hear me!" he shouted.
"He can't hear you," the girl said, her lips curled, "And don't shout, it draws attention."
Blop fell silent, crouched on the ground in fear, shook his friend, and then looked at the girl.
"What do we do now?" he asked pleadingly.
She hesitated, but then nodded her head to the side and said:
"Take him to Granny Etout. She will cure him."
"Where to?" asked Blop sharply, reaching up and grabbing his breathless friend's arm to hoist him on his shoulders.
"First pick him up, and then we'll go," said the girl doubtfully and took the basket with both hands.
Blop looked at her disapprovingly, then began to lift Ruchi, clumsily propping him up against the wall and trying to get his back under his chest and belly. Then he began to pull his arms around his shoulders and, panting, climbed up further. The girl kicked her knees against the basket distantly and watched Blop suffer. Ruchi's long body was beyond Blop's control.
Finally, he managed to get Ruchi on his back, and pushing, he climbed a few steps and fell down. The girl prudently stepped back and laughed.
"Nothing funny here," Blop said angrily.
"Drag him by the arms, you can't do it any other way," the girl said with a sniffle.
Blop sighed heavily, stood up, took his friend by the healthy arm, and dragged him half a meter.
"There you go, now follow me," the girl nodded and slowly moved into the fog.
Blop spat, turned to face her, sat down, took his friend's arm, and dragged him after the girl.
They walked for quite a long time. By Blop's standards, it was an eternity, and several times he asked his companion to stop and rest, trying to discern signs of life on Ruchi's face. Finally, they reached a small wooden door, and the girl knocked. Nothing happened for a long time, and Blop was beginning to think that his guide had made a mistake, but then an old creaky voice came from behind the door:
"Who are you bringing with you?"
"These are foolish people, granny, they don't want to hurt us," the girl replied.
Blop looked at her, but said nothing.
"They need help. One of them is dying," the girl continued, "Only you can help them."
The door didn't answer for a long time.
"Why should I help them?" asked the old woman's voice defiantly.
"Because they promised not to kill us," the girl answered as if that argument would convince anyone.
The door was silent again for a while, but then there was the sound of the deadbolt being unlocked, and the old woman in pince-nez looked out from behind the door. She glanced unkindly at Blop and Ruchi, who was lying on the ground, and then looked at the girl.
"Grandchild, are you sure?" she asked, squinting her eyes.
"Yes, granny."
"Last time you..." the old woman began, but sighed and opened the door, disappearing inside.
The girl entered, beckoning Blop after her. He dragged Ruchi clumsily inside, banging his head several times on the creaky wooden staircase that ran down from the door, almost into the cellar where the dwelling was located.
The fog was almost transparent, there was a table in the center, a bunk bed behind it, and the door to another room next to it. A few bent cabinets were littered with books and crockery, long since covered with cobwebs. With great difficulty Blop placed his friend's body on the mattress on the lower cot and sat down beside him, removing his cuirass.
"What's wrong with him?" the old woman asked while she was washing her hands.
"Not from around here. This one is injured in the forehead, and that one seems to be okay," replied the girl, locking the door.
"I see, always the same," the old woman croaked and went to one of the cabinets, creaked the door and took out a knife with a blue blade hidden between the books.
Blop watched as she returned to the sink, carefully washed the knife, and made her way toward Ruchi, who was lying on the bed. As she approached him, she raised the knife over his neck. At the same moment Blop jumped up in horror and knocked it out of the old woman's hands:
"What are you doing, witch!"
The knife fell to the floor, and its blade shattered into small pieces. The girl and the old woman stared at Blop questioningly.
"Have the moons dried his brain out?" the old woman asked the girl.
"Looks like it," she nodded, and turned to Blop, who was breathing heavily. "You broke the ritual knife, and now we can't help your friend."
Blop looked with horror and incomprehension then at the girl, then at the shards of the knife, then at the old woman, then at Ruchi.
"Can you hear me?" the girl asked, waving her hand.
Blop nodded uncertainly.
"I see, he's slow in the uptake," the old woman said angrily.
She went to the sink again, washed her hands, then picked up a broom and began raking the shards into a small metal dustpan under the sink.
"You're bleeding," the girl said.
Blop tilted his head questioningly, but then remembered and touched his forehead, still bleeding.
"That's what saved you," she continued, getting up from the table and walking toward the tall guard lying on the bed.
As she approached, she ran her hand over his body:
"And he's okay."
Blop looked at her incomprehensibly.
"The mist only accepts suffering," she shook her head, looking at Blop. "Without suffering, it takes away."
She looked at the old woman, who had poured the remains of the knife into the trash can and washed her hands again.
"Only a blue-glass knife can cause real suffering in a living being, unless they have entered the fog with it. But now we don't have the knife."
"Well, how could I know!" Blop almost cried. "Your stupid rules. Does it say 'Suffer to survive' and 'Don't break ritual knives' on the door? I was just protecting my friend."
"You have to trust people to the end, if you trust them in the first place," the old woman squeaked, closing the tap and sitting down at the table.
"Well, maybe there are more knives? Or this glass?" the fat man asked hopefully, taking a seat on the edge of the bed.
"There's as much glass as you want," grinned the old woman.
"You can't perform a ritual to curse a blade," the girl finished for her.
Silence fell, and all that was heard was Blop's heavy breathing. Sweat was dripping on his greasy face.
"We could perform it though," the old woman said thoughtfully, stood up, and went back to the sink to wash her hands.
"How?" the girl asked, taking off her cloak and heading for the coat stand.
"In the factory," the old woman said quietly, grimacing and grabbing her back with her right hand.
The girl hung up her cloak and stared at the old woman.
"Yeah, yeah. Uh-huh. There was a ritual room up there at the mystics, somewhere among all that junk," the old woman said thoughtfully, unbending.
"I'm not going there," the girl said, turning back to the table.
"I wouldn't let you go anyway," the old woman grinned, "But this one, with dried brains, can go."
They both looked at Blop, who was staring at them.
"My brains aren't dry," he answered grudgingly.
"What are they then? Wet? Don't worry, everyone is born different, the Heart finds a place for everyone," smiled the old woman with rare dark teeth.
"What is this place anyway?" Blop asked uncertainly, taking a step toward the table.
"You really don't have any idea where you ended up, do you?" the girl asked, clearly unable to believe the ignorance of her interlocutor.
"Well..." Blop said, leaning on the table, "This is the Mist Quarter."
"A good start," grinned the old woman, "What else?"
"In the City, they say that everyone here has gone mad," said the fat man and looked around at those present.
The old woman grinned again, got up, and went to the sink.
"I don't care what they say," she said as she turned on the water. "So, I take it everyone in there is in their right mind, aren't they?"
"No," Blop replied thoughtfully.
"That's what I thought," the old woman finished, turning off the water and wiping her hands on the cloth on the back of her chair.
"A great sorrow has happened here," said the girl.
"Yes," the old woman nodded, taking a seat, "A group of mystics did an experiment here... They seemed to want an alternative to black smoke."
Blop looked at her in bewilderment.
"In case you don't know, the black smoke is enriched with the breath of the Heart. They keep the Heart locked up there in the Temple, pumping its last breaths into this black substance that powers all their vile machines and iron beings, including the dragon. You know about the dragon, right?"
Blop nodded.
"At least you something," the old woman squinted at the fat man and laughed, then stood up, went to the sink, turned on the water again, and continued, "So, they put a big cauldron in the center of the Quarter and evaporated water in it, running steam into a similar mechanism, but they wanted to charge it with emotions."
She finished, wiped her hands and sat back down.
"Well, what is our strongest emotion?" she asked with amusement, looking at Blop and the girl, and without waiting for an answer, finished herself, "That's right, suffering, fear and hatred."
She laughed until she cried, and it took her a long time to come to her senses, shaking and hiccuping.
"So they made a torture chamber out of the old vault," she continued, calming down, "Hooks, racks. The screams could be heard even at night. People, they say, went to the Magistrate, to the Cult, to the great houses. To no avail. The decision was made somewhere at the top."
She stood up again, but immediately grabbed her back and sat back down.
"I remember what suns look like. I was like her," the old woman nodded at the girl, "When the accident happened. And now I'm the only one left, from among the first ones, and I'm about to die."
"Granny Etout," the girl looked at the old woman reproachfully.
"Why, my dear, that's the way it is. And to tell you the truth, I would be glad to die already," grinned the old woman, looking askance at the guard.
"You said there was an accident," Blop reminded her.
"Yes, yes," Etout said, struggling to rise, "They used prisoners for their dirty work, as my father told me. They saturated their magical steam with the suffering of these unfortunates. Once you stole a piece of bread, and you were caught, your fate was sealed. There weren't enough guards to catch criminals, so they sent in a special regiment of knights in black. These mechanical golems," the old woman, grunting, got to the sink again and turned on the water.
"They tried charging them with their steam, but it didn't last long, even though they were stockpiling the crap. They filled all the warehouses and cellars, including the city hall. But they couldn't seem to get what they needed," she said, wiping her hands, "Someone, and I think it was them, blew up their main storage facility. I was at school and all I heard was a terrible rumble. My father took me home, and a few hours later the fog spread all over the Quarter. The guards hurriedly locked the gates outside, and we never saw them again."
The old woman sat down and put her head on her hand.
"It's been like this ever since," she said and went back to the sink, "And just because we're all a little (she twisted her wet hand at her temple)... I don't know. No worse than others. It's hard to live here, I admit that. But... This life changes you."
She wiped her hands and turned the water back on.
"The ritual room," Blop reminded her.
"Oh, yes, the room..." the old woman smacked the back of her hand on her head. "Where the old warehouse and the laboratory were, there's a part of the building that's miraculously preserved. My granddaughter was there, she saw it. I can't see much in the fog, but she could see a good deal."
"Yes, everything works there, the mechanism is still pumping steam from the cauldron," the girl nodded. "And there are knights, and not only knights. I saw someone else there."
"I don't know about anyone else," the old woman said, taking a seat at the table again with a towel in her hands, "But it's certain that everything works. So the ritual room is intact, too."
"Granny, the time," the girl pointed to the clock.
"Oh, it's about time!" the old woman grunted, got off the chair, and went to the door beside the bed.
"Rest now," she said to Blop, pointing to the upper bed, "I'll tell you what to do later."
"What about?" the fat man asked, but Etout had already disappeared behind the door.
"Don't worry about your friend," the girl answered for the old woman, "There's still time."
Blop looked at Ruchi's whitened body and said grudgingly:
"See, we're still lucky..."
103Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLjbqHP8aRc
"Just my luck..." said Kee aloud.
The duchess sat in her father's office in a big chair at his old desk. On her face was a mask of tense, unexpressed struggle. The letter, which lay in a box on the desk, burned her fingers even when she was not holding it. Above the table a rod of gleaming gold swirled. But inner turmoil kept the duchess from concentrating, so the illusion constantly blurred into bubbles and wouldn't hold its shape. Bloody duty, Tamen, damn and blast him, so nasty and yet so much wanted. Could it really be love? Just like that, strange, crooked, twisted. Love for the enemy, the embodiment of everything repulsive, repugnant to her kind, her family, destroyed by him. Not by his hands, but he is an accomplice, an accomplice to this terrible conspiracy. And yet she could not be without him. Not as a duchess, not as a woman. She herself found it hard to understand how it was that losing him awakened in her the most unpleasant feelings that could not and should not have had any place in her plan. And what of the plan? The plan rested in the abyss of fear. Red moon. She slammed her white fist against the table, so that the old parchment caught that fleeting whiff and darted toward the open door leading to the greenhouse. But it was immediately caught by Assol, who jumped up and put it back on the table, next to the mistress's hand.
"My dear Assol," the duchess smiled and stroked the dog behind the ear, "You are the only one I have."
Kee shook her head and leaned back in her chair, about to scream, but at that moment a low bell rang. The duchess was surprised, but then said in a treacherously strain voice:
"Yes."
There was a creaking sound, and a maid appeared from under a screen next to the elevator doors. She lowered her eyes and bowed to Kee:
"You have a visitor... Mrs. Lai. She says it is urgent and requires your immediate attention."
The duchess looked at the maid in surprise, then at Assol, who looked as surprised as Kee.
"Hmm," said the duchess, making herself comfortable in her chair. "But who is it?"
The maid looked up at Kee:
"They say different things about her. Some say she helps, while others say she destroys people."
"Destroys, you say," said the duchess thoughtfully, "All right, call her."
The maid bowed and disappeared behind the screen. The door creaked again, and quiet footsteps were heard on the small winding staircase.
Kee stood up, went to the mirror, and fixed her hair. The elevator creaked in the back of the castle, the duchess went to the table and waited. Assol lay between her mistress and the doors. After a short wait, the stall rose to the top floor, the bars opened, and opening the doors, a stout, indeterminate-aged woman in an expensive black dress with red buds ringing around her waist entered the office. She made a curtsy and bowed low to the duchess.
"My lady, I have heard of your beauty, but the rumors, believe me, are only a pale reflection..." the woman broke into a smile that took up most of her face.
"Let's get on with the formalities," the duchess retorted dryly, "What brings you to my chambers at this late hour?" the woman smiled even wider, though it seemed impossible.
"Oh, what a lovely degenerated one you have..." the woman began, but Assol gave her a look that made her find it best to change the direction of her monologue. "I'm here because you have difficulties. And where there are difficulties, there's me."
"And what kind of difficulties do you think a duchess might have?" Kee's mouth puckered up.
"The most ordinary," laughed the woman, adjusting her veil, "Matters of the heart."
The duchess's chest quivered, but she didn't show it. Only Assol beneath her feet growled at the intruder. Kee stomped her heel lightly, and the dog fell silent.
"And what do you know of the matters of my heart?" the duchess spoke slowly.
"Please don't take my words as disrespect to your person," the woman bowed low, and without raising her head, she said, "But the whole City has seen the White Maiden."
Kee sighed, turned away, looked at the visitor again, and headed for the door to the balcony.
The woman glanced at her briefly and took a step after the duchess, but Assol got in her way, baring her teeth and growling, causing Lai to retreat back to her original position, squinting her eyes at the dog. The duchess stood in the doorway, breathed in the evening air, and closed her eyes.
"I'm sure you know I can have you thrown in the dungeon for saying that," she said nonchalantly and with a sort of sadness in her voice.
"Absolutely," the woman smiled, "But I also know that women in your position don't refuse help. And I hope you understand that I'm not just talking about the matters of the heart."
"That was brave," the duchess turned to the woman, "Just for that you could lose your head."
"Oh," Lai chuckled, "I wish you knew how many times I've heard that from people in your position. And yet, I'm still alive, which means they're satisfied with my services."
"And who are your clients?" Kee asked, raising her right eyebrow.
"Those who would prefer that I never utter their names," the woman replied, smiling as broadly as she could.
"Well, that's a decent answer," Kee nodded, "But it doesn't get you any closer to making me believe you."
She walked back to the table and looked the woman straight in the eye.
"It must have slipped my mind, who sent you?" she decided to take the initiative.
"The wind is quick to spread the word," the woman smiled even wider, "I just follow where it blows from."
"They say those who have a command of language don't need an army," Kee sighed, turning around and pointing to a tea table with two chairs, "Have a seat."
The dame smiled even wider, as if her cheeks were about to burst, and glancing at Assol, walked to the table.
She sat down on the chair farthest from the door, straightening her puffy dress.
"Thank you," she bowed again.
Kee took a seat across from her at the table with the mirrors.
"Can I get you anything?" she asked politely.
"If you have some fortified oblivion-water, I wouldn't mind," the woman giggled and adjusted her veil.
Kee picked up the bell from her table and rang it twice.
"Just tell me, my fine Mrs. Lai," said the duchess more gently and nicely, "What kind of service can you provide?"
"Oh, Your Grace," the woman giggled and ran her beady eyes, "Anything you want, really, love spell, hate spell, spoilage, and evil eye of course. The usual arsenal. Well, poisons, too..."
At that moment there was a low knocking sound behind the screen, and the duchess interrupted Lai loudly:
"Yes, come in."
The maid appeared from behind the screen with a tray in her hands. On it was a decanter of tea-colored liquid and two shot glasses. Kee glanced at the lady, and the maid set the tray down on the tea table, poured some liquid into one shot glass, and headed back behind the screen. Kee followed her with a glance and looked again at the woman. She smiled at the duchess, emptied the glass in a gulp, and closed her eyes in pleasure.
"How warm, m-m-m-m," she smiled, "I love the old stock of great houses. You can't taste anything like it anywhere else."
"No argument there," replied the duchess tensely, "Your, um, range of services, Mademoiselle Lai, leaves me in deep doubt that you have chosen the right listener for such low and, I would say, disgusting suggestions."
"And I won't argue with you, my dear Duchess," Lai said in a warm and friendly way, as she sank back in her chair. "You're quite right, my methods are horrible and disgusting, low and inhumane. But sooner or later, anyone who has attained a high position resorts to them in order to maintain that position."
Kee got up from her chair.
"I think you've come to the wrong place," Kee said coldly and looked straight into Lai's eyes.
The visitor was not even surprised, but shrugged her shoulders, poured herself another drink, drank it immediately, stood up, bowed, and headed for the elevator. As she closed the barred door behind her, she smiled again and said:
"In case you change your mind, come to the Forgotten Church in the Mystic Quarter. Anytime. Goodbye, Your Grace."
Kee didn't answer or even turn to Lai. Only when the elevator car disappeared from view did the duchess, somehow bewildered and breathing heavily, walk to the balcony exit and lean with both hands on the golden handles of the doors.
A black shadow crossed the starry sky over the City and several lunar disks, and disappeared into the Palace district. The duchess sat down in the aisle and covered her face with her hands, her shoulders shook with silent sobs. Assol came up and pressed her cold nose into her mistress's palms.
ns 15.158.61.8da2
