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We were moving in a narrow corridor. The hunchback walked in front, and the bull walked behind me. Walls were covered in metal, as if it grew from somewhere deep and argued with the stone for these dark and moons forgotten places. But not everywhere metal managed to win, and stone reappeared, giving its uneven light to the surrounding. I stumbled a couple of times, but the angry breathing behind my back quickly returned the rhythm to my steps.
The woman Strife in me was completely unsure of what was happening, but the resident of the launcher, an immortal man who already occupied a good half of consciousness in this unfortunate body, rejoiced. He caught thoughts about the golden-haired woman walking behind and tried to use my body to look back as much as possible.
“Why are you twitching all the time, freak?” Chicag boomed, catching my hopeful gaze.
I didn't say anything and shook my head. Returning to inner madness.
We climbed out of a manhole in the middle of an alley forgotten by the whole city. Prayer modems were scattered around and it smelled damp. Bushy-Boo went first and led us between the houses, which had moved their walls so close that the bull puffed every time with displeasure, squeezing into the treacherously narrowing passages.
In another such alley, the old lady stopped and beckoned me to follow her, giving a sign to the others to wait. Leading me to a barely noticeable door, she knocked three and then four times.
“Well, saint, come on.”
There were footsteps outside the door, and I breathed quickly, frightened. There was no certainty in my heart or in my mind. But something that arose from behind my back whispered a name in my head - Saburdakai.
“Sabur-dakai?” I said in a shaky voice.
Nothing happened for a long time and I felt Bushy-Boo tense up next to me. But then the magnetic bolt behind the door clicked, and it drove sideways. At the same moment, Chicag pushed me away and burst into the room behind the door. There was a muffled scream and the sounds of a struggle. I was picked up, and I found myself in a small room where, to my horror, the bull was removing the lifeless body of the guard Saburdakai from the horns.
“Ruchi, help me," the hunchback shouted, taking the body from Chicag.
A tall man in a guard's suit ran up and helped to put Saburdakai in a chest, from which Chicag pulled out a multi-barreled needle gun.
In the fuss that was going on, I didn't even notice how everyone left the room through the opposite door, and I was left alone with Chicag. He was breathing fiercely, looking straight at me. Cold sweat broke out on my temples, and I pressed myself against the wall.
“Nothing personal, loony from Minea.” the bull grinned.
I squeezed my eyes shut. The bull rested his barrel against my chest and its cold steel pierced all those gathered in my head with horror. But there was no shot. After a prolonged scolding between the Strife and the man from the launcher, I finally opened my eyes. Chicag was still looming over me with a disgruntled face, but a golden-haired woman was standing next to him, putting her hand on the bull's shoulder.
"So, that’s how you want to repay her for her help?" she asked.
"I'm just covering my tracks, great one. You can see that she's not herself," the bull muttered, somehow immediately shrinking in size.
“I'll take her with me, go, stop wasting time.”
Chicag shrugged, rolled his eyes, removed the weapon from my chest and left. Unable to say a word, I fell to my knees and began to cry.
“Well, well, darling, get up, we have to get out of here.”
Ruchi ran back into the room and took up his post.
“Quick, the check is coming soon," he hissed, glancing at his watch.
A golden-haired woman picked me up from the floor and dragged me into the courtyard. There, in the shadow of the palace, we turned somewhere under the arches and hurried along the garden. I saw other guards standing quietly at their posts and not noticing our figures.
“I love you,” my voice could not stand it, under the pressure of a man from a launcher.
“Yes, of course," my companion replied at random.
“Bibi,” the lips whispered.
“What? Quieter. They can hear us," the woman frowned and pulled me towards the stairs leading up to the terrace in front of the palace.
We went up and up, and somewhere on the third flight I got dizzy and threw up.
“Poor girl, what's wrong with you…” my companion shook her head and held out a handkerchief.
"Bibi," the man in my head continued as I wiped my mouth, "I missed you so much. Bibi, you have no idea…”
“Truly mad,” the woman said sadly and checked the device in her hands, showing half the charge, “we need to hurry, Saint of Minea, the reflector will soon discharge. We don't have time to explain. Later.”
“Later? I've been waiting 800 years…”
The golden-haired companion did not listen, but again dragged me out to the palace, where we entered one of the utility rooms and began to climb the spiral staircase, which seemed endless to me.
After all these eternities of steps and a couple of aching legs, we found ourselves on a darkened balcony. Below us was a hall with chairs, and in front of it was a semicircle of the stage on which the performance was taking place.
Slow solemn music was playing. Actors in cannon costumes climbed onto a large white ball and fell. Other “cannons" were propping them up, trying to push them back again. While three men in a dragon costume periodically ran out of the backstage and threw red balls with long ribbon tails at the cannons.
My companion sat down in the middle of the balcony, near the railing, and beckoned me. Trying to be as quiet as possible, I moved from the stairs to her. Bibi, as the man from the launcher called her, pointed to a small box where I saw a remote control with incomprehensible equipment, it seemed to be for sound, as the voice in my head suggested. The man at the console disappeared, and a moment later a hunchback appeared in his place. The woman pointed to the opposite box, from where the light was shining on the stage, and there was also some movement, and I saw the figure of Chicag.
"My name is not Bibi," the woman whispered next to my ear, "but Sanorisun. You can call me Sanori or just Sun. It's a wonder you didn't figure it out, Saint of Minea.
“No,” I turned to her and I shook my head, unable to cope with the pressure of words begging to come out, “your name is Birisbina, we have lived together for four thousand years. I jumped here. I could, but God, you don't remember anything. How many times have you been born here. You thought you were going to die, but the black hole wasn't black at all. This is an anomaly, you see, they hid it, I miraculously got into the archives. You have no idea how hard it was for me without you…”
The woman looked at me in silence, completely at a loss. I could easily imagine how knocked down she was by the sincerity with which I said it. It knocked me down too. But having accepted my madness as a fact, I only looked from the side at the unfolding performance. Sanori shook her head and looked at the hall. I couldn't stand it either and also looked down. There, on one of the central chairs, sat a figure in a high cap and mask.
“Let's leave the question of my identity for a while,” the woman whispered, “there is a creature sitting below. He watches this performance every night, because he never sleeps, and the servants of the palace play dreams for him.”
I looked down at the person and the voice of the man from the launcher grunted doubtfully.
“There's something wrong," I said.
"We'll find out now," Sun replied and looked at the stage.
As if on command, the music became louder, the curtains twitched, and the actors of the “cannons” fell from the ball to the floor, no longer rising back up. The dragon ran out, but immediately stumbled, and all three actors fell on themselves. The third managed to get out of the costume, and looked around the stage in disbelief, but immediately got hit by a thick needle in the chest and fell.
The curtain opened and Bushy-Boo, Ping and several other team members appeared on the stage. All of them were wearing unusual masks and held weapons aimed at a single spectator. Game crept up behind him in the same mask and grabbed him by the head, preparing to cut his neck.
“Wait, no! No, it's a mistake!” a spectator in a cap and mask shouted, which immediately fell off his head.
"Don't listen to it," Sun shouted from the balcony, "it will take over your mind.”
Game cut the prisoner's throat with one sharp movement.
Everyone watched in silence as he bled in her hands.
"Is that all?" Bushy-Boo asked in surprise, going down to the hall.
“Why should it be difficult?” Router Ping asked, sitting down on the edge of the stage.
All the team members gathered around the panting Game.
“This is not the one you were looking for," I said, appearing from behind the scenes, where Sanori led me from the balcony.
"The patient is delirious again," Chicag chuckled.
The man in my head cursed the bull in an unknown dialect.
"It's all a show, a performance," I continued.
"We noticed," Game growled angrily.
“No, you don't understand,” I shook my head, sitting down on the edge of the stage next to Ping, who was carefully studying my face. And it was worth it. The man from the launcher fought with me for the right to speak, and, I think, it was clearly read in my constantly changing grimaces, “the creature that you are looking for is not here, and for a long time now. This whole show is for courtiers. The Supreme Ancestor came up with this so that the power in the Khanate would not collapse at all. You killed another actor. Only he played on another stage.”
Game pushed the corpse away from herself and threw the knife in my direction. It stuck right into the stage a couple of centimeters away from me.
"And where is the creature now?" Sun asked, looking into my eyes in confusion.
“I don't know. But I know that there is a room in the palace where no one can enter. The answers should be there.”
At that moment, the palace guards burst into the hall, led by the Supreme Ancestor, tangled in his beard.
“They killed! The lord was killed!” someone shouted.
The guards surrounded the stage, pointing thick pike guns at us.
“O lord!” sobbing, the Supreme Ancestor knelt down in front of the corpse, and then raised his evil little eyes at us, “Kill! Kill now!”
“No!” Sanori raised her hand imperiously, "I am Sanorisun Gama, the direct heir of Gama the Great, the ruler of the sky and water, the rival of the land. This man deceived you," she pointed to the Supreme Ancestor, "The murdered man is not your ruler—but His Holiness's slave. Your ruler fled, and the clergy usurped power by putting a fake fool on the throne.”
I felt doubt stir in the guards. I even heard a voice in someone's head: “Really, this is the half-wit, I remember stealing his soap.” Something behind me picked up this wave and amplified it, to the cheers of a man from a launcher.
Two guards approached the Supreme Ancestor and took him by the arms.
“How? This!? It's impossible," the old man yelled. But he immediately got in the gut and fell silent.
The guards put him on his knees and bowed to Sun themselves. The others followed.
“Glory to Queen Sanorisun!” they sang in chorus, “Glory to Queen Sanorisun!”
Ping, Bushibu and the others began to echo their voices. And I joined them myself without noticing it.
With tears in her eyes, Sanori turned to us and smiled.
“That's enough!” she said confidently and loudly, and everyone fell silent.
Sun looked at me.
"Now take me to the room where no one can enter."
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