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But I also have these ordinary human trifles. I love to watch the shadows from the swaying lace curtains appear and disappear. The light hits obliquely, leaving a multi-layered pattern on the wall. Sometimes it seems to me that one day I will just enter it and disappear as soon as a cloud covers the suns and the shadows die, slamming the passage into the everlost.
But they all don't care about me. I'm talking about my hands and mouth, legs, eyes and neck. They all obey the other. And I'm just watching the play of shadows on the wall, in my body a different master. He is driven by an incredible malice and, oh moons, he is exactly who Sun, or Bibi, as he calls her, was hunting. He's right under her nose, and I can't even tell her that. I just watch in silence as he rapes my body.
Magic is available to him. He moves to the room where it is impossible to get into and reads. Reads the records of another such being. Moons, how scared I was when I realized that he wasn't the only one. The second one, who lived in the palace, he seized power from Sun's father. I hardly understand it yet, but it seems that the war between the Khanate of the Dial and Iria is the work of these creatures, the man from the launcher and his former subordinate Rob.
Having nothing to do, I try to learn the texts that he reads. After all, I have nothing else…
“Oh, dear Strife, did you throw up again?” Sanorisun's voice sounded nearby.
I turned around and for a long time could not understand what she was talking about, but then I saw a handkerchief in my hands, turning back, I stared at a bucket full of disgusting slime. I was standing on the veranda, on all fours.
“Yes...” the man answered in a weak voice with my mouth.
It seems that I was thinking so deeply that I stopped following what was happening.
“You need to see a doctor.”
“No..." my tormentor began to object.
“Don't argue," Sanori frowned and put her arms on my shoulders.
The local healer, a former shaman from the desert, there seemed to be no others left in the city, smiled and clapped his hands.
“You're bringing the baby!”
Me and the man in my head stared dumbfounded at his wrinkled face glowing with joy.
In the evening, Sanori took me to her chambers and asked quietly.
“I'm sorry, I know it can be unpleasant. Were you raped in the hospital?”
"I don't remember," the man answered honestly with my mouth.
“Do you remember who the father is?”
“No.”
“All right,” the ruler nodded, "I understand that it's difficult for you. If you don't want to, don't answer. I just wanted to know... if it's Kaplans... this baby.”
I froze, trying to find something in my memory in fear. The man from the launcher was also frantically looking there, but we couldn't find anything.
“Kaplan was my... friend. A close friend.” said Sanori in a low voice.
A thought rushed through my head, from which both I and my body snatcher shuddered. Is she jealous? Then what awaits me here now, death?
“I have already told you many times, Bibi, who you are and who I am. This world, the anomaly into which we have fallen. I'll find, I'll find a way for you to remember, I won't let...”
“Enough of this nonsense!” Sanorisun exclaimed, "Saint or not, there is a limit to everything.”
Lightning flashed in the ruler's eyes, but then her face smoothed out and the room became cold. I stood still, noticed the lace shadows on the wall, and then finally realized that it was time to leave.
"Did you manage to get into the room?" Sanori asked dryly as I approached the door.
“No," I shook my head, even though my whole being screamed the opposite.
Sun turned to the balcony. I creaked the door and went out.
That night my body spent even more time in the secret room. It was furnished as a library and an engineering workshop at the same time. The one called Rob spent a lot of time here training. While one of them excelled in the art of war, the other became a great inventor.
This ability of theirs. Worm. The one who gave them their power over matter and mind, kept them in tight gloves and for every miracle, demanded something that both could not even really understand. But they sensed in their gut that it would not end well, so they saved these powers. Somewhere out there, far away, behind the layers of emotions and fears, I felt that the person from the launcher was beginning to guess what the Worm wanted, but was afraid to even touch this thought.
Sometimes he looked at me, too. But he didn't say anything. I think he understood perfectly well that I knew everything he was doing, but he felt some inexplicable embarrassment, and never once started a conversation. I'm sure the thoughts that I caught with my mind, he could also observe. But clearly, he didn't want to. My possession of the body became less and less every day.
Today he found Rob's personal notes addressed to him.
“Oh, dear friend, how long have we not seen each other. Probably from that battle at the Tsepnya Gorge. I'm glad you're finally reading these lines.
I've been thinking a lot about why things turned out this way. And my answer is just like everything brilliant. I want to live. That's what the first 400 years of immortality are called. “Taste”. When the immortal has reached the real adventure that he can arrange from his own and someone else's life. Except I couldn't do it all. I lived in the body of an old man. It could have taken me another thousand years to save for rejuvenation. Now I finally got to my taste of it.
Sorry. I am ashamed. I am ashamed of the childishness, the admiration, the grandiosity of everything that is happening to me now. The old man is ashamed. The youngster is not ashamed at all. It's nice for a youngster to make mistakes, break off and invent something new.
I got a great opponent. You're making me smarter. I'm learning because of you. Everything you see is my work. I think you've already read a lot of stuff here. But still didn't find the main thing, didn’t you. You only want to know one thing. How to find me?
I have one clue for you. Build a ship.”
The man from the launcher spent the next few weeks studying books in the secret room. But didn't find any about shipbuilding. The texts from these books were inaccessible to me. The language was foreign. And I could understand the content only from the pictures. There were barrels and rectangles on them, a lot of schemes and calculations, calculations, calculations.
I could feel him trying to use his magic to learn the contents of the books. But for some reason it was not available to him. Something was in the way. And he was angry, and this anger colored my every day.
Four weeks later, I woke up on a clear, cool morning, watched my favorite lace shadows on the wall, got dressed and screamed in horror in the bathroom.
My hand. My hand obeyed me…
I laughed out of surprise and almost fainted from this laughter. Dizzy, I sat down on the edge of the bath. My lungs breathed and did not breathe, my eyes closed and opened if I wanted to. And only disobedient tears flowed down the cheeks.
The maid found me like this. But the palace was already used to the antics of the Saint from Minea. She put a fresh dress on the bed and went out. And I immediately jumped up and ran into the corridor in a nightgown, almost knocking the maid off her feet.
My feet led me to the reception hall, and I ran inside, opening the heavy doors like fluff.
Sanorisun was sitting on the throne, Game was standing next to it, saying something and pointing to a large map on the floor, surrounded by a small group of people.
“I am me again! Sanori! I'm me again! I can talk! Look! I can dance!”
And I began to dance in the middle of the hall, so that everyone turned to me and parted, opening the way to the throne. I immediately took advantage of this and ran up to the steps, throwing myself on them like a dog at the feet of the owner, and crawled up to the ruler.
“He's gone! Imagine! There is no Bibi! He lied to you! That's him! The one you're looking for…”
But I didn't have time to finish. Game jumped up to me, grabbed me by the hair and put a sharp blade to my neck.
“Don't,” Sanori sighed, “you can see she's clearly having another seizure.”
Game reluctantly removed the knife, clamped my neck in a grip and dragged me out of the hall.
“S-un…H-e is th-e o-ne…” I tried to groan, but to no avail.
From that day on, I was forbidden to approach the ruler unless she herself summoned me. And I was allowed to move around the palace only accompanied by two strong-looking maids.
My stomach started to swell. And I felt a new life in me. The fact that after so much time, I could finally be alone with my body was experienced as a great miracle. I’ve been looking at myself in the mirror, noticing every little detail that’ve changed. Watched the nutrition. Everything else vanished. Only a play of shadows on the wall occupied me just as before.
The longer my term was, the more respectful I became to the fetus. I felt its desires. Walking, fresh air, I obediently began to do everything that it would want. And I forgot to think about that man from the launcher. Until one day I woke up in my bedroom from the growing noise.
I was lying there and couldn't move. The hands moved with great difficulty, as if crushed by stones. A lacy shadow rustled on the wall. But it was as if something was looking at me from it. I opened my mouth to scream, but there was no sound.
The noise increased. And a figure appeared in the shadow. A worm with the torso of a man was crawling at me. The room began to shrink. The wall was approaching the bed and with it the worm-man, stretching his limbs to my belly. I finally took my hand off the bed and drew a spell in the air, as I was taught as a child. And immediately opened my eyes.
Still the same room. I'm all wet in bed. There is no shadow on the wall. My swollen belly rose and fell in front of me. And then I realized. I realized where the man from the launcher was now.
ns 15.158.61.6da2
