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The darkness was no longer dense and stabbing as it had been a moment ago. Needle guns and automatic weapons chirped somewhere in the distance. There was a sailor's swearing. Familiar phrases that usually fly off the tongue in a strong storm, or when someone spoils the air in the forecastle.
“Are you here?” The voice of the girl to my right rang out.
"Yes," I whispered, "where are we?"
“In a secret room I suppo...” did not finish May-e-oka and wheezed and twitched in pain.
“Cyborg, stop it," I whispered to myself, and then shouted louder, "stop it!"
But Sha Zumm didn't hear me or the girl's moan. By touch, I crawled forward and painfully hit my forehead on the leg of either a table or a ladder. The pain immediately reminded me of school and physical education classes, where the senior mentor called me nothing but a weakling when I showed my clumsiness in front of the whole class. This memory was followed by the memory of Master Eleanor, and his concern for my fate. I immediately remembered about the device in my backpack.
By touch, I took the screen out of my backpack, turned it on, and a room resembling a workshop and a library at the same time appeared in front of me. The books looked invitingly from the shelves, but I made an effort and turned back. May-e-oka was writhing on the floor. I went up to the girl and examined through the device the hoop on her neck, causing her suffering. Oh the moons, if I had...
I turned to the big table where the book lay open, but behind it, behind it was a frequency emitter. I saw one in the collection of Master Eleanor. Holding the screen with one hand, I took the emitter with my free hand. Taking aim, I counted the frequency of vibrations of the hoop. But when I tried to change it, the device gave me an error and showed insufficient battery power.
Lowering the screen, I sighed heavily, and then realized that both devices were inherited from great ancestors from heaven, so the battery technology should match. By touch, I took the batteries out of the screen and began to look for them on the frequency emitter. I still had to insert the batteries back into the screen to find them on the frequencer. But in the end, I succeeded in replacing it and directed the emitter towards the girl. The machine counted the frequency of vibrations of the hoop, and I began to twist the ring, reducing the intensity.
May-e-oka stopped moaning and became quiet. It was clear that the hoop was working, but it wasn't causing her the same pain as before. I moved the frequency receiver around, looking for other devices, but found nothing.
Turning the screen back on, I looked around the walls. I saw: a balcony; a corridor covered with sand. The shadows of our pursuers moved in it. I couldn't find Sha Zumm, even by increasing the depth of penetration of the screen.
But I found candles in the secret room, there was a whole box of them here. As if the former owner knew that something like this could happen. I had to rearrange the batteries in the frequency receiver again to get a spark, and so I lit up almost the entire room.
“Oh, dear friend, how long have we not seen each other...”, - I read the first lines of the message in the margins of the book. They responded in me with vague anxiety, as if they were addressed to me, although I could not, could not imagine how this could be possible. Or... still... Suppose that I am the Great Worm?
All I knew about it ended with horror stories of the children of the Irian slaves. A being that commands the mind and body of man, older than this city, it was one of the gifts of the gods to us, the inhabitants of the World of Moons. The man was forced to fight it without the possibility of winning. It never struck me with fear, for I knew that this is how the Iryans justify the loss of their statehood. Of course, when you let all your resources and people go to war, destroying your nation, making them slaves, then you want to come up with a horror story that is ready to take on all the burden of blame for your failures.
But these lines, especially about the construction of the ship, confused me. Moreover, they were written in a book on the deconstruction of one of the ancient Out engines used on floating islands, when our ancestors had not yet discovered the continents of the Palatineya.
According to legend, the ships of the Outs began their fall from the Maroi Ocean. That's where the bulk of their messages died. The ancestral history hidden at the bottom attracted many researchers, but even the best minds of the Trade Federation were not able to build a machine that would reach these depths. We lived by the legacy of the ancients, unable to rise to their heights ourselves. No, some discoveries have happened, but it was all thanks to the same books that I was holding in front of me now. Deconstruction of Outs equipment was the reason of our progress. And because of this, our wooden ships with primitive depth scanners often ran aground, and submarines could dive with God’s help to 5-10 meters before they leaked.
And also this word – God. We called Outs the gods. But for them, the word meant something else. More reminiscent of the attitude of the Iriyans to Ogunter Lag. Religion did not forbid praying to the one God of our ancestors. The life force permeating all existence. But people were drawn to more understandable things. A great DVD box, a digest of the most popular avatars for year 5074th, a plastic statue of the eternal marmalade that was licked at communion. All these were real evidences of the Divine origin of our ancestors and the search for relics occupied the minds of the inhabitants of the Sea of Whales with their heads. Whereas the books where the philosophers of the Outs talked about eternity and argued with Angels touched only a few, and even those were difficult to find in the original, there were mostly crude forgeries.
But here, in the secret library-workshop of the Salad Sarai, I found whole volumes devoted to the worldview of our ancestors. Moreover, almost all of them were accompanied by comments from the library owner. The notes in many books were so caustic and mocking that there was no doubt that he was well acquainted with the culture of Outs not from books. Which means... did he come from the same world as them?
My thoughts were interrupted by a grip on my throat. I remembered it. May-e-oka grabbed me just like this at our first meeting. And my head was about to detach from my body.
“Stu-pi...” I croaked, “I sa-ved your li-fe.”
But the grip did not loosen, and I felt that I was losing consciousness.
I woke up in the dark. There was a rag sticking out of my mouth, which was once my sleeve. My hands and feet were tied, and eyes… My eyes were empty. And it surprised and scared me, which made my body twitch.
“Are you awake, demon?” May-e-oka’s voice rang out nearby.
I twitched again. I wanted to cry, but there were no more tears in no more eyes. The girl walked around the room, and then sat down and creaked a chair.
“Yes, you are cunning, Curse of Minea,” she said uncertainly, “we are stuck with you here for a long time. Perhaps all the way to our...”
Her voice faltered. I turned over on the other side. Everything in me screamed with horror, I had to find out what was wrong with my eyes.
“You've already figured it out, right? I blinded you.”
I shook and groaned. My biggest fear is to be left without eyes, not to be able to read, to learn.
“It didn't hurt. This is a special needle with a poison that kills nerve endings. That's what they taught me," May-e-oka said almost defensively.
She creaked her chair again, got up and walked across the room to me.
“I would just kill you and die here with you, but then how would the Great Mother know about my victory?”
I whimpered softly.
“Yes, I can already feel you climbing into my head with this damned idea that I'm just afraid to die. No, you beast!”
And she punched me in the stomach.
“Nasty slug. Sharamarsh kara. I will bring your head to the Altar of Desires, and my father will return me to the order!”
The girl sobbed and sat down next to the wall.
“And just dare to use more of your tricks! I'll strangle you right there," she said and pulled the gag out of my mouth.
After spitting, I breathed heavily, and then whined:
“My eyes. Fool. For what? What have I done to you? How I'm going to read now... Everything is gone...Stupid. Stupid, disgusting, stupid thing.”
“Shut up!” May-e-oka cried. “One more word and you will go to look for your eyes in other worlds.”
"It's better than living a blind man's life," I growled.
"Get us out of here, asshole, and then I'll tell you how to get your eyesight back," the girl hissed.
I fell silent, but the anger bubbling in my soul did not allow me to calm down.
“How?” I shouted back.
“How do I know how you work your miracles, but we happened to be here, so you can definitely do them.”
“I don't know! I don't know how to do any of this, I know how to search for artifacts.”
“You're doing quite well, you found a whole room with artifacts.”
"It's only thanks to your grace that I can't find out anything about them now.”
"Get us out of here and you will."
“It's some trick of yours again. Even if I can do what you say, where is the guarantee that you will not strangle me again there, behind the walls.”
“True,” the girl chuckled, “but you don't have much choice either.”
"The one you're looking for lived and worked in this room, he was the Great Worm. And the one he was addressing.”
“I know all this. The teaching says so.”
“What else does the teaching say?”
“I'll tell you when you get us out of here.”
“First it was necessary to get in, now to get out. Decide already.”
“Your sailor friends are gone, the idiot with the iron head is also not visible through your magic device. We can go now.”
“I need to stay in this library and find out what's going on here.”
“Not this time, my friend," May-e-oka said, bending over my face, "either you pull us out now or you die."
I felt a blade touch my neck and cold sweat broke out on my forehead. The next moment we were somewhere in the air. A warm wind was blowing. The sun did not burn, so it looked like it was a sunset.
“Well done, Ogunten Lag, well done,” the girl patted me on the shoulder, “and now get up, we have a long way to go.”
“Where to?”
“To the Great Mother.”
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