it to a critical situation, ashamed to ask for help. Vitor, just call me and I’ll come and try to do my best.”
“Zaf, what are you talking about?” The way Zaf carefully continued to look into his face, and these words about some kind of “critical situation” that could happen, made Kors feel as if a spring tightened in his stomach, and these were very unpleasant sensations.
“There is no point in playing a hero,” Zaf continued, “it won’t help you in any way. It you will feel bad, call me. I have known the White Lord for a very long time, but I know only one thing about him for sure: you can expect anything from him. So call me, I myself offered help, this is not your weakness.”
Kors froze in the saddle. He looked at Zaf’s flattened broad nose. Because of the plugs, it didn’t have a nose tip as such, there was just a flattened flat cake with a small vertical notch in the middle. Poor Zaf, he was once handsome, long ago, before they performed this disfiguring procedure on him – it seems that his father did it. So he told Kors. From Shagezh’s childhood memories, Kors remembered Zaf as young, with still very small stones in his nostrils, his nose was not so terribly flattened. Everything happened gradually, and now Zaf’s face was irrevocably damaged. That was a sign of belonging to a clan, family. The younger belongs to the older. Could Kors ever do something similar to his son, disfigure him like that? No, he was not able even to cut off a lock of Nik’s hair!
Zaf is also a Demon, what is his animal essence? Who is he? The human bodies of Nik and Arel are not like their bestial essences. Nik doesn’t resemble a reptile at all, well, maybe only with movements sometimes: either completely motionless, frozen, or sharp and fast. How is Arel similar to a bat? Is it his dark hair color? No, all this is somehow unconvincing. If Kors himself has goat horns on his head, then there is absolutely no evidence for this in his physical body. Who are you, Zaf? He can be anything.
“Thanks, but I don’t need help,” Kors said, “I think everything will be all right.”
Zaf smiled mirthlessly, shaking his head slightly.
“Then just come to visit us when we are at a halt. Let’s sit, have a drink, play cards.”
“Thank you for the offer, Zaf,” said Kors. He thought: “That’s all I wanted, well, no, cash me out, I don’t need your hospitality.”
And Zaf, without saying anything else, turned his horse around, driving away from Kors.
Kors tried his best to see his face. “Shit! Something large, squat, powerful, like Zaf himself. Covered with black wool… No, it’s not wool, but it looks very much like thick, dark brown, almost black, fur. Not an animal. Zaf is not a beast. He is closer to Nik. An insect. Thick hairy paws, consisting of several joints. located around the body. A lot of them.”
Moving away from Kors, Zaf, as if sensing his gaze, turned around, and Kors saw his round dark eyes flash. Two huge round eyes. “No, damn, it’s the round plugs in his nose that shimmer dark green, not his eyes at all!”
Kors shook his head, warding off the obsession. What did Zaf mean? He was very serious and even somewhat nervous. He was afraid for Kors. Gods! Thoughts rushed about in Kors’ head like thunder lightning: “The demon said: “I will develop and train you.” What does it mean? Train him like Arel? But what’s the point of making Kors mute? Fasten his tongue like the prince’s one? Kors hears everything and can carry on any conversation mentally. For Arel, probably, this torture was beneficial, forcing him to develop an internal dialogue. Arel was dumb and didn’t hear anything except the phrase: “I allow you to come.” The demon suffered with him and was forced to make him dumb. The lack of physical ability to pronounce words aloud involuntarily stimulated the prince to look for other ways of communication. Compensating for his dumbness, he developed.
But Kors doesn’t need it. He sees people’s lives, to say nothing of standard chatter. There is no point in developing it. What else? To be a slave like a prince? Sitting naked at the feet of his owner while he smokes and plays cards – is this development? Nik said, “I don’t like beating you,” and he usually expresses himself clearly. However, at the limit, he beat him up without the least effort. And what? Didn’t he like it? Doesn’t he want it? Doesn’t he love it? Well, but Prince Arel still loves it! I’m done! They will beat me like I beat them, “mirror”, as Nik says. What to do? What should I do? Call Zaf for help? After all, he hinted at it. How humiliating. Zaf said, “Don't be a hero.”
Kors felt scared.
Chapter 2
To top it all off, as if responding to Kors’ gloomy mood, the weather turned bad and it began to rain. At first small and barely drizzling, very quickly it turned into a deafening downpour, and the unclean ones decided to finally stop for a full-fledged halt. They began to put up tents for the night, but while this was happening, Kors managed to get wet through. He froze and no longer understood why he was shaking, from the cold or from fear. Wrapping himself as tightly as possible in a long cloak, he stood near his horse and waited impatiently for the unclean ones under Parky’s command to set up a tent. Kors had already forgotten the last time his tent was set up. During all the campaigns, he always lived with “his boys”, but this time he didn’t know what to do. Nik and Arel had gone far ahead and were lost in the rain and bustle of preparing for a halt. Where did he have to go? After all, he also had his own place to sleep. As always while waiting, Kors lit a cigarette nervously. Trying not to get his cigarette wet, he bowed his head hard, pulling his hood up as far as he could. And at that moment, in his mind, the order sounded very clearly: “Come here!” Kors flinched in surprise and immediately threw the half-smoked cigarette aside. Where was he supposed to go? He looked around nervously. Where in this confusion did he have to look for Nik? Kors nevertheless decided to go a little forward, in the direction where they had left earlier. He couldn’t ignore the order, he simply was not able to do it, to disobey. Even physically. His legs themselves carried him to no one knows where in the depths of the camp being set up. He barely had time to grab his horse by the bridle, leading him along. Not having made even a couple of dozen steps, Kors saw a dark figure, clearly heading towards him. Despite the fact that the walker was wrapped in a cloak, and his face was hidden by a low-pulled hood, Kors didn’t doubt who was in front of him. Such a proud posture of a born master could only belong to the prince. Arel approached. In the evening twilight and the veil of rain, his gray face looked absolutely inhuman. It was a dead mask. Beautiful and equally repulsive in its icy indifference.
“Follow me, you’re going to spend the night with us,” Arel told him without any intonation.
“But…” Kors glanced back at his nearly pitched tent in confusion, “but after what happened? Why?”
Arel shrugged his shoulders lazily.
“It doesn’t concern me, so said Nik,” and, turning away, he headed in the direction from which he came.
Kors waved his hand to Parky.
“As you were!”
Parky froze, poured with rain, then, it seemed, he understood the order and shouted to his soldiers:
“Stop it! Disassemble it back!”
And Kors hurried after Arel. “So, Nik sent the prince for me. Prince Arel running errands, like Valentine, it’s funny. Nik didn’t mentally indicate to me where to go, he preferred to send Arel after me. Why? However, what’s the difference.”
Kors obediently walked behind, thinking that Arel was no longer human. “Is this awaiting me too? The demon said: ‘I will develop and teach you.’ Develop and teach me to turn into this? In a creature without feelings and emotions, indifferent to all living things?”
