the duke of hygienic sheets on the cheek. “Has to be a bit louder, so it’ll come off! Well done, did everything for papa! And for that I love you, because you’re papa! Because you, sour puss, obliged Tukhlomon!” he said affectionately and in rhyme, mangling the known children’s verse.
Tukhlomon slammed shut his terrible mouth. The stench instantly disappeared. There were bags under Tukhlomon’s eyes and his face sagged and became flabby, exactly like a tomato touched by mould. The shoulders drooped, the chest fell. And even the agent himself suddenly appeared as a pitiful and negligible creature. With sudden and shameful enlightenment Ogurtsov suddenly understood that the one he so feared, the one he was squeamish about, turned out to be simply trash – the most ordinary and harmless plasticine. Both the worm and the terrible pistol seemed to be plasticine also. The muzzle of the pistol drooped and crumpled. Tukhlomon, after looking sideways at the pistol, carelessly rolled it up into a lump and stuck it to his leg. The lump stretched, spread, and grew into place as if poured. “Very useful little thing! Ah-ah, you wouldn’t know how much trash I’ve already modelled from it: bombs, engagement rings, small trunks with money, deputy’s ID cards…” he shared the secret.
Ogurtsov, feeling ashamed, realized that he had become the victim of an immense bluff. But it was already too late to change anything. The agent, shuffling in a senile way, approached Anton and, putting an arm all the way up to the shoulder into Anton’s chest, extracted something. It was not painful, perhaps slightly disgusting. Ogurtsov also did not understand what was taken away from him, but experienced a terrible void.
“Well, that’s it here! As you see, it’s not painful at all. One, two, and it’s ready! He didn’t even have time to gasp, as Tukhlomony ate the eidos!” the agent stated in a friendly manner, greedily examining what was lying on his palm… “How miserable the clients are now! You scare one with a herring, kiss another, slip a syringe to the third in an hour of need – and that’s it, pack the goods… Eh, darling, you made a fool of yourself! Perhaps I could really do that to you? Not on your life! It’s said: hair won’t fall near the head! Just shout, stamp your feet, be a worm!”
Ogurtsov took a step forward and, grabbing the agent by the shoulder, mumbled some broken and indistinct words. It seemed he was asking, almost praying for the return of something to him, but he knew already that this “something” was lost to him forever, and together with it everything good, what was and what could be, was also gone. Hope was lost.
“Well, be good, dear, don’t get sick! Now you have to be even more on your guard against diseases, because your immortality is all lost! Hee-hee, very funny even! All you have to do – hee-hee! – is to kick me with one-third strength or drop the box on me! I’d immediately be gone! I have no power, I’m plasticine, puny! Now farewell, poor devil! Take your vitamins, my dear, and don’t sneeze!” Tukhlomon said with false sympathy, resolutely freeing himself from Ogurtsov’s fingers. Having carelessly waved to the sultan of disposable towels, the agent coolly took a step into the wall and melted away. Ogurtsov stood for a little in the empty room, and then, sobbing, squatted down and sadly began to gather the pills off the carpet. In his chest gaped an invisible black hole.
Chapter 4
How many sixes in the ace?
After moving her fingers apart, Julitta with tender emotion examined her hands. “Ah, how beautiful they are! And indeed my feet are not any worse! But no one appreciates them except the idiot genies! Everyone sees only a heavy elephant!” “Can never say ‘heavy elephant’. It’s meaningless. ‘Heavy elephant’ is like ‘enormous moose’. It goes without saying that a moose is enormous. Simply enough to say ‘elephant’ or ‘moose’,” Daphne remarked.
Julitta placed her arms akimbo. The lights in reception shook alarmingly. The hanged men in the pictures started to squint. The antique statue in horror turned away and covered its face with its hands. “Turn off the sound, Light! I can even call myself a hippo. But if anyone squawks again about moose, let him consider: the cemetery is full of free holes!” the witch said threateningly. “No one called you anything! The discussion dealt with entirely different things!” Daph obstinately objected. “Yea, yea! The conversation about elephant, moose, and other planktonic insects, of course, started purely accidentally! Watch it, Light, I’ll chop off your wings!”
Seeing that Daph was offended, Depressiac arched its back and started to hiss. The witch nodded with satisfaction. “Well, that’s it! I warned you! Now someone will be deprived of a tail! I see right through you! You’re a blonde only in appearance, but in your soul you’re a mean brunette!” she said darkly. “Just you dare touch my cat!” Daph was angry. In the next second Julitta materialized a small sword, and Daph – the flute. Depressiac, not having anything that could be materialized, extended its claws. The world briskly rolled to a war.
“Perhaps let us declare a truce? Well, at least for half an hour?” Methodius asked, yawning. He had already gotten used to the fact that at least on the whole Daph and Julitta got along well, nevertheless about three times a day they would start a showdown. Julitta thought for a bit. To arrange a slaughter in reception was not in her plans. Moreover, she already had time to cool down. “What about you? Do you have anything against a truce?” she asked Daph suspiciously. “Consider: in half an hour I’ll make mincemeat out of you!” “Uh-huh. I’ll mark the time,” nodded Daph, putting away the flute. Julitta carelessly threw away the sword, smiled, and moved over to hug Daph. Soon, having finally calmed down completely and swallowed some candies, the witch was already reading out from memory to Daphne and Methodius a brief history of Gloom and the Chancellery in Tartarus.
For the most part, as Methodius understood, the history of Gloom was divided into two periods. The first – before the loss of the sovereign of Gloom, and the second – after. Faceless Kvodnon either actively did not interfere in the history or preferred to operate the marionettes invisibly. After the loss of Kvodnon the forward hunchback Ligul soon moved into the spotlight. Approximately in the same epoch William the Conqueror, then a simple guard of the Norman division, without consultation with Ligul took England after knocking off Harold. It is incomprehensible how William managed to beat the rap. He remained to carouse in England whereas Harold was recalled into Tartarus forever. Several centuries later they placed Bonaparte over Normandy and France. Julitta, as she stated, was never especially interested in the details of behind-the-scene manoeuvring and therefore had simply forgotten all the others.
For example, she forgot about Hastrubal, a guard of the second rank managing the Carthaginian sector, whose son Hannibal, by an Earth woman, at first accomplished successful aggressive marches through the entire Italy and Sicily, and then with a bad joke angered Kvodnon, who wiped Carthage from the face of the earth, first overthrowing Hannibal, and after him in the heat of the moment also Hastrubal.
There existed, furthermore, the dark history of the half-magician, half-guard Odysseus. Odysseus’ path in life was full of ups and downs. Kvodnon either promoted him to a guard of the first rank, demoted him almost to the fourteenth rank, sent him into exile, or generously showered him with eide. As a result, poor Odysseus, on waking up, did not know what fate awaited him for the day: a reward or a sequential box on the ear. With grief, he took Troy, after making the horse move subsequently becoming famous with chess players. Then, after many years of wandering, he settled down at his place in Ithaca, in the interim beating up agents, who had been allowed to get out of hand during his absence. Later this method of disciplining agents received wide acceptance and was even included in the plan for training guards of Gloom.
The ancient history of the moronoid world, in which Gloom willingly interfered, was even more entangled. The Ancient Greek division of Gloom at first was split into many subdivisions: Athens, Thebes, Sparta, Smyrna, Pylos, Argos, Delphi, etc. Each division wallowed in its own vice: in Sparta they fought and severed darc, in Athens they philosophized, in Delphi three words could not be linked together without fogging the truth. Division heads quarrelled among themselves, packed wars of
