the chest. Shiny, jeweled shoes with elongated, pointed toes. A woman in a white short dress with an unbuttoned collar came up with him. She was not just thin, as it seemed yesterday, but very slim and curvy. On her feet are very strange white shoes made of solid fabric. They were high-soled sneakers with red laces. – Your hotel is so-so, – the stranger smiled. – But, I’ve been to places and worse. «Only now, by his voice, did Selim recognize him as yesterday’s wanderer. Once again, carefully examining the prisoners from head to toe, he turned in displeasure to his guard:
– Who changed them? And for what?
– They will not give you an answer to this question, my young boy, – the wanderer took hold of the bars with both hands. – How much time is left before the verdict? He stroked his short gray hair with his right hand.
– I don’t know. Maybe… you won’t have a verdict.
– This castle, – the wanderer with admiration examines the blurry buildings seen in the distance, fused with each other. – It was not built by you.
«How do you know,» Svurt came close to him.
– Oh, I know everything. This castle was not built by people. He raised his head contentedly. – Yesterday you were so excited when I said that we were picking mushrooms. And when everyone was gone, you went to check if we had picked at least one fungus. I know why entry into that forest is prohibited. It’s not all right there and you know it. You have too many secrets, and if ordinary nahmau find out about them, Shelber’s power will fall.
– A curse was sent to our castle. Every year, it collapses on its own. And every year we restore it. Over and over again, my grandfather and my father have lived here their whole lives. They could not understand this pattern. Towers bend and change their shape. We consider this to be the curse of the Osiris from North Africa and Jericha (a city in Israel on the site of the future Jericho). My grandfather and father slaughtered these peoples with particular fury. Like the barbarians, they went on military campaigns and conquered distant lands for the purpose of profit. My grandfather did not return from one of these trips to the east. He died about sixteen years ago. My father should have returned from the west a month ago, but there is no news of him. The innocent Sumerian peoples whom they made to suffer by enslaving them. The rebellious Sabarian peoples, which almost completely died out due to the cruelty and oppression of the Nahmaut kings. We call them monkeys, savages. But, they are not as stupid as they seem. They have bewitched us and the Rohvem Valley. I have no idea how to remove this corruption, but I will do everything to atone for the guilt of the nahmau before other peoples.
«I don’t need your revelations, kid,» the stranger shook his head, narrowing his eyes slyly. – Nobody sent damage to you. This is self-hypnosis. This castle is not broken, it is simply not completed. Its construction should be completed by those who started. Do they just want it? The anomaly will not stop here, it will increase every day. I see that you are an immaculate soul. I am ready to help you.
«I didn’t ask for your help, old man. – Svurt drew attention to the woman, carefully examining her gold ring. – Did she swallow her tongue?
– She’s wild. Crazy. Doesn’t know the Nahmau language. I took it away from a bear on the river bank as a baby.
– Too sexy for a savage. How old is she? She is well-groomed like from a wealthy family, don’t powder my head.
«Okay, just kidding, this is my cousin,» he glanced at her with his eyes. The woman was distracted and looked at her fellow tribesman, then at Selim. Proudly lifting her head, coquettishly approaching the grate, she slowly licked a thick iron bar along the way. Then, she approached Svurt as close as possible, pressing her whole body against the pipes:
– WOF WOF!! She growled unexpectedly loudly. Frightened, the young man jumped back, reflexively, placing his hand on the hilt of his dagger. The woman laughed. «He seems to like me,» she said to her brother.
– What are you doing? – the wanderer pushed her back slightly. – In fact, she has an injury. Seventeen years ago, she was brutally raped by barbarians from the west. She was no longer a virgin, but one of the best girls of the tribe, it was hard not to notice her. Burning our village to the ground, the soldiers fished it out, tore up her clothes, and began to mock her. Then their commander came and dispersed them. Delighted, she thanked him. But, in vain. He took her to the house and raped her too. However, it’s good that our man was there, hiding behind the wall. With a stab in the back, he stabbed the leader of these bastards. As it turned out later, he was a major military leader. After his death, the invading army turned back, and since then did not set foot on our lands for a long time.
– This, of course, is very interesting, but let him first let us out, then continue to tell your stories, – the girl interrupted him with a serious look, apparently not wanting him to talk about her.
«Seventeen years ago, was she no longer a virgin? So how old are you now? – in bewilderment, Selim approached again. «She looks twenty years old.
«She is eleven years older than me. I’m twenty-three, she’s thirty-four. Our tribe is very small. Just a few families. Due to constant incest, hormonal failure occurred in our family. For the third generation, we suffer from Progeria. But Carney’s disease somehow worked in the opposite direction. Now she is the oldest representative of our people. On average, we live twenty-five to twenty-seven years. If we’re lucky, we’ll live to be thirty. It looks like it will be about ninety years old. But I no longer worry about death. I managed to recover. And, I won’t grow old anymore. The mutation of genes affected not only in the negative direction. It also influenced intelligence, the way of thinking. During my not very long life, I have created a great many useful things to which you have to go for thousands of years. But, the main thing is not even that. I am standing now, communicating with you through this cage, but I can easily get out of here. And, with a snap of your finger, destroy this whole castle. As he speaks, Karnay grabbed the smooth iron pipe of the grating with one hand and began to rub it with quick movements. With her other hand, she slowly lifted her dress from the side of her hip. Her slender legs made the prince pay attention to them. Above the knees, she is wearing black ribbons embroidered with patterns, like stockings, tight-fitting legs. She fiddled with her eyebrows and pulled her lips slightly, making them plump. Her face is smooth, natural. No makeup and wavy hair styled at the back secured with a white comb.
– Are you flirting with me? – unable to bear it, said Selim.
– Me not! – the girl quickly cut off her hands, standing in the starting position.
– Let them out! – Svurt turned to the guard. One of the knights approached the stone partition between the chambers and pressed on one of the bricks, then on the other, just below and to the right of the first. And then, he pulled out the third, leftmost, top brick. Something clicked, and the iron bars, one by one, quickly rooted into the ground. – What is your name, wanderer? – Finally he asked the name of the gray-haired man in the caftan.
«Call me Grul.» Smiling, he walked out into a narrow street, his sister following him.
– I have no time to talk more with you. You say you can help remove the curse from the castle and forests. So come on, help, or you are a crook posing as a great sorcerer.
«If I’m a swindler, how can you explain this?» He thrust his hand into his silk caftan and pulled out a large book, trimmed with red fringe. With silver upholstery around the edges and a convex blue planet in the middle. The entire cover of the book consisted
