The Mist and the Lightning. Part 19

“Yes! I want! Want! Fulfill your mission with me! I want my Mission!” kneeling in a muddy puddle, Kors threw back his head with some anger and looked at the black stormy sky covered with low heavy clouds:

“Fucking Gods! Fucking God! You hear me?! I don’tneed you anymore! Don’t need!” Kors thumped the water with his clenched fists several times, splattering mud. The heavens remained silent, but, apparently attracted by his cries, Prince Arel came out of the tent.

Kors turned to him.

“Arel, come on! Well?! Dip me in the shit!”

But Arel didn’t move, didn’t budge.

Kors literally howled from powerlessness:

“Humiliate me! Punish me! What are you worth?! Me, true black, crawl in front of you in the mud like a worm! Enjoy! Or is that not enough for you?!” And, as they were still standing and silently looking at him, in some outburst of hopeless despair, Kors scooped up a handful of liquid mud from a puddle and rubbed this liquid over his face, not sparing himself, smearing the mud on his cheek and lips:

“What else can I do? Look at me! I am your! I’m as dirty now as you!”

Arel turned around and, without saying a word, went into the tent. And Nik, passing by Kors and no longer looking at him, silently left after him. Kors was leftalone in a puddle, wet and dirty. Somewhere in the distance, lightning flashed, nothing happened. Kors rose from his knees. Dirty water dripped from his leather pants and expensive boots. Stunned by their indifference and not understanding what was happening, he perplexedly sat down on some kind of wooden block near the wall of the tent. He didn’t know what to do. He tried to wipe the dirt off his face:

“Fuuuck…”

Verniy approached him, in his paws he carried a bucket of clean water and a rag:

“Wash yourself, sir, and go better to the tent,” said the dog and quickly looked up at the sky, “a thunderstorm will soon begin.”

Kors looked at him gloomily with his now unswolleneye and silently took the rag. He washed his face and dried his clothes as best he could. Proudly straightening his back, he entered the tent, trying not to look at them. Nik and Arel were sitting at the table. They didn’t eat, didn’t smoke. Kors didn’t stop at the threshold, didn’t kneel. With a crash, he pulled a chair up to the trestle bed, took off his wet clothes and hung them neatly on it. He lay down on the trestle bed, on his side, defiantly turning away from them, but still leaving some place for Arel, and covered his head with a brocade blanket. They continued to sit at the table, not taking any action, and still silent, not talking to each other, and not saying anything to him. Under the thick blanket, Kors warmed up, and the small shivering stopped pounding him. He heard torrents of rain fall on the roof of their tent, and the wind began to beat furiously against the walls.

“I just need to try to sleep.”

Chapter 11

Since Nik and Arel were quiet and didn’t touch him, Kors was indeed able to fall into a restless and disturbing sleep. And in the morning the nightmares began. He was blinded again, but this time not by plaster, but by iron spoon glasses, the same as those of Zaf’s mutilated slave. The flaps dug into the delicate skin around the eyes, injuring it and causing incessant aching pain. Kors tried to free himself, to pull out the bar threaded through the bridge of his nose, but he couldn’t do it, because in addition to the “glasses” and over them, Kors was wearing a mask. The mask was iron, but not smooth, decorated with engravings and slightly raised patterns of some incomprehensible symbols. Kors could feel their curved contours with his fingertips as he touched its surface. The mask fit snugly to his face and delivered no less discomfort than shielded eyes. In an unsuccessful attempt to free himself from such a dubious decoration, Kors tugged at the mask, pulled, tore it, experiencing sharp pain in those places where the iron was literally screwed to his flesh. At the cost of painful efforts, and more by some miracle, he still managed to tear off the steel shield of the mask from the lower part of his face. Freed, he opened his mouth, breathing heavily and realizing that the main part of the mask was still on his face, he felt its hard edge on his cheeks and under his nose from ear to ear. The sensations were so real that Kors awoke with a start. Habitually throwing Arel’s hand off his shoulder, he abruptly sat down on the couch, taking convulsive breaths of air and continuing to choke. Hisbody was wet from the cold perspiration that covered it. His face burned, his injured eye throbbed from within with dull jolts. Maybe from these painful sensations he had such an unpleasant dream? “Iurgently need to get out into the fresh air,” thought Kors and stood up. Neither Arel nor Nik, who was lying on the floor, woke up.