“I caused you pain…”

“None of this matters.”

“Why did you stay in the castle, if you think that I came for you?”

“I have nowhere else to run, I told you, here is my real home, my family, which I didn’t have otherwise. Not with my mother, not with my father, not with you…”

“Don’t say that!”

“I’ve been through a lot, and I’ve had everything, even love”.

“No!”

“I will go to a slaughter like a ship”.

“Stop it!”

“Go to sleep in peace, Carina, I won’t escape from you”.

“Lis…”

“Go away already! Don’t you see that everything has finished a long time ago? I don’t give a damn what you do. With Arel or with anybody else. As far as I’m concerned, you can fuck all of them, if Arel will share you around, just like his other girls! I will fuck you like the rest. I warned you!”

Carina’s face changed, they really had nothing to talk about anymore, he became as damaged as everybody else in this god damned castle, he is right, there’s nothing left in him from the great Sigmer, he really was a different person. Arel’s person. Arel’s slave. She got up: “Good night!”

Why do her legs feel like wood?

When her footsteps died down upstairs, Lis kept sitting without moving for a while, staring on the flames in the fireplace. Then he suddenly fell upon the furs, tucking his face in the pelage. And just lay like this, face down, on the old furs, alone in a huge empty hall, and the glare of the fire have tried unsuccessfully to dye his hair red.

Chapter Two.

Who is he?

“What else did you realize for yourself?” – Lis asked. “Tell me”.

“What’s in it for you? It’s all just small talk” – Orel said, lighting a cigarette.

“You think outside the box, and I’m curious”.

Orel laughed: “Is this a complement? Did you just praise a ‘silly pretty prince’?”

“Think whatever you want! I’ve always considered you rather sharp, just somewhat crass. As for your smarts, you have to agree, Arel, you never even really learned how to read, or wright, or count. You’re not silly, of course, but you are uneducated and illiterate”.

“I know all that stuff” – Orel shook his hair.

“You’re a child! It’s ridicules! You are almost thirty years old! Even if a miracle occurs, and you die a natural death, in your own bed, even though it’s unlikely, even in the very best case it will happen within fifteen years tops! And the “blacks” usually live till hundred years easily! You understand that?”

“Yes”.

“Did you already catch the liver infection?”

“Yes…”

“What were you thinking?! Are you still going to claim you’re not stupid?”

Orel was silent.

“How much time did you spend in prison?”

“Two”.

“Two and a half, to be accurate. Best years of your youth! Only fools, like you and Squint-Eye, serve time in prison! Or even get there!”

Once again, Orel didn’t answer.

“Do you know why I like you, Arel? You never make excuses, you take all my mockery quietly. And I mock you in a mean way, it hurts me that such an interesting thoughts come into your head instead of mine. Even though I am the one who always kept searching for the answers, and still do”.

“But I told you, you were the one who gave me the basic idea. You were the one who said, ‘He is a nobody. He actually doesn’t exist! And you get from him whatever you bring in”.

“Well, you’re basically right, I said something like this, but I wasn’t the one who gave it the final shape, it was you”.

“You suppose my theory is final? It’s only one of the ideas”.

“There’s more?!”

“Yes.”

“?!”

“There is the feedback. The feedback we get from him”.

“Your slave girl? Shela, whom he supposedly killed to get back at me. I got you”.

“The black-braided. Yes, it’s possible. Shit, why do I keep forgetting her name!”

“Never mind. You also got something? You love him, after all!”

“I got some. Big time! I got no less than Enriki, and definitely no less than you! I’m almost ruined!”

“But what for? And wait, what does Rik have to do with it?”