Готовый перевод Метка судьбы / Mark of Destiny: Chapter III

I had a dream. I was tardily strolling through the savannah, having no more than an old bag for collecting herbs. There were a lot of different animals around and they all welcomed me. From an elephant to a little bat, every creature I'd seen. Even after I crossed the river and entered the bushes of monkeys, they did not shrike but nodded their heads in respect as I passed by.

I woke up with the sun glaring at my eyes. Moon and Stars! I slept half the day! Had I been in the middle of the savannah, I would have long got eaten by a hyena. But since my sleep-mate turned to be a crocodile as huge as three wildebeests, slumbering and snoring quietly at the moment, I was safe here. As I glanced at the sandbank, I found out it wasn't too late. Water had just only started to rise in the afternoon sun. After quickly gathering my belongings, I opened my bag and regarded the tuft of the grey moss with a satisfactory look. With the purpose of my test in the bag, the only thing I had left to do was hastily make my way back home. It might well be that I'd be the first to return.

I swiftly ran across the river, dropped my bags and plunged neck-deep in warm water to wash away the remnants of the smelly anti-monkey powder without spoiling the traditional hairstyle. Then I looked back at the lying crocodile. "Goodbye, Big Mamba!" I shouted. He startled up, turned his head and for the first time stared at me with both eyes.

"See you later, filly," he said. "You and him, you are so alike…" And he flung himself into the water.

I had to reach my old campsite on the hill before sunset while escaping claws of stray lions. And I would be home tomorrow morning. Oh, how many questions was I going to ask the Elder! She had never said who was her father. I was so abstracted that I almost stepped on a huge tree eagle's feather. While you could consider these birds truly a rare find, their feathers were an ingredient for exceptionally strong potions and served as a decoration for a chief's ceremonial headdress. Smiling at my fortune, I gently took the feather and put it away. The path along which I walked gradually expanded, turning into a wide well-trodden road. I breathed in full lungs of warm air and went down in a light gallop. Soon I would have to plunge into tall grass again, so I did not want to miss the chance to stretch my muscles.

However, before long I was stopped. A spear was protruding from the side of the road. A good spear with a forged tip, embellished with feathers and carvings. A spear of our tribe. Who had left it here? You did not just throw away things like this. I looked around for its owner and listened. I heard nothing but the usual sounds of savannah, and saw nothing but tall yellow grass and some spreading trees on the horizon. I shrugged my shoulders and forced the spear out so I could slip it under the belt of my bag. When I brought it home, whoever lost it would get a good kicking.

I continued walking and shortly stumbled upon a bag with the sign of our tribe. The bag was ripped open, its contents scattered in the road dust. Several flatbreads wrapped in leaves, a small gourd of water, nothing special. Suddenly there was a loud rustle in the grass ahead. Whatever it was, it was too late to hide. The closer the source of the noise approached me, the harder my heart pounded. What if there's a lion over there? He could have attacked a member of our tribe, which would explain the abandoned spear and torn bag! But along with this insight came another. If it was a lion, it would be all over for me. Lions did not hunt alone.

But, suddenly, from the grass in front of me ran not a lion but Imara. For a second he stopped and stared at me with wide eyes. He was carrying nothing of what he had when we had parted, instead his entire body was covered with scratches and bruises, and a piece of rope dangled from his neck.

"Imara! You scared the hell out of me! What are you doing here? What happened? Did a scorpion attack..."

"Z-Zecora?" Imara's voice felt sort of changed. "What are [i]you[/i] doing here? Run! I'll take them away!" With that, he limped across the road and flung himself into the grass on the opposite side.

"Them? Who? Imara! Wait a minute!" I cried and rushed after him.

Later I would think a lot about my decision whether I should have run after him or not. It was pretty dumb of me, I guess.

For a good while I saw only his tail flashing in the gaps ahead, but before long we reached the edge of the yellow grass sea to run out into an open field covered with tiny pebbles and scarce short bushes. Imara stopped in hesitation, turning his head from side to side.

"Imara! Stop, please! Who is chasing you?"

"O Sun and Stars, you've been running after me?" the stud blurted out, grievously shaking his head. "I told you to run in the opposite direction!" He spun in place and squinted at the sky. "Stupid, stupid Zecora," he whispered after a few seconds. "Now there's no point in running. They have spotted you."

"Who the hell are you talking about?"

I thought he was going to hit me. But Imara simply turned my head back. I got a sight of some tiny black dot swiftly coming upon us from above. At first I fancied it should be sort of a big bird like a vulture, but soon I realized vultures did not fly so fast and had smaller bodies and longer wings. It was a pegasus.

[hr]

"Why does nobody come to my hut and believe it dangerous just to pass by, you think? Because they are afraid, little Zecora. Afraid of magic, afraid of me, even though I gave them no reason to be so. It is a common fear of unusual things natural to ordinary zebras. They think I can do anything, like, turn them into frogs and cause rain or drought with just a word. Why, you've been thinking the same thing lately, haven't you? But in truth, my—our magic won't offer you unlimited possibilities. In essense, it's not magic at all. Let me show you something."

Grandma led me to the table where she kept all her books. She lit a couple of candles, took one of the books and began to look it through.

"Uh huh, now... Ah, there it is. Look!"

She opened the picture of some strange creatures. They were like zebras, but without stripes. They had a vibrant coat, a set of vibrant eyes and long manes just as vibrant and combed out in many different ways. We always had our manes cut short and set in a special hairdo so that they did not obsure eyesight; that, and eyes of all zebras but me were pitch black. These creatures looked funny and weird in comparison with us.

"These are ponies, my sweetheart—earth ponies, to be exact. They live far away, beyond the savannah and the sea and the mountains, on the other continent. They're very much like us zebras. Save for their big villages called 'cities.' Their life is far less dangerous than ours. They even get their Marks of Destiny in a natural way, without a Test. You can read it later if you want."

Grandma turned a few pages and showed me another picture. It depicted the same pony species, only with small bird wings on their backs. It looked even more ridiculous and funnier.

"And these are pegasi," continued the Elder. "With their wings, they can fly through the sky. And not only fly!... they can walk on clouds, build homes made of clouds and do whatever they want with them. They can cause rain by simply driving the clouds they need into a mass above the place they need. It's a great gift and a great opportunity. No potion or herb can give us what they can do from birth."

Grandma flipped several pages again. This time the picture showed ponies without wings, but instead each of them had a strange spiralled horn in the middle of their forehead.

"Unicorns. They don't have wings, but they don't need them. They can conjure. Just imagine: they just want something, and it happens. They can get wings to fly, or breathe underwater, or turn stone into food. While you and I need to gather the ingredients, mix them up properly and pray to Sun to make it work if we want to do something, they can do it just by thinking about it. See a jar of dried berries on the shelf over there? I'd have to move a ladder and climb to get it, risking to fall and break my neck. If a unicorn wanted it, the jar would simply fly to him."

"Woooow," I gasped.

"Oh yes, they live a good life. But don't you think that they are so powerful. The life of theirs is easy and carefree. And this life made them lazy and idle. Most unicorns never use their horns for anything other than writing, creating light or putting food into the mouth. And for all their advantages, you've got something that makes you superior to all of them."

I eyed Grandma with suspicion. She raised her hoof and touched my head.

"It is your knowledge and your wits, little Zecora."

[hr]

The pegasus circled above us a single time, then stopped and made a deafening whistle. Another whistle replied him from the road. As I stood there, mouth open, and stared at the newcomer, Imara snatched his spear I had on me and threw it. The pegasus easily dodged it and flew higher. He had a blue coat with a gray mane, a wide-brimmed hat on his head, a short baton dangling on his flank and a rope in his hooves. All the time his squinted gaze was fixed on me.

"Run!" said Imara and turned away, but after a few steps he cried out and fell to his knees. I finally came to my senses and ran up to him.

"Something's wrong with my leg... What the..." he hissed.

"Lie still, I'll help you," I said and rummage through my bag. I had hoarded a remedy somewhere...

"Leave me! Run before it's too late, or they'll catch us both!" hissed Imara, trying to push me away.

Meanwhile, three more earth ponies scurried out of the grass. The pegasus flew down to them and started to say something, pointing at me with a hoof. One of the ponies spat and came closer to us.

"Well, well, well," he said, but suddenly stared directly at me. "Hey, Stinky, come here."

The second pony stepped to the first. "Called me, boss?"

"Look at this filly. Do you notice anything?"

"She looks nice, boss."

The first pony rolled his eyes. "Celestia, send me patience... Watch closely."

"Uhh... She's a little shorter than you but has no cutie mark, that's it?"

"They don't have cutie marks at all, you idiot!"

"Sorry, boss..."

"Hey, Migle! Come here. What do you see?"

The third pony, who had been watching around, approached us with a smile. "I see we're lucky todady, Mr Rope," he said. "This babe has turquoise eyes."

"At least somepony here has brains," Mr Rope sighed.

"Zecora, run!" cried Imara.

All of a sudden, there was a rush of wind and a thud. Looking back, I saw the pegasus swoop down at lightning speed, and as he flew closer he whacked Imara's head with a baton. Imara fell unconscious.

"Stand still, filly. We don't wanna you and your buddy to get somethin' injured, do we," said Mr Rope and nodded to his henchponies. They took off lengths of rope of their belts and gripped them with their mouth before starting to approach me.

I put my nose in the bag and and, keeping an eye on them, haphazardly pulled the first flask of random powder. When one of them came close enough and tried to throw a rope over me, I jumped back and dashed the bottle right into his muzzle. Not paying attention to the result, I turned around and rushed away as fast as I could. But I did not manage to get far. A hundred steps later, I felt a noose tighten around my neck. I were galloping at my full and so had to turn to the left that it should not suffocate me. The noose tightened even more. I stopped and tried to take it off, but suddenly I realized that my front hooves could not reach the ground. The pegasus was hovering right over me, tugging the rope around my neck and backwards, not letting me take a single step. I started to choke.

The others quickly came up running. Stinky, who was a target for my powder, looked pretty well. Not my lucky day...

Mr Rope was the last in the procession. He grimaced and spat on the ground as he strolled past Stinky.

"She dusted me with some foul stuff, boss!" complained Stinky, shaking off his cap. This stuff was my powder against monkeys. Stupid, stupid Zecora.

"Don't shake that filth on me! Stay away for a while. You stink like elephant's shit," Mr Rope said and came close to me. "What were you hoping for, huh?" he asked, making a haggard face. "Though you may not answer. You always try to escape, even if the situation is hopeless. Had you done it without fightin', everything would've been quiet and peaceful, perhaps we wouldn't have needed that rope around your neck."

I leaped up, turned in the mid-air and kicked Mr Rope in the jaw. The noose instantly tightened so much that I could barely breathe and balanced on the tips of my hind hooves.

Mr Rope spat out a broken tooth and smiled. "Loop! Tie her up." He nodded to the pegasus and walked away.

For a moment I felt the rope around my neck weaken, but after a second my eyes suddenly darkened and I lost my consciousness.

[hr]

I woke up and found myself lying on my side, a sack put over my head. A rope was tightly coiled around my muzzle to prevent me from any speaking. My ears were buzzing, and even the slightest movement of my head gave a terrible pain in the back of my neck. My legs seemed to be tightly bound; so tightly that I barely felt them. I tried not to think about what would happen if I wanted to pee. Instead I stopped squirming and let my senses loose. The sack put on my head and its overpowering stench made it quite a task to discern anything else, but soon I managed to smell a campfire burning nearby. Part of the headache left my skull as I concentrated, and heard my captors talking, which was occasionally interrupted with bursts of laughter and a bizarre musical instrument shrilling loudly.

After lying still for a while, I felt something creeping on my face. And it was trying to crawl up my nose. I lurched and sneezed.

The voices immediately fell silent.

"Go check on our filly, Loop." That was Rope's voice.

The said pegasus came closer and pulled the bag off my head. I was relieved to breathe in the full lungs of cool night air. And oh my, how magnificent it felt after the foul-scented bag. Covered by clouds, the moon hung low in the sky. I was lodged on the edge of a small camp among the thickets of acacia, in the middle of which a bonfire was burning. Mr Rope and Meagle sat by the flame and smoked a pipe, passing it round each other. Stinky couched near and brushed off his hat, his face downcast.

"No screaming?" the pegasus asked in a weary tone, sitting beside me. I shook my head. "I'm gonna take the rope off. If you cry, things get ugly. Boss hates noise."

"Wanna drink?" he asked.

"Looking at my cutie, huh? Haha, yeah, you'd be surprised but I used to be a weather pegasus. Chasing clouds over Dappleshore. Living high of the hog. But a lot of things has happened, and now I'm chasing not clouds but those like you. We're all stray here, filly. Migle has a baker cutie mark, boss worked as a clerk, once, and this imbecile Stinky was a barber. But our world is not always to give you job your cutie mark's telling you. So we do what brings a good income. If you know what I mean, filly."

"Cut it out, Stinky!" came Mr Rope's voice. "I can smell your stinking hide in thirty steps, so quit hopping like a nuts."

"That wench got me dusted with some muck. Doesn't clean off."

"Go to the river and put your head in the water, then, you idiot!"

"But... It's night, boss. It freaks me out."

Mr Rope groaned. "Shut this harp of yours up, Loop! Fly and watch for Stinky. He's [i]freaking out[/i] about washing himself alone."

"Loop?! What the... Where's Stinky?" Mr Rope shouted as he sprang to his hooves.

"He... He was eaten by a bucking crocodile!" Loop blurted out and began to guzzle from a wineskin with water.

"Discord take you, a crocodile?!"

"Is it still there?"

"Oh yeah, sure. It vanished just as quickly as it had appeared. We need to get out of this land, boss. Yesterday was Lame, today Stinky. Something's going wrong."

[hr]

"Stinky's dead, huh? Well, I guess that's been expected... What about Lame? He was kinda nice guy."

"A snake."

"No way. Really? Yeah, your wings won't help you with that sort of things... And I see your catch isn't that big. Who's you have over there?"

"None of your business. I've got enough of what I have."

"Mean as always, Rope. I hear no single good word from your shitty mouth as long as I've known you. Remember Trapper? The one with a panther on tether. So y'know, that beast attacked him when they'd camped down, and killed everypony but him and Barkley. How many times everypony told him this cat was gonna kill him—but no, the old fool wouldn't have listened. Now he ain't going back 'til he finds it. We'll probably have to leave him. Poor old chap."

"His late daughter gave him that panther as a gift when it was a kitten. If I were him, I'd myself never return."

"And this time we've lost five ponies including Stinky and Lame. Young bucks. Something's been going wrong lately. The camels are constantly increasing fees so you need to pay twice, and... Woa, where is your tooth, huh?"

"Shut the buck up. I'm dog-tired. Better go and help Migle."

"You don't move. You don't stare. You don't breathe until you are ordered to, striped scum!" came his shouts, followed by strong kicks of his legs.

"Get off her!" I heard Loop's voice. In a moment the pegasus landed next to me.

"Yeah? Why so?"

"You are spoiling one of our goods, wanker."

"I'm only making it better, no spoil involved. These animals always need to be reminded of their place, otherwise someday they'd stab you in your throat. I'm going to work on her in my tent tonight, and tomorrow she will be just nice and neat."

"If you ever touch her again, I'm gonna work on your face so hard tonight that your own momma won't recognize you tomorrow. Though she wouldn't recognize you now."

"Oh? Sure you can do it, kiddo?" the scarred pony grumbled and slid his foreleg in his pocket. A moment later, a huge metal horseshoe appeared on his hoof.

"He was doing damage to one of our goods, sir," Loop said with nonchalance.

"Chalk! What have I told you about it? Do it again, and you can say goodbye to your job. Didn't I say that?"

"The girly was up to run off, so I had to teach her a lesson," the scarred pony retorted, playing with his knuckles on his hoof. "And you know well what'd happen if she ran off. This sucker started it."

"He didn't steal your pail for making sand pies, did he? No toys broken?"

"He didn't steal your pail for making sand pies, did he? No toys broken?… Pathetic. That 'sucker' would've gutted you if we hadn't stepped in," uttered Rope. "Were you going to fight a pegasus, you moron? Oh, you know what? Screw it. Loop, put the girl to the others and go get some rest. As for you Chalk, it is the last time we've taken you with us. Advice for free: get a job at some quarry. Which is a perfect place for your talents."

I barely got back on my hooves. Breathing was hard; I bet that Chalk probably broke me a rib or two. "Can you walk?" the pegasus inquired when the others were all gone. I nodded my head.

"Follow me," he said without looking at me, "and don't try anything. Even if you run away, we have two other pegasi save for me, and the empty savannah around us. And you better not know what they're gonna do to you when they find you. I don't think I can protect you again."

We drew near to a cage which—Sun be praised—was half-empty. The reek of it made my eyes watering. The prisoners inside clearly seemed to be not allowed to use toilet or wash themselves. When Loop started to open the door lock, they crawled to the opposite side of the wagon and lay face down on the floor. My heart sank. The strong adult zebras were trembling like little foals, covering their heads with hooves. There was a clear lack of good pegasi.

"Thanks..." I grunted when, after shoving me inside, Loop began to lock the lattice door. That was the first word I had said out loud in two days.

"Don't kid yourself," he replied, throwing a bunch of keys to another pony who was guarding the cages. "I'm not looking out for you because I'm a good guy or some shit as you might think I am. I only care about the safety of our good, filly. They won't pay much if you are toothless, damaged or crippled. So consider yourself lucky to be born the way you are."

"Zecora. My name is Zecora."

"Whatever you wish, Your Highness. I don't give a buck," he said before leaving.

But one certain question had still been tormenting me all the while. "What happened to Imara?" I shouted at him.

"Whom?"

"The buck that you've chased first."

"Oh, that one." Loop shrugged. "He broke a leg. Boss said we don't need a ballast, so Stinky finished off your buddy."

It seemed a chill gust was setting in.

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Переведено на Нотабеноиде
http://notabenoid.org/book/74160/418249

Переводчики: psychoshy