Готовый перевод Нова Проспект / Nova Prospect: Good l_ck, yo_ are f_cked (Эредин)

Good l_ck, yo_ are f_cked (Eredin)

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//Eredin.

Eredin struggled between oblivion and reality - as much as the rippling, searing pain would allow. Visions flashed before his eyes: the green towers of Tir na Lia, glowing gold in the setting suns, the sprawling terraces, the wide streets, the grass, and trees, evergreen as in spring. The cool waters of Easnadh, in which the stars glittered at night like bonfires.

Everything he swore to protect.

//"Eredin," the familiar voice called again.

He dreamed of two sparkling orbs on an ivory pedestal. They swirled in a fanciful dance, and with each spin, the back of his head cracked more and more.

//"Inserted metal into their bodies, created mechanical servants," came the echo of a phrase I had once heard. - Destroyed all those sensitive to magic..."

In the haze of sleep, the image of Caranthir appeared. The mage had no strength for more than scattered thought-forms; the torture had devastated him. He tossed the glowing orbs, and they hovered in the air. One hand in a dainty glove, the other... An ugly iron outgrowth. The same as the dh'oine that leaped into the void. The same as the jailer's. Sparks ran across the polished surface.

//"Zireael... Bring Zireael to them," Caranthir barely moved his thin lips. - I will try to open the gate to the Spiral."

Even with the help of the Elder Blood, it can't be done alone. He can't risk the best mages of the Alder Folk to...

"Что у него, блядь, за нейроактивность? (The fuck is wrong with his brainwaves?)" a barking male voice interrupted the vision. "Въеби ему электричеством. (Give him a fucking jolt.)"

Less than a moment later, an icy needle stabbed into his temple. Eredin barely kept from gagging, bent in half, gulping for air.

...No. He's willing to sacrifice the entire Council to save Aen Elle from those things. Including himself.

Eredin came to his senses and realized he was in the same place where he had tried to cover his eyes for a few moments, a metal and stone hangar, an uncomfortable room made of straight lines. Rage came up to his throat like a choking sensation. It was a tremendous effort of will to suppress it. He must keep a cool head. He was in a cage because of his imprudence.

Yelena leaned over the glossy black surface, on which multicolored waves danced. A man with a beastly grin stood beside her, his arms crossed over his chest in a disproportionately huge grin. Despite his demonic appearance, there was something disgustingly human about the grin.

Both of them didn't raise their eyes.

If they really don't wield magic... Then the creatures from the Gate of dh'oine will be hard to deal with, and what comes after them will make their world go numb with terror and then scream. He'd like a fair war better than the destructive magic that rots interdimensional space - but to go up against nine billion souls, he'd need a couple of decades to prepare.

Eredin heard the light rustle of footsteps on the stone floor. The elf came to his senses sharply when he saw the man who had entered: bare muscles, covered by light armor, sticking out as if the man had been skinned alive. The lower limbs ended in split hooves. Helena and the amban stretched out like a string at the sight of him.

Eredin couldn't believe it wasn't a demon, and he couldn't resist the temptation to take a closer look at the creature. //"Human," he urged himself, trying to recognize something human in this strange creature, /"just human./ In the corners of his eyes, he saw a faint spider's webbing. It was easier to breathe.

"Только что получил сообщения. Эльф не ошибся. (Just got the message. Elf was right)," the man strode across the hangar with wide strides; his hooves glided silently across the floor. "Хостел в даунтауне Шанхая. Полное визуальное совпадение. (Hostel in Shanghai downtown. Full visual match)."

An invisible puppeteer pulled the strings, and Eredin had no choice but to follow them. How had they agreed to do this to themselves? How could the flesh recover from such barbaric intervention without healing magic?

The voices were drowned out by the noise of the machine's mill-like rotating blades. The space inside was too damn small; Eredin had no idea how this rickety structure was supposed to get them anywhere.

He tried to clutch at the rail as the machine heaved and shook as if it were about to collapse, but the invisible ties held him fast. It's a tricky thing for a people who don't know the art of portals.

"How old are you?" The leader enunciated the words as if he doubted his, Eredin's, mental capacity.

That's the kind of thing people have always been interested in. They age quickly and ugly - childbearing, disease, the stuff they call food. Eredin tried to answer, but his tongue wouldn't move. He glanced at Yelena.

"Three hundred," he said with difficulty. His numb larynx refused to obey.

The man gave him a cold stare, leaning back.

"Are you interbreeding with us?" And, apparently deciding that the word "interbreed" was too complicated, he clarified: "Offspring?"

Why would he be interested in that, and who does he mean by "us"...?

"With whom, the humans?"

"No, with fucking unicorns," the brute said with a snicker.

What? Unicorns are more averse to interspecies bonding than Aen Elle.

"Barrett," the leader cut him off, "don't ask questions you don't want to know the answers to. With the humans, elf."

" interbreeding?" A shiny bling was enough to get their women into bed, and in military campaigns, one had to make do with little. All the more reason to find a certain charm in the young dh'oine, the beauty of one-time butterflies. And there was no doubt that there were consequences of such fleeting infatuations - with human fertility, after all. But Eredin had never been interested in that.

"If there's someone who isn't squeamish," he replied.

Diable, you bitch! The insolence flashed red before his eyes. Eredin prayed that the creature from the Spiral would grind Elena's bones to dust. When the man raised his palm upward, the pain subsided.

"We're not squeamish, don't worry," said the iron gorilla. "By the way, Namir, were there any women in their squad? Нет? Бля, прикиньте, сколько бы стоило видео. (No? Ah, shit. Imagine how much a video would cost.)"

So he's asking about their women? For Aen Elle to voluntarily share a bed with dh'oine, much less conceive a child from such a relationship - such a disgrace has happened only a couple of times in history.

"And what is the life expectancy of hybrids?" Namir continued, ignoring the jeering.

Eredin doubted the creepy curiosity was motivated by lust; it smelled of something... medical, something laboratory. Tortured by a bad suspicion, he downplayed the number in his mind:

"A hundred and something."

The man was silent for a few moments before turning to his companions:

"Потрясающе. Генетически совместимая молодость - натуральная, без аугментации. Время вкладывать бабки в Тай Юн, если вы еще не сделали это. (Truly fascinating. Genetically compatible longevity - all-natural, no augmentations. Time to invest cash in Tay Yun, in case you haven’t already.)".

The men switched tongues, discussing something with the kind of fervor with which people always discussed money, whether it was made of gold, leather, or paper. Outside the window, he could see a gigantic city, a giant city made entirely of transparent glass and black stone. A veritable anthill; the flow of people was so dense that it looked like an endless river from above.

Some worlds are overflowing with life breeding without measure. Drowning themselves in their seeds, cursed to multiply and multiply until they have to strangle each other in the struggle for a place under the sun.

The vehicle landed on the roof of one of the squat buildings, unassuming compared to the luxurious glass towers. The height of the buildings here must have something to do with prosperity.

Namir and his mutts seemed monstrous not only to Eredin. When they appeared, their own kin tried to dissolve, to blend into the walls. The building was swarming with soldiers and squat cyclops creatures.

Zireael was here. The older blood leaves behind an elusive, unique magical imprint, like the plume of a fine perfume. She was. They won't find anyone upstairs.

The girl behind the counter squirmed in her chair. Her pearly fingernails drummed a nervous staccato on the marble. Large, perfectly round tears rolled down her cheeks. It was unlikely she would see another dawn.

They went upstairs to a featureless room that had been abandoned in a hurry: the glass of amber liquid remained on the table, the white Zireael bandages slung over the back of the leather sofa. It smelled of malt and garbage. A black box lay on the floor; Eredin noticed for the first time something subtly beautiful in the piece of corroded metal.

"Что-то - или кто-то - их спугнул. Дженсен знал о нашем прибытии," Namir said checking the burnt device. "Сжег электронику к чертям собачьим (Something - or somebody - set them off. Jensen knew we were coming and burned the electronics real good). Can you catch her trail, elf?"

Eredin felt a hard look on his face. If he answered in the negative, the adventure in pleasant company would come to an end.

"Yeah. If she uses magic again."

Namir grinned.

"Pray that she does," he nodded to Yelena. Доставь его обратно на базу, в лаборатории что-то от него хотели. Если не скажет ничего нового в следующие сутки, убей. (Доставь его обратно на базу, в лаборатории что-то от него хотели. Если не скажет ничего нового в следующие сутки, убей)

* * *

Hell was much closer than Eredin had imagined. The world narrowed to a sterile white room with glass walls, to periodic red flashes before his eyes, to the pungent ethanol odor tickling his nostrils.

The helmet clutched his temples, sticky wires entangled his body. His head was held by a sort of padded headrest. He could only look forward. There was a console with small scales and dials against the right wall, shadows moving behind a frosted glass window.

"Freeze it," a mechanical voice ordered, and a shivering guy in a white coat waved a sphere in front of his face.

The idea of freezing dh'oine's brains instead of the sphere seemed more tempting, but the long, thin needle at his temple reminded him of the unpleasant consequences. Atrocities do not cease to be atrocities if they are done in laboratories and called medical experiments.

The apple crumbled to dust. There was a sharp click and a flash; the dial twitched. A stubby creature in a robe and glasses watched the hands. And in this world, too, humans had negative selection - their sorcerers were characterized by physical infirmity and poor eyesight.

"Дай ему платиновый блок," he muttered."Образец СХ." (Give him the platinum block. Sample CX).

Freeze it.

Do they think this piece of metal is harder to destroy? Let them think so. Eredin mimed an effort before turning the stone to ashes, which sparked a lively discussion. Several different materials were given to him. The denser they appeared to be, the slower Eredin froze it.

Soon a whole consilium gathered around him.

"(Сучонг… Может, их нейроактивность каким-то образом изменяет квантовые состояния? Создаёт энергетические частицы? (Suchong… Can it be that their brainwaves affect the quantum states? Сause energetic particles to pop into existence?)" asked one with an elongated horse face. No. Negative selection is not capable of such an insult to nature. Such a thing is created in a test tube.

The dwarf in glasses threw a murderous look at his colleague.

"И как ты только диплом в Стэнфорде получил? Нельзя применять законы квантовой физики к классическим моделям (I can’t believe they gave you a Stanford diploma. You can’t apply subatomic physics solutions to classical model physics problems)."

"Может, они берут энергию из параллельных вселенных? В духе теории мультивселенной? (Maybe they siphon the energy from parallel universes? Like a multiverse theory?)" suggested another, keeping his round owl eyes on Eredin.

Are they trying to understand magic? Understand controlled Chaos, the key that can unlock locked doors? They have no idea what awaits them behind those doors. Magic is a gift given to a select few. Those who lack it can make pathetic and ridiculous attempts to understand Nature.

Freeze. Defrost. Freeze. Defrost.

"Анализ мозгового вещества Пациента 52 и 53 готов, пойдемте, посмотрим (The brain matter analysis of Subject 52 and 53 is ready, let's have a look," the dwarf said goodbye. His entourage followed him.

Everything went quiet. The bright lights were gone, and only the buzzing sound, like a swarm of angry bees, remained. The air entering his lungs seemed to cut his throat like a red-hot knife. Sticky sweat trickled down between his shoulder blades; the elf was burning with heat despite his nakedness.

Blood ran down his chin in large, hot drops. The last time this had happened was when he was a boy when he'd learned the basics of magic from an old sorcerer. He'd exhausted him by endlessly repeating the simplest of spells with the cruelty that characterized all good mentors.

* * *111

Yelena watched him lazily, leaning against the wall, flipping her weapon from hand to hand. Her greenish, feline-slit eyes glittered in the semi-darkness. He wondered if she'd been born mute, or if she'd had her tongue cut out.

Eredin sniffled, unable to wipe his face. Yelena's face took on the expression often seen on gawkers at public executions. She walked over to him and wiped the blood from his chin, smearing it across his cheekbone. Her thumb traced the outline of his lower lip.

He couldn't remember the last time anyone had dared to touch him without permission and without losing an arm, and he growled with anger. Yelena laughed softly; he felt her hot breath on his cheek, the touch of her wet, rough tongue on his cheekbone. Without even touching the skin with her lips, the demoness slowly licked the blood off his cheek.

Eredin jerked painfully in his bonds as a hand roughly squeezed his manhood, which remained unmoved by the assault. The creature was groping him like an inn whore!

"Take off..." Eredin snarled, not having time to say "nasty paws" before her hands closed around his throat.

Elena threw the elf to the floor with a strength that women shouldn't have. She nailed his wrist with a mechanical hoof until his bones crunched. He groaned, sprawled on the icy floor. Blind rage filled Eredin's eyes: torture he could still endure, but humiliation... Cunt, if she thought it would make him...

Eredin swallowed bitter saliva. The blood in his body obeyed Yelena's will; an artificial, painful excitement swept over him. The dh'oine's incredible ability to make a perverse parody of a sacrament kills eroticism by turning it into rape.

Yelena settled on him-iron muscles clenched tightly around the man's thighs-and reached for his belt in a routine, practiced motion. There was a barely audible click. Eredin couldn't resist the morbid curiosity to look down, but the hand on his throat kept him from turning his head. How was that even possible - was she made of flesh?

A smooth movement dispelled the doubt - flesh. Tight, hot flesh, just like the others. Eredin tried to jerk, to throw the demoness off him, but the iron hand swept upward and landed with all his might on his right cheek. The slap made his eyes blurry. He threw his head back and closed his eyes, gulping noisily for air.

The lustful creature thrust at him greedily and quickly, like all human females who'd never seen anything but a fling in their lives. The friction of the metal left red streaks on her thighs, and the weapon hanging from her belt swayed to the beat.

Eredin, accustomed to pushing women around, had no idea how humiliating the role reversal was. To be reduced to an object, to a toy, unable to move. Only to watch her hips slide up and down and her breasts heave beneath her armor-or was it one? - breasts. Whoever forged these forms has no shortage of vulgar taste.

Thank the gods she's mute or he'd have to rip out her tongue to keep the shame a secret forever.

His shoulder blades rubbed against the stone floor; the lamp flickered purple. Eredin tried to distract himself with anything to keep his mind off the way his body gradually responded to the familiar movements, the burning, muscle-stiffening hunger for release. There was no way to satisfy it; nothing but pain was in the iron bitch's plans.

The grip on his throat grew tighter. His lungs were short of air, and his eyes flickered. Her plump lips twisted in a sadistic grimace, his movements even sharper and rougher. It couldn't be that he was the only one in pain. When Yelena arched and moaned - the first and only thing he'd heard from her - the world had already begun to fade into darkness.

Once he's free, he'll break her backbone and twist her guts out. If she has guts. He'll give the thing an execution even demons would dread.

Elena rose to her feet with a light movement, shook herself off squeamishly, adjusted the plate covering her groin, and looked down at him. In three hundred years of Eredin's long life, no one had ever humiliated him like this before. He would not rest until he had destroyed everything living and dead in this world.

"Елена," came a mechanical voice in the room. He wasn't the only one startled. Yelena flinched, almost jumping in her seat. "очень жаль, конечно, прерывать твое исследование по межрасовым отношениям, но тебя вызывает Намир. (Yelena, кeal damn sorry to interrupt your homework on cross-breeding, but Namir asked for you.)"

Elena showed her fist to the invisible interlocutor, slamming her palm on her elbow. The man burst into an eerie, ear-splitting laugh.

His skin was left sticky from the iron bitch's touch as if he'd been bathed in a vat of mud.

"Серьезно, ты же знала, что здесь камеры? Или тебе так понравилась идея снять видео? Тогда с тебя причитается. (Come on, girl, you knew about cameras here, didn't you? Or did you like my idea to film some elf porn that much? You owe me, then.)"

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A blow from an iron hoof to the temple sent Eredin into blackness.

In the darkness lurked frightening, vague images - scalpels and wires, melted flesh, elven women in the clutches of iron monsters, naked contracting muscles, and noise, incessant chattering noise. Endless twisting labyrinths and spirals at the end of which Zireael should have been there. But she wasn't there.

Demons and wyverns, Ihuarraquax roaring in a mocking half-human-half-horse roar. Tyr na Lia... the devastated, forsaken Tyr na Lia. A surge caused by the power of the Elder Blood - only it could cause such a storm in the middle of a soulless desert. Eredin fell through the floor, through the walls of the building, through the earth, into the interstellar abysses.

And in the midst of that haze, a wild, uncontrollable whirlwind powerful and foreign. Zireael used magic again, rashly, ineptly, painfully, and harshly.

Now he knows where she is.

* * *

In a stuffy and hot dungeon. He pointed to that spot on the map with a precise swipe of his finger. Apparently, the elf's icy determination had somehow convinced Namir - or the coordinates told him something. Eredin couldn't wait to find Zireael and wring the girl's neck for everything the riders had gone through because of her... No. Take her home. Take her to Tyr on Lia.

He will not be like his executioners. Once spun, the wheel of violence will never stop until it has crushed everything in its path.

Eredin tried to erase the episode in the lab from his memory like a nightmare, but like all nightmares, it kept coming back. There was no way to accuse the dh'oine of lacking creativity in humiliating his captives. He stared out the window of the flying machine, imagining the icy hail that would wipe the city from the face of the earth. Black bruises covered his neck in a tight hoop.

When they arrived, soldiers had already surrounded the entrance to the dungeon. One of them projected a schematic image of the room in the air - a multitude of rooms underground, connected by two shafts to the surface: the main and emergency exits. Eredin didn't listen to the conversations, contemplating the dirty streets. Pigsty.

The soldier held out the transparent mask to him, casting a curious glance at his ears.

After a rapid descent down the shaft, all that awaited them was a pile of half-naked people frozen in ridiculous poses, scattered on the dirty floor like forgotten toys. Their sleep was indistinguishable from death, and death from sleep. The dh'oine passion to destroy each other is inexhaustible. The riders must have been poisoned in the same way, by spreading poison gas.

So the mask is enough to protect you from it.

Dim and orange, squeezing into the farthest corners, the light outlined the walls of the huge hall. Music - "music" - rattled against the still bodies. He had read somewhere that the greatness of a nation was measured by the beauty of the music it created.

There was a deafening clap, the sure harbinger of death in this world. Namir put a battering ram against the heavy solid slab door, and with a single blow, he smashed the lock.

The room behind it was worthy of a canvas by the best surrealist painters.

The man sitting in the chair did not wait for the uninvited guests. Half of the skull was missing; a yellow-white mass sprinkled the black marble as if someone had turned a plate of lentil chowder over it. A miniature circuit with iron stuck in it gleamed in the dim light.

Eredin touched the back of his head.

The guard put the weapon to her temple. It's a wise decision. She was facing a master of torture. Yet her speed was no match for Namir's inhuman reflexes. Eredin had to admit that he was one of the finest warriors he had ever met. He shot her in the arm; the limb was in shreds. Did he miss?

The air was pierced by the most heart-rending scream that could come out of a human throat. The girl tried to crawl backward, clutching frantically at what was left of her arm. Why do they always crawl backward, even when death is imminent? A second shot pierced her chest. She didn't move again.

Why was she denied the small thing of ending her own life?

Namir approached the crippled man frozen in the chair. The postmortem mask gave his face an almost peaceful expression - if half his head weren't missing, you'd think he'd dozed off.

"Армитидж," he streched. "Работал с Эвереттом и слетел с катушек. Какого хуя здесь делал Дженсен? (Armitige. The guy who worked with Everett and went bonkers. The fuck was Jensen doing here?)"

Yelena slid past the elf, touching his shoulder. Eredin clenched his fists, digging his nails into his palm until they bled, leaving crimson crescents on his skin.

"Вытащи визуальный модуль," Namir noded. "она должна была что-то видеть (Take the visual module out. She must have seen something )"

There was the crunch with which healers cut bones - when Yelena stepped away from the deceased, the girl's empty eye sockets were gaping with sucking blackness.

No, Namir didn't miss.

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Внимание! Этот перевод, возможно, ещё не готов.
Его статус: идёт перевод

Переведено на Нотабеноиде
http://notabenoid.org/book/86809/569116

Переводчики: Camrad_RIP