Готовый перевод Нова Проспект / Nova Prospect: The Great Divide (Цири)

The Great Divide (Ciri) (язык)

* * *

Tap.

Something cold and wet splashed on the bridge of her nose. A second drop landed on her forehead and slowly crept down. The moisture reminded her that her throat was dry and her side was stinging with millions of thin needles.

Ciri tried to wipe the drop away with the back of her hand, but to no avail: her wrists were wrapped in a tourniquet that cut into her skin at the slightest attempt to move.

//"Where am I?".

The last thing she remembered was the icy noose around her neck.

Ciri opened her eyes, dreading more than anything the marble moldings and openwork candelabras, the servants in gray robes, and their masters in glittering clothes. Better skyscrapers and garbage dumps than cascades of waterfalls and the blinding light of two suns. Her neck was stiff, and Ciri had to squint at the ceiling for a while, squinting against the bright light.

To her relief, the room she was in didn't resemble Tir na Lia in the slightest. Instead of stucco, intertwining steel pipes hung above her, with a foul-smelling yellowish liquid dripping down from them, and a bulky box with flashing numbers stood just off to the side. The surroundings reminded her of Wilgeforz's laboratory, with jars and long flasks and the pungent odor of alcohol, except that the walls were not stone but shimmered with a bluish metallic sheen.

Her nostrils tickled with a slight nauseous odor that reminded her of the stench of a backyard slaughterhouse. Ciri wriggled on the uncomfortably hard bed, and her awkward movements caused the wound in her side to reopen. The half-unbuttoned jumpsuit was slipping off her shoulders, and Ciri felt sick at the thought of someone undressing her for some reason.

It could not be that Eredin had chosen to remain in such an alien world of his own free will, could it?

In her brief and painful slumber, Ciri had another nightmare. She dreamed of bodies suspended from the ceiling, and the blood of the hangmen dripping downward, mixing with her own, penetrating the crevice between the worlds. Not even a crevice; more like a crack, like a rough tear in the fabric.

//"Do not fear the stars," Avallac'h had once told her. - Fear the emptiness between them.

He never called monsters monsters monsters, preferring the evasive "other lifeforms". Ciri had seen enough of those forms: the illustrations in the witchers' folios were not short on nauseating detail. And if it wasn't the imagination of the artists, then the creatures that had entered the Continent during the Conjunction were nothing compared to the ones that remained behind the locked gates.

In her dream, ghastly shadows crept, flowed, and wriggled toward her.

A quiet, childlike sob interrupted her thoughts. With an effort of will, Ciri turned her stiff neck and saw a russet-haired girl in a bloodstained white robe, huddled in a corner of the room, her bare feet tucked under her. The tightly pulled bundle of hair was disheveled, and strands were sticking out in all directions. She was bound, too, judging from the twisted position of her hands.

"Hey," Ciri called out to her in a half-whisper, "where are we?"

The captive shuddered as she looked at her. There was a large bruise under her eye, and she could see the elven patterns clearly in the abrasion on her cheekbone.

They weren't alone: a couple of feet away, closer to the massive metal cabinets, another girl, slant-eyed and wearing the same robe, was leaning against the wall. Her thin stockings were torn and her shins were covered in bruises. She didn't react to Ciri's question, staring at one point.

Ciri averted her gaze and bit her lip.

At least she wasn't the only prisoner here, though that thought gave her little comfort. But she was the only one lying on the couch, and the one next to her was still stained with blood.

"Sie sprechen Deutsch?" whispered the russet-haired girl in a language that reminded Ciri of the universal. "Verstehen Sie mich?"

The gray eyes read a desperate desire to survive. ||Verstehen? Understand Ciri nodded, clenching and unclenching her fists, trying to disperse the blood in her numb hands. In the back pocket of her jumpsuit still lay a miniature bomb - her only weapon - that there was no way she could reach yet.

"One more word and one of you will be left without a tongue."

The higher speech dispelled any doubts about the invaders. Ciri nearly twisted her neck trying to look the other way, at the figure standing in the milky glass doors. A bluish glow emanated from the eyes of the rider watching them through the visors of his skeletonized helmet. He was not alone, but his partner stood outside the doors, and there was no way to see the other elf.

The combination of ornately painted armor and an exceptionally sterile room looked rather incongruous, especially with the plastic jar with a bright red-and-black label the elf held in his hands.

The girl was immediately silent, and many questions flashed through Ciri's mind at once. She's in a human hospital, but a prisoner of the elves. Why aren't they in Tir na Lia yet? How long have they been here? Judging by the guard's stooping to eating the brown mass from the jar - with their squeamishness - long enough.

Ciri wouldn't have minded a hamburger from the vending machine or a brown mass from that can, but she felt thirstier than hunger.

Had the elves been trapped as well? Ihuarraquax had told her that Fox and Hawk had traveled to worlds that were hard to imagine - but had their barrier taken them by surprise, too? Or was it something else? Had Eredin managed to negotiate with the dhoyne he so hated by stepping on his own throat?

That's unlikely.

The train of thought was interrupted by the sirens' rapid wail. In the distance came a loud mechanical voice, just like that thing in Red Bank, but this time male:

" Я повторяю: мы готовы к мирным переговорам. Если вы немедленно освободите здание и заложников, мы гарантируем вашу безопасность. (I repeat: we are open for peaceful negotiations. If you release the hostages and surrender immediately, we ensure your safety.)

The message was repeated several times, and each time the words "peace negotiations" became more and more threatening. There is no better way to start a war than to arrange peace negotiations.

Adam had told her enough that in a war between humans and elves, Ciri would bet on the former without question. What could a handful of mages do against weapons that could hit a target a dozen miles away that any peasant could master? Against flying robots?

If the humans slaughtered King of Aen Elle and his Riders, she wouldn't cry for them, but going to the other world with them was not something Ciri wanted to do.

"Where is Eredin?" Ciri asked in common. Let the girl understand, even a little, what they were talking about; it might play to her advantage. "I need to talk to him."

Every time Ciri addressed Aen Elle, they had a look on their faces as if they were surprised at her very ability to speak.

"I'll tell him you missed him," the rider replied colorlessly, reluctantly breaking away from his meal.

Scaffold missed him! The floor shook like an earthquake, and she was shaking so hard that she almost fell off the couch. And she wasn't the only one, judging by the screams: the floor shook like an earthquake. The cabinets opened, and syringes and vials spilled out, rolling across the tiled floor.

And a scalpel rolled behind the couch and glinted one last time almost at the very wall. A scalpel. Ciri swallowed.

"Здание под угрозой разрушения. Немедленно покиньте…(The building is in danger of an immediate collapse. Leave immediately...)," the voice repeated more insistently.

The message was interrupted by a dull low roar.

"Was ist das?" The girl whispered, immediately forgetting about the rider's threat.

Ciri didn't like the roar, either human or animal, but it didn't sound like the metallic clanking of machinery either.

\\"The only monsters in our world wear suits," Adam had once told her.

It doesn't seem like it.

Rider frowned, sticking a spoon into the mass. Ciri felt the slings he held her with loosening slightly as the sound repeated. Tying her up with ordinary ropes wasn't enough - she had a mage attached to her, though she wouldn't have had the strength to teleport with an open wound. It was a good thing they hadn't muzzled her.

She has to get out of here before they're eaten alive.

"I need to use the restroom," Ciri addressed the elf.

Much more than meeting a need, she needed to look around. How many riders were there? Were they guarding the exits?

The elf looked at her as if he'd never had to do such an obscenity in his life.

"If you want me to," Ciri snorted, "I'll wet the bed, and then you'll have to stand here."

The elf grimaced as if he'd swallowed a lemon. He nodded briefly, and Ciri stood on woozy legs, glad for the opportunity to stretch her stiff body. The jumpsuit that barely clung to her shoulders was slipping, and her side ached twice as much.

As he led her somewhere, nudging her in the back, she looked around carefully. The hospital had once had wealthy patrons who had not skimped on the marble floor. The walls were decorated with simple designs of squares and triangles. Ophir palm trees in elongated white tubs stretched to the ceiling, indistinguishable from one another, as if any plant in the world that didn't fit the ideal standard had been destroyed when it was still growing.

But there were still bloodstains on the marble floor. Ciri glimpsed a couple of wounded men, and a few more prisoners. She heard some cursing in one of the closed rooms. She counted a dozen riders and about five mages. They all had a look of confusion on their faces if not fear. But Eredin and his minions were long gone.

The windows were covered in icy frost - Ciri recognized the Barrier spell. So that's why they hadn't been attacked yet! But how long could the elves keep it up? Outside, the outlines of flying machines could be seen behind the milky shroud.

Apparently, they waiting for the moment, like herself.

The elf literally sealed her into the door of a small restroom with a schematic image of a woman. Ciri turned around, nodding at her bound hands:

"How am I supposed to do my things?"

The elf loosened the restraints with an expression as if he were doing her an extraordinary favor. Ciri entered a small room with wood-paneled walls and a basin of clear glass with a light bulb blinking red above it.

She looked unusually wretched. Her ashy, dirty hair was sticking to her forehead, her face was shiny, and in the last week, she'd gotten skinny.

She tried to close the door, but an armored boot prevented her from doing so. "Eared pervert," she muttered to herself. The ones who wrinkle their noses the most are the ones most willing to peek through a hole in the fence.

She fumbled with her fingertips for the bomb in her back pocket, but the only chance she had to use it wisely, and certainly not now. There were no girls in the building except for the prisoners. If she hoped the elves would hesitate to use the women's restroom, she could leave a message. But what kind? And what to write it with?

"Don't be long."

If the other girls are hostages, they worked here, and know the building better than anyone else. If you know where to go you have a better chance of escape.

She twisted her hands until her wrists ached, then pressed the wound in her side and clenched her teeth to keep from moaning. Hastily she wrote blindly on the white tiles "where you", there wasn't enough blood or time for more. Wincing at the sight of her creation, Ciri prayed for the right eyes to see it.

When they returned to the ward with the prisoners, the blond-haired girl was gone, replaced instead by a woman with a face as disfigured as if someone had skinned it in flaps. The wounds looked fresh, ugly red lines running from cheekbone to forehead. // "Only women are good at cutting up women," Ciri thought grimly.

//She's not tied up," Ciri noted immediately. - But she looks like she can't even use her arms or legs.

As the elf was about to push her toward the couch, he was stopped by a familiar voice:

"Leave her".

In the back of her mind, Ciri had already gotten her hopes up that Eredin had met his elven forefathers by some happy coincidence.

But no, of course, ++++King Olch is alive. As one soldier who had survived the Second Northern War had told her, only the privates pay for the war.

Eredin had managed to humanize himself, she noted with some satisfaction: the king's usual gloss was gone. Though, his gaze remained the same, unchanged in its frozen, almost crystallized hubris.

"Eredin," Ciri tried to choose her words so as not to be rude. She needed to get out of here, not get into an arguing match," what...?"

No, the frozen look in his eyes this time wasn't due to hubris at all.

//"He's on fisshtech," Ciri was horrified, "you can't see the whites behind his pupils!". It looked especially odd in elves - the same huge, polished plosives-like eyes Spark had once looked at her with. Before she'd slaughtered a dozen people with glee.

"I would prefer to speak privately, Zireael," Eredin interrupted her. "Follow me."

Ciri didn't like the idea of being alone with an elf who hated her and had taken the drug. Fisstech intoxication was a thing that was good to feel, but it wasn't something she liked to see in others.

No one asked her, of course - taking her from her subordinate's hands like some sort of thing, Eredin led Ciri into a room with a round table and identical gray chairs. Everything in the room was clean, cold, and alienatingly gray. It must have been a place where negotiations used to take place, but now it was used for interrogations.

On a small table was a long bottle of clear water. Ciri swallowed a bitter saliva and looked at Heredin questioningly.

"Turn your back to me," he replied, repeating the order in a circular gesture and jerking his chin toward the table.

Ciri was taken aback. What, here, now!? Let him just try, let him just try, the pointy-eared creature, she'd tear his throat out, even with her hands tied...

"You've always had a mediocre understanding of High Speech," Eredin raised an eyebrow and repeated more slowly, "I asked you to turn around."

"In your dream," Ciri glared at him, countering his general response. "Just try..."

She kicked at him with all her might as Eredin turned her back to him. The elf zipped the jumpsuit shut in one motion, nearly choking her with the narrow neck.

While Ciri coughed, he took a couple of steps back.

"That's a great conceit," Eredin grinned, shaking his head mockingly. "Too bad it's baseless."

The damn elf never changed his shuffle since the very first time he'd met her on Tir na Lia. Hadn't he gotten sick of himself? She wondered if he was going to impregnate her with that sour face too. Or did he want to put an elf next to her so he wouldn't suffer so much?

" If anyone in this room has an inflated ego, it's you," Ciri hissed. "Can't you see you're trapped?"

Eredin shrugged and paced back and forth across the room. On the wall was an emblem of droplets with the slogan "We believe in a better world". Ciri noticed that her wakizashi rested in the elf's sheath.

"It's not my world that's in danger of destruction," he shrugged, pouring water into his glass. Ciri didn't quite understand what he meant, but she put the phrase down to her ego. "But you're right: this time, your travels have cost the lives of many worthy Aen Elle. Much more worthy than you."

Ciri remained silent, kicking the table leg and fighting the temptation to reach for the explosives and blow herself up with him.

"I didn't expect you to care about other lives," Eredin summarized. "What was it you wanted to tell me?"

He slid a glass of water filled to the brim toward her. Ciri frowned and turned away.

"You will not get out of this world without the help of 'dhoine'."

The thick frost on the glass made it hard to see what was beyond it, but Ciri could sense the flicker of something flying in circles. Eredin went to the window and drummed his long, pale fingers on it thoughtfully.

Ciri expected an indignant tirade about the superiority of elves, but he was in no hurry to prove anything to her.

"What makes you think your kin will be able to help us?" Eredin finally asked.

Because Adam said so? Because the waves that surrounded the world were not the work of nature, but of man? He doesn't need to know that much, though.

"I've seen what they can do," Ciri replied evasively.

Also, Ciri didn't mention that she had seen the world of Olch perish. I wonder what will be left of Eredin's arrogance when his world turns to dust.

"Have you seen what they can do?" Eredin echoed, staring into the icy pattern.

The building's about to collapse, and he's still practicing rhetoric?! Ciri snorted defiantly. Eredin gave her a look that made it clear how tactless he thought it was.

"I don't know what you saw," he said. "But I can show you what I saw."

He grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and dragged her somewhere, with a frantic, either fisstech-induced or out-of-nowhere rage.

He did not drag her long, however, and they stopped in front of the room from which the putrid odor emanated. As soon as the door opened, the odor turned into a stench that pierced the eyes.

Ciri felt the sharp taste of vomit in her throat and began to gulp air convulsively with her mouth, but it didn't save her. The mutilated bodies of the elves lay in clear glass coffins, laid out in rows like beds in a house of mercy. Some of them were burning red, and puddles had formed on the floor beside them.

// Электричество отключено. Резервные батареи разряжены, пожалуйста зарядите. «Electrical malfunction. Reserve batteries exhausted, please recharge».

Some elves had their legs cut off, others their arms; the skull of the elf lying closest to the entrance had been cut in two. At least twenty corpses, if not more. Ciri closed her eyes, and Eredin shook her, pulling back her hair.

"Look at what your kin have done," he said. "And you're even stupider than I thought if you think they won't do the same to you."

Another elf was cut open like a pig in a slaughterhouse: slit from groin to throat and pulled out his insides. There was filigree medical precision in the mutilations, an almost careful neatness to the cuts.

Who would do such a thing?!

//"You'll have to spend a couple of days in the lab,'" Ciri remembered Adam's words. No, Adam would never let something like that happen to her... But someone had cut off his legs and arms, hadn't they?

Ciri pushed those thoughts away. She needed to trust someone in this world, and Adam was better suited for that role than anyone else.

"Did you believe your newfound friend's tales of a different fate for you?" Eredin asked as if he had read her mind. "It's up to you, Zireael, to decide which side you're on. You'll have to choose the lesser of two evils."

Ciri wondered what Geralt would have answered to that. Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, average - everything is the same, the proportions are conventional and the boundaries are blurred.

"Do you know what a dh'oine far more worthy than you told me?" answered Ciri. "If I have to choose between one evil and another, I prefer not to choose at all."

Eredin smiled picturesquely, flashing his fine white teeth.

"I haven't heard more bullshit than that in a long time. There are no easy decisions in life, Zireael," he said in a mentor's tone. "It is cowardly to justify the inability to make them with pseudo-morality."

The accusation was the last straw for Ciri. Who was he to call Geralt - Geralt! - a coward?! She twisted, trying to break free of his grip, despite the growing pain in her side.

Eredin didn't even try to hold her and when Ciri broke free, she mustered all her strength to spit in his face:

"I had no intention of justifying myself to you," Ciri drew in more air to speak as loudly as possible, "But apparently, you don't speak the common language very well, so I'll repeat it in your language: a d'yeabl aep arse."

She waited for a response, but Eredin didn't seem to hear her. He wasn't even listening, staring deep inside himself as if he were listening to an inaudible interlocutor. Ciri was almost in tears with frustration.

There was a slight rustle. She turned around and saw two figures walking toward them, a dark-haired elf with his arm dangling lifelessly from a bandage and his companion in a dark green dress embroidered with gold threads.

The elf could rival Frances Findabair herself in beauty - and the sorceress was the most beautiful woman Ciri had ever seen. But, as with all sorceresses, her beauty was more to be feared than admired. There is something unnatural about anything perfect and polished to a shine. At least, that comforted Ciri as she kept her eyes on her scar.

She vaguely remembered them from the portraits in the royal gallery, right next to Auberon's chambers. Caranthir, the Golden Child, and Deirdre Seabagar, his apprentice.

//"I have wonderful news for you, Zireael," a man's voice echoed in my head, "you won't have to squirm in agony on the king's bed. The value of what's in your belly is hopelessly out of date in this world."

What was he talking about? That strange phrase did not bode well for her. The elf's green eyes, skillfully lined with gray shadows, looked at her with cold curiosity.

Eredin frowned and turned to the telepath. The inaudible argument went on long enough for the stench, thirst, and pain in her side to do their dirty work, and in the meantime, Ciri was growing increasingly dizzy.

"I'm sorry, Zireael," Eredin said at last. "But you've made your choice, and I won't contradict you."

Caranthir stretched his lips in a triumphant smile.

What are the choices? It's not like they're going to kill her... Not after all the sacrifices they've made to catch her?

She took a step back.

//"I have something for you, Zireael," Caranthir squeezed a round, transparent tablet in his fingers, with bluish pellets visible inside.

There was no way in hell she was going to swallow another pill in this world. The last time she'd had one, she'd had nightmares.

"No," Ciri cut her off.

//"Don't humiliate yourself or me," Caranthir said tiredly. - I wouldn't hesitate to shove a pill in your mouth like a rabid cat."

She needs to watch her thoughts. It's no secret to them that she's looking for any way to escape... But they don't need to know exactly how.

"Go into the abyss," Ciri exhaled.

The mage snapped the fingers of his healthy hand loudly as if he'd fired a gun, and Ciri's eyes went black. //"He's got dirt under his fingernails," Ciri thought with surprise before she lost consciousness. - I've never seen an elf with dirt under his fingernails."

* * *

Ciri dreamed of waves. Long and short, wrapping around the earth, pulsing rhythmically. Radio waves. Microwaves. Visible spectrum. The words in Ciri's head came in Adam's husky voice, and that oddly low voice soothed her. The waves distorted, taking on the shape of something else, something shapeless, a mass from which came a strange and very low hum.

Or was it a mechanical hum that came from a thin metal needle?

The bright light of the operating lamp pierced the thin shroud of sleep.

The russet-haired girl was leaning over Ciri, and now the eagerness to live in her eyes was more intimidating than disposing. She wore translucent gloves on her well-groomed hands with neatly painted red nails. The corpse odor was now safely masked by the pungent smell of alcohol.

The pain in her side had subsided as if it had never happened, but now it was replaced by a tugging in her lower abdomen, like before the periods. She suspected that the witcher's mushrooms were to blame for the pain in her side.

Caranthir stood beside her, his pale face reflecting no emotion whatsoever. The colorless glint of his eyes reinforced the impression of a mask.

The girl held the needle right in front of her face, visually dividing it into two parts: one swollen due to a black eye and smudged makeup, and the other - well-groomed.

Fear slowly crept up Ciri's back. She'd seen something like this before - only it was a syringe, not a needle - in the hands of one of the nastiest people she'd ever met.

Her body was so numb that she only now realized that she was completely naked below the waist and half lying in a chair, the sadistic shape of which was very familiar to her.

"Sorry," the girl said. It was a voice of forgiveness, more from oneself than from the person one wanted to harm.

Ciri didn't show a shred of sympathy. If you trusted her to carry the night pot, she'd put a snake in it.

The girl guided the needle between her legs, and Ciri clenched her teeth. She wouldn't scream. She wasn't a coward. It had happened to her before, and it had been much worse, she'd gotten it with a sword and a whip and...

//"You're a woman," Ciri thought with hatred. - Just like me... How can you...?"

But when she felt a sharp needle being inserted into her womb, she screamed, forgetting her pride, until her eardrums ached.

What do they do with her? The same thing Wilgefortz wanted - impregnate her? But why now?! Why here?! And from whom?! No, no, not this!

I wish they hadn't brought her back to consciousness at all, wish they'd just knocked her on the head and that would have been the end of it. It would be better... It would be better... Never to be in this world, to run away from it like a plague, with its inventions, human, and inhumans. So many inventions, and no progress: no justice, no equality, just senseless mechanical horror.

The air in her lungs ran out, and the scream turned into a wheeze. The pain had gone from sharp to constant, and far worse was the feeling that something was being... No, not planted - quite the opposite - something was being extracted from her.

//"Doesn't your uniqueness weigh you down, Zireael? Your precious ovum... will become one of a thousand of its kind."

"Done," the girl said quickly, bashfully slipping the tape over Ciri and turning away.

There was blood on the tip of the needle. The girl stuck the needle into some oblong white flask, and it closed with a hissing sound.

"You will become nothing and no one, Zireael," Caranthir said thoughtfully, taking the bulb in his hands and twirling it in the light.

It no longer seemed like such a bad prospect to Ciri if she was finally left alone.

//"And you and your kind will become dust," Ciri thought, knowing he was reading her mind.

She hated not even the traitor, not even the mage watching idly, most of all she hated the one who gave the order but neglected to observe its execution, the one who accused people of cruelty without seeing his own.

// I wish..." thought Ciri. I wish so much for him to die by my hand."

* * *

In a room without windows and doors, you can't tell if it's morning or evening, day or night; in a hospital room, time freezes like a thick kissel, and turns into a pause between disturbing dreams.

Ciri lay still, trying not to draw attention to herself. A cold wave of hatred washed over her, and she tried desperately not to think about what had happened; the only thing that mattered was whether the new elf henchwoman had noticed the bomb when she'd pulled off her overalls, or whether it was still in the pocket of the pile of clothes on the next bunk.

//"Don't think about the needle," Ciri implored herself. - "Think about how to test it."

She was not alone in the room. Ciri could hear someone's breathing in the corner, intermittent, like that of a badly wounded man. A woman with a mangled face caught her gaze. Her arms and legs were trembling, twisted at unnatural angles, like maimed children in an orphanage.

Ciri glanced at the rider, immersed in his thoughts. If she said a word, he would be on guard again; she would have to think of another way to communicate. She met the woman's gaze, and instead of fear, she saw determination in her eyes.

They stared at each other for half a minute before the woman frowned. She pulled out the rectangle Ciri knew so well with her barely audible hand, poked at it with her finger, and then turned the screen toward her.

A funny phrase, as if written by a child, was visible on it:

++//"I'm a good friend of Adam's, Ciri. I'm sorry about what happened to you. Don't say a word, just nod."

Ciri feels like a bolt of lightning - the woman knows Adam! But how does she know they know each other? It doesn't matter. Ciri nodded.

The rider cast a glance in their direction, and they froze like figures in a theater. Ciri pretended to be bored and gazed at the ceiling. When he turned away again, her ally already had a new message at the ready:

++"You can teleport?" She flicked her finger on the screen, and a three-dimensional model of the building appeared. She jabbed her finger at the lower floors, pointed at herself and her, and jabbed at a point on the upper floors, near the roof. "This way."

The pain in her side had subsided, whether it was anesthetized or healed, it would have been worth a try if it hadn't been for the magical restraints. Ciri grimaced, nodding at the mage guarding them, and shook her head. But if we disarm him... If... If...

Ciri threw on a pile of clothes and whispered "bomb" with just her lips.

The woman's narrow dark eyes squinted harder, making the wounds seem even more monstrous to Ciri. The word "bomb" was no doubt familiar to her. From where she was lying to her overalls was a foot or two - it was a pity she moved so noisily and awkwardly, barely moving through space. Maybe she should ask to go to the bathroom again and distract the guard.

Ciri lost her train of thought when the building shook again, much more violently than the first time. The tremors became more and more frequent. Ciri fell off the couch, her shoulder hitting the floor as the woman used the moment to roll closer to her overalls.

And a little closer still, as the rider approached Ciri to check that all was well. Everything inside her tensed like a bowstring stretched to the limit.

Footsteps were heard in the hallway.

When the rider turned back to the door, the woman nodded slowly, expressively, biting her lower lip with exertion. Ciri pushed herself away, trying to crawl as close to the scalpel as possible. The Rider immediately squeezed the invisible icy cord.

Ciri realized it was now or never and nodded in response.

When another rider entered the room, they were shaken again, and a deep crack crept across the ceiling. The woman threw out her hand: a round puck rolled across the floor toward the milky-white doors, stopping just short of his boots. The rider looked at the flashing red thing in surprise.

It was the last thing he looked at.

The blast threw Ciri against the wall, close to the scalpel, and stunned her, preventing her from seeing exactly what had happened. But judging by the severed hand, still clad in the gauntlet that fell neatly beside Ciri, the rider was no longer a nuisance. Neither was the other.

They got some hell of a bomb.

The ice bindings were gone. Her ears were ringing, but Ciri was frantically cutting the tourniquet with the scalpel in her fingers as the woman shouted to her, pointing upward.

Upstairs?! Upstairs in a building that's about to collapse?!

Eredin would be here in a few moments, and then... Then maybe she would be killed after all.

Upstairs is upstairs. Ciri grabbed the jumpsuit in her hands, the other hand clutching at her newfound ally. Teleported ten feet, and to be sure, all twenty upstairs.

They found themselves in a cozy room with couches upholstered in green silk, with melodious, monotonous music playing. The woman was sprawled on the floor beside her, breathing heavily.

Ciri pulled her overalls back on, feeling her side. She wince at the sight of some sort of patched wound - healed crudely, albeit with magic - that was bound to leave another scar.

If the woman knows Adam, maybe she knows where to find him. But she can't carry her on her back. Eredin and his minions will be here any moment.

If she had to leave her here, then so be it - Ciri had no energy left for mercy. What the hell did she need to go up there for? Maybe she had a flying vehicle? And how was she going to pilot it?

Ciri turned sharply, sensing that she was no longer alone by some sixth sense because the man who had entered the room had stepped in completely silently. Adam had appeared in the same way, silently, as if he weighed nothing.

It was impossible to mistake him for anyone else. She had never seen anyone else who had decided to give up their skin as an unnecessary accessory.

"Don't be afraid, girl," the man with the naked muscles held his hands up peacefully. "I'm not going to hurt you."

Sounds exactly like an outright lie. She'd seen enough of those crooked smirks on the faces of shaven-headed types in her life.

For no reason, the cyborg suddenly changed his mind and pointed his weapon at her. The smile disappeared from his face, replaced by a brutal grimace.

"Остроухий ублюдок (You pointy-eared fuck)," he spat out.

Ciri darted to the side and instinctively flattened herself against the floor. Her palms pressed against the polished stone.

Only now did she notice another movement behind her and realized that the words were not meant for her, but for whoever had appeared in the room.

"Не убивай его, Намир! (Don't kill him, Namir!)" screamed the recovered ally of Ciri. "Не убивай его, здесь бля пиздец! (Don't you fucking kill him, there is a hellhole out there!)"

She wanted to stop the cyborg, but she was too late. Eredin, who had chased after Ciri, teleported into this room with extremely bad luck, catching a bullet that had been fired.

Ciri couldn't see where the mercenary had hit, but she prayed to all the gods that he hadn't missed. At least there was a dark stain on Eredin's shirt.

Wakizashi!

Ciri rushed at the elf, snatching the sword from his weakened hand. Eredin spat a curse after her, but she couldn't hear it.

The cyborg blocked her path, trying to grab her by the throat, and Ciri struck out, cutting his arm - not even hoping to hurt him, more like a fraction of an instant's delay. No blood flowed from the artificial muscle, and the cut neatly separated the fibers without causing the man any visible pain.

They're more dangerous than witchers, after all.

Ciri bounced away before he could nail her to the floor with his bifurcated hoof. She wouldn't stand a chance in an open fight with the half-machine.

He dashed after her but fell behind as she teleported into another room.

//"He'd rather finish off Eredin," thought Ciri frantically, "than chase me, you mechanical freak!".

Upstairs, downstairs, next room, just to throw them off the trail!

* * *

For a moment, Ciri didn't realize where she was running. But she didn't stop until she was exhausted, and even then she still kept walking slowly, with all her strength. It was pitch black, but there must be windows and stairs, she could see that there were! I think they were facing south. South?

There is no light bulb, no torch, and a slippery floor. What is it covered in? It was blood or slime, but at times like this, you thank fate that you couldn't see what it was.

How do you know where south is in this darkness?! And for some reason, it's cold. Her teeth are chattering. It's much colder than it was down below. Ciri had a strange feeling as if the air was getting less and less as if it were being sucked into a vortex. At least it was getting harder to breathe.

Light, she needs some kind of light source....

Savior lights flashed in the distance. Six or seven, perfectly round, flashed red and disappeared. Ciri headed toward them across the slippery floor. Better that light than nothing.

She'd seen huge buildings before, but a mile long? The diagram made it seem much smaller. A world of endless tunnels and corridors, no wonder there were more and more cars and fewer people.

No matter how long she walked, the lights didn't get any closer, but it was getting darker, and the darkness was so viscous and dense that it was palpable. Ciri sniffed, feeling her nose bleed.

There's something wrong here.

Ciri stood stiffly and turned sharply to the right, holding her wakizashi at the ready and listening for the slightest rustle. After a couple of minutes, however, she lost track of where she was going, trying to feel for objects and furniture, but it was empty. The slime beneath her feet was thickening, and she felt as if she would fall into it.

Ilusion. A Foglet? Why would there be a Foglet here?

A little more, and she would fall, into nothing, into the void, into the space between the stars, and you would fall until there was nothing left of you, and your bones would become dust and your flesh become our food. Her nose was bleeding harder and harder, dripping onto the floor.

What the heck? Ciri shook her head and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

Again the red lights? Wasn't she going the other way?

Ciri heard a squelching sound as if something massive was being dragged across the slushy ground, and all turned to listen, trying to figure out where the sound was coming from.

Everywhere. Ciri's hearing deceived her: it sounded as if the sound came from the right and left, from below and above at the same time. It couldn't be. Ciri did a circular pirouette - but the wakizashi did not find its target. Behind her, in the shadows, something made a wet, choking clack.

Ciri chopped the air again, and she thought she heard the sound come closer. Whatever the creature was, it was close. She blinked, and thousands of red lights surrounded her. But now it was clear to her that they weren't lights.

Eyes. Like red, swollen blisters. Massive numbers of them. Staring at her. Ciri felt her arms weakening and her legs being sucked somewhere. When she lowered her gaze, she saw that the floor was dotted with a multitude of red fire-eyes as well, and felt herself falling into the slippery flesh of the creature.

She's inside that thing... Inside... There's no point in fighting...

Humanity is insignificant... Before the void... Before the darkness... Before the vastness of space... Before the greatest of oceans.

It can't be her thoughts. No, fight back! Resist! Ciri struck downward from above to shove the wakizashi into the carcass, but instead, the blade scraped across the floor with an unpleasant sound.

You're a pile of rotting flesh on crumbling bones. We're everything else.

The gaze of a thousand eyes was hypnotizing, drawing her deeper into the enveloping, cozy darkness like a mother's womb.

The sooner you realize your insignificance, the sooner you'll be part of us. Just imagine this... marvelous, wonderful, sweetest symbiosis.

"Holy shit!" said a husky male voice behind her. "Ciri, down!"

Adam! Her heart hammered harder, the illusion faded - and Ciri focused on the voice.

"CIRI, GET DOWN!" Adam yelled.

Ciri fell straight into the blackness, pressed against what was still a floor, but it didn't feel like one. A hail of gunfire whistled over her head, another line, followed by another, the same one.

The creature's low, conscious scream made her ears pop, and the slime covering the floor began to dissolve. The metallic tubes flying around hit Ciri's leg, and she crawled backward, closer to Adam.

He pelted the shapeless mass with lead, slowly approaching and circling it. To no avail; its polyp-covered flesh absorbed the bullets like a sponge. Ciri opened her eyes wide, trying to get a better look at the monster.

What is that?! If it's a sea creature, judging by the wet, puffy flesh, how did it get fur? Why does it have so many eyes? Why does it have a mouth like a giant rat? What abyss did it crawl out of?

Adam asked no such questions, allowing himself only one brief hesitation before the hail of numerous bullets was replaced by a single, ballista-like volley of gunfire.

A vague memory flashed through Ciri's mind: she had never met the beast in person, but she remembered a similar picture. A Darker. A creature that existed only in darkness - and created it - and sucked its victims into it, slowly marinating them in madness.

The idea that such a creature had a right to live, that in some corner of the universe it had originated and dwelled there, caused Ciri to feel the deepest disgust.

//"We could try to cut off its polyps when Adam runs out of shells," Ciri pondered. - I'd have to hit it from the side.

The powerful shot threw the creature back, and the darkness receded. Ciri realized she was not in an endless corridor, but only in a small room, with soft moonlight streaming in through large windows.

Ciri put her palms to her ears, bracing herself against the floor as the creature vanished into thin air, leaving behind a piercing howl that sounded more like a threat than a cry of pain.

The floor cracked. The creature had vanished into nothing, leaving behind no trace, nothing to help Ciri determine its nature.

When she tried to get off the floor, Adam helped her by picking her up by the waist.

What is it? Where did it come from?

For a man seeing a monster for the first time, Adam looked strangely calm, except for how diligently he began to search the pockets of his cloak.

The far more interesting question is where and how long it disappeared to.

"Fogler," She blurted out, staring at her own bloody face in the mirrored lenses.

"Fogler," Adam echoed after her and stuck a cigarette in his teeth.

"We need the Dimeritium," Ciri said to herself rather than to him, "to lure the creature into a trap."

Finally, she knows better than he does about something!

" We need a cryptozoologist," Adam answered with only his lips. - A rocket launcher and HAZMAT suits. And we need to cordon the place off and go through it with a dosimeter."

Ciri didn't like not being listened to and began to insist on her own:

"Artifacts won't help," she said. "You need silver swords."

Her answer was a noisy puff.

Ciri looked out the window. It overlooked the stone-paved square. The lights of airborne vehicles flashed in the sky overhead. One of the floors had collapsed and was on fire. But the battle was too far away to be seen or heard.

It was dark outside, but in the distance Ciri could make out a dark surface covering part of the sidewalk, a full mile long and wide, looking like a deep, featureless lake.

//"Eredin ripped the interspace," Ciri thought with a strange calmness. - He's the one who let the Fogler in.

And not just the Fofler, if her dreams are to be believed.

//"And if he's dead," thought Ciri, "if his mages are dead, how can this hole be closed now?"

Avallaс'h didn't prepare her for this.

When there are too many horrors in life, it's harder to think about them, and so Ciri clung to Adam, trying not to look in the direction of the rupture. She had too many problems of her own to deal with the world's problems as well.

As they stepped onto the windowsill, Ciri looked down. She thought it was too far to the ground, at least thirty arches, so she looked up and clenched her eyes tightly.

"Just don't go teleporting," Adam warned.

Ciri clutched at his leather cloak with a dead grip and took a deep breath.

The flight was swift but was over faster than she was truly frightened, and the landing was much softer than she'd imagined. As soon as Adam's feet hit the ground, there was a slight odor of ozone in the air. If bestiaries were to be believed, that was the sign of a demon. Thinking about it, Ciri grinned.

With a relieved exhale, Ciri thought, the ability to jump from any height... What was that word Adam used when she disappeared and reappeared in the blink of an eye? Cool?

Right. That's a very cool ability.

"Thank you," she said, trying to clean the slime off her pants.

"Just doing my job," Adam grinned, flicking his lenses open. "Protecting the world from monsters."

* * *

They reached the shelter, walking through the wide streets of a deserted city littered with abandoned cars. Posters and signs still beckoned to empty establishments, robotic callers inviting them to stay in "unique capsule hotels with a built-in virtual reality system".

Adam knew where the guards and outposts were and had skillfully avoided them, but it still took them at least half an hour to get near the seaport-like structure.

In a narrow alleyway between buildings, Adam was arguing something heatedly - though Ciri didn't understand what or with whom, it was clear from his look and how he rubbed his stubby short beard that he disagreed with his interlocutor.

Ciri washed her face in the colorful cube-shaped street fountain, savoring every drop. Did she think she'd be so happy with ordinary water?

Adam ended the conversation and sighed briefly, leaning against a wall with an advertising poster of a woman sticking out a long pink tongue and holding a bright green pill. Pulling out his pack, he shook the cigarette out of it sharply, catching Ciri's gaze.

If she doesn't do it now, she'll never do it again. Who knows what will happen tomorrow? Maybe she will be gone, but today, she is still alive and wants to do something voluntarily, not because she was forced, dragged, and tied.

"Adam, take off your glasses."

"Why?" He answered absent-mindedly, putting a finger to the branding on his forehead.

It felt like she was asking him to take his shirt off.

"Put it away," Ciri repeated more insistently.

He'll never make up his mind on his own. He would pretend not to notice her gaze. He'd keep his distance, turning away from her, trying not to touch her inadvertently, even though she didn't mind.

Adam shrugged and obeyed. When one wore glasses all the time, the sight of uncovered eyes became something almost intimate.

She wrapped her arms around Adam's neck and pressed her lips to his with an unexpected fervor. It wasn't very skillful, but it wasn't easy to kiss someone who wasn't expecting it.

He smelled of iron, tobacco, and artificial mint, too fresh and too pungent. His lips were dry and hot, and his short beard tickled her still-dry skin, but she didn't show it.

When Ciri pulled away from him, embarrassed by her impulse, Adam's face was frozen in an expression that looked more like horror than anything else. It was a reaction she'd never expected from the man she'd first kissed, and she pulled away, flushed with embarrassment.

No so no.

"Ciri," Adam said, even more hoarsely than usual, as if he'd had a cold since birth. "Now is not the time. We need to..."

//"What's the need? To run? If you can't do anything else, you can run all over the earth, but what's that got to do with me?" - Ciri was inwardly indignant. Or was it because she was dirty, covered in blood and slime...?

Squeamish?!

"Ciri," Adam repeated more insistently, but her blood was boiling more and more.

//"It's been twenty-odd years Ciri! Or is it the scar after all? They don't say it's exceptionally ugly for nothing." She slapped her cheek in annoyance.

"Forget it," she snorted. "I'm not stupid, and won't do it again."

Adam sighed tiredly, smiling at something. No, he sighed! Why did he have to save her if he was sick of her?

A worse thought: what if his legs weren't the only things cut off...?

Ciri wanted to yank his hand away when he pulled her against him - to no avail: it was easier to break her own than to yank away a mechanical one - but froze when Adam kissed her. Not coyly pressed with his lips as she had just done herself, no, far more skillfully.

Immediately forgetting her mortal offense, Ciri responded with undisguised pleasure, pressing her whole body against him. She'd been taught, of course, that modesty was a woman's finest adornment, but she'd never liked to obey.

For some reason, she'd thought Adam didn't know how to kiss. Cold as a fish and silent, such men weren't usually good at love affairs.

Never had she been so terribly glad to be wrong. A long-forgotten feeling - so long ago that she couldn't remember who had last evoked it - was overwhelming her with each passing moment. Hotsporn? Mistle? It didn't matter.

And though Ciri wasn't entirely sure, it seemed to her that everything was there... Everything was in place, nothing had been cut off for him.

There was a click from above, and the metal sphere froze right above their heads.

"Now," Adam said, pulling away from her, "we should definitely go."

And as if to confirm his words, there was a terrifying rumble in the distance, as if the very solidity of the earth itself had collapsed.

* * *

Внимание! Этот перевод, возможно, ещё не готов.
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Переведено на Нотабеноиде
http://notabenoid.org/book/86809/569278

Переводчики: Camrad_RIP