The Mist and the Lightning. Part 9 - стр. 3
“I have here a lot of muzzles for slaves,” Arel threw a muzzle mask consisting of thin straps at Lis.
“Do you want to put it on me?” Lis asked somewhat defiantly.
“I wanted to. You're a slave of Nikto, and I thought that such a meeting he would like. Twenty years ago, all the slaves here wore such. They are slightly different so that you can immediately identify a slave from a plantation or a slave from a barnyard. This is the muzzle of the slave who served in the house.”
“And, that is, it should be an honor for me? Well, Arel, give me the muzzle of the slave of the cesspool cleaner! I'll put it on!”
Arel laughed:
“Lis, I wanted to do it, but I changed my mind.”
“It's strange. I can't even imagine why?”
“They all have a leather flap in place of their mouths. When the slave ate, he could lift it a little, and still he always walked with his mouth shut so that his rotten teeth were not visible and so as not to offend the sirs with the stench.”
“And? What confused you?”
“I like to see your mouth, your lips. How you twist them, even now, in an attempt to seem indifferent. This is so funny! You make me laugh, Lis. And I remembered, remembered something that will hook you much more than a banal slave muzzle.”
“You…” Lis looked at the box in his hand.
“Who are you, Lis?”
And Lis lowered his head:
“I'm a jester, I'm a fool,” he said quietly. And the drunken Arel laughed.
Chapter two
Black Bey
“The old man said everything right,” said Mike Rout, “as he said, there they went out.”
“Well, like this!” Edin Ol, sitting next to Black Bey, grinned, content.
“There are not many exits from the Great Quagmire. Everyone knows that!”
“And from there to the Royal Route in the most remote place,” Mike continued.
“So we'll meet them at the abandoned cemetery,” Bey said.
“Yes,” Mike nodded, pouring local muddy liquor into a rough earthen mug on the table. He drank it all down in one gulp and winced, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.
“We grazed them all day, they are heading in this direction, as the old one said.”
Bey grimaced as if he had also taken a sip of the moonshine of the marsh, although he didn’t take a sip:
“Don't remind me of him once again, this vile old man pisses me off!”
He looked around the squalid little room of the low hut in which they were. The scarce furnishings of the dwellings of the bog dwellers didn’t favor a cozy pastime. Bey slanted down, looking at the dirt floor and the rotten straw heaped in the corner.
“There's something there! I swear in the name of Gods! And I don't like it!”
They stared at the pile of straw.
“I also hear some sounds from there, especially at night,” Toby said carefully.
“They are rats rustling in the straw,” Edin Ol replied.
“You shouldn't have quarreled with Gregor,” Toby said.
“I didn't quarrel with Gregor,” Bey objected, forcing himself to tear his eyes away from the corner he hated. “I simply explained to him that I was no longer able to pay for his expensive magical experiments and so-called “ingredients”. We had to choose: either this outing, or dubious magical rites!”
“No more dubious than this outing,” Toby said, shivering and looking away from the dark corner too.
“Just rats!” Edin Ol repeated angrily, as if he wanted to convince himself of this first of all.