The Mist and the Lightning. Part III - стр. 14

"Why cannot it be taken off then? You can take off the bracelet on your other arm, I know it."

"Fine. There is a tattoo under it."

Squint-Eye laughed.

"Lis, it is not smart, I expected better from you! You don't hide your other brands. You have decorations cut on your both upper arms and you don't hide them under bracelets, why?"

"Scars of the Red and the brand Orel gave me are not tattoos."

"Orel gave you a brand?" Vil asked. "But why a brand?"

"Because I'm a Red half-blood, for fuck's sake! You make your tattoos with black paint but the Red don't. They cut the lines on their skin, cut them meat deep, or burn out. Orel doesn't know how to make scarring, no one among the Black can do it, so, he just branded me."

"He didn't tattoo you because you don't deserve it," Tol interrupted him. "One cannot tattoo a Red with black paint, it would mean to consider him equal with us. The Red are burnt with their fucking fire they like so much!"

"Perhaps it is so," Lis said contemptuously, "I won't argue. I learned to live with your humiliating laws and with your attitude to people like me. What else can I do? The Black judge people by their looks, not by what they are."

"You'll do anything just to drive the conversation away from the sensitive topic," Squint-Eye interfered. "You're lying to us! Your bracelet hides the traces of 'black water'. The traces that will stay forever!"

"You want Enriki to have them?" Lis asked looking straight at Squint-Eye; his gaze was very serious, without a shadow of his usual slyness.

"I want him to live!"

"Live?!"

"But you live! Nikto does, too, and many others."

"You want to destroy him, he will never be like before!" Lis lowered his yellow eyes that didn't seem sly any more.

"Lis, if you could get through it, why don't you believe that Enriki will? Just one time, and he'll have hope to survive. It's his last hope!"

"It is not hope, and Enriki would never agree to it! He will become a living dead, what can be more hopeless?"

"What a pity that he cannot make his own choice now," Vil shook his head.

"That is why we'll have to make it," Squint-Eye said firmly.

"I know Enriki, he would prefer to die, and I'm prepared to lose him." Lis was implacable.

"Shall we vote?" Tol asked.

"Yes," Squint-Eye sighed. "I can imagine, Lis, what you had to go through but we need it."

"No, you can't imagine," Lis said very quietly.

"Just one injection, and Enriki will live?" Tol looked at them. "Is it for sure?"

"For sure, don't doubt," Squint-Eye said. "Why do you think the Unclean addict their human slaves to the 'water'?"

Tol was silent.

"At first a man becomes very strong and sturdy, he can work day and night, without food or rest. Then the downfall comes, and the Unclean inject him more 'water', and do it as many times as he can bear. But we are not going to do it to Enriki, we'll inject it to him just once."

"And it will save him?"

"You can ask Lis if you don't believe me, but I don't hide anything from you, I'm telling the truth."

Tol looked at Lis questioningly, and Lis nodded at him silently.

"And when the downfall comes – he won't die, will he?" Tol still was in doubt.

"When the downfall comes, he'll be strong enough to survive it on usual restorers or strong alcohol, and that's all."