Labyrinth of reflections lor-1

by Sergei Lukyanenko

  – So… who are you, he or she?

  – I didn’t draw the details, didn’t have time for that, – declares Vika-MacKerel carelessly, – We’ll act according to situation.

  It’s stupid to hang by the building any longer and we enter. A narrow dark corridor, the walls covered by some sort of graffiti of a battle genre. A white shining glows at the end of the corridor, a human figure can be guessed vaguely behind it.

  – Who are you? – we are called.

  – We heard the summons of fair Legolas and came to help! – I shout.

  – Stay where you are! What are your names?

  – MacKerel of the fair Loch Ness Elves! – declares Vika.

  – Elenium the Healer, from the country of Tranquilia! { Elenium – a tranquilizer drug } Vika elbows me under my ribs but nothing can be done – the name is already invented and told.

  The man that hides behind the shining, thinks.

  – Did you come together?

  – Yes, – answers Vika. She takes the leadership and I’m glad, I’m not in the best mood now to play the fool thoughtfully and seriously.

  – And what could befriend the fair Elf and the human healer?

  – In a fight with the Orcs I was treacherously wounded with a yew arrow! – exclaims Vika. She still avoids defining her gender. – If it wasn’t for the magic powers of Elenium, you wouldn’t see me now stranger!

  I stand there with a stony straight mug but it takes a great effort.

  – What will you say Elenium?

  – A gang of foul Dwarves, formed in a hird… – I remember the tale of the little hobbit, – treacherously attacked me! If it wasn’t for MacKerel’s bravery, I’d…. I’d…

  I don’t know how to finish and just cover my face with both hands. Silent laughter sounds very much like crying.

  The glow gives way and the old man steps into the corridor. His moves are so abrupt and the voice is so young that he doesn’t fit for more than 20.

  – I’m glad to welcome the brave Elf and his… her… – he hesitates, – his wise healer friend! You’re safe now!

  – Thanks, – I whisper.

  – You, wise Elenium, get 10 points of skill, five of stamina and five – of strength, – informs the old guy, – As for you… errr… MacKerel… you get 10 points of skill, 10 of stamina, 10 of strength and 10 – of bravery.

  – Hey, why was I left without bravery? – I say with indignation.

  – Tears don’t fit men! – proclaims the old man grandly, but MacKerel backs me up using the obvious fact that the gatekeeper sympathizes him… or her.

  – Elenium cries his bitter tears in the memory of his older brother Seduksen who perished by foul Dwarves’ paws! { Seduksen – another tranquilizer } Oy, I think Vika overplays…

  Luckily, the young old guy either doesn’t know pharmacology or has a sense of humor.

  – Okay, you’ll get 5 points of bravery, – he decides generously. – Thus, enter the fair city of Lorien and gather your strength before the final battle!

  Obeying to his gesture, we enter the shining and discover a massive iron door at the end of the corridor.

  – Seduksen the older brother you say? – I whisper standing behind Vika’s back.

  – Oh come on, don’t be mad…

  Then we enter the streets of Lorien.

  I stand there for a couple of minutes, looking around. Damned, it’s really beautiful!

  Giant trees with snow-white rind, dark green and crimson gold of the foliage. Paths paved with white stone. Some kinds of platforms and dwellings are built in the trees, connected with wooden stairs.

  – Nice work, – comments Vika professionally, – Fine fellows, to build all this just of pure enthusiasm…

  I could note that she herself had built the mountain world of pure enthusiasm but I don’t want to remind her about the country that is maybe lost forever.

  – We need to find an exit, – decides Vika.

  We walk along the white path enjoying the surrounding beauty. The air is fresh and sweet, slight frost bites our cheeks. There is no snow, maybe the Elvish magic dissipates the clouds. Medieval music can be heard on the limit of hearing. Too bad there’s not many people around, everybody must have left to beat the Dwarves and the Orcs.

  Under one of the snow white trees a fire is set and a grinding wheel is installed. A robust hairy man tries to sharpen the sword using the wheel, under the Elf’s supervision.

  – Don’t just pass by, travelers! – calls us the Elf and we stop. – Are you new around?

  Vika nods.

  – Aren’t we related, the Highborn one? – asks the Elf Vika.

  – No, my fair brother, – she waves her hand, – Tell us please how can we leave the city and catch up with the army.

  The Elf frowns.

  – Your skill isn’t too high. Stay with me, learn to sharpen swords. Just three hours – and your skill will grow up five points!

  Yeah right, what a joy – to rotate nonexistent grinding wheel to get nonexistent skill!

  – We’re in hurry, – says Vika.

  – Then ascend this mallorn, – the Elf nods towards one of the trees. – Just 6 hours of physical exercise on the stairs – and you’ll get 7 points of both strength and stamina!

  It seems to me that the Elvish sword sharpener is simply bored. His ward obviously finishes getting his 5 skill points and the Elf will have to sit here alone.

  – It’s a pleasure to listen to your speech, oh Highborn Elf, – declares Vika, – But we’re anxious to be in the battle.

  – Then go there! – the Elf waves his hand gloomily and goes for the man with a sword, – How do you sharpen it? Look just what are you doing! Is it a sword or a silverware, huh? I won’t count your skill!

  We leave in the said direction hastily. Gee, it’s austere here.

  Lorien’s charms fade somehow.

  – And I thought they only do swordfights here… – whispers Vika in surprise.

  – No, they also study Elvish and Dwarvish languages, sharpen swords and daggers, study medieval economics, write ballads and legends.

  – Oh yeah, tons of useful experience indeed…

  – Sure, you wish you could just shut all RP servers… – I suggest spitefully.

  – No, this is their right, – Vika doesn’t yield to my provocation, – it’s just a bit dull. Yet another chewing gum for the brains.

  – Well, do you know how many more subcultures of this sort exist? At least these don’t do drugs or organize revolutions.

  – Lenia, I don’t dream of uniformity. Everyone finds fun according to his taste. But all this is escapism, the flight from the real life.

  – Or course it is. Stamps collecting and playing poker, big politics and tiny wars with the neighbors – all this is the flight from the real life. There’s no common valuables in the world, so one must find some tiny, very tiny goals. And to sacrifice his life to them.

  – Ya know, this way one would want to even believe in Communism.

  – Well, why not? The beautiful and big goal. And as for sacrificing the life for it – this is a tradition actually…

  MacKerel the brave Elf looks at me sadly.

  – Lenia… Elenium… What about you, do you have any goal in you life? Any goal? Not to just steal a couple of grands, not to have fun with friends in restaurant, but the Goal?

  – Yes, – I say honestly.

  – Is it a secret?

  I pause for a second.

  – You know… I’d like to never need to get the keys from my pocket when I return home.

  Vika in her Elvish mask averts her gaze.

  – It’s very-very small and ridiculous, – I say, – It’s not even sharpening of nonexistent swords… or studying psychos in the virtual space. And of course it’s not communism or world-wide revolution. But I just want to ring by my door – and it would be opened.

  – I want this too sometimes, – answers Vika at last, – But I already had to come back
home when the door could be opened. And… it wasn’t always fun.

  Get it diver, right on the face…

  – Lenia, let’s go, we must get Unfortunate out. – says MacKerel the brave warrior.

  So we walk to the wall that girds Lorien. It’s more crowded here: a dozen of recruits earn their strength points under the supervision of Elvish sages, fencing with their swords and shooting at targets. Buyers walk along the row of shops where the merchants earn their skill points. They maybe earn something too. A tattered artist draws portraits of all who wants them, a magician (probably a petty wizard) juggles with fiery balls. The life boils up. A guy with the guitar, a human but dressed in the green Elvish costume sings:

  A traveling minstrel knocked into the castle gates And a young maid opened the door for him…

  A little group of listeners doesn’t look too enthusiastic, so the bard cuts the ballad off, looks around and shifts to some terrible kind of local chastooshkas:

  Once an Elf named Legolas Hit nazgul right in the eye!

  That’s why poor old nazgul Nearly drowned in the river!

  The crowd likes this awkward little song much more, they applaud, throw small coins to the minstrel and laugh. We pad off silently.

  – Do we need anything? – Vika points at the shops.

  – What about money?

  – Look in your pockets.

  I put my hand into the pocket and really find 5 copper coins there.

  – These are automatically given to everyone who enters, – explains Vika, – I heard about that.

  In one shop, after an excited bargaining with the merchant, we buy two flasks of local wine and two short daggers. We’re not going to fight anyway, so we don’t need all those swords, spears and halberds that are being sold in the shops, but attraction to weapons is something genetically etched in the man’s organism. Under reproachful Vika’s gaze I wander along the displays studying the means of extinguishing of my kind. It’s dark in the shop, but burning candles are installed under displays’ glass near the weapons. The light reflecting in the blades is bloody red. I remember the flower sellers who put candles in their aquariums with flowers in winter.

  Life and death are so close, their dresses look almost similar.

  Two people sit by the table in the corner of the shop, not familiar ones, I almost pass them but then stop.

  A short robust guy dressed in white is unfamiliar, but…

  – … Puke inducing stuff! – says the robust one behind my back, – Cheap and cheesy. Not a dime worthy. Complete degeneration in everything.

  I suddenly feel a disgust like I felt once being a kid, long time ago, when swimming in the river I surfaced and saw a huge toad on the bank right before my eyes. The guy behind straightens a cap pulled low over his eyes and goes on:

  – Your RP was unusual before, it contained some healthy element. Now it’s total bullshit and crap.

  – Look, it’s too much… – replies the one who sits with Cap, – The youth needs to have some fun…

  – I always tell what I think. I tell the truth. – declares Cap flatly and I suddenly understand: this is not a figure of speech, not a mistake. He really thinks so, he doesn’t divide himself and the truth.

  Ohmygosh…

  – That’s why nobody loves you, – objects Cap’s interlocutor.

  – Ha. Love is a lie already. When you record everything in dynamic, this becomes obvious.

  The merchant across the display notices that I froze above it and livens up. He pads to me and pushes his finger into the glass under which the sword lies.

  – A very, very good weapon! But you can buy it only if you already have 100 skill points!

  Cap harps on behind my back:

  – The game lowered to the needs of the herd, it had lost its developing role. Strength points, minstrels, magicians… Crap! Think about it.

  – Do you want to look at the sword? – asks the merchant politely.

  I cast a glance at Cap. His interlocutor, one of the famous role players obviously, asks:

  – So what do you suggest?

  – The situation is absolutely clear already, – declares Cap, – I’d prefer to look whether you’ll be able to find an adequate solution…

  – No, thanks, – I say to the merchant, – I’m still way too far from 100 points.

  I exit the shop, into the fresh air, to awaiting Vika. Looks like she haven’t noticed her former customer.

  – What were you looking for there? – asks Vika.

  – For a life.

  – Found it?

  I shrug, – Doesn’t seem so.

  When we proceed to the city gates, past the minstrel, past the magician and fencing recruits, I suddenly understand a strange thing.

  There’s a lot of truth in Cap’s words, in the ones he tells to the girls in brothel or to the Elves in Lorien. The truth is the disguise of cynicism.

  Maybe this is a goal as well – to consider oneself the Truth. To step through the Deep as a proud prophet of it, sweeping a dirt of peoples’ vices from white cuffs with disgust, to suffer for the Truth and to accuse the lies.

  And all this is because of one single reason – of being unable to love people.

  I see this world and it’s funny for me to see the kids sharpening drawn swords, studying Dwarvish language and selling the void. But it’s not yet IT… One more step is required, a very little one – a bit further. Not to love.

  Neither mysterious Unfortunate, nor the silly little hobbit, nor the virtual prostitute Vika, nor the merchant in the shop, nor the minstrel with guitar, nor Romka the werewolf, nor Man Without Face…

  Nobody.

  It’s so simple after all, they all are full of drawbacks. One can be mad at all of them, and to despise all of them… No, not that. Not to be mad but simply not to love.

  I feel like opening some kind of heavy and narrow door and looking into another world, the sterile white one, frozen down to absolute zero, dead and clean as the computer CPU.

  – Vika, – I whisper, – Vika…

  Why do we go to rescue Unfortunate? Why is all this long and cumbersome process?

  – Vika…

  She looks me in the eyes and I can see her through the Elvish image, under golden curly hair and pale aristocratic face, a usual and real one. My Vika. The one who doesn’t need any explanations.

  – Say “love”, – says she.

  I shake my head. I can’t, I’m still there, in the cold whiteness of the mocking truth. Truth and love are incompatible.

  – Say “love”, – repeats Vika, – You can do it.

  I make my choice.

  – I love, – I whisper weakly.

  – Friends and foes…

  – Friends and foes… – I repeat.

  – And I love you, – says Vika.

  A wonderful city Lorien is, nobody laughs at the Human and the Elf that hug each other by the city gates.

  110

  It’s good to walk along the winter road if the whole army marched there before you. The snow is tread down well, it’s impossible to get lost. Tokens of noisy, incoherent and fussy life can be seen everywhere.

  A pine tree, with arrows poking out of it. Either a spy was suspected by the Elves or they just argued whose eyes are keener and whose hand is stronger. Most likely the latter.

  The traces leading a bit to the side, two piles of tobacco ashes. One can just see two leaders stepped away to have a pipe while the army marches by. One of them was a wizard with a staff and the other – a warrior with a sword. Here are the traces: the round one of the staff and the narrow one of the sword sheath.

  Here was a short stop, the snow is well tread to the left from the road and just lightly touched to the right. Oh sure, the Elves step so lightly that the snow holds them. So here two parts of the army were instructed by their leaders.

  The five mile way would be long in the real world. Fortunately, role-players are not millionaires to spend months reaching their enemies. The road
falls under our feet miraculously fast. Maybe role-players agreed to consider it an action of the spell…

  We ascend to the cliffs and start circling along the path. Several times it seems to me that I recognize the place where I was scaring the hobbit but it always turns out that I’m wrong. The road was created in a hack-workers’ way, assembled from repeating elements.

  Finally Vika notices the tracks going into the fir grove from the road. Not well enough did we hide Unfortunate, any fighter lagging after the army would notice him. Without an agreement we walk faster, what if he’s not here already?

  But Unfortunate is there and even not alone. He sits leaning against the tree trunk and tells something to the hobbit, drinking from the flask. The hobbit, squatted against Unfortunate laughs effusively. Noticing us, he jumps up and grabs his little dagger.

  Just look at him… this kid can be brave, at least when a helpless guy is behind his back.

  – We’re friends! – says Vika raising her hands. – We came with peace!

  – I’m Elenium the Healer, – I support her. Will Unfortunate recognize us I wonder?

  – Hi Lenia, – he says with a smile.

  – I’m Harding! – informs us the hobbit hiding his dagger, – Haven’t you seen Conan around? A tall guy with a fiery sword?

  – That Conan have robbed the kid, – says Unfortunate very seriously, only his eyes are smiling.

  – No, he’s not that bad! – the hobbit defends his offender suddenly, – He then left all my supplies to Alien { exactly this word is in the original, but in Russian transcription }, he understood he needs them more!

  – To whom? – me and Vika ask together.

  – To Alien… – repeats the hobbit not suspecting anything, – To him. He broke his leg.

  How interesting.

  I approach Unfortunate and undo the cast on his leg, then shake out the contents of my bag to the snow. I don’t have a slightest idea about how to heal in this imaginary world.

  – So your name is Alien? – I ask. Unfortunate keeps silence.

  I open one of the jars, the stinky green ointment is inside. I roll up the trouser-leg and spread it along Unfortunate’s leg. After a little thinking I also stick several dry leaves on top of it and declare:

  – The fracture will heal in five minutes.