Julia Latynina
Insider
THE FIRST CHAPTER,
where Kissur the White Falcon gets in an accident while the first vice-minister of finance discusses the reasons for the dearth in the state treasury
The walls of the living room were covered with blue silk and the corners were overlayed with hexagonal tiles making the room an octagon, the shape guided its owner's success in life and smoothed all turns in his fate. Embroiderings grew over silk — blossoming lotuses with leaves lowered from heat, plum flowers opening up, a snow white duck in a pond and a sping sun. A light hung almost all the way down to the floor, looking like a transparent upside down mushroom and golden figures of animals ran over its rim.
A small table with a frosted jar and an armchair were next to the light. A 30 year old man sitting in the armchair was dressed in the silk pants and a jacket, girdled with a belt made from large silver links. His face was very handsome but cruel, with blue eyes and eyebrows rising at the tips. Old rings of delicate worksmanship looked strange on his predator's hands with untrimmed nails. His hair was twisted in a bun and held with a tortoise comb. A 3D transvisor on a fat golden leg stood in the left corner.
Periodically, the man would fill a small five walled cup from the jar, close the cup with a lacquered cap enclosing a straw, and stick the straw in his mouth. He was watching the transvisor.
On his left hand, a small drawing hung in a sable fur frame — a beautiful drawing of a sick chickadee in snow. The picture bore the Emperor's signature. It was a personal gift from the Emperor. Two golden rings of orchids and clematis hang next to it. A sonar rabbit ear antenna stuck up above the transvisor and a silvered pot with a blooming flower was behind the antenna. The flower had a artful name "furled belle's eyebrows."
The picture in the transvisor greatly differed from that on the silk paintings decorating the room. The transvisor was not showing either a sick chickadee or blossoming plums. The transvisor was showing a press-conference. A self-important patrician Earthman was talking and his piggish eyes were routinely squinting from camera flashes. A whole flock of microphones was gosseling out in front of the Earthman. He was earnestly attempting to look inside the room through the screen and he probably felt alien surrounded by blooming plums and golden flower rings.
Somebody asked the man on the screen in a thin voice, and he answered benevolently,
"While we are not interfering in any way with the independent nation and are not pressuring its government, the Federation of Nineteen would encourage the Emperor to conduct the first Parliament elections in the history of your country as a one more step in of your nation's integration into the galactic society."
The man sitting in the chair poured the last remnants from the silver jar into the cup. He slightly raised his hand and threw the jar at the forehead of the smiling Earthman on the screen. The Earthman stopped smiling and disappeared. The screen squeaked and exploded in tiny pieces. The "furled belle's eyebrows" loudly crashed, and the nauseating smell of burning plastic intestines filled the room. The painted doors moved apart and a middle-aged majordomo in a blue caftan rolled into the room.
"Take it away," the man in the armchair said without raising his voice.
The majordomo threw his hands up and exclaimed,
"Oh, Mr. Kissur, that's the third one this week."
Kissur jumped out of the chair, slammed the door and was gone.
The majordomo in the room stuck his hand in the empty jar, scratched it and licked… The lord was not even drunk, or almost not drunk — there was a light palm wine in a jar, generously diluted by the apricot juice. Kissur could get drunk and get drunk to his eyebrows, drunk enough to fight, drunk enough to cut dogs or people cut in half. But, he could do it only at merry party with a dozen friends. Kissur never drank by himself.
Kissur ran gasping down the staircase and leaped out into the inner yard. The night was already in. It smelled of mint from countryside gardens, gasoline and horses. A city mansion with a flat roof surrounded the yard on three sides. A left wing tower decorated with grape carvings rose gracefully like a reed leaf. In the past, high-ranking officials built towers like this, for them to touch the sky like little fingers. The towers would be like a staircase that Fortune walk down from the sky to the officials. In the past, people had said that only the Emperor's castle spires were higher. Now, one would not be able to say that, since a construction crane made from steel matches was showing up on the black sky background; the crane was touching the sky with its little finger. Enraged Kissur threw his fist to the sky and stomped flying down the moonlighted path.
A servant in a short blue jacket stood in the backyard, in front of the gates wrapped by brass vines. The servant lovingly washed a long glossy car like he would be braiding a horse's tail. The black sides of the car gleamed in the moonlight and the silver gills of the hydrogen engine air intakes shined.
Kissur ripped the hose out of the slave's hand and threw himself in a car. The tires screeched — the slave was barely able to jump away. The terrified booth guard hit the button on the keyboard, the gates bobbed up, and the car flew out on the deserted and wet night highway. "Once he won't be able to get the gates up in time", Kissur thought, "and I'll break my neck at my own wall."
The car was purring and eating hydrogen — isn't it strange that a horse eats when it's resting while this black ironmonger eats only when it's moving, and when it's not moving it doesn't eat anything. Yes! Seven years ago when gloom was sometimes eating at his soul, Kissur would take a black stallion with a wide back and tall legs and race him in the Emperor's garden, in the gullies overgrown with bushes and grass, till the sunrise. Where is this garden now? They peddled it, sold it like a wench in the market, for some glass contraption. It was shameful, since Kissur himself sold it to some corporation.
The highway ended abruptly at a flooded river; Kissur almost flipped over in the water on the sliver of the pontoon bridge. At least, this thing does race faster than a horse even if it stinks of iron. Only weapons smelled like iron in the past, while now in an every beaurocrat's house a barrel like this hangs out and stinks like iron. It's terrifying to think of the size of the motherland piece this beaurocrat sold for this barrel… Kissur turned around and slowly drove back. In a hundred yards, a cement road forked off the highway. Moon tatters floated in a little puddle at the road turn. "What road is that?", Kissur was curious and turned the car.
The road ended in ten minutes. The car beams tore at the darkness and illuminated a tall concrete fence with barbed wire on top and a lonely guard getting bored at the watchtower. A dark open field could be seen on the left and a yellow light beam from the beacon was hitting the field. Kissur got out of the car and walked down the field to the excavator that was ascending like a clockwork mole over a not-yet-fully-eaten hill. Tracks and wheels bulldozed the field and water gleamed in the clay ruts. The excavator was huge, taller than a poplar. It was one of these huge machines that swallow clay with some additives delivered from afar and spit out finished construction blocks.
Kissur climbed up a steep staircase to the top of the excavator. It was a long climb; the staircases twisted, went horizontal, changed in narrow paths between steel casings covering various mechanisms and finally finished at a tiny booth. The booth was locked; constellations of blue lights at the napping console looked at Kissur through the glass.
At this moment, the moon peered out of clouds again; Drunken River gleamed far away with the multi-coloured tower of Seven Clouds Bridge above it. Kissur suddenly recognized this field; it happened here, next to Seven Clouds, eight years ago. Kissur caught up with the rebel Khanalai right when he was going to enter the capital; Kissur and his five hundred horsemen drowned four thousand rebels in the river. The commander wore a ruby necklace; Kissur remembered very well how he cut off his head with one hand and stuffed the necklace in his coat with the other.