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.