“The sun will disappear…” the Chief Engineer’s warning rang in Katerina’s ears, as if the needle of a gramophone was stuck tightly. Underneath the lazy mockery there seemed to be something more. Well, Vasily was distinguished by extraordinary talents in the scientific field, mediocre talents in applied pyromancy, and, without exaggeration, exceptional talents in the field of writing. He was listed as the author of conspiracy theories, mystical horror stories and essays about the everyday life of foreigners, but predictions, prophecies or sudden spiritual revelations had not previously been seen on this list.
But if something incredible is going to happen for the first time, it will most likely happen in Post-Maige.
Industrialists in the east smugly puffed steam and grinded the gears of their ingenious mechanisms. The southwest spread out into forests and swamps, still splashing with magic. And the salt of the earth of Post-Maig were the stories, the bones were a group of independent authors who were drawn here like a magnet.
Some people preferred to write novels in a lonely house by the lake; someone was writing an article for the evening newspaper, watching from the apartment window the hard workers hurrying home; someone apparently looked for inspiration in the border town, curled up in the shadow of the central tower – the Eye.
The problem was that every story in Post-Maige became true. Those who were not told in addition acquired a bad character.
Well, who would like to marinate for six months in oblivion among lousy rumors and faded gossip??
The phrase dropped inadvertently did not bear on the story. Only now, even in the gloomy tunnels under the city, into which only the leader of the local Church had previously dared to descend, Katerina seemed to hear the alarming buzz of zeppelins. Black and thick-sided, they filled the sky with their swarm, plunging Post-Maig into an unnatural darkness. The gates were closed, as were the doors of houses, factories and drinking establishments. And only the Eye anxiously tried to look into every crevice with its light.
The gaze could not penetrate the thickness of the earth, but the closer they got to the foundation of the tower, the stronger its strange influence became. The Eye’s aura refracted time in the most unpredictable way: with equal probability, it could be January ninety-third, six months ago, or tomorrow.
– Wes, if you pout like that, you’ll start producing steam on your own and you’ll burst!
Wes piloted the Fat Man, a customized goliath steam walker he had personally modified, and hated jokes about his own size. However, a fair portion of them went to his friend Flynn. If their names were not mentioned in conjunction, it was only to be confused between the owners. From time to time, not distinguishing people by their voices, faces and other features was considered by the locals to be something of a rule of good manners.
No one was in a hurry to explain such subtleties to visitors.
Katerina just sighed. I should tell these unfortunate adventurers that now is not the time for mutual jokes. But only Wes and Flynn were lured to Post-Maig in general and to this task specifically – with promises of Incredibly Fun and Profitable Adventures. True, the wording was borrowed from the cover of some novel… a little less truthful than news reports.
Daur, one of the few who did not call Katerina with the mockingly respectful “madam,” caught a glimmer of irritation in her gaze.
“They don’t know why https://gorillacasino.uk/login/ we’re here.”? — he carefully nodded towards the good-naturedly bickering duo.
– Like us. Don’t start rumors, Daur, I beg you. You know what this means.
– If they all became true, I would have already been thrown out of the gate, and you would have been married to Mi..
An elegant hand covered Daur’s mouth faster than he could finish speaking. It seems that Katerina’s cheeks have become redder than, according to legend, the fields of her distant homeland.
– As if human tongues were more delicate with your non-existent relationships.
It is not surprising that in a city built by authors, everyone tried to practice their writing – unfortunately, rarely going beyond empty boasting and, of course, gossip.
Unfortunately, some things were left only to the authors.
The only corridor ahead was covered in damp fog. Something began to chirp like a crazy clock that decided to draw a million spirals with rusty hands. Everyone froze, like hot metal, on which ice water was splashed: not yet frightened, but puzzled.
– Good timelessness to you, gentlemen… And Madam.
It was as if a human silhouette filled the entire passage, either skillfully playing with shadows, or magically becoming twice as tall as any of those present.
— Madam? This is… Hairdryer? – Max’s military background made him see Katerina as someone like a captain. Like she wanted it. Like it really made a difference.
From the darkness of his own eyelids Vasily was still looking at her; his gaze, unreadable under the glass of the goggles, penetrated with an unnamed anxiety, a superstitious premonition. “The sun will disappear…” Katerina wanted to repeat, but something completely different came out of her bitten lips.
The sphinxes had identical faces, glittering with bronze heat; there were names, sometimes mysterious, sometimes funny, sometimes meaningless, as if someone had had their face slammed into a typewriter keyboard. They exhaled steam, they asked questions. The sphinxes had one voice for all, and Katerina knew this voice, although she hardly knew who was using it now, casually, like a jacket from someone else’s shoulder.
She had to compose answers or choose those who would answer, and meanwhile the unknown mechanisms crunched louder and louder, the silhouettes of what was imagined but not told came closer and closer – more real than she and her partners are now.
— Choose a symbol of life, Lady.
Katerina extended her hand into the void, squeezing her fingers around something round, with a pattern of notches on the cold surface. The golden dummy of an apple in her palm fell into pieces, as if someone had swung a sharpened blade, and immediately crumbled into rusty dust. Time frantically threw everything it could reach into its furnaces. And the only question is – what an irony – it’s his own, when people will take action.
The silhouette of a man in a white hood appeared and then disappeared, another ghost melted into the fog.
“This is not your story,” a voice warned Katerina from rushing after her. – And the answer, alas, was incorrect..
The slits in the masks sparkled with fire, electricity, menacingly and completely indifferently.
The darkness was warm and light, a chiffon blindfold. The bronze sphinxes disappeared into it like a cat, leaving the “we’ll meet again” hanging in the air.
– I should know how you did it?
-They’re just dusty machines. A good engineer should be able not only to repair, but also to break. For a more complete understanding of the situation, the Mistress will need appropriate education.
The usual arrogant and mocking notes caused unreasonable relief. Even such constancy seemed soothing now.
A short flash of flame illuminated Vasily’s large-nosed face, but he himself looked blindly through Katerina, not at something behind her back – just at nothing.
– We must… hurry? Celebro’s story, she’s not from here, she’s been locked here for too long. And all this – if she closed her eyes now, she would again see the heavy zeppelins, black and red in backlight, smoldering anxiously in the skies. – will end if you let it out.
The statement itself broke into a question: the fingers, which had previously held the weight of the body on the edge of the abyss, helplessly unclenched. Vasily grinned, but somehow mechanically.
“You haven’t guessed it yet, Madam.”? All these dances with time, all these rumors, all the stories not released on time and the one who has accumulated the most of them… Don’t you understand?, to whom actually belongs to Oko?