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Kors nodded toward his soldiers.
“Close the curtains.”
Nolan promptly complied.
“Tell me, how long have you been fighting at the Coliseum?”
“At the Coliseum?” Nikto seemed a little surprised, Kors asked him about everything and at odds, “In the “Lower” – two seasons.”
“Do you remember your first fight?”
“The first fight? No, probably not, maybe the first battle here in the city.”
“Tell me?”
“Why do you need this?”
“Maybe I want to hear the story of your life.”
“The story of my life?!”
“Yes. I have nowhere to hurry, you will tell me, and I will sit, listen.”
“I need… a restorative…”
“I see. You need drugs, you can’t find a place for yourself, leave your nose and eyes alone, you rub them every five seconds!”
“I need a restorative.”
“Nik, how old are you?”
“Twenty four. Probably…”
“When is your birthday?”
“I don’t know.”
“Good. What do you take, tell me, and now I’ll write down the names and send for the doctor. He will help you, but only so that we can continue our conversation.”
Nikto dictated the names of the drugs and indicated the proportions, and Vitor Kors wrote all this on a piece of paper:
“Take this paper to Dr. Baltazar Nate in the prison infirmary, let him take from this list what he sees fit and immediately come here.”
One of the soldiers took a note and quickly left the office.
“How did it happen that you began to do this?” Kors returned to the conversation.
“Take restoratives?”
“Prick yourself all sorts of rubbish.”
“I don't remember, it was… it was a long time ago.Everyone does it. Then the unclean… they made me addict to “black water”. I tried…” Nikto hesitated, picking up a word, “to move out, but it's hard… and I can’t.”
“And I can’t watch you jerk, can I give you a cigarette? Give him a cigarette.”
“Thanks.”
“Smoke already…”
Chapter four
Vitor Kors and Nikto (continued)
Balthazar Nate, an old prison doctor, was skeptical about Nikto sitting in front of him in a chair.
“Nah,” he said thoughtfully, “young man, don’t stoop so, sit upright, straighten your shoulders.”
“I think he's having withdrawal already,” Kors said a little nervously.
“Yeah… Where do you find them,” the doctor shook his head, “after all, how many times I have seen them, and every time I never cease to be surprised!”
Once again, Nikto raised his handcuffed wrists and scratched his nose.
“Extend your hands to the doctor, he will give you an injection now,” ordered Vitor Kors, and Nikto dutifully extended his arms forward.
Balthazar rolled up his jacket sleeve and, bumping into a shell of steel bracelets, rolled his eyes:
“Here it starts! Hey!” He called one of the guards. “Open these bracelets to me here and here.”
“Painted face. One of the people of the prince?” He turned to Vitor Kors, “What makes them all make their faces gray?”
“Apparently he is,” Kors nodded, “and it’s a sign of belonging.”
“Done,” the soldier reported, demonstrating Nikto’s arm, freed from the bracelets and strips of black cloth from the wrist to the elbow.
The three of them involuntarily stared at the picturesque picture of all kinds of patterns and drawings, interspersed with disgusting looking in some places, barely protracted, and in some places continued to fester ulcers. The old doctor grunted and inserted a needle into one of the barely healed veins. Nikto gritted his teeth.
“You see,” said Balthazar Nate, as if giving a lecture to students, “the main veins died and secondary ones took on their functions, this compensation is very interesting, and speaks of the limitless possibilities of the human body.”
“You are not stabbing yourself in the arm yet, if I understand correctly?” He turned to Nikto with old-fashioned politeness.
“No, I stab,” Nobody said, often blinking, “but more often in the neck.”
“That's right,” the doctor agreed, “we will stab you in the neck,” he smiled, “shall I look?”
Leaning towards Nikto, he moved the slave collar to the side, now it became clear that where the dye ended under the chin, tattoos started again.
Vitor Kors laid the portrait of Iness on the table, face down, as if to prevent her from seeing this.
“Why all these drawings?” as if he asked himself, somehow sad.
Nikto rubbed his eyes with his hands.
“These are tattoos,” he said grimly.
“I know!”
“Surely his whole body is covered with them,” the doctor made an assumption, “and his face, too. This is was the “Lower” with all its identification marks: earrings in his nose, tattoos, overwhelming fascination with drugs… which would cost a lot to our prison infirmary…”
“And the face?” Asked Vitor Kors.
“What difference does it make? This is my face!” Nikto tried to snap back. But it was evident that he didn’t like these questions and the words of the doctor, and he was upset.
Kors exhaled noisily and ran his palm from his forehead to his chin, as if trying to erase fatigue. He closed his eyes.
“Well, the young tattooed man, do you feel better?” The doctor smiled.
“Yes, a little.”
“Well, so sit still, after all!”
“The insides, the stomach, I can’t…”
“Everything hurts? Is the liver infected?”
“Yes.”
“For a long time?”
“Yes.”
“That’s why you wrote me this drug here?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
The doctor again took up the syringe, Nikto clenched his teeth and closed his eyes.
“Nips a bit, right?”
“I usually dilute it with more than just purified water,” said Nikto.
“I know,” the doctor smiled, “but it's more interesting, isn't it?”
Nikto bent, holding his hands to his forehead, then folded his hands in a boat, covering his eyes.
“Yes, and look at what is with his eyes,” Kors recalled, his face was somehow distorted, “he told me that he didn’t see us.”
The doctor pressed on Nikto’s forehead, throwing his head back, removed his palms from his eyes:
“Look at me, a young man from the very, most “Lower”, below than nowhere.”
“Just don’t shine in my eyes!” Nikto literally shied away from the old man.
“What?! Stop twitching like that!”
“Don't shine in my eyes,” Nikto prayed.
“Don't,” said Vitor Kors, “don't shine.”
“Well,” the doctor shrugged a little offended, “I just wanted to look at the fundus, but we can do without it, as you say. Although, the case is interesting.”
“What do you have in mind?” asked Kors.
“Eyes are definitely redone as unclean. Reconstructed competently, he sees well in the dark, I think, and even sees a little now in the light.”
“You see a little now?”
“Yes,” Nikto nodded.
“Here it is twilight, thanks to the fact that you have closed the curtains, and now stimulants that we introduced to him are acting.”
“Thanks for the clarification, does that mean he needs darkness?”
“Yes.”
“That is, in the afternoon in the light, he doesn’t see anything?”
“Yes, unfortunately. And for a long time, as I understand it. When was this done with you?”
“When were you captured by the unclean?” Specified Kors.
Nikto shook his head.
“No. A long time ago, I did it myself.”
“Yourself?!” The doctor was surprised. “It is commendable, it requires remarkable skills.”
“Yes, he said here that he would like to be a doctor,” Kors said skeptically.
“Really?!” Balthazar Nate was delighted. “How interesting! He wanted to become a doctor, but became a patient!” He laughed at his joke.
No one else supported him.
“Okay, and look again, what is with his throat, he wheezes, you hear? Do you have a cold? Or an infection? Isn’t it all enough?”
“Yes, I hear that he wheezes. Open the mouth, young man, I’ll shine in your mouth, okay?”
