After moving her fingers apart, Julitta with tender emotion examined her hands. “Ah, how beautiful they are! And indeed my feet are not any worse! But no one appreciates them except the idiot genies! Everyone sees only a heavy elephant!” “Can never say ‘heavy elephant’. It’s meaningless. ‘Heavy elephant’ is like ‘enormous moose’. It goes without saying that a moose is enormous. Simply enough to say ‘elephant’ or ‘moose’,” Daphne remarked.
Julitta placed her arms akimbo. The lights in reception shook alarmingly. The hanged men in the pictures started to squint. The antique statue in horror turned away and covered its face with its hands. “Turn off the sound, Light! I can even call myself a hippo. But if anyone squawks again about moose, let him consider: the cemetery is full of free holes!” the witch said threateningly. “No one called you anything! The discussion dealt with entirely different things!” Daph obstinately objected. “Yea, yea! The conversation about elephant, moose, and other planktonic insects, of course, started purely accidentally! Watch it, Light, I’ll chop off your wings!”
Seeing that Daph was offended, Depressiac arched its back and started to hiss. The witch nodded with satisfaction. “Well, that’s it! I warned you! Now someone will be deprived of a tail! I see right through you! You’re a blonde only in appearance, but in your soul you’re a mean brunette!” she said darkly. “Just you dare touch my cat!” Daph was angry. In the next second Julitta materialized a small sword, and Daph – the flute. Depressiac, not having anything that could be materialized, extended its claws. The world briskly rolled to a war.
“Perhaps let us declare a truce? Well, at least for half an hour?” Methodius asked, yawning. He had already gotten used to the fact that at least on the whole Daph and Julitta got along well, nevertheless about three times a day they would start a showdown. Julitta thought for a bit. To arrange a slaughter in reception was not in her plans. Moreover, she already had time to cool down. “What about you? Do you have anything against a truce?” she asked Daph suspiciously. “Consider: in half an hour I’ll make mincemeat out of you!” “Uh-huh. I’ll mark the time,” nodded Daph, putting away the flute. Julitta carelessly threw away the sword, smiled, and moved over to hug Daph. Soon, having finally calmed down completely and swallowed some candies, the witch was already reading out from memory to Daphne and Methodius a brief history of Gloom and the Chancellery in Tartarus.
For the most part, as Methodius understood, the history of Gloom was divided into two periods. The first – before the loss of the sovereign of Gloom, and the second – after. Faceless Kvodnon either actively did not interfere in the history or preferred to operate the marionettes invisibly. After the loss of Kvodnon the forward hunchback Ligul soon moved into the spotlight. Approximately in the same epoch William the Conqueror, then a simple guard of the Norman division, without consultation with Ligul took England after knocking off Harold. It is incomprehensible how William managed to beat the rap. He remained to carouse in England whereas Harold was recalled into Tartarus forever. Several centuries later they placed Bonaparte over Normandy and France. Julitta, as she stated, was never especially interested in the details of behind-the-scene manoeuvring and therefore had simply forgotten all the others.
For example, she forgot about Hastrubal, a guard of the second rank managing the Carthaginian sector, whose son Hannibal, by an Earth woman, at first accomplished successful aggressive marches through the entire Italy and Sicily, and then with a bad joke angered Kvodnon, who wiped Carthage from the face of the earth, first overthrowing Hannibal, and after him in the heat of the moment also Hastrubal.
There existed, furthermore, the dark history of the half-magician, half-guard Odysseus. Odysseus’ path in life was full of ups and downs. Kvodnon either promoted him to a guard of the first rank, demoted him almost to the fourteenth rank, sent him into exile, or generously showered him with eide. As a result, poor Odysseus, on waking up, did not know what fate awaited him for the day: a reward or a sequential box on the ear. With grief, he took Troy, after making the horse move subsequently becoming famous with chess players. Then, after many years of wandering, he settled down at his place in Ithaca, in the interim beating up agents, who had been allowed to get out of hand during his absence. Later this method of disciplining agents received wide acceptance and was even included in the plan for training guards of Gloom.
The ancient history of the moronoid world, in which Gloom willingly interfered, was even more entangled. The Ancient Greek division of Gloom at first was split into many subdivisions: Athens, Thebes, Sparta, Smyrna, Pylos, Argos, Delphi, etc. Each division wallowed in its own vice: in Sparta they fought and severed darc, in Athens they philosophized, in Delphi three words could not be linked together without fogging the truth. Division heads quarrelled among themselves, packed wars of local importance with tonnes of agents, in a fit of temper rose in rebellion against Kvodnon, and at full strength set off for Tartarus to fan lava. They gave Greece first to the Persian division of Gloom, and then the Roman.
In connection to this Kvodnon uttered one of his crown phrases. “Guards of Gloom must suggest vices to people and not give themselves up to them.” The bores and toadies, as Julitta said, more of them in Tartarus than in the upper world, immediately forced sinners to carve this saying on cliffs in eighty-metre high letters and smooth them with tongues of incandescent mercury. This seemed not enough to others, and in Tartarus an ascetic party was formed in haste. The guards belonging to this party stopped giving in to any vice, be it even a comparatively innocent exhalation of sulphuric smoke. Following the lecture of Kvodnon, these guards, dressed in white garments and with wings whitened in lime, suggested to people the most loathsome vices. But, alas, it was unsuccessful. Seeing that the vices were not corroborated by personal examples, people started to cool towards them or carried them out listlessly, without any taste for them. Kvodnon, filled with alarm upon seeing that the inflow of eide was decreasing, in a directive order sent the entire ascetic party to sweat their guts out in fiery Gehenna. They again revived the fashion for vices, and the huge letters on the cliffs, instructing one not to give up to them, were hacked away by the efforts of all those sinners. So in Europe, following Gloom, the transition from the grim Middle Ages to the impetuous Renaissance came to be.
Daph listened with half an ear to Julitta. She was busy with Depressiac and, continuously playing on the flute, accelerated the healing of its wounds. Here, in the screened residence of Gloom, it was possible to play the flute without fear that they would locate her. Last night her beloved cat grappled with an entire pack of stray dogs. The scuffle started because of such a commonplace trifle as a dead crow. As a result the crow still remained intact and the pack of dogs thoroughly thinned, whereas Depressiac had a torn ear and a deeply bitten through shoulder. But this was still bearable. If it were an ordinary cat instead of the infernal cat, it would for sure have joined the crow in its journey to the other world.
Ares came out of his office around midnight. Methodius hardly recognized him. He was in an austere black tailcoat, strikingly different from his usual red spacious caftans. “I hate formal receptions! With great pleasure I would set off there with a sword and chop everything up like cabbage,” he muttered and, suffering from sulphuric breath, stared at Methodius. “And why is this pale individual in stretched jeans? Bear in mind that you’ll also need a tailcoat… Julitta, take care of it! Another question for the curious: Met, how are you with teleportation? As always or slightly better?” “Eh-eh… Well I…” Methodius began. “Clearly,” nodded Ares. “No need to continue further. Well, aren’t you ashamed, Signor Tomato? The magic in you is no less than in a third of Tartarus, but even a normal wall is an insurmountable obstacle for you. To say nothing of such a comparatively simple trick as teleportation. Such is even in the power of modest Tibidox magicians.”
“Does this mean I’m going nowhere?” Methodius asked in disappointment. Ares’ eyes sparkled mockingly. “Why so quick about going nowhere? Certainly, you’ll not reach England on foot. However, to fly on a broom or a flying carpet is not our style. There is, however, a way…” Ares turned and hailed quietly, “Mamai!” From the wall walked out an unknown limping agent – small, slant-eyed, terrible, with a flat Mongolian face. He took a step and stared at Methodius with a wild look. It made Daph standing beside him uncomfortable. “Get acquainted, Methodius! This is Mamai! Once the khan of the Golden Horde. Killed on the Kulikovo Field. Subsequently they sent him from Tartarus for being unsocial, which, between us, is almost impossible. Now and then, when a chauffeur is needed, Mamai renders me this service. Mamai, is the car ready?” The khan nodded sullenly and, on turning, made his way to the door. He treated Ares as if without any respect, merely observing decorum. He simply despised the rest.
They went out. Beside house № 13 stood a low terrible car without glass, cut all over by splinters, covered with spots of rust, with a third of the roof crushed, and burnt tires. Methodius and Daph stared at Ares in amazement. The baron of Gloom smirked. “Ah, I know! Personal automobile of Field Marshal Paulus. Destroyed by mortar fire near Stalingrad. The Marshal himself, however, turned out not to be in it at that moment. Mamai, you did finally remove the remains of the chauffeur? Signor Tomato is squeamish.” Mamai spat through his teeth and, after lingering, nodded. “I did!” he growled.
“Are we going in this piece of junk? To England?” Methodius asked in distrust. He would never assume that such a coach was capable of moving at all. “Trust me, with Mamai this car will go anywhere you want. To England, to the Moon,” Ares said seriously. “And now let’s be on our way! Julitta, you haven’t forgotten the tailcoat for Signor Tomato? He has to change on the way! Mamai, time for us to go!”
The khan with effort opened the rusty door. The car smelled of swamp and rotted seat leather. Ares sat down first in the car. After him, lingering a little was Methodius, and Julitta was the last. Daph and Depressiac remained outside. The cat hissed. If it had fur, it would be standing on end. Likely, the cat sensed the heat of Tartarus emanating from the car. Methodius glanced at Daph in search of encouragement. She waved to him and immediately turned away, remembering that she was angry with Buslaev. Mamai lowered himself heavily onto the driver’s seat, seized the thin melted steering wheel, sneering obviously, touched the torn off hand brakes, not even taking the trouble to start the motor, and… the heavy car rushed forward with the speed of a comet.
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