Wandering Spark - Part 41
Nila was telling a story about a trip with Gorni, and Varan sat by the fire and dried his shirt.
At the end of the trip, Nila and Gorni completely wore out themselves. He because he was of the worst breed of highland Gorni, and she because was responsible for him, and they went to places where it's dangerous to drive with guests. And when Varan suddenly came out of the water with his stupid and idiotic suspicions.
"You know, I'd have drowned you. I would have told Kruchina to hit with a tail a couple times... Maybe it would be a pity later."
"The Kruchina loves me more than you do," Varan said.
"Fool," Nila turned away. "Do you know what happened here, because of you?"
"Again, I'm to blame..."
The flames of the fire lit up the walls, the pattern of moss on the rocks, the pattern of cracks. Varan wanted to talk about a room lined with wood, about veins for juices that had once flowed inside the centenary stems, but he was afraid that it was out of place. Or that Nila would not understand.
The smoke stretched upwards. It was looking for a way out. Stretched in the doorway.
"Soon is the end of the season," Nila said.
"Will you return to your town?" Varan asked, delighted by the opportunity to change the subject. Neela shook her head.
"My mother ... Well, in short, my mother arranged for me a place to work in uplands. Lord's daughter, wants a big retinue."
Varan was silent, amazed with his new disaster.
"I thought," Nila continued, with a tone of detachment, "that you... Well, you were already gone. Therefore I agreed. And now it's too late to change... Listen, maybe, and to you. There, upstairs, people are needed too. At least on the pier."
Varan remembered Lysik.
"No. I have a house, a field, father, mother, sisters... And we wanted to get married, do you remember?"
Neela looked away.
"I remember." Nila shrugged her shoulders.
"And now what?"
" I don’t know."
"Do you have someone?" Varan asked savagely.
Nila smiled.
"No. When you're jealous, you're funny."
"Hey," Varan said. "And do you know…"
Varan suddenly remembered that he hadn’t had time to tell Nila about who that Gorni really was. He had already opened his mouth to say, but confusion, bewilderment and fear on her suddenly his mind. So she will forget him in a day - and knowing, she will remember today and tomorrow, shake the details in her memory, give them a new meaning; an insignificant image of the "whip" will become stronger and grow, fed by curiosity..."
"What?" Asked Nila.
"Nothing." Varan turned away. "Let's sleep."
The next day, he conducted a small trip along the caves of someone's conceited servant, in the absence of a master who believed himself to be the master. Varan, however, wasn’t accustomed to - he never lost patience. Leaving the servant threw him a small coin for tea; Varan caught it.
There were no more clients.
Varan saddled Zhurbina and went to the caves alone. Having reached the "stone garden" - a place where the banknote was found, he pulled the reins and ordered the serpenter to stop.
In the crevice of the rock he found a suitable stone, not very large, but not small, overgrown with shells. Pushing the stone to his chest, he ducked.
The belly of Zhurbina was yellow, paws were barefoot. Varan sank lower, almost without effort. There is no bottom; The stone will fall and fall until it lies on someone's garden...
The water pressed hard on his ears. Varan swallowed convulsively, let bubbles from his nose; among the thickness of the water he saw an iridescent glow. After prison, it appears everywhere: in a cesspool, in a bowl of soup, and in the depths of the sea...
The air in his chest burned out, turning, so it seemed, into burning resin. Varan exhaled it, a bubble after a bubble, rising to the surface and grabbing the air with his mouth. He took a breath. And he again climbed into the crevice, in search for a new stone.
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!cheetah unban