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turned pale. The blow hit the mark. “She’s worse than a servant!” he shouted. “She’s a slave of Gloom. She was cursed even in infancy, moreover by her own mother, who dealt with black magic. They took away her eidos, leaving only a hole. According to the book of life and death, your Julitta had died a long time ago. And the worms should have eaten the girl long ago! Turned out to be an irregularity, eh? Argue with death itself, which isn’t aware of mistakes! It was necessary to finish the girl off, but here you appeared. Why, for what joy? You even gave her some portion of your abilities. If she would at least be a beauty, but only so-so… We gave up on this. A baron of Gloom having lost his mind occupies himself in his deserted lighthouse, what difference does it make?”

      “Shut up! Don’t touch with your dirty fingers the memory of one whose nail is worth more than you!”

      “You have flawed notions about the market cost of nails,” the hunchback said maliciously. “Yes indeed, of course… Old foolish Ligul! How would he understand the moral castings of Baron Ares, swordsman of Gloom! Only think, what an original story! When you fell in love with a mortal, breaking our laws, had a daughter with her, and saving this ridiculous idyll, you committed massive follies… So much happened at the lighthouse. Waves, stones, and wind should have cleansed your brains. And what? Even at the lighthouse, you didn’t get some sense into your head. Saved this moronoid girl, whom her confused mother had condemned to death. Interesting, for what joy? Or did she remind you of your daughter, whom you couldn’t save? At some point, you’ll finally learn that we are immortal, and moronoids and the children of moronoids – they’re such expendable material… Pawns in the eternal game of good and evil. Foolish flesh, clay with a flickering flame of eidos, which heaven knows why landed there!”

      “You got carried away, hunchback! Perhaps, for variety, you should live your own life for a while?”

      The hunchback shook his head. In his eyes appeared some kind of dry, feverish lustre. “Well indeed no! For the time being, yours suits me! I want to understand! Well, tell me, why was that duel necessary to you? Why kill your own while enemies are living? Perhaps they didn’t teach you that you always reserve sweets for dessert?”

      “I took vengeance upon those, who crossed my path – directly or indirectly. And, what torments me is that I haven’t taken vengeance on all. One is still living…” Ares said, looking to the side. The plastering of the neighbouring house, 15 Bolshaya Dmitrovka, began to smoke from his look.

      “They wanted much better, Ares… They saved you from the vileness of life. You yourself know that magicians, long rubbing shoulders with moronoids, lose their magic! Wallowing, like in a swamp, in petty everyday concerns! Such guards are lost to Gloom. Lost forever!” the hunchback said with conviction.

      “I didn’t ask Gloom to crawl into my affairs! It’s enough for you that I hate Light!” Ares bellowed.

      “Maybe. But you don’t serve Gloom with all your heart. You value freedom, or what you consider freedom, too much. You’re a fool, Ares! You don’t understand that there cannot be absolute freedom. There are only Light and Gloom. That which is not Light is Gloom. That which is not Gloom is Light. By definition, there simply cannot be any half tones. There cannot be evil on the good ledge or good on the evil ledge! You catch the nuances, Ares? You curse what you’re doing!”

      Conversing with Ares, Ligul unnoticeably followed him with peripheral vision, ready to react to the first suspicious motion. However, he missed the attack all the same. He even did not understand if it was an attack or if Ares had employed magic. The hunchback only heard how his armour clanked against the asphalt. The next minute he understood that he was lying on the ground and his own sword tenderly, exactly like a razor, scraped red hairlines on his neck.

      With the bend of his sword, Ares hooked the chain of the darc and was now coldly examining the hastily changing forms of the hunchback’s silver icicle. “And indeed you have incarcerated numerous eide in your darc. I heard that in recent years you prefer to buy them from agents and not win them in combat? It’s correct: in all the centuries gold smelled better than Damascus steel.”

      “Battles between our own are forbidden, until we’re done with Light,” hissed Ligul.

      “A wise and farsighted law! Interesting, who passed it? Indeed not you perhaps, Ligul? Have in mind that the prohibition of duels always led to a drop in morals, obesity, and the triumph of purses! Less blood flows – yes, but instead of blood snot flows… It’s you who wisely made a remark about pitiful essence. A jackal is not a lion, and a beast could never behave like a tsar. You’re a jackal, Ligul. You really think that you’ll know how to bring Gloom under your control?”

      Ares moved his hand, forcing the hunchback’s darc to swing like a pendulum on the blade of the sword. “Only think, how simple! One light motion and the terrible Ligul will be deprived of all his magic and become the usual pitiful spirit…” he said pensively. The lips of Ligul turned white. “But something else bothers me more,” continued Ares. “I think about that one eidos, the fate of which nothing is known to me. And sometimes it comes to my mind that it can turn out to be in your darc, then I lose my head and want to cut you up into dozens of little freaks!”

      “I’ve said a thousand times! I didn’t kill yours! I know nothing about the fate of your…” Ligul started. The hand of Ares trembled. A long scratch appeared on the hunchback’s cheek. The hunchback lifted his hand, wiped the blood off his cheek and thoughtfully licked his palm.

      “Don’t utter her name! It’s too pure for you! Or you’ll part with your tongue!” Ares said quietly.

      Ligul hastily began to nod. “So you patronize the girl because she reminds you of that one… Don’t be angry! You see, I didn’t say the name,” he remarked.

      “None of your business! Better think about your darc! Lest you’re deprived of it!” Ares said.

      The hunchback shrugged his shoulders. He had already gotten the better of his initial fear. “Silly threat! You’re far from a saint. Perhaps I should remind you how many you have cut down and how many eide are in your own darc?” he asked.

      “Not worth it. Everyone I killed, I killed in honest magic battle. I didn’t cut down the sleeping and didn’t kill by stabbing in the back. And especially not children and women,” remarked Ares.

      “In honest battle? When one opponent is twenty times more experienced than the other, can the battle really be called honest? It would be honest with an equality of strength!” the hunchback smiled.

      “No one prevented my opponents from learning to manage a blade,” Ares said.

      “Aha… But at the same time fifteen hundred years as the god of war, participating in all combats and battles, and to acquire the same experience… It’s all demagogy! It’s not possible for another to acquire the same,” growled Ligul.

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