Aragon Masks. Inga Soborova

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СКАЧАТЬ Let her love me,» Arthur stared at the items in the bowl without looking away.

      «Want to be loved, good. Put a swan’s heart in there.»

      If the mage hadn’t told it was a heart, you might never guess it. It was gray-brown, looked like a stone, but was very light in weight. Fully dried swan heart seemed almost weightless. Arthur held it in his hand, examining this dried item. It twitched in his hand, then again. Very quickly, with horror, Arthur placed it in the sacrificial bowl.

      «Now sprinkle your crushed mirror on the top. And repeat the spell after me.»

      Arthur repeated the spell, standing over the sacrificial bowl and looking at everything inside was now covered with the crushed mirror. The sorcerer covered the bowl with a black cloth.

      «Take it and bring it home. Don’t talk to anyone on the way home. Once you get home, go to bed. Oh, and here. Take this candy.»

      Nubis handed over the candy, with a label «Сoolness» on it. Nothing else about the contents or manufacturer was written on it.

      «If you get cold, very cold. As cold as you’ve never been before, you can eat this candy. It will make you feel better.»

      Arthur took the bowl in his hands. For a second he felt bad. Sick and dizzy. The sorcerer held the guy up by the elbow. To say that the sorcerer’s hands were icy is to say nothing. It seemed that the place he touched was frozen to the bone. Even at home, as Arthur fell asleep, he felt the cold on his arm where the sorcerer touched.

      – 2-

      Arthur opened his eyes. There was a girl sitting in the chair across from him, smiling. When she saw him awake, she smiled wider, «Tais. Or simply Taya.»

      Arthur liked Taya. She was pretty. Too good, even. Arthur liked to do everything with Taya. Sleep. Eat. Talk about serious things and nothing. Waking up and falling asleep. Walking and coming back home. Making plans and suddenly realizing they are worthless. Change them for others. Know that you don’t have to do them. And have no regrets about it. Taya was always with him. Followed Arthur around like a ponytail and seemed happy.

      At some point Arthur got to work. It wasn’t urgent. He could do it later, too. But Arthur felt absolutely focused on Taya. It was nice to focus on her, of course, but Arthur felt like he was losing himself.

      Last night he had merged so much with Tais that he felt unable to keep him out of her. In that moment he felt divine. But in the morning, Arthur sensed some growing tension.

      Taya came up to Arthur, who was sitting at the computer, and hugged him by the shoulders from behind. Arthur was possessed by a mingled feeling of pleasure and a feeling that some external force had grabbed him. He didn’t like to think the pleasure he was getting in any form could be some kind of leverage over himself. «To go along with your pleasures is to show weakness. If you take only pleasures all the time, you can lose your strength and yourself. Tais. Who is she for me? She’s only my creation. A figment of my imagination.»

      Arthur stood up. Unnoticed by Tais, he went to the sacrificial bowl and pulled out the tail of the red cat. Then he walked over to the girl and embraced her closely with his arms. Tais pulled away in a confused and questioning stare. Arthur smirked. Slowly he returned the tail to the bowl and sat down on the couch. Tais, passing by, jumped in Arthur’s lap. She laughed and kissed him a few times.

      «You are a redheaded cat.»

      Arthur moved Tais from his lap to the couch and sat down at the computer. Taia was talking, joking, and asking something trivial. Kept quiet and talked again. Took funny photos. Showed them to Arthur. She had fun. She enjoyed Arthur’s company. She didn’t stop, guessing Arthur might need to rest.

      Several days passed. Arthur was working on the computer. Tais, in her typical manner, kept on inventing, joking and laughing at her own jokes, asking Arthur to play the games she had invented. Arthur could spend hours or even days not answering or even reacting to Tais’s joyful appeals. «She’s not real. Not real. But she pulls attention like she’s alive.»

      Arthur’s tension was growing. He answered Tais less. She noticed it. Slacked off, but not for long. She saw his reactions well, but once she felt how much she loved him, she couldn’t stand it and approached him again.

      – 3-

      One morning, looking at Tais asleep, Arthur went to the sacrificial bowl and began to take out, one by one, the objects that were lying there. He took them out and placed them next to each other on the table. A tail, an ear, a ballerina, a toy car, a swan’s heart. Sleeping Tais began to look translucent. She began to shimmer, like a shoddy hologram. The last thing, the pile of crushed glass from the mirror was placed next to on the table. And Tais disappeared completely.

      The room became very silent. Although the sleeping Tais made no sound, it was the silence without something that had just filled the space.

      «Now I am free. As alone as before, but free. That closeness almost consumed me. If I give up pleasure, it will make me stronger. Only weaklings go along with pleasure.» Arthur reasoned that every time he passed the table with the empty sacrificial bowl and the pieces extracted from it lying on the table.

      Sometimes Arthur thought Taya was sitting in the chair behind him, smiling. Even thought, if he doesn’t turn around for a long time, he could hear her breathing.

      «Tais,» Arthur said quietly, not noticing he was speaking aloud. All the pieces were placed in the same order at the bottom of the bowl. When the last speck of crushed mirror fell into the bowl, the familiar voice came from the middle of the room.

      «Hi»

      Taya was smiling as if nothing had happened. Arthur admitted to himself he missed her.

      For days, Arthur kept Tais close to him. And the more he sank into his affection for her, the more resistance grew to capture this «unfree,» which created tension. Tais had the memory of how Arthur erased her from existence. And the awareness of her creation by him also clearly stayed with her. But she wasn’t mad at Arthur. Only sad about it. A swan’s heart and a dog’s ear kept her from leaving Arthur forever.

      Tais knew for sure that after that night with Arthur, such a beautiful night, he would erase her again in the morning. It had happened more than once before. Each time, before Arthur had erased Tais in the morning, she wept quietly, without showing it. «What am I crying about?» Tais asked herself, «Yes. I’m so afraid of never seeing Arthur again. Stupid swan heart.»

      – 4-

      Yes, that was the night after which Arthur would erase Tais again. Looking at the fire, either from the light, or from realizing Arthur did not want to see her and hear her near him, and from annoyance at the way the swan heart lying in the sacrificial bowl was used for, tears flowed down the Tais cheeks, and dripped somewhere on the floor.

      «Taya, could you keep an eye on the fire?» Arthur asked, falling asleep.

      Tais couldn’t hear him. She looked at the fire with tear-filled eyes.

      «Tail. Tail first,» said Tais. She got up and brought the sacrificial bowl to the fireplace. Through the bowl’s clear glass she could see the tail changing its position. Twisting now into a bagel, then into a spiral, straightening and curving again. Ballerina looked at the fire through СКАЧАТЬ