...седьмого идиотского полку рядовой. // исчадье декабря.
А это будет запись специально для битья головой об. Ну да, про Локена, кто ж еще-то мог бы тут быть.
То есть происходит это примерно так: сначала ты просто что-то думаешь среди прочих мыслей, потом ты лезешь в книжку уточнить, потом залипаешь в текст, плюс два стакана кофе - все, готово, унесите пудинг.
ведерко ОБВМа, в общем-то небольшое
...И даже если убедить себя, что ты - всего лишь оружие, всего лишь разящий клинок, и права на чувства у тебя не больше, чем у холодного железа...
Рано или поздно тебе напомнят, что ты все еще остаешься человеком. Ты никуда не денешься от эмоций и привязанностей, если ты все еще жив. Что-нибудь напомнит. Или кто-нибудь.
(Тихий голос в полумраке тюремной камеры, темная - почти что черная - кожа, прикосновение маленькой ладони. Тень среди теней в безымянной крепости. Летописец без памяти.)
И нет, это не про пейринг вообще ни разу . Тут другие развесистые канделябры. Но от этого ведь не легче. Ни мне с моим растрщ, ни непосредственным участникам всего этого бардака.
здоровенная цитата, то есть реально здоровенная, почти глава целиком
Graham McNeil, "The Vengeful Spirit", ch. 7
(простите, чуваки, но будет без перевода. в двенадцатом часу ночи и с планшета я просто не осилю)
А, да. Не надо все это ни в какие обзоры и никуда, пожалуйста. Мне и так завтра стремно будет, когдапротрезвею отпустит.
То есть происходит это примерно так: сначала ты просто что-то думаешь среди прочих мыслей, потом ты лезешь в книжку уточнить, потом залипаешь в текст, плюс два стакана кофе - все, готово, унесите пудинг.
ведерко ОБВМа, в общем-то небольшое
...И даже если убедить себя, что ты - всего лишь оружие, всего лишь разящий клинок, и права на чувства у тебя не больше, чем у холодного железа...
Рано или поздно тебе напомнят, что ты все еще остаешься человеком. Ты никуда не денешься от эмоций и привязанностей, если ты все еще жив. Что-нибудь напомнит. Или кто-нибудь.
(Тихий голос в полумраке тюремной камеры, темная - почти что черная - кожа, прикосновение маленькой ладони. Тень среди теней в безымянной крепости. Летописец без памяти.)
Песня вот еще легла - как будто всегда тут была просто.
Башня Rowan - "Серый Ветер"
...а моя судьба - ломка и легка, как прозрачная труха-шелуха,
не смотри на меня - по осенним ветрам я сама себе не своя...
...а твоя судьба тебе невдомек, но, исшарен ветром вдоль-поперек,
под холодными пальцами серого ветра ты стоишь, дрожа и смеясь...
...серый ветер разберется, кто кому назначен в долю...
Башня Rowan - "Серый Ветер"
...а моя судьба - ломка и легка, как прозрачная труха-шелуха,
не смотри на меня - по осенним ветрам я сама себе не своя...
...а твоя судьба тебе невдомек, но, исшарен ветром вдоль-поперек,
под холодными пальцами серого ветра ты стоишь, дрожа и смеясь...
...серый ветер разберется, кто кому назначен в долю...
И нет, это не про пейринг вообще ни разу . Тут другие развесистые канделябры. Но от этого ведь не легче. Ни мне с моим растрщ, ни непосредственным участникам всего этого бардака.
здоровенная цитата, то есть реально здоровенная, почти глава целиком
Almost no light penetrated the cell, only diffuse reflections from the corridor outside, but that was more than enough for Loken to make out the outline of a kneeling figure.
Loken was no expert on the female form, but the figure’s loose robes gave little in its shape to distinguish it. A head turned towards him at the sound of the door opening, and Loken saw something familiar in its faintly elongated occipital structure.
A faint buzzing sound came from the high ceiling, and a humming florescent lumen disc sparked to life. It flickered for a few seconds before the freshly routed power stabilised.
At first Loken thought this was a hallucination or another vision of someone long dead, but when she spoke, it was the voice he knew from the many hours they had spent in remembrance.
He remembered her as being small, even though most mortals were small to him. Her skin had been so black he’d wondered if it had been dyed, but the sickly light of the lumen disk made it seem somehow grey.
Her skull was hairless, made ovoid by cranial implants.
She smiled, the expression faltering and unfamiliar. Loken guessed it had been a long time since she had need of those particular muscles.
‘Hello, Captain Loken,’ said Mersadie Oliton.
[...]
The cell had no furniture, not even a bed. A thin mattress lay folded in one corner, together with a chipped night-soil pot and a small box, like a presentation case for a medal.
‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost,’ said Mersadie, rising from her kneeling position.
Loken’s mouth opened, but no sounds came out.
This was the second dead person he’d seen, but this one was flesh and blood. She was here. Mersadie Oliton, his personal remembrancer.
She was alive. Here. Now.
She wasn’t the same though. The harsh light revealed faded scars tracing looping arcs over the sides and upper surfaces of her diminished skull. Surgical scars. Excisions.
She saw him looking and said, ‘They took out my embedded memory coils. All the images and all the remembrances I’d stored. All gone. All I have left of them are my organic memories and even they’re beginning to fade.’
‘I left you on the Vengeful Spirit,’ said Loken. ‘I thought you must be dead.’
‘I would be if it wasn’t for Iacton,’ replied Mersadie.
‘Iacton? Iacton Qruze?’
‘Yes. He saved us from the murder of the remembrancers and got us off the ship,’ said Mersadie. ‘He didn’t tell you?’
‘No,’ said Loken. ‘He didn’t.’
‘We escaped with Iacton and Captain Garro.’
‘You were on the Eisenstein?’ said Loken, disbelief and wonder competing for his full attention. Qruze had said little of the perilous journey from Isstvan, but neglecting to mention Mersadie’s survival beggared belief.
‘And I wasn’t the only one Iacton saved.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Euphrati got off the Vengeful Spirit, Kyril too.’
‘Sindermann and Keeler are alive?’
Mersadie nodded. ‘As far as I know, but before you ask, I don’t know where they are. I haven’t seen either of them in years.’
Loken paced the interior of the cell, raw emotions surging like a chaotic tide within him. Sindermann had been a dear friend to him. A mentor of superlative intellect and a confidante of sorts, a bridge between trans-human sensibilities and mortal concerns. That Keeler had also survived was a miracle, for the imagist had a real knack for getting herself into trouble.
‘You didn’t know she was alive?’ asked Mersadie.
‘No,’ said Loken.
‘You’ve heard of the Saint?’
Loken shook his head. ‘No. What saint?’
‘You have been out of the loop, haven’t you?’
Loken paused, angry and confused. She was not to blame, but she was here. He wanted to lash out, but released a shuddering breath that seemed to expel a heavy weight of bilious humours.
‘I was dead, I think,’ he said at last. ‘For a while. Or as good as dead. Maybe I was just lost, so very lost.’
‘But you came back,’ said Mersadie, reaching out to take his hand. ‘They brought you back because you’re needed.’
‘So I’m told,’ said Loken wearily, curling his fingers around hers, careful not to squeeze too hard.
They stood unmoving, neither willing to break the silence or the shared intimacy. Her skin was soft, reminding Loken of a fleeting moment in his life. When he had been young and innocent, when he had loved and been loved in return. When he had been human.
Loken sighed and released Mersadie’s hand.
‘I have to get you out of here,’ he said.
‘You can’t,’ she said, withdrawing her hand.
‘I’m one of Malcador’s chosen,’ said Loken. ‘I’ll send word to the Sigillite and have you taken back to Terra. I’m not letting you rot away in here another minute.’
‘Garviel,’ said Mersadie, and her use of his given name stopped him in his tracks. ‘They’re not going to let me out of here. Not for now, at least. I spent a long time in the heart of the Warmaster’s flagship. People have been executed for a lot less.’
‘I’ll vouch for you,’ said Loken. ‘I’ll guarantee your loyalty.’
Mersadie shook her head and folded her arms.
‘If you didn’t know who I was, if you hadn’t shared your life with me, would you want someone like me released? If I was a stranger, what would you do? Turn me loose or keep me imprisoned?’
Loken took a step forward. ‘I can’t just leave you here. You don’t deserve this.’
‘You’re right, I don’t deserve this, but you don’t have a choice,’ said Mersadie. ‘You have to leave me.’
Her hand reached up to brush the bare metal of his unmarked plate. Thin fingers traced the line of his pauldron and swept across the curve of the shoulder guard.
‘It’s strange to see you in this armour.’
‘I no longer have a Legion,’ he said simply, angry at her wilful desire to languish in this prison.
guish in this prison.
She nodded. ‘They told me you died on Isstvan, but I didn’t believe them. I knew you were alive.’
‘You knew I’d survived?’
‘I did.’
‘How?’
‘Euphrati told me.’
‘You said you didn’t know where she was.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Then how–’
Mersadie turned away, as though reluctant to give voice to her thoughts for fear of his ridicule. She bent to retrieve the presentation case from the ground next to the mattress. When she turned back to him, he saw her eyes were wet with tears.
‘I dreamed of Euphrati,’ she said. ‘She told me you’d come here. I know, I know, it sounds ridiculous, but after all I’ve seen and been through, it’s almost normal.’
The anger drained from Loken, replaced by an echoing sense of helplessness. Mersadie’s words touched something deep within him, and he could hear the soft breath of a third person, the ghost of a shadow in a room where none existed.
‘It isn’t ridiculous,’ said Loken. ‘What did she say?’
‘She told me to give you this,’ said Mersadie, holding out the case. ‘To pass on.’
‘What is it?’
‘Something that once belonged to Iacton Qruze,’ she said. ‘Something she said he needs to have again.’
Loken took the box, but didn’t open it.
‘She said to remind Iacton that he is the Half-heard no longer, that his voice will be heard louder than any other in his Legion.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Mersadie. ‘It was a dream, it’s not like it’s an exact science.’
Loken nodded, though what he was hearing made little sense. At least as little sense as answering a summons to war on the word of a dead man.
‘Did Euphrati say anything else?’ he asked.
Mersadie nodded and the tears brimming on the edge of her eyes like a river about to break its banks spilled down her cheeks.
‘Yes,’ sobbed Mersadie. ‘She said to say goodbye.'
Loken was no expert on the female form, but the figure’s loose robes gave little in its shape to distinguish it. A head turned towards him at the sound of the door opening, and Loken saw something familiar in its faintly elongated occipital structure.
A faint buzzing sound came from the high ceiling, and a humming florescent lumen disc sparked to life. It flickered for a few seconds before the freshly routed power stabilised.
At first Loken thought this was a hallucination or another vision of someone long dead, but when she spoke, it was the voice he knew from the many hours they had spent in remembrance.
He remembered her as being small, even though most mortals were small to him. Her skin had been so black he’d wondered if it had been dyed, but the sickly light of the lumen disk made it seem somehow grey.
Her skull was hairless, made ovoid by cranial implants.
She smiled, the expression faltering and unfamiliar. Loken guessed it had been a long time since she had need of those particular muscles.
‘Hello, Captain Loken,’ said Mersadie Oliton.
[...]
The cell had no furniture, not even a bed. A thin mattress lay folded in one corner, together with a chipped night-soil pot and a small box, like a presentation case for a medal.
‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost,’ said Mersadie, rising from her kneeling position.
Loken’s mouth opened, but no sounds came out.
This was the second dead person he’d seen, but this one was flesh and blood. She was here. Mersadie Oliton, his personal remembrancer.
She was alive. Here. Now.
She wasn’t the same though. The harsh light revealed faded scars tracing looping arcs over the sides and upper surfaces of her diminished skull. Surgical scars. Excisions.
She saw him looking and said, ‘They took out my embedded memory coils. All the images and all the remembrances I’d stored. All gone. All I have left of them are my organic memories and even they’re beginning to fade.’
‘I left you on the Vengeful Spirit,’ said Loken. ‘I thought you must be dead.’
‘I would be if it wasn’t for Iacton,’ replied Mersadie.
‘Iacton? Iacton Qruze?’
‘Yes. He saved us from the murder of the remembrancers and got us off the ship,’ said Mersadie. ‘He didn’t tell you?’
‘No,’ said Loken. ‘He didn’t.’
‘We escaped with Iacton and Captain Garro.’
‘You were on the Eisenstein?’ said Loken, disbelief and wonder competing for his full attention. Qruze had said little of the perilous journey from Isstvan, but neglecting to mention Mersadie’s survival beggared belief.
‘And I wasn’t the only one Iacton saved.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Euphrati got off the Vengeful Spirit, Kyril too.’
‘Sindermann and Keeler are alive?’
Mersadie nodded. ‘As far as I know, but before you ask, I don’t know where they are. I haven’t seen either of them in years.’
Loken paced the interior of the cell, raw emotions surging like a chaotic tide within him. Sindermann had been a dear friend to him. A mentor of superlative intellect and a confidante of sorts, a bridge between trans-human sensibilities and mortal concerns. That Keeler had also survived was a miracle, for the imagist had a real knack for getting herself into trouble.
‘You didn’t know she was alive?’ asked Mersadie.
‘No,’ said Loken.
‘You’ve heard of the Saint?’
Loken shook his head. ‘No. What saint?’
‘You have been out of the loop, haven’t you?’
Loken paused, angry and confused. She was not to blame, but she was here. He wanted to lash out, but released a shuddering breath that seemed to expel a heavy weight of bilious humours.
‘I was dead, I think,’ he said at last. ‘For a while. Or as good as dead. Maybe I was just lost, so very lost.’
‘But you came back,’ said Mersadie, reaching out to take his hand. ‘They brought you back because you’re needed.’
‘So I’m told,’ said Loken wearily, curling his fingers around hers, careful not to squeeze too hard.
They stood unmoving, neither willing to break the silence or the shared intimacy. Her skin was soft, reminding Loken of a fleeting moment in his life. When he had been young and innocent, when he had loved and been loved in return. When he had been human.
Loken sighed and released Mersadie’s hand.
‘I have to get you out of here,’ he said.
‘You can’t,’ she said, withdrawing her hand.
‘I’m one of Malcador’s chosen,’ said Loken. ‘I’ll send word to the Sigillite and have you taken back to Terra. I’m not letting you rot away in here another minute.’
‘Garviel,’ said Mersadie, and her use of his given name stopped him in his tracks. ‘They’re not going to let me out of here. Not for now, at least. I spent a long time in the heart of the Warmaster’s flagship. People have been executed for a lot less.’
‘I’ll vouch for you,’ said Loken. ‘I’ll guarantee your loyalty.’
Mersadie shook her head and folded her arms.
‘If you didn’t know who I was, if you hadn’t shared your life with me, would you want someone like me released? If I was a stranger, what would you do? Turn me loose or keep me imprisoned?’
Loken took a step forward. ‘I can’t just leave you here. You don’t deserve this.’
‘You’re right, I don’t deserve this, but you don’t have a choice,’ said Mersadie. ‘You have to leave me.’
Her hand reached up to brush the bare metal of his unmarked plate. Thin fingers traced the line of his pauldron and swept across the curve of the shoulder guard.
‘It’s strange to see you in this armour.’
‘I no longer have a Legion,’ he said simply, angry at her wilful desire to languish in this prison.
guish in this prison.
She nodded. ‘They told me you died on Isstvan, but I didn’t believe them. I knew you were alive.’
‘You knew I’d survived?’
‘I did.’
‘How?’
‘Euphrati told me.’
‘You said you didn’t know where she was.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Then how–’
Mersadie turned away, as though reluctant to give voice to her thoughts for fear of his ridicule. She bent to retrieve the presentation case from the ground next to the mattress. When she turned back to him, he saw her eyes were wet with tears.
‘I dreamed of Euphrati,’ she said. ‘She told me you’d come here. I know, I know, it sounds ridiculous, but after all I’ve seen and been through, it’s almost normal.’
The anger drained from Loken, replaced by an echoing sense of helplessness. Mersadie’s words touched something deep within him, and he could hear the soft breath of a third person, the ghost of a shadow in a room where none existed.
‘It isn’t ridiculous,’ said Loken. ‘What did she say?’
‘She told me to give you this,’ said Mersadie, holding out the case. ‘To pass on.’
‘What is it?’
‘Something that once belonged to Iacton Qruze,’ she said. ‘Something she said he needs to have again.’
Loken took the box, but didn’t open it.
‘She said to remind Iacton that he is the Half-heard no longer, that his voice will be heard louder than any other in his Legion.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Mersadie. ‘It was a dream, it’s not like it’s an exact science.’
Loken nodded, though what he was hearing made little sense. At least as little sense as answering a summons to war on the word of a dead man.
‘Did Euphrati say anything else?’ he asked.
Mersadie nodded and the tears brimming on the edge of her eyes like a river about to break its banks spilled down her cheeks.
‘Yes,’ sobbed Mersadie. ‘She said to say goodbye.'
Graham McNeil, "The Vengeful Spirit", ch. 7
(простите, чуваки, но будет без перевода. в двенадцатом часу ночи и с планшета я просто не осилю)
А, да. Не надо все это ни в какие обзоры и никуда, пожалуйста. Мне и так завтра стремно будет, когда