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“We need to search your belongings, sir.”
Kim's voice was filled with his usual soft, yet implacable professionalism. His partner, Lieutenant Double-Yefreitor Harrier Du Bois, was, just as typically, not one for tact and gave himself the permission to immediately stick his nose into the nearest nightstand, then into the bookcase.
The man before them was seemingly trying to dissolve into the twilight of the basement, but his distinctly pale face betrayed him, standing out among the dark shadows.
“I assure you,” his eyes darted between the two officers, “Those hate speech accusations are nothing but slander from Evrart! Not to mention the terrorist act! There is absolutely no need for that!”
His hands were trembling.
Harrier Du Bois, raising a mighty, expressive eyebrow, staring intently at the row of mugs adorned with derogatory caricatures of Graadians, Semenese, Samarians, and denizens of the Apricot Suzerainty. Despite his interest, the obvious question remained unasked.
The little man — he couldn't be described otherwise, despite being half a head taller than Harry, not to mention Kim — nervously swallowed, following his gaze.
“If it's slander, then you have nothing to fear,” Kim calmly remarked, not even turning towards the all-too-familiar mugs. “Or do you really think, Gary, that we’d arrest an innocent man just because we don't like something about him?
“No…” Gary gasped convulsively, his nervousness subsiding a bit, ”I don't doubt your impartiality. I am ready to cooperate with the investigation! To tell you anything! But, perhaps,” he pleaded with his eyes, “we could at least skip the search of my belongings?..
“No,” Kitsuragi replied, utterly dispassionately. “Detective, please assist.”
Gary froze in the corner as Harrier Du Bois grunted with satisfaction and pulled the first stack of file folders from the bookcase, placing it on the table. Kim gave a short nod, like a surgeon to an assistant before an operation.Twirling his sideburns around a finger, the Double-Yefreitor began dictating:
“Notes on the Burning Rhinos. “
“Review them.”
“Already did. They are indeed notes on the Burning Rhinos. Next... A file of "Paradox-B" magazines... “
“Anything between the pages?”
“A postcard from "Jamrock 1947"... Oh! It's from Lena! Gary, how is she doing?”
“Not bad…” Gary muttered, his voice barely alive. “She's very happy you discovered the phasmid. Morell, on the other hand, is jealous…”
“Don't get distracted, officer. And what's this... Personal correspondence? “
“No, no. Those are... Drafts.” Gary blushed. “Truly not worth your attention...“
"THE BONY ARMOR" Harrier Du Bois read the title out loud. His eyes suddenly lit up. “Is this... Wait, what is this... About the Man from Hjelmdall?“
“I doubt this is relevant to us,”Kitsuragi quickly said, glancing at Gary, who was red to his ears by now. “This appears to be amateur fiction.”
“But Kim! I want to read it! It's about the Hjelmdall-man!”
“We need to return to the case, detective.”
“Well…” Harry consulted with his mind for a moment. “What if there's some secret code hidden between the pages!”
“...Alright,” Kim sighed. “How many pages are there? Fifteen?”
“Eighteen.”
Gary silently covered his face with his hands. Harrier Du Bois cleared his throat heartily, with a rasp. And began to read aloud.
***
THE BONY ARMOR
“...Finish me,” hissed the foreigner. “Better dead than live like this..!”
The Hjelmdallermann measured him with a stern glance from his ice-blue eyes. The man before him had little life left. A deathly gray face, blue vessels standing out on his forehead, a glassy stare from his red swollen eyes... The Barbarian grunted shortly:
“I will do it. Not out of pity, but because I need your armor. Besides, there must be order in all things. The dead go to the beyond. The living make use of what the dead leave behind.”
“No! Don't wear it! They will come for it... Those who…”
Hjelmdallermann heeded not the warning. Whoever might come for such a marvelous breastplate — he was ready to prove by strength and valor that he was its rightful owner. A moment — and a sweep of the blade snuffed out the flickering life, watering the virgin-white snow with crimson.”
Oh, what a wondrous breastplate it was! Hjelmdallermann pulled it off the corpse over the head. The armor was light, assembled from delicate maiden ribs, and chimed with every movement. But the barbarian had already seen: magical craft had made the marvelous shell impervious to any blow. Its polished joints embraced his mighty torso like the arms of a beautiful woman.
The barbarian looked around. All was quiet in the ruins of the ancient city. Clearly, the breastplate's previous owner had hoped to find refuge in this deserted place, but had succumbed to his wounds. Tracing back the bloody trail, he headed... in the opposite direction.The man from Hjelmdall always feared sorcery. And if fate had tossed such an artifact into his hands, it was foolish to walk towards what it had failed to protect his owner from.
Night was falling upon the ruins. On the remains of the main square, under the rotting awnings of merchants' stalls long forgotten, slowly overtaken by jungles and reeds, the Hjelmdallermann made camp. The warm glow of the campfire drove back the unhealthy, green light of the full moon. The city within it seemed frozen.
Suddenly, the barbarian's keen ear caught light footsteps, no heavier than the beat of a bat's wing. He gripped the hilt of his sword and froze into a heap of supple muscles, like a panther. A wondrous fragrance spilled into the air. It made the head spin and confused the senses, painted the sky around the moon purple — and was the most beautiful scent a man could imagine. The Hjelmdallermann recognized it — the smell of black lotus.
A lithe figure detached itself from the shadows, approaching his fire. Struggling to stand, the barbarian examined the newcomer. He was elegantly built and not tall. His olive skin and broad cheekbones resembled no people known to the Hjelmdallermann, and the barbarian had wandered far. In the narrow cut at the neck, however, it seemed pale compared to his coal-black cloak. The lining of the cloth was the color of fire and shimmered in the gloom as the man moved his arms.
“Who are you?” the Hjelmdallermann rasped, with an incredible effort of will casting off the stupor of the magical scent.
“I am K'him Khi Tsuraghi, creator and rightful owner of the armor you wear,“ came a calm, measured, slightly hoarse voice. “Wouldn't you agree it is rightfully mine?”
“Not a chance,” the Hjelmdallermann parried. “Everyone knows that spoils rightfully belong to the one who took them in battle. And I even fulfilled the dying man's last wish in exchange for this armor. By all laws, written and unwritten, it is now mine, sorcerer. And that you are a sorcerer, I have no doubt.”
In response, K'him laughed with a velvet, husky voice:
“If so, then it can be reclaimed in the same manner. Harrier, to me!”
At his call, a huge creature leaped from the nearest ruins into the circle of firelight. It was hard to say if it was man or beast — dark sorcerous arts had fused the two together. The creature's lush mane swayed with every turn of its head. Its figure resembled a muscular human one, but it rested on four limbs. The fantastic beast's attire consisted of a torn green rag, hastily stretched over its body.
In contrast to the elegant, refined K'him, it was heavy, clumsy — but obviously inhumanly strong. The creature growled, but Hjelmdallermann sensed it was not a declaration of war — but a warning. He surveyed the strange figure with a mixture of respect and pity:
“You, sorcerer, must have had your fun tormenting some strong man. Here's the thing: there's no need to beat each other to death. I'll take off the cuirass, and me and this devil will meet in an honest fight without weapons. The winner gets the armor.”
“I would not refuse to see the famous Man from Hjelmdall in action,” the sorcerer smiled sweetly. “Indeed, I am too attached to Harrier and will not risk his life for naught. Begin!”
The Hjelmdallermann threw the armor to the ground with a dull clatter — like rolling dice. His opponent began angrily pawing the earth. For a moment, they sized each other up, peering with heightened senses. And then they rushed at each other furiously, kicking up dust from the ancient square.
They met in its very center under the greenish moonlight. Hjelmdallermann struck with all his might, but the heap of bestial muscles opposite barely budged. The barbarian understood he could not win by strength — only by endurance. His muscles groaned with strain as he locked Harrier in a hold, but the beast instantly kicked him in the side with its deformed limb. The barbarian felt his shoulder going numb. With a furious cry, he attacked the beast and in a leap mounted it.
Squealing, Harrier began to spin and roll, trying to throw him off, but the Hjelmdallermann clung to its lush mane, not letting it escape. For long minutes, the struggle of tensed bodies continued. In the firelight, the Hjelmdallermann's muscles gleamed like bronze. Harrier seemed a monstrous marble statue come to life, trying to overthrow the hero.
When the defeated Harrier crashed onto the cracked cobblestones, the fire was already dying. In the half-light, the Hjelmdallermann turned, wiping sweat from his brow that ran into his eyes. He could not immediately see the obvious: the ancient city square had long been empty of both K'him and the marvelous cuirass. In anger, Hjelmdallermann turned to Harrier, but it too was gone: only the sounds of rhythmic leaps came from the jungles beginning to the west.
Uttering a furious cry, the barbarian snatched a brand from the fire. Its dull red glow lit his path. He began to pursue the monster, counting on it leading him, sooner or later, to its deceitful master. It was not difficult — Harrier did not bother to hide its tracks, leaving behind its musky stench spreading in the air, torn vines, and branches of mighty southern trees knocked to the ground.
When the barbarian caught up to the monster, the wondrous scent of black lotus once again made his head spin. Stumbling, he gave himself away with the crack of a branch and too late realized he was not the only one pursuing the deceivers: in the clearing, around K'him with his hands raised and his now tame companion, stood three other warriors, all clad in the same nightmarish bony cuirasses as their dead comrade.K'him stood tense, the blade of one warrior's sword pressed against his slender, elegant throat. Harrier growled desperately but could do nothing.
“Here is the one I spoke of,” K'him uttered evenly, pointing to the Hjelmdallermann. No note in his voice betrayed any agitation. “It was he who slit the throat of one of yours. I merely took possession of the armor, already removed from a corpse.”
The bone-clad warriors turned to the Hjelmdallermann, their faces hidden by hideous skull-masks, making them resemble senseless, deathly visions. Two of them moved toward Hjelmdallermann, and from the corner of his eye, the barbarian saw the third raising a gleaming blade over K'him's head.
With a cry, the Hjelmdallermann attacked the two bone-clad fighters. A futile effort, as he knew. The enchanted armor of maiden bone rendered even the most crushing blows to nothing. Behind him, Harrier desperately seized the arm of the third warrior with its jaws, its fangs clicking and clattering, sliding over the chiming white surface. The barbarian caught one of the fighters in his bear-like embrace. It did the man no harm, but, straining, the Hjelmdallermann wrenched him completely off the ground with a heave. The man thrashed, polished bones clattering against each other.
“No matter how civilization schemes,” the Hjelmdallermann growled, “Its ingenuity is nothing before true strength!”
With these words, he dropped the opponent headfirst. The man's neck crunched sickeningly inside the invulnerable skull, and his body began to convulse in death throes.
The barbarian pivoted on his heels and saw K'him shove his blade right into the open eye socket of the second attacker's enchanted skull. The third, with an angry cry, ran the sorcerer through with his sword, and... the bloodied blade passed clean through, meeting no bony cuirass on its way.
With a short cry, K'him fell to his knees. Harrier, growling gutturally, lunged at the attacker. Before the man could strike the Hjelmdallermann, Harrier pinned the enemy to the ground with all its weight. The barbarian's keen ear caught the familiar dry clatter. K’him had put on the armor... on his monster.
Now K'him laid on the ground, clutching a wound in his side. Red seeped through his fingers. The Hjelmdallermann raised his sword to finish him, but the sorcerer, suddenly opening his bottomless, obsidian-like eyes, pleaded:
“Help me, I beg you. I will explain everything.”
Later, Hjelmdallermann would attribute his decision to the stupor of the black lotus, but in truth he was seized by the genuine curiosity inherent in children of nature. Tearing a strip from the edge of his cloak, he began to bandage K'him. From pain and blood loss, his peculiar, noble skin tone had almost faded, yielding to the deathly pallor so familiar to the Hjelmdallermann. Lying on the ground, K’him told his tale:
“The one who now answers to the name Harrier was once my friend. He was the noblest of men, intelligent and strong. But he was a mortal warrior, like you, and one day his love left him, forever departing for distant lands.
He could not bring her back, but neither could he forget. He sought out an ancient ritual to help him summon the image of his beloved. But it was black magic. With each use, it took a piece of his humanity, and so it continued until his throat grew too coarse to utter magical words, and his eyes forgot what human writing was.
I learned the magical arts in an attempt to turn him back. But Harrier was noticed, and, seeking to obtain a curious trophy, they began to hunt him. I only wanted to protect him from encroachment until I found a means to transform him back into the man I knew.”
“Well,” the barbarian only shrugged in response, gesturing to the dead bodies of the fighters, “now there are enough cuirasses here for all of us. We'll take the armor off the dead and split it evenly. Though I despise sorcery, yours has a noble goal. I have no reason to consider you enemies now, for you have nothing I desire.”
“What, truly nothing?” K'him smiled weakly. The cloak torn by the barbarian partially exposed his slender, lean, almost fragile body. “A pity to hear. Because I have favors with which I would not mind rewarding a strong, mighty warrior. Harrier lost his human form long ago, and I have been alone for a long time…”
The Hjelmdallermann only smiled, lifting K'him's light body into his arms. Jealously, but without malice, Harrier snorted, rising from the corpse of the third soldier, who had suffocated face down in the dirt.
“Your "favors" will be far more attractive without a hole in your side. First, we find shelter, and then... we shall see.”
***
The last line Harry read echoed dully off the basement walls. Gary was still sitting with his face buried in his hands. With a tremendous amount of volition, he finally forced himself to look at the officers. Harrier Du Bois seemed sad, thoughtfully twirling his lush mustache around a finger. His eyes were fixed on the lines of the text but seemed to look right through them. Gary closed his eyes. Opened them. And looked up at Kim.
At first glance, he remained motionless, with the same inscrutable face, upon which the warm yellow glow of the basement lamps danced. But it was precisely this interplay of light and shadow that illuminated something surprising: Kim... was laughing silently.
“I would have filed this report-” he said, wiping an invisible moisture from the corner of his eye, “-at the 41st precinct, instead of my own. But I fear good old Price wouldn't appreciate romantic plots about youthful suspects. Even if they depict themselves as mighty barbarians.
“What, you don't like barbarians?” Gary ventured to ask, emboldened.
“Not particularly,” Kim nodded to him, giving him a meaningful look. “Sometimes things and people are fine as they are. I am a proponent of civilization.”