Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The moment the bone-penetrating cold became simply unbearable, Gepard understood that something was wrong. Too many disparate factors must have converged before the captain of the Silvermane Guards finally grasped the truth: his hands, hardened and accustomed to touching any metallic surface, were trembling and growing numb beyond all control in the fierce frost.

At first, the younger Landau had found this fairly innocuous and even proper, but only until the realisation struck him dully in the head. He was at home. In his solitary dwelling, neither the fireplace nor the heating was ever turned off. Even in summer, the walls of the Landau family house were warmed by the hearth's heat. Ash from the fireplace drifted steadily through the rooms, settling atop a thick layer of dust, while the cold sunlight that penetrated through the vast gaps in the decorative curtains was heated by the enormous panes of glass, granting an influx of additional warmth pleasant to the skin.

Under the very best of circumstances, on the most outstanding of days, one could easily cook something on the marble windowsills of his abode. Gepard, of course, had never tried it. Not even Lynx had ever engaged in such things, and the captain lacked the imagination to picture himself frying, say, an egg on a windowsill. His age and position were not suited to burning time on testing his own dubious theories.

That did not change the essence, however. It was impossible to remain in his house even in light clothing.

That was precisely why everything Gepard now felt seemed a wild absurdity. His feet, uncovered by the fur blanket, had turned blue from the piercing, icy draught. His fingers, which could not even half bend, were simply numb. And he had the sensation that even the blood in the younger Landau's body was gradually beginning to chill.

From the horror Gepard experienced the moment he fully returned to consciousness, his body gave an involuntary shudder. Or rather, it was seized by a powerful, unpleasant cramp. A sickening feeling inside, the agitation spread through his veins, and the guard, only just come to his senses, found the phone on the nightstand far from his first attempt. Cold, like a piece of thin, weighty ice, it turned out to be almost entirely discharged. Calls, messages, and notifications were pouring in without pause, but the silent mode suppressed them all.

The most persistent in the flood of messages proved to be Serval, who without cease, without even spending time on thinking or composing the text, was hammering out short, separate phrases. There were indeed many chats; people were writing various things. Lady Bronya had limited herself to several lengthy conservative texts. Pelageya Sergeyevna, who at the start of the conversation had also tried to maintain conservatism and subordination, had apparently grown far too weary of the brazen disregard and by the end was already shouting at him in capital letters, appealing to his conscience and insisting on his immediate arrival at headquarters. He did not even bother to glance at the rest. He only skimmed the messages from his sister. She, just as insistently, was asking him to come to the workshop.

Something truly strange was taking place.

It was only eight o'clock. His phone was exploding with messages. A piercing draught roamed through his room. Outside the window, the sun was gone. An unrestrained blizzard resembled a snowy apocalypse. Several more seconds passed before Gepard grasped just how serious everything had become. Yet he was a man of ordinary mind, attuned only to executing the liberties of others, so it was difficult for him to work out or deduce anything on his own. Until now, however, such a cast of mind had caused no problems.

Strangely, as he scrolled through the endlessly refreshing feed of messages, he found not a single one from Lady Cocolia.

It was as though this woman, dwelling in her unconstrained prostration, had once again failed to notice anything. As though she herself were this polar chill that was certain to devour alive anyone who, in their own foolishness, had left their warm hearth today.

A blizzard raged outside the window. Large snow, tiny ice crystals, and small, almost weightless road stones struck the windows with a quiet knock. They were too minuscule and insignificant to truly damage the glass, but the mere fact that stones, driven by the northern winds, were striking his windows was somewhat alarming.

Standing abruptly with his bare feet on the ice-cold parquet, the man felt as though his soles had been pierced by steel ice needles. A light, thin layer of frost on the floor was turning his room into one hollow ice cube, which for some time now had gleamed not only with perfect cleanliness but with a cold hovering everywhere.

Casting a brief, bewildered glance out of the window, he noted with growing unease that he could not see the street at all. Only the unrestrained blizzard, sweeping along in its mad dance the merging snowflakes. A truly horrifying sight.

The howling northern wind, more akin to the frantic screams of the creatures of the Fragmentum, mentally carried the captain back to the northern bulwark. His memories of it were hazy, veiled in a thin film of soldiers' blood that had washed his hands in a gentle stream. Hands that, despite all the efforts applied, could not stop trembling. Hands that, in a convulsive attempt to type a message, dropped the phone to the floor with such a rending crack, as though it were not a phone that had fallen but an entire slab of an old mirror.

The man made no move to pick up the gadget. A pitiful one percent remained on it; the cracked screen seemed the least of his problems. Everything around him was sheer surrealism. As though the captain had drunk far too heavily the day before, on such a vile brew that his consciousness had simply departed that morning for a world entirely constructed by a hangover.

Without light. Without warmth. Without connection or sun.

Only, this world was entirely real. A world in which even the water standing on the nightstand beside his bed had frozen solid. On legs that would scarcely bend, Landau walked with determination towards the wardrobe to choose clothing that would not become a steel grave for him and would not freeze by the third step.

There were not many options.

He could not wear his armour today; he would have to peel it off together with his skin. The metal on it cooled swiftly, bonded to the flesh for good, and afterwards one could neither remove it nor tear it away. Today was one of his few official days off. A truly rare day and, as it turned out, one exceedingly prone to unpleasantness. And so the day did not pass without further trouble.

Either his legs tangled in the fleece-lined trousers, or he missed the sleeves of his jacket far from the first attempt. And, as though all that chthonic madness were not enough, he inevitably slipped on the threshold of his own dwelling. An epic failure, one that made his cheeks, already scarlet from the frost, blush even redder.

Gepard left the house with absolutely no idea of what awaited him further. He did not lock the door. He would return home in the evening; the last thing he needed was to find himself simply unable to insert the key. He left the lights on as well. Perhaps his window would become a saving beacon for someone in this kaleidoscope of snow.

Outside, it proved exponentially worse than at home. The wind, sweeping along at incredible speeds, packed snow into everything it could touch. Exposed patches of skin stung horribly, as though someone dead were drawing ice needles across them. The roar of the wind in his ears, the fading sound of intravenous circulation, and nothing but snow and an icy wasteland. Along the street, driven by the northern wind, drifted refuse from bins overturned at some earlier time.

The sky of Belobog was not visible for even a quarter of its expanse. Captain Landau was forced to use his hands to at least partially shield his eyes from the snowflakes hurtling into them at tremendous speed.

Right now they were truly lethal.

If he judged by his own sensation of frost on the skin, the temperature was approaching a critical low, one that no resident or guest of Yarilo could recall. Not a soul on the street, not a single Silvermane guard. Even stray animals, which ordinarily wandered alone in any weather, were nowhere to be met. The planet seemed to have died out in an instant, leaving the young captain entirely alone.

And the feeling, as though he were back on the northern bulwark.

Completely alone.

Through the grim outlines of buildings buried under unmeltable snow, it was hard to tell where Landau's path lay. He needed to reach Serval now, but he had no certainty that he would not freeze along the way. He no longer felt his hands, and the sole panacea in all this icy madness proved to be the cold itself. Ironic, that it was precisely the cold that kept his clothing from getting wet. The snow did not melt on it; repelled, it fell to his feet.

He still had… a long way to go. In ordinary times, the guard would have covered this distance in about thirty minutes, perhaps even stopping at a grocer's along the way or saluting every passer-by. Now, it would be fortunate if he found the road at all, seeing nothing beyond the fur on his own collar.

And he was terrified, too.

The light of dim streetlamps, the cry of a crow sitting beneath the carved ledge of one of the buildings, and his reality was a single instant frozen in ice. The screaming crow was probably no less afraid of what was happening than Gepard was, but unlike it, all was not yet lost for the young commander. Ordinarily, he would turn aside, approach, and tuck the unfortunate, frozen bird into his coat, only his knees, which were barely managing to carry his stubborn body, were clearly not calculated for extra steps. He was afraid he would not make it.

After some time, his legs altogether ceased to hold and bend. The snow still lashed painfully at his face, but he could no longer raise his hands before him. Even though he felt nothing with them any longer, despite their resting in his pockets, a categorical unwillingness to let his hands freeze entirely gave him not a single chance to lift them before his face.

When the sign of the workshop finally appeared in the distance, the cry of the dying bird ceased.

His teeth ground together a little louder than necessary.

It seemed the street darkened by several more shades. Everywhere, as though leaden paints had been overturned, and it felt as though the street was saturated through and through with their scent. Impossible to tell whence, impossible to tell what, impossible to tell anything.

Landau simply needed to make it.

About twenty steps more, moving like an iron golem from old children's tales, images of which still sat static in the commander's head. Serval had read him those tales long ago. In a distant childhood, ephemeral, it seemed, which the man so fervently wished to forget.

He wanted to keep in his memory only the recollections of those stories that his sister had read to her hapless little brother, crawling into his bed with a flashlight after lights-out. That had been a good time. Only occasionally had the cruel daily reality darkened it. Yet even that reality now seemed a far-off, forgotten Eden, from which they had simply been kicked out in disgrace, straight into a world made of blood and cold.

A world where Gepard was no longer certain he could walk even twenty more steps.

Tumbling into the workshop, Landau instantly broke out in a sweat. From the lack of air and the abrupt shift in temperature, his vision swiftly darkened, and the knight sank powerlessly onto one knee right in the doorway.

The static noises surrounding his head like radio silence gradually subsided. He had the sense that everyone's attention was fixed on the guard. With effort, Gepard lifted his eyes and noted with a kind of defeat that he could not even take in with his gaze the crowd that had appeared before him. Stuffiness, hubbub, whispers, shocked gasps, and relieved exhales. This entire incredible palette of sounds flowed slowly beneath his skin, utterly killing the oppressive feeling that had accompanied him the whole winter journey to the workshop.

The air seemed to vibrate, and his lungs felt as though they had been wrapped in a bag so as to prevent him from catching his breath at any cost. Despite all the heaviness of his half-frozen body, the guard straightened himself with dignity. The superfluous anxieties instantly evaporated from his face, along with everything that might incline people towards unfounded panic and hysteria. A moment passed; the stagnant noise was shattered by a cough. Having cleared his throat, Landau once again surveyed those assembled with an appraising look.

"What…" Gepard exhaled uncertainly; sternness simply would not come. "What is happening?"

No immediate answer came from anyone. No one could give a clear, structured response to the question posed, but Landau was a patient man. The people were frightened; they understood no more of this than he did. Asking them anything seemed a losing idea from the start.

The hubbub resolved into individual voices.

"The cold. We don't know exactly what happened, Captain Landau," a girl who had stepped forward said, cracking her knuckles uncertainly as she tried to speak over the crowd. "Around five in the morning. Clouds covered the sky… and… well…" She bashfully hid her face, reddened either from the cold or from tears. "A-and, in a few hours, the city turned into this."

Closing his leaden eyelids, the guard let out a short, sharp exhale.

"Understood. Serval. Where is she?"

The people, like old bobbleheads, began to turn their heads in search of the woman named.

"The mistress of the workshop was here about ten minutes ago. Then she went off somewhere with a person from the Underworld. Said she'd be back. I think she went upstairs. Something wrong with the furnace."

The uncertain girl spoke quietly. Landau had to strain his hearing greatly to make out exactly what she was mumbling. He could not, for the life of him, understand her uncertainty. Something that was, to say the least, God knows what was happening, and here she was, timid and mumbling. Not that it was his place to judge, however. His task was as simple as primitive arithmetic. Take his heart, light it if necessary, and hand it over to the people.

Gepard would give his life for every inhabitant of this planet, forgotten by all.

Such is the path of a faithful follower of Qlipoth. Such is the path of a member of the Landau family. Such will be the path of Gepard himself.

By the moment the captain had fully come to his senses, the crowd was no longer paying him any attention. With the simple gesture of touching the back of his fist to his chest, he saluted the people standing before him and, with his usual strictness, turned towards the door leading to the second floor of the workshop.

His wet jacket fell to the floor with a soft slap; the commander had no strength to hang it up. Simply straightening his back was hard enough, and besides, the building was mortally stuffy. It seemed he was swiftly growing faint. They had clearly overdone the heating. Those who feared the cold far too strongly did not wish to become part of Belobog's icy landscape, and so everyone kept feeding in firewood, books, rags, parts of furniture.

Serval herself must surely have permitted it. Otherwise, they would answer for damaging her property.

Pulsing pains tore at his head, and tonnes of thoughts refused to let the younger Landau relax. Even as he was just climbing the stairs to the second floor on the creaking, half-wooden steps, the man discerned the voices of those dwelling just above his head. His sister's voice was ordinary, calm, but hoarse. She gave a muffled cough from time to time. The second voice belonged to…

"What are you doing here?"

The captain said this several times louder than necessary. Three pairs of eyes stared at him in astonishment. The third person in the room turned out to be Lynx. She was sitting on a tiny stool, barely reaching the middle of its carved legs.

"Geppie!" The woman abruptly laid a hand on his shoulder, squeezing hard. "How are you? Why didn't you answer?"

"My phone discharged from the cold." The blond thought for a second about continuing. "I think I broke it." Gepard swiftly averted his embarrassed gaze while his cheeks disappeared into scarlet shades.

"Oh, Geppie… You can't be that careless. Do you understand what's happened?"

His sister's gaze was worried. Yet Gepard was interested in something else entirely.

"What is he doing here?"

Sampo scratched the back of his head with exaggerated awkwardness, theatrically dropping to one knee before Landau.

"Oh! For once, Captain, you have finally caught me." The conman rolled his lower lip; the guard's eye twitched. "Whatever shall I do now…"

Gepard was now blushing entirely.

"Get up at once! You're behaving like a cynical… something!"

Sampo Koski was the greatest problem of the captain of the Silvermane Guards. The most incorrigible and shameless conman who had tormented not only the Underworld, from which this character had essentially crawled out, but all of the Overworld as well. This man drove Landau to tremors, making him tear the hair from his head in vexation and humiliation.

The only person in the Overworld whom Landau would have brought as a willing sacrifice for, say, one month's payment of water and gas.

Sampo smiled slyly, rose from his knee, and, placing a hand over his heart with great drama, said:

"Oh, my captain, my captain. Your words, alas, do not break my heart, but the pain from your groundless scepticism does not grow any less."

Even Lynx involuntarily winced at his words. Wafting away the clouds of thick steam rising from her thermos with her hand, she struggled against the mute desire to leave. Such brazen words directed at her brother made her grimace in discomfiture; an awkward silence hung in the room.

"How vile you are, Koski." In that moment, for some reason, all interest in the mannered raccoon evaporated. He did not even feel like scolding him. "What is happening?"

The expression on Serval's face grew more worried and serious. She rarely worried; her outstanding mind and ability to think coldly truly restructured her brain. Panic was alien to her, and for some time now she had entirely forgotten how to yield to negative emotions. Yet even she had been affected.

"Geppie, you see, everything has only gotten worse." She fell silent for a second. "I know you don't like it when I talk about this, but it is definitely the Stellaron, and it…"

Gepard looked into her eyes with a measure of sadness, gently touching her shoulder.

"I understand what you're driving at. You know how loyal I am to Lady Cocolia. I believe that only she, the true guardian of our bastion, is what has kept us from turning into icicles until now. I believe the Architects could not have been mistaken when choosing the guardian. I believe in Lady Cocolia. And I also believe in her."

"You saw what is happening outside! Soon even the Architects won't be able to save us. They already can't do anything. I can't do anything, Geppie. Look down." Serval pointed rudely at the crowd with her finger. "All of these are living people. You cannot place them below your faith, for no one shares it. You yourself understand perfectly well that Lady Rand played far from the last role in this." She fell silent again and tenderly touched his cheek, wiping away a single melted drop. "Is she truly dearer than the oath of preservation?"

The elder Landau looked at him with hope, with forbearance. She looked at him as though he were a panacea that with its tender hands would grant them immortality. She looked at him the way she once did in childhood.

"I will never place the life and the faith of the guardian above the lives of those I swore to protect. It's just, Serval, you don't understand! No, you probably do understand what lies beyond the limits of my mind. I don't know what I'm supposed to do."

Gepard exhaled heavily. Everyone expected something of him, only no one wished to explain anything. Before Serval could manage a reply, the suspended silence of the workshop was rent by a loud, piercing cough.

Lynx reacted first, jumping up from her well-warmed spot. Without wasting time on questions, she shoved the thermos, its liquid still steaming, into Serval's hands.

"Sister!" The girl laid a worried hand on her back. "Are you all right?"

Sampo also peeled himself away from the table that he had, all this while, been quite successfully propping up with his backside. Approaching the elder Landau, he too wanted to place a hand on her back, but a sharp blow to his wrist made it clear that he ought to keep his distance from the woman. The younger Landau was supremely displeased.

"You know, Geppie…"

"Do not dare call me that, Koski." Anger made the captain grind his teeth involuntarily. "You're not in the position to."

"That was rude, Captain."

"Earned."

"Was it? It seemed to me that over the endless string of futile attempts to catch me, we had grown somewhat closer?"

"Don't flatter yourself, Koski. Over the endless string of my attempts to pin you down," Landau spoke reluctantly, almost through force, "I have come to feel nothing for you but revulsion."

"Oh, you are as cold and distant as ever."

"Live with it."

And then, another deafening cough. The discussion ceased in an instant.

All gazes fixed only on Serval, who was racked by coughing. Bent double, she could not fully rid herself of the scratching in her throat. Barking, loud, and agonised. A little more and she would be spitting blood. No one knew precisely what to do. No medicine, no healers. The situation was, to say the least, critical.

Gepard was afraid even to touch her. On his face was an unprecedented timidity, uncertainty, and doubt. All the emotions Captain Landau so passionately disliked had merged on his pale face; even the former pinkish hue was gone.

The man stood in a stupor and could do nothing with himself. A multitude of thoughts, following a sudden illumination, would not leave his head. The coughing did not cease.

"Do something. Why are you just standing there? You can see your sister is unwell."

The younger Landau, though displeased by her brother's sudden numbness, spoke with tender concern. His state provoked faint notes of anxiety in her, which only worsened with the sluggishness of the atmosphere and the external irritants. Bewilderment was readable in her eyes. Lynx did not even know for whom she ought to worry more. Her brother still had not answered her; the girl frowned slightly in displeasure.

"Serval, hold on please. I'll find a doctor right now. Everything will be fine, wait a moment." Her hand reluctantly detached itself from her sister. "Just a moment."

She turned and darted out the door, only flashing the metallic inserts on her miniature boots. The door closed behind her with a quiet, drawn-out knock. Three remained in the room.

The younger Landau was brought back to reality by a few light, insistent taps on his right cheek.

"Pull yourself together, Captain. It doesn't become you to parody a short circuit." His semi-serious tone brought Gepard's mind back into a heap. It became unpleasant. Koski's touches proved fatal to the sensitivity of his face.

"Have you got no one else to bother? Don't you dare touch me." The pallor slowly receded; his cheeks flushed faster than he would have liked. "You are repulsive."

In a mocking gesture, Sampo playfully drew a finger across Gepard's face. From the lower lid down to the chin, provoking in Landau stroke after stroke along the way, from internal overstrain and an insurmountable desire to strike the vermin so hard he would not get up again.

"Why, you…"

"Could you calm down and not occupy yourselves with devil knows what?" Serval was supremely displeased. She had long since stopped coughing, very nearly leaving her lungs on the carved stool upon which Lynx had previously sat, and no one had noticed. "You probably don't understand. If nothing is done, we are all finished. But no! Instead of looking for solutions, you have to busy yourselves with this obscurantism. And Sampo is one thing, but you, Geppie! How can you lose your composure so easily in response to his childish provocations?"

Gepard felt truly ashamed, while the blue-haired conman merely snorted, casting a smug little glance towards the captain. The blond understood that anger was useless and surrendered, retreating into unconditional capitulation.

"What can we do?"

Sampo demonstrated a prudence uncharacteristic of his personality.

"At last, the right questions! To begin with, the most important thing." Serval held a pause. "People. All the people of the Overworld are either here or in the museum right now. Pela and the guards are there, and for now nothing threatens them. But there are people in the Underworld too, and they need to be pulled out. Geppie, did you read the messages from Bronya?"

There was no point in lying.

"No. I didn't have time."

"This morning, when all this was just beginning, Bronya called me. I didn't fully understand what she wanted from me, but even then she was halfway to the Underworld. Five hours have passed, but Bronya still hasn't got in touch, though she said she would certainly report back in about two hours. Something has happened to her."

It felt as though the room had grown several degrees colder. The tense atmosphere flew about the room like road dust, and nothing was so deeply desired as simply to wake up. To break the shackles of this dream that had turned in an instant into a nightmare, to step outside, as always, to work, and simply to rejoice that all of this was only the games of a mind sick from overwork.

"You want?.."

"Yes, I do. Will you go down there?"

Serval looked at him with her heart dropping before her eyes. It was hard for her to suppress the cough tearing its way out, but it seemed that until she received a satisfactory answer, she would not utter a sound. For himself, Captain Landau had already decided everything long ago. Only, he could not shake the feeling that he simply would not make it to the Underworld. He had never had occasion to visit it. More than that, it seemed that his whole life they had deliberately hidden from him the events taking place a level beneath his feet.

Into the space between his moral dilemma and Serval, the blue-haired conman slipped like a viscous substance.

"Well, suppose he goes down, maybe even pulls up your lady knight and all three and a half inhabitants of the mines. What then?" Koski threw his hands up carelessly. "By the time he gets back, we'll all already have become part of the ice sculpture exhibition at the Belobog Museum of Local Lore. And all of them too, by the way. About forty minutes after arrival."

Both Landaus exhaled loudly; all their confidence shattered against the iceberg of the long-term perspective. Koski decided to salvage the situation.

"Now, now, my dear felines, there is one perfectly sensible thought." With the learned air of an expert, Sampo began to hold forth: "Serval, you surely know where Cocolia is. At least roughly. You give the coordinates to our mini-Landau, she'll find the exact location of the Stellaron, and by the time Geppie lifts the Underworld, our little task group will go to the guardian for explanations. A few followers of the Paths should suffice, let's say."

The thought was quite sound; only, Gepard did not like it at all.

"I will not let Lynx out into the field. Do you even understand what you're saying? I barely made it here, nearly turned to ice on the way, and you're suggesting Lynx go alone into the snow-covered fields? Am I understanding you correctly?"

Koski faltered a little. He had not thought of that. He had blurted out the first thing that came to mind based on the available information. He had heard much about the youngest of the Landaus, who disappeared for months at a time into the icy wastes. Only, the situation now was different. It was so cold that dogs were freezing on the move, falling like statues onto the chill, snow-covered tiles.

"Well, then I really don't know. My genius brain has exhausted all its ideas."

"Then we need to…"

The door burst open with a crash. Into the room walked Lynx, disappointed and angry. Her cheeks, scarlet with righteous fury and embarrassment, puffed up indignantly, and her hands, with clenched fists, trembled slightly.

"Not a single doctor! It's simply mockery! They laughed, watching me run around looking for a doctor." Her eyes were wet. "Geppie!"

In a single step, the man was beside her, wrapping his arms around her head, pressing her to his chest. She ringed him, clinging tightly, tightly, like a drowning person to a rubber buoy. His pale hand came to rest gently on the back of her head; Lynx gave a small sob, pressing herself harder.

"Sister… your cough…"

"Nothing serious. Surely just a common cold."

Sampo once again rent the tender silence that had reigned, which had wrapped the atmosphere around the Landau family like a warm blanket.

"I've got an acquaintance. Lives in the Underworld. She's a healer; she has her own hospital, I think. Natasha's her name. If you do go to the Underworld, Geppie, find her first. Put her at the top of the rescue operation, so to speak."

Gepard reacted sharply.

"Firstly, not Geppie! Secondly, I have no intention of prioritising anyone's life. Before the face of Qlipoth, all are equal: healers and miners alike."

"As you say, as you say."

Lynx lifted her head to look at her brother in bewilderment, quickly putting together what was what. She simply could not let him go into the mines alone.

"I'm coming with you."

"Have you lost your mind?" The question was rhetorical and, in part, exceedingly rude. Landau gave himself a mental slap. "You're not going."

"No, Geppie." Serval rose to Lynx's defence. "The only one who has lost his mind here is you. You really understand nothing about survival or journeys. You're more likely than not to never even reach the mines."

She decided not to spin around her foolish brother like a child's top. He was unlikely to enjoy the truth that he was simply not adapted to extreme conditions. Only, she could not make him see reason any other way than directly.

"Sampo will go with you as well."

"What?!"

The question was uttered by all three simultaneously. The younger Landaus and Koski exchanged bewildered glances. No one desired such a prolonged time together. It seemed Sampo's indignation knew no bounds.

"Serval! I understand everything, you're afraid for your purring ones and all that. But what have I got to do with it at all?"

"You, Koski, must also have limits to your own cowardice and greed."

Serval propped up her chin in displeasure, looking at the conman from under her brow. Her gaze was heavy and penetrating; it felt as though nothing at all rested at its bottom. As though a mental bridge had grown between them, delivering thoughts from one head to another. Surprisingly, in such a tense atmosphere, it was Serval herself who first broke the silence.

"Remember what we agreed upon. You can't back out now. Otherwise, I shall simply throw you out of the workshop."

Now it was Koski whose eyes flashed. He surveyed all the Landaus who were watching him closely, attentively, even appraisingly. Their eyes were full of a measure of contempt for all his worst vices; their hearts burned like the flame in the single furnace that kept them from merging with the blizzard.

The people of the Landau line were truly the sole noble shield of Belobog. Beneath their unrelenting pressure, one could only surrender.

Their cold resolve forced capitulation. And the promise Serval had given him also greatly spurred on his thirst to play the hero. Although, as he left the workshop with his travelling companions, he was no longer certain of the equal worth of such a dubious exchange.

Surprisingly, screams, quarrels, and bickering were avoided in the first hours of the snow-covered journey. And that was not surprising at all. In the cold, the tongue simply froze to the roof of the mouth, and even the slightest movement of it delivered an unimaginable bouquet of unpleasant sensations.

Sampo simply could not manage to change his body's position, his trajectory of movement, or even the rhythm of his own steps. The elder Landau could not manage a steady exhale, for it felt as though his throat, face, and nose were being doused with liquid nitrogen. It was as if he were being converted into the cold vapours of a lethal gas, penetrating under his skin, scraping along the walls of his lungs. And only Lynx walked calmly, nimbly shifting her little legs, stepping briskly ahead of them all. The wind bypassed the girl. Like a streamlined fish, she glided through the storm. Gepard kept trying to seize her by the hand and place her behind him, but each of his attempts was met with a stern yet grateful look.

It seemed that only Lynx did not feel the cold, while even the rarest bird could not be encountered in such severe climatic conditions. The gusts of wind, howling in the manner of creatures dying in wild agony, pursued the travellers, pierced them to the bone. At this sound, one wanted to cover one's ears. One wanted to flee, to rid oneself of it, yet it seemed to be everywhere, slowly, viscously seeping into the head, settling in the brain.

The streetlamps no longer burned. In some places the bulbs had cracked from the cold; in others, God only knew what had happened to them. They were fortunate only in that, by the end of the day, they would surely enter the mines.

They did not have long left to walk. About two hours. Perhaps a little less. But already he wanted simply to sink down in the middle of the road. Hopelessness enveloped Captain Landau like a domestic blanket. He gave an uncertain sniff, looking around in bewilderment, while Lynx, walking ahead of him, did not slow her pace for a second. The map in her hands threatened at any moment to fly away with the next gust, but his sister held it firmly. And the journey came so easily to her that she had time to glance back at Gepard walking behind her and at Koski, who could barely move his wooden legs.

From his face, it was hard to determine what predominated: true biblical suffering, or righteous anger at himself, at Serval, and at his own greed that had literally forced him to go with them. Nothing any longer seemed especially important to him except his own life. Not glory, not profit, not the endless thirst for adventurism, which in the present situation more closely resembled an attempt at suicide.

Nothing else mattered any longer.

He had long since stopped watching the road. Although the blizzard had already begun to subside, he had no desire to take his hands away from his face. Had it not been for Gepard, stubbornly walking ahead, Koski would have turned back long ago.

When the entrance to the mines appeared up ahead, all three involuntarily exhaled. The entrance, nearly half buried in snow, seemed a true panacea. It reeked of impenetrable darkness and the smell of mouldy dampness.

Drawing almost right up to the entrance, Gepard finally managed to pull Lynx behind his back. This time she did not resist, giving silent thanks.

A metre-high snowdrift lay peacefully before the elder Landau. The very sight of the snowy heap repelled one with a sensation of pure cold. A primordial cold, without admixtures or any complications whatever. The moment he stepped into it, the captain shuddered. It became horribly unpleasant when the fine, loose snow, with the most loathsome sensation, crept into his boots. Although it did not grow colder by even a degree, the persistent feeling of clammy footwear provoked goosebumps and a trembling in his body.

Gepard's face contorted, and even his thoughts entirely abandoned his head, leaving it like a hollow birdhouse through whose walls the draught of the northern wind wandered.

And yet, with a measured, firm step, he traversed the snowdrift, leaving a path for his travelling companions. Stopping afterwards, he at last glanced back. Lynx had already vanished from sight, slipping past her brother. The girl settled herself beside him and now, too, was watching Koski trudging behind, who, with the air of a martyr, his hips brushing the crumbly snow, was plodding along the little track.

"Listen, Geppie, deep in my soul I knew, of course, that you are cruel and dream of my death, but freezing… Even for you, that's too much!" Sampo looked at his tormentor from beneath snow-covered lashes, sniffing, his teeth chattering.

Landau sharply raised a brow.

"It's not my fault you're ill-adapted, Koski. Everyone is cold, yet for some reason you're the one holding us up and playing the martyr."

Sampo puffed up theatrically. With one light movement of his hand, he brushed the snow from the surface of his trousers and strode forward, leaving the irritated Landaus behind.

It was cold in the tunnel. The whistle of the wind gave rise to pulsing headaches; the walls around them seemed to roar and press in dangerously. On the path ahead, there were no more snowdrifts, no more blizzards, and the cloud-covered sky was no longer visible. Emptiness reigned in the cavern. The travellers were met by impenetrable darkness and rotten wooden crossbeams that, with the last of their strength, held the rock from collapsing.

It was damp, but the habitual water dripping from the ceilings was nowhere to be seen. It had all frozen, spreading in a thin layer of ice underfoot. And so slippery was it that Gepard nearly fell, holding tightly to Lynx's hand. The glaze of ice, the steep incline, and nerves laid bare by worry allowed Landau no chance to calm himself.

He was strained to the limit, like an arrow at full draw. It seemed that one wrong move, and the heart beating with life would split the burning tip. One wrong exhale, and slipping, their entire company would roll uncontrollably down to the very bottom, breaking all their thin, clammy bones along the way.

Gepard did not worry for himself, let alone for Sampo. Lynx was the sole thing that made his brain overstrain itself. If she came to harm, the man would never forgive himself. There would be no meaning either in his oath of preservation or in his destiny if he could not even protect his younger sister.

Terrible, simply terrible.

Fear bestowed a lush, multi-coloured bouquet of loathsome feelings and sensations. Yet he could not lose face. Not now, when his reason, tormented and weary, was supposed to resemble a little piece of ice, blazing hotly with prudence.

Landau stopped abruptly, turned, and swept his gaze over his sister and the conman, who had long since shifted to the rear and had already managed to lag a little behind.

"Koski, walk in front," the words were minted without visible delay.

The displeasure that surfaced instantly on Sampo's face could have been scooped up with spoons. His neat brow flew high upwards, and his arms crossed over his chest.

"And why would that be?"

"I don't trust you. If you take a tumble through your own stupidity, we'll all go flying."

"Oh. I could say the very same about you, dear Geppie. How am I to know that you won't be the cause of our epic fall?"

"Unlike some, I am capable of concentrating to the utmost on a single action. I am confident in myself, but I most certainly do not trust you," Gepard was beginning to grow irritated. "Is it really that difficult for you?"

Sampo shrugged his shoulders and threw his hands up, as if surrendering wholesale. On his face blossomed disdain, the desire to wear the captain down to the bitter end, and a lewd little smile. That entire mixture now seemed to Gepard vile and cynical. Landau had no intention of tolerating such overt foulness directed at himself.

Roughly, almost criminally impermissibly, he seized Koski by the elbow and, with a sharp, precise movement, shifted him in front of himself. And just as he was about to erupt in an angry tirade and reprimand the obstinate conman, he did not manage to produce a single sound. Landau felt something strange. The world slid off its axis. Gepard was losing his balance, as though he had been knocked off his feet with a running start. Somewhere in the region of his sleeve, he felt a terribly strange dragging.

Time passed before it dawned on Gepard that they were falling. Another moment later, he felt his body, like a sack of wet grain, land on a foreign object. An instant, and he gasped loudly.

"Geppie!"

Lynx's voice rebounded off the cold surface and echoed resoundingly, pursuing the travellers. Like the peal of a bell, it rang out dually at the periphery of his consciousness. Sampo was making grunting sounds and striving with all his might to shift at least some of Landau's weight onto his own hands, but Gepard would not unstick himself. From shock and his own ignorance, he clung to his foe with all his limbs.

They slid quickly.

The wind reverberated in his ears as a numbed pain. At every bump, the blond suffered a micro-stroke, while Koski, choking on his own spit, cried out every few seconds. Judging by the sounds, Lynx was hurrying after them, shouting something insistently and, evidently, was frightened not a whit less than the sliding Koski and Gepard.

The situation chilled one to the bone.

If a wall or a stone were suddenly to appear ahead, Koski's head would simply split in two. And it was unclear what they were to do in such a case or how to react. Then an idea came to Landau: if they tried to slow their fall slightly with their heels, disaster might be avoided.

A second later, pressing his legs to the ice, he understood that the idea was a losing one from the start. The enormous speed and the weight of their bodies would simply snap his feet. Then their absurd, pseudo-heroic road adventure would end before it even had a chance to begin.

Having reached its physical apogee, their speed finally began to decrease. The incline was levelling out. Koski ceased his muffled groaning beneath the captain, and his body perceptibly relaxed. Gepard, meanwhile, dropped his head powerlessly onto the man's chest. At that, Sampo exhaled in resignation, covering his face with his hands.

Sliding for yet another couple of dozen metres, they at last came to a stop. Such relief had never before visited the guard. The inner arrow had finally flown, piercing his feverishly trembling heart. He was still trembling faintly; the adrenaline was slowly receding, yielding ever more room to the realisation of what had occurred. He felt altogether wretched.

"Are you all right, Koski? Are you alive?"

Landau did not recognise his own voice. Quiet, hoarse, echoing.

"I confess," Koski exhaled heavily, "you nearly crushed me, Captain. All the way down, I thought only of how my eyes might not pop out of my head."

"I'm sorry. It's my fault. I acted rashly and endangered us. That was behaviour unworthy of a captain, and I…"

He was not allowed to finish. With one light movement of his hand, Sampo drew Landau to his chest, as though comforting him. His other hand settled gently on wheat-coloured hair. The motions were tender, measured. Koski stroked him the way his sister usually did. The sensations were pleasant, and Gepard was almost not even ashamed. Only his cheeks flared hotly the moment he heard a quiet, slightly hoarse laugh:

"Hush, hush, hush, Geppie. Come now, don't blame yourself. You know, in the end, it was I who was careless enough to slip. Though, I must admit, you were rather rough."

Sampo's manner of speech was pure infantilism. Although Landau was genuinely grateful for his understanding, a mild irritation nevertheless hung in the air immediately after his words. And of that air, there was plenty here. An enormous cave overgrown with stalactites. It was not as cold as all those places Landau had left behind him.

"Don't call me that; how many times must I ask?"

Right now, the captain's tone more closely resembled a displeased grumbling. Lying astride Koski, he could not gather his thoughts for a long while, nor even once make an attempt to rise, when Lynx's quiet, lamenting voice sounded in the tunnel.

The alien hand on the back of his head was sifting through his sweat-dampened hair while his heart was tap-dancing a jig. He ought to have gotten up already. At last, with one sharp turn, Gepard rolled off Koski and landed beside him. Thus they both froze, no longer wishing to move. While Koski, with a breezy smile, was picturing something in his head, the blond studied the cave in which they had found themselves.

It truly did look enormous.

Yet there was nothing remarkable to be observed in it. The eye could perhaps catch on the hanging stalactites and the old wooden platform that had once served as a lift to the lower strata of Belobog. The commander's imagination painted a cave-in. He envisioned that a single wrong breath would bring all that mountain rock down upon them, burying them forever in a common grave.

On the northern bulwark, there had been many such graves.

His memories of his fallen comrades were, to his own horror, alive. His back still bore the phantom weight of other people's bodies. With his own hands, Gepard had dug twelve pits, and into each such trench went at least four of the fallen. Many. So very many. Frozen through, up to their necks in blood, with tears of horror frozen on their faces. That was how the Silvermane Guards had returned from the northern bulwark that day. The cries of his comrades had long resounded in his ears as a quiet chime, had kept him from sleep, had pierced his hands with uncontrollable trembling.

And now, the same sensation. As though he had once again bypassed the inevitable. Outwitted death itself and now lay on the ground, studying the stalactites. Soon, not only his hands began to shake. Regaining control over his body now seemed an impossible task.

"Everything all right?" Sampo rolled his head to the side and looked at the troubled captain.

"Yes, Koski, everything is in order."

"You're trembling all over, Geppie."

Gepard exhaled in resignation. Asking this fool yet again not to call him that seemed an utterly useless occupation.

"Don't think about it. It's none of your concern."

"And you are just as cruel to me as ever, Captain. I thought your heart had thawed, but it seems I only imagined it."

"Yes, your imagination is to be envied."

The conman turned away, puffing his cheeks and lips in offence. He did not like the tension between them, the one that chilled the spine. As if there were not enough cold in the world already.

Lynx arrived truly just in time. The girl, pale or perhaps flushed, darted nimbly out of the tunnel. Panic was drawn on her face; an unhealthy shade coloured her cheeks. Her eyes were frantically searching for something.

"Geppie, are you all right?!"

She displayed an incredible degree of steadiness, running up to them over the polished surface as if nothing were amiss. As though it were not ice at all around them, but the most ordinary cave floor. Sampo thought for a moment that the reason lay in her miracle-boots, but a second later he realised that their footwear was identical. The youngest Landau flew into the men before Koski could finish the thought. Sliding slightly on her knees over the ice, she sat down beside her elder brother and briskly seized his hand.

"Are you wounded? Where does it hurt? Does it hurt much?" The girl jabbed Gepard sharply under the ribs.

From the unexpectedness, the man involuntarily straightened. And not from pain at all. It was simply that a hard jab between the ribs could leave few people indifferent.

"It hurts!"

Lynx took pity and relaxed. A tender smile touched her lips. Grasping her brother by the hand, she helped him to his feet. She dusted off her own knees, then briskly walked up to Sampo, peering almost into his mouth.

"And you? Alive?"

"Couldn't be more alive, mini-Landau!" He gave a foolish little smirk, hopefully extending a hand to her. "Help me up?"

"In your dreams!" Lynx played the fool, but she offered her hand.

She was merciful.

The philosophy of her Aeon, who had bestowed upon her the power of the Paths, consisted of endless salvation and compassion. Everyone deserved help, everyone deserved rescue, everyone deserved life. From childhood, Lynx Landau had been taught to be endlessly devoted to her patron. Everyone in her family strove to live up to it, and she would be no exception. However much, at times, she simply wanted to refuse.

Having recovered a little from all they had experienced, the trio ought to have considered what to do next. The answer lying on the surface endlessly discomfited them. The wooden platform that, through some negligent confluence of circumstances, bore the name of "lift" inspired no trust. Moreover, it seemed the most repulsive of all the circumstances in the given situation.

Gepard began to feel somewhat sicker as he approached the construction. The rotted, frozen-through planks creaked quietly, while the platform itself swayed rhythmically, held up by a single sodden rope. The sole entrance to the Underworld proved to be hellish.

"You can do as you like, my little cats, but I won't even set a toe on this junk."

Sampo decided straight away to interject his own five shields, rather clearly indicating his neutral status. He was still cracking his joints, stretching, twisting, trying to bring himself into relative order after the mad rollercoaster.

"It's the only physical way down there," Gepard himself had no desire whatsoever even to stand close to this antediluvian invention. "We have no choice."

Lynx, standing on the captain's right, squeezed the edges of his jacket a little tighter, burning through his instantly paled face with a hunted gaze.

"I agree with Sampo; it doesn't look reliable. If our fears prove true, we'll simply crash."

Landau exhaled heavily. With one hand, he kept stroking his little sister's head; with the other, he passed over his face in resignation. He wanted to trust this wooden scaffold no more than his companions did, for in the event of a genuine malfunction, they would all come crashing down from a catastrophically enormous height.

A decision clicked dully in his head while he strained to think over the structure of the apparatus. On the whole, he came up with nothing useful. Yet the visualisation of the worst-case scenario prompted one interesting thought.

Wrapping both arms around Lynx, he abruptly sat her onto his shoulders. The girl was light, almost weightless, yet it still seemed she would fall from a single wrong tilt. She clung on truly firmly, though, even gathering his blond hair, slightly damp from the temperature shifts, into a bunch.

He pulled Sampo after him, seizing him by the sleeve more calmly now, without any sharp movements.

"And what, precisely, is the essence of your brilliant castling, Geppie?"

"I'll be holding onto the rope the entire time. If the platform gives way, I'll be able to hold us up."

Koski folded his arms over his chest again. Over his face slowly spread a disappointment that was by no means feigned, and right after it appeared, room was made for scepticism.

"That's a fine idea you've come up with, of course. Am I to understand, correctly, that I'm not taking part in your rescue operation?"

Landau had already begun tapping the platform with one foot. Rickety, rotten. It reeked of dampness.

"You can simply wrap your arms around me. I once climbed a mountain with two fellow soldiers tied to me with ropes. But just you dare conceive of anything inappropriate."

Sampo burst into a drawn-out, slightly derisive giggle.

"So that's how it is, Captain. Your plan is perfect, whichever way you look at it."

Landau stepped onto the platform. It was slippery, but he could reach the rope: a step, two, he seized the cord. He extended a hand to Sampo, who was absorbed in examining the levers and buttons on a controller concealed behind an iron screen.

Glancing at Gepard in surprise, he, with a childish playfulness, entirely impermissible now, pressed the largest of all the possible buttons. He abruptly seized the captain's hand and, clambering onto the platform, clung with all his might to the man's sturdy body, embracing him with both arms, which met just below the small of his back.

Along with the creaking sound of the descending platform, a dull thud was heard.

"Ow! What was that for?!"

Lynx was looking at Sampo with contempt. Clutching at the spot of the blow, he rubbed it vigorously with both hands.

"And what's that for? Have you lost all shame?"

"But he gave permission himself!"

"For safety purposes! And you've let your hands wander."

"And what if I'd fallen? Who kicks with their feet anyway? Look at those boots of yours!" Sampo, with exaggerated carelessness, seized the girl by her boot, after which another sharp blow landed. "What is wrong with you?!"

He wanted to try again to strike the arrogant girl's leg, but his hand was rudely intercepted, and his fingers were mercilessly bent back. Gepard, until then drifting somewhere in the recesses of his own consciousness, was staring at Sampo threateningly. He was also displeased with his sister's behaviour. His gaze was stern but eloquent: he would tolerate such conduct no longer. When Koski settled down, Landau loosened his grip on his hand but did not let go.

Around them stretched the frozen earth, and the quiet creaking of the platform resounded. As far as he knew, the layer of ground beneath which the Underworld lay was fairly thick. They were not riding for all that long, but the causeless fear of a fatal error truly pressed down very heavily.

And then, when the houses came into view, Gepard's heart stopped for a second. It was not as huge as Belobog. This city of the Underworld seemed an unhealthy hallucination. Buildings of dimensions incredible to the guard's perception of the world stretched in even rows into the farthest distance. The astonishing and unique architecture was sombrely reflected in the depths of his eyes as mute admiration.

This place was far from Belobog. The people here were destitute and sick. They had never seen the sun. Water appeared from a single crevice. Landau could not even have imagined that a place so downtrodden by the surface-dwellers could look so beautiful and whimsical.

The captain involuntarily squeezed Koski's hand, tracing his eyes around the city for what felt like the tenth time. They glittered vividly once more.

When there were about thirty metres left to the ground, the captain was able to exhale calmly. He did not hurry to let go of Sampo's hand or to take Lynx down from his shoulders. A nasty feeling twisted in the pit of his stomach: anxiety. No people, no animals, no robots. Only the wind roared resoundingly, rebounding off the walls of the underground city.

With a quiet, loud knock, the platform descended onto the faded grey tiles. Lynx emptied her lungs with a loud noise, her entire body shuddering with a strange relief. Sampo carefully disentangled himself from the firm grip, shaking the residual sensations from his wrist. He was the first to step onto the ground. A sincere smile touched his lips.

"Welcome to my home, my dear Landaus."

Koski threw his arms wide, breathing in with a full chest the smells of cold dampness, mercury fumes, and the emptiness swirling all around.

In the empty city, through whose streets piercing currents of cold wind stretched, it was dark. The truest blackness, the kind that forms the moment you close your eyes.

An empty gloom, primeval, forcing all unfortunates to break out in an unpleasant cold sweat.

Landau had never suffered from childish fears, such as a fear of the dark or of mysterious turns. He simply lacked the imagination to conjure up anything out of the ordinary. From childhood, he had been taught to fear only people.

The books his mother read to him in early childhood, like a rotten berry, oozed with human greed, cruelty, and a whirlpool of every possible kind of betrayal. While Gepard's peers feared the dead, he was thrown into a chill by the living. He was not frightened with monsters from under the bed but with long, philosophical discourses on existence and the boundaries of the permissible.

And yet, the younger Landau had not taken after his passionately beloved parents. His heart blazed with an endless faith in people, in his eyes flared the fire of justice, and in his head — the obsessive thought of universal sinlessness.

The man remembered this only now, for such a primitive feeling as the fear of the dark had gradually begun to gain the upper hand. The initial euphoria that had made his brain dissolve in ecstasy had slowly started to dissipate, leaving in his head thoughts of his own foolishness. Crossing the city along the long, broad road, Landau could not manage his anxiety. It was shameful, horrifying, even though he was not alone. Lynx firmly held his hand, kicking little stones underfoot. Sampo strode ahead.

Their faces were like the windy Venus. Neither fears nor sorrows. Koski only occasionally glanced back at his companions, for both Landaus had fallen suspiciously quiet. The conman was constantly chattering about something, throwing up his hands, pointing at the leaning buildings. He seemed to be recounting something. Either their histories, or perhaps his own. His gaze was happy, steeped in a note of lingering nostalgia that seized all the surrounding buildings with every nervous turn of his neck.

According to the conman's brilliant deduction, all the inhabitants of Boulder Town must currently be in the Fight Club. The only place fit for a lengthy stay, under the protection of a certain "little Hook." Sampo spoke of her with a smile, frowning slightly as he recalled another incredible story involving this young adventuress. And indeed, the commander had even thought to laugh at one of them, but another piercing draught, which made his little sister shrink into herself, utterly suppressed in him any desire to lighten the mood in the slightest.

He glanced at the girl in secret. In all the time they had been descending towards the surface of the Underworld, she had not uttered a sound. Her thoughts were clearly far from this place. Her pensive look, her puffed-up, reddened cheeks, her gaze sliding over the road stones. It seemed Lynx was saddened. The man felt physical pain; his heart involuntarily dropped.

With one light motion, he redirected, slowing down and steadying his sister. They halted under the fading broadcast of Sampo's voice. Gepard crouched down, taking the girl's nearly frozen hands in his own. He could not feel the touch. Landau looked at his sister with hope.

"Has something happened? Tell me, please."

Lynx slowly, almost jerkily, averted her dulling gaze.

"Are we going to die? Tell me honestly, brother. Is all of this really for nothing?"

"No, we will definitely survive. Every last one of us. Do you believe me?"

"No, Geppie." For a second, she bowed her head. There was no point in lying now. The girl ground her teeth a little louder than necessary. "I don't believe you. You don't know any more about this than I do, and you're scared too. I can see it."

He could not lose face, not in front of his sister and not in front of Koski. At her words, his chest swiftly grew cold. He wanted nothing so much as to embrace her, press her to his heart, so tightly she could not pull free.

"I cannot be frightened."

Releasing warm streams of air from his mouth, he tried to warm her pale hands. His sister looked at him with resigned gratitude, as though he were the only one aboard a sinking ship, spooning out the water seeping onto the deck. She did not believe a single word he said; she looked straight into his soul and understood that, here, her brother was the most useless figure of all.

"You never could lie."

The girl carefully unclasped their hands. From behind, Koski crept up to them. Brazenly lowering his hands onto both Landaus' heads, he ruffled their hair comfortingly. He had heard everything, certainly those last words. It was strange to find himself the most responsible and mature one. The morale of his travelling companions left much to be desired, and their sour little faces drove Sampo himself into melancholy.

"Now, what's this, my little cats? We'll manage everything, and we'll go crashing on two feet right into that thing that tried to bury us in the snow." With an abrupt movement, he raised the elder Landau to his feet. "Come now, don't fret so, Captain!"

His latest attempt to embrace Gepard was akin to an epic failure. A sharp pain in his leg resonated fivefold in his brain, making Sampo hop in confusion, turning his head like a madman, trying to discover the source of the pain. His gaze, sliding nervously through the surroundings, almost immediately came upon a displeased Lynx. A moment passed, and she again drew back her leg for another controlled strike. This time Koski jumped back.

"What on earth for?!"

"Don't you dare touch him, you filthy pervert! All you think about is how to lay your hands on him. You don't even know how to squirm out of it anymore!" The girl narrowed her eyes, looking at him sceptically.

"What are you even talking about?!" Sampo was genuinely indignant.

"Certainly not contraband." The hint proved straighter than a railway track. "Unlike some."

Sampo looked distractedly at Gepard, seeking support, but his deliberately impassive face immediately made it clear that both Landaus were simply mocking him.

Gepard rose up between Lynx and Sampo, laid his palm on his sister's shoulder, and quietly asked her to walk on ahead without waiting for them. The girl, unperturbed, without argument or questions, went onward. Landau and Koski were left alone. Between them, awkwardness was felt on a physical level. It seemed the captain needed to say something. Yet a cold indecision became a serious obstacle.

"Do you truly believe we can change the situation in any way?"

A herd of goosebumps ran over the conman's body. He shuddered imperceptibly, as though struck by an electric current. His smile was nervous; he wanted to flee from that intent gaze. He could neither stir nor change the subject.

"No. We can't. You understand that perfectly well yourself."

"I do."

"Then why ask?"

"I simply cannot accept it. All my life I've thought only of the oath of preservation, thought of the people, of Belobog. And does it turn out that all roads led here? All the sacrifices brought by some people to others, all the lives ruined in the name of someone else's good. All for nothing?"

The weakness in his legs strove to force Gepard to his knees. Never in his life had he been so bewildered and irresolute. In his head, hundreds, thousands of thoughts, memories, plans, and hopes were now slowly being covered by an icy curtain. The feeling of doom had bred weakness.

"It turns out, that is so."

Koski did not lie, did not shower him with hopes, did not bestow sweet falsehoods upon him. For it would have been uncovered soon enough, and then it would have become truly excruciating. There was no sense in smoothing corners, nor in lying, when death itself had already carefully wound nooses around their necks.

All that remained was to kick the stool from under their feet. And so hard that the others would collapse as well.

"I don't worry for myself. I worry for Serval, for Lynx, and for all the inhabitants of this planet. Even for you, Koski."

Landau looked at him with a pure glimmer of hope. Sampo had caught such a look from the stray dogs of Boulder Town. They had looked at him the same way, perhaps even thought that he was the one who could save them. Yet, having convinced themselves of his indifference, they had continued their chaotic existence.

"I worry about you too."

A step.

Gepard's hands clasped around his neck.

A second.

Landau pressed against him with his whole body, provoking in the conman something akin to asphyxia. In his hands, the blond roughly crumpled the fabric of his jacket, and his head came to rest on the other's shoulder.

Koski was at a loss. He did not embrace him in return, as though his arms had gone numb from the fierce cold, hanging useless and lifeless. His gaze was fixed somewhere in the distance, while his body seemed to have turned dead.

"Geppie… What are the tears for?.."

A whisper at the edge of audibility. Quieter than Sampo had expected. The sensation as though his voice had run down like an old battery. He wanted to repeat the question, but the need for it did not arise.

"You imagined it. Landaus do not cry. It is impossible."

In defiance of his own words, Gepard let out a long, shuddering sob. His chest trembled faintly, and with every second, his heart plummeted. Having gathered himself, Sampo resolved to try at least something. Hands to hands, chest to chest, cheek to cheek. Koski embraced him in return, and his face flushed. He wanted to pity Landau, to soothe him and hide him away. To protect him as one protects a child. Youthful maximalism still seethed within him, along with an endless faith in people and in justice.

"You're allowed to cry, Geppie. I give you permission."

For the last time, a short shudder passed through the captain's body. He slowly pulled back, looking at Koski, disarmed. Not a trace of his former sentimentality remained in the captain. His face had lost its colour; his eyes glistened damply.

They ought to continue on their way. Hard, but straight. To the Fight Club, there remained less than a kilometre of senseless winding, and they traversed it in a ringing silence.

The sensation as though even the wind had died. The city, having heaved its last, laboured sighs, had fallen asleep. And all that remained for them now was to walk, disturbing the silence of the depths only occasionally.

"We are Wildfire"

That was what was written on the sign of the old Fight Club. A common noun that had, by some miracle, turned into a slogan, crookedly traced across the shabby façade of the building. It looked epic. Through the boarded-up windows seeped a bright, reddish light.

Even on the approach to the building, they heard a multitude of voices: women's, men's, children's, inhuman. They merged into one, forming a run-off stream of barely audible static noise. No words could be made out, nor tone. A melodic girlish laugh could barely be heard, along with coarse guffawing.

The body of the club was lopsided. It resembled an old aluminium shed with a roof that had departed for a better life. In the Overworld, Landau had encountered one building similar to this. Back when he was not yet a captain, having set out for the northern bulwark, on the outskirts of the city he had stumbled upon a remarkable brick box.

Rotten and shabby. On the front façade were visible loathsome, inept graffiti, and the broken, in some places boarded-up, windows lent the place a particular, blood-chilling charm. That house had been enveloped in dead, dry ivy; the doors had rusted and forever frozen in one position. The fragile slate roof inspired no trust. The building seemed to be collapsing before his very eyes. Pieces of reddish brick crumbled onto the weed-choked, broken pavement, while Gepard's heart fell after them, landing at his feet.

An unbearable sight for an aristocrat. The young soldier had thought then: Qlipoth forbid he ever have to approach that building. But by the will of fate, just a few weeks later, returning from the northern bulwark, it was precisely here that the pitiful remnants of his platoon had spent the night. That night, the young commander had not seen dreams. His consciousness painted him an eternal sleep. In the cold rocks, among the stones. And if he asked very nicely, then in the earth as well. Only not for long. Until he rotted, becoming overgrown with barren flowers.

That brief moment of nostalgia proved exceedingly prone to extraneous sounds and sensations. Lynx was briskly tugging him and Sampo by the sleeves, while Landau himself remained in a mute stupor. Having taken two steps towards the entrance, the girl knocked on the massive door. Naturally, this produced no effect. The noises emanating from the club remained many times louder than the knock.

Sampo twisted his face oddly, glancing at the waiting, naive Landau. For some time, he was thinking, though it was hard to judge from his expression, and then an illumination descended upon him. With a light motion of his hand, he pulled the girl's hat down over her face and playfully flicked the white pompom that had fallen onto her forehead, making her look like a caricature garden gnome.

Before Lynx could erupt into an angry triad, Koski flung the door open, thrusting his companion before him.

Instantly she broke out in a sweat. Dozens, if not hundreds, of eyes in a single short instant fixed themselves for good upon the newcomers. Panic lodged itself in the younger Landau's head.

Inside the building, it was warm and humid. The smell of a campfire crept into the nose, and the stuffiness and stagnant stench worked on the nerves like water spilled onto a bare wire. All three of their faces contorted. On Gepard, the foul atmosphere acted more strongly than on the rest, but he gave no sign. He was still sufficiently tactful and knew how to restrain inappropriate emotions. The same could not be said for Sampo and Lynx. They proved less patient. The younger Landau slowly, as though fearing the reaction of the curious public, pulled her hat down again to her very chin, while Koski simply covered his nose with his sleeve.

An instant. The room filled with hysterical laughter, as though a deafening explosion had occurred. The guests were stared at as though they were curious little beasts. As if a single step separated them from ruin.

A step — and their heads would end up on pikes, and afterwards those pikes would amicably see off every passing traveller. Gepard did not know what one ought to say in an establishment of such low morals. The locals were as distant and alien to him as he was to those here. People from different worlds. They were not fated to understand each other. Only hatred united them, and each despised everything that differed even slightly from their habitual worldview.

The planet seemed to have contracted for the sake of this short instant. Both Landaus felt like laughingstocks, while Sampo, with a satisfied physiognomy, was enjoying this shameful situation. He was the first who resolved to take the situation into his own hands.

"Well then, dear compatriots! Why don't you point out to me and my dear companions where Natasha and Seele are right now?"

The people seemed not to take his words seriously. Some even turned away, continuing to stare blankly at something in the campfire blazing in the middle of the ring. The rest went on guffawing, discussing, and behaving like beasts in a cattle yard. Only a few pointed a finger at the staircase leading to the upper floors.

When the trio turned, heading along the indicated path, Lynx felt a force that abruptly yanked her back. From the vile shove, she shrieked. Staggering, her small body hit the wall. A revolting, large, dirty hand seized her by the cheeks. Above her head, a loathsome, rattling laugh resounded.

"Oh, these chicks from the Overworld! Ah, how fine they are!"

In Lynx's eyes, the world burst, and with such a rending crack that from sheer horror her ears began to ring. The huge, sweaty hands of the brute held her slender, pale neck firmly, while the girl herself screamed and kicked as hard as though she were not a person but a hare caught in a bear trap.

"What are you doing?!"

The gazes of brother and sister crossed like the blades of sharp swords. Something in both of them broke. Their inner core exploded, slid off its axis, and plummeted perpendicularly downwards, shattering against the cold stones.

The man was rubbing himself against her, breathing excitedly, pressing his bristly face right into her neck. Gepard himself shuddered. He took a step in their direction, drew back his hand to strike, but froze. The brute squeezed the girl's neck to the point of a quiet crackle in the joints.

Her eyes began to water. A glassy, darkened gaze stared somewhere into the distance. A quiet, hoarse exhale escaped her lips.

"Ha! Just you try coming near me, white-haired rat!" the brute barked like a sick beast and laughed. "I'll snap the little one's neck, sure as anything!"

The people around went quiet. They watched with condemnation, and some with open pleasure, but neither group intervened.

"What are you doing? Release her at once!"

The answer came in actions. A hand hastily began to scratch with dirty fingernails at the dense fabric of her jacket, trying to slip underneath it. The brute growled. It seemed Lynx's vocal cords would tear any second, like guitar strings. She kicked with such force that she soon slipped free of the sweaty paws. The blade of a hunting knife flashed in clenched fingers and crunched into the vile man's knee. He let out a howl in a disgusting, smoke-roughened voice, in unison with the cracking of bone.

When Lynx understood what had happened, a lump formed in her throat. She felt sick. She could not even swallow her own spit. Her throat was raw. As he fell, the brute struck her backhanded across the face. The room in the girl's eyes shattered into fragments, as though she were inside a kaleidoscope.

Sampo reacted quickly. He caught Lynx under the arms, finding himself beside her. In two bounds, Gepard was standing over the thug sprawled on the floor. The deathly silence that hung over the club was shattered by the sound of breaking maxillofacial bones. Landau had left his honour and pride on the other side of the Fight Club's threshold. He struck with his feet only at that vile face, and when he grew tired, he sat down on the brute's chest and brought his fists into play. He did not dodge the splashes of blood, spit, tears, and snot. He did not notice them. And before his eyes still stood the glassy stare of his sister; in his ears, her scream.

The lout's face turned into a mash of every possible bodily fluid. Landau's hands were steeped in blood up to the very shoulders, and his eyes had long ceased to see.

No one stopped him. The crowd of hopeless scum watched the unfolding drama with unfeigned interest.

A blow. A crunch. An exhale.

An exhale, hoarse, ragged.

The last one.

Gepard struck, and then shock stepped into the place of fury. His emotions slid to the floor. With an unseeing gaze, the captain swept bewilderedly over the crowd, coming to rest on familiar silhouettes.

Sampo watched Gepard with mute admiration. His eyes shone while his hands gently, almost paternally, stroked Lynx, soothing her. She too did not take her eyes off her brother. And in her gaze was neither fear nor gratitude. She did not hide a predatory smirk and an unhealthy glitter of the iris.

Slowly disentangling herself from the other's arms, she approached her brother. Not breathing, not averting her gaze. It seemed she wanted to say something, but only an exhale escaped her throat, and her cheeks reddened.

She reached out her hand to him.

For a moment, it seemed to Gepard that his little sister was about to cry. Only, the sincere, soul-deep gleam did not allow Landau to be deceived. He clasped her hand. In his ears, a vacuum; in his heart, a gaping hole; in his head, not a drop of regret. His surroundings rang, as though Serval had again put a bucket on his head and struck it with all her might.

Lynx pulled the elder Landau towards the necessary door, behind which the staircase lay hidden. She was smiling. She firmly held his bloodied hand, as though her brother might vanish at any second.

Leaving the stinking, disfigured corpse behind them, the three vanished behind the flimsy door.

When it closed with a quiet creak, Landau sank powerlessly to his knees. His head struck the wall with a quiet knock, and his gaze lost both its gleam and the last thing that had held hope for a better outcome to the journey. Sampo and Lynx were stunned. It was painful to look at Gepard, to the point of stabbing pangs in their hearts. They themselves strove not to fall down beside him.

Both had lost the power of speech. Soundlessly, they opened and closed their mouths, just as fish do. They could neither embrace him nor touch him.

The adrenaline that had protected the brain from the awareness of what had happened had exhausted itself. The elder Landau lost the support beneath his body, and he felt as though he were falling. The pit of his stomach and his heart were tugged and twisted. Gepard had entered a personal inferno; the world had ceased to be as it was before.

It would truly have become easier to exist had they seen him off with condemning whistles and loud curses. Then everything would have fallen into place, everything according to the law, clear and correct. Only, the people had smiled, even Sampo and Lynx. His skin tightened from the stranger's blood; it became painful.

In this brief instant, the generally accepted framework of morality cracked loudly. The template in his head was tearing. For the second time in his life, Gepard Landau saw himself in a grave, buried, smeared with someone else's blood.

It was excruciatingly painful.

Five people were sitting in the office.

They paid attention to those who had entered almost immediately. Someone with red hair and a mechanical arm even stood, ready to counteract these decidedly very suspicious guests. There were many reasons for caution with the newcomers. Luka knew one of the uninvited guests personally.

Sampo looked ordinary, as though he were plotting something amiss. Beside him stood a very strange fair-haired pair: a man covered in congealed blood, and a girl with a hunting knife on a strange belt, who inspired even less trust than the rest.

Lady Bronya, who was sitting by the window, stared at the arrivals in astonishment.

"Captain Landau!" the lady exclaimed, unexpectedly loudly for herself. "What has happened to you? What are you doing here?"

Gepard straightened his back with effort, saluting his superior. It cost him truly enormous effort to speak.

"The Eternal Freeze has gone out of control. I learned from my sister that you had departed for the Underworld. The Lady Guardian has disappeared. We suppose that you know where to find her. You must leave. The screws on the central system have rusted from the cold and damp. If it slips off its axis, the Underworld will collapse."

Bronya clutched her head in resignation, trying to quell a pulsing pain. A warrior woman with long purple hair, flowing beautifully down her refined silhouette, broke into the conversation.

"And how much time?"

"About two weeks. Three weeks at the most. And then the collapse. Serval said the construction is unreliable."

Lynx answered her question confidently, but sarcastically. She gesticulated actively, and at the word "collapse," she even spread her arms in different directions, parodying a great explosion. Such loose behaviour clearly displeased the questioner, and she arched a haughty brow, showing all her distrust.

Before the room could explode from the chirring tension between Seele and Lynx, who had clearly taken a mutual dislike to one another, Sampo decided to intervene.

"Well then, do you know the precise location of your mother? Otherwise, we're all done for!"

Bronya exhaled heavily, sinking powerlessly into a chair. Seele came up behind her, resting her elbows on the other's shoulders, her chin lowered onto her crown. Cold contempt simply oozed from her. Lynx was beginning to heat up.

"Once, she showed me the location of the Stellaron. If it is indeed what's involved, which no one doubts any longer, then tomorrow I will lead you there. Only…" The girl faltered for a second. "If my mother is involved in what is happening, you must promise that nothing will happen to her."

The younger Landau contorted with indignation. Before she could say too much, Sampo once again pulled her hat down over her face, holding the edges at her chin. Revenge proved swift. A strong kick to the area just below the knee made him jump. In order to speed up the negotiation process, the conman lightly touched Gepard's hand. The gesture was interpreted correctly.

"We will do our best. We will do everything possible to preserve Lady Rand's life if it comes to that."

"Do your best indeed," Seele hissed venomously.

"There are rooms on the third floor. Yours is the last door on the left. Rest. Tomorrow we set out."

"Thank you, Bronya."

Landau permitted himself a strained smile, his eyelids heavy as lead from the encroaching weariness.

"Lady," Seele broke in without delay.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"To you, she is still Lady Bronya."

"Whore…" flew out from under the younger Landau's hat. Sampo abruptly covered her mouth with his hand as well, hastily turning together with Lynx towards the exit.

"Oh! We're so tired! Ha-ha. Tomorrow it is, then."

Gepard saluted for the last time. Afterwards, having shaken Luka's metal hand, he walked with uneven steps after his sister and the conman, who had been quietly bickering all this time.

To live, it seemed, had become a little easier. Across his face, relief slowly spread. Yet the tremor still did not pass.

To the bed, there remained exactly twenty-two steps. The elder Landau intended to traverse them in the pleasant silence of the Fight Club's third floor.

In the small, dirty room it was dark and damp. It seemed the cold had not yet managed to seep its way in here. The space more closely resembled a defrosted refrigerator. The two creaking beds standing against the walls were frightening to look at, and the grimy window, covered in frost and a glassy web of cracks, seemed the safest object in this little closet.

The despondent travellers, frozen in the doorway, had utterly lost heart. The question was brewing of its own accord. This time, the voice of reason turned out to be Sampo.

"So what are we going to do? Though, it's obvious. Me on the left, Geppie on the right, the little one on the rug."

Lynx threw her head back, narrowing her eyes with contempt.

"I'll take the left. Brother, you're on the right, and the blue peacock can sleep outside."

Sampo clutched theatrically at his heart while the elder Landau carefully inspected the room. He was disgusted even by the thought of staying in this disorder: in this kilometre-thick layer of dust, in this haven for every existing species of bedbug. A decision had to be made now, and quickly.

"Lynx, take that one." Gepard pointed a finger at the cleaner of the two beds.

"And us?"

"You take the other bed. I'll sleep on the windowsill."

Both stared at him, stunned. The idea did not strike them as adequate. Although the windowsill was long and wide enough to accommodate a person comfortably, this option nevertheless lacked logic.

"You've really gone too far there, Geppie. Lie down with me; you won't peel away overnight."

Landau did not care for this idea.

"I'm all over dirt."

Sampo pulled an expressive face before he began to steer the captain towards the bed. Gepard remained just as detached as before: he did not resist, offered no opposition; he drifted along his heading like a jellyfish in a calm current. Lynx, meanwhile, had sprawled out on her bed. She had jumped onto it straight in her boots, arms flung wide. The elder Landau had to be seated on the mattress with the application of a little physical force.

Gepard was in a state of prostration. His hands still stung unpleasantly, and the hovering smell of blood, along with the skin drawn tight from the fluids dried upon it, burned unbearably. It seemed that awareness was creeping in gradually, but nothing had yet struck him in the head.

Quickly but carefully, Sampo began to undo the captain's buttons. He did it easily and pressingly, as though in the past he had occupied himself with nothing but the high-speed undressing of people. Koski kept trying to peer insistently into Landau's eyes, so as to at least slightly curb the detachment that, like a fog, was enveloping Gepard. A firm impression was forming that a single wrong move would inevitably send the limp captain tumbling to the floor; he resembled a bewildered life-sized doll.

Something had to be done to bring the commander back from the other world, the fantastical one reigning inside his head. But the words would not come; they stuck halfway and fell back to their source. He did not want to talk in front of the younger Landau. Only, the girl was far from stupid; she would understand at once if they tried to send her away. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

"Lynx, you go first to the shower. It's at the end of the corridor, opposite the stairs. The women's is to the right, second door," Sampo rattled off in a single breath, almost like a mantra.

Landau cast him a suspicious, exhausted glance, but nonetheless rose, tugging off her dirty hat. She threw it with a true aim onto the rickety nightstand. On her cheek, a bruise was blossoming like a bloody flower, left by the vile brute. Despite this, she made no haste to use the power of the Path that would allow her to ease the pain. The younger Landau, having grabbed her travelling rucksack, slammed the door deafeningly. Old plaster showered down from the ceiling.

The men were left alone. Turning his head back towards Gepard, Sampo did not expect to meet the other's impenetrable gaze. Both their faces were reflected in the iris opposite. For a second, it seemed to Sampo that he saw a glimmer, astonishingly like a tear, but he did not focus his attention on it. He merely reduced the speed with which he was ridding Landau of his clothing.

Slowly. Button by button. Zip by zip. Garment by garment. And now, the captain sat half-bared. Koski could barely contain his admiration.

Gepard's body resembled one great, healed-over wound. Imperfect. Inscribed with deep scars and scratches. Sculpted and toned. In places, bony. Yet it was beautiful in its own way. Most striking of all was a transverse scar, cleaving his body from collarbone to hip. The diagonal rupture seemed to cross the commander out. Sampo could not restrain a stunned exhale, just as he could not bear to keep himself from touching the pale, alien skin. Carefully, with a feather-light touch of his fingertip, he traced melancholily along the entire ridged surface of the scar. Landau gave a quiet, barely audible sniffle, and then altogether fell still.

"Where is that from, Captain Geppie? Tell me."

Koski again looked into his eyes. So intently, as if he sought to find in the pale iris a soul, just as tormented as this body. Landau lowered his heavy eyelids and bit his lower lip. He immersed himself in the former bitterness of decayed days, remembering, turning the kaleidoscope of memory.

"A halberd. A comrade left it."

Sampo was taken aback by such an answer. For several seconds, he stared at Gepard in astonishment, searching for the right words.

"How did it happen?"

"On the night I received the rank of captain, much blood of my fellow soldiers was shed. We were defending the northern bulwark from the monsters of the Fragmentum. Our commander fell, leaving me as his successor." Landau frowned. "One of the survivors went entirely out of his mind and slashed open my chest with the first thing that came to hand. He decided that after my death, everyone would retreat and he would return home. He wanted to see his daughter."

Koski could not believe his ears.

"And what became of him?"

"He was killed. Torn apart by the creatures of the Fragmentum. And I was utterly unable to help him, for which I hate myself to this day. I ought to have done something."

In Landau's ears, the interwoven sounds of death's agony still rang and roared. The man, whose name and face time had long since destroyed, sometimes appeared facelessly on calm nights, turning them into nightmares.

"What do you mean, 'ought to have'? You bear no responsibility for what happened there."

"I bear responsibility for the lives of others."

"Not for all of them, Geppie."

But with Gepard, it was useless to argue. Attempts to persuade him or to teach him anything without his permission had always ended in failure.

Usually he could not tolerate such things, but now his armour had rusted and become overgrown with wild ivy. Landau was pliant and made no attempt to defend his position. He behaved so passively that it became almost offensive on his behalf, to the point of a faint tremor in Sampo's hands. His fists clenched involuntarily of their own accord, yet anger as such was absent.

"Does it hurt?" With his thumb, Sampo continued to stroke the pale skin of the scar near the hip bone.

"It hurts."

Landau reluctantly moved the other's hand aside. He was being pulled apart on an emotional swing: from apathy to frankness, from spiritual pain to physical, from Sampo, straight into the icy apocalypse. He was not tangled in his thoughts. They had simply evaporated, hovering somewhere on the surface yet never allowing the captain to reach them.

They needed to continue the act of ridding him of his soiled clothes before the bed became steeped through with the stench of blood. Sampo hooked the other's belt, unfastened it without haste, with concentration, carefully drew it from the trousers, and set it aside on the free part of the bed. With fingers gone numb from overstrain, he took hold of the single button on the captain's trousers. Gepard shuddered, seized Koski's hands, and pushed them as far from himself as he could. The conman only gave a nervous smirk.

"I'll do it myself. Your assistance is not required. Thank you for everything."

With exaggerated disappointment, Koski pulled the most pitiful face it was possible to sculpt. He rose smartly from his knees and landed on the bed, pressed right up against the captain. At such closeness, Gepard short-circuited for a second, but it seemed this game was still worth the candle for Koski. Another brief moment later, Sampo's head came to rest on Landau's knees. He lay and stared. He waited for a reaction. For anything that could draw Gepard into any emotion, from which the guard was now so distant.

He wanted nothing so much at that moment as to grow his whole body into this bed and never get up from it again. Rickety and wretched, it seemed a panacea for weary travellers. Even the protruding springs did not hinder comfort. It seemed that, for a short while, the younger Landau had been able to relax.

The moment Lynx appeared on the threshold of the room, a shocked cry rang out in that very instant. Sampo even raised himself from the other's knees, and Gepard, not restraining the colourful palette of emotions, was swiftly beside his sister, seizing her by the hands.

"Why?"

The question was foolish and naive. What was happening seemed a hallucination, and Lynx, a wicked vision. There was reason to be astonished. On the younger Landau's head, almost no hair remained. Whether sheared off or torn away. Like a great explosion. Not a single even strand. Locks shorter than Gepard's own, which, coupled with her neutral expression, made her resemble a boy. For a time, it seemed to the captain that he saw himself in her. Now they were entirely like two drops of water. What Lynx had done to her hair could not be comprehended by either of her companions.

She gave no answer to the question her worried brother had posed. She twisted her pretty face a little, averting her gaze as it wandered along the walls. She looked as though she had been caught doing something deeply shameful. She did not look at Sampo at all.

"Incredible! Well, little one, you're something else! You weirdo." The conman also slid off the bed, squinting theatrically in an attempt to examine the unusual haircut more closely. "Oh, Qlipoth, you're causing me almost physical pain."

The girl turned away from him demonstratively, puffing out her cheeks, flushed after the hot water. Discussing her wishes with them was the last thing she wanted. The sensation as though they would not understand, would give her a thrashing, as their parents would have done, those whom these two so resembled.

"That's how I wanted it."

Gepard had only been waiting for her answer to erupt into a worried tirade.

"Why? You wanted it? You could have told us; Koski would have cut your hair." Sampo nodded his head actively, confirming what had been said. "It would have turned out far better than this, whatever you did."

For the first time, Lynx showed unprecedented determination. She did not want to talk about it. She had no intention of discussing it or of thinking in the subjunctive mood. It was too late for regrets. Nor would she have regretted it anyway.

"That's how I want it. And who knows how that crooked-armed peacock would have done it. He might have snipped off my ear, for all we know. I trust myself."

"You shouldn't speak like that. You ought to trust your comrades more."

The girl was beginning to grow irritated. This was not what she had wanted to hear. She did not need to be lectured. She could not bear lectures in any form. The rules of propriety and norms were alien to her. There was no point in teaching her what she needed. She already knew herself. She could become anyone for people. Even a graceful Lady Landau, even a wild brat from the most forgotten corner of the Underworld. Just so long as she could avoid moralising.

"I don't want to talk about this with you, Geppie. And certainly not in front of him." The girl jabbed a finger rudely at Sampo. "You're advising me to trust him? Don't go prying into my soul, brother. Sort out your own."

"If something was troubling you so much, you should have told me! Trust is the foundation of comradeship."

"And where has it led you?" Lynx prodded him hard in the chest. "If I recall, you trusted him to the very last. The person closest to you betrayed you, and you blindly trust some slippery, incomprehensible character?" She paused for a second, trying to catch her breath. "For the last time, I'm asking you: don't come at me with moralising."

Gepard, too, was gradually beginning to lose his composure.

"You can't just do whatever incomprehensible, dark thing you please and then refuse help! Why such distrust? Yes, he is far from the most reliable person and has brought me a heap of trouble, but note that he has done nothing bad to you."

"I was against him coming with us from the very start! I don't know since when you became so lenient towards scoundrels who think of nothing but their own profit."

"Note that he hasn't called you names."

Lynx ground her teeth. Hearing such a thing from her brother was hard. Seeing him forgive the one who had served as one continuous problem for him was doubly hard. The girl wanted nothing more than to fall and thrash in such hysterics that foam would come from her mouth. Perhaps then, at least, she would be heard.

"Then I'll be the first to start!" She cast a contemptuous glance at the conman, sweeping him with all her cold disdain. "You! Piece of refuse who has somehow influenced my brother. Mercenary scum who even agreed to help us only because my sister promised you something or other. How do you have the conscience to behave so frivolously? I tried to endure it. I even began to think you were normal, but you didn't think for even a second about your own comrades from the Underworld when you made the decision to come down with us!" Lynx choked on her own words; the endings were swallowed entirely. She was on the verge of crying, but Koski would not see her tears. "And you think, brother, that you can trust him with even an ink pen?"

The world froze. The weight of expectations pressed on his shoulders and dragged him to the bottom. Sampo's heart seemed to drop when Gepard turned, sweeping him with a heavy gaze full of disappointment. An awkward, almost criminal silence hung in the air. It rang loudly in the commander's ears. It had become excruciatingly painful. Something in the region of his chest had burst with a rending crack, and his emotions seemed to have evaporated, leaving his head as empty as an old, broken birdhouse. The desire to argue, to curse, and to persuade his unreasonable little sister, who was looking at him with hatred, had vanished. The desire to fight had run dry. His faith in people, he wanted to wipe it on his trousers.

"Go to sleep."

Landau drew himself up to his full height and turned off the light, but no one moved from their spot. The room sank into a grim, oppressive gloom, weighing down upon everyone present.

Landau no longer wished to see anyone: his world was burning, columns were falling, debris was flying at his head. Sitting down on the windowsill, he thought only of how utterly useless everything was.

The thoughts that tormented the elder Landau's head lay far beyond the limits of the end of the world. His personal moral collapse seemed something logical. Yet he simply could not wrap his head around it. Like a stick broken in childhood, his life had turned out to be divided. The time "before" now seemed happy and carefree, warming his frozen innards with cosy memories. The time "after" had not yet arrived. He had a feeling it might never arrive at all.

Landau had always been a realist, and now his reality had shrunk to this dirty little room. The quiet snuffling of Lynx, who had long since thrown off her blanket. The girl was already half hanging off the bed. His brief exchanges of glances with Sampo. The latter did not seem about to lie down. Hundreds, if not thousands, of senseless questions were intertwining in his head.

Everything he touched right now seemed incomprehensible and wrong. Every exhale he took, every action, every wrong turn of his head. Everything felt like pure surrealism: the frost pattern on the cracked glass; Sampo Koski, waiting for him in the bed.

Gepard did not care about his motives, nor about his attitude towards people. It was all the same to him now. In these last days, he wanted only peace and a person who would not let him finally fall into the vile whirlpool of hopeless loneliness.

"All my conscious life, I thought you and I were enemies. And now, here I am. Sitting with an enemy under one roof, sharing a meal, about to sleep in the same bed. All of this seems to me simply impermissible and wrong."

As though finally disappointed in himself, Gepard exhaled heavily, pressing his forehead with a quiet knock against the cold window, which was covered in a fine cobweb of cracks.

Sampo lay on his back, his arms thrown behind his head. One leg rested on his knee, rocking up and down. His habitual smile stretched across his lips. And even now, when he wanted to be rid of it, he kept his face, not betraying his guise to the young captain. Glancing fleetingly at the sleeping girl, Koski shifted his attention to Landau.

"All your conscious life, you say?" he whispered, smirking. An eyebrow arched quizzically, and the intrigued man now turned his face fully towards the blond. "You'd sell your soul for a chance to make a monster out of me, ha-ha! Speaking of bread, by the way. If you're not going to finish it, I'm ready to offer you my friendly shoulder. Or, if we follow your logic, Captain Geppie, my enemy mouth."

His leg kept rocking, and his nasal little smile grew wider. With animal curiosity, he followed the physiognomy of his interlocutor, searching for signs of approaching irritation. But none followed. Gepard calmly climbed down from the windowsill, holding out his last piece of bread to the conman. As quietly as possible, Landau sat down beside Koski. With a quiet creak, the bed sagged; the old springs, which inspired no trust in him, crackled. The sound spread through the little room in waves. The commander stole a glance at the sleeping Lynx.

"When will you understand, Koski. I have never seen you as a monster. Hear me as well: you broke the law. All my life, I was taught to place its observance above human lives."

Landau leaned back onto the only pillow lying behind them. Sampo courteously scooped half of it out from under his own head, yielding a little more space. The smoking lamps hanging from the rafters had nearly gone out. Landau very much wanted to sleep. This day resembled a terrible dream. A dream that would never end.

"We really are different. I am impressed by your freedom. I would never have become someone like you. Truly. You know, I even envy you."

Sampo froze, listening to the captain's voice. What were these confessions before sleep? He peered intently at the features of the man beside him. His smile grew even wider.

"What? Envy? Me? Now then…" Turning onto his side, Koski laid his palm on Gepard's forehead, brushing aside the golden fringe. "Hm… no fever. Then what kind of talk is this, hm? Or have you perhaps managed to hit your head somewhere?"

He no longer removed his hand, stroking the warm skin of Landau's forehead with it almost imperceptibly. Moreover, for comfort, he threw his leg over the guard's thigh, giggling playfully. As if nothing were the matter, he lowered his eyelids, pretending to be asleep.

"I envy you too, Geppie. Your endurance, your self-control, your courage… Those qualities have passed me by, alas and alack!"

"There's nothing to envy there." Gepard gently touched his hand, slowly, secretly stroking it. "In my family, you simply can't be any other way. To be a true Landau, one who does not disgrace the family name, you have to become the embodiment of the ideal. That passed my sisters by. Serval never could submit. Lynx was rarely at home — always running about the snowy fields. It's for the best."

Gepard also closed his tired eyes. Sampo felt like something new. And there was not a drop of euphoria in this newness, nor the usual mute panic. Gepard thought that he had never felt so good and so calm. While the world was collapsing around them, bursting, slipping off its axis, simply losing its mind in a human way, for them only this frozen moment existed.

"You're so strange, Geppie…" Sampo drawled in a feline manner, cracking open an eye and peeking at the man snuffling beside him. "You have a good family, wonderful sisters. Even the little brat Lynx. There's no need to bend over backwards to look like a superhero! Tell me, when was the last time you took a risk? Say, played at a casino, hm? I bet you never have! Or think back: when did you last walk around in civilian clothes? Divesting yourself of ranks and statuses. You're constantly on duty! Svarog looks more like a human being than you do!"

Koski caught the captain's fingers, intertwining them with his own. Squeezing his hand, he laid it on Landau's chest. He practically crawled onto him, trying not to tumble off the bed onto the floor. Every action was accompanied by giggling.

"Captain Gepard, allow yourself to be, just a little, an ordinary, unremarkable Geppie!"

"Get off me, you're heavy."

Landau's breath caught. Sampo had crossed every permissible boundary, and Gepard was already ready to send him to the floor. Every muscle ached madly, pulled and twisted itself inside out. His head was reasoning unusually poorly, as though he had again spent half the night sitting with drunken fellow soldiers. Koski right now truly felt like a heavy burden.

"I have neither the strength nor the desire to be anyone else. I don't know how to be any other way."

The words were spoken in a pleasant whisper, dangerously close to the other's face. Searching for subtexts and sacred meanings in that was something he wanted even less than changing anything.

"Oh, no. If I get off, I'll crash onto the floor, and it's cold and hard down there. So you'll just have to bear it." Sampo quietly snorted with laughter. "Either that, or I'll hold onto you until morning."

And yet, Koski slid to the side, but embraced Gepard with a leg and both arms. His forehead nudged against his temple, and the fair hair tickled his nose. He tried to blow it away, but it would not obey. Sneezing into the other's shoulder, Sampo brushed the captain's strands aside and pressed his forehead to his temple once more.

"So, it turns out you were chasing after me all this time because you envied me? Wanted to be in my place, hm? To live among thieves and rats, and try not to turn into a rat yourself?"

"And once again, you've misunderstood me. What does envy have to do with it? You're a criminal. I am the one who is supposed to catch people like you. It seemed to me you were capable of understanding that we stand on opposite sides of the law."

Gepard exhaled quietly. Such closeness to a stranger was alien to him, but it did not feel like something wrong. In his mind, Landau had long since buried himself. His conscience had perished even earlier. Trying not to produce any superfluous creaking sounds, he also turned onto his side. Between their faces were a pitiful few centimetres. Their exhales were already merging into one. In the depths of each other's eyes, they saw each other.

"How's that? You said yourself that you envy me. Hm… How do you even live in this world with such a set of contradictions?.."

Sampo ran his palm over the captain's shoulder, squeezed his forearm, let go of his hand. Seeing, perhaps for the first time, a Landau "bared" in soul and heart beneath him, he thawed himself and touched the man's face with his fingers. He slowly stroked Gepard's cheek, gazing unwaveringly into his blue and so clear eyes.

"I'm sure you're very tired, my friend," Sampo said softly. "Come here." Cupping the back of his head with his palm, Koski drew the heavy head towards him, pressing it to his shoulder. He slowly sifted through the fair hair, listening to the snuffling, while he himself was afraid to breathe.

For a second, Landau's heart stopped. He felt so anxious. In a single moment, a brief but powerful cramp passed through his whole body. There was no point in continuing the dialogue. And it was unlikely he could have anyway, feeling how his jaw had momentarily locked. His face slowly began to burn like scarlet, smouldering coals. Even the cold no longer troubled his body, exhausted by the permafrost.

"Sweet dreams to you, Koski. And one more thing… Don't be angry with Lynx. She's never been particularly careful about what she says."

The captain laid his trembling hand on him uncertainly.

"Brave… brave captain, frightened by such simple things, heh-heh…" Sampo was distracted from his hair, pressed the other's hand more firmly to his own waist, then returned his palm. "There. Like that. If you fall ill, we'll have to change all our plans. We'll lose strength, time, and, accordingly, cash! And that I simply cannot allow!" He was lying. "How could I be angry with her? The little one didn't say anything but the truth. Hm… you don't even want to ask what it was Serval promised me?"

His chin came to rest on the blond crown, and now Koski himself permitted himself to exhale. Well… it had all gone smoothly. He hadn't been thrown onto the floor, hadn't been struck in the face; that was a victory! A pity that everything would change once both of them returned to their habitual environments…

"I don't want to. I don't want to pry into your soul or even think about your motives. You know, in my mind, I've already buried myself. With every minute, there's less and less certainty in me."

It was a truly long and dark night.

In the morning, he would definitely apologise to Lynx: take her aside, embrace her, and burst into tears, cursing himself for his own foolishness. He had no intention of hurting her. If she wished it, he would even renounce Sampo: never approach him again, never speak, never touch.

He would drive himself to madness. But his sister's happiness was the task of paramount importance. A part of his soul would be a meagre price for her smile.

It was a truly difficult morning.

The only way they could grasp that it had arrived was through three loud, exceedingly unpleasant knocks on the door. To make out the quiet sounds required effort, and so the knocking was done with full commitment. The damp, in places crumbling, wood strained to tear free of its hinges, pieces of it flying off towards the travellers who had only just resurrected from a brief, unpleasant sleep.

The elder Landau unstuck his eyes first. An oppressive, loathsome sensation immediately enveloped him almost entirely, refusing him a return to an adequate perception of reality. A dry lump sat in his throat, hindering his exhale. His stomach twisted with every sort of unpleasant sensation. The stranger's hand on his waist felt heavy. Landau promptly pushed it away, completely ignoring the half-asleep rambling of the person behind him.

His sister was not sleeping. She was tinkering with the gears of an old film camera, either trying to repair it or to adjust it. Gepard looked into her eyes with hope, but saw nothing in them but a cold estrangement bordering on filthy disdain. Lynx had always been a vindictive child. His complete opposite.

He would forgive. She would remember.

Gepard tried unsuccessfully to understand the course of her actions and thoughts. Her mental age swung from eight to eighty; keeping track of those leaps was impossible. He could not do that. His unquiet soul demanded an immediate explanation. For when cursing and shouting were followed by explanations as well, living truly became easier.

Having thought through just a single line in advance, Landau quietly sat on the edge of her bed. The girl did not tear herself from her occupation for even a moment. The one who had knocked on their door had long since left the zone of audibility: his footsteps echoed distantly, driven through the club's sparse corridors. In the silence that reigned for a moment, the only sound was Gepard's heartbeat. A second later, the quiet circulation of blood was interrupted by the first awkward words.

"I truly am sorry things turned out this way."

Something clicked. A gear fell into place, but the girl was in no hurry to close the cover.

"I don't regret a single word I said. I won't tolerate it. All I want right now is to die as far away from him as possible. I don't want my corpse to feel his rotten little soul."

Gepard could not suppress a pained groan. His head began to swell with hopelessness. It seemed that nothing could now make his stubborn little sister see reason. Paying him no further attention, she continued to rummage inside the mechanical box.

"You mustn't speak of such things even in your thoughts. We will not die." Landau swept his eyes over the room in bewilderment and exhaled. "You will not die. I will not allow your deaths!" Gepard ground his teeth loudly, averting his gaze, which glistened with angry moisture. "I will not allow it…"

Lynx froze for a second, as if pondering whether her next words would be appropriate. Her resolve proved stronger than her embarrassment. Setting the camera aside, she peered somewhere behind his back.

"I heard your conversation last night, and I saw what passed between you. Love works terrible things upon you, brother. Think on that."

From the background came the quiet rustle of blankets, the cracking of another's joints, and a loud, unrestrained yawn. Both Landaus turned towards the one who had woken, measuring him with attentive, intent gazes. Sampo stared back, uncomprehending. The sudden attention seemed a morning hallucination. To hide from those searing eyes, Koski demonstratively concealed himself beneath the blanket, turning away from them towards the wall with a quiet snicker.

"Nonsense," Landau cut off roughly, "pure and simple."

"Who can say?"

"You Landaus are always going on about honour and upbringing, and yet here you are, staring at a rumpled man," came the voice from under the blanket.

However cheerful and open Koski might seem, at such an early hour it was still hard to maintain the image. To admit the truth, he had considered the journey with these two felines to be yet another dream of adventures and chases. Now, understanding that the memories were real, the man plunged into a whirlpool of emotions: confusion and fear and hurt, and the desire to climb once more onto that so innocent and yielding captain.

Casting aside superfluous thoughts, Koski wrapped himself in the blanket, lowered his feet onto the cold floor, and, letting goosebumps run over his body, stuck his head out, sending a final glance towards the pure-blooded representatives.

"You two have a little whisper here, pick over my bones, and I'm off to the shower. But bear in mind, I'll be back very soon, so you won't manage to run off!" He smirked, tossing the fringe that had fallen into his eyes aside with a nod. With mincing steps, he swiftly crossed the little closet and quietly stepped out the door.

The Landaus were left alone. Once more, ash began to drift between them. Their eyes sparked; their gazes seared the skin. The strength for quarrelling, however, was gone. As were cause and desire. Gepard was seized by a causeless fear that their lives would be cut short on such a loathsome note. As though they ought to have quarrelled earlier. The atmosphere was crushing. His sister seemed to be waiting for something from him, and he simply did not understand what. The captain, generally speaking, was not famed for his quick-wittedness. Now that seemed a truly serious problem. As the elder, he ought to have begun to resolve something already. Yet even choosing the words in his head had become truly difficult.

"I hope you're not angry with me. It's just that I truly cannot help myself. All of this oppresses me as well, but I don't yet see a way out." Gepard dropped his head powerlessly onto his chest. "I don't see one at all."

Lynx said nothing.

This whole situation seemed to repel her mercilessly. The girl was tossed from irritation to indifference. Her brother's gaze was utterly crushing, forcing her to revolve the thought of capitulation in her head several times over.

"You don't even understand why I'm angry with you. For some reason, you're trying to apologise for your own feelings, but that's far from the point. Right now, you're ready to entrust our lives to who knows whom, and that truly wounds me. I'm wounded by your indifference and by the fact that in your head you've already buried yourself, while at the same time appealing to my prudence. I'm not ready to reconcile with that."

For a second, she stilled, fixing her gaze on her brother. Eyes like their mother's, echoes of an aristocratic despot. Had his sister stayed home, she would surely have grown up even fiercer than their father. The phantom pains on his face still served as a good reminder of why he no longer communicated with his parents. Even the thought of them bred a spiritual pain that echoed in his heart, in his chest, in his head, in his entire body. He felt sick.

"I understand you." Landau retreats shamefully under the silent onslaught. "I'll go to the shower too."

Speaking of capitulation…

The resounding singing of Sampo Koski carried not only through the deserted, spacious shower room, but far beyond its limits: along the corridors, peeking into the nearby rooms of the club's visitors.

The blanket hung on a rusty hook by the entrance. The room was filled with thick, impenetrable steam. Water of such a temperature could easily scald the skin, reaching down to the bone, but Sampo felt simply magnificent. With his voice, hiding beneath the boiling water, he was ridding himself of the emotions that had set upon him so mercilessly in the little room under the intent gaze of the Landaus. Now the man was so absorbed in the process that he did not even hear the bold soul who had finally resolved to cross the threshold of the shower room. His ringing voice nearly burst the eardrums. Drops shattered against hot, reddened skin. Splashes, driven by Koski's sharp movements, flew everywhere together with the foam.

For once, Sampo could be the most ordinary of people.

No sooner had Landau crossed the threshold of the shower room than water, loud, low singing, and scalding steam struck him in the face. And nothing else. Landau was not in the least embarrassed by the other's nudity. He was far from anything so foolish. He was uncomfortable only because of the look of the shower room itself and the loud voice rebounding off the walls and drifting through the entire building. It was unbearably hot. The water was terribly hot; it was becoming truly hard to breathe. On top of that, his face burned worse than from fire. His hair was beginning to get wet. Quietly, almost criminally unnoticed, he appeared as though from nowhere, touching the other's shoulder with impermissibly soft pressure.

"Quieter, please."

The low note suddenly leapt high, executed a somersault in the air, and fell silent. Or perhaps it was not the note at all, but Sampo himself. He stared, stunned, at the one who had entered, clutching his heart with one hand and his groin with the other.

"Where did you come from?!" he squeaked.

Not recognising his own voice, he cleared his throat, squinted, and once more peered into the face of the captain, which was now covered in perspiration. It truly was Gepard Landau in the flesh. His gaze involuntarily slid lower, from the crown to the heels, and swiftly returned to the captain's countenance. His own face seemed to have grown even redder than before.

"So, the little brat finally kicked you out and conquered all the temporary living space?" He spun on his heels, trying to keep his balance, and stared at the wall, his back now to Landau. "I hope I can still collect my things? The little one won't gut me like a Thanksgiving turkey, will she?"

The man began desperately scrubbing his chest and shoulders, pretending to be very much absorbed in the process.

Landau closed his eyes wearily, fully surrendering to the hot streams. The pain in his head was gradually easing, but relaxation would not come. His skin blazed, especially in the places where their bodies had touched. Yet he had no wish at all to break contact. The water seemed to have washed all his strength down the drain; his arms had gone cottony, and his legs were giving way.

"She's still offended. But she's no longer spitting venom. I think." He spoke quietly, somehow uncertainly, as if hoping not to be heard. "I don't know what to do with her. I can't argue with her. An unbearable child."

And again, powerlessness. To keep his faltering balance, Landau leaned a little harder against the other's shoulder. Koski's eyes rounded.

There was so much free space around them and so many empty stalls, yet this fellow seemed to have settled himself right beside him on purpose. Standing there, muttering under his breath as though nothing strange were happening. But if that was how it was, then Sampo too must remain light and carefree, despite his desire to relax.

"Ordinary youthful maximalism! I was the same myself, ha-ha!" He tried to soothe Landau. "You won't believe it, but even I once fought against my own kind! And, you see, I've been healed!"

The words flew out so quickly that it was too late to catch them. Only afterwards did Sampo realise he had blurted it out, and he bit his tongue for such utterances. Not the best support, coming from a known conman. He hastened to wriggle out of it.

"I meant to say that it will pass, and she'll grow up to be just as wonderful and talented as you and Serval, once she's a little older. But, mark my words," Koski turned to face the captain, striving to look into his eyes and only his eyes, "when we get back, I'll definitely give the little one a box of chocolates, and instead of chocolate, I'll put mouse tails inside. I'm warning you!"

Sampo dissolved into laughter, bumped the captain with his hip, and now, with a clear conscience, continued restoring his impeccable appearance. Gepard, despite his looseness, did not lose his balance for a second. He even felt like answering such a good joke.

"And will you give me the chocolates?"

For the first time, the captain smiled carefreely, tilting his head, which felt made of cast iron. His wet hair touched the other's shoulder, and the pain fell silent altogether for a moment. Gepard found himself once more impermissibly close to the other's face. Without realising it himself, he had simply shattered all visible boundaries. Only, what to do next became entirely unclear. Their bodies were touching, their gazes crossing; they were divided only by steam and streams of water. Today's closeness seemed truly transcendent.

"To her? No…" Sampo whispered, lost, involuntarily letting his gaze slide over the captain's lips.

His slippery, soapy palms came to rest on the man's shoulders, squeezing lightly. With that action, he brought himself back to his senses. Having laughed, he ruffled Landau's fair hair with a deft movement of his wrist, and gave a parting stroke over the crown of his head.

"But I'll definitely share with you! Say, a couple of chocolates will be enough!" Koski made the water a little cooler, refreshing his own thoughts. He kept glancing towards the captain, but hurried to rid himself of the foam and leave Landau alone with himself. "Or perhaps a little more…" he muttered inaudibly under his breath, and pulled on his habitual smirk.

His hands grabbed a towel, smartly twisted it into a little whip, and a slap resounded. A pink mark remained on Landau's thigh from a light yet ringing blow, and Koski himself hastened to retreat, giggling.

"And that is for my interrupted moment of glory, Captain Geppie!"

Sampo wrapped the towel around his hips, threw the damp blanket over his shoulders, and, snatching up his clothes, slipped out into the corridor, leaving Landau alone. Bewildered and, in part, crushed. His temples were still throbbing, and his mind was striving to emerge from a sincere lack of understanding. It was as though Sampo had been frightened of something, had fled faster than usual. He minced, chuckled, and gesticulated actively, trying to escape. Strange behaviour from a man who was strange to Landau's limited world. Gepard did not even wish to guess what fly had bitten his partner. His mood drooped further. The captain felt as though it was he who had done something wrong.

Cool streams of water slowly ran down his skin, like the memory of everything that had happened in recent days. Over the past days, he had been loved and hated, and in the end, nothing remained. Even his own emotions, as they arrived, were fading to nothing. Certainty had abandoned Gepard. Everything seemed horribly useless and wrong.

He wanted to wake up.

An inhale. Landau held his breath, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. His body tensed. The grinding of his teeth, resounding in his head, grew louder. The water on his body was almost unfelt.

A second. A second more. A third.

He was still standing in the unkempt shower room, surrounded by yellowed tile. He had not woken up. This was not a nightmare, nor a soulless dream turned to horror. His disappointment could be scooped out by the bucketful. All that remained was to exhale in chagrin and, overcoming himself, to close the iron tap, now covered in tarnish and mould. Instantly, it grew colder. Goosebumps immediately ran over Landau's arms. He himself shivered in discomfiture.

He needed to return. Wrapping a towel around his hips, he left the shower room. He did not turn off the light, did not look back, did not even check whether he had forgotten anything there. He wanted to get back faster, to see his sister, Sampo, and himself. The only mirror was situated precisely opposite the door.

Landau did not recognise himself. He rarely had occasion to look in mirrors, mostly because his appearance mattered little to him. Yet even so, it was hard to recognise himself in the reflection. His red eyes and dark circles contrasted with the pallor and thinness of his once pleasant face. His cheeks had hollowed, and the bruises and abrasions lent him a rather dismal look. Ugliness. Extreme ugliness, which no longer matched in any way the stately image of an aristocrat and captain of the Silvermane Guards. Right now, he resembled a regular at the most shabby tavern of the Underworld.

Unable to look at the horrible reflection in the dirty, cracked mirror, he sharply averted his eyes, biting the tender skin on the inside of his lower lip. Pushing the door, he stepped into the room, freezing stupidly in the doorway. The picture that unfolded before him was astonishing in its surrealism. It seemed Landau's eye even twitched. His lips literally spread into a satisfied smile.

Lynx was sitting calmly on the bed beside Koski, peering intently at his hands. He had practically crawled headfirst into the body of her camera. The gears clicked quietly, falling into place; the embers between them crackled softly. Tension no longer drifted in the air. Landau was afraid to blink, still thinking that this pleasant vision was a result of the sharp temperature shifts.

Both of them noticed him, looked at him, smiled. Sampo tossed him his clean clothes, winking playfully. His soul grew warmer. His face flushed, and a short, pleasant impulse shot through his entire body.

Finding himself before the crowd, Gepard could not suppress a heavy exhale.

The silence that crushed the eardrums descended the moment he stepped down the stairs and swept his gaze over the crowd. Dozens of pairs of eyes stared at him. Angrily. From under furrowed brows. They followed him attentively, with hatred. The mute contempt burned a hole through Landau's chest, making its way to his heart. He felt it on his skin. It choked him, broke his neck, beat against his head, but did not return him from the nirvana of horror that was sloughing off him in a sticky layer, down into the drain at his feet.

Begin to speak? Right now, that seemed an impossible task. Space and time were twisting; the world was covered in an impenetrable crust of ice and crushed him with the weight of expectations. Landau had never been an excellent orator, and by his nature, he was nothing at all like one whom crowds would follow. From shame, he wanted to fall through the earth, lower than the Underworld itself, into the very maw of the planet. It would be better if the world slipped off its axis right now and spared him this humiliation.

"I am a representative of the Landau family, captain of the Silvermane Guards, and a man who has come here to warn you of danger. You must leave the Underworld immediately. In the worst case, it will soon collapse. You must ascend to the surface, or else inevitable death awaits you."

"You?! Save us?! Ha-ha-ha!" A coarse male voice tore through the silence. "Weren't you the one who did in one of our own yesterday?! Is that how honest men act?!"

Sampo shuddered. Lynx's cheeks flared, and her little shoulders trembled. She took a step forward, but Koski covered her shoulders in time, holding her in place. She threw her head up indignantly, but met the man's worried gaze.

"You'll ruin everything…" he whispered, shaking his head in the negative, and the girl drew her brows together darkly, but obeyed.

"That man…" Gepard hastened to justify himself, clenching his hands into fists.

"We saw what that man was doing! But by law, he should have been punished, not killed!" A woman joined the stranger, brandishing a hooked prosthetic that replaced her arm. "You'll slaughter us all and throw us behind bars the moment we show ourselves on the surface!"

At that, the silence that had reigned before vanished. The crowd exploded, filling the space of the club with an indignant roar. People clamoured, shouted about injustice, hurled at the captain and his companions whatever came to hand: glasses of drinks, scraps of food, hats, rubbish. Gepard stepped back half a pace involuntarily. Noticing this, the inhabitants of the Underworld sensed their strength and power and began to shout even louder than before.

Sampo stalled. For a time, he tried to figure out what could be done in this situation before it went entirely out of control. He knew perfectly well that the residents of the underground world would easily deal with them if nothing was done. But they could delay no longer.

"Listen to me!" Landau still tried to calm the people, stepping back once more.

"Hey!" Sampo laid a palm on the captain's lower back, steadying him imperceptibly. His hand crawled higher, squeezing his shoulder. He himself stepped forward, shielding Gepard. "Hey-hey! My friends! You've known me for ages and ages! Eh? Do you remember me? Surely you do?"

His thumb struck his chest. The man lifted his chin proudly, though what he wanted most was to quietly carry his legs away from here and live as before, without problems and condemnations. Yet the noise grew a little quieter, even if it did not cease. And the hurling of objects at them did stop.

"Sampo Koski! The notorious conman! We know all right!"

"Oh, so you do know me!" He bloomed, squaring his shoulders. "Then you, my good ladies and sirs, also know that from my very birth, I've been here, with you. And you know that I would never betray my dear fellow citizens." Placing a hand on his heart, he bowed before the people. His jaw muscles worked at such a disgrace, but it was far better than ending up torn to pieces.

"How much did they offer you, that you decided to sell us out to these degenerates? Eh, Koski?!" threw out a lean man in glasses, and he spat at his own feet, demonstrating his disdain.

"A curse on your tongue, Dig!" Sampo recoiled in horror. "I would sooner sell these two to you than ever endanger my brothers and sisters! Those who helped me become a man, to survive in our cruel world!" The people fell silent, frowned, but listened.

Indeed, although Sampo Koski was not a reliable friend or comrade, many knew that thanks to him the city had many goods. Medicine, for one, had become many times more effective, and the death rate had fallen. Even the prosthetic of that very lady in the front rows had been procured by him, even if for a tidy sum. Sampo was quite capable of selling one or three particularly valuable residents of the Underworld, but not the entire populace that had been beside him all the years of his life.

Taking heart, the man continued.

"There, on the surface, there's a mad cold spell right now, that's a fact. But there are shelters where you could temporarily settle. Besides, there are so many of you that no Silvermane Guards could possibly cope with the might of our people!"

Someone raised a fist upwards, throwing out a resounding "Right!" A group of listeners repeated the gesture, lending their support.

"We have come here in peace, and as for what happened yesterday… well, the decision is yours, my dear friends. We are compelling and forcing no one. But, as Captain Landau said, at any moment there could be… POOF! And everyone who remains here… well, you understand…" Koski drew his thumb across his throat, as though severing his own head. "And whether they touch you up there, on the surface, or not, depends only on you. If you behave yourselves until things become safe here again, then very soon you'll all be able to return to your homes. We'll see to that agreement. Right, Geppie?" He nudged the fair-haired man playfully with his elbow and winked.

Landau exchanged his bewilderment for imperturbability in an instant. He was a captain of the Silvermane Guards. Not a weakling, not Gepard, not a "white-haired rat from the Overworld." He was still steadfast and proud. Before the faces of the weak and wretched, he was still a shield and justice.

"Yes. We will do everything we can. No more. If you want to live, go to the surface. If you don't, stay here. It makes no difference to me. I no longer bear responsibility for your lives; my conscience is clear. I will not drag anyone to the surface by force."

Someone even let out a whistle. An insolent man wanted to say something more, even opened his mouth to spew forth another stream of accusatory nonsense. Landau cut off this attempt almost instantly, pointing a finger at the man.

"One word, and you will remain here. I will tolerate no more disrespect. All those who wish to say something in accusation against me will stand before a tribunal."

Landau swept the crowd with an unreadable gaze. His bearing straightened; his former uncertainty had quite drained off him onto the floor, like meltwater. He would stand on ceremony with them no longer. They had been granted honour enough. Aristocrats do not fuss over swine, and even less do they coax them. The echoes of his parents' despotism had come as fittingly as could be.

"Well, shall we go?" Koski whispered to Gepard, and was the first to move back towards the room, without waiting for his feline partners.

Inside him, everything squeaked and seethed with delight, but he held himself in check until they reached their quarters. He kept adjusting his clothes, rubbing his neck, ruffling his fringe with his fingers, and smiling foolishly, until all three had disappeared behind the door.

"Why didn't you tell me before that you could be so magnificent?!" He threw himself with embraces at the captain, crushing his ribs and spinning him around his axis. "I nearly didn't… on the spot…" His gaze fell on Lynx's face, and he pressed his lips together, setting Landau back on the floor. "That was magnificent. Truly magnificent. And we're all splendid. Half the job is done!"

Landau's heart nearly dropped when his feet touched the floor again. All the organs in his body were jumbled; his neck was washed with heat, and his face seemed to have exploded with scarlet flowers.

When they stepped outside, Bronya and Seele were waiting for them on the steps. The picture was charming, but no less strange for it. Both girls were sitting close to one another, pressing temple to temple. Calmness and tranquillity drifted between them. The warlike Seele was like a tender cat. But sensing another's presence, they instantly sprang up, straightened themselves to the whistle of Sampo, and without a second's delay moved forward. All three of them followed.

It was dark in the caverns. A cold draught pierced the travellers to the bone, making their legs buckle with small cramps and fear of the unknown. The younger Landau was the only one who turned back towards the receding club. In her eyes, it was as if stars were exploding. The feeling that she was seeing this place for the last time grew stronger.

Once again finding himself before the terrifying lift, Landau rolled his shoulders.

The memories of the last ride on the lift were still fresh. They provoked micro-strokes. His body once more began to tremble faintly, and an unpleasant sense of anxiety filled the captain's head, hindering any rational thought. Something would not grant him peace. Whether it was the ominous swaying of the platform, or the crushing silence and the inexorably draining time.

Bronya stopped first, carefully inspecting the flimsy construction. Frowning, she tapped cautiously on the wood. From the sound, one might think it was entirely hollow. Smoothing her hair, the girl turned to her companions.

"Are you certain it will hold us?"

So as not to burden Landau with an answer, Koski spoke up.

"Absolutely not! We'll split into two groups. Ladies first! And the little one will go with you," he gestured carelessly towards Seele and Bronya. "And we'll follow after. Geppie and I are heavy. I'm not sure this wreck can handle our little rides another time."

No one objected. In the end, the decision seemed reasonable. They did not deliberate for long. There was no sense in wasting time when there was only one way up. The odds were equal — the rope would snap only once. It was frightening. An oppressive silence hung between them. The sensation of the inevitable enveloped them entirely. Yet no one dared to doubt. The rope was strong; it would hold, but the structure beneath their feet could very well let them down, vanishing from under their feet.

The main thing was not to think.

Not to think. Grit your teeth, close your eyes, and cling as tightly as possible to the rough cable. That was precisely what Lynx did, stepping onto the platform first. She clutched it until her fingers whitened, ground her teeth loudly with a mute call to action. In the elder Landau's chest, something ached with pride and delight. In his eyes, for the first time in a long while, confidence glinted.

Lynx had proven stronger than fear. She had shattered it like an icicle and, crumpling it, cast it into the dirt. A true Landau.

Seele and Bronya followed her example. They stood on either side of the girl, squeezed the cable in their fingers, but so that their hands lightly touched. They were full of confidence. It was reflected not only in their actions but in the depths of their clouded eyes. Soon, Sampo pressed the huge red button that started the lift. A vile grinding of metal resounded; from the gears, rust showered down like reddish dust.

The tight knot in his chest would not loosen. From fear, his throat grew dry; swallowing spit became harder and harder. Lynx quietly muttered something, rolling her eyes. The platform moved upwards. With a horrible grinding, creaking, the cry of dying mechanics. Landau's ears nearly began to bleed, but he plugged them with his fingers in time. His head nearly swelled; his temples throbbed, and somewhere in the back of his head it stung. From the crushing tension, Gepard stepped back.

Sampo carefully steadied the sufferer with a hand, helping him stay in place. The captain's moral constitution was depleting with every passing day. Over this path they had walked, Landau had managed to bury his antipathy, distrust, and scepticism towards Koski. He wanted to think that he had simply fallen before his magnificence. It was obvious that the matter was not that at all.

Gepard weakly believed in the successful outcome of their mission.

In his mind, he had long been in the grave, and the captain clearly had no intention of coming out. Something in Landau had broken. Something had burst with a rending crack. He had surely understood that he did not want to spend the remainder of his life on hatred towards this man. You cannot breathe your fill before death. The captain proved this with every action, every word, and every glance. Before an irreversible death, he wanted to live as a human being, not a marionette of the Landau family or the reliable shield of Belobog.

While Sampo stood, deep in his own thoughts, the lift had already managed to return. He noticed it by a slight quiver in the air and by the fact that Gepard sharply but carefully pulled him after himself. The lump in his throat was growing larger. The pressure on his trachea grew ever stronger.

When both stepped onto the platform, Koski playfully half-embraced the captain, settling his head on his shoulder. Hotly. Violating every boundary. Breathing onto his neck. Landau's skin broke out in crimson blotches, but the captain gave no sign. He remained steadfast and unshakeable, seizing the cable almost to the point of convulsions.

The lift started. They were jolted hard. From the shock, Gepard gripped the cable with his second hand, grunting quietly and feeling his internal organs twist into a knot from how tightly Koski was squeezing him.

Slowly, creakingly, jerkily. They moved upwards.

Boulder Town grew smaller, while the walls of the cavern grew larger and now seemed immense. The picture was deeply dismal, yet no less captivating for it. Gepard's thoughts were tossed from the unique beauties of the Underworld to one very insolent conman who, forgetting all bounds of propriety, was pressing himself into him, shamelessly cloaking himself in causeless fear.

Which, as it soon transpired, was not causeless at all.

In a moment, something clicked very loudly. The organs inside his body leapt, and time froze for a brief instant.

Then what everyone had so feared came to pass. The earth literally vanished from beneath their feet.

Sampo let out a loud shriek, clinging with arms and legs to the strong and seemingly unshakeable Gepard. He did not look down. More than that, he did not look anywhere at all, squeezing his eyes tightly shut.

"Damn it! Geppie! Geppie, don't let me croak here! I'm still far too young! I can't die in this filthy ditch! Ge-e-eppie-ee-ee!!!"

For some reason, they were no longer falling. Sampo did not dare to check why he had frozen in mid-air, but neither did he shut up, listing all his unfinished business. Or perhaps he was already dead? That was why nothing was moving? But then, where was the "entire life flashing before his eyes"?

Yet there were no bright flashes, no phantom images. Sampo was still alive and was not even lying somewhere on the wreckage of the shattered platform. He was clinging to Gepard with such force that his muscles had gone numb and were now almost unfelt. Landau, upon whom he was hanging, had seized the cable with such diligence that, trying to hold them both, he could barely manage an inhale. His reddened eyes were seeping with salty moisture, and his once pale face was slowly colouring to a deep crimson.

Forty metres above the ground.

They hung on that wretched cable over an unthinkable height. At least they would die quickly, without having time to feel the pain. But then the cable began to pull them upward, faster and faster. Landau wheezed and groaned quietly, trying to exhale evenly, while Sampo was afraid even to blink, still thinking that afterwards they would surely plummet.

"Geppie, darling! If we survive, I'll give you everything! Do you hear me! Everything, everything!" Sampo babbled, swaying above the earth.

His fingers were going numb, his legs were freezing, and in his head was utter bedlam. How could he have stepped so recklessly onto that wreck? Yet he felt something moving. Was it Landau pulling them up? Or was someone hauling them? Or was it their souls departing for the presumptive heavens? But then, wasn't a personal cauldron in Hell reserved for Sampo, or had Natasha put in a word for him?

"S-shut up…"

Gepard's voice had grown hoarse. He felt so ill that any extraneous sound acted as a potent irritant. In that moment, he wanted simply to throw the burden from his back, but something in his head, or perhaps in his chest, would not let him do it.

He felt the cable growing wet. He felt the skin on his hands slowly peeling away. He felt the metallic stench of fresh blood.

Koski, clinging to his neck, was cutting off his air. Landau began to fear, not without reason, that he would simply be strangled. A hundred metres above ground level, that seemed the least of his problems.

From above, cries could be heard. Dust and stones flew into Gepard's face. His eyes burned from the grit that had got into them. And when they finally reached the hole between the Underworld and the mine, his strength seemed to have abandoned the commander for good. About ten metres remained. Blood started to flow from his nose.

Sampo obediently kept silent, his lips pressed tightly together. It was then that he, too, caught the familiar scent, which he wanted to feel least of all at that moment. Squeezing his legs tighter so as not to slide off Landau, he tried to pull one arm away from his neck, only it seemed to have grown fast. Another attempt. And another.

Terrifying. Insanely terrifying, but they were still alive. Koski felt how the captain, who had turned out far braver than he, was trembling. And his hand came unstuck. Sampo seized the cable above Gepard's palm and squeezed it tightly, as much as his strength allowed.

Adrenaline pounded at his temples. He wanted to scream, to beg for mercy and for life. But he had been ordered to shut up. He screamed inside his head. Only to survive and not let Geppie die.

Light spilled above their crowns. They ought to have exhaled. Gepard could not manage it. His lungs felt ready to burst at any moment, striking painfully against his ribs. Above his head, a familiar voice rang out. Gepard could not restrain himself and lifted his head towards the light.

"Brother!"

Lynx looked dreadful. Dishevelled and tear-streaked, with a huge bruise on her cheekbone. She looked as though, having slain a horde of Fragmentum creatures, she had understood that they were people. He had never seen her like this.

Seele stood nearby; Bronya was not visible. Only her clothes flashed past the controller.

For the first time, Gepard was able to draw a proper breath, feeling as he and Sampo were quite literally dragged onto the ground by two pairs of female hands.

But even when Koski felt the solid surface against his back, he did not unclasp his legs, did not loosen his fingers, did not open his eyes, but merely moved his other hand aside, stretching it perpendicular to his body. His heart hammered loudly. On his chest, he felt the weight of another's body. And the fear would not leave him.

They were alive. Both alive. Thanks to Gepard and to those who had snatched them from the clutches of death. And Koski… Koski had turned out not only useless, but harmful to the captain. His legs weakened, released the man, and braced against the ground on either side of the other's body.

Gepard collapsed nearly lifeless.

His hands ached, pulsed. The skin had practically peeled away; the blood mingled slowly with the dust. He had no strength even to catch his breath. In an instant, the world around him lost its colours. It burst, peeled away, fell into the dirt, right beside Gepard's body.

It was difficult to react to anything when the world was merging into one. Now he felt neither Sampo's touches, nor the suffocating embraces of the weeping Lynx, nor the strong arms of Seele, who tried with a single motion to set him on his feet again.

Koski remained beside him. He tried to rectify the situation, to atone for his uselessness. He threw Gepard's arm over his own neck, helping him to stay on his feet. Heavy. With Seele, standing and walking was easier.

And now his soul was torn asunder by worry for this man as well. How could a brain possibly work so as to react so swiftly and hold two people at a critical moment? Sampo would certainly thank him. Later, when they all got out together. For now, he could only walk beside him, trying to joke without humour, and hold up the exhausted Landau.

It was already night.

When they emerged from the mine, it became clear just how badly they had blundered. The bone-penetrating cold at the exit immediately struck their faces. To walk wherever they might walk seemed pure suicide. They needed to spend the night somewhere.

Gepard came to his senses. He could stand straight, his hands were intact, his face no longer smeared with blood. Lynx had had to fuss for a long time with her meagre knowledge of the Power of the Paths in order to heal her brother. But to know that her efforts had not been in vain was truly pleasant. She had worried more than anyone, and had only calmed down recently, though her hands still trembled a little. The poor girl had grown so agitated that she could not stop her chattering jaw.

Gepard did not look at his companions. He spoke with difficulty as well. To be honest, he was not even trying. His thoughts were tangled.

"Do we go to Serval?"

Sampo was the first to raise the pertinent question, peering intently into the blizzard stretching before them.

"They," Lynx pointed at Seele and Bronya, "are going wherever they want. And we are going to my place."

Sampo was astonished at the brazen behaviour of the youngest Landau. She and Seele kept drilling into one another, mentally destroying each other to dust, yet no one understood the essence of their mute conflict. The woman glared at the girl, measuring her with a look full of contempt. She had only just opened her mouth when Bronya caught her by the hand and pulled her after herself with the phrase:

"Let's go already… I know a little spot, not far."

"Just give me a reason…" Seele nevertheless tossed out in parting and, snorting, followed the girl.

Sampo gave a whistle. So it turned out that this spirited little brat did not only dislike him. A mere mite, yet she was not afraid to show her teeth and claws. His heart immediately eased, and it became easier to breathe. He glanced sideways at Lynx and cleared his throat.

"Your place? Let me guess, you're going to lead me into the woods and bump me off, right? And then sprinkle a little snow over my torn body, like a master chef? Ha-ha…" he laughed nervously.

At this, Landau merely smirked smugly, stepping out of the cave. A step — and her silhouette dissolved into the blizzard. Sampo and Gepard obediently trudged after her.

"Are you sure we're not lo-lo… lost?" chattering his teeth, the despondent Sampo whined. Snow had clung to his brows, to his fringe, and had slipped down his collar.

"I'm sure!" Lynx threw back, glancing at the man. She could not suppress a snicker. "You look like a cup of ice cream. Cold, are you?"

"Ea-easy for you to say… You've got a hat…"

The man gave a loud sniff and knocked the icicles from the tip of his nose with a fingernail. Gepard beside him was also shivering, rubbing his shoulders with his large palms. The blizzard roared, howled, and whirled around the weary travellers, and they, it seemed, had utterly despaired. But suddenly the girl took off and, nimbly leaping over the high snowdrifts, dashed forward, letting out a squeal: "There it is!"

Gepard quickened his pace. Sampo lagged behind, waddling from foot to foot like a penguin. Only his heart, awakening in his chest, betrayed joy and drove the blood through his frozen veins.

Lynx was the first to burst into the little shed. She confidently flung the door open; snow whirlwinds and Gepard flew in after her. He began to brush the white hillocks that had formed on his shoulders. The younger Landau peeked out into the street, squinting.

"Come on, faster! The whole house will be buried while you crawl here!"

And Sampo scurried, swearing foully under his breath. When he tumbled into the room, a snowdrift had already risen on the threshold, into which he flopped, throwing his arms out to the sides.

"What cretin invented winter?.. I hate it…"

Inside the house, it was dark and cold. It smelled of wet dog and dried meat, hanging lonely from ropes strung near the old stove. On the walls hung dusty rugs; on the table lay a pile of papers and an overturned cup. Its contents had long since been absorbed by the maps, books, and dark wood. The little house looked sad; at first, it even seemed to them uninhabited. Even for a shed, it looked somehow far too dismal. Yet all its trappings only cried out that people had lived in this wreck, and on a permanent basis at that.

It seemed to the elder Landau that, in the corner, he saw a black rat run past, but it vanished under the creaking bed. If this truly was his sister's home, then he simply had to have a serious talk with her about moving. Even touching anything in this house was, to put it mildly, revolting. The dust here did not cling to one's hands only because of the low temperatures. His sister, however, felt like a fish in water. In less than forty seconds, a small brazier stood in the middle of the room, and Lynx, having buried her head in it, was blowing on a burning piece of paper.

And it could not be said that, right now, it did not seem a panacea for their frozen limbs; it was simply that all this looked, at the very least, strange.

Sampo straightened his shoulders, threw off his snow-covered jacket, shut the door, and walked over to the only bed, pulling the blanket from it. He wrapped himself in the scrap of wool as though the preservation of his life depended on this throw. Hunching his neck, he began to wander around the little house in circles, either trying to warm up or studying this semblance of a dwelling. He kept turning his nose up and grimacing, unwilling to touch the layer of accumulated filth. And, naturally, his sharp eye soon studied every corner, searching for something valuable, worthy at least of a merchant of the Underworld. Of auctions and pawnshops there was nothing even to think. Yet only rubbish reigned everywhere, of little use.

"What a me-e-ess… You live in this horror? It's no wonder you're so nervous, little Landau," the man laughed and sat opposite the girl. The bed gave a shriek. He stretched his palms towards the growing fire. "At least we won't freeze to death here, eh?"

Lynx raised a suspicious brow, looking the conman over with exaggerated fastidiousness.

"You — I don't know. Geppie definitely won't freeze. At the very least, I certainly won't throw him out."

Sampo laughed loudly, snapping his fingers. He liked the joke. His frozen blue lips even twisted into a smirk. Everything was as before. As though nothing had changed: there had been no quarrels, no hatred, no loud words and mental messages. The younger Landau was a dramatic theatre waiting to happen. It was a pity she had not become an actress.

The room quickly filled with the smell of smoke. Lynx took half a step back from the brazier and sat on a small stool, stretching her hands out before her. Gepard did not venture to approach the flames.

In his head, memories of the cold and of funeral pyres were still fresh. In the crackle of the fire, he heard the time-faded voices of his comrades and the quiet echoes of how the flames had taken the remains of their bodies.

However cold he might be, fire provoked far more loathsome sensations in him.

Passing by the fire-hazardous construction, he also sat on the bed, wincing furiously when it sagged with a loud creak. The sound struck Gepard's ears far too hard; his temples throbbed involuntarily. Sampo ground his teeth, turning towards the man. What a sound. Like heartrending screams from the very furnace of Hell. But, after a moment's thought, he pressed his shoulder blades against the wall, raised his arms, and spread the blanket above himself like a sail. Yawning sweetly, he stretched his legs closer to the brazier and fixed his gaze on the girl.

"Well then, little one, you'll have to nestle in that cha-a-air over there. Captain Geppie and I have already shared a bed, heh-heh! And you're just a tiny thing; you'll fit on a little cushion." He fidgeted on the bed, and it groaned. "Besides, you toss and turn; you won't let us sleep. Right, kitty?" Seeking support from the elder Landau, he turned to the blond.

Gepard shrugged, demonstrating his own helplessness.

"Whatever she decides. In the end, it's her house."

Lynx loudly snapped her fingers, winking triumphantly.

"Well, finally! At least someone understands it. This is my house, and you won't be sleeping on my bed. Especially you." She pointed a finger at Sampo. "There's a little sofa in the other room; sleep on it, don't deny yourselves anything."

Landau smiled sweetly, her gaze flashing. She was unperturbed. It was simply impossible to wrest her personal space from her. All that remained for Gepard was to exhale in resignation once more, lowering his head. He did not much want to spend the night with Sampo again. To argue with his sister — even less so. They were lucky, really, that she had any sort of property at all.

"Huh?! You can't move to the little sofa yourself?" Sampo sighed in resignation, rubbing his forehead with the back of his hand. "Geppie, maybe you're adopted, eh? How can you possibly differ so much from your sisters?"

He rose. The bed exhaled. Koski walked over to the dried meat: it smelled suspicious and looked none too good. His index finger prodded a piece, and it swayed.

"Hey, little one, is there anything edible around here? Or do you live on snow? This carcass here looks like it's going to kill us all while we're chewing it."

"More likely, I'll kill you. Keep your hands off! That's a rare polar rabbit, and it's for sale."

Sampo stared at the girl, uncomprehending.

"What did you think? Do I print money in the basement, in your opinion? I need something to live on. Equipment is very expensive, and I can't live on snow and fish alone, can I? I'm not denying it's tasty. But know that it's not so easy to wean oneself off the good life."

Lynx rose from her well-warmed spot, crossing the room in two steps. She opened a small cupboard. For a second, it seemed to those present that a little flock of mice would scurry out, but surprisingly, there was food inside. Grabbing a couple of cans, she handed them to the men. Condensed milk ended up in Gepard's hands; something not entirely comprehensible in Sampo's.

"This is all very interesting, of course, but how do I know it's not human flesh?"

Landau looked at Koski with displeasure.

"I can tell you right now that it's carrion."

"You'll be a fearsome woman, Lynx, when you grow up." He swallowed nervously, tossing the can and catching it with his other hand. "I mean, not fearsome, but fearsome, heh-heh! Otherwise, you Landaus are all pretty and look like you were made from the same mould."

He sat down on the girl's stool, drew his knife, and opened the can with a couple of jerks. Inside were some kind of fruits. His stomach rumbled hungrily.

"Eh? And this is food? Only girls eat like birds; men need meat. Any stewed meat around… no?" Meeting the stern gaze of the youngest Landau, he laughed, bending the tin lid aside. "Oh, all right. Thanks for that, anyway. Go and warm up next to your brother. It's warm with him. And softer on the bed than here. Otherwise, everything on you will go all flat, and no one will love you." Koski barely suppressed a snicker and held out the opened can to Gepard.

After making sure her brother was not looking, the girl showed Sampo the most indecent gesture of those she knew. Koski's eyes nearly popped out of his head. What an impudent brat.

"And glory be to Qlipoth. I hope it preserves me from odd-toed ungulates like you."

She sat down again, first taking two pieces of meat from the rope. One safely ended up in Gepard's hands; the second between her own teeth. As an accompaniment to the can of "carrion," Sampo also found himself with the condensed milk.

"Enjoy."

"You want me dead, little cats? Hah… well, all right! Your house, your rules!"

He set the little can of condensed milk beside his leg and fished something out of the first can with his fingers. A wrinkled piece of some berry went into his mouth. Well, he had not eaten anything like that in a long time. His stomach rumbled gratefully. Another and a third followed. Koski once more swept his gaze over the little house.

"So small, and already you have your own dwelling. Clever girl. I sense my replacement is growing up. You'll grow a little more and you too will be hauling all kinds of useful things to people. But tell me, where does all this come from? Share the secret, little genius!"

"Sold my grandmother's china set."

Sampo was about to laugh, but the mistress of the house had spoken with utter seriousness. From his look, it was clear that some explanation would not go amiss; the girl reluctantly continued.

"When I was kicked out of the house, they said I could take one thing with me. I took the china set, and I stuffed the teapot full of jewellery. My mother had an unseen quantity of it anyway. She didn't even notice."

Gepard turned his head towards her in astonishment, for the first time truly absorbing the essence of the conversation. A mute question froze on his face, one that Lynx was in no great hurry to answer.

"Oh…" Sampo marvelled. "Your little sister's got quite the head on her shoulders… Clever. Yes, a great future awaits you, little one."

He emptied the can and took up the condensed milk, wiped off the dirt, pierced it on two sides, and pressed his lips to the tin. Sweetness crept down his throat; warmth through his body. Yes, perhaps there was little food, but it was better than starving for yet another unseen stretch of time. And strength was needed and important. Peeling himself away from the half-empty can, Sampo gave a loud exhalation, raising his gaze to Lynx.

"Ha-a-ah… Even to a foe, you've extended a helping hand. I almost love you, heh-heh!" He stood, clutching the blanket to his chest with one hand and holding the remnants of the condensed milk with the other. "Thank you. If I survive, I'll repay the debt. Koski's word!"

Passing by the brazier, the man headed into the tiny neighbouring room. A chill seized his body. It was far colder in here than in the main room. By touch, he found the back of the sofa, tripped, overturned something heavy, and whimpered quietly, peeking out from behind the doorframe.

"Didn't manage it, little one! I'm still alive, heh-heh! Tell me, haven't you got anything warm in here?"

Lynx threw a blanket at him while her brother slowly and painfully digested what he had heard. His entire perception of his sister was quietly crumbling, while his body still shivered faintly. He wanted to sleep.

His legs were like cotton wool, his body like jelly, and his mind like a fetid sludge. He too rose to his feet, slowly biting off his piece of rabbit. Chewing came with no small effort. His eyes were closing of their own accord. The warmth and food had overcome him fairly quickly. A couple of steps later, he found himself in the same nook as Sampo, who was unsuccessfully trying to unfold the old, dusty sofa.

In the darkness, things clattered. Koski was at war with the furniture, trying to make the bed larger, longer, but the sofa would not yield. Only its legs creaked against the plank floor.

"Does it even fold out?" Sampo shouted, and in reply received a brief "Nope."

Only then did the man leave the furniture in peace, planting his hands on his hips. So, they would have to squeeze in again. Sampo kicked off his shoes, once again knocking over something metallic, located the can of condensed milk, and, fastening himself to it, sank onto the sofa, covering himself with both the throw and the blanket. No matter how he tried to press himself against the hard backrest, there was still not enough room for a second person.

"Hey, Captain Geppie," he called and lifted the cover, inviting Landau to join him. The empty can thudded dully beside the leg of the sofa.

Exhaling raggedly, Gepard let a flow of thoughts run through his head, thoughts clearly not intended for a tired man. He did not think for long: he pulled off his jumper, remaining only in his t-shirt, and threw it onto the nightstand.

He still did not entirely understand how they were supposed to lie. It was frightening to come closer. And yet, the improper thoughts that crept into the captain's head were quickly dashed against naivety and principles. It was precisely those that became the foundational elements of the trust that made him lie down.

Right on top of Sampo.

Chest to chest. Hand to hand. Cheek to cheek.

Never before had Landau been so close to the one he had considered unattainable. The stupefied Sampo stared at the black ceiling. For a while longer, he held the covers above them, and then covered them both and embraced the man.

"I'll hold onto you, so you don't fall."

He would have liked to laugh, but the phrase sounded surprisingly soft. Surprising even to Koski himself. Inside him, a satisfied beast purred. A smile spread across his lips.

"Good. It's warmer this way…"

And again that tone. Sampo took a cautious breath, pressing Landau closer to himself. Still he smiled and chased strange thoughts from his head. Holy winds! What was going on inside it! Yet outwardly he did not betray himself; he stroked the captain's back between the shoulder blades. Soon his eyelids grew heavy and lowered. Koski began to snuffle quietly.

Gepard still could not comprehend or accept what was happening. His bleary gaze was frozen in the corner, and the warmth surrounding his limp body seemed a truly pleasant end to the day. Sampo no longer provoked irritation or revulsion. Only calm and a fluttering in the chest. An accelerated heartbeat and involuntary redness. It was hard to grasp just how grateful Gepard truly was to him. Sincerely. For everything. From the heart. From the conscience.

When the world was collapsing and the captain was mentally digging graves, Sampo had seemed salvation. However strange that might seem to the former guard, whose dead body would forever remain somewhere on the approach to Boulder Town. His brain, it seemed, was beginning to shut down. Involuntarily, in a state of prostration, he drew the back of his fingers over the other's cheek. Slowly and tenderly. Trying not to disturb the other's sleep.

A sigh followed the touch. Sampo was lost somewhere on the boundary of dreams and reality, could not quite grasp where this warmth was coming from. But his smile returned, even if only for a brief moment. The man mumbled something indistinct, moved his head as if trying to settle more comfortably, and ran his fingers over the other's shoulder blade.

Gepard exhaled slowly, relaxing even further in the other's embrace. It was hard to admit even to himself how good he felt. His lips slowly, almost criminally, come to rest on the other's cheek. Instantly, the sensation arises that he is doing something terribly wrong. Embarrassment gives way to panic.

And Sampo opens his eyes.

He stares in amazement at the man before him: his face is hard to make out, but his rapid, hot breathing gives him away entirely. He was kissed? He was just kissed? His cheek still felt it, which meant it had not been a dream. But was such a thing possible in a dream? Of course not.

"What are you…" Koski whispered, still not having managed to blink, and his eyes went dry. His arms loosened a little, frozen in one position.

Landau fell into horror. A moment's weakness had led him straight into the clutches of an awkward silence. He wanted to fall through the earth. So deep that they could not dig him out. His body tensed like a bowstring. To run away and spend the rest of his life banging his head against the wall, trying to erase this shameful episode. He had already started to rise, but he was not allowed to leave.

Feeling the flurry of movement, Sampo placed his palm against the captain's back, holding him in place. He trembled faintly. With the tip of his nose, he nudged the other's chin, lifting Landau's face. A half-sigh, half-moan escaped his lips, and Koski carefully pressed his lips to the captain's.

His heart struck against his ribs. He squeezed Gepard tighter, forbidding him to stir. Drawing back for a second, the man immediately returned, falling to the corner of his lips. No lewdness, no filth, only a tremulous, weightless touch, in which even Gepard partly took the initiative, unconsciously squeezing the other's body. Sampo too froze, expecting a trick or a slap to the face. Yet he was ready to accept it and regretted nothing. His eyelids closed. Their lips shifted a millimetre, yet still dissolved in Landau's breathing.

Gepard's world turned over. He looked at Sampo as though seeing him for the very first time. It seemed, through the darkness, he could see his pale face, now broken out in uneven scarlet blotches. Their breathing was still one. Their lips hovered mere millimetres apart. To tear away from one another seemed something unforgivable.

Outside the window, the blizzard howled. In the house, it was still cold. The fire crackled in the neighbouring room while the men looked into each other's eyes. They ought to have said something, but Landau's jaw had locked, and the lump in his throat barely allowed him to breathe freely.

"Everything is all right, Geppie…" Sampo whispered and brushed his lips over his temple, smirking with satisfaction. "Don't be so nervous…"

"I'm nervous too…" flashed through his stupefied head, and Koski carefully, like one of the feline kind, rubbed his cheek against the other's, feeling how Landau snuggled against him in return. And the cold no longer seemed a problem, having receded. One palm slid down to the captain's lower back; the other settled on his fair hair, sinking into the short strands.

The captain felt himself being drawn back. Sampo pressed him to himself, tenderly and carefully. A second later, the other's lips came to rest on his cold forehead: they did not pull away, did not move. Koski froze, pondering something. His heart quickened its beat on a par with Landau's breathing. The other's hands on his back felt like the tender touch of the wind. The other's heartbeat, like an explosion of serotonin.

From the excess of emotions, the commander's strength finally abandoned his body. Settling himself more comfortably on the other's shoulder, he closed his weary eyelids for the last time.

The persistent feeling of an imminent death drew him ever more strongly to the bed.

On this cold, overcast morning, Landau woke alone.

In his sister's hunting lodge, an unsettling silence hung. Only the old floorboards creaked occasionally, while the northern wind treacherously crept through the cracks of the casement window. His body ached. His bones throbbed, and his muscles strained to detach themselves. In every part of his weary body, hard knots could be felt.

The fire in the brazier no longer burned. There was no smell of smoke around, and the cold that pierced to the capillaries made the blood run chill. Lynx and Sampo were absent. He ought to have begun to worry, yet a staggering indifference struck his head. The captain, it seemed, felt nothing. His worries had altogether evaporated from his mind, like refuse. He did not wish to think about where his companions had gone. They would not abandon him, no one could have abducted them, and there was nowhere to go. The world had now shrunk to minuscule dimensions, like a glass globe in which artificial snow shimmered so beautifully.

With truly oppressive sensations, Gepard rose from the bed. He wore only his trousers and a t-shirt. And while his bare feet nearly froze to the floor, he felt only phantom pains. The memory of the day when it all began was alive. Identical to this morning: cold, his soles as though resting on ice needles, and dizziness and the awareness of what was happening tormented his consciousness.

Sweeping his gaze over the room, he finally understood that he was alone here. Panic perhaps crept to the periphery of his consciousness, but it was quickly dashed against his inner ice barriers. All their belongings remained in the house, everything lay in its place; apart from the outer clothing, nothing at all was missing. Well, except that his sister and the conman had somehow fallen through the earth somewhere. His chest began to ache with anxiety; his empty stomach twisted, and his spit grew thin. Nausea rolled in gradually, yet so swiftly that Gepard barely managed to seize the table so as not to end up on the cold floor.

For a moment, the house seemed a sinister and unwelcoming place. The captain's moral state painted monsters and horrors. His imagination ran wild, allowing his consciousness to briefly depart from reality. And so as not to lose himself entirely in the hunting lodge, he pushed hard against the door. It yielded with difficulty. His intoxicated and exhausted mind was far from immediately perceiving the picture spread out before him. Gepard blinked in bewilderment, but a cold wind struck him sharply across the face, forcing him to come to his senses. Gepard passed a hand over his face. The picture had not vanished.

Lynx and Sampo were sitting relaxed on the steps of their temporary dwelling and… smoking.

"Have you lost your minds?"

While Sampo choked on the acrid, murky smoke, the captain's sister took another deep drag and stubbed the smoking stick out on the wooden step. The situation did not embarrass her in the slightest. The elder Landau came to his senses as if at the flick of a switch. Fury rolled over him in waves, but had not yet struck his head.

"I repeat. Have you all gone mad?" His tone was menacing; his gaze was stern. The commander was slowly reaching boiling point. "I demand an explanation. Immediately!" He raised his voice. His resounding shout seemed to be heard all around.

While the conman was thinking of how to wriggle out of it, Lynx rose from her well-warmed spot, handing Gepard the packet with the remaining cigarettes.

"Don't scold him." The girl nodded towards Sampo. "The pack is mine."

No one felt any easier. His sister's calm seemed something fantastical.

"And how long?"

"One of the reasons I was kicked out." His sister turned away nonchalantly and gazed towards the storm, which reached them in rare snowflakes.

Landau hid the packet in his pocket, delivering a light blow to the pompom on his sister's hat. He deeply disliked what was happening. Although his brain distantly understood that Sampo was not even remotely a bastion of morals and principles, the fact that he had so calmly gone out to smoke with his younger sister was infuriating. With a single gesture, he sent Lynx back inside the house, muttering quietly to her that she should eat well. But it was useless to lecture her.

The captain swiftly approached Sampo. The latter, though looking at him like a deer in headlights, did not move from his spot. A brief moment later, both were sitting on the little bench, gazing somewhere into the distance. Somewhere beyond the blizzards and the eternal permafrost. To that place where the dim light of a dying star still penetrated. Landau was turning to ice almost instantly. His body was involuntarily seized by uncontrollable shivering, while his soul felt a resigned peace. With the hand that until now had rested on his knee, he carefully intercepted the other's cigarette, looking at it with a strange indifference. He wanted to bring it to his lips, but he was not allowed.

"Now, now, Geppie. You shouldn't take after naughty little fools. You're a good boy; you've probably never even laid eyes on a cigarette!"

Gepard gave a relaxed smirk, feeling the other's jacket settle on his chilled body. A piece of an old throw fell onto his legs. It was not growing any warmer.

"I haven't. But I've smoked enough."

Sampo's jaw nearly locked from the cold and from laughter. What utter nonsense! Gepard Landau and smoking! At last, the man was beginning to learn to joke. And in truth, that could not but gladden him. Not half his rolling laughter had passed before he was roughly shoved in the shoulder.

"Laugh as much as you like. It's the truth. When I was wounded," Gepard drew his finger sharply from his collarbone to his hip, "my comrades were so afraid of losing me that they never kept me sober. When I came to, they poured alcohol into me. They didn't let me resist, naturally. When the booze also ran low, they started shoving cigarettes into my mouth. All so I couldn't focus on the pain." Landau tried once more to take the cigarette. Successfully. "Those were the worst ten days, even if I don't remember them well."

Sampo squeezed his numbing knee with force. The merriment evaporated. His fingers deftly intercepted the wretched cigarette from the captain's hands. Koski took a deep drag, rolling his eyes, whether from revulsion or from pleasure. And yet the smell was hellish. The stub went into the snow. The wind caught it and carried it somewhere into the snowy distance, while the men swiftly paled from the cold.

Koski had meant to exhale the smoke somewhere to the side, but an idea came of its own accord. With one hand, he took Landau by the hand; with the other, by the cheek. He gave him a few seconds to pull back, and then tenderly, almost chastely, drew his lips over the other's, cold and turning blue. He slowly stopped, exhaling the acrid smoke into the other's lips, feeling how living was becoming easier.

Landau did not resist. Filling his lungs with grey, twisting spirals, he closed his eyes in relaxation, trying to hide the rising embarrassment. His hand of its own accord ringed Koski, pressing him closer. His palm came to rest between his shoulder blades. The touch was blossoming into a kiss. Sampo did everything himself: he drew his tongue, long in every sense, over the even row of white teeth, carefully yet scorchingly bit the lower lip, brushed over it, and slipped once more into the inviting mouth.

They could breathe. The air, as if on purpose, would not run out, and before their eyes no stars swam, as was so often described in books. Only when their tongues touched did the blond give a barely perceptible shudder and squeeze his eyes shut, feeling his face begin to redden not only from the bite of the frost. And once again, the sensation that the world had simply contracted under the pressure of a metaphysical hydraulic press.

When they drew apart, neither could tear their eyes from the other. Sampo, with a touch of mute admiration, carefully drew his finger over the captain's lips, wiping away the moisture.

"And that's so they don't get chapped." Another brief kiss fell between the corner of his lips and the other's reddened cheek.

Landau's gaze involuntarily slipped aside. He found himself supremely embarrassed, though he no longer found anything wrong in his own actions. They ought to have discussed the plan, but in his head, apart from a ringing emptiness, only Sampo was lodged. A disgustingly pleasant feeling that at times seared his skin worse than fire and served as the cause of the deathly silence. When the thoughts darting about his cerebral hemispheres finally settled, Landau was able to ask the question that had tormented him for the past three days.

"What do we do?" He filled his lungs with the frosty air, feeling everything inside him twist with anxiety.

Sampo began frantically patting his pockets. When he discovered something within them, he exhaled calmly, bathing the other's face in thick vapour. From his trousers, he fished out something resembling a small controller. With pride, he raised the device to eye level, practically poking the captain in the nose with it.

"Here!" Koski declared proudly.

"Wow!" the guard admired, almost not pretending. "And what is it?"

"And this, my dear Geppie, is our path to salvation!" For several seconds, Koski held a pause to underline the importance of this incomprehensible object. "It's a spatio-temporal intergalactic controller!"

His brows rose of their own accord. In the captain's head, this had sounded like something along the lines of: "Boop-boop-boop-boop-boop controller!" He had no desire to ask again, however. He was in no hurry to underline his own ignorance; at the thought, Gepard even rolled his shoulders. Yet Koski understood without words, turned this very controller in his hand, and continued to hold forth.

"You press the little button, wait four seconds, and BOOF! Everything within a five-metre radius is either broken into atoms or transported to a random point in the universe! And it might not even be yours! This thing cuts the space between worlds and galaxies, universes and times. An incredible object, acquired by me from Serval in a quantity of two pieces." Sampo twirled it slyly before Landau's face. "As a matter of fact, I received them for going with you. Only one, actually, but that's not the point."

Gepard was amazed at how far technology had advanced. On their planet, forgotten by all people and Aeons, it turned out that progress did not stand still!

"You simply want to shift the Stellaron away from here?"

"In the worst case, it's the best option."

In Landau's head, a genuine moral dilemma unfolded. They would, of course, rid themselves of the problem. It would be transported, carrying with it the horror of these smouldering days. Yes, but the controller could move the Stellaron literally anywhere. By saving their own world, they could very well doom someone else's. A world where life bubbled like a spring, and children played in the neighbourhood. Children like his Lynx. With different faces, names, and fates. From the population of Yarilo-6, they differed only in the name of their planet. It was unlikely Gepard would be able to sleep, knowing that there always existed a chance that somewhere out there, a Stellaron had turned someone else's home into an icy wasteland.

"I won't be able to," Landau admitted honestly. In the weakness that had washed over him, there was nothing humiliating. "We cannot sacrifice someone else to save ourselves."

Koski only smiled indulgently, closing his sly eyes. His hand smoothly settled on the other's head; his fingers sank into the thick of the golden hair.

"Don't think about that, Geppie. When it comes to saving those dear to you, you should forget the concept of conscience altogether. Don't think about them. Think about those whose faces you picture when you close your eyes for a second. Believe me, my dear friend, you certainly won't trade them for someone out there, on the other side of the universe."

And Sampo was right. He would not trade them. He wanted to rid himself of these thoughts instantly, but something pulling somewhere near his heart gave the guard no peace. Conscience is a complicated thing. Lucky are those who have none at all.

"I truly won't be able to…"

Koski drew him closer, once again narrowing the distance between them. And once more, a touch of icy lips that committed to nothing, barely felt through the flesh-gnawing cold. The touch lasted perhaps three seconds, merely a superficial merging. This time, Koski drew back first, whispering something very quietly to Gepard while the steam from their mouths intertwined in the air into one.

"You don't have to do anything at all." Koski took the captain by the hands. "Let's go home instead."

When Seele and Bronya appeared at the window, they had already managed to warm themselves.

Having spent their last minutes over a cup of herbal tea divided among three, they could think only of the future. Lynx still reeked horribly of smoke; Gepard was still shivering from the cold; and Sampo was still holding his hand, sitting under their shared throw. The younger Landau did not seem to suspect anything: she could not have heard the dialogue, and the windows did not face the place where their strange conversation had once unfolded. Yet for some reason, the little one did not join their talk and, it seemed, did not wish to look in the men's direction at all unless necessary.

He did not want to ask about her metamorphoses. Who knew what went on inside a teenager's head? Besides, he needed first to deal with the cockroaches in his own head before pressing others.

When the knock came at the door, they were almost ready. Only Lynx kept dashing from side to side like a spinning top, in vain attempts to find something. She raised huge clouds of dust, decibels of noise, and an atmosphere of bustle. Climbing into every drawer and not finding whatever she needed inside, she would cry out loudly and strike herself on the forehead. Her behaviour was strange, jerky, but no one interfered. When those knocking, having waited in vain for an answer, entered the house, her running about ceased. From beneath an old dusty armchair, a huge pickaxe appeared. By its very look, it provoked phantom headaches.

Strapping the instrument of death to a carabiner, Lynx surveyed her astonished companions with satisfaction.

"Shall we go? Is everyone ready?"

The world sagged under the pressure of a heavy silence. It did not last long, but it did not grow any less agonising for that. Gepard was the first to nod with certainty, seizing the door handle, pondering something distant for a moment. When he vanished into the unrestrained snowstorm, his companions immediately rushed after him. Lynx did not even bother to close the door; she merely pushed it, waited for the click, and followed her brother.

Sampo no longer seemed irritating and unreliable to her, but for some reason, she still did not wish to make contact with him any more than before. Jealousy bubbled in the girl like soldiers' porridge hanging in a black kettle over a strong fire, and nothing could be done about it. In her head were childhood memories, of how one despotic swine who made them call her "mother" had simply gone and taken her father away from her. And in the younger Landau's mind, the situation was repeating itself. She felt as though she were becoming no one to her brother, fading into the background, displaced by one insolent conman who had, in a single moment, been elevated to an absolute in Gepard's thoughts.

And may Qlipoth smite them, how infuriating that was!

When, by nature, Lynx was a very envious and jealous person, it was hard to make exceptions for the sake of another's happiness.

The cold bit at her plump, red cheeks, and the girl only thought of how not to give free rein to her angry tears. With every step taken in the direction opposite to her house, she wanted more and more simply to take and turn back. Her teeth ground quietly, as did her cold, thin bones, and her hurt burned her soul with icy flame, ever pouring liquid nitrogen into it. Sampo and her brother had already gone far ahead; they kept apart from Bronya and Seele, who were walking side by side. It so happened that Lynx was once again alone. The sensation was familiar, but no less unpleasant for that. Not once did anyone even glance back at her.

Hiding her face in her scarf up to her very eyes, she nonetheless swore quietly.

Very filthily, in the manner of the miners, trying not to think about the meaning of such loathsome literary turns of phrase. Her teachers would have had a fit had they heard such a thing! That snob would shy away from children's curses and unfailingly go tell her father, and he, in turn, would drag her by the hair with such force that at times she wanted to shave herself bald! In the Landau house, at times even breathing was forbidden, it irritated the esteemed Lion to the highest degree. And Lynx was irritated by people. She wanted to dissolve into the blizzard of the snowy fields, or even to become the blizzard herself! To be so free that others could do nothing but recoil from her, never staying nearby for long. Were she a blizzard, at every opportunity she would pour snow down her father's collar!

At the sudden surge of memories smouldering in the fire of a carefree youth, the younger Landau smiled smugly and quickened her pace. Around her, buildings and overpasses, rail joints, and dead trees covered in icy mounds. And most importantly, not a soul. Dark and quiet. Only the wind howled so that one wanted to cover one's ears. The main thing was that it was not the marketplace din of the central bazaar of Belobog, which in the girl's eyes was simply a hellish place. You couldn't imagine anything worse! Endless cursing and arguments, shouts and people, people, people, people! A vast sewer-like flow of people.

Terrible, simply terrible.

Lynx shuddered involuntarily. With a measure of interest, she swept her gaze over the terrain. One more block, and they would be in the restricted zone, from which it was easiest to reach the place she, for some reason, still called by its old name: General's Hill. Though no one called it that any more. According to Bronya, the Stellaron was kept on the Hill of Everwinter. Landau had always wanted to visit it; under other circumstances, that would have been neither more nor less than impossible. The end of the world, it turned out, also had certain advantages.

By the time they reached the gates of the restricted zone, everyone had already begun to grow numb. The cold crept under their down jackets and coats, under their pleated trousers and hats, under their scarves and fur-lined boots. Their skin itched and reddened; snow kept flying behind their collars and into their boots; their pockets no longer held warmth.

The half-ruined bridge beneath Lynx's feet made her lungs contract. The wind howled horribly. The sensation that the pit had been swallowed not by darkness but by genuine monsters did not leave her. Monsters that had gathered at the bottom of the black abyss and were only waiting for the signal. The younger Landau feared that the wind was in league with them. As though it worked for them, throwing the rare visitors of the restricted zone down and masking their harrowing screams beneath its own howls. The wind was treacherous, the pit was terrifying, and her step was not as firm as before. Her former confidence had evaporated with the gusts of the whirlwinds, while only fear remained in her head.

And how desperately, in that moment, she wanted to tell the wolves their exact location. Only in secret. And to ask them not to devour her at once, but to help with the monsters that were already stretching their broken arms towards them.

And yet, somewhere there was an understanding that it was all utter nonsense, but her imagination would not relent. In her head, Lynx visualised the fall: how her voice would slice through the yards, and her throat would soon become useless. She would not be able to scream for long anyway. The monsters would catch her, tear her to pieces, drive a sharp stone between her vertebrae, dismember her, gnaw her apart, and in the end, devour her, leaving behind only the leaden shackles placed upon her by her beloved parent.

She had slowed down to an impossible degree. She felt only emptiness and the touch of another's, equally icy, palm. Her brother seized her by the hand, sharply, squeezed hard, and pulled her after him, quickly but gently. He himself was trembling as if with a fever, yet tried to hold himself with confidence. That was why he was literally dragging her, walking so that the swirling snow struck only his face, trying to remain a bastion of steadfastness, though his look betrayed a deep weariness. On the verge of frenzy.

Koski slowed his step slightly, waited for both Landaus, almost forcibly taking Gepard by the hand in an attempt to somehow help. He squeezed the other's palm, roughly rubbed warmth between his fingers, and shoved both their clasped hands into his pocket. These actions provoked in the younger Landau waves of nausea and uncontrollable flashes of jealousy, which she eventually swallowed down after a time.

There were no more black spots before her eyes, no voices of the abyss beneath them, and no strange hopelessness originating somewhere in the pit of her stomach. The bridge was behind their shoulders. Faith in her own strength was returning. Anger bred a desire to fight. Jealousy is a fearsome weapon, ruinous in the hands of the inexperienced and the infantile. It can lead to tragedy.

At times, she wanted simply to tear Sampo apart on the spot. Once again, she wanted never to see him again. But if her brother chose in favour of this gutter rat, then so be it. To be abandoned and rejected was nothing new to her.

In the distance, in the light of the dying star that only partially bestowed its blessing upon Yarilo, the Hill of Everwinter appeared. The myriads of steps leading to it seemed something insurmountable, and her insides turned to a fetid sludge. Seele and Bronya, who usually seemed unshakeable, for some reason were also trembling noticeably, their heads tilted back. In their eyes, the snowy gleam was reflected, and their faces expressed a faint admiration.

The closer they came to the ice-covered stairs, the more complicated and shorter life seemed.

The Stellaron was surrounded by the truest, primordial cold.

They learned this by chance, simply by climbing General's Hill. It had grown so cold here that Gepard nearly sank to his knees, falling almost lifeless. A genuine blizzard enveloped the lifeless earth so unnaturally and densely that no doubt remained at all where the root of all their troubles lay.

Glowing with a yellow light, the Stellaron dimly illuminated their dark path, but that made things no easier. They had to squint and strain their eyes to make out anything at all, but because of the cold, the task became nearly impossible. It became unbearable. Terribly unbearable. Even the unshakeable Seele stepped back half a pace, clutching at the younger Rand. Bronya embraced her, tried to warm her, yet her pitiful attempts proved futile. The group was on the point of moving forward, but Gepard did not allow it. With one sharp motion of his hand, he pointed to the nearest boulder.

"We go there!" His utterly unwavering tone proved louder than the howl of the blizzard.

His companions obediently moved behind the boulder, settling into a hollow that resembled a soldier's trench. His memories set upon him mercilessly. The northern bulwark spun in the captain's head like a kaleidoscope of bright shards of the past.

To hell with it! There was no time for this nonsense. Casting off all mental constraints, Landau immediately drew a boundary in his consciousness.

"I'm going there now. Lady Bronya, you're with me. And the rest of you stay here." He swept those present with a look that brooked no disregard, no argument, and no insubordination.

However, no one was intimidated or impressed. This was not that kind of audience. His statement was taken with hostility.

"Oh, no, no, Geppie! You're not going." Sampo spoke quite seriously. Decisiveness simply oozed from the depths of his eyes, clouded with lies. "Let me, just once in my life, do something worthwhile. Be it saving the world or an epic death, it doesn't matter! But let me be a hero too, heh-heh!"

Seele and Bronya stepped aside, whispering something of their own. Lynx, sinking straight into a snowdrift, hid her head in her knees in resignation.

"I won't allow you, Sampo."

Nothing but a short smirk. Once again, he was not being taken seriously. What humiliation. It was as though he were back home again.

"I don't recall asking your permission, my friend." For the first time, Koski's words truly oozed venom. "A week ago, you were ready to throw me into a dungeon without a second thought. Now, for some reason, you want to be our saviour, while completely ignoring me! What's changed, Geppie?" The conman roughly seized him by the shoulder, looking at him with a kind of breaking hope.

Something inside him dropped. With a loud crack, it scattered through his body, cutting his heart very painfully. And his Ego too. His fragile Ego, which was often confused with pride. He could not lie. The situation did not permit it. Nor did the remnants of his moral principles.

"I don't know." The lie seeped out faster than he understood he had lied. "You're still a stranger. I feel nothing, looking at you. So don't build illusions." Another lie. The first nail was driven in. "I'm grateful to you, no more." And yet another blow hammered in the second. "I came here knowing I wouldn't return. I no longer have any wish to return." The third proved truly painful. The grip on his shoulder tightened. In those green eyes, the truest pain was being born. "Give me the controller." The coffin was sealed with four merciless nails. "Now, Koski."

Sampo squeezed his eyes shut. His face contorted. It resembled an approaching hysteria. He powerlessly removed his hand. It fell, striking his trousers with a quiet slap. The man stepped back a pace and a half, clutching his head in disbelief.

"Geppie…" He was far from finding an answer at once. "I'm not…"

"Don't call me that."

His world was burning, his tongue was searing, and his eyes… had reddened involuntarily. So as not to give free rein to his emotions, Landau wanted to turn away, but a new powerlessness again prevented him from doing so. In that moment, all his insides leapt, and then swiftly gathered together under the pressure of another's suffocating embrace. Never before had he been forced to grunt so shamefully, feeling how his lungs strained to burst from the pressure of another's body.

"Don't talk like that, Geppie. Don't. It's all nonsense!" Sampo clung with his cheek to the other's shoulder in desperation. "Why are you saying this?"

Landau's hands could not embrace him in return. But neither could they strike. They could only hang uselessly, growing numb from the cold. They could no longer do anything. His eyes, like empty pieces of glass, were fixed on the grey, boundless sky that had been dropping heavy snow for almost a week. His heart was drawn almost to the centre of the earth. The heaviness gave him no peace. With every second, it grew more unbearable. His back was beginning to ache.

"I don't know."

"You're a fool, Geppie…" Koski smirked, squeezing the yielding body tighter. "If you really intend to die in there, I'll kill you myself. And bear in mind… If something goes wrong, I won't sit here. And I won't leave you alone, understand? If we're to die, then with a song! Where else will I find another captain like you, who lets me wring his blood," Gepard smirked, and Sampo murmured more quietly: "and lets me touch my lips to his cheek?.."

Landau nearly choked, but he nodded and shifted his gaze to his sister. She was peering up at them both with a predatory look. Despair had also settled at the bottom of her clear, light eyes. Her blue lips trembled, and shining little icicles had frozen at the corners of her eyes. Locking eyes with her fully, he understood her. Completely, even before she whispered something very characteristic of her:

"If you're going, go. Just know that when you walk away to sacrifice your life for others, no miracle will happen. Only… if you die," his sister held a pause, "I will never forgive you for it." After a slight pause, she added quietly: "Geppie, come back, please, as soon as you can."

Gepard could not help but smile.

"I'll come back. After all, I never did lock the door to the house." Resting his head on the other's shoulder, Landau could not help but leave a brief, unnoticed kiss, which could hardly be felt at all on the skin turned blue from cold.

Silently taking his sister's pickaxe from her, Landau stepped out from behind the boulder, casting a final glance at Koski, and then once more turned his attention to the sky.

Inside him, something was screaming loudly in horror. Something made him quicken his pace, while his body had ceased to feel anything. His fingers would not bend, his eyelids would barely part, his legs would not obey.

The Stellaron, beckoning him in solitude with its dim light, was within an outstretched arm's reach. The blizzard was tearing the ground from beneath his feet. Snow and stones flew at his face. Light locks of hair crept into his eyes, and in his consciousness there was no plan of action, only the bright, abstract images of his companions. Apart from the blizzard, it was as though nothing existed around him. It whirled around him, devouring space and driving Landau out of his mind.

Raising the pickaxe above his head, he dropped it powerlessly onto the shimmering clot of pure, primordial evil that must be rid of immediately.

A brief instant. The world split at the seams.

It shattered into colourful shards, like a glass snow globe.

It seemed as though Gepard Landau had been overtaken by instantaneous death.

All around, there were kilometres of white, crumbly sand and an endless starry sky.

There were so many stars that they completely filled the eye, making it resemble something holographic. The sand was cold, but soft. There was no place for winds here. There was nothing. Only the infinite scattering of stars and a greenish-purple northern aurora, illuminating this lifeless waste.

On his bare body, the sand did not linger long. It rolled away at the slightest exhale, forming little hillocks beside him. There was nothing to cover his nakedness, but it did not embarrass him. For thousands of yards around, not a soul. It was so quiet, as though this were a yawning vacuum, created by some mysterious force that wished him only repose and endless, serene calm.

Gepard did not try to rise or look around, to panic or weep, to think or to regret. For the first time in many long years, he felt the truest peace.

He was dead.

Death had turned out far more pleasant and peaceful than he had expected. There would be no more fear and torment, no more endless, long waiting for something good and instantaneous misfortune that shattered plans for decades to come. There would be no more shouts, hatred, and quarrels. There would be no more Serval, Lynx, and Sampo, yet at the thought of the latter, the calm subsided. The melancholic serenity gave way to a mild anxiety, and then to a sharp indifference. Now he was dead. He would burn no more, neither from embarrassment nor from anger.

All that he had now were the sand dunes, the stars, and someone's motionless body beside him. It was just as bare. He did not dare to turn; with his peripheral vision, he caught only long, pale hair and gentle feminine curves. They lay almost in the same pose, watching the cascade of stars unfolding billions of light-years away from them, and thought only of their own, stubbornly pretending that they were alone in this world. No one spoke, no one asked, no one stirred. The woman seemed to have stopped breathing altogether, yet for some reason, Gepard knew with certainty that she, too, understood everything.

For some reason, he wanted to shatter the silence, crumple it and cast it aside, to understand that the woman beside him was truly alive.

"And have you been here long?"

From the direction of the formerly motionless body came the soft sounds of another's movements, breathing, and the quiet creak of sand.

"By my reckoning, an eternity." Her voice was deep yet tender, with a slight hoarseness, very pleasant and familiar. "How did you come to be here, Captain?"

Lady Cocolia spoke quietly, with every word shivering ever more from something cold, though this very cold Landau did not feel at all.

"I died?" He grimaced, closed his eyelids, pressed his head harder into the cool, crumbly sand that so pleasantly touched his skin. "Yes, most likely, I am dead already. You as well, my lady?"

Her smile, he was able to feel in some unknown way.

"Yes. I am dead. I tried to save everyone, but I lacked the foresight. Now I am here, and I shall never escape this place." With her tender, pleasantly cold hand, she carefully touched his neck. "But you are still alive. You still have a chance, Captain."

Her words and touches awakened nothing in Gepard but an indifference stretching into the distance and a feeling of all-consuming melancholy. He pitied the woman: doomed to eternal imprisonment, she had built her own road to hell. Good intentions had ruined Lady Rand, and with her, all the inhabitants of their forgotten planet.

"There is no way out of here." Gepard let his head fall powerlessly to the side, away from the woman. Everywhere was the same: an endless sandy desert and a naked, astonishingly bright and expressive cosmos.

The woman gave a sad little smile.

"Not for me." After a brief pause, she added nonetheless: "However afraid I may be of finding myself alone once more, you must at least try to leave."

"And you?"

"For me, it is all over." With her long fingers, the woman traced along his vertebrae, raising uneven lines of goosebumps on the commander. An aura of cold and melancholy emanated from her, an irresistible desire to fight, and a total resignation. "I committed a fatal error and must pay in full."

"You have changed, my lady." Gepard returned his clear, untroubled gaze to the sky, trying to count the stars. He could not. "You never used to admit your mistakes."

"You have changed as well, Landau. The former you would never have surrendered so shamefully." She turned onto her side, closing her quivering eyelids so as not to embarrass the commander by contemplating his naked body. "It seems death changes people very greatly. More than one would wish, but, as always, less than one would need."

"Do you have regrets, Lady Rand?"

"No. I merely desired immortality for the inhabitants of Belobog from the Stellaron. When I understood exactly how it would accomplish that, I tried to stop it. One touch, and I was here. It was foolish, Landau; I am ashamed. To die so ingloriously and shamefully, nearly dooming all those I so passionately wished to save…" The woman shifted her gaze to the glittering firmament, falling silent for a second. "I knew all along that I should not have done it. The Stellaron is a treacherous thing, and I am simply a foolish old woman."

Though Gepard thought that this was far from the truth, he did not argue. All the horror of the days left behind made his heart instantly fill with regret. He pictured the despair in the eyes of Lynx and Sampo, their loud cries: from fear, incomprehension, hurt. Still fresh in his memory were his own endless thoughts of death, of meaning, and of regrets. Thoughts that should have remained behind forever.

"With good intentions, Lady Rand, the road is paved only to hell." Landau said the first thing that came to his head. A simple thought, and very fitting. "I think we have both been convinced of that."

Landau tried to stand.

"You said there is a way out of here. Do you know where it is?"

Cocolia rose together with him. With her long, sharp, and very cold fingers, she took him by the chin and carefully turned his gaze to the other side. To where the horizon gave off a predatory yellowish glow, she pointed a finger. Her arm was pale blue; her wrists were wound with heavy, rusty shackles that, for some reason of their own, remained utterly silent. At the crook of her elbow sat an ugly, bluish-black stain, spreading along the veins; the skin of the woman seemed to have gone into cracks, in which there was only emptiness and something cold.

Her hand quickly dropped; the other no longer touched his face. Cocolia lay back down on the sand, shuddering violently from an intangible gust of warm wind. When Landau rose to his feet, he discovered with visible relief that the guardian's fate had not befallen him. Nothing bound him but a fleeting embarrassment, and the only reason he could not move from the spot was his conscience.

"Perhaps I could free you?"

Only a ringing silence answered. Embarrassed, Landau nonetheless cast a brief, pained glance at the woman. The picture was terrible and sorrowful. Her beautiful young body, not yet touched by the flaws of age, had turned almost entirely blue. The woman trembled; great cracks spread over her arms and sides; her body seemed completely hollow. Her eyes were turned to the sky, while her lower back curved, crunched, and quietly broke. Her nails were black, and on her neck were marks, as though from a coarse rope. Her skin was covered in hoarfrost, and the quiet chains squeezed not only her arm but also her legs, her neck, even her thighs, upon which one of the chains lay.

She was beyond help.

Cocolia knew it. Now Gepard understood it too. For a brief moment, they locked gazes with despair in the depths of their eyes. Landau turned away sharply, grinding his teeth loudly, almost to fine dust.

"Go, Captain. Above all, do not look back. When you reach the Stellaron, simply touch it. And then… come what may. It will not get worse."

"My lady, is there anything you would like me to pass on to someone?"

Cocolia exhaled heavily and seemed to think for a moment.

"Nothing. I have nothing to say."

Lowering his head and letting his gaze drift absently over the pale sand, he moved to meet the unknown. The walking was heavy, leaving was shameful, and he did not want to leave the woman alone in this purgatory. He had no choice.

"Goodbye, Guardian…"

"Farewell, Landau."

And he did not look back again. Apart from the sound of his own shuffling steps, all that could be heard was the blood circulating through his veins. His footprints did not remain in the sand. It was as though he were floating through the fresh, crystalline air that, with every breath, filled his frost-scorched lungs ever more fully. Something like blood spread across his oral cavity; his eyes, too, rapidly filled with moisture. Pressing a hand to his lips, he gave an almost soundless cough. On his trembling fingers remained crimson smears; the sharp metallic smell struck his sense of smell very hard, and his stomach twisted from his own feebleness.

A stubborn sensation of the truest helplessness crept ever deeper beneath his skin. Now he was one-on-one with the void, with the infinite universe spread out only before him alone. It had bared its myriads of stars only so that he might see them. Somewhere far behind, Cocolia remained. Surely she watched him go with indifference, wishing to be in his place, to trade places. Yet the woman had been more merciful than her own desires; casting aside the selfish fear of being left alone forever, she had pointed out the path from this place, choosing an eternal, all-consuming solitude.

Their brief dialogue, steeped in the truest pain, had lodged itself very firmly in the guard's fair head. Cocolia would not leave his thoughts. He wanted to turn around, run back, and tear her foul shackles from the sand, free the prisoner, and flee straight from the purgatory with her. But she had commanded him not to look back, and he obeyed. More than saving her, Gepard wished at least once to see his sisters and… Sampo. Thoughts of him brought warmth; the last several days seemed something invented, unreal. All the kisses and touches still provoked phantom goosebumps, and a chance thought of this man added strength.

If he returned, he would certainly tell Koski of the metamorphoses that came over him only at the memory of him. He would absolutely say that his heart beat faster when the man was near, and that his cheeks blushed shamefully. He would most certainly tell Sampo how much he wanted to embrace him and thank him for all that he had done for him.

It was hard not to admit that without him, Landau would long since have lost his mind.

When the Stellaron was within arm's reach, Gepard no longer had any doubts. Only a cold resolve, bordering on madness. It would not let him retreat; it reminded him of his essence. It literally screamed in his ears that he could not retreat. Otherwise, death was irreversible, sudden, and immeasurably foolish.

Flashing his crystal-blue eyes, Landau reached out his hand, touching something immensely hot and pulsating, like a stony, yellowish-red heart. It did not burn. As if it had taken pity on its victim.

Only when the world collapsed once more, carrying Gepard somewhere into the distance, through black holes and singularities, did that sensation vanish.

His head practically burst. The tape of memory seemed to unwind his brain into its separate components.

The Landau Family Estate.

Nine years, eight months, and thirteen days ago.

When the first bright flash of the truest pain finally passed, a new one immediately followed.

The next slap proved many times stronger than the previous one.

His father's hands were cold, coarse; they were felt on his face like a blow from a rough log. He rarely shouted; most often, he gave no warning at all. He struck with such force that it was hard even to stay on one's feet, let alone hold back the angry, salty drops. Only, one must not cry. Must not shout. Must not resist, cover one's face, or argue.

Father did not like that. There was little he liked at all. The exception, perhaps, was heavy cigars, whose suffocating smoke the draughts of cold wind from the wide-open stained-glass windows chased through the mansion. The smell of them ate its way under the skin, did not fade for weeks, and certainly never aired out.

Only with this thing, surely meant for potential suicides, was Father happy. His lips, which so rarely curved in a blissful smile, released rings of semi-transparent grey smoke, and his eyes expressed a rare feeling for him: satisfaction. Nevertheless, at present he was far from that very state, and so he struck mercilessly. His face twisted in a grimace of absolute fury, and with every blow, his flawless features transformed into something unsightly.

Gepard could barely orient himself in the kaleidoscope of patterns before his eyes.

It was physically impossible to focus on the new blows, for no sooner had one limb recovered from the pulsing pain than the next blow eclipsed all the rest. And on the one hand, he wanted to rise, to scream, to call him names, perhaps even to strike back; and on the other, he must have deserved it. Yet he did not know what for. But Father was always right; Father loved you; you must not contradict Father. He had repeated it many times, and his son believed. He believed and hoped that he would never disappoint him. Everything he did was for the good. And the younger Landau simply had no grounds not to believe his words. Surely he could not not love him? He was his own son. Father wanted only the best.

At these thoughts, an embarrassed smile involuntarily blossomed. Father struck him across the face, backhanded, for the last time.

Stepping a couple of paces aside, Gepard clutched his head in bewilderment, feeling something crawl like a hot snake from the open wound. Nearby came the quiet sobbing of his younger sister; from beyond the door came the shouts of Serval, who, not sparing her fists, was trying to break down the door, but it would not yield. In this house, only the eldest daughter did not fear Lion. Possessing the power of the Paths, she could have dealt with her father, and she knew it perfectly well. Father harboured strange feelings towards her: pride for her obstinate, warlike spirit, and a fear that made him hide a revolver beneath his tailcoat.

On the floor lay the shards of a broken vase. Pieces had tangled in Landau's hair; crumbs had got under his clothes; large fragments were lodged in the wound on his head. The blood, in one even stream, slightly skirting his eye, hurried to run off his chin as quickly as possible, staining his once perfectly white shirt.

Lynx, sitting at his feet, wept loudly and tugged at his trouser leg. In that moment, he wanted terribly to strike her. Right now, she seemed the centre of all the troubles that had lined up before him like a taut string. For some reason, there were suddenly two fathers, then a third emerged from them, semi-transparent and somehow unstable. From the unbearable dizziness, Gepard dared to sink onto one knee, desperately hoping only that he would not get a boot to the face this time.

"Get up, Landau. Enough dramatising. The blow wasn't that strong." Lion loomed over the boy like a threatening shadow. "I'm waiting."

Gepard clearly ought to have answered something, but his stomach was twisting relentlessly; it felt as though one word, and disaster was inevitable. Father would simply unscrew his head for the carpets in this study. Before the inevitable could happen, Lynx planted herself before Gepard, throwing out a hand and not letting Father approach any further. She was trembling horribly; snot ran down her plump face while her legs buckled. She could not speak for the crushing lump in her throat; she only stared at Father with eyes full of horror, biting her pale lips.

"Hiding behind your sisters… I thought you had abandoned that shameful habit. A rag, not a son." Lion wearily wiped his little round spectacles on his formal jacket. "Get up at once. And you," he pointed a finger at Lynx, "step aside, or you will be punished."

Lynx did not move from the spot, provoking only irritation. Lion raised his hand in warning for a blow, giving his daughter a chance to reconsider. The underage fool did not step aside; the blow would have followed without delay, but it landed on Gepard's cheek instead. At this fresh portion of sharp pain, the boy nearly wept, but having pushed his sister aside in time, he straightened, drawing level with his father.

"Is that what you wanted, Father?"

Lion smiled with satisfaction, stroking his son's head in a relaxed manner. The pain proved stronger than yet another blow that might have come his way. The abrupt change of mood began to make him nauseous.

"Yes, that is precisely what I wanted. Well done for taking the blow; behaviour worthy of a true man." The elder Landau hid his spectacles in his pocket, casting a lightning-fast glance at his daughter. "And you would do well to learn humility. Get out."

The younger Landau was blown out of the room almost in a second. Quickly opening the door, she seized the hand of Serval, who was thrashing in a furious hysteria, and dragged her far from the study. When Lion was left alone with his son, he quickly recovered from the uncontrolled torrent of rage. Holding Gepard by the shoulder, he sat him down on the little sofa, while he himself climbed nearly headfirst into a drawer that creaked quietly at his every touch.

Gepard felt so utterly wretched that he began to list into the horizontal. When his head had nearly touched the sofa cushions, Father roughly kicked the upholstery.

"Don't you dare."

The younger Landau was instantly straightened, but at that, the nausea rolled over him with such force that his eyes began to water. When Lion sat down beside him, he laid his son down himself so that his head rested in his lap. The sharp smells of metal, iodine, and alcohol struck his nose; his consciousness began to clear. Lying in silence proved unbearable.

"Would you really have struck her?"

With a wad of cotton wool soaked in alcohol, Lion touched his son's head wound.

"Undoubtedly. But know that I take no pleasure in striking my daughters."

Gepard even managed to smile.

"And me? Do you enjoy hitting me?"

With tweezers, the man reached deep beneath the heated skin, trying to remove the last fragment of blue porcelain. From the pain, the younger Landau squeezed his trouser leg, beginning to breathe unevenly and tremble.

"Perhaps only a little."

The Landau Family Estate.

Eight years, two months, and eighteen days ago.

"…it is a disgrace. It does not fit in my head that, of all the representatives of the House of Landau, my own son is a talentless hollow shell. I cannot even bring myself to scold him. He is nothing!"

The words on the other side of the door no longer wounded.

They were surely no sharper than the broken vase that had once been smashed over his head. Father's words could not wound. Gepard's words would lead to inexorable fury. To be silent, to smile, to obey his dearest parent — it was all so simple, yet at times so hard. It seemed there was nothing simpler than submission, yet something strange, freedom-loving, kept tearing its way out.

Entering the room, the younger Landau did not forget to knock and to smile sweetly, noting how young and beautiful his dear Aunt Lens was. The woman smiled warmly in return, ruffled his blond hair, and turned back to Lion.

"That boy of yours, brother, is so good." She pinched his cheek painfully, smiled haughtily, and looked at his parent in a strange way. "You know, Leva, a good acquaintance of mine has a daughter… What a beauty… A beauty! A clever and modest girl, and above all, of blood no worse than ours!" Aunt was incapable of approaching from afar; everything had been clear from the very start. "I was thinking here…"

Lion smoothly, as though caring for her, fished the glass from her hands, leaving it on the side table.

"Whatever you might have thought up, sister, it is out of the question."

Closing his hand roughly on his son's shoulder, his look made it clear that this was the only correct, final answer, but his aunt did not relent.

"Oh, Leva, what prospects!"

"I had hoped that my sister was capable of recognising a categorical refusal the first time. I thought our experience had taught you at least something, but you are a foolish, superficial woman who wants a repetition of our deplorable story."

Gepard's eyes lit up. Father had done the impossible! He had overcome himself and refused a truly profitable exchange: a talentless spawn for the most genuine profit. He could not believe it for a long time, but Father's icy tone concealed some catch, which for some reason never came.

After his words, his aunt noticeably cooled her ardour, fell silent, and averted her wandering gaze, half-drunk from the proscecco. Her brain was working sluggishly; her eyes ached, and a dilemma unfolded in her head: to be upset, or to be angry? She did neither. She left the room without closing the door and muttered something very unsightly. Left alone with his father, Gepard felt only gratitude, covered in a note of mute astonishment.

The next moment, his cheek seared under the onslaught of a dull pain spreading across his face. The flash died out at once and struck his head far too hard, forcing Gepard to fight back. Shoving Father away from himself, he clutched at his cheek in bewilderment and stared at Lion with such a look that the man wanted to strike him once more without delay.

"What for, Father?"

Lion smirked haughtily, adjusting the round spectacles in their silver frame.

"So that you wouldn't suddenly think you had any right to decide anything in this house." With the learned air of an expert, Father leaned pompously against the table of red lacquered wood. "You know, I keep thinking: why not send you to a military academy. You'll soon be sixteen, just perfect for enrolment. And then, perhaps, you might be of some use. I don't want to drag you, a useless burden, around my neck my whole life."

Gepard smiled strainedly, feeling his eyes begin to water.

"Very well, Father, as you wish." The younger Landau, in a state of prostration, stroked his cheek, which pulsed from the blow. "Only, I…"

Lion cut him short. He had caught the thought before it managed to escape the tip of the other's tongue.

"I am not interested. Be grateful to me. Had I been a little more judicious, you would already be walking with flowers to the mother of that girl Lens wanted to foist upon us."

Approaching the glass-fronted sideboard, Lion carefully examined its contents. Countless bottles and decanters gleamed temptingly, drawing one in, tempting, and demanding attention. Selecting the needed decanter, he splashed its contents into a thick, faceted glass and held it out to his son.

"Take it and drink."

His green eyes watched with undisguised interest.

Gepard obeyed without delay, draining the glass in one gulp. A brief moment later, that spirituous something burst out of him with a rending heave. His oral cavity was scorched, and his throat grew so frigid that the air worsened the situation, searing his insides with cold. The entire contents of the glass ended up on Father's tailcoat. Only, for some reason, Father was not angered at all. On the contrary, he laughed, and so resoundingly, as though he had been seized by madness in that instant.

"Lens was right. Serval is clever, Lynx has character, and you are obedient. You didn't even ask what it was." With a sharp movement, Father swept the excess moisture from his suit, shaking off his hands. "Yes, I was right; the army is your only road. For the record, that was pure alcohol; you ought to have at least asked before drinking it. Your unconditional trust will lead you to your grave. I personally knew a man who was killed because of his own stupidity."

Gepard knew whom he meant. The only photograph on Father's desk, yellowed with time, was with that very man. Tiger Landau, according to Father, was the embodiment of the word "stupidity," which in the end had destroyed him. Naturally, Lion did not mourn his foolish brother in the slightest, but the single photograph, turned lonely towards Father, spoke of the fact that the elder Landau was most likely simply lying shamelessly. Though accusing Father of anything was dangerous, to say the least.

"I cannot not trust my own father. You yourself cultivated unquestioning obedience in your children. And now you are indignant…"

This time, the slap proved the most painful of all.

The Northern Bulwark.

Five years, six months, and three days ago.

Dunn had a beautiful face and a bright scattering of whimsical and strange freckles. They were faint in themselves, but they stood out against the pallor of his skin: unusually vivid. His eyes shone with a holographic shimmer of every shade of green, a particularly fierce contrast to the colourless canvas of his hair. It seemed his voice too was loud, and his smile shone so brilliantly that no one ever questioned why precisely he should have become the next captain.

It seemed Dunn was a good person. Life simply emanated from him: the desire to help and to protect, a readiness to move mountains for anything in the world. He was a dreamer, often grew embarrassed, paled, reddened, turned green, and broke out in shameful goosebumps at every touch. His gaze was always turned to the sky, while his consciousness was far too down-to-earth. He often crossed boundaries, saw nothing shameful in scooping someone up and then spinning them so hard and fast that both were soon dizzy. He laughed so loudly and so achingly that at times it was impossible to be in the barracks.

That was how Gepard Landau remembered him.

Still feeling the pain and dizziness from his suffocating embraces, a slight mental haze from the loud laughter right by his ear, cardiac haemorrhages that most often struck precisely his cheeks from strange, garbled compliments. Gepard could not hold back the flood of choking emotions. Dunn had left behind only an absolute stillness: no sadness, no regrets, no melancholy. It was as though he had taken out his heart, turned it over, and thrown it away, like something entirely unnecessary, something that had accidentally stuck to the hard sole of his army boots.

All that remained was memories. Bright flashes of moments that had faded so quickly, as though they had never been. A greatcoat that smelled only of him and no one else, and a half-smoked pack of sodden hand-rolled cigarettes. Dunn was always greedy, never gave a single one, struck painfully at the wrists, and then, it seemed, took it all back.

And later, each time in utter solitude, with a crushing sense of emptiness somewhere near the heart — higher than the place where people's hearts are located, just below the fragile collarbone — he at last understood what his friend had tried to convey to him at their very last meeting. Now, when the fog of the enchanting laughter had cleared, and life had proven to be a truly grim and terrifying place, Landau understood the whole hidden meaning of those words.

Miracles do not happen. Death is inevitable. There are no gods.

And Dunn had been right.

He was not judicious or clever; his head did not burst with philosophical and bright ideas. He was simply much, much older, and that had become the fundamental reason why their life experience differed so greatly. The man constantly dreamed of freedom, of the boundless cosmos and the immense sky. In his dreams, he saw release from all responsibility and the heavy burden of metal armour. He saw himself as a bird or a polar fox, but still he dreamed only of freedom for one foolish boy who, at one moment, had tightened around his life like a noose.

Dunn became the ideal for one cowardly aristocrat, and while his own eyes grew ever dimmer, in Gepard's gaze, emerald began to sprout.

That night was so cold that the entire platoon had to sleep huddled together. Yesterday's friends, brothers, enemies, commanders, and privates could not even lift their noses from the collar of another's greatcoat. The soldiers clutched at one another, intertwined their arms, legs, clothing, and thoughts, which were faintly audible.

The creatures of the Fragmentum, though they had crept quite close, seemed in no hurry to show themselves. It was as though they were mocking and intimidating the frozen rows of identical bodies that clung to one another like rice at the bottom of a pot. On this terrible, dark night, not even the moon illuminated the condemned men, who, judging by the shared cloud of exhaled vapour, were afraid even to stir.

Perhaps some were not afraid.

It was just that Gepard, nearly maddened by fear and cold, truly feared breaking the shared breathing. Only a trench separated them from the unrestrained blizzard, which reached them only as a light, clammy wind and individual pieces of ice.

The body beside him did not make him a jot warmer. His jaw tapped involuntarily, while another's arms squeezed him until his innards shifted quietly. The cold was not only in his body and mind but in his soul, in his fingers, in the pit of his stomach. Everything there was twisting and churning. An indistinct anxiety burned him from within, like fire on dry paper. What he wanted most just now was to go home, to feel the heat of slaps on his face, and not a total loss of sensation. His skin did not react even to a strong squeeze. Had the creatures attacked at that moment, Landau probably could not even have risen.

"Are you all right?" whispered a voice behind him. Warm breath melted the snow stuck to his hair. Landau turned, groaning, rolling onto his other side. The other's face was mere centimetres away.

"No." Gepard squeezed his eyes shut involuntarily; it hurt too much to catch the snowy blows with his eyes.

"You're frozen… Oh, my good one." Dunn carefully took him by the hands, bathing them with his breath. Just a little warmer than the air around. "And your little hands are so cold, they're trembling." Another stream of words was followed by the touch of icy lips, so strange, yet dear.

Another's hand touched his blue-tinged cheek, and the cheek instantly nestled into the palm. Something fell very loudly inside him. It became a little easier.

"Don't talk to me like that; someone might hear."

The blond would always find the strength to laugh. He buried his face in the other's neck, trying not to let out a treacherously loud giggle.

"Oh, if only you knew how little anyone cares about that right now. You'd probably burst into tears." Dunn began to rub his hands tenderly between his palms. "You know, my good one, I'd like to become a bird right now, instead of all this."

A wild, nearly maddened roar of the creatures passed over the entire northern bulwark in a single wave. Nearly everyone shuddered. Those who remained motionless were most likely already dead. Winter was cruel; it would show no pity. Everyone had an equal chance of becoming forever rooted to the ground.

"Tomorrow they'll reach us…" Gepard relaxed in resignation, staring at a sharp little stone between them.

"Yes, tomorrow they truly will be here." And the man was just as serene. He had accepted his fate. All that remained was to ascend the snowy scaffold of this place, cursed by tears and blood, by his own will.

"You speak as though… as though you're not afraid, not at all."

Having utterly dissolved into the collar of the other's greatcoat, Gepard tried to relax at least a little.

He could not.

His hands were still being rubbed and stroked; at times they were touched by another's lips, cheeks, nose. Dunn was always strange; it was as if he wanted to show something by this, though for an uncomprehending boy, it was difficult.

"Not at all, not the least bit afraid. You know, my good one, if tomorrow I should suddenly be gone, try to forget me."

"And what if it's you who finds me gone?"

"Don't you dare speak nonsense and interrupt your elders. You still have a long, long life to live. As for me, nothing frightens me any more." The man's eyes darkened by a tone. "So, I will be very, very offended with you if you don't forget me."

"How terrifying…"

"Well, isn't it? I thought I was terrifying, whether in anger or in hurt. Has everyone been lying to me?"

"I suspect they have."

Dunn again let out a loud laugh, quickly covering his face with the back of the other's hand. Gepard would have flushed at that, as usual, but it was far too cold.

"You're so sweet, my good one! If I were a granny, I'd kiss you all over right here." The man at last released his hands, which were now beginning to warm, and which instantly started to fill with liquid frost again.

The blond pulled Gepard to him so tightly that his soul all but strained to leave his mortal body for a time. His words were strange and, in part, hurtful.

"And as it is, you won't?"

Dunn rubbed his cheek against him.

"As it is, no. Your daddy would kiss me afterwards with a red-hot poker so passionately that the marks of his ardent love would take years to fade."

"Then… do you want me to do it myself?"

"Take up the poker yourself?"

The man was surely beginning to openly mock the boy. Somewhere nearby, someone coughed loudly; somewhere in the distance, someone sneezed. The platoon stopped breathing. The conversation had to be reduced to a whisper. Sensing the others' displeasure, Dunn smirked sadly, laid a hand on the other's hair, and tangled his coarse fingers in it.

"You know, I'm even afraid to look at you; you're so… Oh, I don't know what to say about you, my good one. You're so naive, so sweet, but sometimes so arrogant! You just had to get mixed up with me!"

"Don't slander yourself. The fact that you can be unreasonable doesn't make you a bad person. It's hard for me to understand what bad people are; I've simply never met any in my life. You certainly won't be the first."

A kiss slowly settled on his Adam's apple, making Landau fall silent in an instant. The simple touch provoked in him a whole series of the most dreadful metamorphoses. He did not grow any warmer. Gepard simply clutched more tightly at the other's greatcoat and, staring somewhere beyond the snowstorm, tried to count the snowflakes. He could not.

"Kiss the people dear to you only on the neck. It is a sign of pure, sinless love. A merging of souls, not bodies — what could be more beautiful? Remember that, my good one."

And another touch. And another, another, another. His skin began to thaw. Dunn stopped only when Landau had nearly broken out entirely in uneven red blotches, dying of embarrassment on the spot.

They spent the rest of the night face to face. Locking gazes with despair in the depths of their darkening eyes. To die tomorrow was something entirely ordinary.

All that remained was a charred hand, a greatcoat, and a pack of sodden hand-rolled cigarettes.

Gepard does not remember where it all came from.

The Northern Bulwark.

Five years, six months, and four days ago.

On that very first day, there were so many dead that there was nowhere to put them. The bodies lay one atop another on the ground and in the trenches; there was no place left to stack them, nothing to cover them with, so that this stinking mountain of human bodies now resembled rotting vegetables.

Among the frozen human brethren, dusted with crumbly snow, Gepard never found Dunn. Digging through the snow, the frozen earth, and the remains of others with his bare hands, he thought only of the simplest human warmth, which, with every new movement, made him howl with despair. The smells of burnt flesh, blood, rusted iron, and black smoke made Landau's hands reach for his face so as not to die shamefully of asphyxia, but his palms seemed so filthy that the guard stopped himself halfway, trying simply to breathe less.

There was nothing heroic in the death of his comrades. Half of them had perished so loathsomely and so uselessly that even to recall it was excruciatingly painful. Their screams had merged into a symphony of death, spreading across the northern fields, while the groans of the wounded and the loud, rending weeping of the whole and the surviving only added to the terrible, blood-chilling howl of the cold northern wind.

All around was only death and an animal, primeval horror. The living here were many times fewer than the dead. The echoes of the terrible battle still hovered at the periphery of the soldiers' hearing with a quiet clang.

The faces of his comrades, mangled and distorted. They appeared before Landau in turn as he searched for Dunn. Only yesterday, they had shared a glass of spirits among five; today, Gepard would drink it alone. The guard could no longer weep: the lump in his throat and his gaze, averted from the dead, which was fixed so strangely somewhere. Impossible to tell in which direction, impossible to tell in which plane. Forty minutes earlier, he had been sitting the same way as his fellow soldiers: on the cold, sharp stones, clutching his hapless head, up to his neck in blood. In the blood of others. It spattered almost everything; in other trenches, little rivulets had even formed, freezing so quickly from the cold…

The howl of the Fragmentum creatures still spread over the frozen waste, making everyone present shudder, sob, clutch their heads harder, recite a prayer louder than they should. That sound made his head ache once more, and his glassy gaze drifted somewhere, making the guard resemble ever more a drunkard lost in a field.

When, seizing a familiar greatcoat, Gepard saw Dunn's face, the truest collapse occurred in his head. It knocked him off his feet, struck his knees against the cold stones. The lump of congealed blood in his throat burst; his eyes watered from the strain, and the realisation of what had happened struck the guard's vulnerability far too painfully.

Only recently, Dunn had been scaling the barracks walls to climb into his room under cover of night. Only yesterday, he had tried to warm his hands, blue from the cold, with his warm breath. Only that morning, he had given him his protective charm. And now he was gone. His eyes had already become covered with a thin film; his wounds were packed with snow and dirt; his broken limbs had ceased to bleed and to ache. His once fair hair was almost entirely dyed red, and his green, nearly precious eyes, which Landau had considered his own personal treasure, had drowned in despair and become just as dark as his own.

And there was nothing heroic in his death. On his cheeks and forehead, crimson with blood, clean, thin trails were visible, and his face had contorted in strange torment. Father, it seemed, called that agony.

Gently touching the other's face, Gepard carefully warmed and closed his thinned eyelids. He gathered the body in his arms, hoisted it onto his back by force, and, not feeling himself from cold and weariness, moved towards the funeral pyre. Each step nailed him ever harder to the earth; each breath constricted his lungs; each thought scattered; each sound reverberated like a brass strike between the separate hemispheres, which had no connection with one another. While the other's icy cheek pressed against his bare neck, Landau thought only of… He did not understand what he was thinking of.

Laying his heavy burden at the very edge of the pyre, Gepard hoped only that all of this was a delusion. Or that it was a dying dream, and in reality, it was Dunn who was now consigning his own bloodied, lifeless body to the flames. If that were truly so, then Gepard was happy. If it was he who lay here now, then all had gone more than well. When the fire leapt onto the other's greatcoat, Landau understood that this was reality. Grasping the corpse by its stiffened palm, he hoped he would never let it go.

The fire slowly devoured the other's body, turning it into a heap of charred flesh, while Gepard sat so close to the pyre that the smoke simply began to fell him. To the monotonous hum of those scurrying and shouting, the guard touched his temple to the road stones. His hand still clasped the other's palm, which, from the temperature, had also begun to break out in blisters.

Falling asleep beside the fire, he no longer felt the heat on his burnt fingers, nor the pain in his wounded body, nor the fear in his clouded mind.

By the time the rusty blade had already touched his chest, it was truly too late.

Landau heard neither the tearing of fabric, nor the parting of his own skin. The world before his eyes burst under the onslaught of a dull pain that cleaved his body in two. He did not even feel how he collapsed into the arms of his fellow soldiers, like a torn sack of sand. He did not feel the dozen blows to his face, did not hear the loud shouts consisting entirely of obscene cursing, did not see the despair on another's face.

He wondered: had Dunn died the same way?

The roar of the Fragmentum creatures and the howl of the cold wind were entirely drowned out by a single-voiced scream, caught in a loop inside the young captain's head. His limp body was shaken and turned over; lying on the clammy earth, Landau had every thought knocked out of him.

The world around him was a cold glass bubble. If it burst, the blond would never return home.

He had no wish at all to cling to life. Before his eyes was only the line of the horizon and the dirty soldiers' boots that, by some miracle, flew past his face. The jolts to his chest, the sharp pain, and a long, strange dragging in his skin, beneath the skin, somewhere very deep inside, kept him from focusing on losing consciousness. Something was being poured very insistently into his mouth, and his body, having rejected this substance, simply cast the liquid back out. Spirits, mixed with blood and something else. Strong electric shocks were passed through his body, causing a cloying sweetness to inevitably pool in his mouth, which he could not even spit out. It flowed out of him on its own, made its way behind his collar, wetting his dirty, clammy skin.

Everything around was saturated with dead water; the earth groaned in its pool. Ghost-fish gnawed at their own bony tails; everything rotted; everything was sucked into a bottomless whirlpool. His wounds grew deeper; his skin could barely be drawn together with coarse twine; the stitches bled, but did not ache. In a terrible fever, the commander understood little in the kaleidoscope of bodies around him.

He himself was drenched in cold sweat, in the sliding hands of others, and in something extraneous. He did not especially understand what was what; his throat was bathed in spirits from time to time, his lungs, in something strange. Something like smoke. It made him worse; bloody vomit blocked the life-giving oxygen, and at the latest tactless slaps, he only wanted to fight them off.

This semi-conscious agony lasted eleven days.

The eyes of the death that came for him then were the colour green.

Only, for some reason, it hid its gaze behind round silver spectacles, which gleamed with cleanliness from time to time. This death had a moustache and short, curling hair; it was tall and wore a tailcoat. It resembled, with suspicious intensity, a person who over those days had literally dissolved in the pool of his foul memory. His death resembled the death of Dunn. In his mind, he had always been turned only towards his bright image.

Only Dunn had kept him from slipping off his axis for good. At the moments of the greatest derailment, he would seize his death by the jacket and shout something so loudly and achingly that death had to cover its ears. Though that did not save it much, it seemed not to resist either. It sat beside him by day, by night, changed cloths and compresses, treated the rough stitches, and at times wiped away his tears.

Now and then, it raised a revolver to its head. To its own, to his. Yet it could not bring itself to fire. It would turn it over for a long while and then put it back inside its tailcoat. Death had calloused hands, bleary green eyes, and strong fingers. With time, death began to acquire ever more distinct paternal features, and the shards of the world around him began to resemble the old study. The image of Dunn dissolved more and more from his memory, just as everything that had happened on the northern bulwark did.

For a time, Gepard altogether forgot the horror he had lived through. When he finally returned fully to consciousness, Landau understood that he no longer felt anything but a stretched indifference. Of the events that had taken place there, only a coarse transverse scar reminded him, and a pair of bright green eyes that looked at him almost with revulsion.

Death had the very same eyes.

It was hard to restrain oneself from hurling after Gepard into the white abyss. Sampo did not even try. Only a single step separated him from the hunched, despondent silhouette, before which only a scaffold now stretched. He wanted to push him away, drive him back, but could not reach. The elder Landau was at an arm's length, yet so far away that every movement, step, and exhale was devoured by the warping space.

His hand was stretched out into nowhere. Ahead, it was terrifying; there, beyond the snowy veil, were the wolves.

Their howl could be heard for many yards, but they did not show their muzzles. The Stellaron gave birth not only to chaos, but also to its individual daughter offshoots. Everything unfolding around them was one continuous hallucination, and it would kill faster than any frost. The cold no longer seemed something truly dreadful; the entire spectrum of emotions and concentration had shifted into a kaleidoscope of illusions. A hurricane, an enormous boulder drifting for some reason into the very void, Lynx clutching at his trouser leg, Bronya loading a gleaming single-barrelled gun: everything was so natural, yet chillingly surreal.

When Landau vanished before the Stellaron, it became clear that the abstract images around them were now their concern alone.

A familiar knife appeared fairly quickly in the little mischief-maker's hands. Without a single doubt, she raised it to her face and drew the blade across her finger: dull. This day was clearly contending for the title of the worst. It had every chance of winning.

"Little one…" Koski's whisper broke the oppressive silence fairly quickly. "Have I, perchance, lost my roof from nerves? You hear it too, don't you?"

He wanted to mock, but the situation was not at all conducive; even a stinging sharpness refused to come to mind. At the latest animal howl, the girl began to sway.

"I hear it."

"Wolves?"

"I hope so."

A moment later, the younger Landau, with no small effort, dragged the conman behind a boulder. It became truly horrifying when, forcibly pulling him by the collar, she began to whisper brokenly something distantly reminiscent of the most terrible childhood nightmares.

"Wolves haven't been seen here for about fifty years. They say the creatures devoured them, and those that survived interbred with them. If it's really that mistake of nature I'm thinking of, we're done for. I once had to see one through binoculars; it was quite far away, but by my reckoning, it was the size of half a train carriage."

Sampo's morale breached absolute zero for the first time.

They were doomed.

And the howl, meanwhile, was drawing ever closer, louder, and more harrowing. And it was impossible to tell from which direction it came. Koski turned his head in bewilderment; without a word, he and Lynx stood back to back, both raising their weapons. There was nothing heroic or epic in this situation. Even Bronya, from involuntary agitation, sank to the ground, closed one eye against the stock, and took aim.

The wind had already been striking hard at the senses, and now sight and hearing had altogether turned inside out. In the deadly dance of the white snow, which now resembled only bone meal, grey shades of something remotely like ash were interspersed. And while the world twisted, Sampo's knees were giving way. From a thrill bordering on madness, from the awareness of something shamelessly inevitable, from the acceptance that fate had already stepped on his heels.

One wrong step, and they would all be bitten in half. Someone would be swallowed whole, without even an attempt to gnaw the young girlish bones. The wolves would not discriminate.

One wrong step, and death was irreversible. Sudden and immeasurably foolish. Even their bodies would never be found again. They would vanish somewhere in the darkness of a beast's maw. If they were lucky, together. If not, they would rest in separate wolf bellies. Such a sorrowful fate would not gladden even suicides.

Sampo, too, drew paired daggers from under his jacket, diligently trying to hide the tremor in his hands. Only the little one did not tremble. She was tense and resolute. Judging by her posture, she would kill a beast, a human, even a bird that had perched wrong on a tree. Landau was inflamed and dangerous. The situation would not forgive doubt. All of it had to be crumpled up and cast into the dirt. Doubt was exactly that.

"There are two of them. The howl differs." Lynx whispered this much louder than necessary, to overpower the decibels of the screaming glow. "We'll be lucky if it's an echo, but I doubt it. And also," the younger Landau squeezed his trouser leg somewhere near his knee, "if they bite you, either quickly cut off the limb, or straight away put a knife to your throat. The effects of their venom are catastrophic."

"Well, little brat, you've certainly stirred up a racket in my head. I can just hear something inside me screaming to get out of here! The plan is simple, on the whole. We go and see what's up with Geppie. We grab him and get out as fast as we can. We leave the controller near the Stellaron, and if necessary, we leap right off this cursed hill."

Lynx raised a brow, but the plan was indeed a good one. Bronya and Seele had by that point already climbed onto the boulder beside which they had settled and, exhaling every other breath, were tracking the beasts through the sight of a silver-wooden rifle.

And the howl did not subside.

A growl was added to it, and then a menacing snowy crunch. It resembled breaking bones. Not the small metatarsals, but the tibias, the vertebrae, the femurs. All those that, in open fractures, crack dully, are ground up finely, and then hurt terribly, tearing through the pale skin in their attempts to find a way out of the world of endless blood flow.

The associations gave the signal. Seizing Lynx by the hood, Sampo shoved her away faster than she could disappear entirely into the jaws of the polar monster. A deafening gunshot nearly knocked Koski off his feet. From the shock, he was flung somewhere towards the ground. The beast before him seemed an unhealthy hallucination, as though morphine had been sprayed into his face and he had been left to the mercy of fate.

From the horror everyone felt in that moment, the air seemed to press down.

The bullet, though it struck the beast somewhere in the back, produced no proper effect. When, after the second shot, a deafening roar resounded, Sampo understood that they were in very deep trouble.

"Little one!" Turning to Lynx, the conman seized her sharply and hard by the sleeve, tearing her away from the boulder and directing her movement towards the Stellaron.

The animal beside them howled, writhed in pain, and tried to squeeze the shot out of its vertebrae, but only harmed itself further. The beast looked fearsome, but was godlessly stupid. When, after the third shot, having grown angry in earnest, the wolf lunged at Bronya, it became clear that if they did not take advantage of this, they would not reach Gepard in time.

The younger Landau's cheek had swollen as though bees had bitten her face. An impressive haematoma was spreading over the whole right side, and judging by the blood on the girl's lips, she had most likely lost a tooth when Sampo had shoved her face-first into the rock.

Koski really should have thought over the plan for at least a second. Only when Lynx pulled him aside, away from the Stellaron, did he understand that the plan had been a failure. Every way you looked at it.

"What's wrong, little one? Get moving!"

"Bronya and Seele are over there! We have to help them!" Because of the swelling on her face, her speech had become indistinct. Only when the situation could not be worse, and adrenaline pounded the brain no worse than any strong drink, did Sampo hear everything so vividly, as though Lynx were deliberately minting each word.

"Have you lost your mind?!" The blue-haired man wanted to pull her further, but she tore herself roughly free, stopped, and stared at him, peering into his very soul.

"You're the one who's lost your mind, you wretched coward!"

"What does cowardice have to do with it, little one?! We have a chance to finally end this nightmare. Do you feel it? It's getting colder and colder. That means something is clearly wrong. If we can't do it now, then maybe we'll get devoured before it all ends. Are you tired of living?! What would your brother even say if, instead of going to save him, you chose some random girls!"

The younger Landau looked as though she were seeing him for the very first time. Her jaw trembled, and a question froze in her eyes. Sampo felt that contempt, that disappointment; he felt, almost physically, the full complexity of the moral dilemma that had unfolded in the child's head.

"He'd be proud of me." Lynx turned around with self-abandon, gazing at the scene spread out before her eyes. "You know, I really did believe you'd changed. Stopped being a cynical coward who thinks only of himself…" The girl again stared into the green of his darkening eyes. "I'm definitely very bad at judging people. Go and die there, you damn coward!"

"You stupid little brat! Your brother is there too, and he's probably waiting for us!"

It became excruciatingly painful. In Sampo's chest, something twisted, ached, and clicked.

"And what if he's already dead?!"

The girl's face was flushed from overstrain, and the tears were involuntary. Lynx was bent double by the sobs tearing their way out. And still she stood her ground. Ready to step in the direction where Bronya and Seele were now facing alone the nightmare that had turned into reality.

"Then I don't want to lose you as well."

With her gaze, she seemed to want to reach the truth, but this time she found not even a hint of another deception. Sampo was genuinely sincere. Inside her, at his look, everything clenched and turned over. But, having wiped away the excess moisture, Lynx no longer wished to torment herself.

"Not everything in this life revolves around your little wants. Even if we all croak here, you shouldn't care. If you want to run, run. And don't you look back, Koski. Give me the second controller and get lost in all four directions. And when you're somewhere out there, among the stars, don't you dare remember our names."

"What are you saying… Little one, do you really think I'd abandon you here?" Sampo was bewildered; for all his dubious reputation, no one had ever thought so ill of him. "Here, little one." Sampo indeed held out the second controller to the girl. "Go, but use it only if things truly can't get any worse. The first one's with Geppie. If anything, I'll use it."

"You…"

"Little one, don't piss me off, and go faster! If you die, know that, being somewhere out there among the stars, I won't even remember you!"

They parted ways.

Another deafening shot rang out from behind. Sampo did not look back again. Ahead, there were only piercing, icy whirlwinds and a predatory yellowish-blue glow. With every step, he seemed to be moving further from his goal; with every step, he seemed to be drawn ever more strongly to the earth. With every step, his heart ached and bled more fiercely. Gepard was somewhere out there. Close, at an arm's length, yet just as far away, so that even his silhouette was not visible.

Koski did not want to think that he was gone. These thoughts tore him to shreds, as though he had given himself over to be torn apart by wolves. He couldn't just take and abandon them, could he? Hadn't he promised that no one would die? Had he lied? Surely Gepard Landau himself could not really have lied?

Or maybe he could.

There were many times more questions than all those who could somehow give a coherent answer. Glancing back only once, he saw nothing but what he observed ahead. He seemed to have entered a gentle labyrinth, whose trap would release him only after an agonisingly long death. He would exit it by chance; some hurricane would catch up his body, dusted with crumbly snow, and carry it away from this terrible place. Falling downwards, it would shatter into separate pieces of over-frozen meat, more reminiscent of fragments of a broken monument. If he was unlucky, his fate would be unenviable and sad.

The roar of the polar beasts quickly fell silent. No more shots or shouts could be heard. In the best case, the beast had been shot; if not… Right now, the creature was finishing off their cold corpses. Sampo had to believe in his fellow travellers! They couldn't lose to a wet dog!

Or maybe they could.

From the uncertainty, his head was spinning as though from pure alcohol. When only a few steps separated him from the yellowish glow, Koski froze, feeling the blade slip from his weakened fingers. With a bewildered gaze, he swept over the icy figure that had appeared before him. The world was collapsing. Unbidden emotions struck his head, emotions that for some reason faded with unusual swiftness.

The elder Landau was right before him.

He was sitting on his knees, his whole body leaning on the hand that at that moment rested upon a fractured, frozen-in-air golden object. Time around them had slowed. Even the snow had stopped in the air, melting as Sampo walked through it. Five centimetres a minute. If he sped up, he would surely not bear it and would fall. He might smash his face, or accidentally touch something…

The closer he came to Gepard, the more he began to tremble and to be drawn to the earth. From somewhere came a howl, and it was either only in his head, or from everywhere. Hard to tell at once. Falling with his knees onto the sharp stones, bared of their snow blanket, Sampo could not make out a single sound.

In his head, emptiness; on his face, a breezy smile. If Gepard Landau's path was to end right here, Sampo would not object. And it did not matter that his heart ached and bled, just as it did not matter that Lynx would most likely slit his throat with her own wavy knife.

If their winter journey was to end here, Sampo was most certainly not against it.

Having quelled all superfluous emotions within himself, Koski finally understood that he did not care. Life had turned out to be a truly hellish place, where one could grow attached to nothing. Lynx had proved remarkably right and perceptive.

Miracles do not happen.

And the lifeless, cooling body beside him was good confirmation of that.

It was only when another stray pellet flew mere centimetres from her head that Lynx came to a realisation of her own stupidity. Her ears were blocked so sharply and so strongly that she had to fall to the ground so as not to lose her orientation in space.

In her consciousness, only horror; on her tongue, jargon and obscenity. Not at all what a lady ought to spew from herself. Only when death all but closed its mighty jaws around her neck, and bullets only by a miracle did not blow her brains out, was there no time for propriety. On the first try, the girl managed to scramble onto the rock with the others; a fingernail was nearly left in a crevice; her fingers went numb almost at once; her hands trembled faintly, but they held her weapon firmly.

"What about the captain? Why did you come back? Where is Sampo?" Bronya fairly quickly hid the girl behind herself, once again bringing the rifle into a state of combat readiness.

"I don't know. I came back to help you."

Seele frowned somewhat strangely, putting her hand out before the girl.

"Then help." The hand was swollen, bloodied, with blue speckles of something foreign. Though it did not horrify the girl, for some reason, it became half a tone more alarming.

"Is that a bite?"

Seele shook her head in the negative.

"No, I cut my hand on a rock. Heal it."

And she had no strength to disobey. She wanted nothing more than a precisely known result from a definite action. She no longer wanted surprises. Over this time, they had become truly ever more loathsome. Just as she herself had, come to that.

In her chest, something ached and twisted. The words she had thrown at Sampo were simply loathsome. The thought that her brother had perished was even worse. He could not have! The great saviour of all that existed on the planet Yarilo-6 could not have perished like some pitiful wretch, so ingloriously and stupidly! Anyone could, but not Geppie!

Lynx smirked triumphantly, proudly lifting her nose.

Anyone would die here except her brother! Even a stray thought of his demise was horrifyingly absurd!

The power of Abundance gently spilled over Seele's hand. It penetrated beneath the pale skin in an emerald light, upon which blossomed bluish-black clusters, bloody blossoms, and whimsical weavings of veins. The wolf beside them feared the rifle, did not come closer, only bared its teeth, growled, and seemed to be plotting something wicked.

The beast did not yet know that soon her brother would return and spill the nasty wolf's guts!

When the skin slowly closed, knitted together, and ceased to resemble the aftermath of a subcutaneous gunpowder explosion, Bronya decided to play her trump card.

"This is the last bullet."

"Seriously?" Lynx had stopped being surprised about eight days ago, when, waking in the morning in her shack, she had discovered ice in her tea glass.

"Yes. As a last resort, there's a bayonet."

"I dream of how it will be picking my remains out of its teeth."

"Does this creature even have weak spots?"

The younger Landau rolled her eyes with exaggerated gloom.

"Of course it does." She pointed a finger at the eye. "I'm not certain, but a loss of contact between the optic nerves is fatal for them."

At that very moment, the creature came almost right up to them. An accurate shot followed without delay, but for some reason, the wolf did not even turn away. Whether you stood or fell. The last cartridge had been spent in vain.

Sampo could not bring himself, for a long time, to touch the pallor of the other's skin.

Landau before him was like an icy statue. Pale, cold. An indistinct melancholy and anxiety emanated from him. His eyes were full of extinguished hope and resolve, and it seemed they had altogether turned to the sky for the last time. Not to the snowdrifts, but to the stars and the abysses, to the singularity, to infinity, and to the freedom that his blazing heart so passionately desired.

And it was impossible to tell whether the captain was alive or not. The utter motionlessness contrasted too sharply with the thin streams of cold vapour that escaped so deceptively from the other's mouth.

"Hey, Geppie…" Sampo called out timidly, sinking to his knees before him. "Oh, dear, dear…"

Koski had seen dead men so often. How many times he had serenely searched other people's bodies for valuable items. Now all his boldness and indifference had evaporated. His palms hovered over the chest and face. He was afraid. Afraid that Gepard would prove to be dead. For as long as he had not checked, Landau still seemed alive. That possibility was still admitted.

"Geppie, enough of your jokes already. We've played, and that's enough, eh?" His numb fingers squeezed the captain's shoulder and gave a light shake. His heart froze. "Geppie. Hey, Geppie! Come on, come to your senses."

The body met him only with serene silence. The bluish-pale face seemed just as cold and relaxed as before. The porcelain colour of the skin almost merged with the colourless hair of the elder Landau.

Around them, not a sound; even the blizzard seemed to fall silent for a second, as though giving Koski hope. For what? It was unclear.

Their surroundings were one continuous mockery. Looking around in bewilderment, he was far from immediately noticing the other's almost intent gaze, which was fixed on his neck.

"Geppie… Geppie! Look at me! Come on!"

Cold palms hurriedly cupped the pale cheeks and nervously turned the head towards him. Koski could not restrain himself and kissed the man on the lips. And to hell with appearances, to hell with the cold and the fears.

"You're alive… Oh, Landau! There! There-there-there! Come to me…" He embraced Gepard, shuddering from the piercing cold. He tried to warm him, but almost nothing remained of his own warmth.

Gepard did not even feel the movement of his own body. Something remotely resembling a blue-and-white blotch flickered strangely at the periphery of his vision.

To feel nothing was a blessing, and Landau would have done well to dissolve in it. It was hard to understand anything when you could only move an eyelid that was turning to stone from the cold, and even that weakly. Only so as to close yourself off once more from the world around. From the snow, from the blue blotch irritating on the level of instinct against the white canvas of the endless colourless sky.

Sampo clung to the shallow breathing, to the gaze, to everything that cried out: "Life still flickers within him." He tore off his outer clothing, covered Gepard with it, and gathered him up into his arms. And on legs that would not bend, he rose, pressing him to himself.

"If you try to die, I'll kill you myself, understand, Captain?!"

Another kiss. Hot breath brushed over the icy skin.

"Just a moment. Wait, I'll find somewhere safe…" He looked around in search of any shelter where they could hide at least from the wind.

Yet there was neither stone nor pit around them. Only the unrestrained whirlwind, which wracked his lower back with sharp pain. More and more cold emanated from the Stellaron; they urgently needed to decide something.

To take responsibility for some foolishness for the first time was becoming simply unbearable.

Somewhere in Landau's pockets, there should be a controller. Not to use it now would simply be a stupid waste of time. Delay now equalled death.

Only, for some reason, his hands would not lift. Landau's words about harming others would not leave his head.

"To hell with it," flashed through his mind, and Gepard was back on the snow.

"You'll curse me for this, maybe even throw me in a cell, but forgive me," Koski laughed hoarsely, and pulled out that very trophy he had received from Serval.

The controller was pointed at the black construction, gleaming with gold. Sampo drew closer to it. His thumb descended on the button and pressed it timidly.

Sinking her teeth into the wolf's eye, it was hard to understand at what moment something was going wrong. The situation itself was strange and horrible. In her head, only curses and an infinite amount of self-deception. In her ears, the growl, the wind, and a loud female shriek.

No one really understood what had happened. It was simply that when it did, it was already truly too late to stop Lynx. The girl even turned around. Neither a farewell speech, nor a brief, even hinting glance had been left for her. In the end, she had not even drawn her knife in advance. She had merely cast off her excess belongings and stepped towards an inevitable doom, literally sinking her teeth into the predator's weak spot.

Something vile, cloying and viscous, instantly filled her mouth not only with the natural secretions of a wound but with her own nausea. To have staggered as she did from the mere pernicious inhalation of the invisible fumes of this beast, it would not have been shameful to collapse into the snow, and only once she was on the ground would the beast surely simply tear her apart.

The controller in her pocket beckoned inexplicably, but it was impossible to reach it; she had to split the beast's skull so as to somehow hold onto it. The animal bucked, writhed and howled, clacked its abnormally huge jaw, and threatened to bite off her leg below the knee. It did not succeed. Having lost its sight, driven to the utmost degree of despair, the animal was going mad.

The wolf was tossed from madness to blind fury, and its next movement of those mighty jaws could not be guessed at. Could not be foreseen. Only when its jaw closed on the girl's leg did everything fall into place.

Around the Stellaron, nothing had changed; only Sampo, frozen in indecision, still could not bring himself to press the button of the controller. A weak grasp caught at his trouser leg, but the gaze that bound his breath, already scorched by the cold, was far too penetrating.

From beneath snow-covered lashes, eyes filled with despair and an indistinct anxiety looked with such hope, as though Sampo were a panacea for the madness around them. As though the panacea were hidden in his sleeve, at which the captain was clutching so desperately. A pitiful sight, but that was not what he was sitting here for.

"Don't look at me like that, Captain." Sampo tried to turn away, but the pull did not lessen; it was as though all of Gepard's remaining strength went only into not letting go of the edge of his clothing under any circumstances. "I told you my hand would not waver. And if saving you means killing someone else, then let half the Universe collapse!"

The elder Landau clearly wanted to say something, but his lips were cold and mute. In his clear eyes, there was so much fear and mute entreaty, as though he were not a captain of the Silvermane Guards, but a simple street beggar: old, sick, and wretched enough that he could not even force out a word. He merely stretched out a pale, crooked hand in an unrealisable hope for alms.

Yet one must not forget, either, that Sampo was far from a virtue. There was no more conscience in him than there was prudence in Lynx. And he had never particularly distinguished himself with a desire to play the hero. Now Landau was no longer an authority to him. He would act as he saw fit.

And if for that, a part of the Universe had to be destroyed, then so be it.

Koski had never been distinguished by conscience. Now, that was his chief weapon.

When the button of the controller had already been pressed, and someone's death was agonisingly inevitable, conscience did not touch the conman's innards in the slightest. He was only halted for a second when, instead of warped space, something living flashed before his eyes.

Something resembling a goddamn wolf.

It was hard not to go mad from the pain, feeling the skin tear and the bone break in two. It was hard not to scream as if for the last time, and not to spatter everything around with a crimson stream and her own tears.

Lynx did not restrain herself.

Not even understanding the reality unfolding around her from the pain, she only drove the knife deeper into the beast's eyes in desperate attempts not to fall to the ground. The world dissolved in black-and-white blotches, while her mouth slowly filled with a bloody slurry, which, coupled with her heartrending scream, made her resemble a monster from hell. In her head, there was no longer any desire to do what was right, no desire to save anyone, let alone to sacrifice her life.

She was not her brother, after all. She was far more selfish, not ready to trade herself for someone else. That was why regrets came quickly. They utterly beat out the desire to fight. But she did not unclench her hands. The ragged wound below her knee had quickly been chafed by the wind, covered with a thin layer of icy crust, but it did not grow any easier for that. Her heart beat so hard that it was quicker now to die of its stopping than from the vile, loathsomely terrifying wolf carrying her into the snowy distance.

Carrying her towards the Stellaron.

The beast itself surely did not understand well where it was carrying them. It was going mad beneath her, writhing in pain and trying to bite off something else from its offender, but Lynx, having clambered onto its head, clung to it until her knuckles whitened.

A yellowish-green glow seeped through her eyelids, tightly shut against the blood, snow, and wind, so as not to lose herself entirely in the dreadful sensations. The younger Landau had to close her eyes and bite her tongue with such force that even the frostbitten parts of her mouth began once more to fill with sensation.

She wanted to open her eyes and be at home. Simply at home!

Let this cursed planet burn with all its inhabitants! The girl simply needed to go home. Her eyes began to water for the first time. From fear, from the desire to abandon everything, from the endless streams of regret for what she had done. She would never have gone with her brother had she known how this loathsomely strange winter journey would end.

They could perfectly well have walked this road without her. The awareness of her own uselessness struck harder than any hammer; it split her skull just the same.

Only when the wolf beneath her stopped, impaling itself on something loathsomely bright and cold, did her world finally slip from its axis. Her body was pierced by a strong, brief impulse and an enormous, terribly powerful wave of pain; striking her whole body against a hard surface, she finally lost all connection to reality.

A whirlwind of pain, blizzard, yellow, blue, white, and red instantly knocked the sense out of the girl. Several pulsing fragments of knocked-out teeth bit painfully into her cheek.

If this was the end, then it was absolutely useless and pitiful.

Lynx Landau regretted every word and every action of hers.

The ideal picture of the world shattered fairly quickly. The wolf appeared unexpectedly: in an instant, he and Gepard found themselves on opposite sides of the wolf's carcass. Something struck the snow-covered rocks with a loud cry, and then fell silent as abruptly as it had fallen from the maddened beast.

And even his thoughts were tangled. Something was wailing in his head; his body was seized by the strongest convulsions. Sampo, like a madman, threw himself against the beast in an utterly futile attempt to seize the elder Landau by the hand and drag him away from all this madness.

Explosions in his head. His thoughts darted from the wolf to the Stellaron and the activated controller.

Gepard reached towards him as well, observing in mute horror what had unfolded before him. His lips trembled, and his consciousness seemed to have entirely returned to his weak body. Locking eyes with one another, for them, everything around seemed to merge into one, into that which in no way extended beyond the other's pupil.

Sampo was not prepared for the fact that, in the next moment, everything would disappear.

After a brief flash, a ringing silence struck his ears.

Landau simply vanished.

The moment the conman closed his eyes for a brief instant, upon opening them, he simply saw nothing before him. The instant that struck him in the head had quite successfully knocked him off balance. Smashing his face against the cold earthly rocks, he did not even feel the pain. Gepard had simply disappeared, as had the Stellaron and the wolf, carrying away with them all the horrors and the weight of the days passed.

Everything had simply disappeared. As though none of it had ever been.

The controller had carried everything away with it. Mere inches had separated him from sudden inevitability. It had all ended just as unexpectedly as it had begun. An absurd accident… A confluence of circumstances. How loathsomely absurd it had been. He had wanted a miracle, and so Sampo did not try to rise. It was excruciatingly painful. And immeasurably shameful besides. All his loud words and promises had become ash, scattered over a dirty puddle. Only now did the fog of his enchanting smile clear, and life had indeed proved to be a rather unsightly place, just as he had always been accustomed to seeing it.

And… well, there it was. He could do nothing more about it.

Gepard had come here with the full certainty that he would never return home. Sampo had followed him only with an endless desire to save.

And now… he was gone.

All that remained were memories. Bright flashes of moments that had faded so quickly, as though they had never been.

Nothing more, as though he had never existed.