"That's the name of the barbarian god, Guin."
Remus whispered.
"The name of the Semitic god who lives in the wilds of Nosferus is Alfettu, you know."
"By Moss, God of the Steppe, I swear it!"
Istvan ranted.
"Is there another one in there? Tell me that now!"
"Shh."
Guin clicks his tongue,
"I can't tell you why, but I have a child with me and another child - a girl - was separated from me at the entrance to this prison. Istvan, it's fine for you to escape, but apparently I have to get the girl out first."
"Oh, Guin!"
Remus squeezed Guin's hand. There was a little way from behind the wall,
"There was a girl-- one of them got pulled away?"
"Oh. They said they were going to lock me up in another room somewhere and took me away."
"Hey-- that's dangerous."
"Why?"
Remus screamed like crazy.
"Why is it dangerous?"
Suddenly a stone door was violently smashed with a spearhead or something,
"Shut up!"
And there came a voice of a watchman shouting. They were silent, and then they lowered their voices and began to speak again.
"It may be--"
Istvan doesn't care that he's being yelled at,
"It may be that the reason you left the girl out was because you wanted to use her for that purpose."
"Oh no--!"
Remus shuddered,
"I won't let you use Linda's raw blood as a demon drug!"
Guin patted the trembling boy on the shoulder and comforted him. A voice continued to speak from next to him as if it didn't care about the boy's agitation.
"Then you must be in a hurry, right? I'm a little impatient myself. And since I knew that the Semites would soon come to this stronghold in force, either to reclaim their brethren or for revenge, I thought I'd pick a fight with the monster, anger him, and send him back to the city of Torus. I wasn't a conscript from Count Vernon's lands, but a mercenary in Mongol's army, so it was General Guddu of Torus who was supposed to punish me. But I went a bit too far, or the monster had no intention of obeying military law from the start. Instead of sending me back to the capital with the next contingent, he sentenced me to immediate execution and threw me in here. Perhaps he's thinking of squeezing my blood for the sake of execution.
Of course, I wouldn't have come for that. I'm Istvan, born with a boulder in my hand and the old soothsayer of the land foretold that I would rule with a kingdom in my hand. I believe in my destiny. I'm still just a young mercenary and I'm going to rule. I'm not going to stay here as a mercenary and get my blood sucked out by some disgusting monster.
So I was planning to break my cell tonight or tomorrow at dawn anyway. But you people--"
"It seems that we have our reasons for not dying here."
Guin said thoughtfully, and leaned back into the hole in the stone wall so that she could hear him better.
"Istvan, you say you've been all over the world. Then does the name Aura or any other person mean anything to you?"
Remus bit his lower lip and looked at Guin, remembering that this was the only clue left in his memory of this deformed warrior who had suddenly appeared in front of Remus and Linda, forgetting everything but his own name, Guin. At the same time, he couldn't help but think how strange and mysterious his encounter with Guin had been, even after all this time. He and Linda were beginning to feel as if they had been traveling with him for a long time.
"Aura-- Aura. It's not a country name, it's not a town name, it's like a woman's name."
The jovial mercenary thoughtfully replied, but then suddenly heard a gasp,
"Over the face of old Janus!"
Suddenly, his voice took on a sharp and distant tone.
"Over the face of wisdom of the old man and the face of life of the young man of the two-faced god Janus! What kind of a monster was it that I was speaking to through the wall?"
Guin was so engrossed in the conversation that he forgot his own deformity and realized that he had revealed the leopard's head from where he could see it. He could hear Istvan's foul curses,
"By the three-and-a-half-wheeled tail of Yarn, God of Fate! What are you, the half-breed Silenus or some unborn demon from the frontier? Was I about to carry a demon on my back? I've been to Canaris as a mercenary and I've never seen anything like you there."
"I'm not--"
Guin was about to open his mouth to explain the situation, when suddenly Istvan said in a low voice in a terrible panic,
"Hey, the soldiers are coming up. I'm sure they're throwing roast meat out the window for dinner. I'll tell them who you are later. Pick up the stone and put it back in. You'll ruin all the plans I've made."
"Okay."
Guin said, removing the stone and putting it back in the hole in the wall. It was a very close call, for before he had finished and sat down on the couch or sat down, the heavy footsteps of a party came up the stairs and split into two, one stopping at the back, in front of the mercenary's room, and the other opening the window at the top of the door and throwing in a shout of "Food! The other stopped at the back, in front of the room of the mercenaries, and opened the window above the door, shouted "food" and threw it in, and at the same time the metallic sound of the unlocking of the door struck the door of their own room, and the stone door slowly opened.
The Black Knights standing at the entrance to the prison all held torches in their hands. Dimly illuminated by the light of the torches, the prisoners realized that sunset was approaching. They did not notice this because the room was originally dimly lit and the sky through the window was a dark violet, a color typical of the frontier. The light from the torches cast wavering shadows of the prisoners and knights on the stone walls, and the room was beginning to feel a sense of foreboding.
"Come on."
The captain, who had his cheeks down so that it was difficult to tell from his appearance whether he was the same man as the previous captain, said briefly.
"Our lord will test your strength and skill."
At the same time, two knights stepped forward and flanked Guin.
"Guin!"
The captain restrained him, and the jailer stepped forward from behind him and placed on the table a portion of food for one man: roast meat, ground grain, and a jar of the fruit wine of Mongol.
"Only leopards."
The captain told him simply and signalled for him to stand down. Guin stood up in that strangely unfeeling manner which had become his chief characteristic, and, flanked by his knights, left the room without being urged. Apparently, for him, stillness and motion are two sides of the same coin - he, like the beast that bears his head, has gone from long and patient silence and waiting to tremendous destruction and violence, from stormy explosions and struggles to the most destructive and violent. Like the beast itself, he is capable of shifting in an instant from patient, prolonged silence and waiting to tremendous destruction and violence, from stormy outbursts and struggles to seemingly obedient non-resistance and emotionlessness, where he does not move a muscle.
When he was led away in silence, the stone door was shut and locked as before, and Remus was left alone. The knights left a single torch in the lamp-post on the wall, but it cast a wavering, demonic shadow over the whole room.
Guin was taken away, and Linda with him, and the prince of Paro lay in a daze on the couch, unable to reach the food on the table. But as soon as the soldiers had gone, and the tower was quiet, the noise began again, the noise of the men scratching the pegs around the stone and pushing them outwards.
"Pull it from that side, too."
He heard the mercenary's voice. Remus reached out his hand and pulled at the stone, but the force of the stone's release nearly knocked him backwards.
When the window was opened as before, black, glittering eyes, illuminated by the light of the torch, looked in - and then the whole of a young, but toned face was visible against the wall.
"What's up, kid?"
The mercenary whispered and wiped the fat from the grilled meat from around his lips with the back of his hand.
"Did they take that leopard guy with them?"
"Yes."
Remus said in a voice that sounded like he was about to cry.
"The Black Count is going to test Guin's strength and skill."
"Ha ha."
The Red Mercenary said with the optimism and fearlessness that is his nature.
"Then at least he'll come back without getting killed."
Through the peephole, he looked at the torch-lit room and Remus with curiosity,
"Hey, kid, what are you so uptight about? Don't worry, there's no black death germs in that food."
Jolly good assurance.
"From the way you're dressed, you're not a child of the settlers of Mongol. How on earth did you end up traveling with that monster and being captured by the Knights of Fort Staphorus? Who the hell is that creature-- damn you, Dole, what a hive of monsters you are, even in the middle of nowhere!"
"Guin is a good man."
Remus said, and stared doubtfully at the looking-glass. Istvan paid no heed to such words,
"Just eat your food. Eat your food. If you don't want to be bled alive, give me a hand. I pulled out a stone to get out of this nasty tower and made a hole to get through, but I was having trouble crawling safely down to the river Kes from there. Give me a bedroll from your room through this hole. I can't make a long enough cord with the one in my room. But if I tear it too thin, it won't hold my weight."
"Kes River? What are you going to do when you get down to the Kes River?"
Istvan laughed. Istvan began to laugh.
"I haven't decided what I'm going to do. I'm just trying to get out of here since the outer wall of this tower juts straight out over the dark waters of the Kes. Just eat your meat and grain. You can't do anything if you're hungry, that's the first rule of mercenary warfare."
Remus did as he was told and listened intently to the Red Mercenary in the next room as he used his strong teeth and fingers to pull the cloth up and join it together to form a dexterous rope ladder. Hearing István's unyielding efforts to build a rope ladder, while complaining about the jailer who had refused to give him a torch and muttering curses, I felt, as if it were too late for me, the distress of the man who, only a few days before, had been carefully protected as a prince of the world in the beautiful Crystal Palace. It was as if it was too late.
Guin did not return until the sun had completely set and the pale moon had begun to shine on the forest. When he had finished building the rope ladder, Istvan returned to the couch, put on his furs and fell asleep, saying that he must keep up his strength. I fear for Linda's health. In the forest of the frontier - a forest full of dangers and curiosities, where they had spent two nights before, an unidentified shadow was flying.
Remus crouched on the couch, enduring a long and uneasy night, alone for the first time in his life. Who could have known - it was the first moment that Yarn, the God of Fate, with his long beard, his horse's hooves, his three-and-a-half-wheeled tail, and his ship's eye that could see to the end of time, would quietly begin to turn the wheel of his destiny. He was weaving a long and very intricate pattern, and even those who were to play their part in it did not yet realise that they themselves were at the end of the thread of their own destiny.
Guin did not return, and Istvan slept soundly, as if he had forgotten that he had announced that he would leave the fortress by the end of the night. A black cloud of stormy foreboding enveloped the entire castle of Staphorus, and the dreams of the soldiers of the fortress, too, were tinged with an inexplicable anxiety.