The Last Ring-bearer - Kirill Yeskov [35]
"Forgive me," Haladdin mumbled. "None of us even suspect… they tell all kind of tales about you… I myself thought that you're phantoms that don't care about the real world." "On the contrary, we do care a lot. For example, I'm well acquainted with your work."
"Really?!"
"Oh yes. Congratulations: what you did the year before last with your study of nerve tissue will inaugurate a new era in physiology. Not sure that you'll make it into a school textbook, but a university course certainly. Provided, of course, that after the recent events this world will ever have textbooks and universities."
"Yeah?" Haladdin was doubtful. Sure, to hear this kind of praise from Sharya-Rana himself (provided that this was, indeed, Sharya-Rana) was pleasant beyond belief, but the great mathematician seemed not so competent in a foreign subject. "I'm afraid that you're confusing a couple of things. I did indeed achieve a few good results studying how poisons and antidotes work, but that work with nerve fibers was just a fleeting whim. A couple of cute experiments, a hypothesis that still needs a lot of checking…"
"I never confuse anything," the nazgúl snapped coldly. "That little paper is the best work you have done and will ever do; at the very least, you've immortalized your name. I say this not because I believe it, but because I know it. We have some ways to see the future, and use them sometimes."
"Well, sure, you must be interested in the future of science."
"In that particular case our main interest was you rather than science."
"Me?!"
"Yes, you. Still, not everything is clear, which is why I'm here to ask a few questions. Most of them will be… rather personal, and I only ask for one thing: please answer as honestly as you think necessary, but don't invent anything; that'd be useless anyway. And please stop looking around all the time! There are no other people for…" – the nazgúl paused for a moment – "at least twenty-three miles in any direction, and your friends will sleep soundly until we're done here. So – are you ready to answer under those conditions?"
"As I understand it," Haladdin smiled crookedly, "you can obtain my answers without my consent."
"Yes, I can," the nazgúl nodded, "but I will not. Not with you, anyway. The thing is, I have a certain proposition for you, so we must at least trust each other… Hey, do you think I'm here to buy your immortal soul?" Haladdin mumbled something unintelligible. "Oh, please – that's complete nonsense!"
"What's nonsense?"
"Buying a soul, that's what. Be it known to you that a soul can be obtained as a gift, as a sacrifice, it can be lost – but it can be neither bought nor sold. It's like love: there's no giveand-take, otherwise it's just not love. Besides, I'm really not that interested in your soul." "Really? " Strangely, that stung. "So what interests you, then?"
"First of all, I'm interested in finding out why a brilliant scientist would quit his job, which was the meaning of his life rather than just a livelihood, and volunteer as an army field medic."
"Well, for example, he was interested in verifying some of his ideas about how poisons work in practice. Such a wealth of data was being lost, you know…"
"So the Elf-wounded soldiers of the South Army were nothing but guinea pigs to you? That's a lie! I know you like