The Mist and the Lightning. Part 18
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Every day of his life since childhood, Nik received a cruel lesson confirming his low status. He was trained this way, and therefore he will never be able to give a decent answer to a true black on equal terms. Nik said to Kors: “I don’t want to get close to the blacks, they only make troubles,” but Kors didn’t believe him anymore. In fact, Nik was drawn to the true blacks and bowed to them. Because the rightful owners of this world were people like him – Vitor Kors. And that is why Kors was so afraid of their meeting with Leonardo, not doubting that Nik, not knowing the other scheme of things, would bend.
Kors glanced at doctor Cassiel. He stood and looked at Kors, expecting to hear his answer.
“Ask him yourself,” said Kors, and Nik looked up in surprise. Yes, he noticed everything and understood everything – both then and now. And he long ago resigned himself to his humiliating position, meekly accepting his low status in the hierarchy created by the black, and in most cases obeying the established rules of interaction between the lower and the higher masters.
The doctor was also taken aback. He was silent, and Kors, turning to Nik, said gently:
“Nik, do you agree to accept treatment from doctor Cassiel? Can he give you injections of drugs?”
“Vitor, as you say…” Nik barely uttered in confusion, and hearing this answer, the doctor nodded in satisfaction.
“And what about the eye?” Kors specified. “Will you let you close it? After all, then, while your right eye is recovering, you will become practically blind.”
“I see with it…”
“So what? Do you agree?” Kors asked again.
“If you think this is right, Vitor… but only… let you do it. Can you…”
And doctor Cassiel, who was listening attentively to their conversation, smiled understandingly and condescendingly:
“Your ward commander of the unclean ones trusts you, sir Vitor Kors. I will explain to you what needs to be done. This is not difficult.”
“Okay,” said Kors.
“Order him to close his eyes.”
Nik looked at Kors with the eyes of a loyal dog and closed them. Kors’ hands trembled slightly as he sealed his eye in several layers tightly with strips of black plaster.
“Open your eye,” he ordered, finishing, and Nik opened his right slightly slanting eye, “look at me, can you see me?”
“Yes,” Nik quickly looked at Kors, “yes. Everything is fine.”
“Roll up your sleeve.”
While heading to the doctor, Kors assumed that Nik would need an injection. However, he didn’t want Cassiel to stare at Nik’s hands, battered by old ulcers, examining his stupid tattoos of monsters, frozen in a grin, so he wrapped them with black strips of cloth, like bandages, from the wrist to the very elbow. One could only slightly open the desired area of the arm, pushing the fabric apart, and make an injection. Nik obediently pulled up the sleeve of his jacket and shirt, and Kors, having only slightly parted the fabric, quite professionally gave him an injection.
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