“An impression of your Light wings has turned up on the scroll stolen by one of the servants of Gloom. With your action, you have stuck a dagger into the heart of Light! You have messed up the veins of good and evil! Do you at least understand what you have done?” Essiorh got carried away. His voice rose increasingly higher. The entrance glass started to vibrate. The code-lock grew warm. The bright buttons began to weep with the scorching metal.
Daph coughed politely but persistently. “Can I ask a question?” “Ask!” Essiorh said, clearly grieved by the desire to be contrary and to refute all her arguments. “You said: ‘An impression of your wings has turned up on the scroll.’ On what scroll?” Essiorh frowned. “What? Are you pretending? You dare to deceive me? To lie to your guard-keeper?” “But I’m not lying. I saw no scroll… That is, I saw three railroad cars of scrolls, but something that special, I would remember… And I didn’t leave an impression of my wings anywhere!” Daph stated, after looking at Depressiac. “And what do you think of that?” The cat kept its opinion to itself.
Essiorh started to seethe with indignation. He aimed a reproachful finger at Daph and was about to continue the disclosure, but unexpectedly stopped short. “Eh-eh… What day of the week is it today?” he asked absent-mindedly. “Monday,” announced Daph with doubt. She knew the moronoid days of the week rather poorly. “Yes, exactly. It was Monday morning, since the agents trooped over to Ares,” she added, after thinking it over.
Essiorh held his head. “Oh, woe is me! I mixed up everything! Having travelled here from the Transparent Spheres, I didn’t consider the difference in Earth time, didn’t think about the natural celestial lead, and warned you about an event, which hasn’t yet occurred, thus destroying the immutable law of freedom of choice.” Here Essiorh, not sparing his body, hit himself hard on the forehead with one of the rings. He did this with such zeal that an imprint appeared on his forehead. “Now I’m forced to take leave of you! But remember what I said to you!” he stated and started to move back hurriedly, clearly intending to disappear.
“Stop!” Daph shouted. “But was it you in the limo? May I use the informal ‘you’ or is this impudence?” The keeper stopped. “Informal ‘you’? This is impudence, but you may,” he said after some wavering. “Where, where was I?” “In the car following me. Well, tell me, this is important to me! Why were these tricks necessary? In order to play a little on my nerves?”
Essiorh looked at her in bewilderment. “Well, it’ll be known to you: I found you only twenty minutes ago. Found with the help of that indissoluble tie, which always exists between a guard and his keeper. I was in shock. I’ve become a complete stranger to the mortal world. I was last here during the times of ancient Babylon. I remember I found a whole crowd of idlers and, in order that the people would not lounge around with nothing to do, I proposed to them to build a tower. The usual small tower. Who knew that the moronoids would get so carried away? My boss was very unhappy.”
“Fine, not you, so not you. But did you see the limo?” Daph continued asking. “No. I must assume you have in mind one of those vehicles with a nice young woman at the wheel attempting to knock me down when I was pondering something on the pavement?” Essiorh tried to be more specific. Daph looked searchingly at him and decided that it was possible to believe his words. That Depressiac related to Essiorh benevolently served as an influential argument in favour of Essiorh speaking the truth. Taking into account its specific character, of course. In any case, it did not strain itself and did not hiss at him as at the limousine. “It means, not only are the golden-wings and the keeper from the Transparent Spheres interested in me… I’ve become popular. Only this form of popularity somehow is not much to my liking,” decided Daph.
“Why haven’t you been in the mortal world for so long?” Daph asked, after deciding to appear attentive. It would seem the innocent question embarrassed Essiorh. “After the Babylonian incident I began to have trouble at work… Eh-eh… I was slightly in the wilderness when you appeared. And here they remembered me,” he drawled evasively, staring at his very strong mitts with polite informative interest.
“Could nobody be entrusted with such an important issue? I have me in mind.” Daph was filled with enthusiasm. Essiorh smiled with a forced smile. Someone who recently fell from a chair and now attempts to present this as a joke would smile so. “Oh no. I fear that the issue is much simpler. No one else agreed to take you… All shoved you aside as they could. Finally, they found the last one. Alas, this last one turned out to be me. You and I, as the moronoids very rightly say, are worms from the same coffin.”
“What, what? Peas from the same pod?” “Worms from the same coffin!” Essiorh obstinately repeated. “And don’t argue! So they say. I read it in the dictionary, when preparing for transplanting to the human world.” “Ah, I understand! Sniffka said that Guards of Gloom cast an evil eye on one publication of the moronoid phraseology dictionary. Her good friend, having found out about this, immediately purchased twelve copies to give away to friends. So here, according to Murphy’s Law, he miscalculated, Sniffka turned out to be his thirteenth friend and didn’t get this dictionary. She was very hurt!” Daph elaborated.
Essiorh turned a deaf ear to her words, thinking about something. “Daphne! I have a request for you… a personal one… I’m asking you not to tell anyone that I showed up with my reproach sooner than I should have. We’re very strict about this, taking into account that I also have earlier blunders. Can I hope that everything will remain between us?” Daph nodded patronizingly and slapped her keeper on a shoulder solid as granite. “Have no fear! I’ll sew a zipper on my mouth and zip it shut every time I try to squawk… Depressiac is also a reliable lad. Except for a good fight, night flight, and Persian cats, he has no other weaknesses. And also no interests, by the way, if we don’t consider raw meat.”
Someone had already been drumming nervously for a long time from within the iron door accidentally welded shut by Essiorh’s reproach. It no longer made any sense to remain in the entrance. Daph and Essiorh left, not waiting for the moronoids to summon the Emergency and Disaster Relief Ministry or the fire department.
Twilight slowly thickened above Moscow, exactly as if someone had dimmed the brightness of a monitor screen sequentially. The wind played on an unglued advertisement. Automobiles with maniacal perseverance rushed along the ring of boulevards. Their drivers diligently made a show of having important business somewhere. And, it goes without saying, none of these simulators of stormy activity, masters of beating the air, was concerned that here, two steps away from them, Daphne the guard of Light was discussing the fate of the moronoid world with her keeper from the Transparent Spheres.
Suddenly Depressiac emitted a warning guttural sound. Daph looked up. She felt a sharp uneasiness. While she was in the entrance, something changed in the magic field above Moscow. Neutral and sluggish earlier, now it blazed like the aurora borealis. Daph scrutinized the sky over the roofs of the houses. It seemed to her that to the right, somewhere very high, two golden points flickered. Before Daph had time to focus on them, the points disappeared. Almost immediately in another part of Moscow, somewhere awfully far away, in the outskirts, an additional point flickered. It traced a semicircle and also disappeared. The points resembled not even sparks but timid yellow maple leaves, when in the evening murky forest the last ray of the sun suddenly falls on them.
“Golden-wings. There are about two scores of them above the city. They appeared about ten minutes ago,” Essiorh announced with knowledge of the matter, answering her unvoiced question. “What are they doing here?” Daph inquired with uneasiness. “Hmm… Strange question. They’re searching, of course.” “For me?” “This time it’s not you. Although, if they catch sight of you, there’s no doubt they’ll immediately attack you. So, no noticeable magic. Be quiet as a dead mouse in the fourth power generator… Ouch, again the jinxed dictionary! But now, if you’re interested, look over there… Over that house on the corner, found it?” “No.” “Look closer. Higher than the billboard, higher than the attic… Do you see a fat black blob? Well!”
