"What?!"

"I knocked out your eye," Nikto repeated and looked at Orel again waiting for his reaction.

Orel started at him for a while, not understanding. Then he got it.

"No," he shook his head. "No!"

"I didn't want to. I hit you precisely to hurt you very much but it had to be safe. I don't know why… Oh shit! The ring! It was because of the ring! Your ring you put onto my finger! I wasn't used to it. I didn't even notice it then."

Orel grabbed his face.

"Nik, do you want to say that you knocked out my eye with the ring?"

"Yes. At first I thought I was mistaken, you'd be all right, but now I see you won't. Maybe you shouldn't have strained and come… It got worse."

Orel touched his swollen eye carefully.

"Are you absolutely sure?"

Nikto just nodded.

"But I don't feel anything."

"Do you want to feel?"

"No-o, no! Anything but that!"

Nikto kept silent.

"He made a hole in my eye with the 'royal' ring, oh gods," Orel whispered sitting on the floor and rocking from side to side. "What shall I do now? My eye will leak out and even if it doesn't, it'll stop seeing. I don't want to be a cripple! I don't want to be single-eyed! Ooh…"

Suddenly he froze and looked at Nikto with hope.

"Help me! Heal me like you healed Asa! You can!"

"I'll try," Nikto raised his eyes. "But I have to go to the Unclean District for medicines."

"I believe you," Orel said. "I believe you and trust you and…" He moved towards Nikto and hugged him. "I don't blame you. It's my own fault."

"It'll be all right, I promise you," Nikto said.

Chapter 2

Friends

"He's here!" Lis shouted to his friends looking into Nikto's room. Orel sat up in bed forgetting about the bandage and at once understood what a stupid thing it was to do. He quickly buried his face into the pillows screaming: "Get out!"

But it was too late; Lis suspected something and rushed to him.

"Arel, what happened to your face? What happened?"

Orel sat up again slowly and looked at Lis angrily with his only eye.

"Nothing."

Tol, Squint-Eye and Enriki stood in the doorway and watched him in fear.

"Ooh shit." Orel turned away.

"Orel, what happened to your face and where is Nikto? How many times can I ask?" Lis asked again.

Orel shook his head trying to toss his hair away from his face and winced with pain.

"Shi-i-it!" He grabbed his bandaged eye. Then he looked at Lis. "I knocked myself down while drunk and Nik went to the Lower City to bring some medicines for me."

"How could you hit yourself like that?" Enriki asked Orel.

"I told you, I was dead drunk – like when I fell down from the stairs and broke all my ribs."

"Let me see," Lis said reaching for the bandage on Orel's damaged eye. Orel shrunk back.

"No, don't!" He hit his head against the back of the bed and howled in pain. A thick dark trickle of blood leaked from under the black cloth.

"Oh gods! Arel? What is it?" They rushed to him crowding around.

"We need to take him to the doctor right now!" Enriki said shakily.

"No, go to hell," Orel could barely speak, clenching his teeth in pain. His fingers gripped the cover. "Leave me alone!"

Lis turned to his friends; he was pale.

"Nikto mutilated Orel," he said to them, then turned to Orel. "Well, Arel, you did finish badly, didn't you?"

"Fuck you," Orel hissed holding his bad eye. He looked terribly: his glorious dark hair, half-heartedly washed of blood, hung in tousled icicles. His lip, despite the ointment, was still puffy. A thick black bandage covered his forehead, the bridle of his nose, his damaged eye and the upper part of his cheek. Nikto pulled it under Orel's hair and knotted tightly. He had based his actions exclusively on the practical use and hadn't cared about the appearance. The crude bandage looked horribly on Orel's chiseled, beautiful face, disfiguring him. The remaining brown eye looked at the friends in pain. Orel suffered but did his best not to show it. Yet they knew him, he couldn't deceive them. Enriki looked at Orel with unconcealed horror. Tol and Squint-Eye were distressed, not know what to say. Lis clenched his fists.

"I'll kill Nikto," he said. "I'll kill him!"

Orel moaned. "Nikto is not to blame!"

"Lis, perhaps it's true, Nikto is not to blame," Tol said gingerly. Lis didn't even look at him.

"If I were you, I wouldn't fish for trouble," Squint-Eye said to Lis. He sat down in the armchair at the bed and looked at the friends frowningly, cracking his knuckles.

"Stop cracking!" Lis yelled at him. "I'm sick of you!" He looked in disgust at Squint-Eye's arms covered in razor scars and terrible bruises left from injections.

"Do you think you can tell me what to do?" Squint-Eye's face distorted, he looked at Lis hatefully. "I see you think you're the boss here and I'm a loser!"

"Yes, exactly," Lis looked at him defiantly. "I respect myself unlike others who follow Nikto like a dog begging him for drugs!"

Squint-Eye started shaking. "Who are you talking about?"

Lis bared his teeth. "About you, you, don't worry, just sit and shut up."

"Lis, why are you treating me like that?" Squint-Eye was barely controlling himself.

"Ah, I've hurt your feelings! Go and cut your arms then, you like to do it! Go, go, you'll feel better!"

Squint-Eye practically went grey with rage.

"Lis, shut your mouth!" Orel yelled.

Enriki wrapped his arm around Squint-Eye's shoulders. "Bert, calm down, don't mind him. Lis is just upset. We all are," he said.

Squint-Eye lifted his hands and squeezed Enriki's fingers.

"It's all right, Rik, I'm in control."

"Where is your ring?" Lis said to Orel suddenly.

"Lis, leave me alone. Go away, all of you! Go!"

"Where is your ring?" Lis raised his voice. "If you don't tell me now, I'll punch your other eye, you know I have a heavy hand!"

"Just try," Tol interfered. "If you touch him, I'll knock out both of your eyes."

"What are you doing?" Enriki cried out in exasperation. "Let's keep at least some decency!"

"Nikto beat Orel up and took his 'royal' ring! And you talk about decency!" Lis was in rage.

"You also beat Orel up and more than once, I know!" Tol stood by Nikto.

"Only when he was begging for it!"

"Nikto didn't beat me up!" Orel yelled. "And I gave him my ring!"

Everyone stared at him.

"Are you complete mad?" Lis asked.

"I'm not going to explain anything! It's my ring, I can do whatever I want to it, got it?"

"I got it," Lis nodded. "You paid Nikto with your ring. You couldn't come up with anything better. I'm disappointed."

"Yes, I couldn't come up with anything better," Orel said quietly. "And I couldn't do anything else, I needed him, I was ready to pay any price, anything to be with him."

"So why isn't he with you now? Why did he take the ring and run?"

"He didn't run. He'll come and heal me! I believe him, do you hear?"