“Help,” he whispered, looking at Lis with mad eyes full of fear and despair: “Help.”

Lis looked at Nikto:

“Where are the other people here from?”

Nikto asked Marg.

“He says he was caught deep in a cave in the Western Mountains a few days ago.”

“But what should he do in the mountains, so far away?!”

Nikto shrugged his shoulders:

“I don’t know. An escaped slave or a criminal.” He sat down in a chair and put his hand on a special armrest. Marg began to mend the barely healed demonic beast eye on his hand.

But Lis couldn’t calm down, his gaze returned to the cage, and the guy, clinging to the bars, also looked at him.

“Nik… he is very young, he is a human.”

“Lis, the unclean have a lot of people as slaves, get used to it.”

“But he doesn't look like a criminal or a slave.”

“Fuck, talk to him yourself, if you're so interested!”

Lis went to the cage, squatted down:

“Who the hell are you?!”

“My name is Marcus.”

“And what were you doing so far in the mountains, Marcus?”

“I'm a traveler. I explore different places, in the North and in the South. I am a researcher.”

“What? What the fuck are you talking about? Researcher?!”

“Yes! I am a scientist, I study the nature and features of our world! I discovered in the north such fat birds that cannot fly, but can live in the cold! These are rare unknown species of flora and fauna. And also plants and minerals, in this cave I discovered a unique colony of stone flowers… my notes, my notebooks with notes…” When he spoke it quickly, choking with words to be in time, his eyes lit up.

“Are you out of your mind? What flowers?!”

“Unique stone flowers that exist only in our world! They glow! Nowhere else are there such ones!”

“Have you been fucked by the unclean?” Lis asked.

And Marcus wilted, froze. Then he pulled back from the bars, head down.

“Do you understand WHAT they will do to you?”

“Help me!” Marcus looked at Lis again with eyes full of despair and hope.

“How can I help you?! I am also a slave, just like you!”

“You are a slave? But you don't look like a slave! Who are you? Warrior?”

“Yes. How did you guess?”

“It's easy to understand, your posture, such a face.”

“Yes, I am a military commander.”

“How did you get into slavery? How could they capture you?!”

Lis smiled sadly:

“I gave up myself.”

“What do you mean yourself?”

“I sold myself in exchange for power.”

Marcus stumbled back, leaning his head against the side wall of the cage.

“Clear. War, murder, any cost justifies victory. You won't help me.”

“I won't help you,” Lis stepped back from the cage, “no one will help you.”

When Lis came back to the master a few days later, he saw that Marcus was still there. He lay crumpled on the floor, and when he raised himself to the noise, Lis saw that on Marcus’ cheek from the ear to the corner of his mouth a dick was tattooed, as realistic as a real one, with an aroused head. And, apparently, the face of Lis at that moment, when he saw it, spoke for itself. Marcus cringed, crawling into the far corner, hiding his disfigured face. But Lis approached him.

“Marcus?”

He didn’t answer.

“Marcus?”

“You won't help me, no one will help me,” Marcus finally answered, “and now it's too late.”

“But what about your northern birds and stone flowers, which are not found anywhere else?”

“Nobody gives a shit,” Marcus said.

And Lis shook his head:

“I'll try to help you, maybe buy you back or exchange you, I don't know how yet.”

Lis told Nikto everything about Marcus.

“Marg says that his master prepares slaves, then resells them,” Nikto explained.

“Is it really possible to buy him? How much will he cost?”