Alason received a direct order from Alba and watched his dark figure walking into the darkness through the dirty streets of a gray lifeless city. Then he turned to his squad, who directed their astonished and questioning looks of complete bewilderment at him, spat on the ground, shook his head and lit a cigarette and looked around at the deeds of men. The stench cut into the nose. In the silence, from the streets running through the houses, parallel to this, there were sounds of groups of people running across, the dull shots of crossbows, explosions similar to the fall of massive metal pipes and the subsequent rattling of the earth. He stood up, hands on his hips and muttered to himself, as it seemed to him, a rhetorical question:

"Is life really worth putting it on the line for something material?"

Jacob heard him and answered:

"That's the only reason they risk it."

Alason turned the corpse lying in front of him face up, looked into those empty eyes, once full of madness and murderous lust, and continued:

"Yes, indeed. What kind of people are living here? They take up arms, with the thought in their head that if they die, it will only be from old age somewhere in their palace."

"You're right, sir."

Alason turned to his small group and shouted loudly:

"Well, guys, did everyone hear the order?"

Everyone nodded, and Alason divided the squad into small groups: a couple of policemen went to Roderick's house to search, two more examined the dead, and the last-the only medic in the team examined the wounds on Roderick and Jerome. As soon as the process began, Alason and Jacob moved away and stood under the circle of light of a flashing lantern.

"Alason," Jacob said to him, and Alason turned and looked at him: powerful arms with their mountainous muscles bulging out from under the thin fabric of the sleeves, green-brown eyes, short haircut, a steam crossbow with some kind of sticker on his back; an exemplary policeman, right for the front page of the local newspapers. "Is there any logical reason for the fact that during the rebellion in the city, we are ordered to do a minor investigation?"

"Don't fill your head with the thoughts of other people. You won't understand what they have in mind."

"Can we drop this case and go save people?"

"People already know without you to sit at home and not lean out of the windows."

"And the criminals?"

"The criminals are now busy killing each other, I suggest giving them this opportunity."

Alason saw one of the policemen come out of the house and waved his hand, calling him in.

"Come on, they found something," he said.

***

They were sitting in Marcellinus' now-ruined room and looking at the floor, at the frozen blood.

"Do you want to discuss what happened?" Ofir asked.

Egon looked at the grandfather clock with a chime, utterly destroyed, he replied that there was nothing to discuss, went into Homer's room and made sure that he was all right, went out and closed the door behind.

Marcellinus shook his head, looked around his apartment with a sad look, in which he had spent the last hundred years, and now there was nothing left of it. Let the material goods be destroyed, he reasoned, but the feeling is like losing a good friend. Apparently, the thing remains soulless, only in cases when there is no history behind it. Just like with people. He decided to distract himself with a conversation, so as not to let heavy thoughts take possession of his mind:

"Matthew," he said, "the old man is now in the cemetery outside the city. He is experiencing a deep depression, if not melancholy, for which he has his own reasons, I honestly don't know them. He needs a certain approach. He rarely talks to anyone, so before you ask him about something, talk to him in a human way, it won't take much time, it's good for him and it's good for you, maybe you'll learn something new."

"I would like to hear something else from you," Ofir said.

"Ask questions, my friend, I'll answer everything that I can."

"How to remove the seal of darkness?"

"Kill and revive the owner of this seal."

"Can metovis revive?"

"I don't think so, but there were rumors that several metentises managed to cheat death."

"Do you know anything about Metyr and about his experiments twenty-five years ago?"

Marcellinus shook his head.

"Are there really no people who would know the answers to these questions?"

"Gennox?"

"Ask Matthew or some other metentises. Any representatives of the ancient world will tell you a lot about them. These can be metentises of the world or simple vagabonds hiding somewhere on the outskirts of the world, those who were lucky enough to survive the war. Only their time has come to an end, it is unlikely you will ever meet them. All their exploits, bravery, everything was lost. Such a pity... Yeah... It's sad when great warriors die in abandoned shacks, forgotten and unneeded."

"Why don't inquisition just kill you?" Guillotine asked. "I would definitely kill you, and in the first rows."

Marcellinus smiled and replied:

"The metentis of light and the metentis of darkness are very similar in strength. We can't use metovis in the city, it will attract a lot of attention. And in hand-to-hand combat, we have no equal. Any skirmish of this kind would simply bring meaningless sacrifices, which neither one wants."

"I would have sent bandits," Guillotine continued. "And I would ask them to shoot you in the chest at one of the sermons or to stab you in a dark corner afterward."

"There were some."

"Were some?"

"Yes."

"And what?"

"As you can see, I'm alive. Only they acted of their own free will. If inquisition decide to kill me, it will be only when I'll go outside the city, where no one will see the battle. But I'm unlikely to ever get out. I'll die here. In the rear of the enemy, with whom I fought all my adult life."

"Why metentises of light don't just come and arrange something like a last battle or something?"

"So, you will ask them when you meet them, as you can see, I came, but I was defeated. Now I am engaged in preaching on the streets, opening people's eyes to what is happening."

"Then why weren't you put in a cell or prison for isolation? It doesn't benefit the Inquisition that you tell people about everything, does it?"

"And you're pushy, in a good way. I think they just don't care what people think. Anyway, the common man doesn't have a single chance against them."