S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Southern Comfort (61 page)

“Leave that Geiger counter alone. It’s safe to drink.” Tarasov takes a long gulp from Boxkicker’s pitcher. “Not bad… but could be colder.”

“Will you just tell me what the hell this is?”

“
Kvas
.”

“What’s
kvas
?”

“I get her kiss. You get her kvas. Bye!”

Nooria’s home, 17:50:22 AFT

All jealous thoughts vanish as he opens the door and sees Nooria sitting on the ground with pestle and mortar between her legs, grinding herbs. The hearth is lit, its fire casting a spell of coziness over the room. A thousand words come to his mind but his lips can only utter two.

“I’m back.”

She looks up with an impish smile that hides joy in the corner of her eyes. “That’s good.”

“Where’s the Bhegum?”

“She is with Colonel. Sometimes they talk. She will not be back soon.” Nooria fixes her eyes on him, still smiling. The pestle crushing the herbs in the mortar moves faster.

“Maybe we also talk?” Tarasov asks. He puts his heavy gear down on the table.

Whoever designed this damned exoskeleton didn’t have a way of quickly getting out of it in mind.

“No. Why?” The pestle moves even faster and deeper into the mortar. She licks her lips.

“Well… where I came from, I mean, normally, when a man comes home to his woman…”

“But now you are not where you come from,” Nooria whispers and licks the pestle, as if tasting the balm she is preparing. “You are where you arrive to.”

Tarasov sits down in front of her, watching her hands moving the pestle in the mortar, slowing down to gentle movements, then speeding up and crushing the herbs inside with a heady rhythm. The scent rising from the mortar between her legs cleans his mind, shifting the concerns from his soul, making way for the basic instincts erupting from his heart.

Yes. This is where I have arrived, and will arrive.

He grasps her hands and, putting the mortar aside, takes its place between her legs, eventually entering the safest refuge a man could find from the clasps of thunder and the raging storm outside.

10 October 2014, 03:14:39 AFT

“We need to talk.”

Nooria’s whisper awakes him from his half-sleep. One single candle is flickering in the darkness. The storm is still roaring outside.

“Not now,” he moans.

Nooria stands up and, covering her naked, sweaty body with her scarf, takes a little box from a shelf where all kinds of old and enigmatic things lie.

“Wake up and listen. I have something to tell you.”

Her words remind Tarasov of what the Colonel told him. Suddenly he is fully awake. Looking at Nooria’s face in the candlelight, the emotion he least expected grasps his heart: fear. She sits there, looking into the candle, with a face that seems to battle the most terrible demons in the darkness beyond the dim light. Her face appears ageless and, with the shadows hiding her scar, inhumanly beautiful.

“All was lost after they destroyed Samal and all was unleashed after he fell. It took over Colonel’s soul but he crushed darkness with its own weapons. But he was not victorious. He is now part of darkness. As we are all who live under his protection. Power of darkness shed its light on him. His strength reflected it like ancient stone shining on Samal’s head, but he was not Samal. Darkness stained him. You will go into darkness to find its power. But Samal is no longer there to protect you. And you have not strength of our leader.”

What the hell are you talking about
, Tarasov wants to ask, but a look into Nooria’s eyes stops his tongue. She looks into the candle with her eyes wide open, but he can only see their whites. Nooria seems to be lost in a space where he could never follow her.

“I hold a bridge between old time when Samal was our sentinel and today. What I hold is here.” She closes her eyes. When she opens them, he can see her pupils again. Nooria looks down at a small, red stone in her right hand. “Sit up.”

Obeying her words, Tarasov raises from the mat. A knife flashes in Nooria’s left hand, cutting deep into the flesh above his heart. The cut fills him with burning pain as she pushes the stone deep into the wound and holds her palm over it. The pain eases a little but blood is still pouring from the wound, flowing through her fingers and down her arm.

“Why did you hurt me?” he groans.

“I would never hurt you.”

Even through his pain, he can only think about her lightning-quick cut as he realizes that this fragile woman, who now takes her hand off his chest and licks the blood from her fingers, must be as good at killing as she is at healing.

“Now you are bearing last stone that once adorned Samal’s crown. And I bear your blood and your life inside me. That is what I took in exchange for protecting you.”

“For protecting me?”

“One part protects you. Two parts bond the darkness.”

Tarasov opens his mouth to say something but Nooria puts her finger on his lips.

“Do you want to see me again and live with me?”

“I do, Nooria.”

“Forever?”

“Is there such a thing?”

Nooria caresses his head. It is domination, not tenderness – but powerless domination, because while her hands are soothing his pain, her eyes seem to be begging with him.

“Remember your own words when you find shadow of darkness. You will shed blood and last drop will be yours. If you want me to live, you will have to make a sacrifice.”

“I am still in pain and not understanding anything.”

“You will. Lie down.”

Nooria kneels over him, her left hand on Tarasov’s wound, the right on his forehead. He feels the pain finally fading away from his chest, just like the fear from his mind. Closing his eyes, he hears Nooria whispering words that melt into a long incantation. His heart is beating under her warm hand, as if it were pumping his blood into her veins.

“It is done. Samal will be with you from now on,” she says. “You will carry him to his last battle. Now I must cause you pain. Just a little.”

Tarasov struggles for breath when he feels the sharp sting of the needle, but Nooria’s soothing touch seems to suck all pain out of his body. Her swift fingers quickly finish sewing up his wound. She bites off the yarn protruding from the wound.

“Your mind can rest now,” she whispers, letting herself glide down to his groin. “But I will keep your body awake. I must quench thirst of my flesh now, because it will parch until you return.”

“Will there be such a day?”

“I know what past has brought, but not what future will bring.” Nooria caresses his face. Tarasov feels his eyes closing. The words she whispers into his ear sound like an ancient melody.

“When your star is unseen, and all is dark, your despair itself becomes a star… Sleep now, my strong warrior. Sleep…”

Encrypted voice transmission between the New Zone and
Kiev
, 10 September 2014, 08:41:07 AFT

#Kilo One, this is Renegade calling. Do you copy?#

#Kilo One to Renegade. Copy you loud and clear.#

#Eagle Eye authorized me to tell you to confirm – your suspicion was correct. The squad has been located. All KIA.#

#Affirmative. Damn, that’s bad news.#

#It was a friendly element that discovered them. If he is who I suspect he is, so far your plan is working. #

# That’s classified, Renegade. Proceed with your mission and provide us the proof.#

#I think there will be an opportunity for that… Kilo One, is this man of yours doing all this to escape a court-martial or something? #

#Kilo One to Renegade. Transmission wasn’t clear, repeat. #

#Renegade to Kilo One. I asked you because he will surely make our objective show his hand, but no man deserves to be punished like that. I guess not even you know what is waiting for him. You must hate him if you send him there. #

#[static noise]#

#Kilo One to Renegade.
 
That’s classified.#

# Renegade to Kilo One. Eagle Eye is bad enough but you are even worse. All right, team is relocating. Will contact you and Eagle Eye when proof is obtained.#

#Kilo One. Roger on the voice transfer, Renegade.#

# God damn you Kilo One, he was a fine man. Over and out.#

#[static noise]#

City of
Screams

Northern approach to the City of Screams, 10 October 2014, 06:20:41 AFT

“I had hoped to find more here than a pile of rubble.”

Tarasov hands the binoculars to Zlenko, who is lying on his belly next to him as they take cover from behind a bush on a hill overlooking the wide valley below. The ancient site rises up on a barren hill, surrounded by dense forest and a spider’s web of roads leading to it that are littered with all kinds of wrecked Soviet tanks, civilian cars and trucks. Far beyond the forest, where the valley meets the steep wall of the hills, the rocks are riddled with caves, all dwarfed by a huge, high cavern. The night still keeps its hold over the western horizon, but to their left, in the east, the first touches of light are already feeling their way through the darkness, painting the hills a soft pink. Soon, the valley will be filled with shades of red and orange, casting a deceitful beauty over the ruin that crawls with enemy fighters.

“How I wish that our gunship could be here now… it turns out it would have been a good plan after all,” the sergeant replies. The electric zoom of the binoculars whizz as Zlenko adjusts the distance. “Only the logistics went wrong, right from the beginning.”

Oh boy, you have no idea how bad everything went,
Tarasov thinks, but says, “A frontal attack is out of question. Do you have any ideas how to deal with this mess, Viktor?”

“It’s all screwed up,
komandir
… I can’t even see an entrance to the underground where we could concentrate our attack.”

“Probably on the southern side… you see that road to the south-west? The map on my PDA shows a track branching off and up to the hill, towards the ruins. The entrance must be somewhere there. Can’t see it clearly on this low-resolution image, though… I wish we could properly recon the place before moving in.”

“If the entrance is to the south, it means we’d have landed at the wrong end of our target anyway.”