Aragon Masks. Inga Soborova

and not because he hesitated to use the name of his favorite ancient Egyptian deity.

      Some objects that furnished his office were purely for entourage. For instance, a white owl, Fyodor, sat motionless in a cage and looked straight ahead. The owl never bothered Nubis, however, distracted at times. Especially during feeding time, when the janitor cleaned the cage and put live mice into the narrow door. One by one. When a mouse fell to the ground he closed it at once. At that moment there was a fuss and a brief mouse squeak.

      There was a stuffed bat, frozen in a ridiculous pose, and like dragging its withered wings around. However, no one knows in which pose a bat should stand, this stuffed bat seemed not bad at all, especially in combination with the human skull standing next to it. Nubis had picked this skull up at the riverbank. He washed it, cleaned and was glad to find that the lower jaw was well preserved.

      But besides all these items, which functioned to create an ambience, on the shelves in jars, leather bags, and ancient chests were stored things that the mage actually used during the rituals.

      Arthur was crumpling in front of the mage’s door. Nubis, looking at the screen which showed everything that was going on outside the door, had no hurry to invite him in. «Let him mature.»

      «May I?» Arthur opened the door and peeked into the office.

      «Come in,» said Nubis. His pale gray eyes stared at the entrant.

      «Hi. I have a question for you. Well, not really one.»

      «Sit down,» the sorcerer pointed to an armchair for visitors, and Arthur sat down without leaning over and keeping his bag in his lap.

      «Well, here’s the thing. I’m alone. But I’m not alone in the literal sense. I have close people. Relatives and friends. Mates and just good people I know. And despite that, I feel very lonely. Maybe because everyone around me does not understand me the way I would like them to. Or don’t understand at all. I need a fellow. I need a friend who gets me. The same way I want to understand him.

      «Do you want a friend or maybe a girlfriend?»

      «A girlfriend? Not so bad. But would she understand me? Women simply can’t climb into a man’s skin. They have no sense of male solidarity.»

      «I see what you’re asking. With magic, everything is possible. But you have to clearly specify what traits your friend must have.»

      «Okay. Well, I want:

      1.A girlfriend who thinks like a man.

      2. Not less fun and not more serious than me.

      3.No more, no less than me, shows passion, kindness, anger, interest.»

      «All right,» the mage said, «Let’s begin,» and he walked Arthur over to the altar, where there was a sacrificial glass bowl resting on four whitewashed bones. Nubis seated Arthur in a chair next to the altar table. Moved a small mirror to Arthur so he could see his face in reflection. He put a glass ball in his hands and told him to gaze into his reflection until someone else’s face appeared in the mirror. As soon as it happens, break the mirror immediately with the ball.

      Arthur gazed into the mirror. First the reflection didn’t move at all. But suddenly the unknown face with holes instead of eyes appeared clearly in the mirror. Arthur quickly hit with the glass ball, held tensely at the ready, the mirror. The glass cracked and shattered into small pieces.

      «Now collect these splinters,» said the mage, moving a dark metal mortar to Arthur, and grind them into dust.

      Arthur coped with this task as well.

      «Well, now, let’s call the traits of your friend-girlfriend,» looking at the sacrificial bowl, Nubis said softly, «Male-female, you say?»

      The mage walked to the shelf filled with different small items. He took a little ballerina dolly, dressed in a black tutu and black pointes. And a toy car with disproportionately large rubber wheels.

      He gently lowered the dolly and the car to the bottom of the sacrificial bowl.

      «I also want a faithful friend.»

      «Here is the black dog’s ear. Take it and put it into the sacrificial bowl.»

      Arthur hardly touched the ear. The dried ear seems warm. It was probably because the mage’s room was very cold. It was too low temperature for such a hot day as it was outside the window. And there was no air conditioning in the room. It seemed like this cold was coming from the mage himself. The ear fitted at the bottom the sacrificial bowl between the ballerina and the car.

      «I want to like her as a woman. You know.»

      «I see,» the mage said, pulling a red cat’s tail out of the bag. Fluffy on top, withered and hard at the base of the fur.

      Arthur took the tail, long and hard. He dipped it into the bowl, and to his surprise, that tail curled up and occupied the empty space left between the items already lying there.

      «I want her to love me. Let her love me,» Arthur stared at the items in the bowl without looking away.

      «Want to be loved, good. Put a swan’s heart in there.»

      If the mage hadn’t told it was a heart, you might never guess it. It was gray-brown, looked like a stone, but was very light in weight. Fully dried swan heart seemed almost weightless. Arthur held it in his hand, examining this dried item. It twitched in his hand, then again. Very quickly, with horror, Arthur placed it in the sacrificial bowl.

      «Now sprinkle your crushed mirror on the top. And repeat the spell after me.»

      Arthur repeated the spell, standing over the sacrificial bowl and looking at everything inside was now covered with the crushed mirror. The sorcerer covered the bowl with a black cloth.

      «Take it and bring it home. Don’t talk to anyone on the way home. Once you get home, go to bed. Oh, and here. Take this candy.»

      Nubis handed over the candy, with a label «Сoolness» on it. Nothing else about the contents or manufacturer was written on it.

      «If you get cold, very cold. As cold as you’ve never been before, you can eat this candy. It will make you feel better.»

      Arthur took the bowl in his hands. For a second he felt bad. Sick and dizzy. The sorcerer held the guy up by the elbow. To say that the sorcerer’s hands were icy is to say nothing. It seemed that the place he touched was frozen to the bone. Even at home, as Arthur fell asleep, he felt the cold on his arm where the sorcerer touched.

      – 2-

      Arthur opened his eyes. There was a girl sitting in the chair across from him, smiling. When she saw him awake, she smiled wider, «Tais. Or simply Taya.»

      Arthur liked Taya. She was pretty. Too good, even. Arthur liked to do everything with Taya. Sleep. Eat. Talk about serious things and nothing. Waking up and falling asleep. Walking and coming back home. Making plans and suddenly realizing they are worthless. Change them for others. Know that you don’t have to do them. And have no regrets about it. Taya was always with him. Followed Arthur around like a ponytail and seemed happy.

      At some point Arthur got to work. It wasn’t urgent. He could do it later, too. But Arthur felt absolutely focused on Taya. It was nice to focus on her, of course, but Arthur felt like he was losing himself.

      Last night he had merged so much with Tais that he felt unable to keep him out of her. In that moment he felt divine. But in the morning, Arthur sensed some growing tension.

      Taya came up to Arthur, who was sitting at the computer, and hugged him by the shoulders from behind. Arthur was possessed by a mingled feeling of pleasure and a feeling that some external force had grabbed him. He didn’t like to think the pleasure he was getting in any form could be some kind of leverage over himself. «To go along with your pleasures is to show weakness. If you take only pleasures all the time, you can lose your strength and yourself. Tais. Who is she for