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No one laughed or looked askew – it was just that no one had ever dreamed anything like this. He stood at the edge of a grove and saw that in the middle of the grove, where everything was illuminated by light, stood a girl and a boy in smart white clothes. "Only together with Mary can you discover the secret of the Black Stone," he only heard from their side.

Raven

"He has a man in there who will blow himself up along with everyone else if ordered to do so," those words loomed in Raven's mind as he stood in the corridors outside the main hall in the Diza Sector administration building. Of course, Cobra's men had let him and his escort of 120 fighters through, pointed out the right roads, led him past the mine barriers where necessary, and now all he had to do was press the button for the elevator to take him downstairs.

But he remembered those words of Cobra's at the meeting. Where he'd said that the prefect's authority was different from the authority within the Kiwi units. The miners followed the prefect's orders as if the sword of Damocles hung over every one of them and would cut them in half for the slightest offense.

"Will blow himself up if so ordered," Raven heard within himself again. He couldn't believe that anyone around him had been able to control his subordinates to such a degree. He had worked so hard to keep discipline among his own people. He had been executed for almost nothing, and kept in pits for weeks, and socialized the families of the dead. But to get that kind of discipline…

No. It seems impossible. And yet there's a man alive who organized it right here. A hundred meters underground. If he's still alive, as they say.

But if you agreed to take it, you're alive. It can't be otherwise. Especially alive since he's determined that the meeting can be underground. You can't smoke him out now. If he survived an assassination attempt, you can't smoke him out. Actually, it's not the first assassination attempt.

He organized the past. Even though he knew it wasn't gonna work. And the guy was just a waste of time. He never made it past the entrance. I'm surprised he even got there. He was supposed to be shot on the way in and just report to the prefect about the weirdness. And he even went through the elevator… However, it wasn't too hard for such an unnecessary little thing to get through the elevator....

All we had to do was break up the Mountain and Cobra. It was immediately obvious that they were going to work too closely together. An experienced politician like Raven didn't need this strengthening of Cobra, especially from outside. He knows how important it is to make sure that the spikes are not out of the ordinary, but like everyone else. Which is more than can be said for Cobra. He's out of line. And the incident with the failed assassin didn't help matters much. But it worked pretty well for someone else. I don't know if the prefect is dead or alive.

No, I'm alive, of course. Otherwise they wouldn't have agreed to take me in. They would have found any reason and said that it was not the right time, that they couldn't do it now, and all the other things they usually make up when they are not supposed to give the right answer. So the Mountain is alive and waiting downstairs. After that damn elevator, where his man is like a zombie and everything can go off just on command.

Raven exhaled the air to relax a little. It had been a long time since he'd been so hesitant to do something, especially something he'd already decided to do. This demonic component of the Mountain's power was becoming all-consuming, all-encompassing, pervasive....

Who was it that said the days of the Kiwis were numbered since the Mounties got self-rule?

The Jackal? Yes, yes, the sly shifter we didn't have time to execute in front of the entire Hivi

leadership… But just because he's a traitor doesn't mean he's wrong. There is, indeed, good sense in his words. The power of the Mountain is fundamentally different from that of the Hivi, who do not have their own backbone, the structure of the organization that he has. A subterranean organization, where one can only enter and leave by strict permission. Where they don't see the sun every day, but only when they are allowed. Where the Sun for them is a prefect who does what he wants with them with the permission of the plagues. And, as it turned out, also decides to live or not to live for them as he wants … No, these are not the Kiwis, who have been rattling their weapons for a hundred years, but cannot seriously agree with each other....

Raven pressed the communication button, and he was immediately answered…

***

The plan was to send the first platoon first, then the second, then descend with the third, and leave the fourth on the surface. But the instructions from the prefect went against this understanding. "Only 20 men and no more," it was said from downstairs over the communications, and it was clear that either this would have to be agreed to or just leave. Raven had to agree.

He stood next to the elevator, realizing that this way he would have more control, and perhaps even something to negotiate if something went wrong. Besides, he was genuinely curious about what a man who was always ready to die might feel inside.

– My name is Raven. – He began, realizing that he had to start somewhere when talking to this man. – I'm the Hivi commander. Do you know about us?

The elevator operator was quite neatly dressed; his work clothes were clean, straight, and well-groomed. It looked as if he loved his work, his clothes, and even his own life. There was nothing terrifying about his eyes, except that the depth of thought coming out of them was a little startling, as if he were very old, though he was clearly in his early twenties. And it was no surprise that his left hand was always in his pants pocket, just as Cobra had warned.

– I know. Everybody here knows a hevy.

– Will you tell me your name? You know mine.

– Name? The name I used to have is gone. A ghost has it. I was once called Kiril. But that name means nothing to me now. It's just a shard of the past.

– Why? Isn't driving an elevator a man's job?

– Ooh, so worthy. That's why the past name doesn't matter And we don't call it an elevator,

we call it a cage. I don't know if elevators go that far.

– I understand. It's really deep. I thought it was a few hundred meters.

– More than a kilometer. Our mine is one of the deepest in the world.

Raven shuddered a little. He felt as if he were really going down to the devil, with whom he had started a conversation.

– So you're not a lifter, what are you? A lifter?

– Yes, a cagey one. And now the name Cage suits me. As long as the cage lives, I live. As long as I live, the cage lives. It's a very important position in the mine, because there's no other connection to the outside world. We go in and out only through the cage and no other way. And I am very proud to be entrusted with it....

– Is the coal lifted through the cage, too?

– No, it's a skip. It lifts the coal up, and there are no people inside, just coal. It's run by other people, and I'm not even allowed in there.

Raven was a little surprised that this man always answered his questions in some way. If he were in Gora's place, he would have forbidden his subordinates to communicate with any outsiders, not to mention the structure of anything. And given that the prefect was obviously not a simple man, there must have been some sense in not giving such an order among his own people. But there was nothing to be shy about, and it was almost straightforward to ask.