4 A trap or is it a test?

During one of his speeches, he drew the attention of the chief minister, whom he saw in a young magician of ability, with which he had chosen a more worthy use. So, in the end, he ended up in the team of spy-spies, keeping a finger on the pulse of the secret life of a commercial city. To say that he was brilliant in the service - not to say anything. But precisely because of his abilities and gifts to see the hidden, he flew out of the service and only the intervention of the minister saved his life.

Javed saw a lot, he could recognize a man by walking at the end of a shopping mall a long kilometer long, but sometimes he didn't see the backward thoughts behind the sympathetic gaze of the person sitting opposite him at the same table ...

It was easier and safer for the chief minister to hand over a slippery business not to a staff agent, but to a demoted, guilty ... motivated by a passionate desire to curry favor.

But back to the main characters of our story where we left them last. Lee-Bana walked behind Dara along some dark alleys and backyards of cafes, inns ...

Their movement was so rapid in the twilight of the shadows of high clay walls and canopies of dark fabric of unexpected turns and passages, breaches, that Li-Ban was afraid to get lost among them, leave him at least five steps behind his guide.

Get lost and wander around the gloomy nooks and crannies of the commercial city until the night, and maybe more. But suddenly, behind a thick bush of bushes, behind another manhole, a secret door flashed a spacious courtyard flooded with light, with a gazebo and a small pond. The arbor was covered with expensive Persian carpets and elegant new quilted blankets ...

Few visitors who drank tea or other drinks nodded obsequiously to Dara.

Come in, gentleman, said Dara Li-Ban, taking him to a small but cozy gazebo away from the pond - here we can discuss our affairs without hindrance.

A cup of aromatic tea offered by Li-Ban quenched thirst and somehow imperceptibly plunged into a not deep, but restless sleep. It seemed to Li-Ban that he had seen and heard everything, but he could not lift a finger, utter a word. He only saw Dara get a casket from a secret niche in the wall and take a coin from there to it and put it to a coin recently received from him.

Nearby stood the servants. Two held the bag, the third for some reason deftly twirled a huge cleaver in their hands. Some kind of vague anxiety seized Li-Ban in this dream, or nightmare ... He was sure of Pei-Jiue, of the authenticity of his coin, and there was no reason for his patron to get rid of it, and even in such a complicated and wasteful way ... or ?

Blurred consciousness began to snatch from the past some events, episodes, instructions of his old nurse before the journey, final exams, the question that remained unanswered and tormented him for many years ... and suddenly a strange look thrown, a strange shadow flickering in a tiny the only light window of the room where he was checked.

Sleep and this state of stupor, anxiety went as quietly as it began ... The doors were flung open. A soft golden sunset light streamed through the curtains through the curtains. On the table was a huge dish with crumbly rice and meat. This food of this distant principality suddenly seemed to the exhausted Li-Ban, who was nervous, something most desirable in his life