Читать онлайн Anatoliy Shigapov - The Iron Fist

FOREWORD BY THE AUTHOR

I wrote this third book three times.

The first time - in anger. I was angry at my characters, at the dead end they had led me to. At how easily and imperceptibly they had betrayed themselves. I rewrote scenes, making Iris hesitate longer, and Elias speak louder. I wanted them to come to their senses. To find a third path. To find a way out that I myself couldn't see for them.

The second time - in despair. I realized they weren't going to come to their senses. Because they are alive. They aren't characters I can force to act against their nature. Iris cannot back down because she knows the price of chaos. Elias cannot stop her because he knows the price of betrayal. I sat over an empty screen and couldn't write the scene where Iris signs the Decree of Conscription. It felt like by writing it, I would be committing the same betrayal myself. I wanted my characters to be heroes. But they stubbornly became what they were fighting against.

The third time I wrote this book, I had accepted it. With acceptance comes clarity. I realized this story isn't about victory. And it isn't about defeat. It's about how victory and defeat have the same face. How, after breaking one mask, you discover with horror another one underneath - your own. All great revolutions end the same way - not with freedom, but with a change of jailer. This isn't cynicism. It's experience. It's the knowledge that we, humans, have carried within ourselves for thousands of years, but every time we pretend that this time it will be different.

I sat at my desk, staring at the screen, and felt my fingers refusing to press the keys. I knew that if I let her sign that decree, she would cease to be the Iris I created forever. She would become someone else. Someone wearing the mask of the enemy. And I didn't want that. I wanted to keep her pure. I wanted her to remain a heroine. But she was looking at me from the screen, and there was so much pain in her eyes that I understood: she was no longer a heroine. She was a human being. And a human being cannot be pure. A human cannot remain a hero if they make decisions that kill children.

I rewrote that scene again and again. I changed the words. I changed the circumstances. I tried to find a way for her to sign the decree, yet remain herself. It was impossible. Like trying to keep water dry. Like trying to keep fire cold. The decisions she made changed her. And I had to show that. I had to show how a hero becomes an executioner. Not because he is evil. But because he has no choice.

THE FEAR OF THE FINALE: WHY I DELAYED THIS BOOK

After I finished "The Price of Victory," I didn't touch the keyboard for almost three months. Not because I didn't have ideas. I had too many ideas. Too many. They swarmed in my head like a disturbed beehive, and I didn't know how to tame them. I was afraid. Afraid that I wouldn't be able to write the third book the way it should be written. Afraid that I would ruin the story I had spent so long building. Afraid that my characters, who had become almost real people to me, would cease to be who I knew them to be.

I remember the day I sat down to write the first scene of the third book. The sun was just beginning to set, and the room grew dark, but I didn't turn on the light. I sat in the twilight, staring at the empty screen, and felt a heaviness growing inside me. It was that special heaviness that appears when you know you're doing something important, but you're not sure you can see it through to the end. My fingers trembled over the keyboard. I wanted to write something light. Something that would bring readers back to hope. Something that would say: "Yes, it was all hard, but now it will be good."

But I couldn't. Because that would have been a lie.

I remember rereading the scene where Iris and Elias watch the sunset. Back then, I thought I was giving them a moment of peace. A moment they deserved. But now I understood that this moment was an illusion. They were on the roof, but the world was crumbling beneath them. They watched the sunset, but they didn't know that darkness was already rising from the other side of the horizon. They felt peace, but that peace was deceptive. As deceptive as the calm before a storm.

I put this book off again and again. I made up excuses: "I need more time," "I need to study some more materials," "I'm not ready." In reality, I was just afraid. Afraid to see that my characters weren't who I imagined them to be. Afraid they would disappoint me. Afraid I would disappoint them. But one day I realized: if I don't write this book, they will remain frozen in that moment of peace, which was a lie. They won't be able to live on. They won't be able to become who they are meant to be. So I sat down at my desk and started writing.

IRIS AND ELIAS: FRIENDS WHO BECAME MORE THAN I PLANNED

When I created Iris and Elias, I didn't think they would become something more to me than just characters. They were supposed to be tools. Means to tell a story. I planned their fates, their personalities, their dialogues. I knew what they would do in every scene. I controlled them.

And then they stopped listening to me.

At first, it was barely noticeable. Iris said something I hadn't planned. Elias reacted to a situation differently than I intended. I thought they were just mistakes. That I had formulated their characters incorrectly. I rewrote. Corrected. Made them fit the plan. But they stubbornly returned to their own words, their own reactions, their own actions. And at some point, I realized: they weren't making mistakes. I was. They weren't tools. They were people. They were living their own lives, and I couldn't force them to live differently.

With Iris, it was especially difficult. She was my heroine. My hope. My embodiment of everything I wanted to see in the world. I wanted her to remain pure. To find a way out. To not fall. But she couldn't not fall. Because her path was the path of a human, not a god. And a human who carries the weight of the world inevitably bends. Doesn't break. Doesn't disappear. Bends. Becomes different. Becomes what they hated. Not because they are weak. But because they are strong enough to bear that burden.

Elias was different. He never tried to be a hero. He always knew the world wasn't perfect. That victories are never clean. That choices are never right. He was cynical, weary, but loyal. He was the one who held Iris when she fell. And I wanted him to hold her until the end. But I knew that even he wouldn't be able to hold her forever. That one day she would fall so hard he couldn't lift her up. That he would stand beside her and watch her become someone he didn't recognize. And he wouldn't turn away from her. He would stay. But he wouldn't be able to save her. Because she couldn't be saved. She could only be accompanied in her fall.

THE ARBITER'S VOICE: WHY I COULDN'T SHUT HIM UP

The Arbiter was dead. I killed him at the end of the second book. I was sure it was over. That he would no longer haunt my characters. That they were finally free.

But the Arbiter didn't leave. He remained in their heads. In mine. In every scene I wrote, I heard his voice. Quiet, calm, confident. He said: "I warned you. I told you people can't be free. I told you they would choose chains. I told you you would become me. And you did. You are me, Iris. You wear my mask. You sit in my chair. You sign my decrees. You are my successor."

I couldn't shut that voice up. I tried. I wrote scenes where Iris doubted. Where she tried to find another way. Where she proved the Arbiter was wrong. But every time I finished such a scene, I felt it was fake. That I was trying to deceive myself. That I was afraid to admit the truth. The truth was simple: the Arbiter wasn't wrong. He was right. And Iris knew it. And I knew it. And the only way to move forward was to accept it.

I remember writing the scene where Iris looks at the Arbiter's mask. She stands in his office, and the mask hangs on the wall. She looks at it, and her fingers tremble. She wants to break it. She wants to destroy everything that reminds her of him. But she can't. Because the mask is no longer on the wall. It's on her face. And she can't take it off. Because if she takes it off, the world will collapse. And she knows this. She knows she must wear that mask until the end of her days. And she accepts it. Not with joy. Not with pride. With resignation.

This was the hardest moment in writing the book. I wanted her to break the mask. I wanted her to say: "No. I am not you. I will never become you." But I knew that would have been a lie. And I couldn't allow myself that lie. Because if I did, the entire book would lose its meaning.

SCENES I COULDN'T WRITE: FOUR ATTEMPTS AT A FINALE

The third book had three different endings. Three attempts to finish the story. Three times I sat down at my desk, knowing I had to write the final scene, and three times I deleted it because it was wrong.

The first ending was bright. Iris found a way to maintain order without cruelty. She created a system that worked without violence. She walked into the sunset with Elias, leaving the world better than it was. This was the ending I wanted to write. The one I felt my characters deserved. But it was fake. Too perfect. Too easy. Too much like a fairy tale. And I realized that if I kept this ending, I would be betraying my characters. Making them cardboard. Making them false.

The second ending was open. Iris took power but remained herself. She was neither a heroine nor a villainess. She was a human doing what she had to. Elias stayed with her but didn't justify her decisions. The world wasn't perfect, but it was alive. This was the ending that seemed right. It was honest. It was realistic. But it was incomplete. It lacked closure. No full stop. No catharsis.

The third ending became the final one. I sat at my desk, staring at the screen, and my mind was blank. I didn't know how to end it. I didn't know what would happen after Iris signed the last decree. But then I remembered Kay and Gerda. The children I had created months ago but never knew how to use. I realized they were the finale. Not because they close the story. But because they open a new one. They are the promise that the story continues. That even after the fall of heroes, there are those who rise. That even after the end, there is a beginning.

I wrote the final scene in one night. I didn't edit it. I didn't reread it. I just wrote down what I saw before me: two children on their knees in the mud, over the bodies of their parents, and their eyes burning with hatred. And when I finished, I felt it was right. Not because it was a good ending. But because it was an honest ending.

FEAR OF THE READERS: WHY I WAS AFRAID TO SHOW THIS BOOK

When I finished the final version, I couldn't look at it for several weeks. It lay in a folder on my desk, and I was afraid to open it. Afraid that I would read it and see mistakes. Afraid that I would read it and see that the story didn't work. Afraid that my characters, whom I had built for so long, turned out not to be who I imagined them.