«And it was all for your sake,» Vincent said angrily. «I wanted to help, but it hasnt worked out yet. Do you know what that fuddy-duddy wrote back? That he didnt want anything to do with beggars. Then I wrote to him again, in the same way, but no longer with requests, but with threats. Only sternness has an effect on scoundrels. I was immediately given a polite answer, with even more meticulous apologies than mine, but he did not dare to reveal his secrets, as if he did not know what he was talking about, saying that he had no secrets from society, and he asked me humbly not to write further, as he had no money for a secretary, and he could no longer be away from work just to write some letters.»
«Has he sent you your letters back?»
«Yes, he must have thought that every piece of paper was precious to me, or maybe he thought it was bad luck to keep the things of someone who was about to be caught in the clutches of Monseigneur dragon. Just dont think I gave him our address in Lara. I found letters every time in the hollow of an elm tree. The crows would bring them. I would put mine under my pillow, wish before I went to sleep the name of the addressee, and in the morning it would disappear, already in his hands.»
«Its funny,» I agreed. «Its news to me, too, that youre in such dire straits.»
«Well» Vincent blushed. «It would be a plight, though, if I took my scribbles closer to the printing press.»
«Who would agree to that?» I laughed. «Remember the sad experience of Camille, who only managed to get a play into an unpopular theater by threatening the director?»
«My case is quite different,» said Vincent confidently. In addition, you are able to buy for us all the bookstores in Lara and not one printing press, and not a dozen pairs of workers. Gold or threats, it doesnt matter to you what you pay with.»
«I may soon find myself in the claws of your venerable former employer, and you want to make a book hero out of me.
«For if the prince gets you back on your old path, you might find your biography with a delicate velvet bookmark on your bedside table, and you wouldnt have to seduce anyone, theyd already be in love with you.»
«And if its not about the girls? What about the agitated superstitious peasantry, the suspicious laymen, the soldiers, the youths, the merchants, the proprietors? Do you think they will all love the one whose fiery breath could at any moment collapse on the roofs of their houses and turn a peaceful night to a burning hell. No one, from ministers to long-suffering students, wishes for such an end.
«Stop, Edwin. People are mostly mistrustful. They will consider all my work to be mere authorial fiction.»
«And that outlaw I spared? He told anyone who wanted to know about me. What if there was a survivor who managed to leave the burning city and noticed me. They wouldnt believe them either.»
«Of course they wouldnt. Sometimes in books, theres a line where the fictional character becomes flesh. Hes already living on his own and can be too affecting for the impressionable. Ask Rose. Shell confirm.»
Rose, who was at this moment looking for a way to coax the curled-up gremlin out of her new dresses, looked at Vincent dubiously and shrugged her shoulders.
«Francesca would have confirmed it,» he sighed. «You were a legend to her above all else.»
Rose gave up trying to wriggle new dresses out of her boyfriends clutches and came around to us.
«Edwin!» She rustled a cloud of silk skirts toward me. «Its been hours and hours and the parcel is still on our table. You see, I cannot bear to have a dead rival near me.»
«It will be a long journey, with no map, compass, or guiding star to guide us.»
«But your magic will save us.»
«I hope so,» I said modestly. Rose was confident in my abilities, while I myself had my doubts.
It didnt take long to pack. I didnt need much to take with me, just a few scrolls, which I stuffed in my pocket as a precaution, a flask of wine, and some food in case Rose got hungry. I had no need for a telescope or compass. Superhuman eyesight substituted for the former, and intuition and the ability to orient myself in any unfamiliar space for the latter. I took my weapon with me not for self-defense, but out of habit. I liked to have a sword on my side and a musket in its holster, so that I looked like a simple man who could not grow dragon claws on his bare arm in a moment of danger. I carried the bloody bundle under my arm, and covered it with the hem of my cloak.
Rose was sure we would have to walk for God knows how long to our destination, so she spent a long time choosing shoes with sturdy soles, trying on boots, lace-up boots, and even some of my pairs of boots before she found something she liked, but despite her calculations we got there in a matter of minutes. The ocean was behind us, and before us was the desert mainland.
«Could this parched soil ever have been cultivated and sown?» Rose looked critically at the thick smears of ash on her leather boots. «Oh, Edwin, I find it hard to believe that even the smallest settlement, let alone an entire country, could once have stood here.»
«But it was here, there, on the coast, was the castle where I lived. Not alone, of course, but among an anthill of courtiers, advisors, consuls, servants, and many idlers who did who knows what they did and did what they did, just to stay near the shadow of the royal throne. There was the port,» I waved toward the sandy shore. The sand was now mixed with ash and had long since lost its usual yellow color. «There had been a flourishing city near the port, trade, merchant ships came here from the farthest shores, and then the watchmen on the ships could even see the light on the lighthouse, but they could no longer dock ashore. Back then, the world still remembered that my fathers country existed, but no one could reach it anymore, an invisible barrier prevented it, and gradually the whole state disappeared from the world map. You wouldnt believe, of course, that once this desert had blossomed and borne fruit. Now, even if someone settled here, the withered earth would never grow again.»
I glanced toward the waves licking the scorched shores. Only the foamy swells remained unchanged. The fires of hell had flared up, devoured the country, and faded away, but the ocean remained.
«How I would have liked to put the prince on that very galleon, denying him both crew and anchor and shelter, off any shore, so that he could wander around all latitudes, no longer daring to harm anyone. Then he would finally understand the meridian of life that opened before me as I left the flaming homeland.
Ahead lay only a bare plain under the night sky, but suddenly somewhere in the distance I could make out a light, the smoke of a fire, the smell of burning. At first I had a crazy idea that that terrible night had returned, that everything would be reenacted, like in a shadow theater, but I would no longer be a participant in the performance, but just a spectator. But there could be no shadow performance where there was no memory of the past, no lodges, no stones, not even just descendants, nothing that could infuse the energy of disembodied beings who like to appear to someone, not to an empty space. So the mainland is not as desolate as I thought after all.
«Come on, lets go see who got here,» I grabbed Roses hand. «Maybe someone was shipwrecked or thrown overboard from a pirate ship. Fishing boats could have gone off course in a storm, too.»
Rose hid her hair under a smart beret and looked like a boy.
«I didnt see a boat by the shore,» she protested. «I didnt even see a raft that would have helped rescue the passengers from the sinking ship. Theres only one way to get here: by flying, or with the help of a guide like you.
We approached the fire close enough to see those sitting around it, but so that they couldnt see us. I wrapped my arms around Roses waist and soared into the air with her, a few meters off the ground, so I could see what was going on below without the danger of being seen.
There was only one man I knew warming up by the fire; I didnt know the rest of them. Royce, stretched out on the ground and taking the most comfortable seat by the fire, looked like a puny schoolboy who had strayed into the respectable company of adults. I wondered how his roughly dressed, unshaven companions, accustomed to the hardships of outlaw life, would not push him aside to make them comfortable.
Royce looked regretfully at the bones that had been picked off by the fire, and clung to a half-empty bottle for solace. The single teenager in black looked strange, even unnatural, next to people dressed in sheepskin vests and darned linen shirts and simple pants, as if he were invisible to human perception and only Rose and I saw him because we were the same elusive creatures, and those who sat by the fire had no idea that an evil spirit was lying around them and watching them. Royces eyebrows drew together at the bridge of his nose, his fingers nervously tugging at the strings of his blanket as if he were really invisible, wondering what he could whisper in these mens ears to incite them to a scuffle. It was more the evil spirits job to make mischief than to watch, but he couldnt think of any suitable tricks, so he just lay there by the fire and kept silent.
Its getting cold,» someone from the untrustworthy company remarked. «Why dont we go warm up in your caves or the ravine? Wheres that ridge you were talking about? I walked a couple of miles, almost got lost, but I didnt see anything, not a cliff, not a rocky ridge, not even an ordinary rock underfoot. It is a damn island. I wont let anyone else drag me to such a place.»
Some of those sitting by the fire, though they werent cold, shuddered at his words.
«Were not going anywhere,» Royce said in a commanding tone. «My lord told us to wait here and keep an eye on whats going on.»
«What can happen here?»
«Something interesting,» said Royce, his eyes sparkling mischievously. «If you could read, Id let you see the story I stole, but you think learning to read is a sin. Why learn to read and write when you can sign on the throats of those who are late and have coins jingling in their pockets?» Royce laughed. «And since you are illiterate, my friend, you will have to content yourself with what I can state verbally.»
«Have you seen the demon the story is about?» Someone else asked, with interest, evidently someone who had spelled a little and read a few things for himself.»
«I no longer wish to see him at close range, the sun can only be seen at a distance, and even then it hurts my eyes,» Royce put down his bottle again and grinned blissfully, like a drunk. «How bad for those shortsighted brigands who meet a supernatural being by chance and unknowingly decide to rob him as a mere mortal. Wanted easy gain, and caught his own death,» Royce made a snap of his fingers as if he wanted to signal that a scene from a book he particularly liked was repeated before his eyes. «Imagine, you catch a young dandy, whisper trick or treat in his ear, and suddenly he turns to you, and you realize that you tried to attack the devil himself, and you want to run away to save yourself, but you cant, because you were in his clutches willingly. What would you do if you were in that situation? What would the bravest of you do in this case?»
Royce looked around the circle of his drinking companions with questioning, demanding eyes.
«Well,» said one who had been drinking heavily. «The main thing is not to be frightened, you have to fight back.»
«Oh, really?» skeptically grinned Royce.
«I would have used a knife. Id have torn his claws out,» the braggart tried urgently to save his reputation, but there was a terribly sneering look in Royces eyes. Not that hed had too much to drink, but he couldnt have believed in my power unless hed been shaken. Something must have happened to him that made it unnecessary to convince him that a dragon was invincible.
Royce was flighty and reckless, but he had suddenly learned at least one truth.
«I know how it is with simpletons who overestimate their fortitude,» he suddenly said. «I was disappointed. I was flirting, and I got caught in a trap. Thats how it goes, you see a pretty girl running past, not wanting to linger even for a moment near you, you catch up with her, catch her by the hand, and suddenly realize that you have caught your own death, which wanted to delay, give a reprieve, so it rushed away from you, and you caught up with it.»
Royce took another sip from the bottle, taking tiny sips, more for evidence that he was one of the company, but with the expectation of remaining sober.
«Ever since I was deceived, Ive had the same dream all the time. It is a dream about her. She runs by, I grab her wrist, and suddenly I see that the skin I touched is riddled with tiny plague sores. She turns her pale face toward me, her eyes ablaze with scarlet fire, and I see a look of reproach in them. Death wanted to avoid me, but I followed her.
«Youre drunk,» the man who sat closest to Royce patted Royce on the shoulder in a friendly manner.
«The bottle is half-full,» Royce said optimistically.
«Yes, thats right, no ones ever been this tipsy before,» the bold man encouraged him and added. «And yet, as helpless as youve been in assuring us of our power, I wouldnt be as taken aback as everyone else by the sight of one glowing eye, the one I caught with a knife to the throat, Id tear out your dragons sting. Cut his throat and he wont be able to bite or breathe fire. You just think you got a smaller share of the drinks, so youre angry and want to intimidate us.»
«You dont think half a bottle is enough for him to fall under the table,» my question sounded not out loud, but only in the braggarts mind. It was amusing to watch him from high above as he looked at, trying to find the stranger whose voice he had just heard.
«Must be the wind,» he finally whispered, though he wasnt sure it was. He just needed something to cheer himself up.
«Is it the wind?» Royce interjected skeptically. «The slightest breeze would have kicked up a whirlwind, and look at the ash everywhere.»
«Your madness is contagious,» said the other man. «I have the feeling that someone is watching us, someone we cant see.»
I squeezed Roses waist tightly and laughed merrily, as if it were a witty joke. They heard the laughter, but they couldnt see me. Because the sound came from above, it seemed to come from everywhere, from all sides of the desolate terrain.
There were no more caustic remarks. The laughter rang like a bell and fell silent, but none of those who heard the cheerful, ominous shimmering was able to utter a word. What if their next utterance brought something more frightening to life than just a chilling sound? Royce squatted, wrapped himself in his blanket and whispered something with his lips, as if he wanted to call for help. He was the only one in the company who seemed to realize that the laughter was coming from on high, and so he stared stubbornly at the ground, as if afraid to notice who might be watching him now, hovering in the air just above the heads of those who, unlike winged creatures, are chained to the ground.
Of course, Id rather burst out laughing than smash someones head in, but the dragon inside me hissed. He wouldnt have cared if hed been censured, proud of every angry word he received, but laughing at him and not believing in his powers was a serious insult.