«It doesnt matter anymore,» Patricia said.
«So youve stopped believing that the dead fairy is your sister?»
«She is the mist fairy, not the dead fairy. She was brought to our ship by the fog.»
«It is more like magic.»
«You think some fairy from the Opals crypt could have taken the form of my dead sister?»
«Thats not what I mean!» Nethopyrina wrinkled her nose. «The dead body definitely belongs to some Opal noblewoman, quite possibly your sister, but the spirit inside it is an outsider.»
«So some evil spirit has taken over Beatrices body?»
«Im not sure,» Nethopyrina hesitated. «Im not familiar with this kind of magic.»
«If there is magic here, its only a quarter of it. Beatrices consciousness and speech are the same as they were when she was alive. Only her former honesty has been replaced by cunning.»
«Well, it happens to people without magic. Some peoples character can deteriorate with age or under the pressure of circumstances,» said Nethopyrina with the aplomb of a philosopher. «Humans are weak creatures.»
«Beatrice is a traitor!» Patricia still couldnt digest that.
«She could have been influenced by a magician and she doesnt know what shes doing,» Zeligena comforted Patricia. «Ive seen tomb guardians and cemetery fairies! Theyre usually led by a dragon, or the Emperor of Magic.»
Zeligena was confused and incredibly embarrassed that her tongue was slurring. She too was probably too tired against the pointless battle with invulnerable warriors.
«You were lucky, Captain. The Grave Fairy could have killed you with just a kiss on the forehead,» Nethorypina remembered belatedly. «If she had kissed you on the cheek, your body would have begun to gray and decompose, black spots would have appeared.»
«Grave fairies usually use kisses as a weapon of destruction,» Zeligena nodded. «They kiss girls on the cheeks and guys on the lips when they wander into a graveyard at night, and the next morning theyre rotting relics.»
«Youve been watching the graveyard from the swamp?» Patricia wondered.
«I didnt sit in the swamp all the time. The swamp is my home, but sometimes people come out of the swamp for a walk. Besides, I knew a cemetery that became a swamp.»
«Ive seen fairies who kiss girls on the lips, too,» said Nethopyrina, grinning. «You can put a grave worm in the lips and it will eat your brains out. A grave fairy named Amnesia taught this technique to everyone.»
«Didnt the name of the disease of memory loss come from her?» Patricia wondered. It felt as if she already knew about this fairy from somewhere.
«Thats right,» Nethopyrina nodded.
Patricia picked up her saber, which, in the absence of a battle, lay quietly on the deck as if it were not magical. But when there was a whiff of blood somewhere, the saber would wake up and fly into battle. Its convenient to have a magic weapon, but its even more convenient to have your own dragon. You can always just fly away on it, if you have nowhere to go from the enemy troops. A dragon can also shoot fire. If flying over the «Bloodsucker», he breathed down. He would burn the entire ship in the open sea.
Can a magical ship be burned by dragon fire? Patricia hadnt thought about it somehow, but it was a topic worth discussing.
«Can a dragon burn a dead fairy with its breath?» she asked Nethopyrina and Zeligena. Both hesitated.
«It can burn a living one,» Zeligena replied. «He burns mermaids even in the water. If he breathes fire on the waves, all that remains is a charred skeleton. Would you like to ask him to burn the night guest?
How could I ask him? Patricia sighed sadly. Her fairy friends are such dreamers!
«Beatrice was only seventeen when she died,» Patricia recalled.
«How old are you?» Nethopyrina was keenly interested.
«I am nineteen.»
«Thats all. Im nineteen centuries past my nineteenth birthday.»
«You dont look so old!»
«Fairies dont age! Didnt you know that?»
«Of course I knew it, but when you get to know them closely, youre still amazed.»
She looked like a girl of eighteen, except for the wings, webbing, and wide bat ears.
«How old are you?» Patricia asked Zeligena for the sake of politeness.
The swamp fairy was embarrassed, realizing that a large age was not welcome among humans.
«Well, Im a couple of millennia old,» Zeligena twirled a green strand of her hair around her finger and lowered her eyes in embarrassment. The swamp fairys eyelashes and eyebrows were also green. How beautiful! But for some reason, such beauty scares people. Patricia had gotten used to the charms of fairies, having spent time with them on the same pirate ship.
Before, her company was just her sister and other court ladies. At first they had played fantasy games in the royal garden, but then the fairies had come to Opal and the games had gotten bloody.
It was a memory that came to mind. Beatrice is dead in the garden, and from her body stretches a thread of magic and mystery. Fairies wind the tangle of bloody flowers. They laugh and dance in the air around Beatrices corpse.
«She is so young, so unwise,» they hum. «She is so sweet! Her fate is beyond the graves.»
The fairies laughter was annoying. Patricia struggled to break free of the memories and went to her quarters. Beatrices night visit had been a complete surprise, but she couldnt think about it all day. It was not enough that her dead brother came to her after Beatrice. Patricia imagined Cassian slipping through the cabin door holding his own severed head. Can dead heads speak? What if the head spoke in his hands? That would be a nightmare. Beatrice is still tolerable. She must admit that after her death she became even more beautiful than she was in life. Patricia always admired her sister. She wondered why the King of Opal would want Patricia back when he already has Beatrice. Did he loves Patricia? Such love was worse than hate.
Patricia was sharpening her saber.
«If you could fly, Id send you into the King of Opals heart!» Patricia had heard of magic swords that could be sent flying and go straight to the heart of your enemy, even if he lived across the ocean. Where could she get a sword like that? True, if the sword fails to deal with the enemy, it will fly back and kill the one who sent it. A powerful wizard like the King of Opal could send back magic swords.
«Better send an arrow of cupid into his heart,» a female voice advised. Some mermaid peered through the porthole. A crown of pearls glistened in her green hair. It seemed to be the queen of the sea.
«Good morning!» Patricia thought of nothing more than a banal greeting.
«Its not good morning! There was a dragon flying over the sea! It could have hurt us,» the mermaid complained. As if Patricia could do anything against the dragon!
«Hes not evil.»
«That depends on who hes mean to. Did you make a deal with him?»
«It is nothing!» Patricia was honest.
«Its a pity. I could have gotten some privileges from him,» the mermaid sighed.
«Do you mean the dragon or the King of Opal?»
«You could seduce the King of Opal, too, but hed never be honest with you and might try to cast a spell.»
«And what is about the golden dragon?»
«Thats for you to decide. You know the dragon better than I do.»
Patricia didnt know him at all, but she nodded graciously. Better not lose the respect of a mermaid.
«Whats your name?» She asked the sea maiden.
«Dont you remember? I am Mirida, patroness of the island kingdoms.»
«No, I dont remember.»
«Apparently, you are having a bad day today, so the eclipse came upon your memory.»
The mermaid took offense and waved her actinia-adorned tail. In a moment she was no longer visible, but there was a splash outside the window.
«Why was the mermaid so offended that I didnt remember her?» Patricia was upset. She wanted to be friends with mermaids. Could one sail the seas without the support of mermaids and other sea spirits? But now it would be a good idea to have the support of the dragon ship. If it doesnt change course at the next encounter, the pirates wont survive. Theyll burn like witches at the stake! How hard it is to be a pirate these days!
It was said that in ancient times, all pirates and sailors had to pay tribute to the sea king, or else he would sink the ship. Now we have to negotiate with dragons! If only the dragon were still alive and he was a ship! Can a ship be an animated being or is it controlled by someone?
The burned sea
«Look!» Shouted Nethopyrina, pointing somewhere to the north. She hovered above the deck and saw something beyond the horizon that Patricia couldnt see. She had to get a telescope.
«What an obsession!» Patricia pulled back the telescope, barely peering through the peephole. Inside it, she could see the sea floor, water dragons and sirens coiled in rings, but the surface of the sea was not visible.
«Morgens had it forgotten!» Zeligena excitedly picked up the telescope and clutched it to her chest. «This is a priceless thing! Through it you can peek at all the secrets of the sea and ocean kingdoms.»
«But thats not what I need right now!» Patricia sighed. The danger was not from the depths of the sea, but from the surface.»
The moth flew above the masts and blew into the sails, creating a tailwind. The ship sailed forward faster, or it would run aground. If only scorched leagues of sea could be called a shoal.
When Patricia looked at what Nethopyrina was pointing at, she gasped.
«Apparently, a dragon ship had recently sailed through here!» She guessed.
The left side of the sea had dried up, with charred fish skeletons and ash at the bottom.
«Good thing we didnt get close!» Nethopyrina flapped her gray wings triumphantly. «I can replace the wind.»
«Im lucky to have you.»
Patricia was startled by the burned out part of the sea. The dragon had scorched it to the bottom. Poisonous vapor rose from the empty pit. The gray spirits of the conflagration hovered over the burnt pit. Patricia had once seen the ghosts of fire over a burned hunting lodge near Opal. They hovered over the ashes in a roundelay and frightened passers-by. To see them over the sea was even more frightening.
Patricia felt as if she were sailing past a huge grave. After all, the bay had been home to mermaids. Now only their skeletons lay on the bottom. Bones blackened by the fire.
«Mermaids are like sisters to me,» Zeligena sobbed. «The same thing could have happened to me if I hadnt run away from the swamp to the sea.»
One mermaid skeleton was wearing a magnificent crown. It could have been removed, but Patricia thought it was sacrilegious. In case the mermaid skeleton came to life and caught the thief by the hand or the ghost of the mermaid would haunt the ship. The Morgens treasure was better left untouched. They should have returned the spyglass as well, but Zeligena didnt want to part with it. She said the Morgens had left it on deck on purpose.
«They only leave such things for people they want to invite to visit them,» she said.
«I wont go to the bottom of the sea,» Patricia decided. «I dont want the Morgens to lure me into the underwater realm and drown me.»
The mermaids who emerged from the depths were acting good-natured, but suddenly their kindness was only an act. If she went down to the bottom with them, the mermaids might harm her. Patricia liked to look at the surface of the sea, shimmering in the morning sunlight, rather than think about underwater wonders. It was frightening to imagine that if the dragon ship crossed the sea a few more times, there would simply be no sea left.
«What is he trying to accomplish? Does he really want to scorch all the waters? It seems that fire-breathing dragons cant stand water.»
Patricia realized that she herself loved the sea and did not want it to become a burned-out hollow. It is so pleasant to look at the water surface, gilded by the sun! And under the water dwell such marvelous creatures as mermaids. Is the dragon so cruel that he will destroy them all?
The dragon is a mystery. Patricia noticed several more mermaid skeletons with jewelry glittering on them. The pearl necklaces contrasted sharply with the black bones. Apparently pearls dont burn in dragon fire. Or are the pearls magical?
Nethopyrina flew down to the skeletons and took a couple of the jewelry.
«Why is it?» Patricia wondered.
«I want to question the mermaid ghosts about what happened here.»
«Its clear enough, a dragon ship sailed through here, and everything burned.»
«The air down here is poisoned,» the Mermaid sneezed. «If I were human, Id have suffocated by now.»
Patricia thought she heard a ghostly mermaids laughter coming from the jewelry.
The ship changed course to sail away from the burned-out part of the sea. Ahead was a small tropical island.
«This is the Isle of Purra,» Netopyrina determined. «It is inhabited by marvelous animals that have the same name as their island.»
Patricia was more interested in the banana palms on the island. We need to troop the goblins and trolls to pick more fruit. There were almost no provisions left on board. The magic team didnt need food, but Patricia was hungry.
«I must be the only captain who doesnt have a cook or a galley,» she complained.
No one cooked food aboard «The Bloodsucker», but the ship itself greedily absorbed any blood spilled on the deck. The only decent food had been taken from the captured ships, and it was already running out.
«Launch the dinghy!» Patricia commanded as the ship approached the island.
«Why is it?» With a surprised sigh, Nethopyrina slipped her arms around the captains waist and pulled her off the deck. Her wings were strong enough to take to the sky with a burden like Patricia.
The other crew members could make it to shore on their own, some on wings and some swimming. The dinghy proved to be of no use to them all.
Patricia felt like a toy when Nethopyrina put her on the shore of the island.
«I dont like bright sunlight,» the bat fairy confessed. «I like the night better than the day.»
Patricia did not immediately notice the burned mermaid by the shore. The sea beauty was desperately clinging to the sand with her fingernails. She tried to crawl to the water, but she didnt have the strength.
«Stop it! Ill help you!» Patricia ran up to the mermaid. «Why dont you tell me what happened to you?»
If the sea maiden could talk to her, she wouldnt need to summon ghosts.
«The dragon ship came within a meter of me,» the mermaid whispered. «He was looking for you.»
What the hell is the mermaid talking about? Maybe shes having sunstroke. Patricia felt the mermaids cold forehead. It felt like ice. The mermaids body didnt heat up at all in the blazing sun. So how could the fire burn her? The green tail was burned to black in places, and there were burns on one cheek and shoulder. Somehow they were black, not inflamed.
«What does the dragon ship want?»
«Hes sure youre at the bottom. If we burned the whole sea, we could get you, and at the same time take revenge on all the underwater wizards whove been harboring you.»
«No, it is not me,» Patricia objected. «Youre confusing me with someone else.»
«I wasnt burned so badly that I lost my memory,» the mermaid said. «The dragon thinks that we are hiding his main treasure at the bottom.»
Whats that?
«It is his wife, of course. He has a very special wife. She alone is worth a whole magic kingdom.»
The mermaid must have been delirious. Patricia was able to drag her to the wolves. The salty sea water immediately had a healing effect on the mermaids body. The burns began to go away. In the water, the mermaid regained her strength and swam on her own. She didnt even say thank you. Patricia was not offended. The mermaid had suffered so much from the burns that she had no strength left to be polite.
The mermaids crest was left on the sand. Patricia picked it up and wanted to throw it into the sea, but changed her mind. It was unlikely that the mermaid would find it in the waves; it was better to keep it for now in case she came to the ship to thank her for her rescue. Patricia pinned the comb to her hair, fastening the strands above her ear. Immediately, unearthly voices sounded in her ear. The comb seemed to somehow carry the singing of sirens.