Kitabı oku: «Between the lines is written in fire», sayfa 2
A trip to the mountains
It is quite unusual to steal a carriage from yourself. Rosamunda felt like a stranger in her own carriage. Dandy chose the most luxurious carriage, drawn by six horses, and drove it along an unremarkable bumpy road. The wheels stuck in the mud. The gilded walls with coats of arms were scratched by boulders and iron-sharp branches. The path was very narrow. It was a wonder how the carriage had not yet gotten stuck or crashed on it. There was a cliff below the mountain path on which they had turned. Behind them, the chase was already under way.
Rosamunda turned to the rear window of the carriage and glared at her own guards like a thief. They did not know, of course, that the stolen carriage was carrying the queen herself. So far, Dandy had easily managed to evade the guards. But his luck might change one day.
Rosamunda regretted again that she had not befriended the winged lizard on the column, but the cunning weasel who now sat in the coachman’s seat. How had he ever managed to convince her that she alone could cope with a dragon by the power of her feminine charms? What if he was leading her into a trap? There could be bands of bandits hiding in the mountains besides the dragon. Shouldn’t she call the guards? But something was holding her back. It was a curiosity, perhaps.
«Something tells me that the dragon is not so easy to negotiate with,» Rosamunda thought aloud. Dandy, strangely enough, heard her, despite the rumble of the wheels, and answered:
«And you don’t listen to the promptings of reason! You must be lucky!»
Well said! No speaker of the council could have convinced her of such absurdities as Dandy had already convinced her of. There’s a reason he’s a supernatural being and not a man. His intelligence and cunning are of the highest order! Humans are far from him. They don’t know how to compel others to do whatever they want. But Dandy did. No matter how silly his assurances sounded, she wanted to give in to them.
«How did you persuade the guards to let you into the king’s castle?» Rosamunda wondered.
«I didn’t,» Dandy chuckled softly.
«Then where did you come from? From a secret underground passage that no one knows about.»
«Easier! It was right from under your feet. There was a crevice in the floor. Remember?»
«But it must lead straight down into the earth.»
«I see you’ve never heard of the Underworld and its inhabitants.»
He’s got a point. No one had ever told her anything like that before. Dandy swerved so sharply around corners that Rosamunda was thrown from side to side. It was a blessing that inside the carriage was covered with soft velvet and plenty of cushions. Otherwise the queen would have been bruised. She should have been more careful in choosing a coachman. Or better yet, she should have stayed out of adventures, so she wouldn’t need a coachman today.
«Did that lizard on the column crawl into the castle with you?»
«No,» Dandy’s voice echoed hoarsely from the goat. You could barely make out the words. «The little dragon had crawled out of Rhiannon’s jewelry box. All of her former jewels eventually turn into such creatures.»
«Who’s Rhiannon?»
«Don’t you know?» Dandy was surprised.
«There is no such name among my ladies of the court. Is it the name of some new maid of honor who came from the provinces?»
A snide laugh came from the goat.
«You are a fool, my queen.»
«I don’t understand you!»
What does he think of himself! Or she didn’t hear him well over the clattering of wheels on stones.
«Rhiannon is lady of all demons, fairies and dark forces. She is Queen of Hell. Her consort is the chief of the evil spirits. So she’s allowed to do anything.
«She could bring a box of strange creatures into my castle?»
«It was a box of jewelry that could probably come to life and turn into something like what you saw,» Dandy corrected her.
«And how did that box get into my castle? I didn’t even see it, by the way.»
There was a scratching sound. Dandy wanted to scratch the back of his head with his claw, but accidentally scratched the edge of the roof of the carriage, and scratched the metal jewelry.
Rosamunda’s question first perplexed him.
«Probably, the box was accidentally brought by someone who passed into your castle through magical portals, or some magical creature who stole it and under the guise of a guest took refuge in your castle. But in this case, angry demons would have already come for the stolen goods and torn the whole kingdom to pieces. So most likely the box came to you with some unusual message.»
Rosamunda bit her tongue, remembering the letters from an unknown and nameless admirer who jokingly called himself a dragon.
Dandy swerved so many times that he managed to confuse the guards who were catching up with them. The defenders of the king’s property had to break into small groups to cordon off the surrounding roads. Some fell into ravines and gullies that happened to be on the way. But a number of guards pursued the carriage relentlessly.
«We’re being chased!» Dandy warned. As if she hadn’t seen it herself? The square rear window gave a good view of the road behind. There were seven pursuers. They all were from the royal guard. How did Dandy manage to get the carriage out from under their noses!
«You can stop them.»
«Is it me?!» Rosamunda almost fell off her seat. On the one hand she was astonished, on the other the carriage jumped over a bump.
«Of course you are! I’m not! You’re the witch.»
«Don’t call me names!» Rosamunda clenched her fists in frustration. No one had ever called her that before, even in a fit of rage. But Dandy is probably not familiar with court etiquette.
«All you have to do is get mad at them to hold them off,» the clawed coachman admonished.
«I don’t think that’s likely. Otherwise, my anger would have broken the enemy troops and burned the dragon. And I wouldn’t have to go anywhere now,» Rosamunda decided judiciously.
«Turn around and get angry!» Dandy insisted.
«Like this! Is it on order?»
The arrow hit the rear window. And the chase was not as easy as she had first thought. Rosamunda clenched her fists. Anger arose. If the arrow had broken the back window, it might have hit her in the face. Anger boiled up inside, and something began to happen to the soil beneath the carriage wheels. The ground they were traveling over shook. It was a blessing that Dandy knew how to push his horses to extreme speed. The road that had been left behind had split into a gully-sized crack, from which something monstrous and swamp-colored was bursting forth. Had the guardsmen who had caught up with the carriage fallen through the holes, or had the mire inside sucked them in? The swamp looked like a living beast.
«What kind of vermin live in the bowels of the earth,» came Dandy’s careless shout. He began to whistle some song about the underground kingdom and its creepy inhabitants.
The ride into the mountains proved unpleasant. Dandy dropped her off, mumbled something unintelligible, and pulled the carriage aside. Rosamunda was not embarrassed. She remembered the stories about the Zwergs and Leprehuns who lived in the mountains and kept fabulous treasures. There was a cave just then. And from it was singing.
Rosamunda followed the sounds, sneaked into the cave and saw a tiny people at the spinning wheel. The cave dwellers didn’t look like zwergs or leprechauns. Rather, they were pixies – tiny fairies the size of moths. They were entirely golden in color, as if tiny statuettes made of gold had come to life and fluttered about. And these cuties were doing magic here! Wow! Everything that was happening was like a charming dream. Mirrors were placed around the spinning wheel. They reflected what was not happening. Inside the mirrors, the pixies were doing round dances, while in the cave they were doing something else. The figures, surrounded by a golden halo, were flying toward the spinning wheel, or bouncing off it, pulling a thread of pure gold.
Barely noticing Rosamunda, the glittering creatures fluttered toward her face.
«Do you want to tell the future?» The magicians offered.
«I’d rather know the past. I don’t remember it.»
«You don’t remember your past!» The chorus of surprised voices sounded like bells ringing.
«I know it sounds strange, but it’s true.»
«Aren’t you just pretending to test us?» The one from them asked. «We usually have beggars from the village come to us to have us predict their future. And once even a noble lady came and brought us gifts. She called us oracles.»
«I brought no gifts,» Rosamunda said, embarrassed.
«We can’t charge a pretty girl like you. It’s nice to look at you,» one little thing fluttered onto her shoulder. «I’d like to keep your lock of hair as a memento. It’s like black gold! It’s easy to cast a spell with such a curl.»
«First tell her fate,» insisted the envious people, who had not had time to set the fee.
«Tell me what I don’t remember. What happened to me in the past? And why have I forgotten everything except the recent past?»
The pixie stared in amazement with tiny eyes.
«My childhood, my adolescence, my youth,» Rosamunda began to recount. «My parents. My friends, if I had any. And I also want to know if I have forgotten some lover who now wants to take revenge on me for something.»
«Girls usually remember their lovers. Even the ones they’ve fallen out of love with.»
«But I don’t.»
«Wouldn’t it be better to find out who will be your companion in the future?» The pixie squinted slyly.
«I’m more interested in the past,» Rosamunda insisted. «And the man I supposedly seduced and abandoned in the past. I don’t remember him now for some reason.»
The crumbs could have lied to her, but because of the magical light that came from their flock, any woman would have believed them. Magical creatures are supposed to see things.
«Who you’ve had in the past, you’ll have in the future. You can’t get rid of him,» said the brightest fairy who sat on Rosamunda’s ring. «Only besides the pleasures of love, he will bring with him a long-standing curse. And you won’t be happy anymore.»
«She is inexperienced. We can see better,» the others chorused. Though the tiny fairy gave the impression of being more judicious, they were more combative.
The pixies all clung to Rosamunda’s palm, drew shining strings of yarn along the lines of fate, and were suddenly so frightened that they all ran away at once, throwing away both the mirrors and the spinning wheel. It continued spinning on her own.
Is there something so terrible in her fate that even a pixie is frightened? And it must concern both the past and the future. Rosamunda felt fear. She wished they’d explain what this was all about. What did they see?
There was a deafening roar over the mountains that seemed to make the mountains themselves shake. So that’s why the Pixies might have been frightened! Not because of her fate, but because of the awakened monster.
Rosamunda was relieved at first, until she looked up at the heavens.
«It’s time to run!» She called out to Dandy as she saw the huge, glittering reptile rushing out of its hiding place, smashing the mountain tops in the process. So that’s what dragons are like! That’s why so many frightening and enticing legends are written about them! On the one hand is splendor, on the other is destructive evil.
The golden dragon zigzagged in the gloomy sky above the mountains. Its breath sent a wave of fire through the surrounding forests.
Rosamunda rushed back to the carriage. It was still possible to leave. The road had not yet gone up in flames. But both the carriage and Dandy were gone.
You had to believe a frivolous person who’d abandoned his queen in danger. He took all six horses with him. Should she walk home or call for help?
There was an armed troop coming down the road. It was a pity that it was approaching not from the side that led back to the castle, but from the opposite side, where the border with the enemy kingdom was.
Someone in the cavalcade pointed at her with a hand. Rosamunda didn’t know where to go. But suddenly a dragon intervened. Its claws caught the head of the troop. It was a moment, and the fragile little man in the dragon’s claws was left without a bone. Rosamunda watched in horror as the dragon devoured several more guards. The arrows and spears flying at it didn’t even scratch its scales, but boomeranged back at those who threw them.
Apparently, having had enough, the dragon decided to play a bad joke on the invading party. It opened its mouth and exhaled such a powerful jet of fire onto the road that it resembled volcanic lava. The rest of the squad was burned alive.
The road was on fire. The dragon spread its wings and flew over the conflagration. How graceful it is in flight! It looked like a monster, but it was as beautiful as a jewel that had come to life. He was gold and glittering. But with one paw it can crush an entire army.
«Look, there’s the queen!» Someone shouted from behind. «Get her! Get her now!»
Why didn’t she take off the crown? And why did she believe Dandy? How naive she was! And how despicable those who said they wanted to help could be! Rosamunda felt so furious at the sight of the guards running towards her from behind that she could no longer control herself. If she had had a sword or a dagger with her, she would not have hesitated to attack them, even though the forces were unequal.
Her anger made the ground beneath her feet shake again. Or was it the dragon’s fire that was to blame? Its roar could bring down mountains, let alone a mild earthquake. Only it was gaining strength. The ground beneath her feet cracked and vibrated. Rosamunda fell. She should have run, but getting to her feet proved too difficult. The guards behind her were stumbling and falling and cursing too. Their curses rang in her ears, diluted by the dragon’s roar. Cracks spread across the ground like the claw marks of a giant. The pursuers were falling through them! There was a whole regiment of them. The cracked earth greedily swallowed them all. These are not enemy soldiers. They’re wearing her insignia. Someone sent her own soldiers to kill her. It’s a plot against the queen! And there’s only the dragon. He is neither friend nor foe.
Rosamunda herself was lucky not to fall through any of the deep cracks.
«Magic will keep you safe, but it may not be for long,» Dandy’s voice whispered above her head. But where was he? Did Rosamunda look around for her counselor and coachman? Perhaps he had been swallowed by a dragon. She hated to believe that Dandy had left her to the mercy of her enemies.
The foes themselves, however, were gone. Some were burned by the dragon. Some had fallen underground. There were no screams from the crevices. So the guards didn’t survive.
The dragon’s gone too. Poisonous smoke swirled over the flaming road, making her skin red and her eyes watery. It was urgent to take cover. It was worth going back to the cave. Rosamunda crawled there. She tore her dress. She hurt her shoulders and arms.
Inside, it was cozy and warm. Instead of a glowing spinning wheel, the whole interior of the caves now glowed. Someone had brought a whole pile of gold in here. What a surprise!
Rosamunda approached the gold pile and almost jumped with fear. The pile of gold was alive. It had a tail and wings that she hadn’t noticed at first. It was a dragon! It was satiated, exhausted, and sleeping. It was a good thing its spike-topped head was turned to the other side of the cave. The queen in her sumptuous dress with train was only a tiny biped to him, impossible to see under a magnifying glass. So there’s probably nothing to fear. He won’t even notice her, but Rosamunda felt a shiver in her knees.
It’s a dragon! It’s alive! It’s real! He’s burned an entire troop, and he hasn’t touched her. Why? Probably just didn’t pay attention to her.
Outside, everything’s burning and collapsing. Still, we’d better get out of here. Just because a dragon is asleep doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous. It could wake up at any moment and crush her with a single claw.
When Rosamunda got out of the cave and managed to get past the cracks to the narrow mountain path, she noticed that her carriage was hanging there over the cliff. Another moment and it would fall. But Dandy, drinking something from a flask, didn’t even think of panicking. He was perched on the rump, clearly waiting for her.
«Hurry up, or we’ll burn,» he nodded at the blazing road below, when he saw Rosamunda.
«You don’t think we have a flying crew, do you? How are we going to turn around and get away?»
The clawed coachman laughed wildly again. He laughed so often that he resembled a madman. Rosamunda’s heart trembled. Who is more dangerous: him or the dragon?
The carriage turned as if it were supported by wings. And so they drove off, with Rosamunda barely managing to climb in. Partly the carriage hung over the cliff, as if carried by invisible wings, partly slid with its wheels along the narrow path. It all resembled a ridiculous dream, but sometimes it seemed that the wings growing straight out of the walls of the carriage were really rustling above them.
A commotion at court
The dragon swooped down in the morning. Barely awake, Rosamunda learned that several villages and hamlets in the south of her kingdom had burned to the ground. If this continues, she will be left without a kingdom at all.
«Are you sure it was the dragon and not the neighbors who came to war without warning?» She asked hypocritically to her omnipresent advisors.
«Knights from the forts on the borders and sentries from the lighthouse saw the dragon in the spyglass.»
The answer was frightening. If the only survivors were those who were so far away from the fires that they had to use a spyglass, then everyone in the villages had burned.
«Any survivors?» The queen inquired.
«No one is from the burned areas.»
«That means we are left without the best grape growers and plowmen,» Rosamunda sighed.
Dandy was hiding somewhere. Probably he was hiding under her bed. Or maybe he was in her jewelry chests. He was frightened. When people saw him, he’d hide immediately. They must have teased him more than once for his ridiculous appearance. For Dandy, except for his scholarship, could pass for a little monster. It might have occurred to someone to catch him and show him in a circus. Maybe it would be for the best. Because of Dandy’s advice, she had inadvertently awakened the dragon.
Rosamunda climbed to the highest tower of the castle to survey the damage with her own eyes. The damage done to her domain by the dragon’s fiery breath was colossal. All the lands to the south resembled a scorched wasteland.
Rosamunda almost fainted. One of the loyal knights supported her. Otherwise she would have fallen into the castle moat, or worse, crashed into the sharp stone blocks below.
The sky was still bright and calm. No dragon was traveling across it. Rosamunde would have found it hard to believe there was one if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes last night. She had no business going for a walk in the mountains. It was all Dandy’s advice.
The scorched earth may have been a consequence of the war, but there’s no enemy army marching towards the capital. So the dragon raider is the most likely possibility. It is the duty of the queen, whose country has suffered from dragon fire, to send her best knights to fight the monster.
Rosamunda didn’t really know the best knights in battle, so she would have ordered the lot to be cast. But luckily for her, many had volunteered.
«Now we need to find a wizards to determine where the dragon’s lair is,» one of the advisors suggested.
«That’s easier said than done,» said another, «because all magicians, prophets, and astrologers flee the kingdom as soon as they cross its borders.»
«They probably sensed the dragon in absentia, and that’s why they fled.»
«But where is a single wizard now?»
The councilors looked at Rosamund as if she were the wizard.
«I know a fool who can lead you to the dragon’s lair without magic. I’ll call him right away,» Rosamunda promised, and went to find Dandy. There was no sign of him under the king’s bed, and she was sure he was hiding there because she had been trying to sleep all night to the accompaniment of his nasty snoring.
Dandy was not hiding in chests and closets either. Could it be that he had decided to flee in fear of the awakened dragon? He had behaved boldly, even daringly, last night. Rosamunda decided to look for him in the stables and she was right. Dandy was huddled between the wine barrels and bales of provisions in the carriage in which they had traveled to the mountains yesterday.
The sides of the carriage were battered and scratched. The grooms and coachmen had escaped from the stable for some reason. Probably the drunken song of Dandy, who had touched the uncorked bottle of wine, had frightened everyone. No one would be happy that an evil spirit had taken up residence in their cellar or stables.
«You’re going to run away!» Rosamunda rebuked him.
«I’m just preparing a backup in case of an emergency,» Dandy stroked the wine barrels he’d stolen from the cellar.
«There’s no room for me in the carriage, so you’re the only one who can escape in an emergency,» Rosamunda said.
«There are plenty of other carriages,» said Dandy. «There’s enough room for ten queens, not just one.»
«By the way, why didn’t you return the carriage to the carriage barn? You said you’d take care of everything.»
Dandy nearly choked on his wine. And the horses in the stalls bellowed and banged their hooves in a frightened manner.
«These animals smell us like a thunderstorm,» complained Dandy. «They always want to get mad at the sight of me.»
«So why are you sitting in a stable with only animals? By the way, you look like an animal yourself. Take off your camisole and you could easily replace a caged monkey.»
«You’re just joking, Your Majesty.» Dandy smiled radiantly, showing his sharp fangs.
How quickly he was sobered by the veiled threat! Rosamunda hadn’t heard him say «Your Majesty» politely in a long time. It was worth frightening Dandy, and he became kind, even tried to sing dithyrambs to her beauty. But comparing her hair to black fire, her eyebrows to tar, and her lips to rose petals was unoriginal and quite ridiculous.
«Stop sucking up!» Rosamunda cut him off.
Dandy almost dropped the bottle, which he had almost finished. The rest of the wine spilled over the hay on the stable floor.
«All right, I’ll be honest with you, as a counselor should be,» Dandy grimaced, twitched his pointy ears and zigzagged his tail. «Your kingdom is on the verge of destruction.»
«Did the shimmering pixies bring us misfortune?» Rosamunda remembered the spinning wheel and the mysterious chants of the magical creatures. «I’ve heard that fairies, though beautiful, can be evil and bring misfortune upon the heads of people who dare to venture into their habitats.»
Dandy shrugged his narrow shoulders. «There are also good fairies, but very rarely. Mostly they are gamblers, swindlers and lechers. They try to seduce you to get something out of you, or they use cheating techniques mixed with magic. I’ve suffered so much with these fairies! And pixies are like annoying insects. If you leave a bottle of wine open, they’ll swoop down to rob me of my drink.»
Rosamunda watched as he took the cork out of the wine barrel and drank almost all of its contents. How much wine could fit in Dandy’s body? The barrel was almost twice the size of Dandy’s.
«I’m not a drunkard, it’s just an extreme situation,» Dandy excused himself, noticing that the queen was looking at him with great judgment. «Who wouldn’t be frightened into a nervous breakdown by a dragon raid? And when I have a nervous breakdown, I drink without counting bottles.»
«Actually, the dragon raided my land, not yours. I’m the one having a nervous breakdown, but I haven’t had a drop of booze all day.»
«I can only applaud your fortitude. You are the queen for a reason, not me,» Dandy saluted her with a newly uncorked bottle. A man would have been so intoxicated that he would have fallen under the carriage, but Dandy had not lost his temper. His mind was not drunk at all, and he had a sly grin on his cunning face, which made him look like a demon.
«Many crevices, caves, and tracts lead to the Underworld,» he said. «And there it is easy to hide from the dragon’s flames.»
«But I’m not likely to slip down there. As you can see, I’m bigger than you.»
«It’s not a question of size. It’s whether the lords of the Underworld will accept you. There’s already a queen there. The sight of your beauty will make her think you’ve come to take her husband away from her. Even underground, they’ve heard how easily you break hearts.»
«I haven’t broken any, except yours,» said Rosamunda. «You are the most annoying of all my admirers. You’re the one who’s attracted to the counselor’s position, not me.»
«But the dragon was seduced by you! Dragons love a pretty girl!»
«Don’t talk to me about dragons anymore. Since this morning, I’ve become very afraid of them. I had a prosperous kingdom and one dragon swooped in and my country was reduced by a quarter. What happens if he strikes again? In two or three of his raids, I’d have no country at all.»
«You shouldn’t have woken him up!» Dandy said in a philosopher’s tone.
«But it was you who persuaded me to go to the mountains.»
«I didn’t know the dragon would react so violently to your presence.»
«What will happen now?»
«Now he will demand tribute! Or better yet, to sacrifice you to him. Dragons always demand beautiful maidens of noble birth. They have excellent taste in both treasure and maidens. You can’t give them something second-rate. Especially this one! Fool, you could have cope with him.»
He calls his queen a fool! He’s got a nerve! Rosamunda wanted to throw at him the first thing that came to hand, which was a heavy harness.
«I was joking,» Dandy jumped out of the carriage and into the stall. «It is about your foolishness, not about the dragon. He will surely come to demand tribute now, or worse, send someone.»
«Who would a dragon send?»
«It’s best not to scare you beforehand. I’d better get out of here. No advisor can survive long with a queen like you.»
What benefits did he want from her? She can’t be a dragon ruler! And she doesn’t need an advisor to lead her into the jaws of a predator. She should just dive back into the underground crevices. Without him, no one’s going to mess with her head anymore. But she might not be able to get rid of the awakened dragon now.
«Before you disappear, do your wine and escort my knights to the dragon’s lair,» Rosamunda commanded in a firm tone.
The Dandy stammered.
«What will you give me for it?»
«I’ll give you a few more barrels of wine.»
«I can get them myself.»
«And I can have the cellar locked from you.»
The freelancer scratched behind his pointy ear.
«It is all right! I’ll whisper to the head of the party where to go and slip away.»
He fulfilled his promise, deftly jumping on the shoulder of the most valiant knight. He didn’t even realize at first from whom the advice came, but obediently followed Dandy’s instructions. And Rosamunda’s ministers, who saw off the detachment with their eyes, looked in vain among the knights for that foolish guide whom the queen had promised to find.
