Kitabı oku: «Dragon’s Empire – 5. Society of Shadows», sayfa 3

«Your grace! I am your humble former secretary, having served under you as chief assistant, archivist, housekeeper, bookkeeper, housekeeper, cook, etc., etc.» I didn’t have the strength to list all the things I had read. My tongue was bony from what I had already read out loud. After skipping three lines, I continued. «Overcoming my innate shyness, I take the liberty of disturbing you, not through impudence or immodesty, but by virtue of grave circumstances. Our illustrious monseigneur has taken possession not only of the Lara, but of every acre of land around it, and there is not even a corner where I can rest my head without fearing every moment that it is about to fall off my shoulders. If I could find a corner in a warehouse or a cellar, where I could hide without the fear that a bat might fly past and report to its lord that there was an extra in town. No attic, alas, though it looks uninhabited, is actually so. Everywhere the servants of our sun-like monseigneur live, fly, or nest. Your humble servant would never trouble you with a request for intercession, knowing full well that it would be an impossible burden on you. You may wish to ask why I should not leave Lara, so I will answer in advance that, first, the protective ring of spells does not let anyone in or out of the city, of which you yourself are well aware, and that, second, I cannot afford to live anywhere else. On this point I dare remind you that you still haven’t paid me three-quarters of my regular monthly wages, and the whole of last month’s. Do not think that I resent you. I could have lived with my usual trade if all the purses in the city had not been counted among the servants of the new lord. Where one strong robber has gone, there is nothing for the smaller ones to do. Again, I would not have disturbed you if it hadn’t been for the utmost need. I heard recently that somehow you had managed to find a remedy for the return of youth. You have always reproached me for being too young, but time passes, and now, sitting in my fragile shelter, the doors of which may at any moment be blown open by a fiery explosion or a visit from a terrible guest, I feel like a decrepit old man. Even, my hand trembles when I write, unable to write out the letters accurately. Please tell me the secret of your transformation, if only as a reward for the one year, seven months, twenty-nine days and five hours I served you in so many positions before you not quite politely chased me out. I served you faithfully, and this sudden dismissal can be explained either by an empty treasury or the appearance of a new favorite, but I am not offended. As a reward for all the services I have rendered you, out of infinite respect for your person I do not demand a penny of money, only send me a prescription so that I can, like you, rejuvenate myself. P.S.. A blank piece of paper, so you don’t waste any money, enclosed. I would also enclose a postage stamp and printing wax, if you and I were to use regular postage. Thank you in advance, eternally yours, Vincent.»

«It’s a good thing I didn’t correspond with you,» I said with a sigh of relief as I read the letter. – You show a meticulousness in your written explanations that you would have been beaten for in real life.»

«And it was all for your sake,» Vincent said angrily. «I wanted to help, but it hasn’t worked out yet. Do you know what that fuddy-duddy wrote back? That he didn’t 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 don’t 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.»

«It’s funny,» I agreed. «It’s news to me, too, that you’re 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 doesn’t 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 wouldn’t have to seduce anyone, they’d already be in love with you.»

«And if it’s 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 wouldn’t believe them either.»

«Of course they wouldn’t. Sometimes in books, there’s a line where the fictional character becomes flesh. He’s already living on his own and can be too affecting for the impressionable. Ask Rose. She’ll 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 boyfriend’s clutches and came around to us.

«Edwin!» She rustled a cloud of silk skirts toward me. «It’s 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 didn’t take long to pack. I didn’t 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 father’s 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 wouldn’t 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, let’s go see who got here,» I grabbed Rose’s 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 didn’t see a boat by the shore,» she protested. «I didn’t even see a raft that would have helped rescue the passengers from the sinking ship. There’s 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 couldn’t see us. I wrapped my arms around Rose’s 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 didn’t 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. Royce’s 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 men’s ears to incite them to a scuffle. It was more the evil spirit’s job to make mischief than to watch, but he couldn’t think of any suitable tricks, so he just lay there by the fire and kept silent.

– It’s getting cold,» someone from the untrustworthy company remarked. «Why don’t we go warm up in your caves or the ravine? Where’s that ridge you were talking about? I walked a couple of miles, almost got lost, but I didn’t see anything, not a cliff, not a rocky ridge, not even an ordinary rock underfoot. It is a damn island. I won’t let anyone else drag me to such a place.»

Some of those sitting by the fire, though they weren’t cold, shuddered at his words.

«We’re not going anywhere,» Royce said in a commanding tone. «My lord told us to wait here and keep an eye on what’s going on.»

«What can happen here?»

«Something interesting,» said Royce, his eyes sparkling mischievously. «If you could read, I’d 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 can’t, 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. I’d have torn his claws out,» the braggart tried urgently to save his reputation, but there was a terribly sneering look in Royce’s eyes. Not that he’d had too much to drink, but he couldn’t have believed in my power unless he’d 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. That’s 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, I’ve 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.

«You’re 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, that’s right, no one’s ever been this tipsy before,» the bold man encouraged him and added. «And yet, as helpless as you’ve been in assuring us of our power, I wouldn’t be as taken aback as everyone else by the sight of one glowing eye, the one I caught with a knife to the throat, I’d tear out your dragon’s sting. Cut his throat and he won’t be able to bite or breathe fire. You just think you got a smaller share of the drinks, so you’re angry and want to intimidate us.»

«You don’t think half a bottle is enough for him to fall under the table,» my question sounded not out loud, but only in the braggart’s 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 wasn’t 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 can’t see.»

I squeezed Rose’s waist tightly and laughed merrily, as if it were a witty joke. They heard the laughter, but they couldn’t 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, I’d rather burst out laughing than smash someone’s head in, but the dragon inside me hissed. He wouldn’t have cared if he’d been censured, proud of every angry word he received, but laughing at him and not believing in his powers was a serious insult.

«What is the matter with you?» Rose mentally asked. She felt that the hand that gripped her waist was hot, not like flesh, but like a piece of iron. It was no longer thin, accustomed to the hilt of a sword and feather fingers touching her velvet camisole, but long golden claws. Claws so sharp that it was unpleasant for me, I involuntarily twitched, wanting to scratch someone. And I didn’t want to hurt those bums at all. They were just joking, bragging to each other, and they’d been drinking too much to hold themselves accountable for their own bluster, but the dragon didn’t care.

I set Rose on the ground, as far away from the fire as possible, so she couldn’t reach me until I’d finished the massacre. I walked slowly toward the drunken men myself, hoping that if I delayed the moment of encounter, my anger would subside a little and I could spare some mercy. The dragon couldn’t break free of the cage my body served, but its bony paw was trying to guide my every move.

From the friendly circle around the fire someone stood up, pulled his sheepskin vest up tight, and started rummaging through the bales of provisions. I recognized the braggart who’d promised to tear out the dragon’s claws before it could attack him. He knelt down, trying to get the still untouched wineskin from the bottom of the bale. Before we were alone on the desolate mainland, the tricksters had stocked up on quilts to flee the biting night frost and good food. I jumped easily over some sort of bunk. The absolutely silent movement could not attract anyone’s attention to me. The first victim was already mapped out. The false daredevil who had broken away from the group of companions was an easy target. He was unaware of my swift approach and the preparations for my throw, but his gut must have sensed something bad, and he flinched. He dropped a bag in his hands, and some mere copper snuff-boxes, apples, dried bread, and faded circles of silver coins fell to the ground. An equally dirty cloud rose from the scattered sniffs of tobacco over the ashes. My braggart coughed, cleared his throat, and cursed through his teeth in a very casual way, not even noticing that he was about to undergo a fatal change in his life. He was almost in my clutches. He should have been thinking of a last repentance, but he tried to gather his belongings from the ground and did not stop scrambling around until the ends of my boots almost grazed his palms.

Inwardly he shuddered, and I could see it in the slow way he lifted his head to look at me, as if he wanted to distance the fatal moment. Surprisingly, he didn’t mistake me for a charming stranger, though I hid my claw behind my back. He recognized death in person. Was the image created on paper so vivid that readers could immediately recognize the prototype in life? Or maybe it was my face that had such rage written all over it that it was impossible to mistake me for a harmless passerby.

Royce was awake at the fire. He couldn’t see me, but I got a good look at his frail neck, which I would easily break as soon as I had my first victim. The so-called victim tried to crawl away, but I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and with a hard jerk he was on his feet. Sharp as if specially sharpened gold claws stroked the stiff bristled cheek. The prisoner trembled, aware that this simple caress might leave permanent scars on his skin.

«You wanted to meet me,» I whispered, almost touching the pierced earlobe with my lips. «You wanted to see how easy it was to kill a dragon. So where’s your resolve?»

The hilt of his sword was sticking out from under his vest, but he made no attempt to touch it, knowing that such a feeble act of self-defense would be useless. Any attempt to escape the golden claws was doomed to fail. Beneath the padded skin of my human arm as I clutched his shoulder, the captive felt the steel muscles, and realized how insignificant his strength was before such a treacherous and mysterious creature. Fear pervaded his body in a daze, and I, on the other hand, had a demon in me. I wanted to fight, I wanted the prisoner to resist me, and then the rage would be stronger.

«I get it,» I grinned. «You were expecting our encounter to take place in a dark alley, in a sleeping city, but this is nothing. That’s why you were embarrassed.»

With a quick, slight nod of the unruly golden-blond head a light flickered into the gray wasteland, and the outlines of the narrow streets and the houses pressed together seemed to rise up out of nowhere like the sight of a shipwrecked city beneath a ship’s keel. Here we were standing in the narrow street, the hood of the nearest lantern giving off little light, as if we could see it through the depths of water. It is only a mirage. The prisoner made no attempt to escape, so I drew his sword from his girdle, and handed it to him with the hilt forward.

«Take it, show me how easily you can tear my claws!»

As his numb fingers tightened around the hilt, I coolly and deliberately slashed his throat. The city, with its dim lights, remained forever his deathbed hallucination. The desert lay before me again, and the same fire was blazing. The glowing head rolled back to my feet. I stepped over it. Royce was the first to rise from his seat. That was the only thing that saved him from death. He shouted something to the effect that his comrades had to defend themselves, that they were paid up front to guard the borders, but in a fraction of a minute there was nothing but blood at his feet. The lad staggered back, wondering how he could squeeze any useful idea out of his cleverness this time. He thought feverishly about a rescue plan, but time was running out. He jumped deftly over the fire so that he and I were separated by a wall of fire, but he stumbled and fell and seemed to twist his ankle, or maybe dislocated his shin, I wasn’t sure. At least something was wrong with him, because despite the threat to his life Royce couldn’t get up and run.

«Fool, fire is my element,» I prompted, and snapped my fingers to make it more convincing. The fire was immediately extinguished. Then one light breath toward the smoldering embers, and the flames flared up with renewed vigor. Sparks sprinkled. The same mirage appeared before my eyes. It was an empty alleyway, a square with a fountain around the corner, the vague outline of a lamppost. A girl was running down a road winding between houses. A beautiful lady, as if she had just escaped from a ball held in one of the city’s mansions. She is wearing ball slippers, a sumptuous purple dress pleasantly rustling, and behind her, like a banner, long dark curls flutter. She runs closer, and instead of a blurry white speck, the outline of her face emerges from the darkness. I recognize her. Rose! She grabs my elbow, gently and powerfully, but she can stop the deadly golden claw that has already swung over the boy’s head.

«Edwin, stop it!»

Her cry brought me out of my stupor. The vision faded. The ghost town was gone, dissolving into the emptiness from which it had sprung. It was still the same plain, and there were no more diamonds on her bare shoulders or arms, and she wore the same man’s suit and her hair pulled back under her beret.

«You wouldn’t kill a child,» she thought her argument most convincing, and looked at me pleadingly.

«Is it a child?» I was astonished. «He should be marching in some regiment and eating dry rations in an army barracks instead of languishing in idleness. An idle man is a prey to evil forces. If this slacker had gone to school, he wouldn’t have had time to intrigue and attend shadow meetings.

«Or maybe he ran away from school,» Rose suggested. She was grasping at straws like a drowning man. «You know that the desires of the students are often at odds with the demands of their tutors.»

The beautiful girl had played on the most painful strings of my soul, and she had almost succeeded. I’d had enough of Rothbart myself, but I had little faith that Royce wanted a better fate for himself than his guardians had predicted.

Rose gripped my elbow tightly, and, surprisingly, the claws on my arm instantly shortened, the gold sheen dulling and the scales smoothing to the appearance of normal smooth skin.

«Let him go,» Rose insisted. «He can still get better, and it never hurts to have extra hands to work with.»

«Yes, don’t dare to touch me,» said Royce. «Don’t touch me or I’ll tell Infanta that you’re fraternizing with the pages.

«What are you going to tell her, you wretch?» I sprang forward, and Rose was scarcely strong enough to hold me back.

I drew forward, and Royce crawled away as far as he could, and from what seemed a safe distance, he continued his thought.

«Do you think she will like to know that you have made such a gentle friendship with a servant. When she finds that out she may throw your pretty little friend out, which is not likely to please you, for he is the only one you have spared of all those present. And if things get worse, she might just run off to someone else. Where will you find her then?»

«You don’t think I’d think I’d pay a visit to Clovis’ bachelor flat?» I asked, not out loud, of course, but mentally, so that Royce alone could hear, and the effect was startling. The brat opened his mouth in amazement and failed to close it.

«She’ll have your shepherd anyway and you won’t have the guts to stand up for him,» he said defiantly when he recovered his composure.

«Repeat it!» Rose jerked her beret off, and her delightful, silky curls cascaded down her shoulders.

«Oh,» Royce could only utter, and immediately put his palms to his eyes, believing that if he rubbed his eyes properly, the picture might be different; if he wore glasses, he would have rubbed them, thinking that this metamorphosis might be an effect of the misted-up glasses.

«I am beginning to see the world through the prism of my admiration for you, you must excuse me,» he explained gallantly as he managed to pull himself together. Both the explanation and the belated wish to appear polite were made all the more ridiculous by the fact that Royce was sitting on the ground, covered in ash.

«What shall we do with him?» I asked Rose. «We mustn’t let him go free or he may make a nasty mess of us again.»

«Let’s put him in the monastery school or in some boarding school, where they will not let him out until he will learn good manners.»

Rosa clasped her hands together prayerfully. She did not want to lose her devoted admirer, but she considered it dangerous to leave him free. I would have sent him straight to the barracks, but Rose seemed to think that such a pampered creature would be more suited to sparing conditions. Good thing she didn’t suggest that I send him to the Institute for Noble Maidens by furnishing him with her old dresses and some theatrical wig so he would not be too different from the local girls.

«You see, Royce. The lady wants me to spare you,» I said in a tone that sounded like I was still weighing his chances of survival.

«You won’t refuse her, will you?» Royce rose on his elbows cheerfully. A childishly happy, almost sincere smile bloomed on his face.

«You want to tell me how to behave?» I growled menacingly, and gave him such a fierce look that Royce shuddered.