Kitabı oku: «Rhianon-5. Along the way of deception», sayfa 10

She smiled as the unicorn raised its muzzle from the water and stared at her with its shimmering eyes. She wondered what kind of supernatural creatures unicorns belong to. Who they were in Madael’s army? What if they were just spirits who’d stood up for him when the war was still raging in the heavens? And now they and the others are being punished.

They say unicorns are attracted to innocence. Only an innocent maiden can touch them. Only a virgin can do that.

“I am not innocent,” Rhianon whispered with one lip, and yet the unicorn stepped into the water and moved toward her. He treaded gingerly with his hooves on the rocky bottom, as if his forehead were a star, not a horn. Many kings of the world would have given most of their treasure to have that one horn. Beautiful, graceful, studded with pearls like a frosty pattern. It must also have magical powers. One such piece could buy half a kingdom. Except that you would have to kill an animal to get it. Rhianon shuddered, picturing the blood on the snow-white pelt.

But she reached forward to touch it. The unicorn did not resist. On the contrary, it wanted her touch.

So it was not a matter of innocence. Or love is not a sin, it is the innocence of the soul that counts. And virgins who have devoted themselves to God are often overly treacherous. Rhianon remembered the Inquisition, the convents where they locked up the chaste and the churches where the servants of the gods were hypocrites before the people. No, she didn’t even want to think about all that, looking at the white creature before her. It wasn’t the kind of innocence he was looking for.

“Only I don’t want to burn you,” Rhianon only barely touched the soft, silky mane and wanted to stroke the horn, but she suddenly felt an internal heat and stepped back. Between them, a long, thin line of fire stretched across the water. It grew wider and wider. The unicorn did not want to back away from Rhianon, but in the end he had to. And Rhianon herself realized that it was time to get to shore. It was getting too hot in the water. The ribbon of fire that had formed already stretched along the stream. How could a fire burn right on the water? It was as if for a moment he had overcome the water element. Rhianon feared that the creek would be nothing but a scorched ravine, but the flames began to die out as suddenly as they had appeared. She saw that one of the streams was a burnt-out puddle, and the birds that had flown in to drink the water had been warned by the smell of the fire. When she reached the shore, Rhianon looked for the unicorn, but it was gone.

Perhaps he would appear again. Perhaps even now, as she walked on, he was following her at a distance. Rhianon sensed his affection for her. It was not surprising that at the crossroads of worlds she had met a fairy creature. Perhaps the brook itself separated the two worlds.

Involuntarily Rhianon stopped. How could it be? She didn’t want to go from a normally earthly kingdom to a fairy-tale region. When she noticed the leprechauns rummaging in the grass beneath her feet, she thought that’s where she’d ended up. Oh, the interregnum of the magical realm. A meadow belonging to fairies might well be among mortals’ possessions. In the lands of any feudal lord evil takes a piece or vice versa, people without realizing it, invade the world and settle it. And those who fell to the ground first willingly or unwillingly retreat into the darkness, seeking secluded corners, hiding in the forest thickets, and making frequent forays into human habitats to make fun of weaker creatures.

“Get in there! Get in there!” One of the leprechauns tugged at the brocaded hem of her dress and nearly ripped off the beads adorning it. The other leprechauns were already dancing around Rhianon.

“Send him away!” They were shouting in different tones. — Make sure he doesn’t burn down any more of our homes. You can make him stop coming, can’t you?

Rhianon pulled back her hem and stepped out of the Leprechaun circle. Reluctantly she moved in the direction they had pointed. There was a field just beyond the trees ahead. It must have been near someone’s farmhouse, for it looked plowed and seeded. The fertile soil had already sprouted. Rhianon stomped on them a little, moving forward. She stopped abruptly, noticing a scorched strip of land. It was surrounded by ash, and something poisonous, stinky that made the grass nearby shrivel up or dry out. The crops, too, would wither away, never ripening. The spikes would not mature next to such a patch of soil. The burnt strip seemed to symbolize extinction. The poisoned nature nearby was withering away. The black ash made an unpleasant impression.

The burnt line formed some kind of giant sign in the field. Rhianon regretted that she could not take to the air herself and easily see what the symbol was from her flight height. She regretted that Madael never gave her the wings she had been promised. It would have been easier for her. And in the mortal world, she could hide them under a cloak or fold them behind her back so that they themselves looked like a blanket. It was easy to mix them up in the dark. For some reason Rhianon had no doubt that her wings would have been black, not as light as Madael’s. But it was too late to regret that now. She decided to circle the entire length of the line to see what it folded into, but suddenly she guessed from the smooth curve what the shape was. It was a circle. It was a scorched circle on a field. Rhianon stopped beside it so that the toes of her shoes barely touched the charred line. The ground beneath her was not crawling with vermin and worms, but seemed permanently parched. No doubt, only dragon fire could do that. But how does she know where the dragon is? Is it near? Rhianon looked longingly up at the sky.

“What if the sovereign is going to build another one of his temples here? Ask him to do it!” Some insolent leprechaun was already tugging at the hem of her dress, but Rhianon shook it off with determination. The dangerously close proximity at which these creatures had gotten to her was already unbelievable. She could have grabbed any one of them and forced them to show her where the treasure was buried, but they didn’t seem the least bit bothered. Oh, yes, she didn’t have to show her where the treasure was buried. Madael had shown her everything anyway. Rhianon now sometimes thought that she herself could see where the gold was buried. Its glitter seemed to seep through the earth between the roots of trees, or on flat ground, and beckoned to her. As she passed by, she noticed such luster in the heaths and in the grass, and even in the burial grounds, but she never stopped. There might be goblets or even chests of jewels buried underground, but now was not the time to dig them out. Besides, it would be dangerous. The curse of the treasures comes not only from the people who probably buried them, but also from the fact that the sunbeams that fell with Denntsa were in the ground too deep. They are just waiting for someone to release them to the surface. Here on earth they have been turned into gold. Gold veins, nuggets in the rocks, deposits of diamond ores are all sparks that flew from him in that first battle moments before his defeat. In every piece of gold on the ground, it’s as if he lives. It was even in this ring. Rhianon raised her hand to examine one of her rings. The sun emerged from the clouds and immediately played with its facets, as if it recognized its lost piece and reached out to it with all its rays. They were the sun and the gold. Who would have thought that one came from the other? But before the origin of both the first and the second, there was still the son of the dawn. Rhianon tried not to think of him. Not yet. The time for that would come.

Where might the dragon be? Rhianon began to think of all the places where they lived that she knew. Rhianon remembered the black dragon that must have lived in the mouth of a volcano. There was a field and a scorched circle-the only sign that the dragon had flown here. But where it might have flown to after that? It might have been hundreds of kilometers away.

And why had it scorched the circle? What did it mean? What didn’t he like about this particular field? Rhianon had seen any of the locals, she would have been quick to read their minds and know at once what the matter was. But there was no one nearby.

After a moment’s hesitation, she moved on. One dragon meant nothing after all. Madael had a whole flock of them. He seemed to say there were sea dragons, ones that lived in swamps, or ponds, or even glaciers. Some even settle in icebergs in the ocean. Some are not enough to scorch cities to subdue the flames within themselves. Rhianon almost understood them. She herself had chosen the blue brocade, the color of water. Perhaps if she would only stand by the edge of the sea, the abundance of pearls on her clothing would attract the dragon living in the depths. She needed only to mentally call out, to think of the large pearls dotting her corsage and of the power that dwells in the depths.

She needed a dragon. She wanted to strike fear into Loretta that would make the inhabitants go numb. Shivering, they would lock themselves in their houses and pray. And she would take the city. All she needs is a worthy army, capable not only of taking the country, but of making everyone tremble.

Where to find this dragon? Perhaps all she had to do was listen to the feelings inside her. After all, she had already caught herself being able to read the thoughts of passersby. Ever since she left the celestial castle, talents have opened up in her one by one. Or maybe it was the divine blood that was the cause after all. Divine or cursed? She had, after all, tasted Madael’s blood there in his tent. Could it have had any effect? And the connection with the fallen angel was not without result. Not only was there a supernatural child growing in her, but new talents were being discovered. It was hour after hour, moment after moment, more and more. Rianon leaned over the flower, a bright red poppy, to brush a drop of dew from it and was surprised to find that it barely touched her fingertip and solidified into a dense diamond. The flower itself sparkled at her touch, glistening in every shade of red, from deep purple to almost pale pink. Maybe in time she would be able to turn large grapes into agate and extract gold from the light of dawn. She could say what she wanted, a valuable ability, but alas, it was useless right now. She needed something else, not magic transformations or magician’s tricks.

Rhianon squeezed her eyes shut and tried to listen to her sensations. In her mind she imagined a map of the world, to see if a fire was flaring somewhere, if she could hear a dragon’s roar in the mountains. Something she began to notice without even opening her eyes. Nearby, dwarf hearths burned beneath the ground, in the caves trolls galloped around fires, in nearby lagoons mermaids rested and wove a net of their own clipped hair to catch fishermen or hunters in. But there was nothing else. No supernatural packs swept over the villages and hamlets, but there still seemed to be traces of someone’s presence in the nearby village. There was something lurking there besides people. Rhianon wondered if she should go there. How far was that village? Suddenly her inner vision told her that the road was close.

Rhianon found that she could see without opening her eyes, or she could see what was not in front of her eyes at that moment. Thus she saw earthen buildings with thatched or tiled roofs, and also empty, narrow streets. As she peered through the opened door of one of the houses, she saw frightened children huddled in a corner, and some scaly creature deliberately fanning the fire in the hearth to scare them. She recognized the wings and tentacles of a dragon.

So it was worth going there after all. Rhianon picked up her skirts and moved through the thicket of junipers. The thorns scratched at her ankles, but did not fray the hem of her dress. She’d noticed by now that even after long walks through the woods and untended suburban roads, the bottom of her skirt was spotlessly clean. Not a blade of grass stuck to the brocade, not a speck, not a thorn, and she could have accidentally torn the fabric many times before.

Rhianon tried to move as fast as she could. If the dragon really was in the village, she didn’t want to be late. If it really had settled there and already intimidated the locals, it shouldn’t fly away too quickly. She was somehow confident that she would be able to negotiate a much easier deal with one of the dragons than with the greedy and cunning Athenais. She had to be beaten into submission. And the dragons would obey her anyway.

Badly, of course, if she miscalculated. Then she’s in trouble. But they can’t help but recognize her as one of their own. They might have forgotten the Fall, but the moment Madael had brought his betrothed to the valley to present her to them had been quite recent. It could not have slipped from their memory. She also had the face of Madael. That divine countenance of their leader that is simply impossible to forget. She herself is like a ray of sun reflected in his shield. They must obey her. Besides, Rhianon knew what she had to do or say to get them on her side.

As she wandered through the woods, she could hear the voices of robins, cuckoos, sparrows, and tits. And the most amazing thing was that she could understand what they were saying. A lark was singing on a branch. Rhianon could make out words in its trills. Not the words exactly, but the meaning of what the bird was trying to tell her. Yes, indeed, the dragon was near. He’d invaded a village, killed almost all its adult inhabitants, and now he continued to eat one child a day. They pissed him off about something. It seems that they sowed those fields where he last saw his master. That’s where the scorched circle came from, Rhianon guessed. A woodpecker tapped its beak on the trunk of a large, towering beech, and told her so. It had been a cherished meadow, and the children of the village had played in it, singing songs, and the shepherds of the sheep flocks had been singing as well. Now all the cattle had been eaten, the well had been flooded with dragon poison, and the remains of human bones had been stacked in the cellars. Only a few managed to escape. Even if these people made it to the royal court to ask for help, not even God himself could help them now. The dragon decided to take revenge and lure as many people as possible into the occupied lands. He was in no hurry to go away, he huddled in a captured village and waited. And the children cried as they watched him burn horrifying witch symbols on the walls of their homes. They looked at these signs from the fire and understood that they did not have long to live. In addition, their companions were being devoured before their eyes by the dragon. And it was impossible to escape. He was so quick-winged and strong and gripping. He would fling lighted candles with his claws and catch them in flight before they could reach the wooden floorboards. He did many other frightening tricks, mostly witchcraft tricks. So dragons can do magic, though they might have forgotten their angelic names, but they haven’t forgotten their magical powers. So every fallen angel remembers his powers and creates spells, and even if he lost his former face forever, he still recoils in horror from his creepy new reflection.

Rhianon could feel the fear of the surviving children almost in her skin.

“Oh, Edwin, I hope you don’t join them,” she turned to the unborn child for the first time, and felt an inner shudder. For some reason she was afraid. Only she wasn’t afraid for him, she was afraid for herself. He was not a fallen angel, he was only his son, but the name he had been given was like a spell, made up of the names of dead spirits. Their power is in him now, their cunning protects him, only does he need their protection.

“I believe in you,” Rhianon immediately corrected. “You are your father’s son.”

She hurried forward, no longer in doubt. The path through the thicket was narrow and winding through the forest. It looked as if it had been walked on before. At least it had been treaded. Rhianon would have kept walking it if she hadn’t been startled by sounds coming from somewhere on her side.

She might not have had the piercing ears of an elf, but her hearing was extremely acute. She could hear shouts, footsteps, weapons rattling, and clanking armor. There were knights on the next road, and they were frightened. Beyond the sounds, Rhianon could feel the trembling, the fear, the bewilderment, and she could also feel the sweat streaming down their faces under their visors, the blood dripping from their wounds, the heat growing next to the steel and flesh.

Something told her she’d better go that way. And she turned from her intended path. She learned to trust her instincts as any animal would trust them. The fox immediately smells danger and smells the hounds. The dragon senses the proximity of gold with every bristle of its hide, as it is bound to Madael. If you trust your senses, there is much to be gained. Rhianon felt that honor, victory, and glory lay ahead of her.

And she also had to hurry. But this wasn’t the first time she’d used her knack. She had noticed long ago that unlike humans she could easily walk in a minute a distance she would not have traveled in an hour before. Perhaps the ground no longer attracts her and she has nothing to fear of heights. Anything is possible. Rhianon tensed, trying to get something else out of her subconscious. But she felt nothing else. She would only know the rest when she was there.

The rocky terrain and the swamp behind the parting forest reminded her of something bad. At first she couldn’t figure out what, but then she remembered the blocks of rock that the demons had herded together for Madael. Here was something similar, but formed by nature itself. The mountain ledges above the swamp looked like human figures or silhouettes of some mythical character, as if they had been turned into stone on purpose. The mire below them was a nasty dirty green color. The brighter, emerald liquid trickled across its surface, as if it were poison or some other solution of unpredictable effect that the fairies had deliberately mixed into it. Not immediately did Rhianon notice the group of people crowding under the rocky slope by the swamp. Some were knights in armor and full armor. Their horses beside them, were wheezing in pain and terror. The bloodied shoulder of one of the warriors is broken, and not only the shoulder joints but even the armor is shattered. Who could have done such a thing? Rhianon gasped as she noticed the claw prints on them. They were dragon claws. What she was looking for was probably quite close. The pain on the knight’s own face and the splinter of bone sticking out of his shoulder didn’t even bother her. And yet now, with her new powers, she could heal this unfortunate man. Just a touch of her hand and a sincere wish was all it would take from her to heal someone’s wound.

One of the knights stared at her as if a divine vision had broken out before him. But Rhianon had already turned her gaze to the swamp. What she had mistaken for a bright emerald stream was in fact a long ridge on a dragon’s back. Sharp combs protruded from the surface of the mire. Rhianon held her breath. She could see the useless, naked swords in the hands of the surviving knights. She had already guessed that the band was much larger than the pitiful handful of warriors that now remained. The brave men still hung on, while their comrades-in-arms had long since rotted in the swamp, or worse, in the belly of the creature that lived there. And that handful of charred bones on the grass must be someone’s remains.

Rhianon saw the dragon’s head, its bright yellow eyes, and its shell the color of marshy slime. She wondered if swords could pierce that kind of hide. To her they were more harmless than needles.

“Wait!” She paced swiftly, and was only halfway to the knights when she arrived at their quivering pace.

“Don’t be frightened,” Rhianon ordered the travelers to fall back, shielding them from the crawling creature. One young man cried out and tried to run toward her. He feared she would be the dragon’s first victim. He couldn’t believe that she could save them all, but she could. She could also tell the swamp monster to go back to its mire. She possessed enough power to do so. Madael had taught her how to command his troops, and now she could use it very much.

Rhianon stared into the dragon’s yellow eyes for just a moment, and he stared at her. It was a long dueling stare. She tried to look inside him and see all the pain of the fall — a long black labyrinth filled with the cries of fallen angels, the rattle of swords, and the sizzling fire of heaven. Darkness and flame, gold and death, agony and ugliness, and worst of all agony about lost beauty. There would still be much she could see. Though the dragon living in the mire did not possess the same flow of crushing fire that she did, he was interesting to her. She wanted to get to know him better, to look even deeper into his mind, to fish out the remnants of his memory. Rhianon even smiled a little, noticing the remnants of shiny gold metal on his webbed paws and claws.

“Are you with me?” She asked with one lip, and was taken aback. Slowly, very slowly, the ugly crested head unfurled, and the dragon crawled away into the swamp. Just a moment later, the mire closed in on him. It was as if it had never been there.

Rhianon breathed deeply and heavily. How could it be? It was as if he did not accept her. She was so shaken that she could no longer hear the voices of the knights beside her. No questions, no words of thanks, no numerous expressions of admiration — nothing moved her. Some very handsome young man was showering her with compliments, and she didn’t even notice him because of an acute sense of disappointment and longing for the monster that had crawled away into the mire. Was a monster more important to her than a living man? Oh, yes, if only she could breathe under water, she would follow the dragon into the abyss.

She wanted to tame the dragon, not the handsome man standing beside her, but the dragon was gone. Only the stranger knight remained. His gauntlet-clad fingers were already gently clasped in her palm. He wanted to kiss her hand. Rhianon reluctantly turned around.

“Yes? What did you say?”

For a moment she marveled at the closeness she could feel with a single glance. She seemed to have known him all along, this handsome young man with curls the color of ripe millet and radiant blue eyes. His open, kind face immediately won her over. Involuntarily Rhianon smiled. Even Ron had never looked so pleasant.

“I’ve seen you before.”

“Is it really?” Rhianon shuddered. Was he in Loretta? He may even have been here and there. It’s possible, isn’t it? “Where have you seen me before?”

He was obviously embarrassed. Grown and strong he still retained some childish traits. Combined with his intelligence and developed athletic body, it was fascinating.

“I was dreaming…” he paused.

Rhianon remembered something now. The spirits had already given her the tour of the royal chambers in Vinor. She looked at the pretty young man’s face. If she used her imagination she could try a crown on those blond curls. No, she could do it without imagination. All she has to do is look in the annals of her memory.

“Are you the King of Vinor?”

He merely nodded, imperceptibly shushing one of his retainers, who was about to introduce him in a formal tone.

“And you?”

How timid he seemed to her, for all his strength and good looks.

“I was a queen,” Rhianon did not know whether she was referring to her hapless Loretta or to the countless armies of the Devil. She reigned here and there, if only in her memories for now.

The screams of the demons in the valley became only an echo in her memory, far more she remembered the lions woven on the tapestries and the weary yet charming young man she’d wanted to touch then… She was touching him now. He himself did not want to let her hand out of his.

He was like a sunny summer day, she compared again. And immediately she was forced to turn away. And the sun and the gold reminded her equally of Madael.

“What’s the matter with you?” He sounded concerned.

“It is nothing,” Rhiannon shook her head. She couldn’t very well tell people she was pining after her demon. She expected to be strong, but the longer she didn’t see Madael, the more she missed him. Eventually the feeling would grow into a black unbearable longing and she would go mad unless she could return to him, but it was too soon to think about that.

“Your Majesty…”

“Ferdinand,” he corrected her quickly.

“Rhianon,” she said. There was mute admiration in his clear expressive eyes. Naturally, he, a simple man, saw a girl dressed in a dress woven by fairies, adorned with pearls from cursed treasures, and carrying in her heart the love of a fallen angel. It is impossible not to fall in love with such a girl. It seems that Ferdinand was already captivated. She would not have to try hard to persuade him to throw himself after her into the swamp or any other abyss. Rhianon didn’t even grin at the realization of her own power. Maybe it was too soon to rejoice. Or maybe her feelings were being crusted over with ice, even as the fire inside her only grew hotter. Fire! Rhianon remembered the dragon in the village. It was now clear to her where these knights were going. The robin on the bush might not have trilled to tell her that.

Rhianon didn’t immediately notice some animal sighting near the hem of her dress. She gave a silent gasp as she noticed someone’s claws digging into the lush boulders of fabric at her feet. At the same instant, one of the knights raised a loaded crossbow.

“No, wait,” Rhianon made a gesture with her hand. Ferdinand rushed forward to block her with his own body.

Of course, the knight wasn’t aiming at her, but at the creature bustling beneath her feet, but it was the creature that Rhianon finally recognized. The girl immediately leaned toward the black clawed creature. Just her familiar harpy, and she was already expecting to see at least a jackal. The reaction of the knights was unpredictable, since they had never encountered such creatures before. Some could barely keep from spitting and crossing themselves, and only Ferdinand was smiling at the top of his mouth.

“I, too, keep my own hound dogs with me. I even had my own tame wolf cub as a child. Believe it or not, Rhianon, my castle is the only one that keeps a large menagerie. I keep an eye on it. You have to have pets.”

How charming he is. His pleasant, good-natured smile could captivate anyone. Rhianon involuntarily smiled back. She was even ready to take the harpy in her arms. Ferdinand seemed eager to touch and even caress the strange newfangled beast. He looked like a carefree boy, as if the burden of marriage and other duties were not upon him.

“I have heard that pet monkeys are fashionable in Villette; they follow their mistress everywhere and may even sit on her shoulders. It’s so charming to have a faithful four-legged companion following a beautiful lady. I, too, have tried to tame cheetahs, but if I could…” he smiled charmingly again. “Only horses and dogs obey me, and falcons, too. But my other pets…” he bit his lip grudgingly. The harpy seemed happy to bite off not just a finger but half a hand, but Ferdinand didn’t seem to notice. He hurried to fondle the tiny monster peeking out from behind Rhianon’s fluffy skirts, apparently mistaking him for an amusing live toy. An amusing innovation in the court fashions of alien fears, something like those monkeys from Villette. Rhianon almost took his hobby with a sense of humor. It was not enough for her to start making jokes. The harpy, hiding behind her skirts and only occasionally throwing her claws forward for zealous attacks, was already behaving extremely aggressively.

But Ferdinand was not discouraged. What an optimist.

“I have leopards, panthers, cheetahs, little tigers and a lion. I love them all, but I can’t say they share my feelings. What is the name of your pet?”

Rhianon didn’t know what to say.

“I haven’t given him a name yet,” she explained evasively. In fact, it was true that she hadn’t even thought of a name for the infernal creature, but now it was time to lie. “But I was thinking of calling him Mad. What do you think?”

Ferdinand’s knights would obviously agree, and would even help to escort the Mad One to the cage, if not to the bonfire. Ferdinand, however, would only shrug his shoulders.

“I’m not very creative,” he admitted frankly. “The caretakers usually give my animals names, and I agree with them.”

“Of course, it’s not a state matter.”

Had she succeeded in teasing him, or perhaps in reproaching him a little? Ferdinand lowered his blond head. So she had hit the mark after all.

“I hardly have time for my relatives because of these cases,” he confessed so quietly that none of the attendants could hear.

“Isn’t one of them dead, if you’re so sad?” This time she thought she was really going to tease him, but Ferdinand answered with unexpected seriousness.

“My nephew passed away recently… he was mauled by a boar in my, the king’s, woods. They were he and his retinue, all the attendants, among them my advisors. If I had been more attentive to them and less documented, I could have gone with them and prevented this. But I sat locked up with the chancellor and looked over the reports. I put off entertaining myself that day…”