by Alex Sapegin
Gichok, calmed by the fact that no one would eat him anytime soon, began chopping through the thick underbrush of creepers and hazel, cursing like a sailor. “How long must we keep on feeding the horseflies and mosquitoes here, eet? Maybe a dragon’ll join the party?” he asked, turning toward Chutka.
“May-a join, may-a not,” Chutka repeated his tall-tale embellishment. “You’ll hang about here until Grok the magician says enough or until you get eaten up by midges. Sul’s the one who’s squeamish about ya, but midges are keen on manure!”
“Tfoo on you!” the young hunter swore as if spitting and immediately got a telling blow to the back.
“Shut your trap and chop. What Grok says goes! You took the money, so no gripin’, Little Hunter. Pray to the goddesses or beg the One God, that a dragon’ll join us, or instead of a dragon, Grok’ll gut YOU! Got it?”
Gichok nodded.
“Now you’ve got it. Hack more lively; no yapping!” Chutka bellowed.
Gichok shut up and took to it, frantically swinging the long knife. Chutka stayed back a bit; he had no desire to come under the wide swing of the double-sided blade. The pair continued in silence right up to the camp.
“Did you set the ‘spider’s web’?” Grok the wizard asked Chutka right away. He employed the squadron of hunters. Chutka nodded.
“Look,” Grok added, “if you damaged the weight-bearing threads, I’ll have your hides!”
Arist, the commander of the small squadron, approached the magician. He was just as heavy-set, big-boned, and broad-shouldered as Chutka. A dreadful scar intersected his crooked face from his left eye to his chin; his neat beard barely overlapped it. Arist’s ice-blue eyes, the depths of which hid a malignant cunning, gazed perceptively and carefully, noticing every detail and every movement.
“I’ll have my own peoples’ hides, thank you, and let’s get one thing straight right now, Grok: I’m in charge here! If you don’t like something, let me know. A bozl should have but one head! If someone else starts commanding them, not only will we not zapag a dragon, we’ll become side dishes for Sul, the mrowns, or long-maned wolves! You pay; we execute. If anyone doesn’t do it right…” he glanced at Gichok, who lowered his head and cast his eyes downward. The tips of his ears became crimson. “…I’ll stuff his ears down his throat! You’ve already scared my people. And frightened people are not hunters, more like shadows in the woods.”
Grok turned to Arist and pursed his pale lips into a thin strip. His glare bore holes into the old hunter. Arist calmly returned the magician’s piercing gaze. Grok, in his dark frock with his pale face, shaved head, and crooked nose, looked like a servant of the goddess of death, Hel. His unblinking eyes added credibility to his “servant of death” image.
“E-e-excellent, you’ve vouched for your people, most esteemed Arist. I’ll ask you in case I need anything,” the magician hissed and cast a glance at the long-suffering Gichok, who had instantly changed the color of his face from red to deathly white and started trembling slightly. Something flashed with a blue light inside the magician’s tent; he turned sharply and set off to check on his artifacts.
Arist heaved a long hissing sigh. The struggle with the magician was hard on him. In the last seven days and nights, he’d gained many gray hairs and many times cursed the day he’d agreed to take the job. They had been enticed by the idea of easy money, but as they say, “Set foot in the swamp, you’ll feed the troglomp.”
The contract had been signed, and the magician had furnished a handsome advance payment. The hunters had been out of work for a good while and were glad of the order. Now, they would have been glad to return the money, but the hired man’s code did not allow any backing out.
“Go on, chop wood for the fire and help the others strip the deer,” Arist told Gichok and, with a wave of his hand, sent him away. Happy to be as far away as possible from the magician and the squadron leader, Gichok practically skipped toward the fire and the porridge-boiling hunters.
Arist turned to Chutka. “What do you suggest?”
Without a word, Chutka ran the edge of his finger across his throat. The commander shook his head.
“The code. Your people would slaughter you for it later.”
“Then there be only hope in the dragon, may-a he’ll eat the turd. I’ll give it to ya straight; I’ll shed no tears!”
Grok exited his tent and headed directly to the conversing pair.
“You’ve come from the burial ground. Did you see anything strange?” he asked Chutka.
“No. Like you said, we didn’t go on the hill. So?”
“Strange. The ‘tracking frame’ registered the use of magic in the area. You’re sure you didn’t see anyone?”
“What’s there to see? We hung the tubes with gluten and stretched the ‘spider web’ over ’em. By the goddesses, who’er enters that hill is caught!”
The magician nodded his approval and turned to Arist. “Your repose is over; gather your people, Commander. Set Watchmen at all the snaring spider webs. A dragon will fly in soon. The black lizard won’t miss the spells of the guardians of the burial ground. Yes, and I almost forgot, let the ‘web-men’ come to me for the negotiated artifacts.” The magician issued his instructions and disappeared into his tent.
Chutka and Arist glanced at one another.
“The wait is over,” the commander said quietly and, already with increasing volume, went to rouse the bozles.
***
The Marble Mountains, No Man’s Land, the Valley of a Thousand Streams, Karegar, Jagirra.
“What are you laying around for, you old fart!” the grouchy voice of Jagirra, herbalist, and magician, interrupted the dragon’s afternoon nap.
Karegar opened his left eye and looked at the woman who’d awoken him. What now? She was standing with her hands on her hips as if she were getting ready to chase after a little man rather than a dragon. And she didn’t look anything like a highborn Snow Elf; she was a country wench in a traditional peasant’s apron embroidered with red roosters, but with a stature above and beyond that of a mere mortal. Her posture, her expression, the turn of her head, her enraged glare—all of these made him put his tail between his legs.
“Open your shameless little eyes, black lizard!” Jagirra continued in just as agitated a tone. She grabbed a towel from her shoulder and swatted the dragon on the nose with it.
“You old hag!” Karegar opened his eyes and lifted his head from the hot stones. The name “lizard” had offended him.
“WHAT? Who are you calling old hag?” Jagirra’s eyes blazed with a raging fire.
Karegar backed away; he’d crossed the line. He’d let it slip before he knew it. Jagirra just might send a fireball flying.
“Come here! I’ll show you old hag!”
It might have been an amusing sight for an on-looker—an enormous black dragon backing away from a sleek female figure brandishing a rolled-up towel before his nose. Soon the dragon’s back hit the cliff; there was nowhere to retreat. He had to pull his shoulders and neck in to hide behind his wings. Jagirra might have seemed funny only to those who didn’t know her. When angry, she could smash a decent rock to bits or burn a reinforced border fort to the ground in a couple of moments. It had happened. Karegar, without too much effort, could recall five or so such times.
He had had time to study the she-elf over the course of two thousand years, and today’s mistake was an unforgivable error on his part. He sat on his tail and put out his front paws.
“Ok, I’m sorry! Let’s get it over with. I’m not a lizard or a fart, and you’re not an old hag.”
“Just try calling me that again, and I’ll tie your tongue in a knot!” the elf mumbled, calming down.
“I’ve heard, too, that Rauu are the very picture of imperturbability. ‘Icicles,’ they call them.” Karegar couldn’t resist teasing. The storm had passed, and he once again lay down on his bed of stone, resting his head on his left front paw. Jagirra perched herself in the curve of his elbow
. It made a sort of deep warm seat, and she pet the dragon on the forehead… Karegar couldn’t count the number of times they’d been alone together like this, just talking, or even more often, letting themselves be silent. He enjoyed the capricious woman’s company; apparently, the feeling was mutual. Sometimes, Jagirra would fall asleep in the embrace of his arm-seat, in which case Karegar would feel afraid to breathe lest he wakes the sleeping herbalist.
“Idiots say so, and you’re repeating like a parrot.”
Karegar twisted his neck and looked at her.
“What are you looking at?” Jagirra was braiding her hair.
“You know,” Karegar began, “For a thousand years now, I’ve thought of you as…” here he faltered, not knowing how to continue.
“Cat got your tongue? Spit it out! After ‘old hag’ I can handle anything!”
“As my wife…” the dragon finished his sentence and stuck his head under his wing. If he were capable of blushing, his black scales would have turned crimson.
“Ye-e-es,” Jagirra drawled. “Been thinking about that for a long time, have you? They say dragons don’t suffer from dementia! But I’ve got a loon.”
“That’s just like you,” Karegar lifted his wing a bit and said from underneath his webbed covering as if hoping his wing would protect him. “You chase me off like a country wench does her wandering husband. I can’t even wave my wing one too many times without your permission! Don’t fly there, stop scaring the herds here, ladies are bathing there; don’t peek! What do they call it nowadays? Under your thumb!”
The herbalist bent over in a fit of uncontrollable laughter. Karegar sighed heavily and put his head back down on his left paw. He would have stamped any other woman out ages ago—he had no particular deference for human or elf life—and would have lived peacefully, but all his rage passed and turned into a puppy’s desire to wag its tail before this woman.
“Now that’s a good one! I’ll forgive you ‘hag’ for making me laugh so hard!”
“Oh, thank you. Tell me again why you woke me up?”
Jagirra abruptly ceased her laughter and glanced at the dragon with a serious look. He immediately felt guilty.
“Did you fly to the Bowing slope?” she asked.
“I was hunting.”
“What, you’re too lazy to use your ‘true’ vision?”
“Just tell me what I’ve done wrong.”
Jagirra shook her head. “Some country wenches were gathering berries in the wood, and then you show up with your hunting. Anyway, from your type of sport, Tria, Trog Sosna’s daughter-in-law gave birth right there. It’s clear, you’re the Master and owner of the valley and the mountains around it but couldn’t you have dragged this elk to your cave instead of ripping its head off alive? And then what? If you would look with your true vision, you’d see people and would have thought twice before carving up that elk!”
Karegar cast his eyes down. What rotten luck. But ultimately, he wasn’t a hand-fed pet; sometimes he craved fresh blood. The fact that humans went gallivanting about wherever they pleased was their problem, not his!
“And who was born?” the dragon asked tactfully.
“A boy, they’re naming him after you. There’ll be another Regar in the valley!”
“There’s already at least five. Brog has a daughter called Regara, and I can’t count all the boys by that name!”
“You should be happy! People love you! They call the valley ‘Karegar’s Valley!’”
The dragon winced; the herbalist’s last words cut him to the quick. They dredged up ancient memories from the back of his mind.
“It’s already been called that for a very long time,” he carefully set the she-elf down from the curve of his elbow.
A cave filled with black blood and dead children spread before the dragon’s eyes. The little dragons weren’t yet three years old. They had put his daughters to sleep with black lily dust, then cut their heads off. He found the killers. The Forest Elves hadn’t had time to get far. They hadn’t time to kill anyone else. Karegar set upon the pointy-eared camp like a hurricane of wrath. Irru attacked the camp from the other side. His wife had come back from the hunt and, seeing the demolished nest, tore off in pursuit. Not even smoldering twigs were left of the camp; the wind scattered the thick ashes… Irru, in her grief, lost sight of her senses and two days later was burned up in a violent attack of dragons on the Great Forest. The elves, it turned out, had attacked not only his valley, but other valleys too. Karegar remained alive, but after the attack he lost the ability to wield magic, descending to the level of a third-rate human wizard-wannabe. The war had wiped out the dragon population. The Great Forest ceased to be, becoming an idle wasteland, but the Light Forest remained, for the time being… Karegar tried not to think about what would happen later on.
The last true bloods had left Ilanta. They had left one “minor” working portal, fitting it with “closing” loops, and sealed the rest. What happened at Nelita remained a secret. Why hadn’t the true bloods and the few dragons that had left with them come back? The goddess Nel’s Night Eye didn’t hurry to reveal the secret. The “minor” portal turned out to have a surprise—it could only be opened from Nelita. The tracking beacons would register all attempts to open the portal, but there still had not been a single attempt. One such tracking beacon lay in the dragon’s cave, which had never once lit up green. Inside the portal, no one activated the spell’s security complex, which was set to true bloods. Once every couple of months, Karegar would fly to the portal, as if that would open it and dragons would start flying through the gates. But hope lingered in his soul that someday exactly that would happen.
The war had ended almost three thousand years ago; he had been alone for a long time since. Until one day, Jagirra came to the valley. She managed to rouse the solitary dragon and once more imbue him with the desire to live. Since then, a lot had changed, but his home had not been called “Karegar’s Valley” in almost three thousand years…
“I’m sorry,” the herbalist’s quiet voice called him back to the moment and made him put away his inveterate pain for a time.
“You can’t bring back the past, but tell people not to call the valley that. Tell them I asked…” Karegar stepped from one leg to another and stretched his neck like a dog.
“Okay.”
A slight peep came from inside the cave.
“What’s that?” Jagirra asked, surprised. Karegar jerked the ends of his wings, the dragon’s equivalent of shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t know; I’ll go check it out.”
After a few seconds, the dragon shot out of the cave.
“The tracking beacon! Someone’s activated a portal to Ilanta! I’ll fly over and take a look. I’ll be back by morning.” He threw his wings open wide, pushed himself off the ground with all four paws and rocketed into the air.
***
Four hours later, Karegar was already making his third circle over the bald hill that hid the ancient portal in its depths. He hadn’t seen any sign of digging or attempts to get inside it. Perhaps the magical guard perimeter lost the energy from the spell it contained? Or the digging sites have been masked over with sod? The dragon switched to true vision; there was no magical activity! Why then did the beacon blink? Maybe my tracking beacon’s broken? Little did he know, even activating the exit point portal on Ilanta would trip the beacon. No one had tried to come through from Nelita, but a certain guest was having an unwanted adventure under the hill…
Karegar decided to inspect the hill once more, set a course with his wing, and descended, flying over the very tops of the trees. Something white flickered behind him and entangled his hind legs and wings, sharply pulling him backward. Karegar roared angrily and pressed his wings flat against his back. Breaking branches, he crashed to the ground, which quaked slightly with the blow of the dragon’s body. A bald man in dark garb leaped out of the bushes and ran to where the dragon fell.
***
How much more of this! Th
e lone thought played over and over in Andy’s head. Finally, the slanted tube he had so unfortunately fallen into ended and his legs crashed into a plaster lattice in a cloud of dust, pebbles and dry leaves. He tumbled out into a room of gargantuan proportions.
Flying in a curve for another several feet, Andy landed on his back on the gigantic skeleton of some kind of animal. The bleached bones couldn’t withstand the new load and with a terrible crack collapsed like a house of cards. The cloud of dust that was stirred up as a result covered the former skeleton and the human figure that was trying desperately to extract itself from the heap. A rumbling echo rang through the hall, and it was impossible to sort out the crackle of bones from the sounds of stones that continued to fall from the hole in the wall.
Getting out of the heap and covering his face with what was left of his t-shirt, Andy ran off in the opposite direction of the dust cloud. The adrenaline rush was slowly passing; the hurt and injured parts of his body began to let him know they’d come to harm—in some places, a sharp pain; in others, a dull stinging ache. His whole back from his neck to his tailbone screamed in agony from the multitude of cuts, and a couple of small splinters were deeply embedded in the muscle tissue just above his right kidney.
“Aw man…,” he moaned, almost swearing, and stepping to the side to search for a relatively clean patch of floor. When he found it, he carefully removed his t-shirt and twisted it into a tight whip, laid down on the surface on his stomach, put the shirt in his mouth and, by feeling around, began to extract the foreign objects with his fingers. Tears gushed from his eyes. He was all alone; no reason to be shy.
For lack of alcohol or another disinfectant, he had no choice but to take his chances. He lay down on his stomach, put his t-shirt in his mouth, which soon got all chewed up and saturated with saliva, and put his arms behind his back to extract the splinters with his fingers. Some surgeon I am! After the “surgery,” which seemed relatively successful, he lacked the strength to move. For another twenty minutes, he lay crying. He felt sorry for himself.