A Cruel Tale

by Alex Sapegin

  Karegar was a sorry sight. He looked so helpless. The old dragon turned his head incredulously. His wide-open eyes devoured the sight of the speaker. The lower tips of his wings dipped into the water.

  “But how? Kerr, he’s… really,” Karegar’s face became pensive. The same calm, collected member of the winged tribe was before Jagirra once again. “He takes after me in his looks, and in his personality, he takes after you. If that’s true, then….”

  “That’s right. You were never a strong life mage. Nine thousand years ago at the university, they didn’t teach polymorphism structures and causes, but there are two beginnings to everything that exists: the masculine and the feminine. You need two dragons to do the Ritual.”

  “And you risked it?”

  “I risked it, and now I’m shaking every day—how is he, and what’s happening to him? The astral blow made me worry even more. I know that he’s alive, but that doesn’t make it any easier.” Neither dragon said anything. The Lords of the Sky were thinking their lives over. Each of them had had a life much longer than that of an ordinary human or elf. On the whole planet, only one Rauu could say he was older than the crystal dragon, but that’s only a detail.”

  Karegar moved towards Jaga and covered her with his wing:

  “I’m sorry. Forgive me for hurting you and almost making a mess of things and losing the one thing I care about most.”

  “I haven’t told you the whole truth yet.”

  “You’ll tell me when you’re ready. I lived without it for two thousand years and I can do it for two thousand more if necessary.” Jaga guiltily lowered her head, letting him nibble at her and thereby admitting his dominance, as animals do. “Let’s go home,” Karegar went on. “We’ll have to calm the villagers down because you and I have put on quite a show. Don’t forget to put a binding spell on Kerr. If you feel anything go wrong, I’ll fly to him.”

  The Valley of a Thousand Streams. Karegar and Jagirra…

  The second day, Jagirra couldn’t manage to calm down. Last night she and her spouse woke up from a strong astral blow. Karegar jumped up from the stone bench and dashed out onto the platform in front of the cave, then for several minutes he ran around and craned his neck looking up. The dragon’s aura sparkled and flashed brightly, then slowly calmed back down as if it weren’t an ethereal substance but indeed its own living organism.

  “I thought Kerr was nearby, and I was hearing the sound of wings,” the dragon said, walking back into the cave. Jagirra stopped and listened to her internal voice. Her family totem, covered by her scales, responded familiarly with warmth, and she detected the connection. The warmth flowing from the magical channel told her that Kerr was alive. Karegar waited for the nod, turned ‘round and ‘round in a circle a few times and laid down on the sleeping spot, not forgetting to cover his wife with his wing.

  Jaga couldn’t get back to sleep. Judging by the slight movements of the whiskers on the tip of his snout and the heavy sighs from time to time, Karegar too was far from the kingdom of dreams. As soon as the dawn painted the tops of the mountains in a pink color, the old dragon got up and flew off to meet Gmar, who was on his way back from the market in Gornbuld. The dwarf was to bring a file of newspapers and, as always, the latest gossip and news from the big outside world, as Jagirra had ordered.

  In recent weeks, the inhabitants of the forbidden valley had made their peace with the fact that a dragoness was running the place. Nothing really changed for them: so Jagirra had become a dragon, so what? She was still Jagirra. The countryside village people were simple people, solid hosts with practical skills. The slow-paced way of life didn’t change, which meant there was nothing to worry about. The valley dwellers put their heads together and again reached for drugs and other help at a small house, located in the middle of the forest three leagues from the village. A few of them became even more proud of their herbalist. Dita, the tanner’s son, went about all puffed-up and proud of the fact that his sweetheart was not just the pupil of some village sorceress, but the Dragon Mistress herself. Soon people became fed up at the proud peacock, and a few of the menfolk decided to beat some humility into the arrogant guy, but they didn’t count on the size of their opponent’s fists. Dita cracked his knuckles and clenched his fists, next to which shovels look like children’s toy trowels, and went to meet his offenders. An hour later, a wagon with a draft hass brought the beaten village peasants and Dita himself to the dragon’s taiga house. Dita had gotten it in no small measure from his father Duke. Dorit, a former watchman and a mage who was brought to the valley by Kerr, was in her third month of pregnancy, and according to the dwarfs’ unwritten law, she was forbidden to practice magic before giving birth. Therefore, the fighting cocks were brought to the dragoness. The whole gang of fist fighters gasped, groaned and compared bruises in a spirit of camaraderie. Jaga, who was lying near the entrance, changed hypostasis and began to treat the sick fighters with tinctures and cast healing spells. The herbalist drove Dita out of sight and forbade the apprentice to approach her fiancé until she learned the lesson. The leather tanner’s son was, by nature, not a stupid guy. After wandering through the thickets, he returned to Jaga with a drooping head and sworn to the Mistress that the excess would not happen again. Charda enthusiastically supported her groom and promised to personally look after her over fist-happy chosen one.

  On the second day after the happy occurrence of being rid of the spell, Jaga, for the first time in a few thousand years, tasted fresh meat. She was catching up on her sleep after the long sleepless night when Karegar returned from the hunt and brought half a deer to the cave. She was still ashamed of herself and acted as if she’d never eaten fresh meat in her whole life. Catching the sweet and savory scent of blood, the dragoness pushed her husband aside, grabbed the remaining carcass, and stole it away to the other end of the cave.

  “How’s the deer?” the male dragon asked with a merry spark in his voice. The question went unanswered. Only the crunching and grinding of bones told him that it was tasty. “Do you remember that you got so mad at me about that moose?” The crunching stopped for a moment. The dragoness growled and went back to her feasting. “I hadn’t hunted for three days at that time…,” a light roar and a sudden stomp of the tail was the response to the tirade. “Targ, who am I talking to—can you hear me?” Jaga didn’t react. “And who was it that wanted to give our boy the business for one little ram?” Karegar said, jerking his wings, and walked out of the cave.

  Joking is all fine and good, but behind the old dragon’s demonstrative banter once again, the question “why” was peeking out. An iceberg had taken up residence in the personal relations of the Masters of the valley—it was like a river and the shore, separated in winter from water by the fragile edge of the coasts, but as soon as frost starts pouring in, as the ice begins to grow stronger. Now a narrow facet of fragile fall ice lay between the two dragons. All Jagirra’s attempts to bring back the old Karegar failed. She, like all women, felt very keenly everything that went on with her mate and worried very much that the changes taking place in him lay on herself as a heavy burden of guilt. The poison of betrayed trust continued to eat away at their relationship, like rust eating at iron. Karegar had given his word to wait and wasn’t rushing the moment, not once mentioning in word or deed that he wanted to hear the rest of the story, for which Jaga was grateful to him. And yet she sometimes caught careful glances directed at her, which resounded with the pain of a deep emotional wound. Feeling those glances on her turned out to be hardest of all to bear. It’s hard to know that you won’t be touched nor asked to tell the truth, but that someone’s waiting impatiently for you to be bold enough to reveal it. The old dragon forgave her with his mind, but a resentment had taken up residence in his heart, which gave rise to a feeling of alienation. Two weeks later, the dragoness could no longer hold back:

  “As soon as Kerr gets here, I’ll tell you everything,” she told him one evening. “And then, que sera sera,” she added, just audibly,
mostly mouthing the phrase and lying down. She would not give up; she would defy the circumstances and fight for her happiness.

  ***

  Karegar showed up near evening time and dropped Dorit off, who was holding onto a large bag with a file full of newspapers from the last month. Gmar, as was his habit, had decided to go the rest of the way on his own two feet. Flights on a dragon’s back by no means attracted the merry fellow. Truth be told, he was afraid of flying. The sight of the earth far beneath his feet made him tremble. If the dragon should do a pirouette or any maneuver in the air, his teeth would chatter.

  Dorit wanted to bow, but was stopped by Jaga:

  “No, it’s not worth it. I believe your respect for dragons is quite evident. Don’t bend your back.”

  Karegar was very different from his usual self. Without turning in circles first, he plopped down on the platform and rested his head on the warm stone.

  “What news from the outside world?”

  “War,” the dragon answered instead of the yellow-haired dwarf. A film covered his eyes. While he was flying his rider, she managed to tell him the main news and gossip she heard in the city. “The world’s gone crazy. I think this is only the beginning.”

  “War?” Jagirra asked in disbelief. The dwarf nodded. “Tell me.”

  The news was scary and disquieting. The alliance between Tantre and the Forest was kaput. The Forest Lordships had become thick as thieves with the Patskoi Empire and had formed a military block against the northern kingdoms. In response Gil accepted the gray orcs, settling them in the north of the country and along the coast.

  “Strange how the lords allowed such a blatant disregard for their rights?” Jagirra mumbled pensively.

  “There are no more lords.” Dorit pulled the newspapers out of the sack. Digging through the file, she opened to a certain page and pointed at the headline: “There. The lords and the pro-elf members of the Free Mages’ Guild revolted. The army got the order to destroy the revolutionaries. The lords’ lands were taken to the treasury, the castles were leveled to the ground. Vikings who had taken on the citizenship of the kingdom supported the army. The last centers of the uprising were suppressed in three days. The ones who put up a fight were wiped out along with the castles.”

  “Gil decided not to complicate life for his descendants,” the dragon said. “Apparently he’d long since been thinking of pulling out the infection by the roots, once and for all.”

  “And the Forest, and Pat?” Jaga asked.

  “The Empire has been taken out of the game for a long time,” Dorit explained, her yellow hair flashing. She opened the last page of the newspaper “Kion Times” and began to read the article with the headline in large, bold print so that it jumped off the page. “As a result of excellent military planning and operations, the griffons and the drag wings of the Northern Alliance dealt a blow to the legions of the Patskoi Empire, concentrated in the region of the city of Ronmir. The result of the mass bombardment was the destruction of the hundred-and-fifty-thousand-strong army of the Empire,” the dwarf looked up from the text. “The Northern Alliance is what they’re calling the union of Tantre and the Rauu principalities. Now the wings are headed out to bomb the border areas of the Woodies’ army bases.”

  Jaga changed hypostasis, rolled a stump stool up and settled herself next to the girl. The news was something to think about. Enira, in her letter, had written about a big war. If she threw all conjectures aside, it seemed that this latest flare-up was the harbinger of something much bigger. The king of Tantre wouldn’t invite orcs and Vikings onto his territory just like that. By following the elementary logic, she arrived at the conclusion that the northerners would not leave their homes just for kicks. Jaga leafed through the yellowed pages and thought hard. Karegar looked like a giant clump of anthracite. Only his tail’s twitching from time to time gave him away as a living being. Dorit quietly observed the Mistress’s frantic leafing through the pages. She was afraid to disturb the silence that reigned or interrupt the dragons’ trains of thought. She could tell intuitively that the Lords of the Sky would come to some conclusion which would reveal the big picture, which, for her, remained a well-guarded secret. At some point, the Mistress, who had found something interesting, stopped rustling the pages.

  “Arians,” Karegar’s bass resounded as he opened his eyes and also lifted the translucent membrane from them. “The orcs and the Norsemen are fleeing Arians,” the old dragon put the puzzle pieces together.

  Jagirra did not react at all to what her husband said. The herbalist stood up from the stump, staring into space. The folder of newspapers fell to the floor, showing the article she’d been reading.

  “Carnage in Orten—what are the authorities hiding?” the dwarf read the headline.

  “Karegar,” the elf’s chest was fluttering as if she’d just run several leagues. Her eyes, now very keen, shone.

  “We need to fly to Orten.” Without finishing speaking, she listened to something and turned to the village. Dorit followed the Mistress’s gaze and quietly gasped. Over the forest, at the far village outskirts, an incomprehensible glow erupted. “A portal! Karegar, someone’s opening a portal into the valley! Dorit, quickly!”

  The dwarf hardly had time to react when she found herself on the dragon’s back, who immediately plunged down through the air from the overhang.

  “Come in from the side of the sunlight,” Jagirra cried, holding onto his mane. “Dorit, hold on to me!”

  ***

  Flashing brightly in all colors of the rainbow, the portal opened up its belly, expelling a variegated group out into the locality. There were members of different races and… a female dragon with two dragonlings. The last guest barely had time to step through the hazy border when the three-dimensional window behind her slammed shut.

  “I don’t sense danger,” Jagirra said, looking at the red-scaled member of the winged tribe, covering her young with her wings and feeling jealousy towards her unexpected competition. “Karegar, sit at the edge of the field. Dorit, now’s not the time to follow custom. Better be on your guard, just in case. Who knows what to expect from this interesting group….”

  The dragoness had only just touched her paws to the ground when Jagirra put up a passive magical shield and slid off Karegar’s neck. Dorit darted into the bushes. The shield was a good idea—the two women’s auras and that of the red dragon gave them away as mages.

  The group was indeed interesting. There was a red-headed Norseman, three orcs, and a vampire, all decked out in weapons from head to toe. A few draft hasses were stepping along next to the warriors. The red dragoness added color to the visitors, from under whose wings two curious snouts were peeking out. Jagirra was mistaken: there were three children. A small girl came out from underneath her right wing and hid behind the ruddy Norseman’s back. One of the orcs, the leader, judging by her behavior, stepped forward, took off her satchel, and bowed low to the elf. The herbalist breathed in—a familiar smell. The visitors smelled like dragon, especially the vampire and the little orc girl. The main orc woman took a piece of paper from the pocket of her sack which was folded in quarters.

  “Mistress, Kerr asked me to give you this letter,” the leader extended the paper to Jagirra.

  “You know him?” she asked, taking the message. Her heart was beating fast, and she was becoming flushed.

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t he come himself?”

  “In order to prevent the mages from determining the finish point of the portal.”

  “Makes sense. What does the letter say?”

  “I don’t know, Mistress. Kerr didn’t say anything about the letter until the last minute, on the portal platform. Also, there’s a spell on it that allows only you to open it.”

  Jagirra, barely containing her excitement, took a couple of steps back and opened the paper. Karegar’s head hovered over her shoulder.

  “How about that!” the dragon cried, having finished reading. “I have to count the
cave in the Southern Slopes. I think our son will do what he writes he will.” He too then looked at the guests, his gaze lingering on the dragoness and the vampire. He chuckled and laid down on the ground.

  “Let’s go—we ought not to make the village dwellers nervous with all this uncertainty,” Jagirra said and was the first to set foot on the path that led to the settlement. As silently as a ghost, and not at all from where she was expected, Dorit appeared on the field. “Karegar, are you going to keep lying there?”

  ***

  Frida, stepping carefully along the creaking floorboards, headed towards her bed and, not even getting undressed, plopped down onto the cozy mattress. The young warrior’s shoulders were trembling slightly. She cursed herself heartily. Why? Why had she listened in? Wanted to find out other people’s secrets, did you? Well now you know, don’t you? The vampire wiped away tears and stared through the foggy window, lit brightly by the light of Nelita… curse it all….

  Soon the will have been here for two whole weeks. Tomorrow Lanirra would take her to the enclave. Frai would have his maturity exam, and she’d promised her brother she’d be there. She always kept her promises.

  Frida looked at the sleeping Ilnyrgu and smiled. The orc stayed true to herself. There was a bare blade at the head of the bed and the handle of a combat knife was sticking out from under the pillow. She wore a chain around her neck that bore a glowing stone—a fragment of the statue of Hel. The Wolf was prepared to go into battle at any moment. The vampire overcame the pain in her back and pulled her boots off. She had never run through the mountains in her life so much as she had here. Il put the large statue fragments to good use and set up active guard perimeters and traps in all dangerous directions, using the stones charged with mana as the power source for the magical weaving. The ever-busy orc included everyone in the work, even Tyigu. After they had been jogging about the steep slopes for a couple of days, she procured the aid of a few guys from the village to help carry stuff and called upon Lanirra to fly them around. The red dragoness pitched a fit at first, but one glance from the elf was enough to make Lani obediently lower her head and let herself be used instead of a hass. She was afraid to argue with Kerr’s mother. The elf could show her who was boss.