A Cruel Tale

by Alex Sapegin

  “A kind lady, her name is Lanirra.”

  “Interesting name,” Marika said. “You met a girl?” At that, Timur had a hard time maintaining his inscrutability. Although, Lanirra would have approved of the comparison.

  “I did meet a girl, a little later on. Lanirra is a red dragoness. We were jailed in neighboring cells in a helrat’s prison. Kerr broke us out.”

  “Whaaat?” the listeners said simultaneously. Marika’s eyes got big and round, the scars on Rigaud’s face turned red; he leaned forward resting his elbows on his knees and stared at Timur unblinking.

  “Tell me everything,” he said in a voice that was hoarse from emotion, but at the same time firm, as if he weren’t willing to hear any arguments.

  ***

  “Yeees,” Rigaud drawled, “you really had a good time. Can’t hold a candle to you.” Marika tactfully said nothing. “You said something about a girl? Well? You met a girl?”

  Timur stood up from his chair, tugged his jacket downward and walked across the room.

  “The young lady will be here to study in a couple weeks... I’ll introduce you then.”

  “Oh wow, what secrets you have!” Rigaud laughed. “I’m interested! Is she cute?”

  “She’s cute,” Timur answered calmly, managing not to blush. No one said a word about Frida, and no one mentioned Lubayel, either. “I’m going to go get settled. It’ll be night soon, and I haven’t gotten settled into my room yet.” Timur stopped at the door: “Remember, tomorrow you’re going to have to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”

  “What for?” Marika asked instead of Rigaud.

  “Rigaud, don’t you want to get back on duty?” He nodded. “Tomorrow morning let’s go to the commandant’s office!” Timur said finally and slid out the door.

  ***

  “I’m not going to the commandant’s office,” Rigaud said, the scars on his neck becoming engorged with blood like veins on an arm squeezed in a tourniquet. Something flashed in his friend’s eyes, sending shivers down Timur’s spine. And then he understood the now former griffon rider’s decision.

  “Alright,” he mumbled trying not to show the oncoming bitterness and went to the window.

  “Timur…,”

  “It’s okay,” he said, stopping the unnecessary words with a gesture of his hand. “I get it.”

  “You always were the most understanding, you man of few words.” Rigaud stood up next to his friend and rested his palm on his shoulder. They looked at the city in complete silence, a city wrapped in a shawl of morning fog: a white fog near the Ort and a pink one, tinted by the rising sun, near the rooftops of the Plain. In a little while, the new day would break the milky covering into small patches like rags and make the fog evaporate. But for now, the city was catching its last, sweetest dreams, tucked in under the white blanket.

  Through the open window, they heard the clicking of heels against the pavement. Marika slid out the hotel’s front door and sat down in a carriage awaiting clients. The sleepy driver, covering his yawn with his left hand, bowed at the girl, listened to the address, nodded and took up the reigns. A few minutes later, the fog swallowed up the carriage carrying the bookworm as she hurried off to class.

  “I… I don’t know how to say this…,” Rigaud finally broke the extended silence.

  “You’re afraid!” The answer was a fierce look and despair, splashing in the depths of Rigaud’s eyes. “What of?”

  Squeezing his hands into trembling fists, Rigaud turned away from his friend. The man of few words was right. He was afraid that the pain would return. He didn’t want to be helpless before the circumstances and again be left alone with them, one on one. What had he accomplished in his life? What would he leave behind him? The war had reared its ugly head and showed its toothy grin. Victories are won by pain and suffering, the easiest place of all to lose one’s self. There’s no room in the war for childish games. He’d recently almost remained under the enemy citadel as a cold dead body. The dragon’s blood healed his wounds—what a shame it couldn’t heal his emotional scars. One real battle changed him entirely. No matter what anyone thought, he would go back to the army, but this time come not as a snot-nosed boy, but a fully trained combat mage, capable of defending himself from enemy curses and defending others from them, too. The Imperials owed him, big time. Scary thought—dying without leaving one’s mark. Today he made a decision. It wasn’t easy; it tore his soul in two, but his path was chosen. Timur might think it base, but he didn’t want to be grig, that is, cannon fodder, or an army’s bargaining chip. It would be stupid to mess up his second chance, given to him by the man of few words, Kerr, and an unknown dragoness.

  “I’m going to the rector. I hope she’ll send me back to School. I think that after just a month and a half I can still catch up on my studies. I want to become a real mage.” Timur didn’t say anything. He had learned to hide his feelings very well. His face remained impassive. His aura didn’t betray a single flash. Whatever was going on in his head and in his soul remained a mystery. He could see that Rigaud wanted to say something else, probably something important. Something that would explain or shed some light on his decision, but some internal battle didn’t allow him to speak up.

  “Let’s go then.”

  “Where?”

  “To the School! Where else?! You go see the rector, and I’ll go with my orders to the chancellery. You head downstairs already; I’ve got to go to my room and get the documents.”

  “What the heck do you need the papers for?”

  “On the way, we’ll stop at the bank. I left something there in a safety box. It’s scary carrying something like that on you.”

  “?”

  “Go on now. Half that scariness belongs to you.”

  ***

  Casting penetrating glances at Rigaud Pront von Trand, who was standing at attention, Rector Etran rubbed the Life mages’ official conclusion from the hospital on the front in her hand for a long time. The funny little paper didn’t at all correspond to the healthy look of the former bookworm. Either that or… never mind. The hospital mages wouldn’t write total nonsense. They had grounded the guy for good reason—with wounds like that you can’t fly anymore. It would have all made sense, except that the young man standing in front of her didn’t look at all like an “invalid.” An invalid like that could take on ten Imperial soldiers by himself.

  “I’m listening,” the three-dimensional illusion of a portly lady lit up over the desk.

  “Verona, would you be so kind as to prepare an order to send Mr. Rigaud Pront von Trand to his previous group with the obligation to make up the work he missed in the next three months? Also, please write an order to the chancellery to settle the bookworm in the dormitory, perhaps in his former room.” She turned to Rigaud: “Are you satisfied?” Rigaud smiled. “Don’t over-stretch yourself, you’re not on the parade marching grounds. And please, if you would be so kind as to explain this to me?” The rector’s finger tapped the hospital mages’ conclusion. Master Valett, who was sitting in an armchair in the opposite corner of the office, scoffed. The head of the School punishing mages still bore traces of his burns on his face and arms. The guild agents who had infiltrated the security service hadn’t wanted to give up without a fight and had upped the carnage. The smile on the new student’s face faded away like last year’s snow. “Roi-dert, cat got your tongue?” the rector said, not waiting for a response. “Judging by the army’s Life mages’ conclusion, the entire right half of your body should look like one big scar. My eyes are telling me a different story. Were the mages mistaken?”

  “No ma’am, Madam Rector!”

  “And I don’t think they had any reason to lie, did they?” Rigaud didn’t answer. “If you’d rather not share your secret, that’s your right,” the rector drummed her fingers over the table. She looked pensively at the diagnosis and then looked up at Rigaud: “I don’t dare keep you any longer. Pick up your orders and dorm room assignment from Verona. Don’t forget to
familiarize yourself with the current course schedule and pay the punishers a visit to retrieve the things you left upon fleeing.”

  When the door had closed behind the student, Etran turned to the head of security:

  “What do you think?”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “Really? Just explain it to me, then!”

  “Etran, you’re surprising me!”

  “Alright, alright, you’ve got me. My brain isn’t working at all.”

  “I know just one potion that can heal severe wounds in such a short time….”

  “Dragon’s blood!” the rector realized. “Very interesting. Set a couple of your guys on the young man and order external surveillance. It wouldn’t hurt to get in touch with the Secret Chancellery.”

  “Already done. They told me not to step on their toes. Valett’s last words made the rector think, and think, and think. It was worth listening to the wishes of Duke Drang’s subordinates.

  “No need for external surveillance. Better not tease the Secret Chancellery.”

  ***

  “Well, how’d it go?” Timur darted over to his friend, who had long ago finished his business and had been milling about the rector’s doors for a good hour. Rigaud held the order, sealed with a stamp, under his nose. “Congrats!”

  “No occasion for that,” Rigaud grumbled, gloomy as a rain cloud. “Let’s go for a walk in the park. I’ll tell you along the way.” He took his friend by the elbow and pulled him away from the administration. “It’s not a school; it’s a nest of vipers!” Rigaud said, finishing his story and spitting into the fountain. “The rector won’t back off. She’ll send her watchdog. I should have listened to Marika.”

  Timur, pulling off his jacket and shirt, sat down on the parapet and rested his back under the cool streams of rushing water.

  “Don’t let ‘em get to you. No one will touch you. For better or for worse, we’re friends of a were-dragon, and there’s such a tangled knot of politics tied around him that they’ll be afraid to touch us, at least the rector certainly won’t. I told you about the High Prince, learn to draw your own conclusions.”

  “You think so?”

  “I know so! Let’s go to the dorm. I’ve been given an order to move back into my old apartment, but they warned me I’ll have to evict the new lodger myself. The Targ’s henchmen!”

  “Timur.”

  “What?” Throwing his shirt back on, he turned towards his friend. The skinny guy rubbed at the yellow sand of the path with the toe of his boot and with the expression of a battered dog, looked at the sparkling glints of water in the bowl of the fountain.

  “Will you be my witness?”

  “WHAT??” With a “woosh” a button flew from his shirt and hit the granite bench.

  “Don’t let your mouth hang open like that,” Rigaud joked sadly. “I’m asking: will you be my best man?”

  “Uhhhh...” Timur had fallen into a stupor and couldn’t utter anything intelligible.

  “I proposed to Marika.”

  “Targ! So that’s why you decided to go back to the School! Is that the reason?”

  “She’s pregnant. Two months. The Life mage said it’ll be a boy.”

  “Almighty Twins! Who’s the father?” Timur asked and immediately realized he’d just put his foot in his mouth. The friends looked at one another for a few minutes and then started laughing, louder and louder, to the peaceful sound of the fountain. The bookworms relaxing in the park after class turned and looked with surprise at the military men laughing and patting one another on the back. What was with these grown men? No one could have guessed that these happy twenty-five-year-olds had just turned seventeen. War….

  Tantre. Orten. Lailat…

  “Your Highness, I can’t offer you a cogent explanation of why the Arians stopped destroying the spy birds thrown onto their lands,” the mage from the army intelligence department who’d been invited to the meeting mumbled.

  His Highness Gil II, the Soft Spoken, according to his ingrained habit, stood at a wide panoramic window and admired the city. From the height of the summer royal residence, a stunning picture opened before him. The Middle and the Plain, intersected by the arrows of the avenues and covered with patches of parks, looked as if they’d fit in the palm of your hand. The colored tiled roofs of the buildings ran to the river, stumbled over the main city wall and once again crowded to the very channels that were heading north. The mighty Ort rounded the city smoothly and rushed towards the sea, taking the waters of dozens of streams and tributaries, flowing down from the southern foothills, and giving precious moisture to several wide canals, dug by dwarf masters three centuries ago. The white, yellow, and pink rectangles of the blossoming gardens went up to the horizon. There wasn’t a single cloud in the bright blue endless sky. Instead he saw three combat griffons with riders on their backs. Three dozen half-birds kept a constant guard over the airspace above Lailat. Gil, with regret, turned away from the window and looked at the mage:

  “So, you can’t give me a cogent answer. And who can? What have you come to the palace for? To admire my collection of ancient tapestries? The northern mages quit catching your birds, and you were glad. Drang, what do your analysts suggest?” The head of the Secret Chancellery glared at the representative of the competing office, stood up, and reported heartily:

  “Sire, the analysts suggest that the Arians have finished a certain stage of their activities or what it is they’re preparing. They no longer need to keep it quiet. Any attempt on our part to use counter-sanctions against them would be pointless. In order to clarify whether that’s so, I’ve sanctioned a batch of new feathered spies. General Olmar,” he bowed in the direction of the elderly warrior. It wasn’t worth chastising the man for the slovenliness of his subordinates. The general himself would feed these imbeciles with the rod. “… suggests increasing the grouping of golems on the northern coast. After considering a bit, the external intelligence service, jointly with the ‘shadow dwellers’ of the Rauu principalities created a batch for shipment. Next week seventeen gulls will be released from the islands of the Wolf archipelago onto the coast.”

  “Well well,” His Highness took up the “warm” spot by the window. “Everyone except the members of the Royal Council is dismissed.” After waiting for those in question to leave the room, the king opened a small secret door hidden in the wall near the bar and retrieved a couple of bottles of wine from behind it. “Would anyone like some invigohol?” A clever servant arranged cups with the hot drink and plates of biscuits on the table. Olmar gratefully nodded to his monarch, who was well acquainted with the general’s tastes. The largest cup of the refreshing beverage was placed near him. “Gentlemen, I ask you to speak frankly. The games in front of the public are over; no need to covertly struggle against one another.”

  “I’ll go out on a limb and suggest,” Garad, the first chancellor and a friend of Gil’s since childhood, stood up from behind his desk, not touching the wine or the invigorating broth. “… that we ought to consider reducing the timing of the Arian invasion we adopted three months ago. We don’t have three years. We don’t know how long the Twins have in store for Tantre to remain, but it’s certainly no more than a year. It would be foolish to hope the northerners don’t have any spies here in our lands; the efficacy and effects of their actions in taking over the islands tell us to the contrary. Here the Arians undoubtedly have the advantage. They know everything about us; we’re feeling out our way in the dark. Now we have a unique chance to land our army on the continent. We, and the Rauu, are fighting a war on two fronts. Meriya is not a threat: the old king died, and his sons are tearing the state apart. No one will come to the aid of the gray orcs, and then it will be too late to resist. We should unobtrusively speed up peaceful negotiations with the Empire. Yesterday I was informed that an Imperialist diplomat had sought a meeting with our ambassador in Rimm. The point of the Imperialist’s movements was to secure the peace as soon as possible. The Empire’s
been put in a difficult position. The northern legions, as a result of our efforts, no longer exist. In the east, the ‘belt’ Steppe khans have taken the Tarkel region and landed their aircraft on the Tiger islands. The information about the Emperor’s lack of reserves, leaked by the white orcs through the Ilit sultanate, has yielded its first fruits. The Emperor is prepared to make some concessions and pay out incentives. It’s time to end the war in the south. We don’t have the right to thin out our forces.”

  “You haven’t given the meeting any new information, Garad. According to the latest data from our knights behind the scenes, the Emperor used the Ronmir defeat to the full extent. Yes yes, don’t look at me like that. My fellow monarch, during the ensuing chaos, arranged a mass purge of the dissatisfied elements. All the opposition leaders fell under the executioner’s ax. Until the felling of the dissatisfied is finished, there will be no negotiations, and at the border, the status quo will remain. We can bomb the border territories as much as we like, but as soon as our army moves away from the operational bases, the Woodies will immediately strike at our back. Our attacks on the Forest bases and bombing of those long-eared filth’s army camps have been like a mosquito bite to a barl. Any peaceful initiative on our part will be seen by Pat and by the Forest as a sign of weakness—all will incur all the consequences thereof. That’s why I say we continue to grow our strength and teach the mages. Drang, your thoughts? What can you tell us about the High Prince and the orcish princess?”

  “I’ll begin with the girl,” the principal spy began after swallowing his invigohol. “My people sniffed out the girl before the agents of the High Prince’s grandson did. The Rauu’s scornful attitude towards humans played right into our hand. The spectacle wherein my men pretended to be thick-skulled simpletons came off swimmingly. Our allies still don’t suspect that their secrets are no longer secret. We got a message from trustworthy sources that the High Prince has forbidden anyone to touch the orc girl. If we are planning to restore relations with the Lords of the Sky, we should do the same. The princess has come under the wing of our protege.”