This is a fan translation of Wrong Time for Dragons (Не время для драконов) by the Russian science fiction and fantasy authors Sergei Lukyanenko and Nick Perumov.
I claim no rights to the contents herein.
Note: Footnotes can be found at the end of the chapter.
Chapter 2
Victor lowered the smoking phone receiver onto the table. It all seemed like a bad dream, when the normal world collapsed and did so leisurely, mockingly. Everything he touched died. Pipes burst, TVs exploded, phones burned up… What could possibly have burned in a brand-new imported device? Wiring insulation, powder in the microphone? No, couldn't have been the powder, there could never be so much smoke from such a tiny bead!
But the acrid black smoke continued to appear. He recalled a dumb prank from his childhood years, when he and his friends would dial a random number and, barely restraining their laughter, shouted in a "grownup" voice, "The telephone exchange is on fire, please throw the receiver into a bucket of water!"
But could it be…
Another second, and I'll start to laugh. Hysterically and shamefully laugh with my back to a dying child…
It was a sobering thought. All the nonsense immediately fled his head. Victor turned away from the remains of the phone and approached the girl. She was still conscious, which was a good thing. But why was she so pale then?
Bending over his unexpected patient, he carefully rolled up the bloody sweater. The girl turned slightly, giving him a better view. Good girl.
The sweater pulled up easily, which was simultaneously good and strange. Good because that meant the blood hadn't had time to dry and glue the clothing to her skin, which meant that the wound was recent. Strange because a fresh wound was supposed to continue bleeding.
"How is it?" the girl asked. She did so calmly, without that melodramatic anguish that could be sometimes heard even in the voices of grown women who'd cut their finger.
"Fine," Victor replied, accidentally matching her tone of voice.
He had expected anything. A gaping wound, left by the neck of a broken bottle, or maybe even the lack of even a scratch on her skin. After all, a bloodied girl could be merely a lockpick for a gang of teenage robbers. And he hadn't yet shut the door!
But there really was a wound. A thin cut, almost surgical. No longer bleeding.
"They didn't get me hard," the girl said, as if reading his mind. "At the passage. It didn't hurt, just a little blood."
"At the passage, I see…"
Victor stared at the wound as if entranced. The girl had gotten lucky. Whoever had done it probably used a razor. But the cut was shallow, just barely piercing the skin. And her coagulability turned out to be good. The girl hadn't lost her wits either. Even a grown and fairly strong man like Victor found it unpleasant to go down into underground passages at night. Someone always broke lights, there were foul smells, and shapeless forms of bums preparing for the night in the corners. Someone had attacked the girl. Savages. But the girl turned out to be clever and desperate. She managed to get away, run into the nearby apartment building, and fall down by a door… fortunately not from blood loss, like he'd thought originally.
"It's going to be fine," he said. "Honestly. It's just a cut. There isn't even a need for stitches. I'll sterilize it with peroxide…"
"Okay, Victor."
She was staring in his eyes probingly, seriously. Not at all like a child.
And she also knew his name!
"How do you know me?" Victor asked sharply.
The girl said nothing.
It seemed that this night wasn't about to give him simple answers.
Victor quickly went into the entrance hallway and hurriedly turned the lock. Then, feeling a little embarrassed, he took the keys from the second lock, which he almost never used, off a nail on the wall and turned it as well.
A barricade, huh! A flimsy cardboard door with two pathetic serial-made locks. My home — my castle…
The walls, black as night,
The white pearl of domes,
Let the sorrow fall away,
This castle of our dreams…
Splashing of the azure wave,
Sun's honey flows from up high,
Children of the cloudy land
Start their flight…
Don't think, don't guess,
Which is dream and which is real,
Just remember one thing:
The responsible is in the right…
There's a master in the world of day,
There's an overlord at night,
But the keys to secret fire
Are given to a single man…
…Victor pulled away from the wall. His legs were quivering, but the nonsense had stopped crawling into his head. On some kind of autopilot, he opened the first aid kit hanging in the hallway and took out the plastic bag with bandages.
I'm the one who needs healing…
The girl continued to lie there and stare at him. Victor quickly, trying to forget himself in the simple movements, cut off a length of a bandage, soaked it in hydrogen peroxide, and moved it across the thin cut. The peroxide hissed, eating away the dried film of blood. The girl grimaced.
"How do you know me, eh?" Victor asked, opening the packages with band-aids. Patients needed to be distracted during procedures. But he also needed to know the answer.
"I do," the girl finally deigned to explain. Too bad her explanation failed to provide any clarity.
It took only three band-aids to close the wound. The girl had definitely gotten lucky! The cut was extremely shallow. But why had there been so much blood then?
"Did you get cut with a razor?" he asked.
"No, a saber."
Her eyes were serious, but Victor was learning not to trust the eyes.
"I don't know your name," he said, feeling his blood start to boil. "I don't know where you'd gotten scratched like this—"
"Telle."
"What?"
"That's my name. Telle."
Suddenly Victor understood.
He'd once seen boys and girls like that on TV. Dressed unkemptly, with ribbons in their hair, and wooden, sometimes even metal, swords on their backs. They called themselves "pretty" names like that, got together somewhere in the woods, and engaged in "roleplay." The pretty reporter had been excitedly explaining that this was all the rage among teens, which helped develop alternative modes of behavior and understand the history of vanished civilizations. Victor had felt sad at this. First of all, he believed in the ancient civilizations of dwarves and elves no more than in the empire of Koschei the Deathless or the constitutional monarchy of Baba Yaga [Footnote 1]. And second, the eyes of the kids, who had dedicated their youth to studying the elvish tongue, were glistening far too fanatically for his liking.
This girl, Telle, was probably playing games like that. She had probably wandered with a group of other "elves," painted her nails with golden polish, and fenced with rusty pieces of metal. And now she had a small scar for life.
An excellent explanation. Couldn't think of anything better. And he didn't want to reject simple and understandable explanations in this late hour.
But how did the girl know his name?
Had she seen him at the hospital? He'd worked at the pediatric department on occasion. She could have remembered his face and name and then, having accidentally ended up in his apartment, had taken the coincidence as a given… Damn it, nothing but guesses…
"Telle," Victor said as gently as he could. "I have to call your parents… hmm…"
He glanced at the phone. It no longer produced smoke, but…
"Telle, I'm going to step out, there's a pay phone downstairs," Victor said.
The girl smiled.
"There's nowhere to call."
"Your parents don't have a phone?" Victor realized.
It was well past midnight. Great!
"Get up," he said finally. "Nothing bad happened to you. I'll take you home myself."
Telle seemed to have been waiting for permission. She immediately sat up, fixed up her sweater, and folded her hands on her lap. A proper girl. No one would call her an airhead.
"You can't get to my home in a taxi, Victor," she informed him, speaking in a business-like tone, without any mockery or challenge. On the contrary, she'd said it with gratitude in her voice, as if his offer was a flattering one.
"Then what do we do?"
Deep in his heart, Victor was hoping that the girl would get up and leave. On her own. On foot. No, it wouldn't be right to let a kid, especially a wounded one, leave into the night.
But somewhere deep inside he felt a chill of foreboding. And it told him one thing: if the girl didn't leave his apartment and his life right then and there, then things would get bad. Very bad.
But why were those damned forebodings so one-sided? What would happen if he were to kick the girl out? Would he feel better?
Telle was staring into his eyes.
"We're going to go to sleep," she said simply. After a moment, she added, "I'm small, so we can both fit on the sofa. In the morning, we'll go to my home."
This was the last straw for Victor.
"All right," he said.
He grabbed the girl's shoulder and lifted her off the couch. He wordlessly dragged her to the entrance hallway. Telle's offer had immediately summoned up plenty of unpleasantness in his mind. Maybe something he'd read in the paper, or some nonsense he'd thought up himself. The least unpleasant of them would be to wake up in an apartment that had been cleaned out… then again, did he really have anything worth stealing? This was followed by unshaven denizens of the Caucasus, working irons, arrests for child molestation, and other tabloid niceties.
"Victor!" The girl suddenly twisted out of his grip. She pressed herself against the wall under that damned fuse box.
"Get out, now!" Victor tried to speak angrily and convincingly, but it wasn't working well. This girl simply didn't look like an accomplice to some dirty ploy! Not at all! Even her words didn't seem to hold anything more than an offer to fall asleep on the same bed. "Get out!"
"Why?" the girl asked in confusion.
"Why, you say?" Victor threw a pointed glance at the floor. True, the primary puddle was outside the door, but there were plenty of brown spots right there too. "This isn't your blood! You wouldn't be able to jump around like this, Telle… or whatever your name is!"
"Not just mine," the girl agreed easily. "I was fighting back."
This was just great! Did that mean there was a dead body lying on the floor below?
"He left. And I had other things to do. I was coming to see you."
He was feeling uncomfortable by the ease with which Telle was answering his unasked questions.
"Why me?!"
"Our forebears know one another."
Oh, that damnable slang! Forebears! But now something was becoming clear. Victor quickly went though the list of all of his mother's friends and their once-glimpsed children. He could just barely recall several redhaired girls. He needed to call his mother and ask which of the daughters or granddaughters of her friends liked to play with homemade swords rather than dolls or video game consoles… Yes. Definitely. Call…
"Let's go back to the room," Victor said wearily. "Fine. Okay. I'm an idiot. I'm a trusting cretin. I'm not demanding any explanations or proof. But tell me, please, how to do our forebears know one another?"
The girl grimaced resentfully, "They fought in a war together."
"What?!"
Victor spent the next several seconds trying to imagine his mother or father fighting in a war. One of those "undeclared" ones. A short pudgy math teacher in the jungles of Vietnam or his father with minus seven grasses in the mountains of Afghanistan… A very amusing version!
"Girl, my parents never fought anywhere. Ever. I give you my word. No one even tossed them out of a plane with a parachute behind enemy lines."
"I'm not talking about your parents," Telle countered calmly. "Your grandparents fought."
Victor stopped short. He hadn't known his father's parents well. They died too soon and, if he recalled correctly, something had happened in their life that was unpleasant to remember. But Grandma Vera…
He used to spend every summer with her as a kid. Both then and now Grandma Vera lived in a remote village in Ryazan Oblast. There was a certain kind of people who couldn't handle city life. She even barely made it out to his mother's small town, and then only reluctantly. She'd never visited him in Moscow, even though her health was still excellent. Grandma Vera was tall, without a hint of a senior slouch. Her amber eyes were sharp, and her hair was still black even in her eighth decade of life. There was also something about her that people called "the breed." She'd been barely older than Telle during the war, the real war, the one that people could be proud of. But she had indeed fought. In a guerilla squad. Little Victor, as expected, used to bother his grandmother with questions, "Tell me how you used to kill Nazis!"
And Grandma Vera would tell him. In such vivid detail that Mom, having heard his excited retelling of it, ended up getting into her first and last argument with Grandma. Victor, hiding under the covers, was listening to the fighting in the next room. "Mom, you're insane!" his mother had yelled at his grandmother. "'Don't cut the throat in the direction you're standing? Or you'll get blood on you?' What are you telling to a kid? He'll be traumatized!" Then there was Grandma's voice, as calm and icy… as Telle's… as Telle's! Something about the face of death and the price of life. About how Victor wasn't sleeping and was listening to everything, and that his mother's hysterics would be what traumatized him.
Grandma had always known when he was sleeping and when he was only pretending. And she always called him Victor. No diminutives that any boy hated. He'd felt good and, at the same time, a little scared to be with Grandma Vera. Victor could lie to Mom and Dad, but he'd never tried to do that with Grandma.
"Do you believe me?" Telle asked unexpectedly.
Victor shrugged, then honestly said, "No."
Something in the fuse box clicked, and lights went out.
"Does that happen a lot?" the girl asked curiously from out of the darkness.
"Step away from the fuse box." Victor grabbed her hand and pulled her into the room. "Stay here."
Constantly running into walls, he made his way into the kitchen and started to feel around for a candle. He had enough fighting with the wiring for one night. Tomorrow he was going to call an electrician.
He didn't find the candle right away. Why hadn't he learned to navigate his own apartment in five years? As soon as lights went out, the walls seemed to move in, and the ceiling pressed down on him. He'd never even lived in luxurious apartments…
By the time Victor had returned to the room, covering the flame with his hand, Telle was no longer at the threshold. She was sitting on the couch, pensively flipping through the Bear magazine. The magazine had previously been on the bookshelf, by the way.
"Very funny," Victor said, placing the candle on the table. "All right. It's almost two in the morning. So you're staying."
"Thank you," the girl said.
"You'll sleep there, and I'll lie down on the floor. In the morning, I'll take you home."
"Promise?" Telle asked in such a demanding tone, as if Victor had lured her into his apartment and wasn't letting her leave.
He had to take a few deep breaths before answering… feeling all the while that he was doing something incredibly stupid.
"Yes. I swear."
"I believe you," Telle agreed. She set aside the magazine and watched as Victor took spare blanket and pillow out from the wardrobe, lay them down on the rug, in a corner that had long ago been set aside for crashing friends.
Thankfully, she didn't offer to help, as Victor was ready to explode.
"My bed is the saddle of my steed," Victor said gloomily, lying down on the blanket that had been folder in half.
"You can ride a horse?" Telle perked up.
He didn't even bother answering. He got up and reached for the candle. Already squeezing the tiny petal of the flame with his fingers, he saw out of the corner of his eye that Telle was pulling off her sweater and had nothing underneath.
Hell! It was either utter innocence or cynical depravity. Telle was at an age when such behavior did not yet indicate an unequivocal proposition… but no longer meant absolutely nothing.
He thought he wouldn't even fall asleep that night. But sleep came as soon as Telle was done fussing about on the couch. As if nothing strange had happened, as if he was sleeping in complete safety and solitude.
Victor dreamt of a dying horse, a beautiful white steed, lying on green grass. The saddle, made of metal rings, was filled with short thick arrows. The horse was shuddering, lifting its white head with a bleeding round wound in its forehead. Its sky-blue eyes held humanlike pain. Victor bent over it, passing his hand over the crest. Then he slit the horse's throat with a short wide blade.
From the opposite side, as Grandma Vera had taught him.
There was grace in her movements, the kind humans did not possess. Loy Iver, the leader of the Cat Clan, touched a thin finger to some golden powder, carelessly poured into a rough-hewn wooden bowl. A nice contrast between luxury and simplicity… if one forgot that pink trees did not grow in the Middle World.
"You're starting to look like a doll," Hor commented from the pool. "Stop painting yourself, Loy."
The woman seemed not to have heard him. She swept her finger under her eyes, leaving behind a glittering golden trail. Her face, painted with sapphire, gold, and silver, was indeed starting to look doll-like. Her dark blue eyes, golden hair, and matte white skin, all that had been caricaturedly underscored with the same colors.
"Doesn't your skin itch from all this crap?" Hor asked, raising his voice in irritation.
"It does."
"Then stop putting more on."
"Beauty is more important."
Hor snorted. He was either laughing or making an indignant sound.
"Why do you need this, Loy?"
"What? The ball?"
"No. The mocking gazes of our fools, the false compliments of the guests…"
"And the passion in the eyes of young men…" Loy whispered softly.
"Slutty cat," Hor said. It wasn't an insult, merely a statement of fact.
"Hor…" Loy turned away from the mirror and walked up to the pool. "When a woman is seen only as a pretty painted fool, it's easier—"
He splashed water at her. As if playfully, but knowing well how much Loy hated it and how easy it was to turn a complex pattern of colorful powders into dirty lines. Loy avoided the water and shook her head.
"Fine. I understand. I promise, Hor, that today I won't be staggering and laughing after two glasses of wine. And I won't be making out with the horny mages of other clans in dark corners either."
Hor looked at her dubiously from the warm, steaming water. He was huge, muscular, and every movement gave away the warrior in him. He was as much not lacking in female admirers as Loy did in male suitors. His right to be Loy's boyfriend had been confirmed by spring bouts for ten years in a row.
And yet was jealous.
He couldn't not be jealous. Loy, both airy and faithful, capable of both dancing until she collapsed and spending weeks studying semi-decayed magical texts, tossing away the clan's gold on a whim and simultaneously ruling the same clan with an iron fist, gracefully navigating between the clan communities, which were constantly ready to go at one another's throats, remained an eternal mystery. Her dark blue eyes could go from being bottomless to completely impenetrable, like black stones under still water, especially when she was handing out a death sentence. Loy knew how to walk through a room, wearing anything from a translucent ball gown to being wrapped in black from neck to toe, to cause all men to catch their breath, their mouths to fill with hungry saliva, and their minds barely holding back the assault of their maddened flesh, rising up from the depths of passion. In those moments, Hor was the closest he ever had been to true madness, on the threshold of a murder mania.
And Loy seemed to be perfectly aware of that. Despite this, she enjoyed teasing him, playing with fire, balancing on the edge, hanging on by a thread; in fact, this was the essence of what was called the Spirit of the Cat: to always stay on the edge, to slide on the crest of a wave, avoiding involvement and getting pulled into things. The Cats were the foremost schemers in the world. And Loy was the best of them all. Rumors went that the Cats could have even found a way to deal with the Naturalborn; and some went even further, insisting that they could betray them at any moment, whenever it became convenient, or maybe the betrayal had already happened. Naturally, no one had ever been able to find any proof of that, and the Cats didn't seem to care what was being said about them. Moreover, they would often be the first to laugh at the jokes at their expense. In fact, they were known to be the authors of some of the wittier ones.
They were also known for their balls, which featured all manner of food and entertainment. In accordance with unwritten but strictly adhered to rules, no one ever settled scores at the balls, and members of warring clans could speak with one another calmly, without going for their weapons. Somehow, everyone almost immediately forgot about all grudges and insults at the Cats' balls.
Squinting slightly, Loy threw Hor a carefully measured stare. Today she really wasn't in the mood for flirting. Something bad had happened to the Fire Clan. Normally, they would be some of the first to show up at her balls. But none of them were present at this one. A pale-looking young man with a crimson scarf on his left sleeve was standing alone next to a wall, and that was it. At least that oddity was the only thing so far, as the other usual visitors were already present.
Loy Iver's ballroom was typical for the forest rulers. Magic had turned an ordinary oak tree into a gigantic colossus, truly "holding up the heavens," rising far above the misty tops of the Singing Forest. The branches of the lower canopy came all the way down to the ground, intertwining so strongly that they formed actual walls, no worse than those of a fortress. Each branch was as thick as an ordinary hundred-year-old oak tree.
Iver had taken care of the rest. An icy spring sprayed from under the giant's roots; like all Cats, Loy wasn't too fond of water, but the crystal droplets on the green vegetation were so beautiful in the light of the enormous hearth that she couldn't help herself.
Winds roamed freely under the dark green (or, depending on the season, golden) foliage. Loy remembered how much she'd had to convince the famous Ritor to do it. The Dragonslayer spent a long time denying her request, but finally gave in and cast the necessary spell. Although, after that, he stopped appearing on her balls for some reason. Too bad. Iver was ambitious. Her predecessor had done the "fire dance" with Kaedron himself, Kaedron the Overlord, when the then-young Dragon visited the Singing Forest. Loy's grandmother, Iver I, had managed to get a Naturanborn prince, captured in a random naval skirmish, to one of her parties. The prince was brought by the Airy Ones, they'd lost three of their best mages in that fight and could barely stand, but Grandma got what she wanted and the memory of the "ball with the Naturalborn" was still alive. Unlike the prince, of course.
Oh, such intrigues were woven here, such clever combinations were born out of nothing, such associations, pacts, and alliances were made, only to vanish several months later like ghosts, turning into completely different axes, unions, and leagues! So much skill and cunning were required to "constantly stay in the middle, which also staying outside"! The clans had fought off the Naturalborn twice, and the first time was a real war; but the MAIN BATTLE—back in the past, "when the Keeper himself was young," as the Dragons used to say–had remained lost. The bitterness of defeat had given rise to bitter shoots. Ever since the day they found themselves in the Middle World, the clans had always stood on the very threshold of a bloody overall feud. And maybe, had they split into two relatively equal camps, that would have happened. But in the ancient times it had been prevented by the Dragons—Loy wasn't afraid to call the lords of old by name, she didn't believe in the evil magic of sextagrammaton—and then they, the Cats, were left alone. Not many people knew who exactly had ended the life of the last of the Masters; Loy did know, of course.
Yes, yes, it was them, the Cats, who had probably prevented the start of a big war, Loy thought lazily. Let the best fighters of Water and Fire dispute with one another over the girls of her clan rather than methodically rape them, after gutting the competition. Let… then again, it didn't matter. The Cats were alive and prosperous, they were feared and respected, respected on the level of the four Elemental clans, who had stood between the Totem clans and the Winged Masters since time immemorial. Even the Tigers, who were feared in close combat, had recognized that it was best not to mess with the Cats…
Meanwhile, it was fall in the enormous ballroom, and the eye rested, enjoying the sight of the dim and deep gold on the endless carved leaves. The last of the guests were coming in. Loy carefully pulled a branch aside. An excellent picture opened from above: the angular black capes of the men, decorated with flickering diamond twists, the many colors of women's outfits, from one woven of topaz strands—probably ones made of the actual stone rather than fabric—and worn by Kanyan Tai, the most scandalous and beautiful lady of the Earthen Ones, from an entire wave of fluttering silk the color of an azure sea (was that someone new from the Watery Ones? Interesting, she'd never before seen or heard about her… Loy felt herself wounded: how could such a beauty have remained unknown to her, Loy Iver, the leader of the Cat Clan?!), to the petals of living fire, waterfalls and streaming cascades, or to the utter lack of any clothing among the proud Panthers, who despised shame and social conventions. The gleaming of necklaces and tiaras melded with the soft glow of crystal dew, which Loy had splashed all over the room's living walls ahead of time. Loy took another look at the young Watery girl and shook her head. Why hadn't she known? What was she paying her informers in all the clans for? Now she wouldn't have time to find clothes to contrast the beauty's blue silk. Except maybe a strict hunting outfit? She'd have to think about it…
The haughty Leopards, who ignored luxury, second armorers of the Middle World after the dwarves, in straight snow-white outfits. The calm, phlegmatic, but unstoppable when enraged Bears, who, like elves, preferred green and brown colors, with thick golden chains made of raw nuggets; the Wolves, always restless, always ready to attack, were dressed in all shades of grey; the unflappable Peregrines, and many others from the Totem clans.
Apart from the rest, in honored places closer to the grand table, guests from the four Elemental Clans conversed leisurely. In fact, only the Earth Clan, whose people loved feasts of all kind, had come in its entirety; only two were here from the Air Clan, and just the boy with the crimson scarf from the Fire Clan; the Water Clan was present in greater numbers, and the lack of top personas was made up for by the charming debutante, who already had her own retinue of suitors, who wanted to find their place in her coveted ballroom book.
Loy felt worried. Something was wrong. There had never been so few Elementals at one of her balls. Was it a power play? She hurriedly went through all the most recent mishaps in her head, finding nothing serious enough to result in such a sharp response, which was almost equivalent to cutting off diplomatic relations and declaring war!
Loy's eyes darkened. She needed to call Hor. Send out more scouts. And… even though she'd promised not to do that, she would have to give out a few purely businesslike kisses in dark corners… and maybe even more than kisses.
And then… then the branches hiding the entrance suddenly shook and moved aside, as if in terror. A cold dark wind passed through the room, putting out the flickering multicolored flames in gleaming lanterns. Several figures appeared in the oval passage, Loy recognized the aura of Air, which couldn't be confused for anything else, from a distance, but this one was also, as if for show, cut through with a line of boiling blood.
The sign of the Dragonslayer. Which could be concealed but never lost, stolen, faked, or taken.
Ritor had come to Loy Iver's ball.
The famous mage was alone. Next to him, carefully staring away, walked the best of the best fighters of the Water Clan. Headed by their leader Torn. He was the only one looking straight into Ritor's eyes. Based on their expressions, they were speaking of nothing more serious than the weather. Nothing was being reflected in their aura, both were far too strong to let something of their actions, words, or especially thoughts slip.
But Loy Iver wouldn't be Loy Iver if she didn't immediately sense something wrong. Something truly awful had happened. And now Ritor was here… what next? Was he a harbinger of war, the same internecine war the Cats had spent so long preventing? She needed to know. And also why no one had come from the Fire Clan.
Ritor barely remembered how he'd made it out of that damned place. All of his companions were dead, and who knew what the Water mages, no less skilled than Ritor himself, were doing to their bodies at that very moment? Whispering something into the ear of the younger Klatt brother, who had died from terrible thirst? Probably promising him plenty of gentle, cool, delicious water, rolling down his throat like a ball of ice; and, to be fair, no one could possibly blame a corpse because his own dead flesh had turned out to be so much weaker than his spirit.
But he, Ritor, had survived. And now it was time to think about revenge. Those who had thought up and done this evil deed had to die. Their deaths wouldn't bring back his fallen friends, but maybe it would serve as a lesson to others.
Time flew, the zenith of his day's Power was near, but Ritor stubbornly continued to walk, moving straight across the rough terrain. This land had been burned so much by that ancient war that no humans, dwarves, elves, or any other denizens of the Middle World had ever returned here. New forests had arisen in place of those incinerated by magic, and only occasionally one could see the remains of ugly bald spots, covered in white mold—these were the sites where the combatants had made use of the Life Destroyer, the most terrible poison ever conceived by the clans' black alchemists…
The edge of the Shaded Woods touched upon the eastern reaches of Loy Iver's lands. The Singing Forest had strangely enough not been hurt at all, even after finding itself at the edge of the furious battle. Even here, Ritor thought gloomily, they can thank the famous Spirit of the Cat, the unseen protector of that clan…
Suddenly he remembered that he could still make it to the ball. Loy, with the kind of insistency that deserved a better use, kept bombarding him with invitations, despite the fact that he, Ritor, had always thought of balls as idle vanity and nests of debauchery.
The mage lifted his gaze to the sky. He was likely far enough away, plus the power of Water was seriously weakened in this hour. Shifting his shoulders and feeling the familiar singing of the wind behind them, he pushed away from the ground and soared. It was so easy… if only a portion of this power had been with him at dawn…
Today he would go to the ball. He would find Loy, even if he had to interrupt her orgasm for that. He would force her to tell him all the rumors and question all her spies. She would tell him everything. For some reason, Ritor had no doubt that he would be able to learn from the Cat who was behind this betrayal, he didn't believe that the experienced Fire spellcasters had so easily given in, even if they were caught unawares.
Besides, he also wanted to look into the eyes of those members of the Water Clan who would dare to show up to Loy's ball after everything that had happened.
"Nice meeting you here, Ritor," came a voice, as soft and gurgling as an icy spring.
The leader of the Water Clan stood, wrapped in his marching cape. He was calm, with his head raised, looking without a challenge or mockery, with nothing but the usual social courtesy in his eyes, as if they hadn't fought in the castle ruins.
"You must be joking, Torn," Ritor knew how to control his voice and face no worse than his enemy. "If not for this ball…"
"I understand," Torn replied without a smile, He was tall, very thin and seemed fragile, but Ritor knew full well how deadly this delicate mage could be. "I would probably do the same in your place."
"Then what do you want?"
"To talk. Ritor, you won't be leaving this place."
Ritor felt a chill run down his spine. What? Could it be?..
They passed the hallway. An enormous chamber opened up (they'd really outdone themselves here, although it was a little too elvish in style), a finely-dressed crowd stood near tables with food, there was a large orchestra, tuning odd-looking wind instruments (for some reason, the Cats refused to deal with strings and keyboards), and all that was done in a crystal dew gleam, in the deep gold hue of the foliage, in the light breathing of the refreshing wind…
And in the gurgling of flowing water. All the Elements were presented in equal measure in Loy's ballroom.
"You won't leave Loy's palace," Torn repeated insistently; his pointed chin kept making strange complex movements, as if the Water wizard was very uncomfortable in his loose blue collar. "You must understand. Things have gone too far to worry about keeping some foolish traditions. Your choice, Ritor: peace or traditions. We can't let you leave, even if we have to spill blood on the Cats' territory."
"Every single clan is going to turn on you," was all the Air mage could say.
"You're mistaken." Torn remembered to politely nod and smile to the people they were passing, as well as complimenting the ladies. Ritor plodded alongside him, gloomily staring at the floor. "You're mistaken, Dragonslayer. Far from every clan. There has not been and still is no unity; and we'll find the right words if someone dares to demand an answer. Your friends will try to take revenge on us, that's true; but we'll find a way to reach an agreement with them. Although," he produced a forced sigh, "we will never be able to return here. Then again, this will still be true if you complete your plan and summon a Dragon into our world."
"You can't summon a Dragon," Ritor said with a dull sorrow. "He will appear on his own when the time comes…"
"We've heard that already," Torn countered mockingly. "Honestly, Ritor, we and you have the same goal. If we cut through all the grand words, you also strive for power. For unlimited power over the clans of the Middle World. And you believe that, by gathering as many allied mages as possible, you'll be able to somehow convince the Dragon that you're… let's say useful. A very sensible plan, I must say. The Winged Masters have always rewarded loyal service, although they also despised traitors. As do we, by the way. Well, why the jerking? Do you want to slap me, just a regular slap without any magical tricks? The truth can bear it, Ritor."
"What do you want, Torn?" Ritor was known for his restraint. But this time he had to use every last ounce of it.
"I'm just enjoying the look of your warped face. I'm insulting you, laughing in your face, and all you can do is helplessly grind your teeth. Because both you and I know that everything I have said is true."
"You're lying, Torn," Ritor said indifferently and with a sudden weariness. The indifference was difficult for him, but the leader of Water did not need to know that. "You know that I've never lusted for power, even though, the Winds know, I could have. And you know that only a Dragon can save us from the Naturalborn invasion. Especially if it's being led by a Created Dragon."
"We have an answer to their Dragon, Ritor. Have you really forgotten?"
"I'm too old. I've used up everything I was given. And who really knows whether our Slayer will succeed, Torn? Who knows what the Naturalborn will put into their monster? Everything is far too serious this time. Only Power. Pure Power, that is what can save the Middle World. So why are you trying to stop me? Are you afraid of my 'dictatorship'? Nonsense, you're far too smart and have been feuding with me for far too long for that. Or is there something jingling in your pockets from the homeland, Torn?"
"You mean to ask if I've been bribed by the Naturalborn?" he laughed without a hint of being insulted. "Well, I doubt my word means anything to you, but I'll say it anyway. No, I haven't been bribed. I just know too well what the Dragons are like."
"So do I," Ritor said dryly. "I remember the anger, the fury, and the heartlessness of the Masters. That's why I agreed… back then. But one can't kill all the Power in the world. And one shouldn't, probably…"
"The Water Clan will never again submit to another's hand, no matter how kind and merciful it seems at first," Torn said seriously. "Be it the Naturalborn, the Masters, or the best of us mages. Remember that, Ritor. We will fight. Because of that we have tracked down and captured the Fiery Ones, spilling their blood. Because had you managed to make an agreement with them, the new Dragon, powerful, nigh-invulnerable, would have lain claim to the throne. Yes, we summoned a Slayer! He's already on the way. So, Ritor, even if your plan succeeds—by some miracle, since you will die, the entire ballroom is surrounded—there will not be a new Master over our land. Have I made myself clear, venerable Ritor?"
"Crystal," the wizard replied.
"Well then," Torn made a grand gesture, as if he was the host of the ball, "take advantage of the moment! Eat, drink, and be merry, for this is how a true mage should leave this life, in the joy of spirit. And, a piece of advice, go to the girls. These kitties are… mmm!" He clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes, as if a seller at a slave market. "I think your success is guaranteed, just don't ruin your loins too early." The leader of the Water Clan suddenly broke off and stepped aside.
Only then did Ritor realize that the entire ballroom was staring at them in horror.
Footnotes
1) Koschei the Deathless and Baba Yaga are characters in Slavic fairy tales. Koschei is a lich who can't be killed and is unambiguously evil. Baba Yaga is an old witch who is sometimes villainous and sometimes helpful to the hero.