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.

Chapter 19

This probably wasn't a real dream in the true meaning of the word. More like unconsciousness, a long fall into darkness. A fall that ended with the familiar twilight lighting.

Victor wasn't surprised by Glutton's appearance in the least.

He was more surprised by the fact that he hadn't appeared on the seashore as before. For the first time, Victor found himself right at the foothills. As if pulled out by an unknown force. The matte translucent slopes were glowing with an inner light of some kind, while the air smelled of sulfur and gasoline.

Could this be the Dragon Isle?

No, probably not. He felt the same intoxicating lightness as in all the other dreams. Neither Telle nor Loy were nearby…

The host of the dreams nodded in approval while looking at Victor. Then he stared forward at a giant crater that was covered in thick milky white smoke and muttered, "Not much time left. I'm surprised myself at how little…"

Victor didn't reply. He was looking at the white smoke floating among the facets of the gray translucent mountains. The smoke was rising from the funnel in thick white layers, spreading, throwing out narrow tentacles to the sides, as if probing the surrounding world. One such flexible white probe reached for Victor… then it twitched cautiously and sprung back.

"The stew is done." Glutton coughed. Hie voice was now dreamy, a little languid, as if he was a pampered aristocrat reminiscing about social victories. "So much effort! No, you're not going to believe it… The Exodus, yeah, it was a long time ago. In those day… well, you get it."

"No."

Glutton threw a quick glance at him, then shook his head, "You do, don't lie to me. When the people were changing their views… when the Worlds were splitting. You think it was easy for everyone? You think they forgot? Maybe it seemed at first it would be for good. But no! Everything it connected, Victor."

He wasn't surprised that Glutton knew his name.

"So many centuries…" Once again, Glutton changed his tone, this time it was full of melancholy and sadness. "And it's always the same! When the mages left back then, took the coast, called humans and elves to order — and nothing changes! Yeah, it was nice, it was their time. I get it! But enough is enough! New time means new songs! Right?"

Victor was silent. The while smoke was pouring heavier and heavier. The ground shuddered slightly under his feet.

"Masters and slaves, heroes and cowards, gallant knights and vile traitors. Love and hatred, good and evil…" Glutton spat on the ground. "Enough. It's about time. Like when you were living in the Underside… yeah, I know everything, quit looking at me like that! Did you care? Tell me. Did you believe in fairy tales?"

"No."

"That's good!"

"I didn't believe in anything."

"That's my point!" Glutton threw his hands up. "Can't do it anymore! Changes are coming, Victor!"

"Are you sure?"

"Oh yeah!" Glutton placed his hands on his gut and stared at the roiling smoke in satisfaction. "So much has been put in, if you only knew, so much has been gathered, scraped up, every crumb went into it."

"Is that a Dragon?" Victor asked.

Glutton was silent, then nodded reluctantly, "Yeah… that's it…"

"And all that for a war with the Middle World? For a handful of mages that are already killing off one another?"

"A Dragon isn't a tank that moves ahead of infantry, Victor. A Dragon is a symbol. A banner. The concentration of Power. There was a time when man believed in himself, was ready to challenge the entire world… all the Worlds. That time has passed. You yourselves slew the Dragons. And nature… it abhors a vacuum. Sure, you're different now. Electricity isn't a dwarven secret to you, it's commonplace. You're not afraid of your rulers, you just despise them. You've burned the Dragon out of you, Victor. Burned him away entirely!"

"All of us?"

"Don't know." Glutton slumped suddenly and sighed. "Sometimes it feels like all! No one cares, no one wants to raise the sword and step against the ruler! Why? Everyone knows that no man is an island, no one wants challenge fate, best to get the crew together, bare your teeth, and walk around as one… All chilling together… but beyond them are empty buildings, dead souls, burning cities, they scream at night without knowing why… There's no Dragon in your soul, no enemy to raise your sword against…"

Glutton coughed, then added in slight embarrassment, "The sword is just a figure of speech… you understand."

"What about your Dragon? The Created Dragon."

"Oh!" Glutton raised a finger and wagged it at Victor. "Picked up a lot, eh? Passed through the elements, got some knowledge… It's going to be different, Victor, different. You don't challenge it, even if you hate it. You don't serve something like that out of love or fear, only because the moment is right!"

Victor could only chuckle, while Glutton sighed, "Are you trying to say that there will still be some to go against it, with a Dragon in their soul?"

"Yes."

"Tell me…" Glutton peered into Victor's face with hungry curiosity. "Tell me, is it easy to kill a Dragon?"

"Difficult. You have to… you have to almost be a Dragon yourself."

"Exactly," Glutton nodded. "It's not easy to fight Power incarnate. You have to, at the very least, be equal to it. And also… do you know what else you need?"

"Hatred." The word was hard to form and speak.

"Right!" Glutton lifted a finger. "No matter what, the Dragons were weaker in that respect. Fury, rampage… but they were still afraid of pure destruction. They loved life too. Loved it a lot…"

"And this one?"

Glutton thought for a moment.

"How to put it simply… for you. Well, take a herd of horses. And wolves. Some they can get, and others give them a hoof to the head. And now take a herd of sheep and…"

"And a dog."

"Sure. It might keep them safe… but it still likes meat." Glutton laughed. "Except it's a lot more comfortable for the sheep to be with a dog than with a wolf. Less blood, and they feel safer. Just graze and fatten yourself up. And it's not a sheep's business to know what the shepherd feeds the dog."

"People aren't sheep."

"Are you sure about that?" Glutton shrugged. "Maybe you know better… but I doubt it. When everyone is screaming…" He caught his breath and began chattering in a high-pitched voice, "This is ridiculous, one thing after another, fight your destiny, defend yourself, time to live, be kind, improve yourself…"

"Quit clowning around!"

"Who, me? No, Victor. I'm just repeating. Everyone's tired, see? From the fighting, the struggle, from the need to either accept being a slave or be willing to challenge. No one wants that anymore! So… this means that it's time for a new Dragon to come. One that is good, kind, unnoticed. A shepherd. When the people put on sheep's clothing on their own, even a wolf will agree to do some barking. Because it's good deep inside…"

His voice drowned in a loud roar. The gray mountains shook. The smoke rose like a fountain, filling half the sky.

"The wait is over," Glutton said cheerfully. "He's coming! The Dragon is coming! The Created Dragon!"

"It not over yet!" Victor grabbed Glutton by the shoulder and shook him. "Hey! If there's a Dragon, then there will be a Slayer!"

"Who?" Glutton asked in amazement. "You?"

"Maybe me!"

"So what? Meet it, Victor! Come to face it! And I'll take a look! The Slayer can only destroy, not protect! Go ahead, slay the Dragon, try it! But what are you going to do with those who are already used to living under watch? They're all here, Victor! They're a part of the Dragon! The world has become empty to them, and they're only afraid of their own dreams. They like it under the steel wing!"

The white whips of the smoke were dancing, twisting into hazy figures. He felt that if he really squinted, he might be able to make them out.

A hazy, undulating shadow was getting closer, very near now, but if he looked straight at it, then it dissipated, melted away, leaving only a sensation of an alien, caustic, and mad gaze… Something spinning, rushing, crushing, and burning — nothing but pain and the howling of terror… Ghostly castles, cloudy cities in smoke and themselves made of smoke, with incorporeal spirits walking the streets… Walls, walls, endless walls — a foggy cage, a sucking funnel, a prison solitary…

"You're the ones creating us, Victor! Calling us from the Underside, beckoning! So we come! Now is the wrong time for Dragons." Glutton peered into his face. "Wrong time! The Middle World will be whatever you want it to be! There… there is where you go…"

A warm crimson light flowed from the funnel. The clouds of smoke were now painted with cinnabar. Something appeared for a moment — orange and red, like fresh lava. His hand slipped to the hilt of his sword.

"It's not too late, Victor!" Glutton pushed him towards the funnel. "Everyone is here! All those who are lost in their loneliness; all those who are tired of their fears; all those who burned their souls — they're all here! Join them!"

Victor was pulling his stubbornly resisting sword out. And the lava kept on flowing…

Was it lava, though?

A body, one that was amorphous, fiery, the colors of congealed blood. The paws were scaly steel, the mouth was a burning crater. The glassy gleam of round unblinking eyes. The dragon was enormous, clumsy, it twisted, pulling the dark canvasses of its wings onto the surface.

"Well?" Glutton asked fervently. "Are you with us?"

The Dragon opened its maw. Teeth gleamed, shining tusks that belonged on the bucket of a mining excavator. A hot haze rolled over the ground. A paw reached out towards Victor, leisurely, without any threat. As if inviting him to step on it and forget himself, fall into a deep sleep in the gentle warmth of the Dragon's insides, under the watchful gaze of attentive eyes…

Going against something like that with a sword?

The world shook and changed. It flowed to the sides, as if the view had changed, and Victor was now looking at a convex mirror. The ground was falling away. Glutton had turned into a tiny figure under his feet.

Under the paws that were the size of those of the Created Dragon.

To fight a Dragon, he had to become one.

Such was the path of the Slayer.

Victor screamed in the wave of blind fury, in the familiar thirst of battle. A wall of flame struck, scattering the smoke and flowing over the Created Dragon.

It roared in reply.

"Well!" Glutton squeaked from somewhere far below. "Go on!"

The Created Dragon soared into the sky. In a halo of flame, in gusts of hot wind, shaking the stone crumbles off its dark wings that were as heavy as lead. Its unblinking eyes were burning with mockery.

Victor lifted off the ground.

He wasn't surprised that he could fly, and not like before, on the wings of the wind, but on his own wings, on flexible rainbow flesh that crushed the air. His body was now enormous, filled with incredible strength. A blast of air knocked Glutton off his feet, and he rolled, continuing to shout, "Fight! Fight it, Slayer!"

A viscous jet, not pure flame, but boiling pitch, condensed gasoline. The Created Dragon almost spat, casually tossing a flaming shot at Victor.

It was fine…

The flame was torn off by the wind. They soared higher and higher. In circles, keeping their eyes on one another.

The Dragon and the Dragonslayer.

What had Glutton said? Become one of us?

Not only, came a voice in his ears. If you don't want to, become it yourself.

Become what?! Victor shouted soundlessly.

A dust devil appeared far below them, around Glutton's tiny figure.

The Created Dragon, came a laconic reply. The one who will accept and embrace all. And calm everyone down. A sheepdog.

Even Glutton's speech mannerisms were now different. The silliness and the buffoonery were now gone.

Victor didn't reply. His eyes were staring at the Creator Dragon's iron body that was measuredly flapping its heavy wings the color of naked lead. Suffocating hatred rushed outward in a stream of furious fire. Air itself flared in its path; the tight lump of a water whip was gathering over his bent dorsal crest; and below, the firmament itself rumbled, turning, tearing itself out of its age-old dens.

The wrath of the elements was with him, Victor of the Underside. Victory to the Dragonslayer!

The triumphant flame struck the underwing of the Created Dragon. The plate wing rose awkwardly, and the iron beast fell down. Its throat—a white-hot crater that led straight to hell—produced a dull roar; its glassy eyes burned inside. Its long tail made of armored joints clicked, folding and straightening again; its maw opened wide, letting Victor, soaring higher, see the dark abyss of the throat, leading into Nothingness.

Before you recover, creature…

Victor had no idea that hatred could be so sweet. There wasn't and couldn't be anything sweeter in the world. Not wine, not power, not gold, not women — none of that could compare to hatred. To see the enemy fall and writhe in agony and know that it was in your power…

It seemed the Created Dragon wasn't that strong.

The creature was losing altitude. The damaged right wing was flapping less and with difficulty. He had to finish it off, so Victor let Water loose.

The tightly clenched water whip straightened. It struck the white-hot armor on the monster's face. And fell apart, vanished, exploding in a cloud of harmless steam. The Created Dragon produced a guttural howl and suddenly and abruptly flapped its wings mightily, in an instant ending up next to Victor.

Air! Lightning!

The black sky burst. The storm clouds that had condensed at the Slayer's call expelled a stream of blindingly white branching lightning bolts. Their thick web wrapped around the clumsy body of the iron beast, digging into its bloody crimson sides, and the Created Dragon trembled in convulsions. Its wings suddenly folded, and it dropped like a stone, spinning around; its roar made the gray mountains shake far below.

Fall, you're dead! Victor wanted to shout.

But the creature from the World of the Naturalborn was stubbornly refusing to die. Its flight straightened out again. Its enormous wings pressed against the air once more. The Slayer, even with all his initiations, couldn't force Air to part under the enemy's lead wings, so that it dropped onto the sharp mountain peaks far below…

The Slayer could only hate. And destroy. Directly. Creating was as foreign to it as flying was to a worm.

The Created Dragon was rising again. Its eyes were burning with a wicked sneer. "I have taken three of your blows," it was almost saying. "Now it's my turn. Hold on, Slayer!"

What experience did he have? The mad "run to the sea", the initiations he'd accepted without truly understanding what was being done to him? An alien and ridiculous world where he was a toy, a puppet in the hands of skillful puppeteers? Would someone else's hatred be of use to him? At least Ritor's hatred had been real…

The Created Dragon was getting closer. The beast's triumphant roar was making even the storm clouds flee in terror. The gray sky was revealed; the iron jaws parted, and a boiling wave of pitch fell upon Victor from above.

He screamed.

The scream was tearing at his throat, seeking to come out, as if it had become Power itself that was reaching out to strike at the enemy. The world faded; he thought he was falling, wrapped in smoky flames; the liquid fire was flowing along his scales, trying to find an opening.

Wind, Water, Fire! Help! Earth!

A downpour. It was terrifying when the entire sky turned into one giant stream. It was unable to extinguish the liquid flame, no not flame — boiling pitch; along with Wind, Water was tearing the flaming poison off Victor's armor.

Below, a forest of giant blades of grass that had risen in a moment was reaching out for him. A myriad of green trunks, and Victor struck them with his burning armored body at full speed.

The giant grass softened the blow. The green juice washed away the rest of the poisonous pitch that he really wanted to call napalm.

Victor, already in his former appearance, was standing and holding the hilt of his sword. While the Created Dragon was proudly soaring in the sky.

It seemed to be saying, "Your hatred is too weak, Slayer. This isn't your world."

"Well?" Victor wasn't even surprised to hear Glutton's familiar voice. "Didn't work out? It couldn't have."

The green grass thicket was dying before his very eyes, the giant blades were crumbling into gray ashes.

"The Elements aren't strong enough here," Glutton said smugly. "Our Dragon's up there circling… But you, Victor, don't have any strength left. Why are you looking at me like that? You think I'm lying? Fine, go ahead, try to fly. Or spit fire. It's not going to work. Because you're only the Slayer by name. Too much doubt."

"Because I haven't gone through all the initiations yet. And the Dragon Isle," Victor wheezed. Strangely enough, he was fine, the liquid fire hadn't left a single burn mark on him. Only fatigue was left, Victor thought that if Glutton were to blow on him, he'd fly away like a weightless lump of poplar fluff.

"No," Glutton shook his head and beckoned the Created Dragon. "It won't help… although you can, of course, go there. That girl of yours will take you. He's a good one… nimble. But on the island…" He sighed sympathetically. "She won't help. You'll have to deal with that Keeper yourself. But do you have to? Eh? What do you say?"

"Keeper?"

"No way, Victor. I'm not going to tell you anything about them. Figure it out for yourself." Glutton snuffled resentfully. "It's no longer interesting with you. Haven't managed to beat the Dragon… Boring."

He turned his back to Victor defiantly.

"Wait!" Victor reached out to grab the smug bastard by the shoulder and awoke from the sharp jerk.

He was lying on rocks right next to the tide. There was a soft golden sheen in front of his eyes. The stones were warm and smooth and seemed to be glowing from inside.

Victor lifted his head. So this was what it was like, the Dragon Isle!

In these moments, he completely forgot about Loy and even Telle.

A low stormy sky, covered in swirling black clouds, was hanging over overhead. Leaden waves were throwing themselves onto the shore in hungry fury, licking at the golden stones, and the retreating foam was also starting to glow a pale lemony color. A narrow road made of the same golden rocks was starting right from the water. It turned at a rounded ledge, gradually rising and disappearing from view. To the right was the sea, to the left rose a sheer cliff, jet black, shiny, as if wet. Totally and implausibly smooth, without a single crack or ledge, which never happened in nature, it seemed to be a creation of unknow magical forces. The road ended, running straight into the foam of the surf.

Despite the unbroken shroud of the storm clouds, it was fairly bright, maybe from the golden stones, or maybe the sunlight was somehow able to break through the black spread thrown over the world.

Victor lifted his head.

The golden road spiraled up a giant slate cone that rose right from the ocean waters. Closer to the top, the blackness of the slopes was crisscrossed by sharp protruding crests of the same golden hue as the road.

The road itself was only smooth at first.

On the slopes of the great mountain, Victor saw pits full of fire, with narrow bridges thrown over some of them and others without any at all. Other bends of the road were almost entirely hidden by the black palisades of sharp stone fangs that were formed up along the sides. The golden glint there was mostly lost among the silent stone formation.

Victor saw twister funnels hanging motionless in the air; he felt the frantic pushing of Winds that were frozen in the motionless hot air with his skin. And the peaceful rolling of the light surf was ready to turn into a furious attack of mad waves at any moment.

Higher yet, over the flat top of the mountain cone, Victor saw a castle.

It seemed to be growing out of the bones of the earth. It seemed to be a continuation of the black and gold slopes of the mountain; at the same time, Victor couldn't shake the feeling that the castle was hovering in mid-air, that a thin gap separated its foundation from the flat section of the top.

The castle walls were pitch black. But not the familiar shining blackness of anthracite or precious agate, the blackness of the eternal darkness from which everything that existed had been created, before the words "Let there be Light!" had ever been uttered. All light drowned in these walls. Even the glow of the island's golden stones.

Matte pearl domes towered over the ring of battlements and sharp battle towers. Softly rounded, they were a stark contrast to the sharp and fractured look of the outer walls. For a moment, Victor even thought he was looking at a clutch of giant eggs that were the only ones worthy enough to for great lizards like the Winged Masters to hatch from.

He was standing at a great spot to observe the castle; it turned out that there were two roads that rose to it instead of one. It was difficult to say on which of them Victor was standing. One ended near a castle wall, while the other came out to the gate that seemed tiny compared to the giant structure. Another path also led to the gate from a large pad that was separated from the castle by a precipice with sides that were so sheer that the precipice itself looked like a cut remaining after the blow of a monstrous axe. There was a bridge thrown over the precipice… a very strange bridge that looked like a rainbow that had fallen from the sky. A colorful fog was swirling over the precipice.

The monstrous slit ran maybe halfway down the cone; then black cliffs rose from the side facing Victor, but Victor somehow knew that the gap went much farther down, below the bottom of the ocean, deep into the earth's crust — was that the glare of burning magma that could be seen at the lower edge of the iridescent cloud?

"Victor!" Telle rose from over the rocks. She was covered in dirt, her clothes were torn… "Where's Loy? Have you seen her?"

"No."

"We need to find her! And then go up, on the road, to the castle! The pursuit…"

"What pursuit?" Victor asked in surprise.

"A first-rank mage can go through the Door. Just like Loy was able to. Ritor, Torn, and Andrzej are now following us."

"Him too?" Victor asked in amazement.

"Him especially." Telle couldn't hold back a giggle. "The way you put a tub over his head! No mage would forgive that! If only you'd beaten him in magical combat, in a duel, with all the rules, but this was a major humiliation, especially in front of his vassals! Now he's going to stay on our tail. All right! All jokes aside. Where's Loy?"

"I'm here, Unknown one," came a gloomy voice.

Loy appeared, disheveled, with several new holes in her dress.

"Not all of us walk such roads as if riding the dwarven Way," she explained. She shook herself off like a wet cat and glanced up. Then she immediately covered her eyes with a hand.

"Great Powers… never would've thought I'd ever see… the Castle over the World, Victor! Look, it's the Castle over the World!"

"Yes," Telle confirmed with some triumph. "The Castle over the World. The beginning of all roads. And their end. The castle of the Keeper."

"You never said anything about them, Telle."

"I couldn't, Victor. You're the one who has to talk to him. No one else."

"What about you, Unknown one?" Loy butted in.

"Well, yeah," Telle nodded reluctantly. "In some circumstances… I can too. But I'd rather not. Because those circumstances are far from great."

"So what, I just have to get to the Castle? And talk to the Keeper?" Victor asked dubiously.

Telle looked away stubbornly.

"Yes. You just have to get there."

"So why are there two roads?" Victor didn't let up.

The girl flashed her eyes fiercely.

"Let's go! The mages will get here soon!"

"Are they really a threat to us?" Loy asked suddenly. "There were a lot more of them in Oros. But we still managed to break through."

"Loy, every mage is stronger on Dragon Isle."

"What about Victor?"

"Victor remains the same," Telle said. "Come on, let's go, enough standing around!"

The three of them started walking up the spiral road.

Dragon Isle turned out to be a solitary mountain rising into the sky amid the empty sea. Nothing was growing on it, not even a blade of grass. Just the golden stones underfoot and the black cliffs on the left.

They spent a quarter of an hour walking in silence.

"And these are all the trials?" Victor was even slightly disappointed. "Just to get to the end of the road?"

"That's what they say." Telle was frowning. Something obviously felt off to her.

"The flaming pits…" Loy noted. "The twisters. And the other elemental charms."

Telle wrinkled her nose.

"That's just the final trial… mastery of the four Fundamentals… Victor has to get past them. I've heard they were created back when many could open the Door… and tried to claim the Keeper's power and authority. But without the four initiations, no one would be able to handle even the first turns of the spiral."

"All right." Loy was clearly ill at ease. "Let's keep going but also look back more often. I can sense that the trio isn't far behind."

One step, two, three. It was strange how their adventure was coming to an end. Torn up, dirty, tired, they kept on walking stubbornly past the intricate carvings on standing stones, where the holy symbols of all known and unknown religions alternated, where runes, hieroglyphics, Arabic script, and the long-forgotten Babylonian cuneiform intertwined.

What did this all mean?.. This writing drew him in with ancient mysteries that were older than the sea, older even than the great black mountains and the underground depths; what spells remained inscribed here? And would there be time to read them, bring them back to life?..

The first obstacle awaited them after the first turn of the spiral.

A moat filled with fire. Seemingly nothing difficult. Only two meters wide. They'd probably be able to get a running start and just jump over it.

Telle and Loy stopped two dozen paces away from the moat.

Victor approached carefully. The flame immediately roared, fiery tongues rose in a wall, thousands of scalding hands reached out towards him…

Jumping over wouldn't work. Flying might work — maybe that was what he ought to do. Let Loy and Telle wait here. He'd quickly get to the Castle and back…

Huh, such a petty, dumb temptation, Victor though. Whoever had come up with these trials clearly never anticipated running into someone from the Underside.

Why are you trying to harm me, fire? Why are you trying to get me to feel anger? Shall I suffocate you with water? Or make the walls of this pit close on you? I'm going to get through anyway. And you won't stop me.

Only the roar of the mad flame was his reply.

Earth, answer me.

The road sighed heavily under him. A brief spasm ran through the stones, as if a monstrous beast had turned from one side to the other without tearing the tight shackles of hibernation. Loy Iver yelped involuntarily.

A tongue of stone slowly stretched out over the fire.

Destruction wasn't the only way to win.

Earth obeyed reluctantly. He felt as if he was barely lifting an unbearable barbell with the last ounce of strength. The fire howled resentfully while parting.

"Let's go," Victor said, breathing heavily. "I hope the rest of these are this easy…"

After crossing, he thought that maybe he ought to collapse the bridge to slow down any pursuit that might be on their tail.

"Don't," he heard suddenly. Telle was staring at him intently, and the words that were preparing to leave his lips died.

"All right," Victor nodded. The bridge remained intact, giving Ritor an easy path. Although he'd probably prefer to fly anyway.

Again the road was silent. Telle, who was hunched over and faded, was plodding along and staring at her feet. Loy was leading her by the hand, throwing concerned glances at the girl.

What was going to happen next?

Next was the gray ghost of a twister hanging motionless over the road. Silent, it was frozen, as if executed; not the slightest gust of the wind or a sound on the golden ledge. Victor vividly pictured another mage coming up the road… who'd made the difficult journey through the Door, overcome Fire… and slammed right into the tightly wrapped windings of the twister. It was unlikely that anyone below first rank was capable of noticing this unseen to the naked eye twister, so unlike a typical tornado.

"Telle, what's wrong with you?"

"Let's go, Victor, let's go," Loy said with concern in her voice. "She's weakening… started weakening as soon as you passed the fire moat."

"I'm fine," came Telle's weak voice. "Let's go, faster… Once we get to the castle, it's going to be fine… Fine…" She was repeating "fine" as if it was a spell.

Ahead were tight, waiting rings of the twister. And the great temptation to smash it with a single blow. To strike it with the tip of a water whip… blow it away with the push of furious waves of flame… make the road bulge again and bypass the dangerous spot through a tunnel.

It was almost like an adventure video game.

"I hate all those games," Victor muttered.

No, he didn't want to smash the locked door. Telle was leaning heavily on Loy Iver's arm, almost hanging off her.

"Hurry, Victor! I can't share my strength with her! The spell isn't working!" the mage shouted.

Well then, Air. I'm prepared to come to you without any sorcery. I'm sure you're tired of fulfilling the whims of stupid mages. You probably just want to rest. Who can count the tiny particles of Power circling there in an unending dance, bound by powerful spells? Why not let me through? Just like that? Without war?

"Victor! What are you doing?!" Loy screamed.

He didn't turn to look. The Slayer would've probably already smashed the twister aside, erasing it entirely… No. Wind would part before him because he could feel its heart deep inside the twister.

"Follow me!" Victor barked. "Hurry!"

Iver didn't object or argue, dragging the girl with her while shutting her eyes in a painful grimace.

The twister fell apart, froze, opening its deadly rings. The monstrous invisible serpent no longer existed.

The second barrier. Now they had to expect Water and Earth.

"You're moving well," Victor heard Telle's quiet voice. "You don't need Power here. We came through cleanly… but the mages will have to break through. Then again, Ritor's smart. And he's not bound by any laws, having already come this way. And this—"

"Quiet, you're barely walking as it is," Loy cut her off. There was unexpected tenderness in the Cat's words. As if, after taking what she wanted from Victor, Loy felt compassion for her little rival. "You're losing strength with every word! Hurry, Victor, hurry, she's holding you up, can't you feel it?!"

"Loy!" Telle made a weak attempt to free herself.

"Don't even think about it!.. Keep going, Victor, keep going!"

Another full turn of the spiral.

And a wall of rain up ahead. The rain didn't even look scary or that strong.

So then why did it smell of death so clearly?

The rain was loud. Streams of water were pounding on the faded stones that were now just plain yellow. The foaming water was flowing across the road and fell down onto the jet-black cliffs.

Hurry, hurry! He had to find the key!

No. Just emptiness filled with rain, and nothing else. The raindrops were ramming at the stones of the road, dying by the myriad, but someday in the future their mad assault would succeed. The water would seep into the slits between the slabs, wash out the foundation, and, one fine day, the road would collapse, flow down the slope like a golden river…

What if this was just a trap? Mages were too used to crushing and destroying any obstacles in their way.

Victor stretched out his hand and thoughtlessly stepped under the rain.

Loy and Telle grabbed one another behind him.

Victor was walking through the puddles. The drops were pounding him on the head, his clothes were instantly soaked. But there were no consequences.

He turned and waved Loy and Telle over.

Water was behind him now.

The Castle over the World's tasks were suspiciously simple. So simple that one started to suspect a nasty surprise up ahead.

Only Earth was left now.

But they passed one full turn, then another… Telle was already barely dragging her feet, and they still weren't seeing any new traps.

Victor didn't have time to be truly surprised at that. The road made one final turn. The black walls of the cliffs disappeared as if by magic.

The Castle over the World was now revealed to them in all its splendor.

But the road they'd taken to it so quickly and without much difficulty turned out to lead nowhere. They'd taken the wrong path after all. It ended at the edge of a dark drop; black cliffs were to the left and right; and in front…

Victor carefully walked up to the very edge. The abyss that wasn't noticeable from below turned out to surround the entire Castle. There was darkness on the bottom; from it, grew the walls of the Dragons' firmament as if it were some primordial substance. Something crimson could vaguely be seen moving far below.

There was no more road. But Telle was noticeably feeling better. She was now standing straight… Loy looked at her with concern, momentarily looking away from Victor…

Well then, if this is the Earth trial, then it was once again a very simple one.

Victor slowly raised his hand.

And then lowered it just as slowly.

The unseen wind brought a wave of someone else's Power from afar. Truly great Power.