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“I love to hear it. It only comes from very rich people. Most often from kings who carry their treasury through the forest, and I make the horses pulling the royal carriages wrap themselves in this thicket. That’s where I get to work relieving other people’s coffers. I know you’re against people coming here, even for a little while, but I need the income to pay your taxes.”
“It is all right, I’m not angry!” So he called a romance about gold the sound of coins. How prosaic! I imagined him tangling his horses’ manes and whispering incantations into their ears as a red ghost in the royal motorcades. Good if those kings got out of the thicket alive. One gilded carriage full of treasure he definitely kept for himself. I could see its outline behind the nearest pines.
“And then there’s the golden romance of the dragon treasure hoarders. That’s where even I have to cover my ears. I’ve never fooled a dragon before.”
“And their maidens, if you take on the illusory appearance of a dandy in front of them?” I was angry, feeling slightly jealous that the beauty had flown off with another dragon instead of me.
“The dragon ladies are so dexterous that they can catch anyone by the hand,” he tapped the trunk with his ten-fingered palm expressively. “But don’t worry. The forest is full of riches if you look hard enough.”
The tree he had his arm around suddenly turned golden. I wasn’t surprised. I’d seen such tricks before. The golden leaves contrasted nicely with the green of the forest, but if you tried to melt them down, it would probably fail. That’s the property of all objects turned to gold by magic, but were originally something else. You can buy or trade with them, but you can’t change their form.
“You’re a clever boy,” I praised him.
“I am the first one in this forest,” he said proudly.
“There used to be gangs of them.”
“I scared them away. Maybe you did it for nothing, maybe you didn’t. There’s not enough territory for everyone.”
“It is not mine. I’m used to having many servants.”
“But a second dragon in the Empire was unnecessary.”
He makes a good point. The moon dragon certainly doesn’t belong here. Besides, he’s a raider and a destroyer. He didn’t even give any advance warning of his arrival, and he knew for sure that the throne of the country was already occupied.
The Forest Thief flashed his eyes slyly from under his red hood, as if he could see all my thoughts.
“It is one golden tree. Isn’t that strange?” He grinned.
“What’s strange about it? There are thousands of them in my treasury.”
“Yes, but here in the forest, where everything is green and alive, one golden tree seems so rare. Don’t you think gold is so valuable because it’s scarce? Less than there is green in the trees. But if there was just one green tree and a lot of gold trees, that gold would suddenly lose all its value.”
I decided to check it out. The trees changed color instantly. I didn’t even have to touch them. Everything green turned to gold. And my eyes were tearing up from the bright glow.
And he is wise. Even I, a dragon, did not imagine the whole world to be exclusively golden. I surrendered and enchanted the forest.
“What do you want to ask me?”
“Me?” He was surprised.
“Usually everyone asks me for some favor.”
“I thought it was you who wanted to ask me about Sephora.”
“Who is Sephora?”
“She is The golden lady.”
“What do you mean?”
“They call her that because she loves and hoards gold, like you. And her gold sings, too.”
“I don’t believe such a lady exists.”
“I can prove she does.”
He handed me a mirror. Strangely enough, it was the dragon that first caught my eye, not the lady. The rascal didn’t even apologize for the mistake. But he must have made a big mistake, because even the puddle under his feet suddenly became a mirror.
“Her name is Sephora. I thought you were looking for her.”
I am! The mirror reflected the same lady who had left the chain of flaming footprints. It looked like the image in the big oval medallion, only it vibrated slightly, like a reflection on water. At the first ripple, it would be gone.
“Keep it,” the forest thief offered. “They call me Red Rascal, by the way. It is only because of the color of my clothes.”
“Is it yours, or did you steal it from a traveler?”
“The moon spinners themselves wove it for me,” he said proudly.
I’d never heard of moon spinners. Perhaps there are some in this forest. But I didn’t want to meet them. The six magic spinsters of Princess Odile were enough for me to despise their whole caste for their meanness and duplicity. But the clothes they made were magnificent. The golden thread they spun took any shape without loom or cut. But it was best not to associate with artisans. God forbid you enter into any kind of debate with them. They could stab you to death with a rope, which they often abused.
“You’re brave to befriend them.”
“No, I didn’t. They owed me. They lost at dice. I’m a trickster, as you know.”
“Can you find Sephora for me?”
“Is it the lady herself, not her reflection?” He scratched his ten-toed hands.
“Of course, it is. I couldn’t have an affair with a reflection.”
“It would be difficult. I don’t get out of here much myself. And her fiery footprints scare me off a lot.”
“Oh, well! I’ll look for her myself.”
“Don’t get burned!”
“You’re telling it a dragon?!”
I did almost burn myself on one of her footprints. That’s unfortunate! What a mess! It looks like she’s a rare sorceress. That Sephora! Well, at least now I know her name. It’s best not to trust the Wood Thief, of course. But why would he call a lady her own name? Besides, I heard something like that when I met her.
“Sephora! Sephora! Sephora!”
Now it seemed all the tree crowns around her rustled her name. Or was it a joke of the witch wind? Some dryad on the branches of a yew tree wrinkled her nose when she heard her name. You only did like that when you see your rivals.
“Or when danger has just passed by your tree,” the Forest Thief told me. What a rascal! He can read my mind!
“Look how brightly it burns. If she’d walked a centimeter closer, that pretty tree would have been gone.”
He nodded courteously to the dryad, but she turned away in annoyance. Apparently she found him no less of a nuisance than the lady who inflamed everything.
“I once saw an entire beech burned by her touch.”
“So you were spying on her?” I wanted to grab him by the scruff of the neck and give him a good shake.
“Well, just a little,” he confessed. “I spy on everyone in this forest. There’s no other way to make money if it isn’t from the occasional sheep that stray here.”
“Could it be dragons?”
“Don’t get any ideas. I’m not asking you for anything,” he hastily backed, clearly afraid I’d blow fire at him and burn him on the spot. The idea was tempting, but I held back.
“If you find out anything about her or where she is, come running to me immediately. You won’t regret it. I’ll reward you handsomely.”
“Is it not with what you burn?”
“It is gold or jewelry.”
“I have enough of that. And I can always get more at the expense of the fools who get lost in the wilderness. You know, the ones I’ve helped get lost.”
“Then I’ll repay you with some benefits. It is maybe a year’s tax exemption.”
He didn’t even bother saying that he didn’t like to come out of the woods and nodded eagerly.
“I’m at your service, monsignor. I’ll be waiting for her! It is right here!”
He left ten fingernail impressions on the bark. The name Sephora was scratched out, surrounded by a frame in the shape of a dragon’s wings.
Night dreams
I dreamed I was playing chess with a friend I never had, the king of some magical realm. I had never known such a thing in all eternity. But in the dream we were good comrades. And the chess before us was very unusual; not black and white, as is the custom, but red and white. Rudolfa would have been outraged at the sight of such a violation (she was a chess fairy and observed etiquette in everything). Thankfully, she was not the one watching my dream. The dream was beautiful, but for some reason it made me feel sick. In the dream I somehow realized I was dreaming and wanted to wake up. The friend imposed on me by the rules of the dream was very unpleasant, though attractive. Even his crown resembled the horns of the devil. From it, a living, moving shadow lay on the wall, making faces at me. Could the devil dwell inside the king’s crown, grasp the ruler’s forehead with steel claws, and enter his brain to terrorize his country through him? Anything is possible in a dream!
Here we are sitting at the same table, molded in the shape of a goblin hunched beneath us. I am the lord of the magical people. He is the king of the land beneath our windows, or the king of dreams.
“You are the king, and I am also the king,” he remarked between games. “Our friendship is understandable and appropriate. It is no matter how different categories of peoples we belong to. But it is natural for two rulers to be friends.”
“It’s also natural for them to fight,” I quipped. “In my memory, kings prefer the latter.
He saw my joke and grinned radiantly. Do his teeth look like pearls, or is it just me?
“Would you like to fight me?”
“We are already at war,” I nodded at the chessboard. This was a war, too. It was a special kind of battle. Only we didn’t fight with our intellect, like in the game. The chess pieces themselves were doing the fighting for us. They were alive and moving. I would even call them aggressive.
My partner played red. And this is the color of fire. My color!
“Let’s switch!”
“Why is it?”
“I’m the dragon, not you.”
“Are you sure about that, handsome?”
Why is it that everyone keeps pointing out my good looks and not my dragon strength? Even that horned king of dreams has begun to tease me about my handsome face! And now I’m going to die and show him how I can burn his dream kingdom to the ground. It is except I couldn’t breathe fire in my dream. Probably because it’s a dream and my charms don’t work here. My partner, on the other hand, was demonstrating his strength as best he could. Power emanated from him in black vapors. Perhaps outside the dream he would have been weak, but not here. In the dream, his power seemed unlimited. How sharp his claws were, scratching the board to the ground! And he’s dressed in red and white like a jester.
“Let’s switch anyway,” I insisted. The red pieces on the board twitched at once, either approving my desire to play for them or protesting against it.
“But the game was already in progress. It’s too late to change.”
“Then stop playing,” I released my claws. “I command.”
That usually worked for everyone. Whoever he is, I’m in charge of all magical creatures.
“This isn’t going to work. One of us has to drop out at the end of the game.”
“Why is that?”
“We’re the two rulers and the lady is only one.”
I heard the lady’s footsteps and the rustle of her robes, but somehow not in the castle, but on the bridge spanning from the window to the clouds. But there was a dragon floating outside the window instead of the lady.
