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You can’t blame magicians you don’t even know. Such accusations had been made before. Back in her childhood days, when healers had failed to cure a strange ailment that caused her whole body to burn as if she were being burned at the stake.
Some sorcerer had bewitched her. So it was said, at any rate. Was it rumor or truth? Where did the frail girl get her strength when it came to fighting dragons? Where did her magical instinct for approaching dragons come from? If she is not enchanted, then there is no explanation.
She was probably enchanted out of goodwill. The internal fever that heralded the approaching dragons could be considered a curse. But the gift of defeating monsters was itself a blessing. It was probably the gift of some good fairy who had decided to protect the whole country. Livellin had been besieged by dragon packs for centuries. The kingdom bordered the mountains on all sides, where in all likelihood, there were dragon nests. Somehow the neighboring countries suffered less from dragon’s raids. Dragon’s raids happened to them once or twice a year. But to Livellin, dragons were drawn like a magnet. What do they all want here?
«They want you!» A small voice inside Graymore’s mind prompted.
Probably some joking spirit spoke to her. Graymore brushed the voice aside.
She could also have been summoned in this way by a court wizard. Though the Council of Magicians had long since been banished, and there was still one powerful wizard in the castle, Gryamore would not consult him now. He would appear before him, and in a mentor-like tone he would begin to instruct her in the right thing to do. All his advice took the form of orders.
Once she was officially crowned queen, Graymore would not let anyone else tell her what to do. She would change the rules at Livellin’s court as she saw fit, too. There will be no more days of stupor after defeating a dragon.
She proved at the ball that it is possible to break a condition and still not be caught by captive dragons. She wasn’t being guided by any of them right now.
«You’re so sure of that?» The cryptic voices sounded as if they were coming from the cellar, but dragons can’t talk.
Graymore knocked the goblet of wine to the floor. She must not drink another drop of spirits! It’s time to switch to milk and fruit nectar. Milk and fruit nectar would never get you drunk. The wine poured out red on the marble floor, a reminder of blood.
A dragon’s face was in the pool. Graymore flinched, glancing toward the window. There was no dragon hovering outside. She shuddered as if a dragon had gotten cocky enough to peek through the window and reflect in the spilled wine.
Those dragons! They drew Graymore to themselves like a magnet.
The blood of dragons drew her from a distance. And now she felt a dragon at her side. Well, not exactly near. It was somewhere on the edge of the kingdom. Graymore’s secret vision immediately awoke, and she stopped listening to the ambassador, who had arrived with some sort of report and was now reading it out. The dragon is near, and she sits idle. It is time to grab her bow and sword.
The dragon’s fiery blood drew her like a magnet. Its distant scent served as a stimulant. Not because the dragon was hurt, but because everything in Graymore flashed at the feeling of having a dragon near. And its veins flowed with spontaneous blood.
There was a prophecy that the mountain dragon would be her destiny. Probably it was because from its scales she would make a perfect chain-mail for herself and become a great knight. Everyone knows that armor made of dragon scales cannot be penetrated by arrows or blades and does not burn. She needs such armor, which means she must capture the dragon. With dragon armor, she will become a great knight who can fight not only dragons but armies of men alone, and only such a knight can rule a kingdom.
That is how Graymore interpreted the prophecy. She would have to marry one of her cousins who would become king. And she wanted to rule herself. She didn’t want a husband who would limit her power at all. To be an autocrat-that is the main goal! And for that she would have to try and prove herself a true heroine.
It was a pity that not all dragons were suited to be skinned and fitted with ideal armor. She needed a special dragon whose scales would not fade after they were flayed from the skin. Graymore had already checked all the dragons she had captured. Once she peeled back the colorful scales, they faded and became colorless. So these dragons are no good. She would have to look for a special one. She wondered if there was a dragon like that nestled on the fringes of her domain. He was in a province somewhere, just outside the southern ridge of the mountains. Graymore was trying to pinpoint its exact location when heralds announced an urgent messenger.
It is a dragon! It is on the southern border of Livellin! It has burned the vineyards and wineries of your subjects, dried with its breath several rivers, destroyed the frontier fort, and neighbors say that before it flew to us, it incinerated a small country by the sea.»
Graymore wondered:
«Did the dragon make demands? Had he bewitched someone to deliver an ultimatum through his lips? Did he demand that cattle or innocent girls be sacrificed to him?»
Usually dragons demanded a dozen sheep a week and a few virgins for a snack. The scholars were certain that dragons needed virgins to perform witchcraft rituals.
Whether dragons knew how to conjure by performing rituals, Graymore did not know. But they did possess a certain ability to perform enchantments. Usually all of their witchcraft talents were limited to suggestion. They could hypnotize a man with one look. But when Graymore looked the dragons in the eye, they had no power over her. It was the further proof that she was bewitched.
«The dragon has not yet made any demands, Your Highness… I mean, majesty,» the messenger did not know how to address her. The formalities were of no concern to Graymore. She will be crowned in due course. She will prove to all that she is capable of reigning alone.
But why did the boundary dragon have power over her? She burned with the feeling that he was close. She was drawn to him as if he was a lover, and yet he was a rival. With every dragon Graymore fought as if she were fighting for power. If she lost once, she would lose her chance to rule the kingdom. But she cannot lose, for she is enchanted.
«I promise to solve the dragon problem,» she waved graciously at the messenger. «Go back to your own land, and tell the people have nothing to fear.»
«But there are none left, my lady. They are all burnt!»
So they are! Graymore tapped the armrests of the throne with annoyance.
The mesmerizing voice in her brain sounded more insistent.
«Come to me!»
Graymore felt her body being caressed by streams of flame. They were no longer burning, but pleasurable. She basked in them as in a warm, fragrant bath.
The fire around her body was invisible, or the messenger and the ambassador, whose report had been indelicately interrupted, would have run away screaming.
«It’s dangerous, my lady!» muttered the messenger. «All those who went to scout have not returned. Many of the glorious knights were left with only burned armor.»
«Mountain dragons are usually full of treasure,» said Graymore dreamily. She was not afraid of being burned. When has a single dragon ever been able to fight her? She alone is stronger than all of them.
«There was probably an exception waiting ahead.»
There was that intrusive voice in her brain again!
Graymore focused her attention on the messenger. He was shabby and frightened.
«Have you come to ask for help?»
«Yes, my lady!»
«Well, I assure you of it.»
«But you’re not going to fight him yourself, are you, my lady?» The messenger blushed to his ears and shrank back. «I hear you are a great champion of dragons.»
«And you doubt I can defeat a dragon?»
«Well,» the messenger blushed even more. «You are not the giantess I was told you were. You’re just a pretty lady.»
«Go on, scram!» Graymore was furious. «You’ll find out how fearsome pretty ladies can be!»
The ambassador thought it best to go away. Immediately Graymore regretted her overreaction. She should have had the poor man fed in the palace kitchen and given him a bed for the night. It was clear from his emaciated appearance that he had been running for days.
And why did one dragon seem more dangerous to him than a pack? He should have seen the recent dragon raid on the capital of Livellin! He must have slept through every dragon attack. There’d been a few in recent years. If this was the first dragon he’d ever seen in his life, then no wonder he’d be so startled.
She’d seen enough dragons herself. They don’t scare her. Though there was something peculiar about this dragon. Graymore could feel him at a distance, and fire coursed through her veins.
«Come to me, Princess!»
The voice was in her mind’s throat, sticky as honey. It made it impossible to think of anything else but one dragon in particular. Graymore did not hear the ambassador’s speech continue. She dreamed of the monster in scales waiting for her in the mountains. Their battle would probably resemble a love match. This dragon smells her at a distance, as she does him.
So why has he not come to attack the capital if he needs her so much?
Skeleton Advisor
The skeleton was waiting for her in the tower. It was dressed in a sumptuous purple robe and crown, as if it were the ruler of a kingdom. The great wizard’s body had long since rotted away, but the skeleton remained. Sometimes he came back to life and even spoke, but no one knew about it except Graymore.
If she needed advice, she went to the skeleton. So today she went up to the tower for advice. The skeleton, which had been sitting motionless, immediately came to life as soon as Graymore crossed the threshold of the old tower. The jewels glittered enticingly in his bony hands, as if beckoning: try to rip them off me, and then the skeleton’s hand will strangle you.
Graymore had no use for the dead wizard’s jewels. But a footman who once tried quietly to remove a heavy gold chain with a medal from the skeleton’s neck was found strangled. No one had cleaned the tower since. Cobwebs stretched across the walls in festoons. Even the murky gold-framed mirror, thought to be magical, was covered in a thick layer of dust and draped in cobwebs.
The magician’s skeleton itself, barely alive and moving, began hastily shaking the cobwebs from his hands and crushing the spiders. Graymore turned away. The sight of a living skeleton catching the insects that crawled into the tower was not pleasant.
The skeleton already knew why she had come, and smirked defiantly with a lipless mouth. How not to gloat! The ruler of Livellin could not do without his advice. Graymore wasted no time in long formulas of politeness and asked at once:
«Tell me, should I go on the hunt for the dragon that lodges in the provinces near the mountains?»
«Do you have a choice?» The skeleton was already aware of the unusual dragon. Though the magical observation mirror was covered in cobwebs, and the dead man knew exactly what it could show.
«No, I don’t!» Graymore felt herself burning from within. If she did not set out to catch the dragon, she would go mad with searing pain.
«Then why do you ask, when you already know the answer?»
The skeleton’s squeaky voice was very insolent. Graymore didn’t like the dead wizard’s self-confidence. She wanted to challenge him, and she didn’t dare. To behave boldly with him was to call trouble on the whole kingdom.
«Perhaps the dragon would come here instead of settling near the mountains.»
«I don’t think so. It would wait there.»
«Is he waiting? But for whom is he waiting?»
«What if it’s you, Princess?»
«Don’t joke!»
The skeleton fell silent.
«Why do I suffer pains of fire when dragons approach?»
«It is because you are a true dragon hunter.»
«No, I’ve been bewitched, so I can’t stand the pain of being near raptors. You probably did it. And the goal was to turn me into a dragon myself, but it didn’t work. Instead of being attracted to their nature, I feel the excitement of war with them.»
«Or perhaps you burn from their proximity, waiting for one of the dragons to become your lover?»
«Will he be my lover? Don’t joke! They are monsters!» She remembered the dream – an elf with fiery breath.
«What if it’s destiny!» insisted the dead wizard.
«It is better death in battle with dragons than such a fate.»
«Then kill the next of them! Perhaps this way you will change your fate. Lover or corpse, the choice is yours. After all, you are the ruler of these lands.»
«But I feel I am under a spell, as if they’re throwing me into a fire to make me fight the dragons,» Graymore complained again.
The skeleton hummed. There was something he wasn’t telling her.
«Would you like me to wipe the mirror so it can show us what’s going on in my domain? Perhaps it could show us the future, too, if you ask it?»
«Ask it yourself. I don’t have to,» the skeleton protested.
«You mean you won’t help?»
Graymore was angry. In his lifetime, this wizard must have been insolent and cowardly. Even her father had worshipped his skeleton as a deity to ask for advice. Now it was her turn to beg. It’s awkward for a princess to beg the advice of a dead man, but what can you do!
Graymore took a precious hoop of emeralds, rubies, and sapphires from the folds of her cloak. It resembled a royal crown. A skeleton needs an offering, or he will lie and twist rather than give a straight answer. Such is the wicked nature of every soothsayer. You don’t bring the gift, you don’t get the right prophecy.
«Is that enough to make you kinder?»
Graymore handed the dead mage a crown, which he promptly snatched from her hand and placed on his bald skull.
«Perfect! I am like a king of wizards!» The skeleton gazed in rapt fascination in the mirror, where the cobwebs slid off and the dust vanished. «I am a beauty! I look like death with a scythe! That’s what I always wanted to be!»
How can you be glad to be a skeleton! Graymore did not understand it. The only creatures she liked were those that were pleasing to look at. It was except perhaps for dragons. Though they looked as magnificent as jewels, they were not to be admired. They had to be hunted before they crushed her entire kingdom with their raids.
«I was born in a bad country,» Grahamor complained, rubbing her long dark curls. «There are predators everywhere! There are dragon nests on every border! In the south of Livellin, no one has ever heard of dragons. An envoy from the Southern Kingdom last year reported they had never been raided.»
«Perhaps his king has a pact with dragons,» the skeleton said thoughtfully.
«Is that possible?»
«It is if you pay tribute.»
«Are there goats, sheep, buffalo, cows, partridges, and young virgins?» Graymore exhaled noisily. This was a trap she had fallen into before, as had her father. «Once they’d had enough, they’d still fly to scorch the cities they’d sent tribute from. Dragons are dishonorable!»
«But there is one thing they do respect.»
«And what is that?»
«It is treasure!» The skeleton’s eyes gleamed with the empty eyes that held two tiny diamonds. «Offer them gold and jewels, and you will buy their favor.»
«For how long is it?»
«It all depends on the portion of the jewels.»
«And once they decide there’s not enough treasure, how will they break the agreement and attack again? Better to fight them with steel than to offer them gold.»
«An agreement built on gold they will not break.»
«Are they that greedy?»
«When it comes to precious metals, it’s not just their greed that becomes excessive. A hypnotic attraction to gold and jewels awakens in them. Give them more and more precious trinkets, and they go into ecstasy, poring over them and counting to infinity.»
«So they’re attracted to Livellin’s coffers!» Gryamore guessed. «That’s why they come here all the time.»
