LITMIR.BIZ

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in it. He doesn’t realize he’s dead. And he is furious. He thinks you are holding him prisoner. As soon as he arrives at whatever body he sees fit, he merges with it. And trouble for the man who puts them on. The dragon will want to make him his own. And then he will wish to incinerate our magical realm as well, for we did not prevent his murder, and you people, for killing him. He doesn’t remember exactly what happened, but he wants revenge on the world. I can feel the flames about to erupt from this armor.»

      She held up her transparent hand as if to catch the moon’s rays, and in her fingers a thin stream of flame shot from the dragon’s helmet, but it didn’t burn her, didn’t burn anything. It, too, seemed ghostly.

      «These armors are about to summon someone,» Mirabel continued. «I sense that their chosen one is near. They all tremble at the prospect of merging with his living body. Dead dragon scales and enchanted steel in fusion with a human body will be the union that will destroy the world.».

      That’s the common name for the evil ones. Tamlane tensed. And the fairy slid a glowing hand across the breastplate of her cloak, and the scales glittered as if she were reflecting a nonexistent flame. It must have lurked within the armor itself, for all the torches in the armory were out. If the moonlight didn’t shine unnaturally brightly into the room, you wouldn’t be able to see anything.

      «I’ve got a present for you,» his uncle took out a necklace of seashells. He must have made it himself, and collected the shells near the castle on the seashore. They were amazingly embossed and the same size. Those are hard to match. And the necklace chain was made through his alchemical experiments. The thing came out amazing. But Mirabelle shook her head sadly.

      «I can’t take it. You know I can’t. It’s material. And I am the Moonlight Fairy. I am made of ether. Material jewelry is not for me.»

      As if to prove her point, she held out her hand to take the necklace, and her fingers slid right through it.

      «Do you see?»

      Mirabelle was so sad and lovely, but Tamlane was already focused on the armor. The metal dragon seemed to call to him, and the call burned his mind like fire. The armor demanded that he take it and put it on, that he wield it. But, after all, according to Mirabel, they would be the ones to own him.

      Mirabel, however, is only a fairy. She is immaterial. Her presence here may turn out to be nothing more than an illusion or a dream. Why listen to her warnings.

      «You and I were made for each other,» the metal dragon whispered. Its fiery whisper haunted Tamlane even as he stepped away from the armory door. The whisper was tempting. The young man only fought the temptation until word spread through the country that war had broken out in the kingdom. The old duke wanted Tamlane to gather a troop of his vassals and join the king in battle. After all, they, too, were only vassals of the king. If a threat was imminent, it was their duty to support their suzerain. So Tamlane decided it was time to take up his armor.

      «You will be a young hero,» the steel dragon whispered in his sleep, enveloping him as if in metallic flame. In the dream, the dragon’s body was as illusory as Mirabel’s. But the dragon armor proved more desirable than even the fairy. Tamlane wanted it by all means. He longed for it like a lover. And the door of the armory was locked at all times, with sentries standing beside it.

      «This armor cannot be taken without a special blessing,» his uncle explained to him. «Once upon a time, saints from Roshen were invited here to give their opinion on how dangerous this thing was. Somehow they got burned by the armor and forbade anyone to go near it. They could not take them with them, nor destroy them, nor remove the spell from them. All the people get burned by that armor.»

      «Do you think this is magic?»

      «I’m an alchemist, not a magician.»

      «But they say it’s one and the same.»

      «Not exactly,» his uncle countered. «I believe there is an intelligent explanation for everything, and there is no such thing as a logical interpretation of magic.»

      «Maybe we don’t know it, but we’re looking for it.»

      «That’s right,» the uncle squeezed the stolen scales from his armor and went to do experiments on them again. Not long after one such experiment he was found dead. Something in the workshop exploded. His uncle’s face was burned, as if a dragon had breathed on him. Tamlane saw the burned corpse and the inscription carved in relief on the table, «all my experiments I dedicate to the moonlight fairy Mirabella.» The uncle was a romantic, but he died by fire. Tamlane aspired to fire and glory.

      The next night, when the armor called to him, the sentries at the door were asleep for some reason, and there was a key in the door. It was an unusual key with an image of a dragon’s head instead of the usual relief on the head. Tamlane turned it and entered. The armor shimmered and cast flames in the darkness. The helmet seemed to bring the dragon’s head to life. A hissing voice called out:

      «Put it on! It’s yours! My hero! The second part of the dragon is you! Put on your armor and go into battle to crush the world!»

      He was able to put on the armor himself without the help of a squire, though for other knights this was impossible. But the armor itself helped him. The metal clasps opened and closed by themselves. All he had to do was pick up his helmet. In these armor he felt as if his body had become fiery.

      He left the castle without even saying goodbye to his father, lest he notice he was wearing forbidden armor. His detachment took banners and torches and rode out into the dead of night. They reached the battlefield in the midst of the battle. And it was Tamlane who proved to be the decisive force that helped the king to win. He was honored as if he was the king himself. Everyone thought he fought like a dragon. The young hero was praised. No one noticed the creepy black creatures that flew high above the battlefield, both in the midst of the battle and now.

      «You are intervened! You stopped our queen from seizing another country in addition to Corund!»

      Tamlane looked around, trying to figure out where the voices were coming from, but they reached his ears as if from heaven. He looked up and spotted the foul creatures, as if no one had ever seen them before.

      «Our queen will burn you for this!» They hissed.

      He must be imagining it. They couldn’t really talk like humans. Their hissing voices suddenly hit him in the head as if he’d been stabbed in the head with a dagger. And his armor felt like it was on fire. He felt a fever throughout his body, as if he was burning alive.

      The dragon’s armor! It was enchanted. He shouldn’t have put them on. But without them he would not have won the battle. And their country would have been destroyed or overrun by an unknown enemy who attacked without warning.

      They praised him loudly, and Tamlane walked away on trembling legs. He felt sick to his stomach. He burned like hell. And a black bird with a red stone in its forehead was flying quite low over the corpses of fallen warriors. Its luxuriant tail resembled a black fan. It made the bird seem like it was bringing a whole swath of night with it.

      The strange creature, hunched and lanky, wandered across the field, leaning over the corpses of fallen knights and sniffing at them as if they were food. It flashed bright red eyes at Tamlane.

      «You are no hero and no dragon!» It hissed. «You’re just a petty thief who stole the power that belongs to a dragon. Did you know that the dragon whose remains you carry was the lover of my queen? She will punish you! You interfere with her plans, and she will interfere with yours.»

      They should have had soldiers capture and punish the tramp, but Tamlane was lenient. That cripple will not live long enough as it is. Even his skin was blackened by the sun, and his clothes were crumbling like ashes. He did not know then that his clothes were tattered wings, and that such limbs were well proportioned for Duergar, Finodirri, and other creatures whose mere name was difficult for a human to pronounce.

      After his victory, Tamlane

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