LITMIR.BIZ

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didn’t answer.

      Clement decided they weren’t wolfberries, so he tasted them. His mouth was bursting with a cocktail of sugary tastes that killed thirst and hunger in a jiffy. All bad thoughts flew out of my head. He really wanted to dance barefoot on the stunted grass. Maybe Raymonda would keep him company. She beckoned him out into the woods, laughing. Her feet hovered lightly over the grass. It is probably a continuation of the dream? Clement eagerly wrapped his arms around the girl’s thin waist and spun her in a dance. This was the best moment of his life. No court coquette in the sumptuous Aluar’s ballroom was as good and free as this elf in the woods.

      It was no longer a dream, but a sweet dream. One can only hope that the pale beauty does not turn out to be an evil moon spirit that lures him to the precipice.

      «Is it a dream?» Clement wanted to kiss Raymonda on the lips, and she would not have resisted, but the clatter of horses’ hoofs could be heard in the distance.

      The clatter of horses’ hoofs was muffled and unpleasant, like the clatter of gnoms’ hammers beneath the earth. It was as if it were coming from beneath the earth. Clement remembered the lore that the black knights of Shai were adept at finding their way along the roads of the Underworld, so they could appear on the surface or disappear at any moment.

      The angry shouts and whistling of poisoned arrows were certainly not a dream. One arrow hammered into the timbers of the hut above Clement’s head and turned into a real dark red snake.

      Clement turned around. There were riders rushing through the woods. It was a whole troop. Raymonda was gone when she saw them. Only the silvery smoke hung in his hands. What a coward! What did he expect? She is a lady. He should be her protector, not expecting her to conjure up a barrier of obscurity from the knights.

      Clement’s weapon was left in the hut. The door, as luck would have it, was jammed. So what to do? The black knights had surely been sent here on purpose, and at night. Men sleep at night, but the Shai’s knights, on the other hand, are most active at this time of day. Surely their leader had already figured out from some magic mirror that the prince was hiding in the forest. Thanks to his uncle’s spells, though, it wasn’t so easy to pinpoint his exact location.

      For a moment, Clement had a stray hunch in his head. What if Raymonda had brought them here? She might not have done it deliberately, of course, but accidentally. She herself had spotted him and thus removed the shield of impenetrability.

      Clement could not think for long. Defending himself with his bare hands was also a waste of time. But once again a dragon came to the rescue. Its scaly belly glimmered in the dark, like orange gold. Clement had never realized that a dragon’s scales could be so dazzlingly beautiful. The dragon’s fire, on the other hand, was something to run for. The torrent of flame was once again rained down from the heavens as an act of justice. It didn’t hit the trees, or the hut, but went straight for the black squad. The knights burned like logs. The charred remains were smoking. The smoke was black and acrid. It made his eyes water.

      «Raymonda!» Clement called. «Where are you?»

      His cry echoed through the empty space.

      «You may go now! The danger is over! The knights are gone, and the dragon has flown!»

      There was no answer from Raymonda. She was probably miles away by now. The elf’s girls don’t seem to be shy, but Moon Fairies are timid. Perhaps she was one of the latter, after all.

      The smoke made him dizzy. Clement began to think creepy things. Spirits of some kind, formed from columns of smoke, were trying to speak to him, to warn him of something. They were making faces and making silly prophecies.

      A snake arrow withered and petrified on the hut’s log, barely out of the knights’ sight. What wonders! It was too much for Clement, who could hardly master a few of his uncle’s magic formulas.

      «I’m going to walk to the nearest village,» he decided to himself. «Maybe there was something there that had survived.»

      Or maybe he was just imagining the fire. Alone in the woods, you can’t help but lose your senses. Loneliness makes people go crazy. At least, that’s what the hangmen say when they lock up the next conspirator in the prison tower. With only one dragon in the realm, the conspirators could no longer be imprisoned or executed, but merely fed to the beast for supper. But how do you catch and tame a dragon?

      «You can’t! You can only make friends with a dragon,» someone whispered in Clement’s ear.

      At times like these, it would seem as if there were dryads in the woods. Clement turned around and saw no one.

      The path to the village was not long. He just had to know the side trails to get there quickly. By dawn Clement had reached there. The sight was sad. The village, even the outlying farms had burned to the ground. No cattle left, no houses, no hedges, no wells. The land was black with ash. It was nothing to rest your eyes on. There is blackness and sorrow everywhere.

      «That’s what the world would look like if you let a dragon loose,» said a hoarse voice over the ashes. It sounded as if the speaker had swallowed enough ashes to make it impossible to speak his words properly.

      Clement looked around, but saw nothing.

      «I’m here!»

      In the place that had just been empty, there appeared a figure sitting in the middle of the ashes. It, too, was all black, as if drenched in ash.

      «Are you burned?» Clement got worried. «I know where to get healing herbs.»

      «It’s too late for that!» The haughty voice cut it off. There was an unkind mocking tone to it. «It’s too late for that! She has you in her claws.»

      «What do you mean?»

      The black stranger laughed a dry, rustling laugh, like loosened ash.

      «Who are you?» Clement kept expecting him to wipe his face from the ashes and introduce himself, but he sat motionless. His limbs were too long to be human and clawed. His figure was lanky. He had some sort of encrustation on his shoulders, and a crown or cap with bells on his head. He did not look like a jester or a king. He was a stranger, but his ashes were so thick!

      The sinewy stranger wiggled, and then the ashes woke and wailed upon a multitude of black faces. Clement watched with horror. This was more than his uncle’s magic tricks. It looked like real ghosts. The ashy faces resembled the discarded masks of burnt creatures. They squirmed, crooked, frowned. They opened their mouths in a mute or muffled cry.

      «We’re all burned because of her,» they whispered. «Run from her, at least you!»

      «Run from her!» In tone with them said the black creature, sitting in the middle of the ashes as if in his own house.

      «From whom it is?» Clement didn’t understand. From the dragon, it seemed, you should run. The dragon is «he,» not it is «she.»

      «It is from her!» The faces echoed, ignoring, for some reason, the threat of attack from the beast. «She can turn anyone and everything to ashes.»

      There they were again, talking about some sort of witch. Could she be the dragon’s mistress? Running away from a dragon made more sense than running away from the sorceress who was controlling it. Besides, Clement had gotten past the dragon’s fire so far. Except that the dragon’s slip might have been pure chance.

      «We don’t know her name, but if you get in her way, the same thing that happened to us will happen to you. You will become ash,» the ash masks whispered.

      Clement was frightened. He didn’t want to burn alive. The ash faces gave too tragic a prophecy.

      The ash-soaked creature pointed with its claws busily toward the sky, as if it had seen a sign there.

      Clement looked up as well. No dragon was flying over the ashes. So what was it?

      As he pondered, the creature chanted

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