Dragon Ship

«You have nothing to fear as long as you’re compliant,» Medea Shai promised, but the tone of her voice betrayed guile.

«So why did you come? Isn’t that a generous gesture, even for a fairy queen? I’ve done you no favors, and you’re giving me gifts?»

«I’m giving you a chance to start an honest life. Finish your career as a pirate. It’s a criminal enterprise, not a career! Buy yourself a mansion and a title, and I’ll fly around your lands on patrol and protect you.»

«And what is it in return?» Patricia squinted suspiciously.

«It is nothing.»

«You help unselfishly!»

«Why are you so surprised? I’m a fairy.»

«But you are not a good one, unless I’m mistaken.»

«Even an unkind fairy can do a good deed unselfishly.»

«Usually, everyone needs a benefit – unless the fairy queen is luring a gullible fool into a trap.»

«It’s a win-win for me,» Medea Shai admitted grudgingly and sighed. The role of benefactor was beyond her.

«Get me off the seas! What do you want from the sea? What am I in your way?»

«That’s an unnecessary question.»

Patricia hesitated.

«Give me time to think,» she finally suggested.

«It is three days!» The Queen of the Fairies held up three fingers, and the coins swirled around the cabin. The gold tinkled and disappeared. The Fairy Queen herself disappeared.

«She didn’t even leave an advance,» Patricia complained. «And she’s greedy!»

Not a single coin on the floor.

Mistress of the Mists

The fairy queen’s generous offer had already ceased to be tempting in the morning. Money could only bribe poor people or greedy officials, but not a proud noblewoman. Patricia is a noble lady! Didn’t she have estates and jewelry in her past life? She had tiaras, necklaces, and chests of rings. Yes, she lost all of that when she became a rebel and a fugitive, but she was still a spoiled lady at heart. So why did the queen of the fairies see her only as a pirate? Can’t fairies read minds?

Patricia thought it was strange. The King of Opal had gathered fairies around him so that they could be used to make secret weapons. For example, put an ambassador or an enemy monarch to dine surrounded by fairies. The fairies will silently find out all his secrets, just by reading his thoughts, or even hypnotize the poor man and compel him to do whatever he needs.

One sultan, who was about to go to war with Opal, found in his war tent a dozen beautiful fairies who brought gifts and viands from the King of Opal. The sultan did not even consider why the king himself did not show up with an offer of truce, but sent the fairies? In a normal situation it would be suspicious, but the sight of fairies exudes a magical charm and men lose their heads. The Sultan sat down to dinner with the fairies, and at night he was expecting entertainment, but instead he waited for tragedy. The fairies whispered something to him, while laughing sweetly. The Sultan ordered his armies to march into the sandy marshes, and stabbed himself with his own sword. Patricia and her brother spied that night, and saw everything with their own eyes. The Sultan cut his own throat with the blade. The fairies swooped down on the corpse like piranhas and licked up the blood. The fruit they brought turned into salamanders and the wine turned fiery. Patricia lifted the veil of the tent and peered. The fairies were either too engrossed in the feast to notice her or mistook her for one of their own. Patricia’s beautiful appearance was almost indistinguishable from that of the fairies, save for her lack of wings.

Patricia’s brother was about to follow the army of sleepwalkers blindly into the sands. It was good that some strange troll-like stranger had warned him not to follow the army. The sandy marshes turned out to be a plain of brown sand. One step on it and the sand sucked you in like a quagmire. All the warriors drowned as soon as they set foot on the sandy floor. In the very center of the plain lived and rumbled some huge monster. Apparently, it was devouring anyone sucked up by the sands.

Patricia could have died that night, but she survived. However, the troubles of her noble family only began that night. The fairy who had delivered the Sultan’s relics to the King of Opal in a precious chest had whispered about a plot the nobles of Opal were plotting against the king. Patricia’s relatives were among the conspirators.

Queen Esperanza was partly kind, not without reason her name in translation from the ancient language means hope. She could have spared the conspirators, but the king had his own plans for both his enemies and the queen.

Patricia shuddered, remembering the moving skeleton in the alcove, its bones still showing skin and royal dress. Could Medea Shai bring Esperanza back to life? Maybe ask her for that instead of the treasure?

The fairy queen turned out to be a fraud. Yesterday, she had managed to suggest to Patricia that the cramped quarters could hold more treasure than the king himself had. The treasures were to multiply exponentially from the fairy queen’s click. It was possible that eventually there would be more than in the dragon’s cave.

Patricia herself had never been in the dragon caves, but she had heard that the most gold and gems were stored there. That’s why dragons are always being hunted to take away their savings. Only it’s the hunters who are most often caught in the dragons’ claws.

Curious, could Medea Shai have appropriated some dragon’s life savings just by using her fairy charm? In her nightly dialog with Edwin, the phrase slipped in that she loved subduing dragons.

This smells like a stinker! After all, a fairy queen can only do magic, but a fairy queen who also commands dragons is capable of launching a flame war and burning entire nations. Does Medea Shai want to raid Opal? We’ll have to ask her on occasion. After all, it is Opal that harbors all the traitors who deviate from the service of the fairy queen. Medea Shai must be angry with them.

«And you betrayed me too,» Patricia turned to the magic saber. – You let a spy into my quarters and didn’t even try to restrain her.

The saber lay in the corner of the cabin and stubbornly pretended that it wasn’t magic at all. Apparently, it’s weak for her to attack the fairy queen.

And the fairy queen herself showed weakness. She couldn’t see into Patricia’s past. Medea Shai probably lost some of her magical powers when her subjects scattered from her. What’s a queen without subjects?

«What if I’m under some kind of spell?» Patricia thought aloud. «Why else can’t she touch me and bargain with me? The fairies didn’t bargain with the Sultan of Ethar. They just killed him, and Medea Shai didn’t even scratch me.»

The night she flew in with Edwin, she definitely wanted to kill Patricia, but something changed. The queen of the fairies hit some obstacle she couldn’t overcome. So money came into play. Bribery is the weapon of choice for those who cannot be defeated by force.

«And why do I need money and an estate to house all my evil? Sailing the seas is more fun! But the wrath of the Fairy Queen is a great risk of sinking, and some dragon is driving me from the seas! Besides, with the money, I could hire a whole army and go on Opal. All I have to do is demand magical support for the war from Medea Shai.»

The walls of the cabin, of course, did not respond, but Patricia already knew that with the support of the queen of the fairies, you can resist even the greatest magician.

The ship suddenly tilted violently. Was Aleandra rampaging in the hold again?

«It is attack!» Zeligena shouted outside. «Swamp magic doesn’t work! I need your saber!»

Saber herself flew out of the cabin ahead of Patricia. The door swung open in front of her like a gust of magical wind.

Patricia reluctantly went after the saber. She wondered who could have attacked at dusk when there were no ships around. Had the Morgens crawled aboard in company? She had thought that friendship with mermaids guaranteed immunity from all sea creatures.

The deck was full of strange strangers wrapped up to their ears. You couldn’t even see their faces. They fought in complete silence and stillness. No battle cries or moans of the wounded could be heard. It looked like magic!

The warriors reminded Patricia of the assassins from Opal, but their uniforms were different. Their faces were wrapped in white scarves like mummies. Curious, where were their eyes? And where did the warriors come from? There were no ships around. There was no place to jump aboard from. The creatures didn’t look like Morgens either. Fighting them was useless. Once they were wounded or killed, they would rise up alive and keep fighting. So what do we do? Try to capture them all and put them in the hold with Aleandra? The fairy would be delighted! She’ll have company. Aleandra can practice her charms on the prisoners.

Patricia threw herself into the battle with the intention of taking hostages. The saber flew over the deck and worked itself, so the captain had time to construct a lasso out of rope.

«Make a trap out of the fishing net we have in the hold,» she advised Netopyrina. «Then fly over the masts with Zeligena, spread the net there, and throw it down as soon as I get all of us to the edge of the deck.»

«I can do even better than that!» Netopyrina began making a gray net from her fingertips. How was it that Patricia had managed to forget that she could do that!

There were many strangers on the deck. Would that many captives make the hold burst? Oh, come on, it’s a magical ship.

«How gladly I would give all these warriors to a dragon!» Patricia pulled her dagger from the lapel of her boot and found the brass knuckles someone had dropped. It was useless to fight invulnerable creatures with a dagger and knuckles, but she took a chance. The saber was busy anyway. She couldn’t kill the strangers, but she could disorient them. Nethopyrina had the advantage.

Somewhere in the heights, a dragon’s roar was indeed heard. Patricia threw her head back and saw the most beautiful dragon in the world. It was all gold. It looked like a dawn was flying across the sky, not a dragon.

«Put your pride aside and ask him for help,» Zeligena advised, who had not been able to use her magic against her enemies.

«Do you think the dragon will listen to me?» Patricia was stunned. Who did they take her for? Was she a great sorceress?

«Do it.»

«Why don’t I get him to play the whistle? A lady of the court boasted of bewitching a Naga by playing the whistle. She escaped to the mountain kingdom of the Nagas! Apparently everyone there obeyed her music.»

«Just drive the dragon with your voice, not your music,» Zeligena insisted.

«And he’ll hear?»

«He already did, since he’s here.»

«But I didn’t call him.»

«I heard you did.»

Morgens and mermaids can call with a song, but not a dragon. Patricia was sure that if she threw the ring into the water and asked for help, the mermaids would come, but their help would probably sink the whole ship. And the dragon could burn the whole ship. Both options are bad. Patricia would have preferred to fight herself, but Zeligena was beating her attackers with her powerful wings, protecting the captain and waiting.

«Okay, I’ll give it a try!»

Patricia hesitated, and the golden belly of the dragon suddenly disappeared behind the clouds. Where do clouds come from in the sky at night? Or was it fog? The fog was descending on the ship as well. It glowed like silver.

«Morgens hate silver, and so do I,» Zeligena muttered, looking at the silvery pollen swirling in the mist.

«Are you a member of the Morgen race? I mean to the sea civilization?»

«The swamps, rivers and seas are actually connected by common channels, rules and bloodlines. I’m sort of a cousin to the mermaids.»

Zeligena squinted. The silvery mist was blinding her. Patricia began to defend the swamp fairy herself. She punched her attackers. The brass knuckles didn’t hurt them much, but the hard blows made them retreat. The dagger, on the other hand, didn’t hurt them at all. The blade slid across them like armor. The enemies were only wounded by the troll claws, but they did not bleed. Instead of blood, a glistening liquid appeared and the wounds healed. Well, how could they win? These faceless warriors probably wouldn’t be burned by dragon fire either!

Suddenly, the crowd of invaders parted. Their ranks had not thinned, but there was a pathway between them that Patricia could follow into the thick of the battle. The warriors moved as if obeying some magician who was calling the captain to a duel.

Patricia walked forward, saber hovering ahead, chopping right and left. The magic saber could easily cut off hands, feet, and heads. The limbs grew back as if magnetically pulled to their bodies. It’s like a nightmare!

«Patricia!» A gentle voice rang out from the half-light. A pale fairy stood there in the clots of silvery mist. She seemed to be the one controlling the fog. Silver glitter scattered across the fairy’s skin like glowing moles. Bony wings that looked like fish gills protruded from her fragile back. The fairy’s ball gown was of the Opal’s style. It felt like the fairy had flown in from a ball held in Opal. But why are the skirts soiled in the ground? Could it be a grave fairy? But she’s wearing a white dress. Grave fairies usually wear mourning.

The fairy’s silver eyes stared fixedly at Patricia. Although the eyebrows and eyelashes on her eyelids had turned white, the stranger was recognizable.

«Beatrice!» Patricia forgot her caution and stepped toward her sister. «But you are dead!»

Lady Beatrice was found strangled by fairies in the royal garden three months ago. No one had seen with their own eyes how the fairies had lured her into the garden, whirled her around in their circle and killed her, but gossipers said that was what had happened. A wreath of forget-me-nots and roses was torn around Beatrice’s neck. Judging by the thorns on her throat, that’s what the girl was strangled with. Who else can strangle with a flower wreath, if not fairies. After all, flowers are their symbol.

Fairies are able to teach their chosen ones how to conjure with flowers and herbs, and use the magic of plants against unwanted people. Apparently, the fairies considered the beautiful Beatrice a dangerous rival. Or maybe there are more serious enemies and intrigues involved?

«How did you end up here?» Patricia stepped over the stumps of the invaders’ bodies, which no longer joined or stood up. Apparently Beatrice had diverted some of the magic onto herself. She’s the one who brought the mist. Had she become a sorceress after her death?

«I flew in,» she answered. Her voice sounded like a bell, but there was no echo.

«Are you a ghost?»

Beatrice laughed.

«What difference does it make? Come to me, sister!» She held out her skinny arms to Patricia, which also showed silver sparkles. The glowing moles reminded her of a map of constellations on her skin.

Patricia obediently stepped toward Beatrice. Her sister was definitely not a fairy. Then why does Beatrice have something like stiff patterned wings protruding from her back? Maybe it’s just making a masquerade costume, like the long white claws on her toes, like the white butterflies tangled in her hair. Only the fog could not be called part of the masquerade. The silvery mist came with Beatrice and hypnotized everyone: enemies and supporters alike. It was as if everyone who fought had fallen asleep. The ship became as quiet as a grave, and the fog shimmered and thickened.

«Are you Mistress of the Mists?» Patricia asked dazedly, approaching her sister. Beatrice’s face glowed like a true star fairy. She could easily be seen even in the fog.

«Are you the mistress of the ship?»

«It is a sort of.»

«Do you know why I hid your ship from the dragon?»

«Did you do that?» Patricia was genuinely surprised. Why did Beatrice dislike the dragon so much? It’s so beautiful!

«I know the risk your association with the dragon poses to all of Opal,» she whispered. Her bloodless lips were also filled with sparkling sparks like mist.

«How did you escape from Opal?»

«I escaped from the crypt, not Opal. The grave fairies got jealous of how beautiful I turned out to be.»

Patricia didn’t understand, but hugged her sister anyway. The saber hovering above her head hissed unhappily. Why did she dislike Beatrice so much?

Her sister’s curls had lightened to an almost grayish hue, but were softer than silk to the touch. But Beatrice’s skirts were indeed clumps of earth. Had she really been buried alive? How did she get out of the crypt? No one in Patricia’s family had ever fallen into a lethargic sleep. Was Beatrice a newcomer, or did the King of Opal deliberately bury her alive? But Beatrice wasn’t involved in any conspiracy. He probably decided to punish the whole family by destroying the youngest of the sisters. The parents always loved Beatrice more than Patricia. After all, Beatrice was sickly and very delicate. In the old days she would have been tortured with nausea even while boating on the pond, but now she felt fine even on the high seas.

«The King of Opal is not a villain,» Beatrice whispered in Patricia’s ear. «He loves you. Go back to him and he will forgive you.»

«What are you saying?» Patricia wanted to pull away, but Beatrice’s slender hands clutched her waist with a deadening grip.

Where had the soft, velvety skin gone? Her sister’s hands turned to bone. Patricia wanted to break free, but the bony fingers held her tightly. On one cheek Beatrice’s smooth bone was also exposed. Flesh and skin fell from her face like the face of Queen Esperanza rotting in a crypt. In contrast, the wings behind Beatrice’s back glistened and gained power. She soared above the deck and lifted Patricia with her. Though Beatrice’s body was thinner and more fragile than her older sister’s, a weight like Patricia’s did not seem heavy to her. After dying in the arms of the fairies, do even graceful ladies become strong willed?

«Forgive me, sister, but I must take you to Opal to see my master,» Beatrice smiled. The teeth beneath her bloodless lips were sharpened to resemble white needles.

«So you are a fairy after all!»

«It is not quite!» Beatrice laughed again. «You don’t know so much! You don’t even know what I’ve become!»

«Let go, traitor!»

«I’d rather carry you away than a dragon!»

Beatrice soared higher into the starry skies and came upon the very dragon that appeared to be hovering over the ship. The mist concealed it, but did not drive it away. Barely noticing the mist fairy, the dragon showed aggression.

Beatrice howled as the dragon’s claw touched her body. From the mere dragon’s touch, the pale fairy began to burn. She unclenched her bony hands and released her victim. Patricia would have fallen from the height and could have crashed or broken her bones, but the dragon did not let her fall. Its claw picked her up and gently planted her on the sentinel’s stall on the mast. Had the dragon really shown gallantry? Patricia was stunned, but she could no longer get a good look at the dragon and Beatrice in the fog.

A tangle of secrets

Along with Beatrice, the squad of night invaders disappeared from the deck. The crew had fought them all night and was exhausted. It turns out that even magical creatures can be exhausted. Patricia thought they were tireless.

Why did the dragon save her? Could it be a different dragon than the one that planted the fiery threatening letter on the deck? Are there not many dragons flying over the sea?

And why did she think the letter was from a dragon? A dragon could have been signed by some rogue wizard who created the flaming letter with enchantments, not dragon breath.

The golden dragon was magnificent! He was her savior! Patricia sent an air kiss to the heavens and belatedly remembered that as she was now, no one would consider her a sign of favor. Her clothes were torn, her breeches had replaced her aristocratic attire, and her old cloak was tied around her waist like a ragged skirt. Her hair was still beautiful. The dragon probably mistook them for flames, which is why he saved her. Dragons respect fire goddesses, after all.

Patricia has heard that fire goddesses live on the shores of Tioria. Because of them, all the waterfalls along the shores became fire falls, and they are now called fire falls.

Maybe the dragon ship came from Tioria and was ruled by a fire goddess? But no one had ever heard of fire ships, even in Tioria.

The night invaders were definitely sent by the King of Opal. Only he, who gathered magic and magical creatures around him, could conjure something like this. One could expect anything from a king, but Patricia did not expect treachery from her own sister.

The glowing footprint of the mist fairy was left on the deck. It was like the glow imprints of the moon fairies. Patricia wanted to touch it, but someone suddenly grabbed her arm.

«Nethopyrina! Let go!» Patricia struggled, but it was impossible to fight off the huge wings of the fairy bat.

«You’ll die if you touch it,» warned Netopyrina. «This is the mark of a dead fairy.»

«It’s the mark of my own sister!»

«She’s not your sister anymore.»

«You think I can’t recognize my own sister?» Patricia was indignant.

Sometimes Nethopyrina takes on too much. The Bat Fairy wrapped herself in her wings like a dark cloak and hissed, squinting at the glittering trail on the deck.

«These are dangerous creatures. They come with the fog, the storm, or the moonlight. They themselves come from the world of the dead and their purpose is to lead the living away. But the one on our ship is even more dangerous than they are. It’s unnatural, as if it was created artificially. Even magic can be untypical at times.»

«It doesn’t matter anymore,» Patricia said.

«So you’ve stopped believing that the dead fairy is your sister?»

«She is the mist fairy, not the dead fairy. She was brought to our ship by the fog.»

«It is more like magic.»

«You think some fairy from the Opal’s crypt could have taken the form of my dead sister?»

«That’s not what I mean!» Nethopyrina wrinkled her nose. «The dead body definitely belongs to some Opal noblewoman, quite possibly your sister, but the spirit inside it is an outsider.»

«So some evil spirit has taken over Beatrice’s body?»

«I’m not sure,» Nethopyrina hesitated. «I’m not familiar with this kind of magic.»

«If there is magic here, it’s only a quarter of it. Beatrice’s consciousness and speech are the same as they were when she was alive. Only her former honesty has been replaced by cunning.»

«Well, it happens to people without magic. Some people’s character can deteriorate with age or under the pressure of circumstances,» said Nethopyrina with the aplomb of a philosopher. «Humans are weak creatures.»

«Beatrice is a traitor!» Patricia still couldn’t digest that.

«She could have been influenced by a magician and she doesn’t know what she’s doing,» Zeligena comforted Patricia. «I’ve seen tomb guardians and cemetery fairies! They’re usually led by a dragon, or the Emperor of Magic.»

Zeligena was confused and incredibly embarrassed that her tongue was slurring. She too was probably too tired against the pointless battle with invulnerable warriors.

«You were lucky, Captain. The Grave Fairy could have killed you with just a kiss on the forehead,» Nethorypina remembered belatedly. «If she had kissed you on the cheek, your body would have begun to gray and decompose, black spots would have appeared.»

«Grave fairies usually use kisses as a weapon of destruction,» Zeligena nodded. «They kiss girls on the cheeks and guys on the lips when they wander into a graveyard at night, and the next morning they’re rotting relics.»

«You’ve been watching the graveyard from the swamp?» Patricia wondered.

«I didn’t sit in the swamp all the time. The swamp is my home, but sometimes people come out of the swamp for a walk. Besides, I knew a cemetery that became a swamp.»

«I’ve seen fairies who kiss girls on the lips, too,» said Nethopyrina, grinning. «You can put a grave worm in the lips and it will eat your brains out. A grave fairy named Amnesia taught this technique to everyone.»

«Didn’t the name of the disease of memory loss come from her?» Patricia wondered. It felt as if she already knew about this fairy from somewhere.