Dragon Ship

«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 Only her former honesty has been replaced by cunning.»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.

«That’s right,» Nethopyrina nodded.

Patricia picked up her saber, which, in the absence of a battle, lay quietly on the deck as if it were not magical. But when there was a whiff of blood somewhere, the saber would wake up and fly into battle. It’s convenient to have a magic weapon, but it’s even more convenient to have your own dragon. You can always just fly away on it, if you have nowhere to go from the enemy troops. A dragon can also shoot fire. If flying over the «Bloodsucker», he breathed down. He would burn the entire ship in the open sea.

Can a magical ship be burned by dragon fire? Patricia hadn’t thought about it somehow, but it was a topic worth discussing.

«Can a dragon burn a dead fairy with its breath?» she asked Nethopyrina and Zeligena. Both hesitated.

«It can burn a living one,» Zeligena replied. «He burns mermaids even in the water. If he breathes fire on the waves, all that remains is a charred skeleton. Would you like to ask him to burn the night guest?

How could I ask him? Patricia sighed sadly. Her fairy friends are such dreamers!

«Beatrice was only seventeen when she died,» Patricia recalled.

«How old are you?» Nethopyrina was keenly interested.

«I am nineteen.»

«That’s all. I’m nineteen centuries past my nineteenth birthday.»

«You don’t look so old!»

«Fairies don’t age! Didn’t you know that?»

«Of course I knew it, but when you get to know them closely, you’re still amazed.»

She looked like a girl of eighteen, except for the wings, webbing, and wide bat ears.

«How old are you?» Patricia asked Zeligena for the sake of politeness.

The swamp fairy was embarrassed, realizing that a large age was not welcome among humans.

«Well, I’m a couple of millennia old,» Zeligena twirled a green strand of her hair around her finger and lowered her eyes in embarrassment. The swamp fairy’s eyelashes and eyebrows were also green. How beautiful! But for some reason, such beauty scares people. Patricia had gotten used to the charms of fairies, having spent time with them on the same pirate ship.

Before, her company was just her sister and other court ladies. At first they had played fantasy games in the royal garden, but then the fairies had come to Opal and the games had gotten bloody.

It was a memory that came to mind. Beatrice is dead in the garden, and from her body stretches a thread of magic and mystery. Fairies wind the tangle of bloody flowers. They laugh and dance in the air around Beatrice’s corpse.

«She is so young, so unwise,» they hum. «She is so sweet! Her fate is beyond the graves.»

The fairies’ laughter was annoying. Patricia struggled to break free of the memories and went to her quarters. Beatrice’s night visit had been a complete surprise, but she couldn’t think about it all day. It was not enough that her dead brother came to her after Beatrice. Patricia imagined Cassian slipping through the cabin door holding his own severed head. Can dead heads speak? What if the head spoke in his hands? That would be a nightmare. Beatrice is still tolerable. She must admit that after her death she became even more beautiful than she was in life. Patricia always admired her sister. She wondered why the King of Opal would want Patricia back when he already has Beatrice. Did he loves Patricia? Such love was worse than hate.

Patricia was sharpening her saber.

«If you could fly, I’d send you into the King of Opal’s heart!» Patricia had heard of magic swords that could be sent flying and go straight to the heart of your enemy, even if he lived across the ocean. Where could she get a sword like that? True, if the sword fails to deal with the enemy, it will fly back and kill the one who sent it. A powerful wizard like the King of Opal could send back magic swords.

«Better send an arrow of cupid into his heart,» a female voice advised. Some mermaid peered through the porthole. A crown of pearls glistened in her green hair. It seemed to be the queen of the sea.

«Good morning!» Patricia thought of nothing more than a banal greeting.

«It’s not good morning! There was a dragon flying over the sea! It could have hurt us,» the mermaid complained. As if Patricia could do anything against the dragon!

«He’s not evil.»

«That depends on who he’s mean to. Did you make a deal with him?»

«It is nothing!» Patricia was honest.

«It’s a pity. I could have gotten some privileges from him,» the mermaid sighed.

«Do you mean the dragon or the King of Opal?»

«You could seduce the King of Opal, too, but he’d never be honest with you and might try to cast a spell.»

«And what is about the golden dragon?»

«That’s for you to decide. You know the dragon better than I do.»