Swan and Dragon. Dragon Empire

“Leave me alone!” Rose shouted at them as soon as the ballroom doors appeared ahead. She snatched her hand out of the firm, but far from friendly, grip and walked swiftly forward along the carpet. Her steps echoed in the confined space of the corridor. The lamps on the walls alternately went out, warning the approach of the girl. The candles in the candelabra were extinguished, and the beauty in the golden dress illuminated the approaching darkness by itself. Rose’s emerald eyes took on a feline shine in the shadows. Classic eyebrow arches curved over them. The shoulders of the princess were striking with whiteness and grace. The hair flowed in a dark waterfall from under the enamel hoop. Relentless rock hovered over a beautiful head. If a magician was here, he would have seen a slender, radiant lady hurrying to the ball, and the angel of death flies behind her, rustling with black wings.

A chamberlain stood at the sash doors with a list of guests. He smiled ingratiatingly. Flattery showed in his speeches.

Rose turned around and saw two little pages at the other end of the corridor. They boldly met her gaze and quietly, maliciously laughed.

The tall grandfather clock by the window showed a quarter to twelve. The chamberlain crossed out one of the names on the list, and the doors to the hall immediately swung open by themselves.

“It wasn’t without magic,” thought Rose. She spread the bucked sleeves of her dress and stepped over the threshold. The doors immediately closed behind her, like a prepared trap.

However, the ballroom was not much like a trap. Its high vaulted ceilings looked up into the sky. Stained glass was inserted into the bizarre windows. The light was crushed in crystal chandeliers. Music was playing. Dressed up couples flirted. The high society was entertained by jugglers and acrobats. At the edges of the hall were festive tables with food and wine.

Only the overwhelming size of the hall and the crooked reflections in the wall mirrors made an unpleasant impression on Rosa.

As soon as she entered, the musicians stopped playing. An ominous silence hung over the hall. Ladies and gentlemen now looked like suddenly put to sleep. Everyone froze in their former position and did not dare to move. For a moment, Rose thought she was standing among a forest of wax figures. Then a single admiring sigh broke the deathly silence that reigned in the hall, and all the ladies present sat down in a low curtsy to Rose. After them the gentlemen bowed.

Each of the guests tried to portray the highest courtesy, but no one dared to approach the princess. All their bows and curtsies resembled a well-rehearsed performance.

As the dance began, the guests’ colorful robes swirled like a whirlwind of autumn leaves. Rose walked around the hall, holding her gaze for a long time at women’s hairstyles and outfits. She has not seen such a variety of fashions and colors anywhere else. There were no knights or guards here, but dandies in tunics trimmed with colored piping feasted. Jewels glittered on the foreheads of young maidens. The older ladies had elaborate nets covering their hair. The crooked mirrors revealed fake smiles. Their distorted reflection illuminated the soul.

Suddenly, in the distance, a dull and clear beat of a clock was heard. An invisible pendulum whistled in time with them. Terrible, monotonous sounds seemed to come from everywhere: from every wall, from the floor and even from the ceiling, so that it was impossible to determine exactly where the clock itself was.

The fun stopped instantly. The guests backed away to the edges of the room, and only Rose stood in the very center, listening to every beat of midnight.

For the tenth, eleventh beat, and finally the last one sounded. It was like thunder. Echoing it, the walls hummed, the stained-glass windows rattled, the ceiling cracked. It seemed to Rose that the masonry was about to fall right on her head. She had to run, but a mysterious force bound her whole body, not allowing even to move.

The crowd of guests surrounded Rose in a ring. There was another crack in the ceiling. And suddenly, behind Rose, something hit the floor. A bass grunt, occasionally interrupted by a chest cough, filled the silence.

Rose felt that she could move again. She looked up and saw that there was a hole in the very middle of the ceiling. And behind someone’s back, someone continued to sniff and quack like an animal.

The princess scanned the crowd with pleading eyes. The guests’ faces were frozen in impenetrable expressions. Rose was afraid to turn around, afraid to see the one who was fumbling behind her. And suddenly gnarled fingers gripped the wrist of her hand. An eerie face with beady eyes and an aquiline nose peeped over Rose’s shoulder.

The huge, crooked mouth contorted into a grin. Rose tucked her skirts up with her free hand and wanted to dash away, but the black bird claws dug into her wrist so that she screamed. The circle of guests closed even closer around them. There was no exit.

Rose freed her hand and pulled back a little. Next to her stood a hunchback in a black cloak. He could barely reach the shoulder of an ordinary person, but in his dumpy, dense physique, remarkable strength was felt. The back was crowned with a lumpy, pointed hump. Long arms almost reached the knees. The vicious, ugly face broke into a grin every minute. A toothed crown with a ruby was pulled over his forehead.

“Here, I caught you, killer whale!” almost happily he bit back, but his eyes remained so ferocious that Rose involuntarily backed away.

The hunchback grabbed her wrist again, not allowing her to take another step.

“What do you want from me?” Rose almost cried.

“Don’t you yourself know?” laughing and coughing, he asked a counter question. “Forgot about the signed contract? The deadline has expired, I’m taking you with me.”

There was nowhere to wait for help. Rose was at the mercy of a vile monster, and the crowd looked at them indifferently. The air from the floor to the gap in the ceiling was now surrounded by an icy shimmer. Shiny molecules moved, joined, curved in lines. And so they outlined the transparent steps of a spiral staircase, resting against a gaping hole in the ceiling.

“Help!” Rose shouted, hoping that at least someone would save her. For a moment it seemed to her that Mara was standing in the very corner of the room and squinting as if she was nearsighted, but she didn’t think to go for help.

Rose tried to pull her hand out of her tenacious fingers, but the hunchback squeezed her wrist even tighter and stepped onto the first step. To the girl’s surprise, the staircase was not an illusion. The steps were hard and as slippery as ice. The ominous guide dragged the prisoner with him. Rose stumbled and fell right on the steps, but the hunchback pulled her hand so hard that she had to get up and keep up with him.

“I don’t know anything about the contract. I am not who you are looking for,” Rose pleaded, but he didn’t even deign to answer her.

It was a mistake. A terrible mistake. The princess was confused with someone else. She wanted to explain it, but the hunchback did not listen to her. And in the depths of Rose’s consciousness, another incredible guess emerged. It all happened to her because of the dress. Someone specially tried to get it into her hands. It was an identification mark for the sorcerer who dragged her along. His mysterious and intricate magic proved to be stronger than anything other wizards did.

He climbed through the hole and the stairs began to dissolve in the surging air masses. The steps melted in an instant, like ice floes in water. Rose made another desperate attempt to free herself, but a strong, hooked hand pulled her through the hole just before the last step vanished into thin air.

SINGER OF THE WIND

Rose looked around in amazement. Everything disappeared somewhere. There were no more intricate chateau cornices, no ornate facades, and no huge gardens. Instead of taking his captive to the roof, the gloomy villain took her to another space. It was a cleft between two worlds.

Behind the girl’s back were kingdoms, principalities and empires inhabited by people, and in front of them towered blue rocks, blocking mortals from entering the forbidden world.

Blue smoke snaked around the rocks, enveloped the abyss, almost touched the bubbling foam of the river. An aqueduct was thrown across it. A string of patterned, sturdy supports held his stone platform.

The blue rock ahead was shaped like a bastion erected by a shadow architect. Below, the river seethed and twisted in foamy waves around the pillars of the aqueduct, but could not reach the desired height. Rose looked down and felt dizzy. There, as in the palm of your hand, lay the ribbon of the river, entwining the whole country of sorcerers. It was not even a country, but a rocky island, fenced off by a fast, icy current. People called this river Silver because in the darkness its smooth surface shone with silver. It was impossible to wade or swim. It was enough to plunge into the water with just one foot, and it pulled the person like a funnel. Then the body melted into a frothy, liquid silver.

Where its water basins narrowed, arched bridges were thrown, but they were far from safe. Even the halo around the moon here took on an ominous red color.

Having dragged the girl across the bridge, the hunchback pulled out a copper cane from under his cloak, hit it on a flat rock, and immediately a crack formed in the smooth surface. She crawled up, then to the side, drawing some kind of triangular pattern. This drawing turned out to be a door. Someone opened it from the inside. Giant ugly hands grabbed Rose like a toy and threw her into the darkness. The door in the rock closed with a screech, leaving no slit for light.

The princess did not know how long she had to lie face down on the cold floor. But suddenly a torch flashed in the darkness. The flames whipped out dirty, iron bars and padlocks. Some figures moved next to them like shadows, smoothly and silently. Hands, unlike human hands, hugged iron bars. The rustle of long robes was heard.

Several more torches joined the first. They seemed to move through the air by themselves. One of them flew up to Rose’s face. There was no heat coming from it, and the wooden handle was free of any support.

Rose recoiled, and the torch flew past her, illuminating the slippery, slab of floor. Two pairs of hands grabbed Rose by the elbows, forced her to her feet and quickly dragged her along. Rosa made out figures in long robes, their heads hidden by masks with bird beaks.

A torch flew ahead and illuminated the gloomy corridors. From time to time he stopped and drew fire signs right in the air. Rose did not understand their meaning, but the figures in masks read the fiery letters in a whisper, and they immediately extinguished, leaving behind streaks of black smoke.

This hellish corridor will never end, the princess thought. “I will stay here underground and never see the sun again. I am a hostage, I am a victim of betrayal. Thoughts swarmed in her head. Assumptions, one more terrible than the other, hit the brain. The road into darkness had no end. I wanted to forget and fall asleep, but two gloomy guards dragged the captive forward, not allowing her to linger for a moment.

Rose was tired and weak, her eyelids were heavy and sticky, but it was impossible to sleep. Ahead, she saw massive, cast-iron doors covered with intricate ornamentation and bordered by an arc of glowing rot.

“What kind of place is it? What’s waiting for me outside the door?” Rose thought as she walked. Before she had time to cry out or whisper the saving word of prayer, steel hands pushed her into a spacious room that closed in a ring. It was a courtroom.

Wooden stands rose in rows one above the other. Above, under the very dome of the ceiling, there are several latticed windows. This means that Rose was no longer underground or in the rock, but in the very heart of the island of sorcerers.

In the middle of the courtroom was a low, iron stool. The figures who dragged her by force forced the princess on it, and they themselves stood behind her.

All around were people in long robes and cocked hats, motionless and speechless. Each of them seemed to be rooted in its place behind the wooden platform. Fierce eyes looked from pale, haggard faces. Spider fingers fiddled with yellowed parchment scrolls or simply tapped drum rolls on the table top.

Oil lamps filled the room with dim, orange light. The judge’s desk remained free, and the defendant was already sitting in her place. Rose looked around in horror.

Dozens of vile, embittered pairs of eyes stared at her. The size of the hall was overwhelming and oppressive. Here, the fragile figure of the princess in a golden dress seemed tiny. Disheveled hair covered her wounded shoulders. Suddenly a bright beam of light fell on her face. Rose perked up. There were shuffling steps behind her. She saw the crowned hunchback take the place of the judge on the platform. Its heavy, gnarled shadow covered Rose. An angry gaze rested on her face.

“Let’s start!” said the hunchback. His voice sounded like a thunderclap in the deathly silence.

At that moment, the cone-shaped window under the ceiling swung open and an eagle flew into it, flapping its wings. The window sash slammed shut. The bird sat down on an empty chair and screeched. Proudly folded behind the back, the wings no longer concealed the scarlet seam on the eagle’s chest. Rose recognized the trail from her own bullet and was dumbfounded. What was happening was like a nightmare. The bird’s wings began to grow and stretch. The beak was getting smaller. Feathers thickened, turning into black clothes. And now it was no longer an eagle, but another silent jury bore Rose with his angry eyes.

“Do you all recognize the convict?” The judge asked loudly, and many heads in black cocked hats nodded affirmatively.