Dragon Ship
Natalie Yacobson

Natalia Lilienthal Переводчик

© Natalie Yacobson, 2024

© Natalia Lilienthal, перевод, 2024

ISBN 978-5-0062-4413-9

Создано в интеллектуальной издательской системе Ridero

A flaming ship

The blazing ship entered the harbor. The water beneath it was ablaze with fire. Patricia stared and couldn’t believe her eyes. The whole harbor was on fire. And the fire was spreading through the water. And it looked as if the sea was on fire. And it was all the fault of a marvelous ship! Shining like the sun on the evening horizon, it immediately attracted her attention. But it brought fires and death.

«Look! Look!» The elves drinking in the coastal tavern murmured. «Its sides are shaped like dragon wings and its nose is a dragon’s head. And it shines like it’s covered in scales.»

«It feels like the masts and rigging are the dragon’s innards,» another elf joined the conversation. Together they were bouncing on the table and trying to get a better look at the dragon-like ship through the window. They didn’t even care that the tavern was about to burn down.

And Patricia was hurriedly packing her things into a bundle. That was the end of her work here. If she’d known the harbor town would burn down tonight, she wouldn’t have hired here at all. It’s better to run on land, or risk getting burned right into the sea. Good thing she hadn’t gotten on one of the barges crossing the canal this morning, and bad thing she hadn’t bought a stagecoach ticket to the capital.

«But at least the thing you’ve been dreaming of happened to you – you finally saw the dragon ship.»

The voice, of course, belonged to the fortune-teller from the rook, and he himself was already seated at an empty table. How suddenly he found himself in the tavern! And the fire on the wharf did not frighten him.

Patricia was frightened of this man. Was he a man at all? The long red hooded robe, embroidered with stars, could have belonged to a ghost or a wizard. The first time she had seen him, Patricia had mistaken him for a magician. The soothsayer sailed the boat toward the lagoon, and the lilies and lily pads sang to him in human voices. The oar of the rook rowed itself, it was made in the shape of a water serpent, and this serpent came to life. It certainly did not seem to her then, nor did it seem to her now, that a flame flared for a moment in the seer’s hands.

«Why does the dragon ship come to the ports?» She moved slowly toward the diviner’s table.

«It is to set everything on fire. That’s what dragons fly the skies for, and this one sails the seas. But its purpose is the same.»

«Is it real?» Everything she’d heard about the dragon ship was just legend. The reality surpassed them. «It can turn from a ship into a real dragon? You mean a living one?»

«It is a real dragon.»

«He’s just a ship,» Patricia fixed her red hair. It was the color of flame, too, but that wouldn’t help her escape. «What does he want?»

«You, apparently.»

She was confused. What did the soothsayer mean by that? The beer in the mug left by the regular who had fled at the sight of the fire suddenly sizzled and ignited under his fingers. What strange passes he makes with his hands. And his fingers are wearing expensive rings.

«Are we all going to burn?»

«Not all of us! There’s someone he’s sparing.»

«Who is he? Is it a dragon? Is it a ship?»

«He is the master of the ship!» The soothsayer corrected.

«A ship has a master?» Patricia turned around in surprise at the flaming sea. The impression was that the ship, repeating the outline of the dragon, really began to come to life and move the sides-wings. The toothy maw on the bow opened threateningly.

She wondered if the fire was coming from it. Or does the bottom of the ship ignite the water? What material is the ship made of that makes the water hot? The color of the material looks like wood, but it’s fireproof. So it’s not wood. Everything around the ship is on fire, even the water, but only orange sparks run along the sides and fenders. The arrival of the dragon ship is like an infernal firework display.

«Even the sea is aflame from this ship. It’s the apocalypse!» Patricia gasped.

She watched the orange hot waves crashing onto the shore, burning people, boats, and even the harbor taverns.

«The ship has no crew, no captain or helmsman, only a master,» the soothsayer tipped the rest of the beer onto the table. The orange puddle that spread on the wood took the shape of a mirror. Like a mirror, it reflected everything that was going on around it. And then it suddenly reflected what was not happening around.

«Sit down,» the soothsayer pointed to an empty chair. «There’s nowhere to run anyway. Before everything burns down, I’ll tell you where he came from. Or rather, I’ll show you!»

«Who is it? Is it the master of the ship? Is it the dragon?»

«The master is a dragon. He is only a real one.»

But then why does he need a ship? Patricia dared not ask any more questions. The orange puddle in front of her was filled with sparks. The port was burning, and the girl looked at the marvelous pictures flickering on the table like a mirror. The more she looked, the more it became clear to her.

Pirate

Patricia ran down the path of fire. It left burns on her body. She was running away from both the fire and the horrible truth the seer had shown her.

There was a swamp ahead. Even it was better than a solid wall of fire. At the sight of the mire, Patricia felt relief.

Wet hands clutched at her hem.

Oh, it’s the boggarts! Muddy green swamp fairies with beautiful faces and rotten teeth pulled their webbed hands toward the girl.

«Don’t get on board! You won’t get off it alive, unless you become a member of the crew. And only a magical creature can join the crew. You’re not a fairy. You can’t survive on board.»

«Thanks for the warning!»

But there’s still nowhere to go. Sparks of flame are following her.

«The dragon is looking for you!»

«I see it!»

«He kidnaps every girl who looks like his runaway wife, and you look just like her.»

«Is she a dragoness?»

What a surprise! The sparks are multiplying and keeping up. The only way to escape is into the sea. It’s no longer fiery here. The water in the bay is murky but cold.

The ship in the bay was full of magical creatures. Alas, Patricia only noticed this when she climbed up the cracked gangway.

«Look! She’s got fire kisses on her! The dragon didn’t burn her!» The eerie, hoarse voices of a whole company of fairy creatures came.

Patricia’s leg was stuck in a hole between the broken boards like a dog’s mouth. Blood trickled down her ankle. Patricia felt dizzy from the blood loss. It felt like the ship was drinking her blood. Isn’t that funny?

«Ah!» Someone shouted so loudly that the sound carried over the entire ship.

Patricia’s blood somehow ignited on the planks and immediately went out. The girl pulled her leg out of the trap with difficulty. The hole in the deck immediately disappeared. What the hell!

A team of creepy creatures was closing in around the girl. Patricia instinctively grabbed the first thing that came to hand. The rusty hilt suddenly shone with newness under her fingers, and the weapon soared into the air, threatening the infernal creatures. They backed away, even frightened. What a miracle! It turned out that Patricia had found a saber on board that turned out to be magical. It was throwing itself to chop down any human or goblin nearby, even the one who found it, but Patricia was able to hold it back.

«Now you are the owner of the saber, and we are your team,» The wounded goblin said. He was the most formidable and huge monster on board.

«And whose ship is this?» Patricia asked.

«It is nobody’s.»

«It sounds like it’s an independent living creature that drinks the blood of the unfortunate girls who boarded.»

She seemed to have hit the mark. The monsters looked at her with reverence, as if she were an all-knowing sorceress.

«The ship belongs to nobody, and so does this saber,» the goblin lowered his eyes guiltily. «So far, no one has been able to take it, but it has harmed everyone. The ship is also named after the saber.»

«You mean a saber?» Patricia was surprised.

«No, it is a bloodsucker.»

«That doesn’t sound nice.»

«Well, the ship isn’t going to a beauty contest, but to a pirate heist.»

«Since you have a handsome captain now, you’ll have a handsome name.»

The Wicked One is squirming.

«You should go back to land, pretty girl!»

«It is too late. I’m with you now. Whoever went aboard will never come back alive unless he’s your captain. That’s what the swamp women whisper.»

«Do you hear them? Swamp women! Oh, come on! You’re not a fairy yourself, are you?»

The fiends hopped around Patricia on the deck. Some claws even felt her back for wings.

«She is not a fairy!» A troll said disappointedly.

«Don’t worry! I’ll be a good captain.»

«I see, or you wouldn’t have the saber,» said the ugly duergar.

Fate is whimsical. She almost got burned by dragon fire, got on board with the wicked! But with a crew like this, you can get your revenge.

«Let’s go!» Patricia commanded.

«Where is it to?»

«Head for Opal.»

«Are we going to look for food for the ship?» The goblins became animated.

Did they say food, not profit? Did Patricia hear what they said?

«Does the ship feed on gold?» She asked.

«No, it feeds on the blood of captured men who have fallen into the water. There’s a reason it’s called a bloodsucker.»

«I would have called it «The Light», the name of my ship when I was a noble lady.

«And what are you now?»

They couldn’t tell whether she was a peasant or a lady by her dress. Patricia thought it unnecessary to explain her social status. She wasn’t sure she had retained her title and manners. She had been wanted as a rebel for a week now. To hide, she’d been stubbornly playing the role of a commoner.

«We will avenge my kin,» she said dryly.

«If you want to burn all of Opal, you’d better summon a dragon ship. He can do it in one swim,» said the clever trolls.

«He’ll burn us, too. We can do it ourselves!»

On the way, they captured a pirate ship and ate all the pirates. «The Bloodsucker» really did feed on people. Perhaps we shouldn’t have changed its name as it exactly matched the behavior of the bloodthirsty vampire ship. The ship couldn’t have been named more accurately. Its ropes, like living snakes, stretched out and caught game. The sails swirled cocoon around the captured humans, and for a moment the bloody stains on the sailcloth were visible. The deck greedily absorbed the blood, making sucking sounds. You don’t need to wash a deck like this, you just sprinkle blood on it and it’s clean. The stains are immediately absorbed.

Patricia cheered, realizing that luck had come to her in the form of a magical ship and its crew. No one could handle goblins, swamp elves, and trolls in battle. A crew of the unholy is just what you need to take revenge on powerful enemies.

Barrels of fire

Patricia covered her eyes and it seemed to her that the fire ship was floating towards her again and a serpent was forming from the fire and hissing:

«The dragon seeks you! The dragon wants you! Swim to him!»

Is it to fight him? Or is it to fall in love with him? The silhouette of the dragon ship stirred strange feelings. Her heart blazed, but her mind remained cold. Patricia realized that sailing towards the dragon ship meant certain death. Pirates should be more calculating. You should only attack those you can defeat. You also need to inspire respect among the crew so there’s no rebellion.

How to look more dashing? How about wrapping a black eye patch around one eye? That would be dashing, but not practical. The view is worse with a blindfold on. To fight with a saber, she needs to see both right and left.

Pirates without one eye or a wooden leg are cripples after all. What’s so dashing about them? Patricia still took a skein of cloth to bandage her knee or elbow as if they were shattered. It would give the impression that this wasn’t the first time she’d pirated.

Someone’s voice called out from the void:

«You are the dragon’s chosen one!»

What does it mean, the chosen one? The dragon wants to kidnap her and sacrifice her? So she has a saber to defend herself and a bloodthirsty ship that will suck the blood even out of the dragon if the dragon suddenly swooped down. But what is about the dragon ship? It can’t be handled that easily. And there’s the risk of burning. There’s no escape from the blazing sea. But she’s a captain at sea, and the water around the ship isn’t on fire yet.

Life has changed for the better. Not so long ago Patricia was serving drinks to pirates in a tavern, and now she is a pirate captain herself! Fortune had finally smiled on her. The dull everyday life was colored by pure magic. The saber hovered over the cabin, guarding Patricia’s sleep. In addition to goblins, trolls, and boggles, the crew even included swamp elves. They were tall and green-skinned. Patricia had only seen tiny elves before and naively thought they were all as small as pixies. The swamp elves turned out to be hulking men whose skin was sprouting slime and moss. The tavern elves tended to leprosy by climbing into beer mugs. Their size was perfect for such hiding. If they were discovered, they blew a whirlwind of magical beer bubbles in the drunkard’s face that would make him lose his mind and dance in the street all night. No one believed the complaints of the drunks in the morning. Many complained that they were enslaved by elves, not ale. Naturally, they were only mocked. It was until disaster struck.

One day some drunkard swallowed a beer elf, and his stomach swelled, sparks ran along his skin, and the elf laughed from his gut. Everyone thought he had a ventriloquist inside him. The poor guy lost his bearings and hit the iron hook with his belly. The freed elf flew out of the belly. The murder was blamed on the pirates.

Patricia remembered how the drunkard’s body hung on the hook like a meat carcass, while the mocking elves circled around the hook and cheered:

«How easy it is to fool people!» They chanted.

Now they were helping her to pirate. And she had thought that magic tricks were easy only with drunkards in the tavern.

The first ship they captured was a galley. There was nothing to eat. But the vampire ship did, both the ship’s owners and the galleys’ oarsmen. Its ropes and sails caught its victims in a cocoon and smeared them in a bloody stain. The blood would quickly disappear, soaking into the ship, and the sails would turn boiling white again. This was great, because sailing with bloody sails meant being under suspicion forever. You could tell a bloody ship belonged to pirates. The ship itself didn’t care, it was all about food. It easily accepted the presence of a captain, as long as the captain leads it on a voyage for game. But the crew lacked other values.

«We don’t see eye to eye with the ship,» Patricia sighed. «I want wine, spices, silks, and sharp Menuel’s weapons.»

Menuel had the best weapons, and Etar had the best silks and tastiest sweets, but the ships of opportunity were only warships, not merchant ships. Patricia’s blood-hungry crew easily boarded ships with heavy equipment. One captured ship had an unusual cargo – barrels of lead.

«What was in them?» Patricia polished her saber and watched as the goblins dragged the barrels to the deck from the sinking ship. «Is it gunpowder? Or is it mercury? Definitely not wine. The packaging is not typical of wine.»

«It is a fire wine,» one of the goblins replied.

«No, it isn’t! There is no such thing as a fire wine.»

Patricia opened one of the barrels and was astonished. Inside the barrel, liquid fire was bubbling.

«Is this really drinkable?»

«Yes, it is!» The big goblin snatched the barrel and took a big gulp, then snorted insolently.

«And you didn’t burn your throat?» Patricia wondered.

The goblin shook his horned head. Then he clawed at his stomach. His eyes bulged and turned orange, and sparks flickered across his fur. The goblin grinned contentedly. He was enjoying the effects of the fire wine.

«Do the others drink it too?»

The goblin nodded.

«Drunks,» Patricia muttered under her breath. The goblin took no offense. Everyone here liked fiery wine that burned the palate. And this was her team! All monsters! She didn’t know that before.

Patricia was getting discouraged. The other pirates had taken the treasure, and all they got were barrels of wine. In frustration, she stabbed one of the casks with her dagger.

«No, don’t tear them off!» The jumpy creature from the hold squeaked, but it was too late. An orange trickle flowed onto the deck.

«There’s fire in every barrel, not wine!» Patricia was indignant.

«It’s fire wine,» the Bogles grumbled resentfully. «Don’t you realize that this is the highest kind of wine?»

«And who drinks such wine? Are they suicides? Are they condemned to execution? It will burn your throat!»

«Dragons and dragons’ friends drink it,» replied the Bogles.

«But it will burn our ship. Hurry up and get buckets of water!»

Are there buckets on board? Patricia didn’t even know. But the flames on deck went out by themselves. Did the ship soak it up?

«Our house isn’t on fire,» the pixie flipped in the air.

«It is the ship, not the house!» Patricia corrected her.

«It doesn’t matter!» The pixies scattered and the goblins began to drink heavily.

Patricia stepped away from the horde of monsters. They were pouncing on the barrels of fiery liquor. The barrels didn’t even have corks. The goblins were smashing the lids with their paws to get to the contents.

«Hey, Captain! Look at me? Do I fit in with your crew?» A female voice squeaked from somewhere above.

Patricia looked around. There was no one around, except for the strange, stiff gargoyles on the sides. They looked like they were about to come to life. Could she have been approached by a ghost? There’s no sign of it, by the way. Are there invisible ghosts?

«How is about that?» The unfamiliar voice came from above again.

Patricia raised her head, holding her triangle with one hand. There was no one flying in the sky above the ship. So she couldn’t have been called from the sky.

«Look here!»

A beautiful gray head with pointed ears hung down. The eyes on the gray face glittered like amber. A thick cloak covered her narrow shoulders. The lady resembled a dunghill.

«Do you like hanging upside down?» Patricia asked puzzled.

«I do!» The lady shook her gray cape and appeared to be a huge bat. She jumped down gracefully and stood in front of Patricia, straightening up to her full height. Its head reached Patricia’s chin.

«How did you get here? Are you even a fairy or a bat?»

«I’m both, and I’m both, and I’m both.»

«What’s the third thing?»

«I’m a bat fairy, that’s the first two things, and the third, I’m a member of your team.»

«How come I didn’t notice you before?»

«Were you too busy enslaving the crew?»

Enslavement! What’s the word?

«I recruited them, not enslaved them.»

«Hmm,» the bat fairy squirmed incredulously.

«What are your talents?» Patricia looked her over from head to toe. Her feet were two paws with sharp claws that scratched the deck.

«Are they talents for what?»

«It is to fighting.»

«How warlike you are!» The gray fairy clucked her tongue.

«I need warriors.»

«The mermaids say that you can’t survive on the seas without strength,» the fairy sighed and showed her clawed feet. «I can tear anyone to shreds. In my claws the enemy is like in a meat grinder, but my main talent is in agility and in the ability to whistle a strong wind. My whistle, by the way, can make people deaf or insane. Would you like a demonstration?»

The bat-fairy put the claws of her little fingers in her mouth and prepared to whistle.

«No, you don’t,» Patricia interrupted her. «It’s better to introduce yourself. What’s your name?»

«Nethopurina.»

«You’re from a race of celestials?»

Nethopyrina shifted her triangular eyebrows in puzzlement.

«I’m from the bat fairy caste.»

«Okay, it’s not about bloodline. So, Lady Netopyrina…»

«I haven’t been called Lady since King Opal threw me out of the castle in disgrace.»

«What did you do to him?» Patricia immediately felt good about the fairy.

«I drank the blood of the wrong lady to be executed.»

«And he threw you out for such a small thing? He loves fairies, peri, divas, and especially the night fairies, the blood-drinking fairies.»

«But it is not me. I was out of place.»

«So was I.»

«You ran away. No one threw you out,» Nethopyrina scrutinized Patricia. «I see your line of fate. By the way, you’re being chased.»

«Is it from Opal?»

«No, it is from somewhere else.»

«I haven’t made any more enemies anywhere else.»

Is Nethopyrina a clairvoyant? She’s a little vague in her predictions. More like a fraudulent fortune-teller from Opal Square. King Opal had a good eye. He knew how to tell the real sorcerers from the charlatans.

Patricia remembered the feast hall at Opal’s castle, the poison glasses lined up between the food, the dishes of meat and blood, and the snide laughter of the peri community. Peri are the female variety of evil genies. Outwardly they are beauties, inwardly they are demons. The King of Opal released them from some ancient candlestick, and all of Opal turned into hell.

Patricia remembered sitting at the feast table between giggling peri, and on the platter in front of her was meat left over from the cut corpse of her uncle who had rioted against the king. It was best not to clash with a king who had subjugated an unclean force. But the fateful step had been taken, nothing could be undone.

«The King of Opal wanted to give you up to the dragon,» Netopyrina determined.

«I’ve surrendered to the dragon!» Patricia kicked a barrel of fire wine that had been forgotten on the side of the ship. The packaging was faulty. The fiery liquor ran down the deck. It’s going to burn!

The puddle of fire suddenly turned green and turned into a swamp. How did this happen?

«Is there room for me?» A green hand rested on the side.

Had one of the swamp women crawled in? Patricia didn’t think she’d ever see one of them again.

«The dragon burned my swamp as soon as you left,» she explained, climbing up onto the deck on the smooth side. «So I choose to travel in your company. It’s safer with you.»

«Staying close to me is like sailing on a pirate ship.»

«Well, then I want to join your crew. Who says a swamp fairy can’t be a pirate?»

«Can you fight?»

«I can be useful,» the swamp fairy pointed to the green trail of slime that followed her through the water.

«It is mud,» Patricia said.

«And what is about this one?» Her wing stretched out and touched the water behind the deck. The waves immediately became mire. «I can turn the ground beneath your enemies’ feet or the water beneath their ship into mire.»

Patricia whistled. That’s even better than strength. The Swamp Lady knows how to be useful.

«You better learn to fight with a saber, too.»

«I’ll try, but it’s unnecessary. I don’t need a saber when I have claws.»

A swamp fairy could cut a human throat with them. Patricia turned away.

«I am Zeligena,» the swamp fairy introduced herself.

«Isn’t that the name of a whole race of fairies with goat hooves under their green dresses?» Patricia wondered. She had met such fairies at Opal’s court.

«Maybe so, but in this case it’s a name, it is not a nationality.»

It wouldn’t have occurred to Patricia to say that fairies were divided into races and nationalities.

«All right, stay, Zeligena. Let’s hope you’re not a spy.»

«What do you mean?» Zeligena snorted insolently. «I’m an honest swamp dweller who was defeated by a dragon.»

«I’m angry with him myself,» Patricia noticed a metal tube on the side of the boat. It looked like a spyglass, but it was fancy.

«It is a morgen spyglass!» Netopyrina was surprised. «It must have been left here by the sea people. Or maybe it’s a gift?»

«You can see the Undersea Kingdom through it,» Zeligenna interjected. «Let me see!»

But Patricia had already looked through the peephole herself and was surprised. The tube showed not the water and the horizon, but the walls of a palace of shells and pyramids of pearls.

«It is beautiful!» Patricia exhaled.

«What? What did you see?» Nethopyrina and Zeligena began to snatch the telescope from her.

«Calm down! I’m the captain, not you insolent fairies!»

What do fairies do? They wrestled the telescope from her just as the handsome triton appeared in it. Patricia wanted to look at him again. She wanted to bare her saber to wrestle the telescope away, but the water suddenly smelled foul. Had the dragon struck again?

Patricia glanced at the waves and exhaled in exasperation. Burnt bodies floated in the water, only not human. Maidens with fish tails burned to the color of ash. They were dead mermaids! They turned their faces to the sky like dead fish lying belly up. Slender bodies burned partially or to the bone. The bones, scorched by the fire, were coal-black.

«The dragon burned them! They were burned alive!» One mermaid in the dead pack was almost intact. Only her tail was burned. The blue scales on it were inflamed. But her shoulders, arms, and delightful face were not burned. Over her blue hair, the mermaid wore a kind of crown with pendants of pearls. Her scales were spliced on her stomach and breasts, forming a fancy corset.

Several more lovely mermaids floated out beside her.

«The heavenly fire has passed us by, but we’ve all got burns,» they complained in unison. «Do something!»

«But what can I do?» Patricia was shocked by their plea for help. It was the mermaids who could sink her ship. Everyone knows they’re sea sorceresses, able to conjure up a storm with their singing. Maybe they’re messing with her. Testing her for strength and wit?

«The dragon is looking for you,» said the mermaid with the crown in her hair. «He is so angry that he burns even sea creatures. This never happened before. It was safe underwater. If we don’t turn you over to him, he’ll burn the whole sea kingdom.»

«Is it one dragon?» Patricia was surprised.

«It is a special dragon!»

«You are the princesses of the sea,» Patricia noticed the thin coral crowns on the heads of the other mermaids.

«We won’t give you away,» the blue-haired mermaid slid her webbed hand around Patricia’s wrist. «It’s still you, isn’t it? We owe you a debt.»

It’s still her! Yes, though it’s hard to believe, it’s still her – Lady Patricia, the disgraced and outlawed Lady Patricia. But how do the mermaids know her?

«Did the King of Opal send you?»

If he’s in charge of peri and genies, he can handle mermaids too. A logical conclusion! But the mermaid was surprised.

«We don’t know him.»

«How do you know me?»

«Are you playing games with us again? You need to hide from the dragon, not from us,» said the mermaid, waving her webbed hand, in which large pearls sprouted like rings.

«I know,» Patricia shuddered at the memory of the burning waves, but now she had fire wine on the deck herself, and the crew of monsters drank it happily. The goblins have even begun to yell drunken songs. The shy mermaids were embarrassed.

«What a company you have now!»

Is this really a reprimand! Mermaids are princesses, they can’t hear pirate language.

«I will bring discipline on board,» Patricia promised, though she didn’t think it was possible.

«Don’t overdo the magic, or everyone will fall asleep. When you sing, even dragons fall asleep, so don’t sing any more magic songs and don’t overdo it,» the mermaid waved her tail and disappeared into the waves.

Or else she has magic! What a joke!

«See you later, my lady!» came from the waves.

Patricia was discouraged. The mermaids had mistaken her for someone else. And she had unwittingly played along. Playing with mermaids is dangerous. Once the deception is exposed, they’ll come back and sink the whole ship. If they find their mistress, they’ll realize Patricia’s a liar.

«What a mess we’ve gotten ourselves into! It is all because of the King of Opal and his insolent peri!»

The goblin nodded at her, though he didn’t know what she was talking about.

The phoenix flashed with sparks. So there was a ship on the horizon. Patricia snatched the spyglass from the gawking Netopyrina. It still showed only the sea: tritons, sirens and an underwater palace.

«No kidding! Show me the horizon!»

The telescope reluctantly obeyed, showing the sea hundreds of leagues ahead.

«Closer! A couple leagues away!»

Someone snorted inside the tube like a capricious evil spirit, but obeyed anyway.

«You really are the Lord of the Wicked if they obey you like that,» said the bat fairy.

«Who do you mean?»

«They are the spirits of the waters.»

Patricia swallowed her objections. The gray fairy would not call out that she had been confused with someone else. She mustn’t ruin her credibility as captain of the undead. She had an excellent reputation on board so far.

«It is the King of Opal’s fleet!» Patricia saw the flag through her telescope. «Well, I’m going to settle accounts with everyone! Prepare! We’re going to fight!»

A sea battle

Trolls, as it turned out, could jump from ship to ship. They didn’t even need boarding hooks. The trolls pushed off the sides of the ship with their spread paws. They clawed at their opponents with all their claws and fangs. Each goblin could handle a whole group of opponents at once. The gargoyles from the boards came to life and threw themselves into the battle against other people’s ships. Lean boggles clawed at their opponents’ legs and shattered their bones. They killed or maimed many. And still the King of Opal’s fleet won the battle.

«What we have to do?» Patricia thought frantically. «Shouldn’t you use bat magic?»

«That’s dangerous!» The mongrel clawed at the board, and wood shavings flew off of it.

«I know it’s dangerous!»

The swamp fairy was already using her unpretentious swamp magic, trying to turn the sea waves beneath the Opal ships into mire. Her magical powers didn’t last much longer. The water turned green, but the sea did not turn to mire.

A fiery ship would have turned the entire sea into flames in no time. Only in that case, Patricia’s ship would burn too.

The thin mire from the swamp fairy was not enough to swamp other people’s ships.

«All the other swamp fairies from my swamp were burned by the dragon, otherwise we’d be dragging all the ships into the mire right now,» the destitute fairy sighed.

Patricia saw the situation differently. If he hadn’t burned them all, not even one swamp fairy would have come to her.

«If we lose, I’ll drown myself, but I won’t go back to Opal!» Patricia was already regretting getting into a fight. It was better to ask one of the fairies or mermaids to summon the mist. Under the veil of mist, the ship could pass by the fleet and go unnoticed.

«It would be better to ask the mermaids for an elixir to breathe underwater,» Netopyrina said judiciously.

«Is there such an elixir?»

«Mermaids have all sorts of wonders in store. I don’t even know about many of them. Mermaids will gladly give you an elixir.»

«Why would they?»

«They’re very fond of you.»

Patricia barely dodged a sword wielded by one of the taller goblins. The sword slipped out of her hands and began slashing at the crew of the alien ship closest to the Bloodsucker.

«While you’re thinking, your sword will become a warrior in your place,» she joked.

«Fly back to me!» Patricia commanded, but the sword wouldn’t obey her. Maybe it’s a good thing. It’s more useful in battle. If he wants to fight, let him fight. It’s even more convenient for her. She can save her own energy.

Patricia’s crew only managed to sink a couple of Opal’s ships, and there are dozens more. What kind of valuable cargo are they carrying? The King of Opal probably sent them to war. Their equipment is just perfect for war.

Patricia noticed a magical creature aboard the flagship. It’s probably the reason they can’t use magic to win a battle. Everyone knows how powerful wizard’s work for the King of Opal. The graceful peri in her oriental garb resembled a piece of jewelry rather than a warrior. The wings behind her slender back seemed to be made of multicolored mist. Precious pendants hung from her belt and jingled with every movement, like a dancer’s. Among these pendants were vials containing poison. Surely Patricia knew of Peri’s cunning.

Peri noticed it too and grinned slyly. Patricia would give anything to capture the ethereal creature and teach it a lesson. Is it possible to kill a peri? They’re supposed to be immortal.

The peri walked along the side of the boat, then flew over the deck where the fight was going on. What was she up to?

«There’s another fairy on board besides her,» Netopyrina determined. «She is the one blocking the magic of our ship.»

«Is it just one fairy?»

«We have to get her,» Netopyrina showed her sharp claws. «I’ll interrogate her.»

«We don’t need prisoners. The ship feeds only on the blood of the slain.»

«The only way to capture a magical creature is to take it prisoner, and the ship will be spared.»

«How do we not get captured? Am I seeing double, or is Opal’s fleet multiplying?»

Patricia couldn’t tell if it was magic or optical trickery. Or maybe the black ships growing behind the fleet were ghost ships?

Suddenly, multicolored fins flashed in the water between the ships, and a hypnotizing singing sounded. The mermaids had come to help. If it weren’t for them, Opal’s fleet could not have been sunk. The tailed maidens proved to be aggressive and powerful. They summoned a kraken that encircled the Opal’s ships with all its tentacles. The cocky peri’s face stretched in disappointment. This was a turn of events she had not expected. She herself had barely managed to escape the kraken’s tentacles, and that was only because she could fly.

«As long as you’re on the water, you’re lucky,» the flying peri grinned predatorily. «And what will be not on the water?»

The mermaids were triumphant. Their whole flock swirled around the drowning shipwrecks on the water.

«All the valuables that you have not managed to drag on board, we get!» The mermaid in the most bizarre crown made the stipulation. She is probably the leader of the mermaid pack.

Patricia nodded in agreement. Her sword returned to her. It was a good thing it could fly like a steel bird. The sword had drunk so much blood that it would not fight again. The gargoyles, too, had turned back into fancy brass ornaments on the sides, but if there was a battle again, they would come to life again and rush into battle.

Peri had long since flown away, and the trail of iridescent mist left by her wings still hung over the sea. She would report what had happened to the King of Opal. Well, good! Let him know of the avenger who had recruited a team of foulness, and tremble. They’re equals now. Patricia is no longer a weak little pussycat, but a pirate.

Her monstrous crew was hauling barrels and chests from the sinking flagship. The mermaids were writhing in displeasure.

«All the riches that have sunk are rightfully theirs,» Netopyrina explained. «That is the law of the sea. What sank went to the treasury of the sea king or the sea queens. In this case, they are the Princesses.»

«I thought they were princesses.»

«Do you tell by the crowns?» Netopyrina grinned.

«Well, yes. And you need to determine by the color of the mermaid’s tail?»

«Be quiet, or they will take offense and make a storm to flood us.»

«Why on earth would they want to help me? I didn’t even call them,» Patricia marveled.

«They probably don’t like the King of Opal either. Ever since the dragon burned one of the sea queens, they can’t stand all strong wizards.»

«Is the dragon a strong wizard?»

«Dragons are prone to greed and to magic,» Nethopyrina weighed on her clawed palm a gold coin that had rolled out of a chest brought aboard by a goblin.

Patricia breathed in a full breath of fresh sea air. This is a triumph! She had won! How gratifying is it to watch the goblins working as porters and the sinking ships of the enemy.

Patricia felt very lucky until one goblin hefted a sack glistening from within onto a pile of barrels and chests. Was there really fire in the sack? Or is it a firebird?

«Oh, they have taken a prisoner!» The delighted Netopyrina flapped her wings joyfully.

The bag shone brighter and vibrated.

«The captive fairy is trying to free herself,» said the bog lady.

«Is there really a fairy in the bag?»

«Apparently, there was no cage on the Opal’s ships, so they put her in the sack.»

«Can’t we throw her overboard?»

«It won’t sink.»

«Then what are we going to do with her?» Patricia was as frightened of the fairy as death itself. She knew what fairies were capable of when they served to the King of Opal. If we don’t get rid of the sack, the fairy will enslave the entire crew. She must have a talent for mass hypnosis and could mesmerize the whole crew for a while, fly up behind the wheel of the ship and drive it straight to her employer – the king. And thus all the dashing pirates will be captured by the magician. They could be collected from the deck while still sleepy and taken to the dungeons.

«Interrogate her,» advised Netopyrina. The crew was also waiting for orders.

Patricia did not want to talk to the cunning fairy from Opal, but there was nowhere to go.

A fairy hostage

There was no worse trophy than a fairy. She sang and summoned spells. She had to gag her. The dunghill weaved a cage of gray charms. They’re stronger than iron bars.

Patricia knew that the fairy was an agent of the King of Opal and could contact him from a distance, but Netopyrina blocked her. How useful it is to have a fairy bat of your own!

The captive fairy, on the other hand, was a massive inconvenience. Everything shook and rang near her, and objects flew in the air.

«Stop it! You won’t get free,» Patricia shouted at her.

The fairy gave her a sinister smile that made her blood run cold. The dagger, forgotten by someone, flew into the air and swooped down on Patricia like a bird of steel.

While Patricia fought back, the fairy managed to summon a storm. The ship rocked from side to side.

There was no end to the captive fairy’s mischief. The sharp objects began to attack, the ropes twisted into loops and tried to kill the whole crew, and compasses, maps, and telescopes were dancing in the air. This continued until Zeligena and Netopyrina conspired and began to block the fairy together.

That’s when the captive beauty felt a severe headache. Her iridescent eyes blurred. The large spotted wings that made her look like a butterfly sagged.

«Take her into the hold with the cage and lock her in there,» Netopyrina ordered.

Patricia ignored the fact that the assistant had taken over as captain. To save herself from the fairy’s antics, she could give the ship’s command to the devil for a while.

«Wouldn’t it be better to throw her overboard?» Patricia asked hesitantly.

«She could start a mutiny in the Underwater Kingdom. That would be undiplomatic. The mermaids would remember such evil.»

«Is it evil to give someone a captured fairy?»

«It depends on what kind of fairy is she,» Netopyrina watched carefully as the goblins brought the prisoner into the hold. «A fairy is a valuable hostage if you want to blackmail the King of Opal.»

«The loss of one fairy won’t make him too angry. He has dozens of them.»

«Isn’t he violating the rights of the magic emperor?» Zeligena intervened. «It seems that only the lord of the Magic Empire has the right to command fairies.»

«I’ve never heard of such a thing,» Patricia admitted.

Both Zeligena and Netopyrina looked at her strangely.

«Well, I wouldn’t dare denounce him anyway,» Zeligena grumbled, «the swamp fairies don’t have a good relationship with him. He’s become very bitter in the last centuries. In confidence, his wife left him. Wives are always leaving him.»

«Did he have many?»

«How do you say?» Zeligena flapped her green eyelashes nervously.

«And the King of Opal killed his wife himself – sacrificed her during a sorcery ritual. I saw it, so I refused to become his next wife.»

Oops! Patricia faltered when she realized she had spoken. She had sworn to several black fairy vampires guarding the royal crypt that she would not tell anyone about Queen Esperanza’s skeleton that sometimes moved in the niche. The skeleton is wearing a royal dress and jewelry. Underneath the skeleton’s skull, there is still a lingering intelligence.

Now the grave fairies will punish her by taking her life. They are capable of taking lives from a distance. Patricia waited for a minute. Her throat didn’t constrict, her breath didn’t cut off. Her heart didn’t stop beating. Did the grave fairies have no power over her? Could it be the magic ship? The crypt fairies can’t affect someone in a vacuum of alien magic?

«The fairy is a valuable hostage,» Netopyrina repeated. «If you manage to get her on your side, she will reveal to you your enemy’s weaknesses.»

«It’s impossible to get these creatures on your side!»

«But the King of Opal somehow did. They served another ruler before him.»

Patricia had no idea, though the court fairies themselves sometimes hinted at it. The fairies in Opal’s court always spoke in riddles. They surrounded the courtiers, hovering over their heads and tormenting them with eerie conversations. There was no escape from the fairies in Opal, for there were more fairies than people.

Patricia wondered if she should abandon her plans for revenge. The sight of the Opal fairy was so unpleasant that she wanted to forget about Opal.

«In a couple of hours, the ship’s magic will disarm the hostage and you can go down to the hold to question her,» Netopyrina advised.

Patricia tried to delay the unpleasant meeting with the fairy for three to four hours. She really didn’t want to talk to the winged pest. Fairies can hypnotize. One look into her eyes and you’re gone. If the crew on the ship did not consist of magical creatures, the fairy long ago would have charmed everyone and would have taken command of the crew of lunatics, subject to her will.

«It’s about time!» Netopyrina urged. She didn’t even need a watch to tell the time. As night approached, she felt a surge of strength, but during the day she grew weaker. Apparently, her mouse nature had its own clockwork mechanism.

«Come on, let’s wait a little longer. Let her calm down,» Patricia paced the deck and played with her saber. Swinging a saber was a familiar and simple matter, but dealing with the fairies of Opal was complicated politics. Politics gave Patricia a headache. She didn’t know how to negotiate. The last time the King of Opal had negotiated with her, it had turned into a massacre and tragedy. Now Patricia was ashamed to even remember how she had run away from her native shores on a small boat ruled by a dwarf.

«It was a pity that one could not live by physical strength alone, one needed magic and politics. Otherwise the art of swordsmanship would be enough for me…» Patricia did not find support from the two fairies. They respected magic more than martial arts.

Well, to hell with them. Fairies have their own mentality. It was time to interrogate the hostage. Zeligena, Netopyrina, and a few goblins descended into the hold with Patricia.

Instead of a lantern, there was a perch with a sleeping firebird at the entrance to the hold. Zeligena had found a real glass lantern somewhere, with a firefly inside instead of a candle.

«We must ask the firebird not to fly close to the barrels of fire wine, or the whole ship will explode,» Patricia thought.

«It won’t explode, but the firebird will get drunk,» objected the more experienced Zeligena.

Well, if so…

«Where I am?» Patricia looked at the caged fairy, who had already managed to spit out her gag. The ropes used to bind her wrists and ankles were set on fire by the fairy using a spell. She muttered incoherent words to herself, and the ropes caught fire. The fire did not burn the fairy’s own skin.

«Oh, here we are!» The fairy laughed wickedly, and the sharp pins from the walls darted at Patricia. Patricia was barely able to dodge them. Then the barrels started dancing. Dozens of them rose into the air and began to circle in a circle.

There’s fire wine in them! If it spills, it’s the end of everyone.

«Stop it!» Patricia demanded.

«What can you do?» The fairy grinned. «You lost your authority as our ruler a long time ago.»

«I never was. If you remember, the King of Opal didn’t have time to make me his next queen.»

«I didn’t see that,» said the captive fairy defiantly. She tried to break the bars of the cage and failed. The gray bars of enchantment looked fragile, but they were strong.

Patricia looked closely at the fairy’s face, which was covered with a light web of sequins. They made the fairy appear starry-eyed, only her iridescent eyes giving away that she was of the Nightwalker caste.

Indeed, this fairy was not present at the dinner where Patricia had dared to accept from the king a gift of a black ring, which made all the wearers sick with the black plague.

The fairy hostage had a typical heart-shaped face.

«Are you Riabella? Flotel? Alyssandra?» Patricia couldn’t recognize her, but she knew not all the court fairies by name.

«Aleandra,» the fairy corrected, and smiled predatorily again. The teeth beneath her graceful mouth were sharp as needles. It was as if she had a mouth full of needles. You wouldn’t envy whoever she bit.

Netopyrina was giving signs that it was time to begin the interrogation, or the captive would gain strength. While the fairy was distracted by the negotiations, the flying wine barrels were slowly falling back down. The fairy didn’t have enough concentration to do everything at once. She must have been exhausted as she tried to break free from her captivity.

«Where was the fleet headed?» Patricia began to question her.

«Why do you want to know?» Aleandra was wary.

«It is curious.»

«It wasn’t sent for you,» the fairy grinned as if her words were a lie.

«Then who was it sent for?»

«The fleet might have sailed with good intentions.»

«Armed to the teeth?»

«Well, in these times, security is not unreasonable,» the fairy said sullenly. «There’s a war going on. It’s everywhere. Only people don’t know about it. The Emperor and Empress of the Magic Empire are sharing power. Who’s who?»

«What does the King of Opal have to do with this?»

«Ask me what fairies have to do with it?»

«Don’t tease me!» Patricia swung her saber in retaliation.

The fairy just laughed insolently. The floor of the hold shook and the glass in the lantern burst. The firefly broke free and flew away.

«Your outfit is strange,» Aleandra gave Patricia an unpleasant look, «as if you were a gypsy or a beggar.»

«I am not a gypsy, but a pirate captain.»

«What kind of lady would degrade herself to a man’s profession?»

Patricia felt herself covered in mud under the fairy’s gaze. Fairies are such schemers! One word from them would turn any fame into shame.

«It suits me,» Patricia cut her off.

«You could have been queen.»

«One night of ritual and the next morning you are a skeleton in a crown.»

«At least I wouldn’t have to swing a saber. You could stand in a niche like a palace ornament. The grave fairies would serve you well. I think they recognize you for letting you go. I recognize you too.»

The fairy smiled greedily, as if she had met an old rival who was about to be torn apart.

«And the dragon will come for you!»

Patricia didn’t know what she’d done to the dragon. Maybe she had stolen some magical thing that the dragon had left unattended on the coast or in the mountains. Patricia saw strange marks burned into the sand. They had definitely been left by the dragon’s breath. Maybe she shouldn’t have touched the burned sand. She could have broken some dragon spell by scooping up a handful of that sand.

Patricia remembered the strange sounds that had been heard on the coast then. If only she could apologize to the dragon for intruding on his magic then.

«He can smell you in any guise,» the fairy cheered. «You can’t hide from him. Masks won’t help.»

By any guise, she must have meant a bandit’s clothes. Patricia dusted off the lapels of a smart camisole that the goblins had taken off the corpse of the captain of an enemy ship and presented to her.

«Fairies are nothing but trouble!» Patricia muttered.

She must have insulted Zeligena and Netopyrina, because they hissed nervously. You have to be careful what you say when you’re surrounded by evil spirits.

«Or maybe he’ll come,» Patricia decided to mock the evil fairy. «I saw a dragon ship.»

«You saw it?» Aleandra was interested. «Where it was?»

«I won’t tell you.»

«You are a liar! You haven’t seen it, or you’d be burned.»

«And if we meet it now, we’ll burn.»

«Yes,» nodded the fairy in the cage.

«Is it everyone? Is it even you?»

«Uh-huh. You can’t fly away from him. The whole sea will burst into flames. The waves would surge to the heavens, burning anyone who tried to fly away.»

«Is he a living dragon or is it a ship?»

«It is both.»

«How is it so? I’ve never seen it fly. Its bottom always touches the water and the water beneath it catches fire.»

«He’ll either burn up all the seas or find one that hides from him. He probably thinks she is in the Underwater Kingdom, so he ruins the water. Before, fire falls only existed in Tioria, but with the advent of the dragon ship, entire seas become fiery.»

«I saw it myself.»

You have only seen it so far, and then you’ll burn,» the fairy giggled insolently. «You’ll get your ass kicked.»

She probably intended to get free and fly away somehow.

«Keep an eye on her!» Patricia told the goblins.

Her own mind suddenly went blank. There was no need to look into the fairy’s hypnotizing eyes. Patricia staggered out of the hold and into the fresh air. She was about to faint like a sourpuss. And she’s a pirate captain. It’s a shame she’s staggering around like a drunk. That’s the worst thing you can do when you’re dealing with an insolent fairy.

There was no flaming ship on the horizon, but a clear picture suddenly appeared in her mind: the silhouette of a slender aristocrat coming out of the fire and treading on the water, leaving fiery footprints. It’s a young man. He would be very handsome if he were not entirely made of flames. He reaches out to her and wants to say something to her, and the picture fades.

Patricia woke up from her reverie. There was a burn on her elbow, as if someone had really just touched her with fire.

A fiery stranger

As soon as she fell asleep, she dreamed of the fiery young man again. He was treading on the water, and the water under his soles became fiery. There was a solid bonfire in the sea. The young man looked at Patricia with orange eyes fused from the fire. Behind his back fluttered a fiery cloak. What was the cloak! His eyebrows, eyelashes, hair, skin – everything was composed of fire.

The stranger made some signs to her, and symbols of sparks lit up in the air. Patricia managed to read:

«It is an escape! It is treason! It is a change of essence! It is an empty crown! It is the absence of a queen! It is the eternal search! It is an anger that burns everything!»

How did she learn to understand these bizarre fiery symbols? Surely they must be some kind of magic writing. The stranger was tempting her with magic. No, he’s not a stranger. Patricia knew him from somewhere. She couldn’t remember where.

She woke up terrified. The blazing sea from her dream was still in front of her eyes. The alarm was sounding on deck. The mute was flying overhead like a stray.

Patricia reluctantly got up from her bunk. «Was the fairy villain rebelling in the hold again?»

Bad premonitions gnawed at her soul like worms. They shouldn’t have taken the prisoner. A fairy prisoner is a great danger. Those who keep magic creatures in captivity risk being torn apart themselves. Patricia remembered the story of an overseas merchant who came to Opal. He told of a circus for which magical creatures were captured. One of the captured creatures had driven the circus owners mad. It was a syrin or something. Anyway, it sat in a cage and sang magical songs, and the circus owners went crazy. Eventually all the circus pets broke out of their cages and clawed the entire town the circus was in. Patricia didn’t even remember the name of the town, but the merchant’s story impressed her. Queen Esperanza, who was still alive at the time, had laughed for a long time in response to the merchant’s tales.

«Things are even worse in Opal,» she said.

Patricia hadn’t realized what the queen meant. When she learned of the king’s magical experiments, it was too late to heed her warnings.

«We burn! Fire!» screamed Netopyrina, hovering over the ship. One of its wings grazed the porthole of the captain’s cabin.

Patricia shuddered and grabbed her saber. How could one burn on the high seas! The threat seemed to be empty. There is water all around. The fire has something to put out. Unless the fairy trapped in the hold managed to summon magical fire. There’s nothing to put that out. Then the ship would burn, and the fairy hostage would escape. Patricia closed her eyes and imagined the triumph with which the freed fairy would look at the sinking wreckage of the ship before flying away.

There was no smell of fumes yet. Could the alarm be a false alarm? You dumb alarmist!

Patricia looked out the porthole and gasped. The entire horizon was ablaze.

«There’s a dragon ship coming this way!» She exclaimed, pressing her palm against the glass of the window. Her palm burned immediately. The glass in the porthole was so hot it could have melted.

What do we do? The dragon ship was heading straight for Patricia’s ship. We could try to turn away from it, but the sea around it is burning for leagues around. They’ll never make it anyway.

«We’d need a tailwind so strong we could sail a hundred leagues a second! That’s the only way we can get away from him! Can you conjure such a wind, Zeligena?»

Patricia thought the swamp fairy was standing behind her. A murky, magic aura was spreading through the air.»

«It is a lovely specimen, but alas, she is only mortal,» said an unfamiliar voice.

Patricia turned around. The fiery young man from her dream was standing in the cabin. Strangely enough, he was no longer glowing. Only the outlines around his hair, forehead, and shoulders remained fiery. Even in this state, if he touched something, the cabin would burst into flames. There are a lot of wooden objects around. It is as long as the guest didn’t touch anything. Otherwise there’d be a fire.

Patricia found herself wanting to touch him, despite the risk of burning herself. Gods, he was so good-looking that one could even burn in his arms! Patricia imagined their bodies entwined in an embrace and collapsed onto the narrow bunk. Then the hard mattress would seem like a king’s bed. Or is it a funeral pyre? In the arms of a fiery lover, you can’t help but burn.

«Who are you? How did you get here?» Patricia opened her lips, but no words came out. It was as if the guest had magically blocked her from speaking. She couldn’t move either, as if her whole body was paralyzed. And the fiery guest was scrutinizing her.

«Are you Rose?» He asked hesitantly.

Patricia thought frantically. Who is a rose? A rose is a flower with thorns. There are no flowers on board. And there are no rose fairies on the ship either. But there were Rose Fairies in Opal. Their temper was as prickly as the thorns on a rosebush. Rose fairies threw lightning bolts and thorns that stabbed painfully into people’s bodies. Rose fairies could kill their abusers with a thorn sent straight to the heart. It was best not to clash with the rose fairies! Patricia learned this lesson when the rose fairies surrounded the most beautiful lady of Opal and plunged so many thorns into her body that the beautiful woman died in agony. And one singer of frivolous songs they lured into a ravine with rose bushes, where the poor man died of his wounds. The fairies laughed at him for a long time, picked up his lute and composed mischievous songs about his death among roses and thorns.

Patricia learned to avoid any interaction with the rose fairies. To do so, she had to avoid the rose garden of the Opal Royal Garden.

«Did a rose fairy sneak onto my ship?» Patricia could only squeeze out a whisper. Her lips and tongue were numb.

The fiery young man shook his head sadly.

«Rose is the key to everything,» he said quietly.

«She is a mere mortal,» a graceful woman in a luxurious purple and black dress emerged from the darkness of the cabin. «And she is a bandit, too!»

Patricia blinked her eyelashes. Where had the lady come from? It was as if she had formed out of the darkness like a ghost. There were many ghosts in Opal’s court, but such an arrogant beauty was not one of them. The guest seems to be a queen, as a magnificent crown glistens in her coal-black hair.

«I can’t stand robbers and thieves!» The lady twisted her pretty face. «This wench is a criminal! If it weren’t for the magic of her ship, I’d have her executed immediately. My bats can do it with the whole flock!»

The lady prepared to make passes with her hands. Black glitter fell from the tips of her fingernails.

«Stop it, Medea Shai!» The fiery young man commanded. His voice hissed like a flame. Or was it a serpent’s hiss?

Patricia blinked, but couldn’t move. The magical stupor wouldn’t go away. Orange scales seemed to have formed on the guest’s skin, as if a dragon was sitting inside him.

If Patricia’s not mistaken, the guest is a powerful wizard.

«There’s a dragon ship coming right at us! Help us!» Patricia called out mentally because her lips wouldn’t move.

The arrogant guest shook her long, serpentine curls. They looked like tar-black snakes scattered over a purple dress.

«Shouldn’t you be on your ship, fairy queen?» The young man addressed his companion. «You seem to be a spirit bound to the ship Medea Shai. How on earth did you manage to leave your ship?»

«I followed you, Edwin! If you remember, we’re tightly bonded now!»

«Don’t tell me you’re planning to do to me what you did to Tamlane.»

The lady moved her wing and hit a shelf in the cabin. The compass fell from it and shattered.

Patricia only now noticed that the lady had wings. They were black as darkness, so until they came into motion it was impossible to see them. If the lady kept flapping them around, she would knock over all the things in the cabin.

«Let’s fly out of here!» A fiery young man named Edwin unceremoniously grabbed the lady by the wing.

«O! What are you doing?» The fairy beauty rebelled. «You’ve lost all manners over the centuries!»

Patricia’s heart pricked. This feeling was called jealousy. The presence of a beautiful lady next to Edwin was very unpleasant to her. Why couldn’t Edwin come alone?

«Would you just let her go?» The lady panicked. The corundum in her forehead glittered dazzlingly. The black wings seemed woven from spider’s lace. The long earrings in the lady’s ears appeared to be two black spiders.

«You are chained to your ship! You can’t go on other people’s ships!» Edwin lectured.

«Burn the girl! Pirate girls should be burned!»

«She’s the wrong one!»

«Burn her anyway! I want you to burn her!»

«I’m sorry, Medea Shae, but your whole kingdom is your ship now. The fairies and elves don’t listen to you anymore, and neither do the dragons.»

At the mention of dragons, Medea Shai felt as if stung.

«One dragon is still mine!»

«It’s a moot point!»

Medea Shai and Edwin disappeared, sinking into the darkness. Patricia suddenly regained her speech.

«Have mercy on us! The sea is on fire! We’ll burn if we run into a dragon ship!»

Somehow Patricia was sure Edwin could prevent a collision.

«Let the pirate ship burn!» Medea Shai laughed victoriously, but Edwin looked at Patricia and nodded seriously.

«The dragon will sail past,» he promised.

The entire sea outside the porthole was already ablaze. Edwin and Medea Shai were gone, as if they had never been.

Patricia could hardly catch her breath. The stupor had lifted from her body. And the fire outside the porthole suddenly went out. Only ash swirled over the water. A thin streak of flames and sparks shifted, disappearing over the horizon. The dragon ship changed course.

A letter from the fire

They are saved! She still couldn’t even believe it. Patricia was ready to dance on the deck. The fiery death floated by. A wizard named Edwin had given the pirates a chance for salvation and free sailing.

Edwin! The name seemed vaguely familiar. Patricia recalled all the ambassadors and delegates she had met at the Opal court. Not a single person or supernatural being named Edwin had been among them. Various werewolves, wizards, and representatives of magical races often came to the King of Opal on business visits. Was Edwin not one of them? Then how did he know her? Patricia had the feeling that she had known him for a long time.

Edwin resembled a fiery dawn. Except that the memory of Medea Shai stirred a wild jealousy. Patricia wanted to take a saber and behead the queen of the fairies. She believed Edwin had called the lady fairy queen. Judging by the crown of golden wings, she was a fairy queen. Probably she was deposed, because fairies are a free tribe nowadays. That’s why they’ve been frequenting the King Opal’s house. Many fairies were tempted to join Opal’s banner.

Sometimes it seemed that the King of Opal was planning a war against the whole world, and was going to create a magical army out of the evil fairies. With such an army he could take over the whole universe. Patricia felt frightened for a moment by this assumption.

«Would there be warlocks like Edwin to stop him if he decided to conquer the world?» She thought aloud.

The deck had become very quiet somehow. Why wasn’t the crew rejoicing that the danger was over? Patricia stepped out of the cabin and almost stepped on a glowing orange object that lay just beneath her feet. It’s a letter! But why was it on fire? Who set it on fire and why? And why isn’t the deck burning beneath it? Only the letter is on fire.

«Don’t touch it!» Netopyrina warned. «I burned my paws on it!»

Did the fairy really call her delicate webbed claws paws? Patricia laughed. The fairies who lived in Opal’s court didn’t even call their scaly claws paws. Nethopyrina was more straightforward.

Patricia leaned over and gingerly touched the edge of the letter. The fire was hot, and her fingers burned. Real fire indeed! Or was it magical? The flaming lines that could be read were nothing but magic.

«The seas are mine,» Patricia read aloud. «Since I defeated all the water dragons, only I have the right to sail the seas and oceans. Sail away from my territory. Find yourself a quiet bay and a coastal island. Eat bananas and coconuts. Why would you want to be a pirate? Treasure does not bring happiness. Trust a dragon. I have been plundering for centuries. Gold and gems won’t bring you happiness. And the black fairies will begin to sharpen their claws against you. They love gold. They’ll tear you apart for it. And the sea wizards are even more insidious! By the way, don’t turn the mermaids against me, or they’ll all burn. The sea tribes annoy the fire-breathing dragons. I don’t like pirates and other seafarers at all. I’m cramped at sea myself. Get on dry land while you’re still in one piece!»

And it was the signature: «Dragon.»

Patricia was taken aback. Could dragons write letters? She wondered if the dragon wrote the lines with its breath.

It’s all threats! That’s very dragon-like. But what reason would a dragon have to hate her? The letter breathes anger.

The letter must have gotten here by mistake. It’s definitely not for her. The top of the letter doesn’t say it’s addressed to Lady Patricia or the pirate captain. If it weren’t for the dragon’s signature, it would look anonymous.

And who planted it on the deck? How are letters of fire delivered? Patricia didn’t know, because this was the first time she’d ever seen a fire letter. Not even fairies could write such letters, and they were masters of all magic.

The letter spread mercury across the deck as Patricia finished reading. Wow! The ship creaked, and the fairy trapped in the hold let out a prolonged shriek.

«Lady Captain!» She called. «Come here, quick! Help!»

What a surprise! To hear a request for rescue from a stubborn fairy hostage! Patricia never expected this. Fairies are stubborn to the point of absurdity. This time Aleandra was thrashing around the cage and wailing.

«She’s coming here! She’s going to tear me apart! I’m a traitor! She won’t forgive me for this! Let me go, Lady Captain, and I promise to give you and your crew a useful magical gift.»

That’s how flattering even a wicked fairy can sing if she’s frightened! Patricia liked the respectful address «Lady Captain» very much. But only, what frightened the fairy so much?

«Who is she? Aren’t you a subject of the King of Opal?»

The fairy frowned. She was hiding something.

«Don’t let anyone on your ship!» Aleandra asked. «Draw protective symbols on the deck, forbidding entry.»

«Who can enter a ship on the open sea, where there are no oncoming ships?»

«Fairies can,» the captive proudly lifted her chin. «They don’t walk on water, but they can fly right on board.»

«And you think a flock of fairies will come to rescue you?»

Patricia was angry. The fairy was spinning around in the cage so much that the whole ship was rocking. What if the ship capsized?

«Stop it!»

«Let me go or hide me!»

Patricia would have let the fairy go. But she could tell the Opal wizards about her. Better to choose the safer solution.

«How do I hide you?»

«Draw invisibility signs at the entrance to the hold.»

«What are those signs?»

«Don’t you know? What an ignoramus! Illiterate aristocrat! There’s a reason you became a pirate,» the fairy got angry. All her politeness was blown away. «I’m going to die because of your illiteracy. Better let me out, or my death will be on your conscience.»

«What death? Fairies are immortal!»

Patricia caught Aleandra in hypocrisy. It’s a pity we can’t let her go. A hostage like that is nothing but trouble.

«All right, I’ll ask Zeligena and Nethopyrina. Maybe they know the signs of invisibility,» she promised.

Netopyrina did know the signs. She had drawn them on the door of the hold and on the threshold. Nevertheless, the fairy continued to rage in her cage, and the ship rocked all night as if there were a storm.

«Those fairies make the ship shake like a storm even in the calm,» Patricia complained as the pillow popped out from under her head. The bunk in the captain’s cabin was shaking. It was impossible to sleep. But when she closed her eyes, images of Queen Esperanza, part of her face rotted to a skeleton, came to mind. You could see the bones of her shoulders under the lace of her neckline and the bones of her cheeks. The half-skeleton, half-queen was alive. She was whispering something, but in her half-sleep Patricia couldn’t make out the words. And then some dream character touched Patricia’s hair. What a familiar touch! It was Beatrice, Patricia’s sister. Only why in the dream had Beatrice become so dull. The skin on her face is bone tight, her curly hair has faded to an ashy color, almost to gray, her skin is covered with gray spots like magical moles, and two stiff bone wings protrude behind her back.

«Beatrice, are you a fairy too?»

«No, I am a half fairy,» came a whisper from the darkness. «Do you know what it is?»

Her sister’s voice broke into a sinister laugh. Behind Beatrice’s back there was definitely a crypt and black grave fairies feasting on the bones.

Patricia awoke in terror. Someone was walking about the cabin. Some woman with coal-black eyebrows and eyelashes was leaning over Patricia. It was yesterday’s guest! Patricia recognized her by her golden crown of hooped wings. The queen of the fairies! That’s why the hostage in the hold was so frightened. If she went under the King Opal’s banner and the Fairy Queen is still alive, she’s a traitor. And treason is serious, even for the fairies.

«She was curious, why did the fairy queen wipe out her subjects? And why does she sail the seas? Or rather, she flies the seas. To Patricia’s ship, she clearly flew.

The fairy Aleandra, trapped in the hold, miscalculated. It wasn’t her that interested the queen of the fairies, but the captain.

«You are such a pretty girl!» The Fairy Queen ran her fingers through Patricia’s curls. «And you are such a troublemaker! Did you know they hang captured pirates in the town square? A woman pirate is hardly an exception.»

Patricia stared mesmerized at her guest. So she wasn’t dreaming about the Fairy Queen. Curious as to why she had flown in without Edwin today.

«Medea Shai?» Patricia remembered her name.

«Shh!» The Fairy Queen’s black claw pressed against her lips. «Don’t dare call the fairy queen by her name, or you’ll turn into a toad yourself.»

«Calling the Queen of the Fairies by her name is sacrilege?»

«You’re funny!» The guest laughed playfully. The glass in the porthole rang with her laughter. «But I like you. I feel that you can be negotiated with.»

Now she’s going to demand the fairy locked in the hold! Patricia has decided that Aleandra must be handed over. Let the queen deal with her herself. Otherwise the ship will rock every time the fairy gets nervous.

«What do you want?»

Medea Shai smiled slyly and snapped her fingers. Immediately, chests of coins and jewelry appeared in the hold from nowhere.

«Is this a ransom for a hostage?» Patricia wondered.

Medea Shai didn’t understand her. She had clearly not come here for Aleandra. Then why did the queen bring gold and jewelry? Well, she didn’t bring it. She created it out of the darkness.

«It’s more than you could loot in a lifetime.»

«Not more, but it’s impressive,» Patricia nodded grudgingly. She didn’t want to admit her worthlessness right away. The sight of the treasure was disconcerting. Even a king doesn’t have such riches!

Medea Shai snapped her fingers again. The treasure doubled, then it tripled. The gold clogged the cabin almost to the ceiling. They began to make the cabin seem like a huge dragon cave, bursting with jewels.

«It is enough!» Patricia shouted. «No more! Otherwise the ship would sink from the weight of it!»

There’s a ton of gold in here! Patricia didn’t know how to get out of the bed of coins.

«Is that enough now?» The Fairy Queen squinted slyly.

«It is more than enough,» Patricia nodded obediently, just to appease the madwoman. Otherwise, because of the crazy fairy queen, they would sink. It’s a pity that the captain of the magical ship doesn’t know the basics of magic, otherwise she would have fought back, but for now Patricia’s weapons are only words and a useless saber from the fairies. Medea Shai’s magic saber wasn’t going to cut her down. Apparently fairies are subject to some sort of code. You can’t touch them. Or is there only one fairy queen that can’t be touched, even if she’s a former queen?

«All this is for you,» Medea Shai nodded at the gold. «It’s wealth! You want to be rich, don’t you?»

«I want to be free,» Patricia didn’t mention that she had already been rich in Opal, but wealth didn’t save her from the king’s molestation.

«Freedom is when you are rich enough to buy anything you want, even your own palace.»

«I’m not sure freedom is measured in gold.»

«Trust a more experienced woman.»

«Are you a woman or a fairy?»

«Isn’t it almost the same thing in your mortal eyes?» Medea Shai flirtatiously flapped her wing and touched the coins. They jingled and fell on Patricia.

«After a night in a cabin like this, I’m going to be claustrophobic,» Patricia complained.

«What is it?» The queen of the fairies was illiterate.

«It’s a fear of confined spaces,» Patricia said, who had read the encyclopedia in Opal’s library. She’d even come across a manual on magical skills once. Too bad she hadn’t studied it.

«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.

«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.»

Patricia didn’t know him at all, but she nodded graciously. Better not lose the respect of a mermaid.

«What’s your name?» She asked the sea maiden.

«Don’t you remember? I am Mirida, patroness of the island kingdoms.»

«No, I don’t remember.»

«Apparently, you are having a bad day today, so the eclipse came upon your memory.»

The mermaid took offense and waved her actinia-adorned tail. In a moment she was no longer visible, but there was a splash outside the window.

«Why was the mermaid so offended that I didn’t remember her?» Patricia was upset. She wanted to be friends with mermaids. Could one sail the seas without the support of mermaids and other sea spirits? But now it would be a good idea to have the support of the dragon ship. If it doesn’t change course at the next encounter, the pirates won’t survive. They’ll burn like witches at the stake! How hard it is to be a pirate these days!

It was said that in ancient times, all pirates and sailors had to pay tribute to the sea king, or else he would sink the ship. Now we have to negotiate with dragons! If only the dragon were still alive and he was a ship! Can a ship be an animated being or is it controlled by someone?

The burned sea

«Look!» Shouted Nethopyrina, pointing somewhere to the north. She hovered above the deck and saw something beyond the horizon that Patricia couldn’t see. She had to get a telescope.

«What an obsession!» Patricia pulled back the telescope, barely peering through the peephole. Inside it, she could see the sea floor, water dragons and sirens coiled in rings, but the surface of the sea was not visible.

«Morgens had it forgotten!» Zeligena excitedly picked up the telescope and clutched it to her chest. «This is a priceless thing! Through it you can peek at all the secrets of the sea and ocean kingdoms.»

«But that’s not what I need right now!» Patricia sighed. The danger was not from the depths of the sea, but from the surface.»

The moth flew above the masts and blew into the sails, creating a tailwind. The ship sailed forward faster, or it would run aground. If only scorched leagues of sea could be called a shoal.

When Patricia looked at what Nethopyrina was pointing at, she gasped.

«Apparently, a dragon ship had recently sailed through here!» She guessed.

The left side of the sea had dried up, with charred fish skeletons and ash at the bottom.

«Good thing we didn’t get close!» Nethopyrina flapped her gray wings triumphantly. «I can replace the wind.»

«I’m lucky to have you.»

Patricia was startled by the burned out part of the sea. The dragon had scorched it to the bottom. Poisonous vapor rose from the empty pit. The gray spirits of the conflagration hovered over the burnt pit. Patricia had once seen the ghosts of fire over a burned hunting lodge near Opal. They hovered over the ashes in a roundelay and frightened passers-by. To see them over the sea was even more frightening.

Patricia felt as if she were sailing past a huge grave. After all, the bay had been home to mermaids. Now only their skeletons lay on the bottom. Bones blackened by the fire.

«Mermaids are like sisters to me,» Zeligena sobbed. «The same thing could have happened to me if I hadn’t run away from the swamp to the sea.»

One mermaid skeleton was wearing a magnificent crown. It could have been removed, but Patricia thought it was sacrilegious. In case the mermaid skeleton came to life and caught the thief by the hand or the ghost of the mermaid would haunt the ship. The Morgen’s treasure was better left untouched. They should have returned the spyglass as well, but Zeligena didn’t want to part with it. She said the Morgens had left it on deck on purpose.

«They only leave such things for people they want to invite to visit them,» she said.

«I won’t go to the bottom of the sea,» Patricia decided. «I don’t want the Morgens to lure me into the underwater realm and drown me.»

The mermaids who emerged from the depths were acting good-natured, but suddenly their kindness was only an act. If she went down to the bottom with them, the mermaids might harm her. Patricia liked to look at the surface of the sea, shimmering in the morning sunlight, rather than think about underwater wonders. It was frightening to imagine that if the dragon ship crossed the sea a few more times, there would simply be no sea left.

«What is he trying to accomplish? Does he really want to scorch all the waters? It seems that fire-breathing dragons can’t stand water.»

Patricia realized that she herself loved the sea and did not want it to become a burned-out hollow. It is so pleasant to look at the water surface, gilded by the sun! And under the water dwell such marvelous creatures as mermaids. Is the dragon so cruel that he will destroy them all?

The dragon is a mystery. Patricia noticed several more mermaid skeletons with jewelry glittering on them. The pearl necklaces contrasted sharply with the black bones. Apparently pearls don’t burn in dragon fire. Or are the pearls magical?

Nethopyrina flew down to the skeletons and took a couple of the jewelry.

«Why is it?» Patricia wondered.

«I want to question the mermaid ghosts about what happened here.»

«It’s clear enough, a dragon ship sailed through here, and everything burned.»

«The air down here is poisoned,» the Mermaid sneezed. «If I were human, I’d have suffocated by now.»

Patricia thought she heard a ghostly mermaid’s laughter coming from the jewelry.

The ship changed course to sail away from the burned-out part of the sea. Ahead was a small tropical island.

«This is the Isle of Purra,» Netopyrina determined. «It is inhabited by marvelous animals that have the same name as their island.»

Patricia was more interested in the banana palms on the island. We need to troop the goblins and trolls to pick more fruit. There were almost no provisions left on board. The magic team didn’t need food, but Patricia was hungry.

«I must be the only captain who doesn’t have a cook or a galley,» she complained.

No one cooked food aboard «The Bloodsucker», but the ship itself greedily absorbed any blood spilled on the deck. The only decent food had been taken from the captured ships, and it was already running out.

«Launch the dinghy!» Patricia commanded as the ship approached the island.

«Why is it?» With a surprised sigh, Nethopyrina slipped her arms around the captain’s waist and pulled her off the deck. Her wings were strong enough to take to the sky with a burden like Patricia.

The other crew members could make it to shore on their own, some on wings and some swimming. The dinghy proved to be of no use to them all.

Patricia felt like a toy when Nethopyrina put her on the shore of the island.

«I don’t like bright sunlight,» the bat fairy confessed. «I like the night better than the day.»

Patricia did not immediately notice the burned mermaid by the shore. The sea beauty was desperately clinging to the sand with her fingernails. She tried to crawl to the water, but she didn’t have the strength.

«Stop it! I’ll help you!» Patricia ran up to the mermaid. «Why don’t you tell me what happened to you?»

If the sea maiden could talk to her, she wouldn’t need to summon ghosts.

«The dragon ship came within a meter of me,» the mermaid whispered. «He was looking for you.»

What the hell is the mermaid talking about? Maybe she’s having sunstroke. Patricia felt the mermaid’s cold forehead. It felt like ice. The mermaid’s body didn’t heat up at all in the blazing sun. So how could the fire burn her? The green tail was burned to black in places, and there were burns on one cheek and shoulder. Somehow they were black, not inflamed.

«What does the dragon ship want?»

«He’s sure you’re at the bottom. If we burned the whole sea, we could get you, and at the same time take revenge on all the underwater wizards who’ve been harboring you.»

«No, it is not me,» Patricia objected. «You’re confusing me with someone else.»

«I wasn’t burned so badly that I lost my memory,» the mermaid said. «The dragon thinks that we are hiding his main treasure at the bottom.»

– What’s that?

«It is his wife, of course. He has a very special wife. She alone is worth a whole magic kingdom.»

The mermaid must have been delirious. Patricia was able to drag her to the wolves. The salty sea water immediately had a healing effect on the mermaid’s body. The burns began to go away. In the water, the mermaid regained her strength and swam on her own. She didn’t even say thank you. Patricia was not offended. The mermaid had suffered so much from the burns that she had no strength left to be polite.

The mermaid’s crest was left on the sand. Patricia picked it up and wanted to throw it into the sea, but changed her mind. It was unlikely that the mermaid would find it in the waves; it was better to keep it for now in case she came to the ship to thank her for her rescue. Patricia pinned the comb to her hair, fastening the strands above her ear. Immediately, unearthly voices sounded in her ear. The comb seemed to somehow carry the singing of sirens.

The island turned out to be full of marvelous creatures, half of them resembling white furry monkeys, half cats. They turned out to be intelligent. The Purrs traded the bananas and coconuts they gathered on the island, and they also picked up all sorts of things from wrecked ships and offered them for sale in the big coastal market. For some reason, most of the ships were wrecked off the Isle of Purrs. Could it be the animals’ fault? The Purrs seemed to be quite cunning. Patricia haggled with them for a long time before she managed to barter a sack of bananas and coconuts. In return, she had to give up an expensive bracelet.

«It’s okay. I’ll take some new jewelry from the sea! I’m a pirate!» Patricia consoled herself when the Purrs lured her away with a chain and a locket.

«You could have taken it from them instead of buying it!«Nethopyrina advised. «You have sabers and muskets.»

«How can you hurt such nice animals?»

«These cute little animals will rob you of everything.»

«Let them! I wouldn’t spare anything for them.» Patricia tried to pet one purra and was immediately slapped. The purra’s tail was more painful than a whip. These animals really are not easy!

A creature that looked suspiciously like a human was walking through the coastal marketplace. Patricia was surprised. Why would a human be here? Patricia herself had only been allowed onto the island because she was in the company of supernatural beings. Even goblins and trolls could be easily tricked by the Purrs into buying spices for the price of gold. These animals must be wizards to be able to seduce even supernatural creatures so easily.

«And you’re human!» Someone pulled Patricia’s hair. «You only look like a fairy, but you’re an earthly girl to the touch.»

Patricia turned around. In front of her stood a hunched figure that looked a lot like an old woman. The old woman’s dress was spreading sea foam on the sand, and a necklace of coins and shells glittered on her wrinkled neck. Such signs are usually worn by coastal fortune-tellers.

«A whole team of magical creatures is captained by a human!» The old woman marveled. «Usually it is the other way around: a whole team of humans has a captain who is a magical creature.»

That makes sense! One sorceress can easily control a whole team of thugs. Patricia had heard stories from seafarers visiting Opal about a witch who had captured an entire pirate ship and made slaves out of the sea robbers. They mined gold and jewelry for her, but they themselves did not get any share of the loot.

And the legendary wife of the sea king Lilophea in general could control the entire fleet going into battle. Sailors had to submit to her magic, and then to the magic of her daughter, the sea princess Lorelei. It was said that if Lorelei played her magic flute, the entire crew of an entire armada would turn into sleepwalkers obedient to her. But these were just sea legends. Patricia did not expect to meet Queen Lilothea or Princess Lorelei on an open voyage. If they had once ruled the storms in ancient times, they were now hidden at the bottom of a fiery ship.

There was a pretty white purra twirling around the old lady’s hem.

«Would you like to take her for a swim?» The old lady suggested. «Purra could be a great assistant to the captain.»

«Thank you, but I don’t think so,» Patricia didn’t want to put the animal at risk. «I don’t think Purra would like to be involved in sea battles.»

«Well, as you wish!» The old woman walked past, leaving puddles of sea foam on the sand.

«Look, her clothes are made of foam and water!» Patricia tugged at Nethopyrina’s wing.

The fairy was not surprised. «Sea Queen Lilothea has a dress made entirely of sea foam. When she spreads her train, a storm starts.»

«She can summon a storm just by spreading her train?» Patricia thought it was incredible.

«That’s right!»

«I wish I could do that,» Patricia sighed.

«It’s never too late to learn,» Nethopyrina encouraged her.

«Isn’t magic the result of study, not talent?»

«It can be. We all knew a wizard who learned magic so well that he became emperor of a whole empire populated by fairies, elves, and monsters. What a guy! Handsome, smart, talented, and…»

«He is golden-haired!» Patricia said.

«How do you know?»

«I saw someone like that in a dream.»

«You could have seen the King of Dreams in a dream, and I’m talking about…» She hesitated. «I guess I can’t talk to you about it.»

«Why is it not?»

«It’s the rules!»

There, Nethopyrina had intrigued her and left her wondering.

«So magic can be trained so well that it can take over magical creatures?» Patricia decided to find a way around the questioning.

«I misspoke,» she frowned, clearly not wanting to say anything. «That young man originally had a magical gift. He just needed to be awakened with the help of magic books.»

«That could be said of anyone who was trained in magic.»

«No, he was really special. You wouldn’t find the likes of him anymore.»

As they walked forward along the shore, Patricia and Nethopyrina came upon a stranger who was also dripping water, but he didn’t look like an old man anymore. Patricia recoiled from him. It was an ugly morgen with gills, twisted horns and webbing. You’d have to run away from him if you didn’t want to get into a fight. Patricia fumbled for the hilt of the saber at her belt, but the morgen wasn’t going to attack, he mumbled something and shoved a gold coin into Patricia’s hand.

«You shouldn’t have taken it!» The mongrel flapped her wings excitedly. «Everyone knows that the Morgens deliberately give their gold to fools in the harbors so that they can become slaves of the underwater kingdom.»

Perhaps she should have been frightened, but Patricia had rightly decided that if the dragon ship continued to sail the seas, there would soon be no underwater kingdom left.

The coin was beautiful. It was embossed with mermaids and some unfamiliar crest. It reflected the rays of the setting sun.

Patricia shuddered as she noticed that the light on the shore was tinged with scarlet. It meant that the day was coming to an end. The sun was setting over the horizon.

The sunset of the third day has already come! In the night, Medea Shai will appear. And what shall she say to her? Accept the generous offer or reject it, risking the wrath of the Queen of the Fairies?

Somehow Patricia was sure that she risked the same in both options. After all, becoming a business partner of an evil fairy was no less dangerous than incurring her wrath.

Purra

The setting sun was as warm as dragon fire. The dragon seemed to be flying across the sky above the ship. Patricia stood at the stern and watched the island of Purras disappear over the horizon. The cute little animals wouldn’t go away.

«If one day I live on my own estate, I’ll have a purra,» Patricia said.

Perhaps she should have thrown a coin into the sea, so that one day she could return to the Isle of Purras. There is an omen that if you throw a coin into the water, you will surely return to this place again.

Nethopurina shook off some invisible grit. She brought Patricia back to the deck and noticed a red hair on her wings to shake off.

«Your hair is like fire yarn,» complained the bat fairy. «It seems to be hot like fire.»

«It must have gotten hot in the sun,» Patricia watched the goblins load bags of fruit on board. Zeligena took the role of bookkeeper and wrote down the list of purchases in the ship’s log. She used green swamp sludge instead of ink and a fish bone instead of a quill. The lines came out green.

«How is it that instead of robbing, we started buying?» Patricia wondered.

It is nothing surprising!» The mongrel spread her wings. «The Purras will drive anyone to extremes.»

«Are they magical animals? Can they do any small magic?»

«Of course, they can! There are also human-sized Purras, but they live on other islands. For example, on the island of Shean (which is south of here) lives Princess Leonella, who has surrounded herself with large purras instead of bodyguards. By the way, she doesn’t like the King of Opal either. You should meet her.»

«Will her purras turn on me again?» Patricia felt her purse lighten after landing on Purras’ island.

«Well, pirates rob the ships they meet so they can spend the money on booze and pleasure,» Nethopyrina said diplomatically.

«I thought it was to accumulate more treasure and bury a pirate’s treasure, which can then be dug up at the end of the career and spent on a large estate.»

«You’re a humorist!» Nethopyrina gave Patricia a friendly pat on the shoulder with her wing. «I haven’t seen a single pirate who could save up money for his own farm, let alone an estate.»

«Have you seen many pirates?»

«I’ve been flying over ships for a long time, eavesdropping, peeping. I steal something pirates don’t have well. They usually blame the thefts on each other and don’t suspect the fairies. Pirates have an unstable income, depending on the wealth of the ships they encounter, and an unreliable future. They can always be captured and hanged or sent to feed the fish. Each boarding could be their last, so pirates dump all their booty on Peony Island. There are many taverns there, you can drink and have fun.»

«I’ve heard that there is a slave trade on Peony Island,» Patricia said.

«That too! The pirates have to sell captured prisoners somewhere, but we don’t take prisoners, so we don’t need to go to Peony.»

That’s true. All the prisoners were destroyed by a bloodthirsty ship. It’s impossible to spend a single man on «The Bloodsucker», the ship will drink his blood immediately. The planks of the walls and deck would turn scarlet for a moment, and the man would die. The only exception was Patricia, that’s why she was the captain. And the ship was squeamish about the blood of fairies and magical creatures. Their blood must be poisoned or enchanted. That’s why the fairy in the hold was still unharmed. She was now singing strange songs that sounded like drunken ramblings. Probably one of the goblins gave her rum and the fairy got drunk.

«Everyone drinks from grief,» Nethopyrina nodded. «And for a fairy to be a hostage is a great sorrow. I bet she feels like a moth in a jar.»

«No kidding!» Patricia was nervous, because the scarlet rays of the sunset were beginning to fade behind the horizon.

«You’re so serious! What if I told you about the dancers from Peony? They’re all nagas, serpentine or evil fairies. Their profession is to pick pirates’ pockets. All our colleagues sail from Peony with empty wallets.»

«How come rumors of pirate treasure if it’s all spent on booze and dancers?»

«Do you want to find a pirate treasure?» Nethopyrina clapped her gray eyelashes in surprise.

Patricia didn’t know what to say. Not to admit honestly that she wanted to find an alternative to Medea Shai’s proposal. Patricia hadn’t told either Nethopyrina or Zeligena about the impending deal with the fairy queen yet. And they were her main assistants aboard «The Bloodsucker». Unlike the active fragile fairies, the strong goblins behaved passively. They only knew how to fight, and had no ideas in their heads. Strategists of them were not good. Acting on the principle of «you have the power, you don’t need the brains» does not always lead to the best. And now there was an unhappy murmur on the deck. The motley crew was shaking their fists, saying goodbye to the island disappearing in the distance. There were curses and threats. The goblins were only now coming out of the enchantment of the purras, and they felt screwed.

«Oh, those purras are!» The largest of the goblins complained. «They occupy the whole island and set their own laws on it. You can’t even pick a coconut from a palm tree without their permission. Otherwise they will bite your finger off.»

Since the goblin was blowing on his paw, there was no doubt about the damage caused by the Purras.

«Next time I’ll show them!» The goblin waved his wand menacingly.

«And they will come at you in a pack, and you will not be able to get your paws off their island. But the purras will sell your skin,» said Nethopyrina, snidely.

The goblin immediately fell silent. He was not afraid of the cannon volleys of oncoming ships, but he was afraid of some purras. How could those furry little things frighten such a big guy?

The trolls did not complain about life, because they were not interested in the fruit from the purras’ island. But they had drunk almost all the fire wine from the hold. There were only a few barrels left. Patricia hoped that they would finish it too. Otherwise the whole ship might burst into flames like a match if one of the barrels suddenly cracked.

The bags of fruit were brought to the ship by goblins. They are so strong that they can easily carry even a boulder on their backs.

Patricia noticed a bag of mangoes, kiwis and pineapples that she hadn’t bought.

«I traded it to the Purras,» Zeligena bragged.

«What did you give them for it?»

Zeligena wore no jewelry of any value that the greedy islanders might be tempted by.

«Nothing but a promise and a few smiles,» the swamp fairy boasted.

«Don’t tell me you took it all away from them by scaring them with a musket.»

«It is no way! I don’t scare anyone with a gun. It’s against the law. I could be arrested and executed like a common pirate for walking around with a saber. I’m more subtle than that.»

«And what did you do to scare the Purras?»

«I promised them you’d bring a flood to their island unless they gave you a gift. They’re very afraid of sinking. The Purras don’t like water at all.»

«Did they really take your word for it that I could summon a flood? I didn’t realize the Purras were so naive.»

«The waves told them you were friends with mermaids. A girl who’s friends with mermaids can get the sea maidens to flood an entire country. Besides, you have another swamp fairy in your entourage,» Zeligena pouted smugly. «The proximity of the swamp makes purras sick, too.»

«Don’t make any more promises to anyone that I can’t fulfill. It’s not in my power to summon a storm or create a flood.»

«But you can really make a deal with the mermaids. Even if they can’t flood the whole kingdom for you, they can flood it so much that the inhabitants have to walk knee-deep in water. In such a situation, you can already give any king an ultimatum. To prevent the lower floors of his own palace from sinking, every ruler will make concessions. It’s a pity that the mermaids are now exhausted by the dragon’s attacks and can’t flood all of Opal for you. Otherwise you wouldn’t have to fight the war yourself.»

«What would the mermaids ask in return?» Patricia was wary. She could not believe that the sea maidens could help unselfishly. She herself was ready to save a mermaid only for a thank you, but she didn’t expect a favor in return.

«Well, mermaids aren’t purras. They won’t rob you of everything, but they may ask you to make a blood sacrifice over the sea.

«Is it a bull or a goat?»

«It is a man.»

«That’s horrible!» Patricia was embarrassed.

«For a pirate, killing the enemy is routine. You capture someone and slaughter them over the sea. You’ll have to perform a ritual to make the mermaids realize the sacrifice is meant for them.»

«Has anyone ever done something like that over your swamp?»

Zeligena was now embarrassed.

«One king, defeated in a war, asked the swamp fairies to flood his enemy’s country with mire,» she admitted reluctantly. «I still remember what it was like: a whole army and a whole kingdom went into the swamp. No one ever saw them again.»

«Could you have lured the King of Opal into the swamp?»

«My swamp is gone. The dragon burned it out,» Zeligena reminded her with a resentful look.

«It’s a shame!» Patricia regretted that she would not be able to profit from her acquaintance with the swamp fairy, but Zeligena understood her in her own way.

«Don’t regret it! Otherwise we wouldn’t be on the same ship right now.»

The swamp fairy liked the feeling of being the captain’s assistant. The cabin in which she had taken up residence was slowly turning into a swamp. Even frogs started jumping out of it, but the crew of supernatural creatures didn’t mind. Zeligena would have liked to take the hold and turn it into a swamp, but they were holding a valuable hostage, the fairy from Opal. It was now evening, and the captive fairy was raising a scandal again. Her threats to enchant the whole ship were heard even through the barrier of magical signs drawn at the entrance to the hold.

Patricia thought with horror of the fairy queen who was about to appear. Along with the night would come Medea Shai. What to say to her, Patricia hadn’t decided. Should she try to exchange the hostage for gold and call it a day? Would Medea Shai compromise?

It is unlikely that the queen of fairies will descend from the sky directly onto the deck of a pirate ship. Most likely, she would wait in the captain’s cabin. Her ability to emerge directly from the void was stunning to Patricia. If she could move through space, she would have long ago appeared in the royal bedroom of the Opal palace and tried to kill the king.

What an idea! Patricia had a plan. We should give the Fairy Queen an ultimatum. Let her prove her sincerity by destroying Patricia’s enemy. The Queen of the Fairies should be strong enough to do that.

Medea Shai is able to appear as a black mist in the captain’s quarters, so she can also move to the Opal royal palace in the same way. She could suffocate the king in his sleep and disappear immediately.

Patricia thought about the plan.

«Hey, look!» One of the goblins shrieked. He seemed to be scared out of his wits.

What’s the matter? Patricia didn’t immediately notice what the goblin was pointing at. A nimble white monkey was leaping along the ropes and masts.

«Wow!» Patricia whistled as she realized what was going on.

The nimble purra had sneaked onto the ship and leaped as she wished. The goblins fell into a stupor when they saw the purra. It seems that most of all they wanted to chase her off the ship, but for some reason they did not dare to approach the magical beast. Did the purra hypnotize them and deprive them of their own will?

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