black clouds, shimmering like the moon. Winged, glowing silhouettes danced across it.
“They were moon fairies!” Reason instantly turned fierce. “They’d take you for their own kind if they saw you. Virgil, turn a little to the left!”
The dragon, oddly enough, obeyed Reason.
“And a little lower in flight! The princess wants to enjoy the view of foreign lands. From behind the clouds she can see little. She’s not as sharp as you.”
It was unclear whether the dragon was seeking to oblige the princess or Reason, but he was on his way down, almost touching the white stone tower of the tall castle.
“Not so low!” Reason howled, but it was too late. Though the dragon had turned on command, it had already knocked down a few towers.
“Let’s move before they cannon fire on us!” Reason raked anxiously around. The towers were crumbling, falling like rocks. Cracks were appearing in the castle walls, and a dragon was flying Estella away.
After a few minutes, Reason managed to reach the right height and speed. He knew how to get his dragon to do what he wanted, though not without effort. It must be hard to control the flight! Reason was out of breath, tugging at the dragon’s horn and then the spike on his ridge.
“That’s a hell of a first time,” he concluded, glancing back at the tremendous pogrom. “Trial and error is our method! And we think we’re smart, too.”
“You’re the smart one, not me. You are the one who is responsible!”
“Actually, I warned you against getting too close to a dragon.”
That’s true. She couldn’t blame Reason for that. She insisted on going to the dragon’s dungeons herself.
“Whose castle did we destroy?”
“Someone’s,” Reason replied indifferently.
“You don’t know exactly.”
“There are many castles in the universe, and they all have their masters.”
“I must know who to apologize to.”
“Don’t be silly! Why denounce yourself to someone like a bully. Unless the owner of the castle was a wizard, like your dearest father, there’s no way he could have sniffed out who had caused the night’s pogrom. You can only use a crystal ball or a magic mirror to identify the culprits if you haven’t seen them in person.”
“If we are unmasked, then the new ruler will move on me with a war. And this time the guilty party is really me.”
“They should at least raise the castle from the ruins before summoning the military forces. Surely everyone there has already been stoned to death. If anyone survived, their thoughts wouldn’t be on war, but on rebuilding. I was once involved in building a castle. If the stones are not carried by the Finodirri, then you can’t build a castle in one night.”
“What are the Finodirri?”
“They are the most faithful and unselfish magical helpers. They don’t charge you anything, and they don’t ask for gratitude, but you must know a secret if you want to manage them. I do know one. I was once summoned by a king to rebuild his castle in a cursed place. No sooner had anyone laid a foundation than the ground turned to swamp. I whistled to the Finodirri. They did it in three days. They didn’t have to be paid, but the king didn’t treat me kindly. He chased me out of the council very quickly. He didn’t like the idea of ghosts screaming from the walls of the new castle and swamp creatures crawling out of cracks in the floor. So I took my revenge on him by summoning the Finodirri again. They beat the king and his regiment to death. And they destroyed the castle. Now the swamp creatures rule there again, but every moonlit night the castle rises from the swamp as a ghost. Do you want to go there and dance with the local ghosts? But, no, tonight is not a moonlit night! Some other time, I think.”
Estella listened to him half-heartedly. What she heard from Reason was like a fairy tale. But the intricate structures below were not a fairy tale. The dragon wasn’t too low, but it wasn’t too high either. She could see everything now. The stone structures below were gradually replaced by fanciful domes that looked like marshmallow slides. Here luxurious gardens stretched right over the rooftops and bridges spanning between the rooftops. And beyond that was a city of various towers connected by passages and bridges.
“This was Orelo, the city of the spirits! Don’t fly over it,” Reason urged the dragon to turn right.
Beyond the valleys and the rivers was a stretch of heavily patterned wooden buildings, like lacework.
“Those are the mansions,” Reason explained. “They are all wooden. If Virgil dies on them once, the whole country of the mansions will be gone in a moment. Fire spreads very quickly through wooden buildings.”
“Is that what it’s called, Terem’s Land?” Estella wondered.
“It is only the part where the nobility live. The poor stay in the huts. And over there is Lukomorye,” Reason pointed a clawed finger forward. “There are not only people there, but also evil spirits.”
But Estella had already spotted people pouring out on the roof of the largest mansions. The dragon had lowered too much. The rider on its back drew the attention of a large crowd.
“It is a princess!” came the shouts from below.
Reason commanded the dragon to hasten its flight. Estella turned back, intrigued.
“Who were these people? Dressed like sorcerers!”
“They are the king’s boyars. It is customary for them to wear fur coats, even in summer.”
“They look like the robes of sorcerers.”
“Well, they can’t do magic like your father here. But the boyars are used to the fact that the most unusual brides come to the royal show. They’ve taken you for a candidate, too. We’d better get away, so they’ll forget about us. What on earth possessed you to fly a dragon! You should have stayed home. There’s so much to do in the country, and you’re just sitting around. Only a bad ruler would put her own pleasures above running the country.”
“I’m not a ruler yet. The coronation is not until the end of May.”
“I hope we don’t have a wedding sooner.”
“Why do you keep whining about the wedding? You chased the only groom away from me yourself.”
“Where you had to banish one, you will have to banish many,” concluded Reason. “Fiancés are like evil. You’ll have to chase them away for the rest of your life.”
“Yes, you do not worry! We’ll officially consider that I am the bride of dragon. The ministers would be frightened if I had a beau like that beside the throne.”
“You’re like a gnat to him and he loves you.” Reason was complaining, and Estella was enjoying her flight. The wind fluttered her hair. Strange lands lay below as clear as the palm of her hand. If the dragon were to blow fire downward, they would be gone. But she is not so cruel. Let them stand. They don’t bother her yet. What Estella liked best was to fly over the sea, where mermaids splashed about, and over the valleys where fairies danced in the moonlight.
“The flight was like a magic dream!” Estella said. “Thank you for taking me to the dungeons and introducing me to the dragon! I owe you so much for that.”
This wasn’t the first time Reason had flown in a dragon, so he wasn’t exactly thrilled. It was barely half past midnight and already he was begging to go home. They didn’t arrive at Aluar until just before dawn. Reason’s legs began to stiffen. When he got off the dragon, he was limping.
“You’re my darling!” Estella stroked the dragon’s ears and hummed a song she had composed herself. She had to do something to thank the