she had died on her seventeenth birthday. I didn’t even wonder what it was from. Was it murder or suicide? Was it accident or disease? People die anyway. The strange thing was that the sturdy cedar above the grave had stopped bearing fruit, there were no cones, no nuts, not even squirrels nearby. And the image on the tombstone seemed so spiritualized, almost heavenly. I couldn’t stop looking at it for hours.
What if I took a chance and made a mate out of ashes? If it failed, Henri would rejoice, thinking that I had finally been justly avenged. It would really hurt to lose her if I created her for a short time, or even a century, and then lost her.
For a moment I imagined that in this grave beneath the loose earth lay Rose in a slightly rotten red dress. Just a vision!
Rose herself is sitting at home in Black Magnolia Manor, plotting against her former spouse, that is, me. And I have to find something to do to relieve my loneliness. I’ve decided I will not look at mortal women from now on. My sympathy for them ends too badly. I’d rather concentrate on magical creatures. Besides, there are plenty of them in my Empire.
Peri from the candelabrum
Someone called me from the attic. Who could have taken up residence up there? Certainly it was not a dragon. The voice was definitely gentle. Some fairy locked up while cleaning? As I made my way upstairs, the voice didn’t call out again, and it still felt like there was someone languishing upstairs in the attic. A silent call can be very powerful, too. I could feel it. Only there was no one in the attic. There was no movement behind the door, not a single breath. I opened the old door anyway. Why was it locked in the first place? There’s nothing valuable in the attic that’s worth keeping under lock and key. It’s dusty and cramped. There were only a few chests of junk, and a few unnecessary things: broken clocks, drinking vessels, amphorae, and a rather nice candelabrum. I didn’t remember it. Where had it come from? As I looked at it, candles flickered in the wells. There were nine exactly. A silvery smoke drifted from the yellowish flame.
“Greetings to you, sir,” whispered the melodious voices.
“How good it is that you finally let us out!”
“We waited so long for you to notice us and set us free!”
“We were so eager to serve you and fulfill all your wishes!”
“You are probably tired of everyone around you being unworthy and not knowing how to serve you, but we will fix that!”
“Just tell us what you want!”
The mellifluous speeches caressed the ear. It was easy to fall asleep right there on the stairs. It sounded like the chorus of fairy genies I’d suddenly released from the lamp. Only the voices were female! Were there seven or nine of them? Was it maybe more? They whispered in different tones, but the creatures themselves were not visible. Were they too modest to appear before the Emperor’s eyes? Or are they too ugly? If they were really genies, they could be either beautiful or ugly. Well, let them fly around the castle. I’m sure they won’t hurt me. It would have been better to read some short spell and chase them away right away, but I didn’t bother. As it turned out later, I was cruelly mistaken. One should always be more cautious.
The spirits released from the candelabrum turned out to be very feminine and quite sneaky. They were nine peri. That’s the name given to female genies. They’re also known as good. I wouldn’t go so far as to say the latter. But the peri were really beautiful in such a way that they reminded of paradise and at first they were able to give their arrival a truly heavenly pleasure.
I began to wake up in the middle of the night from their quick caresses. The Oriental enchantresses were very skillful and sophisticated. They came one by one, as if growing out of the shadows at my bedside. Sleep fell from my eyelashes from their quick kisses, from the touch of their fingers unbuttoning my clothes. I usually slept without undressing, but they whispered to me that my body was too beautiful to hide it under clothes. They were surprisingly not burned by my lips, or my saliva, or even my seed. Not one of them got burned. And I suddenly had many nights of pleasure at once. And I knew the pleasure of having my own little harem.
At first, the peri came one by one. Then one day they all came together. That time they even fought over the right to get into my bed. I had to blow fire, the jet of which flew nimbly into the fireplace without hitting any of them, to calm them down. That brought them to their senses a little. In the firelight I could finally make out how good and unusual they were. They were in light oriental robes. And faces were like lovely dolls. Their jewelry tinkled with magic, their eyes were enchanted, and in every black heart there was a strong attraction to me. They’d tear anyone else alive, but the dragon in me impressed them.
“Where did you come from?” I asked them for fun. I wondered what they’d say. Would they lie or admit where their hideout was?
The answer was expected.
They came from the candelabrum.
That’s what I suspected, so I just hummed understandingly. Soft fingers were already caressing my face, nine pairs of lips whispering sweetly to me:
“You let us out of the place where your serwant Vincent locked us up before the imperial wedding. He’s not a good man. He didn’t want us to do our duty to you.”
“Was it your duty to me?” That’s where I was surprised. I didn’t remember them being among my subjects. Though if you consider them a gift…
“To give you the pleasures of the night,” they said in chorus. “That is our duty to the lord who owns the candelabrum, and with it all of us.”
“And did you do that duty to Vincent?”
“He was not our master, we owned him. Foolish boy! Pleasures are for masters only,” the red-haired peri reached for me. She was the most beautiful among the temptresses, and I almost obeyed her again. I wanted her caresses again and again. She was amazingly good.
“By the way, officially you are not married,” she reminded me, “do you want to establish harem laws here? We will be your first and best wives, and fairies second, mermaids third.”
She had it all mapped out. I felt cornered. It’s not nice to be pushed around, even by a pretty girl like them.
“It’s a good thing you kicked Vincent out,” another peri, a blonde with blue eyes, said. “He was harassing us and even locked us up.”
I’m sure he must have thought they were harassing him. But I agreed that he was an obnoxious type. After all, he’d betrayed me, his patron, to run off with my own wife. A flutter of a lady’s skirt and even the closest of friendships came apart at the seams.
So I unlocked the door and thus freed them all. As soon as the room was open they all flew out of the candelabrum. I didn’t even have to cast any spells. The Peri slipped into my life and naturally settled into the bedchamber. It was charming at first. But then I began to understand Vincent’s desire to get rid of them. The Peri were very intrusive friends. And their caresses became tiresome.
They even began to tell me what to do. At first it was just whispers in my ear, but the more they began to sound like commands.
“Fly for the treasure!”
“Catch that winged rogue who almost burned down the castle the other day!”
“How come you haven’t skinned him and melted him down for jewelry? I’m sure his scales are silver. They could be gold too. And eyes like sapphires. Pluck them out and have the Zwergs make us earrings out of them.
“How could you not catch him yet! Aren’t you the most powerful dragon around?”
“You have to catch him!”
“I know!” I thumped my fist lightly on the table, sending sparks flying, silencing all the peri for a moment. But it was only for a moment. They quickly came to their senses and continued.
“Bring