PART TWO

LANGWAR AND THE SMELL OF THE STORM

Chapter One

LANGVAR

“Why do you treat magic so carelessly, Max?”

It was a strange question. I had never thought Pars would ask me that. Especially now, when that damn magic threatened my life within a matter of days! We stood atop a green hill, facing the city wall of one of the largest cities on the continent – Langvar. It was also the capital of the state by the same name. Agarta’s wall was very close, just about forty miles away. Pars had invited me on a walk, apparently for this type of questions, as I had initially thought. Now, he confirmed my suspicions.

“What do you mean by carelessness?”

“Your strange attitude towards this curse. It’s as if you don’t believe in it. Deep down, you don’t believe that the demon exists and will come for you.”

“And what, in your opinion, should I have been doing? Running around the city like in Bridgeport, looking for disentchanters? I’ve been through that already and I’m sick of it. If Shani can’t help, then no one in this city can. She’s more skilled in magic than any wizard here.”

“But you can’t just give up, can you?”

“Who said I’m giving up?”

“I feel it. Understand, that being from the world of ‘engineers’ makes you even more vulnerable. You’re careless. Terribly careless! You don’t believe in demons. You don’t believe in it. I can sense your aura. You regard magic as some kind of annoying interference of unknown origin, something that can simply be ignored. That's a mistake!”

I liked his passionate speech. Pars hadn’t known me for long, and because of me, he even had to leave the Magic University in Bridgeport, but he cared deeply about me. He felt pity like a compassionate citizen feels for an innocent person condemned to death – a victim of injustice.

I waited a bit before responding. In a way, he was right. I considered myself quite advanced and educated. At least, by Earth’s standards. And I didn’t believe in some magical 'nonsense'. I had serious reasons to consider it impossible. It was a staggering thought when I first came to it. Magic contradicts the laws of physics and science; how could it exist in a world alongside them? A CONTRADICTION! Exactly that, written in capital letters.

I raised my index finger and, without smoothing it out, pointed at the local world’s sun, already leaning towards its setting place.

“See?”

Pars looked up at the sky, bewildered, searching for something, not understanding what I meant.

"What do you mean?"

"The sun."

“What is with the sun?”

“Yes. It’s a ‘yellow dwarf’ star,” I began in a lecturer’s tone. “In my world, it has a twin.” Inside, a continuous thermonuclear reaction rages. The monstrous gravity of the star compresses hydrogen atoms in its core, forcing them to overcome the Coulomb barrier and fuse in synthesis, forming helium, and lithium, and releasing massive amounts of energy.

Pars frowned, looking at me somewhat suspiciously. As a fourth-year student at the prestigious University of Magic, he felt embarrassed not to know such strange, yet scientifically sounding words, which seemed to caress his scholarly brain.

“In essence, exactly what should be happening in my world is occurring there. And magic has nothing to do with it. Where did it come from? Something’s off here. Someone here is responsible for the magic. Or something. Some kind of ‘party committee’. Because out there, in space,” I pointed again at the sun, “it seems there’s no magic at all. Everything follows the rules of ‘mother physics’.”

Pars decided to stop trying to understand the scientific ‘nonsense’ I was spouting and replied in return, “Turn around and look at your shadow, Max.”

I lazily glanced back, my shadow stretched out a full three meters. Dark and frightening. Horned, like a demon in Native American mythology. With the contours of strange armor, the angles of which stood out over the shoulders, which I initially mistook for a bizarre body. But the picture in an ancient book, shown to me by Pars in the library, revealed that these were not the contours of its body. The demon-warrior Malgib was in armor. Very strange armor. Why would a devil need armor? Ask something easier!

“Look carefully,” Pars continued.

The streets of the medieval city were unusually wide. Typically, ancient cities are very tightly built, with little room to maneuver. Only in front of a king’s palace or a religious temple might you find some space for people gathering. But Langvar was different. Even the sewer system here was advanced, not just foul-smelling ditches where waste flowed out of the city through grates beneath the fortress walls. By medieval standards, it was quite a decent place. Very decent. I couldn’t help but wonder – had the mysterious ‘ingineers’ had a hand in this? Despite Bridgeport’s insistent rejection of all things technical, the Langvarians had borrowed their sewer system. And street lighting too. But there was no electricity. No generators either. By decree of King Eldurian the First, any such technical innovation smuggled into Langvar was punishable by death! King Eldurian was notorious for his brutality and strictly enforced his own and made others adhere to his ‘wild’ anti-technical rules. He was a warrior-king, well-known in this world. There were many tales and legends about him. I had even heard them while in Bridgeport. These rules, of course, impacted me. On my very first day in Bridgeport, I ran into a multitude of problems. I would have been immediately condemned and hanged in the square if not for Shani’s protection. The fairy was feared.

The Sniffers – local hunters for spies and smugglers from Bridgeport – stopped me in the city twice a day. Until Pars and Shani went to the local municipality and got me a paper stating that I was of no interest to this peculiar secret police of King Eldurian. I don’t know what they said there, but from then on, I carried this paper – heaven knows what was written on it – in my top jacket pocket and gladly presented it to the next Sniffers. And they did sniff the paper! Apparently, they could distinguish certain specific scents, unsurprisingly, since Sniffers weren’t humans but dog-headed humanoids. I had heard about them before and seen pictures but never met them in person. There were none in Bridgeport, which was a significant drawback. They would have made perfect police patrols and detectives. They could sniff out anything. Not so much through smell, but through special, magic-like abilities. They could detect lies too, which, honestly, didn’t surprise me anymore. Zingaru could do it too – a race of highly developed lion-like people with whom I had a heap of unresolved issues in the recent past. Despite Pars repeated requests, I didn’t change my 1930s-style suit and hat, fashionable in Bridgeport. First, it was pointless: Sniffers would still detect that I was from Bridgeport, and I smelled of 'ingineers' and their devilish inventions. No matter what I wore. Second, as a target of unfair xenophobia from the locals, I did it partly out of spite. In a way. I couldn’t admit it to myself, but I stubbornly continued. The only woman I couldn’t have refused if she asked me to change my 'retro outfit' for a local equivalent was my Shainarian fairy, Shani. But she never did. Shani hardly paid attention to these trivialities. We rented a house in Langvar, which she and Dina – our mind-reader – began to furnish. Meanwhile, she was trying to lift the curse from me. She successfully delayed it, preventing the demon from accelerating the transformation process. But it couldn’t go on like this forever. She couldn’t remove the curse entirely. It wasn’t a matter of power, she had plenty of that. It simply wasn’t her specialty. Despite her very powerful magical abilities, Shani couldn’t do anything about the absolute curse of Dan-Dan-Flors. In such a situation, my only option was to contact the high priest-mage of Semenites, who could destroy such a powerful spell. The question was – how? Pars and I had already made enough attempts. The first was on the day of arrival...

The invasion army was indeed large. The surroundings of Langvar were red with the tents and pavilions of this army. It was the most whimsical army I had ever observed and hardly expected to see. A fairy-tale army of trolls, humans, Ronkas, giants, dragons, and many other strange creatures I hadn’t even seen. And this was only part of all the wonders and oddities of this invasion army. An invasion of Bridgeport! There could be no doubt about it, such a force could only be gathered against a common enemy – the despised ‘engineers’. The army continuously conducted maneuvers and exercises. Ronkas fought with clubs, human warriors trained with wooden swords, and forest half-elves on unicorns – huge, twice the size of normal horses, shaggy steeds, clearly from cold climate regions. Some were shooting at man-sized dummies, suspiciously dressed in a suit similar to the one I was wearing at the moment. However, the suit was so muddied and battered by one-and-a-half-meter arrows that it was almost unrecognizable. The infantry of the earth Dwarfs with large shields simulated an uphill attack to the top of a hill, where similar dummies of men with sticks were placed, probably to imitate firearms. It was a huge camp, noisy and with perpetual movement, not stopping even at night. The same continued under the light of large bonfires

and the sounds of drums as large as two-hundred-liter barrels.

I watched all this with a kind of awe, even forgetting about my impending inevitable death. It was like stepping into a fairy tale.

To witness the living magic of this world. In Bridgeport, one could encounter magical creatures too, but never such diversity and abundance. Everything there was spoiled by technology and reinforced concrete buildings, completely out of sync with the magical ambiance of this World.

By this time, I had already read about my adventures from a notebook written by myself, before a ‘nine-day-spell’ permanently erased my memory of those days. It’s a strange sensation, reading about myself as if it were something new, unknown. My actions and dilemmas seemed somewhat naive and misguided to me. Foolhardy, even. Hindsight is always 20/20, as they say. Analyzing it all, I kept coming back to the thought that I could have avoided all this had I just done one smart thing at the beginning. Like not participating in the shooting competition and showing off my skills there. Then the mafia wouldn’t have become interested in me. But all of that was irrelevant now. Mulling over scenarios in my head doesn’t help turn back time.

These were my reflections as I watched the maneuvers of the invasion army, when Pars, who had been standing beside me, allowing me to enjoy the spectacle uninterrupted, finally spoke. The rest of the group had moved ahead and was nearly at the city gates. Yet, I couldn’t tear myself away from the scene unfolding before me. The riot of colors in the clothing, weapons, and the sometimes strange, unseen creatures.

“It’s time to go,” Pars said softly, placing his hand on my shoulder.

I was startled at his unexpected touch, turned around, and gave a wry smile.

“You’ll have plenty of time to see all this; they won’t be leaving here for weeks, maybe even months,” he added, gesturing towards the camp.

“I know. But it’s a pointless endeavor. It’s going to be a horrific slaughter. Even if this army wins the first wave, they’ll lose ninety percent of their personnel in a war with Bridgeport. Although that’s unlikely to happen. They’ll probably all be killed before they even get close.”

We resumed walking towards the gates, Pars keeping pace beside me.

“Are you sure?” he asked, his tone laced with doubt and concern. “They even have a very strong squad of experienced necromancers from Kristan. It’s a massive army, the largest ever assembled in the history of the Magical Kingdoms. Besides, this is only the first army. A second one on the other side of the wall is also preparing for the invasion too.”

I shook my head, dismissing his objections.

“Believe me, I know too well what armies like the one in Bridgeport are capable of. On my home planet, humanity excels at inventing various ways to kill their kind. I don’t know the real strength of Bridgeport; it’s a closely guarded secret of their authorities, but even a thousand troops with cannons and heavy firearms could stand a chance against such an army. As long as there is enough ammunition. And then there are mines, armored vehicles, chemical weapons, airplanes... and a lot more that you wouldn’t understand. Trust me, it’s a futile endeavor…”

As I was explaining to Pars about the various types of weaponry back on Mother Earth, we approached the gates. The situation with the Agarta wall and the giants almost repeated itself at the gates of Langvar. Archers with faces painted in Native American war paint, oddly out of place in this setting – there usually aren’t any ‘Indians’ in ‘fairy tales’ – aimed their bows at me. Meanwhile, the guards below immediately pointed their spears. A mustached sergeant with a ‘Hitler-style’ hairdo moved towards me with a smile, as if he couldn’t believe his luck in catching a ‘saboteur’ from Bridgeport so easily today.

But he couldn’t get close enough. Shani stood between us, nearly touching me with her long, albino-white hair, tickling my elbow with those lush, surreal curls, straight out of a cartoon. Her anime-like, big-eyed fairy beauty could astonish anyone in our world. But here, she only instilled fear in the locals. As if they were encountering a beautiful vampire. A genuinely dangerous creature, though unrealistically beautiful and delicately feminine. The guard sergeant’s eyebrows shot up in extreme surprise, and he stared at her from head to toe. Shani barely reached his chest.

“A fairy!?”

In that single word, he expressed a multitude of emotions that seemed utterly impossible to pack into such a short phrase or word. Astonishment, doubt, bewilderment, and even a question like: ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ I mean, I support magic! No actor could probably have managed it, because it was instinctive, coming from the deepest depths of the soul, devoid of theatrical falseness.

I smirked. I had already witnessed the fury of my guardian angel at the gates of Agarta. The lilac rage in the eyes of the Shainarian fairy. I imagined what the sergeant must be seeing now. ‘THE SNOW QUEEN VERSUS GLOBAL WARMING!’ This amusing comparison popped into my head unexpectedly, prompting an even broader smile. It was a great mystery, not just to the guard sergeant of Langvar, but to me as well, why Shani was protecting me. I understood it no more than he did.

“Why are you grinning?”

The mustache-man finally tore his gaze away from the hypnotizing dark-lilac eyes, dangerous as an all-consuming neutron star, and looked at me with a furrowed brow.

“Is smiling prohibited here?” I asked, my tone lighthearted but tinged with a fair dose of mockery. “I thought your city had more freedom than Bridgeport.”

“What do you want here, stranger?” he continued, his tone still as dark as the cosmos, emphasizing the last word: stranger! My frankness only confused him more. ‘A saboteur confesses his origins without any pressure? That’s something new!’

“I’m seeking protection and refuge. Just for a short while.”

The sergeant smirked and glanced back at his subordinates. In the typical manner of bullies who mock their victim – as if to say, look at this spectacle, friends. “And from whom are you seeking refuge?”

“From Zingaru,” I replied succinctly and hit the mark with my ‘shot’. It was as though I had dropped a heavy weight, about forty kilograms, right at the feet of the smirking mustached man. He continued to smile, but his smile now carried a hint of bewilderment. The people of Langvar don’t like the Zingaru, and rumor has it, that they despise them almost as much as they hate Bridgeport.

“And what did you do to them?” he asked tensely.

“Killed a couple.”

Another weight fell at his feet. He didn’t even ask why. In his mind, such a ‘godly act’ probably didn’t need trivialities like justification. It was akin to asking, ‘And why did you off Jack the Ripper? Such a sweetheart guy!’

“Is he lying?”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

His question was directed at Shani.

“Max never lies.”

Shani’s voice was firm, like stone. Like liquid metal – pervasive and scorching with a heat of fifteen hundred degrees. Because fairies don’t lie. NEVER AND NOWHERE! And the sergeant of this fantasy world knew it all too well. It’s humans – petty, envious, corrupt creatures – who can lie. Ronkas can lie. Even Zingaru, if cornered. But never fairies! To suspect a fairy of deceit was like suspecting a three-month-old baby who hasn’t even learned to speak yet, let alone lie.

The sergeant was in shock. Uncertain how to proceed, he shifted from one foot to the other and then stepped back. He moved aside and nodded to the guards. Spears were raised, bows were lowered, and two of the guards stepped back. We were allowed into Langvar – a massive medieval megalopolis with a river port just twenty kilometers from the sea – at the mouth of the river flowing into it. With half a million inhabitants of various ranks and classes. Golden domes of palaces and buildings constructed on the remnants of more ancient structures, themselves built on foundations even older. A peculiar dissonance between them.

“Let’s try right now!” Pars suddenly said as we crossed the threshold of the gate and moved along the wide street paved with large stones.

Our entire group, almost simultaneously, turned to him, not understanding what he meant.

“Let’s go to the riders! We’ll persuade them. They will take you to the Semenites. I hope.” He added the last part in a slightly quieter tone, such that only the most naive fool wouldn’t doubt the futility of his hope.

My friends’ reactions to this proposal were utterly different. Dina twirled her finger at her temple, grabbed me by the elbow as if she were a girlfriend on a stroll, leaned in, and commented:

“Don’t listen to him, Boss. He’s a fool, though a smart one.”

‘Smart fool,’ I thought, gently freeing myself from her gripping fingers. I was no authority to Dina. She treated me familiarly and brashly, despite our age difference. Naturally, in her own way, Dina was a telepath who read feelings and emotions. It’s me who’s the smart fool, not him, I thought.

Tus, a massive Ronkas, snorted and shrugged his shoulders. Shani, meanwhile, tilted her head and gave Pars a reproachful look.

“You know it won’t work.”

Pars turned out to be the second man in Rydii whom she had spoken to.

“But we have to try!” Pars insisted, passionately, perhaps too much so. “What’s with all of you?” Shani paused to think for a moment.

“Fine, but go just the two of you. Dragons don’t like it when a large crowd shows up. Neither do the riders. And neither do I.”

Dina’s face, showing disappointment at being excluded from accompanying us by Shani’s decision, slightly pleased me. Served her right, I thought. Dina often irritated me, mostly by publicly reading my desires. It was impossible to hide anything from her, though she didn’t read thoughts as words, but she couldn’t keep her mouth shut about my emotions and feelings.

“So, what are we going to do?” asked Dina, as Pars and I began to walk away.

“We’ll rent a house. I know someone here,” replied the fairy, taking our telepath under her arm. They seemed to get along quite well.

Pars strode decisively towards the city center. I knew where he was taking me. To the dragon riders. A very rare and highly respected profession in the magical realm of this world. Only these guys could deliver me to the Magister of the Semenites, who was somewhere riding his personal, snow-white dragon, trying to negotiate and prevent the looming war. And apparently, in vain. In a worst-case scenario, the dragons’ speed could even transport me to the Order Palace at the other end of the continent. It would take several days of furious flight, but the dragons were more than capable of such a feat, as I had long since learned. The problem was just one. Actually, there were two, but the first was more immediate. Riders would never, under any circumstances, agree to transport someone ‘scented’ with engineers. That was clear. No questions asked. Persuasion was utterly useless in such case. Pars hoped that he could change this was so futile, foolish, and hopeless from the perspective of a local resident familiar with the customs of this world, that I couldn’t even think of a proper comparison. Pars was simply in some kind of desperation to even entertain with such self-deceptive thoughts.

For some reason, he was more concerned about me than himself. And we had only known each other for what, two weeks? Half of which I spent remembering nothing at all!

I caught up with Pars in a few quick steps, lightly holding his sleeve.

“Wait. Slow down.”

“We don’t have much time,” Pars replied, but he slowed his pace.

“Then why don’t you fill me in?”

“About what?”

“About your plan. Shouldn’t I be briefed somehow?”

“No. The Riders don’t read minds, but they certainly know who they’re dealing with. It’s somewhat like Dina with her abilities. Or Zingaru.”

Pars waved his hand, ending the dialogue and resuming his brisk walk.

“We can’t afford to waste time,” he repeated. “The Absolute Curse is no joke.”

I nodded, and we moved on at the same brisk pace.

Half an hour later, we reached the dragon platform. It was a pyramid-like structure made of stone blocks of various sizes, with its top half truncated. The platform was partially clad in tiles made of a yellow stone, the name of which I didn’t know. It was quite large, at least half the size of a football field. Large steps led to the top, about half a meter in height, somewhat inconvenient for an average person. This raised a question in my mind.

“Why are the steps so large?” I asked Pars, trying to mask my nervousness. The closer we got to the dragons and their riders above, the more hopeless the whole idea seemed to me. I was already tired of being treated like an outsider from Bridgeport. And this current venture couldn’t possibly end well. Shani wasn’t around to protect me if the riders, in their hatred for engineers, decided to ‘accidentally’ push me off the edge. They wouldn’t likely be punished for it. And the fairy wouldn’t seek vengeance. They have no concept of revenge. However, her strange and uncharacteristic attitude towards me might have driven her to break with her race’s customs and traditions.

“This is a very ancient structure,” Pars explained. “It was here long before humans appeared. Built by ancient races much taller in stature.”

“Why does it look so new? Restored?”

“No. Ancient magic. What they built back then doesn’t simply fall apart over time.”

“And what was it built for, if not for the riders?”

Pars glanced sideways at me, trailing a bit behind him on the steps, and replied, “No one knows, Max. We don’t have time. Don’t distract your mind with that. Just speak the truth. Don’t even think about lying or holding back.”

I snorted, “You think that will help?”

“No. But it’s worth a try. In the ‘Halvarate,’ it’s said: if you don’t do, the task remains undone.”

Some old authoritative sayings, which people consider epitomes of wisdom, are quite flawed upon closer analysis. This applied to Pars’ words.

“Very wise,” I said sarcastically.

We reached the top, and I saw the dragons up close. Or rather, one dragon. Not so big, really. From a distance, they seemed larger. But that was probably due to the lack of a reference point in the sky to estimate their real size. About nine meters long including tail length, with golden-brown armor. The dragon, with its long and relatively slender neck, lay lion-like on the sun-warmed stone slabs, a warmth I could feel even through the soles of my boots. The rider sat next to it, leaning against the dragon’s body. A short-haired blond with piercing green eyes. Almost dark from the intensity of the color. His face was smooth and youthful, without a single wrinkle, mole, or even a pimple. But his eyes betrayed his age; they were too experienced, the gaze of an old man. I remembered various rumors that a special spiritual bond forms between riders and dragons, with the dragon sharing its longevity with the rider. And that wasn’t the only thing. Another distinctive feature of the rider was his ‘buffness’. Literally, he was extremely muscular! A natural bodybuilder, his muscles bulged with knotted veins under the skin. Taut-like snakes, coiled around his torso and arms, covered in magical tattoos.

He ignored our approach, his face bearing an utterly melancholic expression as his gaze briefly swept over us before he returned to his activity. And his activity was quite amusing, from my urban perspective. He was feeding the dragon nuts! Tiny ones, which looked like mere beads in his hands. He cracked them by squeezing them in pairs. His veins, along with his muscles, bulged, and one of the nuts clasped in his fist would burst open. Then, he would extract the round kernel, clean off any remaining shell, and offer it to the dragon. The dragon, with the grace of a swan, turned its elegant neck and gently picked up the kernel with its lips, then chewed it. What good such a trifle was to him, I had no idea. Weren’t dragons supposed to eat meat? Logically. They are predators after all.

Unexpectedly, Pars began to speak in a pompous tone. I had never seen him bow to anyone before. He bowed. Deeply. Almost in a Japanese style.

“Most esteemed Harman! The thunder and lightning of the skies. The great...”

The rider raised his hand, stopping the flow of flattering epithets. I was surprised not so much by Pars’ behavior as by his words. He had talked about being sincere!

Suddenly, the rider made a dismissive gesture with his hand, as if pushing a glass away from him. A clear sign of dismissal. Then, he pointed at me.

“Let him speak for himself.”

Pars stepped back, embarrassed. After bowing again, he took a step back, leaving me at the forefront of the negotiations.

I didn’t beat around the bush or try to deceive. That would have been pointless, a fact I had long since realized.

“I need to lift the curse of Dan-Dan-Flors. Can you help me and take me to His Holiness, the head of the Semenites Order, Chongar the White?”

The rider nodded. For a moment, I even thought, he appreciated my straightforward and clear request, devoid of any flattery, unlike Pars. But then, in an instant, his eyes narrowed like those of a predatory cat.

“Why should I help you, a man from the world of the ingineers?” he challenged.

I felt a shock of surprise. This type had an even keener sense of telepathy than the usual magicians! Up until now, only a few people had sensed that I came from the world of engineers: the magician Kulu-Kulu, his girlfriend, and two influential politicians in Bridgeport. But then I realized he was referring to Bridgeport. After all, the city and the place beyond the Wall could also be called the world of engineers!

“I didn’t choose where to live. Just like you.”

“You’re somewhat right, man from Bridgeport. But the right to choose is irrelevant here. A venomous spider doesn’t choose where it lives. It simply lives in a burrow because THAT’S WHERE IT WAS BORN.” He emphasized the last words with a dark tone.

I involuntarily frowned. The man, or rider, was provoking me. Calling me a spider, implying I was venomous. His strange psychology of the gradation of good and evil didn’t fit into the moral framework we were accustomed to. His morality was only for his kind, not for the people of Bridgeport or its inhabitants. I realized the futility of this dialogue. The more complex arguments I brought up, the further away I would be from my goal. I was not a part of his system of positive values.

“So, you won’t help me, not because I’m bad, but because I was born in a place that you consider a bad one?”

However, he dismissed my attempt to impose my value system on him for a second time. He snorted, cracked open another nut, fed it to the little dragon, and replied, “You are bad. Partly because you’re from a bad place. And that’s reason enough for me not to help you. Also, be thankful that you’re even alive walking around here. This is no place for someone like you.”

“Why do you think I’m bad?” I persisted, trying to steer him towards a moral argument and ignoring the veiled threat. Shani wouldn’t let him hurt me. I wasn’t worried about that. A fairy’s purple rage is quite a spectacle.

“Because you’re from a bad place. A VERY BAD place.”

Here we go again! I cursed internally. Of course, when logic isn’t needed, arguing is pointless. Jesus walked on water. Believe it or not, he walked!

“What’s so bad about Bridgeport?” I asked, and before I could finish, I realized I had made an even bigger mistake. Arguing with him about this was utterly pointless.

The hand gesture was repeated. The motion of pushing away an imaginary glass in the air. Continuing the dialogue was futile. He had ended it. His eyes relaxed again, the gnarled vice-like hands cracked another nut with a snap.

I turned to leave but suddenly changed my mind. That dismissive hand gesture infuriated me. It was as if I was nothing. Contempt. Absolute contempt, almost disdainful. I turned back, and Pars, sensing my state, grabbed my arm as if afraid I was about to start a fight with this guy.

“Let go, Pars. I’m not going to fight,” I murmured quietly. The rider suddenly smiled. It was a condescending smile as if amused by the thought. Admittedly, it was a correct assumption. There was likely no one on the planet who could beat him in a one-on-one fight. Riders possess a portion of their draconic companion’s strength and abilities, as I’ve already mentioned. It would be like fighting a stone golem. His deceptively human appearance couldn’t fool me. I had read too much in newspaper articles about riders. Neither the most powerful Elves warrior nor the legendary Zingaru’s sword technique could defeat a rider in fair combat. Only a full knight of the Semenites, and even then, only a top-rank fighter. Perhaps a second-rank fighter as well. But these were exceptionally trained, outstanding warriors and battle mages – terrifying killing machines, both physically and magically. Their lives were spent in constant training, much like the Shaolin monks, but unlike on Earth, here - the fabled Chi energy truly works. With specialized training, one could achieve powers that on Earth were only found in Marvel comics.

I forced myself to calm down. Cool head. Or head in the cold. The advice of a military leader. And for good reason – the man clearly knew his tactics and strategy.

“I want to help you, dragon rider.”

He turned his melancholic-contemptuous gaze back on me.

“I don’t need your help, scavenging vermin of the ingineers.”

‘Ignore the insults,’ I told myself and continued in the same tone, “I’m going to do this regardless of whether you want it or not, worm rider. I want to tell you how you’re going to die. It will happen very soon, and perhaps my words will save your life.”

He cracked another nut, ignoring me and not responding, probably deciding that the best way to get rid of me was to pay no more attention. I continued:

“When you attack Bridgeport, here’s a piece of advice – don’t fly closer to the ground than five thousand stags. Maybe even four and a half. The thirty-millimeter automatic cannon fires up to three kilometers. And the shell doesn’t even need to hit you directly. It explodes in the air with a delay, scattering a rain of shrapnel at speeds of kilometers per second. If a tempered steel bullet hits you, it will pierce the belly of your dragon and you sitting on it. I’m not joking! You may not believe it, but to a hardened steel core at a speed of 900 meters per second, organic matter is like rotten pumpkin. No obstacle. The bullet, after passing through the dragon’s body, will enter yours from the rear, travel through your entire body, turning your internal organs to mush, and blow off your head, which no magic can reattach or resurrect. Not even the magic of the so-called ancient gods. Ah yes! I almost forgot what will happen to the dragon when it gets hit by bullets from a Browning machine-gun, for example. Those are 50 caliber bullets. About as thick as my finger. The machine gun fires at a rate of 600 rounds per second. So, it’s not just one bullet that will hit your dragon. It’s a whole barrage. And all of them will go right through. Organic matter, after all. And even if they don’t hit you, you’ll start falling to the ground. From thousands of stags high. You’ll be smeared on the asphalt. Do you know what asphalt is? In Bridgeport, it’s everywhere. It’s a surface smooth and hard as stone. You and your dinosaur will have to be scraped off it. A cleaning machine with a high-pressure hose will have to come...”

I almost missed the moment of his attack. My God! He was fast! Like a snake. The rider sprung up unexpectedly, just as I was reaching the climax of my explanations, vividly demonstrating, for some reason using his middle finger, how a twelve-centimeter bullet would pierce through the body of his dragon, and then him. I was about to move on to describe the larger-caliber anti-aircraft guns of 45 millimeters and more when a lilac flash erupted. The rider, like an enraged leopard, stopped just half a meter away. His hand was raised in a blow that would have instantly killed both Klitschko brothers along with Mike Tyson together. His monstrously strong muscles tensed, veins bulging a couple of centimeters. His eyes were shooting lightning. But he stopped. Between us stood a lilac glow. And in that glow was Shani. Again, almost in the same pose as at the city gates. Positioned between me and the furious rider-mage. How she was teleporting herself, was beyond my understanding. I had never seen such a thing from her. They both froze in a silent battle of gazes. The rider wavered, evident in his fist. He would clench his fingers as if about to strike, then relax them. Finally, he lowered his hand.

“How can you! How can you!” In his voice was an endless grievance. And the anger! The fury that he was not allowed to punish the insolent ingineer.”

“WHY ARE YOU PROTECTING HIM!”

Shani too had lessened her magical defense that had stopped the rider. Only now did I realize that the lilac glow had acted like a sort of force field. The very kind that a bullet can penetrate, but neither a fist nor any bladed weapon. The glow dimmed.

“Max is good,” she said softly.

“HE’S FROM BRIDGEPORT! He’s from that damned place!” the rider was still shouting.

Shani suddenly rolled her eyes for a second, then reopened them and asked, “Harman, so you’re from the ‘clumsy-handed’ island? Nice place! No denying that. Though they took you from there as a baby, you’re the last one to reproach anyone for their birthplace!”

The rider darkened, completely losing his bravado. He averted his gaze. I even thought he might burst into tears from rage. Suddenly, flinging the remainder of the nuts aside, he jumped onto his dragon and, uttering something in an incomprehensible language, lifted the reptile. The dragon, with an ultra-short takeoff that would have made an auto-gyro envious, soared into the air, blasting us with a gust from its wings. The white hair of the Shainarian fairy fluttered, briefly entwining around my face.

Shani, following the rider with her gaze, turned around. Pars stood nearby, stunned. Then she moved towards the steps to descend, not waiting for us.

“Let’s go, Max.”

“What is the ‘clumsy-handed’ island?” I asked Pars.

“It’s an island of cannibals far to the south, in the sea they call ‘Starlight,’” he explained shocked.