Andrey Prudkovskii - Trilogy of Dhana and the Earth. Book one. End of the world

“Radogast,” I called, “your will has been fulfilled, I have died.

Will you allow me to see your country through the eyes of the spirit?”

“Spirits do not bother me, do what you want!”

So Radogast answered me, and happy, I soared high in the skies to see everything, everything around.

Forest, river, in the distance – clusters of huts, beauty… I looked down – the poor demoness was still busy with my dead body. Now she will probably have to do a demonic funeral rite with me. What will she do with the body? It would be nice to burn on sacred fire, but she could give it to the sacred land of this forest. To my horror, the demoness did not do neither one nor the other. She wrapped the corpse in a bag, put it in a boat and drove to the middle of the river. Will she drown him? “May you drown in a swamp!” – such is the worst curse in my land. And my body will be damned!

All day I hovered over the boat and waited for the inevitable. But the demoness nevertheless felt sorry for me and did not drown. She packed the body with the boat into the magical self-propelled cart and drove to her home.

What can I say about the demon settlements and the wonders of their country? Beautiful and multi-demon is the land of demons. Magic carts travel by land, fly across the sky, float along rivers. Demons live in caves dug in high rocks. But these caves are full of magic and comfort! You won’t immediately list all the miracles, so I’ll return to the story.

I kept waiting for the demoness to bury my body. But she never did. She laid the corpse in her cave and began to give food and drink to the dead man!!! I trembled with terrible horror, although the spirits did not have a body that could tremble. The witchcraft power of the demoness exceeded my understanding. She managed to make the dead body move. I saw my corpse eating and drinking without opening its eyes. Terrible tales about the living dead were resurrected in my memory… It was even worse than if she drowned my body.

I could not help my poor body with anything, so I left the sinister dwelling of the demoness and went wherever the road took me. And my eyes looked first of all at the magical carts, racing day and night along the roads of the demons’ country. I chose one of them and hit the road…

There were four of them – and this gave me a sign that I can join them. Dad was a demon of amazing thickness. I discovered how uncomfortable it was when I entered his mind. Only a car could give a semblance of mobility to this awkward creature. In addition, he always suffered from fatigue and constantly wanted to sleep. It was very convenient for me, since I could easily completely seize power over his awkward body.

The car-, I learned to manage it very easily, although in many ways it disappointed me. The steering wheel was a control wheel, I really liked it, but the fact that there were three foot pedals below was surprising, because I have only two legs. The lack of strength of the machine also disappointed me. Just one pillar I hit at the edge of the road led to a whole story with the curse of my mother addressed to my ward that he sleeps behind the wheel and does not see the pillar.

The creature called mom was uninteresting. It was occupied with obscure problems of the health and nutrition of children. I did not see the point in her endless thoughts on this subject. Being strong and healthy is, of course, good. But she was neither strong nor healthy, like that demoness, who killed me. She always had something hurt: either the head or the stomach. And the only thing she did… maybe you think, healing herself – no! She was worried that her children might have the same illness as her! She did not know how to treat these diseases that had not yet appeared in her children. But she knew that she could feed her children, and she fed them. How she reminded me of ants!

When terrible swamp monsters attack the anthill, the ants behave differently: some boldly rush into battle, others carry the larvae deep into the anthill, and some suddenly begin to feed the female intensely, as if a well-fed, helpless female could repel the attack.

The children – son and daughter of demons were as cute as ours. They also wanted to know everything and demanded all the time to be told about everything. I also listened with pleasure and studied with them, but once, when I had already perfectly learned all the demonic words, now, once… Listening, as always, to the evening story that father told, and the story was about an ant, I suddenly saw the image of our native ants in his thoughts! This story was about how an ant with crippled paws alone got to the house. A completely implausible story, since all the animals on his way tried to help him. It doesn’t happen here, but maybe it happens in the country of demons??? Just at the most interesting place, dad fell asleep, despite the fact that the children twitched him to tell him further. And as an expert on ants, I decided to help a tired dad and to complete the tale:

– So, kids, the ant crawled to the edge of a huge swamp. The swamp smokes with swamp gases, swamp bubbles grow and burst in the swamp, and terrible monsters are in the swamp. There is no further way for an ant. If he had healthy legs, he would have run around the swamp, but he couldn’t. Suddenly an ant sees, a mushroom grows on the edge of the swamp – a large mushroom. Growing and puffing, wants to fly. He crawled onto the mushroom cap, only got settled as the mushroom took off from the earth and flew high into the sky. The ant feels so scary, and the mushroom flies quietly, puffing with spores. Оn the horizon, and the anthill already appeared.

But then the spores of the mushroom ended, and the mushroom began to go down – to the very center of the swamp. That’s it, now the ant is gone. He lowered his mushroom into the swamp and began to sink. Then a terrible green swamp monster crawls out of the swamp. Kids, how do you call this monster? That’s right, frog. The monster opens its huge mouth and… do you think, kids, it ate an ant? No! The monster tells him in a terrible voice:

“What are you doing here, ant, in the middle of the swamp, and how did you get here?”

The ant told the frog his whole story, and she says:

– So let it be, because you told me such an interesting story, I will help you. Get on me.

The ant climbed the frog’s slippery back, and she laughs:

– Not there, stupid. Get in my mouth.

The ant got into the frog’s mouth, then it started to move with all four paws and swam in the swamp. Somewhere it swims, somewhere it dives, and somewhere it sways from one hillock to another over swamp grasses. Suddenly it reached the very shore. She opened her mouth and said:

– Now get out, I won’t take you any further, you, ants, are biting.

The ant got ashore. Looks – the anthill is very close, but there is no strength to crawl. Who will help the poor thing now? Soon the night will come. The ant will be eaten by night hunters…

Here the kids are running, the same as you – a boy and a girl. They say:

– Look, the ant is still alive. His legs are broken. Let’s drag him to the anthill, maybe he will recover there.

And the kids dragged the ant to the very anthill. There the orderlies ants took over him and, perhaps, even healed him…

– I lied, of course. I know how actually ants orderly treat sick ants. But the end of the tale should be good, especially in the country of demons, where all the animals help the ants, and maybe the ants can treat as well.

So I traveled with four demons in a car for several months. I did not discover the basics of the magic that drives the car, but I learned how to drive it, I understood how to feed the car black liquid at the points of this feeding by the road. In addition, I was convinced that the demons, in general, are not very different from the people of my country. Those whom I met on my way were not taught any special truths other than reading and writing. And, most importantly, I could easily read their thoughts, and sometimes even control their behavior a little…