Natalie Yacobson: Dragon’s Empire – 5. Society of Shadows

«Are they real?» Priscilla flew up the steps to the platform like a butterfly, stooped in front of the chest, and raked the coins with her palms as if they were gold sand.

«I suppose I could use a little variety?» It was again a quick flick of my unnaturally long fingers, and on top of the gold an invisible hand sprinkled a guest of gems. Some of it crumbled, but just as Priscilla was about to pick it up and feel it, it crumbled to rainbow-colored dust under her fingers. The walls of the chest began to blur and eventually dissolved into a puddle of wet sand, which instantly vanished as though nothing had happened. The coins still rattled in different directions, but they did not remain a golden rain for long. It looked like a kind of optical illusion. In the first moment they were rounds of gold, but in the second they were sizzling embers. Charlo was afraid to touch the treasure as if it had been plagued by plague, and now he was glad of it. Priscilla realized she’d been tricked and pouted resentfully, but was too shy to say anything.

«You wanted to fight me?» I suggested, drew a sharpened stiletto from my inside pocket, and handed it to Charlo.

«You’re insane,» Charlo shrugged back. He could no longer keep up his show of unconcern. Well, I was disgusted with his impertinence to begin with. He was behaving like a normal human being for once, not ingratiating himself or trying to show he was above them all. The mask was torn off, and beneath it, instead of a shadow, just a fearful wretch who feared for the safety of his hide.

«I’m sane,» I countered calmly. «But you are sane or not. How can a healthy person observe such hallucinations as the ones you’ve just experienced? Can people who are even remotely sane see these things in their dream?»

I showed him what I’d shown many people, cutting my clear, pale skin with the blade, striking a vein, and dipping my fingers into the wound to leave a few blood droplets on it. Of course, the cut healed on its own, but it seemed to the audience that the scar had smoothed over my skin as soon as the moonlight touched it. A common belief, the moonlight touched the body and the restless spirit returned to it. I’d read enough scary books to know that, except that the moon cycle had nothing to do with my invulnerability. I glanced at my renewed skin, wiped the blood from my fingers with the handkerchief I’d left in my pocket, and, with a chuckle that would have scared the hell out of any demon, said Charlo:

«If you were in your right mind, you wouldn’t have seen anything like that.»

I jumped off the stage just as easily, and then added more kindly:

«I was only trying to persuade you that gold can only be obtained from a lord you serve faithfully, not by robbery. Do not think that I am a conjurer and that the chest is only a trick. If you had ever been to a circus, you’d know that people can’t perform such a trick. Think hard about what you saw. In the meantime, I advise everyone to go home.»

«Yes, I’m going,» Klovis threw off the short black cloak from his shoulders and aptly tossed it at Charlo’s feet. «I’ve had enough of the blackness.»

He staggered away at a brisk pace. Without his cloak he looked like a bird without wings. The cloak, like a tattered plumage, lay near the scaffold.

«No one can escape us,» Charlo shouted threateningly. «And you,» he said suddenly to me. «Why you not burn us. If you can breathe fire, why haven’t you burned all your enemies?»

«I can’t,» I said. «I can’t leave just a handful of ashes from everyone. Otherwise, I would put the executioners, who are on duty day and night in the torture chambers of my castle, out of a job. They have to practice their trade on someone, too, lest I turn them away.»

Charlo fell silent. He was uncomfortable with the prospect of my prison.

«I won’t be back for a while, but I’ll pick my own time,» I said as I left. «I’ve taught you a lesson, and now I’ll give you time to think. Consider, Charlo, what you’ve just seen, and conclude for yourself, perhaps your nighttime walks are bad for your sanity, perhaps you’ve just seen things no one else has, and perhaps I, the dragon, only exist in your sick imagination.»

I waved my hand, glowing like a firefly in the darkness, as if to send them all into oblivion, and ducked into the alley, where Klovis’ footsteps were already fading around the corner. I knew that someone swift and unpredictable was following him, nimbly leaping from one roof to another, hiding behind chimneys and ledges, scratching the tiles with his claws, and all the while intently observing the figure of the young man, who from a height looked only a dot crawling through the narrow streets.

There was again a nimble, precise leap. Someone’s claws caught on the ledge of a stacked brick chimney and scratched it. The gutter creaked, the heel of someone’s boot scraping lightly against the iron-clad heel. Klovis, of course, didn’t hear all that. He couldn’t have been as sensitive to the presence of another predatory creature near him, his hearing was not as acute as mine, and his thinking was not as quick. Compared to me, he was short-sighted. So, who could he have spotted on the rooftops, if even I guessed the existence of a stalker not because I noticed it, but by the sounds it made as it moved. Even I had a hard time distinguishing him from the average yard cat that climbed up on the roof.

«Don’t turn around!» I chased and shoved Klovis aside so that some heavy glass object, thrown from above, whistled nearby and shattered on the sidewalk. One sharp shard killed a mouse that had carelessly darted out from under the basement grate. Klovis barely restrained his nausea from my pushing it to the ground, not so far from the slashed body of the beast.

«It would have been you,» I tossed the ugly corpse with the edge of my boot where it belonged, behind the sewer grate.

The boy swallowed convulsively and nodded, as if trying to say «thank you!»

Someone who had jumped off the roof was now running away from us through the tangled streets. A person could not remain unharmed and uninjured by jumping from such a height. Another man would have been dead by now if he had dared such a maneuver, but this one was still full of energy and was running away almost at a hopping pace. Isn’t that monkey agility?

«What did I ever do to deserve your help?» Klovis got to his feet and shook down the dirt.

«Normally, help is required of me. But, believe, if I were to come at you from around the corner, no amount of help would bring relief.»

«He won’t let me get away. Wouldn’t he?» Klovis turned as if he could see the flaming footprints left on the stones by someone’s soles.

«He is strong, but he is not omnipotent…» I remembered that I had not only escaped the dungeon myself, but I had broken all relations between us.

«What do you mean by that?» Klovis looked to me hopefully, as if I were someone smarter and more experienced, someone who could answer any question correctly.

«Sit back somewhere, and then, who knows, things may turn in your favor.»

«Sit back? I must sit back as a fugitive?» There was a sound of doubt in his voice. Klovis wasn’t sure he could do nothing for a long time without growing tired of it. He was the sort of man for whom any work was better than forced idleness. Even doing useless work he would know that life goes on and maybe one day work would bring success, but lurking somewhere and fearing for himself was tantamount to burial for him.

«You are a fugitive,» I reminded him, though he knew it already.

«And where would I hide, they scatter through the city as night falls, as numerous and inescapable as the cloak of darkness that descends on the earth toward evening.»