The head of the sea fairy
«The Bloodsucker» was left standing in the channel by the bridge, as if in a cove. If anything happened to Patricia, the goblins would have time to leave in a ship. Patricia’s company was afraid to enter the castle and stayed on duty on the bridge as well. Patricia thought it was strange, but decided that Zeligena and Nethopyrina had decided to chat with the living heads to get valuable information about the island and its master.
As the master of the island, Edwin looked incredibly mysterious and appealing. But Patricia was tormented by the feeling of his inaccessibility. This had never happened to her before. Usually the nobles at the Opal court sought her attention, complimented her and gave her gifts, but Edwin seemed completely inaccessible, as if he were a statue, not a man. Even if he smiled amiably and said pleasantries, it seemed that his thoughts and heart were somewhere far away.
«If only I were free of revenge, and if such a handsome man could love me,» Patricia sighed to herself.
«What do you say?» Edwin turned as if she’d said the words aloud. Patricia noticed that the candelabrum with the golden candles was flying in front of him. She had thought Edwin was carrying the candlestick in his hand.
«I didn’t say anything out loud,» Patricia stared at the candelabrum floating in the darkness.
«Then I must have heard it,» Edwin shrugged gracefully. He couldn’t really be eavesdropping on her thoughts, could he? Or could wizards do anything? He’d have to think with caution from now on, or he’d find out how she felt.
«It must be hard living alone on an island, huh? You have to start talking to the silence,» the guest said.
«Life on the island is not as luxurious as my subjects are used to, so I spend my time here almost alone.»
«It is except for dragons and heads on spears.»
«You can’t talk to heads.»
«You’re wrong! You can talk to them.»
«But they’ll tell you things that will make your ears hurt,» said Edwin, who knew the severed heads were alive. «But dragons can sympathize. They sing dragon songs to me at night.»
«That’s roaring, not songs!» Patricia was outraged.
«You’re wrong! You don’t know the dragon language.»
«Do you?»
«I know almost every language spoken in the universe.»
«So are you a scientist or a magician?»
«One doesn’t rule out the other.»
Patricia bit her tongue. Every word Edwin said seemed a mystery to her. Sneakily, she peered at him. Today Edwin wore a robe that looked like a royal robe. Such had once been fashionable in Opal, back in the days of the old dynasty, when the country had been ruled by the young King Sular, who supposedly could turn into a dragon. Edwin’s robe was embroidered not with Opal crests, but with some ornate magical symbols. Patricia surreptitiously touched the flowing silk. It was softer than the soft skin of fairies. It was said that only magical spinners knew how to create such fabric.
Patricia was suddenly uncomfortable with the fact that she herself was dressed shoddily. She removed the pirate’s triangle from her head and adjusted the cloak that replaced her skirt at her waist. The holes in her tight breeches revealed her battle-scarred knees. She wished she could wear a ball gown now, like when she’d been an aristocrat in Opal. Edwin would like her better in a dress, and he wouldn’t seem so unavailable.
«I’m sorry I cut off your head,» Patricia remembered that she’d done him wrong. It had happened in Water Cove, and now it seemed like a delusional dream. «How could you take a severed head and put it back on your neck?»
«It is nonsense!» Edwin waved it away. There wasn’t even a scar on his neck. Surely all elves and wizards heal instantly. Patricia tried to feel the wings under Edwin’s robe, but he was moving too fast. She barely had time to touch him.
«Where are we going?»
A gloomy gallery with branching passages lay ahead, and beneath the gallery a water stream bubbled. Just beneath the castle was the sea. What is the island standing on if there is no land beneath the castle?
«I usually invite guests to a night feast.»
At the word feast, Patricia felt hungry. She hadn’t eaten anything but fruit for a long time. However, if it was a dragon feast, she might be invited there as food, not a guest. The roar of the dragons above the castle never ceased, but it sounded deafening through the walls. The columns and piles of the castle rested directly into the churning waves. Patricia was afraid the castle was about to sink, but according to Edwin, it hadn’t sunk in hundreds of years.
Instead of the feast, Edwin led Patricia to the tower, where the cozy chambers were located. There was a marble bathtub on curved legs, a screen over which was thrown a luxurious dress, and furniture trimmed with purple silk. The interior resembled a woman’s boudoir. Patricia had expected to find a rival, but the room was empty.
«You should change your vulgar pirate clothes for a decent dress, and then we’ll go to the feast,» Edwin said, leaving Patricia alone in the tower.
The dress on the screen was gorgeous, but while Patricia was trying it on, the key in the lock turned. It looked like Edwin had locked her in here.
«You forgot to take a bath!
A woman’s voice startled Patricia. There was no one around. So that’s where it was coming from? Patricia didn’t immediately notice the stakes outside the window. They were held on the ledge like ornaments, and on the stakes hung the lovely heads of fairies. Despite the beautiful faces, the severed heads were frightening.
«How many fairies had Edwin killed?» Patricia was outraged.
«What makes you think he killed us?» Another sea fairy’s head squinted slyly. «We’ll hang around for a couple centuries, and maybe he’ll let us go.»
Six heads of redheaded fairies agreed with her.
«Why did he do that to you?» Patricia asked.
«It was for a little thing! He is easily angered,» the redheads whispered. «We used to spin gold thread for his clothes.»
So these are magic spinners! Patricia had heard that by having one spinning fairy at court, all the weavers and seamstresses could be laid off. A fairy spinner can spin a gorgeous outfit out of magic thread.
«And I once helped him search for his missing wife across the sea and ocean,» the sea fairy sighed regretfully. «Since she wasn’t found, I wasn’t thanked.»
«So he’s married?» The purple dress almost slipped out of Patricia’s hands.
«The wife is long gone, she escaped from the dragon, but you can try on her dress.»
The dress looked like purple skin taken from some magical creature. It was imperial. You could only sit on the throne in such a dress. The long train of gold threads alone was worth a fortune.
«Are you going to take a bath or not?» This time, tiny sea pixies came out of the tub. They were blowing soap bubbles, causing the bathtub to fill with a fragrant mass. Even lotuses and lilies don’t smell this good! Shall we bathe? Patricia hesitated only a moment. She might be bewitched, of course. After a bath, she might get a rash on her skin, or she might turn into a mermaid herself. Patricia dipped one foot into the bath first. No rash appeared on her skin, and no gills grew. Then she could wash herself. The last time she had taken a bath was back in Opal. The kingdom had the best baths and bathhouses, but the bath on the golden dragon island was better.
«I used to love to swim in the waves or float above them, but now I’m hanging here,» came the voice of a sea fairy.
«What is your name?» Patricia addressed her.
«Morela.»
The name must have come from the word for sea. Patricia rested her head on a velvet cushion that lay on the edge of the tub. Her pirate clothes lay in a pile on the floor. A saber hovered nearby, guarding the captain’s possessions.
«Your ship’s log has Aluar’s symbols on it,» the sea fairy inquired.
«No, this is not my ship’s log,» Patricia fetched the cherished notebook in the folds of her cloak, and rightly so. The records could be deciphered on the island. Edwin is a magician and a scientist. He said himself that he knew all the languages, so he would be able to decipher the text.
«I could read it!» rejoiced the fairy’s head. «I’ve often been to the shores of Aluar and talked to the local people. One scientist from Aluar was my lover.»
Patricia wanted to get out of the bath and open the notebook in front of the fairy head, but it suddenly flew into the air and opened next to the spear, on which the head of the sea fairy was mounted.
«These are the travel notes of the captain of the brigantine „Swordbearer.“ I knew him, he was quite a bandit.»
«You mean a pirate?»
«There are bandits who are in the service of the crown and don’t want the noose.»
«Such as are now serving the King of Opal.»
«Shall I read what’s written here aloud to you?» The sea fairy slyly said.
Patricia nodded, not getting out of the warm bath.
«The notes are quite shocking,» the fairy warned.
«Read it anyway!»
The sea fairy shook her white curls that looked like foam and began to read aloud. Her voice flowed like the rustle of waves lapping against the shore.
Captain’s Diary
The fairy’s monotonous voice made it possible to fall asleep. Patricia already thought she was falling asleep not in the bathtub but on the shore to the sound of the waves, but the information that slipped into the fairy’s monotonous speech shocked and awakened her.
«July 10, our first day in the King Opal’s service,» the fairy read aloud. «We took to the high seas, strictly following the king’s instructions. As he had warned us, the Sea of Pearls was full of mermaids. Besides mermaids, there were also sweet-voiced sirens. It is useless to put plugs in your ears because of their singing, but the ointment that the king provided us with is a great help. All we have to do is put it in our ears, and the sirens’ disastrous singing has no effect on the crew. We feel victorious, but it’s not enough. His majesty, the King of Opal, plans to control the mermaid packs. To do so, we must find an underwater city and retrieve a relic from it. I’m expecting the spires of the mermaid city to flicker underwater. From the topmost spire we have to forge a huge watery stone and take it to the king.»
The sea fairy head took a breath. She didn’t seem to like the fact that some relic was going to be taken away from the sea at all. Patricia didn’t know what that relic was, but the fairy seemed to know and snorted indignantly.
«Read on!» Patricia rested her head more comfortably on the velvet cushion.
«July 15th,» the sea fairy continued. «We never got the relic. Perhaps the sea people don’t want to submit to the King of Opal. Mermaids have always been too willful. But we managed to sink several schooners and caravels that sailed under the emblems of nations hostile to Opal. I told them not to take prisoners, but the sailors picked up a strange golden-haired young man anyway. It was as if he had cast a spell on them. For a long time he had to swim out to sea, clinging to a broken plank. He was unconscious, his wet shirt clinging to his dazzling white skin, his curls falling over his face. I flicked them away with the tip of my saber and marveled at how handsome the rescued man was. He could be sold at the market in Pion. There are buyers for such goods. At the auction, they will charge a high price when they see that the boy looks like one of those beautiful and dangerous golden-bearded creatures that are the stuff of legends. It is said that both women and men fall in love with such creatures indiscriminately. I believe they are called golden elves. But when the prisoner opened his eyes, I thought it was a dragon, not an elf.»
The fairy’s head snorted, blowing sea foam out of her lips, somehow resembling soap foam.
«What’s wrong again?» Patricia was angry.
«There’s more about fire!» The sea fairy frowned unhappily. «I hate fire.»
«Read on anyway! The notes about fire won’t burn you!»
«Do you guarantee it?»
Patricia looked at the fairy so angrily that she went on to the text without interruption.
«July 20th: I was captured by my captor. I didn’t think it could be like this. The whole crew has found themselves in my position. All of us feel like puppets that he pulls the strings. There’s a reason they say you can’t let a magical creature on board.
As soon as I brought the prisoner into the cabin and he woke up, the foremast caught fire. The whole ship almost burst into flames like a match. The gods must be out to destroy the entire crew along with this strange golden-haired creature. Where he is, everything suddenly flares up and burns. But he’s calm. His curls are golden. Everyone who sees him feels an irresistible attraction to him. The prisoner controls us all. He became from prisoner to master of the ship.
The golden-haired guest is playing his whistle in the cabin as if nothing had happened, and a storm is brewing outside the window. I had already realized that he was calling the storm and the fire. Why did I bring him aboard? No amount of money for a handsome slave in Pion can pay off the fact that we have become slaves ourselves.
The ship, as if by magic, changed course and instead of the pirate island of Peony, sailed across the sea to the ocean. The storm was getting worse. A huge swell nearly sank the ship, but the guest played his whistle as if nothing had happened.
«Stop it! You’re causing a storm to destroy the ship and yourself? – I was furious.
He nodded.
«Why would such a powerful god suddenly want to die?» I asked. «You are the god of storms and fire, aren’t you? Why would you want to destroy yourself so badly?»
The guest broke away from the game, and the storm immediately began to subside.
«She left me,» he said, as if that explained everything, and stared at the candle, «and I am not a fire god, I am a demon.»
His gaze caused the candle in the cabin to flare up, so brightly that it looked like the whole table was about to catch fire, but the guest knew how to extinguish things as quickly as he could ignite them.
«I’m a demon, and you took me aboard,» he explained. «And I wanted to drown. I hoped the dragon would drown in water, for only water can resist fire. But you saved the dragon and fished it out of the water.»
«What dragon is it?» I’ve never seen a coastal dragon in my life, but I’ve heard a lot about them. None of them could swim, or the sea would be on fire by now. It is said that only water dragons can live in water, but not fire dragons.
The guest laughed, and his laughter made me sick. Sometimes laughter can be hypnotizing or maddening.
«If I had known that a creature like you was sailing on the schooner „The Ruby,“ I would not have sunk her. Please forgive me!» I tried to justify myself.
«Do you regret taking me aboard?» The young man furrowed his beautiful golden eyebrows. «People usually like me, but I’ve never sailed aboard «The Ruby.»
«So how did you end up in the open sea next to the wreckage of a ship?»
«I was flying over the sea, and then I plummeted downwards.»
«But you have no wings!»
«Do I?» The young man was genuinely amazed, and the sails and masts outside flashed again. If the guest sets fire to the rigging, we’re finished.
«Stop it!» I pleaded. «I will give you whatever you want of the valuables taken from the schooner, but let the ship dock and go away.»
«Wouldn’t it be better if I stayed and brought you fabulous riches?» The young man smiled in a way that sent chills down my spine.»
The reading fairy paused. The notebook that had been hovering in front of her face slid down toward the bathtub. A watery hand emerged from the pages and tried to grab Patricia. Blue claws and scaly webbed fingers seemed to form from the text.
«Ouch!» Patricia recoiled and dove into the tub, when she surfaced the sea fairy had already taken control of the notebook and it was hovering in front of her nose again.
The water fairy’s paw was gone, but there was a puddle of water on the floor, from which droplets flowed out and formed into letters. The writing by the water formed before her eyes.
«You can’t read the forbidden! Otherwise you’ll go blind, go mad, or be torn apart by a host of spirits.»
«Thanks for the warning, but it’s overdue,» Patricia considered throwing the notebook into the sea after reading it. If it didn’t burn, it would drown! What if once in the water, it would cause a disaster, like a big storm? Can a storm destroy a castle that stands in the middle of the sea?
«I’m reading on,» the singsong voice of the sea fairy came from above. «Are you still interested?»
«Yes, go on!» Patricia eyed the water in the bathtub apprehensively. Would the water fairies jump out of it? So far, the water was only foaming, but no blue hands were crawling out of it.
«July 25th,» the fairy continued to read. «My guest had a flair for wealth and a keen sense of competition with the King of Opal. He decided to take „The Swordsman“ out from under the king’s influence.»
«How is it that an Aluar’s ship ended up in the service of a wizard?» He berated me.
«I serve whoever benefits most. No matter that the ship once belonged to the King of Aluar, I transferred it and its crew into the service of the King of Opal.»
«And then you’ll transfer to the service of the demon king along with the treasury ship?» The handsome demon snorted disdainfully. «It would be better for „The Swordsman“ to become a pirate ship. And pirates, as everyone knows, love robbery and treasure hunting.»
At the guest’s command, the ship with burnt masts docked on a tropical island. There was buried treasure.
July 27th: A beautiful demon is full of gold. Instead of the blood of the crew, he feeds on the ringing of coins, which at his command fly into the air by themselves and ring melodiously for a long time. He has a knack for buried treasure on the islands. With his help we’ve gotten so much of it that the hold could burst, and there’s nothing to spend it on, for no ship docks in any port. We sail only around the wild islands. There aren’t even any islanders there, only wretches. We’re out of provisions and rum. The guest filled empty barrels with gold. He brought a few of these barrels as a tribute to the mermaids and was not the least bit poor. After all, his gold reserves were inexhaustible. He asked the mermaids something, I heard, but the sea maidens did not give him a satisfactory answer, and the young man breathed fire at them.
«I’ll find her without your advice,» he muttered, and then turned to me. «Don’t spy on me! Better count your treasure and rejoice in the good fortune I have brought you. There’s no reason for you to return to Opal now.»
I once betrayed Aluar and joined Opal’s side because I was unlucky. I cursed my bad luck then, but now I curse my sudden luck because a guest promised to give gold and became our lord in return. «The Swordsman» belonged to a demon.
«If you don’t want treasure, you can rob oncoming ships,» he sneered, noticing the crew’s despondency, for there was no rum or food left on board. Gold and precious stones have replaced it.
«How can we attack oncoming ships when our masts and sails are scorched and our hold is so full of gold that „The Swordman“ will soon sink?» I was furious.
«Then I invite you to my house.»
«You mean hell?»
«I mean the island of the golden dragon.»
Patricia shuddered when she heard the name. Was it Edwin she was talking about? The Captain’s description of his appearance reminded her very much of Edwin. And the situation with the drowning demon, whose rescue is tantamount to death, very much liked the delirium of a dying admiral.
«August 1th,» the fairy continued to read. «Can a dragon drown in the sea and thus extinguish its inner flame? This is the question that torments the beautiful demon. He led us to his island, where dark wonders awaited everyone. Here dwelt the dark fairies of the night, and the laughter of ghosts resounded. The crew endured all the horrors because there was rum and raw meat on the island. While the cook was preparing dinner, a beautiful demon was making a deal with me.
«Think of it as me hiring your ship. Now „The Swordsman“ will sail the seas in search not of the relics of an underwater city, but of just one unusual woman. She’s a sorceress, hard to find, but you will find her, or you will die. You’ve already been paid for your search in treasure.»
«And who are we supposed to find?»
«I don’t know her name. She has many names.»
«Do you at least have a picture of her in your locket?»
«There is, but it won’t help. I don’t know what she looks like now. She’s got a lot of faces.»
«Has she got many faces?» I was surprised.
«I told you she was a wizard. Tomorrow you’ll go looking for her, and I’ll wait on the island. If you find her, throw a gold coin into the sea and I’ll be there in seconds.»
August 2th: We didn’t wait for morning. Somebody dreamed that the master of the castle was turning into a dragon and eating the sailors alive. The crew was in a panic. We were really missing five men when we ran away from the island in a dinghy. Glittering pixies circled above the boat and urged us to return. Their thin voices stirred our consciences, but the crew rowed on. We reached «The Swordsman» and set sail in the morning fog. No one chased us. Did we really get rid of the demon? But the gold was still on board. It didn’t disappear like smoke, even when I decided I wasn’t going to look for any sorceress. I’d better buy my own estate and give up sailing. As soon as I thought of that, I heard strange sounds in the sky above the ship. A dragon seemed to be following us, and its skin was as golden as the demon’s hair.»
The fairy sighed disappointedly and exhaled another portion of sea foam.
«That’s it! There’s nothing further! And it’s not clear how it ends.»
«I know how it ended. The ship burned, so the notebook burned too,» Patricia got out of the bathtub and some strange oblong creature, which at first she took for an ornamental tree, helped her put on her dress. The pixies fluttered over the tub and quickly laced up the corset.
«I’m ready for the feast,» Patricia said loudly to summon Edwin or his servants, if there were any on the island, but none appeared. The door was still locked.
With nothing to do, Patricia decided to throw the unfortunate notebook out the window. Let it drown in the sea surrounding the castle. Th