Chapter 11 The Gift

 It seemed as though Edwin knew this route by heart. He crossed a river, a forest, and passed a few villages to find a hut, deep in the valley just by the shadow of a hill. It was surrounded by orchard trees, currant bushes, raspberries and strawberries placed thickly in their plots. The house, so vividly remembered wooden hut with ornamented window panes and shutters, painted by so familiar to him hand, stood in the same spot and hadn’t aged a bit. It looked like a souvenir of past times, a postcard from adventures in far away countries, a token kept on the bottom of the securely locked drawer. And those memories came flooding back, all these herbal scents and smells made him remember his first years as a wizard, his first lessons and experiences, and when from a boy he turned into a man. 

All who are old were once young, and Edwin, being in the fall of his life, having retired a few years ago, was also once young, strong and full of hopes. 

He knocked on the door. 

‘Shirah?’ he called, ‘Are you still here?’

What he was expecting to see was an old woman, possibly someone who was heading towards her last final stop, someone wrinkled and worn by time. Instead, the door opened almost a girl.

‘Yes?’

Edwin opened his eyes wide. It was Shirah, the witch who besotted him in his early twenties, being more experienced than him, and let’s be fair, more successful in her magical endeavours. A woman, whom he chased, instead of being chased by others, a witch who never forced him to marry, but after all these years, he actually wouldn’t mind standing with her at the altar.

‘You haven’t aged a bit.’

Shirah smiled with her full wide teeth and welcomed him inside. 

‘I cannot tell this about you, Edwin, the Great Wizard. It seems as though you have focused on entirely different matters. You aged significantly!’

Edwin was amazed at Shirah’s young body, unwrinkled face, jet black hair and full breasts coming from the tightly corseted dress. She looked older than Lilet and Karina, and had different beauty than the two young girls, whom Edwin had the pleasure to observe. Shirah’s beauty was coarser, possibly coming from a different epoch. But this was Edwin’s epoch and he admired it even more so. Her strong eyebrows and distinct nose added to her character, her muscular body and fine teeth made it impossible to believe that she was now about eighty years old. 

‘My trips to China paid off. I learned how to take care of myself, what herbs to use to keep my youth, what lotions and ointments to apply to my skin, what to eat and what lifestyle to keep.’

‘But are you going to die?’

‘Eventually, yes, but not anytime soon.’, she laughed ‘You look like an old sag, my boy. Time wasn’t so merciful to you, I’m afraid.’

Edwin smiled. No one has called him a boy for years. Quite the reverse, he was calling everyone younger than him a boy himself. He even used it when he addressed the king, which both of them learned to accept, because Edwin couldn’t help himself and the king was aware that he himself tended to be immature and silly. 

‘It isn’t my concern at the moment. I need your help. Once, years ago, you gave me the dragon’s egg, which now proved to be useful. I was hoping that you might have something which could be helpful with the war with the Goblins.’

‘War?’ Shirah was suddenly saddened. 

‘Yes, war, I’m afraid.’

She took a jar from her kitchen cupboard, opened it, took a handful of powder and spread it into the fire. She looked at the flames for a while. 

‘Yes, it’s going to be a war. I can see it clearly. You underestimate the power of the opponent. He’s strong. He’s powerful.’

‘Oh, we do estimate it correctly. We look for help anywhere we can. I came to you. I know that you were a far better witch than I was ever a wizard. Over the years, I just got more and more certain about it.’

Shirah smiled.

‘But tell me something about yourself,’ she welcomed him to the table, ‘I will make you a tea.’

‘Can’t you just look into the fire and see? You will have my life given to you on a plate. No questions needed.’

‘But what’s the pleasure in knowing it all? I want to learn it from you. Have you married? Have you got any children? Tell me about your adventures!’

Edwin started from the time they separated, he being given the dragon’s egg, having nothing in his pockets, no money, no weapons, only a few magical lessons that he got from life. He told Shirah about his failed love affairs, about revengeful witches, his deals with the king, years of service, rivalry with his brother, better and worse days, months, and years, and this day when he decided to retire, being tired of it all, fatigued by work and growing weakness of his body. And even though experienced and educated, he forgot one thing, namely, never to take anything from a witch or wizard and consume it. He drank his tea and didn’t realize that during all this time, while he was sipping and talking, his skin lost its elderly spots, his wrinkles disappeared, his white hair returned to their original red colour, his back pain dissolved somewhere and seized, his eyesight improved, his sensed sharpened, and he was again a young boy in his early twenties sitting in front of still young, but more experienced Shirah. 

Suddenly, he stood up and looked into the mirror. 

‘You put a spell on me!’ he exclaimed, amazed at his reflexion. 

‘Don’t get over-excited. I couldn’t do much at your age and state. It will wear off in a week or two. But I wanted to see what I remembered from those times.’

Shirah smiled and it was a different smile as if she had something else in mind and Edwin in his young and strong body was able to read between the lines. 

‘I will try to help you,’ she announced, ‘But I want you to stay with me here until the charm wears off and you go back to your old self.’

‘Stay with you to do what?’

Shirah didn’t answer but started unfastening her corset, and soon, she stood before him naked as God created her and as her skills managed to keep her in her most seductive age. But Edwin wasn’t a naive little boy, he was a man who had seen much and experienced much, been with women of various sorts and ages. He made love to Shirah like a skilled craftsman, grateful for those past years, possibly wanting to somehow win her back and prove that the only woman he ever cared about was actually her, but he had never the courage to admit it. He stayed for a fortnight, adoring the witch all this time, making love to her in her bed, in her garden, by the river and in all strangest and wildest places (which, as an old man, he wouldn’t even try to, but in his young body he was able to do something crazy and uninhibited). For him, it was also a dream come true and he knew that never in his life he would get another chance to experience love, passion, and pleasure of that extent. He looked at Shirah’s youthful face, tasted the juices of her body, felt her tights wrapped around his body, dived into her breasts and carressed her, until she allowed him to enter her again and explode in her with all his energy and vigor. He was to remember these moments like the second volume of a favourite book that helped him survive the worst and soothed him to sleep. 

When he was leaving the hut, aged, just the same as when he entered it two weeks before, he was given a black stone of a plum size.

‘Give it to someone trusted’, Shirah whispered, kissing him on the ear, more intimately than when she greeted him at the beginning, ‘When all else fails, just heat it a bit, it should work.’

Edwin put the gift to the pocket and knew somehow that it was an entirely useless gift, but being sure that Shirah was far cleverer than him, he made sure that he kept it and remembered about its presence. And being given a present far more precious, the presence of her company, he mounted his horse and galloped back to the castle.

Chapter 10 The Dragon

 It was a long way up into the Tatra mountains, where the snow-covered peaks reminded them how small they were despite the grandness of things they dealt with in their professions. Edwin, having seen the mightiness of magic both good and evil, Lilet, dealing with the forces of nature, unexplained and pristine, and Gwidon, having taken part in and since childhood witnessed battles waged by thousands of armed soldiers. But mountains stood still despite the greatest conflicts and survived ages of freezing temperatures, rivers changing its course; even though drilled, crushed, watered and spoilt, they remained strong and awe-inspiring. 

The three sole wanderers made breaks in their travelling routine, they set up fires, ate their packed food and royal bread, drank water from the clean mountain springs, and rested their horses. 

‘Are we sure where we are going?’ Couldn’t you do this trick with the virgin blood? Couldn’t you just locate it?’

‘You cannot locate a dragon,’ Edwin said as if it was common knowledge, ‘Dragons don’t obey the laws of people and the forces of the strongest magic. They don’t come from the world of humans and they don’t deal with matters which we invented or made use of. If he notices that we are looking for him, he can allow us to find him.’

‘Why do you say he? Maybe it is a female? Maybe the dragon is a she?’

‘My dear witch, we aren’t looking for any dragon. We are looking for the same dragon that was here two hundred years ago and the same that was here one thousand years ago. We are looking for a creature that was written into our legends and stories. We have only one dragon in the kingdom, not a colony of dragons, bigger or smaller, female or male.’

Lilet rolled her eyes.

‘What is it with those old wizards that they always usurp the tone of a lecturer?’, she asked, making Gwidon laugh. 

‘Then how are we going to find it? Without your stinking heap it will take weeks, months even. If there’s no magical way we can locate the creature, there’s no way we will cross rivers, climb up mountains or look into the swamps…’

‘I see gaps in your education, boy. Dragons need to have food and water, so climbing up the mountains won’t make any sense for any of us. They are not alligators so swamps and rivers are not our area of interest again. They have wings, my boy! Wings, not fins! And we don’t need to travel much because the household of the dragon has been known for centuries. It has been written in the kingdom’s chronicles since the times when the king’s servants tried to save the kingdom from the beast, because he was eating our cattle, our knights, and our virgins. The reptile was able to kill a group of armed knights, once even a hundred of the best of the best. He tore them to pieces…’

‘Great, and we are going to him in a pack of three…’ this time Gwidon showed his mixed enthusiasm. 

Edwin ignored him and continued his story.

‘The king was hopeless and asked everybody for help. One day a clever shoemaker wanted to trick the dragon and instead of a real sheep presented him with a sheep puppet filled with sulphur. Some say that it exploded in his fiery stomach, tearing the dragon to pieces, others say that afterwards he was so thirsty that he drank so much water that he simply died and was later cut into hundreds of pieces of leather used for shoes, bags, and coats.’

‘And the truth is?’

‘The truth is that he probably had his digestive system disrupted and from the castle moved into the mountains. From the forestmen we know that regularly bears, bizons, and mooses go missing, so he’s probably well and strong. The lifespan of a dragon can be as long as a few thousands years. So even if the legend is true and he was hurt, that might have been a small blow and he recovered.’

‘So how are we going to find him?’

‘We are going to smell him.’ Edwin announced and in any other circumstances that would sound ridiculous but the wizard was known for his stinking experiments, the odour of his magical heap could stay for years, turning the area rotten and uninhabited. Gwidon and Lilet had no other choice but to inhale the air and try to sense something appaling. 

And soon they sensed something, a mixture of sulphur, rotting wood, burnt flesh and something else, something which they hadn’t smelled before, even as children.

‘We are getting closer. These are the dragon’s extrements. Very useful in healing burns and rashes if you’re into natural medicine.’

Gwidon made a face of disgust, Lilet was indifferent as she had seen worse things in her life, far worse medicines she used when she tried to cure her dying grandmother, also a witch, but she couldn’t win the battle with age and time. 

The heaps of extrements were lying everywhere, but they got used to the smell. Edwin from time to time blew into the air a blue powder which alleviated the stench and made the air fresher. Dragon’s extrements looked like those of a cow but ten times bigger and it began to be difficult to move around not to make horses fall into the trap of dragon’s dung.

Pretty quickly they reached the cave. It was surrounded by a meadow of burnt grass and a few broken trees, apparently crushed by the creature’s elephant-like movements. A few trunks were scratched by enormous claws like furniture destroyed by a gigantic cat. 

‘Are we going to walk in?’

‘I wouldn’t if I were you. Let’s stop in front of the lair and wait.’ Edwin set the fire. Gwidon caught a small rabbit and soon the smell of grilled meat filled the meadow and reached the nostrils of another creature. 

They waited for hours and began falling asleep, as no one came and they were tired after the journey. And then, when the undisrupted silence of the place surrounded them and tucked them like a mother’s blanket, he came out of his cage.

The dragon wasn’t in his prime youth, he was missing bits from his wings and some scales on his body, he walked slowly and wobbly, but his appetite remained the same and when he saw three representatives of the humankind he was happy to be offered a take-away dinner right at his place. This hadn’t happened to him for a long time and he was happy to open his mouth and eat the young man for the starter, then the old man for the main course, and finally, the young woman for the dessert. He licked his tongue and was about to take a bite.

‘I wouldn’t do this if I were you,’ Edwin opened his eyes and blew up another powder, this time right into the face of the beast, which made the creature sneeze and shed tears. Gwidon and Lilet jumped to their feet. They have never seen a dragon and, to be honest, they have never seen a creature so big, which made the giants seem fairly small in comparison. They were both shaking with fear, but none of them was willing to admit it and what they were trying to do was to keep appearances and pretend to be cool, calm and collected.

‘I don’t need eyes to eat you, fool. I can just burn you alive and eat. I once ate a hundred armed soldiers. You are not able to defeat me with your weapons.’

‘We are perfectly aware that we are not, dragon. But we are able to defeat you with our tricks.’

‘Another sheep?!’ the creature started to turn around to look for the cause of his past misfortune, ‘Are you going to trick me? Are you going to destroy me from the inside?! How dare you, you little fools!’

‘We do not have such an intention. This is quite fascinating that you are still alive if you ask me. Did it do you harm, that sheep filled the sulphur, did it make you sick?’

The dragon calmed down, sensing some sort of empathy.

‘It was horrible. I had food poisoning for days. Even now I have diarrhea when I’m stressed.’

Lilet and Gwidon tried to contain the laughter. 

‘It’s a pity,’ Edwin was able to show a true interest in the dragon’s problems, ‘The older I get, I tend to be more and more constipated. Even the strongest herbs don’t seem to solve the problem.’

Now the young pair couldn’t help themselves and burst out laughing. 

Edwin and the dragon looked at them and sneered.

‘Young, silly and annoying’, the dragon commented.

Edwin shrugged. 

‘I was pretty the same at their age. We are not going to trick you. We are going to ask you for help.’

‘After what you did to me? Do you take me for a fool?’

‘What was done to you was done because you did harm to our kingdom and you were punished accordingly. But now times are different and we are going to be attacked by the Goblins. I know that you wouldn’t refuse a hearty meal. During the battle you can eat as many of these creatures as you wish.’

‘I thought you would offer me virgins!’

‘I’m afraid there’s a shortage of virgins in our kingdom. But we can offer you something else.’

‘What then? I can eat Goblins without you begging me to do this.’

‘Yes, but by mistake you can eat also our people, and we don’t have enough of them. You need to concsiously make a selection. You can consume, burn, tear or kill only Goblins. The army will be numerous and well-trained. Even for you it might be a hard task.’

‘So what will you offer me for this assistance?’

Edwin returned to his horse. From one of the bags he took something wrapped up in an old blanket. 

‘I can offer you a child.’

The dragon’s eyes shined when he watched Edwin unwrap an egg three times the ostrich egg size and present it to him.

‘And the mother?’

‘Dead in far China. It’s a clean deal. I can offer you something impossible for helping us win the impossible. I can offer you a young dragon which you will raise on your own.’

It was a different look on the dragon’s face, if you could call it a face. A look of vulnerability.

‘Can I watch it?’

Edwin approached the dragon and both Lilet and Edwin wanted to scream that the wizard was doing the silliest thing as he could be eaten by the dragon in an instant. 

But the dragon gently approached Edwin and smelled the egg.

‘It’s real. How old is it?’

‘I cannot be sure, but not more than a few hundred years. You can hatch it.’

The dragon wiggled his tale in some sort of excitement. 

‘I agree on your terms.’

‘Great, we shall call you from the castle when the hour of the battle approaches. The egg will be safe with me. And if it’s taken by the Goblins in the case of our defeat (you never know with these wars), you will have the right to it and can lawfully take it back. Do we have a deal?’

‘Yes,’ the dragon hissed, sneezed, turned around and returned to his lair.

‘How come do you have a dragon’s egg?’ Gwidon was still shocked after the encounter with the dragon. 

‘I got it from a witch. I was young back then and she was an older woman and wanted to seduce me. I was offered a present for, let’s say, sexual pleasures. It’s not that uncommon in China to get dragon’s eggs and she was frequently visiting these areas. After the affair ended, I got an egg. But you cannot do much with the dragon’s egg. It has no magical powers in itself, you cannot break it with any human or magical tool, open it, make a huge bowl of scrambled eggs from it. Even keeping it in the fire won’t destroy it, believe me, I tried for weeks. Only a dragon can hatch it. Once, when I fell into financial difficulties I even tried to sell it, but the offers I got were more than laughable. They offered me more for the snake-leather bag than for this. One man’s trash is another treasure indeed!’

‘Why is it then so ‘impossible’ to him? Can’t he just fly to China and get some eggs from female dragons there?’

‘Gaps in education, again, my boy. I believe that he doesn’t know the language and he is not the youngest representative of his kind. If he managed to seduce another dragon, the egg always stays with the female. The young dragon always stays with the female. Once mothers fulfill their reproductive need they can kill off the male dragon, as he’s no longer necessary. And believe me, female dragons are bigger and stronger than males. To win with a female dragon is literally impossible.’

‘So how come your witch got the egg?’

‘I never learned that. She was dealing with dark magic. Maybe she killed it or tricked it. Or found the creature already dead. I believe that she traded far worse things in China, but I was the one who got the dragon’s egg. And think about it, if it hatches, our kingdom will gain another dragon for the next few thousand years. You never know when it will come in useful. I call it an investment.’

Gwidon was deep in his thoughts.

‘Edwin, you said that the dragon’s story came from legends. Do you mean that all legends are true?’

‘There’s no smoke without a fire, so I believe there’s truth in every single legend ever told. We just sometimes misinterpret their meaning. Or take them too literally. Or not literally enough.’

‘Then, you both, go to the castle and I will catch up after a day or two. I have another idea.’

‘To be honest, I have an idea myself’, Edwin said to himself.

Lilet was also absent-minded. She was recalling tales told by her grandmother before going to sleep. There were some that she really liked and wanted to hear over and over again. There was one in particular which she took to her heart and never managed to forget. 

‘We can separate and meet at the castle.’, she suggested ‘We can help more than by staying together in the pack of three.’

Edwin and Gwidon agreed and soon three horses galloped in three different directions. One went to the mountains, one to the lakes, and one to the deep black wood. 

Chapter 9 Letters

 The king was walking around the chamber (he had moved to another, smaller room in order to avoid the stench of the magical heap) and dictating letters to his royal scribe. 

‘... and for your help, I will offer you the hand of my only daughter, the beautiful Princess Karina and thus the right to the kingdom when I’m gone.’

‘Haven’t you already promised her to knight Gwidon, my King?’

The king coughed. 

‘Times are hard. I need help, people, knights, armies. I give what I can.’

‘And you promise her to all twelve possible princes? Isn’t that quite impossible?’

‘It’s not your task to comment on my decisions and ask questions. I need you to rewrite these letters, give me them to sign and send them as soon as possible. I hope that kings will send the troops immediately.’

The scribe shrugged and did his duty as he was told.

In the meantime, Princess Karina was standing behind the curtain. She waited until the chamber was empty before she headed towards one little room at the top of the castle’s tower.

‘He’s out of his mind!’, she thought to herself, ‘He treats me like a commodity. A thing which he can sell to everybody! It’s unspeakable!’ 

Furious, she stormed into the room and saw Erwin, the Royal Wizard, hunched over an old manuscript and eating a cauliflower soup from a clay bowl. 

‘Wizard! I need a potion!’

Erwin wasn’t quite used to the presence of a woman in his modest room, not to mention the beautiful and irresistible Princess Karina. He was aware of her reputation. He was also aware of how despicable and revolting he was these days. Being a royal wizard had been hard on him, deteriorated his health and made his eyes weak and covered in white. 

‘What potion?’

‘I need a potion which will make women stronger. Physically stronger. I need a lot of it and I need it to be effective.’

‘What would you use it for?’

‘For war, isn’t that obvious? Our knights are currently on the Turkish border, but their women stayed behind at home. I don’t have time to train them, I need something which will make them unbeatable.’

Erwin sensed from the tone of her voice that she made up her mind and there was no discussion on the subject. She didn’t need his consent. He opened his cupboards and began looking for ingredients. 

‘I need you, scribe!’ the princess entered the room of the royal scribe, again not bothering to knock, ‘I need to dictate a letter!’

The scribe was currently finishing rewriting the last of the king’s letters which were about to be sent to neighboring kingdoms.

‘Now!’

He took another piece of parchment and waited, holding his scribbling feather pen, listening with his eyes wide open. 

‘To the Women of the Kingdom, 

For years, you have been taking care of the household, bringing up children, and letting your men fulfill their ambitions and defend their honor on the battlefield. You were never certain whether they would be killed, skinned, beheaded, or would meet on their way someone younger and more beautiful, leaving you heartbroken. You lived in fear of being abandoned and without means to live. You entrusted those who didn’t treat you seriously and had more important matters to take care of. Your fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons were the center of your attention and you put them first. Now you have to think about yourselves. Things have to change. Our kingdom is going to be attacked by the army of Goblins. They want our land, our food, and our most precious possessions. They have their reasons to hate us but we have our reasons to fight back. Should we allow them to destroy everything we built and believed in? Should we allow them to rape us and make us raise their goblin children? Should we watch helplessly as they plunder our kingdom while our men fight with the Turks? We shall not!

We need you more than ever. We will provide weapons, but you are welcome to take with you anything that could be of use in the fight with Goblins. Don’t sit and wait, come!

The Royal Princess, Karina”

‘I need you to rewrite it and send it to towns and villages as soon as possible.’

‘How many times?’

‘Let’s say, one hundred and twenty.’

Karina left the room and left the scribe with a heap of work. It was the first time in the scribe’s life when he thought about a pay-rise but was afraid to ask as his income was regulated by the king. 

‘Why does it taste like cauliflower soup?’

‘I thought I should give it a taste which would be commonly recognized.’

‘And how will I know if it’s working? Should I attack you?’

Erwin covered his head with his arms afraid of being hit by the princess.

‘Wizards!’ Karina rolled her eyes in a disappointed manner, ‘Fine, I will find somebody else.’

She walked out into the corridor and after a while saw a knight.

‘Knight! I need your service!’

‘Yes, Princess. Shall I dust your chamber?’

‘Zachary, it’s you. No, I want you to attack me.’

‘Excuse me?’ 

‘I want you to attack me. Quickly, Zachary, I don’t have time for discussion.’

‘But I cannot attack a princess!’

‘It’s an order, Zachary. If you don’t fulfill an order you are going to be beheaded.’

Knight Zachary opened his eyes and, even though unwillingly, he rushed onto the princess with all his might, sure that he will defeat her in a second. As a matter of fact, he himself within a second was lying, defeated, in his armor, on the ground, heavily bruised and with a headache. 

‘Thank you, Zachary’ the princess clapped her hands to wipe the dust, ‘It’s really working!’

With a genuine smile of satisfaction, she left bruised Zachary alone and rushed to the courtyard.