on him by summoning the Finodirri again. They beat the king and his regiment to death. And they destroyed the castle. Now the swamp creatures rule there again, but every moonlit night the castle rises from the swamp as a ghost. Do you want to go there and dance with the local ghosts? But, no, tonight is not a moonlit night! Some other time, I think.”
Estella listened to him half-heartedly. What she heard from Reason was like a fairy tale. But the intricate structures below were not a fairy tale. The dragon wasn’t too low, but it wasn’t too high either. She could see everything now. The stone structures below were gradually replaced by fanciful domes that looked like marshmallow slides. Here luxurious gardens stretched right over the rooftops and bridges spanning between the rooftops. And beyond that was a city of various towers connected by passages and bridges.
“This was Orelo, the city of the spirits! Don’t fly over it,” Reason urged the dragon to turn right.
Beyond the valleys and the rivers was a stretch of heavily patterned wooden buildings, like lacework.
“Those are the mansions,” Reason explained. “They are all wooden. If Virgil dies on them once, the whole country of the mansions will be gone in a moment. Fire spreads very quickly through wooden buildings.”
“Is that what it’s called, Terem’s Land?” Estella wondered.
“It is only the part where the nobility live. The poor stay in the huts. And over there is Lukomorye,” Reason pointed a clawed finger forward. “There are not only people there, but also evil spirits.”
But Estella had already spotted people pouring out on the roof of the largest mansions. The dragon had lowered too much. The rider on its back drew the attention of a large crowd.
“It is a princess!” came the shouts from below.
Reason commanded the dragon to hasten its flight. Estella turned back, intrigued.
“Who were these people? Dressed like sorcerers!”
“They are the king’s boyars. It is customary for them to wear fur coats, even in summer.”
“They look like the robes of sorcerers.”
“Well, they can’t do magic like your father here. But the boyars are used to the fact that the most unusual brides come to the royal show. They’ve taken you for a candidate, too. We’d better get away, so they’ll forget about us. What on earth possessed you to fly a dragon! You should have stayed home. There’s so much to do in the country, and you’re just sitting around. Only a bad ruler would put her own pleasures above running the country.”
“I’m not a ruler yet. The coronation is not until the end of May.”
“I hope we don’t have a wedding sooner.”
“Why do you keep whining about the wedding? You chased the only groom away from me yourself.”
“Where you had to banish one, you will have to banish many,” concluded Reason. “Fiancés are like evil. You’ll have to chase them away for the rest of your life.”
“Yes, you do not worry! We’ll officially consider that I am the bride of dragon. The ministers would be frightened if I had a beau like that beside the throne.”
“You’re like a gnat to him and he loves you.” Reason was complaining, and Estella was enjoying her flight. The wind fluttered her hair. Strange lands lay below as clear as the palm of her hand. If the dragon were to blow fire downward, they would be gone. But she is not so cruel. Let them stand. They don’t bother her yet. What Estella liked best was to fly over the sea, where mermaids splashed about, and over the valleys where fairies danced in the moonlight.
“The flight was like a magic dream!” Estella said. “Thank you for taking me to the dungeons and introducing me to the dragon! I owe you so much for that.”
This wasn’t the first time Reason had flown in a dragon, so he wasn’t exactly thrilled. It was barely half past midnight and already he was begging to go home. They didn’t arrive at Aluar until just before dawn. Reason’s legs began to stiffen. When he got off the dragon, he was limping.
“You’re my darling!” Estella stroked the dragon’s ears and hummed a song she had composed herself. She had to do something to thank the dragon for a splendid flight.
“Well, you mewl here, and I’ll go to the cellar for stupefying wine! Now, the guards who saw you and the dragon are asleep, but when they wake up, their memories will be as blank as a sheet of white paper.”
Reason did not make his promise in vain. There was no panic in the morning. But most of the guards looked as if they had fallen under the sorcerer’s power and had become his puppets. Empty wineglasses were lying around the barracks. Even the pixies who wanted to finish their wine felt sick.
“Don’t drink any more, Virgil,” Estella advised the dragon, calling his first name for suggestion. “Or else Reason will get his claws into your head, too.”
The dragon did not understand her. The princess’s singing made him so happy that he couldn’t think of anything to say. Estella, on the other hand, thought about it. In her own head Reason has not run its claws?
Star Fairies
Golden grapes grew on the walls and columns. Estella was dumbfounded when she saw its glow in the darkness of the evening garden. Normally the rockweed and fuchsia bloomed here. There were no grapes in this part of the garden at all.
“Is this a decoration for my coronation?” She looked around for those decorating the garden, but it was empty. Even the gardener and his young helpers were long gone to the servants’ feast. So who had strung the columns with metal vines? Estella touched the tinkling leaves.
“It is pure gold!” She determined.
Where could it have come from? For the treasury was almost empty, not counting the treasury, which could never be opened. Locksmiths, smiths, and even pickpocket thieves, who had been caught by the guards in the square and were good at picking keys, had already been summoned to the gilded doors. No one was able to break open the locked doors. A spell had indeed been cast upon them.
But the night garden blossomed with golden leaves, like an entire treasury. With joy Estella tugged at Reason’s tail.
“Look, we are rich!”
“I don’t think so,” he muttered doubtfully.
“The vines stretch everywhere, and the grapes on them are golden. You see how they shine! It took tons of gold to decorate them like that.”
“Don’t rejoice too soon! It cannot be melted down.”
“Why is it not? It’s not gilding, that’s for sure.”
“The grapes are all gold,” agreed Reason, who somehow didn’t touch the berries. Either he’d run out of room in his cache, or he was afraid of burning his paws, for the gold grapes glittered so brightly.
“Was the gold enchanted?” Estella admired the grapes. “Even if it is some magic trick, I like it better than holiday fireworks.”
“It
