however, is only a fairy. She is immaterial. Her presence here may turn out to be nothing more than an illusion or a dream. Why listen to her warnings.
«You and I were made for each other,» the metal dragon whispered. Its fiery whisper haunted Tamlane even as he stepped away from the armory door. The whisper was tempting. The young man only fought the temptation until word spread through the country that war had broken out in the kingdom. The old duke wanted Tamlane to gather a troop of his vassals and join the king in battle. After all, they, too, were only vassals of the king. If a threat was imminent, it was their duty to support their suzerain. So Tamlane decided it was time to take up his armor.
«You will be a young hero,» the steel dragon whispered in his sleep, enveloping him as if in metallic flame. In the dream, the dragon’s body was as illusory as Mirabel’s. But the dragon armor proved more desirable than even the fairy. Tamlane wanted it by all means. He longed for it like a lover. And the door of the armory was locked at all times, with sentries standing beside it.
«This armor cannot be taken without a special blessing,» his uncle explained to him. «Once upon a time, saints from Roshen were invited here to give their opinion on how dangerous this thing was. Somehow they got burned by the armor and forbade anyone to go near it. They could not take them with them, nor destroy them, nor remove the spell from them. All the people get burned by that armor.»
«Do you think this is magic?»
«I’m an alchemist, not a magician.»
«But they say it’s one and the same.»
«Not exactly,» his uncle countered. «I believe there is an intelligent explanation for everything, and there is no such thing as a logical interpretation of magic.»
«Maybe we don’t know it, but we’re looking for it.»
«That’s right,» the uncle squeezed the stolen scales from his armor and went to do experiments on them again. Not long after one such experiment he was found dead. Something in the workshop exploded. His uncle’s face was burned, as if a dragon had breathed on him. Tamlane saw the burned corpse and the inscription carved in relief on the table, «all my experiments I dedicate to the moonlight fairy Mirabella.» The uncle was a romantic, but he died by fire. Tamlane aspired to fire and glory.
The next night, when the armor called to him, the sentries at the door were asleep for some reason, and there was a key in the door. It was an unusual key with an image of a dragon’s head instead of the usual relief on the head. Tamlane turned it and entered. The armor shimmered and cast flames in the darkness. The helmet seemed to bring the dragon’s head to life. A hissing voice called out:
«Put it on! It’s yours! My hero! The second part of the dragon is you! Put on your armor and go into battle to crush the world!»
He was able to put on the armor himself without the help of a squire, though for other knights this was impossible. But the armor itself helped him. The metal clasps opened and closed by themselves. All he had to do was pick up his helmet. In these armor he felt as if his body had become fiery.
He left the castle without even saying goodbye to his father, lest he notice he was wearing forbidden armor. His detachment took banners and torches and rode out into the dead of night. They reached the battlefield in the midst of the battle. And it was Tamlane who proved to be the decisive force that helped the king to win. He was honored as if he was the king himself. Everyone thought he fought like a dragon. The young hero was praised. No one noticed the creepy black creatures that flew high above the battlefield, both in the midst of the battle and now.
«You are intervened! You stopped our queen from seizing another country in addition to Corund!»
Tamlane looked around, trying to figure out where the voices were coming from, but they reached his ears as if from heaven. He looked up and spotted the foul creatures, as if no one had ever seen them before.
«Our queen will burn you for this!» They hissed.
He must be imagining it. They couldn’t really talk like humans. Their hissing voices suddenly hit him in the head as if he’d been stabbed in the head with a dagger. And his armor felt like it was on fire. He felt a fever throughout his body, as if he was burning alive.
The dragon’s armor! It was enchanted. He shouldn’t have put them on. But without them he would not have won the battle. And their country would have been destroyed or overrun by an unknown enemy who attacked without warning.
They praised him loudly, and Tamlane walked away on trembling legs. He felt sick to his stomach. He burned like hell. And a black bird with a red stone in its forehead was flying quite low over the corpses of fallen warriors. Its luxuriant tail resembled a black fan. It made the bird seem like it was bringing a whole swath of night with it.
The strange creature, hunched and lanky, wandered across the field, leaning over the corpses of fallen knights and sniffing at them as if they were food. It flashed bright red eyes at Tamlane.
«You are no hero and no dragon!» It hissed. «You’re just a petty thief who stole the power that belongs to a dragon. Did you know that the dragon whose remains you carry was the lover of my queen? She will punish you! You interfere with her plans, and she will interfere with yours.»
They should have had soldiers capture and punish the tramp, but Tamlane was lenient. That cripple will not live long enough as it is. Even his skin was blackened by the sun, and his clothes were crumbling like ashes. He did not know then that his clothes were tattered wings, and that such limbs were well proportioned for Duergar, Finodirri, and other creatures whose mere name was difficult for a human to pronounce.
After his victory, Tamlane decided to take a shortcut home through the woods. He let the bulk of his party go so they could rest after the battle and travel more slowly along the wide road. He himself, with a small retinue of his best warriors, took the narrow forest path. The knights had to ride alone.
«The woods are dangerous!» Some hag that had met them at the edge of the forest warned them, he believe some of the locals called her Belladonna. «There are beings there, they’ll make a beast of you, winners.»
Tamlane merely grinned, but his warriors were grimly silent. Many believe in the lore of the forest dwellers and the existence of magic in the thicket.
«The fairies’ queen will not forgive you for using magic on her lands,» the old woman shouted after Tamlane, who had already passed.
«Was it magic?» He turned back in surprise as he held his steed.
«It is a dragon magic,» she pointed to his armor. «And you emptied the field of its leprechauns during the battle. Now they can steal only corpses, and if you had not intervened, they would have taken all this land for themselves. Like the land of that kingdom you were now fighting against.»
«Is she out of her mind?» Tamlane said to his knights when the old woman could no longer hear him. But it felt as if she could hear, even despite the distance that separated them, and condemned him for his carelessness.
He was tired. He held the helmet in his hands, and it felt as if the dragon-head that now merely slept in his hands was about to come to life and demanded from him some payment that he owed it for his grand victory over his foe.
Tamlane even had the compulsive urge to throw the helmet away. It seemed to move in his hands, and flames
