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

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.»

      «I would suggest you go to a monastery, but I’m afraid that, though it is the only escape, it would be unacceptable to you.»

      «Is there somewhere else I could take refuge?» He wished to prolong his life, but his adolescent recklessness prevailed.

      I waved with my hand in the direction of the rounded golden domes of the church belfry.

      «Only there,» I said, and then added. «I don’t mean to turn you into a monk or lay-brother, but if you can get there you’d better not go out yet.»

      I turned and wanted to go, but he stopped me.

      «Does the Infanta really live with you?» He asked me hesitantly.

      «Yes,» I said easily. «Did she call herself Infanta?»

      «She said we could call her Infanta of the Shadows or Rosabella,» he admitted. «We didn’t know each other’s real names until you came to us.

      «I mustn’t be too long, but I’ll see that you get to the porch safely, otherwise you’ll have to rely on yourself,» I did not add that Rose was already waiting for me. He was already a little upset.

      «See you later,» I said goodbye to Clovis at the door, and added to myself, «I hope that you will be still alive.»

      On the way, after picking up the gifts for Rose, which had remained untouched only by the cloak of invisibility, or their bright wrappings would have attracted someone even at this late hour, I headed back to the castle. Even before I flew over the square, I already knew that it was empty. All the shadows had scattered. There was no sign of Charlo on the platform, not even Clovis’s abandoned cloak. To the casual observer it would have seemed as if nothing had happened. The silence that followed the storm seemed unnatural to me, too. The storm had passed, the fire in the night had gone out, and the rage had at least reluctantly but temporarily subsided, if not cooled.

      I returned to the castle at the moment that fate seems to have given us on purpose, to learn how to resist temptation. The writing-case I had noticed Vincent carrying more than once lay lonely on the table, while the owner himself was away. It would have looked abandoned had there not been a half-written sheet of paper on the writing-stand beside it, and the ink-stained quill had not yet had time to return to its hole in the inside of the case. A stack of neatly beaded sheets lay on top of the blank paper. The sandstone inkpot was half-empty, and small vials and bottles of colorful ink were designed specifically to highlight the most important lines in the manuscript. The pen-sharpening knife at the tip of its blade was painted in scarlet ink, as if the author had slit his wrists to sign the epilogue to the work in blood. A signature made in the wizard’s blood would burst into flames in a moment of danger to protect his copyright, but against my peeping, petty sorcery was powerless.

      I could not resist the temptation. I had long guessed that Vincent was writing a book, most likely his own biography. It was something like a long confession. I wanted to know what he had experienced before he first met me and during our long separation, but I was too lazy or too delicate to dig into his thoughts or ask him directly. I feared that as soon as I began to read, some evil spirit would laugh at me, saying that the manuscript was only a decoy, the inked paragraphs would spread on the paper, and the paper itself would scatter with papyrus dust, but nothing of the sort happened. I settled myself in the chair in front of the fireplace, looked back at the door almost thievishly, to think I felt like a thief in my own house, but putting aside conscience and morality, I began to read, and I was unspeakably surprised. No confession