The Book of Dragons. Группа авторов

never played those games, but at least he understands them. Every man for himself and God against all is a world he recognizes. There aren’t so many things Yuli recognizes these days.

      He is living in the United States, which he never thought he would do. He was born in Stavropol, in the North Caucasus, but he doesn’t remember it. He was younger than the boys downstairs when he left his family to go fight. He spent more of his childhood in Afghanistan than at home, and that was before he started working private contracts. Since then he’s seen the world, if mostly the shit parts of it. But still, the world.

      The house he lives in is narrow. The walls were the pale color that Wrona called “Realtor white” when he took the place seven years ago. The smoke from his cigarettes and the grease from his grilled meat have stained them. The kitchen floor is linoleum tile that’s curling up a little by the sink where it gets wet. The front room has a sofa that Yuli keeps covered in plastic so that it won’t get cigarette stink in the cloth. The backyard he paved over with concrete so he wouldn’t have to mow it all the goddamn time, and long fingers of grass still push up wherever there is a crack. His bed is good, though. King-sized, it is so broad that it hardly leaves space enough to walk around his bedroom. He’d had dreams about filling that bed with American girls and fucking his way to contentment, back when he’d first come here, and he’d had a couple girlfriends in the beginning.

      Then, two years ago, he’d discovered that he had a son, and that his son had a son. The two had come to visit, and only one had left.

      On the silent television news, a black woman and a white man shout over each other, square-mouthed with rage, until the image cuts to a bombed-out city. North Africa, to judge from the architecture. Not Egypt, though. Sudan, maybe. Yuli fought for a time in Sudan.

      The boy’s friends laugh at something, and Yuli shifts his attention to them. To the boy and what he’s saying. It’s like listening to a radio with the volume turned down almost past the point of audibility. Almost, but not quite.

      “The king presents you with his wise man, and this guy has to be older than dirt. Seriously, he looks like he was born before rocks were invented. He tells you that the first dragons weren’t just big, fire-breathing lizards. The first ones were the souls of great warriors who never died. They just became less and less human as they grew in power, until they became dragons. And the gold they guard is the treasure they amassed through their campaigns of violence and terror.”

      “Fuck,” one of his little friends says. “You’re telling us Aufganir is one of the first dragons?”

      There’s pride in the boy’s voice when he speaks. “Aufganir is the first dragon.”

      Yuli chuckles and lights a fresh cigarette from the butt of the old one. Dragons and magic swords and the crystals with elf girls’ souls in them or some shit. Baby stuff. Yuli was just a year or two older than his grandson is now when he killed his first mujahideen. Shot the man in his mouth. He can still picture it. Can count the moles on the dead man’s cheek, that’s how clear the memory is.

      It was another life. Now he is just a man living a quiet life in a quiet place, letting his days smear together until it’s hard to remember what part of the week it is unless the boy has to go to school. But still, it’s funny hearing the children down there, talking breathlessly about going out to find imaginary treasures. A hoard of gold.

      If they knew what was buried down there, right below their cheap little card table, they’d shit themselves white.

      Okay, we set up camp at the edge of the trees. Not all the way out in the meadow where anyone could see us, and not in the forest, but like right at the edge.

      All right.

      And I’m going to set up a perimeter. Like trip wires all the way around.

      Roll your traps skill.

      Made it by two.

      Okay, what else do you do? Start a fire? Cook dinner?

      I’ll start a little fire, but I’m digging a hole for it so that the light doesn’t show. I don’t want anything in the woods getting attracted to us.

      Nothing assaults you while you eat. There’s the usual forest noises, but nothing to raise an alarm. The moon comes up, with just a few thin clouds. The meadow is quiet and empty. Everything seems peaceful.

      This is too easy. It’s making me nervous. We set up a watch.

      Who goes first?

      I do.

      Okay, roll perception.

      I knew it. I knew it was too fucking easy. All right. Perception? I made it by three.

      As you sit there in the darkness, you notice a crow on one of the tree branches. I mean, it’s just a crow. There’s nothing particularly weird about it, except that it doesn’t change places. It’s always right in the same spot.

      Can it see me?

      Well, you can see it, so yeah.

      My amulet has passive detect magic. I’m just going to reach in my shirt like I’m scratching an itch. Really casually. And I’m touching the amulet.

      Yeah, that crow is not a crow. It’s some kind of shapeshifter. One of the dragon’s spies. And you don’t know how long it’s been watching you.

      Can I reach my bow?

      Roll for it.

      Okay … ah … well, that sucked.

      It’s not that bad. I’ll give you a bonus because you were on watch. I’m going to say that your bow is just out of reach, and your quiver is past it. You can get to them, but you’ll have to move.

      I want to jump over, grab my bow and an arrow, and shoot at the shapeshifter. I still have one heroic action point left.

      Spend it and roll dexterity.

      Made it by two.

      You would have hit, but the shapeshifter made its dodge. Before you can get another arrow, it’s gone. You see the dark wings disappearing into the forest.

      Well, shit. Aufganir’s going to know we’re coming.

      Yuli has been losing weight. He hasn’t changed his diet or started exercising, but in the last six months twenty pounds have melted away. When someone asks, he makes it a joke and says it’s because God loves him, but he thinks it’s probably cancer. Or maybe his thyroid. He knew a woman once with thyroid problems, and she lost a lot of weight. He knows he should go see a doctor, and he will. He just wants to drop a few more pounds first.

      There are problems that come with his fat going away. There was a winter he was working private in Chechnya when there was snow on the ground for three months. When it thawed, the courtyard was full of bottles and cans and dogshit. All the things that didn’t get cleaned up when it was cold that had waited and been revealed. It turned out bodies were like that too. The acid he’d dropped and the weed he’d smoked, maybe some of the heroin he’d used for the pain when he hurt his back outside Kabul, it wound up stored with his fat. Now, with that going, the drugs are getting dumped back into his bloodstream. Dogshit blood.

      Most of the time, it’s nothing. A little unexpected mellowness, a shift of mood that doesn’t relate to anything. Sometimes, though, there’s a little synesthesia. His fingertips tingle first, and then noise starts having colors to it. One time, when his hands were like that, he brushed against a wall, and the texture was a deep note, played on a viol. He didn’t like it. Another time, he scratched an itch on his elbow just where it got dry and scaly, and for a moment, he was certain that there was a new, different skin underneath. He’d scratched himself bloody trying to peel himself like a snake. At times like that, he tries not to drive, or if he does, he’s careful.

      When he first came to the United States, he had a sports car. A Porsche. It was a sexy little car, but it leaked oil and there wasn’t any room for groceries. He sold it and got a hatchback.