Patricia thought it was strange. The King of Opal had gathered fairies around him so that they could be used to make secret weapons. For example, put an ambassador or an enemy monarch to dine surrounded by fairies. The fairies will silently find out all his secrets, just by reading his thoughts, or even hypnotize the poor man and compel him to do whatever he needs.
One sultan, who was about to go to war with Opal, found in his war tent a dozen beautiful fairies who brought gifts and viands from the King of Opal. The sultan did not even consider why the king himself did not show up with an offer of truce, but sent the fairies? In a normal situation it would be suspicious, but the sight of fairies exudes a magical charm and men lose their heads. The Sultan sat down to dinner with the fairies, and at night he was expecting entertainment, but instead he waited for tragedy. The fairies whispered something to him, while laughing sweetly. The Sultan ordered his armies to march into the sandy marshes, and stabbed himself with his own sword. Patricia and her brother spied that night, and saw everything with their own eyes. The Sultan cut his own throat with the blade. The fairies swooped down on the corpse like piranhas and licked up the blood. The fruit they brought turned into salamanders and the wine turned fiery. Patricia lifted the veil of the tent and peered. The fairies were either too engrossed in the feast to notice her or mistook her for one of their own. Patricia’s beautiful appearance was almost indistinguishable from that of the fairies, save for her lack of wings.
Patricia’s brother was about to follow the army of sleepwalkers blindly into the sands. It was good that some strange troll-like stranger had warned him not to follow the army. The sandy marshes turned out to be a plain of brown sand. One step on it and the sand sucked you in like a quagmire. All the warriors drowned as soon as they set foot on the sandy floor. In the very center of the plain lived and rumbled some huge monster. Apparently, it was devouring anyone sucked up by the sands.
Patricia could have died that night, but she survived. However, the troubles of her noble family only began that night. The fairy who had delivered the Sultan’s relics to the King of Opal in a precious chest had whispered about a plot the nobles of Opal were plotting against the king. Patricia’s relatives were among the conspirators.
Queen Esperanza was partly kind, not without reason her name in translation from the ancient language means hope. She could have spared the conspirators, but the king had his own plans for both his enemies and the queen.
Patricia shuddered, remembering the moving skeleton in the alcove, its bones still showing skin and royal dress. Could Medea Shai bring Esperanza back to life? Maybe ask her for that instead of the treasure?
The fairy queen turned out to be a fraud. Yesterday, she had managed to suggest to Patricia that the cramped quarters could hold more treasure than the king himself had. The treasures were to multiply exponentially from the fairy queen’s click. It was possible that eventually there would be more than in the dragon’s cave.
Patricia herself had never been in the dragon caves, but she had heard that the most gold and gems were stored there. That’s why dragons are always being hunted to take away their savings. Only it’s the hunters who are most often caught in the dragons’ claws.
Curious, could Medea Shai have appropriated some dragon’s life savings just by using her fairy charm? In her nightly dialog with Edwin, the phrase slipped in that she loved subduing dragons.
This smells like a stinker! After all, a fairy queen can only do magic, but a fairy queen who also commands dragons is capable of launching a flame war and burning entire nations. Does Medea Shai want to raid Opal? We’ll have to ask her on occasion. After all, it is Opal that harbors all the traitors who deviate from the service of the fairy queen. Medea Shai must be angry with them.
«And you betrayed me too,» Patricia turned to the magic saber. – You let a spy into my quarters and didn’t even try to restrain her.
The saber lay in the corner of the cabin and stubbornly pretended that it wasn’t magic at all. Apparently, it’s weak for her to attack the fairy queen.
And the fairy queen herself showed weakness. She couldn’t see into Patricia’s past. Medea Shai probably lost some of her magical powers when her subjects scattered from her. What’s a queen without subjects?
«What if I’m under some kind of spell?» Patricia thought aloud. «Why else can’t she touch me and bargain with me? The fairies didn’t bargain with the Sultan of Ethar. They just killed him, and Medea Shai didn’t even scratch me.»
The night she flew in with Edwin, she definitely wanted to kill Patricia, but something changed. The queen of the fairies hit some obstacle she couldn’t overcome. So money came into play. Bribery is the weapon of choice for those who cannot be defeated by force.
«And why do I need money and an estate to house all my evil? Sailing the seas is more fun! But the wrath of the Fairy Queen is a great risk of sinking, and some dragon is driving me from the seas! Besides, with the money, I could hire a whole army and go on Opal. All I have to do is demand magical support for the war from Medea Shai.»
The walls of the cabin, of course, did not respond, but Patricia already knew that with the support of the queen of the fairies, you can resist even the greatest magician.
The ship suddenly tilted violently. Was Aleandra rampaging in the hold again?
«It is attack!» Zeligena shouted outside. «Swamp magic doesn’t work! I need your saber!»
Saber herself flew out of the cabin ahead of Patricia. The door swung open in front of her like a gust of magical wind.
Patricia reluctantly went after the saber. She wondered who could have attacked at dusk when there were no ships around. Had the Morgens crawled aboard in company? She had thought that friendship with mermaids guaranteed immunity from all sea creatures.
The deck was full of strange strangers wrapped up to their ears. You couldn’t even see their faces. They fought in complete silence and stillness. No battle cries or moans of the wounded could be heard. It looked like magic!
The warriors reminded Patricia of the assassins from Opal, but their uniforms were different. Their faces were wrapped in white scarves like mummies. Curious, where were their eyes? And where did the warriors come from? There were no ships around. There was no place to jump aboard from. The creatures didn’t look like Morgens either. Fighting them was useless. Once they were wounded or killed, they would rise up alive and keep fighting. So what do we do? Try to capture them all and put them in the hold with Aleandra? The fairy would be delighted! She’ll have company. Aleandra can practice her charms on the prisoners.
Patricia threw herself into the battle with the intention of taking hostages. The saber flew over the deck and worked itself, so the captain had time to construct a lasso out of rope.
«Make a trap out of the fishing net we have in the hold,» she advised Netopyrina. «Then fly over the masts with Zeligena, spread the net there, and throw it down as soon as I get all of us to the edge of the deck.»
«I can do even better than that!» Netopyrina began making a gray net from her fingertips. How was it that Patricia had managed to forget that she could do that!
There were many strangers on the deck. Would that many captives make the hold burst? Oh, come on, it’s a magical ship.
«How gladly I would give all these warriors to a dragon!» Patricia pulled her dagger from the lapel of her boot and found the brass knuckles someone had dropped. It was useless to fight invulnerable creatures with a dagger and knuckles, but she took a chance. The saber was busy anyway. She couldn’t kill the strangers, but she could disorient them. Nethopyrina