Crown of Horns

  Alex Sapegin

  THE DRAGON INSIDE

  Book four

  Crown of Horns

  Elizabeth Kulikov

  Copyright © 2017 Litworld Ltd. (http://litworld.com)

  All rights reserved.

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  Contents:

  Part 1.

  Dashed Hopes.

  Russia. N-ville. One day after Andy’s disappearance…

  Russia. Moscow. Eight and a half months later.

  Russia. N-ville.

  Russia. N-ville. Two days later...

  Russia. N-ville. Two days previously…

  Russia. N-ville. Two days later…

  Russia. Somewhere not far from N-ville. Two weeks later…

  Nelita. Andy…

  Nelita. Principality of Ora. Astal Ruigara. The catchers…

  Nelita. Principality of Ora. Astal Ruigara. Border-crossing post.

  Nelita. Celestial Empire. The Celestial palace...

  Russia. Somewhere not far from N-ville…

  Part two.

  ALL CLAN SECRETS.

  Nelita. Freelands. Mellorny campground. Andy…

  Nelita. Celestial Empire. The Celestial palace...

  Part three.

  THREE WARS.

  Russia. N-ville.

  Nelita. Miur territory on the border with the Principality of Ora.

  Nelita. Lidar Mountain. The miur city under the mountain. One day earlier…

  Nelita. Miur territory on the border with the Principality of Ora.

  Celestial Empire. The emperor’s southern high command…

  Principality of Ora. Turgar’s ancestral lands. Andy, T minus six hours…

  Principality of Ora. Raygor. T minus six days…

  GLOSSARY

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  About us

  About the Author

  Part 1.

  Dashed Hopes.

  Russia. N-ville. One day after Andy’s disappearance…

  A caustic blue-gray cigarette smoke, intermingling in its white turbidity with the smell of coffee, hung in several layers in the air of the small room. A tall young man with short spiky light hair and intelligent eyes on his strong-willed face pulled the second to last cigarette from the almost empty pack. The gas lighter sparked. The smoker sucked till his lungs were full and blew a thick stream of smoke out at the ceiling. The gray layers, hanging in a multi-tiered cloud over the floor, started to move, their whirls and twirls creating strange, fantastical shadows on the wall. The image on the screen changed and made the thin computer monitor, its coolers buzzing, give off a pale green glow. The man’s face, bathed in green through the smoke, became sharper and took on a predatory character.

  The man took another drag and forcibly extinguished the half-smoked cigarette on the edge of the overflowing ashtray.

  “Enough. I gotta drink some coffee.” The wheels of his chair squeaked. He pushed his legs against the floor and rolled over to a second table where an expensive coffee machine proudly stood. As a result of his clumsy movements, a thick folder fell off the desk which had previously been lying there peacefully. Photos spattered to the floor from under a layer of sheets of paper, squeezed together by a plastic cover.

  “Butterfingers….”

  Pressing the button on the device, which smelled of coffee grinds, he stood up in an easy, fluid motion and picked up the rectangular color photographs that had flown all over the room.

  “Mother Nature never stops amazing me with her imagination,” the young man said, looking at the boy in a photo. “A chip off the old block of that brainless muscleman. Go figure. It’s so very… very….”

  “Very what?” a short, stout elderly man silently appeared in the doorway. He was strikingly different from the young man in the room. He had dark, combed-back hair, touched with gray at the temples, and a high forehead. His round face and belly, bulging under a light shirt and tight belt, witnessed to the fact that he wasn’t a fan of athletics. What he had in common with the guy in the room was his smart, persistent, penetrating gaze, poise, not characteristic of your average Joe, and plasticity of movements.

  The dark-haired guest noticed the photograph. “Stop smoking like a chimney! You could cut this fog with a knife. You can die from carbon monoxide poisoning, you know!” He said, coughing from the fumes, and tapped at the keyboard of one of the dozens of breakers installed on the wall near the door. The smoke started flowing towards one of the vents. “That’s better, let’s air it out. Now, where was I?”

  “It’s all there. I’m rereading it. I can’t get it into my head….”

  “Break it into little pieces so it’ll fit between your ears, and then all of a sudden you’ll get it.”

  The young man smiled at his old colleague’s tirade:

  “When I was a kid, I read so many books about parallel worlds, it’s incomprehensible! I never thought I’d have to deal with it in real life.”

  “Get used to it. In our work, even without parallel worlds, there are surprises out the wazoo. Sometimes it happens. Something so out-of-nowhere and unexpected, it knocks you off your feet. Want to know something?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re being removed from observation.”

  “What!?” The young man’s surprise level was off the charts. “Um, m-m-major!”

  The “m-m-major,” fully enjoying the effect of his announcement, walked over to a small couch in the corner, sat down and crossed his legs.

  “No whining!” The major looked at his employee, assessing him. He clicked his tongue and shook his head, as if thinking whether or not to say something, but the command’s orders aren’t open for discussion. “Calm down. You’re going to be heading a separate group. Osadchuk’s people are going to be working under you. You’ve got two days to take over. Don’t let me down, senior.”

  “Are they organizing just one group?”

  “No, idiot, I just said you’d be heading a SEPARATE group. Osadchuk will be heading the command operations center.”

  The young officer snickered.

  “Is command launching the ‘Shadow’?”

  Standing up, the major walked to the exit, stopped just before the door, and turned around:

  “Command has sanctioned the first phase of operation ‘Squid,’ but within the framework of the ‘Shadow,’ get ready for some counter-intelligence.” And, seeing the young man’s uncomprehending expression, he added: “the counterintelligence guys are more experienced at weeding out ‘frenemies’ abroad, along with their Russian henchmen. Ah, if only we could attract the old guys from OBKhSS1. They’d untangle Bratulev’s economic ties….”

  Russia. Moscow. Eight and a half months later.

  “One more time?” Yaroslav Kopilov, an old schoolmate of Kerimov’s, waited for a nod and stretched his hand towards the Dictaphone. Obeying the slight touch to the sensor button, the device came to life. A child’s voice resonated from the speaker, saying something in a sing-songy foreign language.

  Yaroslav Kopilov, like his friend, went into science after finishing high school. He chose the social science of linguistics. Both he and his heavyweight wrestling champion friend were drawn to English, but Yaroslav, unlike Kerimov, who loved physics best out of all the subjects, decided to dedicate his life to the study of languages. No one was surpris
ed that Kopilov moved to Moscow, where the prestigious Bauman University Faculty of Linguists opened its doors wide before him. The other scholar got into Moscow State University (Russia’s equivalent of Harvard), and at that, the two friends’ paths diverged for over twenty years.

  As it turned out, the knowledge of an all-around Indo-European scholar allowed him to earn more than just bread and butter: a little caviar on top, too. The main thing was to know where and how to push and then use the knowledge you’ve earned of several languages. Kopilov was a very smart man, successfully uniting commercial exploits with academics. In twenty years, he had traveled almost the entire Earth as part of his scientific studies and manufacturing and commercial activities. Suffice it to say, he’d done well. His life was a success. Yaroslav was still single, but a personable, charismatic man, who toiled for two hours in the gym daily, was not deprived of feminine attention. Truth be told, schools of the arts were always populated by more female students than male. Indeed, in reality a handsome man, wealthy in every sense, attracted ladies.

  When the phone rang late at night in his bachelor pad, it was a real surprise. The person on the other end of the line was someone he did not at all expect to hear from. There was no small talk. Kerimov took the bull by the horns from the very first moment. He could do that–take it by the horns or, if needs be, smack it in the face. In school, he was a “nerd” who slackers and hooligans didn’t dare talk to.

  “I’ve got something going on,” he said over the phone after a brief greeting. “Yary,” Kerimov remembered his school nickname. “I need your help. A consultation.”

  “Hm,” Kopilov coughed, dumbfounded by the pressure. “I guess I’m free tomorrow. Come on over, we’ll sit down, have a chat and a consultation….”

  “I don’t have time. Tomorrow I fly out. I want to meet with you today.” Yaroslav looked at the clock. Damn, what poor timing, Masha was supposed to come over in half an hour….

  “Iliya,” Yaroslav began carefully.

  “Your girlfriend can wait,” his former school friend interrupted him rudely. “I’m standing near the entrance. Come on, open the door, please. The intercom doesn’t work.”

  Yaroslav swore and went to the entryway.

  “Fourth floor, apartment seventeen,” he said into the microphone, pressing the button.

  “I know.”

  “Of course you do,” the linguist thought, “if you’ve managed to find my number and butt in at the most inopportune time.”

  In twenty-something years, Iliya hadn’t changed a bit. He was just as big and noisy. The spacious apartment seemed to shrink as soon as he stepped inside. The friends hugged briefly. Yary invited his old friend into the living room.

  “So what brings you here?” the host asked when they had each consumed a glass of cognac. The guests took a digital Dictaphone from his inner jacket pocket.

  “I need your opinion as a linguistic expert,” he said and pushed the button. Three minutes later, Yaroslav had completely forgotten about his date….

  The woman who showed up pushed the button on the intercom in vain and tried to reach her date by phone. He didn’t hear his phone, which he’d left in the entryway. The door of the entryway was awarded a loogey, and the “old goat” earned more than one curse….

  Listening to the recording once more, the linguist rubbed his nose.

  “If you were trying to surprise me, it worked. I can guess what it is you’re going to ask. Yes, it is a language, but it’s not a member of any linguistic group I know of, although the syntax, structure, and pronunciation are closest to English. What the girl’s saying in the recording isn’t gibberish. There are a clear system and structure to the utterance. As an old phoneticist, I can say I heard about a dozen consonant sounds and at least five vowels sounds, both of which follow established patterns. Can you leave me the recording? I’d like to dig in a little deeper, see what some specialists I know have to say about it.”

  Kerimov scoffed: “I can offer you a job—you and your specialists. But be aware that you’d take total and complete responsibility for anyone you bring in to the project. And I mean—” He ran his finger across his throat.

  “Oh! Wow, top secret, huh?”

  “Strictly, but it’s worth it. You’ll be compensated accordingly. You’ll have your work cut out for you.”

  “I get the feeling you’re trying to get me to defect to your side!” Yaroslav laughed out loud and then choked on his laughter when he saw the serious look on Iliya’s face.

  “I’m not trying to seduce you, for God’s sake! Hard work, good pay. But I warn you, if you decide not to work under me, you can’t divulge one word or even a hint of what you’ve heard here tonight. I’m not mixed up in any spy games, believe me, but I can get my hide tanned for sharing secret information.”

  “That bad?”

  “Yes, Yary, that bad. Think about it, reflect, meditate. You can make a list of crazy linguists who are prepared to sell out their own mothers for the sake of new knowledge, and send it to me.” Iliya Evgenevich slapped his knees, scooped the Dictaphone up off the coffee table and stood up. “Well, I’ve probably worn out my welcome! Time to get a move on.”

  “How can I get in touch with you?”

  “My number should be on your phone from when I called.”

  The host patted his pockets.

  “Aw, damn…,” swearing, he ran to the entryway.

  A few seconds later, the guest heard the kind of foul language that can only be realized by the Great Russian Language. His schoolmate was right to become a linguist! His specialized education gave him real pearls of expressions.

  “What, old dog, lady problems?” Iliya Evgenevich teased the Casanova.

  “Haha,” he said sardonically.

  “Bye-bye,” Iliya shook his friend’s hand.

  “You take care of yourself.”

  Yaroslav, through the window, watched the massive figure of his uninvited guest walk away until he went through an arc and out of sight. His phone suddenly began to rattle on the table.

  “Yes?” Kopilov barked into the phone.

  “Good evening, Yaroslav Anatolevich. You can speak a little more quietly; I’m not deaf.” The man called by his first name and patronymic experienced astonishment coupled with fear. It was the voice of an acquaintance from “the Company.2” May he be three times cursed; can’t forget about him, even over two decades later! Oh, Iliya! Not mixed up in spy games, you say? I’m having some sort of premonition that my problems are just beginning…. “Yaroslav Anatolevich,” the voice went on.

  “Yes?”

  “We heartily recommend accepting your schoolmate’s offer.”

  “I’ll think about it….”

  “No thinking necessary. Please take our recommendations with the utmost gravity.”

  He hung up. Kopilov looked at the blank screen for a minute. His opponent’s phone number was not there. Wasn’t that just like the sins of his youth, to come back and haunt him. The phone crashed into the couch in one sound fling. A part flew off and dolefully clanked against the leg of the coffee table.

  The linguist again employed some choice words….

  * * *

  Leaving his friend’s house, Iliya got a taxi. He called to the driver:

  “The hotel ‘Izmailovo.’”

  “Fifteen hundred roubles,” the taxi driver said, his gold tooth sparkling.

  “Are you crazy? It’s not far from here!”

  “I won’t do it for less than a grand. If you don’t like it, walk to the metro.”

  “Drive.” Kerimov got into the car, bracing from the cold.

  “So, a language unknown to science,” Kerimov thought, situating himself on the back seat. So many surprises. How could Olga know an unknown language? Well, if we toss logic out the window, there’s only the theory that her knowledge is somehow coming from Andy. Some sort of mystics. On the other hand, who knows. We’ve been shown there’s mag
ic there, more than once. Maybe a magical connection has somehow come about between the two of them? They are brother and sister, after all. I can’t think of any other way to explain the changes that have taken place in our Olga.

  The changes that had taken place in their younger daughter scared Iliya Evgenevich and Elena Petrovna out of their minds. It wasn’t just that over the last few months she had gone from a happy, carefree child to an exact copy of her older brother after he’d been struck by lightning. The color of her eyes, the iris and the white, had begun to change. In the last two months, an abundance of bright yellow dots had appeared around the pupils. The whites had become light blue. In order to hide the changes, he went to an optics store with his daughter and obtained small contact lenses of a light green color and sunglasses. Olga often did not want to wear the contacts, but she never forgot to wear the children’s sunglasses.

  After the New Year’s vacations were over, Olga began frequently talking in her sleep. It would have been one thing if it were in Russian. But it was in an unknown, as Kerimov was now finding out, completely unheard of tongue. The next morning, his daughter did not remember a thing, or at least that’s what she said. It was possible.

  The pair made a striking impression: a girl and a huge canine. Bon followed his mistress everywhere. Again, some sort of mystical connection came about between the child and the dog. Bon obeyed Olga, even if she didn’t say a word. There were no commands such as “sit,” “down,” or “come.” She used gestures or looks instead. As soon as Olga looked at a corner, the dog would occupy the spot. While waiting for his mistress after her classes, a slight movement of the girl’s hand, and Bon was off to fetch her knapsack, grabbing the strap by the teeth. The children were jealous. The teachers whispered that she was a witch. And Olga didn’t stop being an excellent student and making the grade. Her report card was full of “A’s,” but just one look at the girl was enough to tell that she was not of this world.