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Chapter 2. Paintings with the Grail

That night, I couldn't fall asleep for a long time: the ambivalent feeling remaining after what happened in the market square caused my nocturnal insomnia. Yes, the mage had publicly called me a noble person, but for that, I gave him my best apple, which, for the most part, is a disgrace for a true merchant. Had anyone else been in my place, like poor Brenn, he would have reminded himself until the end of his days how he gave away merchandise without receiving a single gold piece in return.
The long-awaited sleep came closer to morning. And with it came small green islands in a sea of some white color, and then small lakes, a green field, towering trees standing in a row on a riverbank—fragments of distant warm lands, stories of which I had only heard from travelers visiting our Stormhold. I didn't want to wake up after such a dream in my little room, embraced by cold from all sides, but the daylight was interfering with my sleep too much.
By that time, all other residents of Stormhold had long since awakened. Gremlins, who made up no less than a third of the city's population, rose before everyone else, took their places in the squares, the market, the mayor's reception room, and other public places, and began to practice their favorite craft: grumbling at passersby and everything around them. Most often, they disliked how all the other residents of Stormhold dressed, walked, talked loudly, woke up late, flew incorrectly, sold expensively, disregarded traditions, or did nothing at all. Moreover, the gremlins spoke in a very funny manner. Our language was not native to them. In fact, any language seemed foreign to them, except those in which it was easy to grumble and complain. Gremlins excelled in only one other activity as much as they did in grumbling—making clocks. Generally, for some reason, clocks strongly attracted gremlins, and at the clock shop in the market, owned naturally by a gremlin Magister, a whole crowd of small, stingy, never-satisfied monsters gathered, grumbling, rustling, and speaking in their own chewing language.
High in the mountains, far from the main part of the city, was the palace of titans, or giants—huge creatures, half-gods, half-humans, who appeared as a result of being the first to break a prohibition that they themselves had previously devised. The location of the palace was chosen based on the consideration that the giants simply lacked space. They spoke some incomprehensible, ethereal language, in which every word was surrounded by a thousand echoes. The giants did not believe that anyone in Stormhold had the right to speak with them, and simply settled in our city, saying they would protect us in case of war, while we would feed them. In those times, we were glad for such neighbors, as the Tribal Wars were ongoing; now, however, we suffer greatly from heavy taxes, a lion's share of which goes toward paying for food for these arrogant hangers-on.
Nagas were so-called untouchable castes, descendants of queens exiled from the south for their excessive cruelty. Although the people of Stormhold considered them nothing more than capricious women who had lost power and authority but retained royal airs. My father always said they simply lacked men. In general, they were quite graceful; their plasticity, unusually regular facial features, long hair, and slightly dark skin were mesmerizing. They had only two flaws that repelled all men. A beautiful naga did not have one pair of arms, and instead of legs, a snake's tail protruded from her torso.
Besides the creatures listed above, other beings lived in Stormhold as well, but now it is difficult for me to remember them. In general, relations between races in Stormhold were complicated; Stormhold itself resembled a bestiary, and to visiting guests, it seemed like a rather dismal northern dead-end.
Waking up because the sun covered me with its ray, at first I didn't even think about going to the mage: trudging own nowhere just to give my best apple to someone unknown—no way! But then some very curious things began to happen, forcing me to reconsider my point of view.
While I was still lounging in bed, my huge dog approached me, sat on his hind legs next to the bed, and began trying with all his might to say something. These were very strange sounds, resembling some human words that the dog had heard in his canine life. And after every "sentence" spoken by the dog, he looked at me questioningly. At first, I watched what was happening with interest, but quickly realizing that the hound was simply preventing me from sleeping, I reached out to him, lightly patted his healthy shaggy head, and then abruptly grabbed his long snout with a nose so that he would be quiet. And why not? Why do people, when they want to say something important, spend a long time searching for the right moment for a conversation, while this hound decided that he would be welcome at any minute just because he is a dog who speaks like a human? At first, the dog growled, then began to whine, and finally ran out of the room. After all, the law should be the same for everyone. This event alerted me, but I still decided to go to the mage only if gold unexpectedly fell into my lap instead of the need to work at the market.
Arriving at the market, I remembered a very unpleasant fact. To reach my shop, one had to pass by the Roxanne family's shop, where Roxanne's father stood and looked at me with some disapproval. I immediately recalled my debt to their family and thought that I would get beaten before even reaching my trading spot. Fortunately, it didn't come to that. He only followed me with his terrible gaze and said nothing.
Reaching my shop, I came across a strange sight. For some reason, a mother and a boy—a suckling about nine years old, but already with an unusually terrifying face for a child, causing horror in anyone who dared look at it—were sitting on the empty shelves. Seeing me, the mother immediately spoke:
- I have seen you before. They say that yesterday you fought a mage, and he declared that you are a real devil in human form.
Perhaps I had underestimated how quickly rumors spread in our city and how much they differ from what actually happened.
- I am listening to you, human female. – I replied, according to my new status.
- Strike my son harder with your left heel on the face—he is a true spawn of hell, and only its master can correct the deformity that plagues our entire family.
It was an unusual day in every way. I looked at the unfortunate child whose mother looked at me with such hope. "A very strange proposal," I thought, "but surely I won't hit a little boy in the face for free?" We agreed on two gold pieces, and the scream of the unfortunate child illuminated the market square for a second.
- Thank you, kind man, thank you. – the woman squeaked, hugging her crying toddler, and left the market with him, satisfied.
Finally, I understood how one could make money on bare fame alone. In principle, two gold pieces is not a bad result from trading on a non-holiday day. At first, I decided that this money could be doubled in the tavern playing dice and try to pay off the Roxannes as soon as possible. But suddenly I remembered the promise I gave myself this morning. Such a number of barely explainable events, as well as money given as if by my command—everything seemed to push me toward going to the wizard.
I took an apple—naturally, not the beautiful one I showed him yesterday, but a cheaper one—and set off in search of yesterday's mage.
Finding out where the grandfather-wizard lived in Stormhold was not difficult. In general, there are only two places in our city where everyone knows everything about everyone—the tavern and the market; and since the same crowd gathers in both, just at different times, going to the tavern was completely unnecessary.
- Well, and where is my apple?
Those were the first words the mage said to me when I stood on the threshold of his door. I handed the apple to the mage, and he let me into the house.
The mage lived in the attic of one of the old houses on the outskirts of Stormhold. The attic was a rather uncomfortable place, cluttered with many paintings, each of which for some reason depicted the Grail. Paintings with the Grail occupied almost the entire room, covered the windows, lay on the floor one atop another, were used as tables, curtains, and partitions, and even hung on the walls. Perhaps the Grail, as seen by artists, can be very different: from a classic jewelry box to a golden five-meter disk with "Sacred Grail" written on it. It turns out some artists were not very literate, but they were imaginative, and some of them even imagined the Grail in the form of five red dancing goblins. The Grail could vary in appearance and be made of different materials, but next to the Grail there was always a traveler, or a group of travelers, who by the plot finally reached the Grail and, stopping, gazed with admiration at their find. Probably, this is a rule of the genre. Because otherwise it would be impossible to understand that this is a painting with the Grail, and not one with grandmother's jewelry.
I had never met a person who harbored such a passion for a single object, although I once heard about how half the world became obsessed with some ring and slaughtered each other. And they also told of a certain book because of which a war began. Perhaps obsession with one thing is a very unwise phenomenon. In general, the mage was a very strange person and sometimes spoke nonsense.
- Do you want to find the Grail? – he asked me.
- No.
- Of course, why would you need the Grail? You wouldn't even think about it if it were right under your nose. After all, you didn't spend forty years of your life searching for a map of the Grail, travel through distant lands, or unravel the mystery of magic keys. – said the mage with unusual own rationality for someone obsessed and began to angrily chew my apple.
- And yesterday's apple was much tastier. – he stated with dissatisfaction.
I did not expect at all to hear all this from Solnir, a fifth-generation mage, an honorary professor of the academy of magic; I barely understood him and didn't know what I should say to him. His actions were as incomprehensible as his speech. Instead of offering me a decoction or something stronger according to the rules of hospitality, the mage walked from place to place with my apple and, for lack of anything better to do, turned various useless objects on the table in his only room into even more useless and incomprehensible ones. Then he sat in a chair, fixed his gaze on a painting with the Grail, in which the Grail lay under a tree in a dense forest, discovered by some wizard slightly resembling Solnir and a group of elves; he looked at it for a long time, thought deeply about something, and fell asleep.
Such a reception greatly disappointed me. Apparently, hospitality is a quality that all hereditary mages are the first to lose. At first, I thought about teaching the grandfather a lesson and taking one of his useless paintings with the Grail, which he valued so much—preferably the one he was looking at while falling asleep. I don't know what made me change my mind, but I decided to wait a bit. After five minutes, Solnir woke up and said:
- Do you know how hard it is to be a mage, oh youth?
- No, I don't, but I can say that trading at the market is also a very difficult business.
- Have you heard of Taisha, Vazahun, Duntrun—the great mages of antiquity? Has their fame ever lured you? Did you dream of repeating their fate?
In the market, not only rumors spread, but also stories about mages who lived long before us; therefore, absolutely everyone knew about Vazahun, Duntrun, and especially Taisha.
- Yes, I wouldn't refuse: all three were unusually wise, and the latter two were also incredibly wealthy. – I said with a smirk, since the wealth of Vazahun and Duntrun consisted in the fact that they collaborated with the Stronghold and drew maps of Stormhold for them, explaining this by saying that in the future people would remember only their wisdom, not their betrayal.
- Well then, unfortunately, mages are just people familiar with the art of magic, and like any other person, vices are not foreign to them.
Solnir suddenly spoke very seriously:
- I will be honest with you, Elsinor.
- Excuse me, how do you know my name? – I interrupted him.
- It doesn't matter. I am grateful to you that yesterday at the market you did not insist on your own way, but acted wisely by yielding to me. As a sign of gratitude, I can show you the school of magic, lead you into its auditoriums and library, and perhaps introduce you to my former friends. – said the mage with a very important air. It was clear that he had long since had a vague relationship with the academy, if he ever had one at all.
- Thank you, but I owe a considerable sum to one family, and therefore I am forced to work at the market every day. – I said with a slight hope that the mage would gift me gold rather than take my time.
- Are you really not interested in how the holy of holies of Stormhold is structured, where they study magic in its primordial form and where ordinary people are not allowed?
- I'll tell you this. Every day of mine is structured so that I can extract the greatest benefit and pleasure from it. And as for how to do that, I have learned very well over my twenty years. Your school of magic interests me no more than any other place where they don't know me and will never know me. And what, for the most part, walking through schools of magic and staring around is a matter that may be interesting, but it is certainly not profitable.
- You are still a merchant to the last generation. – Solnir said a phrase that was, for some reason, very offensive.
- And you are still an eccentric clown who doesn't even know how to offer a guest bread.
I was very strongly touched by Solnir's previous words, and therefore I answered him so unrestrainedly.
- I thank you for this remark. – he gracefully acknowledged. - The last guest I had was about fifteen years ago, and I completely forgot how a host should behave. If you don't mind, I suggest we start our conversation over and conduct it somewhat more friendly.
I agreed, and the mage went to the kitchen. Then he returned with a quite decent decoction of tasty berries, offered me to sit on his best and only chair, and then his company seemed even slightly interesting to me.
- You understand nothing about the customs of Stormhold. If you are allowed to enter the school of magic, it means that you are allowed to become a mage.
- But how?! How? Is this true? – not believing Solnir, I asked again.
- And what confuses you so much?
- How can one become a mage without having absolutely any abilities for it? You probably forgot that before meeting you, I, like my whole family, traded apples, not volumes of spells. I have never even drunk magic water from a magical well.
- You, kid, are completely wrong to think that the ability for magic is hereditary. Or that it is a gift of the chosen, like, for example, the ability to compose music. Yes, it is a gift, but we all possess this gift. Some to a greater extent, some to a lesser. The ability for magic is in everyone—no magical well is needed. But, like any other ability, it can be ruined or developed. You will never understand if you can cast spells until you try. And I generally believe that every resident of Stormhold should know how to cast spells. Or he is not a resident of Stormhold. Although the High Mage has a different point of view. He thinks magic is the lot of the chosen, meaning only children of mages, and even better, third-generation mages, can engage in it. That scoundrel doesn't understand that in this way soon there will be no mages left at all.
- But I don't even have mana. Or whatever your tribe calls it.
- Whatever our tribe calls it, my dear. And mana is just a potential embedded in everyone. No one can say how much mana they have until they try to cast spells. One can only approximately understand this.
- You know, I know how to work well at the market. I am an excellent apple seller and can tell absolutely everything about them—and, by the way, I believe their price is greatly undervalued. My father always said: "Do what you do well—there's no need for you to climb where you don't belong." And you are offering me something that I don't know, don't have a skill in, and can hardly imagine.
- I am not offering you anything yet.
- All the more so.
- Your father had his own position. However, allow me to tell you something as well. Do you know how river carps become water dragons?
- Carps become dragons? I heard that one is born a dragon.
- Yes, that is common knowledge. But one can also become a dragon.
- I have heard many strange things in our tavern, but this—for the first time.
- Now listen to me, son. Far to the East, where the sky is worshipped more than magic, and the most important animal is the water dragon, well there, among many mountains, there is a small gorge hidden from all eyes. A lightning bolt long ago hit the rock that forms this gorge; a crack appeared, which then turned into a cleft, and water began to flow from it. Thus a small mountain pond was created, where soon fish settled—river carps. River carps lived carefreely for many years, but one day among them there appeared one particularly playful fish who dreamed of becoming a bird. She learned to jump very high, flapped her fins in flight, and did nothing but confuse the other fish, who considered her crazy. And one time, when a fierce wind was blowing through the gorge, the fish, at her own risk, jumped up again; the wind caught her, struck her hard against the rock, and then carried her lifeless body even higher and placed her inside that cleft from which the lake had formed. The other fish decided that the madwoman had come to a mad end. However, the next day a small water dragonlet climbed out of the gorge, smiled looking at the lake below him, and flew far, far away. Thus it became clear that any fish that jumped up to the cleft becomes a dragon, and everyone began trying to repeat this feat. Some fish, having tried to reach the cleft several times, believed it was impossible and abandoned the pursuit. Other fish continued trying to change their fate, jumping up toward the cleft a hundred times every day, but they too failed because the height was enormous. To reach it, many coincidences must align. But approximately once every hundred years, one of several thousand fish manages to become a dragon by jumping to the cleft in the rock.
Over the last twenty years of my life, I have spent too much time talking with people for anything to be able to surprise me. However, the story told by the old man was beautiful and new to me. For a second it even seemed to me that I had a chance to become this carp, who is one among a thousand of his brothers to turn into a dragon. Slightly mesmerized by this hope, I still decided to ground our conversation a bit.
- And do you have children?
- And why do you ask?
- Because you constantly call me son.
- For forty years I searched for the truth, which turned out to be only the tail of a poisonous chimera slowly killing me from within. I had no time for children.
- So, maybe you just lack children, not students?
- I don't deny it, son; perhaps I want to help you, since I have as many children of my own as a poor gremlin has gold teeth in his mouth. Although, maybe some unbearable bastard resembling me is running around somewhere. In any case, you have something to think about. Go home today, and come to me tomorrow, if, of course, you want to.
- I would like to find that place where one becomes a dragon. – I said at the end.
- And why do you think it isn't Stormhold?
I came home in a very cheerful state of mind. For the second day in my life, strange and interesting things were happening—maybe it's time to get used to this? However, great doubts still tormented me. What use is this chimerical dream to me? I would gladly trade apples all my life, sit in the tavern with Brenn, badmouth mages with foul words, marry—in the best case Roxanne—father "bastards resembling me," as Solnir puts it, and be done with it.
I knew one tavern sage who insisted that very much in life depends on our choice, and one must always be ready to accept a new reality that they hadn't even guessed about before. This man unexpectedly appeared in Stormhold, rustled a pile of money in his own hands, got acquainted with all the residents of the city, listened carefully to our stories, and disappeared without a trace the next day. I would like to know his fate. I hope it was interesting.
Why does a routine life not disturb at all and so easily lull one to sleep in the evening, while everything new and incomprehensible begins with nervous distress and the destruction of the sleep schedule? Happy are the people who perform great feats or betrayals and fall asleep peacefully in the evening. I hate going to bed toward morning, but apparently, sometimes we have no other choice. All these thoughts had been keeping me from sleeping for two days running. However, I was certain that I would go to the mage the next day.