Ash. The Legends of the Nameless World. Progression Gamelit Story by Kirill Klevanski (essential reading .txt) 📗

times do I have to tell you, worm?” The snarl turned to scornful sarcasm, and the man’s beautiful face twisted into a grimace of disgust. “It is not sounds and images that should come out of your mouth, but strength and will! Why are you begging like a powerless animal?! You must submit, not ask for leniency! This pony is even more pathetic than your parody of ‘power’!”

Hu-Chin uttered a Word that made the mountains tremble and the sky cry out, and out of a small pebble, a despicable fragment of Mother Earth, a mustang was born. Free and huge, he neighed and stood up on his hind legs. His muscles tensed up like a pulled bowstring, and his black mane fell in rivulets around his powerful neck. In a leap, he could cross the river. In a gallop, he could outrun the wind. The dragon said another Word, and the universe trembled again as the horse disappeared, replaced by a cherry blossom blown away by the wind.

Ash bowed his head even lower, touching his forehead to the cold stone. “I admire your wisdom and power.”

Hu-Chin waved his hand to indicate that he didn’t want to listen to flattering and equally false speeches. A moment later, the handsome man disappeared and the dragon took on his true form. His crimson mane covered the cave floor like a carpet and the dragon closed his eyes. Huge nostrils, like the craters of geysers, steamed as he fell asleep. There’d be no more classes for today.

Ash wrapped himself in his tattered robes and summoned the flames. Sparks danced around him, providing his frost-bitten body with much-needed warmth. Winter had descended upon the mountain long time ago. He didn’t know when, as he could no longer tell exactly when yesterday ended, today began, and tomorrow came.

It seemed that the concept of time didn’t exist in Hu-Chin’s cave of Blue Flame. When the dragon wanted it, “today” became as brief as a breath. Sometimes, he would stretch “today” so much that Ash had to shave and tie up his hair several times.

The wind howling outside brought with it a chill that made one’s blood run cold. The clouds that were floating past the mountain peaks until recently, were now rushing past like frightened animals. At night, when it did come, the cave hummed so much that sometimes Ash woke up with the blood from his ears tickling his neck. Hu-Chin either didn’t notice his disciple’s problems, or he didn’t care.

Ash had learned many things during his stay with the bloodthirsty, ferocious, and sometimes insane, dragon. He learned to put power into Words (though he didn’t show it to his teacher), learned the secrets of the five forms of power over the elements, and even tried to comprehend the art of seventy-two transformations and the technique of Stepping through the Seven Heavens, but was severely punished by the dragon. These two mysteries were available only to semi-divine creatures, and in his vanity, Ash almost lost his life, for which he was punished. Hu-Chin could not allow his food to pass away before the appointed time.

The wizard cast a quick glance at the sleeping dragon. One day, Hu-Chin would understand how strong his disciple had become, and then he’d not hesitate to devour him, absorbing all of his strength and increasing his own power. Ash had to keep reminding himself to not be deceived and that he wasn’t a guest here, but a failed monk, a toy, and a pig that was raised, fed, and then slaughtered and devoured.

The coiled dragon snorted and shivered. The white pearl peeked from between its claws. It was twenty feet in diameter, and a shard of it alone cost enough to buy half a kingdom and probably even a horse to boot. Alas, Ash had thrown it into the chasm, praying to the Gods and spirits that the dragon wouldn’t notice the small chink in his jewel.

“You see this pearl?” he once asked him Hu-Chin asked. “Few of my kin have kept the Wind Pearls...” he added and sighed a little sadly. “They chose to absorb the power contained within it.”

“Why didn’t you do the same?”

“Because I am not a dirty ragamuffin from the southern reaches!” The dragon’s roar caused such a storm that day that Ash felt as if the mountains would split apart. The lightning was more like a torrent of fire, lavishly poured out by the wounded heavens.

“I don’t understand, o mighty one.”

“The name of the wind is captured in this pearl. It is thanks to it that I can walk freely among the birds without defiling myself with wings...”

Walking away from Memory Lane, Ash looked at the pearl again. How many names did the wind even have? Perhaps so much that two infinities wouldn’t be enough to count them.

The mage rose cautiously, and made sure that the dragon was asleep. With a light, catlike step, he reached the far wall, where, biting his lip, he pulled out the clumsily burned cobblestone inch by inch. Reaching into the alcove, he pulled out a gray canvas and two metal spokes.

Sitting down on the floor, he groped the air, as if trying to find a thin thread. As strange as it might’ve sounded, he found one. A transparent, weightless thread wound through space, sometimes disappearing, and sometimes appearing. One end of it was skillfully wound around the spokes, while the other was on the jewel.

Having damaged the pearl, Ash didn’t find out the name of the wind, there were only fragments of its memories. Short flashes into the past, so rich and deep that they could hold within themselves the history of a thousand eras. But that was enough for the wizard to take the wind’s memories into his hands, weave a thread from them, and begin to sew a cloak. Ash did this almost every spare moment of his time, because