Zacchaeus

Prologue

***

He flew above the red clouds. His long body rippled, from his flared nostrils to the tip of his tail. Gusts of wind bounced off his broad wings, which rose and fell repeatedly with the force of steely, tense muscles. He was running. He had been traveling for a long time, but he hadn't stopped for a moment. A misty red desert stretched before his narrowed pupils. But he knew exactly where he was flying. He knew his hometown. As well as a baby knows the scent of its nursing mother. He knew where he had to go, and he was determined to do it. He would return, and nothing would stop him. He might not be the same as before, but somehow he remembered everything—even the things he'd rather forget. He remembered the hills where he'd grown up. He remembered the flocks of sheep his father had led to slopes covered with fresh green grass. He remembered his mother, who always waited for them at home when he and his father returned from their long days of conversation and work, which brought them so much joy and satisfaction. These were some of the memories that made him long to return. But he had other memories, less clear and less peaceful. They weren't connected to his childhood, and he feared that, to a large extent, they were the ones he was trying to escape from now. Sooner or later, they would come looking for him, but when they found him, he would be ready. He would face them and test their power. He felt his strength growing with each passing day. Strength and something else. Something he found difficult to put into words at the moment. A naked, nameless feeling that gradually enveloped his thoughts like winter envelops the passing autumn mornings. Slowly, but surely. For now, it was still very faint, but somewhere deep inside, he sensed that this alien feeling was far greater than himself and his purpose.

Chapter 1

***

The cards wandered across the table, seeking their place, as unfettered as doves in a park. They fell one upon the other like autumn leaves. Lightly, without wind, without enthusiasm, without passion. The unwavering gaze of darting, joyful eyes was enough for them. Each pair of amused pupils cast crumbs, fleeting glances, now at the card table, now at the dealer, who was constantly recounting the story of his last month. The card pattern, depicting red and black roses, gave nothing away, yet each player tried to penetrate the unified and mysterious. The players at the table wanted only one thing at that moment. They all wanted to win, or at least most of them, because at that moment, the two pairs of eyes were not following the cards, the dealer, or anything else but each other. Twelve people sat at a round, old wooden table, laughing repeatedly at the boy's story, who was nonchalantly throwing cards onto the stained green tablecloth. But two of them had been sitting motionless for five seconds. The girl held a carved wooden pipe in both hands, shaped like a black dragon proudly spreading its wide wings. From the top of its head rose a wisp of pale smoke, which floated before her eyes like a delicate gray mist. The boy sitting opposite those eyes seemed absent at that moment, but on the other hand, his eyes glowed with a strange, mysterious light that easily pierced the grayish smoke. Two pairs of eyes, like two poles of the same magnesium, fused by an invisible force. Their faces, at that moment, showed neither concern nor smiles. In fact, their faces betrayed no emotion at all. It was as if their expressions had suddenly frozen. She paused for a few seconds. Seconds that unraveled like braids of hair and dissolved before their eyes. It lasted only a moment; no one noticed, no one paid much attention, but when the girl looked away, she felt as if she had returned from a very long and distant journey. A journey as unexpected as a flash of lightning in the sky. So brief, yet so bright! Such a moment awakened a sense of space and thunder in her heart, stirring fear and uncertainty. It was impossible for that to happen. So she felt only an illusion. She had touched only the illusion of hope, nothing more. Hope disappoints, always disappoints, therefore it is only hope and nothing more... Indream could not shake the feeling of dread that haunted her now. Another boy, sitting to her left, gently nudged her shoulder and nodded expressively towards the pipe. She handed it to him, almost without a sense of loss, and once again faced him. Gooday, the boy sitting there, was no longer looking her way; he was now busy examining the cards that fate had dealt him. She waited a moment for his reaction, then picked up her own. Three cards, one after another, revealed their names to her,This time, they smiled at her wickedly, like a dealer who was currently looking into his deck as if it were a folding mirror. He had always been captivated by himself, perhaps even platonically in love. She'd thought of him that way since she'd met him about two years ago. His stories, always spilling from his sleeves, were focused on him like a lens on a wriggling insect. He seemed amusing to himself, yet others listened only because he was rich and always had pockets full of rustling tickets to a better time. Yes, "a better time," just completing another circle, stopped in his hands, as the dragon lacked the motivation to continue its journey. Ulysses set aside his deck of three cards and began filling his pipe, which now seemed like a distant beast preparing to continue its sinister journey.

***

Dathan was starting this game, so he picked up the extra card first and slid it into his deck. His facial expression gave nothing away; he clearly wasn't particularly concerned with the game. At that moment, instead of thinking about the card, he was probably thinking about the pipe that was creeping closer to him with every passing moment. And indeed, Dathan wasn't a huge fan of cards. The whole idea of ​​a round table and this game seemed a bit silly and pointless to him. Couldn't they be doing a thousand much more interesting things right now? Like going outside, climbing to the very top of a snowy slope, and plunging down at breakneck speed. He loved playing in the snow; after all, that's what he came here for. Skating, in such a place and in such weather conditions, was a necessity. It was a shame the others didn't feel the same way at that moment. Ulysses, who was the main organizer of this meeting, wasn't opposed to downhill skiing, but this time he insisted on this stupid card game as if his eternity depended on it. Dathan glanced across the table and smiled faintly. His wife, Victoria, didn't share his enthusiasm for the slopes, as she hated winter and the cold. Instead, she loved listening to the silly stories the host recited with the grace of a drunken elephant. Ulysses was recounting how last month he'd gotten the wrong hotel room and instead entered the nuns' room, who, upon seeing him, had burst into loud laughter. Dathan briefly tried to imagine the scene, but for the life of him, he couldn't imagine why the nuns were laughing. Perhaps they were so spiritual that they could see into human souls and were amused by Ulysses's clumsy inner self. Or perhaps they were laughing because Ulysses had paid them to, just so he could tell them. It didn't matter, he didn't care. Right now, he was more interested in the Djinn, or rather, in what he held to his lips. The wooden dragon was squinting at him with its engraved eyes. Small holes were made in the wooden eyes, which were just beginning to shimmer with the reddish glow of the embers. Genie inhaled sharply. Dathan began to worry about the pipe's contents, so he placed his hand on his friend's shoulder and shook him gently. Genie lifted the pipe from his mouth and looked reproachfully at Dathan. They stared at each other for a moment, a fact that didn't go unnoticed by the others, as their laughter momentarily subsided. Genie had always been very nervous, and given his size, it was an undesirable trait. This time, however, he remained completely calm and, with a strange smile, handed the pipe to Dathan

.

Vini stopped listening to Ulysses's story and began looking around for his pipe. It was currently with Dathan, who was inhaling its pungent smoke. From this distance, the dragon's glowing eyes looked truly dark. As he inhaled, Dathan closed his eyes, and the dragon opened them. Vini thought it was a strange association, but it reminded him of birth and death. Something is born, and something dies. It was probably not the best comparison, because Dathan didn't look even the slightest bit dead now. The contents of the pipe were clearly giving him considerable satisfaction, so he took a second, even harder drag. His mind rocked like a ship on a stormy sea, and he almost fell overboard. He opened his eyes and looked around. For a moment, he thought what he saw was just a hallucination, but a second gust of wind made him cry out and grab for support. He was sitting in a glowing armchair above the red clouds that stretched all around him like an endless desert. He tried to close his eyes, and when he opened them, he was back in the room at the table. No one was paying him any attention. No one noticed anything, and no one heard his loud cry. It must have been an incredibly realistic premonition. Where on earth had Ulysses gotten such a staff? Dathan glanced around again, but everyone was absorbed in the game. Only Indream was looking at him, or rather, at the pipe he held in his left hand

.

Dathan, his hand trembling slightly, handed the pipe to Indream. Now it seemed larger and heavier than before. The winged pipe was intricately carved from sycamore wood. At least that's what Ulysses claimed. Indream knew nothing about tree species; she couldn't even tell the difference between pine and oak. Ulysses told me he bought it from a man while traveling through South America. One day, while in Peru, he stumbled upon a dilapidated shop and found it there. It lay among old clocks piled high in a corner filled with cobwebs and a musty smell. He never said how much he paid for it, but everyone knew he was very attached to it. He was extremely reluctant to smoke from it. If it weren't for Oria's pleas, he certainly wouldn't have agreed. Incidentally, I wonder if there was anything in this world he would have denied her. Oria was very beautiful. Very beautiful and very sophisticated. She was now sitting to Ulises's right, her left hand on his thigh. Everyone knew it was against the rules of the game, but somehow no one felt like reacting, at least not publicly. Indream began to examine the pipe, and her thoughts returned to its contents. She lifted it and looked into the masterfully carved, narrow eyes of the angry dragon. She turned it over and inhaled deeply, the sharp smoke piercing her throat with hundreds of tiny stings. She held the flame for a moment, as it seemed to burn in her neck, and then slowly exhaled the grayish smoke through her mouth. Her thoughts, momentarily dazed, became so intertwined that they began to interpenetrate. She closed her eyes and let herself be carried for a moment by invisible wings that carried her high above this room and these people. She now saw twelve blurred clocks, arranged in a circle, forming one large, misty clock. It seemed to her that she, too, was one of those twelve clocks, which slowly began to take on the vague shape of a human being. For a moment, she still felt as if she were a clock at the six-o'clock position, when she suddenly realized it was only an illusion, and the illusion burst like a soap bubble punctured by the sharp needle of reality