The Tower of the Giants, or How the Man Helped the Dragon by Old Bradvur

Once upon a time, a rock stood at the edge of the world.

But it was so high that no one could climb on it or fly to its top. But there were many willing to climb it, and every day new and new daredevils went to it, because there were so many treasures on the top of this mountain that at night, when the sun hid behind the horizon, they blazed like a bright star in the darkness, pointing the way to the seekers.

And it was like that for thousands of years, until the brave prince heard the story about that rock.

And no matter how far the path was, ten years later he and the remains of his brave army stood above the endless chasm that separated the rock from the rest of the world.

The chasm reached deeper than the roots of the oldest tree and deeper than the sources of the purest of the streams of the Bear Mountains. The darkness at its bottom was so black that those who saw it at least once believed that night was born there.

A bridge was thrown across that chasm. In the days when the world was still young, it was built by evil giants so that they could go to their treasures.

The prince's army rejoiced, seeing how close their goal was, and rushed forward to the bridge.

The prince, whose face was already wrinkled and scarred by the rabid beasts of the Wild Waste, tried to stop them and rally them, but a greedy hand pushed him, and he flew down into the night. Our brave prince flew for a long time. When he could no longer scream, he resigned himself and began to wait for the bottom of this abyss to meet him.

Suddenly, the bright sky, which remained far above, was covered by a speck of darkness. It grew and grew, until the prince felt that something picked him up and carried him up. When they rose high enough for the rays of the sun to illuminate his unexpected savior, the prince was horrified. He lay in the paws of a huge Dragon! The Dragon scale was as pale as river sand, and it had faded so much that it was almost white.

Seawater and fish blew from the Serpent himself, so strongly that the prince remembered his native principality on the seashore.

Scaly almost flew out of the chasm, but stopped flying higher and flew along the western wall.

The prince had almost fallen asleep in the strong paws, until the Dragon slowed down and flew even closer to the wall, in which the cave opened.

Placing the prisoner on the floor, the Serpent jumped back into the abyss, then rose and flew away.

The night has come. The prince sat in the cave, waiting for the return of his master. The only exit led into the abyss, and the surrounding walls were so smooth, as if they had been forged by the Heavenly Blacksmiths themselves.

The night passed, the day passed, and the dragon still did not return. The prince endured hunger, the long road to the Rock taught him this. Three more days later, amid the constant whistling of the winds, the prince heard the flapping of the dragon's wings.

Soon the bright opening was covered by a shadow. This is the host. In his teeth he held a fish twice the size of the largest of the prince's ships. With one jerk, he tore off the piece and placed it next to the prince, offering to share lunch with him.

Having cut off a piece sufficient for himself with a dagger, the prince bowed his head and thanked the Dragon, but the snake no longer heard him: he was busy with the rest of the fish.

After lunch, as the sky over the chasm began to darken, the scaly spoke. The prince, who was drinking from the stream in the depths of the cave, listened carefully and came closer so as not to miss anything.

The dragon's language was very slow and difficult, and at the end the words broke into hisses, but the prince understood everything well.

This snake was the oldest of its kind, and was already old when the giants built the bridge and hewed the steps in the rock. He lived here with his daughter by a human woman, but giants kidnapped her and put her among treasures on top of a rock, where she lived thanks to a spring of living water that gave her eternal youth. No matter how hard the snake tried, it could not fly to the top, and the fierce winds blew it away as it climbed the stairs. In a fit of rage, he killed all the giants, but it didn't help.

So he waited.

Finally, the last of the giants, before dying, told him how to reach the top.

Although the giants were huge like a mountain, once a dwarf was born among them. He was so short that he did not even reach the knee of his brothers. He could not climb the stairs of the giants, so he cut his own rocks inside. And so that no one would pass, he placed three watchmen there: a blind crow, an underground spider and a stone woman. They all knew their master, and death awaited every stranger.

And if the prince agreed to free the snake's daughter, he would release him from the abyss and bring him home, because his last hour was approaching, and he would like to at least say goodbye to his daughter.

The prince thought for a long time, already at dawn he looked out from behind the shoulder of the dragon, and finally said that he agreed, but he needed the tastiest fish that ever lived in the sea, the fastest and noisiest bird that ever lived in the world, and a piece of stone, with the size of a human baby.

The snake listened to him in silence and flew out of the cave again.

He was gone for a long time, the second week passed, until a snake arrived with a cage, with a strange bird darting about the cage, which could not be seen, a fish even bigger than the first one, and a stone, sized just like a human firstborn.

First, the prince cut a fish for himself, and indeed he had never eaten such a delicious fish. Then he took his dagger and began to scratch something on the stone, and then he took off his animal cloak, cut it into several parts and wrapped his creation in a larger one.

Then he took out his sword, thrust it into a cleft in the rock, and broke off half of the blade, which he hid in his pouch. Then he cut off three more pieces of fish, one larger than the other two, and wrapped it in a piece of cloak.

With the last patch he covered the cage with the bird, and the bird fell silent.

When all the preparations were ready, the snake took him to the bottom of the abyss, where the dwarf's stairs began, wished him luck on the climb and warned him that under no circumstances should one turn his back on the stone woman.

It wasn't dark inside, as if the very walls and steps were glowing. The prince climbed up until he rested against the first door. At his push, they opened, and he was met with a ferocious snarl.

Then the prince threw the first piece of fish at the sound, which had already released its smell, so the hungry raven hurried to pick it up. As soon as the bird swallowed the prey, the prince threw the second one as far away from him as possible. And without waiting for the bird to jump to the prey, he took out the third piece, stuck the point of the blade into it and threw the hook, and he himself hid on the stairs, where the bird could not squeeze through.

Waited a few minutes after the dying noise made by the feathered watchman, the prince returned and cut some meat from it for his own food.

The next door moved slowly, as if something was holding it. Looking around, the prince saw that thick threads of a web stretched through the entire room, and a shadow flashed somewhere above. Opening the cage, he released the bird, which immediately got stuck in the web and began to twitch like mad.

The spider hurried to the victim and did not notice another guest at the door. But as soon as he began to wrap the prey in a cocoon, the prince rushed to him and stuck a dagger right between his eyes. The blood that spurted from the wound painfully burned prince's hand and he backed up just in time, because he could have been buried under a spider's belly.

Thus, the prince defeated the second guard and was left completely without a weapon, because he could not pull the dagger out of the poisonous body.

Order and silence reigned in the third room. Remembering the words of the snake, the prince immediately found the woman with his eyes and began to sneak along the opposite wall.

"Who's coming?" - the old woman asked in a loud voice of a mountain echo, gradually approaching the uninvited guest.

"Quiet, grandmother, because you will wake up the child," whispered the prince, shaking the scroll with a stone.

"What child?" the woman was surprised and stopped in the middle of the room.

"Here it is," said the prince and carefully approached the woman, holding out the roll.

But she took it, opened it, saw a simple face and leaned back against the wall, humming some kind of lullaby.

Even though the threat had been passed, he dared not to turn his back until he had closed the door to the stairs.

Finally he was at the top. His eyes wandered from various treasures, but now the prince was no longer interested in them. If it weren't for his army's greed, he would have turned back a long time ago, because he set out for a feat, not treasures.

Now he had to find the dragon's daughter and go down to the old serpent with her. He found her near a window overlooking the endless ocean where her father was fishing.

But the old Dragon forgot to say that his daughter was more beautiful than all human girls, so the prince stood as if struck by thunder and wrapped his mutilated hand in his clothes.

Dragon's daughter led him to the adjacent hall, where were two vats of water. She plunged his hand into the first, and suddenly the pain was gone, and the skin was as it was before. But he did not feel this hand!

Then she dipped his hand into the second vat, and it came to life.

The prince mumbled words of gratitude, but the serpent raised a finger to his lips to shut him up. Then she drew water from the second tank with a golden goblet with precious stones and gave it to him to drink.

When he looked at his reflection in the cup, he saw no scars or wrinkles, he was looked at by a young man who had once heard the tale of The Last Rock for the first time from a traveling biker.

Together they found four wineskin among the treasures, filled them from both vats and started going down the stairs. The stone woman passed them by without even noticing, telling something to her "Stone King". Serpent sprinkled him with living water, and he joyfully called out to his nunny. Then, despite the prince's disapproval, she revived the spider and the raven, and only then did they go further down.

The old dragon, who had been waiting below all this time, was very happy to meet his daughter and kept his word. But he no longer had the strength to fly back to the edge of the world, so he stayed with the prince, where he died a few weeks later, having managed to give the ruler some important pieces of advice.

As for the prince, his arrival riding the Enormous Dragon scared the impostor prince so much that he ran away, and the people welcomed the true prince back. He married the snake woman, and they lived happily ever after until the water in the wineskins ran out and they rested in peace after a long and happy life.